Life if like a box of cho - no, I’m just kidding. Actually, I think life is a lot like a Geometry problem. Perhaps that’s why, for the first time in my life, in 10th grade, I was one of the top two math kids in my grade.  - But my Algebra I teacher would have been absolutely stunned (as was I!) to see me in that position.
In Geometry, you have some information that is already given to you, with which you need to solve your equation. It’s always enough to do the job, though at first it may not appear to be so.  Like life, you say?  I agree!

And as in Geometry, some equations have you solve for angle AB, in another equation, while the degree of angle AB is one of the pieces of information you are already given, in order to solve a different problem.  So we’re all like that.  One person’s given is another person’s problem!

For some, patience may be a given - they’re almost born with it.  Patience, for me -well, that was definitely something I was solving for; and it has been hard-won.

It’s easy to judge others for what is so easy for us.  “What is her problem??” we’ve all thought.  Maybe we should take that question literally, as her problem is obviously something different than yours is.

When we judge others, we’re assuming they began with the same set of givens!  My friends in college liked to call me “bass-ackwards”, pig-latin for the fact that I generally tended to be going in a direction that no one else was going in. (I had started in a place that none of my friends had gone to yet. I began life with the givens of knowing that materialism alone would never make me happy, and have always known that I was not my body. I was uncomfortable with materialism, mistakenly assuming that if I took it on, I’d be lost in it, like everyone else I saw!)

These kinds of opposite directions - you and I learning what the other already knows - makes it easy to misunderstand and judge each other. Those born with perfect health, for example, often have a hard time understanding the reality of  someone born with serious health complications. Those born with wealth often have a hard time understanding what it’s like for someone who begins life with a negative family bank balance.

Just remember:  the person you want to teach probably also has something to teach you. (Right back at ya!)  Look for it!

Learning styles.  The term is unfortunate, I think, seeming to suggest that we could choose a different style, just as, say, we could choose to dress Goth today.

Some of us can choose our learning preference, or at least, sometimes can.  I know, for example, that I don’t do well when listening to a long set of directions.  More than 3 pieces of information, and I’m lost (no pun intended!). But if I  write down the spoken directions - even if I never look at the paper again - I can often make my way there with no problem!  That’s because I’m a very kinesthetic learner, and if I combine the two (auditory and kinesthetic), it works well for me. But that’s for those of us who function relatively well in several different learning styles.  My experience tells me that there are those who don’t.

We’ve all heard the stories about how, when one sense is lost, another compensates. This myth is a great detriment for some of our differently-abled neighbors and friends.  Here’s my first epiphany along these lines:

In the 90’s, I was working as a sign language interpreter.  For the first two years, my client was a high school student.  When I met her, she was 16, and was placed in Algebra 1, though she could not multiply.  She also, I discovered, could not draw a triangle or a circle - the ends didn’t meet.

Curious about how to reach her, academically, I began experimenting with different learning styles.  Clearly, visual learning was not an effective tool for her.  This would, unfortunately, include sign language itself!  Over the weeks of my very active experimentation, a very interesting thing occurred.

One day, in her remedial English class, the teacher began talking about nouns. To make sure my student remembered and understood the concept, I asked if she remembered what a noun was. She signed “A person,” the screwed up her forehead, as if what her brain was telling her didn’t make sense. “…PLAYS??” she added, incredulously.

I knew that it was not the visual similarity between the words “place” and “plays” that caused the confusion.  This student  generally did not recognize the similarity between words when a simple ending was added to them, such as -”ly”.

But “place” and “plays” sound virtually the same.  Stunned, I had a devastating realization: This profoundly deaf girl appeared to be “wired” for auditory learning!

