I Think Therefore I Don’t Get It

Tags

Basquiat, dysfunctional family, military family

Dear Maggie,

I remember the chaos on Wabash –

Kally threw Clackers at the door mirror. I remember the glass that fell left a shape that resembled the United States.

When playing “Rescue 8” we tied sheets to our bunk bed and hung them out the window. Dave climbed down the ivy covered wall like a monkey.  As soon as I let go of the sill and grabbed the sheets, there was a big wooooshhh as I crashed through the ivy and landed flat on my back. The air was thrust out of my lungs and for about 20 seconds I could neither inhale nor exhale.

I remember somebody throwing a handful of silverware at someone as they raced out the front of the house.

Dave nailed me with a hard green apple, right in the face from about twenty feet away.

Jeb whipped me with a jump rope in front of the others because I had swung on the plumbing pipes in the basement.

I remember standing in a rubber boot full of my blood as I tried to reach mom on the phone after gashing my knee. The snow storm had caused a mess. I finally got a ride to the hospital in a cop car. 36 stitches.

I remember the most popular girl at school got hit by a car and died. It’s one of the three funerals I have attended; Jane’s Mom Rosie, and one of my students who also died in a car crash.

Mike pretty much beat the shit out of me on a rather regular basis. I cried a lot.

I remember hearing “Goddamnit Barbara!!” a lot.

I remember Jeb giving all three boys a military style lesson in wiping our ass. He was sick and tired of the soiled tighty whities. Two sheets to wipe, Two damp sheets to wash, Two sheets to dry. Don’t you just love the precision?

Ahhhh, those were the days….

J

Gratitude . . . Tashi Delek! Tibetan New Year 2142 Female Wood Sheep Year

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Female Wood Sheep Year, Gelong Dorje, Kechara, Losar, Shar Gaden, Tibetan New Year, Vajrayogini

Lobsang Nyingje’s Gift from Shar Gaden Monastery . . . Tashi Delek!

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Bloomington monastery, Cincinnati monastery, Dagom Gaden Tensung Ling, Gaden Samdrup Ling, Lobsang Nyingje, Losar, Shar Gaden, Southern India, Tibetan Buddhist monastery, Trijang Buddhist Institute, Trijang Chocktrul Rinpoche

Tibetan Apartheid?! (A-Part-Hate)

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Apartheid, China, Dharma protector, Dorje Shugden, First Nation peoples, Manjushri, patriarchy, Rome protests, schism, Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Culture, U.S. Government, Vinaya, Wisdom Buddha

I don’t speak Tibetan, but many do. That is secondary to what is being shown here: activists protesting H.H. the Dalai Lama’s ban on the practice of revering the Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugden . . . an aspect of the Wisdom Buddha Manjushri. To ban a set of qualities of ideal personality, embodied visually in Dorje Shugden, is like banning SMILING.

This terrible schism in the Tibetan community has brought about violence of Tibetan against Tibetan . . . the ultimate strategy of Apartheid: divide and conquer.

And who stands to benefit from the conquered hence disappeared Tibetan culture? Could it be those who swept the land from the Tibetans, and now want to dispense/divide/conquer/control the remaining artifacts, and elders of the culture? Sounds hauntingly familiar and analogous to the US Government’s entrapment of First Nation peoples on reservations while we plundered their land.

And, contemplating on a karmic level . . . I am considering why, in the first place, China so brutally conquered Tibet once and till now in 1959. The most patriarchal government in the world brutalizes, yes, a highly patriarchal Tibet. And as I’ve been taught, the consequences of a karmic action look like the cause. The more I live within the Dharma as a woman from the west, the more I understand the grave suffering this patriarchy is causing. Yes it is traditional. Yet every lama came from a woman and would not BE if it were not for a woman. Isn’t making wrong rules part of the Vinaya? Is a woman not of the human realm? Is it not wrong to divide humans into greater and lesser beings? Is it not wrong to fully ordain only men and not women?

O Tibet is Crying . . . may this cleanse us all and bring balance to Tibetan culture

Searching for the Tenor of the Day

Tags

Afghanistan, Druidcast Tarot, fire, Iraq War, Karma, Karmic Tarot, Religion Spirituality, root guru, Tarot card, Tibetan Buddhism, Vietnam War, William Lammey

I have consulted Karmic Tarot cards from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective for nearly 14 years now. While my Teachers stress that reading Tarot cards is not a part of traditional Tibetan Buddhism, I do have permission from my Root Guru to do this practice. My primary reference is William Lammey’s Karmic Tarot, a sound architectural system of correspondences that immediately remove the entire issue of reading Tarot cards out of the occult, and into the reason of a cause and effect universe.

I drew a card from my favorite deck, Druidcast Tarot, and came up with the 9 of Wands, as you can see. My question was simply, what is the tenor of the day.

On a microcosmic level, this would be a day of solitude, a day of much-needed withdrawal from the fray, to heal that left (female side) arm. She is broken. Wands represent the spiritual realm, so this wounded warrior leans heavily on his spirituality to steady him. His male side is supported by his adherence to his wand (spirituality). Has he just emerged from the still-raging battle in the distance? The other Wands of his spirituality safely protect him as he is still and alone. He is wounded. And he is Selfless. And he is enormously creative and strategic. The level of attainment is high.

On a macrocosmic level, say that this figure is the the US. We are wounded. Our feminine nurturing policies are broken or non-existent. We need rest and time to come up with more creative, more gender-balanced, and less destructive solutions. We are capable of this. The barbaric raging of battles in the distance does not require our participation, which would only add more fire (wands!) to the fray. You, the wounded warrior, are wounded and alone after selflessly attaining objectives for the good of all. May each and every Wounded Warrior have safety, comfort, love and solitude in which to heal inside and out.