Month: April 2014

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Lost In Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode 10

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will…


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April 30, 2014

Today is one of those days when nothing goes wrong, but everything feels wrong.

I’ve set forth theories for why I might feel this way today.

1.  There are less Happiness Molecules in the air, therefore causing the Happiness Barometer to be unusually low, creating the ideal conditions for unpredictable Storms of Melancholy.

2.  The sun’s beams are striking the planetary body at precisely the wrong angle, therefore making conditions impossible for the necessary Happiness Light Wavicles (wave/particles) to occur.

3.  The cow jumped over the moon, and the dish left the spoon for a fork.

4.  The moon is in Aquarius.

5.  Karma.

Hmmm…which one could it be?

This seemingly pointless exercise has helped me see how totally futile it is to try and ascribe a single cause to any event or emotion. Our view is narrow and shallow. Karma is inevitable and inscrutable.

Although, I have to say–I’m pretty partial to my Happy Molecules theory.

Understand that the consequences of your actions are inevitable because all the pleasure and pain of sentient beings results from karma.

Gampopa

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April 29, 2014

Thirty-two days to go.

I’m listening to this really fun audio book called How Music Works. One of the things the writer talks about is that it takes ten thousand hours of practice to be ‘expert’ at anything. He was talking about musicians and how their musical training usually starts in childhood.

That got me thinking. Ten thousand hours is 416 days; that’s 1.14 years. I started thinking about my afflicted emotions, and how I’m over-the-top expert at some of them. Does that mean I’ve spent the equivalent of 1.14 years, twenty-four hours a day, non-stop, with no sleep, practicing…aggression, fear, resentment, frustration?

Sadly, yes, I think that’s exactly what it means.

This has given me a true understanding of why mind training is so very crucial, and so very urgent. We don’t want to continue becoming experts at our unskillful habits. It’s made me see how we could all think about logging some more time practicing compassion, patience, peace.

It’s made me ask myself, as my day winds down…what did you practice becoming expert at today?

As I wake, may I renew my pledge to free all beings;

as I lie down to rest, may I inspect and purify all faults.

Bless me always to live between these two!

robot

April 28, 2014

It’s very different to walk on dry sand than it is to walk on concrete. Since we first learn to walk on very solid ground, we soon take our balance for granted. After a mere three years in our sturdy little bodies, we recklessly throw our weight from one foot to the other, running after whatever catches our fancy.

Not so walking on sand. The problem with dry sand is that it shifts every time you take a step. Your feet don’t sink down to the same depth with each step. For many months, you have to think about your balance because those unpredictable shifts are just enough to throw off your balance. It always feels a little like you’re going to trip and fall.

After many, many thousands of practice steps, the feeling of being just a moment short of falling is still there, but you learn to trust the sand. You learn to work with the unpredictability. Soon, you do a kind of dance with the sand, your body constantly adjusting to keep your weight swinging smoothly from one foot to the other.

I’m finding that learning to be with thoughts in the mind is a whole lot like walking on sand. At first, the sheer unpredictability of arising thoughts and afflicted emotions is enough to knock you off balance. You find yourself on your backside, with sand sifting down into uncomfortable places. But after a while, you learn–all that unpredictability is just how mind is. You start to trust that you won’t fall over.

That’s what today felt like–walking on shifting sand without being afraid I’d fall. Sure. Anxiety was there but…it was just more shifting sand; just mind being mind.

I’m very grateful for today.

As I eat and drink, may the hungry and thirsty be sated;

as I go on my way, may all journey safely;

as I sit and lie down, may the tired find rest…

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April 27, 2014

Today, I didn’t think; more accurately, I experienced thinking as an activity of mind. This meant that whatever thoughts or afflicted emotions arose in my confused mind, I was aware that they were happening in the mind. This made anxiety a whole lot easier to handle, a whole lot less exhausting to deal with.

This wasn’t something I did consciously. I didn’t get home and say to myself–no matter what thoughts arise, I’ll remember they’re just thoughts. It wasn’t like that at all. It just sort of … happened. Now that my day is nearly over, I find myself wanting to desperately cling to this new sense of balance. But…that’s a thought arising in the confused mind–better figure how I did this so I can keep doing it.

Why does ego try to take credit for absolutely everything? Talk about a diva.

This strong urge to hold on, coupled with my awareness of how impermanent our thoughts are helps me to understand better why it’s so important to live our lives as an exercise in letting go. There is nothing we can hold onto, nothing. The longer it takes us to realize this basic truth of impermanence, the longer we will suffer in the cycle of birth and death.

When all goes well, may I credit the Buddhas;

When it does not, may I take perfect shelter in their grace.

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April 26, 2014

Thirty four days to go.

Today was a near perfect day. Not because it was anxiety-free. It wasn’t. Not because I got to bake to my heart’s content. I did. It was near perfect because the anxiety about what’s going on at work was there all day, but it didn’t feel frightening the way it usually does. I didn’t feel attacked by it. I didn’t feel like Hannibal going up against Rome. Today I experienced something I learned intellectually from mind training.

The mind is indeed a creature of habit. Today I experienced my fear of anxiety as a habitual response to a specific stream of thoughts. I experienced today that I could stop choosing fear as a response. This didn’t make anxiety pleasant, but it did allow me to have a day that wasn’t a constant turning away from some nameless, formless fear. That was pretty amazing.

I don’t know what tomorrow will be like, but I am incredibly grateful for my experience with anxiety today.

If I encounter happiness, let me grateful.

If I encounter suffering, let me redouble effort.

Bless me to know that gratitude is wisdom and effort is compassion!

robot

April 25, 2014

Today…has been one of those days that really needs a rewind button…

These problems and vicissitudes are all of my own making:

it is only self-cherishing that prompts unskillful action.

Bless me to recognize my false self and its poisons!

robot

April 24, 2014

I made coconut-banana-chocolate chunk muffins this morning before work. It’s a brand new vegan recipe, so it was a test bake. I tried one before I left for work.

Now, one of the weird things about baking is that when you take your bread (or cake or muffin) out of the oven, in most cases, it’s not actually done. We call it ‘cooling’, but really it’s still cooking. This morning I was edgy and impatient, so I tried a muffin that was still so hot it burned the roof of my mouth. It was awful–flavorless, mushy. I almost tossed all ten muffins in the trash, but I was running late.

This afternoon when I got home, I tried a muffin. Of course, after nearly nine hours, they were completely cool. Oh my gosh. Delicious. Subtle flavors of coconut, permeated with the sweetness of banana, and rich wonderful bites of chocolate chunks. It was a whole different experience.

This has made me think of how our afflicted emotions can be “too hot to handle” at times, and how that skews our experience. Today at work I got so incredibly frustrated with Salem (my co-worker), I wanted to throttle her until her eyes popped out of her head. Now, after meditation and prayer, I can see that Salem was just…being Salem. It’s how she is. She’s a yak, not a raven. She’s never gonna be a raven. Not in this lifetime; heck, maybe not for a few lifetimes.

What was manifesting was my “too hot to handle” anxiety. Noticing this has freed me of the resentment that rose in the wake of my frustration. It’s made me see that, just like muffins and artisan bread, we are at our best when we allow the heat of our afflicted emotions to dissipate, and allow the coolness of peace and clarity to arise. It’s the difference between seeing our world through the distortion of heat waves, and seeing our world in the crystal clarity of a clear winter day.

Yaks do not fly, and ravens do not till the soil.

It is pointless and callous to comment on the obvious.

Bless me to understand the common and uncommon appropriations!

robot

April 23, 2014

Anxiety feels like this: you’re on a roller coaster and you’re all the way at the very top, then suddenly you go careening down. Except this is a Monster Coaster. You’re so high up, cities on the globe are pinpoints. You’re falling so fast, there’s no breath in your lungs. There’s no ground under you and you’re sure you’ll violate the law of perpetual motion and fall for-freakin’-ever. That’s what anxiety feels like.

Just lately, I’ve had the chance to get very up close and personal with that feeling. It’s been interesting.

Today, I thought very much on something my Dharma friend Tashi shared yesterday,

Serene Trust is the gift of the Buddhas,

the shower of Their compassion.

When we invoke the Buddhas through prayer and mantra,

it is not to ask, beg, cajole, or barter.

We express our gratitude for Their blessings of peace and clarity.

Until then, I’d never realized how Christianity has ingrained in me that ‘prayer’ is always to an outside entity.

I tried today being grateful for blessings of peace and clarity. I really did. But I didn’t feel serene or trusting. I felt like an idiot. I just couldn’t be grateful for something I wasn’t experiencing and…I don’t know. It didn’t work for me.

I silently recite mantra at work about once an hour. I have a pop-up on my MS Outlook calendar that comes up every hour and says “…breathe…”. Today, each time it came up, I recited mantra and made a conscious effort to ‘suspend my belief’ in prayer and just say the words. By doing this, I was somehow able to find a way to resonate with the actual sound of the words. It was sort of like humming harmony to a melody. With om amideva rhih, nothing really happened. They sounded like pretty words, but that’s about it. But, with om mani peme hum–wow!

I felt like a tuning fork vibrating to just the right note. I’m not kidding here. I could feel a powerful vibration through the center of my body. For whole seconds at a time, my mind reverberated with it. I’ve never experienced my entire mind turning to something. When that happens, you get a real sense of how incredibly vast mind truly is.

I think part of the reason it was easier for me to let go of the concept of ‘prayer’ with om mani peme hum is because I don’t have a visual for that. It’s a string of words often repeated after prayers. But for om amideva rhih, I have a pretty strong visual of Amideva. This seems to lend itself to ‘prayer’ rather than mantra recitation.

With om mani peme hum, it was as if for a moment, there was absolutely no separation between me and . . . well . . . anything.

I’m not sure if this is what Tashi meant, but…it felt different than ‘prayer’. It was a whole lot more powerful.

You have got to try this!

Bless me to recognize that this experience 

is insubstantial, dependent, and impermanent.

robot

April 22, 2014

Today, the new company that’s buying my company had an HR rep onsite to talk about benefits. Sitting there listening to him talk about how much it would cost me to stay ‘healthy, I thought about being lost and whether or not you can ever find your way back. I don’t think so.

In the same vein as the philosophical understanding that you can’t bathe in the same river twice, the same person can’t get lost and return. If you find your way back, then you are now a person with the skillful means not to get lost the same way again. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz comes to mind. I bet next time there’s a tornado, she takes Toto and hides underground, rather than being swept away again.

