the healing waters of awareness

Looking with exasperation at my watch, I grumbled at the indolent creep of the minute hand. "This was scheduled to be over five minutes ago," I lamented looking to my cohorts for validation, "will it ever end?" All around me ecstatic fans were oblivious to my distress, jiving to grooves I stoutly remained disassociated from. I should have been enjoying myself, yet the band at the Fillmore Auditorium appeared no where close to surrendering the stage, and I couldn't wait to leave. But that was out of the question. I was on the clock and still had another forty-five minutes of drudgery remaining once the music stopped.

Five years I was employed at various concert venues in Denver, seeing on average two shows per week. That's over 500 concerts - many forgettable, others simply annoying or at best tolerable, and very few fulfilling the guise of happiness. To the avid music-lover, however, I had a most enviable job: I didn't have to pay for the show, in fact, was paid to see it; Due to my seniority, I had a position with clear sight-lines to the stage with room to dance if I so desired; And was often served dinner from catering. My simple task was to check passes for backstage access preventing unauthorized fans from entering sacred confines. Still, it became a noisome burden that when I returned to Colorado after a four year hiatus, I chose not to renew that privileged vocation. It's strange how something one truly loves can become a source of suffering.

We are attracted to what promises us happiness. That's logical, but seldom do we know what is truly effective. We run after fortune, fame, or anything that bargains instant gratification to our senses. And we believe that we need these things to be happy. Music may well be my temptress, while in this morning's gospel where Jesus encounters the woman at the well, she is drawn to the only physical stability ancient times made available to her: that is, being in custody of a protective husband. Jesus, however, offers to quench the woman's true thirst with something greater: The water of life which can be construed as a deep connectedness to the present moment. This, he guarantees in spirit and in truth, assures freedom from physical encumbrances, even in the most painful and inconsistent realities.

We think that unpleasant experiences are full of pain. And of course, many are. But there is always something deeper than the suffering. Like the music at these concerts which I repeatedly failed to embrace, there is an underlying happiness still attainable. If we look deeper than our fear, negativity, anger, and hatred, we will be satiated with the healing waters of awareness. "There is something wonderful in every moment, something from the other side of reality," Thich Nhat Hanh says, "[because] there is joy and happiness" at its root. If we recognize and acknowledge the positive in the pain, we can become grateful to be wherever we are. We don't actively seek out painful experiences to be alive. But if we live deeply every moment of our life, listening to the song of the present moment, we may suffer less because we shall witness the nature of inherent joy in all things.

I continue to attend many concerts, now as a journalist chronicling the summer festival season, yet by being immediate to all that is, perhaps I'll hear what I once could not - a graceful melody even in the most strident, atonal cacophony.

 

love, always,
pia

spring cleaning

Every other Saturday is cleaning day in these climes. Time to rid the home of the collected dust and dirt that obfuscates the natural beauty of life. Yet it wasn't always so. I distinctly recall a 30 year ago visit from my sister Beth, who exclaimed upon entering my disheveled abode how unkempt it was. It cannot be denied; it was my first apartment on my own and I had not yet nurtured a routine for the necessities. Even this past Friday I was thoroughly embarrassed because the evening's dinner party was a day too soon. Cleaning is a cold and grim chore approached with enmity and suffered with brutal abiding. It steals time from agreeable activities, yet endured for the reward that clean living imparts.

So it was yesterday, in the midst of chaos and order, that I called my dear friend Elizabeth to send birthday greetings, yet more probably to procrastinate. I was scrubbing a white molded formica chair encased in months of grime that somehow escaped the marauding rag when I began to understand what was truly happening. As the surface began to shine I felt a deep feeling of rightness and tranquility. The happiness which ensued from my literal, task at hand, assured me that this was how life ought to be.

Through our light and cheery conversation and my darkening rag, the duality of near and far, clutter and organization, drudgery and contentment, melded into a sense of oneness. Immediately it set the morning's gospel passage from John to bear, wherein Jesus expounds that we must be born of water and spirit to enter the kingdom of heaven. But this is not some far off hope, much less a dual conception to be reconciled. In this precious human life we are in heaven - and we are of heaven - yet too often fail to see through the mire. Contending that the disparate water and spirit extend beyond its traditional baptismal implication, the combined accouterments of earth and divine surely manifest in the human composition: We are composed of body and spirit together, and only need a good cleansing to reveal our eternal association and dwell in harmony with the divine will.

This past week I finished Tom Wolfe's "A Man In Full," and was astounded with the synchronicity to these ideas. "The Manager has given every person a spark from his own divinity, and no can take that away from you," proclaims the rejuvenated entrepreneur Charlie Croker who, after spiraling into insurmountable difficulties, is resurrected by a Stoic messenger voicing teachings of Jesus' contemporary, Epictetus. "We are born with two elements," Croker continues, "the body, which we share with the animals... and the mind and reason, which comes from the spark the Manager has given us." And I couldn't help but paraphrase John's patois, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son" - that is, himself, to dwell with and in us. This is human fulfillment - to be so clean as to perceive the divine spark dwelling in unity. It's time to get out the rags and see what lies beneath.

love, always

pia

temptation's allure

Plans and details for the day rose up in a conspicuous flurry. Concern for one, and then another, and soon a third fought for preferential attention. My curious mind had it all figured out and gravitated toward making a mental list of these absorbing projects. That is, until I remembered I was attempting to meditate. So I gently let the competing urges drift from consciousness and resumed my subtle poise. Not long after, however, my quietness was disturbed by another barrage of compelling scenarios. Upon realizing the new intrusion, I cajoled them aside with minor irritation and re-centered my awareness on the morning's prayerful query, "What is this?" Perhaps I was literally asking for trouble, for again I was derailed on a meandering train of separating distraction. More and different questions wandered in and out of my brain, and in consternation I wondered when it would stop - the meditation, that is - so I could actively pursue these seductive ruminations.

