After the Rain

1. The rain finally came—soft and gentle like the touch of a mother on her son’s cheek. In its slowness, it sank fully into the ground right where it fell. This morning, the earth is wet and the cool moisture hangs in the air.  It won’t be enough, but it’s a start. How most of the plants survive these cycles of abundance and scarcity is a mystery to me. Of course some of the showy annuals survive the lack of rain by exerting some invisible influence on the guy with the watering can. They cause him to come every day. And this is after they have previously seduced him into an almost obsessional care when they were much younger. Now having claimed the most favorable garden locations for sun and protection, they bask in their two legged anti-drought strategy.
2. I am the mother and father of the garden. I have the great joy of tending and befriending the many beings existing in this space. My life is nurtured by the meanings that taking care bestows upon me. My purpose is to be the one who watches closely the miracle of life emerging right where I am. I delight in the ordinary accomplishments of these green beings that have been given to my care. I set the rules and organize the spaces of this patch of earth. I can do whatever I want—as long as I move along with the patterns of necessity that order us all.
3. I am the child of the garden. The garden is tending and befriending me. I wander the garden paths and I am taught without my knowing. I don’t even know what I’m learning. I am mostly unconscious—moving from this to that in a haphazard way. Playing with this toy and then that one, my internal purposes are unknown to me. I can’t speak the language I hear around me, but very slowly I’m beginning to understand some of the meanings that hold me and regulate me so tenderly.
4. I am just one of the things that grows in the garden. Intentions weave together in fine complexity beyond imagination. We’re all fully invested through the mutuality of our intertwinkling. Me and the garden. The flowers and the trees. The foxes and the chipmunks. The nematodes and the earthworms. The birds that sing and even the cars that race by on the road out front. All of us playing endlessly together. Each one of us a minor player standing exactly at the center of their own universe.
5. The laws of love are completely manifest here in this ongoing dance of mutuality and singularity.
6. I’ll still water the plants on the porch before I drive to Waltham later this morning.

Personal Practice – Take some time to consider the vast web of being that supports and nourishes you at every moment. Look around you. Perhaps begin with the walls of the house that protects you from the rain and harsh sun. Who built these walls? Who made the lunch they ate while they were working? Who tended and harvested the trees? Who planted the seeds for the trees? Who made the rain fall and the sun shine on those trees?

Consider your good fortune at your intimate place right in the middle of everything. Say a quick prayer, or sing a small song, or do a silly dance to express your gratitude and appreciation for all that sustains you.

On Not Giving Advice

One of the first things I was taught in my life-coach training many years ago was how not to give advice. This was called ‘self-management’. The theory is that human beings are naturally creative, resourceful and whole. They don’t need me to solve their problems. In fact, if I solve other peoples’ problems, that’s a problem.

I learned this as a leader as well. If someone comes to me with a problem and I, with my vast resources of experience, creativity and intelligence, solve their problem, then what they learn is that when they encountered a problem, they should come to me. While this may be flattering and fun for me, does not empower other people to tap into their own vast resource of experience, creativity and intelligence. It is, however, a subtle seduction—to be the one with insight—the one who can make things better.

It’s similar to being a life-coach. People don’t need my wisdom or insight, they need their own. My job not to give good advice or dispense wisdom but to empower people to take action that is aligned with what is most deeply alive in them. In this formula, the two parts, action and deep aliveness, are not separate.

Before my coach training, I had always been able to have meaningful conversations with people. I have always been interested in exploring what other people think and feel. But learning to be a coach was about the critical step of taking feelings and intentions into action. It is only in action that we learn what it is we truly believe and what we truly want.

‘You can’t steer a parked car.’ I don’t know where I first heard this, but it perfectly captures the process of life and learning. Of course we all wonder ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is important to do?’ These are wonderful and life-long inquiries. The only meaningful answers are in action itself. Until the car is moving, all the fiddling you do with the steering wheel is pointless.

