Entries Tagged 'stories' ↓

I remember when I first started learning about mindfulness and realizing that the Jewish practice of blessing is basically a framework for mindfulness in our every day lives. We are tasked with paying attention to each thing we do, blessing and sanctifying and making the mundane holy. By elevating our experiences, we shift our awareness, stop, fill up with gratitude, and every action is somehow different, special, better.

There are blessings to accompany everything you do from the moment you open your eyes. Waking, getting out of bed, getting dressed, going to the bathroom, eating, sleeping. I was at a salon about prayer last night and someone said “It’s not like you say a blessing for each breath. That would be impossible!” So, I’ve been thinking about that. I think a lot about the idea the God’s name is a breath (more about that here). If each breath is invoking the name of God, each breath is a blessing, then maybe we don’t have to do anything. The blessing is already built in. Sometimes during meditation I remind myself to pay attention to what it feels like to breathe. To remember that this is what it feels like to be alive.

On Monday night, the JMC’s first sit in our new home at 505 Carroll Street, our circle of meditators went around and said blessings for this transition into a new space and a growing community. I read a prayer that I had copied into my journal. I’m not sure who wrote it, but it was sung by Jhos Singer at Chochmat HaLev with the Yivarechecha, the Priestly Blessing:

May God bless and keep you, friend, and shine a light upon you.
And may the garden of the life you tend, bring forth graciousness and peace.
The road is long, and the journey, it can be quite hard,
And no one’s strong enough to travel it alone.
May you be a blessing and be blessed, by everyone who knows you.
And may you always do your best to serve your God with love.

I think I love this because of the line “May you be a blessing and be blessed.” It reminds me that the blessing practice, mindfulness, itself is a gift. That the act of blessing, of invoking holiness in our actions blesses us. When we say the blessings in the siddur, when we say the motzi or the blessing over the wine, we are blessing God. Baruch atah, Bless You. Every time we say a blessing we are also coming into relationship with divinity, with our breath, with life, which opens us up in some small way. It reminds me of the story of the Kotzker Rebbe. When asked where God is, he is said to have answered “God is wherever we let God in.” I think it can be difficult to “let God in” (whatever that may mean) sometimes, so any opportunity to open, make space, and feel that spaciousness, is a blessing.

We lit candles on the chanukiah tonight and watched them during our sit. It was incredibly lovely, especially watching them each burn out, one by one, returning us to darkness. I’ve been thinking so much about bringing light into dark places, and yesterday during the practice day with Rabbi Jeff Roth, he brought up something that shifted my thinking: we don’t just light candles to bring light to the darkest time of year; we are also reminding ourselves that we’re in constant motion, things will change, dark leads to light and light to dark, and there’s some comfort in that.

I think the scariest part of feeling lost, anxious, depressed, sad, is that we fear that we’ll feel that way forever. Of course, we know, rationally, that this isn’t going to happen, but in those dark moments, it’s hard to see the light or even the possibility of light. So we light candles and remember our ability to create light, joy, peace, love, and also that darkness precedes light and light goes to dark and back again.

We learn in the Chanukah story that even the holiest place, the Temple, could be desecrated, that the eternal light can go out. How heartbreaking that must have been for the people of that time. And, if that’s possible, what are the chances that our fragile, human hearts could ever stay whole and holy for our whole lives? Just like the Maccabees rededicated the Temple and searched through the rubble for light, I’m using this holiday of Chanukah (dedication) to excavate my own heart and life, rededicating myself to creating within my heart a dwelling place for holiness.

May our practice be a source of light, as we search through our own rubble and rededicate ourselves, and may our practice also light us from within and allow us to radiate outwards, during the darkest time of the year and always, bringing light and peace to ourselves and the entire world

I was looking up some mystical interpretations for Shabbat, and I started thinking about how you are supposed to get a new soul (or vayinafash, get re-souled), and found the phrase for that special extra shabbat soul- “neshama yesairah.” Apparently Rashi defined this phrase as a “widened heart for resting and happiness,” which for some reason made my mind leap to Chogyam Trungpa’s explanation of the spiritual warrior’s heart:

“When you awaken your heart, you find to your surprise that your heart is empty. You find that you are looking into outer space. What are you, who are you, where is your heart? If you really look, you won’t find anything tangible or solid… If you search for the awakened heart, if you put your hand through your rib cage and feel for it, there is nothing there but tenderness. You feel sore and soft, and if you open your eyes to the rest of hte world, you feel tremendous sadness. This sadness doesn’t come from being mistreated. You don’t feel sad because someone has insulted you or because you feel impoverished. Rather, this experience of sadness is unconditioned. It occurs because your heart is completely open, exposed. It is the pure raw heart. Even if a mosquito lands on it, you feel so touched… It is this tender heart of a warrior that has the power to heal the world.”

It’s a sort of graphic description of the power and importance of softening your heart- that opening our hearts is sometimes painful, but through that pain and messiness is the only way to be touched by the world and, in that exchange, heal.

