Self-Care
Metta is the only thing we need Chozen reminded us again and again in April. It is the most vital tool to get one through all that has happened, all that may happen, all the myriad ways of suffering we encounter in our lives. Whenever we are feeling anxious or sad, do Metta practice.
It isn't just words. We have to mean it, we must cultivate an attitude of loving-kindness for our bodies. Without that love for the very body that moves the concept of "self" around, as well as love for that collection of memories, reactions, and ideas that is the "self", we cannot sustain ourselves. We easily fall into behaviors that lead to ill health.
If we love others, want to be loving towards others, we must start with the love of the self. The most important thing we can do for our loved-ones is to be here, to be present, and open-hearted from a foundation of loving-kindness. Helping to alleviate the suffering of others means being around to do so.
I had news about MJ today, not very good news. She still isn't stabilized and could quite easily have another stroke. She has slurred speech and quite a lot of body impairment. She has experienced some cognitive damage as well.
MJ doesn't recognize her daughter and thinks she's a nurse. MJ keeps telling the daughter, through very slurred speech and thinking she's a nurse, that she is so reminded of her daughter. They are considering calling her son to come home from Minnesota where he's working right now. It is possible that she may not recover much past this point and need assisted care for the rest of her life. There's a chance she may not even live.
As a kid MJ seemed so much older. When I would visit during the summer, quite often for a month at a time, she would drive me around. She was sweet to me and generally pleasant, but quite often seemed far removed and onto her adult life already. At some point growing up I realized that MJ was not actually that much older than I.
High blood pressure, diabetes, morbid obesity and a stubborn refusal to go to a doctor. Every time I would see MJ these past few years I would think that she really needed to loose some weight. I was concerned for her, it really wasn't just a few extra pounds, it was a problem.
Kind of a tough note to start sesshin on, although I suppose if not this then something else would pop up. I feel rather shocked and rattled by this news. More than anything it is the double-wammy of this news combined with my friend's cancer news. I'm also just really struck again at the ways people avoid taking care of themselves. MJ particularly avoided truly taking care of herself, putting it off, not wanting to think about it.
It is just kind of hard to watch sometimes. Sending her Metta, all that can be done.
Mala Tool
Talked with GW today about the anxiety that comes up around sesshin, around practice in general. I occasionally get really wicked flashbacks during meditation. Oh how I wish they were just like some creepy movie playing in my head. Zen meditation is done with the eyes open, but unfocused and relaxed. I found this to be amazingly helpful instruction that I shouldn't close my eyes while meditating. That totally got rid of the "movie in the head problem".
I get auditory flashbacks. Yes, that means I hear what clearly that cannot possibly be there, that was decades in the past. I also get tactile, sensory flashbacks. Yes, that means I feel like I'm being touched.
Yes, they make me want to start screaming and run.
For the longest, longest time I never told any one about these. I'd stick with nightmares, those were bad enough and fit the PTSD stereotype of "a terrifying movie you can't wake up from". Meditating in Zen fashion, with my eyes These other types of flashback really left me feeling like I was going insane. It was only after years of therapy that I admitted it to my therapist. To my relief she only cringed and commented that those were bad ones.
Her recommendation to me seemed so obvious, get a mala. When it happens give myself something concrete, from the present moment, to hold onto. Let it help bring me back into the present when a flashback has hauled me backwards into the past.
I remembered the story of Mara attacking the Buddha as he meditated. Throwing all manner of visions to terrify, tempt, or otherwise distract the Buddha from his focus. In the end the Buddha touched the ground, saying that it would bear witness to his practice.
Flashbacks are nothing but pure, unadulterated Mara. It is so strong that it can totally pull me out of the present moment. The trick, says GW, is not to hang out there. Find the resources, the tools to pull yourself back into the present. Touch ground.
On the way to another appointment in NW Portland I picked out an agate wrist mala at New Renaissance Bookshop. It has several moss agate beads on it and reminds me of the ground. My new tool in working with the anxiety.
Cupcake Double Happiness Thursday
In which I make two batches of vegan cupcakes on conference calls and delegating work.
That's how my Thursday went. Oh, and I made 60+ petals out of marzipan to decorate the green tea cupcakes with 5-petal blossoms.
It was a mad dash most of the day. I went in late to be at a retirement party. 3 more people encouraged to take retirement now after the four from my team last year. Lots of smiles, well-wishes, cupcakes appreciated, and lovely cantaloupe & pear sorbet!
