Mister JR Johnson fired me when he caught me “entertaining” friends at his place of business.
He waited until the end of the shift on Friday and told me my days (actually, nights) as a stripper were over. I tried to explain, apologize for my actions, but that evening it was to no avail.
It hung over me that weekend. But did little to dim one of the brightest moments of my life.
One stretched, only to see the other match the move immediately, with nary an eye blink, nor a muscle flinch.
There was a meanness in their beady eyes. And if looks could kill, both would be lying dead where they stood.
The “kid” still got it. Swam 36 laps this afternoon, the first time I’ve exercised in four months.
What? It’s been four months since I been to LA Fitness. Four months since I hit the Olympic-size pool, take in the whirlpool, as well as spend time in the sauna? Actually, spent more than 15 minutes in the sauna to get rid of all the “toxins” people tell me I need to get out of my system.
The only thing that seemed to help Mary was the tears.
The act of crying seemed to “loosen up” and cushion the fear and anxiety that would strike her unexpectantly. Every time she’d hear a siren, she’d feel her chest tighten, her palms sweat, and her heartbeat race. “Twenty minutes” she’d say and look at a watch or a clock. It will all be over in 20 minutes. The world as she knew it would all be over. Destroyed by nuclear war.
It was the soldier who gave you freedom of the press, not the reporter
It was the soldier, not the poet, who gave you freedom of expression
I loathe my inconsistencies on grief, and how I dealt with death and injuries while serving in the military.
I blame the Army for not giving me the chance to mourn someone on first hearing of their senseless death. I blame myself for choosing to be a good soldier and not a compassionate human being, placing country first — before God and humanity.
I knew something was wrong when I saw the radio operator’s face. He handed me the mike attached to the bulky radio strapped on his back. The private, new in-country, made no eye contact, and was hesitant in his actions.
I identified myself by a “call sign” and heard someone say in a code that the leader of the third platoon had just been wounded, and that I was ordered to move my first platoon to give him assistance.
“Belief in God, and
following Buddhism
is not incompatible.”
I was in the Army less than a week when the news hit me. I had my head shaven; my civilian clothes exchanged for fatigue pants and a shirt, not to mention boots and headgear, something I had never worn before in my life.
Got drafted on the Third of June, the day that Billie Jo McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge! I was 19 years old in 1968 — knew no one — and was away from my Philadelphia, PA, home for the first time.
Got a check for $9 in the mail yesterday. It was for travel expenses on a trip I took five months ago. It came to me like magic. I must have lost it in the IKEA store of Conshohocken, and it just appeared out of nowhere for my return trip.
Back to the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. A campus in Rhinebeck, NY, where I will return today (April 21, 2010) for another retreat on PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Ever meet someone who wanted to grow up “Meek?”
You know, as in “the ‘Meek‘ shall inherit the Earth?”
“Eat your Wheaties, and you too can become as Meek as Babe Ruth,” is a jingle I bet you never heard out of Madison Avenue. Or how about “The Army builds meek men one body at a time?”
John 13. Verses 3-4 says:
“So during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.”
Ruby,
You tell me you wish that we could have an eraser in our lives to go back and “Erase Our Mistakes.”
A long red light usually gets on my nerves while sitting in traffic, but time went so quick just now. I’m exploring the World of a Mystic.
Got a quick “fix” for you. But don’t try to finger this “hit” unless you’re alone, or with someone you trust.
It is what I call a “tactile chant.” Oh, I know what you’re going to say. Here’s more New Age stuff. Another scam for the public. Spiritual babble for a get-rich scheme. But you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. About something that could enhance your Life!
I felt free for the first time in a long time today. Dr. Jodi Schwartz-Levy conducted a Somatic Therapy session for four practioners, and each walked away with all expectations met. And then some.
A card turned over as I accidentally moved my hand to uncover four other small cards randomly picked from a tray on the carpeted floor. Sitting in the Lotus position with a legless “cloth” chair to support my back, I leaned over to read the card.
“Risk” is all that it said. There was a tiny picture of an angel that somehow reminded me of pre-teen girls who just gave up playing with dolls and turned to thoughts of Celestial Beings. Not the Old Testament God Almighty with Fire and Brimstone, but the soft, gentle “Angels” that serve as guardians.
