KM Huber’s Blog – Page 6

Not so Much but Just Enough

Posted on September 28, 2014 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Oneness, Spirituality

The whole harmony of life is a balancing act–not too tight, not too loose. It is not static—this Yin-Yang balance—it is in constant motion, ever impermanent as it shifts and adapts but always it is whole, complete.

The phrase “not too tight, not too loose” is associated with a well-known Buddhist story about a musician—he is a sitar or lute player depending upon the version–who comes to the Buddha for advice on meditating.

The Buddha advises the musician to consider his musical instrument as he asks, “What happens if you turn the strings too tightly?”

“The strings break,” the musician answers.

“And when the strings are not tight enough?”

The musician replies, “They are too loose. A string in tune is neither too tight nor too loose.”

Not too tight, not too loose is the elegant simplicity of balance, whether we are tuning a musical instrument, practicing meditation, or just living our lives day-to-day. Ultimately, imbalance finds balance.

The constant adjusting of imbalance plays out against the backdrop of life ever in motion and always in perfect balance. That is the wholeness of Buddha nature where cacophony finds its way to harmony, ultimately.

The tuning of strings on wood is straightforward but for human beings with so many ways to adjust and adapt what is too much or not enough is not always as obvious.

It is helpful when there is a buddha to ask, although the face of a buddha is not always recognized.

We meet ourselves time and again

in a thousand disguises on the path of life.

Carl Jung

These disguises, or buddhas, are mirrors of well-known behaviors, the “ineffable flux that makes a person a unique being” (Ted Kaptchuk). It is for us to look into each mirror, to seek the unique in the familiar, to open to life as it is revealed. If not, we could miss meeting a buddha.

The uniqueness is the chaos of being alive—the struggle for balance—within the constancy of life, whole in its harmony. Like the strings of the lute, living requires a fine tuning between too much and not enough. And for the sitar, it is how it sings.

There is no standard or absolute–what is health for one person may be sickness in another. There is no notion of “normal” Yin-Yang–only the unique challenges and possibilities of each human life.

(Ted Kaptchuk, The Web That Has No Weaver)

As Lao Tzu said, “he who stands on tiptoe is not steady” for the only constancy in Yin-Yang is that it—and us—are ever in flux. There is no one health for all, no normal for anyone. There is only the fine tuning of living—not too tight, not too loose—in attaining balance, momentary as it may be.

Nothing remains; everything passes by.
The only thing that always abides is your witnessing.

That witnessing brings balance.
That witnessing is balance.

~Osho~

Always, there is the passing parade of buddhas, in one disguise after another.

We are all Home

Posted on September 21, 2014 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Oneness, Spirituality

To sit within ourselves is to be at home. Our home is full of emotional energy continuously streaming through our body, the structure we rely on for the experience of being human. All we have to do is sit down.

The more you are willing to just let the world be something you’re aware of, the more it will let you be who you are….

Michael Singer (The Untethered Soul)

Michael Singer introduced me to the “seat of self” as he calls the center of consciousness that is within us all. It is from here that the “great mystery begins once you take that seat deep within” (Singer). We become aware of being aware of the world around us, and we do it from the safety and comfort of home.

Peace is available to us in every moment. We don’t have to go anywhere.

Some settings may seem more peaceful than others but I find it quite powerful that peace is always available to me if I will just sit down in the seat with my name on it. Everyone has one. We are all home.

A little over twenty years ago, Willie Baronet began his “We Are All Homeless” campaign. He wanted to ease his own discomfort in seeing homeless people. In doing so, he has provided comfort to thousands of others.

Baronet decided to purchase signs from homeless people, offering anywhere from $10-$20 per sign, but that was not what eased his discomfort nor increased his awareness of himself and the world around him.

The purchase was the way to start a conversation with each homeless person who sold him a sign. The conversations continue as his collection of signs grows. It has become a wall of awareness about homelessness and the human story.

