Hello,
and welcome to this week's issue of our e-zine--we're
very glad that you're here,
and we hope that there's something here in this
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helpful to you! Enjoy your reading!
Stand
still in the forest in autumn and let the trees tell you
their story. The vibrantly colored leaves falling
from the branches speak to us of the seasons of
life. Birth, age, sickness, and death--all the
seasons of change are held within the falling of a single
leaf. The leaf on the ground becomes part of the
loam that allows new seeds to grow. The leaf is not
separate from the tree but is born of the tree; it is also
not exactly the same as the tree. Intimations of
change are held in each passing moment and there is
nothing in this life exempt from that rhythm. We are
taught by those intimations; to try to interfere with a
passing season is to enter into conflict, struggle, and
sorrow. There is a freedom in absorbing the simple
truth of change--to live in harmony with this
understanding is to find peace in all the changes of our
lives.
Seeing
the changing seasons we understand the way to the end of
separation, conflict, and confusion. We learn to let
go, to let be. We stand amid the perpetually
changing seasons of each moment. Everything that is
born will die; everything that arises will pass
away. Nothing is exempt. Whenever we endeavor
to separate ourselves from this rhythm we create a world
of struggle and fear. Each time we cling to or grasp
any thought, experience, feeling, or encounter embraced in
the rhythm of change, we set ourselves apart from the
world. Mindfulness is the art of non-interference,
of not clinging anywhere. In not dwelling anywhere,
not fixating upon anything, we are present
everywhere.
The
Buddha remarked, "The mind that does not cling, does
not become agitated. The mind that is not agitated
is close to freedom."
Standing
in the forest amid its life we come to see that no one is
making all this happen. The buds form on the
branches, the sun, the rain, and the richness of the soil
provide the conditions for those buds to develop into
leaves. The heat of the summer, the winds of autumn,
and the first frosts of winter all affect the life of a
single leaf, which will eventually fade and fall.
Everything is interdependent. Life interacts with
itself. If the conditions changed, if there was a
drought or the tree was damaged, a different process would
simply occur. The conditions of life are constantly
changing and perpetually affecting and influencing our
experience of each moment. We are not always in
control of these conditions and our commands are mostly
futile, but we are not powerless. The seeds of peace
lie within the mindful presence brought to each moment.
The
life of the forest is a reflection of our own life.
Within our body, mind, and heart, we experience the
process of change in every moment. Thoughts,
feelings, bodily sensations, and experiences all arise and
pass away. Our world of this moment is affected and
formed by where we are, what we are exposed to, and how we
meet the simple truths of each moment. It is futile
to believe that at the center of this unfolding and
interacting process there is a controlling entity.
As we learn to be intimate with ourselves and all things,
we understand that nothing and no one is separate from the
changing conditions of the moment. Our understanding
and sense of who we are undergoes countless changes in a
single day. The angry "me" changes into
the "me" of tolerance and patience. The
hopeful, excited "self" of the afternoon has
quite forgotten the "self" that brooded and
obsessed over breakfast. We begin to discover that
it is impossible to find any sense of "self"
apart from our beliefs.
The
deep, transforming understanding of change, suffering and
its cause, and the end of suffering, is the wisdom of
mindfulness. The secret of the Buddha's smile is
endlessly speculated upon. Perhaps he smiled at
himself for spending years searching outside of himself
for the freedom that was always in his heart.
Mindfulness is born in each moment we turn our attention
to where we are. With gentle, calm attention we
engage with this moment; probing beneath the surface to
understand the simple truth of the moment, we are taught
by it. Freedom is not complicated or distant.
We are asked to be present. Suzuki Roshi, a wise
teacher, reminded us, "To a sincere student, every
day is a fortunate day."
