the history of reincarnation

Sweat streamed down the side of his sunken in cheek. Mixing with a deep, bleeding wound that horizontally divided the right side of his face into battle-torn hemispheres, the sweat turned red while running towards the corner of his mouth. Trembling slightly, not so much from fear, but from the extreme intensity of the moment, he tasted the fruits of a battle that had been so short, yet carried on too long. He stood facing his opponent without uttering a word; his opponent faced him, standing peacefully enraged. "Calm down," he methodically chanted to himself while steadying his eyes on the black holes that his adversary had for pupils. After his intervals of meditative breathing had slowed his heart-rate to peaceful, he once again gritted his teeth, and rushed into the fight he was destined to engage.

And as though there was a snap in heaven that beckoned hell to take action, the two beings who moments ago stood silently still, suddenly lurched forward towards the only thing standing in front of them and the rest of the life that they've both feverishly fought to project. Their poised fists, battle scarred legs, and relief craving feet were in a conscious state of focus, while their minds and hearts had quickly gone numb. Compassion had ceased to exist for the two. Understanding had long sense been regarded as pointless and unnecessary. All that was left was.....

The earth accepted their aggression as though it were a stage only constructed for this moment, as it had time and time again. It was beautiful! Their forearms blocked while fists struck forward. It was as though they were two gracefully ballerinas dueling with foils. Wind was sliced into with each precisely placed lunge. The earth gave effortlessly for their every destination their feet decided to land. Blow after blow was passionately landed or majestically avoided as they fought for their honour, their safety, their loved ones, their pasts, their futures, and their present.

Their battle was never to be more virtuous nor more important than anyone else's. They hated their responsibilities sometimes, usually ascribing to humanistic characteristics than those of the time-tested tales of the toils of their heroes. Their battles before were so important, leaving scares for raised relations to the situations that were now marking their bodies' landscapes. They were always fighting, but they were always questioning. They were always answering, then taking action. They were always living, so it would be inferred that they were never losing. But this moment was completely removed from all of their triumphs, pitfalls, inferences, dissections, and discernment. Today was different, because one of them, like so many other times before, might die by the strength of their opponent, and by the weakness in themselves.

And there he lay. Bloodied and barely breathing. Naked with his fear for what his failure would produce. "Death?...well everyone has to go at some point. Disgrace...no person lives without some sense of falling short. I suppose this is just what life has dealt me. But I still really have always wondered?...what would have happened if I walked away?"

It's your fault....make it up to me!

I don't believe in making others feeling guilty on any level. Guilt is a destructive, long-lasting emotion that does nothing more than corrode the soul, and helps to provide bricks to the walls that keeps us from completely being ourselves to the ones we encounter, and even more so to the ones we love/care about. This last month I've come into countable situations where guilt from another was being thrusted upon the stability I have tried to erect over the last few months. Haha, I said erect. Anywho, without going into much depth with the specifics of what each situation entailed, I'd like to briefly dive into the question that I'm always left with after each of these "guilt-filled" exchanges...."What purpose does this all serve?"

If we are going to discuss guilt's end purpose, I think we should first get a gauge as to why situations come up where guilt becomes a logical emotional option to share. I suppose I will give an abstract example to illustrate the circumstances and positions and differences in perspectives.

Recently a past friend of mine decided that she needed me in her life again. Out of the blue, her blues within her "at that moment" experiences dictated that she needed a familiar, slightly predictable, and completely impressionable ear for venting session, physical companionship, and emotion validation. Though all of these things from my perspective were being freely offered, granted that I took a day to respond after being contacted, she decided that the offertory wasn't quite satisfactory in comparison to the great difficulty and amount of need she displayed having. So about thirty minutes after sending out my response and giving out my contact information (both in hindsight were bad ideas), I was called on my lack of concern and genuine sense of "I don't give a fuck." Needless to say, I was thrown off. As our pho-conversation progressed, she intermingled a wide range of heartaches she'd been experiencing with pointed comments of how I'm never there for her, and am just going through the "motions of friendship." "Going through the motions," I asked? "Yes," she responded curtly. Evidently her view of friendship was something reminiscent of indentured servitude.....or I what I initially thought at the time. With further evaluation though, I have come to the realization that her reaction isn't all that extreme (well maybe it was, but that's just me and my side). None-the-less, I felt a deep pain cause what she needed wasn't being met specifically in relationship to what I wasn't doing.

Whew! Now that that's done, let's look at this objectively.

A) She had shitty situations, that bore holes in her happiness. Those holes filled with the stresses she was feeling, which eventually brought her to a need to release. She didn't have (or perceived to not have) anyone to talk to about the shitty stuff, so I was contacted. When I failed to provide a proper emotional sedative, all the pain she experienced was then thrust forward to whomever was present....luckily it was me.

B)I had a feeling of needing to be an "all-in-one" solution for feelings/emotions/situations that I have no real bearing on. So as opposed to listening completely, I heard and tried to solve. When there was flack shown with my wording and availability, I not only continued to seek the guilt being dished out, but I ate it up willingly.

Obviously, neither A or B were healthy choices for either one of us, yet in still, they are more common than more of us would like to actually exist. So how does this cycle ever end?

A friend of mine showed me a couple lines that read,"You are alive; you aren't owed shit. So love people selflessly, give of yourself fully, work for life whole-heartily...and do it all without expectation." I think we are taught at a young age that we are owed things from others. Be it: money for work done, gratitude for gifts, respect for virtues and intellect, emotional response for physical acts, etc. At some point what we've learned that others "owe" us, or should "want to give" us isn't exactly what we get. At that point it's our choice to "give" to the other person our disappointment and disdain, or figure out how to communicate our disappointment while still maintaining responsibility for what we feel. Even more so, it's our choice to receive outside feelings of "not-good-enough" from those around us.

