Hedgehog's Dilemma, or Using a Buddhist Principle to Understand Complex Friendships

I'm speaking for myself of course. I don’t know what my life would be like without having had the guidance these many years from my Buddhist minded therapist, Heather Bourne, at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. 

The most profound lesson through my limited, but ever expanding Buddhist learning, has been acceptance and I can see how this vital element is rooted in so many aspects of Buddhist teachings and life.

A little stuck? That's me! To the left of the red truck and barn you can barely see my car

This little vignette is based on my carrying a hurt and someone else not knowing, perhaps, that I feel so deeply affected by an action, or lack of. Do I bring it up, weeks onwards? Maybe not, maybe, maybe not yet, maybe never. I read somewhere never to take things personally, and while this is true, it does not stop my feelings from wandering....

It's never over till its over, my road less traveled

That judgment thing is a tough one sometimes to get through. The thing is, my therapist advised me "you cannot talk someone else into having the same values as yourself". Heather gently guided me in how to resolve my fragile/strong self. I’m one of those people that do not shove a problem under the carpet and I strive to live my life on a straight, empathetic path. Sometimes the path needs to swerve radically as compassion has more hills than you'd think I've come to learn. When problems such as this come up, I want to find solutions and move forward, not bury it under a carpet, where for me it festers. So it’s tricky when dealing with someone else who does just that, and maybe that's the only way they can cope at that moment. The world is full of a myriad of different values, maybe like the color spectrum, definitely not ever white or black. Heather told me last week, “If we assume our values are right for everyone, we will be constantly disappointed, and likely perceived as alienating and moralistic”. She also suggested “it is a mistake to assume others have the same values (and neurology), as you”. Such wise words, so easy to forget in the moment, or all the time.

What do you do when you feel hurt by someone else’s action, or non-action? I know not to blame, I learned that useful tool many years ago. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling slighted when the dark cloud lingers, which seems eternally, hoping a rainfall might clear the air and the flowers will shine again and smile, and all will be cozy and well in friendship as it was.

Golly, it feels cold sometimes

Heather asked me to ask myself, “Does this person guard my heart well enough?” “Have they earned my investment in this conversation (based on experience?). Is it a conversation that might build our relationship?" Heather asks me gently, when I ask her, "It's not in my ball park, but do I bring it up?".

As I came to understand all this bigger picture, I suddenly lost the need to discuss my pain with my friend, to even let her know how I feel, realizing they may never understand it, or accept it, or even see how it happened. They may or may not want to bother to fix my pain, that leaves me to fix it myself. The road to that is also nuanced. A simple thank you and I’m so sorry would suffice for me, but sometimes that’s asking a lot from someone who hasn’t got it to give, or simply doesn’t want to. I’ve apologized for my percentage of the problem, but I’ve heard nothing back on that per se.  However, it is valuable to pay attention for they have “put money in the bank” as my therapist refers to some sort of investment into the friendship. Sometimes that is the best they can do. Or the best they can do for a while. I can be fine with that.

"There are no problems, only solutions", my dear friend Henry Lincoln tells me

I’m hovering though still… over the question, “Does this person guard my heart well enough?”. There lay an important answer, staring me in the face. The sense of intimacy that friendship seemed to hold suddenly shifted into perspective, the perspective of a different reality to the one I had previously imagined it to be, neither good nor bad, just what "is".  Aha! I thought. This is where acceptance comes in. My willingness to continue as before has also shifted though, and everything is different, including how I see the world today, just from yesterday. I need to guard my own heart a little tighter here. I did suddenly have another profoundly important realization that came out of all of this and makes me grateful even, for all the pain: I must also guard the heart of those I love, (including my friend who led to this pain), to question if I have earned their investment in me as a friend, a mother, a partner, a sister. It’s a big one. Guarding the heart. The sentinel of love. Simple as that. 

Asking Mister Saint Anthony To Help Me Find Myself

Forget-Me-Not

Saint Anthony by Raphael, circa 1502

After a trip to Mexico, my sister became enamored of Saint Anthony. This came as a surprise growing up in a family that made a point not to discuss religion at all. Outside of our immediate family though, everyone else I was related to was religious. They were either Church of England, Episcopalian (basically C of E), or Jewish converts to Christian Science, or, like my father, Agnostic. "Leaving the door open" he would on the rare occasion say with a wry smile. I had one English aunt who belonged to both the Catholic Church and the Episcopalian Church, something that came as a surprise to both her priests when she passed away and we organized a duo church funeral for her this last July. As far as I know she was the only Catholic in my family. Due to my unusual, Anglo American, deliberately non-religious upbringing, I therefore had no idea who Saint Anthony was. 

