This Life...the Bittersweet Symphony

Well thanks for all the love...it's funny because I was having a hard time and the kind words have come out of the woodwork, so thanks. It's also awesome that people seem to like the pictures I took in Lhasa...it's a beautiful place right? Don't worry I have more on the way, I'll probably get around to that this week.

Honestly, yes right now is a little difficult for me. Someone that I care for deeply is gone, and it's hard. Do I have attachments to let go of? Yeah, but that doesn't mean that I still can't have feelings, I just have to be able to let them go, as is the natural way of things.

In it's wake leaves new opportunities, and I am trying to stay optimistic. I really have struggled with renunciation...real renunciation in the last few years and I still don't know which side of me will win out. I have this strong desire to do long retreats, to do my 3 year retreat and does give myself to the yogis life. On the other hand I can not deny that I have desires and attachments to some very worldly things.

I was recently listening to a Dharma teaching on cd from Garchen Rinpoche and he was quoting Milarepa..that there is no liberation seperate from giving up self grasping...that merely giving up self grasping is liberation in itself. The profundity of this continues to rattle around in my head. I can't speak for everyone, but I know I have the tendency to take really simple things, which are profound enough...they do not need eleaboration, and turn them into these big lofty castles in the sky instead of just accepting the simple truths of them.

It makes me think of the Alchemist, which I recently read. Yes the treasure you are searching for is right under your nose the whole time, but you have to go through the journey anyway, because you don't believe the simple truth when told...that we are Buddhas, that liberation is in the palm of my hand, that this whole thing around us is completly and uterly fabricated.

As a recovering drug addict it also makes me think of something I have discovered, that often we are more content to sit in our shit than to actually take the effort to clean ourselves off. This occurs on a few different levels, and the finer you go the more subconscious it becomes I think. On a gross level there is addiction, or not doing anything about the unhappines with your career or your spouse...but on a subtle level it is true happiness that may be too difficult to achieve. Yeah I would rather sit here and read a book than actually do something about my situation.

SO yes, the present is gone...in fact it may never have been there in the first place. Already there are new things fillling in old voids, like the unceasing rhythm of the ocean. I begin teaching again next week, and my search for a tutor is basically complete. I am also working on starting some sort of non-profit to benefit the kids over here.

Every day is a gift, one which we decide to squander or treasure, and I think in Buddhism we learn that even the bad times have lessons and jewels hidden within them. It's like Jason Lee says in one of my favorite movies, Vanilla Sky "cuz the sweet just ain't so sweet without the sour."

Pictures next time, I promise...till then here's a few to munch on

Cheers


isn't Amdo beautiful?? i took these on the way to Quinghai Lake



since I will begin teaching soon, here are a few pics from the summer course I taught...