Monday, February 13, 2006
13 - Blogger's Walk
It seems inevitable: that I would run out of things to say regarding "practice". There's only so much to comment on, short of just copying and pasting whole sections of copy from the ILP kit's handbook. This happened to me today around 2pm. To alleviate this uncharacteristic mental silence, I went for a walk.
North Boulder Park is a cheery strip of grass and small ball fields a block away from our office. Young mothers with small children dot its sand-filled playgrounds, and in the spring and summer, short-statured soccer teams use it for practice and games. We have played frisbee in its long tall grass, watched the Western clouds turning pink as the sun dips to bed early in the evening. To the south, the Flatirons stand supreme, welcoming the wealthy outdoor athlete to the Colorado Front Range.
Much as Zen has built-in warnings against "stinking of Zen", I realize now that I "stink of practice." There is only so much that can be said about modules and practices before the abstract air grows stifling and bland. No life could ever fit a "module", no existence could be reduced to "you must do this" and "you ought to try that". Inside I am feeling the old soul call of the rebel, rising up to break the new chains I've volunteered for it to submit to.
The thing is, ILP merely echoes what common sense would have us do if we once again would fall awake. Tired? Sleep. Hungry? Eat. Confused? Step back, relax. Angry? Reflect, talk it out, have a dialogue. There is nothing to these practices, they've been encoded in our DNA long ago, all the idea of ILP does is remind of us of what we would be doing naturally should we not be so caught up in the madness of a distracting world.
The purpose of ILP, then, is to stop doing ILP, to simply have the awareness and presence of mind to know when you should sit down, shut up, do some push-ups, take someone else's perspective, or revel in the appreciation of everything in Creation. Granted, I'm not there yet. A workholic needs the daily prods and publicly-made blog promises to keep him in touch with what he should know already.
But when the time comes, I'll be selling my kit to the first bidder. Let's start at, say, 10 bucks?
Comments:
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This is exactly my feeling about practice right now. I'm sick of talking about modules or spiritual states or psychodynamic work, etc. I've overdosed on practice and it was great, but now all I want is to make money and learn to enjoy work--and yes, continue to meditate and work out etc.
Such an interesting process, eh?
Such an interesting process, eh?
paulos,
"But when the time comes, I'll be selling my kit to the first bidder. Let's start at, say, 10 bucks?"
for ten bux? consider it sold. although i already have my own, i'd be glad to be able to give one away as a gift to someone i love. let me know when you cross the threshold of mastering your interiors. maybe i'll even offer to pay for the shipping.
"No life could ever fit a "module", no existence could be reduced to "you must do this" and "you ought to try that". Inside I am feeling the old soul call of the rebel, rising up to break the new chains I've volunteered for it to submit to."
well, here's the thing - there is much to be learned from the freedom actually GAINED by placing/recognizing limitations upon/within oneself. i am a firm believer in the notion of "liberation through limitation". allow me to share with you a bit of life-story:
for a long time i struggled with the notion of being "only" a chef when in fact i was interested in a myriad of other things/pursuits, some of which i felt i was proficient at and not at all incapable of. i was unhappy with food preparation being my plot in the world - to cook food and come up with recipes for people to say "wow". that's it? fucking lame. what about my love of philosophy, higher thought, ecology, sustainability, sitting practice, aesthetics, writing, la la la?
after realizing that my relationship to food is the most problematic relation in my life, and has been for years, i came to see that by providing food to others, and simply being around it constantly, might be the best thing i could do to overcome its stranglehold on my will (this realization came upon me whilst reading "the eating gorilla comes in peace" by the inimitable Da). once i really came to grips that this would be my calling in life and had accepted it as being my "life's work", the notion of karmic employment came to the fore. i was being called to develop a healthy relationship to food and then to share the unfolding of these findings/realizations with others along the way. but these offerings were no longer bound to simply cooking people food in a restaurant. this paradigm, already in serious peril since first attending culinary school, had been blown out of the water. the scraps had begun to sink and i was left to construct a better vessel for my body-mind (in both ways!)
in recognizing this, i suddenly felt a liberation unlike any i had before. i was finding myself saying Yes to most everything in my mind and to that which was being thrown at me from outside. of course this realization wavered in undulating seas of habitual pattering, decades old - and yet, to contemplate that i had a definitive purpose, if i wanted to address and engage it, in the relative realm was strangely freeing as i was then able to allow my intuition and "creative problem solver" to run wild. but only because he was given a specific task to perform. he was given a set of parameters (or limitations) within which to operate and has since been pulling me into numerous healthy, intriguing and stimulating personal relationships, virtual and meat-spaced, as well as having created for me a seemingly endless list of "to-do's" to accomplish or at least to map out {enter AQAL}. he sometimes does such a good job that i would prefer to simply make the lists themselves than to address their need for immediate manifestation. but once i threw my intention out into the world, things began to come back to me in a more than serendipitous fashion.
