Compassion and Disappointment

It is difficult to feel loving-kindness when one's feelings are hurt. My newest metta bhavana is focused on cultivating thoughts of loving-kindness towards people who have hurt my feelings in some way. I am thinking of children who bullied me in grade school, friends who didn't stick up for me when I needed it, and people who've left me in the lurch.

I was recently given an unpleasant explanation for the disappearance of an important person from my life; someone I just met implied that one of my teachers was guilty of professional misconduct and lost their job because of it. If this is true it causes me sorrow, because it means that my teacher made a decision that hurt a lot of people. I feel sadness for my teacher, and I feel sadness for all the people who were affected by whatever the bad decision was.

On the one hand I want to tell my teacher, "I feel that you were selfish to put your need to do whatever you did that was wrong above the needs of all your students who relied on you." On the other hand, I want to say, "You must have felt what you were doing was right, and the consequences were worth it." What I want to say most, though, is, "Whatever you may have done that was wrong, it doesn't negate the work we did together, and it doesn't negate the importance of the lessons I learned from you. You continue to be one of my most important teachers; that does not and cannot change. I only wish I could have continued to learn from you; I feel you had much more left to teach me, and I still had a lot more to learn from you."

How do I send metta to someone who is guilty of wrongdoing? Praying* that all sentient beings be free from suffering does not mean that criminals are not guilty of their crimes, and by praying for them I am not condoning their actions. Rather, I am praying for them in spite of their actions—or more accurately, regardless of their actions. When I perform metta bhavana, I am praying that all sentient beings be safe from harm, live with ease, and enjoy peace. There is no addendum to qualify that only "good" people receive my prayers. I am sending metta to all sentient beings: sharks, doctors, eagles, rapists—who or what they are and whether they spend their lives and actions in a way I approve is immaterial.

Whether or not my teacher is actually guilty of wrongdoing is something I doubt I will ever know. My disappointment, my sense of loss is not changed in any way by the taint of guilt. But the most important new lesson from this situation is that my metta bhavana does not change. Guilty or innocent, my teacher deserves the same loving-kindness as always. And see, that's a new lesson learned! Thank you, teacher.


*Prayer in this article does not refer to supplication to a deity for granting of a boon; it refers to a meditation practice in which I am cultivating compassion for others. In other words, instead of asking a God to do something kind for me, I am generating kind thoughts within myself and sending them outward.
Both require an inner focus, and prayer is the word I grew up with, so I use it.

new music blog

Check out Puss In (Punk) Boots, where I talk more about music and less about spirituality (although there's a whole lot of intertwining going on, especially because I've been thinking and talking a lot about MCA lately).

Much earlier today I had a song in my head, specifically this one:

It's called "Easy to be Hard," from the musical Hair by Jerome Ragni and James Rado. The video is from the film version of the musical.

Why post it here instead of on my music page? I think it's because the wistful quality is appropriate for some of the ups and downs I've been experiencing lately. This is the song that soundtracked my thoughts earlier.


Later on, I had a much different song playing in my head. It's called "Pay To Cum," by DC hardcore band Bad Brains. The lyrics are impossible to understand because the song's so fast, but they are:

I make decision with precision
Lost inside this manned collision
Just to see that what is to be
Perfectly my fantasy

I came to know with now dismay
That in this world we all must pay
Pay to write, pay to play
Pay to cum, pay to fight 

And all in time,
With just our minds
We soon will find
What's left behind 

Not long ago when things were slow
We all got by with what we know
The end is near. Hearts filled with fear
Don't want to listen to what they hear 

And so it's now we choose to fight
To stick up for our bloody right
The right to sing, the right to dance
The right is ours... We'll take the chance 

A peace together
A piece apart
A piece of wisdom
From our hearts

East Coast versus West Coast Dharma Punks

Several months ago I read Dharma Punx by Noah Levine. I was struck by the differences between the East Coast and West Coast experience. As a member of the NYC punk/hardcore scene, I felt familiarity with a lot of things he said about the music and the community of the scene, but there was a lot I couldn't relate to because it was so far removed from how things were on this side of the continent. The emotions, the violence and crime, the drugs, the solidarity and support systems: I was surprised at how many differences there were.

Once again I have a reason to miss MCA; Adam Yauch would have been someone who could have so eloquently and with such depth of understanding explained the similarities and differences between Levine's experiences and ours. He was a member of the same NYC punk/hardcore scene as me, and he became very well-known not only for his music but for his Buddhism, especially his right livelihood with the Milarepa Fund and the Tibet Freedom Concert series.

I would love to know if Adam ever wrote a review of Dharma Punx, or even if he made mention of it sometime. I wish I could hear his opinion, discuss it with him, learn his thoughts about not just the book but his experience as a counterpoint to Levine's.

Sigh.

"What's the use of this?"

