Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Thich Nhat Hanh

Princess
Princess came as her companion while her husband was working away from home.

And Princess was her faithful fur friend for fourteen and one half years!

Princess started having seizures in October and was on seizure medications every eight hours. The alarm was set for 3 am and, after giving Princess the medication, she would watch TV until she fell back to sleep.

After Princess died, her husband’s work sent her flowers with a message, “Thinking of you. Sending sunshine your way.”

The Dharma of Dogs: Our Best Friends as Spiritual Teachers
by Tami Simon

“The pain of her death was exquisite. I cried for weeks, but felt an incredible joy and comfort that was an equal part of the grief. I was so grateful that I had spent time with her — only with her, fully present and joyful.” (p.163)

Thích Nhất Hạnh shared in No Death, No Fear:
After Princess died she would still wake up at 3 am, even without an alarm. On February 11, one week to the day of Princess’ death , when she fell back to sleep she had a vivid dream that her husband handed Princess to her and she cuddled with her in bed. Sharing with a friend about the visit Princess made to her in that dream she wrote: “Very grateful.”
June 1, 2026
A Special Guy Passed on Maundy Thursday

She received a text from a friend early on Good Friday morning. “Dad passed away yesterday. We were all there with him. He was such a special guy. Extremely glad I got to spend so much time with him the last few years.”

Maundy Thursday, falling in Holy Week before Good Friday, commemorates the Last Supper, where Jesus instituted Holy Communion (Eucharist) and washed his disciples’ feet to model service. It marks the new commandment for us to “love one another.”

She expressed appreciation for having received the news. “We also feel so honored we share your view that he really was a special guy. The other side of the veil just gained one of the best. I am imagining one heck of a welcome party!!!!”

Right after she sent that text message it came to her mind to share Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Death, No Fear, about his mother having died.

The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, “A serious misfortune of my life has arrived.” I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet… wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.

Her friend wrote back, “I guess I’m lucky, because I felt he was in me as soon as he was gone. I looked at his body and it almost meant nothing to me. One thing I did do: The hospice nurse asked what clothes I wanted put on him. I went to my house and got his deer hunting clothes. He left dressed the way he was when he was happiest.”

A bit later, she also received this news from her friend: “A lone Jake turkey visited our house this morning. It was suddenly right outside the window while I was eating breakfast. Only the second time I’ve seen a turkey since we moved to this house.”

Adapted from AI: Loved one, including pets and human family, may appear as animals after death. These experiences are often considered spiritual visits or symbols of the afterlife. Some believe because animals are “high vibrational beings,” they can navigate between realms, allowing the spirits of our loved ones to visit through them. These visits are viewed as a way for deceased loved ones to show they are still part of the family’s journey, bringing peace and confirming that they have not truly left.

Holy God, source of all love,
on the night of his betrayal,
Jesus gave us a new commandment,
to love one another as he loves us.

April 3, 2026
R.I.P.
Your current comfort zone has served you,
but it represents your behaviors
and patterns from your past.
~ Daily Om

My sister and I just learned a childhood friend and neighbor took his own life. We had recently ended up living near one another again after all of these years. I instantly felt a profound sense of loss. That motivated me to do some journal writing about what is real. “V” is for inner voice.

D: What would you have me know?

V: Know as real whatever you are experiencing. Sadness? Shock? Loss? These are your real experiences. Just don’t confuse them with True.

You said you had read once that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary emotion. Can you see how every feeling state is just that?

D: Yes, emotions are fleeting.

V: Everything in the conditional realm is fleeting. What lasts?

D: Impact lasts.

V: In what way/s?

D: Impact generates consequences or changes options or dictates choices.

V: Yes, you are describing residual. No moment stands alone. No one is alone.

I felt as though our friend led me to a short video of Rupert Spira answering a question at the end of a retreat about how to come back to a sense of being when going back out into the worldly activity. He began by saying, “You don’t just visit your being, you live there. The peace of your background begins to eclipse your foreground.” He encouraged us to align our external life: where we live, what work we do, and the people we hang out with.

I wondered if my childhood friend having just returned from his summer home here in Michigan to his “real” life contributed to a state of mind that was intolerable. I will likely never know the details, but we all learn from everything we become aware of.

