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June 27th, 2025: May All Beings Be Happy

Daisy Mae at the Hafen (harbor)

Most of the chants we offered during services at Zen Center were rather esoteric in nature. Some of them were straight-up in a language that doesn’t really exist, such as the Daihi Shin Darani (which, according to the SFZC chantbook description is “…not translatable. The version we chant is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese transliteration of the sound as expressed in Sanskrit.”) For those chants that are translatable, they are often still rife with Zen imagery and enigmatic riddles (or Koans) that are meant to be meditated on and practiced with, in order to fully understand what it is they are offering.

In time, I came to find great meaning in all of the chants (even the Daihi Shin Darani, which, when chanted in a large group intimately familiar with how to chant it, is actually quite magical). However, one I resonated with right away was–perhaps reasonably so–the most straightforward one: The Loving Kindness Meditation. The version we chanted was a modified version of the Metta Sutta, a chant from early Mahayana Buddhism. The version we chanted was as follows:

This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise, 

Who seeks the good, and has obtained peace.

Let one be strenuous, upright, and sincere, 

Without pride, easily contented, and joyous. 

Let one not be submerged by the things of the world. 

Let one not take upon oneself the burden of riches. 

Let one’s senses be controlled. 

Let one be wise but not puffed up and 

Let one not desire great possessions even for one’s family. 

Let one do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove. 

May all beings be happy. 

May they be joyous and live in safety, 

All living beings, whether weak or strong, 

In high or middle or low realms of existence. 

Small or great, visible or invisible, 

Near or far, born or to be born,

May all beings be happy. 

Let no one deceive another nor despise any being in any state. 

Let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another. 

Even as a mother at the risk of her life 

Watches over and protects her only child, 

So with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things. 

Suffusing love over the entire world, 

Above, below, and all around, without limit, 

So let one cultivate an infinite good will toward the whole world. 

Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, 

During all one’s waking hours, 

Let one practice the way with gratitude. 

Not holding to fixed views, 

Endowed with insight, 

Freed from sense appetites, 

One who achieves the way 

Will be freed from the duality of birth and death

During my first year or so while I was at Zen Center I identified as an adamant Atheist. I thought myself to be proudly beyond the pull of the esoteric, resting my feet firmly upon the rock of logic and scientific legitimacy. So why did I move to become a Buddhist monk as an Atheist? This is a good question, and one that I thought about a lot at the time and since. If you’re interested in reading my blog from my first 6 months living at Green Gulch Farm and Zen Center (one of the temples of SFZC, I eventually went on to live in all three), then you can find that here: Diary of an Atheist Buddhist. That can offer some insight. I think, essentially, that unconsciously I was searching for ritual and the divine on some deep level my conscious mind couldn’t really understand or look at.

Throughout my three years living at SFZC I was able to shake off that stern, limiting belief that I had entered in with–that I had already figured out the nature of reality, and that any mystical exploration was woowoo and silly. Instead, I was opened up and made more whole through the acts of humility and grace that are enacted again and again through monastic practice. The first foot in the doorway towards the transformation away from critic to curious explorer of possibility was the Loving Kindness Meditation.

It offered medicine–it was, even from early on, a chant I could offer whole-heartedly. It became a genuine prayer every time I recited it (without myself necessarily noticing it as such). The suffering in the world, now and always, is an immense burden on the soul. It is one of the reasons humans often seek religion, ritual, mysticism, or poetry–these are balms, guides, inspirations, and something to hold onto as one navigates the misery of the world and, perhaps, our own lives. The Loving Kindness Meditation was a balm for me. To be able to send out with my whole chest and diaphragm a wish for goodwill to the world–surrounded by people who were doing the same–it felt encouraging, fulfilling, and hopeful. Similar to the feeling of joining a protest or a civil rights workshop. It was good to not only be reminded of hope, but that there are others who are also hoping and working towards a better world.

The wisdom offered in the Loving Kindness Meditation is by no means unique to Buddhism. The sentiments of living humbly, generously, and kindly can be found in any religion. One of my favorite figures from Christianity is Saint Francis–and it seems to me that his saintly actions and insights could be boiled down to the essence of living humbly, generously, and kindly. He was a man that lived in a mystical relationship to God and life. 

I’m planning at some point to write about the influence that mystical poetry has had in my life (including the poetry of Saint Francis!). I’ll just quickly add here that one of the greatest gifts the mystics gave me was the realization that the quest for humans to be good to the world and one another has always existed in the world–it just has had different shrouds and skins depending on the cultural and historical context of the seeker. As my Zen teacher Fu used to always say “Different fingers pointing to the same moon”.

Something I love about the Loving Kindness Meditation is its versatility. It can resonate with anyone, no matter their own cultural and historical context. It is timeless and timely. It is a guiding force in my life, and it is, to this day, the most common prayer I offer for this world.

I am someone who can be crippled by guilt and shame. This can happen when I myself act in a way not in accordance with my ultimate goal of living with grace, respect, and compassion. This can also happen when I witness the intense, immense suffering of other beings in the world and contrast it to the happiness and ease of my own. I know I am not alone in this–there are many empathetic people who are suffering due to the suffering. 

Compassion is a wonderful, necessary, tool–but it needs to be paired with wisdom. This is the rub, to make sure that feelings and insight are working hand in hand on all things. I have mentioned in past posts other prayers and exercises I have garnered in order to create space for gratitude in my life and grace towards myself. These are some of the many tools that we accumulate in our lives that need to be used in different situations and circumstances. It can be helpful to have an expansive toolbelt so that, no matter the situation, you are able to address the issue. 