I hope that one day we all are magically able to find a balance between expectation and acceptance. Maybe it's far fetched, but if you were only there to make it better, I wouldn't have had to write this whole thing. Just fuckin with ya.


Peace y'all

Photos and Buddhist Practices

When I had reached my senior year of high school I decided that the girl I was dating and I were gonna spend the rest of our lives together. It was the sort of decision you make blindly and impulsively. I liken it to a clumsy, near-sighted idealist declare,"I will walk this tight-rope without my glasses, in the middle of a unlit circus tent." Sure it could happen, but, errr, are you fuckin' stupid man?! Anyway, of course our lives went their different paths in an abrupt and hard to manage reality jolt. The lightning strike brought on depression, insecurity, anger, confusion, but most of all, it made me to go a super-bionic level unwillingness to let go and move on.

After that personal soap-opera had had its last episode, it was quickly replaced by other, more involved, and equally as complex stories. They flashed in and out of my years like Polaroids; Each taken in my own sense of jaded perspectives, etched inside myopic frames, and developed using brisk shakes of emotion and stale currents of my past. Shit was mad smelly, but I just couldn't seem to man up and walk to the nearest shoe store to buy a new pair of kicks to proceed forward with.

After years of evaluating my decisions, past mistakes, progressive triumphs, I have come to many different senses of self-realization. With reference to not being able to let go of past or people, I see that I have difficulty cause of my 'savior complex' and fears of being abandoned. Even though, for the most part, no one involved with my life's pot-holes have intended to hurt out of malicious intent, we all participate in some form of ill feelings towards others.

According to Buddhist practice, there are three basic steps or stages in learning how to help others, or at the least when we can't help to not do them any harm. Them being:

1. Reduce attachment toward life.

2. Eliminate the desire and attachment to samsara

3. Eliminating self-cherishing

Now I see these ideals as a completely beneficial way of living when taking steps towards being enlightened and healthy. Learning how to let go of your past's evils woulda really saved Batman many an hour of therapy. But how does one actually get to a point where they can be like: Yes you fucking hurt me; No I don't hold anything against you; Yes I love you with all my heart; No I won't put myself in your harmful mentality; No I don't harbour any guilt, cause I never intended to hurt you, and only lived as best I could for the both of us; Yes we will move forward; Yes I will love you however it ends or progresses.

My guess is that we have to all fashion the views our personal dealings with our respective paths as one would do when visiting the MET; have an awe and appreciation for the history, love (or in the least accept) the art and the process that produced the history, leave knowing what it represented, then go for a pizza and beer, and plan out your next few moments of living. One day shit might be too difficult to flip back through, and some days you might not want to re-visit the photo album that you've put together over the years. Just remember that you are always able to close that album's cover and do something less depressing.......like going to find a lighter and burning that bitch up. J/K

Peace Y'all

Marsh

Too short on patience for instructions!

Last night me and my little man decided to tackle the ominous task of putting together a Bionicle. For those that don't know what a Bionicle is, just think: a G.I. Joe with holes in it, so it can be put together like a less stressful, less time-consuming Lego set. Fun times....well it was suppose to be at least. Initially when I told my son, "let's put the Bionicle together," he squealed with the type of delight that only a four year old could. By the time five minutes had passed, he basically was crying with a quickly evaporating sense of defeat. But we plugged through the construction in intervals, eventually finishing fifteen minutes after beginning our toiling. Why the hell was it so difficult you ask? Simply put, instructions and patience to my four year old are as good of a pair as me explaining to my parents that I don't think it's bad to listen to gospel music sung by Marilyn Manson (I bet that would be kick ass).

I think that instructions always get a bad rap. They exist in the same mental perspective as preventative dentist appointments, reading the bible, or running three marathons per week to train for that one you're in six months from now. They are all very necessary, but are completely loathed cause, basically, they all require patience (what a dirty word), which really, really sucks. Well, I'm not saying that the bible sucks, cause God doesn't like haters; What I am saying is that after all those years of content, you'd think that God woulda published some Bible-Cliff Notes. Anyway, they're all in their own respect (...they being any of the previously mentioned situations) too tedious, too time consuming, too abstract, and too painful to wait out to see what benefit they've served.....and who wants to be patient through any of that?

What is patience?

Patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast.

The problem my son experienced wasn't so much the fact that putting the action figure was really difficult, it was more so that he didn't want to take the necessary time to read through, comprehend, and implement the actions that the instructions described. It was like picture the finished product on the plastic wrapping on the box burned his hands with an unbearable anticipation. So he rushed through and basically picked up random pieces and began trying to force them into different, at-random holes. Now if this were Backstreet that might be ok, but in terms of.....errr bad analogy, forget that one. But you get where I'm going with that. We all have those four-year-old moments, probably more often than the times where our patience actually leads us. I wonder how the whole venture would have gone if he/we would have not only listened to me/others, but would have also read and followed the instructions given to us.

I see following instructions as a test of not only base comprehension, but also as testament to the benefits of having a patience with a life action that someone else has lived through, built, performed that will help you live a happier or more accomplished existence. Those printed or verbal dictations always seem so small, trivial, or even unnecessary. But when it comes down to it, somebody out there wanted to save some over-zealous beginner the head/heartache of going through what they had done way back when. Maybe we could save ourselves the difficulty, frustration, and anguish that normally is followed by our hard-headed, impatient decisions.

I hope that we can find the patience to make our lives easier to put together, or have the patience to stick it out till times get better.

Peace Y'all