No regrets? Not so fast

Today I'm putting up a post by the accomplished Zen Teacher, James Ford, because I think it's an important subject. I'll insert some comments, because I think James' touch on this is a little light.  As a daughter of alcoholics, I've been the victim of people who fall somewhere on the scale between ordinary greedy egotist and sociopath.  Thus I think "no regrets" is a pernicious discarding of responsibility.

Here's James:

A Facebook friend posted a note about his regretting behaviors of a few years back. Comments followed. Among them a voice in defense of not regretting holding opinions that the writer saw as going against the tide, and nobly so. Sure. And…

The defenses of ego are strong. And, absolutely, sometimes they defend true things.

But, it was also said in context of someone expressing regret for past behaviors, and the writer’s friends seemed as likely as not to offer excuses.

And, it set me to thinking about our current ambiguous relationship to regret.

I looked up regret and quotes and saw they pretty much were all in favor of not having regrets. They tended to range from such comments as “Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, you are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets” from politician, and to some, war criminal Henry Kissinger, or, financial guru & motivational speaker Suze Orman’s fuzzy feel warm advice “When you’re happy you find pure joy in your life. There are no regrets in this state of happiness – and that’s a goal worthy striving for in all areas of life.” The list of people who were credited with the line, or very close to it, “I have no regrets,” included Edward Teller, Robert Redford, Jack Kevorkian, George McGovern, Ed Koch, Dionne Warwick, and Edward Snowden.

. . . and George Zimmerman

No regrets?

Really?

Now, another comment in that thread warned about wallowing in regrets. And a good warning, no doubt. And, again, in a context where someone was confessing to something that seemed regretful to me.

It is my observation that suggestion that regret can be obsessive, a poison in its own way, has often become an excuse.

What we seem to be invited into is a careening path of self-justification.

The ego has its ways to justify pretty much any behavior.

And our contemporary culture is more than happy to conspire with our egos, particularly if it can be accompanied by the sale of a product or service.

[I'm betting this manufacturer has no regrets at all about selling automatic weapons that end up being used to kill schoolchildren.]

Here’s the deal.

We are complex creatures. While it is in fact a bit too simplistic the Two Wolves story attributed to the Cherokee tradition that we have two wolves living in us, one that acts for the good, the other toward ill, and we need to be careful which one we feed can be helpful. Too simplistic because we in fact are a whole zoo of creatures. And the keepers. And the visitors. We are the giraffe. We are the keepers who put it down. We are the lions who ate the remains.

[When it comes to, oh, gobbling up fossil fuels and watering our lawns and destroying the planet, we are lemmings. Regret it.]  

If the image of zoo offends, let me offer another one, we, you and I, are, each of us, a forest. The rest follows, pretty much the same…

We are multitudes.

And, I have found in my life, by paying attention to what I do with as open a heart as possible, does indeed lead me to regrets.

I contain multitudes. And there are parts of me that are not pleasant. In another Facebook feed I commented on how I’ve started a class that teaches seventeenth century style dueling. A friend suggested I might be happier engaging a Chinese style martial art. My response was, but, I want something where I can hurt someone.

Mostly a joke.

And.

I contain multitudes.

And I think it wise to pay attention to the parts that step to the front. The parts that take action. And what those actions are. For just a moment, for just a heartbeat, not justifying, not denying, just looking.

And perhaps it leads to a pang of regret.

[And quite likely, in the words of the song, you "never intended to hurt anyone."  But you still did.  And that's regrettable.]

Which can be magic. With that hint of regret there several paths open. One is our old friend, to deny, or mitigate, neither of which is much different than the other. Another is to wallow in regret. Which is its own illness…

[a note:  Guilt is a whole-body thing, and basically useless; regret is a cognition, an insight in the mind, though it can make the body squirm.]

And, the other is to notice that isn’t really the animal I want to feed, and to change course.

We are, as one friend has put it, the unpredictable animal.

We can change.

And regret can be the little warning sign.

The canary in the coal mine.

Opening new worlds.

So, my wish for us all, is that we find our regrets, and sooner than later.