Gardening
By JJ Heller, David Heller, and Andy Gullahorn
There’s a feeling like a weight upon my chest
A heavy heart that keeps me up all night
An old familiar battle
That I’m learning how to fight
I’m gonna walk outside
Put my hands in the dirt
Gonna lay a seed in the broken earth
Wait for the sun
Pray for the rain
My act of resistance is gardening
My arms can’t hold the worries of this world
But still I am afraid of letting go
When life is overwhelming
And I start to lose my hope
I’m gonna walk outside
Put my hands in the dirt
Gonna lay a seed in the broken earth
Wait for the sun
Pray for the rain
My act of resistance is…
Trusting that the spring will come after the snow
And every blooming flower is a miracle
Each single seed holds a hidden life
And good things grow in good time
I’m holding on when darkness comes
I’m on the vine
I’m not alone
My protest is hope and light
My marigolds are picket signs
I’m gonna walk outside
I’m gonna walk outside
Put my hands in the dirt
Gonna lay a seed in the broken earth
Wait for the sun
Pray for the rain
My act of resistance is gardening
Gardening
I’m gonna walk outside
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No
one survives on their own, and no one thrives alone,
either. Yes, you might feel an excruciating
loneliness after one of life's hurtful blows.
But we are simply not built to survive solo.
Isolation will kill us, not protect us. We
humans are social animals made for community. Even
when family and friends annoy the hell out of us,
they remain an essential part of our survivorship.
One must find peers, friends, and family to break
the isolation and loneliness that come in the
aftermath of crisis. We have to let the people
in our life into
our life. In our hour of need, we may even
depend on the grace of mere acquaintances or total
strangers. Some will surprise us, coming out
of the woodwork to help. Others -- very often
our best buddies and closest siblings -- will
disappoint us terribly.
I often told myself during points of crisis when I
felt tempted to isolate, "Dammit, just make a
call to someone . . . " To survive, we
must find empathetic souls -- sympathetic
surrogates. Our inner victim
may shun this, preferring to retreat into a
shell. However, our inner survivor
craves people. We need to find people who
understand what we are going through. Social
support is absolutely essential.
I have never been a big believer in the
"self-made man." We all live off
previous generations, combined gene pools, and
preexisting social networks. We have benefited
from anyone and everyone who has ever been kind to
us, encouraged us, taught us, mentored us, or
parented us.
Still, when you are in a deep, dark, relentless pit
of pain, it's hard to think of others. But
make no mistake about it, they are there.
Others are in the room with you, in the wings of the
hospital with you, in prayer for you, in kitchens
cooking for you, on cell phones spreading the word
on your behalf. In trauma, you may have become
the lead character, but there is an ensemble cast of
participants and a host of witnesses. How you
keep the door open to relationships will determine
the extent to which you are able to thrive years
later.
I benefited greatly from social support while in
Israel. Frankly, if you're going to step on a
landmine, you might want
to do it there, where trauma is sadly normal.
You'll find a lot of peers and families who have
known your suffering -- they've been there.
And when you share a hospital room with others in
the same predicament, you don't have a lot of time
to brood alone.
In the hospital, I shared a room with "guys
like me." Hundreds were getting blown up
in Lebanon at the time. If I'd come back to
the States I would have had plenty of great friends
and family, but no one who had experienced war
injuries. Back in Boston, it was difficult for
my relatives to understand; few people were thinking
about war and terrorism, let alone minefields.
In Israel I was normal. I had peers and we
supported each other. It was another key to
recovery.
Friends and classmates from my studies at Hebrew
University heard about my accident and many made the
three-hour pilgrimage repeatedly, taking two or
three buses from Jerusalem to the hospital in Safed.
My room was an open-door party place of sorts.
They'd bring guitars and cookies and music.
The atmosphere was so Israeli casual that friends
even slept on spare hospital beds. I suspect
they wouldn't have allowed that at Mass General in
Boston.
With so many people coming and going, it was clear
that social support -- a primary ingredient for
overcoming crises -- was not missing from my
life. Perhaps I was spoiled with too much, if
there can be such a thing. There were days
when I was exhausted by support . . . I didn't want
to have everyone and his uncle pouring through to
gawk or make small talk with me. But still,
too much is better than not enough (if you have to
choose). I certainly can't complain.
Fritz and David remained my core support, changing
bedpans and urine bottles on demand, washing me,
shaving me, helping to deal with the basics, while
still keeping their sense of humor as I yelled each
time they knocked the bed without warning,
triggering new ripples of pain. I also recall
fondly the blond nurses on missions from Denmark --
Krista, Anne, Hannah, Irene -- saintly beings who
brought light (and shortbread cookies) with each
visit. My Jerusalem classmates brought comfort
food, good humor, and music, including Ray, who
played guitar and sang the same hymns again and
again, at my insistence.
