A friend’s husband is dying.
We often comment on “how suddenly it happened”, but
we are always dying.
It’s the seeing that is  sudden
It’s knowing when that terrifies
when you are not already aware of your death each moment.

We consider how fortunate we are to not be dying, but in fact it may be the other way around when it comes to the power of understanding death and rebirth.

There is no fulfillment later in life. Ever.
There is no later in life. Ever.
There is only now.

What you are waiting for is here.

She “annoyed” me while I was shaving
About to respond with my typical condescension…
dripping with sarcasm
Stopped…
Told myself
“Its her birthday for God’s sake”
“Let it go”
“Be nice”

Why can’t I treat everyday like it’s her birthday?

I cringe when I read a scholarly treatment of Buddhism. It amazes me that so-called enlightened or practicing folks spend endless hours debating the details of a system of beliefs, when they are supposed to be practicing non-belief. The passions in these debates are as passionate as in politcial or other debate in our society.  Those that are “experts” what to be seen as knowing it all.

I’ve also recently had conversations with people that have been around, know, or read about other gurus that profess to teach awakening, but are living their life completely in the opposite direction. They now see themselves as more important than others. They live duality. Their egos have taken back over their day to day lives. This is not meant to judge, but rather to wonder. How does one prevent that back slide when one becomes a teacher. 

I guess it means you need to stay awake, but the trappings of power, fame, and/or worship make reality fall away again.

The world is collapsing… imploding. Our greed has us pinned against the wall.

• Economic collapse
• Environmental collapse
• Moral collapse

Greed driven by mental chatter. Suffering.
We create our disease and try to cure it with more of the same disease.
Seeking things is driven by our internal mental chatter.

Mindfulness is our only cure. The cure is already in all of us.
Seeking. Seeking. Seeking nothing, but finding pain.

Can you feel it within you?
Its there. Waiting for you to see it.

The end of suffering.

Just listen. Listen to your chatter.

There’s another you in you. Not really YOU, but what you see as you.
You aren’t you really. You are we.

The chatter is constant. Stop and listen to your thoughts.

Just listen.

Don’t judge. listen.

Its liberating to find out what you thought was you… isn’t.
The identity you hold too is a sheet of glass. See through it.

The moment you see it is the moment everything starts to get better.

Starts… No instant cure.

That babbling bum in the street is no different from you. His chatter is just audible, more anti-social.

As I write this my chatter says “publish a book”, “be respected and well regarded by others”.
It makes me chuckle.
Our chatter wants us to be liked or hated. It wants us to be an object. Recognized as ME.

Can you see it now? Listen.
For 30 seconds see and hear your thoughts…

Watch them parade in front of you. It’s amazing when you see it.

Right now they own you. but they need not. It need not.

Just listen. For now.

Just see.

Buddhist Temple Built from Beer Bottles : TreeHugger

Fifty years ago the Heineken Beer company looked at reshaping its beer bottle to be useful as a building block. It never happened, so Buddhist monks from Thailand’s Sisaket province took matters into their own hands and collected a million bottles to build the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple.

The more conscious I become of observing thoughts, the easier it is to see how much time is wasted with incessant dreaming of the future and constantly remaking the past. Whether it is the future in 2 minutes, 2 days, 2 weeks, or 2 years, it is an unending gnawing away at nothing. Even as I type this it wonders off into some fantasy of fame from publishing this blog or writing a book or becoming a teacher.

It is amazing the power the ego has to transform our actions from thought. Tonight I was listening to Eckhart Tolle explain how relationships are for the most part, not really relationships, but are in fact us having relationships with our ego or more precisely our ego having a relationship with our ego while we sit passively by watching our thoughts be kidnapped. It is easy to see how our relationships become such disasters, when the 2 people that are supposed to be so in love, are not even the being interacting.

I have noticed lately, than I catch my thoughts more and more frequently. It is becoming “easier” to see how I run on.

The other thing I am practicing is practicing while dealing with my 2 year old. I want to balance his perceptions of life with calmness, so he has a chance to see long before I did. Intercepting thoughts before they accelerate is decidedly more difficult with a 2 year old in a temper tantrum, but it is also getting a little better. Hope his suffering can end long before mine does.