hare krishna

It had been a long time since we listened to devotional ecstatic religious music--chanting and mantras and bouncing. We listen to Hare Krishna music, because there is a joy there. Children respond well to joy. The words are easy to say and they all mean God. So, we laugh and dance and bounce, and fall into a pile of us. I told Beezus last time we chanted that we should go to the Hare Krishna temple for devotion.

Chanting in a group feels electric, I tell her. Then we could eat vegetarian food and smile at people. There is a light in this scene I am painting. It was summer then. Our shoulders were bare. Our feet leathered and hot. It was humid. We soaked through our clothes. We burned incense. We put our hands in namaste position and bowed to each other laughing. Beezus loves namaste hands, she repeats the word like a mantra too. I don't tell her it means peace, because I like the way she says it quickly, in a very unpeaceful way.

namastenamastenamaste.

Beezus asked me what a Hare Krishna is. And I tell her that Krishnas are people who believe they can be closer to God and achieve enlightenment by chanting and dancing together, and eating food for God. They devote their lives to this kind of joy. Her eyes perk up, and she says, "That is what I want to be when I grow up."


The wind has been terrible this week. We are wearing layers in our house. I light the fire. The wind blows it out. It rattles the upper floor windows, sending an icy draft over us. It pushes against the car when we are flying down the highway.

Box yourself into your metal machine. Crank up your Sigur Ros. Turn on the heat, but I will still blow you away, the wind howls.


I feel swept up in the winter now. My voice, nothing but a weak breathy deepness, lost in the sounds of our house. The only thing I have been chanting is ahem.  My heart pumps faster to do less. My nose drains, runs into rivulets and floods the arroyos, like snow caps melting. I don't have time to get sick. I don't have the wherewithal to battle the gales. I want to chant about God, but I feel an icy emptiness in me--a tundra that stretches from apathy to abandonment. I sit still. I sit with the children and walk through a meditation. It is a winter meditation about quiet and reverence. It feels so Nordic these practices. There is no Hare. No Krishna. The dark and cold seeps into our belief, settles into our God bone.

This morning, we rebel. After our coughing spells, following the warming of our tootsies in front of the fire, we strip down to barefeet and bounce.

Hare. Hare. Hare. Hare Krishna. We are happy. We are happy. Hare Krishna. We are family. Hare. Hare.

question: anger and patience

Edited to add: This question came in the comments of this post: another post where I kill a metaphor by slow torture. In that post, I talked about how I drew lines in the sand with friends, resided in a place of anger and impatience. And how through recovery, I am learning about how detrimental anger and resentment is to my spiritual condition, and how it feeds into my spiritual malady. I also talked about patience and how I lacked patience, and am trying to work on that aspect of overcoming anger. Cathy asked me this question, and I read this question as her asking me to expand on the philosophies that led me to believe that anger is inhibiting me, and patience is a virtue I need to cultivate. Hope that makes sense. As I said in the comments on this post, I am not perfect on this. In fact, I am just about as far from perfect in this as I can be, but I am practicing letting go of anger.

From Cathy from Missouri.


I wondered if you would expand on some questions that surfaced about today's post?

What *should* make us angry in life? Anything? I can't settle in with the idea that "nothing" is a reliable answer, or that anger always = weakness. I don't think you would say that, either - wondered what your thoughts are?

What is the patience for? As in, what are we waiting for? Patience without an object doesn't seem like patience; more like denial. What about when the "patience advocates" are actually trying to deny the reality of suffering? Or is that the goal?

I hope you don't mind questions. Your posts always make me think and that's very welcome.

Cathy in Missouri 

Thank you so much for your question, Cathy. I have enjoyed thinking about this, writing about it, meditating on it.

I engage in two lines of thoughts in regards to my philosophies around anger--Buddhism and what I have learned in recovery. In recovery, anger is kind of a gateway emotion to the behaviors that keep us drinking, drugging, eating, sexing, gambling--those coping mechanisms that addicts develop to deal with normal life. In this way, "I am so angry, I need a drink to calm down." Or "You would drink too if people ticked you off the way I am ticked off." See, it is not that there is no justifable anger. But the line between justifiable and unjustifiable is barely legible. It is hard to discern, hard to recognize. In recovery, there is a line in the main book that calls anger the "dubious luxury of normal men." And it feels like that a luxury, something indulged in, something I cannot indulge in, like bourbon.