It is difficult for me to live this rather beautiful, simple life here in Germany against the backdrop of the news of immense suffering in the world–perhaps most keenly in America, my home. I am afraid of complacency in happiness. I am afraid that in not experiencing suffering, I will lose a tether towards an abounding compassion for all beings. Compassion, after all, etymologically breaks down to mean “to suffer/feel strongly with”. It is one of the great gifts of suffering–that it provides insight and tools to those who are also suffering, and encourages one to help them.

So, in a fear of not suffering, my mind creates suffering. I tell myself I do not deserve comfort and joy while so many others–human and non-human–are suffering. This, ultimately, is not a useful tool. Although it has whiffs of wisdom about it, it is not true wisdom. Because, ultimately, my suffering does not alleviate the suffering of others. In fact, being steeped in a mindstate where I am unhappy actually only yields unhappiness for others. I become more reactive, less kind, less gentle, less spacious in my interactions with those close to me. That in and of itself is worth the work of addressing this conundrum.

So, how do I maintain a fire and zeal for justice while living a comfortable life, without myself generating self-suffering that need not be there? How do I avoid complacency in happiness?

There is a snide joke often passed around Leftist meme accounts about “thoughts and prayers” being all that’s offered during a disaster of some sort. The contempt for the offering of “thoughts and prayers” has its merits because, a lot of the time, that is all that’s offered. To only off-handedly offer a sentiment of “I’m thinking about this and it bothers me…but not enough to actually do anything about it” is vacuous. This is, of course, most often attributed to politicians making a statement about gun violence or a natural disaster in America (but then doing nothing to actually prevent gun violence or climate change). To a large extent I agree that only offering “thoughts and prayers” is not enough.

However, this does not mean that offering “thoughts and prayers” is entirely void of meaning. In fact, it’s the opposite. It is a meaningful tool–as long as those thoughts and prayers are paired with some sort of action. It’s like a genuine apology–it is nice when someone apologizes, but then if they do nothing to amend the behavior that led to the affront, then the apology is meaningless. Prayer needs to be an offering to something greater than you as a moment of respite, prioritization, insight, and gratitude. 

For me, the prayer offered by the Loving Kindness Meditation is one that directs my whole life. It is the essence of what I wish to see in the world, and the manner in which I want to direct my life’s energy. It is the framework (along with the Bodhisattva Vows, which I’ll address in another post) that structures my ambitions and goals. To me, the meditation is a vow. I aim to live my life, earnestly, so that all beings can be happy, joyous, and live in safety. It drives my politics, my work choices, my art. It is where most of my free income goes (I honestly have a problem with donating money we don’t really have). It drives my near decade of being a vegetarian (largely vegan). It drives my near revulsion to consumerism and the fact that almost none of Michael and my money goes towards “stuff” (trips and food is where it mostly goes). Any stuff we do buy is mostly bought second-hand, or with great consideration from where it is sourced–and in this way I do not let myself be submerged by the things of the world or be burdened by (monetary) riches. These are all things that I’m proud of (but hopefully without being too puffed up), and they’re all veritable actions taken to make the world a better place and live in accordance with the prayers that I offer.

My life energy has been driven by the vows of the Loving Kindness Meditation. This has led to my “career” being eclectic, to say the least. There was a big shift that occurred for me while at Zen Center, guided by the Buddhist wisdom I was inundated with. I became very aware of and uncomfortable with the meritocracy and rapacious capitalistic drive of contemporary American culture. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do for a career anyways, and so instead of chasing after acclaim and progress, I kept making choices based on my vows and my interests. My work has been mostly defined by a deep desire to save beings. This has mostly manifested in work with children, gardens, and art (or some combination thereof). This has been a nurturing path. And although I definitely still struggle at times with the idea of “success” as it was planted into me as a child by American society, and the fact that I’m in my 30s and not making a lot of money or climbing any sort of career ladder, I am increasingly relaxing into this path. This was the focus of therapy for a year, in fact–why was I content in my life, knowing that I made the choices that were best for me and my soul, and yet feeling like I was falling short? I needed the help of a therapist to untangle the nasty rats nest of Capitalistic expectations.

And so now to untangle the nasty rats nest of conjuring up suffering in my own lovely, simple life as a reaction to the suffering of others. I think the answer rests in the Loving Kindness Meditation. The response to suffering is not to suffer yourself, but to work towards the happiness and joy of others. It is to shift from a negative mindset focusing on what is wrong towards a positive one of what can go right. This will take practice. For someone who has a natural proclivity towards anxiety and depression, the most natural course leans towards stewing in the worry and hopelessness. As addressed in a previous post, the best way to tend towards such dark and heavy states of being is to treat it all with love and patience. It is difficult. It is truly a practice–something that must be practiced and worked on, consistently and constantly. 

This practice, this effort of working towards the light and not the dark, is a near Sisyphisian task these days. There is a real awareness that only offering “thoughts and prayers” does nothing for the people starving in Gaza. Thoughts and prayers do not stop the world from warming as we experience yet again the hottest summer on record. Thoughts and prayers do not help the animals living in abysmal, abhorrent conditions in factory farms or testing facilities. Thoughts and prayers do not stop masked, uniformless thugs from rounding up and kidnapping Latin immigrants regardless of their legal status (or even citizenship) and shipping them off to detention centers without due process, sometimes even in foreign countries. Thoughts and prayers do not stop the egregious prison industrial complex or sex-trafficking. Thoughts and prayers do not assuage the power lust of greedy, short-sighted, selfish men like Netanyahu, Trump, Musk, and Putin. Thoughts and prayers do not stop congress from passing legislation that ruins the lives of millions of Americans as they cut Medicaid, try to sell off public lands, and gut our education system. Thought and prayers do not make the draconic Billionaires wake up and realize that enough is actually enough. 

