Words of the First Bardor Rinpoche

All my disciples who depend on me:
One: Don't call the three jewels to witness
Your rash declarations and schemes.
Two: Don't argue about tenets.
Three: Don't be obsessed with this life.
Four: Don't brag about anything you've done.
Five: Don't always talk about others' faults.
Six: Don't meditate on the difference between friends and enemies.
Seven: Don't be greatly attached to stuff.
Eight: Don't disregard causality.
Make these eight your constant yidams.

Other than this I have no advice.
If your devoted affection is not weak you are never
Separated for even an instant from your father guru.
We've met before; we'll meet again.
We'll keep on meeting as long as we live.

-from "Treasury of Eloquence: The Songs of Barway Dorje," translated by
Yeshe Gyamtso, KTD Publications, Woodstock, NY, p. 31

....you get what you need...

I'm signed up to the Beliefnet Buddhist Wisdom listserv and everyday I get a message in my email box with some pearl of Buddhist wisdom. Some of them go over my head. I particulary have trouble with the ones that deal with higher teachings on emptiness and suchness. Most of them are nice and understandable and are mildly interesting. Every once in a while I get one that hits me where I live. Today, I received one of those. It's worth passing on to those who don't get Buddha in their email.

Whatever attitudes we habitually use toward ourselves, we will use on others, and whatever attitudes we habitually use toward others, we will use on ourselves. The situation is comparable to our serving food to ourselves and to other people from the same bowl. Everyone ends up eating the same thing--we must examine carefully what we are dishing out.

~ Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, "Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness"

I know that is not about food, but (not) speaking of food...

I am trying to be more conscious of my eating because it has gotten way out of control of late. I've also lost a lot of bloat in the past several days so I feel more myself again. I am very struck by how much I am obsessing about food today. In general, on any given day at work, I can eat my way around the office (but don't). Many people here have candy bowls on their desks and everyone is free to dip. I also contribute $$ to one woman who has a nice candy dish right near the back door -- so many people stop and dip. Well, today I have't dipped in anybody's dish. But I sure am thinking about it. I think instead I will eat a small raisin snack I brought to work with me. I've also just finished a large cup of green tea. But I want more of that as well.

So here I am at another beginning, trying to follow a food plan. Not a diet. A food plan that includes regular food, but no sugar (candy) noshing. No late night high caloric deserts. No mega-sized portions for dinner. After all, my pouch is only the size of a large thimble! And more veggies and salad. Because there is so much contraband around here it is often easier for me to eat healthier and lower calories on time off from work. I mostly eat my lunch in the office these days and that has lessened my intake but has also reduced the amount of salad I'm eating.

I think the next time I have surgery for my eating disorder it should be brain surgery.

But back to Buddha. I liked today's words of wisdom. It is easy for me to point at the behavior of others as the source of my pain or discomfort than it is for me to see that perhaps I am my own pain. When I can remember that I am getting what I'm giving it is easier for me to focus on me and how I am treating myself as well as others.

The other side of that is it is easier to be patient and gentle with the ill-behavior of others when I can remember that they are causing themselves the same pain as they are causing me. That they are in pain and putting it out and need compassion and kindness to learn how to treat themselves better.

Can a student be a teacher? Only a true student can be a teacher. Can a submissive be a Dominant? Only a true submissive can be a Dominant.

It's Sunday but I wish it were Friday night. I had a particularly taxing week last week at work and I am still exhausted from it. I have today to slug it out and then begin another week of fun at the start of the school year!

I've been so busy and so tired in the evening that I haven't written in my journal since last Monday morning! That is very unusual for me.

I seriously considered resigning from my position on the KTC board this week. I feel like I'm not paying enough attention to it, or doing it 100% the way it should be done. I feel detached and fragmented from it. My work life and home life and physical health have been so engaging and all consuming that I haven't had the energy mentally or physically to do my sangha service well. And it has felt more like obligation than service. None of that is ok with me.