Each sign is a line in the story of the multi-dimensional person who created it. Each sign is a single thread in the tapestry of humanity. The stories run the gamut of what it is to be human, sometimes desperate and other times, simply inspirational.

We all are homeless until we come home. Not all who carry signs believe home is a physical shelter as Baronet discovered. Many are home, living in the peace of an open heart. They are always home whether they reside in subtropical peninsulas, high plains deserts or on city streets.

But do not ask me where I am going,

As I travel in this limitless world,

Where every step I take is my home.

Dogen

If we can bring ourselves to sit down in the home we always have—our seat of self—and be comfortable with all that we are and are not, we will find ourselves looking through a lens of equanimity and compassion at the world around us.

Oh the stories we will tell, the stories we will hear.

Expanding the Cone of Habit

Posted on September 14, 2014September 15, 2014 by KM Huber in Cooper and EmmaRose, Inspiration, Lupus

This bright-eyed Westie is a member of my extended family. Formally, he is known as McDuff but to all he loves and to all who love him he is “Duff.” Recently, he had minor surgery on his ears and in order to aid his healing, he wore a cone, a change of habit for him.

Change is how we form habits, forging new neural pathways for our brain to record as a new response to life’s experiences. It is how we physically open up to possibility.

Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible

(Thich Nhat Hanh)

I have been wearing my own cone of habit believing I was open to all healing possibilities. I was unaware that I could not see outside the scope of my cone of habit. It’s easier to do than one may think.

Undoubtedly, there are habits that serve us for as long as we live. Unique to each one of us, we know what they are. It is when we wear our habits as the only way to live that we create a cone, reducing our ability to see alternatives that may even improve our current practice.

Because you are alive, everything is possible

(Thich Nhat Hanh)

Thanks to impermanence, there is always another way. All we have to do is be in the reality we have and adapt like canine Duff. Ultimately, he figured out a way to use his cone to toss his ball, not far, but far enough to create a new way to continue to play ball. He was not confined by his cone.

My health issues also involve mobility. Months ago, I found myself in a situation where I could not walk to my destination and needed a wheelchair. It scared me, and it narrowed my vision regarding my mobility. I gave up walks but continued my daily, gentle yoga flow.

Although I increased my flexibility, the musculoskeletal pain increased and spread up my spine to my neck. Still, I stayed within my cone of comfort. It took a lupus flare-up involving my kidneys to expand my vision.

In opening to the reality I was living rather than being stuck in a moment that may never occur, I expanded my cone of habit and found an alternative health practitioner. Like Duff, I wanted to keep playing.

I did not have to look long or far. There is a licensed physician of Chinese medicine within blocks of my apartment. At my first appointment, I sat stunned as she revealed to me, in astonishing detail, what various teams of medical doctors had taken years to tell me.

Most of my medical history I had not mentioned for I had tried acupuncture previously with no results but I had never met a physician of traditional Chinese medicine.

Her estimation of my prognosis is geared to the life I have. As she reminds me, nothing is 100% but there is relief, and there are alternative ways, if I remain open to them.

After the first acupuncture treatment, I began taking short daily walks, sometimes including a stroll around my beloved Waverly pond. After the second treatment, the searing pain in my right knee significantly diminished and has yet to reach previous pain levels.

With food and some herbs, we are working with the lupus inflammation. There is a lot of hard work ahead but as long as I am alive, I can find a way to play ball, as Duff showed me.

A Note About Duff: Remarkably handsome, this wise Westie lives in Seattle with my dad and his wife.

Some Awareness This Way Comes

Posted on September 3, 2014 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Inspiration, Lupus

I have developed some issues with my cervical spine so writing and posting are physically as well as cognitively difficult. Like all change, it will not stay but offer alternatives not imagined. Such is the energy in change.

I am reminded of “life is the art of drawing without an eraser” (John W. Gardner). Every moment offers itself to us for the experience that it is without any erasures. Ours is to continue to draw on each moment.

I am grateful for this day

and for every moment I experience

in this physical dimension

as a human being.

