Compassion is hard

When I sit on my meditation cushion and (try to) meditate, one of the types of meditation I seem drawn to the most is 'metta' meditation. During this type of meditation, you work at cultivating feelings of loving kindness and friendliness to all beings, including yourself. In your mind, you say something like, 'may all beings be safe, healthy, happy and at ease." You say this to yourself as well, and then work outwards to people you know and like, eventually including people that you find difficult and may not like very much at all.

When I'm sitting there, doing that, I seem to have no problem saying these kind words to people I dislike or find difficult. I can even say that I genuinely mean it when I'm saying it, because I know that if those people were feeling safe, happy, healthy and at ease (i.e., not suffering) they probably wouldn't be so difficult. I truly feel compassionate towards them, because I know they must be angry, hurting, defensive and confused, just like I am when I am difficult and unlikeable.

That's while I'm 'on the cushion.' It seems I have some work to do when it comes to real life. The good part is I've at least recognized that fact!

Here's what I mean. This past weekend a letter to the editor was printed in one of the local papers. In a nutshell, the couple writing the letter are opposed to a Habitat for Humanity project being considered for a neighborhood near theirs because they feel their hard-working family doesn't deserve to live near people of lower incomes who would bring crime and disorder into their upper-middle class community. Here is a quote from the letter , just to give you its flavor:

Like it or not, the children of St. Albert are high-standard children and have no place for low-income classmates. When we first moved to St. Albert our teen had a hard time fitting in because of money and it was hard on him. Now he is good, but it did not go away with just a loving hug — his status was accomplished once his friends saw our house and other possessions. It sounds cruel but that is how it is; ask your children, they will tell you.

The bigotry in the letter is quite astounding really, and it has generated a LOT of controversy, to the point that it was mentioned on the national news. If you read the comments that follow the letter, you'll see that most of them decry this couple's opinions, and some do so in very harsh terms. And I must say that my reaction was pretty much in line with theirs: my first instinct was a feeling of disgust and then many disparaging thoughts. I wanted to write a comment too, voicing these feelings and thoughts, and condemning the couple for their shallowness, snobishness and ignorance. Fortunately, in order to submit a comment I had to take the time to register on the newspaper's website first, and while deciding whether or not I wanted to do that, my urge to comment faded. Which was a good thing. I ended up donating to Habitat for Humanity instead, in the name of the couple in question. Nevertheless, I still took a lot of pleasure in other peoples' comments and their call for a boycott of the couple's business. Truth be told, I'm still taking pleasure in it, and I need to let that go.

Today I will do some metta meditation for this couple, to help me let go of it. Because it is true that if this couple could feel more safe, more healthy, more happy and more at ease, I'm sure they would soften at least a little towards the H4H development project. I will do some metta for myself as well, so I can extend to them more compassion and less judgement. And that will be good practice for the next time my old habit of judgment and derision jumps to the forefront.

Have any of you had a tough time being compassionate lately?

Theory into Practice

In Tai Chi we do a bunch of warm-up exercises before we do the actual 108-move set itself. Some of these moves have names, and some do not. There are several purposes for these foundation exercises, one of which is to practice certain moves that are embedded in each one of the 108 forms. We do the foundation exercises repeatedly, and our instructor gives us corrections to ensure that we are getting the moves right so that we can do them properly during the set itself. The goal is to incorporate the teachings about the foundation exercises into the set to get the most health benefits out of the exercise. In short, to put theory into practice.

This turns out to be more difficult than one might think. It is one thing to do the same thing over and over again in the same place, and quite another to incorporate the motion into a dynamic set of 108 moves, while trying to maintain one's balance, remember what comes next and move at the same speed as everyone else.

I am finding the same thing happening as I learn and read more about Taoist and Buddhist ideas. I love to sit and read books by Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, or lose myself in the latest issue of Shambala Sun magazine. My most recent discovery is the work of Noah Levine, a buddhist who spent some time in jail as a youth. I sit, comfy with some tea, reading the works of these authors. I might nod and smile, agreeing with what's being said, thinking what a good and noble idea it is, and how the world would be a better place if we all put these ideas into action.