I think sometimes being lost feels worse than it is. After all, in this whole transition thing, being ‘lost’ means that no possibilities are closed to me. Intellectually, I know that’s true. But still, having the new company rep come and talk to us today felt a little like an undertaker taking my measurements for my coffin.

Bless me to neither be proud nor despair, 

but to abide in peace, free from self-grasping…

robot

 

April 21, 2014

When I was a kid, it was a real toss-up between Lost in Space and Star Trek. Dr. Smith’s trouble-making ways really tickled me. Looking back, I think it’s because, of the entire cast, Dr. Smith seemed to mind the least being lost in space. I wanted to be like that.

I felt so lost in the terrible screaming matches between my parents that finally culminated in their divorce. I guess I wanted to be like Dr. Smith–to not mind so much feeling lost.

As a woman, in the maturity of my years, I think I want the same thing–to not mind so much this feeling of being lost, of being un-moored.

On Friday, April 11th, it was announced that the company I work for is shutting down. It’s being bought by another company. They’re labeling it ‘a transition’. Talk about marketing. Everyone’s scared. Everyone’s feeling lost. Nobody believes their promises. Nobody knows what comes next.

I know that life is always like that, but this really puts me in touch with vulnerability and my own fear of letting go. When I first came to Texas, in flight from Relationship From Hell, my job was the only constant in my life. I have clung to my job for nearly nine years, not coincidentally (I’m sure), the same number of years I spent in Hell. I have been determined not to let go of my job. When I have made efforts to leave, they were in truth, half-hearted.

And now this.

The sale will be finalized on May 31st. I’ve taken a vow to meditate and pray between now and May 31st, and bring this to my path. For the next forty days, I’ll be exploring what I call the Dharma of being lost.

I hope you’ll come along for what promises to be an interesting ride.

I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

robot

 

 

 

 

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On myriads of thoughts…

Currently I’m studying Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones with a Dharma friend, the Venerable Tashi Nyima.

This is my contemplation on the third line of verse 23 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

heart treasure

“Whatever I know I’ve left it as theory;

it’s no use to me now.

Whatever I’ve done I’ve spent on this life;

it’s no use to me now.

Whatever I’ve thought was all just delusion;

it’s no use to me now.

Now the time has come to do what’s truly

Useful—recite the six-syllable mantra.”

 Explain to someone else (making it my own)

When I was a little girl, I wanted to run away. It’s not that things were horrible at home, but it was just a house. Cinderella lived in a real castle, and she wore glass slippers. She was married to a prince, and she wore pretty clothes all the time. And if I couldn’t make it to the castle, maybe I could stop by Heaven and walk on those streets of gold. If I got there on a good day, I might see lions lying down with lambs. I wanted to pet a lion and see what all that hair around its head felt like.

fairy tale bookAs a little girl, I was exposed to fairy tales and biblical stories at the same time. My cousin would read to me from my fairy tale collection just about whenever I asked. My uncle, who’d just converted to being Seventh Day Adventist, would read to me fanatically from The Bible. He had one of those bibles that had gorgeous color plates of what I later learned were great works of art. To me, they were very pretty pictures. There was no difference in my five-year old mind between fairies and angels. I thought angels were grown up fairies. I thought God was a king who lived in Heaven, his kingdom, and if I knew how to get there, I could go visit. I didn’t understand the idea of ‘fiction’.

We tend to believe that we outgrow such naïve styles of thinking. Yet we find ourselves constantly caught up in the stories of our own lives. We constantly seek happiness based on what we think we see around us. We look for the next job, the next spouse, the next house, the next car—always chasing the elusive goal of ‘happiness’. We end most of our days exhausted and horribly dissatisfied, but with the hope that tomorrow we’ll find true happiness.

We live our lives in a state of utter delusion, imprisoned inside a mind that is incapable of perceiving reality. We believe our thoughts as surely as I believed I could hitchhike to Cinderella’s castle. Dilgo Khyentse puts it like this, “Myriads of thoughts have run through our minds, each one giving birth to many more, but all they have done is to increase our confusion and dissatisfaction.”

We are like children, constantly disappointed that no fairy godmother has come to rescue us from the mundane suffering of our lives.

***

Apply to a past situation (how would it have been different?)

“I’ll be dead tomorrow, so it doesn’t matter.” For years, I lived with that thought. I had elaborate plans of suicide. Back then I didn’t have access to pharmaceutical exit plans, but when you live a scant ten minute drive from the ocean, you don’t need pharmaceutical assistance. I wanted to die (anhelld honestly the method wasn’t important to me), because my mind had created a world that was so insufferable. I was convinced that death was the only alternative.

I was in a relationship that has the politically correct (and woefully understated) designation of “Domestic Abuse”; sounds so much nicer than it is to live it day in and day out. It was a sojourn through Hell. I’m here to tell you, Hell is state of mind, not a place with bubbling lakes of brimstone. In the final two years of that relationship, I craved death the way an addict craves their next fix. The one thing that stopped me was that I was afraid I’d get it wrong.

For a long time, I wholly believed my mind’s take on the situation. No religious zealot ever believed their creed more fervently than I believed the thoughts arising in my confused mind. Death, mind would whisper to me, a long peaceful sleep.

In the end of things, it was constant threats of death that finally drove me to leave. Toward the end, I was told constantly that if I left, I’d be killed. I thought—you’ll kill me? Really? Sweet. I’m outta here. It wasn’t quite so easy as I make it sound, but my preference for death over the life I was living was the final impetus that drove me to leave.

Looking back on that time in my life, I can notice how mind zoomed in on death until it seemed like the only way out. Had I been able to take even a baby-step back from the Greek tragedy of my life, I may have noticed that there is never only one anything. Had I done that, I may have noticed that death’s appeal came mainly from my fear that whatever lay ahead, beyond the gates of Hell, was just too terrifying to face. Had I been able to notice this, I might have seen that death’s looming stature in my thoughts was like a ten foot shadow of an ant, cast by the blaring spotlight of my confused mind. Having seen this, I may have ended the suffering of both my partner and myself a whole lot sooner.

***

Apply to an (ongoing) present situation (how does it matter today?)

The biggest ongoing situation in my life is that the company I work for is being sold to Interplanetary Title, Inc.  This has been a smorgasbord of fear and anxiety for mind. When this was first announced on April 11, there was this plummeting feeling in my stomach. Not only was I falling, my parachute wouldn’t open.

Mind went right to work, zooming in on all the things that could go wrong. Oddly enough, my sojourn in Hell has been pretty helpful. I’m on to mind; not all ten foot shadows are giants.

ecuSince April 11, I’ve had countless opportunities to work with anxiety. The one thing that all anxiety thoughts have in common is mind’s peculiar ability to zoom in, narrow a view until it simply blots out everything else.  I’m noticing that mind can only do this by ascribing a single cause and magnifying it beyond all meaningful proportion.

With the situation at work, there are days when mind insists that it’s all an elaborate ruse, and that on May 31st (the day the deal is signed), we’ll all be fired and ineligible for unemployment. This is just one scenario. Mind plays these fictions out hourly, with more variations than Bach could have ever dreamed up.

But thanks to my Dharma study, there are many times when I’m able to experience these thoughts as activities of mind, wholly unrelated to any reality, let alone ultimate reality. Thanks to this event arising at this time on my spiritual path, I am able to observe mind at work busily manufacturing what my Dharma friend Tashi calls ‘fictional truth’. Most of the time, I am able to see correct fictional truth—I know mind is deluded and confused and is offering up a skewed set of perceptions based on limited input.

I vigorously practice mantra now, but with a different emphasis. I no longer ask to be free of anxiety. When I recite mantra now, I understand that my true self is free of anxiety. I use mantra to establish a resonance with that true self. This dissolves the illusion of reality that can arise from the confused mind.

This does not take away the anxiety or fear, but it does give a comfortable distance from it. In practicing this way, I realize the power of mantra to free any of us at any time, no matter how entangled we are in the delusions of the confused mind.

***

Apply to a potential situation (bringing it home to play)

In about an hour, I’ll be on my way to work. Before I began studying the Dharma, getting ready for work in these days leading up to May 31 would have been drama worthy of Shakespeare. I would have desperately hoped that the anxiety wouldn’t be too unbearable and that I could grit my teeth and bear it.

Today, no need to wear my teeth to nubs. You know what? The truth is, anxiety is already arising at the thought of going to work. And that’s okay. It isn’t pleasant. It isn’t fun, and it certainly isn’t my first choice for how to start my day.

Although there is nothing magical about the Dharma, for me it has a certain miraculous quality. This quality is what my Dharma friend Tashi calls “Serene Trust” or “Serene Confidence”. With training my mind, and with reliance on the Dharma, I am able to simply rest in the arising deluded confusion that I label ‘anxiety’. This doesn’t sound like a big deal. But for someone who’s ended up in the emergency room because of an anxiety attack so bad I couldn’t breathe, it’s pretty awesome.swing woman

Before, I used to try and ‘fix’ anxiety, try to make it go away. Now, I work with letting it arise, then resting with whatever arises. Today, when anxiety arises, I will recite mantra, and understand that what I am experiencing is a phenomenon in the deluded mind. I will remember that all phenomena are impermanent, dependent, and insubstantial. I will give impermanence a chance to prove itself. In this way, I will resonate with my true self. I will resonate with my Buddha Nature of true bliss, true permanence, true self, true purity.

Each time I do this during the day, I will turn my attention outward and know that every being I lay eyes on has the same Buddha Nature, and they are suffering far more than I am. I will work throughout my day, with compassion, to ease their fears, which are no different than mine. If I can bring a genuine smile to just one person’s face today, it will have been a day well spent.

 

PS: Thanks to my Dharma friend Elizabet for the awesome woman on the swing image…

by

Lost In Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode 9

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will…


Logo

April 29, 2014

Thirty-two days to go.

I’m listening to this really fun audio book called How Music Works. One of the things the writer talks about is that it takes ten thousand hours of practice to be ‘expert’ at anything. He was talking about musicians and how their musical training usually starts in childhood.

That got me thinking. Ten thousand hours is 416 days; that’s 1.14 years. I started thinking about my afflicted emotions, and how I’m over-the-top expert at some of them. Does that mean I’ve spent the equivalent of 1.14 years, twenty-four hours a day, non-stop, with no sleep, practicing…aggression, fear, resentment, frustration?

Sadly, yes, I think that’s exactly what it means.

