I’ve been on a small roll lately.  Our computer has been weird and stupid – which seems to be an annual thing for us – and we’ve been hit with a computer virus.  Also, the kids are back home again after a two-week visit with their biological dad.  Combine these with the habit of blogging most every day for a bit and you get ample opportunity to practice meditation and generating bodhichitta through patience and enthusiastic perserverence.

Tonight, Dear Husband and I will be throwing a party with our friends and some family.  So soon I’ll be finding myself immersed in shopping lists and to-do lists and honey-do lists for the man…….but I wanted to take this time to reflect a tad bit on how this year has gone.

I’ve seen some of my romances flourish and falter; my health decline and bounce back; our finances stumble, grow, and then dip again from the medical bills; our garden in the back yard bloom and then wither; Dear Husband’s facial hair grow back; and finally a Dharma group that I’ve been involved in establish itself with a steady group of regular meditators and practitioners.

Much has been said about impermanence, and 2008 has been no different.  It has provided this simple Whore with dozens of curveballs to practice, practice, and practice the Dharma.  I have nothing but enormous gratitude for these many opportunities for me to train the mind – constantly.

And therefore I look forward to 2009 to offer even more lands to explore and more challenges to meet.  More senses to delight in and more g-spots to tickle.  And whatever merit that has been created from the hopefully ever-increasing bodhichitta, I offer it to the great enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.  I therefore dedicate every ounce of my good merit to all of you in the universe.  May you be blessed with great fortune and happiness.

Happy New Year.  *kiss kiss*

For a good time, read “Passionate Enlightenment” by Miranda Shaw.

No, seriously.  I know it sounds a little like something you’d read on the inside of a stall at a public restroom, but after reading it a few times, I still find myself walking away feeling that much more compassionate and empowered.  Shaw not only outlines the Tantric approach to Buddhism, but she does so from historical female scholarship.  I’m not the only person in the world who has noticed that waaaayyyyy too much religious doctrine had been penned by men, and therefore have varying degrees of testosterone filters installed.  “Passionate Enlightenment” offers something quite unique – a gynocentric POV in Tantric Buddhism (what has been criticized as blatantly misogynistic by other scholars).  And to a loud Buddhist feminista like myself, this is music to my ears.

The flow of Shaw’s writings follows women in Tantric theory, to the women adepts in Tantric circles, to the women founders in Tantric history, and what is outlined in the Buddha-Tantras how to treat a woman (she adamently states that intimacy is a path to enlightenment, very Left-Hand Path here where renunciates might be taken aback at first glance).

An excerpt from the book that brilliantly describes the Spontaneous Jewellike Yogini:

Like the jewel that is her namesake, the illustrious yogini has many facets.  She is a visionary revealer of Tantric teachings received in deep meditatitive state.  She is a skilled rhetorician who dazzles her audience with a sensuous and exuberant vision of Tantric sexuality.  She is a homileticist who motivates her audience to religious discipline, exhorting them that worldly pleasures are impermanent and ultimately unsatisfying.  She is a subtle philosopher who spins and unravels the theoretical intricacies of her position…..

See?  How fucking awesome is that?

Anyway, the book is far more worth than the $15.00 or so that I paid for it.  It is exquisite, daring, and illustrious.  For this moment in time, it is my personal Tantric feminist Bible, and it calls me to courageously access the Bodhisattva to help others in my uniquely womanly way.

Happy reading!!

I’m consistently drawn to Buddhist Tantra not so much because of how “sex-friendly” it is with it’s thangkas of explicit yab-yum depictions and all, but also because of the esoteric poetry that fully acknowledges how masculine and feminine qualities complement each other.   It’s very easy for the dogmatic religions to outline these same facets publicly and without shame, however they also tend to be quite rigid when deciding which gender should do what.

And that’s a recipe for disaster as we’ve seen.  Hence, I think many of us are hesitant to discuss masculinity and feminity because there is apprehension that such a discussion will lead to defining gender roles.  Most of us don’t like being boxed in when we don’t fit.

Recently, I’ve familiarized myself once again with a book by Mark Epstein, M.D. called “Open to Desire.”  One passage has stood out to me concerning this very topic:

The copulating figures that adorn much of Tibetan art represent the interpenetration or intermingling of the male and female approaches.  In this tradition the active male desire, chastened by the gap that desire creates, becomes empathy or compassion:  the ability to reach into the experience of another and feel what they’re feeling.  The desire to possess or control becomes the ability to relate.  The beholding desire, represented by the female partner, is a metaphor for wisdom, as exemplified by the capacity to be.  This formulation has always impressed me because it reverses the conditioned way of thinking.  Compassion is male and wisdom is female.

