#11 HAWAII

 I WISH I WAS THERE, as it was ten degrees last night.   Then again, the big island is not always paradise, with high winds, torrential rains, volcanoes (a flying molten rock took out a guy's leg a couple of years ago), and the scourge of colonialism.   Enter Michelle MacDonald, insight meditation teacher and original author of the RAIN guide to mindfulness, and Jesse Maceo-Vega, with his guerilla-style approach.   Jeanne and I sat with both of them for a week at our last pre-Covid retreat, and with Darine, who led this night's meditation.   

Darine began with about a half hour of guided meditation followed by some silent time. Guidance is precise, insight based, and with a sense that the teacher is nowhere but right with you, observing exactly what she is describing.  In this case, noting the touch of the body to the floor, the hand to the body, the mind to it's many objects it believes to own.   "Notice the image we give to sounds," she said, "and consider sound as a vibration, just being all on it's own."  She encouraged us to consider our responses to stimuli; are they judgmental?   Is the process of looking at those judgments in and of itself judgmental?  In other words, the release from the trap of mental constructs is very intimate.  And attainable. 

Following this insight practice was a talk by Steven Smith, Michelle's ex.  His talk centered around Dana, or the Buddhist view on generosity.   He rambled just a bit (where did that piece on synesthesia come from?), beginning with his trip to get a vaccination and just how much damn positivity between and inside human beings there is in that kind of health care.   It could have been a Sunday sermon, but there is a Buddhist take; that generosity clears the mind of ill-will, and allows for leaving attachment to the material altogether. 

The volition of the donor is emphasized in Dana.  In fact all things enlightened and unenlightened proceed from intention in Buddhist practice.   Again, it's intimate; it's this very mind and body I am working with, and learning to gently replace our autocratic tendencies with generosity.   Somehow,  Steven brought up Norman Rockwell, whom I did not realize was depressed and a patient of Erik Erickson.   Steven noted that through his paintings, Normal Rockwell sought to give back for his mental health, to make people happy. 

If we are the problem we all live with, we can also be the solution.   Insight has an unstoppable heart.