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.

on suffering

Tonight has been unusual and I feel very compelled to write about my experience here and now. I have already written in my handwritten journal during the experience. So, this blog post is reflection.

I walked home slowly and reflectively from the bus, returning from a typical day at work.

I was tired and annoyed about the build-up of stress throughout the day. I awoke to the day quite nicely in the morning. I rested for a few moments and decided to take a bath before getting to many tasks I needed to do. Though after the bath, relaxed bodily yet stressed mentally, I returned to resting. I was highly annoyed and agitated in thought though my body was resting, nearly sleeping. I slept lightly for a couple hours. Upon gently waking, I did not feel like moving, as though I was very depressed. I was very agitated in not wanting to suffer nor participate in any suffering. Slowly, as my thinking went onto more tangible aspects of life (like wanting to eat and needing to do work), I sat up at the edge of my bed.

I wasn’t about to do anything, feeling miserable, I wanted to resolve the suffering situation I was in. I started writing in my journal. I was writing about how conflicted and delusional thinking is and that I continue maintaining such thinking.

I researched a little on the internet after writing a question with a lot of emotion: Why am I not released from my suffering like before in my life? I read some of thework.com and did some of the work I am not unwilling to do anymore.

I continued to write, but a little more focused. I quote my journal here.

I am very annoyed by all the contradictory thinking delusion that causes suffering in this world/for humans. This “prevents” me from feeling peace, because I see the existence of it (the delusion and the suffering). Thusly, I do not know what to do since suffering appears to exist beyond my natural existence/original nature. Even as delusion in the conscious brainwashing and habitual karma of humanity, not Jesus, Buddha, nor any heros change the fact that the delusion persists like a plague! Ironically, humans survive even with such stress and self-inflicted pain! So, then, how can I be free of suffering in my own life as I know most other humans suffer greater duress and even unconsciously to the point of causing greater suffering? I don’t know how to live a life free of suffering (because I know the cause–ignorant desire for things to be other t h a n t h e y a r e!)

There it was/is! The extra spaces between the letters meant I was getting it! I smiled and realized the illogical, contradictory thinking feedback that was happening in my brain that caused the annoyance, frustration, and suffering. The belief I held so strongly to was debunked through simple logic. NO WONDER! How could our mind, brain, body, energy be flowing peacefully with such inconsistency and hypocrisy! How can we live well with all life if our minds are messed up with contradictory beliefs and untruthful thoughts. This is a truly wonderful moment of realization for me.

I nearly immediately calmed down and started doing the work I needed to do. After I did my work for a couple hours, I decided to write this post. I am happy to offer this to you as plainly as I have.

over, under, around; always just this

For the most part, as I am depressed, I lose my mind, body, spirit, energy, time, consciousness, awareness to my ego’s control. But, since my ego saved my life through perceived and real struggles and threats in a troublesome childhood experience by receding into depression, passivity and following the wills and wishes of others as well as possible, now, my ego is largely in control.

I’m feeling like I am having a mental breakdown now. I can’t handle all the pressure that my ego-centric karmic conditioning is putting onto me. It’s ruined my adult life, not saved it. I don’t really know what “Self” is anymore, or how to be other than my egotistically controlled small self which is really just killing me slowly.

Why is this so? WHY? Why do I live with a sense of pure empty worthless meaninglessness as my core understanding of self? I see nothingness, even beauty is empty, and thus all life too. My ego has certainly integrated Zen Buddhist concepts and psychologically philosophical cultural views to keep me, whatever me is, from happiness. I’m not worthy of anything. I should be dead, I should have died, but I am still living without purpose, reason, or meaning. Others don’t seem to connect with me either, nor I with them in any profoundly deep ways. All my relationships seem insignificantly superficial, and, yes, thusly, meaningless. Ego returns to thinking that the nature of reality is ambiguity and emptiness, so stop trying to make meaning out of nothing. I can’t make meaning, it’s all impermanent and shifting like all things in nature. Meaning is, well, silly.

Thus, I return to my most recently created mantra, “infinite being is being with.” No meaning, no trying, nothing can get in the way of being with as long as I am living. But, as the ego understands it, this may be it’s greatest strategy yet for keeping me from any amount of happiness in this lifetime. Since “being with” is effortlessness, purity, and the truth of reality, my ego has seemingly found a way to give up all conditionality and be thoroughly unhappy in this unseparated existence. All existence naturally depresses and overwhelms me in it’s magnitude. I cry, being with this crushing feeling. I cry, realizing that my fiancee left me. I cry, knowing my current career is unsatisfactory. I cry, viewing no deep authentic human connection in my life.

So, I am amidst the abyss of loneliness and emptiness. It seems not to matter that anyone else exists, because they can’t connect with me, or vice versa. Life has been deconstructed into the essentials of reality (ambiguity, creativity, contingency, change – impermanence, nonseparation, emptiness) whereas, like any bit of unconscious matter, I too exist here and now, hard and cold. It’s amazing blood and breath still flow through me. But that’s all there is, a material maze of coexistence, truly infinitely unknowable and nonmeaningful. It is what it is, that’s how it is.

not no, arriving at yes

I have to write in order to get my mind into this moment. This is a practice of mine, one that has grown into a dependence, and writing is dependable at this moment. Maybe not in the future, but right now writing is my practice. I am dependent on my choice to act, to practice what I do as well as how I do.

