Zen and the Art of Peacekeeping

Fear and getting in over my head

Today I'm a guest over at Cheerio Road, one of the blogs I read most regularly. Karen Maezen Miller is a mother, a writer and a Buddhist and she had spoken words of simple truth to me in many moments of confusion. It is an honour to be invited to be her guest.

I'm posting this from my phone and can't figure out how to insert hyperlinks so here is the link in full: http://mommazen.blogspot.com/2009/12/getting-in-over-my-head.html

Enjoy!

Best trip of 2009

I'm arriving a bit late to the party but I want to join the fabulous Gwen Bell's plan to blog about the best of 2009 this December. I've had such an amazing year and I think this is a great way to acknowledge and celebrate that.

First up is the best trip of 2009. As I write this I'm on a train. It's the leisurely (12 hours), scenic and earth-friendly way to get to Auckland. I could fly there in an hour but after all the international flying I've done this year (and in the past decade) I thought I'd balance out my carbon footprint a bit by choosing low carbon travel whenever I can.

Slow travel is my new favorite kind of travel. Trains, bicycles and feet are the means of transport that get me places at a pace that my brain and my body can keep up with.

My favorite trip this year was a hike in Yosemite. I was with my handsome devil and two of his best friends and we were on a short holiday in the Bay Area. I had wanted the holiday to be just the two of us, the ever sociable handsome devil wanted his friends along. My compromise? Bring all the friends you want, just promise to take me to Yosemite.

I had been dreaming of the park ever since I saw photos of it as a child and I was a little worried that my expectations were too high, that I would be disappointed.

I couldn't have been more wrong. The beauty and majesty of the park exceeded even my inflated imaginings. The vast granite cliffs towered over us, calling me to climb them. The giant sequoia trees whispered the secrets that only beings that have lived thousands of years can know, the secrets that everything changes and that everything remains the same.

The little chipmunks followed us playfully along the paths as we hiked higher and higher to Cloud's Rest, one of the highest peaks in the park. We glimpsed deer and coyote, though not bear.

I was as happy as I have ever been, reminded that the earth is bigger and much sturdier than I sometimes give her credit for. We may kill off ourselves and all our fellow creatures but the great granite cliffs of Yosemite will surely survive us all.

Living the questions

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

            Rainer Maria Rilke ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ (1934)

I've read this quote so many times. In the past I've read it and aspired to love the questions, even while my heart and mind seemed determined to yearn after the answers. We live in a society that believes in solutions and that sees the questions not as a place to reside but as a barrier to get through as quickly as possible. Recently I rushed headlong towards a resolution to uncertainty. I leapt to embrace a solution despite the fact that it didn't fit.

I woke up the morning after this moment of decisiveness and felt out of sorts and out of place. I was not ready to live this answer. Instead I decided to keep company with the questions for a little longer. It was a wonderful relief.

At first I wondered whether this was the relief of avoidance. I wondered whether I had simply turned away from the hard questions and chosen to live in blissful, willful ignorance. I wondered how I would know the difference.

But as I sat in meditation one morning I realised that I already knew the difference between avoiding the question and keeping its company. As long as the questions were with me, as long as I was willing to sit with them and observe the feelings, thoughts and sensations that came up for me in their company, I was living the questions. 

Three weeks later I don't know if I am any closer to an answer. But in the meantime living with the questions has turned out to be a refreshing change. Now that I don't feel the terrible pressure of making a choice, I can relax and really pay attention.

Thank you from Faezeh

"Dear All

Sometimes it is difficult to express the feeling with words. I am not sure if through this short letter I can express how grateful I am.

You helped me to strengthen my wings to fly further and sit on the peak of my ambitious. Thank you.

The only thing I can say is, I will promise and will do my best to achieve my goal.

Taking my hand in your warm hands and helping me to pass from this path, will always stay with me.

Again, thank you very much.

Faezeh"

We did it!

Kate and Faezeh at Gender and Criminal Justice Workshop, originally uploaded by frida world.

I always knew we would. But I didn't expect to achieve our goal within 24 hours! I should have known better, your generosity has always been inspiring.

I've emailed Faezeh to let her know that she has the money she needs to apply for her visa and to confirm her place in the university.

We have set her on the path to making her dream come true. Thank you to everyone who helped make that happen, whether by contributing or by spreading the word.

If you'd like to keep up with Faezeh's progress you can expect to see updates here at this blog. If you want to be sure you don't miss anything then you can leave a comment here with your email address and I will add you to the "Follow Faezeh's dream progress" mailing list.

Thank you all again. You've exceeded even this eternal optimist's expectations!

Marianne

Help make one young Afghan woman's dream come true

Faezeh is a young Afghan woman who worked with me as my Human Rights Assistant and is one of the brightest, most capable young women I've ever met.

