The Laughing Dakini: Coterminous As Anything

little going on--

2008-09-16T19:13:00.004-04:00

I AM CENSORING MYSELF NOW, as an experiment--

and I have to admit that it initially enrages me, but whatthefuck: I need to know what it feels like--eh, I guess like anything, if you have the cojones to be present with it and not blame everything on others, it passes, and then you learn something, and aren't a complete constipated blob of denial--I guess everyone needs to learn that--

Oh, and I apparently am in the 25th anniversary issue of Vanity Fair (not on the cover: that's Marilyn Monroe)--exhausting times for everyone, I think--

hmm, stress harms health--they ought to study that!! ahahaha!

2008-09-09T16:40:00.003-04:00

I'm so surprised when it turns out that anything impacts me: stress, felonies, other people's stress and strife, bad shoes, other people's sufferings--I pretty much feel other people's sufferings, including health issues, so experientially that I simply don't know what's *mine*, as in "this illness or injury is only happening in my body", versus somebody else's medical situation that I then experience in mine--I am learning that the wisest thing to do in general is to keep doing my Tibetan Buddhist practice, keep dealing with things in healthful ways, keep setting limits as to what is okay in my life and what is is not (like, Sarah Palin will never be *my* running mate), and keep letting things run through me quickly, so that I don't become some horrid blob of constipation in any form instead of a free flow of healthy energy--that seems like it's always the choice, and I try more and more to be that free flow, and yet not let the flow be so powerful through my body that I am physically harmed by it--surprisingly hard balancing act sometimes--OH! I got my ass sling today! I find that very timely--ahaha! Anyhow, it's sedate bondage gear for the non-groovy--I hope it helps with the spine damage being supported and getting better instead of worse--off to eat some good chow now--

word to the wise, and unwise--

2008-09-07T18:23:00.000-04:00

If, in your course, you don't meet
your equal, your better,
then continue your course
firmly,
alone.
There's no fellowship with fools.

-Dhammapada, 6, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

my fun for the day: felonies committed against me--

2008-09-06T16:25:00.005-04:00

So, somebody felt it was okay last night to bust into somebody else's email account and steal that person's emails, including many private AND professionally-related emails from me, ***WHICH IS A FELONY***, plus is creepy scumsucking on the lowest level. Since this had been done to me once in the past by the creepy scumsucking abusive controlling husband of a female friend, who stole our instant messages to 'prove' to himself that she said 'mean stuff' about him being an abusive controlling spying jerk (seeing any irony there, or here, anybody?), this time I am simply calmly waiting, facing the door, with my finger on the legal trigger: if there is ANY attempt to illegally use my private correspondence, which is not even involved or suspected of being involved in any crime, in ANY way, I am really fine about enforcing the giant-fines-and-jailtime aspect of it all for the person who illegally did this, even in the face of bullshit excuses of wanting to, um, spy on a grownup professional in a controlling and abusive and illegal way (yawn, guys). *shrug* Actions have consequences. Dopey braindamaged people can still pull the trigger, especially when they are completely in the right legally and about wanting to completely not want to be creepied on. Nobody is smart enough these days to understand that anymore--people just do this bullshit stuff, like, say, McCain stealing that Heart song, playing it illegally at the convention to imply endorsement, being notified by Heart that they completely refused to be associated with the creepy people, had never even be asked for permission, and requesting that they desist illegally using the song, and the fukkers played it again. *shrug* I think a big messy lawsuit against the McCain chimps would be completely fine, because these days trespass on others basically is rampant. People no longer know what free choice is, what rights are, what responsibilities are, and that having fits and punching someone or shouting abuse in front of children etc. and then pretending that they would "never hit people or do anything to harm their children" is sewerbilge--they don't seem to know that being mad at somebody DOES NOT GIVE THEM ANY RIGHT TO COMMIT FELONIES AGAINST THEM, OR FURTHER YET AGAINST OTHERS. So, I'm here, ready to be reasonable, and also ready to follow through--drag, eh? Everyone has excuses--

the boring news in my world--

2008-08-31T10:03:00.004-04:00

Really, it's not much. I am starting to get all excited again about my (future) charitable foundation, which I drew up plans for maybe five years or so back (with maybe five or six pages of intended recipients listed so I wouldn't forget) and was not in any position to implement, except to give a lot of brand-new scholarly Tibetan Buddhist books to the library at the time, putatively from the foundation, but since it was only me and the cats and not an official 501(c)3, it didn't mean anything official but was just a gift that I enjoyed. Now, though, I am really getting more excited about the future possibilities of that entity. I find that when I receive gifts of any size, as I do these days, really the most fun for me is to use them to help others, when the basics of mine are taken care of, and so I tend to think that yup, for every million or so that people give me, it's probably wisest to just give half to me in the form of a foundation, or check if I have a functional one on the go to be filled up! Saves on taxes for the donor, and gives me another pile of marbles to have tremendous fun sponsoring things with--so, for those wondering what to get me for my birthday, that's one option (audace!). ahahaha! Also Burdick's is having a tremendous sale on chocolate, which is a public service for the world, worth availing one's self of--ahahaha! I keep forgetting their online name, but maybe laburdick.com or burdickchocolate.com (that's why they made www.dogpile.com as a search engine) It's a world of infinite choices, and I like them--have fun, you guys! Oh, and plenty of the young people from around here have been filming the Ang Lee film this last week and more, which leaves us older folks and babe remnants wondering if they'll need us--I think "you never know until you find out!" ahahaha! I'm not too concerned--oh, and I dreamt that I was filming with another familiar character last night, which satisfies my interests in that field, so I feel jolly and all set, with some good organic coffee in front of me--feels like a good day!

wow, being of use in the world and all---

2008-08-23T11:54:00.009-04:00

Like everyone writes about online, I have been feeling last week's fullmoon and eclipse and difficulty sleeping etc., and I think that the biggest lesson that I have learned, which may sound trivial or abstract or shallow but is crucial and far-reaching, pertains to money and people. I have found that I can be as helpful to people who happen to have nothing, homeless crack dealers in the street (as my injured gentleman turned out to be: he got twenty hardcore metal staples, by the way, and lived, came upon me in the street the next day and ripped off the oozing bandages right there in the street to have me redo the medical-textbook-disaster tacked-together bleeding gore of his arm, resulting in us spending too-conspicuous quality time in public toilets with blood-covered wrappings (flush and wash, baby, don't leave a trace) and the feds scoping me out intensely when I returned to the streets with young Mr. Crackdealer-who-apparently-unwisely-stiffs-customers-in-a-small-town, as he shambled stiffly down the street still in the previous day's glass-cut-up bloodstained clothing)--and to those who may have some small money, working folks, and to those who may have some moderately-serious money, and to those who may have tens of millions of dollars-plus here or on the immediate horizon. I have to admit to being so *glad* to SOMEHOW JUST BE ABLE TO GIVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY NEED SOMETIMES, WHETHER OR NOT MONEY IS IN THE SCENE, AND EVEN IF IT IS: IN FACT, THE TRUTH IS THAT IT ALWAYS EXISTS SOMEWHERE IN THE SCENE IN THIS SOCIETY THESE DAYS, WHETHER CONSCIOUSLY FACTORED IN OR NOT, LIKE RACE, LIKE OTHER CULTURE--gaining enormous insight into that stuff experientially, the yes and the no and the itdoesn'tfuckingmatter and the it'severything of it, and will probably write more about it in articles or whathaveyou. Meanwhile, the understanding and the experience and all are unfolding on a number of fronts, with a number of folks, and I am just observing it profoundly and with bemusement, and also having fun--it's *great* to just hide out and drink coffee sometimes! ahahaha! Really, motion is motion, and yet the bodies are not moving at the speed of the rest of it, so coffee and chow and animal companions are the ticket a lot of times--who needs no stinkin' media stuff? Oh, actually, somebody mentioned me being in some other silly new little video online and on tv now, but that's fine--I'm not 'in it' in it, just helped some kids out--

adrenaline all over the place--

2008-08-19T18:19:00.009-04:00

I happened to be standing inside the doorway of pagan shop today when a kid drove past on his bike, two feet away, and through some tussling with another kid, wound up with a handlebar and his arm smashed right through the ancient thick plateglass window. He started to sort of wander away in shock, but I steered him to sit down and he sort of fell into and out of consciousness, and I directed the shocked lady who runs the store that yup, it's 911 time NOW, and kept him sitting there, my arm around him, as he wanted to "go across the street to use the bathroom", which to him meant not vomit but something like whizz or just bail on the situation, while I kept some papertowel over the shockingly serious-looking missing piece of the middle of arm--there was almost no blood, which was unreal: he sort of *should* have bled near to death, with the severity of that main injury and the other smaller but still holychit other gaping pieces and deep gashes, but it didn't happen: it was like something held all the blood inside him, this young healthy-looking teenager, despite the deep and extensive cuts and gashes. I was saying a couple of protective mantras in my mind, and was pretty grateful, because this lack of bleeding was the line between life and death for him really--it was that serious, like dissection class, like the body had no use to be intact anymore. People were tremendously disturbed at seeing that main injury. I kept my arm around him, held the gore bits together with the clean paper that someone handed me since there didn't seem to be visible glass in it, chatted a little with him to keep him with the program, took over the phone when the lady on it had trouble with some officious 911 chick, and we just all dealt with it. The old enormous plateglass window was shattered to some seriously unstable degree, looked and felt menacing as hell with its buckled stripes of break that did not fall in or out, and yet was only fully bashed out in the one corner. I wound up talking to the medical folks and the cops, gave details and my card, and it worked out. The medical technicians who showed up were capable and helpful, took care of him, wrapped stuff up, took him to the ambulance and hospital, were friendly and did a great mellow job. Turned out I was the one to ask them to make sure that the gore and blood was taken off the remaining pieces of glass in the window at street level, and someone kindly did. I helped my friend who ran the shop, with hugs and watching the place while she smoked and called her girlfriend and got a smoothie, over a longish time. There was a point when, cops and kid and everybody but she and the maintenance guy being gone, I felt it start to knock me down, and took a little breather on a chair in the back, head between knees, which apparently does work when you're running someone else's adrenaline through your body in addition to your own--I tend to absorb other people's stuff, especially while holding their bodies, and I know that I need to let it out in healthy ways. I did fine, called a dear friend who happened to have a free minute exactly then, which was great, tried to have a little cry, did what I needed to let it pass through me so that it wouldn't hit me later, yer basic efforts at liberation upon arising of the adrenaline phenomena--we were all tremendously fortunate, because one little difference, and it would have been dead kid, and/or even more injury to others, etc. It all came together miraculously--

I guess it all took a couple of hours, and it worked out fine: we had to fend people away from the still-dangerous looming storefront, with police cones and telling them pointblank, "Look, that window just got broken and we expect it to come down any time--that's why it's blocked off" to dolts who would ignore the cones and bring their children (!!!) dangerously close. After a lot of hugs to the lady, and help from the window glass guy and the maintenance man, a visit from a lady and infant who changed earthy-wet diapers on the floor in jolly grounding ways, and burning some serious sekret speshul worldclass Tibetan incense from my pocketbook in the store, I felt like it was fine to go, timely, and said to my lesbian friend, "This is why I don't date chicks!" as if she were the high-maintenance cause of it all. We laughed, and it was fine--

So, that's what I did on today's summer vacation--drink water, eat protein, chill out--enjoy--

fun things to do--

2008-08-17T16:24:00.004-04:00

Sometimes, the most fun thing ever is to listen to old music with old friends, and sing, well or badly, at the top of your lungs while driving around--bonus points if people are actual musicians, especially percussionists, because that just *makes* it--ahahaha!

Happy full moon and eclipse time yesterday!!!

Oh, and a few of my young buddies have been called for the Ang Lee film, and were "rehearsing" for it last week, meaning being on the set in New York state and establishing informal rapport with each other--I forget if they start filming today, or soon, but it's going on. The rest of us will or won't get called, but the ones I know who are in are all handsome fuzzy-faced young men, at this point--

I'm enjoying working on this writing--

2008-08-08T18:02:00.005-04:00

A friend and I are collaborating on a book based primarily in his many years' experience as a psychotherapist, with some of my perspective thrown in there as well (and I'm not going into detail without checking first if it's okay). So far it's fun and very interesting to see how the different styles are complementary and seem to help each other--

Other than that, nothing too exciting going on: simple life, simple mind, just seeing what happens, gawking at it, and laughing--ahahahaha! It's great! Yesterday I decided to really observe the fears I had from certain subjects and events that came up, including the starting phases of actual death, and it was great--I suffered and I hated it, and I stuck with it, and it was so fun! ahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Really, if people got used to the unpleasant, not in an addicted way, or an averse sullen way, nor in a way that proudly proclaims that their suffering "proves" something, they'd have a lot more fun--and then the unpleasant would pass, would be no tougher than the parallel situation in some video game, in which being level one means you get smooshed every instant, and being level 20 or 58 or 6 means that you do fine, defeat the challenges, and move on with some skill, *and actually feel some enjoyment*--

so, do I want to be in the Tim Burton film?

2008-08-03T09:37:00.006-04:00

Sure. Do I feel like travelling to try to get in? NO. This seems to be a very non-travelling year for me, compared to previous years with lots of trips to NYC, teachings, overseas stuff, whatever. I assume it's the consequences of being electrocuted, because I just turned down another nice planned trip to lovely undisclosed location, private beach house with people I like to see, because the train and all exhausts me too completely this year, and private cars, with those I know or even chauffeured, wouldn't work this time. Oh well--so, for those who may *want* to try for the Tim Burton film (and of course do better research than this before flying off overseas & c.), here is one source:

http://www.timburtoncollective.com/tbcnews.html

Sure, it'd be fun, and I am always intrigued to see if the scenes that I have filmed in dreams already show up, but this is a film I'd be happy to see, in it becomes a film, so I don't mind waiting and maybe getting around to seeing it if it happens--

And with the Ang Lee film, there are a number of us in town who will carpool, so the transportation for that would be no problem--we're just casually waiting to see who got it, and when they need us--

EDIT: It is also a great season right now for gaining merit: there are tons (well, no, not literally; they're small) of fruit flies indoors, and they wind up in the potty, before and after use, and in the cats' water, and so every time I see them, I save them, which gives great merit--according to buddhists, it's considered pretty much the highest act you can do to others, and so I am glad for the chance--maybe that's a better way to look at it, instead of saying, "EW!!! BUGS!!! EW!!" and poisoning the house with chemicals and all. The bugs that are giant or like wasps (with whom I get along great--we've gor history together) who might get in trouble with cats get put carefully outside, but nobody gets intentionally or screwitcarelessly killed here--house rules--

don't dream it; be it! (with apologies to Rocky Horror Picture Show)

2008-08-02T15:32:00.008-04:00

It finally occurred to me, with help from whoknowswhat, that people miss this simple key part in their quest to "be a millionaire" or "be slim and lovely" and "be a famous writer" or "get enlightened" or "have a clean house" or whathaveyou.

Yes, there are tons of articles about "grasshopper, you must THINK like a millionaire/slim fit person/famous writer/enlightened person/successful romance guy if that is what you want to become" , but so often they don't say the key part: BUT ABOVE ALL, *****DO**** WHAT A MILLIONAIRE/SLIM FIT PERSON/FAMOUS WRITER/SPIRITUAL PRACTITIONER *****DOES****, AND THEN YOU GET THE BENEFITS. I'm sorry to be really obvious here, but so often there's this odd misapprehension about "proximity equals effort", and that if that doesn't do it, it can't be done (this feeling that hanging out with the wealthy, attractive, successful, 'cool kids', etc., as opposed to *being* that, will somehow make you that--and yes, there is a lot in being acclimated to a certain lifestyle, but then the key thing is that eventually you come to DO what it takes to truly be that thing--and if not, it goes: you can piss away money gifts, lose positions that you feel unsuited for, get fat again after bariatric surgery. etc., if you do not do what is needed. It's the difference between wanting to write a fabulously successful series of books or movies and going to fan conventions and sincerely but mootly telling your favourite author that OMG squee that's what you want more than anything, to be just like h., and some day you'll really have to get down to some serious writing, versus *actually* writing buckets and buckets of swill and then refining and improving it, and then having something to ask that same respected person's advice about.).

Case in point could be me: as to the filthy lucre aspect of things, I personally have very little--*shrug*. I do, whoever, have/have had (because I don't want to comment on recognisable people in my life, and want there to be big unanswerable question between it possibly being past folks as opposed to the present incumbents, because any of these people's status is nobody's beeswax) maybe--oh, twenty-fifty friends, associates, employers, relatives, acquaintances, dear friends, clients, who clearly fall into the category of financially well-to-do, as in millionaires-plus. I am not really slim and fit, but I have many friends/acquaintances etc. who are fit and slim and in good shape. I am a very poor housecleaner, and yet have countless friends etc. who are great at it, have lovely homes that are beautiful and welcoming and feel really nice. For a while I focussed on the karmic aspects of associating with many many successful and wealthy people for decades now, while not being famous or wealthy myself, and found that a ponderous thing, and I said whoa a lot, and couldn't figure it out. ahahaha!

What is the difference between me and these folks with regard to these vague and widespread categories? The very very obvious answers is that they do what a wealthy person, or a slim fit person, or a person with a clean house does, and then they reap the benefits. On the other hand, I *do* do spiritual practice, every instant for many years now, and I continue to reap the benefits of that, whereas maybe others want to "become spiritual" but never actually take whatever steps are needed. I am vegetarian for--oh, 27ish years now, and that too was done inch by inch, by just *doing what leads to the desired results*. I somehow never quite *got* this point in the widely-applicable way, and maybe it's the fact of growing up some certain way, or really just not knowing how things get done--I have erred on the side of "doing it with magic mind power, or trying to" as opposed to "learn how it works on earth and then do it", and so, until I got electrocuted, I didn't *know* some of this obvious stuff. Now that I appear to be re-educating myself, some stuff becomes apparent: if I want money, save some of what I get/earn/win/obtain however (and there may be reasons why I felt this difficult in the past or present, but the fact remains that if you don't hang on to money, there isn't any sometimes, in most cases). If I don't do activities that use my body in certain ways, it will not be fit or slim or healthy. Again, I can have reasons why this has not happened much, but I need to do it if I want the results, period, however it might have to be altered to accommodate personal situation. Same with house-cleaning if I want a clean house, or making things if I want the result, or doing the activities if I want the fruits of achieving anything else. really: if I want something painted, say, I either have to paint it or cause it to be painted, or forget that goal--it's as simple as that.

So, I was pretty shocked and pleased to figure some stuff out. Yes, I may sound like a twelve-year-old, or a four-year-old or whatever level learns this, but I think it's better to learn it than to somehow pretend to know it, or to simply think that hanging out with a certain crowd, be they rich, slim, successful, whatever, magically transfers to me being that way, *if I don't make the effort*: in many ways, yes, I make the effort; in many ways I am excellent and spend my life hiding it--ahahaha! Still, if I want some results, *I simply need to do what leads to those results*--it's basic Buddhism, that certain things bring about certain results--worth understanding well--

EDIT: I guess it's sort of basic learned competence, which doesn't seem popular anymore these days--but talk about empowering, to want something and to know how to get it, and to be able to simply through effort--man, everyone should be taught that, but I see why they don't teach it much anymore--

Douglas Adams--

2008-08-01T16:03:00.007-04:00

I consider it really fortunate that I never read Douglas Adams until now, after being electrocuted and with some jolly brain damage. I got a big bag of older books this week for cheapcheap (US$8.50 for a big bunch from a charity sale), and I am reading his about the detective agency. I find that having this form of brain/neurological damage makes it much more fun than I suspect I would have found it previously: this book seems like slapstick done at a decorous snail's pace, and I like that much more than fast. The fact that it goes nowhere is refreshing as opposed to exasperating, and makes me really wonder about those obsessed with it without documented head injuries--

I am reading Edith Wharton again, for the first time in a dozen years, and she is excellent, and not comfortable for many people. The Reef is the book in question, which allows the revisiting of the subject of women "throwing all away for love" (in daring to have an actual sexual involvement with a single man while they themselves are single, as written in 1912), and considering it worth the cost, although it wrecks their lives and fortunes and all of that. It saves me a lot of wear and tear to not have to go do that again prematurely! ahahaha! This is one case of NOT wanting to "keep up with the Joneses" (Edith Jones Wharton's original well-to-do family, about whom the phrase was coined).

I also scooped up an armload of fantasies written in the late 1980s, some British stuff of the last sixty years, and oh! and a fat volume of Dostoevsky's 'shorter works', with actual mouse bites on the front cover--so, reading for me, while eating everything, or nothing, in sight as I want to, and having coffee--

EDIT: Oh, just recalled that last night's dream involved filming a role with a fair amount of simple singing, and then calling me in by first name, to sing the same song/verse/line repeatedly, in a bunch of others--*shrug*. I find it so helpful when the dreams give me practice for waking life! One interesting thing is that a man was there whom I know waking life, not close friends, acquaintances, used to date his nextdoor neighbour back when and hang out over his house but haven't seen him in yonks, who has won--I dunno, half a dozen, or one or four or a dozen grammy awards--maybe that implies he'll turn up at whatever film it turns to be that I sing in--*shrug*--we'll just see, because really, these always seem to come true, whether I actually am in the films or not: those scenes get filmed, as I saw them months/years in advance--

why didn't I think of that???

2008-07-29T17:19:00.000-04:00

21. Bite and Crack

Line 2:

Biting the skin, covering the nose.
Without fault.

Immersing oneself into things, not taking time to sense what's there. It is no mistake to do this.
(Covering the nose indicates not being too careful with eating, so that one's nose gets into the food.)

whoohoo: major US magazine printing my letter!

2008-07-29T16:51:00.004-04:00

Yay--I got a call today from a major US magazine that they want to print a letter of mine in an upcoming issue. I'm really pleased, since pretty much the people whose stuff they print are household international names, pointblank, but this just struck them as fitting in, and it gives me more incentive to maybe start finishing up these articles and books and stuff which these days I simply write on the back of something, some paper or recycling, and cheerfully throw on the pile next to me. A friend whose work I respect has been very positive about encouraging me to write up some of these things, and an editor friend has also been supportive--maybe I'll follow through as long as the health bits are working out. It tends to be that either the brainses work fine or not, based on things like phase of moon etc., really, and sometimes 'm just present and not-thinking-cumulatively, and sometimes I'm just present with some ability to scrap together something that people might find of interest--so, the obvious thing is to make it easier for myself to just *do* it, and then to just *do* it--ahahaha! And some goofy locals solicited me for their film today in the street (and yes, all this stuff lately gives me much more insight into my clients who are film actors etc., which is completely helpful and takes me from my "oh, I could never do that" snobbery-and-fear into "hey, I do that, and can see the fun and fear and everything about it"--most helpful!) If I can trick myself into perceiving that it helps beings, then I'll do it--

boy, a little disappointed in the human-stupidity thang wrecking the planet and beings--

2008-07-27T14:25:00.010-04:00

Man, severe rains last night, and now again: thunder and lightning don't bother me, nor healthy amounts of needed rain, but this excess, plus enormous hailstones, are just not good: "Let's be on a planet and abuse it until it kills us!!"--"Excellent, duder! Race you!" (This is smashing, crashing, violent, loudloud smashing and pinging and banging on roofs, enormous torrents of water plus big hail, big enough to see bouncing all over: as in, hail of bullets, as in big problem for living things being struck with this hail of hail, including plants and earth--)

I'm playing the serious chod cd now, and that stopped the hail fast, and slowed the heavy rains to like a quarter of the volume five-ish minutes ago, but man: this is even with me having some stuff around that is protective of the earth situation etc. for a scope of some miles--I had had the chod cd on nonstop for a few days, then stopped playing it last night, I think, and it was tough all night weatherwise, so: note to self: do what it takes--(EDIT: and what will you guys do when we're all dead and gone? The rain stopped now--the cd has been playing for barely 10-13 minutes--I guess you'll play the cds, if you're smart, or learn how to do it yourself--ahahaha!)

can't believe I auditioned for the Ang Lee film--!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-07-26T12:21:00.014-04:00

WHAH!!!!!!!!! I just went along to accompany some prime hippie buddies, including Doug Rose who wrote Fearless Puppy on the American Road ( www.fearlesspuppy.org I think; see my review of April 19ish of this year, in this blog), about him being a hippie hitchhiker starting at age 15 in the 1960s on up, for decades (quite the wild ride with a lot of interesting stuff happening, some good insights, and worth reading if you're interested in How It All Was back when the hippie action was getting started, including the same sort of geographic and lifestyle areas covered in this film), and you know, it was fun: the same people that I'd see at the local coffee shop every day, very few who looked like mainstream people (okay, one or two in tight modern dresses with professional headshots, but really few). Frankly, almost none of us are beauties, but that's life--I'm cheerful babe remnants, and some of the young people are of course lovely by dint of being young and fresh, and some of the people have character. I felt sorry for the people who suffered: to some of them, it seemed to mean the world if they got it or not, and I vaguely remember back in the day when I did some modelling in New york (strictly small potatoes, and spent most time being a receptionist for a modelling agency, actually). I just did stuff today like try to get a measuring tape for the silly young girls who couldn't even guess their measurements (since I costumed a bunch of small shows way back when), so I got to be buddies with the tech folks, which is often more fun than some of the others. Some of them encouraged me to just audition, since they need *6,000* people, and apparently don't have quite that many yet, which is why they are scouting in Brattleboro today and Bennington tomorrow--they did buckets o' hippie-shopping in the Hudson Valley, which is where it's filmed, and still need a few sweaty crunchies.

