Namaste

Hello,

well it’s been a while. I am sorry for the long gap but as you may imagine things have been pretty busy!

I arrived with little hassle into the pre monsoon heat of Delhi (45 Celsius at 7pm at night!) that’s more than 113 Fahrenheit for my North Atlantic friends.

Due to the heat I spent my day there hiding in the hotel and paid for an extra nights so I could stay right through till the bus left at 6.30pm I was pretty nervous about taking the bus by myself, I had some really bad experiences last time I was in India but luckily it was very uneventful and I was surrounded by a family of a lady, her children and niece so I just stuck with them for the whole journey!

As soon as I got to the nunnery I got to work, I hate being new and not knowing what is going on. And more recently I have been attending a 10 day teaching given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama at his monastery Namgayl in McLeod Ganj. It’s really tiring spending the whole day sitting on the concrete trying to listen to the interpreter on the radio going at a hundred miles an hour. But really I shouldn't complain!

I don't know what to write really, I don't want this blog to be a journal I want it to be about dharma and yet I thought I should probably give an update about my situation because its been a quite a journey so far. I had a really funny dream a few nights ago where someone drove me back to my old house and I said I don't live here anymore, I've moved. But I couldn't remember where I'd move to. For the life of me I couldn't remember where I lived so I just spent the night on the couch in my old house. It was a weird dream but no interpretations are necessary!

I think I already spoke a lot about identity and how I felt that most of identity was formed around my home and environment. When I didn't have a home I felt like I had no identity. If you’re not sure what I'm talking about check the last blog!

Anyway the moral of the story is trying to make an internal realization of emptiness. Buddhism and emptiness: the worst translation in religion! What I'm talking about again is the whole idea that we lack and inherent, unchanging, permanent existence. I've read many books and could sit here and talk about why in reality we are always changing and never the same but it would all be a very intellectual understanding.

The tricky bit about Buddhism is reaching a deeper understanding and acceptance, like its not some theory you have to convince yourself about it just is. So in a way all this moving around has been really good because all my stuff is gone and I keep changing homes and lifestyles and I can see how I really do change everyday and as long as I'm able to give up the person I was yesterday then I will be able to let go a bit.

The important bit is ... how is this going to make me a happier person? Yesterday the Dalai Lama said that if you practice Buddhism and are not getting happier you’re doing it wrong!! So I guess coming to see that you are always changing and never the same makes you happier because you can really relax.

I mentioned in my last blog the quote from the very first verse of the Dhammapada.

"what we are today is because of our thoughts of yesterday and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow; our life is the creation of our minds."

When we let go of ourselves and see that we are always different, then we can be happier and more relaxed as we don’t need to hold on to the hang ups that we seem to get so caught up in. For example you go out to a restaurant and someone orders fish and I really hate fish and they offer to let me try it but I won’t because I hate fish. If I think to myself well, Erin from yesterday hates fish, maybe today I'll like it and then I try some. If it’s good I've just gained a new experience, if not I just wont order it. I know this is a lame example but I hope you get my drift. It’s like if you get really hung up on yesterday you never get to enjoy today.

So many people I know get to this sad stage where they keep going to the bars they really liked when they were younger but now they find no enjoyment there. They're older, they've changed or the bar has changed and they find it really depressing. 'What happened? I used to really like this place and now its so crap.' They don't see that they are not the same person they were a few years ago, they need to let go of that person and not try to hold on to it. It’s like trying to hold water in an open hand. What ever happened in my childhood is in childhood. As I am no longer a child I have to admit that it is not me.

There is a really good quote from the 48 scriptures sastra from the Chinese tradition which talks about impermanence and non-self and says you have to look at things and say, 'this is not mine, it is not me it is not the self.' So you could look at your favorite piece of jewelry that your dead someone gave to you and say, 'hey this really isn't mine, I can't take it with me when I die, it’s not me, who am I really anyway and it isn't self.' You can still treasure it but then when it gets stolen you won’t fall apart.

