After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

I have been reading a book by Jack Kornfield called "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry". Jack was the author of another book called "A Path with Heart" that was a huge influence on my spiritual path many years ago, and I'm finding this other book to be equally profound. He speaks to my early experiences with spiritual awakening, helping me better understand some of what I experienced in the past as well as my current spiritual path. After we have a profound, blissful, ecstatic spiritual experience, what next? His answer - do the laundry. The mundane affairs of life become our spiritual practice.

If we have felt the bliss of awakening to the way things really are, our next task is not to live in that state of bliss. It is to take the magic we have experienced and bring it into our lives. Having climbed the mountain and seen the view, we then need to come down the mountain to live our lives. But we can also share a bit of the light we've been given. That doesn't mean we have to preach it (though we can); it means we simply live and let that light shine through us. We embrace the mundane and live our lives with the fresh perspective we have been given.

There is so much I love about the book, but I'll just share a couple of pieces. In speaking about flexibility of mind and heart, Jack relates an experience he had with one of his early spiritual teachers:

The dogmatic and rigid qualities of religious fervor give way to the middle path, with a wise presence that is neither indulgent nor fearful.

My teacher Ajahn Chah demonstrated this flexibility when he was most inconsistent, contradicting things he had previously said, reversing teachings he had earlier emphasized. When this was pointed out to him by a frustrated student (me), Ajahn Chah laughed. "It's like this," he said. "There is a road I know well, but it can be foggy or dark. When I see someone traveling this road about to fall in a ditch or get lost in a sidetrack on the right-hand side, I call out, 'Go to the left.' Similarly, if I see someone about to fall in a ditch or get lost in a sidetrack on the left-hand side, I call out, 'Go to the right.' That's all I do when I teach. Whenever you get caught, I say, 'Let go of that too.' "

For years before I left the church of my childhood, I felt that church leaders painted with too broad a brush. At the time, I thought it was a necessary aspect of trying to teach so many people at once, but I think it also comes from a codified creed that begins to feel rigid as soon as it has been written down. Having the flexibility to change your teachings to suit the circumstances of your hearer(s) feels so liberating to me. I love how one yoga teacher handled that - from another part of the book:

Religious traditions often warn us about the dangers of entanglement with the senses, and it is true that we can become overly attached and identified with this body and its pleasures. Our culture has exploited this to an extreme. But in spiritual circles the opposite danger of aversion, fear, and unconsciousness is perhaps even more common. There is, as the Buddha suggests, a middle path to be found in each of our lives. One yoga teacher paused in the midst of teaching a difficult stretch to caution her students, "You strivers here, relax. And you sensualists, straighten up."

Speaking to an entire class, this woman recognized the diversity of personalities among her hearers and tailored her message to the specific tendencies of students. In my early religion, we often heard encouragements to do more, to be of greater service, to strive to be better, etc. Those of us who were already trying hard, sometimes at the edge of exhaustion, would hear these messages and feel burdened. But we kept trying. No doubt there are many who need to hear those messages, but I wasn't one of them. Or maybe I was when I was very young, but I reached a point where I didn't need those messages anymore. But they just kept coming. It would have been nice if we had had more flexibility to call out, "go left" or "go right" instead of "work harder".

Here's another gem from the book:

Zen teacher Edward Espe Brown is the author of many Zen-inspired cookbooks, beginning with The Tassajara Bread Book. Through describing his kitchen practice, he writes of the truths of the heart.

When I first started cooking at Tassajara, I had a problem. I couldn't get my biscuits to come out the way they were supposed to. I'd follow a recipe and try variations, but nothing worked. These biscuits just didn't measure up.

Growing up I had made two kinds of biscuits. One was from Bisquick and other from Pillsbury. For the Bisquick you added milk in the mix and then blobbed the dough in spoonfuls onto the pan - you didn't even need to roll them out. The biscuits from Pillsbury came in kind of a cardboard can. You rapped the can on the corner of the counter and it popped open. Then you twisted the can open more, put the premade biscuits on a pan, and baked them. I really liked those Pillsbury biscuits. Isn't that what biscuits should taste like? Mine weren't coming out right.

It's wonderful and amazing the ideas we get about what biscuits should taste like, or what a life should look like. Compared to what? Canned biscuits from Pillsbury? Leave It to Beaver? People who ate my biscuits would extoll their virtues, eating one after another, but to me these perfectly good biscuits just weren't right.

Finally one day came a shifting-into-place, an awakening. "Not right" compared to what? Oh, my word, I'd been trying to make canned Pillsbury biscuits! Then came an exquisite moment of actually tasting my biscuits without comparing them to some previously hidden standard. They were wheaty, flaky, buttery, sunny, earthy, real. They were incomparably alive - in fact, much more satisfying than any memory. 

