Now What?

Now what?

So I am here.
I can finally breathe.
I made it.
I stand  on the podium
to receive my reward,
a reward
I used every moment
behind me
as a means to get.
I worked hard.
I sacrificed much.
I was better than.
I did more.
I achieved great things
and now
they look up at me
with envy in their eyes.
This is winning.
This is succeeding.
This is getting there...

There?
I am not getting anywhere.
I am here.
Here is a strange place to be.
It is done.
I did it.
I feel antsy as I bend my head
to receive this cold and lifeless thing. 

The medal is heavy around my neck,
the handshake from the deliverer,
quick and impersonal.
The crowd has dropped their eyes
and seem  bored as they
await my country's song of triumph
to end.
They are looking sheepishly, enviously
over at the others  
now standing in line
to take my place up here.

I am ushered off
with a half hearted applause
while the new winner
is ushered in with cheers.
With a sinking heart,
I turn back to look at what was.
Is it really over?

Now what?
I must get it back.
I must worker harder,
sacrifice more,
be much better than.
I must use every moment
ahead of me 
as a means
to get back up there again.
If my life is going to matter,
I must "do" whatever I can
to get and keep what
is mine.

© Dale-Lyn (pen), June, 2020

 

The Antsy Feeling of " Now What?"

I am certainly not climbing up onto any podiums these days :) but I do have this antsy feeling of "Now what?" .  I still have this ingrained and deeply conditioned idea that in order to be enough I must do and keep doing.  Right now, despite the fact that the world around me is just stepping gingerly back into some semblance of normal after a Pandemic shutdown...I have many, many self imposed projects on the go.

My writing projects...which are too many to count seem endless and scattered.  I am trying to submit some old stuff, finish some started stuff and new stuff in the forms of idea or poetry  just keeps coming to the page.  I am not focused enough to finish one thing...to give it my devoted attention...Like a kid with ADHD, I am pulled here, then here and then there.

I see so many other things, besides writing, that need to get done...including parenting stuff I probably have no real business in.  There is yoga  and trying to create new sequences and reopen classes ( two students at a time), my videos, my studying and renewal processes.  There is my photography...I picked up the camera once and I am hooked again...feeling that pull to get out there and capture the world. There is my own "dharma" practice...which to me means my need to examine and study Life and my mind. (My priority these days) There is social obligations and now that offices are opening up again I have to re-address my health issues to keep worried individuals off my case.  I broke a back tooth again ( 4th time) because of my jaw clenching and it hurts like &*^..I have to get that looked after. And there is this blog which seems like one of the easiest things for me to do. 

 

The Busy Minds' Impossible "To-Do" List

My busy mind is creating long extensive lists of things I have not finished and that need to be dealt with .."now". 

It is a chaotic and impossible list to follow.  I am so glad I am at the point of my waking up that I do not feel the need to follow my mind's direction...that I can sit back and just watch and question what it is doing and why?

I also know that constant doing is usually just a distraction from being.  For some reason ,I am resisting simply sitting and being .  The mind is bullying me, trying to make me feel guilty about not doing enough so I "keep busy" and not settle in the present moment.  The egoic mind doesn't like my present moment...is judging it as unpleasant and something to be avoided.  That is all the more reason...I now realize...I need to sit and see what is going on in that head of my mine.  :)

So when I ask myself the question, "What now?"...I can simply say..."Stop! Breathe, be aware of this moment and everything in it...body sensation, surrounding, what my senses are picking up...just be here.  Don't use this moment to "do"... as a means to get up there somewhere.  This is it.  Notice all the things in it that make it worth being in...all those things that  too often go unnoticed, like the lilacs in front of me, and how beautiful they smell...filling my whole house with that sweetness...and behind that is the smell of fresh baked bread that I just took out of the oven.  I can hear the robins singing so beautifully out there and the wind through the trees. I can feel my body...even the tooth ache which makes me aware I am alive...and when the pain goes I rejoice in that ( it comes and goes).  I notice and pay attention to the pain being there and not being there. There is my tea and the feel of the cup in my hand...my pets around me.  It is just perfect...here and now...even though it is far from perfect.  It is not a matter of being good or bad...either/ or...but... both/ and. It's perfect and it's imperfect.  Hmmm!

Instead of listening to the mind and attempting to appease its insane wishes to do everything it is telling me I must do, I can just sit, get in touch with that stillness and be in this moment.  I will be inspired, when the time comes, to do what needs to be done and I will be doing it from a much better place than "What now"? I sat down here this morning and asked my inner self what it wants me to write next...and that poem popped out.  Hmmm!  Go figure!

 

Anyway, I am rambling.

 

All is well.

 

Inspired by:

 

Eckhart Tolle ( June 10, 2020) Being at Peace/The Present Moment. Eckhart Teachings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-HWfAZlAbI

Craving

Crave for a thing and you will get it.  Renounce the craving, the object will follow you by itself.
Swami Sivananda (Brainy Quote)

I am still working on connections and understanding this idea of wanting. I was surprised yesterday to discover  from the dharma talk I listened to that , "desire" was actually the first of the three realms in which a person can be reborn according to Buddhist and Hindu tradition. Of course, according to these beliefs a person is said to reincarnate and reincarnate until they reach full enlightenment in a life time. Within the "Desire Realm" are said to be several sub realms or "Lokas" that a person can be born into...from that of much too comfortable Gods, to envious warriors, hungry ghosts, angry, aggressive hellions, stupid, ignorant animals and finally  doubting, passionate and desiring humans. The point is...that when a person is reborn into a "Desire Realm' they are not yet fully enlightened.  The closest to nirvana would be the human realm if one is able to transform passion, doubt and desire into faith, that is. (O'Brien, 2018)

Whether the Three realms are interpreted literally as a text on cosmology or as a view of inner evolution, they can teach us a lot about our own individual desire. Desire is equated with a lack of wakefulness, wisdom, truth achieved in a life time. All of these loosely depict the human journey, do they not?  For those few of us, who have little to no suffering in our lives...who get born into states of advantage and power we can  often be so comfortable in that state, that we see no need to enlighten.  We may erroneously see ourselves as already enlightened beings, "special" and "chosen". Or we may be warriors, threatened by the accomplishments of others and in our envy seek to attack so we can have what they have. So ensnared by our envy and our need to have what the other has here on this plane we do not have the time or energy to search for a way out through awakening.  (I will speak to the Hungry Ghost realm in the next paragraph).  We can be trapped by the fires of hell and anger leading us to attack aggressively others because of this anger. This fiery anger is so consuming we cannot see beyond it to the peace nirvana would offer. Or we can be ignorant animals...stupidly believing this is all there is.  Then as humans...we must transform our doubt, passion and desire into something that will help us reach enlightenment. 

 One  of the sub realms described in ancient Buddhist texts  that graphically  depicts how "desire' prevents someone from reaching Nirvana and putting an end to samsara...the endless wheel of birth, rebirth, and suffering, once and for all is the third.  In the "Hungry Ghost'' realm, beings are reborn into entities that have a large hungry belly and only a pinhole for a mouth and a long narrow neck not equipped for swallowing.  This image creates a wonderful allegory to human craving which can lead us on a fruitless and ceaseless journey of seeking to attain enough to put an end to a hunger and thirst we can just not satisfied by external means. This is the realm where we see addiction, obsession and compulsion. 

