Clarity’s blog

Cheerful Shambhala Day everyone!

And for some extra delicious offering: Chogyam Trungpa’s Shambhala Day address from 1982!

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Every time we meet,
my heart breaks open, so raw,
yet so sad.

Will we ever be together in this life?

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When we talk about basic goodness, we are not talking about being happy all the time, but about being real.
From a Shambhala Training Level 1 talk by Marion Lompa

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Hey, my weblog is one of the nominees in the blogisattva awards - achievement in Buddhism-inspired blogging during 2005. I’m in the category Best Kind and Compassionate Blog. Pretty neat! I guess that means someone is reading this weblog after all…
The girl is also there, under Best Personal Journal!
Have a look at all the other nominees, there seems to be a lot of very good stuff there.

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this is priceless:

Lustful ones, befuddled by desire,
Because you cannot copulate with them,
You angrily find fault with pillows,
Even though they’re smooth and soft to touch!

from Shantideva

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After tonight’s don season practice we were sitting around the table, sipping tea, and I opened Ani Pema’s book No time to lose, which is a commentary on Shantideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva and it opened on a page where there was a quote from Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche:
Trying to find lasting happiness from relationships or posessions is like drinking saltwater to quench your thirst.
This one really hit me, as especially today, I’ve been caught in longing to be with someone, and feeling jealous and sad about some of the changes that are happening. Today, for some reason, I just really saw it so clearly. Shocking even.
And then, like if that wasn’t enough, Shantideva hammers the point home:
If I long and crave for other beings,
A veil is cast upon the perfect truth.
Wholesome disillusion melts away,
And finally there comes the sting of pain.

My thoughts are all for them…
And by degrees my life is frittered by.
My family and friends all fade and pass, for whom
The Doctrine is destroyed that leads to indestructibility.

Powerful words, if you have the ears to hear them.

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We are entering what is called the dön season, which falls into the last 10 days of the year, which is traditionally seen as a time when karmic tendencies ripen, a time when there can be more negativity and obstacles then usual.
There is a nice article about this and the practice associated with it at the Shambhala web site.

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Vidyadhara: Questions?
Question: Rinpoche, do you think doing asanas and purifications and being a vegetarian and eating organic food is all part of spiritual materialism?
Vidyadhara: Yes. [Laughter]

(from Sadhana of Mahamudra sourcebook)

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It seems that something is moving forward with regards to my new apartment. Just some final arrangements around the price and if all goes well, I might move in soon!
It’s a lovely 2,5 room apartment, very sunny, with a view of the Alps and still 15 minutes away from where I work (walking!). Cross your fingers!
It would be kinda nice to move in with the beginning of the New Year (Feb. 28th this year), but it might have to be a bit later.

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i’m feeling my post-ngondro grumpiness again. Everything is irritating, has a yucky, spiky quality. I always really wonder, how on earth does this work, why does connecting with the sacredness and longing in my ngondro practice bring about this irritability and aggression afterwards. Yeah, yeah, it’s all about purifying, bringing things up to the surface, I know.
Doesn’t mean that I like it or undestand it.
Of course the advice is, lean into the sharp points. Hrmph.

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Courage gives me the power to love without embarassment or fear

from Sakyong’s music CD, track 2

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Of the 4 immesurables, I’ve so far mostly focused on the first two, that is loving kindness and compassion, and although I theoretically knew about the sympathetic joy and equanimity, they were never really a big part of my practice.
Lately though, I’ve been more and more drawn towards this sympathetic joy, as I’ve begun to experience more jealousy in my life. When you look at it, it is so weird, how can I not be happy for the joy someone is experiencing? Does it feel like somehow there’s not enough happinness to go around and if someone else has it then I’m somehow deprived? A pretty claustrophobic view, I’d say.
And if I truly love another person, would it not be nice to be happy for them, be joyful for the joy and happiness they’re experiencing, even if they are not with me?
My experience with it, that these days, sometime’s it’s amazingly easy. Catching the jealousy when it’s still a tiny thought, and if I then really look at it, it disappears and changes into warmth and wish for the other to be happy.
Other times, it is not so, and instead it grows into thoughts of even wanting the other’s person’s happiness to end, just because i’m not involved. It is much harder to notice and acknowledge these kinds of thoughts, as they’re laden with guilt and “badness”. However, they are just thoughts, with no substance whatsoever, and there’s no need to take them personally. They can be touched and allowed to go, dissolve into the space of open sky.
They can be used to further generate compassion for the plight of all us trapped in our egos, unable to rejoice in the happiness of our loved ones.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter what kind of response there is, as both can be used to move one further. The practice is not about changing or improving oneself (what self??), but of seeing clearly and with lots of warmth. More on this topic some other time, as it’s getting quite late…

