Being You

I encounter inner conflict at times, especially when faced with a situation full of confrontation. Do I back down? Do I always give in? Should I just smile and nod and turn in the other directions? Do I just sacrifice my feelings for the sake of the other? To practice tolerance, compassion, and forgiveness does not mean that we should make ourselves a doormat for other people's misuse. For starters, we should always remember that we are as deserving as anyone else, of our kindness, our compassion, and our love. The Buddha said ''that we could search the entire universe and we would not find anyone more worthy of our love than we ourselves are.'' So putting ourselves in a position where our feelings are ignored, our voice is not heard, and our wants and needs are neglected is not practicing compassion or love towards ourselves. All relationships, encounters, and connections we make in this life must be circular

in nature. We all seek balance, it is the nature of our existence, of our being.

The Buddhist path is often a cloudy and misunderstood one. It is not a practice of passivity, where one should retreat to a mountain top and become disengaged with the world, only to find oneself. Although retreating to oneself is a good practice from time to time. Instead, it is about being fully engaged in one's life, relationships around, and the world within the universe!

In the Sadhana of Mahamudra, Chogyam Trungpa described the wisdom of a fully realized being:

He is inseparable from peacefulness and yet he acts whenever action is required. He subdues what needs to be subdued, he destroys what needs to be destroyed and he cares for whatever needs his care.

If being inseparable from peacefulness and yet acting whenever action is required seems paradoxical, that's good. As Zen master Suzuki Roshi said, ''if something isn't paradoxical, it isn't true.''

Sometimes that means retreating from the situation and giving it space. Sometimes it means sitting down and having a conversation, and sharing your perspective. Sometimes it means standing up and shouting what you believe to be required. Sometimes it means walking away entirely, and never looking back. Sometimes it means giving someone a gift to show that you care.

In a ''Dharmic world'' there is no predetermined course of action to our quarrels, disagreements or to our clash. We must strive to meet each situation that arises with fresh awareness and open heart, and we must do our best to remain true to who we wish to be and respond in whatever way is most beneficial to our cause.

Being a doormat is never a healthy option.

Stake A Claim 2/2 ~ A friends thoughts continued

Our unhappiness comes from not staying true to who we are. Your focus should be on you. My focus should be me. If we kept our focus where it belonged instead of trying to fix and change others, then we wouldn't have half the issues that we have. The minute we look for approval outside ourselves, then the trouble begins. Because we are putting our values and worth outside of ourselves and into the hands of others. So here's an example: Two people live on the same street. One goes out and plants flowers and bushes and trees because they love beauty and they love to garden and they love the smell of the earth and the feeling that they get from planting and watering seeds and bringing them to life. It's very pure and it's very rewarding. They don't do it for any other reason than the sheer enjoyment that they get from doing it. The other, goes out and plants flowers and bushes and trees, and looks up and down the street to see how they rate and compare to the rest of their neighbours and when they can say that their house looks the best of anyone's on the street, then they feel good. Now they've both done the same thing with the same result as the first person, but instead of it stopping with the gardening and feeling the joy in doing that, the joy becomes very conditional on the approval of others and the feeling or superiority that it brings. See where I'm headed with this. They both do it for a reward: the reward is beauty and enjoyment on the one hand, and the reward is being able to impress others, on the other hand. One of these two is living a lie. One of these two has by-passed the inner world and created a purely external facade. It's not about the journey with these people. It's all about the reward at the end. How you get to that reward is every bit as important as the reward itself. So with these people, they create the illusion of being someone or something, but that's all it is ... smoke and mirrors. There is no root and no depth. They don't do it for any other reason than show and reward. Given enough time, the facade falls away and the truth is revealed. These people eventually get trapped in their own lie and they live very lonely lives. Only time separates truth from lies and only if people are willing to believe it. That is why, if you live authentically then your truth is the truth. It proves itself. The truth is, we all look the same, it's difficult to distinguish the difference between those living lives that are authentic and those living a false life. And as much as it may burn our ass to see the ''the liars'' getting away with their shit, it is not our place to correct them because when we do, we are doing it for the reward of proving them wrong and ourselves right. Our job is not to be a bit player in their story, but to remain firm in our own authenticity and tell our own story otherwise, we become just an echo of them.

Stake a Claim 1/2 ~ A friends thoughts

I am going through a rough moment (hopefully only a moment).

This is a message I received in support of my situation and other similar situations I have faced recently. The names being used have been changed but we can all fill in our own significant names to people we have enabled or that have taken advantage, disrespected, used, and or abused us.

I hope this translates well?

