Damn!

Here I was feeling all warm and fuzzy about my blog and then I saw a description of it as “sentimental prose.”  It was a nice description which included that the blog is “inspiring” too.  (Thank you, Top 50 Buddhist Blogs.)  Of course, being the sensitive, insecure  type, I immediately sought reassurance: Do they mean “sentimental” as in Emily Dickinson?  Or do you suppose they meant “sentimental” as in Jonathon Livingston Seagull?  Because, you know, Emily I can handle… but seagull sentimental… ewww…

This debate is quite timely though.  I’m trying to embody the realization step of the Third Noble Truth: open-handed awareness of non-duality in my life.  “Suffering and happiness are not two,” says Thich Nhat Hanh.  Sentimental, heartfelt, expressive, weakly emotional, mawkish… Emily and Jonathon are not two, I say to myself.

I chuckle too because can’t think of anyone in my life who would see me as sentimental (in the weakly emotional sense).  Definitely not the Kid who exclaimed one day as I tried to help in a mother-ish, subversively-shrink-ish sort of way: How do people find her SOOTHING!?  Definitely not my friends – what straggly few I have – who once looked at a certain character on a TV show and exclaimed: Hey, That’s Lynette!  Definitely not the insurance companies I fight with despite trying to project my intention to advocate for my patients.  Oh, and then there was this one fellow who was obstructing the ambulance at a crash scene and refused to move because I was a woman ordering him around.  I think he growled something about “Mother…ing” to which I replied, “In this parking lot I’m the only Mamma you got so don’t make me do something I won’t regret.”

And yet, and yet…  I was thinking about many things about this blog.  The language notwithstanding,  there is the issue of transparency about who I am.  Barry wrote a post a few days ago about hiding behind a pseudonym and the problem of such anonymity.  That struck a chord, leaving me wondering about my use of “Genju”  and my reluctance to full disclose aspects of my life.  In part, I’m trying to honour my family’s privacy; however, I note I have put Frank “out there.”  I also rationalize that if you really want to find out more, you’d Google for it.  There are certainly enough traces of identity in the blogs.  The other part of “Genju” is my commitment to embodying the dharma name given to me.  And the final point (if anything is final) is that this is a personal space where I get to be a “me” that is different from the hour-by-hour piecework shrinkology I am/do/be everyday.  But yes, I have been thinking about introducing the other parts of me into this process.

I’ve been thinking about the sentiment (argh!) too.   The intent and tone of the writing is something I try to set with each post – expressive but hopefully not mawkish like some sooty, snooty Victorian.  I certainly feel I’m a poor student copyist of my heroes in Literary Prose and Poetry.  But a congealing of the rhythms and cadence of so many influences is hard to avoid.  It’s like my “accent.”  Drives people crazy trying to figure out where I’m from.  Boston?  Egypt?  (Huh?)  Bermuda?  My only response is “TV.”  It’s true.  Like all refugee kids, I spent my language formative years in front of the Tube, which in my day was an unending transmission of Americana.  So I sound like an amalgam of leftover Brit, a Mouseketeer, and Sgt. Saunders from Combat!  It’s scary when I express sentiments of anger.   That being said, I hope this blog expresses an approximation to a mid-range exploration of the Dharma – albeit through my stumbling gait and, to be honest, being non-controversial.  That’s not to say I don’t have strong opinions about things.  I just don’t care to explore them in this venue – much.   That will change in time and I’m in no rush.

So there you have it: the third turning of the Third Noble Truth.  It is the insight that all things can exist simultaneously and without conflict.  It is also realizing – or making real – the variations on a theme of our experiences.  At this moment, it is the twinge about being perceived as writing sentimental prose and it is the contentment in my attempts to convey my feelings as I practice.

Thank you for practising.

Sentimentally & prosaically yours, I remain

Genju

Sometimes there is a great sky against which I can place practice.  The zazenkai (aka Day of Mindfulness) is a sky like that.  The day starts the day before as we gather the tools of the trade: assorted teas, hot water heater, bells, poetry, yoga mats, & cushions.  I’ve learned to let the day unfold, no longer so anxious that I need to orchestrate every minute of the meditation.  The room is a lovely open space nestled at the end of a side hall in the Eastern Orthodox Religion Department of a local university.  Participants gather at 0915 and we start promptly at 0930 with an introduction to the space we will occupy for the next six hours.  This time just after the intro, the meditation is derailed by Frank’s announcement that the parking is no longer free on a Sunday; half the participants have to head out and pay for their parking downstairs.  This moment is what I fondly call a nodal point of equanimity.

There is  a choice here.  I can drop my vision to the ground and see only the slush and muck we’re about to fall into.  I can raise my eyes and see the great sky against which practice can stand.  This is the third turning of the wheel of the Third Noble Truth: the encouragement or reinforcement of useful, beneficial actions that lead to well-being.

We’re professional enough that glitches in the flow of a presentation tend to be met fairly well; the flow of a whole retreat day however is somewhat more challenging.  What I have noticed is the loud, obnoxious chatter in my head that saps the energy usually required to think on my feet (or in this case, on my butt which is on the cushion).  Sometimes, that chatter can leak out as a manic cheerfulness designed to reassure everyone that the world is not about to come to an end.  I think there was a day when I realized that, not only was I not kidding anybody about how I was not coping, I was also assuming everyone else was having the same reaction to the event.  On this day, facing the empty seats in the hall, I realized I had a powerful tool: a non-discriminatory agenda.  It didn’t matter a heck of a lot if we started with a sitting meditation, mindful movements, or dancing a jig.  We did 15 minutes of mindful movements which gave everyone a chance to return to the room and slide into the sitting meditation.

I’ve been noticing a lot of online commentary about practice not being magic.  True enough.  It can look like that though, so I find it important to remind myself that practice is a never-ending series of nodal points where a decision can be made.  And the longer I practice the more seamless those transitions from one node to another might be on that big sky canvas.

Thank you for practising,

Genju