Develop Curiosity

There’s a common misunderstanding among all the human beings who have ever been born that the best way to live is to try to avoid pain and just try to get comfortable.

A much more interesting, kind, adventurous, and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiveness is bitter or sweet.

Pema Chodron
Tibetan Buddhist nun and teacher


A new friend, Christine, visited yesterday and shared a bit about her life journey. She came the day after I received this quote of Pema Chodron. And in a synchronicity, she seemed to me to be a good example of Chodron's ideal of one who has developed her curiosity, not knowing if the results will be bitter or sweet. Christine's been an artist, entrepreneur, furniture maker and wine sales person. She's lived in many places in the US, lost spouses, been seriously ill herself, worries about her sons in the states, relocated alone to the remote village of her ancestors in our region of Abruzzo and experiences all the culture shock that you can imagine that entails. But her attitude is upbeat, positive, and filled with the energy that comes from genuine curiosity. She travels all over Italy drinking it all in. She's fun and interesting to be with.

Chodron praises curiosity, exhorts us to develop it. Then sets up a stark juxtaposition- avoid pain and get comfortable vs taking an interesting, adventurous and joyful approach to life whether it brings us the bitter or the sweet. We just went through the laborious process of renewing our permesso di soggiorno (permission to stay) for another two years and smacked up against the bureaucracy that characterizes Italy. A taste of the bitter. But after five months and two attempts following submission of all documents needed to actually get them, we got them. By ourselves. In Italian. Without the letter we were supposed to have received in the mail setting up our appointment. A sweet outcome.

Our move here 2 1/2 years ago came from a desire to explore Italy and Europe. To experience a different culture, language, environment and history. It has brought in its wake the self-doubt, the uncomfortable, even painful experiences Chodron describes but also the joy that comes from doing something interesting and adventurous that expands curiosity in the process. Chodron uses a strange word in her juxtaposition- kind. Maybe that's her true wisdom, it's kind to ourselves and to others to develop our curiosity. It grows us and enables us to taste the world of another. Sweet.

The Gate To Love

I wasn't able to post on Valentine's Day (or since, but that's another story!) so I saved these photos taken in a friend's garden in Trinidad which reminded me of love.

 Love is a gate, isn't it? The gate to a whole other world - the world of our beloved. 

It's our opportunity to see things from a different perspective, from another inside- out as we can only do with a loved one. Who else would share so deeply? So personally? 

And we receive the gift of an expanded world, a change of mind, a jump shift in view, a way out of ourselves and into the stream of life, of love. 

We lovers are fortunate. If I can just say to myself: "What can I learn?" 

rather than "How can I defend?", then it's all just learning, and growing into a bigger self. 

Then joy awaits through this gate opened by love.

Thank you, John, for being my gate to a bigger world than mine alone. 

Thank you for loving me for all these 37 years with your sweet, constant love

and for discovering with me the wonders behind the gate.

It's been worth the risk, beyond my wildest dreams.

Birthday Reflections

Oropendula, black birds with neon yellow tails and beaks, swish in and out of the immortelle tree in the yard. The tree's bright orange flowers seem more vivid against morning's blue sky. The oripendula have a distinctive deep, clucking sound unlike the chirps and trills of the other birds in the surrounding trees. When they fly off three or four at a time, their beating wings sound like softened helicopter whirls.

The sun is out and illuminates the wide, light green blades around the sugar cane growing next to the outside kitchen where I sit at the picnic table and write. Clouds and some of the left over morning mist gather at the top of the densely forested hills to my right. They cast shadows adjacent to the sunny patches making a quilt of light and dark on the ridge.The water tank to my left sprouts a mossy growth on its otherwise stark cement base. I drink sorrel punch made from the red sorrel flower. It's magical to me to drink flowers like some giant bee.

The birds have flown now, driven to cooler shaded spots by the tropical sun. Their songs are replaced by a flock of wild parrots flying oerhead with their harsh, remarkably loud cries. Have they no predators that they can be so loud and colorful?

Today is my birthday. I'm 65. It feels like a momentous age. Unlike the creatures around me, I'm aware of this life stage shift and I take stock of where I am and where I'm going. For years I've kept a self-discovery art journal inspired by my good friend, Annee. I take a few blank pages of this journal and pick out whatever magazine pictures or words that catch my eye and put them in a current moment snapshot collage. Or as Annee would say, whatever calls to me. I do this two or three times a year to visually represent what's up for me. It's always a meaningful process for me and I love to review these pages and see how they portend or document personal shifts and changes in my life. After my quiet time today, I did one and then arranged it on the picnic table in the outside kitchen since I don't have my journal with me. I like doing this. I'm not an artist but this fulfills my yearning to find other ways into myself through art.

The clouds on the hill have spilled down to me. I can hear the rain in the distance as it moves closer. In minutes the day has gone from blue, sunny skies to pouring down, drenching rain. The sound went from lovely to deafening as it pounds the corregated metal roof that keeps me dry. Minutes later, the sky clears and the sun reappears as if the rain never happened.

This peaceful day has taught me once again to show up, pay close attention and tell my truth. I trust all answers for this life stage will emerge from this.

Miwa Matreyek's glorious visions | Video on TED.com

I offer this as an antidote to the noise around us that can keep us from making our own discoveries.

About this talk

Using animation, projections and her own moving shadow, Miwa Matreyek performs a gorgeous, meditative piece about inner and outer discovery. Take a quiet 10 minutes and dive in. With music from Anna Oxygen, Mirah, Caroline Lufkin and Mileece.

About Miwa Matreyek

Miwa Matreyek creates performances where real shapes and virtual images trade places, amid layers of animation, video and live bodies. 

Miwa Matreyek's glorious visions | Video on TED.com


This also introduces the wonderful world of TED.com to those who haven't discovered it up to now. It's a rich source of information and inspiration that, needless-to-say, isn't covered in the popular media. How fabulous to have the splendors of the best thinkers and doers in the world sharing their stories.