June 17, 2008
undefined
A moment of nothing with you has always been my choice over a lifetime of everything with someone else. I'm not trying to fool anyone with any enlightened talk of non-attachment. The grasping is quite phenomenal, actually, but honestly I'm willing for it. That's always why this situation has been rather suspect in terms of its role in my path toward spiritual realization. Sometimes, when I look at it objectively, I feel like I could turn it around. It seems possible that I could simply choose to be in each moment with you without grasping; that I could transcend our samsaric cycle and make my choice out of some kind of wisdom. I'm learning not to ask you for a definition, and better yet, I'm learning that maybe it's better to leave things undefined.
09:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 23, 2008
interdependence
I bolted upright, propping myself up on my elbow on one side while reaching for his shoulder with my other hand. My hand slid over the fraternal twin of the sun that will forever grace my living flesh, barely visible in the requisite dim red glow that bathes my space. The contact was grounding, a wake up reminder of who this is, who I am.
All things by nature are impermanent.
This body too will be a corpse.
As we both live, both breathe, no matter what the distance between us, those suns will always have their complementary place in the universe. And someday, when we no longer live, no longer breathe, one sun, the red sun, will return to the earth while the black sun returns to the sky.
Form is emptiness, emptiness also is form.
Even formless, their complementary nature remains the same. The pieces of our universal puzzle may remain separate and independent in our confused minds for the rest of this life and those to follow but should we wake up, even for a moment, let us
regard all dharmas as dreams.
I am he and he is me and we are all together.—The Beatles
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May 12, 2008
sleeping dogs
If first impressions mean anything, I think I like you. Or at least I think that I could like you, if I actually knew you, which I don't.
I don't trust you. And I shouldn't, because again, I don't know you. Do I even want to know you? I don't know. Unfortunately, however, I don't not trust you because I don't know you. I don't trust you because I don't trust anyone new anymore.
I have absolutely no expectations in this situation. Which is good, since I may never even see you again. However, that's not the point. The point is that I feel that my lack of expectations isn't based on some kind of enlightened, go with the flow, embrace life as it happens rather than ruminating on the past or agonizing over the future kind of thing. My lack of expectations is more related to my lack of enthusiasm for life. Losing heart, we called it in Shambhala School of Buddhist Studies.
I do take some solace in the fact that I like you, at least a little bit, or at least think that maybe I could like you, if I knew you. The ability to see an opening, no matter how small, feels like a very good thing.
Turning tack, I must say that you, on the other hand, have some nerve. You, of all people, show up now? You, who occupies so much of my mind and so much more of my heart? You are always just out of my reach like a box on the top shelf; you've placed yourself at just such a distance that as soon as I feel your edges in my fingertips I slip and push you further away. I'm done climbing up onto the counter top to fetch you. You can stay there, on your shelf, safe and sound—just the way you like it. That doesn't mean that I don't love you. It just means that I'm learning to let sleeping dogs lie.
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May 6, 2008
signs
Should you meet my eyes, I'll smile at you.
How will I recognize you?
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April 8, 2008
loving-kindess quote
Unless there is loving-kindness in our speech, it is going to come out wrong.—Ayya Khema
09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
infinite
I told myself that I had an infinite capacity for kindness as well as the capacity for infinite kindness (or was it the other way around?) as I stepped out of yoga class. I wanted to text you, Robert, and tell you the same. There I was, though, walking home, returning a phone call, reading some incoming texts, relieving the nanny, looking over homework, making dinner, eating dinner, sharing some quality time with Norbu and so on, and I never sent that text. Now it hardly seems worth it. You're probably asleep there in your distant time zone, and if you're not, you should be. Will this thus suffice?
You have an infinite capacity for kindness. You have the capacity to be infinitely kind.
I believe in you. Will you believe in me until I'm ready to believe in myself?
09:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
April 6, 2008
beaver
I am torn by my desire to relax and my desire to accomplish my entire life in the next six hours before Tak arrives. I'd like to read a book and go for a run and write something that speaks of my inspiration (which would thus require that I become inspired). I want to have a sparkling kitchen floor and a clean house and I'd like to get that lasagna thrown together for later. Oh, and I'd like to fall in love and have a cuddle on the couch with my precious jewel (Norbu) and fit in a pleasant trip to the playground, not to mention speak to 17 of my most missed beloved friends on the telephone and finish the bzillion loads of laundry that I have to run in my tiny little washing machine. I suppose I shall prioritize by continuing with the laundry, starting the lasagna, and then taking off for the park if I can still muster up the energy at that point. Perhaps while Norbu's engaged I can talk to at least one of those 17 friends. That in of itself is a productive day, right? Why am I always so freaking busy? Was I a beaver in a previous life?
I have this idea that I need to go to Karme Chöling and spend an entire day circling the site of the Vidyadhara's internment with an open mind and an open heart. He spoke to me the last time I was there and I'm having trouble hearing the instructions from afar. I don't know how to make this happen. Where is my resolve? What happened to the girl that made things happen? Is she really too busy trying to manage a household to pursue her dreams? Why is the household not the dream? Why am I asking so many questions?
Breathing in, it is lasagna prep time. I'll feel so satisfied to have accomplished this task, I'm sure.
11:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
call
Yes, I called you. Maybe you won't notice my number there in your missed call log, just as you won't ever read these words.
