Anna
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Dear Sue Ellen,
that is beautiful! I love the idea, the quote and that you took the time to paint something for an unknown stranger. It will be a very nice surprise for someone one day.
(I recently went to a second hand book store and the first book I chose had the name of someone I knew written inside the cover. Even though that was nothing intentional or particularly rich in content, it already felt quite precious and special.)
“Purposeless” communication into the open; an intentionally not-to-be-requited offering.
Enjoy your new secret hobby! 🙂I just had an experience this morning that gives me a great opportunity to think how the four karmas could help me to handle it. So, trying to employ them as we speak…
(I apologise in advance for a super long essay.)
I went this morning to take my car to wheel alignment because I was planning a longer trip for the weekend and wanted to make sure the car was in good shape. I chose a wheel alignment/tyre place near my usual workshop, since I had been there before (usually together with my car mechanic whose workshop is across the road). This time I went by myself and it turns out I was tricked by some guys waiting along the road and only marginally avoiding a proper robbery, it seems.
When I pulled up, they first tell me I needed one new rear tyre before they could align the wheels, since it was too worn down (and I know nothing about tyres, so, sure). They tell me where to go and get the tyre, arrange for a good price on the phone, and ask if I had enough cash (no), so accompanying me to the nearest ATM. It all sounds a bit fishy and stupid now in retrospect, yes, but it was not all that blatant at the time; it is common here for people to get in the car with you to show you the way, for shops to not accept card payments, for guys to make deals with their buddies, etc., and I have never ever had any bad experience before.
So, I am driving towards the ATM when I receive a message from a friend, who uses the same mechanic, forwarding a message he received from our mechanic’s assistant (whom I also knew but who seemed to have lost my number), who had seen me at the tyre place (while standing on the opposite side of the road) and seen me driving off with that guy towards the ATM. His message read, “alert Anna that these are thieves, I couldn’t do it directly, otherwise they’ll kill me” (not sure how realistic this expectation was!). So I read the message, parked the car by the ATM and then managed to get rid of the guy who was still on my passenger seat with an excuse (said I needed to make a private phone call), he got out and I went home. So, all well in the end, no robbery and no being hurt in any way. From home I called the assistant who had seen me and he explained that it was all a big set up and another car had actually followed me to the ATM, with a couple of guys planning to rob me there. So, bottom line, I was super lucky for the assistant seeing me and for my friend happening to be on whatsapp at the right moment to forward the warning.
Now I have a bit of a retrospective shock and just remembered the four karmas, went back to watching last week’s recording again and am now contemplating how they can help me. Here’s what I think.
“Pacifying” right now seems to ask of me to see clearly what happened, and how I feel about it (a combination of shame, shock, gratefulness and humility), and to stay with this, look at it to see clearly. I’ve noticed that it also includes not telling it around unnecessarily but to be discerning about who I share it with, knowing that some people’s reaction will make it more confusing for me.
“Enriching” so far has entailed acknowledging my luck, thanking the guy who alerted me (about a million times), and discussing it with my “intermediary” friend on the phone. I don’t think I “need” to do anything else right now; I’ve checked that I didn’t get anyone else in trouble and I am back at home.
Now, “magnetising” for me feels like I should connect fully with my own experience, rather than trying to get it over with and move on. Observe what is arising. And even consciously taking time for it, making the space. (Including by writing about it here – thanks to all who are reading this convoluted essay!)
And finally, “letting go” will be really important for re-establishing my trust in people (which has always been the right attitude so far). But I also see that this step shouldn’t come too prematurely, and will only work after the previous three have been taken; otherwise it would appear more like a form of “grasping by attacking” (or however you say that).
Dear Betsy,
this is a very interesting example, thank you. It makes me think: probably even the way we speak, how we talk with others, can follow any of the four karmas. Pacify, to understand better, ask more questions, try to get a feel for what someone else thinks. Enrich, jump in on something and offer more of it (?). Magnetise, feeling into the moment somehow, “tuning in” (as Sue Ellen called it above). And let go/destroy, meaning decide when you need to leave the conversation? Anyway, just from the top off my head but perhaps I’ll use it as a working hypothesis when I watch my next couple of conversations.
