LESSONS FROM AFAR!

Early this morning I had the opportunity to visit with a son via Skype who is stationed in Kuwait . He is a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. He shared a highlight from his service this past year when he landed his helicopter on an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. 

He was a bit anxious about the landing since the sea was quite choppy and the ship was rising up and down. The concern was his landing down as the ship was rising up. A collision is what he wanted to avoid.

However, he found that if he hovered long enough to be in sync with the ship and its natural movements, it was a very easy and smooth transition. His second landing was even better!

I think there is a lesson in that experience for us all. We may come into contact with another person and find ourselves not in sync with them. Hovering means being quiet long enough to allow our breath to take us to this moment in time. Just as this pilot was able to observe the aircraft carrier while hovering over the ship, he was able to sense how the ship breathes in and out, up and down, and he finds harmony and avoids any unneeded collisions and confrontations.

Observing our breath at the tip of our nose allows us to get out of our mind and not listen to the stories that our mind is constantly fabricating. Fear has a way of putting us into confrontations where love brings harmony. When we sense the fear, this is a good time to return to observing our breathing in and out. After we have done this a few times, we can count on more happy landings. It is now easy to see how a helicopter can land on a ship even in stormy weather.

BECOMING BROKEN!

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

And all the King’s horses and all the King’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again!

I first heard the term “being broken” from Mark Nepo in an interview he did with Oprah.  He explained that in his struggles with cancer he had become “broken”. As he shared his life experience, I realized that he had come up against something that was greater than him. He realized that he was powerless to overcome his difficulties with the resources at his disposal. Admitting one is powerless over their problems can be a real wake-up call. And this wake-up call is happening all around us.

Admitting our powerlessness changes everything. The roadmap we have been using to run our daily life is no longer relevant. The skills and tools we have previously developed are admittedly not enough. And the things we used before to solve our problems now falls short. For some, this realization can come slowly. For others, this admission takes place in an instant like walking through a door into a different room or picking up the phone and receiving news we were not prepared to hear.

It can come to us in a 1000 different ways and often more than once in our lives. However it happens, this I am convinced of, it happens to all of us. We all become broken. When that awareness finally dawns on us, Mark’s the next observation becomes a powerful insight. That is, “just because one is broken is no reason to see the world as broken.”

So, where does that lead us? I guess we could cling to our old beliefs in choosing to be resilient and say to ourselves “I was handed a lemon therefore I will make lemonade!” Or “Humpty Dumpty is broken therefore I will make an omelet!” I am not convinced that that is an admission of our powerlessness and trusting that there is a force at work in our lives that we can rely on that is beyond our understanding. This is where grace and hope and faith appear and lead us on a new adventure of compassion for everyone we meet today and gratitude for everything that we see all around us.

But I think there is a different direction that leads to a new awakening. By acknowledging our ego and mind cannot overcome our difficulties, we can become “broken open” and allow our heart to lead and direct. The heart becomes our compass and points in what direction we would walk. And the mind then takes its lead from the heart and maps out how we can achieve what the heart can see.

And with the heart listening, we are touched by the songs we hear. And with the heart watching, we see beauty all around us. And with the heart alive, we wake up today realizing that “this” is one incredible moment!

Fighting The Instrument

Often the instruments of change
are not kind or just
and the hardest openness
of all might be
to embrace the change

while not wasting your heart
fighting the instrument.

The storm is not as important
as the path it opens.

The mistreatment in one life
never as crucial as the clearing
it makes in your heart.

This is very difficult to accept.
The hammer or cruel one
is always short-lived
compared to the jewel
in the center of the stone.

By Mark Nepo

Oh Ingrid – – we miss you already!

I first heard of Ingrid from her daughter Carol while visiting my sister in the Puget Sound area. The story that Carol shared of her moxie mother who had overcome so many challenges in her early life with polio were amazing. 

She had been an early patient of Dr. Bernard Jensen the father of Iridology and good eating. This set her on a road of a lifetime of natural foods for her family. Her love of gardening spilled over onto her daughter who raised a wonderful vegetable garden each year.

I didn’t get to meet Ingrid right away. Her husband Jim was bed ridden at the time with chronic illness for a few years. And Ingrid, the caregiver that she is, remained at his side to make his life easier. Ultimately, Jim passed on and Ingrid was released from her lifetime stewardship. She now turned her focus to helping Carol raise a great vegetable garden in the backyard.

Our first meeting was to be for Thanksgiving at my sister’s house. Everyone was helping make dinner and there were about six cooks in the kitchen. And like a butterfly going from flower to flower, Ingrid was there, helping everyone with their dishes and declaring herself the official Thanksgiving taster. I had never met anyone as happy and colorful in a room full of people.

The best part of all was that I loved to tease her and she loved to be teased. Magically, we hit it off from the moment we met. By the end, it was the two of us making turkey gravy for 12 people. As we worked over the stove, she shared a bit of her life story with me. I could see that I was in the presence of one who had overcome many great difficulties in her life. Being broken is no reason to see the world as broken.  And she was not broken but rather broken open and her heart directed her mind.

As she shared the sacrifices and challenges she had made the past couple of years for her dear husband Jim, I decided to pose one of those mysteries of the universe questions that some of us get hung up on. I wanted to know what is the cause of all our suffering. So I asked her, “Ingrid, you and Jim spent a lifetime eating as healthy as you could and were very active. Why do you think Jim came down with cancer?”