We had a board meeting yesterday and I was going to inform my fellow board members that when my term was up (Nov.) I was not going to run for treasurer again. Then I woke up with a thought yesterday morning that seemed to come out of nowhere. While I was fretting about how I was going to bail out on them I had this thought that I needed to move KTC up on my priority list and do it right. That's what needed to change, not terminating my commitment.

When we had the Board meeting MDT asked that each of the Board members run for office again if at all possible. We all agreed to run for another 2 year term. I will move my commitment up to allow energy, time and clarity to do the best I can to ensure the finances of the sangha.

Needless to say, in all this busyness I haven't done any artwork. I haven't done any gardening - more from the 90+heat/90+humidity we are experiencing than anything else. I haven't worked in or cleaned my studio. I haven't cleaned my nightstand in the bedroom, which has prevented F from cleaning the bedroom. I feel like a logger jam. And I'm just too tired to do anything about it.

I have 2 MD appts next week. One with my GP and another with a new GYN. I'll have blood drawn Fri and hopefully can determine if I am anemic (I really feel like I am) and if something else is going on. I've been taking B-12 vitamins (about 2500mg a day, + my liquid vitamins, + Goji juice) and I still can't get a feeling of being built up. I'm bloated and retaining water like crazy and have been since before my period started. This morning I took a dhiaretic. Clear a path to the loo - I hope to be going all day long.

Now that I've written this big whine and my health complaints, I feel like an old fart. I got a haircut this week and I am grayer than ever, the sides pure white now and the top more salt than pepper. Oy, will I ever really get it going? My life, I mean. Will I ever have the opportunity to take a deep breath without already working on the exhale? I guess what I always imagine is that I will get there when I'm retired. I will have the time then to do my life more slowly, more deliberately. I know that is not the answer. The answer is do it now. Eliminate the wasteful time and energy eaters in my life and add in slower, deeper breaths.

"Never complain, never explain." ~~Attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, Jennifer Jones, Henry Ford II, Katherine Hepburn, Dorothy Parker and others

"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." ~~Publilius Syrus, 1st Century B.C.

Sympathy Fertility

This has been a busy week. At work we are moving closer and closer to the start of school on August 20th. Our teachers started back today, working to get their classrooms ready for the new children. Today 20 of us met for lunch in Starke to say goodbye to a loved co-worker who is moving on to another job. She's a wonderful, wonderful teacher, but really needs a break. She's had tough classrooms for the past 2 years and that added to the fatigue of being a teacher for many years, just burnt her to a crisp. So while I will miss her very much, I'm happy she has found something else, some other way to give to her community.

Last weekend friends were visiting and it ended on a rather stressful and sad note. The stress and sadness has lingered throughout the week. Change is so painful. It often feels insurmountable. It is unavoidable. It is the greatest source of growth but I hate the pain of it. My own and the pain of others. The week has ended more painfully than the weekend did.

Throughout the weekend and the beginning of the week I waited in excited anticipation for the birth of my nephew's first child. He arrived Wednesday morning and is doing really, really well on this, his 3rd day back on earth. I felt such joy and such relief that this baby was healthy. Unfortunately, their first pregnancy did not go well and the fetus was determined to have severe spina bifida. There was a lot of anxiety for me about this pregnancy because of it. But all is well and I am so relieved.

So relieved, in fact, that I celebrated Joe and Karen's fertility by having a full blown period 7 years after my last period. I am in my mid 50's and began menopause at about 45. I thought I was done, or certainly on the last side of it. For about 10 days I have felt like I was retaining water, my breasts have been sore, and Thursday I had bad cramps. Low and behold, by thursday evening I was bleeding, just like the old days. Today it was worse. I will go to a gyn asap because this can be more than just sympathy fertility I am experiencing. It could mean there is a problem.

While it's been a good week on many fronts, it's been a difficult and at times trying one on other fronts. And now it's the weekend.

New Family

Daddy Joe with his first born.

Grandma, grandpa, and Uncle Richard with mom and baby.

Conner Joseph born 8-8-07 by c section, weighing 9 lbs 4 oz and 21" long.

