Celebrating in the "Being Different" Cult

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

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Friday Yay

I don't have anything to post today, but it is Friday. I feel like that, in and of itself, warrants a fresh clean slate. Yay.

Yay to the weekend. Yay to -10 weather. Yay to clean sheets (and getting them dirty again!!). Yay to sleeping in tomorrow morning. Yay to drinking wine tonight. Yay to the big fat newspaper with the color comic pages. Yay to listening to music. Yay to playing Dharma. Yay to not working. Yay to spending time with good friends.

Phew, I need a vacation! : )

There Is No Ground

Instructions on mindfulness all point to the same thing:
that being right on the spot nails us. It nails us right to the point of time and space that we are in.

When we stop there and don’t act out, don’t repress, don’t blame anyone else, and also don’t blame ourselves, then we meet with an open-ended question with no conceptual answer. We also encounter ourselves. The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find that something is not as we thought. That’s what we’re going to discover again and again and again. Nothing is what we thought.

I can say that with great confidence. Emptiness is not what we thought. Neither is mindfulness or fear. Compassion—not what we thought. Love, buddha nature, courage—these are code words for things we don’t know in our minds, but any of us could experience them. These are words that point to what life really is when we let things fall apart and let ourselves be nailed to the present moment.

The path of the warrior-bodhisattva is not about going to heaven or a place that’s really comfortable. Wanting to find a place where everything’s okay is just what keeps us miserable. Always looking for a way to have pleasure and avoid pain is how we keep ourselves in samsara. As long as we believe that there is something that will permanently satisfy our hunger for security, suffering is inevitable. The truth is that things are always in transition. “Nothing to hold on to” is the root of happiness. If we allow ourselves to rest here, we find that it is a tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs. This is where the path of fearlessness lies.

-- Pema Chodron

Thankfulness

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.

--Buddha

the definition of suffering

and other reasons why I feel so connected with Buddhism.

the definition of suffering, provided by mathieu ricard, a buddhist scholar and monk.

"We incur pain and suffering, but we create unhappiness. Suffering can be triggered by numerous causes over which we sometimes have power, and sometimes none. Being born with a handicap, falling ill, losing a loved one, or being caught up in a war or in a natural disaster are all beyond our control. Unhappiness is altogether different, being the way in which we experience our suffering. Unhappiness may indeed be associated with physical or moral pain inflicted by exterior conditions, but it is not essentially linked to it. Just as the mind that translates suffering into unhappiness, it is the mind's responsibility to master its perception thereof. The sanskrit word, dukha, usually translated as affliction, misery, or suffering does not define simply an unpleasant sensation, but rather reflects a fundamental vulnerability to suffering and pain. It can also be a profound state of dissatisfaction that endures even in favorable external conditions. In its deepest sense, dukha is intimately linked to a misapprehension of the nature of reality."

magnetic poetry

I stumbled across some magnetic poetry that I wrote in January 2003.
...please note that word choice is limited ; )


dazzle me
make me blush
like the salty ocean
seep over me like caramel

soft stars
are candy
in the sky

ferocious questions
like who what why
and the universe
remember to celebrate
the delicious life
have peace

kisses melt ice lips
with warm breath
like fire

Let Go

I've got these lyrics from the song "Let Go" by Frou Frou (from the Garden State movie soundtrack) on my mind....

So, let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So, let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

Hugs

Here's a quote from Jack, after a night of me needing many of these....

"The beautiful thing about hugs is that they are bi-directional by definition. Every hug I give you, I get one in return."

relationships

What is a relationship?

I spent some time today talking to a good friend about relationships. What are they? What does it mean? What do I want? How do you know?

I managed to come up with a list of things I don't want.

* I don't want to define the word relationship. It takes two people to connect. And in that connection there exists something that gives each person their freedom and their happiness. If that doesn't exist, than the relationship needs to move on or grow or change. And each person's definition of what feels right exists in their mind and their heart. So basically, there is no definition.

* I don't want to need someone. That feeling of waking up and worrying about someone, where they are, what they are doing, who they are with, and how that may affect me... those feelings don't feel right to me. My choices are for me. How I choose to spend my time is mine. I can only hope that whomever wants to be with me will choose his/her time the same way. That he/she makes their own choices, for themselves. Because ultimately, nothing makes me happier than for me to feel like reason someone calls me on the phone, the reason someone emails me, the reason that someone wants to go out to dinner with me, is because they WANT to.

* I don't want to be attached. I suspect that this statement sounds cold or unfeeling. But what I am trying to convey is that if a person I am enjoying spending time with decides to make a different choice for himself/herself, and that this choice does not involve me, I hope that I am able to remember that this is about their choices and happiness, and that I am not responsible for either of those. I fully believe that I am intense person, I don't do much that is half-hearted. I like to love fully, laugh fully, enjoy things fully... so I don't believe I am capable of only giving part of myself to a person or a situation. But what this means to me is that I don't make my choices for someone else. I don't define my happiness by someone else's standards. I think the two are separate.

* I don't want to be hesitant. I love the phrase - Jump in with both feet! The only way I can truly learn about what I want, is by trying. Try something once. If I don't like it, I'll learn from that experience. But I find it so hard to know what you want, when you haven't had that experience in the first place. The other day I was in Quiznos, and I was trying to explain to someone what an avocado tastes like. Have you ever tried to explain what an avocado tastes like to someone who hasn't tried it? I ended up telling this girl to just try one. See if she liked it. Because I couldn't come up with the words to describe it to her properly, and she couldn't decide whether it was something she would like or not, based on my description.

let's pause for a moment...

I liked reading this quotatio this morning.

Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880-1918