I guess what some of the Buddhist and Yogic texts are alluding to, is that desire can lead us on an endless search to attain more from  the external world, that will only take us farther away from our true purpose here...to awaken. Is that not what so many other teachings express?

All these teachings reinforce that what we really, really want is to awaken and go home, whether we know it or not.

Hmm!

All is well!

O'Brien, Barbara ( 2018) Six Realms of Desire. Learn Religions.Org. https://www.learnreligions.com/the-realms-of-desire-449740

Plum Village ( June 2019) Eight Realizations of Great Beings/dharma talk from Br. Phap Hai.Deer Park. Part 4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw8dXB5SylI

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning are your greatest strengths now, because they enable you to change your mind and help others to change theirs.
ACIM-T-4:I:4:1

Egoless Teachers

Okay...back to what I wrote yesterday.  I always caution to be weary of a teacher's motivation.  Even the greatest teacher, who is still wrapped in an ego, can lose their sense of purpose.  Ego can take hold and allow the teacher to "use" the student for their own purposes.  We see that in many so called "cults". 

There are vey, very few "egoless" teachers out there.  The poem reflects the presence of a true egoless teacher in our lives...one encased in many forms , coming from different traditions, with different verbal descriptions and stories reflecting the culture of many different times but with one thing in common...direct connection with the Divine Truth. ( I know that could get me in trouble with those who worship the separate form of a Teacher).

One Truth/One Teacher?

Words from these teachers  are encapsulated in doctrines and scriptures that we follow as the Truth...We identify with each variation and interpretation as "our separate truth" and "the 'right'  truth" but...I honestly believe, there is just One Truth in all of it... so much of the One Uniting Truth the teachings were pointing to gets  lost in the translation and interpretation. (And again that would be considered blasphemous to many). I don't mean to offend or diminish anyone's belief systems...I am just compelled to look into this possibility, to question and to explore  because I am "not sure" about anything anymore.  Yet I feel so very compelled to look for that One Uniting Truth in all faiths.

I no longer identify with one belief system.  Like so many are gender-fluid these days, I am Faith - fluid.  And I have no idea of why or how I got here really...but I am.  I don't know why I write what I write on this blog...how or why I come here everyday.  It baffles me. I just know that I have to be here.

I also need to restate that I have no grandiose ideas that I am an expert.  I am somewhat of a teacher only because I am a learner. I teach to learn and I learn to teach.  To me, they go hand and hand.  And I am far, far from egoless at this time. So...do not for a second ...put your faith blindly in what I have to say here...please!  I am not sure about anything. If something I have written  resonates a bit...explore within yourself why it resonates.  I would also encourage you to check out the references I place below most entries...to check in with the real experts, okay?

Paths?

There are three paths or vehicles to understanding Truth, according to the Buddhist teachings:  The small, medium and Great paths.

In the small path, which is also called the King-like path, the learner is self-motivated and desires to become enlightened first.  In the medium path, or the "Ferry-Keeper" path, the learner wishes to help others cross over to understanding while they too awaken.  ( I believe, that is where I am).  And the Great Path, is a path that transcends the paradox of Self and other.  If I learn, all learn. If I awaken...all awaken. ACIM speaks to this as well. Each of us is the light of the world, and by joining our minds in this light we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and as one. (ACIM-T-6:II:13:5).

For the most part, I am a medium vehicle...on the medium path. Where are you?

Anyway, so much to write about because there is so much I am learning . I do not want to "stuffocate" you.  (That is another cool word I heard from the link below.)  I will be back.

All is well!

ACIM

Plum Village ( June 2019) Eight Realizations of Great Beings/dharma talk from Br. Phap Hai.Deer Park. Part 4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw8dXB5SylI

Teacher

 Teacher
 
Monkey kings
bow their head in reverence
while studious and
well mannered students
 clap and wave their arms about
as the teacher
speaks  to lessons
reduced to  fading words
and symbols  on
yellowed scripts,
translated and transmuted
into concepts that
hold  only grains
of the sand
Truth is.
 
Once a disillusioned  Indian Prince,
a humble Jewish carpenter,
a Saudi travelling merchant
 and the face of so many others
who have looked directly into the divine,
the teacher stands before us,
an accumulated morphing
 of centuries of shed outfits and forms,
 different languages and pointers
with only one lesson to share.
 
The weary teacher has  traveled far
along the silk road to the east,
the busy industrial path to the west,
over mountains and through dessert,
through  rice patty and through ocean,
through golden lined streets
and war -torn rubble,
to stand here today.
 
 
The teacher teaches,
not so much with what is said
but by what is embodied
within this meager form
that is worn as a cloak
around all that is.
The lesson is taught through
slow purposeful steps,
inspired speech,
and a light that shines
so brilliantly
from eyes that
offer Love to all of us
who so desperately want to know
what the teacher is here to teach.

© Dale-Lyn (Pen),  June 2020

 

I do not know why I wrote this but I did...against all ego's reprimands and warnings. 

 

I listened to the talk below and this is what came from it, as well as 8 pages of notes lol. ( I am old school...spent many a day in a university classroom, one student among many, trying to capture from the teacher everything I thought was needed in order to pass the exam...while understanding little at the time. So I take notes ...but luckily I understand much, much more from the teachers who teach the "really important" stuff because I have learned to be present) .

 

All is well!

Plum Village (June, 2019) Eight Realizations of Great Beings/ dharma talk with Br. Phap Hai. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzo_hZolNi4

 

 

 

Write in the Moment and For the Moment

Touch the preciousness of this moment which will never occur again.
Br. Phap Hai

I think of these words as I sit here wondering what to write about.  This moment, right here and right now, is my Life.  What do I want to do in, put in it to make it meaningful? 

I don't know really but I am here writing. I thought writing was and is what I am supposed to do but I am questioning myself lately.  I noticed ego's big greedy face in the mirror the other day and I was a bit taken aback.  I  have been telling myself that my writing was an egoless adventure where I was not worried about anything but getting the words down...not worried about quality or outcome...I was writing for the sake of writing , a tool used by something greater.

Yet, I realized yesterday that I was attached to an idea, a fantasy of myself as a writer...I thought for a second that I was better than I was.  See the "I" in there?  I realized through a small series of events that ego was still motivating my writing...there was an "I, me and mine" wrapped into it all.  Truth is, a desire for redemption from shame was my major motivation.

Remember my two ego friends?  Shamer and Redeemer? As I peel away layers of self protection we encounter once again , Shamer doing what Shamer does best. "Little me"  feels "diminished", "less than" others, and somewhat unworthy because of his big "pep(less) talks." Automatically and unconsciously, I call on Redeemer to come to my rescue.  This part of my ego, doesn't have much to work with these days to pull me away from Shamer's claws...except my writing. 

