my mother and her 'son'

meet my mother's 'son.' seriously. somehow i've noticed that there's some sort of a thing in the likeness of  my mother playing favorites. for instance. she cooks a meal. i show up in her place. i look at the food and i am drooling. all my faves. smoky and juicy pork chop with caramelized onion. ginger and spring onion chicken. minced beef cake with water chestnut. shittake  and chinese  broc. milky white fish soup slightly tinted with the tangy taste and color of tomato. by the way you cannot make such a soup with those big and expensive soup. it has to be a lot of small, bony fish that are cheesecloth wrapped and cooked briskly so that literally all the tender flesh seamlessly blend into the soup. anyway, where am i? yes, sibling rivalry. i can't wait to start eating. she says, where's son-in-law? i say, he has other plans. i'm not kidding. i immediately see her face clouded over with disappointment. as if that's not enough to show her love for her new 'son' she takes the pork chop away. i say, what is this, am i chopped liver? she says, you can't eat all this. i say, why not.

all kidding aside i realize i do have this attention deficit disorder since i was born. since i was the first child and first grandchild. so by the time my sis came along and then other cousins, i just didn't know how to handle the situation where i was no longer the only adorable baby in the universe. suddenly it appeared to me that all the aunties and uncles had other bundles to hover around and i was supposed to act like a mature, responsible grown up.

now even that, i realize it's a perception that came out of my sense of separateness from my highest and innermost self. really. other babies came along but nobody ever took away their love from me. nobody can ever take away the love that ever dwells in my own heart. nobody and nothing can diminish who i am. well, if it were not for my meditation practice i don't think i would ever have come to this understanding.

so i am truly happy to see the aging parents revel in their big 'son.' after all when they are happy it makes my life a whole lot easier. :)

singing om everyday

everyday, as part of meditation, i sing om seventy-two rounds. that's after i recite the poems and gather attention to the lovely and soothing sound of the breath flow. why seventy two? because i use a  necklace that has thirty-six pearls. i inherited it from, may she rest in peace, my mother-in-law. i figure i don't wear it everyday but, hey, this is even better, it guides me to connect with my own true nature. can't beat that.

but why seventy-two? here's the story. as part of the yearly study focus, my guru instructs me to sing om for nine minutes a day, or twenty-nine minutes. i know some really dedicated and disciplined yogis set aside time during the day that is specifically devoted to singing om. i have the highest admiration for them. as for me, i am really not up there yet. so i just lump everything into my morning meditation. my study buddy says she does about thirty-two om in nine minutes. so i start with that and time it. somehow when i do it thirty-two om it takes me fifteen minutes. i realize it is because i'm really into the nasal reverberation at the end of the syllables. anyway, i know i need something to help me do the counting. in meditation my mother-in-law's pearl necklace comes to me. so i've been using it ever since. seventy-two oms insures at least twenty-nine minutes.

 a seasoned yogi teases me good-naturedly, well, then, you are not following the guru's command, twenty-nine minutes, not more, not less. all teasing aside, there's a point to it. the guru's command embodies vast wisdom in infinite layers. but, you know what, better singing om than not singing it. besides i have full conviction the the power of grace takes me across anything. i may be on a detour but i will get there. grace makes sure of that.

having said all this i have it in the back burner of my awareness to contemplate this. is there a trace of habitual tendency that is based in poverty consciousness in what i'm doing? like, twenty-minutes is not enough, not good enough. hmmmm.