Clarity’s blog

This dead homeless women saga has a life of its own. To date, still no newspapers have reported anything about it. She didn’t exist. Nobody seems to care. I’ve sent out a mailing to our buddhist email list, which goes out to around 230 people, telling the story, and asking if anyone is interesting in doing something together. Guess how many people responded? 2!
One of them talking something about karma, and how do we know if we’re not interfering with that person’s karma if we help. please, spare me such bollocks.
However the second one was exactly what was needed. In the morning I spent some time again with the homeless people gathered at the bench where she died, listening to many stories (i wish i could record them and tell them all here), asking what exactly they think it’s needed and how people could help. Some interesting stuff came out: there’s plenty of food and plenty of clothes. Police is better to them than they used to be. Shelter is problematic - there’s only one in Ljubljana and none of the homeless I talked to want to stay there. Too many drunks, just Bosnians and other Yugoslavs, and people completely gone. But one said, how you could really help is if you get a reporter so that we can tell her story. And as I came to work a few minutes afterwards I had an email from a reporter from Slovenske novice saying that he doesn’t know how he could help otherwise, but that he can write an article about it for the paper. Talk about auspicious coincidence!

Then tonight as I was returning home from our Shambhala group sitting with a friend, just at the moment when we passed the same bench, two young punks came there, and took a flower out of the bouqet that the homeless have left there for their friend and ran away.
I immediately ran after them and shouted, hey stop, give back the flower.
Amazingly they stopped, and I repeat the same thing. They were not too impressed. “Why would we do that?”
“Because it’s my flower, i bought it for that women” - which was a lie, i just made something up. They were not convinced.
Then I said: “do you know what was her name? Her name was Marica
- whose name?
- the women who died there 2 days ago, those flowers were for her. Her name was Marica. She froze to death on that bench.
- I’m sorry
they mumbled. And then they both said, my condolences, gave back the flower and sheepishly walked away.

I came back to the bench, and together with my friend rearranged the flowers back to the way they were. Lots of candles were still burning.
On the bench a homeless person was sleeping. I wondered, what if again he will be found dead the next morning?
what to do?
as we stood there, he woke up, saliva trailing his mouth to his shirt and looked at us. he was quite incomprehensible, so it was quite hard to talk to him. Then he said, I need to go pee, where’s the toilet? I showed him the toilet, but he couldn’t walk, so I walked him down the stairs, payed for the toilet. I was thinking of leaving, but wasn’t sure if he can make it up the stairs by himself.
Eventually he got out, mumbling incoherently, now with even more saliva everywhere. I tried to get him up the stairs, but he didn’t want to go. He kept talking that he’s without a women and he wants to fuck. And he liked the friend that was with me.
oh boy… i tried talking to him for some time, but it was completely impossible. at the end I left and he slowly made his way up the stairs.

so… weird, eh? what helps? what doesn’t? who knows?
it’s completely hopeless. and we need to do it anyway.

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As I was walking home last night from work, the rain was falling and it was quite cold. Around the 3bridges, near Kavarna Plocnik I saw a woman lying on a bench, on a tiny cardboard, and she looked like she was sleeping. As I saw her, my heart just broke. Yet I didn’t stop. I didn’t know what to do. I went on walking, contemplating that we should really start doing something about the homeless situation here.
This morning, my friend Petra found her dead as she was walking home from work. Nobody stopped, except her.
In her words:
I was walking back from work, and was surprised by death and impermanence. She lay on the ground, beside a bench on a pavement. I knew she was dead as soon as I looked at her, but I still checked her pulse. She was cold and her skin was blue. A woman with no name was lying on the asphalt, on the wet cardboard. She wore dirty pants, and her naked torso was covered by a flanel shirt, which she did not wear. She only wore one shoe, she had no other things. I sat next to her, like keeping death company, so that she would not be so alone, until the police and the medics arrived. I looked at her corpse and wondered what things she went through in her life, where she is going next. She lay alone in this difficult moment, on the wet naked ground. still, this was not enough for those before me, who saw her, yet nobody stopped, everyone hurrying to get to work, to do their errands. How shameful, bizarre of this humanity…. I started crying and started doing tonglen, so that I can do at least something for this being, I forgot about myself, I wished I would know this before, I wish all would know this, all the time

