lundi 29 novembre 2010

Death by a Thousand Little Sufferings

How many times a day do you say no to yourself? It can be an almost automatic reply to petits desires. You have to go to the bathroom but you make yourself wait. You are thirsty but you don't get a glass of water. You are tired but you won't let yourself take a cat nap. It can be very subtle. Beware of death by a thousand little sufferings.

This past weekend i took a two hour train ride to Le Harve, a ville northwest of Paris on the Normandy coast. There was an exhibit that was highly recommended and after several signs, I said what the heck and was off on a two hour train ride to Musee Malraux. The museum is a very modern building and specializes in the works of Eugene Boudin (whom i fell in love with) and has a nice representation of impressionist paintings.

On my way back, i went to the train station early as there were no assigned seats and i wanted a window seat and perhaps one with a little extra leg room. I walked towards the front of the train (and those trains are long) found a nearly empty car and plopped down in the perfect seat and waited for the train to depart. Literally minutes before the train took off, two different families with a total of three children all under the age of 4 entered the car (plus some other random 5 year old something snuck on with a single parent while i wasn't looking) and viola before you know it i was in the midst of the preschool mania. Now i don't have anything against children especially as i have three of my own but i wasn't prepared for two hours of running in the aisles, asking for food, fighting with siblings which is what was previewed in the next ten minutes.

The train started. I sat there. I really wanted to move, but "i had the perfect seat," "you might offend somebody if you move," "it's not that bad," "suck it up." Those are the voices i heard in my head. "Suffering a little isn't so bad." What? As soon as i realized what was going on, you guessed. I gathered my bag and coat and moved. It wasn't hard. The same perfect seat was available in the next car and i ended up in an engaging conversation with a French policeman nearly the whole ride.

Beware of the tiny sufferings you permit each day. Pain may be necessary from time to time but suffering isn't. Not one bit.

lundi 15 novembre 2010

It All Just Is

The clouds parted, a spot of blue sky appeared, I looked up and said yet again, "thank you" to that unnamed force surrounding me. As the words hung in my mind i began to chew on them while walking through the cemetery. "What was "thank you"? What did it mean? Could i express it differently from just saying the words?" While saying the words has a certain power in and of itself, wasn't there something more to gratitude? Then it dawned on me gratitude isn't a noun it's actually a verb. Gratitude is action.

How could i express gratitude? The first thing i thought was "love your life." But again what exactly does that mean? I keep coming back to this word "acceptance." Accept what is present. Can you accept everything that passes through your life and give it a place in its temporary home? For truly the human experience itself is temporary. Happiness, sadness, jealousy, envy, joy, delight, anxiety, fear, openness, pain, glory. Each of these emotions moves through us...if we allow them. Surely they will get stuck if we offer resistance, tell them to go away or cover them up with "doings". In that place of acceptance, life flows. It is not like everything is blissful all the time. It is better than that. You get to experience everything, ALL
. What a smorgasbord!

Last night I had an interesting conversation with a chanteuse from Lebanon. She kept telling me how difficult life was as an artist committed to singing. She carefully made her case that being a musician was much easier but to sing was nearly impossible. She lamented that she couldn't support herself though her live-in boyfriend, the lawyer, was okay with it. She then told me she would be willing to do other work but it had to be meaningful. As i listened to her stories of, well, let's get right down to it, victimhood, I gently tried to point out the flaws in her thinking. Of course she agreed with everything i said, answering "yeah" and then followed it with an excuse "but." Almost immediately another woman came up to her and asked her if she could take singing lessons from her. They exchanged information. Beaming as i watched Life answer Life, I said "see." And wouldn't you know it she responded with "yeah, but..." She was completely committed to her story of suffering and there wasn't a thing i was going to do to change that. I continued to listen for a few more minutes. I offered no resistance to her reruns of suffering, then dinner was served and we were seated apart. At the end of the evening she came up to me and said she didn't know why she had told me such intimate details about her life but she really just felt much better. I smiled to myself and thought this is acceptance in action.

It's sweetly ironic
: Acceptance of what is, Transforms what is.


