Birthday Dharma
Every day is the beginning of something
Hello friends,
Today is my birthday. 41! I feel truly in my prime.
Thank you!
Yes, birthdays ā like placentas ā are something we all have. Entirely our own and also overwhelmingly universal. Special though not unique. Iām so grateful to have been born. Thanks for being with me today.
First, that however low or misfit or alone you feel on your birthday, you are never the only one. Birthdays seem to conjure an almost indescribable blend of grief, disappointment, melancholy, anxiety, and hedonism. Sometimes the only way to get through them is just to get through them, and then all of a sudden itās no longer your birthday.
Second, humans are so god damn creative. There are myriad rituals, habits, and meaning making systems that we come up with to celebrate, honor, get through, and explore the passage of time.
A few that were shared that I especially loved:
The practice of making everything that happens during the week of your birthday about you / your birthday ā to a comical level. For instance, someone is emptying the dishwasher. āThank you so much for emptying the dishwasher for my birthday! You are the best.ā Everything can mean anything you want it to.
The practice of doing / giving things to other people for your birthday. Turn it on its head. Youāre here! Youāre alive! Remind folks of how valuable you are by bringing some light to their life.
Today, a bit to my surprise, I feel light and free. I donāt usually feel that way on my birthday but I always reserve the right to surprise myself.
Birthdays provide arbitrary cover to do, feel, and say things that we donāt normally give ourselves permission for.
Why?
Why donāt we give ourselves permission more often?
Seven years ago, in the lead-up to my 34th birthday, I sat in a weekend-long Level III Shambhala meditation training in New York City and I conceived birthday dharma.
The theme of the training was Warrior in the World. In Shambhala, a Tibetan Buddhist school founded by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the āwarriorā is the practitioner. Itās me, itās you. We are broken hearted by the suffering of the world which is good, because itās true. Yet through practice, we remain tender and open ā fearless, awake ā cultivating our ability to show up, show up, show up. We stay in the body, we stay in the world, and we stay awake because that is where there is always work to do.
If youāve ever meditated, youāll know that thoughts arise. Hoo boy, do they arise! The guidance is to use your awareness to see them but move them along (like a feather gingery sweeping a bubble).
But there I sat, hours upon hours, and when a certain thought arose I invited it to stay. I flouted the guidance (sometimes we must do this). The thought resonated deep within my heart, illuminating something true to me. I nurtured it and it began to bloom.
I had been sitting and listening ā that weekend, but also many days and weeks prior ā to senior teacher after senior teacher deliver dharma talks. I received them gratefully and they moved me. But maybe it was the warrior in me, I though I can also do this. I want to do this. I will do this!
This is how I had the idea that to honor my birthday I would deliver a dharma talk on fear and fearlessness to an audience of loved ones.
That year my birthday offered a loophole for me to discover a way in which I needed my heart to shine. I called it birthday dharma because my birthday was the vehicle for its delivery. I wanted to acknowledge how self-important it felt, in some way, yet universal. I have a birthday, and so do you. I offer truths, and so do you.
Birthday dharma is the reality that every day is the beginning of something new, and often you get to decide what that is. Birthday dharma is the reminder that you are a vehicle for truth.
To prepare for the talk, I combed through ancient and modern Buddhist texts and various poetry. I reflected, wrote, researched. I suppose that thought and the dharma talk it became was also, in a way, the birth of Birdseed.
Hereās an excerpt from the invite I sent out:
Dear loved ones in NYC,Ā
Tuesday, September 26 is my 34th birthday, and it's the first time I'm celebrating on the East Coast in 7 years. I had an idea, and I hope you'll join me.
34th Birthday Dharma Talk: Fear + Fearlessness
By Jessica R. Mack,Ā Just Some Woman
6pm, sharpĀ
Followed by Q&A and open space for others to make impromptu speeches or jokes
I'm a words of affirmation and quality time kind of girl (and a snacks kind of girl, let's be honest). So I hope you'll come spend time, listen to my words and share some of your own. This is a new personal birthday tradition I'm starting, sharing a talk for my friends to listen to and opening space for others to share. Then just hanging out with snacks and fun.Ā
What's a dharma talk? A public discourse on Buddhism by a Buddhist teacher.Ā
What's a birthday dharma talk? A semi-public discourse on Buddhism by the birthday girl, on the occasion of her birthday as it relates to life in particular and general.Ā
Your additional friends and loved ones are invited, especially if they'll heckle me. I am truly trying to embrace fearlessness in all of this! Please let me know if you can make it. In the mean time, I will be mentally and emotionally preparing to give a talk on fearlessness to an entirely empty roof top.
Love,
Jess
In Buddhism, the proximate and the ultimate are the two major dimensions on which reality functions. The ultimate is whatās like reeeallly real - like the truth capital T. Thatās what GOING AWWWWNNNN! And then the proximate is all the shit in front of your face, distracting you, pulling you in ā for better and for worse. The proximate is Truman Show set charade, the stories we tell ourselves, patterns, thoughts, whimsy, birthday wishes, etc.