It taught me a lot: before I decided to audition, I felt more free and cheery, and nobody's adrenaline was my adrenaline: I had nothing to win or lose, very spacious, part of it all. After I started to fill out papers, there was more adrenaline, more sense of something to win or lose, and the risk of narrowing focus, which I did not do--I just watched me feeling it all. I am starting to understand that simply moving a body part or two in response to the adrenaline-brain thing works great: it lets your mind know that you heard and felt that adrenaline, sussed it all out, and took action, even if it's just waving your hands or pacing around: burns out the chemical, lets your body relax--very restful, simple, liberating upon arising--really very much like the times I film stuff in dreamms--

So, I guess they let us know in a week/month/whatever--it'll be fun if I get to do it--we'll see--

EDIT: Ang Lee is doing a hippie film called something like Taking Woodstock, about events leading up to the festival, and so that's the background--filming during Aug.-Oct of this year--

nice teachings with Lama Gursam--

2008-07-24T22:00:00.003-04:00

Every year or so Lama Gursam (details at www.lamagursam.com ) comes to the south of Vermont and of New Hampshire and does teachings. I attended a Medicine Buddha empowerment, a second night of teachings about Medicine Buddha but really more about generation/creation and completion stages, which was very helpful, and tonight we had teachings on the nature of mind and calm abiding, and lots of people were there. He is also kind enough to go do a smoke offering near my house, where some trees were cut most brutally and the energy was really messed up by some well-meaning people, but man, the consequences have been very severe all around--never be mean to trees or other beings, you guys, because 1) it's unkind, and 2) they are either big enough to wreck you, or have friends who are able to do so--stress and disharmony are really bad, on every level. I hope that his ceremony restores the balance around here--I think it will help greatly. He spends enough time on retreat in the mountains himself to *know* what goes wrong when people just cut down trees and other things, even if their intentions are innocent or just short-sighted--certain elements must make up a world, and when some key ones are destroyed or changed, then some life forms, including me sometimes, don't fit in that world anymore--so I am glad that we can restore some of the original harmony--

yea, we should be like unto our brethren, the hors-d'oeuvres--

2008-07-21T16:38:00.004-04:00

Well, or I should, at least: my physical therapist is prescribing some odd truss-like device that would give me kinship with pigs in a blanket, which we used to eat at parties--the mechanics of the formerly-sideways ass and the currently-flesh-biting-bones make me spend a little too much time trying to crawl, like several times a day (since standing or walking is out of the questions during those times), and not enough time posing at cocktail parties, apparently--ahahaha! With this handydandy lumbar support thingie, which is clearly not as chichi as a corset, I can indeed stand upright enough to attend parties, although chances are superb that I will be mistaken for a hot appetiser, as opposed to a hot babe--ahahaha!!!

the importance of privacy in liberating phenomena--

2008-07-19T08:57:00.006-04:00

Nobody seems to have much privacy these days--even in dreams, which I have started to have again, there are people in the other side of the room, people coming in and out, folks on the periphery, and I see how it impedes those in the dream. I spend time with one gentleman in dreams like, oh, every month or so, and it is almost like private therapy/developing friendship: those who in this waking life are tiresome pains in the neck are told by him not to waste his time there, and I am glad, because it holds him back in this life to have these high-demand, deceptive controlling 'friends' around. Maybe the other person does not have these dreams too, and so it is some analogy of my own, and that's fine too, although it feels like a running ocnversation once or twice every six weeks, say, but the point that arose to me today is that if I, or you, want to 'liberate' something (in the language that we have been using here), to have an experience or emotion or trauma be fully processed and let go and purified from the system, then a certain amount of privacy, and time alone, is really optimal. I know those who have to really fight hard to get any private time, those who are superbusy, tremendously in demand, famous enough not to have the chance to walk down the street without a little disguise or entourage (although the ones I know are more the disguise type and NOT the entourage type, but that still requires a sort of reticence in the being), or simply overworked and over-demanded-from in many ways. Poverty and needs can create demands, and success creates demands. In fact, it all creates demands, IF WE LET IT. It's all just data: "Jim wants my attention again, and to tell me who not to spend time with; this guy is really needy", "What can I do to get more money?", "I could really get somewhere if I cultivated that boss", "Those damn' kids are so noisy", "That boi/babe looks hot, so I ought to go in that direction", "This is not/worthwhile to do", etc. etc. The point is choice: my machinery, which is quite similar to the humans and others in the crowd, tends to pay attention to stimuli, and it is up to me to decide where my attention goes, because of the old adage about "where our attention goes becomes greater". So, since my brain processes stimuli in that odd way now, perceiving sound as light and then feeling a need to do something because of the bright lights I see all the time as a sort of 'ought-to-be-survival' mechanism, I could either freak out all the time because my brain and survival doodahs are saying "danger will robinson" all the time, or I can learn that yeah, those scribbles of light in my vision are actually the brain and system hearing noise of indeterminate origin and trying to process it with the remains of the cooked system, so I can refine on that, accept that, let it go. Back to the main point: it is four zillion times easier to do that if I am on my own, have a little mental and emotional and even physical peace and space and quiet, so I can have whatever chat I need to have with myself about it. If I have to take care of kids or parents, or have to fend off drunk partying friends, or or have to be somebody's source of fulltime reassurance and reinforcement of bad habits and ego validation, then I'm screwed: I'd already be pouring all the life force out of me into a finite and unhelpful direction, instead of using *the present moment and my awareness of it* to liberate whatever fears, concerns, bad habits, trauma, etc., I need to let go in order to be healthier in the moving on--so, in the end, it's much healthier to have some mental and actual space often enough to deal with yer shite and let it go, and that benefits all ultimately much more than avoiding doing so--

Just a thought--

I have had the novel experience recently of having reconnected with a dear friend from literally...oh, 25+ years ago, and he writes me memories of things I said and did, even poetry I wrote, and I just don't remember them. I believe that he does recall them and that they are factual events, but I have some views of me having such an unhappy and self-destructive earlier life that I don't even recall me ever being nice to anyone, just me being deludedly self-absorbed and yeah, kind to animals, and probably misguidedly mean to everyone else, out of grief and distress and despair and whatever else I felt--very interesting, in some ways, but it's almost like he is telling me about a tv show that we both used to watch in the 70s or so, which somehow didn't register enough to me to stay in the electrocuted memory--interesting, and it doesn't get in the way of being friends in the present. Huh--this earth stuff is wild, and not--

Coffee coffee organic yummy coffee--and no, I'm not a hippie, but I suspect that I will take a little walk next week to where Ang Lee is casting parts for hippies in his new film--I *love* to see things, and people will have a more jolly time laughing with me, and then they will look better to the casting people because they're jolly and lively, and that will work out--it's fun to be a fun bill-and-ted-like machine, "whoa dude", and party on and be excellent to each other--! ahahaha!

OW OW OW OW OW PHYSICAL PAIN--

2008-07-17T18:00:00.003-04:00

Happy full moon tonight--I just had my first physical therapy session since I swelled and burst, and it felt fine: we had the xrays (and yeah, there are the expected three places with damage, one of which the guy didn't bother to mention in the paper report--there was a chunk like a tetris piece completely turned the wrong way, which is a vertebra, which he felt did not warrant mention). Anyhow, she cheerfully squashed the living grunting crap out of me today, leaning heavily on near-spine stuff to ascertain what moved and what didn't, and yeah, it felt...*tough*, maybe, maybe outrageously painful, but I didn't go unconscious, although I did unconsciously find myself tapping the table a lot, which resembles a mat, which is what you do when you're really felt the martial arts move and want to be freed.

I was very very surpised, even though she said it might happen, that now, half an hour or hour later, the entire torso and stuff feels outrageously painful: well, she sort of forced apart every joint and bit of cartilage and all that mechanical stuff, so yeah, I can see how it would hurt. I feel pretty darn glad, though, that a lot of the stuff seems to be remediable, and also everyone, including her, tells me how much better I look than before i burst--so, always look at the bright side of life--

the boys are back in town--

2008-07-15T15:57:00.002-04:00

Wow, pretty much everybody I ever dated, didn't date, spent time with in this or other realms, is in town now, and I run into them in the street: exes, casual-acquaintance gentlemen who were in Shakespeare shows which I helped costume years back, those in recent and past dreams, people I haven't seen in six years, in a few years, a couple years, a dozen years, some months, people I still need to have conversations with--*shrug*--I guess that's just what happens some weeks--and all men. Hmmm--I guess it's just time to wrap up some stuff, so they all courteously show up in town--thanks, gentlemen!! ahahaha!

Happy FFFFFFFFFFFFing 14 juillet--

2008-07-14T16:39:00.002-04:00

--the real reason I haven't dressed well in 225 years, give or take--

In honour of that event, here's is some information for those of us who might ever speak with French-speaking babies:

e bibi (biberon) = baba (bottle)
le bobo = boo-boo (minor injury)
le coco (coquille) = egg
le coin-coin = quack-quack (duck)
le dada = horsey (horse)
le dodo (dormir) = beddie-bye (sleep)
le doudou = blankie (blanket, or other security object)
hop-là! = oopsie-daisy! (small accident)
le joujou (jouet) = toy
le kiki (quéquette) = wee-wee (penis)
le lolo (lait) = milk (also means "boob")
la mama (maman) = mama
la mémé (grandmère) = nana (grandma)
la menotte = little hand
*le minou (minet) = cat
le nanan = yummies, sweets, num-nums
la nounou (la nourrice) = child-minder
le nounourse (ours en peluche) = teddy bear
le papa (père) = daddy
le pépé (grand-père) = grandpa
le pipi = wee-wee
le popo (caca) = poo-poo, doo-doo
une quenotte = tooth
une risette = a little smile
(faire une risette à la gentille dame) = smile for the nice lady
la tata (tante) = aunt
le tonton = uncle
le toutou = dog
le zizi = wee-wee

happy year-and-a-day-after-getting-electrocuted to me!

2008-07-13T09:47:00.003-04:00

I spent the actual anniversary at some excellent teachings by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, whom I have not seen for...oh, two-three-four years, for various limitation reasons. I was so glad to see him, and to recognise a few faces, including a dear friend who lives far away, who first called me "The Laughing Dakini". The few famous faces there sort of recognised me from previous times after we chatted, but apparently they haven't been putting their lives on hold waiting for me to come back year after missed year!! ahahaha! That's how it should be!!!

The teaching was on a pith six-line highest instruction, by Gampopa, although since I didn't see a text, I am unsure if that means that someone else made the condensation of his teachings, or that he did. At any rate, I just was glad to have had a big long chat with the friend who drove me, about all this crucial stuff of being and life and blahblah, and then when we got there, those were the exact subjects and contents and even some words of what we had said, and I was glad that what we had discussed all agreed with it, so it was like we were elaborating on, and understanding, the teaching before getting it. It seemed to really impact both of us greatly, and so we stayed for the first session, had some nice lunch with people, and decided that we were each ready to go home and simply adjust to what we'd already done. She went back again today, but I am completely tired and wiped, suspect that maybe the Tibetan medicine is making me never sleep, so I am here, on this brand-new computer that somebody was kind enough to give me this week. I am really enjoying it, and had no understand exactly how much windows dinosaur, my previous operating system, had been limiting, what with having to shut it down repeatedly every few pages and all, and not having access to many options.

So, I am still exhausted, wiped, tired, run down, physically wrecked, probably dehydrated, but cheerful, and hope that you're all doing well--ahahaha!

it's all fun and games until you can't count--

2008-07-06T16:43:00.003-04:00

--er, and then you're just a middle-aged person who can't count. Being vaguely cute and Having A Story does not make up for it in most professional settings that require grownups to be able to count.

I found a paper bag with some nice beads that I had bought years back to make a small portable mala/Tibetan Buddhist counting beads with, and it looks like I got more than the usual 108 (and not th semi-usual 111) at the time, and I can't frigging count them now. I'm not joking that I lost the ability to count when I got electrocuted: I can *find numbers that are there*, like I can push five beads into a pile, say the number 5 out loud, do it more and say 10, but it gets messed up, and when it got to the part about "put some on the string, then a different on because it's the 21st bead, and then back to whatever thtygpyoiukjouiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim k" then it just meant that now I have a few dozen beads on a string in a way that may have to be redone, many more not on the string, and a chocolate-box lid full of all of it, pushd to the side. I go slowly, don't try to grasp accumulation, but get this feeling of pressure, anger, inability to understand, like it's the very highest algebra or geometry, and somehow I can't get it, and it shuts down the cognitive mind function, so--that's it. I used to be able to count quite well, actually, these last several decades--this is why it doesn't look really good for me to figure I would get another job at a law firm, say, when my boss retires: they, um, expect their grownup employees with a dozen-years-plus of law firm experience to be able to count if there ar actually two dozen pencils left or more or less--oh well--no superbiggie thesze days when most people in and out of school can't count OR spell (I got a sort of dyslexia from it too, but it doesn't feel physically painful like the counting thing does), but really interesting in a way that it still is true, a year later--

it's not blabbing; it's phenomenology--

2008-07-06T10:26:00.004-04:00

A little teeny medical-related whine: yah, the fire and light is still in me, presumably from being electrocuted a year ago next week: I see flashes in the periphery often, and loud sounds (viz, firework noises worked fine for this) trigger enormous flashes within my head, without the head, everywhere: sound expresses as giant all-pervading light (and of course is light in motion, vibration, but now it really IS, perceptibly). Many kinds of noise at night come across as scribbles of light inside the mind which I feel I should understand. It's certainly 'kewl' and interesting, but a lot of time it feels demanding: the body wonders why there would be bright lights on at night if my attention were not required for yer basic safety issues, and so it messes with sleep--it was better for a while, but now worse, presumably working its way out. Oh well--another disqualifier for the dating scene: "Chick's kind of old and a little fat, and now lights shoot out of her body in unpredictable ways. It was one thing when her ass was just on sideways, but this--I dunno." "Oh, man, I hate that: everybody thinks they're so special, and then when that stuff happens, they want you to treat them right. Man, move on and find somebody where you don't have to waste your time on that!"

ahahaha!

only one "best thing" you ever did--?

2008-07-05T09:51:00.007-04:00

Some of the blogging sites try to generate free content, frankly, by prompting users to spew out spontaneous and often inappropriate-for-public replies to questions of the day (and the fact that many of these are so indiscreetly intimate is another ramble, to urge the foolish and attention-needy to confess in generic and visible public "the worst thing" one has ever done, or "the biggest secret you ever kept", or the crime one is secretly longing to do, and yet the poor suckrs fall for it and fill in the details from their own IP addresses, etc.). One of these content-provokers asked something about, "If you were to die today, what is the best thing that you have ever done?"

It seems to me that this is not really the best question, Buddhist-wise (and yeah, my journal, my own indiscreet blabbing--ahahaha! --my own version of "it's all about ME-ME-ME!!"). From the Buddhist perspective, countless events and phenomena arise and pass all the time, and so yes, maybe somebody saved a little child from drowning or whathaveyou, or passed up the chance to kill the badguy or steal from the cruel criminal employer, etc., which may be strongly recalled because of emotional or intentional impact, or enormity of consequence, etc., BUT it seems to me that viewing one's life as a bunch of lesser stuff, forgotten events, with maybe a couple of highlights here and there, doesn't benefit much. I would think that yes, things, phenomena, arise all the time, and so TO BE IN A STATE OF PREPAREDNESS TO DO WHAT IS NEEDED, which is the Buddhist ideal, is the way to be. That way, yes, you still frankly forget all the big and little things you did, and so on your death bed what you would be thinking about is dying, because that is what is going on. If (preferably not on your deathbed, because of the distraction, but one does what one must), some little child or dog wanders into the street, then what you do is scoop them to safety, or die trying: no question beyond "is there any chance of succeeding?" (and if there is not, then you make that choice, too).

So, in that kind of life, there is no way to recall all the benefit that one has done, although others might--that seems far and away the best way to be, instead of hoarding our measly little value and only spending it on either big-ticket returns or stuff w make sure others know about--EW!!

oh yeah, chicks dig me now---

2008-07-04T08:12:00.006-04:00

Yesterday as I walked downtown, I got *THE* most spontaneous frank and open smiles and greetings from women, including those whom I'd never seen before as they passed through our Vermont tourist town on a three-day weekend, as well as an equal number of almost-excluded looking glances from men, and I was surprised. It took me a minute to figure out the dynamics. What was my secret accessory: the 'perfect' purse or shoes? A charming tot or adorable puppy? The cutest guy ever? My innately winsome kewlness showing through my ordinary work clothes, or a vast bag of cash?

No, dear readers, it seemed to be the results of my food-stocking-up expedition for the long weekend. Aside from a packet of typing paper, all I had bought and carried freely in my arms without bag was three big giant containers of locally-made chocolate pudding, and a beautiful shiny tender organic eggplant clearly marked half-price. The women seemed to find that to be the epitome of self-sufficiency, and the men seemed to know that there was no unmet need here which they could fill. ahahaha! I was really amused by the vast waves of open approval for my unthinking shopping trip--so funny!

In other news, I am fine: saw my Tibetan Buddhist doctor on a flying visit, got some medicine etc. to take, and am instructed to pipe down and get better. So, I will! ahahaha!

well, maybe just not a diseased member--

2008-06-30T18:06:00.005-04:00

But folks are exclaiming over my looks today, presumably because I am not bloated and supurating, and had a bath. Among the exclamations: "Last time I saw you, you were babe remnants, but now you're a babe!" and "Oh, you dyed your hair!!!!!" (??????!!!) No, I'm just not pustular with running sores--*shrug*--still, it is *much* better than the recent, "Oh, you're pustular with running sores! Last time I saw you, you were at least babe remnants!" comments--

The healing dreams have begun again, and I finally am understanding this thing about melong: it *isn't* about me, the way people come to me: it's about them, about how they interact with the world. So, I am just some being or person or whatever, and some people come to my dreams for healing and are nice to me or whatever their thing is, and one person right now cracks me up: he fights with me in person, although we never speak, and he spent so much time this morning fighting at me and with me in my dream, whereas I wasn't even fighting. I felt quite exhausted from it, and yet presume it did the guy some good--*shrug*--I guess we all just act to the world the way we expect it to be, and then feel somewhat reassured that, yes, that's how it is for us--ahahaha!

Oh, and somebody gave me that little check for some magic amount of money recently, and I looked at the lottery odds, and realised that the local Vermont state lottery has quite good odds compared to powerball etc., however modest the winnings, and so I bought a bunch of lottery tickets all for the same day, and will be glad to win a lot of smaller amounts--yay!

boy, do I feel great for now--

2008-06-29T11:22:00.005-04:00

I suspect that everybody finally got some serious sleep, and we had more torrential rains and thunder and all, and I had countless dreams, all the ones that were stacked up waiting for me to sleep--

A big part of it for me too was this continuation of helping myself. I do bits of the jin shin jyutsu and other applications that seem helpful, while online or reading or in bed, and last night I came up with some excellent contrivance of propping parts of my spine open with pillows in ways that I have not done before, and really, there it all was: memories, emotions, forgotten episodes, basic life events, traumas and nothings, and it was all able to be cleared out and thereby free up lots of space, on whatever levels 'space' may exist--so, I learned through this a tremendous tremendous important Buddhist thing that I never heard from anyone before, and never understood before: it has to do with MAKING SURE THAT YOUR BODY IS NOT A SOURCE OF 'TRAPS' FOR YOU. An obvious application is in the basic thou-shalt-not areas of sexual addiction, say, or flares of violence and anger and gluttony and vanity and hyper-reactivity in all ways, but deeper, and presumably below these things, are what I always talk about and somehow only now have figured out some good techniques for: LIBERATION UPON ARISING HAS TO EXTEND TO THE BODY TOO. So, it does not help to simply 'talk' in you head about "That guy did another thing that bothered me; that's okay; I'm calm", and still feel at odds with what is really happening. That can be a good observing and learning approach, but to *feel* the anger or shame or resentment or whatever comes up in response to this guy's jerk activites du jour is key: "Yup, I feel this, am sticking with feeling it, can tolerate it and don't have to act on it, and now it's gone, processed like poop." That's the way to go--huh, that reminds me of having a sordid dream with Amy Winehouse and Pete Whatsisname and models and other Sky News celebrities last night, these tedious drug-related games that they were playing that I had no interest in--and yet wealthy political types would want to hang out with them too--huh--anyhow, DON'T BE YOUR OWN BOOBYTRAP--

cheerfully itching and scratching--

2008-06-28T10:08:00.005-04:00

--which really is a charming combination, to want something and then to get it: very simple! ahahaha! I got some sleep and dreams on and off last night, enjoyed that, found some little subtle position involving a pillow that actually seems to genuinely help the damaged part of the spine, which I can *feel* working by relaxing and strecthing out the damaged part around the bone damage and related, and am cheerfully more itchy today, which makes some sense since last week everything got scratched and burst raw and is healed/ing now and hence likely to be itchy.

I just wandered across somebody's journal which mentions an article in The New Yorker, and some lady who had severe life circumstances and itched all the time as some result. I was thrilled to be reading idly scratching my outer arm and reading that IT IS OFTEN "CAUSED BY A CRIMPED NERVE IN THE NECK", as indeed I appear to have: score! Of course, it is often caused by having been itchy, scratched, and then having the dry/etc. skin as a result, which I fully understand and am experiencing, but the article seems interesting, so here it is:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/30/080630fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all

I think it's *very* possible that the weird neck and spine damage and compression of the spinal sheath could trigger all sorts of stuff in my body and systems (because, um, it's yer *spine* and everything else related to it, like yer brain), and so I feel fine: cheerful, itchy and scratchy, very positive about insights and enjoying this body, oddly wrecked though it is: and I find it intriguing that last year, close to a year ago, I got electrocuted and that gave me a sort of botox-look, because the facial nerves, among others, were temporarily bloated and immobile for a month or few from having been cooked, and now this week the face became so violently distended that all lines and wrinkles were bloated out, including the actual main folds around the eye to the point of the lower lids disappearing into the eyes themselves, and not so many have returned yet--it's like natural versions of the costly chemical/mechanical 'youth' tratments--moneysaver plus look odd and young equals funny score! ahahaha! Man, am I dopey when I sincerely try to "do it myself"! ahahaha!

themes recently, for many people--

2008-06-27T18:50:00.004-04:00

Insomnia, for this whole week if not more: my excuse is steroids and recycling everything, and others' may be anything--but I see a lot of folks talking about it. It feels like tonight is A Possible Good Sleep Night, and I hope we all enjoy it.

GIANT GIANT issues, that weirdly combine money, parents, and old lovers: freaky, but seemingly true. Among the things I've done/heard/had sincere chats with girlfriends about this week are things like 1) feeling like they/we finally figured out money, as in, *really* understand its need in our lives in all the complexities and responsibilities and heavy and light stuff;
2) feeling like giant issues with parents about money and taking care of themselves and having their own boundaries etc. have come up bigtime, and are starting to be resolved;
3) giant issues with exes have come up that have been messily connected to stuff like parents and money and taking care of one's self: investment accounts with both people's names put on by the naive woman who actually established and funded it hoping that the abusive relationship ten+ years back would work out, and now the account is inaccessible by either of them; parents and step-parents encouraging abusive exes "who have reformed" to come stalk the woman, who has moved away and wants nothing to do with feeling obliged to stalky creepy exes nor creepy needy parents who have to be in the middle of encouraging unwanted disasters; women finally understanding What They Want, and just getting it, doing it, having better insights and taking action, that sort of thing.

Major freaky health issues: women especially are having major things like me getting mutated and falling unconscious and on steroids and whatever, whereas another friend had her gallbladder taken out suddenly yesterday. Along with this seems to be a real reconnection with our own bodies, as seen in the fact that there were a lot of individual copies of this jin shin jyutsu book, The Touch of healing, which I use now, special-ordered at the local bookstore. The lady there said that it seems like a little self-help class, which we have not had in the area before--just seems like time for self-help, which makes it easier to eventually help others--

Another theme seems to be men freaking out in response to the women becoming strong and/or seriously medically damaged. I see some of them being really stressed-looking, and I don't see too many of them chatting with me about their own similar issues this week: maybe it's a girl thing right now, going out of the one-half waning moon--maybe people know more about planets and can figure the scoop--

Oh well--I think it is genuinely superhelpful this week, like a real chance to poop out everything and learn more about what is helpful, so good luck to us all! Since I didn't die so far, I feel like I've just been learning so much, enjoying so much, and really feel like I haven't wasted this week of lying there not-asleep all week except for tiny dreams (this morning's with Tim Burton and some fun experiment which sort of wrecked some gravity, but covered everything with yummy icing, and got awards from the people in that world--)

link to acupressure help site--

2008-06-26T20:02:00.002-04:00

http://www.eclecticenergies.com/acupressure/indexemotional.php

This has a lot of the pressure points that are in the book I just bought. I find so many of them helpful, and this way people can have their own access to it, and not have to consult anybody else about help for things they may feel private about, like 'shame' and 'grief' and other aspects of life--enjoy! I like very much that we can do our own things privately, and then that can help us be able to interact with others, give and receive help, learn together--it's a good time period for that, I think--

learning a few new skills--

2008-06-26T15:45:00.005-04:00

Thanks partially to a very kind friend who sent me a chest of gold dubloons, I was able to buy a stock of good food and vitamins etc., and another excellent book, having to do with acupressure to deal with past trauma. More and more I am being led into better understanding of my complete confusion about human bodies, and how I simply never learned the right way to take care of them. Who knows how it all really works? Well, some Asian cultures have good clues, some other ancient lifestyles and traditions, and so maybe me learning these things now can help me help others more in future. I'm maybe one version of yer typical white educated American, sort of: considered working poor, yet working five days a week and not making it, maybe with fewer mainstream expenses (no car or tv or cellphone etc.), more on the crunchy-grnaola side, and still have body issues, life issues, although I "have a spiritual practice" and all that--somehow I never learned the right stuff entailing bodies and recycling and physical flow and all, and so maybe the right stuff is sort of forcing itself on me. WHAT IF THE FACE AND EVERYTHING SWELLED AFTER THE XRAYS BECAUSE THE SPINAL COVERING AND OTHER THINGS WHICH I GENUINELY BELIEVE SHRANK FROM BEING ELECTROCUTED SIMPLY NEEDED TO EXPAND, AND THIS WAS A HEAVY-DUTY, CRUDE VERSION OF THAT????? Who knows? WHAT IF I SWELL UP AND SCRATCH ON BODYPARTS THAT ARE ACTUALLY KEY HEALING ACUPRESSURE CENTERS AND HENCE ME TRYING TO FORCE ME TO DO SOMETHING BENEFICIAL FOR MYSELF? Maybe it was just *time* for me to stop being overly-helpful in some ways that were helpful and some that were not, and just to listen to the advice about "put your own oxygen mask on first before trying to assit other passengers".

I have continued on the steroids, so sleep very little, and have been cruising through pastlife stuff again, seemingly more big stuff of my own this time, and there are some roles that I believe we can carry residue from: I recall a bunch of lives in which I killed badguys, and maybe not always just badguys, and I realise how tiring it is, and what a mess it can be, if not processed cleanly. For those who may not believe in literal "reincarnation" (well, not even a Tibetan Buddhist term, but close for now), it can just be looking at these notions as parables, as some lady mentioned to me years back: heck, even Freud said that "it isn't what really happened, but what you believe happened" (maybe a little paraphrased by me there, but not much), and so a child dropping a big ice cream cone and having fits of grief and despair can have just as much suffering as somebody undergoing something literally much more severe or threatening, IF THE ATTRIBUTION OR MEANING GIVEN TO THE EVENT IS SIMILAR OR EQUAL. You know? Some people take 'this' more seriously than 'that', or try to avoid taking anything seriously, or have old situations from this life or others stuck in their habits, and could benefit from the kinds of healthy release that I am looking into lately, with the jin shin jyutsu and acupressure and all of that. I am really pleased to be doing it, and look a lot less facially bloated, have the majority of the right side of the face pretty obviously bruised the last couple of days, major yellow-green and stuff (and do you know, I actually got a look, in a crunchy-granola food store today, that almost seemed to be sort of a blame-the-victim thing, like the woman thought she recognised domestic abuse and wanted to tell me something a bit preachy--it wasn't like the look of compassion, but the look of efficiency, like maybe she was a doctor or someone at a crisis center, and thought I should do something different: I'm sure I've done that a million times, hopefully not recently, and hopefully not without compassion ever again).

So, life goes on, and I feel really jolly: yeah, sort of almost pass out a lot, mostly today carrying a heavy bag of chow from the store, because I have no concept of volume, and bought bags of beans and stuff that were pounds and pounds in wieght, just didn't understand 'cumulative', but that's okay: I'm tapering off the steroids, so they should settle down fairly soon--I feel great, really, because being awake almost all the time (with the occasional silly dream about being attacked by non-humans who somehow think that I'm retiring from kicking badguy behinds just because I don't want to *only* do that fulltime: HA! Behinds were kicked and bitten and trounced!!! ahahaha! Snap out of it, badguys: don't be so silly! Go mutate somewhere like yer old grannie and learn from it, why don't you? We could have a lot more fun if not all dopey--)

So, yay to be home and having a moment to figure out what vitamins and stuff I am supposed to start taking again now that I could afford them, and see what happens--yay for fun-seeming chow too! Yay for all!

so, just do the Milarepa thing--

2008-06-23T09:29:00.007-04:00

I may have mentioned the versions of what happened when Milarepa, an excellent meditator and practitioner, found that five giant spooky holy-crap-scary demons appeared in his cave seemingly out of nowhere. Various versions of the tale have him yelling at them, to no avail (which sounds quite unlikely except if he were trying out the wrathful thing, not the petulant thing), and also sort of bribing them by being nice to them and making offerings, to no avail, and then a number of the stories have him just putting his head into the mouth of the biggest, and then they disappear. The version I really really like, which in a sense is the same as the putting-in-the-mouth, is the one where he tells them, "PLEASE FEEL FREE TO BE MY GUESTS OR TO GO, BUT I HAVE TO KEEP PRACTICING, SO DON'T MIND ME". Him putting his head into the mouth of one of them was also a form of this, because it reflects directly that he is facing his mind, and understanding that these are emanations or arisings from mind, and as such, and like all arisings, they are the result of causes and conditions and ever-changing and in fact just illusions (granted, we are too, and so it is not to be taken that he thought himself "real" and them "illusions"--boy, would that be a mistake, like thinking you are real and the truck driving at you is only illusion: might work, but if you're all operating on the same plane of relative reality, the squishier object might get smooshed bigtime).

