side of the road

hadn't listened to lucinda williams for years... but shoog and nell brought her back this spring 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
my favorite song of hers, covered by first aid kit

craving and clinging

from be an island by ayya khema

"having a self-image is detrimental to insight, because it is based on the illusion of permanence. everything constantly changes, including ourselves, while a self-image presupposes stability. one moment we may be a sensual being, the next moment an irritable one. sometimes we are at ease, at other times we are restless. who are we? any permanent image of ourselves can never have a basis in fact. such an image will block our insight into the underlying tendencies, blinding us to those that do not fit."

"next we come to clinging to existence (bhavaraga). that is our survival syndrome. we cling to being here, unwilling to give up, not ready to die today. we must learn to be ready to die now -- which does not mean wishing to die but rather accepting death as an ever present possibility. wishing to die is the other side of the coin of clinging to existence. it is trying to get rid of 'me' because life is too difficult. but being ready to die now means seeing the fallacy in clinging to being someone, and abandoning it.

clinging to existence leads us into dependency. we want everything to work out well for us, and we resent it if that does not happen. this creates irritation and sensuality. we often forget that we are only guests here on this planet. our visit is limited and can be over at any time. clinging to being alive projects us into the future, so that we cannot attend to the present. there is no life in the future, it is all ideation, conjecture, a hope, and a prayer. if we really want to be alive and experience things as they are, we have to be here now, attending to each moment. this entails letting go of clinging to what will happen to us in the future, particularly the question of whether we will continue to exist. existing in this moment is enough. then there will be strong mindfulness, real attention, and clear knowing."

"there is no way that a relationship can work unless heart and mind are both involved. there must be a loving feeling and an understanding. unless both arise in meditation, real concentration cannot happen. we may sit on the cushion year after year, yet our practice will not flourish. the deliberate mind movement of giving up has to precede the meditation. otherwise ego will get in the way. it will rear its ugly head and say, 'i know better. there are other ways to meditate.' the ego will insist on comfort: 'i don't feel comfortable, so this must not be right. i'd like something more pleasant.'

unless we learn to renounce all wanting and resistance every time we sit on the cushion, the spiritual path will remain an utter mystery. the buddha's teaching leads in one direction only -- the total elimination of self-delusion. to get there, we have to work on ourselves, little by little, all the time.

renunciation means letting go of ideation, letting go of the mind-stuff that claims to be the one who knows."

"but rites and rituals are not confined only to religious activities. in our relationships we have certain prescribed ways of acting towards our parents, our children, our partners. how we relate to coworkers, friends, and strangers, how we want to be affirmed by others -- all are connected to preconceived ideas of what is right and proper in a certain culture and tradition. none of them contain any basic truth, all are mind-made. the more ideas we have, the less we can see reality. the more we believe in customary, traditional behavior, the harder it is to abandon it when it is not skillful. if we imagine ourselves to be a certain kind of person, we relate to all situations in that way. so ritual is not solely about the way we put flowers on a shrine. it can also dictate how we greet people, if we do so in a certain stereotyped manner rather than simply with an open heart and mind."

******

"freedom is often misunderstood as the ability to do anything we want. we have probably tried that already and found that it doesn't work. even if we were to follow only our desires, we would soon be satiated and then feel unfulfilled.

freedom means nonattachment, which is not indifference but rather the penetration of absolute truth. to see that clearly, we let go for one moment of anything that we call our own, anything that we like or consider important. we examine it until its fleeting nature has become quite apparent. then the moment comes when we can say, 'i don't have to have that, i can do without it.' that is a moment of truth. having a moment of truth is always possible, but such moments don't come automatically. we have to inquire into our clinging and work at loosening it. letting go sounds easy, and it is, but only after it has happened. before that, it entails much self-examination.

a moment of signless liberation can be experienced in another way. suppose, for instance, there is an unpleasant feeling in the body that creates a reaction of 'i don't want it. go away now!' when we really penetrate into the impermanence of that feeling -- when we see how it has no basic reality or significance and, for just a moment, let go of our rejection and say, 'it's all right, it is only a feeling' -- we get a taste of signless liberation. when we see that there is nothing that really lasts, that all is fleeting, flowing, moving, and changing from one moment to the next, we have a moment of freedom. we can practice that with our thoughts, our feelings, or our physical sensations.