Ego likes doing , right?  So really the only noteworthy thing I have been doing lately is writing.  So ego uses that to create a story of redemption. "You got some chapbooks out there...look at how quickly you write the poetry.  Some short stories are out...you are working on novels that once published will make people realize that you were doing something of value, you were honing a craft." It tries to convince me that what I write is better than it is.

Well, I read good writing yesterday in my sister's book of short stories and I was so amazed, so impressed and so very jealous of her writing.  Now...she took the time to hone her craft and to build on it.  She admittedly "worked" to create what she created.  And it shows!  Her stories blew me away.  Her book inspired me to re-evaluate my own writing and I went back to the Chap books I more or less threw together...and realized that without the committed effort they should have received...what I put together was not that great.  I read my short stories I have out there and did the ego thing of "comparing" them and I felt they were not as good  Though, I am truly, truly happy for her, I do feel a little jealousy which is a sure sign that ego was more than a little involved in my writing life.  With that comes the realization that ego had once again hopped into the driver seat of my writing adventure.

I do not want ego there.  I don't like how he drives.  :) I recognize, allow and even embrace the fact that he is there with the feeling of jealousy, diminishment and fear that I will not leave something of value behind. As I do this, I feel I can look into it a bit deeper before letting it go.

I am humbled, which is wonderful and a far cry from shaming.  Truth is, I have not yet mastered this craft and it may take another fifty years to do so. That is okay.  In the mean time, I can offer my less than perfect work to the scrutinizing eyes of others while learning not to be effected by it. I can practice not being so "I,My, mine" focused and stop taking credit and blame for what I create.  I can create for the sake of creating as I practice getting better at it...but content with what I (and I mean beyond I)  produce now in this moment. I can be happy and supportive of my sister's talent.  I can even learn from her.  I can grow and grow and grow as I am, knowing that everything is constantly changing.  My ability will change just as the next moment will be completely different from this one.

We need to accept where we are right /write now in our abilities, embrace it so we can touch the preciousness of this moment which will never occur again.  This is it! Write!

It is all good!  It really is !

All is well!

Allow Self to Open; Later Better Than Never

 The causal level needs to remain your primary focus, the teaching of enlightenment your main purpose, and peace your most precious gift to the world.
Eckhart Tolle(2004), The Power of Now, New World Library (page 204)

A Delayed Blossoming


Man!  This waking up is a very strange thing. It is like part of me is standing back watching my little self as pieces of protective coating keep peeling off...sometimes very painfully. I am "feeling" more and more as each layer is removed and that is a strange thing too. I am feeling the pain and raw vulnerability but I am also feeling the sweet release of years and years of accumulated pressure against very tender flesh.  It is a nice feeling as I connect to something I so long denied.  Hmm!

Anyway, I am also having something  like "Life Reviews'.  Because of being triggered as I was yesterday or for no apparent reason at all  I will have a vivid memory of something in my past, usually something related to what I did or didn't do to others and myself over the years that could have led to pain.  It is like I am being shown on some old movie screen how my pain got in the way of truly "being" there for others and myself, keeping me stuck in some self-made comfort zone, and preventing me from  living fully and joyfully the way I was meant to. So as I relive these experiences, I experience some regret, not so much over what I lost living like this, but over the fact that others got hurt or didn't get the best of me in a way that would make them feel better about themselves. I regret that I  didn't love openly enough, did not offer peace enough, so afraid was I of getting hurt.

I also know that this pain has knotted in my body and has caused some cells to become confused.  I know it is responsible for the muscle aches and pains we all get, and it is also responsible for whatever I got going on in my heart and vessels, what I got going on with the pelvic pain I'm still getting and this mass, first discovered in November which  is now leaving me with a constant, undeniable pressure in my under arm no matter how much I try to ignore it. Though these things are very physical and real in that context...I see beyond their physicality.  I almost ( almost lol...still  sounds pretty much like Charlie Brown's teacher's voice...garbled)  hear  what these things are telling me.

It is time, I guess, for knots to be removed or untied, for pressure to be released so the tender flesh can finally heal.  It is time to open fully to what Life is truly all about. Man...it only took over five decades to get to this point...lol.  How is that for a delay in blossoming?  Doesn't matter, I am here.  :)

And I am just standing back watching all this go down and experiencing it at the same time....It is so very strange and  so very awe inspiring.  Hmmm! I know I cannot go through this without sharing it...I have to share this learning...so I keep coming back here...again and again and again.  Sometimes I have 100 readers a day, sometimes fifty and as I have now...numbers trickling, once again, below 20.  It doesn't matter how many read, what the outcome is ...I just know I have to show up.  I have to come here! I have to offer a way to peace.

It is all good...so very, very good!

Sweet, Sweet Sadness

Something sweet can be found in sadness, a soft melancholy whisper that breathes life into a withering soul, filling the void where apathy once sat.
Me- written years ago

I am feeling sad but it is a good non-resistant sadness.  I am just letting it trickle through my eyes and down my face.  I am not overwhelmed by it...it is just there.  It is kind of nice, taking some pressure off some old wounds within me.  Ahhhh.  It just feels good to release.

Is this suffering?  No...just a gentle release of at least some old stored stuff that really, really needs to come out.  I do not want to create story around this and just be able to accept the feeling, the release. I want to  allow myself to experience it fully and for the most part I can do that now...just sit with it.  It is so nice to be able to do that.  But...story  does come back .

Sometimes , this thought, "I am so broken." comes into my mind and my experience.  I see so clearly  and accept what past trauma has done to my exterior self, creating a need for me to protect the vulnerable parts. I look back and see how my chronic fear of being hurt again made me act defensively offensive towards people who were kind to me, how I could never truly understand why they were kind to me; how my need to keep this shell intact prevented me from seeing their  pain and meeting their needs in a way I would have wanted to. It made me selfish, egoic, always trying to create this redeemed version of myself to hide the brokenness within. My seeking to create a protective shell over the wounded parts  pinched me off from who I really am. I was not my best Self and I was not always a very good friend.

Hmmm! Anyway I am thinking of one friend, in particular, who I befriended months after my mother had died.  She sat in front of me in grade ten math class and if it wasn't for her I would never have passed math, and I probably wouldn't have passed the lessons Life was teaching me either. She had a big, beautiful heart and she liked me.  I could never understand why she liked me or laughed at my jokes.  We became really good friends, best friends actually.  My own life was very, very chaotic at the time and I found a sweet reprieve in her presence and in her home that I so desperately needed.  I honestly don't know where I would be without that. She was the first person I ever spoke some of  my trauma story to.  It was like relieving me of a burden that lay heavy on my heart for 16 years...telling a secret I was told never to tell but that was so very, very necessary to tell. She was a very, very important part of my life.  I don't think I did anything for her but get her in trouble.

