From Buddhist Psychology, again:

The Still Center
 

           This evening I went running at dusk, through quiet neighborhoods that smelled crisp like winter and rich like the decay of autumn. For a moment, as I moved, I think I understood something, in a full-being way of ‘understanding,’ like pañña. It might have been equanimity, but I’m not sure. The hush of falling night slanted with the falling season, and emotions barreled through me as I ran: poignant nostalgia, inspiration, longing, bliss. I watched feelings and images storm through my mind and my belly. It was like cinema—I didn’t own them and they were beautiful, and then they left. I kept running. I felt the rhythm of my feet falling, and my breath. Winter’s bite, leaves rotting in gutters, incandescent clouds.

            This week I have playing with the ideas of equanimity and intimacy. For a long time I’ve had an instinctual aversion to the Buddhist idea of equanimity (upekkha). Like many Westerners exposed to Buddhism, the concept of equanimity often strikes me as dry and disengaged. I love the ups and downs of my experience; vividness and feeling are so real. The tranquility of upekkha seems like a dangerously uninspired flat-line. According to the description of equanimity in the Anguttara, for example, a person who has experienced a sense impression from the world or formulated a mind-object should be “neither glad-minded or sad-minded,” and should “[abide] with equanimity, mindful and clearly conscious.” How can I move through the absurdity of my human life and not feel glad or sad? Isn’t the meaning in all of these passing moments to be found precisely in my corresponding internal states of exaltation or poignant sorrow?

            If I shift my understanding of ‘emotion’ and ‘attachment,’ however, I am much more willing to nurture upekkha in my everyday life. In my instinctive interpretation I tend to think that equanimity, in its extinguishment of desire and aversion, somehow lessens my engagement with the events of my human experience—it previously has seemed to me that the abode of equanimity is a cool internal sanctuary, separate from the texture of life that I love. This week in the still fall evening, however, I was able to refashion my understanding of equanimity. Instead of seeing the state of upekkha as one of disengagement from reality, I felt it as surrender and an acceptance of the way that the world truly is. When I identify with a feeling of sorrow, for example, or cling to a passing wave of euphoria, I am distorting the fabric of the moment with desire and delusion. Maybe the abode of equanimity, instead of implying an abandonment of my emotional engagement with a moment, denotes a sort of surrender to reality. Maybe it means that I should simply recognize the complexity of my experience of each moment and then let it flow through me like water. In this way, I can let go of my need for control and engage with the events in my life with more presence and intimacy. It’s like standing at the eye of the hurricane, with the space to truly appreciate the strength and grandeur of its gyre, and with the presence to be plied by wind and keep moving.

            I’m not entirely sure what the Buddha himself would say about this interpretation of upekkha—I am still deeply committed to my emotional responses as spicy and integral to the roller coaster that I love. But maybe a certain quality of observation will allow the ups and downs to flower more organically, and for me to see them and love them and release them, moving forward with poise and compassion.

slant afternoon
falling gestalt of glowing motes
disintegrating
in cold gold live light --
foliage (moments) hinter-spinning
away from home on starling wings
too beautiful
these cries for still water
and remembrance

Five True Things

Last night I biked across the river and through the crisp fall night to Brookline, where I met my friend Liz for coffee and poetry. Liz had just listened to this podcast -- in it, a young poetry teacher encourages her students to list five things that they know are true. You're not supposed to think about it too hard, just write the things that pop into your mind. It can be what you ate for breakfast, or how your fingertips feel.

So we thought we'd try this. We sat with our journals and wrote true things in three minutes or less. Afterwards we surveyed our lists, and were intrigued by the truths that flowed out of our pens. "Caitlin, I don't know if I get your truths," Liz said, "they're so abstract. What if you tried giving examples of each one?"

It was a lovely experiment. Five truths listed quickly, over coffee, somehow freed from the heaviness that the word "truth" can carry. Each truth with three corollaries. I recommend that everyone try this.

Here's my list: 

(1) Everything is made of dreams, light, and something else.
       a. autumn foliage in new england
       b. choices
       c. stories

(2) Objects are loveable.
       a. my blue coffee mug
       b. pens of all kinds
       c. Shiva the teddy bear

(3) Moments are deep.
       a. this one
       b. and this one
       c. this one too

(4) Bridges, mountains, steeples, and lightning have something in common.
       a. "A Noiseless, Patient Spider"
       b. eye-contact
       c. love

(5) I am more than my thoughts.
       a. the weather in my chest
       b. intuition
       c. collar bones

Written for Buddhist Psychology:

Karma and “Faith”

The equinox has passed and the trees are just starting to catch fire on their tips –
colorful reminders that the world is changing and turning. This is, of course, always the
case, but during the last few weeks the whirl and disorientation of transition has been
more acute than usual. My first semester of graduate school is picking up speed, and in
the fervor of work and thought it’s been easy to lose track of the fine thread at connects
my many ‘selves’ through time. Many things seem uncertain. From my academic
interests to my trans-continental relationship, the tenets of my life seem terribly fragile,
almost whimsical in their constructedness.

