totally crazy

I kick my own ass and wash my own brain.
I push my own buttons and trick my own pain.
I burn my own flags and roast my own heroes.
I mock my own fears and cheer my own zeroes.

Nothing can stop me from teasing my shadow.
I’m full of empty and backwards bravado.
My wounds are tattoos that reveal my true beauty.
I turn tragic to magic and make bliss my duty.

I honor my faults till they become virtues.
I play jokes on my nightmares till I’m sure they won’t hurt you.
I sing anarchist lullabies to lesbian trees
and love songs with punch lines to anonymous seas.

I won’t accept gifts, that infringe on my freedom
I shun sacred places that stir up my boredom.
I change my name daily, pretend to be nobody.
I fight for the truth if it’s majestically rowdy.

Gravity fucks me and I fuck it back.
The sun is my sex slave, the moon smokes my crack.
I pump up my conscience with idiot laughter.
I’m living happily, in love ever after.

I brag about what I can’t do and don’t know.
I take off my clothes to those I oppose.
I’m so far beyond lazy, I work like a god.
I’m totally crazy;

In fact that’s my job.

—Robert Breszny

(seen at living the question)

changing my mind about anger

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger. ~ Buddha

A man once cursed the Buddha to his face. The Buddha only smiled. The man became even more incensed and asked, “Why don’t you respond?” The Buddha replied, “If someone refuses a gift, it must be taken back by the one who offered it.” The Buddha then recited this verse:

“For those with no anger,
how can anger arise?

When you practice deep looking and master yourself,
you dwell in peace, freedom, and safety.

When you understand the roots of anger in yourself and in the other,
your mind will enjoy true peace, joy, and lightness.

You become the doctor who heals himself and heals the other”. ~ Thich Nhat Hahn

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized.”~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.”
~ William James

The root of all difficulty and conflict lies in the mind; therefore, the solution to all difficulty and conflict lies in changing the mind.  ~ Kusan Sunim

learning to be astonished

Let me keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

Mary Oliver

compassion for myself

may my mind turn to others  ~  may I not think just of myself       

but when I do  ~  may I hold my heart in tenderness

but when I do  ~  may I hold my heart with both hands

just like I hope to hold all sentient beings

Ravenna Michalsen

 

As we strive to develop compassion for ourselves, it’s important to avoid making “letting go of desire” or “developing compassion for yourself” into new objects of compulsive desire. Becoming obsessive about quickly seeing big results from our efforts is a sign that deluded desire rather than compassion is driving our efforts. Real progress derives from honest introspection, and we cannot analyze our minds carefully when we’re hurried. Transforming our hearts is a gradual, organic process, and successfully cultivating compassion for ourselves necessitates a mature and steady approach.  - Lorne Ladner

I am finding that this meditation and this studying a bit of buddhism  is taking more courage than I expected.  To sit with oneself and ones thoughts…day after day…to watch the thoughts…to see honestly what is there and not flinch or hide when it is ugly or unexpected…to just notice, without blame, shame, pride, fear, grasping, pushing away or judging…just noticing and letting it flow past…this is all having a much wider impact than I expected.  It is both wonderful and awful. 

On the one hand, it is hard to look at some of the things I see, the brokenness, the wrong perceptions, the way issues are gnarled and tangled like an ancient tree’s roots all through my emotions, my sense of self, my world-view.  On the other, it is a joy to see how often I am saved from falling into habitual reactions when I just watch a thought for a minute without immediately buying into it and spinning the stories that go with that thought.  Even my times of sadness and being overwhelmed by my life, by the crohn’s disease and the poverty…seeing that these thoughts and feelings pass like clouds over the sky, knowing that underneath the grayness and storminess is that serene blue sky, that all will pass, that everything changes…it is all becoming a tremendous comfort to me.  I don’t quite know how to put it into words. 

I go in spurts, reading all I can get my hands on, then not reading for a bit.  I don’t want to just learn in my head, I want to change my heart.  I know this takes time and takes going back to the cushion…day after day…to be changed bit by bit.  Like it said above, it is an organic process, one I can’t rush.  So I just sit.

Through the disciplined precision of our efforts, we’ll come again and again to our edge—the difficult places beyond which we’ve previously been unable to move. Through the willingness to soften and surrender to what is, we learn that we can gradually move beyond that edge. It is only through this interplay of hard and soft, of effort and letting be, of will and willingness, that we learn to our amazement that we can emerge from the lifelong tunnel of fear that constitutes our substitute life into the nitty-gritty reality of our genuine one.  -Ezra Bayda

 

our life is the creation of our mind

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. If a man speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows him as the wheel of the cart follows the beast that draws the cart.

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. If a man speaks or acts with a pure mind, joy follows him as his shadow.

the law of karma as expressed by the Buddha in the Dhammapada

Feeling alone

Sometimes I feel so out of sync with the rest of the world.  I know it’s because of the 20 years I spent in church.  It’s not just that I don’t know what people are talking about when they reference music or movies.  It’s more than that.  It’s that the first 15 years I spent after leaving home I was one way, then for the next 20 I was radically different, now for the last 4 or  I’ve been radically different again.  The thing is, for the first 15 I knew where I stood.  I had very little self-awareness, but I fit into a people group…hippie, stoner, atheist, activist, mother-earth, etc.  Then for the next 20 I was christian, part of the club, seeker, pray-er, worshipper, studier of the bible, note-taker at sermons and conferences, mentor, leader, teacher. 

