Dharma Gleanings

January 5, 2006
I am more and more aware that I am, more and more, losing my mind. Probably I don’t have Alzheimer’s, perhaps it’s only that the ADD, which always—even when I was young—made my memory worrisomely shaky, now has added on some of the natural uncertainties of aging, but on some days the result can be similar. It is aggravated, of course, by what I call my “mallergy,” which weights my body and also clouds my mind, turns it to molasses. Recently I wrote about the understanding of the direction I am heading:

 

THE LAUDROMAT POEM

Today I lost an earring

in the laundromat by the whirring machines.

I’ve had it for years.

It was black. It went with everything.

On this same day

in the laundromat by the whirring machines

I knew, thought I knew

I am losing my mind

I’ve had it for years

everything will go with it

I thought again

how can I practice mindfulness

without a mind?

Today I knew, thought I knew,

that I would lose my mind

before I had learned

how to answer my question.

 

Still, I try to see the ways that practice can speak to this state. Certainly practice helps me to not add on the stress, which as I’ve often remarked to my aging friends who worry about the changes in their own memories, can add a great deal to the hesitations of memory and create a worsened condition. It’s odd, though: because I’ve been training my mind precisely to stay in the present, I have to wonder if that too adds to the mix.

A few days later, I glimpsed an insight:

 

PROMISE

Not to get up and go

anywhere

to stay loyal

in this stuck place

to be with it

to not hate it

to stay with the fiberglass

where it is packed in the mind

telling me nothing

sticking to my fingers

sticking my fingers

if I try to untangle its thread

fragile and stubborn

Not to go over the mountain

to shake it free

To be the mountain

To remember to paraphrase Thich Nhat Hanh

“My dear stuckness, I know you are there.

I am here for you,

and I will take care of you.”

 

That has been helpful, but a better response to the question in the laundromat poem came from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Transformation and Healing, his translation of the sutra of the Four Establishments of Mindfulness. In the sutra, the Buddha describes the practitioner:

When his mind is capable of reaching a higher state, he is aware. ‘My mind is capable of reaching a higher state.’ When his mind is not capable of reaching a higher state, he is aware. ‘My mind is not capable of reaching a higher state.’ When his mind is composed, he is aware. ‘My mind is composed.’ When his mind is not composed, he is aware. ‘My mind is not composed.’ When his mind is free, he is aware. ‘My mind is free.’ When his mind is not free, he is aware. ‘My mind is not free.’

As if the Buddha were speaking to me, I have found this description an insight, relief, a door open to possibility. Partly it’s as if the Buddha were giving me permission to be in the mud rather than the stars, even if, for physiological reasons, I had to stay there most or all of the time. Even if my mind is not capable of reaching a higher state, I can still know, ‘My mind is composed,’ or even ‘My mind is not composed,’ ‘My mind is free,’ ‘My mind is not free.’ And that can be mindfulness enough.