Settling Debts

Twelve years ago I quit my job, packed my belongings and moved back home to complete my education. I had a new baby and no savings... just a final paycheck from a clerical job that didn't buy many diapers. My parents supported me, and within a few months I landed a full-time job. Soon afterwards I started taking night classes. I'd gotten in trouble with American Express during my first college career, so at the time the only credit card I could get extended a very lean $250.00 line of credit. The limit was small enough to force me to use it responsibly. A year later, I had two cards. A few years later I had three, then four. I paid my bills on time, but I racked up debts... the majority of them the year I fled the nest for the second time. I'd only lived on my own twice before for brief periods on campus when I was spared the inconvenience of randomly assigned roomates. At other times, my living quarters were populated with friends. Finally, I found myself on my own... independent... or so I thought.

I finished school and I landed a decent job. I had enough money coming in to cover basic living expenses and enough left over for a few extras. I had habits that I considered frugal, but I racked up an unreasonable amount of credit card debt to buy furniture and household "necessities" and I lived paycheck to paycheck. In the beginning, it seemed okay. In previous years I thought I would never be on my own again, and just getting to that point was enough. I could breathe again. But as the months and years went by and I didn't seem to be able to chip away at my debt in any way that seemed significant, I decided it was time to change.

Over the past two years I've been engaged in a serious debt reduction program. I grew tired of paying rent and bills every month still feeling I wasn't getting anywhere. I'd been working full-time for a few years and I still had no significant savings... surely not enough put away to sustain the loss of my job for any extended period. Though my daughter was young at the time, college expenses were on my mind. I started to think seriously about the possibility of financial freedom. I started to make steps to turn the possibility into reality, and I'm finally starting to see the beginning of the end of my co-dependent, addictive relationship with credit cards and the beginning of a new focus on saving and living with less.

I'm not patting myself on the back. Not yet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the fact that I just paid off my car and I'm excited that at the end of the month I will have no credit card debt. But something else happened as I've watched myself take the necessary steps to get to this point... I watched my patterns. I watched how much my spending was driven by feelings of discomfort, inadequacy, or anxiety. I noticed how I tend to try to spend my way out of misery.

The ironic thing is that I'd had such deep judgements about the stereotypical female shopaholic who racks up debt for clothes, shoes, makeup, and other girlie things. I tried to lie to myself and convince myself that since the things I was consuming were more "enlightened" or geeky (books, yoga DVDs, dharma materials, technology, educational materials, things like that) I was somehow better than those girls. I came to realize that the problem (if there is a problem) is in how we consume, not in what we consume. I've learned to stop digging a deep hole, but the pattern hasn't left me completely. There is still more work to do.

I've thought a lot about myself and my responsibility in the global economic crisis that we can't seem to escape hearing about or fretting over on a daily basis. While I didn't go out and try to buy a house with my finances as they were, I didn't have the most responsible habits... and like those who lived during the roaring twenties, I didn't imagine that the economic prosperity that could be realized in this country would ever come to a screeching halt. Not again. I thought I had plenty of time to resolve my financial woes because I depended on the fact that the economy would just keep chugging along as it had been. Hadn't we learned from history? Weren't there smarter people than me out there making sure we wouldn't find ourselves in a position where we'd be destined to repeat it?

Maybe the solution to this crisis (and any crisis) lies with the fact that we, all of us in this human realm, have unskillful habits that we need to break. Maybe those people out there who work in the financial sector are smarter than I am about finance... but if they are plagued by the same unskillful habits that I am, their knowledge couldn't possibly make a damned bit of difference. I'm not an openly emotional person, but I am an emotional person. And time and time again I let my emotional response drive me. I find that I can be derailed or completely stopped (or driven and completely distracted) by nothing more than a feeling. And the custodians of the financial world, they are just like me. That is an unsettling, a sobering, a frightening thought.