But what am I now?  What group am I a part of?  I don’t know many old ex-hippie recovering fundamentalist lesbian buddhists.  I don’t know anyone who shares my experiences and that feels lonely.

I am slowly becoming more comfortable with the “not-knowing” place I am in spiritually.  And I am slowly getting more accepting of the messiness that is me.  I don’t hide from my ugliness like I used to and I can see and appreciate the beauty in who I am more than I did.  So that is good, I suppose.  I don’t feel lost.  I don’t feel I am in a bad place.  Just a place where I am becoming comfortable with having left the shore in this little boat, without much of a clue as to where I am going or where the land even is, anymore.  It feels okay.  It feels right.

When I begin to feel sad about the twists and turns of my life, how long it has taken me to get to this place of authenticity, I remember something I read:

Whether success or failure: the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality.  The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight.  The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.  (May Sarton)

And this:

The reward for attention is healing.  Ultimately, it is the pain of being alone that is healed as attention is an act of connection.  (Shakti Gawain)

the joy of her work

Prince Wen-hui’s cook, Ting, was cutting up an ox. Every touch of his hand, every ripple of his shoulders, every step of his feet, every thrust of his knees, every cut of his knife, was in perfect harmony, like the dance of the Mulberry Grove, like the chords of the Lynx Head music.

“Well done!” said the prince. “How did you gain such skill?”

Putting down his knife, Ting said, “I follow the Tao, Your Highness, which goes beyond all skills. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox. After three years, I had learned to look beyond the ox. Nowadays I see with my whole being, not with my eyes. I sense the natural lines, and my knife slides through by itself, never touching a joint, much less a bone.

“A good cook changes knives once a year: he cuts. An ordinary cook changes knives once a month: he hacks. This knife of mine has lasted for nineteen years; it has cut up thousands of oxen, but its blade is as sharp as if it were new. Between the joints there are spaces, and the blade has no thickness. Having no thickness, it slips right through; there’s more than enough room for it. And when I come to a difficult part, I slow down, I focus my attention, I barely move, the knife finds its way, until suddenly the flesh falls apart on its own. I stand there and let the joy of the work fill me. Then I wipe the blade clean and put it away.”

“Bravo!” cried the prince. “From the words of this cook, I have learned how to live my life.”

When I first read this parable, I thought immediately of my Tam.  It describes perfectly what I haven’t been able to put into words about her way of loving me.  I’ve never been cut like she cuts.  I’ve been hacked on, I’ve been stuck through.  I’ve never had someone who danced over me, in perfect harmony with such loving precision.  She loves me with all that she is.  I am so lucky.

religion

A pious man explained to his followers: It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. “Don’t be scared,” I tell those fishes. “I am saving you from drowning.” Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more net so I can save more fishes. ~anonymous

Saint Francis and the Sow

by galway kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;

as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath
them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

softening

So often, we think we  have this tight grip on Reality – we think we know the Truth.  But what we really have is just a tiny slice of the Reality pie.  Often (if not always), our perception is skewed and our version of reality is twisted and tangled up with our faulty beliefs and warped understanding.  Maybe we’re broken in spots, damaged by the world and this mangles our perception.  Or maybe we haven’t evolved enough in an area to have clear insight, so that our vision is cloudy and faulty.

Whatever the reasons for our lack of insight and our inability to focus on a truer version of reality – the problem is made much worse by our relentless grasping of these warped realities.  We hold on to our view with a fierce protectiveness that surely must be born of fear.  This rigidity keeps us from seeing things in a  fresh way.  It prevents us from being transformed by a new revelation of reality.  We cling to the truth as we perceive it and this blinds us to the visions of reality that the Universe is trying to reveal to us.

Jesus the Christ advised coming to spiritual matters like a child.  Consider how a child responds to the world.  She runs into a field of flowers in wonder and amazement, rolling around in their scent, gazing up at the changing clouds in wide-eyed awe and deep curiosity.  Compare the adult, who sees the same field and the same sky but clicks off what he knows of this reality, “The field, the flowers, the clouds too light for rain.. I know all about these, nothing new here.”

If only we would approach life and all it brings to us with a sense of curiosity and wonder, as a child.  If we soften our eyes, our minds and our hearts and stop clinging to what we think we already know, what amazing things life will then set before us!  Perhaps She will set before us just that thing we need to grow in love, compassion and wisdom. 

We can sit for hours and days trying to sort it all out, to figure the nature of reality and the meaning of it all and fail again and again because we “see through a glass darkly”.  But let us release our grip on what we think we know for a moment…let us soften our relationship with what  life brings to us and approach it all with curiosity and openness — and the Universe will change us in an instant of insight!

May I become childlike, curious, open and soft.  May I remember that my understanding is limited and my perception flawed.  May I remember that there is not just one fixed Reality, one Truth carved in stone; but rather layers of reality that are accessible to me, if only I can open to them.  Whatever hard surface of reality may present itself – it is only a single facet of the whole.  When I stay soft, open and curious I can look above, below and around this version of reality and find new worlds, new possibilities and new truths.

May I savor the particular circumstances in which I find myself – not pushing life away if it doesn’t agree with what I think I already know.  And may I open myself to the vast reservoir of possibility that always waits for me, ready to be dived into if I release my fear and resignation.

Namaste.