This has given me a true understanding of why mind training is so very crucial, and so very urgent. We don’t want to continue becoming experts at our unskillful habits. It’s made me see how we could all think about logging some more time practicing compassion, patience, peace.

It’s made me ask myself, as my day winds down…what did you practice becoming expert at today?

As I wake, may I renew my pledge to free all beings;

as I lie down to rest, may I inspect and purify all faults.

Bless me always to live between these two!

robot

April 28, 2014

It’s very different to walk on dry sand than it is to walk on concrete. Since we first learn to walk on very solid ground, we soon take our balance for granted. After a mere three years in our sturdy little bodies, we recklessly throw our weight from one foot to the other, running after whatever catches our fancy.

Not so walking on sand. The problem with dry sand is that it shifts every time you take a step. Your feet don’t sink down to the same depth with each step. For many months, you have to think about your balance because those unpredictable shifts are just enough to throw off your balance. It always feels a little like you’re going to trip and fall.

After many, many thousands of practice steps, the feeling of being just a moment short of falling is still there, but you learn to trust the sand. You learn to work with the unpredictability. Soon, you do a kind of dance with the sand, your body constantly adjusting to keep your weight swinging smoothly from one foot to the other.

I’m finding that learning to be with thoughts in the mind is a whole lot like walking on sand. At first, the sheer unpredictability of arising thoughts and afflicted emotions is enough to knock you off balance. You find yourself on your backside, with sand sifting down into uncomfortable places. But after a while, you learn–all that unpredictability is just how mind is. You start to trust that you won’t fall over.

That’s what today felt like–walking on shifting sand without being afraid I’d fall. Sure. Anxiety was there but…it was just more shifting sand; just mind being mind.

I’m very grateful for today.

As I eat and drink, may the hungry and thirsty be sated;

as I go on my way, may all journey safely;

as I sit and lie down, may the tired find rest…

robot

April 27, 2014

Today, I didn’t think; more accurately, I experienced thinking as an activity of mind. This meant that whatever thoughts or afflicted emotions arose in my confused mind, I was aware that they were happening in the mind. This made anxiety a whole lot easier to handle, a whole lot less exhausting to deal with.

This wasn’t something I did consciously. I didn’t get home and say to myself–no matter what thoughts arise, I’ll remember they’re just thoughts. It wasn’t like that at all. It just sort of … happened. Now that my day is nearly over, I find myself wanting to desperately cling to this new sense of balance. But…that’s a thought arising in the confused mind–better figure how I did this so I can keep doing it.

Why does ego try to take credit for absolutely everything? Talk about a diva.

This strong urge to hold on, coupled with my awareness of how impermanent our thoughts are helps me to understand better why it’s so important to live our lives as an exercise in letting go. There is nothing we can hold onto, nothing. The longer it takes us to realize this basic truth of impermanence, the longer we will suffer in the cycle of birth and death.

When all goes well, may I credit the Buddhas;

When it does not, may I take perfect shelter in their grace.

robot

April 26, 2014

Thirty four days to go.

Today was a near perfect day. Not because it was anxiety-free. It wasn’t. Not because I got to bake to my heart’s content. I did. It was near perfect because the anxiety about what’s going on at work was there all day, but it didn’t feel frightening the way it usually does. I didn’t feel attacked by it. I didn’t feel like Hannibal going up against Rome. Today I experienced something I learned intellectually from mind training.

The mind is indeed a creature of habit. Today I experienced my fear of anxiety as a habitual response to a specific stream of thoughts. I experienced today that I could stop choosing fear as a response. This didn’t make anxiety pleasant, but it did allow me to have a day that wasn’t a constant turning away from some nameless, formless fear. That was pretty amazing.

I don’t know what tomorrow will be like, but I am incredibly grateful for my experience with anxiety today.

If I encounter happiness, let me grateful.

If I encounter suffering, let me redouble effort.

Bless me to know that gratitude is wisdom and effort is compassion!

robot

April 25, 2014

Today…has been one of those days that really needs a rewind button…

These problems and vicissitudes are all of my own making:

it is only self-cherishing that prompts unskillful action.

Bless me to recognize my false self and its poisons!

robot

April 24, 2014

I made coconut-banana-chocolate chunk muffins this morning before work. It’s a brand new vegan recipe, so it was a test bake. I tried one before I left for work.

Now, one of the weird things about baking is that when you take your bread (or cake or muffin) out of the oven, in most cases, it’s not actually done. We call it ‘cooling’, but really it’s still cooking. This morning I was edgy and impatient, so I tried a muffin that was still so hot it burned the roof of my mouth. It was awful–flavorless, mushy. I almost tossed all ten muffins in the trash, but I was running late.

This afternoon when I got home, I tried a muffin. Of course, after nearly nine hours, they were completely cool. Oh my gosh. Delicious. Subtle flavors of coconut, permeated with the sweetness of banana, and rich wonderful bites of chocolate chunks. It was a whole different experience.

This has made me think of how our afflicted emotions can be “too hot to handle” at times, and how that skews our experience. Today at work I got so incredibly frustrated with Salem (my co-worker), I wanted to throttle her until her eyes popped out of her head. Now, after meditation and prayer, I can see that Salem was just…being Salem. It’s how she is. She’s a yak, not a raven. She’s never gonna be a raven. Not in this lifetime; heck, maybe not for a few lifetimes.

What was manifesting was my “too hot to handle” anxiety. Noticing this has freed me of the resentment that rose in the wake of my frustration. It’s made me see that, just like muffins and artisan bread, we are at our best when we allow the heat of our afflicted emotions to dissipate, and allow the coolness of peace and clarity to arise. It’s the difference between seeing our world through the distortion of heat waves, and seeing our world in the crystal clarity of a clear winter day.

Yaks do not fly, and ravens do not till the soil.

It is pointless and callous to comment on the obvious.

Bless me to understand the common and uncommon appropriations!

robot

April 23, 2014

Anxiety feels like this: you’re on a roller coaster and you’re all the way at the very top, then suddenly you go careening down. Except this is a Monster Coaster. You’re so high up, cities on the globe are pinpoints. You’re falling so fast, there’s no breath in your lungs. There’s no ground under you and you’re sure you’ll violate the law of perpetual motion and fall for-freakin’-ever. That’s what anxiety feels like.

Just lately, I’ve had the chance to get very up close and personal with that feeling. It’s been interesting.

Today, I thought very much on something my Dharma friend Tashi shared yesterday,

Serene Trust is the gift of the Buddhas,

the shower of Their compassion.

When we invoke the Buddhas through prayer and mantra,

it is not to ask, beg, cajole, or barter.

We express our gratitude for Their blessings of peace and clarity.

Until then, I’d never realized how Christianity has ingrained in me that ‘prayer’ is always to an outside entity.

I tried today being grateful for blessings of peace and clarity. I really did. But I didn’t feel serene or trusting. I felt like an idiot. I just couldn’t be grateful for something I wasn’t experiencing and…I don’t know. It didn’t work for me.

I silently recite mantra at work about once an hour. I have a pop-up on my MS Outlook calendar that comes up every hour and says “…breathe…”. Today, each time it came up, I recited mantra and made a conscious effort to ‘suspend my belief’ in prayer and just say the words. By doing this, I was somehow able to find a way to resonate with the actual sound of the words. It was sort of like humming harmony to a melody. With om amideva rhih, nothing really happened. They sounded like pretty words, but that’s about it. But, with om mani peme hum–wow!

I felt like a tuning fork vibrating to just the right note. I’m not kidding here. I could feel a powerful vibration through the center of my body. For whole seconds at a time, my mind reverberated with it. I’ve never experienced my entire mind turning to something. When that happens, you get a real sense of how incredibly vast mind truly is.

I think part of the reason it was easier for me to let go of the concept of ‘prayer’ with om mani peme hum is because I don’t have a visual for that. It’s a string of words often repeated after prayers. But for om amideva rhih, I have a pretty strong visual of Amideva. This seems to lend itself to ‘prayer’ rather than mantra recitation.

With om mani peme hum, it was as if for a moment, there was absolutely no separation between me and . . . well . . . anything.

I’m not sure if this is what Tashi meant, but…it felt different than ‘prayer’. It was a whole lot more powerful.

You have got to try this!

Bless me to recognize that this experience 

is insubstantial, dependent, and impermanent.

robot

April 22, 2014

Today, the new company that’s buying my company had an HR rep onsite to talk about benefits. Sitting there listening to him talk about how much it would cost me to stay ‘healthy, I thought about being lost and whether or not you can ever find your way back. I don’t think so.

In the same vein as the philosophical understanding that you can’t bathe in the same river twice, the same person can’t get lost and return. If you find your way back, then you are now a person with the skillful means not to get lost the same way again. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz comes to mind. I bet next time there’s a tornado, she takes Toto and hides underground, rather than being swept away again.

I think sometimes being lost feels worse than it is. After all, in this whole transition thing, being ‘lost’ means that no possibilities are closed to me. Intellectually, I know that’s true. But still, having the new company rep come and talk to us today felt a little like an undertaker taking my measurements for my coffin.

Bless me to neither be proud nor despair, 

but to abide in peace, free from self-grasping…

robot

 

April 21, 2014

When I was a kid, it was a real toss-up between Lost in Space and Star Trek. Dr. Smith’s trouble-making ways really tickled me. Looking back, I think it’s because, of the entire cast, Dr. Smith seemed to mind the least being lost in space. I wanted to be like that.

I felt so lost in the terrible screaming matches between my parents that finally culminated in their divorce. I guess I wanted to be like Dr. Smith–to not mind so much feeling lost.

As a woman, in the maturity of my years, I think I want the same thing–to not mind so much this feeling of being lost, of being un-moored.

On Friday, April 11th, it was announced that the company I work for is shutting down. It’s being bought by another company. They’re labeling it ‘a transition’. Talk about marketing. Everyone’s scared. Everyone’s feeling lost. Nobody believes their promises. Nobody knows what comes next.

I know that life is always like that, but this really puts me in touch with vulnerability and my own fear of letting go. When I first came to Texas, in flight from Relationship From Hell, my job was the only constant in my life. I have clung to my job for nearly nine years, not coincidentally (I’m sure), the same number of years I spent in Hell. I have been determined not to let go of my job. When I have made efforts to leave, they were in truth, half-hearted.

And now this.

The sale will be finalized on May 31st. I’ve taken a vow to meditate and pray between now and May 31st, and bring this to my path. For the next forty days, I’ll be exploring what I call the Dharma of being lost.