I've Been Tagged

I was tagged by Nadiyya

The Rules
1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.


I love to be home with my partner, Frankye, quiet, enjoying each other and our animals

I love to look at art and make pictures

I love to sing, and do when I’m alone and listening to the radio or CD’s in my car

I have been clean and sober for 31 years

I do not always like my memories

My sister is my favorite person on this planet

I don’t care about a lot of things that used to be of extreme importance to me

I have a dream of retiring and travelling the US and Canada in a trailer with my partner and dog(s)

"My only fear of death is reincarnation"

lyric from No More Pain by Tupac Shakur, written by DeGrate, Donald Earle/Smith, Clifford/Diggs and Robert F

Wanting

So there is no misunderstanding, this blog is about me, and only me. I am talking out loud to myself, not preaching or giving messages to others.

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
No, you can't always get what you want
And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need

The lyrics to an old Rolling Stones song go through my head on a pretty regular basis. It is a refrain I am familiar with both lyrically and experientially. It happens all the time to me. Sometimes I am the person experiencing the “no” and sometimes I’m delivering the “no.” Other times I am just witnessing someone not getting what they want. All three views are difficult.

I guess the reason I like the song is that it ends on a hopeful note “…but if you try sometime you find you get what you need.”

F and I had guests this weekend. We hadn’t been together for 4 months and we were looking forward to a reunion. For the most part it was very enjoyable. Good to be with one another, good to laugh together. But by the end of the weekend I felt sadness. I felt sadness for me, sadness for F, sadness for my friends. Things change, life changes, people we love change. People we love make difficult decisions that enhance their lives and we make decisions that enhance our lives. They are not always mutually beneficial.

One of my friends questioned if her attachment was wrong. Attachment isn’t wrong. Attachment is painful. That is the lesson of the Buddha. How do you let go of suffering? Let go of attachment. But it’s hard to do and it means not getting what you want. We westerners don’t have a lot of experience with that. We have so much and want so much more. The wanting grows. Even when the desire is periodically fulfilled, it doesn’t last. If we buy everything we want, manipulate everything we want, steal everything we want, we will be left wanting more, something newer, more attractive, a new itch to scratch, a new person to play with.

I’m looking at what I want and questioning why I want it, what will it do for me, what will I get from it, how long will I be satisfied with it? On more than one occasion I have wanted, wanted, wanted something, enough to save or sacrifice, or throw caution to the wind and get it for myself, only to cast it aside, sometimes the same day, as though the act of purchase itself was where the satisfaction was. Using it or consuming it had no relevance to satisfaction.

I am sorry to say I have done this in the past with lovers. Passion and sexual tension drove me to woo and court someone, only to find that the wooing and courting was far more satisfactory than the relationship I sought.

So what, if anything, is the moral of all this? Attachment is suffering, painful, and breeds disappointment and desire, which in turn breeds more suffering. It’s a ring of fire, and there is no way out but to step outside the ring. That’s frightening and painful in itself, but the promise from the Buddhas is that the suffering subsides.

Where to begin? Where I was left. With a sense of sadness that no matter what I wanted or was attached to it could not be fully possessed by me and would not satisfy my desire. Hanging on tighter won't get it. Letting go of it won't get it either, but it will make the suffering go away. I didn’t get what I wanted, but I got what I needed.

This has been a pretty good week so far. Things are going well at work. I am in a good space as far as how much I have to do before school starts again. I've gotten the big things done. Still have lots to do but most of it is behind me.

Things at home have been good. I haven't done any yard work since last week. It's been very, very hot out and I've been getting home near 7 pm. Tonight I'm going to try to get in earlier although it is already 5:15 pm and I have to stop at the supermarket first.

Today is August 1st and that is a day of sad memory for me and Frankye. Frankye's father died on August 1st, 1944, 5 months before she was born. My grandmother died on August 1st, 1985 at age 79 and my friend Ed died in 1991 at age 46. Such a long time for them all. My nephew Joseph and his wife Karen are expecting their first child any minute now. It would be nice to have something beside loss to remember August 1st for.