I used to be embarrassed by my greed, by the ceaseless itch of craving that I feel when I'm driven to consume something, anything. In light of current circumstances, both personally and globally, I realize that I don't have time to be embarrassed, and I can tie this to my attitude towards my practice... an attitude that is shifting. When I say "I don't have time," I don't mean it's a good idea to ignore the feeling, stuff it down and pretend to be altruistic and giving so as not to see the greed that arises in me so I don't have to feel all uncomfortable about it. What I mean, is that I don't have time to waste an opportunity to use whatever feeling arises to conquer the five hindrances or to break the unskillful habit patterns that bind me.

More than anything, we all need to wake up and own how our personal habits and conditioned responses get us into trouble... and how they impact what I like to call the big four—self, money, relationships and the wider world. And we need to figure out for ourselves how to stop wallowing, stop avoiding, and stop anesthetizing long enough to find within ourselves just enough courage to look at our habits and just enough willingness to explore ways to drop those that are unskillful.

I'm starting to see this financial crisis in a different light. It's not (just) about money. It's about who we are as human beings at the core. And while we look to President Obama and the new administration for a quick and easy fix, some suggest there is a spiritual solution to the problem—a solution that lies squarely in our own laps.

Sweeping Changes

Did you have chores when you were growing up? I think most people did. My jobs included doing the dishes after dinner, vacuuming and dusting the common rooms and stairs on Saturday, cleaning the common bathrooms once a week and keeping my bedroom clean. I used to think my parents had a gender bias when it came to chore assignments. I did most of the indoor work, while my brother was charged with setting the garbage at the curb, raking leaves, cutting grass and shoveling snow though I remember helping with those tasks on occasion.

I had a strong aversion to doing my chores. The tasks always stood in the way of what I really wanted to be doing in the moment... reading a book, watching something on television, playing a game, spending time with friends. Housekeeping felt like punishment. I carried those feelings into adulthood until writings by Thich Nhat Hanh in Peace is Every Step and Gary Thorp in his book Sweeping Changes started to work on my deeply held, longstanding aversion to everyday, ordinary tasks.

Reading books like these, I have to acknowledge that my thoughts about the importance of holistic living and the six dimensions of wellness (a concept introduced in a health class I took in college that stuck with me) are more philosophical leanings than practical guidelines I bring to bear in my daily life. Yes, I acknowledge that having a clean, orderly home does do something for my state of mind, for my overall comfort and ability to focus on things less mundane with more clarity and presense, but I'm coming to acknowledge that the process required to get to that clean, orderly home also provides something important.

In the year or so before my father died, I didn't spend much time in my own home... especially during the weekdays. It was the place I slept, prepared occasional meals (I cooked at my parents house often during that time) and crashed. I was often exhausted, and my housekeeping started to slip. Dust lingered, floors were mopped less frequently, dishes piled up in the sink for a day or two before they were given any attention. A part of  me is embarassed to be discussing this at all... I was raised by a woman who is very particular about housekeeping... and while I might have turned my nose down at the uptight type-A-ness of it all, there is a part of me that will always be "house proud" even though I can tolerate messiness with much more ease than my mother ever will.

In the months since my father's death, I've watched myself. I spent a period of time caretaking for my mother. Then a major project started at work, and I put more than my share of hours in both at the office and bringing work home after longer-than-normal workdays. I've watched myself and come to see that exhaustion is my pattern and taking care of myself (my environment being an extension of myself) always comes last. Instead of caretaking for myself, I self-indulge... which gives me a temporary lift but does nothing to bring a sense of balance to my world. So last week when I took a few vacation days after a long stretch, I didn't make the trek to Cleveland like I'd planned to see the Dhamma Brothers film. I didn't lunch with friends or spend my Saturday at Borders or spend an entire day playing one of my favorite computer games.

I cleaned my house.

With every push and pull of the vacuum, with every scrub of the toilet or the tub or the shower wall, with every turn of the clothes dryer I felt lighter.