Her response amazed me. I could tell she had never even troubled herself with that question. She wasn’t even worried about the cause. She said, “Gosh I don’t know! Maybe it was stress! Maybe it was me!” And then she laughed as she shrugged if off and moved on to this moment in time. The lesson I got from Ingrid is to be careful about troubling ourselves with things that really are nonissues. What was important was the compassion she could give and share in these moments with those around her.

As Thanksgiving drew near this year, I wanted to enjoy another magical Thanksgiving. So we invited ourselves to my sister’s for Thanksgiving. Last year I had teased Ingrid because she wore a pair of ear rings that were parrots and she called them turkeys. I was able to find a real pair of Turkey earrings to give to Ingrid at Thanksgiving. But it was not to be!

The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, Ingrid started reading all of her old love letters from Jim who had passed on two years previous. On Friday, six days before Thanksgiving, Ingrid read the final love letter from her late companion. The next day Ingrid had a heart attack. And on the day before Thanksgiving Ingrid passed on to be with Jim.

I was never able to give her the Turkey earrings or tease her while working in the kitchen again. But the lessons you taught me will remain.  Thank you Ingrid. You have been a wonderful teacher and friend. 

LET THEM EAT MUSH!

Some 60 years ago, when I was a child, and long before I became a certified geezer, I would spend the weekends with my grandparents on their five-acre vegetable roadside farm. Some of my earliest memories of those overnight visits were the heavy hand tied quilts made with squares from my grandparents shirts and dresses. The quilt was so heavy that to lay under it, it was difficult to even turn over.

At daybreak, I could hear my grandfather rustling around in the kitchen getting the wood-fire stove hot enough to make oatmeal. He had a small pan that was just right for his daily preparations of mush. Silently he would eat his breakfast and then slip out into the field before the rest of the family was awake. Of course I enjoyed grandma’s bacon and eggs with toast. Sometimes we would have pancakes with real syrup. But I don’t remember ever eating oatmeal like grandpa. Only grandpa would eat the oatmeal before his morning of weeding and harvesting in the field.

As a young father of seven sons, I would try to steer my boys toward healthy living. When Halloween came around, I would offer each a dollar a pound for their candy and allow them to keep 25 or 30 pieces of candy. Each boy could earn $5-$10 for their Halloween booty. Somehow the word got out and the older boys began to encourage the younger ones to turn down the money and keeps the candy. Eventually, I wrote a letter to the editor suggesting that trick-or-treating should be abolished in the city. That definitely got a rise from many citizens as they wrote in to call me a communist and other derogatory terms.

The following week a good friend looked at me and laughed and said, “I bet you feed your kids oatmeal for breakfast.” How he knew that I will never know but he was right.

Now as I grow into full bloom as a certified geezer, I prefer, I select, and I choose oatmeal with a dash of cinnamon, topped with fruit, and a few crushed walnuts for my daily breakfast. Even on the road at hotels with a continental breakfast, oatmeal is my stay.

One may ask what have I learned in the past 60 years that I would make that a daily practice. Intellectually, I realize that Ayervada medicine, written some 5000 years ogo in Sanskrit speaks of foods that balance the body such as oatmeal. Scientifically, I could refer to studies that speak of the fiber and oatmeal’s ability to bind fats and oils to help reduce cholesterol. But all that is just chatter and talk-talk. What it really comes down to is that if I listen to my body I feel better on a breakfast over oatmeal then I do on a “truckers platter” of sausage eggs and hash browns.

I have no idea if any of my sons choose oatmeal for breakfast. I will give them another 40 years to figure that out for themselves.

But for myself, as I board a cruise to Alaska on a line that prides itself in food par excellent with eggs Benedict and Belgium waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, I will probably surprise the waiters when they asked me what I would like for breakfast. Oatmeal! The breakfast of champions and geezers!

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CRIP!

In my youth I loved to ride motorcycles. I read everything I could about the various models in the 60s. Over the years, I owned five different kinds of motorcycles. And even though I no longer ride, I sometimes like to tell my family I am a member of a motorcycle gang called the Crips. They even keep parking spaces near the front door of our grocery store for “the Crips”. The blue sign however looks like a stick man riding a single large wheel rather than a motorcycle.

Even with my physical limitations from 23 years of arthritis I like to think of myself as independent, self-reliant, and able to fend for myself. However that is not entirely accurate. Let me explain.

My wife had an opportunity to spend five days in Oregon with her sister and sister-in-law. I encouraged her to go. She left plenty of meals in the refrigerator.  I had plenty of clean pajama bottoms, and pans and dishes laid out that I could reach. I had a son in town who checked in daily so I knew I would be good for the week.

As is my custom, I spent some time on the patio the first morning. Apparently I was not careful enough to close the sliding door quickly as I came in. I soon realized I had a fly in the house. So as I watched TV, prepared meals in the kitchen, and checked my Internet each day, I had an unwelcome companion who soon becomes my nemesis. Going to the garage and digging out the flyswatter did little to resolve our relation. I was not flexible enough to thwap the fly into oblivion. When my son stopped by for a visit, I asked him to use the flyswatter and relieve me of this curse. He beat on me without success. I sat quietly in my lift chair and pleaded for him to continue whapping me with every opportunity. The fly simply was too frisky and would not land long enough for a good death blow.  While my son thought the whole thing quite humorous, I don’t think he realized the gravity of my situation.

