Category Archives: Judaism

January 24, 2012

A Kindness

By jubuhoo

Today I am recovering from strep throat. Yesterday I was sicker than I have ever been in my life, lying in bed mostly sleeping and when I was awake, feeling all sorts of uncomfortable. Early in the day it occurred to me that as the mom in the family, it is often my job to take care of others when they feel badly. With my feverish mind leading the way, I started slipping into self pity. “No one will take care of me!” Then I asked my husband for help and he stayed home from work to manage the kids and give me the TLC I needed.

But surprisingly, another person stepped up to the plate. My son Sage, who is eight, feigned illness to stay home with the rest of the crew (my five-year old has strep too) and so he was around watching me get sicker over the course of the day.

At first he would come periodically into my room to say hi. Then he wrote me a get well note. Finally he provided his favorite teddy to keep me company. At about five o’clock he came back to see how I was doing and offered to take my temperature. I suggested he read to me. He picked out a couple of books from the kids’ book basket in the hallway and sat next to me on the bed reading. With my head on the pillow I listened with my eyes closed, occasionally opening them to watch him read.

I was comforted by the sound of his voice, the earnest expression on his face as he concentrated on reading aloud, and by his presence. In Judaism it is considered to be a good deed (a mitzvah) to visit the sick. In this essay on the Jewish way of healing, the writer talks about this important teaching.

A fundamental feature of Jewish spiritual healing is bikur cholim (visiting the sick), which responds to two of the greatest burdens of contemporary life: isolation and lack of community. At a time of illness, bikur cholim offers us the comfort of human connection and interdependence, a sense of community we so desperately need.

The mitzvah of bikur cholim helps fulfill the obligation to “love our neighbor as ourself,” and it is required of every Jew (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah: Laws of Mourning, ch. 14). Like comforting mourners and performing other acts of kindness, bikur cholim brings goodness to the world (Avot de Rabbi Nataii 39:1).

With Sage there reading to me, I could feel that there really is a difference in being alone with an illness and having someone there as you go through it. The whole experience is less dark, less frightening. It is a true act of kindness and I was grateful for it.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Family, Judaism

May 23, 2011

No Judgment Day

By jubuhoo

For those waiting for the Rapture, this weekend was pretty much a bust. Personally, I wasn’t expecting much by way of the end of the world, but I have been thinking lately about accountability.

At a recent Buddhist meditation class, the teacher led us all in a recitation of the five precepts. These are Buddhist ethical guidelines that describe the effort to live a harm-free life. When spoken out loud, the practitioner sets an intention not to kill or take life, not to steal or take that which is not freely given, not to use sexual energy to manipulate others or disturb intact relationships, not to speak in a manner that is harsh or untrue, and not to take intoxicants that will cloud the mind from seeing clearly.

The precepts are considered to be recommendations, rather than commandments, offering the practitioner some direction in life without the threat of a judgy God watching over. But it isn’t as simple as do it or don’t, if you feel like it. There is, in both Buddhism and Judaism, a sense of accountability.

In Buddhism, there is the well-known concept of karma, which identifies that there are future consequences for our moral actions. On its surface it seems like a cause and effect idea, where the choices I make now will produce likely outcomes. If I am a liar, people won’t trust me. If I steal, I could be arrested, etc.

But what happens if the transgression isn’t overtly realized? With no judgy God, is there accountability? I am coming think the answer is yes. I went to hear a talk the other night by Howard Cohn, who leads the Mission Dharma of San Francisco. He said the way to begin to have happiness–the kind the Buddha taught, that is lasting happiness–is to live a good life.

Cohn talked about the reverberations that come back to us from actions that are harmful. Whether these are thoughts, words, or deeds, if they are greedy, angry, or lustful, they result in our own agitation and suffering. To help quiet the mind, develop concentration and mindfulness, it is very useful to think and act in ways that produce more calm effects.

