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

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!

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!

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.

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…

 

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.