The Shipwright’s Dream

Do you ever receive dreams that seem to be either transmissions from a source external to you, or dreams that seem intended for a different recipient?

I do, all the time.

I have what I consider “my” dreams- dreams where the landscape is familiar, the characters are recurring or recognizable from my “waking” life, the issues are “my” issues, or the craziness and play and disjointedness are all familiar, repetitive, reflexive patterns easily identified as arising out of my own territory of mental constructs.

The airplane crash dream.

The Japanese Hotel elevator dream.

The cop dreams.

The Coast Guard dreams.

The Farm dreams.

The Grandparent dreams.

On and on they go.

But sometimes I get a dream that is just totally unfamiliar to me. I’m a five year old girl in an all girls school and I’m worried about my pet cat who needs surgery to remove the rabbit ears growing out of its head. I’m an old lady standing in a grocery store and I can’t read any of the labels on the food and I’ve forgotten to put on my shoes and when I rummage in my purse for my money the purse is jammed full of shoes that I keep pushing out of the way. I have no money.

And really, where the juice is in dreamtime is in the emotions. It really doesn’t matter what’s objectively happening, it’s what these things make you feel that carries the information. At least in my dreamtime. And the emotions are what’s so strange to me- it doesn’t feel like me in the dreams. It feels like being a little girl. It feels like being an old woman. It feels like being a guy from Lithuania who is trying to get a taxi out of the city but left his wallet in his uncle’s apartment and doesn’t have the key and the uncle has just left for Klaipeda to ship out on a freighter.

I always feel a little bit perturbed by these dreams, while I’m having them, I think. Maybe the perturbation arises after the dream. But it feels invasive. It feels like either I’m on the wrong channel or the wrong channel is being broadcast into my head. And that seems doubly strange to me. Like, if the dreams are a product of my own subconscious but they’re just odd, they’re just unusual- then where does this feeling of alienation or intrusion come from? Am I dreaming these intrusive dreams so they will give rise to this feeling of alienation? Or could they really come from somewhere “outside” of me?

I’ll bet you know what I think.

Yep. I think they really do come from someone else, something else, somewhere else. It’s easy for me to think this because I imagine that everything is kind of empty and permeable and that there’s very little difference between waking life and dream life. What I don’t know is if there’s any meaning to it, or if it’s just random ‘signal leakage’ of some sort.

I think I sound pretty much like anyone who has intrusive thoughts right now. Not that I would admit to having intrusive thoughts. Except inasmuch as dreams are thoughts, and sometimes I have dreams that I don’t identify as “mine.”

Maybe there’s a neurological deficit behind this phenomenon. Do you smell that? Burning feathers?

No, me neither.

***

In the meantime, the path has got me all loosened up around suffering. I still experience it, but I don’t really mind. I keep laughing all the time about what my mind is doing. I don’t take it personally.

I think in some way my relationship to the path has shifted. It’s come inside now, it’s not something “out there” at all. It’s not external to me in any way. It’s totally rubbed in to me, totally permeated my mind. I’m infused. I’m soaking in it.

This is a good thing.

I feel in some sense that I’ve been immunized. I still get sick, but I get a more manageable illness. Perhaps as I continue I will become more and more robust.

I think that is possible.

***

I want to live outside. Sleep under the stars. Get wild again.

Stop wearing pants.

***

Namaste, dreamers!

***

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Seeing the openness in chaos

*

Things are a bit unhinged.

*

I want things to be a certain way for me to be comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with this. I like things to be orderly in my home. I like it to be neat as a pin, and I like it to be restful and beautiful.

There is now only the distant memory of when this place used to be like that. And I don’t mean that just for the past few weeks since The Wild Woman’s return with the grandkids and all of that chaos. It’s much deeper and longer-standing than that. That’s just the most recent layer. But for the last three years I’ve let the house fall down around our ears and the garden grow up wild around the house. Chaos has established a strong foothold and now I’m too listless and bored to take things in hand and chase it back out to the street. We’ve got one foot out the door as it were, and the weight and inertia of all that needs doing just makes me want to light the whole mess on fire and head for the hills.

Everywhere I look I see an ever-growing laundry list of chores to do, things to repaint, repair, rebuild. And when I do muster the energy to clean the stove or the counters or the bathroom or the floors, in ten minutes the baby destroyers of clean have undone my work with glee.

I’m curiously dead to it inside. I’m profoundly uncomfortable, but I’ve grown used to the chaos and I’m doing nothing to stop it now. Entropy increases.