In this context of indeterminacy, abundant decisions, and almost suspended
selfhood, I’ve found it very interesting to weave the Buddhist idea of karma into my daily
life this week. Broadly speaking, karma means “action” – it was interesting to realize that
much (if not all) of the pain and confusion I’ve been feeling through a time of transition
has to do with deciding how I will act, both in a moment and in the long-term: How am
I going to budget my time? Which classes will I take? Who will I commit to, and how?
What do I want to do with my life? The idea of karma, which melds intention, action,
and result into a single concept, sheds light on the decisions I must make in the midst of
indeterminacy.

Particularly, I found it helpful to shift my attention in my action from external
reality (the circumstances and the result of my actions) to internal reality (the way
that I approach my action in each moment). I found that there was a lot of power and
comfort in surrendering control over circumstances and outcomes. When I look more
internally at my approach and reaction to my action, the question shifts from “What do
I want to do in my life?” to, “What kind of person do I want to become?” This shift in
perspective actually resonates strongly with an argument that Professor Ellen Langer (in
the Psychology department) was making in a class on decision-making that I sat in on
at the beginning of the semester. According to Langer, “cost-benefit analysis is always
retrospective,” “stress is caused by the idea that we have supreme control over the events
in our lives,” and “more and more studies are showing that planning is out.” In social-
scientific terms, Langer was advocating this same turning of focus from circumstance and
outcome to intention.

In our discussion of karma, the idea of confidence or faith (I believe the Pali
word is saddha) was particularly compelling to me, and subject to some internal
experimentation. It makes sense that a surrender of the need to premeditate and control
events and outcomes necessitates an internal state of trust. Particularly, I loved thinking
about “faith without an object.” Therefore, this week, I have tried cultivating faith or
confidence as an attitude or emotion, rather than a transitive state. I have found that,
when I am successful, a difficult moment can be completely transformed into something
positive. Rather than being paralyzed by mutually exclusive options in a network of
stressful decisions, I am able to move through a sequence of events and just… trust. Trust
that the moment is ok, and trust my future selves to deal honestly with future moments. I
hesitate to use words that are charged with Western religious connotations, but I sense a
profound grace in that attitude of faith.

As I move through these transitions, it has thus been very helpful to remind
myself that, despite the fact that I can’t fully anticipate and control circumstances, this
spinning, wobbly clay pot of a ‘self’ that I inhabit is easily plied through intention. I
will continue to remind myself that an attitude of simple, object-less faith can transform
my doubt and stress into a strange, irrational confidence that facilitates movement and
growth.

The Book of Changes

The sky broke open the day I left home—my mom and I bound up my life in packing tape as the lights flickered and the storm grumbled overhead. We held up an umbrella against the blowing rain on the exposed Amtrak platform, hugged and kissed goodbye, and then I boarded the train alone.

My neighbor had chuckled as we were loading up the car with my worldly possessions. “Well, here’s to another chapter,” he said, “Which one is it now? Have you lost track of which one you were on?”

Yes, Larry, I think I may have lost track of the chapters. I graduated from college, I went to South America, I came back, and then I dug my feet into my mountains and my home and my heartland. Somewhere along the way I pushed myself to stop pushing… I immersed myself in family and evergreen forests and love. I was still, less concerned with definition and demarcation. I blossomed.

And now it’s time for me to go. Although a part of me longs to stay sitting forever on the porches of Oregon with a cup of tea, another part of needs meaningful work. I want to understand my ambition and find a place for myself in this ridiculous world. I’m moving east, to Boston, to get a Master’s degree in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.

So the train rocked me through misty, darkened mountains to Oakland, California, where I’ll be until next Saturday, when I move to New England. As I rode, the stormy wind in the trees sounded like the whispered ruffle of pages turning.

The painted hills, Central Oregon

Still Here

It's been too long since I've written (sorry Grandma!). This is my life: I'm footnoting like a fiend, preparing one of my last essays for my graduate school applications. It's about the discourse between the rational intellect and the passionate emotional self. A discourse that I hope is possible. I turned 24 watching the sun rise; I was reluctant to see 2011 go. My motto for 2011 was "it's gonna be fine," but now I don't know anymore... AH. But recently I decided that 2012 can be "year of the wonderful,'' at least on certain days. I was admitted to river rafting guide school, and now officially plan to spend the spring and summer making the river my guru in Sequoia National Forest. I'm working as a "medical records technician" in my hometown of Eugene, Oregon, which means that I listen to This American Life podcasts while scanning images of people's kidney stones. This is in addition to my internship with the Eugene Weekly -- of late I have written about flying squirrel populations in the Pacific Northwest. I drink too much coffee, but that's not new. I read, I sleep (sometimes), and I laugh -- I've also been noticing absurdly beautiful atmospheric projections with strange regularity. I can play two chords on the guitar and I strum them when I have writer's block. I like hot toddies. I am itching for movement and I'm greedy for the whole universe, but I'm trying to be satisfied. This is my home. These are my roots. I love the rain.

January's process is ice, and 

the knobbed oak branches have halos at dawn.

I love too much, I think, and I use a shovel to splinter

the frozen water troughs before driving to work, 

before impressing the things I cannot say onto a

translucent sky. The mist fell last night

while water dripped from every sink in the house

and I listened. The morning is silver and yellow

and I'm walking on fallen mist, longing to

be refracted as the dog's exhalations

glow with greed and life. Cracks scatter quickly 

across the thin ice -- synaptic transmissions

or Buddha fingers, or escape. This 

is the beginning. Every delicate thing has a

glistening edge. The light is growing.