Tracy Serros
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My little shrine is on a desk shelf where I sit for meditation when I’m home and where I sit for classes and study (also when I’m home). It has a stack of books – some Buddhist, some other – that are important to me. I have a statue of Quan Yin, which I bought when I was in my 20s (decades ago!), a handfull of random little metal and gemstone hearts that were given to me, a scented candle, and a framed image of the fierce goddess Kali. When I get the chance to find flowers, I include these as well. I created this shrine a few months ago, when I was taking Susan’s last class, Buddhism Beyond Belief. It has made my practice feel more sacred and intentional.
Hi, my name is Tracy. I live in San Jose, California. Right now, I’m very grateful for these courses with Susan, the community I’ve found here, and my meditation practice, which has been very regular for the past few months (and irregular or even occasional over many years). What I’m hoping to change right now is a tendency to battle against myself in my head; I get a little lost and I can’t figure out how to find my way out. I’m pretty sure the answer is letting go. But it’s hard sometimes.
I don’t think I could ever choose just three books, but I’m reading four now, albeit very slowly:
-Eat to Love (A Mindful Guide to Transforming Your Relationship with Food, Body and Life) by Jenna Hollenstein
-Roaming Free Inside the Cage (A Daoist Approach to the Enneagram and Spiritual Transformation) by WIlliam M. Shafer Ph.D.
-Look, Look, Look, Look, Look Again (Buddhist Wisdom Reflected in 26 Artists) by Kevin Thomas Townley, Jr.
-The Path of Individual Liberation by Chogyam Trungpa
(Please don’t recommend any books to me because I will buy them and add them to this list. Did I mention I’m an enneagram 5?)Most beloved songs: Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart by Al Green, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
I’m happy to be here, though I’m not sure I’ll ever make to class in person because it starts at 3pm my time, and I’m teaching my own class (high school) until 3:30pm.
Hi Sue! I had to tell you, I also have a small e.e. cummings poetry collection from high school. 🙂 And I love your music selections.
Wow, Anna – what a harrowing experience! So glad you came out of it unscathed! It seems the universe was aligning for you that day, to get you out of that situation without any harm.
I am still trying to wrap my head around how these karmas manifest for me personally, but I like your approach of trying to understand how all of them apply to the situation.
Awww… poor Maisy! And poor you! I hope she’s better now! I feel what you’re saying about being resistant to what’s happening. I find myself doing this with my husband especially but also my son (and my dog!) when I’m worried about or trying to control the outcome of something, as you were with trying to keep Maisy from vomiting in your friend’s house. I experienced this with my son last night, he was in a weird space… and I think maybe I contributed to it by reacting impatiently in the beginning. Life is weird. And hard. <3
There’s a piece from a poem I love, called Desiderata that says, “You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with god, whatever you conceive him to be.” It tends to come back to me. The whole poem is beautiful, but I love this piece because it helps me remember my place amongst the whole of the universe, which is simultaneously humbling and empowering. I wrote it on a piece of colored paper and left it in the girls bathroom at the high school I work at yesterday. Beyond that, I do not know.
I have to share that I practiced the aimless wandering just now. It’s my break period at work, and I wandered in the grass and around a hill behind my classroom. The whole walk was lovely and I noticed so many things – the unique flowers and leaves on all of the different trees, the tiny almost invisible flowers in the weeds that inhabit the lawn, the tiny insects and the birds… But there was a moment when I encountered a little field (within the field) of small purple flowers (also from a weed, I think), and with the sun shining on them and me, they SANG… it struck me with awe. Wow.
What a treat for the lucky one who finds it! It’s beautiful that you gave not only a nourishing quote but your own art!
Wow, Jeffrey. These are both such powerful examples – thank you so much for sharing them. (And I got to read your insights since I missed our weekly Zoom meeting!)
I can so relate to the simple comment throwing you off your connection with someone. I’ve had similar experiences and also don’t tend to ask for clarification in those situations, but I wonder how something small like asking what she meant might send you down a different road with how you felt in the interaction.
I loved your description of asking permission from the guardians of the forest you visited. In addition to showing respect for the land and its beings, it seems like just a beautiful way to commune with what’s there in so much of a deeper sense – like that first Emerald podcast we listened to. Beautiful!
