All Beings Just Wants to Be Happy

I'm in a kind of mood today. It's a quietude - a little harassed because of work, but still, I sense a stillness within me about some things that used to pain me. I was reading this article on elephantjournal earlier ... and I felt it. It's about pain - it's about acceptance. Everyone who hurts you really just wants to be happy. All the pain they caused, is just a misguided way of trying to be happy. There comes a time, when the pain simmers to a sweetness. You learn maturity - although you may still slip and act up in the future. You learn acceptance, and you see - that the other person is just trying to be happy. And it's ... so human. Forgiveness no longer is an issue then, because you understand. You understand that this is what you do. This is what we do.

Why Twinkies cost more than Carrots?

I have been coming back to cooking my own meals lately. Some of you who read this blog from my early days might remember that I used to be a vegetarian for about six years. I have been eating meat the last three years, and to be honest, I haven't been as healthy as I used to.

It's all water under the bridge, as they say. I can choose to eat healthier any time I want. I just have to make it a priority. Since I returned to my yoga practice, that urge to eat healthier, to add more vegetables to my diet has returned. I just need to find the motivation though. It takes a lot of energy to get up earlier in the morning every day to prepare lunch. Eating out with friends becomes more complicated when I was vegetarian.

But that's digression. What is happening is my thoughts are on food lately. How to cook, what to cook - and what's in our food? I am embarrassed to say I have not read Michael Pollan - I have read about him. But I really respect him for speaking so honestly about food politics as it is. In the video below, he asks a simple question: Why does a package of twinkie cost more than a bunch of carrots? It's all because of government food subsidies. It all goes down to food policies.

Learning Morals through Stories

Coles believes one of the most powerful ways we learn morals is through stories. Literature and poetry bring us deeper knowledge of ourselves, life, and the world. “The whole point of stories is not ‘solutions’ or ‘resolutions,’” he writes in The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination, “but the broadening and even a heightening of our struggles.”

- from Robert Coles and the Moral Life

From Wild: Fear

It was a deal I'd made with myself months before and the only thing that allowed me to hike alone. I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I ws brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked. Every time I heard a sound of unknown origin or felt something horrible cohering in my imagination, I pushed it away. I simply did not let myself becomes afraid. Fear begets fear. Power begets power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn't long before I actually wasn't afraid.

- Wild, by Cheryl Strayed

Wait: The Useful Art of Procrastination by Frank Partnoy

Reading this month.

Write up from Brain Pickings here.

Love is Love

This photo of a man holding his dog in the water made its rounds on the internet. I didn't know the full story at first, so it didn't quite stay with me until now. Huffington Post has the story on this.

The dog in the photo, Schoep, has arthritis, a condition that causes him a lot of pain and he has trouble sleeping at night. John Unger, the man in the picture, adopted Schoep when he was just a 2 month old puppy. John realises the buoyancy of the water helps take the pressure off Schoep's arthritic body. This alleviates the dog's pain and helps him sleep. So he brings Schoep out to Lake Superior every day and holds Schoep in the water. There is so much tenderness in this. So much love.

How many people in this world would do this for their dog? How many would do this for another human being?

Love is love. Sometimes I need stories like this to remind me of our human capacity to love another being.

Note from the Photographer:

This 19 year old Shep being cradled in his father’s arms last night in Lake Superior. Shep falls asleep every night when he is carried into the lake. The buoyancy of the water soothes his arthritic bones. Lake Superior is very warm right now, so the temp of the water is perfect.

I was so happy I got to capture this moment for John. By the way, John rescued Shep as an 8 month old puppy, and he’s been by his side through many adventures.

To purchase a print – go here: http://lakesuperiorcards.com/p96728378

If you would like to make a donation to Schoep’s care – you can contact Bay Area Animal Hospital at 715-682-8865 with a credit card number or mail a check to 3601 E Hwy 2 Ashland, WI 54806. All donations are going right into Schoep’s account at the clinic. Thanks!!

