Manifest Destiny?

This is a response to the Teacher's recent article: Self-Sabotage and Getting to be Right

Today's article is not about the 19th-century doctrine! You sillies! It was about self-perception and basically how our Core Beliefs dictate the way we navigate through life.

To summarize the Teacher's seperate article on Core Belief's, in his words,
here is an idea of what they are:
"As we filter our experience through assumptions, expectations and
ideas, we create belief systems - our Core Beliefs. Core Beliefs lead us to
develop Active Beliefs - how we operate in the world - that consequently drive
the Outcomes that recursively support and sustain our Core Truths."

If you've ever read or seen The Secret, you'll completely understand the concept of 'manifesting' things into your life.
(For the sake of this response article, I will refer to the teachings of The Secret as fact.)

While we would like to think that the world is full of unlucky accidents, The Secret, as well as many other Eastern ideas, remind us that the worlds energy is woven a lot more intricatly than we're giving it credit for.

Using this particular example, The Secret explores the idea that everything in your life is brought there by you and only you... including illness. I have friends who live and die by this philosophy and other's who find fault in this idea that we'd "wish" cancer upon ourselves.

Though the friendly debate among friends has gone back and forth, the idea wasn't based on "wishes" at all. Through our actions and choices, even our train of thought, we magnet things to us even if they are uninvited.

We alone signal misfortune our way. As we roll out of bed and trip over a dog dish, the moment we decide, "this is the day I'm going to have", then guess what? We'll have it. It won't be a coincidence that you get cut off, then get stuck behind the bus, get the last sludged cup of coffee and trip going up the stairs. The idea is that you brought it on yourself.

Self-sabatoge is pretty self-explainitory. I have to hear about how I 'get in my own way' all the time. Just because I don't like that it's said doesn't mean it isn't the honest truth, because it is. The safest example is always the math example. I was a crap student in math my entire acedemic career. As I got older, the equations only became more confusing. So when it came to money, I never balanced my check book and when I paid for something, I rounded up instead of paying exact change. I'd ask a friend how much that sweater will come to when the discount hits and run to my phone for a tip calculator. Today, I work in accounting. Go figure.

I got this hand held game for Nintendo DS called Brain Age. Which I was afraid to play because they were all math problems and criticle thinking puzzles. But the premises of the game is that you play it everyday to exersize your brain and it will tell you what age your brain is fuctioning at. Well after playing the game for a few months, I realized that I was just learning math a different way. I was determined to get the best scores and beat my records. Because I changed my attitude I learned things I should've been learning YEARS ago!

Learning about this concept is one thing, because it's usually something we find to be automatic. Our thoughts just pop up, right? So how can we control them? They are just there. No, they are there because we are so USED to them being there. Once we realize we have the power to change our thought patterns, I found it can feel like a confusing place to begin. You CAN help how you think.

I discovered a good way to begin this new course of thought is with a simple daily (or weekly) exersize. I purchased the Gratitude book from Borders (a product of The Secret fad) because it was shiney and gold, but any journal will do!

Take a journal and on the right side of the page, you write all the things that
you are thankful for that day. This begins a positive thought process.

Then on the opposite page write down things that you are thankful for that have not
happened yet. (i.e. if you're looking for a good job, you'd write every day "I
am thankful for the awesome job I have").

Writing things out, repeatedly, as if you have them helps to direct your thinking. Like anything you hear over and over again, it will start to stick.
This is also a great way to lift yourself when you are feeling low because the right side of the page are all reminders of things you have already aquired that bring you joy.

Manifest the perfect destiny for yourself. If things go sour along the way, you'll be too busy recognizing all the good things present in your life to feel the heavy blow.

"Be the changes you wish to see in the world." ~Ghandi

Be the changes you wish to see in YOUR own world as well.

Shut Your God-Shaped Hole!!

Due to the shit quality of this Paint Program image I made while at work today, I will retype what is written. It reads:

You have a void in you that you can't explain. Something is
missing, something's not fitting right, something is nagging.

And it's not God.

It's something else. Something bigger and harder to put your
finger on. It's different for everyone. No one's void can match anothers.

They say the power is in the 'doing', not the 'figuring'. The
only way to fill the hole is to fill it with the exact puzzle peice, which is
the shape of YOUR body, (which matches no one elses). Your goal, your
destination, your end point all waits to be taken care of and until it is, it
will follow you as closely as your debt and taxes.

