attitude

How did I get this difficult attitude that is so harshly perfectionistic and critical of my own self? I know how, it was my defense mechanism in dealing with the harsh criticism and judgement that my father applied in his conditional parenting. I was smart, did quite well in school (and got some praise for that activity), and did what I was told to do (or else punishment). I’ve spent countless time relearning about my past and life such that I could arrive at and understand the answer to this question of how my ego conditioned self functions.

But the question for me nowadays is how do I move onward from the old habits that keep me in fearful avoidance of assumed and projected disapproval and punishment? Now that I am softer and more open to the subtleties of life, how do I flow with the energies and live fully, rather than resist, stress, depress, and struggle trying to make it through each torturous day of monotony?

I need an essential healthy attitude adjustment. I do not need a conditional repositioning of views and beliefs such that I can be what others may think is successful. That’s what I’ve been doing most of my life, trying to appease others’ expectations and act well, which drains me of all my good natural positive energy. I am watching this occur each evening I come home after working a job I just barely like (I consider myself lucky and am very grateful for this job at this time in my life, which isn’t an essentially good attitude). The FACT that my energy is so very drained each and every day is a massive warning.

Very deeply I actually, and even somewhat easily now, see the inherent essential goodness of all being. Of course, though, I like to call this The Great Emptiness of the Way, along with Zen Buddhists and Taoists. But each day, I get highly mired in the day-to-day muck of conditional existence. HAH! There! That is my attitude I must change if I am going to rest in deep presence and move from great emptiness in my life. I aspire to live this way more than anything else at all. I see this is my calling to live this way, though it’s manifestation and expression I do not know. I NEED to find the effortless effort of harmonizing with the Great Emptiness and Goodness of the Way things always and already are. My attitude (collection of beliefs, views, and thinking) needs to practically support harmony, not conditional living strategies that I learned in trying to appease parents, teachers, friends, etc.

TOWARDS THIS, I shall read a book I haven’t completely read yet. I will start the book over from the beginning. I acquired Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s first book, “Turning the Mind into an Ally” when I started meditating in 2003. As he is quoted on the back cover, “We can create an alliance that allows us to actually use our mind, rather than be used by it. This is a practice anyone can do.”

In my current practice of seeing myself as clearly as possible in order to move beyond the hard conditioned egotistic karmic aspect of my life, I am ready to embrace a thorough attitude adjustment that is harmonious with the Great Allowing Presence of the Way. Since I have experienced a great awakening in this vein at another time of my life (2005-6), I am already very aware that this can be the way in which I live my life. I am hungry for harmonious goodness and a warmly open attitude towards everything.

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.

fresh goodness

breathing a full breath contingent upon the bodily sensation that it is welcome and beneficial to do so in a brief though profound moment of openness and relaxation of being

“Good Morning,” a phrase of greeting that people say in the morning. I nearly always wonder and doubt what people are meaning in this expressed statement. Are they commanding me to have a good morning? Is the person wishing me, and I mean me specifically, directly, and contextually, a good morning? What is the true intention behind their speech? I look very deeply into this seemingly simple and common aspect of human interaction. What I see as the base of this interaction is not intention, meaning, nor projection; I see a subtle thread of existence itself manifesting through the bodily habit of speech into the reverberation of external energetic being resonating through all matter and existence. So, the act of uttering “Good Morning” is essentially being. And this is my less conditioned understanding of human expression. All of our expression is exactly the same, whether I think so or not, everything is essential being as it is, good as it is and always will be.

Cheers! Here’s to arriving at being beyond thinking… through the dharma door of thought.

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…