But I can live a life in defiance to the idea that that is how it has to be. I can utilize thoughts and prayers as touchstones and guides towards morality and justice. I can live a life where I choose to be kind, and work hard towards helping those I can in the ways that I can. I can and do choose to work towards a world where ALL beings are happy, joyous, and live in safety. I will not in anger or hatred wish harm to another (knowing that if those that I come close to hating were in fact happy, joyous, and safe, they would not need to spread hate and violence themselves). I will, to the best of my ability, suffuse love over the entire world and be strenuous, upright, and sincere. Now, the work really rests in allowing myself to be easily contented and joyous.

There is much to be contented and joyous about in Germany. My life here is simple.  I am supported by my husband to pursue what is interesting to me, both financially and emotionally. I spend my days working on reading, writing, and art. I can work on projects that feel like action from prayer. We just got the keys to a new apartment–surprisingly spacious by German standards and yet still in our tight budget. There is an abundance of nice vegan/vegetarian food in the supermarkets and in the restaurants. The food is generally of a higher quality and cheaper than in the US. We have yet to have a beer that wasn’t delicious. Wine is ridiculously cheap. Seemingly every other weekend is a four day weekend. We can take trips relatively easily because Michael is given an enormous amount of PTO. We don’t have to worry about medical bills. We are walking and biking a lot more. The weather around here is pleasant, as of yet untouched by the heat waves dominating a lot of the rest of the world. Michael is learning how to sail and play kayak polo. We are both working on learning German. We met some nice people who invited us to use their Kleinengarten (a unique community garden space) whenever we’d like. We’re able to bring our dog with us almost anywhere. We’re traveling Europe and learning the nuances of the Autobahn and the trains. There are, of course, difficulties and peculiarities to Germany that we’re navigating (the mail system here is always a bother and we need to provide our own overhead lights for our new apartment I guess? Those are not included, we learned), but it is nice. It is pleasant. It is fulfilling.

I am one of the beings that is allowed to be happy, joyous, and live in safety.

I wish for anyone reading that you too may be happy, joyous, and living in safety.

Reading now: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and The Sunlit Man by my boi Brandon Sanderson

Listening now:  A lot of Aurora. Her music is medicine for me right now, undoubtedly. Also a lot of Rage Against the Machine, who are offering their own sort of medicine.

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June 13th, 2025: To Be Safe, Healthy, and Loved

Langestraße in Greifswald

There is a prayer, of sorts, of gratitude I try to give as often as I can.

Whenever I can remember, I like to express–and feel deeply–gratitude for simple matters that are, in fact, profound: I am healthy, safe, and loved. 

When I was a child I had one of those awakenings of consciousness that are so wonderfully common in childhood, and often sought after as an adult through intense effort. I was experiencing a headache, probably due to dehydration, as I never drank enough water as a child. In Colorado, where I grew up, if you do not have a constant supply of water, you will get dehydrated. There quite simply is not enough moisture in that environment to go around. That’s why there’s the stereotype of Coloradans traveling everywhere with their Nalgenes. It’s an accurate stereotype. Coloradans carry their water bottles everywhere because they do not want to turn into sandpaper. Anyone who has lived in Colorado for any extended period of time ends up building this habit, and I still feel quite nervous if I’m out and about and don’t have my comfort Nalgene with me, even though I now live somewhere quite cool and humid.

As a child I had not yet fully wizened to the need to be hydrated. Drinking water was a chore, and one done begrudgingly. So a headache was not uncommon. On this particular day, as I was carrying around this particular acute, persistent, present pain of a headache, I remember looking around at friends who were playing–loudly, freely, roughly, with their brains demanding much less of them than mine was of me. As I looked around I had the clear thought: Those kids don’t know how good they’ve got it. They should be happy that they are not in pain. And then, I had the rather wonderfully self-aware thought: How often, when I’m not experiencing a headache, do I myself really feel grateful for it? A headache is something that is easy to not think about when you aren’t currently experiencing one. Any ache is like that, I suppose, if it is conditional. I set a resolution then: that I would notice and feel grateful for the times when I was not experiencing a headache.

Thus, the first component of the lifelong prayer was born: I became grateful to be healthy.

This resolution further edified as I began to become more aware of the impact that physical ability has on the lives of others. There was a lovely girl at my grade school who was in a wheelchair from an early age due to an ATV accident. There was another woman early in my life who was in a wheelchair–she dated one of my dad’s best friends. She was a painter, and would take me with her to paint rivers and landscapes. I recently remembered her again, and was surprised I had forgotten her. I have no doubt that she was an early influence for me as an artist–it was wonderful to have someone who validated and nurtured that creative curiosity as a small child (notably someone who wasn’t a parent, which adds a certain extra gravitas to the encouragement). Coincidentally, both of these people were named Amanda. 

I’m sure there were many other people I had encountered as a child who had physical disabilities, but I remember the two Amandas the most. I think part of the reason I remember them so well (apart from them both being named Amanda, which does make it easier) was that they were both so kind, full of fervor, and, as far as I could tell as a young child, still so capable to live their lives very fully. The fact that they were in chairs added to their personalities, but I did not consider it to be their personalities.

