Kitty Litter Lesson

 

Who knew that one could learn so much from the ordinary stuff called kitty litter. Those of you with cats know the stuff and all that is involved with the daily (or more) scooping of the litter box. I’ve been scooping litter for a decade now and find the dust associated with this stuff to be quite annoying. Part of the annoyance was that not only did the litter box need constant attention but also the floor, baseboards and anything else in the room that became coated with the residue.

Well, that was then, and this is now, and this is how it happened. The other week when I was scooping the kitty litter, I thought to myself, “one day when we move I’m going to look into getting dust-free kitty litter.” Instantly I stopped because I couldn’t believe what I had just said, and it struck me as an epiphany. Why would I wait until I moved? Who knows when that will be? At that moment, I realized I could make the change immediately, and that’s what happened. I invested in dust-free kitty litter and can’t believe the difference it makes; there is actually no dust AND I have learned a great lesson.

How many times in my life do I say or think about in the same way? How often do I use that phrase, “when I”, which puts everything off to another time? And, unfortunately for me, putting it off also means putting it out of mind until the issue again presents itself; sometimes over and over again. So, I’ve decided to notice throughout the day how many times I think or say to myself “when I” and when I notice those words instead choose to become aware of why I'm pushing into the future what needs attending to now. I’m choosing to live present and engaged with the stuff of my life and that includes the kitty litter.  

Gazebo Moments

 

Clay was just an ordinary man sitting under an ordinary gazebo where I stopped for shade and a rest after a hike along the beach.  He was just sitting there because, as he eventually shared, he felt stuck in life.  His phone was broken along with his car and what he really needed was a job. Besides, he might like to move and he loves maps and the night sky.  For someone stuck in life he was kind, clean, considerate and exacting in his choice of words.  We struck up a conversation about those ordinary things people talk about under a gazebo and I noticed his ease with the silent gaps as he choose the right word or words to express what he wanted to say.  Given Clay’s propensity to let things be I was also encouraged to just be and allow the silent gaps unfold.

He said he was just sitting still at this time because he wasn’t certain what direction to take in life.  The intelligence of such a decision seemed profound and I wondered why, when stuck, I didn’t try this approach more often.  He was content to just be, it sort of oozed off him.  Somewhere in the conversation the topic of society’s increasing need for material acquisitions arose and he said that for him “less is more” and then to add emphasis he said, “no, really.”  I agreed that less is more and, in fact, there really wasn’t anything more than the present moment he and I were sharing.  Smiling wryly, he acknowledged this truth. 

As we both just sat imbibing on the ordinary smallness of the day I enjoyed the basking of the extraordinary.  I’m struck how something so simple can be the best teacher and how in that moment I knew all was well. There was nothing more or nothing less needed in those moments and my heart was filled with enough.  Clay and his great intelligence will now always remind me to be still in the midst of stuckness and just allow.  Thank you Clay!    

How is your stillness and abiding today?  Do you have a regular practice that slows you down so you may engage more deeply with what is actually happening?  Please share and, as always, if you have comments or questions, I’d love to hear from you.

Practice Practicing

Coffee Art

Why the resistance to practice?  Oh, we do it, but often it’s because we must.  For instance, if you want to learn to play the guitar, manage differently, or change communication styles you must practice what you are being taught.  There is immense joy in learning something new, mastering something we had only dreamt of, but why does the road to that joy often include the hidden mind stories of “when will I get there?” or “why is this so hard?”  In other words, why do we diminish the joy by not being present to the practice just as it is without the internal banter? 

It’s as if there is something wrong with practice.  We say that we know it is necessary to practice, that there’s nothing wrong with the mistakes that inevitably inhabit practice, yet the internal mind, if you’re observant, is often belying this point.  If you don’t believe me just tune in and listen the next time you are practicing.  There are numerous reasons for this internal critic that demands perfection with some being cultural morays, our own hidden agendas, belief systems, and family and systemic programming.  But that can change.  You ask “how can it change?” and, of course, the answer is with practice.