I have friends who have maids that come to clean their houses. I worked with one of them the year before my father died and she could see on a daily basis how I was running myself into the ground. "You should really consider hiring a maid service," she said. It was a tempting suggestion, but one I brushed aside because of my own biases. I've never seriously looked into a maid service because I think there is something really elitist and lazy about paying for services I can perform for myself... but there is more to it than that tiny judgment that I hold... expressed in the preface to Sweeping Changes:

Not concerning yourself with the care of things may, on the surface, seem to be desirable but, in this context, it is considered lazy and self-centered, as if you are trying to exist apart from things. That's one of the reasons you feel disconnected and unsupported.

So, today is another housekeeping day.

Last week, I listened to audiobooks while cleaning. My earbuds kept falling out while I was cleaning the bathroom, and I was reminded of something I read or heard someone say about listening to dharma tapes while driving. I wish I could remember the source and share it, but it escapes me in the moment. But in a nutshell, it was suggested that when we drive, we could just drive. Maybe it is not the time to listen to anything... maybe it is a gift of time with ourselves where we can be quiet and focus on the wheel beneath our hands and the pedals beneath our feet and the road ahead. As my earbuds kept falling out I thought about this... how I was trying to make cleaning "not cleaning"... How I was trying to turn it into an occasion to be taught something I wanted to be taught while doing something I didn't really want to do.

Well, today I'll clean in silence... and I'll think about the quote I'm sharing as today's Daily Dharma. Sometimes even gods and buddhas need to be set aside.

Laugh and Dance

Today's entry in Cheri Huber's Transform Your Life: A Year of Awareness Practice begins with a quote from Nietzsche and ends with an assignment:

Today, dance at least once and laugh with at least one truth.

Appropriate. Especially considering my last blog post. I read this and thought about the style of dancing I like to do and the particular song I'm going to dance to before I go to bed.

I live in Metro Detroit... we've covered that. I don't get out much. I've talked about that, too. When I do get out, I'm usually being dragged (well, sort of dragged...) to greek functions by my line sisters who worry that I need to get out of the house more often. One of our sister chapters in the area throws an annual event called the Pink Hustle. I enjoy that event. I recently attended the Spring Bash thrown by our area's chapter of the NPHC. Greek functions are great fun for me because I get to reconnect with friends I don't see often in my day to day work-to-home-to-work routine. They are also great fun because of the hustles (we interchange hustle with ballroom and stroll... but we're basically talking about line dancing). There are certain songs we typically stroll to... Some of my favorites?

• We old-school hustle to Stevie Wonder's My Eyes Don't Cry
• We ballroom to Jahiem's Just in Case
• We step to R. Kelly's Step in the Name of Love
• We cha cha to Mr. C's Cha Cha Slide
• We sweat to Cupid's Shuffle

So I said all that to say I'm doing the Cupid Shuffle before I go to bed tonight. I LOVE the Cupid Shuffle. Okay, that takes care of the dance part.

I think I've already had my good laugh for the day. I was listening to the Mitch Albom show on the way home from work and heard Ken Brown's latest production... it's a song he created/sampled called Monica's Song. You need real player to listen to this (and you need to be aware of a certain verbal exchange at a recent city council meeting to get it), but if you live in Metro Detroit and you are as tired of the mayoral scandal and city council's foot-dragging response as I am, listen to this... it will take the edge off.

Sitting with the Dying

I haven't really cried since my father died. I don't think those tears will ever come. It's not because I'm incapable of sadness. It's not because I don't feel impacted by his exit. I will forever miss my father. I will miss that I can never have another conversation with him. I will miss his presence both during the big moments (my wedding, if I ever have one) and the small moments (putting together a puzzle or playing a simple board game... things we liked to do together). But I'm not devastated by the reality of his death.

There are certain things that come up as you come to terms with the fact that you are sitting with a dying person. During the last week of my father's life, when I first realized that he wasn't going to make it, I wanted to be able to talk to him. He was getting weaker, he was on a ventilator, and conversation was not possible. I also wanted him to be comfortable. In the moments when he could speak, I wanted him to lie to me. When I went into his hospital room and asked "How are you feeling, Dad," I wanted him to say that he felt great, that he was getting better. But he didn't lie to me. He told me the truth. It was a truth I needed to hear because it helped me to understand how to be there... how to just be with him during the last days and the last moments of his life. It helped me to acknowledge that everything that needed to be said had been said, and that there was just one thing left for me to do.