In this way, accountability is largely with yourself. You can create more suffering for yourself or not, based on the moral choices you make. The precepts described above give guidance on how to create less suffering for yourself and others in your daily  life. In this essay on karma and reincarnation, it says that moral accountability is akin to other natural processes.

At its core, therefore, Buddhism has a sense of moral justice, though there is no overseeing arbiter or judge, and no judgment day as such. It might be better to see the process of karma as a natural phenomenon. If you look after a fruit tree carefully, pruning it at the right time and feeding it appropriately, good fruit ensues. If you fail to look after it properly then it will not bear fruit or the fruit will be sparse. In short, we reap the rewards of what we do that is wholesome, and suffer for what we do that is unwholesome.

In Judaism, there is a notion of responsibility which also speaks to the cause and effect of our actions. In the book, Everyday Holiness, which describes the Jewish spiritual path known as Mussar, it says, “We humans are unique among creatures in being able to anticipate consequences to the extent that we can, and as a result, we bear responsibility for our actions…the message here is clear that each of us is called upon to take responsibility now for what we will cause to happen after.” What matters most, Mussar teachers say, is how we relate to other people. So in addition to having responsibility for the moral consequences of our actions, we also must “bear the burden of the other,” or seek the benefit of the other in every possible circumstance.

As a parent, there is something that resonates with me in this concept of responsibility. I find myself every day doing things I don’t necessarily want to do, but that I do anyway to benefit my kids or my family. I have come to accept that I am part of something greater and even though I am sometimes frustrated, annoyed, or grumpy about my obligations, in my finer moments I am grateful for the role I play in this family unit.

I think this is probably a model for how I could come to feel as a human being in general, feeling connected to and serving the greater good of all people. And perhaps, as the Buddhists teach, not only for people, but for the benefit of all living beings. The teachers say this is the way towards happiness. Maybe even, a form of rapture.

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Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Food, Judaism, Uncategorized

March 16, 2011

Being There

By jubuhoo

As a parent, I often feel my children’s pain. They come to me crying and suddenly I feel myself getting teary too. It might be hurt feelings or a bonked head on the corner of the kitchen counter. (Damn that age when they’re just the right height for that!) My response in those moments makes a difference. If I dismiss their feelings – “You’re fine!” – they are left alone. But if I feel it too, they know that someone cares. I don’t necessarily have to fix it.

This is one way of looking at compassion, a trait we have been studying in my Mussar class and one that is also important in Buddhist teachings. Compassion is a sympathetic response to another.

While a parent’s love readily sets the stage for compassion to occur, it is not so easily accessed in other relationships. In the book Everyday Holiness, the primary text we are using for my class on Mussar, it says: “The moral precepts of Judaism demand that we be compassionate to every soul.”

In our class the other night, we puzzled over what compassion really is. Some thought it meant the ability to feel what another is feeling, to put yourself in the other’s shoes. Another thought that compassion meant to have pity on other people. Many of us were not quite sure. How does it differ from love? When is my desire to help another person compassion and when is it generosity?

According to Jewish teachings, compassion has everything to do with how we relate to others. “Compassion is an inner quality that grows within us out of the perception that we are not really separate from the other,” it says in Everyday Holiness. “We have a commonsense appreciation that we are all separate beings but the truth is that we are very much connected at several levels.” When connectedness resonates within us, we are able to feel another’s pain (and happiness) as if it were our own.

Mussar teachings say that is not enough to feel compassion. One must also act on it. “Compassion does not come into being just by feeling empathy,” the book says. “The depth and richness of the emotional connection must be translated into action that expresses concretely how truly moved you are to take care of the other. It is the action you take that turns a relationship or a shared emotion into compassion.”

I am thinking now of the people in Japan who have suffered such sudden and catastrophic disasters in the past week. I feel for the loss of human life, of homes, and of their sense of safety. I worry about the ongoing threat from the nuclear reactors. But what will I do to express that concern? According to these teachings, that is what matters.