Another example is photos. I really think that some of my friends take too many photos. I have a friend that has piles of photo albums full of photos from nights out, dance parties everything. Hundreds of photos of her and various friends drunk, hugging each other and smiling for the camera. What a waste. As soon as the photo was taken the moment was gone and just because she has a photo doesn't mean she will be able to hold onto it. People are so afraid of forgetting moments. They don't want to forget anything because then it will be like it never happened and that person and that moment will be gone forever. What they don't realize is that it is already gone. So just let go of it, when your dead those photos will all be thrown away. If not sooner.

I'm a real photo anorexic. I only really take photos if I’m on holiday and even then not that many. There are years of my life where there is no photo and I was still doing interesting things. I feel like if I can't remember it then it wasn't that important anyway. Everything you experience gets logged in your mind even though you may not recall it. If you have a bad experience with fish then next time you come across it you may automatically find aversion to it even thought you don' t know why. So everything you do leaves an imprint even though we may not remember the specifics and these imprints are really more permanent than a photo because we can carry them from life to life. So nothing is really ever forgotten or wasted, the deeper meaning and essence or lesson is still there somewhere


I hope this doesn't sound depressing, it’s not meant to be I just wanted to try and share my understanding of impermanence because I think a lot of the improvement in my own happiness has come from my ability to let go.

At the end of last year I had a less than quarter life crisis. Even though I am still quite young I freaked out when my birthday came by because I felt like I was wasting my life. A whole year had gone by and I had nothing to show for it. At that time I think I was tring really hard to hold on to the person that I had been a few years earlier when I had lived in backpacker hostels in the UK. But it wasn't working very well and I was disappointed. I kept thinking that I couldn't recognize this person. Who was this person staring at me in the mirror; it wasn't like me at all. There were a couple of issues at hand but one of them was that I had this really solid idea about how I was and it wasn't working for me at all. I was changing, time was moving on but I couldn't let go and I was causing myself a lot of suffering.

So now I try to not be me, but just be.

The Eve of Adventure

I would like to take this opportunity to write about some of the things that I have noticed since being back home. I am no longer in the Temple and have not yet left for India (that is tomorrow night!) so I'm still caught in this weird sud- intermediate bardo. The child like ghost that hangs around after someone has died and before they take a new rebirth.

I am settling back into 'normal life' very quickly, the volume of the television that I couldn't stand when I came back has now risen to the usual level and rather than sounding like the noisy drone I first found when I came back I am now, once again singing along with the adverts. I think this has been a really good opportunity for me to be more objective about myself and the condition of my mind. I feel like I have a bit more space now to look at myself and see what is going on.

The biggest change I've found in myself aside from an unexpected aversion to loud music is calmness. I'm not sure how long it would last if I stayed in this environment but at the moment I am under a lot of stress. I'm going overseas and have given myself like 1 week to organise everything including selling my car! So there have been a lot of bumps in the road this last week, but rather than freaking out and getting really cranky, generally I have been taking a deep breath and thinking, oh well! Even more surprising than my internal response has been that not long afterwards my problems seem to be sorting themselves out without too much effort. Not that I'm not trying, I'm just not killing myself over things anymore. If I can do something about it I will if not I just wait and see and then before I know it a solution has presented itself.

I wish I'd known this years ago.

The other thing I've noticed it the amount of my day I'm spending in fantasy land. I have a myriad of little awake dreams where I'm someone important doing something interesting. I used to spend a lot of my life living a fantasy and not worry about what I was really doing. Isn’t that sad? I never noticed how much I was doing it! So I've put a stop to it and I refuse from now on to ever let myself be carried away daydreaming. Its really quite damaging as it can change your perception of things.

