Becoming Kwan Yin

Despite my coughing fit the other day I am still reading The Cloud of Unknowing. And this morning it occurred to me that, actually, the coughing fit was perfectly in keeping with what that text has to say about meditation; about the striving for connection with the Divine.

Because the clouds, the cloud of unknowing and the cloud of forgetting, are all about that which comes between me and God; about all the petty concerns, and the ignorance, and the wasted time, and the self-absorption. In short, anything that prohibits that flow of grace in and through me can be defined by one or the other of those clouds.

So of course, if I focus on them, I have trouble breathing in the grace and clarity for which I hunger. Which is why the monk tells us we are to throw those constant darts of love THROUGH the cloud to That Which Lies Beyond.

In becoming aware of the cloud in this way, and in thinking of that image I posted, of the ship’s mast, and the faint clouds drifting across it, I began to see that even if I could release all the thoughts that were occluding the connection, there was still a thin membrane blocking the flow; still a part of me resisting the ultimate flow of grace and spirit between Creator and Creation.

It was then that I realized it was time to let go, to unlink my fingers, to open my hands and place them on my lap; to stop protecting myself as I sat. And the beauty of that choice, in that moment, was that I felt both open and safe, despite all prior resistance to this posture.

And in that moment I could begin to comprehend the appeal of this lovely little figure, one of the Buddhas I brought home with me from Issaquah the other day. This photograph does not begin to capture her iridescent glow (this is raku pottery), but you can at least see the tenderness, openness, and compassion which Anita has captured in her clay.

She is, Anita tells me, Kwan Yin, known as the bodhisattva of compassion. Her name means “one who perceives the cries of the world” -- which is why Anita depicts her with a slightly tilted head, as if she is listening -- and she responds with compassionate aid to those in need.

I cannot promise that I will always be able to meditate with open hands. But at least now I see that if and when I can do so I will have removed yet another layer of the cloud that keeps me separate from the divine connection for which I hunger. This sculpture is, in fact, like a visual representation of the practice of tonglen, only at the deeper level of image: in removing – or at least parting – that curtain or membrane which keeps me separate; in opening to the rest of creation, I can more effectively breathe in the pain of of the world and breathe out the divine joy of connection.

The Roots of Compassion

One of the conditions of our trip to Italy was that my husband's brother was determined to visit Pompeii. I can't say I had his passion for this excursion, but I did remember reading about the story of Pompeii as a child, and I thought it might prove interesting.

I'm not sure what I expected, now that I look back on it. Perhaps I thought there might be little tableaux, like the ones you sometimes see in museums, of people frozen in the midst of simple household tasks? Or perhaps it was just that that's what the illustrations were in the book I'd read so long ago.

What I didn't expect was a dead dog, perfectly preserved in ash, contorted in agony; what I didn't expect was this person, also preserved, in a final act of prayer. There is something about the posture of prayer that is so universal, so recognizable, that despite the fact that there were hundreds of tourists passing by this, one of the few human figures at the site, there was virtual silence at this point in the journey. We could all identify, and I suspect we were all humbled by the sight.

I visited a meditation gathering of local Buddhists last night, and when the evening was done the conversation turned -- not surprisingly -- to our recent election. And each person in the room spoke of tears they had shed, relief they had felt, hope that had begun to rise again. "I had no idea how depressed and discouraged I was," said one woman, "until it was over, and I realized I was actually proud again to be an American."

Everyone also had stories to tell of friends they knew in other parts of the world -- in Denmark, in France, in Canada, in Taiwan who had told them there was dancing in the streets in all these faraway places when Obama won.

"Yes," said one, "But there is so much work to be done."

"Ah," said another, "But he won't be doing it alone!" and they all began to discuss ways they could help, volunteer opportunities, contribution opportunities...

There are moments -- rare, to be sure, but they do exist -- when the barrier that separates us as individuals from the rest of humanity becomes highly permeable, if not invisible. And at those times, however brief, there is a universal empathy that arises; a sharing in the feeling, and a longing to reach out and help.

The root words for compassion, this universal empathy, have to do with "feeling with;" and I remember reading somewhere that the word shares its root with the word for womb. Which means compassion holds within in it the tenderness a mother feels, sharing life with and caring for her unborn child, still so much a part of herself; another way of looking at the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.