I next closed the French doors to the computer room and posted a sign that said, “Please keep doors closed, no-fly zone!” So like Libya, I had declared a no-fly zone in the house. But this did little good for my TV room and I had four days until my wife returned and I was feeling more desperate by the day.

My fear was that by week’s end, my wife would come home and find a husband too weak to brush the fly away from his eyes and lips just as one might see the poor in Bangladesh living with these pesky pest. I did get relief when it grew dark and if I left the lights off. I was safe in the dark. But the day belonged to the fly.

I then began to consider a new strategy. What if I sat in the bedroom and waited for the fly to follow and then run out of the room closing the door behind me. That didn’t work! He wouldn’t follow me there and I got tired of sitting on the end of the bed.

And then serendipity took over. This morning I laid my clothes out for the day and took my morning shower. As I closed the glass door in the shower, I realized that the fly had come in with me and was on the tile. Now I had him cornered! It was me with my shower wand in the shower with the fly. I was determined that only one of us was coming out of that shower alive. After adjusting the water pressure and temperature I realized that he had moved. He must’ve landed on the black metal edge of the door. So I began to spray all the areas that were lined in black.

The water mist soon raised the pest from his hiding place, and the battle was on. Moving from side to side and corner to corner, chasing the fly with my spray of water I was finally able to shoot him down. I did not want him to come back up from the trap in the drain. So I covered the drain with my foot and let the water back up an inch and release the water down the drain, certain that after three days I was finally free at last.

Eagerly I showered and dressed and phoned my wife to share my early morning success. I went into great detail of how I was able to overcome the enemy. And while basking in the glory of this post-battle debriefing, I realized that as I was talking to my wife on the phone that a fly had landed on my hand. I had no idea that there were two. All I could say to my wife was, “Come home soon! I want you! I need you!”

An Old Rusty Pail

This story was sent to me by a friend.  The author is unknown.  If you know it's origins, please let me know so I can give proper credit.  In the mean time, let us find joy in the telling.

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.  We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out-patients at the clinic.

  One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man.  "Why, he's hardly taller than my 8-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body.  The appalling thing was his face, lopsided from swelling, red and raw.

  Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening.  I've come to see if you've a room for just one night.  I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'til morning."

  He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room.  "I guess it's my face .... I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments ..."

  For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch.  My bus leaves early in the morning."

  I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch.  I went inside and finished getting supper.  When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us.  "No, thank you I have plenty."  And he held up a brown paper bag.

  When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes.  It didn't take a long time to see that this old man had an over sized heart crowded into that tiny body.  He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her 5 children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.

  He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing.  He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer.  He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going...

  At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him.  When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch.

  He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as

if asking a great favor, he said, "Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment?  I won't put you out a bit.  I can sleep fine in a chair."  He paused a moment and then added, "Your children made me feel at home.  Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind."

   I told him he was welcome to come again.  And, on his next trip, he arrived a little after 7 in the morning.  As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen!  He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh.  I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. And I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.

  In the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden.

  Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed.  Knowing that he must walk 3 miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.

  When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning.

  "Did you keep that awful looking man last night?  I turned him away!  You can lose roomers by putting up such people!"

  Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice.  But, oh!, if only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear.

  I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

  Recently I was visiting a friend, who has a greenhouse, as she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms.  But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket.  I thought to myself, "If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!"

  My friend changed my mind.  "I ran short of pots," she explained, "and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in this old pail.  It's just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden."

  She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven.

  "Here's an especially beautiful one," God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman.  "He won't mind starting in this small body."

  All this happened long ago - and now, in God's garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand.

 The LORD does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the
outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7b)

Love Is Not an Emotion!

Recently I read of a courageous mother who fought to protect her children. As she was getting in the car, a man attempted to carjack her car. With a gun at her head, he had demanded she get out of the car. Because her children were in the car, she said NO! The man was surprised. Fear appeared to have no effect on this mother. 

A fight ensued and judging from his later mug shot, the intruder looked the worse for the encounter. I suspect the man felt safer in the custody of the police. For the mother, it was never an issue of being afraid or of giving up the car. Her children were her only concerned.

This reminded me of another news event that I heard took place in India a few years ago. A train had struck and killed a baby elephant. The mother elephant then proceeded to derailed and demolished the engine of the train. It was later determined that the engine could not be repaired.

For me, both of these stories reflect an outward expression of an inner truth. That love is the most essential universal law on earth. We are growing and maturing and now on the verge of discovering that our essential nature is in reality the celebration of love. Life is love and love is life and we will not be separated from either.

The universe is benevolent and works for our greater good. If we have forgotten that or would argue with that then we need to change our daily practice for this to seep into our lives. There is an orchestrated harmony that can be seen here upon the earth, up in the skies, and out in the cosmos of the stars. We are surrounded in every moment of time by an infinite power of goodness. This is what permeates and constitutes our being.

“All life is born in the waters of love, which are absorbed into our being and lived through our heart.  

Love is not an emotion. It is our complete state of being human. There is no wall love cannot tear down, no hate which love cannot imbue with light, no obstacle love cannot overcome. 

