New York Poet Laureate Marie Howe wants us to learn to pay attention. As a daily caregiver to her brother when he was in the process of dying from AIDS, Howe learned how to notice "the particulars" of objects and sounds and sensations. She found that she learned to live in time again--in the present--by becoming aware of these particulars--everything that is ordinary, in other words. According to Howe, we can only really describe what is happening or what transpired by talking about what we have observed. Then, when we talk about the bed, the garden, my daughter's bathroom floor covered in beach sand, or the kitchen sink full of last night's dinner plates, we know there is a space between all of that where "what the living do" unfolds.
I stumbled upon this insight of poet Marie Howe a couple of days ago while at the beach, again, with my daughter. Give me a moment, and you will understand my emphasis of "again." In the summer issue of Tricycle, The Buddhist Review magazine, Howe is interviewed by Zen teachers Robert Chodo Campbell and Koshin Paley Ellison. Chodo and Ellison are friends of Howe's. They co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care (NYZCCC) and invited Howe to participate as a fellow teacher in a training program in Buddhist Contemplative Care. According to Campbell and Ellison, caring comes from the intimacy of the moment. Naturally, they were wise to invite Howe to participate as a teacher. Let's face it, poets are deeply in touch with moment-by-moment intimacy. It is important to note that the training program at NYZCCC is not only focused on end-of-life care, or the care we need to muster to tend to the elderly or terminally ill. Rather, Campbell, Ellison and Howe make a point of celebrating the ordinary moments of our lives as opportunities to foster caring, which in turn not only sustains us, but can make us thrive.
I took the many lessons I gleaned from this interview as pertinent to the care we extend to both our loved ones and community members as we live and work and interact with one another in the way our day-to-day encounters throw us all together. The way I figure it, if we can think of our day-to-day encounters as distinct opportunities for giving care--for tapping into the intimacy of the moment--then we, too, might gain some much-needed wisdom on the nature of compassion. And while we might not be able to solve the most pressing problems in our families and communities and the world, we would, nonetheless, gain the necessary strength to reasonably and patiently address whatever it is that challenges us.
Forgive me, now, for complaining about one of my current challenges or, for that matter, even calling it a challenge. I am home this summer with my 13-year-old daughter. Most days, around 2 p.m., we head down to the beach where I, for the most part, read under an umbrella stuck into the sand while my daughter exhausts herself diving and swimming in the waves. How could I possibly complain about such a routine, right? The sad truth is that a part of me could and has. I teach part-time at a local community college. During the summer, I routinely pick up a class or work for a few hours at the campus tutoring center. This summer, I have no school obligations. Subsequently, I have no paycheck either. This makes going to the beach an affordable routine adventure as we are lucky enough to live within a few miles of the sand. So, what's the problem? The part of me that nags at me from time-to-time about accomplishment will suggest that I am wasting my time. After all, how significant, really, is this routine I am currently participating in with my daughter?
The truth is that the time we have had to spend together this summer has been priceless. We have had time to remember how to talk to one another, and not just about school stuff--you know, homework, due, how are your classes, what projects are coming up? I have had time to enjoy cooking meals for her. Occasionally, we stop to sit down and share a frozen yogurt or a shake while coming back from the beach, which makes me remember fondly the lengthiness of a summer day when I was my daughter's age. While my daughter, thank goodness, takes full advantage of losing herself in this very simple activity--swimming at the beach--I am retraining myself in the art of living in the moment. I have to resist the urge to justify the very simple nature of this routine with its opposite where I am flush with activity and deadlines and another obligation narrowly met.
Soon enough, my daughter, like her older sister, will be off to college and charging full-speed ahead into her own life. I will not have to listen to the music and the select few songs she must play again and again every day; I will no longer need to pester her about picking up her room or remind her to brush her teeth or bring her laundry downstairs. Her bedroom door now littered with stickers will one day be as spotless as the other doors that signal the threshold to a room in the house. I dream of the quiet and the uninterrupted time I will have one day in the future. For the moment, I am protected from the inevitable melancholy all of that quiet will bring with it. For the moment, I am participating in the many, many moments that make up the summer months, and learning what it feels like to be present in them. I acknowledge now, in light of Howe's interview, that I am engaged in the act of caring, and that includes caring for myself; and it feels right. This feeling reminds me of one of my favorite lines from a poem of St.Teresa's in which she writes, "clarity, I know, is freedom." There is a sense of clarity that accompanies what feels right. I am beginning to understand that the freedom St. Teresa sagely equates with clarity comes through the process of surrendering.
