Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: sadness

  • Don’t Know

    “The truth is that you already are what you are seeking. You are looking for God with his eyes. This truth is so simple and shocking, so radical and taboo that it is easy to miss among your flurry of seeking.

    You may have heard what I am saying in the past and you may even believe it, but my question is, have you realized it with your whole being? Are you living it?” ~ Adyashanti

    The emotional experience this winter is challenging terrain. It is so interesting that for a while I have been navigating a lot of stuff with a fairly stable inner essence. At this time, not navigating so much, but experiencing a lot of inner instability.

    Words seem to be part of the conditions that give rise to this. Co-housing with three others plays a part of the conditions for sure. But these are not what is really happening.

    I was sharing something that had happened earlier in the day with the Deep Spring Group 2 on Tuesday night. John had gone in to take a nap. A while later Linda asked me, “Is John sleeping?” On the surface that seems like an easy question to answer, but a yes did not come to be. My response was more honest than a yes would have (or could have) been.

    “Say only he went into the bedroom to take a nap,” I heard the words as they were being spoken. “I have no way of knowing if he is sleeping or not.”

    This is so literally true, however it did not feel skillful. I fumbled trying to explain what was happening within my mind that would not let me speak something I knew I did not know. I watched emotion arise: sadness. I have been feeling a lot of sadness of late.

    John Orr shed some light on my experience by speaking of the practice of DON’T KNOW MIND. John said just as there is within “the one who knows” there is also within “the one who does not know.” We are encouraged to practice don’t know mind until you are comfortable resting in uncertainty, until you can do your best and laugh and say “Don’t know.”

    I can say I don’t know what has my emotions so stirred. I don’t know what will allow those waters to settle.

    With certainty I can say it has not been easy living with me these months of co-housing.

    With certainty I can say the emotions are not “me” or “mine” but they are mine to navigate.

    On Sunday we went to Farmer Joe’s to buy fresh produce. Linda and I had a lengthy conversation about apples prior to our going. My lunch every day is an apple with some cheese. Earlier in the season we got Honey Crisp apples for 99 cents a pound. That day they were priced at one dollar and 99 cents a pound. I told her the price was not much different from the Pink Lady variety we had been buying of late, and, yes, I would appreciate her getting some Honey Crisp apples while they were at the market.

    As we pulled into the parking lot, however, John announced that they had Fuji apples on sale, suggesting we buy those. When Linda turned to me and asked did I want her to get those my emotions flared. They got the Fuji apples and I had the first one yesterday. Say only, they are in my experience an inferior apple.

    The sadness that rises within speaks many phrases. Why can others in our home be indulged for the things they prefer: John gets yogurt and milk and English muffins. Larry gets his grits and wine. Linda gets her carbonated water. I hear myself thinking, “I ask for so little.”

    This could be seen as something happening inside of me or outside of me or both. But what is it really? The one who knows knows it is not about apples. The one who does not know watches the emotions cloud the sky. It has been most interesting to me to notice how much separation I am feeling. Lonely feelings in the midst of my dear ones.

    One of my dharma sisters said to me at the end of our Group 2 sharing that I am likely feeling the emotional weight of the collective. We are here in the midst of the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. People still don’t have roofs; have not settled with their insurance companies; are sifting through rubble or do not even have access to rubble. So much familiar and favored has vanished. I have my personal experience of all of this, for sure, but nothing is happening in a vacuum.

    Today John and I will drive to Pine Island and clean windows for our dear friend Nancy Green. Nancy has just purchased her half of a duplex near center island; she is now sharing a wall with a long-time friend who also was displaced by the winds and the rains.

    We have seventeen days of this season here in Port Charlotte before we will return to our respective homes in Michigan.

    Sufficient time for seeing these emotional distortions as real experiences rising out of the conditions but not having any permanent nature; days and nights for shining the light of compassion on it all; an eternity of time for practicing that don’t know mind until we are comfortable resting in uncertainty.

    How long will this all take? Say only, “Don’t know.”


  • Sea of Life Not Stay Same

    Opening email this morning and reading Neale Donald Walsch’s words: “… in moments when things look bleak — especially in those moments — see only perfection, express only gratefulness, and then imagine only what manifestation of perfection you choose next.”

    Cellular memory of our daughter Stacey’s move to Tennessee shortly after the birth of our first grandchild flooded in while sharing recently with a person who had made a cross-country move soon after her mother’s transition in the Midwest. While she was sure she was where she was to be, she was navigating intense feelings of “missing” her family and the fear of additional loss felt overwhelming.

    Speaking about loss, grief, and the necessity of regaining our emotional equilibrium in the midst of a sea of changing conditions was a reminder my current feelings are woven together with the collateral losses resulting from Hurricane Ian.

