I am making a big batch of oatmeal downstairs in a rice cooker and it has 20 more min. to go. I don't want to lie down and read the Buddha's words because I might fall asleep and have oatmeal heating all night. I don't really feel like meditating either. My meditation teacher has me on a new walking meditation and I want to be more into it before I give it a go. So, here I am. Those last 3 sentences say a lot about what I have been up to. Trying to get the most out of cooked food, reading scriptures and discourse, and meditating are my life right now. Then, there is work too but I really don't like discussing work on my blog.
I am looking to move more towards this guy's direction:
The main goal being to continue simplifying my life and moving towards Nibbanna. I have really been into Southeast Asian food recently. Besides breakfast (Pumpkin oatmeal with walnuts and blueberries) I have been eating Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Cambodian for just about every meal. I am really getting into it. Investigating everything. Experimenting with my own dishes. I bought a wok and some cookbooks and have been exploring. I can get out of the local Vietnamese place for less than $12 which is pretty good. It is tough to get out of the local Thai places for less than $25 it seems. The red curry I cooked up the other night was about $7/serving not including the time it took to go to the market and the labor to cook it up. I actually enjoyed doing both things so it is probably fair not to count that into the equation. I am looking forward to getting out to the proper Asian food market tomorrow to see what I will find. Considering I would like to not be eating dairy or meat for the rest of my life there is value in learning how to cook vegan curries and stir fries. I think with most dishes it doesn't even really matter what you put into it it matters what is available, fresh, ripe, etc. but it appears that a lot of the same stuff are showing up in the different curries and stir-fries.
I have also gotten really into candles. I would like to start making my own. My only consumption these days seem to be gifts for people, food, and offerings for the Buddha. That's not a bad way to go. I just think I could make the candles that I want better than overpaying these other companies.
I took a walk on the beach today which I feel like that is a worthwhile endeavor. Sometimes I get these thoughts on how great it will be to linger contemplatively but you know after doing so much meditation I realize that is more or less bullshit. I was better off being mindful. At any rate, it seemed to give me a bump in energy and mood and I didn't end up taking a nap today.
I was feeling a bit lonely tonight and didn't have anything planned so I ended up at an AA meeting. It was an interesting perspective since I haven't been to that one in such a long time. The word that comes to mind is cute. Mostly newcomers beings newcomers and the fact that nothing changes in the rooms of AA. My biggest hangup is the insistence that we need to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. That if we pray to God he will have our backs. It's just delusion. Then again, I am the one that went to an AA meeting entirely on my own volition so I need to be prepared and put up with the dogma. I mostly sat and was bored or entertained or whatever. It was nice seeing some people and having some conversations although I noticed my tolerance for useless chatter has gone way down. I excused myself to take care of my cats and got out of there.
Refuge has been ok. It's really my sole avenue of being social outside of work. I have my gripes with it. Oh well.
It seems like there are a fair amount of people on this site that have visited or lived in Thailand. I just keep having this nagging in me to get over there. It's funny in my previous life I wanted to ball it up on poker monies and do coke and cum on prostitute tittays (2 prostitutes, 4 tittays, or maybe a cum swap... but I digress). Now, I just want a nice spiritual trip. Check out some monasteries, check out some nice beaches, I am not even really sure yet. I may even want to go up North and hike the forests. I really would like to go to Myanmar (Yangon) as well but I think that might be unsafe at this point?
Suggestions?
I am unsure on how to even go about it. In the past all my traveling has been pretty bourgeois. Hotels and vacation rentals. I would want to do it up pretty cheaply here. Straight up backpacking mode. I don't even know if I would want to bring a laptop. I want cheap shelter, cheap curries, fresh fruit, cheap transportation. Don't mind hiking long distances. Check out some monasteries. Check out the art. Visit some family. I may have to choose between forest and beach. I think it depends on what monasteries I want to check out.
What else is there to do in Thailand?
I want fresh mango and mango and sticky rice. I want to avoid partying and prostitutes. Stay away from big cities and sordidness. If anyone can help please do.