So, that's the thing with me now: I'm clearly sort of mutating physically, with yesterday's version of my head even worse, eyes pretty much bloated shut, face dreadfully bloated to the point that the previous day's bruises were engulfed and not-visible, but palpable to touch, itching all over the place, and again, a lot of strong pulls to falling unconscious--I went to the neighbour, the Emergency Medical Technician, at one point, tottered over in my nightgown, and slumped on his floor and tried to get his ideas on wise action, since I did not want to bother the hospital if I wasn't about to die-die in an avoidable way, although the sinus and head area involving upper breathing were getting all inflamed in a way they had not the previous day. He pretty much said that the steroids are tough babies, and to sleep or rest for a while, and see how I felt, and then he'd be happy to take me to the hospital or anywhere if I wanted to, so I staggered home when I was able to and tried to rest. Apparently these steroids, prednisone, can give you vivid phenomenal experiences, like when I was in the kitchen yesterday and the phone rang, and my attention leapt out of my body through my eyes in that direction and almost knocked me out because it sprang out from me with a sort of kick--it was like a cartoon where this happened for real, and that was shocking--fun because I didn't really get wrecked, but unusual. I think the boundaries are getting completely remade, which would make sense in a way since I tend to be fairly open and could use a little adjustment to be optimal, and so I just have to do what old good Milarepa did, just practice during it, observe that what arises is only really part of the ever-changing story, and not get too worked up about it. On the one hand, yeah, it is no fun to be disfigured facially--really does nothing for my babe aspirations, but on the other hand, I don't actually care--so that is freedom from one set of obsessions or attachments or wanting to be attractive or whatever, which can be a hindrance. Really, after such severe-seeming, non-human-looking mutation to start with (it went way beyond changing race to pretty much changing species), it'll probably look just great to be ordinarily aging the way I am--so that can be helpful maybe, for putting things in perspective, or maybe I'll always stay sort of distended and bloated in the head, which would probably mean having to keep my face mostly covered to keep it from the sun and to not scare people--and that would be okay too. Anyhow, things seem fine today: I mean, yeah, running with blood and ooze and sores and bloatedness and itching and scarred and my eyes are still different sizes and all, BUT: what the hell--it's sort of fun! ahahahaha! It's all what you make it, and today the fact of not falling unconscious much at all is really ace, and i appreciate it--and if it happens, it happens, and I don't mind that either--and people have been really nice, calling me on the phone and email, and that is great, to have nice friends come out of pretty much nowhere, after I have been rather self-isolated lately--I really appreciate their kindness--and last night's severe thunder and lightning and heavy rains right over the house seemed to help a lot, probably cleared away all sorts of energetically and also chemical stuff, like from the house next door that got repainted and had its paint removed in the last few weeks--it didn't match up directly with my condition timewise, but may not have helped, although they removed the paint in some ecological way approved by the state--

well, I look slightly less like a turgid syphilitic member--

2008-06-21T19:57:00.004-04:00

Or I could maybe be prejudiced in my own favour--but the mainstream steroids seem helpful, and it seems more like a snake shedding its skin, with a few repulsive extra fillips--it feels good, relatively. I think it's been a sort of healing crisis, and I feel fine, barring the demented itching, running sores, bloated head, burst nose, and other fashion accessories--ahahaha! It seems to be actually active also right where the spine damage is in the sacrum area, so maybe it's just the whole thing getting better--we'll know when we find out, so to speak!

and on the other hand, it's sort of cool--

2008-06-21T11:24:00.004-04:00

I mean, how often do you get to be a science experiment (other than the astounding instant-to-instant one) of having, say, your nose become so distended with fluid that it actually starts to burst and leak through the pores without having be burst by a good punch of impact? It doesn't make it pretty, but having a completely mutated face is intriguing: I dreamt a month or so back about a version of me with white hair and just this sort of face, and figured it was an old-person form of me, or maybe Namkhai Norbu or other teacher sharing my face in the dream, but this is the actual thing: broad face, and the nose has become so broad and full of fluid, and the eye area around it, that it looks very Asian, maybe even Negroid to a degree, in the area of nose and cheek--the lips stayed the same, and the rest of it is really drastically altered for now. Huh, pretty cool--and you know, I feel better, like I've had my little healing crisis and maybe I'm better now. Yes, the hands right now are itchy beyond belief, and yet since I came home I have done nothing with them except a little wash in cool water and made some coffee--one of these days I will do the Laundry Of Possible Doom, but at least it's segregated, so any possible poison this or that is contained with it, if indeed I got it from clothes--lalalala--I genuinely feel better now, and am grateful. The cortisone or whatever it is might be really helpful--

huh, that didn't work so well--

2008-06-21T10:34:00.003-04:00

Yesterday's score: face bloated, right eye swollen half-shut, some running blister-type EW things and itching and all.

Today's score: same, with more EW on many parts of body, only more facially bloated, plus a big black-purple area on side of cheek, very much reminding me of some poem I wrote twenty-plus years back when about some kind of bruise like fruit--this one is from where I fell unconcious for whatever freaky reason as I called the police for someone to take me to the hospital at about sunrise today--I came home only now, to find the phone still off the hook and pieces of my broken glasses on the floor--dudes, I ought to at least drink or take drugs, because doing all this stuff *without* that excuse is a drag--happy solstice. I hope this is somehow me getting the medical and other help I need, because otherwise it cost me fifty bucks copay to get a mediocre breakfast in the ER--! ahahaha! They were genuinely nice this time, which I appreciated, and they worked really hard on some man with serious heart problems--and they did give me mainstream drugs, and the naturopath gave me the other stuff too, so it should all work out--

boy, do I look post-op--

2008-06-20T19:32:00.003-04:00

I look like I just got iffy plastic surgery, face bloated and tight, bad balance of things like cheeks way higher than they were the other day, one eye swollen mostly shut, tight shiny skin except for the supurating parts, which itch insanely and look gross as anything--major EW. And why, might you ask, is my face like this? I think it's directly because I got xrays on Wednesday, of the neck and spine, and some of the face. I started to faint twice during it, scaring the young gentleman technician whose arm I gripped automatically while starting to tip over the first time (second time no one was there, so I could say SHIT a few times and clutch the little railing thing), and then the next day I got this freaky patch of post-nuke-looking stuff on one cheek, and today tons of this stuff, supurating, oozing, yuck and drag and pain and all, everywhere I got the xrays: middle of chest, all around the neck, all over the face, and, maybe curiously, under the rings I wear on either hand: we took all other metal off except them. So, it had better be a coincidence, or, like my doctor thinks, "an allergic reaction to xrays, which she's never seen before, but it's not poison ivy", or else I get to sue them, and enjoy the millions before my rapid and yucky demise from having my head cooked off--drag or what. I hope it's just some tedious demon problem which goes away NOW, or life lesson, or boring old poison ivy despite the diagnosis otherwise, although it never affected me like this, even when i got it a few weeks back--funny that this fairly drastic loss of the old babe-remnants looks doesn't bother me. I thought it might, but I guess I was wrong--huh, good to know. Being disfigured is not so bad, sometimes, although yup, I got my share of kids staring and friends saying the usual whatthehell stuff today, and I did have a few little cheery splotches of chalky pink calomine on the face to give them context--I do frankly look a lot more non-human than usual, big change in the spacing between nose, eyes and bones, and I have to say it's not bothering me except for the occasional itching--*shrug*--gigten gyi chonyi ray--ahahaha!!!!

ingredients of life--

2008-06-15T14:50:00.006-04:00

I read all these trashy best-seller mainstream novels from the last couple of decades lately, to see what was poured into the popular American mind, and to see how it contributed to what we have now, and to see some universalities of humans, and a few things come up, good and bad: people dealing with pleasant and unpleasant life situations, which remind me of my old stuff, which is good, and also notions of 'old-fashioned' values: over and over again, these fictional folks who grew up in the Depression, or the war years, or whenever, learn a few things; MONEY EQUALS FREEDOM; MONEY EQUALS POWER; MONEY EQUALS INDEPENDENCE. Got it--only thing is, that it doesn't work like that exactly anymore, although yeah, it's true if you can get it, for reasons I have mentioned or not lately. I'm sure I had ideas about that, and probably said them, but they're not the focus right now.

What is the focus for me right now is my observation of my hesitation to *do* some things: it's like, since I got electrocuted, I somehow got some good insights into "oh yeah: *that's* how human life works!!! WHOA, I NEVER would have suspected!!" ahahaha! It's like I look around, and I have a lot of the ingredients for a good life: I live somewhere that is mostly quite safe and peaceful; I live with cats who are great; I have some sort of work that brings in some sort of money, if not enough; I have some genuinely worthwhile insights, I'm mostly a very jolly guy who can incidentally heal somebody's dog or somebody's kid or somebody's major problems fairly consistently; and I have a stockpile of excellent fabric, and some decent books, and stuff like that. So, whatever the limits, these are assets, and presumably not the only ones, AND YET, I seem to do buggerall with them. I simply can't figure that one out--it used to be something like perfectionism or dissatisfaction with this world, and subsequent mopiness and pissiness, but now, yeah, mopemopepisspiss, but--maybe it's just variants on mopemopepisspiss. I'm not a superbig whiner, but maybe doing fukkall IS a form of whining--hmm---I keep having the delusions that others have, that I am sort of responsible for my world, and yet that it is not within my control, and yet I get cranky over others, and yet: all of this is partway true, and partway false. Maybe I just get stupid about the parts that are true, and the parts that are false--yeah, consensual reality is what it is, and changes every instant, and what I contribute IS ACTUALLY IN THEORY EQUAL TO THAT WHICH EACH OTHER CONTRIBUTES--isn't that cool to contemplate? What I do in the world could be seen to be of equal potential to a buddha, or a guy who hops trains, or a criminal of some ilk, or a politician, or toilet-cleaning folks, or whatever--it's the form. It's NOT to be confused with that being absolutely true on the relative, so to speak: of course if I am born dead, that would limit my activities in this realm, BUT if I am a good or bad guy, a happy or miserable guy, that is the koolaid that I pour into this world and all worlds which I influence and have any contact with. If I play it right, I can have vast positive or negative influence in the realms I affect, which is all by extension. If I don't, then I just leak shit out of my diaper and feel embarassed about it, you know? Still happens, even if nobody really sees it. So, at the least, one's goals can be to examine WHAT KIND OF AIR AND WATER ARE RUNNING DOWNSTREAM FROM EACH OF US, you know? You might be poisoning others bigtime just be being a drahmah queen, or pain in the ass at work and home, or dysfunctional parent or other dissatisfied person, even if you don't kill people or go to jail or anything, and even especially if you're big into the self-righteous politically-correct stuff: 'rigid' seems to be only good for dicks, tools, weapons, and walls, sometimes-- OR you might be bringing so much goodness and so much fun and healthy well-being into this world (or others), even if you are not a top politician or moviestar or singer, or even if you are--*shrug*--it's just what you do with what you have and are--so, since it's ten million day again on the 18th (last time, in May, was the one celebrated by mostly non-Tibetan Buddhists, and still worth a good ten million in my mind: this is the Tibetan one, and again worth another good ten million in my mind--ahahaha!), there's yet another chance to focus for the day--

yeah, like he said--yeah, like I said--

2008-06-15T10:27:00.001-04:00

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

— George Bernard Shaw

Hey, it's also my whateverth anniversary of being vegetarian, as he was--for me, it's since Wednesday, July 15, 1981, so I'm sure the math could be done--huh, lotta years, far more than half my life--

psychotherapying myself--

2008-06-14T14:44:00.004-04:00

I think it's definitely important to look at your own issues, and get to the bottom of them, see what else needs to be done, and then let them go or change them or whatever is helpful (like I say, poop, flush, and you're all set for the present). For example, I think it's pretty clear to me that I would rather chew off my or anyone else's fukking limbs rather than be trapped with a particular one of the people I grew up with, and I think it's pretty clear that my life reflects that: no ongoing big reliance on people, not clinging to partners or parents or other humans for anything, although no current hatred or fear or disdain or meanness towards that person. On one hand, it may have gone a little far in manifesting aversion-wise, like the little habit I picked up of marrying foreign people and then them living in the other country without us being together, to the point of it being not-a-relationship, and me being fine with that. An obvious answer might be: "Only spend time with nice people now, and get over that sort of thing". Hmm, why didn't I think of that? All these decades, and all along all I had to do was go outside and the excellent people of my dreams would have been my dear friends etc.--man, do I feel embarassed!!

So, the obvious thing that I would tell clients would be:
1. Have compassion for the jerkness of those people, and me, then and now.
2. Don't spend time with, or be dependent upon, jerks.
3. Cultivate self-reliance, because it's really practical, and it is your own responsibility to take care of your life and finances and body and all that (plus any spawns etc. you may have produced).
4. Cultivate nice friends and acquaintances, because that is beneficial for everybody.
5. Have fun, continue to cultivate wisdom, compassion, and skillful means and benefit beings.

That's sort of it. That's sort of what I have tried to do. I guess we all have areas of life that may need a little help, but it is pretty interesting to me to see the degree to which I have found my view of the first zillion years influenced by a certain key relationship. Hmm: yes, having gotten cooked last year, I feel like I have gotten past residual stuff, because it doesn't really come up, but I do believe that the body stores all these memories and things, and that having interaction with physical therapists and others on physical levels brings it up. *shrug* I think it's the final frontier of recycling for me, really--beneficial to do, and sometimes not fun, and needs to be done anyhow. Otherwise I'd be going completely against what I advocate to others, and to myself, and that'd be just dumb: either I believe what I say is beneficial, or I'm lying or misguided, and that's worth examining. Oh crap: then that also implies that the three areas of the spine that don't actually really move right now might have the big stuff in them--oh well--deal with it all bit by bit, and it'll work out fine--

more boundaries--

2008-06-14T10:57:00.010-04:00

On the other hand, this is acutely Stoopid World: not the only one, and not exclusively stupid, but man, look around: so, I just heard a chainsaw, which freaks me out, mostly because I am close to nagas and hear and see them, and because I have never yet seen chainsaws used by the intelligent, simply cutting off a little injured bit of this and preserving the rest of the tree, etc. It seems like that planet has a lot of tools, mechanical items of destruction, and the planet has a lot of tools who define themselves by being manlymen with those tools, so they just use them, making harm, including to themselves, and things suck more. Yeah: way to run a world, guys--make giant costly machine-things that do harm, create a financial and lifestyle system where if you don't run the fucking things you are out of a job or make less money, and so then just look around for stuff to fuck with it, and consider it "just doing your job"--yeah--weapons o' mass destruction R us--

So, since this is seemingly stoopidworld, I need the boundaries to deal with it, or move on. Since I don't feel it's wise or fun or practical etc. to kill myself or anything like that, that leaves "dealing with it". So, that is why I went to the doctor in the first place, to get this body functional and not-trashed, and presumbly to learn how to be less-trashed in an ongoing fashion.

I have to admit that the Trungpa adage about it being better not to even start in Buddhism comes up: he said that it's like being a snake in a bamboo tube, and that there is not 'part-way'--do it or don't, and it's so hard that in many ways it's 'better', or seemingly-easier, not to even start. However, since I started, I have to be excellent at it, or else it wastes effort and still sucks bad things. Damn. So, that's the deal: I know that most people can't deal with being present, and do everything to avoid it: drink this, eat that, smoke that, screw that, be addicted to the cellphone and the texting and the video games and the boring, and/or adrenaline-excessive, lifestyle, and then you die and think you're well out of it, and get the shock of your life (because presumably it happened at the other end of the life too) that it just doesn't stop, and if your attitude tells you that you're screwed, then indeed you are, and if it tells you that you're doing okay, have learned to skateboard and do parkour and just be there for whatever happens, and just *deal* as it comes up, you're all set.

So, I am trying to do my best to deal with this life and this world. I am not superaddicted to things, but appreciate the effects of good coffee, chocolate, and trashy novels, as fodder for the brainses to process while ignoring being fully present to the dumbassedness of this world and adjoining. *shrug* It's just what we *do*, try to deal with stuff, and sometimes people have no practice in facing really hard stuff, and race for the drugs and booze and blaming and delusions, and sometimes you try to get a little practice, saying to yourself that something feels bad, or is tough, and just stick with it for a minute: "HOLY SHIT, DOES THIS FEEL BAD!!!", and then if it goes beyond what you feel you can face, back off, pass out, get stoned, go for a run, get enraged and blame everybody and retreat into self-pity. OR, you can back off for a second, then face it again, and you might cry, you might puke, you might just feel so much pain that you feel all ripped up, BUT the more you gently stick with it, not self-abusively, just having some cojones and being there, the more it passes, the better it becomes, the more strength and insight you've gained, and the easier it might be next time. I mean, the choices are always variants on: LEARN TO DEAL WITH IT, OR BAIL. Not many alternatives, just gradations on that continuum--so, good luck to us all, and I am supergrateful for whatever helps and yet does not delude me and make me attached to being dysfunctional as my way of coping--and yeah, good blackblack organic coffee with a lot of organic half-and-half--that helps sometimes too--

Oh, and the 'bailing' part only goes so far: yup, makes sense to disappear when people start shooting, let's say, or being abusive to you, BUT if it's mostly your crappy attitude that makes your life bad, then you'll just go around the corner and find someone else from central casting who'll try to kick your ass or rip you off, and yeah, you can blame them and everybody and um, bail again, BUT you always take your weather with you--so that's why Buddhists meditate and all, to *look* at what is stuck on their attitude-shoe, and see if it needs to be scraped off--

concepts of "boundaries"--man, is Buddhist concept different than others!!!!

2008-06-14T10:01:00.011-04:00

The Buddhist concept of "boundaries" seems to be wildly different from yer basic western-mental-health models, in that, really there aren't many in the absolute. There are some on the relative level, as in, the cat in my lap generally stays being his own discreet body by the time he jumps off looking for chow, although on the molecular and other beensy-speck levels the molecules, atoms, beensy specks, interchange always, and so I wind up with more than just stray cat hair on my old black teeshirt, but actually exchanged molecules of catbeing on my bare leg, etc.

All that cosmic interdoohdah aside for now (and yes, it's crucial, but I'm not into that level of chitchat right now: all the physicists are starting to talk with HHDL and other Tibetans lamas and figure out that they're only catching the slightest glimpses of what the Tibetans and some Indians have known for thousands of years), I was discussing the notion of boundaries with the new doctor yesterday. Actually, she was discussing it *at* me, since I am a little beyond her realm of experience, and it struck me again how very very different a buddhist worldsview is from other views I have met, exponentially sophisticted, and completely simple. She wasn't able to hear language she understood from me about boundaries, and was thinking that maybe with me growing up with yer basic alcoholic parents etc. like we all did, maybe those few little constellations of "misplaced loyalty to idiots unto death" or "the always-giving helper" or the other patterns that are seen all the time in dysfunctional families might apply to me. She didn't understand the one about "not being differentiated from anything", which is common to all, and she didn't understand that, say, human minds are really loud to me, or that this world having a really screwed time like it is now makes the place and all the beings *feel* bad, in a perceptible way that people personalise, saying online how "depressed" they are and taking drugs and crap, whereas, it's just a natural response to earthquakes or tsunamis etc. that kill countless beings on the other side of the world, since we're all connected, and yet it is NOT me "dwelling on" or "over-identifying with" this stuff (and yet she nailed me for having some sort of perfume or post-bath soap scent on me: same thing, different level, in my world). It's maybe subtle, and just a sort of awareness that exists--I mean, the whole point of Buddhism is to understand that you ARE NOT your limits, and to benefit and have compassion for all, because mostly they still think they are their limits. *shrug*

So anyhow, one boundary that I figured out on my own that I do not seem to have is "SOME BOUNDARY OF HOLDING GOOD THINGS TO ME". Maybe it's utterly unrealistic, given the nature of everything, and within Buddhism it's certainly considered best not to be concerned with the eight worldly concerns (gain and loss, wealth and whatssis, fame and thatthing, good and bad), and yes, OF COURSE IT IS UNREALISTIC TO TRY TO "KEEP" THINGS ON MOST LEVELS. Still, I read these tons of trashy mainstream novels from the last few decades now, sort of to educate myself as to what the masses had pumped into them in the west, and everybody over and over again starts out happily or not, and learns that they want things: love, family, money, prestige, that magnificent house, beauty, social prominence, the respect or envy of all, revenge, independence, that guy's successful family company, that millionaire's baby, whatever their kink. Then a few hundred pages happen, and they learn that they may get stuff they thought they wanted, but it isn't what they thought it would be, or this or that shows them how fleeting the good, and even the bad, really is. So, if they learn that even in mainstream trashy beach-reading books, why would I, personally, want to cultivate *more* attachments and obsessions, after having spent a little time and effort (facetious western-person understatement for those literalists) in gaining perspective that is much more free than the one I used to have???

I don't get it. Yeah, I have been looking carefully at the "Donnalee needs a lot more money on an ongoing basis to maintain a place to live especially if this body is trashed" style of thing, and that makes sense because this is earth where people charge you money just to stay alive and have a place to live, literally, and so the wise person tries to have enough and a little to spare to help others with, but I don't want to cultivate stuff like "I must benefit beings IN THE WAYS I WANT": I tried that, teaching some classes that people really enjoyed, and teaching some classes that people fight every step of the way, and it just isn't beneficial to have especially older people argue and quibble over the writings of excellent teachers, simply out of their own fear of inadequacy etc. This is the earth thing: it really seems to be this sort of game of measuring how small I have to make myself to not intimidate some others, even though I have done the obvious stuff like getting old, getting fat, staying poor, having health concerns, wearing absolute tatters and bad-smelling catpissed shoes--really, we do it all for you! ahahaha! It's very disappointing, really: I GENUINELY, genuinely expected to be the dumbest and least-advanced being on the planet, and looked forward so much to having excellent beings and humans to learn from, and to do sort of a little humble help for others here and there, and I think that I was completely mistaken. Clearly I just need to develop the "skillful means" of benefitting beings always anyhow, which to me would be based in adaptability, WHICH BRINGS US TO THE BOUNDARIES ISSUE, WHICH TO ME MEANS THAT 'BOUNDARIES' CHANGE EVERY INSTANT, AND THAT AS LONG AS YOU'RE NOT INTENTIONALLY INVADING PEOPLE'S PRIVACY ETC., then that's maybe the most boundary you can expect. Like, if somebody has an illness and wants my help, sure, I used to be able to see inside their body, and even feel it in my own body, and somehow they get better, even from the brink of death. Is that "good boundaries"? It seems useful as hell--and yet, if I spent any time "spying" on people, then EW--that would be bad boundaries, and not something I ever tried to do nor wanted to do. I have turned down cases of solving crimes etc., because it's not my business, and I just don't want to use my mind for that stuff, even if I could.

I mean, in Buddhism, it's just pretty much that your identity is where your attention is: pretty much as easy as that. You or I may fixate on our bodies because they're pretty darn convincing focal points. If you or I can relate to others, feel for them, feel love or compassion or anything open and positive, then that's part of our attention too--what does that do to boundaries? It's just the way it is--so when people get all worked up about "boundaries", it's much more subtle than they may think, and so yes, there are boundaries of "that's not yours: don't touch it, or look at it, etc.", and "yes, you may feel something towards somebody, but that still means they have their own space, their own freedoms, etc."--it's just how it goes, and you learn through doing.

I don't mean this as a comprehensive essay, but just some ideas based on the doctor's visit.

looks like spine damaged in three places--

2008-06-13T17:48:00.002-04:00

Drag, dudes. Went to new doctor, who recommends more stuff like xrays for the two other damaged parts of spine, and certain homeopathy stuff to help the brainses, and this and that, including sort of body therapy, like massage therapy in addition to the physical therapy. Well see how insurance feels about that--but really, it's is a little bit of a bummer to --oh, I forgot: I have started to lose some ability to walk. *That* bummed the crap out of me: walking along the other day, like I think I mentioned, went off curb intentionally, leg buckled. I figured it was a one-time deal, having been too bouncy or something. Walking along today, boring, not bouncy although walking downhill a bit, frigging leg buckled. BOOBOOBOOBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. But really, I'm more interested in dinner right now--but I know I'm going to hate that stuff when I get back to looking at it--

new terma received; medical update--

2008-06-10T16:52:00.003-04:00

So, didn't recall that it's the middle of the moon, you know--the half-moon, when I generally get lucid dreams and dreams with others. Had a dream with someone, then this morning, while awake and meditating, got another terma transmitted directly to my mind: white field of light, and the tibetan letters/syllables appearing directly one at a time within that sphere of being, right into my mind. It *used to* only happen when highest lamas died and passed the goodies along, but I am hoping that this time it is not that, but maybe just the relative proximity of Namkhai Norbu, whom I believe is still in Massachusetts teaching for a little while--it seems exactly his sort of thing. *shrug* There was only a little bit of English narration and singing, so we'll see when it manifests--and YES, in Tibetan Buddhist culture it would be considered shockingly indiscreet to mention this sort of thing in a spiritual autobiography, as opposed to maybe a discreet teaching to studentsor modest admission to the teacher, but 1) I'm western; 2) I'm female; and for those reasons alone, frankly, 3) I'm not considered to be anything significant at all! ahahaha! If I were a male Tibetan Buddhist this time, I'd have a *lot* less free time, because there might be demands to teach etc., but as it is, I scored in the lazy, behind-the-scenes, negligible-looking stakes: look like nobody, sound like nobody, be viewed as nobody, get some sleep!!!!! ahahaha!

Oh, and I went to my physical therapist to get the damage to the neck checked a bit more carefully, and she's puzzled and bummed that certain innocent and slow moves make me start to lose consciousness--sort of yuck. It didn't seem to be heat or dehydration or fear or speed or anything, but the blood pressure plummeted (she measured), and the body was just wrecked, like losing it, like starting to fall out of consciousness, but able to narrate in a sort of mumbley way. That's the ace thing about meditation and death practice: you can stick with most states of consciousness far beyond most folks, and tell doctors or researchers or lamas etc. the teeny details as you go and come back--I think this week's clear light practice habit is doing seriously beneficial things for my practice, and I'm glad I stick with it--it's so hot a lot of the time that sleep doesn't happen, to observing my way in and out of states of mind is perfectly fine, and good practice--

And I'll go drink and eat a lot more now, just to make sure I'm stocked up in a healthy way--

so, about that dog, see--

2008-06-08T20:45:00.003-04:00

So, I got to see that cute little dog today, in a flurry of other-people-leaving from their driveway, and the dog, with a charming green cast on his right front leg, ignored me utterly: there was another smaller, tastier dog in the car, and that took all his attention. When they drove away and the girl picked him up and he saw me, he gave me fuzzy makeout all over my face, frantically licking my head and genuinely delighted to see me, and that was great. They'd put two little stick-on cutouts of the cast material in yelloow on the cast, and it was very cute.

The girl said that they had been great at the vet's, and "suspected a broken pelvis" and did xrays to diagnose that, and they were all excited and pleased to find that not only was it all not broken, only badly bruised, but the leg, which I had held all during that little trance time on the floor of the porch, figuring that the jin shin jyutsu aspect could only help, wasn't even broken now: just sprained to the point of still needing a cast in their mind. So, that was all fine, and we took some photos which I will try to remember to get printed sometime. On the other hand, I have had a little speck of something which I thought was poison ivy on the right wrist for a few days, and today, it is outrageous: enormous, disfigured, funny-shaped, lots of EW, even after having been covered with various stuffs from toothpaste and alcohol to bandaids. Today I just scrubbed the crap out of it with peroxide, poured some on the open wound, poured a good dose of salt in it, and covered it with a new bandaid. After a bath, it occurred to me I have the perfect thing, and now that's what it's packed in: wasabi powder, to a thick crust. Ah--I feel like an exotic fish--ahahaha!

