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Showing posts from 2016

Impermanence, Karma, And The Zen Of A Broken Heart

I broke up with my girlfriend this week.  Or maybe she broke up with me.  Honestly, I'm not sure what you call it when two people who say, "I love you" every day mutually decide that things aren't working out. I just know that I started this holiday season with a significant other, and I'm going to end it all alone.  What's confusing the hell out of me, however, is that she's a good person.  And I'm a good person ... I think. So what does it mean when two good people can't make a relationship work?  This is the question that I've been pondering the past few days as I power through the five stages of grief , and the word that keeps popping into my head is, "impermanence".  Buddha tells us that everything arises and everything passes away. In other words, impermanence is a permanent part of life (see what I did there).  Furthermore, it's our desire to keep things from changing that causes suffering. That makes sense whe

Finding Peace In The Midst Of Emotional Chaos

The grey winter skies dampen my mood as I look out the window.  My mind begins to tear away at itself as I sit cooped up in the house until suddenly there is a knock at my door.  I answer, and see Depression standing on my porch. He wears an expensive suit, and there is almost no emotion on his face.  The cold day grows even colder as he walks into the house, and my body goes numb as he embraces me in a hug.  I try to hide from him.  I wrap myself up in thick blankets and lay on the couch without moving.  I hope that if I'm quiet enough, he'll get bored and go away. But Depression is a patient beast.  When I refuse to speak with him, he simply sits down at my desk, and whispers just loudly enough for me to hear.  He tells me that it's pointless to get up.  He reminds me of how cold and uncaring the world can be.  "Trust me," he says, "It's much better in here.  You're much safer alone in your house; with the lights off and the curtains closed

What Does Spiritual Practice Look Like?

I have a job in corporate America working as a business analyst.  The money is good and the hours are great.  My coworkers are reasonably friendly, and my stress level rarely goes above a six on a scale of one to ten.  In short, I have very little to complain about. But that doesn't stop me from feeling like my job is interfering with the real work that I should be doing.  Every day, I sit down in my cubicle and begin my daily tasks.  As the day progresses, a feeling of dark discontent grows in my stomach. Eventually, the feeling in my stomach reaches my brain and becomes a question...  Why am I wasting time responding to email when I should be focused on my spiritual practice? To be fair, this feeling of discontent isn't new.  I felt the same way when I worked my last mid-level corporate gig, and I responded by quitting my job and going to work on organic farms for eight months. It was a great experience.  Seriously, you can't spend eight months pulling weeds an

The Only Winning Move Is Not To Play

One of the habits that I've stumbled into recently is watching movies that were produced in the mid 80's and early 90's.  Back then, I was old enough to watch the movies, but I was too young to really appreciate what was happening.  So I'm finding that watching some of my old favorites is a lot like seeing them for the first time.  The most recent feather in my movie-nostalgia cap is War Games starring Matthew Broderick and directed by John Badham.  The plot of the movie is fairly straight-forward.  Broderick's character is a hacker who gains access to a military super computer named Joshua that controls all of the nuclear weapons in North America.  I don't want to give away the plot, but suffice it to say that by the end of the movie the super computer is convinced that Russia is launching a nuclear strike against America, and World War III nearly ensues.  However, Broderick saves the day by getting Joshua to run simulations of all the possibl

What The Super Moon Taught Me

      When I was a child, I had a strong fascination with astronomy.  In fact, some of my earliest memories are of standing in my backyard with a flashlight in one hand and an encyclopedia in the other as I tried diligently to match the constellations in my book to what I was seeing in the sky.  This hobby has stayed with me as I’ve become older.  And now that I’m a man, I see the constellations less as patterns of flickering white light, and more as close friends who visit me from time to time.      For example, Orion comes every winter when the days are short and the nights are cold.  His bow and arrow are always nocked and ready as he continues his eternal search for prey.  When I’m feeling brave, I’ll take a cup of tea out to the backyard, and chat with him for a bit.  He likes to reminisce about my stint working on an organic farm when I would look up at him from the bunkhouse porch, and wonder aloud what tomorrow would bring.  I’m also good friends with the vain queen Ca

Poem Number Three

Show compassion in the face of oppression Be still in the midst of a storm Does Donald Trump Have Buddha Nature Mu If you enjoyed this article, please like The Same Old Zen on  Facebook You can also connect with me on Twitter

Buddha Will Make America Great Again

   In the wake of this week’s election there are many different emotions running through me.  Anger, sadness, and confusion would probably be the big three.  I honestly don’t understand how something as illusory as politics has the ability to take a country of intelligent, decent human beings, and turn us into raving, hateful, lunatics.  My social media feeds have been filled with an incredible amount of vitriol over the past several days, and as a Zen practitioner I’ve been at a loss at how to respond.  To say nothing feels like giving silent consent to comments that I find repulsive.  But to say something, on the other hand,  is a sure way to continue the karmic cycle of people using hateful speech to get more "likes" on Facebook.  What to do?      Thankfully, I recently started reading a book by Beatrice Lane Suzuki called Mahayana Buddhism which provided me with some clarity on this topic.  In it, she investigates the writings of Nagarjuna, a Buddhist philosophe

Keeping The Faith In Uncertain Times

    Tomorrow our country will vote for the next President of the United States.  It’s a big deal, a time-honored tradition, and I’ll be incredibly happy when it’s over.  As a nation, we are very polarized in this moment, and the record of our collective suffering is spelled out on our computers in Facebook memes, YouTube videos, and angry Twitter rants.  It’s a sad, and incredibly stressful situation.  For my part, remaining politically active without succumbing to the poisons of greed, anger, and attachment is a daily struggle, and I fail more often than I succeed.  But while reflecting on my college days this morning, I’ve come to a realization in regards to having faith and keeping things in perspective that may prove helpful as we all head to the ballot box tomorrow.       I was a member of a fraternity during my undergrad, and we were widely known as the nerd-house on campus.  Our members dressed up as Jedi knights on Halloween, Saturdays always included at least one gam

No Such Thing As Good or Bad

The new bike... I named her Kennedy!     It's been three months since I hung up my farming boots, and returned to conventional society.  I expected that there would be some culture shock, but the transition was tougher in some ways than I thought it would be.  I spent the first two weeks trying to not feel like a, sell out as I went about daily tasks that most people take for granted.  I bought food from the grocery store, and thought about children starving in developing nations because of capitalism. I rode in cars, and thought about carbon emissions destroying the ozone layer.  As you've probably noticed, I have a tendency to overthink things.  And trading the quiet of the countryside for the bustle of city-life didn't help to quiet my thinking.      As time passed I did a few things that I hoped would assuage my concern about becoming a cog in conventional society.  I bought a new bike, and began riding the 30 miles round-trip to and from work.  I transitione

Returning to the Market Place

     In Zen Buddhism the path towards enlightenment is often described through a series of illustrations called  The Ten Ox Herding Pictures .  At the beginning of the story the Ox is wild and escapes every chance that he gets.  But he is followed by a young boy who slowly tames the animal until he is able to ride him back into the market place at which point the Ox inevitably escapes again, and the cycle repeats itself.  Eventually, however, both the boy and the ox disappear.  And in the final picture we see a monk who is simply walking the path, helping sentient beings when ever he gets the chance.  As I understand it, the boy in the story represents a Zen practitioner, and the Ox is his mind which starts off as unruly but slowly becomes calm and peaceful through the practitioner's continued effort.  One thing that has always confused me about the story is how the boy keeps going back to the marketplace.  Why doesn't he remain in the wilderness with his ox/mind and live