This learning to observe what is actually going on in your mind is possible but you must begin where you are.  Just for today pick a situation you found yourself in and see if you can pick out the different “voices” present during the encounter; things you thought but didn’t say.  Once you do this (practice) for a while you will even begin to catch yourself in the act, hearing the voices as they actually arise or sensing the discomfort in your body.  These voice are just trying to help but as adults we intuit that this help is not actually useful and that we can just be present to what is without the internal (usually meaningless) commentary. 

So today, just begin where you are with patience and compassion. No use wishing you were already somewhere else because you miss today’s learning opportunities. If you have some experience with observing I’m curious as to how you practice opening to chatterbox mind or check out this 90 day sampling Rhonda and I are offering.  Either way I’d love to hear your story into deeper Abiding.

The Teacup

The other day, which was a very ordinary day, I conversed with a friend regarding Western society’s bent towards individualism as contrasted with the Eastern mindset of community.  Our conversation was a very brief conversation and we quickly moved on to the purpose of our meeting.  I was, therefore, joyfully amused when the following day I came across this from The New Monasticism by Rory McEntee & Adam Bucko.

“The elders are passing on their lived experience of human life…This infusion process requires a certain humble disposition, one which is not naturally cultivated in our Western societies.  It requires the ability to bow in deep gratitude to one another. The venerable Chogyam Trungpa captured it well when he once said words to the effect that, transmission is like pouring tea into a cup. The cup must be lower than the teapot. This is just a statement of fact. It does not contain any hierarchy. If the cup is not below the teapot, the tea will not end up in the cup.”

What a beautiful image and playful invitation to do life as a teacup. I could immediately feel the desire to live life in such a way, a yes to a cup always poised in the correct position and, therefore, receptive to tea.  I also could immediately sense the resistance to living from what felt like a lower stance.  Aware that this quote centers around transmission of knowledge from teacher to student it's relevant because Life is teacher and if my teacup is receptive, in the correct position, there will always be something to receive. Additionally the cup must be empty.

Knowing this and living this is a daily practice.  I’m the first to acknowledge that Life transmissions are difficult when another is challenging my belief system or when my self (ego) feels slighted, frightened or becomes defensive in some way.  In other words if I'm full of myself. But if I can remember to bow my heart, read here humility and vulnerability, and position my teacup correctly the lesson never disappoints.  It’s a delight knowing this path of growth towards such interior freedom is well documented in both the psychological and religious traditions and is what many simply call living from the full, mature, ordinary, human life. 

What daily practice do you utilize to fully ground yourself in the here and now in order to be receptive to your teachers?  Likewise, how do you make room in your cup for Life?  As always, if you have comments or questions please comment here or reach out using the contact form.   

Living Presence

                                                                                  Images: sean norman

The Daily Meditation by Richard Rohr (A Positive Vision, March 23, 2021) held within it a mash up of Amos 5.  Here’s a paraphrase: 

Seek the Living Presence and you’ll live…seek who made the Pleiades and Orion turning deep darkness into morning and the day into night…hate the evil and love the good and establish justice… 

Now, I’m not one to normally quote scripture but on this ordinary day the words Living Presence leapt off of the page.  There was a seeming delicious quality to them imprinting a beautiful descriptive image of Life and Love. I imagined a Living Presence (organism) that is available to me, to us, and in which we live and move and have being.  I allowed the jolt of these words to rest on my heart and, eventually, my thoughts turned to my faith heritage and its focus on the doing.  This sense of Living Presence felt like movement and growth and greatly contrasted to the heritage's reduced message of finding the Living Presence largely through doing.  In this moment I remembered the heritage's message as presented in multi-varied ways connected to patterns of belief and behavior.  Now perhaps this is the way one must begin the journey but certainly, intuitively, we grasp that growth entails a leaving behind of anything that is not intended for the mature product.  I am reminded here of the grain of wheat that must fall and die.

So, on this ordinary day, where the essence of participating with a Living Presence was making such an impression, I also spoke with a dear friend recently diagnosed with cancer.  This diagnosis presents her with a myriad of medical decisions and struggles and also the mental challenges associated with the possibility of mortality.  During our conversation she said, “I want to live!”  It was such an impassioned plea and bold statement, I was struck (again) by the scaredness of it and also impressed by the indomitability of the human spirit.  

