The Economics of Male Grief

It's been a bit quiet over here lately. I've been writing about topics that didn't naturally fit here, and also doing a lot of behind the scenes work at zen center. I also planted a flat of seeds, and hope that it warms up enough in the next few weeks to get the garden going. Lots of waiting and needing to be patient.

I have a new post over at Life as a Human webzine. It focuses on male grief and economics. Here's a short selection from it.

"Although it’s probably the case that socialization at school and other places put it into my head that crying isn’t okay for men, the day that solidified it for me was my grandfather’s funeral.

I was 13 years old. As one of the pallbearers, I stood at the end of the line, watching the casket coming out of the hearse. Suddenly, I felt weak in my legs and turned away, just at the time when I should have been reaching up. My uncle screamed something nasty at me, jolting me back into place, to do my “job.” I think I didn’t forgive him for years for that.

Later that day, my grandmother came around and told all of us “Don’t cry. You’re grandfather wouldn’t want you to cry.” She was trying to support us, but this is often how grandma’s support has been – kind of off. Anyway, her words that day, as well as my uncle’s, stuck with me, leading the charge of all the other comments and views I’d heard saying that men don’t cry, that we best be “tough,” no matter what."

On Sandy Hook and Grief

Friday evening, I did a bowing practice for those who lost their lives in the school shooting in Conn. And for all of us, really. Our collective suffering. Our muddled, often contradictory views around violence and conflict. The practice was as follows: chanting the Jizo mantra three times, and then doing a full bow. I did this sequence for 20 minutes, one minute for each of the children murdered. I've long had an affinity for Jizo, and seem to invoke his mantra under all sorts of conditions. Being that one of Jizo's roles is protector of children, it seemed even more apt to do so here. And so I offer this to anyone who is struggling to respond right now, or who wants to do a specific practice to offer support, and/or work with grief.

During the day, and ever since, I've been talking with people about the interconnectedness of killing, destruction, and suffering. And how we need to expand our grief pool. Expand our understanding beyond any particular situation to see how interlocked violence is in our society. And many others across the planet.

I wrote the following on my Facebook page after several posts, and some exchanges about the events at Sandy Hook. We can demand gun control laws, expanded mental health services, and the like. I support those efforts, but they really aren't getting at the roots. As far as I'm concerned, there's no way to get at the roots without grieving the past, and present conditions. Accepting fully what is here and how that came about.

"You want to help stop things like school shootings - expand your grief pool. It's not just about 20 children in CT. It's a whole history of violence and genocide. In the soil. In the very air we breathe. More and more, the past is unwilling to stay submerged. The stories of Native genocide. Of decades of police brutality towards people of color. Of the slaughter of animals to near or total extinction. Of disappearing medicine plants. Of destruction in whatever form in the name of profit, or religion, or racial superiority, or species superiority. It's all bubbling to the surface. Demanding to be dealt with now. We can collectively keep pushing it all down, or we can - each of us and together - learn to expand our grief pool, to mourn all that has happened. Give it the respect that it deserves. And in doing so, help break the cycles that have been built. I see no other way but straight through. And this school shooting can be a place to begin, if you haven't already. Those deaths are tied to some many others. Consciously expand the grief pool you are feeling. Even a little bit. It all counts."

*Image of Pakistani children, living under the threat of American drone strikes, offering their support to those suffering in CT.

A Short Meditation on Grief

I'm having one of those days. There's nothing in particular going on, in fact I'm just sitting in a coffee shop, reading and writing. But for whatever reason, I feel extremely sensitive to the unease within and around me. Earlier, there was a short, but really sarcastic and bitter discussion about the recent elections here in Minnesota. The one guy was talking almost right across the space I am sitting in to two others. I felt the energy run right through me. Then there was a father and daughter sitting next to me, discussing some poor choices she had made, and the disappointment they both felt. And then a woman sat down next to me, and wanted to plug in her laptop. I thought the person on the other side was still plugged in, and as I bent over, said "there's no outlet available." She responded there was, and I turned, saw it, felt a little twinge, and said "I'll just shut up now."

