Mind reactions leads to lack of peace

Recently my meditations have been erratic. For the most part this week I found myself feeling lazy to meditate. There have been times I've felt like this and its passed. But this time round there seem to be a block. At least that's how I felt. With all that has been happening, today I thought I'd sit down even for a short while.

Ajahn Brahm always says no matter what open the door of your heart. So I thought I'd try that. I think I do but perhaps I may not do as he says for us to do. I started with chanting. I do that when my head seem to be all over. I realized that my mind was running around even through the chants. But I kept at it and things clamed down as they always do. Then I moved to relaxing my body. It was better by that time. After a while I was able to pick up my breath. Then once more my mind started the thinking process. Thoughts were everywhere. But this time I continued watching them, opening the door of my heart to them even though they were not supposed to be there. I let them be, I said.

As I continued watching them I realized something. Perhaps I had known this before but not felt it this strong.

I realized that when things get a bit rough my mind jumps. It's almost like being frightened. You know when you don't like something, how your mind reacts. Well mine does in meditation when things arise that I think should not be there. But when things clam down I clam down cause it's nicer and easier.

This was fascinating to me. Cause this is how I live my life for the most part. Especially during the last month or so with all the events, my mind has become frightened. Even when I was in Australia I noticed it many times. My mind jumps (almost like a strong quiver) when I feel the negativities around me. Not just thoughts but events and people. Then when things clam down I clam down and I feel much at ease.

I saw that in my meditation today more thatn I'd ever done so before.

Am I frightened of my negative thoughts, just as I am frightened of negative events and people around me? I find that interesting. For my mind seem to react so similiarly to the internal thoughts as it does with external events and people. When things are not the way I want, I get frightened and want to run away and get distracted but when things clam down I accept it with open arms.

Isn't this what Ajahn Brahm tells us to move away from? But then I seem to be embracing it. It seems to give me comfort cause embracing what I don't like is hard.

So what is this teaching me? That I ought to be more patient, tolerant, understanding. Or have a balanced place in my heart for the good and the bad. Or is it teaching me to move away from my reactions to these events? Cause these thoughts arise out of past karma but as my teacher says it's my reactions that create future karma. So in my frightened reaction I am creating my future karma which could lead to similar situations?

Hmmm....it's something for me to consider.

So in my meditation I am simply reacting to thoughts that are arising, which is the problem. This sounds exactly like what Ajhan says. Depressed about being depressed or angry about being angry...reactions. Instead he says to let it be.

Next time I meditate I must try to be this way. Of course I mustn't try to control which reactionary. Oh my...I got to stop this cause I will twist myself into a knot. I should just write and let it go and not think about it. All thinking leads to confusion. But I thought I'd write it anyway cause I really felt it very strongly today.

So different and yet so similar

If nothing else the events of the last few weeks have taught me how different we all are, even if we belong to the same family and same mother and father. While its sad on the one hand, it is also liberating. Liberating to know that genes can dictate limited amount in our lives and just because we belong to a certain kind or type of family we don't always turn out to be like that.

I have wondered about this for a while now, because of my own experiences and experiences of those I associate closely. I suppose in some ways we create our own lives. Even though my husband and I live in the same house and shared a life together for almost 2 decades doesn't make us any similar or make us look at the same thing in the same way. You'd in some ways expect some similarity but not always. Its the same with my siblings and my parents. After all our parents raised us and for almost 2 decades we lived in the same house, ate the same food, associated more or less the same people and some ways influenced by similar things. You'd think. But not so.

The more I investigate it the more I feel it's not what we experience that make us different from one another, it is in how we experience it. Growing up I was a child mostly to myself. While I had challenging times in my early childhood and teenage years I never felt out of control. I almost never felt a need to please others even my parents. I was called stuborn and selfish for it. I don't think that made a dent in my sense of self worth. But on the other hand my sister was quite the opposite. While I retreated to myself my sistser was someone who loved the limelight. In her younger years she shined in drama and all the sports and stuff and was celebrated for it. I don't remember wanting the same. I was happy to be me. Stuck in a book, school or story.

