Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

seeing through to what is true…

Mary Elyn Bahlert

DSC_0581“On a beautiful sunny day, you look up into the sky and see a nice, puffy cloud floating through. You admire its shape, the way the light falls upon its many folds and the shadow it casts on the green field. You fall in love with this cloud. You want it to stay with you and keep you happy. But then the shape and color change. More clouds join with it, the sky becomes dark, and it begins to rain. The cloud is no longer apparent to you. It has become rain. You begin to cry for the return of your beloved cloud.
You would not cry if you knew that by looking deeply into the rain you would still see the cloud.”

Excerpt From: Thich Nhat Hanh. “No Death, No Fear.” Penguin, 2002.

I have these moments, too, do you?  These moments when you see through what you ordinarily see into some space or time or place that is there all along, and mostly unseen.   “You fall in love with this cloud.”

Yesterday evening, I fell in love with the little bit of western sky I can see through the late spring leaves on the tree I love, and live with, on my front lawn.  For a few moments, I was completely grateful for  the bright red streak of sky that lingered behind the branches of the tree, across the street, across the Bay… I didn’t want to take my eyes off the scene, because I knew it would be gone in a breath.  My husband had his back to the splendor, and so I had him sit on the couch next to the window, to see what I was seeing.  Ahhh…

These moments, these precious, precious moments of life as a sentient being are so fleeting, each moment here and gone, here and gone.  And it is possible – although I forget about it, although I am so often preoccupied with the thoughts going around inside of my head, although I am often bothered by a feeling that seems to linger – to be here, now, to witness each moment, each fleeting moment of a cloud that has formed and is forming and will be, forever forming, and to fall in love.

Thich Nhat Hanh goes further in his thoughts, though.  He invites us to know, to honor, to remember those moments when we establish a relationship with another part of this vast and wonderful creation, and we honor its life, its life force, its reality, its ever-ness.  What we know in our hearts will never be taken from us.  What we love is and will always be part of us, with us, in us.  The cloud is us, I am sure Thich Nhat Hanh would say.  What is beloved is never lost.  In our human-ness, we love when and how we can, but the connection continues, forever.

The “cloud-ness” of the cloud will never end, even as what we see evaporates before our eyes.

And isn’t that true of each moment?  Isn’t each moment, that brief moment in time, holy and whole, and isn’t it with us, even as it passes?  Isn’t it true that some moments you will see and feel and hear and know forever, although they have passed?  And they are in you, with you, they are you, and you are those moments…

How completely alive we would be if we were awake enough to fall completely, hopelessly, effortlessly in love with each moment!

As for the tears when the moment passes, when our beloved passes from our lives, when the little ones grow too soon, when a friend leaves or goes away, they are part of us, too.  Tears in a way, honor the one we love.  And then, the tears pass, too.

***

Uncategorized

Some thoughts about death.

Mary Elyn Bahlert

 

Azrael__Angel_of_Death_by_gaux_gauxAzrael, Angel of death in Jewish mysticism.

“Death is something we shouldn’t fear because, while we are, death isn’t, and when death is, we aren’t.”
― Antonio Machado

Oh, but yes, Antonio, we do fear death. We live our lives in fear of death, that great unknown. And each day is a death, the death of one moment to the next moment, this moment is dead, now, and this next, and now, and this, too…

Think about it:  our culture does everything in its power to avoid death.

Celebrities are forever young.  “50 is the new 40.”  We say someone has “passed away,” instead of saying:  “he has died.”  Our voices lower to a murmur when death is mentioned, as if it is something shameful.  Doctors rail us with promises that we need never age.  If only we eat right, if only we exercise enough, if only we learn how to handle our emotions enough, as long as we are happy enough… we will not – die?

But the wrinkles come, and with the wrinkles, wisdom.

As far as I know, there is no fear of death in faith.  And as far as I know, that there is no fear of death has nothing to do with what happens after we die.  As far as I can understand, there is no fear of death in faith because faith brings us into this present moment, this one moment given to live, to breath, to serve, to give thanks.  This is all there is.

And yet we are simply human, are we not?  We are simply human, given to fear and anxiety and anger and rage.  We are simply human, and so we do fear death.  The fear of death seems to be a part of life.

Still, some cultures seem more able to allow death to have a seat at the table.  In Mexico, The Day of the Dead brings all ages to graveyards, to eat and to dance and to walk and to be together, among the dead, for remembering, for honoring, as part of life.

No one wants a young person to die, and so we all grieve with the grieving mother.  It is true, a child should not die before the parent, this does seem unnatural to us, and it is a wound that no human being should be made to suffer.  And yet it is a wound that many suffer.  Death claims the young.

We have no freedom from death, as much as we want to run from it, to avoid it, to challenge it, to shake our fists at death.  We have no freedom from death.  Death is always with us, in this perfect, fleeting, precious moment.  Death is always with us.

Death is like the partner who walks with us, wherever we go.  “There she is, always following me around,” we might say.  And if we turn to look, to nod, to speak to her, she may have something for us, some wisdom, some honesty, some truth to add to our life. Can we embrace her?  Can we learn about her, walk with her a bit, learn from her, learn what it is that a final ending to what we know can mean for us now, those of us who walk among the living?

