Neon Lights or Starry Nights?

Ever experience something that might seem small and insignificant to everyone else around you, but it completely rocks your world? Something that takes you by surprise and effects you in possibly life-changing ways?

Here I am, sitting in Ricardo's art studio, struggling to write something, anything, and suddenly I notice that I have an overwhelming urge to cry-to bawl like a little hungry baby. Sure, I could attribute it to simple writer's frustration, but I don't think it's quite that simple.

Here's the thing. I can't stop thinking about getting away. Not like taking a vacation or something like that. I mean getting away. I have this growing desire to leave the life I live now-not permanently or anything-but for a little while. Part of it is that I want to know what happens when I live outside the constant influence of society, what happens when my dog is the only thing besides myself that influences my decisions. I want to live outside the 'you shoulds' and the 'you oughts', outside the decadent lifestyle of instant entitlement and material wealth. Part of it is that I am in love with nature, and I want to connect with it ouside the city limits, beyond the reach of neon lights and faded billboards. I find incredible wisdom in the stillness and strength of the trees which sit so patiently in nature and never tire of protecting her, and such beauty in the cycle of life that goes unimpeded by the latest wrinkle reducing lotion and diet pill.

It sounds like an awesome idea. So why do I feel like I just want to roll on the floor and cry myself to sleep? I'm damn scared, that's why. Scared of the 'what ifs', and the loneliness, and the fact that I'll have to deal with myself. I'm a girl who has never really had to make any decisions on her own. I've never lived on my own, never traveled on my own, never been alone for more than a day. I've depended on others so much that I'm scared as hell of depending on myself.

That brings me back to what I mentioned earlier. Remember how I wondered if you'd ever had a seemingly insignificant experience that rocked your world? For me, that experience came as one single little thought that planted itself and grew. I was listening to my sister talk about something, and she mentioned going to eat breakfast in a restaurant by herself. Something clicked in my head, and I realized, I have never eaten by myself in a restaurant before. Most people would say, "big deal. So what?" But it's not just about eating alone. It's about doing something completely on my own. It's about knowing who I am, and as a result, comprehending on a deeper level the intimate connection between everything in the universe.

Last thing I want to say is this. I know I'm scared, but this is my Year of the Lotus. This is my time to face my fears. I just know I won't be able to live with myself if I don't do through with it, and I know that doing it feels more right than not doing it. When the time comes for me to go, I just can't back out. I can't make excuses. I have to do it. I have to, no matter what.

Buddha did it, and look where it got him...ENLIGHTENMENT.

...A Year's Worth of Reading

I've devised a reading list of books I want to get through this year. I call it "The Hippie List" because most of the books were either written or recommended by self proclaimed hippies. Anway, here it is-if you have any books you recommend, let me know!

* Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
* The Trial by Franz Kafka
* Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
* Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
* Coraline by Neil Gaiman
* Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (didn't know the movie was based on a book)
* One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
* On the Road by Jack Karouac
* The Dharma Bums by Jack Karouac
* Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (poetry): Also the name of a really good movie starring Edward Norton
* Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (I'm tired of feeling like the only person who doesn't know anything about Don Quixote!)
* Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (didn't know there was a book until I saw the movie)
* The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
* Siddharta by Herman Hesse
* Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
* The Bhagavad Gita
* Confession of a Buddhist Athiest by Stephen Batchelor
* anything I can get my hands on written by the Dalai Lama

...My Tree!

I was playing around with paint the other day, drew this little doodle, thought I'd share it with you. It's the first thing I've ever successfully drawn on the ol' pc that actually looked like anything!

Some people who looked at it saw an image of sadness, despair, and loneliness; others thought it was peaceful, calm, and inviting. I find it interesting that the same colors and image can look so different to every person who sees it. It all, I think, depends on your personal, subjective experience of the image, based on your emotional and mental state at the time.

...the Year of the Lotus

2011 is my "Year of the Lotus." I named it because this is an important year. Let's just start at the beginning-Day One, January 1. On Day One I finished my first short story written with intent to publish. I submitted the story on January 1 to a competition in a well known and highly renowned short story journal. Whether or not I win is not important. Whether or not I get published is not important. It would be nice-amazing-if I did, but it is not what counts. What is important is that I submitted it. I took a risk and put my name out there. I am getting someone to read my story, someone who didn't know my name before. I took a piece of my soul, my imagination, and put it out in the universe. Step One, complete, on Day One. What a way to start the year. This year is my year to take risks, to open the Lotus.

