impermanence

On renunciation…
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On renunciation…

The weakness of samsara is impermanence. That is the key observation that allows us to cultivate renunciation. Everything flows; everything changes; nothing remains the same. Why be attached or averse?

Venerable Tashi Nyima

i. What does this mean to me?

I grew up in the Bronx in New York state. By the time I was in high school, I was going into ‘the city’ (Manhattan) on the subway by myself. When I was in the city, I was a total tourist. My favorite place to go was the touristy part of Times Square, especially at night.

At night Times Square came alive with marquees full of flashing lights. All the stores lit up. It was a little magical. There was always something bright and shiny and new going on. Not to mention the smell of street foods and the strains of music. There were people walking down the street offering cards or flyers for the latest Broadway show, or the newest place to buy some touristy “I Love New York” t-shirt.

Times Square is a microcosm of samsara. There’s always the next new thing. There are always shiny new houses, shiny new cars, shiny new jobs. All this glitter hides the truth of samsara. It’s like going to Times Square in the daytime. The streets are dirty and littered, and in the bright light of day, the shiny objects of the night are merely dull and uninteresting.

As the writer says, “The weakness of samsara is impermanence”. Nothing stays the same in samsara. The shiny new house comes with a thirty-year mortgage that will turn you gray eventually. The shiny new car comes with eye-watering payments, not to mention insurance.

The writer talks about cultivating renunciation. Renunciation of what? It’s not so much the bright shiny things, it’s how they enthrall us almost to the point of legitimate concerns fading away. The writer isn’t suggesting that we go around in hair shirts and ashes. That would serve no purpose. It would be just another form of attachment. Rather the writer is pointing out that all bright shiny things will one day turn to rust. And knowing this, “Why be attached or averse?” Instead, shouldn’t we renounce the enthrallments of samsara and turn our minds to the true bliss, true permanence, true being, true purity that is the Dharma?

ii. How would I explain this to someone else?

Renunciation comes with a negative connotation in our society. We think of hermits on mountaintops or out in the desert wearing rags, having ‘renounced’ the world. Our local friendly AI tells us that renunciation means, “the formal rejection of something, typically a belief, claim, or course of action.”

Renunciation is simply a rejection or a knowing choice to stop doing something or to stop believing something. In this case we’re talking about formally and consciously rejecting the idea that samsara has anything to offer. So many times, we make the mistake of believing what we experience in samsara and taking that for the truth of things.

This inevitably leads to unhappiness because, as the writer reminds us, “Everything flows; everything changes; nothing remains the same”. Whenever we accept anything in samsara at face value, we are placing causes for suffering into our lives. How many outfits do we have in our closets that are pushed all the way to the back, just a car ride away from Goodwill? Not only is everything we experience an internal mental representation, but “Everything changes; nothing remains the same”. What is it that remains the same with no retrogression? The Dharma. While in these limited bodies with our limited senses, the Dharma is the only reliable, unchanging thing we have.

Samsara, like Times Square at night, is very seductive. It appeals to the senses, attracts the mind, dominates our thoughts. It’s hard to remember that samsara is merely superimposed upon ultimate reality – the truth of how things are.

iii. How do I bring this into my life?

For me, the lure of samsara used to be nearly irresistible, like some powerful addiction. Like any addict, I was lost in the delusions of samsara, drowning in an ocean of misery. Now, after having had the good fortune to encounter and study the Dharma, I understand samsara for the illusion it is.

I won’t be running out and buying a hair shirt anytime soon though, but I will use the teachings of the Dharma, through wisdom and compassion, to help others. Helping others is the only true cause for happiness in samsara.

In my day-to-day life, what hooks me the most into being lured by samsara are my comforts. I like air conditioning. I like shopping for yarn, and knitting. I like, overall, being comfortable. I think we all do. But at what cost does our comfort come? Does it make us so indolent that we don’t ‘feel’ like studying the Dharma? Or acting compassionately? Or we feel like ignoring our own Buddha Nature when it becomes uncomfortable to help others?

As I study, meditate and practice, samsara becomes more and more transparent. The tricks of seduction become clear. Knowing these things, and having seen samsara for what it is, what is the best way to behave to bring me closer to expressing my Buddha Nature and recognizing it in others?