It turns out, for those of you who might not know, this Saint is the patron Saint of lost and stolen articles, a very practical Saint to become friends with (for someone like me who lose things with ever alarming frequency). If you get to know Saint Anthony, and I highly recommend you do, you will soon consider yourself extremely fortunate. 

The first time I lost something and I now forget what, my sister instructed me to ask Saint Anthony to help me find it. I wondered if she had lost her mind. She insisted, I raised my eyebrows and bit my lower lip, thought what the heck, and gave it a try. Little did I ever imagine he would become one of my dearest friends.

A few weeks ago I lost a set of every day Very Important Keys, containing my house key, my most important car key that also opens the boot of the car, the post office box key, the key to my 95-year-old auntie’s house, and that of my daughter’s flat, the sole key to my storage unit as I have recently moved, and there were a few other keys besides that I actually forget what they open but are significantly important for me to carry at all times. I only discovered this fact when I got home and was locked out of my house. By this time all the shops where I had previously been were closed.  How one loses a set of keys as important as these is irrelevant.

And then I began to cry. Not because of the lost keys, but because I felt and have been feeling so lost myself. I have been experiencing an unsettled-ness and ill at ease-ness, uncertain about where I am supposed to be and what I am meant to be doing - other than making tea cozies and pocket scarves and trying, in my own small way, to make a difference to the ever increasing harsher side of the world we live in. I donate art and help as much as I can with the Creative Collective For Refugee Relief but know it is one grain of sand in a very sad sea where a great many people are lost in ways I really cannot imagine. "Get a grip!" I said to myself, putting some perspective on my privileged feelings.

Lest I forget-me-not

I have spoken about memory before at Bluebell and the Fox, and what a trickster she can be! In my head I was sure those keys were one place when in fact they were elsewhere.

The next day I traced my steps and within the hour I had found my keys. I hugged them and thanked Saint Anthony with all my heart. I had taken for granted how important keys are. Without them you are shut out from places that even belong to yourself.

And then... later that night I thought perhaps I needed to ask Saint Anthony where had I gone? That I had lost myself in all the sadness I have been feeling, in all the out of place-ness I have been experiencing, a hovering grief engulfing me as though it were life, all of life that I am grieving for. One huge sense of loss is how I have felt and with it loneliness, in a funny almost comforting sort of way, a bit like how I feel when I have flu, if that makes any sense. I don’t often feel lonely, but right now I feel very much so and most of all it is because I have temporarily lost my self. I then knew I had to ask lost self how to find my other self. Immediate action was required to take care of this, and no one better than to put my faith in, much less my own disappearance, than into the lap of my beloved Saint A. And when I find myself perhaps I will be in an even better place to help others whose needs far exceed my own. That "giving back" and giving anyway is vital to my own sense of well-being-ness. So I wrote Anthony a letter in the quiet of the night, with the breeze gently caressing the wind chimes, the scent of pine whispering I am less alone than I think.

Dear Mister Saint Anthony,

I am asking you to help me find my self and help me to put me on my own right path. (I hear his voice immediately, telling me "You are on the path already you silly goose. Be patient!") Where did I go, Mister Saint Anthony? Why does the world feel so different? Did I fall out of my own pocket? Whatever foolish thing I did that has caused this occurrence, I am asking you to help me put me back inside of whatever it is I think of as my being. Is there a different Saint I need to turn to for the sadness in my heart? I suspect it is an accumulation of grief that is more than losing people I love as I seem to profoundly feel the suffering of others and it all feels like quite a lot for one person to bear. I know my Angels are there, as my friend, Simon has helped me become aware of, or my Spirit Guides, as my friend Katie describes them yet they are awfully quiet right now. I can't forget Lyn, another very special healer psychic friend you must know, who loves the world of Saints and who looked for a book about you for me. And I even have a friend named David, in Portsmouth, England, who reminds me a lot of you! There must be a reason that I am meant to feel and experience this suffering, do I need to know why? Or should I just let it be, perhaps? To sit with the uncomfortableness of it all for a while is truly uncomfortable but I can handle that, knowing it will pass, like the clouds pass in the sky, someone dear to me reminds me (and that is one small comfort).