now i am able to see how it is that i can incorporate/enable most of the interests previously stated - in the service of my current karmic employment (what is the buddhist expression for this? rightful __________?). of course this is not the only karma that i have to burn! as i alluded to above, there is of course my incredible ability to procrastinate - a sense of downright laziness so lazy that it has to be connected to some kind of perverted sense of innate doubt deep within. and i'm talking Doubt with a capital D. maybe double D's, if you catch my drift. something that simply takes over the whole of conscious awareness. debilitating some days. but that, my friend , is another story. karma police are on my ass for this one, breath so hot on my neck that it could cook an egg. almost hard boiled.
i am in the PROCESS of engaging all of my talents and interests in the service of this "food thang" and there is still much work to do - but, i have limited my self and thus liberated the Self and all her minions to work through me. or, at least this is the theory... there is much work to do, and with every day that goes by, i am more and more convinced that it shall not be accomplished within one lifetime - how ignorant to think that it could be! and yet, this may have something to do with my tendency to procrastinate: if it can't be started and finished, completed to a certain set of expectations, i am often guilty of not doing anything at all.
thoughts?
come to think of it, this may be my long lost inaugural blog entry, waiting to be born/posted.
yes, i'll do it.
~chef
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"But when the time comes, I'll be selling my kit to the first bidder. Let's start at, say, 10 bucks?"
for ten bux? consider it sold. although i already have my own, i'd be glad to be able to give one away as a gift to someone i love. let me know when you cross the threshold of mastering your interiors. maybe i'll even offer to pay for the shipping.
"No life could ever fit a "module", no existence could be reduced to "you must do this" and "you ought to try that". Inside I am feeling the old soul call of the rebel, rising up to break the new chains I've volunteered for it to submit to."
well, here's the thing - there is much to be learned from the freedom actually GAINED by placing/recognizing limitations upon/within oneself. i am a firm believer in the notion of "liberation through limitation". allow me to share with you a bit of life-story:
for a long time i struggled with the notion of being "only" a chef when in fact i was interested in a myriad of other things/pursuits, some of which i felt i was proficient at and not at all incapable of. i was unhappy with food preparation being my plot in the world - to cook food and come up with recipes for people to say "wow". that's it? fucking lame. what about my love of philosophy, higher thought, ecology, sustainability, sitting practice, aesthetics, writing, la la la?
after realizing that my relationship to food is the most problematic relation in my life, and has been for years, i came to see that by providing food to others, and simply being around it constantly, might be the best thing i could do to overcome its stranglehold on my will (this realization came upon me whilst reading "the eating gorilla comes in peace" by the inimitable Da). once i really came to grips that this would be my calling in life and had accepted it as being my "life's work", the notion of karmic employment came to the fore. i was being called to develop a healthy relationship to food and then to share the unfolding of these findings/realizations with others along the way. but these offerings were no longer bound to simply cooking people food in a restaurant. this paradigm, already in serious peril since first attending culinary school, had been blown out of the water. the scraps had begun to sink and i was left to construct a better vessel for my body-mind (in both ways!)
in recognizing this, i suddenly felt a liberation unlike any i had before. i was finding myself saying Yes to most everything in my mind and to that which was being thrown at me from outside. of course this realization wavered in undulating seas of habitual pattering, decades old - and yet, to contemplate that i had a definitive purpose, if i wanted to address and engage it, in the relative realm was strangely freeing as i was then able to allow my intuition and "creative problem solver" to run wild. but only because he was given a specific task to perform. he was given a set of parameters (or limitations) within which to operate and has since been pulling me into numerous healthy, intriguing and stimulating personal relationships, virtual and meat-spaced, as well as having created for me a seemingly endless list of "to-do's" to accomplish or at least to map out {enter AQAL}. he sometimes does such a good job that i would prefer to simply make the lists themselves than to address their need for immediate manifestation. but once i threw my intention out into the world, things began to come back to me in a more than serendipitous fashion.
now i am able to see how it is that i can incorporate/enable most of the interests previously stated - in the service of my current karmic employment (what is the buddhist expression for this? rightful __________?). of course this is not the only karma that i have to burn! as i alluded to above, there is of course my incredible ability to procrastinate - a sense of downright laziness so lazy that it has to be connected to some kind of perverted sense of innate doubt deep within. and i'm talking Doubt with a capital D. maybe double D's, if you catch my drift. something that simply takes over the whole of conscious awareness. debilitating some days. but that, my friend , is another story. karma police are on my ass for this one, breath so hot on my neck that it could cook an egg. almost hard boiled.
i am in the PROCESS of engaging all of my talents and interests in the service of this "food thang" and there is still much work to do - but, i have limited my self and thus liberated the Self and all her minions to work through me. or, at least this is the theory... there is much work to do, and with every day that goes by, i am more and more convinced that it shall not be accomplished within one lifetime - how ignorant to think that it could be! and yet, this may have something to do with my tendency to procrastinate: if it can't be started and finished, completed to a certain set of expectations, i am often guilty of not doing anything at all.
thoughts?
come to think of it, this may be my long lost inaugural blog entry, waiting to be born/posted.
yes, i'll do it.
~chef
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