I further confirmed my theory over the coming days, then went excitedly to the professionals with whom I worked, sure that they would be happy that this young woman had finally been “decoded”.  But these were the same professionals who had allowed this non-multiplying student to be passed through the grades until she ended up, way out of her league, in Algebra I:  No one wanted to see the truth.  No one wanted to see that this young woman had yet another challenge to deal with. She’d been “aided”, for years, on her tests and her homework by teachers and sign language interpreters who didn’t want to see that she had other issues, not just deafness. “Don’t you mean?,” they’d suggest, referring to the correct answer.  And “Yes,” she would sign in reply, knowing that this was the right answer they wanted from her.
So-

Some Deaf people can develop what seems to us to be “super vision”, and some Blind people can develop “super hearing”.  These are the people for whom the still-functioning learning style is strong  (A blind person whose primary learning style is NOT visual, for example, and with strong auditory and kinesthetic abilities for learning). For us to compare what one learner is capable of doing, how one Deaf person adapts to his or her circumstances and to impose that expectation on another… Well, that’s going to create just one more (unnecessary) obstacle for someone who just doesn’t need one more.

- Shanti Mai

I’d love to hear your experiences and perspectives on learning styles…

Sometimes change is a good thing.

While talking with a dear friend of mine, I discovered that this 82-yr.-old had lived through some serious changes.  And not the kind you might automatically image.  You might be imagining the loss of innocence, the loss of a simple life.  No, in this case, the direction is quite the opposite.

Looking at this gentle man, I watched as he told a story of having to kill his pet golden retriever’s puppies - all healthy, all 13 of them.  How brutal that sounds to me today!  As a 12-yr-old, it was the norm, what any struggling farm family would have done, he said.  This was confirmed by two elder friends, who nodded, listening, unshocked.   Yet today, my friend had tears on the brims of his eyes as he told the tale of blowing the life right out of these gorgeous pups.

“i will never again kill a dog,” he proclaimed, his Adam’s apple moving with emotion.  Mores and values are different today, and not always in a bad way.

HERE”S ANOTHER ONE for you:

When I lived in Ashland, Oregon, a year came and went which saw the population - and property values - grossly altered by serious earthquakes in California.  Up came the retirees, with their inflated pensions and savings, altering forever the landscape, and to some degree, the lifestyle, of this spectacular and special town.  Complaining about the changes became common conversation, but I couldn’t help but remember that the KKK once paraded down the main street of a VERY different Ashland, one that we wouldn’t have wanted to live in.

And it’s all CHANGES.

It’s easy with the recent purging of B!sh and Ch*#ney to think that we always are open to, and appreciate the possibilities of change.  But we don’t.

Sometimes it takes perspective.

This past October / November, I had approximately 3 weeks of steady bliss.  It seemed no matter what happened (or didn’t happen), I went to sleep blissful, woke up blissful, and noticed during the day a constant calm, a due-to-nothing joy.  It occurred to me then that Mona Lisa’s smile may have been one of silent, pervasive bliss.

It would certainly explain our fascination with her.  “She has a secret”, they say.  Perhaps it’s the secret of lasting contentment and peace, the secret of inner bliss.  I’ve been the keeper of that secret before - for a few days, for a week, for two… And every time, I’ve thought - and hoped! - that maybe this time it would be permanent.  When you’re “there”, it feels so familiar, so right.  It becomes hard to imagine the pain of losing it yet again.  Enlightenment, after all, is normal.

Well, Mona Lisa’s smile has come and gone, yet again.  December’s stresses, some of which I’m now rebounding from, make my recent weeks of unbending bliss seem rather distant.  But I know that they’re not.  Mona Lisa’s still smiling silently on my inside, and someday she’ll be my permanent exterior, a result of my permanent experience.  I won’t hold my breath for that, of course, and neither will you.  We’ll proceed as best we can, accepting what is before us, accepting what is true.  Someday that truth will be unchanging.  For today, it is not.

Last week I was writing an email to people in power, pleading for justice.  We all do that; these days there are many serious issues to plead about!  In closing my email, I found myself signing it, “In Humanity”.

I then realized, with a start, that its opposite - inhumanity -  is only a pause, only a breath away.  A space, or breath stands between the two words.  That pause….  So very essential!

When the mind is Silent - paused - we find our connectedness.  From this point of compassion, where is no them, no me, it is not possible to act in a way that is inhumane!  What is natural - and effortless!, from that vantage point, is to act in, or with, humanity. This is the value of meditation, of prayer, and other practices encouraging mindfulness.

