true life planet

Be patient with me, dear readers..I’ve decided to keep writing the blog, as I seemed to have worked my way thru some things that were blocking my way. I’m calling this series ” Epiphany”, and it’s got three parts: Confusion, Courage, and Compassion. These are straight from my journal entries…

So, life here has been pretty confusing. I’m sure most of my readers gathered this just from reading a few lines of any of the most recent blog entries.

Today was the most confusing day I have had, and one point I was walking around muttering to myself, “Which way is up? Which way is down? What is true? What is untrue?”. At any point, it would not have surprised me if I had fallen into a rabbithole, like Alice in Alice In Wonderland.

Truth be told, this state of confusion had been increasing daily since my arrival here a few weeks ago.

It wasn’t really a confusion about what I believe, it was more a confusion about what the Buddhists here believe. The farther I delved into it, and the more questions I asked, the less I seemed to know! This evening I find this funny somehow, sort of some Buddhist themed joke on me, but up until now, it didn’t seem funny at all.

In fact it seemed kind of scary here. After all, I’m living with 30 people who tell me they believe something, which is kind of unclear to me, and the only things I’ve had to go on are books( good, if I can understand them on my own); people’s behavior(as usual, as with all people, running the gamut from wonderfully good to really selfish and horrid); stuff I’ve found on the internet about this particular group(not especially encouraging); and my own common sense.

I was so confused by what people said-and what they ended up doing..that I fell into a state of utter confusion and depression. The only thing that was holding me together these last few days were emails from home and Jane Austen. That, and what with all those prayers going thru my head over and over, an inclination and desire to hum Beatles tunes and do my rosary more often.

Anyway, something I’ve noticed about life is that people never listen to their common sense, me included. I’m always hoping it will go away, and I sort of side step it and ignore it, in spite of the fact that it is usually right on the money. People don’t like their common sense telling them stuff they don’t want to hear.

Well, my common sense was telling me, from the moment I arrived here, that things were going to be alot different than anything I had expected. But I kept pressing on, moving forward resolutely, waving my banner of my expectations-and when my expectations didn’t get met, I had a meltdown.

But, the meltdown turned out to be a pretty good thing, becasue it’s in moments like these that I often have the most clarity.

I think I was in a state of confusion for a few reasons:

1. I’m living with people who believe something totally different than I do. “Yeah, so what?”, you may ask. “Weren’t you expecting that?”, you may ask as well.

Well, the answer is of course, yes, I was expecting that. But not the way it happened. It ends up its kind of a weird, isolating feeling-which is hard for a social butterfly like me who is always seeking agreement on some level. A new quandry: What if there is no agreement whatsoever?

2. I’m living with people who call themselves Buddhists, but do things quite a bit differently than all the other Buddhists in the world. ” Big deal. So what.”, you may say.

But hey, look at from my point of view. I’ve come all the way here to take a good look at Buddhism, to hopefully find some things out about it, and figure out a way to include their perspective in my world, when I find out..this groups perspective doesn’t match much I’ve read on Buddhism!

3. It’s not an open, ask questions anytime atmosphere here. It’s a little…repressed somehow. It’s just not done. Well, there are times you can do it, but it’s not general conversation. Enough said.

4. Reading the Gurus books has gotten me into trouble.

Having many questions about everything, I naturally was referred to the Gurus books, which I began reading with a searching mind. however, everything I discovered that he was saying, his instructions for life-it was alot different than what I was seeing and experiencing. Which leads back to this not being a place where you can ask whatever comes into your head. Because then you get these strange answers which seem to me to more justify negative behaviors than celebrate positive ones.

5. hey, there’s some pretty weird stuff out there online about this group. How do I deal with that? What does it all mean?

6. How do I deal with the strange stuff, while at the same time, be spending time with some of nicest people I’ve met in quite awhile? How can those two be compatible?

So, this crisis of confusion has literally been that: a crisis. I have kept at it, trying to work my way thru it, but it has worn me down, to the point that I was quite tired and overwhelmed. It’s really tough to be in the middle of something you don’t see good in much of the time and still be trying to see the good in it.

So, I stopped trying to see the good in it, and decided to leave this place. Why not? Thats’ what most people would do. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Yet, it doesn’t make sense on another level.

I realized today that maybe sometimes it’s good to not know what way is up, what way is down. It’s good to not not know what’s next, to not even have a clue.

Why? Because it makes you uncomfortable. And we hate being uncomfortable, we hate that kind of challenge. But out of being uncomfortable, alot of personal and spiritual growth can happen. And that’s whats been happening to me, in spite of the fact that I didn’t even know it was happening.

One of the goals of my trip was to find commonality with others-other people who had drastically different points of view.

