R.I.P, Hope-Dog

"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.  Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it - but all that had gone before."

Jacob Riis

Stay at it, man, stick with it.

"I observe myself and so I come to know others."

Lao-tsu (widely considered to be the father of Taoism)

"Whenever I have a problem with another person I go and find a mirror."

Little Stevie Seaweed (widely considered to be completely filled with bullshit, right up to the top, and bursting at the seams)

"It's not them - it's you."

Attributed to an unknown sponsor in what may be an apocryphal incident but is so good it bears repeating.  This sponsor allegedly got fed up with a sponsee bitching about his family that he answered the phone, uttered that memorable line, and hung up without waiting for a response.  I've confirmed this anecdote with the man in the know but still have trouble believing it really happened.  We do try the patience of those around us.

My neighbor's dog was euthanized last night after a brief struggle with a wicked autoimmune disease.  My heart is broken.  I loved that animal with a ferocious love.  Animals . . . Dogs . . . Every time they see you they respond as if they were never going to see you again.  They feel terrible if they do something wrong but if you act like a dick they forgive you immediately.  Has a dog ever felt a resentment?

"Be courageous and stop to face your fears.  Once the fear is identified, you will find it is about  some future event, as all fear is."

The Toltecs

I like that fear is characterized as always connected to some future event.  That's a powerful thing to say.

This Moment . . .

The mind always wants more than it has.     

Sitting in the moment . . .  with everything that is . . . all of it is welcome.

This moment . . . This heart space . . . 

The statute of blaming your parents for anything has expired.

There was a guy who attended meetings regularly with me in sincity who was rough in appearance.  He was missing most of his upper teeth. His front upper teeth.   I considered him with some dismissive arrogance and then found out he read more than I do and I read a lot.  I was judging a good book by its cover.  That dude taught me a lot about humility.  MY humility and how deficient it was.

One of the apartments we stayed in had shutters you could lower at night.  I love those shutters.  They make the bedroom as dark as a tomb and who wouldn't want to sleep in a tomb?  One of the windows had a placard warning the user not to completely raise the shutter because it wasn't working properly.  The shutters were operated by turning a crank and part of the way through the operation the handle just came off in my hand.  It looked like something that could be fixed easily but not by me.  I have the mechanical aptitude of a rock.  Before we left I messaged the host about the handle and she replied a few days later with pictures of the broken handle and a message that I would paraphrase roughly along these lines: "Hey.  What the fuck?!"  Defensive Seaweed plays defense by ginning up a big offense.  I wanted to point out that the shutters had some existing problems and she had better not fuck with me on getting this thing fixed.  Or something demonstrating a similar level of spiritual growth.  Instead, I apologized for any upset and asked how I could make it better.  It's a great convenience to be able to stay in an apartment with a kitchen and extra room for stays of a week or so.  I believe this defused the entire situation and she followed up to say that it had been a quick and easy repair.

Wasn't this nice?  This was a lot nicer than it used to be.  I always made things worse.

What Was I Saying?

Let's get real this morning - most of the things I do or say that I do?  I'm lying.  C'mon, seriously?  I'm just trying to sound good.  Nobody really believes I do this stuff.   Looking good.  Sounding good.  That's what is important to me.

"Ultimately, being the observer shows us that we are not our thoughts or beliefs, but rather the aware presence in which thoughts and beliefs occur.  Today, I will remember that thoughts come and go.  I don't have to agree with every one of them.  You, I and everyone else are perfect exactly the way we are at this moment."

The Toltecs

 

I have to remember that when thoughts intrude on my meditation the important thing is that I'm noticing the intrusion.  Of course my mind is going to wander!  The problem is that I tend to believe the wandering ruins the meditation when the fact is that when I notice the wandering and bring my attention back to my particular locus of focus - my breath - then that is actually mindfulness.  I get into trouble when I try to concentrate and force my attention not to wander . . . Not going to happen!

Continuous Partial Attention:  A motivation not to be more productive but out of a desire not to miss anything.

"Relearning how to concentrate is one of the great challenges of our time.  The past decade has seen an expanded assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything.  To sit still and think without succumbing to an anxious reach for a machine has become almost impossible."

