Parable made Real

I had the great fortune to play music with my friend Jarrett while his Lady, Mira, taught yoga at Yo downtown this weekend. I like to do asana but I admit I like playing for yoga classes more. Jarrett and I played guitar and the students sweated. At the end of the class, while the students were in corpse pose, I was looking out the window. I was thinking of a friend who is having a very difficult time lately. I was thinking of all the people that that situation touches. I got a little lost in the pain of the whole thing. Then something amazing happened. I'll preface it with a story.
There's an old story my teacher told once. What point he was illuminating at the time is lost to me right now. The story is as follows. A man was walking through the jungle and suddenly realized that he was being stalked by a huge tiger. He quickened his pace and started looking for a way to evade the beast. He saw a tree with branches pushing out over a sheer cliff only big enough for him. This refuge could keep the tiger at bay. He crawled out on the limb and settled in. The tiger came out into the open and paced around the base of the tree. Suddenly, the tree branch tore away from the tree and the man had to hang on for life. He looked down, thinking he could drop to the bottom of the cliff and survive but saw to his horror another tiger below him waiting for him to fall. He looked up to the edge of the cliff and saw the first tiger looking down at him and snarling. Horror above, horror below. He then saw a small wild strawberry plant within arms reach on the cliff with a ripe berry. He reached out, plucked the berry, and ate it with much happiness and relish.
So I was looking out the window in a downtown Tucson yoga studio, falling into the pain of my friends situation, when I noticed an ivy vine clinging to a high post outside. The sky was blue and gentle. The grey metal post was covered in an elegant vine of green ivy. Each leaf was so perfect and small. I could hear the cars go by and the people's voices outside. Inside the room all was quiet relief of corpse pose. I put myself in one of the curls of the ivy vine. I suddenly felt an enormous peace. In that space with the leaves and the sky and the post was utter stillness and peace. There was no war, no famine, no politics, no drama, no pain. The leaves were healthy despite the pollution of the cars and the dryness of the desert. I became so happy in that moment. It was remarkable. I plan on cultivating that feeling for the rest of my life. Since completing my year of care taking, I've had a lot of these sort's of first-time moments in regards to mental states. I'm still going up to DMU to serve when I can but I am free now to go when I need to. I'll go up tomorrow to deliver food. They are tucked into a long two month deep retreat period up there, I believe. This next year will be the quietest for them, I think. The time when some big meditative shifts will occur. It's very exciting.

A Letter

I'm attaching a link to the Diamond Mountain main page. There's a letter there that the DM board and Geshe MIchael Roach put out that sums up some of the recent major events of the Great Retreat. Personally, I've very happy about how it has turned out. It seems to be about the best solution to a potentially big problem. I am continually amazed at the example all my teachers set for me. Navagating though sensitive community issues is difficult and it can become even more complicated when one is trying to apply the world view they have been studying and trying to bring into their everyday life. I imagine that Christian monastic organizations have been doing this in the States for a long time now on the level of a large spiritual community. Well, rather then keep writing out my disjointed thoughts about what happened, I'll just connect you to the letter.
http://diamondmountain.org/node/33

Teachings

It has been entirely too long since the last post. I lot has happened in my world. Way too much to cover in one blog post. We just finished up the second Quiet Retreat Teaching event at DMU. All in all a great time. Lots of high lights. I'm sorry to be so brief. I'm still a bit exhausted and will require time to let everything sink in.
I hope to be starting a big job in Tucson in March. My friend Eric is hopefully starting a remodel job there and needs help. This would be the first big job I've had since the retreat started. Not surprisingly, it only surfaced after my one year commitment to DMU was over. To me it feels like it's been a three year commitment. The two years of building were as important a part as the year of care taking.
Just when you think you understand the world, the rug will get pulled out from under you. Just when you think that we are not connected, connections slap you in the face. Lately, I feel that there is a call urging me to take responsibility for the blinders I put on myself concerning the larger world. Where do big problems in the world come from? I feel like there is a lot I can do in my life to help counter act these problems. I keep thinking about the power of and idea who's time has come. Weather positive or negative, they are unstoppable.
more to come,
Matt