And it was quite stuffy-hot last night, and I stayed up late, very late, figuring out ways to get healthy air circulating in the house, especially for the cat with breathing trouble, who responds really well to the jin shin jyutsu on his feet, and today, right now, getting out of the bath, which I have been getting stuck in physically for the last few months, it occurs to me that my back and pelvis FEEL GREAT, as in "feels like there is nothing wrong with it and xrays would show it, as opposed to the recent baddish CAT scans"--well, I am not complaining. However long it lasts to feel great is fine by me! Thanks, all! ahahaha! This stuff is so great: it's only earth and my perception of it, so I can make it as fun or as crappy as I want! Yay!!! I choose "fun and healthy for all" now--

wow, online brain test by Harvard that freaked me out--

2008-06-08T18:19:00.003-04:00

Wow, that was very unexpected. I ran across a set of online brain tests by Harvard folks (url forgotten, sorry) that wanted to see how a large range of folks perceived things. I figured that I would take the five-minute one about judging the attractiveness of faces, because I figured my notion of attractive may not be mainstream, and I thought it might be interesting. So, they say to get ready with 7 meaning most attractive, and 1 being very unattractive, and to push them when you see the faces, and then the fucking screen was just full of flashing faces, all kinds, so fast and freakly that it felt assaultive and I shut the whole thing down as fast as possible. I have no idea if they want people to just see some face flicker past and randomly smash a button or if something was wrong with it, but I just didn't understand. I don't see how they could even match one's answers with the faces, if maybe three or twelve flicker by in four seconds, and maybe only one registered, or you liked some and didn't understand the others, or you wanted to rate everybody but got confused. They even asked in the beginning if you have things like epilepsy, and I am sure that this would very likely give those with epilepsy a problem--huh, very strange. They ask other things and other surveys, but I am not going to do them--obviously the visual pressure is really really bad for my brain, or whatever it is: it just makes me lose all comprehension and feel threatened. Strange--it seems to work very badly with the non-cumulative aspect somehow--

dog update--

2008-06-07T20:00:00.004-04:00

YES!!!!!!!!!! They just brought him home, and I waited to see if they had him with them before I called to them--would have been really insensitive to yell questions at them if they had had to put him to sleep or something. He's "mostly fine, JUST HAS A CAST ON HIS LEG"--yay that it worked out, and also yay that I haven't entirely lost my diagnostic-experiencing knack--all best wishes to all!

so there was this really cute dog--

2008-06-07T17:46:00.008-04:00

The people next door had a couple of little puppy-sized dogs around today that I never saw before, and they spent all day nipping at each other and shrilling in response, shrieky and barky and puppyish sounds, and then one of the cars later went away, and I thought nothing of it. Later I heard one of the dogs really scream, a lot, a long time, and looked out, distressed that nobody seemed to be taking care of it, and there was still a car there, even though the other car was gone, and I figured that the person really ought to help the dog and was just a jerk or careless, and I felt unhappy that I didn't know where the hell it was, so I couldn't just take matters into my own hands. Then the screaming stopped, and I hoped somebody had helped--later I looked out the window, like an hour later, and in the driveway was a cute little puppy, alive and looking cheery, but not seemingly on a leash. I went out and talked to him, and his spine and stuff just weren't working right--he was clearly injured. The car was still there, but his walking was so poor and confused that I didn't want to overtax him, so I put him in the porch of the house there so I could go talk to an older gentleman up the street to see what he knew, and when I put him there, some girl came out and said she'd never seen him, although he ate two bowls of cat food right away. He was cheery, but had a spinal injury, to my mind--odd gait, sat down immediately, didn't look right in the structure, although cheery and friendly and otherwise healthy-looking, although a whine and a whizz on my feet, which is often a puppy thing and not necessarily a spinal injury thing. I called the cops--no dog warden on for the whole weekend, and they don't take injured animals anyhow, unattended. The girl went to pick up her housemate, leaving me alone with him, and so I lay on the floor of the porch on a catpiss rug with the puppy, my arm under his neck at his insistence, and as soon as they left he went into a sort of panting trance flat on his side on the floor, eyes partway open, in my embrace, so I lay there too, and sang mantras--nothing else to do: no cars, no vets, no nothing, no other help. I sang one mantra a lot of times, and that was fine, but didn't feel like anything. I cried a little and sang another, and then bang: what I wanted happened: the pain went into my body, bad right hip, some degree of shattering in the leg, some foot bones maybe broken on that same side, some spine stuff up where mine is not bad as far as I know, and I prayed that we could just run it through me and take it from him, since I intentionally thought that my spine is already screwed, and I know it, so I don't mind more harm if it saves this young healthy little creature--what else are you going to spend it on? Things were really trancey for a long time, me singing out loud to his panting fallen body, with an occasional unmoving big sigh from him, half-hour, more, whatever, and then the father of the family came back, said the pup belonged to his daughter who lived out of town and was visiting. The foolish girl had left him unattended on a second-story porch, so he must have fallen or jumped--I felt terrible that I had not somehow known it beforehand in order to search him out, although I might not have been able to help more, but at least the man, an EMT by trade, had the wit to assess things, go call a vet, and I stayed with the dog longer while he did that. The more it hurt my body, the better it seemed all around, so I didn't mind it, hoped that it still worked to heal. The girls came, clueless daughter came, very childish and unwise at college age, poor thing, asking if he would die, and eventually they took him to the only vet that does xrays on the weekend, down in Massachusetts: I'm glad they seem to have money, because I had none to spend on emergency medical stuff for an animal that I had found, which made me feel bad. I came back in to my house when they had driven off, reached for a long-life tsampa pill from the White Tara empowerment to take on his behalf, and felt some stuff go: felt myself fall from a height and crash, felt and perceived the visuals, and hoped that it was just me taking the energy of it and letting it go out of me: I'm really recyclable, or have been so far, so I'd ratrher take it and let it go than have it stuck in a being whose health and body might really be harmed. I'm glad they went to the vet, have little faith in the poor incapable girl, have more faith in the EMT father--but you guys, PLEASE have the wit not to let the pets or kids BE UNATTENDED WITH ACCESS TO WINDOWS AND STUFF, OKAY? Thanks--public service there--I still have lots of spinal pain and neck pain and whatever, some stuff sort of crunched that didn't seem so crunched before, but I feel okay--makes sense--I hope he's fine and the childish girl is able to deal with him--

I can only contribute my natural share of ugly to the world--

2008-06-07T16:07:00.005-04:00

--but I will *not* wear those appalling, unflattering, faux-clever-modern-fukkugly-50s/60s-rehash glasses that are so popular now. They are being worn by the same people who presumably snickered over the high school photos of their parents, or of themselves even five years ago, and yet now there are everywhere, to the point that they do not offer the untainted ones for sale anymore. EW EWEWEWEWEWEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just think for a minute: they were the product of a society, the decade or so after the war, when the manly-man thrill of that Nazi-Whupping And Restoring Right To The World, By God, had worn off a little for yer average husband now seemingly stuck for the next thirty-five years until retirement at a modest but stable desk job, who still regarded women, wives and daughters, as property, and it seemed perhaps in their best interest to keep them rather homely-looking, really, since the competition was reduced and they didn't have to worry about their property getting poached on or 'ruined' before marriage (hey, you ever think about why no one says right out loud, "SO DOES THAT MEAN THAT MARRIAGE RUINS A WOMAN, THEN?")--and it was time when THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY WAS ON A MAJOR ROLL, AND SO EVERYTHING WAS MADE OF THE UGLY STUFF, SO THE SUCKERS WOULD BUY IT BECAUSE EVERYBODY ELSE WAS, AND THEN THE PETROLEUM COMPANIES WOULD MAKE PLASTIC BUCKETS FULL OF DOSH. It was a real plastics boom time--and the result, polyester and unspeakably yucky fabrics, MADE OF PETROLEUM PRODUCTS, hot and nasty and foul-smelling and sticky to wear, and ultimately not so flattering, even in the Swinging Sixties into the early Seventies, ARE BACK. And people welcome them and even are seen in public in them, and don't even really snicker at themselves or each other yet--just wait until the pendulum swings into all-natural cottons or whatever the next save-oil phase is: people will look at themselves in these photos, looking like the most egregious examples of 70s porn stars, and feel a little chagrin, perhaps. I don't know if that still happens to those who take prozac and SSRIs and all, but I hope so--and if someone has chosen this *before* the big brainwash boom hit in the last few years, I don't plastic-coat them with this particular brush--

So, WHY WOULD I WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN FOUL PETROLEUM-WASTING CLOTHES AND UGLY GLASSES, WHEN THIS LIFE GIVES ME MY OWN SHARE OF IMPERFECTION WITHOUT THAT BANE?? ahahaha! I don't get the attraction--yeah, I wear my old glasses from the 80s or so because my newer beloved wire-rims broke and are made of unfixable spaceship stock (although I'll give their repair a try sometime when I find them again), whereas the ancient and dreadful stuff from a couple of decades ago still holds up, however dubiously, and I like to give my eyes some weekends and evenings free from the contact lenses. That's sort of a health thing which I am sure others do, and maybe some people have old glasses which they love, but that's not what I mean here--

Oh well--I just can't believe that these days people are so silly as to be wearing stuff that *really really is not flattering to many of them* (individual tastes varying of course, but good gawd, man--PVC and kink-fodder sure, or weather-stripping wrenched off a house while escaping a natural disaster, sure, but voluntarily--?????). Then we wonder why our sex lives are so crap! ahahaha!

Anyhow, I'd think about the part about how the petroleum industry actually makes big money from these heinous clothes--I never see people having *fun* in them (well, except for the fetishwear stuff), but I see people being excruciatingly faux-ironic, and then even forgetting to be that, just looking like suasage stuffed into plastic instead of into natural fabrics, I guess--poor things, to choose to wear stuff that a lot of them look really self-conscious in ("Does this mean me look sort of--you know?" "Uh, no dear.") I do look tattered and crappy, but try to support the natural industries while doing so--

Again, really all I am saying is to suggest THAT PEOPLE MAKE AWARE, INFORMED CHOICES, about the seemingly-trivial and about what seems big. I truly think a lot of the people wearing this yucky polyester etc. don't even know that it uses petroleum and is directly linked to oil and gas prices. I really really don't believe that many people look at the odd unflattering aspect of it and wonder if there is any aspect of 'good old woman-controlling days'--oh well. Like anything, it's just my observations, opinions, guesses. Good luck to us all!!!

I'm ready for the "Planet of Functional Beings" now--

2008-06-05T18:47:00.006-04:00

Really--spoon 'em on in. I cannot *wait* to ever somewhere be someplace where others are *genuinely* way more competent and good-hearted than I am--really!! PLEASE!!!!! OUTCLASS ME NOW!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE BE IN CONTROL, YOU GENUINELY SUPERIOR BEINGS!!!!!! I want to just watch for a while!!! ahahaha!

I think I am rather tired--oh, and I dreamt idly that a woman whom I hardly know was being sort of abrupt and rude, seemingly knowing something opinionated about me but in the dream she just kept saying abruptly, "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to go into it", so I didn't take it personally. I ran into her this morning at the coffee shop in waking life, and she said that that is actually and literally what she did last night, interacting with two people, one of whom she felt okay speaking in front of, and the other not. So, for whatever tedious reason, I got to watch and experience her actual waking life "soap opera" in my dream--*shrug*--this stuff is somewhat random. I had started doing a sort of clear light practice that Namkhai Norbu describes, and this was the second night of it. It's sort of like driving through a dark tunnel for hours, and then having a dream or two, then more tunnel--but since really that's what people do, only they stare at billboards so much that they crash again and again, it's a good practice--

The part about the stoopid people was prompted by me looking across the street. The owners of the property are SO tremendously unwise about whom they rent to (and yet a bit control-freaky) that I am not surprised at who just drove up. The last tenants were a woman and her boyfriend, typical overworked downtrodden-seeming woman, typical bad-news do-nothing drug-dealer loser boyfriend. A couple of years of police visits and shouting and him disappearing for a few weeks at a time followed. Short story now is that they found him dead in the river last month, his ten-thousands-plus of dollars and...erm, hunting crossbow, gone. (I would call that a pretty serious swing-and-a-miss rental-judgment-wise, however personally tragic it may also have been.) This guy who just drove up is the exact image of him, right down to the trailer-habituee, wonder-bread-louche attitude, the constant cigarette, baseball cap and teeshirt and whatevers exactly the same as the other guy, and I can *hear* his mind gloating over how "the cops'll never look here"--sigh. She is supposed to be moving away, and I am praying that this guy is NOT the new tenant. I am praying that he is selling or buying something from there, and will just disappear and stay away, and that whoever rents it will be great--I'm just too tired of fuss that messes with sleep and results in dead guys strewn about--

local male prostitutes, and oh I was on tv again--still weird--

2008-06-03T17:16:00.006-04:00

So, the sociology news of the day is that there are *no* male prostitutes in my boonie town that go with women. There are some that go with men, and women that go with men, BUT no men who go with women for money. That's the scoop here--and I found it interesting that when I would mention that idly over getting my coffee etc., people would spontaneously confess their own pasts as prostitutes, although again not with women: it looks like the big market these days is men going with men. I think there would certainly be a big market for men who go with women, but again, in this boonie town, one can hardly do anything without being overheard in the street and misinterpreted: I have had that happen a few times, where people next to me say something loudly which implies that I did or said or believe something, and there I am, denying it or elaborating on it or, worst yet being dry about it and sounding completely culpably in agreement, and getting in trouble as the person involved walks past. The other day a grumpy lady around town came up to me in particular and shouted how since somebody purportedly had many millions of dollars, that person OUGHT to buy this field that some company is trying to sell, which was the playing field for public events for that town for sixty years, and now not able to be used except by people with three million bucks, the selling price (the owner-gits had turned down a perfectly good million that was offered by others for its use for the town). She shouted quite animatedly that since X guy had X millions, he OUGHT to buy it and beyond that even *give* it to the town, and I said that these days people's money isn't always what it looks like on paper, plus the old 'free will' factor, but none of that registered with her. She was very much attached to her delusion, and shouted that she didn't have millions and that I didn't have millions (speak for yourself, baby), but that since this business person did, that person was obliged to blahblah. I found it most interesting, since this is the lady who bursts into flames at the idea of nudity to the point of calling Dr. Phil about how disgraceful it all is, and gets all worked up, and shouts, that those who aren't against it are somehow 'bad', despite the truth in Oscar Wilde's dry little quote about, "If man had been meant to be nude, he would have been born that way". Really, money makes her shout, nudity makes her shout--and there are still no companion gentlemen whose company she could rent to maybe shift her focus--*shrug*--what a world--must be a recession of sorts--

And I was speaking with a federal marshall about chitchat this morning, and he said that he had been channel-surfing last night, and "heard a familiar laugh". I said OH NO, I WASN'T ON TELEVISION AGAIN, and he said yes, it was me, "doing some Buddhist stuff". He wanted to know when it was, but I was not even sure what the event had been (I laugh at many many Tibetan Buddhist empowerments, and have been recorded dozens of times doing so, just incidentally at teachings, which is where I got the name Laughing Dakini, from a gentleman filming at a lot of the events), but it sounds like a Troma Nagmo ceremony and teaching that happened in the area last year. If so, that's great, because it gives benefit to have it shown again and hence happen again, and also: this right-wing uptighty-whitey-righty actually spent some good time watching the ceremony and "waiting for me to sing", which didn't happen on camera, according to him. He gave a jolly rendition of what it sounded like when the teachers sang, which is that sort of mumbley chanting singing recitation of mantras and doing of ceremony, and I must say he sounded perfectly good at it--ahahaha! So, it looks like every two weeks, pretty much on the full and dark moons, I appear in The Wall Street Journal, on TV, on the front page of the local paper, wherever, no name given, no real reason, like where's waldo and why the hell is she in the media again in that same frigging tattered black coat even if it's summer? The score for the last six weeks is two Buddhist-related appearances from events in the south of Vermont, and one of me randomly being a bodyguard for silly naked ladies in Brattleboro, Vermont, and two localish to the south of Vermont, and one on a national level. *shrug* It's not the worst thing, or best thing, or really any thing at all, to be sort of stealth-there-not-there, especially since nobody ever knows my name except if they know me visually or by laughing already--huh. I think it's just some sort of karma: just odd and not-personal, and just fine--

most puzzling advice from a physical therapist--

2008-06-01T16:57:00.003-04:00

To me, on adapting my movement with the current lower spinal damage:
"Think of your hips as a shoe box."

WHAT THE HELL??????? We are *obviously* not thinking about putting the same things in shoe boxes--!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????? AHAHAHAHA!

???????!!!!

Really, any practical application of that one just went completely over my head--

Namkhai Norbu today--

2008-06-01T12:59:00.007-04:00

It looks like it'll have to be a meditative-housecall, because the Medicine Buddha empowerment to be given in Massachusetts by Namkhai Norbu today between 5 and 6 pm is not something I'm likely to get to. I think he is an excellent teacher, admittedly part Tirthang (not "terton", although that seems to apply too), and I have received empowerments from him, including abrupt spontaneous ones in lucid dreams, and I think I'll just have to get it via long-distance today: everybody else is just feeling quite stay-at-home too, and that feels fine. The crowd there is often a bit bumptious for my taste (no understatement there, sadly), and so this way is cleaner, cheaper gaswise, and better. The energy has been excellent the last few days anyhow: significant lucid dreams, with people writing down how to get to their homes, drawing whimsical little hologram drawings, and then those turning out to be actual directions when I look it up the next day online. *shrug* I still will not call or write or go to addresses given to me in lucid dreams, simply because it could trespass on those out here, but it's interesting to have them actually add up somehow--and yet when I tell people to call or write or email me in lucid dreams, I genuinely do mean it, so if I ask you to, please do! ahahaha! I also dreamt of serious healing in dreams, for me and others, and that seemed true and very important--

My focus continues to be on benefitting my health and adaptability, and I was SUPERchuffed last night *to become invisible*--YES!!!!! Sometimes there is just an excellent comprehension (word meaning both meanings, in this case) of all, and it works--it surprised me, but is excellent practice. In Tibetan Buddhism it is considered that there are several options for enlightenment upon death, and so it is always helpful to have experiences of some of these ways before that time. This would fall into the category of "pliancy body", I believe, to some degree, which to me appears congruent with the rainbow body in continuum. That seems good. I also helped the bees to the best of my ability, because (since they have hive mind, what helps one helps all, and conversely what harms one can harm all).

I contemplated stuff about hive mind in humans, and really, it's only cowardice that keeps yer average git from experiencing it: they fear that they have Deep Sekrets to keep, and that people/beings will fathom it, and that That's Bad. It is what keeps people from being open to basic love, really, this fear that somebody will find out Bad Stuff, or that they themselves will be obliged to take on other people's Bad Stuff and be trapped. Nah, it's not true, but it's a crucial thing that is worth examining. Buddhas tend to have hive mind anyhow, because of being inseparable from it all, and letting that be okay--much more restful than always trying to defend one's own fortress! Ideally we could do both as needed--

new email, you guys--

2008-05-31T14:44:00.001-04:00

The old one is just hacked or messed up, and until somebody straightens it out, I'll just be using this one, so all you guys who have written me at the other one, whose emails I have not been able to read for three days or whatever, please try this one now: nobody ever sent me email there before, so that'll be fun to get some! ahahaha!

catnose at sover dot net

Thanks! Write soon, you guys! No spam needed--thanks

email not working--

2008-05-30T15:46:00.002-04:00

My usual email of ukemishodan at care2 dot com has not let me access it yesterday or today, and I did see glimpses of email early yesterday (or the night before??) from some of you guys before it got weird on me: could be that I opened a spam thing to forward it to the right place and it made weird stuff, and that was superdumb, or the company could be stuck in the middle of their server switch from last week somehow, or maybe it's just mercury retrograde--so, if anyone wrote me there the last two days, I have noty been able to get it, so maybe call if you know the number, or leave a message here, and I think I can get them--they're screened, so it would not post automatically if I don't look at it--thanks!

the S word--(and a fairly serious whine about health--)

2008-05-29T16:36:00.009-04:00

There are a few of S words of note, but in this case, here's the brief introductory curseword version: shitshitshitshit. Then there's what prompted it: my physical therapist actually didn't think that SURGERY is completely a bullshit idea--????????????????!!!!!!!!! I DO THINK IT'S A BULLSHIT IDEA. Granted, she didn't push it, but it was on her list of "we'll know in a month if it needs to be a real option", with a serious look at me--this is not what I wanted to hear--

We looked at my CAT scan results and reading, and a lot of it was pleasantly-wimpy, no problem, *except* for the part where there's the bigtime damage in disc and bone, all pinched together in the wrong way with the disc like not in the right place anymore oops and the bone has gotten misshapen and in its own fukking way, PLUS the suspicious other bullshit area that looks, to me, like a crack in an actual other bone, which *could* have been when the crackheads--doctors--did the spinal tap on me longlong ago, during which I convulsed into a blackout because they did it wrong and hit the wrong key thing IN SOMEBODY'S SPINE, DUDES, and I had convulsions with the spinal tap needle still in my spine. Yeah, that could have had a few repercussions, because man, did they look supersuperworried and superrelieved lawsuitwise when I regained consciousness and could still talk and move--so, aside from any friggin kewl points I get for that, it did seem to perhaps contribute to me being screwed now.

So, her prescription so far, at the first visit to her in a few months, is to do a lot of weird and bizarre-looking perv stuff on the kitchen appliances, which concidentally overlook the street windows, so I can always have an audience while trying to keep a straight face while doing mindful crotch stuff on the washing machine. I am supposed to go do stuff that gets you arrested in subways for frottage, on the sink and washing machine, to try to stretch certain key tiny bits of spinal covering etc. and not let other problematic bone spurs and other damage move. Okay. 'Pain in disc but not more damage' is supposed to be much better than 'other, or less, pain but actual damage to spinal cord', which is what we're trying to avoid. So, that's the scoop--sort of sucks, another S word--I jusr realised that I didn't make it clear: I have to INTENTIONALLY press the spinal bones into the exposed spinal disc repeatedly in order to avoid damaging the actual spinal cord and hoping to try to avoid surgery and/or other brands of completed fukkedness. Good--now it's clear--and you know, I had even *given up* all the macho shit--that was me forever before when I was growing up, presuming that *everybody* had had organs ruptured from abuse like I had, and had survived some pretty freaky incidents and actual no-shit attempts to kill me and whatever, was excellent with this and that weapon, this and that situation, just basic sane-insane dysfunctional abused person ahead of the curve growing up in Noo Joisey where these skills were needed with other people's booze and speedfreak stuff, but--*shrug*--I had sort of outgrown that. I had looked at stuff, had a little compassion for myself and others, understood that the tolerance for pretty much every pain and form of abuse was helpful in some situations, especially the last dozen years of the major convulsions, and the years of experiencing other people's deaths and major illnesses and all in my actual body, not made up, documented in some cases, including by one mainstream doctor whose life I saved, and now I know that a lot of it really trashed the body in other ways, so--*shrug*--trade off--just life, really, but it was sort of isolating, especially since some friends just didn't have it hard, and so they don't know, and some had it muchmuch worse--I mean, I came out of it alive, and turned out great, with a shitload of effort and some decent therapy (and some crappy therapy too--some people are TERRIBLE at it)--so, I just do whatever. I feel fine except for the pain and disability, and I just keep doing whatever is helpful.

Whatever--I continue to have lucid dreams with those whom I *hope* are frigging remembering the dreams and having a freedom in them--I don't control the dreams or seek them out, even though lately there are clients calling me to have me have lucid dreams with them for money. It doesn't work like that for me: either we match up on some crucial levels and the dreams just *happen* and benefit both people, or they don't--and I no longer do 'time share' where my body space literally becomes that of someone else in order to experience their problems and cure that person and have their dreams, which I could always do volitionally. But now, with this--serious situation--no joke, guys, I am pretty sobered by this, with the summing-up on the CAT scan reading starting with "Severe..." and not getting much more perky--

Whatever--it's life, and yeah, I can walk, and there are some very good possibilities, and I feel pretty much fine. On the one hand, yeah, I really need to sit down with me and go, "Holy shit: reality check: PARTS OF YOUR FUCKING SPINE ARE BROKEN AND REGROWN WRONG AND YOUR CRUCIAL SPINAL SHIT IS OUT OF LINE AND GETTING HARMED EVERY TIME YOU MOVE, DUDE; FACE IT NOW"--and you know, we haven't even taken pictures of above the waist and the neck, with the additional broken or formerly cracked and broken bones--and this lady is the first one ever to find the broken face bones, just feeling her way over my face to scope things out once--shit--you know, I'm feeling it sometimes--and you know, I'm also feeling pretty bad that there are people whom I genuinely *like*, just people that I really get along with, and because of politics and bullshit and jealous friends and deranged permanent-giant-baby stuff, we don't spend any time together just shooting the shit, and I really think the friendships could be superhelpful, and fun, for each person, and yet when I try, I get shot down right away, which does not make me think it's wanted--ah, stoopid planet, man, and pretty sad--best wishes to us all--

a thing I discovered about "guys"--

2008-05-27T18:19:00.008-04:00

A buddy is somehow disappointed that I am no longer spending imaginary time with moviestars nor obsessing about the concept, and suggested that if the one/s I had literally had dreams of interacting with (lucid dreaming as opposed to some wistful figure of speech otherwise about "dreaming of meeting somebody") no longer held any charm (or if I simply have a life!), that I get an attachment or other unpleasant obsession with somebody else famous, and threw out a few names for me to consider. They were famous, and cute in their mainstream-actor-guy ways, and some people would certainly go for them, and indeed I'd met one of them a dozenish years back who was going through quite the cute phase back when, but--

There was also a new gentleman working at a local cafe today, quite the (blurry, but not bad at all) picture of somebody whom I used to really think was great and lovely, and yet, this person may be perfectly nice, certainly handsome, certainly aware of it, but--

So it became clear to me that, for me to find a person *genuinely* attractive, just that sort of spontaneous affection/love that *is*, it's NOT THE FORM BUT THE EMPTINESS THAT DOES IT FOR ME. It isn't the physically-attractiveness in terms of face and body and whatever other items are involved, or who has the best line or cash or is Really Deep And Meaningful or is good in the naked frolic or what, BUT WHO RELATES MORE TO HIM- OR HERSELF IN TERMS OF EMPTINESS THAN IN TERMS OF FORM, BUDDHIST-WISE--LET ME GO IRREVOCABLY FAR AND SAY THAT THAT PERSON MUST ALSO REGARD ME THAT WAY--that is not to be taken as the common western meaning of "I'm so empty, so empty, so lonely, and so empty", but the sense of relating more to the infinite potential-and-actual than to the pecs. It does not mean "Oh, s/he has so much *potential*", which we've all dated and tried to farm over the years, that elusive "potential"--indeed, it means relating more to the emptiness property of the pecs and the face and the money and the abilities, buddhist-wise--so that's the part that's hard to fake. They can send plenty o' cute babes and boibabes from central casting my way, and I'm happy to meet almost anybody as long as they just move on their way without being weeners, BUT--as the (probably unknown) Chogyam Trungpa quote goes--actually, forget that: it's outrageously indiscreet. The upshot, however, is that associating with those with good buddhist/taoist/enlightened view, good insight and compassion and awareness, those who do not mistake the used toilet paper sculpture of their ego's history to be *them*, is much more enjoyable than to associate with those who glorify that careful poop wrapping--ahahaha!