After that is where I fall a bit short. It is one thing to feel all warm and fuzzy inside, imagining a world of compassion and caring. It's another to actually behave in a compassionate way when, for example, something very annoying happens at work, or (hypothetically speaking of course!) a politician enacts a policy that you find completely wrong-headed, or a driver cuts you off in traffic. I want to rant and rave, and I often do -- sometimes here, sometimes in the moment itself. And I think unkind thoughts and say unkind words. I am getting a little better at refraining from that, and actually feeling compassion and acting kindly towards others in trying situations, but it is mostly hit-and-miss at this point, depending on what kind of day I'm having.

So it comes back to practice and more practice, decreasing the separation between what I think and say when I'm reading or meditating, and what I actually do when I'm out there, in the world, with its dynamic changes and challenges.

Picture courtesy Western Region Taoist Tai Chi Society

Breakfast lessons

Yesterday Gord requested that we have a 'nice breakfast' today, Sunday morning. This request is short form for a breakfast consisting of eggs, toast, hashbrowns, and maybe some fake bacon, or possibly Dutch pancakes or French toast. We have an excess of eggs at the moment, as well as some fake bacon to use up, so I opted for the first choice. I'm not a terrific cook by any means, but I can whip up a pretty good breakfast.

The breakfast itself turned out well: my homemade hashbrown patties were nice and crisp, I managed to make Gord's eggs over medium like he likes them, and my egg soft basted the way I like it, all at the same time as having the toast ready. And the fake bacon is always just bacon-y enough to satisfy one of my few cravings for meaty flavor.

I sat down with my breakfast, along with my tea and orange juice and dug in. My thought process went something like this:

"Gotta eat my egg while it's hot. Wait, gotta taste that hashbrown patty first to see if it's crisp this time. Oo...I need a swig of tea while it's hot too. My toast is getting cold, ack! My bacon is cold already, dang! Hurry hurry, dunk toast in egg yolk! No time for orange juice, gotta have hot toast!"

About 30 seconds into this, I realized that maybe a breakfast consisting of six items, including two beverages, is too much to appreciate properly. I was just gobbling it all up. Maybe it would be better to just have egg and toast OR hasbrowns and bacon, so I can enjoy everything while it's hot and not have to rush or gobble. This seems obvious, but until I actually paid attention to my thoughts, I didn't even realize I was rushing and gobbling.

Funny how this is a lesson that keeps popping up for me - probably because I haven't actually learned it yet. It strikes me that this is a lesson that our society hasn't learned yet either. We're still rushing and gobbling at the world's un-refillable buffet table, leaving little for those who are further back in line. Another lesson for me personally is that of humility: I continue to make the mistake of mindless consumption at my literal breakfast table and need to remain compassionate towards those doing the same at the metaphorical world buffet table.

Further, I need to continue to work on becoming mindful of these things beforehand, rather than just catching myself in hindsight. Doing so, and changing my habits accordingly, could serve as an example that sets off a chain of insight in someone else, and so on. Not that what I do is particularly exemplary, just that seeing someone do something differently tends to have more of an impact that just talking about it. Which brings me back to my 'resolution' for 2009, which is, in a nutshell, more action and less talk.

Picture of veggie bacon courtesy this blog.

Book Review: The World We Have

What with the increasingly dire (but not surprising) economic news, I was glad to read Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh's latest work, The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology. It was a definite respite in the midst of so much uncertainty.

In the interest of simplicity and out of respect, I'm going to adopt the practice of referring to Thich Nhat Hanh as 'Thay', which means 'teacher.' While I'm not an official or formal follower of his, he has certainly taught me much in the short time since I discovered his writing.

