Start of the week

Ahhhhhh, it feels good to get back into some meditation. To just settle into some reality. I had thoughts but it doesn't really matter. Flitting by and passing away.

Taste is impermanent. Hearing is impermanent. The body is impermanent. The abdomen rising and falling is impermanent. It is all impermanent. Flitting by and passing away all in their own ways. Why cling? It's only going to lead to dukkha. It's unmanageable and uncontrollable (anatta) (non-self).

On October 01 2018 15:19 RiKD wrote: Ahhhhhh, it feels good to get back into some medication.

Meditation is medication. Everyone should try it. Even if just one person goes and reads the first 2 chapters of Yuttadhammo's book and meditates for 5 min. this blog is a win.

It's funny how we created these artificial units of time. I am starting right now and now and now. And now. For me, it doesn't matter so much when I work. Although Thursday nights are a bummer because of the Refuge Recovery meeting. Saturday nights don't matter so much besides them being busier. The rush is more substantial. But, other than that who cares? It's not like I have a hot date or I am going to go down to the bars. I find it somewhat interesting that my desire to have sex with a woman is very low while my clinging to pornography and masturbation is still a thing. I think it's because sex with a woman is a more powerful drug and deals with another human being while I can just get pornhub on my phone go into the bathroom and rub one out before I take a shower. It's all rather quite dissatisfying but if I have a desire to have sex with a women that is also typically relieved with masturbation. Being mindful helps. It's a horrible feeling finding yourself in the middle of this shitty porn but you've already gone too far and you might as well just finish this sordid affair. Sometimes I don't want to be mindful. I just want escape from stress. Masturbation provides a reprieve with out a lot of the bullshit that can go along with fucking human beings rather than your hand. Noting everything that arises in masturbation it is hard to orgasm. I typically stop the activity rather quickly when being mindful or it doesn't even get past "seeing, seeing" "liking, liking." It's weird though. I see beautiful women at my job and at the beach everyday but something has changed. It's not like I've gone gay. That's actually kind of gross to me. Not that there's anything wrong with it. That statement was just honesty. I had a gay friend that thought the vagina was gross. It's just how it is. I consider myself an LBGTQ ally even if gay male intimacy is weird to me. I don't know if I would call it asexuality. Maybe I qualify. I would just call it being Buddhist. It's kind of an odd place to be in to be honest. There's so much I don't care about now. It is freeing. I don't have to care about finding the hippest $100+ places to eat or the hippest outfits to wear. I just eat simple food and wear simple clothing. I've been through this before I have like 7 shirts, 4 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of sandals, 1 pair of shoes.

Oh well, I don't know why I type all this stuff out. Once I start I just get going. It's what happens when I don't meditate and instead indulge in getting my thoughts down on paper. Does this really need to be written? No. All these thoughts are impermanent and don't really matter. Maybe exploring some of the celibacy stuff is interesting but maybe not. I am happy to be out of dating hell though. And, I am happy to be mostly out of fashion hell. As long as someone isn't in a robe I think they are partly caught up in it no matter what because we have to wear clothing. I think I am doing pretty well because I wear a black shirt but it is a $30 black shirt. I think I am doing well because I wear simple shorts but they are flower print shorts that cost $100. I got a pair of black shoes to match the black shirts.

I don't think I care too much anymore what people think about me. I am just a human born into suffering. Spinning around on this rock in the universe. Being in meditation and seeing reality I realize that my petty thoughts and feelings are impermanent just as I am. Everything is suffering and I can't manage or control it. There is no-self.
Pew pew pew - Powerful lazer beams.
"disliking, disliking"

Now, I think it's time to go suffer in some more meditation. If I can free myself from suffering that is pretty cool. Upekkha, upekkha (equanimity).

I come back to what is comfortable. What is soothing. The thing is if I grasp for this site and cling to this site it's not like it is causing too many problems or consequences. It is a distraction. It is a disruption. There is actually not too much sukkha (pleasure) associated with it but it can get to dukkha (suffering, unsatisfactoriness) if I am checking it too often and there isn't much action on the site. I can't really discuss dhamma with anyone on here so it just amounts to useless chatter for the most part.

Our abdomen rises and falls, our heart beats, we eat, we shit, something out of our control provides sensations, thoughts, feelings, conditioning, consciousness, we are born, we pass away. Everything is anicca (impermanent), dukkha, and anatta (non-self). It's all ephemeral and fleeting. This is reality. Take some time to understand it. It cannot be unseen.

One of my old running mates in my corporate days is coming down South for a conference and we were thinking of getting lunch. We were really slaying shit out in the East region circa 2012. He has since gotten promoted a few times and is a legitimate big shot. Whereas most of you know my story. I'm now working part-time making pizzas living with my parents. I used the word slay because this women had a hilarious shirt yesterday. "WAKE, PRAY, SLAY." So so ordinary it made me laugh. It made me think though. Would he think we were having lunch on pretenses of me wanting some corporate job? I just like the guy and had fun on a lot of cool projects.

I don't know what my next step will be. I either have to increase the work/income in order to support myself or go the other direction and find avenues that provide food and housing for work and simplify more. I can always continue what I am doing. I am a burden on my parents but I have no desire to work more than I am. Meditating and studying Dhamma is the priority for me. I don't know if it's the right thing to do but I look at myself as a poor, simple person taking alms. My practice is strained enough as it is. Life as a layperson. Just a fucking lemming. Dumbo Dumberson. "No specific skill or knowledge in a given subject." Oh well, I can eat some chips and guacamole and ice cream past noon so there.........

I have to figure out a way to get some discourse going with a spiritual teacher. "Wanting, wanting..." I guess the best thing I got is more Mahasi Sayadaw discourse. So, that's what I'll do.