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.
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hiems United States. Aug 25 2018 03:53. Posts 2979
I beat Loco!!! [img]https://i.imgur.com/wkwWj2d.png[/img]
I stared at the white space for probably one minute. I just took my medications. I like to sit and let them digest for a while or else I would be reading. I took a substantial nap kind of late so we'll see where that gets me. I feel pretty good right now. I was falling asleep earlier in the day. Today had it's challenges. It was busy at work and I kept getting really cold, tight whole wheat dough to work with. It was a practice that's for sure.
Something that has helped me along the way is this playlist:
They bring up some good points. Including that it is not necessarily valid for householders/lay-people to only eat once a day or for monks to even eat once a day. I think the key is bare necessities. 3 small meals a day is probably ok. 1 meal a day is ideal for the monks and people on retreat. It is a matter of what is enough.
I am attached to caffeine. I like the way it makes me feel. I don't like the way withdrawal feels. I am at one can of Monster Energy Drink/day which is manageable. It was much easier to go from 3 to 1 cans a day than it is to go from 1 to 0. I mean it's rather benign at this point for a lay-person. I would only really worry about it if I were going on retreat.
I think this is the video where he talks about how pleasure is not inherently good or beneficial. I notice music can make me euphoric, happy, transcendent. I have been making myself listen to less music though. It is hard. Sometimes the commute to work it feels like I need something to pick me up a little bit and get me in a better state. But, I don't really need it. Which almost seems like a tragedy because I am a music junkie. It is a hard attachment to let go off. It almost seems unthinkable to cancel my Spotify subscription. I didn't listen to any music all day except for my commute to work and it felt like my meditation was better tonight and no actual negatives to not listening to music. But, music is SO good... This will be a tough attachment and I am uncertain if it is one lay-people should even worry about.
I slept in today. I slept 10 hours. It felt pretty good. I even kept hitting my snooze button as the sun was shining in and my cat was cuddled up with me. It was just too comfortable/enjoyable. I normally sleep like 6-7 hours with naps. I am sitting here sipping on this Monster Energy Drink. On one can I don't even really notice anything. On 0 cans it feels like it might be in my head. The more you renounce the more you want to renounce but I guess it takes its due time. Even that is a desire: wanting to renounce something.
It's kind of weird that I just bull through it with all this Buddhism stuff. It is my blog. I think a lot of this website did or is doing the gambling thing with high hopes of chasing the worldly things. I think many of us have fallen into ordinariness. Part of it is getting my own thoughts down on paper but maybe some of this will intrigue some of you. Buddhism at least addresses a lot of my questions. I am dissatisfied with ordinary life and the worldly life is far worse.
I don't know if the monastic life is in my future. I don't know if I like meditation enough. It seems like I am perfectly content to just do samatha meditation for 15 min. in the morning and 15 min. in the evening but vipassanna meditation does intrigue me. I am both excited and a bit apprehensive to go to a meditation retreat. I don't think I am nearly ready enough to detach from my family to go into monastic living. Many other things as well I am sure. Some I know about some I am sure I don't know about yet. It is difficult to detach yourself to a point where you are kind of strange and don't quite fit in with society though. I am not sure if I am there. Mostly at work I am making pizzas so there is not a lot of time to socialize. Outside of work I mostly stay to myself besides a Buddhist recovery meeting two nights a week. I don't like most restaurants. The only ones I tend to eat at are a Thai place and an Indian place where I can get good vegan curry. I mention on here I love getting tea with friends but I haven't done that in ages. Friends ask me what I have been up to and it feels weird to tell people living ordinary lives that I have simply been studying Buddhism and going to the beach. Ordinary isn't derogatory by the way it is just what Buddhists use to describe the or a "normal" life. I am still probably in that category by the way. One foot in ordinary life one foot somewhere else. It's certainly not "normal" to be abstinent from sex and substances and to believe in bare necessities in regards to money, food, clothing. I am not interested in friendships with most people. I just read a book called the Schopenhauer cure and I couldn't help but relate to a lot of what he was saying. Even though I don't necessarily like getting into those pessimistic modes a lot of it feels like reality. So, I am drawn to that pessimistic philosophy like Schopenhauer, like Benetar, like Byung Chul Han but there is also an attraction to someone like Matthieu Ricard who has seemed to subdue negative emotion and carry a certain cheeriness with him. I think it all works together actually. Buddhism can be quite "pessimistic" and real much of the time. The "real" is what we should be looking for.
Music is actually not that difficult to renounce. I don't think I am going to live the 8 precepts though. The only one I am missing is no food from noon until dawn. As I have said earlier in this thread as a lay person 3 small meals is fine. I think at this point my 3 biggest attachments are family, food, and caffeine. I may not be willing to renounce any of those unless I enter monastic living. We will see. I don't know if I am into meditation enough to ever consider monastic living. Even the idea of a retreat is somewhat daunting but I realize it would be beneficial to push through. I don't really like the idea of living in current society either. I'll just continue to learn and practice and meditate and reflect.
United States. Aug 25 2018 00:29. Posts 8534
