oh! been having such a blast today...just lovin' it. had such a silly time bowling with just a few of my sweetest dearest of friends...i'm a terrible bowler but much improved since my last bowling attempt some 10 years ago in oakland--at a fundraiser for a prison moratorium group i was in. that time i actually won a prize for being the worst bowler--lowest scoring. i won a winter cap. today i won lots of love from friends...plus some fancy chocolates!
me Leo, 32 years--not all of them easy or wanted at the time--my 31st being among the most challenging in recent (actually in all) memory. phew!
today meditation that got me out of bed at 6:30am after not much sleeping:
Taking, Wishing Love, Giving, Bodhichitta
we did 'Taking' = taking the world's suffering into the heart and purifying it.
the gateway into this meditation was actually more visual for me--black smoke in the heart burning up suffering--so it was seen and felt and with monkey mind jumping bumping racing around pulling me out of the center. then returning to smokey cinders of ash, dust of broken dreams, heartache, physical, psychic pain washed away in cleansing flames of dissolving love...and of course, back i went, drifting out spacey mental fantasy land and then reeling myself back into the vision and feeling of taking taking taking. was definitely more in my mind today and meditating in the mind is not fun for me. the difference, i guess, is caring, almost an undercurrent of anxiety or worry that comes from the thought (erroneous) that i am not supposed to have such an active mind during meditation, that the monkey mind is a problem, because really, its not. it's simply mind being mind. allowing all to be as it is....that's love. but, i get stuck there, in resistance, just like anyone else, and then the anxiety feeds more activity and then i feel exhausted and that is when a break into true meditation might happen, falling through the cracks of strain or effort into giving up and not caring. hahahaha. we are funny creatures. oh to be a tree or a sea anemone...though i love the play of being aware of awareness and would miss it. a la the "Descent of Species" --fascinating reincarnation story.
m, the gentle kind woman at the center, then gave me a discount on a cd for my birthday. i chose a sadhana prayer and meditation practice to Medicine Buddha, for healing ourselves and others. perfect. i listened and sang today until sleep swept me away for an afternoon siesta.
it's such a strange feeling to run my fingers through my hair and feel how light and less of a mane i have. been visualizing my golden tresses growing, singing spontaneous songs of love to my locks, and eating hamburgers. yes, grass-fed hormone-free lean red meat for IRON.
i do not equate ahimsa (nonviolence) with vegetarianism and am all for life feeding on life cuz that's what it does in reality. anyone remember that Tool spoof about the carrot massacre? all life is alive and to be grateful and in reverence to all life that gives so we may live is my way. though by being an american, consumer, white privileged, means i am a participant, ahimsa would mean to me not participating in violent exploitation, torture of animals or plants or people. which, from my pov means some plants that have been harvested are borne of more violence than the local grass-fed cow endured because of questionable labor practices, land grabbing, pesticides, foreign aid policies (WTO/World Bank) that force countries to grow for US rather than themselves, etc. actually, this afternoon i listened to a satsang that Judith sent me by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche about the importance of grokking non-duality because it is the key to being Awake...it is from a dualistic view that rules of morality, good and bad, right and wrong arise and harden, and from where we make assumptions that compassion looks nice, docile, and doe-eyed rather than spontaneous, and paradoxical, true to what the moment calls for. want to watch this whole talk again, much more i will blog about it later. very provocative. also, i loved when Adya encountered a monk in a monastery kitchen long ago who upon learning Adya was not vegetarian told him "Buddhists don't eat meat." He didn't say it out loud, but it helped to clarify for him he was not interested in being a Buddhist, just in knowing Truth. and for me, it is to know myself intimately, to see things as they are, accept what is with gratitude, and help ease the suffering of others as i have eased my own. anytime i attempt to say anything more here i move into belief, which means i do not know. beliefs exist when we do not know something. so instead i will admit: i do not know. how would i have the authority to say who is suffering and who isn't? how would i know what someone else needs? maybe the moment would guide me in each encounter, but as a generalization? how can i say that relative suffering matters any less just because it is part of samsara and not the absolute reality when for so many, it IS the reality with which they are identified and experience? and so whatever someone most needs in a moment to be released from pain, suffering, and feel love, i pray for that. just saying that the view from where i sit, is not so simple a morality as meat-eating bad and in fact, i am grateful for living in an area with small, ethical farms. i do choose cows over poultry or pigs....partly because of taste but mostly because cows are generally in the most favorable humane conditions from what i have read. anyway...
for anyone who doesn't already know, i have been losing hair pretty rapidly and noticed bald spots earlier this month. i was told i have Alopecia Areata, an autoimmune condition that causes the body to attack the hair follicles and leads to patchy hair loss. i have a few bald spots but still enough hair to strategically cover them up, though my hair continues to thin. i really enjoy my wild femmy hair and would love to create the conditions for it to re-grow but from what i've read it's unpredictable how much hair goes, if it grows back, when, and people don't seem to know why it falls out or grows back.
i first started noticing large amounts of hair coming out the week after my Adya meditation retreat when i was at my mom's house in ny state. thought it curiously much but had so much hair it didn't seem to matter. this was after spending an intense weekend in a car with my dad and uncle, very stressful on my nervous system, triggered all childhood subconscious coping responses leaving me fragile and frayed. leaving the week of silence i was so open and innocent, anticipating the embrace of reuniting with my dad after many troubled years...and the child-like openness saw my dad waiting for me across the parking lot and met....uh, my dad. same dad. in a rush, ready to go, no time for a hug or kind words, just, "You about ready to go? Where are you bags?" focused on getting on the road. Instead of staying in my broken heart and falling into the pain of dashed dreams of reconnecting/emotional intimacy and dying into the connection with Self, i went to my head. first thought? "maybe he doesn't like my hair." then i moved to my pants, earrings, other possible reasons for the felt rejection. why hair? because my dad stopped speaking me during college for 3 years when, during a visit out to colorado after my freshman year, he suggested i cut my long untamed mane and i stood firm, saying "it's my hair and i like it this length." he went back to NY and turned his ringer off. then told my mom i needed to pay him back for the cost of a wasted plane ticket trip to visit me. growing up i knew exactly what length would please and kept at that parted in the middle no-nonsense unfeminine shoulder length to stay a good girl. but how i love it long and crazy and i hope it knows it is welcome to grow and shine! of course, bald would be an enormous adjustment but it is not life-threatening, just self-esteem threatening and so i can handle it with grace, as friends have encouraged me. LOVE.
night night (in the early morning) bed time. sleep.
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