Catnap

Skeleton Meditation

Posted on by SomatiCat

I don’t sit and meditate.  I have a monkey mind some might call ADD.  My friends with monkey minds don’t sit and meditate.  Some bike, others run.  One non-moving meditation I actually liked and practiced for a while is Skeleton Meditation.  I don’t remember where it came from.  Probably Tibet or somewhere in Asia.  I’ve read or heard about it and just liked it.

In Skeleton Meditation, I lay down as a corpse (Shavasana if you are yoga person) and observe my body decompose layer by layer, muscle by muscle, till my form becomes a skeleton.  It was peaceful experience.  I liked my clean dry white skeleton on the ground.  Then I imagine a bamboo shoot coming through my eye socket, reaching up and up to the sky.  And I fell asleep peacefully.

There was one major problem for me with this meditation.  At that time I didn’t have much awareness of my own body.  My perception about my body was something like a gingerbread man.  So the entire process to become a skeleton took only a few minutes.  Poof, my leg muscles were gone.

If you are fully plugged into your body, this meditation could take at least hours, maybe years.  This is an ultimate “let it go” meditation.  Then you may let the skeleton go, too. Or you may reconstruct a new body from the skeleton, adding layer by layer.

After decades of training of one kind or another, the latest of which is a full body dissection workshop, I’m much more plugged in.  Tonight, I might be able to meditate for maybe 10 minutes…

Have a happy meditation.

Teacher

Posted on by SomatiCat

We don’t have to go and look for teachers.  Open your heart and you will find yours walking with you.

 

Snow

An old dog and his old human, supporting each other.

Our footsteps have merged on the snow-covered path,

In the winter of our life.

He still teaches me how to walk the life,

As he has been doing so since he greeted me in his full youth

With his shiny black muzzle, now gray.

He loves snow, and this could be his last.

It’s important to have teachers when you are searching for your path, just as it’s handy to have a trail map when you are trekking an unfamiliar territory.   Some people look for THE teacher.  I don’t have THE teacher.  Many teachers guided me to be here and now.   Anybody who teaches me what I didn’t even know I needed to learn is my teacher and I appreciate and respect them.  My teachers include my martial art instructor, my therapists, my acting teacher, my dog, my trainer, my yoga teacher, and go on and on and on.  Yes, you could be my teacher one day and I’m looking forward to learning from you. A teacher does not necessarily give me an answer. My teacher said, “I learn in order to ask better questions.”

I learn in order to ask better questions. ~Gil Hedley

 

Layer of Touch

Posted on by SomatiCat

I wish I had a lover who would allow me to touch.

A quiet night in early summer I would lay you down on the slightly wet grass

My hands will follow the lead of your skin

To the superficial fascia that stores the sorrow and joy of your being and that

Forms your form you present to everybody else but to me.

Lead my hands, My Love, toward your deep fascia that holds

The strength and vulnerability of your physical being.

My hands travel over the ever-changing topology of your muscles

In awe of a wayfarer who has found the land of grace nobody ever touched.

My hands are a witness of the grace unfolding

Layer by layer you allow me to touch,

And then I hold your heart in my hands

And dance the heart dance to the beat of our heart.

Then I will let you go, My Love,

Your peaceful skelton to the waves of the ocean that caress the sands

Where our castles once were.

I had the most profound learning experience in Integral Anatomy Workshop.  This poem is dedicated to “Tony” and  Dr. Gil Hedley and Somanauts.

Mindfulness of Changing Blades

Posted on by SomatiCat

When you find yourself in a new group setting, it’s a great opportunity to learn about yourself.

In the first week, I assumed my usual role in a group.   I was that person who perform mundane tasks in silence.  During the first week, I changed hundreds of scalpel blades for the entire class at the instrument station.

Each table were supposed to be responsible for taking care of the instruments, but there are always some who do it for everybody, and there are always some who just like to pick up a scalpel with a new blade.  The first time I came up to the instrument station holding a scalpel with a dulled blade, I saw scalpels with new blades already there.  I thought “Sweet!” and grabbed some back to my work station. The second time around I tried to change the blades by myself and I couldn’t do it.   Somebody nearby showed me how to do it and still I had a great difficulty and struggled every time.

As a kinesthetic learner, the best way to learn is to do it.  I decided to be the blade person in the group.

Drawing by Tam Tran Valenti

Drawing by Tam Tran Valenti

It is my way of introspection, grounding, taking a refuge from the group dynamics, or just to standing up and walking away from the work station.  I create a safe place for me by assuming an unremarkable role.  It is a way of hiding and anchoring at the same time.

