sex for buddhists, as promised

Okay, I finished the book. Lemme tell you first of all that I was quite disappointed in it. Much of it was stuff I already knew from all those other Buddhism books I read: that the main Buddhist principle is "do no harm" and because they are not so much into the rules and regulations and the whole authority thang, it is up to *you* to decide whether any of your sexual expression is hurting you or anyone else. If so, knock it the fuck off. And then there's a whole long chapter and part of another that is basically a transcript of a long interview he did with Nina Hartley (i.e. big ol' pr0n star who was actually raised as a Zen Buddhist by her hippie parents). She's not as interesting as she thinks she is.

And the author, Mr Warner? Well, he's a punk rock guitarist turned Zen Buddhist monk turned writer, and frankly, he comes off as kind of a douche. He's quite dismissive of other forms of Buddhism, maybe unconsciously. He actually even makes a bit of a flip and disrespectful comment towards the Dalai Lama, which c'mon now. He's the Dalai Lama, the spiritual (and political) leader of millions of people, and I've never heard anything about him that suggests he is not worthy of a modicum of respect. He also takes a dig or two towards Thich Nhat Hahn and though he doesn't mention Sharon Salzberg by name, he definitely sneers at the popularity of the metta meditation (you know, that loving-kindness thing I do?) in the West. In fact, he mocks Western "Buddhists" like me, who like the parts of Buddhism they've read about but who aren't actually practitioners, which fair enough. I am certainly ripe for the mocking. And he also mocks The Secret, which, yeah, +10 for that.

But the worst part of this book? Apparently no one copyedited it. There were at least three or four instances of words omitted or added to sentences, or a verb in the wrong tense--the kind of thing that happens when you go back and rewrite a sentence to make it sound better but you botch the edit, and then *you* can't see the mistake till you've reread the paragraph fifty times, if then, because you know what it's supposed to say. That's the kind of thing that happens in, y'know, a blog. I would NOT expect that kind of thing in a professionally published book I paid $14.95 for at the Borders. Give an unemployed editor a job, yo!

I did read one thing in the book that fascinated me in that he was looking at a concept from one direction and I myself have noticed the exact same thing in the opposite direction. It's interesting enough to me that I'm tempted to look at his blog and see if it has contact info, then email him about it. But besides that, there were some random things in the book I did not know. Did you know that in 13th century Cambodia, daughters of wealthy families were deflowered between the age of seven and nine by a Buddhist priest? Did you know that in modern Japan there is a bodhisattva called Jizo who is considered the guardian of "water children"--that is, children who were stillborn, miscarried, or aborted--and little statues of him are decorated with red bibs and offerings of flowers and little toys by parents who have lost or, especially, aborted a pregnancy? You know I like knowing these little crosscultural facts!

So, anyway, I can't really recommend you spend your $14.95 on this book, but I did read it in about three days and it did not give me tendinitis. So there is that.

And on another note, and speaking of crosscultural facts, my secret sources (okay, Mr Indemnity) tell me that our friend Man-well is already making trouble in Chicago, including pretending he doesn't speak English and demanding to do an interview in Spanish with an interpreter. Oh, Manuel Aristides. Part of me will always love you.

xoxo

in which i think everyone should be interested in my bullshit

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meet you downstairs in the bar, and hurt

In good news--and my attempt to bore you all into a coma deeper than the one my ex-husband recently emerged from--let me tell you that my electrician came today, apologized profusely that he screwed up yesterday, and gave me an estimate for $300 for all the work I want done (which I thought was more than reasonable). In bad news part 1, when I asked him how easily he could put in an outlet in a wall which has none, he had to go down into the basement to see what was under there, and I was totally humiliated. Sigh.

