I sometimes pencil in alterations to books I read when I come across something not to my liking. I came across this story in a Buddhist book that I had previously made an alteration to because I didn't like how it ended: 

Saraha was in retreat with his wife, a young woman of awakened insight. At one point, he asked her to make a radish curry. While she was preparing it, he went into an extended samadhi. The radish curry went bad, and his wife threw it out and waited. Saraha remained in samadhi for twelve years. When he finally emerged, he asked his wife, "Where is my radish curry?" She replied, "For twelve years you did not rise from your samadhi. Where did you think it would be? The spring has long since passed, and radishes are no longer in season." 

Saraha retorted, "Fine! Then I will go into the mountains to meditate!" His wife countered, "Mere isolation of the body is not true solitude. Removing oneself from mental concepts and judgments is the highest solitude that one can attain. Although you dwelled in samadhi for twelve years, you have obviously not been able to separate yourself from the mental concept and judgment of 'radish curry.' Since that is the case, what possible benefit could there possibly be in going into the mountains?" 

Upon receiving this instruction from his wife, we are told, Saraha abandoned concepts and judgments and put into practice the primordial nature. In so doing, he attained the supreme siddhi of mahamudra and was able to make himself the most useful to sentient beings delicious radish curry. 

I tell myself these are ancient stories, lore of great value and teaching and I can't just go change them for my own liking. But as humble I try to lower myself, I like my ending better. on multiple levels.

WordsCharactersReading time

WordsCharactersReading time

I'm trying to not get paralyzed, confused and directionless by the discord in my psychology. It's annoying. For the past few months I've been letting myself get too wrapped up in worldly affairs, letting them get to my head and my ego, when ultimately those things are of the nature of "none of my business".

The root of the mess in the U.S. is obvious, so much of it could've been prevented or managed by strong, clear leadership. There's no use trying to sum it up beyond that or analyze it or even express anything about it. No one cares. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and thinks everyone else's stinks. There's a lot of suffering and it would be good to be compassionate about it, but there's also a lot of stupidity which makes compassion a challenge. And it's none of my business.

On this side of the world we have the China evil. There's too much to say about that so I won't even bother. I've been saying too much in YouTube comments, which I know is a stupid thing in itself to do, but fortunately nothing I've said has gotten any response so hopefully none of it was read. I only posted analysis supporting or supplementing something specific in the video where most comments are the typical and predictable rhetoric and vitriol against the CCP, which is fine and good in showing how much support there is against them. Still, none of my business.

But posting comments on YouTube is stupid and I stopped, mostly because I realized whatever I have to say is coming from a place of Big Ego. Is what I have to say sooo important? Stop. Actually I've been doing an affirmative anti-ego practice of drafting comments if the compulsion arises and then deleting them after asking if it's something that really needs to be said (almost never). The Big Ego makes me think I have something to express, but then I slap it down and that time I spent was wasted; the price of being tempted by Big Ego. That is my business!

As offensive an affront as China's CCP has unleashed upon the world amid the pandemic they themselves started, their domestic situation has been worse! Relentless rainfall and massive flooding, droughts and locusts (read: Biblical) wiping out crops, threats of a dam collapsing that could kill millions, grain stores rotting and the threat of famine, skies in Beijing turning dark as night in the middle of the afternoon, snow in June, large coronavirus-shaped hail falling, dogs and cats mating, not to mention the political arena of reports of concentration camps to wipe out the Muslim Uighur population in northwest China and reports of live organ harvesting finally reaching the west and being accepted as credible, internal power struggles and rampant corruption in the Communist Party . . . I'm telling you, this is what you're missing if you're not following the China YouTube channels* and I'm hardly scratching the surface!

But just the natural disasters besetting China, some people mentioning the Mandate of Heaven being lost (a Chinese history thing), others claiming God is angry at China or that the apocalypse is nigh. But really, it is hard not to view the natural disasters happening all at once in China as not being supernatural. If there is supernatural attribution, I would imagine it not being God, but decades of Tibetan lamas who were tortured and murdered in Chinese prisons. High-level lamas who "decided" to delay reincarnating, and remain in the bardo in-between states to try to enact change on earthly realms. That can't be considered lightly. I imagine it would be extremely difficult for the spiritual realm to directly affect the earthly realm. The spiritual realm is energy, the earthly realm matter. We already know how difficult it is to convert matter into energy (E=mc²) but we can do it. Energy to matter? It would involve massive amounts of energy for even small effects, but I play with the idea that's what the lamas have been trying to do for decades (in human time frames), trying to concentrate energy to have physical manifestation in the world in the form of unleashing natural catastrophe upon China. It doesn't violate vows of compassion because it recognizes the need for extreme suffering by ordinary Chinese people for there to be change. It's not revenge or anger, but recognition of the need for suffering towards a compassionate goal. My mention of physics is a joke, not even a "stranger things have happened" consideration. Just an analogy of an idea.

Ultimately for me personally, these are all earthly, worldly matters that fall completely in the sphere of "none of my business".

* China Uncensored (sarcastic and snarky but serious) Hearsay that companion channel is pro-Trump.
NTD - China in Focus (the most mainstream-style news) Turned into a pro-Trump channel at elections, i.e., unable to maintain objective reporting.

Crossroads with Joshua Phillipps (good analysis into what's going on with certain news stories) Realized it was an egregious and shameless pro-Trump channel when he defended Trump as "not a racist" and that he was merely taken out of context.
China Observer - Vision Times (good analysis and including historical context) Nope, pro-Trump/conspiracy theories

WION (India-based international news currently covering a lot about China because of the China threat)

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.

Actually, my iTunes collection broke the 20,000 files mark recently. Last month let's say. I've mentioned benchmarks I've broken in the past and thought about mentioning 20,000 when it happened, but it's actually a bit of a conundrum I'm a bit conflicted about. Who am I kidding? It's a total mess. 

You can never have too much music, I recently heard someone quip.

I disagree, you can. I do and I can describe what it means to have too much music. It becomes a total mess. It's such a mess I don't think I can describe how it all happened in any sane, rational-sounding way. Basically I'm a serial music chaser and hoarder, and it's pretty much gotten out of hand. The main basic problem is that there is a ton of music in my collection that I deem excellent – music that comes up on shuffle play and I don't have any thought of removing it – but I don't really "know" it.

It partly hearkens back to the regrettable hard-drive dumps circa. 2009-10. I think my brother had given me a 500 GB external hard-drive, and the brilliant but misguided idea dawned on me to hook it up to various music-loving friends' (I had friends?) computers and let them transfer whatever they deemed worthy onto it. I got a lot of music that way, and, mind you, everything got reviewed before I put it in my collection, plenty of what they gave didn't make it. And a considerable amount eventually got taken off despite my initial approval.

And I'm not even going to talk about Limewire* and K-pop, except to say without K-pop, those hard-drive dumps may have been manageable. K-pop probably makes Limewire look like a drop in the lake. Let's just say that since breaking 20,000 files recently, it's already up to 20,117. No more than a handful of files are added every three days in my very geeky system of listening and adding, but it's a constant drip-drip that has been going on for years.

Years of constant process has led to this collection of over 20,000 files, most of which I think deserves to be there, but quite a lot which I don't really "know". I think it's good, I like listening to it, but I don't know a whole lot about them. How many albums does that band have? Name some. Name one. Name some of their songs. Name one! Band members' names? My answers would be woefully deficient. Do I consider myself a fan? Using the criteria of bands I'm very much a fan of, I'd have to say no.

