(Inspired by William Stafford’s “The Way It Is”)

There is a breath that you follow.
Sometimes the breath is heavy,
oppressed by circumstance.
Sometimes you sing,
inspired by a courage 
beyond words and music.
People die.
You grow old.
You never stop breathing
till it’s time for your last one. 

*****

Disheveled and depressed, his spirit is struggling to stay embodied. After 11 days in the hospital, the white stubble and glazed look in his eyes make me yearn for the man who introduced me to elements of the natural world as if they were my relatives, who sheltered me as his own daughter.
 
He’s still in there somewhere…
 
Sensing that he may respond to touch beyond the squeeze of a blood pressure cuff, the prick of needles drawing blood, even a cold stethoscope meant to hear the breath and beating of life, I ask the nurse for assistance in bathing him.
 
Our hands work gently, methodically, dipping white washcloths into warm soapy water, stroking dry wrinkled skin tenderly, as if we are bathing someone sacred. I hear whispers of encouragement. He is still here. Find him!
 
As if on cue, Papa responds. “Pass me a washcloth to help.”
 
Once the bathing ritual is finished, the nurse proceeds to dress this skeleton of a man in a new patient gown. I reach for the Eucerin cream and began to moisturize dry skin thirsty for better days. A single tear trickles down his cheek. It’s all that he can contribute despite the heavy diuretics he is on. We make eye contact. Something is different. The clouds still linger. There is also a clearing. 
 
Today, I am not here as a doctor, Papa. The cardiologist and medicine team have that covered. Today, I am here as your daughter, someone who wants to bathe you in love. What good is modern medicine if loving connection is lost?

​On a walk at Calaveras Big Trees National Park, the park ranger paused to pay homage to two giant sequoias that shared the same trunk. The trunks were originally separate, and fused together after a fire for mutual benefit and survival.

I thought of my mother and daughter, how the umbilical connection was severed between us at birth, how the sacral, sacred burning in my body was a sign.

I reflected on all the beings I have pushed away on this camping trip and beyond, the yearning to share the same base, something tender beyond ideas of a separate self.

In meditation, the image of the conjoined sequoias arose, inspiring metta for my teachers, for me, for my mother and daughter, for all the beings at camp, and beyond. It wasn’t my body-heart-mind responsible for such vivid and vast imagination, but tapping into a larger, loving life force inherent in all things.

Listening to the bell resound at the end of the sit, I was clinging- to the bell, the sequoias, the feeling, fearful that I would walk back into a black and white world where beings scurried frantically around like mice to make meaning.

I will continue to disagree with others and feel the pain of separation. I will also persevere in tenderness, beauty, and Soulmaking.

It’s what I was born to ‘do’, and who i already am.

During spring break, I had the opportunity to visit a butterfly sanctuary in Maui. The fact that it is called The Maui Butterfly Farm (not caterpillar or chrysalis farm) speaks volumes about the value given to the butterfly in its life cycle.

The butterfly is beautiful, light, and free – an exquisite symbol of pleasurable moments or stages of life. In contrast, the caterpillar is ugly, heavy, sluggish, always hungry for more. It represents challenges along the way, the wish to transform and be transported elsewhere. For me, the hardest stage to be in sometimes is the chrysalis, the neutral moments of perceived inactivity when questions are marinating in dark space. If I force answers prematurely, wings are torn before possibilities can even take flight.

What does it mean to honor each stage, to understand that I am moving through symbolic caterpillar-chrysalis-butterfly stages multiple times, not just once in a lifetime? How would my life change if I wasn’t just chasing butterflies, but embodying the whole picture?

*****

In Matty Weingast’s, The First Free Women, original poems inspired by the early Buddhist nuns, Theri Punna (Full)  writes:

 
Fill yourself
with
the Dharma.
 
When you
are as
full
as the
full
moon--
burst open.
 
Make
the dark night
shine.
 
 
Hearing Punna’s whispers inside this body-heart-mind, I wrote the following:
 
All this time--
waiting
for the big moment,
the Earth to quake
like His awakening.
 
All this time--
the heart knew
that reflecting
wholeness
in all beings,
 
like a still lake
mirrors
the full moon,
 
was Her awakening.


