Thich Nhat Hanh Does Boston

“Imagine the energy of thousands of people gathered together and meditating on the open grounds of Copley Square with one of the most influential people of our time: Zen Master, author, poet and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh.”

It’s the Sit in Peace Event for Boston. Uh huh.

I’m keen on this. I am. I’m a yogini. These are my people. I’m thinking that this is going to be about world peace and the Buddha knows we need a whole lot of that right now. So I drive into Boston and park my car because I am running late and missed my time frame for public transportation which is unreliable on Sundays.

I end up being railroaded into a too-expensive parking structure because there is no exit once you have turned down what appears to be a side street but is actually the parking structure because, as I already said, there is no exit. Yes, Kafka really did consult with the City of Boston on the subject of transportation and traffic patterning.

Arriving just after it starts, I place my folding chair down on the edges of a very large crowd. Yes, there are a few thousand people sitting quietly in meditation. Wait, are we meditating already? Am I that late? Rats. I didn’t want to miss the introduction but, oh well. I sit down.

I place my feet flat on the ground. I close my eyes. I place my hands in the wisdom seal. I deepen my breath. I focus on my breath. I silently think with each inhale and each exhale, “I visualize World Peace” because, damn it, I was late and I don’t know what else to do. And then I lose focus, immediately. Because I am lousy at meditation. Really bad at it.

And I am sitting in a crowd of thousands who are all being very quiet but, well, we are sitting in the middle of a major American city in the middle of the day and there are also thousands of tourists and coaches and taxis and ambulances and police cars and motorcycles circling around us. Mother of God, it is noisy!

I return to my breath and to the personal mantra I have chosen to repeat for lack of knowing the mantra that I should be repeating because that’s the story of my life. Not ever knowing what it is I should be doing and making stuff up as I go along.

And then I vacillate between self-flagellation and visualizing world peace for the next five minutes. And thinking about my sister’s ex-girlfriend, Sue, who always claimed she could think nothing and my brother who makes the same claim.

Meanwhile, I suffer through meditations with all of my monkey-brain chatter silently cursing my loved ones who can do it so easily and then I hear the Zen Master speaking.

I open my eyes and it has been 55 minutes. No kidding. I somehow managed to sit in meditation in the middle of a bustling Boston afternoon for nearly an hour and have it feel like five minutes.

Thich Nhat Hanh is leading us through a guided meditation. Inviting the world into our cells, inviting our fathers, our mothers. Our anxieties, he says, are the anxieties of our world. Release them. Have compassion for ourselves, for our loved ones.

There’s a few moments of him explaining that we have to be with the ones we love which, in my Monkey Brain, begins to sound like “if you can’t be with the one you love…love the one you’re with.”  And somehow everything, except that momentary cheesiness, makes sense.

This isn’t about world peace. It’s about peace. Straight up, no chaser peace. Be at peace in the midst of chaos.  Duh.

Sit in peace.

Sometimes I need to be hit upside the head with the message and, in this case an $18 parking tab but, you know what? I’m at peace because it’s pretty darn amazing to sit with thousands of strangers and meditate, think about and consider a common purpose.

Sit in peace.

I think I will do it again tomorrow. Just me, by myself, but it’s like aum, isn’t it?  At any given moment there are thousands of people chanting aum at the same time around the world. Can’t some of them be mindfully peaceful, too? Yes, I’m there.

Sit in peace.

This post originally appeared in elephant journal. 

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/09/thich-nhat-hanh-does-boston-mary-alice-holmes/

Upon hearing someone being interviewed on the radio state that allowing gays to marry will destroy legitimate marriage, she asks "Do you think gay marriage is a threat to your marriage?  Our marriage?"

He responds "Of all the possible threats to our marriage, gay marriage isn't even in the Top Ten."

A Different Kind of Commencement

It's Commencement season and yesterday I had the honor to be present at a very special ceremony.

Most graduations fall into the same standard format.  Processional, prayers (depending on location), speeches, names read, diplomas presented, recessional.  And this one fell into that format...sort of.  

Photo Courtesy of CardinalSeansBlog.org

The Cardinal Cushing Centers in Hanover, Massachusetts "provides individuals with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disabilities of all ages opportunities to discover the benefits of a supportive and vibrant community."  I have passed the campus hundreds of times, located as it is on Route 53, a major north/south route through the South Shore of Massachusetts.  Always noting as I passed the small, sweet chapel near the entrance to the grounds.

