Two Cars, One Night

What Ego?

Many times I will encounter a new person not familiar with me, and upon speaking they will get very uneasy, because I don’t have any real obvious signs of physical signs of brain injury. And then if receptive they immediately wish me well, like I am dying or getting sicker. I really can't win. I just laugh knowing, I was a sicker bitch before the brain injury and they don’t know how lucky they really are.

Losing a little touch with my ego, that fragile house of cards gradually has brought some lightness of being this past year. I can’t tell you how many times I caught myself trying to whip up some bitch about something to prove how smart I really am. It doesn’t mean that I am 100% successful in letting go, but it is a process rewarded with laughter. When I am my aware of when I experiencing the dis-ease with life and catch it before it transforms into anger, or dissatisfaction. It feels, at first, like I am denying myself the right to be angry – the ego is that powerful. If by chance, I am right this time, what do I really stand to gain? We often get angry and don’t think beyond this instant to the aftermath of the tornado. But now with daily meditation I have downloaded somewhat, each day, the myriad of worries and stuff that we file to use at a later date. This gives me the 2 seconds I need to take a better path. For instance I see the object of my anger(often times someone else) walking away unscathed and unaware of my metal turmoil, by laughing at myself. Not always out loud, but at least loosing the belt a notch, a little sigh and big smile. My father got me hooked on being right as a means to live and make your self seem better than others. But being right is tightly wrapped around your ego, that same ego that if looked closely at it, it is a mental construct held by you only, not the world.
DISCLAIMER: I got plenty more ego where that came from, this is to inspire me and recognize I am on the right path. I know I will never become ego-less, but I would settle for half of its current power.

More Connected to Our Physical World?

Are you talking to me or your damn airline ticket?

More things to keep you busy, and thus not being present. Cool, but hella distracting! Just when you thought blue-tooth headsets were annoying! HA!

Testing My Path

While moving along the Buddhist Path, I can get kinda cocky with a bunch of meditation under the belt. Feeling the wisdom slipping through the crack under the door, I relax on my self- examination.

Then a nice friend will do something out of the blue and you realize how selfish you really are or just not giving enough. That is one thing that can quickly be a splash of coffee on your white shirt.

But even tougher is when a sibling emails you to tell you how much you have screwed up her life and spews hatred that drills right into your heart. Sure, it all made up and just shows how the mind can quickly write a great fictional story. I am talking about my sister, who is amazingly bright and was very close to me for years.

Sadly, she is paranoid schizophrenic and this can be expected. By now my Buddhist teaching should be strong enough to carry me over this assault from a sick person. When I read her email everything flys out the door. I am first pissed, then, incredibly hurt. Why? Because I still love her, or at the least the person I used to know.

Can I still love her, after nearly two years of very elaborate hateful emails that cut through the very heart of who I am? And before that, almost 20 years of a very rocky road while she was in and out of hospitals, and never knowing if I am hated or loved. All the times I have cried about her unlucky roll of the genetic dice, has never changed all the pain she has gone through. It comes a time when your own self-preservation rides higher in the saddle than her sickness…she has forced me to totally cut her out of my life. She is that sick, even with her drugs. Any kind of success: be it financial, or in my case spiritual is a threat to her. She even thinks me being gay has affected her relationships.

After alienating my brother about 10 years ago, and now me…she is chopping the men out of her family, as a vendetta against my dead father. One can clearly see her mind works, and with a master’s degree she can spin a story so believable to herself. There is no doubting it for her. She has been moving further and further away from what is left of her family. Now she is far, far, away on the other side of the globe running from her mind and I will probably never see her again. She found her mind still follows her. No matter where you go, there you are! I do now and will continue to send her love during meditation and dedicate my merit to her, but it takes only one email and it quickly shatters anything left between us. You will probably say have a heart, she is not well…just give her a break. But, this will continually test everything I have learned so far on the path, and will keep me working diligently.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

When dinner was done on Thanksgiving, I convinced the owner of the place to take the homeless guy a plate outside, since he had plenty of leftovers and wasn't really attached to keeping them. This same homeless guy welcomed me when I arrived from his chair in the sun, so I felt he must be fixture in the area. I said to the owner of the house, you should take it out to him, to be a face he sees everyday. Another friend chirped in to restate my reason, and managed to get the owner out the door with it, in hand. He returned quickly, saying something about how it felt good and looked a bit touched, and said thanks to us...his friends.

