the deep pit of my suffering

Here i go again. I am beating myself up with an array of criticism and negativity. I cannot seem to think through any of it; i am fairly sure that it’s impossible. I need to give it up because it weighs me down, stresses me out, and taps my energy. Circumstances that occur in this conditioned world that I cannot deal with well cause me to pummel myself into trying to deal with it, but seeing that I am not. I am not dealing well with the demands of 21st century living and there is no avoiding it either. I must seemingly abuse myself with work, or lose the work, the money, the relationships, and the whole thing. It seems as though everything is on the line. I have lost one client this way. I was doing my work at my own break-neck pace (slowly, but surely and doing good work too) but being way past deadlines that the client needs is unacceptable for their situation. However, clearly, their situation is not my situation, even if it is interrelated. And this isn’t about upholding one’s word or not being professional, this is this way because of the suffering i experience which corrupts, confounds, and debilitates me. I’ve proven to myself i can battle myself to uphold my word and be professional. But now, i don’t want the battle anymore. I need to ease back when this battle seems to start. I don’t seem to win anything much. Even the “good” that appears to come from this warring is thoroughly stained by the self-sacrificing, unconscious, demoralization of forcing myself to do for others rather than take care of myself. THIS is a major root problem for me. Some might say “suck it up,” or “hard work is good for you,” but I don’t believe that anymore. It’s not true. I have done this year after year, within jobs and relationships, and have lost all of it over and over again, which seems to cause all the more suffering in the forms of loss, grief, and guilt. I haven’t taken care of myself. I need to change my ways of working. I take TOO MUCH ON for others, and often receive far less than it’s worth. But, too, I labor hard over what I do, beating myself up along the way of creating imperfect solutions and less than stellar work. I try too hard and get frustrated with the small details and the slowness of it all. It gets so heavy and I don’t want to do any more of it. I can’t live like this anymore. I get to the point where I don’t want to live at all, because I do not know a way out of this kind of struggle with human existence and relational being in this cultural worldliness. I fear there is no way out. Even my meditation practice seems to suggest that I am pretending if I think that some kind of perfect equilibrium may exist. Change is at core of the way things are, not some harmonic, blissful state of being with humans and nature. And, when I ride along with the work that I do, choosing to fail to see the contradiction in my action, the deep pit of suffering gurgles to remind me of it’s perpetually hungry ghosts that are ready to torment me. “Risk your livelihood for what you think is right,” or “coast along in further anguish in what is convoluted and stressful.” The problem here is that it is all worthless and meaningless. It is not a situation of choice, as it is an opportunity to rest in the presence of being and doing beyond personal commentary and evaluation. Ahh, but I am not a tireless robot, a machine of capable mind and body activity. I am a very lowly human, not great, not special, not ordinary, not anything but a living human being. I continue to feed off of a cultural paradigm as much as it’s food supply. I’m conditioned to live this way, and I am not so happy with it because I feel very abused by the seemingly concrete and oppressive conditionality of the way I am expected to be–on time, appropriate, suitable, smart, efficient, friendly, professional, etc. Honestly, I don’t believe all this stuff, because when I meditate, do qi gong and butoh, the thinking mind abates into rich sensorial aware presence where thought is secondary. But in the “real” world, the thought-time-space-ego-meaning structures are primary! WHY do i experience actuality and reality as an inverse relationship? Is this accurate and true? Krishnamurti and Zen monks seem to see this kind of a relationship too.

But this is where I typically stop in my tracks. What now? Back to the load of work? Onward with the sleep deprivation and stressing out my mind and body? Is it even possible for me to relax in doing this work? [Massive lightning just struck the earth a moment ago and took me by surprise. A lone lightning bolt of awakening!] Some rain follows. Ahh, another lightning flash makes the previous one less of a shock. I am already dulled by the plip & thap of rain hitting the urban ground. I don’t have anything left to lose. I don’t have anything of meaning anymore. It’s as though I have to maintain the meaning just to wake up in the morning and hurt myself all day long doing what I don’t care to do and for no particular reason. I have no one left in my life. Father, brother and ex-fiancee all gone. All I see now are token selfish gestures of “hi” and the same old conversations. That’s beyond boring, that’s ignorant samsara–on my part and theirs! I’ve lived a good portion of my life now, and I just don’t see any reason why any of this will actually change out of the ebb and flow of samsara. It’s a river egotistic life. How can I refuse ego without a war, and let go of cultural manifestations without isolation? How can I love myself in this milieu? How can I actually help anyone, as I struggle to the bone of my being? How can I be helped myself, by me, other, and nature? Why is my life filled with day-to-day struggle and difficulty in existing in this thusness of humanness?

