Month: December 2023

I feel guilty for having a day off, which is actually not a day off, as I always have obligations to honor. So called time off is fleeting and doesn’t really exist for me anymore.

As I am aware that everything has its opposite, I often come back to the fear that I will one day experience a tremendous amount of pain in order to balance the various pleasures that I have experienced. There is no way to guarantee that this won’t happen. I attempt and pray for compassionate endurance and the ability to discern and perform appropriate action and inaction for myself and others. I attempt to constantly remind myself that the mind’s view is limited and can never know anything for sure.

Is it a challenge to surrender and to let go? Yes, and it’s also a challenge to persist in action once you fully realize the futility of it. Surrender and effort each have their own set of pains and pleasures.

call me by a more appropriate name, the never ending road to nowhere.

Illusions: an ending, a beginning, the personal, achievement of unending satisfaction, progress towards paradise, doing only what one likes, being affected only by ones own actions, the results, an end state, separation, boundaries, categories of relationships, categories of experiences

The illusions have their purpose.

I try to know things on a deeper level, in addition to remembering and studying spiritual teachings intellectually through words. I am born and die at least a million times trying to live, explore, and experiment truth-love-compassion and Who am I.

The more complex a system is, the more likely it is to fail as it requires more effort and attention for its maintenance. Above all, attempt compassionate intent, faith, and balance.

The thought of being inadequate and needing to improve and change my personal habits and the circumstances around me always comes back to me. I know the futility of it, but still go on. Perhaps I got this from my upbringing, maybe from society, maybe from original sin. Does the origin really matter?

The desires are endless. The fears are endless. Being driven only by these is the path of delusion. I believe and tell myself that I no longer want to play that game, but I find that when it comes down to it, so far I am unable to give up my recurring emotional attachments and emotional habits. (And ALL of my requirements for so called “happiness” and so called identity.)

love is not emotional attachment.

At a certain point, I feel recurring guilt that I take time to explore and indulge body and contemplation. Then I work on the chores and duties.

I look around me and wonder how people seem to be so happy. I am sorry that I fail at it.

big life, small life, complex and simple each have their advantages and disadvantages

I feel like I need to divorce my emotional state from what I experience in the world and stop comparing myself to others. As I see it, this is contrary to the current dominant human experience and contrary to what usually happens in my personal experience.

The bondage is built all around us. It always has been and always will. How many layers of chains do we need, how many more traps of addiction?

My heart is broken, angry, sad, afraid, confused, sinning, kind, and cruel, and I can only persist in practice. Surrender, action, enduring the fruits of my actions, inaction, habits and decisions, other people’s actions and decisions, good and bad. Trying to find the truth in my heart. Lately, my mind is plagued by the notion that the party is over and I don’t understand why what appears to be cruel sometimes seems to win. And here is where faith in compassion is vital.

I have tried to keep my obligations to a minimum in hopes that I wouldn’t get stuck in a mess of bondage, and would be able to keep up with things, but what ended up happening is not that. I feel angry, weary, and overwhelmed by the to do list, which is often more paralyzing, confusing, and discouraging than helpful.

In a way, even my so called spiritual practice is bondage.

What proves love? What proves devotion?

Is there anyone left in the world who is not corrupted by luxury, power, fame, indulgence? anyone who sees things as they really are, instead of what they see or want to see on the internet? Since I know that I seem to be incapable of being totally free of delusion and selfishness, I have a hard time having faith.

Will I ever be free of looking at things though the lens of my own ego?

I feel the fear. Reading news content and looking at the internet often increases it, sometimes it just helps me avoid, procrastinate or feel powerless.

Why does it seem like everything is a sacrifice and everyone is looking for something from me? Am I making this shit up?

Spoiled brat that I am not always grateful for mental and physical capabilities that I have access to.

again I feel extreme hatred towards people and modern living. I feel resentment and anger because I believed that there would be an experience or situation that would finally make me happy and set me free once and for all.

I have made this situation and try to hold steady in the results both pleasant and unpleasant.

