Posts from — June 2009

Some years ago, a friend named Jeff was telling me about the time he was assigned the task of driving a Tibetan Buddhist teacher to a dharma center to give a talk. My friend made sure to leave in plenty of time–he did not want to make the teacher late. However about 15 minutes from their destination, he noticed that traffic was unusually heavy. He started to get a little anxious and peered over at the teacher. He seemed unperturbed. A few minutes later, they hit an enormous traffic jam and came to a near standstill. Now my friend was really anxious. He thought of all the students waiting for the talk to begin and the possible discomfort the teacher might feel at being late. He tried to peer around the traffic ahead to see the source of the snarl, tuned to the AM radio station for traffic updates, and generally wished that his car could fly. He glanced at the teacher again. Again, utterly unperturbed. “Jeff,” he said, “what do you expect? This is samsara. Nothing is going to work out.”

Far from being a bummer, the way the teacher said it suddenly cleared the air of anxiety. Jeff relaxed. And so did I, hearing the story. Maybe you could, too.

It’s true. This is samsara. Nothing is ever going to work out. Everything is impermanent, including traffic jams and feelings of anxiety. And also the times of smooth sailing and feelings of contentment–they too will go. Everything you love will dissolve, along with everything you hate. So if no battle can be won, no love secured, no safety created, no control exacted, what to do? Seen through one lens, this could be considered extremely bad news. You will never find security. But, just like hearing that the game you’re playing is not a contest after all, you can relax and enjoy the feeling of playing.

So how does this relate to the GDE? I realize that part of my motivation for wanting discipline is that I want things to work out. I think I can make that happen. In some very real ways, I can. I can give my all to my writing. I can think deeply and act respectfully in my relationships. I can push my boundaries, every day. However, it’s not going to work out. When I can remember that, I stand the chance of seeing that, as is also taught, samsara is inseparable from nirvana. It is very good to be alive, no matter what.

Now back to the drawing board.

PS. In the meantime, with the intention to be less rigid, I’m accomplishing more stuff…

Today I was driving down the road to get some papers notarized. My carefully planned schedule was officially off the rails because this thing had suddenly come up. The air was cool and cloudy. It was a two-lane street, but a busy one, with only a shoulder to walk on, no proper sidewalk. Two people were making their way along the road. One was a very bent old woman in a pink sweatshirt, walking quite slowly. The old man behind her was in a wheelchair and could not keep up, so they walked one in front of the other on the uneven surface, cars whizzing by, old lady shaky on her feet, wheelchair bumping along. Or maybe they just felt safer this way; two abreast would have put one of them uncomfortably close to the traffic.

Where were they going? Who were they to each other? When they got where they were going, would there be anyone to love them? Their fragility was unbearable and I wanted to stop the whole world, the cars rushing by, the people with their errands, the cold, damp air, and say: Please stop. Stop for these two people and cradle them somehow. This is how tender and breakable we all are, all of us. And if I can’t stick to my schedule, so fucking what. How could that possibly matter? Human beings are living and dying. Vulnerability is everywhere and what am I doing to be add to the store of kindness and care in this world? In the end the only thing that will matter is how loving I have been on any given day. I realized that today, instead of taking the time to call my mother and father, connect with my husband before his workday takes off, reach out to my sister, check in with friends, I thought only of what I needed to do for myself. These people love me and I love them, still I slot them in somewhere toward the bottom of my to do list (I’m so ashamed of this).

Trying to exact discipline certainly has its noble qualities, but in the end the spirit under which I have undertaken the Great Experiment is one of fear and self absorption. It has been an exercise in poverty thinking and an effort to control the uncontrollable, to push aside everything but my own reality. It makes me feel better and worse to realize this. I still want to give all I have to give to this world, but it’s going to have to be through a dialogue with reality and those I love, not a separation.

Wherein the Great Discipline Experiment goes utterly off the rails.

Why? I cannot say for sure.

I traveled to Tulsa this weekend to participate in the lovely Hawk Publishing Writers’ Workshop. I was so happy to be invited. I got to teach meditation and talk about writing. What more could I want? I was also going to get to stay in a hotel, normally a wonderfully productive setup for me. But although I loved the workshop, loved the participants, loved Bill, the organizer, and his wife, Marcia, and got to go shopping at the legendary Miss Jackson’s, the trip wreaked havoc on me. I am trying to learn from this. Here’s what I know:

No matter how short the slot or familiar the subject matter, I get nervous before presenting anything publicly. I’ve given enough talks to know my style of preparation and unfortunately, it’s a style that is nervous-making. The more I prepare in advance, the worse I do. This is not a happy situation. My best strategy is to think very deeply about what I’m about to do, not what I’m about to say. That’s it. Beyond that, I can’t plan what to say. I can’t plan how to begin. I can only summarize (to myself) what I hope to have communicated by the time my talk is over. So I think over my key points—what they mean, not how to express them—clip on the mic, and start talking. Further, I actually have to be in the room I’m going to speak in to prepare for the talk, so I just go sit there for awhile and it comes to me. It’s a completely kinesthetic, non-conceptual experience. I get into a zone and if anyone starts chit-chatting with me, the zone goes away. It’s a strange–and inconvenient–kind of concentration.

