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April 17, 2012

eternity in a seed

Did you know cyclamen are tubers and not bulbs?  In the grander scheme of death and destruction, it probably means little to most of us that a plant is more akin to a potato than a tulip.  In terms of caregiving however, it might make some difference.

I’ve always loved the astonishing flowers of the cyclamen; angel wings swooping back poised to descend on earth yet never quite completing the landing.  Over the years I’ve bought several of these plants and enjoyed the displays all the more for thinking they were like forced tulips – lovely and poignantly impermanent for being constrained in a pot.  The cyclamen were even more exotic because they could not grow in my garden and were only available pre-grown.

When the first one I had began to die, I called in to the CBC gardening show and asked about saving it.  The instructions I got were simple: water it without letting it touch the “bulb.”  It died anyway and I resigned myself to having short-term romances with the plant, composting them when the flowers wilted.

One day while watering the plant, I noticed that the leaves were flattened exposing a view of the bulb shifted off-center.  Immediately I blamed our little Zen Master Sprout who had been seen occasionally testing the plants for their snooze factor.  Because, in my view, this particular plant had lasted the longest of all the plants (it might even be ten years old), I put some effort into reading up on how to revive it and solve the mystery of the transported bulb.

Apparently, cyclamens grow from tubers.  It would seem my dear plant is and is not my dear plant at all.  It is several generations removed having produced shoots from its tubers and happily procreating all these years.

Then I learned about the cyclamen fruit, a round pod left after the petals dried and fell off.  This I had thought was the end of the plant; it signalled a parting of company as I walked it to the compost heap.  In fact, it was the beginning – of sticky brown seeds and new life.

There’s a lesson in this.

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April 16, 2012

right looking away

Following up the theme of quiet persistence from last week, it was lovely to see this little fellow sprouting.  (Oh yes, Zen Master Sprout is doing well, thriving on generous amounts of tolerance and occasionally being put in his place by our Matriarch Cat, Desireé.)  This is an orchid.  I got one several years ago in full bloom but was never able to encourage more blossoms.  Being the lazy sort, I would from time to time do a bit of hortigoogling but the suggestions all seemed to require too much effort.  So I watered the dear thing haphazardly as I do with most of my plants and it lumbered along in much the manner of most pot-bound beings, that is to say it sat contented not to shrivel up and die.  One might say that orchid showed some quiet persistence but I suspect plants are generally resilient and thankfully robust to our neglect and ignorance.  

Last Fall, I came across a type of orchid called a “Just Add Ice” which is not a species but a technique.  About the same time I read about a blogger pal who had received an orchid as a gift.  He worried about caring for it and whether he was up to the ministrations such a rare and delicate plant would need.  I felt a bit guilty at first glancing over at my orchid which was languishing in a pool of murky water; then I felt competitive.  Could I get mine to bloom before his?  I also recalled during one samu or work period at Upaya, the resident gardener came into the dokusan room where I was cleaning up.  Using a damp cloth, she gently wiped down the each of the leaves of the lusciously blooming orchid.  I asked her how to make these things bloom and she looked at me with that “oh you still don’t get it, do you?” look.  

With a caretaker so attached to outcomes and desirous of sensual pleasures, no wonder my orchid remained resolutely barren.

So I formed a clear intention to put some effort into caring for my orchid in a more conscious and attentive manner.  I even bought two more to keep it company on the shelf where they get indirect sunlight all day and cool temperatures at night.  I logged onto the Just Add Ice website and read (quickly and somewhat impatiently – but hey… transformation takes time!) about the care and feeding of orchids.  I even got a measuring cup to mix up the right amount of nourishing broth to feed them.  

Over the winter, the two I bought struggled to recover from the severe neglect they had endured in a cavernous hardware/homeware center.  When I tried to repot them, my heart dropped at the sight of rotted roots.  But, remembering to hold that intention to care close, I repotted all three and set up a reminder to fertilize them once a month on the first Sunday and to water them with 3 ice cubes on the other Sundays.

The instructions had said a new bloom should show in a month.  And this was the test: to read that but not become invested in it.  To look at the three orchid plants and see them as unique systems that had their own time-table of recovery, nourishment, and expression.  To step back each Sunday from the pots and not want to make it different from what it was.  And to welcome the anticipation and the deflation when that shoot with a mitten offshoot heralding a blossoming spike didn’t manifest.

This is a practice of Right Looking Away, Wise Disregard.