Yes. That's accurate. Clarity comes through. Then, as Howe, and Ellison and Campbell explain, we are able to be present to what is happening. We are capable of caring because we are here and alive and available.
Recently, I had lunch with my 89-year-old mother. She was recounting a story from her days spent as a clerk in an engineering department for a large corporation. She spent many hours photocopying specs and blueprints for a department full of engineers and draftsmen. Intuitively, she learned a lot about architecture and how to use space. When her department was slated for a remodel, my mother made casual suggestions about what she thought would be the best use of the space to be refurbished. When the remodel was complete, the engineers confided to her that my mother's ideas had been excellent ones, and they were reflected in the new design. My mother raised six children. She, herself, came of age at a time when women, generally, did not go to college. Instead, they married young and stayed home with the kids. Often, my mother will disparage her intellect when she is in the company of her children who benefited from the advantage of time and went to college and found good jobs and adopted the idea that women could have children and homes and jobs. After listening to my mother tell this story, I said to her, "You could have been an architect or an engineer, for that matter. You not only have the intelligence, but the common sense to have succeeded in anything." To this she responded, "I like to think that I was a good Mom."
After sitting speechless for some time in my mother's company, allowing this humble piece of truth to sink in, I realized that my mother had survived the egotism that often accompanies striving, accomplishment, and the quixotic idea of success that goes along with chasing down a career. At 89, my mother is content to surrender to the sacrifice and sacredness of having been responsible for raising six kids. This is not to say that she is without regret or that she does not have her doubts or is not plagued by her idiosyncratic human failings. Nevertheless, what comes through is that she has a sense of clarity about the choice she made to be a mom.
While standing in virabhadrasana 1(warrior pose) during a recent practice, my teacher gently adjusted me so that I put more weight into my back leg. "It's time to stop rushing into the future in your standing poses," she said, reminding me that my anchor for the pose, the place where the warrior would draw her strength, came from standing firmly in the back leg. Once again, I hear the message of presence. Once again, I have the opportunity to pay attention. Once again, I surrender to learning all over again how to care for myself because, after all, this is what the living must do.
For more information about poet and Sarah Lawrence College professor Marie Howe, please check out the following links:
www.onbeing.org/program/the-poetry-of-ordinary...marie-howe/5301
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/marie-howe
http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-33734-1/
I stumbled upon this insight of poet Marie Howe a couple of days ago while at the beach, again, with my daughter. Give me a moment, and you will understand my emphasis of "again." In the summer issue of Tricycle, The Buddhist Review magazine, Howe is interviewed by Zen teachers Robert Chodo Campbell and Koshin Paley Ellison. Chodo and Ellison are friends of Howe's. They co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care (NYZCCC) and invited Howe to participate as a fellow teacher in a training program in Buddhist Contemplative Care. According to Campbell and Ellison, caring comes from the intimacy of the moment. Naturally, they were wise to invite Howe to participate as a teacher. Let's face it, poets are deeply in touch with moment-by-moment intimacy. It is important to note that the training program at NYZCCC is not only focused on end-of-life care, or the care we need to muster to tend to the elderly or terminally ill. Rather, Campbell, Ellison and Howe make a point of celebrating the ordinary moments of our lives as opportunities to foster caring, which in turn not only sustains us, but can make us thrive.
I took the many lessons I gleaned from this interview as pertinent to the care we extend to both our loved ones and community members as we live and work and interact with one another in the way our day-to-day encounters throw us all together. The way I figure it, if we can think of our day-to-day encounters as distinct opportunities for giving care--for tapping into the intimacy of the moment--then we, too, might gain some much-needed wisdom on the nature of compassion. And while we might not be able to solve the most pressing problems in our families and communities and the world, we would, nonetheless, gain the necessary strength to reasonably and patiently address whatever it is that challenges us.