For years, I’ve been waiting for my life to begin. Chasing butterflies, waiting for the Earth to quake, to awake with ultimate understanding, I missed the smaller moments of stress and struggle, of forgiveness and redemption, of joy and fullness all around me.

In medicine, meditation, and other aspects of life experience, there is deeper presence, less restlessness, more contentment in the simplicity (and profound healing) of reflecting wholeness in others by sensing the fullness within.

*****

In Yasodhara* and the Buddha, Vanessa Sasson does a fine job of setting a vivid stage for their story. She honors ancient Indian culture with humor and reverence. Because of her background in Asian studies and notes at the end of the book referencing other Buddhist and Hindu texts, I trust the story. I also respect her creative additions.

There are so many themes to contemplate in the book: opulence vs. simplicity, loving a precious few vs. all beings equally, the life of a monastic vs. the life of a householder, confusion vs. clarity. They remind me of the three poisons in Buddhism – greed, hatred, and delusion, and the healing power of generosity, metta, and clear-seeing.

Though the Buddha’s story gets all the attention, Yasodhara’s story is equally important. As a householder myself, I feel her loss when she agrees to marry and is confined to the palace walls and Siddhatta’s heart. She renounces her previous life and the freedom it offered. I feel her labor pains, her devotion to Rahula*, her grief and the doubt it conjures when Siddhatta leaves and again when the Buddha takes Rahula for training. I resonate with the need to embody Durga Mata*-like fierce presence, the need for strong maternal guidance and support from someone like Mahapajapati* to face sexual assault.

In the end, I understand that awakening is possible for a householder as much as it is for a renunciate, not because she left, but because she stayed. She stayed with the whirlwind of emotions, changes in her body, changes in her identity.  She saw Kisa Gotami* holding on to a dead child in a deliriously painful way, and began to contemplate the power of letting go.

May all women sense their full moon potential, and reflect this in others.

Notes:  
*Yasodhara is Siddhatta’s wife. Siddhatta later becomes the Buddha.
*Rahula is the son of Yasodhara and Siddhatta.
*Durga Mata is the Hindu goddess of protection, strength, motherhood, destruction and wars.
*Mahapajapati is Siddhata’s maternal aunt who raises him when his own mother, Maya dies after childbirth.
*Kisa Gotami is so stricken by the death of her child that she loses her mind. She is freed by a wise teaching from the Buddha.

*****
​
Butterflies, full moons, epic stories inspire this journey of late. I’m so grateful for some time to slow down and reflect on them. May something offered here be of use, of inspiration.

​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
​

​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
​

​Anjali Mudra

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

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.

Restlessness, Metta, and True Nature

There’s a restlessness inside me--
checking the phone, the weather
checking for missed emails, calls, texts.
Am I ok as I am?
Are others ok because of me?
When did the external funhouse
mirrors get so distorted?
When did abandonment
become the only story?

May I be patient with anxiety and restlessness,
and trust something precious beyond this.

A few Winecup clarkias stand out
amidst Pacific poison oak.
Beautiful growth is possible anywhere.
The trill of a red-winged blackbird
invites joyful sound meditation.
Magnetic Mama Earth guides footsteps
to avoid stepping on western
whiptails activated by amygdalas.
So I’m not the only one!
A summer breeze blows
the breath inside out.

Am I ok?
​
There is no one left to answer…


No Timeline for Love

I don’t need to fill my heart completely 
before I can show you love.
I just need to see the thorn,
feel the sharp point against softness,
wrap the wound in tenderness
as scar tissue learns to love
in its own healing time.


Soon

These days of cutting okra and long
beans together will soon be over--
hearing knives slice through dark
green flesh at different rhythms,
watching the way your air pods
hang from your ears
as a slight smile crosses your lips,
wondering what you’re listening to
and if you’ll still like that song in college,
or who you will choose to love.

Or the way I turn to you
with partially cut vegetables
that you will chop into smaller pieces
the way your mother did back in India,
breaking down larger pieces of life,
seasoning with spices and cooking slowly
into food the family can easily digest
until arthritic hands can no longer chop
or vision fades into final darkness.
​
Soon all I will have are these words,
and memories of three generations
cutting okra and long beans
side by side by side.
What used to seem so mundane
now feels like sacred ground.
Please help me to be here!
Soon we will all be gone.


