​There is an image of a magnolia tree. I can feel its trunk as my trunk, its branches as my limbs, its roots as my roots deeply connected to the earth.
 
I’m struck how it is committed to loving me, and letting itself be loved by me. I’m also struck by its commitment to blossoming for only a short time, regardless of weather or circumstance, its dedication to beauty and ethics. 
 
There is also something about a duty I have to rest, stay still, be open and sometimes dormant to nurture meaningful growth. 
 
This image is a gift, a grace I could not have imagined on my own. Is it real or not real? What I trust most is what blossoms in my heart, dies, blooms again, eternally repeating itself for a purpose it does not fully understand, but knows is unfathomably sacred. 
 
*****
 
Revisiting the image of the magnolia tree this morning, sensing it somatically and through the lens of the Brahmaviharas:
 
May I be so well.
May my suffering be soothed,
 
I realize how much I still live life in binaries, all or none thinking. Things are good if (fill in the blank), and bad when (fill in the blank).
 
May I meet this with a light touch,
Not pushing or pulling on anything.
 
The magnolia blossom imbues each circumstance (good, bad, and everything in between) with a light touch. It tries not to push or pull on things, because it understands causes and conditions needed to align in a special way for it to even be here.

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

For the first few days, samadhi is strong. It nurtures contentment on and off the cushion.

Then I wake up one morning with severe foot pain, unable to bear weight on the right foot. The perfect bubble bursts. Papanca proliferates in the mind. The heart is burdened by fear as the body tenses against unwelcome change.

It takes another few days to recognize etch a sketch potential in the breath, erasing tangles in the mind, sensing throbbing, aching in the foot and spaces in the body that are neutral, even pleasant. What is drawn on the mind screen, felt in the body and heart, all depend on my ways of looking.

I am not a ‘good’ practitioner when things go well, or a ‘bad’ one when things are difficult. 

Empty of a single cause or condition, and full of love.

The mantra continues to offer humility, softening blame and deepening compassion.

May these insights be shared with my patients and all beings, who are also subject to sickness, aging, and death.

Samadhi is not a perfect state, but mind, body and heart in alignment, receptive, sensitive, honest, always in communication with what’s needed now. If what’s needed is not apparent, then samadhi is waiting patiently and trusting if will come.

Kisagotami Bikkhuni and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, I am listening…


****


KISAGOTAMI ~ SKINNY GOTAMI


A child dead.
And a mad search for a magic seed.


It's a story as old as dust.


Brave up, my sisters.


The day will come
when you run
from house 
to house.


People will meet you at the door, 
look you in the eye, 
and they won't let you in.


I'm sorry, they'll say.
But we can't help you.


Listen.


When everyone you love is gone, 
when everything you have 
has been taken away, 
you'll find the Path
waiting 
underneath 
every rock 
on the 
road.


These are the words of Kisagotami.




*****


Toward Peace  ~  Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer


Perhaps some part of me still believes
peace is a destination,
a place we arrive, ideally together.


I notice how shiny it is, this belief,
like a flower made of crystal,
beautiful, but lifeless,


devoid of the dust and scuff
that come from living a real day.
Meanwhile, there is this invitation


to grow into peace the way real flowers grow--
in the dirt. With blight and drought,
beetles and hail.


Meanwhile this invitation
to live in the tangle of fear and failure,
to be humbled by my own inner wars


and wonder how to find a living peace
right here, the peace that arrives
when we take just one step through the mess


toward compassion and notice
as our foot rises our heart also rises
and in that lifted moment


still scraping along in the dirt,
there is a peace so real we become light,
become the momentum that is the change.

The art class is located inside a studio in a small suburban shopping center next to an Indian grocery store. As Rachel and I walk in, we exchange exuberant facial expressions. Instead of a woman in midlife, I feel like a kindergartener about to fingerpaint. Our eyes widen in excitement as we take in the mosaic tiles and beads neatly separated by colors in small bowls at each workstation. Turkish mosaic lamps and candle holders of various designs are on display throughout the room to inspire our imagination.

“Where should we sit?”, I ask Rachel.

