As a victim of childhood sexual abuse there has always been a dark black hole at the centre of my being. In that hole I know I will find the pain and agony I went through and any remaining memories of specifics relating to the abuse. In that hole I will also find the possibility of peace and unleash my natural creativity. I must go into that hole, complete the journey into the heart of darkness that I began ten years ago.

I don’t know if I can do it alone, yet alone is, I suspect, how it must be done. There may be help around the corner or just down the street yet I could spend a lifetime pursuing avenues of help and miss what is right before my face. I must go into that darkness and come out the other side. What use I am to the world or other sentient beings is limited and controlled by that darkness. I see no choice but to be a bodhisattva warrior and undertake the task at hand. That’s why I took my Buddhist vows.

Could it be … ?

keywords: prince, duck

I will always love Windoows Bashers

Our mind is the source of all our happiness and all our suffering. If we can control our mind, if we are the master of our mind, we will have the source of our happiness and we won’t need to rely on any outer objects to make us happy. If, on the other hand, we don’t control our mind, we will always fall prey to thoughts, to negativity, and no matter how many outer pleasures we possess, we will never be able to enjoy them. Without control of our mind we won’t be able to fulfill our wishes, because within us there won’t be the real cause of satisfaction, and again we will end up suffering. That is why the very first teaching of the Buddha was the importance of learning how to control, how to tame, how to train our mind. This is because with great insight and compassion the Buddha saw that an untrained mind was the pimary cause of all beings’ suffering and happiness.

The Buddha did not say that we must stop looking for happiness and must contiue suffering. It is the universal wish of allbeings, wherever they are, whoever they are, to be happy and not to suffer. However they are not able to achieve this because they don’t know the way to find happiness and avoid suffering. So what the Buddha did was simply to show how we could achieve happiness and how we could eliminate suffering.

When the Buddha showed the means to achieve happiness, it wasn’t in the form of terrible austerities and asceticism. He showed that all happiness can be achieved through one thing: knowing one’s mind and eliminating ignorance; this is the source of all happiness and the key to ending all suffering.

From “The Middle-Way Meditation Instructions of Mipham Rinpoche”, Thrangu Rinpoche

It’s not the sun and the clouds outside that make the weather, it’s the sun and the clouds inside. When I find myself in those moments of clear blue sky awareness that fill me and empty me simultaneously I discover what I am. When I let the clouds of “who I am” obscure the sun and the sky I am not only acting from habit but lost and unable to see anything with clarity.

For the fool who doesn’t get the point about the story about the man who said he would move to another part of the train if he saw a suspect package, I should perhaps explain. Imagine you are sitting next to an idiot with such a selfish perspective. Imagine you did not see the package. Imagine it was a bomb. Bang. You’re dead.

Today I spent half the day wondering if Shambhala Buddhist No.3 falling in love with Shambhala Buddist No.2 was reciprocated. I did not pluck up the courage to ask. Yet know from time to time she reads what I write here. I guess I would hate to hear she is in love, whilst realising at the same time it is entirely certain to happen. And realising I am a good enough person to rise above my own story and just be happy for her, I shall allow myself a good cry when I do eventually hear it.

Then I discovered I have been nominated twice at pointlessandboring.org’s fabulous “pointless and boring news page”. I feel it is only appropriate to go for the “most nominated news source” award. I will rain blessings of boredom upon both of my regular readers and the hundred or two fools that stumble hereupon. The minutiae of life will from now on be the staple of this blog of ill-repute.

I spent the other half of the day eating fruit, sleeping, watching neighbours. Really boring stuff. Except for having breakfast with her which was ….. not yer run of the mill morning for me. Oh and I smoked thirty cigarettes. I ate toast and she had an egg and cheese sandwich, btw. We share an interest in coffee.

Inner censor is currently having babies. If it isn’t boring enough yet let me know.

Keywords: Boring, Blog, Blog of ill-repute, blog of repute, pointlessandboring.org, sodontbotherfuckingreadingit.org

Realisations have been growing fast and gathering pace over recent weeks: The importance of keeping it simple; the importance of being in charge of one’s own life; the joy that is every dawning day; the importance of not being self-important; of letting go of what is IMPORTANT. Because it isn’t, because it is all circles in the sand, going round and round and washed away by the tide of time. Because nothing is permanent but everything is fully perfect in it’s temporariness and because life can be about making perfect circles in the sand, just so the tide can wash them away with joy.

I finally met her. We drank coffee. It was all very ordinary for meeting a former lover one never met before. The advance guard of excitement, anticipation and fear quickly dissolved. Blue eyes took in the world and me and my green eyes sitting opposite. My inane grin tried to raise it’s ugly head every now and again. Mostly in response to the feeling of shyness that quickly took over where the the sense of “how perfect, nothing to say, nothing to be said” left off. Those moments of clarity, open-ness and non-being are signposts to practice, glimpses of the Great Eastern Sun. They are also moments of seeing and being a real person and when you find them quickly with a friend it’s usually a good thing in my experience.

There is a new contender for this year’s “The Most Considerate Person in The World” award. Today’s BBC Lunchtime News carried a story about attitudes following the July 7th and failed July 21st bombings. An interviewee was asked “what would you do if you saw a suspect package on a tube train?”. The man, who is and should ever remain anonymous replied “move somewhere else on the train”.