When the void is filled, you can shut that God-Shaped hole and
live gently.

In reference to: The God-shaped Hole: Finding Ourselves to Fill the Emptiness Within
Also refrencing: me being dumb.

On Fearlessness and ADD

Imagine, you're walking along just fine and then suddenly, PLOP! Right down a manhole. If you can imagine that picture, it represents how each one of my thoughts have been lately. I get on a topic in my head, get half way to a question to present to The Teacher and PLOP... it's gone. My train of thought, my question... gone. What's going on?

When you ask American's what their problem with attention is, they'll be quick to tell you they have ADD. "Everyone has it," they'll say. But maybe we don't. Maybe what we have is plain old fashioned laziness.

The book I'm reading right now, Shambhala: the Sacred Path of the Warrior by Trungpa explores everyday life and how the mundane things don't have to excite us necessarily, but at least interest us.

Washing dishes doesn't make me want to break dance but I haven't taken the time to put a little pride into doing it. Being mindful means watching the soap bubble, the dishrag swirl and feel the cold water rinse my warm hands when I'm done and being good with that. This book also explores just your living space. It talks of even throwing your clothes on the floor is a great dishonor... to yourself.

I think about my own wandering mind and relate it back to the questions that start to form and then fade before my eyes. I spend the rest of the time trying to rediscover just what it is I'm looking to ask about. I find myself saying, "what was I just saying? where did that thought go?!"

In all the studies I've done lately, the deeper I get into enlightened living... I'm learning about things just on the cusp of my conceptual grasp and it's both incredibly intriguing and also terribly frustrating. It's like I can smell it, almost taste it and I'm just about to touch it but then it's gone and I don't even know how to tell you what it is that I saw. And no matter how hard I try to hold the concept, it drops and I fall from the ladder. Flat on my back again!

So ADD may not be everyone's problem and most likely it's not mine either, but we'll tack that word on it for now since nothing else suites my discomfort when trying to focus on an actual task. I'm too busy thinking about the teachings that I'm reading about but find myself falling short of practicing... Especially in the car. My road rage is outlandish.

The book continues on to say that as humans with an enlightened understanding, we must entreat our time here with nothing but tenderness to others and to approach, speak and carry ourselves with gentleness. This creates fearlessness and connects us to others on a deeper and more meaningful level.

But just as I'm also on the edge of grasping, in my tattered hands, what a second of tenderness may be, it is pulled out of reach and I digress. I loose direction, focus and drive.

Today I got sick.

I get sick and my body hurts and I'm propelled backwards, head first into fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of physical pain and fear that I will never be free from it's unrelenting clutches. So teach me how to not be afraid. Teach me to forget all that I know today!

It's like when Romeo pouts to Benvolio saying, "O, teach me how I should forget to think!"

He answers, "By giving liberty unto thine eyes; Examine other beauties."

And Romeo rambles on and in conclusion before he departs says to his friend, "Farewell: thou canst not teach me to forget."

But Benvolio knows better and replies, "I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt."

And the end result is that Benvolio holds the truth and doesn't seem bothered by it's presence. He knows Romeo can retrain his mind and he doesn't kill himself to prove it to his friend, he simply smiles knowingly and shakes his head, muttering a quiet opposition and certainty.

In by giving liberty to our eyes we can examine options, beauty, truth and if we are lucky, find something that means everything to us; a something so strong you feel as though you could die for it.

Max Shares the Meaning of Life

After reading this article, I had a few questions about it's philosophy. The article is about being present, (oviously - as the entire blog is). It instructs us to stop living in the past and not to worry so much about the future. We have today.

I discussed this at dinner with a friend and we both came up with the same question, "why shouldn't we worry about the future?" and "how can we not?" I didn't feel so dumb wondering this, since she wasn't sure of the answer too.

I had commented on the article that afternoon with my question and after dinner, I came home to the answer. Upon finishing the last sentence of the response, my brother Max walked in the door.

I turned to him and said, "I'm reading this stuff and everytime I bring up the subject, it's something you either already do or have an opinion about. So tell me this... do you live in the moment? Like, do you just do what you have to do today and then the future works out for you?"

