How do you want to live?
On mortality, interbeing, and our actions as continuation, plus a guided meditation
Today’s letter is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Paula Garb (more below).
Dear beloved readers,
I am still shedding, still recovering from dengue, but happy to say, progressing. I am slowly coming back to life. My feet are still peeling yet almost totally peeled. A faint trace of rash remains.
Dengue and the start of the academic year have me contemplating some big life questions, purpose questions, existence questions, some of which I am not yet ready to write about.
The big one being: how do I want to live?
After I sent my last post, I realized the connection between my summer intentions and how it ended. I began the summer season exhausted and with the intention of regenerating myself. I ended the summer with dengue and fatigue, and an experience of literally shedding my skin. And guess what?
Shedding is regeneration.
Rest is (part of) how we regenerate.
Sometimes, we really get what we ask for - it might just show up differently than we expected. The universe definitely has a sense of humor - and like the Rolling Stones said, sometimes we get what we need.
Dengue and shedding was, of course, not what I was envisioning. I was imagining more retreat, more joy, more flow. Which, there was that, too. But dengue has forced me to rest more than I could have imagined. It told me rest, and rest more. You think you are ready to walk to work! Ha. Your feet will peel so you cannot walk. Stay put. Don’t move. You need more rest than you think. And then rest more.
I literally have an entirely new layer of skin on my hands and feet. My skin has completely regenerated. It was painful and uncomfortable and sensitive and regenerative and there is something completely magical about that.
Experiences like this are big teachers. Dengue has me thinking about the big life questions, what I am doing, where I want to be, and how I want to be living. It put me in close touch with my own mortality, which is a healthy thing to be in touch with. We only get this one wild and precious life (Mary Oliver1), and all of it can change with one mosquito bite.
In Buddhism there is a teaching of the five remembrances2, which I love. Which are painful. Which are true. Which are so important to remember and be present to. They’re sometimes affectionately known as “the five bummers.”
The Five Remembrances
I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape having ill-health.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
I inherit the results of my actions of body, speech, and mind. My actions are my continuation.We live differently if we remember them.
If we remember that we are of the nature to grow old, get sick, die, and be separated from everything we love…how will we act, in this moment, right now?
It can all change in an instant- one bite, one breath, one turn, one step. Someday, it will - that is an inevitability. When we are in touch with this knowing, this understanding, how does it inform what we do today?
I am going to enjoy my next sip of coffee. Really enjoy it.
I am going downstairs to see what Greg (who is visiting) and Daphne are doing.
I feel inspired to double-down on my spiritual practices, such as these teachings, which remind me of what is important and how I want to be in this world.
I will write this piece and send it out.
Then I will try to keep remembering, keep asking.
Meditation on Interbeing
“Interbeing is not a theory; it is a reality that can be directly experienced by each of us at any moment in our daily lives.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh, 14 Mindfulness Trainings of the Order of Interbeing
A gift I wanted to offer you today is a short guided meditation on interbeing that I wrote for a chapter in a forthcoming book from the Earth Charter Re-imagining Education conference proceedings. The chapter is about pedagogies of interbeing, and before exploring it, I offer an experience of it. I invite you to read or listen! (The recording is slightly different from the text because I riff a little bit). If you read along, I invite you to try reading a stanza and pause to close your eyes or soften your gaze away from the screen.
Begin to notice your breathing. Notice where you notice your breathing, perhaps at the tip of your nostrils, or with the gentle rise and fall of your belly. Take a few moments just to be with your breathing, and feel your body breathing.
Now begin to expand your awareness to notice that you are breathing with everything around you. The oxygen you are breathing has been produced by the surrounding trees and plants. The iron in your blood is the same iron in the earth’s crust, which has become a part of you through the food you eat, is helping your body use the oxygen you breathe to turn it into energy for your cells. As you breathe out carbon dioxide, you are providing nourishment to the plant life around you to absorb. Every cell in your body is made of material that came from stars – you are literally made from stardust.
Can you feel - and really feel, with the sensations in your body, in your breathing - your interbeing with the world around you? Can you sense that there is no separation between your breath and the world? The world becomes you as you become the world with each breath. We are beyond connected- there is no separation, and we completely inter-are with everything around us, with all of life. Through our respiration, we can feel this reciprocity, this interbeing.
Your breath is a constant process of reciprocity with the world, a constant process of regenerating you and the life around you. Each breath brings in fresh life and releases the old; each breath regenerates the air and life around you. Each breath, an act of reciprocity and regeneration.
For more of my writing on interbeing, please check out the article I wrote for the Mindfulness Bell about peace education as unlearning separation and remembering interbeing if you haven’t already!
In memory and honor of Dr. Paula Garb
I learned yesterday - synchronistically, after I had started drafting this post about mortality and living (thank you, dear Fran <3) - that a very dear peace studies/education friend-mentor-colleague, Dr. Paula Garb of University of California-Irvine, has passed away suddenly. It is a huge loss for the southern California and global peace studies and education community. Among her many professional accomplishments, she founded the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at UCI and I encourage you to read more of her incredible story here (I wonder how far along with writing the book she was).
I met Paula over ten years ago when I moved to southern California. When I think of Paula, I think of her incredible ability to connect people and bring us together. She was a connector and community builder. She was also such a champion for peace and an amazing mentor. She is part of the reason I pursued a Ph.D. She really encouraged me in this direction, and I am grateful. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now if it weren’t for Paula. She connected me with so many other peacebuilders and peace educators who are some of the dearest people in my life (some of whom are reading this!). I cannot express my gratitude for these connections and relationships, for her impact on me.
When I think of Paula, I think of how she lived. I think of that last line of the five remembrances: my actions are my continuation. Feeling the ripples of Paula’s actions in my own life, I can only begin to fathom her impact on a global scale, the countless lives she touched and inspired, not just through her work, but through her way of living and being. Her mentorship and friendship. Her radiant, warm hospitality. Her generosity. The connections she fostered, the peace she inspired.
She was truly one-of-a-kind, and we already miss her.
She was not sick for long. The cancer took her quickly.
It can all change in an instant.
Which is also to say:
Do it now.
Whatever peace you can make, do it now.
Write the book.
Send the text.
Mend the relationship.
Hug the person.
Apologize.
Breathe.
When a great peacemaker passes on, it means those of us earthside have to carry on the work. We are their continuation. It is up to us.
Tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us - we are all of the nature to get sick, grow old, and die. If there is something we can do, just do it.
This isn’t to impose a false sense of urgency (I write a lot about pausing and not doing here, after all). But it is to hold both of those together, at the same time, and really with that awareness of:
If this is it (and it is), how do I want to live?
What is most important?
And what is the most important thing for me to do in this moment, right now?
I return to the Mary Oliver poem referenced above (The Summer Day), which ends with:
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?Which is to say: maybe the doing that needs to be done right now is just to be paying attention.
I write a lot about attention (see here and here), and I am thinking a lot about the gift of your attention on these words. I know there are many places you can be putting your attention, and I just want you to know how much of a gift your attention is to me. There are over 200 of you who read these little weekly love letters, and it heartens me to know that beyond these words, there are other souls who hold these ideas and questions with me. I treasure that we are thinking-feeling-being together. I do not hold your attention lightly - I hold it with great reverence and honor, and I am grateful.
With that, dear beloved readers, I am wishing you happy, attentive living this week. Take good care out there. May we live deeply.
With love and care,
Stephanie
Please read the full poem! https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-133/the-summer-day/
https://plumvillage.org/daily-contemplations-on-impermanence-interbeing