Rare

I'm sitting in the Bowie community center using their internet connection. They have a couple of desk top computers for folks and a strong wi-fi signal. Some kids are watching a VHS of the Disney movie "Alladin". The kids love it. It is an engaging movie, I had forgotten. Gilbert Godfrey is the voice of the villain's parrot. Hysterical. Robin Williams as the Genie of the Lamp.
In the main room here is a banner covering one window that reads "The people who walk through this door are special". There is a door next to the banner but there is a two by six propped against the handle so that it cannot be opened nor walked through. Funny.
The weather is amazing today. Some rain in the morning and last night. You can smell the creosote strongly in the air when it rains. There was a rainbow when the clouds cleared up. The sky stayed deep purple over the mountains near DMU. You could see sheets of lighter blue rain rolling out there while the sun was bright over Bowie. It is really dramatic. The town itself seems very beautiful today, even with and especially because of it's run down parts, which are everywhere. I saw a little white house/shack that had used asphalt roof tile nailed to the trim near the ground as weather proofing. Then they laid broken concrete against the tiles to keep them in place. It probably cost the owner nothing. I think that is sort of beautiful. Everything passes Bowie by, economy, trains, the interstate, politics, visible government, everything. And because that is so rare, it is beautiful.
People you love are equally as rare and beautiful. I've been trying to keep them in mind all day long and feel grateful for them. Seeing how loneliness was my biggest problem out here, it's the perfect head space for me. I have to say, that after a few weeks of this, I do feel strangely happy. I'm having trouble feeling stress about not finding work and various other factors that I have historically used to feel bummed about. It's nice to let that all go for a good long time. Oh, I also saw a fake nail on the ground in a puddle that was half the color of the sky and half the color of pearl, which was the color of the clouds.

Service

"It may be the devil, it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody." Those lyrics are running over and over in my head. Bob Dylan, for one, sang it. It's his version I'm hearing. Why? Because I realized that I serve my cat. Yup, my cat. The primary living being I am living for is my cat. I remember hearing that H.H. the Dalai Lama said once that he was surprised to find out that so many western students of Buddhism had closer relationships to their animals then to their neighbors. I laughed when I heard that. I laughed because it's true. It's true because that's what I'm doing. I love it. Again, I become the thing I have ridiculed in the past. You got to love a path that keeps throwing your own hypocrisy back in your face. That's the only sort of path to love. If you buy your own B.S. then you'll buy any body's B.S. You'll start believing whatever your government tells you. Weather your good sense believes it or not. Why? Because if you desensitize yourself from recognizing B.S. in your self, when you hear other people doing it, it will sound too familiar for you to call it out for what it is. I know that's over simplified but it works for me. So make sure you do not surround yourself with "Yes Men". You need to have a joker in the deck. The royal court jester of old. The fool who is the only one who can insult the king to his face and live. You need that person in your life. You will not like them. That is the point, oh lord, oh kingly Dharma student. oh suffering human. It is because you are wise that you keep them around. They make you laugh, and others laugh. We laugh at ourselves which allows us to let go of whatever we were just clinging so tightly to. In that letting go comes a freedom. The moment of that freedom is pure potentiality. That's were you need to plant the best seed you can. That's where you'd plant all those great prayers you find in all the major religions. Prayers like "Bring me peace, oh Lord." or " May all God's children be safe and at peace." or "May all suffering beings reach the end of cyclic existence, Samsara." What ever your flavor is. This is a non-denominational blog. You need to do it when "You" are not in the way. Why? Because I'm not someone who believes that prayers really come true. That's right, I speak for myself. Sometimes I don't believe prayer or meditation works. By works I mean, brings and every one else in contact with me positive results." Selfish, eh? Yeah, I know. I want it to work. I want to cling at least to that one story. And I do cling to it. I believe that by practice I can become someone who is a, what could be called, a "spiritual person." If I were dominantly Christian I'd say that I want to be one who "walks close with the Lord." Those people who so much energy to help others and a good healthy attitude toward this life of suffering and beauty. I've met some like that. They're seeing a better movie then me, in one sense. I'll end it there. This post could get excessively long. It would be more fun if you were hanging out with me here. Then I'd have someone else around to serve beside my cat.
The retreaters come out of a six week deep retreat this Wednesday. Those are the periods where they don't leave the immediate vicinity of their homes. No long walks in the hills. They focus on their mediation and yoga practice in a more intense way in these deep retreat chunks. I believe they do and that is what really matters, for me. "Why Matthew, what ever do you mean by that? " If you were here hanging out with me, we could start a whole 'nother conversation about Service.

