Perspective Changes

Interesting how one's perceptions of life change when an important person in one's life dies.

When my mom and dad died, I wrestled with how someone could be here today and gone tomorrow. Wondered where that energy went. Wonder where our time together went from my being a child, to a teenager, to a young adult, to a full grown adult (if one ever becomes full grown.)

I missed them. I grieved not only their death but what I considered the missed opportunities for parent/son relationships and how different it could have been if they were different, if I was different. 

Acknowledged that I was grateful for many opportunities they did provide and for the love that existed. Acknowledged that they did the best job of parenting that they could and that I did the best job of "offspringing" that I could.

Now, with Gregory's passing, my perceptions of time have been shifting and the shift has caused me to do some deeper thinking.

Gregory and I lived, and we worked at living well for twelve years, with his diagnosis of Dementia/Alzheimer's. At times our life felt normal and at times we also felt like we were living on a roller coaster as his needs confounded, our interactions became surreal, his abilities failed and resurfaced only to finally fail again.

Now when I think about those twelve years, it feels like minutes. At the time it felt like forever, but now that the confusion, frustration, anger, sorrow, fear, etc no longer exists, it feels like moments.

Gregory spent the last 18 months of his life at the Lieberman Center for Health and Rehabilitation on the Alzheimer's Special Care Unit. At the time it was a day in and day out activity. Grateful to Manny for providing not only care and safety for Gregory but also for the love, socialization, and life enrichment he provided on a day to day basis.

When Gregory's health needed extra attention or his medications needed rebalancing or when his difficult behaviors needed a look see; my life would feel topsy turvy. But once the Lieberman nurses, doctors, hospice care, and I did our problem solving; things settled down for both Gregory and me.

Now, with Gregory on his next adventure, without my daily visits, and the Care Conferences, and the monitoring of his daily needs and treatment;  it feels like Lieberman was but a breath.

During the three days it took Gregory to die, I saved many vivid, sometimes difficult and sometimes joyful, memories of the process. None-the-less it feels like those three days were shrouded by a certain numbness. 

The planning of two tributes for Gregory was easy. Gregory's Memorial at the condo (attended by over 100 family and friends) was gratifying and consoling as was the Lieberman Memorial to thank them for their care and support (attended by over 150 staff, residents, and families at Lieberman the following week.)

Now, when I think of Gregory, it feels like his dying was but an instant and at the same time that he has always been dead, when if fact it is just over two months since he died. Strange feeling - ALWAYS been dead.

The thoughts which next occupy my mind then ... based on Gregory and my twelve years seeming like a moment, and his Lieberman stay feeling like a breath, and his death feeling like not only an instant but also forever ... are that my life, now, will last just a few moments longer with the lesson being that I must live each day to its fullest doing things that matter to me, spreading joy and love whenever I can, and doing the best I can without being too unforgiving of myself and my weaknesses and being forgiving of others. 

• • •

In this thinking and these awarenesses, I focus on the buddhist teachings which explain that our suffering is based on permanent attachment to things which are ever changing. Nothing is permanent. 

Thus early Buddhism declares that in this world there is nothing that is fixed and permanent. Every thing is subject to change and alteration. "Decay is inherent in all component things," declared the Buddha and his followers accepted that existence was a flux, and a continuous becoming.

According to the teachings of the Buddha, life is comparable to a river. It is a progressive moment, a successive series of different moments, joining  together to give the impression of one continuous flow. It moves from cause to cause, effect to effect, one point to another, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression that it is one continuous and unified movement, where as in reality it is not. The river of yesterday is not the same as the river of today. The river of this moment is not going to be the same as the river of the next moment. So does life. It changes continuously, becomes something or the other from moment to moment.

Take for example the life of an individual. It is a fallacy to believe that a person would remain the same person during his entire life time. He changes every moment. He actually lives and dies but for a moment, or lives and dies moment by moment, as each moment leads to the next. A person is what he is in the context of the time in which he exists. It is an illusion to believe that the person you have seen just now is the same as the person you are just now seeing or the person whom you are seeing now will be the same as the person you will see after a few moments. 

Even from a scientific point of view this is true. We know cell divisions take place in each living being continuously. Old cells in our bodies die and yield place continuously to the new ones that are forming. Like the waves in a sea, every moment, many thoughts arise and die in each individual . Psychologically and physically he is never the same all the time. Technically speaking, no individual is ever composed of the same amount of energy. Mental stuff and cellular material all the time. He is subject to change and the change is a continuous movement.

Impermanence and change are thus the undeniable truths of our existence. What is real is the existing moment, the present that is a product of the past, or a result of the previous causes and actions. Because of ignorance, an ordinary mind conceives them all to be part of one continuous reality. But in truth they are not.

