The Power of An Empty Chair, Part 2

In the last blog, I wrote about Liu Xiaopo, the Chinese dissident and writer who was awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize in absentia because he is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence. Here is another perspective on what happens when those in power try to silence the voices of truth and reason.
    
"What He Thought"
by Heather McHugh

For Fabbio Doplicher

We were supposed to do a job in Italy
and, full of our feeling for
ourselves (our sense of being
Poets from America) we went
from Rome to Fano, met
the Mayor, mulled a couple
matters over. The Italian literati seemed
bewildered by the language of America: they asked us
what does "flat drink" mean? and the mysterious
"cheap date" (no explanation lessened
this one's mystery). Among Italian writers we

could recognize our counterparts: the academic,
the apologist, the arrogant, the amorous,
the brazen and the glib. And there was one
administrator (The Conservative), in suit
of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide
with measured pace and uninflected tone
narrated sights and histories
the hired van hauled us past.
Of all he was most politic--
and least poetic-- so
it seemed. Our last
few days in Rome 
I found a book of poems this
unprepossessing one had written: it was there
in the pensione room (a room he'd recommended)
where it must have been abandoned by
the German visitor (was there a bus of them?) to whom
he had inscribed and dated it a month before. I couldn't
read Italian either, so I put the book
back in the wardrobe's dark. We last Americans

were due to leave
tomorrow. For our parting evening then
our host chose something in a family restaurant,
and there we sat and chatted, sat and chewed, till,
sensible it was our last big chance to be Poetic, make
our mark, one of us asked

"What's poetry?
Is it the fruits and vegetables
and marketplace at Campo dei Fiori

or the statue there?" Because I was
the glib one, I identified the answer
instantly, I didn't have to think-- "The truth
is both, it's both!" I blurted out. But that
was easy. That was easiest
to say. What followed taught me something
about difficulty, 

for our underestimated host spoke out
all of a sudden, with a rising passion, and he said:

The statue represents
Giordano Bruno, brought
to be burned in the public square
because of his offence against authority, which was to say
the Church. His crime was his belief
the universe does not revolve around
the human being: God is no
fixed point or central government
but rather is poured in waves, through
all things: all things
move. "If God is not the soul itself,
he is the soul OF THE SOUL of the world." Such was
his heresy. The day they brought him forth to die

they feared he might incite the crowd (the man
was famous for his eloquence). And so his captors
placed upon his face
an iron mask
in which he could not speak.

That is how they burned him.
That is how he died, 
without a word,
in front of everyone. And poetry--

(we'd all put down our forks by now, to listen to
the man in gray; he went on softly)-- poetry 

is what he thought, but did not say.

From Hinge & Sign: Poems, 1968-1993, from Wesleyan 
University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Heather McHugh. 

The Power of An Empty Chair

Until this morning, I had never heard of Liu Xiaobo. He is a Chinese writer who has been imprisoned and held incommunicado by his government for the past year, charged with inciting to overthrow the regime. Today, however, he was thrust onto the world stage as the the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. For the first time in 75 years, nobody was there to accept this award - Liu's wife and relatives are either in jail or under house arrest - and so his award was draped over an empty chair during the ceremony.

When will the oppressive totalitarian regimes of the world learn that by trying to silence the voice of one person, you give more volume and credence to that person's message? I would never have given the story about the Nobel Prize a second glance, had it not been for the controversy of Liu's detainment. If the Chinese government had allowed him to speak freely before, there would be no reason for him to even be nominated.

The empty chair on the stage of the Oslo City Hall, with the picture of Liu Xiaobo gazing down in mute testimony, was more powerful and potentially damaging to the Chinese government than any words that one person could ever utter. 

Because he could not speak, today, I have excerpted a portion of "I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement To The Court" which was delivered by Liu on December 23, 2009, after he had been sentenced to 11 years on prison. It was read today by actress Liv Ullmann as part of the Nobel Prize ceremony.

I still want to tell the regime that deprives me of my freedom...I have no enemies, and no hatred. None of the police who have monitored, arrested and interrogated me, the prosecutors who prosecuted me, or the judges who sentence me, are my enemies. While I’m unable to accept your surveillance, arrest, prosecution or sentencing, I respect your professions and personalities.

For hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy. I hope therefore to be able to transcend my personal vicissitudes in understanding the development of the state and changes in society, to counter the hostility of the regime with the best of intentions, and defuse hate with love.

Freedom of expression is the basis of human rights, the source of humanity and the mother of truth. To block freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, to strangle humanity and to suppress the truth.

