Meeting again on the myriad paths of life

For my father Charlie who passed through the door 29 years ago tonight, but who is ever with me.

"If you ask the cloud, "How old are you? Can you give me your date of birth?" you can listen deeply and you may hear a reply.

You can imagine the cloud being born. Before being born it was the water on the ocean's surface. Or it was in the river and then it became vapour. It was also the sun because the sun makes the vapour. The wind is there too, helping the water to become a cloud.

The cloud does not come from nothing; there has been only a change in form. It is not a birth of something out of nothing. Sooner or later, the cloud will change into rain or snow or ice. If you look deeply into the rain, you can see the cloud. The cloud is not lost; it is transformed into rain, and the rain is transformed into grass and the grass into cows and then to milk and then into the ice cream you eat.

Today if you eat an ice cream, give yourself time to look at the ice cream and say: "Hello, cloud! I recognize you.”

“I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died.

When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet... wonderful!

Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as "my" feet were actually "our" feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.” “This body is not me; I am not caught in this body, I am life without boundaries, I have never been born and I have never died.

Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies all manifests from the basis of consciousness. Since beginningless time I have always been free. Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out. Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek.

So smile at me and take my hand and wave good-bye. Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before. We shall always be meeting again at the true source, Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.”

~ Thích Nhất Hạnh, in his book No Death, No Fear
   Zen Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist.
   Plum Village Monastery

The End of Suffering

In the middle of all the running there comes a time for absolute stillness. When it's necessary to stop and clear your mind of all the questions you've been asked, all the street signs you've followed, all the nights you've been too tired to sleep and mornings you've been too stiff to move.

There are layers of what we call "suffering". What we've been doing this month is "hurting", not suffering. It's a layer of pain laid over a fatigue deep enough to make us weep at times, but it is not suffering. Suffering is pain of the soul, the kind that comes at the loss of a spouse, a child, a loved one, or even the realization that the justice and fairness you took for granted as a child were never available to everyone, and are less and less available now to anyone. Suffering is being hungry, homeless and helpless to do anything about it. No jobs "to get", nowhere to turn and a compassion deficit in every direction.

Being unable to do anything about this lack of compassion for those suffering deprivation and want is what causes me to suffer, not my own minimal aches and pains. I can subdue my physical discomfort with a pain pill and some meditation. I need something more powerful for my suffering; thus The Great Bell Chant; also known as The End of Suffering, though I admit it brings me to tears as well.

If you don't see the embedded video click here: http://youtu.http://youtu.be/ja20ib2PljI 

Narration by Zen Teacher  Thích Nhất Hạnh, chant by brother Phat Niem, music composed by Gary Malkin.  Absolutely beautiful photography and vocals. 

Teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh (Thầy), who is 88 and has been frail for the last two years, suffered a severe brain hemorrhage on 11 November and is a semi-conscious state in hospital in Plum Village monastery and mindfulness practice center in France. The Plum Village Sangha ask for prayers for Thầy's recovery. 

Namaste

Dem Bones, Dem Bones...

This way to the Sling Museum

The last month has been incredibly wearing, physically and emotionally. Thankfully three months ago I had the great fortune of being able to access a medication I took successfully years ago, but which was pulled from the market, leaving me with a less effective and side-effect riddled substitute. My strength has improved substantially, for which I am profoundly grateful, or I'd be a puddle rather than a noodle.

At the same time, the fall I suffered a year last July seems to have triggered more growth on the bone spurs that are pressing against my spinal cord in my neck. I can't lift or carry anything, reach above my head, or exert any force with my hands without provoking hours of paresthesia in my arms and hands. I feel as if I'm holding a live electric wire and can't let go. It's affecting my fine motor skills, buttoning buttons, lining up zippers, gripping knives in the kitchen. What a nuisance! 

In mid-October we both caught the crud that was going around. It was just a few days of a sore throat and a runny nose for me, but for Tony, with his asthma, it headed straight for his chest and he developed a wheeze and cough. He was tired but never ran a fever or felt much worse than he usually does. Halloween night he was standing in the kitchen talking to me and he coughed. When he coughed he lost consciousness and went over backwards, hitting his head on the fridge door as he went. 

I grabbed the phone off the counter as I ran to him, and helped him sit up, as he was regaining consciousness by the time I reached him.

"What… how …What am I doing here?" he asked, looking around in a daze.  

I couldn't see any cuts on his head, though he had a walloping great red welt. I asked if he was okay. He answered yes, but he hesitated and then said his arm was broken. I dialed 911, and the nice EMTs arrived in a few minutes. 

