Bucky Equilibrium

Updated this and this. Any feedback?

Energy Renewal

So I've been at the new job for a week now. My new title is Renewable Energy Program Coordinator. My plate is full but there are lots of great people around to help. Check out some of the new links over on the side. I hope everyone is doing well.

The Horror, the Horror, the Horror

Something that I have uncovered in my experience of this life is that pain and fear are one and the same. They are reactions to the unknown, felt at boundaries of experience that have never been crossed. Some of these reactions are inborn, some learned, but all may be overcome. Some passionately jump blindly into the unknown: others justify never crossing the boundary at all. As with all things in life, pains and fears should be respected, but never obeyed.

On the Road

Back to the drive. Just one last leg until I reach my destination, for now at least. My father warns of big snow: I should probably check that out. Getting packed has been an experience yet again. I'm just getting over a little new moon flu; it was nice to be sick, very cleansing. Well, enough jibber jabber. I'll try to keep in touch.

In Love Again

Two years ago I had what those of you in consensus reality might refer to as a religious experience. It was brought on by a self imposed abstinence from a number of personal habits, long hours of introspective manual labour, and a strong desire to understand the beliefs of someone I felt very passionately towards. It was an epiphany of love turned inwards and ironically towards everyone and everything.

I spent a whole year trying to understand this moment of clarity. I built this understanding on the foundation of my understanding of christianity, a belief system I had disregarded for an agnostic stance early in my childhood. I refined this understanding through comparative religious, philosophical, and poetic studies. The more I read the further I got from the actual experience that started the whole journey in the first place.

I began searching for the key to how I felt shortly after the experience. I wanted back what I had briefly glimpsed and lost. I knew this was the only goal of any true value. I tried abstinence, I changed eating habits, I exercised, I hid from the world. I searched everywhere outside of myself. I knew deep down that it was love that set me free but I had no idea how. I had lost faith when I lost the woman I loved. I didn't know how to get back there by myself.

I eventually became interested in meditation as I had had good experiences with prayer after the experience. Not prayer to a god off somewhere in the distance but prayer to that part of myself that was beyond my comprehension and connected to the universe in a way I can only begin to understand. I remembered a connection with myself that I hoped I could make again. It was then that I came across Vipassana on the internet and signed up for a ten day course the next day. I had never met anyone who had taken a course but I knew that it was what I was meant to do.

My first course, which began exactly one year after my first moment of clarity, gave me another glimpse. It allowed me to experience much of what I had been reading about over the previous year and solidified my understanding by extending its foundation beyond my intellect. It gave me a technique to use to continue to deepen my understanding. It changed my life not by indoctrinating me with a particular belief system but by giving me an environment and a method to experience myself.

As with my first experience, as time passed my focus was on an intellectual understanding of the experience and the connection I had made with myself weakened. I spent another year continuing to struggle with myself but I had broken free and was on the path to find out. I understood my experiences enough that I knew my answers were not intellectual ones anymore.

I tried to meditate and I tried to maintain awareness forgetting that these are not things you force yourself to do but things you allow yourself to do. Letting go is not accomplished by willing but by unwilling. Over the year I was reminded of this over and over and over again. I learned lesson after lesson. I faced many pains from the past. I got sucked into many old black holes of despair. Each time I clawed myself out I was a little bit stronger.

The last one was the original one; self respect. I picked myself up, brushed myself off, and decided to go back for another ten day course. My goal this time was not to understand but to reconnect. This last time through, one year after the first course and two years after the original experience, was hard. I hit a wall that I knew I needed to walk through but that would require a toll. I crumbled and begged like a child; I acknowledged the past; I promised to always treat myself with the respect I know that I deserve. I loved myself again. This wasn't a verbal dialog, this was communication at a purer level. This was genuine unconditional love.

From that point on I have been connected again. The release I experienced and continue to experience from this connection is unexplainable. I meditate two hours a day and that connection continues to grow stronger. I remain aware of the connection as continuously as possible. We're working things out. I'm working things out. Things are working themselves out.

I'm in love again.

Can you tell which eggs came from happy chickens? 

Middle Child

How can you empathize with another if you desire them to feel the way you think they should? How can you understand another if you desire them to think the way you feel they should? How can you promote sympathy by getting angry at discord? How can you develop a connection by insisting disconnect is unreasonable? Focus on what is missing on your side of the equation. Open your heart: open your mind. Take a step towards the middle.

Perpetual Ending

Back in Montreal. This will be the last week of my perpetual vacation. Although I have worked quite a bit I have not had a formal full time job in almost three years. This should be interesting. I plan to visit with friends and family, take care of some business, and get my things together for the move to NB. Just what I can fit in the car. Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Between the Eyes

Wow. I just opened up a file I use on my computer to compose blog entries while offline and found a strange little entry that never made it out onto the internets. A reminder of a fragmented frame of mind that is not so far behind me.

I don’t always share the intimate details of the extreme highs and lows of my life on this site. Instead, I try and capture the thoughts and/or feelings from a moment of epiphany; I try to distill my experience down to an atomic tidbit of learning; I try to inoculate my readers with the antidote to what plagues me; I try, I try, I try.

There are periods of time where I don't share anything as I have yet to learn anything worth sharing. Perhaps there is more gold in the process of finding answers than in the answers themselves; I don’t know the answers I only have the means to find them; I can't find the answers I can only find my answers; My strength is not in my answers but in the will to continue amidst unanswered questions.

I've been processing quite a lot of stuff over the past few weeks. I can't explain what I mean by that but your interpretation of processing most likely doesn't come close to it. I started to try to explain my experience of beginning to experience life as it is, but I couldn't. I could describe joy and pain, fear and desire, words and images, or blockage and release. I could say nerves, energy, breath, oxygen, balance, mind, body, or consciousness. I could talk about patterns, change, non-intellectual learning, surrender, flow, recursion, metaphor. How do you describe something beyond description?