The writer reminds us that “The weakness of samsara is impermanence”. So, we know samsara is an illusion that will fade away like mist in the trained mind. Knowing this, we must turn to our conduct. We must move through samsara with wisdom and compassion for those caught up in the illusion. We must be patient and compassionate with our own progress on the path. We must cultivate renunciation and peace and renounce attachment and aversion. We must do these things because, as Shantideva reminds us, the Lord of Death is always at hand. We don’t know when his scythe will fall, only that it will inevitably fall. Knowing this, shouldn’t we do what we can for as long as we can?

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On the presence of dew. . .

Written Saturday, October 31, 2015, 11:00 AM

Currently I’m studying The Supplication with a Dharma friend, the Venerable Tashi Nyima.

This is my contemplation on the third verse.

“I bow at the feet of the masters who carefully teach that

All conditioned entities are impermanent, unstable, changeable

Phenomena—like a mountain waterfall, like a cloud, like

Lightning, and like dew on a blade of grass.”

Full Disclosure: This is my first contemplation on a whole verse!

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

When I knew I was going to write about this, the first thing I set out to do was to prove it wrong. But to do that, I had to understand it better. What’s this ‘conditioned entities’ thing all about? Well, it’s anything that arises from cause and effect. What? No. That definitely can’t be true because absolutely everything arises from cause and effect. If this is true, that would have to mean that every thing is impermanent, and unstable, and changeable.

I tried really hard (I had two weeks) to think of some ‘unconditioned entity’. But no go. I couldn’t think of one single thing. The moment when my mind was finally forced to that conclusion was pretty heavy duty. I think I was driving home from somewhere and I thought to myself…Yes, it’s true. And…wonderful!

 The tail end of that thought caught me by surprise. Wonderful? Yes! Imagine if the pyramids in Egypt were still sparkling brand new, fresh as the day the Pharaohs got buried there, wouldn’t that be weird? Worse yet, imagine if that really truly horrible meal you ate last year to be polite and not hurt any feelings were still there in your stomach undigested!

dandelion girlYes, I thought to myself, yes. This conditioned thing is good. Imagine a world where cause and effect had no…well…no effect. Ice would never melt, even in hot sun. Our bodies would never age. No. That’s not a good thing—you like having teeth don’t you? And worst of all, I think, karma would be carved in some kind of unforgiving, immutable stone.

This would mean that whatever direction we chose for our lives, we’d be stuck with it. Think about that. Do you really still want the things you wanted when you were sixteen?

In our existence here in samsara, our biggest tug of war with impermanence is that we want selective impermanence. You know, like—I want to age to 25, stop there, never grow older, but keep learning and becoming wiser. But that’s not how it is. We age, we grow, we learn, and if we’re very fortunate, we gain some wisdom along the way. It’s a package deal.

Conditioned existence itself, “like dew on a blade of grass” passes moment to moment without our ever seeing it. The great benefit, the great joy of this is that every moment that arises can become a cause of suffering or a cause of happiness. It’s our choice.

Every moment, it’s our choice.

***

 Apply to a past situation (how would it have been different?)
There’s a scene in an old movie called “The Time Machine”. In it the time traveler moves through hundreds of years in a matter of seconds. You see buildings melt into rubble, then brand new sparkling time machinebuildings rise, then crumble into rubble as he jets forward in time. I was fascinated by that. I wondered when my house would crumble like that, and what would rise in its place.

Decades later I got involved in a relationship. We both vowed that not only would we love each other forever, but we would love each other in EXACTLY the same way we loved each other that day at that moment.

Talk about naïve, right?

I spent a horribly tortuous decade of my life struggling to keep that vow. It was terrifying. As soon as something changed, I felt like—no. No! Things have to stay just like they are—forever. If I could have found Old Man Time, I would have done him in.pushback time

And change did of course come, but not in the way I feared it would. I changed. I wanted different things. I wasn’t in love. I grew tired of the struggle.

All of this struggle had a predictably disastrous outcome—what else could the ending have been but disastrous and painful, and heartbreaking?

If I could go back and whisper in the ear of my younger idealistic self, I would tell her that change is part of life. I would tell her that when we try to hold back the rhythms of cause and effect, we will bring upon ourselves a Tsunami of pain and suffering. I would tell her that in the end change will come, better to welcome it, no matter how frightening. I would whisper that anything permanent is a delusion, fueled by hope and fear. And I would certainly tell her that change, as fraught with danger as it may seem, is better than entombing yourself in a delusion of unchanging permanence.

