Jaz and I just got back from The Abode today after almost a week stay. It was awesome. I love the community there! I love sufis. When I first met Shahabuddin maybe 5 years ago I almost became a sufi initiate. I really liked him both as a person and as a teacher. I never felt a strong connection with or really even a much of a liking for Panditj at the Himalayan Institute. Don't get me wrong, I have allot of respect for him, but that's it. I have been known to be prone to hasty decisions, flightiness, lack of commitment etc. For jobs or living arrangements, yes, but that has never been much of a problem when it comes to dedication to my practices what ever those may be. There is a saying about practice being like digging a well. If you flit around you dig alot of holes but you never hit water. With that in mind I thought seriously about Sufism, read about it, went to classes, and then decided to go to the Abode and live there for a few months. After all that I came to the conclusion that although I really love sufis, I am not a sufi.
I went back to the Abode to see Tim. I had forgotten how much I loved the other sufis. Yogis on the other hand I usually find kinda boring. The HI for example has so little vibrancy in the community. That doesn't mean that I couldn't find things to complain about at the Abode or that I don't like the HI. After all I spent 3 months at the Abode and a year and 3 months at the HI. I guess I like the sufi approach to life and yoga's approach to philosophy and practice.
Anyway, I had a blast.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Birthday
Twenty Six years ago today, counting on the Gregorian calendar, a baby came out of a woman. The child was named Daniel (judged by god) after it's grand father, Abraham in hopes that the child would leave his home and go to the land that god would show him, and Clough to designate his fathers family. I don't remember that day.
My first memory always seemed pretty insignificant. I didn't know why I remembered it, but maybe it was the beginning of the recognition that I was pretending. I was pretending that a plastic banana was a banana, then I was taking that banana and pretending it was a gun. And then I noticed that the plastic blocks in the corner were blue. In my memory they were almost glowing. I still don't know why I remember that part, but that was always the focus of the memory.
The second memory was probably some years later. I was at a friends house playing on his Nintendo. Actually it was his turn and I was waiting for mine. I wondered why time seemed to go so fast when I was playing and was slow while I was waiting. How did time work? Could I effect that in any way? I think I was 3.
I I I. You could read a hundred very complicated papers about me. I mean I. You know, Myself, or The Self. So "I" will not be going into philosophy here. But it is interesting, and it has some relevance to my everyday life, right?
I woke up this morning with a day planned. All I really wanted to do was brush my teeth and have sex but there was a schedule and I had to make my favorite meal before people came so that we could leave by 10 to get to the guys house and use the orbatron and then I would be meeting a friend for lunch and Courtney hasn't called and Ryan is still sleeping and will be late and... Whoa...
So this is my new writing style, eh?
On writing and the nature of self: This is not me...
Everyday I make some comment about bullshit. I was silent for 6 months, everybody asked me what I learned... Have I told you the story about Nasaruddin? When someone asks him what the truth is? "nothing I have ever said, nor ever will."
It's like, yeah, I'm an air head.
That's why I make fun of people, and myself... I'm an air head. I am empty. I am potential. When I write, even more then when I speak, I am worried about confusing that with the truth. The past six months I have written allot about what I have done and experienced. I could have written the whole thing from a totally different perspective that would have seemed like a totally different life. I think Mom said I was 14 the first time I told her I wanted to leave the world behind and be a renounciate. I still think about that regularly, but I don't think that it will bring me freedom and happiness I seek.
I remember at some point getting angry and kicking the very nice antique couch that we got with our house. While I was doing it I was watching myself do it, afterwards I thought that it was a bad Idea and wondered why I did it. It was as if I was not in control of myself. Later I realized that I was in control of myself. It was as if I was a puppet master pulling the strings. I was not myself but I could influence myself by exerting intention. I was on depression pills at the time that made me feel dead so that I didn't do anything destructive. If I didn't take the pills I would get horribly sick and puke my guts out and go into emotional fits. One time, in middle school, I freaked out in math class. I couldn't breath, much less speak to say that I needed my drugs. I hated life.
My first day on the orbatron is allot like a new birth. It is like a new body. The same way a baby stretches and looks at it's hands I tried to understand how my new body worked. In the same way I am still trying to become one with my mind. If I lean this way I rotate that way, if I shift my hips like this I do that. How do you talk about the mind? I can get angry at will. I can become calm. I can be light hearted and silly. Sometimes I am so focused that though my eyes are open I do not see.
I feel at ends. I eat out of a dumpster and read about philosophy. What am I doing with my life? Massage school. I like massage. Why is the leg like that? It's not supposed to be like that. What happens if I stretch that and press here? It's the same thing as the orbatron, it's the same thing as the baby stretching it's hand.
So if I experience your body and my body the same way that I experience my mind and the orbatron can I say that your body is me? I can effect it, when I have contact with it do I become it? Maybe I have it backwards, maybe because I am usually in contact with my body I think that it is me when in fact it is not? I really can't control it any way. Maybe more then you can but not really. And my mind, I don't think I had any control of that until I was around 14. Maybe self and control have nothing to do with each other.