A few weeks after my accident, an Israeli stranger
paid me a little visit -- an extraordinary moment in
which another survivor reached out to me. He
walked up to my bed and said that he, too, had
stepped on a landmine, but in Lebanon.
"Can you tell which leg I lost?" He
was wearing blue jeans and walked with a perfect and
steady gait back and forth in front of my bed.
Was he showing off? Was I in the mood for this
game? "I can't tell." I really
couldn't. "That's my point," he
said. "The battle is not down there, but
inside you, in here and up here," pointing to
his heart and then to his head. "By the
way, do you still have your knee?"
Yes. "Can you still have
kids?" I think so; yes, it still
works. "Then what you have is a nose
cold. You'll get over it."
He turned and walked out of my room as steadily as
he entered. I never met him again, and to this
day I don't remember his name. But I'll always
remember that visit, that moment. It posed a
choice, a mental fork in the road. I thought
to myself, If
this Israeli guy can do it, I certainly can.
Maybe I'd be okay in the end. Maybe I would be
able to walk and then run and swim and play tennis
again. Women would still be attracted to
me. Maybe I'd eventually start a family.
It dawned on me that losing my leg wasn't the same
as losing my life.
I believe this provocative peer visit was the
beginning of reclaiming my power. Just as
Albert Schweitzer describes, "At times our own
light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from
another person. Each of us has cause to think
with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the
flame within us." Well, if you're out
there, my anonymous amputee visitor, shalom
vey todah hevri -- "Peace and thank
you, my friend."
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
Finally
and most important of all, authenticity means that you must
do what
you do the way you do it and allow everyone else the same
courtesy. There
was a time I wanted to be like every famous writer that ever
lived. I tried
to copy styles, reframe information, use similar
artwork. I almost drove
myself crazy! Now I just do what I do. I have
mentors. There are people
whose work I admire, but I write the way I write. I
eat the way I eat.
I dress the way I dress. I can't believe that God made
us each
so unique only to have us do everything the same way.
Good with the Bad
and Difficult
Flashback: An essay from the times of Covid and protests
We're living in a different world right now. Our lives
simply aren't the same as they were back in say, February, or even
last November. I'm a teacher who hasn't seen my students for
11 weeks, and who has been over to any friends' house for even
longer than that. We're dealing with a worldwide pandemic
and tons of people who are ignoring or flaunting even the most
basic of safety measures. We're watching nationwide protests
and riotsin the States, and worldwide shows of solidarity with the
protesters. In some places, they're facing severe flooding
and other natural disasters.
People aren't able to seek out the support of other people in the
ways that we used to do so, for we're isolating ourselves at
home. My students weren't able to ask me questions about
their online assignments in the ways that they're able to when
we're in our normal classes. We can't call friends and say,
"Hey, let's meet for a cup of coffee tomorrow."
Kids aren't able to get together with other kids to play, to
explore, or just to hang around together.
In many ways, it's tempting to say that everything is bad right
now, especially now that the protesting has grown to dominate our
newscasts and our social media and our psyches. Everyone's
choosing sides and criticizing anyone who has chosen a different
side.
There is no
danger of eyestrain from
looking on the bright side of things.
unattributed
Is there good
in all of this? How can we find good amidst so
much death and destruction and anger and hatred?
I would say we just have to look. Perhaps we
have to look a little harder, but there is good
there.
I've been very impressed with the ways that many
protesters have supported the African-American
community--and by extension, other minority
communities--by protesting situations that they
don't find themselves in. I don't have to have
dark skin to feel compassion for those who do, and
it's a great sign that many people with light skin
are willing to stand up and protest the horrid
treatment of their fellow human beings. (And
I'm fully aware of the rioting and looting--but I
also know that the protesters are protesting, and
the looters are looting. They're not the same
people, but that's a different story.)
I've also seen accounts of many instances in which
protesters have done all they can to protect other
people and property from the people who have come to
the protests simply to cause or perpetrate
violence. They've put themselves in harm's way
to protect other people, and that's one of the
kindest and most compassionate things that one human
being can do for another.