Blessings,
Roger 

A Lifetime of Temporary Relief

Late one night a bunch of years ago, I was up watching television when I saw an advertisement for the Craftmatic Adjustable Bed. This modern marvel of sleep technology resembles the kind of bed you find in hospital rooms. It allows you to adjust the angle of the feet, legs, and head so you can sit up in bed and read or watch television, or elevate the knees to ease the lumbar spine. "All with the push of a button!" according to the voice-over announcer.

At the end of the commercial came the slogan: "The Craftmatic Adjustable Bed. For a lifetime of temporary relief from low back pain." Now obviously the legal department over at Craftmatic must have gotten hold of the script and insisted on this wording, but the absurdity of it still makes me chuckle.

In a way, though, this silly slogan sums up the experience of vipassana meditation. The back pain is equal to the suffering we cause ourselves from getting into the uncomfortable positions of clinging and aversion. These postures gives rise to a sense of self ("I want this/I don't want that") which can cause us discomfort. The "temporary relief" is the practice we learn through vipassana of being able to release the tight fist of clinging, or to abandon the aversion, and return to the present-moment reality. 

Because the mind is tenacious, however, the thoughts that give rise to clinging and aversion will probably come back sooner or later, and we have to repeat the process all over again. And again. And again...

When you find yourself suffering because of ruminative, repetitive thoughts that are useless and upsetting, first begin by asking yourself, "Is this thing that I'm thinking of happening now?" Perhaps these thoughts come to you at night when you are lying in bed (whether Craftmatic or ordinary, it doesn't matter). This is a time when we are particularly vulnerable to negative thoughts and ideas. Obviously, the thing you are fearing in the future can't be happening in this moment, so you turn your attention toward a present-moment event, such as the feeling of the body breathing, or the feeling of your head lying on the pillow.

The mind has a built-in bias toward the present-moment experience, and will always favor the present-moment experience over a thought about an imagined future event. You can test this by trying to conjure up the taste of pickles while you're mindfully eating chocolate ice cream. The mind cannot hold these two things at one time, so it makes a choice to pay attention to the event that is actually taking place in this moment. (This would be a desirable trait in terms of human evolution. For instance, the intense concentration required for hunting would not have been possible if the mind had no mechanism to filter thoughts from present-moment reality.)

I really like these bits of empirical evidence that prove how mindfulness can actually work. It gives me a lot of confidence in my practice, and provides a real solid framework from which to teach these techniques to students and patients.

Remember, however, that the relief from the troubling thought will only be temporary. It will probably come back again, sooner or later. Therefore, do not expect miracles. These ruminative thought habits have been with you for a long time, so they are not likely to go away completely in one try. Nor are they ever likely to stay away once and for all. However, if you become diligent with this kind of practice of returning to the present-moment reality, and apply it throughout your day, it will become the new habit of mind, and your temporary relief will be guaranteed.

Or your money back.

Blessings,
Roger 

Time Changes

The time change from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time took place this morning. I always welcome this one because it seems to give me an extra hour in the day in which to be productive. For one day, at least, I have enough time to do everything that I want or need to do on a Sunday. I can cafe sit with Kathy. There can be a leisurely walk with Sam the dog all the way to the park where we chase squirrels, run with other dogs, and watch the Tai Chi practitioners. The New York Times Sunday Edition can be savored, not just scanned. I can write a blog, cook dinner, then watch a movie with the everyone. 

Time changes also bring home to me the fact that hours, minutes, days, and years are artificial concepts developed to help us to understand change. 

When we meditate, however, we enter into the present moment where there is no time. Instead, it is always "now." Therefore, it appears that we exist in at least two realms: the world of time, and the world of no time. This may explain why a forty-five minute meditation can seem like only a few minutes, or like an eternity. When we are immersed in a timeless place, we don't have the movement of a clock or sun with which to judge the passing of the minutes.

The same experience happens when we are deeply absorbed in a task or project. Paying attention in the present moment in this way seems to hold a key to the timeless, the birthless, and the deathless. 

So enjoy your time, as we begin the final descent into the darkness of the winter season. Connect with time through connection with nature, and connect with the timeless through your meditation practice.

Here is a poem by Mary Oliver, one of six pieces that appeared in today's New York Times to mark the end of Daylight Savings Time:

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

 

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

Blessings,

Roger

 

Making Conscious Choices

I just got back from voting. It always makes me feel good in a mushy, patriotic-y sort of way. I was in the first wave of eighteen year-olds to be given the privilege of voting in 1972, and I'm still proud to say I voted for George McGovern. Which may explain the strong streak of cynicism that gets mixed in with my nice mushy feeling. I heard Lily Tomlin say that she was concerned about her own cynical nature: "I worry that not matter how cynical I get, it's never enough to keep up."

