Beautiful Illusions

I like beautiful things. I'm especially fond of beautiful shoes, jewelry and decorative items. Because of this, our shoe closet overflows, necklaces tangle in the drawer and our house is a museum of well made randomness.

Is a love of beauty bad? If it consumes you, yes.

Can you enjoy a beautiful thing without having to own it? This is a question Native Americans could have posed to white settlers insisting on owning the land. Perhaps this mentality is my birthright. All I know is that my consumerism is killing me. I spend too much money on things that aren't going to increase my quality of life. A Course in Miracles states "Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything."  If you doubt the validity of this statement try to find solace in an antique vase the next time your life crumbles around your ears. Anything with a price tag on it is ultimately an illusion.

So what do I intend to do with myself now that I've admitted my consumptive weakness? I'd like to say I have grand plans to go home and give away most of what I own. I'd like to say that I won't buy a single item that isn't a necessity from now on. That probably won't happen overnight. It may never happen. What I will do is take ownership of my addiction to a consumerist's lifestyle and gradually take steps to awaken from the land of illusion.

Why You Should Write Daily

Leo Babauta of the blog Zen Habits issued me an edict via gmail today - write every day. Let's be frank, the thought of writing daily terrifies me. Putting my thoughts down on paper has always been a slow laborious process. In college I tried to make each sentence sound like it came straight for one of those $100 textbooks professors are so partial to. This method of writing produced A/B quality papers but nearly killed me in the process.  

So. I am going to write everyday (note I didn't say TRY). It may be only a few lines but with all of the papers I'm about the start writing, this should definitely prepare me for what's the come. Below is Leo's post on Writing Every day

- ML

Why You Should Write Daily

By Leo Babauta

One of the most instrumental changes in my life has been writing every single day.

For many years I was a writer who didn’t write that regularly. It was always on the back of my mind to write, but I didn’t find the time.

Then I started this blog in January 2007, and have written pretty much every day since then.

It was life-changing.

I recommend daily writing for anyone, not just writers. Here’s what I’ve found from my daily habit:

• Writing helps you reflect on your life and changes you’re making. This is incredibly valuable, as often we do things without realizing why, or what effects these things are having on us.
• Writing clarifies your thinking. Thoughts and feelings are nebulous happenings in our mind holes, but writing forces us to crystalize those thoughts and put them in a logical order.
• Writing regularly makes you better at writing. And writing is a powerful skill to be good at in our digital age.
• Writing for an audience (even if the audience is just one person) helps you to think from the perspective of the audience. That’s when the magic starts, because once you get into the reader’s mindset, you begin to understand readers and customers and colleagues and friends better. You have empathy and a wider understanding of the world.
• Writing persuasively — to convince others of your point of view — helps you to get better at persuading people to change their minds. Many people don’t want to change their minds when they feel someone is attacking their position, so they get defensive and dig into their position.
• Writing daily forces you to come up with new ideas regularly, and so that forces you to solve the very important problem of where to get ideas. What’s the answer to that problem? Ideas are everywhere! In the people you talk to, in your life experiments, in things you read online, in new ventures and magazines and films and music and novels. But when you write regularly, your eyes are open to these ideas.
• Writing regularly online helps you to build an audience who is interested in what you have to share, and how you can help them. This is good for any business, anyone who is building a career, anyone who loves to socialize with others who are interested in similar things as them.

And that’s just the start. The full benefits of this regular habit are, ironically, not something you can put into words, but something that must be experienced to be known.

How to Write Daily

There are various ways to get into the daily writing habit, but here’s what I’d recommend based on my experience:

1. Commit to writing daily. Many people try to write a few times a week, or once a week. That’s too infrequent and it won’t become a habit that way. Instead, tell yourself, “I’m going to write every single day, no exceptions”. And then actually stick to this commitment.
2. Set aside the time. Really important. You have to block off a small chunk of time for this, or it won’t happen. I suggest morning, as soon as you can, so that other things don’t get in the way. However, if you’re a night owl, late nights are fine too, as long as you’re not too tired.
3. Start small. OK, you knew I was going to say this, but it’s really important. All you have to do is start writing each day — you don’t have to write 1,000 words or anything. Just start, and how much you do doesn’t matter. Once the habit is in place, you can lengthen it, but for now just start.
4. Blog. You can write in a journal or text document just for yourself, but I highly recommend blogging. Get a free account at WordPress.com orTumblr, and just start. Why blog? Because it really helps you to write regularly, and forces you to think in different ways, when you have an audience. Even if the audience is small. It’s scary, I know, but just do it. You’ll grow comfortable with it over time, and you should never let fear stop you from doing something amazing.
5. Shut down distractions. The writer is best friends with distraction. He knows its powerful call, and must master the urge to follow it. So shut down everything that isn’t your writing tool, all tabs, all email programs and social media, and just write.

That’s all you need to get started. Over time, you’ll learn the power of interaction with your audience, and draw inspiration and lessons from the audience. But for now, just get started.

Won't you be my Sangha?

I recently read about the concept of Sangha (Sanskrit for community). We tend to compartmentalize the people in our lives.  Those we know at work, friends that we do active things with, others that go to movies with us, etc. It's inevitable tthe people around us will automatically fall into different groups according to their relationship with us and the activities defined by that relationship.

A Sangha is a community that is very important to spiritual practice. According to Dr. Lilian Cheung, co-author of Savor - Mindful Eating, Mindful Life, 

 Building a healthy community is very important to our practice. Within this caring community we are liberated from our perceptions of separateness. We are free to share our practice, our reflections and ourselves, openly. This nurturing environment allows us to let go of judgment and misperceptions because we know that in this group, there is positive company, love and support.

