The Way

Yesterday I re-read part of one of my favourite essays, Jonathan Franzen's Why Bother?  It's something of a manifesto about the writer's responsibility to protect the literary tradition of tragic realism.  It is not the writer's responsibility to weigh in on whether or not the world is doomed, simply to remind people that death, loss, poverty, destruction aren't going anywhere soon. We still have a lot of work to do.

So the writer spends a fair amount of time contemplating change.  Contemplating the difference between natural suffering and self-created suffering.  The writer spends most of her time in the first of the noble truths: there is suffering.

There's this other place, however, that is a little harder for the writer to stay in.  The belief that there is a way out of suffering. Maybe this  is where comic realism comes in.  Comic realism kicks us in the butt in a different way. It looks at our tragic lives and sees where we get stuck and helps us laugh at our vulnerabilities.

Last night I had a stroke of good fortune.  Aziz Ansari decided the Just For Laughs comedy festival would be a good place to try out some new material.  So he flew up from New York, and tweeted that in an hour he'd be at a children's theatre not too far from where I live.  I found out about this on FB, from a guy who I've had a bit of a thorny relationship with lately. I wanted to see the show, but I wasn't sure if it would be comfortable seeing it with him.

I risked it and it was great.  I saw a master comic from the middle of the third row. He was practically talking to me. It's interesting to see a comic in the draft stage of a routine. To see those moments of discomfort before he's got it seamless enough to charge $100 at Madison Square Garden.  To realize how much work goes into a good comedy routine. How it literally left him short at breath at one point because he wasn't in good enough shape for the physical comedy.

I need a lot of energy to do and be all the things I want to do and be. I can't muck around anymore getting stuck in these bad cycles. I need to learn how to manage my energy, so that I can turn it into the power that the world needs from me.

This next week coming up.  I set out on the way of accumulating that power.

Nectar of The Path

I'm now into my second week of this cleanse.

The plan this week is to start replacing my compulsions--food, and emotional--with Ngondro purification rituals.

Yes, this means chanting.

I am very, very self conscious about adopting spiritual rituals of any kind. Last night I was convinced that the Ngondro audio tape I was listening to was disturbing the neighbours, and of course if I chant they will hear me. Or will they? I'm not that loud.

But I imagine that they will than then what? They will think I'm a Buddhist. That's a very vulnerable feeling, because having a religion of any kind leaves you open for persecution.  It doesn't make me feel safe. The whole point of Ngondro practice is to find refuge.

And yet, the starting point of refuge is that feeling of vulnerability. Without acknowledging our vulnerability, there is no motivation to seek refuge.

Paradoxically, it's this vulnerability that prompts us to seek refuge, and the refuge that keeps us safe and, thus, less vulnerable.

So, perhaps the key is to take refuge in this feeling of vulnerability.  It keeps us open, it means we are learning, It keeps the compassion flowing. It keeps us strong. It is courage. And it takes courage to set out on this path.

But it's the way

my hypothesis

So I've had a hypothesis ever since I started this blog that Zhan Zhuang would lead me towards a good life. And not just a good life, but an amazing life. Because that's what an adventure should be, an experience of things that are amazing.

I still believe that, even though I keep letting go of my practice every time my life starts getting exciting. This is my challenge to maintain my practice through the exciting times. It's easy to take up my practice when my life has sunk into despair and I'm depleted of energy. The magnetic force that renews me is always there. But can I keep it up when I start to experience the high of success?

Maybe that's the wrong question. Will it still be there? Of course it is. This energy is always there. It never goes away. It is the essence of love. There.

But maybe that's why it's so important to take it slow. Even when all I want to do is stand. I need to take it slow and see how it slowly influences my decisions so that they lead to the kind of incremental success that doesn't blow itself up.

creativity

It says in The Way of Power that creativity is the expression of your natural energy. For me it's an expression of my connection with the universal energy. I don't particularly like that description. It makes me feel all new agey, utopian, flakey. But I don't have words for it right now. I don't know why it's so important for me to find my own word for it, but it is. Consciousness will do for now. Creativity is the expression of my consciousness and I now that I believe in consciousness driven creativity.
Today is a day that is inching closer to the shortest day of the year. Dawn is late. Instead of turning on the light in the morning, this morning I sat in semi darkness until Ben woke up at around 7:20. There was no pink window. It had snowed last night and it was simply grey. This is why we celebrate Christmas I guess, because there is so little light.
I would rather sleep than celebrate. Man I could use a good sleep. Ben and I are developing a habit of watching the news until we fall asleep. Not healthy I'm sure. But at least it gets us into bed.
I would love to go to bed earlier. Have a really long and deep sleep and clean out all the sleep debt.
I wonder if this is the secret to cleaning out my financial debt. Getting rid of my sleep debt. If I slept that off, I would have enough energy to resist temptation, to make better financial decisions, to eat better and have more energy and willingness to work. I would be more useful, and healthy and all the things I want right now.
So what stops me. Habit. Bad habit. But more importantly absence of good habit. Absence of being in touch in the evening with my deepest desires. My desire for authentic happiness. I am not cultivating habits that put me in touch with that.
I need some sacred evening rituals. As permanent and ingrained in me as this habit of getting up in the morning.
Then I will have the energy and then the creativity and power that I want. That God wants me to have.
The Way. I still like The Way as an expression of this energy.