A Moment of Silence

Re: the comments section on the last entry. When I'm getting advice from the Practice Director of the ASZC on where to get chili dogs, I must be doing something right....

The last blog entry was written in a period of intermission, of sorts. Prior to my last sesshin, I'd been hating my job for quite some time. A situation which had been profitable and enjoyable the year before had done to shit when the firm lost its major client; for the last few months I'd been forcing myself in to work every day, even though the money was inadequate and I was leaching off my savings, and the environment had been intolerable, with rampant in-fighting and office politics, not to mention an inadequate workload, bizarre client behavior, etc. So after sesshin, I went back to work on Monday, then never made it on Tuesday nor ever again. So.

And with the national and worldwide economies lurching on the brink, sorry guys, I don't feel like jumping right back into the chase. Froggy in a blender is not for me, at least until I can breathe for a while. Following my abandonment of the job from hell, I went into a period of funk and illness from which I have just not emerged; the last entry, as I say, was in the transition. I did my first yoga class of September last night, which started out as agony as a thousand putrid toxins fled my muscles and pores, and ended in satisfaction and a return to self, as I'd hoped. But of course the self I returned to is not the one I left (thank you, Heraclitus), and this one needs a moment of silence.

And I'm sorry, for those who can't understand. I'm not one of those people who could do the same thing every day for thirty years. I'm glad for those people that they can find completion in this, but if I can't reinvent myself every day, if even in my own head, there's no reason to get up. Who I am, for better or worse, is the product of more than half a century's hard work, not at accomplishing or trying to accomplish anything other than the moment to moment grasp, of What is this? Who and where am I? And if you've never felt the need to do this; well then, that's you.

Today I have no need to validate my existence by seeking a false consensual reality with those with whom I have nothing more than bare existence in common.

So I can sit here alone today, and watch the towers fall, over and over; not the Twin Towers but the metaphorical ones in Babylon.

Then there's the damned Nashville Buddhist Festival meeting tonight, brought to you by people who think that if it's worth doing once, it's worth doing over and over until you've beaten the living spirit out of it. Rest assured, it's my last. If you want to go delude yourselves, go for it; I'm tired to promoting those who would promote themselves. The Dharma is in your pocket.