Her dream is to be the Secretary General of the United Nations and to use that position to really make a difference for women and children who experience poverty, oppression and violence all around the world.

Having worked with her under very challenging circumstances and seen her persistence and ability, I believe she can do it. She has already achieved so much, against the odds, in her own life and in the work she does for the rights of women and children in Afghanistan.

But to follow her dream and to have the most impact she can in the world, she will need to get a university education. Until now she has been the sole income earner for her family so she has not been able to pursue study full-time or outside Afghanistan. But now her brother is finishing university and ready to begin working. Now it is Faezeh's turn.

She has been accepted to a university in the United States and has been awarded a scholarship. But she needs $2000 urgently to be able to establish that she has the means to travel to the US so that she can get her visa.

We need to raise $2000 for Faezeh by 4 December 2009. I know that with the generosity I've always found amongst my family and friends around the world we can do this. Please help in any way you can. If you are not able to contribute now then please spread the word.

How do you know when you are good enough?

Yesterday I sat down with a friend who knows a bit about editing and the publishing industry. She had very kindly made time to read my first three chapters. To my delight she had a lot of really positive feedback. Her critical feedback was also quite delightful, mostly because it confirmed that I already knew what wasn't working and just had to trust my judgement more. She also gave me quite specific feedback on a few things that I didn't know about formatting etc.

Then she told me that she would be calling me next week to make sure I had sent those chapters out to publishers and/or agents. They are ready, she told me. You are ready, she told me. You have done the work, your writing is ready, your story is ready, you are ready. She told me what I had hoped and suspected might be true. But until she told me I hadn't really dared to believe it.

I had the same experience when a best-selling novelist friend told me that my synopsis and query letter were all that they needed to be. She told me they were good and so I believed it. It's hard for me to ever see that anything I do is 'good enough' not because I don't see that it is good but because I can always see how it could be better. When I hear from someone whom I trust that what I have done is good enough then I realise that it is true. Until then, I tend to doubt it.

This isn't limited to my writing. When I left my first job as a corporate lawyer I was surprised to be told by one of the partners that I was hte most promising young litigator he had seen in a long time. I hadn't realised I was that good.

When I left Afghanistan I was equally surprised to hear one of the UN mission leaders say that I was one of the very best human rights officers he had ever worked with. Again, I had been so busy seeing what more I could be doing that I hadn't really noticed how well I was doing.

It's not false modesty. It's more like a kind of perfectionism. I know I'm not alone in this. But I'm learning to look for what is good about what I am doing. I'll still always be the kind of person who wants to do the very best I can whether I'm representing clients in court, documenting human rights violations, teaching yoga or writing a book. But I am learning to see and value all that is good in what I do, to trust my intention and to recognise when I've done well. I'm also learning to invite and then to accept feedback from trusted readers, students, colleagues and friends.

Right now I know that I'm ready to send these chapters out. Even though it is only one small step in a very long process, it's a wonderful feeling.

How do you know when you are ready? How do you come to trust that what you have, what you do, what you are is good enough?

Also - a little story I wrote about finding (heart) space in small kitchen is up over at This Ordinary Day.

The Peacemakers Art: An Unbiased Heart

 

Image of Ishmael Beah by John Madere from Ishmael's website

If you've been reading here for a while then you'll know that I believe in the world-changing power of a story. I believe that listening, with an unbiased heart, to someone's story may be the most important thing we ever do for them. This much I learned in two years in Afghanistan. I also believe that telling our own stories can change our own lives and can open space for wider change in the world. This much I am learning as I find the courage to write my own book this year.

One of the kindred spirits I have met along my own journey to uncover the simple, profound power of story is Laura Simms. I've never actually met Laura in person but we have spoken on the phone and emailed each other at different times over the past three years.

Laura is a storyteller, writer and meditation teacher. She is also the adoptive mother of Ishmael Beah, a storyteller in his own right. If you haven't heard of Ishmael and his story then I highly recommend his memoir, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier about his experiences as a child soldier in Sierra Leone.

Next month Laura and Ishmael will be leading a workshop at Esalen. I went to a workshop at Esalen for the first time this past summer and I was very impressed. The site, in Big Sur, is stunning. From my cabin I had views out across the beautiful organic vegetable gardens to the ocean. I soaked in the mineral hot pools and walked through the beautiful grounds. Even if the workshop I attended hadn't been amazing (it was!) it would have been worth it just to enjoy the rare luxury of peace and simplicity and community that I found at Esalen.

Here is the overview of Laura and Ishmael's workshop:

At the heart of peacemaking is the art of unbiased presence, genuine listening, and the ability to discern meaning. How we communicate can plant the seed of compassionate change or it can be the source of misunderstanding and conflict — in our own hearts and in the world.