I’ve learned the hard way that if I prepare even one iota more than this, I freeze. Or worse, give my talk with no life, charm, or soul—in which case, even if I was communicating the cure for cancer, no one would even hear me. Authenticity and communication in-the-moment are what enable people to actually hear what you’re saying, to take it into themselves and make it their own. Everything else is just ponderous. So when I teach, I prepare the best I can, forget all my preparation, and just show up. Like I said, nervous-making.

When I’m nervous, I discovered, I bargain away my discipline. I try to find little treats to make myself feel better—any guilty pleasure will do. I completely let myself off the hook because I guess I feel sorry for myself.  Discipline goes away and this is reason #1.

Reason #2, oddly, is food. I was unable to secure chow that suited my palate and digestion. I am a fairly healthy eater and the room service in Tulsa was one from column fried and two from column cheesy. I didn’t have a car and nothing was in walking distance. So I ate crap. This made me feel awful, terrible, and also more sorry for myself. Ridiculous. Eating poorly leads to more eating poorly, leads to lethargy and mental stupidity. Apparently.

Reason #3 is simply the fact of talking to people in social settings. Even though I love to teach, I do not love to chat. It’s not that I find it boring or wasteful or anything, it just makes me tired. This is the #1 thing that gives me a headache: talking to strangers. Deep down, I am actually incredibly, ridonkulously, profoundly shy. I would much rather observe others talking than participate in conversation. More fatigue, less discipline.

Reason #4 is that once my discipline begins to deteriorate, some evil voice compels me to wreck whatever remains. In this case, flying home via Dallas on the heinous American Airlines, that meant stupid treats like more bad food and silly magazines. All my natural elegance and dignity were gone. But at least I wasn’t wearing a tracksuit. (If you ever see me wearing one, shoot me.)

Oh yes, and I had a migraine for two days. This made me even softer on myself. Not to mention all hopped up on Imitrex.

So today, I had a choice: immediately get back on the horse or…what? Not. I chose not. I chose instead to only do what I really, really felt like doing, the moment I felt like doing it. My husband is out of town, so this was actually possible because I’m home alone. I slept very late. I cooked healthy food for myself. I folded laundry and cleaned stuff up, which makes me happy. I traded in my old camera for a new one. I rode around with the top down. Watched a Barbara Stanwyck move. I feel much better.

As I was driving around today, I noticed something. The whole world was happening around me and I got to see it. I wasn’t looking at my schedule, I was looking up into the sky.

It has been a good day. Tomorrow, back on the horse.

Best. Day. Yet.

It’s 12:30A and I actually touched, filed, and/or tossed every single thing on my desk. Check out my empty inbox. It took all day and I feel so cheerful and refreshed right now. Good night.

A friend got all inspired about the Great Project (but she renamed it “The Great Intention Experiment), I guess because “discipline” sounded to harsh or something. Which is fine. Here is her tale.

Sooo, after we talked, I was so excited about what I call “the intention experiment”. It’s really bugging me how days pass.  When I got home I started to write out a schedule for the day. When I would actually get things done.  Like the Nanny does for mothers on the Super Nanny show. First morning of “the experiment” my friend Jim taps on the back door at 7:45, yes 7:45, he was returning a drill I had been looking for and lent them. We started to chat and then it was 8:30 and I missed my meditation and journaling time  forgot to drink water, say affirmations and take vitamins and barely made it out the door to catch a yoga class. I did make it to yoga though! The rest of the day was kind of like that and I didn’t get things done that I wanted???

xo
M

Well, it’s going about the same for me. Things happen, like my car needs service or I lost my keys or a conference call gets rescheduled…what then? How not to let the whole thing got to pot? This must remain a rhetorical question for now…

So, my analysis of week one is something like this:
Meditation: Good
Journaling: Pretty Good
Yoga: Good
Study: Not Good
Writing: Not Good
Diet: Great

The main thing I’ve learned is that if I don’t contemplate the day hour by hour first thing in the AM, the discipline project goes down the tubes. It has to be scheduled and planned for. When s*#t happens, I need to rearrange my schedule, but not let it fall apart. Just move time slots around.

OK, Week Two. Bring it on.

How’s it going for you?