We’ve all heard the wise maxim, “What you put your attention on, grows”.  So, at the time of celebrating Harvest, grow Compassion.  Grow humanity.  Grow in Silence, through whatever practice works for you!  It is truly a worthy endeavor.
With much Love -

and In Humanity -
Shanti Mai

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi used to compare meditation with pulling the arrow back on the bow:  pulling the arrow in the  opposite direction prepared it for stronger, more focused action later.   My time in San Francisco was like that.  There was time spent with my powerful (and beloved!) daughter, Sophia, being an integral part of her life and budding art career (www.sacredmuse.com), but, other than that, it was time spent pulling the arrow back on the bow:  not much looked like it was happening.

Now, back in Washington, called back by the siren’s song of Seattle and, indeed, the entire Puget Sound (it’s quite a chorus!), I see the results of the apparent “nothing” I was doing in San Francisco.  During my last night there, spent in Sophia’s tiny studio apartment, I hardly slept. Blissful, divine energy pumped through me and a renewed life-focus strongly resurfaced, clarified and intense.  The frustration of San Francisco, the backward-seeming time spent there had resulted in a strenghtening of my resolve to be free, to spread freedom - - and to become a stronger beacon of darshan, which required a deeper surrender.  I gave it.  I gave it my all, and cried in bliss and gratitude.

Everything had been increasing in “juice”, in flow, as I had approached my return to Washington state.  The wind was perfectly positioned at my back; suddenly every move I made resulted in three steps forward instead of just one. The “backward” steps I’d been taking in SF, where every forward attempt resulted in the reverse direction, was suddenly paying off.

So - Don’t assume you know what is happening.  …And when you want to lock into judgement of what is - or is not - occuring, remember those times when, with the broader perspective of time and experience, you’ve been grateful for what, at the time, seemed like cold, hard knocks! God invented tough love!!

A couple of my friends impressed me today. One of them was 845 miles away, yet managed to send me a Skype message by thinking about me.  Didn’t touch her Skype account, yet a message came in from her account! Okay, the “voice message” was very short, and had no voice, but she wasn’t even trying to send me a psychic message, or anything of the sort - just merely thinking about me. Interesting - and impressive.

The second friend called me as the bus I was on was at the stop at 9th and Mission (in SF), asking me if I wanted to go to the Asian Art Museum, saying that she had an extra ticket.  When she asked where I was, she said, “Get off!  Get off!”  So, trusting her, I did, and proceeded to call the Muni information number when I got off the bus at the next stop, 7th and Mission.

Muni said, “Walk up to 9th St. and turn right. It’s two blocks from that intersection.” She’d suddenly had a strong feeling that she should call me and ask if I wanted to go, and she did so JUST AS I WAS AT THE RIGHT BUS STOP.

From my side, I’d left the Zen Center (having never been there, and heading from there to an unfamiliar part of town), turned my phone on, and gotten on the very first bus I saw!  Then I called Muni info to ask if I was heading in the right direction… 

- And, as we have seen, I was!

We talked, then, about synchronicity, and her view is the same as mine:  That, if you’re in the moment, following the flow of the present moment, you are in the right place at the right time, you are the thread properly placed in the cloth on the loom, not the thread twisting around, running at cross purposes with the whole.

Like many of you, I’d felt that I’d lost this connectedness for a while. It was delightful and reassuring for it to begin all over again. THIS is the way I know Life to be.

Note  added July 28th:  I have good reason to believe that the problem mentioned below is being fixed at - or in the general vicinity of - this moment! So now on to the original post:

My blog entries are not showing up most-recent first, but in the order they were written in, so it looks like there is never anything new!  I haven’t been able to correct that yet…
SO: I would like to reward some people who ARE reading this nearly-invisible entry!

Three people will be given half-price sessions if they set up an appointment
this Monday - Thursday, July 21st - 24th. Call toll-free: 888-321-1981 or email shanti@shantimai.com

For information about my work, see http://www.shantimai.com/services.html