And then one day… one day…

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April 13, 2012

mind as an apparent multiplicity

This is from What is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger in the chapter The Arithmetical Paradox: The oneness of mind.  Schrödinger writes that the sense we are multiple minds is a creation of our perception and “in truth there is only one mind.”  He quotes Aziz Nasafi, a 13th century Islamic Persian mystic:

On the death of any living creature the spirit returns to the spiritual world, the body to the bodily world.  In this however only the bodies are subject to change.  The spiritual world is one single spirit who stands like unto a light behind the bodily world and who, when any single creature comes into being, shines through it as through a window.  According to the kind and size of the window less or more light enters the world.  The light itself however remains unchanged.

May the light shine through you and may we all remember that we are one.

Have a delightful weekend and thank you for practising!

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April 12, 2012

soft power for introverts

Ben Howard, author of One Time, One Meeting, wrote this lovely piece on introverts and how to engage in a world that is driven, loud, and often self-promoting.  I particularly liked the ideas of “quiet persistence” and “soft power.”  Ben references a book about introverts by Susan Cain - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking – and then in his inimitable way takes it deep into the dharma, weaving together patience and diligence.

Watching the window installers, I was struck by the steady, unrelenting way they approached the task.  And it is a formidable task, this tearing out wood frames of a friable old farm-house without taking out chunks of the (wood) wall.  Hour by hour, window after window was pried away from almost a hundred years of clinging to the frame; the opening was cleared of debris and the new window inserted.  They cleaned the floor and outdoor surfaces of splinters and nails, methodically moving from section to section.  There wasn’t a moment of wasted or mis-directed energy; conversation was light yet never broke the rhythmic dance between deconstruction and reconstruction.

In a quiet moment’s conversation at the conference last week, a friend and I shared the frustrations we feel when we want immediate results and have them come in a particular form beyond what the situation can grant us.  We reflected on the years we’ve put into our work and eventually gazed astonished at what had emerged from our own quiet persistence.  I spoke with someone else of wanting a more “intimate relationship” between our organizations and later through a different interaction with her came to a painful realization of what that intimacy would cost.  I wondered what diligent persistence in that direction would bring me.  In another conversation with a friend, I garnered from her wisdom that the true circle of impact is much closer to the heart and it’s easy to disperse our energy when we get caught by the wanting-creatures.

Kabir’s warnings against the wanting-creature notwithstanding, it’s difficult to “stand firm in that which you are.”  This is especially so in a world that loudly proclaims it knows us better than we could know ourselves.  It’s easy to doubt our senses and to lose them.  It’s a short tumble into the rabbit hole of crippling grandiosity and inadequacy.  To persist with diligence requires reducing our reactivity to the voices that decry our strengths, our commitment, and our willingness to begin again moment after moment.  It means honestly appraising our deepest intentions, willingly acknowledging our deepest fears, and proceeding with attentive awareness of the impact of our actions.

I’m not sure if this is what is meant by “soft power” but it does seem softer than the sledgehammer and crowbar approach and more powerful than strong-arming a connection.

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April 11, 2012

an unknowable purpose

There is this chaotic moment in renovations where the content of rooms begin to infiltrate each others space.  That’s what happens when we instigate change: barriers drop and boundaries blur.  As a masked introvert (that’s someone who is an introvert but can play the role of an extrovert), I shy away from large gatherings, especially ones that can trigger my insecurities as a professional.  Yes, I still hold a membership in the Group for Impostors and Miscellaneous Posers (GIMPs).  So this mindfulness conference was a challenge at many levels and my only recourse was to find a sofa somewhere out of the scrum and curl up with sufficient determination to drive away all the other introverts.

The problem however is that deciding to go to a conference (after avoiding it successfully for 8 years) AND agreeing to present at it effectively precludes all the introvert’s strategies I’ve cultivated over the years.  More than that, having cultivated a practice of being aware of the never-ceasing flow of sensations meant I couldn’t even lie to myself.  Saying yes to engaging in the marketplace is by definition opting for change, being open to change, and being vulnerable to what havoc that change can wreak on the fragile self-system.

At the same time and thankfully, it opens us to confirming what is important and necessary to continue to be who we are.  Who we truly are, not the clinging fearful self who emerges when threatened with loss.

This was the space I eventually entered as the myths and misperceptions of who I am as this or that flowed around me.  These projections were the real impostors and posers yet it was disconcerting to see the constructed imaginings that had grown in the minds of others during my absence from the gatherings.  And of course, despite recognizing them as delusions, I caught myself hopping into the minds of others trying to find that rewind and erase button.  I know you’re not surprised that I was an abject failure at re-directing even one misaligned neuron.

This is the uncomfortable and crucial truth about engaging in the marketplace.  Only you will know who you are.  All else is constructed to serve an unknowable purpose.

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