lotusinthemud

Epitaph - By Merrit Malloy

A poem with a profoundly beautiful message about death and grief and love. It’s a meditation that’s often read before Kaddish, part of Jewish mourning rituals:

When I die

Give what’s left of me away

To children

And old men that wait to die.

 

And if you need to cry,

Cry for your brother

Walking the street beside you.

And when you need me,

Put your arms

Around anyone

And give them

What you need to give to me.

 

I want to leave you something,

Something better

Than words

Or sounds.

 

Look for me

In the people I’ve known

Or loved,

And if you cannot give me away,

At least let me live on in your eyes

And not your mind.

 

You can love me most

By letting

Hands touch hands,

By letting bodies touch bodies,

And by letting go

Of children

That need to be free.

 

Love doesn’t die,

People do.

So, when all that’s left of me

Is love,

Give me away.

 

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Remembering Amrita

Today is the 15th anniversary of the death of my astonishing friend and Dharma sister, Amrita.

Here is the obituary that Caroline Brazier wrote:

The Rev Linda Amrita Dhammika, who has died aged 50 from an asthma attack*, spent her life working for the destitute, the sick, and for animals, principally in Africa.

Her mission culminated in the founding of the Tithandizane primary health care project at Kamulaza, Zambia, which she built from 1997 onwards into a thriving centre serving 72 villages. Five hectares of land were made available; charity grants were found; villagers contributed labour; and five buildings were constructed. Today, the centre provides medical care, training, counselling and community services.

Linda Dolan, as she was born, grew up in Eccles, Manchester, trained as a laboratory technician and qualified as a teacher in 1978. Doing VSO in Nigeria (1981-83), she saw the importance of primary health care and community involvement in empowering people. In 1985, she worked at Balaka leprosy hospital in Malawi. In 1986-87 she was a community worker with the elderly in Salford. From 1988, her work focused on Zambia. She became a Buddhist, adopting the name Dhammika.

For many years she was projects officer for the International Buddhist Relief Organisation (IBRO), and in 1998 she met my [former] husband, Dharmavidya David Brazier, a priest from the Pureland tradition, took vows with him and became a member of the Order of Amida Buddha. In 2004 she received a further ordination, becoming a chaplain in the order. She conducted marriages and funerals, and offered spiritual counselling, education and support to Zambians. IBRO and the Amida Trust, a UK-based Buddhist charity, supported her.

Amrita's Buddhism took particular shape in an intense concern for animals. She campaigned for vegetarianism, cared for animals wherever she went and was not averse to sharing her living accommodation with baboons or other rescued creatures. She was a walking example of kindness and harmony between species.

In 1993 she started the first rural self-help group for HIV-positive people in Zambia. Three years later, she set up a free nursery school in Dar-es-Salaam, and worked to help Aids victims in Thailand. Her other activities included projects to create bore holes in rural areas of Africa, the conducting of immunisation, dental, eye care, family planning and health information campaigns, and improvements in nutrition, sanitation and education. In 2001, Manchester University awarded her its John Owens award for work in Africa. Following the tsunami of December 2004, she travelled with a Muslim friend to northern Sri Lanka to help Hindu victims in a demonstration of inter-faith solidarity.

She is survived by her husband John Edwards, whose Buddhist name is Sudana, and her adopted daughter Perry.

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David Brazier [Dharmavidya] wrote: 

We, here at The Buddhist House, have just been communicating via Skype with our friends in Zambia. The funeral of Reverend Amrita Dhammika took place yesterday morning. She was buried with full ceremony. For two nights prior to the ceremony there was dancing around her coffin and lamentation. The ceremonial which took several hours was a mix of Buddhist and local custom. Sr Modgala and Willemien Hoogendoorn took a central role in the proceedings which were appropriate in all respects. Well over one thousand people attended. Amrita was dressed in her Ngoni costume and her Buddhist robe when her body was laid to rest. The inspiration that Amrita has given to the people of this afflicted part of Africa is immense. She was an indefatigable worker for compassion to all sentient beings - a true bodhisattva - and she gave her life for them.