I’m sorry, but I don’t know. And when I realize the nature of the way, some peace does flow within, but a glance at all that needs to be remembered, done, and practiced in work, social, and personal life–I gasp and want to go to sleep first, i don’t have the energy for it.

two core issues

I have two very core personal issues to share. I’ve seen these issues with more clarity and less clinging, so I want to record and share this struggle to clarify the conditioning in my life for myself and others. I can see this is a big place for me to be right now. I am learning due to truly practicing with the way my life is. That’s the way it is for every single human–the process of realizing our true being in actuality.

I’ll get on with it. Core Issue Two: I am not accepting all things to be as they are and working with everything as it is. I daydream about choosing something else for my life–some other job, some other profession, some other location, some other place, some other food, some other person, some other music, some other interest endeavor, or anything else than what and how I may be doing now in my life. I wish things were different with my father, with my brother, with my ex-fiancee. I am beginning to more clearly see the dreamy story of otherness that my conditioned mind repeatedly generates which makes me feel miserable. I feel miserable because I don’t have what my conditioned mind is thinking is better than what exists now in my life. So, I am seeing this mind running away from presence with dreams and desires of delusion. However, with this seeing of the habitual mind activity, I experience distance from the suffering because I am no longer just totally believing these dreamy thoughts of otherness. The story-esque otherness doesn’t actually exist and this conditioned mind is rambling on with gobbledygook that causes me to feel horrible and miserable and not accept what is actually happening in my life. This is the suffering of the illusion of separation which I am seeing happening more clearly. I am authentically practicing seeing deeply into how this egotistic-story-generating-conditioned-mind is a cause of suffering in my life. I am learning not to follow it’s grandiosity and to return to this very moment of present existence as it is. This is practicing deep acceptance of the greatness of the Way existence always and already is. Am I recognizing this Truth, this gentle brilliance of being OR am I infatuated by all sorts of ideas about how things could be if only things were different. I must return to acceptance in order to experience peace in living day-to-day life.

OK, that was issue Two; here’s the deeper Core Issue One. I want what I’ve felt I’ve never truly had–authentic deep human connection. I feel miserable just writing it here. This is very emotional for me, yet I remain focused to concentrate on seeing into this issue so that I may not suffer like this for the rest of my life. I can see that my suffering arises from the cloud of story surrounding what I may think of as “authentic deep human connection.” Let me put it this way, IF others’ and I connect only through the conditional framework of cultural worldliness and never seem to get to a synergy at the core and/or a miniscule moment of mutual aware recognition of our essential being beyond conditioning, THEN I think we failed to connect authentically. This may or may not be actually true. It is very important for me to see this way in which I view relationships with others. For example in my actual life, I have had moments of very deep mutual seeing into and beyond the typical culturally conditioned delusions of reality. This may or may not have been “authentic connection!” Which leads me to see that the way I am evaluating interpersonal activity and relations is wonky and conditional! If I think this way about life, then I am layering my thought-structure over what has happened, after the fact. This is dampening my experiences and creating suffering for myself and others. SO, I am seeing into my invovlement into part of the reason why I don’t seem to experience “deep authentic human connection” in life. I blame others’ all too often in their short-sightedness and clingings to their thoughts and dreamings, but I am doing this (too). Next steps in my practice with this issue is 1) more observing of my physical and mental activity in personal interaction, 2) softening my body, mind, and gaze particularly around others, 3) remembering that I am able to unlock this issue as a function of how I see into it and the directness with which I dispell the egotistic delusional beliefs, views, and thoughts that cause suffering for me and others.

realistic apology

My ego conditioned mind self really liked you. I wanted to be with you for this lifetime, growing in intimacy and togetherness. I failed to decipher the difference between the ego-self and the very boundless soulful energetic Self. This led to a relapse into depression, getting caught up deeply in my own egotistic  issues and merging with the grandiose energy and awareness that cannot be claimed as ego nor harnessed for ego’s masked use. Actually, it/we can, but it’s not the same as freely flowing beyond suffering with the Way we are and everything is. We are not conditioned minds, yet that’s exactly how the mind thinks: linearly. We are bounded by our conditioned minds and bodily forms, though this itself is not the cause of suffering as our conditioned minds and aching bodies may try to trick us into believing. Our cause of suffering is wanting things to be other than it is due to the ignorance of our conditioned minds and restricted bodies. With awareness and paying attention in the normal functioning of both mind and body, awakening occurs naturally.