I also remember feeling grateful that I could live a life where I did not have to worry about limitations in my body in the same way that I was sure they did. I never had to worry about there being a ramp to get in or out of a building. I never had to worry about special accommodations to engage in the activities I loved. I became more aware of my functioning legs, and this absence of worry in my life. There was an increased awareness that I seldom acknowledged my healthy legs, and how they just worked without me needing anything more from them. 

As I grew, so did the increasing awareness of the fragility of health in life. With getting older it is inevitable that throughout life one encounters many people who are well and then they are not–and they may not ever be well in the same way again. I saw people become sick and die, or become injured and have it completely transform their lives. I further became resolute to appreciate the health, strength and youth of my body–and the functionality of all of its components. 

Of course it is quite natural and right that we don’t consistently notice all that we aren’t. It would be incapacitating to live in a constant state of what is not. As many Zen teachers would encourage, it is appropriate to practice constantly abiding in what is. However, most Zen teachers would probably continue on to attest that in noticing what is we are also noticing what is not (and vice versa). As with all things, a manageable and appropriate balance (or, middle way, if you will) needs to be reached. 

Living in a monastic setting with extensive time for meditation was a lovely environment to play with this balance of attention, as well as to deepen my appreciation for my body. As is common, my mental state was rife with competing opposites. For while, as a child, I did set the intention to be grateful for my body–I eventually went through adolescence and found a whole host of reasons why my body was not enough. There are extensive explorations elsewhere that I’m sure any reader has encountered about the ubiquity of modern teen girls being actively encouraged to hate their bodies. This was a phenomenon I was not exempt from. There were many reasons, starting in puberty and carrying forward, that I was unhappy with my body. It was a deep unhappiness, as it is with many. It was an unhappiness that is subversive and pervasive. 

One of the many things I worked on while sitting hundreds of hours on the meditation cushion during my three years living in monasteries was trying to meet that developed hatred with love. I talked in my last blog post about the insights and practices I undertook during that time to transform the hatred that my mind felt towards itself. To a large extent, I was able to transform my relationship with my anxiety and depression through practicing self love. I also worked on accepting the rest of my body through radical self love too.

One of my practices that I developed then and still carry with me today is giving gratitude to my organs. The organs are, of course, a vital component of what keeps us alive and healthy, and are often an unsung hero. Now this is potentially too much information, but I find it charming and pertinent, and so I will talk about it nonetheless: one of the arenas in which I practiced this self love most was in the bathroom. If I just had a healthy bowel movement (which I often did during those days–I ate large bowls of salad and fresh farm greens daily), I would always pat my core and give a little “thanks” to everyone in there that made it happen. I would thank my stomach, my small intestine, and my colon. I would thank them all for doing such a good job for absorbing nutrition and removing waste. What a wonderful thing! It’s still something I try to do, although, admittedly, with less regularity. It feels good to give those parts of me that appreciation.

I was very fortunate to have had little body pain while meditating (another thing to be grateful for, at the time and now). A lot of my fellow monks experienced knee pain, sciatica, lower back pain, and the like while they were meditating. For those who have not attempted to do so and may not know, I’ll let you know that sitting in perfect posture, unmoving, sometimes for hours (or, at times, days) on end, is not an easy task on the body. It requires constant love and attention while doing so. If you have a pain while holding the posture for an extended period–with absolutely no mental distractions–that pain is felt. 

The only pain I regularly experienced was that of a wiley rib. Due to my work at the time as a gardener (most of which was spent bent over weeding) and my blossoming love of creating art (most of which I did on the floor), my posture while not sitting was almost always spent hunched completely over. This encouraged one particular rib to consistently slide out of place, agitating the muscles around it quite a lot as it did so. I did see a chiropractor quite regularly to help me get that rib back into place. However, unless you combine chiropractic work with a lot of other work to mediate the situation (like not consistently swinging between living either hunched over or ramrod straight), then the bones just end up sliding on back to what they were doing before the adjustment. 

I would sit on my cushion and my muscles around the unruly rib would be upset with me and that displaced rib. They’d be seizing, clenching, spasming. I found that something that helped calm those muscles, quite actually, while meditating was sending them some very concentrated love. I actually ended up picturing the convulsing muscles as a very large floppy-eared rabbit (who knows why). I would picture myself holding this large rabbit in my lap, and as my muscles would contort, so would my mental rabbit. I would then hold, stroke, pet, and soothe the rabbit, just as I would a real rabbit who was experiencing pain. I would do my best to tend to it. I sent all of that energy to the muscles, and they would actually relax. They would feel tended to just as a scared or hurt animal would. Sometimes all it takes to heal is to be known.

I am grateful I have lived the majority of my life with some amount of awareness and practice towards appreciating the health of my body. It is not always easy for an anxious mind to do so, so I’m glad I have some tools and habits in place to counteract the inevitable bouts of hypochondria that arises from time to time. As I’m aging, I’m confident that practicing gratitude for my health will only become more and more of an acute need. In my life now, there have been many intense health-related tragedies for those I care about. My husband’s family is undergoing a lot of trials around health right now, ones that are huge and scary: cancers, huge falls with broken bones, even a recent death of someone dear due to illness. The reality of the fragility of health is something that helps inspire the triadic nature of my prayer. It is worthwhile, when well (even relatively so), to give gratitude for that wellness. It is also wonderful that there are two other components to the prayer that are just as potent as the gratitude for health that can offer strength and reassurance as well.

