Rain

 

Splat, drip, plunk, sploosh

raindrops careen hard into car's glass

crashing almost, alien.

The arc of mechanical arms swinging side to side

sweeping droplets off the clear, curved surface.

Flattened ovals pulled like shooting stars

across the transparent galaxy, trailing off.

To see, we look beyond you to the space

between your liquid origin's existence

and beyond even the path of

your arrival.

Headlights

slicing

the

distance,

parsing

reality,

ever a digit, a beacon 

pointing towards the moon;

to where both the explosion of stars

and collision of raindrops

are but a bead

 in a wellspring

of unlimited potential

rippling forever

outward.

 

Laughter

Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers and the Dalai Lama)

A friend gave me this picture of the Dalai Lama sitting and talking with Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers. It is taped to the bulletin board at my desk, and  is a magnificent snapshot of joy and the epitome of contentment.  It is two masters simply enjoying each others company.  Its inspiration derives from its simplicity.  They are intently absorbed in a conversation that is making both of them heartily laugh.  It is both incredibly intimate and wonderfully public.  Cameras were clearly present (for we have the photo) but it appears as if, for each of them, nothing but the other person exists.

I remember a section in “Readers Digest” that I used to read as a young person called “Laughter, The Best Medicine”. Mostly I would find the magazine at my grandmother Yankee Doodle's house.   She got this moniker because when we were little she would sing us "Yankee Doodle".  The name stuck with me and my siblings until she died when I was in my twenties.  Only my siblings and I called her that, the other cousins did not.   At grandma's house, while reading "Readers Digest" there were two sections to which I always looked forward; one was the drama in real life and the other was laughter is the best medicine section.

Laughter is good medicine. There are many studies concluding that laughter as medicine is indeed good for people physically and psychologically. It boosts the immune system, relaxes the body and protects the heart.

When was the last time you laughed?

Our sense of humor, like our fingerprint, dna or retina are our own. What may make one person laugh often makes another cringe.    What we laugh at bears our individual conditioning.  It is both uniquely ours and simultaneously beyond us.

Have you ever wondered where laughter comes from? It is easy to think its our own that it belongs to us, but when you laugh do you choose to laugh or does it simply come. Why are some things funny to you and others not?  They may even be funny at certain times and not at others.  It is clear that certainly some of why we laugh is conditioning. Perhaps even most of it is conditioned.   Translated jokes often fall flat because the meaning is lost in the translation; a particular idiom in one language does not always carry over in another. If you have been conditioned in a particular way you are more likely to find some things funny. At the end though, laughter, like sorrow, passes through us. We cannot say exactly why something is funny it just is funny.

I often said that for me crying was always easy because it always simply felt like something bigger than I was moving through.  I believe it might be the same with laughter. Laughter is an amazing gift. In essence it is the ability to truly see something and celebrate its existence in a manner of speaking. It is a moment of taking off the mask that this life is so serious. It breaks down the subject / object construction. When you are caught up in laughter it is very easy to simply sense there is only this.   Boundaries become more porous amidst great laughter.

That is some of the beauty of the picture between the Dalai Lama and Fred Rogers.

What about the dark side of  laughter? Are some things just NOT funny? Are some things OFF limits?

Answer: It is often said that tragedy and comedy are two sides of the same coin. That said,

I don’t know – how would you answer that question for yourself? Are you trying to cede the authority over your own sense of humor? Do you want permission to laugh at something? What is holding you back from laughing? I would venture its someone’s approval or disapproval? What does that mean or suggest?

The last time I laughed was  Saturday at Star Trek. There were a number of places where I laughed out loud.   My laugh is quite boisterous.  My partner speaks of knowing she loved me when she loved my laugh.  I often laugh at parts that many others do not laugh or in anticipation of a joke that is about to come.  I am often amused by that observation.   Laughter sits in many ways at the nexus of some interesting ontologies.   It is both an incredibly private act; what makes you laugh is uniquely derived from the conditioning you've experienced but at the same time much of that conditioning is subject to societal and cultural influences.  On the other hand, jokes and humor rely upon shared perpsective and understanding.  Perhaps that is why jokes and what is funny can often be such a touchy subject.  "Inside joke" comes from the ability of jokes to circumsribe social roles, include and exclude and consequently influence how people feel.   Peoples feelings get hurt when some jokes are told.  Jokes are often used as a social navigation tool.  "We are like them - they will find this funny - those people over there they won't find this funny therefore I won't share it with them".  How often have you not shared a joke or limited who you shared it with  because you were afraid?

It is very easy to take a joke serioiusly.  It is very easy to take a joke to actually mean something.  A joke, if it reflects anything, reflects its teller's idea of themself much more than it reflects anything that might really be true.  That said, they can still hurt.  It is very hard to remember this in the moment.   The power of humor, and  jokes and laughter can be used for ill too so this is not subscribe to anything that makes you laugh is necessarily good.  Jokes can be incredibly mean spirited. Because  most people are not aware of who they really are, they are susceptible to others words triggering pain. Jokes can hurt immensely,  they can exclude and make one feel alone,  they can tap into our unresolved issues, hurts and deep seated fears.  Beacuse we carry the conditioning of culture and few have worked through the pain of the many, many messages in society that would hide or undermine who we are in our glory,  jokes can diminish and they can be used to exclude and ostracize.  But for all of that, it is important to note that ultimately joke's only have the meaning and power we give them and to note that they do not touch who we are in our core. 