I am contemplating right view and the four noble truths, specifically struggling with the reality of impermanence and death. It’s something I feel I can look at head on and accept in concept. And yet I experience moments of sheer panic. I am currently experiencing COVID, which is not particularly serious, but it’s activating my deep primal fear of not being able to breathe. I am also currently experiencing a loved one having been diagnosed with advanced cancer in multiple organs, who spent last week in the hospital and can’t keep food down, who has meanwhile been deteriorating from dementia. And sometimes, especially in the middle of the night when I feel like I can’t swallow, I can’t breathe, I can’t die and leave my child, I can’t let go, what will happen if I can’t control, if I can’t protect… Oh god, it’s terrifying. And it’s not new, it comes around every once and a while despite how balanced I might be feeling in my day to day life. But last night, I was able, just a little bit, to stay with the feelings of terror and just merge with it… and found peace through it. I don’t know if that makes sense, it’s hard to put into words. It almost feels counterintuitive that the way out is not to fight or fix or resist, but I think those impulses are the delusion.
An issue I’m struggling with in my life right now is wanting to overindulge in things – food (especially cake!), wine, sleeping, binge watching shows. I was off work last week, and I gave in to all of these desires. At the same time, I’m meditating. I’m reading dharma books. I’m more aware of my emotions and my reactions to things. I keep hoping this enhanced awareness will somehow magically make my overindulging compulsions fade. I am also dealing with health issues in my family, with a loved one who is rapidly declining in health and mental cognition due to age and disease. And this long-term struggle with wanting to indulge every decadent whim began in its current incarnation when my biological father passed away a couple of years ago. Coping mechanism? I don’t know. I know I’ve tried to analyze it and tried to fix it, and no strategies have worked for very long. I’m tired of fighting it (which doesn’t seem to help anyway), but I also don’t want to give in to it because I know it’s unhealthy. It’s a struggle.
When I mix this with the four reminders… I think maybe there’s some aspect of my struggling with this issue is feeding it. This is not permanent, nothing is. Perhaps I’m making things stickier for myself somehow by making it such a problem, by the struggling and rumination. And maybe being gentler with myself because life is hard.
What a lovely description – everything is so imbued with meaning for you, I love it! And I’m very curious about your yarn bird! 🙂
The description of your living environment evokes calm. I like that you incorporate the different senses. I don’t know much about offerings and blessings, but one thing I’ve noticed in trying these things lately is that for me there’s some sense of self compassion in asking for blessings or that the fruits of my practice bless me (in addition to others) – there’s a genuine longing for myself to be blessed. I guess it’s an expression of metta.
I was a bit intimidated by the idea of creating a shrine, but I decided to just jump in with what I could find. And like several others in our Saturday morning group, I realized I’ve sort of made tiny shrines around my house just by how I decorate and things I’ve collected. So it wasn’t hard to find things I wanted to include, and I made a small shrine in the area where I meditate. I often meditate at work, and I’ve been thinking about adding a shrine to my desk area, but so far, I now have a candle. Even that makes me feel a bit more elevated in my practice. Along with asking for blessings, which is also new to me, I feel that I’m sitting down with a bit more dignity and purpose. But I’m not sure my actual meditation has changed at all. That part still feels the same, which is noisy lately. Interestingly, my mind has been feeling less noisy off the cushion, more spacious.
I am currently reading Chogyam Trungpa’s teachings on Hinayana, The Path of Individual Liberation. One thing that has really struck me in the reading so far is the idea of seeing things as they truly are, that the dharma of every thing is just what it is. (I’m paraphrasing, and hopefully not misconstruing things too terribly.) This idea has really been sticking with me lately beyond meditation, trying to see things just as they are and not attaching stories or reactivity. It’s also really heightened my awareness that I’m barely able to take in much of what’s happening or present at any given moment. I’m very unaware. I find the idea of seeing how the world really works fascinating. I have no idea how to do it.
I think I find Mahayana in sangha. Both in our Saturday meeting this morning and in other sanghas I’ve attended, there’s a sense of commonality of human experience and also a real felt sense of compassion and open heartedness that is amazing and transcendent. Also, Susan said in the reading, “On the absolute plane, love and compassion manifest as emptiness.” I find this simultaneously terrifying and liberating. It makes sense to me on some level I can’t articulate.
I have less of a sense of Vajrayana, but I am very intrigued. “To walk this path requires continual letting go of concepts, ideas, judgments, and thoughts and plunging yourself into a state of groundlessness and, somehow, stabilizing yourself there.” Yes! Groundlessness, the middle path. Neither here nor there, but not not here and not not there. (Again, paraphrasing, and perhaps badly.) This too, yes.