We all might be a bit better off for it…

[Grandma's advice to the young - when you find you're dating the guy or working for the woman who brags about No Regrets, ever, meaning they think they've never done anything wrong, you might consider a psychiatric evaluation.  Of them, if possible.  Or a new job.

What to do in a time of the breaking of nations

I know I am not the only person avoiding the evening news these days.  The sight of row upon row of bodies, some very small, is just too heartbreaking.  The thought of poison gas is appalling.  On this subject, I just read a talk by James Ford, who is both a Unitarian Minister and an important American Zen Master, that I found moving and thoughtful.  Here is a quote I pulled out to keep in my mind:

Our issue, the real deal for us here in this community, is how to act in a sacred manner in this mess of relationships that are our lives. 

I don't know what to do about war or the polarization of political parties in this country. I vote. I didn't expect my elected representatives to be involved in power plays and war games. I think a lot of us are disheartened by it, and more frightened by the violence unleashed in the world in these times.

But James' words lead me to recall my part in things, to practice the Three Pure Precepts of a Zen student.  They are to avoid doing harm, to act in ways that are beneficial, and to help free all beings from suffering.  I find that when I keep these in mind, I have plenty of work to do.  To be truthful, the first one alone is very demanding.  To avoid doing harm, as Joan Halifax has pointed out, means to avoid injuring -
oneself,
others,
animals,
plants,
the Earth,
the waters,
and
the air.

"Earth" - that's her capital letter.  Make of it what you will.

You can read the rest of James's talk here.
May all beings be well, happy, and peaceful.
~~~~~~
graphic by Susan Piver

There Is No God, and She's Getting Mad

This is a better world for women than the one I was born into.  But not nearly good enough.  A lot of brave women are standing up to systems that abused them, and that have resisted change.  That's not the route for all of us, but we all need to work on ourselves, standing up against the conditioning that tells us that to be feminine is to be nice and while our lives away.

Above, the archtypal scene from the Sistine chapel in which Old Man God creates A Man.  I would have liked to include the scene from the 1988 film Working Girl in which Melanie Griffith asks her best friend to cut her hair, saying a line something like, "If you want a serious job, you have to have serious hair."  Would that the TV weathergirls [sic] would learn that.

But we don't need to work on our hair any more than we already do.  We need to get easy-care cuts, like men, and get to work on our lives.  Our souls.  Our art.  On our work, whatever it is.  On sharing our gifts.  From what I see, a lot of woman-power is being wasted.

I got riled up earlier today reading a blog post by one of the beloved Masters [sic] in the Zen tradition.  It always makes me a little nervous to argue with Daddy.  Really.  I've met Rev. James Ford and followed his writing for years.  He is a deeply kind, generous man.  But I wanted to comment on his review of Brad Warner's new book, and I overcame my (conditioned?) hesitation.  So, here it is.  Dear James -

You write, "I also quibble with his masculine by preference language for God." I'm trying to think of the best verb to describe what I think of that, and how I feel about it.  I don't quibble with this.  Quibbling is mild.  I disagree vehemently. And I am discouraged to think you see it as a minor point.   Language matters.  It matters beyond mere theology.

It matters when we use "man" as if that word means "humankind."  That language grew up in a system men ruled (a time before birth control, may I note), a system that gave us "All men are created equal," which meant what it said: (white, landed) men were human, and had the right to vote; women were not, and did not.

The single thing most supportive of the patriarchal values that allow men with automatic weapons to shoot up our schools and deadlock our legislatures is the mythology of a powerful male God who, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, created a man first.  Then a woman, to serve.  Men rule. This is still true.  It is the single most off-putting thing about the Japanese Zen tradition for women like me - a meticulously drawn lineage of authority passed from one man to another, and thus to Brad Warner.

The choice of "He" to describe God matters.  The male God depicted above is the one who went on to give humans the authority to "fill the earth, and subdue it."  We're paying for that now.  Gaia is not subdued.

I've noticed in Zen and elsewhere, watching from the sidelines the way poets do, how men like the "bad boys," the rule-benders like Brad Warner.  Women need to cultivate that.  Instead of admiring Adele because she lavishes attention on her looks, we need to be admiring real women who are not worried about looking pretty and feeling pretty, but are doing their work.  There are plenty of admirable women on the barricades now, working to raise good kids, working in the arts and in politics, even, amazingly, in the male-dominated religious institutions, some of which offer us, at last, the chance to sit down and get real.
~~~~~~~~~~
Below - a homage to Mother Jones, my personal saint, by two other admirable people, Utah Phillips and Ani diFranco