***

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

Since 2012 (maybe 2011), I have been through layoffs that included hundreds of people, other layoffs that came once a quarter, and finally the sale of the company I worked for. The very first layoff was terrifying. Even though I knew I’d get a good severance package—still—it was heart stopping and heartrending to see people be escorted out.

By the third or fourth layoff, I just kind of waited to see if my name was on The List. When the company got sold, I was furious! What? Getting sold to some rinky dink, nouveau riche, mom & pop family-owned operation whose true name should be Greedsters, Inc.? And who, I might add, was (and continues to be) very evasive about the whole idea of a severance package.

It took me a long time, a few months to realize the truth of the situation I’m in. I find myself at a point in my life where anything is possible. Of course, it’s always been that way. But now, I’m aware of it.

Aside from the overt acts of not showing up and/or not doing my work, whether or not I have a job is utterly beyond my control. Of course, it always has been. But awareness has a certain magic about it, or maybe I should say a certain grace. But more on that later.

The truth about my job is that the position I fill is on someone’s spreadsheet beside my Greedster, Inc. Employee ID Number. When the formulae in that spreadsheet indicate that my position can be filled for much cheaper in say. . . Mumbai or Puerto Rico. . .the Greedster, Inc. Employee ID Number will be changed and my steady paycheck will evaporate—kinda like dew on a blade of grass.

So each day, I work with what I have. This situation forces me to bow to impermanence and cause and effect.

balloongirlIn doing this, I am finding that when we bow to impermanence, our life takes on a certain grace, a certain lightness of being. Not to wax too poetic here, but we come to realize that we came to samsara with nothing, and we will leave with nothing. Rather than being depressing, as I thought that realization would be, it is in fact buoyant. I mean that literally. When we become aware of the true state of conditioned existence, then we can let of the terrible weight of hope and fear. Why? Because there’s no question: Yes. You are to lose absolutely everything you have acquired in samsara. No one gets out alive.

There. Now you know how the movie ends. The only question remaining is: do you want to struggle against impermanence until your last breath, or, do you want to live with the grace of impermanence and use your every moment to move toward true bliss, true permanence, true purity, true self.

***

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

Last year I took a vow to give 125 hats / scarves to the Jonang Monastery in Tibet. I took that vow in December, 2014. At the outset, I couldn’t turn the little wheel on my Addi knitting machine fast enough. Wow! I thought, at this rate, I’ll have 250 hats and scarves to give. In other words, I believed with a brand of blind faith, that things would remain exactly as they were.

As you may imagine, things changed. Depression snuck up on me. The slough of despondencymenopause baseball bat smacked me around. In short, I spent four months of my life in a quicksand morass of depression and despair.

With the help of a very good friend, I was able to make my way out of the deepest bits of the quicksand. As I lay panting on the shore, recovering, rediscovering my life—I panicked. Four months! And not one hat or scarf had rolled off my Addi. I was a long, long, way from 125. I wasn’t even in shouting distance.

I almost wanted to just let myself slide back into the quicksand. But before I did, I asked in desperation—how do I give back a vow? I tell you, that vow was wrecking my nerves.

The answer was so simple, I missed it. When my friend repeated it, I was just about bowled over. Change the vow. That was the answer. That’s it. Just change it. [Disclaimer: This is not true for all vows.]

Well, I tell you, that’s given me a world of relief. I feel the shore expanding, the quicksand drying on my legs and falling away as I pull myself free of the slough of despondency.

This seems like a small thing, but it made me think of all the other absolutes we have in our lives. We come up with all these “Have To” things in our lives, and somehow we come to have a faith in the imputed immutability we grant them. We will even change our lives to match the “Have To”. Wow. That’s a little bit crazy.

No. I say no to that. All that we see around us is, by its very nature, subject to cause and effect. All that we witness in samsara not only will pass away, but is passing away before our very eyes, with every breath.

Would we try to hold onto a wave in an ocean? Or a breeze rattling the leaves of a tree? These things and all that we see in samsara are ephemera. Their permanence arises from our deluded mind.

Once we understand this, we can appreciate the fleeting beauty of a waterfall, or a cloud, or a drop of dew on a blade of grass. We can appreciate each moment as it arises and falls away, and know that within each and every moment there exists a cause for our suffering or a cause for our enlightenment.

Which will we choose?

paths

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On the root of delusion…

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

This is my contemplation on the second line of verse 40 of the root text of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones.

heart treasure

“Let stillness cut the momentum of moving thoughts;

Within movement see the very nature of stillness.

