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Doing t’ai chi we both realized the tension was gone from our necks and upper backs; a product of living in the Van and never knowing when someone would break in and of bowing through all that unpredictable emotion and latent explosiveness. We are more sensitive to the daily tension everyone here in Los Angeles lives with all the time. It’s easy to adapt and forget what real peace of mind and security feel like. Often vacations don’t even provide it anymore. "Getting away from it all" and yet never leaving it is what Buddhism is all about.
This weekend at Gold Wheel: "The great Bowing King" Arrogance that exceeds the bounds of empty space. Pulling off layers of self, attachments to greed, hate, and stupidity is not pretty. I also need a teacher because it’s so easy to get lazy, settle in, retreat and so hard to see your "self" and your true nature. A well deserved weekend of scolding, ridicule, and pressure. So fortunate to have such a teacher. But sometimes it all seems so impossible--to put down the self, to peel off the rotten stinking coverings. How? Hard work, patience, and for the arrogant stinking Emperor--bow bow!
Shih Fu constantly gives me slack and encouragement to act on my own and them bam! I hang myself on my own afflictions. Where was "I" going anyway? To fame in cultivation? (The great Bowing King.) To enlightenment of self? (I alone am honored.) My mother used to constantly tease me about "me, myself, and I." "I like me, I’m wild about myself. I like me, I like me, my picture is on the shelf." As a kid I was lax, lazy and slow. I used to say "Take me time."
Comments from Shih Fu at lunch at Gold Wheel:
"If you don’t do the Great Compassion Mantra sincerely from start to finish, then you shouldn’t eat. Otherwise you’ll starve in your next life."
"There’s no benefit in drawing near me, only suffering."