Then what the hell are they doing in my collection? Would I even notice if they were removed? Why don't I get rid of them? It doesn't work that way. Easier said than done. He hit me first. And I am constantly vigilant for files to remove. I have two folders named "Removed from iTunes" and "Removed without prejudice" (I'm a hoarder, I rarely delete files permanently). The "without prejudice" is a borrowed legal expression and that folder is for music I removed for whatever reason I felt at the time, but it wasn't because it's bad (and could theoretically be reinstated because it was removed without prejudice). The criteria for removing files is ever-shifting and is usually done spontaneously.

I think I just hit the geek-overload point in this post which demands that I cease and desist. It's such an over-bloated, neurotic mess that would cover topics such as my hoarding history, my listening habits/procedure, the growth of K-pop over the past 10 years, the "great unlistened wasteland" in my iTunes collection, etc., etc. It isn't pretty.

Needless to say, none of this is any big deal. It really doesn't occupy a whole lot of mental space, and despite trying to come up with strategies and criteria to trim down cull swaths of my collection, it's more of a background mosquito consideration. In the meantime I'm enjoying the listening, I'm hardly suffering. Except in the Buddhist way that I'm still acting out a delusion, which has karmic implications if I'm attached in any way. I don't think I am, or I tell myself I don't think I am. I'm aware this is just games I'm playing with myself and anything can change in a heartbeat and none of it will matter. Even the way I listen to music is heading towards obsoletion. What did I do before iTunes and iPods? What did I do before iPod Shuffle for that matter? What will I do after my iPod Shuffles die? I'll adjust. And breathe a sigh of relief.

* It's just a matter of time when no one will remember Limewire. It was a Napster-like file-sharing service that was widely used for downloading music, but almost immediately forgotten once it got shut down for copyright reasons. No mourning, no despondence. No nostalgia. It was great when it was there, no one cared when it was gone. Like my life, lol!! (I was thinking that had to be a metaphor for something🤣).

I've been looking for that passage from one of my Theravadan Buddhist books I mentioned about alcoholism being about chasing a sensation. I found something close*, but it was about addiction and didn't use the word "chase", which was key to me. I'm starting to wonder if that actually might be the passage, and what I found so inspirational was how I formed it for myself in my mind. I'll keep looking, I don't think it was an inspired idea but a direct read.

That "chase" is important as a mental concept because it emphasizes the willful pursuit aspect of alcoholism. I know alcoholism is now considered an insidious and complex illness that requires treatment, but that's not my field and I don't know anything about it. From a mindfulness practice aspect for my purposes, it's filtering all that out and focusing on the chase, the willful pursuit in the moment.

I've been applying mindfulness practice to drinking to locate that sensation, that breaking point where the lure of another shot and another shot becomes irresistible. It isn't there at the first drink. It takes a few drinks for it to appear, and mind you I sip through shots; about four sips a shot. It's been years since I've shot my liquor, well-named I daresay, brutal and violent. Fuh yuh uh quick. Sipping shots is more demure and dâinty. That's me.🌷

That actually does help with the mindfulness because it spreads out or breaks the effect into increments, and the first indication that the chase sensation is kicking in is when the time interval between sips noticeably shortens. Resistance falters and that's when I mark the sensation and I know if I let go and cross the threshold I'll officially be chasing the sensation, sliding down the slippery slope. It manifests in manifold ways that I won't get into, but needless to say involves more alcohol intake/sensation chasing until I either brush my teeth and go to sleep or get out of my apartment for the day, both of which likely involve final "one for the road" drinks to satisfy the sensation, but is usually never a good thing. OR I mark the sensation and mindfully remind myself that to continue leads to "feeling bad", and if I heed that I can then stop. 

I'm also trying to force myself back onto the buying-a-bottle-every-three-days schedule, instead of every other day. I'm not trying to stop, I don't care about that. If I'm drinking enough to be considered alcoholic, yippy-da-doo-day. I'm just trying to manage a schedule to avoid feeling like crap, whatever that means. I know it when I feel it. So I've saved two empty bottles and when I buy a bottle, I dole the fifth into thirds and those are roughly the three days portions. Imagine my horror when I saw how little that is. I felt I could chug that and still see straight. But it's only a guideline serving restraint, a self-warning. Buying a bottle every three days never meant that's all I drank. That's why I have a tiered system of reserve bottles, because I always finished a bottle by or on the third day and dipped into the reserve bottle. It's anal, neurotic alcoholism.

* An addict takes a drug because he wishes to experience the pleasurable sensation that the drug produces in him, even though he knows that by taking the drug he reinforces his addiction. In the same way we are addicted to the condition of craving. As soon as one desire is satisfied, we generate another. The object is secondary; the fact is that we seek to maintain the state of craving continually, because this very craving produces in us a pleasurable sensation that we wish to prolong. Craving becomes a habit that we cannot break, an addiction. And just as an addict gradually develops tolerance towards his chosen drug and requires ever larger doses in order to achieve intoxication, our cravings steadily become stronger the more we seek to fulfill them. In this way we can never come to the end of craving. And so long as we crave, we can never be happy. - The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka, William Hart, p. 46.

This passage is more about the dharma view of craving as an affliction, which applies just as much to shopping, rather than the affliction of sensations we chase, pleasurable or not, such as alcohol.

Mindfully paying attention to my drinking, I confirm it has ticked up. Not sure how I feel about it, I don't want to overreact. On one hand, it's bad. It does feel bad and I'm not sure I can do anything to reduce it; i.e., not sure I have the motivation to reduce it. On the other hand, that's just what my drinking does. It waxes and wanes. Sometimes I drink more, sometimes I drink less. I'm drinking more now, in time I'll drink less, attsamattafayou.

I do feel it. Mind gets taxed, bodily feel bad, wiped out after drying out. Where I'll draw the line is if intestinal problems return. That's weird. So that's where feeling bad bottoms out? I can accept all those "higher levels" of feeling bad? It's still feeling bad, but I can accept it? This conundrum may be an example of what some Buddhist teachers describe as the burning mental fires. The best said example is that when kids accidentally put their hand in a fire, they learn their lesson and never do it again. But as adults, we're constantly burning our minds doing painful and harmful things, but sometimes we never learn our lesson. So this is exactly an issue Buddhism deals with and somewhere I've missed a memo and need to focus on and figure out.

There's a passage in one of my Theravadan Buddhism books that I'm trying to look up about alcoholism being about chasing a sensation. Identifying and viewing the effects of alcohol as a sensation we're chasing resonated as something that could be helpful. It becomes fodder for analysis and mindfulness practice. What is the sensation? Why am I chasing it? Why is it so hard to resist one more drink, and then one more and then one more? I totally get that part about the sensation. There are times when I'm getting ready to go out and I worry that I don't have that sensation, that feeling that . . . it's not that I'm not drunk enough to go out, but I want to have drunk enough to have that sensation before going out.

Maybe I'm just splitting hairs and what I'm describing and analyzing is that I'm just like any other stumbling, slurring alcoholic. I can go on and on about this and in the end, someone will say 'get in line, yer just another drunk'. 

Oh, and I looked up what I mentioned about my skin itching and welting and it is a thing called dermatographia, skin writing. The article describes it exactly  down to not seeking medical attention because it doesn't seem too bad and goes away soon. The only thing it doesn't mention is cortizone cream as a topical treatment. The article mentions that it is triggered in some people by "infections, emotional upset or medications such as penicillin". I don't think I've had an infection in decades, nor medications. Emotional upset it is, lol! Bottom line, doctors don't know what it is. Story of my life.

I was wrong about the two previous posts not needing to have been writ. They were actually helpful. Sometimes you need to go some place to realize it's not a place you want to go. Oh. That's kinda the story of my life.

The conveyor belt/treadmill metaphor was useless, albeit accurate, but realizing that still requires formation of some other paradigm. New paradigm. Different paradigm. What was wasn't working.