I'm going to be honest - I need this. I am growing so fast spiritually, and I need people in my life that will support, accept, and nurture me as I grow from spiritual infancy to maturity.

So how does one go about building a Sangha? The people over at plumvillage.org have laid it out pretty well:

Building a Sangha is like planting a sunflower. We need to be aware of which conditions will support the flower’s growth and which conditions will obstruct its growth. We need healthy seeds, skilled gardeners, and plenty of sunshine and room to grow. When we engage in Sangha building, the most important thing to remember is that we are doing it together. The more we embrace the Sangha, the more we can let go of the feeling of a separate self. We can relax into the collective wisdom and insights of the Sangha. We can see clearly that the Sangha eyes and hands and heart are greater than that of any individual member of the Sangha.

We have the opportunity to help build our Sangha in every moment, by participating in activities of the Sangha and contributing our energy and insights. To sustain our own practice when we leave the practice center, we need to know how to build a Sangha. Let us be active in establishing connections with those around us. When we realize our true nature of interbeing, we naturally seek to connect with others by sharing our practice and seeking the support and guidance of our fellow practitioners.

Thay instructs us to be energetic in the practice of mindfulness. The past is finished and the future is uncertain, only in the present can we discover the miracle of life. Living in this spirit, we are already valuable members of our Sangha. We will know how to engage in the continuous process of building a refuge for many beings.

Thay encourages us all to be Sangha builders, following the footsteps of the Awakened One, who was a great Sangha builder. When we are able to live and practice in harmony in a small community, we can then share this harmony with the larger Sangha, our family and friends, our co-workers, and our co-practitioners. When there is joy in the practice of Sangha building, then we know that we doing it correctly.

All I have to say to that is - happy building!

My grandfather was a dairy farmer and my grandmother grew up on a farm, picking cotton. While I have no interest cotton, I do find myself fantasizing about homemade jam, chopping wood and harvesting my first crop. I can’t drop out of life, buy a cabin and live like it’s 1802, so I’m devising a plan for a Suburban Utopia.  A plan that will hopefully bring us a little closer to where we ultimately wanna be. It looks something like this:

1.     Clear out the flower bed in the backyard . Level the ground. Build planter boxes. Begin our own veggie/herb garden. (this will also include building some kind of fence to keep our doggie children from pigging out on our hard work before we can)

2.     Purchase some sort of cargo trailer for our bikes so that when we do need to go to the grocery store, we can save gas (less pollution!), get some exercise, and enjoy the time together doing things the semi-old school way.

3.     Compost!

4.     Create pleasant conversation areas in both our front and backyards. Luckily this is the one thing we’ve already started.

5.     Configure our one car garage into a homey woodshop that’s both functional and inviting.

6.     Inside of the house although things are pretty awesome as they are, I wanna make our craft/work room more functional; continue to turn our bedroom into a romantic and relaxing retreat; and work on over all organization.

7.     Recycle!

8.     I’m learning to cook so another must-have would be a working recipe book of tasty and healthy meals made from whole, unprocessed foods.

9.     Let’s face it. Our dog children are wild beasts. They do what they want, when they want…god love them. I have this idyllic picture in my head of hiking with the dogs right by my side…off leash.  Right now that ain’t happenin…so first things first – time to buy head collars and “master the walk” as Cesar Millan says.

10.  A clothesline for the back yard to save costly energy and use our own energy instead

11. I need a place to go to meditate. So I want to build a little zen area indoors and outdoors

12.  Look into the cost of installing a woodburning stove. Just for the hell of it.

As you can see I’ve got enough to keep both Leah and myself busy for the foreseeable future. And since Leah works full time and goes to school, we’ll need to proceed at a snail’s pace. That’s ok with me. Eckhart Tolle, one of my favorite spiritual teachers bases his teachings around staying in the moment, the “NOW”. It’s fine to plan for the future but the final result of your plans should not be more important than the process you take to get there. Otherwise you’ll be living for the future and missing the present moment. I absolutely agree with him and I’m absolutely looking forward to the process. I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about Eckhart soon. I have lots to share. Until then - m 

(see pics of undisciplined dog children above)

Mosey on - the art of living slow

People at work joke that i'm slow at everything. I walk slowly...if i were a cow, yeah, i suppose i would mosey. I never get overly concerned about how something is going to get done last minute, i just put my head down and start doing it. I've been voted person least likely to freak out in case of emergency. the thing is i'm not concerned about getting there first. i'm not in a hurry. i have a certain amount of time here, and i just wanna soak up the journey. when my time is up i'll just mosey on to next adventure.

A year in a life

"The more spiritual you are the more ordinary you are...the more unspecial you become. What is a spiritual life? Chopping wood, hauling water." - Eckhart Tolle­­­­

Today I am 34 years old and over the past year of my life, I have begun awakening. What do I mean by awakening? I mean the awareness that my physical form is simply a shell that houses my true self - the soul.  I know that I am not the things I do; not the things I have; not what others think or say about me. I am a spiritual being having a human experience.  When this human form dies, the real ME will continue. Energy does not go away – it changes form. Over the past year I’ve become much more aware of how I treat those around me and how I exist on the planet.  This has led to an interest in living sustainably inorder to lesson my footprint. My fiancé and I are researching how to begin an urban garden in our backyard (god help the dogs if I ever talk Leah into letting me have a goat!) I spend my days thinking about chicken coops, how to quiet my mind, how to actively listen to my best friend and how to provide compassion to the walking souls I share this existence with.  I am the happiest I’ve ever been…so I’m thinking there is something to all this stuff I’ve been reading, doing, learning…all this awakening. That’s why I wanted to share with you guys.  If I can be happy just by changing my thoughts and my way of being in this world, anyone can.  How amazing is that?