UPDATE: I walked by again this morning on my way to work and there was a group of homeless people sitting on the bench where she died. They were just reading an eulogy for her that one of them wrote on a tiny piece of wet paper. 2 candles were burning. They asked for some money, they want to light 11 candles for her, one for each. Her name was Marica.
We talked for a bit, I asked if they can light a candle for me as well. One said she was still alive at 6:30 this morning, he was with her and covered her with a shirt. They all wondered what happened that she was half naked, in the evening she had full clothes on and a sweater (i saw that too). Sadness and love was palpable.

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my practice has been undergoing a shift lately. I’ve tried following the instructions the Sakyong was giving to our community, although I haven’t really resonated deeply with them yet.
These instructions seem to come from a more sutra oriented approach, rather then the more vajrayana tinted instructions that the Vidyadhara was giving. It has been a cause of frustration and confusion for me for some time, until it became clear they are actually a different practice.
We still call it shamatha, but the view, goal and method are quite different. It is much more goal oriented practice, with more emphasis on stabilization, concentration, continuing mindfulness. sometimes that’s a relief - I remember one teacher saying, whew, you mean it’s ok to have a goal? The goallesness (i’m sure this is not a word) or the Vidyadhara’s approach can be difficult sometimes, especially, since for most of us, we do have a goal, we want to improve, have less confusion, and that’s perfectly fine. Which is what the Sakyong has been saying: before having a path without a goal, you need a path with goal.
However, I’ve realized that for my own practice, I’ve again tried to fit myself into something, try to live up to an expectation or an idea of how practice should go. Doing this my mind inevitably tightens, cutting me off from natural intelligence that’s always there. so, for the last few days, when I’ve sat down to sit, my view and instruction is just to be there. Nowhere to go, nothing to attain, nothing to do. Just experience what is here. My mind is sloppy, grumpy in the early morning. fine, just let it be that way. How is that actually? Thinking a lot? Great, let’s experience that. Gave myself permission to think as much as i want. Doing this I felt my mind relax and become much sharper. Allowing myself to do this made me catch myself thinking much quicker. And thinking becomes much less interesting. Less aggression, mind is softer and intelligence can come out. Curiosity. Much bigger space.
Mind that is relaxed within itself is actually joyful to be with. No particular need to escape into thoughts.
Interestingly, that is what the Sakyong says are some of the discoveries we make - that the mind is in its nature joyful, clear and precise. We become familiar with what our mind truly is. Shamatha becomes peaceful abiding.
But for me it comes not through tight practice, with more focused concentration, but more with letting go, being gentle and spacious and curious. with no agenda whatsoever, except just being here. trusting my own wisdom.

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I’m finding myself with too many things to study. The Dharma is so vast, it is sometimes completely mindboggling.
At the moment this is on my study list:

• Being Human - i’m coteaching this in about a month, so i better get familiar with it
• Turning your mind into an ally - preparing for an intro to meditation talk at coast
• Ngondro manual - Mantra section - i’ve started doing mantra, and i really need to look at all the material that goes with it
• 4 dignities - i really don’t get them, would like to study more about them
• Entering the Vajra World - overview of vajrayana, i’ve just started it and it’s really good
• Warrior’s Assembly talks - i’m slowly going over the talks given at WA. There’s so much material there it can last me a decade

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this moment
   my heart
     one with yours

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I’ve received a request from my friend Champa Chodron, who is currently helping in New Orleans:

There will be a lot of dead retrieval
especially during the next week, and she asked if you all — and anyone who
might be interested — could do practices for the dead, at least for the
next week.