Nothing should be comfortable about my existence, considering how it has to end. Well, how it has to end for all of us, but trying or pretending to choose to in my case. Itsa big difference. For people in general, we all have to die but that's no reason to not get comfortable about existence as much as we can. Let it come when it does. Don't go where you're not invited until you're invited.

For people like me with the realization of death as a focus, there is no getting comfortable with existence. Death is a reality that can't be put aside because putting it aside is ignoring the obvious, and existence is by nature uncomfortable because it's fleeting and needs to be explored and understood as such. Maybe that's what the great adepts were getting at. Maybe they were as bad at it as me. Probably not.

I'm thinking I have to tap into sadness and despair, not as emotions but as concepts, which is a bit ironic since Buddhism teaches to do away with concepts. In this case, the concept is a tool in furtherance of doing away with concepts. Which in many ways is exactly what many Buddhistic methods necessarily are.

Sadness and despair are useful in that those are the normative emotions, tools, concepts that ordinary people avoid or are given as reasons or explanations for suicide. But I'm not ordinary, I'm not necessarily suicidal, it's just what I want to do and will eventually have to do since that's the way I set my life up. Not being suicidal makes it hard to commit suicide. Tapping into sadness and despair just as concepts, and not as the things humans generally attach to as real and things to avoid, can help. 

There's a lot of blurring that goes on. All the beauty in the things I love and appreciate become sadness and despair because they are fleeting. They won't last no matter how much I want them to be loved. Dig deep and deeper into those emotions of love and appreciation and they become sadness and despair because they all come to pass. It's still love, and joy is still joy, laughter is still laughter, but they take on more dimensions, they become multi-faceted. Anger is no longer a feeling but an energy that's pretty useless and can be stopped when recognized as an energy. Lust is no longer some base animal impulse for desire and self-gratification, but a very powerful energy that is very useful if controlled. Despair and sadness don't mean depression. Everything starts getting transformed in practice.

I don't know when it will be time, I don't know how others knew it was time, but I've come to imagine it's a full-body realization. I've never had that before. I used to talk about being at 100% or getting to 100%. As a full-body realization, I doubt I've ever been near 100%. I won't project on what I think I was, I may have never even been 1%, I may have gotten to 80%, I just don't know myself that well. 

Why am I still here, alive? The question has started to almost haunt this month, arising in my mind, whispering in my ear with everything I do. I ask it of the universe during morning sitting and to send me something I could interpret as a sign. Like a winning lottery ticket. It might not quite answer the question, but as signs sent by the universe go I wouldn't complain too much.

August last year I was hoping to hop off the conveyor belt of routine that took me from day to day in furtherance of getting to my goal of exiting this illusory existence. Not only was that endeavor a complete failure, but the conveyor belt has morphed into a veritable treadmill. I have no responsibilities; no job, family or friends to whom I'm accountable, yet every day is filled with inconsequentialities that make me feel I don't have enough time. It's totally neurotic.

At the same time, there is no "haunting". There is neither conveyor belt nor treadmill. Those are mental formations and descriptions that only describe assumptions about reality that can't be assumed; the illusory life. It's just neurotic.

"Neurotic" is a word that I've noticed popping up quite a lot in my Vajrayana readings the past few years, referring, I gather, to our conditioned thinking, reactions and behavior. Basically, a vast majority of our thoughts and behaviors are pretty much neurotic, with not just a hint of irrationality implied. Perhaps from a pure Vajrayana point of view, whatever that is, all. If we're mired in treating reality as it's presented as absolutely real, all of our reactions and interactions are neurotic. It's irrational to treat reality as presented as definitively real, solid, permanent. But that's a little extreme since only a slight percentage of humanity has been exposed to Vajrayana teachings and even a slighter percentage, including real Vajrayana practitioners, whoever they are, would consider all of their conditioned thoughts and actions as irrational.

A larger slice of humanity have family, and therein lies the low-hanging fruit to demonstrate how afflicted we are with our neuroses. We can choose our friends and form our social tribes who understand us better and who don't step on our every last nerve, but go home to blood family for the holidays (I'm no where near them, mind you) and see how fast you become neurotic about various things they say, do, imply and/or insinuate. With our friends, it may be to a lesser degree, but it's there. I'm here alone with neither friends, family nor acquaintance and the neurotic is totally right here, front and center.

I'm trying to start working on lessening my neurotic. Emphasis on the 'try' and 'start'. I haven't even started, and I'm only trying to do that. It's not enough to know myself that it's nutty and irrational. I already know it and that's not doing anything. It's not cognitive. I'm searching for the starting point.

For years I've been working on myself to reduce negativity and confront internal anger issues. It's ongoing work, but I think I can feel alright about being a lot better than I was. It's not like I was a gloomy Gus or a hair-trigger rager. It's in my personality to give and take my share of laughter and I don't think anyone would describe me as a particularly angry person. My bar for anger or negativity is pretty low, though. I don't want any of it; it's all bad, shut it down. As soon as I recognize it, it's *stahp!*. That happens all the time.

Those techniques were Vajrayana-inspired, if I dare say so, but a good deal of it was cognitive mindfulness, watching the energies and processing them to cognitively transform them rationally. Working on transforming neurotic obscurations is a lot trickier since they are by nature to some degree irrational. Rationalization isn't going to help because I already know they're irrational, yet freely maintain them.

I appeal to the energies to help purify or clear obscurations – karmic obscurations, negative obscurations, neurotic obscurations. The energies are the many intangible things about us, but subjectively verifiably real. All thoughts and feelings are energies, but feelings are more potent. I think we think of feelings as things that just happen and pass, but recognizing them as energies makes them something to tap into to enact change on subtle levels. 

Anger is a favorite example. If when angry we can stop being angry for a second and examine the feeling, it's an energy. You might even be able to locate where the energy is in your body. Once you stop and examine it and recognize it as an energy, . . . well, you've already just stopped being angry and you're in new territory. It's now a lab experiment and you can go, oh yea, there it is. What's it doing there? I don't like it. It feels bad. That's how it starts getting transformed. 

Sexual energy I've mentioned before as possibly the most potent human energy, but working with it requires a high level of discipline, removing all animal aspects of it and any idea or conception of desire, lust, attachment, self-gratification. Focus on just the energy aspect of it. Very difficult to do, but the same principle applies. When the energy arises, arousal, you stop and identify it and try to get to the point where you realize desire is not what you want. Lust is not what you want. Attachment is not what you want. Self-gratification is not what you want. Needless to say, spouse, house, mortgage, rug rats, etc. are not what you want. It's not about sticking your dick in someone else or someone sticking their dick into you. They may seem to be what you want, but where does it get you? If those are what you wanted, fine, you're there. If you're trying to get beyond it, then you have to realize they don't get anywhere and they're not what you want. I think I've said too much already. But it doesn't take too much to recognize that feeling as a very potent energy. Surprisingly it isn't located where one might obviously think, but activates the entire central energy channel. Oh, and the energy is subjectively pleasing. That's alright for some reason! There's no throwing out the pleasing aspect as something you don't want, but there's still no attachment and no object of pleasure. It's more like a communion or oneness of masculine and feminine energies.

This is not Vajrayana. It's my own personal voodoo. It might even be psychological self-brain washing. I don't know if the results I've noticed are an actual result of practice, or the obvious result of concentrated, psychological mind power. But even in Vajrayana practice, I think, whatever methods, techniques or visualizations are used, whatever deities or dakinis are entreated upon, it is emphasized that any results stem from not any outside source. Whatever outside source used is just oneself, and there's no separation from the self and the "outside" source. 

I was watching a dharma talk by a Tibetan lama on YouTube and during the Q&A, someone asked whether the dream state produces karma. I quickly intuitively answered out loud, "no", and then the lama matter-of-factly responded, "oh yes" and I quickly changed my answer to "yes". Not just because he said yes, but once he said yes it was easy to realize yes and why. So much for intuition.

