I was proud of my spirit...

                       

A few years ago I was with some friends and we were watching the first season of “True Blood” on tv. We had watched a couple episodes and I was worried it was going to be a weak platform and an excuse for special effects and sex.  I was happy when the story line started to unfold. The night I’m talking about was when we watched a character whose sexuality was never concretely determined in a scene which would define, for me, his character (both the actor’s own, and his characters). We all watched as he went to a vampire’s house to collect some of his blood. If you haven’t seen the show, vampire blood was sold like a drug to humans. At any rate, we watched as the vampire (played brilliantly by Stephen Root) revealed, through his advances, that he was gay. It was an interesting scene, with so much going on. At once this person (played by Nelsan Ellis) was interacting with this gentlemen trying to smooth him over, get what he wanted. It was a bit uncomfortable to watch. Not because there was tangible sexual tension between them, but because of the obvious manipulation and insincerity. Then there came a moment, when the Vampire reached out lovingly to the man and his guard dropped. It became about the moment and no longer about the exchange and the money he would get. It cumulated in a very tender kiss.

I thought it was a beautiful moment, a great scene, and touching in it’s honesty.

I sat there for a moment, as we all did. I was about to say something about it being lovely and tender but there was some reaction in our group, surprisingly from the women there, of discomfort in two men kissing. We passed it off and moved on as the show often does, and quickly. I thought a bout that kiss for a long time. I was proud of my spirit, genuinely. I feel the truest “you” is told in your authentic reactions to situations. My authentic reaction was to behold and enjoy a touching moment between two people. I saw the parallels to so many relationships in which I know the people personally. I saw the dynamics of just how difficult it is to let your guard down. I saw the “v-juice” as a metaphor for everything we go into a relationship wanting for ourselves. I saw the other side of it, and witnessed it become what this man would give away for affection. I had a moment, a ping of sadness, before I remembered that triumphant moment when they reached out and connected. It was beautiful. It was still a television show, but they say art imitates life, and I agree.

Do you know how rare that is? How hard it is to honestly connect with another person? How often it’s exactly what they showed only the metaphor of “v-juice” being what we’re after, and what we’re willing to give…. For love, for acceptance?

Life is long and it’s full of suffering. Like rocks with waves crashing against them, wearing them down, we are. Do not overlook, or pass by, an opportunity to reveal your soul to another and love them. I’m not talking about sex, exactly, because love making doesn’t always involve intercourse. I’m talking a bout the opportunity to drop your agenda, your fears, your insecurity and really open yourself to another person and love them, and be loved yourself.

I read a quote the other day, which after having written all this seems to be the seed from which this memory was born again.

“The love that you withhold is the pain that you carry - from lifetime to lifetime.” The first part is quoted from Alex Collier, after the hyphen is from the quote as I first saw it, so I included it. Regardless of the source, I think it’s a deep truism and something we should all understand and comprehend.

If your guilty mind tells you it’s wrong, if your conditioning tells you it’s a sin, if society causes you to squirm because you’ve heard a million times it’s disgusting…. please for the sake of us all, of the direction humanity is taking, look at it with your own unfiltered heart and mind and see for yourself; outside of any context where outside influences will, well, influence, look at it and see for yourself.

I’m just one person, speaking for only myself when I say that was one of the best, most convincing and easily the most touching and tender kisses I’ve ever seen on screen and I’m proud of my spirit for accepting it lovingly.

Namaste

The Language Demon Robs You With its Gift

All words, how ever profound, are nothing more than vibrations crated by our vocal chords. They are communication, nothing more. They are meant to communicate the intent of our hearts. We have created the trap of language, the trap of allowing ownership of words. Words are nothing more than a translation of thought and how can anyone own that? I can think of the copyrighted word Coke and there isn’t anything they can do about it. I think it all I want.

For this rant, essay, conversation with myself or what ever you’d like to call it, it would be best to begin with an explanation of impermanence and how I understand it. I want you to know where I am coming from. Nothing is permanent, not one single thing.  If you doubt this, go back to your home town, the place where you lived when you were eleven years old and see if it looks anything like you remember it. The world is nothing like it was in the time of Cesar. Nothing is permanent. You could point to artifacts in the museum and I’d say “give it time, it’ll fade too”. The point of this is to illustrate the pointlessness of clinging to things and those things in this talk are words. You can copyright the word, but you don’t own it. You may have some temporary legal action upon it, but give it time, it’ll fade.

