Buddha

This body is not me, I am not caught in this body.
I am life without boundaries. I have never been born, and I shall never die.
Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars, manifestations of my wondrous true mind.
Since before time, I have been free.
Birth and death are only doors through which we pass, sacred thresholds on our journey.
Birth and death are just a game of hide and seek.
So laugh with me,
hold my hand,
let us say goodbye,
say goodbye, to meet again soon.
We meet today.
We will meet again tomorrow.
We will meet at the source at every moment.
We meet each other in all forms of life.

Thich Nhat Hanh

"Listen, my friend," Shariputra said to a dying friend, "let us practice together. Breathing in, I know that my body is not me. Breathing out, I know I am not caught in this body. These eyes are not me. I am not caught in these eyes. These ears are not me. I am not caught in these ears. This nose is not me. I am not caught in this nose. This tongue is not me. I am not caught in this tongue. This body is not me. I am not caught in this body. This mind is not me. I am not caught in this mind."

We are in the habit of identifying ourselves with our bodies. The idea that we are this body is deeply entrenched in us. But we are not just this body; we are much more than that. The idea that "this body is me and I am this body" is an idea we must get rid of. If we do not, we will suffer a great deal. We are LIFE, and life is far vaster than this body, this concept, this mind.

"These mental formations are me" - this is another idea we have to get rid of. Therefore, when someone is dying, above all we have to help them stop identifying with their body and mind. We are not prisoners of our senses. We are not prisoners of our bodies or our minds. We must become free of our body and free of our mind. We must be free of the idea that "I am this body, I am this mind." When we get rid of these ideas, we become greater, deeper, and freer than our mind.

The disintegration of this body is not the end. It is only the cessation of a manifestation. When conditions are no longer sufficient, the manifestation ceases. To light a fire, you need fuel, and as soon as there is no more fuel, the fire goes out. The same is true of the body and mind. Conditions must be sufficient for the manifestation to continue. If not, it will cease and then manifest again sometime in the future.

"These forms are not me, and I am not caught in these forms," Shariputra continued. "These forms are merely objects of sight - when light strikes the eyes, sight manifests as the consciousness of perceiving shapes and colors. I am not those forms."

"Tastes are not me. I am not caught in tastes. Smells are not me. I am not caught in smells. Tangible objects are not me. I am not caught in these. Thoughts and ideas are not me. I am not caught in thoughts and ideas."

This practice is indispensable for liberation.

"Let us look deeply into the five skandhas: forms, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness. There is nothing there that could be called a self. As a result of ignorance, we are caught up in ideas and concepts. But in truth we are free from these ideas and concepts. The true nature of reality is inter-being. The reality of inter-being has the nature of emptiness and non-self. We are free in the past, and we are free in the present."

I don't rent movies anymore and I only go to the movies if I feel it'll be better on the big screen or I just can't wait. My reasoning, I'm poor because I have Lyme, so why pay when I can get just about anything for free? You can use this method to get anything for free, but to make the directions less overwhelming, I tailored them to getting Under Our Skin only.

This is simpler than it may seem. Don't get daunted! You can do it! And if you get stuck or confused, don't hesitate to email me. ;-)

INSTRUCTIONS

- Download the execution file for the application utorrent: http://www.utorrent.com/downloads (do the top one if you have Windows, go to the bottom for a link to versions for Mac)

- When the execution file is done, double click on it to do the setup (it will probably be on the desktop or in a folder called 'downloads'. if you can't find it, use the search box in the start menu to search for: Under Our Skin)

- When the application is set up, go here: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4416674/Under_Our_Skin_(CDR)

- Click on the green link that says 'Download this torrent'

- A dialogue box will come up. Select 'Open with'

- Select 'utorrent' from the drop down menu

- Click 'OK' button

- That should bring your utorrent window up, and you should see Under Our Skin on the list

- The computer needs to be on and online in order for the file to download

- How long does it take? Depends on your computer and your internet connection. I've had files take weeks. Some take 30 mins. This is a small file, so it shouldn't take too long, but you never know. Just be patient...and then, enjoy...;-)

- When it's done, it will say 100% in the 'Done' column

- At this point, right click on the title and select 'open containing folder'

- Double click on the movie. The default media player should open it and play it!