As with all of the good trinities, it is undoubtedly wonderful to have all three in tandem. To have health, safety, and love is the paramount of existence. It is a feast to have all three. There are so many people in the world who only have two, one, or even none. So to know that I have all three in abundance is a gift beyond measure. There is also comfort in knowing that if and when my health declines, I have established practices to find just as much fulfillment in the other two aspects of the gratitude prayer.

As for feeling grateful to be safe–well, it is no small matter to be safe. This is the most recent addition to the prayer. This is, I believe, the easiest one to forget about day to day. It is a true privilege to live a life that is mostly safe. 

In my early twenties I–along with many other white people in contemporary America–began to wake up to my white privilege. It was an unnerving experience, to say the least. It was realizing that we are already living in a sort of dystopia–only I hadn’t noticed because I am in the privileged class. We are living in the Hunger Games and I am a citizen of the Capitol. When reading dystopian novels growing up, I was always interested in the psychology of the privileged elite in the stories–how did they not grasp the reality of all of the suffering and sacrifice that went into making their lives so comfortable? To then realize that I had, myself, been subject to that same ignorance was upsetting. It made me angry, because I came to understand that I had been conditioned into that ignorance entirely without my willing consent. It was the unsettling realization that the authors of those books wrote those dystopian stories not as a warning of what could come, but as a reflection of what is occurring now. 

I would hear rap songs and would think almost nothing of the repeated, insistent, angry lyrics crying out about the brutality of living in a black body in America. How could that expressed pain be consistently filtered out in such a way that I never really noticed it? Around the time of the awakening around my white privilege, I watched Straight Outta Compton. Watching that movie came at the right time in my life, because it fully contextualized for me why NWA was saying “fuck the police”. It wasn’t because they were wanting to sound cool and edgy, in the way that so many of the (primarily white) kids I grew up with said it out of teen angst (which, regrettably, I think was my unconscious take on it for a lot of my life). It was because police were systematically, ruthlessly, violently, endangering them and those they cared about. Around that time is when I also woke up to the reality of the new Jim Crow and the (further) dystopian reality of our industrialized prison system in America. 

There are a lot of hateful people living in America, and that hate is only spreading, growing stronger, becoming more wild and out of control. Those hateful people are ignorant. They are in pain, and they blame their pain on those who are different from them. They do not know (either willingly or unwillingly) how connected their pain is to their hatred. It is a hard thing to look at. There are so many bodies who cannot exist comfortably in American society today–immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ+ folks, black and brown people, Asian people, native people–to name a few. 

I could recognize for a long time the privilege of safety I had over people in other parts of the world. It was always evident that I was living a safer life than the Iraqi and Afghani civilians during the “War on Terror”, or the child soldiers in Sierra Leone, or the slaves to the cobalt mines in the DNC, or the Syrian refugees, or the Ukrainians, or the Palestinians. There are so many people in the world who don’t have access to medicine, clean water, and healthy food; there are so many people who have lived for years in active war zones–afraid of the very real possibility that at any moment they could be shot, raped, or bombed. It was easy to see this and feel safer than all of that. It is still worth feeling grateful for that.

What I was less prepared for was the matter of how unsafe so many bodies were in the US, the “land of the free.” I had been taught and fully believed that Martin Luther King Jr. and the other civil rights activists of the 60s had solved racism in America. I had believed that our government wouldn’t give us poisoned food, that they would protect clean water and air, that they would take care of its people. Some do have that privilege, if they have the money and the historical precedent to have access to it. A lot of Americans don’t. There are Americans without clean drinking water, due to corporate overreach in the negligent disposal of chemicals, or the failure to upgrade lead pipes in whole cities, or the fracking for gas contaminating wells. There are Americans who are hungry, who do not have access to any food other than fast food, or survive off of increasingly meager food stamp allowances. There are Americans who are constantly sick and dying because they are denied health coverage or cannot afford their prescriptions. There are people who are being raped and killed for being LGBTQ+. There are children constantly being shot in their own schools. There are black and brown bodies being shot in the street or hijacked into vans to be shipped off to prison camps–all committed by “officers” who not only do so without due process, but who actually seem to disdain it. America is not the land of the free that I had thought it was as a child.

Not only are people unsafe in America, but increasingly I learned (and am still learning) about how much the US is responsible either indirectly (or, seemingly more commonly,) directly to the suffering of those I have witnessed abroad. It is another level of shame to grow up feeling anguished at the suffering of the world to then realize that your government and society was largely responsible for that suffering, almost everywhere. Whether it be due to abstract wars, proxy wars, CIA-initiated coups, disdain for climate change initiatives, corporate greed and capitalistic rapaciousness–a lot of the world was not liberated by the American hegemony, but enslaved to it. I imagine I’ll write a more thorough post on this later.

Now, of course, I have lived with the fear that comes with having a feminine body. That fear is real, and valid, and should be honored. 81% of women have reported being assaulted at some point in their lifetime. That is a real danger. I am fortunate, again, in that any fear I’ve felt in my life due to being in a feminine body has been fleeting. 

All of this is to say that I am waking up more and more to the fact that there are many, both in and out of America, that do not feel as safe as I do in my day to day life. Meanwhile, for most of my life, I have felt safe–I was safe. I have only lived in a couple of places where I regularly locked my door. 

So to feel safe is something that should be relished. It is a wonderful, unique privilege to be able to sleep soundly at night–well fed, hydrated, without fear. For most of my days, it is easy to ignore the privilege of safety. It looks like just going about my life like normal. It is easy to not notice. It is a wonder to do so.