If we have been miserly with love, self absorbed, we missed the very essence of who we are. When we express love, it brings us the solutions to all problems, the warmth and embrace and resolve of all things. When we feel anger, we must sit in the self and observe this anger. All things eventually dissolve if we remain aware.”   Maya Tiwari 

I believe this understanding of love is not learned, it is remembered. By sitting in the stillness of the morning and watching the day unfold, or observing the sun as it sets at night and smelling the scents of the flowers released at dusk is to be reminded that goodness is our inheritance.

Too often, too much of our day is filled with distractions that keep us from this divine memory. May we find clarity of thought in the stillness of this moment in time. 

Help us to remember, not to forget, that we are God’s best idea and cannot be separated from that Love.  It is who we are.  And at times, we have others, who by example, remind us of this truth.  And I know of one wannabe thief who had a chance to learn that very lesson.

OUR DAILY PRACTICE

As I sat early this morning on my back patio, studying Ayurveda, I noticed our neighbor across the fence hanging out her laundry. What makes this unusual, is that my homeowners association has banned clotheslines. 

My neighbor is in another association and can hang out her clothes to dry. She lives in a very large home and can easily afford a dryer. However, she chooses to dry her clothes outside. 

Question! Have you ever slept in sheets on a bed that were dried on a clothes line? It is glorious! I am jealous of my neighbor! It brings memories of my mother hanging clothes and my sleeping in clean sheets from outside.

Today, we use an electronic dryer with a motherboard that cost $1000. How have we become so disconnected to mother Earth? For the sake of convenience, we are losing our connection to this present moment.

The earth is a macrocosm and we are a microcosm made up of the same components. Those are earth, water, fire, air, and space. The food we eat is composed of those five elements. The plants we raise use these five elements in various degrees. I have a shamrock plant in a pot that sat on the patio. The daily wind was stressing it. It was getting too much of ‘air’ from the five components. So we moved it to the bathroom near a window. In one week it bloomed and blossomed beautiful white flowers! The five components were back in balance.

Like the plants we raise and the food we eat, we also require a certain balance for our Constitution. Our bodies are also made up of these five elements. And through our relationship with the earth we can find healing.

We need to realize that health is a state of living in harmony with nature as a whole and with our own basic natures. We resonate with the world because we were formed from nature. And it will be nature that heals us when we become ill.

And the only way to live in harmony with the cosmos is to do what is to be done in the present. Or so explains Maja Tiwari in her book THE PATH OF PRACTICE.

So as I watched my neighbor this morning hang up her clothes to dry with the fire of the sun and the air of the wind, I knew I was watching someone connecting with nature and this moment in time.

“By finding spiritual accord in our daily routines, we can find this peace elsewhere and everywhere. If we cannot find the harmony in our everyday actions, we will not find it anywhere else.”             Maja Tiwari

OK! It's True.... I am a Tree Hugger

the dancing quaking aspen

The dancing quaking aspen, is the darling of the trees.

she’s lovely and she’s graceful, swaying pretty as you please.

The shaking, quaking aspen, kicks up her hem to dance.

and sways with winds a singing, her limbs like legs to prance.

The tempo of the music, whistles through the air.

and leaves like hands a spinning, grasp every gust so fair.

Like pinwheels in the breezes, her branches turn to fly. 

across the great expanses, in tune with partnered sky.

And when the storm is played out, and dancers have a rest.

the tune heard in the stillness, are the bird’s songs in their nest.

The Oak, the Birch, the Maple, stand stalwart in the wind.

but the darling quaking aspen, is the girl I’d ask again.

Woody

Letting in the moonbeams!

I enjoy old movies and watching for the life lessons they often reveal. Recently, I watched Moonstruck with Cher and Nicholas Cage. The story is about Italian families living in New York City. It is a cute romance about an older brother who is going to marry Cher. The older brother wants his younger brother to come to his wedding. The two brothers have not been speaking to one another for five years. Cher is sent to visit with the younger brother and to invite him to the wedding.

Cher learns why the younger brother is angry at her fiancé. Five years previous, the younger brother lost his fingers in a bread machine and then his own fiancé left him. So what does this loss have to do with the older brother? It happened while he was working on an order of bread for his older brother. So he blames his brother for the bad things that happened in his life.

This is what makes this movie so ridiculously funny. Resentments have a way of pushing out all the daily good that comes to our lives. And the reasons we give for holding onto them are usually just as funny. Unwilling to buy in to his pity pot party, Cher poses a question it gets to the crux of the issue. She asks, “are you the only one that has ever shed a tear?” She cuts to the quick by pointing out that life is suffering and we all suffer. The younger brother has no monopoly on suffering.

What comes to light is that Cher was once married and had lost a husband to a bus accident. Eventually the younger brother realizes that he is not the Lone Ranger. Accepting this reality about life as suffering, helps us to reach out to everyone around. As the younger brother let’s go of his old resentment, he discovers a new passion for life, living, & love. All of which culminates in a zany final scene with the family around the breakfast table.

It reminds me of a story that was once told about a mother who lost a child in death. She carries the dead child to the Buddha and asked him to restore the child to life. The Buddha at first refuses however the mother continues to insist in her grief she must have her child back. Finally the Buddha agrees to restore the child to life on one condition; that she go to the village and obtain a cup of herbs from a house that has not been touched by death. Willingly the mother rushes in to town, going door to door, asking for a cup of herbs, and then inquiring if their family had been touched by death. She is unable to find a single family in the entire village that has not been touched by some tragedy.

She finds herself returning to the Buddha with her measuring cup empty, unable to find anyone who could fill her Cup. She was unable to find anyone that had not also shed a tear. Everyone’s pain is the same. We are not unique. We are not separate. And we can share this reality about life.