My error was in too closely aligning karma with action and there is no acting per se in the dream state. If you can't act, you can't produce karma. That's wrong. Karma is rather the mental impression of all experience. Karma creation is the mind being impressed (seeded) with stimulus and karma manifestation is the form the impression takes through action when causes and conditions arise for it to manifest (germinates). That can and does happen in the dream state.

That night I had a dream that put not too fine a point on it. I don't quite remember the dream; a situation including my mother being in town and calling to ask to meet earlier than we had agreed and suggesting what I could do to make it earlier and that not sitting too well with me. I woke up and was able to identify various emotional reactions in the dream indicative of how my mind is karmically impressed. 

I remember feeling pressured. I remember being anxious, stressed, resentful, resistant. Those aren't things I feel these days in the physical world, possibly/probably/obviously/definitely because I've engineered my life to avoid scenarios whereby those feelings would arise and challenge me. I can brush off external pressure and anxiety. I can fool myself into believing I don't get stressed or anxious anymore because of mindfulness practice, but in the dream, there they were.

The key about karma and transformation is, of course, how you react to and handle situations (stimulus) that arise. The usual way of living life is thinking we are simply separate, individual agents accepting reality as it's presented. We have our experience and our feelings and we accept them exactly at face value and we react to them and outside factors in the myriad ways we do, generally unmindful that karma is at work at every moment and with every thought and feeling.

Part of mindfulness practice trains the mind to pay close attention to every moment and thought and realize how we perceive and react is karma. Collectively they are not isolated or separate incidents, but part of a continuum having come from something in the past and lead to something in the future. It works on the subtlest levels. If you're thinking about something and change your mind, that's karma. What you were initially thinking about was already karma, but then something from the past made you change your mind. It didn't come out of the blue from absolutely nowhere, and what you changed your mind to may influence something in the future in ways you wouldn't notice. The idea of being able to change your mind is karma. If you're the kind of person who finds it hard to change your mind, that's also karma; that came from something. These small karma examples can be translated up to bigger things in our lives, personalities and psychologies.

Experience is important for transformation. Dreams qualify. My attitude in my present world and avoiding those situations may be totally fine and acceptable in working to change the karma in the future. It is also karma. Being neurotically avoidant isn't great, but I don't think that's necessarily what I'm doing. Not that I have a great argument against that. But it does allow me to work on cultivating attitudes and perspectives to deal with difficult interactions with people in the future, whether this life or further on. It's not like I'm not challenged at all, after all I am who I am and the challenge is always here. My situation allows me to mull over interactions and cultivate best courses of action instead of being thrown into them for reals and failing by reacting with anger and negativity.

The ideal is to become a person who doesn't automatically react to negative stimulus with anger and negativity. There are people who are like that, I shouldn't wonder, where such a reaction is totally foreign. That's a great way of being. It's a wonderful way of being to always be able to see the light side of situations and laugh things off; to not groan about how I've got the practice all wrong, but to laugh and make light of my errors and set me straight. At the very least in that dream, I felt those karmic seeds that I no doubt have, but I didn't react. I didn't snap in anger or say anything snide or sarcastic. I think I didn't say anything, which is a good neutral starting point.

I dabble in Vajrayana. I don't claim to practice it. I'll impose on myself from what I've read that if I don't have a guru, I'm not practicing Vajrayana and whatever "dabbling" I'm doing, I hope I'm respecting that. On the other hand, there are many books now expounding upon Vajrayana and its teachings. Perhaps they are just teasers to encourage people to find and follow a guru? I don't know, I've come across a lot of what seem to be substantive teachings.

But I get it, the personal touch of a guru (not the type in recent scandals reported). For even substantive teachings written in books, ideally a guru could go on at length about any, and teach how they should be practiced and even tailor specific instructions for an individual. But I haven't met any such guru and I don't think finding a teacher is something that's going to happen in my current lifetime.

Instead I'm going by my own intuition. And intuition vs. guru, I wouldn't bet on intuition, but it's all I've got. Anyway, according to the Mahamudra view of Vajrayana that I've read, whatever path I'm on and whatever I'm doing on it, that is my path. It might be flawed, it might not be ideal, but if I understand it as my path and treat it as such, I can still learn. A teacher might groan laugh in exasperation, "that's not what that teaching means". Well, then I'm just fucked, ain't I?

I'm currently re-reading a book that I bought . . . earlier this year or last year, I forget, and I latched onto a part regarding mandalas as an example of how intuition kicks in. Mandalas are 2-D or 3-D depictions of Buddha fields or worlds, very symmetrical and include representative characters in Buddhist mythology and various levels and positions of being. They aid in imagination and creating mental images of what's described in the literature.

The author writes:  . . . from an awakened perspective, all pain and confusion are merely the play of wisdom. And that play has a recognizable pattern called the mandala principle. If one can identify difficult situations as mandalas, then transformation of painful circumstances is possible. The mandala principle lies at the heart of Vajrayana Buddhism and is the sacred realm of the inner dakini. Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism (2001), Judith Simmer-Brown, p. 118.

She writes that all pain and confusion are plays of wisdom, and that hearkens back to the title of a book I recently mentioned, Confusion Arises as Wisdom, which I only recently started to understand as the basic thesis statement of Mahamudra. She then ties that basic thesis of Mahamudra to the mandala principle and expresses its potential.

She goes on: From a Vajrayana perspective, we live in many mandalas at the same time: our career or livelihood, our leisure activities, our family, our spiritual community, our neighborhood, town, city, country. In Vajrayana, . . .  the most intimate mandala in which we live is our own personal one, in which all of these parts play a role, adding the dimensions of our physical bodies, health, and state of mind. In each of these mandalas, there is a similar dynamic in which we do not customarily acknowledge the sacredness of every part of our circumstances, and because of this we experience constant struggle and pain. Ibid., p. 119

My reaction to passages such as this is intuitive. It's not an intellectual processing regarding whether it makes sense or if I think it's right or wrong. It's an immediate almost emotional whoosh of all reality around me suddenly becoming a mandala, a matrix that I'm navigating through in furtherance of wisdom understanding. And it makes sense to me. Suddenly my world around me is one of those 2-D mandala depictions I have on my altar, and how I travel through it is very important, guided by mindfulness and wisdom and compassion.

The body is a mandala with all its biological systems functioning and metabolizing. Mental space is a mandala with all its neurotic processing and useless thoughts and judgments. K-pop obsession is a mandala that I have to figure out what it means and that I'm not just mindlessly wasting my time in enjoyment. Family relations are mandalas. Your lover is a mandala. Everywhere I go during the day is navigating the mandala and everyone I see is part of it. And the idea of space and position, inner and outer/center and fringe, is important in the mandala visualization. Wherever I might position myself in whichever layer of mandala, there's always the other interlocking and interconnected spaces and positions. Is this getting heady? I don't know. It's how intuition takes over.

Seeing the world as mandala makes it possible for Vajrayana practitioners to drop their habitual ways of relating to events and aspects of life and to engage directly. When this is done everything is accentuated, whether it is pleasurable or painful, and there is nowhere to go. The central seat of the mandala may be a throne, but it may also be a prison cell. When we feel the inescapability of our life circumstances true practice is finally possible. Ibid., p. 120.

Well I sure hope so. Anyway, that's how my intuition works.

practice musing II: the guru, part one

I've been very mindful of the fact that I don't have a teacher, a guru, nor am I pursuing one, even though I've read many times that a teacher is considered absolutely necessary in Vajrayana. If you don't have a teacher, the path is fraught with dangers and uncertainty. These are things I accept as fact and would never go against and would parrot as being fundamental to the teachings. It's part of my self-doubt, fail-safe system against ego or any ego-driven "I don't need a guru" sensibility. It's part of the balance of my unorthodox path where I'm forging ahead on my own but won't let ego off the leash at the risk of megalomania or falling on the wrong side of delusions and dangers with which the path is fraught.

