Open Road Meditation & Mindfulness Dialogue

 

  December 15, 2021

 

(Andy Larkin made the design on the first page, inspired by a verse from the Ātmopadesha Śatakam of Narayana Guru. Below is an English translation of the verse, along with a brief commentary by Andy.)

 

Verse 83

Atmopadesha Satakam

 

To break, to exist and to come into being is the nature of bodies here-

one goes, another takes its place;

remaining in the highest, the Self that knows all these three,

the indivisible one, is free of modifications.

 

 

As people with minds conditioned by notions of “before” and “after”, and “here” and “there”, we cannot know what lies beyond the twin portals of birth and death, where such notions no longer apply. Are we confined here? The Guru wants to reassure us. Birth and death are not just gates, but are twin features of every instant of our lives. The knowing Self is the imperishable ground upon which all these transformations are enacted. The changes we experience, even those that bring us intense joy or grief, can actually become constant reminders of our original nature, the Changeless.

 

—Andy Larkin

*

 

 Complaint, Compliant

 

Sometimes the fix is easy—a small

adjustment, and things start looking up,

the storm in you shot through with

sunlight, and you can be kind again.

 

Breath you used to snipe and slander

could be humming as you putter at some

healing task, raking leaves, making the dishes

gleam, jotting notes to friends.

 

You could trade in fear for a fare on the

love train. You could shun your trials

and follow trails into forest birdsong. 

You could make bitterness into butterness, 

 

and spread your love around.

 

 

—Kim Stafford

*

 

(Alex is Editor of Free Spirit, which is published at Deer Ridge Correctional Institution. This is his essay from the December issue.)

 

Heart of Snow

 

It is a simple word, “love,” and while it reverberates with pinks and sighs, I also hear the echo it contains: “of”—that fittingly nested rhyme employed “to indicate distance or direction from, separation, deprivation, etc.”1 That “etc.” wrecks me, as it seems to indicate that there is an infinite number of ways to be deprived of the people, places and things we love.

 

The complexities of love usually arise from our attempts to schematize, to understand love by way of language. For example, is it really true that a seemingly cold or unfeeling person has a “heart of ice”? Ice may be slow, ponderous and impermeable, but it does permit light, and in this way it is honest. It lasts. Conversely, a least on paper (poetically speaking), a person with a heart of snow seems more gentle, kind, capable of love. But snow is fragile, reflects light, and is easily muddied. It melts much faster than ice.

 

Language, an inherently inefficient technology (unlike a purely utilitarian engine, or sword, which has no extraneous parts), only hems love in, but we barrel ahead with letters and poems and avowals anyway. Nevertheless, I believe that love, as humans experience it, would be much less exhilarating without these passionate attempts to encapsulate and communicate it.

 

And our love, as it builds, as we ornament, qualify it with words, becomes a tangled thicket trailing behind us, a world whose heavy beauty, with each new annexation of the heart, becomes more capable of destroying us, until five words—which would have meant nothing before—suddenly mean a great deal: “I don’t love you anymore.” And yet heartbreak is ultimately something we do to ourselves, because we are its architect, and because we are blessedly doomed to remember. Love wallops all.

 

How many times have we wished to forget our greatest joys, simply because they no longer exist except in their capacity to haunt? And how many times have we outlasted our grief, and counted ourselves lucky to still possess those joys alive within us, so distant now that they can do us no harm? Daniel Kahneman proposes that “the time people spend dwelling on a memorable moment should be included in its duration.”2 If so, a kiss, even a meeting of eyes, can go on resolving for years, like a film frozen at its climax, and the lips finally part, the eyes look elsewhere, only as we draw our last breath and take leave of the earth.

 

 

1. Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, 2001.
2. Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking Fast and Slow, 2011.

 

—Alex Tretbar

*

 

The Gift

Life is a gift certificate,

        many ways of spending it?

Do I

        save it to use later,

                but for when and what time?

Or do I

        spend it little by little,

                until it’s gone?

Or do I

        throw it away,

                knowing not what I spend it on?

 

        It is something you cannot change,

                after you have spent it all.

 

        So think before you spend your gift,

                you only have but one.

 

 

© December 14, 1996

Joshua Underhill

*

 

(Jude meditates on Thich Nhat Hanh’s meditation from Your True Home.)

 

#294  More Time for What Is Important

 

I have some principles I live by. Principles sounds too lofty; let’s say ideas. In no particular order they are:

1. Give everything ten years to work out—for my stepchildren to love me, to lose ten pounds, for my wisteria to bloom; after ten years, reevaluate and maybe give another ten years.
2. Whatever the question, trees are the answer.
3. Hate drains you, love fills you.
4. Be happy that you’re not easily offended but try not to be so obtuse to others’ sensitivities. 
5. Less is more. Progress is overrated. Consumption sucks.