*It now seems that the cause of death was in fact malaria rather than asthma as originally reported.

 

We, here at The Buddhist House, have just been communicating via Skype with our friends in Zambia. The funeral of Reverend Amrita Dhammika took place yesterday morning. She was buried with full ceremony. For two nights prior to the ceremony there was dancing around her coffin and lamentation. The ceremonial which took several hours was a mix of Buddhist and local custom. Sr Modgala and Willemien Hoogendoorn took a central role in the proceedings which were appropriate in all respects. Well over one thousand people attended. Amrita was dressed in her Ngoni costume and her Buddhist robe when her body was laid to rest. The inspiration that Amrita has given to the people of this afflicted part of Africa is immense. She was an indefatigable worker for compassion to all sentient beings - a true bodhisattva - and she gave her life for them.

*It now seems that the cause of death was in fact malaria rather than asthma as originally reported.

 

some notes on forgiveness

'Forgiveness is a process, not a choice' ~ Jeff Brown

'Should' is an introject and will impact on your process -> spiritual bypassing

'Forgiveness is not the first place to go after an abusive relationship or traumatic experience. Healing is the first place to go. At the end of the process, if you have not forgiven, it does not mean that you are not healed' ~ Jeff Brown

:: Introjection

everything changes, everything evolves...

News From Perth

09/12/2020: My personal news is that I left the Amida Order some 2 1/2 weeks ago - though that’s another story.

I may have, in doing so, put aside titles but they were attached to roles that were useful for work within the Order itself. However, I’m still a priest, an independent Pureland priest.  So I will continue sharing meetings from the shrine room here, overlooking the garden. My sangha will no longer be 'Amida Scotland'. There will be another name, in time.

Like much of the world, our sangha meetings have been held via zoom for a number of months, and I expect that this method of gathering will continue for some time to come. Although I miss seeing my sangha in person, one advantage is that I can be joined by friends in different parts of the country or even further afield, as I can join them, in turn. And even friends who live close are not deterred from sangha gatherings by feeling unwell or contending with Scottish winter weather and dark nights. So it may transpire that this may be a better way to continue at least some of our gatherings.

Connections with others felt particularly precious yesterday, Bodhi Day. Now, as with others who made the same decision, I ease into a time which will become ripe with new beginnings, as yet, not knowing what shoots will emerge from the dark earth and what those new shoots will flower into. This season of darkness is one of turning inward for us all. As a friend said a few days ago, all that we have received can be broken down into rich loamy compost, nothing ever wasted, to nourish what comes next.

As well as feeling a huge sense of grief and of loss, of course, at this parting of the ways after 22 years, the hint of a sense of that new life to come - that there are new buds on the trees, shoots under the earth - gives a feeling of hope. Not a time for the shoots to emerge, the buds to open yet but there’s a sense of a freedom from structure, hierarchy, expectations, constraints of role and form - the possibility of new types of gatherings, the forging of new friendships and new understanding, new directions - eco dharma, Therapeutic Shamanism, the insights and inspiration of Bill Plotkin - and more.

So, while I tussled with making my decision and in the days since, faith and friendship have been a great refuge and solace, as clouds obscured some of the light.

Taigh an t’Solais means ‘house of light’ in Scottish Gaelic
(as opposed to Taigh Solas, which means a lighthouse).

This house, on the side of Kinnoull Hill, across the Tay from the city of Perth, faces West and is flooded with light.

The light?

Both on days when I’m aware of it and on days when it feels covered by outer and inner clouds, the light is always there.

NAMO AMIDA BU

Sujatin

Grief Doesn't Take a Holiday

From Widower's Grief - a grief traveler:

 

(Baking Soufflés Against the Daleks)

If you’re grieving, the holidays are the worst time of the year. You’re expected to be happy, and if you aren’t, you feel even worse. Even if your someone died a few years ago, going through the holidays can bring their absence and your sorrow right back. 

Then smiling people in green elf hats and reindeer sweaters try to cheer you up, saying it’s not so bad. Sigh. 

