Fail parenting

I always knew how fearsome the wrath of nature was.

Pushed to the back of my mind, my humanity resided. For the time being I am purely in my frontal lobe. My instincts are control

- I am not even a sentient being anymore! I am more like one of those man-eating plants. My body is reacting and reacting, while

I am inside my mind totally unable to control its movements. Soon, I'm sure, I'll have it back. When the danger is passed, my

body will trust me to look after it again. This is more like a punishment I guess... my body is angry for getting into a dangerous

situation. Light! There is water in my lungs, it doesn't really hurt as much as I thought it would. My muscles are all in cramps.

Where am I? I can see wobbly shapes which are probably the beach. "I just saw you pull yourself out of that huge rip! I was

going to help but you were already getting out by the time I got to you," Shouted an American woman nearby. "Thanks," I lied.

My family had to be here somewhere. I wondered down the water-front. A female voice stated something quite irritating "Oh,

there you are. We thought you had gone back to the car after you dissapeared from the water." It was Mom. Mumbling I replied

"I was still in there, help would have been nice - but I suppose nobody was concerned when I dissapeared."

"Don't have such a mean attitude, you should sit on the beach if your going to be like that."

Anywhere away from the water would be good; "Yeah whatever - I was only drowning, whats the big deal, right?"

For a milisecond a grimace of regret shot accross my Mom's face, but then it turned into a grimace of irritation.

"Heres the towls and my handbag. I'll join you later"

Meandering up the sand dunes towards a nice spot I considered myself lucky to have an auto-survive function. If it was me in

control I would probably tire and give up. I set up the towls and lay down. By the time my family got out of the water I had

managed to build a small underground fortress, two castles, trenches, and great walls. There was a small war going on between

the pink shell people and the yellow shell people; both colours equally tiring to look at.

My family decided that since my step-brother and step-father had discovered a rip that they should head home. Getting into the

car, I wondered how my own family could just pretend like nothing was going on. But I suppose these things happen to me a lot;

I always come out fine.

On the way home, there was little scenery of interest. Just hills, a great expanse of blue sky, and trees. Some people appreciate

this, but after living in the same part of the country for years - nothing is a nice surprise.

Suddenly I was coiled up in foetal position. I couldn't see or feel anything, but I could hear the sound of the ocean - taste the salt on my lips. I discovered I was nice and warm, but tumbling round and round and round. Much like a washing machine. After a minute or so I discovered to my dismay that I was pulling myself out of the water. What water?

Suddenly here I am... back in the car. It must have been a dream. But then I realised - not just a dream. This was the event which again plagued my childhood, because for the first time my life had been in danger - drowning - and my parents failed to notice, and even when they did no help was offered. But this is my life I guess. Nobody really notices when I am in danger, only when I am about to put myself in mild-danger.

My parents tought me a lot in my life: nobody cares about your safety except for you; nobody wants to know; nobody is as stupid as you are. I know, not very good lessons. But then, I wasn't a child to deserve easy parenting I guess.

This is my personal trauma. The blackout.

Where did the title go

The days pass by with rain and wind. Tsunamis threaten. But consequentially nothing has happened so far.

Which made me wonder... Lots is happening in our mind. Yes. The tsunami happens a thousand times in our mind before it comes to pass. But effectively nothing happens. Much like the nature of ourselves. There is no cause and effect. There is only the mind. Cause and effect seem void.

Void.

Funny word that. The void. It seems distantly fearsome. But comforting - because there eternity is defeated.

The practitioner in mind

The act of changing the brain function over between different sides of the brain. Where do we put the gap between the left and right side? As far as I was aware was that if you severed any kind of connection between the two sides would prevent function. In some tests, people who had trouble with some certain aspects of thinking had their two sides separated. They survived. But they had still some trouble connecting thought. But what is this distinction from left to right? If left and right were so true then people would mix them up, forget, animals would understand. Is the mind not a whole?