I hope you’ll come along for what promises to be an interesting ride.

I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

robot

 

 

 

 

by

Lost In Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode 8

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will…


Logo

April 28, 2014

It’s very different to walk on dry sand than it is to walk on concrete. Since we first learn to walk on very solid ground, we soon take our balance for granted. After a mere three years in our sturdy little bodies, we recklessly throw our weight from one foot to the other, running after whatever catches our fancy.

Not so walking on sand. The problem with dry sand is that it shifts every time you take a step. Your feet don’t sink down to the same depth with each step. For many months, you have to think about your balance because those unpredictable shifts are just enough to throw off your balance. It always feels a little like you’re going to trip and fall.

After many, many thousands of practice steps, the feeling of being just a moment short of falling is still there, but you learn to trust the sand. You learn to work with the unpredictability. Soon, you do a kind of dance with the sand, your body constantly adjusting to keep your weight swinging smoothly from one foot to the other.

I’m finding that learning to be with thoughts in the mind is a whole lot like walking on sand. At first, the sheer unpredictability of arising thoughts and afflicted emotions is enough to knock you off balance. You find yourself on your backside, with sand sifting down into uncomfortable places. But after a while, you learn–all that unpredictability is just how mind is. You start to trust that you won’t fall over.

That’s what today felt like–walking on shifting sand without being afraid I’d fall. Sure. Anxiety was there but…it was just more shifting sand; just mind being mind.

I’m very grateful for today.

As I eat and drink, may the hungry and thirsty be sated;

as I go on my way, may all journey safely;

as I sit and lie down, may the tired find rest…

robot

April 27, 2014

Today, I didn’t think; more accurately, I experienced thinking as an activity of mind. This meant that whatever thoughts or afflicted emotions arose in my confused mind, I was aware that they were happening in the mind. This made anxiety a whole lot easier to handle, a whole lot less exhausting to deal with.

This wasn’t something I did consciously. I didn’t get home and say to myself–no matter what thoughts arise, I’ll remember they’re just thoughts. It wasn’t like that at all. It just sort of … happened. Now that my day is nearly over, I find myself wanting to desperately cling to this new sense of balance. But…that’s a thought arising in the confused mind–better figure how I did this so I can keep doing it.

Why does ego try to take credit for absolutely everything? Talk about a diva.

This strong urge to hold on, coupled with my awareness of how impermanent our thoughts are helps me to understand better why it’s so important to live our lives as an exercise in letting go. There is nothing we can hold onto, nothing. The longer it takes us to realize this basic truth of impermanence, the longer we will suffer in the cycle of birth and death.

When all goes well, may I credit the Buddhas;

When it does not, may I take perfect shelter in their grace.

robot

April 26, 2014

Thirty four days to go.

Today was a near perfect day. Not because it was anxiety-free. It wasn’t. Not because I got to bake to my heart’s content. I did. It was near perfect because the anxiety about what’s going on at work was there all day, but it didn’t feel frightening the way it usually does. I didn’t feel attacked by it. I didn’t feel like Hannibal going up against Rome. Today I experienced something I learned intellectually from mind training.

The mind is indeed a creature of habit. Today I experienced my fear of anxiety as a habitual response to a specific stream of thoughts. I experienced today that I could stop choosing fear as a response. This didn’t make anxiety pleasant, but it did allow me to have a day that wasn’t a constant turning away from some nameless, formless fear. That was pretty amazing.

I don’t know what tomorrow will be like, but I am incredibly grateful for my experience with anxiety today.

If I encounter happiness, let me grateful.

If I encounter suffering, let me redouble effort.

Bless me to know that gratitude is wisdom and effort is compassion!

robot

April 25, 2014

Today…has been one of those days that really needs a rewind button…

These problems and vicissitudes are all of my own making:

it is only self-cherishing that prompts unskillful action.

Bless me to recognize my false self and its poisons!

robot

April 24, 2014

I made coconut-banana-chocolate chunk muffins this morning before work. It’s a brand new vegan recipe, so it was a test bake. I tried one before I left for work.

Now, one of the weird things about baking is that when you take your bread (or cake or muffin) out of the oven, in most cases, it’s not actually done. We call it ‘cooling’, but really it’s still cooking. This morning I was edgy and impatient, so I tried a muffin that was still so hot it burned the roof of my mouth. It was awful–flavorless, mushy. I almost tossed all ten muffins in the trash, but I was running late.

This afternoon when I got home, I tried a muffin. Of course, after nearly nine hours, they were completely cool. Oh my gosh. Delicious. Subtle flavors of coconut, permeated with the sweetness of banana, and rich wonderful bites of chocolate chunks. It was a whole different experience.

This has made me think of how our afflicted emotions can be “too hot to handle” at times, and how that skews our experience. Today at work I got so incredibly frustrated with Salem (my co-worker), I wanted to throttle her until her eyes popped out of her head. Now, after meditation and prayer, I can see that Salem was just…being Salem. It’s how she is. She’s a yak, not a raven. She’s never gonna be a raven. Not in this lifetime; heck, maybe not for a few lifetimes.

What was manifesting was my “too hot to handle” anxiety. Noticing this has freed me of the resentment that rose in the wake of my frustration. It’s made me see that, just like muffins and artisan bread, we are at our best when we allow the heat of our afflicted emotions to dissipate, and allow the coolness of peace and clarity to arise. It’s the difference between seeing our world through the distortion of heat waves, and seeing our world in the crystal clarity of a clear winter day.

Yaks do not fly, and ravens do not till the soil.

It is pointless and callous to comment on the obvious.

Bless me to understand the common and uncommon appropriations!

robot

April 23, 2014

Anxiety feels like this: you’re on a roller coaster and you’re all the way at the very top, then suddenly you go careening down. Except this is a Monster Coaster. You’re so high up, cities on the globe are pinpoints. You’re falling so fast, there’s no breath in your lungs. There’s no ground under you and you’re sure you’ll violate the law of perpetual motion and fall for-freakin’-ever. That’s what anxiety feels like.

Just lately, I’ve had the chance to get very up close and personal with that feeling. It’s been interesting.

Today, I thought very much on something my Dharma friend Tashi shared yesterday,

Serene Trust is the gift of the Buddhas,

the shower of Their compassion.

When we invoke the Buddhas through prayer and mantra,

it is not to ask, beg, cajole, or barter.

We express our gratitude for Their blessings of peace and clarity.

Until then, I’d never realized how Christianity has ingrained in me that ‘prayer’ is always to an outside entity.

I tried today being grateful for blessings of peace and clarity. I really did. But I didn’t feel serene or trusting. I felt like an idiot. I just couldn’t be grateful for something I wasn’t experiencing and…I don’t know. It didn’t work for me.

I silently recite mantra at work about once an hour. I have a pop-up on my MS Outlook calendar that comes up every hour and says “…breathe…”. Today, each time it came up, I recited mantra and made a conscious effort to ‘suspend my belief’ in prayer and just say the words. By doing this, I was somehow able to find a way to resonate with the actual sound of the words. It was sort of like humming harmony to a melody. With om amideva rhih, nothing really happened. They sounded like pretty words, but that’s about it. But, with om mani peme hum–wow!

I felt like a tuning fork vibrating to just the right note. I’m not kidding here. I could feel a powerful vibration through the center of my body. For whole seconds at a time, my mind reverberated with it. I’ve never experienced my entire mind turning to something. When that happens, you get a real sense of how incredibly vast mind truly is.

I think part of the reason it was easier for me to let go of the concept of ‘prayer’ with om mani peme hum is because I don’t have a visual for that. It’s a string of words often repeated after prayers. But for om amideva rhih, I have a pretty strong visual of Amideva. This seems to lend itself to ‘prayer’ rather than mantra recitation.

With om mani peme hum, it was as if for a moment, there was absolutely no separation between me and . . . well . . . anything.

I’m not sure if this is what Tashi meant, but…it felt different than ‘prayer’. It was a whole lot more powerful.

You have got to try this!

Bless me to recognize that this experience 

is insubstantial, dependent, and impermanent.

robot

April 22, 2014

Today, the new company that’s buying my company had an HR rep onsite to talk about benefits. Sitting there listening to him talk about how much it would cost me to stay ‘healthy, I thought about being lost and whether or not you can ever find your way back. I don’t think so.

In the same vein as the philosophical understanding that you can’t bathe in the same river twice, the same person can’t get lost and return. If you find your way back, then you are now a person with the skillful means not to get lost the same way again. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz comes to mind. I bet next time there’s a tornado, she takes Toto and hides underground, rather than being swept away again.

I think sometimes being lost feels worse than it is. After all, in this whole transition thing, being ‘lost’ means that no possibilities are closed to me. Intellectually, I know that’s true. But still, having the new company rep come and talk to us today felt a little like an undertaker taking my measurements for my coffin.

Bless me to neither be proud nor despair, 

but to abide in peace, free from self-grasping…

robot

 

April 21, 2014

When I was a kid, it was a real toss-up between Lost in Space and Star Trek. Dr. Smith’s trouble-making ways really tickled me. Looking back, I think it’s because, of the entire cast, Dr. Smith seemed to mind the least being lost in space. I wanted to be like that.

I felt so lost in the terrible screaming matches between my parents that finally culminated in their divorce. I guess I wanted to be like Dr. Smith–to not mind so much feeling lost.

As a woman, in the maturity of my years, I think I want the same thing–to not mind so much this feeling of being lost, of being un-moored.

On Friday, April 11th, it was announced that the company I work for is shutting down. It’s being bought by another company. They’re labeling it ‘a transition’. Talk about marketing. Everyone’s scared. Everyone’s feeling lost. Nobody believes their promises. Nobody knows what comes next.

I know that life is always like that, but this really puts me in touch with vulnerability and my own fear of letting go. When I first came to Texas, in flight from Relationship From Hell, my job was the only constant in my life. I have clung to my job for nearly nine years, not coincidentally (I’m sure), the same number of years I spent in Hell. I have been determined not to let go of my job. When I have made efforts to leave, they were in truth, half-hearted.

And now this.

The sale will be finalized on May 31st. I’ve taken a vow to meditate and pray between now and May 31st, and bring this to my path. For the next forty days, I’ll be exploring what I call the Dharma of being lost.

I hope you’ll come along for what promises to be an interesting ride.