Fulfillment is not a destination, but is the ongoing activity of acting in alignment with our deepest values. This is the bad news and the good news. The bad news is there is no permanent resolution to the discomfort of being human. There is no solution—not enough money or security or adulation or insight to finally put to rest our basic anxieties of separation and death.

But the good news is that if fulfillment is acting in alignment with what is most deeply true, then, at any moment, we can find fulfillment. From this perspective, problems are not problems. Or rather, the point of problems is not just about finding solutions, but about using problems as access points into our own creativity, resourcefulness and wholeness.

While we can be helpful and share our experience with others, this is not nearly as powerful as helping others tap into their own resources. In the middle of a problem, we often think that the problem is the problem. Stepping back just a little, we can see that life is just a series of problematic situations. Once you find your way through this situation, you will just find yourself in the next. Like the cartoon of the billboard in the middle of the vast openness of the great plains that reads ‘One darn thing after another for the next 800 miles.’ This is often our experience of human life.

But what if our current problems and issues are an opportunity rather than things we had to work hard to ‘solve?’ What if you don’t need good advice, but need to learn to trust your untapped creativity and resourcefulness? What if you can relax and enjoy the answers and solutions that arise both from within you and within others? What if the problems you have are exactly what you need to learn and grow and have a fulfilling life?

Personal Practice – The next time someone close to you is struggling with a problem, see if you can appreciate rather than try to solve their problem. This is not to be cavalier and dismiss their struggle, but rather to have faith in their innate capacities, even if they don’t. OK to sympathize and to be kind. But rather than take on the problem yourself, be curious about how this problem is part of their path and about how they will tap their own inner resources to find their way through.

Extra credit: Try this with yourself.

Assisting the Miraculous

The morning glories have already twirled up the lead strings I set for them and gained the top of the pergola. I planted them from seed in late May. It doesn’t do to plant them too early. They don’t like to be transplanted from indoors and they need the warmer weather. Temperatures much below fifty degrees disturb their growth and an unexpected frost would certainly kill them.

I look back in the gardening diary I kept this spring. I can never remember exactly when is best to begin the different seeds. So I thought this year, I would write everything down. But looking back, I can’t find any entry for the morning glories. I know I soaked them overnight before I planted them. And I know it was a Saturday or Sunday, because Melissa helped me. But as to which day it actually was, I can’t recall.

It’s funny how clear things are in the moment but their exact order in the flood of other things is vague. Something happens and I am often so grateful, these days, for the particularness of it. I vividly remember opening the seed packet and pouring out those familiar dark and chunky seeds. I’ve grown morning glories every spring for ten years now. They seemed to be the perfect plants for the pergola we built on the handicap access ramp. I tried it the first year and it worked, so it’s been one of my spring rituals to plant these seeds.

After soaking twenty-four hours in water, the protective black husks of the morning glory seeds loosen and the beige meat beneath begins to show—sometimes even splitting to reveal the shoot that will eventually rise upward—reflexively and brilliantly circling whatever it touches for support.

Preparing the soil for the planter is the main work in the planting of morning glories. Melissa and I go down to the compost pile and the leaf mulch pile. We shovel some of the broken down matter onto a screen and sift it through to remove the roots and rocks and debris, leaving only a fine mixture of the two in the wheel barrow beneath. We add some soil from another part of the garden, then a small amount of commercial growing mix, then wheel the barrow back to the garage to fill the oblong planters that I hang beneath the pergola each year.

That’s the hard work. Then we fit the planters into their sustaining brackets and poke shallow finger holes in the soft soil. Two holes at the base of each string with five strings (already strung from the planters edge to the top of the pergola) per rectangular planter. Each string only needs one plant to fill it lushly, but we plant two just in case. Most of the seeds will sprout, but since morning glories don’t like to be transplanted, it’s better to have a little insurance.

The wet seeds wet our fingers and the loose soil clings to our skin as we carefully place one small growing seed in each dark home and cover it over. We then plant sweet alyssum seedlings (also grown from seed but started indoors exactly on April 16^th) in the front of the planters. These prolific plants will be covered by small white blossoms and will look pretty as well as shade the roots of the morning glories to preserve the moisture the summer tangle of leaves will need.

