The Conflict of Inner and Outer World the time of Year between Halloween and New Years

Merchandisers Associated with Christmas pull us into their markets when the natural soul tendency is to go within

Merchandisers Associated with Christmas pull us into their markets while the natural soul tendency at this time of year between Halloween and New Years is to go within

 

There’s a Conflict of Inner and Outer World the time of Year between Halloween and New Years

 

INTO THE WOODS TODAY!  It is November 1st, 2013 as this post is being written.

The Moon is only 4% lit, waning, moving toward New Moon (dark moon) Scorpio. There’s a Uranus-Pluto square today, exact square… it’s a deep, shadowed time… a time to go deeply within… Uranus represents the individual subconscious and Pluto represents the depth of the soul.

The Celts saw this as a sacred or “hallowed” time of year. It is a time for honoring those in spirit and communicating with spirit world–yet, everything in our American or Westernized culture goes against the natural call of spirit.

This is the time of year that the old religions would use divination to look to the future. Is it any surprise that opposing forces created a completely different genre around this time of year?

My soul is directing me to go into the woods, as far and deep as I can go– this I can do metaphysically if not physically. The rain here today supports going within, being quiet–I may even skip my swim in favor of extra meditation or maybe even a dance meditation.

(New Moon date: Nov 3rd, Sunday ~ a good day to do a New Moon ceremony ~ unless the Xtian associated merchandisers don’t trigger the tradition of greed and pull you into the stores and malls.)

Feeling pensive today and at the same time deeply grateful for the freedom that is available to me and of course…. oops!  Spoke too soon; was going to say grateful for the quiet but that’s okay, I can cover up the human’s voices of downstairs neighbors from India with music… so change that: feeling grateful for music sound players!

Now to go into the woods of my mind and soul for a while…..  maybe you would like to join me? 

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Life’s Frustrations? Pretending I Planned It That Way! Karma and Co-Dependent Arising

… and whatever it is, i planned it that way! (Don’t forget  the funny factor)

I was thinking today about how once I fell of a clinician stool in a clinic full of patients and other physical therapists.  I was moving from point A to point B while rolling on the stool between my two patients and caught the wheel on a towel on the floor.  I laughed along with everyone and announced that I’d planned that!  No embarrassment—okay very, very minimal.

So could I feel that same way about my life today?  Could I look at some of the “revolting developments” like my mother used to call them – those frustrations of life and act like I planned those and laugh about it?  Hmmmmmmmm….. really, did I and could I?

I’ve been learning about co-dependent arising of energy and it’s complicated but we could say it has to do with that k word that everybody cringes about—karma.  There’s good karma too and lots of it and I’ve got a lot of that going and I think we all do, so why do we tend to be focused on the opposite?  Good questions to contemplate in meditation to get a personal view.  But Buddhism already has some of the well thought out and logical insight already there on the plate but fair warning—there “ain’t” no savior in Buddhism; it’s all you and if you can’t handle that one, best not go there. 

But one part of Buddhism has to do with just looking at what we think of as reality and not arguing with it and just seeing it as the illusion it is.  When we energize the illusion by getting all excited about it, we create all those “arising’s” as we drift farther away from …. What’s the best word to use here?  Tranquility Base!  Yeah, I know, it’s a 60’s reference to the Moon landing but I like it. 

Tranquility Base

To me that’s the core and base still mind that simply just IS and there is no thought there on tranquility base, simply tranquility.  The more we drift away from tranquility base and play in illusion and energize the thoughts that create the illusion, the less tranquility we have and the more cause and effect, ugh, that K word.  With positive karma in mind and realizing we can’t just sit in tranquility base 24-7 (we do have to engage in certain functions), the more we energize the most positive illusions, the better.

All of this is another way of saying what all the modernized teachers are saying which are the ancient teachings of Buddhism. 

Anyway, I’m going to pretend just for today that no matter what has happened recently and what is happening now that I planned it like that; I’m going to agree with it just like when I fell off the stool.  No resistance, no trying to make it any different—these frustrations, these “revolting developments”… I planned it that way and let me laugh at it all like I did when I fell off the stool.  No need to take it all so seriously—right? 