I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

robot

 

 

 

 

by

Lost In Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode 7

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will…


LogoApril 27, 2014

Today, I didn’t think; more accurately, I experienced thinking as an activity of mind. This meant that whatever thoughts or afflicted emotions arose in my confused mind, I was aware that they were happening in the mind. This made anxiety a whole lot easier to handle, a whole lot less exhausting to deal with.

This wasn’t something I did consciously. I didn’t get home and say to myself–no matter what thoughts arise, I’ll remember they’re just thoughts. It wasn’t like that at all. It just sort of … happened. Now that my day is nearly over, I find myself wanting to desperately cling to this new sense of balance. But…that’s a thought arising in the confused mind–better figure how I did this so I can keep doing it.

Why does ego try to take credit for absolutely everything? Talk about a diva.

This strong urge to hold on, coupled with my awareness of how impermanent our thoughts are helps me to understand better why it’s so important to live our lives as an exercise in letting go. There is nothing we can hold onto, nothing. The longer it takes us to realize this basic truth of impermanence, the longer we will suffer in the cycle of birth and death.

When all goes well, may I credit the Buddhas;

When it does not, may I take perfect shelter in their grace.

robot

April 26, 2014

Thirty four days to go.

Today was a near perfect day. Not because it was anxiety-free. It wasn’t. Not because I got to bake to my heart’s content. I did. It was near perfect because the anxiety about what’s going on at work was there all day, but it didn’t feel frightening the way it usually does. I didn’t feel attacked by it. I didn’t feel like Hannibal going up against Rome. Today I experienced something I learned intellectually from mind training.

The mind is indeed a creature of habit. Today I experienced my fear of anxiety as a habitual response to a specific stream of thoughts. I experienced today that I could stop choosing fear as a response. This didn’t make anxiety pleasant, but it did allow me to have a day that wasn’t a constant turning away from some nameless, formless fear. That was pretty amazing.

I don’t know what tomorrow will be like, but I am incredibly grateful for my experience with anxiety today.

If I encounter happiness, let me grateful.

If I encounter suffering, let me redouble effort.

Bless me to know that gratitude is wisdom and effort is compassion!

robot

April 25, 2014

Today…has been one of those days that really needs a rewind button…

These problems and vicissitudes are all of my own making:

it is only self-cherishing that prompts unskillful action.

Bless me to recognize my false self and its poisons!

robot

April 24, 2014

I made coconut-banana-chocolate chunk muffins this morning before work. It’s a brand new vegan recipe, so it was a test bake. I tried one before I left for work.

Now, one of the weird things about baking is that when you take your bread (or cake or muffin) out of the oven, in most cases, it’s not actually done. We call it ‘cooling’, but really it’s still cooking. This morning I was edgy and impatient, so I tried a muffin that was still so hot it burned the roof of my mouth. It was awful–flavorless, mushy. I almost tossed all ten muffins in the trash, but I was running late.

This afternoon when I got home, I tried a muffin. Of course, after nearly nine hours, they were completely cool. Oh my gosh. Delicious. Subtle flavors of coconut, permeated with the sweetness of banana, and rich wonderful bites of chocolate chunks. It was a whole different experience.

This has made me think of how our afflicted emotions can be “too hot to handle” at times, and how that skews our experience. Today at work I got so incredibly frustrated with Salem (my co-worker), I wanted to throttle her until her eyes popped out of her head. Now, after meditation and prayer, I can see that Salem was just…being Salem. It’s how she is. She’s a yak, not a raven. She’s never gonna be a raven. Not in this lifetime; heck, maybe not for a few lifetimes.

What was manifesting was my “too hot to handle” anxiety. Noticing this has freed me of the resentment that rose in the wake of my frustration. It’s made me see that, just like muffins and artisan bread, we are at our best when we allow the heat of our afflicted emotions to dissipate, and allow the coolness of peace and clarity to arise. It’s the difference between seeing our world through the distortion of heat waves, and seeing our world in the crystal clarity of a clear winter day.

Yaks do not fly, and ravens do not till the soil.

It is pointless and callous to comment on the obvious.

Bless me to understand the common and uncommon appropriations!

robot

April 23, 2014

Anxiety feels like this: you’re on a roller coaster and you’re all the way at the very top, then suddenly you go careening down. Except this is a Monster Coaster. You’re so high up, cities on the globe are pinpoints. You’re falling so fast, there’s no breath in your lungs. There’s no ground under you and you’re sure you’ll violate the law of perpetual motion and fall for-freakin’-ever. That’s what anxiety feels like.

Just lately, I’ve had the chance to get very up close and personal with that feeling. It’s been interesting.

Today, I thought very much on something my Dharma friend Tashi shared yesterday,

Serene Trust is the gift of the Buddhas,

the shower of Their compassion.

When we invoke the Buddhas through prayer and mantra,

it is not to ask, beg, cajole, or barter.

We express our gratitude for Their blessings of peace and clarity.

Until then, I’d never realized how Christianity has ingrained in me that ‘prayer’ is always to an outside entity.

I tried today being grateful for blessings of peace and clarity. I really did. But I didn’t feel serene or trusting. I felt like an idiot. I just couldn’t be grateful for something I wasn’t experiencing and…I don’t know. It didn’t work for me.

I silently recite mantra at work about once an hour. I have a pop-up on my MS Outlook calendar that comes up every hour and says “…breathe…”. Today, each time it came up, I recited mantra and made a conscious effort to ‘suspend my belief’ in prayer and just say the words. By doing this, I was somehow able to find a way to resonate with the actual sound of the words. It was sort of like humming harmony to a melody. With om amideva rhih, nothing really happened. They sounded like pretty words, but that’s about it. But, with om mani peme hum–wow!

I felt like a tuning fork vibrating to just the right note. I’m not kidding here. I could feel a powerful vibration through the center of my body. For whole seconds at a time, my mind reverberated with it. I’ve never experienced my entire mind turning to something. When that happens, you get a real sense of how incredibly vast mind truly is.

I think part of the reason it was easier for me to let go of the concept of ‘prayer’ with om mani peme hum is because I don’t have a visual for that. It’s a string of words often repeated after prayers. But for om amideva rhih, I have a pretty strong visual of Amideva. This seems to lend itself to ‘prayer’ rather than mantra recitation.

With om mani peme hum, it was as if for a moment, there was absolutely no separation between me and . . . well . . . anything.

I’m not sure if this is what Tashi meant, but…it felt different than ‘prayer’. It was a whole lot more powerful.

You have got to try this!

Bless me to recognize that this experience 

is insubstantial, dependent, and impermanent.

robot

April 22, 2014

Today, the new company that’s buying my company had an HR rep onsite to talk about benefits. Sitting there listening to him talk about how much it would cost me to stay ‘healthy, I thought about being lost and whether or not you can ever find your way back. I don’t think so.

In the same vein as the philosophical understanding that you can’t bathe in the same river twice, the same person can’t get lost and return. If you find your way back, then you are now a person with the skillful means not to get lost the same way again. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz comes to mind. I bet next time there’s a tornado, she takes Toto and hides underground, rather than being swept away again.

I think sometimes being lost feels worse than it is. After all, in this whole transition thing, being ‘lost’ means that no possibilities are closed to me. Intellectually, I know that’s true. But still, having the new company rep come and talk to us today felt a little like an undertaker taking my measurements for my coffin.

Bless me to neither be proud nor despair, 

but to abide in peace, free from self-grasping…

robot

 

April 21, 2014

When I was a kid, it was a real toss-up between Lost in Space and Star Trek. Dr. Smith’s trouble-making ways really tickled me. Looking back, I think it’s because, of the entire cast, Dr. Smith seemed to mind the least being lost in space. I wanted to be like that.

I felt so lost in the terrible screaming matches between my parents that finally culminated in their divorce. I guess I wanted to be like Dr. Smith–to not mind so much feeling lost.

As a woman, in the maturity of my years, I think I want the same thing–to not mind so much this feeling of being lost, of being un-moored.

On Friday, April 11th, it was announced that the company I work for is shutting down. It’s being bought by another company. They’re labeling it ‘a transition’. Talk about marketing. Everyone’s scared. Everyone’s feeling lost. Nobody believes their promises. Nobody knows what comes next.

I know that life is always like that, but this really puts me in touch with vulnerability and my own fear of letting go. When I first came to Texas, in flight from Relationship From Hell, my job was the only constant in my life. I have clung to my job for nearly nine years, not coincidentally (I’m sure), the same number of years I spent in Hell. I have been determined not to let go of my job. When I have made efforts to leave, they were in truth, half-hearted.

And now this.

The sale will be finalized on May 31st. I’ve taken a vow to meditate and pray between now and May 31st, and bring this to my path. For the next forty days, I’ll be exploring what I call the Dharma of being lost.

I hope you’ll come along for what promises to be an interesting ride.

I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

robot

 

 

 

 

by

On all the forests made into paper…

Currently I’m studying Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones with a Dharma friend, the Venerable Tashi Nyima.

This is my contemplation on the final line of verse 22 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

heart treasure

“Ah! Fount of compassion, my root teacher, Lord Chenrezi,

You are my only protector!

The six-syllable mantra, essence of your speech, is the sublime Dharma;

From now on I have no hope but you!”

 

 

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

I was shopping for laundry detergent the other day. One of the glossy orange packages said something like ‘guaranteed clean’. Guarantees like that always make me wonder. Who’s to say what’s ‘clean’?  Is it mass annihilation on the level of microbes in my clothes? Does it bleach my clothes so that the dirt’s still there, but invisible to my eye? What if it’s not clean enough for me? Will they refund the cost of my water and the wear and tear on my washing machine? Guarantees like that don’t make sense to me.guarantee

We live in a realm dominated by entropy. Nothing becomes more whole with movement through the aspect of space we call ‘time’. On the contrary, integrity is lost with every tick of the clock. With every heartbeat, we are one moment closer to crossing the threshold of death. Yet we seek guarantees. We seek assurances that things will not fall apart. We seek a faith that will speak of things staying as they are. In samsara, there is no such assurance, no such faith.

For such assurance we must look beyond the realm of samsara to the Buddhas. They offer a guarantee that is unfailing because it is not subject to the entropy of samsara. Dilgo Khyentse tells us that the merit generated by a single recitation of om mani peme hum is so immeasurable that “…even if all the forests on earth were made into paper, there would never be enough to write down more than the minutest part.” Now that’s what I call an assurance—it’s so good, we can’t even tell you how good it is.