Buddhist teachings on compassion also emphasize the call to action. “Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world,” it says in the book, Lovingkindness, by Sharon Salzberg. “Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion, is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception.”

The goal of our spiritual practice is to be able to understand, to be able to look without illusion at what is natural in this life, at what is actually happening for others and for ourselves. This willingness to see what is true is the first step in developing compassion. More difficult than acknowledging pain, however, is opening to it. This is the second step in developing compassion: opening to pain and establishing an appropriate relationship to it. We may have to do this a little bit at a time.

Salzberg says even very simple actions can make a big difference. “We may not be able to take away the mass of somebody’s suffering, but we can be present for them. Even if through our small act of being present, somebody does not feel as alone in their suffering as they once did, this will be a very great offering.”

I think it is interesting that the presence of another, in and of itself, can ease pain and suffering. Just being there. I guess that is why there is the Jewish custom to sit shiva after a death. In Jewish life, family and friends come to the house of the bereaved for seven days. People eat and talk, but the custom is mainly to come and sit with the person who is grieving. Just being there is enough.

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2 Comments   |  tags: , | posted in Buddhism, Judaism, Mussar

February 22, 2011

Cooking in the Dark

By jubuhoo

In a fundamental way, I feel at home in the kitchen. It is the place where I can get my bearings. If I’m agitated and anxious, I don’t really want to be there. I don’t want to be anywhere, but when I face the stove, suddenly I know this. I can start to deal with it. Likewise, if I am happy and want to spend some time doing something I love, I will often begin to dream up food I want to make.

I discovered this one summer working as a cook at Farm & Wilderness camps in Vermont. F&W is a Quaker place, where silent meetings are held everyday and simple work is valued. It was there in the kitchen, without music or radio to distract me, that I began to sense the connection between making food and some core truth in me.

Food is an important part of spiritual practice. In Judaism there are strict rules around the acquisition, preparation, and eating of food. The rules, known as kashrut, are the body of Jewish law that deal with what foods can and cannot be eaten and how those foods must be prepared. It is not a cuisine or a style of cooking.

In the chapter called “What Jews Eat,” in her book Living a Jewish Life, Anita Diamant writes: “Perhaps the most compelling explanation [for the rules of kashrut] is the idea, restated in modern times by Martin Buber, that kashrut hallows the everyday. The intent of kashrut is not to deny the body’s needs or pleasures, but to turn a natural function into a holy act.”

Another explanation is that it is meant to instill a reverence for life, especially animal life. “The biblical mandate not to ’cause pain to any living creature,’ has been cited as an explanation for the rules of ritual slaughter and as a justification for Jewish vegetarianism,” she writes. Importantly, the rules of kashrut require paying attention to what you are doing.

I recently attended a class on Mindful Eating, taught by a longtime practitioner at Seattle Insight Meditation Society. She introduced us to the work of a number of Buddhists who have a special interest in food and cooking. One of them, Jan Chozen Bays, is a Zen priest and pediatrician, who writes and teaches seminars on the topic.

Bays talks about the seven hungers in the body. These hungers exist in the eyes, nose, mouth, stomach, cells of the body, mind, and heart. How food looks, smells, and tastes can all lead us to eat, regardless of the hunger in our stomach. Our sudden cravings for certain foods when our bodies need a specific nutrient and our emotional needs that we try to meet through food also contribute to our eating habits. Within these, there is ample room for developing mindfulness, Bays says. Why am I wanting this food right now and is this a desire I want to pursue? Can I meet this need or hunger some other way that might be more satisfying?

Our teacher also introduced us to the work of Edward Espe Brown, a Soto Zen Buddhist priest and an accomplished chef. In this article, he talks about becoming mindful in the kitchen. He begins by describing the Zen notion of “feeling your way in the dark,” being careful and sensitive to what is happening. “Your capacity for cooking will grow and develop from your devotion to being in the dark, not knowing what to do, but carefully finding your way,” he writes. “You enter the kitchen and become intimate with cooking through cooking.”

