Vitality

Catherine addresses the concept of “vital” (from the Latin, meaning “life”) in the context of the pandemic containments and movement restrictions, which many experienced as a time of deadening. She suggests that, although we might be living in smaller geographic radiuses, sudden lockdowns, and an ongoing cancellation of plans, we enliven our days in our wakefulness to what is rather than what might be or might have been.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following is from a Zoom session broadcast from Australia on April 4th,

2021.

It's called Vitality.

I am not a religious person,

But sometimes on religious holidays,

I think about the symbolism of the holiday.

And in this case,

It being Easter where I am and the eve of Easter where many of you are.

I've been thinking about the concept of resurrection or to resurrect or to revitalize.

My favorite of those.

To revitalize,

Re-enliven.

Vital,

Coming from the Latin life,

Vital.

I know this past year for many people has perhaps had a deadening feeling,

A deadening effect.

Like you're not really living your real life.

But is that true?

Is that true?

Because you were living your actual life.

It was just different than what you had been used to.

And maybe it was very different from what you thought it should be.

And yet it was the life you had as you're having today,

As you will be having no matter what comes.

So is revitalizing as an idea perhaps a word to use when you slump into this is going on too long,

These lockdowns,

These restrictions,

These curtailments of my plans,

My dreams.

What if in any of those moments you revitalize,

You say this is a great day.

I'm alive.

There's a lot of days you were not alive.

There will be a lot of rotations around the sun that you won't be alive.

Here's one of the few you are alive.

But we forget all that.

Our minds can really create a hell.

It's amazing.

And I speak all the time about how our privilege contributes to that because we expect more.

We expect whatever we want.

We really got used to that.

Within reason.

You probably weren't going to get a Gulfstream jet.

But in terms of the world's playground of delights,

We could all get a lot of them.

And we did.

And we could think up a lot of other things that we were going to get to do.

But we've had a lesson in this time of having to be grateful for what we do have.

Our priorities have become more clear.

Perhaps our needs have become a bit more simple,

Which is a good thing.

And we've had to get used to managing our attention more.

It's forced upon us.

As we can see,

A lot of people are not managing to do it so well.

There's so much depression and anxiety and people just going absolutely mad.

Psychotic.

Fully psychotic.

We can see the stresses on many,

Many people because of the lack of mind management.

Really no training or no interest in those matters.

But the Dharma really pays off in these kinds of situations because you can kind of cruise through.

Any of us who've done a retreat.

I've been in many retreat circumstances that would rival like a prison camp.

I was in one in Denmark in the 70s.

I was attending the retreat.

I would actually never have booked this place as a retreat,

But I was in attendance as a Buddhist.

Lots of those places were so grim.

We went to this little,

Almost a campsite with a couple of little shacks.

The women had a bunkhouse and the men had a bunkhouse and we all had to share the same outhouse or two.

I think they maybe had two.

It rained the whole time.

We just sloshed in mud.

It was freezing and the food was inedible.

We were there at least a week.

It was a very long week,

I have to say.

I do remember it unfondly all this time later.

Probably none of our circumstances are as bad as that.

There's lots of circumstances that are really hard that people live in and they get used to.

Frankly,

If that had been my lot,

I would have had to find a way to get used to it.

I did get through it without having any hissy fits.

The point is that our circumstances have changed.

They may never go back to what we had lived before.

We'll get used to this new way of life.

We'll get used to living more simply.

We're forced into it,

As I said.

There can be a great beauty in simplicity.

There has been a slowdown of the death machine that I call it,

The death machine of industrial consumption that is just roaring along,

Has been roaring along rather,

And is trying to crank itself back up.

That may not be possible.

So be it.

We will live our lives as people have had to do throughout all of time in whatever circumstances was their moment in history,

Their moment in time.

This is ours.

Maybe you have found that your attention is more likely now to focus on things that are small joys.

I like to call them.

The small joys aren't even that small.

They're beautiful.

And the attention becomes more trained in those kinds of appreciations.

You become more habituated and looking for those,

Noticing them.