Now I’m not talking a bout life being pointless, rather I’m trying to shift us a different direction. We use our words to hurt, entrap, protect, attract, coerce, offend, anger… we use our words to manipulate life around us. We often use our words in this manipulation to validate ourselves, to prove our existence. We hold up the words of others to define who we are. We wage wars based on the words that we’ve held as our definition because if they are attacked, so are we. I feel it would be best if we understood that words are just words and the matter at hand is our intent, our heart, not the vibrations of sound.

My good friend, my spiritual Sister, had on her refrigerator a collection of words on little magnetic pieces. We all took turns making funny sentences or phrases. I wrote one, it just popped into my head, but it would consume my thoughts for some time after. I don’t own these words, I didn’t “craft” them, they popped into my head and I placed them on her fridge. “The language demon robs you with its gift”.  I have found this to be true. As soon as I lock a beautiful thought into words describing it I lessen it’s innate beauty because mine was only one perception of a concept which is open and available to all people, all perspectives. It exists before words, before thought. When I capture it with my words and put it on display for all to see they can’t experience its true beauty, only the diorama of my perspective.

So when we come to religious texts we experience the same dynamic. They wrote the words from their own perspective. Whether they were inspired by Jesus, Guatnam Buddha or any other holy figure, they are only words and simply describe a perspective. Even if they were written by that holy person themselves, they are still words; still the mental currency of the ignorant.  I say ignorant because if we weren’t ignorant of this we’d all be holy and we wouldn’t be here. We cannot be so full of ourselves and our own ego as to think that the divine would sound anything like our speech. We cannot be so egotistic as to believe that only those who speak the same language it was written in were meant to have it, were somehow more holy or special. We have to understand and acknowledge that God is pronounced differently in every language. It is the perspective of that person who heard it. Even if God him/herself spoke their name to a person it would be the name that person, in their ignorance, could understand.

If we could just realize what our words are, what language actually is. They’re our innate connection to each other. They aren’t under attack; it’s just someone trying to express themselves in a manner we’ve all been taught. Remove your attachment to your words so you can fully understand, without bias, when others may use them. In this way you sacrifice yourself for your fellow human beings expression. In this way you’re an empty cup waiting to be filled with their knowledge. In this way there is nothing between you and their expression and you will know them, and yourself, better for it. Remove your intent from words like freeing them from a prison.

I believe in a concept, a dynamic, I can only express as love. I do not paint the word “love” with my understanding when someone else uses it. I do not trap them in my definitions. I listen to hear what they are saying and I look for it in the skies of my beliefs which float endlessly. So hold dear the intent of your heart and watch for it always in the words of your brothers and sisters. Remove the fish-hooks from your transmission so others can experience them with a truly open heart and mind. Do not cheapen those words which reflect your heart by using them as a shield, or worse, as a weapon.

Namaste

We are a nation of Subversion

I don’t usually rant political, not solely political anyway, and this is no different. I’ve been reading a bit this morning about the state of affairs in the country and it always makes me misanthropic. I see how we, as a people, always stoop to the lowest common denominator; always. We fight and mudsling instead of actually listening. We plot against what is right for what “I can get for me”. We have sullied our good name. As I interact in my home town in actual real life and on the internet for my social networking life I don’t see any force pushing for what is right. I don’t see that noble flag hoisted and fought for. Instead I see those “good causes” are really nothing more than political power pieces and they aren’t for “good” they’re for power and so they’re set up as “against” which isn’t the same thing. Being against Evil doesn’t mean you work for good.

I fail to see how we’re even still arguing about marriage as defined by religious terms. It’s ridiculous really and we’re far too intelligent to grasp as such a cheap and hateful defense from what, it seems, we unfairly fear. Any logical, reasonable person would, I believe, come to the conclusion that two people in love should marry, that there should be no difference because we are all equal. We all have the same right to pursue happiness upheld by our constitution. Without using “biblical standards”, which should be obvious, you cannot defend keeping this imbalance. As I watch my fellow countrymen try to twist and subvert the fabric of this nation for their own agenda; I weep.

The topic of Gay Marriage, which I just call Marriage, aside; we’ve watched as our elected officials argue and fight a healthcare reform not to make it better, not to make it more complete or fair or available, but on one hand fought to keep the opposing party from gaining popularity and on the other hand to simply make their side look better. They destroyed a small part of our collective consciousness in this act. They had the responsibility to act in the best interest of those who elected them and they chose instead to further their own political career.  So, when are we going to see it? We, as a nation, are simply not strong enough to resist greed, temptation. We are not good men. When healthcare is a business our greed will win, not what is right. When government is a business, a career; we are not strong enough to keep a good conscious let alone act in one.