My brother was 11 years younger to me. So by the time he was in his early years I was leaving high school an on to university. While I remember working with him on art and creative stuff, I don't remember hanging out like I did with my sister.

But we have all turned out so very different. I suppose there is good in that. If we all thought the same way perhaps we will not be able to look for better ways of doing things, new perspectives on stuff. But they are also the reasons why we clash. That's what has happened for the most part over the last few weeks. If after all is said and done my dad comes out the winner then so be it. I can make peace with that. But I feel like have learnt for myself a valuable lesson. That is just because we are siblings doesn't mean we think and feel the same.

Each of us despite similiarity in our experiences will see and feel about it very differently. I wonder what leads to this? Is it our personality? Is it our education? Is it those we associate, countries we live in....what is it? Or is it simply karma. Or is it a mixture of all these things.

Perhaps it's a mixture. I mean we are creatures of change. Whether we want to or not life itself changes us. The things that get on our plate sometimes are so unexpected that we have no choice but to deal with them. IN dealing with them we change the course of our lives, direction and flavor both. I feel that way about me and my siblings.

We are different beings in every possible way. Despite belonging to the same set of parents we are very different in who we are and how we deal with things. Perhaps there are traces of behaviours that run a thread. My husband says there are. That looking at the three of us and how we deal with things show a common thread...isn't that interesting?! I agree with him to some degree. So then there are things that we carry in the same way despite our differences?!

It's been interesting. While events of the last few weeks have left me tears from time to time, it 's also been a time for reflection. This is one of those reflections. How different we are and yet in some ways so similar.

Either way, I think it's best to have space to see and think for myself. While family is important I'm beginning to realise that along with that importance can come a lot of heartache. So over the last few weeks I've reflected on what makes these relationships so hard and dynamic. While it's nice to have people to hang out with, share a past and history with, it brings with many ups and downs, pleasure and displeasures, happinesses and unhappinesses. To me the ups and downs of life, while they are there for sure, don't have to be taken in the sameway. I'm looking for ways to reduce the impact it can have on my peace of mind. While I know I will not be removed from these life dynamics, I can find a better and a more constructive way of facing them. Perhaps with more balance in my heart and mind. I am investigating them now. So most of the events of the past few weeks are making me look for new ways for myself to exist.

 

The last few weeks have been pretty challenging, emotionally. April 26th we had to fly out to Australia. My father and mother had been visiting my sister for the previous 8 months and they were to leave by the end of that week. By my father got diagnosed with a perianal abscess and he was asked to go through emergency surgery. It was a tough one becase my sister said that it was a big one that had spread to various glands in side the rectum area. So naturally I was very worried. My father speaks a little English but my mother does not. So to be in a place where they cannot understand other people or get about on their own was a worry and what happened with my sister compounded all of them. I waited to hear about the surgery and decided to travel. My husband joined me. What is going to be written in this blog and a number of future ones would be my experiences during that time.

I am sure I will ramble on and on at times but I need to write these things because partly I feel it would be therapeutic for me. Over the last weeks I have struggled to come to terms with the things that happened over there and now continue to happen now as well. So I am sure I will go back and forth between my past experiences and try to make sense of some of them. While I understand that no amount of thinking will sort it in my head, I feel writing it down might alleviate some of the burden and hurt I feel in my heart.

Travelling to Australia wasn't an option, especially because my father-in-law died only 6 months ago. It was unexpected. I guess death always is unexpected to some degree. So it was weighing on my mind when my dad had to undergo this surgery. So with all the information coming my way I didn't wait. My husband too didn't want to and we flew.

What happened once we got there was in many ways disheartening. Before that I want to set up the background.

So by Sunday evening my time, my dad was told that his ultrasound revealed something bigger than what the family doctor thought it was. So they made him do an MRI. In that they found the extensive abscess. So he was asked to undergo surgery. They admitted him to hospital.