ENORMOUS INSIGHT: It isn't even "your body's history" because that, with all its doodahs, is replaced between three months and seven years (details available anywhere online, with convincing drawings and photos--). It is genuinely YOUR EGO'S HISTORY, because that bogus combination of thinking-mind-processes, and grasping to them as being as actual story extant over continuum, something cumulative, is outrageously incorrect, and INFINITELY LIMITING--how can that be true? How can it not be true???????? ahahaha! Try it--it's really fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the hokey-pokey is now what's it's all about for me--

2008-05-25T18:17:00.004-04:00

So, I have been doing alot of digging in comfortably-old herbal and acupressure and massage books, the ones that were new and ground-breaking thirtyish years ago, and which still have a lot of good to offer. I found the easiest thing for me right now is jin shin jyutsu, which is very hard to find a decent website on, since these days it's very pay-per-play like the rest of the healing world, which really repels me (since I would rather have billions of people healed and smartened for free, as opposed to the majority of them not being able to afford it, so then the whole planet and races suffer), but the book I have about it says things that don't confuse me too much. I especially like the one that says, to paraphrase: "Take one big ol' asscheek in each hand, like so. Then, just stand there. No, still stand there. You can let go now. Now, doesn't that feel better?" It doesn't even seem to matter whose asscheeks it might be, since apparently all benefit from this move--

There are other ones that say to put your hand on this part of your face, or neck, or ankle or elbow or back, and I was really interested to see that the ones that I thought might be Deep And Meaningful, mostly because those are the ones you get arrested for grabbing on other people, did zip perceptibly for me, but other odd things, like putting a hand on something else which seemed entirely unfraught (I forget: bit of rib somewhere? Or ankle, neck?) provoked very immediate and significant feelings, like enormous things that I had forgotten, or had wanted and then tragically didn't get boohoo or lost boohoo, basic healing of life traumas that came up, got dealt with, and passed--really cool, and doesn't cost money, and doesn't hurt, and the ones that are tough to do, like pressure points on the way-far tricky back of the back, can be achieved simply by usually grabbing the ol' asscheek and an elbow, say, which I am told does the same thing, only requiring two hands in combination. Health advisory and don't-sue-me-when-you-wind-up-in-the-Darwin-awards notice: don't necessarily go do this based on the completely spurious and made-up combinations here, but they are worth researching for folks interested in basically free and simple healthcare, even for stuff like my trashed spine and adjoining doodahs--I really do find it helpful--to the point of feeling ready to go to sleep now, despite doing buggerall really except the usual caffeine and nutriments consumption, cruising online, faking a few household mild chores, forcing my hokey-pokey on the cats, who really are skeeved out by it until I tell them sincerely of its benefits--ahahaha!--and putting my hands on this or that as instructed while doing buggerall else and looking online. *shrug* Slow day, lovely weather, nice and fresh and mild, and very good--and my lower back feels better than it has in months, and maybe some day my ass won't be on sideways anymore--very exciting times, as they say--

don't BE pollution--be awareness--

2008-05-24T10:07:00.012-04:00

It seems to me that our human view is generally completely wrong about most things, given the limited nature of scope and perspective, and an obvious one, which has resulted in the environmental crises all around us, is this phenomenon resulting in the unconscious belief that SINCE OUR VIEWPOINTS ARE SMALL, THE RESOURCES ARE ENDLESS. This is an enormous difficulty these days, responsible over the globe for its very fast and steep destruction (BBC UK news online yesterday pointed out the shockingly enormous, unexpected giant CRACK in the Arctic that some Canadians found, for example). Granted, it is a function of (Tibetan) Buddhism's 'sixth sense', the thinking mind, to thinkthinkthink and think it knows it all, and to have these silly DELUSIONS THAT BECOMING ACQUAINTED WITH A 'FACT' OR EVENT, ETC., MAKES THAT THING BE 'TRUE', but really, that is utterly mistaken in most cases. If I personally, thinks some guy or lady is great or bad, or even that "somebody did this thing", all I have to do is talk to or write to the next person, who will say that this person is actually not so great or bad at all, or indeed that this other guy never did that, and that, I, Donnalee, did this other good or bad thing instead, and yet *we're talking about the same events*--*shrug*--so really, none of that relative stuff is 'ultimately true', because everything is so very subjective--that in itself is covered completely by beings like Nagarjuna and Padmasambhava, so that's not my point here--the masters of mind have covered it excellently elsewhere, and are completely worth reading.

So, my subject was DON'T BE POLLUTION. To me, this means that, while to the common mind, since I live in a big, falling-down rambly house, people often think that it would be a big help, or even almost an "obligation" for me to rent parts of it to others, hence getting some bucks and in theory "helping the earth" by stocking up this individual house with human viral matter (I still agree completely with Agent Smith on that one). However, my view is that, instead of me stockpiling people who can actually live okay elsewhere (not speaking about natural disaster times, or if I had spawned and they were my kids or anything), I believe that IT IS BETTER FOR THE EARTH AND ALL IF THERE ARE INTACT PLACES EVEN WITHIN HOUSES OR REISDENCES, PLACES THAT ARE COMPLETELY CONNECTED TO THE EARTH AND NATURAL WORLD AND NOT AT ODDS WITH IT. I and my cats and the others who live or visit here are completely in harmony with ourselves and with the place, and it works out, to the point of it providing great benefit for the whole world system. That might sound odd or grandiose, but really, what is of benefit to all? To me, and to Buddhism, and to Taoism, and to Dzogchen perspectives, it is BEING IN HARMONY WITH THE ALL--*shrug*--do it, and it works out. Don't, and here we are now, grumpily, freaking about high gas prices BUT STILL USING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!--can you believe that???????? Enormous harm is visibly happening to the world, and we still are so limited that our main coping mechanism too often appears to be popping a prozac faithfully and driving to the mall and complaining about having to work for the money we need, and yet still participating in those lives which require an absurb amount of money (and it *is* absurb: capitalism is not working well for the common people at all now, and to expect people to make $2,000.00ish a month with $3,123.00+ of bills per month, say, is not a winning game: see the part about being machine fodder, and make some connections) pretty completely, instead of facing the fact that WE MIGHT NEED TO STAY IN A LOCAL SMALL AREA FOR A WHILE, IF NOT PRETTY MUCH ALWAYS: maybe we now mostly have to live in ways where we bicycle or walk or carpool or take buses, but the days of driving a hundred miles a day for work look pretty numbered, for those seeing what's going on. Yeah, we love our addictions and hostage situations, and defend them to our own deaths of character and potential and beyond, but even some of those frightened folks will eventually stop: they'll run out of money, or the vehicle will break fatally, or they'll break up with the long-distance boyfriend or girlfriend whom they've only met and fornicated with over the internet (and you know, nobody has ever yet explained that to me in a way that didn't make me not get it: cybersex??? Like, where's the weenie and girl weenie (or two girls' ones or two boys' ones), if you don't have both in the same room? Isn't that more like, um, wanking? Or am I not supposed to point that out??? I digress bigtime, but it's sociology, and I used to study that stuff--ahahaha!)

In fact, without places like this, my dumpy elderly house, and people like me, goofy but not at-odds with the natural world, that's pretty much the end of the natural world as we used to know it. Just consider: the humans have gotten tremendously out of control in quantity, due to everybody's different short-sightedness: faiths that make birth control unavailable even if giving birth to huge volumes of children eventually kills the woman and generally some of the children, those living in poverty or cultures where prevention is forbidden for, usually, the old beliefs of religion or tribal/country/racial stuff in which the religion/group of that time, thousands of years back, wanted to create a big enough football team to conquer or not be conquered by, the neighbouring town, or enough field labour to take care of the parents in their old age, or enough bodies to give to the owner of the lands, in fiefdom or other slavery. IT WAS WHEN PEOPLE WERE PRODUCTS AND COMMODITIES TO BE USED IN THE GAMES OF THE 'OWNERS'. IT WAS ***NOT*** TO HELP THE PEOPLE IN A REAL INDIVIDUAL WAY, I ASSURE YOU. Despite sincere protests of that not happening anymore, although anybody who reads international news online *knows* that forms of slavery exist, forms of religious and racial wars exist, and bodies to throw against the other guys, or to throw into the machine of the company owners, are still demanded worldwide, and, through short-sighted activities like making birth control methods unavailable to many parts of the world, EVEN IN THE UNITED STATES, many many people are still having basically unwanted children (another very sad and pervasive situation in itself), and sometimes dying in the process, so it does not look like a humanitarian, nor environmental, success.

It would follow, to a thinking person, that the greater the number of people who exist in the United States or Europe or other big consumer countries, in addition to the other countries, the more good they will consume. SO, THAT IS TODAY'S VERSION OF UPSCALE SLAVERY AND USE OF OUR BODIES FOR FODDER FOR THE COMPANIES. The more western-educated people may choose a different sort of commodity to buy, but by gawd, they certainly do. It used to be that the European countries in particular were very careful of their populations, since they had the wit to see the finiteness of land and resources etc. and do the math about how many could fit their in any healthy way, but these days there is enormous quantities of immigration, from other parts of the world which experience even harder situations, and so now that control of common sense does not seem to hold well. A charming gentleman of my acquaintance in Denmark, who makes internationally-famous gorgeous clothing styled after the 17th (18th?) century, for museums and for those who can afford it, is now in fairly constant terror because of the riots and robbery in his modestly upscale area of Copenhagen, where "second-generation immigrants", of whatever brand, have "refused to get along with those there already", and have riots, riots, riots, similar to those in Paris but with less-seeming point (the Parisians trash things pretty much annually in what appears to be direct protest, like this time it being about plans to cut pensions for, oh, teachers, I think), and crime. The Italians have been getting all worked up lately, with the (I believe) Sicilians burning enormous mountains of uncollected garbage, due to mafia plus government etc. etc. blahbalh over the past several months, and then the Italians actually had the cruelty to burn a Rom/gypsy encampment recently, while a bunch of people cheered--really, disgracefully sad times, in many ways--not that variations have not happened in the past, but this time we are all running out of "the next town" to go to, or "unowned land" to molest and expand into, or "poor countries" to exploit for new resources, or "dumping it in the ocean" being a viable answer now--). What a mess--

I cannot say that it is good or bad to be an immigrant, because that is a hard situation, and I cannot say that the answer is to short-sightedly ban people from immigrating, or to force the kind of population control that China did (to the extent purportedly of forcing abortions on those who 'sneaked' second pregnancies), but it is clear that WE NEED LOTS FEWER PEOPLE, OR AT THE VERY LEAST LOTS FEWER 'NEW' ONES. Again, that is just something for people to think about--it's crucial, but an individual decision, and not my place to say not to spawn, but I'd prefer that those who did were *entirely* responsible about it, and frankly, I think that almost no one is, on the interdependent levels that are vital--like, if you have children, then why would it not also be your responaiblity to buy a thousand acres to be preserved in perptuity to try to counter-balance the vast destruction that even one of us can cause to the world--? Just some thoughts--it's not as if our excesses aren't already making the earth react, with the entirely-obvious things, tragic though they are, like *if you empty enormous quantities of oil and coal and other materials from inside the earth, and either do some looks-clever move like fill it up with ocean (!!!!!!!!!???????) or just leave it empty (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????!), then OF COURSE IT WILL COLLAPSE, AND COMPLETELY UNBALANCE THE BASIC BALL THAT IT IS DUG FROM--I mean, don't people teach kids that when they build sandcastles or dig in the dirt, or fill up a beachball with water partway--? Maybe not many kids get the chance to do that anymore, but people learn from doing basic stuff--like, I water my plants in my office, and I learn basic stuff that never struck me before--

My actual insight and point today is that WE NEED TO MAKE THE WISEST USE OF EACH BIT OF LAND, AND THAT INCLUDES LEAVING A MAJORITY OF IT UNMOLESTED, UNDEVELOPED, ***NOT*** MESSED WITH AND RUINED BY HUMANS AND THEIR WASTE. THE REST, WHICH IS USED BY HUMANS AND OTHER BEINGS, NEEDS TO BE IN HARMONY WITH THE REST OF ALL, ON A HEALTHY LEVEL, NOT JUST 'IN HARMONY' WITH A WORSENING WASTELAND--well, my other point is that *each being, each person*, is also a bit of this whole, but let's not get too steep here--ahahaha!

So, the way each person would do this is to be mindful enough of WHAT IS GOING ON IN HIS OR HER HOME RIGHT NOW. This is superbasic, and many people don't bother: in my case, it's lovely daylight, so I am not keeping on wasteful lights: shades and curtains are up, which helps heat the house, and if it gets too bright, they are closed. The air is decent if a bit cool, so the windows are open to air things out and keep it healthy. There are not things turned on wasting electricity or gas which are not needed: I am choosing to use the computer, and yes, used a plug-in pot to make hot water for coffee, and that is unplugged the rest of the time, and the propane is no longer connected to the stove, since it was wastefully burning nine gallons a month of propane *simply for the pilots*, as per the company, which I thought foolish. My hot water, on propane, is turned off unless I want a bath, and there is a covering on it to hold in whatever heat remains. There is no need in my world for a dishwasher or clothes dryer, and only in the last couple of years did a friend buy me a washing machine, which is a help, but not used too often. In my house, I truly believe that the house, and land, and neighbourhood, are world system, are better off because what I do here, including stuff like increasing Tibetan Buddhist blessings and harmony with the nagas and all, actually *benefits* all, as opposed to me just forcing my unexamined crap on others--AND IT'S *MIND*, INTENTION, AS OPPOSED TO JUST BEING SOME KEWL PERSON--IT'S ME MAKING A MINDFUL EFFORT, GIVEN NOT-SO-MUCH IN TERMS OF MONEY OR THINGS LIKE THAT--and yet much more, presumably, than those in many other countries, or other parts of this country--yeah, I can't always pay all my bills, but then, I buy less, use less, try to make it work out with my organic grains for two bucks a pound and my dented cans of organic food and all--*shrug*--sort of basic--

I don't have a car, and that is another weird portable world that people need to examine for themselves--

You get the idea: I, AND THE OTHER INHABITANTS OF THIS HOUSE, ARE NOT MAKING TOO MUCH WASTE, INCLUDING EMOTIONALLY OR MENTALLY, FOR THE SMALL HOUSE AND PROPERTY TO DEAL WITH. We don't blast pointless music or tv which makes sound and mind pollution just because we can't be happy without: anything like that which is used *is a choice*. We don't fight or argue or have to pathetically prove each other or somebody else wrong. We don't have ongoing unhappy relationships that are causes of pain and addiction and hostage situations, but don't have the cojones to move on or really set limits. We don't just mindlessly vacuum every third day or whatever (ha! As if!), and we don't use dishwashers as opposed to saying, "Hmm, in most cases, wash the one plate per person, and the cooking dishes, right away, or let them pile up, but it's no reason to make such a costly waste". We don't fight with the neighbours or with anybody, or listen to violent and crappy stuff online or in media. We are nice to each cat, with their little dubious histories and brain damage and other circumstances, and then they feel happy and well and get along. Granted, everybody has ideas of what "they need" on a daily basis, but MAKING EACH THING A CONSCIOUS CHOICE IS CRUCIAL: if you somehow go on your way without questioning what you, or your habitual lifestyle is like ("I'm a geek, and they always run a couple of computers and loud music and a doofy film or tv rerun at the same time, while chugging down mountain dew or whatever: wouldn't be one without it!!! Got to do it!!!", or "We can afford all of this, so it's not a burden on us or others", or "All pagans these days sort of vaguely talk about the God/s and Goddess/es, and then wrench themselves from their computers and walk around addictedly chatting on cellphones all the time and filling themselves with chemicals and artifical additive and sugar crap instead of *being present* with the Divine that we spent a lot of time endorsing as our Holy Best Buddies", and any other UNQUESTIONED CULTURAL BELIEF.

THESE ALL NEED TO BE EXAMINED. There is a vast world of difference between (choosing* to do something, and hence being mindful about it and enjoying it, and just being a blob that rolls down that same chute because it "always does", and getting too hostile and defensive to even examine if "your' way is the smart way--*shrug*--that seems to be the majormajor human limitation:

Okay, anyhow, that's the worth-thinking-about rant for the day--and you know, it always puzzles me if somebody reads that, and, instead of saying, "Huh, this might pertain to me, but I'll do it or not", gets all worked up about feeling blamed or accused or whatever. I think that's so bizarre--I say, in essence, "Look to see if there's grub down the front of your shirt", and then people fly into rages about feeling accused. ??? To me, it's like, "Huh, pothole in front of you", and sometimes people get so incensed that they deliberately stick their legs in, break them, and then accuse me of having "made" them do it, whereas, it's the issue of OBSERVATION versus COMPULSION--believe me, if I could have "made" even one person in my world "be smart" over the years, I would have done so!!!!!!! ahahaha! You can try to "help" people, or point stuff out, or be nice or mean, but people will do what they want to do--it's their delusion of control: "I can do become a drug addict to piss you off"--well done, most commendable, and uh, you score!!!--(???????!!!)

IF I WERE ABLE TO "MAKE" PEOPLE "DO" ANYTHING, IT WOULD BE TO CONTEMPLATE DEEPLY AND WISELY ENOUGH, LIKE THROUGH BUDDHIST OR TAOIST OR OTHER ***EFFECTIVE*** APPROACHES, AND FIND OUT THAT THEY ARE *****NOT**** THE PATHETICALLY NEEDY LITTLE INDIVIDUAL GITS THAT THEY FEAR THAT ARE AND SECRETLY TRY TO HIDE FROM THEMSELVES AND OTHERS, THUS CREATING BIZARRE INDIVUAL-SEEMING FORTRESSES THAT WRECK THE DIFFERENT WORLDS FOR OTHERS--snap out of it! ahahaha!

Even the Buddhas say that they can't "make" beings be enlightened, or we all would be, long ago--but encouraging beings to "know thyselves" seems worth repeating once in a while--

Party On! Be excellent to one another! ahahaha!

consuming repulsive stuff--for the benefit of all--EW--

2008-05-21T19:39:00.007-04:00

In my recent quest to move back up from the status of "fairly severely damaged but cheery babe remnants" to "healthy jolly babe", I have started to consume pretty much the most repulsive vegetarian matter on or near this planet: finally, I figured that simply smashing them together solves everything, because they individually are so vile that they vie for dominance, and ignore me completely. So, I took that dangerous-but-prescribed megadose of vitamin D again, all 50,000 internal units of it, with great repugnant accompanying swills of organic flaxseed oil, and chugged down the grout of actual pure mineral calcium with laboratory-quality white powder vitamin c, some raspberry emergen-c powder for fizz and supplementary nutrition, and a giant glob of organic kelp powder stirred in, adhering to the molten rock grout--unspeakable to consume, especially in the burp, but that's why the deities invented chocolate, for the fading of bad memories--

I did have (probably inadvisably-)enormous amounts of the powdered kelp yesterday in a miso broth, which was fine, although I put in so much of the oceany stuff that it reminded me in some bizarre way of being hit on by a gusty-breathed shark--fishy, yucky, exceeding the other strong miso tastes, with some random possibility of death intimated. I hated it, and yet feel really much better today than I have done--shrug--I had read in the good old crunchy-herbal books of the 1970s-1980s that it's great for arthritic conditions, and so am willing to spackle myself with it if it genuinely helps--

I spend so much time and capacity lately simply drinking stuff that is good for me, and then eating other stuff that is good for me, that I sometimes don't get enough chance to eat solid food, or to eat all that I make or obtain. It's all this concerted effort to rebuild everything that needs rebuilding, and I have to admit that today some things in the body and mind etc. feel really pretty good, and I think it may be due to the two new items yesterday, the kelp and the flaxseed oil. I keep losing inches to the body, ones that I'm fine with letting go, like around the waist and all, and yet all I do is eat and drink things with caloric content, starting with excellent coffee and half-and-half in the morning, and topping it off with a large and cheery layer of chocolate at the end of the day--maybe the fact of making it a fulltime job burns more calories or something!

Oh, and I was just watching The Matrix and the next film after it again recently, and it wasn't necessarily so widely known at the time (and maybe is by now, with years passing and the internet blabbing everything to everybody) that Keanu Reeves had back surgery right going into the first film (plus the tragedy with losing his child and the mother of his child in separate events in that time period), and that Carrie Moss (Trinity) got swung into a wall during a stunt in the first week of filming The Matrix Reloaded so hard that it seriously broke her leg, which she had to continue to film with for the duration, including doing all her own motorcycle stunts (what a major capable babe!) If those guys could do such excellent efforts and turn out fine, I can too--plus don't even have to ride bikes! ahahaha!

huh, my photo's in the Wall Street Journal today---

2008-05-19T16:06:00.004-04:00

I find it a little odd that recently I rant about wanting less publicity, removing my advertising from magazines, etc., and then this is the second time in a week or so that I am in the paper: first on the front page of the local boonie paper plus in their online video, and then today, on page 11 of the Wall Street Journal (I was told by some financier friends!), with some naked girls. The photo of me is not so bad, but I am not laughing, and hence nobody could guess that I was actually the spontaneously-arisen volunteer bodyguard for the ladies, as opposed to some critic of the situation--oh well--kind of bizarre, to have my photo recognisably in that paper on a ten million day--hmm--

And so today is a ten million day in Tibetan Buddhism, the full moon celebrating Saka Dawa, which my wild guess at memory thinks is the birth of Buddha Shakyamuni, but there are smarter sources online with which to confirm the actual reason for this event. At any rate, it is one of the fourish days of the year on which it is considered that we got TEN MILLION TIMES THE KARMA OF ALL ACTIVITIES DURING THE DAY--so, be good, or reallyreally enjoy the bad, because it's expensive today--! ahahaha!

Oh, and today I appear to have developed the ability to hear the cries of bugs drowning in my toilet--sigh--yes, it is superhelpful to them, and presumably just a side-effect of meditation like everything, but I woke at 2 or 3 am since a cat was not feeling well, and had this urge, nay, a terror, that I must go to the bathroom: not as in "reallyreally gotta go", but as in "I am deranged with fear and must go into the bathroom", which is not my usual feeling at all. I went into the potty, and saw a big bug frantically trying to get out of the water, and I saved him or her, and then saw a smaller one, and again saved him or her, and then what looked like a teeny little spider, and scooped that guy too, and dedicated the merit for the cat who wasn't feeling so well, who seemed to feel better later. I actually sort of just made a night out of it, barely sleeping after that, doing mantras all night, doing okay, although still majorly tired and wanting some decent sleep--I did not know until this morning, when my friend told me, that it had already been saka dawa, and so the few lives that I saved and dedicated were worth ten million each, and hence tremendously helpful for the cats. Yay! Yay to have fun and benefit beings! And to have photos in major newspapers for the hell of it! Why not? ahahahaha! (although, given the choice of wealth or fame, yer old granny *would not hesitate* to hold out the trick-or-treating pillowcase for the loot--only exception would be if it geneuinely benefitted beings for me to have fame--)

hmm, unlikely to be romping through bushes soon--boo, in a way--

2008-05-17T18:25:00.003-04:00

I have attended a certain pagan festival for maybe--oh, seven-eight or eleven of the last fifteen or so years since I moved back to the US. This year I really toyed with the idea, but it doesn't look like it's happening: money, nope, transportation, nope, reply from the organizers last couple of weeks about details, nope, so an intelligent person would call that a few strikes and be contented to save the imaginary five hundred-ish bucks--and so I am. Still, though, 'tis the season, and it's the far side of bizarre to romp in one's own bushes alone, much less in someone else's without invitation, even in Vermont--oh well--yeah, I have some pagan buddies sort of in this area, but some are not functional enough to hang out with, and some are just silly, and nobody you'd want to possibly get arrested with--I'll see if people start up any little gatherings around here, and see if they might be fun now and again, especially in May--and the tibetan buddhists are often too boring to even consider it, except for a few good lamas and similar--

Oh, and my email address-site is being revamped this weekend, with many assurances on the site that email will be unaffected, and yet it is completely inaccessible for at least the last half-dozen hours--so, can't tell you how to get in touch with me--phone, I guess, if needed--

people I used to know suddenly appearing!

2008-05-16T19:32:00.007-04:00

I spent a very nice afternoon with an old friend from teen years and up, our lives diverging twenty-five or so years back, one becoming orthodox jewish plus taoist and living in a big city, one becoming tibetan buddhist plus goofy in boonieville, Vermont, both doing psychotherapy, but one more than fulltime and intensive and working with very very difficult populations in a major city, mostly sexual abusers and others involved in addictive and harmful sexual expression of unhealthy activity, and one (me) just being a sort of jolly diletante in trying to smarten people up but pretty much actually literally turning away clients lately--it's just not the time for that now--

I was shocked and pleased that we both look quite young, and are both quite jolly. I was very glad to see him again.

I also heard that my old celtic buddhist teacher had moved back to this area of southern Vermont from Ireland, after being gone some few years. I hope to run into him and the others associated with it as well soon--

I received a book in the mail today from a dear friend who is the author. It is called The Book of Tibetan Medicine, by Ralph Quinlan Forde, big and attractive book with lots of nice photos, on "how to use Tibetan healing for personal wellbeing". I will enjoy reading it, and will very likely get cracking on the "rejuvenation programme"--no harm in trying! ahahaha! I was also touched by the nice sentiments in the autograph page which he wrote for me--I have learned quite a bit from Ralph over the years, including some excellent and very profound insights into the nature of mind, and we've had a lot of good laughs. I am very glad that he has had the opportunity to publish this book. I am pretty sure that the website is http://www.stargatenutrition.com/ but will double-check--you can get it shipped to the US from there or amazon--

So, that and good chocolate, and really, things are fine! ahahaha!

OH, and I spoke with the CEO of a one-hundred-million-dollar charitable foundation today, explaining that the experiences I had had with a representative of that organisation had turned me off so much that I no longer wanted to have them administer my imaginary future charitable foundation whereas I had been seriously planning on them doing it. The person was very receptive, really interested in my experiences and feedback, and, although I felt my situation was very very delicate, since I had gained this attitude through witnessing dealings with millions that were not my own, and hence felt that *I* personally was not the representative for those millions but only of my own future imaginary ones, we compromised on how to follow through: the upshot is that I am to complete an article that I had written the draft of a month or five back, on how not to mess up in charitable solicitation, and then will pass it to her, so she can use it for training purposes. Another person has expressed great interest in it as well when it's done, and so now maybe I'll just be advisor ot the multimillionaire investment types--sort of funny, but it is part of my daily job to run into all sorts of people, those whose priceless painting from three hundred years back is revealed as a forgery (and then I get to learn who forged what and how well), and those who inherit millions and try to pass it along without being nailed for extra taxes, people trying to cover many things in wills and trust documents and you name it, all sorts of things--very interesting. I felt superfortunate that, after I had had this unexpected conversation with the CEO, to have someone who actually deals with even bigger corporations in big cities available to me on the phone, to encourage me to finish (okay, to find the shreds of) the article and get it to the CEO--very helpful to hear from serious professionals that it makes sense to them. Oh, and then I got that sort of EW feeling again, that more enterprising people might call "channeling" but which would gross me out to call it that, this really forced compulsion to write a few pages of article, in this sort of way that feels actually kind of painful, like it's dictation and if I don't write it down it won't stop, and so I force myself to write it, or actually to allow it to write itself, and then when it's done it's done, and I throw the pages into a grocery bag and plan to find the rest here at home, maybe this weekend--oh, and some young girl came up to me in the store today, and said that I had told her, when she had some accident a month or so back, that I was concerned, or would be concerned, about some pelvis or hip thing, and apparently I showed her where, in front of another lady, and she was morbidly delighted to tell me that that place on her body is now untenable and she feels like she has to go to the doctor for it--so, I am glad to help-ish, but don't see how that really helped her--!

relax: your hostage situations are secure--

2008-05-14T15:53:00.008-04:00

Boy, am I noticing something a lot lately, which I believe I personally used to do: people try to control their spouses/best friends/children/anybody else they want to control or own, when they feel threatened by a third party, using the 'attack groundlessly, and the hostage will fall for it sufficiently to defuse threat' method. I used to use some form of pointing out the shortcomings of potential romance rivals (I can't even actually remember that far back anymore, but I am sure it was a big serious thing for like decades of my life which gave me buckets of unnecessary pain: wow--what a waste of energy--), or competition for attention, to the partner whom I wanted to 'keep' without competition--I am sure people do this in various ways, but I would stick to the truth, and just tend to point out, seemingly-casually, the person's flaws in a way that I thought would make the partner see the person as undesirable, and not have interest in that person. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it seems in retrospect like a really sad thing done by somebody who felt threatened and afraid to 'lose' a partner/friend/etc. I guess I never learned any better at the time--

Lately, everybody does it about me: I offer to help with something, or chat with an ex, or appear too friendly with somebody for somebody else's worry levels, and the 'owners' rear up hostilely, point out things that aren't actually true to the 'property', and then the 'property' obediently backs off and isn't friends with me, generally citing an odd line or two written by the 'owner' as rationale. So, what is the net result? 'Owner' maintains control over another human being (EW!!!!), and the person who is controlled, even unwittingly, misses a chance for his or her own freedom of mind, to see if I, or somebody else, is a friend worth having. This seems to really be the modus operandi on earth a lot, a lot, to an all-pervading point: not just to or about me, but all sorts of romances, friendships, business partnerships, even among people over teenaged level--I guess i never saw how pervasive it is before, until I stopped doing it and really *understood* the importance of personal freedom.