Saw you off on your class trip, Nick, and while we parted on a bad note, I want to leave something to perhaps get the sour taste out of our mouths.
Twice. Once on my stomach, the other on my back. Got “acupunctured.” Second time for my back. First for PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Back got punctured a dozen times in various parts of the body, starting in areas other than the back.
My “performance” complete, I drop to my chair, taking deep breaths, trying to avoid showing what the past action has cost me.
A judge destroyed the governor, while I survived an explosion before winning a civil rights case in court. This was all in a dream.
Some words, phrases, even entire messages look different through the lens of time. Take this feeling I expressed to a friend half-way around the world about the “yearning” I felt on reading Sufi poems for the first time. It moved me so much that I “penned” my own feelings of life-long “longing” to be with, what the Sufis call, “my Beloved” — the Higher Being that can take the shape of your Most Perfect Loved One, the Divine. Continue reading
I danced a Sufi “dervish whirling” at the Buddhist Center today.
A door to the possible mysteries of life opened slightly yesterday. My friend, Joy, introduced me to the Kabbalah.
On and off clicks the light from the sun. On and off, on and off, and so it goes. The sun winning this playful skirmish with tall objects on the Earth below. Light to dark, light to dark flashes before my eye. (Got an eye patch “over me left eye, young Mr. Hawkins,” like Long John Silvers from Treasure Island, but mine’s from a detached retina, and not from pirating!) Something is causing some effect on a part of my brain as my good pupil enlarges and decreases like a strobe light at a Heavy Metal concert with me thrown into a mosh pit.
Played “peek-a-boo” with the sun and shade this morning. On the road from Ambler to Conshohocken, PA, I engaged Old Sol in a game the Almighty must have created for mankind’s appreciation. Why else would God — who caused the sun to come into being from some huge cosmic explosion — have invented shadows? It’s all part of His Love for us humans!
I squeeze the malachite stone as if it was one of those “stress” balls used to relieve tension and exercise the forearm.
A vision of prehistoric man appears as I meditate with a Malachite stone in my hand. I am that person, that man who is bare-chested and hairy in this meditative “dream.” So much hair growing at my chest and back I initially think I’m wearing a covering over my upper body. The hair on my head is long, tangled and unwashed. Don’t think I ever combed it, even with my fingers, let alone use some devise to run through the matted hair follicles.
Already kneeling while sweeping litter from the powder room floor where the cats spilled, I sat back on my haunches. A clean commode beckoned to me. Yeah, I felt a “calling“ from this white porcelain-based ancestor of the old “WC” (“water closet” to the Baby-Boomers who called it the “John” or simply the toilet).
For a better over-all life, PLEASE STAY “ON” THE GRASS.
I focus on my hands clasped together in front of my lower chest, with one good eye barely open and the other hidden behind a black eye-patch.
I am “whirling.” Circling on a carpeted floor at a Quaker Meeting Hall room going round and round. No dizziness this, my second time out. I project a feeling of Love and “nudge out‘” fears of falling and/or appearing awkward and uncoordinated. I am dancing with my “Beloved,” as a dervish man displaying his affection to the Oneness of the Universe, the Glory of the Spirit.
Running water. Somebody designed a way to allow it to flow from a water way directly into our houses. And not just to one spot in my Conshohocken, PA, home, but at least four: the kitchen, two bathrooms and a spigot for hosing plants outdoors.
Kneeling on my knees, I hold the bowl out with one hand, while placing the other hand on the wooden floor, crawling from one side of the chair to another.
My shoulders have grown enormously since this afternoon. I feel they’re “indestructible.” That I have durable lightweight plastic pads all around the neck, the collarbone and the head, as well as my upper chest and back. Energy of some sorts is protecting me from all harm to those areas. And it may be rubbing off on what they call the “Chakras‘ to my heart and higher parts.
Buddha came in the shape of a dark-haired, dark-skinned attractive yoga-practicing woman, smiling upon me in a dream.
Continue reading
Some of my favorite “idols” appeared at the Omega Institute, upstate New York, (USA) while on a meditation retreat for veterans with PTSD in October 2009.
