collage: garden
Friday night, I went to a talk on Secular Buddhism by Stephen and Martine Bachelor. It was interesting, although hard to concentrate in the heat, after a long day at work. The highlight was a walking meditation around Musgrave Park, like a bunch of zombies.
Is atheism the new black? Suddenly it seems to be everywhere...
Yesterday was the second anniversary of my father's death. It was a sad and reflective day. Really, anniversaries are a gift, an opportunity to reflect and connect with feelings. I liked my sister's comment in her blog, about other people's need to use the euphemism 'passed away' - which is probably even more prevalent here in Australia - instead of mentioning the words death or dying.
collage: letting go
I love the image of the girl letting something go, she has such a great expression. I made this collage just after dad died. Ironically, I find this a joyful image.
The weekend was also the first anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March last year. I read something in the weekend magazine about a father who lost his wife, and who did not know how to talk about the loss with his sons. He waited two months to even tell them she died. This was really really sad.
We all run from pain. But if you are a Buddhist, you know life is suffering. So why run? Or should the question be, run where? From life?
Two good things - I got credit for one of my courses this semester. And I am doing project 365 on my I-Phone, a photo each day of something I am grateful for.
Tried to explain to someone today, why I write this blog. Hard to articulate. Perhaps I should have said, read it, its self-explanatory. I hope it is.
more later.
2 comments:
I particularly appreciated these thoughts. I have had some interesting thoughts over the past year or so in relation to the idea of life as suffering and in particular, how this fits (or in my case, doesn't fit) with the conceptualized self or the story about oneself they talk about. The story I had, included me working through my stuff and emerging into an essentially pain free life in which things were within my control (in hindsight, not sure how I managed to convince myself of that for so long!). In the moment when I realised that isn't how it works, and that actually life would continue to be painful and the way through that was to let go of the story as much as possible and actually be able to be present while that pain was around, I actually think my entire sense of myself and the world was quite deeply shaken. Not sure I have entirely made sense of it all yet - but I appreciate your perspectives here :)
Hi Antria
Thanks for your thoughts, you put that very well, and yes I agree, I used to think the same thing, and its probably the way most of us like to think, that one day all the pain will be gone...its the dominant story you could say...its like the myth that buying things will make us happy. The other side of it is that it (life) is not all about pain, but you don't get the good stuff without the bad...I think control is am important concept here too, because we like to hold onto the illusion of being in control, but this is harder as we get older and experience more random events, people getting sick and dying, and other tragedies...
best wishes
Claire
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