Rupert also spoke about the relationship of suffering and resistance, “You don’t resist suffering because it’s suffering. You suffer because you resist…. ‘I don’t like what’s happening’…. all your suffering consists of that single thought…. Face your experience from awareness. Awareness does not know the meaning of resistance.”

AI generated the following:
So, to the family and friends of this friend, I say, “You will be remembered.” For 40 days I will chant for him; until November 13.

“Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha” is the Buddhist mantra found at the end of the Heart Sutra. It translates roughly to “Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond, Enlightenment, hail!”. The mantra signifies a journey across the “other shore” of suffering to the realization of wisdom and enlightenment, or bodhi. Each word progresses the idea of departing the conventional world for ultimate understanding.

This is how Rabbi Rami Shapiro writes about death in “Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler”:

November/December 2008
What happens when I die?

Where does an ice cube go in a tub of warm water? You are the cube, God is the water. For a while you seem separate from the water, but eventually you melt – you die – and discover that you, too, are water. Have fun being a cube; just don’t forget that all cubes are water, and everything is God.

And January/February 2007

Imagine that the universe is a rope and you, your mom, and all things are knots in that rope. Each knot is unique, and all knots are the rope. When we die our knot unties, but the rope that is our essence remains unchanged: we become what we already are.

Life after death is the same as life before death: the rope knotting and unknotting. The extent to which you identify with a knot is the extent to which you grieve over its untying. The extent to which you realize that the knot is the rope is the extent you can move through your grief into a sense of fearless calm.

For me, the rope is God, the source and substance of all reality. When your mom dies she relaxes into her true nature, and realizes who she always was and is: God. I believe this realization comes at death regardless of who we are or how we life.

In “No Death, No Fear” Thích Nhất Hạnh writes:

The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, “A serious misfortune of my life has arrived.” I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet… wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.

May his family and friends know he is always with us.

May all beings come to the end of suffering.

May all beings love and be loved and know that they are love.

May all beings know perfect peace.

Amen.
October 7, 2025
Beyond Beautiful Blossoming

No matter how difficult life
becomes, we must keep practicing
continuously. This is the only
way. Eventually we begin to see
and be part of a simpler reality
that we are not separate from,
but is actually nature itself.

~ The Daily Tejaniya

These words touch a space deep within as they are seen on the heels of a deep sharing with a friend who has enjoyed a wildly successful business career that had been cut to the quick by the current conditions. She had taken a couple of days off to inner listen for guidance to co-create going forward. Three key words were already present in awareness: simplify, co-creation, building community.

At one point we spoke about intention toward that which already is but is not yet known to be possible. Was electricity invented or was it recognized? Was fire created or observed and harnessed? Part of us understands fully that in every moment ALL already IS even as what is manifest is malleable.

I looked up the meaning of the word manifest. “To manifest something means to make it appear, become visible, or real, often through the process of focused thinking, belief, and intention. It can also refer to the process of showing something clearly, like a feeling or a belief, through actions or signs. Manifestation, in a more spiritual or self-help context, refers to the act of attracting desired outcomes into one’s life by focusing on them intensely, often through practices like visualization and affirmation.”

Last evening we attended an evening of gospel and hymn singing in a nearby church. One of our Glenaire Jam friends was singing in the choir. I noticed how differently I experienced the masculine pronouns for God; the theology of all being sinful; of everyone needing to be saved by the blood of Jesus to avoid an eternity of suffering. I have grown through this view and I am able to see it as fruitful even as these are not what I resonate with at this place on my path. Likely the exposure contributed to why curiosity about the “man” of manifest caught my attention this morning and led me to the Google search.

Reading lots about manifesting moved me to also do a search for the words co-create and Divine Feminine. “The Divine Feminine manifests through a variety of ways, including nurturing actions, intuitive guidance, and a deep connection to the natural world. It can also be experienced as a shift in perspective, where individuals recognize their own intuitive and compassionate nature, leading them to embrace their power and advocate for what they believe in. The Divine Feminine is often associated with nurturing, compassion, and a desire to protect and care for others. This can manifest in various ways, such as actively supporting family members, friends, or those in need, or advocating for causes that align with these values.”

Wow…. This is exactly what my friend was articulating! The phrase aspire higher popped onto the page of my journal❤️

Thich Nhat Hanh encourages us, “The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don’t wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.” Are you able to notice how these words make it clear that we are not manifesting happiness but allowing happiness to be manifest in and through our lives?

