Dawn Bergacker

“My Father, the Age I Am Now Time, which diminishes all things, increases understanding for the aging. —PLUTARCH My mother was the star: Smart and funny and warm, A patient listener and an easy laugher. My father was . . . an accountant: Not one to look up to, Ask advice from, Confide in. A man of few words. We faulted him—my mother, my sister, and I, For being this dutiful, uninspiring guy Who never missed a day of work, Or wondered what our dreams were. Just . . . an accountant. Decades later, My mother dead, my sister dead, My father, the age I am now, Planning ahead in his so-accountant way, Sent me, for my records, Copies of his will, his insurance policies, And assorted other documents, including The paid receipt for his cemetery plot, The paid receipt for his tombstone, And the words that he had chosen for his stone. And for the first time, shame on me, I saw my father: Our family’s prime provider, only provider. A barely-out-of-boyhood married man Working without a safety net through the Depression years That marked him forever, Terrified that maybe he wouldn’t make it, Terrified he would fall and drag us down with him, His only goal, his life-consuming goal, To put bread on our table, a roof over our head. With no time for anyone’s secrets, With no time for anyone’s dreams, He quietly earned the words that made me weep, The words that were carved, the following year, On his tombstone: HE TOOK CARE OF HIS FAMILY.”
― Judith Viorst, Nearing Ninety: And Other Comedies of Late Life

“In addition to mindfulness, Buddhist teachings also offer many other systematic ways of working with difficult energies when they arise. Here are five of them: 1. When strong desire, fear, or anger arise, just let it go. Or if you cannot let it go, let it be. To “let it be” is a better expression of letting go anyway, because usually when we hear “let go of it” we think of getting rid of it, but we cannot really just get rid of it. To do so is adding more desire, fear, or anger; it is saying in effect, “I don’t like this, so I’m going to stop it.” But that is like trying to get rid of your own arm; this feeling is a part of us in some way. So instead of “letting go,” letting be means “to see it as it is,” seeing clearly. There is fear, there is anger, there is joy, there is love, there is depression, there is hatred, there is jealousy. Let it be. There is embarrassment. Let it be. There is self-judgment. Let it be. Then there is self-pity, then there is delight. They are just different states of mind. The human mind has all of these states, and our task is to let them be, to learn to relate to the mind in a compassionate and wise way.”
― Jack Kornfield, Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are

“Initially the training in Ajahn Chah’s tradition requires long periods of communal walking and sitting practice, and frequent all-night sittings in the Buddha Hall. After training together with the collective of monks, you may then be directed to a period of practice in solitude for some months. For this part of the training, monks live in isolated caves or in more distant parts of jungles and mountains, a long morning’s walk from the last remote village. Or, in certain retreat centers, small huts are provided for solitary intensive meditation. My own training included a solitary retreat for one year and three months. I didn’t leave my room, just meditated fifteen to eighteen hours a day, sitting for an hour, walking for an hour, then sitting again. I’d see my teacher every two days for a fifteen-minute interview. You don’t have to be in solitude very long before any pride you have goes away. It is quite humbling. Your mind will do anything. Every past thing you’ve ever done or imagined comes back. Every mood, every fear, every longing, your loneliness, your pain, your love, creativity, and boredom appear with great intensity.”
― Jack Kornfield, Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are

“You eat one meal a day, only what is given. Through these practices of surrender there grows a ripening of trust as the heart learns to face the mystery of life with patience, faith, and compassion. Monks must go out each morning with a bowl for alms rounds. This is not like street-corner begging. For me, it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Just as the sun rises, you walk across the green rice paddies to small villages with packed earthen lanes. Those who wish to offer alms wait for the monks to come and bow before they offer their food. Even the poorest villages will offer part of their food to make merit and as if to say, “Even though we are poor, we so value what you represent that we give of what little we have so that your spirit may be here in our village, in our community, and in our society.” Alms rounds are done completely in silence. When you receive the food, you can’t say, “Thank you; I appreciate the mango you gave me,” or “Thanks for the fish this morning; it looks really good.” The only response you can make is the sincerity of your heart. After you receive this food, you take it back to support and inspire your practice. When the villagers value the monk’s life and give of the little they have, you must take that. The extraordinary generosity of the village brings a powerful motivation in a monastery. The rules about alms food govern monastic life. Monks are not allowed to keep food overnight or eat anything that’s not put into their hands each morning by a layperson. This means that monks can’t live as hermits up in the mountains far from the world. They must live where people can feed them. This immediately establishes a powerful relationship. You must do something of enough value that they want to feed you. Your presence, your meditation, your dignity, has to be vivid enough so that when you bring your bowl, people want to offer food because that’s the only way you can eat! This creates an ongoing dynamic of offering that goes both ways, from those who are in the process of being initiated in the monastery, and those of the community whom it benefits.”
― Jack Kornfield, Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are