Where stillness and movement are one, maintain the natural mind;

In the experience of one-pointedness, recite the six-syllable mantra.”

 

Full Disclosure:

This is one of the toughest contemplations I’ve done in a long time.

Written Sunday, September 27th, 5:30 AM

Explain to someone else (making it my own)

lottery ballsI don’t like to gamble. Playing the lottery has no especial thrill for me. But I grew up in the Bronx and in New York state, the lottery drawing was done on TV. I’m not sure how they do it these days. But back then I’d sit spellbound in front of the television with absolutely no interest in what numbers actually popped out of the machine, fascinated by the process. It worked like this. There was a glass tank, somewhat like a fish tank. At the bottom were layers and layers of numbered balls. At first they just lay there. Then someone would switch on a tremendous flow of air and—wow! A ball storm ensued, with all the balls flying just as fast they could, knocking against the tank’s walls, smacking into each other, careening off glass.

In the midst of the storm, a lady would open a chute at the top of the tank and a numbered ball would be sucked up out of the chaos. This was the first number of that night’s winning lottery number. She’d open three (or four) more chutes and from the madness of the balls would be made a string of winning numbers.

Now, decades later, studying the teachings on the empty luminosity of the mind and the arising of thoughts, I’m very much reminded of that glass tank full of contained chaos. Aren’t our thoughts like that? Don’t they feel sometimes that they go madly careening about our mind? And then, based on our habits and tendencies, a few thoughts break through the surface of our awareness. These thoughts we experience as a continuous, unending flow. But this isn’t so. Our thoughts are contstantly new, constantly arising, and utterly fleeting. Our belief in their constancy, their permanence lies at the heart of our many sufferings in samsara.

Dilgo Khyentse puts it like this, “Just as what we call a rosary is in fact a string of single beads, so also what we usually call the mind is really a succession of momentary thoughts … But nevertheless, ignorant of the true nature of thoughts we maintain the habit of seeing them as being continuously linked, one after another; this is the root of delusion, and this is what allows us to be more and  more dominated by our thoughts and emotions, until total confusion reigns.” We can sometimes feel that we are desperately trying to push back an ever rising tidal wave of thoughts constantly threatening to drown us. If we could learn to see that there is no tidal wave, only thousands and thousands of raindrops, if we could learn to even glimpse the empty luminosity of the mind shining through the  myriad of furiously roiling thoughts, we could begin to free ourselves of the root of delusion.

***

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

My hero when I was a little girl was Dracula. I wanted to be like him. The whole sucking blood from people thing really grossed me out, but I figured, if I could have what he had, I’d find a better way. The essential nature of Dracula—dead—was unspeakably seductive to me. I’ve had suicidal thoughts from about the age of nine. There was sexual abuse at that age (from the proverbial family member) and I began to associate being free of my body with a kind of peace, a kind of darkness that would swallow me up, keep me safe, like Dracula’s coffin kept him safe from sunlight.dracula coffin

These thoughts persisted and became dangerous in my teens, when I made a couple of half-hearted attempts. Then again in my twenties when I made a couple more attempts. No one knew. They were truly half-hearted efforts. With death, I was a flirtatious, inconstant lover, always shrinking from a true, final embrace.

What I remember most from those attempts on my life is that, oddly enough, I didn’t want to die, per se. What I wanted was to escape the torment of the unceasing storm of thoughts that blew through my mind at hurricane gale strength. It never stopped. It felt unbearable. Death, I believed (wrongly), was the only permanent end to those thoughts. At the very least, I believed, if I died, wouldn’t have to get up in the morning and walk around pretending I was fine while the hurricane battered my mind. It was a terrifying time in my life. I could tell no one. I was too afraid they’d think I was crazy when I tried to explain about the hurricane. I was ashamed that I couldn’t handle the storm.

I lived like that for decades, teetering on the precipice of death, never certain if I should take that one last step. My biggest refuge was reading. It was an acceptable proxy for an irrevocable escape into death.

Looking back on that time in my life, I can see that my desire to die was simply a desire to slow down what seemed to be a constant rush of uncontrollable thoughts. My suffering came from believing in the content of those thoughts and wholly identifying with them. Much of my suffering came from believing I was a helpless victim of my thoughts. If, at any moment, I could have taken just a tiny step back, I may have noticed that the storm wasn’t me. I may have noticed, in even a brief moment of peace and clarity, that the thoughts that seemed so threatening were not some malign monolith of darkness rising from the depths of my mind to devour me. I may have noticed that my own fear was giving my thoughts the illusion of being solid and ‘real’. I may have noticed that, just as I was holding on grimly to each and every thought, I could let go…just let go and see within the rushing movement of my thoughts, the truth of emptiness and stillness.