I, of course, was not only broken but I was a 16 year old girl who like most sixteen year old girls wanted to be liked, popular, seen as pretty,cool and all those things. I also needed to redeem myself by creating an image that would hide all the broken pieces inside.  So while I befriended her, one of  the most authentic people I ever met, I was intent on creating a very inauthentic suit of armour around myself.  That did not go well for our friendship.  My attempt to be cool...made me uncool.  My pain would not stay beneath the shell...it kept coming out and often, misdirected and uncontained, it hurt those I loved the most. I became, many times, a bitch to her.  She had to have seen me as a selfish bitch, a terrible friend and nothing but a burden on her life.  How could she not? Yet she remained patient and kind.  Well, I never asked her what she thought of me...I was afraid to. We kind of grew apart...I kept building this redeeming self to create a shell around me...and that became my focus in life. So into preserving, "me-me" ...I neglected to tell her how much her friendship meant and I neglected the God daughter she gave me.

Recently, and ironically our children got together and are having a child together.  Though I love her daughter as one of my own,  (She was friends with my eldest for years before she and my son started dating and I have come to know her as a sweet and kind girl.)  I was resistant to the relationship with my son because I was told by others that they were involved in something very dangerous together and my fear kicked in. My need to protect my then very vulnerable son from what I felt (and was told) was her doing made me a mother bear! I became defensively offensive again...well honest, out right, telling it like it is which did not go over well with her daughter or with her ( understandably). Things are different now but sometimes wounds don't heal completely.  I never apologized to her nor did I even speak to her for years ( only because of my own shame).  That is until last night when we spoke over the phone about the approaching baby shower.  I started crying then after hanging up...just a slow trickle of tears and I never stopped. Hmmm!

The phone call triggered me to look at my brokenness and how it impacted my life and the life of others over the years. I  see the shell I wore and still do to some extent, the shell she knew me by. I see my own brokenness under that shell and wonder if she sees it enough to forgive me for my behaviour over the years.  I don't know.  If my time here is indeed running out, I want her to know how grateful I am for her presence in my life  and how sorry I am for not being a better friend.



Awkward Trickles

So much defectiveness

in this stinking, rotting shell

I wear around myself,

gapping holes, pieces missing,

allowing trickles…just trickles

of much too thick

inner fluid to drip out…

offering, pathetically offering,

a semi sweet release

you cannot see,

 of  decades of pressure

against  my bruised and battered flesh.

 

You know me as the shell,

with all my broken jagged pieces,

jabbing and cutting

into your own tender flesh…

not as the bleeding- being emerging,

so slowly and timidly,

from this broken protection

that clings and drags around me ,

awkwardly...so very awkwardly.

 

In these trickles...mere trickles,

raw realness

comes through…

a realness so quickly wiped away

or  gone unnoticed…

at the redeeming image's request.

How I wish you could  see 
beyond the image

I never was.

 

Within this salty release

there is gratitude,

as well as regret
for the way I might have hurt you…

denied your own suffering…

in my misguided attempts

to keep  this shell from

falling to pieces around me….

 

But my dear friend…

I did see you…

I did know you were there …

picking up

 pieces of shell

that continued to fall 

awkwardly...oh so awkwardly

away from me.

 

 

Thank You

for  attempting to glue

the jagged pieces back in place

with cut and bleeding hands,

for keeping me looking

whole and intact,

for helping me hide

the infected mess

that kept leaking out

all over you.

 

 

 Flawed, I am,

and will always be,

a broken shell

unable to hide

the layer of decay

beneath it

but I will do my best

to free myself

of that which clings,

to heal the tender tissue

with my own acceptance of it,

and then I will expose

this whole, complete being

you never knew...

to the light it

was meant to shine under.

Then, I might  ask for your forgiveness

and my own.

Only then will I be worthy of it.

 

© Dale-Lyn , June 2020

 

 

Ahhhh...sigh...sweet, sweet sadness.

 

All is well!

 

Suffering and the Law of Attraction

But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added onto you.
Matthew: 6:33 ESV

Difference Between Seeking What We Want

What is the biggest difference between the teachings on the Law of Attraction, ACIM, other "indirect path" stuff and what The Bible, Buddhism, Eckhart Tolle and Michael Singer may teach? 

I believe that the first approach teaches that "suffering" is an illusion we can transcend the moment we realize it as a product of the ego-self which is not real and the other teaches that suffering is real and requires a direct path of committed practice to transform it.

To Suffer or Not To Suffer

One denies suffering and one embraces it.  One says that denial of suffering will bring us to a peaceful, happy and abundant awakened state where we can reap the rewards of everything this physical world has to offer and the other one says accepting the reality of suffering will bring us to a peaceful, content, joyful abundant awakened state where we will realize we do not want or need so little of what the physical world has to offer.

Both agree that the subconscious mind holds the seeds of creation within it and what we focus on , we will create.   Both in a sense agree with this law of attraction.  They differ, however,  in the path we take and how we use that law.

What and How We Seek

What we seek in the first path is the thing that will lead us to awakening and in the second path we seek directly the awakening.

The first path skips the dealing with suffering part all together...It instructs its proponents to focus only on what is wanted, and to deny what we  don't.  It purports that awakening will come when we see that what we have been focusing on has come to materialize in our physical worlds. This will happen the moment...the moment we see the illusionary nature of ego and limitation and fear etc. In a "holy instant" of witnessing  miracles we will transcend beyond these illusions to the reality of Self in its infinite, unlimited nature.  What we seek first is not a connection with Self ( the kingdom of God) it is the thing that will prove to us there is a kingdom of God.

The second path, like that of the 8 fold path offered in Buddhism, is a life long practice of awakening through suffering.  Suffering is not denied.  It is embraced and used as a transformational tool to take us to the true nature of Self and reality. It takes us to a freedom beyond materialistic manifestation.

Here and Now?

Both talk about time being nothing more than a concept, an "idea" created by man.  Both speak to the here and now as being all there really is to Life...yet in the first approach, we see a reliance on the future...of manifesting something that is not yet here at some time up there, using this moment here and now to create something up there.  Where in the other, there is a practice of fostering acceptance of what is now...of knowing that we have all the conditions we need to be happy right here and now regardless of what is happening around us.  In order to awaken we need to embrace what is (which includes our pain) ...without preferring some of it and denying or pushing away other parts of it.

Acceptance of What Is?

Where we use the present moment to seek to add on all things wanted in the first approach, we do not "seek" in the second approach.  All things may still be added on when we water selectively and wisely, in the Buddhist practice, for example,  but we won't necessarily care about them.  We would have reached a greater learning and an unconditional type of peace that  can not be fed or diminished  by the achievement or the loss of these "things". It will be a peace that passes all understanding.

For example...The Secret teaches that if we focus on what we want and fill our minds with this while we deny what we don't want we will someday get what we want.  If we want a dream house...we think ( and feel) that we have this dream house.  We affirm, we put sticky notes everywhere, we put pictures of it up on a dream board.  We act as if we already have it ( even though it has not yet physically manifested in our present moment while we may be living in a crappy apartment in the ghetto).  The thing is...we don't admit to ourselves that we are living in that crappy apartment because it is classified as an unwanted.  We deny that reality.  We don't think about it.  We think instead of the dream house and imagine we are living in that as the cockroaches crawl over our feet.  Of course, we are  going to feel better thinking about the dream house than we are about our present situation.  We are going to have hope instead of despair...which is good, right?  But are we fully in our present moment and is our joy and peace unconditional?  No...we actually close up to the present moment, to what is now. Our happiness is dependent on a future circumstance that has not arrived.