How long has it been popular culture to call a politician crooked or corrupt? How often the subject of comedy? It is in the lexicon of common knowledge, yet we’re surprised that we’re mired in scandal and controversy?  Who has stood up and held our country dear and stood against those in power right now? Who has called for removal of corrupt politicians? Even when it has been as easily seen as it was in Wisconsin. Were those politicians removed from power for their abuses of it? It was forgotten, swept under the rug. When our people have to fear police brutality because big business actually pays for and own the police? Who is standing? When the few do stand are they supported by our country? No, they are either attacked in the press or there is a media blackout. So why is no one standing? We can now have our citizenship stripped by those who believe they have the power to do so. We can be labeled a “terrorist” and have our civil liberties taken and be held indefinitely without trial. This passed into law 1/1/2012. Well, soon there will be no one left to stand. Those who do will be quieted either by our press which tells the sheep to hate them, arrested unjustly, or simply quieted. This is our country, we should all hang our heads in shame.

Of course we’ve seen this all before. Fascism is nothing new. We saw, admittedly only in retrospect, how people standing quiet allowed for a group to overrun a government and establish itself as “right”. We saw as those who spoke out were removed because no one else would stand with them. We have this very same subversive trend slithering it’s way through our country right now. How many Christians have stood up and told these “Christian leaders” that they have it wrong, that Jesus preached love and tolerance, not hate and control? How many thinking people have stood up and said it’s wrong to hate, it causes violence? How many?

Not enough.

Why can’t we do what is right because it’s right? Why has the fabric of this country been eroded so badly that only subversive acts gain any positive movement? “Reality T.V.” has become the currency of our culture; it is now a valid representation of how we operate. We con our fellow man and begin our subversive campaign. No one works in the common good anymore; we’re all trying to be the star of the show. It’s disgusting and reprehensible. I used to be horrified at the thought that our chief cultural export was Jerry Springer, now that seems tame, but it sure looks like the bricks lining the path to where we are at now to me. Why can’t we just stand up? Why can’t we choose to be better people? Why can’t we do that without subjugating others? Like I said, being “against evil” isn’t the same as being good. It’s being a tool, a sometimes warrior, a mercenary; not responsible. That is a joke. Open your minds folks, stand for what you believe in, not what your church says, not what your local government says, not what the federal government says, unless it is what is already in your heart. You have to live your life from the joy in your own heart, not like a set of contrived dance moves you’ll memorize….  we’ve all seen the dance change, fads pass the “popular” kids change what’s “popular”. I’m sick of living in a world of adult aged Junior High School students. I’m ready for the world to evolve, to enlighten. I’m ready for us to stand for fairness, equality, justice, true freedom, honesty and tolerance. We the tired, the poor, the huddled masses just want an equality which is true to the spirit of man; be common man or the President – you are equal. It’s time to live up to the best of us, not down to the worst of us.

I believe it is time. I believe it’s time for “reality tv” to end, for the subversive nature of our country to be recognized and removed. I believe we should be so much better than we are. We’ve let our laziness go far enough. It’s time to live up to the best of us, to put our arm around our brothers and sisters and treat them like we want to be treated. I believe it’s time to be a proud American again. That takes the hard work of all of us; to own it and do our fair share.

It takes what we greatly lack in our country; integrity.

Sangye Menla: My Patron Deity

I was surfing Tumblr for Sangye Menla and I came up with no results. I searched for “Medicine Buddha” and there were so many entries. A great deal of those entries were pictures, type or phonetic versions of his heart mantra. I am very familiar with his mantra.   I came across it six years ago at the beginning of my venture into Buddhism.  I had been doing some pathworking spiritually and had come across the Medicine Buddha and his heart mantra really spoke to me. Through him H.H. the 16^th Karmapa’s dream flag and into Kagyu Buddhism, but that’s another story.

 I read the phonetic spelling of his mantra and the cadence was just there. I can’t explain it but much later, after I felt very close to his mantra I found an audio version of it. I was afraid to listen to it, afraid I was wrong. I listened anyway, I wanted to do it properly and found that I was right. I was uplifted and felt even more connected to him and the mantra. My working with Sangye Menla was really just chanting and trying to understand his mantra. It was early in my pathworking and I was trying to fit it into a “new age” or “pagan” spiritual mindset. It wasn’t working and I was getting a bit frustrated. Buddhism, as a philosophy, can fit easily into any organized religion. It’s a mindset of giving and sacrifice. I was exploring this, but my mind was locked, limited and I didn’t really know that at the time. It’s only in retrospect that I can identify these moments.