My initial assumption was that you were either asleep or out. Now, as I write this, it occurs to me that you could have been ignoring my call. I sort of doubt that, but nonetheless I find the thought of being an intrusion to you rather saddening even though I myself was glad that you didn't pick up the phone. Yes, I called you, and yes, I'm relieved we didn't speak.
It begs the question why one might call when one doesn't actually wish to speak, doesn't it? I was about to explain that it all makes sense somewhere in the recesses of my mind but then I realized that it really doesn't. I was acting on a whim and the relief was more base than that. Seems like sticking with the raw stuff wouldn't be so bad once in a while, although it was the raw stuff that got me into so much trouble in the first place.
I told someone that was interested in me today that I wasn't interested. I became nervous afterward, wondering if perhaps I'm rejecting a good thing for the wrong reasons. I want my heart to dance and sing and to write novels and bad poetry. To bake cakes and make delicious meals and to walk in the rain without umbrellas. I want spark. I want inspiration.
Why does that bring me to be calling you? No reason, really. Where I am just reminds me of where I've been and thinking about that is a hell of a lot easier than looking at where I'm going or being here in the now (although I might consider being here in the now in the future).
12:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
March 21, 2008
stillness
Imagine a spinning top. Stillness is like a perfectly centered top, spinning so fast it appears motionless. It appears this way not because it isn't moving, but because it's spinning at full speed.Stillness is not the absence or negation of energy, life, or movement. Stillness is dynamic. It is unconflicted movement, life in harmony with itself, skill in action. It can be experienced whenever there is total, uninhibited, unconflicted participation in the moment you are in—when you are wholeheartedly present with whatever you are doing.
For most of us, however, most of the time, our lives do not resemble a perfectly centered top, spinning so fast it appears motionless. Our lives are more like a top in a somewhat wild, erratic, and chaotic spin. We know we're alive because at least we're still spinning, but we are not quite perfectly centered, and we are not spinning anywhere near full speed. We don't have as much energy as we'd like, we are not experiencing as much aliveness as we might, nor are we experiencing the peace of stillness or the joy of being.
Stillness, therefore, is a higher energy state than what we're used to....—Erich Schiffman
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March 18, 2008
cracked
This isn't really my form anymore, more for lack of time rather than anything else, and it's been even longer since I used this as a form to communicate to an actual known friend. However, Gabrielle's requirements of taste sparked a little something in me (although even as I've just begun its already evolved into something more).
I love to share things and that was certainly an aspect of myself that developed to a near obsession when I was fortunate to share my life with Gabrielle. When someone I love loves something I want to experience it, taste, discover it. I try to imagine the experience from my loved one's point of view. However, there's always been something a little special in that heart-skips-a-beat kind of way about discovering some kind of pre-existing mutual love and affection for something and that's what Gabrielle's post reminded me of. I find this rather coincidental as this is something that has been floating around in the back of my mind, mainly as I feel that I've come to a point that I've lost this, which unfortunately is to say that I think I've lost a bit of my zest for life if for no other reason than I so enjoyed that enthusiasm. One could surely argue that perhaps I've grown, "matured" past this point and am now looking for something deeper to click upon, but as sound as that argument might be I'm not sure that it's based in any sort of truth. And as I continue on, ideas coming to me as I type, I realize that I'm simply too wary to experience that kind of connection at this point in my life.
This wariness could be a good thing. A little caution would behoove me, although I fear that caution may solidify into paralysis if I'm not careful. (How ironic.) I'm not sure that I'm quite frozen yet, but I do feel numb, shell shocked. I could step on a live wire and not feel its tingle.
This [post] isn't coming from a place of dreariness. I'm just observing where I am relative to where I've been. I'd like to speculate where I'm going (because naturally those of us that have dedicated our lives to staying present in the now find everything outside of the now extremely compelling) but I can't quite muster up the energy. I've been on karma mode; I keep myself so busy that I haven't a drop of energy left over. Which reminds me, I'm exploring balance. That busy-ness might be a topic for reflection in my yoga practice (which is another spot of irony for me as yoga is one of the things that keeps me so busy).
Returning to the subject of wariness, I notice in reviewing my archived thoughts on the early part of my relationship with the ex how wise I was at the time. At some point, though, I became so attached that the wisdom could no longer flow through me. It was as if I grew a spiny carapace that held that inner wisdom so deep within that I could only experience it in an artificial way, as if I were recalling a book that I'd read rather than touching in on something that was inherent in my being like Hennifer remembering her childhood through images and relics than through her actual memories.
I was the world's worst science partner to my dearest best friend, but I do have some memory of the class. I recall there was an egg once that had been soaked in vinegar or something so that it still had the shell but was no longer hard. I believe that is what has become of my carapace; I haven't shucked it off but its in the processing of softening. Perhaps, then, this is a time for proceeding with caution. Someone dropped that egg. Soft and pliable though it had become, it still cracked.
(Too tired to proofread. Read at your own risk. Should have placed this disclaimer at the top, eh?)
P.S. I'm really sorry that I bailed on you in science class, J. I can only assume that my absence served to boost your grade, though, since I didn't do any work and always had you coming into class late from our lunches of Spaghetti-O's or Cocoa Puffs. Oh, and while I'm at it I should apologize to my father. Dad, I'm really sorry that I made you drive me to school in the morning even though I lived a block from school and came home on my lunches on my own. High school really just wasn't working out. (And for the rambling record, I have never once regretted dropping out of high school. That's a topic to expand upon another day.)