How I'm Living

I feel like I could just write extensivly about this week...if I wasn't so damn tired. It was certainly action packed, fulled of unexpected plot twists with plenty of twists and turns.

My 2nd week of teaching came to an end a few hours ago. It started off with a bang on Monday when the other teacher went MIA. Usually each class is divided in half, so I am teaching 35-45 and someone else is teaching the same. Well this other fellow doesn't show up and guess who ends up teaching 80-90 kids? So that was fun. It was slightly challenging because for the most part I am winging it when it comes to teaching. I am told that I am a pretty good teacher and my students seem to like me, but it's not like I have any credentials...I'm just a good bullshit artist. Like the rest of my professions, I have learned the hard way, by trial and error actually doing the job. Like some people go to insurance school, get their license, learn about selling insurance and so forth before they go join an agency. Not me..I started in a boiler room cold calling mechanics and contractors trying to get my foot in the door and working my way up. It's just the way I do things.

For the most part I enjoy teaching, I really do like kids (as long as their not my own). But I do have a few difficulties. One is that I am obligated to teach 2 lessons out of our textbook a class, and that really doesn't leave any additional time for me to do extra things. For example I want my students to have pen pals with american students, and I had planned on having them write letters during the class, but now with this new directive, I have to throw that out or figure out a way around it. The other is that I just don't like disiplining the kids. Well, really I don't like being mean and setting mytslef up as the authority. I want to be the cool teacher that they like...like a Dead Poet's Society type. Man these chinese teacher's come into the room and the whole atmosphere changes...I'm even a little intimidated.

This week has also been an emotional roller coaster. There are a lot of things brewing in my head, some of which I don't feel like announcing yet...the time isn't right. Let's just say that I am on the brink of a potentially life changing situation that I am very excited about. The good thing about right now is I feel like there is nothing stopping me...

In my practice I feel like I am coming to a crutial juncture. According to the teachings of most of the major Buddhist schools, such as the teachings of Lama Atisha, there are 3 types, or stages of practitioners. At the first stage you simply refrain from creating negative karma in order to avoid a bad rebirth next time around. In the next step you decide that it is pointless to keep cycling through rebirth after rebirth and decide that it's time for liberation. In the final stage you decide that it would be foolish and selfish to merely liberate yourself and leave all others to suffer. It is then that true Bodhitchitta emerges.

So I feel like I do my best to try not to do anything bad but I aspire to reach the next level. There are so many things that I have attachment to, and I know that even though I have a fair bit of knowledge about Buddhism, it is such superficial, I don;t actually follow it. Things like revulsion for samsara and giving up attachments...forget it. Well, I want to change that, because superficial knowledge won't really help me anymore than reading a book on dancing will teach me how to dance. I have such a wonderful opportunity right now, why should I squander it?

For a long time I have had these aspirations, but I felt like I was pushing a square peg through a round hole...telling myself I could do long retreats, and really kind of posturing. Like it says in Calling the Lama From Afar...outwardly you look like a practitioner, but your mind is filled with venom like a poisonous snake. That is what I feel like, and the only one who can change it is me. So I feel like right now I am taking baby steps, instead of trying to do it all at once. There is a reason that the trainings are laid out step by step..because that's how it needs to be done. If you but in the right ingrediants, you get a delicious meal...as Lama Atisha says in his incomparable text...these teachings lead to Buddhahood because you are simply following the steps that the Buddhas themselves took; how could you expect to follow a different path and get the same results??

So now I am studying tibetan...putting myself ina place to be ina Dharma environment on a regular basis, and according to what has happened so far when the next stage is ready it will manifest naturally. But in the meantime it is up to me to do the hard work in order to actually reach those goals. And with that being said I will stop rambling because words don't get it done.