Still, within this kind of physical and psychic discomfort with my nest and unhappiness with myself for letting it get into this kind of shape, I feel real joy in the midst of it all. I can let go of that discomfort when I see my grandkids laughing, playing with toy dinosaurs in the wild weeds and dirt, and I’m sanguine about spills and messes and broken shit when everything is a mess already anyway. And I know it’s all temporary. I have a huge amount of work in front of me that is going to start very soon, and a few months from now the house will be sold and we’ll be in our new portable, go anywhere nest, and we’ll be alone together again.

Peace will reign. Beauty and balance will be restored.

And meanwhile, let the shit-storm rage! I’m not able to control what’s happening, so I’m letting it roll, and trying to let it roll off of me. Sitting helps. Beer helps, too. But not as much as sitting. Sometimes it’s all I can do, though, so I do that. What the fuck.

I took old girl out to the woods this weekend, and it was lovely, dark, and deep. We tried to go to Big Sur, but it was just Big Disneyland from San Simeon to Carmel. We saw the thousands of cars parked along every beach access point and campground and pull-out and tourist trap and we looked at each other and said, “Fuck it!” and kept driving. We ended up having a beautiful lunch (beautiful, not delicious, but hey.) at the café at Nepenthe, then we drove hell and back out through this army base, Fort Hunter Ligget, and into the Los Padres National Forest and kind of hit Big Sur from the backside, from the east. We found a mostly empty campsite in the middle of nowhere and we spent the night outside talking and listening and comparing our north nodes- both correctly and not-so-correctly as it turns out- but we had a hell of a nice time. Hiked around some, sat by a beautiful creek and watched California newts free-fall through the water in slow motion, listened to the gurgling water, and reveled in the companionable silence and the taste of days to come.

*

This parenting gig is non-harmonious for us, too. How much can we do, how much should we do, how much more can we stand? No easy answers. Just doing it, again and again, like getting into the same bathwater for twenty-five years in a row.

Still, what I’m getting at here is this looseness, this easy-goingness that has arisen in me. Shit’s all difficult, but at the same time it’s just shit happening. And in the middle of the storm there’s a cup of coffee, there’s a Star Trek re-run on Netflix, there’s a tickle-fest with the boys, there’s a shared glance, a held hand, a meal that’s not too bad and you get to sit through almost all the way. There’s peace to be found in there, wedged in the spinning, thrashing gears. You can’t reach in and grab it or you’ll get your goddamned arm ripped off, so you just watch as it briefly rises up out of the chaos and then descends again, and you breathe it in and then you breathe it out, release it, and let the chaos do its beautiful work on you and all the world.

I’m letting go of the steering wheel. You might think we’re going to crash, but we’re going to crash anyway.

I’m gonna stick my head out the window like the nervous little poodle I am and watch the mayhem unfold as it will.

***

What are your plans?

***

Love, goddamn it. All love, all the time, and fuck the rest of it in the ear.

***

Woot.

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Retreat re-entry

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So, back from retreat.

A week in the woods near Badger, population 140. Seven Circles retreat center.

We began each day at 6 am with an hour and a half of practice- for me this was prostration practice, just like always. Then breakfast, then another session, then a teaching, then lunch, then another session, then another session, then dinner, then another session, then a small group meeting, then study, then lights out at 10:30 pm.

Lots of practice. Lots of prostrations. Lots of Dharma. Some noble silence, some talking. Rubbing away the hard edges, burnishing, burnishing, burnishing, revealing the radiance that has always been there.

I am that radiance.

Of course, there isn’t any me there to be that radiance at all. At most, I’m this hollow mirage through which the radiance manifests.

And I’m still, at the same time, just the same old ordinary tearful dishwasher.

***

It’s hard to overstate how much I got out of this retreat. I wonder if any of you will experience the benefits from it- I certainly had you there with me for every prostration, could hear you reciting with me for every prayer. If you haven’t felt it yet, then start paying attention- something big is coming your way.

All I got, which was enormous, I dedicate to the benefit of all beings, I give it away to everyone. May you be happy!

***

I want to thank my wife for letting me take this time in the middle of a very difficult moment in our lives. It was a big ask, and she totally supported me. I am so grateful to her.

She’s a pretty big deal around here.

***

I hope you’re not getting sick of me, all this Buddhist stuff, not so much blood and guts and angst around here any more. Kind of quieter, more tranquil. I won’t be mad if you fall asleep.

I’ll bring you a blanket and a pillow.

***

I’m back in the real world, and I gotta tell you, it’s all just exactly how it is!

*

There’s so much unsaid here, like when you look out at the ocean, you know all that mass of water and life that’s underneath what you can see- the surface is just a thin little scrim…

Namaste.

***

For each other

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Look for the light.