The day’s theme continued to cast clarity on yesterday’s sharing as I read the Daily Quote from Deep Spring:

You’re familiar with transactional consciousness. It can be a very benign transaction. It can be a harsh transaction. Either way, it’s still a transaction which is centered in a ground of self. All transactions that come from you are grounded in a space of self. “I will do this. I will give that. I am dreaming of world peace, and this is what I’m willing to do to help co-create world peace.” But there’s still a self and an other to it. Transaction. Many of you have sat together in a meditation hall, coming to a space of connectedness where it seems like the meditators around you are just an extension of yourself, that there is truly no separation between you. You’ve done walking meditation where the earth under your feet and the growing things seem like a part of you. You don’t say to the garden, as you walk, “Won’t you please bloom so I can see your beauty?” You just say, “Ohh!” because it’s so beautiful. You are part of the garden. The flowers are blooming. The butterflies are blooming. You are blooming. There’s a sense of non-separation and unconditional love. I am not negating transactional creation. That’s the way your world works, for now. If you go into the gas station and say, “I am going to co-create gas,” and you open your gas tank, the gas station salesperson is going to come out and say, “First you have to put money in the slot.” But we’re changing it. We can change it so that the sense of separation dissolves and all beings may live in peace, health, and happiness. ~ Aaron

Blossoming is our true nature and right now everything is beyond beautiful. Ohh…..

April 26, 2025
Karma and Forgiveness

We crave that deep place within
that cannot be touched by the ups and downs of life,
but rather just IS – connected and whole.

~ Katie Rubinstein

For well over twenty years I have been working with a Karmic stream from a lucid past life. I will tell it like a fictional story so you will be able to hear the truth and make good use of the wisdom and compassion without needing to believe or disbelieve any details. For ease in writing I shall write it the way I experience it, which is in first person.

The best stories begin with long, long ago in a far-away place I was born as a female to parents who were the beloved and trusted leaders in a utopian walled village. I was one with all of nature; able to speak and understand the birds and animals and revered by all in our community. Although I was born a female, I was announced as a male to avoid instability in the face of no heir. It was a truly blissful existence… until I was approaching puberty.

Overhearing my parents discussing the dilemma that soon my body would betray us and violence was sure to occur, I ran away thinking that my being there was the problem so running away would be the solution. All delusion is that misguided, and this was a slippery slope for sure.

I was befriended by a man who cared greatly for me as the son of the leaders but as time passed it became obvious I was a female, and his love became corrupt. He forced himself on me, resulting in my becoming pregnant. I was so frightened and ignorant and unhappy, and he was so frightened that I would run away he incarcerated me. I could not see or hear the birds and animals. I was bereft.

Peeling a large sliver from the wooden tray he left food for me on, I dug into my wrist, bleeding to death, ending my life and the life of the fetus within me. That unborn one has been my business partner for over twenty years in this life, and the man who had kept me was my business partner’s wife in this lifetime. She loved me so much, but she was not happy with his continuing to work as she was retired and wanted him to retire. Soon after he and I formed a legal partnership and it was obvious he was not only not going to retire but would also be doing a large amount of consulting work with me, she moved out of state saying, “I will see you when I see you.” They were eventually divorced.

“A retreat is best served when you acknowledge your awakeness yet know it is not fully realized yet.”

“There is both wholesome and unwholesome karma. The intention is to go beyond karma.”

“See it as the perfect unfolding of karma…. see the innate perfection everywhere…. you have a portion of it and a responsibility to release that portion for all beings. None of this can happen without intention.”

“For every human there is wholesome karma regardless of how deeply mired in negativity.”

“Each being that looks at unwholesome karma with forgiveness and love is living the intention and brings forth high vibration and love and to heal the whole earth.”

My nighttime dreams and my meditations were filled with painful memories related to this karmic stream. Lucid. Vibrant. Complete with body sensations, smells, sights and sounds.

On Wednesday during the sitting following Darshan with The Mother, as channeled by Barbara Brodsky, I experienced clear seeing of how “saying no with love” could have made space for less pain and suffering for everyone. I heard my former self speak from total love, compassion, and wisdom.

“I am a child. I am very broken hearted, enough so that I do not want to live. If I die, so will your child. You took my body which was not freely given. Please let me go free. Do not force yourself on me again. I cannot promise that I will come to love you in that way, but I will live so your beloved child may also live. Will you at least try?”