The New Year

This new year, 2012, marks the end of my one year care taking commitment. I didn't know how I'd feel, of course. Part of my nature is to not expect much or just be happy with whatever are the results of my efforts. So I was surprised by the positive changes I am experiencing at the start of this new year. Positive is kind of a flat word, actually.
I remember talking to one of my friends in the Fall. I told her that the last nine months were easily the worst in my life. I meant it. I had been more mentally afflicted, lonely, angry, poor, confused and jaded then I could ever remember being. The other day, I was walking around Bowie and I think I said to myself "Best year ever." In light of how I feel now, I have done some real spiritual revisionism. I think it is the combined three years of study and cabin construction combined with one year of service to the great retreat that laid the ground work for how I feel now. And how do I feel? It's hard to write about but I'll just wing it for a bit.
My world has expanded past it's previous boundaries. Through the example of my teachers I have seen what a truly healthy and happy person can be like in the world. It is not something impossible to achieve. The key to the whole thing really is development of love and compassion for others, as well as oneself. The approach isn't particularly the intellectual property of any religion, although most of them have that sort of training inherent within their scriptures. I've met people who come across it naturally as well. I have also received help from more people in the last year then at any other time in my life, excluding all the help my parents have given me since birth. Strangers have treated me like family.
I've seen the best and worst I can do and so there is a comfort with myself I haven't had before. To say I am comfortable with even my own hypocrisy is not exactly right but I can say that hypocrisy is no longer such a stranger at the diner table, neither is gratitude. I think that the depth to which I am over come with gratitude is most remarkable. It is such a beautiful and uplifting emotion. I really had not had much experience with it until this last year.
There's more that I will save for another time. As far as the retreat goes, we have been going in every other week for a while now and I'm sure it will become the norm. We'll deliver groceries every two weeks leaving them lots of time to get real quiet and concentrate. We continue to get many care packages for both the people in retreat and care takers. It has been very touching to see how much people care for us out here. The skies over Bowie and Willcox have been very special lately. Last night was the full moon and I was in Willcox around sunset. I was watching hundreds of geese honk and fly south west. Wave after wave of them in V formation. The mountains were purple, the sky was pastel orange and blue and yellow. The moon came over Dos Cabesas peak and stole the whole show. It was huge and pillars of light seemed to extend straight up and down from it. In that moment I wanted very much for the geese to live. To never be harmed by humans. They have enough to fight against in the natural world. To harm them or their disappearing habitat felt like an attempt to wipe out another human culture, like the native Americans or the Tibetans or the rain Forrest natives. Modern people have enough already. We have enough to buy, to eat. We have enough land to build on or plant on. We don't need anymore. We need to take care of the ones who have less and less each year. If they can't make it, it will just be a matter of time until we don't make it. This year the geese made it back to Willcox and the moon came out and the sky went wild with color and honking. There was a power there that cared not about us and made small all that we humans do in this world and at the same time invited us into it's rhythm. I don't know. It was overwhelming but it was real.

Near Christmas

More and more I have little to say about the care taking experience out here at DMU. It's not that there is nothing to talk about. It is that what there is to say sounds too much like gossip. Even if one didn't have vows steering one away from gossip and therefore it's harmful effects, it wouldn't be cool. There will always be interpersonal drama large and small in any small group of people you throw together in the middle of the desert. But talking about it in this format is, I think, no good. Also, for this particular experiment that is the Great Retreat, it is important to keep the mental image of the thing pure. Why? Because maybe prayers and meditations from people outside the retreat actually reach those inside the retreat. If so, it's best if the prayers are pure and not cluttered with gossip issues that may or may not be true. Having a pure mind helps the care takers in particular. In the first three year retreat our teachers did it was reported that sometimes the food that the care takers made for them was not edible. The care takers confirmed that on those occasions they had been arguing in the kitchen while they prepared the meal. While we don't make meals for the retreatants, usually, we handle all their food in package form. I do not want to see the day that half of the groceries we send to someone come back with a note that says something like "All this food tastes like it has gone bad for some reason" and we can trace it to a care taker brawl before delivery.
I am a strong believer in the idea that at some point on a person's spiritual path they must die to themselves in some way. Some ignorant way that the seeker thinks of themselves must go away in order for a new person to emerge. Which is why a long solo retreat is so valuable. If there is no one around to reinforce the old way you think about yourself, then you have a better chance of planting really strong mental seeds to see a new you in the future. I can therefore see the merit in forgetting about the retreatants for the middle part of their three years, to quiet the mental inquiry we are sending to them. Keep the money coming, however. Humor, that was humor and also true.
Christmas is near. In honor of Jesus, go occupy some public place and talk about things that the establishment doesn't want to hear. Make sure that the government doesn't like it and the police don't like it and accepted religious institutions don't particularly like it. It should even make you uncomfortable. Things like "Love your neighbor and love your enemy" and "You're going to reap what you sow." Then feel really grateful that you can do so while keeping love in your heart. That's the hard part. It's the love that makes all the difference.