High-Minded!

There are many lessons I know in my reason, the things I can discuss with others that we can both agree on pretty easily, ah yes of course!. Often they are steeped in spiritual understanding, sometimes lessons gleaned from the day to day. How little we actually understand about the conditions of other people's lives is a frequent one for me. Just Yesterday Ejo, Zen priest of the Eugene Zendo, talked about En, or causes and conditions. When you see anything, a person, a bird, a stone; you must also realize you are seeing infinite causes and conditions that have shaped and actually created this thing. If you see me, you see my mother's concerned look, my hometown's old brick italian architecture, my high school's non-air conditioned classrooms, and my grandfather's proclivity for diabetes. When we look at ourselves, we are able to see many of the causes of our condition because if we have become astute observers, over time this observation will help snuff out the causes. However, when we turn to others, when we see a condition, we often presume to know the causes. Then we give proscriptions or judgments and from those standpoints we can impose right and wrong.

Saturday, in Yoga, the man next to me had some of the weakest postures I'd ever seen, and I'd seen him before. Just going 50% into the posture with limp limbs, constantly fidgeting. His effort seemed so impotent, I kept wondering, I've seen this guy come for at least a year and he has some of the weakest postures I've ever seen, how come? Judgments and annoyances follow quickly. I presumed to know when I hadn't even spoken to him. I tried to put him out of my mind and focus on what I was doing and let him do what he needed to do. But still, over and over would my attention would land on his effort and I would rip him to shreds in my mind with insults, which I don't even want to mention. When I would realize I was needlessly wasting my energy in a negative way, I would try to pry it off, succeedingly intermittently, but the conditioned mind always returned to what it was used to. Perhaps my own misery being taken out on the world and others as culprits for my condition over the years has taught my mind to blame others and criticize them and resent them.

After class, as I laid on my mat in the yoga room on the verge of a mighty headache, he started talking to me as he left the room, which was odd because usually silence is maintained, but he went out of his way to talkt o me with no initiation from my end. Turns out, he has swine flu. Yea, no shit, swine flu. Swine flu and he's coming to 105degree yoga for an hour and a half. It put me in my place very quickly. What wasted energy of mine creating tension and resentment in my head on false assumptions I had just spent.

Oh yea, and again, we don't know why other's are as they are, but the real point is that they are so for a reason. Or rather, there are conditions than have brought to this person to be as they are. It's not our duty to criticize for how they are but only to help when we can. The next point is that "helping" is an acquired skill, it takes patience and restraint. In my experience and from what I've seen, people learn best from their own experience, from their own drive to change or learn. So what you can really do is be pleasant and lead by example, lead by your own realization and wisdom. Another way to say this is, You can't answer a question that has not been asked. As in your advice and proscriptions will do no good if the the instructee isn't listening. This is hard for my judgmental self. I have been trying to just listen and be pleasant, be insightful, be helpful. Often I work myself into a shitty mood when i try to advise or argue with someone. Now when arguments come up, unless they are going pleasantly I usually just try to defuse them because what will happen the vast majority of the time, is that we won't agree, we'll resent each other and we won't have learned anything. More important is to maintain your composure so your ears remain open and you can try to understand why the other person feels that way, their causes, and then maybe you can see into their perspective.

Back in Eugene

Well, back to real life, though it really feels much more artificial than the past month of being transient. Propped up by structure and responsibility, deadlines and expectations; but I think the wonderful freewheeling of travelling is only sustained by the mundane world.

How structure shapes me! Back in Cinci, in the room I spent my teenage years stewing in, how quickly my old habits and thoughts return! Back in Eugene, the same feelings hover about me; my room never seems to look clean, why is that? is this my life? is this my beautiful wife?

I'm starting to blog now because I need to write, I have a constant muse tickling me that when not expressed seems to foment into overzealous anti-emotionalism making me boorish and tightly-wound.

But it's late in the morning, oh blog, I shall be faithful to you!