So today, we have an opportunity to share joy in the joy of others. Extend compassion for the sorrow of others. And offer tender loving kindness for everyone we meet.

This thing we call death and what we do about it.

I believe that life is about letting go; letting go of things like materialism, ego, fear, resentments, blame of others, loathing of self, and any belief that separates us from one another.  And our last letting go will be that last breath which we then call death.

Beyond that, I will not speculate.  But I will tell you what I suspect.  Because hope always arises daily amongst our failures, losses and short falls, I suspect that death will rise up with a continued consciousness with no end to the river of life; even without another breath.

I have a dear friend who has confided in me that she sincerely believes that she will not die, contrary to the experience of those she has known.  She does not celebrate any birthdays since this would be an admission of a beginning and for her, since there is no beginning, there is no end, no death, no beyond; just eternity now. 

For myself, this barking body would lead me to believe that it will yet have its way with me.  Besides, the evidence that life is liquid and impermanent at every turn makes me admit that I have little influence over this mortal temple even with the “green smoothies” and ginger root that I drink daily from my Vita Mix. 

At an early age, I thought cremation seemed the most natural of ways to deal with death.  But my parents were critical of such a view and felt it unnatural.  And like their church, it was thought that it was not allowing the body to return to its original form of “dust to dust”.  But what is so natural about embalming the body with formaldehyde, placing it in a metal box which is hermetically sealed and then placing that box in a cement box in the ground? 

Reminds me of the young boy who went to church and learned that Adam was made from the dust of the earth and that when he died, he returned to dust.  When the young man arrived home, he turned to his mom and said; “Mom, there is a man under my bed but I don’t know if he is coming or going.”

Ultimately, it would seem that it is the intent of the living that determines if what we do with the body is a form of defilement or not.  Allow me to offer an example.  When Gandhi died, as a beloved soul he was cremated and his ashes spread on each of the rivers in India and some of his ashes are kept in various areas of India that he may be with us all to this day.  Ironically, when Eichmann was captured, tried and hung by Israel for his atrocities to mankind in World War II, he too was cremated and his ashes spread at sea so that he could never have any peace.   

With either way or means, I really don’t care; for me it is all a case of mistaken identity anyway since I am not my body.   Today, I believe the lesser of two evils is cremation and hopefully with what the wife saves in costs, she can book a cruise through the inner passage to Alaska with a room that has a balcony.  I would like that for her.  Better yet, maybe I should pay for the cremation now and then I can go on that cruise with her.  Surprisingly, I learned the majority of burials in my state are cremation.

However, my real preference is to lay the body out on the dinning room table as I have seen done in Argentina for friends and family to visit and to show their kids what death looks like.  Then wrap the body in my favorite area rug I like that is in the dinning room so Beth can later go to Lowes and get a new rug to go with her seasonal changes of the house.  And I would hope that each of my sons would go to the Dollar Store and buy something made of plastic like whirligigs that would last at least a thousand years and wrap it up with the body so that when some archaeologist runs across the burial, he will be completely flummoxed wondering what the hell kind of traditions we had in our day.

Karen Dinesen, a Danish author, whose writings spawned the movie Out of Africa, once wrote; “God made the earth round so that we cannot always see where we are going and our final destination.”   And while death’s final breath can be anticipated, it cannot be predicted for when and how.  So we return to our breath right now and again let go of our contemplating, ruminating, and conceptualizing what might happen beyond the breath.  Because that is how life is lived, one breath at a time.

"this is the only day I have, let me use it to best advantage."                                 Ayya Khemma

A Case of Self-lessness, A DooLittle Raider

While we publicly honor and remember the acts of heroism in war on our behalf, yet it is the private quiet acts of self-lessness that touches my heart even more; acts that we can all do on a daily basis for those around us.  This article was especially noteworthy.

As 2013 began, there were five living Raiders; then, in February, Tom Griffin passed away at age 96.

The name may be familiar to those of you who regularly readthis column; in 2011, 

What a man he was. After bailing out of his plane over a mountainous Chinese forest after the Tokyo raid, he became ill with malaria, and almost died. When he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions. He was shot down, captured, and spent 22 months in a German prisoner of war camp.

The selflessness of these men, the sheer guts ... there was a passage in the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Mr. Griffin that, on the surface, had nothing to do with the war, but that emblematizes the depth of his sense of duty and devotion:

"When his wife became ill and needed to go into a nursing home, he visited her every day. He walked from his house to the nursing home, fed his wife and at the end of the day brought home her clothes. At night, he washed and ironed her clothes. Then he walked them up to her room the next morning. He did that for three years until her death in 2005."

How Many Me’s Are There?

The Ego would have us believe that there is a “me” that is unique, special, and gives purpose to our lives.But is that really true?  And do we really need a “me” to make sense of our lives?  It kinda runs counter to our other efforts to become “selfless” in our service to others.  And the paradox teaching of Jesus when he said,  “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”  How important am “I”?  And what must I say or do to affirm my value or how many people need know me to confirm the “me”?  The social media of Facebook and Tweeting and You-tube would have us believe that being heard and seen offers us greater self importance and American Idol it’s pinnacle. 

