Boredom

Buddha left his kingdom when he was twenty nine at the peak of his youth.  He was bored with women, wine, wealth, kingdom, and everything.  He had everything.  He had seen them all.  He renounced the world not because the world is bad but because he was bored with it.  What was he doing for six years sitting in those forests?  He was getting acquainted with boredom.  What can one do in the forest but watch one’s breath, look at one’s navel, day in, day out, year in, year out.  He created that boredom to its ultimate peak and one night it disappeared.  He became enlightened.

Only human being is capable of being bored and enlightened.  Boredom is one of the most important things in human life.  It exists only when the mind starts coming closer and closer to enlightenment.  No other animal is capable of being bored, hence they cannot become enlighten. 

We can respond to boredom in two ways.  One way is to escape from it temporarily and avoid it by finding things to keep us occupy.  But we’ll find that again and again boredom will come back.  It has to be faced.  The other response is to face it, to meditate on it, to be with it.  That’s what the Buddha was doing under the bodhi tree—that’s what all the Zen people have been doing down the ages.

More

A large part our lives is consumed by an obsessive preoccupation with more. When we no longer feel the lives that we are, we are likely to try to fill up our lives with more of everything; more is better.  The ego satisfaction is short-lived so we keep looking for more, more, and more.  We need to check our driving for more.  An uncheck driving for more for endless growth is a disease.  It is the same disease the cancerous cell manifest.  The cancerous cell only goal is to multiply itself, unaware that it is bringing about its own destruction by destroying the organism of which it is apart. 

As a spiritual practice, we should investigate our relationship with more, especially in the world of things through self observation, particularly, things that are designated with the word “My.”  We need to be alert and honest to find out whether our sense of self worth is bound up with the things we possessed.  Do certain things induce the feeling of important and superiority?  Does the lack of them make us feel inferior to others who have more than we are?  Do we casually mention things we own or show them off to increase our sense of worth in someone else’s eye and in your own eyes?  Do we feel angry when someone else has more than we do?  Do we feel angry when we loose a possession?

Live in Joy

Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate.

Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted.

Live in joy, in peace, even among the troubled.

Live in joy, without possessions, like the shining ones.

The winner sows hatred because the loser suffers.

Let go of winning and losing and find joy.

Meditate on these sutras of Gautama the Buddha.  These sutras gave me immense insight into the heart of this awakened man.  He is one of the most joyous persons ever. 

Often within pain and depression, there are thoughts that we’ve had so long and held so close that we don’t even know that they are there.  We’ve never stop to see if we believe them.  What if we stop to ask? 

If your feelings could talk, what would it says and who would it says that to?  Please be as bluntly as you can.  Don’t rush this and be precise.  Otherwise you’ll come up with something that seems wise and kind (the thoughts you think you should be thinking instead of the thought that is really there and hurting.)

Sadness

Most of us don’t look at our sadness closely.  We try to avoid seeing it in many ways.  If we feel sad, we either hang out with our friends, instant messaging on the computer, playing games, watching TV, read, and so on.  We start doing something so that we do not have to see the sadness.   

The spiritual teachings say that this is not the right approach.  The teachings say that when we are sad, it is a momentous phenomenon.  It is sacred.  Sadness is a great blessing.  It is authentic.  It is silence.  It is there because we are alone.  It is giving us a chance to go deeper into our aloneness rather than jumping from one shallow happiness to another shallow happiness and wasting our lives.  It is better to use sadness as a means for meditation.  Witness it.  It is a friend!  It opens the door of our eternal aloneness.  And being alone is ultimately our natural state.  There is no way not to be alone. Alone we are born and alone we will die.  We can deceive ourselves that we are not alone, that we have a wife, a husband, children, friends, jobs, money, and power.  These things are there to keep us engaged so that we don’t become aware of our aloneness.    

So the next time you feel sad, sit silently and be sad.  There is nothing wrong with being sad.  Sadness has its own beauties.  Don’t escape from it. Get acquainted with the sadness, go deeper into it, and you will be surprised.  It is a great relaxation, a great rest, and you come out of it rejuvenated, refreshed, and livelier.  And once you have tasted it, you will seek those beautiful moments of sadness again and again.  You will welcome them and they will open new doors of your aloneness….

Do you look at your sadness closely? 

What is love?

What is love? An enlightened person would tell us that ordinary love is just a masquerade.  Ordinary love is a duty.  It is conditional.  It pretends too much.  It brings frustration. It obliges.  It expects.  It demands.  It attaches.  It concerns.  It exploits.  It is shallow.  It is at time syrupy, almost sickening and nauseating.  It feeds the ego which is not the real you but the unreal you. 

The same enlightened person would also tell us that real love is a totally different phenomenon.  Real love is freedom.  It is unconditional.  It is sharing.  It knows nothing of demand but joy and giving.  It is non-pretentious.  Real love is a nourishment to the soul.  It brings fulfillment.  It never wants to be rewarded, even to be thanked.  It does not oblige, expect, and demand.  It detaches.  It knows compassion and considerate but has no concerns.  At time, it can be hard, aloof, and very cold.  It does not feed the ego.  It would not fulfill any unreal need and any poisonous idea in the other.

If I ask the Hindus, they’d say that I love my husband not for my husband’s sake, but for my own sake because he gives me pleasures.  But deep down, I love my own pleasure.   They say that I love my daughter, my friends, and others not because of them, but because of me.  Deep down my daughter makes me happy, my friends give me solace and this is what I am hankering for.  So the Hindus say that I don’t really love others but love myself.  Even if I say that I love others, truly it is just a long, roundabout way to love myself.  For the Greeks, loving self would have been ridiculous.  Love can only exist between two persons.  For anything to be loved, the other is needed.