In Buddhism as in recovery, anger is a poison. Deadly and potent. A way to justify all kinds of wrong behaviour. Buddhism takes the same line of thought about anger--there is no justifiable anger. All this is being said in the same breath that I can say that anger is a natural emotion. Anger is a response to fear. Anger works in nature to defend the vulnerable animal.

"So what should make us angry in life? Anything?"

Ideally, nothing, but I don't think that is realistic. I also do not think there is one answer that fits that question. Buddhists believe that no anger is justified. That doesn't mean that anger is not a natural human response, but simply that indulging in anger is not justified. Personally, I think anger is a habit. Anger is a conditioned response, and it can be conditioned out. That certainly does not mean that we ignore anger and pretend everything is okay. Mostly, I have found in my own experience, anger is a response I barely recognize in myself. I think I am hurt and the person betrayed me. I often put it in terms of loyalty. I cry. I grow frustrated. I misplace it easily. I don't realize that my anger is there, and it comes out in being overly sensitive, overly critical, overly everything. Anger, in my experience, distorts the truth.

Which doesn't answer your question, I realize. The only way I can think to answer this is to help you recognize and dispel anger rather than tell you what I think is justifiable and non-justifiable anger. My hookable places, as Pema Chodron calls them, are different than yours and different than the next person and different than Pema Chodron's. This is where the patience comes in and what we are being patient for.

There is this saying in Buddhism: Walking in the rain is only uncomfortable if you are trying to stay dry. That is to say, any human experience is suffering if you think it is suffering. If we agree that anger is a normal response to fear and it is natural, then we need to stop punishing ourselves for feeling anger. That takes part of the suffering of anger out of the equation--the guilt of anger. It is only then that we can deal with the anger. The steps for dealing with anger are exactly what you think they are, except they are much harder than they sound. 1. Admit that you are angry. I can't think of anything more frustrating than talking to someone who is clearly angry and keeps denying their own anger. Maybe more frustrating is talking yourself out of your own anger, and having someone continually tell you you are angry. Can you allow yourself the space for anger? Can you honestly assess anger and work towards its elimination? There is the key to dealing with anger. 2. Identify why you are angry. I find most of my anger comes from a fear of not being loved, but that is just me. 3. Cultivate patience.

Patience means waiting out your own anger. You restrain yourself and your responses, because anger comes out in every word you speak to the person. Pema Chodron writes about anger and patience, "Patience means getting smart: you stop and wait. You also have to shut up, because if you say anything it’s going to come out aggressive, even if you say, 'I love you.'"

That is true, no? You can tell when someone is angry with you by their tone of voice. The part of anger that makes it so indulgent and difficult to channel into love is that anger is such intense suffering. It is a ball of differing emotions--aggression, betrayal, hurt, loss, pain, resentment, fear, irritation. It grows the more you feed it and it becomes a planet that has its own gravitational pull. It sucks other emotions into it. In that way, anger demands resolution. You just want to stop your pain and suffering. We scream and yell, or even calmly explain why the other person is wrong and you are right. But the way we resolve issues in anger does not help the situation; it escalates suffering. Patience is the way out.  Patience isn't to deny the anger or suppress it, but to call the thing by its proper name. This is what humility is to me--taking ourselves right where we are. The good, the bad, the ugly.

Patience isn't just waiting--it is fearless waiting. It is reacting internally rather than externally. It is listening. It is breathing. That is scary to our egos--to hear someone's grievances with us, or hateful words, or watch their wrong actions, and sit silently with them, not indulging in the drama, not being right. It is setting a goal to your anger--to stop your suffering and the suffering of others--while understanding that there is no resolution to suffering and anger. Do you understand that? Patience advocates (in Buddhism, at least) are not trying to deny the suffering, but to acknowledge, understand and cease the continuation of suffering.