So I think of those silent tourists, stopping to gaze at this poor soul huddled in the fetal position, awash in prayer, and I feel hope: that the compassionate response is innate, and automatic -- ingrained in us from birth -- and that now, perhaps, we have another chance to get it right, to build bridges across the chasms that have split our country apart and have isolated us from the rest of our human family.

I pray, with all my heart, that this might come to pass. And yet, at the same time, I look at this figure and wonder: can there be any hope? Or have we let it go too long, so that we are now doomed to be buried under a mountain of our own making; a mountain of debt, a mountain of trash and plastic, an environmental holocaust... We have screwed up on so many levels. Will we be able to hold back the lava of it all? I just don't know.

The clear teal knowing that is God

For the past few weeks I've been reading The Cloud of Unknowing; partly because I missed a retreat on it due to my surgery, and partly because it felt like it was time to immerse myself in it -- it kept coming up in conversations with friends.

My initial response to the book was fairly negative: I found I resented the language which set God "outside" -- above, separate, something to strive toward which might or might not reach back -- but it clearly had other aspects which had much to teach me. So, since I was reading it, I thought I should endeavor to practice it as well.

And this morning, imagining again the cloud of unknowing that hides the face of God, and imagining again the cloud of forgetting, beneath which I resolutely thrust all other thoughts of people,places, things and activities which distract me from this brief time spent focusing on God, I found I was overcome by a coughing fit.

At this point I would like to step away from this subject for a moment to mention that my older daughter and I are both synaesthetes. Synaesthesia is a non-threatening neurological condition that lowers the barriers between the senses – causing concepts to have, say, colour or taste. We know for sure that both of us are subject to grapheme-color synaesthesia, which is to say that, for both of us, letters, words and numbers have characteristic colors. We haven't spent a lot of time exploring it, but we do both dream in color, and we both have other ways in which the physical senses cross over: tastes have color, or colors have characteristic sounds or scents.

I mention this because it is the most probable explanation for what happened next. Because, when I began coughing, I felt it was the clouds of unknowing and forgetting that were creating the tickle in my throat; it felt very much like the feeling I get in our local theater when they turn on the fog machine. Exploring this feeling, I realized that, for me, clouds have a beige-y gray sort of color; they are more opaque than translucent, and in mentally surrounding myself with these clouds I was not, in fact, reaching out for divinity, but instead cutting myself off from divinity.

So I mentally blew away the clouds, and returned to a previous mental image. (I know, I'm supposed to be completely empty in meditation. But as a highly visual person I find that to be virtually impossible; the cloud (and this is one reason I was pursuing it) was the closest I've come to successfully clearing out any other images that might surface or absorb me when I sit.)

Immediately, as soon as I restored my former image, I could feel my breathing passages open up. I am not sure I can describe how this image works, but somehow there is a clear deep blue-green color, like the Puget Sound on a still clear day, that is God above and around me. And with every breath I take, that color fills me, to become God within me.

Which is a miracle in itself -- and one I celebrate at some level every time I sit. Because I can still remember a time not all that long ago when "within" was a mass of snakes, or ropes, or dust, or mud, or tangled detritus, with no room for the clear teal awareness that is God. (Thank you, Bev Gaines, for helping me discover that and do the appropriate housecleaning!)

Which is to say, I guess, that the Cloud of Unknowing just doesn't work for me. I will continue reading the book, and draw from it what I can. But clearly I need to breathe. And the Divine is as essential to me as life and breath; I can no longer function in an environment where God is perceived as totally Other, apart, remote, unreachable, and unknowable.

Which probably explains why some traditional religious language and customs make me want to run screaming from the church. Sometimes, in some churches, listening to some liturgies or some preachers -- sometimes I just can't breathe.

So yes, I will continue to strive, to reach out, or up, or down -- and sometimes, as in this image, it's not quite clear which direction that is -- to the clear teal knowing that is God. And if there are clouds drifting across that picture, that's okay, too. My job is just to continue breathing it all in.

Hymn to Creativity

Heard in church this morning:

Moved by the Gospel, let us move with every gift and art.
The image of creative love indwells each human heart.
The Maker calls creation good, so let us now express
with sound and color, stone and wood,
the shape of holiness.