“Let’s sit at the edge of the table so we have more room to move around”, she replies.

“Good idea!”

We place our belongings on two chairs facing each other each other near the studio entrance. Taking our seats, Rachel and I introduce ourselves to a couple sitting next to us. We each begin to use a paper template in front of us to map out design ideas before gluing the mosaic tiles onto the glass globe of our respective lamps.

When our instructors indicate that it’s time to transfer the mosaic tiles and beads onto the glass, I panic. My design is ready, but it doesn’t look or feel like the images I had envisioned for the lamp prior to class. I begin to doubt the colors and shapes I’ve chosen and start to compare my design to those of our neighbors and Rachel.

This is not how this class is supposed to unfold!

To make matters worse, I cannot retain the exact design when I start to glue the mosaic pieces onto the glass. It takes gentle effort and patient precision, two things that are not included in our art supplies as my perception of time begins to contract.

“Let’s just get this over with”, my mind silently shouts as my heart sinks. The kindergartner come middle aged woman feels like she’s messing up. I try to remain positive, plastering a smile on my face and making polite conversation with Rachel and the couple next to us. Inside I feel tense but continue to diligently glue each piece into place.

The pieces are crooked with spaces between them, and the larger designs are not symmetrically spaced around the glass globe. A part of me remembers the joy of art as process over art as product, but that part is stifled by the need to finish the product in the studio time remaining.

*****

The next day, I remove the glass globe and try to fill in the spaces with the plaster provided in the take home kit. Mixing the powder with too much water, the plaster is too thin to stick to the glass. Frustrated, I proceed to wash off all the excess runny plaster. In the process, some beads fall off the glass globe.

Ugghh! This shouldn’t be happening.

Ah, but it is!

Who said that? The voice does not return till I walk away from the mess I am making.

Perfection assesses whether someone or something is worthy, worthwhile. It sees in black and white. This is either all good or all bad. Perfection thrives on fear, rigid judgments, restlessness until perfection is achieved. It’s fragmented, believing happiness resides in a limited range of experience. It’s a constant uphill climb, and forever exhausting.

Wholeness invites all aspects of a mosaic experience, understanding the picture is incomplete with any piece left out. It’s patient, allowing mental and bodily formations to communicate, as the heart bathes the experience in whatever wholesome factor is needed for unification. Wholeness perceives above below, around any fixed view to see and sense with soul, to cultivate contentment in all circumstances.

Perfection or wholeness? Where do you want to live, Kaveri? Even this dual reflection is a cause for suffering. Know that you are shaped by both, that each influences the other, and bow to the full range of life experience.

*****

I decide to walk away from the art project, reflecting on the process instead of the final product. Art is very similar to the meditation process. If my attention is tense, tight, narrow, and analytical, I will perceive the experience as unpleasant. If my attention is more relaxed, soft, expansive, and observing in nature, the experience can be neutral, maybe even pleasant.

Ideas of perfection, wholeness, process and product all swirl around in the limited space of my cranium. I take them to the meditation cushion and sit. Like pinballs, they keep bumping up against walls until there is no controller trying to save and define them. Fixed, judgmental attention transforms into relaxed, loving awareness as metta permeates through the entire space.

May I be gentle with the process.
May there be confidence in the beauty of awareness.

Just as the bell punctuates the end of the meditation sit, an insight arises. Beauty is not limited to a final work of art or an artist. It is also inherent in wholesome mind states brought to any artistic or meditative process. Viewed this way, nothing is an ugly mistake. No parts are left out.

Feeling more curious and connected to the Turkish mosaic lamp, I hold it with tenderness, patiently gluing each small bead back on one by one with crazy glue. Giving it another 24 hours to dry, I wait for my partner to help me assemble it when he has time.

What’s the rush?

​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.

​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.

be gentle, be loving
patient and proud
of the wind and tears
that carved a goddess
from suffering

Kwan Yin’s kindred spirit
is learning to listen
to the cries of the world
and stay till there is ease
as she listens to her own body

the dance of sensations
ok as she is
a caged heart
trusting her wingspan
to fly beyond the bounds
of fear and unmet expectations

she is still exploring
she is still unfinished