In art, when someone reproduces something from life... It is said that the artist is using the right side of the brain. Because the right side of the brain is associated with creativity, thought free of language, and sudden erratic insights. But why is it that the logical though side (left) isn't associated with sketching from life. When sketching, one must logically place together a landscape, using exact methods of reproduction. Do the left and right not have equal parts to play in this.

This separation of the mind... functions of the brain... These are almost like saying that your left and right hand are physiologically different. Sure, they do different things. But isn't that just because we choose to do that? Isn't it just a point of view that we specifically portray upon these? Does a tree consider using its left or right side to house birds?

I really don't understand why there are such differentiations.

Maybe this is just a viewpoint that we cast upon our own minds.

When I was in a room full of people, a teacher put on a projector an animation of a woman who appeared to be spinning in one direction. But when you looked closer, she wasn't spinning, it was just a trick. For some people, this figure moved left, some right. But for some, it did neither. And even for a few, it did whatever they wanted it to. But after the teacher pointed out that it followed which side of the brain you used... Almost everyone could control its direction.

Sure, I do not dispute that if someone hits their right side of their head, they will be fine because of the left. Of course there is some separation, but brain studies conclude that each part is so entwined, that when some part of the mind is effected all of it is.

Just like the nature of life, everything is one.

Kind of like how it was found that the stomach is a second brain.

But the thing I really refuse - not so much, but find it impossible to grasp - is this distinction between aspects of the mind. When you stop thinking, you do not cease. When you are thinking you do not purely use one side of the brain.

Now I have no idea where I was going with this, and I have so much to say that I shall stop, and perhaps write something another time when I have a point to make.

Desire

I cannot tell anymore, if a desire is my own.

I know that desires are created. But what if you desired to have a specific desire or want? Would you then be creating a meaningless puzzle for yourself? I wonder, because I had forgotten the need for something, and I had pushed it as far back in my brain as I could (because I knew it was never going to be fulfilled) and so it was only in recurring dreams and incessant nightmares did it appear.

But recently, after coming accross the information that this desire could possibly be met, I began to become curious. Where did this curiosity come from? It was the strongest 'curiosity' I had felt in my entire life. And then it dawned on me... it had always been a desire. But why? I had forgotten it, it couldn't be important, right? But then, people do forget important things - picking a child up from school. It does happen.

I dont want this desire, I dont want to be labelled - shunned - because of it. I just want it to go away. But now after knowing its possible to fulfill it, I cannot forget, I have to pursue it. Why?

(Please dont bother yourself for the form this desire takes, it is just a desire, and no speculation is required, and judging is unnecesary.)

As soon as I became conscious of the desire, I shunned it myself. I do this because I do not want other people to judge me for it. As soon as the desire becomes apparent that I cannot be rid of it, I hide it. And forget it. This cycle repeats itself untill the desire is fulfilled. But desire is not real, it is an illusion. Therefore this desire is nothing but that, and I do not HAVE to fulfill it. But I still feel some emotion attached to it, I desire this and I am averted to not having it. Amazing. The desire is not real, I dont have to. But I choose to, maybe this isnt about people judging me. Or is it that I want to be judged by my desire?

When faced with something about yourself you cannot explain, it is best to follow it through a full circle of possibilities, and come back to the beginning. Because you know that if something isnt real it will in time contradict itself and change. There is nothing wrong with fulfilling a desire, but if the desire just causes pain, or is unfulfillable, do not hold onto it. Desire isnt real. Aim for desires which can be met. And always remember: There is never a guarrantee. Be free of desire, be free to have desire.

The Path of TIME

I have not blogged here for many months. Why? I cannot say. Probably because I let it slip my mind. I do not know what to blog. So I will put something else up.

Waiting painting skies,
Time never and always is,
Pink blue and grey moon.

Pining for the fjords?!

Is it what I see there?
A happiness?
Singing, lurking, creeping in the shadows.
It escapes me again, where does it run to?
Come back my song-bird.

Shallow are the pools of a drop of rain,
Great are the pools.

Cascade. Soup. Marching. Insenuating.

Placate me my love.
For though I know not your face, I know your name.
I know where you come from,
and I smell your scent.