There were moments when I wanted to run and escape... not physically, but mentally. I wanted to chant or listen to music or play a game on my iPod, or practice lovingkindness meditation. For a few moments, I turned to these distractions and they felt wrong, so I dropped them. There is nothing wrong with chanting, and there is nothing wrong with meditation. There is nothing wrong with playing music and there is nothing wrong with playing games. But some moments seem to call for your total presence, your undivided attention. When I was at the hospital, I learned to just be at the hospital. To be present with the sounds of the machines and the smells of illness... to be present with all of the emotions of the people around me--my mother, my brother, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends... to sit and hold my father's hand, to rub my mother's back.

There was a morning meeting in a small conference room. We were told by his doctor of many years that there was nothing left for the doctors to do. We were asked how we wanted to proceed. We decided to stop the medication, to remove the ventilator, to allow for a peaceful, comfortable exit. We were given time to bring the family together. We waited for everyone to be present who could, and we watched as nurses came to make him comfortable. I remember a moment when the waiting became unbearable. I remember feeling like a child in a car asking that question I hate to be asked when I'm driving.

"Are we there yet?"

And I realized and named what I was feeling... anxious, impatient. And somehow those feelings went away.

There is a verse from Advice on Dying that captured so clearly for me the final hour of my father's life:

May we generate a powerful mind of virtue
When the elements--earth, water, fire, and wind--
   dissolve in stages
And physical strength is lost, mouth and nose dry and
   pucker,
Warmth withdraws, breaths are gasped, and rattling
   sounds emerge.

When I read this verse the day after he died, it brought me right back to those final moments. And I think that the first line of the stanza applies whether we are the dying person or whether we are siting with the dying. If we want to be existential about it, I guess we can acknowledge that we are always dying and that one powerful way to meet that death in every moment is to generate a powerful mind of virtue. But what does that mean? I think it comes back to understanding the Dharma Seals and allowing an awareness of those truths to guide us breath by breath, moment by moment. I'll be back to talk more about this later.

Saying Goodbye

Three women that I've known for most of my life died this year, one just today. I knew them first as my mother's sorority sisters then later as my own. They supported each other in a cancer survivors group, and were always there for each other, lifting each other up through difficult times—remaining positive through it all. I've learned a lot from these women, mostly that on my worst day I really don't have anything to complain about.

When I have to say goodbye to a relative, a soror, a close family friend—the matter of life and death becomes palatable. I notice that as I sit with each passing, the immediacy of the loss is the jolt that reminds me to consider the impermanence of all things. Too often the awareness of impermanence  slips into the background. Any acknowledgment of it gets lost amidst the work day, the dirty dishes, my daughter's homework, the laundry. Days speed past in a whirlwind and I often do not consider that every day I am one day closer to death. It could be my own... It could be the passing of someone I love, someone I know. Every day, that final day approaches. And we never know how long the clock will tick until we have to say goodbye.

We know this. Intellectually, we know this. But we still put so many things off. We can always call tomorrow. We can fix our relationships later. We can hold grudges for as long as it feels good. We can put off doing the things that we know we could do every day. Some of those things might be as simple as saying thank you, spending time with the people we love, drinking enough water, getting exercise, getting enough rest, engaging in spiritual practice. What is it in human nature that causes us to be so nonchalant, so lazy about the things we should approach with vigilance?

I think it is the illusion that there is always more time.

It is so common to approch life with that thought in mind, but it's a gamble at best.

Look around. If you knew that the people in your life would not be here next week, next month, next year... would you do anything differently? If you knew that you would not be here next week, next month next year... would you do anything differently? Is there something unsaid that you would make the time to say? Is there something undone that you would make the time to do?

