Granddaughters

A couple of weekends ago, I attended a training on how to teach "mindfulness" in the classroom. In the training, they showed us the first three lessons: Mindful bodies, mindful listening, and mindful heart. In the mindful heart lesson, they asked us to think of someone who always made us feel really happy- who made our hearts feel full of love. I was surprised to see that my niece popped up as the person who does this for me.
My niece lives in Southern California. I don't see her that often. I love seeing her when I do, but she definitely isn't who I thought I would think of when I think of someone who fills my heart with love. But she's the one, she's who popped up.
When she popped up, I pictured her peering around the corner of the doorway of my room last Thanksgiving. I remember her watching me, thinking I couldn't see her, and wondering if she was trying to figure me out, seeing what that aunt of hers was like, wondering what she might be like some day.
When I pictured her doing this, I pictured myself at that age, and I realized that she's a little version of me and then I realized, that she's a little version of my mom. She's my sister's kid, so she doesn't have my genes, but in the same way that I have half of my mom's genes, she has a quarter of her grandma's genes: she's got my mom in her too. I can't really see yet that I'm my mom's daughter, that she lives on in me, but I can see that my mom is alive in my niece, in her grand daughter, and that maybe when she's filling my heart with love, it's maybe my mom filling my heart with love.

Saying "You're welcome"

Normally, when people say thank you to me, my immediate reponse is, "Oh no, thank you," or "It was nothing," or anything that puts the focus of attention away from what I did, and back on the person who is thanking me. I'm not quite sure why I do this. Something in me feels like it's wrong to be thanked for doing something, like I'm bragging or showing off if I receive their gratitude for what I've done. Maybe I think that if I accept their 'thank you', they'll think that I was only doing it to get thanked, to get praise, that it was all an act of doing something to get something in return. I really don't know.
This morning, my room mate went out to get his New York Times from the front step and couldn't find it. He came back in and asked if I had brought in in for him and I said no, because I hadn't. He checked again on the steps, couldn't find it, and ended up reading it online. About twenty minutes later, I left to go to to the grocery store. As I got to the bottom of the steps, I saw a white newspaper bag with a movie ad on it and wondered if it might be my room mate's New York Times. I picked it up, opened the bag and saw, "All the News That's Fit to Print."
I was running late, and I considered just leaving the bag on the steps for my room mate to find later or to bring in to him later when I got back from the grocery store (after all, he was already reading it online). But I knew that he loved reading the paper on Sunday mornings on our couch with his coffee in hand and I knew that if I brought it later, he'd have already read the whole thing online and would miss his lovely Sunday morning routine.
So I went back in to the house and brought it to him.
"Thank you!" he said with a smile.
"You're welcome," I said back, and then I felt really good, kind of settled and happy.

It was interesting; in saying "You're welcome" to him, I actually felt the act that I had done. I actually felt the care that I had for him. I actually saw that I had chosen to bring him his paper instead of getting to Trader Joe's before the crowds showed up.
Now, this is not some big act of compassion or kindness and I'm not trying to say "Oooh me! I'm so nice!" I'm just noticing that I actually felt myself when I said "You're welcome" to him.

See, often I feel a disconnect between the person who everyone sees, and the person who I feel I am. This is changing as I'm seeing myself more and this morning, when I accepted his gratitiude, it was like I completed the act or something. It was like I actually connected with what I was doing.
I don't know, I thought it was interesting and it's something I'd like to be more aware of in the future: actually accepting people's words of thanks so that I see the effects of my actions on others and allow others to express their gratitiude to me, and being present to and aware of my entire action, sticking around past my intentions, staying present to the response of others too.

She just won't go away

I would say that this is funny but I can't, because it's painful.

I don't really remember what made me pull out a couple of photographs of my mom from our family photo album earlier this year, but I did. At first, they were in our living room because my room mate wanted to have pictures of my mom out there. But then I had sesshin, and it was right after my 41st birthday, and I was freaking out about whether my mom was alive or dead. I had dokusan with Blanche and she recommended that I spend some time with a photograph of my mom and so I moved the photo to the mantel above my bed.
Then I had a big shift during sesshin and that photograph evoked a much more truthful understanding of the reality of my time with my mom: we lived together for six years and also she died. Both those things are true: in the photo, both of us are happy and healthy and she died four years after that photograph was taken.
The photo has been sitting on my mantel ever since and I just can't seem to pass it without looking at it. Each time that I do, my mom shifts shape in response to where I'm at in the grieving process.

During sesshin, she became real- an actual person, not just my mom but a woman in her late thirties with real hopes and desires and a life before I was born.
About three weeks after the memorial ceremony, she became real too, but in a different way. It was like she was physically real. She had arms and legs and muscles and it was like she was walking out of the photograph.

This was surprisingly hard for me. For some reason, I didn't want her to walk out of the photograph. I wanted her to go back in that photograph and be my mom. I wanted to be that little girl, all happy and safe and cared for. I didn't want my mom to be a real person with arms and legs, with suffering and pain, I wanted her to go back to that ideal I had held on to for so long. 

It's the greatest irony that now that she's actually here, now that she's an actual person, walking out of that photograph; I, the person who never wanted to "let go" of her, refused to say goodbye to her, and did everything I could to hold on to her, now find myself wanting her to go away. I've tried to make her go away by turning away from the photograph, hoping that the next time I look at it, she won't be climbing out anymore, but it doesn't work. Each time I look at it, she's there. And there's more of her each time: freckles, legs with calf muscles, curls at the end of her hair. It's pretty funny that she's coming right into my room and I'm trying to push her away.

I wish I could laugh at this, but I can't, because it hurts. It hurts that she's real, that she isn't the person in the photograph anymore. She isn't 41, I'm no longer six.
I don't know what I am, I don't know what she is, but neither of us exist in that photograph anymore.

Is it me or is it them?

This is what has been happening at the end of recess each day. I come down to pick up my kids and they are, basically, in line. They are talking, they might be in two rows like they're supposed to be, they might not, but they're all there, and we have our class ball, so I just start walking them back up to the building. As I walk away with my class, I see the other classes. Their teachers are waiting for them to be in line order or to be in a straight line. They have timers, they have signals, they are doing what I have been doing for years: making sure the kids are following the prcoedures for lining up.
I am doing none of this. I don't need them to be in line order because they seem to be able to walk with their friends and not talk once they're in the building. I don't need them to be in straight rows because they seem to be able to stay together and keep up in whatever formation they happen to be in. They seem to have this lining up and walking in to the building thing down.
But the thing is, I can't figure out if it's me, or if it's them. Here's what I notice. This year, no one is still playing after the bell rings so we don't have to wait for them to line up. Everyone seems to be there by the time I get there. Second, we don't seem to have the drama at the end of recess that we used to before. No one is coming to me with hurt feelings that I need to deal with which keeps us from walking in. So part of me thinks that it's this class- that I got lucky this year. For whatever reason, I got a class full of kids who are responding to the systems we have set up for them.
But then I look at the classes that are still on the yard. And none of their kids are still playing after the bell rings. And I don't see any drama or tears keeping them from walking, I just see their teachers waiting for them to line up in the correct way. So I can't figure it out: is it that my class is really well behaved? Or is it that I don't need them to have such controlled behavior?
It's easy for me to say "If they're all here, we start walking. I don't need them to be in line order or straight" because this class is all here, keeps up with each other, and stops talking when we get in the building. I wonder if I could do this if we had kids who didn't keep up with the group.
But now that I think about it, I realize that we do have stragglers, and that we wait for them when we get upstairs. But I don't mind that this year. I feel like they're part of our class and so of course we wait for them. And we have had drama, a couple of times, and we've been late because of it. But lining up straight or being in line order wouldn't fix that. Also, the class has had to wait while kids talk to each other about what happened at recess but no one has complained about it and to me, it's not such a big deal that we're late. We'll get there when we get there. It's more important that the kids deal with what just happened than that we get to where we're going on time.
Of course, it's only the second week and we don't have any people waiting for us right after recess so I don't feel as much pressure to be on time. Still, I wonder if it's me, but I worry that it's them. I worry that someone is going to start showing their true colors soon enough and that I'm going to start going back to those controlling rules again...

