Mae Yo once told me to go look at the idea of preserving, to contemplate on refrigeration, because us humans are always trying to preserve. I’m no different, I’m always trying to either preserve a particular space/time/self, or– as my recent NY life has shown me– get back to the good stuff I failed to preserve. But thinking about the women and the wine glasses, the interdependent nature of suffering and comfort, was starting to make me suspect, I was…
Mae Yo’s homework always sounds so simple, “go and see the two sides of comfort and suffering.” But seriously, what does that even mean? I understood that I was supposed to be having some deep penetrating insight into the relationship between Sukka (happiness) and Dukka (suffering) but I was stuck. It was time for a tool, not just any tool either, but the big guns…I needed an Ubai. For days and days I racked my brain and then I remembered…
When I returned from Hawaii, my mule encounter fresh on the brain, I made an appointment to talk to Mae Yo. I had, after all, identified a huge tendency of mine, a deep wrong view in which I divide the world into neat little partitions: areas of suffering and areas of comfort. I live for those corners of comfort, my spaces of refuge from suffering — that peace, that joy, that comfort is part of my life, if only I…
Eric and I were on vacation again, Hawaii’s Big Island, sitting on a mule drawn carriage taking us on a tour of the Waipi’o valley. It was impossible not to enjoy a beautiful day, in a beautiful place, as the mules plodded along the path. But then, we hit a rough patch in the road, slippery from mud and puddles, and the mules began to lose their footing. They struggled and slipped, unable to pull the carriage any further until…
If self is the storyteller, self belongings are the props that help make the story believable. They are the accessories that make the outfit, that make the whole thing pull together…Enter, the pink skirt: With my organization’s big annual gala in mind, I start trolling ebay looking for the perfect outfit. As soon as I saw that neon pink, silk, Oscar De La Renta skirt, I knew it was mine. In my mind, I was wearing it before I even…
This blog is a continuation of the previous blog — Some (More) HW on Self and Self Belonging. As I began to understand how the process of creating self and self belonging works, I struggled with my usual question: Why do I do this — prop-up a self and continue to fuel it? What purpose does it serve? My contemplations so far had gotten me to see that my sense of self and self belonging help sell a lie about…
Mae Yo, once again, offered me her favorite homework assignment — “go contemplate self and self belonging.” This time around, she gave made it a little harder — “go contemplate self and self belonging in the situations of your life and pay special attention to the relationship between self, self belonging, the aggregates and the arising of suffering.” Somehow, I never seem to get those easy assignments….Anyway, here you can take a peek at my answer and see how…
Up until now, my practice had, of course, considered suffering and self; after all, they make the obligatory appearance in most of my stories. But, they had always been an appetizer, maybe a big kale salad, sometimes the all important desert (I have a sweet tooth). But they were rarely the main course. That honor generally went to impermanence or other interesting Buddhisty stuff like karma and aggregates ( had I been paying close enough attention, I would have noticed…
As a recap: This blog is a continuation of the last in which I discovered gratitude for my mom after re-considering my memories of her. It was an exercise in which I made an effort to recall Mom’s good qualities as an antidote to my previous perspective which was to focus on negatives only. With my heart all mushysoft with gratitude for my mom, a troubling question came to mind — How do I pay her back? I mean really,…
A recap: In the last blog I described how I used a simple tool ( A is better than B, B is Better than A, etc.) to begin considering some of the wrong views I held about my mom, particularly in comparison to my dad. I came to see that I had built an ‘image/memory’ of my mom that was based on my biases (of what characteristics are most valuable), in service of my agenda (to hero-ize my dad and…
Click here for My Mom and I part One: It was the 2014 retreat and we were reviewing one of my favorite Dharma tools*, the one where you take 2 objects and compares them as follows: A is Better than B B is Better than A A and B are essentially the same, are they even worth comparing? A and B are so different from each other, are they worth comparing? L.P. Anan decided to turn study into a game,…
After sharing my contemplations about value with Neecha, she offered me another homework assignment she thought might help me push my thinking a bit further. She told me to go and think about the 8 worldly conditions, how do they work, and what do they mean for all of us suckers who have already been born in this world? Before we get to the HW, a little Buddhisty Background might help: Lokka-Dtamm Pbat AKA the 8 Worldly Conditions In the…
Ever since I was a kid, I wanted a fish tank. I’m not talking about the small bowl you throw a goldfish into, I am taking the mega fancy big tanks with the super colorful fish. My Mom used to take me to the fish store so I could stare in awe as a kid. Each tank its own little world, pretty, and orderly and perfectly balanced. When I moved to Texas, now as an adult, the dream was fueled…
So…we again have a mighty important, but mighty technical blog before us here. I will issue my standard caveat that I share some of these wonkier contemplations not to mess with your mind, nor as a model for anyone else’s practice to follow. They are here because they played a formative part in my own path, my evolution of thought, so I feel like I can’t really leave them out of a blog about my path…though seriously, I wish I…
Introductory Note on Timing: As I was writing the last few blogs I noticed that I had accidentally skipped over this current entry, about yielding, that I had meant to post back in the ‘Odds and Ends’ period. It comes from summer 2013 and, since we are already a little out of order, I thought I would include it this week before we get back to our ‘regularly scheduled blog’… If you don’t come, I’ll go…If you don’t…
So Dear Reader, as a re-cap, we are taking a break from our regularly scheduled program and interrupting this nice, orderly, temporally linear(ish) blog about my practice with an intrusion from the present day…. inspired by the filth, noise, overcrowding and rudeness of NYC…I bring you part four in my blog about hate. Last week, we left off with a real shift, a lightening of my hate load brought about by my seeing it for what it really is —…
So Dear Reader, as a re-cap, we are taking a break from our regularly scheduled program and interrupting this nice, orderly, temporally linear(ish) blog about my practice with an intrusion from the present day…. inspired by the filth, noise, overcrowding and rudeness of NYC…I bring you part three in my blog about hate. We left off last week with a moment of realization: Hate is not built into the situations where I feel hateful, the seed of hate lies in…
So Dear Reader, as a re-cap, we are taking a break from our regularly scheduled program and interrupting this nice, orderly, temporally linear(ish) blog about my practice with an intrusion from the present day…. inspired by the filth, noise, overcrowding and rudeness of NYC…I bring you part two in my blog about hate. We left off last week exploring all the pain and suffering that comes with being a hater. So, the question DeJour: If it hurts so bad, why…
Well Dear Reader, it has been about a year since the last interruption from our regularly scheduled program and, at risk of starting an unintended holiday tradition, I will beg your pardon for interrupting this nice,orderly, temporally linear(ish) blog with yet another intrusion from the present day…. The thing is, it’s been about a year since my ill-fated move to NY and I still absolutely hate it here. Through herculean efforts (and a pretty penny) I have devised schemes to…
