Stages, Part the Third

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"BUSTED!"

Oh, snap.

"

Whew! Thanks for bailing me out, Chris-- I was thinking, 'uh-oh: lead-balloon joke alert.'

The key to the universe, it seems, is not to hold anything too tightly.

I went to the local Zen Center yesterday evening. I'm looking for ways to get my wife and daughter involved in meditation because they're both sort of interested for different reasons. I found out that it's not really a Zen Center unless you REALLY want Zen. It's called "Meditation and Life Center" now and to the typical attendee/student the Roshi emphasizes meditation more as a way to cope with the spinning mind and the pressures of modern life than as a way to awaken.

I was with this man for over an hour and he described the practice he teaches as being vipassana and samatha based. I asked him to explain how that worked and I got a very high level version of teaching people one-pointed concentration for "several years, maybe" and then helping them "open up" to vipassana.

We had a nice talk in a very peaceful Zen garden at dusk with his wife giving a hula lesson in the background, but I left wanting to help him with the Theravada teachings. For someone who wants to try to calm the mind and find respite from the hurry up of of life this center might be a good fit. For someone with a deep desire to awaken I don't know. I'm still processing the meeting, too, so more later.

FYI for full disclosure - my wife and daughter want ME to teach them meditation so maybe I'm just looking for a way out of that box

"We had a nice talk in a very peaceful Zen garden at dusk with his wife giving a hula lesson in the background, but I left wanting to help him with the Theravada teachings....

....FYI for full disclosure - my wife and daughter want ME to teach them meditation so maybe I'm just looking for a way out of that box "


Chris, if you got the chance - with this guy or someone else - to teach meditation, I think you'd be great at it.....even if it were only to the "relax and de-stress" crowd. ; )

As for your family, IMHO, "looking for a way out of that box" might not be a shameful thing at all, but actually a wise move. At least, I can see plenty of reasons why that could potentially be the case. I wouldn't beat yourself up about not teaching them. They might be better served learning from someone else. My 2 cents.

Oh, and the mere fact that you all are talking about these things and going to a Zen center together makes me really happy for you and your family. I think that's very cool. : )

Chris, did YOUR level of attainment come up in the meeting?
Did the guy know either because you told him or because he asked or because he could tell from talking to you?
Or, did he assume that you were more of a beginner?

Mike, I began the meeting by explaining why I think meditation might help my daughter and my wife. I did this by telling the Roshi what the results and benefits of my own practice are from personal experience. This I did only so that he would know I was evaluating what he could or would teach. We did not get into specifics, attainments, paths, or anything like that. My feeling was that such a discussion, being about me, would be unproductive in that it would turn the focus of the conversation away from why I was there. By virtue of the way I explained my own practice and how practice might therefore help another human being he couldn't help but learn a few things about me. We both left it at that and there was no further discussion of it as, again, it wasn't relevant to the purpose of the meeting. I wanted to listen and learn about his teaching and that center.

okay

Having spent the past few days visiting the Zen Center and thinking about it as an alternative for some in my family I've decided it's really not. At the end of the day, no matter what we might think is helpful or not helpful in regard to beginning a practice, I believe an awakened teacher is critically important. I've been pondering this for a while now and my desire to help someone (but for my sake) took the driver's seat. The nice thing about having what I now have from my practice is the ability to see this, albeit slowly.

Onward.

Chris,

So will you be teaching them?

Ha! I'll be attempting to be a coach, Mu

Let me also state for the record that this overwhelming desire to "fix" a loved one, coming so tightly coupled with the unrelenting fear that you won't or can't do that, may be the most powerful thing I've ever encountered. It is an utterly amazing teacher. Very resistant and powerful. It's a hot iron ball in the pit of the stomach some days, a kick in the head on other days, a sharp stick in the eye the rest of the time.

Chris,

My girlfriend decided to give up taking her antidepressants about a month a go (she's back on them now). That was a scary time, because she was going through a lot of painful, emotional things and although I was able to help her some what (helped her identify the feeling she had in her stomach as anxiety - something she never had to deal with for a long time) there wasn't a lot I could do other than try and be there for her (though the idea that I had to somehow fix her was there too). This was a relatively mild situation compared to what you are going through, so I can only imagine the difficulty.

Best of luck with the coaching and with everything else.

"
Best of luck with the coaching and with everything else.
"


I heartily second that!

And, Chris, coming from life-long experience of my relationship with a loved one who deals with severe PTSD and depression involved with that, I know exactly what you mean about the desire to "fix" them. It is indeed an amazing teacher.

Very best wishes,
Ryan

I also went through this with a loved one and know very well what you are talking about, Chris.

Speaking about teaching meditation to family members, I walked my 9 years son through Sinzen Young's "Focus on Rest" meditation. And he loved it. Of course he is too young to get serious about it. On the other side, my wife gets restless after 5 minutes. That's maybe how I gained her respect, considering that she also knows my shortcomings better than anyone else.

