Don’t Know Mind

2016 is the year of the purge; a time to cleanse. Every astrological, metaphysical and spiritual video/newsletter/blog that has shown up in my inbox over the past week has reiterated this same theme. It’s the year to leave some wounds behind and get your shit together. We can’t build anything new, until we expunge the old. Shred it, smash it, burn it. Just do it.

I’ve recently gone back to reading some things with the Buddhist tone or theme that awakened me 5 or 6 years ago, as I began to re-shape my life and my reactions to my life. The overriding theme of Buddhism, to me anyway, is that we cause ourselves and others so much pain by our lack of honesty and clarity. We cling to what “should be”, rather than what is. In Buddhist terms, that is called suffering.

We do it all day, every day. Because we are humans. Because we live in our minds and we make up stories about how other people should behave. We judge, we criticize, we rant, we argue. In some horrible instances, we shoot, we stab, we blow up, we murder or sanction murder via our leaders and governments. All in pursuit of our need to control what “should be”.

Painful, isn’t it? Yes. And it affects our personal health, both physical and emotional, our global health and obviously, our spiritual health, which some believe is actually beginning to come back from the dead, despite so much evidence to the contrary on the 24 hour news channels.

Accepting ‘what is’ and letting go of ‘what should be’ is one of the greatest paths to clarity. At least it has been for me. Now, I’m not saying that I don’t suffer and rage, just like you. I do, but I’m more and more able to arrest it more quickly, thanks to meditation and practice.

One of the most obvious ways that we suffer from ‘should be’ syndrome is with politics. We are all so invested in the outcome of elections that we fight and argue and call the other side awful names and in too many cases, expunge those who disagree with us from our lives or our Facebook friend list.

I’m not voting in the Presidential election this year. I’ve been lectured, I’ve been cajoled, I’ve been criticized and called selfish for this decision. I’ve been told, “well, then you can’t complain if you don’t vote”. Really? Watch me.

Here’s why I’ve made this choice: Every 4 years, we choose teams and then we fight and we name call and we invest a lot of time advocating, often with great hostility, for our team. It’s painful and frustrating and time consuming to go all in for one candidate or the other.

Then, we have an election. Half of the people celebrate. “We won!!”. The other half are bitterly disappointed. “Our lives will be horrible, now”. Neither is true. So, again, we are living with what “should be”, rather than “what is”.

The losing team, now spends the next 4 years berating, complaining and hoping for complete and utter failure of the winning team. There is no compromise, no tackling of problems or working toward solutions. New problems and crises arise and the losers complain bitterly that it’s all the winners’ fault.

The winners refuse to see that there might be some credence in the philosophy of the other side. That the losing team might have some good ideas. “Elections matter. We won. You lost. SHUT UP.”

Sound familiar. Sound painful and non-productive and silly?

We are all too invested in outcomes. We all just want to win and be right and then rub the losers’ noses in it. Nothing really changes. Nothing gets solved and it is a vicious, every-4-years cycle that I choose to remove myself from.

I honestly don’t care who wins. I have to live my life regardless of who is elected as the Leader of the Free World. So, why invest? I have to deal with ‘what is’ after an election. Period. This is referred to as “don’t know mind”. In other words none of us can ever predict an outcome with any accuracy at all, so why try? Any one of those running could be a great leader or a horrible one. We just don’t know, do we?

Think about some instances in your life that seemed tragic or painful or catastrophic, that actually resulted in a decent outcome or at the very least, some personal growth. I was fired from several jobs. In that moment, it was horrible, but I ended up in better situations.

I suffered some very painful losses of loved ones over the course of a short time and yes, it was extremely painful, but I’ve had a spiritual growth spurt thanks to that shock.

We honestly have no idea of the consequences of any action. Embrace that, open up to it and begin to let go of the ‘should be’ and live with ‘what is’.

So, what if we just remain open to whatever arises? What if after the election we accept the outcome and accept that we have no idea whether it will be good or bad? Because it will be; good and bad and calm and chaotic and scarce and abundant. That is life. Accept it for what it is. You will adapt, you will change, you will be forced to.