Here is my premise.  There are many “me’s”.  And there is no just one me.  Our lives constantly evolve and unfold and that to define ourselves by some past bad or good experience is futile and just plain an illusion. Life is fluid and not solid.  Like a kaleidoscope, every changing moment and turning event is different and we are never the same.  Our self importance lies elsewhere. 

With laughter, I love to read the story in John chapter 9 of the bible where Jesus heals a blind man and then the town cannot figure out who the blind man is now.  They cross examine the man, then his parents, and then again the man.  And he kept telling them, “It is me!  It is me!”.

The neighbors therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he.   John 9

Some years ago I sat across the table  at a family dinner from a favorite cousin with whom I had spent a lot of my teen years.  He hadn't  a clue who I was.  Half way through the meal he was shocked to learn it was “me”.  Where was the “me” that he knew twenty years before?  So I must ask; if the “me” is constantly changing, which “me” is really “me”?  I don’t say this to confuse anyone.  I raise the point to suggest spending any time in thought and energy trying to invent or reinvent who we are is wasted.  All part of the illusion that Ego would have us believe.  Just about the the time we decide we can define who we are, it changes.  Again!

One of my favorite movies is The Natural with Robert Redford and Glen Close.  Redford plays the role of a young aspiring baseball player that wants to be known as “the best that there ever was.”  But that dream was destroyed when he was shot by a strange woman.  Sixteen years later, he is still haunted by the loss of this goal that would have affirmed the “me” he always wanted to be.  

In a scene in the hospital where Redford is lamenting his loss of the “me” he always wanted to be, Glen Close gives a wise and telling response to Redford’s self-pity.  She says, “I believe we are all given two lives.  The one we learn with and then the one we live with afterwards.”  Only later does Redford learn that Close had given birth to his son and then had gone about the work of raising a beautiful son in a self-less manner for the past sixteen years. 

For a long time, I bought into this “two lives” concept.  But now I realize that it is much much bigger than just two lives.  There are many ‘me’s”; hundreds, if not thousands; and defining that “me” loses all importance.  That letting go process allows us to Be Here Now and celebrate the true gift of being alive and sharing it with one another.  It changes our daily experience.  And the wisdom we gain and the path we walk in Being Nobody & Going Nowhere, leads us on the most noble exciting discovery and journey of all.

Trick or Treat as a Metaphor for Life

I believe our early child hood experiences with Trick or Treating can be seen as a vivid

comparison to our adult day to day living.  We can become so engrossed in the accumulating process that we miss the delight in being here right now.  I am sure there is a thrill felt in running from house to house collecting ever more candy.  And the strategy of which neighborhood to ring and how late to go and how many houses we can visit as the evening draws to a close. 

It is with a sympathetic smile and chuckle that I recall one of my sons in his younger days racing from house to house with a pillow case, hoping to fill it before the night was done; only to find but a half dozen pieces of candy at the bottom of his sack.  Later he realized his pillow case had a hole that spilled his treasures as he ran. 

The years have passed and neither I nor my sons go out Trick or Treating on Halloween.  And I now wonder if we have gained any more wisdom from those earlier experiences.  Do we still revel in the thrill of accumulating?  Do we still collect and store candy in our sock drawer?  Or have we decided that we have ENOUGH. 

With a wiser understanding of what is GRATITUDE and what is GREED; I would like to think that if I went Trick or Treating, I would go without a bag.  I would ring the doorbell and holler “Trick-er-Treat” with glee and hold out my hand for a treat.  Then I would go to the curb and sit down and enjoy the treat.  Hopefully after four or five more houses, I would go home and say “Boy, was that a lot of fun. And those people sure were generous and kind.” And if I was a really great dad, I would go with my sons and show by example how to cherish the experience rather than how to "get more".

Now I know that sounds pretty ridiculous and even stupid to some.  Yet our daily human experience is predicated on what we believe the world is like.  Abundance or scarcity.  Enough or lack.  And we continue to act out on those very beliefs.  We can be tricked into believing that we need to run faster, do more, and get more. 

But the treat is Life.  Right here, right now.  And oh what a treat it is.

Forty years ago, I sang in a men’s choir and we would open our performances with this song.  And now the lyrics keep coming back to me, reminding me of real gift of life which is life itself.

Look to this day:For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of achievement
Are but experiences of time. 

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn 

Lobbing Grenades and NASCAR Thinking

It seems I always learn something from the experiences that my sons have and share with me.  I try to listen closely to their tales.  One son was going through Marine boot camp and was on the training field for throwing grenades.  Apparently there is a very specific protocol to throwing grenades effectively.  And this is one of those specific times when “mindfulness” in training is especially important.  Just going through the motions doesn't always work.  More is required.  And this is what my son suddenly realized as he was holding a live grenade.  Without any further thought he heaved it out and away with it culminating with an explosion in an area that was NOT expected by the instructor who yelled, “Where the hell were you aiming?”  To which he replied, “I wasn't aiming, sir.  I just got rid of it.”

The mind is an amazing tool in our lives.  Unlike the body which needs to be fed two or three times a day, the mind requires to be fed constantly.  We are continuously feeding the mind information to analyze, evaluate, and judge.  This leads some to believe that they can “multi-task” efficiently.  Recently I heard of a driver who was driving with his knees and texting on two different cell phones, simultaneously.  What this really reflects is a “racing mind”.  Like Star Trek, this is a mind going at warp speed and spinning out of control.  Sometimes I refer to such thinking as NASCAR thinking.  Racing at 200 miles per hour and going nowhere but in circles and processing the same tape loops over and over.  And we end up just lobbing grenades everywhere with no known aim or direction.

