Category Archives: Overcome Difficulties

On Retirement

Since reading Chris Y’s comment and Rev Mugo’s response Thoughts on Retirement, thoughts on retirement keep appearing in my mind so I am going to write and see what is there.

I have some experience in gap time. An Illness, plus many years of stress, worsened to the point where I could no longer work. I loved my job and had dedicated a huge amount of energy to it. The shock of all the loss I felt was painful and scary. I went from full-time full-on immersion in the world of employment to being at home 24/7, to not being able to leave the house, and many times not able to leave my bed.

It felt like free falling into an abyss. My feelings were complex and contradictory. I struggled mightily against this fall yet also felt the blessed relief of not having to struggle anymore. My illness took over and, instead of defining myself by my work, I felt like ‘a sick person who was not able to work’. At first I couldn’t think I no longer work therefore what shall I do? , because there was very little I was able to do for many weeks. I found it hard to be still within these conditions. I was properly unseated!

That was 10 years ago and now, looking back, I can see that I had long ignored indicators that were telling me to slow down! But, at the time, I pushed such signs and thoughts away with justifications of ‘I have no choice, I am needed, I can keep this up if I just……’

My long convalescence was a period of learning how to listen, learning how to be within the boredom and the not knowing (who am I? what is my purpose? what shall I/can I do?). For a long time I was “under the influence of the mourning” for my working life and all that being employed brings. It is tough to no longer have that social network, that feeling of usefulness, the purpose (and the salary).

When I forgot to listen, when I allowed myself to follow old habits and behaviours, I was fortunate in that my body very quickly reacted to remind me of what I could and could not do and I had many relapses. I learnt the hard way to adapt to my new circumstances and I began to find solace in the peace and the opportunity to look at myself. Like you said, Rev Mugo, it takes time and patience…….and may I add, trust.

My situation is not unique and I had the good fortune to have a supportive husband and my Buddhist practice. My connection with Rev Mugo deepened during this period and many of our conversations focussed on these struggles and I thank her and Nigel for the love and support they gave me. I have a good life and I feel very lucky. My health is good and my current (part-time) work is sessional and I can drop it if I need to. So I am not entirely retired. Our reduced income has been much easier than I ever anticipated. The pangs of mourning still arise sometimes and I just say ‘hi’ to these feelings and I don’t hang on to them. They are just shadows now. I know that I actually have everything that I need right now, right here. I do tread more lightly; and I am with you, Rev Mugo – I too feel better than I have done when I was 20 years younger! Onward and forward I say!

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Easy And Pleasant Work

A post by Reverend Mugo from back in February has kept coming to mind for me. It was about ‘Giving it up’ (Feb. 26th). I find that teachings often burrow themselves inside me somewhere and keep on working somehow at an almost unconscious level; and so it has been with this one.

And what I have realised is that I so often approach life expecting it to be so hard. Which is why the ‘looking up’ has always appealed – but it has still felt like it was a ‘hard’ effort to look up and not be dragged down by the seeming inevitable difficulty of life and the sense of loss foreseen with ‘letting things go’, ‘offering them up’ or even until now with ‘give it up’.

Because we do have such deep patterns of comfort in our life regardless of the costs (both to ourselves and others) that may be involved. These patterns often involve (for me at least) recurring cycles of denial, craving and dependency on people, things, activities; and the idea of giving them up seems so hard. But where is all this negative expectation coming from? and why do I listen to it? Not just with big life habits but with seemingly small things. Like, eating fewer of the things that are probably not good for me (even going on a diet); breaking some of my dependency on car travel; facing and challenging my aversion to computers and the internet; being more organised with our finances; being more tidy…

So, given that things still seem different with our lives I am trying to look at just ‘giving up’ some of these things – without expectation, without looking for how hard it is going to be, and without listening to the feeling that I am doomed to fail.

And what seems to happen, as has happened so often before, is that after all the commentary has gone from my mind, far from being hard there is actually a ‘lightness’ and ease involved with giving up these patterns (or at least trying to give them up). It is as though they have weighed me down just carrying all this stuff around with me, for so, so long. Then giving it up comes with a feeling of being lifted up and maybe it is the gratitude that is doing the lifting.

Then I read this quote from The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines, at the front of this book and it seemed to re-enforce and immediately (and massively) expand what has been slowly revealing itself to me:

I should not like to have the bodhisattva think this kind of work hard to achieve and hard to plan out. If he did, there are beings beyond calculation, and he will not be able to benefit them. Let him on the contrary consider the work easy and pleasant, thinking they were all his mother and father and children, for this is the way to benefit all beings whose number is beyond calculation.

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To Do, Or Not To Do?

Being a parent is always hectic; nothing new there. Life has been especially busy recently, with one daughter moving back to live with us temporarily and the other moving into a new house. The distractions/demands come thick and fast and my response to these demands/distractions is something for me to take a closer look at. What is good to do?

