Hers: Reflections on Last Days

One of the last photos taken on our trip out west this summer...
the end of one adventure brining us into the beginning of another.

First days are exciting and last days are bittersweet…the last day of school, the last day of a job, the last day of a yoga training, the last day of sitting down with my husband to review his last self-created yoga sequence (we’re not quite there yet, but we will be some day!), the last day of my metta practice experiment…

 

...Today’s practice began like any other in these past 54 days. I woke, I flossed and brushed my teeth, I made my way into our yoga room, and I took my seat...

My metta phrases flow easily. I sync them with my breath. Inhale. (May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be well.) Exhale. (May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.) Over these days what began as about an 18 minute meditation has turned into about 23 minutes. My breathe has grown longer, my phrases drawn out. Often, Gary joins me. He sets a timer for 20 minutes. We begin our practice with three short bells; he ends his practice with two short bells. But I continued on, repeating my phrases until I come to my last bead.

From what I understand, there is a Zen tradition where a firm slap on the shoulder with a long, flat, wooden stick is used to bring the meditator back to the present moment. These bells that signal the end of sitting practice for Gary have become my sharp slap bringing me back to the moment for the last few repetitions of my metta phrases. I’d like to say that I don’t need them, that I am able to stay present with each phrase, but alas, I cannot.

Today though, on this last day, with my phrases and breath flowing easily and my focus single-pointed, I finish before the bells. I sit in total stillness, total silence, and feel the effects of my practice. I feel the calm, I feel the openness of heart, I feel glad to have completed my goal.

Has it changed me, these days of metta practice? Am I different from when I started 54 days ago? I don’t know. I’ve had some amazing experiences, some small insights. But they are so fleeting…I learn something and then it’s gone. I have some small realization, surely meant to change my life forever and then it slips away. What if everything we learned was like that?! As in, yesterday I learned how to tie my shoes; today I forget how. But, I suppose that's the way it is for a small child. And perhaps that is what we, who are on this path, are like, small children – learning more and more each day, yet repeating the same mistakes over and over, until one day, finally, what we learn sticks and our lives change just a little bit; we grow just a little bit. And so the adventure continues...

Today is the last day of this designated experiment, but not really. It's also the beginning of the next. Each day a first day, each day a last day.
 

Hers: Challenging Adventures and Realizations

New Adventure #1:
I woke lazily today. No alarm, no set plan for the first few hours of my day. I languidly slid out of bed at 7:30 to brush my teeth. Gary and I decided to walk downtown and check out the farmer’s market. Ahh, but no. “I can’t leave yet. Let’s sit first. Let’s not disrupt this newly formed habit.” Gary often sits with me, but not today. He took a pass. With my jeans and t-shirt on, I went into the yoga room, pulled out my beads and took my seat. I truly believe this is the first time I’ve ever sat in jeans. I’m usually in what I consider my pajamas or maybe yoga pants, or sometimes even a lounge-about skirt, but never jeans.

New Realization #1:
I started just as I usually do – directing loving-kindness thoughts toward myself. It’s almost like warming-up before a good run. I start slowly, focusing on myself, sensation, breath. So many days into my practice, almost near the end of my experiment, I’ve come to realize the importance of starting with myself. I’m not only wishing thoughts of love and kindness toward myself – that I may feel love, that I may feel kindness, but, and maybe more importantly, I’m cultivating the open-heartedness to direct these thoughts toward others, to behave with loving-kindness in all my relations. May I be filled with loving-kindness has become May I be filled with loving-kindness toward others.

New Adventure #2:
I mentioned to someone recently, “It’s been too easy.” I’ve learned over the years and through experience that as I set out to “work on” something, the universe has a wonderful way of presenting opportunities for me to practice whatever it is I’m working on. And it’s been too easy. Until this past week that is. Nothing crazy, nothing life threatening, but challenging experiences nonetheless. No need to go into detail, but suffice it to say, the universe has come through.  And more than once. Lucky me, I got to practice over and over until I got it (almost) right.

New Realization #2:
Each challenge that presented itself made its way into my practice. Really, it’s the presenter of the challenge who's been getting my attention. After warming up by directing loving-kindness toward myself, I bring to mind the image of my challenger. (I think of two opponents stepping into an Ultimate Fighting cage!) I then direct and direct and direct: May they be filled with loving-kindness. May they be well. May they be peaceful and at ease. May they be happy. Over and over. Minutes pass, the image fades, but on I go. When I really feel as though I’ve lost connection to my intention, I return to myself. Then back to my challenger, and on it goes until I finish. And I think it’s over. A day goes by, another, and then a new challenge…The entire process begins again. The thing to know is that these experiences, these challenges, they stay with me. There’s a reason they even make their way into my practice. It’s because I have yet to let them go. I feel bad. I am directly loving-kindness toward another in order to make myself feel better. 

