Paradise

"If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it."

Tranquility

From the Diamond Sutra

"How is it possible to explain this Scripture to others without holding in mind any arbitrary conception of things and phenomena and Dharmas? It can only be done by keeping the mind in perfect tranquility and in self-less oneness with the 'suchness' that is Tathagatahood. And why? Because all the mind's arbitrary conceptions of matter, phenomena, and of all conditioning factors and of all conceptions and ideas relating thereto are like a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, the evanescent dew, the lightning's flash. Every true disciple should thus look upon all phenomena and upon all the activities of the mind, and keep his mind empty and self-less and tranquil."

A Cat in the Sun

A thought while laying in bed with a migraine, with severe pain, trying to go to sleep. I imagine myself as a cat laying in the sun. I am, after all. This human body is made up of only non-human body parts, as the cat is made of non-cat parts. We are all sun and water and carbon dust. Breathing in, I can be the cat. I can curl up, stretch out, and feel the warmth of a ray of sun. Breathing out, I can smile and be at peace. There is nothing but to be in the sun and to sleep.

One Everything

Another video (or really, the song) that just makes me feel better. Thanks, They Might Be Giants.

An In The Soil Kind of a Day

Yesterday I woke up in a funk. I decided, however, that there wasn't anything really the matter. I just felt that nothing was wonderful and clear and peaceful. It was just, in the middle.
I thought about my previous post about the roses, and decided it was an 'in the soil' kind of day. Thinking about soil, I wasn't sad, I wasn't hopeless. I understood that in me and in the universe there was (is) the ability, just as there always is, for happiness and joy and beauty. I just wasn't in it at that particular moment. I felt like all around me was the decay of old petals, but also the potential for new blooms.

Now, this realization took me most of the day, but that's okay. I have a lifetime-plus to work on these things.

I decided to allow myself a day of being in the soil, if that's where I was determined to be. I took the day to lay around, and nap, and flip through magazines, and not do much of anything. By evening-time I tried not to stress about what wasn't getting done, or feel guilt over not being able to just make myself happy.

In the end, though you wouldn't have known from my face or my voice, I felt it had been a decent day. If nothing else, I've learned in reflection. Next time, I hope that with my acceptance of the 'soil state of mind', I will be more at peace and be able to spread that peace around a bit, rather than coming off as grumpy. But, it's okay, it's all a learning process, and I will take this lesson forward to the next day I feel the need to play in the dirt.

Two Kinds of Happiness

"There are two kinds of happiness - the temporary pleasure derived primarily from material comfort alone and another more enduring comfort that results from the thorough transformation and development of the mind. We can see in our own lives that the latter form of happiness is superior because when our mental state is calm and happy, we can easily put up with minor pains and physical discomforts. On the other hand, when our mind is restless and upset, the most comfortable physical facilities do not make us happy."
-Dalai Lama

Seeing the good when there is none

This is a note to myself, as I've been struggling lately.
I'm finding it can be hard, even when trying to be mindful and in the present moment, to feel the good in truly crappy moments. Sometimes the present moment sucks. Sometimes everything hurts and it's raining outside and your kids won't stop yelling at each other. It can feel like stopping to smell the roses, so to speak, is impossible. And that even if it weren't it wouldn't solve a thing.

We might be able to convince ourselves the problem is a matter of optimism vs. pessimism, and just decide to feel better and more optimistic. Maybe we've been seeing the thorns instead of the rose, to continue to use the same example. By just deciding to ignore the thorns, we may be able enjoy the beauty of the rose.

Other times we may search out the rose. We may have to take a break from the inside and cooking dinner and yelling children and go outside and find a place to be quiet and still. Taking this break, we may be able to see the way the stem supports the unfolding blossom, the way the leaves spread to the sun and the water droplets slide delicately down to the roots. Maybe we can even see the fallen petals, decaying into the soil to feed the next flower. We can decide to seek out and take this break.

But sometimes it's even tougher than that. We can't decide to be okay. We can't take a break. We can't see the beauty in nature and everyday objects. Our sadness or disappointment or depression can reach so deep, we can't access these options. These options can feel too superficial to even attempt, or we feel distress that the roses, literal or not, are not in bloom.
It's okay to be sad sometimes. There is value to every emotion and feeling. If there wasn't, why would we feel them?