In bad news part 2, my happy happy vacation mood has dissipated, which is primarily, if not solely, my own damn fault, since a.) I did something(s) that I pretty much knew would put me in a bad mood and b.) even though I know my negativity is more about me than about objective reality, I un-Buddhistly still mired myself in it. In one of my Buddhism books, there's a quote from Mark Twain which is, paraphrased, "I've lived a life of tragedies and misfortunes, most of which never happened." I can identify. The Buddhists are big on "the stories we tell ourselves" and not blindly accepting them. I think I was doing better with that, but apparently I'm backsliding. Sigh again. I think it's probably partly that since I haven't been doing yoga while resting my back, I also haven't been meditating. I should probably do the meta while I'm painting or some such shit.

ARE YOU IN A COMA YET????? I'll have to try harder.

xoxo

the neutral person

As I've probably mentioned, part of the metta meditation involves sending lovingkindness to a "neutral person," someone you have neither positive nor negative feelings about. The most fascinating part of this to me is how difficult it is to actually find such a person.

I tried at first to do it with the various guys who work at my 7-11. But, no. I've got definite feelings towards them solely from the one minute a day I might spend interacting with them. That guy's nice and friendly, that one's *really* sweet, that one's probably in Al-Quada... Similarly with bus drivers. She's a sweetie, he's always so nice, that one drives like a maniac, that one never acknowledges anyone... The only ones who are truly neutral make so little impression, I couldn't even conjure up a face to keep in mind during the meditation.

Forget anyone I have to spend any more significant time with than that. They all get categorized into love/like/like-but-they-have-the-potential-to-annoy me/don't like. Sometimes these people jump categories fairly fluidly (like the dad of my patient yesterday who was basically mocking me to his kid for saying "wicked easy" [douche!] but then later thanked me profusely for my help [you're forgiven, douche.]) But that doesn't mean they don't get slotted.

So mainly I've been doing people at work whom I see around and in the halls all the time but never have to deal with in any meaningful way. I have to give them nicknames for the mantra like "scanner girl" or "conference room key lady" since mostly I don't even know their real names.

Anyway, try it yourself. Not the meditation per se, but try to come up with a few people you have absolutely no feelings or opinion about. It's kinda fascinating.

xoxo

today's buddhism

I'm reading The Kindness Handbook, which is the companion to the other Sharon Salzberg book I read. She was talking about a program that was run for elementary school students to teach them "mindfulness", i.e. to stop and breathe and think before they act. At the end of the program, they asked the kids what mindfulness meant to them. One kid said mindfulness is "not hitting someone in the mouth" which Ms Salzberg thought was brilliant. I concur.

She was also talking about a study that was done, showing that babies develop the capacity for altruism by the age of 18 months. The experimenter would "accidentally" knock something to the floor and on video you could see the babies look at him to see if it looked like he needed help. If it appeared the experimenter was having trouble, the babies would come over and pick up the object and hand it to him. If it looked like he could get it himself, they wouldn't, and likewise if he clearly threw the object down purposefully, they wouldn't go pick it up. The experimenter would take the object from the babies without saying "thank you" to control against them being reinforced by praise or approval. Pretty cool, right? And begging the question of what kind of experiences in life extinguish that apparently natural human behavior to automatically help someone who is struggling.

Finally, a story about the Buddha himself. He came to stay in a town and the local big shot, who was not a fan, went down to him full of insults and imprecations. Buddha asked him whether he ever had guests come to his house and if so, did he offer them food and refreshments? The guy said, yes, of course. Then Buddha asked him if they do not eat the food and refreshments, who does it belong to? The guy said, if they don't accept it, then it still belongs to me. Buddha said, well, I don't accept your anger and insults. They're all still yours. I like that. Let's all start a policy that, if someone insults us, berates us, says shitty things to us, we just refuse to accept the "gift." They can just keep their toxicity, thanks!

xoxo

i was gonna tell you

...all about the stuff I read about karma last night that pissed me right the hell off. But then I said to myself, Andrea, no one cares about your philosophical disagreements with major world religions, so just let it drop. So that's the plan. I wish I had something scintillating to discuss instead, but the well's pretty dry.