It doesn't have to be this grand blowaway experience or object or waiting for your ship to come in,

Whatever your version of that is.

And then you fall much more into your own quiet.

Because when a lot of things are taken off the table as options,

At some point,

One has to just accept.

I spoke last night about surrender a lot.

You accept and you go quiet.

So more and more,

You're living your days.

And instead of a rumble constantly going through your head about what you want,

At least that part is quieter.

Some of my teachers used to use the image of,

It's kind of a mean image.

All the animal images tend to be mean images.

But the sense of taking a wild monkey and chaining it to a stake.

And it's got its chain.

It's on the stake.

It jumps around.

It flails around.

It tries every which way.

But it's chained.

And after a while,

It calms down.

It sees there's nothing to be done.

It just stops.

It might occasionally try again.

But a smart monkey will not just keep flailing and pulling at the chain.

And the same with us.

When the mind has run through its program,

It's running down all its tracks.

And at the end of the track,

It sees,

Nope,

Can't do that.

That door is closed.

Finally,

It rests.

Not in sort of a depressing resignation,

But just in quiet.

What's here?

This is all about how you use your attention in all circumstances and how it's up to you to revitalize your own life.

If it's been feeling dull,

If it's been feeling,

Blah,

It's been boring.

You haven't been able to do X,

Y,

Z that might have perked it up a bit.

Okay.

But who's going to revitalize it for you?

Who or what?

You can't lean to those external experiences.

That's what came to say on our timely topic here on the Resurrection Day.

Resurrecting your love of life.

So this has just been something that has,

Oh,

Just would love a little perspective on.

Since COVID,

Like many,

I've been working from home and what's been going on for my body,

My relationship with my body.

It's almost,

Well,

First of all,

I put on a lot of weight.

The second thing is that,

I don't know if it's because I'm getting older,

But I'm developing an aversion to my body.

I'm fine when I meditate.

I'm not aware of this dense kind of heaviness I feel in my body.

And I don't know.

It's just that my body does not feel like a sanctuary right now.

Okay.

Well,

There's two ways you can address it.

Okay.

I appreciate it.

One is through your mind and one is through your body.

So you can decide and only you can decide to make some changes.

You can make some commitments to walk more,

To exercise more,

To eat perhaps less,

Or just eat different types of food.

And that may really give a lot more feeling of vitality.

It often does.

It often does.

Exercise is an incredible antidote to depression.

That's just science.

So you could do it that way.

And that's a perfectly great way to do it.

You can,

If that doesn't appeal to you,

Or you just simply don't feel like it,

You can work with your mind and realize that who and what you are is far deeper than simply the body.

You are not just a body.

Right.

Right.

And when you think about the people you love and why you love them,

Generally speaking,

It's not because of how their body is.

Right.

Generally speaking,

Some people are very attracted to beautiful bodies,

But in terms of just a wide swath of all the people you love.

Yes.

There was a movie long ago.

It was called Mask.

It wasn't the one that Jim Carrey was in,

Which was a different movie by the same name.

But it was one in which Cher played the mother of a son who had the same disease that the elephant man had,

The actual real life character.

But this son had that same disease,

Which was massively deforming of his face and his body.

And when you first saw the son on the screen,

It was shocking.

But this guy,

As portrayed by the actor,

He wasn't playing the elephant man.

It was a much more contemporary story.

He was so fabulous a person.

He was so cool.

He was so.

.

.

You just fell madly in love with him.

And you so loved him that when he was on the screen,

You no longer really noticed his deformity.

You didn't really think about it.

Your heart leapt in seeing him.

That was so instructive to me as a younger woman.

It's an old film,

I think from the eighties maybe.

It was really instructive for me because I grew up as we did in a time when there was so much emphasis on how you looked.

And that has only become very,

Very strong in our culture.

It's a very strong agreement almost.

But is it real?

What was ironic in the film was that the mother who was played by Cher and was very beautiful really in her prime,

But she wasn't a great person.

She wasn't particularly a good mother.