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” – Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle, Dylan, but take a look, get to know that good night.

I think that part of wisdom is to begin to acknowledge death, that one who walks with us, wherever we go.  I see my friends growing older, some refusing to acknowledge that yes, “50 is not the new 40,”  that, “50 is 50,” and that is good.  And I see some of my friends growing older, knowing that as their health changes and as families grow older and move away, there is yet a beauty, a richness, an honor in accepting that “50 is 50,” and it is good.

You are going to die.  Now – how will you live?  – meb, 4/2015/Good Friday

 

Uncategorized

You know how it is.

Mary Elyn Bahlert

index

 

“You know how it is. Sometimes
we plan a trip to one place,
but something takes us to another…
God fixes a passionate desire in you,
and then disappoints you.
God does that a hundred times!” – Rumi

“You know how it is.” You want something. I want something. We are fixated on it, we want it so badly.

“We plan a trip to one place,
but something takes us to another…”

I see so many examples of easy spirituality on the web. I don’t think Rumi considered the spiritual path easy. It’s not as easy as deciding what we want, then deciding that God placed that desire in us, and then, when we are disappointed, deciding that God is testing us, and that if only we pass this test, our desire will be achieved. Oh – if only it were that simple, if only we could manipulate God that way, if only we held the Universe in the palm of our hand, to shape to our fancy.

***

I know what it’s like to want something badly, don’t you?

For a long time, I wanted a life partner.  That’s what I thought would make me happy.  I fashioned the person in my mind:  someone who would understand me, who would enjoy doing the things I enjoy, someone who could explore intellectually with me, and someone to whom I was wildly attracted, of course!  The list was all about what I wanted, and didn’t include – as I consider it now – anything about who I would be as a partner.  But, there it was, the List, the list of the perfect partner.  I wanted that; I wanted him.

I wanted him to relieve my loneliness, to always be present to me.  So many long evenings, I sat on my red velvet couch in my lonely apartment, going through my phone book, looking for someone to call, someone to relieve the loneliness.

For a long time, that is how I lived.  Caught in the cycle of my unconscious desires, I thought that was how I had to live.  That’s all life was for me.  Is that all there is?

And then, for some reason, I surrendered to it.  I surrendered to the loneliness, to the ever-present solitude of my life, to the life of complete alone-ness I seemed to have.  I don’t know why I surrendered, but I do remember the very place I was when I raised my hands into the air and said:  “ok, God, if this is what you want, this is what it is.”  I can picture myself at that moment, driving into the alley behind the apartment building that held my one lonely, solitude-infested apartment.  I expect I will always remember that moment of surrender.

The loneliness did not end.  I made a sort of peace with the loneliness, though, at that point.  Or maybe I made a sort of peace with God (for the moment!  that dance never ends!).  I knew that the loneliness would raise its head from the pillow from time to time, and so I accepted that I would embrace it, whenever it arose, whenever it was awakened.  That, too, was an acceptance.

***

I can say, now, many years later, that I am grateful.  I am grateful for the one life I have been given, for the one life I am privileged to have lived, to be living.  I can also say that the moments of pain and sadness and sorrow and anger and grief and, yes, loneliness, have continued.  I know now that they are part of life.  The moments of pain and sadness and sorrow and anger and grief and loneliness do not tell me that God has abandoned me, or that I have abandoned my path.  No, those moments are part of the path.  They are part of me, part of this one life I have been given.

Even so, I am grateful.

This ever-disappointing God:

“God fixes a passionate desire in you,                                                                                                        and then disappoints you…”

***

We are people who like to control outcomes, although, truth is, the outcome of any given action or intention or desire cannot be controlled.  God cannot be controlled.  We want to shape God into a shape that fits into our little box – we are ever-inclined to want to understand the workings of this Universe – and we learn, once again, that this God, this Universe is far beyond our understanding, and even farther beyond our ability to control.

And all we can do – if we can stretch that far, sometimes, not always – is to be grateful, to lift our feeble arms into the air to say:  “yes!”  Come what may.

index

 

Uncategorized

Moment by moment, new beauty I see…

Mary Elyn Bahlert

IMG_0382Beauty is there, in every moment.

When our lives are busy, we miss the moment. That is a loss in our lives, that we do not see the beauty, the iridescent beauty in each moment.

When I sit in the morning, cup of coffee – a little bit of milk, thank you – in hand, if I am awake and aware, I see the beauty of the day as it arrives, moment by moment, moment by precious moment.  I gaze, I don’t stare, but I gaze with a soft gaze at the tree and the sky beyond, just outside my front window.

There, there – I catch for a moment a certain shade of light, the light of that day, that moment, that morning, that season.

Ahhh… as I gazed a few mornings ago, a rainbow drifted across the sky, the air filled with some drops of moisture that day.  The rainbow gleamed.  I stepped out onto the porch to see it arc across the sky, end to end, that ephemeral, transient beauty.  From one  moment to the next, it dissolved into nothing.  Now, it is only a memory, a memory of a deep and rich and passing moment.