The various stages in the life of a man, the childhood, the adulthood, the old age are not the same at any given time. The child is not the same when he grows up and becomes a young man, nor when the latter turns into an old man. The seed is not the tree, though it produces the tree, and the fruit is also not the tree, though it is produced by the tree.

Taken from: 

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma8/imperm.htmlhttp://www.urbandharma.org/udharma8/imperm.html

What Am I? Some Beginning Thoguths

This entry was also posted on  my writers blog as it includes both general writing and Dementia/ Alzheimer's thoughts. 

I have been reading Dropping Ashes On The Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn. Through questions, dialogues, stories, interviews, and Darma speeches, he shares his knowledge of Buddhism.

In many of the writings, it is suggested that one meditate on "What am I?" as a way to finding the Buddha. While that sounds a little self serving, I did want to write about my thoughts on "what I am" in relation to what I have learned through my studies of Buddhism. 

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I was born Jewish and have studied many religions but have never found as much "Peace of Mind" in any of them as I recently have found in my studies of Buddhism.

In my current situation with Gregory and our path with his Dementia/Alzheiemer's I desperately needed, and have gratefully found some Peace of Mind.

So here are some of my current thoughts on "What am I?"

What I Am?

I was me before I was named Michael by my parents.

I was me before I was born into a Jewish family, raised with Jewish traditions and beliefs, had my Bar-Mitzvah.

I was me before I went through the usual sequence of schooling: Primary, Secondary, College, Post Graduate Work, Workshops, Seminars, Training Sessions, Textual Readings.

I was me before I was told what and how to think by my parents, relatives, neighbors, friends, teachers, religious leaders, books, newspapers, films, TV, and the general world around me.

For that matter I was me before I learned anything; while I lie in my diapers, wet or otherwise, suckled my mother's tit and then the rubber nipple, slowly ate pureed foods and then moved on to solids.

I was me before I realized I had a civilization, a culture, and a full background of experiences on which to base my thoughts, understandings, feelings, emotions, etc.

I was me before I had language to label, classify, and categorize things and definitely before I had likes and dislikes, rights and wrongs, happys and sads, successes and failures.

I was me before I realized the difference between male and female, before realizing I was a male, a gay male at that who had deep feelings for other men; comradely feelings, sexual feelings, love feelings.

I was me before I considered myself an educator, a poet, a writer, a photographer, a bookbinder, an actor, an artist, and more.

So if I am not able to use any of this information to tell you "Who I am" then who am I? Lets use the concept of "emptiness." If I am just who I am without using any of the "baggage" I have come to accept about myself; through what I have heard, through what I have been told, through what I have experienced, through what I have learned; then I am just who I am.

I can be empty, without any judgement of myself and my life. I can create how and with what I want to fill myself, as long as I hold on to the idea that "in the beginning" there was this baby born into this world, and he was pure, and his was truth, and he was in touch with all he needed to know. That is who I am!

Let me move to the next level of my thinking.

I sit here and I see. It is as if I live in this body and my eyes are the window to my world. It is as if I sit at a console with a screen in front of me which is attached to a camera and I monitor the world in front of me, and around me as I rotate the camera.

I see a green coffee mug with steaming, delicious liquid in front of me and I raise it to my lips, take a careful not to burn my tongue sip, and place it gingerly back down on its coaster so as not to leave a ring on the console.

But if I take myself back to my pre-labeling, classifying, and categorizing self where am I? What am I doing? How do I describe it? How do I think about it? Do I assign good or bad to it, happy or sad to it, right or wrong to it? 

Or is it just what it is? I see what I see. I see.

Each night I read a little more of Dropping Ashes On The Buddha. Perhaps it is slowly affecting my thinking. As I was drifting off to sleep, my kitty at my side, I was stroking her fur thinking how soft she is. I realized I had labeled her "kitty" and her "fur" and described the feeling as "soft." 

So then I tried to just feel her without adding any descriptors, with keeping my mind empty, and I seemed to experience her in a totally new, and different way than I ever had. With no words to get in the way, although I use them now, "softness" seemed a whole new experience for me. I was amazed.

What Am I? If I am able to not label things in my life as good or bad, happy or sad. If I see them just as things without positive or negative value, if I can avoid labeling, if I can avoid judging, then suffering can be defused. It can cease to exist. And what does exist is just existence.

Life is what it is. I am what I am. There is an emptiness involved when you do not have to fill up your life, your person; with descriptors, with qualifiers, with judgments, with labels, with rights and wrongs, with goods and bad.

It is what it is. It is how you choose to live it.

An E-Mail Reply

From niece MB (daughter of Al, Greg's oldest brother:) 
I have been concerned about you since Gregory has moved into his new home. I know they are taking care of him. That will give you time to make adjustments to your life.