She also asked if someone could read the Tibetan Book of the Dead once a day
for 49 days.

please join in

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This is very interesting and very helpful:
“Finally there is one pitfall in meditation practice that you must avoid. Meditation practice raises the level of energy in your system in the form of active attention. The higher level of energy inevitably brings you into contact with reactive emotional patterns. If you now become selective and repress certain emotions, pushing them out of attention, two things happen. The higher level of energy in your system flows into the reactive pattern, making it stronger. The higher energy also flows into therepressing pattern making that stronger. Both the reactive patterns of the emotion and the repression are reinfororced. You end up splitting in two. One part of you is capable of attention and response. The other part becomes increasingly rigid and inflexible. It takes over unpredictably whenever the repressed emotion is triggered by events or situations. Typically, a person becomes more arrogant and self-indulgent, obsessed with power, money, sex, security, or other fixations, and acts in ways to control or amass the object of the obsession. Long-term practitioners and teachers who protect areas of their lives from their practice frequently run into this problem with unfortunate and sometime tragic results. We run the risk of a similar fate if we protect any area of our personality our lives from the increased awareness that develops in meditation.”

Ken McLeod from Wake Up To Your Life

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expectations and love don’t go together well

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The key to invoking blessings is devotion, whiich is aroused by sadness and renunciation. This is not a mere platitude, but is born in the center of one’s heart and in the depths of one’s bones. With decisive conviction that there is no other buddha who is greater than the guru, recite this melodic tune.

By Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Thaye - Crying to the gurus from afar

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I’ve been sick for the past 2 days, spent most of my day in bed yesterday. My mind in such a state i couldn’t do much reading or studying. As is usual, feeling of self-pity come with being sick, which makes the whole thing suffering instead of just unpleasantness. all about me,me,me…
This morning I read an email from a dear friend, who is right now in New Orleans, helping Katrina victims. Tears just started flowing, the pain and suffering there is just so enormous. She’s feeling helpless, wondering what good are her actions really doing. i’ve asked for her permission to post some of her writing here, and hopefully she’ll agree.
the amount of suffering in the world is just soo vast, sometimes it feels really impossible to embrace all of it, or at least acknowledge it. perhaps that’s why it’s so much more comfortable just wallowing in our own petty little pains…

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Be without deception

If you trust in your own existence, you can manifest in a genuine and trustworthy way.

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Well, I have to say I’m really pleased with myself. On the coast I went for a first longer trip on rollerblades, from Strunjan to Portoroz and then Piran. Since I’ve had my rollerblades less than 2 weeks, I was highly sceptical if I’ll be able to do it, especially since it involves going through one of the most touristy cities on the coast, and I had no experience navigating the pavements and such.
Well, thanks to Sonja and Jaka I managed to survive and even enjoy the whole ride. You can see the approximate route we took here: Gmaps Pedometer. Pedometer though it was around 12.5 km/s so probably it was more because of the terrain, perhaps 14? Anyways, I was completely pooped. Unfortunately, I’ve also found out that my rollerblades are a bit too big, which is really too bad. It makes me much less stable and it’s painful for my legs. I’ll see what I can do with some extra padding, I really don’t want to buy another pair of skates.

But this Pedometer thingie is a really cool hack, don’t you think so?