He dropped on his bed opposite the computer and said, "like, the past is history, the future is a mystery kind of thing?"

"Yeah, what do you think of it?" I asked.

"Well the past is done so that's that and you can't predict the future so you just do what you gotta do today," he answered. He sat up and looked at me, "life is about purpose. If you have a purpose, then you get it done. Everyone has a personal purpose that they make for themselves."

"Okay," I said. "What about that kid that killed himself that you knew?"

"He was a waste of life," he answered. "But! He achieved his purpose. That kid came into the world and his goal was to be miserable and to die. He dropped the ball and boom - when it hit the ground his personal purpose was fullfilled and his life was finished because he fullfilled it."

His point wasn't really negative or possitive, just facts of how he saw it. He explained that this life is about survival of the fittest. If you couldn't contribute to society or have quality of life then you were wasting your time on this planet. The scary part of this was that his reasoning made sense to me.

Yes, I realize my brother is incedibly pessimistic but his views are based on how he functions in society. He may be a jerk at times but he is a prime example of purpose and living in the day. He goes to work and goes to school. He'll graduate and become an electrician. But he's not thinking about his apprenticeship today. Today he's on vacation for a week and going to work - that's it. He knows he will finish and he'll be in the flow.

"Athiests will tell you we are just on earth to procreate to keep the human species alive," he said, hanging off the bed with his face to the floor.

"What's the point of living then if it's just to make babies and die?" I asked.

"Well, I didn't say I agreed with them. There is no answer to why we are here but since we are, the best bet is because we were given the most advanced brains so that we can give ourselves purpose. It's all subjective vs. objective reality Carolyn," he said nodding to himself, proud that he had the answer to that. I just looked at him.

He may be an ass, but he's not a dumb one.

Can I Be Still?

In "Meditation isn't for sissies", we are reminded that we're not going to a happy place when we close our eyes, we're not going any place at all.

In all the creative outlets I have available to me, none have proven to be as comforting and easy to run into as "my happy place", as Adam Sandler would say. I can draw a picture if the mood strikes me, I can create an illustration as close to my thought as possible (though they are rarely the same). I can write a good story and describe everything in detail. But even if I sat here and wrote about how fat, loud and strong the rain was, I am the only one getting hit in the face with it, inside the screen. I could tell you about the cool air, the thunder and the flashes of lightning but I'm the only one who can smell the grass and feel the hair on my arm stand.

But imagination is increasingly powerful with practice and when my hands were too tired to draw and my eyes were too tired to read, I could always close my lids and simply imagine.

Sitting in the dentist chair I've concentrated on the same boat picture since 3rd grade. While drills roll inside my head and metal scrapes, I am fishing. I am on the dock having pizza or I am breezing through the ocean in the background.

When I was mad at home, at school or at work, I simply switched off from reality and willed myself into another existence. I wanted something to distract me. I guess most people refer to it as day dreaming. I thought of it as displacement. As I sit here, the thunder cracks and the neighbor roots for the sound. The rain is ruthless against my deck but I am in the jungle somewhere sitting in a tree hut and the darkness of my back yard is really cloaking miles of thick rainforest. When I sit in the shower in my bathroom, it is the same feeling.

I've often wondered if what I were doing all these years was some kind of cliff note to what a sip of meditation would be. These past few weeks I've come to see the difference is ruthlessly far apart. Michael only puts in words what I couldn't when he says this practice is, indeed, the hardest.

The sliding door of this bedroom is open a crack so I can hear the rolling and screaming of the sky. That is the reality of this night and instead of disappearing to another country, I should be taking joy that the beauty is litterally in my back yard.

My mother comes to the door and tells me to switch off the computer. Lightning travelling through the computer is reality too. It happened to us once.

So the moral is that while far off places seem beautiful and peoples faces seem more intricate in other lands, it is a simple case of "the grass is greener on the other side". It is with intent open eyes that we should stop looking past the back yard and appreciate the very wood of the deck we are standing on.

Until I can see the deck as a deck and not a tree house, I'm not sure if I am ready to sit on the deck and just let it be nothing... not even a deck. If I've been substituting things like the deck for tree houses, I must first work backwards and go back to seeing them and appreciating what they are, no matter how simple.

Once the deck is a deck, then I can go a step further and forget the deck exists altogether. Is that when I can be still?