song of the day: Bach's C Minor Oboe and Violin Concerto (early music ensemble version only)
word of the day: ebullient
monk of the day: chad phillips
i'm in minnesota with my wife and daughter, and for the first time since God even knows when my entire family is together, my mom, dad, both of my brothers, their wives, children, our grandma and grandpa- it's amazing. we're all sleeping in the same house too! today we went to church, and there was four generations of us in the car. my grandpa was telling stories today of our family lineage, there were preachers in the family all the way back to 1600 in Denmark. somehow i'm not surprised. marci and i drove off for a little while today to go see a Stupa (an outdoor buddhist temple) in farmington, close to my parents house. we were talking about religion on the ride over, and she told me that she think i'm attached to being buddhist sometimes. that i identify with it. of course that's the most serious charge you can level at a Buddhist. i told her that i sincerely, deeply feel that all of the traditions offer an authentic path to truth, realization, godhead, awakening, whatever you want to call it. i could have been a practioner of Kabbalah, Sufism (actually i was and still feel to this day my Heart has two chambers- one sufi and one Zen), esoteric christianity or hinduism, or buddhism, which just happens to be the one i chose. i feel any of them could have been the "one", but i just had to pick one place in the garden, and dig a deep well, not a bunch of little shallow holes. it takes commitment that's not unlike marriage. when it comes down to it, and the honey moon's over, and it's not the intoxicating bliss of newness, the altered state of FALLING in love- when it gets rough, then brutal, then worse- BORING, am i still going to be there doing whatever the Mystery is doing that moment? am i still going to submit, surrunder, and submerge into Love for the millionth fucking time over? it's a choiceless choice, like marriage. is marriage an esoteric institution? fuck yeah! when you enter into the mystery, in whatever tradition, you take a vow, and it says: my life is not my own. i am not the best judge of how my life may be of greatest service to the Mystery, to love, but i am devoting my life to Love, to the awakening of all beings everywhere, and so i am officially ASKING from this point forward for Love to do whatever it has to do to make my offering as great as it can be. i realize i will fucking hate it one day, luxuriate in it the next- i will be transmuting bile and undergoing what i will perceive to be amazing suffering (and bliss), hysteria (and tranquililty), but i know now that this is a dream, and i am the dreamer and the dream. i am now to do whatever it takes to work consciously within the dream, so as to devote my life to the liberation of all those who are lost-sleep walking- in the dream. not so i can convert them, but because it is simply the natural expression of my true self in this moment, and this moment, to spontaneously engage from Clear, Empty Love. all these selves in the dream, including the one that is this discrete body-mind of "i"- are aspects of Self. there's really nothing to awaken "to", and there is really nothing wrong- but it is also vitally urgent i do everything possible as quickly as possible- which is Love's simple, natural response to suffering. i understand also that people in the dream who are sleep walking (including my own body-mind very often) will not necessarily understand or appreciate at all this work in the Mystery. they will often experience and interpret Love as aggression, deviance, madness, un-caring, irrelevent- on and on. i'm ok with that. that is also the pivotal importance of sangha-without the support of community i would surely fall back asleep more and more often, and then eventually succumb to the incredible gravity of Torpor. i must make the choice that forfeits that possible choice in the future, i must now make the decision that disallows such decisions in the future. i am handing my wife, my daughter, my teacher- and all true family members in the Mystery- i am handing them a big stick and asking that from this moment forward, if and when i fall asleep- if and when my life deviates from the Work of Love, then hit me until i wake up. i understand this is the most compassionate thing a person can do for me, and that compassion does not mean alleviating pain, it means liberation from suffering. awakening is not the end of pain, but the end avoiding it. no one but me can end my suffering, but i need help to do it. i cannot end anyone else's suffering, but it's my mission to do it. real compassion is a riddle i will never answer, but a question i can live. while working in the Mystery i will often get lost. i can remember myself with the following words:
