MaryBeth ingram
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Allison, I resonate with the reality of listening to Susan daily and yes, it feels like she’s ‘in my bones’ when giving instruction. It’s a good feeling too! It feels like lineage speaking through us.
I really like the decision to leave the audio on to ‘feel’ the connection over zoom. When I listen to Susan, once in awhile she’ll address her cat along the way so I think that’s her practice too, to leave the audio on.
Ok, my first thought was, “20 minutes!” and hoping that a 10 minute meditation might mean 5 minutes each. Amazingly, the 20 minutes was so doable!
I was pleased with the comfort I felt in the process of giving instruction. I have been with a group practicing Centering Prayer for 5 years and am 1 or 3 facilitators so I have a comfort in guiding a group in reflection. The OHP meditation practice is different and I have been meditating with Susan’s daily emails for a while now – so one of my other feelings was, “I’m just repeating, mimicking Susan” and for a moment that felt inauthentic. After we came back to the full group I realized that this is exactly the flow – passing on the practice, not stealing anything from the practice. I also found myself using words that have meaning to me yet follow the flow. For example I often use ‘release’ instead of ‘let go’ because I’m not successful at ‘letting go’ – it has a sort of finality to it that I’m unable to achieve. But I can ‘release’ just about anything for the present moment knowing it’s likely to return. When I try to ‘let go’ and it returns, as it always does, I have a sense of failure that floods my thoughts – I know that’s a peculiar nuance that may not apply to others.
Thank you for this experience.
Ah, what a joy to read your report of this experience! From anxiety to enjoyment of the process is a wonderful result. Well done!
Yes, Kat – that too was much like my experience and I’m glad to hear you report that. How beautiful to read your words and feel your comfort with the process. Well done!
I’ve enjoyed reading all your responses to this essay question. This is a difficult topic for me and not due to any trauma or life experience I can cite, but I simply have very little sense of ‘specific’ lineage. By the time I was born, 3 of the 4 grandparents available had already died. There just seemed to be no obvious thread leading any backstory about who we were, where we came from, etc. Our immediate family located in our same town was the family that I knew I was a part of. There was the occasional story shared – my mom’s father was caught in the depression and lost everything and took his own life in order to leave insurance money to his wife, my grandmother Hazel, the only grandparent I knew. Both my dad’s parents died when he was in high school and a family friend took him and his brother in. But no story was dwelt on and none of them ever led to more background of our ancestors.
I knew from Mom that in the family tree was a relative that signed the declaration but no one had ever built the tree or worked to connect this ancestor. Fast forward to 2019 and a fellow member (Sarah) of the Episcopal church I attended at that time had researched her tree extensively and had found connections to the slave trade. It occurred to me that if I had an ancestor that signed the declaration, he likely was a slaveholder. Sarah offered to look into my tree and sure enough, he was plantation owner and a slaveholder and he wasn’t the only one. It popped up everywhere on both sides of the tree. Sarah built out a tree that reached back to the late 1600’s and it was fascinating. Yet, it feels less like lineage and more like history.
I can more easily feel ancestral connection in a broad sense – that everything that had to happen before me in order for me to be here typing this is an extraordinary set of choices made by thousands over thousands of years, some purposeful and some random. That backstory is full of ‘I will never know what and when made a difference or would have resulted in NOT ME. So I am full of gratitude for the multitude of all that has happened that allows me to be here now.
I think I’ll keep thinking on this …
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Ankur – this is a poetic tale, it is beautiful. I have read the 2nd paragraph over and over and it’s so clear and expressive – “my spirit never left”, “I still reach for it”, “cradle” – exquisite! Thank you.
I sit here nodding, saying ‘yep’, ‘me too’ and in some ways can simply say DITTO. Yet I do have my own story, similar to most posts starting with eternalism/cradle Christian. Fast forward, I met Terry who was not Christian, labeled himself “agnostic”, we fall in love so deep and so fast – we eloped 6 weeks to the day we met and then spent close to 41 years before his too-early death from ALS in 2017. I went from “I could never marry anyone who wasn’t Christian” to love that took away that boundary. In our time together, we both traveled – in and out of denominations progressing more liberal with each move. Terry’s views shifted toward Christian Agnostic and when he did find himself involved in a church, he’d always be in the soup kitchen or driving the bus to take families to visit loved ones in prison. Talk about ‘as you do to others …’! I was steeped in learning – Spiritual Formation, Seminary classes and more. He always said he was “hands and feet” and I was “head and heart”.
When Terry entered hospice in 2016, we had a chaplain, John, who visited us and John was perfect for us. Raised Catholic, he was now following Buddhist teachings. The community he and his wife were a part of at the time was called the Buddhist Christian Mother Earth Church. (Trying to be all things to all people?) John and his wife began their own Sangha a few years later and I joined that Sangha in 2021.
So where was nihilism? Well, after Terry died it occurred to me he might be right – maybe there is nothing but THIS. In an odd sense, that felt ok, even better than ok. Sort of a seize the day awakening – Life goes on and forward I will go now, on my own. It morphed into an “I don’t know” and then a sense of ‘something’ – sort of like a glue that sticks this all into relationship and I could not deny it’s reality. John Caputo writes that “God (I really don’t like that noun) doesn’t so much exist as insist”. That feels like a truth … there’s an insistence toward lovingkindness – it can be ignored and we see that every day. But it’s there. This glue, this insistence, the nothingness (nihilism?) that isn’t nothing but very much something.
Well, this felt rambling – luckily John and his wife are visiting today and the three of us do this often to reflect and journey together. Wisdom generally shows up from our time together.
At the Sangha I attend we always read a piece credited to Thich nhat Hanh titled, WHY SANGHA. There are many reasons listed in the reading but what stood out today was, “The Dharma is in you but it needs to be watered in order to manifest and become a reality”. Just this morning, in our two hours together, so much watering took place! A reflection was offered, a silent sit was experienced, and then came Dharma sharing that spilled so much wisdom.
I think there are many ways to support discovery and no single ultimate tool – but a tool box of effective steps. Perhaps there’s wisdom in ‘knowing’ which tool is best for any given situation, a skill to ‘read the room’. Asking questions would be an early tool I would use and then practice full-body listening, reflecting back and asking another question, repeat, repeat. In this way I would hope to get close to the idea Susan expressed, “When you stop thinking your thoughts and start thinking mine” and in that way help another reach the Dharma that is IN THEM. Questions help us scan our inner and outer worlds for evidence of what we seek. Sometimes the evidence is buried deep, other times clarity pops out!
This seems to be the discovery process.
This is MaryBeth checking in and saying HELLO! I am a Hoosier by birth (Go IU!) and moved to Ohio in 2009, living in Westerville, just a little north of Columbus (deep in OSU land)! I’ve been an OHP member for a few years, and my faith journey isn’t unusual – cradle Christian who’s gone through many different denominations each time moving toward more open and loving theology. In 2021 I found a local Sangha and it’s been an anchor. I keep wanting to meditate more and that’s not the same as meditating … I’m stuck in the “wanting”. I’m a bit nervous about this commitment and yet see it as the possible pivot point I need.
Looking forward to meeting and growing together.
I had to spend more time with the Four Reminders and found this very helpful, https://thebuddhistcentre.com/resources/dharma-teaching-four-reminders-vishvapani
A very small example – I have carried a pervasive sadness lately and have been unwilling to sit with it. I haven’t ignored it – can’t, it lives as I live, BUT I hadn’t allowed it to fully occupy my body. I suppose I feared what would happen if I did. Somehow I found the willingness to sit with it for two mornings, without story, just the sadness. I woke today and noticed that I had very little sadness present. Gratefulness was present. Sitting with it was the key.
I just listened to “If We Were Vampires” – we did get 40 years together, almost 41, and I’m the one spending days alone. Thankfully I have a full life – at the 7th anniversary of Terry’s death, I woke up with two questions fully present – how have I lived 7 years without him and how has my life blossomed in the past 7 years.
@Betsy – we share the concern of age. For me, and I know this is semantics, it’s less about ‘aging’ and more about living at this age. I still feel free, able, capable, curious, excited, and desirous of experiencing life. Above all that desire is the umbrella of knowing time is limited – how do I best use it, use my resources (feel grateful to have some), and benefit my community, my friends, my family. How do I handle guilt about enjoying this time instead of buckling down and doing ‘important work’ as so many do. There I go creating my own suffering – an invitation to breathe and come back to the NOW of my life.
Without a doubt, the large concern of my life is the knowing that I’m in what I call, “the sacred final chapter”. I have no idea how long this chapter is or will be, but at 72, there’s no avoiding that I’m ‘at the end’ – whether it be another 20 years, 2 years or 12. Unknown. I accept this and wish to embrace this chapter and believe I am actively doing that. I have no fear of dying – I’m just not ready to stop being in this physical realm, in this flow. The first 3 truths are my reality even before I could consciously say that was so … I have created lots of suffering in denying that I’m suffering. Is the 3rd truth, ‘cessation of suffering’, real? Perhaps a lessening of suffering through acceptance and less grasping and attachment but not sure complete cessation is possible. As to the 8-fold path – #7, Right Mindfulness is where I’m drawn. Keeping present, staying in the NOW. Every one of these 8 though resonates.