Tayata
Om Bekandze Bekandze
Maha Bekandze
Radza Samudgate Soha

I put everything away and lived simply in this mantra. I have seen many translations of it but this is the one that found me and how I came to understand it.

Mantra Meaning:

Tayatha: It is like this (setting intention)

Om: The complete sound of the universe

Beckandze: Request for healing

Beckandze: Request for healing

Maha Beckandze: Request for great healing

Radza: I bow to the King of Lapis Lazuli, great healer

Samungate: lead me to enlightenment

Soha: so mote it be

It was the setting of intention that got me. What is my intention? At the time the tiniest of voices from the middle of my heart said it was selfish, that what I was really after was healing for myself. My health was bad and getting worse. I had an abscess in the root of my eye-tooth but when I went to have the tooth pulled it was gone. It settled in the sac around my heart and caused paricarditus. I was passing out and I was weak and even though I had grown up with illness and limitation this was rock bottom it seemed. I was praying for only myself. I realized this and I chose to listen to that little voice and expand my perspective so I could find my intent, my true intent. As I thought about myself and how sick I was I realized that I was where I was because I procrastinated out of fear. I realized that my mind was my limitation. I thought back to my experience of floating in nothingness and the intent of my life and understood. My mindset caused emotion which lead to physical action. Asking for physical healing wouldn’t help me. I was asking Buddha to heal me in a way which would lead me to more suffering and sickness. I understood.

So I focused on my intention and being as I chanted this mantra. I centered myself (OM) I asked for physical healing for everyone (beckandze) I asked for emotional healing for everyone (beckandze) I asked for healing of the mind for everyone, to break through that blockage (maha beckandze) I was humble before the Buddha, great healer (radza) I asked to be his disciple, to help with healing (Samungate) So let it be (So ha)

From that moment on when I chanted the Medicine Buddha mantra (or any other that I would learn) from the mindset of Universal good. I understood that without the negative circumstance of my health I wouldn’t have been motivated to look for better. I began to chant it with the intention of freeing every sentient being through that same mental shift.  Putting your intention out into the Universe through a higher power is seen as prayer no matter which religious context you put it in. I was praying to Sangye Menla and as I did so I left it in his hands. May they be healed. May they meet their challenge and find their way through. May they know peace that comes from within, from the source which cannot be taken by anyone, by any circumstance. So ha! I prayed and prayed, sometimes for an entire day I would set my intention to serve others. My path lead to Kagyu Buddhism and to studying under Lama Norlha Rinpoche in New York. That is also another story, but my working with the Medicine Buddha would continue. He would lead me to Chenrezig, the Buddha of compassion.  His mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum (pronounced by Tibetans as: Om Mani Peme Hung) would lead me to a complete centering.  He would lead me.

I still chant his mantra. I still pray for the great healing of the world. I pray that we all have our mental walls lifted to show us we had nothing to fear, we were all alike all along; we’re all connected. That always leads me back to Chenrezig and compassion. That was my lesson at this time. I don’t ask Sangye Menla to heal me, physically. I don’t ask for the instruments of my lessons to be lifted. I walk forward and meet my challenges with my arms open wide…. When I don’t have my head in my rear while learning those lessons that is.

Expand your mind. Or as I told my nephew; Pan your perspective back until it’s your choice then choose what you want. We are all responsible for ourselves, that means my physical impact on this world and people, the emotional state I allow myself to be consumed in for the atmosphere it creates, my mindset and intent for they shape my impact here by setting the context of my emotional states and through that my physical actions. And I keep coming back to this quote from the Buddha “The thought manifests as the word; the word manifests as the deed; the deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings.” I understand this now, in my limited way, and I thank the Medicine Buddha for clearing the cobwebs from my mind and helping me to unfold it.

Namaste

Compassion & Community

They say when Buddha realized it was like 84,000 doors opening... I like to think that those doors are the various paths we all take to the same end and when you become you are at one with all paths, at one with your brothers and sisters. You can see the flow of karmic energy which pushed and shifted you also affecting your fellow human beings. I believe this is why the practice of compassion is so important. Unless you can swing the same result by sitting beneath the Bodhi tree and completely rearranging your mental state, we all must consciously practice compassion.

We start out pure and innocent, from one point of view. We have innate perfection always no matter our state from another point of view. I can see where they’re both coming from, I believe. It’s “original sin” from one place and the effects of samsara from another. I can see how they’re both correct, I believe. All religious paths are teaching the same basic thing. You can see the truth hidden in the dogma. Each of us has the responsibility of holding our souls to truth. It’s all too easy to “follow” a church and give away your free thought. Free thought and questions aren’t generally looked favorably upon within religious organizations. Free thought threatens the control.

