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The Circle of Compassion

11/28/2023

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(This was first written a few months after my father died on Wednesday, August 30, 2022. It was submitted to a few publications and rejected each time. Perhaps I need to rest it here, invite it back into my own heart, and not seek anyone's approval but my own. May it offer some healing insights for others...)

It’s 1:45pm on an ordinary Wednesday in August.  A time when children returning home from summer day camps are cooling down with orange or berry flavored popsicles. A time when the sun is lazily strolling through a clear blue sky, too warm and weary to move any faster.

It’s a carefree time for most. But not for my brother.

Papa is sitting on the sofa slightly slumped over, his eighty-one-year-old spine yielding like an old, soft coat hanger to the weight of end-stage congestive heart failure, kidney disease and Parkinson’s. His signature salt and pepper beret hangs low over his forehead, covering his eyes.

After a few friends and relatives leave, my brother assumes he is just resting.

Until he moves closer to tap Papa on the shoulder, and Papa completely keels over like a marionette no longer guided by higher hands.

****
​
On Monday, two days before Papa dies, I receive a phone call from him.

“I miss you.”

His voice is magnetic, drawing me out of the embodied, grounded place I’m trying to reach. I hold the memories of this man’s significance in my life at bay; they are visitors I am not ready to confront. Right now, I’m at the gynecologist’s office waiting in an exam room to discuss treatment options for perimenopause. The appointment was rescheduled after I missed the last one visiting him in the hospital.

“I miss you too, Papa.” The response manages to push its way past the conglomerate rock of emotions stuck in my throat.

Seconds later, Dr. M rushes in like a whirlwind, eyes me on the phone, and backs out of the exam room. Clearly my phone call is more important than her services. I’m not sure I agree.

“Papa, I need to go. I’m at the gynecologist’s office. Call you later.”

Tenderness for my own wellbeing, my own healing process pulls me away from the call. Perimenopause is changing my inner landscape so much, that I feel like a foreigner inhabiting a strange body. But the force of guilt is equally strong. My nervous system is flooded with intense feelings, sacroiliac joints burning from prolonged sitting with Papa at the hospital for several hours and at my brother’s place now that he is home on Hospice.
​
Papa is still dying. After several hospitalizations for congestive heart failure, his heart is more susceptible to fatal arrythmias that can only be managed in an acute setting. As much as Papa wishes to prolong his life, quality of life outside of a hospital with loved ones is most important to him.

My thoughts are interrupted by a soft knock on the door. Dr. M reenters the exam room. I guess I’ve decided to stay. It seems like a logical decision, and my heart yearns for more guidance.

As I’m driving home from the appointment, I try to call Papa back. My sister-in-law answers. “He’s sleeping.”

“I’ll try to call him later.”

*****

I work on Tuesday and Wednesday to see a backlog of patients trying to catch up on two years of delayed medical care since the onset of COVID. They’re still afraid of the virus and all its variants, but cancer, complex pain, and confounding mental illnesses are strong competitors. My heart feels even more fragmented trying to meet everyone’s demands. Am I caring for anyone successfully?

The opportunity to call Papa later never comes. I am not there. I don’t get to say goodbye.

“Well, whose fault is that?”, my inner critic chastises. “You’re SO selfish, always putting your needs before others, even the man who raised you like his own daughter. You left your cousin brother alone to face his death. How could you?”

Another voice tiptoes into the conversation. This one feels like it’s coming from an older, wiser place. It might even be ancestral. “Dear One, it’s true you were not physically there in his last moments. You were consciously caring for so many depleted beings. Can you remember the times you were present to care for Papa in meaningful ways?”

I don’t see Papa again until my brother, sister-in-law, and I dress him in traditional white clothing at the funeral home for the final viewing before cremation. His skin is oddly smooth from the effects of funeral makeup, but it can’t hide the slight tension in his jaw, as if he is still objecting to this unsolicited outcome.

Memories that were once conveniently sequestered can no longer be held back. A shy eighteen-month-old girl arriving with her mother from India after her parents separated, trusting a strange man (her maternal uncle) at the airport to embrace her as one of his very own. Frequent trips to Yosemite and other national parks, weekend trips to Golden Gate Park and Ocean Breach in San Francisco where Papa instilled a deep reverence for the natural world and Gandhi’s principle of compassionate action in me. The time when he drove down from San Francisco to Los Angeles in my gap year between college and medical school, because I had contracted tonsillitis with a nasty secondary allergic reaction to the antibiotic, and I had begged him to come.

Flooded with guilt and grief, I question him silently. “Papa, am I worthy of this rite?”

His demeanor conveys neither judgment nor approval.

*****

The choices we make can restore or haunt us. Sometimes it’s not so black and white. I still see Papa’s face, hear his voice in the pleas of my dying patients.

“Help me!”.

