You Are Not Alone

Mingyur Rinpoche on the Two Basic Kinds of Suffering
(only five minutes, but very powerful simple explanation, especially of self-suffering)

Underneath, most of us think we suck.
Most of us think we are an exception.
Meditation won't help us.
Yoga won't help us.
Medication won't help us.
Because we are beyond repair.
Beyond help.

Lately, I have come to realize how much of a drain this part of me is.
This part that takes tremendous energy to sustain - a lot of the energy I think I don't have to do things to help pull me out of the cycle. It's reiterative, a closed loop.
It's Samsara. 90% of our suffering is what Mingyur Rinpoche, in the video above, calls self-suffering.

Gloves Off

This is the first of a series of spontaneous essays, poems and teachings I am making while driving.
This one, "Gloves Off" is a poem about my mother and gardening.

Today, on Mother's Day, when I couldn't seem to find my way through a muck of sadness about not having a mom anymore, I struck out to the garden to move irises and weed.

Only half way through did I realize what I'd done - gone to the one place she loved to be:
gardening.

Gloves off by Miriam Hall

Taming the Tamer

Still from the tiny film Taming the Tamer (link below)

Here is a tiny silent paper-cut animation film I made a couple of years ago.
It is about taming the inner critic, though it often attempts to tame the good, while wild, parts of us.
I am in the process of setting up a more thorough YouTube channel, so I can share videos of my own, audio for students, and obviously suggest great talks and other resources on YouTube. I'll keep you posted! In the meantime, enjoy this little film.

Set This House in Order

Mannequin photo from my upcoming show "Mannequins and Miniatures" at EVP East in Madison, WI, May 1-May 26

I've got Shingles.

Because I am a linguistics nerd, my favorite part of the Wikipedia entry is about the etymology of the terms for this virus:
The family name of all the herpesviridae is derived from the Greek word herpein ("to creep"),^[77] referring to the latent, recurring infections typical of this group of viruses. Zoster comes from Greek zōstēr, meaning "belt" or "girdle", after the characteristic belt-like dermatomal rash.^[78] The common name for the disease, shingles, derives from the Latin cingulus, a variant of Latin cingulum meaning "girdle".^[79]

But the fact is that when I google "shingles," which, of course, I've been doing a lot lately, the most common thing to come up, along with the actual virus, is references to house shingles. You know, the things that make up the roof. And so it seems, again, I am setting this house in order.

Lost/Found/Lost/Found

 

“I once was lost, but now am found/ was blind but now I see”

-Amazing Grace, American spiritual song

Lately I’ve had a rash of losing things. A couple of earrings – never a pair, always one of two – a hat a friend knitted for me, and, until two days ago when I found it again, a mala given to me by my teacher. All of these objects have great meaning for me, so losing them evoked sadness. However, the more disturbing, or curious, aspect to me is how exactly did I lose these things? In order to misplace something, I figure, there must be a moment when my mind itself was misplaced. In other words, I, as is said often in popular culture, “lost my mind” for a moment.