    My deep listening to Adyashanti shed some light on the universal journey with all of this. The talk was called “Self-Realization: I Got It!, I Lost It!” but it was excerpted from “The Timeless Nature of Being” given October 6, 2019, in Palo Alto, California.

    Something about it is still with you. Not by grasping at it but just almost like that intuitive sense, “What haven’t I lost?” – just sensing that, making space for it…. ~ Adyashanti

    I was at Walgreens waiting at the check-out counter for someone to come help with a rain-check for Ultra Soft Kleenex tissues. A young girl, maybe 10 or 11 years old, was next in line. As my wait time became longer and longer, I told her she was welcome to go ahead of me rather than wait. She said, “Its okay, I have my whole life ahead of me.”

    Unable to stop myself, I responded, “I have my whole life ahead of me, too, but I suspect you have more time than I.”

    A very wise expression came over her face….

    The sea of conditions is ever changing, that is for certain. But notice how much our expectation creates our experience of what is, what was, and what is yet to be. That young girl might have transitioned before I got up this morning. No, the odds are not in that direction, but the life that we experience is not always what the odds might indicate.

    We played a crazy-fun game this week while Linda’s sister, Brenda, was visiting. Poetry For Neanderthals is a word-guessing game like Password, but with a couple of quirky twists. First, you can only use one syllable words as clues. Second, if you use a larger word you get bopped in the head with a 2-foot long inflatable club.

    For example, if you are trying to get your team to guess the word broccoli, you might say “Green thing you eat for live long and have good health.” The game forces you to explain complex ideas using simple words. I like that. I am good at that. That is why this post is SEA OF LIFE NOT STAY SAME.

    One might go on to add SEA OF LIFE CAN STILL BE GOOD.

    It takes a bit to be good at it but you can even say SEA OF LIFE CAN BE GREAT.

    WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR YOU TO BE GLAD FOR WHAT IS WHILE YOU STILL FEEL SAD FOR WHAT WAS?

    I THINK YOU GET THE POINT NOW. RIGHT?

  • Retha’s Visit

    Sacred Stories

    It had been an intense retreat. She was grieving so many recent losses…

    Her best friend had passed with ALS. Her brother passed suddenly of a heart attack while climbing the stairs to visit their mother. Then her mother passed from the coronavirus — a virus that prevented her from being able to attend her mother’s funeral.

    And now, she was navigating this estrangement from her siblings.

    She had been sitting all week, doing Vipassana, being with the pain while wanting freedom from the suffering.

    She saw a small plastic picture frame, face-down on the chair. Picking it up, turning it over, she saw it was a drawing of a fish. A hand-made thank you card from a friend. The words read: Gratitude for all your compassionate support.



    The card was signed, “Vipassana love, Retha.”

    Carefully lettered up the right side of the card, “Emerald Isle 2019.” They had both attended the Emerald Isle retreat last year. Seeing Retha’s card was such a powerful gift!

    Retha’s visit was especially welcome as Retha had also passed….

    “Whatever has the nature to arise, has the nature to cease, and is not me nor mine.”

  • Big Fires

    I go to nature to be soothed and healed,
    and to have my senses put in order.

    ~ John Burroughs

    Several individuals expressed feeling depressed with all that is going on right now. I mentioned how the uncertainty shifts us into the sympathetic nervous system – fight, flight, or freeze.

    Some people are said to look for love in all the wrong places. Trying to find peace or trust or love or joy while the sympathetic nervous system is active is like setting a lobster trap in the Sahara dessert.

    The sympathetic nervous system simply can never find peace!

    Later that day, another group gathered and the same topic came up! The teacher, Barbara Brodsky, invited us to think about the experience itself.

    Can we acknowledge that mental and emotional and energetic experience called depression, without trying to get rid of depression? Who is the one that is watching this experience of depression? And what is the energy field and mind like for the one who is watching depression?

    When something is unpleasant, what happens in my mind?

    Being truly present you can see depression as an object arising out of conditions — impermanent, not “self.” Without trying to fix it, just really look at what it is. Here’s this strange object called depression. But what is it, and from what does it arise? Where will it go?

    ~ Barbara Brodsky

    The parasympathetic nervous system handles uncertainty very differently. Recognizing the only constant is change, and like a young child, you see everything as an adventure. Each step is an amazing part of the journey.

    Watching a panel discussion on Infinite Potential sponsored by the Fetzer Foundation, I was in awe of how much is known about science and spirituality. Everything science can prove, mysticism has always known.

    One of the closing comments, this one by Bob Roth, CEO of David Lynch Foundation, is worth holding onto with your head and your heart:

    Water puts out fire, if the fire is too large, you need more water. Its not the fault of the water, its how large the fire has grown.

    Yes, there is a lot going on right now, and yes, the sympathetic nervous system misses the truth, but each step is an amazing part of the journey of our Infinite Potential…..