Flowers brighten up any room, and the right vase can add an extra touch, particularly, when the arranger puts a lot of Love into the mix.
There ain’t nothing humbling in what I adopted in trying to “get ahead” in my life . . . I can do anything I set my mind to had become my motto — it’s the type of superior attitude that we all admire, don’t we? Those who can’t adapt to this way of thinking ought to simply get out of the way. Look out world, here I come!
The Buddha appeared in a dream. He took on the forms of a soldier, a counselor and then a computer printer. How could such an entity take shape in such different apparitions?
It all started as I entered a building. President Barack Obama’s picture beamed on a wall as I walked through a large room, cordoned off by dozens of partitions, creating offices upon offices of civil servants working for me and thousands of other veterans from the United States.
I don’t mind letting my feelings show in public. Especially here, in the “Dreamcatcher” building on Route 73, some 20 miles outside Philadelphia. It’s dark in this room. Hell, I have my eyes closed, and no one can actually see me. Let it flow, I tell myself. Let this expression of purifying Love wash over my cheeks, my beard, my chin.
No, not the Paradise mentioned in our religious books about an Adam and Eve in a Garden of Eden. My Paradise was within, existing immediately before I had eaten from the fruit of the Knowledge Tree, the source of later intelligence, the later development of the mind and its control of my life.
A day-long Retreat at a Buddhist Center in Philadelphia has taken its toll on me. And I mean that in the best of ways!
The “Thirty-Seven Bodhisattva Practices” text was “prepared and distributed” at the request of “His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche” after one of his “disciples” provided me with the small 2-by 4-1/2-inch booklet containing two or three “Practices“ per page. The booklet said its distribution was for “the benefit of all sentient beings.”
Continue reading36
In brief, whatever conduct one engages in, one should ask, “What is the state of my mind?” Accomplishing others’ purpose through constantly maintaining mindfulness and awareness is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
I’ve been trying to think of a name to describe myself along this new path I walk — often stumbling — but getting back up like that old Fred Astaire song which says to “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again . . .“ I figure everybody should have a response when asked what religion they follow, rather than fumbling for an answer.
35
When disturbing emotions are habituated, it is difficult to overcome them with antidotes. By arming oneself with the antidotal weapon of mindfulness, to destroy disturbing emotions such as desire the moment they first arise is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
34
Because harsh words disturb others’ minds and cause the Bodhisattva’s conduct to deteriorate, abandoning harsh speech which is unpleasant to others is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
I slept in today. It was the third day in a row that my son was off school because of the great snowstorm of the Winter of 2010. How many of us can recall a time in our lives that school closed for three straight days due to snow?
31
If, having merely the appearance of a practitioner, one does not investigate one’s own mistakes, it is possible to act contrary to the Dharma. Therefore, constantly examining one’s own errors and abandoning them is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
A vehicle knocked a utility pole to the ground Tuesday morning, causing an accident that pulled down “live wires” and tied up the north side of Conshohocken, PA, the entire day.
30
If one lacks wisdom, it is impossible to atttain enlightenment through the other five perfections. Thus, cultivating skillful means that do not discriminate among the three spheres is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
29
Having understood that disturbing emotions are destroyed by insight possessed with tranquil abiding, to cultivate meditative concentration which perfectly transcends the four formless absorptions is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
26
If, lacking ethical conduct, one fails to achieve one’s own purpose, the wish to accomplish others’ purpose is laughable. Therefore, guarding ethics devoid of aspirations for worldly existence is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
The 11-year-old boy misses the shot on the basketball court, and the coach takes him out of the game, benching him in full view of family and friends who came to watch the group of youngsters play Thursday.
I’m hooked on steroids. And no matter what I do, my doctor won’t let me get off of them.
I gotta stop pestering all these Indian women I meet.
I find myself wondering if they are, indeed, from India. And determining that, I try to think of some way to ask about their religion. Without seeming to pry.
22
Appearances are one’s own mind. From the beginning, mind’s nature is free from the extremes of elaboration. Knowing this, not to engage the mind in subject-object duality is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
Just a little. A small section at the top of my eye. Through the peripheral vision of my left eye.
