Category Archives: Buddhism

Recognition

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Last night, I stretched before bed, a routine which helps bring sleep when I make the effort. At the end I lay on my back in what is called “corpse pose” in yoga.

As I lay quietly, I imagined my heart stopping suddenly. My breath ceasing. My brain shutting down, and with that, all awareness evaporating. The “me” that existed just gone. No more Kathryn. No afterlife awareness as Kathryn.

What arose for me: we are expressions of the Life force. The creations Life makes are temporary. They change, disintegrate, and the constituent parts are reabsorbed. The matter and energy become the source again. There is no soul identified as Kathryn. There is no awareness of others. In this way we are eternal and infinite, because our parts merge again with Life. But the death of the body is the death of the personality.

And for whatever reason, for the first time, that felt all right. True. Not scary. Not sad.

Reflections on Sesshin

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Almost six years ago I sat my first sesshin at Hazy Moon Zen Center. I did not return, for many reasons and rationalizations. But when my teacher put a winter weekend sesshin on the calendar, I committed to come. It was wonderful sitting with so many people and creating community. These are some small reflections on my experience. A huge rainstorm visited LA, unusual and impressive for California, and a gesture from nature that we might be worthy of deliverance from drought.

Practice has become a priority. Six years will not pass before I sit sesshin again.
———

Reflections on Sesshin

Rain strikes the city
like a kyosaku startling
dusty streets awake.

The rain converses
with the windows
while water gushing
through gutters holds
a debate with the sidewalk.

Nearly six whole years past
the rooster still crows at dawn
in downtown L.A.

I met my match
outwaited her impatience
wrestled her on the mat
until she cried
not my way, the Way
then bowed
and walked into the day.

–Kathryn Harper

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The Feel of the World

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“Sensations, from the beginning, involve a sort of doing. This means that, in an important sense, it is your doing self that brings your core self into being. You are responsible at the very deepest level for what it feels like to be you. But then, for your next trick, well, how about spreading some of that soul dust onto the things around you? Remember, too, that it is your mind that projects phenomenal qualities onto external objects. If you only knew it, you yourself are responsible for the feel of the world.”

– Nicholas Humphrey
Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness

Pondering the Soul

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Do souls exist before they are incarnated? What is a soul? I perceive soul as energy. When it is embodied, it expresses through the filter of a personality. Personality is shaped by genetics, temperament, and experiences. Does a soul retain the particular “flavor” of personality after the body dies? I would like to think so. I would like to believe that the infinite universe can hold the essences of all the soul-personalities that ever existed. Although I have no empirical evidence, the mystic in me is intuitively open to this possibility.

Where does Love exist? We exist in Love. We forget this, so we create suffering for ourselves and others. Love is the mystery of the universe; it exists in all forms as well as that which is formless. A body that dies loses its form. Yet the soul-personality remains with us in Love.

As to what these soul-personalities do, whether there is reward or punishment, I do not know. I do not believe there is a ruling God who decides on an eternal afterlife for each soul. I sense that when we leave our bodies and lives on earth, whatever that has separated us from complete union with Love is removed, and this is healing and redemption.

“Love is our liberation. There is no other place to go.” – Karen Maezen Miller

seeing into the heart of the matter - art every day month 05 - day 30

Mostly Nothing Much

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“In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all its moments — which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.”

-Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

One of Those Days

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I’m having one of those days — I am so grateful to be alive.

The act of walking, the taste of coffee, the coziness of a blanket.

The emotion stirred by music, the brain food from books, the hugs from my child.

Greeting the parent who shows up every school morning to be crossing guard.

My breath with its precious oxygen that feeds my blood which my heart pumps reliably and perpetually through my body according to instructions from my nervous system and brain.

That any of it IS remains a mystery and a miracle.

Got the Time?

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Where is time’s home?

Where does time live in all its cosmic mystery of millions of years and billions of sunrises? Were does it reside? Where is it, shall we say, most comfortable?

The answer, I think, is within us. That’s because we are the unfolding place for time. We are saturated with time. Right now, as you read these words, it’s rolling out from you. It’s filling space with your awareness of this one precious present moment. That, after all, is all the time we ever know. The past is a memory and the future an idea. But this moment, this breath, this deep sigh of relief or exhaustion, of care or concern — that, really, is all there is to time. The rest is nothing but words on a page or equations on a blackboard.

-Adam Frank, NPR

Enlightenment Through a Cat

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God has come into my life. Now, don’t click away. Don’t let that word shut you down. I might not mean what you think I mean. It’s not a word I’ve used in my life for years. Stay with me while I meander through my story.

