Monthly Archives: October 2018

Greed

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Gollum

Greed is the prime mover for most of the bad things happening on our world.  The bulk of criminal activity is motivated by greed-people taking what is not rightly theirs.  Wars are motivated by a quest for power.  Performers want recognition and fame.  Addictions arise from attempts to mask pain or discomfort.  They are a means to feel better, if only briefly.  The root cause of greed is an attempt to satisfy something missing in a person’s life. Their belief is acquiring something: wealth, adulation, power, health, or sexual gratification will fulfill their need.

The needs are based on believing acquisitions will lead to happiness and contentment.  This can be temporarily true, but discontent always lurks in the wings.  Our consumer culture is based on greed.  Buy the right car, drink the right beer, take the right medication and all will be well.  Not so, folks.

From birth, people strive to meet their basic needs.  Babies cry when they are hungry, cold, wet, Ill, or alone.  When they cry, needs are met.  When they smile and laugh, needs are met.  They learn strategies to meet their needs.  If discontent arises for some reason, they apply the strategies to assuage the discontent.

Problem is, fulfilling survival and acquisition needs does not satisfy all we humans need for a fulfilled life.  Love, friendship, helping others, creating, and learning are also needs all people share.  The difference is they are truly fulfilling because they are meaningful accomplishments, not mere acquisition.

We are animals with animal needs.  Twisting animal needs into greed is ultimately a dead end because the animal will inevitably die and all that stuff is meaningless.  As Americans, we are somewhat challenged.  Most have the basic needs met, but we are inundated with messages telling us how important it is to acquire to be happy.  Barring living in a cave or on the street, it is almost impossible to avoid the selling.

I am sitting here in the coffee shop with my high priced coffee and a pastry.  Coffee at home and my granola-muesli mix would be healthier and a lot less expensive.  I had a birthday yesterday and now I am wearing a cool wool vest I have desired for several years.  I think about cars, tools, fancy food, and gear.  Gear I will never use.  I buy books and keep them, some unread, when the library is just down the street.  I am always looking for the right hat to put on my bald head.

I drive to my spiritual group meetings.  I go on somewhat costly retreats when I can read and meditate at home.  My teacher says retreats are “upper middle” activities, but the messages imply they are important for reaching a spiritual goal.  What happened to meditating in a cave.  Well, drive to the cave and use a Jetboil stove from REI to cook rice and ramen.  Use a solar panel to recharge the smartphone.

Another word for greed is desire.  The fancy bicycle I don’t ride has a sticker saying “Trapped On the Wheel of Desire”.  Ice cream, chocolate, cheesecake, boots, the right blue jeans, wool socks, merino t-shirts, coffee, good movies, the right tires, Geology books, Dharma books, Harry Potter books and movies, my leather chair.  It seems I have a lot to let go of.

For me, an outgrowth of desire is obsession.  I don’t just want stuff, I obsess about it.  A large portion of my day goes to obsessing.  I guess I obsess to avoid feeling bad.  I don’t need to let go of obsessing, it’s feeling bad.  After all all the stuff I feel bad about is gone.  The only place it exists is in my mind.  I need a brain vacuum.

Greed and desire is not all of me.  I enjoy nature, I rejoice when the sun comes out after rainy days.  I love my life.  I have good friends and relatives, I like to learn, I like to write.  In fact, after 76 years, I think I am on the way.  It’s just a matter of more letting go. Breath in, breathe out.

 

Posted in Addiction, Craving, Depression, Greed, My Story, Obsession, Stories, Suffering

Stuck

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Stuck

Stuck is my current problem.  I have not been able to write a word for a couple of weeks.  That problem seems to be receding.  Writer’s block and my general lethargy stems from a deeper problem.

First, some of what I know of the Buddha’s thinking.  One of his core concepts is about what today we call the ego.  In our regular thinking we treat our egos as permanent things stemming from what we are as beings.  Not so, folks.  We have made it all up.  We draw from our genetic makeup and our interpretation of our experiences in living to form a sense of self.  This is necessary for our survival, both as individuals and a species.

In the tribe, boys learned how to hunt from the tribal hunters.  Girls learned how to have and raise children from other mothers.  Everyone’s experiences are somewhat unique, but have a lot of commonality with others around us.  If things go well, children grow up to be healthy, capable members of their group.