Our ordinary effort is to dream up a picture of how we want things to be, and endeavor to make it come true. Now, in the dark, you feel your way along, and your wisdom flashes: a salad, a soup; the virtue of spinach, apple, and walnut speaks to you. The body becomes alive because you are doing something. Yes, it’s good to stop and sit and allow the usual impulses for motion an opportunity to move inwardly instead of outwardly — beautiful work there. Yet the hands love to be hands. You give them life by allowing them to find out how to do things — how to wash and cut, stir and knead, ladle and mop.

He advises cooks to put recipes aside and instead engage directly with ingredients. In this Q&A article, he discusses how to do this. “In cooking classes I emphasize adding one ingredient at a time and tasting before and after, so you start to know for yourself what each ingredient is doing,” he says. “If you just put everything in the pot and taste it, you don’t know why it tastes like it does. You don’t know what each ingredient is doing. If you add one ingredient at a time and taste it, you start to know what a spice or seasoning can do.”

I am generally a cook who likes to follow recipes. It will be different for me to find my way in the dark without that guidance. I think I’ll start with that eggplant in the fridge.

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Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Buddhism, Food, Judaism

January 31, 2011

Biding Time

By jubuhoo

I’m always kind of amazed when people honk their horns in traffic. It makes no sense. Not that they should enjoy waiting, no one does. The honking is just blowing off steam.

Impatience comes up a lot in daily life. We have a sense that things should move at a certain pace or we want the instant gratification we have become so used to in our culture, and we are easily frustrated when we have to wait.

But maybe it’s worth it to cultivate some patience. In a lecture on Zen Buddhism, Gerry Shishin Wick writes, “Einstein was once asked about his creativity and he touched upon this subject of patience and effort. He said the search may take years of groping in the dark; hence the ability to hold on to a problem for a long time and not be destroyed by repeated failure is necessary for any serious researcher. His observation can apply to our own practice. We could say the search may take years of groping in the dark; hence the ability to hold on to a problem or your question and your aspiration for a long time and not be destroyed by repeated failure is necessary for any serious Zen student.”

I have been thinking a lot about patience lately, what it means to have it and what happens when I don’t. In Buddhism, one is said to be practicing. We are practitioners. I think patience goes hand in hand with practicing. You are moving in a direction, but you are not there yet. You may never get there, wherever there is. Certainly, it’s not going to come instantly.

There is something a little painful about patience. This is recognized in both Jewish and Buddhist teachings.

Rabbi Abigail Treu, a rabbinic fellow at the Jewish Theological Seminary, writes: “Having patience means not only the ability to slow down in our fast-paced world, but also controlling our impulse to grow frustrated when things are not moving quickly enough or going our way.” To do this, she says “we find a way to trust in a positive outcome…to see what good might come out of a difficult or frustrating situation.”

In the Mussar book Everyday Holiness it says, “Patience is not just about waiting, it’s about bearing.” Enduring and tolerating are also words that come into play.

In the lecture on Zen practice that I quoted above, it says: “To learn to live with patience and not be drawn into anger you must let go of the notion that you can live without pain, suffering, disappointment, injury. Here we are asked, encouraged, to practice living with life’s discomforts.”

Jack Kornfield, a well-known Buddhist teacher in the States had this to say about patience in an essay on Right Understanding:

Work to nourish that quality of constancy, of what’s called, “a long-enduring mind.” It’s not a short game. You know, we’re used to instant food, drive-through, tell the lady through the speaker, “Yes, I’d like a Big Mac, fries and a coke,” or whatever it is. You drive around and you get it and you can eat it while you’re driving; you don’t even have to stop. Instant gratification. This is not an instant gratification thing. It is the longest thing you’ll ever do because it’s your whole life. It’s really to discover how to transform your life from being on automatic pilot to being conscious, to discovery, to play. And it’s wonderful. So it means that you don’t complete it, you actually learn how to play the game and make your life into that.

