Perfectionist

I've made many strides with my practice. So why can't I enjoy this progress? It seems that brutal and painful effort is all my mind knows. It is no wonder that my mind is constantly moving, feeding, and/or avoiding something.

I've been retraining my cruel mind with kindness and generosity. But old painful grooves will take time and patience to fill with new values. Sometime ago as a child, I must of thought it wise to become attached to pain, instead of fearing it. But it was the fear that glued me to it in the first place.

It's very difficult to accept where I am. The perfectionist inside punishes me every step of the way. But I must say, I didn't always see I was the source of my own misery. This is a new development that compassion has helped me to achieve.

I observed a modified version of Uposatha this week. I focused on problem areas and loosened up on others. The perfectionist in me was not happy. He wants me to push to my limits all the time. But I am growing tired of short fits of practice mixed in with long breaks, where I don't practice at all. I am in this for the long haul, and as they say "what bends a little, won't break."

Mr. Grey

Even now as I steadily train on new values and habits, I still suffer.  Very old Karmic seeds that I’ve consistently planted and nurtured begin to ripen.  I try with great difficulty to find wholesome pleasure within, as a cruel thief comes to steal it away.  He is the antagonist of all the healthy narratives within my mind.

Mr. Grey is a character that I created to personify my own mental experiences with aversion.  He is the character that I sometimes use in performances to entertain, and frighten the audience.  He is everything I don’t like about the world, and myself.  More terrifying still, he was born out of the joy I often find myself taking, when I cause myself suffering.

Meditation and observing Uposatha has forced me to take a long hard look at what I had for so many years avoided.  I just couldn't believe or admit that the reason I was suffering was because I had become friendly with being cruel to myself.  Picture trying to make sure you don’t suffer from a headache, by hitting yourself in the head with a sledgehammer instead!

Teacher has me cultivating skillful pleasure within, by creating new values to replace old ones.  I can sense it’s starting to work, and my life is improving as a result.  But Mr. Grey has me pushing “More-more, faster-faster.”  When that happens (like it has been all day today) I just notice that inclination, try to replace it with a skillful one, or just have compassion for myself.  After all, there is no one else to blame but me.  Yet, that also means the power to change lives in me!

Raistlin

When I was growing up I was exposed to old school (pencil and paper) Role-Playing Games, or RPG’s.  I remember my brother telling me stories about a fictional character from a book called Dragonlance.  He was a physically weak character that usually had his burly brother protect him.  However, Raistlin, as the character was called, eventually became the most powerful magic user in the series.

There were many things that made Dragonlance interesting to me.  The most significant to this passage was Raistlin’s eyes.  He had hourglass shaped pupils that would only allow him to see living beings in a state of decomposition!  This was part of the price he had to pay to achieve such incredible power.

Although I don’t have any interest in magic or ruling the universe, I do aim to conquer my own defilements.  I have been on a roll with seeing the body “with both eyes” since I last observed Uposatha.  Today as I was observing (a day before the calendar date) I started to see the act itself as a game.  This caused me to eventually remember Raistlin and the stories my brother told me as a child.

Surely if I had hourglass eyes, I wouldn’t need any reminders on the teachings of impermanence.  But I am not a fictional character in a story.  I’m also really glad I don’t have to see everyone in a constant state of decay.  Instead, the effort and mindfulness I put into my practice will give me unimaginable power over myself.  Allowing me to relate to our world “with both eyes” and arms open.

Enviro-mental

My entire life I have been surrounded by patriarchal values.  Starting with a vision and story about the creation of all things coming from a “man” they call God.  Then, I was conditioned by culture, language, education and even food.  I am from the land where cat calls and urine dominate every street corner.

The world is filled with contradictions and lies.  Examples like parking lots at bars and killing in the name of god come to mind.  Furthermore, considering biology, and women, I’d think (if I subscribed to theories of creation) that the creator/universe is a woman, and all the rocks within her are the men.  After all, the world I was raised in was clearly shaped and led by my mother.

All this is to say that gawking and paying close attention to a woman’s physical beauty is all but a hallmark of a male’s coming of age.  It wasn’t until I started practicing and observing Uposatha that I truly became aware of my own preoccupation with the body in general.  A form of suffering that is second only to breathing for most.

This week I observed a modified version of Uposatha.  I gave less attention to things like when I ate, and whether I used lotion, etc…  I focused more on my mental actions.  I tried “looking with both eyes” as the Ajahns’ would say.  Whenever I came across physical beauty I reflected on both the internal and external body parts that inspire disgust.  I’ll leave the examples to your imagination.  Needless to say this Buddhist technique works; it allows me to appreciate a woman as a human being.

Well, I’ll never be perfect.  And my awareness still tends to flow out behind any beautiful woman like a flock of birds flying south for the winter.  But whenever I remember - - AH!  I feel a slow ever so subtle shift in my consciousness, and the women of the world don’t stop being beautiful.  I just start realizing women have more to offer, as do men that put their minds to it.  Let’s be clear, I am a product of my environment.  But I have the final decision on what that product will be. 