There is a way out of the box of the racing-mind.  We can indeed take noble control of our minds and slow it down.  Vipassana meditation teaches how to do that with breathe awareness.  It helps us come back to NOW and this moment in time and not to dwell in the future fears and concerns.  We can rehearse the future so much that we lose this moment and change the human experience that we are so concerned about being in control.  In all our mental contriving about what is going to happen next, we can stop the flow of goodness already coming our way.  Soon, we are just lobbing grenades.  Mark Twain understood this toward the end of his life when he said;

“I have had many trying and difficult problems in my life. 

Most of which never happened.”

Yesterday I had a doctor’s appointment at 1 p.m.  We arrived early and left after 3 p.m.  We started our wait in the waiting room, then to one exam room and then shuttled to yet another exam room.  Along the way, we learned that the lab work they wanted last week was not done.  It seemed like someone was just lobbing grenades since last Friday. 

I find this is the best time to practice my breathe awareness.  It can be helpful.  And when finally the visit with the doctor came, our time proved worthwhile.  As my wife and I left the exam room, the doctor shook my hand and put his hand on my shoulder and wished me goodness in his comments.  That usually doesn't happen in my office visits.  I suspect practice of the now may well have affected the visit verses having a racing mind after two hours of waiting.  Besides, who wants to be lobbing grenades all day?   

Whatever harm a foe may do to foe,

or hater unto one he hates.

The ill-directed mind indeed

can do one greater harm.

Dhammapada 42

I Can Sleep Through a Thunder Storm!

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Matthew 6

The story is told of a farmer who needed to hire a farm hand to help with the work.  While interviewing one fellow, he asked what his qualifications were.  The fellow responded, “I can sleep through a thunderstorm.”  The farmer thought this an odd response but decided to hire him anyway.  

It was not long before this very scenario came to pass.  A thunderstorm arose during the night and the farmer attempted to awake the farm hand to help secure things.  He could not raise him.  So the farmer commenced to check the barn.  It was already locked and secured.  He checked on the animals.  They were in their stalls.  All was found to be secure and in place so the farmer returned to bed.

When I first heard this story told as a young boy, I thought, wow, that farm hand was quite an amazing weatherman to look at the sky and predict the future weather and what plans needed to be made.  Later, I came to believe that it taught the need to plan for every possible outcome and anticipate that.  But the years have taught me better.  Beyond the physical preparations there are the meta-physical preparations or the things beyond the material world.  It is our thought preparations that matter most.

When the unexpected enters our lives, if we have learned to train our minds, we will not remain awake all night trying to solve the unsolvable and control the uncontrollable.  We will sleep with the peace that exists beyond all words.  Wisdom will have taught us what to let go of and how to treat all things equitably.  If we understand how the mind works, we will not allow it to be the source of our suffering.  Be it a new medical diagnosis for ourselves or a loved one, or a turn of events in our work and daily life, we are not unraveled. 

Recently we had a dear friend come to stay with us for the weekend.  Her thunderstorm was a letter from a loved one that had attacked her most unfairly.  She read the letter again and again and then shared it with others and gained a lot of sympathetic support for the unfairness of it all.  By ruminating upon this letter and turning it every which way but loose, she found she was unable to sleep that night through her own thunderstorm.  Instead, she found herself “stirring the pot” throughout the night. 

There were some other choices that she could have applied.  Rather than “chemicalizing” her body with negative responses to this letter, she could have replaced those thoughts with loving kindness and confirmed what she knew was good and true about the letter writer.  Or she could have remembered that “miserable people spread their misery” and felt compassion for another in suffering.  But this all requires mental preparation and mental training to replace one thought with another rather than be buffeted by the storms’ own arrows.   

 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

                                               Psalms 91

If we are not prepared to control the thoughts that we think, we are not ready for the thunderstorms that will pass through in our lives.  The tape-loops that we play over and over in our minds bear the fruit that we enjoy when we retire to bed each night.  Why?  Because “as is the seed, so is the fruit.” And that is one of the best arguments I can make for learning to meditate effectively; learning how to sleep through a thunderstorm.

“The Buddha spoke about eleven benefits that come from loving kindness.  The first three are ‘One goes to sleep happily, one dreams no evil dreams, and one wakes happily.’  If anybody has difficulty falling asleep, you can be sure it is because of a lack of loving-kindness, and sleeping pills don’t answer this problem.  Lovingness does.  

Then the subconscious also doesn't act in an unpleasant way so there are no evils dreams, no nightmares, and one wakes with the same feeling that one had on going to bed, namely the same loving thoughts toward all beings as one had the previous day.” BEING NOBODY, GOING NOWHERE by Ayya Khema

COMPASSION; one of the great lessons in Suffering.

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.“
John Wesley 

Earlier in life, I suppose I never stopped and looked to see the compassion all around me in the hurried, harried, busy world of daily living.  A Saturday morning shopping at Costco should convince most that compassion is on the endangered species list.  It seems easier to witness the rudeness in others than the compassion. 

Yet a five month stint on crutches for me some time ago changed all that.  As I would gimp along toward the doors of the mall, there would always be some stranger stopping and waiting to open a door for me.  And as I would thank them gratefully for their kindness, they would often remark how they too had experienced such a need for crutches or how a member of their family had need of them.  I found myself depending on the kindness of strangers.      