"Meditation will lead you to yourself. The answers are all there inside you, where they have always been" Saint Anthony reminded me while I was writing to him. I have experienced that Saints, Angels and Spirit Guides can act instantly.

And if there is anything I can do for you Mr. Saint Anthony, please do not hesitate to ask, for your wish is my command. Thank you again for helping me find the lost keys. I feel quite confident, given your amazing track record that you will help me. 

And then he said to me a few days later, out of the blue, "Look at it this way. You had to let go of something very big even though right now you have not been aware of this fact. There are also many changes occurring all at once... There is always a void when something vanishes, even something you don't need to carry any longer. Voids need to be filled but I must caution you not to be too hasty in filling it. Take your time, all the time you need, and one day soon you will realize there no longer is a void at all. Continue to be true to yourself, that is all I ask and all I can tell you right now."

I've got to love the guy! He comes to my rescue like no one else.

I remind myself of the Bigger Picture: I am and will always be the center of my Universe

fin

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saint |sānt|

noun

1 a person acknowledged as holy or virtuous and typically regarded as being in heaven after death.

• (in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches) a person formally recognized or canonized by the Church after death, who may be the object of veneration and prayers for intercession.

• a person who is admired or venerated because of their virtue: he was considered a living saint by recipients of his generosity.

• (in or alluding to biblical use) a Christian believer.

• (Saint)a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; a Mormon.

2 (Saint)(abbr.: St. or S.)used in titles of religious saints: the epistles of Saint Paul | St. John's Church.

• used in place names or other dedications: St. Louis | St. Lawrence River.

verb [ with obj. ]

formally recognize as a saint; canonize.

~Computer dictionary

Barn Burnt Down, Now I See The Moon

Mizuta Masahide, a seventeenth century Japanese Samurai poet, wrote the beautiful haiku poem that I have appropriated for today's entry title.

Large Old Sea Tortoise Shell

Thinking about the futility of attachment to permanence, when everything, according to Buddhist thinking, is Already Broken, has intrigued me in my quest for "acceptance". 

The Japanese will repair a damaged ceramic bowl with gold, increasing the preciousness of life in a powerful metaphoric expression. Everything will one day break, yet we hold on to things, to people, to houses, to the past, to suffering. The culture I was raised in strives for stability, ownership, permanence, yet the Buddhists believe the opposite. I have come to let go of so much in my life and I embrace "already broken" as much as I can. It's challenging and not the easiest thing to do, but perhaps the most freeing, in the end.

My broken beautiful Chinese dolls

Circumstances of my own life have taught me that I can treasure something that another can destroy in seconds. About thirty years ago, someone once broke every single thing I owned that they did not decide to keep for them self. These dolls were deliberately torn apart. I felt heart broken when I found them, knowing that person had wanted to do this to me. That person knew these dolls had been brought from China by my grandmother for me, even before I was born. Never much of a materialist, they were however, something I held dear. My grandmother had died when I was seventeen and I loved her very much. She understood and appreciated all things oriental and taught me a great deal about beauty. Her aesthetic sense was stunningly oriental.

While I let go of the very broken relationship, and everything else that had been destroyed, I kept these broken dolls that represent that whole time of my life. I find I treasure them all the more. From time to time I look at them and I think about all sorts of things. I do not need to keep them, but I do. I don't really hold on too hard to the memories, but sometimes it is an interesting reflection and reminder once again, of the Japanese principle Already Broken.

I am never too old to play with dolls

And converse with the wind

fin  

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per•ma•nent |ˈpərmənənt|

adjective

lasting or intended to last or remain unchanged indefinitely : a permanent ban on the dumping of radioactive waste at sea | damage was not thought to be permanent | some temporary workers did not want a permanent job.

• lasting or continuing without interruption : he's in a permanent state of rage.

Origin: late Middle English : from Latin permanent- ‘remaining to the end’ (perhaps via Old French), from per- ‘through’ + manere ‘remain.’

                                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                              ~ Computer dictionary

I am dedicating this entry to Sarah Darer, who lost her mother suddenly a few days ago, as did I many years ago. She wrote a beautiful Eulogy on her blog that moved me to tears and perpetuated this post. 

Dream Coming True: Living Like A Japanese Tea House

"Life is an expression, our unconscious actions the constant betrayal of our innermost thoughts"

                                                                                                     `Okakura Kakuzo

Dreams Come True Parasols   by myself

There is something extraordinary about the process of dreaming. It means different things to different people and cultures...and yet there is an ethereal quality of a sense of possibility omnipresent within all the fluctuations of the dreaming process, I think.

