The dream:
I woke up in a hotel room as someone ran in yelling, "We have to get out now! Armed men are taking over the hotel! They are killing and torturing people!"
I could hear them scream. This must be what it’s like to be in hell.
A group of us made a run for it down the hall. We found a fire escape and then traversed down a steep rocky cliff to the narrow beach.
I felt terrible leaving all those people behind.
We walked for several hours along the narrow shoreline.
I worried that the armed men had seen us escape and would follow us.
We came across a rope ladder in the cliff side. Figuring we were far enough away, we should find out where this leads and try to send help back to the people held hostage in the hotel.
We helped each other up the flimsy rope ladder, slowly, steadily, and anxiously.
At the top, we saw a vast courtyard and a white temple in the distance. It looked inviting.
As we approached, there was a helicopter at the entrance to the temple grounds. The pilot was motionless and emotionless, like a mannequin. He said we could enter if we wanted, but that once we did, we couldn’t leave. I asked him about helping the others left behind in the hotel. He said, “They are learning to bleed.”
The temple was busy with people walking around, chatting, smiling and eating ice cream. Everyone looked extremely happy, perhaps too happy. This must be what it’s like to be in heaven.
“Would you like some ice cream?”
Something didn’t sit right with me. If heaven and hell are two extremes in duality, then how is either the correct place to be?
I knew we shouldn’t stay there. It was tempting but I knew if we stayed too long, we would be stuck there. We had to find the way back to the middle world, where it was not like hell and not like heaven.
We started looking for an invisible door back to our middle world where we belonged. I don’t know how we knew what to look for but I knew we would know it when we saw it.
We had to hurry. There wasn’t much time.
Then I woke up.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Dharma Dreams: Agnostic Ascension
The dream:
I had just drowned with many other people in a large house. We began floating up. Water still filled the room but I couldn’t feel it anymore. I was aware of my state and so were the others but I strangely lacked a reaction to my predicament. It just seemed as a matter of fact.
I could see a young boy floating out of the window and his legs were broken and twisted. I figured that must have happened when he died and I hoped that he hadn’t felt much pain, but it didn’t much matter now.
I was curious about something so I asked the person next to me. “Why is it that when we die, we always float up?” She replied, “Because we are dead. That is what we do, we float up.”
Then I woke up.
I had just drowned with many other people in a large house. We began floating up. Water still filled the room but I couldn’t feel it anymore. I was aware of my state and so were the others but I strangely lacked a reaction to my predicament. It just seemed as a matter of fact.
I could see a young boy floating out of the window and his legs were broken and twisted. I figured that must have happened when he died and I hoped that he hadn’t felt much pain, but it didn’t much matter now.
I was curious about something so I asked the person next to me. “Why is it that when we die, we always float up?” She replied, “Because we are dead. That is what we do, we float up.”
Then I woke up.
Dharma Dreams: Getting the Hell Out of Hell
The dream:
I felt excruciating pain then I was dead.
I was in a large flooded room with extremely high ceilings like the lobby of a fancy of modern bank building. People were lined up filing through a doorway into hell. Of course, everyone looked miserable and the mood was a bit bleak, much like standing in line for a bank teller.
As I approached the door, a man waiting at the door told me I didn’t have to be here. He said I could leave anytime I wanted. I asked him how. He pointed at the large doors on the other side of the room where we had just entered. He said I could just go through them. I felt slow and sluggish as I turned toward them. They closed. I felt discouraged and doomed.
“It’s too late,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” he replied.
“The doors have closed.”
“Just push them open.”
I wanted to believe him, but was it that easy? Wasn't my fate sealed? Was it a trick? Could I really leave? Should I really leave? Didn't I have an obligation to follow the others?
Then I woke up.
I felt excruciating pain then I was dead.
I was in a large flooded room with extremely high ceilings like the lobby of a fancy of modern bank building. People were lined up filing through a doorway into hell. Of course, everyone looked miserable and the mood was a bit bleak, much like standing in line for a bank teller.
As I approached the door, a man waiting at the door told me I didn’t have to be here. He said I could leave anytime I wanted. I asked him how. He pointed at the large doors on the other side of the room where we had just entered. He said I could just go through them. I felt slow and sluggish as I turned toward them. They closed. I felt discouraged and doomed.
“It’s too late,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” he replied.
“The doors have closed.”
“Just push them open.”
I wanted to believe him, but was it that easy? Wasn't my fate sealed? Was it a trick? Could I really leave? Should I really leave? Didn't I have an obligation to follow the others?
