Reverence and Otherwise

In the morning my thoughts float around in their zigzag way, and sometimes one lands on my hand. Today it was this:

All my deploring of things people do and the way things are has not helped matters.

This was triggered by morning coffee music with Pete Seeger, which was "Down by the Riverside." The thing about him, he meant it.

Ain't gonna study war no more,
Ain't gonna study war no more...

Now, the illustrious Pete, may his good work never end, meant it, he was against war and tirelessly sang and spoke about it.  And we still have war, don't we.  Oh yes, the bad bad karma of tribalism playing out in unfunny boy games in the Middle East.  God bless them, why don't they just give up their claims on a piece of earth and try to sneak into America like everyone else?

But one thing Pete did accomplish was give people, including me, a way to be in harmony together with our beliefs.  We all sang Guantanamero along with him, rocking a bit from side to side.  We all felt the sadness of the eternal cycle of unnecessary pain, flowers gone to young girls gone to soldiers gone to graveyards.  Gone to flowers.  The community we formed singing was a good thing, an excellent thing. I don't get to feel that much, other than in my women's meditation group, where the warm energy far from war goes round and round.

Last night Tom and I went out for ice cream, like our parents before us, though ice cream has changed since chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry.  Believe me, their toes would curl in alarm at the price of Jeni's Salty Caramel.

We got to talking a little about how as children we occasionally felt something in church I describe as shared reverence. I remember that especially on Easter morning and Christmas Eve.  Now I appreciate the sense of new clothes and spring hats - and white gloves on the ladies, back then - as a way of washing ourselves clean, resurrecting.

Tom went to a small-town Methodist church, and I went to a liberal Congregational church, but they had in common a shared acceptance of the Christian tradition.  In both churches there were those who got that it was not about the tribalism of Are you saved? but about love and unity. Certain stories were emphasized, like the parable of The Good Samaritan. It makes you sad to compare that with what is happening now on the Gaza strip.

I have had many good experiences in my Unitarian church, but have never felt that reverence in these 30-some years, despite our minister's many sermons on love.  I think this is because a percentage of the members there hate the very ideas of belief and mystery.  Atheists have long been vocal in the denomination. In my church, every summer we have a lay service by the Atheists and Skeptics, who affirm their belief only in what can be shown by science, which they revere more than I, who have been the victim of it.  In this service someone may talk about the mystery of life, but it is a head trip, not a spiritual practice, and does not go toward love and compassion. They would snort at the "notion" that Something loves us, and all is well.  They discard mysticism with the term "woo-woo."

I was recently told my group is woo-woo, O-kay, but I, too, have trouble with All shall be well when I watch the evening news.  Still, I enjoy experiencing the mystery and elegance of this great junkheap, even as I deplore the things men do.  For example, I am closely watching our tomato crop, pictured in its entirety here.

And, by way of the miraculous, I figured out how to download photos from my phone to my evil new computer, and then upload them.

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

Having No Choice

Artwork by Lorraine Art Schneider

 I find myself thinking about my parents, of course, this time of year.  Both have been dead for over ten Christmases now, but their karma really bit me.  The violence in my family seems allied to the violence at Sandy Hook; the violent response of the NRA reminds me of my father, who wanted above all to keep his gun.

My mother never felt she had a choice in life.  I don't think her mother, Leona, did either, though it is bittersweet to know that Leona did have an affair with "the motorman."  I imagine there was passion and pleasure there, but it is not clear whether that had anything to do with her death in her early forties; my mother thought it might have been hemorrhaging from an abortion.  All abortion was illegal in 1943.  That's not my subject, but it is relevant.

What I was thinking about was dinnertime in the house I grew up in.  My mother would put on the table something she had made from scratch, of course, back then.  It might be her famous spaghetti and meatballs, the sauce made from tomatoes she canned.  There would be this tension while we watched my father covertly taste it.  Most likely he would sniff, which was a way he had of sneering, and say, refusing to look at her, "No napkins."