I cannot think in terms of “no.” Of course, I can. But what I mean is that even when I think in terms of “no” I am not actually thinking “no.” How can this be?

Wrong is always conditional, and always temporal. I, you, us, we, them, it is never wrong. Within a conditionally conceived and constructed situation, stuff appears wrong or right and our body/mind/energy follows along with the thought-perceptions.

If there is no “no,” and no means no only conditionally and temporally, then yes, respect must still be given to our relative-bound existence. Transcendence of the karmically conditioned mind-body is not a possibility, because there simply is no separation (a yes to oneness) as all things change in the now.

How am I so habitually stuck in negatively attached thinking streams? It’s been a survivalistic strategy to bear the karmic conditioning that has naturally taken place. As complex-minded humans, we all experience this with varying degrees of attachment/avoidance, whether we realize it or not.

How can this be true? How does this observation help me heal from my tendency toward depression? What do I do with this understanding?

inherent goodness

Understanding thorough non-dualistic emptiness is not a particularly useful concept for me at this moment. Simply, with some realistic empathetic compassion for my suffering caused by my own conditioned ego habits in thought and action, I must begin to believe in my inherent goodness. My habit of depression appears rooted in dismissing my true worthiness, my original nature, my completeness in being real, the fullness of my existence, my being a part of inseparable nature of life and reality.

Ego mind thinking rambles on and on. This part of my mind always seems to take me over and force me into passivity in life. I couldn’t hug my mom this morning, even though she made the atypical loving effort to hug me. I couldn’t speak to friends at a party, even though they were kind enough to greet me. I couldn’t thank my significant other, even though she did find ways in support of me. I gave in, I caved in. I victimized myself through believing my fears, negative thinking, self-doubt, guilt, confusion, and unworthiness of being alive. I denied my true self in being my guide.

I think it is important, particularly when depression gets so horrendously self mutilating, to try to figure out why. This is no easy task, because I’ve seemingly necessarily had to spend 15 years writing in journals, reading countless pertinent spiritual & self-help books, and making searching for answers one of my highest priorities in life. Beyond money, time, energy, people, self, work, I’ve spent my time trying to figure out and understand what is going on and why this is so with me. It’s been my life’s primary effort, again, seemingly necessarily so. Hence, in self-discovering and self-revealing, a mere two months ago, that I have been suffering from self-victimization and identification with the aggressor in protection of my survival founded on the traumatic experience of wordless fear of near-death in infancy which results in passive-aggressive co-dependent forms of relating to others, my life has changed.

My fiancee abandoned me and cancelled our wedding plans as well as our communication. She doesn’t talk to me anymore. I suppose she cannot handle the truth very well either. I understand. It has taken me so very long with so very much effort to begin to handle, comprehend, and realize this truth for myself. I am farily certain she won’t be reading this blog, but I wish she would/could. I am honestly angry at her action of abandonment, but I certainly know how very hard it must be for her to deal with my depressed conditioned egocentric being, because it was very hard for me to bear the experience of depressing myself so relentlessly.

I didn’t believe I was good enough, not for anything or anyone, nor for God, as I thought he forsaked and denied me too. But all of this negativity is my own, born, only in part, by the intrinsic suffering and pain of life itself. As a child I was unable to discern, nor understand. I learned to follow my parent’s, teacher’s, priest’s, friend’s, role model’s ideas, expectations, projections, and ways of seeing. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and yet I also had a strangely envigorating sensation of and firmly faithful connection with God’s absolute and infinite permeation throughout existence. As a child, this protected me from bad dreams and assisted me in preserving some sanity in day-to-day, week-to-week confusion of life and seeing hypocrisy and inconsistency everywhere I seemed to look. “Why is life so screwed up?,” I used to think continuously. Now I realize I learned that question from my critical and worry minded parents, father and mother respectively.

So here I am now, in the process of healing in depression recovery. As difficult as it is, it is also comforting. As I’ve mentioned to quite a number of people lately, I feel supported from <em>every</em> dimension of my life right now. From my ex-fiancee to my parents, from plants to energy, I am clearly supported by the inseparably continuous fabric of reality. Without a deep gratitude and awareness of this absolute support, I’d likely not even be writing any of this realization. I am eternally grateful.

Goodness…

don’t have energy to do what i’d likely like

Here and now, my head aches, sinuses are pressurizing my skull, my lymphatic system feels swollen, and my annual allergies make me feel horribly near sick this time of the year.

A lot of things are happening in my life, but I can only attend and pay good attention to a small amount of it. Quickly, guilt, annoyance, anger, exhaustion, apathy, and anxiousness become my experience of life, not just physical pains.

