On one hand, I play with the possibility that elements in my two previous posts are causal and related. I wrote about something I "shouldn't have" because I don't have a guru and have no idea what I'm talking about, and that could have led to repercussions. Obviously, this is speculation about phenomena not on this physical plane of existence, which would just be plain silly; albeit arguably not too far removed from psychosomatic reactions and phenomena. It's the difference between psychology affecting physical reality vs. spirituality affecting physical reality. We've started to accept the power of psychology on reality; spirituality not quite yet but perhaps in the future when understanding or assumptions are different.

On the other hand, I remind myself that the dharma is fundamentally benign and non-judgmental. Whatever I'm reading into physical reality is my own interpretation and creation and a reflection of my own (spiritual) psychology. There may easily be no actual infractions or repercussions except as tools in furtherance of the primary dharma aim, which is to cut through delusions. The potential problem is attaching to the tools and not realizing they are delusions anew.

There are stories in Vajrayana lore of dakinis or deities appearing to practitioners and scolding them for "doing it wrong" and correcting errors in practice or rituals. They may be just stories to express something about the teachings. To put it in perspective, some hypothetical storyteller or dharma raconteur could look at what I've experienced and subjectively reported in blog and be inspired to re-work it into a story about how so-and-so practitioner arrogantly created bogus meditations without a guru thinking they were methods of cutting through delusion, so some dakini or deity decided to send a warning affliction to . . . whatever; do whatever for whatever purpose. The aim of the teaching would dictate how the story is told. And who knows?, maybe the actual stories that were the sources for the lore were quite mundane. And yet it may still be taught that on other planes or aspects of existence, they are to be taken literally. It might not be either-or how the stories were created and passed down, or even how they're intended to be taught or understood.

From what I've read it appears that a fundamental flaw in my practice is that I don't have a guru, a guide, but that's an intuitive decision I've made for myself. In this lifetime I don't want a teacher, I don't want to look for a teacher, I don't think I could form a relationship with a teacher. Whatever pitfalls I encounter by going it alone I'm willing to accept as part of my path experience. And the universe goes, "Well, OK then". And the fundamental flaw is still there, but also isn't. If that's the decision I made, I shouldn't worry too much about it. I read warnings about dangers, pitfalls, spiritual damage and harm to karma on a subtle level that's hard to repair. But I don't think that's too different from the analogous things on a physical reality level – the things we do in the course of our lives that are harmful on all sorts of levels.

Also from what I've read, intent is of paramount importance in practice. If that's the case (and I have to take it with a grain of salt) I'm good with where I am with intent, acknowledging I still have faults and failings and am no where near perfect in that regard. The part where I have to add seasoning is that I once had an argument in college with a dear friend, Diem, a Vietnamese Buddhist (I wasn't calling myself Buddhist at the time, but the language Buddhism used spoke most clearly to me), over the primacy of intent. She said intent was all that matters, if your intentions are good then you are doing good. That is echoed in some of my recent readings. But for me, I thought that was naive and argued that consequence is also important, if not more important. If you do something with good intentions but fail to consider the consequence and that leads to bad results, you can't say what you did was a good act (that would be delusion). It's an old argument of nuance that was resolved by adding wisdom to intent. Good intent isn't blind, just allowing for feeling good about oneself, but includes and requires wisdom and foresight.

As for why the pain in my lower back, which I expected to go away after 2-3 days, has continued to linger is still a mystery. Is it psychosomatic? Spiritsomatic? At all related? Age related? Am I still missing something I should have learned? That probably goes without saying. The pain certainly has decreased and I'm not impeded in most things. I still can't sneeze, believe it or not. Actually, in the past sneezing has occasionally triggered the pain. My best guess is that sneezing requires healthy lower back muscles, and the way mine are now, whenever I start or want to sneeze my lower back goes, "Nope, not gonna happen" and the sneeze dissipates unrequited, disappointed, unsatisfied *sigh*. Maybe a good thing these days since if you sneeze or cough in public, people look at you to see if you look sick and might have the Xi Jinping Wuhan Panda virus.

Interesting. There is a topic of personal belief I have about Vajrayana practice, a theory actually, which is that this sort of practice, in my case merely inspired by Vajrayana but still applies, requires or involves a heightened sense of responsibility, levity or vigilance; what I've perhaps suggested as the dangers of not having the guidance and security of a guru or teacher. 