Because my mother always "forgot" to put the napkins on.  Then we would eat in silence.  I suffered chronically from irritable bladder and bouts of diarrhea.  It made me what I am today. 

If I were dealing with someone like him today, first of all, we would have talked about it.  If that didn't stop his game, I would not have cooked dinner the next night, that simple.  I imagine he would have said, "What's this?  No dinner?"

I would say, cooly, "Why should I?  You don't appreciate the effort, and the kids can eat peanut butter."

It's a nice fantasy to think that we might have talked, but I don't know.  My mother seemed unable to negotiate with him.  She  probably tried various passive-aggressive tactics; I know she made up her mind to refuse him sex after one St. Patrick's Day party when he embarrassed her in front of friends by refusing to dance with her, but danced with the rest of the women there.

In a patriarchal system, many women are frozen with fear of overstepping the unspoken boundaries set up by the belief that men are better than women, that women are stupid, that we are here to serve men.  We can be conditioned to these beliefs without ever hearing them spoken that way.  We are so conditioned that we don't know we are afraid.  We don't even think of options. I believe my mother thought,  "Of course you cook for Your Man.  You have to."  That wasn't a matter of choice.

I think I'll stop the domestic story here to remark that my father stole the gun, a Luger, from a dead German (he called this "liberating" it) in World War II.  He had joined the Army during the Great Depression, a poor boy who couldn't find a job, but ended up serving six years once the United States finally entered that mess, after hideous damage had been done to other countries and peoples.  He was in the Battle of the Bulge.  He only talked about that once.  That's about all I know. 

Except that he had post-traumatic stress, and would sometimes have nightmares and wake up calling for my mother.  And now I have it, because he abused me, sexually, verbally, emotionally, every way he could. After death, I learned he'd been making moves to cut me out of the estate.

There's a whole lot of bad karma around power.  Hatreds and illness are born in any system that sets someone up as is intrinsically better than someone else by virtue of gender, race, religion, sexual preference, skin color, intelligence, money, or any other superficial difference you can think of.  Such ideas of superiority were directly behind the Holocaust Hitler was creating until America finally decided it was our war, too.

It's complex.  But peace is not. 

Who do you hate?

You all know that I am against hatred, meanness, violence.  As far as I can see, we haven't gone very far in terms of eradicating that big boy's game of war with real weapons.  Dogfighting is illegal but boxing, football, hockey, and other sports that we know often lead to brain damage are not.  This is a patriarchal culture, and was founded as a violent overtaking of other humans, with the nice excuse that they weren't really human like us.  It is still patriarchal, meaning it values and rewards the aggressions of high-testoserone males in business, academia, the economy, god, they even rule the kitchens now, taking a job traditionally done by women in the service of nourishing and community and turning it into a screaming competitive hell.

Okay.  So it has started on facebook already, the vicious posting about that act of terrorism by a handful of deranged young men almost 10 years ago.  And I was in an unpleasant mood yesterday to start with.  So I got into it with someone who was deploring the very idea of "building a mosque at Ground Zero".  He had his facts all wrong - here's an article about the proposed construction at Park51 that explains what the building will house - but the issue for me was the vindictive hatred I was seeing in the comments on this post.  Self-righteous, and backed up by their idea of Christianity.  I had good experiences in my Christian youth, and that ticked me off too - Jesus did not tell us to hate one another.  So I got into it.

I restrained myself, that wasn't the issue.  But my anger surprised me somewhat - maybe it was just a high-fire day.  I often sat and listened to racism and bigotry and idiotic parroting of talk radio hatemongers from our fathers, not rising to the bait to argue or even get mad.  Maybe my long patience was just worn out.

But if I hate the bigot and assign him/her to the category of subhuman (sub me that is), am I not as bad as him? And go further - don't you know liberals who self-righteously hate the sitting ducks of the right - it used to be George W.  Now it's Sarah Palin.  In the privacy of my own livingroom I am not a model of compassion and kindness about a number of people, definitely including that Dominique Strauss-Kahn person.

