Today's Musings

"Although I am speaking as a Buddhist teacher, I do not believe that therapy should be divided into categories....If you work in the Buddhist style, it is just common sense. If you work in the Western style, that is common sense, too. Working with others is a question of being genuine and projecting that genuineness to others. The work you do doesn't have to have a title or a name particularly. It is just being ultimately decent. Take the example of the Buddha himself -- he wasn't a Buddhist!" -Chogyam Trungpa

I saw this quote and it kind of sparked me onto the train of thought I was following yesterday. Of course Trungpa says it much better than I did!

Also I was laughing quite a bit about a comment left in response to yesterday's post "you can take the gangsta out of the hood but you can't take the hood out of the gangsta."

I think this is only partially true. I think it's more like there are echoes of the past rippling around in the mind...some that have been completely forgotten and show up at some strange time, set off by some stimuli. Some are more apparent, and some are almost constantly present. But like it says in the 37 Bodhisattva Practices "when harmful places are abandoned, disturbing emotions gradually diminish." They don't disappear, they diminish with effort and antidotes, so I have lots of disturbing emotions, emotional baggage, and karmic tolls to pay...

In the 4 Noble Truths the Buddha taught that suffering is caused by clinging to desire and to the self. That in order to end suffering you must cease clinging. So I think this is important. To realize how much I cling, and to see that I don't have to cling...that I can remove the hood from the gangsta, so to speak.


This is the case in the life story of Milarepa, one of my spiritual idols. Milarepa started out as a black magician who killed many people, but later repented and became the most famous yogi in all history (except for maybe Jesus) and also gained liberation and Buddhahood in that one life...even after all the negative karma he had accrued by killing others.

Now I'm not saying it's easy. Last night I watched part of this Grateful Dead concert/docuentary on PBS. It was odd watching people on the drugs I used to enjoy so much. The experiences that I thought were taking me to a higher level, to some sort of cosmic wisdom if you will. Honestly, it kind of made me miss it...that feeling of detachment. I was thinking about how long it has been since I've had that altered brain kind of a feeling. But that doesn't mean I will go back to it.

The point I think I'm trying to make is that this life is about choices. Milarepa said if you want to know how you will be in the future, look at what you are doing right now. Yes we are conditioned by our past experiences, just like I am with drugs and djing. But at the same time I can decide to leave these things behind in order to pave the way for something different. The first stage of the path is renunciation, giving up that clinging for self. This is my experience and something I continue to struggle with. However that struggle is part of the reason for this journey and the determinations that I have made to myself will only become evident with the actions behind it.