It's not a fully formed theory and I had no idea how to approach it. Basically, any sort of practice even hinting or striving for the Vajrayana level is not a laissez-faire spirituality. Personal doubt must remain high and real repercussions should be expected in case of infractions or violations. In the abstract, any idea of disrespect towards the dakini, or feminine principle, or what any human woman potentially represents, is a no-no. Just don't do it or catch yourself and stop. Obviously that's a less of an issue for female practitioners, albeit with qualifications. It's just an example.

Slightly less abstract would be something like losing one's temper. Any approach to Vajrayana practice assumes a certain level of self-control developed through ordinary mindfulness practice supported by daily sitting. Losing one's temper is not just getting angry, which is part of human experience even in Vajrayana practitioners, but it's negative energy unleashed and lashing out, getting out of control. It doesn't have to be directed at or witnessed by another person. It could happen in oneself even alone and there theoretically can be damage done and repercussions, possibly in the form of health problems or instant negative karma that brings about negative, harmful views, perceptions or even actual incidences that might not seem related, but are. Of course, there's the argument that losing one's temper does just as much damage in a non-practitioner, but there's a higher degree of awareness and responsibility of an infraction in a practitioner.

I wasn't sure about publishing my previous post. There seemed to be a risk in exposing or describing aspects of my not-Vajrayana, Vajrayana-inspired practice that I really have no idea what I'm talking about. Then promptly after posting that, I went into an unidentifiable, physiologically ambiguous physical decline (if I had more contact with people I might have suspected the Xi Jinping Wuhan Panda virus that is all the rage in global epidemic circles) that culminated in debilitating lower back pain. 

I'm no stranger to this lower back pain, it's chronic and I've experienced it sporadically for many years. But usually I feel it triggered, I feel the twinge and know right it away it ain't good and spend the next day or so with a heating pad, Advil and Salonpas menthol patches which I always have in my apartment. I'm dealing with this the same way. I'm expecting it to go away as usual, but this does feel a little different, particularly debilitated, like it has something to do with that post. Energy repercussions. A teaching maybe. 

I mentioned physical discomfort and strife and mental struggles like they were big deals, and there's no problem with that from a personal perception view. We feel what we do and if we feel it as shit, we describe it as shit. But this lower back pain puts those physical problems in the realm of annoyances and inconvenience. They weren't "I can't get up", "I can't go out" constant, excruciating pain problems. And this kind of physical pain overrides and overwhelms any perceived "mental struggles or challenges". I'm not dealing with those when I'm mentally struggling to even sit up or lie down or change clothes or put on shoes!

And debilitating lower back pain?! What if the mandala world decides to send me cancer, or a car to hit me and send me to the hospital or a major earthquake? "I can't get up/I can't get out constant, excruciating pain"? Something can always come up and put that into perspective as nothing, preferable even. But this is my Vajrayana-inspired practice, so yes, it becomes a teaching. I don't mean this as a gloom and doom, it-can-always-be-worse-and-eventually-will-be post, but more of a mindfulness, preparedness post, because the opposite side of the same coin encourages positive mindsets and their power and appreciation for things as they are.

It's been about two and a half years since I had a personal landmark realization. I wrote about it at the time, but I don't think I made much of it because despite being a landmark personal realization, it also didn't seem to be a very big deal. Part of it was OK'ing for myself to just maintain my lazy status quo; no dramatics. Key ideas were about the conveyor belt of routine getting me from day to day, accepting that alcoholism was not going to kill me and cutting back as a result (somewhat), and "looming" as a requirement for getting on with my life and/or death.

Looking back, it indeed was a landmark realization that has conditioned the way I've been living my life and applying my Vajrayana-inspired practice, and it has been personally certifiable as transformative. There were struggles, successes, failures – all internal space, mind you. Swamped in karmic negativity, there was a lot of qualified positive that came out of it. 

Two and a half years that went by just like *that*; not unlike how many of the years prior in the past decade also went by just like *that*, basically biding my time, wasting my life by normative measures of the value of our lives. I don't regret any of it, mind you, as I'm not the regretting kind and I don't give a rat's ass about other people's standards. 