And the protests themselves have gotten us to
finally start considering, as a nation, what
concrete steps we may take in order to stop the
mistreatment of people of color in our
country. It's a terrible shame that it's taken
the deaths of innocent people to get us to this
point--thousands of them, actually--but at least,
hopefully, we're there now.
When the
outlook is steeped in pessimism,
I remind myself, "Two and two still make four,
and you can't keep humankind down for long."
Bernard M. Baruch
And the
protests are coming during another unprecedented
time in our lives, the presence of a pandemic that
has kept us isolated from one another for almost
three months now, that has kept us fearful of
catching a virus and even of passing it on to
someone else who may not be able to survive its
effects. We're dealing with fear and
loneliness and frustration and loss, and in ways
that none of us have really been prepared for.
Students have lost school and the contact with their
friends and teachers that they've come to know as
"normal." Adults have lost contact
with their co-workers and customers and even their
relatives. Fear and loss are two of the most
devastating problems that face human beings, and
we're now dealing with them together in huge ways.
It seems like it all should be overwhelming.
But I'm seeing many things that give me much
hope--people who are wearing masks and staying home
out of respect to others, just in case they might
have been exposed to the virus. People are
using their isolation to develop their spirituality,
or to take up new hobbies, to explore their creative
sides through new art projects, or to read more or
write more or learn more about subjects that
fascinate them. Many people are sharing the
money that they're not spending on meals out or
shopping excursions, with other people who find
themselves in truly dire situations because of loss
of work.
And we're also witnessing incredible bravery on the
part of the medical professionals of our world, from
first responders to ICU doctors and nurses.
They're showing this bravery even though they know
that thousands of people in their jobs already have
died due to the virus that their patients may be
carrying. They're still showing caring and
compassion and professionalism, and they're still
doing their best to help their patients to survive
the infection--and they're having to watch
helplessly as many of those patients die before
their eyes. Yet they still keep on.
We
can see in the puddle either
the mud or the reflection of
the blue sky, just as we choose.
Lucy
Fitch Perkins
I have seen
people volunteering their time and money and
expertise to help wherever they could. I have
read about people who are doing all they can to
support others, even from a distance, and even
people whom they've never met before--and possibly
never will.
In crises, human beings very often show their best
sides. We show our strength and our resilience
and our kindness and our compassion. We share
our resources and our love, and we do what we can to
help others who may be worse off than we are.
Yes, there are the jerks who are trying to profit in
any way they can from other people's fears.
And there are probably even more of them around now
because most jerks are really very scared people who
don't know how to deal with their fears
effectively--and their fears are much stronger than
they usually are right about now. But there
are always jerks around, and they don't diminish one
iota the strength of the goodness that we're seeing
in the midst of the multiple crises that we're
dealing with now.
And one of the most important goods that are coming
from our experiences is the fact that we're learning
just how much we used to take for granted.
We've always thought that everything we know will
always be available to us, even toilet paper.
We've learned not to take for granted our friends,
our family, our health, our restaurants, our
shopping, our careers. And when we get these
things back, here's hoping that we'll never take
them for granted again--that we'll appreciate them
greatly for all that they're worth.
There
are so many things that can provide
us with peace.
Next time
you take a
shower or a bath, I suggest
you hold
your big
toes in
mindfulness.
We pay attention to everything
except
our
toes. When
we hold our toes in
mindfulness
and smile at them, we will
find that
our bodies have
been very kind
to us. We know that any
cell in our
toes
can turn cancerous, but our toes have
been behaving
very well,
avoiding that
kind of problem. Yet, we have
not been
nice to them
at all. These kinds of
practices
can bring us
happiness.
Life, believe, is not a dream,
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
foretells a pleasant day:
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
Oh, why lament its fall?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly.
What though
Death at times steps in,
And calls our Best away?
What though Sorrow seems to win,
O'er Hope a heavy sway?
Yet Hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, virtuously,
Can courage quell despair!
Charlotte
Brontë
We
collect data, things, people, ideas, "profound
experiences,"
never penetrating any of them. . . But there
are other times.
There are times when we stop. We sit
still. We lose ourselves
in a pile of leaves or its
memory. We listen and breezes
from a whole other world begin
to whisper.
James
Carroll
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
Explore all of our
quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each
topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on
the same topic (there are five pages on adversity, for example).
™