The important thing to remember is, just as there is a deep sadness, there is a deep happiness and peace always available. Thich Nhat Hanh relates the story of St Francis of Assisi, as he sees an almond tree in the dead of winter, which suddenly bursts forth in blooms. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, "It was winter; there were no leaves, flowers, or fruits, but he saw the flowers."

I don't believe it's a fairy story or a nice thing to say about the power of God.
Sometimes it's winter. It's deep and it's cold. The roses could be dead, the leaves could have fallen off, the bush could have rotted away. Still there would be the soil, and in it the remains of the roses, and the potential for more. Always. It's just how it is.

Imagining the Tenth Dimension

I'm not going to pretend like I understand all of this, but something about it makes me feel better.

Clearing out stuff

Right now we are kind of refugees. We sold our house in September, in preparation for a move to Virginia that should come anytime now. My husband has/will be getting a job there, but it's a federal type thing, so we're in the perpetual 'wait until they tell me to go' wait many government employees probably understand. Luckily, we have family with a home and hearts big enough to take us in while we wait for the phone call or email or letter or whatever it is we're waiting for, telling us to go.

Not having a place of your own is hard, especially when you're used to being on your own. Even more so when you have kids and a family routine with which you are familiar and comfortable. My house wasn't perfect. I frequently cursed it. But it was mine. I could look around and see the light fixtures my husband installed, the porch my dad built, the wall the cats scratched and I patched. There was the little veggie garden spot where I tried each year to be a disciplined little gardener, but mostly just came up with a patch of weeds and cherry tomatoes. I wouldn't have minded staying there longer. But that's not where the job will be, so we had to sell it.

I was sad to sell the house at the price the market will take now. We had paid more for it when we bought, and put in a ton of work. In the end, after much crying over it, I resigned myself to accepting it as good karma. The lady who bought the house was a very nice single mother with a daughter excited to have her own room. I probably wouldn't have done anything too wonderful with the money anyway, it's probably better to have the karma. We fixed up and took care of that house because it was the right thing to do.

In the first week after the house sold I had a dream. In the dream a box mysteriously arrived at the door, addressed to me. Apparently I had ordered plant bulbs for the garden some months before and forgotten. When I opened the box and saw what it was, I cried and cried (still in the dream) because I had no yard in which to plant the bulbs.

I'm trying to let go of my attachment to that house. It was just a house. It was not the warmth of family and friends that filled it, or the security of the kids asleep in the neighboring bedrooms. It was a building. A building I yelled at, and that made me sad and angry so many times. Going back to the past is not the answer.

I dream about the next house. We plan to roam around for awhile, so I won't have one of my own for a bit. In a way I am excited about that. In another way, I want my tiny house with a cottage bakery out back and a large outdoor space where friends can gather and a goat farm and chickens. And ideally I want it now.
But wanting and attaching oneself to such ideas of the future can be so painful. It's impossible to make them happen instantaneously. And even if it wasn't, and I could have a magic genie pop me into my tiny baking farmette dream house now, my mind would wander to the next wish and get upset again at the impossibility of the desire. The grass is always greener, as they say.

That's exactly where I found myself yesterday, dreaming of the tiny house, and it made me sad. So to work on my attachment sadness of the moment I did the logical thing, and started getting rid of stuff. It's not to hard to do when living with a semi-hoarder family and children, who are always hoarders in their own special ways. This move, which I've been preparing for at an "any moment now!" level for almost a year, has helped me to pare down our belongings. I'll probably get rid of more when it's really time to go. Yesterday, I cleared out more clothing, books, and toys for donation, recycled many old papers my brother had hanging around (syllabi from 2005 are no longer needed), and tossed out things that could not be fit into either category (ie: the POGS and pogtainer in the back of the closet, probably placed there in 1995).

Hanging on to old stuff can be bad for you. It's costly in a monetary way, just to store so much crap. It's costly in a psychological way, too. Keeping those baby clothes from your 13 year old isn't going to make him a baby again. And making him a baby again wouldn't make you happy anyway. Babies poop and cry a lot, and you worked really hard to get him past all those stages to the 13 year old point. It's not the clothing you want, it's the memory of the snuggly, warm baby you want, and that is accessible to you anytime. So is the lovely awkwardness of a 13 year old in the present moment.
Plus, the more stuff you have, the harder it is to maintain. If you move, you have to move it. If it's there, you have to clean it. Closets full of things result in things full of dust. Excess dust can even be dangerous to your health. Think about it.

