Meditation, Part 2

Actually, I don't know what part it is, but doesn't Part 2 sound impressive?

This is the story about how helpful meditation can be. I'm not doing it every day but several times a week.

It was a recent Friday. Probably the first Friday after school started. I felt more exhausted than all the students and teachers put together. It was probably all the driving, combined with the first-week paperwork, and I had been working all day, four days that week. I was waiting, getting overheated, at the rendezvous point Austin & I had picked out for him to meet me after school so we could go get -- ta da!! -- his learner's permit to drive.

Having your firstborn be on the verge of getting a learner's permit is a momentous occasion. Huge. It's like watching them take their first steps all over again. A lifetime of memories is kaleidoscoped into this moment. Darn, now I need to figure out how to spell two words in one posting. (Got one right, one wrong & fixed.)

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes, the most important times in the life of a parent. A learner's permit has to be in the top five for when your child is still a child. (Birth, hs/college graduation, walking being others) So I see Austin at a distance, strolling with his friends, who look over at me. I get the feeling he's sneaking off. He calls me and says something quite garbled, the gyst (jist?) of which is he wants to get a drink (soda) with his friends, and does not want to go to the driver license office today. So, OK. Wow, I thought this was really important to him, too, but apparently not.

I go do a workout, but I'm not feeling good. I'm feeling pushed out of my own child's life by his friends. Frankly, I'm fuming. And how could he pass up the chance to drive, or wait another day?? I pick up Andrew, do some shopping, and I haven't heard another peep from Austin. I do something I have threatened to do before: I drive home without him. While I drive, Andrew figures out the score and calls his brother, who is (of course) hanging out at Joseph's house.

Austin says that this is unfair, my leaving him, because in the past I was the one who called him to pick him up when I was ready. But so what? Rules change. Get over it, boy. But now he's on the verge of going to the movies with his friends, and that was not the punishment I had envisioned. So I drive back into Floresville to pick him up.

Driving, I am low on energy, low on fuel (not having eaten), and really tired. I start to meditate while driving, which can be tricky. The way my body feels about it all starts to dawn on me as I relax into it and hear all its complaints. I remember that the hardest thing about parenting -- and the most important -- is acting like a parent, especially when you're feeling all emotional and strung out.

I can't be the one throwing a tantrum, much as I would love to. I have to act like an adult to my teenage child, who sometimes has some anger-management issues himself. UUUGH. The 15-minute drive is just enough time for me to compose myself, wipe away some tears that found their way into my eyes, and become a rational parent once again. Or pretend to be a rational parent, which (guess what?) is just as effective. I still don't know what the score is, but being mad about it will not help.

It turns out it's all been a misunderstanding. Austin swears he told me over the phone that he couldn't get one of the forms required by the driver license office, the verification of attendance in school. We did get this form over the summer, but we were informed that was no longer sufficient the first week of school, when we made the first attempt to get his permit. They also said a mere passport was not sufficient ID. They needed his SS card too, although that is one of the required documents to obtain a passport, which is usually the trump card of all IDs. Only in Texas, folks.

So it was not that he didn't feel like going to get his permit, but could not.

I wish I could say I always catch myself before I fall, but quite recently, I yelled at Andrew so forcefully that his hair was gusting away from his head. He went and buried himself in the covers in bed and refused to come out for a while. Both my kids hate hate hate for me to yell at them, and that word (yell) encompasses lots of things, just speaking angrily too. But of course they hate it. I hate to be yelled at, too.

Trotting -- a post about running

I went trotting this morning for about 24 minutes, over 2 miles. That's just how it feels, like I'm a little two-footed horse trotting around the track. Obviously, at a very relaxed pace. I am really glad I posted about what a painful, difficult run I endured four or five months ago, so I am reminded how (relatively) easy I have it now. It was not hot this morning, around 8 am start, but very humid, so not exactly comfortable.