Still, I have no teacher nor am I pursuing one. I do recognize I'm solely relying on what is said in books about the necessity of a guru. It isn't something in my practical experience or intuition. I've never had the feeling that I'm stuck, I can't go on without a teacher, I need to find a teacher. Obviously I think I'm alright going about it alone for the time being and can still learn and progress; that I'm not doing too badly slogging it out on my own. I think it both has to be this way and is supposed to be this way. And this is my intuition. I think, to some degree feel, that with my current karma, my thinking and attitude, it would be fruitless to search for a teacher.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot. I'm sure there are tangible benefits of having a teacher. But on the other hand, I'm pretty confident and surprised about the things I'm getting without a teacher. There's a lot I get that I feel is karmic holdover from previous life practice; I get it because I've gotten it before. Even in the field of tantra and its focus on energies, I'm being extremely cautious and circumspect with the unorthodox practice I've developed, but I'm following intuition about something that is not intuitive. Intuitive would be taking the blue pill.

And with both tantra and Mahamudra, neither of which, despite my mentioning them, do I think I'm really practicing since I don't have a teacher, the inspirations are slow-coming, revealing themselves very gradually. These things have been years and years in the unfolding. Maybe the time makes up for the lack of guru. A guru might be able to tell I'm ripe for a practice and give proper instructions. Without a guru, I have to wait for inspiration and intuition, and still have to go through the process of figuring out a practice and doubting whether it is valid or not and developing safeguards to not overstep my ability or aptitude.

I daresay it's been a fascinating journey in itself without a guru. Again, not a point of pride or ego, just a lot of wow. Perhaps it would be even better with a guru, but that not being my current path, it's fine.

What about a worst case scenario whereby my guru were to suddenly appear and look at my practice and say it's completely wrong and I've totally lost the way? That's actually funny. I wouldn't contradict that assessment, but my path is still my path. If it's completely wrong and lost, that's part of my path. And if my guru were there to make such an assessment, then he or she is there to set me straight, no problem. Being told it's wrong is total fantasy. Unless, of course, it turns out that I'm the guru who suddenly appears and tells me my practice is completely wrong. Then it's not so funny. But still workable, I'd hope.

And I gather that's just Mahamudra right there. It's not striving for enlightenment nor cognitive over-analyzing, but looking around and realizing this is it, it's been right here all along. Confusion arising as wisdom. Wisdom arising as confusion maybe? But for me that's just scratching the surface, I'm just intellectually looking around and realizing this is it, which is different from actually experiencing it. That's what I've read. Not having experienced it, I can't personally attest to it. Then there are many more layers deep of the wisdom to unfold, even as confusion. Or even more confusing.

On the surface level, it's fine for it being even the music arising as wisdom. Listening to music has come to dominate my existence. It's totally superficial and ephemeral and meaningless, but it's still a dominant energy in my existence. If life is practice itself, then it's just practice whatever I'm doing. Even if it's something stupid as listening to music, I'm gonna suggest it's still beneficial as practice.

It's not lazy, passive listening to music for mere distraction or pleasure; turn it off and it's gone. It's focused engagement with the energies evoked and recognizing the reality in those emotions. Aural energy converted to psychic energy and manifesting as potent emotion. It doesn't disappear when it's turned off, but lingers as meditation, as reality but not permanent. If it's what makes up my existence, then it's not nothing. It's not a lot, but it's not nothing.

These are some positive spins on my practice. I know I can be accused of inventing practices and making things up as I go along based on dubious, unverifiable inspiration. That's definitely not ideal. What if everyone decided they could do that? Then I'd be a fool to do any different. Not good. I drop terms like Mahamudra and tantra just because they are what I come across while reading and they describe things I find inspiring, but I should be under no impression that's what I'm doing.

Notably lacking in my practice still are cultivating compassion, freedom and openness to the world and sacrifice. There are limits to practice when there is no human engagement and challenge. Not that I'm not working on them. Putting them down in words may make it seem like I don't have those things, but they're works in progress. As is the whole shebang.

There are two chapters of the so-called Tibetan Book of the Dead (2005 complete translation) that I've mentioned before as chapters I regularly skip when reading through the cycle. Chapter 8 (Signs of Death) and Chapter 9 (Ritual Deception of Death).

I think I may have been diplomatic about them before saying they have dubious relevance in light of modern medicine and understanding of life processes. A lot sounds superstitious and/or based on folk belief. The truth is I found them downright ridiculous. Here's an example that demonstrates what these chapters are like: . . . if one urinates, defecates and sneezes simultaneously, this too is an indication of death. (p. 157, paperback).

You can make that stuff up. I can't, but someone did unless it's true, but much of it defies verification, and there are hundreds of statements like this. Line after line of brow-furrowing "how can anyone have written or believed this?". And how was this included in a cycle of what are sometimes considered sacred texts?

Anyway, I'm reading through the cycle and got to these chapters and decided to give them a shot, and no difference in my reaction really. Reading quickly, eyes rolling, pained expressions, face palming my way through it. And then it hit me. This might be something like what's considered a "hidden text".

I read it, but I can't understand it because I haven't been initiated into practices that might open up the meaning to me. Someone who has been initiated might read the chapters and know exactly what they're talking about and it has nothing to do with the literal words on the page.

And mind you, I love the preceding chapters, I have no problem with them. Chapters 4 and 7 at times I find quite soul-stirring, but not everyone would. And Chapters 5 and 6 might very easily elicit the same reaction I had towards 8 and 9. What the hell is this shit?! That, I would say, is a reasonable outsider reaction without an understanding brought by a guide or intuition. I had no problem with those chapters because I had already been exposed to them numerous times from reading Chapter 11 (Natural Liberation Through Hearing), what before this complete translation westerners thought to be the whole Tibetan Book of the Dead. And yes I was confounded at first, but then figured out how I can interpret them personally to not have a problem with them.

I think there might be a whole tradition of hidden texts, but I know next to nothing about it. I never looked into it specifically and just sort of accepted it as a Tibetan thing. I had no problem with the basic idea. As the story goes, the Tibetan Book of the Dead itself was a hidden text. Padmasambhava wrote it in the 7th or 8th century and hid it until the 12th or 13th century when it was discovered by Karma Lingpa. Some say the physical texts were hidden around the country in monasteries or out in nature or shrines like geocaches. Some say the texts were telepathically embedded in objects or received as revelations in dreams.

OK, maybe I've absorbed more than I thought about hidden texts. It's not a dear topic, though. Or maybe all the magical mythology is something more mundane and Padmasambhava's writings were never really lost, but were limited and the few people who had access to them had no idea what he was talking about, similar to my reaction to 8 and 9. It took centuries of spiritual development and finally when Karma Lingpa came across the writings, he could understand and interpret them.

My experience with these chapters seems extreme where there's nothing unclear about the literal words, and any interpretation into something profound or meaningful would need to make quite a stretch. It might be like reading a cookbook recipe and making a dish that turns out terrible and not knowing why it tastes so bad. But then later returning to the recipe and realizing, "Oh, so that's how you change your car's motor oil". wut?

But I certainly don't think it's in the realm of the impossible. Even recently I've mentioned re-reading books that I've gotten before and was even inspired by, but having a tough slog at them this time around, going sentence by sentence and having trouble getting any of it.