It bothers me that sometimes worship on Shabbat is so happy happy happy- that there’s no space in some circles for feeling the weight of the past week, the past lifetime, and holding that along with the lightness and bliss of Shabbat. What I mean is that I am really interested in transforming that “unconditioned sadness” into compassion and peace and joy through Shabbat, not try to set all of that aside for Shabbat.

Also, while I’m pondering this new soul business, I love the concept of getting re-ensouled for Shabbat, but it doesn’t make that much sense to me that the new Shabbat soul completely disappears after Havdalah- I’m wondering what remnants of that new soul, what residual joy and peace and lovingkindness gets mixed up with your regular soul and is incorporated more and more each week. My hope is that, like Trungpa’s idea of an empty heart, each time I am resouled through Shabbat, there is more tenderness and less tangibility, a waking up of my soul, an opening of my heart, and a chance to practice making everything holy, at least one day a week.

This morning, and for the last few days, I’ve been feeling fairly uninspired. It isn’t depression or even sadness, but a sort of dullness where I have trouble connecting to anything or anybody in a rich and profound way.  I think in the movie Office Space it’s referred to as “case of the Mondays.” Those of us who work in offices – even for jobs we love- might experience it quite a bit.

This morning I got to thinking – what if this moment – with all its dullness and fluorescent-light-blasé normality – what if this is it? No other moment than this? This is my life? Usually, my inner mind yells back, “Nooo! Not THIS moment! How about when I was deep in a meditation, or said something I thought was smart, or feeling in love with the world? THOSE can be the moments that define my life – not this one! I want “real life” to be when I look good, feel fit, and walk around with a bouncy smile like a person in one of those Prozac ads (after they get on Prozac, of course).

At the entrance of the Brooklyn Zen Center (where the JMC meets), there is a large wooden board called a Han. As one of the Zen Center’s Sangha members, Adam, explained to me, the Han gets struck before zazen to let everyone know it’s time to sit. There are words written on the Han, and although I don’t remember them exactly, they say something along the lines of, “Life and death are of supreme importance. Time passes by swiftly and opportunity is lost.
Wake up! Wake up! Do not waste this life!”

Those words are so alarming! Maybe I’m a sucker for exclamations and the imperative voice, but every time I see the words on the Han or hear it’s loud “clack clack” as it’s hit, I wonder, am I awake? Am I living the life I should be? Am I here in this moment?

It also reminds me of the urgent language of Judaism’s central prayer, the Shema. “HEAR O Israel! YHWH Your God, YHWH is ONE!” How many millions of times have I said this prayer without hearing its underlying intensity? Like the Han, this prayer is an alarm clock, telling us to clean out our ears and  listen to the deepest truth that every moment and every thing and every person is part and parcel of the one that is God. Or, God is part and parcel of the one that is everything.

As David Carasso noted in his recent aish.com article*, in Hebrew, the Shema is also a Haiku, with a 5-7-5 syllable structure and a profound and yet simple message.

In my case, that message is that THIS moment of my life is not only real, it is all I have. These dull moments of staring at a computer or out the window – these days in my cubicle or greeting people on the elevator -this is it. This is God. This is everything.

*Thanks for the article tip, Len!

Alison always makes fun of me for posting such dark blogs. I say – it’s Elul! It’s in the air! I hope you find it interesting.

Like Alison, I too read a crazy story the other day that had to with Teshuvah:

(Babilonian Talmud, Avodah Zara 17a)

It was said of Rabbi Eleazar ben Dordia that there was no harlot in the world he did not have relations with. Once, upon hearing that there was a certain harlot in one of the towns by the sea who accepted a purse of gold coins for her hire, he took a purse of gold coins and crossed seven rivers to reach her. As he was with her, she had flatulence and said, “As this gas will not return to its place, so will Eleazar ben Dordia never be received in repentance.”

He thereupon went, sat between two mountains and exclaimed: “O, mountains, plead for mercy for me!” They replied: “How shall we pray for thee? We stand in need of it ourselves, for it is said, “For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed!”” He exclaimed: “Heaven and earth, plead for mercy for me! They, too, replied: How shall we pray for you? We stand in need of it ourselves, for it is said, “For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment.””… He then pleaded with the Sun and moon and the stars and constellations to plead for mercy on his behalf but they all gave the same answer.

Said Rabbi Eliezer, “Then it depends upon me alone!” Having placed his head between his knees, he wept aloud until his soul departed (he died). Then a bath-kol (voice from heaven) was heard proclaiming: ‘Rabbi Eleazar ben Dordai is destined for the life of the world to come!’

Now, at the risk of sounding blasphemous, I don’t particularly think visiting harlots is that bad a sin, but How R. ben Dordai “repented” is amazing. It’s like he suddenly GETS that he isn’t who he wants to be – that he has lived a life he is ashamed of.

He is desperate. He begs ANYTHING and ANYONE to help him – and nothing can. Nothing is firm enough for him to grab onto – even mountains, even the sky – there is no “there” there in any of it. Everything is too busy taking care of itself to take care of him. He feels utterly and completely alone.

