Mixed Bag

A lot has happened since my last posting. When I left off it was still summer, and sometime after my last posting, around July, Barrett and i went camping. Since that trip i have thought about writing an post called "Metta and Fishing Don't Mix," but i haven't been able to get my thoughts in writing. It's around then that i stalled on posting anything to my blog.

In the meantime i have been continuing my practice. I still only practice sitting 15 minutes a day, and only most days a week. My main goal remains to make meditation a habit, and to start again when i slip. I also listen to Dharma talks on a regular basis, have added some new talks to my collection, and have been listening to some old talks by Thich Nhat Hanh i hadn't listened to in a while.

My life as a householder is full. As a householder i spend much time on relationships, domestic stuff, and outside work. I can't say i haven't had time to write, but there is much that has happened on the home front that i feel is worth writing about. Work this summer has been sporadic, and I've had weeks of time off at a time, followed by days or weeks out of town. Currently i am away from home working in the field. This is probably my last long travel session for the near future. Today we are rained out, and since i am in a hotel room and have fewer distractions than i do at home, i decided it was time to organize my thoughts. I'll start with some updates from the home front.


Happenings At Home

Love and Loss My most recent big happening was on the sad side. September 19 Verna, one of my beloved dogs (Zeke is my other), passed away. Early in September she began rejecting some foods, odd behavior since she is a real chow-hound. After a visit to the vet, and some surgery, she was diagnosed with lymphoma, a very aggressive form of cancer that is treatable (with good success rates) in dogs, but can only be treated through chemotherapy. Chemotherapy was not an option for my husband and i (i also suspect that by the time Verna was diagnosed the cancer was in an advanced stage), and over the next few weeks we watched the disease progress. By Friday, September 18 Verna was sick all the time, not eating but still throwing up, and by Saturday she was unable to stand up on her own. We realized it was time to let her go. That evening we buried her near in a tree in a field we used to take her to run. Her death came as a surprise, and offered many opportunities to reflect on love and clinging, suffering and compassion, death, rebirth and the deathless, and how short and precious life is.


And Baby Makes Three In the meantime, we continue to prepare to welcome a new life in January. One of my goals is a natural childbirth (drug-free, though in a hospital). I don't want it to be purely an exercise in endurance, gritting my teeth and relying on willpower. I think of child birth like running a marathon, hiking a steep trail to enjoy the wonders of nature, or the thrill rides at an amusement park, with the adrenaline rush and butterflies that go with them. In other words, i think of it as something that contains moments not traditionally thought of as pleasant, but yet something that many people find enjoyable. I also think of birth as something that requires a combination of preparation and relaxation. To that end i am experimenting with self-hypnosis, through self-study course called Hypnobabies. The course involves a workbook (I read the whole thing even though you are supposed to read a chapter a week for 5 weeks), and listening to a series of CDs to practice the techniques. I'm not quite following the program as directed, but i try to listen to at least one of the two daily tracks 5 or 6 days a week. Lately I've been listening early in the morning, while i am still drifting in and out of sleep. Some of the stuff is kind of corny, but I've heard good things about the program, and so i don't worry so much about the corny stuff and just focus on what does work for me. Hard to say how the program works, but so far there's a lot i do like, even if i think some of it is corny.


Its Never too Late to Learn Something New I've also decided it's time to learn Spanish. This has been on my to-do list for a long time. I'm not pushing myself too hard, especially since I'm really bad with language. I sometimes joke that i have enough trouble with English. Anyway, i found some Spanish children's stories, with translations, that i listen to now and then. Some i have in English and Spanish, some just in Spanish. I am finding that i am getting better at picking out familiar words, and figuring out the meaning for some of the words, although this is happening quite slowly. I'm not really sure how much i am learning, but I'm having fun, so it's an easy habit to keep up.


Updates on the Practice

Metta and Fishing I used to practice Metta meditation a lot, but since that camping trip my Metta practice tapered off. While we were camping we went fishing. I'm an omnivore. I eat an occasional vegetarian meal, but i also enjoy eating meat and fish. As a person who eats meat, the do not kill precept is something i have struggled with before. I don't entirely understand why it is there, especially since Buddhism is so accepting of death as a part of life. And yet, i have a hard time killing. I can kill mosquitoes and other biting and stinging bugs pretty easily, but i also save pillbugs, worms, and millipedes on the bike trail Zeke and i walk. So on this camping trip Barrett and i go fishing, and i feel bad just putting the worm on the hook. Then i catch a fish, and feel guilty for reeling him in. I would try to kill the fish myself, but the last time i did i couldn't hit the fish hard enough, and felt bad for torturing the fish, and i can barely watch as my jusband kills and guts the fish. But i do enjoy cooking and eating the fish. The whole episode got me thinking about life and death, and how we kill every time we eat, even if we're eating plants, so why is vegetarianism encouraged. But i also see that eating vegetarian is better for the environment, and compassion for all living beings is natural, too. There were too many thoughts for me to process, and i never could sort them all out, so i decided to leave the issues be and focus on listening to more of the teachings, until i reach a point where i am comfortable coming back to the issues.


Ajahn Chah While i have a good collection of Dharma talks on my mp3 player, and i like listening to talks repeatedly, i felt it was time to expand my collection. So i spent some time searching for new talks, and listening to talks to find ones i liked enough to listen to again and again. One thing i wanted to add was some talks by non-western teachers. It was a challenge to find good talks by non-western teachers, but i found a nice set of talks given by Ajahn Chah. These talks are translated, first Ajahn Chah speaks, then the translator interprets for us. I like this format, but i like listening to foreign languages in general. I've only listened to some of these, and only a few times, so i don't have much to say about them, but i did like what i heard enough to add the collection to my library.


Sutta Reading I also wanted to look for teachings directly from the Buddha, not just commentary, and there is a small collection of sutta readings on the web. I added a few of these to my library. I like listening to the suttas better than reading them, and that may make sense since these were originally passed down orally. These are also fairly short, so its easy to make time to listen to them. Among my favorites are, The Heartwood of the Spiritual Life, The Simsapa Grove, At Sedaka (The Acrobat), and The Adze Handle.


The Satipatthana Sutta Series And I also added some new (to me at least) talks from a teacher i already listen to, Joseph Goldstein. These are all part of a series on the Satipatthana Sutta. Actually, i mentioned this series in my last post. Anyway, the series is rather long since it was recorded over a time span of years, but since the Satipatthana Sutta is a classic, and since it is still a little hard for me to grasp, I decided to go ahead and give these talks a try. I haven't listened to them all, but i do like the ones I've listened to. Among the ones I have listened to are Parts 7, 8, and 9 (Mindfulness of the Body), Part 10 (The Four Elements), and Parts 20, 21, and 22 (The Five Aggregates).


Links Related to Today's Posting

Hypnobabies
Hypnobaby Birth Stories

BookBox Stories

Ajahn Chah Dharma Talks

Sutta Reading

Joseph Goldstein, The Sattipatthana Sutta Series