Then I woke up.
Dharma Dreams: Day of the Dead Series
In honor of the Day of Dead and Halloween, I will be posting some scary dreams I've had over the years and some dreams of being dead.
Hope you get a trick and treat out of them!
Happy Halloween!
Hope you get a trick and treat out of them!
Happy Halloween!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Smiling
Some people are blessed with a natural perkiness. They smile easily and have a cheerful tone in their natural speech. I'm not one of them. I have a natural scowl. When I'm concentrating or thinking about neutral topics, I look angry. Countless times have people entered my office asking what was wrong. Nothing, I reply. I simply never felt the obligation to provide perky body language. Why did people assume the worst? Why couldn't they just accept my serious disposition. I wasn't hurting anyone. It's just me.
Oh, but I'm a woman. If I were a man, then my natural scowl would be interpreted as serious and intellectual, not as an ice queen. The other problem was that I lived in Los Angeles. There is an unwritten rule of social conduct in Sunny So Cal that you must have a sunny disposition at all times. SMILE!!!
I resented these expectations and whenever I heard someone tell me to smile, my natural scowl instantly became determined and deeper. I longed to be free to be me.
Then I moved to New York City. Ahhhh. Now, here was a place where no one would dare tell me to smile. In fact, smiling is seen as either chemically induced or the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain. I was home!
Sure enough, no one did tell me to smile. I truly appreciated the license to not smile. I was blissfully smiling under my god-given scowl! Well, maybe smirking.
;-)
But then, I began learning in my Dharma studies that a joyful practice is essential. WTF? This is a serious problem. It goes against my natural disposition, one that I have nurtured and accepted and found a place for in this world! Now I have to move back to Sunny So Cal in my meditation practice?! Noooooooooo!
I began resenting the instruction that if I'm practicing correctly I'll be more joyful no matter what. I began resenting what I perceived to be pressure within the Sangha to act like an enlightened being all the time no matter what. Yes, I know that my ego is doing the resenting, but the thought of me becoming a Blisshead was beyond revolting.
Now wait a minute, wait just a minute. Haven't I read about quite a few eccentric Mahasiddhas who displayed less than Blisshead dispositions? In fact, I've read of some violent, drunken, "rude" ones and others who engaged in unusual social behavior for their time? Oh yeah, they were men, so they are given license to be genius eccentrics. I may be a terrible two year old in my spiritual evolution, but I know that that my personality is the result of karma and it's manifest for me to work WITH not against or erase, just as a physical 'limitation' may present a challenge.
So, when I began embracing my personality as my unique way of interacting with other beings in this incarnation with the wish to practice Dharma, I began to let go of the ego pride and relax INTO my seriousness, not grasp at getting rid of it, hiding it or justifying it.
Guess what. I smile more easily now. Just an unwanted side effect of Dharma practice. Not sure if I'm smiling more but who's counting.
I'm a blissed bitch.
;-)
Oh, but I'm a woman. If I were a man, then my natural scowl would be interpreted as serious and intellectual, not as an ice queen. The other problem was that I lived in Los Angeles. There is an unwritten rule of social conduct in Sunny So Cal that you must have a sunny disposition at all times. SMILE!!!
I resented these expectations and whenever I heard someone tell me to smile, my natural scowl instantly became determined and deeper. I longed to be free to be me.
Then I moved to New York City. Ahhhh. Now, here was a place where no one would dare tell me to smile. In fact, smiling is seen as either chemically induced or the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain. I was home!
Sure enough, no one did tell me to smile. I truly appreciated the license to not smile. I was blissfully smiling under my god-given scowl! Well, maybe smirking.
;-)
But then, I began learning in my Dharma studies that a joyful practice is essential. WTF? This is a serious problem. It goes against my natural disposition, one that I have nurtured and accepted and found a place for in this world! Now I have to move back to Sunny So Cal in my meditation practice?! Noooooooooo!
I began resenting the instruction that if I'm practicing correctly I'll be more joyful no matter what. I began resenting what I perceived to be pressure within the Sangha to act like an enlightened being all the time no matter what. Yes, I know that my ego is doing the resenting, but the thought of me becoming a Blisshead was beyond revolting.
Now wait a minute, wait just a minute. Haven't I read about quite a few eccentric Mahasiddhas who displayed less than Blisshead dispositions? In fact, I've read of some violent, drunken, "rude" ones and others who engaged in unusual social behavior for their time? Oh yeah, they were men, so they are given license to be genius eccentrics. I may be a terrible two year old in my spiritual evolution, but I know that that my personality is the result of karma and it's manifest for me to work WITH not against or erase, just as a physical 'limitation' may present a challenge.