Thursday evening’s Dharma talk by John Orr was on faith. John quoted Thomas Merton as having said that faith begins when prayer becomes impossible and the heart has changed to stone. I know that feeling related to this karmic stream….

I see Nuthatch as I open my eyes and I look up the spiritual meaning.

When Nuthatch flutters into your awareness, it brings a message of keeping the faith and trusting what you know within, even if you can’t see it wiht your natural eyes.

As I close my eyes during the final sitting of the day I hear, “You can’t go back, Dear One. Your heart is seeking to find freedom here now.”

I sit through floods of torturous memories during meditation but this time I am able to see it all as more being purified. My intent is to lay it all down….

Parallel to all of this inner journey, I have had a yeast flare. Such intense vaginal itching I could not sleep. The probable mental cause of candida according to Louise Hay is feeling very scattered. (As the retreat opened I was so scattered Sivia had to take over the hosting duties.) Lots of frustration and anger and untrusting in relationships. (Oh, yes, very familiar….) The affirmation to clear this pattern is beautifully simple: “I give myself permission to be all that I can be, and I deserve the very best in life. I love and appreciate myself and others.”

“We have to be respectful of the pain the forgiveness is to release.”

“Forcing forgiveness is another way of not forgiving ourselves.”

“When we stop separating ourselves from others, it becomes THE PAIN, and compassion comes. With compassion there is no need for forgiveness.”

Never put anyone out of your heart. ~ Maharshi

I feel such gratitude for the yeast!

“We don’t have to attain nirvana, because we ourselves are always dwelling in nirvana. The wave does not have to look for the water. It already is water. We are one with the ground of our being. Once the wave realizes that she is water all her fear vanishes.” ~ Thich Nhat Hahn

June 12, 2023
The Theme of Home

I was on retreat and up quite early one morning and I wanted to share so I let myself enjoy the bliss of fingers on the keyboard. I am now home and sending this.

Stacey and John drove out with me on Friday evening so they could see where I would be for the week. I know Stacey felt much better after seeing the precious space. She even said, “Something like this is what we need to build for you guys.” I have spent some time in planning mind imagining what, when, where, and why love might unfold in that direction. But that is not now. We are learning to be here now.

One of my first journal entries was noting that I knew what the closing chant would be before the meditation began. This has been a way spirit has communicated to me for many, many years. In some ways, it is why I started a journal practice almost 60 years ago. If I wrote it down and then it happened I knew I had not made it up.

“This is not a retreat that will lead to awakening — rather, it will uncover your awakened heart, your true nature.”

“Sacred darkness and darkness are the same thing. What makes it sacred is how you respond to it.”

“Practicing skillfully is just our becoming aware of more kindness coming forth; more compassion.”

During walking mediation on opening day I walked the perimeter of the property. I walked around each tree. I thought of the opening lines of the poem “Lost” by David Wagoner:

‘Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here’

As I walked I felt walking in the labyrinth at Emrich, Oakwood, Still Waters… it was not a remembering of walking those labyrinths, not a mental activity at all but a FEELING, an experiencing.

A cousin sent a text message sharing that he had done the havening technique for/on his brother who is with hospice care. His brother had been in such pain he could not sleep. The havening calmed him down and he slept. I wrote back saying we knew when the havening was so helpful for him that he would pass it on. That day he had been able to pass it on to his beloved brother.

I had a flash of John going with me to Still Waters years ago. It was a winter day and John has slipped into his hibernation mode. As we drove there I asked John how a dog knows when it is his day off. We both laughed. On the drive home John told me he had realized how having a leisure day at Still Waters was different from having a leisure day at home: “No guilt.”

It is wonderful to be here.

Aaron talked about his final lifetime, how he felt like a failure. He left the monastery in shame and grief and went to live in the woods. “I felt enormous gratitude for the forest,” he said. I know that feeling. The following morning we were to hug a tree and spend some time listening to the tree. We were encouraged to feel the boundaries fall away. We were to ask the tree, ‘Who am I?’

Barbara shared about having had cellulitis 25 years ago. As she lay in the hospital bed not sure if her leg would have to be amputated, she offered metta for the woman in the next bed whose leg had just been amputated, and for all beings who may have lost a leg to an accident, or war, or disease. She said, “One leg to heal for all.” I sent her sharing to our cousin.