I feel strange. There doesn't seem to be much connection between how I feel right now and how I did 8 years ago. That's about when I started yoga. I was doing allot of drugs at the time. I had gotten kicked out of school and was working as a laborer. Digging mostly. My back hurt. I sat down in a bookstore and read about the 8 limbs and thought "Wow, these people have a system for doing what I have been trying to do my whole life." I don't know how long I read but when I stood up I didn't realize that my foot was asleep and I fell over. After learning how to walk on my leg that was completely numb from the thigh down I walked around and thought about how interesting it was until the pins and needles came. I kept walking and it seemed like the whole of my being was pins and needles.
Tomorrow Jaz and I are going on a 10-12 day trip. I am so busy. What am I doing?
My first memory always seemed pretty insignificant. I didn't know why I remembered it, but maybe it was the beginning of the recognition that I was pretending. I was pretending that a plastic banana was a banana, then I was taking that banana and pretending it was a gun. And then I noticed that the plastic blocks in the corner were blue. In my memory they were almost glowing. I still don't know why I remember that part, but that was always the focus of the memory.
The second memory was probably some years later. I was at a friends house playing on his Nintendo. Actually it was his turn and I was waiting for mine. I wondered why time seemed to go so fast when I was playing and was slow while I was waiting. How did time work? Could I effect that in any way? I think I was 3.
I I I. You could read a hundred very complicated papers about me. I mean I. You know, Myself, or The Self. So "I" will not be going into philosophy here. But it is interesting, and it has some relevance to my everyday life, right?
I woke up this morning with a day planned. All I really wanted to do was brush my teeth and have sex but there was a schedule and I had to make my favorite meal before people came so that we could leave by 10 to get to the guys house and use the orbatron and then I would be meeting a friend for lunch and Courtney hasn't called and Ryan is still sleeping and will be late and... Whoa...
So this is my new writing style, eh?
On writing and the nature of self: This is not me...
Everyday I make some comment about bullshit. I was silent for 6 months, everybody asked me what I learned... Have I told you the story about Nasaruddin? When someone asks him what the truth is? "nothing I have ever said, nor ever will."
It's like, yeah, I'm an air head.
That's why I make fun of people, and myself... I'm an air head. I am empty. I am potential. When I write, even more then when I speak, I am worried about confusing that with the truth. The past six months I have written allot about what I have done and experienced. I could have written the whole thing from a totally different perspective that would have seemed like a totally different life. I think Mom said I was 14 the first time I told her I wanted to leave the world behind and be a renounciate. I still think about that regularly, but I don't think that it will bring me freedom and happiness I seek.
I remember at some point getting angry and kicking the very nice antique couch that we got with our house. While I was doing it I was watching myself do it, afterwards I thought that it was a bad Idea and wondered why I did it. It was as if I was not in control of myself. Later I realized that I was in control of myself. It was as if I was a puppet master pulling the strings. I was not myself but I could influence myself by exerting intention. I was on depression pills at the time that made me feel dead so that I didn't do anything destructive. If I didn't take the pills I would get horribly sick and puke my guts out and go into emotional fits. One time, in middle school, I freaked out in math class. I couldn't breath, much less speak to say that I needed my drugs. I hated life.
My first day on the orbatron is allot like a new birth. It is like a new body. The same way a baby stretches and looks at it's hands I tried to understand how my new body worked. In the same way I am still trying to become one with my mind. If I lean this way I rotate that way, if I shift my hips like this I do that. How do you talk about the mind? I can get angry at will. I can become calm. I can be light hearted and silly. Sometimes I am so focused that though my eyes are open I do not see.
I feel at ends. I eat out of a dumpster and read about philosophy. What am I doing with my life? Massage school. I like massage. Why is the leg like that? It's not supposed to be like that. What happens if I stretch that and press here? It's the same thing as the orbatron, it's the same thing as the baby stretching it's hand.
So if I experience your body and my body the same way that I experience my mind and the orbatron can I say that your body is me? I can effect it, when I have contact with it do I become it? Maybe I have it backwards, maybe because I am usually in contact with my body I think that it is me when in fact it is not? I really can't control it any way. Maybe more then you can but not really. And my mind, I don't think I had any control of that until I was around 14. Maybe self and control have nothing to do with each other.
I feel strange. There doesn't seem to be much connection between how I feel right now and how I did 8 years ago. That's about when I started yoga. I was doing allot of drugs at the time. I had gotten kicked out of school and was working as a laborer. Digging mostly. My back hurt. I sat down in a bookstore and read about the 8 limbs and thought "Wow, these people have a system for doing what I have been trying to do my whole life." I don't know how long I read but when I stood up I didn't realize that my foot was asleep and I fell over. After learning how to walk on my leg that was completely numb from the thigh down I walked around and thought about how interesting it was until the pins and needles came. I kept walking and it seemed like the whole of my being was pins and needles.
Tomorrow Jaz and I are going on a 10-12 day trip. I am so busy. What am I doing?
Pratītyasamutpāda Look it up.
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