Category: Mindfulness

Tea & Dialogue Basics – Open

The first practice during a weekend online retreat for a cohort of individuals interested in offering Insight Dialogue was a variation that includes sharing tea first. My introduction focused on these basics:

  1. Guidelines: While all of the Insight Dialogue guidelines apply – Pause, Relax, Open, Attune to Emergence, Listen Deeply, and Speak the Truth, I decided to emphasize “Open” in keeping with my desire to have this tea and dialogue practice serve as a form of welcome to our online retreat.
  2. Generosity: With sharing tea it is obvious, but listening deeply and speaking the truth are also generous gifts. In this case, given the practice was being offered online, each of us must necessity make our own tea. Remembering to offer ourselves both respect and appreciation for such intentional acts of self care seems important in these particularly challenging times.
  3. Ichigo Ichi ‘e (One Time / One Meeting in English) – Each meeting is unique and will never recur. That is a basic principle of Japanese tea ceremony which applies to every meeting. It makes sense to pay whole-hearted attention to those precious moments in which we can be genuinely alive to all that is here.
  4. Other elements taken from Japanese Tea ceremony include support to attend to all of the senses and to think with appreciation of all that went into being able to share tea together. Bowing after speaking brings in a bit of the respect of formal tea etiquette, while a natural object or an image provides a reminder of our fundamental relationship with the natural world.
  5. Mindful dialogue: For this part of the practice, the participants take turns listening and speaking, in this case contemplating, “What is arising from the experience of mindfully preparing and drinking tea, as well as bowing after speaking?” Participants mentioned appreciating the opportunity to slow down and open to themselves; the simplicity, comfort and warmth, and how this practice had served as “a soft start” to the retreat, as I had hoped it would.
  6. Adaptability: Even without a hot beverage in hand, I like to think we can bring more of this open spirit to when we interact informally around the kitchen table, with strangers, and with those in need of comfort. And perhaps it might even help with bringing fewer judgments to our own internal dialogue.
     

Two Pond Walks – Never the Same

Some days I do not take any pictures. Others, I take pictures after every few steps. For better or worse, my sensing there is something worth capturing has become quite intuitive. This surely has as much to do with my mental state and receptivity as it has to do with how patches of sky, reflections, and plants dance together in the changing light as I walk around Hill’s Pond.

There are similarities, but also quite a few differences in the photos below taken during two separate pond walks this past spring. Nature has a way of quietly reminding us that there is also a positive aspect to the continual change that none of us can escape.

Day One:









Day Two:








Living One’s Dreams


Betsy White’s book had me thinking that not many of us would be willing or able to push beyond so many expectations of what is possible. Still for all of Betsy White’s pioneering achievements, she is the opposite of intimidating. I have found that is often the case for those who truly love what they are doing. Betsy warmly welcomes the reader to her world as she shares with open honesty about her struggles and the real rewards of her considerable efforts.

Betsy met and married Gene, a man who shared her passion for mountaineering, and her humanistic impulses. His civil engineering work providing access to fresh water in many developing countries made it easier for them to add international summits to their “life lists.” The couple did not allow their peripatetic life style to get in the way of raising a family. They found creative solutions to inevitable unanticipated problems with their gift for making friends who could offer them guidance and support. As a result, their lucky children got to experience a variety of cultures as well as wonderful mountain climbing adventures.

Betsy’s career focused on developing training programs and other practical resources for supporting human, and specifically women’s rights. Her cultural sensitivity and willingness to put in the effort required to learn the language gave Betsy rare access to Muslim women in the various countries where she lived and worked. When Betsy decided to pursue an advanced degree, her ground-breaking dissertation focused on how expectations placed on Muslim women affected their countries’ overall development and level of wellbeing.

Part way through the book, it occurred to me that Betsy’s mountaineering experience might have had quite a positive influence on her multi-achievement “balancing act.” It would teach the value of seeking out good climbing companions, careful planning, adaptability and finding creative solutions when things do not go as planned. The extent of her mountaineering experience would certainly have honed her intuition about when it makes sense to take risks, and when it makes more sense to turn back.

I found many valuable lessons like these in what Betsy shares. While most of us do not have the resources or degree of freedom that Betsy had to truly live her large dreams, many of us probably do not dream large enough. A great deal is possible. We risk short changing ourselves and the world by not carefully considering what risks are worth taking to include what we truly care about in the precious time that is aloted to us in this life.