As I said before my father and mother had been visiting my sister for the past 88 months. My sister and her husband live in Melbourne and they have a 3 years old son. My sister also has knee issues and many marital problems that I have heard about for years. But they stick it out some how, I guess. They didn't have a baby sitter then and for the most part my parents looked after the child when the parents had to run errands. When my dad had to undergo surgery, everything got chaotic for everyone very quickly. Suddenly they had had to run around to the hospital and do everything. Because my dad and mom were not good in the language it made it that much harder. 

Calling my sisters home is a nightmare. They never answer the phone nor do they call back. But when my parents were there I would call and it will roll to voicemail and when I start speaking my mother or father would pick up. But my sister never does even if she is at home and on numerous occasions she has shown displeasure to my calling my parents and having extended conversations.

Anyway, I let those go for all these times. But when my dad was hospitalized, it became a problem. I had to wait for their messages. The day my dad was to have surgery, I didn't get any messages from my sister so I called their home. After trying 3 times, my mother finally answered and I barely had time to speak when the little one got on it. He is a bit naughty and cannot be controlled. So all I heard from my mother was that she was staying at home and looking after the kid while my sister and her husband went to the hospital. We didn't know when my dad was going to be taken in. Since my sister kept saying it was really bad I was way worried. So when I heard that my mother wasn't going to be in the hospital before the surgery I was not happy. I mean from the way everything sounded I really thought there was the possibility of complications and with his age and etc that it could be life threatening. So I wanted to tell my mother to somehow go to the hospital but my sisters husband came along and asked the little one to put the phone down and didn't let me talk to my mother. This rang alarm bells for me. But once again I couldn't do anything about it. My sister has given me only one mobile number which is my brother in laws and he never answers it. No one picks up the hone phone so you cannot do much. My parents don't have mobiles either. 

So after a little while my sister called and asked me not to call home. I was not happy but as calmly as I could I told her that I was very worried for my dad and that ever effort should be made to have my mother visit him  before he goes for surgery. Also on the previous day when I asked to speak with my father, they said the hospitals won't allow phone calls in the ward. I refused to believe this. I mean come on. In Australia (Austin hospital) saying to a daughter that she could not speak to her dad before a surgery....come on....so I wrote this to my sister as well and during that phone call insisted that I speak. 

She did make the call from the hospital and she did take my mother to see him and she was with him until he was taken in. 

By the time he was done, I knew he came through and before the end of the day I had told my sister that no matter what I hear or not hear I will make arrangements to come there. She also felt it would be the best considering all situations.

Initially I thought I'd go there for a few weeks so I could look after my dad and also help out with things. My sister kept saying how difficult it was for her to handle everything with the child and her knees and everything. Also realized that the day after the surgery my mother wasn't gonna go because there was no one for her to go with. I mean this was ridiculous. She has a car and she could take the child and my mother and go but no. She says she doesn't want her son exposed to the hospital environment. They boast about having friends, so why couldn't have they asked one of them to help out and have my mother visit him the day after the surgery. No that was not possible too. My sister kept on saying how to look after him when he gets released and who is going to do the work of looking after him cause she cannot and with a kid and the wound could be infectious and everything under the sun. I had to tell her not to worry so much. 

As I said, at the begging my plan was to go and stay for an extended time. 3 weeks was the thought. Also my husband decided to fly with me. This was good and was a surprise considering how hectic his work schedule was. But because there was no place at my sisters house to stay, he was worried how I was going to manage on my own. Plus Id have to rent a car. Driving on the wrong side of the road, having to stay by myself with all the stress my husband didn't feel it was best for me to travel on my own. It was very good of him to think that way. When we were looking at booking flights, he asked me how I was going to manage on my own once he was gone. I said I will somehow manage. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that my idea wasn't going to do me any good.

The last time I was in Australia, I went to visit my sister. I went early so we could send time together with the little one. But it turned out to be a disaster. She was ver mean to me from the get go, I don't know why. I don't even think she thought anything of it. I felt like an inconvenience and I didn't like it. After all my intention was to have a good time and spend time together but it was aweful that by the end of my time there I swore to myself that I would not travel to my sisters place unless my husband was with me.

So for me, going to visit my dad on my own would be a contradiction to this promise. More than keeping to a promise is the misery that it could bring about if I were there on my own and my sister started to get mean and crazy. So when my husband told me to think about it but support me no matter what, I changed my mid.