I have known of a few people who have attended Cardinal Cushing, in particular the young man who died suddenly last week.  (See previous post.) Yesterday was the first time, though, that I had been invited to participate in the activities at the Center.  It was a profoundly moving experience for me.

My graduate, the one I had come to support, is the daughter of a cousin.  Both mother and daughter have worked very hard to reach yesterday's milestone and I am overwhelmed by the strength each of them display.  That strength of character, of will, of determination was apparent in many of the graduates and family members in attendance.  

A ceremony marking the end of a period of education, a commencement, usually means a beginning.  The commencing of "real life" for most of us is a time of anticipation and joy.  As I sat in the auditorium I was thinking about the variety of these ceremonies I had attended and the kind of happiness that other graduates feel as they say goodbye to their educational institutions.  Most of us cannot wait for the rest of our lives to begin.  And some of the Cardinal Cushing graduates were feeling that way, too.  Here, I editorialize.  I don't know what most of them were feeling but I know what I was feeling on their behalf...trepidation.  Most of these students are graduating, not because they have achieved a measured standard goal, although some of them have, having passed the MCAS standardized test.  They must matriculate because they are reaching a different standard, that of chronological age.  

Photo: Gary Higgins-Patriot/Ledger

In Massachusetts, the Commonwealth provides educational services to all its residents up to the age of 18, up to 22 if there is an assessment of disability.  So this most lively, happy group have reached the age where they must move into adult services.  A few of this group will be able to live in a group situation and many have received job skills training so will be somewhat self-supporting.  But all of them will need some level of care and support throughout their lives.  This is not to say that the members of this group are not functional.  One or two are born politicians and will probably have higher profile jobs.  Several are gifted with humor and have the ability to intentionally make others laugh.  One young man introduced himself with a self-assurance, firm handshake and genuine smile that I sometimes lack.  Making the acquaintance of these new graduates changes my perspective on personal growth and social development.

There was one young woman whose response to the entire ceremony broke my heart.  She wept aloud, her face contorted in a psychic pain that I can only imagine, her sobs diminished only she hid her face in her partner's shoulder.  She embodied the kind of fear that I had been feeling for all these graduates.  The world can be a harsh, dangerous, insensitive environment for all of us.  These graduates have been taught and been shielded and now they face more daunting challenges than most people I know.   There was a moment when I recognized that Kimmy was expressing what I, too, probably felt inside when I graduated from high school.  Much as I wanted to get away from home and from that place, I had a feeling that it might be safer to just stay where I was.  "Better the Devil you know."  It's a caption for living, though, that we accomplish very little that doesn't involve some level of fear.

I have as much hope as I do fear, for there are wonderful, intelligent and supportive people who devote their lives to helping guide others along the treacherous path.  I witnessed incredible sensitivity yesterday among the teachers, aides, partners and staff at the Center.  The program was altered a few times because of the uniqueness of the participants, some of whom had their own private goals and ideals for the day.   Perfectly illustrating the diversity of the graduates was the  commencement address by Tony Clarkson, Hanover Town Manager, who skillfully encouraged all of us who might be "different" to reach beyond our perceived, socially preconceived boundaries, to be exactly who we are and to use our unique abilities to touch the sky.    

http://cushingcenters.com/

http://www.patriotledger.com/videos/x1213258569/Proud-Milton-mom-at-Cardinal-Cushing-graduation#axzz2WOo7op18

http://www.patriotledger.com/mobile/x1213258552/Cardinal-Cushing-Centers-Graduation-2013#axzz2WOo7op18

Last week.  A young friend with cancer that should have been curable was moved into hospice care.  An old family friend was having vision problems that have turned out to be a brain tumor.  A sweet young man, the son of former neighbors, died suddenly of leukemia.

It was the kind of week that is sent as a reminder to stop and smell the roses, that each day might be your last, to tell the people that you love just that, you love them.  All those trite, cliched ideas.  But just like stereotypes that have an essence of truth, there exists inside each platitude the element of veracity.  So I have stopped to smell the roses, quite literally, along my path to my train station.  And I stop before I sniff to let the bees find their way out of the blossom,  an effort to pay homage to that most useful of chestnuts, when probing unseen places use protection.  I inhale the rich, ripe scents of subtle and not so subtle roses.  I remember a field of lavender in the south of France.  I let the umbrella close so the rain falls directly on me.  I sense.

