WDNESDAY 12/30/09

I noticed that I am drawn over and over to Buddhism and I have started saving articles or partial articles that have moved me. I must be very careful here because it is so easy for me to fall in to the conversion mode and get all hysterical and then fall flatter than a pancake-my emotional makeup loves the high of conversion but my wholeness cannot live in a cramped tomb that is what most religions are.
The only "faith" that has lasted for me is Jungian psychology and Christianity stripped of the murdering and worship of suffering. Buddhism has attracted me which is pretty obvious having spent so much of my life in Berkeley but I have been put off by the middle-classness of the folks I encountered there just as I was put off by the beougious consciousness in the monestaries-in the US the one thing that will hold one back is class. I had to sacrifice everything, almost, in order to touch down and own my lower class reality. I had to be able to say Yes!! I was negelected and we were trashy and my father could be violent although he never beat us still he was scary and Mama could be very comforting but she was lost ot us in some mysterious way. And I didn't know how to do this other than to "take it on" become that woman I feared the one that my old friend uses to torment and hurt me-the trailer trash, the one who never comlpeted high school (but don't mention the college work with honors), the one whose daughter finished high school but who ended up doing so much meth that her brain was impacted or at least her development was impacted. I had to express this physically becuase I din't know how else to do it, to own this "grounded"self this physical being who will die and who will lose everything that she cherishes.
Well this is how I cam across the "FIVE REMEMBRANCES CHANT"

12/9/09Speaking of reflecting, here is the “Five Remembrances” chant:
“I will lose my youth, my health, my loved ones, everything I hold dear and, finally, life itself by the very nature of being human.”

I WILL LOSE:
1) MY YOUTH
2) MY HEALTH
3) MY LOVED ONES
4) EVERYTHING I HOLD DEAR
5)LIFE ITSELF
I WILL LOSE EVERYTHING SIMPLY BY NATURE OF BEING HUMAN

when I came across this my heart stopped and tears welled up as they say: this was exactly the source of my meloncholy-I have already lost so much of what I hold dear, so much and this chant reminds me that I will lose even more even life itself. I know this and now at almost 63 I accept this as true.
I have acquired Pema Chodin's "Start Where You Are" on being on the path of compassion. I love that she was student of Trumpka Rinpoche who wrote "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" which I read in my 20's and which got through my crazy mind and really moved me and started me on this path. I was horriied by the stories of his alcoholism and the sexism even as I was preparing to descend into my own alcoholism and spend years with Roland and simply wasting an entire decade really-hmmm!!?? I am no longer shocked by the wise man's alchoholism although I still miss him and wonder who he will come back as (oh!! little dreamer!!)-I guess that the "baby" has already been born and that the corrupt Bhuddist leaders in tibet would have already gone out searching for her/him if out old traditional world could continue on but als here we are at the beginning of a new age and the old ways are just memories and books now.