I am going to stop here and just mention that the goal is to cultivate a loving-kindness with all sentient beings. That is always the goal. The caveat is not "except for those people with whom you are angry." Christians counsel to pray for the people you are angry for*, Buddhists counsel the same thing, to approach each person with loving-kindness. To share your compassion, to want to literally remove their suffering and take it on ourselves.



This really leaves us with nothing. We can never be "right", right? Right. You can be right or happy. Because indulging in that anger, fighting, trying to convince, change, cajole...where does this lead us? To more suffering. When we leave an argument where we "won", the other person is hurt, sad, rejected and dejected. Have we truly won? Patience is a way to diffuse yourself, to react in a way that is going to help alleviate suffering rather than create more. So, what do we do with all this self-knowledge after looking at our own anger and suffering? We let it go.

Easier said than done. I have such a hard time letting shit go. I open my hands to let go of the reins, and I realize I had been holding so long and so tightly, that the rope are burned into my skin. So, we do it  little by little. We let go of our need to argue, first. We let go of wanting to be right. We let go of the importance of our anger. We let go. And we will indulge in anger. We will confront people even when we know this, we are human. But we will try next time to walk away if we cannot sit in silence. To ask for twenty-four hours to respond to confrontation. We set boundaries so we do not have to indulge in anger. And that means the practice of patience is also patience with ourselves. Patience with our own humanity.

I hope this sheds some light on this topic in my life and my approach to anger, which is a new thing. I should say, it is a practice I have focused on in the last eleven months of sobriety. I didn't realize how full of anger and resentment I was before. Seeing that in my has really forced me to understand and confront those anger demons. As always, I love answering questions about Buddhism, grief, sobriety, parenting, mindful parenting, loss, art, religion (I love religion questions) and everything in between. I like riffing on topics other people pick, if I have to be honest. Anyway, you can leave them in comments or send me an email at uberangie(at)gmail(dot)com. I can also clarify any of this and welcome any Buddhist or AAer to clarify their understanding of these topics.



* I actually wrote a post about exactly how you pray for people with whom you are angry. I can publish it, if anyone is interested. 


I consulted this article by Pema Chodron called The Answer to Anger and Aggression is Patience. I read it a few months ago when I was journaling about my own anger and resentment and read it again before writing this post. It is worth the read if you are interested in this topic.

question twelve: spirituality

I'm going to take these questions individually as they are all sides of the same cube, but all have different perspectives.

FireflyForever: So, where are you at spiritually? I have always admired your willingness to engage with issues of faith faith/spirituality/religion and baby death. I have deliberately avoided raising it on my blog as I'm too confused and scared by it all. Interested to hear your perspective. 

Thank you.

I try to talk about spirituality in the way that I learned to talk about it while pursuing my degree, so I am just going to talk a little about that before I answer this question.

I studied Religion at university. In the Religion Department, one often clarifies the area of expertise in this way: In theology, people study what God thinks about people. In religion, we study what people think about God. It is an area of study fairly devoid of preaching or God talk, even though, ostensibly, all we talk about is God. By that, I mean, most people engage in talking about history, psychology, sociology, archaeology, philosophical and theological theories surrounding religions, but disengage in talking about why you, the listener, need to be of that certain religion. Most often, you hope to have no idea to which faith people adhere by reading their work, or listening to them talk.

I learned much in the way of religious practices by just going to services, listening, praying with other people. I have not been to a religious service that I don't think is beautiful. There is a continuum of compassion and love that runs through most religions that strikes deep within me. I guess that makes me a kind o f pluralist--someone who sees all religions as different paths to the same place.

ANYWAY, my point is a kind of disclaimer on this post to keep this in mind in the comment section of this post, because I hope others share where they are at spiritually too. People have a strong tendency when discussing religion to compare the ideal with the real and vice versa. For example, one might say, "In my religion's sacred text, we believe that killing is wrong, but this other religion's peoples are always murdering each other." Of course, in both religions, murder is more than likely a sin. The former is the ideal, the latter is the real. When you compare their ideal, i.e., their model of living and their sacred texts with the real, i.e., people are flawed and sin, you have an unfair discussion. So, please don't do that here. Be kind, dammit. If you are abusive, I will erase your comment.