I'll tell you what the secret is. The secret is, that this is MY story. And that is YOUR story. We come into this world and we are given a life and then we spend most of our days trying to hold onto that life because if we don't use it for our own purposes, then someone else will be happy to claim it for theirs. Whether it be Philip or Susan, there will always be someone who doesn't have enough of what they need or want and they will be looking around for people to plunder for more time, more attention, more money, more love, more of whatever it is they are lacking at the moment. And there will always be Karen's and Bill's, moving people around to suit their purposes. And they manipulate others because they are either too big for their own lives and hence have to claim the lives of others so they can spill over into them, or their are too small and cowardly to pull off their crap all on their own, so they use others to hide behind. But, it is our job to write our own story and to develop healthy boundaries and to hold firm to them. It's tough to do because the lines get blurred by notions of love, support, responsibility and guilt, among other things, and those of us with strong moral character get taken advantage of by those with weaker moral strength. I really think that the time has come for someone to write a book, maybe even me, that strips away some of the Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver mentality that paints the perfect little picture of the perfect little home, and makes it clear to people that we are not responsible for being the answer to someone else's prayers. We don't have to be saviours. It's not selfish to look out for ourselves. And we don't have to be liked by everyone. The older I get, the more important I think it is to claim our lives and to start living them authentically. To hell with everyone else. Philip and Susan, as much as we love them, and we do love them, can get out if they don't like it. That seems harsh but if you go back a generation or two, to your father's time, or your grandfather's time, that's the way they lived their lives, and the kids that left home and struck out on their own, survived and even prospered. The kids that we see today, giving little but expecting lots, we made them that way. We took away their anger at the lifestyle they were handed, that is until we try to alter that very lifestyle that we provided. We took away their drive to get out and get more for themselves and when we do try to push them, for their own good, to be more driven nothing but confusion, frustration, and resentment come pouring in. It's like in order to balance out what our parents and grandparents did or didn't give us, we went too far the other way. The thing I want more for Philip than anything else, is for him to somehow figure out that he has to claim his life, and take responsibility for it, if he is ever going to be happy. Karen and Bill are prime examples of people who are too busy controlling everyone else to stop and take a look at their own pathetic lives and the pain they have inflicted on others with their actions. You and I just need to know who we are, and hold the lines. The Karen's and Bill's of this world are so convinced of their own rightness, that they are never going to listen to anything we have to say, and we will always be the ones who are too sensitive, or who misinterpret their motives, or who are way out in left field or are being to ''disrespectful'' or 'inappropriate''. The Karen's and Bill's of this world are just unhappy people looking for someone or something to blame their unhappiness on. God forbid that they should ever have to look at themselves and ask themselves if they are the ones with the problem. It's their story. It's their game. And it's our fault if we let them make it ours. We have to know in ourselves that it is their story and they can lay blame and accuse all they want, we don't have to accept, or take any of it on us. These are the deepest spiritual lessons of all ... to know ourselves and to live our lives authentically.

Big Family

Some random thing happened and it triggered my thoughts to what it means to be part of a ''BIG'' family?

Having to deal with all that comes from being part of a large family has given me a ''killer'' confidence and it has filled me with passion beyond belief. How could it not?

When I think of all the people that have come and gone and come and stayed over the years I realize that have learned to accept all. It has provided me with an abundance of tolerance and compassion and I am more trusting and willing to share. These are all wonderful traits to possess.

Two overwhelming qualities that come to mind, when I think of my family, are support and forgiveness.

Support, even though it is not always visible, it is always present and whenever it is needed by me or required of me it appears. It is really quite something just knowing that you are never really alone.

Forgiveness, WOW! When I think of all the times my weakness has demanded it and when I think of all the times my strength has embrace it and allow it to lift me above holding on to anger or envy I become equally joyful for both.

I would not be who I am without the experiences I have shared with my family.

I love my family and I am grateful for all or is it I am grateful for my family and I love them all?

Thinking

In the midst of what I feel, it is unavoidable, this process I call ''change''. I say unavoidable because my soul, desires a higher ascension.

My mind is laid on the chopping block of transformation, my body struggles to reach a passage to versatility, all the while, my souls desires sit, trapped, in the cave of distrust. Collectively this is my spirit and my spirit is afraid, I will not pretend this is not so. I fixate my mind on the self responsibility of abandoning all that is old and this turns my thoughts to anxious diffidence. At times, to trust the process requires more than what I hold.

I am in a chamber, surrounded by walls of self desire, unable to locate the doorway that leads to the meadows of abundant faith.

The strength of those walls comes from the lack of discipline within, unable to bring about a change in heart and mind.

The rare moments that my discipline provides me with a sense of faith and a trust in knowing, a window, of inner peace, appears, presenting a dilemma in this complex process of ascension. The window yields an inner warmth and a certain comfort in knowing that I am in command of my journey, but this window allows the rays of frustration to permeate my space. I am unable to escape, completely, only able to see beyond the chains.

I have come to understand that evolution, of any and all, requires ''drastic change'', this is imperative. If I want to grow, than I must change. We all possess the mapping to higher ascension, but do our spirits possess the strength?

The IC Blog: Learning loveliness

The IC Blog: Learning loveliness: " .....sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveli..."

I am in the midst of what I feel is an unavoidable process called ''change''. I say unavoidable because my soul desires a higher ascension and a certain clarity.

My mind is laid at the altar of transformation, my body is fighting for the passage to versatility, all while my soul sits trapped in the cave of distrust. Collectively my spirit sit in fear, I will not pretend this is not so. I fixate my mind on the self responsibility of abandoning all that is old and this turns my thoughts to distressed insecurity. To trust the process requires more that I have sometimes.

Seriously, most of my time is spent in a cell surrounded by walls of self desire, not surrounded by the meadows of abundant faith.

The strength of those walls comes from the knowing of what is required and from the lacking of discipline to actually change the heart and mind.

The rare moments that my discipline provides me with a sense of faith and a trust in knowing, a window, of inner peace, appears, presenting another inconsistency in this complex process of ascension. The window brings about frustration because I am unable to escape, only being able to see beyond what is holding me back. The window, all the while, allowing a certain ray of comfort to shine in on my ideals. It brings me a certain warmth.

I have come to understand that evolution, of any and all, requires ''drastic change'', this is imperative. If I want growth than I must change.

We all possess the blueprint for higher ascension, but do we all possess the spirit?