So maybe we will have a tiny Buddhism discussion. Just not about the stuff that pushed all my buttons. (I haven't even *gotten* to the book Ms Crispix flung across the room yet, either!) But here's one thing. The hardcore Buddhist position is against killing any life. This means vegetarianism, naturally, and you know I'm not going there again, so that's already a fail. It also means, strictly speaking, not killing flies or other insects. I swat flies, but I've been known to liberate spiders to the outside, 'cause spiders are cool. And I kept those ants out of my house this spring and summer with cider vinegar, not pesticides. So I may be slightly ahead in my good works here. But my question is this. Every time I purell my hands in work, am I committing genocide? What's the Dalai Lama's position on antibiotics? How about on washing? I think it was easier for the Buddha to proscribe not killing *anything* when no one knew of the existence of microbes. That flu virus might be your grandmother, yo.

See why I said I'm not a spiritual person? I just cannot take logic and reasoning out of the equation. I am, however, definitely continuing with the metta meditation, because it does my heart and my brain good, and I don't see the downside to increasing the love and compassion I have for everyone.

In other news, I just got an email back from my ex sister-in-law and it reminded me of something I meant to mention in here but forgot. When they came over after Christmas and we were catching up on stuff, I mentioned that I had had the new roof done this summer. You guys remember I was surprised that it cost maybe half of what I had been expecting, right? Well, it seems that her dad (D's other grandfather) also had his roof done, and by my roofer. (Proving once again that he's the go-to guy in our city.) But he had had an estimate done the year before which was in fact about twice what I, and he ultimately, paid. He put it off because it wasn't crucial and it was a lot of money. And then this year when he decided he should go for it, our roofer slashed the price, because the economy was so bad and he wanted to make sure he had enough jobs to keep all his guys working. I kinda think my roofer has some good karma built up too.

Okay! That's all I've got to say about that.

xoxo

the karma express

In one of my Buddhism books there's this anecdote (and we all know I like an anecdote that supposedly proves a point, don't we, kids?) about a meditation student who continually complained to his teacher about his mom, her failings as both a parent and a human being. After some time of this, the teacher advised the man to simply love his mother. "She wouldn't let me," the student said petulantly. "She couldn't stop you," replied the teacher. I think I actually chortled out loud when I read this. Yes!

I don't mean to suggest I'm buying everything I've been reading (more about that later) but some of it is so brilliant and so simple and resonates so much I can hardly stand it. You don't need anyone's permission to love them. You don't need them to love you back. The sooner you realize that every emotion and every thought of yours doesn't *have* to be a reaction to other people's emotions, thoughts, and actions, the sooner you're going to be happy. That pattern of going through life reacting rather than choosing cannot be anything but toxic. Plus, love is free, love me, say HELL YES. Okay then.

Let's move on to something I'm having a harder time getting with. Karma. Everything I've read so far has gone out of its way to try and convince me that the actual Buddhist principal of karma has, contrary to the Western misperception, nothing to do with reward and punishment. If you live a shitty life, you are going to suffer, if not now, then in the future, or in your next existence. But not because you're being punished. Instead, because they believe that suffering and difficulty you live through leads to the development of the compassion and wisdom that brings you one step further to enlightenment. If you're living a shitty life full of anger and cruelty, greed and jealousy, you're stepping away from enlightenment and karma's gonna help you out by giving you a little kick back towards it. It's not punishing you, it's helping you grow. Or something like that. I have several problems with that, which we'll get back to.