Emptiness

emptiness
is fullness
still healing
till she can let go
completely


Receiving
​
everything
is a gift
unwrapped slowly
by your perception

For years I've gone on retreat, escaping family and home to find freedom. Little did I realize that freedom can be found within my own home, that refuge in a Brahmavihara happens wherever, whenever the heart is willing to feel, and surround all experience in its embrace.

Deep gratitude to Brian Lesage and Sangha for this sacred, unique, configuration, to family and friends for being there with food, hugs, kisses, laughter, and conversation when needed, to colleagues for covering my time off from work, and patients for trusting this practice to widen/deepen my understanding of compassionate care.

The Guest Room

It’s hard to see the chips and stains on walls
where visitors are supposed to feel welcome,
at home in aesthetically pleasing surroundings.
Each time I walk in, the furniture is rearranged
into a configuration that tells me my in-laws
are staying longer than I anticipated.
The scratches, the dents, the torn bedsheet corner
is so unpleasant, just like the hard wooden slats
you are placing over the mattress so your father
feels more comfortable sleeping on the bed
than on the floor. Why does this bother me so much?
Is it because my in-laws are making their mark
in our home, or because they are burrowing into the room,
into my being in ways I do not yet understand?
What if the chips and stains, scratches and dents,
the torn bedsheet corner are all signs of life,
not a sterile room staged for a home
I was not meant to live in?
Maybe the guest room is their room,
the heart space their space to teach me
about inviting more vulnerability in.

​*****

The Earth holds me. When I felt disconnected, the Earth spiritually re-parented me into a profound sense of belonging. Her trees taught me how to silently release and receive through Tonglen practice. Her oceans accepted each and every saltwater river of tears. Her creatures cautiously eyed me with curiosity, wondering if I would threaten their existence, or bow in reverence.

Today, I had the privilege of witnessing a ceremony welcoming a beloved and respected Dhamma teacher to a retreat center’s counsel. She eloquently expressed the connection between slavery, colonialism, and the exploitation of land, how this same land can heal us, invite us into  belonging and connection  beyond personal wealth, status, and ignorance.

As photographs were shared of the land around the retreat center, one picture spoke louder than the rest.
​

The cozy configuration of our family nest during the pandemic is about to change. The news of my in laws coming soon to stay with us for a significant length of time rattles the bones, leaves the nervous system unsettled.
 
It’s tempting to spiritually bypass what’s here, to suppress thoughts, feelings and sensations that aren’t congruent with my partner or rebel against cultural tradition. It’s also easy to blame others for misunderstanding my need for space and silence.
 
The Practice is asking for ease, curiosity, patient benevolence, a reliance on certain support systems, and remembrance of beauty, joy, hidden gifts.
 
Ease
 
Sitting in meditation each day is like relaxing back into my favorite chair or cushion, leaning the weight of my body and worries against a giant redwood tree that knows how to root and endure. The breath makes its loyal sweep from head thoughts to heart feelings to gut sensations, gathering them all in its tender embrace, unifying the pieces into one collective, sacred experience.
 
Curiosity
 
From this grounded place, questions about perception are asked without expectation of an exact or perfect answer. What’s happening now? Who am I taking myself to be? How am I relating to others? To space? To time?
 
Patient Benevolence 
 
Once I have attended to my own authentic inner experience in an honest, compassionate way, I can begin to let others in, to get curious and ask about their experience, to sense the multidimensional aspect of relationships and vast space of the Brahmaviharas. Love is not a limited resource trapped inside my own heart. It can flow both ways...towards myself and others. 
 
May I be happy, as well and safe as I can be, peaceful and at ease.
I care about my suffering.
May I know joy.
May I trust in the mysterious unfolding of my life.
 
May you be happy, as well and safe as you can be, peaceful and at ease.
May you care about your suffering.
May you know joy.
May you trust in the mysterious unfolding of your life.
 
 
May we be happy, as well and safe as we can be, peaceful and at ease.
May we care about our suffering.
May we know joy.
May we trust in the mysterious unfolding of our lives.
 
