Marie and Camille will facilitate; they share
Dear Thay, dear friends,
On Monday we will share our memories of loved ones who have passed on and reflect on our experiences with grief. Several local sanghas (Washington Mindfulness Community and Still Water Practice Center) offer this type of evening on an annual basis, and we have found them deeply nourishing and, at times, transformative.
There is something about sharing our experience of grief in community that, as Francis Weller writes, “...helps us to stretch into our bigger selves; we are offered the opportunity to develop a living relationship with loss. We can recover a faith in grief that recognizes that grief is not here to take us hostage, but instead to reshape us in some fundamental way, to help us become our mature selves, capable of living in the creative tension between grief and gratitude. In so doing, our hearts are ripened and made available for the great work of loving our lives and this astonishing world.”
About fifteen years ago, I (Marie) was sitting with WMC at such an evening, and I had a photo of my father as a young man propped in front of me (we had been invited to bring a photo beforehand and invite you to do the same on Monday). Intellectually, I knew my father’s history and how it had influenced who and how he was, as a man, as a husband and as a father. I thought I understood this, and, if you’d asked me, I would have said “of course I feel compassion for him.” However, over the course of that evening, sitting with my trusted sangha and sharing memories of him, something shifted deep inside - and outside - of me. My heart softened, I forgave him and, somehow, he forgave himself. This was a turning point that has brought deep healing, strengthened my connection with my sangha and nourished my practice.
40 years ago when my older brother died unexpectedly, I (Camille) never thought I could survive the grief of losing him. When I meet regularly with my sangha community - we share both the grieving and joy we all experience - we are linked in such a beautiful way - I am so grateful and nourished. When my brother died all those years ago, it was very very difficult for me and all of my family. He was so full of life and energy, kindness and generosity, unconditional peace and love. I couldn't understand why he was taken from this earth as he was the kind of person who would make this world a better place. I was angry, sad, and confused and was grieving during my days and my nightly dreams. As the years have passed and my practice has strengthened with my community, my family, and my teachers, I began to realize that I could be with both the “grief and gratitude” (as Weller writes above). That healing could open my heart once again to his memory and all that he continues to share with me and to know that he is in me and I am in him and that he will always be by my side. I see his smiling face in my kids, in the trees and flowers around, and in how I show up for others - he taught me how to love and live more beautifully and continues to teach me. And I continue to be open to learn.
As we’ve grown older, we realize that grief is ever present - from the grief about our planet and the people and animals living on it to the grief of having friends and family members die. The practice and the sangha have provided a foundation that helped us to metabolize grief in meaningful ways such that we can touch life more deeply. Again, quoting Francis Weller, “Any loss, whether deeply personal or one of those that swirl around us in the wider world, calls us to full-heartedness, for that is the meaning of courage. To honor our grief, to grant it space and time in our frantic world, is to fulfill a covenant with the soul - to welcome all that is, thereby granting room for our most authentic life.”
We hope you will join us on Monday for an evening dedicated to holding our individual and collective grief.
If you would like to share a photo during our Zoom call, you can either share your screen directly or, alternatively, send a photo to Info@openingheartmindfulness.org by Sunday night, and then our technical host will queue the photo and share it when you are ready.
Warmly,
Marie & Camille
Contemplation of No-Coming, No-Going
from “The Ceremony for the Deceased” in Chanting from the Heart
This body is not me,
I am not limited by this body.
I am life without boundaries.
I have never been born,
and I have never died.
Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars,
Manifestations from my wondrous true mind.
Since before time, I have been free.
Birth and death are only doors through which we pass,
sacred thresholds on our journey.
Birth and death are a game of hide-and-seek.
So laugh with me,
hold my hand,
let us say good-bye,
say good-bye, to meet again soon.
We meet today,
We will meet again tomorrow.
We will meet at the source every moment.
We meet each other in all forms of life.