Every time I felt tired, frustrated, or just lost concentration, I left my table and went to the instrument station and placed new blades on scalpels.  My hand learned the subtle angle to slide a blade into the notch and the pressure needed to pull the blade out.  At the end of the week, I was a quick and deadly blade changer.

Then the familiar pattern emerged.

I took dozens of “dirty” scalpels left to the sink to rinse them and found one scalpel with a blade still attached.  The used blade was supposed to be removed and disposed into a medical waste container by the user.  One person failed to do so and tossed the scalpel with a dulled blade into a pile of scalpels.

I could have cut my hands rinsing it.

I felt the familiar rage rising up from my gut.   I felt disrespected and taken for granted.   My historical anger dating back to the old days started to bubble up along with this particular anger.  I’ve been there.

I caught it in time.

Nobody asked me to change the blades.  It was not my job.  I was doing because it served my purpose.  Did I do it because I wanted to be appreciated and loved, desperately trying to fit in the group by being useful?  Then it’s an old pattern.  It won’t work.

I reassessed the situation.  I’ve learned how to change blades expertly.  I’m already an integral part of the group and feeling safe.  I don’t need to hide.   It doesn’t serve me anymore.

By 10th day I stopped being a blade changer of the entire group and only took care of my work station.  When I came up to the instrument station to change MY blades, I saw one person struggling with the blade.  I showed her how to change blades and left for my work station.

Now somebody else is changing blades for the entire group.

Every day is a good day to learn something.

Deep Rollers Club

Posted on by SomatiCat

empirestate

“There are shallow rollers, and there are deep rollers. You can’t breed two deep rollers… or their young, their offspring, will roll all the way down… hit and die. Agent Starling is a deep roller. Let us hope one of her parents was not.”     Quote from Hannibal

Work of deep psychology requires us to roll.  There are shallow rollers and there are deep rollers.  We need to teach the young how to roll deep without crashing.

I used to roll deep.  I guess one of my parents wasn’t a deep roller.  I survived.  I don’t deep-roll anymore.

I believed that I should roll deep, that I should risk crashing and dying, and that the psychological work should be painful.

I suspect that I was addicted to the sense of elation after the deep roll.　From the bottom of self-hatred, we soar to the high of “I am different because I roll deep.”

After all it was millions of rolling without crashing that saved me.

Psychological work is just like athletic training.  You need to train your mind’s muscles to roll deep.  I hope you find a good trainer/coach/therapist, who could teach you how to roll without crashing.

Emptying

Posted on by SomatiCat

Bowl

A man had contracted a then incurable disease and set out for a journey to find a cure. He traveled all over the Western world to find a medical doctor who could cure him. When he realized that nobody could, he started to knock on the doors of philosophers and great thinkers of the West to find out the meaning of the life. Nobody could give him THE answer.

Eventually the illness wasted him and he decided to go home to die. On his way back he met a yogi on board. The yogi said, “Follow me if you want the answer.” He followed the yogi to India without even asking where.
The man waited for the yogi to teach him the meaning of life day after day. Two months passed in vain. Finally, one day he walked up to the yogi and asked, “When do you teach me?”

The yogi answered, “I’ve been ready since the day we arrived here, and waiting for you to be ready day after day.” The man did not understand, since he was eager to learn from the first day.

Then, the yogi told the man to fill a bowl with cold water and bring it to him. He did. Then the yogi told him to pour hot water in the bowl. The man objected, “Any man from civilized world should know if you pour hot water in a bowl filled with cold water, it will overflow.”

The yogi said, “Now, you understand what I mean.”

I try to keep my bowl empty.  Will you?

You can find the original story in 天空先生座談 by  宇野千代

People love to teach what they think they know.  When somebody start to teach what they know and what I don’t know, I listen.  Free pearls to pick up.  I appreciate and take some with me.  I hold it dear till they become part of me.  A good teacher gives only what I could take.

Some have asked me to teach.  When I teach, many start to teach back to show what they think they know.  They are not ready to learn.  I stop teaching.  They don’t get pearls.

About the photo: Taken at Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

Zen of Cherry Blossom

Posted on by SomatiCat

The falling cherry blossoms,

The remaining cherry blossoms are also

The cherry blossoms to fall.

 Haiku by Ryokan Osho

Every year I think this might be the last time to see the cherry blossoms fall.  This particular type of cherry trees only blossom for a week in the spring.  They open and will be gone in a week. If you miss it, you won’t see it till the next year.  And who could be sure that you will be there to see the cherry blossom fall next year.