This workshop will unfold as a deepening process of working with embodied presence, mindful awareness, and sharing the age-old wisdom of storytelling and visualization to uncover our inherent capacities for accessing tools for peacemaking in ourselves and among family and community, including humanitarian and educational endeavors.

Each day will begin with guided Chi Kung and meditation practice, and continue with storytelling and writing activities that promote unbiased listening and show how genuine presence and story can nurture nonaggression and peace. Each participant will leave with skills and practical information, and a personal story that uses mythic image and experience.

I highly recommend this workshop. I would be there if it were a little closer. If you go, will you promise to report back here about it. A guest post maybe?

Sometimes we have to take the lead

Bikes at the 350 International Climate Action Festival in Wellington, New Zealand.

So the world's leaders have, this week, failed to make progress towards a legally binding global climate treaty. After the excitement of the international climate action day this comes as a sobering wake-up call about just how little we can rely on our so-called 'leaders' to actually lead us. I guess when you made it to the top of your game using one set of rules you might be reluctant to see the rules change. But we need to change the rules. The way we are playing just isn't sustainable.

So what now?

There is still time to tell your Minister for Climate Change (in New Zealand this would be Nick Smith) that you want him or her to take a positive, constructive approach in Copenhagen next month.  Don't be afraid to write to your Minister or Representative. You don't need to be an expert on the topic, they have technical advisors for that. You just need to be honest and clear about how important the issue is to you. They are elected to represent us, so they need to have a strong mandate from us if they are to take bold action. Tell them now that you will support them in the boldness that they need to show to protect our planet's future.

But our elected leaders can only take us so far. We also need to know that we are our own leaders. So I say, let's lead this thing ourselves. There are so many ways that we can reduce our consumption and they are not sacrifices, they are abundant new ways of living and they have so many benefits.

The biggest change that I've made is going car-less. I'm not going to pretend it is always easy making the transition. I have to plan my entire day well in advance and allow much more time for everything. When I teach a yoga class in town it can take up to five hours for the round trip when it might have taken 45 minutes to drive in each direction. I'm learning to put my time on the bus and train to good use and to consider them to be part of my productive day.

But there are benefits. Taking the train slows me down. I can't leave it to the last moment and then jump in my car and whiz into town to teach or to a meeting. Instead I spend an hour on the train where I can brainstorm ideas for a meeting or settle myself in preparation for a class.

On public transport you also have a good chance of meeting people. At least once a week I end up on the train or bus with a friend or an acquaintance and it is a wonderful chance to catch up properly, without interruptions. Not having a car also makes me more reliant on the generosity of friends which in turn feeds my own desire to be generous.

On Saturday morning this week I was in the city on my way to teach yoga. The bus that I was waiting for didn't come. Fifteen minutes later one bus went past with a "Sorry Not in Service" sign up. I kept waiting. Ten minutes later another bus passed, also with a "Not in Service" sign. By now I had called a taxi, because I was going to be late for teaching. I was disappointed because the cost of the taxi was going to cancel out the money I would have made from teaching the class and right now, those classes are my only income.

I jumped in the taxi which, thankfully, had come immediately. As we sped off I explained my plight to the driver. He said that he had noticed there were anxious-looking people at the other bus-stops as well. As he said this I looked out the window at the person he was gesturing towards. I recognised her. She was a masseuse at the yoga studio where I was teaching. I felt certain that she was heading to the same place I was going. I asked the driver to stop the cab. I leapt out and ran back along the road to her, calling out for her to come join me in the cab.

Her face lit up as she recognised me and she ran towards the cab. She, like me, had been waiting for a bus for nearly 30 minutes and was worried that she was going to be late for her first appointment of the day. She had just been sending a little plea out to the universe for a transport angel when I jumped out of my cab and waved to her.

For the second time in a week one of my 'public transport disasters' had turned out to be the perfect opportunity to help someone else out. So this is also going on my list of reasons why public transport rocks. It won't always go according to plan, which gives me opportunities to practice letting go of my preconceived ideas about how my day should go and paying attention to what is right in front of me.

It's not always easy relying on public transport but certainly has it's upsides. It might not be right for you. But wherever you live and whatever your lifestyle there will be ways to make changes that do work for you. By consuming less (less energy, less water, less packaging) you'll simplify your life, reduce your expenses and give the planet a better chance at surviving the next century.

This isn't about feeling bad about our relative privilege. I've finally learned that feeling guilty about my privilege doesn't do anybody any good. Instead I cultivate gratitude for all that I have and I look for ways to share more. I trust that when I make changes that are motivated by love for the planet and all the people on it, those changes will bring unexpected benefits and they won't feel like sacrifices at all.