It feels unsettled at my office, especially so since we're moving up two floors soon and my desk is surrounded by boxes. I hate moving so much. CK and I just got the living and dining rooms empty of boxes. Being around them at work just makes me want to cry sometimes. Despite this I packed up all my work related books this week and have begun packing the small items (shells, toys, altar stuff...).
It was nice to go to zazen tonight at the Dharma center after such a hectic day. I felt really settled in my sitting tonight and wished there had been a second sitting period. I was happy to give up the second sit since we got to hear the current shusso (head of zendo), who is stepping down after a year's service, discuss the koan he's studied. It was a lively and bright interaction, at more than one point the whole sangha shared laughter together!
The cupcakes, which had been denied to CK earlier in the day, were handed out to our teachers and the old and new shussos first. I have misplaced my mini-cupcake pan and had made full-sized ones, which meant there were not enough for everyone. I felt a little bad about this when someone asked after they'd been put out if there were more cupcakes.
Other than that it was fun to share something special with my sangha. I focused on the appreciation of everyone who got to have a cupcake and have tried not to let it be an opportunity for my inner critic shaming me for not being "perfect".
Practice
My practice has felt out of step. The free fall feeling after the teacher training ended was kept at bay by teaching classes got worse in June when I had no classes to teach. Both my yoga and zazen practices have faltered during this time and I feel out of step, anxious and tired.
The past couple of days I've felt like I was all written out for a little bit. I know I'm not done processing, I'm trying not to cling to the idea of someday being "finished", but I do feel like I've shifted down a little from the intensity. I credit some of this to seeing Iris last week and feeling they way she was shifting some of the energy.
Tonight, at a point where dinner was cooking and I had 15 minutes, I did a quick yoga practice. Downward dog, side dog, several variations in uttanasana and 3 full, classical sun salutations. I felt myself warmed up.
Dinner turned out marvelously. It has been a lot of fun for me to really cook. I've been enjoying this outlet of creativity too!
I also sat tonight in such a way. Just taking 15 minutes to mindfully sit. Not just squeezing a little zazen in here and there, but just sitting a little. Just coming back to practice again.
Aversion, Delusion, Attachment and Me
Maybe, just maybe the reason why it is easier to rest in the anxiety of blaming myself for some events in my life, "my failings", than it is to look truly deeply, openly at the real causes. The anxiety, the shame are the lesser pain and they are they pain I'm accustomed to. Comfortable suffering.
It is far easier to blame and castigate myself for "allowing" myself to gain over 150 pounds than it is to realize the truth of my family's deeply disordered behavior around food, body image and personal interaction. Less painful to say that my marriages "failed" or to just rest all the blame on being gay than to look at how the faith and energy I put into those relationships was not met with equal effort. The pain of saying I failed at college is far, far less significant than looking at how a combination of my family environment & childhood abuse and 2 sexual assaults in the 3 years I was at Beloit led to a breakdown.
Anger is merely intensified aversion and Buddhism teaches that aversion (anger) is one of three root causes of suffering (attachment/greed and delusion/ignorance being the other two).
On Wednesday my therapist was shaking her head and half laughing as she asked me if I really, truly was trying to blame myself for all these things. She asked me if I could really see how I was turning into failures things that everyone else in my life sees as amazing successes. She smiled and said that she really thought that only I would find some way to blame myself for behaving exactly the same way as everyone else.
Self-directed blame becomes just another way to avoid being present to the grief and pain. Generating anger at the self has a kind of delusional quality to it, distorting reality until I always come out the failure. Clinging to the idea that things really weren't that bad, attached to my comfortable, known suffering out of fear of sinking into the whole truth.
Mind States
I am mindful that I have been craving chocolate cake pretty much all day long. I have come to know that I crave cake (particularly), cookies and other sweet, baked goods when I am feeling distracted by anxiety and/or feeling angry with myself. It was intensified by a chocolate ice cream cake being served at a potluck at work today. Watching people enjoy it I was mindful that I was alright with the bowl of fresh berries I had, they were very tasty, but that I should have brought a cookie for myself.
There's a mailing list maintained at Great Vow you can get added to and each week a Mindfulness Task will be sent to you. It is part of an experiment in a Year of Mindfulness that Chozen is writing about next. We're on week 7 and today I got this in an email from Kyoku:
This week our task concerns recognizing and working with mind states. Part 1 of our task is to check our mind states a few times during the day and identify our mood or predominant feeling tone. When we recognize a negative mood, part 2 of our task is to use creativity and practice tools to see if we can change negative moods (e.g., stressed, sad, angry, discouraged) to neutral or positive mind states (e.g., calm, creative, playful, generous).