Lessons from the Way of Tea

The 15-minute video, Lessons from the Way of Tea , presents what I learned from Japanese tea ceremony, a gentle art centered on sharing a bowl of tea. With the help of its core principles – Harmony, Respect, Purity and Tranquility – as seen on a scroll by Takase Studio in the video, I began to find a deeper beauty in everyday objects, in nature and in all those sharing tea. What is more, tea practice always left me feeling centered and at peace. While nothing is hidden – everything is fully accessible, this art seems to have infinite depth.

Few people, even in Japan, are interested in learning tea ceremony’s many detailed procedures these days, but I am convinced that this art’s “tea wisdom” has much to offer us in these highly stressful times.

I hope my experience with the art, and the story told in the companion video described below will inspire you to find your own ways to invite more moments of peace and connection into your life and into our troubled world.

This 25-minute companion video, Hannah’s World: Living Tea Values provides an example of someone who struck me as living her life by Japanese tea ceremony’s core principles. You will see her finding and preparing natural sources of dyes for “Color Harvest Moon,” a woven work of art that I requested she make so I could hang it up in my tea hut during practice.

A Fall of Definitive Yellows

Although I expected a range of yellows in Menotomy Rocks Park at this time of year, the yellows had a clarity and depth to them as if they were saying, “We do not care that it has been dry until recently, we are going to do our yellow thing anyway so as to knock you socks off.”

As I wandered down to the pond, folks were setting up for the “Spooky Walk” that would take place after it got dark. The mood was very different here, but I decided to included a few photos of their preparations, just for the fun of it.

The Joy of Indonesian Ikat

Indonesian ikat weavings have always had multiple uses. They are worn as sarongs and wraps as part of everyday clothing. They express and preserve cultural identity with outstanding examples playing an important role in various rites of passage such as marriage and funerals. In hard times, these valued and appreciated weavings can mean survival as they can be sold or traded for food and other critical supplies.

The patterns are produced by wrapping sections of (usually cotton) threads so that they resist a particular dye that is applied to the rest of the (usually warp) thread. With traditional dyes, the multiple dippings and dryings needed to achieve the desired shade can be quite time consuming. Modern dyes can make that process considerably faster while extending the range of possible colors.

Once all of the desired colors are dyed into the thread, ensuring precision in the complex designs calls for a great deal of attention to detail and sometimes subtle adjustments during the weaving process. In fact, quality hand-made ikat calls for a great deal of care during all stages of the sometimes years it takes to complete one. For that reason, I was not surprised to learn that in Indonesia, Ikat is generally considered the domain of women.

I decided to hang a particularly colorful modern example over the door to my office. This one combines a dark central ikat section with many different fanciful animals and two red outer sections with sewn-on cowry shell designs.

The last image shows an indigo-dyed Ikat hanging up in my tea hut in place of a scroll. Its Christian symbols are not a problem for its use during Japanese tea ceremony practice. In fact, Christian foreigners were among early adopters of Japanese tea ceremony and there are examples of a variety of early tea ceremony utensils including tea bowls that incorporate Christian symbols.


On the Rocks

It can happen so slowly we do not pause to notice and tend to take things growing on rocks for granted. Lichens take hold with no need for nourishment. Seeds fall into cracks. Mosses huddle around and move up onto damp places. Blueberries thrive in rocky barrens.

Over time dying biomass builds up in hollows where young trees can take root. And when a storm topples an older tree that managed to grow, its roots may release a number of rocks it once held in intimate embrace.







Living Tea Values

Hannah Regier with her “Color Harvest Moon” weaving. Photo by Jeff Klein.

This short documentary shares the world of Hannah Regier, who struck me as someone who truly lives by Japanese Tea ceremony’s core principles – Harmony, Respect, Purity and Tranquility.

I felt them in where and how Hannah lives, in the care she takes with her fabric art made using natural dyes gathered from the nearby fields and woods, as well as in her efforts to work with others to protect and share the lessons of natural places. There were other aspects of the the Way of Tea as well including creativity, generosity, and a deep appreciation for subtle aspects of the passing seasons.

Japanese tea ceremony was brought to its peak in times of war and great uncertainty. My trust in the worth of the art’s timeless values of harmony, respect, purity and tranquility provided a much appreciated anchor when things started to fall apart in my own life. But experiencing Hannah’s world made clear to me just how much those values can help to foster joy, connection and meaning, all of which are powerful antidotes to the helplessness and hopelessness it is all too easy to feel in these particularly challenging times.