May I meet each moment with equanimity,

compassion, loving-kindness, and joy

for all things, in all ways.

These are my lines that outline each day for me, a selection from what others have revealed to me in their writing and in the way they live their lives. I am grateful for these lines that frame my life, a daily awareness that my way comes.

I plan to resume regular posts by September 14^th. As I am able, I will respond to comments. I know I am behind. Yet, do know your thoughtful comments are not only read–always–but carefully considered and quite often are reflected in my posts. Thanks for that.

Oh, and apologies to Ray Bradbury–Something Wicked This Way Comes—the novel and title seemed rather appropriate. As a matter of fact, I just finished listening to it, again, and yes, more awareness my way came.

Grace in a Line of Risk

Posted on August 24, 2014August 23, 2014 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Spirituality, Writing

Grace is the bud of a rose in late summer risking the security of self to burst forth as a blossom that cannot close again.

…and the day came

when the risk to remain tight,

in a bud,

became more painful

than the risk it took to blossom.

(Elizabeth Appell)

This line has been appearing for around 35 years on journal covers, inside greeting cards, on opening pages of published books and, of course, on the Internet.

The only attribution I had seen was to Anaïs Nin who did not, it seems, write these words. There is a tangential reference to a bud in one of her novels but these words do not seem to appear in any of Nin’s work.

As much maligned as Internet resources are, this misattribution precedes the pervasive use of the worldwide web. I had to reach way back into my memory but I remembered first seeing the quote in the mid 1980s. This time, my memory was accurate.

It seems Elizabeth Appell wrote these words in 1979 when she was known as Lassie Benton, Public Relations Director at John F. Kennedy University (Orinda, CA) and editor of its adult education brochure.

Appell maintains she was “on deadline” when she scribbled those twenty plus words for the opening page of the brochure, perhaps determining their destiny to appear on other opening pages.

As editor, Appell would have not provided any personal attribution. In the ensuing years, the single line would also be offered as a poem with the title “Risk.” Yet, life and truth have a way of revealing their sources, ultimately.

In 2009, the Anaïs Nin Blog received an inquiry about the risk line’s source but it was not until 2013 that Appell decided to offer her story as well as provide a copy of the brochure page that first featured the line.

Appell revealed that she has known of the confusion as far back as the 1980s having read her words in a greeting card. She wrote to the card’s publisher who never responded.

There does seem to be one instance of the poem attributed to Appell as Lassie Benton as well as some anonymous attributions but mostly, the poem is attributed to Anaïs Nin.

It was only when two of Appell’s friends brought her their published books with the quotation attributed to Nin that Appell decided to correct years of misattribution.

And she did so with the grace of the line she wrote. Honored that her hastily scribbled words to meet a deadline have meant much to many, Appell may have taken another risk in her response to a comment on the Anaïs Nin Blog:

I have been writing for a long time. Every now and then I hit a chord, but never like the chord I hit with the “Risk” line. To be in the literary circle of Anaïs Nin is a thrill. I’m proud and grateful.

(Elizabeth Appell)

To me, this story of grace in a line of risk demonstrates the lifetime that unfolds in each moment we experience. Rarely can we know the impact of the series of snapshots that are the moments of our lives. Yet, some snapshots will return revealing their source.

May we have the grace of Elizabeth Appell in the face of risk and blossom.

Bite-by-Bite, a Mindful Remembrance

Posted on August 17, 2014August 21, 2014 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Lupus, Spirituality

Each August, I remember the day—some four years ago, now–that my gnawing hunger and craving for connection closed the door on the way I lived.

Always, my memory of that pre-dawn, August 12^th morning feels crystalline yet memory is the mind’s filter, a selective and often soft light on pain past. Still, the remembrance is sharp enough.

Then, my heart was as empty as my stomach. In all ways, I was perfectly hollow, mindless in my approach to decades of autoimmune disease and related health issues.

I had reached the point where no food satisfied my hunger and almost any food would trigger digestive issues. My weight just continued to climb no matter what I ate or did not eat. Inflammation was systemic.