Sometimes I recoil in fear and overwhelm, forgetting how to access the spirit of healing that extends beyond each exam room.

Sometimes I stay with compassionate courage and fierce tenderness, softening the boundaries between who is doctor and patient, who is parent and child.

Most days I’m learning to navigate the shifting landscape of change and loss without a clear road map, assuaging guilt with self-forgiveness, and caring for myself and others in significant ways.

Mindfulness teacher and author Jack Kornfield said, “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” As Papa once told me, even Gandhi needed a day of rest and silence.
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Bowing to the Altar of My Life

4/24/2023

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​Caste in bronze resin sitting on top of a ferocious lion, she commands attention at center stage. Endowed with power from multiple male deities to defeat the demon Mahishasura, she wields the weapons of a chakra, conch, bow, arrow, sword, javelin, trishula, shield, and a noose to clear all obstacles. Bejeweled in crimson and green ornaments adorning her crown, ears, neck, and waist, she embodies the cycle of death and rebirth, endings and beginnings necessary for all human experience.
 
My mothers never prayed to her. I wonder if paying attention to her now will strengthen and heal the maternal line.
 
To her right sits a smaller being caste is the same bronze resin. He was known to wear simple saffron robes and walk barefoot for miles in search of suitable space for long periods of meditation. 
 
I still don’t understand how he abandoned his wife, Yasodhara or his son, Rahula in search of enlightenment. Can enlightenment still be found as a householder? As I try to reconcile this paradox in heart and mind, I am still grateful for the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the numerous lists as treasure maps to freedom. Maybe he didn’t abandon his family, but sacrificed the comforts of a safe, opulent life for something far more valuable.
 
To his and her left is another small being cast in the same bronze resin. She hears the cries of the world and stays till there is ease. Her demeanor is relaxed, yet ready to spring into action and alleviate suffering at a moment’s notice. She is the embodiment of the most caring 911 system I have ever seen. I’m still exploring hidden caves of compassion inside her world.
 
Above them all hovers a spirit in flight wearing colorful feathers in solidarity with the winged friends surrounding her. Trapped in 2D and a mahogany frame, she yearns to gather momentum and fly on wings of creative intuition, to leave the limitations of 8.5. X 11“ flat space in favor of more dimensionality without rules. She embodies the wisdom of stillness and movement, the space needed for meaningful transformation to occur in divine time. She understands that the wonders of the world were not created overnight.
 
Each day I light a candle, bowing in humble reverence to each of these beings, to their symbolism and the qualities they inspire in me.
 
I still feel this heart encased in layers of misunderstanding, a hidden gem polished by years of devotion.
 
One day there will be a dissolving of all separation. One day, I will be free to love as I was meant to.
 
There is no doubt.
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Amor Fati

1/20/2023

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Picture
"The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali

Time is melting, distorted 
Not as solid as you think
Running out, slipping away
What time is it?
Do you want digital or analogue?

So much distress from the horizontal-
Running away from the past
Running towards future redemption
What’s here right now?

The trees are standing still
Understanding the meaning
Of growth in the vertical 
Amor fati
The only time is now
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Beyond Diagnoses: Seeing and Sensing with Soul

12/24/2022

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Read post here.
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Soulmaking Dharma meets Insight Meditation as Open Trust

10/17/2022

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Picture
Photo by Diana Polekhina

Dear One,
​


You wake up each morning and fill the blank page with characters and a plot supporting ideas of permanence and becoming.

How’s that working out for you? It must be disappointing, even exhausting when things don’t turn out the way you imagined.

What if you crumpled up the page, shredded it, recycled it, gently let it go to begin again? Inscriptions on the heart are not so easily forgotten.

You will forget, fill the blank page again with fixed views, and wonder how you keep picking up the same pen.

Look around you. Others experience this, too. Marinate in the warmth of self-compassion, and then remember those inscriptions on the heart of ease, beauty, loving connection, sacred freedom.

As you meditate, feel the support of the Earth, breath and silence giving space to all stories of suffering. Listen to the heart’s whispers and sense the flame of divinity within.

You are more capable than you know.

This is how you can mirror the divinity in all beings, and remind them of their birthright to begin again.


With Tenderness,

Open Trust
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She Let Go

8/15/2022

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(inspired by Sapphire Rose and this course)

She let go of the reigns,
released the wild stallions locked
in her stable of expectations.
She let go of the judgments,
militant commanders whipping
the heart-mind into shape as if
nibbana could be reached this way.
She let go of equanimity as an ideal,
small and large waves crashing
against the shores of her heart
to navigate wider seas of experience.