So, when I began embracing my personality as my unique way of interacting with other beings in this incarnation with the wish to practice Dharma, I began to let go of the ego pride and relax INTO my seriousness, not grasp at getting rid of it, hiding it or justifying it.
Guess what. I smile more easily now. Just an unwanted side effect of Dharma practice. Not sure if I'm smiling more but who's counting.
I'm a blissed bitch.
;-)
Monday, October 25, 2010
Living the Dharma in NYC (6am)
My upstairs neighbor is so kind to wake me up every morning at 6am. I normally get up at 7 or 7:30 but 6am is a good time to practice compassion and not yell obscenities as loud as I can. 6am gives me an extra hour of meditation time and I need it to transform my resentment into gratitude that I don't have to get up at 6am like my poor neighbor.
Post Bliss Blues
When the buzz wore off about nine months (hmmm) after my Kundalini awakening and I found my old self had returned, I was angry. I struggled to remember the insights, to bring them back in all their blissful glory. I watched as the dull thick fog of this illusory experience we call 'reality' smothered the truth beauty I had been gifted to witness. I know it's still there. I know I'm just in the way again. I started to feel like a failure, like I had lost the most precious thing entrusted to me. How could that happen?!
It didn't.
I trust that my path, however it meanders, is just fine. I needed to be hit over the head then return to myself in order to appreciate my path on a deeper level. There is no destination. Watching myself traverse daily experiences of this illusory human experience from multiple vantage points is MY expansion AT THIS TIME. Don't show me your map and tell me I'm lost. I have a different map. I don't know where it is at the moment, but I know it's somewhere and it will knock me upside the head again just when I need it!
:-D
A slow progression of some of the same insights is now beginning to arise within my 'normal' experiences providing a multidimensional understanding of events. Now I understand the writings that say there isn't just one truth, there are many. It's kind of like those movies that take you through a story from different points of view of different characters. Or, to use the age old mountain metaphor...What does the vista look like if you can see it from the bottom of the mountain, the plateau AND the summit all at the same time? Now add the vista from the other side of the mountain!
Perhaps more expansions, more levels of insight are to come that will add to the depth of my experience. Or, perhaps not. I think I have quite enough to work with at the moment, thank you very much!
One truth is that it is late and my body needs rest. Peaceful dreams!
It didn't.
I trust that my path, however it meanders, is just fine. I needed to be hit over the head then return to myself in order to appreciate my path on a deeper level. There is no destination. Watching myself traverse daily experiences of this illusory human experience from multiple vantage points is MY expansion AT THIS TIME. Don't show me your map and tell me I'm lost. I have a different map. I don't know where it is at the moment, but I know it's somewhere and it will knock me upside the head again just when I need it!
:-D
A slow progression of some of the same insights is now beginning to arise within my 'normal' experiences providing a multidimensional understanding of events. Now I understand the writings that say there isn't just one truth, there are many. It's kind of like those movies that take you through a story from different points of view of different characters. Or, to use the age old mountain metaphor...What does the vista look like if you can see it from the bottom of the mountain, the plateau AND the summit all at the same time? Now add the vista from the other side of the mountain!
Perhaps more expansions, more levels of insight are to come that will add to the depth of my experience. Or, perhaps not. I think I have quite enough to work with at the moment, thank you very much!
One truth is that it is late and my body needs rest. Peaceful dreams!
My Kundalini Awakening
So I had this awakening of some sort about a year and a half ago and I was blissed out for nearly a year. I was seeing magic in everything :rolling eyes:. No worries, I finally feel like my old cynical self again. :sigh:
Have you ever read "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry" by Jack Kornfield? If you are on a spiritual path of any kind, it's a must read. In no way am I saying I'm enlightened by any means, but awakening to the interconnectedness of everything is quite the slap upside the head...with a sledgehammer. The stars and birds blink and tweet above your head for a while and then the brain swelling begins to cause nausea and headaches. I can see how living in a cave and hardly ever seeing many people would be much more conducive to maintaining a blissed out state. However, living in NYC and having a stressful day job will kill a dharma buzz in a new york minute.
I'm blessed with an uncomplicated life (ahem, single no kids) so taking a week off to pace my apartment in a manic state was called paid sick time. If I hadn't had a meditation practice, I would have checked myself into a psych hospital for a mental breakdown or mid-life crisis or gone to the ER for a brain scan. I knew this was either the Buddhas kicking my spiritual ass or a brain tumor.