I was very scattered as the retreat began and Sivia picked up on that right away. She so graciously took over the hosting. We actually became very seamless sharing the hosting duties. I am so grateful for this dharma dance we share. That continued throughout the week.

I went out to identify the tree I would spend time with. It was not too far from the patio and it has one trunk that splits into two.

The bark was VERY soft. I have never felt anything like that. As I was focused on appreciating the texture of the bark, I saw a tree frog!It was right at eye level and as I looked more closely, the frog opened its eyes to look directly at me.

I realized the tree was this frog’s home. I complimented the frog on having such a lovely home. I knew I was a visitor and I had great appreciation for the frog’s gracious hospitality. I had never seen a tree frog in a tree but I had a similar experience years ago as small moths would fly up from the grass while I walked at dusk. We co-exist with ALL. Not really co-existing, WE ARE ALL. I AM ALL. YOU ARE ALL.

I remembered the poem, Please Call Me By My True Names, by Thich Nhat Hanh we heard earlier.

Spiritual meaning of frog: cleansers of bad spirits. Ability to heal; songs are magical and contain divine powers.

I asked the tree about the protrusion on the inside of my right ankle, if it was bone cancer. I heard, “No.”

Woodpecker and crow were nearby.

Sunday morning the teaching was about the hindrances: Doubt, clinging and grasping, aversion, agitation and restlessness, sloth and torpor. Sloth is when the body may feel heavy, lethargic, weary, or weak. It may be difficult to keep the body erect while meditating. Torpor means the mind may be dull, cloudy, or weary. One or another of the hindrances may be predominant, but we are told that it is nearly impossible for any hindrance to be alone, that it is a contracted state. We are encouraged to note ‘this is a contracted state’ and be present with it, noticing where it is in the body, not even giving it a name. In my sacred drawing I write, “I greet you with lovingkindness. I honor you. I honor myself for my willingness to feel and release.”

“You are not trying to create compassion. You are compassion.”

“You don’t have to fix yourself.”

I saw a beautiful yellow swallowtail butterfly!

When difficult memories or emotions would come up during a sitting I would acknowledge them with kindness seeing them as something that was still being purified. I walked backwards up and down the hill on the edge of the property. Barbara shared having done a backwards walking meditation with about one hundred people at a dzogchen retreat! You sure have to stay mindful to walk backwards safely.

A fly came in with me from my evening walk. I was totally taken back to our time this past winter when we struggled with flies coming in. Not once did I have compassion for the flies. I truly felt such compassion that this fly could not find its way back out. It finally got into the bathroom so I closed the door and went to bed. I did not see it again. I hope it got out on its own.

The only thing I brought to read was The Flight of the Garuda: The Dzogchen Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. I opened randomly to Song 13 and read how regardless of what it is, a thought or a memory or a sensation: it is all arising out of conditions and is not me nor mine. Our small group met on Monday. I was wearing the BEE Kind t-shirt my sister Janis gave to me. I stood up so folks could see it. It was a very fun energy to wear all day as we were learning how important that is…. and later in the week I put the shirt over a big pillow and had it beside me.

I noticed the grasping to check John’s CPAP scores and I resisted looking until I was no longer grasping but then THERE WERE NO SCORES! It took a bit to problem solve and discover the app was down. Stacey assured me her dad was alive and well and at coffee. Just as I look up after meditation a squirrel scampers right across the patio.

“Spaciousness is innate.”

“We are this unborn, uncreated, undying.”

“Awaken moment-to-moment with what is arising.”

After the 2:30 meditation I saw hummingbird fly by the patio door. On my 3:45 walk hawk was my companion, and at 4:30 two hawks were circling very loudly!

During the Monday evening dharma talk Barbara led us through the reading of the Mala Recitation. When it was my turn, I read the Five Precepts.

“Where do we look for the Buddha?”

The story about the man who went looking for the Buddha, and ended up spending the night in a barn with a monk. The monk asked if he could help the traveler and the traveler said no, that he was looking for the Buddha. In the morning the monk was gone. The traveler never realized he had spent the night with the Buddha.

“Each time you sit, assume the Buddha is right there with you. The Buddha can never be farther away from you than your own heart. Ask your question as if you were asking the living Buddha. Ask the living Buddha which is right there in your loving heart.”

