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!

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Paranoia or Psychic Perception – Maybe Both

Contemplation

Paranoia or Psychic Perception – Maybe Both.  Here’s the contemplation…

Alright, I’ll admit.  Today wants to end on a sour note, but I won’t let it!  All was going well until late in the day, my granddaughter came home from school in a snit (she’s only 9 after all, has a head-cold and should probably be given benefit of the doubt) followed momentarily by the downstairs  couple who forgot they weren’t out in the middle of the field in India as they came in from work.  Indoor voices people!  Geesh!  And while reading this stuff might be having the superior, significantly-spiritual type clucking the tongue away and shaking their head, maybe even with a sly smile on their face—let’s not rush to judgment about these things.

Is it my paranoia or true psychic perceptions that cringe when realizing some folks have taken that smile that starts to form at the side of their mouth when they hear these challenges that the mountain yogi me dealing with this daily distraction stuff!  Ha! One person said, “Easy to do it when you’re up in the mountains in seclusion but not so easy NOW, is it?” As if I’m now experiencing life for the very first time!

Wasn’t born yesterday my friends and I’ve been there, done that—after all, I raised three teen-age daughters on my own.

I come back into it now, however, realizing exactly what it all is—as before—but on much deeper levels.  Now I see it as mind being irritated, mind being restless, mind being frustrated (no me) and what a view of it all I have!  Can’t get this kind of stuff in a monastery you know!

For it’s the mind that is irritated—not me!  And I’d have not come this far without my granddaughter and the noisy couple from India.  Never would I have had this kind of ‘in your face’ stuff at these levels and in the perfect timing for me to reach these understandings with it all.  Beautiful actually—just beautiful.

All kinds of things happen—the just do.  Do I necessarily cause them to happen?  Life.  It just happens.  We choose our reaction—the Buddha taught all that jazz.

Oh, I can hear the spiritually significant tongue-clucker now—influenced by all the new age book mumbo-jumbo.  “You attracted your circumstances; it’s your karma!”  Well, partially true if we consider our desire to evolve perhaps; but even if we don’t.  Life unfolds as a matter of circumstances that we simply are privy to witness and we can only change our attitude about it.  (Unless we want to be arrested for assault and battery—a bit of humor.)

What matters is the attitude and not the events—the world is full of desires and fears and pain and suffering and people generally reacting to it all the time.  Today, my granddaughter and more times in the past few months than I can count, my downstairs neighbors are perfect examples.

And me too.  My desire is for quiet and like the Rolling Stones as well as the Buddha have said, “Can’t get no — satisfaction.”  Not from the outer world.

So where is it—it is beyond the world, even beyond the inner world—beyond mind.

Oh, you could say I’ve gone out of my mind and you’d be totally correct on some levels.  I’ve realized that place that is beyond mind and all from humans pushing me there in so many ways so-to-speak.

I’ve also gotten hold of memory—the meaning.  We mistake that we are this group of memories that we have created an ego structure out of.  I’ve given this a good deal of thought since the Indians below me triggered a number of childhood memories and stimulated a fair number of unpleasant dreams, a few out-and-out nightmares.  This causes one to question the nature of memory and dreams; but mostly memory in this case since hold a few and identify ourselves thus creating structure out of those aspects of mind and then say, “This is me; who I am”.

If our memories were our true identity then you’d think we’d remember more than we do—such as what you had for dinner last week or what you did on the 4^th of last June.  Unless something memorable, you don’t remember.  What IS memorable, we structure an identity out it and call it “me”.  It’s okay for getting by here but we have to remember it is illusion—and the ego’s reading this are screaming in your heads, “Not me!  I AM REAL.”  That’s okay; I wasn’t always ready for this understanding either.

Maybe it’s all about me getting ready for the inevitable event that we all face someday—death.  It’s going to be easier to let go of this identity structure if we’ve realized all along it wasn’t real in the first place.

Here’s something C said in reply to a question about wanting to live, “To live, to die—what meaningless words are these!  When you see me alive, I’m dead.  When you see me dead, I’m alive.  How muddied up you are!” 

Enough about death—before I loose subscribers!  People don’t like this subject.  About memory, I like this quote:  Use memory, don’t let memory use you!  I should put that one on Facebook.  Anyway, family stuff being triggered is all for the purpose of realizing its memory that I’m overly identified with—it’s all been very good spiritual fodder or grist for the mill as the saying goes.  We need that grist to keep ourselves in true awareness—so tongue-cluckers who think you’ve got it made in the shade because you’ve read all the books and had a few evolutionary experiences and intellectually think you’ve GOT  IT, maybe not so much or there’s always deeper layers and this has been a good one, still is.