Recently, in an earlier entry, I took back my girlhood dream of how I was going to live my life with a vision for a future that is long since already in the past; it was a dream that never came into fruition, though I was once on its threshold, perhaps.

Looking For Something by Julian Cocnran, circa 1903

Though I sat with the vacancy for some weeks, curiously that particular void allowed for the imagination to wander. This is something I have since learned is part of who I am and what I desire - making room for imagination that is.

So. I want to build an old fashioned, Japanese Tea House in the Eastern tradition. The early houses were modeled after Zen Monasteries, where monks would drink tea from a shared bowl, the tea working as an elixir to keep the monks from falling asleep during meditation. The tea house was simply yet beautifully constructed, representing an environment of contemplation and quiet, of reflection and of "being", a place of poetic beauty, with a touch of melancholy and yet balanced through the acceptance and appreciation of imperfection.

This recent dream of mine, the building of this teahouse, is metaphoric. I want to personally reflect the principles upon which the tea house came to be. I want my life to be clean, and yet offering space for the wind to blow in the pine needles that can stay upon the floor for a time. I can remind myself with their presence of the passing of time in anticipation of the oncoming winter, for example, that being the aging process.

Wouldn't a tea house be splendid in a Pine Forest? ~ by myself

I am, therefore, re-inventing my concept of home, which is an ephemeral and in my case, mercurial existence resembling more a river winding and bending, traveling some distance without any real purpose of place, though aesthetics of that place, where ever it is, has always been of paramount importance to me. It must incorporate a sense of beauty. Okakura Kakuzo, quoted in the opening of this entry, wrote in his exquisite treatise, The Book of Tea, that the kettle in a tea house would sit upon a brazier, boiling water. It contained some little scraps of iron inside so that the water would make a strange, eerie sound, referencing the sound of wind, or running water. This somewhat resembles myself, I thought with some delight, embracing my own futile existence for once.

One of my Favorite Books

It has taken a long road to reach this apex of ease in giving away a lifetime's acquisitions, mental as well as material. Once I was free of the original dream it was suddenly quite simple, yet the process was a complex one. I had to slowly find the courage to pull away layers of thoughtless consumption as well as an assumption about what life was supposed to be. Shedding slowly, as I have been ready, and with patience at times and impatience at others until an almost nothingness appeared in my mental horizon. It was a place uncluttered, yet filled with light and breeze. 

Geisha by Kasakabe Kimbei, circa 1880's

Something inexplicable has been pulling me towards a very different approach to living for nearly three decades. It feels like this: when I am in a connected place with the forces of what I call life, I can clearly see the futility of fighting against it. And fight I did, for a very long time, trying to will my life to be different to what it was. It all began when I was a young, single mother living like many other single mothers: in intolerable circumtances of interminable threat and fear. But then, in letting go the struggle and disbelief that this was truly my plight, and accepting this really was it, the struggle ended. As one lets fall layers upon layers of weight that one carries voluntarily and yet feels involuntarily, there is a passing moment of clarity and one can feel the smallness of oneself, a coagulation of particles in a vast expanse. That small moment is worth all the effort, as one settles briefly in newly created mental space. I think perhaps it is getting a bird's eye perspective of one's own existence. One can ride the wave for a fleeting moment, for one is that very wave, something that is gone in the fraction of a second, dissolved once again into the sea itself.

 Girl in Heavy Storm by Kasakabe Kimbei, circa 1880's



Fin

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beau•ty |ˈbyoōtē| noun ( pl. -ties)

1 a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, esp. the sight : I was struck by her beauty | an area of outstanding natural beauty.

• a combination of qualities that pleases the intellect or moral sense.

• [as adj. ] denoting something intended to make a woman more attractive : beauty products | beauty treatment.

2 a beautiful or pleasing thing or person, in particular

• a beautiful woman.

• an excellent specimen or example of something : the fish was a beauty, around 14 pounds.

• ( the beauties of) the pleasing or attractive features of something : the beauties of the Pennsylvania mountains.

• [in sing. ] the best feature or advantage of something : the beauty of keeping cats is that they don't tie you down.

PHRASES

beauty is in the eye of the beholder proverb beauty cannot be judged objectively, for what one person finds beautiful or admirable may not appeal to another.

beauty is only skin-deep proverb a pleasing appearance is not a guide to character.

ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French beaute, based on Latin bellus ‘beautiful, fine.’

                                                                                                                                      `Computer dictionary