Driving the Tao

The plan for the day was to take my aging parents up to a “butterfly Sanctuary”.
It was my fathers idea. This Sanctuary where thousands of of Butterflies visit, was located near a State Game land Preserve here in Pennsylvania. Take in the Nature and snap some pictures 45 minutes from where i picked my parents up in my car.
As usual ,we never got the directions to destination correct, even though we were pretty familiar with the Roads. We never could find the place… and potential argument was brewing between me and my father. It just seem so important, to my father, to get to  this destination, …fumbling through directions…Just to get to a now lost end point.

I began to get impatient with our ,seemingly desperate, attempt to this Butterfly field, as i noted the irony that we were driving through the hills with tall thick trees and forest. So i deliberately turned the car down a road to get lost. I told my parents we just arent going to get there, so enjoy the nature that is around us.

the Tension in the car broke as we drove through the hills, my mother Watched the Hawks hunt from her car window. the smell of the Pennsylvania Pines came through the car vents.

We drove up near a pond, and i spontaneously decided to stop the car and take some pictures as well as stretch our legs.

When we met the pond we saw butterflies everywhere. We did not come here to find them. and the butterflies did not come here to meet us. They were just being Butterflies.
The pond was just a pond. We were just being spontaneous.

Nature is all around us. By simple  random luck of spontaneity, we found   what we thought we were searching for that afternoon…. After giving up on seeking out so desperately. Its the Nature of Nature.

I have learned over the years, that If I search to hard for something I think is so grand elsewhere, I miss the magic of  what all around my senses. I still live by my spontaneity. It feed my sense of wonder.

learning to relax

if there is anything i have learned better: its how to relax and become patient with my emotions.
I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder 7 years ago. The anniversary of my first (of two) hospitalizations is coming up soon.*..

Long ago, if i was anxious or irritated my mind or body would race.  I would become more and more stressed. getting irrational, then feeling guity about it.
Today its a matter of catching myself. realizing  that i am feeling stressed, irritated, or that i am racing. I’ve learned to trust that i can slow things down, with breathing. … being patient with my emotions and not fighting them….
…..
I while back I was suffering from panic attacks. I tried my best to prevent them.
It was the preventing them… that was making them worse.
What i was really doing was becoming afraid of panic attacks.
In fact i did this with a lot of my emotions…
Anger, Sadness, Mournfulness, Apprehension…
I pushed them down. I guess I perceived them as “negative emotions”
I was fearful of my own emotions. and if they slipped out i felt guilty.
how irrational i was in fighting my own body, my own emotive expressions.
its not still not easy to cry or to allow myself to be annoyed sometimes….
but it has gotten better, I do not fight it as much.
* (this is an old post from around April that i must have never published–This is published now with my Companion Blog:  blogs.healthcare.com/zenpen/ .

laughing zen

laughing Buddha

Your in a crowded room. Many people you don’t know. maybe a board meeting. maybe an auditorium. People are chattering between them. Maybe their is a little anxiety.
Different types of people, different type of clothing. You check your own clothing to make sure you look good. Maybe your a bit nervous about being around new people. Check your watch…Think about what you must do after this event is over.

Just then something funny happens. Maybe its a speaker in the room… maybe he has just told a hilarious joke. Who knows! but the whole room is laughing, now. other people are telling funny jokes to people they may not know.

Everybody in the room is lost in contagious laughter and nobody seems to care about the time, who is in the room with. Social anxiety are left behind, worries… Just for a couple minutes. everyone seems bound to together on the same thread.
*
This is called a momentary zen.
A spontaneous period where are personal anxieties subside. we are in tune with the oneness of the emotion… in this case laughter. Despite the energy of the laughter their is a peacefulness. Everyone seems bound together .
despite the the social devisions and worries we create in our minds, those momentary zens seem to take us over. as if it is deep within us.
the Laughing Buddha Image in this post is from www.nowgasm.org
******

Just for kicks I give you this youtube video, posted by:  TamburiiniMato

may the laughter be contagious

here and now

From our first person point of view, what is happening is always in the present time.
What we think and feel about the future; the past; or somewhere else is actually taken place in real time where we are.

I am not saying that nothing is happening elsewhere other than where i am.

Its the here/now lenses that i perceive the future; past; and far away that is happening in the here and now.

Our thinking mind allows us to reevaluate the past; anticipate the future ;make rational judgments on whats happening elsewhere.

This all fine and healthy. along as we realize that all are feelings are of the moment towards the formulated thoughts in our heads of the past, future and elsewhere.
If we forget this realization we can fill are lives with unnecessary, guilt, inhibition, angst and arrogance.

Zen meditation brings me to real time sensing. Simplifying. I can allow my self to let go of the unnecessary baggage and clutter of my cognitions. I learn through living, by experience . with full body in the here and now.