I said I would go with him and come back with him even if it was only for 12 days. At least I'll be able to give a helping hand and my parents will be happy to see us and my sister could take a break from caring for them and attend to the kid and her knees.

So I told her that I will not be coming for an extended period and told her that both of us will be there for the 12 days and we will do everything we can for them. During that conversation she laid out her expecations which were not fair for me.

She implied that she felt let down, because I had told her I was going to come for a longer time. She said that she was hoping I could do things for her to make it easy for her and etc.....this didn't go down well. I told her that it's not the time for her to complaint about what she has to do for her parents. I told her that she was the one who brought them down for a long time, for her assistance and now that one of them was sick, she shouldn't expect me to run around the world to do things to make her life easier. I told her as nicely as I can, that I too have a life. I have a family. My husband travels extensively and he needs me to take care of our home. Running from my home to Melbourne is not like catching a bus or a train to a nother city. It's almost a 24 hour flight and we have to leave our home our cat. For her to imply that she expected I would make myself available whenever and wherever was not a nice thing to do.

I think hearing me say that to was even worse. I could literally see her walls all coming up in that conversation itself. But I ended saying, we will have our car and we can do everthing for my father.

So during transit, I realized that my father was released from the hospital with a tube attached. But he was stable. This was good news for me and my husband. So we boarded the flight to Melbourne with much ease.

Once we got there that wasn't to last much longer!

The only certain thing about life is death. Its presence is constantly in our lives. But we hardly ever think about it or pay attention to it. Its like a silent partner, tags along with us all the time. Death has scared me and fascinated me for a very long time since I can remember, even as a child. I remember the first time I saw a funeral pire. I was travelling with my maternal grandmother in a bus to her house. I would have been less than 10 years old. It was dusk and the funeral pire was burning and the flames engulfed it. I remember that so vividly and I was frightened and curious. 

I didn't encounter death until my paternal grandfathers death. I have a few memories. Somehow my father was on his way back to our home after visiting his sick dad when we got the news. As soon as he came we packed and went to Galle. I think the body was being prepared in the house. That's what my memory says. Then they closed the doors etc and brought the body from the room it was in, into the main living area. I remember the funeral procession. The crematorium and how people went to see the burning pire in the night or early morning hours. But that's it.

Then the most vivid one the one that caused me much sadness was the death of my uncle, my mothers second brother. We were very close to him and he used to visit us often and we learnt a great deal from him as teenagers. Then more deaths followed. Last year Ranil's dad died. That made me recollect all the deaths I had experienced previously. For some reason the death of his dad seem much potent experience compared some of the previous experiences. It was sudden even though we kind of expected it because of the 2 anyurisms he had. 

But since then I have contemplated not just death and the dying process, but also the ones left behind and how life continues to unfold in the absence of our loved ones. I have also worked with hospice patients over the last two years and even though they die and none are related to me, you build up a relationship with the patient and at times a significant other or a child. 

I have seen people struggle towards the end of their lives. Either from pain or fear or inability to face the fact that their bodies are falling apart. I met a man who was diagnosed with cancer. He was young-74- and had good memory. We struck up a friendship for almost a year before he died just after he turned 75. He was single and had no family except two friends who used to visit him regularly. He was a war veteran, traveled to many places had many girlfriends and partied and drunk and had a good time. But he had a hard time coming to terms with the frailty. He had a a few hard falls cause he tried to walk when he was told not to. He felt like a prisoner, not being able to do the things he wanted to do and go to places he wanted to go to. But he was not bitter. He had a good sense of humor and he always waited for me to come and see him. But every time I left, I could see the twinkle in his eyes fade.

There was a woman around the same age riddled with breast cancer. I don't think she every made peace with death. She was a woman who had gone through domestic violence. She had a son in another state who would visit her once or twice during the time I visited her. She died within 6 months. But she was always crying. When she talked about her son she cried. When she talked about her death ad God she cried. She tried to tell that she was going to be with God but there wasn't a lot of certainty to that. She was also in a great deal of pain. Towards the end her pain medication made her feel frightened and have hallucinations, said the nurses. The last time I saw she was sitting on the bed, in tears. Her brother and a nurse was with her but she was in tears. She calmed down when I sat by her. She died a few days later.