As for the last element of the prayer, it is perhaps the easiest one to remember. It is easy to give gratitude for love. When you have safety and health, it is common to push the awareness of those two to the back burner (which, of course, is why practicing a mindful appreciation of them is so valuable). Love is something that is more present because it often involves others, and they can and do offer reminders often of how that shared love enriches one’s life. I think there are very few people in life who truly live without love. I know from my experience, it is not always the love you’d like, or the love you’d expect, but it is there nonetheless. 

Most people experience love from their families. It may be complicated, and is often fraught with growing pains for all members. Familial love is of course wonderful because it is often the most unconditional form of love. There is some unique aspect to familial love where it is not uncommon to love each other for no other reason than that you are family. 

For those who truly do not feel love from their families, they often at least have love from friends. Friendship is a wonderful love, oddly, because it is conditional. Friendship is a love that is earned, and is a love that teaches and encourages immense patience, empathy, and humility. Friendships are a love that must be tended. Because friends are not beholden to love you, as family is, this love can have a certain potency. It offers validation that you are lovable on your own merits. It is wonderful to be chosen to be loved.

Finally, there is, of course, romantic love. This is a love that is both conditional and unconditional. A love that requires the foundation of platonic love, but then deepens. It is a love that transforms from one of choice to one of commitment. 

Of course, as with everything, love is a spectrum. There are many family members who feel like friends, or friends who feel like lovers (I lived many years where my friends felt like lovers, which was confusing and hard, but also singularly lovely–a ripe environment for poetry, certainly). I am currently married, and my husband is all three, undoubtedly–he is my family, my best friend, my love. It is a wonderful thing that there are so many shades of love that we get to navigate in our human experience.

It is rare for a person to have nobody to love, or nobody who loves them. However, it can be painful to not be loved in the way that you desire. For those without families, there is a great ache. For those without friends, there is a great hollowness. For those without romance, there’s a great yearning (so long as you’re not aromantic, of course). If you are someone with all three, or a mixture thereof, as I am now–again, appreciate the feast of love you have. 

Love is something that is so necessary for our human experience. The seemingly biological necessity of love is a great, intricate, wonderful puzzle for ethologists and anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists–why is it that the human animal necessitates love? I have a few thoughts on this that perhaps I’ll share a different time (I was an anthropologist and ethologist for a while, at least in school), and it’s fascinating. Regardless of why, it is a real need. Humans need it as much as we need safety and health. In fact, there seems to be stories near constantly of people who do not have safety or health but are still fulfilled in life because of those they love.

As always, of course, there is also the immense, ineffable potential of self (and divine) love. To love yourself and to be loved by yourself. To love the universe in you and to be loved by the universe in you. I do believe that the best way to honor the foundation of all love, this divine love, is through gratitude.

So, for now, as always, I am immensely grateful to be safe, healthy, and loved.

Reading now: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by my boi Brandon Sanderson

Listening now: Spotify’s Classical Essentials. It helps get the creative juices flowing for me, and is what I was listening to while I wrote both the last blog post and this one. Also a shoutout for my brother Will’s (or Jabwow Babe’s) Soundcloud–If you want something a bit more bumping, as the kids say.

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June 6th, 2025: What are My Body and Mind Made Of?

Hiking with Daisy Mae in the Austrian Alps

As I’ve traveled across oceans and continents to find a new home here in Germany, I’ve found myself returning to my body quite often. As my Zen teacher used to tell me, this body is my home. She assured me that once I found a home within myself, that I would always be able to return to it, wherever I was. This has been a teaching that I have thought about a lot–both while I was still living at Zen Center and building (or perhaps, remodeling) my home within myself through hours of meditation–and while I’ve traveled from place to place trying to find my home out in the wide-world since. 

There are many moments of great turbulence in my mind that make it hard for it to feel like home in here. As I’ve aged I’ve noticed my nigh lifelong companion anxiety has shifted forms throughout my life. She used to be disperse, nebulous, constricting. I wasn’t sure what was going on most of the time inside that made me so uncomfortable, all I knew was that I couldn’t breathe. I was nauseous. I was tired. As I became more and more self-aware through years of therapy and that one concentrated period of monastic living, the anxiety began to take a new form. She was no longer quite as much of an unknown, yet constant companion. She began to have names, and shapes. 

I had a friend and dharma sibling at Zen Center who would talk about how they envisioned all of their demons as really just Bodhisattvas wearing demon masks. A part of their process of remodeling their inner home was to build a large conference table for all of their inner Bodhisattvas to sit, both disguised and plain. They wanted to give all parts of them a chance to be heard and understood. Why are you dressed like a demon? What are you trying to scare away? Is this to protect me? Do I need you to still protect me like this? Moderating over all of these discussions was my friend’s inner higher-self, helping to mediate, encourage, and placate all of the rowdy voices who demanded to be heard at that table. This was an idea I found inspirational at the time, and do still. I don’t know if my friend at the time was aware of the modern psychological model of Internal Family Systems or not. Regardless, when I came across this model later in life, I recognized it immediately. 

Through learning about the Buddha’s radical teachings of compassion, I began to realize that my anxiety (and depression) were things that were calling out for love…but instead of heeding that call, I hated them. This makes sense. When I’m anxious, my mind is chaotic and loud. This chaos made it so that I had little filter between my unconscious thoughts and my conscious thoughts. I had (and have) a hard time mitigating emotions while anxious. Any maturity I had worked hard to gain often quickly went out of the window. I could only live in a reactive state. I did not like who I was when I was anxious–I was rude, condescending, snappish, petulant. It makes sense to not like that which made me not like myself. 