She understood that true magic
is loving someone into a black box,

grieving their disappearance
and searching for secret doors,
then laying down the wishing wand
for what is here, what is real.
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Framing Everything in Love

1/23/2022

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(Listen to audio version here)

(If you would like to listen to the audio version of this talk, click on the link above.)
​
​The picture changes. Have you noticed this? People, places, things I’ve loved and wanted to hold on to are no longer the same. Family pictures that we took when my daughter was a baby are different now. She’s no longer a cute little cherub, but a tall, lanky teenager complete with acne and attitude.

The picture of who I wanted to be as a mother was so radically different than who I actually was. Instead of having my shit together and nursing my daughter lovingly, I looked like I hadn’t slept for days, felt irritable all the time, blamed anyone and anything in my way (especially myself), and couldn’t breastfeed beyond about 6 weeks.

For those of you who have ever been first time parents, you know it’s challenging. Even if you haven’t been a parent, anything you take on that is new and unfamiliar can be difficult: adopting a pet, starting a new job or school, caring for an aging family member, losing a job, moving to a new place, a new medical or psychological diagnosis in you or a loved one, and so on.

But stress, discomfort, dis-ease, is not just about meeting moments of difficulty in life. We all face challenges. What makes certain ones more stressful than others? 

2600 years ago, the Buddha had a word for stress. In Pali, the language spoken by the Buddha in India at the time, the word is dukkha. Just living this human life, we know that pain is inevitable.  But the added stress is optional. There’s a saying that illustrates this point well: pain x resistance = stress. If pain is inevitable, then what adds to the stress?

It’s our resistance to what’s happening moment to moment. The desire to hold on to the way my body used to be in less discomfort and able to do certain yoga poses, the aversion to burning, searing, aching, throbbing sensations in my left gluteal muscles, sacroiliac joint and right shoulder, the delusion that none of this should be happening, that I should be able to fix it, that this experience of pain is unique to Moi and no one else has ever felt this way.

What are you currently holding on to in your life? What are you pushing away? How are you daydreaming or misunderstanding a current situation? It may help to place a hand on your heart or a part of the body that is hurting, breathing into any discomfort with as much tenderness and compassion as you can muster. If that feels awkward, then imagine a comforting presence here with you now, breathing with you, understanding you, loving you just as you are. 

With our body’s, our circumstances, the people and things in our lives ‘forever’ rotating through like a slideshow, what can we come to rely on that is real, that will provide some measure of robust comfort when the picture is always changing? How can mindful awareness frame the experience in curiosity, kindness, and remain intimately connected regardless of whether we like, dislike, or believe what we are seeing?

There’s a song that I love from high school called ‘Pictures of You’ by an 80’s band called The Cure. The lyrics start out:

I've been looking so long at these pictures of you
That I almost believe that they're real
I've been living so long with my pictures of you
That I almost believe that the pictures
Are all I can feel

 
I realize now that expectations I had of myself as a new mother, as a person with this current body, even of my daughter as they are now, are all rooted in past or future stories of what could have been, what should have been.

This moment, right here, right now can be so exquisite, unburdened by past blame or future worry. For me, The Cure for stress is to identify more with the picture frame, and not the changing picture. Easier said than done, right? It’s hard to believe this when there are constant messages and advertising of the perfect picture, the perfect body, the perfect life on Facebook, Instagram, the media and beyond.

Mindfulness practice trains us to notice when we are lost in a story that isn’t true, when emotions feel like weather systems that will last forever and are actually changing all the time, when sensations define who we are and don’t need to be taken so personally. 

Learning to identify more with the picture frame, the frame of mindful loving awareness rather than the picture of changing circumstances takes time. If you are fairly new to mindfulness practice, you may uncover thought patterns and old habits you haven’t seen before. Things can feel worse before they feel better.

Know that you aren’t crazy or doing anything wrong. This is completely normal. In firefighting, the term backdraft is used to describe the sudden introduction of air into a fire that has depleted most of the available oxygen in a room or building. Similarly, when you bring attention to patterns of desire, aversion, and delusion, they can initially feel more intense.

This is when it’s helpful to practice with the support of others- a trusted teacher or therapists, wise, loving spiritual community. I’ve also found it useful to bring a spirit of creativity, adventure, and play to these practices. Like learning to cook a dish, play an instrument, grasp a new language, ride a bike, or train yourself in any unfamiliar skill, it can feel so cumbersome if approached with rigidity or expectations of immediate results. Yuck! Who wants to do that?

And, it takes a certain amount of gentle discipline, curiosity, kindness, patience, trust, determination, care, compassion, joy, beauty, resilience, and forgivingness to keep practicing, at least in my recipe book. Your healing journey may need similar or different ingredients. You won’t know till you try, keep showing up, adding a little more of this, taking out a little bit of that.

After 15 years of practice, I still identify with the picture, and sometimes forget about the picture frame. What’s changing is the capacity of this heart-mind to notice sooner, rather than later what’s needed to frame every experience in some aspect of love. It doesn’t matter how long it takes me. What matters most is my willingness to try. I’d like to share a poem that I think speaks to this "Cure for It All" by Julia Fehrenbacher.
 