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I think I need to reclaim my real life. I spend way too much time in front of a computer. Running, running, but running from what? If I run fast enough, then I never have to look. Bound to be something really scary there, otherwise I wouldn’t be running in the first place, right? Hmm…

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have a terrible headache today. Just thought I’d let all of you know…

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Sorry for not posting much lately, I’ve been caught in the trap of laziness, which as the Shambhala teachings say, leads to depression. Depression is interesting to work with, as there’s nothing you can really grasp at. Passion and aggression are quite definite and clear, whereas this is just foggy, blurry, numbed out state which envelops one completely. As usual, the first obstacle to work with if feeling bad about being depressed. There has to be something wrong with you, if you’re depressed, the believed thought insists. “And you’re not practicing. In fact, you’re not doing anything, just lying in bed watching movies all day. “. So, this way you can feel more guilty, and you want to numb yourself out more, not see what is happening, which then leads to more guilt,… You get the picture.
It’s quite a painful process.
So, what I’ve found is that what helps is warmth. Somehow finding some way of showing kindness towards yourself. Warmth provides a gap, through which your innate intelligence can shine and you can see what is happening. The trick then is not to to the usual thing. ” Oh, I should practice more, since I haven’t practiced in a while. ” With that, you’re living again in the world of “shoulds”, trying to live up to some ideal of what a good meditator is or should be, and you’ll be back where you came from in no time.
So, why not try appreciation instead. Or do something different. Or appreciate doing something different.
Like, today, I went out with my rollerblades. Yes, it’s still winter here, and it’s kinda crazy thing to do, but why not. It even wasn’t so hard as I thought it would be, I didn’t fall and I discovered that it’s possible to go over ice patches with rollerblades with quite a bit of grace. And I really enjoyed it, it was sunny outside, not too cold, and my body just felt really great.
Then, as I came home, immediately into old space. “I should do this, I should do this, I have to do my ngondro,..” And instead I lay down on my bed and promptly fell asleep. Then I woke up in the evening, feeling not so great, and looked at my meditation cushion, and thought I should really do my ngondro. Except I didn’t want to. Just a big NO. No Way. Not getting me there. So, I could force myself a bit and start doing it anyway, which has its merits, but today instead I just sat down and just looked at where I was and what was happening. Slowly some warmth appeared towards this crazy being, who is perpetuating so much unnecessary suffering for himself. I remembered some of the poems of Kagyu lineage forefathers, which I used to really hate, because in them they are saying how miserable they are, how they are so depressed, lazy, no good,… Because I’m so hard with myself, I couldn’t really connect with those poems, because I understood them in the same way I was treating myself.
But now, it was different. I felt grateful for these forefathers, seeing how even though they were so realized, they were still struggling with some of the same things, they were lazy too, they procrastinated and they were depressed. And they didn’t give up on themselves, in fact it spurred them on, gave them even more inspiration.
And instead of ngondro, I did protector and longevity chants, and decided that perhaps that was just fine. Can I appreciate that I practiced at all? That I went out and did something nice for my body? Appreciate that this time I didn’t spend ALL of the weekend just watching movies and numbing myself out. That I’m ok if I practice and if I don’t practice?
This feels much better than beating myself up. And if I can do this, then I’m sure others can as well.

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