In fact, not only were the anxiety and depression things that I hated about myself, they were born from parts of myself that I hated. Why did I become anxious? Why did that anxiety only bring out the demons? It was because the demons themselves were the source. It was a bit of a nasty negative feedback loop. I was afraid of being seen as incompetent and stupid, so I instead became rude and condescending. I was afraid of being undervalued and underestimated, and so I instead became sharp and petulant.

Through my friend’s insight of their inner table, I began to look at my own. Who were these demon-disguised Bodhisattvas sitting here, throwing trash around the room, demanding to be heard? Why were they acting out in such a manner? It became clear to me–they were there to protect me. They were there out of love. Just as my friend said–they were not actually demons–something born from a gross and terrible part of myself. They were instead Bodhisattvas, beings of ultimate compassion, wearing the costumes of demons. At some point in my life, I felt it was necessary to ask my inner Bodhisattvas to put on a demon mask to scare away the bad guys. The problem was, I never then asked them to stop. 

So how do you ask your demons to stop? The most radical (and, in my experience, effective) way to do so, is to show them absolute compassion and empathy. This, of course, inherently means, showing yourself love. The more you tend to your wounds, and love them, the more they begin to heal. The more you speak to the demons and assure them that they are loved–that you are grateful for their help, but they are no longer needed–the more they begin to believe you and listen. They begin to let go of the costume they had to wear for so long, and can return to just being a Bodhisattva.

A difficulty in all of this is that while this practice of radical self-acceptance was a truly transformative and wondrous practice to undertake in the cloistered environment of a monastery, it is much more difficult to maintain while living in the “real world”. There is more to bump up against out here. There are more affronts to the ego, more complicated and heart-wrenching difficulties, more need to solve a problem now as opposed to later. There is more urgency, more conflict, and thus, less space. With the constriction of a busy mind comes more of a chance for the demon masks to return and for the habits to be reborn. Not only that, but there’s more of a chance for new demons to be conjured.

In all of the changes that happen with moving to a new country, on a new continent, with a different language and cultural norms, there comes a lot of stress and insecurity. I am continuously grateful that we immigrated to a country where we are wanted and treated with respect and patience. It is still difficult, but I can only imagine how different it would be immigrating to somewhere with overwhelming hatred thrown against you. There is already enough to deal with, such as a new phone number, bank account, ID/drivers license, new insurance, new doctors, new address, new customs, new timezone, new language, new town, new money. All of that with no friends, security net, or family (besides each other).  

There is a lot that makes my body feel unsettled here. There is a lot that stresses out my mind. There have been new bouts of anxiety, appearing in its contemporary form. Instead of the anxiety manifesting as a constrictive body shroud as it had been in my younger years, it is now very highly concentrated in my mind. I am a rather visual person, and I experience it largely in a visual way. It’s as though my mind becomes a great tempest. I feel like the large, imposing, monstrous waves of thought are crashing against each other, with other thoughts adding to the noise as consistent crashes of lightning and booms of thunder.

Or, sometimes, I do envision it as a board meeting full of rancorous, temper-tantrum-wielding, disguised Bodhisattvas who are shouting at one another, throwing stuff at each other, leaping across the table at one another.  It’s cacophonous and loud. There are so many voices demanding to be heard, and it’s overwhelming. In no small part, it’s not only the demons who are shouting and adding to the noise, it’s the unmasked Bodhisattvas too. For every diminutive or abrasive thought that comes crashing through, there’s another one that rises to meet it in love and understanding. Unfortunately, I’ve found that compassion just adds to the noise! 

My poor, wonderfully mentally-stable husband is left with a catatonic wife who is at any moment’s notice about to break because of the overwhelm from the internal noise–and he is usually quite unsure of how to help me. His presence and love do comfort me, undeniably, but there is usually someone who helps more. She is the higher self, who exists outside of the noise. I in no small part identify her to be a deity. She is divine. She is a force that I encountered while living as a monk who is so complete in her unconditional love. She is in me and of me, and yet she is also in and of everything else. When I’m feeling helpless amidst the storming mind, she most often reminds me to return to my body in any way I can. I hear her voice as my own, as I often, out loud, need to say “I love you, I’ve got you. I love you, I’ve got you”. And, ultimately, I know and I trust that she does. That I do. 

Eventually, I do return to my body. My lovely body, my complicated mind. As I’m getting older, more and more I’m realizing that my body is just as lovely as everybody else’s and my mind is just as complicated as everybody else’s (and vice versa). It just all exists in different shades, different hues. Everything exists on a spectrum. This body and mind are also singular. Just as with light, our selves are both a wave and a particle.

As my wonderful husband often affirms, I have a wonderful body and mind. His intense love of my body and mind have healed a lot in me. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it–I ardently hope that everybody can have someone who loves them the way Michael does me. I often can’t believe how fortunate I am to have him–that he chose me, that we chose each other. It is healing just to have a partner who fully knew me before he chose to be my romantic partner. He had already lived with me and been my committed and loyal friend for years before our coupling; he had already seen a lot of me at my worst–and he chose me anyway. He knew about the anxiety, the depression, the snappish condescension, the overwhelm, the bossiness. He knew about it all and loved it, just as my Goddess does. He chose to not try to change me but to take upon himself a noble calling– the task of being a partner who could take care of me, support me, and encourage me in the ways I needed, without judgement and with truly divine patience. His gentleness, loyalty, and patience inspire me daily. He is a mirror of what I aim to be in my highest form (at least in most ways–I do want to keep my better sense of direction and attention to detail to our surroundings). 

