Being With Dallas

Roshi Joan Halifax gives training in "Being with Dying" to professionals who deal with end-of-life issues. She teaches the buddhist approach to death- a path of non-resistance to experience. I am thinking about this, because my current task is "Being with Dallas."

It is very hard for me to be in this environment, but it is necessary and inevitable so I am applying my zen skills to this experience as if it were my job. Second, I am getting up each day, and nipping in the bud my tendency to evaluate the pervasive retail culture negatively. I don't have to participate in it if I don't want to, so there is no reason for me to evaluate it at all. I just have to be with it.

I am putting into practice living-in-the-moment as I run through the days. I experience the youngbloods, drive back and forth from stores, set up our "camp-out" apartment, implement our new fitness program, made easier by the many materialistic opportunities of these surroundings (like an exercise room on every corner and more fitness centers per square mile than I have ever seen anywhere).

I'm just being with it. Dropping in bed exhausted at the end of each day, but having a surprising amount of energy for it all. And today, I took a break from the retail culture by spending the day in front of my sewing maching, praying with my hands, working mindfully to make something for someone else. To my delight someone else had done the same! 

 I made a little flannel outfit for the cutest baby anyone will ever see, and her mother had made a huge batch of the gluten-free chocolate chip cookies for me!