Nothing is more difficult than being a beginner anything, and once you bypass that stage, it gets much easier. That is why I am so intent on running at least twice a week, even with knee problems. I don't want to slip back to being a beginner all over again.

Runners become addicted, and most of them run much more than I do. But I, too, have fallen in love with my wonderful lungs, that can breathe so much deeper and more fully. I love being able to climb stairs without getting winded. And I love that feeling that Kenneth L. describes as "blankness," the complete presence in the body without much thinking that happens while running. (He did the half-marathon in San Antonio last October. He was going for the full one but had a baseball injury along the way.) And the glowing aftermath. I don't usually press myself hard enough nowadays to have the "trots" to the bathroom the way I did as a beginner. There are plenty of unpleasant side effects that distance runners have to learn to live with, but I'm on the healthy fringe by doing short runs. I think marathon runners have a different goal in mind than health. More like survival at the edge of existence, sort of like explorers who do deep scuba dives or go to one of the poles.

I have come to realize that athletes have such discipline over their bodies and specifically, over aches and pains. I was never, never an athlete growing up! I have joined the club late. I remember being the last one picked for any team, tripping over my feet, and twisting my ankles regularly. Amazingly, my ankles are much stronger now. I can jog on a dirt track without twisting an ankle, which is wonderful. I'm sure my hand-eye coordination is just as terrible as it ever was, though. Some things never change!

Athletes learn to manage all kinds of bodily complaints and take them in stride. This is a good quality to develop. I was listening to meditation week 2 (Zencast podcast) while trotting -- which incidentally talks of focusing on the body and its sensations -- and thinking about how the mental discipline of meditating is similar to the physical discipline of athletic training. Both require daily commitment and practice.

The Reader

I watched this alone while Dwaine and the boys went out to get flu shots and shop. Though it started out very erotic, it was not a good warm, fuzzy movie to cuddle up with! It wound up being so very sad and personal. It was like a detailed study of the devastation of a man's life because of the Holocaust. He wasn't involved in it, but its rippling effects overtook his life. Those ripples continue for so long after an event of such proportion, caused by humans. I understand why Buddhism speaks of karma, good or bad. Nothing is lost. We live in a closed system. The violence done to so many shakes the very fabric of the Earth and it takes generations to overcome, like slavery.

I heard on NPR about the children of raped women of the Rwanda genocide who are now growing up. Their lives are scarred, and they and their families are treated as outcasts. How can Rwanda overcome its recent violent past, which happened the year Austin was born?

The unanswerable question in these cases is, how? There is a capacity in human nature for incredible violence and evil, and it lies in every single person. It Lies, indeed it does. No one is exempt; we must each stand guard over ourselves and others.

This movie, the Reader, was about an SS guard who happened to be played by the incredibly beautiful Kate Winslet, and the violence she did to others, including a boy my son's age. Just a touch unbelievable that someone so gorgeous could do these things? But why do people who commit atrocities have to be ugly? The character actually took a bit of time to try to explain how she interpreted doing her duty. It might involve the wholesale slaughter of prisoners, as happened in an accidental fire in a church that the guards kept locked so none of the prisoners escaped, but burned alive. But none died by her own hand and nobody escaped.

I appreciated the moral complexity of the story. No one is purely good or evil, and motives are always suspect.

Kurt Vonnegut, I love you!

Kurt gave me this advice just a few days ago. I have to quote it in its entirety. Here goes:

"If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and giving this advice. You made my eyes water, a lot. (That's how Andrew expresses it. Typical 13-year-old boy.) And by the way, Austin may take your advice. He has returned to his fascination with his electric guitar and is making the 3-hour weekend time commitment to go practice and play with the praise band at church. This will become increasingly difficult as marching season really gets fired up, and the band requires about 20 or more hours of his time weekly. And let's not even mention tennis and his heavy academic load.