as a first step we can become aware of our attachment to the body. usually, we are concerned whether the body looks good, is dressed appropriately, feels well, eats right, and is comfortable enough. but when we consider the body's fleeting nature, our attachment may wane. we may experience instead a feeling of equanimity. we have no preference whether this body of ours exists or not. this is a moment of real peace, but it doesn't happen by itself. we have to remember again and again that life is not guaranteed but merely supported by kamma-vipaka (the results of one's intentions) and that it may run out at any time. that's the reason why the buddha recommended the daily recollection 'i am of the nature to die.' we are of this nature all the time, which means right now, not twenty years from now or whenever we feel ready.

everybody knows they are going to die -- there's nothing new about that. the buddha did not teach anything inaccessible. he asked us to investigate the known in a new way, to get a deep-down feeling that this body cannot remain, no matter how hard we try to keep it. it's a foregone conclusion that we are fighting a losing battle. of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't look after our bodies. the body has to be washed, fed, and given medicine. that's all we have to do. and if we can't keep it going indefinitely, that's all right.

one moment of real inner seeing is liberating. the experience of relief and release is totally convincing. it arouses a sense of urgency to practice to the end -- to be deterred no longer by the opinions of others or external situations. liberation is not so difficult that an ordinary person cannot experience it. were that so, the buddha's teaching would be in vain.

to get a glimpse of wishless liberation, we can notice the dissatisfaction - the [suffering] - that arises in the heart and mind whenever we want something. when we drop the wish, we experience relief. the [suffering] does not necessarily arise because we can't fulfill our wish; most likely we can. it's an old axiom that if we want something badly enough, we will get it. the problem is that most people don't know what will bring them happiness. the [suffering], however, lies in the desire itself, which creates tension, a feeling of expectation tinged with worry.

the desire also creates a thought process that is no longer concerned with the here and now, but with the future, with the hope of gratifying the desire. a mind preoccupied with the future cannot attend to the present moment. it lives in the imaginary delusion of what might happen when its desires are fulfilled. of course, the future hardly ever turns out the way we hope, but, since the real [suffering] lies in the wishing itself and not in the outcome, freedom from this kind of wishing is called wishless liberation.

when we deliberately drop our wishes for things, the release and relief generate a feeling of strength. the mind obeys, abandons its old patterns, and a feeling of self-confidence ensues. the more often we drop our wishes, the more powerful the mind becomes. the word 'power' has the connotation of power over other people, but here it means power over ourselves. it explains the sort of vibration that emanated from the buddha and why people flocked to him. we could compare such potential to a powerhouse from which energy can be drawn.

it is useful to aim for a moment of wishless liberation. our wish could be related to eating, to entertaining ourselves, wanting to go somewhere, buying something, getting information, or talking to someone. whatever it may be, we can drop it deliberately, knowing that we don't really need it. letting go of something we want requires willpower. but as soon as the mind has dropped its wishes, we can experience the ease of contentment.

to get an inkling of voidness liberation, we can deliberately empty the mind of all it contains, realizing that it has no absolute significance. the less we carry in the mind, the less tired the mind becomes. usually our minds are full to the brim, which is a great burden for us. voidness liberation means that there is an absence of all formations (thoughts and reactions). when, for a moment, we have let them go, we can notice how relieved we feel, and we get a taste of voidness liberation. then we let thoughts and reactions return and realize the difference. immediately irritation arises, which usually escapes our awareness because we're used to a mind full of formations. we experience the heavy, debilitating, burdensome nature of thoughts only when we are able to compare our usual mind states with momentary emptiness. this may be the first time that we notice the constant sense bombardment we commonly experience.

the most insidious irritations arise through thinking. thought is a constant process with which we identify and then act upon. we can't act upon everything we see or hear. if we see a beautiful sunset or hear some great music, there's nothing to do about it, except to like it. no need for a reaction, which may easily result in new problems. even the most innocuous situations can cause friction if we identify with our thinking process. once we express our views, hopes, and beliefs, the argument starts, and tears start flowing."

