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What We Need is Here

Published on by elizaking

baypic“….We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
        that stands in promise,
    pale, in the seed’s marrow.
    Geese appear over us,
pass, and the sky closes…
    And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
        quiet in heart, and in eye,
    clear. What we need is here.”

-Excerpt from ’The Wild Geese’ by Wendell Berry

Dear Folks,

Last weekend I had the opportunity to participate in a silent meditation retreat. We drove a couple hours north in Maryland to stay in a lodge on a point of land where the Susquehanna River meets the Chesapeake Bay.

When we arrived, I stepped out of the car, into the scent of water on the humid air, and deep quiet all around us.  I felt as if I’d stepped into a different time and space, leaving behind the sounds of the car radio and traffic snarls.
During the weekend, we cooked, ate, and cleaned up each meal together in companionable silence. We sat and walked in silent meditation inside and outside, a few of us even waking up early enough to go down to the dock and silently watch the sun come up. One hot afternoon, we went kayaking and canoeing, reveling in the soft breeze off the Bay.

On the last day, I was able to see the silhouettes of Canada geese flying low over our heads against a cloudy sky. Because I don’t see well, it was very moving for me to be able to synchronize the sound of familiar honking calls with the vision of dark shapes rippling in formation across the sky.

Being silent in a group over time can create deep clarity. I find that listening to my own heart in silence opens up space for me to be fully aware of what I need and how I feel. At the beginning of the retreat before going into the silence, we shared our expectations, hopes and fears, and at the end, discussed our actual retreat experience. One participant said that being with 15 other people in silence had opened her to a visceral awareness of the realness of other people’s physical daily needs and limitations, helping her feel compassionate with them and herself.

In being silent together, we make a space where we can finally listen and be present with everything that is happening inside and outside of ourselves, a space where we truly see and appreciate what is right in front of us.

cheers,

Eliza

Kindling our Magic

Published on by elizaking

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
–W.B. Yeats

Dear Folks,
This week I’ve been thinking about a trip I took almost 10 years ago to the bioluminescent bay on Vieques, a little island off of Puerto Rico.

One evening, we went sea kayaking with a guided group, made a fire and had a picnic on the beach as the sun was setting. Then, as darkness fell, we gathered as a group with our kayaks in the middle of the bay.

Our guides roped the kayaks together and we all slipped into the warm water.  As soon as any part of our bodies touched the surface, hundreds of tiny sparks of light (Dinoflagellate bacteria) flashed in the water. As we swam out, we left wakes of dancing lights behind us. About then, we all got silly and giddy as little kids and began splashing with our hands, making snow angels, going underwater and popping up to see the drops sparkle in our hair for an instant. For me, and I think for all of us, it was as if magic suddenly became real, a tangible force we could see with our eyes.

As we played, it began to rain softly. Every drop created a tiny pop of glimmering lights all around us.  It was as if I saw energy made manifest.

I am still dazzled by this experience, especially in remembering the sense of real life going way beyond my expectations of what could possibly exist. I also wonder now if we could see the energy of our thoughts and actions in the world, what kind of light we would each create, and what kind of wake each of us might leave.

I am practicing consciously to open to that sense of wonder again, and I invite you to remember an experience in your life that touched you and brought home to you a sense of wonder and magic. If you feel like sharing, I’d love to read your reflections.

cheers,

Eliza

Let Your Compass Be Your Guide

Published on by elizaking

Let your Compass be your Guide

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

We all have that voice inside us that tells us if we’re going in the right direction for us or not.  Much deeper than Jiminy Cricket’s conscience, this voice of inner knowing acts as the True North of our internal compass.  As we listen and respond to this voice, adjusting our lives as we go along, a sense of trust begins to emerge.
We start to know intrinsically when we’ve made a mistake or taken a detour that isn’t serving us. Sometimes these mistakes and detours teach us how to listen more closely to our inner knowing, though often not until we’ve made the mistake several times.

I had been carrying groceries back home from my local coop for several months before I realized that I was slowly hurting muscles in my shoulders by carrying too much at a time. I kept thinking about buying some kind of cart to help me but felt a bit self-conscious about doing that.  It got to the point that every time I picked up or held anything heavy for a few minutes my right shoulder would start to ache.  Finally I made the shift and started using a utility cart for hauling groceries.