And that’s okay. Nobody is right or wrong.

Life has a way of making us face reality anyway. Might as well be two steps ahead, eh? Embrace the ‘know nothing’ mind. Be free. Surrender.

Practice…

Loss.  Such a common part of life and yet we’re always caught off guard.  So many of my friends are dealing with loss right now; losing parents, loved ones, pets or jobs. Big losses.  The kind that knock you flat on your ass.  We all know that they are inevitable and painful and expected and yet, they are so damned random.

I’ve read a couple of things lately that have been very helpful for me as I process my own grief and the pain that I feel for my dear friends.  The spiritual teacher Ram Dass wrote a piece where he points out that as we age, our losses accelerate.  Our friends and loved ones are dying.  We also begin to lose our youth and some of our abilities; we can’t do what we used to be able to do physically or mentally and we mourn that loss.

Let’s bottom line it:  dealing with loss is about letting go.  That’s it.  The reason for learning to let go is training for aging. As we get older, our losses mount and the practice of letting go is more and more important.  I was listening to a podcast that said that renunciation does not consist of giving up the things of this world, but in accepting that they go away.  Life forces us to become natural renunciates.  The things we always knew or relied on or took for granted all go away.

A spiritual practice trains us for this moment.  We give up our anger or pettiness or alcohol or gluten (that one is REALLY hard).  Small victories that prepare us for the major stuff like death and ill health and divorce.  That is the reason we need to train ourselves to let go and not cling.  Everything goes away.  Everything.  That is truth.

Losses hurt.  They are incredibly painful and are typically a mixture of guilt, second-guessing, blame, bargaining, what-ifs, anger, resentment.  We are overwhelmed as we process how the latest loss will affect our lives and yet, we survive them; over and over.  They change us of course, but that is a lesson too; a part of our spiritual practice.

Since my dad’s death, I’ve been much more loving toward others, particularly others who have experienced loss.  I am supremely in tune with their feelings and feel a great deal of empathy for them.  That is a positive result.  I also am aware of my own mortality and that my time is finite.  I’m more conscious of how I spend that time and who I spend it with and who I spend it on.  I’m not messin’ around anymore.

I feel closer to and more loving toward my family, particularly my mom.  I am no longer taking them for granted and our collective grief for my dad has allowed me to see them on a deeper level. Not as siblings, but as 3 dimensional humans.  Another positive lesson.

When you suffer a loss, it is always life-changing in some way.  It may not be a major event, but all losses are worthy of grief and acknowledgement.  Say goodbye and begin the process of letting go.  You’ll need those skills more and more.

 

The “New Normal”…..

I’m struggling to accept my dad’s death. I know that’s normal, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Loss is part of our human condition and we all have to accept it in our own time.

He died suddenly about 2 and a half weeks ago and it’s been such a whirlwind of wrapping my mom in warmth and security and working to get her out of the house and into an assisted living facility that I haven’t had any time to really grieve or mourn my dad’s absence.

I don’t feel guilt for that; it’s absolutely what my dad would have wanted of us. He was completely committed to my mother and once said that when she died, he wanted to die the next day. The best laid plans, right?

He was taking care of business right up until the moment he died doing lawn work in the back yard and since he raised 4 competent, pragmatic children we knew that he would expect us to step up and take care of the business at hand. So, we did.

Now, I’m thinking about him; about how I can never again pick up the phone to commiserate about our miserable Detroit Lions. My husband can’t call him for apple growing advice or get his opinion on fixing our crooked screen door. During the chaos and bustle immediately after his death, his absence was noted, but now it’s settling over me and I’m feeling the finality of his death.

I started writing this blog several years ago as I began my journey to learn to overcome bad habits, non-productive worries and ultimately let go of my need to control everything. I’ve come a long way on that path and I think that my progress helped immensely in the past few weeks. But now, how do you let go of your dad?