I can't give you what you already have: I can only ask you to look. Stop running away from yourself. Stop medicating your predicament. Stop reacting. Stop justifying. Stop pitying. Let go of certainty, pride, and prejudice. Trust and respect. Focus and pay attention. Stop learning the same thing over and over and over again. Take off your blinders and look life in the eyes, through the eyes, and between the eyes.

Left the Coast

The first leg of the road trip is complete. I made it from Vancouver, BC to Barrie, ON in five days; not so bad if I do say so myself; and averaging 100 kph. I only slept in the car one night. The drive was fantastic; mind and body riding the crest of a little red honda wave hand in hand. I experienced a wonderful cleansing journey. I might give the play by play later but for now: Beach Ave. goodbye, pothead hitchhiker, Frazier valley beauty, Arizona in BC, Rockies bathed in moonlight, Cranmore info center nap, Calgary in the wee hours, Tim hortons nap til sunrise, sun drenched plains, A&W nap til mid afternoon, Thai in Regina, Hostel to myself, clean and meditated and ready to go early, that's it I'm not going back to Winnipeg, deep cold, halo around the moon, frozen waterfalls at midnight, Thunder Bay hostel at 2am, oatmeal at the truck-stop, the town of Marathon on the coast of the largest great lake: "It's superior in the long run", Finally some blizzard, Trout in the Sault, a hotel out of time, highway 69 baby, cottage country from the other side, almost out of gas, Mommy!!!!!!! That about sums it up.

Orbiting with the Moon

I'm leaving Vancouver today. This will be my third continental crossing, my first heading east. I may not get a chance to write while I'm on the road but I'll see what I can do.

Lost and Found

Where are you? Are you lost in thought? Are you adrift in emotion? Are you inside someone's head? Are you burried in a book? Are you marooned in your habits? Are you secluded in the past? Are you swimming in the future? Perhaps you should pause for a moment to check the lost and found.

How it is

I came across this little description of a subset of the English language which eliminates the verb "to be" called E-Prime. Reading it brought to the surface many fragmented thoughts from the past.

I have often found the human inability to distinguish between opinion and truth fascinating. This interest has made me very sensitive to how people express themselves. Certainty frequently turns my stomach and I often find myself challenging people in an attempt to put a crack in their rock solid mindset.

The worst case of indigestion usually arises after a meal of unsolicited advice. It takes me back to my youth where I endured an individual who felt it necessary to impose her limited understanding of the world as if it were absolute truth. Opinions are open for discussion but facts are irrefutable.

So I'm working on not letting such narrowmindedness get to me through realizing that I am built up of similar dogmatic certainties. I see it as learning to tolerate intolerance; including my own.

So the next time you have something to say try offering your opinion rather than forcing your belief and I'll try not to take it so seriously. Better yet: share the experience off of which your opinion is based. Lets try to remember that we only know how it seems: not how it is.

One and the Same

A while back I aluded to and then used the expression cooperate yourself. How do you remedy a situation where there is a lack of cooperation? Communication is key. Lots of listening: no reacting. Bring both parties to the table and allow them to see the relationship for what it is. Apologies may be required. Promises may be needed. Begging for forgiveness might be necessary. There could be a few tears shed and a little laughter too. Neither of you can do it alone; unless you realize that you are one and the same to begin with.

Yea Baby

I got the job and my baby niece is healthy and beautiful. I taught my first tutoring session yesterday; grade eleven math. I got a hair cut and feel a bit like a little boy. I'm sure it will grow on me :) I'm feeling a lot of things right now but am very much at peace with it all. Maintaining my practice and remaining undistracted. Life is good.

Zen Parable

A man walking across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger chasing after him. Coming to a cliff, he caught hold of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Terrified, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger had come, waiting to eat him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little began to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine in one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

Dhamma Good

I'm back. Got back to the city on Sunday afternoon. The Vipassana experience was fantastic. I realized that my previous experience with the meditation technique was very much an intellectually dominated one. During the ten days I faced myself in a way I never have, I let go in a way that I can't even begin to explain, I experienced knowledge from an entirely new perspective. This experience has given me a healthy detachment from suffering that is allowing a holistic personal healing process to proceed at unprecedented rates. If I weren't so balanced I'd be ecstatic!

My newfound connectedness was quickly tested. Upon my return two phone messages awaited me; one with the promise of a very exciting job in New Brunswick and the other with the news that my maternal grandmother had passed away. My grandmother had been through a significant decline in mental and physical health and this news was not quite as jarring as it might seem, perhaps positive closure even. I had a phone interview for the job today and I think it went well.

All in all I have to say that this is a significant moment in my life. I feel a clairity that I have seen only but glimpses of over the past many years, my sister is in the process of giving birth, and it is the new moon of a new rooster year. Seems to be some sort of convergence happening. If you have a moment try and see if you can feel it too.

Starting Something?

Still in Van. Still working on finding an income of some sort. I'm heading to the local Vipassana centre for a ten day sitting starting on Wednesday. It has been a year since my first and last course so it would seem that I am due. I'm looking forward to the experience. I feel good, like I'm starting to embrace rather than resist uncertainty. For now at least. I have an interview on Tuesday, nothing too serious but it's a start. This coming full moon is feeling better than the last few.

Sure Thing

Are you certain? You talk like you are. You act like you are. You think like you are. You know what you want, you know what's best, you know how it is. You always have the answer. Listen to yourself. Watch yourself. Experience your thoughts. Maybe, just maybe, there is more to it than you know.

Daily Zen

"Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation"....Tibetan Saying.