Let weavers form from broken strands a tapestry of prayer.
Let artists paint with skillful hands their joy in lament and care,
Then mime the story: Christ has come;
With reverence dance the Word.
With flute and organ, chime and drum, God’s praise be ever heard.

O Spirit, breathe among us here, inspire the work we do.
May hands and voices, eye and ear attest to life made new.
In worship and in daily strife create among us still.
Great Artist form our common life according to Your will.

Dying to live

We've all heard it, and said it: I'm dying to do that, or I'm dying to see that, or I'm dying to get that -- all ways of saying "I'd be willing to give up a lot for this opportunity."

But at the same time there is a passiveness to this phrase; a sense that despite the longing and the intent it's unlikely the desired event will actually come to pass. Because the fact is that most of us tend to be unwilling to give up what is for what might be. And yet we have models for this all around us: the plants that die off every fall, giving away their fruit and seeds in hope of an unknown future; the salmon, swimming desperately upstream at the close of life to give birth to the new; all the plants and animals we kill off daily to keep ourselves alive.

It's not surprising, I suppose: we all know the phrase "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Common sense tells us to hold on to what we have rather than risking it for something we might not get. Which is why the last line in the Prayer of St. Francis -- "For it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life" -- is both difficult to hear and full of hope.

It's difficult to hear because we don't, any of us, want to die; we don't, any of us, want to give up anything that is dear to us, and life, for many of us, is the most precious of all.

But it's full of hope, because the fact is that death and loss are inevitable, and St. Francis is letting us know that whatever we lose, we will gain something infinitely more dear. Which is good to know, because what we can't bring ourselves to let go of may, in the end, be taken from us.

I am thinking of this now in the context of Logion 60 in the Gospel of Thomas, which I read this morning. It's a rather disturbing parable, about eating and being eaten, but I think its point is this: We need to be willing to die a little bit in this life -- to take time away from all the things and people and thoughts that occupy our minds and hearts -- in order to bring awareness of the eternal into the now.

For some reason it feels to me like the difference between fast food and savoring a home-cooked meal. A home-cooked meal takes time: time to grow the food, time to prepare it, time to savor every bite, and to savor the conversation around the table. Imagine a single delicious bite in your mouth. Is it just something to give your body protein? Do you just wolf it down and keep going? How much better to eat as the Italians do, relishing the sights, sounds, scents and tastes of the food, nourishing your soul as well as your body!

The difference lies in the space we create around the act of eating. And I'm thinking that today's Gospel suggests we need to create space around the act of living as well; that if we take, from the time we spend actively thinking and getting and doing, moments to assess, evaluate, and savor the choices we've been making, we won't feel, as some of my stressed-out friends do, that we are being eaten alive by life.

When we take -- or, more accurately, when we MAKE -- time to meditate, or to sit, or to walk without a destination (or a cellphone plastered to an ear), we create a space in which to savor what is. And in so doing, in dying, however briefly, to the pressures of this life, we are given the opportunity to release the divine flavor of eternity which lies nestled like a seed in every moment.

Listening for the Flavor

"Now, what shall we call this new sort of gazing-house?" asks the poet Rumi in my readings this morning.

"Now, what shall we call this new sort of gazing-house
that has opened in our town,
where people sit quietly
and pour out their glancing
like light,
like answering?"

Pondering this poem, I found myself thinking of a man I knew many years ago, at a time when I was newly divorced and not yet remarried. He was all the obvious things that make a man appealing to a woman -- tall, dark and handsome, athletic, intelligent, a great dancer, with beautiful bone structure and a warm voice that always had a hint of laughter in it.

But what I remember most about this man was his quality of attentiveness: when you were with him, you felt he only had eyes for you; that your words, your thoughts, your feelings were more important to him in that moment than anything else in the world. That attentiveness poured out of his eyes "like light, like answering," and when I had the opportunity to bask in that glow I DID feel bathed in light.

The very fact that I remember that quality so clearly -- though I haven't seen, heard from, or even thought of this man in probably 20 years -- tells us how rare that quality can be. Most of us, I think, are more like this sunflower -- always turning our backs on the moment, looking back to what was, forward to what will be, or over our shoulders to see who is following. How often do we really listen to our mates, our children, our friends, our co-workers? How often do we give them every ounce of our attention, with every fiber of our being?