I sped through this 141 page volume, eagerly taking in Thay's wise words. He has composed the book in three sections and I'll write a bit about each of them in turn:

1) "A Collective Awakening"

Thay begins by reminding us that "the bells of mindfulness are sounding." These 'bells' are things like floods, droughts, and massive wildfires. He says plainly that while some people are hearkening to the sound of these 'bells,' most people have yet to become awakened to them. But yet, he says we don't have to despair; we can take action in our own lives, and we can help others to "awaken to the true situation": the fact that "the American dream is no longer even possible for Americans. We can't continue to live like this."

Thay goes on to talk about the five mindfulness trainings of Buddhism, the fifth of which is the practice of mindful consumption. Thay says that mindful consumption helps us to "recognize what to consume and what not to consume in order to keep the body, mind and the Earth healthy." He goes on to say that the energy of mindfulness, concentration and insight are what is referred to when we speak of the Buddha, or the Holy Spirit, being within us. It is through this energy that transformation can take place.

In the remainder of this section, Thay focuses quite a lot on the Buddhist ideas of interbeing and impermanence. He illustrates these points with examples from Nature. The concept of inter-being can be illustrated by the case of kernel of corn growing into a corn stalk: the seed has not died, it has become the plant. The plant could not exist without the seed's existence; and the seed can not exist without the plant. Similarly, nature and humans inter-are. Every single thing coexists with every other single thing. In Thay's words:

We human beings have always singled our selves out from the rest of the natural world. We classify other animals and living beings as 'nature,' a thing apart from us, and we act as if we're somehow separate from it....Human beings and nature are inseparable. Just as we should not harm ourselves, we should not harm nature. To harm nature is to harm ourselves, and vice versa." (pp 34-35)

I've talked about this concept of interconnection before - it really is the foundation of things I think, pretty much literally. From the concept of inter-being, stems the idea of impermanence. They are two sides of the same coin, really. A yin-yang relationship. Since everything is connected to everything else, any particular thing has no discrete beginning or end. Thay uses another natural idea to illustrate this concept: that of the rising and falling wave in the ocean. If one focuses on the wave itself, one might rejoice at the building up of the wave, and lament its cresting and tumbling into the shore. But if one focuses on the ocean into which the wave is being re-drawn, then there is no need to grieve the loss of the wave, because the water itself is all-encompassing. I can't say this as eloquently as Thay can - here are his words on the subject:

A rising wave has a lot of joy. When the wave is falling, there may be some anxiety about the ending of the wave. Rising always brings about falling. Birth gives rise to death. But if the wave practices meditation and realizes she is water, she can collapse and tumble with joy. She may die as a wave, but she will always be alive as water. The teaching of the Buddha helps us to touch our true nature and receive the insight that will dissipate all kinds of fear (pp 49-50).

It is from this idea that I gained the most comfort from the book. Like Thay says, my fear has dissipated somewhat. Like everything else, civilizations rise and fall, turn and return. Recognizing this, I can let go of the idea that things need to stay the same to be good. Thay goes on to describe The Five Remembrances which practitioners of Buddhism meditate on to help them accept the idea of impermanence. When we no longer fear impermanence, we have a measure of peace, and so we can get on with the task of doing what needs to be done.

2) "Our Message is Our Action"

Thay says that our individual thoughts, words and actions are our continuation. In death, "all we take with us and all we leave behind are the fruits of our thoughts, speech and action during our lifetime. That is our karma, our continuation." Because of this, a path of "service, love and protection" directly influences the world in a positive way, the same way we have been influenced positively by others' compassionate actions before us. Thay goes on to say that "we know that our parents, our ancestors and our teachers all expect us to live our lives in a way that will protect the planet. We have to allow our ancestors, our teachers and the Buddha in us to act."

But what to do? We can't do everything that needs doing - there is just too much. One of Thay's students asked him a similar question, to which he responded, "take one thing and do it deeply and carefully, and you will be doing everything at the same time." This came as quite a relief to me. In order to do our One Thing well, and for as long as it needs doing, we need the strength of peace. Peace is found through the well of mindfulness. Thay says,

It's important that while volunteering or taking part in environmental activism, we find ways to continue with our practice of mindful breathing, mindful walking and mindful speaking. Let us not give in to anger or despair when reflecting on the current state of the world or when confronted with those who engage in the wasteful use of resources. Instead we can make our own lives an example of simple living (p. 76).

