Is this too many books?

In two weeks time, my husband Mike and I will be heading back to our home away from home: Deer Park Monastery (DP) in southern California. For the past 7 years, we’ve been going on annual pilgrimages to DP for varying lengths of retreat stays. This time around, we will be attending the full duration of what’s called the 90-day winter retreat, which is an annual retreat specifically designed to help support the monastic community (the nuns and monks in our Buddhist tradition).

In a slow effort to start getting ready, I’ve begun assembling what we’ll be packing along with us. Is this too many books? :) (see pic above) We will be there for a considerable amount of time and we will be starting off with a 2-week quarantine period, so there’s that.

I’ve long held thoughts of potentially one year participating in the full duration of the 90-day retreat but given all of the logistics and the amount of time away from my beloved home sangha and friends it hasn’t felt like the right call. But in the wake of covid, this year felt like the right year to make it happen.

On Personal Maturing

I feel as though signs of my own personal maturing involve recognizing and appreciating, more and more as time goes on, that:

• nothing and no one was created in a vacuum; everything and everyone consists of a myriad of causes & conditions that factor into their manifestation
• every topic and subject and matter of human interest involves subtleties and nuances; nothing is black and white
• there is no one right answer or one approach to anything in life
• no one is ever nourished by or benefits from being shamed/looked down upon/negatively judged; I know I’ve strayed off the path of practicing inter-connection and am moving in the direction of separation when I get caught in thinking I’ve got stuff better figured out or am somehow better than someone else

My experience is revealing that the more able I am to embrace paradoxes and the presence and reality of non-duality, the more stable and well-balanced I feel as a result. My optimal functioning and most aligned sense of well-being is dependent on my capacity to practice with, embody, and put into practice one of my favorite and often mentioned teachings from Suzuki Roshi:

To Legalize Or Not To Legalize, That is the Question

Let me start by saying this: crafting this post brings up a slurry of uncomfortable feelings for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. So, there’s that.

Moving on.

Coming up on our local Montana ballot during the approaching election cycle is a matter that I have been glad has not been on our ballot thus far: whether or not to legalize recreational use of marijuana. I’ve been glad because I knew I’d be conflicted as to how to vote. I knew that my biases against pot would cloud my judgement, making it difficult to know which way to vote from a well-informed standpoint. And. I was right. Because now that the time has come for me to cast my vote, I am conflicted.

So, over the past week or so, I’ve been searching out articles and pro/con lists online centered around the legalization of recreational marijuana. I’ve reached out to a small group of friends and family, inquiring with them about whether they’d feel comfortable sharing their views with me on this subject. I’ve watched a couple of TEDX talks. I’ve been working to hear from both sides of the fence. All of this in an effort to better inform myself so that I can make what I feel is a good decision as to how to vote.

Currently, I am leaning strongly towards voting NOT to legalize recreational use, however, I am still conflicted.

Since writing helps me to process things for myself, allow me to break it down:

And that’s okay

This is me practicing with the self-compassion phrase: and that’s okay. As in:

I am not functioning optimally…and that’s okay.

I am feeling drained and unmotivated…and that’s okay.

I am getting overwhelmed by small things…and that’s okay.

I am shutting down quickly when I am confronted with challenges…and that’s okay.

I do not feel mentally and emotionally well in balance right now…and that’s okay.

I am vegging out to more shows on Hulu than I would like to be…and that’s okay.

I feel slow and lethargic…and that’s okay.

I feel un-tethered…and that’s okay.

I am on the verge of tears and I don’t really know why…and that’s okay.

I am getting irritated and frustrated at the drop of a hat…and that’s okay.

I am not operating as I usually do…and that’s okay.

I am struggling…and that’s okay.

 

 

Morning Meal Verse

Meet my morning meal verse that I recite each day when I eat breakfast (above).

I regard connecting with and strengthening – on-goingly and on the daily – the quality of gratitude in my life as a top priority, and a fundamental element of staying well-balanced and well-rooted in what matters most.

I shorthand the above verse before I eat lunch and dinner to simply:

This food is the gift of the whole universe, the earth, the sky, and much hard work.

 

Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings

This morning, I joined a monthly Zoom recitation of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing, rooted in the Plum Village Tradition led by Thich Nhat Hanh, organized by a Dharma teacher on the West Coast. Each time I read or listen to the trainings, different parts and lines resonate for me.

Here are the short lines from each of the trainings that spoke to me today:

(To read the full set of trainings, click here)

1. We will train ourselves to look at everything with openness and the insight of interbeing.

2. We are committed to learning and practicing nonattachment to views and being open to others’ insights and experiences in order to benefit from the collective wisdom.

3. We are committed to respecting the right of others to be different, to choose what to believe and how to decide.

4. We will do our best not to run away from our suffering or cover it up through consumption, but practice conscious breathing and walking to look deeply into the roots of our suffering.

5. We will practice looking deeply into how we nourish our body and mind with edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness.

6. We will practice Right Diligence in order to nourish our capacity of understanding, love, joy and inclusiveness, gradually transforming our anger, violence and fear, and helping others do the same.

7. We are aware that real happiness depends primarily on our mental attitude and not on external conditions and that we can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that we already have more than enough conditions to be happy.

Staying On My Side of the Fence

“When you think that someone or something other than yourself needs to change, you’re mentally out of your business.” — Byron Katie

Something I remind myself often to do is to: stay on my own side of the fence. And what I mean by this is that all I can ever do to help affect positive change in the world is to do my own work and to do it to the best of my ability, for the benefit of all beings. The work needing to be done, is always my own work to do.

I draw deeply on my spiritual practice tradition and answer the question of How can I help change the world by diligently practicing to show up in the best ways I can in body, speech, and mind. There is no world change without continual and on-going self-change.

As soon as I get caught in thinking that someone else needs to change; someone else needs to listen to me (and not vice versa); someone else needs to do something differently; someone else needs to be some other way than they are, I’ve strayed from the path of connection and understanding. This isn’t to say I am not upset and bothered by certain people or that I don’t judge certain actions to be unjust and damaging, but there is a middle ground between apathy and rage, between indifference and incensed.

When I start getting carried away with thoughts about how I think the world should be or how other people should act, I know I’ve climbed the fence and am now wandering around in someone else’s field, where I have no control or sway.

Stay on your side of the fence, Nicole or Get back over there to your side of the fence, Nicole, I say to myself. It helps me to remind myself where my sphere of influence is – and it’s never out there, it’s always – every single time – an inside job, on my side of the fence.