It's easy enough for me to point to a few reasons for this sensitivity. One being that there have been some challenging discussions about the direction of our zen center going on, and I have been in the middle of many of them - doing a lot of listening, some risk taking talk, and some wondering about where it might be all going, and what impact that might have on my practice life. I also have had a few more people in my life flake out on things they said they would do, presenting me the opportunity to either stand up for myself, or let it slide again. And finally, I just think this breath practice work we've been focusing on this fall has opened me up some, but I'm also finding the increased attuned to what's present quality isn't always easy to experience. My own dis-ease is more palpable when it's there, and so is everyone elses'.

I find myself relying more on chanting practice, short mantras like the one for Jizo Bodhisattva, during this time. Even though I'm also doing more zazen than I had over the summer, the slashing through the story lines quality of chanting - even silent chanting - allows for a sense of ease with whatever is return quicker.

Slowing down and taking time to listen to your life's deeper wishes unfolding is not only difficult at times, but it's so completely unappreciated by the culture at large that the alone-ness (sometimes coupled with loneliness) of doing so is striking. Some societies and cultures, in the past and today, have dealt with such pivotal periods more reverentially, which perhaps made the alone-ness each person must go through a little less challenging. I'm starting to see how any loneliness I feel is somehow ultimately tied not to the fact that I don't have a romantic partner right now, or that several friends have dropped out of my life over the past year - no, it's really tied to the fact that there is almost no cultural support for living out the bardo periods of one's life fully, so that transformation may occur.

I think maybe awhile ago, I accepted that for the most part, going fallow for a period of time, being mostly "not productive" in a conventional sense, is not appreciated or embraced. Unlike some people who get lost in their grief and anger over this, I have sought out enough kindred spirits, and learned enough teachings sympathetic to these periods of life, so that I have support to carry me through.

But there's still grief there. I feel it for the time I've spent muddling to get to this point. I feel it for all those who, when faced with an opportunity to listen and be transformed, end up lost in their own fears and confusions and feelings of having no support. I feel it for those who never even reach that point for whatever reason.

I think a lot of people mistake feeling the kind of grief I'm speaking about for depression or some other form of mental disorder. This is one of the unfortunate byproducts of the saturation of western psychology that has occurred. Historically, many people viewed grieving well as a sure sign of an ability to both move on in one's life, as well as an opportunity to transform whatever was lost into the gold of the next stage in one's life. Perhaps, more of us need to return to such a view, to be able to recognize that there is no such thing as awakening without going through deeply felt loss.

p.s. For those interested in poetry, I've posted some new poems over the past week on my creative writing blog. Enjoy!

Gaza Flotillas, Borders, and Living with Grief

Feeling pretty melancholy this morning. I'm sitting next to a pair of middle aged white guys talking about how we should set up a demilitarized zone all around the United States to stop undocumented immigrants. They've even brought up the idea that maybe imposing marshal law across the U.S. might be a good solution. These are two well dressed, business guys sitting in an urban coffee shop - not some armed militia members doing training exercises in the woods.

Yesterday, I had a discussion over Facebook with a Jewish friend and her father about the situation in Gaza. They are defiantly pro-Israel, to the point where her father was speaking about "those terrorists" on the flotilla and how "Arabs" just don't want peace. I didn't take the opposite stance. There was some back and forth about the specifics of this current situation, and then I finally said:

I guess I'm more troubled about how quickly sides get chosen when it comes to Israel and Palestine, and how people rarely move from their positions once sides are taken. Every action gets placed in the wider context of being attacked by the entire other group (i.e all actions by any Palestinians or friends of Palestinians are attacks against all of Israel, or all actions done by Israelis are an attack on all of Palestine (and by extension Islam)). Both statements are false. And this kind of all or nothing thinking is why there hasn't been peace over there for decades. Something has to change.

And the response was more of the same about how Israel is constantly under attack.

There's nothing more I could say. And nothing I could say to the guys in the coffee shop here, who have moved on to discussing something else.

I'm realizing that when these kinds of situations come up, I often am responding out of grief. Grief from an awareness that I can't fix things right now, can't offer the magic words that will help people see things in a larger context. That all I can do is sit and bear witness to the misery of greed, hatred, and delusion around me.

It's a good lesson in conserving energy for a time when something I can do or say might actually have a beneficial impact. But it's painful when you become aware that the walls present aren't coming down right now. That you just have to hang with your grief and sadness, as well as the words and actions around you which are creating more suffering in the world. And yet, this is a major part of our practice, an opportunity we get fairly often to rediscover our true place in this world.

*photo of flotilla activists following their release.