As the day progressed I realized that one thing I did not fully learn or grasp in my faith tradition, perhaps my own failing or perhaps not, perhaps a feature of growth or perhaps not, is that this Living Presence and this cry "to live" are linked.  How could it be otherwise when, in essence, the Living Presence lives me?  These ideas of living and Living remained with me throughout the day and with each activity of the day the question "is this living?" seemed to be inquiring into all aspects of my ordinary life.  Like the accompanying photos of the aurora borealis (Yellowknife, Canada), undulating overhead in an everchanging dance of lights, this Living Presence permeated and danced me this day.  

It turns out that this ordinary day, filled with mortality, food banks, car repairs, and groceries, was a day filled with awareness of the dance of life surrounding me.  My mind knows that this dance is always present yet my heart is slowly learning how to participate.  This ordinary day invited me into full participation with nothing more and nothing less than what was right in front of me.  So simple yet often, at least in my case, easily missed.  What a beautiful grace. I am now left with the wonder of how to better participate consistently with such a dance partner.  I'm also struck that it has something to do with falling and dying but we will leave that for another time.

Do you have your own practices, noticings or stories related to this Living Presence? Perhaps you have another word for it?  When are you most aware of Life's dance?  As always, if you have thoughts, questions or comments about this subject please leave them here or contact me directly.

Showing Up

 

As you know, I’ve been playing pickleball.  Now playing pickleball is an ordinary activity and playing outside in beautiful spring weather is extraordinarily fun.  It’s even a safe environment with built-in social distancing even while interacting with others. So, as I was preparing to meet my pickleball buddy last week I heard myself tell myself “that I was showing up to win.”  Initially I was startled by this outburst, I wasn’t sure what prompted it, besides, this winning attitude was not a normal personality feature of mine.  Yet, there was something appealing, even inviting, about it even if the appeal was short-lived as subtle stories and body tension made their debut.   

Now the reason for the tension and accompanying story is this.  Being an enneagram nine there is one thing my personality is not and that is a personality that sets itself to win.  Now, don’t think I don’t like to win, or that I don’t play to win.  Heck, a few weeks ago I was willing to sacrifice my body for a shot.  But this intentional showing up to win was something I had never encountered before.  My normal habitual pattern of being tells me to always stay in the background.  This winning attitude felt different, even uncomfortable, yet it was now far too late to not go through with it.  I decided there and then that I was showing up to win and that I would notice my interior world as the process unfolded.

First, on the drive over, the stories kept telling me “it’s not to late to back out of this winning idea” progressing to “it’s not nice to not give others a chance” to “you shouldn’t be more powerful than others.”  Wow, where does all that stuff come from?  Well, I know where it comes from and why, but once you really start paying attention to it, turning the noticing into a practice, it actually becomes quite comical. So now that I’ve arrived at the courts the only thing left to do is fully show up and play to win.  This playing to win was a fascinating thing to observe.  I played strategically, even purposely, often hitting the ball to areas on the other side of the net that I knew my buddy would never get to; I never let up.  It was exhilarating....and I won.

So here are just a few things I noticed during this whole process.  First is that nothing bad happened when I played with a winning attitude.  I didn’t feel good or bad as in gloating or sabotaged with shame, it just was.  Next, I noticed that it actually caused my buddy to engage differently.  In fact, the next time we played together I could see she was not letting me off the hook.  In this respect my showing up to win actually helped improve both our games.  The scripture “iron sharpens iron” came to mind and it definitely held new meaning for me. Finally, I could discern that I have been short changing myself all these years listening to a personality pattern that tells me to stay in the background.  

This was the best, ordinary lesson anyone could receive; playing pickleball and winning.  Do you notice personality patterns that keep you stuck?  What practices have you developed to become more aware of these patterns?  If you have thoughts or questions on the nature of personalities please comment or contact me directly.  

Thoughts

So, here we are, in the right here and right now of ordinary life.  Have you ever noticed the thinking involved in the ordinary life?  Here's a small sampling I've recently encountered with ordinariness and its thinking.  