Tried to have "the talk" with my eighty-plus year old parents today. Mom had a massive and horrific kidney infection last week and spent five days in the hospital with intravenous antibiotics being pumped into her. Dad called me while I was traveling and couldn't bring himself to call 911. Why? Because she didn't want him to, though she couldn't stand up any more and was in a lot of pain that he hadn't picked up on for days. So I called an ambulance from the back of a taxi. I was in St. Louis on business and they were here at home near Chicago. Ugh. So this is the talk I've dreaded for years, the one that is meant to convince them over loud, angry resistance that some form of assisted living is where they should probably go since they just can't get along unassisted any more. That's all true.

So I took a deep breath, mustered the most authoritative demeanor I could and started in. Within ten seconds Dad said, "Funny, I've been thinking that very same thing...." Thus depriving me of the heroic, compassionate son moment I'd summoned up in my head Fascinating how far the ego will go to get its glory.

I don't know when this run of Job-like trials will end (I'm expecting the locusts any day now) but it's sure teaching me stuff that's otherwise very difficult to come by.

Still struggling with some things including some string new stress inducers. This makes it clear how very powerful some emotional combinations are... and something else. Stress anxiety is a killer thing in my history, especially job related stress, and now I have it washing over me much the time. There was a time I took an SSRI for this but I'm gonna try to practice through it this time. This, I believe, is an inherited anxiety thing. It appears to be brain chemistry because it feels like someone flipped a switch about five days ago and BOOM! Stress out

It's not a rational process, this. Yeah, yeah, I know it's not me. And I know it's not real. It's the anticipation of nasty stuff that might happen, might not, probably not. It's the spinning mind, the death spiral, the pit of the stomach adrenaline rush over and over and over again. And yes, those are impermanent thoughts that arise due to some causes and conditions that just keep getting churned in there for some reason. Lots of "me" fear is associated with this - fear of being seen as silly and maybe incompetent.

Yet, I can somehow see this going on from a new perspective and surrender to whatever might happen, in spite of the nagging stress and anxiety. And THAT, my friends, is something that's different this time. Game on!

Oh, another difference: I am not trying to escape. I can hang with the anxiety. We're sorta like an odd couple now.

"Yet, I can somehow see this going on from a new perspective and surrender to whatever might happen, in spite of the nagging stress and anxiety. And THAT, my friends, is something that's different this time. Game on!
"

I wish you all the best with this Chris.

My wife and I had a "What happens if..." talk this morning that made me feel good about a lot of things. We all hold fears inside us that don't get expressed because we think we'll be perceived as weak or weird if we say something. I decided to screw that and talk about those fears. It's quite liberating. Turns out my wife shared some of these same fears. By doing this I think we got closer, know each other better, and have a freaking' plan if anything really dire were to happen. This is good to know, and damned healthy, too. Even after many years of marriage.

So there.

"
Ha! I'll be attempting to be a coach, Mu

Let me also state for the record that this overwhelming desire to "fix" a loved one, coming so tightly coupled with the unrelenting fear that you won't or can't do that, may be the most powerful thing I've ever encountered. It is an utterly amazing teacher. Very resistant and powerful. It's a hot iron ball in the pit of the stomach some days, a kick in the head on other days, a sharp stick in the eye the rest of the time.

"

It is an important desire to note, please, let it go. There is a more painful one. The most painful arrow lodged in the heart that one can encounter is 'the strong desire of your loved ones to fix you'.

Take my word for it, your loved ones only want to be loved for who they are, as they are. That simple acceptance is honestly all they want and all they need. Hey wait, on reflection, don't take my word for it, see the truth of it for yourself.

"Take my word for it, your loved ones only want to be loved for who they are, as they are. That simple acceptance is honestly all they want and all they need."-Triplethink

Thank you, Nathan. I feel so moved by this.

Kenneth

Nathan, you are absolutely right. This summer has been all about just being there, not judging, not trying to change anything.

That's the most difficult part. I have noticed that, in these situations, anxiety is somehow related to the unconscious belief that we are responsible for the happiness of our loved ones while facing the fact that we can only do our best to help.

Okay, so after years of practice I'm going back and learning the Mahasi noting technique for real. I say for real because what I'm used to doing isn't really noting. I could always just watch experience float by and see what I needed to see. But I never really and truly learned proper noting technique. Thanks to Kenneth and at his suggestion, I'm off and running.

One old dog, one new trick

I've been selective noting too Chris it seems. Kenneth set me straight on that in our last meeting on Monday. I spent most of my sit yesterday just letting go into observing resistance and fatigue. It's a bit of an eye opener, as I usually psych myself up to meditate and wait for the mind to settle before going into vipassana techiqnues. This time I just noted the mind in the process of settling, and that's where most of the crap was.