Here I sit on this Monday morning at around 9 am EST. Thankfully I am not scheduled to work today. It looks beautiful outside. I will probably take a walk on the beach and go for a swim. It's ok worker bees I unfortunately still have to work. Not as much as you all. I am typically at 30-35 hours/wk. I worked last night which is probably worse than working a 9-5 on a Monday. I was looking at my expenses for the next pay period. It is literally all food and gas. If I sold my car and started taking alms I would be ok. We've been through this before though. I can't be a monk and I am not going to go homeless in a city center. I would still need health insurance, dental insurance, etc. Working at a monastery or a meditation center makes sense but I would still need health insurance.
Nothing is stable. That truth is disconcerting. I can get a "steady" paycheck coming in and then what? Who knows? I can take measures to stay healthy but it's no guarantee. The thing about work is that you can not want to do something but you sort of have to do it. That causes stress, suffering, and dissatisfaction. I didn't want to make so many god damn pizzas yesterday but I did. At this point it's how I have to be useful. I have a friend who is retired that always harps on being at work is better than being at home. I want to point out the obvious "then why are you fucking retired? Being at home is clearly better than being at work." He says because at home I will be in my head and that's a dangerous place for me to be. I don't know. I get to hang out with my cats, I get to meditate, I get to go to the beach.
The problem is I am starting the cycle again. Work is quite a disruption to meditation. I could have pulled the bandaid off last night but I was so not into it. You would think a good night sleep has a good effect on meditation but I am not so sure. In a way I am starting over or simply maintaining. I made a lot of progress the last 2 days I want to keep it going. I guess the only way I can find out is by continuing to meditate when I can. That's all I can do.
I am writing a blog because when I gave up LP all I was doing was substituting with endlessly scrolling through Reddit: Girls gone wild. I mean I was doing useful stuff too but for me r/ggw is useless and unwholesome. I hadn't masturbated for a long time but I think sitting in a car scrolling through r:ggw led to more desire like a forest fire and I ended up lusting after Lana Rhoades. I satisfied that desire. I felt pleasure. Then what? I have kind of eased back from 8 precepts so does it matter? Not really. I don't feel guilty. I would go into it more but I wonder if this is all jibberish to everyone.
I meditated for a while before I left yesterday and was mindful for maybe an hour or two on the drive. I got to a state where I wanted nothing. I had no desires. No greed, no anger, maybe some delusion. It was really weird. I wanted to always be in that state. It didn't stay for too long maybe 20-30 min. Then I was scarfing down pizza and scrolling through r/ggw on my phone before it ran out of batteries. I think a part of it is on the trip it become so clear spending my days with ordinary folk that that is so not the life for me. It was nice seeing my family but I could just as easily detach and be ok. Even the setup of towns was jarring: Bank, McDonald's, grocery store. I don't even want to go into it too much here either as most people on this site are probably living an ordinary life with aspirations of getting married, owning a house, having children, work, and chores.
My point is I don't think it's all about satisfying desires. Being on call for every thought that arises is madness. It is about detaching from desires. Letting go of desires. Letting go of the habituated paths in our lives. I am not quite there with LP obviously (or pornography and masturbation) but that is ok. I got hooked again in both cases today. I am back home. I have desire for excitement and insight from LP and desire for escape and pleasure with pornography and masturbation. The only useful one is insight and I am not sure how much I actually get from here.
The freakshow is back in town. I listened to music for the first time today in quite a while. It got me dancing and then it left me somewhat dissatisfied. I wanted new, better, more interesting music and even that felt like a dud. It coincided with my caffeine iv this morning. I had comic books to sell! There was a lot of interesting things I found out about comic books this morning. Most pretty much just appreciate with inflation or not even but in fact they actually depreciate in my case as the comics books age (comic book grade decreases). So, I had a huge stack of comic books valued at anywhere from $1-$5 ON PAPER. The problem is shipping is $3.75 which kind of kills all of those books on eBay. I could take the stack in to a comic book shop and haggle but I didn't even want to bother so I threw them in the recycling bin. There were some diamonds in the rough however. I am first selling one at about no profit just to get the hang of it. An education/trial of sorts so I know what I am doing when I get to the heavier hitters.
It's so easy on a day off after a big lunch being a little bit dissatisfied to come on here and write stuff. It's a sneaky addiction. I have been trying to follow the 8 precepts of Buddhism. One is eating before noon. I didn't quite make it today. I got lost in the comic book project and then my mom wanted help in the garden. I ate at about 12:30pm. Some days go by pretty smoothly and then others are tough. I experimented with drinking juices at night which is allowable but that seems to just start the craving for food and then sometimes the lust overcomes in a big way. It's actually easier on days that I work nights. I don't even really think about food. Chips and salsa or dark chocolate is a killer for me though.
