July 30, 2007

Filling the Vessel

This has been a good weekend. I've enjoyed practice with my sangha, lunch with a friend, physical activity, reading, socializing with 2 good friends, ballet - live performance, sleep - including 2 naps, TV watching, enjoying Frankye's company, learning how to use Photoshop - suceessfully at times, playing with our dogs...

What could be better than to "fill up" before starting another work week?

The other really good thing I did for myself this weekend was NOT watch the news. More and more I am realizing that watching the news keeps me in a state of anxiety, anger, and fear. There is nothing I need to know happening out "there" on a day to day basis. If there was something really earth shattering happening, information would get to me without my having to watch it on TV. More importantly, the news, whether real or media manufactured, is a distraction and diversion from the real issues and responsibilities of my life. One of those responsibilities is to keep my mind focused and clear. How else to be able to pray for the suffering of the world?

Speaking of suffering, I heard a blurb for an upcoming news program that 2 more American service men were killed in Iraq over the weekend. The pain this causes their families must be monumental. I don't know these people yet I whince when I hear this news. There is so much unavoidable pain in this world caused by the nature of the material world. Why do humans create more suffering and pain, when it is so avoidable?

I read recently that shame is referred to as the "master emotion." It is considered the underlying "push" emotion that motivates our decisions and behavior. Is it shame that keeps us in this war? Is it shame that keeps this administration on this path of war? Are they shamed by no weapons of mass destructioned and forging ahead anyway? Are they motivated by the shame of being wrong and the need to find something, somewhere that will justify attacking another sovereign country and wreaking havoc on its people? Is it shame at what we, America, has done to the people of Iraq that keeps even smart, level headed people from standing firm to get out now? The excuse that we have to fix what we have broken as a justification to keep 150,000 soldiers on the ground is not valid. It just creates more pain and more suffering and more shame.

See why I am staying away from the news? Just that little blurb takes me away from what is really important in my life right now. Not that my head should be stuck in the sand. Watching TV and getting lost in events on the other side of the planet is living with my head in the sand. If my mind is there, it is not here.

July 21, 2007

July 19, 2007

The Tunnel

Every once in a while I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The operative phrase there is 'every once in a while.' The other times, the majority of times, I am seeing only the darkness of the tunnel. Is that a flaw in my character? Can I change that by merely changing 'my mind'?

I question it because I don't know if I am seeing the real future or seeing my fears of the future. My fear, my biggest fear is that my senior years will be lived out like my father's. I feel as though I have been putting on hold the kind of life I want to live for my whole life. I've wanted to be free of attachments. I know the teachings, both Buddhist and Hindu, are that you don't need to give up the material world to give up your attachment to it. Maybe I am just in the waking to awareness stage of just how attached I am. I feel it all as burden. I can't give freely to anyone because I see giving as a burden right now.

I'm not by nature a selfish person. I have a natural impulse to give. I have a natural impulse to care and love. Right now it feels like too much. It is as if I'm starving and someone is trying to take my last piece of bread. I know I should give it to them, they are hurting, it is the loving thing to do. I do give it, but with resentment. That is not ok. That is not giving. That is actualized guilt.

So I move on, through the tunnel, but still in the tunnel. I'm looking for the light that will show me the way out but I am not seeing it just yet. I will keep on keeping on.

July 12, 2007

A Word to the Wise Not Heeded

On January 17, 1961, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower made a speech, referred to as the Military-Industrial Complex Speech. Here is an excerpt from that speech:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Well, that warning was not heeded and now America has a government that goes to war because it has an industry for making war. Add to that a former top executive of the major defense contractor profiteer sitting in the seat of the most powerful Vice Presidency in the history of the United States, and you have exactly what President Eisenhower warned against.

But what is the face of the Military-Industrial Complex? By what name does it go by?

Dick Cheney is an easy choice for poster boy for the Military-Industrial Complex. He has been in government service most of his career, except for the period of time that Bill Clinton held the office of President. During that time period Cheney served as the Chairman and CEO of the Halliburton Corporation. The very same corporation that received an unbidded contract from the federal government to provide civilian services to the military for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That unbidded contract has reaped billions of dollars in revenue for Halliburton.

During that same hiatus from government service, Cheney co-founded the The Project for the New American Century, "a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle." Look what comes first and what comes last in that list.

So, I declare that the face of the Military-Industrial Complex, will in my mind be embodied as Richard Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America. Our own Manchurian Candidate.