 

There are others to expand on at a later time, but there is one more to talk about in regard to #294: More Time for What Is Important. Every sentence resonates. My summation is Don’t Waste Life! When Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Time is very precious: every minute every hour counts. We don’t want to throw time away,” I remember what I say to others: I wish there were two more hours in a day, two more days in a week, two more weeks in a month! Think of the things I could do! Find more beautiful mountain meadows. Make more meals for the Ziegler family. Plant another sweet gum  tree for fall. Sleep more nights in the playhouse. Invite little Lily Contreras again for milk and cookies in the playhouse. See, if I had more hours, more days, I could squeeze so much more out of life. 

 

This idea is not just a recent Time-is-running-out-because-I’m-getting-older-by-the-minute thought; I have thought this for as long as I can remember.

 

Life is so short!

 

Live it!

 

—Jude Russell

*

 

(These are excerpts from Michel’s meditation journal. The numbers refer to meditations by Thich Nhat Hanh in Your True Home.)

 

November 3, 2021  #190 A Wonderful Opportunity

 

I enjoy the idea of being a refuge for others. It’s a way to help and to heal the world, which demands nothing more from me than I’m already doing for my own well-being. I can still develop a proactive aspect also, but by simply caring for the self—deliberate breathing practice, being happy, accepting the reality that is instead of focusing on what I may wish it to be—I can be a happy, peaceful haven for others around me, many of whom seem weary from all of their machinations and façade maintenance, which they believe will provide happiness and safety. I can simply “be” and allow peace to develop around me, as strife eventually falls away. I’m not being naïve about this. It takes a great deal of time to develop for/around anyone. At the same time, my efforts to not create my own strife will attract others seeking the same. As I create a world of peace through my choices, the world I live in will reflect that back to me, over time.

 

November 7, 2021  #191 Love is Understanding

 

I have experienced the truth of this teaching. Although I will add, it has not always been easy to see or accept the understanding. Other times it can be as easy as accepting the axiom: “hurt people, hurt people.” In this I can often see a (general) cause and from this arises acceptance, love and compassion….

 

I write this because to develop love from understanding is going to show, even if one doesn’t set out to do so. It just “leaks” out. Love can’t be contained. No matter how intensely or thoroughly one may attempt to hide or contain it, love will find its expression in this world. So, don’t fight it. Let it come out as you feel it is best to share. And rest knowing that: Love does indeed coquer all. A caveat is that it is genuine and altruistic, not the least bit self-serving, contrived, or stifled. Let it loose and let love reign.

 

November 17, 2021  #196 A Relaxation Practice

 

Everyone can appreciate one of these, right? It’s so simple and yet very rewarding to do. I only wish I could go to a park, or a lake, or a river or stream for a relaxing, mindful walk. I guess I can go in my mind through memory, reliving a moment, or just recalling the river, lake, park, etc., and recall the sights and sounds, while attending to how I experience them (anew) now. I could also relive that moment fully by recalling the physical sensations—the gentle touch of the breeze, the sounds of the birds in the trees, the gurgling river, the light softly filtered by the trees bathing my “moment,” the pungent aroma of nature, and even the body sensations that ground me in the moment. I wish I could share this memory with each one, but I’m certain that everyone has a relaxing memory to recall.

 

November 18, 2021  #197 Elegant Silence

 

I agree. I have had an experience of this. It’s calming. In a chaotic world, wherever one lives, having a retreat, of sorts, in the mind, where one may go to experience cessation of noise…can be very rewarding. Don’t take my word for it. Just start a daily practice, focus on the natural uncontrolled breath, and watch thoughts as they float by consciousness as clouds, without attaching or grasping onto them. With time, the mind quiets, after a habit is stabilized, and you’ll notice elegance. Don’t “look” for it. It may only be a glimpse. Or, something to notice after it happened. Seeking and finding aren’t the point. Being open and available to what “is” is the goal, and even that is not an “end,” but just a beginning of learning to just “be”—whatever may come. It’s a type of flow—like floating a river instead of resisting it.

 

November 25, 2021  Thanks Giving Day!  #199 Driving Lesson

 

Today is an amazing day! I’m alive! I woke up again. I’m sort of like the rooster in the latest Peter Rabbit movie, exclaiming surprise and joy at being alive to see another day. I have much to be thankful for, such as: family and friends and comrades in the prison, too!….I’m housed in a safe, warm space where I can communicate with others for my needs, as well as for social contact and mental wellness. I have food to enjoy, and even “special” foods for today….