This is my year to push myself farther than I've ever gone before, do things I never did before, explore parts of my mind and imagination I didn't even know I had. I've opened my ears to the voice of the universe, and I'm ready to take the year and make it mine. It's like I've been walking through a vast labyrinth of dark tunnels up until this point with no end in sight. But then, one day a few years ago, I decided to go left when my brain was telling me to go right. I walked and walked, and suddenly I felt the tiniest whisper of a breeze that led me through 2010. On January 1, 2011, I saw sunlight. One bright golden ray, peering through a crack in the rocks, urging me onward. The ray of light is always there. I can't touch it, but I see it. I feel it. I know it's with me. I carry my closed Lotus flower in my pocket, nourishing it with only the energy from my persistence. I know the Lotus will blossom if I don't give up, because I know I will make it out of the tunnels if I keep walking, if I just keep following the ray of sunlight.

And so, onward I travel, seeking what I know I'm meant to find.

...A Way Back

I've been bad. For three months I have meditated on a daily basis, without fail. I even started practicing generosity meditations, like I described in my last two blog posts. But then, one day last week, I didn't meditate. And I have not meditated one day since.

It could have been out of pure laziness that I haven't meditated.Occasionally I have bouts of absolute laziness where I basically convince myself to do nothing productive for the whole day. These bouts can last for a few days on up to a week before I get so fed up with being lazy that I have to do something, anything. That may be it. But that's a lie.

The truth is that recently I attempted a meditation meant to cleanse my system and help me to confront my inner demons. During the meditation, I imagined myself going deep within my conscience and pulling open the "file cabinets" one by one, looking through my past. I focused specifically on the cabinets my mind marked as "regrets," "painful memories," and "nagging thoughts always stuck at the back of your mind." I can say the meditation worked in that I found those file cabinets at all. To find the cabinets is one thing, but to be able to open them up and look inside, well, that is something else entirely. It can be quite a positive, cleansing experience, or it can be downright frightening and even dangerous. I went into my meditation hoping for the positive, cleansing experience, and what I got was scared senseless. I didn't realize, going into it, exactly how painful some of my locked away memories are. I didn't realize how much my subconscience was hiding from me, and to skim even just the surface of those memories was like an atomic explosion on my island of calm. I can very honestly say that I was not prepared for what I got. And since then, I have not been back. I was scared of what I saw. So scared in fact that I jumped out of my meditation without grounding myself-I ran out of that place and completely forgot to close the file cabinets and turn out the light. Now, in that room is a big mess of memories floating around in a chaotic soup, all jumbled up with no idea where they belong or why they were moved in the first place.

I've been spending the last week since that meditation trying to convince myself to go back in and face it, dammit. I know that I eventually have to finish what I started, go back into that room, wipe the dust off those memories, and clean the place up. By clean the place up I don't mean lock the memories away again in their cabinets. I mean, I have to sort through the memories, come to terms with them, and find a new and much more peaceful, clean place to store them. Maybe even throw some of them out altogether. It's a scary task, but without a doubt a necessary one.

I can tell you, it makes a huge difference to have those memories floating around in my subconscience with no rhyme or reason. The mess in my subconscious is noticeably affecting my conscience mind. I have been moody, down, and even unreasonably angry during the last week. I've felt less determination, more confusion, and much less positivity. All because I was too scared to really face myself and finish what I started. This change in my energy affects everyone around me too, which is absolutely not a generous act, unless you count generosity as heaping your negative energy onto the shoulders of those you love. I certainly don't. I know I do not want to continue feeling this way and affecting those I love.

Anyhow, now, after taking half an hour or so to write this post and admit to you and myself what I've been doing, I feel much better. I thank you for letting me pour this out and come to terms with what has been going on in my mind for the past week. I feel as though now, having confronted the issue guarding my other issues, I have regained my courage and am ready to walk through the halls of my subconscience again. I'm taking a dustpan and mop this time, and a pot of sunflowers for good measure. I'm ready to go back in, and I feel prepared for what awaits me inside. I'll let you know how it goes!

