Piti

There's a plastic tarp caught in a tree. Some painters were loading up their truck and it flew away and they were not able to retrieve it. It's kind of ugly, and I like watch what my mind does when I see it past my Manjushri statue, that is also imperfect because it was blown down and broke.

I think about impermanence in the 13th stage of anapanasati, and I saw today that the tarp broke, it's now in 3 sections, more likely to fall off the tree. The leaves have fallen off in winter time in North America. I miss the green leaves, but the colorful goodbye was spectacular. Days are shorter, it gets dark early. 

I was listening for rapture, makes me slightly manic, hypomanic, and I saw the broken tarp and I laughed and cried. Things are a little intense before they consolidate into happiness, or sukha. It's that vital transition that makes up Buddhism, makes it different than a Dionysian cult. Cult can have a positive connotation where it whips up devotion and energy for the spiritual practice. The joy of a goal, my children hugging me, sex, drugs and rock and roll. The poets might see it as drunk on spiritual rapture. 

Impermanence might be obvious, but I contemplate it, and I've worked on calming the selfing done in the skandhas, the 5 heaps in stage 8, and I contemplate what happiness really is in stage 10, but I look at how I'm still subtly clinging to samsara too, in stage 13. I imagine I would feel better if that tarp wasn't in the tree. 

There's a guy who used to have a long grabby things in Brooklyn for taking the plastic bags that get caught in the trees, he just fixes the reality instead of coping with the mental situation, and that's a valid approach. They made bags need to be bought in grocery stores, so now there are fewer bags flying around in New York City, but I still get the bags for takeout, and use them for small garbage cans.

I've started a blog about my personal experiences in a dharma friendship, this blog was more objective experience and reports of culture. I feel like this blog may have run its course, we'll see what I do with it.

Emaciated Buddha from the National Museum of Fine Art in Hanoi, Vietnam

Bhilkkhu Bodhi In The Lion’s Roar

"I here find myself compelled to dissent from a typical response I often encounter among Western Buddhists. This is the response which says that, in any conflictual situation, we must adopt a stance of detached neutrality, that we shouldn’t take sides but should try to see the good and bad hidden in both sides. That’s a style of Buddhist rhetoric I don’t want to accept. I also don’t want to accept the familiar line, “Everything is impermanent, so don’t worry.” It’s true that everything is impermanent, but by the time this regime ends, millions of lives may be lost and damaged and the entire ecosystem of the earth disrupted beyond repair."

From "It's No Time To Be Neutral" 11/8/24

Holidays

Yesterday was Dia de los Muertos is a remembrance of ancestors, a holiday from our Mexican brothers and sisters.

Yesterday was Halloween is a day when you can dress up in an alternate persona, or hero, and beg for candy. I never really got into it, though of course I did it as a kid for the candy haul. I went around with my daughter who was dressed up like a bat. She says next year she wants to dress like a witch with her mother. I sometimes think about getting a Cat in the Hat hat. Lots of amazing costumes on social media, some people are the opposite of me, and make it really happen. 

Someone’s haul

Today is Diwali is the triumph of light over darkness. My friend voted yesterday to get that out of the way, hopefully light triumphs over darkness politically. I've been reading about Zoroastrianism, because I'm studying Iran, and they have a specific take in the fight of light over dark. Jainism and Hinduism also celebrate Diwali. My Buddhist friend is part of a leading team for a Diwali retreat. 

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. A feast and a positive attitude. 

Goldstein quote

In the Bhagavad-Gita the question is asked, "Of all the world's wonders, which is the most wonderful?" The answer, "That no man, though he sees others dying all around him, believes that he himself will die."

From The Experience of Insight p. 128

I feel like I ward off anything that is Hinduism, like some sort of weird Christian sect, vigilant about belief, but I could loosen up a little bit and be open to more influences. 

Images, memes, quotes, art

Previous one and before that. 

Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu from With Each & Every Breath (2012)

He's not a Buddhist, but I do think his encouragement to be focused on your mind is important. 

From Japan

Reading about Manichaeism, and came across the Manichaeism painting of Jesus Buddha:

Goldstein quote

The courage of a warrior is both required and developed in the practice of meditation. It takes courage to sit with pain, without avoiding or masking it; just to sit and face it totally and overcome one's fear. It takes courage to probe and by that probing discover the deepest elements of the mind and body. It can be quite unsettling at first because many of our comfortable habits get over-turned. It takes a lot of courage to let go of everything that we've been holding on to for security. To let go, to experience the flow of impermanence. It takes courage to face and confront the basic and inherent insecurity of this mind-body process. To confront the fact that in every instant what we are is continually dissolving, vanishing; that there is no place to take a stand at all. It takes courage to die. To experience the death of the concept of self; to experience that death while we're living takes the courage and fearlessness of an impeccable warrior.

P68-69 The Experience of Insight by Joseph Goldstein

Thanissaro Bhikkhu The Meditator as Warrior YouTube 12 minutes

kukkucca, uddacca

“The fourth of the hindrances the Buddha mentions in the Satipatthana Sutta are the mind states of restlessness and worry. The Pali word for restlessness is uddacca, which means agitation, excitement, or distraction. It is sometimes translated as "shaking above," where the mind is not settled into the object but hovering around it. "Restlessness" —literally, without rest—expresses all these aspects. The Pali word for worry is kukkucca, which is the mind state of regret or anxiety. This refers to how we feel about not having done things that we should have done and about having done things that we shouldn't have. Although restlessness almost always accompanies worry, it is possible to have restlessness present without worry or regret.”

P153 Mindfulness by Joseph Goldstein.

Meditation support

I've been meditating with 3 fellows in Iran for a while now. 

I want to open it up to others who want support in meditation. It's 7 AM Eastern Standard Time, it's 2:30 PM in Iran. And it's 4 AM in California. It's noon in England, 12:00 PM. 

Please join us if you'd like to meditate, and we can chat after meditation if you want. The only trick is getting the link to you, the invite. So drop you email in the comments and I'll erase it once I see it, and then send you the link in the morning or even the google calendar invite.

You could probably ask me to meditate any time, and I'd do it.