Each seed that we plant with our dirty wet fingers will grow (if it sprouts) into a climbing vine perhaps twenty feet long with more heart shaped leaves than one could reasonably count. These dark seeds are the catalyst that transforms water, soil and sun into this particular miracle of intelligence and engineering. And each seed was harvested from the seed of a morning glory last year which was harvested from a morning glory the year before and so on back to the shrouded beginnings of morning glories and plants—even, if you go far enough back, to the mysterious beginnings of the earth and the cosmos. Each seed arising from the primordial chaos.

If we’re lucky, the blossoms will come in mid-to-late summer. Sometimes they arrive earlier and sometimes they wait until just four or five weeks before the cold weather that will kill them. I still haven’t understood the all variables.

But now, the morning glory vines have climbed their assigned strings and reached the top of the pergola. The alyssum plants are in full (and fragrant) bloom at their base. I’ll water them each morning and wait semi-patiently for the vines and foliage to thicken. The soft azure blossoms that I see so clearly in my mind’s eye, will appear on their own schedule. I’m happy to play a supporting role in the ongoing drama.

Personal Practice – Take a moment and look around you. Notice how everything you see has a story behind it—where it came from, when it arrived, who was involved. Pick one object that catches your attention and remember its story. See how far back you can trace its arising. What you don’t know, let yourself imagine. Then take a moment to thank this particular thing and all the people that allowed it to come into being.

Speaking the Truth

I was relieved to hear Dr. Anthony Fauci being interviewed yesterday morning on NPR. To hear a voice that was neither hysterical nor partisan was a relief. Even our state governor, Charlie Baker, who has done a pretty good job during the pandemic, is a politician and I’m always conscious that part of his calculation is angling for the next election.

Dr. Fauci has come forward in this pandemic as quite the hero. An infectious disease expert and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, he has advised every President since Ronald Reagan. To have survived so many changing political climates, Dr. Fauci too must be a political adept. Through the course of his long career, Dr. Fauci has been demonized as well as adored. In the AIDS crisis in the 80’s, Dr. Fauci was the public face of a government whose policies were ignoring the deadly urgency of this emerging disease. He received death threats, was burned in effigy and was the target of the frustration and anguish of nearly all AIDS activists.

In his NPR interview with Rachel Martin, Dr. Fauci was clear and measured in his responses and in his assessment of our current situation. His main message was that we’re still in the middle of dealing with this deadly disease. There are encouraging new treatments that seem to be making the course of the disease slightly less deadly and progress toward an effective vaccine is moving quickly. But the rise in cases and hospitalizations is a trend we all need to be concerned with, and our behaviors are the biggest thing we can do to keep each other safe.

But I was most impressed with Dr. Fauci when he was asked if President Trump’s behavior in not wearing a mask and in downplaying the necessity to social distance wasn’t part of the problem. I was hoping that this trusted expert would use his bully pulpit to speak the ‘truth’ and condemn the outrageous behaviors of our current President. But Dr. Fauci did speak the truth when he responded:

 You know, Rachel, you’re right; it is an uncomfortable question, and it’s not helpful for me to be pointing fingers at leaders, except to say that – just my message. I wear a mask. I’m a public health official. For better or worse, I’m very visible. So I want to set the example that people need to do that. And they keep – have to keep hearing. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to be on your show to continue to say that to your listeners, that this is extremely important.

What a brilliant, kind and effective response. To condemn Trump might have been satisfying, but it would have taken the focus away from the opportunity he had in that moment to convey ‘just my message’: the virus is real, our behaviors matter and public officials need to set an example. That he managed to not take the bait also means that he may get to keep his job and may be able to continue to be a voice of reason and urgency at the highest level of government.

