Kill the pain of what no longer serves you.
Crush it into blood and bones.
Eat it, drink it,
the suffering of the world.
Recognize all the tools you have to do so.
Don’t be afraid, my love
to kill the snakes, the tension
in the paraspinal muscles 
with Durga Ma’s powerful weapons.
Feast on them, devour them
to taste what else is there.

​*Inspired by Eye of the Heart retreat.

Showered in blessing
from skies above,
nourished by the Earth
below,
there is gentle encouragement 
to inhabit the whole energy body,
a genuine wish to extend
these blessings and nourishment
to you, your body
superimposed on mine.

What would an image-
billions of bodies
umbilically
connected to Earth,
roots in unfathomable 
beyonds-
look like?

​For now, it is enough
this image of you and me,
superimposed.

*Inspired by Eye of the Heart retreat.

There are so many templates for living-
for the ideal doctor, mother, wife,
daughter, for the model citizen.
This template can even make a mess
of Buddhist spiritual practice,
constrict the breath of poetry, 
any artful, intuitive endeavor,
creating a sterile individual 
whose heart never bleeds
and eyes never tear.

Let me then be messy,
be vulnerable, be human 
a near and far enemy 
of the Brahmaviharas,
and still a legal resident
because of this honest 
template for living 
that still judges
and is learning 
to embrace it all.

*****

An image of two hands
move up and down the spine
massaging, caressing
holding the energy body
in sincere prayer.
This body, this temple,
church, mosque, synagogue-
they are all Brahmaviharas
waiting to be recognized,
understood and loved.

​*Inspired by Eye of the Heart retreat.

When wearing a wide-brimmed sun, hat, and polarized glasses, beware of obstacles at an outdoor rockery.

Treat every part of the body with reverence and respect. Though it is hurting, it serves a valuable function for the journey.

Let healing time replace clock time. Moving any faster will delay the healing process. 

Comparing your body to others is like comparing the wood of an oak to a cedar tree. They serve different purposes. 

Cuts, scrapes, bruises, even broken bones don’t break you. It is your unwillingness to tenderize the wound with patience, self-compassion,  gratitude and trust that breaks you.

​
I’m fascinated by the intersection of emptiness and metta.

This month I received a birthday gift that I did not want - a flare up of chronic SI joint and gluteal muscle pain. Still there was significant appreciation for emptiness teachings.

I wasn’t a victim of a single cause or condition. Nor was I an expert on perfect management in extinguishing the burning sensations of pain. Perceptions of pain were determined by my relationship to it. When it took center stage, the attention shrunk, and there wasn’t much space for anything else.

Seeing and sensing through the eyes of the Brahmaviharas, the areas of pain transformed into an island of discomfort in a sea of healing modalities and support. The attention stretched to include ice, Advil, supportive family members, joy for my partner getting back in shape, a compassionate physical therapist, concerned patients expressing empathy, an image in supine meditation posture of the heart space pumping a champagne like bubbly substance to the rest of the body that softened, soothed, and allowed experience to be as it was, even held in celebration.

What if time is empty - past, present future - all empty of a single cause or condition that made me? What if this pain is not mine, and belongs to a divine intelligence?

The universal song is composed of both high and low notes. When dukkha arises, may I remember that others experience this, too. When sukkha arises, may others experience this, too.

“When self, time, separation, and even suffering are seen as empty, a devotion to the endless commitment of love is felt without burden.” (Seeing that Frees, Pg 327)

Don’t lose yourself.
Don’t assume you know 
what I need either.
Create what you need 
out of this image for healing,
and discover that I am more
than your limiting ideas 
of what others need.

All being suffer, have this volcanic
eruption of dukkha from within-
undigested material that 
attacks only in darkness 
when one is most vulnerable.
What is the remedy, the tincture 
of trust that will cure?
Grant me autonomy
and I will show you…

*****

There is humility in this image, the image that I thought was me and is now more than mine. “The Medicine” for my suffering changes moment to moment, day to day. “The Medicine” for the suffering of others also changes moment to moment, day to day.

What a gift to be able to stay close to myself, to fill out and resonate with the energetic and emotional body, to cultivate space and ease in this vihara, to impact space and ease in others.

*****

Benevolent breath
Fill me with purpose
Receive my inadequacy
As a distant memory
You are the baseline beat
To every song I sing
My entry into this world
My exit off this stage
​
Stay with me
Remain with me
Watch and pray
That I fill this body
Completely 
To honor you
To know myself
To sense the song in others
And begin the improvised duet 

Heart Nebula by G. Parker

The image begins as a dream, one where the main character feels embarrassed at her vulnerabilities being exposed. She is also claustrophobic, overwhelmed by the number of people occupying her personal space. Who are they, and how can she escape?

