I was reading a short story that got me thinking about Karma. The extra short version goes something like this… A woman was sitting on a train trying to read, when a man came, sat down next to her and started talking. She was busy, not interested in a conversation, and politely found a way to excuse herself. The story ends with this man committing suicide by jumping off the…
Karma is one of those Bhuddisty topics that’s big, huge. Understanding it fully is equivalent to understanding the whole kit-n-kaboodle of how this world works, how we came to be born, the cycle we are stuck in and how to bring about its cessation. In other words, my details are pretty sketchy ;). Arguably it was way too big a topic for me at the time in my practice I…
We’ll begin this entry with a little civics lesson about the San Francisco jury selection process. Basically, everyone eligible to serve on a jury can be called on once a year. If summoned, you don’t necessarily need to go to court, you get place on stand-by. Each day you call in and see if you were selected to serve on the jury pool, if not, you simply need to call…
I love my mom, but I’m ashamed to admit, I haven’t always given her a fair shake. I haven’t always appreciated her. I haven’t always yielded to her. Frankly, I haven’t always viewed her with the soft, forgiving, eyes I offer to other loved ones in my life. I have my reasons. I have my beliefs. I have my agenda. I always have me me me my my my. And…
Note from the present day: This story was one of my early contemplations on the slights and discomforts I face in my everyday life. The slights and discomforts I invite on in, in exchange for those sweet, snowy, moments I desire. As suffering goes, these little blips are barely perceptible and so easily forgotten. But it is actually their normality, their pervasiveness, that make them such compelling evidence of the trade…
On the tail of so much travel — India, Hawaii — it’s wasn’t terribly surprising that my To Do list was insanely long. Doctors visits and taxes to pay and calls to make, oh my. What did strike me as odd though was the feeling in my heart as I looked at the list, it might as well have said “lions and tigers and bears oh my.” I sat at…
As a great lover of all things lovely, I couldn’t resist going to my local museum for a special butterfly exhibit when it came to town. Part of the exhibit featured glass cases where cocoons were carefully pinned at the tip so that the butterflies inside could hatch and then fly away. One butterfly however wasn’t so lucky, its cocoon had been pinned too far down and its wing had…
The following is a homework assignment from around this time that I turned in to LP Anan. The content was about how I had used multiple KPY tools in a contemplation of my own. Because tools and techniques have been an important theme in this blog, I wanted to include the homework here: ___________________________________________________________________ One night a friend was over talking to me about some drama that was going on…
In my Buckle-up Buddhisty period, I strengthened the foundations of my practice by building a scaffold to support my future contemplations. I took specifically Buddhist ideas and applied my experiences to understanding them. Thanks to this effort, I got a glimpse of the the inner workings, the systems, my own mind uses to keep me deluded (Alana’s 2s and 3s) and stuck suffering (Where my Mind Visits HW series) and…
Just a reminder, this entry is the final section in an email I sent to my teacher, Mae Yo, outlining what I see as a road map to practice. If you have not done so already, do go back and read the Last Blog before continuing: _______________________________________________________________________ Part 3: A Few Words on Ideas From the Buddha At risk of this email turning into a multi-volume desk set, I will try…