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Core beliefs is a term used in Joko Becks’s lineage of Zen Buddhism and it’s a concept that has been very helpful to me in dealing with self-hatred and the like. Basically core beliefs are very deeply held beliefs about ourselves (sometimes it’s being said they are held in our cellular memory) which as a rule seem to always be negative. Each person generally has one or more core beliefs (perhaps up to 3, more is less likely), which represent the essence of who we think we are. For a lot of us they are completely unconscious, but they still drive our lives.
One of mine is that I’m unlovable, that nobody is ever going to love me. You see, they are completely not rational. When I read that and look at myself, even I cannot take it seriously. But it still drives a lot of my life, as soon as I don’t pay attention and am not mindful and aware (so, lots of times!). I’ve stumbled upon it today, as I was vacuuming in the evening, and my mind wandered to what i’m going to do later, and I thought if I should at least go online and say hi and good night to a good friend that I was in contact with a lot lately. Immediately after that came a though, oh, she doesn’t care about you anyway. And I just bought it, and the next thought was like, yep, true, she’s been distant, she doesn’t love me anymore, perhaps it’s better not even to bother.
For some reason, I caught it at that point and see that this line of thought was happening for the last few days already.
See, the tricky part of core beliefs is that they act like a scanner, or a radar, honing on every little detail. and using them to support themselves. Your reality begins to be perceived in a way that fits your core beliefs. So, because my friend didn’t respond to some of my emails, or suddenly disappeared from our chat, my core belief immediately grabbed that and used that as a proof, that she doesn’t care about me, or love me. And it’s so familiar, i think most of us just buy into it. It fits our reality- that someone could really like me? You know that’s completely impossible! So. by today, that line of thought was already familiar, oh yes, i know that already, she’s distant…
Another tragic part of core beliefs is that they are usually self-fulfilling - under their influence we tend to act in a way that eventually we get the confirmation that the core belief is really true. Like in this case I could start pestering her for more and more acknowledgment and proof that she likes me, and I would get so sticky that she would eventually move away, or I would become reserved, cold, cynical and mistrustful which could trigger similar things in her (or at least put a lot of confusion into the relationship).
Tricky little buggers, eh?

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(this post is going to be a bit haphazard as my thoughts are far from organized)
well, i’m spending a few days at the coast with my mother and her husband. I haven’t done that in, hmm, a really really long time. Lately I’ve been feeling a desire to reconnect more with my mother, for no particular reason that I can discern, and this little vacation sort of just happened. It’s not easy.
Many teachers in the west say that being with your parents is really a test of your dharma practice. It’s definitely interesting. I usually get really tense, jittery, generally just preferring to be anywhere else but there. That’s probably why I don’t visit her very often.
So, instead of fighting it, perhaps I can just accept that this is hard for me. I know it’s hard for many people. It brings up a lot of stuff, i get to see all the things i dislike about myself being right there in full view. painful. yet i can’t and don’t want to avoid it anymore. but also i need to take it gently. i gave myself permission to leave sooner if it’s going to be too hard. We don’t spend whole days together, i go on my own walks, they prefer other beaches that I do. Still, we’re together. Tomorrow evening we’ll go to Piran. Little steps, little steps.
I see I’m not really here, i’m distant, not too communicative. Yet I haven’t left yet. There’s a lot of healing that needs to happen, lots of forgiving. As Cheri Huber says, if our parents could change, they would certainly have done so by now. So, accepting. Embracing. Seeing the pain and suffering that’s present and not turning away.
She’s quite sick. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but she’s been chronically sick for the last 15 years. It’s getting worse. I need to come to terms with her impermanence. She will not last forever. Can I say that I love her, while there is still time?
That I wish she would do many things differently that she has, but that I understand. even accept?
Can I appreciate all the things she’s done for me, instead of focusing on things she couldn’t do?
I feel if I don’t do this, if i continue rejecting her, I’m rejecting part of myself. We’re not separate. Thich Nhat Hanh is adamant about this. He said one day: “How can you hope to communicate with the Buddha, if you can’t communicate with your parents?” He also said that Vietnamese Zen can be called the Buddhism of ancestors, while Indian Buddhism could be called Buddhism of Emptiness. So, a big deal put on ancestors.
He also talked about healing the suffering of our parents in ourselves. They transmit to us their suffering and it’s up to us to transform it. I used to resent this idea. I didn’t want to have to do anything with my parents, wanted to get away as much as possible. Yet he insisted. And kept insisting. It’s still haunting me.
So, here I am. And in a moment I will post this post and go back inside to rejoin them, and we’ll be watching a contest for the best slovenian song - what joy!
This moment, this is my way of fulfilling my bodhisattva vow - healing the suffering right here and now.

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on the coast today. Sun is still amazingly strong and after lying on the rocks for a few hours my mind is a mush and my shoulders are slightly burned…
I still love the feel of wind and rock on my naked butt though.

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