“When you ask ‘where is joy?’ know there is no duality. To experience sorrow is to touch the whole human experience.”

“Only love dissolves fear.”

“Remember, you are the one who is awake!”

I notice that the hindrances do seem to come as a collage, likely because they are feedback of the heart’s closing.

I notice the subtle thought that I need to conserve, or I might run out of food. I see clearly the habit energy of fear and aversion to not having what I need or want. Past life memories flood in. I won’t go into detail here but this is a very strong karmic stream that I have been with sincere intention working with for over twenty years.

I picked yellow pansies to replace the beautiful purple ones Delcy had left for me on Friday.

The sacred drawing process Laura taught me was a companion on this retreat. It is amazing how much release can happen with crayons and markers or a gel pen.

“What is the unconditioned and why should I care about it?… It is home… It is also the ground out of which distortion, fear, contraction arises. The unconditioned contains all seeming opposites.”

My host left me a four-leaf clover in a sweet little ceramic cup out on the patio table! He could not have known that earlier when I was walking and noticing all of the clover I had the thought, “Never in my life have I found a four leaf clover,” but the holy spirit must have guided him. I slipped a thank you note under the door.

OMG – On my first walking period after Tom left the four leaf clover for me I stepped off the patio and saw a four leaf clover, too! The message seems to be that when I knew I had one I was not trying to find one and I could see what was right there. (See the Sacred Story at https://www.scs-matters.com/four-leaf-clovers/)

I see a heart-shaped ant hill by my patio door and the dental floss in the bathroom waste basket is also in a heart shape. Ginny wrote: Next to the dental floss heart is the number 6. People associate with number 6 are very creative. There is a rise in the level of consciousness and awareness at the same time, which makes you more imaginative than practical. This number can be analogous to love, charm, health, oneness, empathy, destiny.

Everything is created by one’s mind…Everything is the natural form of emptiness, nonexistent and yet apparent, through the magical display of one’s mind…. All the phenomena of Samsara and Nirvana thus are self-display, all all self-display is groundless and empty.

Song 10 in Flight of the Garuda

Samsara and Nirvana have a similar meaning to hell and heaven. It was likely the most excruciating and the most exhilarating retreat in my current awareness. I would say it was a Bardo preview…. more about that in later posts.

June 10, 2023
Happy Birthday Haiku
“Our inner lives are every bit as astonishing,
baffling, and mysterious
as the infinite vastness of the cosmos.”
~ Adyashanti

Adyashanti’s words speak volumes to me as I am in the pondering process related to culling everything SCS-Matters in preparation for a new DebraBasham.com website. What to keep, what to save. What to repackage or repurpose. What to give away, what to sell; what to forget and what to savor. Timely for my birthday today.

I wake up this morning having turned 73. While some dread aging, I experience each day of aging as grace. It seems having had birth trauma, and medical trauma at age 5, and a near-death experience at age 12 prepared me for LIFE.

Again today a mocking bird was sitting on the fence directly outside of the kitchen window of the house we are sharing with Linda and Larry this winter. The title of To Kill a Mockingbird has very little literal connection to the plot, but it carries a great deal of symbolic weight in the book. In this story of innocents destroyed by evil, the “mockingbird” comes to represent the idea of innocence. Some of the key characteristics and attributes of Mockingbird Animal Spirit include inventiveness, keen-mindedness, happiness, playfulness, protection, thankfulness, security, and, most of all, communication.

For sure, the Imagine Healing process is something I want to have available to the world. It is such gift to see in every surgery or injury or experience myriad opportunities. Why just go through whatever it is on the surface level. Let that bruise be an evidence procedure of healing of memories, beliefs, behaviors, or attitudes that lessen the amazement of living. Every moment of every day we are meeting life on infinite levels and awareness provides a HUGE happening from the most mundane. I don’t even just brush my teeth!!!

When Joel Bowman and I were actively training folks in the Imagine Healing process we always did mock surgery as a role-play and students experienced an ectomy (removal of something they and others in the world would be better off without) and implant (something beneficial they and others in the world had not been able to have previously). Imagine a fear ectomy and a joy implant….

