Recent events where people I see as friends or care for have caused me pain through their comments or actions have served to further my practice and so I work my way through the sadness.

Try to stay calm

There are many ways to higher ground, we are taught. No one path is singularly correct. But what they all have in common is the pushing against gravity. Leaving the primrose path, walking at stressful angles, breaking a sweat. The difficulty with Buddhism is that it asks of you that you “Step back from yourself to have a clear mind.”

How much easier it is for me to react when those I would befriend goad me to reaction. How much easier it is for me to blame, to re-victimize myself than to observe both the mindset of the other and my own weak and needy responses. The habit of criticism. The habit of judgment. Those I have honed to a fine point.

Thoughts circle seduce

Both personally and societally we are encouraged to think in competitive terms. “The Universe is like a pie and when anyone gets a slice… it is less for you.”.. we are taught.

Games on the internet help us to practice habits of anger, retribution and competitiveness. Television shows feed back to us that the world is a dark and dangerous place. We are schooled to believe that we are all trapped in a “big brother” house of existence and that there is always scheming.

Where I am emotionally and spiritually at this time is trying to forgive myself. Each time someone goads me, or lays out a competitive scenario, I see myself engaging and giving the script power through my reactions. I observe my attempts to be superior so that I don’t feel inferior. So much of my energy is wasted in Dukka. So much of my time is involved in going back over the past. I actually envision myself as a primitive being, raking over the coals of a dead fire looking for the shards of what I have lost in the blaze. Ruminating, rerunning the script, rewatching the video of someone unskilled attempting to create a surface out of me to project their own games. I comply. I am drawn in.

flowers are able to take us to another dimension of happiness

It is almost like the proverbial emotional elevator, only the elevator has an attendant wearing the beautifully vibrant white gloves… motioning aboard so that I can go up… and be elated or go down to depression. “We are now at the floor of poor me apparel, ” the operator tells me.

The best I am able to do at this point in my development is practice. I practice observing myself.

I am pleased that I allow myself to feel the full sting when an event occurs which is sudden, surprising and upsetting. However, at least now I can see how all interactions are …interactions. Being happy and content is catching.

The energy is catching. So my desire to live more consciously and more fully is about coming back to self. The questions: “Who is thinking this thought”, “Who is living this moment” are powerful.

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symbols, icons to remind us to be peacefully loving

What I big, fat capital I want….. I see myself grasping, attaching like a four year old running to every object in the room and picking it up. I want. I need. I must have. They don’t like me. What did I do wrong? Why can’t she treat me kindly. Why is life so unfair. Why do I have to suffer? I am an innocent..

Now I see with this amazingly highly honed practice of focusing on desire, self and ego, I am able to be justified. I am able to be righteous. I am able to go out into the competitive jungle, armed and ready for a thousand losses.

Practice is Perfect. What I am trying to teach who ever is writing this, who ever is thinking this, is that I am evolving.

My desire to control others, to be a “good” girl and not break rules, to be liked by everyone, is (I have come to realize) actually ego.

Wayne Dyer has said, “What other people think of me is not my business.” I love this statement. On my steep and faulty climb up the mountain… I use it as a stick to lean upon.

How does one protect self, act in a loving way toward self and still be compassionate? I hazard a guess that it is by realizing that the world of competition, envy and judgment is a created world. To remember that hurt people hurt people and that we are ALL hurt, helps with finding compassion. Even turned inward to oneself who is a perfectionist. I am where I am right now and it is one frickin big mountain. I can hear myself breathing.

Five Precepts

Buddhists are encouraged to follow five precepts,

These are the Five concepts.

1. I will not hurt a person or animal that is alive.
2. I will not take something if it was not given to me.
3. I will not have sex in a way that is harmful.
4. I will not lie or say things that hurt people.
5. I will not take intoxicants, like alcohol or drugs

This is the path I am huffing up….so bloody steep. But practice is perfect.