***

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

In twenty business days, I will leave my present job. I’ve been with the current company for a little more than eleven years. I’m going to take a nosedive in income. This has caused a veritable tornado of thoughts to go rushing through my  mind, most of them powered by hope/fear. I hope it will go well, but I fear it won’t. Or,  more accurately, I should say the tornado was powered by hope and fear. Now, it’s something else…I’m not sure what.

keyholeThis week I peeked through a keyhole. The person that I work with—Salem—is utterly incompetent to do the job. The way that position works is there’s a production log that tracks what you do in a day. In order to stay in good graces, you have to have a  monthly  production average of ninety percent or better. For just about a year now, I’ve known that Salem had to be lying on her production log because there’s no way she can work to the required production quota. She’s just too slow.

All of this time I have resolutely not snooped into her production log. But now that I’m leaving, I decided I had to know how she’s getting away with it. When I saw what was happening, my jaw just about dropped. Keep in mind, my soon to be former manager is someone who talks about integrity and honesty and team work the way a politician talks about doing the right thing. It’s constant and utterly sincere. So imagine my surprise when Salem’s production log showed that she wasn’t in fact getting away with anything. She’s padding out her numbers (up to three hours a day!) in a way so blatant that it’s impossible that the manager of the department has not given her consent and support to the fraud.

When I first saw that, I was furious. The first thing I did was go gossip. But even as I was doing that, I knew I was only increasing my suffering. When I got home that night, my  mind was positively swarming with nuclear thoughts of ambush, retribution, revenge. But I made myself stop and ask a few key questions.

If I lay an ambush, such as planning to confront the manager on my last day there, who would suffer? Me.

If I took revenge and reported the issue to the manager’s manager, an issue that doesn’t matter to me one way or the other now, and I did that solely out of vengeance, whose mind stream have future causes for suffering? Mine.

Salem has obviously been practicing the arts of lying and manipulation for lifetimes. She’s damn good at it. Knowing this, and knowing that my angry confrontation with her would only feed her drama of martyrdom, is it worth it to place causes for suffering in my stream, just to spew a few angry words at Salem—who would actually enjoy the martyrdom of her starring role? No.

Should I have been peeking through a keyhole at things that are none of my business? No.

Stopping to ask these questions was probably the hardest thing I’ve done since studying the Dharma and applying it to my life. Mind kept shouting at me, “But I’m right!” Perhaps. But what the intensity of the rage and fury allowed me to do was see the rising thoughts in stark relief against the backdrop of the mind’s empty luminosity. At work the rest of the week, the angry thoughts kept arising. They demanded attention. Sometimes I bowed to them and moved on. Sometimes I did nothing and they dissolved. Sometimes I got caught up in them. But because of their intensity and because of my growing awareness of the pleasant quality of the mind’s empty luminousness, I no longer enjoy the heat of righteous vengeance. It’s uncomfortable. In this way, daily working with this situation, I look to see the very nature of stillness within movement.

***

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

Twenty days seems like a long time to keep my mouth shut. In fact, it seems like an eternity. I know if I see it that way, there’s the very real possibility that I’ll let out a year’s pent up frustration and resentment in one moment of unskillful speech. I don’t want that to happen.

This week I’ve tried different techniques of working with this. The day after I found out about the fraud Salem and the manager are perpetrating, I went to work and did as little as I could. I surfed the internet, took long breaks, worked very slowly. But that night I felt awful, very sad. I knew it wasn’t right that I’d made the people on the other end of the emails in my box suffer because of my afflicted emotions.

The next day I went to work and worked at my usual pace. When thoughts of retribution (and believe me they were of biblical proportion) came up, I used mantra, or a silent recitation of a line of prayer or if I could, I just let it go.

I have ocean sounds that I play in my headphones. This lets me effectively retreat into silence and withdraw emotionally from the situation. In that silence, I can clearly see my thoughts of anger, resentment, frustration, vengeance, and ambush arising. Somehow, just seeing them makes it better. What helps the most, moment to moment is a line from one of my favorite mind training prayers, “…all my thoughts, words, and deeds have consequences.” Yep. This is a tremendous help because it lets me see that I have a choice. I can put causes in place for my own happiness or for my own suffering. Those are my choices. There is no Mystery Door Number Three.