I feel like if I do that, he’s really gone; like a puff of smoke, he will dissipate and no longer be real and that makes me feel awful. But, I also know that I have to allow the realness of his death to sink in. Yes, there are many happy and funny memories, but he’s not here and that feels like part of me has vanished as well.

My dad was over 93 years old and from all appearances, strong and healthy. It almost seems like when someone lives that long,you start to think that maybe they’ll never go. We all marveled as my parents lived into their 80s and late 80s and then into their 90s. I’ve waited so long for the call that one of them was ill or dead, that when it came, I couldn’t grasp that it actually happened. My dad, in particular seemed immortal.

So, now we learn to live with what people call the ‘new normal’, which is code for ‘this situation sucks, but you’ll have to accept and adapt’. And that’s the truth. All of us do it everyday and sometimes it’s a huge sea-change to your normal and sometimes it’s a minor zig zag.

My struggles are no different than anyone else’s. It’s life. It’s why we all have to learn to let go of our fantasies that life can ever be anything other than random and painful. As the Buddhists teach us, we all suffer together as part of the human race. We lose everything that is dear to us and we all die. It’s so obvious and true and yet, we fight it because we hope it can be different. It can’t.

I will hold my dad in my heart and my mind and love him that way. I will look at the faces of my siblings, nieces and nephews and see him in them. So many of us have his eyes and his silly sense of humor. We all love ice cream and pie.

He was able to see our little farm last fall and we have some of his tools and implements that will help us nurture and foster our land and our crops. He hated to see anything go to waste and we will honor him as we plant and harvest and care for my mom. We’re okay dad; you did good.

More on letting go…

It’s nearly Christmas and for the first time in probably 15 years, I’ll be spending it with my family.  More specifically, with my 93 year-old parents.

While I’m looking forward to it, part of me dreads it.  My mom is getting foggier and my dad is finally starting to slow down.  The way to face your own mortality is to witness your parents’ aging process.

Spending time with them makes me grateful and uncomfortable; it’s a jumble of emotions.  Tenderness, irritation, impatience, grace, humor, clarity, guilt, love, regret.  Merry Christmas, eh?

I think that most of us are conflicted about our families, particularly if you left home and hometown, when you were young.  When we return to the nest, we return and revert to our family ‘roles’.  But, as our parents age, that doesn’t work any longer.  We take on new roles as caretakers, helpers and decision makers.  And that’s hard.

My parents still live on their own, in their house on 5 acres.  In the past couple of years, we’ve bought them a generator to get through the various storms that plague the Midwest.  We’ve encouraged them to think about downsizing into a retirement/assisted living facility.  This means that every time we visit, we’re sent home with a lot of ‘stuff’; some of it ours, much of it theirs that they can’t bear to throw away.

We all collect so much over the years; not just physical, but emotional, including a lot of scar tissue.  There comes a time to let it go.  To wish it well and send it on its way.  The last year has taught me much about letting go.

We moved and I said goodbye to a home and a place that I loved.  We’re in a whole new environment a couple of time zones away from the old life.  New people, new climate, new lifestyle, new city, new values, new problems.

We said goodbye to my beautiful and very much loved dog, Chili.  One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.  I’m still aching over that loss.

So, I have empathy for my elderly parents.  They are letting go of 93 years of memories, things, comfort, security.  Very hard for them and for us as their children.

Sometimes things are ripped from us, when we least expect it and sometimes it’s a long, painful, introspective process.  Either way, we eventually lose everything that we love and hold close.  The human condition.  Our biggest fear and our constant companion.  It is truth.

And so, I look forward to Christmas with the family and will remain in close contact with my sense of humor in dealing with this phase of life.  That’s something my parents, particularly my mom, instilled in me; in all of us.

I’ll also dig deep into my limited well of patience and understanding.  I’m somewhat deficient in those qualities and the past 6 months has unfortunately drained me even more.

But, I’m grateful. To be back in my home state, close to my parents, with a new life and home and puppy, while retaining some of the former life that has been so hard to release.

Be well.  Remember to be kind.  Surround yourselves with who and what you love during this holiday season.