I fell down this past week, playing pickleball of all things, prompting a trip to urgent care to rule out a fracture and I’m noticing a “what if” thought story.  In order to allow healing for my wrist the bed has remained unmade for the past five days and chores have been greatly reduced; a “you should” thought appears.  Two weeks and counting on a lab report from the dermatologist’s office and sensing an “if only they were more efficient” thought.  An adorable bunny fell into the pool meeting its demise and an awareness that all is connected creates a pain in my heart.  My mom and I hold opposing political views creating interesting conversation…or not and noticing an “us vs. them” commentary in my mind.  There’s a monthly Zoom group I try to participate in but can never seem to get it together due to the time difference, I notice a “what will people think” story.     

The above sampling represents ordinary life circumstances not uncommon to us all.  Yet, all these ordinary events held the opportunity to notice the underlying thoughts.  Picking up on our theme from the last blog, the ordinary events provide the substance for the practice of noticing and, while it does take practice, it is possible to take the ordinary and begin noticing.  From my perspective it does no good, meaning there is no opportunity for growth, if I am unaware of myself, my thoughts, emotions and reactions in such ordinary situations.  

To be aware means that there is a realization about the thinking and ruminating and to recognize that such thinking and ruminating can go on for hours, days, months, and, yes, even years.  You can see that the above events came with a thought-story but with the choice to notice the thought or story an opportunity arose to discover what the thoughts or stories were about.  For instance, the above thought of  “what will people think” provided an opportunity to interiorly explore what is really driving that story such as needing the approval of others.  I can now continue the interior work further discovering what actually prompts this need.  I will not lie, this interior exploring can be painful work, but it is also liberating work and we are in need of such liberation.  

So, for today, let’s practice noticing all the stories flying and filling our minds.  And, for today, it is enough to just notice; no judgement or analysis needed.  When we begin to notice we begin to see how the thoughts and stories are always informing us.  Please leave any comments, questions or ponderings below or contact me directly.    

 Peace, light and love to you on this ordinary day. 

The Somewhere Story

 

Wolf Creek, Montana

 A Blog, now there's something I never saw coming.  I wonder, and ask myself, "don't you have to be somewhere before you begin to blog; why blog when life is nothing but ordinary, the most ordinary of ordinary?"  Yet, undeniably, there is a desire to say something about the ordinary life.  What I mean by the ordinary life is the present moment, a showing up to what actually is.  This sounds so trite, so easy, but, in reality, it is hard to do.  Honestly, for the longest time I believed the thoughts in my head were the present moment, actually for most of my life. It has taken long years of practice and commitment to both recognize the thoughts in my head and make a conscious choice about what to do with them.  What has opened up, although still a work in progress, is a whole new way of showing up to ordinary life.  

If you are truly present to the moment it can feel ordinary, maybe even boring, because it is uncluttered.  It is uncluttered by thoughts about the past or future, thoughts such as "they always talk too much" or "when will I catch a break."  When these types of thoughts are stilled the basic unit of NOW seems, initially, empty and can be missed.  A simple test to gauge if I'm fully showing up is to ask myself if there is any tension or stress currently held in my body or emotions?  If so, then I know this tension or stress reveals a desire, however subtle, to be somewhere, anywhere, but right here right now.  Initially this practice took place in hindsight by engaging in a curiosity about how I'd shown up to a given situation.  You can do this too by setting aside a short quiet time each day to ask yourself if there were any hints of tension or stress in your body or emotions in a situation of your choosing.  As an aside, if you're not fully tuned into your body (yet) these tensions and stresses come out as the thoughts and stories we hear in our head saying things like, "why did they say that" or "I should have said such and such when they said so and so."

So, the right here right now story in my head says that blogging can begin when somewhere is a reality.  If I'm really still, and really honest, I can feel in my body the tension when I actually consider creating a blog and pushing the publish button.  Upon closer reflection of this thought-story it dawns on me that today is somewhere even if the thought-story says otherwise.  This story about being somewhere is a learned thought that emerged from many different sources; family, academia, culture, religion and from the wounds received as a partaker of the human family.  These sources helped reinforce an ideal I held (and obviously still hold) that says once a person gets somewhere life finally and fully begins.  Funny thing is a lifetime can be spent waiting and the waiting option isn't very appealing these days. Somewhere is now!  Living this moment, even while noticing the story, is the most appealing option.  It also means that the publish button will get pressed.  

I'd love to hear your thoughts, struggles or insights with living in the present moment.  Please leave your comments below or contact me directly with any comments or questions.  

Peace, light and love to you on this day.