So, I am sorry I got so confused. It’s such an ordinary thing, because we are typically living ordinary lives in such conditioned reality. I want you. I want intimacy. I want deeper loving. I was(and still am) willing to practice with my conditioning and deficient body, but you weren’t(and still aren’t). I can’t continue using that fact against myself. I have apologized profusely for my ignorance and the troubles that I have caused. I am grateful beyond measure for all that I have experienced with you. Even though I was attached to “us” and “you,” I know, not in a conditioned way, that I love you. If I distorted this love, then I know my conditioned mind would be in control. NO.

This love experience will continue to grow within me like the roots of a tree, filling me up with awareness of life and the beauty of being. I am grounded in a profound understanding that awareness itself is the key that unlocks the conditioning of the mind and restrictions of the body. I pray for the strength to commit to this evolutionary path of awakening and to offer this to all who ask of me. I cannot force anyone to embrace awareness as I do, for this is a relative truth that harmonizes within my specific being with the energy of absolute universal existence.

Walls and Vows

Walls are dividers. Physical walls offer us protection from that which exists on the other side. This may be quite necessary, as in building a home with insulated walls that protect us from environmental conditions like the wind, rain, and temperature. We also construct ideological walls in our psyche to protect us from cutural conditions. The physical and the mental, the internal and the external are dualistic distinctions, yet they are helpful for developing Right Understanding and the clarity of wise discernment.

I am not typically humble enough in my relationships with others. This is one of my remaining walls that I am deconstructing and unlearning. I learned this in order to protect myself and project an insincere confidence of coolness. The coolness has gotten me far, so to speak. Yet, it has also disabled me from connecting with others more deeply, something I know I desire to the depths of my being. It is original human nature to connect freely in the midst of all cause and conditions. We can say this takes love and compassion, though it also takes deconstruction of our walls. It is my egotistic self that denies an aspect of connection, which is my wall of arrogant coolness. People noticing my wall perceive me as righteous and indignant. I try to talk through the walls of others, meanwhile missing my own ignorance which causes a great problem and certain suffering.

What is fascinating is we don’t perceive our own walls as our unique problems that we need to address and debunk. My wall of knowledgeable arrogance and stylistic coolness traps me in ignorance, where I feel quite safe from the emptiness of existence. Now I know many people don’t even tread in this territory of “emptiness,” however, when understood as the universal order of existence, we may rest in presence rather than wall ourselves with what we know. I hope that makes sense. I’ll continue with my life example. When I say I want to connect with my brother and remain unable to see my own wall of arrogant knowledge, then I am the one who is ignorant and will remain ignorant until I wake up to my own walls. What is even more amazing to me is that I often talk with others about their walls that prevent connection within our relationship. They typically may agree that a wall exists in them as I have pointed out, yet have no desire to deconstruct the wall. The wall is there to protect them and they want the wall to maintain their egotistic structure they are working on. This is what I have been consistently ignorant of for most of my life–a deeply ingrained pattern, a wall of egotistic protection. I have been both comfortable with and unwilling to see that I have been very hypocritical in preserving my egotistic wall while trying to demand that others deconstruct theirs. I thought that in helping others see their wall, I was helping them.

Yet, even if this may be partly true, if we are not “ready” or “willing” to look at our own walls as impeding factors for fulfillingly free living, we will not see our walls as the problems. Our walls are always “the problem”, always the work that we need to do in opening to reality, in enlightening ourselves, in helping others. If I realize you have a wall in place, it is now my responsibility to respect you as you are, walls and all. In this realization and practice, I must be humble enough to ‘be with’ you without arrogantly calling attention to your walls that I sense and see, which is causes me to ignorantly and firmly erect my wall of arrogant indignation and cause suffering for both you and me. SO, heretofore, I take upon my second life vow to deconstruct my wall of hypocritical ignorant arrogant indignation and practice humble connection with others.