ANTI-LOVE POEM

by grace paley from fidelity

sometimes you don’t want to love the person you love

you turn your face away from that face

whose eyes lips might make you give up anger

forget insult    steal sadness of not wanting

to love    turn away then turn away    at breakfast

in the evening    don’t lift your eyes from the paper

to see that face in all its seriousness     a

sweetness of concentration     he holds his book

in his hand     the hard-knuckled winter wood-

scarred fingers    turn away   that’s all you can

do    old as you are to save yourself    from love

names

excerpts from the short story collection sour heart by jenny zhang

(from "the evolution of my brother"):

i look at the poem again and then go through some other files, including one called "fight on dirt," a painting of magenta, lime-green, and teal-blue stick figures on brown mud. i see another file named "power rain," which i remember seeing a long time ago but never opened. i wondered briefly back then what "power rain" was -- massive droplets of rain, each one fat enough to contain an armed soldier ready for combat, hitting the ground, causing tremors in the earth?

i open up the file and realize the full name is actually "power rain jurs." sour tears well up in my eyes and fall into my mouth. i feel self-conscious and stupid crying for myself -- for my shame, for my regrets, for how quickly a childhood happens. i wish i had acted better. i wish i had been the kind of sister who was patient enough to show my brother the proper spelling for "power rangers."

whenever i'm home for a few days, i start to feel this despair at being back in the place where i had spent so many afternoons dreaming of getting away, so many late nights fantasizing about who i would be once i was allowed to be someone apart from my family, once i was free to commit mistakes on my own. how strange it is to return to a place where my childish notions of freedom are everywhere to be found -- in my journals and my doodles and the corners of the room where i sat fuming for hours, counting down the days until i could leave this place and start my real life. but now that trying to become someone on my own is no longer something to dream about but just my ever-present reality, now that my former conviction that i had been burdened with the responsibility of taking care of this household has been revealed to be untrue, that all along, my responsibilities had been negligible, illusory even, that all along, our parents had been the ones watching over us - me and my brother - and now that i am on my own, the days of resenting my parents for loving me too much and my brother for needing me too intensely have been replaced with the days of feeling bewildered by the prospect of finding some other identity besides "daughter" or "sister." it turns out that this, too, is terrifying, all of it is terrifying. being someone is terrifying. i long to come home, but now, i will always come home to my family as a visitor, and that weighs on me, reverts me back into the teenager i was, but instead of insisting that i want everyone to leave me alone, what i want now is for someone to beg me to stay. me again. memememememememe.


(from "my days and nights of terror"):

my father said they needed "american" names on their resumes when applying for jobs; they had to have names that were pronounceable to white american english speakers because they already had faces that were considered vile to look at and who was going to hire someone with their faces and their names? i thought my mother and my father had beautiful faces but my father corrected me, not in america. we're ugly, and it's that simple. they look at us and think we're cretins. you think they like us going to their schools? you think they're okay with us working in their offices? taking their jobs? you think they're happy to pick up laundry and takeout from businesses we've opened up? you think they want to go to the corner store and see our eyes and our teeth and our skin looking back at them from behind the counter? no! they don't want us here. they don't want to look at us and they sure as hell don't want to have to try to pronounce our chinese names. x-u. q-u-i. they don't want to see that! the more my father went on about how much they hated us, the more i started to suspect maybe he was the one who hated us. on the first day of school in america, i was so frazzled and fearful of everything that i accidentally left off the second e and i became mande with one e and so i started my first day of school in america with a mistake. i was a failure right from the start.

*      *      *    

i had prayed for this kind of soft joy, this kind of contentment, a day like this followed by more days like this, and finally having it was like being born, only instead of not remembering what it was like to be born, i was fully cognizant and participating in my own creation and suddenly it was clear to me why we don't remember what it was like to be born -- because it would give us too much insight into what it will be like to die. to be present for your own birth was suicide. to know the true wonder of suddenly existing was to know the true fear of suddenly ceasing to exist. they had to occur together and there was no prayer for what i knew in my flaky soul -- that there was no way to escape the fear. it would always be there, amplifying joy and stealing from it. still, it was tempting to sink into it, to roll around in its outer rings where occasionally the fear converted to a kind of happiness that turned an entire afternoon into an image that would stay forever, loom forever, return forever.

be nobody

chapter from be an island by ayya khema

being happy also means being peaceful, but quite often people do not really want to direct their attention to that. peacefulness connotes 'not interesting' or 'not enough happening,' the absence of proliferations or excitement. yet peace is very hard to find anywhere. it is difficult to attain, and very few people really work at it. peace seems to negate life, to deny our personal supremacy. only those who practice a spiritual discipline care to direct their mind toward it.