What’s important to note here is that we truly HAVE been conditioned to think that men are naturally wise and women are naturally compassionate, based on our patriarchal gender role system where men have taken leadership positions in government and in religion, and women’s caretaking for children, the sick, and the elderly have been seen as the hallmarks of compassion.  In Tibetan Buddhist Tantra, these strengths are quite the opposite – the skillful means and potent strength of the probing nature of masculinity make it quite suited to be the path of compassion (“I understand what you feel”); and the reality of emptiness, the physiological make up of feminity, the unlimited potential (“there is no inherent difference between you and me”)………..such qualities make feminity very suitable as the path of wisdom. 

One could even say that the masculine must learn to understand others, but the feminine must learn from within. 

Give it some thought.

In case one wasn’t aware of what I routinely do at the end of each and every meditation session, puja, offering, mantra, or prayer….I dedicate all the merit acquired to the benefit of all sentient beings.  Such a practice is wonderful for continuing selflessness – and especially so since we tend to view giving with strings attached.  Ultimately, we should give freely without hoping to be paid back or even noticed.  Usually the dedication goes like this:

Due to the merits of the these virtuous actions,

May I quickly attain the state of a guru-buddha

And lead all sentient beings, without exception,

Into that enlightened state.

May the supreme jewel bodhichitta

That has not arisen, arise and grow;

And that which has arisen not diminish

But increase more and more.

___________________________________________

Ultimately, we should not even be patting ourselves on the back for being such a noble and kind person.  This isn’t about us, because the self does not inherently exist on it’s own side.  This is about remembering why we do what we do on the path to enlightenment.

It’s about dancing forever on the bridge between you and me, with my heart open to you.

For an amazing transformative experience…….I encourage anyone to download the Sanghata Sutra and to listen to it anytime, anywhere. 

See here:  http://www.sanghatasutra.net/index.html

Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

So today I turned 36.  I’m not ambivalent to announce my age, as it’s just being honest. 

However, I think it’s so important to meditate on how precious my human birth has been, how I’ve been so fortunate to have lived for this amount of time, how many humans have not lived this long, and how I’ve been so fortunate to have the mental and physical capacity to benefit others.  There are commentaries out there for how being born a human is like winning the ultimate cosmic lottery in Tibetan Buddhist cosmology, something along the lines that it is just as likely to be reborn a human as it is for a turtle to peek it’s head through a small ring in an entire ocean.  Personally, I think that analogy plays upon the delusional mind to think that we can forget about past karma……..I am reminded of how karma – good karma – ripens to allow us to benefit others. 

The gods in the heavenly realms are too indulged with perfect health and are given everything they have ever wished for.  The beings in the hell-realms are too frought with suffering and pain to have the peace of mind to benefit others.  Being born a HUMAN is what allows us to do good, to have opportunities in our minds to experience both sides of the spectrum of suffering and blissful happiness.   And to have a human rebirth where one has the clear opportunity to practice a moral and ethical life, and especially to have resources at one’s disposal to help others find happiness…….this is just so precious.

So, my feeling right now is such gratitude that I’m here, I’m alive, and I’m healthy enough to give - offer comforting words, reach my arms out to hug another, have money in my wallet to give to those in need, and a skill at stage performance to help others find their own personal aesthetic.  This is so, so, so precious.  This moment in time and in my spiritual walk.

Here’s to many more years of feeling this thankful and of maintaining an attitude of cherishing others and of service.

And it sucks donkey balls, too! 

But, we are done with it, and realize a few mistakes that we made in the cutting, the piecing, and realizing that the zipper in the pattern will simply not accomodate the kind of stuffing we are wishing to use.  Therefore, we’re now just planning on taking the zipper out entirely and planning on using Febreze on the little fucker whenever it starts to smell funny.

Overall the zafu-style cushion feels great.  It just looks a little odd.  The top cover pleats because I think we miscalculated the seam.  It’s a little lumpy, too.  But otherwise, c’est magnifique!!

And, we went through another bottle of wine while gossiping about sex, drugs, and rock and roll again.  Fun, fun, fun!!

Last night I had a blast with two of the women in our Dharma group.  Despite the fact that I volunteer as Spiritual Program Coordinator and stumbling over ways to generate a workable and totally awesome website, I like to put yet another thing on my already busy plate by volunteering in other ways.  This time, it’s making meditation cushions for the Dharma group.