The term ‘patient’ benevolence helps to remind me that there is no fixed timeline for this process, no need to get anywhere, become anyone too quickly if it doesn’t feel like an embodied experience. Rushing the process can cause more harm.
 
Reliance on Certain Support Systems
 
It’s so easy for me to let anxiety and aversion eclipse the whole truth of any given moment. Sometimes I miss sweet family connections, opportunities for beauty and joy.
 
When this happens, the skillful, compassionate, and wise move is to lovingly separate from others so I can connect back with myself to remember. (Sati, the Pali word for mindfulness means ‘to remember’). Through meditation, mindful movement, time in nature, reflection and writing, listening to music and singing, I hear that one clear voice calling out for me to listen. I can also reach out to wise ones who offer safe shelter for the nervous system to settle, the bones to rattle less.
 
I need to take things one breath, one step at a time, slowing down so the contraction of time does not scatter my attention in multiple directions to dissipate and waste energy.
 
Remembrance of Beauty, Joy, Hidden Gifts
 
When there is resistance to unpleasant perception, animal instincts of survival kick in. Can I fight? Can I run away? Can I play dead, sleep, and wake up when it’s safe, when it’s all over? 
 
Is it ever truly all over???
 
 Zen Master Setcho Juken said, “Here in the dragon’s jaws: many exquisite jewels.”
 
For me, the jewels of practice have shined in so many ways—the width of loving-kindness, the depth of compassion, the length of joy unmeasured by circumstance, the groundless ground of equanimity that does not crack in any mind-heart-body quake, seeing all parts of myself reflected in other beings, other animals, the Earth, and vice versa, everything mentioned and not mentioned in these words, the unborn, the unheard, the unseen.
 
*****
 
I am ready to welcome my in-laws, welcome all that arises internally and externally with this shift. I am not the same person I was before. My partner, daughter, mother, and in laws are also not the same. I know it will not be perfect, that I may forget what I have learned, written, practiced and embodied over time.
 
When this happens, how blessed I feel to return to these words, this heart-mind, these intentions to embody The Practice as best as I can like Kali, Durga, Lakshmi, Kwan Yin, Tara, a Dakini, a redwood, willow, oak tree, all phases of the moon, a lotus (including muddy, tangled rhizome roots, long stem, and budding blossom), the uterine journey from menarche to menopause, the elemental forces of Nature...the Divine Feminine in all her many moods and manifestations!

2020 has been a year of many things. I won’t pretend to know what it has been like for you. I have heard from many that they wish to have a different 2021. But what does this mean exactly? Less suffering with no COVID, police brutality, political division, physical, emotional, social, and economic stress? More joy in gathering with others to commemorate the beginning and ending of life (and everything in between), travel, return to school and work, seeing the smiles of others?

I also wish for a different 2021. And I’m paying attention to where I plant seeds of loving intentions- where I’m forcing something to grow/change, where I’m slowly letting go, patiently waiting for something to take root.

On December 24, I received my first COVID vaccine with a mixture of dread and hope. Dread that I’d be one of the few cases who developed a serious adverse reaction.  Hope that this would be a positive step in the fight against COVID. I’m relieved that the only nuisance was a sore arm for a few days, and I’m still diligently tracking symptoms through Vsafe.

I realize that there is still so much uncertainty. Will I build immunity to COVID? How long will the antibodies last? Am I safe to be around patients? Are they safe with me? What does this vaccine mean for us all heading into 2021?

Recognizing the fear and doubt in these questions, I’m aware that these thoughts, emotions and the physical manifestations of uncertainty within are not alone. There is also awe at the timeline and sound scientific data supporting the vaccine’s efficacy, gratitude for meaningful work, incredible colleagues, loving family, health, abundant food, shelter, and so much more.

Most of all, there is a deep bow of reverence to the practices of mindfulness, lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity with meditation and writing carrying me through some of the darkest times of post-partum depression and anxiety, losing my aunt-mom to cancer, chronic sacro-iliac, gluteal muscle pain, and COVID-19. Though Western medicine and other modalities have been supportive, it is these practices that saved me from sacrificing this heart-mind-body to fear and doubt.