These occasions can be so stunning, so liberating, these moments when you realize your life is just fine as it is, thank you. Only the insidious comparison to a beautifully prepared, beautifully packaged product made it seem insufficient. Trying to produce a biscuit - a life - with no dirty bowls, no messy feelings, no depression, no anger, was so frustrating. Then savoring, actually tasting the present moment of experience - how much more complex and multifaceted. How unfathomable.

As Zen students we spent years trying to make it look right, trying to cover the faults, conceal the messes. We knew what the Bisquick Zen student looked like: calm, buoyant, cheerful, energetic, deep, profound. Our motto, as one of my friends said, was, "looking good." We've all done it, trying to look good as a husband, a wife or parent. Trying to attain perfection. Trying to make Pillsbury biscuits.

Well, to heck with it, I say. Wake up and smell the coffee. How about some good old home cooking, the biscuits of today.

When we accept our place in the mandala of the whole, we come back to just where we are. And in this is found joy, ease, simplicity, and courage, and what T.S. Eliot calls the freedom "to care and not to care." 

Pretty cool, huh? That's just a small sample. This book is going to be another of my spiritual staples. I love Jack's perspective on life and his ability to convey its essence with simplicity and love.

If you get a chance to read the book, let me know what you think. If it doesn't work for you, that's ok. I think it's beautiful, the work of a beautiful soul. Thanks, Jack, for casting a bit of light along my path.

Educated

I just finished reading "Educated: A Memoir" by Tara Westover. It's a story of the author's experiences as a girl raised in the mountains of Idaho by survivalist Mormon parents. It's a fascinating and psychologically penetrating account of some of her formative experiences, both beautiful and abusive, and her long journey to move beyond the confines of the subculture in which she was raised. It was difficult to read for many reasons, and I found myself crying multiple times, both for Tara and for myself.

Tara was raised by a father who sounds like he was mentally ill and a mother who supported and enabled his extreme views. They are not bad people. They are products of their biology and of the culture in which they were raised. Tara doesn't appear to blame them; in fact, she seems more open than I felt in allowing for some of the unhealthy behaviors they and others in her family exhibited. In reading her account, I found myself wondering how I could have a more forgiving attitude like her. And I found myself identifying with her experiences, both as a child who experienced less than ideal circumstances and was subjected to some extreme views, and also as the parent who inherited and/or learned some extreme views and passed them on to his children.

If you have read the book, you know that Tara's situation was pretty bad. There are people who suffer abuse much worse, and many who suffer much less. I suppose it's possible there are some children who do not feel they were abused at all. But I'm in the camp of those who suffered less than her. I'm not a martyr. My experiences were far less extreme than hers in almost every way. My parents were good people. They had their challenges, but they did the best they could with what they were given. But I still felt a connection to Tara as she described concepts and principles drilled into her by well-meaning parents and physical abuse suffered at the hand of someone who should have been (and sometimes was) her protector. I feared for her every time she went home, and by the end of the book, I wanted to scream at her NOT to go home. Those parts were hard to read.

But the hardest part for me was seeing myself in her parents. Being raised in a conservative religion pushed me to some pretty extreme views years ago, and I still don't really know what kind of damage I have done to my wife and children as a result. I bought into some conspiracy theories to explain discrepancies between what I saw in society and what I believed a "good" society should look like. My upbringing had taught me to avoid (and sometimes fear) the sinful ways of the world, which set up an us-vs-them mindset that cast me in the role of hero, armed with truth and right, fighting the evils in the world to make the world a better place. The black and white thinking that I inherited along with reverence for authority didn't mesh well with the critical thinking skills I learned later in college. Not that religion and open-mindedness are fundamentally incompatible, but eventually, my search for truth led me to another extreme view - of skepticism of our ability to know anything, which ultimately led me to question and dismantle the rest of my extreme views. And this letting go dissolved the boundaries, connecting me with a world that was more beautiful and loving than the one I had been taught to fear.

I can't comment on the truth of various conspiracy theories. Some are probably true. Most feel false. I can only definitively talk about how they affected me. I was not happy when I explored and embraced them. I was motivated by fear. Those ideas helped me find a mechanism for explaining the degradation of society that would ultimately lead to the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ. This was driven in part by teachings from the Bible and church leaders and partly by my own experiences. From a young age, my relationships with people outside of my church had somewhat inoculated me against the us-vs-them mentality, but I couldn't reconcile a growing sense of the goodness of people with what the Bible said about society's future state leading to Armageddon. Conspiracies filled the gaps. But they left me with a feeling of us-vs-them in a different way. Fear and suspicion tended to crowd out love and acceptance, and my life was pretty dark. My final reconciliation came by letting go of the idea of the end of the world, among other things. Not that the world won't end someday - it will because everything does. It's just that my concept of the world's end is no longer colored by religious teachings. And there is no more division in my mind. We're all just people.

