dementia as a form of meditation.

or: meditation as a form of dementia.

over dinner one night at my ninety-four-year-old dad's favourite restaurant, he pretty much complained about every aspect of his situation. it was not unusual. and i suppose i didn't help much. "you know what your problem is?," i said. he looked at me over his glasses suspiciously. "your problem is you're not senile." "what the hell does that mean?," he barked. "well," i continued, "if you would just get a bit of dementia happening these things wouldn't bother you so much." i thought that was incredibly funny, but he just remarked absently: "oh you think you're so damn smart," as he turned his attention to what was left of his dinner.

there was, of course, a grain of truth to my bad joke. he was sharp as a whip, a highly intelligent, relatively good-natured man who had become crankier and crankier as he observed clearly his body and his quality of life deteriorating. my old mom, on the other hand, a lady who nobody could say was good-natured, had gone exactly the other way in her last few years and i reminded dad of that.

mom had been a force of nature, and not the classic benevolent nurturing mother-nature ideal. she was more like the wild outta control hurricane ripping through the trailer park type. one learned to cope. i gained an innate ability to remain vigilant, ready to grab the family mutt and run from the storm without much advance notice. from early on i learned how to instantly evacuate to a shelter, a place of safety within myself. i was, in effect, well suited to the art and science of meditation.

however, by the time i returned to canada, i was taken aback to find mom rather more subdued than i remembered. to say she had become sweet would be overstating the fact. but, she was certainly not so sour. i could actually reason with her, a bit, even joke with her upon occassion. she had the early stages of dementia by then, mostly confined to the apartment and my main job was to buy her cigarettes.

mom would call me in wakefield and, with a voice that could raise the dead, she'd say she was missing me. loosely translated, it meant she was running out of her beloved 'benson and hedges'. dad refused to buy them because, at mom's age of eighty-six and having smoked since she was around four, dad decided it was bad for her health. so i had to do it. i'd drive all the way just to purchase a few cartons for her. i believe a carton of the stuff cost around ninety bucks by then and mom would insist on paying me back each time by lovingly pressing a toony into my hand. i didn't mind. she was sincerely grateful.

there were times then when we would sit quietly together without really doing anything. it was just such a welcomed contrast to my childhood with her. mom would smoke. i'd try to breathe. dad would be in his room reading the paper. and one time she smiled over at me and said: "maybe meditation makes you the same as me."

three bags full.

periodically now, i fill up a bag or three and take it to st. vincent de paul. i don't get out much, but donating stuff makes me feel better about life. the last time was a couple of weeks back. then, hardly a few days later i happened to wander into st. vince's again, saw a hoodie i really liked, purchased the thing, threw it on as i left the store and felt even better about life. i was seriously feeling so much better about life until i realized that hoodie was one of the items i had just recently donated.

there are many ways to feel better about life: giving, receiving, friendship, thin-crust pizza, seniors discounts... by far the best way, of course, is love. everybody knows that. we're reminded on facebook often enough. one of my friends, whom i've never met, posted an inspirational quote recently: "love makes you feel that everything is right with the world. love means you are content within your own heart in the presence of the person you love and who fills your day and makes you stronger and wiser and gives you the confidence to go out into the world."

of course that was lovely, only why does it have to be in the presence of someone i love? like, if i'm not in the actual presence of an actual human i actually love i won't have the confidence to go out? i won't be strong or wise? my day won't be full? what's so inspiring about that? it kinda hit close to home, so to speak. i thought: why can't people stick to posting photos of their lunches? i'm a single thin-crusted older guy. it's always been rather challenging to keep someone around, let alone someone i love. somehow either they left or i left or both, although not together. so i tended to stay home, collect stuff, lots of stuff. the place got so cluttered my dog had to back out. and actually even he eventually stopped coming 'round. that's when i began donating to st. vincent and to paul.

the question begs asking, sitting in the lazy-boy today while wearing my reclaimed hoodie: what comes first, the chicken or scrambled eggs? i mean, do i need someone before love exists, or does love come first? can't i love my friends while not in their company, my long lost dog, my neighbours, my neighbours' dogs, life? can i not be content within my own heart in the presence of the cool autumn air, a bright moon, the fast-flowing river? and do i really need to feel better about life at all or is life alright just exactly as it is?

"if we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile. then everyone in our family, our friends, our entire society can benefit from our peacefulness." thich nath hanh.

the knower knows.

"there is a unity, a unified wholeness, that becomes apparent within the transcendent unified consciousness." maharishi mahesh yogi.

in those early heady days, when our minds were openned and made flexible by stuff we heard, read, ingested or thought, people from exotic far off lands brought new ideas to tantalize us. swami vivekananda, yogananda, shivananda talked about there being one essesntial life beyond all the apparent differences. they proclaimed us all to be waves upon one vast ocean without beginning or end. what's more, they insisted we could actually each experience, cognize, recognize that reality ourselves, directly, through an ancient practice called 'dhyaan,' meditation. and so it began.

the concept of looking within for direct knowledge of that oneness was what grabbed me. the possibility of first-hand understanding, spoken of by sages through time, took hold, threw me around the room, wrestled me down onto my cushion and wouldn't let me up. there was, of course, no guarantee that what they asserted was true. but if it was true, i reasoned, why not me (?) now, all these years later and after all that, i sit back and ask myself honestly: 'well, was it true?' and, with a happy heart full of deep gratitude to those sages and my teachers, i answer... : 'i have no friggin idea.'

there may have been a time when i believed meditation actually was going to open a world to me, like some sort of dream-scape, where all would be revealed, shown and known, where i would see the truth, the whole truth, the ultimate truth about life, death, creation, you, me, god. it never happened. but, wait. what did happen was so miraculous in itself that i look back on all those years like they hold within them my most treasured memories, as though i'm placing each blank photo carefully in an album to preserve for some day later on. 

much greater people than i have written and spoken of their so-called inner life. i have written and spoken enough myself, for what it's worth. what happened, happened to me. by its very nature, it is exclusive, or maybe not. suffice it to say, when one meditates with right understanding and dedication, there comes a time when a grace descends, a blessing ascends, filling one with something we call absolute bliss consciousness, guaranteed.

what i know now is that anybody who has meditated, with no definitive answers to the age-old questions, would nevertheless have a happy heart filled with a deep gratitude. moreover, i know that anybody whose meditation has matured would clearly view the duality in this world as a form of insanity. how any person or persons could ever purposely hurt another being is beyond my ability to understand. because, without a shred of evidence of that one life, it simply seems so incredibly obvious that we are, in fact, one life.