April Is the Cruelest Month

It is now May and I was looking back at last month in my journal and thinking about the line in “The Waste Land,” when T.S. Eliot said that “April is the cruelest month.” Why?  Because of its
“…breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain”

It is a month when we are thinking about spring, maybe even about summer on some unusually warm days, but it mixes new life and desire with things that have died and passed. Not all of us would agree with Eliot. He continues:

“Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.”

You don’t immediately associate winter with keeping warm, but winter snows do actually keep the soil “warm” in that protective way that snow cover helps plants and gives the bulbs the rest needed to be renewed.

But April might be the cruelest month for other reasons. My wife is one person who associates this month with bad things.

• In 2007, there was the April 16 Virginia Tech mass shooting. My son was a student and his class was involved. His professor was killed and several of his classmates were wounded.
• The Boston Marathon bombing occurred on April 15, 2013.
• April 20, 1999 was the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. It was one of the key reasons my wife retired from teaching soon after.
• The bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 was on April 19, a date chosen by Timothy McVeigh because it was the anniversary of the bloody end of the FBI siege on a compound in Waco, Texas in 1993.

“He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience.”

The Columbine tragedy was on Adolph Hitler’s birthday, thought to be symbolic by the young shooters. The FBI wondered if the date of the Boston Marathon, April 15, was significant being that it was Patriots Day, a Massachusetts state holiday commemorating the opening battles of the American Revolutionary War. The Waco and Oklahoma City tragedies were on the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the American Revolution.

So, are the dates symbolic attempts to make a statement, or is there something about the month of April?

For extremists who believe that our federal government is as tyrannical as the British monarchy of our American Revolution, the date is symbolic of a war on a government by its own patriot people.

Of course, every month has its tragedies in modern and older times, but I have seen articles mentioning April as the month for not only the start of our Revolutionary War, but the American Civil War. Add to that the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. in April

I did some reading and April is no more violent statistically than other months. In fact, crime statistics usually go up in summer.

“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron wrote a book,  When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, in which she writes that “We live in difficult times. One senses a possibility they may get worse.” Her book is a Tibetan Buddhist view in how Buddhism helps cope with fear, despair, rage and the feeling that we are not in control of our lives.

The Buddhist view that despite any planning or efforts on our part, the only thing we can predict with certainty is change. While most of us rage against the night of all that, the Buddhist surrenders to the reality of impermanence.  We can center and ground ourselves. We can discover our relationship to a higher power that controls our world, no matter what name we may give to that power.

“Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
-But who is that on the other side of you?”

Quotations from The Waste Land (Norton Critical Edition) by T.S. Eliot

Walking Meditation

Walking meditation. Meditation in action.

Have you tried meditation? Many have. Many have failed. Meditation is more difficult to do well than a novice would suspect. Walking meditation might be a good way to enter the practice of meditation. It is easy to practice. It enhances physical and mental well-being. It has no cost.  It gets you outdoors (usually). It is a practice found both in Taoist and Buddhist traditions.

One problem I have with meditation is my own physical inability to sit still for any long periods of time. I may get some argument from “experts” on my personal take on walking meditation, but I see the focus in walking meditation is with my body actually walking – the steps, the feel of the ground, what is before me. In seated meditation, the focus is on the breath.

This is eyes-open meditation.  You are not so much withdrawing from the world as with the seated form of meditation. Your are IN the world. (Yes, it can be done indoors too.)

You need to be aware of things around you – if only not to trip and fall – but aware of the sunlight, shadows, the wind, raindrops, bird songs, and even people or traffic. Being someone who is too easily distracted, I feel less guilty when my mind wanders in walking meditation.

You might think that walking meditation sounds like just taking a walk. If you walk from your home to the corner store to buy a lottery ticket, is that walking meditation? It could be, depending on how to make that walk. But in walking meditation, you need to be very aware of your own body. The first time I did it (with instruction) was in a wooded setting where we could walk for a half hour without encountering other people or signs of people. It was not an “interesting” wooded path, but rather just a dirt path through a fairly monotonous landscape.