Just Do Things Differently

"We act out because, ironically, we think it will bring us some relief. We equate it with happiness. Often there is some relief, for the moment. When you have an addiction and you fulfill that addiction, there is a moment in which you feel some relief. Then the nightmare gets worse. So it is with aggression. When you get to tell someone off, you might feel pretty good for a while, but somehow the sense of righteous indignation and hatred grows, and it hurts you. It's as if you pick up hot coals with your bare hands and throw them at your enemy. If the coals happen to hit him he will be hurt. But in the meantime, you are guaranteed to be burned."

- Start Where You Are, Pema Chodron

I am just thinking about how often I act out. Like a child, I act out because of perceived hurt, and I end up damaging the relationships that meant a lot to me. Lately I have been doing better. But you don't always get to go back to undo your mistakes. You just move on and try to do better.

But from time to time, you do look back, and wish things were better, wish you could be allowed a chance to make amends.

Do something different. Continue walking forward, one step at a time. Ignore the distrustful looks, let go of those that remind you of how you screwed up in the past. You cannot undo the past. You can't allow the past to define you. And give up hope of trying to change things. Give up hope that people will see how you have changed and come back in your life.

Just do things differently.

I promise you, it will be worth it.

I need this

I find myself slowly falling part today. I am struggling to remember Ani Pema Chodron's teachings, and they came to me, the lojong teachings that I need right now.

Whichever of the two occurs, be patient.
Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don’t lose your sense of perspective.
Train in the three difficulties.
The three difficulties (or, the three difficult practices) are 1) to recognize your neurosis as neurosis, 2) then not to do the habitual thing, but to do something different to interrupt the neurotic habit, and 3) to make this practice a way of life.

How to Keep Good People Close

I was surfing the net last night and came across this blog post by a yoga teacher, on how to keep good people close. This is a subject I have been pondering lately. 2012 has been a transformative year, especially in the areas of my relationship. The post list out a series of practices - because relationships are as much a practice as spirituality:

1. Use honorifics: Mentally, vocally, written out. I say dear, teacher, darling, etc not for another's benefit but for ME, to sweeten the pot, "to see heaven on earth." Sharon said.
2. Think/Reflect on the good they have done for others. Dig deep if necessary. Have this in my mind. We cultivate our own perceptions, and choose to perceive the highest around us.
3. Think/Reflect on the good they have done for ME.
4. Say "Thank You." Say it mentally, verbally, etc. Acknowledge that someone gave me something. This is all for my own benefit.
5. Give offerings. Tuition. Gifts. A kind word behind their back. We call this enlightened self-interest. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras say 'When you give, you will never be impoverished."
6. Take care of things for them anonymously. When we pay attention to others, we'll find many opportunities to make their life a little easier.
7. Ask your teachers to teach you. Continue to cultivate good seeds with the people who benefit you so they remain in your life. Extend yourself. Don't assume they'll be around forever.
8. Ask the people you care about to please stay in your life.  Never think another being like them will come along. 

I may not be able to keep those that have left, but let me practice honouring those that are still in my life, and those that will come.

A Reminder To Being

Pain is a great teacher. It sharpens us, so that we truly pay attention to the lessons that need to be learned.

I have always been a do-er, a controller. Someone who has to "fix" things, or have things happen the way I dictate them. In certain context, this has worked for me. In some, it has not.

I am reminded of this song by the Beatles recently, "Let It Be".

The simple task of just "Being" is so painful to me, because I lack trust. I struggle against the flow of life as it comes, because I have difficulty with radical acceptance, with trusting that what I need to know will be unveiled to me when the time is right. My only duty is to show up and do the work - everything else is not my business. Results, the fruit of my labour, is not mine.

I accept the flow of life. I sit with the emotions, and let them be. I am not lost. I am exactly where I am right now, seeing everything with new eyes.

Let It Be.

Gore Vidal and the Greek Book

Gore Vidal's reading list for America. Makes me interested Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War again - a book I keep trying to finish.

