The four immeasurables

First rosebud in Cornwall Rose Garden

Before I get into talking about that Buddhist concept (the title of this post), I needed to show you that when John dropped me off at the Rose Garden yesterday, I found quite a few rosebuds. This one looks like it might already have bloomed, with all the sunshine we've been having lately. From nothing to a fully formed flower in what seems like no time at all! I also noticed that many of the emerging buds seem to have attracted aphids. Hope someone takes care of that before it damages them.

On Thursday, I enjoyed a wonderful walk with my old Senior Trailblazer friends, and then we had a rather large feast, with all three of the Senior Trailblazer groups, along with family. I used to hike with Group 1 (here's a link to all three groups). It was quite a large gathering, and everyone brought stuff to the potluck. Two of the three groups went on a hike in the Lake Padden area before we ate, and I got to visit with many of my old hiking buddies. It was a little disconcerting to notice that many of them have aged considerably since I saw them last, reminding me that times does not hold still even when I'm not paying attention. Of course, I'm not aging alone; we are all slowing down and losing some of our abilities as well. When you see people weekly, it's easy to miss these changes, but after a year or two, the differences are quite evident.

There are some new faces, mostly members who have discovered the hiking groups since I left. It seems some of them are quite a bit younger, like in their fifties and sixties, rather than in their seventies and eighties. I think I will rejoin the groups by starting by joining Group 2, which has a slower pace, and see how I do with them. I did one hike recently with them, and it was lovely to find myself pretty much in the middle, rather than working hard to stay fast enough with Group 1. This coming week I will join them again, since Melanie is getting too busy to hike with me on Thursdays. She has decided to sell her home and move to Oregon, south of Portland, in order to be closer to her family in California. This entails quite a bit of work, and she's thinking she would like to get her home on the market by the end of this month. Then everything depends on how fast her two-bedroom home sells. So, change is coming, not only to her life, but to all those who are part of her daily activities. Like me, for instance.

Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment — a means to an end. —Eckhart Tolle

Change is a permanent part of existence, and it is not something we can avoid, no matter how much we might want to. Whether it's attempting to slow down the rate of aging or watching a friend getting her house ready for sale; it's happening all the time. It occurred to me that trying to hold change back is one reason I like routine: it makes me feel like each day is the same as the one before, when nothing could be further from the truth.

I am currently re-reading a book that introduced me to some concepts of Buddhist thinking that have resonated with me, and it's almost like I never read it at all, since the person reading it today is not the one who read it a couple years ago. But one thing I remember and want to share is the idea that there are four immeasurables that we can use to shape the way we move through the world. They are: loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. 

Many Buddhist notions count things like this: the eightfold path, the five remembrances, and so on. I think it helps one to recall them when immersed in the study of their concepts. Or whatever; I realize it does help me remember them. We all want to be happy. We sometimes go about procuring that happiness in very unskillful ways, but this doesn’t change that fundamental intent. The challenge we face as human beings is how to be happy together, how to act so our happiness doesn’t impede another’s. Making space for others through the practice of the four immeasurables is an excellent place to begin.

When thinking about writing a new post, I almost always begin by going to a favorite website, brainyquote.com, and look for inspiration. I found the above quote by Eckhart Tolle and went over to Wikipedia to learn more about this interesting person. It turns out that he is still around, and the Wikipedia entry helped me to understand his philosophy. He suffered from debilitating depression for much of his life, and when he was 29 he experienced a life-changing epiphany.

I couldn’t live with myself any longer. And in this a question arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void! I didn’t know at the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no self. Just a sense of presence or “beingness,” just observing and watching.

That was when he began to teach others, and his story led him to write several books. I'm going to start with his first one (written in 1997), The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. I can get it on my Kindle for a really good price. I had never heard of it, or him, before running across that quote. I feel like it will make it much easier for me to practice the four immeasurables to immerse myself with a new author. 

I am afraid that I've been a little bit all over the place with this post, but that's because I am searching for a focus that still, as I come to the end of it, has not surfaced. That's okay; I'm doing this for my own benefit, and for the benefit of my readers. I am feeling quite content to ramble this morning, to allow the corners of my mind to smooth out a little. My dear friend John will be coming by in an hour, to take me to our usual Sunday breakfast, and I need to finish this up soon.

My tea is gone and my loved one lies quietly next to me, not quite asleep, but if I finish this and get up out of bed quietly, I think he will slip back into slumber. I do hope that the coming week will bring you lots of love and compassion, joy and equanimity. Until then, be well, my friends.