My doctors—I had a whole group by this time—increased the variety and type of medication for my stomach and thyroid as well as musculoskeletal pain, more tests for my kidneys, and always more blood work as if to make sure both lupus and Sjogren’s remained rampant.

Mindlessly, I lived, not present for any of it. Rather, I looked to the days when remission would return—as it always had for the thirty years previous—then, I would return to life as I knew it.

There was no remission but there was no organ failure, either. What did happen was a dramatic decrease in my systemic inflammation, my digestive issues are no more, and I have maintained a 68 pound weight loss for 30 of the last 48 months with only gentle yoga for exercise. Musculoskeletal issues, in particular mobility, remain a challenge.

Mine is a life few, if any, would want but it is mine—and I am mindful of it—something I never was in the way I once lived.

Mindfulness is deliberately paying attention, being fully aware of what is happening both inside yourself—in your body, heart, and mind—and outside yourself, in your environment. Mindfulness is awareness without judgment or criticism.

(Mindful Eating, Jan Chozen Bays, M.D., p. 2)

It was the hunger in my stomach that brought me to mindfulness. I had to learn what food my body needed, for each body is unique in its nutritional needs. No two are the same. I had to sort through the food that would satisfy my hunger and ultimately, open my heart.

Eating mindfully is a bite-by-bite experience. Not all foods are equal in nutrients but being mindful of each bite keeps my focus on whether or not the food is satisfying my hunger. I have found I am much more selective in what and how I eat. Why would I eat food that leaves me not only hungry but craving more?

Am I eliminating my disease process? No, but I am assisting my body by eating nutrient-dense food rather than adding to its burden with empty calories. And yes, it has taken most of these last four years not only to realize the difference between the two but to find food I love to eat.

Grains, even gluten-free, are not something my body processes efficiently but infrequently, I partake. The same is true for any starch or yeast. Sugar brings on “brain fog” and increases my musculoskeletal pain. Dairy and soy I just avoid.

My being present in eating opened me to my life as it actually is, filled with infinite possibilities unique to me. Mindfulness helps me discover them and experience life in ways I never imagined. Every day is fresh, its own possibility.

In creating a physical, compassionate connection with my body, I opened my heart to life as it comes–I connected–this August 12^th, I paused to remember. Thanks, regular readers, for walking with me down this memory lane yet another time.

The Life Cycle of a Moment

Posted on August 10, 2014August 9, 2014 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Oneness, Spirituality

Initially, this post seemed to be about dying into the moment and that was its working title. Working titles are quite Zen, I think. They are as impermanent as are the moments of our lives and just as complete in their birth, life, and death.

So the title of the post is now, “The Life Cycle of a Moment.” In another week in a different venue the title will change again as will the post but its essence, its cycle, will not. Whether similar or seemingly new, each moment cycles.

In Jake Fades: A Novel of Impermanence, dying into the moment is the doorway into the next:

“…dying now means coming to each moment fresh… Seeing every person, even your partner, as if you have never met before. Hearing the birds as if you have never heard a chirp in your life. Our past is what we think of as our life, that whole life of thought and memory that we carry around all the time, but nothing actually repeats itself. Every moment is new, and you cannot live this moment until you die to the past one.”

(David Guy, p. 172)

Yet to consider death as integral to every moment was quite a shift for me, and as often happens in Zen, my view of the world turned inside out. For me, opening to the ending inherent in every moment makes the familiar fresh, a wave worthy of its own experience.

Some moments are like riding on the crest of a whitecap while in others it is as if I am becalmed and awaiting a wind until the wave washes upon the sand. All moments pass only to return as life anew.

So, how long is a moment? Consider this math: there are 6,400,099,980 moments in one day; one finger snap=65 moments; dividing 65 into 6,400,099,980=98,463,077 finger snaps per day (Ruth Ozeki, Appendix A, p. 407, The Tale of the Time Being).