our natural tendency is to cultivate our superiority, which often falls into the other extreme of inferiority. so long as we have our own superiority in mind, we cannot find peace. all we find is a power game: 'anything you can do, i can do better.' or at times when it is quite obvious that this is not so, then it's 'anything you can do, i cannot do as well.' there are moments of truth in everyone's life when one sees quite clearly that one can't do everything as well as the next person, whether it's sweeping a path or writing a book.

a feeling of superiority or inferiority is the opposite of peacefulness. a display of one's abilities, or the lack of them, will produce restlessness. there is always the reaching out, the craving for a result in the form of other people's admiration or their denial of it. when they deny it, there is warfare. when they affirm it, there is victory.

in war there is never a winner, only losers. no matter who signs the peace treaty first, both sides lose. the same applies to a feeling of being victorious, of being the one who knows better or who is stronger or cleverer. battle and peace do not go well together.

one wonders in the end, does anybody really want peace? is anybody really trying to get it? we must inquire into our innermost hearts if peace is what we really want. such an inquiry is difficult. most people have a thick steel door in front of their hearts. they cannot find out what is going on inside. but everyone needs to try to get in as far as possible and check their priorities.

in moments of turmoil, when we are either not getting the supremacy we want or we feel really inferior, then all we desire is peace. when our unrest and feeling of inferiority subside, then what happens? is it really peace we want? or do we want to be somebody special, somebody important or lovable?

a 'somebody' never has peace. there is an interesting simile about a mango tree. a king went riding in the forest and encountered a mango tree laden with fruit. he said to his servants, 'go back in the evening and collect the mangoes,' because he wanted them for the royal dining table. the servants went back to the forest but returned to the palace empty-handed. 'sorry, your majesty,' they told the king, 'the mangoes were all gone, there was not a single mango left on the tree.' the king thought the servants had been too lazy to go back to the forest, so he rode out to see for himself. what he saw instead of a beautiful mango tree laden with fruit was a pitiful, bedraggled tree. someone had broken all the branches to take the fruit. as the king rode a little farther, he came upon another mango tree, beautiful in all its green splendor, but without a single fruit. nobody had wanted to go near it. it bore no fruit, so it was left in peace. the king went back to his palace, gave his royal crown and scepter to his ministers, and said, 'you may now have the kingdom, i am going to live in a hut in the forest.'

when one is nobody and has nothing, there is no danger of warfare or attack, and there is peace. the mango tree laden with fruit did not have a moment's peace; everybody wanted its fruit. if we really want peace, we have to be nobody. neither important, nor clever, nor beautiful, nor famous, nor right, nor in charge of anything. we need to be unobtrusive and have as few attributes as possible. the mango tree with no fruit was standing peacefully in all its splendor, giving shade. to be nobody does not mean doing nothing. it means acting without self-display and without craving for results. the mango tree had shade to give, but it did not display its wares or fret whether anyone wanted its shade. this ability allows for inner peace. it is a rare ability, because most people vacillate from one extreme to another, either doing nothing and thinking, 'let them see how they get along without me,' or being in charge and projecting their views and ideas.

being somebody, it seems, is so much more ingrained and important than having peace. so we need to inquire with great care what we are truly looking for. what is it that we want out of life? if we want to be important, appreciated, and loved, then we have to take their opposites in stride. every positive brings with it a negative, just as the sun throws shadows. if we want one, we must accept the other, without moaning about it.

but if we really want a peaceful heart and mind, inner security, and stability, then we have to give up wanting to be somebody, anybody. body and mind will not disappear because of that; what subsides is the urge to affirm the importance and supremacy of this particular person whom i call 'me.'

every human being considers [themself] important. there are billions of people on this globe, how many will mourn us? count them for a moment. six or eight, or twelve or fifteen, out of all these billions. maybe we have a vastly exaggerated idea of our own importance. the more we understand this, the easier life is.

wanting to be somebody is dangerous. it is like playing with a fire, and it hurts constantly. and other people will not play by our rules. people who really manage to be somebody, like heads of state, invariably need a bodyguard because they are in danger of their lives.

among the countless things in our world -- all the people, animals, and natural and man-made objects -- the only ones we have any jurisdiction over are our own heart and mind. if we really want to be somebody, we could try to be that rare person who is in charge of his own heart and mind. becoming somebody like that is not only very rare, it also brings the most beneficial results. such a person does not fall into the trap of the defilements.

