The Desiderata by Max Erhmann

These words have given me great inner strength and peace since the first time I read them. Now, more than thirty years later, they still resonate with me for their simple meaning yet profound message which they deliver.

 Go placidly amidst the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

The Dharma of Writing

This cartoon may not seem all that funny, but it is a lesson I need to keep reminding myself of, so I keep in on my desktop.

You see, when I started writing, it was all about me. I wanted to be a good writer. Then I became really egocentric and wanted to be a great writer. It took a few years before my Buddhist training kicked in and I understood my error.

Writing stories is not about me becoming anything! It is about crafting the best stories possible. The focus is on the stories, the characters, and the craft of writing. The focus is on the day-to-day process of creating, which becomes a form of meditation.

That process, that meditation, is not about becoming a better, wiser, holier person. It’s not about becoming anything. It is all about the joy in experiencing the process.

So every once in a while I need a little nudge to help me focus on simply writing stories, without worrying about how good I am.

Volume vs. Quality

Several days ago I exchanged emails with a writer I both like and admire. He talked about a fellow writer who he claims told him, “I’m not interesting in improving my craft. I’m only interested in churning out stories.”

This statement has stuck in my head, nagging me to the point of being annoying. I’ve read three novels from the writer who made that statement, and I feel there is ample room for improvement, even if he doesn’t. I felt after finishing each of his stories that they were creative and engaging, yet somewhat disappointing. I felt that had the author spent another four or five months refining the plot and the story structure, and polishing the prose, they would have been awesome reads, rather than being merely entertaining ones.

Please don’t mistake my meaning; I’m not suggesting that I am a better writer. I have my own issues I struggle with. And I’m sure that he sells many more books than I do. What I’m suggesting is that writing, for me, is a craft where one is always striving for perfection, always experimenting and learning more, delving deeper into the human experience and finding fresh ways to express ideas. Writing, for me, is like tennis. Even the top players spend more time on the practice courts than they do playing opponents. They never stop trying to improve.

Admittedly, this philosophy of striving for purity rather than merely for more carries into every aspect of my life. It’s an attitude I’ve learned through thirty years of practicing Buddhism. I am constantly trying to refine whatever I’m doing, and I find great pleasure in that. I look at life as art that is never finished, never perfect.

It’s often a downer never quite being satisfied with one’s work. It is enough compensation, however, when I look at the body of my work, and realize that I’m slowly improving my craft. That, to me, is the most important goal.

To Find Who You Are

Anne Lamott said, “To love yourself as you are is a miracle, and to seek yourself is to have found yourself, for now.”

The more I thought about Lamott’s statement, the more I pondered the best way to “seek yourself” so that you can truly “find yourself, at least for now.”

The problem with finding yourself, IMHO, is seeing through the facade that masks the uninhabited, messy, awe-inspiring person you were born to be. In short, you need to stop being who you aren’t.

And what makes up this façade, this false persona we hide behind, or perhaps are imprisoned behind? I think it typically is made up of fixations on:

1) how people perceive us,

2) how to get more of the things that we think will make us happy,

3) zealously striving for whatever we label success as,

4) an obsessive need for power and security.

So to my way of thinking, finding yourself is a little like Michelangelo sculpting his “David.” He didn’t have to make or even alter David within the huge stone block; he simply had to know it was there, and then chip away everything in that block of marble that wasn’t David.

I know that sounds easy, and it’s not. One method for chipping away what is false is what Buddhist teachings call mindfulness. That doesn’t mean you spend all your time in thought or zoned out in meditation. Mindfulness is all about action, and it means that while you take actions, be it brushing your teeth or programming a computer or performing brain surgery, you are utterly focused on what you are doing, and more importantly, fully aware of why you are doing it. Being fully aware of the why means understanding your motivation for performing that action. If you are brushing your teeth, are you doing it for better oral health or are you doing it to impress other people with your dazzling smile? Motivations says a lot about you.

