My friend Barb Northwood has been cultivating a meditation practice for many years. She's receptive to Buddhist talk but she is not Buddhist and I actually do not know where her religious preferences lie. Barb suffers from severe pain and she uses meditation, amongst other things, to help deal with it. She wrote this to me some years ago. It's ostensibly about pain but to me is also an examination of the subtleties of generosity. In Buddhism, generosity is a religious behaviour, a display of reverence. Even though she is not a Buddhist herself, I know she, too, places a high value on generosity. Generosity is seen in all lives, the good and the evil. The hopeful irony is that cultivating generosity tends toward the wholesome. Any sentient being can show generosity under the right conditions but only meditators bring it into being. Here's what she wrote....
"Love and tenderness are qualities of humanity. You know what love is? It is all kindness, generosity". Rumi, I could tell you of my pain - but would you be able to hear my joy? I could tell you of my pain in all its levels, in all its forms, but why? Would you understand me more? Would you treat me more gently? Perhaps there is some sense of self preservation in my telling you things like opening door knobs or turning on or off water taps or sitting, just sitting, all hurt. I do all these things anyway - but the pain, my pain, is ever present.
When people know that about me, they tend to help cushion my world, open doors and such - to soften the steps I take. It is my experience almost all people are kind, that way. In kindness we are unified. I could tell you of the pain I have encountered on my path through life. The emotional and the mental pain too. I could tell you of encounters with myself and with others that increased the pain I felt and the pain they felt. Misunderstandings, communication problems, anger, sadness, ignorance, power imbalances - sometimes theirs, sometimes mine, sometimes both. Sometimes, the pain wrapped itself so tightly, there wasn't anything but it and I felt I could prove it by telling you the stories of what happened, but why? Would I feel more understood by you? Would my world become more gentle? Maybe.
A little while ago my daughter said that it was okay for me to live in a gentle world, "after all that has happened to you, mom." Would you agree, if you knew the story of me, from birth to now? Do you need the details? Can I give you the details in a paragraph? Can I convey the details of the pain with the details of the joy? If I tell you the details, will they blind you to the love, the joy, the meaning that I feel my life to have - in there, amongst the pain? When I was a young adult, the voice of a trusted person rang clear - he said, "Look for the gifts. All lives have gifts." He said that at a time my life was disappearing into the pain. I remember once coming to my knees in tears and anguish and asking the universe if a whole life could be lived in pain. The answer that came back, was "yes." Was I expecting a different one? And then, here was this jewel given into my hand to turn over and over. This life. This pain. A gift? How so? But, the thought itself was alchemy. The gifts slowly began to reveal themselves. The more I look the more there are. Even now. I could tell you of my pain and in a way - I just have. When I talk about my pain this way, I find the world around me becomes more gentle. When people know, the face they show me is almost always one of kindness. Of compassion. And the more gentle the world becomes in response to me, the more gentle the world becomes for you too because in this, as in all things, we are just one. The antidote for pain is kindness, I do believe.
Wayne Codling is a former Zen monastic and a lineage holder in the Soto Zen tradition. He teaches Zen style meditation in various venues around Victoria. Wayne’s talks and some writings can be found on his blog http://sotozenvictoria.wordpress.com
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