For example I'm going to India tomorrow and if I sat here and daydreamed about what’s going to happen when I get there, how I'll meet a amazing lama who'll recognise me as a tulku and do all these amazing things, then when I actually get there and this daydream does not become reality I will be disappointed( please note I am not nor do I hold any hopes of being found to be a tulku). It may seem a bit OTT but if you think about the way we imagine new partners or jobs and stuff to be and then when we find out they are not we are disappointed by our own expectations. In another way if, while I'm planning to go volunteer in a monastery in India I spend my whole time fantasizing about finding a really great boyfriend and doing lots of cool things in Australia I may suddenly find that I don't want to go away anymore.

I don't know about everyone else but I have always had a very vivid fantasy life since I was in primary school but no one ever talks about these things so maybe I'm the only one. If you don't know what I'm talking about just ignore the top bit!!

Before I go I wanted to get a bit more on topic and tell you about how I came to know the Dhammapada. Someone suggested to me to go and read a sutra (Buddhist scripture) and I think they suggested the heart sutra.

Anyway I never really thought about reading a sutra at that time as I was more of a book person, having it explained to me by some author or another but I thought I'd give it a go. So I went to Boarders, (probably not the best place but better than Angus and Robertson who still put Buddhist books under 'New Age'). I couldn’t find what I was looking for but I did find the copy of the Dhammapada I still cart around to this day. It’s a Penguin classic. I opened it and read the first verse and it blew my socks off. I bought it straight away.

I don't have the time to talk about this verse but I think it is very helpful to anyone, Buddhist or not. To me it is the answer to the questions we so often come up with. It’s a very blunt and to the point quote and it’s been going through my head a lot recently. It’s helped me to let go of things and not worry too much. It’s also helped me not to get too caught up in stuff going on around me as well as giving me encouragement to go out, follow my heart in pursuit of reality.

"What we are today is because of our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts create our life of tomorrow: Our Life is the creation of our minds."

We need to take responsibility for our minds, not let them wander around where ever they like. We need to learn to let go, this life is only a figment of our imagination.

So taking responsibility for my mind, letting go of Australia and reality I take a deep breath and get on a plane to India. Hopefully all will go well and the next blog you read will be written in Dharamsala!

Not in Kansas anymore

I haven't had time to update my blog recently which is a shame because its been a bumpy ride!

The temple has been super busy with a national conference that we really should not have hosted with such a small number of staff. I was working from 7am setting up the dinning hall for breakfast spending the day in the cafe and only managing to creep away undetected at 10.30pm.

I was so busy being tired I didn't have time to realise that I was about to leave. In fact I ended up telling them that I was leaving less than a week before I planned to go after trying for several days (perhaps half heartedly) to get a chance to speak to someone in private.

The response was surprising. I thought they'd be angry or hurt (they may be Buddhist nuns but they are also human!) However, they were mainly very surprised and sad to see me go. They seemed quite genuinely sad that I was leaving and my friends were devastated. Its very hard for me too. If I hadn't been given this opportunity I would not have left and I didn't have the heart to tell them the whole truth about why I was leaving (only some very close friends) as I was ashamed. I knew that it is so rude to up and leave because I found a better alternative so I tried to keep that to myself although some of it leaked out. I honestly told them that I felt like the kind of practise I'm seeking is not the status quo in the temple and although I respected the way the Temple and order is organised and run it just doesn't suit what I need as a dharma practitioner.

I felt like it was better for them to think I was dumb than to think I was conniving. I guess it doesn't really matter what any one thinks, only the truth matters. I feel like I am trying to protect them because I care so much for them. To tell you the truth its been very painful to leave. In fact I lost it on the way out of the temple and balled all the way to the back door and then spent the next hour hiding out the back. I really respect and appreciate these people and every bone in my body wants to go back as quick as possible, but here is my problem. Should I be going back to the temple or am I just experiencing the suffering of impermanence by trying to cling to something. Ah it sucks being a Buddhist; you can't even let yourself be miserable!