Letting go of belongings can be so freeing. And it's such a concrete, easy to see thing. It can be hard to understand and visualize how helpful it is to let go of ideas and feelings- like that longing for a house, for those pleasant moments of the past, or for those perfect ideas of the future. It's easy to see clear, neat shelves, or the happiness of a friend's child who acquired your kid's too-small clothing.

I tip my hat to those who can do the full minimalist thing. I'm not that good, and it's not really something I fully aspire toward at this point anyway. But I do think, at least in idea, I'm on the right track.

A First Post

I don't know exactly what this blog will become. It kind of has a vague shape in my mind, almost like something right on the tip of your tongue - it's there but you can't vocalize it. Basically the idea is, I have in the past enjoyed writing. Other people have enjoyed my writing in my last blog (Bug in the Brain) and have suggested that I should continue writing. Things have been tough from time to time in the last few years, and writing could be a decent way to cope, to document day-to-day successes, and to collect little thoughts and ideas that can also help on later days of tough times.
That's the idea as it stands right now.

Here's the background: Basically, as those that read Bug in the Brain know, I had a brain tumor a little over three years ago. It was non-cancerous, but of a decently large size and required an extensive surgical removal which left me with a number of deficits. I'm totally deaf in my left ear, the left side of my face is half-paralyzed, I'm frequently quite tired, and I suffer from a near-constant headache that frequently enters the level of migraine. Due to the paralysis, I've had a few procedures done to my left eye to ensure it closes well enough, and have to keep it artificially moisturized with eye drops and lubricants. The left side of my body remains weaker than the right, and my balance is frequently challenged. Though it only took me a few weeks to be able to walk on my own again, and a few months of physical therapy to balance well enough to be cleared for work, I can still feel the effects on an almost-daily basis.

Aside from the physical, there have been cognitive and emotional hurdles to surgery as well. My attention, memory, and thought-processing skills were affected by surgery and required some time and therapy to improve. I still don't think they are completely up to my pre-surgery level, but are good enough I guess. The emotional bit is tough. I've always been more prone to the depressed side of being, and major illnesses and chronic pain don't help. I had a month or two of therapy before going back to work. I've never been crazy about my job, and struggled with the thought of having faced a thought so serious only to come out the other end and return to the same old job I hated before. While I've been back at work successfully for two and a half years (I was out for roughly six months out for surgery recovery), I've still harbored these thoughts and have continued to struggle with the depression that chronic pain and illness can bring, in addition to my normal penchant toward sadness.

For the headache/migraine issues I had turned to regular medicine for help. Neurology prescribed medications, which eventually began to cause their own problems. I ended up getting sicker and sicker, and was eventually diagnosed with a neurologic condition called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). The postoperative headaches and migraines were never really better even with the medication, but rather than decrease the amount of medications, more were added and I found myself in a constant cycle of medical tests and doctors visits. After a negative experience with one of the specialists for POTS, I decided to abandon all my medications and see if I would be any better or worse off "going it alone". After a short detox period, I found many of my POTS symptoms disappeared. While I still have daily headaches and nausea, and am frequently fatigued, these were the symptoms I had post-surgery anyway. The racing heart rate, feelings of extreme fatigue, chest pain, temperature intolerance, inability to remain upright for any period of time, and reduced exercise tolerance, more connected to the possibility of POTS, were almost instantly better without the medications I was on. I don't doubt that I may have some sort of dysautonomia, but I do think it was the medication causing most of my more concerning symptoms.

Illness isn't exactly what this blog will be about, that's just the background that may be needed here and there to give perspective.

I'm determined now to deal with things more naturally. I don't mean herbs and acupuncture and the like, per se. I'm determined to just be okay. I said myself, right before surgery, "It just is, and it's great." I'd like to deepen my own understanding of the things I inherently believe in (spirituality or religion, if you'd like to call it one of these things). And that's what this will more-or-less be about.