The bottom line is we do not need to be set free—we already are.   It is our identification with our body and the structure we created from memory that we over-identify as “me” and our desires that keep us going round and round again, lifetime-to-lifetime, which keeps us from the clarity that we were never born and never die.

All I can say to spiritually significant elite-ist tongue-cluckers is that understanding this intellectually is one thing and living it in the face of human intensity and applying it—well, how deep down the rabbit hole do we go?  With each intense experience, I have deeper realizations that do not come from a book but from my own experience, my own mind but not even there… from a place where I am totally out of my mind.  Hard to describe unless you’ve been there, done that.

I’m grateful when I can be in the right place with it all and when not, I realize I will be—eventually, all in good time.  Patience and perseverance, virtues!

By the way, I am celebrating walking normally this week!  I can wear a regular shoe and barely limp at all; as the illusionary body heals and repairs my broken foot illusion here!  Have a great week dear friends of Light!

(Excuse me now while i light illusionary candles to absorb the illusionary cooking smells from the illusionary neighbors!  laughing as I go… one more desire released… no longer desire to visit India!  See, everything has a great purpose!  ha ha)

Here’s Help for Earth Living Irritations and Frustrations from the Oracle! Noise, gentian, mastery, 3 of pentacles and mufflers all relate here!

Here’s Help for Earth Living Irritations and Frustrations from the Oracle!  Noise, gentian, mastery,  3 of pentacles and mufflers all relate here! 

Today I’m dreaming of… not a white christmas… I’m dreaming of a world of lawn mowers with mufflers!

Why in the world do those machines have to make such loud noise?  If we can put a man on the moon, we can make mowers that don’t break the sound barrier!  Can’t we?  I’ve asked myself the same question about motorcycles and 4-wheeler mountain bike things.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it is possible to quiet those machines but the men who make them and ride them (I suppose we should say people—it’s not always a gender thing)…. Anyway, they like the noise, the sound, the motor revving and all of that.

I mean just look at the NASCAR thing and I rest my case.  It is what it is.  But what about the rest of us who relish the gentle sounds of nature instead and feel invaded by these monster noises?  I’ve got to come up with a plan—spring and summer and stupid mowing season is just around the corner.

It actually arrived here yesterday and after dark and in the field across the street from my living room where the muggle man who massacred all the trees there last summer (his property – or so he thinks – so his choice).   I laugh at those who own property for all of this land was stolen from the American Indians who really couldn’t understand how anyone could own nature in the first place.  I’m of that mentality but back to the problem of the non-mufflered mower and the muggle man who is going to ride upon his all spring, summer and fall (thank goodness humans don’t mow snow!) and how I’m going to handle it!

Yeah, okay.  I’ll admit being spoiled by my peace and quiet here.  It’s been heavenly here—like I said quiet and peaceful—for the past eight years.  Now that’s changed!  And bless her heart!  I do wonder about the old lady who owned that house and property before the master muggle bought it–is she cringing from heaven itself!  As a medium I know that the who cross on the other side release attachments to earth possessions (for the most part anyway). Let us hope she does not see or care; her son told he how she loved her home and garden and the trees and flowers.

It used to be a shady and enchanting English bungalow or Tudor type architecture home and landscape until the muggle (who bought it after the elderly lady died) changed the whole look of the place.  Her beautifully landscaped trees and flowering bushes are ripped away and the house front is shingled with wood shingles that do not go along with the brick and the whole English Tudor look—gone. 

Well, how he changes the look of the house is not my concern really; I’m thinking about how I’m going to handle the…. Well, to quote the Grinch, “”Oh the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise. There’s one thing I hate, all the noise, noise, noise, noise!”

ENTER METAPHYSICS:

Now, we all know that what we focus upon expands!  The more we put our attention upon something, the more we experience it and not only that—the more real it becomes and then to top it off,  the more of it shows up in our mind!  Like weeds, it grows, like weeds!  (and muggles mow weeds–so this has to stop!  ha ha)

Knowing all that, I’m looking for guidance about how to deal with it within my own mind and heart.  “Nip it in the bud”, I say. It’s going to be a long and miserable mowing season for me unless I do!  The guy is already mowing his mud out there!  It’s just now turned March and we just had a snow storm last weekend.  Talk about early! It’s been raining like crazy and even if it wasn’t, the ground is soft–muddy this time of year!

Never mind that.  It’s a fact, they don’t make mufflers for those things because if they did nobody would like to ride them (riding mowers) and nobody would buy them.  They’re loud and they disturb the peace—it’s a fact.  Now, how am I going to handle it?

THE ORACLE ENTERS:

I need to turn to the oracle—need some inspiration, some guidance, some advice.  Well, guess what card I just drew?  I thought of the question and shuffled my tarot cards and what do we have but the 3 of Pentacles!