It happens that a wandering through Facebook posts of friends has lead me to a YouTube video of Pema Chodron talking about tonglen.  It's a practice that I'm not terribly familiar with.  There are no accidents and as I watch her brief videos and read a passage on the Shambala website it is clear to me that this is a practice I need to cultivate.

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/tonglen1.php
http://youtu.be/312oBat6MXs
http://youtu.be/PIyt4G4s2zc

There are so many people in my life who are suffering and I am grateful for the opportunity to be present for them.  I am grateful for my awareness.   I am grateful to be.  

Digital Fingerprints, Junk Mail and a Long Dead Spouse.

I picked up the snail mail earlier today.  It included a few items that we see every other day or so: a 20% off coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond,  a postcard from the local Ace Hardware,  the monthly bill from Target informing me just how much I really spend as soon as I walk through the door which is always more than I intend.  I've developed a formula for spending at places like Target.  Also included in this calculation is my local Fruit Center Marketplace, a grocery store/fish market/butcherie with wine.

I spend $50 for every ten minutes I am inside, therefore, if I wish to spend only $20 I may only permit myself to be inside the Red Dot for four minutes.  No cart, one canvas bag, shopping list with less than five items.  Go!

I made this particular Casual Observation after shopping in the Fruit Center with my mother, who had left her wallet on my kitchen counter.  Mom is a slow mover, slower with each passing year, and she loves to shop for groceries.  Once she had the cart to lean on, my bank account was doomed.  Fresh mozzarella and locally sourced goat cheese, PEI mussels, imported olives, in-store baked goods, New Jersey blueberries.  Even at my gentle prompting, which was pushing her ever-closer to a temper tantrum,  it took us an hour and ten minutes to complete the circuit of the 14000 sf store.

Let's do the math.  If 10 = 50, then 70 = 350.  Yes, when grocery shopping with my mother in a store where I normally only buy fish and vegetables, I was able to spend my entire month's food budget in just over one hour.  Note to Self: do not shop with your mother if she isn't picking up the tab.

Back to the mail.  There was another item in the mail which surprised me.  It was an invitation from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.  And it was addressed to my husband's very long dead first wife.  When my husband first moved back to this part of the world, it was from the home he had shared with Pam, so we were not initially unnerved to receive mail for her, after our first move, especially from the very persistent folks in the Alumni Affairs office at her Alma Mater who seemed very unwilling to admit defeat.  And then we moved again.  As I have learned, when one moves correspondents are sometimes left behind.  Hopefully, these are of the advertising variety but sometimes they are old friends who never got the Change of Address Notice.  And then there is the other variety.  The scarier folks.  The ones that find you no matter how well you think you have covered your tracks.  It's the people who send elder housing information packets to my mother at my address, even though she has never lived here, because somehow they know I have an elderly mother, and the mortgage lenders anxious to convince me it would be a good idea to use my home as an ATM, and the Columbia House Record Club.  Now we add to that list the fine people at the Rock Hall who, in their efforts to reel Pam into a visit to the Rock Hall included a personalized (for her) web address on the outside of the packet.

Really.

Several points.  #1  Pam has been dead for more than 20 years.  #2 and 3 She never lived here, nor was her mail ever forwarded here.   #4  She died about a minute after Sir Tim Berhners-Lee posted a summary of the World Wide Web at alt.hypertext newsgroup.  Consequently,  #5 she never had an email address or a website.  #6  She died before there was a Rock Hall.  

Which makes the Ted Talk I heard yesterday that much more prescient.

http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_how_to_think_about_digital_tattoos.html?qsha=1&utm_expid=166907-23&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks

I might visit the address that the Rock Hall printed on the package out of curiosity except that I'm afraid my own beloved Mac might think I had suddenly morphed into her and begin to address invites to me as her.  Nor do I feel I can contact whoever sold them the list with her name on it because then they would know the mailing reached an actual person.  And how did her name get on that list?  At our address?  How long can we reasonably expect that our loved ones will be receiving our mail after we have moved on?  Is 22 years too long?