*

I tend to think of myself as good, as basically good and sound and sane, and kind of under constant assault by an outer world that is basically not very good- a world where stupid people doing stupid things in stupid ways are always threatening my own happiness and sense of things being okay. I tend to fundamentally believe that I’m good and if I could just be left alone I would be happy pretty much all the time, I’d have things figured out, I’d be good.

But there are people at work who don’t get me, who don’t understand how hard I’m working, how much I have on my plate, how things look from my perspective- they’ve got their own prejudices and those blind them to how things are and so they’re a huge pain in my ass and I wish they’d just leave me alone.

Same thing with the people in my family. Same thing with the people on television, on the news. The corporation people in their big corporation buildings being all corporationy. The medical community. The military industrial complex. Republicans. Democrats. Iranians. Serbs. These people, those people.

I’m good.

They are not.

*

What’s maybe not so easy to realize is that we carry this kind of irritated, aggressive stance with us in our encounters with each other. There’s a subtle aggression and distancing in how we look at each other. In the most intimate setting, in the simple act of encounter. Our minds are under siege, and we’re distrustful, guarded, on edge, and that colors how we engage with each other. I’m not saying you’re a bad person, not that, no, probably you’re fine, that’s why we’re friends, it’s those others, it’s everyone else, and aren’t they terrible- here’s what they’ve been doing to me! And what did they do to you?

This is like, eighty percent of every conversation we ever have.

By we and us I’m saying me. This is what I do. This is how I behave.

*

Imagine instead what it’s like when you encounter someone who is genuinely happy to see you. Who sees you, really sees you directly. How we open to that experience, how we relax into it, how it can be like a fresh breeze blowing into a dank, shut-up room. We’ve all had this experience.

It’s heavenly.

It’s healing.

*

I don’t think this should be or needs to be such an exceptional encounter. It could be how we treat everyone. How everyone looks at us. But it isn’t going to happen, I’m never going to encounter this or give this experience to others as long as I maintain my siege mentality, as long as I continue to view the outer world as dangerous and threatening and trying to harm me. And this requires a huge shift in our thinking, in our way of being, of relating to the world and to experience.

It requires courage. It requires of me a willingness to be directly hurt by what and who I encounter. I really do have to drop my shield and my sword and stand before you empty handed- as long as I keep my sword and shield gripped in my hands I can only see you as my subtle enemy. Maybe you’re not trying to kill me right now, but I’m going to keep my eyes on you all the same.

But if I can do this, if I can let go of all that and not try to protect myself at all, then I have a shot at actually seeing you as you are. And maybe that’s good and maybe that’s not so good, but at least it is how you are and not how I imagine you are. This stance allows me to at least have a chance of meeting you in a way that doesn’t harm you, either, that allows you to be seen.

Which might encourage you to drop your shield an inch or two. You don’t have to put it down all the way yet. But you might really meet my eyes over the edge of the shield and feel something happening inside. That opening feeling, that sense of ease, of healing.

The thing is that I’m the one who is responsible for the aggression and fear that surrounds me. I bring it with me in every single encounter I have with the outside world.

Maybe this resonates with you a little bit.

If it does, I want to encourage you to try this with the next person you encounter. Drop your shield, just totally drop it, and open your arms to them, stand naked before them, and try to see who it is you’re dealing with. You don’t have to love them up, you don’t have to have a big goofy smile on your face, you don’t have to act in any way at all. Just be your whole, naked self and be willing to accept whatever is presented to you.

I wonder what this might do to your day?

***

***

I’m headed off for a week of retreat starting Sunday. I’ll be at the Seven Circles retreat center in Badger, CA, with my teacher Khaydroup and a small group of ten other practitioners. This retreat is focused on personal practice, so I’ll be doing lots and lots of prostrations and meditation. We’ll have a daily dharma teaching and we’ll get together for vegetarian meals and we’ll be in a mix of silence and a little bit of talking in small groups.

I’m taking off when my wife, daughter, and grandkids need me to be around for them. I’m leaving them in the lurch. I am so grateful to them for allowing me to go, to spend these few precious days in retreat.

I feel the tug of family obligations every single time I go on retreat. Sometimes I feel bad about this and wish I could just go on retreat without feeling like I”m giving my family the short end of the stick. But actually it’s a lovely and powerful reminder that I’m not a separate thing- I’m part of them, just like I’m part of everything. You can’t tug on one separate thing without having an effect on everything else that is.

So, in that way, I’ll be taking all of you with me into retreat. Because it can’t be avoided but also because I love you and want you there with me. I include you all in my practice because you are my friends and I want you to be happy.

***

Namaste.

