Author: barryschade@gmail.com

I am very fortunate not to have to live on the margin.

The pandemic has brought this into focus, that I have the luxury of being able to self-isolate. I have friends that help me to be safe, both by encouraging me to self-isolate and by bringing me fresh fruit and vegetables. I not only have a good and healthy supply of food, I also have a home that I share with only one other person, who is intent on self-isolating as well.

I do not live on the margin of an uncertain income. I am retired and have a monthly retirement benefit and Social Security to rely on. I do not feel the pressure of needing to “go back to work” so that my income and the GNP can be preserved. I don’t worry about paying the rent or mortgage.

I am aware that so many people needlessly live on the margin of adequacy. They are forced into that precarious, worrisome position because so much of the wealth of the economy has been drawn into the hands of a greedy few. There are adequate resources in our country, and the problem is that much of the wealth is being hoarded by so few, forcing a marginal life-style on the many.

I may not consider myself to be one of the hoarders, but I probably am in the “upper 20%” who right now do not have to live on the margin of adequacy. My discomfort brought on by the pandemic is small compared with all those who face the real threat of sickness and great personal need. They know the pain and real threat of being on the margin. I have a zone of adequacy some comforting distance from the edge where many people are forced to live.

I can take a deep breath and embrace gratitude.

Embracing tradition is a tricky matter. Sometimes tradition can refer to the broad, arms-wide-open gathering of a diverse and rich history of a social institution. On the other hand, sticking with tradition can mean following a very narrow and limited history of that same social institution.

I think that I spent a large part of my life with traditionalists who mostly chose the narrow path. I spent a dozen years living in a semi-monastic community that followed a rule of life that hadn’t changed much for over 700 years. In addition, that community had a loyal attachment to the narrow orthodoxy of the Catholic Church.

So I have have experience in following the narrow definition of tradition. Fortunately for me, there were a few departures from that narrow route. I had the good fortune to become aware of certain great thinkers, such as Duns Scotus, who lived in the Franciscan tradition, but notably never achieved sainthood, the official stamp of approval.

I also had one, perhaps two teachers, who had learned to see outside the boxed-in form of tradition. I also had close friends outside the monastic walls who kept me aware of the diverse reality of being human.

Those departures from tradition exposed me to a rich reality that prepared me for what would come later and continues to unfold. This change has happened only because I have stepped away from the narrow notion of tradition, especially that of the Franciscans and the Catholic Church.

At this time, I am immersed in the teachings that have come from the East, particularly the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, or Thay. It is interesting, and a bit disarming, to visit the notion of christian tradition as presented by Thay, especially in his book, “Living Buddha, Living Christ.”

Thay employs the idea of tradition to capture not a narrow point of view, but rather the diverse richness latent both in Christianity and Buddhism. He credits Christian tradition with a diversity I hardly recognize, except perhaps through the writings of biblical scholars such as Elaine Pagels or censured writers such as Teilhard de Chardin.

I think Thay is both generous and marginally correct in his attempt to describe early Christian thought. He brings to light a spark of richness and diversity that was kept secluded and hidden from public view for much of the past two millennia. I’m not sure most Christians would share his observations of christian tradition.

The tradition of christianity I know and lived so well, is constrained to the narrow confines of orthodox dogma, to carefully worded expressions of faith. I think this is largely the tradition embraced by most christians today.

It took me a couple of years before I was ready to read what Thay had to say about the Living Christ in christian tradition. I simply didn’t agree with him. I can now see that he has an eye to see something that I was searching for during many of my years of being immersed in a restrictive, traditional view of the past.

Mostly because of scholars like Elaine Pagels, I am ready to accept Thay’s insight and description of what early christianity included. Those years, before orthodoxy, were rich with notions very similar to those found in Buddhism. This is the tradition I can genuinely own because it is mirrored in my own experience.

I can embrace a tradition that is like a huge net that is capable of gathering a wealth of rich experiences and a variety of insights. I’m not so appreciative of a tradition limited by orthodoxy.

I find it interesting how my thoughts in the morning suddenly go to my available food and a quick calculation of how long it will be before I do a grocery run. This has absolutely nothing to do with reality.

The reality is that I could eat for weeks from the food I have without having to go out grocery shopping. Even if I have to ration fruit and almond milk, I can survive for at least another week. But still my mind wants to plan and solve this new problem of scarcity.

I may have to adjust my eating pattern, but there is a lot of food to sustain both me and Lily for weeks. Yet I keep wanting to examine and plan. It feels like it does when I go camping and bring along a limited amount of food. I have carefully planned enough food for several days. But I seem compelled to keep checking mentally that I have planned correctly. I resist scarcity, and I have a difficult time yielding to an unbountiful tomorrow.