More Cool Boredom

This is a video in which not much happens - just two "natural enemies" hanging out. It epitomizes the kind of day I've been happy to have: cool boredom. I see I blogged about this last Tuesday.  So I suppose I don't have much conceptual to say.

I started my day - or did I end yesterday? - enjoying the smell of clary sage, which is supposed to be "balancing."  I doubt that that alone can cool a bipolar down in August, but what do I know?  It's a nice smell, unusual, hard to categorize, but a little piney.  Wikipedia says it "has a lengthy history as a medicinal herb, and is currently grown for its essential oil."  My oils are mostly Aura Cacia, which is sold in the sweet hippie-spiritual shop in our neighborhood called Pearls of Wisdom.  Descriptions of this herb's medical use go back to the 4th century BCE. 

Pearls is a great place to buy things like an endless-knot pendant or a votive candle holder carved out of rose quartz (which is believed to aid in kidney problems).  Quartz has a measurable vibration.  Just saying.  And I do have such a candle-holder, a gift from Tom one birthday.  He is a scientist, majored in physics, so he understands what a huge amount we don't know in this universe.  Don't Know is also a Zen concept, and that reminds me of a charming story I read recently in another blog, Wild Fox Zen.

Reminds me of a story James Ford told me which I see will be in his new book due out in September, If You’re Lucky, Your Heart Will Break: Field Notes From A Zen Life.
Way back in the late ’60′s he was given zazen instructions at San Francisco Zen Center and then brought into the zendo to sit. Then …
“…I was ushered into an interview with a senior priest. Dainin Katagiri Roshi, then called by the title sensei, was on duty. I made the bows as I was instructed and sat awkwardly before him.
He asked how long I’d been sitting.
I estimated three, maybe five minutes.
He said, “Good. Keep that mind.’”

There is a point there that Zen students know - as we ripen in meditation practice, we develop what Joko Beck called "tricks" for amusing ourselves or evading aspects of our reality that are trying to catch up with us.  In Zen, we are reminded to approach not only meditation, but every moment, as if we'd never been there before, never done that before.*

Back to my day.  I sat over the Thursday NY Times with Tom - my favorite paper of the week.  I clucked over the follies in the Style section, and Tom told me about the craziness in the Home section.  Ate a good breakfast, cereal, walnuts (for Omega-3), dried cranberries and organic milk.  Did my stretches and meditated.  Did weekly pill box which took a long time, but that was okay.  No rush.  Air quality is bad today, and so are molds in the air, and I don't have to go anywhere, so I'm not.  I'd have to wear a surgical mask if I did; the immunosuppressants have made my allergies terrible.  Made tuna salad for lunch, with cucumbers cut up in it (they are cooling). Made tuna melts in the toaster-oven.

And so on.  That kind of day.  Not manic, not depressed, just a nice cool day appreciating our air-conditioned and filtered air, our shade, and especially, being retired.

* If I had never seen this computer screen before, I'd be flabbergasted.

Deep encompassing gratitude

Today's post by James Ford is a deep encouragement to giving thanks. It includes a shocking five-minute movie; some thoughts that remind me that the whole mess is much bigger than my mess, and it is what it is; and a song you can't hear too often. I hope you have time for it.  And I wish everyone a good day punctuated frequently by gratitude.

Joko Beck is in hospice

The above clip came my way on Monkey Mind, the blog of James Ford, Zen Teacher and Unitarian minister. It is a pleasant little quiet time to watch it.  Joko seems so - ordinary, and that is the name of the sangha she founded independent of the (largely masculine) Zen traditions. It is called Ordinary Mind Zen School.  If you don't know of her, even if you don't care a bit about Zen, check out the link, and you'll understand why I have liked her.  A strong-minded independent woman.  Her books are simple and lucid.