This isn't intellectual understanding. If I could switch into intellectual mode I might be able to just read through them and get the gist just fine. For a heart understanding, they're not just words on a page and information. The heart must be open to understand it, and if it's not I'm not going to be able to fool myself that I'm understanding it, even if I've understood it before when I read it when my heart was open.

There's another curiosity about Chapter 8. In a section entitled "Signs of Extremely Near Death", on pp. 174-176/7, the description is not signs of extremely near death, but from everything I've read, it's literally describing the "death point" bardo/between. This is what everywhere else describes as happening once a person dies.

I've mentioned before that I think this belongs in Chapter 11 as part of the recitation for the recently deceased, and in my copy I've written in where to jump back to these pages of Chapter 8 to be recited repeatedly during the first few days after death because it seems important. It confounds me because it's such a glaring discrepancy and it's not mentioned in any of the commentary.

Those passages are also the only descriptions that aren't totally outrageous. If you're willing to have faith in these teachings, this describes what happens. It's not if such-and-such happens you'll die in 9 months, or if this happens you'll die in 5 months, or that happens you'll die in 1 month. Or if you stand naked in a field in the morning and do prostrations to the east and press your palms deeply into your eyes and then look into the sky and see an image of yourself missing a head or a leg or peeing in forking streams while doing the hokey pokey and farting, then you're already dead.

I'm gonna burn in hell.

I Dream of Jinn

So I was reading an article in National Geographic magazine. Something about the Silk Road. Something about China developing a modern "Silk Road". Something about the reporter/writer traveling it on foot. It was a casual read, killing time, being lazy not reading things of real interest. The Silk Road is of casual interest to me for what it represents and has to say about human development; anthropology and archaeology. Basically I'm saying I have no concrete context for writing this.

But I came across this passage:

In "The Exhaustive Treatise on Shadows", central Asian polymath Al-Biruni observed that jinn were "the impure parts of the erring souls, after they have been separated from their bodies, who [the souls] are prevented from reaching their primal origin, because they did not find the knowledge of the truth, but were living in confusion and stupefaction."

and a little later this:

What to do if approached by jinn on the Silk Road: "No matter what it does, no matter how frightening it is, don't panic or show emotion. Just sit down on a rock and wait. It will lose interest. It will go away".

Jinn is the origin of the word "genie", so can be broadly understood to be supernatural in nature. Even superstitious, fine. Possible phenomena beyond normal human perception, I would put it.

The author projected some of his ideas of jinn in his writing, noting certain circumstances and wondering if they were jinn at work. In another encounter mentioning that he was likely the jinn in that situation. He was interpreting jinn in his own way that he could understand, and he was open-minded about them.

"Impure parts of erring souls" I don't read as judgments but descriptions. The parts that are impure aren't necessarily good or bad, the souls that have erred aren't necessarily good or bad. They are just descriptively impure or erring, as well as possibly actually being either.

"Primal origin" is from whence we came and . . . whernce we go (the word I believe you're looking for is "whither", you idiot. -ed.). I think the more sophisticated understanding is that they are the same place or state. The more ridiculous understanding is that we come from our parents bumping uglies and go to places called heaven or hell based on external judgment of our behavior.

The Buddhist-based description that I'm familiar with suggests the primal origin is a primordial energy state that's part of the cycle of reincarnation. A well-defined and self-identified drop of water falls into the sea and disappears until natural process create another drop of water out of the same molecules. A different drop of water made of the same stuff. Reincarnation is literally the recycling of souls. It's very green.

"Knowledge of the truth" a Buddhist might interpret is the truth of impermanence, an extension perhaps of one of its four noble truths of suffering. It's an easy lesson because we all ultimately experience it in death. When we die there is no greater expression that nothing stays the same, everything changes. But there are people whose attachments are so strong that they try to defy death and cling to some aspect of their life so much that they miss the lesson, even as they die.

"Living in confusion and stupefaction" is the way they lived their lives or their karma that preconditioned them to not be able to come to terms with death and the impermanence it reveals. That aspect of them gets stuck here as jinn. Basically ghosts.

"No matter how frightening it is, don't panic or show emotion" can be cut and pasted into parts of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and no one would even notice. In fact that's exactly what it says about the death bardos. I extend that to the living bardos. Except where large spiders are involved.

"Just sit down on a rock", well that's just meditation. "It will lose interest. It will go away".

That's great advice, I'm gonna start doing that. When negativity starts to overwhelm and I let myself get annoyed and aggravated by other people, I'm just gonna stop, get out of anyone's way and wait until my bad attitude loses interest and goes away. Jinn, ghosts, in us, out of us, as us. Discuss.

Things not as bad as I mentioned before. Negativity has eased off, but inspiration is still blah. As a fellow practitioner said years ago, "stick to your method".

It means when you've affirmed a certain method works, if things start going off, just stick to the method and it will get you back on or point you in a new direction.

It's a matter of faith, but it's faith in something that you've tested yourself. Not blind faith. It's not something pushed on you. You stop, stay calm, and let yourself figure out what the dissonance is and how to get through it.

It's actually no different from a physical training regime. Everyone is different physiologically and regimes that work for some may not work for others.

A book I'm re-reading and slogging through trying to absorb again is Happiness by Matthieu Ricard. I had no trouble with it before. I've even considered much of it obvious in a re-affirming way.

I've considered much of it obvious in a re-affirming way even though happiness is not a consideration for me. Happiness is not a goal for me, nor is it even possible. But I got what he was writing about.

It's still a meditation. Even if it isn't practically attainable, much less something to pursue, happiness is worth contemplating and analyzing. I mean even living an ordinary life, there's the Tibetan saying that everyone strives for happiness, but so many act in ways that curtails it.

And I'm not living an ordinary life. My life has always been all about multiple layers of sabotaging it and any happiness that may accompany it. It also hasn't been about being miserable, so there's that dissonance.

In re-reading "Happiness", I recognize that everything he's saying is right, but it doesn't apply to me. I don't fit into any of his descriptions or examples or metaphors or parables. The paradigms are normative, and I have no idea what to say after saying something like that.

The paradigms are normative. So what? I'm outside the paradigms of an accomplished monk who has translated for the Dalai Lama? Maybe, his writings are obviously for a general audience, but it's still dissonance. Stick to my method.

What do I do in my daily life to promote happiness? In my daily life, I distract myself a lot with entertainments. That's not happiness. I avoid suffering. That may be as close to what I can conceive of as happiness.

Various levels of contentment. If I'm not suffering physical ailments, I consider myself happy. But that's defined as a negative, an absence. I really, really, really enjoy listening to music. But that's not happiness. It's temporary enjoyment.

Needless to say, the bottom line is that I have no idea about "happiness". It's not a pursuit or a goal, just something to contemplate. At this point, I'd be happy to just dispel the dissonances. Still, it's not nothing. It's not unimportant. Maybe as an unattainable, it's more important to consider.

I've noticed the efficacy of mindfulness practice has broken down completely recently. It's a continuation and extension of what I mentioned in January when I first noticed something . . . off.

My mind is clouded, my thoughts are clouded, my feelings are clouded. Negativity grows and creeps and I can't stop it. I apply the practices, the visualizations, the meditations and they just aren't working.

I've been going back to the teachings in the books that have been so illuminating in the past, and sometimes I'm reading sentence by sentence with negative responses and resistance arising constantly.

It's not that I think the teachings are wrong. I read and acknowledge they are right, but my mind is resisting, making excuses why they don't apply to me now; excuses that I know are wrong and deluded, but reflect how I feel.

It may be a problem of not having a social support structure; no community, no friends, no family. Even hermits living in caves have benefactors who check up on them and deliver food and supplies as necessary. Even hermits are not as nothing as I am in my current existence. They are especially not nothing.