New Adventure and Realization #3:
My most recent challenge occurred only just yesterday. And I think I'm getting the message. Loving-kindness doesn't just happen on the cushion in meditation practice. It happens, must happen, ALL THE TIME. In each moment and with every opportunity that is presented to us. It makes no sense to continually react to situations from a place of fear (read anger, defensiveness, antagonism) and then go home, meditate, and some send loving-kindness thoughts to someone after the fact, expecting never to be challenged again by them or anyone else. We've all heard the cliched definition of insanity....The only way I'm going to get different results is by behaving differently in the moment. And the only way I can behave differently in the moment is to actually be present in that moment. Present and available to whatever challenge is set before me. Present with each challenge or challenging person that is sent my way. Can I treat them with the spirit of loving-kindness in that moment? When I do, there's nothing to feel better about later. Can I see their suffering and respond with love? When I do, I can then direct loving-kindness thoughts and energy with ease and from a place of truth. I've had many opportunities this past week to do just that. Some of the times I failed, some of the times I didn't. But with these new realizations, I'm looking forward to my next adventures....

Hers: 40 days in...

Me waiting...
(In Ouray, Colorado: Bear Creek Trail)

40 days ago, I sat on my mat and began a 54 day metta practice. In the beginning, most mornings, some part of what's usually a 20 to 25 minute sit would be spent contemplating what I might write about and how that particular morning’s practice might translate nicely into a blog post. After shaking that thought from my mind (over and over and over), I'd find myself wondering if anyone read what I already wrote. Or wondering about what my day would be like and what I had to do. Or analyzing, analyzing conversations and experiences; deconstructing and reconstructing. Finally, I’d find myself waiting. Waiting for something that might translate nicely into a blog post. Or else just waiting, waiting for something interesting, maybe even spectacular.

Now 40 days into this experiment, I find myself just sitting down and repeating my phrases.
  May I be filled with loving-kindness.
  May I be well.
  May I be peaceful and at ease.
  May I be happy.
The blog is there, but it can wait. Work is there, but it too can wait. All of the things that hammer away on the door of my mind, they’re still there, but they can all wait.

 

Instead, as I sit and repeat my phrases, I’ve grown to know the feel of my beads. I know the feel of the spaces between them. I know for about how long I’ve been sitting by that feel. I know that only a few more repetitions are left when my right foot begins to tingle slightly. I know I’m about half way through when I have a single moment, perhaps a breath’s length of time, when I feel as though I could sit in this spot for eternity. In truth - it’s just after that moment escapes me and I reflect on it that the knowledge comes. And I mindfully return to my phrases. Drawn away from them only by the sensation of and in the moment, a growing intimacy with myself, my beads, my phrases. It's not exciting in the ways I thought it might be. It's not spectacular like the mountains of Colorado in July. But there's a deep calmness, a comfort.




Birdy taking her place on my computer,
although she generally prefers Gary's chest.
 

It reminds me of that sweet heavy feeling I have on those days I wake early, early, and roll over to find Gary and Birdy. Pile on, I say, pile on; Birdy on half of Gary's chest and my head on the other. All of it a miracle, an infinite wonder, like the feel of small, carved sandlewood beads between my fingers.



Hers: Machine Thinking on Day 18

Day 18 of my 54 day metta practice. I recently came across this passage. It's been at the forefront of my mind the last few days each time I come to sit...

When you are walking along a path leading into a village, you can practice mindfulness. Walking along a dirt path, surrounded by patches of green grass, if you practice mindfulness you will experience that path, the path leading into the village. You practice by keeping this one thought alive: "I'm walking along the path leading into the village." Whether it's sunny or rainy, whether the path is dry or wet, you keep that one though, but not just repeating it like a machine, over and over again. Machine thinking is the opposite of mindfulness. If we're really engaged in mindfulness while walking along the path to the village, then we will consider the act of each step we take as an infinite wonder, and a joy will open our hearts like a flower, enabling us to enter the world of reality. -  Thich Nhat Hanh; The Art of Mindfulness

Machine thinking...

Machine thinking is the opposite of mindfulness.
Machine thinking is mindlessness.

 

Too often I practice this machine thinking. Machine thinking, doing, and speaking. I do it when I wash the dishes, when I do the laundry; I do it when I'm tired, when I'm irritable; I do it when I'm driving and when I have other things that I need or want to do. I see now, most clearly, that I even do it in my meditation practice, my metta practice. My multi-taking mind can easily have three or more thoughts moving along as I mechanically repeat my metta phrases, phrases that become something like soft music playing in the background. But am I really multi-tasking? Of course not. That implies that I'm actually getting something done as I'm doing it. My scattered mind, my machine thinking and doing mind, in the end, gets nothing done at all, nothing besides having sat in physical stillness for 20 minutes.

 

The purpose of metta practice is to cultivate the spirit of loving-kindness and compassion toward one's self and others. I need to be present in that process for that process to ever occur. Simply reciting the phrases, I'm coming to believe, doesn't really mean a thing. Just like the path leading into the village, to really experience the intention behind my metta phrases I must practice mindfully. I need to pay attention to these phrases as they pass through my mind. I must let all other thoughts come and go, not jump into the cab of whatever thought arises and take off.

Might I then consider each phrase as an infinite wonder?

(May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be well.)

Might a joy open my heart like a flower as I enter the world of reality?

(May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.)

 

I guess I'll try again tomorrow.