Seeing the rules as they are

I’m having a really interesting relationship with the kids and rules this year. It seems to be manifesting itself in three ways: 1) I’m much more honest with the kids about the reasons behind the rules 2) I’m much more reflective with myself about the reasons behind the rules and, because of this, am more willing to let go of any rules that I see are designed more for my own sense of control than for any educational purpose and 3) When the kids break the rules, I’m not taking it personally or as a predictor of their future behavior. I see it for what it is: an oversight, a forgetfulness, a focus on a friend instead of a rule. It just happens, I respond to it, and we move on.

On the first day of school, I gave the kids folders and notebooks to use in class and for their homework. A few of them asked if they could use their folders or notebooks that they had brought that day. My initial response was “No, you must use the ones that I give you.” Then I watched them sadly put away the notebooks and folders that I’m pretty sure they had excitedly picked out during their “back to school” shopping trips that weekend.

After school, I thought about my rule. “Why do they all need to have the same notebook? Would it really matter if they used a different notebook?” And the answer was “No, it doesn’t matter what notebook they use, they just need a notebook.” Then I thought about their homework folder. The one that I give them has a middle insert and I use this for their reading log, their cursive models, and their calendar/ behavior chart. I also buy bright red ones so that I can tell the parents that if they ever need to find their kid’s homework, look for the bright red plastic folder in their backpack. “Okay,” I thought.  “They do need to use this homework folder, there’s a reason for that, it’s not about my need for control.”

So, the next morning, I told the kids this. I said, “I thought about my rules and this is why I have them (and I explained). So, you can totally use your own notebook and you can use your own folder for your cubby but I’d like you to use our class homework folder for your homework. It has specific things in it that the folders that you brought from home don’t have.” And that was all- I didn’t make a deal with them or tell them that I was compromising because they had asked, I was just honest with them about the point of the rule and how I had changed my rules in response.  

After recess this past week, my kids were lined up outside and talking, talking, talking. I didn’t make them be quiet, because we were outside, so we didn’t need to be. But I was pretty sure that as soon as we got in the building, we would have to wait, a really long time, for them to stop talking. And I considered warning them: “if you guys talk this much, we’re going to have to change the rule about being able to talk when we’re outside….” But I decided to wait and see, instead of forewarning them or reminding them that we needed to be quiet once we got in to the building.

As soon as we got to the door of the building, I put up my signal for quiet, and they all stopped talking, immediately. So we walked in, right away. They walked up to the classroom (there was some talking here and there) in no time at all. I thought to myself “What’s your point in having them be quiet in line?” My answer: “So they don’t disturb others and they get back to the classroom quickly instead of getting distracted from walking because they’re talking to each other.”

So I told them, “You know what? I totally thought you guys were going to keep talking when we got in the building but you didn’t, and we got up here really fast. So I don’t need you to be quiet outside, you’re capable of talking and then being quiet when we come in.  So go right ahead and talk in line when we’re outside.”

I get that I’ve been training them to be quiet when they enter the building and so that’s why they were able to get quiet so quickly. But I also see that I don’t need to make up rules to prevent something that I think is going to happen. In this case, I just watched them and it turns out that I didn’t have to make up a new rule. And maybe this will change, maybe they won’t be quiet next time, but I’ll watch that too, and keep sticking to the point of the rule, not the prevention of breaking it.

We have a rule about walking to recess. I give them five minutes to get down there. If they get there before then, they get the extra time that they saved to have “choice time” on Friday. Anytime someone talks in line, we stop. We don’t start walking again until it’s quiet. In the meantime, that timer keeps going, so they’re very motivated to be quiet and to move quickly through the hallways.

The kids have been pretty good about this but on Thursday, my class basically sprinted past the principal in the hallway. She immediately stopped them and pointed to the ‘Hallway Expectations’ poster. “Class? What’s our first hallway expectation?” I was standing at the back of the line which was, at that point, still walking out of our classroom door. I could vaguely hear them respond: “Walk at all times.” I’m sure she then said something to the effect of “I expect you to follow the hallway expectations at all times.” I just kept walking with the rest of the class until we caught up with the front of the line. I walked past the principal somewhat sheepishly but also somewhat cheekily, like “Oh, those third graders.”

But I was kind of embarrassed. I felt like she thought my class was out of control, that I hadn’t trained them enough, that they were running willy-nilly through the hallways, doing whatever they wanted.  So immediately after that, I totally started getting on my kids about walking in the hallway. I made sure we stayed together, I talked about the difference between normal walking and speed walking, I even started to get mad at them for how quickly they were going to recess.

I thought for a second about this. “You think they’re being out of control or are defying the rules but that’s not it.  They’re only walking quickly because they want to get to recess. They’re not out of control, they’re not not following your rules or running willy-nilly through the hallway. In fact, they’re actually doing what you’ve trained them to do: get to recess quickly. This speed only became a problem when you get embarrassed by what you think the principal thinks of you.”

And so I backed off with the whole “You..must..walk…at..all..times…” control thing. It wasn’t about them being bad, it was about recess and, to be honest, it really was about them doing what I had trained them to do- get there quickly. So I explained to them, “We want to get to recess quickly but we have to stay together. Also, we can’t run, we have to walk.” So we’re learning this, but I’m not taking it so defensively and I’m not getting mad at them for it.

The end of the first week

Every Friday, we have class meeting. We had our first class meeting this week and I asked the kids to think about three questions: Do you feel like you're learning? Do you feel safe? Are you having fun? I also said that if that was too much for them to respond to, they could just say what they liked or didn't like about school this week.
I took notes on what they said. A lot of them said that they liked playing games, a lot of them were really excited about learning about the sun, moon, and stars, but the most common response was that they liked their teacher. I thanked them when they said this to me and they said it just like that, "I like the teacher." They didn't say, "I like you," because they're third graders, and because I'm their teacher.
I have to say that I have heard this before, but it felt really different this time. Normally when kids say this, it feels more like one of two things: I want you to like me so I'm going to like you or You're my teacher, I like whatever teacher I happen to have because they're my teacher, so I like you.
But this year, I kind of believe them. I see how I'm treating them. I see how I listen to them and I see how I respond to their behaviors. I'm encouraging them. I'm getting to know them. I'm patient with them when they need time to think. I accept their needs as what they need instead of something that burdens me. They don't feel bad in my room, or if they do, we talk about it and work through it.
I don't know- it feels genuine this time. I really do feel that they like how they feel when they're around me, because I'm accepting them. I'm seeing them just as they are, not through my fears and insecurities. I think they feel safe and loved because of this and I think that's a really good thing.