Patience is having the willingness to hold on to a certain amount of tension. To stay where you are even if it’s uncomfortable, just to see what happens next. Something will, of course. I got interested in this topic after hearing a beautiful talk by Kamala Masters. “Patience is generosity,” she said. “It is a gift of safety and reverence.” I immediately thought of being a parent when she said this, how having patience is an act of generosity to children. I love that.

“Patience is a strong quality,” she said. “You have be humble to step back and be quiet, take a look at the situation and gather more information, then you take the next step forward.” Or as Einstein would say, grope in the dark.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Buddhism, Judaism, Mussar

January 21, 2011

Rules of Engagement

By jubuhoo

Trust is usually something we think of in terms of other people. Can I trust this person? That is really about whether or not they are honest or have the integrity to do what you think they should do even if you’re not around to see them do it. Trust is also something we engage in when we step into an airplane and buckle up while others prepare to launch this behemoth into the sky and land it safely somewhere else. We feel betrayed if things don’t work out the way we’d hoped.

But on the spiritual path, trust isn’t so much about other people. In Judaism, the concept of trust relates to our limited perspective. “We can only see part of the picture of life at any time, and often only a small part, and so we draw faulty conclusions about what something means,” it says in the book Everyday Holiness. We can’t see the big picture — for example, how something that seems rotten will turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. We cultivate trust, in part, so that we don’t put too much stock in our immediate reactions to life. This is considered to be trust in God.

There is also a sense of a lack of control over our lives, which raises questions about taking initiative. “It is right to put all your powers into taking action to better your own situation and that of the world because you understand and accept your real responsibility,” the book says. “Your obligation is to act, not to determine the outcome.”

The concept of trust comes up in Buddhist practice too. In the book, Smile at Fear, Awakening the True Heart of Bravery, Chogyam Trungpa writes, “The reservoir of trust is a very simple, straightforward idea. If we accept a challenge and take certain steps  to accomplish something, the process will yield results — either success or failure.

Trust means that we know that our actions will bring a definite response from reality. We know that we will get a message. Failure is generally telling us that our action has been undisciplined and inaccurate in some way. Therefore, it fails. When our action is fully disciplined, it usually is fulfilled; we have success.

Trust is being willing to take a chance, he says, acting with confidence that the phenomenal world will respond. “The fruition of our action will always provide us with information,” he writes. “Such trust in the reservoir keeps us from being too arrogant or too timid. If you’re too arrogant, you’ll find yourself bumping into the ceiling. If you’re too timid, you’ll be pushed up by the floor. Roughly speaking, that’s the concept of the reservoir.”

“We begin to feel that we are dealing with a rich world, one that never runs out of messages,” he writes. “The only problem arises if we try to manipulate the situation in our favor.”

I am fascinated by this. Scientists look for the facts, the laws of nature. This seems to me to be about the rules of engagement, trusting in what he calls the dynamic process. “The ancient Chinese Book of Changes, or I Ching, often talks about success being failure and failure being success. Success sows the seeds of future failure, and failure may bring a later success,” he writes. “Whether the situation brings success or failure, it brings an unconditional good understanding.” I can live with that.

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January 10, 2011

Guarding My Tongue

By jubuhoo

Like most Americans, I am deeply dismayed by the shooting of Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others in Arizona this weekend. Six people died in the attack, including a nine year-old child. This is a terrible tragedy.

Whether or not the man who committed the crime subscribed to the divisive political ideology that is rampant in our culture, his act has sparked an acknowledgment that the conversation around us is, in fact, dangerous.

As kids we were taught to say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” According to spiritual teachers of both Jewish and Buddhist traditions, this is wrong. In fact, hurtful speech carries more power and can do more harm than a single act of physical brutality. In the Mussar text, Everyday Holiness, it says, “Speech is judged more powerful than the sword because a physical weapon can injure only those in proximity, while speech can kill at a distance.”