So what are the portions of my life that I treasure most?  It is the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love to others that I had done.  And because I too have been the recipient of so many of those kindnesses, that has evoked a sublime state of gratitude that I strive to share with those that express such goodness.  

And waffling back and forth between compassion and gratefulness and gratefulness and compassion all day long is a life worth living.  And the people I meet along the way are most beautiful.  I suspect suffering has also played a role in their lives.

 “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. 

These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.“Elisabeth Kübler-Ross 

Patient wants a “Do-Over”

In our everyday life, our thinking is 99% self-centered. 

“Why do I have suffering?  Why do I have trouble?”

-----Shunryu Suzuki

As I moved from one treatment room to the next and grabbed for the file, I saw the words “Patient wants a Do-Over” pasted to a yellow post-it note.  Confused, I went to the front desk to ask the receptionist what that meant.  She explained that the patient felt I was pre-occupied yesterday when she came in and the treatment didn’t take.  

I was surprised since she was a regular patient over the years that came in every three or four months when she felt the need for care.  She lived outside of town at a ranch that hosted retreats for people from back East who came to Montana to practice yoga. 

Sometimes the ranch would shuttle a guest into town for me to treat as a chiropractor when they injured themselves.  I had a good working relationship with these people so this note was both embarrassing and perturbing.  Most of them lived in a tee-pee or a yurt for the season.  They wore earth tone colors since their clothes were either 100% wool or cotton.  And as vegans, they ate lots of raw garlic that seeped through the pores of their skin to ward off any unfriendly bacteria. 

Reviewing my notes, I thought everything looked good on paper.  Baffled and perplexed, I didn’t know if I should be defensive and angry or open and apologetic.  I went in and asked what was wrong with my treatment.  She responded, “Nothing, you just were not here.”  I didn’t know what to say and stood there hesitating.  She stood up and got on my table and said, “Just fix me.”  So I did.  I paid attention and did the best I could; while not even sure I was indeed “fixing it”.  It was never mentioned again in our conversations but we parted friends that day and I continued to treat her when she needed help. 

Recently, the roles have reversed and I am now a patient and I go to receive help.  It has been a humbling experience.  As the nurses take my vitals I can tell which of them are doing it with me and who is doing it to me. 

It was only years later before I grasp the true importance of mindfulness and being aware of the moment.  Right mindedness invariably results in healthier choices and right actions.  

Our choices reflect our balanced minds and clarity in thought.  And mindfulness keeps us out of the past and the future.  Most of the time, I don’t get any “Do-over’s”.  So being mindful of this moment becomes even more important. 

When we settle into the present moment,

we can see beauties and wonders right before our very eyes---

a newborn baby, the sun rising in the sky.

--- Thich Nhat Hanh

Ripples in Daily Living

When I was twelve, I went to a Boy Scout Camp that was located beside a small lake.  In the evening when the water was still, we would toss rocks in the lake and watch their effect with ripples expanding in all directions. 

 We would heave big rocks, small rocks, and handfuls of rocks to see what effect we could make on the surface of the water.  Today, I have come to believe and am convinced we are all making ripples every day in the lives of all those around us. 

My wife likes to read NDE (Near Death Experience) stories.  I picked up some of those books and found some similarities and parallels in the various writers’ experiences.  Many of them refer to having their life reviewed and flash before them.  Some have described that experience in detail where they saw the people and the hurt to whom they had harmed in the past and had not even a clue that they had done so.  Then they saw the people that they had helped and inspired by their words and example and again, had not a clue they had had such an effect on the lives of those around them.  

To me, that is the ripple effect or phenomenon taking place in our lives daily.  Call it, It’s a Wonderful Life, or Life Sucks; it is the ripples we make in others lives which we will probably never know. 

A few months ago, I read a book called Beyond the Breath, by Marshall Glickman and I made a life goal of eliminating suffering.  Once I grasped the magnitude of suffering in our lives, I found this to be a most noble goal and I follow this path daily to see where it will take me.  I now believe this is the Road Less Traveled as described by Robert Frost.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Robert Frost

 This path has a three prong approach to eliminating suffering. 

1-         Omit unwholesome acts

2-         Commit wholesome acts

3-         Purify the mind

Shortly after adopting this life goal, I realized that I had hurt someone to whom I had sent an email with a sharp dig.  I did it with intent and it worked. 

 Realizing the suffering I had created for another; I sent a letter of apology and a promise that I would never again do that.  And if I had a problem again, I would seek them out and share my hurt and not react and strike out.  So far, it has been a watershed moment.  I consider closely now if my words will cause hurt or harm to others.  It feels good.  And the weeks are turning into months. 

Now on to step two; committing wholesome acts.  At first, I thought this would be difficult to do with my physical disabilities and limitations.  Not so.  I have found that right mindedness and right speaking allows me a rich means of showing and sharing GRATITUDE. Gratitude is one of the four sublime states of the mind and I use it every day in my speaking and my writing. 

Today I received a thank you card in the mail from a fellow to whom I had recently wrote a letter of appreciation with a gift card.  He thanked me for that gift card but what touched him most was my acknowledgement of his good works and how much I admired him. 

His thank you note will sit here by my computer for many days to come.  It helps me remember, not to forget that we are daily making ripples in the lives of those around us.  And this Thank You note is just one reflection of those ripples that are constantly expanding.