Perception

Awareness typically gets washed away by pleasure, or crushed by pain.  Vicious are the tsunamis and earthquakes of the mind.  Nothing comes close to what we can do with our own perception.  How does one person greet death with humor, while another is terrified?  Any experience we have had, or will have is subject to perception.  Without a mind the senses are just empty holes.

I remember hearing a story about a little girl that never had shoes in her life.  When she got them for her birthday, she was more excited about being old enough to walk miles each way to fetch water for her family.  She was so proud and happy to be useful to her family that lives in squalor.  While most children her age in the states don’t appreciate their parents buying them the latest Jordan’s.  Let alone walk miles to fetch water.

But before you go beat your kids up, and take away their new sporty shoes.  Take a moment to realize that the most powerful thing you will ever experience is your own mind.  It is what allows us to know things and appreciate things.  Let’s not allow this wonderful precious mind to become a burden, or worse, a bully.

I’ve lived with a bully in my mind for most of my adult life.  It is the very reason I came to this practice to find salvation from my own self imposed suffering.  But it wasn’t until I started making progress on the path that it really started to hurt.  Observing Uposatha was pure agony.  Since, it gave the bully no place to hide.  Nothing to keep me distracted from the horrible things I do to myself moment to moment.

I had to finally recognize that my old karma was tied up with terrible values, the habit of taking joy in beating myself up.  Yet, my old karma is not going to go away overnight.  But every moment I begin to beat myself up, I can make a choice, a change for the better.  I can be compassionate to myself.  But in order to see this, I had to take a really hard look at myself.  I was both my own best friend and worst enemy.  The question is simple.  Which values will I feed?

I observed Uposatha yesterday, and I did pretty good being compassionate with myself.  I didn’t catch every inclination to beat myself up.  But the moments I did catch, I reflected on what a blessing it was to do so.  For only through gratitude, patience and compassion can I find shelter from my own self imposed suffering.

Flashlight

You wouldn’t use a flashlight the wrong way.  It’s always clear that the light should be pointed at what needs to be seen.  If you don’t do it right you will remain in the dark.  Stumble, hit your big toe and hopefully not fall.  Ouch!  Talk about needless stress and suffering.  Turn the darn thing on and point it at where you are going.

If only it were that easy with the mind.  Our attention is always flying around all over the place.  We look for happiness in things, and we don’t pay enough attention to our own intentions, actions or results.  It is human to make mistakes.  But why do we always repeat them?  Why can’t the mind stay?

Thinking is the most delicious thing I’ve ever done.  I am addicted to it.  And it’s very difficult to catch myself when my mind wanders, since I like doing so.  And have been for a long time.  If only it were like a flashlight so that I can turn it off when I don’t want to think.  But the mind is not a battery driven machine.

The mind is driven in the present by what we have been inclined to value in the past.  And whenever a given phenomena comes up again we either change our values, or continue to support old ones.  The mind might seem to randomly jump, but there is nothing random about it.  Whatever you are experiencing in your mind this moment, is what you’ve trained in.  So, what exactly are we training in?

Yesterday I observed Uposatha.  I hit just about every note I promised myself I would, with many mistakes in between.  But I kept at it.  My mind is addicted to thinking, and that became unmistakably clear yesterday as I tried to focus on breathing.  But I took joy in my past and present efforts to practice.  That fueled me with the desire to get through the difficult moments of anxiety and thinking.  I might still be walking around in the dark.  But I know where the flashlight is.  And I intend to turn it on, and around, “little by slowly.”

NOTE:  It definitely pays off to pay a visit to the wise folks you know walking the same way.  It helped me!  It always helps me.
http://www.dnymc.org/

I Don't Like ...

 



It has been a long time that I have not written about my practice or Uposatha.  Sorry, I’ve just been really-really busy, not liking myself.  But I am not writing this now seeking sympathy or pity.  It is actually quite liberating to recognize that my biggest problem in life has been myself.  Ironically, the one thing in this world that I can control is also the most troubling.

My happiest memories live in a past that will never return.  I still subconsciously hold them and reject making new ones.  The lessons of the inevitability of change and separation did not come to me until much later in life.  And by then, I had already thoroughly trained myself on how to numb the pain.  Now I must undo this state of blind and painful equanimity.

There is a difference between being dispassionate from reaching the Buddhist goal of release, and being passionate about beating yourself up to stay numb.  The ultimate goal that any human can reach cannot be compared to the later.  But before I get on a roll beating myself up, let me point out that there is an allure to doing so.  I’ve grown familiar and comfortable with my internalized sadomasochism.

Meditation makes it impossible to ignore that this needs to change.  Let alone giving myself the gift of renunciation during Uposatha.  So, I’ve not had the strength to observe in a while.  It has been hard enough to hold onto my daily practice.  All of which became clear to me the moment I admitted, I don’t like myself.

A fact that can change by doing good things and not just the kind that make you feel good in the moment.  I mean those that require sacrifice now, so that later we can meet the unknown with courage and strength.  I am not perfect, and I never will be.  But that’s ok.  I only need to be kind, not perfect, to be happy forever.