So I went home yesterday. Although it’s not really my home anymore. I'm staying with friends and desperately trying to tie up some loose ends before I fly to Delhi on Wednesday. One week away. So now I'm really shitting myself. What the hell am I doing? I feel very stateless. I don't know who the hell I'm meant to be. Now that I'm back in my old world I can see that I have really, really changed and to be honest I have totally no desire left to remain in this saha world. I can see the futility of hours of tv, gadgets and useless occupations. I read in a book about the Karmapa 'we sedate ourselves with entertainment and useless pleasure but eventually we must face the truth.' (that is a rough quote). The truth is the futility of a self centred world view because everything we strive for will eventually decompose. In Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' he writes,

"the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
the solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And like this insubstantial pageant faded.
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on
And our little life is rounded with a sleep."

So neither this world, my old home or even the Temple environment can be counted on. It changes every moment. Even though I've been gone for one day I've heard that there have been some big changes. So what am I clinging to?

An idea of who I am? Before I was Erin who works in an office and likes to listen to her music and drive her car. Now I am Erin who likes to wear a grey uniform and live in a Chinese Buddhist Temple. Except now I'm not living in a Chinese Buddhist temple and I left my uniform there so I have to wear normal clothes again.

I read somewhere an article where someone tries to prove their point that when we think about it every single thing we do is motivated by a desire to ensure our happiness. Everything from the friends we associate with to the kind of socks we wear. So really missing someone is motivated by our desire to make ourselves happy.

So in a round about way I miss the temple because I'm trying desperately to cling to this idea of myself as a permanent entity. The solution would be to let go of myself. Sounds easy, but how the hell am I supposed to do that? Think about my own impermanence?; consider my lack of inherent existence? Perhaps, but to tell you the truth I still really miss the temple. I kind of miss myself too because now I don't know who I am. I feel like I'm dead, like a ghost. I don't exist here, that person is gone. I'm not in the temple either that person is gone. I haven't got to India yet so that person is just a future fantasy and I'm left with a sack of skin and bones running around shopping for brown shoes. One of the really important bits from the heart sutra is 'form is emptiness,' but then it also says that 'emptiness is form.' So I have a form and substance, what am I going to do with it?

I've been told that if after a month I want to return that I may. After that time I'm not sure what the deal is. I desperately wish I had someone I could talk too who understands this from a Buddhist perspective because all my friends despite their good intentions think I'm crazy and should just go find a normal job or go to uni or something. I'll talk more about what I've found out about myself since leaving temple later, right now I'm just letting myself be pushed along with the current. I'm working towards getting to Delhi, flights, visa's all sorted but my heart is still in the temple. I keeping think 'I just want to go home.' I was only there for three months but its had this profound effect on me. I really feel like I've left the movie half way through. The story has been constructed and the characters introduced but the full story line has not been revealed and the resolution is still another 45mins away.

When I received the e-mail from the monastery in India, even before I read it I thought to myself, if they are inviting you there you must go. When I read the e-mail and the dream became possible I felt really shocked and also scared but I knew that I had to go. So even though I really feel like a stranger in a foreign land right now I am resiting the temptation to go back to the temple, at least until I get to India and can see it for myself.

I just really want to go home. I hope I've done the right thing.

Big News

There is a well know sentence in Buddhism about 'monkey mind.' A lot of people are familiar with this. I found this quote in the Dhammapada and I don't know if the sentence originated from this text or if it is a sentence that is used a lot in different Buddhist sutras but the quote from the Dhammapada has an extra little bit I hadn't heard before and it adds a new dimension to it for me.

Ok so usually I understand the idea of monkey mind like a monkey that jumps from tree to tree, is not settled and jump around a lot. so this to me means that our minds are like the. proverbial 'angry elephant in rut' ( not just any old angry elephant but one in heat no less!) So I really associate with this I am complete unable to control my mind. The more I worry about it the more I lose control of it. Learning buddhism from such zen teachers and Thich N. Hanh I always feel like 'mind control' meditation/mindfullness is the basis of practice and the only way to really make those realizations. So it gives me the shits that I am not able to do either. In fact when I try to be mindful all I do is end up having a discussion with my self about what mindfulness is!

