17 February, 2014

Are we hallucinating
the belief that we are separate?

Perhaps a wakeup call. The ego, when fully purchased conjures up some weird stuff. I would find myself thinking I have been through so much suffering. Not my suffering, it was just suffering that we all experience our own version of. That same suffering that propelled me on this path. A perception believed in when you look at it, when it just is life ....unfolding. Or it could be a concept taught by others, perhaps society or family that we grab and just run with it until our grave. Why? Because… it gives us a feeling of being alive. Jeezus, could one just pinch out a couple of candles for quick feeling and be done. I feel like I have reinforced the idea by being or feeling unhappy and that I am a suffering separate person from others, at times. It may often give me the illusion of specialness because the ego demands a firm ground from which to stand on…. to maintain this individualized separateness.  For sure, the positive that came out of this was my meditation to look at life, as it is.


Now, tell me if you don’t, like me, can watch a tearful reunion of family members totally not related to you and feel or exhibit some emotion. It is not just pulling up some old baggage that you have put in deep storage, but real connectedness to others that we share.  Our I is their I and we had better wake up.  It divides us and blocks our happiness. Joy that exists in nature, and it's free! Your I exists, sometimes far from your body, enough so that when you walk into a room carrying some unhappiness people will turn away. I should not ask for validation when I am unhappy either because it was my ego demands. All I am doing is unfurling the pathetic flag that smothers my ability to connect with others suffering and do something as simple as raising the vibration of a room. The only separateness we perceive is others' conditioning from the culture or society that supports this hallucination.

Today, I watched a young boy who was about 5, draw a shark in the condensed water on a 7-11 cooler door he opened. I gave him the thumbs up, and I immediately had a friend. He played hid and seek among the shelves of grocery items. I joined in the fun. I realized his mom works there, and she smiled at our interaction.

09 February, 2014

You are not going anywhere


Life showed up at the door with another test. Frustrated, I told my partner which is silly.  What really he supposed to do mimic my frustration? It doesn't involve him and he has own problems. By not mirroring it, he with his own wisdom did not meet it head on. He let it die on its own. He reminded me that we all die, and this won’t be the last. Saying again, “All we leave when we die are the good deeds we do while alive, that are important.” Really, the frustration rose out of the fact that I was still there, and could not run out of the situation…..I was not going anywhere. Plus, no fairy with her magic wand would come and fix it. I would go into what it was, but that would distract others from finding their own innate wisdom. We all encounter such things and what we bring to the table is a history of reactions we may have learned in the past with our unique combination of traumas. If you did not have any, you would be dead by now. No one is immune.

Later, I watched the film, “All is Lost” and I went for a late night walk alone to get some air. I told my partner it was to get ice cream. Enjoying the night winds, I churned up some thoughts about being confronted with one’s upcoming death every second, and the natural survival that one gravitates toward even when it all seems hopeless.


We all die, so do we struggle with life’s dramas just to avoid this reality? Is it survival instinct or avoiding contemplating our death almost every second, like we should. Hopefully it will arrive onboard, and dictate how we treat others.

On my walk, I thought about my troubles, and then the actor in the film.  I knew to get out of this space,  it would come down to getting busy and helping others. It is not always about you and the gibberish your mind throws.

I knew where to look, and saw the couple again. I bought dinner for the blind couple who sing Isan tunes for spare change on a road overpass. Just in time because they were packing up for the night. Later, while sitting I watched a late night street vendor sit down, with a swollen knee bandaged, and smiled with compassion once I noticed his pain. I took off quickly to a late night pharmacy without saying anything to him, and bought some cream that has pain killer and anti-inflammatory while being cooling and hurried back to give him. I expected nothing in return, I just said hello, and pointed to my knee and gave him the cream and walked away. Immediately, any ideas of “me“ and my difficulties disappeared.


On the way back from giving the vendor his pain cream, I bought my partner two of his favorite taro ice cream bars. This wasn’t walk for me…it was for others. Little did I know, because I was gone long, my partner went looking for me, and while out he bought me two dark chocolate bars. It was funny when I came home, we exchanged ice creams.

03 February, 2014

I Know Who I Am,
Because I Know I Am Not

I’m not a terribly optimistic person, I have a lot of major bad things happen to me. But that is not unique to me, many others have too, and this awareness was my first lightbulb moment to speed my healing. I am not a blameless clean slate either, but most all of it was not done to hurt others. So I have been lucky with a few long-term relationships and have a few close friends and family. I don’t seem to carry it around with me anymore in either a grumpy manner or too much negativity. I am instead more of a realist, with a smidgeon of compassion mixed with good intentions. I have overcome a lot, so one might be surprised that I am not a more a kind of whatever person. I see through people’s bullshit pretty easy, and despise being thought of as being stupid. This happens more often now with a speech disability than you could imagine. I wish I could laugh when people pull stuff like this, but to me it is never laughable because it is built on valuing the other less.

More often now, do some nice things for people or strangers as a kind of surprise when they least expect it. Someone might call it paying forward, and it is never done for others to feel indebted to me. I just remember that whenever someone surprises me with something unexpected, that I like the feeling of time stopped by it when the realization we are all one.

So when I sit down to meditate I am working the “me” apart from the ego and inching it towards just “I am.” Just being. This profound intimacy I have with the self, in meditation, only seems to provide with more relaxed feeling about who I am. This translates to less need to compare one to others, our paths are so unique that there is no way …I could be you. I know who I am, finally ...because I know who I am not.

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