At any rate, I can give you a fair overview of most of the major religions, an in-depth theological and sociological overview of a few smaller religions, and do an Idiot's Guide quickie for most of the rest of them. Of course, there are some 200 Protestant sects in the United States, of which most I am fairly ignorant. I am a bore to be around most of the time, especially when listening to NPR or something. Unless, that is, you are interested in the obscure practices of the snake handlers of Appalachia, or the differences between Sunni and Shiite, then I am a fucking hoot.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I think when it comes to religion, I intellectualize it a little too much. I understand why they do this piece of the ritual this certain way, but I never really understood faith. It cannot be explicated, diagrammed, or argued, you must simply feel the Divine, and I just never really understood how to do that before. I respect religion and faith deeply. I have wrestled with religion, which I always thought meant that I wrestled with my spirituality. I see religion and spirituality now as two very distinct things. I always had my spirituality. It has morphed and changed based on where I am in life, but it was always there. I think questioning one's beliefs is the very essence of faith. Faith implied by its very definition, that it is not knowledge, but rather a kind of confidence in the unknown. Some of the greatest pieces of philosophical and religious writings I have read have been men of the cloth wrestling with their faith.

I think that this particular point in my life, I am most at peace at where I am spiritually. Maybe because I am finally confident that I know nothing. I am confident in the unknown, that is, I am confident that there is something out there. I don't know what it is. But I do believe in God. I began praying again in the beginning of the year, refinding that belief in a Creator. I also began meditating every day, rather than whenever I felt insane. But I think the best way to describe it is that for the first time in my life, I am allowing myself to believe without having to understand everything. And to really pray, not asking for things, but to ask God to point me in the direction of the Greater Good, to help others first, before I help myself, to understand before being understood, help me find serenity and peace in how I deal with other people and myself.

I am asking for help. I have problems asking for help, so I started asking God first. I am just learning how to trust again. And to believe again, and I'm still not positive I am doing it well. Here is the thing about where I am with my spirituality. I just don't have to figure all of it out right now. I don't have to find the one right religion or way of being. For me, trying to find that one right religion stymied me from practicing anything spiritual, from praying, meditating, any of it. It was like a black or white issue for me. I either have to believe in everything and convert to a religion, or I can believe in nothing. I used this line often, "I respect religion too much to not believe in everything." And yet, doing nothing is not honoring myself or God. It was a way for me to justify my selfish behavior.

Now, I pray without a religious agenda. I meditate for peace rather than to see if I can sit longer than anyone else. I honor the seasonal changes with my family, because the mystery and awe and power of nature humbles me, and that seems important to honor. There is a spirituality there for me. The other part of my spirituality is just trying to alleviate suffering, to help someone else, to put other before me without being a doormat, to find the action that causes the greatest good for the world and doing it. I'm not sure I am making sense, but that is my convoluted way of saying--I'm at a good place, spiritually, because I stopped trying to be perfect at spirituality. I just started being.


J: I think I'd like to springboard off the previous comment. Did the loss of Lucy alter your spiritual beliefs at all? I think, in my instance, people almost expect me to now have some greater spiritual understanding and to have all the answers to everything when I'm still questioning and seeking and not really much different than I was before C. entered our lives. My reflections on spiritual aspects on C.s blog are an indication of that--all over the place really, possibilities with no concrete answers. 

I would say that early in my grief, I really was not sure what I believed. And like you, I am still all over the place with no concrete answers. In the beginning, though, I was angry that my daughter died, but I didn't blame God. Even though I wasn't sure what I believed about God, I never thought God controlled who lives and who dies. My feeling now is that God was crying with me rather than punishing me. I was angry at people who used God to make themselves feel better about my daughter's death. Many of those people came from my religious background--Catholicism. I couldn't bear hearing platitudes. On the other hand, I have been studying Buddhism for a long time, and I was disturbed by the idea of karma and what I might have done to deserve the death of my daughter. Until I started asking Buddhists (my therapist and my friend Kitt) and came to understand that concept a little more in depth.

