Kate Wolfe-Jenson
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Thank you. That was so much fun to read! Your sensory description is lovely. I love “I’m the space between questions, the breath before belief, and the heartbeat of maybe that allows you to look deeper and be brave. I keep the door between knowing and not-knowing slightly open. That’s where awareness creeps in.” Your Indecision is very wise which means all you is wise.
A message from my inconsistency:
Oh, I know you think the goal is to practice at the same time every day for the same amount of time. You think consistency would prove something about your dedication to practice. Here’s the secret: I am here to make practice an important part of your life. Was the early morning filled with unexpected health-related stuff? No problem! When you get to your desk, Susan’s meditation prompt will invite you to practice. If you miss your 1 PM slot, you can always catch the 3 PM time. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Remember Lojong Slogan 16. Whatever you meet unexpectedly, join with meditation. The real goal is to be aware and compassionate. That means being kind to yourself no matter what happens. You meditate most days, sometimes more than one session per day. You are clearly on the path. You are increasing your practice off the cushion! So, be diligent but relax. Not too tight; Not too loose
Susan’s video today reminds me of the step I missed: make offerings. I can offer all of who I am (whoever I am in the moment) to my practice. When I dedicate the merit, I am offering the fruits of my practice to the benefit of all beings. I like the stability of that: offering at the beginning, offering at the end.
When meditation is an item on my to-do list, it becomes a chore embedded in the busyness of my life. Harried, moving from one task to another, I lose myself grasping after productivity. If only I could prove how useful I am. Look at me! How dependable I am! Perhaps I can get a gold star for checking off everything on my list. It all gets wrapped up in the story of me.
But what if I consider meditation a bodhisattva ritual? What if, instead of grasping after accomplishment and worth and putting myself first, I imagine benefiting all beings? The form comes to my aid. I can use the four lines of Gampopa to request blessings. I can remind myself, as I begin, to take my seat with dignity and elegance. I can give myself silent instructions with a sense of formality… Mindfulness of body, mindfulness of breath, mindfulness of mind. ( At the same time, I am just sitting there.) At the end of my practice, I can dedicate the merit.
With this change of attitude, I move my practice from something I must do to something that is a privilege. I look forward to living with this refined approach to practice.
My name is Kate Wolfe-Jenson. I live in Minneapolis Minnesota about 40 meters from the Mississippi River. I am most grateful for my friends, who are an encouraging and loving presence in my life.
What I hope to change: I want to imagine – and put in place – a daily (or weekly, monthly) routine that supports me spiritually. I feel like a vine that needs a trellis to flourish.
My practice is steady. Some days it’s great. I think “I know what I need to do to keep my mind from wandering!” The next day, my mind may be scrambling all over. I am guessing that is normal.
Now the hard part:
Important Books (or maybe this is beloved too): Healing Into Life and Death by Stephen Levine, Devotions by Mary Oliver, Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett
beloved recordings: Inspired by Bach by Yo-Yo Ma, Cinema Paradiso by Chris Botti, The Secret of Life by James TaylorThank you Dominic. Your gentle presence and willingness to listen and truly be there for others is a great gift to your students/clients. I join you and Karen in the imposters club. We just have to remind ourselves that what we now is valuable and rare. (Remember when Susan talked about how her view of meditation differs from the more common idea of meditation as self-improvement?) We can take confidence in being Susan’s students, carriers of lineage.
Thank you Karen. I think meditation instruction encourages you to slow down. My guess is you will not struggle with going too fast. Questions from students might fill the rest of the time. If not, Susan is a good model for smiling in silence while she waits.
Like every teacher, I am stronger in some areas than in others. My gifts relate to my experience with meditating and Dharma. My challenges center around physical limitations.
I’ve been listening to Susan for a dozen years. Her voice is “in my head” with many useful turns of phrase and examples. Susan converted me from a sometime meditator to someone who has a regular practice. That gives me confidence that I know what it’s like to meditate and I’ve had similar experiences to my potential students.
I took refuge eight years ago which means I’ve been paying close attention to Susan’s lessons as well as reading books by Dharma masters (Pema Chodron, Judy Leif, Chögyam Trungpa, Tulku Thondup and others). All of them talk about meditation and dharma. I know I stand on the shoulders of giants.
I am pretty good at recognizing everything as practice and I take joy in practicing. Those qualities will serve me well as I encourage others on their paths.