That is a lot of living and dying at a rate I can barely wrap my mind around. Yet, a snap of fingers is such an immediate image of impermanence that it makes a wave upon the sand seem like an eternity. And yet, both are.

“Everything in the universe is constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives.”

(Ruth Ozeki, p. 408)

When awareness is the measure of the moment, any linear sense of time—such as a finger snap–fades into simply being, often enhanced by memory, flashes of moments similarly spent. Surely, the math of memory flashes is at least equal to, if not greater than, the number of moments in a finger snap.

And here we are near the end of another moment, perhaps measured more by awareness than by snaps of fingers or memory flashes. Well, that is what is true for me in this moment as it takes its place in the story that is me, maybe to return as a flash or maybe not.

We write (and read) stories to provide perspective on passing moments, recording the progress of our stories with working titles, changing with the measure of the moment.

When to Carry and When to Let Go

Posted on August 3, 2014August 2, 2014 by KM Huber in Consciousness, Cooper and EmmaRose, Spirituality

My previous post considered the constant connection we have with our world, one more immediate than ever before. There is a continuous buzz of busyness. It can overwhelm one to stillness, this blogger included, so I took a week off from publishing a post.

A break in routine is an opportunity to create a change in the way we live unless the break is just another form of busyness—same behavior just different surroundings or situations.

A true break means we attend to basic requirements only and not carry the world with us so we may meet the mundane as if for the first time, eyes fresh and bright. It requires us to drop what we carry so that we hold only the moment we have.

There is a well-known story of two monks who come to a river where they meet a woman who needs assistance in crossing.

Without a word, one monk picks up the woman and carries her across. She thanks the monk and leaves. The two monks continue on their way, one troubled and one not.

Finally, the troubled monk can stand it no longer and asks, “Why did you carry that woman across the river when you know we are prohibited any contact with women?”

The untroubled monk responds, “I only carried her across the river. You are still carrying her.”

If it is a break we intend, then it is much like residing in the gap between thoughts. In no thought there is no mind just pure consciousness. In a break from our routine, we no longer carry the busyness of everyday. We put it down and rest. When we return to our river of routine we cross, carrying our load again.

For me, this short break from blogging was different than previous ones. It started with a stop. Simultaneously, I dealt with a colorful but significantly sprained toe on my left foot and an aggravated inflammation of my right knee.

I note that the injury to my toe is probably related to increasing lupus inflammation issues but the injury occurred after my trip to the library in search of Zen novels (I found two). In fact, it was after I put down my library load that I stubbed/sprained/jammed my toe.

Resting and reading Zen provided me another perspective on balance both physically and emotionally. Perhaps my knee was more troublesome that particular day as in addition to wandering around the library, I had stocked up on groceries for the week.

My usual routine is either the library or the grocery store but not both yet organic, freshly ground almond butter was on sale, and I had new recipes to try, in particular Zoe’s cookies. I would have to wait most of the week to make them but they were worth every step to get the ingredients. EmmaRose thought so, too.

When not reading, I put down other emotional baggage that tends to clutter my routine, remembering that people really are doing the best they can and there are always options–this is true for me, as well. Sometimes, my routine blinds me to what others face so I do not see what they are carrying.

Now, I return to the river of my routine. I know the moment is all I ever have and that it is more than enough. After all, I only need to carry it to the next moment.

A Small World It Is

Posted on July 20, 2014July 25, 2014 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Oneness, Spirituality

Having “virtual” access to one another–day and night–leaves little doubt how small the world really is. We are ever connected.

That may have always been an issue as even the 19^th century romantic Wordsworth observed, the “world is too much with us late and soon.”

For all of our existence, thoughtful connection has been a human issue. We have always told stories to understand our relationship to life and our reverence for it but now, our stories seem out of sync with both.

Every minute of every hour we show each other who we are, and now that we have revealed ourselves to one another, thoughtful connection is even more of an issue.

Internet or no, to connect is to send and receive thoughtful messages, most often with language but sometimes with symbols or images that reveal more than words. Connecting is the light dawning, a window opening, an idea born.