We watched in amazement as Austin organized a music binder today, complete with color-coded stickies. It was an ah-hah! moment. So he is capable of being organized, when it's important to him. You wouldn't have a clue looking in his room. I always fussed at him for getting a grade of 75 on his math binder check, which the teacher no doubt offered for the chance at an easy A. He did better on his assignments and tests than on keeping them all organized in a binder.

Kurt's advice, by the way, is available to others in his final (?) book, "A Man Without a Country." It's OK for you to read it, even though that section above was meant for me. There may be another section for you in there. But you will be offended if you are a die-hard conservative, because he's just a wild and crazy liberal. He's not optimistic, either. I like to think he's wrong about our self-destruction by environmental or nuclear means.

(He didn't even get to talk about the multi-trillion $ national debt that may well cause a fiscal implosion of the US -- sold to China, without a shot fired. I think this is not a liberal or conservative problem so much as a Congressional one, since Clinton balanced the budget and Bush nearly doubled the size of the national debt during his eight years in office with his lovely wars and the recession.)

Kurt is the absolute expert on the WWII firebombing of Dresden, Germany, by the British. The reason is that he and a few other American POWs were some of the very, very few people to survive it, miraculously, in their bunker. The other 135,000 or so other residents didn't. That made him a great champion for pacifism. Oops! I had to correct an error here. He never served in Vietnam, but the groundswell of protests against that war occurred while he was writing and publishing "Slaughterhouse Five" about his experiences in Dresden.

Hawks are fond of throwing Hitler in your face to try to explain why we need a strong military. We may never be able to do without a national defense (note the important word "defense" vs. "offense"), but let's talk about how wars start for a minute. Most are caused by such base motives as imperialism or money or revenge, or a crazy dictator supported by a nationalist fervor. The Civil War and Revolutionary War were rare exceptions.

Note the USA's burning need to declare war against SOMEBODY after 9/11, and picking Iraq and Afghanistan. Those wars have made us few friends, and many enemies, and did not bring increased security to our country.

I find politics, the usual topic of the editorials I used to write, rearing its head in these entries. The topic is so impure that I am tempted to leave it to another blog, if I must mention political stuff at all, rather than polluting this one. Maybe I have the wrong attitude about this because everyone in the USA seems to have lost the ability to speak with any civility about politics. Or maybe it's always been one of those unmentionables ... sex, politics, and religion, right? ... that cannot allow for polite discourse.

Back to my hero, Kurt, for a moment. I realized that I would love to write a book the way he does, with that thrown-together quality, especially this book which is a collection of essays. Publishing a book like that is so much easier to do when you've established yourself as one of the great American writers of the 20th century.

I could certainly be just as rambling. Yes!! Then I had to laugh, thinking about it. (LOL, in text lingo.) All the rambling ... none of the brilliance, what a book that'd be!

I could keep rambling on, and on, but I guess I should wrap it up here. I need to talk about meditation again soon. (I did it!! About 3 times, 15 mins each, and it was a real life-saver. I have a whole story to tell about it.)

Since I brought up politics, here's the historic Wilson County Democratic Convention where Hillary Clinton supporters went head-to-head with Barack Obama supporters. Hillary eked out a victory here, as I recall.

East versus West

That last entry is so awkward. Looking at it makes me shiver! But there it will stay, my ugly little baby of yesterday, reminding me not to pin too much hope on my native talent.

To learn to meditate, I suppose I will actually have to do it. But not till I finish listening to the
first of five Zencasts on meditation, so -- whew! -- not today.
This is a pic of Dwaine in a deep meditative state with Mimi, a few years ago, during the winter when it was cold. Will it ever be cold here again?

I prefer to attempt to practice mindfulness in daily living, which is lots of fun because of what my mind does. Isn't "mindfulness" an odd description if the goal is to free oneself from the mind? My mind hops, skips, runs off, wanders, dwells, ruminates in broken patches, and mostly ignores what is happening here and now. Just like my writing! No wonder my memory of actual places and events is so terrible. I wasn't really there, just my body.

