Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Rain and Chill in August
...and it feels so good,...as if we are being promised a fresh Autumn, but we know it's not quite yet....we somehow sense this is just a special treat, like ice cream on a hot summer night....we have been given rain and cold...and it feels good.It is quite a dismal day out there, actually, and so sloppy wet that even the intrepid Cyrano was hesitant to pee...Sally of course looked at me like I had gone insane and waited until she could get her delicate little furry bottom back inside to her familiar papers.....i have a doggie who goes to the bathroom where I do! Same room, different locale...if she had taller legs, she'd be right up there with me, I have no doubt.
ANYWAY: I have about decided today that i have nothing original to say or think...that anything that comes from my mouth or my pen (figuratively) is trite and used and all too human and familiar, which makes it not worth saying because everyone else, and I do mean everyone else, no matter their profession, everyone else has said it already before me anyway, so why bother....indeed? Why bother to say it? Sentimentality has never particularly bothered me before now...but now...maybe it's the clear-thinking rigor of the hours I have been spending on the meditation cushion...certain illusions have begun to give way...and I am no longer satisfied with the ways i have been used to negotiating the world...I think I no longer feel so sad about the world....no...rather....it fascinates me...and because I have given up the idea that we are victims of any particular enemy or fate...as I have given over the notion of "victory" over any sort of "defeat" (a notion so rife in the type of Buddhism i used to study), that we can "win"...(as if Life is a contest...and if it were a contest, isn't it clear there is no "winning" it?...but then again, it's not a game show....it's a long-running cartoon....)...ANYWAY: I do love language...and the way people use language continues to utterly engage me.......but everytime i go back to the world of poets and poetry, i veer wildly between adoration of a turn of phrase and utter nausea at the way we all twist words to suit our stories of ourselves....ANYWAY...am I rambling?
In my contemplations last night, on the subject of precious human existence that I am studying on this leg of the Dharma Path program I am in, I came across some interesting writing and want to quote one passage here: Let but this angry mind be overthrown, and every foe is then and there destroyed .....Shantideva in the Bodhicaryavitara....really giving urgent guidance and at the same time underscoring the responsiblity we each have in seeing the illusion we all create when we name things 'foe" or "enemy"....the only thing that needs overthrowing are our own pride and ego...our solid belief in a Self that simply is not there...maybe that is why we work so hard to make sure it seems to be....there, I mean. We create a "them" who gives us grief so that we feel more solidly existent....We fight wars because we actually think what we are requires defending...what we believe requires killing others to maintain...stunning , isn't it? As if being and believing are real things.....as if shutting out others is way of keeping ourselves and our thought systems safe......that is simply insane thinking......
It's all so perfectly illusory. So silly. Like New Yorkers who get slightly crazier than usual when it rains...the City gets all tied up in knots...people fight each other for shelter from the drops that might make them wet...wars over cabs! As if, like the Western Wicked Witch, they might melt....what is that? Fear of water? The discomfort of moisture?
Truly...this meditation thing is powerful. Powerful and good. A new way of seeing.....a new form of playing in life....mindfulness.....yes.
Well, for someone with nothing new to say i certainly do go on, don't I? please forgive.....
Off to throw away more stuff...we seem to be in a rigorous cleansing mode lately...all I can say to that is "YAY!" I am again stunned by how much stuff there not only IS, but that I have felt the need to own....YIKES!
ANYWAY: I have about decided today that i have nothing original to say or think...that anything that comes from my mouth or my pen (figuratively) is trite and used and all too human and familiar, which makes it not worth saying because everyone else, and I do mean everyone else, no matter their profession, everyone else has said it already before me anyway, so why bother....indeed? Why bother to say it? Sentimentality has never particularly bothered me before now...but now...maybe it's the clear-thinking rigor of the hours I have been spending on the meditation cushion...certain illusions have begun to give way...and I am no longer satisfied with the ways i have been used to negotiating the world...I think I no longer feel so sad about the world....no...rather....it fascinates me...and because I have given up the idea that we are victims of any particular enemy or fate...as I have given over the notion of "victory" over any sort of "defeat" (a notion so rife in the type of Buddhism i used to study), that we can "win"...(as if Life is a contest...and if it were a contest, isn't it clear there is no "winning" it?...but then again, it's not a game show....it's a long-running cartoon....)...ANYWAY: I do love language...and the way people use language continues to utterly engage me.......but everytime i go back to the world of poets and poetry, i veer wildly between adoration of a turn of phrase and utter nausea at the way we all twist words to suit our stories of ourselves....ANYWAY...am I rambling?
In my contemplations last night, on the subject of precious human existence that I am studying on this leg of the Dharma Path program I am in, I came across some interesting writing and want to quote one passage here: Let but this angry mind be overthrown, and every foe is then and there destroyed .....Shantideva in the Bodhicaryavitara....really giving urgent guidance and at the same time underscoring the responsiblity we each have in seeing the illusion we all create when we name things 'foe" or "enemy"....the only thing that needs overthrowing are our own pride and ego...our solid belief in a Self that simply is not there...maybe that is why we work so hard to make sure it seems to be....there, I mean. We create a "them" who gives us grief so that we feel more solidly existent....We fight wars because we actually think what we are requires defending...what we believe requires killing others to maintain...stunning , isn't it? As if being and believing are real things.....as if shutting out others is way of keeping ourselves and our thought systems safe......that is simply insane thinking......
It's all so perfectly illusory. So silly. Like New Yorkers who get slightly crazier than usual when it rains...the City gets all tied up in knots...people fight each other for shelter from the drops that might make them wet...wars over cabs! As if, like the Western Wicked Witch, they might melt....what is that? Fear of water? The discomfort of moisture?
Truly...this meditation thing is powerful. Powerful and good. A new way of seeing.....a new form of playing in life....mindfulness.....yes.
Well, for someone with nothing new to say i certainly do go on, don't I? please forgive.....
Off to throw away more stuff...we seem to be in a rigorous cleansing mode lately...all I can say to that is "YAY!" I am again stunned by how much stuff there not only IS, but that I have felt the need to own....YIKES!
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