Looking Back At Ya

It seems to be a pleasant enough morning. It's amazing how the scenery has changed so rapidly. We didn't have rain for so long and everything was in one phase or another of dying. Our grass not only turned brown but it actually disappeared in large areas. Fallen leaves covered most of the ground area.

We've now had about 3 - 4 weeks of rain several times a week. There are huge tufts of green grass all over the place. Plants I trimmed weeks ago are blossoming and thickening. A small little plot of land that I put wild flower seeds in is now covered in small green seedlings. I checked on the bird feeders yesterday and found that some of the seed on the flat tray has begun to sprout. The trees are full of fresh green leaves. It all looks so lovely.

more later...

July 11, 2007

These Eyes

Sometimes I wish I had a magic wand and could just right things that had gone askew. Instead, like a bystander on a subway platform, I watch as the train batters in and out of the station. I can’t stop it. If it were running someone over, or leaving someone behind, I could do nothing about it.

Life is that way. We live alone, but with company. No one on earth could possibly know my experience. They can see parts of it but they can’t know it. Not even Chang and Eng Bunker could live each other’s experience, even though they were attached their whole lives.

There are 6 billion people living on this planet at the same time as I and yet I feel a deep well of loneliness. We are not family, even when related. We are a collection of 6 billion solitary human beings simultaneously experiencing something we call life. We can observe the external response of others but that is as deep as it gets. That makes for a lonely feeling, or sometimes a welcome sense of relief, as others seem to be having a more difficult time than I.

I'm sometimes distracted by what I observe and fool myself into believing that it's our experience. But it's not, and I always come back to this place of recognition that no one sees out of these eyes but me.

How Creative Are You?

You Are 85% Creative

You are an incredibly creative person. For you, there are no bounds or limits to your creativity.
Your next creation could be something very great... Or at least very cool!


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July 9, 2007

July 1, 2007

Homeland Security

I was watching TV this morning and heard Sally Field talk about Boniva. She said, “I have this one body, and I have this one life…”

That got me thinking about this one life. I thought about Sally and how she had chosen celebrity. She is an actress. She’s a good actress. She chose to express her art on a wider media, not the stage, thereby insuring a wider audience, and fame, if she succeeded. Both of which, she has achieved. Sally’s decision means she bought into the dominant culture to some degree; probably to a large degree.

I, too, have bought into the dominant culture. I don’t pursue fame or fortune. Yes, I’d like more money, but I don’t sacrifice for it and accumulating wealth is not high on my to-do list. It never has been. But I sacrifice some happiness and personal freedom for the dominant culture.

I let fear rule my life. Unlike in my youth, I am less afraid today of physical violence, and more afraid of not having enough in old age. I’m afraid if I don’t stay in the rat race, I won’t have a retirement of comfort, which I think I’m entitled to. I’m afraid I will be working well into my 70’s, which may happen no matter how conformist I am.

Breaking this down I first come to the belief in “entitlement.” In life, there is no entitlement. Does a lion in the jungle feel entitled? Does a squirrel in my yard feel entitled? Do they feel they’ve earned the right to be fed by me or all the other life surrounding them? So I have bought into the culture of work hard and long and someday you can sit and just play. I feel entitled.

In America, a retirement of leisure is a 20th century addition to our culture. It began with our grandparent’s generation, but has really blossomed for our parent’s generation. But it’s a fluke. The opportunity for that to continue has already been dismantled. Yet my generation still functions as if we will have the golden years our parents have. And I am right on board with them despite knowing it won’t happen that way.

I’m 55 and more and more I think about my present instead of my future. I fear the future and that keeps me living my present as it is. The world is becoming a more volatile place, economically, violently, and ecologically, yet I keep on the same path like a horse with blinders on running a race toward a cliff.

Sometimes I sit in my chair at home and I look at my surroundings and I feel no attachment whatsoever to any of it. I wonder sometimes what stops me from getting out of the chair and getting in my car and driving away, forever. Other times, I feel so safe and comfortable here that I can’t feel the madness in the world that surrounds me, as if they were two separate entities.

Someday I may decide to make a radical change. That doesn’t mean I won’t go to work. It doesn’t mean I will move. It doesn’t mean I will do anything different other than clinging to the fear as a justification for how I live my life. Or it may mean physical change. Either way, it will require living my life outside the confines of culture, regardless of how that culture changes or what the culture dictates.