Today I am thinking of those homes where people have little food stashed away. They do not have a freezer with many left-over soups or a pantry with beans and rice, as I do. Their scarcity is real and not as imagined as mine. I am reminded of a friend I visited many years ago. She was fixing popcorn for her kids because that was the only food in the house.

Perhaps others are more accustomed to live on the edge of scarcity, and are more adjusted to this restriction of not being able to go grocery shopping. My limitation is self-imposed because of the virus danger. But I still have the habit of privilege, the habit of being very prepared to eat whatever I choose.

I am isolated and I am reminded that I have a habit of grocery shopping that calls out to me daily. Every day I examine, I plan, I think of when I might go shopping.

I hope I will be able to embrace the notion of scarcity, even before I have to address the reality.

This most certainly would not happen now because of the social-distancing recommended in the middle of the virus pandemic. But it did happen a little over a week ago.

I had just greeted a friend who immediately raised her protesting hands and said, “I have a cold, I may be contagious.” I immediately said, ” You are contagious in more ways than one,” and gave her a side-hug.

My response was simply spontaneous, but I reminded myself afterwards that I am affected in some way by every one that I encounter. Every one is an experience with a contagious effect. Likewise, I share who I have become with everyone I meet, and they are contagiously affected.

The awareness of contagion differs from time to time, from experience to experience. However, I believe that who I have become is affecting all that I meet. They are likewise contagious to me.

I am more aware of how others can be contagious for causing harm. What I often miss is how we also have the potential to be contagious for benefit and good.

Every morning and every evening, I sit and I unfold, spreading the wings of my mind. It is a very relaxed move of mind and body moving as one.

Without hesitation, I plunge like a falcon into the limitless space around me and slowly settle into an uncontrolled glide. As I relax, I release my senses and my mind.

I set the sails of my mind and catch the rush, the spirit winds of the universe. I become filled with the energy and exhilaration of all that surrounds me.

I rush forward, totally unaware of the direction I am taking or the destination I am hurtling toward.

It is a good way to begin and end my day.

I don’t remember the exact words they used, but I recently heard someone describe mindfulness as being mind and body in the same place. For me, the idea is the same, but I like to think of mind and body being in the same space.

I notice that the more I have been able to experience mind and body as being in the same space, the more I have a deep feeling of something I regard as mindfulness. When I am mindful, my body becomes full of my mind and my mind radiates throughout my whole body.

Becoming aware of my body in a deep and intimate way has allowed me to experience my mind in a way that is both deep and clear. I experience how my body and mind occupy the same space. I remember how I once considered my mind to be in my head, and there it seemed to be contained. Then I thought of my heart being the seat of awareness.

It has been true that this concept of my heart seemed to expand the realm of awareness. However, it is only since I have learned to think with my whole body that my mind and awareness seem to push away limits that confine awareness. By extending my awareness in the whole space of my body, I actually touch the realm of no-limits, no-boundaries.

My experience with Jhana practice, a practice of deep concentration, has changed how I see mindfulness. This practice of deep concentration has totally been in the space shared by mind and body. The experience of concentration is not solely an exercise of the mind. It not is an adventure, an experience of clarity and vibrancy that extends through my whole body. Body and mind share the same space. My whole body is aware.

With this kind of mindfulness, the sensory limits and input of my body diminish. I experience an awareness throughout my body that seems beyond the sensory limits and the space filled by my body. Body and mind are experienced as the same, they are are experienced in the same space.

I notice a similar thing when I am aware of others. There is an initial awareness that focuses on the physicality of their presence. I am aware of their body in space. Then that awareness quickly changes, when I am mindful, into an awareness of a deeper entity that is much more than bodily limits.

I don’t think I experience that more focused, mindful awareness of others without first encountering their physical appearance and presence. That first body awareness, that first physical encounter can be either a hindrance or an invitation to deeper awareness. Mindfulness of others does not always come automatically or habitually for me.

However, I am more inclined to routinely be aware that my mind and body occupy the same space. This is becoming a growing way of deepening awareness. It is also a way that I can experience deep pleasure and joy. It is an experience of mind and body in the same space.

As I began my seasonal gardening two days ago, I became aware how the experience of being in my garden lingers. I just began to really notice and experience it.

There is snow a foot deep in much of my yard. I struggled to plod to my destination plants. It was hard to keep my balance in the piled up snow as I reached to trim bushes. All the while, my lingering awareness of the plants around was being stirred and refreshed.