This life isn’t what I expected. This practice isn’t what I expected. And it’s inspired such a radical honesty in me to try and see things as they are. Nothing more. Nothing less.  Anything else just doesn’t make sense.
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Never Give Up

1/8/2022

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Picture
sunrise reflection on lake water by Ashish Laturkar

Burning gluteal muscles, stabbing shoulders
hives when exposed to heat or stress.
Is it Long COVID or just a coincidence?
I never tested positive, had antibodies before the vaccine.
So easy to give into despair like bleak
landscape after a nuclear explosion,
waiting for something to grow,
to give meaning to this pain.
When the evening news, the internet, work emails
and patient messages all beg for better days,
I turn to gratitude practice for solace.

I’m grateful for physical and osteopathic therapy,
for medications that help ease the pain
when another pandemic surge feels overwhelming.
I’m grateful for family holding me
with humor and household help,
for colleagues and medical staff
as smiling crescent moons
in the darkness of a sobering reality.
I’m grateful for teachers, friends, a practice
inspiring the framing of all phenomena
in beauty, wholeness and healing love.

Covid-19: you think you’re so smart,
the best magic show around with variants
evading immune systems and vaccines.
You can invade, inflame, and injure,
but you cannot insist I believe you.
Let me be a source of healing
first internally then externally--
clear water mirroring a sunrise hope
in others clouded by doubt,
beginning again and again
till their last breath or my own.
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Reflections on Equanimity

12/4/2021

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I. Establishing equanimity as ease and relaxation, orienting to pleasure, and lingering with experience
​
Picture
red maple leaf in close up by Atle Mo

blood red Japanese maple 
shocks the heart
back to life
your delicate leaves
won't last forever
​
​
II. Equanimity as earth element, stability, or solidity
​
Picture
marble toy by Louis Maniquet

the Earth pulls
you close to her
why lean forward
or turn back
when her love
can hold you here
​

III. Equanimity as wind element, movement, change, letting go to let in.
Everywhere the wind carries me is my home. (Yu Xuanji)
​
Picture
white dandelion by Saad Chaudhry

the wind unravels
your perfect grooming
all your hidden secrets
it's best to come undone
shelter in breath and silence
making space
to understand


​
IV. Equanimity as space or silence, widening the attention.
​
Picture
aurora northern sky by Luke Stackpoole

primordial womb
the birth of
space and silence
if you don't like
what you see
return to the womb
if you don't like 
what you hear
return to the womb 
and begin again
​​
***Equanimity weekend retreat inspired by Robin Craig, led by Brian Lesage
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Poetic Reflections from Retreat

10/10/2021

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Picture
"Born of the Light" by Meganne Forbes

​Mother Moment

she understands you worry about the future
keep visiting the past as if rereading
the chapters will help you to understand
she invites you to be here
sitting and walking, just breathing
as if there’s no place else to be
as if this is the missing link
the sanctuary you always sought
​
Picture

​The Last 15 Minutes of a 45 Minute Sit

leaning into what’s next
the body screams to get up
as the mind conspires to leave
not yet, the heart whispers
just one more minute
as body and mind agree
to settle, to relax
then the sound of the bell
an invitation to enter life
one minute, one breath
one day at a time
​
Picture

​Anjali Mudra

bowing to everyone you meet
reflecting True Nature
when it’s hard to see
because there is clarity in you


Picture

Gone
 
 Gone, the sweet tartness of plump blueberries,
the crunch of cinnamon peppered almonds
in a sea of steaming oatmeal,
now a gurgling afterthought in the belly.
Gone, the tender tones of his teaching instructions
after the birth of an 8:45am sit,
umbilical cut to silence, to sadness
not knowing if I’ll ever see or hear him again.
Gone, the scene of a Saturday morning
girls’ soccer game at the local middle school,
the house with the rose stems
beheaded by the fall season,
white petals decaying between wood chips and soil,
the bright yellow diamond 15 mile per hour
speed bump sign as I turn the corner
of walking meditation towards home--
images encased in the album
of memory that will fade.
I’m chasing after the high school bus,
first kiss, first lover, first child, first job
the way I looked in that residency picture at 31,
abundant glossy black hair and clear complexion
though nothing was ever really clear.
Gone, the thought of what’s next on the schedule
as my invincible partner collapses
on our bed from excruciating back pain,
his body subject to breakdown
like everyone else I know.
Gone, the belief that this retreat will last forever--
a perpetual bomb shelter of safety
against the war with life
when the vihara was always within.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
A birthday candle wish that was never promised,
and a blessing of breath while it lasted.
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    Kaveri Patel, a woman who is always searching for the wisdom in waves.

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