She wasn't a particularly decent person.

And you didn't see her as beautiful in the film.

So this comes to your question of how you're holding this,

What your mind is telling you,

Because perhaps it's conflated with some way in which you think you're not going to be loved if you gain weight or if you just don't think your body looks or functions that well anymore that you will be rejected somehow.

And is that true?

And anyone who would reject you on that basis,

Good riddance to them,

I say.

So it's a great screening actually.

So I would say that it doesn't have to be either or.

You could decide.

I want to feel healthier and I am perhaps feeling a little bit of depression and some good walks at least will perhaps address that.

And at the same time,

Start releasing these ideas if possible.

In my world,

In my view,

Nobody has to do anything.

This is all about these are suggestions to alleviate suffering.

If anybody wants to keep suffering,

It's up to them.

This is a way to look at how you're framing things,

What the story is.

I'll tell you another one that's just popping up in my mind.

In an effort to sort of hang on to some semblance of use and because most women of a certain age of my particular subculture,

None of us would be inclined to say have plastic surgery or do anything extreme,

But most of us did color our hair.

We did color our hair and many of my friends still do.

And at some point I decided I don't need to be coloring my hair anymore.

So I had to grow it out,

Which growing out from dark to gray is kind of an ordeal.

But I grew up my hair and it got to its natural color and gray.

I actually liked looking my age.

But I had this nightmare about a year ago that somehow or other I'd gone to get my hair cut in the dream and the hairdresser had colored my hair without my knowing it in the dream.

I was so shocked and like,

Oh no,

Oh no,

I've got dark hair again.

I want my gray hair back.

So it can actually come to a point where your alignment,

Your seamless alignment with how you look and your age and all of that is your preferred state.

It's basically saying,

Yeah,

This is how I am.

And then you relate to people and they relate to you without those veils,

Period,

Of are you attractive or are you a potential mate or any number of those kinds of things.

It's just heart to heart.

And it's either a groove,

It's either a nice chemistry or not.

Thank you.

No,

That's really lovely.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

I'm thinking this theme that's been developing so far,

Speaking about the body,

It's salient here too.

I just had eye surgery last week and I've been somewhat amused with myself in this recovery process,

Just being more limited in a lot of ways,

Not really able to read.

I had to take off work.

This is the first video conference of any sort I've done for a while.

Can't lift anything,

Can't get it wet,

Can't watch anything.

And so there's not that,

There's really,

In addition to there being not much to do most of the time,

There's really not much to do right now.

And it's been this invitation to just get simpler and get quieter.

And I've been finding myself at moments crawling out of my skin,

But then just continuing to come back to this awareness,

There's really nowhere to go.

There's really nothing to do.

And getting grumpy or frustrated or angry about it is not going to help it.

It's worse.

Yeah.

And then there's this deep abiding chuckle within myself.

It's like,

Ha,

Ha,

Ha,

Of course,

Of course.

It keeps being this kind of sense of deeper grounding and homecoming and quiet.

Mm-hmm.

Nice.

Very nice.

And as you were sharing the resonance that comes sometimes around these major religious tradition holidays,

I too find,

I like finding what bit of meaning I can resonate with in it.

Because it's like,

You think millions of people across the world over the course of thousands of years deepening this groove around these holidays.

And it's like,

What's there for me?

How can I connect with my human family?

And for me this year,

I've just been,

As you say,

Revitalization and the wellspring that is this silence.

It's so beautiful the way it bubbles up.

I can't sleep well because I've got to wear this guard over my eye at night.

So I've been waking up at like four in the morning and kind of sitting just like the night before.

Oh,

No.

And not turning on any lights because it's light sensitive and just kind of sitting there in the dark.

And I'm like,

Oh,

Wow.

And feeling surprised to feel this childlike kind of delight at the experience of another morning alive.

So beautiful.

And being pleased at that because as many people have experienced this year in dark ways,

I too,

There have been times I think it would be unusual if people didn't have some experience throughout this year,

If not in their own life of the suffering that's been occurring in the world for so many,

To just have these trickles of at least this hemisphere springtime coming and that revitalization and how simple it can be,

Just that reconnection to joy and homecoming in that.