January 22 is a birthday I share with my friend Wayne Kaiser. This is the first year since we have been friends that I am in body and Wayne is in spirit. I do not think of Wayne as dead. In fact, I cannot comprehend death as different from birth, and this week I listened to an amazing account of Rabbi Stephen Robbins (who has had 8 near-death-experiences!!!) and, as my birthday ritual, will share some of his beautiful comments about life.

“Every soul is formed to do one of three things. One is to take something out of the world which no longer belongs — either a treatment or a system of genetics which don’t belong in the world anymore or a spiritual quality that can be stopped. The other is to bring something new into the world of knowledge or experience — an insight that has not been there before. And the third is to synergize both of them so that what comes in is the sense of what it means to live a life for service and for purpose rather than for our own gain.”

“So that in our leaving this world and realizing there is no death, we change the genetic out-pour that will stop the repetition of the destructiveness like drug addiction, child abuse, violent acquisition — and at the same time will add a sense of insight and understanding which will lead beyond living with a sense of the limitation in this life.” (Rabbi Stephen Robbins 8 Near Death Experiences)

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Yesterday Linda and I spent our day busy in the kitchen. She roasted a turkey and we have made a dinner for friends out on Pine Island that are living in (while doing rehab) after Hurricane Ian filled their manufactured home with four feet of floodwater. Four months later they do not yet have a stove. Mind you, theirs is a three-generational family including their adult daughter and their 4-year old grandson. Today we will deliver turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, two-corn casserole, and brownies. These can be warmed in the microwave oven they do have. I told Linda that this is my best birthday dinner ever.

After the delivery, we will attend a matinee of “The Sound of Music” at the Cultural Park Theater in Cape Coral, before meeting Nancy Green for dinner at Miceli’s in Matlacha. In 2013 John and I went there for my birthday dinner and discovered they give you a free entree plus desert ON YOUR BIRTHDAY. We have gone back every year since. It is bittersweet to go this year after soooo much of what was familiar and special about our beloved Florida community was damaged, devastated, or destroyed.

Even in the midst of loss there is gift….
Happy Birthday, Wayne Kaiser. Happy Birthday, Debra Basham.

And many happy returns.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart. – Ecclesiastes 3:11

Don’t Go Back to Sleep
by Rumi

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth
across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
January 22, 2023
Five Tiny Crystals

Sacred Stories

She has had a Karma chakra chart with the corresponding colors laying on her desk at work for a month or so. She was straightening up and getting ready for an appointment. Everything was normal on her desk. She plugged in a new CD with healing sounds from crystal bowls and that reminded her of her friend, James, so she said, “Hi.”

Her phone buzzed. She got up from her chair to go to it. It was just a friend checking in.

She looked at her desk, and noticed five tiny crystals laying in a little pile on the chakra sheet!

She had JUST been over there and there was nothing there. There were no crystals there when she had picked up the sheet to re-read the Sacral chakra because her tummy was hurting. “Now, I have five baby ones and I don’t know where they came from,” she said in a text message to a friend, “I lined them up on the paper.”

Her friend sent a text message back, “It seems you do know where the tiny crystals came from! We keep getting better at recognizing and honoring and receiving help from non-physical.”

Here is the photo, along with her response: “Life can be so fun!”

― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Death, No Fear

The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, “A serious misfortune of my life has arrived.” I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet… wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.

July 5, 2022
Learn, Grow, and Change
One of the most extraordinary aspects of our humanity
is our capacity to learn, grow, and change.

~ Sheryl Chard (Gratefulness.org)

One week ago today I got a call from the son of my long-time business partner, Joel Bowman, asking who in Kalamazoo could take his dad to the ER.

Of course, I am in Florida. A former student, Deb Doerschler, is also still in the south-for-the-winter location. Joel’s wonderful friend, Bob Kipp, was at their place up north. I suggested a neighbor who has been part of the behind-the-scenes support for the past several years. Thankfully, she was able and willing.

Joel was admitted to the hospital that evening.

I was so angry a few days later when Joel’s son did not even let me know that Joel had been moved to a skilled nursing facility. Two of Joel’s friends had tried to visit him at the hospital, and were told he had been discharged.

The anger has born fruit. (Uncomfortable emotions have a way of doing that.)

Wednesday night, seeking some inner peace around the situation, I was led to watch “The Roots of Anger” by Thich Nhat Hanh on YouTube. Here are my notes:
Thursday afternoon as I was doing yoga, awareness visited me and opened my heart. I had total body memory of the first night my mom was at an adult foster care home. After dropping her off, I had my best night’s rest in months.