I securely blamed my agitation on Daylight Savings Time. If it wasn't so dark out, so early in the morning, so cold in this room, I considered, then I wouldn't be experiencing this frustrating dislocation of mind. But secretly I knew my troubles had nothing to do with external circumstances and fearing failure, I quickly shifted culpability toward inner capitulation. If this pain in my side would vanish, if my body weren't so sleepy, if this growling stomach could satisfy its hunger, then I could enjoy the serenity which I so dearly longed. I squarely removed myself from censure, justifying that as a seasoned practitioner, there must be a remote source to my disturbance. These simple afflictions were perpetrating undue havoc on my usual concentration.

Of course, maintaining focused concentration for five minutes, much less for 30, is truly a rarity (for me) and the point of meditation is not to become expert in emptying the brain of all thought, but to increase our attention, presence, and ultimately, compassion. Like meditation, life presents a constant intrigue of choices - we can follow blindly in temptation, ignore the pressing impulse, or skillfully identify what's happening and understand the possibilities in judicious discretion. Being in touch with our experience means that we don't have to compulsively act out of our typically unseen anger, fear, or judgement, but can broaden our ability to include and embrace anything that arises.

Recently I heard Sharon Salzberg relate a humorous story about a California program where children were taught to meditate. When one student was asked what he learned in his involvement, he declared, "Mindfulness is knowing not to hit someone in the mouth." By releasing his clutching mind from runaway temptation, he recognized the emotion, and diffused the distraction. He didn't ignore it, fight it, or run away from it, but instead resisted the evil and changed the relationship he had with his emotions and so discovered the grace of a merciful heart.

Just so with Jesus' post-baptismal trial in the wilderness. Courted three times by insidious temptations - power progressively derived from self (you can change stones into bread); a finite divinity (god will protect you from irresponsible action); and the masses (all shall worship you) - he remained steadfast because he was able to listen to the loving compassion deep within himself. Through meditation, Jesus took the time to clear his mind from the distractions which make the temptations infinitely alluring, thus verifying Oscar Wilde's delicious quip, "I can resist anything except temptation." 

Similarly we can break out of the wilderness of self-centered conditioning by opening to the present moment, not struggling against what's happening, and cultivating compassion toward what we find there. If we battle against our reality, all we learn to do is fight, but if we embrace and acknowledge our circumstances, we can transform it into something good. Temptation will always be at our side, yet only through compassion can we attempt to overcome it.

 

love, always,
pia

voices inside my head

The hall was crowded and hot. I could see, but only minimally, through the maze of swaying heads bobbing and circling ahead of me. The music was raucously loud and I was loving every extemporaneous minute of it. We were four exuberant veterans of the jamband scene paying homage to one of our heroes and all I could do was smile - smile and dance to the familiar songs with new arrangements and well-crafted improvisation, thus making them seem like we were hearing them for the first time.

During the intermission we initiated a critique of the first set's performance, yet standing shoulder to shoulder, it was difficult to carry on an inclusive conversation through the competing clatter and surrounding din. Poised on the extreme right, I could hear Oppy clearly, for he was my neighbor; less so for Cathy who was adjacent on the other side; and for Lorraine, who was on the extreme left, I could see only lips moving with an occasional nod of the head. I tried to remain involved, but when the exchange was focused beyond my hearing, I was quickly isolated.

I became engulfed with the introspective thoughts racing through my charged brain. Revelatory clarity denuded my secure sense of self as if I was seeing afresh after an extended obliviousness. Insight enlightened me to how things really are and bid me to action. Could this be god speaking great wisdom to me, I wondered, or is this a psychotic inner auditory hallucination? Is this anything at all like the transfiguration we heard about this morning wherein Peter, James and John are radically changed by the presence of a divine voice and a brilliant vision?

I wish it were. But condemnation, vile, and wickedness was my partner in self assassination and not the healing grace of love. Although what I heard may have been based in objective truth, it was full of subjective reproach. The inner voice of strength, on the other hand, is a path full of potential derived from the heart. It removes the limits imposed by temporal voices that shout, "You can't do that," "You're no good," and "Who do you think you are."  We can only hear the true voice of power when we are attuned beyond the worldly surface of self concern and open in grateful awareness to a wider perspective.

So, how do we discern if our inner voice is a blessing or a curse? In The Teachings of Don Juan, Carlos Castenada  reveals: "Look at every path closely and deliberately. ... Does this path have heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you."

Obviously, mine was a path of denigrating fear that led down a crevasse of disdainful misery amid other-worldly music. Conversely, Jesus and his three cohorts took the good path up the mountain - to be in communion with the sound of sheer silence - and they found it led nowhere except exactly where they were. Not all inner voices sound the same, but if you quiet the mind and really listen, you might hear things you never imagined.