Thanks for the kind words. I am doing well. We have been struggling with this for over ten years and the major difference, now that Gregory is in the advanced stages of the disease, is that the concerns, needs, and ability to define new normalcies have been narrowed. 

For the most part the routines and normalcies for Gregory are now predictable whereas during the early parts of his disease, it was a baseball game without rules!

As for my living alone, our relationship was always one of parallel growth. We both had the same interests and friends but maintained our individual interests and friends, and of course the two overlapped at points. So while I have to redefine my new life living alone, I do not have to redefine my life or identity entirely. 

I have had to learn to live in the present moment, as Gregory does, and to see life through his eyes. When I am able to do that, I am happy and content. When I begin to see his life through my eyes, I have more difficulties avoiding crying and grief.

Not sure if there will be a price in the future, but for now I have been separating myself into two parts. When I am by myself and at home I try not to think of Gregory and our past 39 years and when I am with him I try not to think about home and my life and our past 39 years. 

Some Buddhist monks spend a lifetime learning how to live in the here and now, without living in the past or the future. Both Gregory and I have been able to do that. He because of the Alzheimer's me because of my great love for him.

At home I'll keep busy with friends, keeping the condo up, writing, etc but when I am with Gregory, sometimes we just sit and hold hands and that is paradise and enough.

In the beginning it was difficult learning how to let go and become the Secondary Care Giver with The Lieberman Center (and their trained, knowledgable staff) being the Primary Care Giver. 

I am still Gregory's advocate but have begun to know how to choose my "battles." The staff at Lieberman actually listen to and hear what I say, try to accommodate my suggestions and Gregory's needs, but also help educate me when I am out of order or unrealistic in my goals for him.

Gregory's CONDITION is much worse and continues to worsen but his SITUATION is so much better ... so my heart is light.

Heart Advice

Understanding two terms is necessary in understanding this week's "Heart Advice." It has implications, if read carefully, for the person with Alzheimer's as well as those who love him.

Prajñāpāramitā in Buddhism, means "the Perfection of (Transcendent) Wisdom." It is a central concept in Buddhism and its practice and understanding are taken to be indispensable elements of the Bodhisaatva Path.

A Bodhisattva is an enlightenment being. Traditionally, a bodhisattva is anyone who, motivated by great compassion, has generated a spontaneous wish to attain  Buddahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Detachment

More and more, the tenants and writings of Buddhism talk to me of my life and more importantly my journey with Gregory through and beyond Alzheimer's.

—S.N. Goenka, “The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation”, from The Buddha is Still Teaching: Contemporary Buddhist Wisdom, selected and edited by Jack Kornfield

By learning to remain balanced in the face of everything experienced inside, one develops detachment towards all that one encounters in external situations as well. However, this detachment is not escapism or indifference to the problems of the world. Those who regularly practice Vipassana become more sensitive to the sufferings of others and do their utmost to relieve suffering in whatever way they can—not with any agitation, but with a mind full of love, compassion, and equanimity. They learn holy indifference—how to be fully committed, fully involved in helping others, while at the same time maintaining balance of mind. In this way they remain peaceful and happy while working for the peace and happiness of others.

This is what the Buddha taught: an art of living. He never established or taught any religion, any “ism.” He never instructed those who came to him to practice any rites or rituals, any empty formalities. Instead, he taught them just to observe nature as it is by observing the reality inside. Out of ignorance, we keep reacting in ways which harm ourselves and others. But when wisdom arises—the wisdom of observing reality as it is—this habit of reacting falls away. When we cease to react blindly, then we are capable of real action—action proceeding from a balanced mind, a mind which sees and understands the truth. Such action can only be positive, creative, helpful to ourselves and to others.

Today we say goodbye to a teacher who had an immense impact on the world. S.N. Goenka was a pioneer in making Vipassana meditation widely available to a secular audience. Over 170 meditation centers have been established around the globe under his auspices. His legacy will resound indefinitely. 

Being Open

This quote is from Pema Chödrön (Pema's Site.) I believe it puts many things into perspective. I do not believe that it means we shouldn't enjoy our comforts, just that we shouldn't take them for granted and that we should do what we can, when we can, for others.

June 19, 2013 OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO OPEN These days the world really needs people who are willing to let their hearts, their bodhicitta, ripen.  There’s such widespread devastation and suffering: people are being run over by tanks or their houses are being blown up or soldiers are knocking on their doors in the middle of the night and taking them away and torturing them and killing their children and their loved ones. People are starving.  It’s a hard time. We who are living in the lap of luxury with our pitiful little psychological problems have a tremendous responsibility to let our clarity and our heart, our warmth, and our ability ripen, to open up and let go, because it’s so contagious.