The idea was, of course, mindfulness or awareness of our own self with a minimum of distractions. I suppose that a master of walking meditation could walk through the New York Port Authority Terminal and stay focused.

Walking meditation sessions are generally 15-60 minutes. They are not hikes. In fact, you could easily create a loop walk that takes only ten minutes and complete it several times. In my first experience, it was used as a break between two sitting meditation sessions.

You could do it in a large empty room indoors. You might think that a large Gothic cathedral might be a good place indoors, but think of all those distractions – including the connections to other contemplative and spiritual practices.  A shopping mall? I think not. That’s for exercise.

Wherever you choose to go, you should walk without a destination. Focus on being somewhere rather than getting to somewhere. It really is the journey and not the destination.

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

from “Little Gidding” (No. 4 of the  Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot)

Most practitioners start by walking a bit faster than normal, and gradually slowing down to a normal pace and then even slower, until the pace begins to feel somewhat unnatural.

You certainly don’t ignore your breathing. You are mindful of it without trying to control it or have it control your walking. Your breath should be deep (from the diaphragm) but not so artificial that it takes away your attention. You can coordinate it with your steps. Perhaps as you inhale, step with your right foot and with the left foot, exhale. Again, if this feels like some kind of exercise, it’s wrong and it will take practice to do this without thinking about it. You breathe all day without giving it any thought – so it can be done. To do it with thought is harder.

Your eyes can be focused on the ground in front of you. Some people suggest walking with a kind of soft focus vision where the eyes relax and unfocus. Your vision is  not blurred, but wide, taking in all around you, but not in detail.

There are many guides to this meditation – some online and others as books – that can formalize the practice and expand on the philosophy. But I suggest you begin on your own with these simple instructions.

I find that the woods in winter has a simplified landscape, and the cold air has a way of heightening my hearing that is helpful in my meditation.

• Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
• Walking Meditation (with DVD & CD-ROM)
• and The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation are all
  by Thich Nhat Hanh
• http://www.yogateacher.com/text/meditation/on-line/walking.html

Weekend Monk

Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh on Pexels.com

Maybe what I need to do next weekend when I’m back from vacation is be a monk for a weekend. Or for a month.

I actually found a program called Monk for a Month that is a cultural immersion and spiritual development program in India and Tibet. That may be further and pricier than what I want to do.

Okay, I know that living in a traditional Tibetan monastery high in the majestic Himalayan mountains along the India-Tibet border and studying Tibetan (Vajrayāna) Buddhism with native scholars isn’t the secret path to knowing or peace, but it might be a path.

I know the basics. I have done weekend retreats to a monastery. One weekend in the dorm, I got badmouthed by other novices because I snored. So much for the Four Noble Truths:

1. They start with this bummer: Life brings suffering. Pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, depression and death are all a part of living; life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete.

2. The origin of suffering is craving, desire, and clinging to impermanent objects and ideas that cause suffering,

3. The cessation of suffering is attainable by releasing ourselves from sensual craving and conceptual attachment and reaching the state of Nirvana.

4. The path to the cessation of suffering is to follow the “middle way” between self-indulgence and self-denial.

I can handle a middle way but I found that desire and those cravings and clinging were things I quite like.

Then we start on the Eightfold Path. Just 8. Not even a twelve-step program to end suffering. But not easy. If it was, we could all be enlightened.

1. Right view – to see and to understand things as they really are
2. Right intention – the volitional commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement
3. Right speech – to tell the truth and speak with kindness and gentleness
4. Right action – do no harm, act honorably and with compassion
5. Right livelihood – to earn one’s living in a righteous way
6. Right effort – to exercise constant vigilance in attaining wholesome states
7. Right mindfulness – clear perception, clear consciousness
8. Right concentration – single-mindedness on wholesome thoughts and actions

I actually think I am pretty solid on at least 5 of those 8. But, like the writer Dinty Moore, I was an “accidental Buddhist:.” He “failed” at being a Buddhist on one of those weekends too. But he got something from it. So did I.