Moments are attached to feelings, feelings, that great gift and burden, of being human.  In the moment, in the feeling, there is the hint – always the hint – that this is passing, that this is brief, that this, like everything else, will die.  This moment will be gone.  This moment of beauty, of the fulness of life, of great feeling, will be gone… is gone.

One day, I sat at my wooden desk.  On one corner of the desk I have framed a greeting card, an imaginary, art nouveau woman with a flowing robe and flowing red hair.  She is surrounded by architectural design rather than an ordinary room or place.  The image is a myriad of colors, representative of that time and place, that form of art.  But that is not what the image brought to mind.  As I sat that day, I was touched, to my core, with the beauty of that image, that imaginary image of a life, of a moment, filled with color, beauty.

And then, I was sad, or filled with longing, or fear, or loss.  I was filled with deep feeling, a sort of melancholy.  One day – today?  tomorrow?  the next?  when? – I would not be able to know such beauty in this particular form, in my being, in my body, in this place, in these surroundings.  This moment of beauty, of absolute beauty, was passing, and as I reflected, had already passed.

***

These mornings, I watch the passing of the moments as the days break.  I watch, also, the passing of seasons, of time as each day becomes longer than the last.  There is something so human, so sentient, in each moment.  In all the days and years that have passed, how often have I rushed from one important meeting, event, gathering, to the next – and been completely unaware, at the same time, of the beauty of this particular moment, this light, this being-ness, this breath, this sound, this color?

If the gift of being human is to be cast into these bodies, these feeling bodies, then the gift is to receive the pain, the absolute pain and power and beauty of each moment.  When we miss it, it is gone – forever.  Forever gone, and missed, completely eradicated from existence without one knowing, one awareness, one breath caught, one feeling, one deep emotion.

Like you, I have missed so many of these moments of my life.  They are all around us, I am sure, ready to be seen, not grasped, but simply experienced, known, loved, accepted.  Words fail me.  Experience passes.  Life continues – with all its importance, its business, its agenda.

Gaze.  Gaze at the world around you, your world.  See.  See what is.  Now.  Live it, now.

Uncategorized

Don’t believe everything you think.

Mary Elyn Bahlert

dont-believe-everything-you-think

That’s it. Great rule to live by. That’s all it is, complete wisdom in one sentence:

Don’t believe everything you think.

Maybe you’re like me. I have a busy, busy mind. My mind is interesting – yes, very interesting. Your mind is interesting, too. I guarantee that! I’m smart. I’ve known that since I was young. I’m sure you’re smart, too. Those things are true.

We honor the mind, our thinking mind, in our culture. If we think something, we believe it is true.  As human beings – as these wonderful works of wisdom – we limit ourselves by living within the cultural constraints of our minds. It is counter-cultural to open yourself to the wisdom that lives within you, within you and outside of the limitations of your thinking, even your best thinking.

Thinking can only take us so far – and there is so much farther to go!  Your body is a place of wisdom.  Begin to know your body’s wisdom by feeling your feelings.   When something happens to you, take a moment to experience that event in your body.  What are you feeling?  Breathe!  Breathe for a moment, and feel the breath in your body.  Now, what are you feeling?

As you practice this, you can begin to name your feelings.

A long time ago, someone asked about me:  “I wonder if she knows the difference between her thoughts and her feelings?”  I am grateful that I took notice of that comment.  Do I know the difference?  I do now.  From that moment on, I began to observe – to feel – my feelings.  That in itself is a journey.  When we begin to include our feelings in our answers, in our decisions, in our observations, we encounter another dimension of ourselves.  When we include our feelings, our perceptions deepen, our love deepens, our experience deepens.

Your body has a wisdom that your thinking mind cannot perceive.  In a way, your thinking mind is on one plane of existence.  The wisdom that is beyond your thinking mind has deep roots, roots in the earth.  The wisdom beyond your thinking mind perceives on many levels, levels that your thinking mind simply cannot conjure up!

If you are sad, feel sad.  That is practice.  If you are lonely, feel lonely.  That too, is practice.  If you are happy, feel happy.  That is practice.  From moment to moment, the practice of reaching beyond our thinking mind takes us into new territory.

A good parent teaches feelings to their child by mirroring those feelings.  When the baby cries, mom will say:  “oh, you are sad.”  Or she will say:  “you are angry that your plate fell on the floor.”  Dad will say to a toddler:  “you are frustrated because you can’t reach the ball.”  Sometimes, we have to mirror our own feelings to ourselves.  We have to begin again to learn about ourselves, and about our own perceptions of the world.

Maybe you’ll need help as you begin to discern your feelings.  Maybe a therapist can help, a professional who can ask you, again and again:  “So… how do you feel about that?”  Maybe a spiritual guide can teach you to listen to your body’s wisdom as much as your mind’s wisdom.  Maybe a 12 step meeting will be the place you begin to learn.

Each one of these places can be the doorway to growth, to growth in consciousness.

Such simple practice, to not believe everything you think!  And at the same time, such a deep, profound, ever-expanding practice.

For today:  don’t believe everything you think!  Give it a try!