How about you? How do you feel about the balance between holding our elected officials accountable and taking action ourselves? Do you have your own experiences with making changes that seemed like sacrifices but turned out to be blessings? What do you make of the stalled climate talks? What more can we be doing?

Twitter is my tearoom

Like many other self-employed creative folk I work from home, alone. My biggest current project is writing a book. I’m done with research and until very recently the manuscript wasn’t ready for sharing even with my amazing crew of ‘first readers’. I’m pretty much in the ‘just write it’ part of this process at the moment so there is little need for me to be in touch with anyone about the project. So my working days involve me, alone, writing at the kitchen table.

The working alone part isn’t unusual. Lots of you probably do the same thing. Unlike many of you, however, I also live alone. My handsome devil sometimes makes it up the coast to spend the weekend with me in our magical cottage by the sea, but during the week it is just the seedlings, my PowerBook and me. I don’t even have a cat, for pity’s sake.

Some days I wander down to the village store to post a letter or to buy a loaf of bread (or some chocolate, more often chocolate than bread actually). These little outings may well be the social highlight of my day. Three days a week I teach yoga. On those days I get out of the house, I connect with good people and – not inconsequentially – I get to talk, out-loud, to someone other than myself. But apart from the yoga classes it is not unusual for me to go for an entire day without seeing or speaking to another person.

In this context, Twitter has been a godsend. I think of Twitter as being a water-cooler for the ‘work-from-home’ crowd. I didn’t come up with that metaphor. I came across it on Twitter but like so many water-cooler conversations I no longer remember exactly who said what so I can’t give credit where it is due. If the water-cooler image was yours please claim it in the comments and I’ll happily tip you my hat.

Actually, Twitter is my tearoom. I presume that in the mighty United States of America people actually do gather around water-coolers to chat. But in every office I’ve ever worked in, including those in the remote mountains of Afghanistan, work chit-chat takes place over cups of tea.

Twitter is like a tearoom but better. In most tearooms you have variations of the same conversation with the same person about the problems they are having with their manager/mother-in-law/teenage son. On Twitter I get to drop in on conversations between smart, funny people who are reading the newspaper (so I don’t have to), keeping track of developments in the publishing industry, talking about new forms of activism, sharing links to beautiful images or insightful writing or just being generally hilarious.

I also get to connect with other writers. I can cheer them on when they finally spit out the 1000 words they had promised themselves for the day or when – even better – they hit a major milestone in the life of their manuscript.  They do the same for me. I no longer have to bore my friends with endless Facebook status updates about word counts. On Twitter I've found a whole gaggle of people who think word-counts are a worthy topic of conversation.

Perhaps best of all I can connect with friends who live in the far-flung corners of the globe. Twitter direct messages are like a free, instant text message service that keeps me in touch with my people whether they are in San Francisco, Bath, Portland, Sydney, New York, Kabul or Amsterdam. Where once we relied on occasional lengthy phone calls and emails, now I can chat with them in real time about the trivial details that make up real life.

All of this is fantastic. I feel less isolated as a writer and I’ve learned more about the publishing industry via Twitter than from the whole stack of books sitting on my (unused) desk. I feel more connected to my existing friends and I’m even making new friends. It is great stuff, but it could easily consume my working day.

So here’s how I’ve made Twitter work for me. I literally treat Twitter like a tearoom. I turn the internet to my laptop off when I am writing or working and check Twitter only on my phone. I leave my phone in the kitchen sitting by the kettle. When I break for a cup of tea, while waiting for the jug to boil, I check in. I scan through the last 100 or so tweets that have come in while I was working. Inevitably I’ve missed some. I don’t worry about them. I see them as the conversations that took place in the tearoom while I was in my office. We can’t spend our entire day in the tearoom so we inevitably miss some of the juiciest gossip.

While the tea brews I retweet anything that is so good that I want the rest of the world to have more of it. I reply to any tweets that inspire me and I send direct messages to friends or people who have addressed me directly. If I have time I click through any links that look especially enticing (though never a link in a DM – there is far too much phishing going on for that) and make a note of any sites that I want to go back to later.

I have a giggle, usually, and a smile. I feel part of a community of people all over the world who are working away separately but in harmony with each other. I drink my cup of tea and then I get back to work. 

How do you use Twitter? How do you break up your work day if you work from home? How do you escape the isolation? How do you avoid being sucked into the online distractions?

PS: If Twitter is my tea break then taking the compost jar out to the compost heap at the back of the garden is my cigarette break. I don't smoke (any more) but I still enjoy a moment of quiet contemplation out in the fresh air, a few deep breaths and a little time to let whatever needs to float to the surface of my mind to do so.