As I left the South Pasadena Library wearing my "I Voted" sticker proudly on my chest, I thought about the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan, and how they have to dip their finger in purple ink to show they have cast their ballot. Except, unlike the situation in those places, I am fairly confident that nobody in South Pas is going to kill me for voting.

We often take a long time of reflection and contemplation before making our choice at the polls. We carefully study the ballot propositions and the candidate's positions. Then we make sure that we punch the correct hole next to the correct number, making sure we leave no chad hanging after the debacle of 2000 (there's that cynicism again).

We tend not to bring this same level of care and attention into the choices we make in daily life, however. Most of the time, the "choice" is simply to go with the auto-reflex reaction of the mind. As Deepak Chopra wrote, "Like it or not, we are all infinite choice makers." At any point we can put everything on PAUSE and take a reflective moment before making our choice. All it takes is a momentary awareness of the situation, and then feeling a breath or two coming and going. This pause can create a bit of space between the situation and the response toward that situation. Responding mindfully, rather than reacting automatically, can make the difference between an effective choice of action, and a disaster.

Too bad we don't get little stickers every time we make skillful choices that say "I Took A Reflective Pause."

Blessings,
Roger

Hallows Eve

Tonight is Hallows Eve, the night when the veil between this world and the Otherworld is at its thinnest, and the ability to communicate between the two worlds is at is greatest. 

By some estimates, upwards of 80% of the United States believe in some form of afterlife. Personally, I'm not sure. I've had some pretty dramatic psychic experiences that make me wonder though, including a series of events that led me to precisely where I am right now. I believe it was a path prepared for me by the spirit of my dead father.

Roger Sherwood Nolan, Sr., who was born The Ides of March, 1921, died on February 10, 1990. At the moment of his death, I was in or near Atlanta, Georgia, where I was fulfilling a contractual obligation as the spokesman for a chain of regional grocery stores. My dad was in a hospital in Irvine, California, in the final stages of colo-rectal cancer.

I had been conflicted about traveling so far away from him. When I asked dad if I should go he adamantly answered in the affirmative. He was always a "make hay while the sun shines" kind of guy. My older sister, Gloria, was there keeping vigil, and he was in good hands. So I traveled to Atlanta, trading in my First Class airline ticket for two Coach seats so that my wife, Judy, could go with me, along with our then-infant son, Zach (Judy was born and raised just outside of Atlanta).

Judy and Zach were staying at her mother's house, while I was being billeted at a hotel near the studio where we were shooting the commercials. To save money, I was using a small pickup truck that had belonged to Judy's father, who had passed away a few years before.  

At the end of the first day's shooting, I was returning to my mother-in-law's house, and looking forward to a home cooked Southern dinner. While waiting at a traffic light, I felt what I can only describe as a cold wind blowing through me. It was a definite "presence" that I immediately sensed as being Otherworldly. 

My first thought was that I was being visited by Judy's dead father. The human mind wants to make sense of these kinds of things, and it seemed logical since I was driving his truck. I may have even said something like, "Ed, is that you?" The feeling passed, the light turned green, and I continued on, logging the experience in my memory to tell Judy when I got home.

I'm not sure if I mentioned the event the first thing upon arriving, but within a few minutes a phone call came for me. It was Gloria. "Dad's gone," was all she said. I knew in that moment that the feeling I had in the truck was the movement of his spirit in some way. "I know," I replied. "I felt it." As powerful as this experience was, however, it could not compare to what would come next. 

A month or so later I found myself back in Atlanta shooting more commercials for the grocery store. Judy and I were using the opportunity to visit some friends of ours who lived on a wooded, and at that time at least, secluded river. 

One evening, after everyone else had gone back up to the house to fix dinner, I stayed behind to meditate, sitting on a large boulder in the middle of the river. My thoughts turned to my father, and I called out to him silently. Within seconds, I felt like I was surrounded by some kind of perceptible energy field. It was like being in the middle of a swarm of butterflies, their thousands of wings beating lightly against me from head to toe.

Then I heard my dad's voice. It was very clear. How long we "spoke" together I do not know. As far as I remember, I never opened my eyes, so there was no physical presence, only an internal dialogue. In answer to my questions, he assured me that he was fine, that the death experience was pretty much as advertised, complete with the bright light and his mother there to help him through. He told me that he was now omnipotent, and that he was enjoying the experience because now he could really be of help to other people. 

To that end, he informed me that he was preparing the way for me and my future. I did not ask him the specifics of this plan, but assumed it meant that I would have a successful and lucrative career as an actor, my main pursuit at the time. He assured me that he was available whenever I needed him, for a while at least, and he signed off by saying "as amazing as all this is, love is what makes life worth living."