Relief from my uncomfortable emotions because she was not in her own home totally hid from awareness her uncomfortable emotions because she was not in her own home.

Compassion for all of us washed over past, present and future.

When I was able to speak to Joel while he was in the hospital he told me he had been taken captive, was being held in some industrial compound, and some kind of experiment was being conducted on him. I said, “I understand totally that from your perspective Western medicine might feel like that, but you are in Bronson hospital. Nancy Anderson took you to the ER because you were very sick and could have died if you did not get treated immediately.”

I encouraged him to look on the walls of the room. Could he see a white board with his name on it? Yes, he could. He told me it also had the date and the names of the doctor and nurses assigned to his care.

“It isn’t aliens who are taking care of you,” I assured him.

To which he replied, “In a way, we are all aliens….”

Profound awareness.

These past years I have often been angry at Joel’s son and daughter-in-law. I have been an alien to the roots of that anger. The roots of that anger had been guilt and pain over my lack of awareness for my mom’s emotional needs during that time.

And for all of these years I had been an alien to the forgiveness and peace awareness brings.

Awareness frees us.

Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’
March 25, 2022
Holy Holons
On Friday I could feel that my blood pressure was high. I began to affirm: I choose to release this pattern within me that has contributed to this situation.

Boom!

I am 12 years old again — August 1962 — in the auto accident with my dad. I am reliving all the terror at the scene. I allow myself to feel the feelings. I begin to cry out, “Daddy, are you OK?” and to no one in particular, “Make them stop!” asking them to make the sirens stop.

Listening to an interview with Iyanla Vanzant on Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT/tapping), I put the blood pressure cuff on my arm and took my blood pressure.

I did that over and over as I invited release of this life-time pattern of fear.

My dad’s feet were in the floorboard on the driver’s side of the car, but shattered flesh from my forehead prevented my being able to see them. To the best of my memory, I did not see my dad until a day or so later when he came to the hospital to see me.

I allowed myself emotional space to cry out as I tapped.

Ilyana says one must expand and increase our emotional library. Jessica Ortner (The Tapping Solution) said it is about developing a vocabulary so we can speak out. “This is the feeling I’m having right now. I’ll get through this but right now this is what I am feeling.”

I wrote in my journal: “I am mourning. I’m feeling something from when I was five years old.”

And, “I forgive myself for believing that ______ still has power over my life.”

I took 1/2 of one of the anxiety pills my doctor prescribed.

I tapped a lot.

I cried some.

On Saturday, John had an off day and that intersected with my heightened state. We were neither truly skillful, but this morning we were both able to speak compassionately and affirm our loving connection.

Jerry Ashmore’s dharma talk was about how the Heart Sutra is a conceptual torpedo in that it demolishes dualism. Jerry said, “Every time you think you are isolated, you are delusional.”

“Form is emptiness (śūnyatā), emptiness is form.” (from the English Heart Sutra)

Nothing lasts forever. We know that. But…. as Ilanya describes it, every time we revisit the story we punish ourselves.

During the sharing after the meditation and the dharma talk one woman was saying how she was having difficulty getting free of rumination and depression. Jerry said, “The witness is free. No anxiety, no fear, no hatred.”

Totally free.

Jerry spoke about a holon. A holon is something that is simultaneously a whole in and of itself, as well as a part of a larger whole. He said each of us is a holon, simultaneously a whole as well as a part of a larger whole.

I passed along Thich Nhat Hanh’s MANTRA FOR DEALING WITH STRONG EMOTIONS:

Make sure you remember to physically “BREATHE IN” or “BREATHE OUT” at the appropriate place when reciting each line; as the actual breath in or out is part of activating the Energy.

The “operative word” of the Mantra replaces the strong emotion being worked on, with its appropriate name: Fear, Anger, Anxiety, Impatience, Judgment of self or others, etc. The example uses the word Fear. Good to remember that sometimes anger is an unknown component of the fear a person may be holding, because they have not been able to control or Fix It.
I am not sure we ever talked about it so I can only imagine my dad’s terror at the scene.

My dad I I are simultaneously a whole as well as a part of a larger whole.

Breathing Out, I Invite That, which is for The Highest Good!

Holy holons!
February 27, 2022