Hannah Regier (her website), and videographer Jeff Klein (his website) both contributed their considerable artistic skills to this project. I am also most grateful for how Jeff Klein wove the sound of the stream behind Hannah’s studio throughout, an appropriate reminder of the importance of nature in the Way of Tea, in Hannah’s world, and, in fact, in all of our lives.

Sharing Appreciative Joy

Like compassion, appreciative joy is a natural human capacity. I would expect to feel it in response to a happy bouncing dog, a child’s joy at experiencing the world or when being welcomed into a dear friend’s home.

On the other hand, when many things seem to be going wrong at once, grief can overwhelm me and joy can seem far away. I try to remember the Dalai Lama – certainly no stranger to all kinds of suffering. He repeatedly emphasizes the importance of joy, in how he relates, in his writing and his documentaries. The Daoists speak of the 10,000 sorrows & 10,000 joys – so both, not just sorrows.

I also like to think of Indra’s net where each intersection contains a jewel that reflects every other jewel. That would also include our reflecting our joys to each other.

Keeping the door open to appreciative joy is also a choice in that cultivating it takes effort. Being willing to speak the truth to myself and others, being humble about that, seems critical. That my individualistic, competitive and commercialized culture – not to mention social media – encourages envy, helps me to cut myself some slack.

When I am able to feel genuine appreciative joy, speaking the truth helps me to feel the enlargement, ease, connection and freedom – a taste of liberation from the bonds of self. And joyous connection is possible, maybe even critical, right in the midst of serious suffering. Here is one example:

Someone I don’t really know, who had just lost her mother, wrote on Facebook, ”Tonight I got a chance to chat online with a former next door neighbor when I was a teenager and she was 6 or 7 years old. She has amazing memories of things that happened then, 50+ yrs ago. She remembered many wonderful things that my Mom did with her and her family. She wished that she had a Mom like mine. Wow! Her sharing brought many memories back for me. This wonderful surprise brought me tears and joy. I am extremely grateful for her memories and her sharing. A precious part of my grieving.” I felt glowing warmth in my body-mind that ripened to awe. So honestly and simply told, that story was spreading its blessings well beyond just the two of them.

I find that Insight Dialogue with its sharing of heartfelt truth, provides powerful support for experiencing appreciative joy. The safe, caring space that everyone is holding makes clear we are not alone in our vulnerability. At times, the depth of mutual understanding, and naturally caring response to shared troubles produces a profound joy that seems to be felt at the level of the whole group. With the help of the guidelines Pause, Relax, and Open, an embodied experience of the practice’s rock-solid caring energy helped me to understand why Buddhists speak of spiritual friendship being “All of the Path.”

The power of appreciative joy can also be felt when we unexpectedly find ourselves in a position to help. A Chinese women used her few words of English to let me know she was looking for a local Chinese restaurant. I thought how brave she was to come to a new Country where she did not speak the language. She made clear her gratitude nonverbally. By the time we had walked to what I assumed was her new place of employment, it seemed totally natural to hug each other at the door. The meaning expressing by that hug went well beyond words. There was joy in her feminine strength and bravery that we both understood – in that short time we had become genuine friends.

Speaking the truth about appreciative joy to myself and others seems particularly important in these challenging times. In fact, I have been told it can be critical to many, particularly when few other resources are available. Keeping the door open to appreciative joy makes clear just how much of a relational superpower that kind of shared joy really is, as it points the way to freedom while providing ease, clarity and motivation to work at making our actions more beneficial. May all beings never be separated from the supreme joy that is beyond all sorrow.

You might want to try bringing to mind a time now or in the past when you unexpectedly felt or witnessed appreciative joy. How does that feel now? Are there any new insights that you were not aware of at the time?

The Intersection of Nature and Creativity

With all the turmoil and craziness these days, I am grateful for physical activities like shoveling snow that can put worrying in the back seat for a while. If it were a bit warmer and less slippery out, I would no doubt be walking in Menotomy Rocks Park with my camera handy.

As it is, “playing around” taking photos of a colorful abalone shell puts me at the intersection of nature and creativity – two of my favorite refuges.

Why not try it? Pictures of any natural object taken from different angles in different lights can be quite a rewarding revelation. Taking a break to ground oneself in what is real and concrete in the here and now can really help when your mind starts spinning out with what could be.