The last patient I visited was 55 year old muslim woman. She was paralized onn her left side and her speech was damaged. So she couldn't talk to me. She would make noises and smile, try to. When I first saw her she looked real bad but with time she recovered well. I met her husband, a man who was 10 years older to her, always in white kurtha suit. Their life story was amazing and he had cared for her for over 15 years since she first had her stroke. Then she started to tell me through her husband, that she wanted him to take her home. Her frustrations clearly came through at time, partly because she wanted to go out and home but she had no control over that decision. Neither over her body. For some reason I felt that she was going to die and she did after a few weeks.

Even though I didnt meet Ranils father before he died or throughout his sickness, I heard it all from Ranil. It was a tough time. He too had  failing body and he struggled with coming to terms with it. 

So all these stories have twirled in my mind from time to time during the past 6 months or so. Following are some of my thoughts and insights

1. Death is not easy. Dying is hard. Partly because we don{t think about it and partly because the world we live in put so much emphasis on the living. I think its a dis-service to people who are living. As hard as a truth it might be, each one of us have to face this in terms of our own deaths and the deaths of those who are closest to us. But while sadness comes and goes, nothing stick for us. I think it's important for us to contemplate death while we live and are capable and not leave it to a time when we don't have our faculties and bodies in the right condition to think about it.

2. We have little control over our bodies. While we all fall sick from time to time, we don't get it what's like to have chronic pain and sickness. It's not easy face a situation where you don't have an answer or have very little control over. I think the illusion of life, is to provide that sense of control. Or we exert so much power until we get what we want or make things happen the way we want. When we are not able to do so, we will justify it. But sickness and imminent feelings of doom cannot be controlled to our desires. Since we've had a life time of practice manipulating our external situations, we do the same towards our end of life events. But with no much results except restlessness, sadness, resentment, frustration and even anger at times.

3. Our emotional world becomes everything. When the body is falling apart, the only things that can give certain balance and a sense of calm is our mind. But unless we have throughout our lives, anchored ourselves in something that can produced that clam, it's hard to ask for it to be at your service when you need it. It's important to have healthy emotional world. When we are young we do much and run around  like chickens with it's head cut off-doing this and doing that-that when we are lying down taking our last breaths, we don't know anything other way of being other than being like chickens with its head cut off. It's a time that requires great strength of the mind and one must prepare as much as can for this experience. sometime I watch these bridal shows and these young girls say that they've thought of their wedding day since they were 5 years old. I think we should think our dying from the moment we are born. Otherwise we waste a lot of time in unnecessary things.

4. Learn those who die. No matter how many funerals we go to and even perhaps our closest, we see it as something that has happened to someone else. For us what is left is the grief and loss. But this should not be it. We need to see the dead person pay respects by all means. But also we must make an effort to realise that this is something that will at some point happen to me, and my closest family member. That lessons somehow eludes us. Maybe we may say it out in words during the time and a mourning period but it does not come home in to our hearts. I think we must see clearly that death is something that happens to me. Then perhaps that might make us take a hard look at how we live right now. For in our living is created our dying experience. Our death and the dying process is not going to be something alien to us. It's in how we have faced and responded to our life on a moment to moment basis. We have a pattern of it, call is our personality or our dominant trait. This is what will get unfolded at time of death and during the dying process. So take a hard look at ow you respond to life while living, for in it lies all the clues and answers we need.

Lies, distortions of truth and injustice: tremors in my emotional world

Last night I was watching news about the testimony by James Comey and the response from the WH and supporters of Mr. Trump. As I was watching it, I noticed that I kept getting increasingly angry and resentful. At the end I switched off the news channel cause my anger gave me a headache. I wondered why I got so angry. As a practicing Buddhist, I could not make peace with it. I kept fighting the lies and the injustice that was happening and the emotions that it aroused in me until it gave me a headache. It was exhausting. 