On the other hand, my voice is not strong. I must stop to breathe every few words. Both of those things make it challenging to give instruction. Sometimes if my wheelchair isn’t set right it changes tilt as I speak which is disconcerting to me and others. The tools I use are all gathered around my mouth, which makes me look a little strange. That may be off-putting to some people.
I am certainly a beginner and not confident as a meditation teacher. We’ll see what opportunities arise to give me practice in making mistakes and recovering from them. That way I will improve and gain confidence.Since this is the last essay, let me take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to my fellow students. I have enjoyed reading your essays and being in class with you. It has been an honor and a privilege to be on this journey with you. My email is Kate@Jensons.com. My website is http: journeydancing.com. I wish you well.
Oh Karen, thank you for sharing that tender time with us. ALS is terrible – such a long goodbye. My condolences on the loss of your brother. It must have been very difficult to set your own grief aside and strategize your announcement so it would be helpful to other mourners. You did a good job.
Kelly, thanks for your deep perspective on parenting. You reminded me of my young parenting days. (Parenting never ends, but it’s very different being a parent to a 27-year-old!) Maneuvering between playmate, guide, and role model while attending to your own emotions and needs is challenging and wonderful.
Gwen, what a difficult situation! I had not thought about the possibility of a leader having “secret” information, but of course it happens. How sensitive and sensible of you to make it an opportunity for building skills and valuable experience. As Kelly points out, every situation is one in which we can be present to others’ experience and needs while we attend to our own.
Long ago, I was director of a community children’s theater in the small Wisconsin town where I grew up. Our rehearsals and performances were in an amphitheater on the university campus. We rehearsed nearly every day in the summer for about six weeks and performed during the town festival. The amphitheater was beside a river so even though we were in a program, we got to be outside enjoying the green grass and birdsong.
During rehearsals, I needed to stay very present, attending to what was happening, taking notes on performances, and watching overall pacing and blocking. After the rehearsal (or if I needed to stop the action) I would talk to the actors, making clear but kind suggestions. Sometimes, I worked with one or two actors, championing the characters and helping the actors find and portray them. It was an intense and powerful experience.
I needed to balance being one of the troupe with maintaining the distance my role required. Most days, I was able to do that, but I remember one day when I lost it. The performance was coming soon and things weren’t going well. The storage area of the amphitheater had been broken into and the costumes were dumped in the river. We fished them out (I remember someone pulling a crawfish from a sleeve), but not only did we lose a day of rehearsal, I was going to have to take the costumes home and wash them. I was a teenager and needed to cry. My best friend was with me, and we took refuge behind a stand of trees along the river so I could have some privacy while I pulled myself together. Once I was composed, we returned to the stage, and I was able to rally cast and crew to get everything set for rehearsal the next day.
The performance went well, with the usual missed lines that no one in the audience notices. I learned a lot about theater, about myself, and about working together while remaining alone.
Thanks, Ann. You summed it up simply and completely. I appreciate your pointing out that sometimes compassion means saying nothing at all, but just being there.
I had a hard time with the concept of idiot compassion, but I think I’m starting to understand.
When compassion is more about the giver than the receiver, that’s idiot compassion.
Sometimes when I call a friend who is in distress, I listen for five minutes and then I’m ready to end the call. After all, I have important things to do. I’m uncomfortable with their suffering because I can’t fix it. I have called so that I appear to care, but I am more concerned with looking good than being with my friend in pain.
I heard a story yesterday about a woman with Crohn’s disease who felt abandoned by a friend. Her disease was serious and incurable. The friend couldn’t accept that. She gave the woman a list of positive affirmations and insisted that if the woman used them enough, she would recover from her disease. They are no longer friends. Each found being with the other too difficult. Their relationship was torn apart by idiot compassion.
Another example is when I should speak an uncomfortable truth but am too cowardly. Suppose I have a friend who drinks too much too often. The compassionate thing would be to say so and set limits on when I am willing to be around them. I’m afraid they will be mad if they’re challenged, so I keep quiet. Not calling them on their behavior is enabling their drinking and enlarging their suffering.
True compassion is about being with someone who is suffering, traveling with them through their experience without denying their pain or insisting it be different. True compassion is listening until the suffering person has said what they need to stay. True compassion is maintaining relationships even amid incurable illness. True compassion is saying “I won’t be around you when you’re drunk.”
True compassion puts the focus on the person in pain, not the one who is seeking to be of benefit.