Let’s start with the basics.  It’s and earth card—pentacles equals earth and involves practical and earthly matters.  And this card is about (to me) lessons, earth lessons, and life lessons.  The person on the card always has me thinking of the word “apprentice” or someone who is still learning.  I suppose that would apply to both the muggle and me.

I will leave what he is learning to himself, his soul and the nature spirits. Not my business except for the fact that I need to remember that he is here learning as much as I am.  It’s obvious that what I’m still learning is non-judgment and tolerance. I must use this as an initiation or spiritual test—that’s what I’m getting so far as the oracle message goes as it applies to my question about how I am going to handle the muggle’s marathons mows.

Tolerance, patience and those things and mastery over myself in those areas.  I should feel thankful for the opportunity to practice every time the muggle’s un-muffled mower makes its mark on my ears!

After all, I am here to master my emotions.  This is the card of “work” and in that sense, his noise won’t really interfere with it—I work in the den which is a room farther away from the invading, intruding, insidious, irking…. Okay!  I need to stop that!

And yes, of course I know that blogging about the problem is going to add energy to it; yet, better to get to the core of it now and find a way to deal before a molehill becomes a mountain if you know what I mean.  Besides, if I share this with others in the cyber world maybe it inspire them regarding handling their own frustrations and irritations.  (That’s always my intention in sharing these things.)

Gosh, suddenly I’m remembering the good ole’ days when I used everything as grist for the spiritual mill.  Once when I was getting new tires put on my car (this was years and years ago) at a Wal-Mart, I was sitting in the little waiting area.  I’d already completed what shopping needed doing and besides, walked to the point of fatigue.  So I sat down to rest in the automotive waiting area.  There was a door that mechanics and were coming in and out of and each and every time they did the door slammed louder than any door I’d ever heard!

Each time I jumped even though I knew the slam was coming ahead of time.  There was some sort of motor that closed the door after someone went through it.  Anyway, I utilized the whole affair as a test for myself to see if I could not flinch and jump whenever it slammed.  It was a challenge!

Look at the card of the 3 of Pentacles; we see someone there holding a diploma with what appear to be (perhaps) spiritual teachers behind him.  Could I integrate the concept that the muggle is, in some way, a spiritual teacher that I’ve somehow called forth to help me… well, to help me graduate.  In looking at the 3 of Pentacles tarot card, I keep focusing on that diploma that he seems to be holding in his hand.

Patience and tolerance for people of earth! And their loud machines!  I need to develop a tougher outer skin especially where my sensitive ears are concerned.  I think that being psychic and “a sensitive” is something that plays into the equation.  I am very accustomed to listening to every single sound that comes to my ears which is part of being clairaudient in my profession as a psychic.

I will use this as a test so that I can retire into the west – I am suddenly thinking of that line from the movie, Lord of the Rings.  The Lady of the Wood was put through an initiation by the power of the ring and said, “I passed the test, I shall remain Galandriel and will diminish and go into the west.”  She passed her initiation and I will use that memory and the 3 of Pentacles to inspire me to pass this new test put before me.  I shall not fail this initiation.

The 3 of pentacles is also about the cycles of nature, reaping what you sow and working in the fields; in other words, doing your spiritual work on earth. 

And that spiritual work involves working with the reality at hand—whatever that reality happens to be.

As I think of ‘reality’, I am reminded of the Buddhist teaching about the nature of reality and no matter what challenge I have in life and of all of the teachings I’ve come across, these teachings are what always bring me back to balance and restore harmony.

We can, in fact, persevere through obstacles by remembering the true nature of reality—it is the combination of illusionary energy that is both real and an illusion at the very same time.  Ahhh, that though alone helps us lose our grip on temporary frustrations.  It helps us loosen our grip on any event, person, circumstance or experience that we tend to make too real and consequently causes suffering.

Gentian is the purple flower in the image to the right.

My Herbal Tarot deck (image above from Herbal Tarot and also the Connolly deck) recommends the use of GENTIAN which is a herb that helps to release frustrations and irritations.

As a tonic GENTIAN is used to treat hepatitis, jaundice and liver disorders.  As a FLOWER ESSENCE it is used for those who become deterred by setbacks.

Meditate with GENTIAN and it will help to open the 6^th chakra so that a deeper appreciation and insight into the mechanics and skill or situation will be revealed so that one can see one’s way through a difficulty.

Essentially, the 3 of Pentacles has a lot to do with releasing frustrations and irritations.  It was THE most appropriate card to pull today in my consultation of the oracle about my mowing muggle neighbor and those associated frustrations and irritations. 

When next I hear the muggle’s mower motor, I will remember the oracles advice and think of the 3 of Pentacles.  I will also think GENTIAN and perhaps order some of the flower essence to add to my drinking water!