​stitched into the fabric of life
some of us towards the center
while others are at the periphery
does placement even matter

intricate patterns woven
from colorful threads
with large swaths of
dull gray in between
​
i am cold without this quilt
without all beings
believing they belong
regardless of perception
 
Stitched into the fabric of life, I believe I am at the center when a lecture, talk, or class goes well. When I’m healthy and can breathe, talk, sing for long periods of time. When I can do all the poses in yoga class. When my hair is newly cut and colored. When I’m dressed a certain way. When I have the perfect answer for patients and friends struggling. When my daughter is open to affection and animated in conversation. When my partner understands and applauds my spiritual practice and professional life. When I feel closely connected to Mummy and less irritated. When I write a meaningful poem and blog post. And so much more.

Anything short of this is failure, unpleasant, unacceptable, a problem that triggers banishment from the center to the periphery. Does placement even matter?

Sometimes I see myself in intricate patterns woven from colorful threads. Sometimes I’m surrounded by large swaths of dull gray, an island far away from any vibrancy. Comparing mind also stiches others into fixed positions on this quilt.

As hard as these last few weeks have felt with unwelcome physical symptoms, fear of permanence is worse. A self who will not channel talks with any compassionate healing or creativity. A self who will not survive and enjoy a women’s retreat on the ecstasy of sound and silence.  A self who will not sing and sound a certain way again. A self who will not enjoy and embody yoga. I feel a gentle warmth blanketing body and breath with mettā (lovingkindness), karuṇā (compassion), khanti (patience), paññā (wisdom), and saddhā (faith).

i am cold without this quilt, without all beings believing they belong regardless of perception.

Dear Piriformis Muscles,
 
I hear the burning call of anger
The quivering fear with each step
Disappointment and impatience asking
Where do we go from here?
 
I’m sorry I mistrusted you
Left you all alone
When you needed me most
Needed someone to understand
 
I’m here for you
For as long as the healing takes
Here to hold you, support you
Grateful for your special part
 
In keeping this body whole
 
For the last month, I’ve heard the burning call of anger, the quivering fear with each step, disappointment and impatience asking, “Where do we go from here?”.

Eleven years of mindfulness and compassion practices weren’t enough. I needed help. “Help me understand what I’ve forgotten, what I need to know now!”

Who was I calling out to, and why wasn’t self-compassion working?

As the piriformis muscles continued to burn and ache with each step, I turned to supportive family, wise friends, and healers who might help me remember. This is what I discovered.

Honesty. I can’t heal what I can’t feel. I’m so used to having a plan, knowing the answer, using spiritual practice to bypass what’s asking for direct attention here and now. Why feel if I know what will heal? The problem with this logic is that I can’t possibly know what will heal, until I’m honest about the anger, fear, disappointment, and impatience present. Until I’m really willing to listen to them, let them be as they are, and show me what is standing behind them. They are not roadblocks to compassion, but doorways.

This is what I’m feeling right now. It’s OK. It’s not bad or wrong. There’s space for these feelings.
 
Compassion. Compassion is the softest thing I know that cushions the hard edges of reality. It’s what I often use to shield my heart against the extra arrows of self-judgement. It’s easier to practice compassion for someone else who is suffering, and feels selfish, self-indulgence to include myself in the circle of compassion. Over the years, self-compassion became the parent, partner, best friend I was seeking, the ally who never let me down.

 I care about this pain. Others have bodies that break down and disappoint them, too. It’s not my fault.
 
Patience. I’m still surprised by how often I use self-compassion to bargain with life. Look, I’m being gentle and kind. Why is the burning, aching sensation still here? Why do I still feel stiff like the Tin Man? Isn’t self-compassion the oil needed to lubricate this stiffness so I can move pain free? Patience asks me to wait, to let the answers come in geological time. Sometimes, I’m not sure I can wait that long, but am always surprised and humbled by the outcome when I surrender to the elements that shape each and every experience.