In the 21^st century, a virtual message is sent at speeds faster than we are able to think, making it not only easier to be thoughtless but at a speed beyond what we are able to physically experience.

This is a new wrinkle in our history and it is yet to be shown whether or not we will smooth it out. In the ancient traditions, the thoughtful life is living in the moment that one has rather than wandering to moments already lived or imagining days that do not yet show a sunrise.

A thoughtful connection is not without its weight or burden for a thoughtful connection is considerate, perhaps even painful but not unkind. It is the compassionate connection that allows us to know pain without being consumed by it.

We know what to say, because we have experienced closing down,

shutting off, being angry, hurt, rebellious, and so forth,

and have made a relationship with those things in ourselves.

(Pema Chodron)

We have to heal the relationship we have with ourselves if the world that we are so passionate about in our rhetoric has any chance. Relationship on our planet is at a tipping point as thousands of species become extinct or face extinction.

We are the one species that can make a thoughtful difference. Indeed, we are the one species that has had more impact on this planet than any other.

`There are people who are past being hurt, beyond being hurt. You should know this is true. You should try to become one of those people, to make an understanding with yourself that you are not your body, you are something bigger. That is your work on this earth, do you see? Every experience here is to teach you to do that. Living, dying, every experience.’

(Volya Rinpoche to Otto Ringling, Breakfast with the Buddha P. 275)

As humans, we have to get beyond our reactions. If it seems impossible to be kind, it does not follow that the only response is to return hurt. Silence is ever a thoughtful connection for it reveals a reverence for life, for getting beyond hurt. It reveals that we are something bigger.

(Note: Regular posts will resume August 3, 2014.)

On Not Becoming a Buddha

Posted on July 13, 2014July 14, 2014 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Spirituality

Above all, don’t wish to become a future Buddha;

Your only concern should be,

As thought follows thought,

To avoid clinging to any of them.

~Dogen~

I do not think I have ever wanted to be a Buddha. I do not remember that thought at all. I do focus on trying not to cling to my thoughts but my lifelong practice of hairsplitting has been a sanctuary as well as a war.

My fondness for making excessive distinctions in reasoning allows me to dress up old behavior as new. I may not have expressed a wish to become a Buddha, but I have desired acquiring inner peace for the rest of my life.

Quite often it feels as if I am stomping through myriad thoughts, trying to shake off first one and then the other. I am amazed at the substance I give to a thought–I walk around in it–giving it a life it does not have.

Usually, it is a thought I know well but until I have examined it thoroughly, I am not able to let it go. I like to think that hairsplitting serves me here, much like Ajahn Chah’s distinction between holding and clinging:

We pick up [a flashlight], look at it and see, `Oh, it’s a flashlight,’ then we put it down. This is called holding but not clinging, we let go. We know and then we let go. To put it simply we say just this, `Know, then let go.’

~Ajahn Chah~

For me, knowing to let go requires trust, and when I do, the named thought floats by, a mere reminder of what is. However, knowing an object, a thing, is easier than meeting a familiar emotion. Yet, the practice is the same.

In fact, the practice of looking and letting go is what the mind learns to trust; Chah says that in “constancy of mind, wisdom arises.”

That constancy of mind is what I need most when emotion pulls at me, when I face patterns of a lifetime. Hairsplitting allows me to breathe between thoughts but it also makes for interesting detours.

As I began my regimen of healthy eating, meditation and yoga, I defined and redefined my practice of each as well as the union and intersection of all three. That is neither bad nor good but my initial focus was on results and now, it is to live.

In the beginning we practise with some desire in mind; we practise on and on, but we don’t attain our desire. So we practise until we reach a point where we’re practising for no return, we’re practising in order to let go.”

~Ajahn Chah~

“Practicing for no return” would not have been what I needed to know as I began my practice. I would not have trusted it. My wishing to become a Buddha was disguised as various emotional and physical health goals. In order to change my physical and emotional being, I had to let go of trying to become a future Buddha.

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