As I waited outside a classroom today, I read from a textbook (any book with words printed in it is, by definition, a "text" book, but I digress), and a passage in it broke me.
"Imagine you're an 80 year old woman whose husband has just died..."
and suddenly I was there. I was her, grieving at the graveside, sorting his things, hearing his will, and sleeping alone for the first time in 55 years. I felt the tears of loss well up inside me, turn into crushing frustration at our mortal condition, and finally come boiling to the surface as a forceless, helpless rage. Anger is my idiom, so even as an 80 year old woman I'm angry.
How and why, did I suddenly have this powerful feeling of compassion and empathy for an old woman I've never met? (I swear I will break off a size 12 in the ass of the first person who suggests that it is because I am old as well.) Could it be that all the years of meditation have finally soaked in? Perhaps I am actually beginning to put down the warrior role, and move into something more nurturing...
Even just typing that feels odd. Part of me wants to know if there is a way that I can be compassionate and empathetic in a really angry, kick-ass-now-and-take-names-later sort of way... it's a comfortable old suit I've worn for most of my life. Couldn't I be some kind of "nurturing warrior"...?
That's just fear of change talking there. I'm comfortable with being grumpy and ready to fight, but the path is not really about being comfortable, now is it?
The Widow
Lojong #1
In the 12th Century, a Tibetan monk named Chekawa formulated existing proverbs and aphorisms into a set of 57 sayings known as lojong ("mind training"), designed to help seekers connect with the world in a way that is unconditional, possitive, and fully aware. The process of meditating on these sayings came to be called tonglen (in Tibetan 'tong' means 'sending out' or 'letting go' and 'len' means 'receiving' or 'accepting') and it has proven to be a powerful technique for helping practitioners take full responsibility for their experience of the world.
I'll be putting a new saying up at random intervals. Unlike my usual blog posts (which you can forget about almost before you finish reading them), take a minute to think about these.
#1) First, train in the preliminaries.
Comments*
There are four preliminaries (also called the four reminders):
1) Remember the preciousness of human life.
(only a human can become a Buddha)
2) Remember that life ends; death comes for everyone.
(it sounds obvious, but how many of us actually think about it?)
3) Remember that all actions have a result.
(karma is a bitch)
4) Remember that as long as you are focused on self-importance you will suffer.
(just getting what you want and avoiding what you don't like will not bring happiness)
*The comments that I'll be putting up with them are rarely my own. They are drawn from a host of authors - Pema Chodron, Osho, HHDL, and others.
Star Wars is for Everyone
...but maybe it shouldn't be.
I'm sure faithful readers recall this charming photo of Lord Gayder, buckled up and ready for "battle."
(Remember? Hell, I bet Jim and Zeus have it saved to their Favorites...)
In the interest of fairness and equal time, we are pleased to bring you Darth Vulva...
The (not so) Great Stupa
On Sunday, I visited the Great Stupa at the Shambhala Center near Red Feather Lakes, Colorado, with my friend Kim. I'm not sure what I expected, but I was very disturbed by the experience. I have visited many other religious sites, Buddhist, Christian, and otherwise - never have I come away with so little sense of the sacred or the holy. I am disturbed still.
The shape and structure of the building is ancient, but there are modern elements that clash awkwardly; like these doors...
I think the smoked glass and brass fittings just scream "Welcome to the First National Bank of Buddha."
I also found the windows very distracting. 
(Click on this one for a better view)
The rest of the structure is very ornate, but the windows are the sort of boring industrial glass you expect on a high-rise. It seems like poor planning - so much time and energy went into the design of the thing, the least they could have done was find windows to match the feel of the building.
Kim pointed out, and rightly so, that a much more sacred feeling could be found by turning your back on the stupa altogether and looking at the trees and hills surrounding it. The immediate setting is beautiful, rugged, and quite tranquil. I really wish there had been some attempt to incorporate natural materials or colors into the design. Instead, the exterior of the building is apparently shaped concrete. There is virtually nothing that could be less spiritual and more jarring to the senses than a great hunk of cotton candy-colored concrete in the midst of the Colorado Rockies.
The whole experience felt very much like a trip to "Epcot Tibet." It reminded me of the little fiberglass cottages around the Matterhorn ride - there was that kind of artificialness to it all, and I couldn't help thinking (as I always do when confronted with gigantic religious expenditures) how many people they could have fed and clothed and educated with all that money.
I realize that this is the resting place of Chogyam Trungpa's skull relic, and as a very important and influential teacher here in the West, he needed/wanted/deserved a burial monument (maybe)... but I just can't get past the idea that the Buddha wouldn't want a 20-foot statue of himself inside a 108-foot structure to be that monument. I'm certainly in no place to speak for the Buddha, but he insisted that his students keep sight of his humanity. ONLY a human can be a Buddha. He was NOT a god, and as such, he has no need of worship. I know that stupas and statues and the rest are supposed to be indicative of remembrance and respect, not worship, but that line has gotten very blurred.
Cancel my sepulchre - the Black Pope will be planted in a plain pine box...
News Flash
We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog to bring you this breaking story...
The Hopeless Romantic, well known webcomic artist, penguin fighter, and noted metrosexual is, in fact, straight. Film at eleven.
(Actually, we don't have any film. Sorry.)
Another Mystery Revealed
This explains a lot about my ex-wife's spending habits. She's not irresponsible, she's just made that way...
Don't They Smell That Way Already?
I like perfume, particularly vanilla scents. I love the flavor of vanilla, so it stands to reason that if a woman smells like a dessert, I'll enjoy it.
While surfing, I discoverd a perfume that might be working on the same flavor/scent principle. I love the flavor, but I'm not so sure about it as a fragrance for women...
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