Love is an enigma.  It is a paradox.  

What is love to you? 

I am currently on vacation.  If you’d like to see some of our vacation pictures, please visit ronlawhouston.  Thanks for stopping by.  You will hear from me in about two weeks.  You can visit my site as often as you like to read other posts, leave comments, or just to hang out.  *Muah*

Have a meditative July!

Why does love become an attachment? 

When I love something or someone, I tend to become attached to this something or someone.  Why does love become an attachment?  Am I confusing myself by associating love with attachment?  Am I just using love to get something else that I wanted?

Unconsciously, I may have used love as a bait to catch an attachment fish.  There is a subtle fear of freedom.  Though attachment comes with bondage, pain, suffering, and other ugly things, it also comes with commitment, security, and other desirable traits including not being alone.  While I talked about detachment and freedom, I don’t have the courage to really be detached and be freed because I don’t want to end up alone.  When I am lonely nothing seems meaningful.  I become bored with myself.  At least with someone, I am occupied in creating artificial meanings around me.  It gives me an illusion that I am a giving person: a devoted wife, mother, daughter, friends, and employee. It appears that I don’t live for myself, I am not selfish, and that I live for someone else.   

But when I am alone, I long for attachment and when I am in attachment, I long for detachment.  It is one of the paradoxes of the mind.   If I struggle against attachment, then I also take the wrong turn.  I have observed that people are also struggling against attachment.  They feel caged and imprisoned while they are in relationships with families, friends, and others.  They feel attached to their properties, wives, husbands, children, and other love ones. They escaped to other places to be either alone or with new partners and only to find out that they are once again attached to the new surroundings.

So attachment cannot be easily detached.  Attachment will take many forms.  The only way to understand attachment is to try to understand why it is there and know the deep cause.  Why do I cling?  Why do I tend to get attached to my love ones?   I cling because I am afraid I will loose them.  Somebody may steal them from me tomorrow.  What available to me today may not be available to me tomorrow.  I will be left empty again.  I cling because I am not.  Inside, my own self is empty and hollow.  I have no root, no center.  I try to cling to anything and to anyone in order to feel safe.  When I am not rooted, I try to cling to the roots of others.    

Why do you get attached to another: a person, a thing, a thought, a belief, a tradition, a memory, an expectation….?  Why do you cling on to them?

The Spiritual Teachings

If we read enough spiritual books, we will find that all spiritual teachings lead us ultimately down to one path: surrender.  They tell us to take the path of surrender if we want to achieve enlightenment.  What do they mean by surrender? And why do we want to achieve enlightenment?  When they say surrender, they mean to drop the ritual: the past, the known, the learned, and the beliefs.  They mean to detached or let go.  Surrender means surrendering the false identity.  That’s what letting go is.  That’s what detachment is.  We want to achieve enlightment because we are discontent with life.  We want to end our pain and suffering.   And to end our pain and suffering, we must let go; we must detached; we must surrender.  This is why sometimes, the enlightened person has a second name.  Their name change is a symbol that says that they are no longer a part of their past.  All that are connected with the past is gone. They begin a new way about their beings. 

These teachings have one goal and it is to lead us down the path of surrender.  They will tell us that our current identity is not ours.  Our name is False.  Our form is False. All is False.  We are not our names.  We are not our forms. We are something beyond both, but we don’t know who you are until we surrender and face life as it comes with the new consciousness.  They tell us to allow the wind to carry us to our destination.  We must allow existing itself to take us to our destiny.  

The teachings say that in order for surrender to happen, we must allow ourselves to be one with the universe.   To die before we die.  To allow for the death of our individualities.  Why?  So that we can get to the essential.   When we surrender, the non essentials disappear and the essential appears.  Other terms for non essentials include:  ego, trappings, onion layers, masks, personalities, garbage, shits, and many more.  They said that about 99% of who we are is the non essentials and 1% percent is essential.  Other terms for essential include: the real you, an inner voice, the core, the center, the Self, no-thing-ness, diamond, and so on.   But first we have to strip off the non essentials to discover the essential; we have to discard all the garbage to discover our diamond. 

What do you think about these spiritual teachings?  Do these teachings make sense to you in the head or in the heart?  Are they a hindrance for your spiritual journey because they set the musts and the shoulds? 

It is so hard to let go of the things that cause us pain and sadness.  Perhaps we are not convinced that these things are causing us pain.  If we look hard, we will see the investments in the pain and sadness.  When we talk about our pain and sadness to others, we get sympathy.  Everybody is sympathetic to the person who is in pain.  If we love getting sympathy from people we cannot drop our pain and sadness; this is our investment.

I noticed that when I am in pain and feeling sad, I get more sympathy and attention from my family and friends (that is as long as they are not the cause of my pain, otherwise they would call me names and accuse me of manipulating, controlling, and playing the victim role J.)  Everybody takes care of me.  My spouse becomes more loving.  The kids behave extra well.  Friends call to see if I am okay.  But most of the time, I am a pleasurable person to be with.  Of course, in this stage, the family and friends withdraw their sympathy and attention.  It is as if everybody becomes hard and frozen.  If I want attention, I have to ask, beg, or sometimes demand. And if I am lucky, I get five minutes of undivided attention.  It is like the happier I am, the more I find that nobody cares.  How can anyone drop any pain and sadness this way? 

As long as I desire attention and sympathy, it will be hard to let go of the things that cause me pain and sadness because that very things also bring me attention and sympathy.

Why do we give attention to those that are generating pain and sadness and neglecting those that are generating pleasure and happiness?  Do we want to perpetuate a society that rewards unhappiness and punish happiness?