So here is the quote in question......

........"he jumps from death to death, like a monkey in the forest from one tree without fruit to another."

Chapter 24 verse 334

This quote adds the bit about jumping from a tree without fruit to another tree without fruit which added a whole new dimension for me. So the monkey is not jumping around uselessly for nothing, he is searching for something. Searching for food is the basic instinct and occupation of all animals. Its part of out inherent nature to search for food. This monkey is looking for sweet fruit to make him feel good and satisfy him.

He doesn't go to the tree to occupy himself or to be popular he is searching for something but every tree he runs to he doesn't find it. So when my mind is busy chatting, criticizing, comparing I feel like what I am really doing is looking for something, looking for happiness.

So suddenly I don't feel so bad about having a monkey mind. Obviously this is still something I really really need to work on if I want to make progress as a buddhist practitioner, however I don't have to feel bad about the way my mind is. All the chatter is for a purpose after all, even if it is very misguided.

I feel like now I know that my mind is looking for something, to be happy, to find the sweet fruit and thats why it jumps around everywhere all the time. Like the monkey after many lifetimes of jumping it starts going so fast it doesn't even really know why its jumping around but the basic desire to find this pleasure is still there. So what do I think about?

When someone upsets me I imagine having a conversation with them where I totally tell them off or do something to win back a bit of power. (this is not done on purpose these thoughts just come up through many lives of repetition and most of the time I am not totally aware I'm doing it!) Sometimes, if I'm bored I'll have a little fantasy playing out where I'm a really great wonderful/ important person, or I'll have a good chat to myself about something that happened when I was youngm, and how that is totally the reason I'm not any good at spelling.

So all these random things that appear in my mind are all really ways that I have concocted to make myself feel better. To try and get a bit of a taste of that sweet fruit.

I hope this helps someone. I feel like now I can really start to work with my mind because slowly I'm getting to know it a bit better. Before, I felt like it was totally out of my control and I couldn't understand how that could be because its just my mind, it is empty isn't it? Its one of the five skhandas, how can it have a life of its own? and then I though about dieting (weird hey!) why do people need to diet? (hopefully) because they are fat. (myself included.) Why am I fat? Because I eat too much. If its my body shouldn't I be able to stop myself from eating or stop myself from being fat? Yeah but I chose not to, I chose to be lazy or uncontrolled. I chose to eat that candy, its years of conditioning. So why is my mind out of control? Same idea.

This is my mind, it can be anyway I train it to be. It is not permanent, it will not be around in 100 years. there is volition or karma pushing me along but really it is up to me to put the time and effort into sorting it out.

So really the best way to do that is through meditation. The three main principles of practice in Buddhism are precepts (rules) meditation and wisdom. Wisdom is not really possible with out the other two.

Precepts I am working on. Living in this temple there are lots of rules. Lots of etiquette and I'm ok with that because this was my choice you know and I see the benefit of it all. But there is little to no meditation. Thy expect me to meditate before I go to bed. I don't think that can be good. One of the most basic rules is not to do it in your bed and especially at the end of the day with the lights out I do not feel like meditating!

This is a chinese fusion temple but there is a lot more Pure-land than Chan and I don't feel comfortable with a lot of the devotional stuff especially being a former born again christian (that is another blog altogether!)

So anyway I have had these little niggley voices in my head nearly since I got here and the main one is about the lack of meditation and doctrinal guidance. So as a bit of a side I was looking around at other things, you know and I came up with all these plans about what I would do after my year was up. I decided that I would go to Gampo abbey in Canada and do some 'real practice'. Intensive meditation and practice. I really like lo jong.