 

—Michael Deforge

*

 

(Last year about this time, my friend Rocky Hutchinson was in segregation. I wrote him a “meditation letter” in the hope that it would be helpful to him in getting through a difficult time. Here it is:) (JS)

 

December 26, 2020

 

Dear Rocky

 

Thinking of you this morning. I start each day with inner stillness. It seems to me that it would be good for you to start your day by being still. And throughout each day to find moments of peace and stillness.

This letter will be a kind of guided meditation.

Sit quietly. Comfortably. Eyes open. Notice breath. Body. See what’s around you, but don’t name it, or think about it. Just observe.

Breath. No past. No problems. No worries. No Rocky.

No past. No future. Breath.

The present moment is a wonderful moment. I am alive. I breathe. I see with my eyes. 

When I close my eyes, the world disappears. When I open them, it reappears. Wonderful!

Calm. Peace. Quiet.

Thoughts arise. Say: “Thank you. No thank you.”

Back to stillness. Back to breath.

When you drop a pebble into a pool, it makes little ripples. After a while the surface of the pool is still. Thoughts are like those pebbles. Thoughts are not bad. All thoughts are just thoughts. Happy thoughts, sad thoughts, are just thoughts. In between the thoughts is perfect emptiness. Perfect fullness.

Sitting still, there are no problems. There are no worries. Each moment of stillness is a vacation from being Rocky. From the past. From guilt. From shame. From pride.

The future has not arrived. It never arrives. The future is uncertain. Everything is always changing. We don’t know what will happen. In this moment we can bless the day. Say thank you for our breath. For the gift of life. For the gift of awareness.

In silence, we are free. In silence, a feeling of boundless being. Even if the silence is just for a few seconds, it nourishes us. And so, we return to it again and again. Whenever we can.

Allow thought and language to fall away. Just be. Be without a boundary. Be without beginning or end. No past. No future. Awake. Aware. 

Thoughts come and go. Observe them like clouds, floating by in the sky. The brain is used to being very active—to thinking and imagining one thing after another. Allow it to slowly, slowly quiet down. To have a rest.

Notice how stupid and repetitive all the thoughts are. How useless. The mind is like a noisy radio playing terrible music and dumb advertisements all day long. Gently turn down the volume. Gently turn it off. Breathe.

Awake. Aware. No boundary. No inside or out. No here or there. No ideas. No memories. No worries.

Everything, without exception, is miraculous. This moment, perfect. All my stories are just stories. All my thoughts are just thoughts. Watch the thoughts come and go, like clouds floating by in the sky. Return again and again to stillness. To the peace which passeth understanding. 

Bless the day. The present moment is a wonderful moment. It has no beginning or end.

*

Well that’s about it for that.

I think it would also be good to read the Hsin Hsin Ming slowly every day, in a meditative way. It only makes sense in the context of meditation. You could learn it by heart. It is a doorway to freedom.

Meditation and mindfulness and silence are part of the dance of life. Without inner peace, life becomes confusing and overwhelming. All our fears become magnified. We torture ourselves. We become depressed. And anxious. Our thoughts drive us mad.

As you water the seeds of inner peace, it grows—and becomes stronger every day. With a sense of well-being and quiet joy you can face all the problems and challenges of life. 

In silence, problems are dissolved. They don’t arise. 

Please stay safe. Always choose the option that is the safest one. 

Take good care of yourself. You are a good person. You have a loving heart.

Water the seeds of peace, love, happiness and understanding. Don’t water seeds of anger, hatred or fear.

This day is a perfect day. Don’t waste this precious day being miserable.

Practice the Metta Prayer for yourself and for others:

May I be happy.

May I be well in body and mind.

May I be peaceful and at ease.

May I live in love.

 

—Johnny Stallings

*

 

(Deborah sent two short pieces from Raids on the Unspeakable by Thomas Merton, and a poem she wrote.)

 

Rain and the Rhinoceros

 

Let me say this before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and distribute for money. By “they” I mean the people who cannot understand that rain is a festival, who do not appreciate its gratuity, who think that what has no price has no value, that what cannot be sold is not real, so that the only way to make something actual is to place it on the market. The time will come when they will sell you even your rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and its meaninglessness.

 

The rain I am in is not like the rain of cities. It fills the woods with an immense and confused sound. It covers the flat roof of the cabin and its porch with insistent and controlled rhythms. And I listen, because it reminds me again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not yet learned to recognize, rhythms that are not those of the engineer.