What are some tools we can use to effect change? Some favorites that we have practiced with in other weeks include stop and breathe, Metta (loving kindness) practice, smile, take refuge in sangha – the company or counsel of excellent friends, exercise or do physical work, silly walking and of course meditation and investigation. How well do these work, especially in the moment? What works best for you in different moods and circumstances? We each need to be creative in working with our unique character and circumstances.
Remembering that mind states are continually changing and that each has value we are cultivating emotional intelligence. To use a mind state to its full advantage we must make effort first to be aware of mood, next to recognize the feeling tone and then gradually develop an understanding of how the mood arises and what works to transform it. This is freedom.
Just in time for me feeling cranky and angry with myself.
Last night I sat doing some zazen before lying down to sleep. I felt anxious, sad, and could get a sense of the swirling anger of my inner critic. I was stinging with having this anger pointed out to me. Being reminded how ridiculous and unfounded it is for me to be angry at myself or try to blame myself. It is so perversely comfortable to remain in the wash of anxiety than to let go of the belief that somehow I just could have worked harder, done a better job.
Back to basics of Metta practice, just focusing on myself. Breathing in compassion, breathing out loving-kindness. Still, present and seeking the source of the anger.
At least around the weight one thing presented itself in the silence. There is a part of my anger at my family for fostering disordered behavior towards food and body image. Mixed in that is more grief, more sadness for the child me who never had any chance to have a reasonable, healthy relationship with food. I feel set up by the adults in my childhood, set up to have become an obese adult - just like they all were. I feel sad, hurt by the reality that food, such a basic was just one more way in which my family was unsafe, unsupportive.
Chozen has said it to me again and again now. Metta is the only protection that is needed. It is the best tool I have at my disposal. I'm so good about sending Loving-Kindness outwards, but I just to have to keep it focused on me, that I am deserving of as much of it as there is.
Just Practice
CK was coughing on and off much of the night, her second full day without antihistamines was really taking a toll. When my 6AM alarm went off I had a hard time turning it off and tried to sleep a little longer. My entire head, neck and hips hurt, I felt queasy and exhausted.
Worked on a field definition document for building new database tables and was able to focus on it fairly well. After lunch I was able to get more done but at around 2 I was just overcome with exhaustion and actually napped for little bit. I woke up feeling more focused, so I must have really needed that nap. Had some mango lemonade leftover from the party and worked hard until just past 5pm.
Went rushing over to Dishman only to have no students show up again. Curtis looked up and said two people have signed up. They're going to phone them and make sure they're still attending, so I'll come back next week. This class has been moved around so much and the August/September scheduling will be all over the place. The big breaks aren't good for consistent students, people quite often don't come back after a 4 week break! Sometimes this feels like another hint that I need to move my teaching practice on.
I've had a couple of inquiries now about private instruction. I'm honestly befuddled as to what to say I charge! I have one barter offer, which is pretty interesting. It is just this big step, change so it feels a little uncertain.
When I came home from Dishman I cleaned up the deck a bit more then kept myself focused on doing a short asana practice. I've felt this low-level mental fuzziness, resistance, depression that just has me wanting to stick close to home and avoid interacting with the world. I have an awareness of wanting to curl around it, sleep. It has been getting in the way of my practice, especially my yoga practice.
It was gorgeous on the deck and I tried to soak in the gratitude I felt for the summer evening, the clean deck, my effort to make it so. Even still my asana practice felt so boring and uninspired. I reminded myself as I exerted energy through three classical sun salutations that sometimes our practice is just Tapas and Virya Paramita. Just the burning effort that sustains the perfection of diligence.
CK reminded me last night that it has been a heck of a year so far. It isn't unreasonable that I'm still feeling some of the anger and grief around it. Yet here I am, frustrated that I am still feeling the ripples of these emotions. Why am I always so impatient with my grief?
Yep, there's my Inner Critic calling me a "Remedial Zen Student" again.
Spasm Storm
Frustrating day at work. Primary production tool server was having problems, kind of. Not so critical that we called for a mid-day outage, but impacting enough things to annoy my most demanding client team. I spent much of the day responding to their complaints about having to use a work around and wanting to escalate, regardless of this impacting several other teams. Then the test server for our enterprise reports environment was stuck.
I noticed after having a good sized, delicious lunch of last night's leftovers (Anasazi beans, mango salsa, rice/barley/radish seed steamed, and chard & beet greens) that I was craving sweets. In between the client irritation and the tedium of defining all the database fields & tables my brain was stuck on, "cookie, cookie, cookie.... give us a cookie..."
