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.

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.

thinking, knowing, and the Way

A good work acquaintance shared a Tao passage he recalls. “When you think you know, strange things happen.” I don’t think this is an accurate quotation, but it seems true. When I think I know, I typically act (or refrain from action) in reference to my knowledge that I am identified with knowing. When I think I know, if situations don’t conform to my knowledge, I think they are strange occurrences. Thinking I know is essentially limited thinking. When I act from what I know, it is limited action. Strange things that happen due to knowingly acting is not a bad thing, nor so much a good thing; it’s the changing temporal nature of the Way. The Way is simply, vastly such and this is how we learn, grow, and become wise, through a myriad of experiences, thought, and activity that opens us beyond thinking.

Spontaneity, letting go, relaxing, opening, playing, and moving with the flow of things are ways in which to embrace non-thinking practice. I’ve called this “vacation mind” in my journal writings. When I relax and expect nothing much, I become enjoyably aware of my surroundings in the present. “Vacation mind” is accepting and enjoying the present thusness of the Way things are. It’s slowing down and opening up. It’s letting go and taking it in. It’s beyond the normal thinking and knowing into enjoyable spontaneous living.

He also mentioned, with a little reluctance, that he meditates everyday in some form or another. I didn’t make any big deal of it, though I expressed my genuine understanding and affirmation of his offerings. It is also a comforting thing to hear that others are “seriously committed” to practicing meditation for their own wellbeing, whether privately or within community.

compassionate self-discipline

I’m doing something that is serious and seriously necessary for me to do. My suffering in life brings me to this kind of action. Egocentric mind/body conditioning is going to have to make way for awareness, compassion, love, and healing. I am currently in Day 10 of committing to 30 days of Zen meditation, Qi Gong, chanting Faith in Mind sutra, reviewing the Four Noble Truths, contemplation with “Making a Change for Good” book by Cheri Huber, journaling, working on a process oriented art piece, no radio, no TV, no typical music, no news, no eating out or cafes, no typical habitual coping escapes, doing work, cooking, limiting caffeine/sugar/meat, cleaning, caring for myself and the cats, taking herbs and supplements, and maintaining as much attention and awareness as possible.

The first day was full of not knowing what to do. By the third day, that was mostly gone. The whole first week was good and I was quite happy practicing. But, then, I struggled with practicing and fell into depressing myself and feeling really bad, even while working through the feelings and journaling. I realized within one day that I had to recommit and make certain I am choosing this path of awakening. Daily, now, I need to remember that the difficulty I am committing to and experiencing in practicing is compassionate self-discipline, not isolation or hardship for no reason. This is a good step into taking my practice ever more seriously and realistically.

Each day, not in a manipulated or forced way, I must continue to choose to end suffering and follow through with the conscious awareness of compassionate self-discipline. 30 days is not long in comparison to all the days I’ve suffered from delusion, ignorance, and wanting life to be other that it is. I must return to my life everyday, simply and with conscious awareness so that I discontinue ego/self identification with thoughts, emotions, sensations, illusions, and cravings. This is a life changing experience I am putting myself through, because I need to for myself and others. I truly don’t want to dwell in selfish delusion because it causes too much harm. Escaping life is not beneficial, even if it tastes or feels good for a moment. Then, it’s gone too. Impermanence and change are becoming beneficial components of life. Nonseparation and moderation are becoming satisfactory aspects of experience. With diligence and expanded capacity to live with reality as it is, rather than the way I want it to be, I am healing. This is daily practice, beyond 30 days, beyond the New Year’s resolutions, beyond a wish for things to be better. This is now, the quality of life, and not just mine. With practice, over time, joy may develop naturally as I realize aspects of reality my mind can’t imagine yet. Small mind is becoming my functional friend in active living practice. Thank you, mind. Thank you, body. Compassionately, lets continue forth. Gently, relax, there’s no other moment than now.

Birthday Expectations – Busted

I’m thinking that it’s a birthday like this one I’ve just had that starts to get people to not like them, rather than the age itself.  I mean, hey, at least for a while, I’m embracing aging, nothing I can prevent, just live the best and healthiest that I can to enjoy the years that I have.  So, aging is not my concern here with my new grand 27 completed years on this little rock of a planet hurtling through dark space only happening to be lit by our beautiful and searing sun.

