She Cans While I Contemplate The Third Noble Truth

19 Sep 2020 Leave a comment

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, caronavirus, Covid, virus, lockdown, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , ,

My sister and I began emailing every day at the beginning of lockdown. That’s approximately 344 emails to date and we haven’t let up.

I’m not talking a sentence or two. I’m talking paragraphs – five or ten or more – and photos. Seriously.

Our topics run the gamut. Canning – she has a prolific garden and makes it look easy…

We discuss politics – how can you not. And Covid – again, how can you not. But one of the things I most appreciate is her willingness to ‘go there’ with me, and that could be anywhere from musing on the existence of spirit guides to the likelihood of being rescued from a dying earth by aliens.

Yesterday, however, my sister who never complains almost complained. I’d sent her an overview of a project I’m working on and she wrote back: Sherry, I’ve had more time to look at your outline but it’s vague.

My feathers ruffled momentarily, then I realized she probably thought that’s all I had. So I answered…

“Regarding the outline, think of it like this. I have piles and piles of garments in assorted colors for different seasons but I have no hangers so the clothes are heaped on the floor. (The clothes are the content.) Hangers just got delivered.  Now all I have to do is put the clothes on hangers removing the ones I no longer want, sort the colors by season (which are the subject titles and subtitles) and hang them in order in the closet (which is the outline).

“That may be a disorderly way of doing it but that’s my MO.

“Some people start with the outline whether it’s writing a book, giving a speech, planning a course. I don’t. So often inspiration comes in the form of one sentence that intrigues me. So I start the story, or in this case material for a workshop, without much of a notion where it’s going or how it will get there. 

“I don’t like to be confined by convention or an outline that presupposes an outcome. I want my thoughts to have free reign, to respond to prompts from who-knows-where, to sprout and grow in whatever direction they will until I latch onto the idea that makes me passionate about the book or the speech or the workshop. That way I don’t get attached to a predetermined form and try to force my story into it.”

When I wrote that it brought to mind my morning meditation.

I’m not Buddhist but I find the practice of non-attachment, The Third Noble Truth in Buddhist teachings, an interesting one to grapple with. Buddhism suggests that attachment is the root of human suffering. And isn’t it true?! When you want so badly to see a certain outcome from your efforts that you try to force your life into that expectation and then it doesn’t turn out that way, there’s such a feeling of futility, remorse, failure, disappointment, in a word – suffering.

But if we approach everything with curiosity and non-attachment we leave our hearts and minds wide open to be delighted. We then live in alignment with our truest, best self, a self that embraces growth and change and allows us to fluidly adjust to new situations.

I can’t tell you how exciting it was to have made that connection.

The non-attachment principle has bothered me for some time – just couldn’t wrap my head around the feeling of chilly disengagement it brought up in me. Now I see it from a completely different perspective, one that liberates rather than withholds. And it never would have happened if I hadn’t gotten my feathers ruffled and felt the need to explain my ‘vague outline’ to my sister who never complains.

All photos taken at The Farm by Gwen Hall.

Muslims, Hindus, and Christians…oh my!

10 Aug 2015 5 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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“My father is Islam, but not fundamentalist,” she’s quick to add. “My mother is Christian. Next month I’m going to a monastery in India to study with my guru there. I go every year for three weeks.”

“So you’re Buddhist?” I’m more than a little intrigued.

“Oh yes, but my passport says Muslim because my husband is Muslim and in Indonesia…” she pauses.

“The wife must take the husband’s religion,” I finish for her and she laughs.

“But before I married him, I made an agreement. You call it a prenup, yes?”

“You made a prenuptial agreement, really Meli? Here, in Indonesia?”

“Well, I had already divorced one husband because he wanted to tell me what I couldn’t do, so I learned from that. This time I would make sure I could practice Buddhism and go every year to the monastery. So I made the contract. If he agrees…marriage. If he doesn’t…bye-bye!”

I’m in awe of this feisty, well-educated, forty-something woman. She tells me that her man agreed to the terms and they’re quite harmoniously married. They live in Bali where the religion of choice is Hindu. “I also make offerings to keep the peace between good and evil as my Balinese friends do.” The corners of her eyes crinkle and she winks. “When my husband notices he says, ‘What are you doing? That is a Hindu practice.’ So I stop until he leaves and then continue.”

Where else on earth? I can’t conceive of another place like this. Bali is a feast of diversity, a conundrum of befuddling opposites, a loveable, laughable hodgepodge of unique people who are slow to judge and quick to call you family. They are who they are without apology and that gives me the freedom to be me, the warts, the contradictions, the glorious all of who I am because there’s no rigid, this is the way, walk ye in it! Rather, an Indonesian person will say, “Well, you can go this way, but today there is a ceremony, the road is closed, so maybe you go around, it’s a little longer, but you will see the rice terrace, or my cousin can show you the small roads, I’ll call him now, or maybe you wait until tomorrow.” Bali, the land of endless possibility, if not today, tomorrow!

 

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