Bring yet the frost,
O-Jack.

Can you understand it, the sicilation of that cheese?
Dog, you are fair yet misinterpreted.
Your wrong became right,
In these twisted justice.

Defying the laws of space and time

Earlier this week, vaguely listening to the radio I chanced apon a very interesting subject: Is religion something evolution created in us, and if so, what purpose did it serve?


Lets start with the obvious: What purpose could religion possibly serve? Religion... Well, religion could serve a very simple one which would happen to be the cencept of the mysterious. Drawn from questions; What goes on outside our world? What makes things live? How do trees grow? Where do babies come from? What kinds of things are there that I cannot see? What made the world?

It seems that only those religions that claimed to provide these answers flourished.

I was exploring my subconscious recently (I despise calling it the subconscious because it can be conscious too) and I found a strong will to believe in something, for that to show me the way. I wanted to feel like I could find my purpose outside of myself, and I realised, the only purpose I want is one I choose myself. I cannot depend on religion, I can only depend on myself. I remember being asked a couple of years back "If you don't believe in God, what do you believe in?" The only answer I could find was simple "I believe in myself."

This brings to light the practice of Buddhism, and I admit, I have strayed, my body has been suffering, and in turn my life. I have returned to many old habits, but I am more aware, and I realise that it is not about how well you are rigerous in your faith, but how well you maintain your practice.

Buddhism asks you not to leave faith, but to understand that faith is faith and faith is only yours.

I feel the desire of faith, and in recognising it, I do not delude myself that when I find something fufilling this desire that it will be real.

I can't remember where I was going with this, so I'll stop and do some homework.

Breaking the habit

I was thinking today about how I was following a more rigorous regime and particularly about how I was eating only before 12pm. I decided today that I should eat later on as well (I am currently munching on various assorted health-foods) and so I did. And I noticed that it was becoming harder to control my eating habit unless I kept to a strict diet. I think that I need to eat less in each meal, but have these little breaks and eat all meals. For only then can I become unattached, when I no longer am habituated to this style of eating, I can leave this cycle.

Habit is a tough thing. I feel the only thing that can break a reason why. Have you noticed when you have a habit, and you want to break it but you find no reason to motivate you to do so, you generally don't break it. But when you have a motivation, it becomes very easy? For example I used to bite my nails, but I decided I wanted to shape them, and i havent bitten them since. Not even once. It was incredibly easy just because I take pride in my nails now.

Habit is an uneasy thing,

A Pollock Discussion

When I was watching a movie today about Jackson Pollock, I noticed he painted when he was very angry. And I also noticed that made me feel uncomfortable, and I went into drawing when I felt uncomfortable. They say that painting and drawing are ways of expressing ones own emotions, but could it not be that they are more the escape as opposed to the answer.

Jackson Pollock was a wonderful artist, and painted very abstract expressionist work. He played with cubism, and surreal abstract work, but in the end came to a very automatist style of painting. He focused inwards with his work. Someone noticed one could not but paint from nature, and yet here he was painting from within, Pollock stated quite simply "I am nature". One is nature. Yet, your view of nature comes only from within. So in the end, the painter only ever paints them self.

Pollock was a severely depressed man, and an alcoholic. He painted from within, and painted all this out. When he was frustrated, depressed, drunk or angry he would paint this into his work. But he seemed to not focus what was going on within, but projecting it into his painting. Putting the pain outside of himself. When he was drunk, he would get angry and push the anger outside of himself, either at his lover, his family, things in his immediate environment, he would project.

People see art as a way of dealing with problems. And I believe it can help, but if you put everything into your art, you are only projecting. Putting your feelings into something outside of yourself, and to put it into an extreme like Pollock is something unhealthy. There should be no mistake that art is a way to solve your problems within. It can help to understand, to look at, and to analyze them, but in the end it does not help them, it does not fix them and it does not heal them. Art is something you look at. All it can do is let you look at what it is you feel.

When I feel uncomfortable, I will sketch, I will draw, and I will distract myself from this feeling. But to use art as habitual distraction is not constructive. I feel that art should be seen as not a form of healing, but expression alone. For an artist can do no more than a self-portrait.