Then my husband started reading a chapter from the book we have been reading over a month by Ayya Khema. It was very timely. Cause the chapter said that we should not take things personally no matter how right or wrong things maybe. My husband ended up asking me, "why do you have to take it personally?". That was a good question and I had to think about it. Why does lies and distortions of the truth and injustice always get me? Why do I take these emotions so personally every time? As I thought about it, I realized a few things.

I have faced such lies, distortions of truth and injustices by others. I realized that's why these stories strike a never in me.

When I was little I had an aunt who was very unkind to me. I was about 5-6 years old. She used to refuse to give me the food I like to eat after I get back from school for lunch. I loved lentils. My mother would cook it everyday just the way I liked to eat it. But this aunt of mine who lived with us and took care of us while our parents were working during the day, would not give it to me. She will give me just enough and then laugh when I would want more. Or call me names. She also got me to do all the cleaning afterward. She used to look after me, my sister and a cousin of ours during that time. She would drop pick us from school everyday and we would walk home. She never got them to do the cleaning up. I had to do the cleaning up of all our school items like snack boxes and bottles etc. My mother never knew about it. I never told, apparently. But those days I would cry every evening if mother got even slightly late from work. She would come around 5.15-5.45pm. If she didn't come during that time I would be in tears until she did so. I remember feeling sick about losing my mother. I remember having these frightening thoughts about my mother dying and that would scare me so much that I would cry. I was also punished for this. But it didn't stop for a while. Finally my dad realized what was happening because he was at home one day and that day my aunt had hit my across my leg and her finger marks were visible. My father saw this and that got him to send his own sister away. Maybe my crying stopped then, I don't remember.

(I cried while I was writing that paragraph)

I was 16 years old when I finally told this to my parents and my aunt. She apologized and my parents were aghast. I think I forgave everything cause I have had any dealings with this aunt and I haven't felt anger or resentment. 

Then I also had an uncle who supported me through college. It was an ordeal as well. When were were younger and doing well in school, he kept promising that he would help us f we get good grades to go to a foreign university. I particularly grabbed hold on to that idea. I liked it and wanted it. I finally got good grades to enter a good university outside of my country. Suddenly my uncle who had been promising all these things for years started getting quiet. It would have been a difficult time. I remember being very determined to get what I wanted and I was willing to do whatever. Finally with the help of someone we managed to get the necessary documents from my uncle to apply for visa. It never felt  good. Every year I had to call him and ask for the money to be wired. I wasn't sure if he'd send it. But he did. 

Then was the series of incidents with my husband and his family. My husbands mother, was very critical and condescending of me from the beginning. I was never pretty, too fat, not famous or rich enough for her. My family was never posh enough for her. But my husband never noticed any of it for almost 10 years. If he did, he never did anything about it enough to stop it. Over the years his father and sisters too joined in. They cut my family off for no reason. They were astonished why I didn't want to continue to talk to his mother, even after being told why. They treated me like a bad egg even when I had welcomed them and his sisters and treated them well for many years. Our marriage was full of turmoil for a long time. I was exhausted and at times suicidal. It was such an uphill battle. I thought truth was something obvious and decency and fairness was something fundamental that in the absence of it from those who were supposed to protect me left feeling completely out of control and sad and angry. His parents also bad mouthed me to my husband, telling things that were not true and ignoring all the good that I had done. The sisters were supportive of that and was pushing my husband trying to create a wedge between us. I held my husband responsible, for not being there for me, protecting me and standing up to what was right and wrong, for a long time. It was during all this that I took meditation as a practice. Out of sheer desperation and not wanting to hurt myself, I took on to the practice. 

Over the years its helped me a great deal. It's to mostly to see my emotions and work through them in a calm and constructive manner. But it has also helped me to identify where my responsibility ends and others start. That has helped me to stay away from feelings of guilt and take on others emotional drama. 