If you want a spiritual exercise, think about putting some person whose politics you abhor into your lovingkindness meditation, in the spot of "enemy" or "difficult person."  If even thinking about it increases your stomach acid, well here's an opportunity, I guess.  Meanwhile, none of us should be too hard on ourselves - it doesn't help.  Lovingkindness starts with us.  Well, maybe the cat first, then us.

On Dalai Grandmothers

Last night I had a good long sleep, with many dreams, and today I find myself questioning my purpose here. Not why blog at all? but What does it mean to call yourself The Dalai Grandma? Or, what is this blog about?

It vastly amused me that my daughter made up this name for me, and I chose it for the blog on impulse one evening. But beyond the humor of it, I wonder what it means. I am chronically uncomfortable with the fact that it implies some special knowledge, some Buddhist attainment. Me, a role model?

There are many men who are lamas, meaning Teachers, in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and a few women these days, but no sect headed by a highest and most precious Grandmother. No religious sect that values most highly home and home-making, the ongoing tender love for children and grandchildren, the care of the sick and dying - women's work, the ordinary feminine. In our own rapacious masculine culture all the old are undervalued, old women more so, because women are valued for their apparent sexual desirability. All this deserves many more words, and they have been written. I have no idea how to change this value system. Maybe I'm a little unusual in being chronically aware of it.

Dalai Lama means, in Tibetan, "ocean teacher," meaning one whose spiritual understanding is limitless and deep. What would Dalai Grandma mean? A grandmother is not usually seen as a teacher, but as one who loves, values, and accepts. We think of laps, aprons, homemade cookies, smiles. I've read that most "successful" members of minority groups (including women) were strongly supported by a grandmother who believed in them.

There is the phrase that appears in the Zen tradition, and perhaps elsewhere, "Grandmother's heart." This seems to me to sum up what a grandmother ideally has to offer: an oceanic heart, an encompassing love. Many women can tell you how we felt awakened by the birth of a grandchild. Even writing that sentence, I feel that altogether new Love stirring in me. And from the moment I knew my daughter was pregnant, I also loved babies and children in a new way. Wherever I was I related instantly to babies, and to women with children. I felt connection to the great web of life down through time.

From a religious standpoint I guess we should aspire to open our hearts to everyone in that way, but that does sound abstract to me. What I do see in my own life is the need, the desire to have an open, nurturing heart here, for those around me - not just my daughter and grandson and son-in-law, not just Tom's parents, but my neighbors and friends. I see that my practice has come to include thinking of the people in my life and asking, What does she need right now? or, What could I do to ease this person a bit?

There is a masculine way that is intellectual, demanding, oriented toward building towers and, unfortunately, flying planes into them. It has given us what comfort and safety we have in civilization. But a feminine way is badly needed, a way of love and respect for all others, and for the life of this planet. This way is exemplified for us in Mother Teresa, who said, "We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

And for me, it is exemplified by the Jesus I was introduced to as a child, with his flowing brown hair, tenderly holding a lamb in his arms. Something a grandmother would do.

What Grandmothers Know

I may be the only grandmother there tomorrow who isn't wearing a sweatshirt with something like this on it. I had a nice Grandmother sweatshirt my daughter got me, loved it, but Otto is almost nine years old now, and I have gained a size (at least) since he was born. And moved. Don't know where the shirt went. Maybe in the tote box labeled Clothes that Don't Fit.

Tomorrow? Grandparents' Day at Otto's school. I will drive an hour each way for the pleasure of watching his classroom on its very best behavior for half an hour. And refreshments. We women will look at each other and smile; all grandmothers know the same things.

It has me thinking about just what those things are. Say, the preciousness of an individual life, the resonant depth of connection. Is that understanding you can teach? How? Not by lecture or even dharma talk, I suspect. And---if you stop to think about the wars you've known in your own lifetime---maybe it's the single most important question: how can we teach those truths so they are deeply known, felt in our bodies, so that killing other people is out of the question?