What I Learned From a Ladybug
While at work the other day I encountered a couple of ladybugs wandering on top of the sheets of material that had just arrived. My first instinct was to just flick them off and continue on with what I was doing. As I got closer and was about to flick one away I stopped myself. I decided instead that I wanted to just watch them for awhile. As I watched the thought came to me that maybe they were lost and scared, wandering in an unknown world, and not knowing where to go. In that moment I understood that all life is precious. I’ve gone through all the years of my life mindlessly squashing bugs, flicking various insects out of the way, never taking a moment to recognize the miracle of life displayed right in front of me.
What if I lived inside of a world where I was the insect and some being decided that my existence was unimportant and simply squashed me?
I grabbed a piece of paper and placed it next to the ladybugs and one by one carried them outside to a patch of long grass growing along the wall in our back lot. I placed them close enough to the grass that they were able to easily walk onto them and be on their way. As the last one crawled onto the blade of grass it turned around and seemed to be looking at me. I bent down to meet it’s gaze. As I sat looking into the eyes of this ladybug, it fluttered it’s wings, continuing to look my way. I thought that maybe this was it’s way of communicating with me, and maybe it was trying to say “thank you”. I returned the gesture with a gassho (bow), and went back to work.
It’s amazing what we can learn when we pay attention.
I remember reading the reply from Sean (greenfrog) after taking my vows where he wrote “now notice”. It always confused me a little. What did that mean? Notice what exactly? I think I’m beginning to understand.
Thank you ladybug for reminding me of the preciousness of all lives…even tiny insects.
The Dharma of Each Other
October 24, 2008 by ScottyDoo
Filed under Articles, Compassion, Dharma, Zen
As a Buddhist teacher, author and founder of the Upaya Zen Centre, Roshi Joan Halifax has dedicated her life to service. Christopher Mccann listens to her stories.
Photo by: Meridel Rubenstein
I am sitting with Roshi Joan Halifax. She is propped up on pillows, her eyes steady and deep despite the pain in her body. She has slipped on a wet bathroom floor and broken her hip in four different places. She emerged from surgery with a certain equanimity, coming back to do her work in the world with the new addition of a steel plate and screws in her hip.
It’s been close to two years since we’ve seen each other, and we are happy and easy in each other’s presence. I have brought her a picture of her dog, Dominga, which she raised to her forehead like a picture of a saint before placing it on the table beside her. After spending thirty hours strapped to a gurney in an emergency room, she was moved to a private room, where we are sitting when she tells me this story:
“Imagine you’re flying in an airplane, with the wide, shimmering expanse of the sea below you. You rest comfortably in your seat, watching sunlight glint off the waves.
“Out the window you see a smaller plane come into view, flying parallel to yours and just below. There is a moment’s pause, and then the smaller plane begins to throttle back and forth, dipping and diving. And then suddenly, from the side of the plane hidden from your view, a man falls out and starts hurtling, end over end, toward the sea.
“You gasp, pressing your face closer to the glass, feeling a flash of fear course through your body. Entering into the man’s fall with him, you feel it from his body, see the ocean rushing toward you through his terrified eyes. Then with a violent splash the man plunges headfirst into the water.
“And you are still strapped in your seat, hundreds of feet above him, hardly able to breathe.”
I lean forward in my chair toward her. Where is this story going? It’s shocking and strange to me to imagine a man falling to his death, but then Roshi Joan reveals one vital detail.
Hopelessness and Death
July 18, 2008 by ScottyDoo
Filed under Master Teachings
Hopelessness and Death
by Pema Chodron
Turning your mind toward the dharma does not bring security or confirmation. Turning your mind toward the dharma does not bring any ground to stand on. In fact, when your mind turns toward the dharma, you fearlessly acknowledge impermanence and change and begin to get the knack of hopelessness.
In Tibetan there is an interesting word: ye tang che. The ye part means “totally, completely” and the rest of it means “exhausted.” Altogether, ye tang che means totally tired out. We might say “totally fed up.” It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope. This is an important point. This is the beginning of the beginning. Without giving up hope that there is somewhere better to be, that there is someone better to be we will never relax with where we are or who we are.
We could say that the word mindfulness is pointing to being one with our experience, not dissociating, being right there when our hand touches the doorknob or the telephone rings or feelings of all kinds arise. The word mindfulness describes being right where you are. Ye tang che, however, is not so easily digested. It expresses the renunciation that is essential for the spiritual path.
To think that we can finally get it all together is unrealistic. To seek for some lasting security is futile. To undo our very ancient and very stuck habitual patterns of mind requires that we begin to turn around some of our most basic assumptions. Believing in a solid, separate self, continuing to seek pleasure and avoid pain, thinking that someone “out there” is to blame for our pain one has to get totally fed up with these ways of thinking. One has to give up hope that this way of thinking will bring us satisfaction. Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there is anywhere to hide.
Hopelessness means that we no longer have the spirit for holding our trip together. We may still want to hold our trip together. We long to have some reliable, comfortable ground under our feet, but we’ve tried a thousand ways to hide and a thousand ways to tie up all the loose ends, and ground just keeps moving under us. Trying to get lasting security teaches us a lot, because if we never try to do it, we never notice that it can’t be done. Turning our minds toward the dharma speeds up the process of discovery. At every turn we realize once again that it is completely hopeless we can’t get any ground under our feet.
