A Favorite Old Wenders Film

In a great setting and with haunting music, It's about faith.
It stuck with me all these years, even with the brain injury.

Just Be Good

The temple I lived at in June had some free dhamma books and one of two I found interesting is Just be Good! from Sri Lanka. It is modern and approachable and states in the introduction, Buddha’s teaching: Has no room for blind faith or unthinking worship. Teaches us to take full responsibility for all our actions, provides a clear path for spiritual and personal development, and encourages questions and investigations into its own teachings. It goes on later to say the Buddha never said anything like 'worship me and you shall be rewarded.' He also said never threatened to punish anyone should they not believe in Him or follow His Teachings. He said that there is nothing wrong in doubting or even questioning Him, as most people will take some time to understand His Teachings. He stressed that everyone should seek, understand and experience the Truth for themselves, and not have blind faith in anyone or anything.
This is some of the core of the intellect of Buddhism, as it allows you the answer your own questions about life as you experience it. And take what rings to true to your own soul. The free small book, tells a lot in the few pages it has, in an effort to take any complication out of Buddhism. How refreshing and smart. It also has been taught to me, that of his 84,000 teachings he gave, some were designed for the different audiences depending on class and experiences. In an effort to teach more people on their level.

Now on a personal level, I have some questions of myself that I want to answer myself. That can only come with time to reflect deeply in meditation. My feeling is that my time on this planet is limited, and the desire for wisdom far outweighs the desire for ordinary pleasures. So I am leaning towards a more spiritual life, not out of some fantasy escapism. I guess I will have to continually ask myself the hard questions and not give up. The tendency is to get lazy when the answers don’t pop out and grab you. And we always want a quick fix. With gratitude here is a funny finding happiness teaching from Just Be Good site.

Punting Distractions

Running around my house, avoiding this post, by nibbling on walnuts(good for heart), and drinking a quarter size(10B) splash of Sharbat Rooh Afza in sparkling water. Which is like drinking grandma's underwear drawer sachet, my best description. If I satisfy myself with good things, then I avoid the unpleasant things that reside inside myself. I procrastinate writing this post, because it is a difficult topic, and at the same time I don’t want to come across as beating myself up. With a lot of contemplation, hopefully, I can access the little bit of wisdom that floats to the surface above the quagmire of life. It came me yesterday as a flash, while not in a depressive mood, that my ability to have fine skills of discernment came out of the dissatisfaction I had in myself. From early on, I did not have a love of myself, based on #1-being gay and #2-having a generally unloving father in the formative years. So, I ended up with a fragile ego, until I came out at 18. This lead to some understanding of who I am. But in the process of growing up, my dislike of certain aspects of myself made me turn to try to find pleasant things in life. I began collecting things that were beautiful, and later trying food that pleased my senses. Honing my skills in visual arts, and developing my good taste in just about everything. I could not stop my pursuit of finer things, trying to put out the fire of discontent. So, you say, you transformed!… stop and think. Sure, it worked and it helped with my career choices, health choices, partner choices etc. I am still alive and healthy, really. I made a few bad choices but who hasn’t? I am not on any drugs, or drink to excess. I have great friends, a great partner and a loving family(dad passed). So, why am I thinking about this? It really seems foolish. I will tell you why. A life built around trying to make the world more beautiful to oneself is fraught with constant misery. The potential of never being satisfied.

Now, how can I become wiser? And what legacy do I leave? The nice things I have created are temporary, and in ten years they will be gone and forgotten. I will exist only in the heads of people that know and respect me. That truly is rebirth to me. What tasted good me now, will never translate to a positive thought of me in the mind of a close friend later. I am putting too much into things that will cease to be a true cause of happiness for me. Looking at all the art I have collected, and now…even though I like it and still marvel at the artist’s devotion, it only becomes a force to tie me down to indecision. Let’s just say, if I die tomorrow, my things will become a symbol of me, that my loved ones have to dispose of.(don’t worry, this is not a cry for help). How wise is giving pain to those you love? Even indirectly. So, what I am getting down to is that if I want an even better rebirth, I had better work on creating the good karma of helping others. To really help others you have to be truly happy in your heart and being. Whenever you see a wise monk or even the Dali Lama, you see their core being is a wisdom being. They know that attachment to anything is a cause of suffering. That everything changes.

The Abbott of the temple I was at in June, had wisdom that he did not have to speak about for me. His pure intention and action I observed were dhamma. Sure, I can go to temple here and make some progress, meditate on my own and in a group. But living the good life and the spiritual life will not be a fast path to enlightenment. We never know when our death will happen, and I am not getting younger even with all the creams and vitamins. Big Surprise. So, I can keep safely living my life like I do now. Or, I can try the monk’s life again in a slightly longer time frame like 3 months leading to a year’s trial. It is only talk at this point, and I am not irrational or running from anything. What I am running towards is wisdom and a wish to make valuable contribution to those around me. That will be my legacy.