there is a story about achaan cha, a famous meditation master in northeast thailand. he was once accused of having a lot of hatred. achaan cha replied, 'that may be so, but i don't make any use of it.' an answer like this comes from a deep understanding of one's own nature. it is a rare person who will not allow himself defiled thought, speech, or action. such a person is really somebody. he does not have to prove it to anyone else because it is quite obvious, not to mention that he has no desire to prove anything. there is only one abiding interest and that is one's own peace of mind.

when we have peace of mind as our priority, everything in the mind and all speech or action is directed toward it. anything that does not create peace of mind is discarded. we must not confuse this with being right or having the last word, however. others need not agree. peace of mind is our own. we can all find it if we make the effort.

inferiority

excerpts from those who leave and those who stay by elena ferrante

he said only:
"it was predictable that it would end like this."
"why?"
"you remember when i told you that lina scared me?"
"yes."
"it wasn't fear, i understood much later."
"what was it?"
"estrangement and belonging, an effect of distance and closeness at the same time."
"meaning what?"
"it's hard to say: you and i became friends immediately, you i love. with her that always seemed impossible. there was something tremendous about her that made me want to go down on my knees and confess my most secret thoughts."
i said ironically: "great, an almost religious experience."
he remained serious: "no, only an admission of inferiority. but when she helped me study, that was great, yes. she would read the textbook and immediately understand it, then she'd summarize it for me in a simple way. there have been, and still are today, moments when i think: if i had been born a woman i would have wanted to be like her. in fact, in the carracci family we were both alien bodies, neither she nor i could endure. so her faults never mattered to me, i always felt on her side."

*                          *                          *

it happened that around that time mariarosa came to florence to present the book of a university colleague of hers on the madonna del parto. pietro swore he wouldn't miss it, but at the last minute he made an excuse and hid somewhere. my sister-in-law arrived by car, alone this time, a bit tired but affectionate as always and loaded with presents for dede and elsa. she never mentioned my aborted novel, even though adele had surely told her about it. she talked volubly about trips she'd taken, about books, with her usual enthusiasm. she pursued energetically the many novelties of the planet. she would assert one thing, get tired of it, go on to another that a little earlier, out of distraction, blindness, she had rejected. when she spoke about her colleague's book, she immediately gained the admiration of the art historians in the audience. and the evening would have run smoothly along the usual academic tracks if at a certain point, with an abrupt swerve, she hadn't uttered remarks, occasionally vulgar, of this type: children shouldn't be given to any father, least of all god the father, children should be given to themselves; the moment has arrived to study as women and not as men; behind every discipline is the penis and when the penis feels impotent it resorts to the iron bar, the police, the prisons, the army, the concentration camps; and if you don't submit, if, rather, you continue to turn everything upside down, then comes slaughter. shouts of discontent, of agreement: at the end she was surrounded by a dense crowd of women. she called me over with welcoming gestures, proudly showed off dede and elsa to her florentine friends, said nice things about me. some remembered my book, but i avoided it, as if i hadn't written it. the evening was nice, and brought an invitation, from a small, varied group of girls and adult women, to go to the house of one of them, once a week to talk -- they said -- about us.

mariarosa's provocative remarks and the invitation of her friends led me to fish out from under a pile of books those pamphlets adele had given me long before. i carried them around in my purse, i read them outside, under the gray sky of late winter. first, intrigued by the title, i read an essay entitled we spit on hegel. i read it while elsa slept in her carriage and dede, in coat, scarf, and woolen hat, talked to her doll in a low voice. every sentence struck me, every word, and above all the bold freedom of thought. i forcefully underlined many of the sentences, i made exclamation points, vertical strokes. spit on hegel. spit on the culture of men, spit on marx, on engels, on lenin. and on historical materialism. and on freud. and on psychoanalysis and penis envy. and on marriage, on family. and on nazism, on stalinism, on terrorism. and on war. and on the class struggle. and on the dictatorship of the proletariat. and on socialism. and on communism. and on the trap of equality. and on all the manifestations of patriarchal culture. and on all its institutional forms. resist the waste of female intelligence. deculturate. disacculturate, starting with maternity, don't give children to anyone. get rid of the master-slave dialectic. rip inferiority from our brains. restore women to themselves. don't create antitheses. move on another plane in the name of one's own difference. the university doesn't free women but completes their repression. against wisdom. while men devote themselves to undertakings in space, life for women on this planet has yet to begin. woman is the other face of the earth. woman is the unpredictable subject. free oneself from subjection here, now, in this present. the author of those pages was called carla lonzi. how is it possible, i wondered, that a woman knows how to think like that. i worked so hard on books, but i endured them, i never actually used them, i never turned them against themselves. this is thinking. this is thinking against. i -- after so much exertion -- don't know how to think. nor does mariarosa: she's read pages and pages, and she rearranges them with flair, putting on a show. that's it. lila, on the other hand, knows. it's her nature. if she had studied, she would know how to think like this.