But perhaps the more important question here is this: how often do we attend to the Living Presence with that kind of focused concentration? How often, in savoring the colors of the moment, do we listen with our tongues for the delicious flavor of the Divine?

Buddha blessings

About a week ago I went in for a haircut with a new hairdresser. It had been several years since I'd had it cut professionally (I've been doing it myself) and I hadn't been allowed to cut it at ALL for several months due to the various plays I've been in.

Now that I have resigned from my current play, it seemed like a good time to get my hair back to a more flattering length, but the special cut I had done for a role back in March was growing out rather oddly so I decided to ask for help, and a dear friend recommended this man, Todd.

When I arrived at the salon, Todd walked in to greet me wearing a Little Richard wig, a flashing red nose, and an orange jumpsuit -- did I mention it was Halloween? -- and there appeared to be rather significant tattoos on whatever body surfaces were exposed.

He was definitely NOT what I had expected, and I have to admit I wondered if this was really the person my friend said he was; I confess my heart was beating a little faster, the way it does when you're not sure what you've gotten yourself into? But I sat back in my chair, reassured slightly by the pile of business cards that said he was, indeed Todd -- or at least using Todd's chair! Eventually I realized, as I relaxed further, that his work station was surrounded by little Buddha statues; also reassuring. What the heck, I thought: it's only hair. If it's bad, it'll grow out.

But the cut turned out great -- possibly the best cut I've ever had -- and he was really a lovely man. So when we were done, I asked about the buddhas. He said yes, they were his, and he and his wife, who does color work at the same salon, had lots more of them at home. I was particularly taken with one, which he said he'd found at Target (!) and so the next day (since my husband was out of town) I decided to go on an expedition to Target.

Not surprisingly, Target no longer carried this particular buddha, but for some reason I couldn't let go of this longing for a small buddha statue, so I began prowling the internet. All the statues I found were sort of busy, and shiny -- or huge, heavy garden buddhas. I couldn't say exactly what I was looking for -- or why I was so determined -- but I definitely wasn't finding it.

Eventually it occurred to me to look on Etsy.com. Etsy -- if you haven't already discovered it -- is a wonderful site where artists and craftsmen can sell their creations; if you are a person who is nurtured by seeing the creativity of others it's a wonderful site to browse.

So I went to Etsy and typed in "Buddha" and this is the first image I found. Isn't she lovely? And when I decided to order her, I discovered her sculptor, Anita Feng, lives just on the other side of Seattle, in the town I used to live in when our children were little. So yesterday I went to meet Anita and see her studio, and it was THE MOST AMAZING EXPERIENCE! Her buddhas are just miraculously gorgeous (I'm embarrassed to admit I came home with FOUR of them!) and we discovered we had a great deal in common, too much to go into here.

But I loved that her gorgeous raku buddha statues were contemporary, rich with color, and endowed with a strong feminine energy. I loved even more that they flowed out of both her years as a potter and her years as a Buddhist; a melding of faith and work. Each one has a different face, all tenderly created as she listens and watches for what they might become. And I firmly believe our relationship will not stop here.

Thinking about it now, I find it so curious that the extraordinary gifts of yesterday all began with a visit to a hairdresser, a moment of fear, and an impulse to shop. All these things -- concern about appearances, my fearfulness, and the urge to retail therapy -- tend to be sources of shame for me. How astonishing it is -- though of course it shouldn't astonish me at all! -- that the divine can work through the dark side of me as well as the light.

And then, this morning, I encountered this marvelous poem from Rumi:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness
comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.


So I set this poem here as a thank you: to Todd, for the best haircut ever; to Catherine, for recommending him; and to Anita, for her grace, her creativity, and her hospitality.

But I absolutely must dedicate it to my dear friend Nan Cobbey, whose house almost burned down yesterday, in hopes that the clearing out that has now begun will indeed bring in some new delight.

And to Duley, the Waldo fireman/angel who was first to arrive on the scene and stopped the flames from spreading to Nan's attic, I send piles of Buddha blessings: Thanks so much for saving Nan's lovely new home!

And a special thank you goes out for Clare's amazingly speedy recovery from brain surgery, and to her mother, Cathy, for her courage and equanimity in the face of terror.

And finally, I must express my gratitude for the divine blessings which can flow through everything -- through both joys and sorrows, large and small.