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.

Practicing Enlightenment

I want to close my eyes and see (or not see) a teddy bear but instead I see all the thoughts hanging over my head. This article makes me question my insecurites in that department for the first time. When this concept was first presented to me, it was more than satisfying to know that I wasn't crazy, I was just misinformed from my brain.

I accepted that it was a good answer to a bad problem. I always thought people were mad at me for one reason or another, even when I couldn't figure out what the reason was! But this week has been rough and we've been so distant. The article says that emotional distance is normal and that I should relax and let things happen as they do. I find this an incredibly trying practice. But I'm the one that wants to practice. So I need to keep on.

I read a blog on PsychologyToday.com and I believe it was about forming habits. I could be completely off on where I got this but since I'm on that site all day, it must've come from there.... This one man talked about his love/hate relationship with the road as he became a runner. It pulled him out of bed early and he was tired and it made his bones ache. But everyday he got up and he ran. It was warm, it was cold, it was raining or it was just plain early. But he ran.

Eventually it got to the point where he and the road had an intimate relationship. He found rhythm and stride. Suddenly he didn't notice his bones aching or the watch on his wrist. It was about watching the world wake up and experiencing personal growth and stability through practice. That is what I must do.

In these low points of confusion and wonder, I have no choice but to lay down my vulnerability to this exercise and pray that it is the right one and I will not loose people on the way. I love each of them differently and uniquely as they are all different and unique to me.

They call it the "path to enlightenment". Have I put a name to the airy feeling I'm becoming aware of? I wondered if this new 'thinking' was the way of Buddha. I looked it up here. I found that the simple principles of taking care of yourself and each other had already been such a big part of my life, it wasn't entirely foreign to me. I often thought I was the last person on earth who believed we should have faith that people can change and that we should take care of each other. So why weren't we? But, it was the way in which I let it sit backwards. I worked for others before I worked for myself and when you put all your eggs in one basket, well, there's nothing left for you and you're starved.

I've let other people's reactions control me for so long and now that I've finally seen that there's a way out of it... It's terrifying and depressing in one of the best ways possible. I think of all the anger I've carried and how I wasted so many people and events and emotions on things that only existed in my mind because I was scared to alone. When in actuality, I've been alone all along. The good part? There's an actual method to my madness and it's actually not madness at all!

This is the point where I turn to accept my solitude and work whole-heartedly towards a study that could easily change my entire life; just by having new eyes. Like that quote from the movie, Loving Anabelle.

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in
having new eyes.
~Marcel Proust

That's really all it is and all it can ever be. My lanscape, (people), will never change. It is only in having new eyes to view them will I be able to truely appreciate and adore them, the way I long to do, from the safest point available. People as a whole are a messy, crazy, happy, sad mix. I love them so I need to learn to love all parts them... Even the messy, crazy, sad part.

Namaste