What are you waiting for?

What are we waiting for?

Always Ripe for Change

A couple of weeks ago I posted this inquiry. I wanted to know what others had to say about the nature of change and our ability to affect change in the world. I wanted someone to tell me how to be a Bodhisattva without feeling like a dictator or some egotistic authoritative person who "knows" what's best for people and tries to get them to live in line with that. Being that kind of person feels foriegn and strange to me for a lot of reasons. Mostly because I've tried it before and it didn't work.

I'm still trying to figure out how to carry the dharma into my daily life with consistency. I'm still trying to figure out how to bring my meditation off the cushion. Who am I to say what other people need to do when it is all I can do to stumble through my own attempts at right action? I've also been of the opinion that such attempts to consciously sway a person... to get them to do a certain thing or be a certain way... are often futile.

Wise people chimed in. They stated far better than I could the heart of my question and they gave me lots of food for thought.

Well, certainly trying to consciously sway a person to do something or be a certain way can be futile. We all have free will. That person has to be willing to come along for the ride. Here's an example... I want my brother to stop smoking. The reasons are obvious. I'm concerned for his health. I could spend a lot of time gathering books, materials, documentaries, studies, nicotine patches... I could ride him with the information like a man rides a horse. I could be dedicated. I could never let up. Would it make a difference? Tom made a point that spoke to this kind of effort. Tom says:

We change our entrenched habits when we are ripe for change. We overthrow our universe of thinking always for one reason [with respect to spirituality], because the ego-hold on us has lessened such that we've reached a tipping point where our old way of fitting in no longer feels right.

We can encourage and provide means such that people can exercise their muscles of compassion and wisdom. And then, we should stand back.

It's the "standing back" that I think we all have trouble with from time to time. Often, we don't see the strength and resolve in standing back. Especially if we have the activist's spirit. We think it is passive. We think we are giving up the fight. The opposite is really true. When you encourage. when you provide means... you are giving someone a hammer they can use to drive in (or pull out) that nail they are struggling with. You give them the tool, then you give them the space and the time to use it.

Nacho suggests that we (and everyone and everything) are always ripe for change because change is reality... it's not just part of reality:

[W]e always need to be one with change. Change (impermanence) is what constitutes us, what constitutes the world in every moment.

He, Zatoad, and Gareth also suggest in their own ways that while our more conscious efforts to affect change are one way to attemept to save the world, there are other ways.

I think Zatoad really clarified what I was thinking when I wrote the initial post when he said:

it really always comes down to the fact that we can only work on our own ignorance and development. Hopefully, if we are shining light on our own ignorance, we are also, slowly pulling a few other people along for the ride.

However clumsily, that's the point I was trying to make. What I seemed to forget was the point Gareth made:

I have seen people, including myself, change by merely being in the presence of a Dharma practioner.

Change is something that occurs with or without our help, I think the best thing we can do is take care of ourselves for now.

Nacho sort of "brings it home" when he says:

We work on our ignorance always as a result of being-in-the-world with others, in a symbiotic relationship.

The world is always ripe for change. The world is always responding to who we are and what we are doing. And so are people and everything else in the world. This is what Thich Nhat Hanh's word Interbeing is pointing to. Everything exists because of everything else. As subtle changes happen in one person, subtle changes happen everywhere. This may be hard to quantify. Everyone may not cause the global impact that Buddha, Ghandi, or Martin Luther King, Jr. did in the world... but everyone can have the same impact right where they live.

We do this by being steadfast dharma practitioners. Being steadfast dharma practitioners means that we do what is required moment to moment. That is th lesson of the Bodhicaryavatara (Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life). Like Will says:

We find ourselves called upon to respond to the unending sufferings of the world, and it is good to heed this call in one way or another; yet at the same time without the delusion that we can ourselves bring about the end of these sufferings.

I think if we set aside our egos... the parts of ourselves that think we know everything... and put forth our best effort in the face of everything... we are doing our part.