that idea became insistent. everything i read in that period ultimately drew lila in, one way or another. i had come upon a female model of thinking that, given the obvious differences, provoked in me the same admiration, the same sense of inferiority that i felt toward her. not only that: i read thinking of her, of fragments of her life, of the sentences she would agree with, of those she would have rejected. afterward, impelled by that reading, i often joined the group of mariarosa's friends, but it wasn't easy: dede asked me continuously when we were leaving, elsa would suddenly let out cries of joy. but it wasn't just my daughters who were the problem. it was that there i found only women who, resembling me, couldn't help me. i was bored when the discussion became a sort of inelegant summary of what i already knew. and it seemed to me i knew well enough what it meant to be born female, i wasn't interested in the work of consciousness-raising. and i had no intention of speaking in public about my relationship with pietro, or with men in general, to provide testimony about what men are, of every class and of every age. and no one knew better than i did what it meant to make your own head masculine so that it would be accepted by the culture of men; i had done it, i was doing it. furthermore i remained completely outside the tensions, the explosions of jealousy, the authoritarian tones, weak, submissive voices, intellectual hierarchies, struggles for primacy in the group that ended in desperate tears. but there was one new fact, which naturally led me to lila. i was fascinated by the way people talked, confronted each other -- explicit to the point of being disagreeable. i didn't like the amenability that yielded to gossip: i had known enough of that since childhood. what seduced me instead was an urge for authenticity that i had never felt and that perhaps was not in my nature. i never said a single word, in that circle, that was equal to that urgency. but i felt that i should do something like that with lila, examine our connection with the same inflexibility, that we should tell each other fully what we had been silent about, starting perhaps from the unaccustomed lament for my mistaken book.

that need was so strong that i imagined going to naples with the children for a while, or asking her to come to me with gennaro, or to write to each other. i talked about it with her once on the phone but it was a fiasco. i told her about the books by women i was reading, about the group i went to . she listened but then she laughed at titles like the clitoral woman and the vaginal woman, and did her best to be vulgar: what the fuck are you talking about, lenu, pleasure, pussy, we've got plenty of problems here already, you're crazy. she wanted to prove that she didn't have the tools to put into words the things that interested me. and in the end she was scornful, she said: work, do the nice things you have to do, don't waste time. she got angry. evidently it's not the right moment, i thought, i'll try again later on. but i never found the time or the courage to try again. i concluded that first of all i had to understand better what i was. investigate my nature as a woman. i had been excessive, i had striven to give myself male capacities. i thought i had to know everything, be concerned with everything. what did i care about politics, about struggles. i wanted to make a good impression on men, be at their level. at the level of what, of their reason, most unreasonable. such persistence in memorizing fashionable jargon, wasted effort. i had been conditioned by my education, which had shaped my mind, my voice. to what secret pacts with myself had i consented, just to excel. and now, after the hard work of learning, what must i unlearn. also, i had been forced by the powerful presence of lila to imagine myself as i was not. i was added to her, and i felt mutilated as soon as i removed myself. not an idea, without lila. not a thought i trusted without the support of her thoughts. not an image. i had to accept myself outside of her. the gist was that. accept that i was an average person. what should i do. try again to write. maybe i didn't have the passion, i merely limited myself to carrying out a task. so don't write anymore. find some job. or act the lady, as my mother said. shut myself up in the family. or turn everything upside down. house. children. husband.

