more on karma! and my purpose in life

Coincidentally (cuz I don't believe in anything else, having grown up with parents who saw signs from God everywhere all the time...) the talk at yoga this week was on karma. The teacher told a story illustrating that cause and effect are as inevitable as pebbles sinking in water or oil floating on top of it... it's just how things are, it's not someone doing something to you. You dig your hole, you climb out of it. Step by daily step.

And to be honest, I miss the bottom of the hole every day. But it was burning me up, I was going insane, and hurting others too. I need to climb out before I can see anything clearly.

OK, so, enough of the hole.

One of the activities at "day camp" (my psychiatric outpatient program) yesterday was to think about all the ways we self-sabotage. Well, I can write a whole separate post about that. But one of the things we were asked to do (since self-sabotage is about self-hatred) is think about the ways we add value to the world, and think about a statement/decision/goal about our purpose in life.

I thought nothing expresesd my purpose better than the "prayer of St. Francis," which I used to say fervently every night when I was a true believer (also believed he wrote it, which turns out not to be true). The original was in French, which I like better, because the subjunctive ("que je mette la paix") seems more like a wish/aspiration than "let" in English ("let me bring peace"), which seems more like a prayer/request. So... we can cut god out of it and it could maybe say this...

May I be an instrument of peace.
Where there is hatred, may I sow love;
where there is injury, reconciliation;
where there is fear, confidence;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
May I bring consolation for myself and others;
understanding for myself and others;
love for myself and others,
for it is in giving that we receive,
in forgiving that we experience forgiveness,
and in bringing peace, that we experience peace in our own hearts.

OK so it's a lil christian still. My main mantra for a long time has been:

From the ocean of samsara may I free all beings.

And when I can't access that, when I can't wish such a noble wish, I say this quote from Longchenpa:

Would that the emotions of sentient beings calm down, and they could experience comfort and ease.

This touches the heart of my own turmoil and calms it, as well as extending that wish to all others.

So overall... purpose... may I help everyone, including myself, run more slowly in our hamster wheels, our karma wheels... help us all calm down, and get closer to the goal of liberation from them altogether.

I think that's ok for a purpose in life. It's good to remember that... helps me want to get out of the hole and look into the long distance, the big picture...

in the previous post, the second picture is engraved in my mind, one of those perfect moments, the beautiful sky and the sound of the grass, the clouds moving over the forest, the lake in the distance, and the wonder of standing on top of a volcano... I want to be there...

Hold that thought.

karma is inescapable

"Unalterable are the laws of karma; cause and effect cannot be escaped."

Karma is not what people think, at least in the tradition I (sort of) follow. It is not meted out like reward and punishment by some deity. It is simply the fact that everything we do has results, good and bad. It's not really a belief - more of an observation, a description.

Karma is a wheel, like a hamster wheel. The faster we run the more we feel desperate - this even applies to obtaining good things and escaping bad things.

Enjoying wonderful events and beloved people and objects is not a problem. It's when we chase them, run after them, hunger for them, feel desperate without them. It's all about the running, the need, the desire, the attachment.

So. Karma. That's what I had decided to contemplate this week.

It seems kind of appropriate. I feel like I dug this big deep hole and I have to slog my way out of it. It was a long way in and it's a long way out.

I did it myself, 100%. I dug and dug and dug.

There are a lot of "what ifs" but I try to drop them. I couldn't stop digging: this is just a fact, easily observable. I couldn't stop, even when it was obvious that I was destroying so much.

I was digging my way away from all stability and peace - I dug and dug and dug, more and more into my own mind, my own fears, disappeared into them. I chased and begged for things I already had in plenty - causing so much suffering - until the only thing anyone could do was cut my ropes and leave me alone at the bottom of the hole to come to my senses.

So. The climb back out. Razor rocks and loneliness.

I dug the hole. I caused it.

But at the end of writing this, some compassion. The description helps me see: my obsession, my compulsive digging... not to be hated or disdained but... feel sorry for that person, that me, caught up in pain, creating more pain for everyone I care about, creating more pain for me.

I feel compassion for that me and I comfort me. Just keep climbing. Keep climbing. The hole can't go on forever. It's ok. It's ok. You're not alone, and you can do it.

tired of being crazy

The thing that exhausts me most is that I can't trust my own thoughts. They come in sometimes ridiculously quick succession... opposite ideas... e.g. first that I am utterly alone; 30 minutes later, that wifey loves me and I'm safe with her. Often enough, no provocation for either thought. No outer change. And both feel like revelations - "oh now I see the truth."