Fun, peace, happiness, balance are not words or concepts I resonate with nowadays. Life is a chore, with health maintenance and personal hell to navigate. I don’t want to carry along sickness in body/mind; that’s exactly why I’m writing and trying to sort through all the mess. Immediately I know I’m treading in the wrong direction when I think this way. Stop clinging! The process of health is … um, uuuuuhhh, a delusion. With infinite variables, how can I assume to arrive at health? I attempt healing actions, herbs, and relationships, though typically find myself mostly floundering along with pain in body/mind. Health doesn’t continue, but pain presses on. Awareness doesn’t last, though delusion overwhelms. I don’t know, I really don’t know.

I’m getting so tired of life experience like this. I feel like the world does not support me and that I am alone due to delusion and pain. Receiving assistance even feels contrived and imprecise. How do others’ know what will help me heal? I appreciate what others do for me, but I feel like I am losing my natural sense of interconnectedness. Life occurences seem ever more abstract and meaningless, especially as delusion and pain persist, and health and awareness subside.

The Zen way of working with this is to pay attention, annew, now. Don’t manifest views or opinions and compassionately return to what needs doing with attention.

How do I relieve my own suffering?

The 4 Noble Truths

1. The Nature of Dukkha: Suffering exists in life. Truth of Suffering. (Life means suffering.)
2. The Origin of Dukkha (Samudaya): Suffering is caused by craving. Truth of the Cause of Suffering. (The origin of suffering is attachment.)
3. The Cessation of Dukkha (Nirodha): To eliminate suffering, eliminate craving. Truth of the Cessation of Suffering. (The cessation of suffering is attainable.)
4. The Way Leading to the Cessation of Dukkha (Magga): To eliminate craving follow the Eightfold Path. Truth of the Path to the Cessation of Suffering. (The path to the cessation of suffering.)

References:
http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/fourtruths.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths

Nonetheless, my life feels like it is just getting flushed down the toilet. Existing in self-delusion, the delusions of others, and the delusion of all the cultures of the world, I feel useless with all the unintentional karma binding me to the strange simplicity of mundane living experience. I am not special, I am merely unique with an particular mix of common human attributes. I don’t feel appreciated, nor do I want to. I am not interested in self-aggrandizement or self-inflation due to tacking on additional views—whether positive or negative. Am I neutral yet? No. Am I meaningless yet? Sort of. Am I detached from connection points with reality? Yes, in many ways. What is there to salvage here and how do I do such? Is this the process of meaningful healing—recycling & repurposing myself? Isn’t that just more egotistical separation from authentic being? I don’t know, I really don’t know.

post Birthday blues

Well, I had a good Birthday. But, I don’t care. I’m depressed, at least, that’s the label I am attaching to today. More accurately, I am depressing–sensations, feelings, thoughts, judgements, confusion, conditioning–my life. I’m identifying with this state of being. I’ve experienced this kind of being for such a darn large percentage of my life, thus I am comforted by this typical, seemingly manageable, but still miserable existence. Sometimes it is much worse, sometimes not so bad at all, though I am still depressing my life away. “I don’t know what to do,” I say so often. I suppose, due to all this depressing, I am confusing myself too. It feels a lot like a maze. I really don’t know which way to go, though it seems I must still keep on going this way and that way. I’m tired, almost bored, but more annoyed with having to go through this odd maze. I sort of feel that I am going in circles a bit too; here and there a turn leads me back in a direction I feel is familiar. Writing this isn’t helping either. I just feel like I am wasting time, I feel guilty for living this life, I wish I could really do better with my actions, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Now, I am reminded of a phrase by Ghandi, “Whatsoever you do will be insignificant, and it is very important that you do it.” But I don’t understand this, even though I could likely explain it conceptually. Everything feels empty, even my suffering, because I’m so used to it. I don’t know what to do, and I don’t care much either. I don’t want to lose the wonderful kinds of things in my life that I seem to take for granted, but I can’t seem to “be real” or “act authentically” either. I suppose my deep psychological definition for real and authentic is something like perfect or pure. Compassionate acceptance of me as I am would be nice, but then what? What am I to do next? It seems I am missing the point, the now, here, me living in this moment. Not the next step, but this step to just accept myself. I have a headache; I am hungry; I am a little tense in my neck and shoulders; I am thirsty; I am alive; I am identifying with my sensations; I am somewhat aware, but more annoyed and upset. Now what, now what, now what? Cheri Huber would probably say “now how?” But I don’t understand this either, even though I could likely explain this too. Hmmmm. Reflecting the mirrored light inward, I gaze, seeing nothing much at all. “The path leading to the unconditioned is mindfulness directed to body,” says Stephen Batchelor. I suppose I’ll go out for some dinner, due to being hungry, thirsty, and tense.

Thanks for all your insignificant action!

ADDENDA:
“Come to your senses. It is not the things of this world, be they chocolate or brown rice, that lead you astray. Losing your way comes from giving no mind to what is present while chasing after imaginary pleasures which are illusive and unobtainable. To wake up is to know what is already yours.” Edward Espe Brown

Not being present with what is, caught in my habits of depressing thinking, I suffer a lot. Change is part of reality, how will I change? My insurmountable mind, always measuring and trying, wanting and figuring, is not separate from my body, nor all of reality. Whew, still haven’t eaten.