Breakpoint

Vipassana training: Day 7

I finally decided to ask Xifu the question that I SHOULD’VE ASKED from the first time we started meditating like professional monks and nuns.

“I don’t mind the stillness,” I said, switching my weight between numb buttcheeks. “Or the miseries that stillness brings. Or the blinding pain – NO, REALLY! – I actually DO believe in Buddha and his teachings…I’m only worried that something might break. Something like my heart, or legs...”

“You won’t,” said Xifu, “the human body can do amazing things. Sitting still for a full hour is one of the easiest challenges it had to endure.”

“What if something breaks?” I said, “The way my body shakes from pain and ache...”

“You’ll only become stronger. Both physically and mentally. You know this.”

“DUDE, ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME? Are you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY SURE that nothing will break? REALLY?!”

Xifu’s didn’t say anything for a while. Giving me time to gather courage to look at him. (The courage to hear from another what I already knew, and did not want to believe.)

“Isn’t that the whole point to meditation?” he finally said, and with kindness. “Knowing thyself, and accepting it for what it is, good or bad or broken? You’ll be fine. In fact, you already are...”

Then he winked. As if he’d heard the stuff I didn’t say. As if winking was all that it took for me to believe; and let things become.

And let things, everything and eventually, be fine.

Because, dude, breaking thresholds of pain & fear & faith is a totally and an awesomely fine thing to go through indeed.

(In one way or another, at least, with hemorrhoids and weight loss and deformed buttcheeks and all.)

Upgrades

The Timekeeper’s idea of a house pet.

Plus: A squeezable handful of that house pet’s meals.

Momma’s SO gonna FLIP when she sees this. Hohoho…

Vesak

As a student of his teachings, on his special day, for Buddha I send a solemn Fatiha.

Happy Vesak Day, everyone.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

PS. Here’s a fellow Saudi who observed the day in his own way, in Brisbane.

What’s after Enlightenment?

If someone has succeeded in detaching from the world, then what’s there left to do?

If enlightenment demands the trimming of the fat of passionate response, whether in love or hate or melancholy, then what’s there left to live for?

All emotions and needs come from hunger of some sort. Hunger for intimacy, for food, for prestige. And when we feed it, we’re only feeding our own stomachs. Then it either stopped there or turned to poop.

[Hemingway sets a dark example to this; when he detached so hard that he lost all grounds to live for.]

On the other hand, if detachment is an effort to feed someone else’s hunger, then it becomes what the prophet called صدقة جارية: a rippling, multiplying act of kindness. A fueled passion.

Because enlightenment, success and all those ecstasies aren’t supposed to happen then stop. What stops the detachment from becoming a meaningless act, is giving with kindness.

If we ever ran out of reasons to live for, then maybe we’re not being kind enough to others. Maybe we’re not listening carefully enough. Maybe we ought to get off our ivory towers and security blankets toy feed people with our own hands.

And ♥s.

Giving Credit

The skies rumbled from the Archangel’s fury. The Prophet had just returned from a meeting, bruised and bleeding. Obviously, his audience didn’t stop at booing.

“Shall I destroy those bedamned ingrates?” said the Archangel. “Take a pick: a plague, a deluge, or a false note from the horn? You know what, pick all of them!”

“Dude,” said the smiling Prophet, “and make me lose my job?”

“UNBELIEVABLE!” said the Archangel. “Haven’t you done enough already? This project is going nowhere! Not in your life time!”

“Then maybe in the next; if angels ever learned to think ahead a bit.” -- “Don’t you dare...” -- “Right, sorry. But seriously, maybe their children will listen. Or grandchildren. Give them some credit.”

“For throwing shit at you? For responding with cruelty at your kindness?”

“For being scared. All bad behaviors come from fear. And if they behave this badly, then it’s probably because that’s how much they already, implicitly believe. They just don’t want to admit it.”

“Dude, cool stuff! Where did you get it from, the Gospel of Matthew?”

“Nah.”

Love Hormones

News flash: Humans are designed to love more than one partner in their lives. Maybe not all at the same time. But still…

Vasopressin.

That’s the name of hormone that controls intimacy and bonding behavior in both humans and animals. Too much vasopressin makes a monogamist. Too little of it, the polyamorist.

So, yeah, polyamorists rejoice. Here is the biological explanation to why we are like most animals; designed to love with more than one partner in the span of a lifetime.

[Of course, penguins and pigeons are naturally monogamists…but who wants to be compared with birds?]

And while you’re at it, start diluting a cocktail of love hormones in your partners’ drink to keep them from wandering.

But. Srsly.

Every theory on human relationship is an effort to simplify.

It takes the theoretical cocktail of wealth, nurture, genetics, psychology, socio-cultural and religious traditions to explain how long-term relationships happen. Whether monogamous, polyandrous or polygamous.

Either way, whatever relationship we’re working on, there’s no point in overrating and sanctifying monogamy, or trashing those who switch partners; because humans do carry vasopressin. And get bored. And hot chicks/chucks are all over the place.

And, again, those who have been through a lot of love-crash-and-burn-and-love-again in their lives are better appreciators of the restful monotony in monogamy.

Or celibacy. Hihi.

What more.

Rather than make vasopressin (or any other love hormone) as an excuse to start/expand/confuse/end a monogamous relationship (already demanding as it is), why can’t it be used to explain other social behaviors?

Why can’t love hormones explain deep, satisfying friendships with a bunch individuals of diverse backgrounds instead? Or indulging geeky behaviors over some pet, or bonsai and other inedible hobbies like that?

I mean, does deep love have to ONLY be about who sleeps with whom? And how many?

Really?

Hateful Cousins

The general assumption is that all Saudis are Muslims. If, within 300 years since the first revelation, Islam had spread across the Arabian Peninsula, then every Saudi should – at least – not be Jewish, right?

So goes the theory.

Stop reading here if you’re sensitive about this. I try not to offend anyone. Though I realize that I can’t make EVERYONE happy. Move on if this isn’t working for you.