For the record, my first life vow is to always do my best.

seeing the resistance

I met the resistance in my father again today, just a few moments ago. He called to say that he doesn’t want to travel in the very cold temperatures tonight to drive me home from my second scheduled Rolfing Session. He supplied me with plenty of excuses, though I did my best to remain silent on the phone here at work. He said I should cancel my appointment. I then remarked that I want to go the Rolfing Session and I can find a way to get home somehow. He was immediately relieved and thanked me.

I can see I too have done this similar excuse-filled behavior with friends, girlfriends, and family. It’s very strange not only for me, but very much for the other individual who is asking something of me. We both are at odds because I make it known and stick to my excuses for NOT DOING what the other wants. Usually, this situation lingers like stinky cheese in the minds of those who I have disappointed. Sometimes the excuse is justified and reasonable, but even when it is, it is still an excuse NOT TO DO because I DO NOT WANT TO. It still stinks. How immature am I to want to do what I want over what others ask of me? For me, I can see it is typically selfish laziness that causes me to generate a mindstream of pseudo-reasonable excuses for inaction.

Seeing and experiencing the resistance within my father to do as I have asked of him, I realize the frustration that is caused as a result. The frustration arises from WANTING to NOT DO something and is passed on through excusing one’s self from what has been asked. This is essentially breaking one’s word, even if it is implied in the fact that we are friends and family of the one’s who ask something of us.

In this moment, I apologize to those I have frustrated due to my selfish laziness in wanting not to do what you have asked of me. In most situations, I could have left my selfish desire behind and answered your call for my assistance in your life. I see in this moment of experiencing my father’s pattern inaction where my pattern of inaction has originated, and, that I may consciously be able to circumvent the learned conditioned habit towards “being with” you.

peace & harmony

how honest, how real

I want an even playing field, but I don’t think I will get it. As people say, life isn’t fair. I don’t believe life is fair or not fair. Life is real, not a delusion, which is what people (including myself) tend to forget in their dramatic, semi-serious lives. It’s Christmas night, and I am taking a stern look at myself because I am alone. I’ve been watching TV long enough. I see that I live my life not with joyful celebration of being with others (family and friends), but I am caught up in my own fearful delusion in an attempt to protect myself from deep vulnerable connection with others. Granted, part of this equation is how others live their lives. Isn’t it basically true that we all live our lives as conditioned beings. It’s your story or my story; you’re wrong, I’m right; how can we live together being so different; leave me alone, unless I want to connect: why are we so stuck in our delusional views causing so much dysfunction and suffering?

I want to awaken. I don’t mind the perceived difficulty. In fact, the enlightened ones encourage us all to drop our selfish stories about life and how things should be and turn honestly to our loved ones with the best that we have to offer. This too is process and practice. This is diving into the deep end of the pool even though we are so afraid. I must remember that even though I am not a good swimmer nor particularly fond of splashing about in a chlorinated liquid, I can swim and will remain completely alive if I jump.

I know I still love my ex-fiancee. Somehow I see and sense a brilliant radiance emanating from her being. I am attracted to her in profound ways. Is this experience also a story, a delusion, a self-conditioned state? I suppose so. I cling to what it seems to mean in my life: security, togetherness, comfort, care, attention, … .

How do we be totally honest and real? How do we convey our needs without embellishment in stories and desires? How do we connect with one another beyond the disguises we project and regularly live by? How do I evolve from conditioned existence to natural being in a world of conditioned being? Is it simply impossible?What is the expression of “right being,” to borrow a buddhist yardstick? Yardsticks don’t really help with understanding the essential nature of human being and the beautiful potentiality of embracing authentic being connection (with self and others).

I don’t want to estrange myself and others. I don’t want to go through the motions of relating with people. I don’t want to take all these moments of life for granted as if they really don’t matter because I fear being my true self. I want to be my true self. I want to be embraced by my fiancee for who I am, not what I do or think. Even actions fail to provide an honest picture of our true nature, because we are often living what we think we should do rather than dive deep into the pool of uncertainty, vulnerability, and intimacy (which we simply forget we can swim in).

contained, free

I feel trapped in existence, not free. I’m bound at all sides. Original Being is unconditional, beyond concept and unimpeded. Yet, in this human world of culture, expectation, order, and contingency, I perceive that I am held in place by the flow of all that is around me. Practicing with non-self, I more often witness my life as non-doing. This can quickly seem like I am not choosing my activity, but that’s a SIGN that I am not really practicing living in the Way things are. My choosing and activity ARE the freedom of my creative being!

I am aware, choosing to live creative goodness in the Way as I can, as things are.
Peace.