I was reading last night about anger, in the context of beginning to learn to offer metta to your "enemy" (which doesn't need to be all that dramatic--it can just be someone who is a big pain in your ass or pisses you off every time you need to deal with them). The principal being that you can help let go of your anger by realizing that whatever wrongs, large or small, have been done to you by this person, karma's gonna take care of it. It's not your responsibility to seek vengeance. But, Ms Salzberg takes pains to emphasize, neither are you supposed to look at it as, "Aha! He's gonna get his!" That's still vengeance and anger. You're just supposed to let go of it in faith that the universe will work things out and it's not *your* concern. I agree that's probably the healthiest way to go about it, because I think we'll all agree that that anger you just can't let go of is the most soul-crushing and unhappy-making emotion there is. But! But you are not telling me that, no matter how they try to spin karma in the twenty-first century Western world, the original concept of karma as written down two or three thousand years ago *did not* carry that connotation of reward and punishment. All societies need that as a means of social control. "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." There's got to be someone telling the common people that you just can't go around killing your next door neighbor because he stole your goat and impregnated your daughter. (Or vice versa.) That way lies societal chaos. Yet you have to provide hope to those same people that their shitty neighbor is gonna get his, preferably in both this world and the next, because that's how people work when they haven't learned to let go of their anger yet.

Okay, my next problem is with the concept that suffering and difficulty leads *all people* closer to enlightenment and increases their compassion and wisdom. Sometimes it does. I know D's illness has granted me more compassion and perspective. But there's a whole hell of a lot of people whose response to painful circumstances is more anger, hate, and bitterness, and they don't learn a damn thing. I haven't really seen, or at least understood if I have, how the Buddhists fan-wank that little detail.

Finally, for karma to really "work" you have to buy into reincarnation, because we all know that there are many, many spectacularly crappy people who have fabulous lives. Now, I know the Buddhists will say that they aren't *really* happy, because they're full of anger or greed or whatever. But, yeah, there are a whole bunch who do a good facsimile of looking pretty damn pleased with life, I gotta say.

I've still been listening to the hip hop (shut up) and I was listening to "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z, really paying attention to the lyrics. Mr Z (if I can be so presumptuous, ha!) seems to imply in this song that his former profession was, y'know, drug dealer. Now, I didn't know all that much about him, other than the obvious, well-known facts, so I looked him up to see if this was true. And, yes, apparently twenty or twenty-five years ago, Mr Z provided crack to the eager consumers of NYC.

Let's review how that shitty behavior worked for him, hmm? He had a successful career as a rapper. He was the CEO of a huge record company. He's got a clothing company that my own child may just have purchased from in his teen aged years. He owns the New Jersey Nets (wait...that might be a punishment). Basically, though, he's got more money than god. And he's married to Beyonce whom, though I may find a bit too Barbie-ish for my own tastes (in the female R&B-singer looks contest, you know I'm a Rihanna girl, right?), is widely regarded as an extremely beautiful woman. Plus she's got, if not more money than god, at least as much as. Perhaps Mr Z cries himself to sleep every night, wiping his tears on his lovely wife's weave, but somehow I don't think so. Without reincarnation working, explain the karma in that, Buddhists!

You all stopped reading four paragraphs ago, I imagine.

Peace out!

xoxo

little plastic animals

The Buddhist reading of the past couple days has been (as Pema would say!) juicy. Last night I realized that I've been deluding myself about the pureness of my motivation in something and, I gotta say, I was able to look at it in the proscribed Buddhist manner: not with self-blame or guilt, but in the spirit of friendliness towards myself and humor. Sort of like "Oh. Yeah. I do that. Hahaha. Oops."

Then today I read a little Sharon Salzberg, who is sorta the loving-kindness guru/expert of the Western world. And her very first exercise, before even the first part of the metta meditation I mentioned last week, is to meditate for ten or fifteen minutes about a time when you were kind or compassionate towards someone, or helped someone out, and the good feelings that engenders in you. It's to connect you with your own inner goodness. She's got further instructions if you can't come up with anything, but I really didn't have a problem.

When D was in the hospital for that two and a half months three years ago, and I was doing nothing but working, going to visitation hours or status-update meetings, or sitting on my couch, crying and watching baseball, two of my friends at separate times "kidnapped" me. Basically called, said "I'm taking you out for dinner, and it's not a choice," and showed up at my house to drag me out. (Benevolent L and Mr Indemnity, feel free to count that as *your* kindness episode if you ever start doing the metta.) Well, when Mr Indemnity dragged me out, we went somewhere and had summer cocktails, which were garnished with little plastic animals--monkeys and giraffes, if I remember correctly. I took mine, and his, and threw them in my purse. I don't know why.