(By the way, I think especially when we disagree with people on political issues, which we feel strongly about, to “pacify” seems the most difficult to me – but perhaps the most effective?)Dear Susan (or others),
would you be able to share the link to the text of the Heart Sutra that you used on Thursday? I watched the recording and so could not see the zoom chat box. The versions I found online all seemed a bit different.
Thanks very much,
AnnaThanks, Pam, I have been thinking about your question for a while and I think, yes, the whole point of Buddhist teachings and the entire Buddhist path is probably Bodhicitta. The path to becoming more aware, more awake, more attuned. I would think that absolute bodhicitta can occur now and then, for little moments, along this path. Beautiful little birds!
I think the way I am making sense of it is this: First, in general terms, bodhicitta as the path to awakening to myself and others. To get closer, through practice and learning and sangha, to seeing myself for who I am and making peace with it, developing self-compassion. And through self-compassion extending my compassion and generosity to all other sentient beings, too, since, ultimately, their feelings are the same as mine (on some level).
Relative bodhicitta I would then describe as this compassion towards others, feeling someone else’s feelings by being brave enough to open my heart to all that there is (in myself and others): joy, fear, sadness, grief, and everything else. In this relative conception, I would think, though, that categories still exist: “you/me”, “fear/joy/etc.”.
Maybe in absolute bodhicitta these boundaries all dissolve. My feeling and yours just blur into one another, they fully mix. And love and grief (for example) also, ultimately, become the same.
Dear Jeffrey,
thank you for offering these two very interesting examples, like I also heard you describe them in our study group. They provide a lot to think about!
I really like your ritual on the mountain (I once climbed a hill in Botswana and the guy I was with suggested we greet the ancestors there and ask their permission to visit, which added so much value and depth to the experience (and connected the two of us more, too), so I think I understand what you mean). With this example and other instances of trying to be more attentive – to how we speak, communicate, perceive, behave, etc., I just feel that it would require SO much more time for everything than I usually give to my daily activities. In theory, there’d be so much all the time to which I would like to pay more attention and give more thought, but I feel that this is not really feasible in the lives we that we, and I, lead. … maybe a challenge related to the “householder path” outside a monastery. 🙂Dear Tracy,
thanks for sharing your feelings re. your “overindulgence”. I find your idea very helpful and convincing that your constant struggling against this desire for cake, sleep, wine, netflix is perhaps making it even stickier!
But nonetheless, even if that were true, how might this insight help you to let go?Perhaps being off work for a week reduced the number of distractions from your indulgences; I often find that in (positively) busy periods, I automatically think less about cake, wine, etc., and that makes these things lose their grip on me slowly. Maybe being back at work and possibly creating further (more pleasant) distractions/alternative activities could be a way out of this spiral?
I have felt more addicted to cookies than ever this past winter season when I was working a lot. And I always noticed that my overindulgence in biscuits came from my exhaustion. I just had not enough time to recover properly and hence sugar seemed the next best option. But it wasn’t just the energy; I think it was also my desire that someone take care of me, give me a rest, allow me to let go, which was not sufficiently met at the time.
And while I felt so exhausted, I simulataneously kept thinking, I shouldn’t be this exhausted from teaching a few classes more – other people have far more and far harder and far less well paid work than I! So, perhaps, denying the underlying feeling (exhaustion) made it even more difficult to address it in healthier ways, I don’t know. (Do you think that there is something that you would have liked to do to acknowledge your grief that you maybe weren’t able to do enough?)
I think (but I am sure you are doing this anyway) that it is always helpful to pay attention to what the actual underlying desire is that we try to address with cake, wine, bingewatching. (Nothing wrong with sleep, in my view!) There is a book called “Eat to Love: A Mindful Guide to Transforming Your Relationship with Food, Body, and Life” by Jenna Hollenstein which I read a while ago and found quite helpful because it asks such questions.