Of course, I didn’t get a few books out of it like he did. He wrote The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life and The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still, American Style. I wrote some poems. No books.

Moore’s bio is one I can identify with very easily. Born and raised in Pennsylvania he spent his formative years “fishing for bluegill, riding a bike with a banana seat, and dodging the Sisters of St. Joseph.” He earned a BA in writing from the University of Pittsburgh, did all the odd jobs that are required of the writer, got the MFA in fiction writing so that he can teach creative nonfiction seminars and edit an internet journal and teach at Ohio University. Is he on the path?

Am I on the path? We are all on the path. Some of us are moving forward better than others.

We are not meant to become the Buddha. Suzuki says during an introduction to Zazen: “Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature.” Thinking about the Buddha is a delusion. It is not awakening. One must destroy preconceptions of the Buddha.

Spending a week with my grandchildren, 3 years old and 9 months old, they are on all the paths. They know all the truths. And I want them to hold on to them and the path as long as possible. I will follow them there.

Monk for a weekend? Just another weekend in Paradelle.

Navel Gazing

Since the dawn of time – well, for a very long undefined time – the navel has been the focus of some reflective form of philosophical contemplation. This is known as omphalopsychism.

Why do people stare at their navel? Maybe it is because the navel literally represents the location of their birth. Maybe it is because that’s just where your eye falls when your head drops during meditation. Think of the Buddha’s well-define navel. I’m guessing that he did quite a bit of navel-gazing.

The navel is also called the umbilicus or omphalodium or just the belly button. Of course, it is scar tissue from where the umbilical cord was originally attached. That’s a pretty serious and symbolic connection.

Today, we also use the expression “navel gazing” to mean self-contemplation. Obviously, thinking about yourself is important. Know thyself. This ancient Greek aphorism was inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi – according to the Greek Pausanias. It has been attributed to Chilon of Sparta, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates, and others. Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, when it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python, a deity who lived there and protected the navel of the Earth. The site was considered the center of the earth, represented by a stone, the omphalos or navel, which Python guarded.

So what was KNOW THYSELF telling those who entered the temple? Perhaps, it simply meant that if you can understand yourself, you can understand other humans as well. Simply meant but not simply accomplished. Then again, most of those ancient Greek philosophers thought that no man can ever comprehend the human spirit and thought thoroughly. So, were they asking the impossible?

Another more mystical, interpretation focuses on “thyself” as meaning the ego within the self, the I AM consciousness.

Rodin’s Le Penseur (The Thinker) at the Musée Rodin

I don’t know of any official navel gazing groups around today, but omphalopsychite groups have existed throughout history. I was reading about the Hesychasts, a sect of quietists who practiced gazing at the navel to induce a hypnotic reverie. The Hesychasts believed that through a rigorous regime of asceticism, devotion, and deep contemplation of the body, a mystic light (the divine light of God) could be seen. This was partially based on Christ’s injunction in the Gospel of Matthew to “go into your closet to pray.” 

Today, we also use the expression “navel gazing” to mean something negative. In some uses, it means excessive introspection, self-absorption, or concentration on yourself or on a single issue.

With the more widespread use of mental health therapies, you can easily see both definitions at work. First, you must know yourself and examine your own behaviors in order to recognize what is causing your problems. But, become too deeply involved in that looking inward and you will no doubt need more therapy and medication.

Deeper Gazing

Quietism (philosophy) and as a Christian philosophy

Rodin’s Le Penseur (The Thinker) at the Musée Rodin

Be Selfish With Your Pain

Photo by Inzmam Khan on Pexels.com

I remember in my teen years being introduced to The Tibetan Book of the Dead by my friend Karen. I bought a copy of this classic, but never really got very far into it.  It was a seed that was planted and finally did see life when I read it in later years.

