Breakfast with a Heron

Our 3-star hotel sits in front of a marina, so last night and this morning, i took a beach chair out of the trunk, so i could sit and watch the water while i ate a warmed-over breakfast (last night's dinner). Just below me a heron waded in the water, as if she didn't even see me.

She was eating her breakfast too, poking her bill into the sand, grabbing something-or-other, and gulp-gulp, swallowing down her long throat.

Just think of all the emotions we swallow every day. We swallow our feelings because we are adults--we are not children who freely express every little emotional cloud that blows through their small bodies.

As adults we swallow our feelings, and there they lodge, stuck in the body. Sometimes, you can literally read another person's emotions by the (somatic) complaint/illness in their body. For instance, my sweetie's back used to go out every time i left home for a week. "You're mad at me," i would tell him. He denied it for several years until a male friend told him that a lot of lower back problems are caused by stuffed anger. That's when my sweetie looked inside and said, "Yes, i get mad at you when you abandon me for a week." After that, his back didn't go out again for 20 years.

Veery Flute Duet

The veery is my favorite bird here in the North Country. It looks like just another brown bird--it's a small thrush. But its song is heavenly--it sounds like a trilling flute.

Some summers i can hear the veery on my neighbor's land. This year, 2 veerys have taken up residence very near my house, one on each side of my lawn. Oh, my. A flute duet every early morning and every late evening, right here. Actually, since a single veery sounds like a duet all by itself, two veerys sound like a flute quartet.

Hearing the Dharma is another kind of sweet sound. It has so much common sense and so much uncommon sense at the same time. What a duet!

This coming Sunday I'm giving a talk on verse 5 of The Dhammapada.

Hatred never ceases through hatred,

But by love alone is healed.

Another way to say this is "Hatred begets hatred. Kindness begets kindness."
Still another way to say it is " Throwing a hot potato at someone invites them to throw a hot potato back at you." Now, why would you do that? Yet we all do it frequently.

I listen to the lovely sound of the veery singing 2 notes at the same time in the woods.

The Blame Game

My morning meditation group is reading a book on forgiveness. Yesterday we read a chapter on The Blame Game, which i think i would like to memorize. Then yesterday afternoon, as i was teaching meditation at the county jail, one of my students talked about her relationship with another woman inmate, and how they were just playing a hurtful blame game with each other.

The blame game starts with you-statements. This is a way of throwing a hot potato at someone. Usually, the other person will throw it right back at you with another you-statement, and then the two of you are off to the races.

It takes extreme mindfulness to hold on to the hot potato and notice that it is hot and burning and that you feel angry or frustrated and that you want to say whatever is on the tip of your tongue. Stop. Stop and notice all those pains. Count to 10. Give yourself a moment to cool down. Try to drop the hot potato. Keep trying to let go of that hot-hot-hot potato.

Of course your feelings hurt. That is your pain. Notice that "they" did not cause your pain. You are causing your own pain by holding on to a painful idea. They condemned you. So what?

It's time for you to make a change. A change of habit. Probably a change in relationship. The pain will cease. But only when you stop resisting it.

The Blame Game is a game you are sure to lose. So stop playing it.