Forgive me, now, for complaining about one of my current challenges or, for that matter, even calling it a challenge. I am home this summer with my 13-year-old daughter. Most days, around 2 p.m., we head down to the beach where I, for the most part, read under an umbrella stuck into the sand while my daughter exhausts herself diving and swimming in the waves. How could I possibly complain about such a routine, right? The sad truth is that a part of me could and has. I teach part-time at a local community college. During the summer, I routinely pick up a class or work for a few hours at the campus tutoring center. This summer, I have no school obligations. Subsequently, I have no paycheck either. This makes going to the beach an affordable routine adventure as we are lucky enough to live within a few miles of the sand. So, what's the problem? The part of me that nags at me from time-to-time about accomplishment will suggest that I am wasting my time. After all, how significant, really, is this routine I am currently participating in with my daughter?
The truth is that the time we have had to spend together this summer has been priceless. We have had time to remember how to talk to one another, and not just about school stuff--you know, homework, due, how are your classes, what projects are coming up? I have had time to enjoy cooking meals for her. Occasionally, we stop to sit down and share a frozen yogurt or a shake while coming back from the beach, which makes me remember fondly the lengthiness of a summer day when I was my daughter's age. While my daughter, thank goodness, takes full advantage of losing herself in this very simple activity--swimming at the beach--I am retraining myself in the art of living in the moment. I have to resist the urge to justify the very simple nature of this routine with its opposite where I am flush with activity and deadlines and another obligation narrowly met.
Soon enough, my daughter, like her older sister, will be off to college and charging full-speed ahead into her own life. I will not have to listen to the music and the select few songs she must play again and again every day; I will no longer need to pester her about picking up her room or remind her to brush her teeth or bring her laundry downstairs. Her bedroom door now littered with stickers will one day be as spotless as the other doors that signal the threshold to a room in the house. I dream of the quiet and the uninterrupted time I will have one day in the future. For the moment, I am protected from the inevitable melancholy all of that quiet will bring with it. For the moment, I am participating in the many, many moments that make up the summer months, and learning what it feels like to be present in them. I acknowledge now, in light of Howe's interview, that I am engaged in the act of caring, and that includes caring for myself; and it feels right. This feeling reminds me of one of my favorite lines from a poem of St.Teresa's in which she writes, "clarity, I know, is freedom." There is a sense of clarity that accompanies what feels right. I am beginning to understand that the freedom St. Teresa sagely equates with clarity comes through the process of surrendering.
Yes. That's accurate. Clarity comes through. Then, as Howe, and Ellison and Campbell explain, we are able to be present to what is happening. We are capable of caring because we are here and alive and available.
Recently, I had lunch with my 89-year-old mother. She was recounting a story from her days spent as a clerk in an engineering department for a large corporation. She spent many hours photocopying specs and blueprints for a department full of engineers and draftsmen. Intuitively, she learned a lot about architecture and how to use space. When her department was slated for a remodel, my mother made casual suggestions about what she thought would be the best use of the space to be refurbished. When the remodel was complete, the engineers confided to her that my mother's ideas had been excellent ones, and they were reflected in the new design. My mother raised six children. She, herself, came of age at a time when women, generally, did not go to college. Instead, they married young and stayed home with the kids. Often, my mother will disparage her intellect when she is in the company of her children who benefited from the advantage of time and went to college and found good jobs and adopted the idea that women could have children and homes and jobs. After listening to my mother tell this story, I said to her, "You could have been an architect or an engineer, for that matter. You not only have the intelligence, but the common sense to have succeeded in anything." To this she responded, "I like to think that I was a good Mom."
After sitting speechless for some time in my mother's company, allowing this humble piece of truth to sink in, I realized that my mother had survived the egotism that often accompanies striving, accomplishment, and the quixotic idea of success that goes along with chasing down a career. At 89, my mother is content to surrender to the sacrifice and sacredness of having been responsible for raising six kids. This is not to say that she is without regret or that she does not have her doubts or is not plagued by her idiosyncratic human failings. Nevertheless, what comes through is that she has a sense of clarity about the choice she made to be a mom.
While standing in virabhadrasana 1(warrior pose) during a recent practice, my teacher gently adjusted me so that I put more weight into my back leg. "It's time to stop rushing into the future in your standing poses," she said, reminding me that my anchor for the pose, the place where the warrior would draw her strength, came from standing firmly in the back leg. Once again, I hear the message of presence. Once again, I have the opportunity to pay attention. Once again, I surrender to learning all over again how to care for myself because, after all, this is what the living must do.
For more information about poet and Sarah Lawrence College professor Marie Howe, please check out the following links:
www.onbeing.org/program/the-poetry-of-ordinary...marie-howe/5301
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/marie-howe
http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-33734-1/
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