Honestly, in these next twenty working days, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m so open to suggestions from the Dharma that I make the dim reaches of outer space look downright crowded. I do know this much: death is certain, but the hour of our death is unknown. This is an exit. One day, I’ll be exiting this life. When that happens, do I really want to have a karmic tendency of taking all the vengeance I can before I go? Or do I want to have a karmic tendency to look at the thoughts arising in my mind, and no matter the content, see the very nature of stillness within movement?

As I see it, those are my only two choices. I would like to say that I will choose to make a graceful exit, but in all honesty, all I can say is that I will make as graceful an exit as I can. I rely on the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha to support me in this. The Three Jewels never fail those they protect.

I rarely end a contemplation with a prayer, but this morning, this feels right…

My body, like a water bubble,

decays and dies so very quickly

–bless me to know:

I walk toward my end,

a culprit to the scaffold.

bell and book

Photo Credit: Tadas Juras

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Lost in Space: The Undiscovered Country, Episode The Last

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

Logo

 

May 30, 2014

0 days to go.

I used to think change was a leap of faith. Today I learned differently. Today was my last day working for a company that I alternately despised and held in contempt, and at times found downright revolting. Yet I never had the courage to leave.

As of Monday, I’ll work for Interplanetary Title, Inc. And, to tell the truth, they promise to be little different. It feels as though I’m transferring from one cell block in a prison to another. Interplanetary Title has so much rhetoric about how good they are–and yes, they’re serious. After all, their rhetoric goes, they can name charities with whom they’ve been generous enough to share their ill-gotten booty.

No, change isn’t a leap of faith. In fact, it’s not a leap at all. Our world spins at 1,040 miles/per hour. We hurtle through space around the sun at 67,108 miles/per hour. Even when we stand perfectly still, we are at the very center of a whirlwind of change.

On Monday when I go to work, all of the countless projects I did for the bank will be gone, like sugar castles in rain. This whole transition thing has made me feel in a very visceral way that we are not made to last. Nothing is. Not your job, not your house, not your marriage, and certainly not your body.

What then, is change? It is the constant state of how things are in samsara. It is the condition upon which the cycle of birth and death has rested since beginningless time. This transition has given me the extraordinary gift of glimpsing for the very first time my own mortality, my own impermanence.

These thirty days have been a journey well-taken.

Close friends who have long been together will separate. Wealth and possessions gained with much effort will be left behind. Consciousness, a guest, will leave the lodge of the body. To give up the concerns of this life is the practice of a Bodhisattva.

birds and temple

May 12, 2014

19 days to go.

Today, Samuel Johnson was let go. Jesus. He’s been there since Moses talked to God. I tell myself it’s not because Sam’s been very sick. I tell myself it’s not because he’s been making so many mistakes. I tell myself that this didn’t happen because Interplanetary Title, Inc. thinks someone like Sam, who’s been in the title business FOREVER, is just dead weight.  I tell myself he wasn’t let go because we’re all no more than numbers on a balance sheet.

I tell myself these things, but to my dismay, I’m not deluded enough to believe them.

There’s a storm here tonight, and it seems so very appropriate because I kinda feel like there’s a storm inside me.

Before this whole Interplanetary Title, Inc. transition thing happened, I told myself that when the time came, I’d be able to face up to my own mortality. I told myself that death was inevitable, and I perfectly well understood that it would happen to me one day.

Somehow Sam–a man who was an absolute fixture in my professional life–being let go has made the scales fall from my eyes. Tonight I feel the utter inevitability of my own mortality, and to my dismay, I find that I am not deluded enough to deny it.

Throughout my many lives, what did I gain?

I have been god and wraith; I have felt joy and torment;

I have been hale and ill; I have been king and pauper.

But now that I traverse the path under sound guidance,

bless me to make this lifetime meaningful!

robot

 May 6, 2014

25 days to go.

The migraine is still with me, giving my world a strangely ethereal feel. Having a migraine has an odd effect on me. It’s like having a low-grade fever. This reality becomes permeable, not at all solid. Tonight anxiety seems like a distant memory; maybe even from someone else’s life.

At work, I do mantra about once an hour. As I silently repeated om mani peme hum today, I felt  as though I were tuning myself to something. The funny thing is, I didn’t feel like the hollow body of a guitar, or like the string that is plucked. I felt like the sound that reverberates and arises from a plucked string.