But despite all that, I still get angry and frustrated when I see lies, injustice prevail. It annoys me how people get away by saying and doing wrong things and are not held accountable for their behaviours. It angers me when people are victimized by those behaviors and no one pays attention to the victims. Power and money seem to protect those abusers and leave the victims out to dry. It makes me very angry. Even when I know there is no point to anger no matter how righteous it may seem. Even when I know in my head that those who do bad have to live with the consequences of their behaviors and I am only responsible for mine. Even when I know "Karma will get the bastards anyway" according to Ajhan Brahm, I still have to live with the strong emotions that get created in me as a reaction to these events from time to time. While not every event shakes my world, the right one at the right time with the right intensity can bring about lot of pain in my heart. I felt that last night and here I am writing about it. Hopefully this will contribute to my own healing process. 

Trails and meditation

My husband and I went on a trip to the Shenendoah Park recently. We did a lot of hiking. It was a fun trip w its sightings of many bears and a couple of close encounters with them. Once I was back, I was relating my adventures to my mother. As always our conversations take a turn toward Dhamma. So did this conversation. We were talking about meditation and how to cultivate a practice that can sustain itself for the most part. It was during this time that I came up with the following similie. 

Meditation is a practice like any other. To get a rhythm of any kind in anything we do, be it a sport, an art, getting in shape and meditation we need to practice over and over again. It has to come to a point that it feels kind of natural. It's the same with meditation. We need to feel comfortable with it. It has to feel like meeting an old friend. But getting to this point is not easy. A lot of time and effort has be expended. Even then we might make errors that takes us back to basics. So does meditation. 

As I said earlier, we did many hikes during out trip. They were long ones. Even though at times the hikes were through dense woods, we were clear as to where we were. There were sold train marks, postings at crossroad with direction and distances so that we could gauge where we were. We were never lost. The path were pretty neat and pretty clear. So we always knew where we were. When I was talking to my mother about meditation, I realized that just like having a clean trail with markings and postings, we can establish a sense of direction even in meditation. It's not marked with postings and distances. Instead your develop a strong sense of feeling in your mind. 

This is the reason why one must pick a suitable meditation object for oneself and use that over and over again to gain concentration. Sometimes I have heard meditation teachers talking about many types of objects for meditation such as loving-kindness, breath meditation, death, old age, Buddha...but to me personally, I have used two objects. The breath and metta. At the beginning I used metta for the most part when I sat on my own. With the teacher I used to do breath. After sometime I used to do them back to back. But now I almost always do breath. I find that my breath has become very familiar to me. It's comforting to sit with my breath. It's like meeting that old friend.

So going back to my trail simile, I was telling my mother to think of someone or a group of people clearing a trail in a park. In order to create a trail that others can go or for even your own self to travel, you need to start at t a point. ONce you start digging and clearing your way through the woods, you will have to stop at some point because the day ended. But again you have to come back to it the next day, so you can start from where you left off. Imagine if you suddenly felt that you ought to start at another point the next way. What will happen? Well your previous day's efforts would be in vain. Also you need to start a fresh, yet again. Also you have wasted your time and resources. Okay let's assume that you did start again. Well you have to finish off for the day won't you? Then imagine you coming back the next day to start from a new starting point?! Well it will never start, will it. But what if you went back to same point that you start off to begin with? Then you just keep digging and clearing. It might take months or even years but you are cutting your way through a forest, making a path that you can come back to and walk through again and again. Every day you dig through, it opens a few more yards, it gets longer and perhaps you will come to the end to a beautiful scenery. 

I feel the same about meditation. 

If we keep changing our meditation object, it would like coming back to start a new trail every single day. You get started with great enthusiasm but you don't get very far. I am sure you will get exhausted at some point and give up altogether. But instead what if you come back to the same meditation object, like coming back to where you left off from the previous day. Well then you walk a little bit forward and clear a little bit more. I feel it's the same way with meditation. Each sitting, give you an understanding about your mind and it's nature. Each sitting helps you to learn something. We need to take it back together next day so that there could be some more  progress. It might not feel like you are moving forward much but I know that it's okay. 