The proximate is the dots on a magic eye poster; the ultimate is the picture of dolphins that emerges once you appropriately zone your eyes out. You toggle, because humans toggle. The ability to toggle is one of the greatest parts of being alive. Mundane and special; particular and universal. Surf and turf. When I toggle, you toggle, we toggle.
One is not better or worse. The magic comes in the ability to hold and connect with them both. No big deal and a very, very big deal.
One day, before we began a very esoteric meditation practice with the wonderful Lama Rod Owens, he paused to draw attention to how amazing his skin looked that day and in the light. He was right! He just wanted to give it up for a beautiful skin day, and he was right to. A reminder that a dabble in the proximate can be delightful even as your practice is to approach the ultimate.
There is an unmistakable freedom when you admit what you actually, really want. An audience. Lots of money. To be loved and missed. Fame. To just be left alone.
You can know, deep down, these arenāt fundamental happiness-makers or even fundamentally real (and please know that they arenāt) yet you can want and enjoy them nonetheless. Birthday dharma is a reminder that every day is the beginning of something. Itās the birthday of a new perspective, or a new relationship connection. Or a new admission to yourself about how your heart really wants to shine.
In that spirit, and in the spirit of birthday dharma, a few things on my mind and that I want to share today, on my birthday:
Please consider supporting Birdseed for my bird-day! With $6 a month or $60 a year you can support my work ā my writing, my painting, my dharma cultivation and sharing out. Especially if you feel you have benefited in any way from what I share or believe in supporting art, philosophy, and deep connection.
Been thinking about the act of putting yourself out there, like way out there. I am trying to do this lately and itās exhausting! But why not. It also feels good like how going really really fast on something feels good. Say what you need to say. If youāre out there too, I see you! I have some dear friends doing truly amazing things.
Check out The Colonizerās Trash by my friend Stephanie Kimou, who is a dharma teacher, artist, scholar, and activist. You can see it in-person in Washington, DC at Hamilton Artists on October 10th or explore it online.
Here, Kimou envisions an expanded definition of trashāone that considers mindsets, ideologies, and material excesses rooted in colonial legacies such as anti-Blackness and exploitation. In alignment with Kimouās broader practices which contend with the toxic residues of colonialism, this emergent work invites participants to take stock:Ā whatās mine and what is not?
There is so much brilliance to take in and reflect on about this. Whatās yours and what is not? Whatās yours in the proximate and whatās yours in the ultimate?
Iām excited to be offering brief, transformative sessions Iām calling āNarrative Unlock.ā I have refined a process based on decades of practice and work ā it is deep space just for you to help you cultivate and unlock a fuller narrative of self. Opening your aperture to your full narrative is transformational for big life moves: launching businesses, shifting sectors, amplifying your leadership. I will be your hype woman, your wing woman, a caring and honest reflector, and a support as you connect new, meaningful dots. More here! You can set up a quick chat with me to learn more.
Been thinking about bees, and the work of artist Ladislav Hanka, a Kalamazoo, MI-based naturalist. Hanka is a beekeeper and has been collaborating with bees in his art for many years, placing drawings of his inside live hives and asking the bees to build upon them. You must read his reflections on their criticism and support of his work. Iām thinking of buying one of his pieces for my birthday. I have, in fact, been thinking about his work for three years since I first saw him in a gallery in Taos, NM. I also just learned that a corbicula is a basket (purse?) on the hind legs of female bees used to transport pollen around town. So cute!
I am painting placentas and would love to paint yours for you. This is absolutely part of my dharma. I love this work and Iām honored to do it. The energetic exchange in creating art that is all yours and also not of you offers something that words cannot. You can order a custom placenta painting here.
Hereās a recent one I did posthumously for Sharon Tate. Iām not into true crime, but I periodically revisit the details of her murder by the Manson Family. Such a shocking and particular thing of the times. Eight and a half months pregnant. Her placenta arrived and was completed quickly. I saged the space after and sealed it up. Rest her soul and the soul of her baby.
Been thinking about crying more with people that you love, and also with strangers. There is a lot to cry about. Grief is a great big thorny, cozy cornucopia. Crying feels so good and seems to set other things in motion. Crying offers permission, softness, surprise, and release. I have cried several times this week in several locations, alone and with others, so I should know!
Thank you for being here. Thank you for coming to this yearās birthday dharma talk.
The longer you live the sadder but more beautiful life gets. The more birthdays we collect, the more we know this, we aging tender-hearted warriors.
Happy birthday to me, and happy birthday to you!
Today is the beginning or celebration of something and you get to decide what.
Wishing you birthday-inspired permission to toggle goofily between the proximate and ultimate; to ask and answer what is mine and what is not mine? (and to throw it ouuutttttt); to find what resonates with your heart and let it shine out; to deliver a dharma talk; or to do nothing at all because youāre already BEING. And being is more than enough.