Then he was gone. The beating of the butterfly wings subsided, and I finally opened my eyes. It was now quite dark. I got up and walked slowly, and very thoughtfully, up the hill to the house. Everyone was already sitting down to dinner when I appeared. I sat down without a word as every eye in the room stared at me. "What happened to you?" someone finally asked. "You look so different!" 

And I was.

That experience led me seeking out a psychic in Los Angeles who had a sweatlodge in her back yard where I started attending sweats once a month. Where I met another attendee who practiced yoga. Which got me back into the practice I had neglected for some years. Which led to my quitting acting to become a yoga teacher. Which led me to vipassana meditation. Which led me to Spirit Rock Meditation Center and Jack Kornfield, Phillip Moffitt, and other teachers. Which led me to leading a meditation group in Los Angeles. Which led me to returning to school to become a psychotherapist. Which led me to leading mindfulness-based groups. Which led me to Kathy. Which led me to writing this blog. Which led me to this exact moment.

Thanks, dad. You prepared the way very well indeed. 

Happy Hallows Eve,
Roger

 

 

   

#365

A year ago tomorrow, October 30, 2009, I received an e-mail from Kathy saying that she had set up a blog for me. When I went to the site, I saw the blog title: Roger's Daily Dharma. I'm still not sure if it was intentional on her part to force me to write something every day (it's quite possible, since she is one heck of a good writing teacher), but it worked. 

I loved the title. It reminded me of The Daily Word from the Unity Church that I used to read religiously (pun somewhat intended). It contains a daily dose of spiritual wisdom based on a single word or phrase. I have a lifetime subscription. However, the Buddhist publication, Tricycle, already has a blog called "The Daily Dharma," so I decided to change it to Dharma 365, the intention always being to create 365 blogs in one year.

And so, here it is. Three Six Five. 

A year ago, this moment seemed so far away. So unattainable. So daunting! What would I find to write about every day? It reminded me of a scene from Our Town by Thorton Wilder in which the parents of a young man about to be married discuss their own marriage over breakfast on the day of the wedding:

Dr. Gibbs: (After a slight pause; laughing) Julia, you know one of the things that I was scared of when I married you?
Mrs. Gibbs: Oh, go along with you! (Eats)
Dr. Gibbs: I was afraid we didn't have material for conversation more'n'd last us a few weeks. (Both laugh heartily) I was afraid we'd run out and eat our meals in silence, that's a fact. Well, you and I been conversing for twenty years now without any noticeable barren spells. (Eats)
Mrs. Gibbs: Well, good weather, bad weather, 'tain't very choice, but I always find something to say.

Then there was the matter of discipline. Would I be able to keep this kind of thing up for a year? My pattern has always been to maintain some project or lifestyle change quite diligently for a short period of time, but then to lose interest, or get lazy and quit. One thing that writing this blog has shown me is that this is not necessarily true when it comes to the Dharma. I've been practicing vipassana pretty diligently since approximately 1997, and teaching it every week since January, 2002. So in one area of my life, at least, discipline does not seem to be an issue.

Now it seems that the year has gone by rather quickly and fairly effortlessly. I've never run a marathon, but I would imagine that the mind tells those who do that the finish line is too far away and they must stop. For me as well, at some points along the way, it seemed like I could not go on another step. Indeed, there were days when I had nothing in particular to say, and those were usually the days when I found a poem or quote to fill the space. Thank you to all the poets and collectors of quotations from whom I borrowed so freely.

Thank you, as well, to my students from whom I also borrowed. Many times, a chance comment during a class or sangha would be filed away and expanded upon the next day. As best I could, while maintaining anonymity, I always gave credit where credit was due for these nuggets of wisdom. If you were one of those inspirational folks and I did not give you proper attribution, I apologize.

Of course, my greatest inspiration over this year has been Kathy - my life partner, my best friend, my lover, my wife, and my Dharma. (Come closer so she doesn't hear this, but you see, she is the real writer. I am merely reflecting her brilliance.) She has influenced me on this journey beyond measure. She was always there to answer the most basic questions when I had them, and to give me praise when I wrote a particularly good posting. As she once wrote:

One of the ways I try to figure out if I'm on the right track is to ask myself - without fear or ambition - whether it's the path with heart. The answer is always immediately apparent. What I do with that knowledge is up to me.

And so, for putting me on this path, and for starting my feet moving in front of me, I dedicate these 365 blogs to Kathy. 

Finally, thank you for reading this, whoever you are. Feel free to leave a comment, good, bad, or indifferent. It has been a great joy and totally unexpected surprise when people tell me they read this stuff. My gratitude is infinite.

So, in the spirit of invoking help from great writers, I will close this last blog of the project with the last line from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I think it sums things up rather nicely:

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Blessings,

Roger