In a way, I can sometimes watch my mind rather than being caught up in it. Mostly, I am skidding right along wherever it takes me.

The idea of being mindful at all times (Eastern) is, to me, the same as praying continually, which Paul (Western) exhorts us to do.

So I was sitting on the porch just now, feeling the drowsy warmth -- it's probably about 90, has been by noon most days in recent memory. Scout, our parakeet, is enjoying having his cage hung up outside. I put a dish of water in his cage, which he was eyeing suspiciously. It is supposed to be a birdbath, but we haven't offered him one in years, so it may take him time to acclimate. It's something to challenge his little birdy brain with. The hummingbirds were buzzing around, trying to figure out if they could get to their feeder before I attacked. One even hovered close above me, its single beady eye giving me a careful once-over.

I was being aware of every bite of lunch, and it suddenly seemed I had so much food to eat at this ordinary-sized meal. An abundance of food, because I was slowing down to chew and swallow it.

I think my habit of gulping food and guzzling vast quantities of coffee led to me having a raging case of acid reflux. That, and the way I would wind myself tight as a coil. I could literally feel my stomach (the organ, not my midsection) become a hard little ball at those times. It was not so much what I was eating, as how I was living. I can't say I am cured, but at least the meds are controlling it. I could not live comfortably without them, though. That might require severe lifestyle changes that I am not prepared to make.

I am trying to create space in my life and just let it all be, and that is hard enough!

Most Americans obviously pay no attention to what they eat. If they did, junk food would disappear because people would feel how sick it is making them. I actually can anticipate the leaden feeling a donut will bring me, and it does discourage me from eating one. Strangely, though, it doesn't work for cake.

So what does it say for our culture that junk food is proliferating? And so many people on radio and TV talk shows open their mouths to release streams of trash talk?

About food, I am working on cutting way down on eating beef that is not grass-fed. This is a challenge because beef is the meat of choice for all the men in my family. But Western cows are quite unholy in their negative impact on the environment. It's not just their flatulance, it is their exorbitant energy consumption in relation to the amount of dairy and meat they produce in return. They are very inefficient animals and require vast amounts of grazing pasture.

I don't understand what makes Eastern cows holy. I'll have to look into that.

Terry Gross from NPR had the founder of Beavis and Butthead on her "Fresh Air" show today. He released a movie (?) called "Idiocity" a few years back. The premise was reverse evolution: that people were becoming more and more stupid because all the people low on the intelligence scale were reproducing like crazy, whereas highly educated people were not, and of course, the only natural predators people have anymore are themselves. (Unless swine flu fulfills the advance hype and runs amok.)

I actually got concerned, listening. Reverse evolution (devolution?) could explain Wal-Mart, Glenn Beck, and a whole lot of other stuff. Luckily, no stupid people listen to her show, so there was no one out there listening who would get offended.

Do no evil

We must give up all hope for the improvement of the past.

This is a wonderful Buddhist saying.

I have been weighed down by the guilt of recently past words and deeds of mine that were in error because they were not said in love. I am becoming less and less tolerant of wickedness in myself, though no less human. I will still make blunders, so long as they are not intentional.

So I deleted a post where I spoke ill of others. It had become a poison brew, and guess who was being sickened by it? Me. So I cannot change the past, but I can improve the present.

There is no need to be harsh with others who have done wrong. Discerning, yes. I forget, in all the loveliness that is Buddhist practice, about The Problem Of Evil. Luckily, we recently watched a movie that reminded me about the importance of standing against evil.

If you are wondering, I am still a Christian. I will never forsake my Lord! For me, there is no incompatibility embracing Christianity and Buddhism. But then, I've lived many years, and I don't expect everyone else to understand. I don't even discuss this with my children. One religion is a plenty big hunk to chew off at a time.