The Past, darkly… guilt and meditation

Six inches of snow and i am walking home from work at 2 am. At 18 years old, and a big athlete at my school, i do not mind walking the streets. I’m tired though, its been along week, and on this weekend night its snowing. I’m walking…

“excuse me! Can you please help me get my car out of the parking space! I have to get to work!”  its a girl i knew who graduated last year. A quiet shy girl. Strangely its is as if she doesn’t  remember me.
I say, “sure i’ll try to push your car out of the parking space“. So for 15 minutes we try to get her damn compact out of the snow and ice. no good.
Finally i say, “well i cant get enough traction in my feet to push on the car… do you live nearby? can someone come and help?” “its nearly 2:30 and i need to go.”

“NO! you don’t understand!!! PLease…I CAN’T Go Back In the House!! NO! IF I WAKE THEM UP…OH..  GOD,IF.. I got To GET TO Work… I CAN’T  Go Back in my House Tonight… CANT please Just Try aGain?”

her  face, her body is trembling…terror (i remember her better now. This girl was in a charity committee in school last year)

I try for two hours with  all my strength. “Shit ! can squat 1000 lbs in the weight room but i Can’t get this car to budge!!! no one anywhere to help.“…Two hours and i couldn’t get this car out of that icy parking spot.

“I can’t do it.. I don’t know what else to do“.  as i leave to head for home, she heads back to her house. Her expression was blank.
~
I was eighteen then. These things were very difficult. I was a big strong kid and often people wanted my help. I always wanted to to do the right thing. The right thing doesn’t always come.
Its tough for a young man,who is still a boy to understand that he cant fix everything in life. Bad things happen. And I can’t control every thing. I cant save the world.

But the powerful feelings of guilt and fear  remained with me… buried away.
This incident came up during meditation, recently. and i have a tough time letting go sometimes.
So I write and meditate, to allow these feelings from a past event out. then let go of them.

Happy Two thirty two, to the red, white and Blue.

“All would live long, but none would be old.”-Ben Franklin. Happy  Birthday America!
Fire crackers are bursting in all directions in my neighborhood.

Frying pans and Footsteps, Fear and common sense

Touch Hot Frying pan on  of stove and the hand pulls away. immediately.
A  reflex hard wired in us to protect us.
Touch a hot pan. Feel the heat. Yank the hand away. Feel the heart pound. Mind is now alert. Some fearful thought about touching the pan away.

But then common sense prevails.
With stored  empirical experience and some reasoning… we realize  that its just a hot pan. It just our Defenses. We can grab an oven mitt and get to our food that has been cooking. It took a little time to get to this point.
Fear is a faster and stronger feeling then anything else in us it seems.

( Bob Dylan’s song: Let me Die in my Foot steps. The analogy is that the Cold war Nuclear scare was so frightening, people spent more time digging fall out shelters (as if they were graves), then living.)

Its easy to see how fear can paralyze us. Keep us away from real happiness, just because our make-up says to defend ourselves at all costs.
Its our common sense and wits that we can recognize fear for what is. A mechanism. not the path of happiness.

Sluething

If I already Knew…
I’d Be missing out
on the Adventure of Learning
The stimulation of mystery

The discovering of what
The tempestuous How
humbling error
Invigorating ‘aha‘

And when I see you
you’re always changing
the world is evolving
And I’m always engaging
The adventure of learning
while never fully Knowing.

rain dance thoughts

Rain dance outside. It was hailing, driving winds and rains, thunderclaps. The power to the house is flickering inside. The Roaring wind and pounding of hail replace the sounds of the neighborhood kids who usually outside around this time. The TV and computer are off, no New feeds or nightly news. Good time to meditate.
I love the smell of a thunderstorm. And despite the chaotic atmosphere outside my window. my body/mind feels very tranquil and my sense are alert.
It s been so damn hot the last couple days. between 90 and a hundred degrees I’ve been blaming the weather for making me uncomfortable at work. I should give the weather credit for its rainy gift.

Thought-memory of an old failed high school romance flows into meditation. A laugh… a feeling of sadness. and i let it go….and its gone.
raindrops.

Charting my moods (bipolar)

A Mood Chart is a simple tool that people diagnosed with Bipolar disorder (like me) use from time to time. its basically a daily or bi-daily chart of symptoms and affect mood. With the K.I.S.S (keep - it- simple-stupid) attitude in mind, a mood chart can be made to meet any personal symptoms and then taken to to a doctor and therapist.

Why keep a mood chart?
Mood charts can give a consumer and his/her professionals a better idea of the cycling, symptoms and possible triggers of symptoms over a long period of time. Thus a mood chart is a tool for personal awareness and an aid for a doctor who is prescribing treatment.

In the last couple years my bipolar symptoms have been sporadic and relatively mild. I credit this towards my good attitude, good management, and to good luck. (you cannot under estimate luck, and the attitude to take advantage of it).

So this morning, while i sit home with the flu, on my vacation (so much for luck ;P )…
I thought I’d finish a down loadable mood chart.

click on the thumb nail and you will see an example of how one is filled out.
you can simply create you own. managers of disorders : Depression, Bipolar disorder, Borderline Personality disorder often use these.
you can also download my pre made PDF. visiting the “charts” tab above or click here for charts.

the chart is free, but please feel free to donate any kleenex and cough drops to Pennsylvania Echoes, im going back to bed.