One of my main concerns these days is the apocalyptic mood that I feel after engaging with the state of the world. I have never felt as affected by the news as I feel at the moment. Looking at the havoc that can be wreaked world-wide by the stroke of one presidential pen, or looking at the speed at which our glaciers are melting and putting livelihoods at risk, I feel so discouraged at times to even start working for something better. It feels like what has been achieved through years and years of struggle – women’s rights, exiting fossil fuels, building multilateral institutions, …, can be destroyed in an instance. And rebuilding hope, protecting human rights and our planet, fighting for equality and justice will be so much hard work, almost overwhelming – where to even start?
Rebecca Solnit, whose work I really like, wrote an article in 2023, titled “Why climate despair is a luxury. Those facing flood and fire can’t afford to lose hope. Neither should we” and I fully agree. But keeping up my spirits and the belief in the value of my own work seems to require more effort today than it used to.
Rebecca Solnit moreover explained in a 2016 interview with Krista Tippett (in the On Being podcast): “And hopefulness is really, for me, is not optimism, that everything’s going to be fine and we can just sit back. And that’s too much like pessimism, which is that everything’s going to suck and we can just sit back. Hope, for me, just means a Buddhist sense of uncertainty, of coming to terms with the fact that we don’t know what will happen and that there’s maybe room for us to intervene.”
To me, what she says here is connected to the notion of impermanence, which I believe is the second reminder. I generally find the notion of impermanence a relief and a helpful attitude towards my life. Riding the waves of impermanence can intensify the delights of a moment, if we acknowledge that they will not last forever, and it can allow us to bear the pains of another moment, if we trust that this, too, will pass. It has in the past helped me to make clearer decisions, being aware that I don’t want to spend my precious time in grey areas.
But what does this impermanence imply for how to deal with a world that presently gives so much reason for despair? Perhaps it calls for focusing on the present moment by putting the change I would like to see to immediate practice. In the social sciences we have this notion of “prefigurative politics”, which basically means, you act the way in which you would like all of society to act – thereby “prefiguring” (anticipating, trying out) how it might be in a better future. It also reminds me of something Susan talked about a few weeks back (I can’t remember if it was a Friday live sangha gathering or in a BBB class), that a solution for coping with the present moment might be to focus on one’s immediate surroundings, one’s neighbourhood, one’s community (these are my words now), as everything else is just too overwhelming. (Maybe this also has to do with the third reminder of engaging in virtuous actions.)
Anyway, to sum up, I wonder if the four reminders enable me to regain a sense of lightness and agency, but I have to think more about it..
Dear Sue Ellen,
thank you for sharing these very personal reflections, which I have found very touching and inspiring. Why do you think your husband turns away from potentially enjoyable things?
I think I would draw similar conclusions from the reminder of impermanence like you: that being aware of this impermanence can be a way into treasuring much more the time that we have, as humans on this planet, and together with someone we love.
While I really like this idea in theory, though, and have tried to remind myself of it more, I am often unsure of how to implement it. Too much of my time appears to be consumed by unimportant things; how can I still mop the floor if time is so precious? And how can I reconcile a day wasted with being unproductive at work with this tall order? It makes me want to spend my days exclusively with Really Meaningful stuff, but that is unfeasible, of course, and may even create additional pressure. So, I am still looking for ways of “cultivating my awareness of death”, as you cite it, without feeling paralysed by what I, probably wrongly, read into it as an expectation for non-ordinariness.
I also love the song that you recommended, thank you for that, too.Hi everyone!
My name is Anna. I live in Germany so let’s see whether I will indeed make it to the live sessions on all Thursdays, since it will be midnight over here… 🙂
I have found everything happening here at the OHP and everything I have read by Susan really very helpful and inspiring, and I have already greatly benefited through the ways in which these teachings enable me to “stay with myself” more.
I am taking the programme now in order to make a stronger commitment to dedicate time to practice and reflection, and to integrate these teachings more seriously (in a light sense) into my own life. I also look forward to listening to others in the small Saturday morning groups.