Thay goes on to describe the type of actions taken at his monasteries and practice centers in Europe and North America, actions such as powering one monastery entirely with solar power, and having 'no car days' at several others. As the founder of the Engaged Buddhism movement, Thay and his followers certainly 'walk the walk.'

3) "Practices for Mindful Living"

The third section of Thay's book is full of several different ways that we can learn to be more mindful and connected with 'the world we have.' The first of these are some gathas, reminding us during every day activities, such as eating meals, washing our hands or walking outside, that "the Earth provides us with precious gifts every day." There are several gathas in the book, but I will quote just one (p. 108) -- this one is to be brought to mind when washing one's hands:

Water flows over these hands
May I use them skillfully
To preserve our precious planet

Thay also describes a breathing exercise to do when reciting the Five Mindfulness Practices, as well as outlining a deep relaxation method, and some meditations called the Five Earth Touchings. He concludes this section with a checklist of changes in behavior the reader can complete and commit to, and carry along in one's purse or wallet, to be reminded of the commitments made. The reader is also invited to mail the list to the Deer Park Monastery, and the practitioners there will then send email reminders to the reader to encourage follow through with the commitments.

In conclusion, I can only say that this book seemed to simplify a lot of things for me, and provide some relief from the self-imposed burden of feeling that I had to do everything but yet couldn't do enough. I'm a little bit better now at stopping to appreciate the beauty of the moment, just doing one thing at a time, and taking care to do that one thing deeply and well.

Be a Bookworm Challenge

Thanks to Green Bean Dreams for starting this challenge! I am an avid reader, and always have a couple of books on the go. Usually I have one in my knapsack to read on my lunch hour, one on my bedside table and a few down in the living room to pick up whenever I'm in the mood to read. Which is pretty often. Our living room chair is usually filled with books that Gord and I are reading, have read, or plan to read. So it is with great pleasure that I signed up for this challenge. I'm hoping the weather warms up in May so I can do some of my reading outside, with a nice cup of tea of course!

The two books I'll be reading are already waiting on the chair in the living room. The first one is Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water. And the second book is one I've been trying to get through for some time now, but have been distracted by other things: The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times. Gord has read the first book and says it is must-read material. The second book isn't as dire as the title might suggest - it's written by Buddhist monk Pema Chodron and is a guide to meditation and mindfulness and the development of unconditional compassion.

And if you'd like to join this challenge, but can't decide what to read, I invite you to sign up for my first (annual?) book giveaway!

"Guerrilla" Smiling ?

A few days ago Gord and I were talking about how much just smiling at someone can really make a big difference to the smiler and the smile-ee. It's amazing how the simple act of smiling can change everything in an instant. Smiling and mouthing "sorry!" when you accidentally cut someone off in traffic can diffuse an potentially ugly road-rage situation. Smiling and waving at your neighbor increases 'community' sentiment, even if you don't say a word. When we were talking about this, I thought about the phrase "guerrilla gardening" - the practice where people go ahead and plant flowers and edible plants on vacant lots, boulevards, or wherever a bit of dirt is available. (Cluttercut has blogged about this recently.) It occurred to me that we could all be practicing "guerrilla smiling" as well!

Lately I've been waving and smiling at oncoming drivers on the country roads I take on my way into work every morning. When we first moved here, almost everyone waved at everyone else this way, but it has sort of dropped off over the past couple of years, as more people moved into the new acreages that were being built. I've decided to start doing it again, because it's nice and I like it.

So, this morning I just raised my two fingers in a peace-sign looking greeting and the lady in the car coming towards me broke into a big grin! I have no idea who she is, but I know that both she and I felt better in that moment than we did the moment before! I did the same thing to the guy who drove by me in a pickup truck, and he didn't smile or wave back, but he did a bit of a double take as he was maybe thinking, "hey, did you just wave at me?" I'm not sure if he was happier after I waved or not, but he was surely more curious!

Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh really sums this up nicely when he says,

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work. "

Smiling for peace - that's something we all can do!

Picture courtesy this flickr site. Nose-touching not required in guerrilla smiling!

Kindness abounds

Just when I thought compassion would never be the new cool, I went to tai chi class.

As I was waiting for class to start, a classmate whose tea cup I had admired last week gave me a matching tea cup to use! We always have green tea and cookies at tai chi, but there were only styrofoam cups to use. Everyone would write their name on their cup to re-use during breaks and after class, but eventually the foam cup would be thrown in the garbage. I hadn't brought a tea-cup from home, because (I told myself) Chinese tea cups are small and I only have big tea cups. But this lady had brought a perfectly sized tea cup with a handle and I had said so to her just last week. So now I have been gifted with my own tai chi tea cup, and no longer have to use a styrofoam cup.

Then, in the middle of the class one of the instructors came up to me and asked if I had lost some winter boots, which I had. She said she knew where they were, and she went and got them for me! Someone in the school where we have tai chi sometimes had found them after our last class there about a month ago, and set them aside for the next time we had a class there. So now I don't have to worry about getting another set of boots!

I had had a discouraging day up until then, but these kindnesses really turned things around.

When I am discouraged
I vow with all Beings
to be grateful for kindness that abounds
just when it is needed


Picture courtesy this flickr website

'Compassionate' is the new 'Cool' - is it only a dream?

Warning: long, rambling and somewhat atypical post ahead.....

Lately I've been doing more and more thinking about why it has become 'cool' to be angry, greedy and mean.

Cars and trucks are bigger and meaner-looking with their big grills and downward slanting headlights. Motorcycle manufacturers make their products look angry on purpose, so other drivers will pay attention to them. Vehicle headlights are aggressively bright and who needs a muffler anyway? Something that makes an ordinary diesel truck sound like an '18 wheeler' is way more cool. Especially when you throw your cigarrette butt or McWhatever garbage out the window - garbage cans are for wimps, after all.

Pictures of celebrities seem more likely to show them frowning and with 'attitude' than smiling openly. Even the phrase, "with attitude" implies that the attitude itself is a negative one. You never hear anyone refer to someone with a friendly disposition as having 'attitude.' Swearing and crude language are more and more commonplace everywhere you go (and I work in a jail so I have a fairly high tolerance for these things). Letting someone else into traffic or into a parking spot is seen as wimpy and weak. Cell phones are depicted in TV commercials as being more 'cool' if they are so razer sharp, they can be used as a weapon and cut someone's clothes. Sports commentators and business writers speak of 'dominating' the other team, and 'aggressive positioning' in the investment market.

I don't think I'm imagining all of this, am I? How did we get to this point?

I think it may have something to do with society's glorification of psychopathic tendencies*. Think about who is seen as valuable and important in today's mainstream western society: it is the detached, strongly independent person who can separate emotions from the task at hand and get things done. Someone who isn't afraid to win at all costs. The 'thick-skinned' person who can exert power and control over others without worrying about how it affects anything but the financial bottom line. It is the charming, charismatic person who can make everything seem alright and who can sweep others up with their visionary goals and ideas. The person who can make the complicated things seem black-and-white again and who is quick to make decisions and act on them. The person who can carry on, or even thrive, in the face of adversity. Those who can turn any situation to their advantage. (Think about some bosses, politicians, or media moguls whom you may know.)

The problem with this is that people with these qualities usually have a few others to go along with them, and these are quite a bit less positive. For example: being self-centered and shallow, being able to lie well and often, lacking the capacity for empathy, being impulsive and impractical, and seeing themselves as above the law, or as a law unto themselves. In short, such people often have no appreciation or understanding of the reciprocal connection between themselves and the rest of the world. They see other people and things merely as means to their ends. Fortunately, there are not that many true psychopaths around, but there sure are a lot of unintentional wanna-bees, it seems.