No cookie. I was mindful of all the emotions pushing me towards sweet gratification, offered loving-kindness, got about my day the best I could, and looked forward to zazen. My reward was to leave a little earlier and join CK. I had an iced coffee and a couple of bites of a blueberry muffin and felt pretty good.
Had a great group meeting at the Dharma center. We shared a potluck, light meal and talked about practice. I even talked briefly about being wrapped up in working with how I felt about my body, how having the photography session really triggered some painful stuff. I didn't explode...
Well, at least I didn't explode until I stood up to put away dishes and gather up things for zazen.
The cramps started in my left hamstring and my right foot. I dropped back onto the floor in the center of the room trying to calm my legs down. Both legs were cramped and in spasm from hip to toe and my feet pulling tightly, curling up involuntarily. The right one along the front of the leg, the left along the back and side. Breath-stealing agony with an audience as more and more people arrived.
Each time I'd try to stand up to lengthen my legs the spasms and cramps would intensify. I eventually gave up and inched myself to a sofa, lay on the ground and put my legs up on the cushions. This began to help although the left upper leg remained in spasm. I felt myself crying.
"I hate my body." I said from the floor to a concerned Sangha member checking in on me.
Right in that moment I meant it. Even if for a second. I felt like my body was one giant, muscular panic attack and crying, lying helpless on the floor with people around me added a layer of emotional vulnerability that only made things worse.
Ultimately we went home. CK still isn't feeling great, even though she is improving slowly with the antibiotics, so it was good for her to come home. There was no way I could sit zazen, something that was pretty apparent to everyone. Hogen made a suggestion regarding levels of trace minerals, something he'd come started asking me about when he spotted me in distress, and had even gone to get his bag to see if he had anything to give me immediately. He saw us out and wished us well.
I'd really been looking forward to zazen and the Dharma talk tonight. CK helped me to the car as I cried and limped. I felt the hurt 4-year-old inside of me wailing at having been denied cookies earlier and now having her "normal" Thursday night taken away. I also felt tremendous fear at being "stuck" like this, with CK having to help me when she is so young and healthy.
I keep reminding myself that I haven't been shutdown with muscle spasms like that in a couple of years. There was a time when this was a weekly, daily thing. So I have improved. It is still scary though to have that happen. I feel pretty helpless when it does, overloaded by the barrage of information.
Most days I feel like I have some say in my pain, how I function with it. I had even commented earlier in the evening as we shared dinner how yoga had helped me be comfortable with the inside of my body. Even though my body experiences some level of constant, chronic pain, I'm able to feel comfortable inside it. The massive storm of muscle spasms rob me of even that small feeling of comfort.
Everything changes, especially our feelings of comfort.
I am trying not to hate my body. I am working on moving out of the shame I feel towards it, especially the outside of it. I am trying not to feel unbalanced by this overload of pain information tonight.
Some Dharma gates we must crawl through.
Body
It was one of those realizations during zazen that felt like it kind of thumped into me. Why writing about, talking about the weight loss is so difficult.
I feel shame for having gained all that weight in the first place. For having abused my body so much.
Every day I'm reminded of it by the skin. I mention it sometimes, like wanting to wear something with long sleeves to cover my upper arms, the underside of which have a great deal of loose skin. People shrug and say how that happens to a lot of people, it is genetic.
Only really, this isn't like that. It is extra skin. One of my dearest friends, who has had a lap band surgery, calls them her "Bat Wings". More exercise and different body care products will not make the skin go away. There or any of the extra on my belly (upper and lower abdomen), breasts, and thighs particularly. There is quite possibly 10 extra pounds of skin. That's what happens when someone goes from 290+ to 140 +/- (I stay within a few pounds of that in either direction).
I mentioned it to Chozen and Hogen after sitting. I was reminded that instead of shame I need to honor my accomplishment by helping others. I joked with Hogen, asking if he kept a tally sheet under the sazen cushion for how many times I'm told this lesson. He laughed and said only for me. Chozen noted that I needed to go back to the piece I'm writing for her with this mindset.
And Loving-Kindness, of course.
I haven't done it yet. We were in Sacramento all weekend visiting CK's family. It was an inferno there compared to Portland, painfully bright. There was a lot of family dynamics and tension I was getting introduced to at the same time. It brought up some tough stuff in my past.
