Brain Chemistry

Imagine a large jar. In it, water. In the water a video camera, a cord, and a video monitor. Put red in the water, the camera sees things tainted red. Blue dye gives a blue picture. If the water is salty, it corrodes the cable and the signal gets all sporadic. Run a blender near the cable and it picks up the interference.

Our brains are not much different. Subject to the "dyes" of neurotransmitters in our brains and the chemicals we ingest (caffeine, alcohol, various food impacts). Stress can affect the transmissions. Activity (concepts, thoughts) in one part of the brain can affect the chemistry bathing another.

We use this tenuous system to "perceive reality". We really never have a chance of seeing it as it is. We can come to accept we are limited by this thought/sense system and that the real world is beyond direct perception, but I don't think we can ever perceive it as it is. Heck, because of the finite speed of light, at best we can perceive it as it was a few billionths of a second ago.

Trapped forever in this jail of faulty perception? We are the jail.

The Next Step

Might as well smile.

Sun shines brightly.

The thousand things that make me "human" get in the way.

Other people seem to define me. Is that really me?

Turn and reflect. That's a shadow of a shadow.

The next step is completely free.

Who sees the unhindered Lauren, walking with the fist of thought relaxed and held open?

Money

How completely outside the realm of the zafu.
My accountant/wife hits me with the news this morning that we don't have in the bank what we thought we had as we go into the final stages of getting ready for a vacation, and then the IRS sends me a letter notifying us about errors in 2007 taxes, and this on the heels of my employer announcing a 10% reduction in workforce over the next few weeks. And I'm supposed to sit still on a cushion.... there must be something I should be doing.....
I wish I had a temple bell I could beat the hell out of right now...

Beer

One of the most equivocal of precepts is the one about wine. It comes in a variety of flavors ranging from "Don't drink wine" to "Don't sell wine" to "Do take intoxicants" to "Don't engage in the intoxicant of delusion." I have been, and still am, and still am not a drinker. I have gone years with a daily or thrice weekly glass of wine or beer or whiskey of varying sizes (some glasses are larger than others).

I have been trying these days to open up to the precept of avoiding intoxicants. This doesn't work (for me) if it is approached as a rule. I did not say "I will not drink." I said "I will not drink, and yet I will not not-drink." I opened the tight hand of thought as best I could each time I found "drink" on my mind. This has changed my drinking. And I don't miss it much at all*. But there have been two difficulties.

Difficulty one is experiencing more of me more clearly. It appears that drinking was, in part, a sort of self medication to deaden this or that thought. To drop inhibitions. To inhibit fears and worries. To avoid things. To focus on things. With less drinking there is more 'authentic' me I have to deal with. It ain't always fun. I am often hung up on some pretty petty stuff, or having quite devilish fantasies. Such a ball of greed anger and ignorance I can be at times.

The second difficulty has been social. Being in situations where not drinking is taken as negative commentary on others there who are drinking. That sucks, but I found a way. A really great tasting non-alcholic beer called Buckler. It's imported by Heineken. To be far to the purist, it says it is less than 0.5% alcohol. So it's not perfectly alcohol free. But it tastes good, it helps me mix socially when that is important, and its close enough to water for my precept comfort.

So if you're a Buddhist and would like a cold one.
Grab a Buckler.
The beer that made Mahākāśyapa smile.

*I don't miss it 'cause, sometimes, I drink...(it's so tempting to put down amounts and time spans, but that's not the point. Some arbitrary goal is never the point. Every moment taken as is, is the point).

Illusion

What is real vs. our concept of reality.

http://web.mit.edu/persci/gaz/gaz-teaching/index.html

Kinhin

.



A difficult time
Just one more "next step" forward
I kinhin through life

How to Cook Your Life

So I went down to TLZC (The Local Zen Center (which happens to be Austin Zen Center for me)) for "Buddha Flix", a.k.a. movie night (ref previous post), and as I suspected there were only decent people with no snobbish attitudes. That's not to say I don't think snobbish people can exist, only that my dread of them far exceeds their actual numbers in the world. So the path is set for visiting again for formal zazen and service. Hopefully my own self can stay out of my own way, and I can turn the wheel a bit in my life.


The movie we watched was "How to Cook Your Life." A little documentary style film about some of the thoughts and cooking classes of Ed Brown [Roshi] , who was a cook for a while at Tassajara (a famous, austere Zen retreat in California) and wrote a couple of their cookbooks. It was a very nice glimps at a well practiced Buddhist, temper and all. I particularly liked his characterization of the dings and scratches on the tea kettles and how they relate to we humans.

And for those who are tracking my very self absorbed decoding of my given Dharma name, it turns out I jumped to a hasty conclusion (small surprise!). Though 労連 is a recognized compound for Labor Union (or more casually, work group, as I like to characterize it), less common readings of the Kanji also yield Benevolence Bringing. So I guess I'm stuck with it. It doesn't count enough to do hard work, I've got to show a positive effect on the people around me. A good goal, and somewhat erie challenge. I often see that I don't give much of a damn on how my actions and words affect others even though I take pains to make sure I'm "right."