Some of what Tara talks about in her journey is a transition from a black/white mindset to an open and inquiring mindset. I started life the same way. Certainty, dogma, black/white, truth/lies, good/bad, right/wrong, in/out, us/them - these were fundamental to my world view. I can't say how much of this came from my religion, how much from my family, and how much from the larger society, but I'm pretty sure all three of them were instrumental for me. It was a long, slow process of maturing for me to move beyond this fundamental paradigm. To dissolve the boundaries that separate us. To step into the dark and realize the world is so much brighter than I had imagined.

And the process is ongoing. I realized recently that I am still driven by some psychological baggage that was buried at a very early age. Two ideas stand out to me: 1) There is never enough and 2) I am not enough. I think Tara's book helped me uncover those. My scarcity mindset has been challenging for me and my family, and I am getting better at letting those impulses go. I'm hopeful I can transcend that idea completely one day - hopefully soon. But the idea that I am somehow not worthy or good enough is deeply seated and bleeds into so many aspects of my life in subtle ways. I think that I may struggle with that one for quite some time - possibly the rest of my life.

Growing up is hard - whether on an individual level or as a society. I think segments of our society are on the verge of social adulthood and some are firmly stuck in the teenage years, or maybe even the toddler years. Hardline thinking and dogma are powerful forces in our society right now. It's hard to hear one another because we make enemies of anyone who disagrees with us. But what if we dissolved the boundaries? Wouldn't it be nice to live in a world with fewer (or no) boundaries? What if we could tear down the walls that separate us long enough to listen to one another without feeling the need to judge them or prove them wrong if they disagree with us? What if we sought out sources of information that challenged our world view? What if we let go of the need to be right, or even the need for certainty, and allowed the other view to be heard and validated? We don't have to agree with each other. We just need to listen with respect.

We don't see things the same, but we are all trying to do our best with what we have. Maybe we can open our minds, drop our judgment, and through kindness, respect, and compassion build a better world. Together.

The Kids are Home

Our kids are home for the summer. Two weeks ago, I was traveling for work and three of our kids were gone. Our oldest was still in Georgia after finishing his spring semester; our second was on a trip to Germany and had stopped in Georgia for a week to visit some friends; and our youngest was on a cruise with one of her friends. All of this travel is really unusual for us, so it was a little weird that it all happened at the same time. Two weeks ago, my wife and third child were the only ones home, and the house was really quiet. Then I came home on Friday (May 27). Our youngest came home on Sunday (May 29), and our oldest two came home on Monday (May 30). Now all six of us are home for the first time since Christmas, and it has been a lot louder ... and a lot of fun.

Our dinner conversations this last week have been a little crazy. For example, a couple of nights ago our youngest randomly said, "On a scale of one to ten, what's your favorite color of the alphabet?" Without missing a beat, our second child said, "Honestly, yes." We all started laughing. My kids are nuts.

Last night, our two oldest made cupcakes. They made the cake rainbow-colored, and they made rainbow-colored frosting. And my daughter made GLBTQ flags to stick in them. Then we watched a movie while eating PRIDE-themed cupcakes in honor of PRIDE month. For the most part, our kids are supportive of people who make alternative lifestyle choices, and I'm grateful for that.

My kids are crazy, but it has been nice having them all home. Sometimes it's a struggle working through their problems with them. Sometimes it's emotionally heavy. Sometimes the challenges make me sad, sometimes angry. And sometimes it's amazing to step back and see how they've grown and matured.

My oldest is almost done with college, and it is really cool to see him excited about what he's doing in school. My second is developing confidence as she slowly steps into adulthood, learning to travel on her own and figuring out what she wants to do with her life. My third child is becoming more kind as he grows in his awareness of others and our interconnectedness. And my youngest is learning about the transitory nature of life as she works through the social challenges of high school. As difficult as it is being a parent, I really am grateful to have those four kids in my life. And I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the summer listening to their insane dinner conversations.

Epic Grand Canyon Trip

We went camping at the Grand Canyon with our two daughters and a friend of our youngest. We were invited by my sister and her family who were visiting the area from Seattle. We left Thursday and planned to come back Saturday. Today is Sunday.

View of the Grand Canyon at sunset

Here's a little bit of what happened on the trip. It was pretty epic, so I thought I'd better document it for posterity (and for your amusement). I've color-coded the positive and negative aspects of the trip for your reading pleasure.