I started a new blog called What's The Use? whatstheuseofthis@blogspot.com for all the whinging and whining, so I can keep this one focused on lighter subjects. Guess I'll be over there from now on until the black cloud lifts.

Sunshine

I hate the way the suns twinkles at me through the blinds, taunting and teasing and torturing, letting me know exactly how lovely it is outside; and here I am inside playing Bejeweled with the music on, the same tinkling tune over and over again, and a deep voice telling me "Good!" when I blow up the shiny colors.

Still Feeling Bad About Adam Yauch, But Worse

I wish some stories weren't so quickly replaced online by the next new thing.

I wasn't interested in fighting with people over the definitions of sex and gender that were brought on by a news story about a transgendered musician who gave an interview to Rolling Stone about nir plans to transition.

I wasn't interested in the furor and subsequent—what word could express the most vicious hatred mixed with PCBs, acid rain, global warming, ricin poisoning, and stupidity?—unfriendly comments after the news that President Obama is now apparently in favor of gay marriage.

I was interested in reading more kind thoughts about the death of a beautiful human being. Unfortunately, I read unkind comments. Now I will have to do a Metta mediation for everyone who spews vitriol online.

Love, Eros, Sex, and Compassion

Many years ago I read the transcript of a lecture called "Love, Eros, and Sex." In it, the lecturer discussed the differences between the three feelings or states of being and gave definitions for the words. For her purposes, the word "eros" described the heady, charged feeling of infatuation, the physiological and emotional chemistry a person feels when she develops a crush, or he discovers feelings of arousal towards a person. This was distinguished from sex, as the emotion of eros wasn't necessarily accompanied by actual physical contact. Love was a third form of intimacy entirely, and as I recall it was defined as the combination of trust and comfort and a deep bond of friendship, although it wasn't divorced from attraction or sexual feeling.

I've been thinking about this recently in terms of my own personal definitions of relationship words like love, and how they work within and outside of my definitions of lovingkindness or compassion.

<<<<<<<<<<dah-di-dah-di-dah—dah-dah--dit--dah--dah--di-dah>>>>>>>>>>>
The editor interrupts this blog entry for a late-breaking METTA news story:

See the difference in the two people's sizes? This escalator is STEEP!

This past Thursday afternoon Two or three Thursdays ago, on my way home from Rego Park, I was on the subway platform about to get on the up escalator when I noticed a woman at the top of the down escalator looking petrified. She was standing at the very beginning of the moving stair, and it seemed she was unable to step onto it. To my delight a couple of other passengers had noticed her and were trying to encourage her, but they couldn't stick around to help because they had to go catch their buses. Fortunately, by that time I had gotten to the top of the escalator, and I went over to her. She was a small and fragile-looking middle-aged woman, and although she was trying to contain her panic she was in obvious distress. I stood next to her and told her we'd do it together, and that when I counted to three we'd put a foot on the stair. I wrapped one arm around her waist and held onto her hand with the other, and on three we successfully made it onto the stair without mishap or even a wobble. Score! Ten for execution, a terrific success.

But the story's not over; I haven't even gotten to the important part yet.

As soon as I let go of her after we'd stepped onto the train platform, I had the hugest grin on my face. Not because she expressed gratitude, which she did, but because helping this woman gave me such a high. She REALLY needed someone to help her, and I was almost glad that the other thoughtful people didn't go the extra mile because it meant I could have the joy of easing her suffering. I was the lucky one who got to help her through her fear at the top, and I got to see her relief and her smiles when we got to the bottom. I couldn't see her pain and not want to relieve it. I HAD to help her; there were no two ways about it.


<<<<<<dah-dah-dah--dah-dah—di-di-di--di-dah--dah-dit--dah--di-dit—di-dah-di-dah-dit>>>>>>
And now back to our regularly scheduled blog entry:
So how does this experience have any correlation with love, eros, or sex? Believe me when I tell you I felt love for the woman at the top of the escalator. The clichéd expression "my heart went out to her" accurately describes how I felt. I was drawn to her, with an overwhelming need to comfort her and ease her pain. I associate that feeling—of caring deeply for another being and wanting in some way to protect, shelter, or comfort—with the idea of love, and believe it is an intrinsic part of that experience.

When I think of the emotion that feels essentially the same whether it's felt towards an animal, a child, or a lover, I call that feeling love. It's a soft feeling, a feeling of appreciation, a feeling of joy, of sweetness, and of warmth. It's that indefinable sensation of magic when watching an animal or person sleeping; you're witnessing their unconscious breaths, and you can feel how precious, fascinating, and vulnerable they are, and you are torn between leaving them to rest and staying to keep vigil over them. It's unfortunate that one of the synonyms I keep getting for this intense felling of caring is "maternal," because this emotion is of course without gender or age (I've seen very young toddlers express this emotion toward turtles, caterpillars, and other larger creatures as well).