Every action is initiated by a motivation, and motivations reveal who you are, and more importantly, who you aren’t. Understanding your motivations is the first step in exposing (or finding) your true self.

The Art of Accepting What Is

At the core of Buddhist teachings are four principles, the key one being that life is painful. I’m talking about emotional pain, the kind one suffers when events don’t go your way, or people don’t act the way you want them to. Every time life falls short of our expectations there is some degree of emotional pain. 

Everyone feels pain, usually on a daily basis. Some people experience that pain—as a mild disappointment or a gut-wrenching catastrophe—and then let it go, move on. Others wallow in their pain, blow it out of proportion, latch on to it for years or decades, and wrench every ounce of emotion out of it, worry it like a dog worries a bone.

Buddhism, simply put, is a method to avoid, or at least minimize that pain. And the principle way to avoid life falling short of expectations is not to create those expectations in the first place. If you fully embrace everything in your universe as if it is exactly what you desire, then there is no emotional pain.

That’s easy when we talk of losing a game of tennis, or even losing your wallet. It becomes more difficult when a loved one dies, or your job is eliminated. I’ve heard Christians deal with such pain by saying, “It’s God’s will.”

As a Buddhist, I remind myself of this lesson several times a day: accept what is. Not only accept, but be grateful, thankful for every failure, every disappointment, every thing that angers me. And once I accept it, then I work to improve the situation in whatever way I’m able. Acceptance does not mean you don’t “fix” things, it simply means you’re okay with it now while you work to improve it.

Regrets of the Dying

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Here are the most common five regrets for men, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

The more I thought about these regrets of other people, the more I wondered about my own regrets, should I die tomorrow. I can somewhat identify with working so hard, because it takes me away from time with my husband, yet writing is so fulfilling to me that I don’t think I would regret that. My husband and my writing are two lovers that I have to balance my time with. Made to choose, I would never write another word, yet I would deeply regret that.

I’ve given number five a lot of consideration. Allowing myself to be happier is an interesting one. I do realize that people—including me—can choose to be happy, or not. Happiness is a choice, and for me it means appreciating what you have at the moment, without dwelling on what you don’t have. It is something I strive for constantly. Being one of the key principles of Buddhism, it is something I’ve been working on for decades.

I think if I were to die tomorrow, my #1 regret would be that I was not more generous with people in my life. There have been so many times when I could have reached out to family, friends, even strangers on the street and given them a helping hand, but I chose to deal with my own issues instead.

So, knowledge is power. Armed with knowing that would be my regret, hopefully I still have time to do something about it.  Work less, be happy with what I have, and give more to others. Sounds like a good plan to minimize regrets. 

A Message to Myself

The book on the top of my review stack is called The Letter Q. It is a collection of letters from many lgbt authors, giving messages to their earlier selves (in the spirit of “It Gets Better”.) I’ve been looking forward to reading this book because there are quite a few tremendously talented writers who have contributed their thoughts. It should be fascinating. 

Before I begin reading, however, I wanted to think about what kind of message I would like to have given my teenaged self. What would I want to change, what bit of wisdom would have helped me avoid the many hardships of my twenties, thirties, forties, and even fifties?

I am reminded of a quote from James Buckham: “Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fibre of a character, but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.”

So I think my message to my younger self would go along those lines: Set your moral compass toward something you believe in, and don’t let difficulty or public opinion or fear or any other damned thing sway you off that path. Don’t run from adversities, face them head on. Don’t shrink away from challenges where you might fail, jump in and fail if need be, for nothing is gained by not trying. Feel every disappointment right down to your bones, and learn from them, grow strong in the knowledge that you will overcome them. And above all, when you see ways to help others along their path, do so without needing or wanting anything in return. Be generous with others as well as with yourself. 

Would that make a difference in how I lived my life? Probably not. In my teens I didn’t listen to anyone over thirty….