The first time I read this, I wasn’t sure what it meant. I think I understand it better now. Language that calls for bringing down the government or suggesting that certain districts be “targeted” may be said aloud once, heard by many, and lead to numerous acts of violence. “The primary Mussar guideline for speech is not whether something is true or not but rather what impact our words will have,” the book says. “If our speech may cause people financial, physical,  psychological,  or other harm (or even anxiety or fear), then we are enjoined to hold our tongues.”

The kind of speech in the news today is that of people like Sarah Palin and others in the Tea Party movement who have used violent imagery to get out the vote. They will likely deny that they are responsible for what happened. We should not expect them to do otherwise.

This is discouraging, in part because it feels like there’s nothing we can do. We can express our outrage. We can say it has to stop. But in the end, there is a feeling of powerlessness.

Except that we can do something. It’s true, we can’t change what other people say and write, but we can look at the implications of what we ourselves are saying. I want to tell Sarah Palin that she should guard her tongue, but maybe instead I should think about guarding my own.

In Buddhism, this is called Right Speech. It is part of the Noble Eightfold Path. In this lecture by Abbess Taitaku Patricia Phelan, she explains the concept.

The Buddha was precise in his description of Right Speech.  He defined it as “abstinence from false speech, abstinence from malicious speech, abstinence from harsh speech, and abstinence from idle chatter.”  In the vernacular this means not lying, not using speech in ways that create discord among people, not using swear words or a cynical, hostile or raised tone of voice, and not engaging in gossip.  Re-framed in the positive, these guidelines urge us to say only what is true, to speak in ways that promote harmony among people, to use a tone of voice that is pleasing, kind, and gentle, and to speak mindfully in order that our speech is useful and purposeful.

Buddhists have an interesting explanation of why thoughtless speech can be so harmful. Again, Phelan: “I think one of the characteristics of speech is that by talking to others about someone else, we have a tendency to reduce the fullness of that person to a category,” she says. “So, the person becomes ‘that’ kind of person. You know, ‘what would you expect from someone like that?'”

The harm comes from turning the other person into a fixed idea. “It is sort of like taking one frame from a movie and using the picture of that instant to be the whole person, freezing both our opinion of them as well as the way we respond to them,” she says. “I think the more we talk about someone with a third party, the more our opinion becomes solidified, and we mistake this solidity for reality. So, speech can be a conditioning agent whereby we lose our freedom of both perception and response. We, ourselves, become fixed and unable to grow out of a particular opinion of and response to another person.”

If I want to think about what happened this weekend, instead of laying blame on whose actions caused this tragedy, I am going to try to focus on the unimaginable grief and worry of the people injured and their families. I’m going to try to think about the incredible power that words can have to teach, to heal, to comfort, and connect, but also to do real and lasting harm. I am going to try to learn something about guarding my tongue.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Buddhism, Judaism, Mussar

December 21, 2010

Making Progress

By jubuhoo

In the beginning of Jubuhoo, I had the vague sense that I could be doing a better job of living. I could be experiencing my life more instead of chattering in my head while my life was happening around me. I sensed that I could be kinder, more patient. I felt that somehow I was missing the big picture.

Since then I’ve taken classes on Buddhist meditation and on the Jewish spiritual practice of Mussar. I’ve been surprised at how in sync they are with each other. They are not the same, but I am finding it is possible to explore both with ease. It makes me think that the spiritual path is what it is. Over time people have developed different methods of cultivating an inner life, but ultimately we are all human beings with vices and virtues.

The one issue that I haven’t really known how to deal with so far is the Jewish concept of God. In practicing Mussar, it is not necessary to invoke God like it is with Torah, which is the foundation of traditional Judaism. Mussar is about becoming the kind of person who can follow Torah with deep authenticity. I’ve kind of avoided the Torah piece and just focused on becoming the kind of person who does anything with deep authenticity.