However these things arise, these developments, some have to do with me and others don’t—life is as life is.  I can’t take credit for everything and I can’t be blamed for it all either; I am only a part of it as I breathe in and breathe out… it’s an illusion and what affects me personally, I planned it that way and it’s funny.  Why?  Because it’s all an illusion and it’s only as serious as my mind makes it! 

I had quite a laugh earlier today reading an email from a Buddhist friend of mine who, like me, just made it through another x-tian holiday with x-tian family members and reading it had me laughing out loud!  It so helps to have others who get the illusion and find humor in it!  Hey, I planned it that way!

Enlightenment Practice #32 of the 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva Including Divination

My first thought when I drew the paper with number 32 out of the basket today and read the words associated with this practice was to recoil and to think, “Wait, I don’t do that!”  Following which I knew this must be a “biggie” if I had such a strong adverse reaction.  “You’d better look closer at this one Joy!” was the next thought.

I turned to the commentary by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche to help with this.  I think my problem was that I interpreted the wording of the original root text that read, “…if you point out the faults of another Bodhisattva…” That brought to mind the Dalai Lama or Kwan Yin or even someone like the 17^th Karmapa or any of the Rinpoche’s or Lamas or even Buddhist nuns—take Pema Chodron and the like.  I revere, admire and venerate teachers of this nature; I can’t imagine ever criticizing any of them.  I honestly sat stupefied and then solemn for a moment and deeply inquired if I’ve criticized other Bodhisattvas.

Well, maybe Christians who still tend to irk the jesus out of me, pardon the pun.  I admit that I’m still healing the wound from prior life religious persecutions—but of course it is just mind latching onto an identity as one who was supposedly persecuted.  I get that intellectually and sometimes emotionally but not when the wound takes a direct hit.  Okay, okay—let’s say I’m working on that.  It’s a little bit difficult for me to see a Christian practitioner as a Bodhisattva but maybe I need to reconsider that.

Meanwhile, back to  what Khenpo Tsultrim  says about practice 32… he links this to The Seven Points of Mind Training.  The Buddhist seem to have a lot of numbers associated with their teachings:  the 3 this, the 4 that, the 6 this and the 7 that.  Probably a good way to memorize teachings!

Anyway, Khenpo Tsultrim says that one stanza in The Seven Points of Mind Training directs the reader to think that all positive qualities belong to other sentient beings and that all faults are one’s own. This is the correct attitude. [that will develop humility for sure!] Generally, most people think just the opposite: someone else is always wrong, while they are always right. This attitude is to be given up.  Patrul Rinpoche advises students to acknowledge their own deficiency first; and then, when they recognize it in someone else, to pray that the guru grants blessings to them both. It is always beneficial to see that the perceived fault in yourself is greater than it is in the other. Then you know that person is no different from you. [I highlighted what I felt where the most important points there.]

Oh Lordie, I do see how I worry/am concerned about one of my family members and their relationship to money and that this fault is greater in myself.  

The Dalai Lama spoke on each of the 37 practices of a bodhisattva and he wrote one line very succinctly which says it all, “We must try to conquer our own illusions rather than those we ‘think’ we see in others.”—pg 101, Essential Teachings

Most of what I come up with while investigating the meaning of practice 32 relates to infighting amongst various schools of Buddhism criticizing each other or student’s critiquing other students or teachers.

DIVINATION ~ MESSAGE

Through examining this practice as it applies to my own life experience I can see how I am repulsed and disgusted with Christians to are always quoting scriptures.  Yet, am I not right here and now quoting Buddhist scriptures in the same way?

Buddhist teachings are helping me a good deal but I must remember that Christian teachings are in the same way helping those humans who, like me, are only hoping to be better humans and grow and evolve and become a better compassionate and loving soul—a bodhisattva!

Oh, and on that relationship to money thing… better go look at the bills I’ve been avoiding looking at and work on ‘my own’ illusion!