The Blessed One is the Buddha:
Kitagiri Sutta
"I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was wandering on a tour of Kasi with a large community of monks. There he addressed the monks: "I abstain from the night-time meal.1 As I am abstaining from the night-time meal, I sense next-to-no illness, next-to-no affliction, lightness, strength, & a comfortable abiding. Come now. You too abstain from the night-time meal. As you are abstaining from the night-time meal, you, too, will sense next-to-no illness, next-to-no affliction, lightness, strength, & a comfortable abiding."
I actually cannot be a monk due to my mental illness. So, why live the 8 precepts? I think it's the right thing to do. I have noticed my life to be more content and peaceful even if I slip up at times. That is actually the hard part. I just had this romanticism in my mind of doing tedious tasks and loading up on caffeine and listening to music and I just decided to do it. Kind of like I am just deciding to write this blog. I can feel a craving for music pretty strongly now. A craving that hasn't been there for weeks. This is suffering. Almost on a micro level. I never thought about this kind of thing when I was engulfing myself in music. Nothing really that bad happened except I was suffering and craving unknowingly.
Nothing is permanent.
So, I can't be a monk. Not that it was like this slam dunk that I could be a monk but it was motivating for me. Now, I have visions of me just being this shithead guy that calls himself Buddhist. The 5 precepts are rather elementary for someone that is in recovery for substance addiction. I think I still gossip but usually I catch myself or leave the conversation or just don't say anything. I know I repeat myself but I want to be the guy that sells pots down by the river. I have to find my version of that. I have been working more lately. It is harder to find time to meditate and study. I say this while writing a blog and like I meditate 4+ hours a day. But, it is a bit more difficult even if I only meditate 30min - 1 hr a day. I don't know. It's weird though. Now, that I can "only" be a lay person it's like I don't have to care. But, I do have to care if I want to be free of suffering. Not even in a Nibbana (Enlightenment) but just the reduction of suffering, dissatisfaction, negative emotions. I think even my positive emotions get blunted a bit because I know where that leads me too as well but I would like to carry a certain cheerfulness and joie de vivre with me during my days.
So, that's really why I attempt the 8 precepts on a daily basis. Peace and contentment. No euphoria, not feeling happiness or pleasures but an inner freedom. It's really quite different to how I ever lived my life up to 4.5 years ago and it feels like I am only now starting to understand it. For a while, I thought I could just be a "clean" addict. Fashion is "clean." Being cool is "clean." Vagina is "clean." Listening to music really loud and speeding on the highway is "clean." I didn't quite get it or I never really understood renouncement. The more I get rid of the better I feel. Perhaps I am clinging to that feeling. It gets to a point though where it gets tough to give up more. Caffeine has been the toughest thing I've ever given up. Sexual activity also but I am abstinent. I still drink 1-2 Monsters every morning. I would be at 10 precepts except for not handling or using money is basically impossible if one isn't a monk. Monks have 227 rules though. I don't think I have any interest in getting involved with THAT. I've read through them. Many of them are very specific to monks. My goal is just a guy man. A practitioner. An explorer. My fellow sufferers, I just want to suffer less.
I'm eeking it out guys. Eking it out. I just did my bills and I've been eeking it out. I really don't know. No job is stable. No matter how much I renounce it seems like my monthly expenses are barely covered by my paychecks. It's kind of what I'm going for. To just live a real simple life and eke it out. There is little comfort in this life. I have no desire to chase the worldly life. I feel estranged from the ordinary life. One of my old, good friends just sent me a thank you letter for attending his wedding and my wedding gift. He said he will put the cash towards buying a house. In that moment I just felt kind of bad for him. Marriage, house, kids............ He probably feels kind of bad for me. From most viewpoints I am a bum. I AM a bum that wants nothing to do with society except for maybe some friends but quality friends are hard to come by for a bum like me. I don't want to go out to dinner, I want no part in entertainment, and I want no part in this society. It can be quite a lonely path with out a community but I am not ready to be a monk. Here I am writing a blog again. It's like my dissatisfaction is seeping out into different avenues of addiction which only makes the dissatisfaction worse. Life is a bumpy ride that is for sure.