In Buddhism, instead of God there are the basic tenets called the Four Noble Truths. In a recent class, I began to see how simple, but no less profound, these truths really are. While the Jewish God is lofty and omnipotent and for me not easily accessible, these Buddhist concepts seem just fundamentally basic. Some people describe Buddhism as grim. The more I learn about it, the more I think it is about seeking the truth. Looking it in the face and taking it on the chin.

The First Noble Truth is that life is suffering. It means we will all get sick, grow old, and die. As much as we may fight it, it is true for every one of us that sickness, old age, and death will happen. Impermanence is also a fact of life. People leave town, houses burn down, great jobs are won and then lost, children grow up and leave home, wonderful pets live with you and then run away. Life changes whether we like it or not.

All of that may be true, but why would I want to dwell on it? Buddhism recognizes the suffering we all experience, sometimes in a big, clear way, and sometimes in the vague sense that we’re not quite as happy as we’d like to be. This is the Second Noble Truth – that our suffering lies in our very deep desire to be happy and secure. We all want the good things in our life to remain and we want the bad things to take a hike. We crave for life to stay as it is or we want it to be different. This constant craving or rejecting what is happening is the source of our suffering.

The Third Noble Truth is that there is a way to end our suffering and that is through acceptance of life on life’s terms. It starts by recognizing the truth of the first two Noble Truths and then aligning your life with mindfulness, benign actions, and acceptance. The Fourth Noble Truth provides guidance on how to align your life in such a way. I will write more on that in the future.

Going back to the beginning of this post and why I started Jubuhoo in September, I think this is the big picture I was missing. These Four Noble Truths make sense to me. While I have learned so much from Mussar and plan to continue studying and practicing the cultivation of wholesome traits, I don’t see myself suddenly realizing that I believe in the Jewish concept of God.

I feel gratitude to my teachers over the past few months and to the people who have taken the time to write the books I have quoted here. I am also grateful to the friends and strangers who have embraced this blog. I hope you all have peaceful holidays with your friends and families. I look forward to studying and writing more in the next year.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Buddhism, Judaism, Meditation, Mussar

December 11, 2010

Worry

By jubuhoo

Once again, I have entered stormy waters. Life changes and suddenly it becomes difficult to pass through whatever is occurring. In my twenties, I experienced the painful ending of a relationship and sensed for the first time what it meant to ride along in rough seas, holding on to the sides of my rickety boat, and hoping not to tip over. I made it. Now again, I find myself struggling for steadiness.

We all experience this; it is life. People get sick, jobs are lost, and in my case, my child needs help. I want to preserve his privacy so I won’t talk about what is happening with him. This post is meant to look at how my inner life responds when my outer life is difficult.

Outwardly, I am taking care of business. Making decisions, getting educated, and trying to act in his best interest. Inwardly, I am grieving. I feel sadness, which in terms of mindfulness, is an emotion I can hold. But what is most difficult to manage is worry. I feel mindfulness slipping away from me because it is overpowered by my thoughts. The Buddhists call it restless mind. “Restlessness is agitation,” say Arinna Weisman and Jean Smith, in their book, The Beginner’s Guide to Insight Meditation.

Restlessness seduces us into thinking that if we are restless enough, we will somehow make things better. It never occurs to us that being agitated or worried contributes nothing at all to improving the situation. Agitation just breeds more agitation.

That is the seduction of worry, at least for me. It seems that if I worry, I am holding on to the situation. I am fixing it by holding it. But I think that really I am just exhausting my energy like a mouse on one of those insane exercise wheels.

The writers suggest trying to see anxiety as the hindrance restlessness. “We learn to trust that if we let go and direct our minds back to our breath or the posture of our bodies, such as sitting or standing, we become much more effective because we develop steadiness of mind, which sees clearly what needs to be done.”

Seeing clearly what needs to be done is exactly what I am after right now. It is the reason I am worried. I am not sure what to do. In writing about acceptance, Joseph Goldstein, a respected Buddhist teacher in the West, says that struggle comes from not accepting what is present. In each moment, accept what is happening without wishing to change it in any way. Just to see it clearly.