Freedom to refuse friendship with anybody? Completely acceptable--
Freedom to accept friendship with anybody? Completely acceptable--
Freedom to have space and time alone to see what you really want and don't want and like and don't like? Really vital, and really hard to come by for many people, which keeps them hostage even more to the familiar--I used to work at a shelter for battered women for years, and the isolation and control were crucial to making the rest of it work out--I still see it all over the place in our town, which has quite a population in recovery froms drugs and booze, and man, tough lives in that regard--like the liquid or needle chains get replaced by the boyfriend/girlfriend chains, and not usually happily--and it doesn't end, just switching chains, ones that look better or seem to feel better, but--

Too bad for everybody--

Next subject: nice geshe last night giving an informal talk at a town near here. He has written a very nice free book about lojong (mind training), which can be obtained free from http://www.lamayeshe.com/ . It's called The Kindness of Others, by Geshe Jampa Tegchok. He had given us the White Tara long life empowerment last year before i got cooked, and I feel that it helped me survive and do well, so I was glad for a chance to thank him, before he moves to Italy--

I seem to have no patience lately with forms of deluding self and others--that's what bothers me about the first subject. I also found it superhard to listen to a foundation meeting in which one person simply ran on and on about feelings about why this or that group requested money for this or that project, and yet nobody asaked the key person who had spoken with every single one of those people and could have explianed it perfectly--all this stuff is like somebody standing around speaking endlessly about, "I wonder why Mary wore that ugly dress? Maybe it was because this and that, and maybe..." just forever, while never asking "Mary", and never considering that maybe "Mary" doesn't think it's ugly. It's just the human/sentient being stuff that bugs me lately--maybe because I have a lot of pain, but it's not the sort of fits of rage or flare of anger feeling, but more like wanting to stay away from pollution--I quit a bunch of online groups that were full of know-it-alls, left situations where the same rule supreme, and really, I am pretty much looking to avoid the brainspew lately, because none of it seems beneficial: I don't want to teach, I don't want to hold forth on anything, and I don't want to be held forth to, or listen to people lie and make trouble between others. I guess I have just exhausted my taste for samsara--

I'm still into coffee, though--and chocolate--!

parkour: UR doin it wrong--

2008-05-13T15:53:00.003-04:00

I love parkour, do it in dreams, would do more on earth if the body worked that way, but here's one way not to do it (and it's actually supergross, so don't read this if you get squicked out by gross accidents happning to people's faces)--

Some kids raced along the tops of some of the two-three-four-story localdowntown buildings, leapt an impressive ten-ish feet from one to the other, and then: consequences happened. End result was that one kid landed so hard that (HERE COMES THE GROSS PART, YOU GUYS: WARNED) his knee went through his eye and the occipital bones of his face, ruining both.

EEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DON'T DO THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

medical diagnosis--

2008-05-12T18:14:00.005-04:00

Really not in the mood for details, but I went to get the CT scans read (got a copy that broke my cd player, which now keeps making some tone over and over like a Bob Fosse musical number featuring a woman that I personally am not panting over, however much he was: remember that song? It was on a commercial when the show was on broadway yonks ago--), and it looks so compoundedly-bad, and so never-gets-better, and so continually-sucks-dognoses, that I do not accept it. I simply am assuming that the tests show me physically manifesting other people's severe shit (like my mature boss's, my elderly students', maybe some stuff from my aging cats, etc.). I am completely willing and happy to experience all of this, if they gain some benefit, or even if beings whom I never know get benefit, and my plan is to rebuild this body in a way that works, that is not "pre-surgery", which I will refuse to have, which is not in bad shape at all, and which is in good shape plus fun.

Fortunately all of this can be accomplished by eating good chocolate, drinking good coffee, and doing whatever it is I ordinarily do--whew! Frigging relief not to have to accept external reality, eh hosers? ahahaha!

an excellent way to help beings--

2008-05-11T11:42:00.003-04:00

Sometimes the best way to help beings is TO LEAVE THEM ALONE.

This goes contrary to beliefs that fussing and instructing and touching and advising and doing-to and all that are the 'best way to help', but sometimes, people have such a prejudice against you, or are so deluded in their own little worlds, or have such A Giant Thing To Prove, that your presence or the mere hint of "Donnalee says..." or "Buddhism says...", or, like in a book by an online acquaintance which I just read and enjoyed (and will review later), "For you own good...", etc., is enough to crash the system, destroy any openness, blow the chance. *shrug* I was saying to somebody yesterday that it's like dogs who hate and fear men or women or this or that type of person: I can be the nicest being ever, but if the dog, or child, hates and fears my form, I will only reinforce the dog's aversion and tenseness and fear and feelings of being trapped. So, even if I want to prove how speshul I am as A Registered-Trademarked "Dog/Child Whisperer/Wrangler" or whatever the official jargon of the moment that I want to associate myself with is, then *the kindest and most humane thing to do is go away and leave the dog, or child, in better hands, in a form it can accept and genuinely benefit from*.

Same with people: if they want to crash their worlds, and you being on the edges having different insights or perspectives makes them more addicted to proving you wrong by being an even more deluded and rigid form of their mistaken selves, you're not helping by pointing out how dumbassed and mistaken they might be--it's better to leave the scene, let it crash and burn or float and succeed, and just not worry about it--it's not your place to "fix" or "help" if that's not what's genuinely needed, or going to be accepted and actually benefit the beings. Beings have to learn themselves, and sometimes, wrecking the vehicle is the way they do it, the body, the venue, the relationship, the job, the chance--or figuring out the way to NOT wreck it this time, despite expectations and attachment to the old dumb formats--

buddhist notion of a 'soul'--(also meaning of 'coterminous'--)

2008-05-11T11:04:00.008-04:00

Er, there isn't one. I ran across a community that said something like it was 'a gathering of like-minded souls', and yet was meant to appeal to buddhists, too. I toyed with the idea of pointing out that buddhists are not thought to have, nor be, 'souls', but I didn't want to come across as pissy and informative, so I'll do it here in my own private idaho, and then people can take or leave it.

So, the reason I say that buddhists are not believed to have or be 'souls' is because, to my understanding, the term 'soul' generally connotes an ongoing thing, a sort of clump of animating energy that goes along, maybe has only one body associated with it in some cosmologies, maybe goes on having buckets full of them in others (and I will not even entertain here the fuzzy faux-reverent western idea of it being 'unknowable' and similar crap, which just means they haven't learned to *know*, nor to research those who have learned a lot more over the millenia, for their own contemplation). That 'independent origination' is completely the opposite of buddhist belief. If you want to hash out the details and argue it, the ninth chapter of Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva refutes the various hindu schools as they come up, some saying that 'guys exist but things don't', 'things exist but guys don't', 'things exist this way because gods made them', etc., and Nagarjuna is yer man for the really comprehensive and detailed stuff--just saying--)

In brief, I would term the animating energy of beings as 'mindstreams of coterminous nature'. It's really a lot like frames of film, and each frame arises and passes upon the instant, and yet if the causes and conditions of the next frame do not vary drastically from those of the previous one, we think nothing has changed, because the *appearance* arising from those causes and conditions is similar to the previous appearance arising. So, I, sitting around drinking good coffee and staring around at computer and cats and out windows, may not appear to change much over the day nor to be in a setting that does, but I, exploding or having floor fall out or maybe experiencing enormous loud noise of some sort crashing through and creating what appears to be vast differences, or the change into death (which can sometimes include some of these sorts of factors), would be considered by some to be 'different'. It's generally all in the scale and perception, like everything--

So, does that make sense? I have tried to explain it to others before with the traditional example of lighting a candle from a previously-lit candle, in that the new flame is not entirely 'new' as in 'spontaneously arisen without contributing factors like a flame from elsewhere', and not entirely the same as the previous one, because really, the causes and conditions are tremendously similar in that case, so of course the results are likely to be similar. In this world, it would be more unusual for it to be drastically different, given these bits of fire and earth materials and air and gravity etc. which combine in fairly similar ways each time, right? If other factors were present like water or explosives or a different sort of candle wax or string, or someone with special powers willing to play games, one might expect observable differences, but otherwise, not really--

So, to me, the term 'soul' would be the mistaken notion that somehow *one can carry something through time* in an ongoing fashion, which is entirely disproven by buddhist science--I mean, yeah, maybe I can dream about something and wake up with those marks on my body or stuff in my pocket, but that is not the sort of thing I mean. The whole understanding of the nature of all in buddhism is that *everything is interdependent*, basic butterflies streaking out of Texas having effects elsewhere, style of thing--that me saying something rude or brilliant online here in Vermont can piss off somebody in Italy or Ohio--but it does not mean that there are big invisible clumps of stuff that go forever through the universes like fashion models waiting for the next outfit to be put on them. There are indeed countless beings seen and unseen by various of us around all the time, BUT they, like us, are nerely what could be termed 'outposts of awareness'--awareness is everywhere and everything and all, and so it simply could be seen that awareness is, and then awareness is, and then some other time that people would call 'some other time', awareness is--NOT '*my* awareness is' on any long term, but awareness always is, and then "I" or some seeming-being perceiving it is an "I" or an "it" or "s/he", and getting all clutchy about that delusion which fades every instant, and so we have to clutch harder to maintain it--you know? ahahahaha! There is this entirely bizarre-sounding condition in DSM-IV (or V, or whatever they're up to now in that series of books about ways to condemn those who appear to be human), something called a term like "depersonalisation disorder"--dudes, from the buddhist perspective, we're not continuous intact discreet separate unchanging "persons" anyhow, but more like "personae", roles which we pick up and drop and have change because everything changes all the time--and yet, when people start to get the hint that maybe they are not merely and always the blob of meat and associated braindrool to which they have become habituated, *they give them drugs to make them believe it again*--wow--not a very smart continent these days--anyhow, there is still more coffee, and there are still some few birds left in the skies by us, and some plants between earth and skies and water, and so I will enjoy them now--

three hours to log in convinced me of the jerkness of technology--

2008-05-10T12:05:00.005-04:00

Hmm, I was going to mention a little dream I had of writing an actual script last night lucidly with a famous moviestar (YES, IT BORES ME TOO; NO I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT IN 'REAL LIFE' NECESSARILY; YES, I COULDN'T FIGURE IT OUT EITHER; NO, I DIDN'T GET PAID FOR IT YET AGAIN). It came to me that maybe it's just a pun on dakini script writing, which is a kind of magical script produced and read by a certain kind of being, so that could apply--but still, I think I would rather heal beings in dreams, as opposed to just writing scripts with them all night, however fun it might be, because then what? I write a script with people and see it filmed in my dreams, and then a year or more later they actually announce that it's being filmed by this or that person who, in person, is not necessarily my close and personal friends, and then it's just like, "Huh, obviously that person and I watch the same sleep-channel, or ARE the same sleep-channel: BFD, if it doesn't help beings". *shrug* It's all made up anyhow: it's likely what part of this entity, Donnalee, feels is interesting or desirable or cool somehow, or what some being thinks she will think is cool, so really, it's just phenomena: arises for whatever known and unknown causes and conditions, does stuff like appears to be experienced, changes and passes, no biggie: same as everything, really, every phenomenon--

But the fact that it took me three hours, literally, to be able to access this account, even while enabling cookies, even after writing to get or reset the password an eventual dozen times, having it seize up or refuse every time, convinced me of how futile it really is--WHY DO PEOPLE WRITE BLOGS OR JOURNALS? Presumably the main part of it is forms of ego validation, as in "to keep in touch with my five or fifty friends" and/or "to have people able to share my speshul ideas". For me it was a combination of that, plus making myself available to those who might have questions about buddhism, wisdom mind, lucid dream phenomena and stuff like that, being electrocuted and living with the brain damage and stuff that occurred, and of course, now, script writing. ahahaha!

However, why bother? In one way, it's this great chance to put ideas or at least typescript onto a screen that can be accessed in many places of this world, and presumably beyond. However: we all have mere ignorant and prejudiced opinions for the large large part, and it can just contribute to confusion, overcluttered minds, arguments, all this stuff that arises and can seem to take the place of other occupations. If I were writing and photrographing the chronicles of some events, that might be something else, but that is for other people to do--no camera for me, any of that.

The fact that there are no people in customer service of google whom I could consult for help today convinced me that it isn't *really* serving me: it's just taught me to take crap treatment from a giant company that doesn't have the interest or resources to actively help me, even if I am a paying customer, and is another aspect of media imbalance. Know what I mean? I can read about this or that sports figure or singer seventeen times a day, obsess over gossip columns and photos, view films over and over (I never understood *buying* a film, especially a giant library of them, if you're not in them: dudes, go outside and play sometimes!!! Make real friends! Really!!), whatever, and yet that person will never have heard of me throughout my entire life, or if met in a giant crowd, won't know or retain the image, most likely. This thing with people pouring out all their deep and meaningful blhablah online is the same: it's a sort of imbalance of individuals giving and wanting, versus single corporate entities often not giving a crap about the individual, but wanting the money, prestige, influence, etc. generated by clumps of those individuals.

So, I have been getting rid of the online stuff I had in a journal elsewhere: yes, in theory the ability to connect with great people four thousand miles away is wonderful; in practice, it may be more sensible to have friends in your area. Are they mutually exclusive? Of course not, but I am finding out more and more that leaning towards online for anything, as in *even counting on a service to work correctly and easily*, is sort of a form of being hostage to yet another thing beyond my control: many people have a dysfunctional relationship with the internet itself, and/or their computers, etc., and I just don't see the point: either get along with it harmoniously, or let it go--and if the systems hold all the power, force advertising and spying and all, then I let it go--*shrug*--oh, so if you've written scripts with me and want to compare notes, lemme know--

huh, seems like longer ago--

2008-05-09T15:53:00.003-04:00

I spaced and got the phone and computer cut off a few days back, which was really restful: I didn't rush to get it back, and actually contemplated not bothering to get it back, but it seemed like a smart thing to do, to have phone availability if I want to use it, etc., so I got it today. Busy world lately:

Another dream where I stumbled onto somebody's film set, and was really appalled: I don't WANT to be on film sets except if I'm actually supposed to be acting or something, so I really sort of avoided everybody, lucidly, but then when somebody had an accident, a woman being called by a man's name, I didn't do anything until too late, and it seems like I didn't save her because I had hesitated to intrude--so that was crap: I felt at a bad place, and that held me back. Next time I'll just help, the way I always used to, and if people in dreams don't want me there, I'll disappear afterwards.

Some nice monks showed up quite spontaneously as an unscheduled part of their world tour a couple of days ago, and did a nice sand mandala of Green Tara in Brattleboro, and those of us who attended are photographed on the front page of today's paper (and apparently in some video online at www.reformer.com : I haven't looked yet to see what that is). I helped with an event for them the night before, so we had a nice and busy time, all of us--

Oh, and that stoopid vitamin D gives me painpainpain all the time, dumb as anything, much more than I used to have, and I left a message with my doctor asking if that was perfectly fine and to be expected, to be regnerating with the speed and acuity of a science project down through the bones and out through the neural pathways, teeth, eveything--she presumably tried to leave a message while the phone was out of order, so I left another message with the work number, but they simply haven't bothered to call back in two days, so I guess it's no biggie to them. I think, though, that another doctor would be better: same old thing about courtesy or bothering to reply--I wasn't freaking, and certainly not asking for drugs or anything, but it is the only fat-soluble vitamin that can cause permanent damage that is not reversible, apparently--*shrug*--let's presume it's no biggie.

Lalalala--let's see who exploded online, even in my mailbox, while I was away--

the point of buddhism--

2008-05-06T19:07:00.012-04:00

Somebody asked a question elsewhere about Tibetan Buddhist deities, and some Buddhists replied, and a few avowed non-Buddhists replied too, pretty much saying something completely different, and I wrote something really firm about opinions being fine, BUT if the guy wanted answers about TB deities, maybe the TB would actually be more likely to have helpful information in this case, and people got bent out of shape. One lady got very upset that somehow I hadn't--well, I don't know what: again, I didn't insult anybody, or say anybody was wrong, just that the answers from TB were more likely to be helpful in this specific serious question, and I gave also my own answer, which agreed with many of them, and gave more detail. As a result, some people liked me, some people hated me, some people asked me more about the subject and related subjects, and it occurred to me that MANY PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE POINT OF BUDDHISM IS.

Is it to be nice? NO, IT ISN'T TO "BE NICE". Is it to behave perfectly all the time? No, it's not. Is it to do what some god or deity said to do? Nope, not that either.

What is it, then? THE POINT OF BUDDHISM IS TO SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE, WHICH IS WISDOM, AND TO UNDERSTAND THAT EVERYBODY WANTS HAPPINESS AND DOESN'T WANT SUFFERING, AND IS PRETTY MUCH IN THE SAME BOAT, SO IT'S A GOOD IDEA TO CUT THEM SOME SLACK. That's the compassion angle. Getting good at that is what's called "skillful means".

So, the last big historical Buddha, Buddha Shakyamuni, lived his life, from wealthy spoiled prince (spoiled to the point that his father *hid all the old sick and ugly people from him*) to dopey-but-sincere guy meditating in the forest eating literally nothing until he said, "What am I, an idiot? This won't get me anywhere". After he sat down and let his insights arise, he gave a rundown of what seemed to him to be true, called the four noble truths, and it pretty much said, "Life entails suffering", "Things are changing all the time", "It hurts more if you're too attached to things staying the same, because they don't", and "Here are some ways to deal with this situation in ways that help you have less pain, more insight, and learn how to be kinder to yourself and others". That's pretty much it, that things can be hard, and that there are tricks to making them easier. Different buddhist sects or schools came up with different approaches based on their own cultures and traditions, but really, the wisdom and the compassion *have* to be together, because otherwise if you have some insight into people's flaws and "the way it should be" with no compassion, you're sort of a demon, and if you have only what Chogyam Trungpa called "idiot compassion", you just think that "being nice" is the only way to be, and just wuss out and say bullshit to please people and all, and are worse than useless, because you encourage people to keep up their crap and keep getting away with it, which does harm to everyone involved: think dysfunctional families and organisations, think telling people they look fine in that gawdawful embarassing outfit and letting them go out in public in it, think not impeaching people, think being "politically correct" without actually being correct at all--

As I have said elsewhere, sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do is cut somebody's fucking head off.

happy dark of the moon--

2008-05-05T16:05:00.007-04:00

--well, happy except for the parts that suck dognoses. I really am so distressed, in a way that is objective because being present for it is terrible, that people STILL keep doing stuff like cutting down old precious trees, ones that have been in prominent places in our town for decades, famous for flowering at this time of year--but two had a little bit of slowness in some branches. It was because they had used this fkkkkkkkkkkking mulch for the first time ever, and mushrooms and stuff came up, and they threw POISON on it presumably to kill the mushrooms, and it slowed the branches down, but didn't kill them. Much of all of the trees flowered, and I went there every day last week, checked them out, and within a day or so there were buds on the branches that had looked bare. NOT ANY %^#^**& MORE--today there are three trees of the four, one completely gone, all that was left being KILLED FLOWERING BRANCHES STREWN ON THE GROUND, which to anyone but a *&^%&^& (that means fukkkkkkng) damned corporation that bought out the bank and trashed the company would mean "OH LOOK: IT'S ALIVE". It's like when I did a big huge healing on a near-fatally-ill dog, and then found out they'd killed it, before waiting to see if it had improved. Gotta admit: tragically dumbdumb beings-on-planet. Gotta admit: it's not the dumbest planet going, but it's just superdepressing to live on this one and *watch* the stoopid just roll along, destroying everything in its way. This is a planet on which the human inhabitants poop where they eat and drink and breathe, and don't ever clean the litterbox, but just blame some other dumb humans or even animals, and go do it again next to it, or across the world.

You could call it a bummer.

Still, my choice is: 1) BE A WHINER AND FOCUS ON THE DISAPPOINTING ASPECT OF LIFE;

or

2) FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE AND BENEFICIAL ASPECTS OF IT ALL, AND HENCE AMPLIFY THEM.

I tend to lean towards the second one, and I think my relative, and pretty much voluntary, social isolation makes it easier to spend time doing it--as in, all night, going into sleep, between dreams, going out of sleep, during work or social stuff, as in every minute. It struck me that it isn't surprising that people get good at what they practice, and if people practice stuff like whining and stealing and lying to themselves and whatever other things they choose, they get 'good' at those things in the sense of experienced and habituated to doing them, same as if you practice doing other more positive stuff--buddhism says so, and it's really observable: like, I am complete *crap* at skateboarding, due to lack of practice, but I am great at eating chocolate. (BUT I did dig mine out from under a stack of books, and will try to do it again in the kitchen when I get a chance). That's the cool part of being a putative grownup: skateboarding indoors, all that stuff--

Oh, I have this sort of people-who-live-up-north-and-avoid-sun/gawthy condition: severe vitamin D deficiency (as in, the doctor said gleefully that my level is "rock-bottom", as in pretty much never seen in humans before, 10 of a hoped-for 35+). So, I have to take prescription vitamin D for 12 weeks ("50,000 units" of something fat-soluble: dudes, even *I* know that means it stays in yer liver forever, but apparently the pharmacist agrees it's okay in this case), and that'll presumably help with some stuff. Still didn't turn the bones and stuff in the right order, but I'm going next week to see what can be done about that--so, things are still on sideways and pinched and whatever, which is another excuse not to skateboard! Yeah! See? Practice at using stuff for excuses!!!

So, lalalala, no biggie, a bit of whining, but happy dark of moon--and be nice to trees, you guys, no joke, and squirrels and birds and all sorts of animals and beings, including yourselves. It's really really true that if you kill or wreck them in a dumbassed way, it kills you too--it's just that kind of interdependent system--it just is. Stuff is connected, like it or not, a million miles away or next door--

pretty much lost interest in the shrillness of the world--

2008-05-03T11:37:00.009-04:00

I find that I am less and less interested in advertising my services either as specialising in buddhist psychology or in any of it, really: the venues I had used seemed to be mostly sort of new age, or pagan, and the whole thing I might be good at is helping people who know something about buddhism or taoism or concepts like that, which can include some paganism, some basic non-denominational beliefs, whatever, and like it already, and simply want support in their lives as they try to 'do it' in some sort of wholesome direction. I mean, sometimes miracles and lalala happen, but you can't *sell* that: it's just like you hang out with people and it happens, just like real life. I don't want to convert anybody, or argue with anybody, or do things like "here's a miracle: don't worry about having to learn functional skills or anything--*nobody* does that anymore". That's what the magazine I advertise in is starting to feel like: people offering very unlikely claims about "changing your DNA, or your karma, or your past lives", and all that, and I am not at all interested in DNA, but am trained to do the rest of the stuff, and you know, it's really best for people to *take their own responsibility*. It's really so much better for somebody to sit down and think about how their actions affect their lives and the lives of others, than for them to give me a hundred bucks to "clear up their karma", which would basically mean that I have to take that shit on and purify it myself: it's like toxic waste, and not something to just go poofypoofy at, and think that it'll disappear (without you having some outrageously good skills). I cannot even imagine what the non-buddhist people who advertise that for money *mean*: will they teach them to clear their own karma for real, the way tibetan buddhism and perhaps other systems do, which is like "if you stole 500.00, you repay at least 500.00 to whoever you stole it from, and then you don't do it again"? Will they do some bogus prayers about "Great Ascended Master Cheeseball, take away the karma of this poor dope who's giving me megabucks"? *IF THE BUDDHAS HAD THE ABILITY TO 'TAKE AWAY' ALL YOUR KARMA, WE'D ALL BE ENLIGHTENED ALREADY, DUDERS.* If you ask some unenlightened entity to pretty much take away all your past stuff by you paying cash to some third party, what is that being supposed to do: own you? Clean you off and then you start over and screw up again really soon? Really, speaking as someone who has studied this a little, and who might be believed to have had the ability to experience other people's stuff and thereby liberate it in days gone by, *YOU NEED TO DO IT YOURSELF*. Tibetan buddhism gives us the Vajrasattva practice, and basic stuff like confessing mistaken views and actions, which everybody does sometimes, to yourself and the buddhas and promising yourself and them not to do it again: that is *personal effort and discipline*. Any faith that has guidelines for not doing bad stuff and making amends is at least partway on that same right track. It's like if you pay me to clean your house, and yeah, I can do it, but if you keep living in it in a pigsty fashion, it'll need it again, so it'd be criminally bullshit for me to promise that by me saying some blahblah and you doing zip that it'd never get dirty again--it's just how it goes on earth. Oh well--it seems that times are getting much more frantic, and people are getting more shrill and aggressive in what they promise they can do for you for money, and I am getting less and less shrill and promising nothing now--ahahaha! It used to be that I would mention things, but now, no: it's a successful time when even the most sacred things, and even the most seriously threatening things, stuff that can completely destroy me and you and the planet and society, are reduced to yaddayadda by the blur of cellphones and fat and prozac and tv and internet and cars and loud noise and machines and macadam (do they call it that now? Tarmac?) and cheap sex and complete disillusionment, WHEREAS REALLY IT'S JUST ANOTHER FORM OF ILLUSION, YOU KNOW? THINGS ARE NEITHER AS TERRIBLE AS THEY APPEAR, NOR AS GREAT AS THEY APPEAR, NOR NEITHER, NOR BOTH--just that the times encourage people to kick the good stuff aside cynically, refusing to accept that it has power, or scared that it does, and use the bad stuff fast, making it have vast tedious boring poisoning power, and then they sort of stare bleakly around, unable to understand anything much--

Ah, coffee--whatever it may be, I enjoy it--

boy, is my view different than others'--

2008-05-02T19:02:00.006-04:00

I read online journals, and some people appear to make decisions that I consider so bizarre as to be self-explanatorily obvious in their expected failure trajectory, and yet, those who reply to them support their odd views: one lady bemoaned having been told at work that there had been complaints because her bosoms hang so far out of her clothing that people complain, plus "all the hickeys are distracting". Her solution was to contemplate that she had "poor self image anyhow", and that "dressing like a frump" (which I guess means covering any part of her breasts) would make her feel worse because she's " a slut". Her solution was to go buy a cheap tank top or two, to see if that would be better somehow, because she says her chest is heavy and basically wrenches the fabric down in other clothing.

???????????

Doods.

Really--as Spinal Tap says about sex, "double-bag them: paper and plastic".

I somehow miss the point about how having breasts, which pretty much over half of the population has in some regular abundance, and the rest have to at least some scant degree, male or mastectomied or whatever, is anything that one wants to *be defined by* in the workplace, or even as a person. I can understand that if one is selling them by the pound or by the look or photo that it is somewhat different, and I know buckets of people who make money that way, but I have been alive long enough to remember that really only a few years back, and before that pretty much back to Ephesus, Minoa, one of those, bosoms used to be more covered in the west in general. I don't understand how many people think, "Huh, some guys and some girls will basically use anybody for sex that they can, so me having them use me for sex helps my self-esteem. Let's call these things "boobs" and hang them out to advertise." Maybe it is more like, "Yay, getting used for having my "boobs" hanging out helps my self-esteem"? I am just not getting it: it's got to be that people understand that sometimes people just want the use of someone else, right?, and that if you array yourself to look like a useable body, the person doesn't really matter. It's like zombies looking for brains: yours doesn't have to be pretty, just there.

There can be situations or lifestyles like that (I have buddies who spank people for a living, etc. etc. etc.) , but it seems to really not work well if an insecure person is going into it hoping to feel better about herself by it--just saying--I am not talking about relationships, or situations that sound at all healthy or private or fun, or a little ego-boost that might come from getting some attention for looking attractive or similar--not everything has to be some somber boring long-term whatsis, but I really can't understand the level of desperation right now of somebody who goes to work with clothes that literally are so unsupportive that they cannot contain vital bits of anatomy--then when her friends say online that the only reason the boss complained was "because she's a dried-up old prune who isn't getting any", I just think, "Hmmm: or maybe people don't want clearly used breasts in their salads or dry cleaning or whatever they try to obtain from that shop?" It seems really sort of sad to use breasts as indiscrimate advertising of "whoohoo: look at these: just having them means I'm sexy" and way beyond that to "whoohoo: look at the bite marks: that means that somebody somewhere found me useable, and now you get to know that too"--*shrug*--I mean, it's a planet without much kind or thoughtful validation from person to person, so I can see that some people might feel a little depressed from lack of recognition sometimes, but that's like bragging that a sabertooth tiger bit off your leg because it thought you were food--*shrug*--don't count for much in the big picture except to confuse your own self as to what's valuable, you know?