Seeing third graders as they are, not through my story

I had written in an earlier post how much I wanted to accept my kids, how much I wanted them to feel loved and valued no matter what they did. I had also written about how much of a struggle this would be for me because I felt like I needed to be teaching them about what what was okay and what wasn't okay, about how to treat each other safely and not harm each other. I wasn't sure how I was going to accept them while still preventing them from doing harmful things to one another.
What I learned was a couple of things. First, I can't actually prevent them from hurting each other. It's just literally impossible to control the future behavior of another being. Secondly, I can respond to their behavior without judgment. I can see what they're doing just-as-it-is-in-this-moment, not good or bad, not "you're like this" so now we're going to do this, just "oh, this is what you are doing now and this is how I'm responding to it."
And it's weird, I'm actually doing this. Kids are doing all kinds of things and I'm just responding to them in the moment. Kids are coming to me with broken pencils and I am simply giving them one that works. Normally when a kid brings me a broken pencil, I use the opportunity to teach them about taking care of their pencil. I point out the difference between a used pencil tip and a broken pencil tip. Basically, I'm going on an assumption that they broke their pencil on purpose to get a new one or because they are mad. Or, I'm trying to prevent them from breaking pencils in the future. But the end result of this situation is that the kid comes to me with a broken pencil and ends up feeling bad about it, because I put my story on them. But I'm not doing that this time. I'm just seeing their action for what it is: a broken pencil. And I'm responding to it: here's another one.
An interesting thing came up about this when I shared it with my therapist. She made the connection between what was happening for me in the classroom with what was happening for me in my life. She explained that in the same way that I'm just seeing the kids' actions for what they are, I'm beginning to see my own life and history for what it is. My mom died, she just did. It wasn't done to me, there wasn't any reason for it, it just happened. And all the stuff that went along with it, it just happened too. No one intended anything by it, it had nothing to do with anyone involved, we all just did our best given our situation and that's all it was.
I think that the other point of this, for me as a teacher, is that no one feels bad.  I can direct their behavior without judging them. I can ask them to stop without making them feel bad for what they are doing. Because honestly, they're kids. For about 90% of the time, they really are doing what they think is the right thing to do at the time. They really are trying and they want to be doing the right thing. They do not need me to judge them about this. I can guide them without devaluing them.

At the end of school on the third day, the kids were supposed to be getting their homework and packing up. I was putting away the example homework and someone came up and hugged me. She was supposed to be getting her homework but instead she was hugging me or giving me kisses with her stuffed animal or something like that. Normally, I would pull away from this and ask the kid what they were supposed to be doing right now, but I didn't. I just let her hug me because that was what she needed to do. I knew she was going to be late, I knew that I wasn't getting my stuff done, but I also thought that if I pulled away from her, she would feel rejected in giving me a hug, and I didn't want her to feel that. Eventually she stopped and moved on to getting her homework.
When I looked up, three kids were making shadows in front of our projector screen. Two other kids were looking at the book order and their homework folders were out on their desks, not in their backpacks like they were supposed to be. Everyone was talking and, maybe, three kids were packed up and ready. The bell was about to ring. I pictured anyone walking into the room and thinking: total chaos!
I could have yelled. I could have made everyone go back to their seats and practice our packing up routine. But then I saw the kids in front of the projector screen and I thought "Third graders, having fun." I didn't think they weren't following the rules. I didn't think the kids who were looking at their book orders were ignoring my procedures. I saw what they were actually doing: making shadows, looking at the books they wanted to order. So I didn't get mad at them or make them feel bad for what they were doing. I simply put my arm around the kids near the screen and directed them away from the light, then turned off the projector. After that, I asked the kids who were looking at the book order if they could put their homework folders in their backpacks so they wouldn't forget them when they left. And they did. Eventually, everyone got their stuff and we lined and we went home.
I think it's a combination of me letting go of a need to control them and me being aware of my fears around what others think of me as a teacher. I think that the more true I am to my experience with them, the less I have to fear about judgment from others. I think that one of the reasons I was okay with their behavior was because I knew that if someone walked in the room I could honestly say to them "Yep, they're playing with the projector. Isn't that what you would do if you were eight?" It's not about me and my ability to control them. They're just playing with a projector. It doesn't make them unfocused or unruly or defiant. It doesn't make me a teacher who can't control her kids. It's just kids, making shadows, 'cause it's fun.

Where do we go when we die, and how do we get there?

This is the question that came up for me in zazen at Young Urban Zen on Monday night. On the one hand, it's a profound and ominous question; beautiful in its ability to present both the literal and symbolic at the same time. I wish I could say that my asking it is about the symbolic, about transitioning from this life to a place in which we accept our death. But as soon as the question came up, I saw myself, actually looking for that place. I wasn't looking for an acceptance of death, I was looking for an actual place. The reason I was looking for it was because I was looking for my mom.
As soon as I heard the question, I saw myself as a six year old, genuinely asking a grownup for directions to that-place-that-people-go-when-they-die. And then I also saw myself showing up there, turning a corner to some open room with white walls and white boxy furniture. No one was there when I got there, and that's where it stopped.
Part of me was a little sympathetic for myself, seeing that little girl seeing things so literal, just thinking that her mom was only somewhere else, and thinking she could go there. But the grownup in me saw this as the fact that it was: I still haven't accepted my mom's death.
It's interesting. She has moved. She's not a far away fantasy tooth fairy or Santa Claus figure floating above me, she's not an ideal mom inside my head who keeps me company, but she's also not gone, I still haven't let go of her, I still think I can find her somewhere and visit her.
It's progress, or to me it is. I'm accepting that she's not alive. I accept that she's in a place different from me, and that that place is a place for people who die. But I still want to know how to get there; I haven't accepted that that place doesn't exist, that she doesn't exist anymore.
The part about how to get there interests me too. I realize that my mom is there, that my mom actually did go there, she went through the process of dieing. It's one of the things she has done before me, and part of wants to know how it was for her, to learn from her experience because someday, I will have to go there too.

I think I understand now why koans aren't things that you answer, they're things that you sit with. Things like "where you go when you die" aren't answerable, it's not something I can figure out, it's something I relate to, and I notice how I relate to it, and in noticing this, that teaches me about myself, I think. But I don't know.

I don't really want this as my koan. I don't really want to think about the fact that there isn't a place that we go when we die and I really don't want to get there, not yet at least.

And there we go- apparently I've just begun sitting with my first koan because that statement right there is pretty telling of how I relate to death. 

Accepting your suffering? Not always so...

One of the first things I learned when I started studying Buddhism was that suffering existed, and that you would be a whole lot better off if you would just accept it, instead of trying to avoid it. I took this message pretty literally and so I tried my very best to accept my suffering, embrace it even. But this summer, while I was on a jungle trek in Malaysia, I discovered that it's not so much that you have to accept suffering all the time, it's more that, if you're faced with a situation of suffering, you'd be best to accept it. But if there's a choice not to suffer, go right ahead and take that instead.

I’m in the jungle in the middle of Malaysia. This morning, I went on a “jungle trek.” My friend had warned me about this ahead of time. “It’s full on jungle,” she explained. “There will be elephants and tigers and leeches.”

I have to say that I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this part of the trip. When she said it was full on jungle, I was expecting bugs, humidity, and lots of discomfort. She’s pretty hardcore, so for her to refer to it as full on jungle, I figured it had to be pretty intense.

I was most worried about the heat. I’m not so much a fan of heat, it makes me miserable. So I had been “training” for this part of the trip. I had been experiencing different levels of heat and trying to accept them: this is sweating on a plane, this is hot with no air conditioner, this is unable to fall asleep because of heat. I was prepared to be drenched in sweat and miserable but also was telling myself to not necessarily see this as a horrible thing, that it just was, that sweaty and hot was the experience of trekking in a jungle in Malaysia.