If a joke triggers something in us, is that not a place where we are giving ourselves a substance that might not really be there?  Is it the case that we are taking ourselves too seriously? Is it not to be falsely duped by a mirage? It is a mirage that nearly all in culture and society ascribe to but a mirage nonetheless.  Though this may be difficult, notice what happens internally and externally  the next time someone tells a joke?  Does it exclude?  Do "you" belong to the inside experience in the joke or the outside?  How does that change (or not) your experience of the joke?  The joke can be your practice.

So if a joke ultimately means nothing does that mean that we have license to create and repeat mean jokes or that if something mean is said that I should do nothing, since its not real anyway?

Is that what your heart tells you to do?  Reality is capable of holding all.  It is only a dualistic mind that wants things to be one way or the other.  It is the dualistic mind that says well if its not real why should I bother.  It is the dualistic mind that reels in the freedom of not having a presription for what to do.   Reality often says "both and".   In the absolute,  "meanness"  does not exist,  but if you conclude from the that that action is useless, or that you can then be mean then you have missed the point. You are no longer in reality.  Reality asks a nimbleness of us it says it is all possible but that it might be is advisable that one take action after a joke that is mean spirited, even if that joke does not ultimately mean anything. 

Laughter is a truly amazing gift.   Laughter is a signature for our unique humor.    This is perhaps a tad blasphemous and certainly irreverent but I don't sometimes wonder if life itself is not a grand joke.  I don't in fact mean it the way that many might take it.  I mean it in the most generous way.  I mean it as something that is filled with such intense wonder, humor and joy.  I mean it as a great comedy show that is always producing amazing gaffes, fantastic ironies, jolting jokes and phenomenal twists.    If we could slow down for just a moment, and realize that its all going to be ok I suspect we might be laughing a lot more.  

Find the funny and laugh!

Dreams

Nights ago I dreamed that something was after my family. I even whimpered aloud as I once did as a little child. When I awakened it was clear that the nightmare had ended. It was clear that the absorbing story that frightened me just a minute ago, was not reality after all. It could have fooled me. It did fool me. The feeling was 0dd because in my life I have been so exceptionally content and happy. It was funny that "I" was not able to meet my dream with the same equanimity that I have been meeting the rest of life. I found myself marveling at this "other world" that managed to emotionally terrify me and handcuff my ability to be present. Yet in actuality the events were imagined. I was on edge. My adrenaline was pumping. It had all felt so real.


What if the world we live in is a lot like that? What if most people live in a dreamlike state; rarely aware of the true reality they could wake up to. Freedom is not the cessation of "bad" things from happening it is embracing what is happening simply because it IS happening. There exists a reality is below the surface of what passes for the real world and is a part of what we call the real world but in actuality it is more "real" than the things we touch, hear, see, smell or taste And yet ironically our access point to that richness of that reality is through thoses senses. We touch the divine through our bodies. Anything you have ever "experienced" of the divine or the formless has come to you through form by your senses. The dream world our minds recreate each moment is part of the real world. Yet have you ever awakened out of a deep slumber and for a few moments not had any part of your story come to consciousness ie) you were just present without referencing a who or a where or a what? Have you ever meditated and melted into a space where only the "isness" of the moment existed, where you were not thinking of a "me", where "every-thing" seemed to almost disappear. There is a richness to a world where we let things "be" as they constitute themselves before us in that moment. In our effort to control our world and rid ourselves of the fear of not knowing, we give a false consistency to the wildness of life, to the "suchness" of unmediated experience. We forget that the world is created anew through our own eyes each and every moment, that each and every moment anything can happen. So your father "always" criticizes the way you dress, and your best friend "always" gets withdrawn when you mention her relationship with her husband. How much does the fact that they acted that way in in the past - color your present moment with them? How much is your present conditioned by their "past' behavior? What would happen if you gave them the space to be whoever they were going to be in the moment you were interacting with them? What if you met them wherever they were and realized that you are both free to act differently at any moment and you both just might? You are not the accumulation of your deeds and no one else is either.

Forgiveness would be more prevalent. Forgiveness would come naturally because we would realize that we are each more than a tally sheet. It would come because we narrowed our lives to the present and gave ourselves the gift of relating to reality and not the "dream" world of what that person or situation was five minutes ago. Holding onto the past is painful. The present is always something we can handle. This does not mean that we need to put up with hurtful behavior, that we cannot remove ourselves from harmful situations, or that we cannot choose to spend time with other people, it simply means that the burden of attachment to something which is not now, is no longer there. Until you have forgiven, you are still in the dream world where at some level you believe you are a victim. Does that sound harsh? I do not mean it to be, I only mean it to help one free oneself. If you have not forgiven someone, then you are telling yourself a story in which you were wronged and that at some level things won't be ok until something else happens. Nothing ever needs to happen for you to be happy. Nothing ever needs to happen for you to be content.