Is it this that had me thinking this morning about how much more life I myself can expect?  More likely I'm still thinking about Friday's news about my very bad back.  In my fooling-around time with my morning cup of real coffee (after that I have to go to decaf, or I'll be able to thread a moving sewing machine) I looked up my life expectancy.  It read 17.55 more years. If I were that non-existent average 68-year-old woman I’d have 6405 more days.  That would be optimistic, with the array of health problems I have, but I like to be optimistic.

Not that I feel entitled to those days, or even this one. It has been very ordinary so far. I hope it continues to be.  No unpleasant surprises.  But if they come, I'd love to take dying with as much equanimity as Joko reportedly has. Here is a post that includes a message from her daughter about Joko's attitude toward dying. And an hour or so writing this - that's how I used part of my possible allotted 6405 days.

You're already perfect - and you should take a break

[An American midwest painting by George G. Adomeit, "Tilling the Fields."]

I'm honored to learn that minddeep included me on her end-of-year list of 15 Great Women Buddhist Bloggers. This has meant that more people visit this blog, and strange new things happen to me, like being asked for my opinions. (Moi?) I remind myself that it is a turning of the dharma wheel. It is a little more connection between us, the women who are out here on the internet forming a great mandala, and I thank minddeep - Marguerite Manteau-Rao - for that.

The Constant Reader knows that I have sometimes wondered what I do here. I don't think I do much of telling people they should practice. I have a strong "should" detector. I did used to think everyone should meditate. Well, that was beginner's enthusiasm. Now I realize that it isn't for everyone, that I don't even know the next right step for myself, let alone for my closest friend. So I try to do this step, this one, and not worry about the next step.

There are many good and faithful teachers and teachings on the internet, so I don't try to do what they do. I don't think I do too much telling the dharma, though Zen stories often leak into what I'm writing about, that's the way my mind works. I enjoy stories and metaphors; I think that's one reason I've been attracted to the Zen tradition. Over the years I've become flavored with Buddhism, you could say, like water with a drop of indigo ink in it, but I'm no longer cocooned in it.

My earliest model, I suppose, is the first blog I ever followed, James Ford's Monkeymind. I had met James, so his voice was friendly and human to me. You never know what he's going to write about. My only problem with him is that he stole the great title Monkeymind before I could get to it. He exemplifies the real fertile, interested, changeable mind that is not constricted by ideas about what you ought to be.

In the end, though, I found my name, landing with a nice solid thud on Dalai Grandma - a joking way to refer to myself. That helped bring forward my sense of humor - it runs in the family, sometimes alarmingly. And there was the grandma part, which is true, too. I tend to have the long view of life that you get by looking at it from 67 years. You view generations and people with the grandmother's mind and the special heart that opens when we see our grandchildren - all children - are perfect.

Sometimes I think about how Zen needs to angle itself differently for women, to emphasize our wonderful capacity for Grandmother's Heart. I think it was Dogen who urged his dharma heir to cultivate it more. Maybe I should write more about my thoughts on that. We really are different than the men these practices were designed for, even though we are also just the same. (There, some Zen paradox.)

Just today a friend and I were recalling that Suzuki Roshi said to students, "You're already perfect - and you need to work a little harder." True, true. But also, many of my readers are women, and what I know about women's lives is that most of us already work too hard. So I'll close by saying, "Thank you for reading me. Remember, you're already perfect - and right now, you should take a little break."

The Purity Police: Special to UU Readers

I'd like to suggest you turn to minister James Ford's blog Monkey Mind (see my blog list) for his September 10 blog/essay on a proposed change to UUA bylaws.

Why?

Because the UUA on its website is running a survey, asking for our comments. This is a chance, in a disheartening election year, to really have a voice somewhere. And because James is an especially thoughtful voice, writing from the point of view of an experienced minister, who knows what the Purity Police can get us into.