Although Patrul Rinpoche specifically refers to Chenrezig—compassion—experience has taught me that sincere practice of any aspect of the Dharma brings immeasurable benefit into our lives. In this Dharma Ending Age, such a guarantee is priceless.

***

Apply to a past situation (how would it have been different?)

I used to be the kind of person who made hope a religion. No kidding. At Christmas time, I would hope for exactly the Barbie I wanted. I never got it. On my birthday, I would hope for my very own tape recorder. I got it and got bored with it. barbieWhen things got really bad at home, I’d fall asleep hoping my parents would stop hating each other. They got divorced.

Hope played a big part in my life right up until last year when I finished writing a book and hoped it would be a bestseller. Only then did I learn the true faces of hope: fear, disappointment, betrayal, despair, dejection. By then I was already studying the Dharma, but it was something separate from my writing; or at least I thought it was.

Looking back on that time, I can notice how I had allowed hope to calcify my writing into something very rigid and nearly completely leeched of creativity. Had I noticed this, I may have been able to take a step back and notice what my ‘hope’ amounted to. Having done this, I may have seen that I was desperately afraid that not only had I wasted the last year and a half of my life, maybe I’d wasted the last twenty years. I may have noticed that what I was ‘hoping’ for was redemption (from outside myself) from my own fears.

Had I been able to see this, I may have been able to breathe, and begin to learn mantra. I may have been able to glimpse the true permanence, true bliss, true self that is always within us, whole and untouched by the entropy of samsara. Had I been able to do that, I may have realized that in the constantly disintegrating realm of samsara, the Dharma is the only real hope any of us have.

***

Apply to an (ongoing) present situation (how does it matter today?)

The biggest ongoing situation in my life right now is the company I work for being bought by another company. I won’t work for a bank anymore. That’s a big plus for me. I’ll be glad to escape the stench of that particular manure field.

The hardest thing about this situation for me is the uncertainty that comes with anticipation. It’s a little like going to the dentist to get a tooth pulled. I’ve done this twice. They give you anesthesia. During the procedure, you feel nothing. But you feel all these metal things in your mouth; you hear that whining drill; you feel a really, really hard pull, and then the dentist mutters something like ‘missed a piece’, and the drill starts up again. The whole time I’m sitting there thinking…when all this pain stuff wears off, this is going to seriously hurt. I hope it doesn’t. But I know it will.

Work is like that. They keep saying it’s a transition. We’re ‘transitioning’ to Interplanetary Title, Inc. They’re the best in the business. This is going to be smooth. Sure, we’re a smaller company. Sure, Interplanetary Title, Inc. has bought lots of companies, but your company is important to us.

The lies are hip deep. It’s like bad anesthesia. It hurts just enough for you to know there is some heavy duty pain coming your way. These men, who have gotten to their six figure salaries by making a career of lying and deceiving others…are nervous. They try to hide it. But to me, it’s all over their syntax, their body language, their constant repetition of pet words like ‘transition’.

All of this has led to levels of anxiety for me that feel unbearable at times. It used to be that when  my internal storms reached hurricane strength (currently Cat 6), I’d hunker down and just hope it would pass before it wore me out.

But this time is different. I could even say that these anxiety levels have come at the perfect time on my spiritual path. In the midst of the storms, at the very height of the howling winds of anxiety rattling the windows of my sanity, I turn to the Dharma. Sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe. No problem. I don’t need my breath to do mantra.lighthouse

Doing mantra doesn’t calm the storm. Repeating those words (om mani peme hum or om amideva rhih) lets me resonate with a part of myself that is utterly whole, utterly untouched by the storm—my Buddha Nature. This is the hope the Dharma offers all of us at any time, regardless of the storms raging around us. For me, those moments are bliss.

***

Apply to a potential situation (bringing it home to play)

Later today, as my anxiety builds about going to work tomorrow, I will want to do everything. Let me be clear. This is a short sampling of what I will want to do:

Go through my recipe binder and try out a couple dozen recipes

Finish the novel I started a couple years ago

Finish the Dharma collaboration project that I’m working on with a friend (only about eight prayers and roughly 60,000 words to go)

Try out a new sourdough starter (this takes hours)

Re-decorate my apartment

Pack my books and donate them to the library (I have at least a hundred)

Make banana bread

Finish the book I’m reading (I’m on page 30-something of about 400)

Re-organize the kitchen cupboards

Do my nails

Finish my latest assassin novella

Submit my novellas to a publisher who’s inviting writers from my publisher that shut down

This is maddening. This is anxiety manifesting. It’s part of the storm. The later in the day it gets, the more of this list I will want to do. I’ve never really understood this, but I think the general idea is to work myself into a state of exhaustion and thereby avoid thinking about anxiety. It doesn’t work. I have to sleep sometime. And my anxiety loves, loves, loves to dream.

Knowing this is what’s coming today, I am going to try a new strategy. Whenever one of these ‘Conquer the World Today’ thoughts arises, I will breathe (if I can), and deliberately, slowly recite a mantra a minimum of ten times. This has a very calming effect. It’s like keeping my head above water.

The thoughts will come back with a ‘New and Improved Plan to Conquer the World Today’. They always do. I’ll do mantra again.

In doing this painstaking process of working with these waves of anxiety, I will deal with my confused mind in a compassionate way. When I recite mantra today I will be aware of joining an eons old river of recitation, as Tashi put it.

riverIt certainly feels that way. Mantra feels like something that has preceded the vagaries of samsara, and will continue long after samsara and our Ozymandias-like delusions of permanence fall away. In this we can all find the kind of hope Patrul Rinpoche speaks of. We can find peace, find clarity in the midst of our confusion.

by

Lost In Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode 6

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will…


Logo

April 26, 2014

Thirty four days to go.

Today was a near perfect day. Not because it was anxiety-free. It wasn’t. Not because I got to bake to my heart’s content. I did. It was near perfect because the anxiety about what’s going on at work was there all day, but it didn’t feel frightening the way it usually does. I didn’t feel attacked by it. I didn’t feel like Hannibal going up against Rome. Today I experienced something I learned intellectually from mind training.

The mind is indeed a creature of habit. Today I experienced my fear of anxiety as a habitual response to a specific stream of thoughts. I experienced today that I could stop choosing fear as a response. This didn’t make anxiety pleasant, but it did allow me to have a day that wasn’t a constant turning away from some nameless, formless fear. That was pretty amazing.

I don’t know what tomorrow will be like, but I am incredibly grateful for my experience with anxiety today.

If I encounter happiness, let me grateful.

If I encounter suffering, let me redouble effort.

Bless me to know that gratitude is wisdom and effort is compassion!

robot

April 25, 2014

Today…has been one of those days that really needs a rewind button…

These problems and vicissitudes are all of my own making:

it is only self-cherishing that prompts unskillful action.

Bless me to recognize my false self and its poisons!

robot

April 24, 2014

I made coconut-banana-chocolate chunk muffins this morning before work. It’s a brand new vegan recipe, so it was a test bake. I tried one before I left for work.

Now, one of the weird things about baking is that when you take your bread (or cake or muffin) out of the oven, in most cases, it’s not actually done. We call it ‘cooling’, but really it’s still cooking. This morning I was edgy and impatient, so I tried a muffin that was still so hot it burned the roof of my mouth. It was awful–flavorless, mushy. I almost tossed all ten muffins in the trash, but I was running late.

This afternoon when I got home, I tried a muffin. Of course, after nearly nine hours, they were completely cool. Oh my gosh. Delicious. Subtle flavors of coconut, permeated with the sweetness of banana, and rich wonderful bites of chocolate chunks. It was a whole different experience.

This has made me think of how our afflicted emotions can be “too hot to handle” at times, and how that skews our experience. Today at work I got so incredibly frustrated with Salem (my co-worker), I wanted to throttle her until her eyes popped out of her head. Now, after meditation and prayer, I can see that Salem was just…being Salem. It’s how she is. She’s a yak, not a raven. She’s never gonna be a raven. Not in this lifetime; heck, maybe not for a few lifetimes.

What was manifesting was my “too hot to handle” anxiety. Noticing this has freed me of the resentment that rose in the wake of my frustration. It’s made me see that, just like muffins and artisan bread, we are at our best when we allow the heat of our afflicted emotions to dissipate, and allow the coolness of peace and clarity to arise. It’s the difference between seeing our world through the distortion of heat waves, and seeing our world in the crystal clarity of a clear winter day.

Yaks do not fly, and ravens do not till the soil.

It is pointless and callous to comment on the obvious.

Bless me to understand the common and uncommon appropriations!

robot

April 23, 2014

Anxiety feels like this: you’re on a roller coaster and you’re all the way at the very top, then suddenly you go careening down. Except this is a Monster Coaster. You’re so high up, cities on the globe are pinpoints. You’re falling so fast, there’s no breath in your lungs. There’s no ground under you and you’re sure you’ll violate the law of perpetual motion and fall for-freakin’-ever. That’s what anxiety feels like.

Just lately, I’ve had the chance to get very up close and personal with that feeling. It’s been interesting.

Today, I thought very much on something my Dharma friend Tashi shared yesterday,

Serene Trust is the gift of the Buddhas,

the shower of Their compassion.

When we invoke the Buddhas through prayer and mantra,

it is not to ask, beg, cajole, or barter.

We express our gratitude for Their blessings of peace and clarity.

Until then, I’d never realized how Christianity has ingrained in me that ‘prayer’ is always to an outside entity.

I tried today being grateful for blessings of peace and clarity. I really did. But I didn’t feel serene or trusting. I felt like an idiot. I just couldn’t be grateful for something I wasn’t experiencing and…I don’t know. It didn’t work for me.

I silently recite mantra at work about once an hour. I have a pop-up on my MS Outlook calendar that comes up every hour and says “…breathe…”. Today, each time it came up, I recited mantra and made a conscious effort to ‘suspend my belief’ in prayer and just say the words. By doing this, I was somehow able to find a way to resonate with the actual sound of the words. It was sort of like humming harmony to a melody. With om amideva rhih, nothing really happened. They sounded like pretty words, but that’s about it. But, with om mani peme hum–wow!

I felt like a tuning fork vibrating to just the right note. I’m not kidding here. I could feel a powerful vibration through the center of my body. For whole seconds at a time, my mind reverberated with it. I’ve never experienced my entire mind turning to something. When that happens, you get a real sense of how incredibly vast mind truly is.

I think part of the reason it was easier for me to let go of the concept of ‘prayer’ with om mani peme hum is because I don’t have a visual for that. It’s a string of words often repeated after prayers. But for om amideva rhih, I have a pretty strong visual of Amideva. This seems to lend itself to ‘prayer’ rather than mantra recitation.