Just as an aside, please do not try something like this if you have never meditated before. It is not exactly an easy meditation to do, and requires a great deal of awareness. I was not prepared for the memories I saw, but because I have practiced meditation it did not affect me as severely as it could have. I am aware of the causes of the negative emotions, and know what I have to do to rid myself of them. If one is not, however, the damage can be lasting and quite the opposite of what it is meant to be.

...Danaparamita

I read more of The Six Perfections by Dale S. Wright, and decided that a good understanding of the six characteristics of an awakened mind are pretty important to the overall forward movement of my spiritual path. So, I'm going to work my way through the book and share with you what I learn. Today I want to focus specifically on the first perfection-the perfection of generosity, or danaparamita.

What exactly is generosity? Most of the time we like to think of it as an act of giving, and this is very true. However, not every act of giving is considered a perfection of generosity. True generosity, according to Buddhist dharma, lies in giving without self-satisfaction in the act. If a person gives something to another person and feels good about the fact that they gave something, then the motivation for the giving was impure and therefore not really generous. How many times have I given without feeling some self satisfaction in return? Hmmm....I can count the number of times on one hand. I can recall that in those few times when I felt no self-satisfaction, the generous act felt like a sacrifice against my own well being rather than a helpful gift. I talked to a friend about what she thinks of generosity before I read the chapter, and she felt the same way I did. She said her main motivation for giving, no matter how bad it might sound, always has some kind of basis in how good it will make her feel, and if she doesn't feel good about it she feels like she's losing something in order for the other person to gain. There is always some emotion attached to the giving process, whether positive or negative, and according to Buddhism neither feeling is pure generosity.

How does one give without feeling some self-satisfaction or some other emotion? It appears to lie within that one word I wrote in the last sentence of the last paragraph..."attachment." A very important aspect of Mahayana (or Middle Way) Buddhist philosophy is emptiness, sunyata in Sanskrit. Sunyata relates to what I wrote in my last post about dependence. According to Mahayana Buddhists, we are nothing without everything else. We can not give to someone without everything else in our life making that possible-for example parents giving birth to and teaching us about generosity in the first place, or our employers giving us financial capability to give. We can't give without the environmental factors which make it possible, and we can't give without someone needing the gift. We have to realize that giving is not something which comes from us as individuals, but from everything around us that allows for it to happen. When we realize that what we give has nothing to do with our individuality and everything to do with what made it possible for us to give, then we can detach from the idea that the satisfaction in  giving is ours for the taking. The gift, the giver, and the recipient all depend on one another and are all part of one another. One cannot exist without the other. Giving then, is not taking something of mine and making it yours-congratulations-but rather, it is mine and yours and everyone's all at the same time. When a person thinks of giving in this sense, one can grasp that generosity is nothing more than giving because someone is in need.

We have to be careful in our generosity, however, as we do run the risk of turning the generous act into one of self sacrifice. We also run the risk of harming someone else with our generosity. We can not just say "what is mine is yours." For example, we can not just give someone all our money because they need it and ask for it. We have to think, will this really benefit the other person in the long run? Will they learn that they can't spend all their money on designer clothes and golf gear and still pay their bills, or will they learn that they can spend all their money on luxury and then just ask you for the money to pay their bills? Will you be able to pay your bills? Will you end up having to ask someone else for help as a result of your gift? We have to be smart about it, and think long and hard before we give. Giving can sometimes have the exact opposite effect of the one we want it to have. Sometimes the most generous thing we can do for someone else is not give. If we don't give all our cash to the person who asks for it, they might learn that they can't spend all of theirs on unnecessary luxuries and then expect to pay their bills-and who knows, maybe next time that person will not buy designer clothes and golf clubs until they have paid their bills. Then, they will have the security of knowing their bills are paid for another month, we will have the security of knowing our bills are paid, and our friends and family will have the security of knowing their bills are paid and no one had to ask anyone else to perform self sacrifice in the process.