The morning of the trek, we put on our long pants and long-sleeve shirts in an effort to protect ourselves from the leeches. “It’s not really going to help that much,” she warned. “They go through everything.”

She then went on to describe how the leeches would stand up, on end, and just sway back and forth, as if they had little antennas, and wait for you to come by. Then they would jump on to you and suck your blood until they fell off. The last time she had gone trekking in the jungle, she had ended up with 25 leeches on her. They would be everywhere, she advised, and there was nothing you could do about it.

“I’m going to lather myself in insect repellant,” she told me. “That’s probably the only thing that will help.”

I pulled out my insect repellant stick, recalled what the guy at REI had said, and reread the instructions to confirm my fears. “Ummm, it says that you’re not supposed to put it on under clothing.” I explained. “The guy at REI said it’d be a like a green house effect if you did that.”

“Green house effect is the least of your worries!” she laughed. “I’d rather be hot than covered with leeches,” she warned.

So I took off my top, drenched my torso in deet, then removed my pants, and did the same to my legs. I put my clothes back on, pulled my socks over my pants, and we headed out. For breakfast we were served noodles, toast with jam, hard boiled eggs, and cucumbers. I helped myself to the noodles, torn a bit because they were both covered in red flecks (too spicy) but also had the appearance of noodles I had earlier that week that were delicious. I took the first bite and felt the burn in my throat. “Bummer,” I thought. “These are the spicy noodles.” But it was my breakfast, I didn’t have any other choice, so I ate the rest of them and thought, “This is what it’s like to eat noodles that burn your throat.”  And the burn went away, after a while.

We had a nice boat ride to the entrance to the jungle and sprayed even more concentrated deet on our socks and shoes before we entered. About five minutes in to our walk, I noticed a heat, coming from my torso. I noticed that my top was quickly becoming wet with sweat. Then I noticed the same heat coming from my thighs.  “Darn advice,” I thought. “I’m just baking here in all this insect repellant.” I looked at my friend in front of me, she didn’t have a drop of sweat on her.

“Stupid insect repellant,” I thought. “That guy at REI totally knew what he was talking about.” But then I realized that there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t take off the insect repellant and I also thought that I didn’t really know that it was the insect repellant that was causing the heat, maybe it was just the jungle and this just is.

About ten minutes into our walk, we stopped to listen to our guide explain the medicinal uses for a plant. As we stood there, my friend started to notice the leeches. “Oh my gosh they’re everywhere! I have like five on my shoes already, and I’m sure they’re crawling up my leg.” She started to scrape them off but soon realized that as soon as she scraped one off, more would jump on. We decided to keep walking. I asked if she wanted to stop at a log so that she could get rid of them but she explained that as soon as we stopped, more would attach to us.

So we kept walking, quickly. As we walked, my friend frequently checked her shoes for leeches and stopped to remove them immediately. I looked down at my shoes and saw nothing. It was clear that I was supposed to be removing leeches from my shoes but there didn’t appear to be any leeches on my shoes. Plus, my friend had told me that there wasn’t really anything you could do about the leeches, there was no way to avoid them so I had kind of accepted that I was just going to be covered in leeches, so there didn't seem to be any point in taking them off.

Meanwhile, I continued to radiate heat. My entire top was drenched in sweat and I thought, “This is what it’s like to be completely wet with sweat.” Then I reached up to brush my hair behind my ear. As my hand passed the nape of my neck, a puddle of sweat poured from the ends of my hair. “Oh,” I thought. “I didn’t know you could sweat from your hair.” My face itched so I reached up to scratch it and found that an entire layer of sweat had covered my cheek. “Bummer,” I thought. “I don’t like this feeling. I don’t like having my whole face be sweaty.” But there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t wipe off the sweat, that would have wiped off my sunscreen. Plus, I was pretty sure that it would just come back, so I just accepted it.

We crossed a river and, when we got to the other side, stopped to pull off any leeches that had found their way to our shoes. I looked down to find 3 or 4 skinny little worms, sticking straight out from my shoes. I scraped them off with a rock and then pulled of the little leech that my friend pointed to on my sock. We continued in this fashion, walking through the jungle, removing leeches, and crossing rivers, until we got to a beautiful waterfall and stopped to have lunch.

The kitchen crew at the jungle hut had packed us a bag lunch and I had been excited to see what it was because I had been smelling it from my backpack all morning. I opened the plastic container to see: a fish head, sitting on white rice next to a bag, containing a chicken leg in sauce, under which was some sort of leafy green vegetable, sautéed in garlic. “Oh,” I thought as I looked at the fish head. “I thought that you were supposed to throw away the head. I didn't know you could eat it.” But, it was lunch, I didn’t really have any other option. So, using my spork, I picked at the flesh below the eye and around the cheek, turned it over and did the same on the other side. Next, I ate the leafy greens and they were delicious. Then, I picked up the chicken in the bag. It looked spicy.

“You should try the chicken,” my friend said. “It’s really good.”

I opened the bag and stuck my spork in to the sauce to try it. “Ouch!” I thought as the chili burned the back of my throat. At that point, I had eaten enough rice, fish, and vegetable to constitute lunch so I closed up the bag and stuck it back in the container. As I closed the lid on the container, I looked at the remainders of the fish head- an eyeball, bones, and scales- laying in the rice. A voice popped in to my head, “Dude, you just ate a fish head for lunch. And you didn't squirm or cringe or get all weird about it. You just ate it, like it was lunch." (The night before, I had chosen not to order the fish for dinner because I knew that it would be a whole fish and there was no way I would be willing to pick away the flesh and bones to eat it).

After lunch, we packed up our things and hiked to the small lake below the waterfall. As my friend and I were swimming in the 'blue lagoon' she remarked, "I was thinking you should be, like, an emergency room nurse or something. You don't react to anything." I winced at the idea of being in an emergency room with all those things going on and was genuinely surprsied by her comment. I hadn't felt like I wasn't reacting to things. I hadn't really felt at all, just sort of experienced.

But her comment also got me thinking- about how I had responded that day,  about the fact that this part of my trip that I had been sort of dreading had been somewhat inconsequential,  that the heat was just part of the journey, that the leeches were just worms on my shoes, and that I had eaten a fish head for lunch. When I looked at myself in these situations, I noticed how little effort I had put in to tolerating these things and how different that felt from what I had been doing up until now.

I mentioned earlier that I had been 'training' for the heat, practicing 'accepting' it and I guess that helped with things. But I also have to admit that I had also been sort of 'training' in 'accepting suffering.' See, the night before, when I hadn't ordered the fish at the restaurant, I felt bad afterward, like I had been a wus for not tolerating the discomfort of picking at a whole fish. I felt like I was supposed to experience the suffering of ordering something you didn't want at a restaurant. (I know, it seems silly, but I'm kind of a literal person so when I hear 'embrace your suffering' I try to literally embrace  it, like hug it like it's a friend). But that day, I hadn't eaten the fish head to 'embrace my suffering' I ate it, because it was lunch.
And I have to admit that for much of my trip here, I have eaten spicy foods in an attempt to 'learn something' about suffering, to see what it's like to 'accept' the discomfort of a burnt tongue and throat, with the expectation that if I did this, the suffering would not be as bad as I thought. But this morning at breakfast, with the spicy noodles, I ate them because there was no other option but at lunch, I skipped them, because I could.