This won’t last forever. Everything changes. May I be patient with the impatience.
 
Gratitude. When physical, emotional pain strike, it’s like a large, dark stain on a beautiful dress, a hole in a perfect picture, the uninvited guest to a party. Help! Bring my old life back! The negativity bias deletes all memories of these piriformis muscles supporting the birth of a beautiful child almost thirteen years ago, meditation and yoga postures that have offered profound joy and peace, hikes that have brought me closer to the womb of the Divine Mother than ever before.
​
Thank you for carrying this body, for supporting each brave step as best as you can into the future unknown.
 
Trust. If old age, sickness and death are inevitable who or what can I trust? Why even try to celebrate the 10,000 joys if sorrow is just around the corner, waiting to shadow the light? I’m not sure there is a simple answer to these questions. For me, it’s a partner who wonders what I am trying to prove, recommending I take Advil and rest the body that is being pushed to continue the elliptical and yoga stretches despite obvious signals of discomfort. It’s a teenage daughter who offers glimpses of care and concern by gently patting my behind despite raging hormones and peer conditioning. It’s a mother who cooks and offers to do the dishes when she sees me wincing in pain. It’s a friend who recommends a gentle chiropractor because she knows what I want in a healer. It’s other friends who offer up compassionate listening presence like the sweetest dessert when I have forgotten how to offer it to myself. It’s a chiropractor who alleviates my fears by reminding me of the body’s intuitive capacity to heal itself. It’s Qigong helping to move stagnant energy and encourage flow. It’s wild turkeys on a hike reminding me that life still goes on, a dim sun with so much potential to burn through the fog with love, the Great Mother promising to always be there no matter how this body ages or whether I have direct access to Her.
 
The people, places in my life will come and go, but there will always be someone, something to remind me of what matters most.
 
May this reflection inspire all beings everywhere without exception. May we learn to stay with our own experience, so we can support others on their healing journey.

I couldn’t love her the way she needed to be loved. I couldn’t support the last three months of her life as the cancer was slowly invading her digestive tract, pancreas, and lungs the way a bad nightmare does, except she never got to wake up.

I was too busy being angry and hurt over sibling dynamics, feeling invisible, outfitting her with a traditional standard I had come to despise. It was easy to conveniently forget her safe escort on three different buses we needed to take to and from the orthodontics office, the way she would tear her old Indian saris and sew them into long skirts because she knew I loved them, the house filled with the scent of masala 24/7 so we would never starve while growing up.

Why was I still hungry?

*****

We honored the 5-year anniversary of her death through puja. I was drawn to the diya like a moth to a flame, singing with a fervency during the arti that felt misplaced. Who was this 45-year-old woman child hearing her mother singing, seeing her soul, her name in the sacred fire?
​
Who was the sister blaming her brother for distance and insensitivity, blaming herself for deficiency and vulnerability?

*****

A few days later in yoga practice, I felt intuitively called to listen to one of my favorite bhajans. A torrential downpour of emotion flooded the mat. I was grieving all the things I expected of Mummy, all the blocks to loving her just as she was. There was no dam to hold anything back, nothing between me and this moment.

Forgiveness was palpable both ways.

*****

She’s lacing up her black Converse, noticing a brown mark on one side of a shoe. She stands to retrieve a wet washcloth to wipe the shoes she is so proud of.

I comment on the mark. Maybe it’s a scuff from my sandal the other day as we were walking to the library. She glares at me with that entitled teenage look, punishing with silence and a hug withheld before biking off to school.

“I let you go with love”, I call out cheerfully.  “You know where to find me!”

*****

We think we have forever with loved ones, a lifetime to heal a suffocating heart that can barely breathe.

Can we compassionately bow to each thought, feeling and sensation sculpted from the cycle of dependent origination into a solid self? Can we be patient with practice, trust wise teachers, good friends, and tenderness to slowly crack the plaster open?

Opening to vulnerability is not natural. It takes so much courage and support. I carry these verbal snapshots of unconditional love like passages from the holy books, knowing things will change.