We spent the entire night in the Emergency Department at the nearby hospital, where he had excellent care. Seeing that he has fainted, fallen and broken bones three times in the last twenty-six months the ER Physician put him on the urgent referral list to see an Internal Medicine Specialist. We had an appt in three days and since then we have had either a doctor's appt or a medical test almost every other day and we are just wrung out. 

I don't know what we would have done without elder son Ian. Tony needs the wheelchair - these hospitals are enormous - and I can't load the chair in the car or take it out again, and I can't push Tony, who outweighs me by 60 pounds, very far. The doctor's offices have been miles across the city and we've driven home after dark (which comes early this far north) and I do not see well after dark because of my cataracts. So !hooray! for helpful children who button father's shirt and zip mother's coat because we seem to be descending rapidly into childhood again. 

Sitting in the cardiology lab this week, we saw six or seven adult child/parent pairs, so I didn't feel quite so bad that Ian had taken the day off work to take Tony for his cardiology tests. But geez, I do wish I could zip up my own coat.  I did Tony's buttons in the cubicle, or tried, with grudging "help" from the impatient technician. They were done askew, and his shirt was hiked up to his shoulder blades on one side and wrapped around his sling  and I couldn't do a thing about it. Thank goodness his coat covered it. 

At the moment, crossing our fingers that no one calls with a new appt, we are open until the 28th. We have to organize a flu shot in there somewhere. Oh, the chest X-ray they did showed he had pneumonia, which neither of us suspected. Ten days on antibiotics and he has quit barking, but he is still black and blue all over, especially his right arm, which he broke just below the ball of his shoulder. Too close to the shoulder to cast, and with his medical complications they were reluctant to do surgery on him unless it's life or death, so he's dealing with a sling again. We now have a collection. We could open a museum! 

I'll put that museum idea off until tomorrow, right now I am going to just go to bed. No buttons on the pjs. 

November KIVA Loan

November's KIVA loan goes to Guillermina, a 63 year old single woman in Santa Cruz Bolivia who has no children. Her business is selling empanadas and fruit drinks in the streets. She is enterprising, independent, dependable, active, responsible and hard-working. She has lived her adult life alone and lives in her own house made of brick which has water and electricity.

Her desire to improve her life led her to form a group of people with businesses like: plaster handicrafts, selling soft drinks, selling clothing, the selling fruit, selling tomatoes, a bookstore and cosmetic sales, to request a loan to improve their commercial activities. (She is seated in the photo)

Guillermina is dark skinned, has long black hair and medium stature. Her native tongue is Quechua and she speaks Spanish for her business. Her business is selling empanadas: which are a light pastry with a salty or sweet filling and either baked in the oven or fried, depending on the filling. The filling might be beef, chicken, fish, vegetables or fruit. The pastry is generally made of wheat flour, although she also uses corn flour and other grains. They are often eaten with a traditional fruit drink like mocochinchi (dried peach boiled with cinnamon and sugar), which is very sought after on the very hot summer days that come in Santa Cruz.

Guillermina walks with a basket filled with empanadas on one arm and a large thermos and a packet of plastic cups in the other. This under a burning sun that gets to 88-90 F degrees each day. She walks along the busiest streets of Santa Cruz.

This is her first loan with the institute in the five years since she started her business. Her dream is to have a snack bar. At the age of 63, having worked at hard physical labour for many years walking all day carrying a a heavy load is hard for her to do, and she needs a less strenuous way of making a living.

For these reasons Guillermina is requesting a loan to buy tables and chairs to expand her business so she can sell her empanadas and fruit drinks from a snack bar, rather than having to carry them through the streets all day. 

The KIVA partner in Bolivia is Emprender. Emprender has been working in Bolivia since 1999 and is dedicated to the development of its clients and the improvement of their quality of life. Emprender offers both urban and rural clients the opportunity to obtain financial products tailored to fit their needs and businesses. This include housing loans, salary loans, “opportunity” (short-term) loans, and student loans allowing young people to go on to obtain a college education. Emprender also offers free medical consultations and health classes given by trained doctors.

This is a Group Loan.  In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.

While the group's description features Guillermina and her business the other members of the group will each receive an equal share of the loan's total $3,250 to use to invest in their own business. As you can see from the photo, most are young people, some have very young children, but all are eager and will work hard to improve their family's lives. Please consider visiting KIVA and lending $25.00 to help a hard-working person in the Third World today.