Anyway so I saw this position become available at a monastery in India and applied. I wrote them this big e-mail about how I'm practicing in a chinese temple but my heart is in Vajrayana and that I hopped that they would understand that my options in Australia are really limited and that all I want to do is immerse myself in the dharma right now ect. It was very honest and also probably a bit too long for a job application!

Anyway so they said no, they'd already filled it then a few weeks later I get an e-mail saying ok, if you want to come, come and we'll take it from there. My heart dropped out my ass!

So it is not an intensive study program. Its just an office job, no buddhist strings attached BUT and its a big but. I would be living in Dharamsala neighbor to the Karmapa (my spiritual hero) and have access to a lot of realized teachers. My likely hood of finding a Lama would be greatly increased. Thats really what I've been looking for all this time, a spiritual guide. Someone to tell me where I'm doing ok and slap me when I'm not doing ok. Eventually hopefully it will be someone who will be able to ordain me.

I haven't even taking refuge (yes folks I not officially a buddhist!) I don't want to take refuge until I've found my real path!

So what to do? Do I break my promise to these wonderful women I've been working, living and eating with for the last 3 months and run out on them? Do I say sorry, I know I've not finished my course (by the way we haven't had class for 6 weeks now).

Sadly yes. I break my promise, I leave them suddenly and look like a total asshole. It really breaks my heart but I feel like I could be letting the greatest opportunity of my life slip away. When I get to India they'll all be really bitchy and difficult to live with I feel like if the laws of karma are true then I'll have a really hard time because I'll be giving myself some serious bad karma.

I know it sounds a bit big headed to compare myself with the buddha but I imagine that when he ran out on his wife and child he created negative karma too, that need to be worked off. But he knew that it was the only way.

So yeah I feel a bit crap about what I have to do but I guess its a bit of that spiritual warrior stuff. Lets not even talk about where I'm going to get the money for this or what I'm going to tell my Mum!

Anyway so there is a bit of encouragement to work on our minds and an opportunity for me to do a cyber scream! If anyone is reading this I'll let you know how it goes!
Erin

E-mail to a friend

This is an e-mail I recently sent to a friend of mine who was feeling down recently due to a few people making judgments about her life. i started off innocently enough trying to cheer her up but then flew into a Buddhist rant about the meaning of life and suffering and about doing what you know to be right even if everyone disagrees.

Anyway by the end it was more like a weblogg than an e-mail so I thought I might post it. Please note it has been edited a bit because she'll get cranky if I leave to much detail about her there!

Hi there,

I hope your feeling better today!

it's funny you should say that people thought you were
running away and stuff when you went to Australia as I
know so many people who get that same thing.

Especially when I was living in the UK. So many people there would tell me that they either felt like they should be at home being grown up or that their friends/family were hassling them about it. At that time they were pretty much the same age as you (26), so if it makes
you feel any better you are very far from alone.

I think its because people have this really set idea about what we should be doing and at what age and no one ever stops to think that maybe there is another way. (except for those that go and travel or do something that helps them really experience the world!)

People don't realize that this idea they have about what we should be doing (i.e. school, uni, job marriage, kids retirement) is very cultural and isn't by any means perfect or a guarantee that if we do it we will be happy. Usually I find that sticking to the schedule is actually a huge
excuse, a way to hide from life.

Rather than doing anything important or difficult or challenging they just do what everyone else is doing. So many of my friends went to uni after school. Not because they wanted to study but because they didn't know what else to do and every one was doing it. Also a lot of them said to me that they couldn't come overseas with me because they were worried if they did that they wouldn't want to go to uni after.

Sounds like they shouldn't have gone in the first place!

What this all equals is that these people live their life by the timetable that their families/society set out for them. they never discover new things and they die before they have the chance to find out who they really are.

Let me give you an example........

There is a girl who wants to go to France. After school she wants to spend a year in France but her
family convince her that she should really go to uni first. So she does, thinking that she'll go after uni.

Anyway by the time she finishes uni she has this boyfriend who drives her nuts but she still wants to keep him and she doesn't have any money anyway so she decides to work for a year, get a bit of work experience and save to go to France.