It's exhausting and leaves me bewildered. I feel like my thoughts are pointless, since they're obviously meaningless, and yet they keep coming. And, just because they seem pointless doesn't mean they don't make me cry.

Yesterday and today I couldn't stand to be alive so I went to sleep. It's like death but less permanent. I'm tired of feeling that way too.

I don't know what to do about the job situation. Put in for my special ed certificate, but totally unsure about that too.

Why am I awake? Orange street light... wifey, doggie snoring.

the dog is dead, long live the dog!

Dear sweet Gracie died on Friday... so both our babies are gone...

Good-bye sweet sweet babies!

But... we couldn't stand the dogless house so we got a new dog on Saturday... his name is Mr. Pickles and he's a big goof.



*sigh*

frothy mix

Mix of events, emotions, everything.

Bad, very bad: Dog is sick. She has pneumonia and can hardly walk from arthritis. It is incredibly sad to hear her gasping for breath. She literally sounds like a saw sawing wood. Then there's the choking. That's fun too (not).

Good: I made it to the "next level" in my application for the position teaching Chinese at a charter high school.

Bad: Now I have to learn Chinese. The whole idea I could learn it in a summer seems to have sprung from some manic over-enthusiasm.

Good: But I do have a plan: walk on the treadmill every day and listen to one lesson. Twofer, eh?

Bad: a... what would you call it... not a falling out but a... difficulty with a friend. not sure what to say to her.

Good: crazy camp is going well. I find it very supportive and have hopes that it will be helpful in giving me tools to act and be sane. The doctor and staff have pointed out that I'm angry. Not sure why or what to do with the anger, but I realize they're right. Conjecture is that I'm angry because I was supposed to be a prodigy, a star, and all I did was fall from the sky.

Good-bad-good-bad-good-bad, eh? Then there's this:

"The fundamental idea of Buddhism is to pass beyond the world of opposites..."
D.T. Suzuki

And this:

"...dissolving the dualistic tension between ... good and bad, by inviting in what we usually avoid."
- Pema Chödrön

Uh, yeah. I'm still feeling it as good and bad. So... yeah.

death is certain, and the timing of death is uncertain, so what is the most important?

Thursday was a very bad day. That "no" post (previous) came out of a slide back into a very difficult place, paranoia, despair, nothing good. But I took my evening meds a few hours early and after a half hour or so I was fine.

I am grateful for the meds and more resigned to my diagnosis.

Last night too was bad. Black despairing loneliness. Up most of the night crying. That turned out to be largely PMS.

Maybe the meds aren't catching everything but most of the time I feel so much better. Not to be depressed after years of being depressed is such a gift.

Anyway, the title of the post refers to two things... the second of the four reminders that I was going to be meditating upon these weeks, and the fact that my aunt's health is failing.

It may seem morbid, but the phrase puts a lot of things in perspective.

And as my aunt gets ready to enter Hospice, I feel that feeling coming over me, the hospice feeling... the end of life, the slowing down, the rasping breath that stops.
Familiar. Very familiar by this time. Makes life seem more awake, more piquant, to know that you will walk on and this person who has come with you this far, they will stop. You'll walk on without them.

When death comes near to someone, it fills me with an odd peace. Death is just so real. It's the real-est thing in the world. It's inescapable and absolute. Everything else is relative, depends on how you look at it, shifting and confused. Death - well you can think different things about it, say different things about it - but it ultimately is incontrovertible, un-interpretable, it's just the end. And it comes to everyone. It could come to me before my aunt.

And... that's the way it is.

no.

Awhile back I was angry on a photo shoot, n didn't want to do the assigned topic. I saw a particularly good "no," and started seeing more... the first batch were lost but I have these...



The "no" phase lasted about a month... as I worked through my fury at fate... It finally abated n I had no more urge to shoot "no"s. I could still do so but it would feel like cheating or forcing the issue... Too bad "yes" isn't posted nearly as often, nor "please," at least not in giant photographable letters."

I feel like that again today. Everything makes me feel cranky if not enraged. I resist the world! I refuse! I don't want to go one more step! I want to crawl under the covers and punch anyone who tries to come after me!

Think this has to do with my first day at crazy day camp?

Ya think?