That's what I object to: fooling yourself in ways that harm yourself--it's just not having wisdom or compassion for yourself--oh well--good luck to us all!

huh, speeding karma--

2008-04-30T15:45:00.004-04:00

Huh, I was very surprised to hear from somebody today who manages/owns the venue at which a certain event takes place, the event which I recently distanced myself from because it wasn't fun to me anymore. I was *really* surprised when the guy, who had called me to check opening and closing times, told me that "his contract was with ME", and that the other people needed to come to him and negotiate from scratch, and it was clear that I had pretty much complete make-or-break say over whether he even rented to them. Whoa! Consequences! I didn't think they happened in ways that slowed people down anymore, like the plan that was leaked right before the last presidential election about bush being determined to invade Iran and Syria at any cost, and by crap, he *still* keeps saying that he saw them throw rocks or take a whizz at somebody's leg, so we should patch up the two poor surviving marines and put one in each country, and call them liberation forces. Okay, digression, but--so, I said that I "endorsed" the event, and felt that it would bring in a lot of people and eventually make money, and that people would enjoy it as a sort of culture scene, while mentioning honestly that a difference in view caused me to leave, but *not* saying that "therefore anybody was bad", just that we "differed". Thing is, though, this guy seems to LOVE AND RESPECT me ***BECAUSE*** OF MY VIEW--supershock that the stuff that gets me ignored or judged elsewhere is THE one thing that made this guy want me, personally, as part of his venue, under pretty much any terms I cared to suggest for new activities, etc., with him offering me free admission *even to this event on an ongoing basis if I ever had interest in going, to come out of the other guys' pockets* etc. as part of the deal as well--man, I hardly remember the last time I dealt with people with that view--pretty refreshing--so, I hope this event works out, although I am not involved at all any more, and really, it is completely up to the people running it now, one of whom already made a sort of poor impression on the guy running it, simply in the short period of time they met last time--*shrug*--ain't my party. I hope it works out, but I won't be keeping track of who does what or who says what, because I'm not there! Restful or what????????? ahahahaha!!! Plus, there is good stuff to eat here, and so: life is supergood--

And you know, some people will be happy, some people will be unhappy, some dopes will maraude around the universe being weeners, but what can you do?? Drink coffee!!!!!! Yay!

is 'random' anything that matters?

2008-04-28T17:23:00.004-04:00

So, this weekend was fairly intensive as far as the staying-awake-and-doing-practice stuff went, with maybe five or ten hours sleep over the whole three nights, but I got some insights, and that is fine. Basic one is: WHEN POSSIBLE, HAVE NON-DUAL VIEW. WHEN RELATING IN THE RELATIVE, ALWAYS HAVE COMPASSION. That's it really, whether you are dealing with people or beings who are nice or mean for what appears to be 'no reason'--what does the reason matter? Recently some people were sort of mean to me because they were caught up in misguided self-interest, and some others were being what could be called 'mean' if you're into human rights, and then, for equally no reason, today a few people were supernice and helpful to me: drove me to the hospital for the CAT scan and other tests, and around, helped me with a lot of stuff. One lady, a client who is a jeweller, was going to help me with a recent small fantasy, of having a nice diamond earring: I figured that with her wholesale contacts she could get a better price than I could retail, and I like her work and her personally, as opposed to just buying something off the internet etc., so when she agreed to look for something for me in the tiny price range I mentioned, I was happy, and then sort of forgot about it. Today she *gave* me a diamond earring which she said she used to wear for years, which had been given to her by a mentor, and I thought that was just great and kind of her--no reason, no obligation, no whining or begging or crying poor on my part, and it just worked.

I was also given a beautiful handmade silver necklace, made by her, which immediately made certain energetic stuff happen in my body, without me being prompted that it would, or hinted that it was 'for' any purpose like that: to me, it is a nice sculpture, but I genuinely feel like it has lovely energetic healing properties, and this woman was so kind as to give it to me as a gift.

So, when things were not so fun, I tried to stick with practice. When things appear a little more fun, I try to stick with practice. When I am practicing, I try not to get distracted into "doing practice". ahahahahahaha! OH, and I bought a lot of fun stuff on sale, mostly nice organic dairy: sometimes I just get that hindu deity urge for whites and sweets, like pudding or yogurt, and they were all on sale--

lucid dreams and Milarepa's cave issues---

2008-04-27T11:46:00.005-04:00

Really, I guess they're all the same, and so through observing some things, it helps me have view to observe others--I am slower to grasp shiny toys in dreams these days, and the purported famous people or handsome men or prizes or praise or whatever seem to have to work harder to convince me of their value or relative reality--and I'm slower to get angry over annoying and trespassy stuff that seems to show up in my cave, even the party tricks stuff--just a matter of taking form that works best, really--but the lack of sleep during experimentation tires me a bit--I'm really pretty glad for organic coffee, while I have a form that enjoys it!

Chod all day today--

CAT scan etc. tomorrow--

un-self-preservation--

2008-04-26T18:18:00.005-04:00

It appears that when people are not really nice to me, and do boring sentient-being ego-based stuff about accusing me of this or that, or condemning me for this or that, I am simply courteous, and leave--I remember when I used to try to *talk* people, especially boyfriends etc., into "seeing my point of view", and getting all emotional about it, because I felt like if I 'did it right', they would learn and see my side of the story and all this blahblah stuff. Somewhere along the way I learned that being treated not-well by anyone is just nothing I want to encourage in anyone: how could it possibly help others for me to let them be unkind to me? Getting to be a rude world system, from some viewpoints--why let it get worse?

I had a dream last night with some people who, in waking life, are more than a little rude and selfish as a lifestyle, and I assumed that that is how they would be in the dream as well, and so was not expecting much other than them displaying their rudeness and selfishness again as "the way it is". The one person was genuinely acting nicely in the dream, courteous and present and seeing my point of view, and it occurred to me how seldom I see that now in wakinglife, people being good-hearted and taking time to discuss things non-defensively and non-attackingly--seems like *years*--

I hope we all smarten up! So often people think there has to be a badguy or blame, but really, why should there be, when nothing "bad" happened--? It's just sort of ego-reflex, that if somebody seems not happy, or makes suggestions that could be taken as criticism, it's got to treated like a missile and blasted out of the sky, when really, there is no need--*shrug*--

hats and Cyrano de Bergerac--oh, and vice and sex--

2008-04-24T20:02:00.008-04:00

I did buy a hat, the only non-girly one in the shop, and the only one in extra large, which then, after I bought it, started to look suspiciously Indiana-Jones-esque, just in time for the new film to come out in the next months--great! The only thing worse than conspicuously trying to look good is to give the mistaken impression that you tried to look good--EW!!!!!!!!! ahahaha!

It is interesting, though, that the same people who see me looking exactly the same every day, same tatty dark coat, same skirt and tights, same everything, now try to discreetly *peer* under the hat as if I had finally brought out something worth looking at! ahahaha!

So, I reread Cyrano de Bergerac (in English, please, these days), and I had been pretty sure that one of the Corneilles had had something to do with it, and that this 1897 version by Rostand was some modern variant--but apparently I was wrong--*shrug*. I genuinely appreciated the two main themes, as I saw them: the obvious one of not judging the contents by the package and by ignorant prejudices about the package, and the other one about the virtues of *being present*: those who are present seldom miss the really good parts, or mistake the packaging for the whole story by accident. It really put me in mind of the old days, when people took time to spend together, to woo people--these days I hear so much more about people "hooking up" (I needn't even say EW to that, I presume) and about several people wedged boozily in loo stalls together and all, and I thought: DOESN'T ANYBODY EVEN BOTHER TO TAKE TIME TO MAKE SEX TAKE MORE THAN A FEW CRASS MOMENTS ANYMORE? Really, if one's idea of the height of clandestine oomph is some prurient quickie somewhere while talking to someone else on a cellphone and listening to an ipod in the other ear, WHAT IS THE POINT OF 'VICE'? Why spend so little time on the things that used to be the greatest pleasures, and are now bleak and coarse obligations, even in the forum of quick pickups and ditchings??? I am not even referring to intentional romance or "dates", since those are also evaporated like other past mists, but to the 'naughty' stuff, the badboy action as was. In the old days, it meant something like going home with a musician after a gig for a one-night stand--that would now be considered a tediously intimate and personal relationship!!!!!!!!!

This is earth, yeah? It would appear that the main things one might want to do is HAVE FUN, and, if smart, TO BENEFIT OTHERS TOO. When did the part about having fun become so lame that it just *isn't* anymore? Ah, I have all sorts of incipient articles in my head, but I'm tired, and the time isn't right to blurt it all out--oh, and insurance won't pay for next week's putative CAT scan, because of the mess the records are in, largely because of the idiot in the emergency room who refused to believe that I had had any accident several weeks prior (medical records notwithstanding), and said it was just derangedness, and that I ought to go into the mental hospital for four to six days and take buckets o' drugs--the git was considered a mental health professional, and yet was so full of it that he said that, and it became part of my records, and now the casual reader will see stuff that looks like I was whacko instead of having been electrocuted. On other days, in other records by other people, they see the details of the results--sigh--weener world, and not the fun kind--

Oh, and *excellent* lucid dreaming morning: I went from lucid dream to lucid dream, not waking, telling the people it was a dream, asking what year it was in their worlds, writing down my name for them to remember, telling old friends that I sometimes miss them, all of it, for what seemed a very long time--things must be quite helpful in the things-that-affect-that arena. I feel like I am in this excellent "existential equipoise" (just made that up, and it made me laugh), in that I am *not* really pulled in any direction, to or from anything or job or identity or goal--quite rare, maybe, and lasts about as long as any other skateboard move--walked around the yard in bare feet to see how the feel of it is this year, and I noticed that yet another tree is growing sideways to touch the house: this makes one big dead tree right leaning into the house, and in the last coupel of months, two live ones that bent sideways very drastically, to the point of looking dead, and now they grow bright fresh leaves, pressed right up against my house--I really like that we're all getting along so well, house and trees and beings--oh, and the one newest cranky cat appears to have brain damage, with being siamese and also having had what seems a hard life, and his confusion persists, even though he has observed in the months he's been here that nobody harms anybody, nobody yells unnecessarily or is mean to anybody, and he started to mellow, but now he decided that he is in love with me, and that made it worse: when I pet him and speak to him nicely, he crashes his head into the nearest wall to show pleasure (!), and he gives me a good hard bite when he can't hold back his affection any longer, and he whizzed into a box of antique books today that the other cats have happily lain upon for several years without feeling the need to get whizzy about it. Boo--poor little guy gets territorial, very understandable, and I can also see how other people could have been mean or impatient with him, little doof with brain-damaged-seeming activity, but it's just disappointing that his nervousness made him pee on stuff, and then that wore off, and now his fits of attachment make him pee on stuff, and that's a drag--and he still tries to attack on of the others, and that's bad--she's big enough to give him a good kicking, but doesn't, so the politics can be delicate--ah, poor beings, to be confused!!

body stuff--

2008-04-22T16:05:00.010-04:00

Technically, the physical therapist had written two months back that she was concerned because, if I may blushingly confide, my ass was pretty much on sideways--*shrug*--maybe some guys are into that-- The skeleton gets pulled out of alignment by having the muscle-y/etc. bits having been shrunk and pulling at odd angles, compounded by being my age and walking this or that way, carrying this or that pocketbook, sleeping that way, history of martial arts accidents and convulsions, etc.etc. However, since those two months, there are new symptoms which *I* personally, not being a medical doctor but wearing a body made of physical stuff, might find of concern, but which my doctor, being a medical doctor with her own views, did not seem to find of concern: viz, it took the bus 45 minutes to arrive at the doctor's, by which time my left arm and side of face had gone tingley and numb, significantly and for a while, simply because of sitting down in the front of the bus, not carrying anything, not leaning against anything, not being obese or oddly shaped or torced more than having my ass on sideways, but just because of the movement of the bus. I'd figure some people might have considered that fortuitous, to actually *have* a symptom when at the doctor's office, plus the significant and recurrent and longterm neck pain, but no: in her world, a piece of paper by an Official Ass Observer said that my ass was on sideways, as of a few months back, and that was all she would authorise a CAT scan for. The body in front of her, with me as the entertainment portion of the program, described these other symptoms intelligently and cheerfully, and that was not enough to get it checked out, so that means that eventually the physical therapist or the person giving me the CAT scan next week will say, "Geez, about the fact that you're losing function from the waist up, going numb repeatedly day after day and every night--you want to do something about that?", and that'll likely mean more time off work to get a CAT scan of my not-sideways-not-ass parts--your medical dollars in action, folks!

Anyhow, it all feels fine, and I'm sure it'll work out--I'm actually sort of into the odd tricks one might be able to do with that sort of physiology--!

So, for the first time ever, it is clear that I cannot safely go outside without a hat, in the sense of it *physically* burns the face within a minute or less, which could be put down to fancy face cream making sensitivity or similar, but the ears and other unanointed bits burn too, within the literal time it takes to wait for the light to change to cross the street, which is one to two minutes (oh, and yeah, of course with sunscreen on every morning). The flesh gets red and yuck and I can *feel* the intensity of the light being much worse than it was even a few years back, and I really have to physically protect the body from it. I wear a spookyesque tattered coat all year round, very gothy (well, actually just regular), because there are scars on my arms from where they've burned out cancer more than once, and only an idiot wants to spend money to do that over and over again, however fun it might be.

That leads me to the concern about the situation of the earth and environs changing so drastically, because of human interference: I'm not an outer space guy by any means, not my kink at all, but I am an invisible-guys sort of guy, as per tibetan buddhism perspective. I am really concerned that the activities of humans here on earth, utterly unwise as many of them are, really harms not only the obvious beings like animals (who are considered another realm), but even the different forms of beings who would *want* to hang around people here: it used to be agrarian deities and protectors, that sort of smaller being who was tied to the earth etc., and now--not good. Yup, some of them could eat your baby fast as a wink, or drag you underwater and kill you (ah, the good old days, which I even still dream about!), but now: yuck. The beings mutated and generated by the current human mythology (viz, spooktastic crap on tv and media and urban superstition etc., with the vatican reporting tremendous surges in exorcism lately, which to me is just sort of trying to toss annoying homeless-demon types off one property and then not expecting them to go around the corner and squat there: short-sighted, maybe--) are really, really not that fun to me. If I weren't tibetan buddhist, I think they'd be a real pain in my neck (as if enough isn't), since some of our tibetan buddhist invisibles include protectors, who are seriously seriously substantial and helpful to good practitioners. Oh well--we can put that into the "don't be weird, Donnalee--this is Amurka" category, and maybe I'm all wrong--that would be fine, because I genuinely would rather be wrong about bad things than right in some smug dopey way--

Have fun, and drink organic coffee--yay!

oh, the physical stuff--sort of unfortunate--

2008-04-20T14:19:00.005-04:00

I *still* dally and avoid going to the doctor for that referral back to the physical therapist (because I don't trust the doctor at all and hate to waste a co-pay just to have her sign a frigging paper saying to go to a real person who can help me), and meanwhile have this boring new symptom at night: the entire body of muscles, the whole thing, the whole human body made of meat that has muscles, does this thing that mostly does it itself, and takes a lot of mindful effort to not let become enormous convulsions--it's like my body is surprised at how big it is, and how the muscles unfurl in a way, and it stutters a lot, really crashes around on the more-subtle level, which would be visible to others, and only my meditative calmness and calm effort keeps it from being out-of-control, rip-the-shit-out-of-muscles convulsions. It has only happened a few nights now, and the term that sprang to my head was "clonus", because I'm medically-intuitive like that. I just remembered the term and looked that baby up, and it's a biggie in multiple sclerosis and spinal damage, which is no surprise, me being a cooked sausage spinally and other ways since the cooking, and it says people are seldom aware of it before their neurologists are--not true in this case. So, yeah, ought to go to the doctor and get the stoopid referral back to the physical therapist, who genuinely was helping me, and maybe back to our guy the neurology expert at Dartmouth-Hitchcock who comes to Vermont sometimes--it's still hard to get out of bed, and I still am wrecked at night, unable to move much at all, blahblah, so--isn't it bizarre what some people regard as no-biggie, while others would be screaming for drugs and surgery? I read somewhere that people with this or that symptom actually think that surgery on their spine will help them--holy crap--what part of messing with that, if it isn't crushed in an accident, say, sounds good and likely to help delicate nerves heal to you--? You know, sounds like time to contact my tibetan doctor again, who is moving to the states in a few months--he ought to have some clues about stuff that would help me, since he's been tremendously helpful to me in the past for very serious things--

confession about children--

2008-04-20T10:29:00.005-04:00

I have to confess that I LOVE to hear parents speak firmly to children, with intelligence and wisdom and affection--somebody was visiting the people next door last evening, and I could hear some unknown woman say clearly to her own child/ren that they needed to get out from under the house now, because they had to walk home and it was getting dark, and she said it firmly, intelligently, reasonably, and in a way that any sane child would be pleased to hear: IT WAS THE VOICE OF A PARENT WHO WAS NOT A DERANGED WHINER, NOR A HELPLESS BULLY, NOR COKED UP ON ANYTHING, NOR SO NEGLIGENT AS TO LEAVE THE CHILD IN THE STREET IN THE DARK--in short, it was a rarity.

I really in general *hate* to hear children outside, because invariably they are uncontrolled, harming each other or the plants or animals, ignored by the incompetent parents of these days (we used to have a crack house next door for a few years), and to me, it represents unwanted responsibility, because *of course* if I hear a crash or screams or fishy silence, I'll look and help out, and for people to just ditch kids in my yard, or unattended anywhere, is pretty much a crime, but common--and again, buddhist-wise, I figured out that one reason I dislike it so much is because THEY ARE CONTRIBUTING TO KIDS WHO ARE UNABLE TO HAVE TRUST IN THEIR PARENTS, AND HENCE LEARN ALL SORTS OF BAD STUFF THROUGH THEM AND THROUGH THEIR NEGLECT OR ABUSE, which goes completely against my liberation-upon-arising understanding: I don't mind noisy kids, kids having a good time, getting dirty or whatever, but there is no reason on earth they should be ditched where they are not wanted, and then the crackhead parents (not even literally crackhead, just incompetent to whatever degree) just assume that if they don't die, they probably won't get arrested, and they're out of their hair for a while--it's really too bad, because I think what the world of kids, and the world of grownups, and the world of me, needs is TRUSTWORTHY PEOPLE--remember them? In the old days, we often had some nice aunt or uncle or grandparent or neighbour who was genuinely okay, and yet we all had the ones who were big drinkers and/or speedfreaks or on tranquilisers and all, who were not okay. The ones who were okay, though, were treasures: people who might make you dinner, and let you play with their books or piano or collection of stuff while they cooked, and they did NOT try to molest you, or get so wasted that it was just like being at home, or anything else--those were really to be appreciated.

I can understand the countless reasons people feel inadequate, and then act that way, denying it to themselves, or trying to fake or whatever, but it really really would improve things to have competence be respected and valued again, and hence more common--this thing about having presidents who in theory allowed us to see that the mediocre and unqualified could hold any post in the land is sort of a fake-confidence-builder-gone-wrong, like these bizarre academic situations where people are no longer allowed to give students bad marks even if they fail the course, because it might dent their self-delusions of adequacy--although it has been instructive. Now we see that incompetence and short-sightedness and narrow views in high office and businesses etc. result in--well, international disasters, actually, from the largest scale to the smallest, and *maybe* some people will perceive that that means that other options might be better--that'd be nice--

Coffee for me, and a ton of nice vegetarian protein, that a friend was kind enough to pick up for me and drop off--it is some quantity of vegetarian roasts that I bought on sale, and then could not physically carry home! Nice day to stay out of the hot sun, and to have fun--enjoy!

just one more quick glance at financial navel lint, fleetingly---

2008-04-19T15:09:00.003-04:00

Poop: I have to admit to a bit of stress over the fact that I, working five days a week etc., still am too poor to afford to upkeep the electrical system of the house safely, seemingly--what a drag. Things went wrong an hour or two back, nothing I can safely fix, and fireman-who-gives-advice said to get an electrician, whom I duly called, and the lout said he'd be here, for high prices, an hour ago--ain't seen him, and find it a drag that the fridge is thawing, plus it *could* be that stuff is on fire in the walls, and yet he's watching the sports or something--earth people are stoopid, and I should know--small whine, big bullshit--sigh--happy full moon--

endorsing some folks, but NOT politically--

2008-04-19T10:27:00.007-04:00

It seems like I've contemplated my particular navel/al (ah, the whole fleet, so to speak), and now it's time to endorse some people whom I think can really benefit others.

So, first is this little site, which has a completely free little one-minute silent recording that helps increase prosperity not only for me or you or that lady or man, but for all beings on the planet, in a sort of positive-energy pyramid scheme, that again costs nothing and is competely free and which I enjoy listening to invisibly, so to speak.

http://www.ourmedia.org/node/168124

I know both of the people involved, and highly recommend checking out their own websites, which are on that little page. I found that I personally, in low-tech world here, had best results to click on the part that says 'original' next to archive.org, since then it plays for me over and over in a windows media player, and just me clicking on that main bar there gave me only one play at a time. Your level of technological sophistication might be much higher, so please do what works for you. I do encourage having a look at this, because I feel like such a kind and loving effort, *to improve the prosperity of all beings while not asking any money for it now or later*, is very helpful for these times--enjoy!

Secondly, I was going to wait until photos of me and this gentleman got developed, but I just haven't done it yet, and it's dumb to wait on that--a friend of mine, Doug "Ten" (for Tenzin) Rose has written a most entertaining book called Fearless Puppy on the American Road, which you can find out about and order at http://www.fearlesspuppy.org/ . It's the story of being a doofy 15-year-old drugdealer going nowhere in New York thirty-forty years back, who spontaneously hitchhikes 100,000 miles across the country and sees many new worlds in the process of the next decades, based on his own life in a range of circumstances with hippies, gangsters, martial arts experts, motorcycle gangs and divers criminals, racist thugs, you name it. In the course of these travels, he ran across some insights and teachings that are worthwhile for anyone to contemplate. Sales of the book go to benefit buddhist projects (check the website for the scoop, since I forget), and the book itself has a lot going for it: I personally enjoyed the good-heartedness, and the stories of travel and people met along the way. Like any first book, there may be unevennesses, in that some parts may be more to my or to your taste than others, but the life lessons, and the basic good-heartedness, were consistently uplifting and positive throughout the book. I recommend checking it out, since my buddy Uncle D is now travelling around a bit, giving readings and selling the book, and planning two more in the series, including one about his having spent a year or more in Thailand (which might be the subject of the next book, but again, check the website: I forget all this stuff!). It would be great for anyone interested in hitchhiking books, spiritual philosophy in action, 'real life' in the 1960s and 1970s, being a dope and then sort of snapping out of it and then being dumb again, and then some clue, etc.: slice o' life, really--ahahaha! Enjoy!

Oh, and he's speaking at Tibet House in NYC this week, and the little info blurb follows, so you New York-area folks have a chance to check it out:

http://www.tibethouse.org/component/option,com_jcalpro/Itemid,70/extid,166/extmode,view/

Ah, a lint-free post--!

surreality is not a bad reality--

2008-04-18T15:59:00.004-04:00

I had a chat today with a friend and mentioned how whiney I feel sometimes to not be officially obviously registered-trademark Benefitting Beings all the time, although I want to and feel I try, and the fact that yup, I have some particular qualifications that might make me worth listening to now and again, and yet even my buddhist students seem not to bother to listen to what I say about buddhism even after they request the teachings (!), makes me a bit frustrated and feeling like it's not practical to be talking to humans, and she told me a story about fairly similar activity on her part as far as odd and particular events that produce specific qualifications, and we could laugh and say that if we'd been tibetan men, we'd have been scooped up and made lineage holders so fast due to these particular experiences, that our lives would never be our own--and you know, I think that's a big thing: to be anonymously nobody, practicing day and night and through dreams and through poverty and through suffering (man, did I have ***tremendous*** pain last night physically, nothing of mine personally, but reallyreallyreally no-joke somebody's serious pain, for quite a long time: I hope it helped the person for me to feel it and be present with it) is so excellent and completely fortunate, and frankly it's something that my famous friends and acquaintances have lost, and many of which would value greatly--peace, quiet, nobody obsessing, nobody expecting-from, no disappointment on any large scale in the eyes of others, just the basic bad-wardrobe-and-bad-manners complaints--I am about the only person I know who hasn't written books, made films, won pulitzers or macarthur awards or hosts a national television show, or editted books on the New York Times bestseller list, or whatever else, nor really wants to (although sure, everybody including me has written a book or two, and been in a little nothing film or two--these are modern times). A couple of different friends, both coincidentally in their sixties, recently made comments about me looking *really* young in comparison to last time they saw me, the first correcting me when I said "a little younger" to be "A LOT", and the second person saying I looked "about twelve"--maybe it's time to tone it down and look regular, although honestly it's really fun to look younger than I can, whether it's through expensive face cream or just meditating a lot--very funny in its way--ahahaha! Some vehicles which in the old days I would have called "flivvers" keep going past my house, red and white and buddhist all over--shrug--it's a nice day, so enjoy! ahahahaha!

just watching it all--

2008-04-16T17:03:00.002-04:00

It's really restful to be not-striving. I think that that is a big downfall of incarnation, 'having' a body, associating 'self' with a body or entity: the limits are quite tiring--

So, even though I read a quick blurb in Vogue about the 'hottest new thing' being 'psychic healing', at $300.00+ a pop for all the models and socialites who swear by it and go monthly or more for a quick zoom, I somehow am not rushing to point out that I'm great at that and have been for years--shrug. The thing about 'Pick me! Pick me!' in anything is so stressful and rather pushing, and yup, although I'd love to have enough money to live on, let's say, just to be wildly extravagant, it doesn't seem productive for me to race around reminding people in New York and elsewhere who have thought I was great that I still am (if I had been), and maybe better than even last time they knew me--shrug.

I think I am just absorbing the cats' minds lately: the one who was in the hospital for the costly health-spa stay (quite a few hundreds of dollars to ascertain that yup, his health is *superb* in all ways they can measure, on top of the health-spa stay by his brother at the same place a few weeks back, where his life-threatening thing turned out to be excellently not-threatening, after only five-hundred dollars or so)--these cat minds are now content to stay home and do nothing, especially not odd medical events, and so maybe I am simply being them, so to speak, content to do nothing but watch--

I have been observing the very harmful transition on this planet from the rural and agrarian to what most of us do now: very harmful, very short-sighted, quite guaranteed to be the end of the majority of people--shrug. Very unfortunate, to get some odd exploitative 'divorce' from the planet, but still be addicted to it, and still dependent on it, and yet still abusing it in ways that harm us--too bad, all around, all the language and feelings of pathology. I read literature from barely sixty years ago that seems the quaintest and even might-be-seen-as-dull now, because the minds that would read it now can't make it through half-an-hour without cellphones or computers, much less a sentence written in correct grammar, and that simply is not the world that is present through these stories--

and for those into lucid dreams--; imputing meaning--

2008-04-13T11:45:00.006-04:00

It has been an excellent week for lucid dreams, with perhaps four nights of lucid dreams in the past six or so, with 'lucid' meaning that I knew it was a dream, and spoke with those in the dream about it being so, asked and gave names and towns, etc., with varying degrees of success on their part at it all--the relative lucid-dream-access drought of the last two months seems to have shifted, so I hope those interested in the subject are having success--the quasi-famous faces come and go, and the unknown faces come and go--I think that I will no longer make the mistake of thinking that proximity, or familiarity, or shared experiences (the components that people think of as being vital to a 'relationship' or 'friendship' or 'association') necessarily *mean* anything: not to reject that notion in a nihilist pouty way (viz, "You mean we dated for four months and it meant *nothing* to you?"), but just to regard things in the buddhist perspective of us *imputing* (attributing, giving, attributing) meaning: if this candy wrapper or diamond or cat 'means' something to me because I feel it to be so, or bestow it with association, then yup, it 'means' something to me. If I slept with somebody for years and felt nothing beneficial in it, OR EVEN IF I DID, it can still not have the 'meaning' that others might expect it to have to me, and that's fine, if I am genuinely honest and all of that.