A few years pass and she's so caught up in the OC and Charmed, her and her boyfriend have put a deposit on a house and she really doesn't have any money left over to save for this trip she wanted.

Next thing there are kids on the way and the bills have to be paid so there is no way she is going to be able to make that trip at least while the kids are young.

Once the kids get a bit older her husband leaves her and suddenly she has to raise this family on her own. Its hard and there is no way she'll be able to afford a holiday till after she's paid for the kids education.

Finally the kids are gone she's found a new boyfriend/husband and is seriously considering this
trip to France. the next day she goes out to the travel agent to get the tickets and gets hit by a
bus.

She never made it to France.

Her whole life she felt like something was missing.

Not because she didn't get to go to France but because she was so busy doing stuff she felt she should be doing she never really knew who she was.

This is getting to be a bit of a long e-mail but you get my point. I think that age is no barrier to unhappiness. You should do what you want and experience what you can before the arthritis sets in.

People who criticizes you or who say that your not acting like a grown up are generally baffled and jealous because their life is empty and no matter how much they distract themselves with entertainment, boyfriends, money and ego they still feel empty.

This is a really Buddhist thing but the awful truth is that if you are born your gonna die and although its nice to think that its going to happen when your 90 or something it may happen tomorrow.

Have you done everything you hoped to do in this life? You don't need to scale mountains or learn another language. Just as long as you can say that you are happy with the person who looks at you in the mirror and that you have done things you are proud of and corrected the things you weren't proud of.

I hope this makes you feel better and not depressed. If you think like this when people criticize you, you just feel sorry for them, when you don't get the job you wanted you just let it go as it wasn't right anyway.

Think about what you would do if you found out you were going to die tomorrow and do it today!

Sorry to be a bit D&M,

Speak to you soon!

Erin

Being a spiritual hero

In chapter 23 Endurance (althouh the name of the chapter differs depending on your copy) there is a verse I really like.

"For it is not with these things that a man will reach the land unknown. NIRVANA is reached by that man who wisley and heroically trains himself."

This bit about being brave and being wise really speaks to me at the moment. Especially when your talking about being a hero and about guarding our mind and surrendering our ego. It all sounds very defeatist at first but in the end there really isn't any other way. Any person who is sincere about any religion will eventually come to a point when society does not agree with their beliefs and they have to say no to themselves and to society.

To me being a spiritual hero (which is a common term for a Bodhisattva) is a very beautiful way of expressing this wall that anyone with an honest desire to be happy will come across. Becsaue to be totally honest, in this consumerist society I really don't think it is possible to be totally happy and still appear to be a 'normal' person. Not that you have to be a nut case but you do need to be a little bit 'differnt'.

Before I went to india earlier in the year I had already made plans to come and be a student in my temple. They hadn't actually got back to me before I'd left and I still had to do an interview and all that kind of thing first so really it wasn't set in stone.

I even applied and was accepted into university and went to the orientation. Basically I was trying to avoid going to the temple. When I finally left my home to move to the temple I keep all my things dotted around my poor flat mates house 'just incase' it didn't work out and I came back quickly. I was scared. Scared of leaving my life, my car my friends and all my nice little do dahs I'd collected over the last few years.

Watching people pour through my clothing and take things away was gut wrenching. But I did it. I did it because I knew that I was not able to put the 'books' into practice. I was doing a lot of reading and meditating and all these kinds of practices but if my flatemate left his dirty dishes out I would lose it.

Someone said to me you have to empty yourself of everything and then fill yourself back up again with the dharma. If you hold onto yourself; your past your abilities your preferences, there is no room left for the dharma. I'm starting to agree with that.

The first thing that had to go when I got here was my piercing. I had my tongue and libret pierced. Taking them out was like taking away my name, I didn't realize how closely I identified with them. I nearly didn't recognize myself with out them. In fact I didn't recognize my self and I felt so inadequate with out my piercing and without any makeup. I didn't want people to see me in my uniform. I didn't like walking around the temple when it was open incase outsiders wanted to speak to me.