Now let me tell you about D at the time. I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely terrified in his paranoia he was. He was in constant, mortal fear. He at one point told me and his clinicians that it would be a good idea if he were committed to an institution for the rest of his life, because "the bad people" would not be able to get at him there. He didn't even like to leave his room to go out to the common area. In fact, even though on the locked ward you are not supposed to have visitors in your room, the staff let me sit in there with him, because if he had to sit with me in the rec room, he'd send me away after five minutes, and they knew he and I needed to be with each other the full hour. (They, all of them, can count that as their metta too.)

So one night in the middle of the very worst of this, when the visiting hour was up, and I was hugging him goodbye (another thing that was strictly forbidden that everyone kindly let us get away with), he was getting teary-eyed, and so was I, and I could tell he didn't want to let go. He was so scared and so sad. And then I remembered. I took out the two plastic animals that were still in my bag and gave one to him. I told him to look at his watch and when it was ten o'clock, take out his, and I'd be at home holding mine, and he could know that I was thinking about him and that I loved him and that everything was going to be alright. For the rest of his hospitalization, almost every night when I was leaving, he'd take his plastic animal out of his pants pocket. He'd ask if I had mine, and I'd show him that I did, and we'd promise to think about each other at ten o'clock and remember how everything was going to be okay.

That's my meditation memory. If there's anything that proves to me that the power of the love inside me can do good in the world and grant me joy, it is that. Knowing that when D was so very sick, I was the only person he trusted and the only one who could give him any comfort, and that that was part of what kept him alive, proves that my love--and all our love--is a very potent force. It makes me want to grow it.

xoxo

one more thing

I read online that Joanna Lumley (i.e. Patsy Stone!) is a Buddhist, then I read she wasn't. She was born in Kashmir to (obviously) British parents, and is very involved in causes like Free Tibet, justice for the Gurkhas, and education in Burma. So she still has ties to that part of the world. It's not inconceivable that she has at least some interest in or knowledge of the dharma. I mean, it's not inconceivable as long as you stop thinking of her as Patsy Stone.

But it calls to mind a joke from the first season of Ab Fab. Eddy and Patsy are getting ready to leave Eddy's house, when Eddy pauses and goes back for a moment. She's got a Buddhist altar set up, and she stops to ring a bell and chant some brief phrase.

Patsy (skeptically): Are you still doing that?

Eddy: Yes, darling. Almost religiously!

Bwah. But wouldn't it be even funnier if Joanna Lumley was in actuality a Buddhist and you knew that? A meta (not metta) joke. As it were.

xoxo

metta

This is the metta meditation for developing loving-kindness.

Stage I: you send loving-kindness to yourself. "May I be well. May I be happy. May I be free from suffering."

Stage II: you send loving-kindness to a friend you love. "May she be well. May she be happy. May she be free from suffering."

Stage III: you send loving-kindness to someone you have no real positive or negative emotions toward--the mailman, the person you see on the elevator every day but don't really know, your barista. Like that.

Stage IV: you send loving-kindness to someone you are in conflict with, someone you don't like, an enemy.

Stage V: you send loving-kindness to all beings everywhere.

Stages II through V are progressively more difficult. That's why they are ordered that way, duh. But Stage I can be the hardest. Only it comes first because the core belief is you can't truly have loving-kindness and compassion for anyone until you can grant it to yourself. Your wish for happiness and peace for yourself needs to be equal to your wish for happiness and peace for all others for this to really work. Not less than, not more than. Equal.

Isn't that beautiful? And so opposed to what we're taught in our society, where either self-sacrifice or selfishness are the cardinal virtues?

Okay, I'm going to shut up about metaphysics now! Should I tag these so you can all skip them?

xoxo