No, my thoughts are within unknown expectations.  It’s funny how leading up, I didn’t think I had any, but now realize I was full of them.  Expecting some cool surprise in the mailbox, some fun thoughts from somebody I love from the US.  It’s funny, I did get a couple greatings and I must say they really did make me smile and enjoy that moment.  But it’s funny, well maybe not.  Because I expected a few other folks, at least, to mention a happy day or something, ya know, nice and simple.  It’s funny how it didn’t happen.  Vague at best.  Out of family, I gotta thank Mom, Aunt Martha and Sarah & Ted for thinking of me.  It meant the world to me that they mentioned it.  Because now, I can officially say that I don’t like birthdays anymore.  I feel let down and that they really don’t matter more than keeping track of how many days or years we revolve around that spectacularly toasty sun of “ours”.

I guess we have to ask for greatings if we want them.  Have our own parties and make our own calls and seek them out ourselves, as if to say, I’m special, so please agree and help make me continue to believe that I am.

Happy Birthday to me.

poem of being

more struggle
my mind is tightly wound up
and yet I cannot focus
thoughts swirl endlessly
without grounded sensibility or traceable cause
hmmmmm, <sigh>
stop averting this current state of being
relax and control nothing (Mu!*)
remember appropriate beneficial advice
forgive myself for not living up to my (and others’) grandiose expectations
slice through self-loathing, self-doubt, judgement, criticism, and limitation
on the path of healing

- – -

*

“You know Mu, the famous koan in Rinzai Zen [Master Joshu is asked if a cat has Buddha nature and he answers "Mu."] is always translated or stated in English as meaning “nothing.” This is false; this is absolutely wrong. The original Chinese character is not just “nothing,” but a subtraction from having. It means the opposite of “to have.” Do you understand? It is “to have not, to be without, to not grasp, to not cling, to not embrace, to let go,” and when you have not, you radiate outward. So you are no longer in a state where you are sucking in the world, but, because each individual person is a microcosm, there is some power, some god, some universal force that begins to radiate from the inside out. This is Chinese Mu, “Have not.” So it is not nothing. Many people sit and ask themselves—mu, mu—nothing what? NOTHING!”

Talk by Kongo Roshi

I’m finding this book I received from the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago very helpful, especially right now, in these difficult moments of being. I’m going to continue quoting the back of the book “The Diamond Sword: A Collection of Talks of Kongo Roshi.”

“Zen was the spiritual practice of the Samurai, the warrior class in ancient Japan.”

“The Zen of Kongo Langlois, Roshi, is for the warrior of the twentieth century—the professional, laborer, domestician, or student, facing the frenzied turbulence of modern life.”

“Roshi says that we must recognize, as did the Samurai, that the true enemy is our own insecurity and self-doubt. Thus, the warriors in our culture need weapons not to overcome others, but to overcome themselves. Zen is the spiritual practice that addresses this fundamental human challenge. The spiritual blade of zen, zazen meditation, seeks out and cuts away out own confusion and fear.”

“This collection of talks is intended to both instruct and inspire those who would take responsibility for themselves and work to solve their own problems.”

Gratitude, I greatly appreciate this independent publication.

breathing through…

On Monday evening, after the Heaviness post of Sunday, I got acupunture treatment at a local clinic. They were able to diagnose me with blood deficiency and low spleen/pancreas qi with gall bladder sensitivity.

On Monday morning, I wrote in my journal and came up with a new personal way of mental attunement and attitudinal change. Think of a switch with positive and negative poles. If I come to awareness and realize my heavy, lethargic, stressful, rigid state of being, then, I can switch to the positive pole (at least mentally).

Interestingly, causally, after I “switched” to the positive pole, I thought to go to the clinic to further my healing process of the body. Learning that my main problem is seemingly blood deficiency, many new connections are consciously revealed to me!

• A mediocre vegetarian diet is causing my blood deficiency through the lack of B12 and other blood building nutrients like iron, vitamin C, and folic acid.
• Blood deficiency is likely causing my lethargy and significantly contributing to my mental and psychological difficulties.
• Stress and worry further complicates and inhibits the healing process, though is also a profound sign that problems exist in the body.

So, now, Wednesday, I am still lethargic and tired, though my mood has improved through a faithful kind of shift of being. I must continue breathing through this situation and maintain the switch toward PMA. I have things to learn and try to improve my health and wellbeing, which is a comforting and positive situation.