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This is Smokey. He’s been around a long time. He was in the neighborhood when we moved into the house five years ago. He belongs to no one and everyone. For years, I would scratch behind his ears and say hello, and then I’d go on with my life. Someone fed him. Someone gave him shelter in bad weather. But he was just around, and I did not seek him, nor did he seek me. (Of course, my Stella cat was still with us until January 2014.)

In January, Smokey began hanging out in our back yard. He would sleep in our garden. He liked to pop bubbles with Claire. He starting sitting on my lap. He allows me to trim his nails. Even though we didn’t feed him, he stuck around. Last month, I began feeding him. I did this after he brought me a live bird he’d caught and delivered to my feet. So now he gets two meals a day.

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I made him a little shelter when rainstorms came. But mostly, he likes to sleep on me or the mulch.

He was injured in early April, so I took him to a vet. He didn’t want to go, but once there he chilled in the exam room waiting for the doctor. I’ve never seen a cat so mellow at a vet’s office.

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My husband is not open to having another pet, so for now, Smokey is not permitted in the house. He strides right in the front door some mornings, though, clearly telling us he wants to be ours. I usher him out.

The other day as I sat on my patio with Smokey on my lap, this thought arose: “Every afternoon, God takes a nap on my lap.”

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Where did that come from? I don’t know, but it felt true and real. Last Saturday morning after I fed him, I reflected on the morning. And one sentence that came was, “I fed God breakfast, and now he has gone to stroll the neighborhood, looking after all the world.”

Oh my goodness. Yes. God sought me out. God has chosen me. God loves me, and I love God. This word — God — is loaded with so much history for me. It evokes vastly different meanings for people, and so I avoid using it. But this is what IS in my life. This cat. His arrival, his presence, is a call to sit and be quiet. An invitation to intimacy. I recognize God in my life. THIS is what it means to have a relationship with God!

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Extending that metaphor, I experience God everywhere. In every person, animal, plant, and rock. God is everything and everywhere. God is found in acts of care, and God is found in simple being. My goodness! Now I get what namaste means! Yeah, yeah, I’d always known what it meant, but now I experience it in my being.

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I have used many words to suggest what is divine in my life: Presence, the Mystery, Buddhamind, Spirit, Being, Ground of Being, Life, Chi, Love. They allude to what I mean; they can only suggest. Just as the a photo of the moon is not the moon, a word is not the thing it references. Something as multi-faceted as the Universe can be explored through science, math, literature, and art, but it cannot be totally integrated by the human mind. So we need shorthand, a word or a number, like X, to represent the holy mystery of All That Exists and our relationship with it. Lately, that “something” is the word God. So, God it is.

Reverence

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What is real for me in this moment: life feels bittersweet. It’s October again. Soon it’s Christmas. It’s “Where did the time go?” Then it’s a new year, and the school year ends, and summer vacation evaporates, school begins again, and then: another new year. Life is like this, every year. I recognize this, every year. I remember this conversation with myself from last year. The older I get, the more time compresses.

I practice presence — living here and now — and I’ve gotten pretty adept. Compared to the me I was in my 20s, 30s, and 40s, I focus less on past rumination and future anxiety. But that doesn’t make the time pass more slowly. It doesn’t change the fact that this life is such a short stint.

Yes, there’s Presence. The intangible subtle Mystery to which we are connected, from which we arise and to which return. It is possible to notice and experience this daily. Sometimes I even live within and from it — from a knowing that defies description or understanding with the mind.

But lately I’ve been noticing: I like this current incarnation. I like being in this body, living this life. It is precious. Yet it all changes. And there is grief.

I found a photo of myself when I was seven months old. I look into that sweet baby’s face and feel such love for her. Her softness, her open expression. Her innocence. I look at my daughter, a lovely soul, and remember the delicious intimacy of holding her.

Life is doing what it does. I’m so grateful that I am, that I’ve gotten to be this person. It’s just passing so quickly.

KathrynAsBaby

Me, 7 months old

you want some?

Claire, 7 months old

How to Love

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This video was played at church Sunday for the kids. While it seems sad, it provided a seed for discussion. We watched it again this morning. Claire’s thoughts about what the squid could do: “Stroke the boats, like a cat. Or find submarines to hang out with.” We talked about how you don’t have to possess someone to love her; if we hold too tight we hurt the person’s spirit and destroy the love. Being NEXT TO someone is not the same as being alone.