To this end, I’d like to support others in planting loving intentions for 2021. Will you join me here? However you choose to heal and support yourself in 2021, may you remember that love and wisdom are so much larger than fear and doubt. What you plant now affects everyone and everything around you for days, weeks, months, and years to come.

Nisargadatta Maharaj  said, “Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows.”

May the idea of a separate self dissolve with the wisdom of shared journeys. May love connect you to all.

Suffering does not occur in a vacuum. It always occurs in relation. The patient who comes in with chest pain and high blood pressure because a beloved relative died of COVID complications in India and they cannot grieve or participate in last ritual rites with family. The patient who expresses grave concern for their son’s safety in returning to work during a pandemic, policing, and protests. The friend who practices medicine in a part of the United States where political division is threatening peace. The Earth still offering oxygen and sustenance despite continued abuse and neglect.

Healing also occurs in relation. It’s hard to heal if there is a sense of disconnection from ancestors, biological and spiritual family/teachers, the land, each other, and ourselves. How do we re-connect, re-awaken, re-member? While healing is a journey and there is no perfect answer, the following practices are offered as possible places to begin the contemplation.

Embodying Kuan Yin

Kuan Yin is the bodhisattva of compassion, the One who listens to the cries of the world. Embodying her feels like a tall order sometimes. How can I listen to others if I can’t hear what’s happening within? Life is overwhelming and overscheduled. How can I unplug from the endless to do and to be list?

I’m learning that Kuan Yin is not only the One who listens to the cries of the world, but also the One who stays till there is ease. There’s a sincere commitment to listening, to staying with the experience for the purpose of understanding. This does not mean that pain disappears, what’s broken is easily fixed, or questions have clear answers. The ease feels like a deep stillness beneath surface waves of experience, a stillness that patiently waits for the waves to dissipate for clarity. As I learn to stay with personally challenging experiences, there is more capacity to be with the suffering in others.

Connecting with the Natural World

1. Find something from the natural world inside or outside of your home. This might be a leaf, a rock, a seashell, a piece of fruit, a grain or rice, a feather, etc.
2. Practice internal mindfulness by noticing what’s present in breath and body with eyes closed for a few minutes. Then slowly open your eyes and practice external mindfulness in relational with this object. How are you different than the object, how are you the same?
3. Then with reverence and humility, listen to what the object has to tell you. What does it have to teach you?

 
Here is poem written on retreat in relation with a seashell:
 
Listening
 
she picked you up from the wet sand
because you looked pretty,
her keepsake from the RV camping
trip off the Mendocino Coast
 
forgetting
you were once the home
of a precious sea-being
just as her body is her home,
 
how she wouldn’t want
to be taken without consent,
how next time she can ask the water
or lift you up to her ear--
 
your mollusk spirit whispering
home is always sacred
no matter how small
or large you are
 
The Five Earth Touchings

Touching the Earth is a practice developed by Thich Nhat Hahn to fill your heart with remembrance of family, spiritual, and land lineage, so blessings of abundance can be offered to those you love, and the process of forgiving those who have hurt you may begin. It is practiced ‘to celebrate the positive and transform what needs to be transformed’.
​
This practice may precipitate unwelcome, unpleasant feelings, especially if you have experienced trauma or other feelings of disconnection. It is offered here as a healing modality to practice in a safe space with others, a trusted teacher or therapist. It is not meant to spiritually bypass what is true for you. Please honor your direct experience.
 
Questions for Inquiry

The following questions can be used for reflective journaling:

1. Think of your country(ies) of origin (ethnic roots). Now think of the country where you reside. Is there anything about the history of the country where you reside that needs to be narrated differently or questioned?
2. How can you be in reciprocal relation with life? What does it mean to set an intention of minimizing harm to other beings, the Earth, yourself?

 
****

Deeply nourished by recent retreats, water is humbly offered to trees in the backyard. It’s a small gesture of gratitude compared to their teachings on grounding, rooting regardless of external or internal climate, on letting go with trust that what’s needed will grow in season.

(Deep bows to Erin Treat, Brian Lesage, Amma Thanasanti and Kaira Jewel Lingo for sharing these teachings, and to their teachers and respective lineages. Suffering does not occur in a vacuum. It always occurs in relation. Healing also occurs in relation.)