Pride V Humilty

What does it mean to be intelligent?  To know useful things has a purpose.  Yet, how easily the defilements arm themselves with all I know.  This leaves intelligence as my largest hurdle of pride and self centeredness.  The more intelligent I become, the more effective my own wickedness may be at fooling me, robbing me, and lying to me.

Pride is like being filled with empty ideas.  None of it nourishes me to love myself.  Yet, I hold onto it all for dear life.  I don’t want to part with myself importance.  Although, I see the hidden building blocks of unhappiness I cause myself.  I just haven’t suffered enough to let it go.

If only I could calm my rage long enough to be grateful for what I can see today.  Things I just couldn’t see yesterday.  Surely that would pave the way to patience, kindness and self love.  But I’m addicted to my rage.  It’s my comforter; my oldest companion through the lonely and cold winters of my heart.

I am in love with my own wickedness.  Everything I learn about the world around becomes fuel for the fire I burn myself in.  I am tired of getting burned.  But my lack of humility in all things says I am NOT tired enough.

Blank Page

A blank page is symbolic of awakening, and the path that gets you there.  It does not have any preconceived notions about what message it will receive.  Nor does it spend any time dwelling on what has happened in the past.  It is plain, beautifully simple, and empty.

How does one achieve such simplicity within the confines of a complex human life?  The blank page suggests that we keep it down to the most basic question of Karma.  What actions lead to what result?  A blank page is content at being useful in creating and displaying a meaning.  Can we do the same for our own happiness?

Above all else a blank page is honest.  It does not lie and pretend to be this or that.  It is not looking for anyone’s approval.  It only claims to be at the disposal of a power higher than itself.

We scribble on it, we write both the most meaningful and the most destructive messages on it.  We spill our food and drink on it.  We rip it to shreds, and sometimes, try to tape it back together.  We’ve found or lost the meaning of life on it, and yet, it is always waiting, and ready, with the same care we have given it.  Can we be as magnanimous as a blank page?

The Buddha suggests that we can.

The Body

How we see ourselves from the inside is truly a universe all to itself.  It is the foundation of how we relate to the universe around us.  But, before you can develop a healthy universe inside, you must first notice the flaws within it.  Why would you fix something that you don’t think is broken?

This would be impossible to do if you are deficient of honesty and courage!  You must be willing to endure the pain of being with what you don’t want and the pain of being away from what you do want long enough to see how you relate.  There can be no drugs, hindrances or obsessions in the way; we must be still and sober. 

It wasn’t until I faced my deepest inner insecurities that it dawned on me.  The biggest problem that I have ever had was spawned by a negative body image.  I still travel with heavy luggage filled with associations I made when I was still learning how to talk.  Ironically, the antidote for an unhealthy body image is a healthy negative body image.

Most people don’t like the strategy called “Contemplation of the Body” it can inspire disgust.  i.e. blood, urine, feces, intestines, puss, phlegm, saliva etc…  This is not to inspire an obsession for what is disgusting about being human.  It is to remind us that we are all fundamentally the same from the inside out.  It is to pry us from our attachment to what is beautiful about the body before it fades due to illness or aging, to cure us of our obsessions for what we have or don’t have, and to make us focus on what is truly beautiful about being human: Integrity, Love and Compassion.

Here follows a few links I’ve found to be helpful about the body:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/bodymind.html

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/khantipalo/wheel271.html

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.soma.html