Maybe weather, winter blues, is a contributing factor. If it's raining, if there is no sunshine or shadows it's just such an easy excuse to stay holed up except to get out for alcohol. Not even food that much as I'm never hungry anymore. Whatever sparse nibbles I have in my room are enough to not want to eat.

It's not that I'm giving up on mindfulness practice. Morning sitting is still the most important thing I'll do for the day. Occasionally I'll take a break day, but for most part, even if I wake up and don't feel like sitting, by the time I'm vertical I'll be preparing for sitting. Actual break days are often justified by physical health conditions that actually manifest.

Besides, I know from experience that the teachings work. If they're not sinking in just now, that doesn't mean they don't work. It's far more likely that certain conditions and attitudes are preventing me from realizing them in the present moment.

I'm not worried. I'm not going to stop applying the teachings, but I expect I'll be spinning wheels until conditions are right when the sparks start plugging again. It will be of continuing importance to keep objectivity and keep just observing internally and not reacting emotionally and uncritically. That would be a waste of all I've learned.

As the saying goes, "If you're going through hard times, keep going".

email exchange

September 21, from her:

Hi Koji,

I know this is random and I'm not sure why, but while I was attending the 7-day Osesshin at Tahoma Zen Monastery this past week, it came to me to invite you to the possibility of studying with Shodo Harada Roshi. Call it intuition. Roshi leads sesshin in February, May, and September on Whidbey Island north of Seattle. If getting to Seattle is a stretch for you, he is also head abbot of Sogen-ji Monastery in Okayama, Japan  This is my first year of practice with him, and my first Osesshin after having attended Kosesshins previously. The was intense and fruitful. While my practice is relatively new, I'm happy to talk about my experiences at the monastery further if you're interested.

I hope you're well.

Much love,

Luyen

September 22, from me:

Hey Luyen,

Intuition? That was practically psychic! You know, I've always avoided teachers. I think it may be a karmic thing; either a decision I made in a past life or something my teacher in a past life challenged me to do. Don't know the reason, doesn't matter. Anyway, the more I focused on Tibetan teachings, the more I read that a teacher is indispensable. To follow the teachings, you need a teacher. And I accept that, but I also accept that I'm not on teacher quest in this lifetime. 

I don't doubt that I have a teacher (a lama from whom I may have received various initiations and empowerments), and recently I've been asking for and looking for and opening up for a sign that he or she is out there. I didn't know what I was expecting. A voice? A face appearing during sitting and going, "Boo!"? 

And then I get your message. Not that I think your teacher is my teacher, but I got the uncanny feeling that that's how it can happen. When I've gotten through obscurations to finding or wanting a teacher in a future life and I'm ready for a teacher again, the universe will out of the blue send someone to point the way. 

I mean, seriously, I didn't even know that you were involved in zen. I'm not even sure what you know about me to have sent that message. But I'd love to hear what brought you to the teachings and what you've been learning and experiencing, and what you like about your teacher and that monastery.

much love and gratitude *palms together*

September 24, from her:

Hi again Koji,

To start, I was in the middle of yaza when I was guided to pass on the invitation for you to study with Shodo Harada Roshi. The complete message was "Tell Koji about Shodo Harada Roshi. He needs him more now than he realizes." Having returned from the retreat, there was a little resistance to emailing you out of the blue with the invite, but I've had some practice in getting over my discomfort of passing on messages. Ultimately, if I can be of service to those here in this lifetime with no harm coming to myself or others, I can support this process.

Japanese zen found me. I was not and had not been actively seeking it, and there is nothing linear nor academic about my path to it. Several years ago I was guided with a WA city and phone number in a dream while on Christmas vacation in FL. Come to find out it was for a koan salon group. (At the time I had no idea what a koan was, much less what they were used for.) I was on a waitlist for a year before they opened up a second group with whom I was invited to sit with and continue to do so now.

Almost a year ago, I had another dream providing more guidance. The next morning there was an invite, from a woman in my koan group, in my email box to study with the Roshi. After some ungrounded emotional rollercoaster processing and some grounded inwardness, I settled into applying for a Kosesshin figuring it would be beneficial training to help me build energetic stamina for the bodywork I do for a living. Little did I know what was forthcoming.

A couple months later, again while on Christmas vacation in FL, my mom introduces me to an acupuncturist while we're visiting her Vietnamese Buddhist temple. After learning my name she shares that my name had been showing up recently in her dreams of Japan, and that she's to help me with my health, and any questions I may have. I'm blessed that my health has been on the upswing since I began adhering to the diet she provided for my body type. Additionally, she's been awesome with support since I've been on this path.

It was after my first full day of Kosesshin last February that I knew I had found a teacher. He made eye contact with me after kaichin and evening sutras in the kitchen and that was it. What?!?! The moment blew my mind. I hadn't even spoken with him yet when that happened. Although, when I look back, I'm sure I was being assessed all day long as I tried to quickly learn all the rules and assimilate to the monastery schedule that first day.

An interesting side note... After the acceptance of my application to attend that Feb Kosesshin (my 1st one ever) there was an email sent indicating that I was likely not to receive sanzen with the Roshi since it was a Kosesshin and one needed to attend a Osesshin before receiving sanzen. I expressed that I would be honored if it was to happen; however, I wouldn't be disappointed if it didn't happen. There was an additional response explicitly stating there was a strong sense that I would not receive sanzen when I attended. It was no matter, because I already knew unequivocally then that I would receive sanzen. This was all a bit baffling, because I truly had no idea what I was getting myself into, yet I knew not to believe what I was being told. Turns out I was an exception to the rule and did receive sanzen that Kosesshin.

As I mentioned previously, this is my first year with the Roshi, so my experience is limited. So far he's been a good and kind teacher to me, which I believe has helped me and my husband of Catholic faith ease into my experiences with Rinzai zen. As I understand from others his approach has softened over the years making him much nicer than a number of other teachers in the US. Although, I hear he is rigid and strict when in Sogenji. 

​

I've learned that no one shows up at the monastery by accident. Its amazing dynamics aren't for everyone, and it's not easy. Within the sangha, everyone is helping everyone move stuff. Experiencing a breakthrough during zazen the 5th day of this silent Osesshin, it was interesting to silently note later in the day those who saw me going through it and gave me the space to process. 

Post-Osesshin, something Roshi said to me in my first-ever sanzen plus snippets from daily Osesshin Teishos, interactions with other Osesshin attendees, and my 2nd sanzen this last go round all arose to help me put some pieces together. It was a fantastic "Aha!"moment. I'm learning, and it's why I will continue to study with the Roshi.

All in all, I'm on this amazing journey that is way beyond me. If you have any thoughts or feedback, I'm open. I do know that you were connected to a Vietnamese Buddhist monastic tradition (Thich Nhat Hahn) and that's it. If you care to share any of your experiences I'd love to hear about them. 

gassho _/\_ with love,

Luyen

By the way, this is as lovely a way to reconnect with you than I could have ever imagined. :)

October 3, from me:

Wow, I'm still trying to absorb all this. It's a great and amazing path you're on and I'm so glad and in wonder that you've gotten on it. 

I don't know if you know this, but when we met back at Oberlin some 25 years ago, I was just starting on my path and my gateway was Japanese zen. When I took classes in Japanese history and religion, I read about zen Buddhist philosophy and it was like hearing back what I was already formulating as a belief system. 

It was in my dorm room at Third World House, where we goofed off quite a bit as I remember, where I first developed my initial sitting practice. My guide was this book: http://lumsa.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/zen_mind_beginners_mind.pdf which I still highly recommend. I didn't have a sitting cushion so I sat on a pile of dirty laundry, and for incense I stole sand from the Oberlin golf course, filling an aluminum container for Ouzo to burn it in. Even 10 minutes was hard initially!