Is the dream mine, or does it belong to someone else? My mother-in-law is stuck in a nursing facility in India, wanting nothing more than to return to her home and live out her last days with space and ease.

Space and ease. Something about these words carry a significant resonance, like bells at the end of a religious ceremony when the priest is chanting an ancient Sanskrit prayer. The words are not only invoked in present time, but from the accumulated karma of past lives, the possibility of seeing and sensing with more sacredness in the future.

Carrying the dream and it’s multiple interpretations like a warm shawl to morning meditating, I allow space and ease to fill the body with meaningful intention. The mind is eager to apply teachings of Soulmaking and emptiness to the experience, to think its way to a profound insight as a candle of sandalwood and jasmine is lit to invoke a meditative trance.

But the bodies memories are ancient, slowing the mind down to feel the elements that have shaped it – rivers carving canyons, heat and wind molding earth, the stardust of all life being exchanged through cycles of respiration, porous skin, a beating heart influenced by the rhythms around it. Humbled, the mind yields to its wise ancestor, the body, and waits.

Space and ease. The energetic body begins to relax. The emotional body becomes a sanctuary – a temple, a church, a synagogue, a mosque, open natural space to receive the vulnerabilities of others and mirror back their beauty, strength, and resilience.

The heart becomes a doorway to boundless compassion, not only for a body sitting here, but for a mother-in-law in India, a partner there trying to honor his mother’s last wishes, patients recently encountered who felt complex because of ‘extra’ needs, a politician who appears narcissistic and aggressive, and so many other countless beings I have overlooked from contraction and dis-ease.

May this artful insight, empty of a single person, place, practice, or state of citta, filled with love from multiple beings, places, practices, and states of citta, be for the benefit of all.

What is this color of healing,
this drop of kindness introduced
at the crown of the head,
diffusing through the whole body
with shimmering beauty
in the midst of breakdown?
I know I’m going to die,
that we all will perish
with dread or delight
depending on inner
and outer conditions.
 
Why not write a poem,
listen to music that lifts me
up from despair on wings
of hopeful possibilities?
I refuse to ignore this tincture
of love flowing through me--
a river of meaning mixing
with other tributaries on the way
to Right Understanding.
May i be a refuge for many.
May we be a refuge for all.

There is never a dull moment to practice.

Is it night sweats caused by extra spice or sugar from dinner last night, a muscle spasm from a disturbing dream, or something else? The condition has been ongoing for three years, evading a specific diagnosis, even by my own medical mind.

I do not like this mysterious condition that causes a significant portion of the back body and limbs to tense and contract. Trying to attack it with many modalities, including hormone replacement therapy, dietary changes, cooling the ambient temperature of the room, more conscientious and calming sleep hygiene before bed, I'm up again this morning before the alarm.

Fearful and frustrated, I’m inspired to try a different approach. Laying on my back, the support of the bed supported by the earth is grounding. Compassionate breath fills the whole body with a soothing, intimate massage from the inside out. Metta flows in abundance. A fire is lit in the heart’s hearth in reverence for this phenomenon, trusting the body's wisdom for a meaningful practice to arise.

Susurrations of the words contraction and  e x p a n s i o n  are heard from another dimension, imploring me to embody them in this one. I realize I’m dealing with a duality! A vision of a flower expanding in sunlight on the inbreath and contracting in darkness on the outbreath begins to fill the body. Expansion depends on contraction; contraction is born from expansion.

I slow the breathing down intentionally to feel the whole transition of bud to blossom, growth to compression. Bud and blossom are not separate, connected by a meaningful continuum. I’m invited to love the whole cycle, softening the preference for one or the other. The effect is humility and awe at the design of human experience. The blossom, the expansion is only part of the sacred story.

There is never a dull moment to practice.

Practicing with the Five S’s

Space/Splendor - Zoming out of the difficulty to notice space around it and anything pleasant to help balance the difficulty and not go into all-or-none, catastrophic thinking.

Sensations- Rather than trying to doctor the pain into a diagnosis (hard to abstain since it’s my profession), noting the sensations as ‘throbbing’ or ‘burning’ rather than ‘pain’.  It makes it less personal.

Self-compassion - Placing a hand on the hurt place and recognizing that others experience this, too. If I cannot feel the self-compassion, then inviting a figure of love to inspire it.

Not-self - Reflecting  on past inner and outer causes and conditions, present inner and outer causes and conditions contributing to the pain. Empty of a single cause or condition, and full of love.


There is a benevolence 
That softens a tangled mind
Agitated heart and tense body
Till they are all aligned 
To inhabit the moment 
With such intimacy and tenderness 
That a bright yellow center
Attracts bees to make honey
Make sweetness, make love
With all the hurt places-
Blood orange petals radiating
Metta in all directions
​Wishing for all to be free