I want to be supportive but is it always good to say yes? I know the answer to that one (N0 if you are in any doubt!). But in the moment, when I am caught off guard, when the dynamic pull of parent/child stuff occurs, I find myself saying yes far too often. Old habits die hard and the years of being the single parent who did it all has meant expectations sometimes run high. And, in the not too distant future I am to be a grandparent and with that will come yet more demands/distractions, some of which I happily anticipate, however………….

Last year, in a conversation with Rev Mugo, we talked about this. She gave me a suggestion and since then, when I remember to, I have put her suggestion into practice. The first time I tried the idea it went like this: the phone rings and it is my daughter, wanting something from me. What usually happens, and it happened this time, is that I feel a strong mental pull in a forward direction. This pull feels like I am being sucked forward, both by the words I am hearing and the kicking in of my habitual responses of OK, I am needed again, I am wanted therefore I will. I want to say no but I can’t. But this time I chose to change my perspective. I allowed myself to become aware of the physical space behind me. I immediately felt a loosening, a relaxing of the tension I was feeling. The pull forward stopped and I was able to be still in a way that I haven’t experienced before.

My daughter must have noticed something because she stopped talking and asked me if I was OK. I just said that I was listening to her. But something had happened between us and she and I noticed a difference. Our communication softened. I can’t remember whether I said yes or no to her request; my actual response isn’t relevant. What is important is that the experience gave me a sense of how it is possible to be really present by a simple change in my perspective. And in that space I was more able to respond fully.

Since then, when I remember to, I bring my attention to that space that isn’t in front of me. There is also the space that is behind and either side of me. When I am not just focused on forwards I can connect myself to the space I inhabit. I don’t just exist in relation to the pull of pressures, distractions, demands, habits. What a relief!

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When The Bell Rings

So just what is it that moves us? How is that the bell is answered. Just what was it that got me from sitting, to standing, to walking? What got me to answer the bell? Or to do anything for that matter. And the simple answer is intention. When the bell rings my intention is to answer it. Bells are a big part of monastic practice. They signal that a new activity is about to start. So this activity needs to be wrapped up in order to move on to the next one. For all there is of course the internal bell calling to us to move on to the next thing. Which means putting down this thing. There is, hopefully, the intention to answer/respond to the call of conditions as they present. To the very best of ones ability.

Adrienne writes (in effect) about listening to the bell and what sometimes rings louder. That is, so called, distractions. Distractions in themselves are not a problem. Being awake to distractions, and remaining awake, indicates the intention to get out of the cozy bed of whatever and get on with answering the bell. So. Intention, coupled with direction (next thing), equals action.

….I have my well-practiced methods of avoidance and I see them for what they are. I am not sure that searching for the reasons for my reluctance or the source of my difficulty is particularly useful or relevant, however my awareness about what I do means that I want to change and do things differently.

From Distractions by Adrienne Hodges.

And my continuing intention is to continue to write here. Having this time to rest and reflect and not post so regularly has been good.

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Giving It Up

This morning. Half awake. Half asleep. Caught in that in between time. Half formed thoughts flowing on from a conversation yesterday. We were talking of the difference between giving up in the way one does which is looking down. And giving up in the way of giving up while looking up. Give it up. That’s what I came to, half awake/half asleep this morning. Give it up means giving up while looking up.

My early training would be full of instructions to let it go, offer it up. To be honest such instructions seemed to paralyze rather than move me on. Now give it up speaks more clearly of how it is. Not the giving up of despair more….let me think now…..more that giving is center stage, gratitude is center stage. Not that I think grateful thoughts all day long. Such thoughts hardly come up at all. Giving it up has a powerful connotation, for me, of release. Of release into activity. No namby pamby (which was the younger me) will I won’t I. Ought to. Should do.

Increasingly I find myself at a loss. Lost in the labyrinths of words when words, bless ’em, are what we have. Lost without them, lost with them. But let’s not get into that trap. The lost, tired, where am I and what’s to do thoughts are common to all. They, such thoughts, are the trap. Or can become so. They call out, come wrap yourself up in what you know, wrap yourself up so warm and cozy so even your eyes can no longer see, your ears can no longer hear. And you can no longer move or speak.

If all you think you know
Is all you know
And that uncomfortable/comfortable knowing
Has you wrapped up all warm and cozy…

Then, literally
Open your eyes
Allow what is there
To be there
Literally.

Beyond your eyeballs
Behind your eyeballs
Where is the boundry?
Give up – look up!

There is then, nothing more than this…it is enough.

Well, this might work for a handful of readers. And if it does great, and if it doesn’t don’t worry. Look out for your wisdom as it races past you. Follow it knowing it is not yours to hold and keep. Give it up!

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