With om mani peme hum, it was as if for a moment, there was absolutely no separation between me and . . . well . . . anything.

I’m not sure if this is what Tashi meant, but…it felt different than ‘prayer’. It was a whole lot more powerful.

You have got to try this!

Bless me to recognize that this experience 

is insubstantial, dependent, and impermanent.

robot

April 22, 2014

Today, the new company that’s buying my company had an HR rep onsite to talk about benefits. Sitting there listening to him talk about how much it would cost me to stay ‘healthy, I thought about being lost and whether or not you can ever find your way back. I don’t think so.

In the same vein as the philosophical understanding that you can’t bathe in the same river twice, the same person can’t get lost and return. If you find your way back, then you are now a person with the skillful means not to get lost the same way again. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz comes to mind. I bet next time there’s a tornado, she takes Toto and hides underground, rather than being swept away again.

I think sometimes being lost feels worse than it is. After all, in this whole transition thing, being ‘lost’ means that no possibilities are closed to me. Intellectually, I know that’s true. But still, having the new company rep come and talk to us today felt a little like an undertaker taking my measurements for my coffin.

Bless me to neither be proud nor despair, 

but to abide in peace, free from self-grasping…

robot

 

April 21, 2014

When I was a kid, it was a real toss-up between Lost in Space and Star Trek. Dr. Smith’s trouble-making ways really tickled me. Looking back, I think it’s because, of the entire cast, Dr. Smith seemed to mind the least being lost in space. I wanted to be like that.

I felt so lost in the terrible screaming matches between my parents that finally culminated in their divorce. I guess I wanted to be like Dr. Smith–to not mind so much feeling lost.

As a woman, in the maturity of my years, I think I want the same thing–to not mind so much this feeling of being lost, of being un-moored.

On Friday, April 11th, it was announced that the company I work for is shutting down. It’s being bought by another company. They’re labeling it ‘a transition’. Talk about marketing. Everyone’s scared. Everyone’s feeling lost. Nobody believes their promises. Nobody knows what comes next.

I know that life is always like that, but this really puts me in touch with vulnerability and my own fear of letting go. When I first came to Texas, in flight from Relationship From Hell, my job was the only constant in my life. I have clung to my job for nearly nine years, not coincidentally (I’m sure), the same number of years I spent in Hell. I have been determined not to let go of my job. When I have made efforts to leave, they were in truth, half-hearted.

And now this.

The sale will be finalized on May 31st. I’ve taken a vow to meditate and pray between now and May 31st, and bring this to my path. For the next forty days, I’ll be exploring what I call the Dharma of being lost.

I hope you’ll come along for what promises to be an interesting ride.

I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

robot

 

 

 

 

by

Lost In Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode 5

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will…


Logo

April 25, 2014

Today…has been one of those days that really needs a rewind button…

These problems and vicissitudes are all of my own making:

it is only self-cherishing that prompts unskillful action.

Bless me to recognize my false self and its poisons!

robot

April 24, 2014

I made coconut-banana-chocolate chunk muffins this morning before work. It’s a brand new vegan recipe, so it was a test bake. I tried one before I left for work.

Now, one of the weird things about baking is that when you take your bread (or cake or muffin) out of the oven, in most cases, it’s not actually done. We call it ‘cooling’, but really it’s still cooking. This morning I was edgy and impatient, so I tried a muffin that was still so hot it burned the roof of my mouth. It was awful–flavorless, mushy. I almost tossed all ten muffins in the trash, but I was running late.

This afternoon when I got home, I tried a muffin. Of course, after nearly nine hours, they were completely cool. Oh my gosh. Delicious. Subtle flavors of coconut, permeated with the sweetness of banana, and rich wonderful bites of chocolate chunks. It was a whole different experience.

This has made me think of how our afflicted emotions can be “too hot to handle” at times, and how that skews our experience. Today at work I got so incredibly frustrated with Salem (my co-worker), I wanted to throttle her until her eyes popped out of her head. Now, after meditation and prayer, I can see that Salem was just…being Salem. It’s how she is. She’s a yak, not a raven. She’s never gonna be a raven. Not in this lifetime; heck, maybe not for a few lifetimes.

What was manifesting was my “too hot to handle” anxiety. Noticing this has freed me of the resentment that rose in the wake of my frustration. It’s made me see that, just like muffins and artisan bread, we are at our best when we allow the heat of our afflicted emotions to dissipate, and allow the coolness of peace and clarity to arise. It’s the difference between seeing our world through the distortion of heat waves, and seeing our world in the crystal clarity of a clear winter day.

Yaks do not fly, and ravens do not till the soil.

It is pointless and callous to comment on the obvious.

Bless me to understand the common and uncommon appropriations!

robot

April 23, 2014

Anxiety feels like this: you’re on a roller coaster and you’re all the way at the very top, then suddenly you go careening down. Except this is a Monster Coaster. You’re so high up, cities on the globe are pinpoints. You’re falling so fast, there’s no breath in your lungs. There’s no ground under you and you’re sure you’ll violate the law of perpetual motion and fall for-freakin’-ever. That’s what anxiety feels like.

Just lately, I’ve had the chance to get very up close and personal with that feeling. It’s been interesting.

Today, I thought very much on something my Dharma friend Tashi shared yesterday,

Serene Trust is the gift of the Buddhas,

the shower of Their compassion.

When we invoke the Buddhas through prayer and mantra,

it is not to ask, beg, cajole, or barter.

We express our gratitude for Their blessings of peace and clarity.

Until then, I’d never realized how Christianity has ingrained in me that ‘prayer’ is always to an outside entity.

I tried today being grateful for blessings of peace and clarity. I really did. But I didn’t feel serene or trusting. I felt like an idiot. I just couldn’t be grateful for something I wasn’t experiencing and…I don’t know. It didn’t work for me.

I silently recite mantra at work about once an hour. I have a pop-up on my MS Outlook calendar that comes up every hour and says “…breathe…”. Today, each time it came up, I recited mantra and made a conscious effort to ‘suspend my belief’ in prayer and just say the words. By doing this, I was somehow able to find a way to resonate with the actual sound of the words. It was sort of like humming harmony to a melody. With om amideva rhih, nothing really happened. They sounded like pretty words, but that’s about it. But, with om mani peme hum–wow!

I felt like a tuning fork vibrating to just the right note. I’m not kidding here. I could feel a powerful vibration through the center of my body. For whole seconds at a time, my mind reverberated with it. I’ve never experienced my entire mind turning to something. When that happens, you get a real sense of how incredibly vast mind truly is.

I think part of the reason it was easier for me to let go of the concept of ‘prayer’ with om mani peme hum is because I don’t have a visual for that. It’s a string of words often repeated after prayers. But for om amideva rhih, I have a pretty strong visual of Amideva. This seems to lend itself to ‘prayer’ rather than mantra recitation.

With om mani peme hum, it was as if for a moment, there was absolutely no separation between me and . . . well . . . anything.

I’m not sure if this is what Tashi meant, but…it felt different than ‘prayer’. It was a whole lot more powerful.

You have got to try this!

Bless me to recognize that this experience 

is insubstantial, dependent, and impermanent.

robot

April 22, 2014

Today, the new company that’s buying my company had an HR rep onsite to talk about benefits. Sitting there listening to him talk about how much it would cost me to stay ‘healthy, I thought about being lost and whether or not you can ever find your way back. I don’t think so.

In the same vein as the philosophical understanding that you can’t bathe in the same river twice, the same person can’t get lost and return. If you find your way back, then you are now a person with the skillful means not to get lost the same way again. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz comes to mind. I bet next time there’s a tornado, she takes Toto and hides underground, rather than being swept away again.

I think sometimes being lost feels worse than it is. After all, in this whole transition thing, being ‘lost’ means that no possibilities are closed to me. Intellectually, I know that’s true. But still, having the new company rep come and talk to us today felt a little like an undertaker taking my measurements for my coffin.

Bless me to neither be proud nor despair, 

but to abide in peace, free from self-grasping…

robot

 

April 21, 2014

When I was a kid, it was a real toss-up between Lost in Space and Star Trek. Dr. Smith’s trouble-making ways really tickled me. Looking back, I think it’s because, of the entire cast, Dr. Smith seemed to mind the least being lost in space. I wanted to be like that.

I felt so lost in the terrible screaming matches between my parents that finally culminated in their divorce. I guess I wanted to be like Dr. Smith–to not mind so much feeling lost.

As a woman, in the maturity of my years, I think I want the same thing–to not mind so much this feeling of being lost, of being un-moored.

On Friday, April 11th, it was announced that the company I work for is shutting down. It’s being bought by another company. They’re labeling it ‘a transition’. Talk about marketing. Everyone’s scared. Everyone’s feeling lost. Nobody believes their promises. Nobody knows what comes next.

I know that life is always like that, but this really puts me in touch with vulnerability and my own fear of letting go. When I first came to Texas, in flight from Relationship From Hell, my job was the only constant in my life. I have clung to my job for nearly nine years, not coincidentally (I’m sure), the same number of years I spent in Hell. I have been determined not to let go of my job. When I have made efforts to leave, they were in truth, half-hearted.

And now this.

The sale will be finalized on May 31st. I’ve taken a vow to meditate and pray between now and May 31st, and bring this to my path. For the next forty days, I’ll be exploring what I call the Dharma of being lost.

I hope you’ll come along for what promises to be an interesting ride.

I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

robot

 

 

 

 

by

Lost In Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode 4

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will…


Logo

April 24, 2014

I made coconut-banana-chocolate chunk muffins this morning before work. It’s a brand new vegan recipe, so it was a test bake. I tried one before I left for work.

Now, one of the weird things about baking is that when you take your bread (or cake or muffin) out of the oven, in most cases, it’s not actually done. We call it ‘cooling’, but really it’s still cooking. This morning I was edgy and impatient, so I tried a muffin that was still so hot it burned the roof of my mouth. It was awful–flavorless, mushy. I almost tossed all ten muffins in the trash, but I was running late.

This afternoon when I got home, I tried a muffin. Of course, after nearly nine hours, they were completely cool. Oh my gosh. Delicious. Subtle flavors of coconut, permeated with the sweetness of banana, and rich wonderful bites of chocolate chunks. It was a whole different experience.

