I visited this weekend with a friend who has a meningioma, a "benign" brain tumor. It is called benign because it is not a metastatic cancer, but I doubt she would call it benign in any meaningful way. Her struggle and my grief are fairly personal; that's not the reason I bring this up. Rather, it caused me to reflect how my brain gets taken over by my mental and emotional meningiomas, how hijacked I often feel. Right now I am sitting in the Sacramento airport nervous and out of sorts, yet there is no proximate cause for all this. What I seek is to be in control and there are few things more out of my control than flying on a jet. Yet this is familiar territory; nothing unusual here. I am safe. I am protected. But I cannot fly the plane.
Despite all the study I do and commentary I write, I find myself tied up in the same knots as always, really. Though I aspire to spiritual motives, I still want to look good, seem good, be thought well of. Not that these are in themselves base motivations, but with the ego in charge they can run my life and make me miserable. I don't just want to lose weight, I want you to notice. I don't just want to write about my experiences here, I want you to think I am brilliant; I want thousands of followers and hundreds of comments. I don't just want to be the best son, brother, friend and uncle I know how to be, I want some sort of credit from those parents, siblings, nephews and such and to be considered a cut above all others, holier or some such nonsense. I want to go immediately to my rental car on arrival in Sacramento and am feeling all peaceful and serene until it turns out that the rental car company screwed up my Fastbreak reservation again, at which point I turn into the same judgmental fool who always emerges when I am tired or hungry or stressed or in anything but an absolutely pristine frame of mind.
When I say that I want these things, though, that is a very confused statement. The best part of my consciousness doesn't want them at all, recognizes that these desires are a source of suffering, are, in fact, the source of suffering. That egotistical, small mind which seems to have the upper hand much of the time, though, wants these things very much, does not feel safe unless it has the reinforcement, the reassurance of praise, fame, pleasure and gain without any of their counterparts: blame, disrepute, pain or loss. These eight factors are called, in Buddhist parlance, the Eight Worldly Winds, so called because they can blow us about if we allow them to and because they are in essence both insubstantial and inescapable. The Buddha recommended being like a great tree in the midst of them all. The winds blow and I may bend this way and that but, all in all, I stand steadfast and unchanged by them.
Part of the problem, for me at least, is that all of this Buddhist stuff can complicate things rather than simplify them. Everyone seems to have an opinion and there is no consistent teaching that is simple and infallible. I know, it's unrealistic to expect such simplicity, but at the same time something in me (and in the Buddha's own teachings, for that matter) says that this whole thing really is quite simple and it is us who complicate it.
What is wanted here, then, is an investigation of what this all boils down to, what is the essence of what the Buddha taught and what makes a life worth living. I think perhaps the first is much less important than the second. The Buddha himself recommended rejecting his teachings altogether if they did not make sense to each of us, if they did not tend, over time, to bring true joy. For me, though, they are the closest I have ever come to that state, so for the time being I intend to stick with them.
Do I sound a bit impatient? I suppose I am. I am 55 years old and wiser than I used to be, but far from wise. I am more serene than I used to be, but far from serene. I am kinder, but not consistently kind. I feel as if I have to reinvent the wheel every time someone pisses me off and I'm tired of that fact. I am tired of my ego taking control and suffering because of it. I have an inkling that somewhere in all of this is a kernel of truth, a jewel in the manure pile that would cause this path to be much, much simpler than I am making it. Unfortunately, if such a jewel exists I suspect someone would already be teaching it and what I see out there is a bunch of opinions and complex teachings that only leave me more confused and feeling as if I can never be erudite or learned enough to get it, whatever it might be. I'm not really asking for much, just peace and contentment. Is that really so much to expect? I don't ask that life not be a challenge and full of grief, confusion and pain. God knows I have seen enough of that to be convinced. What I do ask, though, is the serenity to accept it as it is without adding anything to the story, because those additions only exacerbate the pain and do nothing to ease it, despite my mind's idea that they will. But such serenity cannot lead to passivity, because to be passive in this world is to be complicit in the injustice, hatred, violence and greed that are rampant here.
Any suggestions?
Despite all the study I do and commentary I write, I find myself tied up in the same knots as always, really. Though I aspire to spiritual motives, I still want to look good, seem good, be thought well of. Not that these are in themselves base motivations, but with the ego in charge they can run my life and make me miserable. I don't just want to lose weight, I want you to notice. I don't just want to write about my experiences here, I want you to think I am brilliant; I want thousands of followers and hundreds of comments. I don't just want to be the best son, brother, friend and uncle I know how to be, I want some sort of credit from those parents, siblings, nephews and such and to be considered a cut above all others, holier or some such nonsense. I want to go immediately to my rental car on arrival in Sacramento and am feeling all peaceful and serene until it turns out that the rental car company screwed up my Fastbreak reservation again, at which point I turn into the same judgmental fool who always emerges when I am tired or hungry or stressed or in anything but an absolutely pristine frame of mind.
When I say that I want these things, though, that is a very confused statement. The best part of my consciousness doesn't want them at all, recognizes that these desires are a source of suffering, are, in fact, the source of suffering. That egotistical, small mind which seems to have the upper hand much of the time, though, wants these things very much, does not feel safe unless it has the reinforcement, the reassurance of praise, fame, pleasure and gain without any of their counterparts: blame, disrepute, pain or loss. These eight factors are called, in Buddhist parlance, the Eight Worldly Winds, so called because they can blow us about if we allow them to and because they are in essence both insubstantial and inescapable. The Buddha recommended being like a great tree in the midst of them all. The winds blow and I may bend this way and that but, all in all, I stand steadfast and unchanged by them.
Part of the problem, for me at least, is that all of this Buddhist stuff can complicate things rather than simplify them. Everyone seems to have an opinion and there is no consistent teaching that is simple and infallible. I know, it's unrealistic to expect such simplicity, but at the same time something in me (and in the Buddha's own teachings, for that matter) says that this whole thing really is quite simple and it is us who complicate it.
What is wanted here, then, is an investigation of what this all boils down to, what is the essence of what the Buddha taught and what makes a life worth living. I think perhaps the first is much less important than the second. The Buddha himself recommended rejecting his teachings altogether if they did not make sense to each of us, if they did not tend, over time, to bring true joy. For me, though, they are the closest I have ever come to that state, so for the time being I intend to stick with them.
Do I sound a bit impatient? I suppose I am. I am 55 years old and wiser than I used to be, but far from wise. I am more serene than I used to be, but far from serene. I am kinder, but not consistently kind. I feel as if I have to reinvent the wheel every time someone pisses me off and I'm tired of that fact. I am tired of my ego taking control and suffering because of it. I have an inkling that somewhere in all of this is a kernel of truth, a jewel in the manure pile that would cause this path to be much, much simpler than I am making it. Unfortunately, if such a jewel exists I suspect someone would already be teaching it and what I see out there is a bunch of opinions and complex teachings that only leave me more confused and feeling as if I can never be erudite or learned enough to get it, whatever it might be. I'm not really asking for much, just peace and contentment. Is that really so much to expect? I don't ask that life not be a challenge and full of grief, confusion and pain. God knows I have seen enough of that to be convinced. What I do ask, though, is the serenity to accept it as it is without adding anything to the story, because those additions only exacerbate the pain and do nothing to ease it, despite my mind's idea that they will. But such serenity cannot lead to passivity, because to be passive in this world is to be complicit in the injustice, hatred, violence and greed that are rampant here.
Any suggestions?
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