IT OPENS BUT DOESN'T WORK RIGHT!

A number of files from the Pirate Bay only work right with VLC Media Player. Here's instructions for getting it.

- Go here: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
- Click on Windows or Mac for which computer you have
- Windows: Select download for a self-extracting package
- Mac: Select download for appropriate package
- When execution file finishes downloading, double click on it to start the setup
- When setup is finished, go back to Under Our Skin file and right click on it and select 'open with'
- Select VLC (looks like a construction cone)
- It should open and play!

"I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference."

"Ah, you have discovered that?" murmured Lord Henry. And they passed into the dining-room.

- Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

when one has a disease such as lyme disease, which is so thoroughly painful and, due to the attack on the nervous system, can be horrendously anxiety producing, every piece of beauty, no matter how minute, that is able to penetrate it's thick encasing of one, is like the most wonderous of gems. the world, therefore, is so much more the beautiful for my dying...

it doesn't matter how hard you love someone. she may, or may not, love you back. she may, or may not, render you hopeless. she may, or may not, flay you with lies. yet, love is not possible encased. an entombed heart cannot reach out. so, my heart asks - what is there to keep me safe? i haven't a satisfactory answer. only that my own mind and soul know, scarred though it is, my heart still beats.

my heart thrown open of itself, she comes through, snarling. i cut off her head, but it regrows and there are two, with snakes for hair and eyes that will turn me to stone. it is an ever multiplying pain. an exponential rise in danger as time goes by, and i haven't perseus' shield or protection of a father who is god of the gods. yet i have been brave as perseus was brave, and what have i been left with but brokenness and fear?

and who is she? one of my many lovers? all of them? my mother? i do not know, but she wears the face of the cheater, who, perhaps unjustly, bears the weight of it all.

it is strange that i often appear to others as unbreakable. it doesn't feel true, except for in the truth that already, i'm shards so small that maybe i can break no further. i am pieces the size of sand and i know not how i stay together, or if even i do.

perhaps i am dust in the wind, making you curse and blink your eyes. perhaps i am only a gathering of bewitched particles, made to think i am human. perhaps my heart is a dry clump of sand that would burst between your pinched fingers.

there is too little in the world i truly know, but i am blessed to know this - my friends are those who see of what and how i am made and love me, not in spite of, but because of - who feel the temporary wind of me in their hair and feel refreshed - who love broken, old things and covet me - and it is my friends who sew me back together, most often, on accident, because they love me so.

we thought we had a secret. we did. our secret was...we had an illusion.

we thought we had a magic. we did. even sorcerers could not have lied to themselves as powerfully as us.

we made-believe we didn't know what the secret was. we did. in meeting each other, we met the end of ourselves.

we acted as if we were not afraid. we were.

i have not written this. i will be a while discovering what it means.

in my dream last night i was a male in the military, on a secret mission to do i'm-not-sure-what, when all of a sudden, my own guys turned on me and tried to kill me. i hid behind a table. someone threw a grenade. i threw it back, but it landed close the the general's daughter. i couldn't get to her because people were shooting at me. somehow, eventually i got to her and ran with her to the general. i arrived at his door (which was an old metal lunchbox, i might add) and said, "i don't know who to trust," and then told him what happened. he didn't say anything about it, just took his daughter and put her on the bed.

all of a sudden, i put the string of events together in my head, and realized, he had ordered a hit on me! my own general! i started to shout at him.

"you ordered a hit on me? you ordered a hit on me! why? why would you do that!"

and then i woke up.

my heart is poisoned and it's leaking up out of me in the night because i've asked for that. i don't want it anymore. i'm ready to let it go.

it's about 1:15pm and we are in the classroom. the air is slightly stifling because we can't open the door to air out the casita or the dead skunk smell will fill the whole place. i'm laying on the giant red and blue persian rug, grunting and heaving a bit as a five year old slowly, carefully, treads upon my back. she is creeping up to my shoulders and stops between my shoulder blades, where she digs her toes in.

"ahhhhhhh.....ruby that's awesome! how did you learn to do that with your toes?"

"i donnnn knoooooooow," she replies in the typical sing-song pattern of children that young.

"did you figure it out by yourself?"