Later in the evening we took off for the movies, a yucky blood and guts horror film. I arrived earlier than the rest and another homeless man came up to me and wanted me to buy his writing. His body language was kind and gentle. He told me he needed money for copies at kinko's. Quickly summing up his intention as he had just walked up to me, Martin Ross seemed to be a kind soul and all he needed was three dollars, so I bought it. He told me he used to do Yoga, when I commented your ideas are close to Buddha's teachings. My friends walked up and all pretended like he did not exist, avoiding him and us. This was very telling, it showed lack of simple respect for another human being. But I cannot tell people how to be, as I am no where near perfect and have done the same at times. Here is Martin's piece and it borders on the nature of life that Buddha came to:
"From Body to Spirit" 11/09
Brothers and sisters the true purpose of life is to free ourselves from our dependency on the earth's resources. The main resource that we use on this planet is food. The food that we eat, that comes from the earth, brings us into contact with the earth and its resources. Our physical body is made of the food we eat on this planet. Our physical body is made is also known as our gross body. Our true purpose is to transcend our gross body and develop our fine body or spirit. Our spirits are immortal, omniscient, omnipotent, and are not dependent on the earth's resources. The way we transcend our gross body is by restricting our diets. When we eat the food on this planet it covers our spirits with matter and causes us to become dependent on the earth and its resources. This is why we must try to compose our diets of lighter foods, and also try to eat less, less often. If we practice eating this way we will eventually shed our mortal shell or gross body and become our true self which is spirit.
These do not refer to "the mission" in Finding Gratitude below.

Finding Gratitude

What if you woke up, with a little bug in your ear to do something that was good? It was far stronger than wanting to make myself happy. Like eating breakfast. How rare! The previous night at nearly midnight just as I was wrapping up the day, I got an email from an acquaintance about his father’s death. So, I stayed up to send condolences and to tell him what to expect. Recalling it like it was yesterday(my own father's death) I hoped to share some of my wisdom. It made for interesting dreams, but it came back how I could make someone else happy upon waking on Thanksgiving. Perhaps, it can be contagious once you stop thinking about yourself. At least I hope so. Anyway, I won’t go into details about what I did Thanksgiving morning because it would sound too self-congratulatory. When my mission was completed, I had no plans after serving lunch to a friend of mine. It was funny how as soon as I completed doing something nice for someone else, the phone rings. Another friend called to join his friends for a great Thanksgiving dinner. I was welcomed as old friend, going on for hours, relaxing and very tasty.

I wanted to write what I am grateful for after I spoke about it in my new dhamma meeting on Tuesday. These people don’t know me or are familiar with my injury. I am well aware that at first glance I appear to be totally normal, but once I speak the freak comes out or more appropriate my brain injury shines. I tried as best I could to say that I am grateful for my injury, coma, and my family’s love to help me see the way out. I wanted others to hear, that people suffer in ways they can’t even imagine…I know personally that being aware of others whips you out of the self-cherishing hell we all obsess on. That is why I volunteer to help others see there is a life... out of the hospital, when they return home and answer any questions they have about that transition. I try to convey the remainder of life should be seen with gratitude. It not easy to maintain all the time, but to reel back in when your view snaps back to worries and fear about yourself. You have to find resources within you that you didn’t know where there. This ability that we all have, I am so grateful for. It makes me more human.

The Choice of Suffering

“need new blades”

I post in advance when I go to see the monks once a month for lunar observance, in hopes of finding someone interested enough to come. I have asked many friends, and acquaintances at yoga as well. They say the third time is a charm, and I was contacted by man living a spiritual life(similar to a monk) out of his own choosing. I won’t go into details as to why he chose this path, but it involves some difficult suffering. We talked about the fact that the idea of the suffering is much more difficult than the actual occurrence. It made for an interesting ride there and back, and to watch someone else’s change upon leaving. We both came to the understanding it is not necessary to become a monk for our individual spiritual goals. I added that if I did it would be because my wisdom would naturally dictate I should do it to serve others better. When we arrived early, I wanted to rest, as it is a lot for a brain-injured person to drive 3 hours and talk in a car. But I tried to rest until I heard the gong sound of time to talk to the monks before the evening meditation. I asked in my stilted tongue of the head monk, “Is suffering was the quick path to wisdom?” in a joking manner. The idea came out in our discussions on the way up there. In his answer he pointed out that suffering is not the path, it leads us away from it. Talking about the arrow sutta, where if you were shot with an arrow(physical pain or getting sick, for instance), then the second arrow would be the mental suffering. You can choose to feel only one arrow, the physical pain. If we enjoy the self-created mental turmoil then, we chose to suffer the second arrow. This was one quick way to remind myself how I think about any kind of suffering. After that causal talk then we started the chanting and the evening meditation. Two hours later we were lucky enough to hear the Buddhist nun's individual stories before continuing on until 3:30 am. They are opening a new monastery in San Francisco, which will soon be up and running by the New Year. Curious, I got a chance to talk to one particular nun about her ideas of a sangha for their new monastery. I was, of course tired at 4am, but felt really mentally awake and calm. And whether my company talked to me or slept... I was content.