The most important step in cultivating the perfection of generosity is practicing it. If we don't practice it, we won't ever learn it. I can sit here and write all I want about it, but if I'm not working on it every single day of my life, then I will never live it. I can't simply rid myself of all the ideas I've had about generosity over night. Finding danaparamita takes time, active pursuit, and meditation. I promise to myself and to you that every time I meditate, and every time I wake up I will think of this, imagine it in every possible way, and live it to the fullest. If you want to pursue this perfection with me, it does not mean you have to go around giving to everyone in need-especially if you don't have the resources to do so.  Imagination is a powerful thing, and when you meditate, just imagine that everything is part of everything else, and think of giving-you can imagine yourself giving to someone you know who is in need. The great thing about imagination is that we can often do things beyond our physical limitations. So, when I meditate, I will use my imagination and I will give whatever is needed...simply because it is needed. When I go about my life, I will practice wise generosity.

...Paramita

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."
-Siddharta Gautama Buddha

What does "perfection" mean? To most of us, myself included, the idea of perfection connotes something that just can not get better. It is the ultimate. After perfection, there is nothing. To most of us, there is one state of perfection, one ultimate. We generally like to call this "God," and generally believe it is a state which we are incapable of achieving. So, when I stumbled across a book in the library today called "The Six Perfections" by Dale S. Wright, I found myself wondering, "six?" and feeling a bit skeptical and very intrigued. I've only read the introduction of the book so far, but it was enough for me to discover something very interesting. The six perfections, or paramitas, as they are called in Sanskrit, do not describe perfection in the sense of "the end of the road" or "that one ultimate thing that is better than anything else." Rather, they are simply qualities or characteristics which enlightened beings strive to live for every day. Basically, perfection, rather than being the end of the road, is in fact the road itself. Perfection, according to Buddhists, encompasses the characteristics of giving, moral behavior, tolerance/patience, vigor, meditation, and wisdom. We could not hope to become enlightened beings if we do not build our path upon these principles. Of course, says Wright, most of us English speakers think perfection is something that can't get any better and that it is completely out of our reach. We were taught to understand the function of the word as this. In the Buddhist framework of reality, however, this concept of perfection is very, very flawed and very, very harmful.

Now hold on a minute, my brain shouted upon first reading this philosophy. What then, is "enlightenment?" Isn't enlightenment equal to our understanding of perfection? Isn't enlightenment that end state Buddhists hope to reach in order to achieve knowledge of and compassion for all things? Isn't that the one state which can not get any better? Isn't an "enlightened being" perfect? This just doesn't make any sense.

Here's where it can get tricky. An enlightened being is indeed perfect, but at the same time, the enlightened being understands that perfection can always be better and is always evolving. This seems paradoxical to my English brain. If we think, however, of the notion of impermanence-that nothing is forever, "this too shall pass," then it starts to make a little more sense. If the rule is true that there is no such thing as permanent, if everything changes, then perfection can not possibly be outside of this rule. It gets really tricky if we think in terms of inter-connectivity and dependence: that in order for perfection to be an exception to impermanence, it would have to be entirely contained within itself, independent. We would not be able to affect or achieve it in any way and vice versa. Not so far off, many of us might say. The only thing that could achieve it is the omnipotent being known by most of us as "God." But then, God does affect us, whether we agree with the concept of God or not. And, alternately, we affect God (i.e. in the Bible, the reason Adam and Eve were thrown out of Eden, the reason God flooded the earth, the reason Jesus came from the heavens). Basically, it seems to me that no matter how you look at it, things change, and everything depends on and is connected to everything else. People don't practice Christianity the same way they practiced it in ancient times, and the state of enlightenment is not the same as it was when Gautama Buddha achieved it. But this does not mean perfection does not exist in these things anymore. It simply means the idea of perfection changed, evolved with the times, adapted to the circumstances of the universe. According to Buddhist thought, enlightenment, perfection, is the understanding of impermanence and is the ability to expand one's mind to include such inevitable change without sacrificing practice of the six characteristics. Enlightenment and perfection, therefore, can be the end of nothing. It can not be and at the same time it is the ultimate existence, ever changing and ever expanding.

And therefore, I shall strive to find paramita in every breath I take.