So this morning, I’m thinking about how all of us can continue to exercise our power in our speech and in our actions rather than being sidetracked by our outrage and anger. Blame and retribution do not move the world forward, they only continue the vicious cycle. As tempting and well-deserved as our condemnations may be, what is most important to remember what is most important. Without ignoring the very real problems around us, can we stay focused on the power of our own words and actions? In this way, we move out of helplessness and despair and begin to behave our way into a world of respect and safety for all.

Personal Practice – As you read the paper, listen to the radio or watch the news on TV, notice how easily it is to move into outrage or despair. Notice how viscerally the surge of feeling arises. It may be heat or oppressive heaviness or something else. Notice how easy it is to want to blame and demean others—how we naturally want to respond in kind to the insult and injury we feel. Right here, within you, are the seeds of violence and war. And is it possible for you, when this heat rises, to not be carried away with your own feelings? Can you allow everything to be here, take a few breaths and then remember what is most important? What is the message you choose to convey to the world?

Nothing Really Works

Of all the many techniques and perspectives I know to help us live healthy and meaningful lives, none of them really work. I mean none of them solve the basic conundrum in which we find ourselves: suffering and death are unavoidable. Our mortality and our discomfort are the background hum of our lives. No matter how busy or accomplished or distracted we are, we cannot outrun these inevitabilities.

All the spiritual teachings I know bring these realities to the forefront and include them as part of the path. The Tibetan Lojong teachings, a set of spiritual exercises developed in 12^th century Tibet, include these two inconvenient facts right at the outset. The first Lojong instruction is called ‘Training in the Preliminaries’. This is a set of four reminders that Norman Fischer translates in like this:

1. The rarity and preciousness of human life
2. The absolute inevitability of death
3. The awesome and indelible power of our actions
4. The inescapability of suffering

I find these reminders strangely comforting—some kind of middle way between fatalism (death and suffering) and pernicious positivism (precious and awesome). They create the possibility of including everything in a dynamic and stable foundation from which to live our lives.

The rarity and preciousness of human life reminds us of the multitude of other life forms that fill our world. Not just the animals, birds, fish and plants, but the vast microbial world of life that weaves us into ourselves and into the world itself. Out of all these possible life forms, we all find ourselves in this human form. Though being human can be difficult and confusing, it is also said that only in this human that we can wake up to the wonder and beauty of life. One teacher imagines throngs of unborn beings eagerly awaiting the opportunity of being incarnated as a human to be able to know and sing praises to the divine.

Remembering the absolute inevitability of death keeps everything in perspective. Knowing we have a finite amount of time before we disappear from this world can help us hold all the grand drama of our lives a little more lightly. The brevity of a life, even a life of ninety or a hundred years, can allow us to appreciate whatever is happening in this passing moment–even, perhaps, the difficult parts.

The awesome and indelible power of our actions reminds us that though we may feel powerless in the face of a world that is beyond our control, what we do, what we say and what we pay attention to has an impact beyond conception. This reminds us of the power and responsibility we have to participate in creating our lives and in helping to shape the world around us. The choices we make in response to what we encounter define the quality and form of our lives.

Calling to mind the inescapability of suffering allows us to relax. Our innate pursuit of comfort and avoidance of discomfort is ultimately exhausting. Of course it is good to take care of and to be kind to ourselves. But when we can be comfortable with being uncomfortable, life is much easier. We don’t have to wear ourselves out with worry and effort. Sometimes we feel good. Sometimes we feel bad. Through all the different internal weather patterns, we stay focused on what is most precious and important as best we can.

I suppose this too is a technique that won’t really ‘work’—won’t change the reality of suffering and death. But it is one of the many wisdom paths that can include and transform these existential problems into a foundation from which to build a life of meaning, purpose and joy.

Personal Practice – Write down these four phrases and hold them with you as you go through your day.  See which one is most resonant at any time.  Notice the impact of remembering these fundamental truths has on how you meet your day.  If this practice intrigues you, pick up Norman Fischer’s wonderful book TRAINING IN COMPASSION which is his Zen take on these Tibetan Buddhist Lojong teachings.