There’s nothing quite as common as a cracker, one of those Saltines, that is . . .
Three animal totems appeared to me in the past few days, and I am putting the world on notice, that I plan to pay attention to what messages might be coming my way.
13
Even if others try to cut off one’s head when one is utterly blameless, taking upon oneself all their negative deeds by the power of compassion is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
You can recapture your youth by simply recalling a time in your life when you were most athletically gifted and soared like an eagle in whatever endeavor you excelled at years earlier. Continue reading
11
All suffering without exception comes from wishing for one’s own happiness. The perfect Buddhas arise from the altruistic mind. Therefore, completely exchanging one’s own happiness for the suffering of others is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
Stop! Don’t tell me anymore. Don’t want to hear it.
Keep the news to yourself. It hurts me, it’s always bad.
Driving while stuck in a traffic jam ordinarily would not be the best place to practice mindfulness meditation. I found out today while rushing to a doctor’s appointment, it was the “only” way to travel.
Driving while stuck in a traffic jam ordinarily would not be the best place to practice mindfulness meditation. I found out today while rushing to a doctor’s appointment, it was the “only” way to travel.
Ever have one of those “yucky” moments? Like, when you put your hand in a box, feeling around for some specific item only to come upon something gooey, wet and, of course “yucky.”
I felt the governor had called in a reprieve at the 11th hour, minutes before my scheduled “execution” was to take place Monday.
5
When evil companions are associated with, the three poisons increase, the activities of listening, pondering and meditation decline, and love and compassion are extinguished. Abandoning evil companions is the Bodhisattvas’ practice.
Psychedelic green bursts of light pulse across my eye. It’s like a strobe light flashing over and over, as I “see” a colorful cascade of a lime green pigment appear before me as if it’s penetrating the eyeball itself.
You did it again, Michael.
I’ve been shooting the bull the past several weeks with JhanaJian, of whom I thought was this “Asian guy” from Vietnam.
Turns out I was wrong. Dead wrong about everything I thought I knew about JhanaJian.
A spectacular combination of yellow and purple graced my eyes as I traveled yesterday to America’s first home, the City of Brotherly Love, in Philadelphia. There, on a counter with cups and a large “coffee” pot with hot water for my tea-toddling friend, were a bunch of flowers that greeted everyone and spiced up a small corner of the room at the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia.
They were the only flowers anywhere in what was a fresh, near spotlessly clean art studio converted each week for spiritual services.
Boy, did they cheer me up. I was thinking about stopping and getting some myself, remembering the joy I felt the previous week, gifting the Buddhist Center with my small offering. The flowers were nicely arranged on what I later found out was what they call an altar, just like most churches and some temples.
“They look good,” I say to the artist, Susan Simmons, whose abode I just entered, and immediately noticed her flowers. “Yes,” she said with a big smile. “They held up nicely.”
“I cut them and added fresh water,” Susan said, touching one of the petals.
I saw care and compassion on her face. Or was that something emanating from inside of me? Or maybe both. In any case, I felt welcomed, I felt at home here.
“You want to place them?” she asked me, nodding her head in the direction of the altar where a few candles and a large picture of the Dalai Llama rested on what looked like a “mantle.”
“You don’t mind?” I asked, feeling something inside of me saying, “Go for it, Mike, go for it.” Not at all, she indicated. What happened next lifted me higher than I have felt in years and years.
Flowers offer a heartfelt homecoming
Want to feel good? Pick out five things each day to show your gratitude. Write ’em down. But, don’t try to fake it. You really gotta look for some thing in your life, some person, some reason that, deep down inside, you can say “makes me grateful.”
That’s a message I got from a fellow named Bill Stauffer who addressed a group of like-minded people who were seeking some spiritual insights this morning. Continue reading
Here I am, walking on the high wire. No net below. My big mouth got me up here, and here I’ll stay for 30 days.
Unless I fall. Or someone pushes me off.
“Emptiness” is another word I heard while trying to describe what I believe is a state of “being.” A “void” where all stimuli, all sensory perception and all “thought” is “extinguished” from within.
I looked Death in the Face and did not blink yesterday.
Contoveros 