I began my seasonal gardening two days ago by trimming Hydrangea bushes back to my preferred height. I shaped them to a size from which they can now bud and grow very soon. They yielded to the hands of the gardener. I think they got the message as firmly as I felt it: this is how you will unfold and manifest your wonder. With that small trimming gesture my lingering role as gardener has been awakened.

Their urges to grow and mine to garden have been dormant for months. We have been alive, but not so vibrant as we are about to become. The remnants of growing and gardening have lingered, and the shared experience of being in this garden will soon be shared more actively by my plants and me.

Right now there is some stubble sticking out of the snow, still clinging to the experience of last year’s growth and aliveness. The dried stalks and wooden stems are solid and unmistakable signs of the lingering presence of plants all around me. Now there are boot tracks in the snow, indicating the lingering presence of a gardener.

I took a deep breath this morning and remembered that in every breath I take, there a lingering remainder of plants that grew and thrived in my garden last season. The oxygen and other substances from plants that filled my garden last year still linger. Some of those plant substances still linger and contribute to the air I take in with every breath.

It has been a time of dormancy for my plants and for me. It will soon be time for them to wake and arouse from their time of lingering. My time of awakening already began two days ago.

Interesting how my mind has been trained to focus on flesh, even the notion of flesh. When I hear anything about sexual abuse, assault or misconduct, my mind goes directly to the carnal. The image of flesh flashes, even for a brief instance, into my mind. Flesh becomes part of the problem.

Even the concept of sexual assault is outfitted with the image of whatever physical action may have taken place. My imagination is given a role to play without my even trying. I may quickly shift to the trauma, the nature of the abuse, the personal harm. But there typically is an imagined role for flesh to manifest itself, to become part of the event. Flesh gets intermingled with the assault, the abuse. Maybe even obscuring the abuse or assault.

When I recently heard a couple of references to the sexual abuses attributed to the leaders of the Shambala community, my whole notion of the situation seemed to center on the physicality, the fleshy part of what happened. There was a subtle notion of abuse, of misconduct, but the notion of “problem” seemed to fall largely on the flesh.

It took an effort to step back and discern the harmful aspect of what had taken place, without the concern for the flesh aspect. Sexual contact was not itself the problem. The problem was the misuse of power over other humans. The problem was the likely unequal relationship between individuals. The problem was the breaking of trust and expectations of the Shambala community. Fleshy contact was not the problem.

I easily get focused on the fleshy part when I would rather be looking deeper, at the real human harm taking place. I think a kind of voyeurism clouds discernment. It is easy to get distracted by the sexual part and see it as the problem. Instead, the abuse of human relationship is the problem.

When hearing of sexual abuse or assault, it is important for me to get beyond the imagined sexual activity. I want to get beyond the flesh and instead be attentive to the harm, to see the true nature of things. I want to see the problem clearly.

I have resisted calling myself a Buddhist, even though I have friends that have attached that name to me. I think it sounds too much like a membership in a club or organization.

The name does not capture much of the transformed part of me. It doesn’t say enough about my reality, the skills I have acquired.

When I was identified as a Catholic, the name said more about the organization to which I belonged, and that association was not something I welcomed. Being seen as a Catholic revealed little of the inside me, what went on behind the name.

Perhaps the name Catholic said something about the beliefs and behaviors Catholics were known or expected to embrace. For that reason alone, I was able long ago to shed the characterization of being a Catholic.

To say someone is a nurse says something about the skills that individual has acquired. It doesn’t really say anything about an organization to which they belong or whose identity they share.

I just heard yesterday a discussion of people becoming Buddhists and it was all about having acquired an identity. It was not about how they had undergone an inner change, acquired skills of concentration or developed an aptitude for insight. Perhaps those were implied in the small print, but the discussion did little to make that obvious.

I call myself a gardener because that is what I do. I resist the name of Master Gardener because that mostly says that I have joined and been admitted to a group that uses that name. The group is identified by the name.

Perhaps the name Buddhist does identify the aspirations and intentions that I have. It may say something about choices that I made and intend to make. But that is not enough for me. If I have a named identity I want it to say more about who I am and what I do.

For now, I just say that I am someone who meditates. That is enough.

So many places are given meaning by remembering what human activity took place there. A battle, a birth, a signing becomes the reason a spot on the earth, in the universe, is of significance.

Why not have the perspective of a cat or a dog and see places simply as they now exist? A cat or dog does not care what human venture happened in this or that spot along a road, in a field, in a city.

Why should I?