Haven’t we all been there? Those moments in the middle of the night or crying in public, times of literally hitting the bottom of our reserves, with nothing we can do except cry out for help? I know I have. I’ve cried on more subway lines in more cities than I would care to admit. I’ve spent nights curled in fetal position, feeling nothing but the raw pain of a rejection, of early losses, of disappointment or self-loathing.

I think the story is right to point out the transcendental quality of those times of utter desperation. I think in those times when we feel completely helpless, we have no choice but to let go of our illusion of control, and hang on for dear life. That is the Teshuvah of the utterly broken hearted. I think those moments strengthen our empathy and make us wise. Somehow, I think they connect us to the wounded, pulsing heart of the whole world.

Yesterday was Labor Day, and I was thinking about labor and work as concepts. I kept coming back to idea that this process of t’shuva, or returning, using the entire month of Elul to prepare for the High Holidays, is a lot of work! Repentence, meaningful and open-hearted t’shuva is kind of intense, and it’s nice to have an entire month to prepare. I imagine that without that preparation, we’d show up and it would all be too much.

I’ve been reading a lot about preparing for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, traditional and nontraditional practices, and kapparot kept coming up. If, like me, you’ve never heard of it, here’s what that means: the day before Yom Kippur people used to (and apparently lots of people still do in Israel and even in certain areas of Brooklyn) take a live chicken, swing it around their head, and offer it to God in exchange for their own lives, sort of a sacrificial atonement, another kind of scapegoat. After this, the chicken is slaughtered and given to a poor family for their erev Yom Kippur meal.

After reading about this, I started doing some research because I was kind of horrified by my own visions of screeching chickens, blood, and feathers. I veer towards metaphor when it comes to sacrifices. In my internet scouring, I came across the following story:

A devoted student goes to his Rabbi and asks to watch him perform the ritual of kapparot, because he’s never seen it before. The Rabbi says, I’m so honored that you want to see me practice this mitzvah, but honestly, my practice of kapparot is not that exciting- you should go see the innkeeper do it.

The student goes to the innkeeper’s house and asks to watch him perform the ritual. The innkeeper sits in a chair in front of his fireplace, with two “books of repentence,” two tattered notebooks. He opens the first book, read it carefully out loud, and begins to weep. The book is filled with mistakes and misdeeds that he committed in the past year. After he finishes reading from the now tear-soaked pages, he swings the book around his head and tosses it into the fire.

He takes a deep breath and picks up the second notebook. The ritual repeats, with him weeping and reading. This time, he reads a longer list of mistakes and misdeeds- that God had committed in the past year. After reading this list out loud, crying as before, he swings the notebook around his head, and throws it into the fire.

There are two aspects that I wanted to speak about regarding the story. First, I love that the Rabbi recognized and shared with his student the power of personal prayer, individual spiritual practice, and truly heartfelt work. It’s a nice reminder that there’s no “right” way to return, to repent, to practice.

Second, this story speaks directly to the fact that we’re not alone in this hard work of returning and repenting. I read somewhere (I think in a poem) that even solitary prayer takes two, and it feels correct that personal atonement is only part of the whole of t’shuva, and maybe it isn’t quite complete without acknowledging our own disappointments and sadness about the world, in God, about things we don’t feel responsible for. This relates well to meditation- fully feeling that broken-heartedness, letting yourself inhabit that place of disappointment and sorrow, voicing it, swinging it above your head, and then tossing it into the fire, letting it go. Recognizing that all of this pain is not ours alone, we’re in a partnership within ourselves, with other people, and with God. This idea of working together to realign and find our place in the world can be a comfort, especially at this time of year as we are recounting and assessing our previous actions and accountability.

May you all be blessed with a beautiful Elul!

First Lesson by Philip Booth

Lie back, daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man’s-float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

One of my favorite meditations is about listening. Listening to all of the sounds around me- the morning birds, passing car radios, upstairs footsteps, kids yelling, my breath- and in me- my heart beating, ears buzzing, throat swallowing, and also a deep silence around all of these sounds. Thinking about this reminded me of a story. This is from Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro’s chapter in Meditation from the Heart of Judaism:

One morning a group of teenagers asked Reb Yerachmiel, “What is the point of human life? Why are we here?

The rebbe replied, “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?” The children debated this for a while, and then the rebbe replied, “Here is my understanding. Without an ear to register the vibrations of the falling tree, no sound is produced. Sound is not a thing but a transaction between things. For there to be a sound, there must be a falling tree and an ear to hear. Why are we here? We are the other half of the transaction. We are here to hear.”

“But other beings hear!” a student said. “And dogs can hear sounds humans can’t hear. Are dogs more important than us?”

“True,” Reb Yerachmiel said. “Dogs can hear what we cannot. But we can hear what even dogs cannot. We can hear the cry of a broken heart. We can hear the outrage of injustice. We can hear the whisper of empathy. We can hear the silence of death. We are here to listen not only to what everyone else can hear, but also to that which only we can hear.”

I think the story is a good reminder about paying attention, not only to everything around us, but also to that deep knowing inside that guides us toward our path in this world, to being more kind, working to create a just world, growing and learning to be honest about who we are and how we engage with ourselves and others. (Also, who doesn’t love a made up rebbe who contemplates a tree falling in the forest?)