In Mussar, we are learning about silence, both in restraint of speech but also in contemplation. “The soul needs silence as the body needs sleep,” it says in the book Everyday Holiness. “Sleep to refresh; silence to cleanse. Sleep to dream; silence to awaken to the deeply real. The Talmud points to this in saying, ‘There is no better medicine than silence.'”

In my morning meditation I am trying to allow my worrying mind to quiet down and to listen to the silence within me. My day is noisy. My mind is noisy. But there is this space that is silent and I am grateful that I can rest there momentarily.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Buddhism, Family, Judaism, Mussar

December 1, 2010

Gifts

By jubuhoo

My kids are psyched. Tonight is the first night of Hanukah. Presents are hidden in my closet waiting to be revealed, one by one, over the course of the next eight evenings. At home we will play dreidel, win and lose chocolate gelt, light the candles in the menorah, and eat potato pancakes, called latkes. I’m not going to pretend it’s the magic of Christmas, but it’s all we’ve got  and it works just fine for ginning up lots of excitement in our home.

As a parent, I enjoy this holiday. I like thinking up gifts for my kids, trying to mix up toys with experiences, such as tickets to a play, and stuff they actually need like long underwear and winter socks. When I was a kid during Hanukah, I remember my mother leaving the dinner table when we were done eating and going up to her closet where she kept the presents hidden. (Of course we knew where they were.) My brother, sister, and I would be squealing and laughing waiting for her to return. I remember the look on her face as she carried the presents down the stairs. She was having fun too.

Parents give to their children and it is a joy. To see their faces as they are handed a brightly wrapped box, its contents heavy or light, noisy or silent. To help (or not) as they rip and pull at the wrapping paper. To hear them show and tell each other what they got. It ends up being a gift to yourself of happiness.

While all of this is true, the presents sometimes leave me wondering if I am fostering a kind of greed in my children or at least the idea that things and stuff can make you happy. So every year we talk about cleaning out our extra toys and clothes and giving them to families that do not have as much as we do, and every year we do something along those lines. But so far it’s always felt like something I am doing to try instill in them a sense of how lucky they are and to ward off the possibility that they will grow up to be ungrateful jerks. It’s a token act.

This year I have been thinking about it in a different way. I want to give my kids a chance to give to others because it is good for them to practice generosity. In the Mussar tradition of Judaism, cultivating generosity is about becoming more open-handed (and open-hearted) towards the world. The act of giving influences the heart, or as one classic Mussar text puts it: External motions stimulate internal ones. In the book Everyday Holiness, it is explained like this:

Applied to generosity, the principle is that giving arouses the heart to love. By obligating ourselves to give according to rules and formula, we expose our hearts to repetitive acts of giving that leave their trace on our inner lives. The very act of giving itself ultimately makes us more charitable, merciful, and loving.

I read about this idea of imprinting on the heart a few months ago and since then have looked for opportunities for myself and my children to give. My youngest son now is the one who hands the dollar to the man who sells the Real Change newspaper outside of our local food store. And I always make sure my older son has a quarter to put in the tzedakah box at Sunday school. (Tzedakah is charity or giving of money for the benefit of others.)

My children probably do not feel generous when they do these acts. But Mussar teachers say that’s just fine. In Everyday Holiness it says, “The Mussar tradition’s guidance is this: by accustoming yourself to giving, and developing the habit of giving, eventually your heart will catch up and you will become more generous and loving by nature. ‘Our hearts follow our deeds,’ is how it is put in the thirteenth-century text Sefer ha’Chinuch (The Book of Instruction).”

Giving is not only about the exchange of money. It could be time or food or anything you have to offer to someone else. I haven’t decided yet how to present giving as a one of the eight gifts my children will receive this Hanukah. However I do it, I’m sure someday they’ll thank me.

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