I think that's what happened today. In the morning, I was hungry. The only food I could eat was spicy noodles, so I ate them. Thinking about the burn, wishing I could have something else, those ideas didn't really occur to me because they weren't really an option- this was breakfast and so I ate it. It was the same with the fish head at lunch. It was what was in the lunch bag, so I ate it. There wasn't any point in thinking about how awful it would be or how I was going to make it better, it was just lunch. But then, when faced with the spicy chicken, I actually had an option. I had eaten enough so I could skip it. I didn't have to embrace this suffering. I didn't even have to experience this suffering. I could just tie up the bag and bring it home with me.

I have to say that this brings me great comfort. I am very excited about the fact that I don't have to always enbrace my suffering. That the point of this, at least for me, is accepting the situation. Sometimes, you really can't change the apparent 'crap' you're stuck with, so you might as well accept it. Other times, you've got options and when you've got 'em, take 'em.

Want intimacy? Give up your boundaries- they aren't real anyway

There's this thing that comes up, really often, when people share their fears and desires. I often hear people say that they really want connection but that they also fear closeness, they want a relationship but they fear intimacy. I'm one of these people. I know I want love, I know I want relationship and then I watch myself pulling away from it when people reach out or when they get close. It kind of drives me crazy, watching myself repeatedly doing this thing (pulling away) that sabotages my own happiness and ease (connection to others). But at the same time that I'm watching it, I'm feeling helpless about it, like I don't have the strength to not pull away from others. For me, part of it is a gut reaction, a fearful defense, and so by the time I notice it, I've already done the pushing away and so the connection (or the potential for it) is gone.
This weekend, I was watching myself do this. I actually watched myself put up boundaries between myself and my two friends. At first, I tried to understand it, tried to figure out why I was putting up boundaries where before I had been open. I reflected on the fact that earlier in the week, boundaries had unintentionally been crossed and it had scared me, put me in a place where I wasn't in control, where I was vulnerable, and in which I saw things in myself and in my family that were unsettling. They were true, they were things that I had to see, but they had also made me cry and feel off for a while so I felt like, "Oh, you're protecting yourself, you need a break from the intimacy, it was a little too much and you need to recover."
Next I decided that having boundaries was part of me. I decided that my friends needed to understand this about me, they needed to respect that I was someone who needed boundaries for safety and that if they would just respect them, I would feel safe enough to cross them. I considered telling them when they crossed these boundaries, and asking them to step back, and not cross it again until I was ready. But I knew too that when they had crossed my boundary earlier in the week, they had taught me things about myself. That even though their crossing had hurt me, it had been helpful to me too. And also, they're my friends, I kind of think that they're supposed to bump and poke me, and that they're doing it because they want to get close to me, to know me, and by insisting on these boundaries, I'm keeping them out of my life.
Then I thought about something I had shared in my way-seeking-mind talk. I had shared an experience I had in which I watched two people whom I thought I was close with, develop a close friendship, and been confused by it. I didn't understand why they were close to each other but not with me. What I finally discovered was that they were close to each other because they actually shared with each other. Though I was friends with both of them, had listened to them share themselves and their lives, I hadn't shared my self with them and that if I wanted that closeness, I needed to start sharing myself too. Thinking about this made me realize that I can't just say that this is part of me, that I have boundaries and you need to respect them. I knew that I had to let go of this need for boundaries and this fear of them being crossed.
But still, I didn't know how to do it, still don't know how.

This morning, during zazen, I was thinking about boundaries and how artificial they are. I was thinking about Mel Weistman's talk about Dogen's koan about what he learned in China: his eyes are horizontal and his nose is vertical. I thought about this concept: that on the one hand, everything is the same (eyes are horizontal) and on the other, everything is unique (nose is vertical) and that we are all interconnected and separate at the same time. And I thought "Oh, no wonder boundaries cause me such suffering, they aren't the truth."
I want to believe that I can put up boundaries around me to keep myself separate from others. I want to deny the interconnectedness of myself with others but I can't. I can't protect myself from their poking, their prodding, their love. I guess I can. I can insist on these boundaries, I can ask them to respect them, I can enforce them, but I don't think it's actually going to work. The boundaries aren't real, I'm making them up, which to me means they aren't really going to protect me the way I want them to. Since they aren't reality, they're just going to bring me more suffering, they're going to add to the pain. I might as well just accept the poking and prodding and unsettling since it's coming anyway.
Believe me, I'm not going to be all open and vulnerable and 'la la la' now, but I guess I see that the boundaries that I put up really aren't that effective. The security that I think I get from them isn't real or reliable. People are going to poke me, I'm going to get hurt and if I keep up the boundaries, I get poked and hurt all alone; but if I let the boundaries down, I get the same hurt but with my friends. They'll be there to maybe see me too, to maybe help me be compassionate with myself, to put a gentle hand on my shoulder and say "I'm here, I see you, and I love you anyway."

Hiding behind the rules

My room mate teases me about the fact that I'm a teacher all the time and that sometimes, at home, I treat him like one of my students. Basically, I tell him what to do in a tone which suggests that he should know better, or, more accurately, that I know better (it's not accurate that I actually know better, it's accurate that I think I know better and that it's my job to educate him).
This weekend, I was in full teacher form. While I was gone in Asia, we had run out of compost bags and so my room mate had put compostable items in the garbage- something which drives me crazy. I understood this slight at first, there were no compost bags so he had to put the coffee filters in the garbage. But by Wednesday, I had bought new bags, so we should have been back to our normal routine. On Sunday morning, I found cheese and broccoli, in the garbage! These were clearly compostable items and the bag had been there for a while so I decided that my room mate had adopted an old habit while I was gone and that he needed some re educating to get him back in to the habit of putting compostables into the compost bin.
I walked down the hallway, jokingly wagging my finger at him: "Broccoli?! In the garbage?! You know better!"
"I didn't put broccoli in the garbage!" he protested.
"Um, ya did. I know, 'cause I just took it out of there," I said, snarkily.
"Oh, just some little pieces," he explained. "We didn't have bags for so long and I meant to get some new ones and..."
"I know, I got new ones so now we're back to normal so..."
"Thanks for making me feel bad...." he joked.
"It's Sunday," I explained. "You need your daily dose of religious guilt and I'm here to offer it."
"Thanks," he said, and closed his door to get back to his 'kiki' for the Dore Alley festival.
I laughed, but then I reflected about what had just happened. I pictured myself walking down the hallway, wagging my finger at him. I thought about how it feels when people wag their finger at me, or admonish me. It makes me feel small, and stupid. It makes me want to shrink and not try again.
I thought, "I don't want to do that to my room mate. Why did I have to admonish him like that? Why did I have to make him feel bad? Couldn't I have just put the broccoli in the compost for him and let it go at that?'"
So then I thought about my self in this equation, about the fact that broccoli, in the garbage, upsets me- and how weird that kind of is. So then I tried to feel that, what it was about broccoli in the garbage that upset me. I realized that to me, broccoli-in-the-garbage, means that things aren't going according to plan, rules aren't being followed, anything can happen. I saw that I like things to be a certain way. I want things to stay the same, to follow the rules, to be consistent and reliable.
So I pictured saying that to him instead: "Um, it's really important to me that things are in their place, that things follow the rules. When you put the compostables in the garbage, it actually upsets me, makes me think that things are beyond my control, and I don't like that."
But then I thought, "I can't say that. If I say that, he might turn around and say, "Deal with your own issues. Don't use me putting things in the garbage as a way for you to feel bettter about things being under your control."
But I thought about what I had said to him, that I had focused on the rules, and him breaking them. When I did this, I removed myself from the equation. The rules, because they appear arbitrary and objective, turn the focus away from my need to enforce them, from whatever it is about them that gives me comfort when they are followed and causes me stress when they are not. It wasn't really fair of me to do that. This is actually about me, and my issues with compostables being in the garbage, not about him, and following the rules. But when I make it about the rules, he's the one in trouble and I get to sit back all righteous and justified, not having to look at all at my own issues.
I don't really know what the end result of all of this is. Probably, what I should do, is see myself- see that I'm trying to create a false sense of consistency by making him follow the rules, see that I believe that I can somehow keep things from happening other than I had planned. But I think it's also about letting go- seeing that sometimes enforcing the rules is about my self wanting something and that I can let go of that.