And it will be added on

I may someday get that dream house and be thrilled and happy that this law really works.  I will see it as a miracle...I may  invest further into it...Truth is, I will have to basically go onto attempting to manifest the next thing because the happiness I receive from getting this house will only be fleeting.  I have to question how many moments have I ignored, looked over, stepped on, dismissed to get to this one?  How much have I closed? Was it worth it?

The second path teaches this moment is and because it is with all that is in it, it is my perfect reality.  I learn to accept and embrace it for what it is without needing it to be different.  I find the value in it.  If there is pain...I see that pain as something that will take me closer to peace. I do not close to what is now.  I open fully to it.  Peace is not conditional or based on what may or may not be happening in my present moment. It is, as Thich Nhat Hanh entitled one of his books, in every breath.

Getting There Directly or Indirectly?

Okay...so the biggest difference is that one approach says that suffering is an illusion and gets in the way of achieving what we want...whether it be a dream house or an awakening.  The second approach says, there is nothing wrong with suffering.  In fact...it can be the tool needed to lead us to awakening.  We may get the dream house in either practice but the dream house will never sustain us or make us happy...because it never was what we really wanted or needed.  We learn that the indirect way in Approach One...and the direct  way in Approach Two.

Hmmm...just trying to understand.

All is well.

ACIM

Michael Singer ( 2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger

Thich Nhat Hanh (2011 )  peace is every breath. Harper One 

Plum Village (May 2020) Wake Up to the Preciousness of Life /dharma talk with Br. Phap Hai https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awmXLzBZ-RI

Eckhart Tolle ( 2004) The Power of Now. New World Library

A Little More On Wanting Special Relationships

You are afraid of this because you believe that without the ego, all would be chaos. Yet, I assure you that without the ego, all would be love.
ACIM-T-15: V:1:6-7

(I played with my camera yesterday, for the first time in a long time...yeah!!!  I call this: Awkward First Dinner Date!)

Still Looking For A Soul Mate?

Still pondering over the difference between what Uell S. Anderson and The Secret teaches and that which Buddhism and other dogma teaches. We talked a little bit yesterday  about the wanting and seeking to manifest a soul mate. Both approaches teach that we create the world we see with our minds, we therefore manifest "things" with our minds as well. So can we really manifest a soul mate by watering that seed in our store consciousness? Probably???

Is This What You Really Want?

The question I posed again and again was...is that what we really, really want or is this one person, we seek to make us complete, something the mind-made self seeks to manifest into our experience?  If so...we do know that is an ego desire...not a spiritual one, don't we?  And we do know, by now, where ego desires take us?

The desire for special relationships, ACIM and Eckhart Tolle teach, is an egoic thing...meant to end or diminish the sense of suffering derived from feeling incomplete.  When we assume another person, outside ourselves, has the ability to fulfill us and make us happy...we are setting ourselves up for more suffering.  What a horrendous, heavy and impossible mission  to dump on another being in this world...to make them responsible for our sense of value and worth. This is not Love...in the truest sense of the word...it is egoic need. 

So is it wrong to want a soul mate or to be in a special relationship with someone?

Though there is nothing right or wrong about a special relationship we need to realize that  the idea and expectation we place upon them feed the ego not the Self . That means, they can be used as a tool for temporary egoic satisfaction and also a weapon of fear that keeps us bound to ego. It can keep us attached to this idea, that we are separate "little me's"  in a dangerous , lonely world.  In order to make it worthwhile, we need another( or something outside ourselves) to complete us.

True Love extends way beyond the ego and this idea of "me", and  "my" and "mine". True Love is liberating and non selective.  Ego love is very selective, conditional and binding.  Special relationship ideology  can bind us to ego rather than bring us to Self...if relationships are built on a need to make one complete.  We are already complete, according to Buddhist and other well known doctrine.

So we just need to be careful when we place all our attention on watering seeds in our moment in order to grow or manifest future romance in the future . It is not the "romance" and ego's version of love you really, really want...it is Love.

I wrote about this in 2017.  Check this out: http://www.aquarianonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Enlighten-Up-with-The-Aquarian-Winter-2017-issue.pdf.
page 11

Healthy relationships are relationships that are built on Love not need or fear. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all encompassing can have no opposite. ACIM-T-Introduction When we love without ego, we love big!

All is well!

ACIM

Eckhart Tolle (July 2008 )  One -Sided Relationships.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3miuaOWsj8

"What If?" or "What Is?"

External changes are not going to solve your problem because they don't address the root of your problem. The root problem is that you don't feel whole and complete within yourself. If you don't identify the root properly, you will seek someone or something to cover it up.
Michael Singer, the untethered soul

What About The Law of Attraction?

Still confused about this law of attraction idea, this wanting something to change and be different in the future and probably will be until the day I die...but what I do  know is ...the biggest part of practice, whatever practice we choose to partake in, is to be perfectly okay with what we have in our now.  We need to focus more on the "What is...' than the "What if", on present moment rather than some future moment.  And I guess that means, we also need to focus on accepting and allowing, more so than on  wanting or desiring. 

So if you were to ask me what I really, really  want...I would say, I want "peace".  I just want peace.  Of course, true peace of mind is this true acceptance of what is...whatever is. 

Does there have to be external change for me to have peace? Peace of mind is not conditional, it is not dependent on what I got going on in my present moment or what happened in the past or what may or may not happen in the future. It is being okay with what is now.

What confuses me is this idea that we are creators and we create our worlds with our thinking.  Even the Buddha  who was all about embracing each moment as is,  taught that our worlds are a projection of our minds.  Yet, would he be a proponent of this law of attraction?

Hmm!  I hazard to guess, that he would say...the law is okay and has great truth in it but what we have done with the law to make it fit our present egoic way of thinking is where the problem comes in.  We are confusing pointers with what the pointers point to.  In other words, we are thinking and labelling our present experiences and the experiences we want to have in such a way to suit the egoic frame of reference, not the spiritual. We are seeking to make external changes to end suffering and that won't work.

Huh?

Happiness or peace and contentment?

We are all  on the pursuit of happiness, right?  But what is "happiness"?  I never really liked that word.  It never sat well with me.  To me, the ego can be happy but the spirit is "content".  I prefer contentment and peace to happiness.  These I see as a deeper unconditional, eternal and internal form of "happiness".

The term "happiness," which I associate with the law of attraction, is all about the temporary, the physical and egoic satisfaction.  The happiness ego seeks is a very temporary experience that is up ahead somewhere..  "I will be happy when...".  I see it as an elusive and very conditional experience. When I project that only something outside of me will make me happy and I cannot get that thing...what then?  I am not going to be happy...I will be the opposite of happy, right?  If I believe a soul mate is going to bring me happiness and I don't have one now, in this present moment, I am not happy now. I may find some hope in the law's formula,  that teaches  if I plant and water the seeds in my mind someday in the future he or she will show up. That may diminish some of my suffering which is brought on by my focus on what is wrong with my moment, what is lacking in it. All my focus then is not on "What is" but on "What if" .  I am using this moment as a gardening tool to bring happiness in the future.  "I am not happy now but I will be."