Show 'n Tell

I wanted to write for days and have been editing photos, doing a few rounds and found these. Lately, I have been out of sync and would just end up seeing friends and getting other stuff done. Here are photos from Wat Rajsingkorn, where the young novice wanted to show me his tiger teeth and rolled prayer when he found out I had been a novice, too. This came about when I was talking to the mom of these two kids. I thanked him for showing me, and they are probably given to him by his parents and are heirlooms of luck.

A Morning View on Expectations

I was thinking about writing about people’s expectations when I first heard of the shooter, George Sodini’s complaints from the news. Researching it further, he seemed to be very disturbed. It may have built up for years, combined with the family background and life experience. Whether he was expecting too much out of life or not we’ll never know. If I could guess, I bet you he has never traveled outside the U.S. Regardless, I do feel that we, especially in the U.S., don’t really feel we are lucky and privileged. Instead we want more and more and are perfectly happy demanding more. We want all the trimmings we see on TV. There are never any guarantee in life besides our upcoming death. When I was a novice in June, the simplicity of my existence was actually refreshing and liberating, so I can see how I could focus more on mindfulness and cultivating wisdom.

Reflecting upon this, I can still learn a lot about how I deal with my own life. It wasn’t but 24 hours later that I found myself, a bit agitated by the fact that people still don’t fully understand how my injury affects nearly everything I do. I write this, in fact, so I won’t have to speak it in conversation, hoping that someone will take this as a jumping off place to comment on. I will speak to family and they will say you sound good today, if I am standing and walking around because that affects the quality of my voice. If I relax and sit down especially on a couch it leads to a restricted diaphragm and does not help. I will meet new friends will say you just need to speak more, etc. Uggh!

I have a collapsed palate, which causes my air during speech to come out my nose. Combined with being totally numb from the nose to the chin inside and out, it makes for a hard time to physically remember how to say a word. I can scream, and lift it partially, but if I speak quietly it is coming out my nose and totally exhausts me. Kind of like being winded, but all times using a new area of the brain for speech, so “girlfriend” it ain’t pretty. For some words it sounds pretty good out of the blue, maybe because I just heard it, or it accesses some untapped memory of speech. Then quickly it deteriorates; so just let me say learning a new language would be a miracle. But with all this said, it or should I, is not all that bad. I just be more quiet when things are difficult or when others don’t understand. My silence is not because I don’t have anything to say. It may mean that it may be too complex and wordy that I can’t figure out how to whittle it down to simple speech that I can say with ease.


I should not expect people to understand the complexity of speech and what for me now is the miracle that make speech possible. I have seen specialists for surgery who did not recommend a correction that would only introduce complex snoring problems. And I won't go into details about the other side effects of brain injury that also cause speech difficulties. So, don’t worry I will not pull a Sodini. Instead, I can perhaps gather some practical wisdom of not expecting understanding from others that even took me years to grasp. I have quickly realized, I am by no means unhealthy or unable deal whenever I see someone in a wheelchair or crippled. I am rich with love from my partner and family and friends. I am extremely lucky.

Decorating or Depression?

So they say 10% are homosexual supposedly and now 10% in the US are on anti-depressants! The huge shrinking sane population… does that mean if we are not decorating we are depressed? Do you think your Doctor really cares in the 6 minutes max when get when we visit? If they really cared they talk about other ways to help with depression. Like exercise, eating a balanced diet and sleep. Don’t forget about meditation to look deeply at your expectations in life as to what you think is supposed to make you happy. I would say turn off your TV. Don’t compare yourself to others that may have more than you do or appear happier. We are stuck with same problems as others, but usually manifesting when we don’t like them to. Do you want to live in peace? Just work on understanding your mind, and the impermanent nature of life. It doesn’t mean becoming anything but more acutely aware of how we think and deal in life. I have some first hand experience taking antidepressants not for depression, but to help with my aphasia and speaking with more ease. It actually helped my speech, but the side effect of lacking emotion, a kind of flatness about life and a chemical feel in my body made me want to quit it fast. I have seen other friends on antidepressants and their apparent lack of understanding or investment in how others feel. It seems like the same thing that lowers their perception of themselves is carried over in dealing with others. So we can’t fix everything with drugs and luckily they won’t try it with my life-threatening, good taste.
Thanks to Chusak Srikwan's ox hide artwork.

Find Buddha

Sometimes life presents problems where you can see a clear path to absolution. Yesterday, while trying to complete this temple rehab, I was working with the only other person were trying to put back everything in its proper place. We were both tired, and I was about at my last straw of energy I could find to get this done. While working together with my other sangha member, he got a little too demanding as how I should do things. I am about as conscious and careful, as you will find. I got a bit upset, and instead of getting angry, I just said I will leave it all to you and just go and home and rest. And got my things and walked out. Now, I knew he is just as tired or more so than I. By leaving him, I may be right in this instance but and what price? Leaving him to do it all alone when he has done so much? I walked around the block. Went straight to the best place I could find ice cream and bought us a pint to share and while they were packing it, saw his texted apology. I did not really deserve or want this. I wanted more for this job to be done for both of us. Enough to come back and say we need an award, "Let’s eat ice cream!" We worked until 10 pm with no dinner, but in this time I found a little more wsidom tucked away in me.