Classroom management: Responding rather than controlling

I have to admit that I’m getting a little scared. Normally, the first week of school is spent “training” the kids. You teach them the routines of the classroom, give them a chance to practice them, and then give them positive feedback on their ability to do them. This is how teachers often lose their voice: they spend all week long saying things like “I like the way Johnny is raising his hand” or “Thank you for not throwing your pencil down when you were upset” or “Remember rule #3: We keep our hands and feet to ourselves.” It helps, a lot, because by the end of the first two weeks of school, the kids totally know the routines and you don’t have to give them positive feedback anymore, they just start doing things naturally or out of habit.

Last year, the kids were so good the first two weeks, I didn’t reinforce their behavior and they fell apart by the third week (kids are often super good and attentive the first two weeks of school but can’t keep it up beyond that). But once the third week rolls around, you need to start teaching them curriculum, so often two things happen: you don’t have time to retrain them in routines and/ or the curriculum is so engrossing that they can’t focus on learning the rules.

And that’s what happened last year, it was too late to retrain them so we kind of gimped along for a while, doing both, and they eventually got the routines of things. But I remember thinking to myself “Don’t let this happen next year. Don’t be fooled by their good behavior in the first two weeks as an indicator of their behavior for the rest of the year. They need you to train them no matter how much they seem to know the rules.”

But this year, it feels really weird to “train” them. First of all, each time I teach them something, they seem to get it, right away. So I don’t feel the need to keep pointing out to them that they “get it,” that just seems kind of insulting. Second of all, I’m kind of ‘over’ trying to control them. I don’t actually believe that “training” them is going to keep them from making the occasional slip up. I feel like I should show them what we need to do, let them do it, and then respond to any “breaking” of the rules as it happens. Before, I was teaching them the rules to keep them from breaking them, to try to prevent any chaos or lack of adherence to the rules from ever happening in the classroom. But now that just seems silly. Teaching the rules may help them to follow them but they’re still going to break them, occasionally, and I feel like I just need to respond to that as it happens.

Third, I’m taking their breaking of the rules way less personally. Actually, I think I’m seeing their breaking of rules way more clearly. During one of the afternoons this week, a little guy was passing endless notes to two other little guys at the table near him. I saw the whole interchange and what I thought was: “Boring lesson.” Not “Oh what a horrible lesson you’re teaching” or “How can you engage him so that he pays attention” just “Boring lesson, afternoon, 8 year old.” Instead of getting mad at him or admonishing him, I just walked over and picked up the notes: the one on his desk and the many on theirs. He was immediately apologetic and felt horrible. I just put my hand on his back and said, “It’s harder for them to pay attention when you’re writing notes to them, so…” And it’s true, it is harder for them to pay attention when he writes them notes. It’s also true that the lesson isn’t engaging to him. Point taken, moving on.

I honestly don’t know how this is going to work. As the week is progressing, I’m finding myself having to give a lot of responses to kids. I’m definitely noticing that I have to remind them of the rules, individually, more than I think I did in the past when I trained them. And this bugs me a bit- in some ways, it feels like a waste of time that I have to remind them of these things. But part of me thinks that some of them need these reminders, that this is part of my job- to keep them on task or help them to focus. And I am noticing progress, they’re starting to remember the routines and I kind of feel like they’re doing it themselves, actually internalizing them because they want to, instead of doing them in the hopes that I’ll praise them for it or they’ll get class points for it.

Doing what's important.

On the fourth day of school, I came down after lunch to pick up the kids and saw one of my students crying. I immediately appproached him and put my arm around him. "You're crying," I said. "What happened? Do you want to talk about it?"
He nodded and said that he did and then proceeded to tell me what had happened. He had been playing basketball and another student in our class had been yelling at him. I asked him if he could tell me spcifically what he had been saying and he said that he just kept talking about how bad of a player he was at basketball.
He kept crying and I told him that when we got inside, I'd try to set up a time for them to talk about it. I kept my arm around him until we got to the building, then let him go so that he could get in line with the other kids.
Once we got in to the classroom, I sat down at the back table with the intent of talking with the student who had made the other kid cry. But then I thought, "You need to do reading assessments. Why don't you have them talk in the transition between indepdendent reading and read aloud?" But I knew that if I did that, they wouldn't really get a chance to talk, it wouldn't really get solved, it would probably just get shuffled around. "This is important," I thought to myself. "The reading assessment is important too, but that little boy is crying, and that's more important."
So I called the other kid over and asked him why he thought the first kid was crying.
"Because of the basketball game?" he asked.
"Why would he be crying because of the basketball game?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said.
"Did something happen during the basketball game?" I asked.
"Maybe it's because of what I said," he answered.
"What did you say?" I asked
"I don't know, I just said good game and stuff like that," he said.
Now, normally I would respond to this by saying "No you didn't. I know what you said because he just told me, so you might as well just tell me instead of making something up." But this time I didn't, I just responded to what he had told me.
"Do you think he's crying because you said 'good game'?"
"No," he answered. "I think he's crying because of the other stuff I said."
"Oh," I said. "What did you say?"
"I said that we lost the game because he can't shoot," he explained.
"Oh," I said. "I think that would make me cry too. Do you think we should ask him what would make him feel better?"
"No," he said. "I think I know what would make him feel better. I think I should tell him it wasn't his fault that we lost the game."
"Okay," I said. Then I gave him a big hug and told him how proud I was of him for being honest, for taking responsibility for what he had done, and for coming up with a really good idea to make his friend feel better.
He walked over to the other kid, talked to him, and I saw the other kid smiling at the end.
It was important. It was important that I listened instead of assumed. It was important that I gave them the time to figure this out for themselves. It was important that he got to make things better for his friend. And it was important that the first guy went from tears to smiling- and it came from his friend, not his teacher.

First Day Worries

It was the first day of school. My bike had been stolen outside the zendo that morning and this time it was my whole bike. All that was left was the lock and the helmet (they cut through the cable and lock). When the person who often arrives at the zendo at the same time as me each morning saw this he asked, “Where’s your bike?”

I kind of laughed and said, “It looks like it was stolen.”

He shook his head in sympathy and immediately offered to give me a ride home. But I was so worried  about it being the first day and getting home quickly, I foolishly thought it would be faster to walk, so I declined his generous offer.

I cursed myself about this decision as I schlepped up the hill in my Ugg boots. But my schlepping must have been fast enough because once I got home and did my trick of getting dressed while my oatmeal cooked, I ended up getting to school at a reasonable time.