Yeah,

Very nicely said.

Yeah,

These are the ways.

And as you were describing,

Of course there are times when we're just biting at the bit,

We're chomping at the bit.

And it doesn't take very long to figure out this is just going to be more painful.

So we can let that go and go back to gratitude.

And there's always something awaiting your gratitude in your life,

Anything.

Even the most basic things,

Like the simplest things about the functionality of the body.

So yes,

The one of your eyes,

One of your eyes is impaired slightly right now,

It's in a healing process,

But happy that the other one works.

Yeah.

And the marvel of modern medicine,

I mean,

It's like,

You know,

That they have sedation down well enough that they can get you conscious enough to look to the left and look to the right,

But to be in,

You know,

It just,

I was really kind of in awe of our capacity,

You know,

Evolution and progress has been detrimental in so many ways,

But then there's other just marvels of progress where I just feel in awe of what we've discovered,

What we can do.

Absolutely.

Like a hip replacement.

I've known a few people who've had hip replacements who were essentially disabled pretty much prior to the hip replacement.

And then it's just a new lease on life.

But imagine how many people through history,

You would have just died younger because you would have been so immobilized,

Not that the hip would have killed you,

But just that your sedentary life from there on,

Or not being able to work and make a living and all those things would have taken you out.

Any number of those kinds of impairments would mean probably a shorter life.

So yes,

We just,

We do live in a time of these kind of marvels and I'm so glad you've got your eye done.

And yes,

And I love,

I love the whole perspective about the quiet that has been part of this last year.

You know,

We who already love quiet have been kind of reveling in it.

You know,

I know a lot of people were strangers to quiet and perhaps they've had a more of a taste.

I have heard some people saying that on the news and this and that,

That it was,

It was such a different way of life that they had not considered.

Sitting here thinking about quiet and this past year,

Dramatic changes in my life.

I retired,

You know,

My parents passed away.

All these things happened over the past few years and so I feel like I'm going into a whole nother stage of life and really at peace about it.

And being an introvert,

Having a year off from people hasn't been so bad for me.

I mean,

My,

My closest connections have been really actually strengthened by the fact that things have slowed down and we have more time together,

You know.

But I'm thinking about quiet because I'm new,

Pretty new to your program,

You know,

You're,

You're speaking.

And so I've pondered a lot about what is quiet for me and just trying to find that place.

And right now what I'm thinking about is how quiet is a place.

Well,

First of all,

It's a place where I feel like I rest in nature,

But it's a place where I surrender to not knowing and,

And just exist in,

In the unknowing of things.

I could,

We strive so hard in life to know,

To know,

To know,

You know,

To find out and to be in control.

And so it's that place for me of unknowing and just,

Just letting that be what is.

And what came to me though,

About what you're saying today is that out of that unknowing,

Some really amazing surprises can arise.

And I've heard you time and time again,

Talk about the beauty of the present moment,

The simplicity of that.

And the mystery of it,

A sense of mystery,

Which is actually the most rational perspective.

Because it's,

And it's ironic,

And what is unfolding is also mysterious.

Things are just things pop up suddenly that you had no idea,

No,

No expectation,

No anything.

And there's this deep peace in that.

Yes.

And there's a little,

There's a vitality in it as well.

Going back to our word of the day,

There's a vitality,

There's a vitality in that sense is not like some old shoe that this moment we're experiencing collectively has not ever occurred and will not occur again.

This is it,

This moment that we're experiencing,

The shared experience of a particular religious holiday and the shared,

The collective attention in a world,

You know,

In a world of millions of people having a certain frequency that they're at least in the background paying attention to whether they're religious or not,

Even if it's as simple as that the stores are closed,

You know,

But I,

I find some kind of,

Of heightened excitement when anything is going on in the world,

Not just a religious holiday,

But anything that we're all paying attention to.

There's some huge event that erupts and everybody's on it.