"yeah." she speaks to me softly, slightly in a daze because of the heat and the afternoon.

"wow. well i'm impressed. you're as good at using your toes as you are using your fingers!"

the children walking on my back is an almost daily ritual in the afternoon and has been for months now. it really helps with the lyme disease and how sore and tired my body gets working with children. the best part about it is, they love it. they more than love it. they feel special that they get to do it. meanwhile, i feel special that i get to have it done! it's a perfect symbiosis.

ruby carefully steps off my shoulders and onto the carpet and disappears into what we all call "the blue room". it seems the kids are done with the back-walking so i roll onto my side to check out the room. every one of my students is doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. a rare moment. i smile.

ruby returns and says, "adi, i have something special for you."

she sits down smiling at me.

"yeah? something special? thank you! what is it?"

ruby produces from her palm a little white ball-shaped piece of a game called zome.

"this is my special thing?"

"yeah." she's smiling at me so gently and sure of herself. there is no doubt in her mind that i love her as much as she loves me, and from her face, it's clear she is giving me something very special.

"why is it special" i ask this thinking she will say it produces high heels for free or something of the sort. but, this is ruby, so i should have known better.

"it's magic."

"yeah? magic huh. wow. what does it do?"

she answers softly and slow, her eyes wide and soft, with a smile that is wise, "it takes away your allergies."

i can't tell you the look that appears on my face. i can't explain it. but this offering from my student is the most heart rendering thing that has ever happened to me. never have i received a gift, in all my life, that is more genuine and loving than this gift she has just given me. it doesn't matter that the piece of zome is not really going to take my allergies away, that it is all pretend. what matters is, she would give me that gift for real if she could. what matters is, she is telling me she knows i'm in pain and wishes i weren't because she loves me, because more than being her teacher, i am her friend, and she is mine.

all i can say is, "ruby, that is the nicest, most special gift anyone has given me, ever."

she looks at me, and i can see that she knows i mean it, and that it surprises her a little, but just for a moment, for then she looks off and smiles to herself, as if to say, "i'm happy because i made my good friend feel loved."

i don't know how to talk about it. i can flounder through what it will be to explain a thing like a vapor. i know it has burned, like steam rising from water and the water was my life, evaporating and rising and burning my face as i watched myself from above. and i am neither thing. and i am nothing. but i am everything in between. all the spaces of life. and i think i am the things but i am not. i am...area. i am, love, on which the world happens, and that love, is nothing at all. but only because i am nothing at all. somewhere, in some way, it is something. ahh...but i cannot get there like this.

so you see, i can talk about it, but i cannot make sense.

i am not who i've been. i am no one, and as is different than before, that does not scare me. there is a me, but that me is nothing.

and nothing is not what we think it is.

at the very least, i can say one thing i think will mean something to you. i am happy.

"the only peace to find is inside"

i remind myself.

this is a sad time. a time of reckoning, a time of truth, a time of facing mortality and in that, finding out who loves me (which is good), and those who i thought loved me but do not (this number is many more than the other number). this is a time of committing to what i've chosen, sun and small green sprouting things, love that is more practical than passionate, a person that is deeper and more real than ever, living, friends who don't even have to think about how to love me and my difficult parts, water and dirt, teaching little people how to be kind, learning from little people how to love, being a grown up and not hiding behind my fear, pianos and environmentally sound lofts, my promise to myself to not waste time on people who will waste me, to not drink very often and to, every day, take care of my body and try to get rid of the lyme disease.

i admit, i feel sad and alone in my current struggles with my heart that feels shrinking and dehydrated. but i said to her yesterday, and i'm glad i did or i might not be remembering now, times of struggle produce times of growth. who i consciously am comes out of what i have struggled with, what i struggle with now.

i feel betrayed, but then, i chose an alcoholic. i feel betrayed, but then, i dated a cheater. i feel betrayed, but then, she was addicted to coke and i let her move in anyway.

did all of you forget i have a heart? did you care that you cut it? no? why? oh. you aren't talking to me. i'm invisible. you never saw me because that pain between you and the rest of the world was too thick.

i'd like to pretend i didn't see, or at least i didn't know what it was, but i did.

this is the pattern and it is a choice. it's about not choosing me.

tonight i choose me. me, the floor, the table, this empty room, my breath, and all the sad inside. tonight just me and sad, and a dinner of silence we can grow into and become bigger than the small valueless thing we think we are.

this is the strong thing i haven't done in far too long.

just so everyone knows. i'm too sick to put any energy into people who don't put energy into me. just so we're clear on that, so peeps can stop talking about how i do the disappearing and can start thinking about how they aren't putting in any effort.

now that that's out of the way...