Leading up to the first day, I had been going back and forth between feeling like I needed to be worried and feeling totally fine about the first week of school. Actually, I shouldn’t say that I felt totally fine about the first week of school, because that wasn’t it. What would happen is that I would start to get worried that I wasn’t prepared beyond the first day. (Normally I have the first week totally planned out on the Friday before school starts but I hadn’t done that at all). When I started to think about this, I freaked out, because I felt unprepared. But then, when I tried to plan for the week, it felt really silly. I’d imagine what we’d be doing on Wednesday but then I knew that I couldn’t really plan for Wednesday because I didn’t know what was going to happen on Wednesday. It just seemed useless to do it since I didn’t know what Wednesday would be like until I got there.

I finally found a compromise for this by having everything planned out and ready for the first day and then using any other time I had to make photocopies for stuff I would need for the rest of the week. In that way, I felt like I was ready to respond to what came up in the rest of the week (having the physical things there if I needed them) but that I wasn’t planning for something that I didn’t know anything about.

It was still scary to do this and it felt worse as I watched other teachers look totally ready for their week. I also worried that now was the only time I would ever have to get this stuff done. Once the kids came and school started, my afternoons would be filled with cleaning up from the day, getting ready for the next day, and attending meetings, looking over kids’ work, etc. But every time I tried to deal with this by doing things that weren’t needed right now, it just felt really useless and a waste of my time. A couple of times I did it anyway but it felt like I was just going through the motions.

So when I got there that morning, I focused on just setting up the room for the day: I walked myself through what I would say for each lesson and then planned everything based on one goal: that the kids would leave at the end of the day feeling happy about school. I made sure their names were somewhere in the classroom, made time to give them a tour of the room and the school, made sure we went over the fire drill, and then planned activities that I thought would make them relax and start to get to know each other.

And it worked. We made it through the day and it happened the way it always happens: we run out of time because everything takes so long the first day so all the stuff I had prepared ahead of time wasn’t needed anyway. And after school, and in the following days, I got emails and comments from parents saying how much their child liked school, felt good about third grade, and was happy.

I have to admit that it's easy to do this right now: to only focus on the kids being happy and enjoying school. I'm pretty sure that as the year progresses and I see kids not getting the lesson or falling behind in their math facts or reading level that I'm not going to be so worried about their happiness and push instead for some suffering to make sure that they learn this stuff...

Accepting harmful behavior

This post was written the weekend before school started.

I had had a profound experience with self rejection and it had brought to my attention the importance of acceptance. I wanted to make sure that I didn't reject my students. I had felt the ramifications of rejection by another- it had lead to self rejection- and I wanted to ensure that my students never felt that. As their teacher, as a person in a position of power over them, I felt that my acceptance or rejection of them, of their behavior, could have a profound impact on their acceptance or rejection of themselves. I wanted them to accept themselves, to never feel that who they were was devalued or unimportant.
I was telling this to a friend of mine and I thought about what I would do if one kid hit another kid. I knew that I wanted to accept that kid, even though she hit someone, but I didn't know how to do that. It's not okay for her to hit someone and I feel like I have a responsibility to the class to make sure that no one is hit in my room. At the same time, I don't want her to feel rejected. How do I accept someone when they're being harmful to another?
At first, I thought about separating her from her behavior, telling her that I loved her anyway- that her actions were just her actions, they didn't define her. But I also felt like that would be accepting the hitting and it felt like she would do it again, if I accepted it. I also thought about the other kids in the class who were watching this behavior. I was afraid that if they saw me accept this harmful behavior, they would be afraid that it would happen again and I can't have that fear in my room. I need them to know that they aren't going to be hit in my class, that it is a safe place.
Now, part of me does know that in fact, I actually cannot control the kids in my room. There is absolutely no way for me to prevent a child from hitting another child unless that child and I hold hands all day long. I get it, I get that I can't control the future. But the eight year olds in the room don't understand that, and I don't know that I want them to. What I do know is that they need a safe place- they can't learn if they feel threatened or if they feel like they have to protect themselves. I do think they need to believe that I can control the room- and in some ways I can. I can create a place where it's less likely that someone will hit someone. But this acceptance thing was was still troubling me. I absolutely knew that I didn't want to reject kids but I didn't know how to accept something that I knew was harmful.
The next morning, I was having tea and cookies after the dharma talk at the zen center. My friends were joking about what would happen if they were "bad" in my class. They laughed about getting yelled at or getting a slap on the wrist. I quickly jumped to my own defense, to kind of show off that my class wasn't like that.
"In my class, you're not bad, you just made a mistake," I said proudly.
But then Shundo (the Ino at the zen center) cautioned even that.
"It's an event," he said.
I was totally taken aback. This concept of an event- not a mistake, not good or bad, not even you-all -the-time or you-in-the-future- it had no value to it, it had no judgment, it just was. And this was acceptance, this was what I wanted for my kids, to never feel rejected, no matter what they did. The hitting, it's not okay, it just isn't, but it doesn't mean I reject you. I still love you. It happened, it's over, we move on. We'll deal with the hitting, but we're not going to reject you for it.
Now this is still tricky for me. This is tricky in a couple of ways. For me, I'm still in between in my Buddhist concepts. It's like I have one foot in the "I can't control the future, just live in the moment, let it go, it's all temporary, blah blah blah..." and another foot in the "Dude, don't do that. Don't be all zenny and let the kids run wild and accept whatever they do as beyond your control." I want to put this in to practice but I want to be realistic too. And I get it, it's actually more realistic to admit that I really can't control the kids but I can't say that that concept would go over all that well at Back-to-School night. So I'm working on it, but with a real intent to make the kids feel loved and safe.

On the other hand, I've got eight year olds in the room. And eight year olds are NOT about accepting harmful behavior. They are all about punishment. I can guarantee you that just about every kid in the room will want me to take away that kid's recess or make them sit in the hallway or do something so the kid has a consequence. That's just how they think at this age, they're very in to black and white and fixed rules and permanence. By the end of third grade, they can begin to see grays and they start to see that the concept behind the rules is more important than the rule itself and that sometimes we can break the rule if it means the bigger concept is being met.
But as I'm writing this, I also know that third graders really are capable of compassion. I actually don't think they would want me to harm the kid, I think they really would want me to forgive them. I don't know. I think the acceptance piece is more for me, it's more about how I view the children, how I respond to them. I don't think that I have to necessarily explicitly teach the kids about how this is just a moment, that they don't have to value it as good or bad; I think that's asking a lot of them. But I think that me accpeting their behavior without judgment, is really important. It's also really hard but I'd like to try.

the importance of acceptance

This post was written earlier this summer, about three weeks before the school year started.

Earlier this week, I was thinking about my behavior. I was thinking about the fact that I never seem to accept compliments and that I seem to have a disconnect between the person that everyone else sees and loves and the person who I feel that I am. It’s not so much that I feel like I am two people, it’s more that I have a separation between the person whom everyone seems to love and the actual me, who can’t seem to feel that love.
“Oh,” it suddenly occurred to me, “I don’t value myself. I don’t consider myself a valuable person.”
It was a hard thing to notice but it was definitely true. I actually don’t value myself. I consider myself somewhat disposable and mostly unworthy of receiving any praise or love. Again, it’s a hard thing to see but I also know that there’s truth in it; it’s definitely how I feel about myself, at least deep down I do. On the surface, and cognitively, I do see that I’m a good person but there’s definitely a gut inclination or history to see myself as dismissable.
I noticed this, let it sit there for as long as it needed to, and then moved on. I didn’t really think about it any more than that. 