You’re not alone in what you’re feeling. In the neighborhood, other people are dealing with their own struggles, but because they don’t want to talk about it, we don’t know what’s going on and we can’t do anything to help them. 

All of us want to appear strong and self-reliant. So we say we’re fine when people ask and close the door but we shut people out. If you’re struggling this holiday season, and someone asks how you’re doing, tell them. While many will choose not to do anything more, some will, and they can make all the difference.

As snow covers the land in a blanket of white, and cold settles in for the duration, it can seem that everything we love about life, and everything that brings us comfort and joy, has either died or is dying. On the streets we see hurting and broken people walking beneath the holiday lights, and wish that life wasn’t so hard for so many.

 

AND YET …

 

This season strips us down to essentials and makes us realize that we value people more than things. This is why we try so hard to gather with family and friends. We want the reassurance that, even though the year has been rough, our bonds to each other are secure. Even though we are overwhelmed with grief, we still care about each other.

Even if I’m grieving, if I see you loaded down with packages, I will hold the door open. I will get something for you from the top shelf in the store. I will shovel your sidewalk as you endure another round of chemo. I will go into the field to pick up the remnants of your home after a tornado has ripped it apart.

It’s not love that impels me to help you. It’s what I’ve learned because of grief. The compassion of others is what kept me going when I felt broken, defeated, and alone.

Grief has unclenched my hands enough to share what I have with you. It has deepened my breath enough to laugh again, even though I know I’ll be sad later on, and that suffering, hatred, and violence will continue to erupt in the world. Grief has lightened my feet enough to dance today because music is playing and I need to dance if I am going to fend off death.

Death has freed me to care about you. Call the reason love if you want. I call it grief.        

The baking soufflé note at the top is a Doctor Who reference. Oswin (Clara) is trapped on a Dalek world and fighting them. The Daleks are violent, merciless cyborgs who demand total conformity to their will and are out to destroy everyone else. Oswin maintains her resolve and fends off her fears and loneliness by baking soufflés. 

Within us there is unimaginable strength to endure extreme situations. Bake soufflés.

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To those who struggle at Christmas (or any time of year)

John Pavlovitz writes:

I’m not writing this to everyone.

I’m writing this to you — the person whose heart is heavy today, the one for whom this day is not merry and bright, the one who doesn’t feel at all like singing.

I’m writing this to you who face subtraction today; who feel the combined attrition of the all losses you’ve accrued this year; the people who’ve died, the ones who left voluntarily, those you’ve had to push away to protect yourself.

I’m writing to you who’ve seen the end of something you loved; the dream that dissolved despite how much you gave up to make it real; all the things that you wish to be true right now and should be true — but are not.

I’m writing to those who’ve watched their best attempts to save their marriages not be enough, who are finding themselves no longer half of the whole they once felt securely part of; those who have a different set of chairs around the table — far too many of them empty.

I’m writing to you who are grieving; those sitting vigil in hospital rooms praying for good news; those who just got test results back and have heard the worst; those who are spending this day planning a memorial service instead of a holiday celebration.

I’m writing to you whose personal demons have gotten the best of you; who’ve been visited at the very worst time by depression and addiction and self-hatred — those whose greatest threat to joy right now is an inside job.

I’m writing this to those who are alone today: geographically separated from the people they love, emotionally distanced from those they desire proximity to, pushed by circumstance to the solitary places.

I’m writing this to those who’ve been left broken by this year; by its cruelty and bitterness and violence — those of you who harbor more anger, carry more grief, and bear more fear because of what you’ve seen and what you know and how you feel about this place you call home.

Ultimately, I’m writing to you, who for a million different reasons find peace difficult to come by in a time when it’s supposed to be plentiful.

I don’t have any magic words to fix what is broken around you or to repair what is broken within you.

I can’t simply place a cursor on the sadness you feel and backspace until it’s deleted, replacing it with words like comfort or peace or contentment.

I can’t say anything in this small space that will mend what is severed, resurrect what has died, or heal what is ill.