When will it stop being cool to be mean, to each other and to the planet? When will the word 'power' come to be associated with consideration, discretion, moderation and wisdom instead of with domination, exploitation and control? When, and how, will compassion and kindness be the new cool?

With psychopathy, the essential problem as I see it is disconnection on all sorts of levels. A psychopath doesn't care if what he or she does affects anyone else, positively or negatively. It just doesn't matter one way or the other to them. In contrast, the compassionate person can see connections between everything and everyone all over the place.

So if disconnection is part of the problem, then connection is at least part of a solution. After that it comes down to how to foster such connectivity in a world where the media, corporations and government want us all to remain disconnected, and therefore afraid of, each other, the world and ourselves. Divide and conquer, don't ya know.

Ok, so maybe I'm getting a little paranoid there. Or maybe not.

I know that for myself it was that "eureka" moment where I felt a direct connection between myself and the natural world that my entire world view and priorities changed. I wasn't especially psychopathic before then, I don't think, but I was certainly unaware of a lot of things and disconnected from the very breath that keeps me alive from moment to moment. (And I had my episodes of being mean and uncaring too. Still do. I'm working on it, but I still do.) But this "eureka" moment I had was completely unexpected, and I'm not sure the planet has time to wait for everyone to have one of these experiences.

I still have so many questions: Is a feeling of inter-connection really essential to compassionate action? If so, how could these connective experiences be fostered? If they can be fostered, can large-scale changes in society's values and actions be made in a relatively short period of time, so that we don't kill ourselves off and ruin the only planet we have?

I'll end by saying that this is one of my most-pondered things, and my ponderings remain a work-in-perpetual-progress. I welcome all thoughts and ideas on this topic!


*For those of you who don't know, I'm a forensic psychologist and so I have occasion to work with psychopaths on a fairly regular basis. It was a colleague who works in the same field who pointed this out to me some years ago, and it has really stuck with me.

The Spaces In Between II

Last Summer I wrote a post about the importance of creating space in our lives, and how slowing down can really enhance one's appreciation for every day activities, like having tea or washing dishes. I'm in the fortunate position of having this week off of work, and so I've really been able to slow down and enjoy the spaces in my life.

As you can see in the picture, the fact that there is still a couple feet of snow on the ground didn't stop me from taking my book and a cup of tea out to the front porch today. The sun was warm, and in my flannel PJs and fuzzy slippers I spent a nice half hour outside, reading, sipping tea, listening to the birds and breathing in the crisp air of early Spring.

After coming back in, I did a little paperwork, made a phone call to the CSA Farm to set up a time to visit them later this week, de-cluttered and dusted my office, watched our two guinea pigs' antics for a while, listened to some music, made supper and finally whipped up some of Chile's famous hot cocoa just before sitting down to blog.

All of these leisurely activities really bring home the many things I have to be grateful for, such as: a job with good benefits, a cozy home, farmers to grow food, the simple aesthetic of having just a few things on a shelf, the unconditional affection of companion animals, the warmth of the sun, the good taste of simple food, and the time to appreciate all of these.

In taking the time to be grateful, I realize how much of a luxury these spaces in between really are. My mind leaps ahead to imagining what could happen if more of us in the Western world saw affluence in these terms - saw it in the spaces in between things, instead of in the things themselves. If we valued the time, the space, more than the stuff, maybe this would balance out better for those in other parts of the world who need a little more stuff, like food, clean water, clothes, medicine and mosquito nets. The balancing out would occur because people who feel gratitude for what they have would be more likely to feel compassion for others. Then, in my imagination at least, they would act accordingly through, for example, charitable giving, volunteering, activism, community-building, or just being neighborly.

A fast pace of life seems to leave room only for consumption and convenience, with little space or time for gratitude or compassion. A slower pace lets us be thankful, appreciative, and giving.

Either that or I'm just rationalizing my half-hour tea time on the porch.