"Happiness" does become a  present moment thing rather than a futuristic one,  when we achieve that thing we equated happiness to but only very briefly.  We use every present moment for years planting and hoping for the "what if", ignoring, denying, supressing and repressing the "what is" as we wait to be happy and voila! we finally find our soul mate.  It is all worth it then...the law is a success.  It brought us happiness!!! Wonderful...or is it? For all of how long will this achieved goal of  finding a soul mate bring happiness?  Until our first disagreement, or fight, or betrayal...until we realize that that person cannot make us happy(because nothing outside  of yourself can make you happy or make you unhappy). Then what? Back to suffering?

Nothing Outside you will bring Peace and Contentment

With enough suffering...you will eventually realize that nothing outside of you can bring happiness or unhappiness to your life...it is an inside job. All you had to do to find real lasting happiness= peace and contentment, in the first place,  was to go inside. Is the investment in the law of attraction, then,  not the long way around to achieving what you really want?  You thought the soul mate would bring happiness...but the whole time you were focusing and watering this "thing" outside of you, when true happiness, which is more of a peace and contentment, was already inside you all along...in the moment you dismissed. 

We already have, according to so many spiritual masters, including Christ and Buddha, all the conditions we need to be happy( again...I replace that with "content" and "at peace") inside us. Searching outside for this takes us away from the moment and the very thing we are looking for.

Let's know what it is we really want

So when we were searching for the soul mate we were searching for this idea of happiness, right?  The soul mate was just a means to bring us something we wanted...the happiness.  So it wasn't the soul mate you really, really wanted but the feeling, the living experience you associated with that idea of having a soul mate.  We are clear on that right?

Why Take the Indirect Route?

So why take the indirect route? Why spend all your present moment  affirming that the soul mate is coming or pasting pictures of some strange dude on a dream board.  If what you really want is something  the soul mate would only offer in some diluted and temporary form, why chase after that for years when all you have to do is go inside. All the soul mate (or the idea of a soul mate)  did was open you up to what was already there, what is always there. ...the wonders of life, the experience of Love which is so much grander than what we find in one special relationship. 

If you are like me, you have, throughout your life,  devised these lists in your mind about what experiences would bring pleasure ( make you happy) and which experiences would bring you suffering.  Having a soul mate , you decided in your mind, would bring you happiness when all it was really doing was allowing your mind to open up enough to experience what was already there. If the soul mate is nothing more than an idea or experience that opens you up to what is already inside you, why wait for that thing to open you? Why wait to be happy?  And why stay closed just because you do not have one in your present moment now?

Michael Singer, in an untethered soul, speaks to this idea of staying open...well..."not closing" to the peace and contentment already within you.  When you project all your energy into that future time when you will have a soul mate and become dependent on that experience to open you up...are you not closing to what is already in your experience now?  All the  conditions needed to be peaceful and content, to feel love and joy that are already there?

By all means we embrace our human nature to want and desire but we need to know what we really want.  We want the experience of happiness, contentment, peace, love and joy we assume the money, the big house, the car, the special relationships, etc will bring us.  They do not bring us this ...what brings us this is our ability to stay open to what is already within us.  Ask for that from this law!

Peace and contentment is not dependent on how things are going on around us.  It comes when we embrace things as they are, whatever they are and we  just stay open to the wonders of life.

Hmmm! It is so challenging to completely understand all this enough to articulate it clearly...but I will keep trying.  It is all good!


Plum village ( May31, 2020) Dharma Talk with Br. Phap Hai. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4pa9jItkI0

Michael A. Singer.(2007)the untethered soul. New Harbinger

To Want or Not To Want, that is the Question

For desire is life, and life is change, and change is progress, and they all answer  one immutable law.
Uell S. Anderson, location 580 

I am still thinking about desire and finding myself in a bit of a mental dilemma: To want or not to want?

I have studied and I have practiced very committedly present moment acceptance, this letting go and allowing...even embracing those parts of my experience that lead to suffering.  I truly have learned to accept the moment for what it is.  I have.  I find peace in my present moment.

But....

Is it okay to want more?

Is it okay to say I accept my present situation but I don't necessarily want to stay here?  And when is acceptance a closing off of what could be?

Does wanting lead us in the direction of ego happiness or spiritual fulfillment?  Or can it be just a neutral thing in our experiences, effecting neither, as long as it is in the "middle way".

Is it okay for a person who is suffering chronic pain, to want freedom from that pain...rephrased positively..."a comfortable full experience of living"?  Is it okay for someone who has a limited bank account and a fair amount of  normal life incurred debt to want enough money to pay the bills? Is it okay for a person who suffers from depression, to want to be happy? A person with cancer to want to be well? A person who is alone , to want company in the form of a relationship?

I suppose we have to look at what we mean by "Is it okay?" ,  what we mean by "wanting, and then on what and how we want. .

Is it okay to want?

When I ask that question, "Is it okay to want?", what do I mean by 'okay'?  Right away I have to ask, am I  stepping into this trap of duality? ...Am I really asking , "Is it right or is it wrong to want?" 

The answer,  of course,  it is neither right or wrong to want.  Wanting just is. It is said to be , by many philosophers and spiritual masters, "normal" to want as human beings.  Wanting is a part of our expansion package, our evolutionary process. Wanting is the planting of life seeds...all things created begin with wanting.  In order for the world to be peaceful...we must start with wanting peace.  In order for the planet to survive, we must want it to get healthy again. Wanting is a necessary step in our  being human and the world we create , right? Even when we avoid or back away from something we don't want, we are actually  wanting something.  If I back away or resist pain...I am really wanting comfort or freedom from pain.  If I am walking away from a chaotic situation, I am wanting peace.

So it is normal and therefore okay to want.  To place a judgement on the wanting experience in human life, is to place a judgment on who and what we are.  We are, in some sense, creators of our worlds, or at least of our experiences.  (Anderson, Yoga Sutras). That world and those experiences all begin with wanting. Wanting begins in the mind and manifests out into the world we create.

So maybe we should ask, instead: Is my wanting beneficial to me and others?

So, what is wanting?

What is wanting? That is a good question.  Wanting usually implies a desire for something we presently do not have. When we want something...we want what we do not see in our experience in this present moment already. Wanting, then, is a search for "more".  If, however, we already have all the conditions in our present moment that we need to be truly happy, as the Buddha taught...we wouldn't want then, would we? So the person who perceives themselves to be  struggling financially, does not feel they have enough money in their account to be secure, so they want more.  The lonely person may feel they do not have enough contact with or enough depth in their relationship with people in their life, so they want more.  In this wanting we perceive a lack of and therefore we desire more.  We do not see that we have all the conditions we need to be happy.