There is a fairly famous gentleman who simply does not seem to want to get married, makes no fuss about it, makes it clear to people including the girlfriends, has little side-bets with friends who simply don't believe him and figure that he will be poleaxed somewhere along the way by emotion and actually marry somebody, and that's fine. I am surprised in a way that people make such a fuss over somebody's choice in this regard: it's someone with money, career, seeming health and happiness, not somebody I know personally so I can't say anything opinionwise, but: man's been clear, for decades, and seems to operate consistently within his own beliefs, so--why do people get so fussed because he's doing something the teeniest bit to the side of 'conventional'? Countless people do do odd variants on marriage and not-marriage, with statistics in the UK being that larger proportions of children are born out of wedlock than ever (not a big thing, but I recall the statistics from when I lived there fifteen years back as being one-quarter, and then more sometime since), and many couple being together for decades with or without children, or like me, who tend every fifteen years or so to marry foreign people who then live in foreign countries while I live here, and it's all fine. It's like that film Muriel's Wedding, in which the viewers seemed tremendously divided by whether or not they had ever married themselves: it just seemed to colour the view of the do-it-or-don't of the wedding situation--

So, so, we impute meaning, which is really worth observing in ourselves and others, because *it's a choice*: yes, the life of a being is worthwhile on the same relative level as all other lives, and yet we undervalue lives that are not ours, or those of our loved ones, or our race or species or pick-your-bullshit-reason-for-discrimination--and overvalue our own, most of the time, using resources for our non-survival means while depriving others of their actual survival--wouldn't that be creepy, when you finally figure it out, if you're doing that--? Anyhow, have a fun day, and be nice to all--and drink good organic coffee! ahahahah!

cat health and life--

2008-04-12T18:34:00.009-04:00

I continue to cheerfully be invisible, figuring that really it's fine to do that: nobody demanding I fly here and there to take care of them, nobody making me go far away to accept enormous amounts of money and things--ahahaha! I figured out recently, and maybe mentioned, that if I sort of look inside the cats and give them whatever healing energy seems needed, that it then gives me the visual/comprehensive idea that they're fine. The guy who was in the hospital last week or so is still doing great, perky and chipper, and I had 'looked' inside his brother and did a little well-wishing and found that it seemed fine to me, despite his fatness and age and all sorts of things that made me owrry about his health. Well, today I worried more about him, and he was covered with liquid poop (EW), and I went to a nice Tara sadhana with Lama Pema, who comes up from New York and was on fox news last week and apparently enjoyed being able to communicate with people that way, and I meditated there on the best thing to do for the cat, about whom I just felt worried--he was too droopy, too lethargic, and I had done things to help him, but right now he looked sort of uncheerful, plus the liquid poop was not a bonus--what I heard in meditation was to take him to the doctor, which I avoid due to lack of transportation and cost, but I figured I'd watch and see if it was the right time, since that would address the poor kitty's needs and realistically assess his situation. After the teachings, I went home and saw that he *didn't want to eat fresh canned food* for the first time in memory, which is bad, and then he sort of avoided water too, having a little slurp and ditching it, so I contacted the vet, who like me suspected anything from the kidney failure to diabetes to who-know-what: I felt alittle bummed that my efforts at healing seemed not to have worked, but was really glad when I was finally able to have a kind neighbour drive us to the vet's (if he didn't eat in a long enough time, the liver shuts down, apparently, which is disaster and to be avoided).

So, she said he had a very high fever (over 104+, and the normal is like 100ish, I think, and the highest possible but bad is like 106ish), and she filled him up with water from an IV, which intriguingly went right into his back between the shoulder blades and made a giant lump like a camel: I had always thought that it would slosh inside and not stay in one place like that to start--*shrug*. She said they'd like to keep him for the night and do blood tests, especially to see if he indeed had diabetes and how his liver and kidney and pancreatic functions etc. were, and she just called back: *according to all the tests, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM*. His liver/innards function and glucose and even white blood cells are completely normal, and the only thing she can think of is maybe he *just* got a viral infection of some sort that hasn't had time to show up more, but according to her medical tests, he's as healthy as my inner vision saw him being, which is so weird: this is an obese cat who has been cruising for a bad-health bruising for years, and so I am so delighted, and almost disbelieving, that he is 'fine'. I mentioned that this is house o' messy boobytraps, and that he could have eaten something sharp, but she said he doesn't show signs of peritonitis or similar. I diffidently mentioned doing the stuff about trying to heal him and seeing that he looked fine inside, except for one area that seemed smooth and whitish-pale which maybe ought to be pinker in some way, and she said without calling me a weirdo that "the blood tests agreed with me", and that maybe the organ could be a liver if there was the start of fatty accumulation somehow--I said that I didn't mind what it all was, as long as he was genuinely well, and am glad he is getting tests etc.

So, I am completely happy to have him be at his little health-spa for a night or two, until his fever breaks and so they can do more tests, and the vet said that they are going to have 'a little pajama party tonight' since there's another kitty in jail there too who has a reduced appetite too, and so she bought them a giant assortment of yummy wholesome cat food to tempt them--she also got a crush on my cat, who frankly is the cutest cat babe ever, and so they get along nicely--so, yeah, maybe this stuff about buddhist healing is good and works--I sort of don't claim anything anymore, and maybe that makes it all work better--OH! And supercool today during the meditation to see things literally disappear right as I looked at them, again and again, which to me showed that it's the *view, the focus*, that makes our worlds--if we don't look at preta realms or godrealms, or don't seem to have the equipment, we don't see them, but if we let them be as viable as anything else we are attached to observing, there they are--

quite the shocking insight--

2008-04-09T19:25:00.006-04:00

I was teaching a class last night from Words Of My Perfect Teacher, and we were reading a chapter focussed on giving, including giving of yourself to benefit beings. I mentioned that I had been so pleased to see on the internet that Mr. Depp had recently taken action to save a number of extras on the film set when a car hit some ice and veered out of control at them, and they were seemingly facing the other way and unaware of it. Apparently he ran to them and pushed them out of the way with his own body, which I completely applaud: what else would you do in a situation like that? I really was so glad that he would get such great merit for saving beings, and I'm just really glad that he's "that kind of person".

The shock came last night in the class, when we were reading about doing that sort of thing, and some of the students made it clear that they *weren't* that sort of person, and I was simply shocked. I had forgotten that there is even a viewpoint in which, given the chance to dash out in the street to save an animal or child, someone would *not* do it, if there was any chance of it succeeding. It doesn't mean that the people involved are good or bad, but it struck me, as we meditated, that not everyone naturally sees the excellent value of buddhist view, to the point of it being obvious to them and naturally in accord with what they would choose to do anyhow. Maybe I was just naive, or out of touch, but it really struck me--how could somebody live with themselves if they just sort of grunted and said, "Eh, they're just extras, or just a dog" or "Oh, eee, maybe I could get hurt" or some other weird stuff, and then the beings got hurt or killed in a way that could have been prevented or reduced--huh.

Huh--I guess it just wouldn't occur to me, but when I contemplate it, sure, I can see that many people might have this fear for their own persons, or a feeling of valuing themselves more than others, or feeling like the others don't matter as much because most people feel separate from other beings--to me, that just seems a bit short-sighted, even in the selfishness scale of things--oh well, I guess that everybody has a view, and another one an instant later, and so that is how it goes--I also was surprised when somebody "took exception" to the part that said it is not possible to be serious about becoming enlightened while being a 'worldly' person. The person believed that these days clergy live in apartments and whathaveyou, and that this is what the author meant, in some way perjorative to modern clergy who must earn a living etc. I pointed out that what Patrul Rinpoche indeed was saying is, "Are you the sort of person to unhesitatingly run into the street to save an animal or person?", as opposed to "Do you wear fancy face creams and have a nice house and chat on the internet and have money?" They didn't quite believe me--I think I am a crappy teacher! ahahahaha!

Oh, and the mechanical brain function is not very good lately: I had no ability to count money the other night, less than one-hundred dollars, all in twenties and ones, so I just handed it to someone who counted it for me, which may have looked a little childish, but I had tried it a couple of times and it didn't work, nor with trying to count a mala in a shop to see if it had the right number of beads: somehow the consecutive function isn't there, and I figured it was the dark of the moon's contribution, during which the mechanics are sometimes iffy, but it has persisted, to the point today of not recognising people who speak to me. A woman greeted me, and I'll talk to anybody, so I said hi. The lady said her name, and I stared, and she said a town where we had met, and I stared, and was friendly, but said that I simply didn't have the ability to add those things up right now, and she was friendly to me about it and understanding--we had met at a recent buddhist teaching, but I forgot, even though we were among maybe only a dozen people one day! Oh well--these things seem to come and go, and the insights have been severely different and deep and far-ranging lately, plus I've been processing the cats' health situations and being really queasy a lot with that, and also still unable to turn over in bed etc., due to whatever odd spine-covering limits, so I guess it's just what goes on--*shrug*--and yet I can walk fine during the day, and all of that, so that's really good--

so, the Brattleboro, Vermont, goth/industrial night was fun--

2008-04-06T11:24:00.006-04:00

I was really pleased --a couple of dozen people showed up, and pretty much everybody *danced* all night, in this attractive former church with great wooden floor, original stained glass, nice dark lighting, heavy stone and carved facade. I'd been out of the scene for a while, and was really happy to see lots of people just dancing, mostly younger-looking people who were very much into the martial arts and acrobatic aspect. No joke: there were backflips, handstands, break dancing moves, stuff that looked like capoeira but wasn't, and those sort of poi-things, like bolas--no clue what they're called, but they used to be an actual olympic event, with an object on a chain being spun around the body: these are shorter in length, and often on fire outdoors. I cheerfully reserved the right to kill anyone who became rude and selfish with taking up too much room with them, but this crowd was great, respectful and friendly and not hissy or thoughtless.

I am intrigued to see the scene reflect the modern world now: lots of variations on mechanical objects like odd stout glowsticks that appeared solid and big enough to be somehow reusable (didn't examine them, so I don't know the technology, but hope it's ecologically not-gross), and moves that can serve as self-defense. This also includes the frankly "why the **fukk** would it be permissible to spin dangerous things on *chains* feet away from your body on a crowded dancefloor as if you were entitled to take up the space of five other people????" self-centered notion that has also brought us the ludicrous and ignorant boundary distortion of driving SUVs and talking intimacies on cell phones in public. That was in contrast to the gothy aspect, which was more my thing back when, sort of romanty-poignance-of-the-transient style of thing, whereas now there's more of an edge of everything's-changing-and-stomp-about-it--different approaches to the same ineluctable phenomenon.

A number of men wore very sharp suits, sort of slim-fitting zootsuits or trimmer lines, freshly pressed, nice ties and vests and jackets, even those who got very physical, like lying on the ground and hopping about on bent knees. Many of the men and women wore more industrial black, biggish pants in black with metal bits--oh, one kid wore an actual ringmail shirt, but of such a fine jewelry-like mesh that it didn't look heavy or painful, even under his black teeshirt--I appreciated the inventiveness of it, and somebody put enormous work into it, since it was ring-mail and not knitted etc. I watched rows of what appeared to be Doc Martens boots stomp vigourously in small crowds, and they reminded me of the Laibach kittens at http://www.rathergood.com/, which cracked me up. A couple of young-looking girls wore odd hello-kitty type gear, and wandered around being terminally cute: bets were on as to whether it was genuine young-person tweeness hard at work, or some drug that we had no knowledge of. They didn't do anything alarming, so it was fine. There were fewer of the corset ladies (or men) yet, but some, and I tend to wear more long skirts and things that can be waved around while dancing, sort of looking like a girl but not looking like a prosperous dairy farm. ahahahaha!

In all, I think it was a great success, and many people said they 'had a blast and would be back', and similar things--I was glad, since at the start there were only the few of us who were running it, and that gave me the opportunity, which I took to be nice to the dj, of singing and dancing the entire 10-11 minute original This Corrosion by the silly Sisters of Mercy: I like the melodramatic semi-operatic styling by Jim Steinman of Meatloaf fame on the song, which has a lot of humour which seemed to escape the dense and iconically-vain and overlyserious lead singer, Andrew Eldritch. ahahaha! At any rate, it was very fun to simply be in the middle of the floor, singing and dancing, completely unselfconscious, because really, why be selfconscious in a bad way? It was like the fun of it was all-pervading, and nobody really cared if I looked 'good' or 'bad', but the dj was probably glad to see somebody dancing around cheerfully so his efforts didn't go to waste. I noticed that later I could feel the self-consciousness of the people there, which I might have mistaken as mine if I hadn't known it wasn't, which made me understand how other people's feelings really do get into our space, without us even noticing.

Anyhow, for a fun and affordable (five bucks cover, cheap snacks) night out on the first Saturday of the month, check it out at the Church on Main Street in Brattleboro, Vermont, from 8pm to 2 am--somebody said there is a myspace site for it, but honestly, I'm unlikely to be trawling those waters, so will mention it if someone shows it to me, but other than that it may have to go unobserved by me--ahahaha!

new guilty indulgence--

2008-04-04T19:51:00.002-04:00

I get a kick out of emanating purely as all-healing and -liberating energy and radiating throughout all time and space (dropping the human-limits stuff completely at night and doing this), and everything that gets crashed into and passed through gets healed and liberated and still does not obstruct me or be harmed--it's really fun these last two nights, like sort of asteroids game only it never stops--what a goofy fun thing to do! It seems a complete change from the obstructed-seeming human realm--and I guess it is what they would call sky-going--

earth is still sort of weird, isn't it?

2008-04-02T17:17:00.003-04:00

I found yesterday's energies, especially in the afternoon, really oppressive in pretty much every sense: pressing on me as an individual form, oppressing communications that I tried with people, which were just not working at all, and me really feeling like the earth thing has not been a success for me, although I get along great with me and cats and practice every instant, and will keep going until I do something else, so it's not like I'm pouting and then will wrench off my own head voluntarily or anything: never fear! It got to the point where I was actually thinking that some of the abilities I appear to have as side-effects of practice were sort of useless, if nobody wanted their help, and if I personally am not desperate for them. The biggest example was the life-extension thing, which has been a factor in my life for years now, with some inadvertent ability to sort of cure stuff, sort of prolong life of animals and people, sort of diagnose conditions at times, sort of say a little something and bugs shake off their stupor and walk, sort of thing--and when it's intentional, yeah, it works too, more and more. I have to say this came in handy yesterday when some unknown number of my cats ate easter lily leaves, which kills within a day to three days from complete kidney failure, and so I did all the vet stuff, flinging three of them into a box and taking them all in to be tested, but fortunately it worked shockingly well, much better than the vet had expected: of the three I brought in, only one had actual evidence of the poison in his stomach, and all three obligingly vomited on cue , with aid of a sedative that she warned me had not worked the last time they'd tried it with some poor cat, to show us this (that's when it helps to be an empath, although that meant that I personally was on the verge of a little emetic action too, but I have good control--the sedative effect afterwards was not too tough either). The one cat who is now in the hospital, full of liquid charcoal to absorb poison, and on an IV for a few nights seems excellent healthwise from here: it just looks good for him from here, although I think the IV might be in a rear leg which is giving him a little pain, because it's bothering my imaginery catleg. See? Sounds crazy, or grandiose--am I usually wrong, though, with the assessments and efforts? No, actually, I am not, so it came to me that yes, I am glad to have any ability of prayer etc., plus help of any buddhas et al., that can help prolong the lives and good health of my cats and others, and then I think about those around me, oddly enough especially those who have ever given me money (boss, relatives, students), all 76-80-90+ years old, and all doing very well for their situations, and only the ones who cling to illness as an identity being a little bit draggy but having to work at even that. I was reassured that yeah, maybe it's an ability that does help beings, even if it's not beings who know about it, or ask me for help or anything. It's not infallible: recently a gentleman whom I had known as a child had a stroke, and when I 'looked', the degree of decay in the actual brain was shocking, very much like when they used to say that drunks got 'wet brain', which to me was incurable. It didn't look like blood, and it was just carious--I really was interested for a while in finding out how to see if I am right about certain causes of death, but I am not in touch with autopsy folks. *shrug* It might be a good way to learn, to see what I perceived and then see the actual physical material--for a while, too, people who gave me money literally won twice that amount in the lottery the next day, from a ticket bought on a whim, but I make no claims, especially not that sort of thing! ahahaha!

But yup, I was rather glad to run across something by Atisha recently who said that it's good to develop clairvoyance, because then you can help '100 times more people' than if you don't have it, so that was reassuring, and also the part I taught last night from Words Of My Perfect Teacher focussed on feeling and taking the physically-manifest pain and conditions of others, so explicitly that I genuinely tried to hide my brief residual veterinary retching and severe intestinal pains from the students by going into the ladies' room before the meditation part of the class, but one 83+ year old heard me, and said shrewdly, "Been eating lily bulbs again?" I said that when I pooped liquid charcoal, I'd save it to prove it to her how speshul I am! ahahaha! It's actually pretty odd to teach a class of skeptical older ladies who find the expected behaviours delineated in this book as quite hard to live up to, or to see the value of, when I live by them as a matter of course, and show a lot of these signs and symptoms, including having a cute little bump in the middle of the top of my head, and yet my life is such, and my karma is such, that really, nobody notices anything unusual or cares about trivia like being able to help them in extremis and before, and beyond, even after death--*shrug*. It used to make me unhappy, but I figure that *it's just how life is*, and even Atisha says not to waste time healing people or casting astrological charts, but get cracking on actually practicing all the time. Yup, no problem there: I do practice, read stuff, try things out, observe my interactions with beings, see if my patience and compassion and other factors are getting better or worse and what contributes, and I just observe observe all the time, but also have fun. I notice that the mainmain thing I appear to do is *laugh*, cheerfully, in ways that other join in: downtown, in the streets, at my house, all over the place, and that part is pretty fun. I notice that the more I get these deep and cosmic insights the less they are used by anybody except maybe a few people, one of whom gave me a ride today and said pleasantly that whenever she is near me or listens to me, she gets these great insights, "just like darshan with her teacher", which then fit right in with other aspects of her life, which is really good--that means her mind is on a good level to appreciate opportunities, and she doesn't waste them.

Oh, lalalalalala--I think the big lesson for me is that people generally have their own quite rigid view, and don't want to hear other views, especially ones that say, "You know that rigid thing you've been doing for a long time, and getting nowhere at, and defending to the death as The Only Thing To DO? Why not reconsider it?" A girlfriend was telling me something about her insights, and that they were about unpleasant things to come in the future. Our conversation got interrupted five times or so and we never finished, but I started to say to her that "MY insights--" and never got to say "tell you what you are doing that keeps you from being enlightened." Weirdly enough, that stuff isn't just in vogue now, except if it's packaged some way that I don't package--but it's like being a literary critic who *sees* the hero/ine's fatal flaw the instant the book is opened, and could have saved old Hamlet and Madame Bovary and many of the Harry Potter crew a lot of grief, if they had only asked--not just listened to rambles, but *asked*--that seems to make everything *right there*--at least it's fun, and who needs to have a marketable commodity, or to use abilities, to get by on earth--? There's still coffee, chocolate, cats, and laughing--!

remember musicians?

2008-03-28T17:28:00.002-04:00

What do these have in common?

Seal
Journey
The Eagles
Crowded House
Imogen Heap
Peter Murphy
The Cure

--yeah, you know? You get it or you don't--if you don't, the article will come out later--

lucid dream time again!

2008-03-27T16:12:00.002-04:00

It has been six weeks since the last spate of them, which I feel is a certain cycle that does not always occur, although there are six-week cycles in my dreams and certain dream places where I go every six weeks only automatically. I am glad to have them again, and to be able to observe chatting with old dream acquaintances, and to understand it's a dream and to tell them, and to have them reply intelligently in a way that implies that they are understanding the context too--very encouraging in a way--this one seemed to be set in a slightly different time than the waking life out here, and that too was observed by me in the dream, so I am glad to be aware--

well, maybe a little excessive lifestyle is okay--ahahaha!

2008-03-25T17:26:00.003-04:00

So, I received a Very Nice Candle (meaning, huh, not a cheap and EW candle at all) made by Diptyque of Paris, and called "Essence of John Galliano"--I do not know the story of how they managed to get the essence and how it came out smelling mostly like a kind of wood smoke and (to me) kalamata olives before it is lit, and then afterwards a bit more vanilla, but I am sure they worked out some deal with him to get enough to bottle--(!)

The enormous snows of this year have begun to melt, clear in many places and yet literally six-ish feet still in others that get less sun, presumably--it has been coldcold lately, and the sun fools me into thinking it's more than in the 20-30 range, but it seemingly isn't--some of my small trees are really tipped over, but the ground is frozen, so they can't be staked yet--I think it was fine not to buy any fuel, and the pipes still freeze and thaw every night, but haven't been any trouble beyond that, for which I am grateful--it's not very far to post-oil after all, really: just don't use it, or too much of it, and it works better sometimes--

now, with more lifespan and lifeforce--kewl!!!

2008-03-24T17:22:00.004-04:00

I was on retreat this weekend, attending an empowerment of Amitayus, which restores your life force, whatever the reason it has been spent (aging, illness, stress, demons, pollution, imbalance of elements, bad actions, you name it), and fixing you right up. It was a small group (for something which has been proven again and again to work wonders--*shrug*), and I got to take home a lot of the extra 'sacred snack', the blessed substances that extend life etc. and heal illness. I gave a lot of them to the cats, and to people downtown, and I think it helps them all, while not converting them to anything religous-wise. They are these 'blessed pills', more doughballs actually, of tsampa (barley flour) and other mild elements like sugar, no drugs or physical medical chemicals, but just blessed aspects etc. I found the teachings very worthwhile, and slept in some little tiny private boonie house where I had never been before, and dreamt of a young-looking man who crashed somewhere and was killed on a road far away from there (he told me where, and I asked the locals the next day if that road existed, and they had heard of it, in another state of the US, but actual), and *again* I dreamt a lot of filming a movie, or movies, even in this house whioch, like mine, has no tv, and even while not looking at computers or newspapers etc. but being busy all day at retreat: frankly, guys, I'm bored of it. I don't even look at the blog having to do with that movie I previously mentioned and had dreamt about back when, but it's gotten to the point that in my dreams, moviestars do stuff, film stuff, with or without me involved, live their lives, and then one of them called me up on the telephone in a dream all upset because she thought that I knew her secrets, and to tell me that 'screenwriters are now writing scripts with my name ("Donnalee") in them', and she was all worried that somehow I would get her and other people in trouble by revealing their imaginary secrets which I experience in dreams. ahahaha! If I actually had ever had attachment to the moviestar world, and sure I did to some degree when I dreamt about them, I'm pretty fully over it (that was the delusion of friendship, not just whoohoo excessive lifestyle): these days in the dreams the moviestars are busy, dull, fatuous, banal, tedious, drunk or stoned, fixated on themselves, boringboring to hang out with, and I don't see that as desirable--and then they want *ME* to help them out, after being dumb enough to get themselves into situations caused completely by stoopid choices--for free! ahahaha! Good luck to all of us!!!

I am glad I went to the retreat, which was in a very rural area of Vermont, and got to see the people and meet new ones. I may get to Boston some day, to attend more teachings with the officiating teacher, Lama Sonam, whom I felt had some very helpful insights and advice--now I have to make the cats more cheery, because they get all fatalistically mopey if I'm not here for a mere day or three--

lucid dreaming weather report and all---

2008-03-20T17:12:00.003-04:00

Yup, it really *hasn't* been a good month for lucid dreaming: dreams, yeah, lots, big small whatever, with some of the same old cast of characters and locales, plus new beings all the time, but the quality of lucidity has not been sharply present, even with efforts before sleep and upon waking in the middle of the night etc.--really, just looks like a mediocre lucidity time. *shrug* So, that means that extra effort now pays off really well later, because doing something when it's hard, and cultivating the discipline of sticking with it even when the results do not seem obvious, helps tremendously. It's like today, which I perceive as fraught, fraught, with a lot of energy from the near-fullmoon, the near-spring, the fact that tomorrow is when somebody else's god dies, which can really be felt (plus I'm really close to Jesus myself, such a lovely being, and so brave and good). So, it has been a good day to simply stick with the inch-by-inch difficulties that occurred, everything from people getting agitated to Amtrak AGAIN taking some arbitrary amount from my account for travel that was actually done, and paid for by me, last November or so, thus crashing and burning my fragile thirteen-dollar financial empire--badbad, guys--badbad, and ugly, and tough, with many many fees thrown at me for an amount I genuinely paid them for last year, which means no expensive facecream, nor food, for yer old grannie this week, again, after several other tight weeks--sigh. *shrug* What can you do? You can get all worked up and suffer, OR just sort of stick with it, observe, instant by instant, learn to deal with everything, all, anything, which to me is a form of what is called "groundlessness": not clutching for a reference point, not getting all worked up about "a story", like "I didn't do it, so they are bad, so blahblah equals excuse for me to SUFFER, which proves--that um, I'm entitled to suffer, yeah"--I somehow don't see the percentage in that--ahahahaha! yeah, talk nicely and firmly with them, yeah, have someone research it, all that, but do NOT do stuff that burns unnecessary stoopidfuel--ahahaha! I'm too old and cheerful-cranky for that! ahahaha!

cheerfully nothing happening--

2008-03-19T16:37:00.002-04:00

--and I'm pretty glad of it! Nearing the full moon, dreaming of filming certain shots involving dancing and small towns and whatever, and it's not *my* gig, so I don't mind---! It's been a month where the dreams are not terribly lucid, sort of scary (like the leaping down the stairs thing at full speed a day or two back--whoa, frightening, but worked out), sort of just activity, no big or small things--

huh, I apparently practice what I preach--most sobering--

2008-03-15T16:41:00.003-04:00

So, there seemed to be some trouble in the basement, partial-floodwise, and I went to look because I had not heard the sumppump noise in what sounded like a day or more, which is unusual in this wet season. Maybe not surprisingly, it scared me: to hear the sumppump doing something weird and straining-sounding and looking bad from a distance in the semidark, like a wire or something was across it, made me feel severely post-traumatic stressy, standing in the wet basement alone with the very low and dangerously exposed electric wires right over my head (and to those who don't know, that's how I got fairly significantly electrocuted last summer, with residual injury even now etc.). So, I left that room, and called the non-emergency number for the fire department, and asked them if it sounded like a problem, and if they could take a look if they had nothing else going on (small town, and they're really nice). One of them nicely said he was just off-duty and would stop by, and did. He went down the basement, showed me (still feeling terror but I had told him so non-dramatically, and went down with him bravely, because I figured he could save me if I spontaneously got electrcouted or some freaky other unlikely thing) that it was fine and what certain things were causing that noise but it wasn't dangerous (very kind and patient guy), and that was good. I felt such severe terror, frankly, tremendous fear and trauma, about being in that situation again, that I assumed I would have a good liberating fit of hysterical crying after he left (I wouldn't bug the poor guy in person by being boohoo wimpy--please!!!!), and I sent him on his way, grateful for his help. By the time he left, I had already gotten over my terror: somehow these emotions don't seem to dwell in me anymore, once the cause has been removed, and so I guess I indeed do *not* brood or dwell or suffer about things in the past, because it seems like I just don't have that function anymore, and as a result, I feel *NO PAIN EXCEPT WHAT IS THERE IN THE PRESENT*, including not dredging up the past as something to cause me pain in the present--whoa, talk about a stress-saver, and boy, am I completely delighted that buddhist practice, and probably the getting-cooked, helped that happen in me and to happen even now--what a coolcool thing, to have no more pain than needed--talk about rare in a human, and talk about it being reassuring that I tell clients to process their stuff and let it go and then they'll feel better, and it genuinely works--I'm glad about that! I also notice it about, say, having romantic dreams or similar, and there seems to be no residual attachment--whew!!!!!!