Steve McCurry's portraits of reading

Steve McCurry posted a series of photographs of people reading. I love it, and I would totally recommend that you take a look for yourself here. My favourite is the one of Aung San Suu Kyi reading.

Quote

“Life is short,
Break the rules.
Forgive quickly,
Kiss slowly,
Love truly.
Laugh uncontrollably
And never regret anything
That makes you smile.”

~ Mark Twain

Happy Birthday to Pema Chodron

14 July is Ani Pema Chodron's birthday. I am grateful to her for her teachings of the dharma. Her teachings carried me through an unpleasant period of my life. It has taught me some things about my delusions about my practice (or my neglect of my practice).

May all beings be happy.

I leave everyone with this little anecdote from Pema Chodron. It's about karma, and every time I struggle through the little difficulties in life, I find this story helpful:

I remember my first interview with my teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche very well because I was hesitant to talk to him about what was really the problem in my life. Instead, I wasted the whole interview chattering. Every once in a while he said, "How's your meditation?" and I said, "Oh, fine," and then just chattered on. When it was almost over I blurted out, in the last half-second, "I'm having this terrible time and I'm full of anger."

Rinpoche walked me to toward the door and said, "Well, what that feels like is a big wave that comes along and knocks you down. You find yourself lying in the bottom of the ocean with your face in the sand, and even though all the sand is going up your nose and into your mouth and your eyes and your ears, you stand up and you begin walking again. The next wave comes and knocks you down. The waves just keep coming, but each time you get knocked down, you stand up and keep walking. After a while, you'll find that the waves appear to be getting smaller."

That's how karma works. If you keep lying there, you'll drown, but you don't even have the privilege of dying. You just live with the sense of drowning all the time. So don't get discouraged and think, "Well, I was feeling depressed and I was hiding under the covers, but then I got out of bed, I took a shower. How come I'm not living in a Disney movie now? I thought I was going to turn into Snow White. How come I'm not living happily ever after?" The waves keep coming and knocking you down, but you stand up again and with some sense of rousing yourself. As Rinpoche said, "After a while, you find that the waves seem to be getting smaller." That's really what happens.

~ From "Wisdom of No Escape", Pema Chodron

Witness Love

My mom has corns on her feet. A few nights ago, I saw my dad prepare a basin of warm water for my mom to soak her feet. IThe warm water softens up the corns, which makes it easier for my dad when he helps cut away the corns on my mom's feet.

It's not the most pleasant thing to talk about, but it's a very raw, human thing to do. We cut out nails, we scratch ourselves, we cut our corns. In its simplicity, it's a very honest moment of being in touch with our humanity.

Why do I share this? Because it’s one of those times when I see what marriage means. What love means. Not the text messages sent over FB or flowers or diamonds. It’s someone you love staying by your side when you are losing your mind. It’s getting down to help you with the icky stuff in life, like helping you with your corns.

I think about how one day my dad might have to help my mom with diapers and other stuff, and it makes me cry – what it means to grow old, and have someone who will stay by your side through it all. I want that.

And yeah, I love my dad.

Someone That I Used to Know

At some points in my life, I kept replaying some songs over a long period, weeks, sometimes months. Then one day, I stop. The interest waned. Or perhaps the soundtrack to my state of mind has changed tracks, and I needed something else instead.

I was in a relationship last year. It started off happy, then grew strange, angry and toxic. I wish I could say I was blameless. I am certain my story isn't going to match hers. Who is to say who has the truer version? Truth is your side, my side, and something in the middle.

Right now, this seems like the soundtrack of the month (s). Gotye got it right with the two sided story of a relationship. Two people that came together, were happy, then it was over, with some bitterness, some cruelty - and blame. Blame is the human instinct to relieve discomfort.

I think about the part sang by Kimbra sometimes:

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
Part of me believing it was always something that I’d done
But I don’t wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know…

It is my version as much as it is her. We believe the other party screwed us over. Who is right? I don't know. I will insist I am right, but I know my point of view is biased.