Alain de Botton

No One Is Doing Anything to Me

I am increasingly involved with meditation and increasingly amazed, stunned, perplexed by the fact that the practice is so centered around being in the moment.  It's such a simple concept.  Be where you are.  You aren't anywhere else, after all.  Why is it so hard to do!

I've been pondering all of the friends I have and have had in my life.  I've been richly blessed and I need to remember that instead of slotting everyone into this kind of friend or that kind of friend and then expecting a certain kind of response to any of my interactions.  People are busy.  People are thinking about themselves.  They're not thinking about me.  They're not doing anything to me.

I mention again the friend who envisions a cord or tether connecting him to everyone he has known in his life.  Sometimes the tether is long and sometimes it's short, or it's strong or weak.  I have a tendency to reach out to a lot of people a lot of the time and this makes me part of who I am.  The pitfall I need to avoid is that most people aren't so proactive and most people are glib and brief in their responses.  Used to piss me off.  I felt like I was giving more than I was getting (and the irony of my obliviousness to what is, after all, a core principle in Alcoholics Anonymous - being of service - is not lost on me).  What works best in a practical sense is trying to focus on what is right in front of my fucking face instead of trying to corrall friends - often close, much-beloved friends - into a call and response situation that I'm dictating.  Don't worry about who you can't see when someone in need of a kind word or smile or pat on the back is right in front of you, even when it's not the cool, hip person you really want to be talking to.

Gratitude in All Things

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in. 

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

Rumi - Sufi poet

True Tolerance

Peace is this moment without judgement.

Dorothy Hunt

When despair for the world grows in me

And I wake in the night at the least sound

In fear of what my life may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.  

I come into the presence of still water and I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting for their light.

For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry, Scottish poet

Big discusion in the meeting today about prescribed medications for people in A.A. who suffer from other illnesses or conditions unrelated to their alcoholism.  There are a surprising number of people who still think that spirituality can cure all things.  I ran into one of them while on my beach walks.  He's an okay guy.  I like him okay.  We're never going to be close friends but he's been consistent in his recovery and celebrates three clean years tomorrow.  Still . . .   "OK, you break your leg - do you pray about it or do you go to the hospital?"  He hemmed and hawed about that for a bit so I followed up with "You have cancer - do you take medication for that?"  I won the argument but he did not concede.  Fair enough.  Also, to the people who won't sponsor someone who takes any medication whatsoever . . . Fair enough again.  Our coins say "To Thy Own Self Be True."  I do think there's a big difference between not sponsoring someone on medication and telling someone who takes prescribed medication not to take that medication.  That's dangerous shit, that is.

"Finally, we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows really means."

12 & 12 P. 92

Peace is Possible

I think often about the clever studies social scientists and psychologists develop that show when I multitask I end up doing absolutely nothing very well or thoroughly.  If I'm lucky I can add the results of two tasks together and end up with one thorough task but usually I'll end up with less than that.  So the conclusion is do one thing and do it well and then do the second thing after that.  You can half-ass the second one for all I care.  Just try to do one thing well today.  Is that too much to ask?

I used to go to an art museum and leave hours later exhausted and frustrated.  As a good Type A I had to look at every piece of art and read everything written by the curators about that piece of art and look at it long and hard.  How did that work out?  I left the museum hating art with sore feet and a big resentment.  Today I know a little about art but not that much and I'm fine with that.  SuperK and I go to a museum and we walk around for an hour, and then we sit and rest for fifteen minutes, and then maybe a half hour more, and then we leave.  Sometimes we see three or four rooms and sometimes one or two.  We like something and linger or nothing moves us and on we go.  I don't have to understand everything with the result being that I understand more than I realize.  The artist has a message for sure but the artist isn't trying to jam that message down my throat.  I see what he meant to show or I don't and I bet the artist is thrilled that I'm looking at the art they created.

I don't always have to feel great.  Sometimes I can just feel okay.  Accepting that middle-of-the-road feeling and not trying to analyze it or define it gives me the freedom to have gray areas in my life.  Sometimes that gray area keeps me from bouncing off the walls or riding the emotional roller coaster.  Sometimes existing in the gray area can give me sanity.

Is peace possible in this moment?  Nothing has to be different than it is right now.

May I be safe.

May I be at peace.

May I live with ease and kindness.