This is a wonderful feeling because it lasts for only a moment then dissolves, then arises again, then dissolves. Somehow, the truth of what we perceive as ‘existence’ isn’t in the arising or the falling away. It’s neither one nor the other, nor is it both. It’s somehow in the moment between each arising and falling, which feels like a complete moment of suspension, when there is nothing and everything at the same time. It’s an interesting way to directly experience impermanence and emptiness.

My Dharma friend Tashi is always trying to explain how all of our experience is like this—constantly arising, then dissolving. But in my ordinary life, I don’t experience that moment of emptiness. Even though Tashi says quite frequently that emptiness isn’t nothing, it’s hard to get past that concept. The actual experience of emptiness isn’t nearly as frightening as I always thought it would be. I thought it would be a blank nothingness, a complete annihilation of all that is.

It is in fact, a moment that is both an eon of lifetimes and no time at all; a moment of unfettered bliss.

It is not this.

It is not that.

It is not both.

It is not neither.

Nagarjuna

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May 4, 2014

27 days to go.

I have a migraine today. One of the blessings of having a migraine for me is that this reality seems very hazy, not quite solid. Anxiety isn’t really a big deal. When seen through the hazy gauze of a migraine, nothing’s a big deal. The downside is that…I swear…it sounds like there’s a construction crew in the parking lot behind my apartment building. I’m seriously considering hurrying them on their way to Nirvana.

Today, I very strongly experienced the illusion of loneliness. It feels that I’ve never been this lonely. In fact, every time this arises, it always feels that I’ve NEVER been so alone. When it comes, the loneliness is epic, worthy of any Greek tragic hero.

We’re funny, aren’t we? What drama.

Tonight the journey feels like exactly that–a journey whose path winds through unknown yet strangely familiar territory.

If I squander my time in secondary practices, death will find me unsettled.

Bless me to live with the mind of enlightenment and die with the Holy Name!

robot

May 3, 2014

Today has been a very ordinary day. I am so grateful for that. Anxiety today has come and gone so many times, I think my mind has a built in revolving door; a big one. But by working with anxiety in meditation and post meditation, the comings and goings of anxiety feel like unpredictable visits from a friend. The fear of what anxiety will bring with it seems to diminish more and more each day. I’m not sure how that’s happening.

As I went through my day baking and writing, I was aware of a smooth, uninterrupted flow of…something…I don’t have a name for it, or even a concept. But it was very powerful, the way it feels to stand just feet away from Niagara Falls and feel all that power of millions of gallons of water falling per second.

The sheer ordinary quality of such a day speaks to the simplicity of who we truly are.

Remembrance of the Buddha 

is the mind of enlightenment;

there is no safe refuge, no greater purpose,

no more earnest confession, no rejoicing more full,

no entreaty more candid, no purer dedication.

robot

May 1, 2014

30 days to go.

This whole experience with anxiety is the strangest experience yet on the spiritual journey.

When you first learn how to write fiction, you learn a whole bunch of techniques. At first none of it makes sense, all of it’s tiresome, and you write some seriously bad prose–think squeaky violin in the hands of a beginner.

Then there comes a day when you do your practice writing and the technique just rolls right onto the page; and it’s good. But the next day, you’re a squeaky violin again! Gradually, you have less and less squeaky violin days, until finally the technique becomes second nature.

Working with anxiety in this whole experience of the company I work for shutting down has been like that. Sometimes I feel anxiety arising and I’m totally aware it’s a phenomenon happening in the mind. I can completely rest in that arising. Other times, it’s a Tsunami and I’m drowning in it.

This can flip back and forth from hour to hour. It’s like looking at an optical illusion that keeps jumping back and forth. This constant flip-flop is exponentially better than the solidly monolithic crushing weight that anxiety used to be for me, but still. It’s really weird to feel your experience flip-flop like that.

The truly amazing thing about this experience is that I’ve become aware of the incredibly, unspeakably vast space of the mind in which this constantly changing perspective is happening.

The mind is empty luminosity;

it is peaceful and clear, free from elaboration–

bless me to rest in the nature of the essence.

Tashi…I finally get it… thank you… 🙂

robot

 

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

robot

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 14

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

Logo

May 6, 2014

25 days to go.

The migraine is still with me, giving my world a strangely ethereal feel. Having a migraine has an odd effect on me. It’s like having a low-grade fever. This reality becomes permeable, not at all solid. Tonight anxiety seems like a distant memory; maybe even from someone else’s life.