The first day I tried it, it was such a relief!  I thought, this feels so much better and is so much easier. Then I thought, why didn’t I do this before?  That’s what it’s like when you listen to your inner voice. Things get easier. They fall into place, and don’t cause so much struggle. There is an enormous sense of relief and wonder that life can flow more smoothly.
Of course, there are the usual ups and downs, my cart gets stuck on uneven pavement, or I have to go the long way around holes and sidewalk closures. But I’m not struggling and cursing all the way up the hill wishing I was home already.  As Mary Oliver says so beautifully, we do not have to walk through the desert on our knees for a hundred miles, repenting.

One clue in accessing this inner knowing is to follow the trail inward from the outer result that we are looking for into the actual physical sensations and emotions arising in our bodies.  Mary Oliver again, “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”  An example of this is how eating healthily gives our bodies more strength and freedom to move as we exercise, and steadies our moods and ability to concentrate. Losing weight may be the outer goal or result but it is the process, the internal shift, that guides us in learning how to be more loving to ourselves.

As we feel better and our own sense of well-being increases, we have more room to let in our connection to those around us and our outer world. We also make more space for our own connection with ourselves and what our bodies and souls are needing from us.  It is this internal flow of communication that creates a sense of direction for us.  We, like the wild geese are pulled forward by an inner momentum and trust, even though we may not know where we’ll be landing at the end of each day.

Joyful Impressions: the Dalai Lama in DC

Published on by elizaking

I was lucky enough to spend time at the Kalachakra Ceremony at the Verizon Center in DC with the Dalai Lama last month. The Dalai Lama was in DC for 11 days in July, during which he and a group of monks created a sand mandala and a sacred space in the Verizon Center with their chanting and prayers, The Dalai Lama gave teachings about Tibetan Buddhism and in particular the Kalachakra ritual.  I had read about this a few months ago and even though I don’t like crowds, decided that I wanted to participate, to be part of a force of love and peace in the heart of power.

One thing that I love about the Dalai Lama is his constant look of being about to laugh or break out in a huge smile.  Every time I sat in my seat in the vast stadium full of people, I would look up at the jumbotron screen, see his beaming face and tension would drain out of my stomach.  It felt like I was receiving an infusion of calm confidence just from his presence.

Over and over, I heard him say in many ways “Constantly bring your mind back to contemplating things that bring you joy.”  That sense of spontaneous joy is what the Dalai Lama radiates, and it’s infectious! A theme that came up again and again was Infinite Altruism, which I understand to mean living your life in the joy of serving all sentient beings, including yourself! He called it a form of “wise selfishness”. The opposite is “foolish selfishness” where you meet your needs at the expense of other beings. The wisdom  of “wise selfishness” is that when you help others out of love, you invariably receive all sorts of unlooked-for blessings in your life.

The highlight of the week for me was waiting in line with other people for almost 4 hours to go up on the stage and view the completed Kalachakra sand mandala.  I chatted with the people around me, an Indian family from New York, mother and daughter dressed in stunning saris, and a Chinese family who spoke very little English. We joked about the security guards at the Verizon Center seeming to know even less than we did about the organizational arrangements. In fact, one security guard asked us what the line was for! As we approached the stage, voices got lower, people were focused and quiet, and the energy on the stage was like being in a sacred space.  There was something ritualistic about it, we were walking in the Dalai Lama’s footsteps, sharing some part of his journey.

At the beginning, I was very immersed in my own world. As the week went on and I got familiar with how to get in and out of the stadium, and used to the large amount of people around me, I also opened up to what the Dalai Lama was saying, the subtext behind his words. I felt a steady call to be present and shift awareness from myself as an isolated being to myself as a participant with all these other people, all with their own worlds and their own lives, not a negation of my presence but somehow a true extension of it.

On the last day, I walked through the stream of many people, and felt a part of all the lives rushing by.  I felt like I could be who I am and know where I am going without feeling overwhelmed or lost, but immersed and intrigued by the silk saris, the red and yellow robes, the accents, the flipflops, the languages, the real people with all their complaining and kindness, and mistrust and sweetness. I felt a new sense of being a vital part of humanity, of having an important and beautiful role that may be small but is significant. I am a participant among thousands, a spiritual beginner, and yet I am unique in what I have to offer. As we all are, it’s a matter of having the faith and confidence to offer it both for our own good and the good of all beings.  My interpretation of Infinite Altruism!

I felt welcomed into the human family by the Dalai Lama, and I am honored and grateful to take my place.