Experiment

What if you really did nothing. Spend 10 minutes alone quietly sitting on a chair or lying in bed when you are not too tired. Language fails here but "try" to do nothing. Truthfully, I find its more like relaxing into nothing. No worries, there is no wrong way to "do" this experiment.



Debrief

What happened at the end of 10 minutes? Did your thoughts slow down? Did the "spaces" between your thoughts increase? Did you find your mind rattling on and on -- if so do you know how it started down that track? Did you find it hard to "do" nothing? Did you have a running commentary about how you weren't doing the exercise correctly? Did you fall asleep? Were you able to sit/lie for the full time? What constituted "doing" or "nothing" for you in the exercise? How do you feel? What were you able to sense during the exercise? What was your breathing like? Are you living your own life or is life living you?



The aliveness of the web of oneness can directly touch us in any moment that we are not ensnared in a believing a story about it. There is no magic to it. Just use your senses; your access point to the divine, to open to the world within the world, by experiencing without conceptualizing and by embracing the moment you are in. How will you know whether or not you are in the dream state? The more aliveness you sense in everything around you, the more your are leaving the dream world. The more your felt connection to that which inhabits the cosmos, the less you are living in the dream world.

Chasing Experiences

Many of us spend our lives chasing experiences. We think if we accumulate enough of the right experiences, we will be happy or if we could find that perfect experience that would last forever, we would be fulfilled. But seeking a new or different experience to satiate something in ourselves will ultimately leave us unsatisfied. Why is that? It is because we are complete without any experience. We do not need to "do" anything to reside in the so-called kingdom of heaven. In fact, sometimes "doing" gets in the way.

A second related part is that seeking a different experience than the current one is to reject current reality. Often, if we look deeply enough, we are seeking that different experience to fulfill a belief in a story of who we are.

WHY do you need anything different than what you have at this moment?

I am rich so I have money. I am smart so I speak well or solve problems well. I am ugly, so few people find me attractive. They are all stories we tell ourselves, in which we believe and then seek out experiences in relationship to that story. If I told you you are nothing and that so am I, and so we all are, how would you feel? The degree of your resistance is the degree to which you are shackled.

You are also everything, every iota.

What if we embraced each moment as it appeared? For example, if you were feeling sad, could you embrace the sadness fully. Where would you feel it? What color would it be? What shape would it be? How big would it be? What would it be trying to tell you? I suspect that when many people encounter sadness in their life, an attitude of " this should not be here exists" They meet the sadness with further injury by condemning it and themselves. Arguing with reality IS suffering. The more we are able to meet that experience with love the more it can dissolve into the nothing that it is too.

Recently, in my own meditations, I noticed that I was seeking rather than resting. A few weeks ago I had a particularly wonderful meditation and I found myself clinging to that experience. I found myself trying to recreate it rather than just letting my moment to moment experience just be. It created suffering. Even within our spritual "practice" we can chase experiences. When we achieve a particular state of bliss or happiness through meditation or listening to a satsang do we find 0urselves yearning to recreate that experience in our lives? Do we become atttached to finding that state again rather than resting in whatever state we are in? I am not saying that we should not have experiences that are blissful or wonderful or surround ourselves with "things" that we enjoy, but do you realize that for anything you enjoy the source of that happiness rests not in that activity or object but actually in you. Only love is real and you are love. It is the love that you bring to "it" that makes all the difference. It is the true seeing of whatever "it" is that makes it beautiful or exciting or wonderful. Everything just wants to be seen. In fact, the most fundamental act of love may be really seeing something. All "things" just "want" to be noticed for what they are. Our experiences are no different. When we chase experiences, we reject the present moment. Its like we are saying this moment is not good enough. I want the next. Its as though we are not capable of giving love to this moment. For any "difficult experience" can you try to give it love too?

Experiment: "Experiment with giving love" to every experience that appears in your life. Can you notice the experience? What happens to the experience after you notice it? What happens when you sit with it without clinging to it, trying to turn it into something else or pushing it away?

There is story within Buddhism that even after the Buddha became enlightened he would still be visited by the demon tempter Mara but Buddha would simply invite Mara to tea. This is a wonderful and loving image. For any experience that is supposedly "negative" can you invite it to tea. This poem by Rumi also captures the idea of not running from our experiences The Guest House


But isn't this a way of thinking paralyzing? How would you ever extract yourself from an unhealthy or dangerous situation?

Accepting the moment, or giving love to the moment does not mean that you cannot act. For instance let us say that someone has been physically abusing you in a relationship. Accepting the moment does not mean you are are "ok" with the person hitting you. It means that you deeply acknowledge that the reality IS that that person has been hitting you. That act in and of itself could take an enormous amount of courage and acceptance of the present moment. It could mean a deep acknowledgent of one's own present moment feelings towards the situation. It means, you deeply notice what has been transpiring and you take action from that place; including removing yourself from your circumstances.


Everything changes from moment to moment. It is born, lives and passes away. The more we can be blown by this silent wind, and not chase after some experience which will not satisfy us anyway, the more we can surrender to this moving current, paradoxically, the more joyful we will find ourselves.