I hope you are at peace and in a good place.

Meh

I have just finished reading Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother?. Now - I really enjoyed her last book, Fun Home, which is a memoir of a sort about her dad, a closeted homosexual who possibly killed himself. Are you My Mother? now deals with her relationship with her mother - and it's bloated, and someone uneven. I didn't really enjoy it, although there were some funny moments. Not really going to think too much about it.

The 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books

This blog started a lot time ago as my blog about reading. Then I started doing yoga, learning more about the dharma, and the blog became a kind of spiritual exploration through blogging. It's been a long journey since those fine days. I lost myself for a while. Had my heart broken twice. Now I'm starting to come back to myself again. Some things feel familiar. Some things feel different. I need to let go how it is supposed to feel, and just be.

But I do like coming back to the little things that I loved - I guess I still love them. I haven't really had a chance to travel recently - or read. Then I came across this list of The 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books. I might have read it some time back (who knows?) But right here, right now, it made me want to start drawing up a reading list, and working through the list again. I used to do that every year with my 100 Books to Read Lists.

What the hell? Let's just start.

1) A Dragon Apparent, by Norman Lewis
2) A House in Bali, by Colin McPhee
3) A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway
4) A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, by Eric Newby
5) A Time of Gifts, by Patrick Leigh Fermor
6) A Turn in the South, by V.S. Naipaul
7) A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson
8) A Winter in Arabia, by Freya Stark
9) Among the Russians, by Colin Thubron
10) An Area of Darkness, by V.S. Naipaul
11) Arabian Sands, by Wilfred Thesiger
12) Arctic Dreams, by Barry Lopez
13) The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton
14) As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, by Laurie Lee
15) Baghdad Without a Map, by Tony Horwitz
16) Balkan Ghosts, by Robert D. Kaplan
17) Beyond Euphrates, by Freya Stark
18) The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer, by Eric Hansen
19) Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, by Lawrence Durrell
20) Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West
21) Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin
22) Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon
23) Brazilian Adventure, by Peter Fleming
24) Chasing the Sea, by Tom Bissell
25) City of Djinns, by William Dalrymple
26) Coasting, by Jonathan Raban
27) Coming Into the Country, by John McPhee
28) Dark Star Safari, by Paul Theroux
29) Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey
30) Down the Nile, by Rosemary Mahoney
31) Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert
32) The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe
33) Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing
34) Facing the Congo, by Jeffrey Tayler
35) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson
36) Four Corners, by Kira Salak
37) Full Circle, by Michael Palin
38) Full Tilt: Ireland to India With a Bicycle, by Dervla Murphy
39) Golden Earth, by Norman Lewis
40) Great Plains, by Ian Frazier
41) The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux
42) Holidays in Hell, by P.J. O’Rourke
43) Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell
44) Hunting Mister Heartbreak, by Jonathan Raban
45) In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson
46) In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin
47) In Siberia, by Colin Thubron
48) In Trouble Again, by Redmond O’Hanlon
49) The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain
50) Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer
51) Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer
52) Iron and Silk, by Mark Salzman
53) Kon-Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl
54) The Lady and the Monk, by Pico Iyer
55) Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain
56) The Log From the Sea of Cortez, by John Steinbeck
57) The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz
58) The Lost Continent, by Bill Bryson
59) Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta
60) The Motorcycle Diaries, by Ernesto “Che” Guevara
61) The Muses Are Heard, by Truman Capote
62) No Mercy, by Redmond O’Hanlon
63) Notes From a Small Island, by Bill Bryson
64) Nothing to Declare, by Mary Morris
65) Old Glory, by Jonathan Raban
66) The Old Patagonian Express, by Paul Theroux
67) Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen
68) Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
69) The Pillars of Hercules, by Paul Theroux
70) The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart
71) Riding to the Tigris, by Freya Stark
72) The Rings of Saturn, by W.G. Sebald
73) The River at the Center of the World, by Simon Winchester
74) River Town, by Peter Hessler
75) Road Fever, by Tim Cahill
76) The Road to Oxiana, by Robert Byron
77) Roughing It, by Mark Twain
78) Sea and Sardinia, by D.H. Lawrence
79) Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer
80) The Sex Lives of Cannibals, by J. Maarten Troost
81) The Size of the World, by Jeff Greenwald
82) Slowly Down the Ganges, by Eric Newby
83) The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen
84) The Soccer War, by Ryszard Kapuscinski
85) The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin
86) Terra Incognita, by Sara Wheeler
87) Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue, by Paul Bowles
88) Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson
89) Travels With Charley, by John Steinbeck
90) Travels With Myself and Another, by Martha Gellhorn
91) Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, by Jan Morris
92) Two Towns in Provence, by M.F.K. Fisher
93) Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes
94) Video Night in Kathmandu, by Pico Iyer
95) West With the Night, by Beryl Markham
96) When the Going was Good, by Evelyn Waugh
97) The World of Venice, by Jan Morris
98) The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
99) Wrong About Japan, by Peter Carey
100) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig

Aung San Suu Kyi Nobel Peace Prize Speech

Transcript of her speech here.

"A positive aspect of living in isolation was that I had ample time in which to ruminate over the meaning of words and precepts that I had known and accepted all my life. As a Buddhist, I had heard about dukha, generally translated as suffering, since I was a small child. Almost on a daily basis elderly, and sometimes not so elderly, people around me would murmur “dukha, dukha” when they suffered from aches and pains or when they met with some small, annoying mishaps. However, it was only during my years of house arrest that I got around to investigating the nature of the six great dukha. These are: to be conceived, to age, to sicken, to die, to be parted from those one loves, to be forced to live in propinquity with those one does not love. I examined each of the six great sufferings, not in a religious context but in the context of our ordinary, everyday lives. If suffering were an unavoidable part of our existence, we should try to alleviate it as far as possible in practical, earthly ways. I mulled over the effectiveness of ante- and post-natal programmes and mother and childcare; of adequate facilities for the aging population; of comprehensive health services; of compassionate nursing and hospices. I was particularly intrigued by the last two kinds of suffering: to be parted from those one loves and to be forced to live in propinquity with those one does not love. What experiences might our Lord Buddha have undergone in his own life that he had included these two states among the great sufferings? I thought of prisoners and refugees, of migrant workers and victims of human trafficking, of that great mass of the uprooted of the earth who have been torn away from their homes, parted from families and friends, forced to live out their lives among strangers who are not always welcoming."

Thankful

I have been asking around for possible rental places recently. Friends have offered to help me find a new place to stay. I thought a bit more about this, and I realize how much more significant this decision to find a new place meant for me.

Relationship between my dad and I have deteriorated lately. My mom’s early on-set dementia has challenged all of us – but most of all, my dad. I still remember how I was depressed two years ago, because of my mom, and compounded by unemployment. I would wake up in the morning and just couldn’t bring myself out of bed. I am a lot better these days, and I refuse to go back to that dark place.

I have been putting some things in place over the last few months to change things positively in my life. What I have learnt about real change over the years is this: Real change is subtle and we may not always sense that we are changing within until one day, we notice how we are responding differently to certain things.

I am thankful for the positive changes in my life. I recognize that when I started looking for a rental place, it isn’t about escaping the situation in my life. What it really is, is that I have begun to see possibilities in my life. I have stopped seeing myself as powerless against difficult situations. What I am doing is creating space for myself away from the negativity. It is the ultimate compassion I can extend to myself.

I am thankful for this recognition.

I am thankful for this teaching from Pema Chodron, and find something that reaffirms my intention. Just keep moving. Just keep taking care of yourself in a real way. I can see how I am now less concerned about my career, and just working to try my best to learn, to do a good job. I am less concern about what others will think of me. My job is just to do my best, and to love honestly. Whether or not they love me back, while it may hurt sometimes, isn’t important.