***

In the dugout

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I drink too much and I eat too much bad food.

I am lazy.

I am self-cherishing.

I think I’m wonderful.

I think you should recognize me.

I resist change.

I resent things.

***

I should get rid of I.

***

I got this feeling right now of everywhere I look is the dharma. Mind manifesting as mind is inside me and mind manifesting as objects is outside of me and what’s looking in and what’s looking out is mind. I think I’m thinking something and the dharma is there asking me “who’s thinking what?” and I can’t find it. I think I’m looking at something and dharma asks, “who’s looking at what?” and there’s no answer.

The dharma looks at the dharma and asks the dharma questions the dharma can’t answer because there is no dharma.

I sit and look out at mind with mind. I sit and look into mind with mind. I follow the breath with mind and lose following the breath with mind. Mind comes inside the mind with the in breath and mind goes out into the mind with the out breath. I get up with mind and walk around in the display of mind, lose awareness of the mind inside the mind and outside the mind, with the mind.

Mind gets in a bad mood with mind because of the mind. Mind laughs at all this activity and then creates more. Mind seeks comfort in the mind and mind tortures the mind with mind.

Where am I in all of this. Where are you. You’re out there, in my mind. You’re in here, inside my mind with your mind, where I am. All the Buddhas and bodhisattvas are here and here are the hell realms and the hell beings, the hungry ghosts and the gods and the animals and there’s you that doesn’t exist with me that doesn’t exist, samsara and nirvana all dependent upon the endless, dazzling display of mind in mind.

Compassion is in here, kindness, too. Mind takes mind by the hand and leads it towards compassion, leads it towards wisdom, leads it towards equanimity, towards resting in its own nature.

***

What I imagine is this:

Okay that’s not what I imagine because it’s flat and it’s too ordered, so imagine that this image is a cross-section of a sphere and then twist the sphere in on itself a billion times and then expand it to encompass infinity in all directions and scales.

Dude i’m trippin.

***

What’s the point of all of this?

To be a basically good person. To be kind to myself and to others without making any distinction between us. To love in as big a way as possible. To do no harm. To bring an end to all suffering. To stick around and help for as long as help is needed.

***

That seems doable.

***

Here’s a conversation I had with Kaleb last night:

Kaleb: Why you’re policeman, Paw-paw? You fight those other boys? You scared them? They hurting you? You take away the bad mans?”

Tearful: “Yeah, I take away the bad mans. I help the good people.”

Kaleb: “You not scared thems?”

Tearful: “No. Paw-paw is brave.”

Kaleb: “I brave, too, Paw-Paw. I want be policemans.”

Tearful: “Well, if you are brave and good and want to help, you can be a policemans when you grow up.”

Kaleb: “I want be policemans. I be a T-Rex policemans.”

***

Namaste.

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Happy 80th Birthday to HH The Dalai Lama!!

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How fortunate we are to be alive and share this earth with this holy being!

My wish is that we can all let him take up residence in our hearts and guide our thoughts and our conduct, so that we may live with peace inside us, and radiate peace to the world and all beings in it.

***

                                                                    

Last week I dreamed about him. He smiled at me, patted my head a few times, “Yes, yes, yes,” he said to me, laughing.

“Yes, yes, yes.”

***

***

I had the good fortune to attend a three-day teaching on Shentong Madhyamaka with Khenpo Tsering over the July 4th weekend. It was a more in-depth examination of Buddha Nature Mind that we were introduced to with Lama Jampa Thaye’s presentation a few months ago on the Shentong.

Khenpo’s approach was totally different to Lama Jampa’s, so the benefit of getting both views felt profound to me. Both of them are accomplished scholars and practitioners and they impart a very pure Dharma. I feel so lucky to have received these teachings.

Khenpo taught from a text written by the Third Karmapa, called “A Teaching on the Essence of the Tathagatas- The Tathagatagarbha”, which is itself a commentary to “The Treatise that Teaches the Buddha Nature” by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye the Great.

Khenpo gave us a great teaching, going fully into the root text and unpacking each word, each sentence, each stanza, with great care and attention, and providing us with real world, concrete examples and explanations of what can seem quite esoteric when first encountered.

And after the teachings I hung out with my kid and babysat the grandbabies and I managed to fit in a couple of very good practice sessions in the mornings and evenings, so the days were quite full. Life and the teachings and practice all mixed together, like it should be!

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In other news, my wife may soon return from her travels!

Yippie-kai-yay!

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May you be happy, may you be at peace, may you be free from suffering,

and may you bring joy and happiness to everyone you encounter today.

Namaste.

***

photograph of HH Dalai Lama by Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images