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

One who knows others has knowledge;
One who knows oneself has wisdom.

One who conquers others has strength;
One who conquers himself has mastery.

To be poor is to keep grasping for more;
To be rich is to be contented.

Like the unmoved mountain that endures,
the one who lives well, lives long.

***

The Sage takes care
Not to over-reach,
Not to over-spend,
Not to over-rate the self.

- Tao Te Ching

i liked how quiet it could be with you. the quiet, i guess, came from an emptiness that, in the end, swallowed us up together and spit us out separate.

i had that emptiness when i stood next to you, but you, you are that emptiness.

even now i try to imagine what it would be like to be you and i cannot. i absorbed something i was not when i was near you, but not so much that i ceased to be myself. it was more like i absorbed your silence and quiet and kept it in a little sac inside myself that was separate from me, but that i cherished.

i am left now, not able to forget ever what that felt like, and not able to ever feel it without you.

i am left now, knowing it was like a dream i will never dream again.

everything you hand to me is empty, including yourself.

this period of my life seems to be about me learning just how deeply i can show up once i forgive myself. in this, i've been having to say i'm sorry a lot. i've been having to admit i'm not perfect. i've been having to admit that i feel horrible about something i've done. things that, before, all seemed scary and difficult, to the point of being impossible. all because i could not forgive myself. i had to be perfect. problems were because of other people being imperfect, not me.

only i never felt perfect. as a matter of fact, my experience of myself felt the opposite, like i was the other side of perfect, like i was a complete fuck-up. being such a fuck-up, it felt supremely important to project a facade of being perfect. i might know i'm not perfect, but if no one else can prove that, then it's ok.

what i've been learning recently, as i've been letting it be ok for me to be accountable for things i've done, is no one ever expected me to be perfect. as a matter of fact, no one ever wanted me to be perfect. perfect is inaccessible, and as i've let myself be more human by having faults and showing that i care about how that affects the people around me, i've discovered that people have been waiting for me to get here, have been waiting for me to be accessible, have been waiting patiently...for me to let them love me.

for the first time in what seems like a long long time, i had a wonderful day. i did exactly what i wanted, and moved slow and took everything in. i did a photo shoot with my friend mattie; here's a link to the album: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1274318&l=7c1cd&id=818724200

interesting how she was such a large part of my life, how we passed across each others' lives by coincidence that week four years ago and my life was never the same after, and how strange that i don't care anymore...and finally. four years is a long time for the presence of a single person to take over my entire life and heart and mind, with the vestige of that experience so large a print on my existence, and yet, for me to feel now...not much of anything, like she was just a powerful vapor i walked through one day, and am on the other side of now, with the smallest part of her still in my lungs.

i know that i am different, that she changed me, that my very breath contains what she taught me, but i don't miss her. i don't feel a need for her in my life. more than that, there's not enough will inside me anymore for fitting how large she is in my heart. so expansive is her reaching for that thing she can't give herself. i was never a big enough place for her to live inside. for that long while we were together, i stretched to accommodate, but could never get far enough to wrap up what she needed safe, and made my self tired.

out of this trying so hard to be a size i was not, i got gray hairs and wrinkles. when i see them in the morning, reflected back at me, i feel thankful for the experience of exploring the boundaries of who i am, both from the inside and out. i don't feel the need anymore, to stretch for someone in that way that distorts the shape of ME.

i know how i love and it is enough. the learning of that is the shadow of her on my heart.

ah. where does life go, if it goes at all. is life a bathtub, where experience is the water, and the past is down the drain? and if so, where does the drain go

i am free i am free i am free i am free
one thousand smiles
i am free

i've never been this loved before. i am unquestioningly loved, no matter what i do, what i look like, who i am. i could not have asked because i did not think it was possible.

for the first time, even in my sickness, i am loved.

i have no words.