When Lucy died, I had this incredible spiritual experience of feeling connected to all people who suffer. It was overwhelming and powerful, and, well, Divine. I was possibly totally insane, but I felt like I could see people's suffering. Like they embodied their suffering, so they stopped being egos, but a conglomeration of their pain. It didn't last long, but it was a hard, yet spiritually powerful, way of seeing the world and others. When that went, I felt like my spirituality died for a long time. My therapist at the time said, "So you lost your daughter and your enlightenment?"

And that is how it felt, like the light of my daughter and the light of spirituality had both been extinguished. (I wrote about it on Glow a few months ago.)

Now, as I wrote above, I am not trying to figure out what I believe so much. I am praying every day, meditating every day. I believe in God, but I am not trying to figure out which God, or reconcile the contradictions in the Bible or in God's existence with the existence of suffering. I am just believing in a loving God, one that guides us to helping others. Because I have begun to let go of the expectations of my intellect, I feel more connected spiritually, more grounded. That is what I missed after she died, a feeling of groundedness.

I hope that made a modicum of sense.


Amy: Hi Angie, I think a discussion I would love to have with you and hear your thoughts on is the idea of "Belief". I have been struggling with this word, notion and idea for some time and it becomes more difficult as the days go on. I feel resentful toward Belief. I bristle against it's sound. I feel inadequate in it's presents. Foolish for having believed in the past yet unable to forgive myself for doing so. It is an emotionally charged word. The word has become black and white in it's meaning, leaving no room for elasticity or fluidity in definition. Somehow I've cornered this word into being the purest of pure of tight lines to walk. I struggle to soften it's edges and redefine what Belief means to me. And this is not just about Belief in some God or Goddess, this is Belief as a whole. I'm stuck on this so your perspective will be interesting for me to hear. Thanks so much! 

What an amazing question, so beautifully honest in the way you articulated it too. So, thank you, Amy.

I am not very good discussing belief, honestly. I think truth is largely subjective. Maybe because of what I wrote above. I tend to intellectualize everything. There are very few empirical truths in my experience. Yes, science and nature, there are some empirical truths that we point to, but even things like atoms I take on faith. I cannot see them. I cannot feel them. I cannot even really visualize them, and yet, I trust science enough to believe they exist.

Belief is such an emotional, intuitive thing. And I think, by reading your question, you might mean believing in hope. Or believing in anything not concrete. For me too, it has been a long journey for me to get to a place where I can say I believe in anything, really. I think it is an issue of control for me. Or the illusion of control. Giving up the illusion of control that I have clung to for so long. Now that I am in recovery, there is a focus on not having control over anything. You are powerless over alcohol. You are powerless over everything. And in some ways, that powerlessness leaves only belief.

Sometimes when I was pregnant with Thor, I would think, "I must have believed I was capable of having a living child, because I would never have tried to get pregnant just to birth another dead child, would I?" And so, that is where I start with belief. A nugget of hope somewhere that this, all of this, is not for naught. I get logical about belief, which is to convince myself that I "believe" many things, and "believe" in many things. I believe in them so fiercely that they have become a kind of empirical truth. I believe that eating organic food is better for my children, for example, even though I can't see the effects. I believe that people are inherently good, even though men murder other men. I believe that when the ground is wet, it had rained overnight, even though I didn't hear the rain, or see it. And so, there are a lot of things I believe in.

I guess by believing in those things, it opens me up to have hope. And hope is the beginning of faith. But I don't believe that the greater good always prevails. We suffer as human. How and what we suffer is random and chaotic, and that seems utterly cruel. That fact makes it hard to believe in anything, for me personally, except I do. I must. Let's put it this way--believe it will work out or believe that it won't work out won't change the outcome, in my opinion. I don't subscribe the positive thinking-changes-the-world philosophy that is floating around these days. But I find that my life is less oppressive if I believe that I can only worry about my own actions. That magical thinking won't change the end, but real action does. So, I believe. I kind of try to live the Serenity Prayer in my life these days--God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I trust that the actions I am taking are for the greater good. And in that trust, I guess there is ultimately optimism, trust and in the end, belief.

As you can see by this confusing answer, I wrestle. When I first got into recovery, someone shared what is called the Eleventh Step Prayer with me, and I have never heard or read anything that encapsulated my beliefs so entirely. I later found out that this is actually the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, or rather it is dedicated to him.