 

I came up here from the monastery last night, sloshing through the cornfield, said Vespers, and put some oatmeal on the Coleman stove for supper. It boiled over while I was listening to the rain and toasting a piece of bread at the log fire. The night became very dark. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!

 

Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen. (pp. 9-10)

 

 

Letter to an Innocent Bystander

 

The true solutions are not those which we force upon life in accordance with our theories, but those which life itself provides for those who dispose themselves to receive the truth. Consequently our task is to dissociate ourselves from all who have theories which promise clear-cut and infallible solutions, and to mistrust all such theories, not in a spirit of negativism and defeat, but rather trusting life itself, and nature, and if you will permit me, God above all. For since man has decided to occupy the place of God he has shown himself to be by far the blindest, the cruelest, and pettiest and most ridiculous of all the false gods. We can call ourselves innocent only if we refuse to forget this, and if we also do everything we can to make others realize it. (p. 61)

 

—Thomas Merton

 

 

What Do I Know?

 

Closing my eyes,

a silent darkness,

light

at the edges.

My breath moves

up and down,

holding each moment,

inhalation

then release.

 

The human heart

is quixotic,

malleable,

almost like a berry

in the palm of my hand.

 

In my ears,

a deeper space

that stretches out, 

a disappearing

reverberation.

 

We touch nothingness.

 

 

—Deborah Buchanan

*

 

(Katie Radditz shares two poems and some of her thoughts:)

 

In Celebration of the Winter Solstice 

 

Do not be afraid of the darkness.
Dark is the rich fertile earth
that cradles the seed, nourishing growth.
Dark is the soft night that cradles us to rest.
Only in darkness
can stars shine across the vastness of space.
Only in darkness
is the moon’s dance so clear.
There is mystery woven in the dark quiet hours.
There is magic in the darkness. 

 

Do not be afraid.
We are born of this magic.
It fills our dreams
that root, unravel and reweave themselves
in the shelter of the deep dark night.
The dark has its own hue,
its own resonance, its own breath.
It fills our soul,
not with despair, but with promise.
Dark is the gestation of our deep and knowing self.
Dark is the cave where we rest and renew our soul.
We are born of the darkness,
and each night we return
to the deep moist womb of our beginnings. 

 

Do not be afraid of the darkness,
for in the depth of that very darkness
comes a first glimpse of our own light,
the pure inner light of love and knowing.
As it glows and grows, the darkness recedes.
As we shed our light, we shed our fear,
and revel in the wonder of all that is revealed. 

 

So, do not rush the coming of the sun.
Do not crave the lengthening of the day.
Celebrate the darkness.
Here and now. A time of richness. A time of joy. 

 

—Stephanie Noble 

 

Stephanie Noble is an insight meditation teacher, author and board member of the Buddhist Insight Network. Many resources are on her website. 

 

Thay encourages us to nourish those seeds underground (he calls it, “our store consciousness”); look deeply and heal through touching those feelings you wish to grow. This is a good time to meditate, on Loving-Kindness, toward ourselves as well as others :

 

May I be at ease,

May I know the light of my True Nature

May I be healed

May I be a source of healing for All Beingss

May I be at Peace

 

This meditation can sooth, be repeated for “you” and “we.” Weekly, this past year, I have meditated with a small, open group and felt a shift in some of those blocked places within. Always, i feel connected with you all, my extended love-in community. In the dark time that is also the time of giving, may our hearts remain open!   

 

love, katie

 

Here is a parting gift from poet Robert Bly, a poem that embraces grief as he embraces being alive.  

 

KEEPING OUR SMALL BOAT AFLOAT

 

So many blessings have been given to us
During the first distribution of light, that we are
Admired in a thousand galaxies for our grief.

 

Don’t expect us to appreciate creation or to
Avoid mistakes. Each of us is a latecomer
To the earth, picking up wood for the fire.

 

Every night another beam of light slips out
From the oyster’s closed eye. So don’t give up hope
that the door of mercy may still be open.

 

Seth and Shem, tell me, are you still grieving
Over the spark of light that descended with no
Defender near into the Egypt of Mary’s womb?

 

It’s hard to grasp how much generosity
Is involved in letting us go on breathing,
When we contribute nothing valuable but our grief.

 

Each of us deserves to be forgiven, if only for
Our persistence in keeping our small boat afloat
When so many have gone down in the storm.

 

 

— Robert Bly, first Poet Laureate of Minnesota (December 23, 1926-November 21, 2021)