 Or maybe our wanting is to realize that truth...to see and understand that we already have all we need...is that not still wanting?  Wanting knowledge, understanding and spiritual enlightenment implies that I do not already have it or enough of it and I want more.  I may not feel happy and I may be suffering...my reason for wanting spiritual enlightenment is to end that suffering.  I am not, then, at the present moment, no matter how much I accept it, feeling or knowing that I have everything I need to be happy, assuming that when I am enlightened, I will be.  I, therefore want more enlightenment. I want more than what I have now.

But if I didn't see a lack in  my awareness and did not actively want spiritual enlightenment...would I seek to find it and therefore one day find it? Even if wanting requires no effort, as Anderson writes, if I did not actively put the wanting seed in my mind...would enlightenment ever come to me?


So wanting, then, is a necessary part of "everything" created...even our sense of spiritual liberation. It is not only okay to want but necessary to want.

But maybe, our own attached connotation to the word "want" is tripping us up.  What if we used volition instead..."will".  In the Eight Fold path, "Right Volition" is an important step in Buddhist practice ...to intend and will something to be in a way that serves self and the world best.  (Don't get tripped up by that "right" word in Buddhist doctrine ...I find it easier to replace it with "healthy" ).  Right ( healthy volition) will help to end suffering and bring lasting happiness.

Anderson  and many, many others also use "will" interchangeably with "want and desire".  The focus, though, is not on our puny little "egoic" will...but on God's Will.  God's Will for us, God's intention for us, God's desire for us is what we really, really want!

What we want.

This brings us to what we want which is an important step in understanding healthy wanting.  There is nothing wrong with wanting that Porsche but we have to ask:  Is it healthy? Does this wanting...this focus of my intention, this seed I am planting in my subconscious mind, bring me closer to or further away from what I really want?  Is wanting that Porsche , that seven- digit bank account "healthy wanting" ?  Healthy wanting, according to many including Anderson,  is that which is synonymous with what God wants for us. (God, universe, higher consciousness, Life, Toa,  are really all the same thing, right, with different names? )

That is the question then isn't it?  What does God want for us?  Would a loving Father, a Kind Creator that creates so much beauty for us, want us to suffer?  Think about that. Would He (or whatever pronoun you need to use here) want us depressed, afraid, attacking each other?  Would He want us suffering, broke, starving, in pain? If we believe in a Loving God...how could we believe that to be so?  If you are a parent...do you want any of this for your children? Consider what you want for your children as  what God wants for us only , infinitely greater.

Unhealthy Wanting

If God's Will is for us to be tremendously happy, loving, peaceful, completely safe, and needing nothing...then why are so many of us...not well, not happy, broke, starving, angry, violent and at war with one another? This, obviously is not God's Will.  When we experience these things, we are aligning with another will...with ego's will and are being taken away from what God wants for us.  We are being guided by ego and therefore unhealthy wanting.

It may be  ego's input that says that Porsche will make you, as a separate little being, in a mean, competitive and unsafe  world, the envy of your friends...will allow you to "one-up" them so you do not feel quite so bad about yourself and therefore help to reduce your "personal" suffering.  If that is the case, that is not healthy wanting.  It is not aligned with God's Will for You.  That Porsche will only make you feel happy for a short period of time and desiring it may override the more lasting and fulfilling seeds of compassion and kindness within you.

So you have to ask, when you want something, : Is this really going to bring me closer to what I really, really want which is what God wants for us or further away?  Is it ego or spirit that wants this thing I think I want?  Will getting it serve me, others and the world? Or will it just temporarily feed an ego that never can be fed enough? Am I putting my attention towards what I really want? Am I watering the seeds I want to see grow?

Back to the Ultimate Question: Is it okay for me to want more than this?

Of course, my true Self answers.  In fact, it would do me and the world good to ask for more. It is okay for me to want to be healthy, at peace, free from suffering.  Wanting this is taking me closer to God for I know somehow and in someway, that is what is wanted for me.

That wanting begins with recognizing, a lot of times, what we don't want.  If it is okay to want, it is also okay to not want.  We don't want suffering.  The Buddha didn't want suffering...he was seeking a way to end it when he began his journey.  And there is suffering in the world. That doesn't mean we judge something as "bad' or "evil" with our minds or actively resist and push it away because we assume it is teh cause of suffering.  We simply recognize, allow and embrace the unwanted as being a part of our moment...as being a tool to open us up to something Greater. We look deeply at it and from there are able to gain insight as to what God wills for us....which will be the opposite of this unwanted experience.

So in this moment we accept and allow whatever is...but...we also plant the seed of what we want or at least recognize it has already been planted.

So if you are ill, it is okay to want health. Accept this moment and the illness which is a part of it while the seed for wellness gets planted.  Water the seed of wellness from here on in.  If you are broke, it is okay to want money.  Accept the moment you are in with the bank account you have in that moment, but plant the seed for more.  Water that seed. If you are lonely, it is okay to want a new or better relationship.  Accept the moment you are in and your feeling of loneliness, then  plant the seed for connectedness.  We just have to water the seeds. Just don't be too concerned about how it gets done or when it gets done.  If it is in God's Will, it will be yours...and happiness is God's Will for you. Trust that!

It is okay to want...as long as you always remember what you really, really want...this connection with God's Will for you.  And pay appropriate attention to what seeds you are watering and why. Ensure that your wanting is healthy and that desire never overrides or gets in the way of the healthy seeds from growing in your Life...those seeds that will bring true happiness and joy to you.

All is well.



ACIM

All the dharma talks I have listened to


Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Another Look at Desire

Don't get caught in the story society is telling you.
Br. Phap Dung

Hmm! Serendipity is amazing , isn't it?  It reminds us of the interconnectedness of everything and this idea that there is really no such thing as the "little separate self."

Serendipity

I have been thinking and writing about our desires and our need to water selectively those things within us that we want to grow.  Then , as I do every morning, I flick on my you tube with the intention of watching the first dharma talk that pops up ( I don't choose or select...I leave it up to the Universe lol). And what dharma talk was there waiting for me to view it this morning? The Better Way to Pursue our Desire. Go figure!  I know Google is pretty smart and may be watching us more than we realize  but really??? :)

Looking at Desires

So I am thinking even more about desires and what to do with them.  I am attempting, without too much effort, to gain more insight into my own desires. It is quite fascinating and I find myself looking at what comes up with an,  "Oh Wow!  look at that! Isn't that cool."  Years ago, I would not have let this stuff come up.  I had a lid over it that I sat on with all my weight to keep any of it from coming out.  If it did manage to come out, I would have attacked it ( an myself for not being strong enough to stop it); I would have resisted; I would have denied it or did what I could to stuff it back down there in that subconscious field where all our shadows are stored.  Now I want to examine it all in this new light of awareness I am discovering, understand it and transform it.  (I am really not into the "transcending", I guess.)

Purposeful Life?