So here I am, surrounded by people who seem to genuinely believe what they believe(and it’s a drastically different point of view, not just with me but with many people), and all I’ve wanted to do is…. leave. (Well, for the last week anyway.)

I’ve been utterly miserable.

It’s been more difficult here than it was living with the Ngobe and watching them mistreat dogs in the street.

Tonight I finally realized what a tremendous opportunity this is: it’s a real chance for me to do what I set out to do: find some commonality with others.

Most people never spend time with people who don’t generally agree with them about pretty much everything. We spend all of our time with people like us, who think like us, believe in the God we do, believe in the politics we do, and in general, make us feel right about everything. This makes us feel good. But, when we are around people who challenge all of that, they make us feel bad.

So, unbeknownst to me, clarity arrived, just in the nick of time-before I fell down that rabbit hole!

I’ve come to see that the time I’ve spent here, being utterly confused about what in the world is going on, what in the world is of importance, what are the priorities for this particular group of believers,… has turned out to be a real blessing.

It kind of streamlines in my mind what I am seeking for myself, for this trip, even for this experience where I am at this moment.

I could not have achieved that without lacking it first.

Funny how that works, isn’t it.

gigi

Next entry will be on courage-on having enough to stay here, in spite of differences, on overcoming fears, on gaining confidence, and speaking the truth with others.

Its been a few days since that last post I wrote about my reservations about this place…

The last few days I just tried to relax, as hardly anyone is here and I can take a few days off.

I realized the day I wrote that last post how exhausted I was-both physically and mentally.

When I first came here, I was a bit overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the place-as I think I have mentioned, its an English garden fantasy, complete with enormous old mansion, countless garden sheds, meandering paths, and overgrown orchards.

Once here for awhile though, I quickly got into the work groove, which is very scheduled and they seem to have extremely high expectations. Everyone seems kind of stressed out at all they have to do, and even if they don’t express this feeling directly, it of course gets expressed indirectly. Even the day we were supposed to go to the Festival, I had a list of to dos from two people I had to do, and then they told us that we would be working until the last minute as well, housekeeping. The word “no” doesn’t seem to be used alot around here.

I realize now that I arrived at the Festival in somewhat tired and downtrodden state of mind and not with alot of physical energy. Once there, it was one thing after another-meditations, explanations, preparations, volunteering at this or that…there really wasn’t time for much thinking or resting. Perhaps that is how it is designed to be, as if one is exhausted, there’s not alot of time for reflection. You sort of go on automatic.

Coming back here was a relief, and I expected it to be restful. However, many of the residents hadn’t done their chores before leaving and the bathrooms and trash and kitchens had to be done.

Yesterday, I was so tired in the morning when I awoke that I thought I hadn’t sleep at all. I ended up taking the day off and slept thru the entire day and night, with a few tea breaks thrown in.

I awoke feeling better, but decided to take today off as well and start working in the garden again tomarrow. I’ve just been puttering about, doing my laundry and taking care of myself. A little self care goes a long way when you are traveling!

My thoughts on this place remain the same-although I can see clearly that there are some very nice and kind well-meaning people involved here, they perhaps do not have good understanding of the Buddhist way of being in the world. They do not seem to understand what they are agreeing to, and often people just repeat the same little phrases or stories to me.

The general atmosphere of some stress , poor social skills, and isolation seems to have many root causes within the framework of belief here. People seem to use the framework of the Gurus teachings to make excuses for behavior that is not positive.

There are however, some very sweet, genuine people who seem to be trying hard to be good people and practice compassion and ethical behavior.

I have been reading the Gurus main text, and although things are explained quite succinctly, I don’t see an awful lot of examples of people on the way to enlightenment as he explains it. Some people have alot of baggage and seem to be trying to work stuff out. I suppose we are all doing this, no matter what we believe, but a little patience and consideration goes a long way.

I am trying to practice compassion, as I define it, by doing works of mercy here. there are several very lonely people here, and just listening to them and eating a meal with them goes a long way to help them not feel so alone.

One thing that I am thinking about is what has happened to western culture, that people are so lost, so overwhelmed by all that is expected of them..that they literally don’t know where to turn. People are exhausted from trying to just stay employed and have their families, keep a roof over their head and food on the table. So many people seem to be just maintaining, just surviving-not thriving.

People in Wsetern cultures need as much help, as much compassion and acts of service as people from poor countries-yet, it’s so much harder to give it to 1st world folks. Why is this?

I have applied to the Catholic worker House in London, a radical catholic-teaching based group who has a shelter and soup kitchen in the city. (Radical in the sense that it is really committed to peace and justice issues and helping the poor and disadvantaged in the fringes of society)Hopefully I will be accepted to go there for a week.

If I get accepted to help out, this would greatly improve my outlook on England, which at the moment is rainy, dreary, and strange.

I’ll keep you all posted…

gigi

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