Pause

In our family it was almost considered a sign of intelligence: the lightning-quick flare of temper, the instant reaction to a perceived slight or irritation, followed by a gush of eloquence recapitulating the offender’s past misdeeds and setting out principles of moral philosophy for her future improvement. The quick-temper gene came from my mother’s father, a usually mild-mannered man who would unpredictably erupt at minor annoyances and who passed the gift on to my mother, at whose knees I learned the art of venting wrath promptly and with panache.

I am talking here about strictly verbal expressions of anger, as at our house even the slamming of doors was forbidden. Still, anger is anger, however it is expressed, and though manifesting it feels as good as scratching a mosquito bite, to its recipient it feels like an attack by a horsefly. 

My meditation practice is outstanding in its sloppiness. I go through periods when I meditate occasionally, and periods when I meditate every day. But sloppy or rigorous, in some thirty years of sitting, the twenty minutes on my cushion have hardly changed at all. Unlike me, the monkeys in my mind have neither aged nor slowed down, but continue to leap and race through the forest of my neurons until the bell dings and the session is over. 

This so discouraged me that at one point I was ready to give up. Didn’t Einstein (or somebody) say that doing the same thing over and over in hopes of obtaining different results is the definition of insanity? But then I learned that one should not expect to enjoy the fruits of meditation while meditating. Rather, they are most likely to make themselves felt during the times when we are simply going about our daily life. If we notice that we are less quick to anger, if we pause before we jump to slap away an irritant, that is a sign that meditation is working. 

Here is what Viktor Frankl, whose wisdom was forged in the terror and suffering of Auschwitz, says about that pause: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom” (Man’s Search for Meaning). 

That space is what I am looking for, the blessed nanosecond in which on good days the effect of my sloppy meditations comes into play, and I choose to forego belting out an angry aria in favor of a more moderate response, or simply silence. True, that tiny pause doesn’t feel nearly as good as letting fly a tirade, but at the same time I can say that, although I often regret the tirade, I have never regretted the pause. 

The pause does not feel especially difficult or unpleasant. It feels like a little nudge, something inside gently reminding me to please just wait a second before I react. But it does feel strange. It doesn’t feel quite like the real me, the me that is quick to put things into words, especially if they are angry things. 

Sometimes the urge to scratch the itch is too strong. It drowns out the soft inner voice, and I lash out in the old way. But that’s o.k., because the universe is sure to send me lots more chances to practice the pause, to dive beneath the current and sink to where there is stillness and, for this one moment, peace. 

Sundays At The Church Of The Internet

For the first quarter century of my life, I went to church every Sunday.  I didn't mind the Mass so much, but the sermon did me in.  As a child I fidgeted in the pew, but as soon as I became capable of critical thinking, I fidgeted inside my head.  Proud of my book learning, I passed the time identifying logical fallacies and deploring the oratorical style, or lack thereof, of the man in the pulpit.

After the Ite, missa est released us, I would tear the chapel veil off my head and complain to my mother about yet another ridiculous sermon.  She, who probably had the same objections as I, would counsel humility, the suspension of judgment.  "But," I would counter in full adolescent preen, "if God didn't want me to use it, why did He give me a brain?"

Then for many years I didn't go to church at all.  But when life got difficult and my sense of invulnerability faded, I became aware of an annoying longing for spiritual guidance.  This led me to join crowds of lapsed Catholics and Jews at the local Unitarian church, but my old critical habit soon reared up its wizened head, and I stopped showing up.

After we moved to Vermont I started listening to On Being because it came on NPR while we were eating Sunday breakfast.  And because I usually missed part of it while I was out feeding the chickens I would later, when I thought of it, go to the website.

And I was off.  With the wind of the Holy Ghost in my sails, I discovered Viktor Frankl,  Richard Rohr, Pema Chodron, Sylvia Boorstein.  Eckart Tolle, who looks like a Dark Forest elf, reminds me of the German nuns who were my first teachers.  Also, he owns a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.  Do these sound like frivolous reasons to listen to a spiritual teacher?  If those priests of my childhood had owned a dog--or had a wife and children--I might have understood them better.

The vagaries of links led me to someone I would never have looked up, Geneen Roth, who lost all her money to Bernie Madoff and wrote beautifully about it, and to the illustrator Jennifer Orkin Lewis, whose works make me want to draw, or write, or something...

I know all too well the orthodox rebuttal to my digital spiritual wanderings.  I am picking and choosing what feels right--as opposed to what IS right--which is utterly non-Catholic.  But I'm not so sure about that.  No Sunday sermon on the dangers of mortal sin was as stark as Pema Chodron's message about the need to accept the impermanence of all things, to give up hope for good.

These digital homilies are hardly touchy-feely--at least the ones I read.  They deal with the inevitability of suffering and the need to be present, because the present is all we have.  And if an internet sermon makes me want to write or draw or stop thinking for a minute and just look into the green woods, isn't that all God's work?