I notice that I am losing close personal relationships with people. I feel like it is inevitable. I have a habit of distancing myself from people physically and emotionally in many areas of my life. I feel like a failure in this aspect of life. So called closeness changes like everything else, and no relationship in manifestation lasts forever. After many years associated with this body, in some (or many?) respects, I still feel like I don’t know intimacy and deep friendship. Here, now, again and again the personal is illusion. I feel rather strong feelings of fear regarding this lately, challenged by vulnerability. I am looking for something from interactions with people that these things will never yield. I am also looking for something from solitude that it will never yield. Upon close examination, I see that I am looking for something from experience in general that it will never yield. Is it emotional fulfillment? Security? Safety? Satisfying experiences? The achievement of perfect tapas (self discipline and control)?

One of my biggest fears is not being able to do things to prove that I am worthy of food, shelter, pleasure , and affection.

I get angry at myself for not being more disciplined. At the same time I am aware how I sometimes discipline all of the fun out of life.

I will never be free of doing mundane things.

I tend to gravitate towards doing small things.

I have difficulty letting people do things for me.

what is more indicative of abundance attitude — indulging without discretion or not indulging because you know that you don’t need it? Which proves faith more?

what proves courage? What proves love? What proves existence? What proves faith? What proves devotion? what proves truth? Action or being? Pleasure or pain? Experiencing? Sensing? Living? Dying? Creating? Destroying? Preserving?

I prefer to act without an audience, yet I do still experience a desire to be free of the need for privacy (free of fear).

I do not have the attribute of being someone that people want to watch. I accept that my form is not photogenic. I tend not to be interesting.

I feel like money is taking over more and more of my life. A majority of my time with other people requires some type of financial transaction. I feel like my entire life is or will become this way. The meter is always running. Accounts are always being kept.

I feel like we are losing interaction with each other to screen time. We are willingly letting this happen. Allowing this to happen feels lazy but also feels inevitable.

it is impossible to only be affected by your own actions. The accounting is eventually of no use.

I have pretty much given up on looking to my primary relationships for pleasure. Actually, I have given up on all relationships for pleasure, and perhaps all forms of experience.

I do not expect help from other people or beings including my closest relationships.

I don’t understand why I am unable to maintain interest (desire) for physical connection in long-term relationship. Should I stop trying to figure it out or take some kind of drug which will bring it back?

It is interesting to notice that I had nothing to do with the decision to get turtle nor did I have any desire to have a turtle as a pet, but I am usually the one taking lead on her care.

I feel like I am turning into an impersonal entity where the only relationship that I have is with a system. The person playing the role of “other” changes constantly. This may go on for a time until I fully realize its falseness.

as I keep going deeper, it is inevitable that I feel that I am no longer a person capable of the same type of interpersonal and intimate relationship.

I tend to do things myself instead of delegating. To think that I will be able to stop this pattern without outside circumstances changing is delusional.

One of the main reasons I went into my profession is flexibility of schedule so that I could explore a variety of interests. It wasn’t a calling that I had, nor do I feel like it is a natural fit for me for a profession at this point. I did not consciously set out to be the primary source of income in the household, if anything, I would have preferred it to be a supplemental source of income.

At some point, egoism holds us back. Our way of life is centered around egoism to an extreme degree. I play along, sometimes to an extreme degree, sometimes not. I am thankful for being aware of it and also for being able to step back from it even though I know that the break is temporary, perhaps extremely small. Sometimes the falseness drives me to the brink of insane anger.

I declare myself “no longer a person”, because it is how I feel. And life goes on. And practice goes on. Personal, impersonal, private, public, spontaneous, predictable desires, fears, emotions happen and don’t happen. Truth, falsity, yes, no, maybe, things and nothingness all still happen. The body mind functions, but in a sense, I have already died.

I am thankful for whatever access I have to endurance. Endurance of my own foolishness. Endurance of delusion, pain, desire, hunger, thirst, emotions, lack of emotion. Endurance of the false.

I am thankful for whatever access I have to awareness beyond the false.

I am thankful for remembering that everything is temporary.

The beginning and the end are the illusions.

Everything taken to extreme becomes a problem. I confess to extremes of practice, nonattachment and non-interference and accept the consequences. I try various things in order to find the elusive and ever changing middle path. Experimenting with extremes is part of the journey.

Excessive moderation.

I’m not so good at providing challenge, encouraging growth and self discipline in others. (I tend to try to make comfort). What a fucking idiot.