Riding the "D" Train

Lately, Jane has been talking up the matter of relieving suffering, our own and that of all beings. Or maybe she hasn't been talking it up any more than usual. Maybe I'm just hearing it enough to actually produce a thought about it independent of her.

See, it's not just the heat. I've been in a funk for a couple of days, listless, unmotivated, doing the bare minimum. Sadly, this is all familiar to me. Happily, I encounter far less of it now than I did as a younger woman. Faced with a night at home if I don't go to yoga--and I am not going to yoga--I actually considered that I was enrolling myself in a night of low-grade dukha. And then I actually considered that instead of wandering from email to another 20 minutes of "A River Runs Through It" which I recently DVR'd, I can run a bath and add some sea salt and soak, and breathe. I can pick fresh flowers for the altar and sit. I can, recalling Patty's talk last night about Kanzeon (a/k/a/ Kwan Yin/Avalokiteshvara/Bodhisattva of Compassion)think on myself compassionately. I really don't have to add to my own anguish.

I love what Barry Magid says about depression and antidepressant medication: If the intention of practice is to be of service, and Zoloft or Paxil enables a practioner to be of greater service to herself and others, then it cannot be a violation of Buddhist precepts to use it.

The great humiliation of depression is the self-centeredness that comes with it. And though its origins may be in the body, it very quickly moves on to obsessive thought. And is it ever a drag. A bath, fresh flowers--I am reminded now of our many sangha conversations about the paramita of dana (generosity): no giver/no receiver.

Being one with the Buddha in the ten directions.
Being one with the bath and the flowers in the ten directions.

This night your days are diminished by one.
Take heed: do not squander your life.
Get off the train now.
Every stop is the last stop.