I think for me this is what belief is. Belief is the trust that the journey is the important part. That my actions are all that I should be concerned about. That all I can do is act and work for others. That trust is the only nugget of truth I need. Trust that by tapping into the Greater Good, the good I know as my conscience or my moral compass, I am believing in something outside of me. I am not in control--call that Mother Nature, God, the universe, or Chaos, both upper and lower case C in chaos, or maybe simply, believing in other people.

I'm not sure I made much sense, but the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi is below. I'd really love to hear your answers to these questions. I am going to put a Mr. Linky up so you can write about them on your own blog if the comments seem to confining. But I also think it would be awesome to have a conversation in the comment section too. Thank you for these incredible questions.

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.
Lord, make me a channel of thy peace 
- that where there is hatred, I may bring love 
- that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness 
- that where there is discord, I may bring harmony 
- that where there is error, I may bring truth 
- that where there is doubt, I may bring faith 
- that where there is despair, I may bring hope 
- that where there are shadows, I may bring light.
- that where there is sadness, I may bring joy

- Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted 
- to understand, than to be understood
- to love, than to be loved. 

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. 
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. 
It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. 
Amen. 

on God and angels.

When I was at the hospital, giving birth to my daughter, there was a lot of angel talk amongst the nurses.
“Your daughter is an angel now.”
“Little beautiful angel Lucia.”
"Now, she is an angel with her grandfather."
I tolerated it because I was reeling and numb. I have always called my daughter Beatrice an “angel” in this context, “Can you please pick up all the Bunny Grahams you just dumped onto the carpet, my angel?” My mother uses Angel interchangeably with Angie, and when I was at university and would come in with my laundry, my step father would often not look up from the television, but scream to my mother, “I smell an angel in the house.”

Still, there is something about referring to my Lucy as an angel that enrages me. I go literally from zero to Red Zone. Why? I guess it is because I want people to see her as a real baby that really died. I often think about this quote from Dr. Zhivago, “For a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life. She was here in earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and call each thing by its right name” So, let’s do that, shall we? Let's call things by their proper name. She is not an angel. Let’s not imagine her flying around heaven playing a harp. Let’s not paint some beautiful picture of this situation. My daughter is dead. She was my baby, and now she is dead. She was six pounds, 18.5 inches. She gestated for 38 weeks. She kicked me. She flipped around. She played Mama and Lucy Poke Each Other. She had black hair, and blue eyes, and perfect lips. She didn’t die for any specific reason, but she is still dead. She wasn’t an angel. She is a baby. Sure, now she is a dead baby, but she was still a baby. My baby.

What I have gone through shakes the foundation of everything any of us want to believe in, and that we do believe in. When we are atheists, we think, "I wish I believed in God, maybe then I could make sense of this situation." When we are theists, we think "I wish I didn't believe in God because I cannot make sense of this situation." It shakes what we imagine our future to be, and how we see our past. I thought my time pregnant with Lucy was the happiest time of my life, and now, it seems like the most fucking ignorant.

When someone told me after losing Lucia that God had a plan for my baby, I just thought, "What kind of plan could God possibly have for my baby? Is he creating some kind of baby army? Is her looking for beautiful baby girls to pose for Hallmark cards?" And more than once, I thought, "If for some reason, this is God’s plan, then God is an asshole." These days, my internal dialogues are not too deep. I have my degree in Religion. It used to be my raison d'etre to discuss what people think God's plans are, and yet, I just cannot get behind that line of thought. Even if I believed in a God like that, I just simply cannot believe that He would take babies for some higher purpose. I do appreciate it must be comforting to someone. It just is not comforting to me.

I think it is more comforting for me to think the world is a random, chaotic place that is frequently cruel, though after Lucia died, I found that incredibly frightening. When I came home from the hospital, I had a conversation with Sam in which I said, “This is the worst thing that will ever happen to us.” And he looked at me pityingly and said, “Just because our daughter has died doesn’t mean we are immune from ever suffering again.” It made me shudder. I wanted to wrap everyone I loved in bubble wrap, and keep them on a low shelf.