After five days of not sleeping or eating, just frantically writing crazy memories and pacing like a lunatic, it climaxed in a near hallucinatory vision of a golden tapestry. I could see how every single thing was interconnected and meaningful, even down to a grain of sand. I think I was crying and laughing at the same time. A profound blanket of peace settled on me and I felt as though I could sit there for ever accept that I couldn't wait to write it down (can you say grasping?). I was so excited by it. I was pouring out love to every one on the street and on the subway. Don't panic, I wasn't actually interacting with anyone like a real crazy person, but I was sending out the love vibes because I simply didn't know what else to do.
I was clearly out of my league, so I reached out for some guidance. My meditation teacher simply listened and smiled. Research on the Internet and several more books later, I figured it was some kind of Kundalini awakening. I still don't know what that is! There are so many different descriptions, so many different views on what to do and what not to do (do energy work, don't do energy work). None of my Dharma books say anything about it. Bits and pieces of this new age book, that new age blog, and different online forums of normal people chatting about their experiences have been more help than anything else. Books by so-called experts usually take an "I know everything, do it this way or else" approach and that doesn't sit right with me, and men write most of them, of course. "Oneness" by Rasha (a woman) was the only book I found to be quite helpful, though, a bit 'out there.' (Yes, gender makes a difference in how deep emotional experiences are written and since I'm a woman...)
So, after all that, this is where I am with it: I suppose I'm supposed to just make of it whatever and however is helpful to me on my path. I think.
:-/
It's just a crazy memory now. I almost hope it doesn't happen again.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Another patriarchal religion
2500 years and not one female lineage guru in the transmission of the Dharma. I don't get it. If gender is supposed to be empty of inherent existence then why are there not any female lineage gurus? A few token female Buddhas certainly doesn't balance it out.
Why are men always the leaders of big spiritual movements? It must be a control thing. Obviously profound spiritual realizations have not been able to transcend their genetic urge to dominate. Tsk tsk.
I say we need ALL female lineage gurus for the next 2500 years! Then we might be balanced and some of this Dharma might actually start making some sense to me!
Hey, don't burn me at the stake or label me a prostitute just because of my genitals, boobs, hormones, pretty face, soft hair, curvy butt...
:-P
Why are men always the leaders of big spiritual movements? It must be a control thing. Obviously profound spiritual realizations have not been able to transcend their genetic urge to dominate. Tsk tsk.
I say we need ALL female lineage gurus for the next 2500 years! Then we might be balanced and some of this Dharma might actually start making some sense to me!
Hey, don't burn me at the stake or label me a prostitute just because of my genitals, boobs, hormones, pretty face, soft hair, curvy butt...
:-P
Living the Dharma in NYC (slow walkers)
It is not good karma to curse the slow walkers under my breath. I should be grateful for their kind teaching on patience. I am not more important than they are.
Perhaps they have pain when they walk. Perhaps they have nowhere to go. Perhaps they know it annoys me to death that they are in my way and take great pleasure in showing me what a hurrying bitch I am.
Repeat as needed:
It is not good karma to curse the slow walkers under my breath. I should be grateful for their kind teaching on patience. I am not more important than they are.
Perhaps they have pain when they walk. Perhaps they have nowhere to go. Perhaps they know it annoys me to death that they are in my way and take great pleasure in showing me what a hurrying bitch I am.
Repeat as needed:
It is not good karma to curse the slow walkers under my breath. I should be grateful for their kind teaching on patience. I am not more important than they are.
Gotta start somewhere
I'm a reluctant spiritual traveler but aren't we all? Many people just don't realize it yet but they are on a path too. Ignorance is bliss until you learn that ignorance is the root of all our problems. So real bliss is wisdom realizing emptiness but it may take you countless lifetimes to get there. In the meantime, we are supposed to JOYFULLY embark on an endless journey to enlightenment through various realms of suffering.
Okayyyy, who the hell thought of this stuff? Why create samsara and ignorance in the first place?! And what's so great about enlightenment if there's nothing there?! Nihilism is more optimistic that this! I think we are being played. Or is this supposed to be play?
Okayyyy, who the hell thought of this stuff? Why create samsara and ignorance in the first place?! And what's so great about enlightenment if there's nothing there?! Nihilism is more optimistic that this! I think we are being played. Or is this supposed to be play?
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