So I breathe in the almost colorless color of petals, listen to the sound of silently falling petals, and watch the air tinted with millions of white grey pink petals.

This could be the last time.

It’s about

Mortality.

impermanence.

The transient nature of our existence.

That’s exactly why it’s precious.

Love and appreciate your life now.  It could be the last time you see it.

The dog enjoyed the spring day with his full existence.  He is not with us anymore.

Mindfulness of Hannibal

Posted on by SomatiCat

I’ve learned mindfulness of eating from Hannibal Lecter.

I have been an omnivore for the most of my life.  I am still.  Once in a while I cut out certain food following the fad diet of the day, but never followed through. I have vegan friends.  I also have Paleo friends.   I don’t mind what they eat or don’t eat, so long as they don’t force me how they eat.

freshrabbitWhen my dog passed, I stopped eating meat.  It was my mourning.   I never consider dogs and cats as meat.  They are individuals with names.  If a dog is an individual, then what about a cow?   What about rabbits?   On Saturdays In Union Square green market, rabbit meat is sold.  Across the street in Petco, pet rabbits adoption event is going on.  Where does the line between friends (some call them pets) and food lie?

So I just stopped eating the four-legged out of respect to my late four-legged partner of 14 years.  I didn’t specified the term.  I simply chose to go back to the indigenous diet of my old country and see how it would go.  As a Buddhist country, eating four-legged animals was spoken of as taboo.  Fish, fowl, and properly hunted game meat were allowed.

My first “oops” happened when I ordered turkey club sandwich.  It had bacon bits.

Since it was not for religious or medical reason but my personal choice, I didn’t avoid bacon bits.  Wasting the life already given up for the sake of respecting a dog’s life didn’t make sense.

Before my dog’s death, when I went to a diner, I would order “Burger with fries,” or “Philly Cheesesteak”  without thinking much about what I put in my body.  Switching to turkey burger or just salad didn’t work.  Chef’s salad contains processed meat.

This experiment turned out to be a good exercise of mindfulness practice.

Every time I eat, I have to stop and be aware of exactly what I am going to put in my mouth.   I have to be aware what is important for me and why. Then I have to make a fully conscious choice.   I am to be fully responsible for the consequence of my choice.

When I visited my mom in my old country, I forgot to tell her my current diet restriction.  Anyway, special diet as a personal choice is not well-respected in the culture where people experienced starvation a couple generations ago.

In the 2002 film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding,  Toula’s boyfriend Ian is vegetarian.  She tells her mom that Ian doesn’t eat meat.  Her Greek mom understands and says, “Then eat lamb.”

My mom served  “good” beef for dinner.   I knew what it meant to her.   When the country and we were poor, keeping her children well fed was her mission.  Beef was expensive and reserved for special occasions.   So what should I do?   What is my choice?  Do I tell her that I won’t eat meat because my mutt died?  The old woman with a bad hip walked all the way to the butcher shop to buy the gourmet meat.  I didn’t say anything, ate the beef and appreciated it.  It was my choice.

Through this exercise, I’ve learned to be aware of the lives I consume to live.  BLT is not BLT anymore.  A Four-legged creature was killed to feed us.  It is a life taken and given to us.

Ossobuco

I was watching Hannibal (NBC TV show by Bryan Fuller), and one scene hit me.  I will never see Ossobuco in the same way again.  Hannibal was preparing the “meat” for Ossobuco, cutting a leg (it did not belong to four-legged creatures). It was not the scene of cutting a human leg that upset me.  It was the realization that Ossobuco was made of a cow’s leg that shocked me.  I had never thought of a cow’s life taken when I enjoyed Ossobuco.

OSSOBUCO IS PEOPLE #HANNIBALpic.twitter.com/QmJFMtSERW

“I’m very careful about what I put into my body. Which means I end up preparing most meals myself.”  Hannibal says to Will.

I’ve learned mindfulness of eating from Hannibal Lecter.

About Diagnosis

Posted on by SomatiCat

It is useful to have a trail map when you hike unknown territory. It will save you from getting lost at dusk or falling into an abandoned well. When I become familiar with the territory, I’ll know the trail is not the territory, and I’ll start to communicate with creatures in the woods.

DSM V is merely an incomplete and tentative trail map of the vast and unfathomable territory of our psyche.  I hope your therapist is willing to communicate with creatures in the woods without getting lost.

birdy