I just wanted these words to hopefully remind you of two things:

The first, is that you are not alone; that even though you’re uniquely suffering in the specific sadness you’re inhabiting right now — you are not suffering by yourself. The world is filled with people who are not exactly, but still deeply burdened, grieving, angry, hopeless, exhausted.Even if you never see their faces or know their names, rest in the truth that millions of wounded people stand in solidarity with you in this day — and that they get it. I get it.

The second thing I wanted to remind you of, is that though this is your painful story right now, it is not the end of your story.

The way you feel today will not always be the way you feel. As difficult as it is to imagine in these painful moments — there will be holidays when lightness returns to you; days when you are cultivating new dreams again, when you once more feel secured in a place where you belong, when you again find yourself embraced by people who see and treasure the goodness in you, days when you are easily pushing back your demons.

There will be holidays when celebration is your default setting.

But right now, don’t feel any guilt for the sadness within you.
Don’t beat yourself up for not wanting to sing right now.
Don’t feel pressured to have the shit together that simply isn’t together and won’t be for a while.

Just receive this Christmas as it is, receive it as you are — with all the struggle and uncertainty and grieving it brings.

I’m not writing this to everyone, but if I’ve written this for you, be greatly encouraged.

You are loved.

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A Few Words About Grief ~ Dharmavidya

A correspondent recently wrote to me as follows:

"When you talk to me about grief you never say stuff like 'This is all just a figment of your deluded conditioning.  Grief isn’t real.  Well, it’s only real in relative terms anyway.  If you could just practice harder and maintain the appropriate view you would regain equanimity.  And besides, focusing on your own grief is breaking your Bodhisattva vows: you should be focused on the universal downgoing of suffering...' I can’t recall you ever saying anything even remotely like this..."

I take it that the writer is quoting what has been said by another teacher consulted - perhaps by several. The reason that I am recording this is that this type of attitude is quite common in the Buddhist world. It is all part of the fallacious attitude that thinks that when one is sufficiently enlightened all emotion will fall away.

If one encounters a teacher who talks in this way, one can, of course, examine that teacher's own emotional life, which should, logically, not exist. Such a teacher should certainly not, for instance, have a sexual partner and would be indifferent to fame and fortune. Generally, one finds great inconsistency here which implies that the person giving the teaching does not know what he/she is talking about.

The aim of Buddhism is not an emotionless state. The goal of unselfishness does not imply becoming an automaton - quite the reverse. This fallacy arises from the observation that such an automaton would embody some of the Buddhist vitrues, such as indifference to fame and gain, but so would a rock. Some people then go so far as to say that the aim of Buddhism is indeed to become a rock. Rocklikeness is sometimes required, but not as a general model of personality. The bodhisattva has rocklike courage for the sake of all sentient beings, but this is not because he has a heart of stone.

Those who are really indifferent to fame and fortune are not so because they have become emotionless: they imply have a less selfish emotional life. All-pervading love is not love for an abstraction - it is love for particular persons of flesh and blood. Please do not do the kind of practice that suppresses your natural feelings and makes you indifferent to the suffering of real people. Do not so dwell in the here and now that you forget about people suffering in some other place and cease to remember those who lived and died.

The aim of Buddhism is not the abolition of grief. Rather the opposite. It is to be so touched by the deep pathos of real life amidst real people that one comes fully alive, sharing in joy and sorry completely.

In the modern world we have developed chemical medicine to a high pitch. When we go on to use this medicine to suppress inconvenient emotions, we are abusing these great discoveries. When we turn spiritual practice into an imitation of such suppressant chemicals we are going off the track completely. Buddhism is not an attempt to outdo the misuse of medication.

So, yes, it is true, I never say anything remotely like that. Namo Amida Bu.

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Finding the courage

“When looking at the big picture — the yin, the yang, of things — grief and loss are, more precisely, about finding the courage and the determination to come to a more complete understanding of life in its glorious yet, utterly baffling, entirety.”

~  Daisy A Hickman 

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