Hot Weather

I am already sweating this morning...of course I've been out for a brisk walk with the dog at 6:30, so that may account for some of it.  But most of it is this hot, humid stuff.  My joints ache, and I am so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open most of the day.  This is the hardest time of the year for me in upstate New York.  Complain, complain, complain.  Where does it get us?  No place fast. 

So instead, I will think about the first fireflies I saw last night.  Just two.  and they weren't under the apple tree, where I usually see dozens. They were over by the lilac tree.  Soon enough the others will come and have a community dance out there in the back yard. 

This morning I was reading Pema Chodron again, and I appreciated the teaching.  We walk along in the ocean and a big wave comes and knocks us down.  We get up and we keep walking.  Even after water up our nose and sand in our face.  And after a while the waves will seem smaller.  That's what karma is like.  Is it karma?  Or is it just the way life is?  I find it hard to get my mind around the idea that we have payback for everything we do.  That children suffer because of something they've done in another lifetime. 

I guess for me, grace and forgiveness is my favorite thing about the Jesus road.  We walk along in the ocean and a big wave comes along and knocks us down.  This is life.  And life is full of suffering and difficulty.  We get back up and keep walking, even after we get water up our nose and sand in our face.  Continuing to walk is perhaps the sacrifice we talk about.  It is continuing to live and to give to others as best we can.  And if we keep walking each time we get knocked down, the waves sometimes get smaller.  Or maybe we learn to ride the waves.

We don't get to live in some happy, blissful Hollywood movie.  We struggle.  And that's ok.  But there is some joy mixed in with all the hard stuff.  There are surprises every day, if we keep our eyes open to them!  If we stay present to the moment, even the moments we get knocked down, we find the gifts in it all.  There are gifts, even in the suffering, and somehow it transforms into something else.  That is, if we allow ourselves the suffering.

Somehow in our society we get this idea that we're supposed to be happy all the time, upbeat and cheerful.  And it's really great to be around those kind of folks.  They get the popularity prizes lots of the time.  To be honest however, I enjoy the folks who are real.  Honest about their feelings.  People who try to find the treasures in the hard things, without being "perky" every moment of every day.  They are the treasures in this world.  But so often we're seeking out the popular folks...the happy people, that we miss the deeper gifts someone who knows and has experienced suffering can bring..

So the hot weather is not my favorite time of year, and I spend more time getting knocked down than I do on my feet.  But there are fireflies, and so many flowers that love the hot sun.  And lots of people like this time of year best of all.  

 

Being the Flames

Photopher:  Jon Sullivan (public domain photo)

This morning, amongst my emails, there was a poem that arrived and pinned me to the wall.  When we go up in flames, our work is not to be the Phoenix that rises from the ashes, but rather it is our work to open ourselves to being the flames.  Lovely sentiment Galway Kinnel.  There are ways to endure most kinds of pain in my body, but the thing that hurts most and feels like it's just crazymaking pain, is a burn.

The latest crash and burn episode in my life:  leaving massage therapy school, has arisen from a deep, and long ago pain.  And it is crazymaking pain as well.  Opening myself to be the flame feels an impossible thing to do.  What does that mean exactly?  Where does one find the strength to be the flame?  Is it there within?  Or does it come from the outside? Is it some divine grace bestowed when we ask to be open?  Or is there some required period of suffering before we reach that place of abandon?

Many years back there were a total of 7 Buddhist monks that set themselves on fire in Vietnam.  It was in protest of a law which prohibited Buddhists from carrying flags on Buddha's birthday..  At the time, I was stunned that someone could do that to themselves, and then endure it in silence.  Clearly, the image of that act has remained with me all these years.  I couldn't bear to watch the film of it for more than a moment. 

With that specific act, the monks did it in a very public place, and made the reasons for it clear.  And many people bore witness to that act.  The act itself did not bring about the end of the war.  In the bigger picture however, we don't know just how much it influenced things at the time.  Of course, it had no effect whatsoever on some.  There is a photo of a monk going up in flames, and someone in the background is still looking for a light for his cigarette.  That somehow goes beyond the point of ridiculous.

The trouble is, for most of us, going up in flames is a private thing.  We may not light the fire, or perhaps we do on some metaphorical level.  But how does becoming the flames mean anything at all, if no one bears witness to it?  There is such silent suffering in this world.  Suffering that no one ever sees or understands.  And there is courage that we don't witness.  It may be happening to the person next to us on the bus, or the guy who cuts our hair.  They may be enduring the unendurable with silent grace.

And then of course, some of us scream like banshees.