Out of the three women, I was by far the youngest, but I also had the most experience in being a seamstress.  So it was no surprise that my counsel was sought quite a bit.  We had two sewing machines going later on in the evening, but that was after we gossiped, drank some cheap wine that tasted bad (but we didn’t care all that much, I finished my glass), and had some sweet peach dessert goodies.  We talked about sex, drugs, and rock and roll (if I remember correctly, both had seen Janis Joplin live before).  And I felt totally at home with them.  The place we hung out in was a “mother-in-law” suite in the basement of a house, and I swear it has to be the coolest one in the world.  It was a lush Buddhist shrine with a great kitchen and a six-burner gas stovetop, a beautiful and HUGE bathroom, French doors, and a walkout area to the outside where a small Zen garden sat around the corner under the shade.   Needless to say, I was ready to abandon my family and move in, but eventually I came to my senses and decided that the husband and the kids were good enough to let go of that delusion.  LOL

After laughing and hugging and talking and supporting each other all evening, we ALMOST got one cushion completed.  We never expected much out of the time, since we were essentially as a group cushion virgins, so we chalked this night up as training and just becoming accustomed to the patterns and the directions.  We’re thinking that maybe…..just maybe……we’ll be able to whip out a couple cushions a session by the time 2010 rolls around.

But in the meantime, we’re acknowledging that we’re breaking some Precepts with our gossip and our wine-enjoyment, and doing what we can to generate merit for the benefit of all sentient beings.  It was a great time, and I can’t wait to do this again.

Except eventually we actually want to finish a cushion.

I shake my head sometimes at well-meaning, but REALLY misguided folks who say those words:

“That’s soooo zen.”

And they usually say it in a sort of tripped-out catatonic way, too.  Talk about fluffy-bunnyism, these folks take the cake and use the word “zen” to categorize their acid trip.

I’ll see them, describing platitudes with birds, gentle flowing streams of water, pictures of lotus flowers, clouds passing silently by them…….”That’s soooo zen.” *said like a zombie that just smoked some weed*

Then they’ll watch children laugh and play together, two dogs sleeping next to each other, a cat that stretches, or windchimes on the front porch…….”That’s soooo zen.”  *stoned zombie again*

Then they’ll meditate in front of a wall, claim that they’ve found enlightenment while in solitude and away from civilization, catch a fly with chopsticks, and have a prophetic dream…….”That’s sooooo zen.” *there’s the zombie again*

At that point, I want to pick up a large stick, whack it on their sides, and yell at them:

“Wake up!!  Now THAT’S zen!”

Death as the great equalizer is something I agree with for this lifetime.  Overall, though, I have to hand the crown to the great Mother of all equalizers – Karma.  And boy, is she a bitch.

Being in a culture that values most often the motivations that result in a reward or a punishment, it’s difficult for us to simply say that karma is what it is.  You get out what you put into it, literally.  If I was stung by a bee, it’s because I stung someone else (that bee, thank you) in a previous life.  Obviously, the karmic cycle continues to repeat over and over again where you hurt me and I hurt you until one of us wakes up and says, “Damn, this is crazy!”  and ceases to cause pain to the other person.

Sounds easy, right?  If it was, we’d all be enlightened in this lifetime.  The problem is that we’re so addicted to our ego personas and from moment to moment decide what we’re entitled to and what the other person is not entitled to.  Instead of saying, “Damn, this is crazy!”, we most often say when we’re hurt, “I don’t deserve this!  You need to suffer the consequences of your actions!”

Right?

Some nice guy a couple thousand years ago once said that if you’re struck in the cheek, turn the other cheek and offer it to be struck, too.  I would go THAT far because that’s just an invitation for the other person to create more negative karma – which isn’t very skillful.  But Jesus was on to something…..he insists that we all have individual responsibility for our actions, and that we are definitely not entitled to cause another person to suffer simply because they were responsible for our current suffering.  Do unto others, you know?

That’s dharma, girlfriend.

Karma – the very principle of it – is easy to grasp.  If you do a,b, and c, you get a, b, and c in return.   But then you start looking into the victims of the holocaust, Darfur, children born with life-threatening diseases, and so on and so on and so on.  And then karma doesn’t look that easy to grasp – in fact, it looks like one hell of a cruel and heartless perspective.  We still, as a whole, cling to the notion that we don’t deserve suffering in certain forms unless we actually committed a crime in this lifetime.  It’s one of the reasons why many folks reject the doctrine of Original Sin and of eternal hell for having the ”wrong” belief concerning God and Jesus.