Circle

Walking home, just yesterday, I was taking photos and I saw it; a beautiful Cicada, sitting on the grass nearby. I decided it was near the foot path, and may be steppy apon, so I picked it up. It had no problem with this, and sat on my hand for a long while. I took some photos, and then walked along with it, in hopes of finding a new, safer, place for it. Accepting that I will never see it again, I placed it in the shade just underneath a tree elevated from foot steps. I thought about how I have saved it from the feet of the unnoticing passerby. I felt gratified that I could leave it be in a safer, shadier place.

A day later, I am walking the same route again, pondering on the Cicada, did I do the right thing, or should I have left it, and not interferred with its life, but I know I have saved it from death at human hands. And then I saw it. The very same Cicada, on the road. Noiseless and void of movement. I approached it , and saw that it had been killed by a car. The side of its shell cracked open like that of a egg, contents splayed onto the hot black road.

From this, I understood. We are all at the door of death. We live our lives like this. We continue on, and live and grow like anything else, but in the end, death is our reward.

So I took थे Cicada. If it was on the road, ants may stream onto the road, and be killed again by human feet or wheels. I put it at the roots of a bush, hoping that the plant and insects could benefit from the body of the Cicada. The Cicada is not dead. It now lives on in the world.

Even if I can still hope to end the intervention of human hands, and act as if humans are seperate from the circle of life. We are not. The Cicada may be washed from the roots of the bush in rain which threatens even now, and the ants may find it there and again travel into the human realm at a risk of their life. But there is no individual life. Death is as much a part of life as birth is. In fact, they are one in the same. This is the circle.

The two forces in the universe, I shall call them yin and yang, are the same. But there is a third force, a non-force. It encompasses neither and both equally. This is life. It is the yin in yang, and the yang in yin. We live our lives in duality, but our lives are made up of this non-duality. This being, this beauty is life.

So with the truth of this in mind, I ask you this: What are you saving the Cicada from?


This is the circle.

6:57pm Monday - I made a pact today, to agree with a person's every statement for 24 hours. I think this is going to end badly... I also think I am going to find this uncomfortable.

A blank spot

O.K. To my readers, I apologise for not having posted in a fair while if you were looking for a new one, because you see, life has been busy.

I started school, have been looking for jobs, and have been very lazy lately.

I was thinking about posting on this site. And I thought I would try my hand at the philosophical poems... Koans, I think they are called. I don't know how they are produced, but I thought that this my help show my view on where I am now.

The Flower,
Without eyes sees the sun.
As do Buddha,
Without mirrors see themselves.

Life without the box of chocolates

I have been practicing detachment, and have been focusing on the food aspect becuase it is a struggle today. But I begin to question it. I was faced with a box of chocolates, and it was past 12pm, and I had already had a wonderful meal earlier. It was a new kind of chocolate, very tempting. And yet, I was stead fast in my decision to abstain from taking food at innapropriate times. But as time went on, I thought "I may or may not end up having one, but when it comes down to it, I would enjoy one."

This brought me to a conflict, do I have one, or don't I? My decision was to have one, because I knew that I was not attached to the idea of getting one, but it would be an added bonus if I could have one. If they were gone by the time I got there, my dissapiontment would be nonexistent, because, I knew that it was not important to have one. I was unnatached.

It was a nice chocolate, I enjoyed it, and after I had had one, I did not desire another. I feel this means that the practice of non-attachment is less rigid, because you have to be unnattached to the rules.

One thought that resounded in me today is "Not so." I feel this is a good teaching, and the one that I shall keep in mind while becoming ever more mindful.

I have decided to follow the 10 precepts for 3 days a month. Theses are:
- Refrain from killing living things.
- Refrain from stealing.
- Refrain from unchastity (sensuality;sexuality;lust).
- Refrain from lying.
- Refrain from taking intoxicants.
- Refrain from taking food at innapropriate times (after noon).
- Refrain from singin, dancing, playing music or attending performances.
- Refrain from wearing purfume or decorative accessories.
- Refrain from sitting in high chairs, or sleeping in soft luxurious beds.
- Refrain from accepting money.