It is because I love his mind (and body) so much that I am now living in Germany. The offer for him (and thus us) to move to Germany had been proffered a few times during our relationship. For the first few times it was offered, I did not want to go, and he acquiesced. I was protective over my body and mind. I knew change was hard for me. I was afraid of leaving my purpose (working as a garden educator) that I had found in Madison. I was afraid to leave the city that I loved (I feel like I fell in love with Madison just as earnestly as I fell in love with Michael on that fateful trip in February of 2020). I was afraid to leave my friends (including the boy I had helped raise for the past 2.5 years), my cozy apartment, my happy life. I felt content and did not need disruption.

He felt incomplete. I felt afraid of being the reason he felt incomplete, and felt afraid that my happiness meant less than his, because he was the one with a career and I wasn’t. 

Ultimately, a trip was offered for him and me to go and check out where we would live, if we were to move. This was a wonderful opportunity, because I was not sure I would be happy if we were to move. I could admit that a lot of my hesitation came from a fear of the unknown–could my body and mind be at home in a new place? Could I have a purpose there? A community? Could we eat vegetarian food and live with ease? Could we get my best friend, a 100 lb Newfoundland, over to Europe? Will I be able to take care of myself?

The trip ultimately helped assuage a lot of my fears. Germany does not feel so different from the United States. The language barrier is tough, but it is a hurdle that is clear how to overcome. I can learn a language. Navigating the new manner of apartment hunting, banking, credit, cell phone plans, markets, appliances, mail system–these were all stressful, but mostly because we had to do it all at once. At least we got to do it together, and these hurdles too, could be overcome.

At least Michael gets to pursue his dream, and is, so far, thriving doing so. At least the vegan scene here is legitimate and there’s always something for us to eat at restaurants, and the vegan meats and cheeses at the store are abundant–and of much better quality than those in the US. At least our dear gentle giant of a dog made it across the Atlantic relatively okay. At least the cost of living is cheap enough that I actually don’t have to work (which, as it turns out, was probably the biggest selling point for me to make the move). So now I spend my days making art, reading, and writing. It’s cozy and lovely. 

I’ve always wanted to go back to graduate school, but felt unsettled as to why I would. I wanted to return because I love school.  I love learning. I even loved taking tests and writing essays (I just didn’t love doing a lot of those things at once). But I don’t love the cost. I could never justify the cost of returning to graduate school to study what I wanted. I got to do that for my bachelors. I loved it, but there was and is a real world cost that I am still (barely) attending to. 

However, in no small manner inspired by Good Will Hunting (you know, “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library”), I am myself crafting my own graduate program, where I can learn and study and practice what I want to. I’ve been craving for a long time engaging my intellectual self again, and after only doing this a short while, I feel nourished by it. This blog is a part of my program–it’s an assignment I’m going to turn in every week. If no one reads it, that’s okay. I just need to know that I am practicing writing and organizing thoughts again. In the practice itself there is an engagement with my mind that is settling and uplifting all at once. 

Now in Germany, I can engage in my own studies. I can read Between the World and Me and be inspired by Coates’ brilliant manner of exploring his black body and its place in his life and in this world. I can draw protest art, hoping in some small way to protect the bodies of those who are being slaughtered in genocide or carted away in unmarked vans. I can write about my own body, and in so doing once again help the mind understand itself.

One night in college I was walking back from the house of some dear friends that were living three doors down from me (one of those friends was, indeed, Michael). It was snowing softly and I was high. I usually don’t actually like being high on marijuana, which was something I had to finally admit when I was in my mid-twenties–but that night was a different night. I remember walking in the crisp air, and it being so quiet. The kind of quiet that has its own distinct flavor, that of a fresh snowfall early in the winter, when it’s still a magical thing. It was dark and no one was around. I was so cozy in my own body, happy after being with friends, glad to return to a home I cherished. I remember so clearly a thought arising from my deep unconscious, the marijuana helping lift the curtain so it could get through. As I watched my feet sink into the soft snow on the pavement, the thought floated into my whole body: I am so grateful to be spending this life with you.

To know that that love existed in me kept me going through so much pain. It helped buoy my hours of self exploration spent on the meditation cushion and in the therapist’s office. It helps my Goddess calm the storm and soothe the riled-up Bodhisattvas. It’s held and nurtured by my husband. It is a constant companion, this knowledge, that deep down I am so grateful to be spending this life with my own body and mind.

It is wonderful to know that it is all of this that I love: this body, with bones built by rocky mountains and fat built by Wisconsin cheese curds. This posture carefully constructed as a sanctuary under the instruction of my Zen teacher in California. These muscles built by a peppy YouTuber I’ve followed religiously since 2020. This curly hair from my mother, and these well-tapered fingers from my father and these same facial expressions as my brother. This mind with its myriad fears built from childhood, inflated during adolescence, and now being slowly released as an adult, one by one, into the unending blue. This mind full of flamboyant Bodhisattvas dressed in masks, and kind Bodhisattvas trying to tend to them, and, above it all, a Goddess who watches, knows, and deeply loves it all. 

Reading now: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by my boi Brandon Sanderson

Listening now: My Transitions Playlist on Spotify (I am a little bit crazy about making Spotify playlists)