    *                 *                 *

on one of those occasions i told her about my relationship with franco in the days of the normale, and what he had meant to me. i'm grateful to him, i said, i learned so much from him, and i'm sorry that he now treats me and the children coldly. i thought about it for a moment, and continued: maybe there's something mistaken in this desire men have to instruct us; i was young at the time, and i didn't realize that in his wish to transform me was the proof that he didn't like me as i was, he wanted me to be different, or, rather, he didn't want just a woman, he wanted the woman he imagined he himself would be if he were a woman. for franco, i said, i was an opportunity for him to expand into the feminine, to take possession of it: i constituted the proof of his omnipotence, the demonstration that he knew how to be not only a man in the right way but also a woman. and today when he no longer senses me as part of himself, he feels betrayed.

*                       *                      *

. . . i was signora airota, elena airota, a woman depressed by submissiveness who nevertheless, urged by her sister-in-law but also in order to fight discouragement, had begun to study almost in secret the invention of woman by men, mixing the ancient and modern worlds. i didn't have an objective; only to be able to say to mariarosa, to my mother-in-law, to this or that acquaintance: i'm working.

and so i pushed on, in my speculations, from the first and second biblical creations to defoe-flanders, flaubert-bovary, tolstoy-karenina, la derniere mode, rose selavy, and beyond, and still further, in a frenzy of revelation. slowly i began to feel some satisfaction. i discovered everywhere female automatons created by men. there was nothing of ourselves, and the little there was that rose up in protest immediately became material for their manufacturing.

insignificance

from remnants of the first earth by ray a. young bear

"in an earthly realm where the forces of nature are infinitely more powerful than human beings, personal and collective insignificance is a given. in our relatively compact tribal society, there was equal standing among everyone other than the chieftain hierarchy. in the ancien regime our people hunted, fished, gathered food, planted seeds, and harvested crops together, making everyone interdependent.

this philosophical stance of insignificance was reflected in the journals. preceding each passage my grandfathers wrote were such disclaimers: 'now, at this very moment, i will be forthright and say that i do not know much, that i am not exceedingly knowledgeable, but this is what i have been told: whatever you see, you will document that fact, for it will serve as a point from which present and future black eagle childs will have an unobstructed view of our life. this i have done in the same way my other grandfathers did. . . .'"

"it is true what leslie silko says: that if you know how to write, you inevitably deal with those who once lived -- by yourself.

a human presence is forever. even luciano's. even if he didn't quite die. whether in the act of storytelling or fond remembrances. the mere virtue of being alive, permeable and free, rang throughout the physical totality of the person who was luciano bearchild. he sought and was able to experience new ways to see things, to live them and not be complacent."

"listening to grandmother's pleas for william to awaken, i felt the welling of sadness within me. in a tribal society that was historically burdened with obstacles, suppression of emotion became an art form. to cry over the departed was to inflict misery upon their 'shadows.' in death there was a deep-rooted fear that personal grief could bridge the world of the real and the nonreal. whatever our affliction - physical pain, bereavement, sheer loneliness, or embarrassment - being ostentatious was not part of our demeanor."

"edgar bearchild used to preface and summarize stories by saying: 'ma ni tta-i ni-e na ska ki-a ji mo ni. in this direction does the story fall.' bearchild used this phrase to an obsessive degree for any information presented. in this direction being the disclaimer for words spoken in perhaps an unfavorable context, does the story fall being inevitability."

"keep this in mind: to have every facet of life work to one's advantage was seen not as the glorious result of unbounded determination but as the workings of evil. this was - and even today is - the tribal community's mind-set. illiteracy was shared. poverty was blood-ingrained, and like the harmony that held the clans together, having little was inherited. anything that tore through the delicate netting was regrettable, like suicidal indians or those who chose urban relocation, coming home for their own funerals. what a pity! was whispered through cupped hands to respectful, listening ears. a life misled was lamented over sweet rolls and coffee, but luciano's success with money and white women was deemed unnatural.

suffering and bad luck were shared. equally - like commodity surplus foods. luciano's fortune benefited his immediate family and himself. . . amazingly, after luciano's mysterious disappearance, many spoke of him in respectful terms. those who had been jealous enough to become enemies recanted statements he had been an extraterrestrial all along and took part in the search for him."

solitary mind

quotes from be an island by ayya khema

"when we can abandon distracting thoughts while meditating on the breath, we can use the same skill to protect our mind at all times. the more we learn to shut our mind-door to the negativities that disturb our inner peace, the easier our life becomes. peace of mind is not indifference. recognizing and letting go is not suppression. a peaceful mind is a compassionate mind.
[suffering] is self-made and self-perpetuated. if we are sincere in wanting to get rid of it, we have to watch the mind carefully. we have to gain insight into what is really happening within. what triggers us? how do we react? there are innumerable triggers, but only two reactions. one is equanimity, the other craving."