Now, considering i already follow the first 5, the jump to 10 is not so huge. Also, I already sleep on a thin mattress in the lounge which I roll up and put away already, and I generally sit on the floor means another rule is already taken care of. I rarely wear make-up or perfume, so all I need to loose are some ear-rings which I barely wear anyway, so there is another so easily taken. I do not eat much, for I feel it unnesesary, and I do not feel comfortable eating much, so having one meal in the morning is fine by me.

That leaves just money and sex. I do not accept money every day, but this may be a difficult one to adhere to considering this whole world (sadly) is based on money now, but I can refrain for 3 days. Sex, well, it is no problem to go 3 days without that.

I find these are basically a good moral code to live by. And although theres rules seem dated, they are just as relevant today as ever. If you look at the meal one for example; If you were to ask someone to go a day with just one meal, they would refuse most commonly. And considering the oboesity epidemic, people seem to be addicted to food. Eat to live should be the rule as per the excpetion, but it seems to be less and less common. People are eating too much, or too little. I feel specifically this excercise would help a person maintain a healthy relationship with food.

Also, when you look at the singing one. It is not so you may not be entertained. I feel it is to help you let go of the attachment to entertainment. Many people look to outside sources to be entertained. T.V. is the worst cuplrit. It lures you in with pretty pictures, and then it sells your subconcsious. How often do you watch television? Most people watch it too much. It is the same with the internet now, or cellphones.

Buddhism is the mid-way path. Letting go of attachment, and ending suffering. All on the mid-way path. For that is where the Buddha walked. Let Siddhartha, the first Buddha, show you the way.

I have decided that for 3 days every month, I will follow the more strict rules that monks in training follow. Those are the

Suffering is eternal

Shimmering depression ripples accross a puddle. The puddle is not big, it is not important, yet it may ripple the same as a river or ocean, because they are the same. It does not make the ripples any less. Yet there is hope the puddle may cease to ripple, even if, in the ocean there is none. A puddle will slowly drain away, and become nothing, but an ocean is always an ocean.Yet, in a puddle, a small ripple seems great, and in an ocean a ripple seems small yet there are a million of them. The size of the puddle or the number of ripples are relative. A ripple in a puddle is equal to that of an ocean. If the puddle is fed for years, it will grow to be like the ocean, and if an ocean is let be it will shrink to a puddle. But a puddle and ocean they remain.The infinity is eternal

I was thinking about perspective

Ip man

Today I went and saw the movie 'Ip Man', it was very satisfying. The movie was about a Wing Chun artist, who was the strongest fighter in his city, and faced many opponents, and with each new opponent, there was a new victory. I think this was a bit of a one sided movie, but since it was based on the true story of Pi Man, the wing chun grandmaster, who had taught many succesful wing chun users including Bruce Lee, there may have been a fact to the theme of wing chun being one of the greater styles of kung fu.

Wing Chun, next to Tai'Chi is a great martial art, it utilises once again close combat, and is very fast, but is less of a gentle fist style than Tai'Chi. It uses the same principles of conserving energy and balance. It is powerful and I do suggest it, for I am going to begin it myself in a year or so after I have fully steadied my skill in Ninjutsu.

Ninjutsu is also similar, albeit a Japanese form, it is based on close combat, in all forms. I find it quite useful in learning about your self in the physical and mental sense, I feel personally more grown as a person from taking it up, and stronger.

In the end, when choosing a martial art it is best to find the very best, find those that other succesful martial artists use like Bruce Lee, or from other peoples personal experience. This is because you do not want to start learning a martial art like Karate, which will inevitably teach you bad fighting habits. Choose not soft fist, nor hard fist, choose balance, and a range that suits you.

Here is a list of my top three martial arts (in no particular order):
- Tai'Chi (Chuan/Yang)
- Wing Chun
- Ninjutsu
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I have tried to keep this short, once again, if this is helping please do mark it so.