Buddha Board: Live each moment to the fullest

The past is over.
The future may never be.
The present is all that exists.
Live each moment to the fullest.

Those words came with my Mother’s Day present from my daughter: a Buddha Board.

Based on the age-old Zen “Be Here Now” or “Power of Now” principle, the board’s surface holds the water you paint on it, for a short time, and then it dissipates. The user lives in the present, values it, and then lets it go.

I love that it allows me to be creative. I love that if I make a mistake, I watch it disappear into the ether. I love that when I paint something beautiful, I cherish it even more while it’s there, because I know it won’t last.

I put it on my family room end table beside Ganesh. (We are an ecumenical household.) Perhaps using it, or just the sight of it, will help me to live each moment to the fullest.

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Visit the Buddha Board site at http://www.buddhaboard.com/

Don’t skip the intro. It’s beautiful, and the background sound soothes. I had the site open while writing this post, and the audio makes me want to leave it open all day . . .

Not losing 3 children in one week? OK then. Life is good.

In 1866, my ancestors lost three children in one week to a diphtheria epidemic.

Children aged 13, 11 and 9 just . . . gone. (How are immunizations looking to you now?)

I read this fact on the weekend while visiting my mother for Easter. My genealogically inclined relatives dug up an impressive amount of information on my poor English farmer ancestors. They found a sketch of the remote log cabin—rustic at best—in which the family lived. No plumbing or running water, of course. No furnace that clicked on when a chill set in. No Mac’s Milk on the corner or butchery down the street. And then they lost three children in one week.

Yeah, really. I have nothing to complain about.

A few years ago a friend and I chatted about how, no matter how grim things get in our lives, there is always someone in a worse state. The day after our conversation she sent me this message: “Remember when we were discussing the subject: There’s always somebody worse off  than me, so I wonder what the worst person has to deal with? I guess it isn’t Nick.” Her message included a link to a video about Nick Vujicic, a man with no arms or legs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo_24_qTNac

Please watch Nick and be inspired. He has so many challenges, but he’s happy. He’s so busy telling everyone how lucky he is, he has no time to complain.

So, who is the person in the world who is the worst off? Is it even possible to know? It’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it? And we all choose our own perspectives. We all choose whether to be happy or unhappy about the long line-up at Starbucks, or the guy in traffic who takes too long at the red light, or missing arms and legs.

Who is the person in the world with the worst lot in life?

It’s not me. I’ll bet it’s not you. No matter what’s happening for you today, try your best to smile. At least you’re not losing three children in one week.

Photo from facebook Nick Vujicic

All-natural medicine: hard work for a worthy cause

“I am thinking of enriching Medicine with a new word: Arbeitskur.”

—Levin in Anna Karenina

A year ago when I participated in the Habitat for Humanity build in Bolivia, I spent days shovelling dirt, carrying buckets of mortar, moving armloads of terra-cotta bricks, and breaking up hard soil with a pick-ax. At the end of every day, instead of feeling body-sore and exhausted, I looked with satisfaction at a home for a family in need growing before my eyes, and I felt fantastic.

It’s what Leo Tolstoy calls Arbeitskur, or work-cure.

Anna Karenina, by Tolstoy, reminded me of this. I took the 806-page tome with me on my recent vacation. (As an aside, 800-page books really aren’t for me. By the end, I’m so tired of all the characters I don’t care at all what happens to them, and if one of them should throw herself in front of a train, I don’t feel sorry in the least.)

One of the characters in the book, Levin, decided to spend the day mowing in  the fields with the peasants. After hours of hard, physical labour, instead of feeling sore or exhausted, he looked with satisfaction at the fruits of his harvest, and he felt fantastic. When he shared to the contentment of the peasants, he contemplated the wonders of work-cure.

I grew up on a farm, so I had experienced the satisfaction that comes from spending a day hoisting hay bales or mucking out pens, but I had forgotten. I knew how it felt to tuck with guilt-free gusto into plates of home-made pie after spending the day burning more calories toward a worthy cause, but I had forgotten.

Our society, as a rule, has moved away from hard, physical labour. Instead, we move our bodies in gyms like hamsters on a wheel. It’s physical exertion without the reward of a sense of creation or accomplishment. The euphoric sense of creation or accomplishment that arises out of work-cure takes runners’ high and increases it exponentially. Ka-boom. 

There’s no feeling like it. If you’re feeling a little blue, I can recommend a Habitat for Humanity build.

Mud-splattered and happy in Bolivia

Answer your own prayers: Pray in present tense

Some years ago I read a valuable piece of advice: frame your prayers in the present tense.

You wouldn`t believe the difference it makes.

Six years ago doctors diagnosed my friend, Lynn, with terminal cancer. She was 41 years old with two young children. The news shocked her, and her family and friends. Prayers bubbled up from all of us, because in circumstances like that, prayers just happen. They can`t be helped.