Right now, free thought and difference of opinion are met with outright violence from our country. Sure, you can say it’s “them” but that is just disassociating yourself with your fellow man. Nope! The way forward is together, it’s with our arms around the shoulders of our brothers and sisters and working for the good of all.  It seems a hundred years ago our country took a perspective of “restriction” as the road to civilization. I disagree with that precept. We cannot have our laws, our government, our very lives set to restrict. That is a “punish the good with the bad because we “have” to” approach. All that has done is made those good people who are screwed by the rules cease to follow the rules. I doubt the number of criminals corrected through this type of government can even be 1/100^th of those who now disregard the rules and take care of only themselves. Don’t agree? Go out into any town and drive around for a couple hours. Count the number of people who follow a four way stop correctly and not just “I was here second, I GO second”.  Drive on the highway and see how you’re treated. Remember to leave your own personality at home so you can stay objective.

We go from one isolation booth to another throughout our day. When was the last time you heard a siren before you saw the vehicle? We isolated ourselves from the road and, unwittingly, each other. The same is true with the way we work. Do you remember when having more than one job over two years would get you declined for a job? Do you remember when you knew the names and numbers of every man on the team? Before free agency? Do you remember when teachers taught instead of worked to not get fired? Do you remember when you felt good about your government? For me, it’s been a while and I want that feeling back.

I feel we’ve focused on the individual as a solution to the problem of the 50’s oppression and close minded attitude. Where a man was a man a woman was in the kitchen. It was wrong, but we didn’t address the reason, we sought to restrict. We restricted speech and brought about political correctness. All that did was cause the sexist, racist, bigoted attitudes to be hidden. We didn’t go to the root of the problem and address it. For each evolution of society a new mode of restriction was born. Einstein said that doing the same action repeatedly and expecting different results is insanity and I believe we’re all insane. We haven’t figured it out? The problem isn’t “them” it never was, it was “us” all along.

There is no one simple solution. There isn’t anything one person can do to change it for everyone. The solution lies within the hearts of every living being. We have to be the change before we can expect to see the change. We have to do what is right just because it’s right. Not because God is watching, not because we will get thrown in jail, not for any other reason other than the joy in my heart demands it.  If you could manage to strip all your paper-doll personae, from the moment you realized you were separate until this moment, perhaps you could see that joy in your heart. You shared willingly, you gave without thought of return, and there was no ownership and no religion. You didn’t have any shields then to protect your psyche against the repercussions of your own bad behavior. There were no justifications. If you were bad, you knew it and your friends let you know.

We all long for simpler times and leave it at that. We’ve given up and only those ruthless among us, those willing to hold out longer, have come to power. They don’t have our best interests at heart because that was not what drove them to excel. We have no one to blame for our mess, we are to blame. We let other people doing bad things change our ethics to where we just had to be a notch above them in order to feel superior. It’s all a lie and we know. We knew it then too, we chose the lazy.

It’s time, isn’t it? Haven’t we all had enough? All I want is to love and be treated fairly and I believe that is really what we all want. When our motivation is greed, and it certainly is in the world today, we have to take from another to have it for ourselves. This is wrong. We know it; otherwise we wouldn’t be driven by fear of losing what we have.  I’m tired of living in fear. I’m tired of seeing the faces of my brothers and sisters as they have to go against their nature to follow the “rules” when we know it’s wrong. Such as when we deny medical help, social help and so on. We shouldn’t be choosing money over truth and humanity. When we sacrifice our fellow man for our own gain we know it is possible for someone to do the same to us; enter fear and we are driven by it ever more.

We have to do what is right just because it’s right. We have to put the work in to see the benefits. We’ve grown into an instant-gratification society and it’s just wrong. When you work for something you appreciate it more; that is a truism. So why aren’t we moving forward that way? Why aren’t we putting the work in? We may say “we are, we go to church” but are you holding yourself responsible for the total effects of your life? Or are you putting the responsibility squarely on the church? It’s easy to use it as a shield and only you can know if your every effort is coming from your most sincere heart. Do you go to church for salvation or to lend your positive presence to the congregation? If it’s the first all you are is a taker and then when to you give back?

Pay it forward by being a good person, treat everyone fairly, practice compassion, patience, understanding, tolerance, and so on. When we live those ideals they become … we’ve been living the ideals of greed and possession and it has become & we’re all suffering from it. It’s time to change. It’s time to go inside and do some spiritual housecleaning. It’s time to be humble, be a good person and let what will be, be.

Namaste