My Life and Grasping: A manifesto

It's been a while.

Life has been rough.

I'm now living in my own apartment about 2 miles from my old house where my son and ex-wife live. It's not home, but what is home?

Home is where your rump rests..or its it no where at all?

Hakuna Matata, and all that.

Except....

I'm grasping. HARD.

I've started smoking again. I quit for five years and now I'm back at it with a fervor.

I've bought stuff. I hate stuff and some of it I needed, but I bought it and kind of enjoyed that.

I've been to Dharma punks, but I haven't sat other than those brief periods and I haven't done Dokusan or attended the Zen sangha, at all.

So why is this a Manifesto?

I'm about to make a vow.

I vow to undertake the training to stop grasping at the people in my life. 

The people in my life deserve to be what and who they are without trying to make me happy.

Only I can save myself. There is no outside agent that is going to support me.

I must trust in my intuition. This one is hard because some of the things it tells me to do are painful and require me to stop grasping (see the circle of pain here?).

What training do I need to undertake?

I need to go to Dokusan and talk to my teacher about my practice and my very limited understanding.

I need to sit, or walk, or something to allow my mind to calm and reflect without constantly bombarding it with thoughts and grasping at itself.

And I need to stop hiding.

If you are my friend and you live nearby you are invited to see me. You can come over to my crappy apartment or I will come to you. I don't need time alone to "figure this out." I need others to hang out with and not talk about this or sometimes to talk about it.

I've achieved all the intellectual understanding I can or will. 

So there it is.

It will be what it will be.

J. Andy Lambert
Buddhist.
Blogger: Bayou Buddhists on Houston Belief & Bayou City Buddhist
Dad.
Vegan.
Occasional Homebrewer.
Follow me on Twitter: @BayouCityBuddha

The other side of the coin

Although impermanence does suck it's not always true.

I was thinking on my drive-in this morning about how nice a day it was.

I wasn't nice yesterday,even though it was.

The traffic was bad, but then it wasn't.

I sat down at my desk and it's Monday and I'm in early so I can leave early today. 

Except that it's not Monday it's just right now.

Impermanence is what it is.

It can seem bad when we grasp at something. We want it to last forever.

There were good times with my wife. There were great times. There bad times.

Either way those times are this time. Not right now.

Right now there is only right now.

And right now I'm hopeful and I'm fine.

And I will be in every moment to come. Even those that seem "bad" at the time.

In Gassho.

Where do I go from here?

I'm at a point I never expected to be.

Divorce.

And yet, because of the circumstance very little in my everyday life will change. My family will be what it will be.

However, ordinariness hurts me. This life no longer seems to be mine. It seems fake, now. Like there's a veneer covering up what's really going on.

I keep being told this will pass. WHAT will pass, exactly? My life? My feelings? What's going away?

What is there to go away? My wife keeps telling me that I need to let "it" out. What is it?

My mother things I need to move on and damn quick. My wife wants me to find a straight girl to love me like "I deserve."

I want neither of these things right now. 

I just want to be left alone, but not alone, never alone, never again.

I love her. I will continue to. Nothing in this world or any other will make that stop.

I have no idea what the future holds now. All plans are gone (even though they aren't). All aspirations are more vaporous than they have ever been.

I only have right now. 

Impermanence sucks. 

New Commitments and Family

So, the funny thing about an indefinite hiatus is that it can be
short. In this case, it was just one day.

Maybe I was just feeling sadness yesterday at the loss of my wife and
decided that I need to not scatter my energies too much.

So here's the story since some of you are concerned about me:

I'm fine. My wife and I will be getting a divorce. We will be sleeping
in separate beds but we're not "splitting up." There's no reason to
split up. I love my wife and she loves me. It's just different than we
thought and even hoped it was.

My family is intact and will remain so.

In many ways, I feel more committed than ever to her and to my son.

We're going to keep taking care of one another. There's no reason we
can't, even though we're not married anymore.

I'm also committed to myself in a new way. I have myself to take care
of. This isn't a job for someone else. I don't have to focus so much
on another person's happiness. I can just be me and be happy being me.
More importantly I can be ok with being me and take personal
responsibility for ME, not something I've ever done before, let me
tell you.

I'm sad about the end of my marriage and that my wife and I will never
be connected in that way again, but were we ever really or were we
just trying really hard to force a square peg into a round hole?

I have learned a lot about impermanence and being present in this
moment from this experience and I will continue to do so.

I'll be writing again as I have time. Thank you all so much for your
concern and support and I hope that you'll continue to support my Life
as I will support each and every one of yours.

In Gassho.

The last sitting..?

It is with great sorrow that I must announce the indefinite hiatus of this blog. In a short amount of time I have gathered readers from all other world. I appreciate the hard work of Anoki Casey and others who have contributed their time and efforts to my work here.

Personal Issues have led to this decision. My marriage of six years is ending and I have to spend a great deal of time and effort taking care of those details and making sure everything is handled with great Upaya and Kshanti.

In Gassho.