But then this week, I was reflecting on something that I thought Shundo had said at Young Urban Zen. After someone had complimented me he said something like, “One of the reasons we have places like Young Urban Zen is so that Shannon can hear things like that, because she won’t seem to see it for herself.” His comment made me wonder why I couldn’t see these things about myself, why I couldn’t accept compliments.
At first, I told myself that it was because of my family, that we had been raised not to praise ourselves, not to accept compliments, not to see ourselves as above others. I thought about my dad’s generation, and how they were raised to be humble, to defer to others, to not think they were "all that." And as I thought about this last part, I thought about how that generation set an example for us by how they lived their lives. But as I pictured this, I saw the other examples that were set by them: I heard a mocking of people for being emotional, heard a chastising of women for being so touchy feely, remembered a  responding to crying with a stoicism, focused intently on stopping any expression of emotion.
“Oh,” I realized. “They didn’t value emotion. In fact, they did everything they could to stop it from happening. And they made it clear that emotion was bad, that it should be squelched, hidden, that it was a problem that needed to be contained.”

And then I realized that I am emotion. I am expressive and affectionate and spontaneous and I feel. And then it really hit me. “I can’t value myself, because I don’t value emotion. I can’t be myself because I’ve been told my whole life that this me- the silliness, the expression of emotions, the vulnerability, the love  - is weak, is unimportant, is frivolous. If the expression of emotions makes others uncomfortable, if vulnerability is a burden, if love were better off hidden or contained; then I make others uncomfortable, I am a burden, I would be better off if I were hidden or contained.

My gut dropped, and if I hadn’t been driving, I would have just laid down and cried. But, I was driving so I had to just sit with it, feel it, cry as much as I could while operating a vehicle.

I was glad I saw this; glad  to understand that I’ve been conditioned to not value myself, and that it’s about emotions, not me.

But then I thought about all the other messages we receive in our society. I thought about the devaluing of cultures and races and gender and class and even simple things like how we dress or wear our hair.
And then I thought about my students- about the subtle messages they receive about their culture, their skin color, where they live, how they talk, what their parents do. Many of them are surrounded by rejection of their very selves and I wondered how they could survive that.

It made me vow to never ever do that to them. I knew that I couldn't stop the messages in the media, or in the parents in our community, or in our society as a whole, but I knew that I could stop it in my classroom. And I didn't mean about race or culture or any of those stereotypes, I mean about the individual. I mean about every little kid in my room and what they offer each time they speak or act. They need to be accepted for their offering, whatever it is. How else will they ever accept themselves, experience the love of others, and offer their true natures? That's what this is all about, letting them develop into who they are. And I can support that by accepting them, no matter what.

Silence at Young Urban Zen

Just a preface: This post was written about four weeks ago when we practiced ending in silence at Young Urban Zen. I just didn't have a chance to post it until now.

Tonight, I felt a moment of self acceptance. It might have been more than a moment, almost a lingering, not permanent, not fixed- maybe like a ghost touching you, though it'd be more like a poltergeist 'cause my self actually embodied me tonight. But it was a nice emodiment, like a towel fresh out of the drier after a cold swim, like that hot cocoa or tea that permeates without burning.

We had been talking about silence at Young Urban Zen and I had been surprised by how much of what was described in the reading about silence was actually true for me. Many of the things that the author was describing were experiences I had actually been having over the past couple of months, or weeks even. I was also thinking about the fact that I was actually doing what the author was describing. And I was continuing to do it- I was actually practicing silence that night, not intentionally, not for the sake of "practicing silence" but actually experiencing things as they were, not needing to add on to them.
At the end of the meeting, we had a second sitting of zazen in an attempt to end our meeting in silence. As I was sitting, I actually felt my breath. At the earlier sitting that night, I had been feeling it too. By feeling it, I mean that I was actually just feeling the air move through my body. Normally when I feel my breath, I'm feeling for it, trying to make it be a certain way or noticing it or waiting for it to come but this time, I actually just felt it move up my abdomen and out my ears. Tonight was the first time I had ever done this.
At the second sitting, I started to do it again but then I started to feel for what I had been experiencing in the first sitting, so I reminded myself to just breathe, not breathe for something, and I went back to just feeling the air move through my body.
I thought too about just being present, about being present to each and every moment and not trying to make things be a certain way. I thought about how silence can be about that too- about acceptance and that it came from just being, not being in order to get something or do something. I was noticing how real my relationships were that night with people, how much closer I was coming to seeing the reality in front of me and that this had come from seeing things just as they are.

And then, it was weird. It was like this touching, in the middle of my chest, maybe like a heat. And then, it was really creepy because I gradually felt this creeping of warmth from my core to my extremities and then, I was inside myself, like, all of me was actually me. And that was super scary because it was just me. That's all, just me and myself and there was no where to hide but it was different because this time, we weren't separate, we were together and I realized that this was it. This is her, this is me, this is who I am.
At first, it was a little lonely because there was just us. I was a little scared about what we would do if it was just us because we might not know what to do. But then I remembered that we didn't need to know what to do, that it isn't about there being a right way to do things, that my job is to just be who I am. And then I kind of stretched into myself, like when you put on a long sleeve shirt and have to reach all the way to the end of the sleeves. Once I put myself on and looked around, it was okay, we were okay, and then I atually was myself, we weren't two people anymore.
I thought a little more about being silent, about how I was doing what the author had described. I tried to point to what had caused it and I saw that it was me, that I had been doing these things, that I was listening to others, that I was a teacher in my classroom, and I thought about some things I had done this past weekend and that I had done them.
And I thought about what had happened when I had done them- that even though I had expressed myself and ended up doing something that I thought might have hurt someone, instead of pulling away, they had come closer to me. They had apologized to me and they genuinely cared for me.
And that's when I realized that I was loved for who I was, that no one needed me to be a certain way, that I wasn't going to be left if I was unpleasant or difficult, that someone reallly truly loved me, and, honestly, always had.
I cried.
And then I tried to not cry because it wasn't the zendo, it was Young Urban Zen, and the guy next to me was there for the first time and I didn't want him to think we were all culty or witnessy or something. But then I knew that wasn't going to work either because the whole point in all of this is to just let things happen, so I let the tears run down my face, though I did close my eyes.
I must have gotten preoccupied with the whole crying/ not crying thing because after that, I didn't feel like my self was embodying me anymore. It wasn't like it left or anything, I just didn't feel the feeling I had before, I just went back to my regular self, which I think tends to watch what's going on, which tends to keep a distance and I'm still trying to see that, see what that space between my actual self and the self that others see is.
Eventually, the bell rang and I was grateful that we ended in silence so that I wouldn't have to explain why I had been crying. I wiped the tears from my face, put away my zafu, got my friend's stuff from my jacket pocket to give to her, and then walked kind of gently out of the building.
I felt a little stuck. On the one hand, I had just had this profound moment of the beginning of self acceptance and I wanted to share the fact that it had happened with someone. On the other hand, I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed and vulnerable in response to it. It had been kind of scary to truly see myself, to see that that was all there was, to be faced with the reality of it.
Once I got outside, people were talking like regular and I realized that I didn't have to do anything here either, just listen. I talked with people, we joked, I listened and got excited about stuff and the night just went on. I ended up telling one friend about it, because I needed someone to know, that it had happened, right there, while we were all just sitting. We hugged as I told her and then we got interrupted and that was fine too. It was getting late and we all needed to get home so I walked to my bike, unlocked it, joked with friends about the potential for an empty zendo in the morning, and rode home.