• Our cooler broke on the drive to the canyon
• We saw a ton of elk near the campsite the first night - they were beautiful
• We later saw more elk, wild horses, and crows (one of which tried to eat our Cheerios box)
• We had a campfire Thursday night with extended family, s'mores, jokes, and songs accompanied by a ukulele
• The stars at night were incredible
• I haven't seen that many stars in the sky in years
• The first night, we went to find a bathroom after dark. We knew there was one near the registration area, so we hiked there only to find it was locked. On our way back, we got lost, thankfully stumbled on an open bathroom, and eventually found our way back to camp.
• There was wind and rain overnight
• Multiple bathroom breaks in the middle of the night were more fun with a little rain
• The car battery was dead in the morning - we still don't know why
• Friday was COLD and very windy
• The forecasted high for Friday was 67, but it probably didn't get above 47
• It's usually mid- to high-80s this time of year
• Nobody was prepared for how cold it was
• Most people ended up wearing their pajamas on Friday for warmth
• My youngest daughter forgot to bring a sweatshirt and blanket and ended up borrowing one of my layers (and the picnic blanket) for the rest of the trip
• Our lighter ran out of fuel partway through the day
• We went to see the canyon, which was breathtaking
• We did some hiking, saw some amazing views, bought a beautiful print of the canyon at sunset, and soaked in the wonder of the place
• Along the way, my daughter's friend found multiple opportunities to flirt with death in order to capture stupid photos (which turned out pretty cool)
• A hot chocolate stop midday made the cold more bearable
• We came back to camp for lunch to find the wind thrashing our tents, tearing out the stakes (one of the tents was completely blown over), and threatening to carry them to some other part of the park
• We fixed the tents, had lunch, and started seriously contemplating leaving a day early because it was so freaking cold
• We went driving in the afternoon and saw a lot of other views of the canyon. Each one was pretty mind-blowing.
• We headed back to camp with most of us feeling like it was time to go home because the cold and wind were so uncomfortable. We finally decided to cut the trip short (it was supposed to be a two-night trip, but ...), and as we were breaking camp, it started snowing and hailing pretty heavily. Not crazy heavy, but enough to make things uncomfortable.
• Frozen fingers trying to zip up bags
• Mud everywhere
• Hail in the bags, which would mean later drying out at home
• Keep in mind, this is Arizona ...
• We finally shoved all of the luggage in the car and in a roof rack carrier we had borrowed from a friend
• As we drove off, we discovered that the straps of the roof carrier weren't tight enough and were making noise in the wind. The noise was a bit like having a bunch of angry wasps in the car with us.
• As we're thinking about how to handle this new development on our way out of the park, someone rear-ended us. No one was hurt (except for a bit of a banged-up knee), but we had to get out and take care of that. Thankfully, the guy who hit us was very apologetic and really nice.
• We saw a dead elk on the side of the road on our way out
• We ended up stopping about 4-5 times trying to fix the stupid roof carrier. Somehow, we had made it work on the drive up, but we couldn't get it to work on the drive back.
• Finally, we pulled it off and stuffed everything in the car because we felt like spatial comfort wasn't as important as stopping the noise.
• We stopped for dinner (where the lines were long and the restrooms had no toilet paper), and my daughter's friend lost her phone, which set off a scramble. Thankfully, we found it in an obscure place in the now-slightly-cramped car.
• According to my youngest, the most traumatic experience of the entire trip was that her fortune cookie from dinner didn't have a fortune in it.
• As you can see, it was a rough trip ... :)

We ended up getting home around midnight on Friday. I think the negative events outnumbered the positive events by at least 2:1. But the positives were awesome. And the negatives were funny (we laughed a lot on the way home as we talked about how crazy the trip was). It turns out, there's no such thing as negative. Maybe Shakespeare was right when he wrote, "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

Overall, the trip was awesome. We will definitely be going back sometime for more views, more hiking, and the incredibly starry skies.

Starry skies at the Grand Canyon

Life Changes

Life has taken some unexpected turns in the last couple of years. It has kept me busy enough that I haven't had the presence of mind to write in this blog for a LONG time. In just over 2 years, I have gone through three job changes, and we moved our family from Georgia (where we had lived for 18 years) to Arizona.

The changes have been good, and we're enjoying our new home. We have all made new friends, and the kids are doing really well with the transition. We left our oldest in Georgia where he's going to college, and our second child is living at home while attending college nearby. The younger two are in high school and stay incredibly busy with friends, school, and extracurricular stuff.

Each job has taught me a lot, and I'm grateful I've had each opportunity. I never intended to change jobs so quickly, but for different reasons, each change seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I started my current job about a month ago, and I'm really excited about the opportunity. It's a startup, and the company is poised for growth, so things are getting exciting there.

I'm really glad I learned to meditate several years ago. My practice has been really grounding for me and has helped me to meet these changes with stability of mind. I've realized more and more how little control I have over my life's course. I think my meditation practice has also helped me to let go of the illusion of control and the need to control.

Life is funny. It's unexpected. It's always surprising me and teaching me. And it's a really fun ride.