At work, I do mantra about once an hour. As I silently repeated om mani peme hum today, I felt  as though I were tuning myself to something. The funny thing is, I didn’t feel like the hollow body of a guitar, or like the string that is plucked. I felt like the sound that reverberates and arises from a plucked string.

This is a wonderful feeling because it lasts for only a moment then dissolves, then arises again, then dissolves. Somehow, the truth of what we perceive as ‘existence’ isn’t in the arising or the falling away. It’s neither one nor the other, nor is it both. It’s somehow in the moment between each arising and falling, which feels like a complete moment of suspension, when there is nothing and everything at the same time. It’s an interesting way to directly experience impermanence and emptiness.

My Dharma friend Tashi is always trying to explain how all of our experience is like this—constantly arising, then dissolving. But in my ordinary life, I don’t experience that moment of emptiness. Even though Tashi says quite frequently that emptiness isn’t nothing, it’s hard to get past that concept. The actual experience of emptiness isn’t nearly as frightening as I always thought it would be. I thought it would be a blank nothingness, a complete annihilation of all that is.

It is in fact, a moment that is both an eon of lifetimes and no time at all; a moment of unfettered bliss.

It is not this.

It is not that.

It is not both.

It is not neither.

Nagarjuna

robot

 May 4, 2014

27 days to go.

I have a migraine today. One of the blessings of having a migraine for me is that this reality seems very hazy, not quite solid. Anxiety isn’t really a big deal. When seen through the hazy gauze of a migraine, nothing’s a big deal. The downside is that…I swear…it sounds like there’s a construction crew in the parking lot behind my apartment building. I’m seriously considering hurrying them on their way to Nirvana.

Today, I very strongly experienced the illusion of loneliness. It feels that I’ve never been this lonely. In fact, every time this arises, it always feels that I’ve NEVER been so alone. When it comes, the loneliness is epic, worthy of any Greek tragic hero.

We’re funny, aren’t we? What drama.

Tonight the journey feels like exactly that–a journey whose path winds through unknown yet strangely familiar territory.

If I squander my time in secondary practices, death will find me unsettled.

Bless me to live with the mind of enlightenment and die with the Holy Name!

robot

May 3, 2014

Today has been a very ordinary day. I am so grateful for that. Anxiety today has come and gone so many times, I think my mind has a built in revolving door; a big one. But by working with anxiety in meditation and post meditation, the comings and goings of anxiety feel like unpredictable visits from a friend. The fear of what anxiety will bring with it seems to diminish more and more each day. I’m not sure how that’s happening.

As I went through my day baking and writing, I was aware of a smooth, uninterrupted flow of…something…I don’t have a name for it, or even a concept. But it was very powerful, the way it feels to stand just feet away from Niagara Falls and feel all that power of millions of gallons of water falling per second.

The sheer ordinary quality of such a day speaks to the simplicity of who we truly are.

Remembrance of the Buddha 

is the mind of enlightenment;

there is no safe refuge, no greater purpose,

no more earnest confession, no rejoicing more full,

no entreaty more candid, no purer dedication.

robot

May 1, 2014

30 days to go.

This whole experience with anxiety is the strangest experience yet on the spiritual journey.

When you first learn how to write fiction, you learn a whole bunch of techniques. At first none of it makes sense, all of it’s tiresome, and you write some seriously bad prose–think squeaky violin in the hands of a beginner.

Then there comes a day when you do your practice writing and the technique just rolls right onto the page; and it’s good. But the next day, you’re a squeaky violin again! Gradually, you have less and less squeaky violin days, until finally the technique becomes second nature.

Working with anxiety in this whole experience of the company I work for shutting down has been like that. Sometimes I feel anxiety arising and I’m totally aware it’s a phenomenon happening in the mind. I can completely rest in that arising. Other times, it’s a Tsunami and I’m drowning in it.

This can flip back and forth from hour to hour. It’s like looking at an optical illusion that keeps jumping back and forth. This constant flip-flop is exponentially better than the solidly monolithic crushing weight that anxiety used to be for me, but still. It’s really weird to feel your experience flip-flop like that.

The truly amazing thing about this experience is that I’ve become aware of the incredibly, unspeakably vast space of the mind in which this constantly changing perspective is happening.

The mind is empty luminosity;

it is peaceful and clear, free from elaboration–

bless me to rest in the nature of the essence.

Tashi…I finally get it… thank you… 🙂

robot

 

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

robot

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 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