Walking with Zen Buddhism

A little Zen update. Me and Gil (my podcast bud, well it's more like love, but it's a long-distance relationship) are getting along very well. It's easy to get along when you can just press the "off"
button to stop someone from talking.

Yeah, I think I'm finding that I am really a rather extreme introvert. Like, as long as I had my podcasts and books, I might be okay for a while with no other actual people around! (Oh, FB friends are pretty fun, too. But they could be computer-generated ... and would I even notice the difference?)

Zen Buddhism has helped me experience flashes of separation from my "engaged, emoting" self. Yesterday, I was getting very worked up about a silly mistake the high school made with my son's ranking. He worked very, very hard last year, plus he's brilliant and all! Yet despite his obvious brilliance, they e-mailed me that he was ranked 277 out of 313 students ... twice. The second one "confirming" this as correct was what got me unhinged. So I was sitting on hold with the counsellor's office, fuming, and suddenly I became aware of my fuming state. And started to inch away from it. Started just breathing. Relaxing the body and mind. Within less than a minute, I was a whole different person.

That was easy! (*By the way, I was NOT rude to anyone, and that initially required all my strength. Stupidity is a pet peeve of mine, even though I occasionally succomb to it myself. I don't suffer fools easily.)

I won't be able to escape from my emotions if a real crisis erupts in my little bitty life, though. (Meditation helps you discover your little-bittiness, and that's a really good thing.) That's why Gil says it takes daily practice, over years and years. He's been doing this stuff since the 1970s, maybe, and he says the mind has such a powerful grasp on a person, even his mind on him, to this day.

A teaching of Zen Buddhism is that we each experience our own reality. This seems radically different from the chief weakness I find in Christianity -- that it is so dogmatic and requires converting the world to the same belief system. It doesn't actually make sense. God loves enormous variety, of all types. Why would he want us all to be the same religion?

If you really discover the "otherness" of each person, you realize that you cannot convert them to your beliefs. Not only that ... you should not try. It is morally harmful to try to impose your belief system on another person. It is thought violence, because it is an attempt to impose your will on their separate spirit, whether it is your beliefs about politics, religion, social justice, or parenting. Let me say that again. It is unwise to try to convert anyone to your beliefs about anything. Consider this with regard to your most sacred beliefs. As soon as your attempts to convert are honestly ended, judgment about others falls away as well. A veil lifts, and you can see others more clearly for who they are, without feeling personally threatened. This is how God views everything on Earth and the universe, as His/Her most precious creation.

It is perfectly fine to share the wealth of your experiences for the benefit of others. People can tell if you are merely trying to convert them, or if you are genuinely sharing to give them the benefit of your point of view.

I also found great meaning in a Vietnamese Buddhist (on a long Zencast) who was sort of fusing Christianity and Buddhism, or at least comparing them. He was asked about all the suffering in the world. In reply, he started talking about the Asian tsunami, which had apparently just happened recently before his talk, and his descriptions were so poignant they brought me to tears. (Not that it's hard to bring me to tears, at all.) He talked about how extended families all vanished, and the ones left had no one to even comfort and be comforted by. There was just no one left. He talked a little about karma, and how large events like this affect us all. So the image of Buddhists as stoic is not accurate. They just like to focus on real suffering and put the self-induced stuff aside. I think.

Karma seems like the butterfly wings in Africa causing a hurricane here, or some such, which I know to be true, though I could never prove it or even defend it. I've felt it, and I know the web that connects us all is very strong and real. Even though I am an introvert. I'm communicating with the world here, aren't I? (In theory, anyhow)

Another super-long post. If you made it this far, thank you!

These Zen podcasts are like essential water to me, like I've been wandering the desert for a long time, and someone finally took pity on me. I cannot describe what a difference this philosophy is making in my life. But I don't think I would have been ready to hear it until now. It is like everything in my life prepared me for this moment, which approaches perfection.