Like there's a feeling.

And I really feel my,

My moment in time,

My moment in history,

I really have this sense of,

Oh,

These are the people of my moment of time.

This is my tribe of human cohorts here at this time,

Right?

Now I philosophically,

I philosophically hang out with people of other times.

I have a lot of philosophical cohorts,

But in terms of the ones who are actually on the ground with me at the same time,

There's something about that when you're having a shared moment,

It forces an expansion of your own sense of who and what you are.

I'm sorry,

What would the pandemic is certainly a great example.

Yes.

And so when you go to the grocery store,

The person who is waiting on you,

Isn't just a clerk anymore.

They're that precious person.

Yes.

Yes.

And who is also sharing the details of this pandemic code?

Like,

You know,

That we're looking at very similar news,

Like you're in this together,

Right?

So yes,

Certainly the pandemic is an example.

But there are many others,

You know,

There are many,

Many moments when the world just stops 9-11 or,

You know,

Or,

You know,

Probably the bombing of Pearl Harbor or things like that,

Where just the whole world is on one frequency,

Pretty much unless you're living in the middle of the Amazon.

You know,

There's the sense of these,

A sense of a human community.

I like to include the four leggeds as well and all the others.

But in terms of the people you can have conversations with about it,

You have this empathy,

Actually,

You have this intense empathy.

Absolutely.

I feel that way with my animals.

I look at my cat and my cats and we are here we incarnated together.

This is a yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

I'm very aware of that,

Too.

I'm very aware of the incarnations at the same moment.

The the colliding incarnation moments.

Yes.

Yeah.

Thank you,

Catherine.

Thank you.

You know,

I came from the other day,

I hadn't left my area.

I hadn't even gone far within my area.

I mean,

I probably haven't gone.

Ten miles from my house since November of 2019,

Until the other day when I got on an airplane and ended up in a big,

Huge urban city and my little area is very quiet.

It's a little beach town,

Very quiet.

And even in any normal time,

Coming from an area like that to a big urban city is very different.

You know,

You feel you feel the speed,

You know,

You hear the noise.

It's it's a there's a buzz.

It's it's moving.

It's happening.

But I've been really enjoying a feeling of peace since I've been here.

Yes,

There's traffic.

There's lots more traffic and a lot more happening on the street and a lot more people.

Oh,

That's true.

But I've been I've been feeling very,

Very quiet in the midst of it all.

Don't know how to be in a few weeks,

But we'll see.

But yeah,

Very,

Very deeply quiet amidst the noise and the bustle and all that.

Hi,

Everyone.

Catherine,

You asked at the beginning,

What was our to think about our motivation for being here tonight?

And you know,

The past few topics have just really brought it home.

It's it's I come because I,

I seek the comfort of your wisdom and the piece of the calm of your perspective and the resonance with me that yes,

This this is this is peace,

There's peace,

And it's just fine to be here.

And I don't need to immerse myself in the horrors.

You know,

I just wanted to say that that's my motivation.

And I'm always richly rewarded,

Whether I'm here,

I'm just listening later.

So thank you.

I do all kinds of little tricks sometimes in my mind when it's going off track.

And sometimes it's,

It's,

Okay,

What if I have a year to live?

What if I have a month to live?

What if I have a day to live?

So sometimes just even asking those questions,

Resets whatever my mind is looking at,

If it's going into kind of a crazy spin of some sort about the world and about the possible threats and so on.

Yeah,

Make up your own make up,

You know,

Make up your own tools.

But that's Yeah,

Mine is very similar.

It's I just,

As you said,

Once already,

I'm alive.

I mean,

Just every day,

I'm grateful that I wake up alive.

And I'm doubly grateful when my old dog is still alive.

And then if we go through the day,

And we have some nice walks,

And,

You know,

I get some stuff done that I have to do.

And,

And the day's over,

And I wake up again,

And we're both still alive the next day.

I'm just,

I just,

I'm just gratitude has become my predominant practice.

Well,

That's so great.

I'm a Luya.