"if there is such a thing as the deathless, and if we recognize that birth is [suffering], then what is left to us other than the path toward the deathless? it is not enough to try meditation tentatively, hoping for some bliss and to learn some of the buddha's teaching to improve our interaction with others. it is enough only when the heart says, 'there are no other choices but to attain the deathless.'
one certain way of reaching that conviction is having sufficient [suffering]. of course, nobody would wish that for anyone else, but the experience of much suffering is often enough to turn the tide. there are many stories from the buddha's lifetime when women in particular were experiencing so much [suffering], losing their families and loved ones, that they had no other choices left. in our society there may be too many alternatives left. . . if we look at any of the alternatives we can conjure up, we recognize each one of them as a sense contact - which is always short-lived. unless that becomes entirely clear, our spiritual growth will always be shaky."

"we need courage to choose the way of the dhamma. if we take the path leading out of [suffering], we have to leave a lot of attachments and support systems behind. that takes courage. we discard much of that which we once believed to bring fulfillment and happiness. we need courage to break with that and begin to stand alone. . . we begin to loosen our attachments, our clinging and belonging. we recognize beyond any doubt that there is nothing more important to be done than treading the path to enlightenment. then all our energies and priorities are geared to this objective."

"a malleable mind is pliable, moves freely, and embraces everything. whenever we notice some inner change in ourselves, we need to recollect it repeatedly so as to make it second nature. one such change is becoming less concerned with comforts, belongings, ideas, hopes, and wishes. we become more and more concerned with what we can give, how we can grow, and whether we are making wholesome karma. investigating further, we can try letting go of being a separate person for a moment and instead feeling part of all that exists. as long as we are caught within the barrier of our own minds and bodies, we cannot find true happiness. . .
giving oneself completely is difficult for most of us, because we think we are losing ourselves. actually we gain everything -- all spiritual teachings are agreed on that. whatever we use as our personal identity constitutes our prison. letting go is freedom. when we do experience a moment of letting go, we mistakenly think that it was due to a certain situation or person. but in reality we experience freedom whenever we let go of what we're clinging to. giving in and giving up are tiny lights at the end of the tunnel that let us know freedom is possible."

"solitude can be fully experienced only when there is inner peace. otherwise loneliness pushes us to remedy feelings of emptiness and loss. 'where is everybody? what can i do without some companionship? i must discuss my problems.' mindfulness is able to take care of all that, because it arises in the present moment and has nothing to do with the future or past. it keeps us totally occupied and saves us from making mistakes. the greater our mindfulness, the fewer the mistakes. errors on the mundane level have repercussions for the spiritual path. when our lack of mindfulness leads us to inflict [suffering] on ourselves, we will try again and again to find someone who is to blame or someone who can distract us.
ideal solitude arises when a person can be alone or with others and retain the same inner calm, not getting caught in someone else's difficulties. we may respond in an appropriate manner, but we are not affected. we all have our own inner life, but we get to know it well only when the mind stops chattering and we can attend to our inner feelings. once we have seen what is happening inside of us, we will want to change some of it. . . our inner stress and lack of peace push us to find someone who will remove our [suffering], but only we can do it.
the solitary mind can have profound and original thoughts, whereas a dependent mind thinks in cliches because it wants approval. a worldly mind that understands only superficialities cannot grasp the profundity of the buddha's teaching."

"depth of understanding makes release from suffering possible. when we go deeper and deeper and find no core, we learn to let go of even deep-seated attachments. whether what we find within us is pure and commendable or impure and unpleasant makes no difference. all mental states that we own and cherish keep us in duality, in midair, in insecurity, and cannot bring an end to suffering. . .
even if we agree with the buddha's words and find them plausible, without the certainty of personal experience they will be of limited assistance. to have direct knowledge, we must sink like a stone, untied to anything, down to the bottom of all our obstructions. to see the truth, we need a powerful mind, a weighty mind. as long as the mind is interested in petty concerns, it will not have sufficient weight to attain deep understanding."