My first prayer was for Lynn to live. Then, when I read the present tense advice, the prayer changed to “Lynn lives.” With a shock I realized that my prayer was already answered! No matter what happened the next week, or the next month, or the next year, at that moment, Lynn lived. My prayer changed from a plea of desperation to a celebration of gratitude, a “seize the day” motivational expression of wow. It took me out of the victim role, passively waiting for an outside force to act, and put me in the active role of celebrant. It encouraged me to savour every moment with my friend.

So many prayers come out of on-our-knees times of desperation. “Powers that be, please give me the strength to get through this,” we pray. But if we change that to “I have the strength to get through this,” instead of feeling helpless and overwhelmed, suddenly the strength we seek infuses us, and we rise from our knees renewed.

Now, I can hear the shouts of protest now. Critics will say, “Lady, you are crazy. What if I don’t have a job but desperately need one? If I say, ‘I have a job,’ I don’t suddenly and miraculously have a job.” True. But, maybe if you say, “I have a job” you will go to your next job interview with calm assurance instead of discouraged desperation. Maybe that will help.

Or someone else might say, “What if I want a red Porsche? If I close my eyes and say, ‘I have a red Porsche,’ when I open my eyes, there won’t be a shiny car in my driveway.” True, but if you say, “I have a red Porsche” over and over again often enough, maybe it will motivate you to start setting the money aside in a special fund. Maybe you’ll start browsing used car sites until you find the right one. Maybe it will help.

If you pray in the present tense, you might be surprised how often you answer your own prayers. The present tense:

• opens our eyes to the gifts of the moment
• infuses us with strength we didn’t know we had
• relieves our stress and desperation and fills us with calm assurance
• motivates us to work toward a goal.

A year ago yesterday my friend, Lynn, passed away. I grieved, for sure, because I missed my friend. I watched two teenagers lose a parent. I watched her husband lose a spouse and become a father/mother overnight. It was hard. But it was just that titch better because I had spent the previous five years celebrating her life in present tense every single day.

In-AccuWeather and “Be Here Now”

When you can’t plan, you must accept.

This is the lesson from our week in the Rocky Mountains.

Weather forecasting here, we have to assume, comes with challenges. We’ve never experienced such changeable and unpredictable weather forecasts. We live in Ontario, Canada where we see weather systems moving in from a long way off, undisturbed by geological formations or mountain ranges. Here? Every weather forecast should read: “Honestly, we have no idea what’s going to happen.”

More than once we checked the weather in the evenings and made plans for the next day. The next morning, we awoke to a completely different forecast, exactly the opposite of what was said only 12 hours before. In the evenings, as gentle snow fell outside our window, we visited AccuWeather sites that told us it was currently sunny. We started called them In-AccuWeather sites.

We had to give up planning our outings and just wake up in the mornings and accept.

It returned us all to the ancient meditative practice of living in the present moment, which just might be the most valuable gift we received out of our vacation time.

Sabbath on Monday

Walking on Lake Louise

How do you react to the word “sabbath”?

Does your stomach clench, like it does in response to all words religious? Do you envision thin-lipped matrons in darkened parlours piously whiling away an afternoon with the book of Genesis?

Or do you relax and breathe easily? Do you picture yourself curled up with a good book in front of a fireplace?

I hope it’s the latter.

I want to reclaim the word “sabbath”. Years of  “shoulds,” guilt, judgemental recriminations and self-deprivation crust over this beautiful word with corrosive layers. I want to scrape away the damage and polish the word to a renewed welcoming shine, because sometimes we just need a break. The ancient practice of sabbath has roots in the practical idea that, in order to exhale, we have to inhale sometimes.

I took a sabbath day—a day to inhale—on Monday. These days it doesn’t matter which day you choose.

We are on vacation at beautiful Lake Louise, Alberta enjoying a week of skiing in the Rockies. Perfect sun, perfect snow, breathtaking scenery and Albertan hospitality surround us. I skied happily Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday, while my son and husband skied the black diamond bump runs they love so much, I took a sabbath day. I read. I wrote. I relaxed. I created heaven for myself.

My husband didn’t get it at all. He’s an intense skier, so his sabbath is on the ski hill.

In our modern times, a sabbath day is more important than ever. When was the last time you allowed yourself an entire day of rest? We are connected, always “on,” busy with “stuff” every single day. We are so busy exhaling, we forget to inhale. And there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all sabbath. For me, it’s a quiet day and a good book. For my husband, it’s a sunny ski run. For others it might be a walk in the forest, dinner with family, or a fishing trip.

Play, eat, or meditate, However, sabbath looks to you, I encourage you to reclaim an ancient practice that fulfills the universal need for a mindful indrawn breath.