I'm quite happy not to be involved or entangled in anything, and I'm grateful beyond words that I haven't taken the path of relationships or, god forbid, marriage and family. My life has become just about keeping things simple, not getting involved, and just dealing with my own issues. My view of the way so many people live their lives is that they thrive on mess and complication and wouldn't know what to do without it to the point it's not only normal, but almost desirable because the mess and complication is so integrated to the pursuits of their desire. And then they still have to deal with their own issues amidst that tumult! Braver souls than I, indeed, but it's just my projection and most likely doesn't describe how they view their lives. Fine :p

My well-being and health aren't really considerations, they shouldn't be considerations when dying and/or suicide is the goal, although I've still found myself caught up in trying not to feel awful physically and avoiding discomfort. That's an attachment I haven't let go of. Dedicated seekers on the path have. On the other hand, feeling awful and physical discomfort is inevitable as a human being and I have employed Vajrayana-inspired practices when they occur. 

Instead of feeling miserable and accepting the feeling as miserable as fact and suffering as a result, investigating the sensation and the judgment involved in its "miserableness", its miserable nature. There's the sensation. I want to call it miserable. Do I really need to suffer because of it? Expanding Vajrayana-inspired mental "Buddha-fields" to understand this is all practice and my mental attitude is a reflection of how well I'm understanding "the result" aspect of practice. If I'm suffering and feeling I'm suffering and define it as suffering, then the result is that I'm suffering. If I experience physical misery but establish the result is that this is a natural condition of being human and how I live my life and treat my body, then a higher level of acceptance is possible and it's not so much an affliction to suffer but an understanding of the natural course of things. 

The mental stuff I've found is easier (who said that? did I just say that?). And I attribute this to years and years of sitting meditation and mindfulness practice. I don't think it's something you can just tell yourself "it's all mental" and write it off. But that might be what it looks like in describing it. Feelings of sadness, melancholy, depression, even waves of them. I get them in their gripping reality, they come up and mindfulness practice looks at them and goes, "what the hell you doing here?". 

I attribute much of this, perhaps, to insight into teachings on the enlightened nature of all things; the enlightened nature of mind, both the subjective perceiving/processing mind and the objective mind projected in what is perceived by our senses. It's taught over and over again in all schools of Buddhism that our nature is inherently enlightened to the point that it's intellectually meaningless (like many things zen), and requires a non-intellectual realization to push through its meaning (including/especially in zen). And once you do, a lot of the mental stuff doesn't make any sense treating it as what it seems like. 

We treat sadness, melancholy and depression as negative things that are undesirable, but that doesn't square with insight into the enlightened nature of reality and all things. To square it requires realizing those undesirable things are still a part of enlightened nature. It's the result-orientation of Mahamudra practice (as opposed to path-orientation of other approaches like zen, none of which are right or wrong; different tools for different people). Sadness, melancholy and depression are all enlightened expression when you don't attach to those concepts being what they seem to be. 

Great! Fine! Faboo! What about "looming"? I don't know. I don't know if I'm facing a reckoning in 2020 or if nothing's going to change despite the perpetual feeling that something has to. I've recently been taking to heart the saying "If you're going through tough times, keep going". Keep going and you will get through it. Just keep going. But then what awaits having gotten through it? The saying assumes an end of the tough times. For me, "getting through it" means being able to end all of this. And it's not end of tough times because of ending it all, it's a positive ending it all because of understanding and fulfillment.

I may be facing a financial reckoning, or looming, with just a few months into summer left of finances if I don't do anything. I got sick of those monetary injections into my bank account. I was begrudgingly willing as long as there were no problems, but the last attempted injection didn't go through, and I'm so sick of it that I'm unwilling to investigate why. If that didn't go through, there's no reason to believe any other will, so just stop. They were humiliating in themselves, but looking into why it didn't go through becomes desperation and defines desire to live. This is a terrible, horrible, insensitive analogy, but it's like I have cancer of the life and those monetary injections were the chemo keeping me alive. But I've gotten to the point I'm unwilling to go through it anymore. If the chemo isn't working, why keep going through with it? It's a terrible analogy, but it's my mindset.

I think I'll also attribute to mindfulness practice that this looming isn't sending me into a mental tailspin as it did before. May the Buddha-fields, the mandalas, be evermore encompassing.