On top of that CK's step-dad, a professional photographer, took a series of photographs of me. Well over an hour of going through yoga poses again and again, turning to get different angles. It was exhausting on so many levels.
I shouldn't have looked at the images mid-way, but he was making a light adjustment for me to do standing asana, so I looked. He was complimenting my chaturunga, how great it looked to get it in series. He does yoga, so often he had a comment or suggested a couple of poses I hadn't done.
I couldn't stop looking at the way the loose skin on my upper abdomen hangs down. Gravity being what it is there's just this round line. It doesn't matter how strong or lean my core muscles are in my abdomen, nothing will make that skin hang smooth against my body again.
I continued on with the asana, working up a real sweat in the warm house in my yoga outfit with long sleeves and pants. CK expressed surprise several times, noting how I could do some poses she didn't even realize I was capable of. I wasn't able to move away from feeling shameful about my body for a while, it wasn't until I looked at other poses that I could work my way back to appreciating my alignment in the asana the way a teacher would. Moving towards looking at my body as just a students, not actually my own.
Back to the writing for Chozen. Now that I'm out of excuses and have zeroed in on at least one big reason I'm so uncomfortable with it. I suspect there's others but this appears to be a good one to start with.
Accomodate or Include?
Still processing the Founder's Dinner. On one hand it was wildly successful and I am so grateful. Then there's the other hand...
Yes, the chef was donating his time and ideas. Yes, we'd already asked him to prepare a vegetarian dinner. Yes, vegan meals had to be asked for towards the end of planning.
But like so many events the accommodation for a vegan was just leave dairy/eggs out of the vegetarian dishes, a couple of which had no option (I'm sure the fritters were lovely and we didn't even try the chard from the garden). Dessert? Yes, a plate with a few of the strawberries in syrup that garnished the beautiful shortcakes served to everyone else. Shortcakes that our teacher used to guide everyone in a mindful eating practice.
Why is it that dessert always seems to be the bit that really sticks out? My first weekend at Great Vow, for a Beginner's Mind retreat, I had no dessert options when it was time for tea. By the time I came for the women's retreat that Sandy Boucher and Martha Boesing teach in the winter there was a scramble to serve me dried dates at tea. During Loving-Kindness I brought a package of store-bought cookies so there would always be something. Admittedly there was more than one tea where I struggled with the hurt child's voice inside who couldn't help but notice just now nice the cookies served to everyone else were.
I've been practicing with this voice, this hurt child who is me, for a few years now. She made a deafening howl at times during the Loving-Kindness sesshin. As far as being vegan goes, I have reasoned conversations with that child about how being vegan is so critically important to our practice of Peace, the practice that heals us. That our need to be literally nourished by a diet of peace is the very foundation of our Practice.
The Founder's Dinner became another chance to practice with that voice unfortunately. I was already nervous at being all dressed up and helping as a Table Host (which meant talking to people, answering questions and asking for money). Instead of relaxing into the evening I practiced with that child's disappointment and my concern for CK, who was having a rough time with the same issue.
I guess the word "accommodate" jumps right out. It doesn't mean include. It does imply making something suitable or giving consideration to someone's needs, which is important but it isn't the same as including someone in a group. In the overall scheme of things it often a huge accomplishment to get a group, society to accommodate someone. Hell, I don't need the State of Oregon or the whole of the United States to include me or make me welcome in everything, but I'd be elated if they would merely accommodate my right to marry the person I love.
But my spiritual home? This is the community I want to include me, not merely accommodate me. This is the essence of the article I wrote for our Sangha newsletter, Wisdom's Heart Includes All. As vegans we are an extreme, although there is a precedent of a Zen teacher advocating a vegan diet (Thich Nhat Hanh), but I feel we are an important part of our Sangha. Inclusion means we gather in those extremes as well as the nice, comfortable, filled-out center.
What does this mean? I am not entirely sure yet. I know I am filled with gladness and gratitude that JQ, the tenzo at Great Vow, is using more vegan recipes, is excited by the cookbooks we sent, and I love talking to her about cooking. I am delighted to share recipes and ideas with my Sangha. I'd love to host some cooking classes! I want to hear about any special events in advance so either CK or I have the time to make something special to bring. Maybe, just maybe, the next time we have a fancy dinner planning for vegan members will be considered at the beginning, I hope that at least one dish will be entirely vegan for the whole group, and we'll actually get a real dessert.
I do know with all my heart I want to be a part of the founding of the Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple, but at times it is painful, challenging practice to feel "accommodated".
CK's open letter she wrote in response to her feelings at the Founder's Dinner is also online.