Oh Holidays

Why are the holidays so busy? It seems you always plan to do a million things but then you end up being so busy visiting and eating and drinking that you can’t get anything done. This holiday our house decided to throw its own set of plumbing problems into the mix and it all had me thinking about karma and what do we attract to ourselves? What sort of karma could it be that has every sink in a three apartment house decide to get plugged. I obviously have a lot to learn about karma.

This Way I have gone

It is today that I will die. This is a thought that we seldom have. When you tell people that you and they and everybody is going to die you are often told to stop being so morbid. I believe it was lesson by Geshe Michael Roach that suggested the idea of waking up in the morning and thinking about the fact that you are going to die. Plan the time that you are going to die. Say to yourself, “I am going to die today at 6:00p.m. and really imagine it. Stephen Levine also has a practice like this, only it is for a whole year. You say to yourself that this is your last year on earth. The intention is that you start to think about what is important to you. If I am going to die today at 6:00p.m. then what do I want to do now?

 I read a book a while ago by a woman who wanted to write about the many of the ways great teachers have exited this world. She didn’t know why she was writing the book but half way through completing the text she was diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer. Not long after finishing the text she passed away. I think she was probably in a better state of mind for dying then most of us who put off the idea that our body is going to disolve.         

Lotus Sutra

I read about half of the Lotus Sutra a few years ago but stopped at the point where the boddhisattvas all appear, millions and millions of them beyond count. I have always intended to get back to it and finish it up but lots of other texts have come along.

Finally, I picked it up again and started in where I had left off. It is funny how the suttra seems so much more significant to me now. I am getting so much more out of it now after I’ve spent time familiarizing myself with other buddhist concepts. One of the many things I didn’t know was that there are many buddhas. Had I just kept reading a little I would have learned that many years ago.

But what seems more interesting is that the point that I have started up reading again is where the buddha is explaining to the Maitreya about how the buddha appears to different beings in different ways depending on where those beings are at in terms of spiritual development. It seems a lot like some of Jesus’ sayings about having eyes to see etc.

Working at building Lens

I have been testing out Seth Godin’s notion about lenses at http://www.squidoo.com/. I am trying to figure out how to get the rss feeds into wordpress so i can combine the work I’m doing there with the work I’m doing here.

So far I have a lens going for the Lam Rim, a fairly intense foundational practice for attaining enlightenment. Someday I’ll work out what enlightenment would be. Could it have anything to do with the fact that I’m sitting here with a sore back and trying to think who is it that has a sore back? If there is not inherent self-existent self because everything is emptiness, i.e. interdependent, then what is this sore back? Why does it bother me? Who is me? 

What is my work

I say it half in jest but I guess my work becomes more and more about just being present. Does that mean you can’t multi-task? Well if you think about the happiness that comes into your life when something is making it make sense, then how can you not multi-task? I read a book some time ago called Work as a Spirtual Practice.

I didn’t love my job. It was in Toronto, downtown in a sky scraper with no windows. Let’s just say things were weird at that job. I read the book and learned to let a mantra go through my mind and my heart. On my breath out I would say Compassion, on my breath in I would say Love. And this helped me immensely in the circumstance. So the sound of a Dharma teaching going in my ear isn’t distracting. If I need I just listen to it all again. And I do need!

What is my work?