I think I am writing this blog out of boredom and maybe glimpsing a bit of despair. That's what boredom entails anyways. If you get bored enough it is difficult not to confront your own death. I am winding down my days off to head back into work tomorrow morning. Besides Refuge Recovery meetings I am mostly isolated. My parents are gone for 2 weeks. Besides my habit of napping I feel I use the time to my benefit. I really don't know if writing this blog is beneficial. I should just meditate and tend to the garden. I linger on that sage suggestion. But, no, I will write on. An addiction some (accurately) say. This blog has brought me a lot of useless chatter but also some jewels. Like any good addiction there is intermittent reinforcement.
...
So, I decided to meditate and tend to the garden. There was a phrase that kept coming to me in meditation: Ever vanishing present. The ever vanishing present. I can snap my fingers in 1/365th of a second. That isn't even the present. The flower is closer to annihilation the instant it blooms. It wilts regardless of rain or shine. What are we doing in this ordinariness, this everydayness?
This isn't therapy. Perhaps it was. That whole ordeal was foolish. Transparency in an online blog is foolish. Taking risks in a format like this is foolish.
I had the thought of caring about my viewership. I hope k2o4 is right in that some sort of spiritual vibe is passing through the air. It would be for the benefit of all of us. I don't think this is true though. This is a dwindling gambling and entertainment website.
I had an acquaintance tell me yesterday that I have changed dramatically since he first met me. I carry myself better and seem very comfortable in my skin now and that whatever I am doing to keep doing it. Part of that is caring less what people think about me but it's hard not to indulge in a compliment like that a bit. I have been mostly open in that meeting what I have been doing. I have been renouncing worldly things, meditating, and studying Buddhism. Previously, with the help of LP I studied Neoliberal Economics, Anarchy, Edgar Morin, Byung Chul Han, etc. It is all documented here. The worldly society is bunk guys. See, I don't want to fall into self-congratulatory bs which I may have just done. Taking refuge in the 3 jewels changes things. Abstaining from substances and sex changes things. Eating only the bare necessities in food. It's a lot of little things. Giving almost all my clothes to charity. Meditation. Learning. Reflection. These are all things I should not forget.
I am unsure of the point of the last paragraph. Perhaps to document. Perhaps to make sense of it all.
Ever vanishing present moment. Let's make it count.
Noah Levine, a "guru" in the avenues of meditation (Against the Stream), and recovery and Buddhism (for profit Refuge Recovery treatment center and not-for-profit Refuge Recovery) is alleged to have engaged in sexual misconduct with 7 to 10 women as well as sleeping with a married woman, sleeping with students, and misusing company funds for personal use in an "extravagant" and "out of touch" manner. Article here
Makes me feel a little bit better about my caffeine addiction, eating ice cream at lunch, and then being bored so jerking off and taking a nap today and now writing a blog... The answers are definitely in the Dharma and not Bumble. It is the Buddha's teachings that we should be following and not Noah Levine although he was a trusted spiritual teacher to many and I feel for them. I mostly feel for the women abused/harassed. Most of my friends are in Refuge Recovery so it will be interesting to see what happens. I don't see why it couldn't be improved. Buddha should be the icon of Refuge Recovery not Noah Levine.
First, I would like to document the difference meditation has made in my life. It is a training of the mind. Quite possibly the most important training one can undertake.
Reflections on Death:
All who are born will die. It is miraculous I woke up this morning in good health! The fact that I may die at any moment means I should be living life without laziness or procrastination. There is only the Dharma.
Reflections on Impermanence:
Nothing is permanent or stable. I repeat nothing is permanent or stable. As much as we like to delude ourselves and cling and grasp nothing is permanent or stable. There is only the Dharma.
I took a walk on the beach last night as the sun was setting. The water was very choppy and chaotic. It reminded me of my thoughts when I first sit for meditation. An airplane flew over. From that perspective the ocean is vast like the starry sky. Even the most choppy of waves have an inception and a dissolving. It was appropriate that when I was nearly finished for my walk at the inlet the waves are much calmer and almost non-existent. They appear and dissolve rather quickly or don't show up on the radar whatsoever.
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