This has made me think of how our afflicted emotions can be “too hot to handle” at times, and how that skews our experience. Today at work I got so incredibly frustrated with Salem (my co-worker), I wanted to throttle her until her eyes popped out of her head. Now, after meditation and prayer, I can see that Salem was just…being Salem. It’s how she is. She’s a yak, not a raven. She’s never gonna be a raven. Not in this lifetime; heck, maybe not for a few lifetimes.

What was manifesting was my “too hot to handle” anxiety. Noticing this has freed me of the resentment that rose in the wake of my frustration. It’s made me see that, just like muffins and artisan bread, we are at our best when we allow the heat of our afflicted emotions to dissipate, and allow the coolness of peace and clarity to arise. It’s the difference between seeing our world through the distortion of heat waves, and seeing our world in the crystal clarity of a clear winter day.

Yaks do not fly, and ravens do not till the soil.

It is pointless and callous to comment on the obvious.

Bless me to understand the common and uncommon appropriations!

robot

April 23, 2014

Anxiety feels like this: you’re on a roller coaster and you’re all the way at the very top, then suddenly you go careening down. Except this is a Monster Coaster. You’re so high up, cities on the globe are pinpoints. You’re falling so fast, there’s no breath in your lungs. There’s no ground under you and you’re sure you’ll violate the law of perpetual motion and fall for-freakin’-ever. That’s what anxiety feels like.

Just lately, I’ve had the chance to get very up close and personal with that feeling. It’s been interesting.

Today, I thought very much on something my Dharma friend Tashi shared yesterday,

Serene Trust is the gift of the Buddhas,

the shower of Their compassion.

When we invoke the Buddhas through prayer and mantra,

it is not to ask, beg, cajole, or barter.

We express our gratitude for Their blessings of peace and clarity.

Until then, I’d never realized how Christianity has ingrained in me that ‘prayer’ is always to an outside entity.

I tried today being grateful for blessings of peace and clarity. I really did. But I didn’t feel serene or trusting. I felt like an idiot. I just couldn’t be grateful for something I wasn’t experiencing and…I don’t know. It didn’t work for me.

I silently recite mantra at work about once an hour. I have a pop-up on my MS Outlook calendar that comes up every hour and says “…breathe…”. Today, each time it came up, I recited mantra and made a conscious effort to ‘suspend my belief’ in prayer and just say the words. By doing this, I was somehow able to find a way to resonate with the actual sound of the words. It was sort of like humming harmony to a melody. With om amideva rhih, nothing really happened. They sounded like pretty words, but that’s about it. But, with om mani peme hum–wow!

I felt like a tuning fork vibrating to just the right note. I’m not kidding here. I could feel a powerful vibration through the center of my body. For whole seconds at a time, my mind reverberated with it. I’ve never experienced my entire mind turning to something. When that happens, you get a real sense of how incredibly vast mind truly is.

I think part of the reason it was easier for me to let go of the concept of ‘prayer’ with om mani peme hum is because I don’t have a visual for that. It’s a string of words often repeated after prayers. But for om amideva rhih, I have a pretty strong visual of Amideva. This seems to lend itself to ‘prayer’ rather than mantra recitation.

With om mani peme hum, it was as if for a moment, there was absolutely no separation between me and . . . well . . . anything.

I’m not sure if this is what Tashi meant, but…it felt different than ‘prayer’. It was a whole lot more powerful.

You have got to try this!

Bless me to recognize that this experience 

is insubstantial, dependent, and impermanent.

robot

April 22, 2014

Today, the new company that’s buying my company had an HR rep onsite to talk about benefits. Sitting there listening to him talk about how much it would cost me to stay ‘healthy, I thought about being lost and whether or not you can ever find your way back. I don’t think so.

In the same vein as the philosophical understanding that you can’t bathe in the same river twice, the same person can’t get lost and return. If you find your way back, then you are now a person with the skillful means not to get lost the same way again. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz comes to mind. I bet next time there’s a tornado, she takes Toto and hides underground, rather than being swept away again.

I think sometimes being lost feels worse than it is. After all, in this whole transition thing, being ‘lost’ means that no possibilities are closed to me. Intellectually, I know that’s true. But still, having the new company rep come and talk to us today felt a little like an undertaker taking my measurements for my coffin.

Bless me to neither be proud nor despair, 

but to abide in peace, free from self-grasping…

robot

 

April 21, 2014

When I was a kid, it was a real toss-up between Lost in Space and Star Trek. Dr. Smith’s trouble-making ways really tickled me. Looking back, I think it’s because, of the entire cast, Dr. Smith seemed to mind the least being lost in space. I wanted to be like that.

I felt so lost in the terrible screaming matches between my parents that finally culminated in their divorce. I guess I wanted to be like Dr. Smith–to not mind so much feeling lost.

As a woman, in the maturity of my years, I think I want the same thing–to not mind so much this feeling of being lost, of being un-moored.

On Friday, April 11th, it was announced that the company I work for is shutting down. It’s being bought by another company. They’re labeling it ‘a transition’. Talk about marketing. Everyone’s scared. Everyone’s feeling lost. Nobody believes their promises. Nobody knows what comes next.

I know that life is always like that, but this really puts me in touch with vulnerability and my own fear of letting go. When I first came to Texas, in flight from Relationship From Hell, my job was the only constant in my life. I have clung to my job for nearly nine years, not coincidentally (I’m sure), the same number of years I spent in Hell. I have been determined not to let go of my job. When I have made efforts to leave, they were in truth, half-hearted.

And now this.

The sale will be finalized on May 31st. I’ve taken a vow to meditate and pray between now and May 31st, and bring this to my path. For the next forty days, I’ll be exploring what I call the Dharma of being lost.

I hope you’ll come along for what promises to be an interesting ride.

I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

robot

 

 

 

 

by

Lost In Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode 3

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will…


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April 23, 2014

Anxiety feels like this: you’re on a roller coaster and you’re all the way at the very top, then suddenly you go careening down. Except this is a Monster Coaster. You’re so high up, cities on the globe are pinpoints. You’re falling so fast, there’s no breath in your lungs. There’s no ground under you and you’re sure you’ll violate the law of perpetual motion and fall for-freakin’-ever. That’s what anxiety feels like.

Just lately, I’ve had the chance to get very up close and personal with that feeling. It’s been interesting.

Today, I thought very much on something my Dharma friend Tashi shared yesterday,

Serene Trust is the gift of the Buddhas,

the shower of Their compassion.

When we invoke the Buddhas through prayer and mantra,

it is not to ask, beg, cajole, or barter.

We express our gratitude for Their blessings of peace and clarity.

Until then, I’d never realized how Christianity has ingrained in me that ‘prayer’ is always to an outside entity.

I tried today being grateful for blessings of peace and clarity. I really did. But I didn’t feel serene or trusting. I felt like an idiot. I just couldn’t be grateful for something I wasn’t experiencing and…I don’t know. It didn’t work for me.

I silently recite mantra at work about once an hour. I have a pop-up on my MS Outlook calendar that comes up every hour and says “…breathe…”. Today, each time it came up, I recited mantra and made a conscious effort to ‘suspend my belief’ in prayer and just say the words. By doing this, I was somehow able to find a way to resonate with the actual sound of the words. It was sort of like humming harmony to a melody. With om amideva rhih, nothing really happened. They sounded like pretty words, but that’s about it. But, with om mani peme hum–wow!

I felt like a tuning fork vibrating to just the right note. I’m not kidding here. I could feel a powerful vibration through the center of my body. For whole seconds at a time, my mind reverberated with it. I’ve never experienced my entire mind turning to something. When that happens, you get a real sense of how incredibly vast mind truly is.

I think part of the reason it was easier for me to let go of the concept of ‘prayer’ with om mani peme hum is because I don’t have a visual for that. It’s a string of words often repeated after prayers. But for om amideva rhih, I have a pretty strong visual of Amideva. This seems to lend itself to ‘prayer’ rather than mantra recitation.

With om mani peme hum, it was as if for a moment, there was absolutely no separation between me and . . . well . . . anything.

I’m not sure if this is what Tashi meant, but…it felt different than ‘prayer’. It was a whole lot more powerful.

You have got to try this!

Bless me to recognize that this experience 

is insubstantial, dependent, and impermanent.

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April 22, 2014

Today, the new company that’s buying my company had an HR rep onsite to talk about benefits. Sitting there listening to him talk about how much it would cost me to stay ‘healthy, I thought about being lost and whether or not you can ever find your way back. I don’t think so.

In the same vein as the philosophical understanding that you can’t bathe in the same river twice, the same person can’t get lost and return. If you find your way back, then you are now a person with the skillful means not to get lost the same way again. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz comes to mind. I bet next time there’s a tornado, she takes Toto and hides underground, rather than being swept away again.

I think sometimes being lost feels worse than it is. After all, in this whole transition thing, being ‘lost’ means that no possibilities are closed to me. Intellectually, I know that’s true. But still, having the new company rep come and talk to us today felt a little like an undertaker taking my measurements for my coffin.

Bless me to neither be proud nor despair, 

but to abide in peace, free from self-grasping…

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April 21, 2014

When I was a kid, it was a real toss-up between Lost in Space and Star Trek. Dr. Smith’s trouble-making ways really tickled me. Looking back, I think it’s because, of the entire cast, Dr. Smith seemed to mind the least being lost in space. I wanted to be like that.

I felt so lost in the terrible screaming matches between my parents that finally culminated in their divorce. I guess I wanted to be like Dr. Smith–to not mind so much feeling lost.

As a woman, in the maturity of my years, I think I want the same thing–to not mind so much this feeling of being lost, of being un-moored.

On Friday, April 11th, it was announced that the company I work for is shutting down. It’s being bought by another company. They’re labeling it ‘a transition’. Talk about marketing. Everyone’s scared. Everyone’s feeling lost. Nobody believes their promises. Nobody knows what comes next.

I know that life is always like that, but this really puts me in touch with vulnerability and my own fear of letting go. When I first came to Texas, in flight from Relationship From Hell, my job was the only constant in my life. I have clung to my job for nearly nine years, not coincidentally (I’m sure), the same number of years I spent in Hell. I have been determined not to let go of my job. When I have made efforts to leave, they were in truth, half-hearted.

And now this.

The sale will be finalized on May 31st. I’ve taken a vow to meditate and pray between now and May 31st, and bring this to my path. For the next forty days, I’ll be exploring what I call the Dharma of being lost.

I hope you’ll come along for what promises to be an interesting ride.

I take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

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