Victimization is still a popular notion in this day and age, and karma negates the idea of victimization completely.  It isn’t about what you deserve, babe, or what you’re entitled to.  You’re simply seeing the causes and conditions at the moment be sufficient for karmic seeds to ripen.   

Despite all of this – I can tell you that I’m still far from being enlightened.  When our house was burglarized almost two years ago, I was pissed off wondering how we can make sure that the perpetrators pay for what they did.  When I heard how my son was in a fight with two older and bigger boys because they were picking on him, I wanted the boys to get a “proper” punishment for beating up my son.  When I was a victim of rape so many years ago, I was too afraid to report the man that raped me – but when I’d read that he was arrested because another woman reported that she was raped by him, I hoped that his punishment would be severe enough that he would endure a significant amount of suffering.

In reality, what I need to remember, and what we all need to remember, is that karma ALWAYS finds a way to come around and bite us all in our individual and collective butts.  At the moment, though, I’m still coping.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when it comes to some well-meaning, but seriously fucked up, folks when contemplating the concept of desire from a Buddhist POV.  The problem with this strange way of approaching desire is that it can not only result in someone who swings the pendulum all the way to the one side of the pendulum into a desperate hedonism, but all the way to the other side of dysfunction into neurotic austerity.  Despite the fact that renunciation is part of the Six Perfections in Mahayana Buddhism, it isn’t renunciating desire.  Let’s explore this….

I personally like to bring up a metaphor of desire in a Buddhist sense that visualizes “desire” (in whatever form) as a butterfly.  Imagine yourself sitting in your lotus position, happily escaping all that’s around you for the moment and focusing entirely on the thoughts and feelings that pass through the mind, and all of a sudden this butterfly (i.e. your “desire”) interrupts your happy moment of isolation.  What to do?  What to do?  What to do?

Well, there are few ways you can approach the butterfly.  One way is to grab on to it, try to claim it as yours, and hold it as tightly as possible in your fist.  You may keep it, but alas, that poor butterfly is squished and dead and, to be perfectly honest, a mess in your hand.

Another way is to swat at it, curse it, run away from it, and do whatever you could to avoid it at all cost.  What good is that going to do except break your meditation and make you flail around like an idiot?  You’d probably also wind up not escaping the butterfly anyway……you ever seen how nimble they are?

The third way is the way I like to approach the butterfly/desire…..by letting it land on my open palm and enjoying it while it’s there, and giving it the freedom to fly away when it wants to.   Desire is something that all of us deal with, like pain, pleasure, suffering, joy – they’re all experiences within this human samsaric realm that does not need to be detested or grasped onto for dear life.  The attachment that causes the undue suffering comes from grasping onto the conditions or the result of the desire.  It would be like if my  happiness depended on the butterfly staying on my palm, or if the butterfly was a certain species and not another, or if the butterfly only came while I was thinking about the butterfly or when I wasn’t being bombarded by ants……the point is that desire comes and goes, just like everything else.

So, enjoy it, then let it go.  That’s all.

Welcome to my adventure.

Let’s take a moment, first, to understand why I chose to consider “Sacred Whore” an adventure. This practicing and stumbling Buddhist desires to share with you her journey into an undefined yoga uniting the mind and the G-spot. We talk about the ideal of the bodhisattva – but who the hell is this consort that always seems to straddle him anyway? It isn’t difficult to find thankgas of varying deities in Tibetan esoteric art in sexual union with a consort riding him like an equestrian gold medalist….

Is she a Sacred Whore?

Seriously, we have this consort, this partner, who is screwing a bodhisattva. She’s a part of the picture, too, so why all the fuss about merely and solely sitting in a full-lotus, counting the breaths, practicing vipassana meditation and contemplation of the concept of emptiness? Can’t we utilize this other half of the image, and make love as well on our way to enlightenment?

This is part of my goal for Sacred Whore…..to explore the imagery and symbolism in that Tantric consort. It’s one thing – and a very good thing at that – to contemplate our Buddha nature as an absolute. I’m wondering and pondering if there is value in contemplating our nature as the consort as well. In other words – I’m embarking on an adventure to discover not only my true nature as a Buddha, but my true nature as a Sacred Whore.

So, again, welcome to my adventure. May this be a blessing and a gift of great fortune upon all who share this journey with me.