I suppose it was personal, being "religion" and all, so I wouldn't be surprised if it never came up in our discussions. But I can't help smile that it's Japanese zen that found you, Rinzai zen for that matter, and now you're throwing around Japanese zen terms like we're talking shop. No idea what "yaza" is, tho'. If you had capitalized it, I would have thought it was a town in Washington. "I was in the middle of Yaza, waiting for the light to change, when I was guided . . . "

On the other hand, I suppose you'd only assume I'd know Japanese terminology if I did mention such things back then. But back then, there was no internet and I had no idea how to pursue proper study. Even what study was. I had no idea there were monasteries in the states. I seriously thought I had to find my way to Japan, get fluent in the language, find out about a monastery and then find my way there, and then sit outside the gate until someone invited me in. That's how I thought it was done *head hits desktop*.

I did have a belief, though, back then that the universe would help me along the way. And maybe it has. Maybe roaming around teacher-less in a spiritual desert is a necessary part of my (and anyone's) path. But that's just interpretation and in my idealized vision of the path, the universe would act more like the way it has treated you to get you on the path, and it also makes me smile that it has guided you the way it has! That's some amazing shit!

Social media, internet, invitations, even dreams . . . but no, my path is the way it should be. I'm more inclined to think the Roshi's teachings are not necessarily what I need more than I realize, although it may be so on different levels, but that I needed to hear from you more than I (or you) realize. So I thank you. I was directly asking for a message and as far as I'm concerned you delivered a response when I really didn't expect one.

Like I said, I've eschewed teachers as a pattern. That's just me in this lifetime. I'm just stubbornly trying to figure it out for myself and stay open to any Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana teachings that I deem useful, and keep re-reading those books in lieu of a teacher, gleaning new insights as I get more experience. 

But all through my life there have been certain constants which make wandering in a teacher-less desert make perfect sense. There's a certain degree of destiny involved, as well as my own making sure my story ends this certain way. I don't deny there are a lot of seemingly negative elements in my approach and personality that I'm doing nothing to transform and will have to face in future lifetimes. Recently I've had indications of future lives in Korea. Instead of past life resonances, they are future life resonances. 

That all said, since you mention that you're new to this, I hope it's useful to hear that it is worth it to stick with it for the long haul. Even without a teacher, struggling to figure out what this sitting and mindfulness thing is is the only thing I don't regret living as long as I have. Even wandering in the desert, sitting every day (or the idea of it, since disruptions of varying lengths of time are inevitable) for years into decades leads to an indescribable transformation and understanding of the self and the universe, the mind and reality. Cultivating wisdom and compassion to everything and everyone surrounding is an unspeakable treasure. 

Sometimes the transformation is subtle. Sometimes even a root problem is subtle and you don't take it on because you don't recognize it, but then . . . you do. Like, for instance, anger. Anger comes up and it just happens with work, or colleagues or partners or kids, and you just accept it because that's what's happening. Something happens and you get angry, what can you do about it? 

But then you recognize it as a problem, and you become mindful of it as a problem and that you can tackle it. Mindfulness of the problem starts changing it from reality to perception and to something you can transform. Without a teacher, it took a long time for me to figure that one out. Years into decades.

There will be hard times. There has to be hard times or you're doing something wrong. But if you've found a teacher that you trust, that's a great foundation. But the teachings are more important and are always above the teacher (if the teacher is more important, it's a cult). Hearing you after only a year of practice, I'm already envious. But very, very happy for you. Keep doing good!

much love,

koji

So my father had a stroke recently. And my sister-in-law's mother died recently. Illness, old age, death are naturally occurring sufferings in life, all becoming expected if not inevitable by the big bang of birth.

What attachment do I have left with people over there? My sister-in-law at least told me of her mother's death in a mass email. Nothing after that. I've already summed up the state of my relations with my brothers and mother. There's nothing to say about my father. He might die soon, he might recover. I hope he recovers, but that's a generic sentiment; there's no emotion involved in saying that.

I was being literal when I said that I'm just waiting to die, and they know nothing about my health and they're not asking, nor would I tell. I'm still not carrying my ID with me so if I die outside my apartment, no one's going to notice for months, probably long after the authorities require my John Doe (or whatever is the equivalent here) remains be disposed of.

Personally, I just can't bring myself to care about that or any effect my not caring might have on anyone. Part of me feels this exhibits a severe lack in compassion, but even wanting to develop compassion, this isn't something I can force. It's just not there.

There's no reason for me to ever go back to New Jersey. I can't imagine them asking me to come back for some vacation and my agreeing to it.

In fact, recently I've been wondering why I never pulled a Cindy on my parents. Cindy is my sister-in-law's oldest sister. Cindy is a medical doctor, has a supportive and present husband and two sons who seem to be turning out well in a normative way.

As the story goes, several years ago the mother made a comment on Cindy's weight and something just snapped. Mind you, from what I've seen there is no issue regarding Cindy's weight. But at that point, Cindy cut off all ties and communication with her mother. It was over, done. It wasn't about her weight, that was just a trigger for something long built up between them.

My sister-in-law hasn't always been able to stay out of the cross-fire. Not too long ago, there was some celebration for one of her children and she naively invited both her mother and Cindy, who baked a cake (on top of being a doctor, she's amazing in the kitchen). Apparently she was hoping for some rapprochement without any basis for that hope, and it ended badly. Cindy simply left and my sister-in-law went on her shit list.

When my sister-in-law told me the story, I sided with Cindy. What was she thinking? Since then, I've been open about my support for Cindy. Apparently I understood Cindy in a way that the other sisters struggled with. That aforementioned incident was a matter of respect, and my sister-in-law didn't show respect for either her feelings or experience. Cindy did not go to their mother's funeral.

I, however, had my own relationship with their mother, enough to perform a recitation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead for her after I got the news. It's not a reflection of what I think about their relationship. I don't think anything about their relationship, except that I accept Cindy's subjective view of it. I understand Cindy, but I had my own connection with their mother.

I absolutely don't know anything about the relationship between Cindy and her mother or how my relationship with my parents might be parallel or analogous. One thing I would like to point out is that Cindy did owe her education and career, even possibly any social or family status, to her parents' support.

My parents cannot claim even that. The previous blowout over the phone with my parents was partly about that. I had to spell it out to them that going to law school was the worst thing that ever happened to me. In their ultra-materialistic view of the world, they couldn't even grasp that concept.

I did make a principled decision not to blame them for my going to law school and I emphasized that it was the worst decision I ever made. I don't want that blame towards them in my karma. I want it cut if possible. I take full responsibility for my own life and decisions.

I didn't put any responsibility on them that it was something they pushed on me, even though without them I would never have even thought of going to law school. If they want to accept their role, it's up to them, I couldn't care less whether they do or not. It just is what it is.

The trade off is that whatever decisions I make about my own life now, including ever visiting them again or committing suicide, I really couldn't care less about their opinion or feelings about it. People do what they do, and there are always consequences.

Anyway, with no substantive, meaningful relations with people over there, I also have to let go of my relations with myself and my past. I've left my "relics" over there, but what would they care about any of that?

I guess I previously thought of my parents' house as a repository for my past. All the stuff that meant something to me or represented something of me is there. Photographs, CDs, instruments, books. I always assumed I would die before them and what happens to my stuff is not my issue. If they felt anything about me, they could do what they please with what I left behind.

But with my father's stroke, it becomes clear that they are also nearing death, and something is going to have to be done with my "stuff". And if I outlive them, then people are going to ask me what I want to do with my stuff.

Bottom line, it's all headed for the garbage. No legacy, no future influence. No one would care about what I left behind, or wonder what it meant. The instruments wouldn't be something available to the nieces and nephews if they take up any interest in music. No one there cares about my music collection or the books that were my education about the world. And actually, neither do I.