Anyway...so I look at my desires, motivations and goals in life to determine the age old question, "What is the purpose of life?" .  As this talk discusses, so much of our sense of purpose is derived from what our culture defines as important to be, do or achieve. I come from the west and I live in a country that shadows to some  degree our neighbor's ideology of the "pursuit of happiness".  Our purpose is defined for us:  to find happiness at all costs...as if "happiness' is something out there that needs to be hunted and chased down. Happiness is viewed as an "individual achievement" in my culture, one that I will reap all the reward and recognition for if I achieve, and all the blame for if I fail.  Hmmm!

Br. Phap Dung describes the four stages of a purposeful life that Buddha recognized in his culture, which is actually the same stages seen in many cultures today, including my own. We go from enjoying life passionately and freely (which allows for a little wild oats to be sown) in our young adulthood to focusing on settling down and succeeding in our , say 30's, by establishing relationship and professional successes.  From there we progress to serving the world beyond self and family  by becoming community caretakers (in our fifties maybe). This stage may be devoted to leaving something of value behind and we are not usually adverse to having our name attached to it. It is not until our final stages of life that many of us seek spiritual liberation. (The fear of impending death may actually have something to do with that.)

Pursuit of Happiness?

Throughout it all we desire.  We seek to attain and maintain things our culture tells us are necessary for the fulfilment of these stages.  In my culture  we are taught that money, sensual pleasure, fame and recognition, power and "special relationships" are the keys to happiness. Everyone around us is seeking this stuff so it must be  "true and natural desire", right? We are like separate little fish in a big school of fish that are  caught in a fast moving current, we label as the pursuit of happiness. 

But the sad thing is , it doesn't make us happy. We spend all our time being swept along, reaching out, trying to grasp and cling to the things that are passing by us...feeling desperate to "have" what someone else has, to get it before they do, before it runs out etc.  If we are lucky enough, in our endless pursuits, to get one of those things society tells us is our key to happiness...we feel that so called happiness for all but a minute...then we need to upgrade to something newer, better, what everyone else on Facebook or Twitter seem to be so happy having. Because we are being swept along in a current of collective habitual energy, we do not see this grasping, this striving for and the need to do as society instructs in order to be happy pulls us away from the things that actually make us truly happy. It is only when we can free ourselves of society's story, of this current that we will find teh true , lasting happiness we desire.

We need to stop and examine not only what we desire but what we don't desire.  What we don't desire is often resisted, denied, ignored, stuffed down inside us, suppressed and repressed.  This is our suffering.  To examine our desires means we also need to examine our suffering.  We need to determine the root causes of both.

R-A-E-L-I

That lovely little acronym from Deer Park is forever stuck in my head and in my heart.  Rabbits And Elephants Like Ice-cream.

• Recognize your desires and your suffering when they arise or maybe even as seeds in the subconscious ( Of course we often are not aware of our seeds until they manifest in the conscious mind). 
• Then allow them and accept them, accept yourself for experiencing them.  Don't beat yourself up for wanting a new car or a successful business.  It is not the thing you desire or the thing you don't want that is the problem.  It is the why and how of it all that is the problem...the root cause of it that needs to be examined.  Maybe you want a new car because you feel unworthy in comparison to others, you feel like a "nobody" and you erroneously assume the  car will make you worthy, at least in the eyes of others.
• But before you examine it , allow it...embrace it, hold it gently and say "Oh Wow!  Look at that! Isn't that cool?  I wonder what it can teach me about myself. I wonder how I can use this to awaken?" By embracing, we put down our resistance and our need to push away.  We offer loving kindness to ourselves for our human tendencies.  We don't add to suffering, we seek to ease it.
• Then and only then can you truly approach the process of looking deeply at the why you want what you want, or the why you suffer. There is never "one" cause.  There is never one person or thing to blame.  If your desire is for someone to change because you do not like the way they treat you.  You have to realize that your desire comes from many things, not just from that person's behaviour in your present life.  You might have suffered as a child from similar behaviour. You might not like the way that behaviour impacts your children etc etc.  Then when you look at the person you feel is the source of your suffering...know that there are several causative factors making them the way they are.  Maybe  they are unwell or overly stressed, maybe it is the environment, or their upbringing.  Maybe you are actually seeing his or her parents, grandparents, great grandparents in the behaviour you so desire to change.  Just know that: This is because that is.
• The insight will come as to why we desire what we desire or why we suffer as we suffer.  We will find a new way to desire, a new way to ease suffering.  This is enlightenment and it doesn't come from anywhere but inside.  In order to get there we need to stop swimming along with all the other fish because we society tells us to.  We stop, breathe and look inward to determine what we really, really want. What we really want, we may discover, is to have spiritual freedom now!

My own Example: Writing and the Three Truths

In my own example of writing, it helps if I remember these three things Br. Phap Dung tells us to consider: Impermanence, inter-being and non-self.  I do have a desire for recognition as a writer.  I have a desire for some monetary gain for it.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting that.  The problem would only come if I was caught up in that, dependent on it for my happiness, wrote only for that reason.   I will suffer because  these things will never last.  Those who have established literary fame will be praised one moment, criticized the  next.  Will succeed with one book, fail with another.   Be honored one moment, disgraced the next. That is the nature of impermanence.

Then there is the Buddhists notions of inter-being and non-self to consider.  I say "I want to be recognized as a writer.  I want to have what I have written honored and praised."   Now look at this .  I desire these things as if "I" was the only one who deserves recognition for what I supposedly written.  It wasn't just me that put effort into the creation of whatever I write.  I am inspired by a million things and whatever I write would not be without those inspirations.  Take these blog entries, for example...if I did not listen to the dharma talk today, I would not have written this, at least not in the way it was written. Br Phap Dung is just as much responsible as I am for what I wrote here, if not more so. Thich Nhat Hanh is therefore responsible for what I wrote and the Buddha himself.  This little idea of "I" as the separate little  writer of these things is not reality.  As I said many times, especially in reference to poetry, it just comes through me as one collective thought from One Collective Mind. I love this in Three Magic Words.

Every book has been written by the same author...Every sonnet composed by the same poet. (location 180,181)

Without Ego, What Do You Want?

Now that really shrinks ego down to size whether he is in the redeeming mode or the shaming.  So ...without ego...do I really, really want recognition as a writer?  No...I want readers in order to complete this glorious cycle but fame and notoriety I realize will come and go, will turn from praise to criticism in a moment...I don't want to be dependent on that.  What I want is to have so much joy in me, so much peace  as I write for the sheer love of writing and giving that it doesn't matter how my work is received.  Now wouldn't that be cool? I think, I will water those seeds of desire! (Hey...not that I would say no to a publication or to get paid fro what I do lol)

Anyway, know what you really, really want and what you don't want.  Look deeply into these things and decide what should be watered and what shouldn't. Don't let society dictate that for you! Make it an inner game.

Heartfelt thanks to all those wonderful beings who helped me write this and who help me to write all I write!

All is well.


Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Plum Village ( May, 2020) The Better Way To Pursue our Desires/Dharma Talk by br. Phap Dung. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbEOX-orTMg&list=PLaX_vxbhs8fgKZ8fpSs8QyvNwdJMSv4Kp&index=5&t=0s