I took it off the shelf recently after reading something online that referenced a meditative technique developed by Tibetan Buddhists that has been in use for many centuries and predates the medical use of anesthesia. It’s also something I had read about in the essential teachings of the Dalai Lama

The practice is known as thong len and there is surprisingly little about it online. It is not only a technique to relieve your own pain, but, simultaneously, the pain of others. The practitioner is imagining another person’s pain (physical pain like a burn or injured nerve) and then drawing that pain into their own body/mind.

That sounds foolish on the surface. Why would I want to take on your pain? Those who practice the technique claim that as you take pain from others, your own pain disappears. You could view the action as being almost selfish. If I was doing Thong Len throughout my day and drawing pain from everyone around me, I would constantly be improving my own well-being.

“I was amazed a couple of years ago when I discovered thong len. I had a burnt hand, and (when I used) that technique, it was like an anesthetic had been injected into my arm,” said Jack Pettigrew, a renowned Australian physiologist, at a Science and the Mind conference that was attended by the Dalai Lama.

Pettigrew takes a very scientific approach to the practice.  He is intrigued by experiences like when people in a room with a Thong Len practitioner report feeling better though they were not the “subject” of the technique.

Of course, this is only one of many examples where Western science has examined how Eastern practices involving meditative, introspective, and other thought techniques affect the body and become a part of trying to understand how the brain works.

You don’t just start doing this practice on your own. This post is just an arrow pointing to it. It requires training. Lately, pain has been part of my life. I might need a thong len practitioner.

Pebble Meditation

Now that I am back into reading to little ones, I’m looking in the boxes of stored children’s books from my own sons. My grandkids are both under three so some books are too advanced but this is one that I will eventually introduce at one of their sleepovers.

Pebble meditation is a technique to introduce children to the calming practice of meditation. It was developed by Zen master, best-selling author, and  Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Thich Nhat Hanh. In A Handful of Quiet: Happiness in Four Pebbles and A Pebble for Your Pocket, he offers illustrated guides for children and parents, so this is not just a children’s book.

Many books in the children’s section of the library and bookstore are worth being read by older people. This meditation can be practiced alone or with a group or family and can help relieve stress, increase concentration, encourage gratitude, and help children deal with difficult emotions.

A very simplified how-to of the process:

1. A participant places four pebbles on the ground next to him or her.
2. At three sounds of a bell,  each person picks up the first pebble and says, “Breathing in, I see myself as a flower. Breathing out, I feel fresh. Flower, fresh.”  Breathe together quietly for three in and out breaths.
3. The next pebble is for “Breathing in I see myself as a mountain, breathing out, I feel solid. Mountain, solid.
4. Pebble 3’s recitation is “Breathing in I see myself as still, clear water, breathing out, I reflect things as they really are. Clear water, reflecting.”
5. And the fourth pebble has us saying “Breathing in I see myself as space, breathing out, I feel free. Space, free.”
6. End with three sounds of the bell.

I would compare my own use of a grief stone to this practice. In some workshops, participants may find pebbles that can represent people in their lives and use those pebbles when they breathe in and out and feel a connection to that person.

There are pebble meditations that focus on specific areas of growth. For example, using the six paramitas, or six perfected realizations, are the elements that help us cross from suffering to liberation. The six are generosity, diligence, mindfulness training, inclusiveness, meditation, and understanding.

Another pebble meditation uses the three jewels (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha), and another uses the Four Immeasurables (loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity).

Do you have to be a practicing Buddhist to do this? Not at all. The terms used can translate to more common terms in many cases. Some people write words on stones and use them on a regular basis. (I see online that, of course, you can also buy stones with affirmations on them.)

What is there about the physicality of a pebble that helps one connect to a particular idea?

---

Thich Nhat Hanh’s meditation presented by Plum Village brother Thay Phap Huu.