Now I don't care.

In fact i try not to look in the mirror at all, not avoid my self but more becsaue it doesn't really matter to me anymore. I find that if you don't judge others by their appearence you don't care about what others may be thinking about you.

I read in a Zen book my Richard Attkins about how our ego attaches to things we like, things we want to be like and things we want people to see us with. For me it is actually my music. I love to listen to my cd's currently it is 'Kings of Leon' although its getting a bit old now.

I totally identify with my music and even though I wont be going out of the temple again for a while I still managed to buy 3 new cd's on the weekend. I feel like if I don't have my music I will be empty. The funny thing is that the ultimate goal in Buddhism is emptiness!

I think to myself well music and television are such important parts of our culture if I cut myself off from them I will be unable to connect with ordinary people. I think that deep down this is just a huge excuse.

So I guess being a spiritual hero is having the courage to do what you know is the correct thing even though it sucks. The big thing here though is the wisdom to know what the correct thing to do is. if your like me and you don't have a Lama or a trusted teacher at least you can rely on the three jewles. Even though your friends think you've gone soft and your Mum thinks you've joined a cult. Even though society thinks you're a crack job, you have to stay strong.

A hero usually saves people, saves the damsel in distress. I guess I'm trying to save myself from society and save everyone else from themselves as well. Still I have a long way to go. I read this quote is the next chapter. i can't really comment on it becsaue I am not at thing level yet. It is very challenging and I just wanted to put it out there so people can have a think about it. If you don't agree with it you can out it aside but it really touches a nerve in me.

"Leave the past behine; leave the future behind; leave the present behind. Thou art then ready to go to the other shore. Never more shalt thou return to a life that ends in death."

erin

Lost in space

As far as first bloggs go mine have not been spectacular. Last night I wrote a good post and then lost it at the last moment. Don't you hate when that happens!!!!

Perhaps I should introduce myself. As you can tell from the title I am a practicing Buddhist which isn't particularly unusual these days. I'm always on the net looking for something. We'll I'd say I'm always looking for something. I've been looking for it in lots of different places. I've done a lot of traveling including spending time in India earlier in the year but that is another story altogether!

Right now I find myself living in a Chinese Buddhist temple in the countryside desperately trying to fit in as the only European and the only non Chinese speaking person here.

Hence I think I have something to share with the world and especially anyone who is an aspiring Bodhisattva and especially anyone who is an aspiring western bohdisattva. I'm not a hippie or a feminist or any other stereotype, I just want to find what I've been looking for, and although i've come a long way I don't think I've found it yet.

So I'm writing for any one who can sympathise with me, anyone who is looking for something and anyone whose dreams for the future don't involve a volvo and 2.3 children.

Over time I hope that I can share what I have already learnt with people and also hopefully will stop myself going crazy in the process!!

So I'll do a bit more searching and let you know what i find!

Hello

Hello,

this is my first blogg and to be perfectly honest I don't really understand the concept yet and am extremely new to the idea. I am also partially dyslexic so you'll have to excuse any inaccuracies.

I was searching the net a little while ago and came across a blogg by another blogger call Andi I think. Anyway she has just recently left to go to korea and become a buddhist nun. I read one of her last entries first but ended up spending hours going through the rest of them. I found it very inspiring and I could totally empathize with her and also she said a lot of things that touched me and pointed directly at things I'd been having trouble with also.

Anyway so I thought that seeing as how her blogg had been so helpful I might try and start my own as well. I think at first I don't really know what to do but as time goes on hopefully I should become a bit more entertaining.

I'm not sure if I should put a bit of info about my self or what so i think I'll just put this out there and look around at others and then come back with a better idea of the whole thing!

So any obviously no one will add a post but I promise I will be a bit more interesting soon!