Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

It has been raining every day for over a week now. Last night it turned to snow. My lilacs are frozen, broken lumps. It’s Mother’s Day and I know people who are sad today because they are children without mothers or mothers who have lost their children or women who want to be mothers but struggle with infertility. Three friends have lost dogs this past week. Yesterday morning, our friends’ beautiful, sweet black lab, only 5.5 years old and completely healthy, had a seizure and died instantly, most likely from an aneurysm. I’m so sad.

The first noble truth of Buddhism is life is suffering. No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try or how careful we are, change and loss come, sometimes suddenly and without warning. Earthquakes and floods will come, accidents happen. We will get sick and eventually die, and so will every being we ever love. This is life.

What we CAN do is stop generating more suffering. Wherever we are making things worse — with our confusion, our willful ignorance, our laziness, our anger, our jealousy, our judgment, our various cravings and addictions and distractions — we can stop. Even if we can’t yet do anything to help, we can stop adding to the difficulty, aggravating the situation. We can work to heal ourselves, to be sane, and in that way, at the very least, not make things worse.

It’s the most important thing we can do with our life — get our shit together. Only then is there a chance that we might free up the time and energy, be able to access the wisdom and love we need to help. It’s so simple, so important.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche gave a talk in Chicago this past week, “Making Peace Possible: the Shared Wisdom of the Human Heart.” He talked about how with all the awful things happening in the world and our personal lives, it can be easy to become overwhelmed, to lapse into apathy rather than turning towards the possibility of peace — peace as not just the absence or war or suffering, but a true engagement with life, the vitality of love, joy, and celebration. He suggests that this peace is our natural state, and can be our personal, lived, embodied experience. To find this peace in ourselves and cultivate the same in our world, we have to take love seriously.

Love is not weak. Kindness and love are what give us strength, allow for transformation. We don’t have to have all the answers or know what to do, we simply need to stop generating suffering, stay open and curious, see what might arise. We must nourish our conviction that our natural state is peace, love, basic goodness, and not give up. As the Sakyong said in his talk “when we connect with our own sense of who we are as a human being [worthy, whole, basically good], we then value others,” and with that “people naturally look out for each other.”

Peace and love are hard work. The are expensive — in energy, emotion, effort. And yet, we can take small steps, realizing that these steps add up. We can cultivate peace, return to our natural state. We can be peacemakers. We can be the helpers. We can manifest the power of love, encouraging and uplifting others, allowing our innate wisdom to arise, enabling transformation.

Every living thing is beautiful because it is, as it is. The only thing hiding this beauty is the belief that there is no light, no innate goodness and purity at the heart of one’s being. Touch the inherent goodness at the center of your own heart and beauty will radiate through you, as you. ~Julie Daley

From three years ago, but just what it looks like today

1. Getting to work with good people. For example, I got a new camera for work this week, a fancy grownup one, and the day I took it out of the box, I was scheduled to take pictures of some interns in action for a series of blog profiles at CSU. I didn’t know what I was doing, either with the technology or setting up the shots, but with the help of my colleague who knows so much more than I do, the pictures turned out great and I learned some stuff. Another example is I met with my interns for the last time this week, published their final profiles, gave them their parting gifts, and reflected on how lucky I am to get to work with such dedicated, enthusiastic, creative students. And finally, there’s that guy who stops by my office and steals my candy who always has such nice things to say about me, and seems to show up and say them just when I need to hear it.

2. Spring. The bird song, the blooms, the 1000 shades of green, the promise of summer break and a garden, and yes, even the rain, (although, after a week’s worth of it, I’m having to work really hard on that one).

3. Healthy, happy dogs. We are nearing the sweet spot with these boys, that moment in our lives together where they are grown up enough to be easier, calmer, but they are also still young enough to have lots of energy and good health. We’ve got about 2-3 years of that, five if we are lucky, before the inevitable down turn starts to happen on the other end of things, where Sam starts to get older and can’t quite keep up — at least, that’s the hope. We’ll be so lucky if Sam gets old. Obi was still in the sweet spot when he got his cancer, and Dexter was just barely starting to slow down when he got his. I tell Sam and Ringo all the time that they are going to be my old dogs. #fingerscrossed

4. Sangha. Community and connection. My yoga friends, the Open Heart Project, the Daily Dharma Gathering, all the other creatives and healers I’m connected to, my writing companions, and all the other humans who help me to cultivate an open heart, softness and strength, practice, faith.

5. The ability to choose. The luxury to have space and time to listen, to sit quietly with myself and consider what I need, to contemplate what I want, and to be able to choose.

6. Andrea Gibson. She’s an amazing performer, poet, human. I got to finally see her in person this past weekend, in the company of an equally amazing poet and human.

Bonus Joy: how curious Eric is, how excited he gets when he’s telling me about something he saw or read or heard, how he makes me laugh, how he makes himself laugh, the stability and comfort he offers me, sweet potato corn chips and hummus (yes, I’m still obsessed), lemonade, cabbage rolls, smashed potatoes, knowing that I can only do what I can do and what doesn’t get done is okay too, humans who care and are putting so much effort into making things better, how happy Ringo is when I get his favorite toy out for him to play with, how I’ve watched him lately catch himself when he’s about to make a bad decision and independently redirect, how sweet Sam is, how he just wants everyone to be calm and nice, books, being able to give — gifts and attention and effort and encouragement and attention.