Expressing gratitude is making Life your partner, not your enemy. Accepting what is, transforms what is. There is no stagnation. When life is transforming, it is moving, creating. There is a natural flow and rhythm of which you are a part and when you dive into that flow, you understand that you aren't separate from others, from emotions, from experiences. It all just is.

samedi 6 novembre 2010

Your Right--A Life Fully Appreciated

Several years ago i had a major dream. I was at my law school reunion with my closest law school buddies and their partners (mostly wives). Everyone had achieved a certain level of success that comes with practicing one's craft for twenty years; partnerships, district attorneys, federal public defenders. I was the only one who wasn't practicing law. We all took turns explaining our professional lives. And because it was my dream i got to go last. When it was my turn i was extremely embarrassed because i had given up law to raise a family, lived in Barcelona with my children for six months and chased a small brown man (my teacher, don Miguel Ruiz) around Central America and still had no idea of who i was or what i was supposed to do. In my little mind i was a mess but much to my surprise, everyone thought i had the most wonderful life. After my mini-presentation everyone wanted to know how i had "escaped" the law and created such a fantastic life. It was so contrary. In my dream i had this awareness that i had a wonderful life but i also had the awareness that i was missing sooooo much because i wasn't actually appreciating my life.

My how times have changed. I'm sitting in my apartment in Paris on a Saturday night, alone and ecstatically happy. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it was because i spent 4 hours drawing a most beautiful human or maybe it was because i went out with my french friends for coffee after wards, or maybe it was because i cooked the most wonderful dinner for myself followed by a most wonderful dessert bought from the no. 3 bakery in Paris (according the sign posted outside) or maybe it is because the rain is tickling the roof in my apartment and i am a little giddy from that. What matters is that there has been a profound transformation from needing a reason to appreciate my life to not needing anything except what is present to one hundred percent, down-on -my-knees, ecstatically enjoy, appreciate, love my life.

I wish for each person who reads this message to know that a life completely happy for no external reason is not only completely possible, but it is your right.

jeudi 4 novembre 2010

No Excuse Happiness

"There's not much to say about being." Eckhart Tolle. This morning i was greeted with this quote. He went on to explain that being just simply is. As i was in the shower (where i do some of my most profound thinking) the idea of just being kept circulating and it's true there isn't a lot to say about what it is but there is a whole lot to say about what it isn't.

Have you ever had that feeling of supreme, no reason, shit-eating grin happiness? All of a sudden you find yourself in this inexplicable state of joy. The moment before you have the thought "i am happy" is when you are being. Once you start thinking (no matter if it is a "good" or "bad" thought) you are no longer being. Being is that place of silence where everything exists. In my last blog i wrote about the silence under the noise. When i was no longer hooked on translating words or trying to understand another world opened up to me. I called it silence but Mr Tolle might call it being (though i think he may use the term silence as well.)

Being is that place where time stands still, where noises stop, where expansion exists. Most everyone has experienced this at one time or another maybe watching a sunset, playing a football game or while painting (moi.) The question is not so much what is being but for most the question is "how do i quit thinking and just start being?" There are a million answers from "sit in meditation under a tree until you reach enlightenment" to "undergo deep pyscho-analysis," to "drink a bottle of Jim Beam." But the simplest answer i know is pure acceptance of what is. No resistance to Life. Not even if Life (i.e. you) is thinking in this very moment. Acceptance of what is gets you to the present, to being, faster than any methodology, spiritual path or drugs. That being said acceptance is mighty hard for most people. Why? Because we have these puny little minds telling us what we should be doing, how we should be living our lives and every reason right now is wrong. It isn't. Life is NEVER wrong. It may take you (your puny mind) a while (or even your entire life) to figure out. But just reflect. How many times have you thought something was terrible (a job loss, a drunk drive ticket, the death of a loved one, a broken arm) only to look back on the event sometime later and say, "Wow if I hadn't broken my arm, i never would have quit my job and gone back to school." What you thought was so terrible really wasn't. And this doesn't mean there aren't terrible things out there, the death of a friend or family member, an illness; these are challenging things but the one thing Life always does--it continues to create. As long as we breathe, we can create. We can participate in Life.

And that gets me back to the being which is really about acceptance. There isn't a "right" way to live your life, yet most people keep thinking that if they do this or that, or when this or that happens then they will be happy. Maybe temporarily but deep profound happiness, no excuse happiness, no thought happiness comes from being. Try asking someone to describe his ideal life and watch just how many people describe his own life and if you are really brave try asking yourself.