The plaster will harden with conditional love and soften with practice again.

Note: 

puja: a prayer ritual performed by Hindus of devotional worship to one or more deities, or to host and honor a guest, or one to spiritually celebrate an event

diya: an oil lamp used in the Indian subcontinent, notably India and Nepal, usually made from clay, with a cotton wick dipped in ghee or vegetable oils

arti: a Hindu religious ritual of worship, a part of puja, in which light from wicks soaked in ghee (purified butter) or camphor is offered to one or more deities

bhajan: any song with religious theme or spiritual ideas, in a regional South Asian language

Cycle of Dependent Origination: A chain of causes which result in rebirth and dukkha (suffering). By breaking the chain, liberation from suffering can be attained.

Go ahead. Fall into that hole. We all do, sometimes repeatedly. Walk the path, right over the leaves and sticks that hide the ditch, false ground made of desire, aversion, delusion.

It’s cold down there, darkness all around you, walls closing in. There’s no room to move, to breathe. How did you get here?

Suddenly, that shiny object of desire, this other place that promised paradise when you were averse to Here, the delusion of something better, feels isolating. It’s not so special anymore.

What if cittabhavana is possible, the luminous nature of mindheart unclouded by mental defilements? Is it worth climbing out of the ditch to walk with awareness, to celebrate the transition from ignorance to freedom?

I don’t care if you fell. I’ve fallen, too. I’m so done with hiding in that pit. I want to feel sunlight on my face, rain washing away old perceptions of self.

Reflecting on the trench’s discomfort and what supported the way out, let’s catch glimpses of cittabhavana, our capacity for clear seeing, beauty, and joy. Let’s walk together.
​
We’ll fall again. Faith is trusting that one of us will discover the hole is a trap, a false refuge, holding a hand out to the other so we both take one step closer to Home.

Doubt arose on my last mindfulness retreat when conflict, drama, and trauma occurred.

Doubt surfaced on vacation while snorkeling, salt water stinging my nose and contact lens filled eyes as waves teased my life jacket.

Doubt appeared at work, home, and in the to do list when I was speeding to get things done and forgot mindful embodiment.

Doubt emerged when I was feeling inadequate in all my roles, when I projected these shortcomings onto my daughter and demanded more of her.

Doubt turned up with the holidays arriving as I was thinking of family, the distance between the way things should be and the way they really are.

Doubt can feel like a thick fog as the mind fires questions like shots in rapid succession, desperately searching for target answers. The mind hates uncertainty. It needs to know, now!

I sat with doubt in meditation, noticing thoughts, feeling the feelings, breathing, sensing the internal wind’s urgency to know. Feeling the zafu, yoga mat, and ground beneath me, the presence of enlightened ancestors surrounding me, this is what I heard:
 
I see you, Mara
and no longer have to believe
your thoughts that keep me
scared, small, stuck in a stone
prison where I cannot see
the Buddha touch the earth,
cannot hear him whisper
Ehipassiko, ehipassiko.
 
Why am I so homeless, searching
for sacred ancestry through thoughts?
I am Sakyamuni’s daughter,
Prajnaparamita’s granddaughter.
I will sit, breathe, walk, write
to remember my purpose, this path--
Earth Goddess calling me to ground,
Ehipassiko, ehipassiko.
 
Doubt, I see you. I don’t have to answer all your questions. I can answer some questions when I feel embodied, able, ready. The other questions may not need answers, but loving awareness and wise acceptance.

​Notes:

Mara- The demon who tempted the Buddha prior to his enlightenment. Doubt was Mara's final attempt to discourage the Buddha from believing his True Nature.

​Ehipassiko- Pali term for 'come and see for yourself'.

​Sakyamuni- Another name for the Buddha, born in Sakya, from the Sakya tribe.

​Prajnaparamita- The 'perfection of wisdom', the mother of all buddhas, the nature of reality.