ZenLife Blog
My Journey Toward Writing The Arte of Now: Practice of Immediacy in the Art by Nicolee McMahon
My journey toward writing the Arte of Now: Practice of Immediacy in the Arts ® is a weaving of Zen, shamanic training, art, and not knowing. To best exemplify how a few of these threads weave together is when I got lost while camping in the desert with my family several years ago.
Cracked Bell
I'm turing 68 in a few days, and I'm afraid my body is also falling short of the mark. It's so easy to gain weight, and a nerve in my neck and right arm get's easily inflamed making it difficult for me to sit meditation at all.
Normalize Discomfort
So when things arise in your practice and your meditation that disturb you, you may easily get discouraged. This isn't what you signed on for. So I want to suggest that you normalize discomfort; that you proceed by allowing and acknowledging that suffering is part of your life and to walk on a spiritual path means to engage and transform this suffering, but not to avoid it.
Finding Your Way Home
This is not a time for certainty. That effort will not serve you well. The ground beneath us will continue to shift and slide. And the question facing me, facing you, is will we be able to turn on a dime when we need to. Otherwise, we may lose our way, holding too tightly to something which no longer guides and shows us the path forward. The path is where you are standing. But don't assume it will be straight. The chaos will not let up so get used to falling off the path, getting back on it, and finding your way home.
Give No Fear
You have to be very honest with yourself. You have to be willing to really look at your own confusion. Meditation can help you be with your fear. Meditation helps you be in sync with your body, mind and heart. This grounded, embodied awareness shines a light on the dark corners of fear.
Beyond Hope and Fear
So let go of hope and fear. Do you really need either to live your life? Do you need either one to fix your breakfast in the morning? Perhaps it would be helpful to reduce your life down to small steps. Pay attention to what is happening in front of you.
Thinking Beyond Words
I think it is useful to maintain this perspective of a less-than ideal Buddha. A person who struggled with finding the right way to live, with right actions and right speech. Having this vantage-point fosters an understanding that anyone can enter the Bodhisattva path. Pema Khandro has noted that “Wherever you find yourself, that’s the starting point of the Bodhisattva path — all we need to do is to take that first step.
Going Downstairs
It's important to begin the spiritual path with a strong foundation of mindfulness meditation. And it's equally important to approach this practice of meditation, not as a technique you will master, but as an attunement to yourself that is kind and generous. It's important to acknowledges all aspects of your experience as valid. And of course, this includes the disowned energies which frighten and upset you.
The Power of Forgiveness
Forgiveness is connected to the Buddhist virtue of equanimity, a steadiness of mind that is the ground for wisdom and the protector of compassion. Forgiveness is related to the third Paramita of patience that helps us work with our own aggression and irritations. For when anger visits us and stays too long, it takes up residence in our heart as resentment.
Taking Your Place
I’m walking in the forest and my head is full of ideas on what Bernie needs to do to get better and stronger after stroke. Mostly these ideas are all about doing more: go out more, be with more people, go someplace for lunch, walk up and down the driveway with someone alongside or on the uneven grass in back, do brain exercises, etc.
Living by Vow
Someone once asked my root teacher, Maezumi Roshi, "Christians believe in a soul that continues after this life. Do Buddhist believe in something permanent that continues after death?" Maezumi Roshi thought about the question and said, "No" But then he added, "Rather, we believe in vow."
Wake Up, Grow Up, Clean Up, Show Up
In this time of spiritual growth and awakening on Earth, it is helpful to have a framework that can orient our practice and our progress. For this purpose, a few years ago, I introduced a frame into the Integral lexicon called “wake up, grow up, clean up, show up”.
Ethics of Interdependence
So I’d like to articulate an ethics of interdependence, that dignifies difference by actualizing our capacity for creative, improvisational virtuosity and compassionate commitment to bettering our world, both personally, and publicly.