Hard to digest

Last Saturday we flew into Colorado for a week. It was for business and pleasure. We were going to do some trails in the mountains and I was going to keep to my health goals during the week. It sounded like a perfect plan. I had supported a lower back pain for a few weeks. But I was on the way to full recovery when we embarked on our trip. However, the bed was so soft that overnight my back pain came back with a vengence. It was so bad, that by the time I woke up Sunday morning I could barely move without pain in my lower back. It was so distressing. I was so looking forward to the few days with my husband since we've had a kind of a stressful few weeks. But now I was down with a back pain.

I am not new to pain. I suffer from many chroic pain issues. But this hit me hard. I was inconsolable. I was cried a lot. Just flet so beaten down. This was partly because I was kind of recovering from my neck pain and knee issues. I was able to get into my work out routine and golf and I was losing weight. Overall I felt so much better and then Wham! it hits me. I could not handle it. It made me wonder what on earth is going on with me...yet again. I started wondering when I will ever see the light of day for more than a few days or weeks. My health issues seem to always raise its head up and want to pin me down and keep me pinned down.

So on Sunday as we were touring Rocky Mountain Park, with me being very miserable, I started thinking. This was partly to wrap my head around what's going on and also to get out of the miserable mind state I was in. At some point on our way back the following thought came to my mind. I must say it did help me clam myself.

What I realized was that even when my body was giving up and falling apart, my mind continued to stay resilient and want to do things that my body was not able to do. My unhappiness was a direct cause of me wanting to do all these things and now because of my back pain, not being able to. I work with hospice patients. I see them on a weekly basis unble to do the things they once had done. Some fight and are unhappy and the others seem to have come to a resolve. I felt like one of my patients. I was the one disable and unhappy cause I could no longer do the things I wanted to do. I had these expectations of my body. Now I could not live up to it. So I was unhappy. Isn't that amazing!

I started being aware how much of a drive I had in myself to want to do things. It was excruciating. I wanted to hike, I wanted clime and be free like I usually am when I go on trips. But my body could not handle it. It was giving me pain. But for some reason I could not come to terms with it. I felt that I was young and these are things people like me would do without batting an eye lid and here I am being pathetic. It was a hard reality to swallow.

I realized how much I needed to change in my expectaions of myself alone. From my body. It's a hard thing to come to terms to because its your body for cyring out loud. But yet there is something uncontrollable about it. You cannot make your body behave and do things the way you want all of the time. Sometimes, you need to allow it to be, rest and recover. That might include doing less, wanting to do less or whatever maybe. The only expectations are those that I have put on myself. I mean I began to think of people who had cancer who were young, who were disabled and young, dead and young. So considering all that I was not having a bad experience. But for me it felt as if I was dying. I felt such a sense of loss.

But I realized that I did not need to. There is no guarantee that we will be healthy, strong and capable, that our senses and limbs will be intact or for that matter I would live tomorrow but yet there is an expectation somewhere in my mind. I realized that I needed to clam down much more, let go much more and expect much less. It was a good eye opener. I also realised that if I continued on the same path how hard it would be for me to die. I will always have some sort of unfinished business. So if I have to die tomorrow what am I going to do. Be sad, angry, miserable and mess up my last moments on this earth?

These were wonderful points for me to contemplate on. I think just this expericence alone brought to my mind how fragile our lives are. How fragile our bodies are. That at somepoint I needed to clam down so I didn't add to an already worse situation. The hard part was it was internal. Where could I go? Where could I hide? Nowhere. I had to be with myself no matter how unpleasant the experience was..not matter how hard the situation was...I was there. I could not excape myself. That's hard. When things are unplesant and external to you, you at least have the choice to run away, but when it's you, there is no place to run to. I realized how much more kindness and compassion I had to develop just deal with myself.

I feel much better now. But I have calmed down....partly because I am not constantly in pain. But also I learnt a lesson. That I needed to expect less of myself and be kind as my body gives up from time to time. I must learn to remind myself that there will be that time, when my body gives up completely and that I will have no choice at that time. I don't want to fight when that time comes. I don't want to be angry or sad. I don't want to feel that there is much to be done and if only I could live....I don't want that struggle. I want to be in a place where I can let my body die because that's how it's going to be. Just because...I want to be able to let it go just becasue it's time to do so.