Often, however, things go wrong.  Trauma, disfigurement, disease, and deprivation can lead a person to develop a wounded ego.  This is true of all of us to some degree.  The wounded ego suffers.  Suffering prevents us from reaching our deepest innermost being, the condition often called emptiness.  It is pure being, free of suffering stemming from the decisions we have made about ourselves.  It is often called enlightenment.  A better word is peace.

Insight Meditation can lead to the state where we have let go of all the encumbrances of ego.  It doesn’t mean ceasing to act much like the suffering person we were once were.  It doesn’t eliminate the need to cope with the tasks of living in the world, (especially a world containing Republicans.)  it’s clarity, freedom free of suffering but not of pain, grief, infirmity, and death.

I have tried to reach this goal for a large part of my life.  I tried many paths, Christianity, Buddhism, raging atheism, and trying to ignore the whole mess.  An amalgam of the teachings and lives of Jesus and the Buddha is what I have settled on.  It works for me, and much of my suffering is gone, let go.

But not all.  As a young child I experienced some abuse that seems to have gone to the very core of my being.  I have had profound, life changing spiritual experiences.  I have had over thirty years of therapy, I take medication for depression and ADD/HD.  (not to mention prostate medication). My spiritual work has done the most good, but the other stuff is important.  I couldn’t meditate or write before I got effective ADD treatment at age 59.

Still, the deep reservoir of unease and discomfort remains.  Now, I am not the greatest practitioner of Insight Meditation or prayer, although I practice them every day, sometimes for much of the day.  I still go to therapy, go to meetings a couple of days every week, see my shrink, actively meditate and study the dharma.  They help tremendously.  Drugs, alcohol, and the motorcycle did not work.

That pool of existential isolation remains.  My teachers tell me to continue the process and I will, but I have times when I despair.  Is it karma, I am destined to suffer throughout this lifetime?  Or as my teachers say, I just need to persevere.  Well, I will persevere, continue the struggle.

I usually can chug along just fine, but a few weeks ago, one of my teachers said the continued practice of letting go will do it.  It hasn’t, not that deep pool of anguish.  His saying that just triggered more agony. This stuff sure is taking a long time, and I am not sure it will ever work.  Do you have any ideas?  Maybe I need to go to the mountains.

Posted in ADD/ADHD, Buddhism, Insight Meditation, Jesus, Meditation, Stories, Stuck, Suffering, Writing

Legs

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I am a limper.  I limp more than most people.  In my younger days I was always spraining an ankle.  High school football marked the start of my knee adventures when I partially tore my anterior cruciate ligament.  I was born with chondromalacia, meaning my kneecaps are somewhat askew, leading to arthritis at a relatively young age.  I had arthroscopic surgery on my right knee in my late 40s.    

In the meantime, I hiked, hunted, backpacked, played killer volleyball in the Army, and climbed over twenty fourteeners, mountains over 14,000 feet elevation.  I always experienced some pain during all that, but I just kept on truckin’.   

Sunshine and Redcloud Peaks

It all changed when I climbed Sunshine and Redcloud Peaks in the San Juan mountains.  It started as a fine day in country mostly new to me.  A great climb, with a lot of time sharing  the alpine tundra with the resident Pika.  It started clouding up as we dropped down from Sunshine on the way to Redcloud.  On the summit of Redcloud we were in a whiteout with horizontal snow.  We got scared when I took my hat off and my hair stood on end, what there was of it.

We headed down as fast as we could, having experienced lightning above timberline before.  People die that way.  We moved straight down, sort of loping down a scree field.  By the time we reached timberline I was hobbling, both knees screaming.  That was the end of my climbing and backpacking days.  I did climb Quandary Peak some years later, but I was climbing with people twenty years older than me and it is an easy climb for a fourteener.  

As a substitute I bought a motorcycle.  I had ridden in my younger years, but got away from motorcycles.  I have always sought out activities I have no business engaging in. I was repeating a risky activity beyond my ability.    

Posterior Cruciate Ligament

My first ride into the mountains was up Golden Gate Canyon, one of the many canyons carved down the face of the Colorado Front Range.  The canyons are all winding, scenic, and steep, making for great motorcycle rides.  There are hazards.  Wildlife, crazy drivers, bad weather, and debris on the road.  I went down sliding on some sand . My right knee hit the road, my tibia and fibula stopped, but my femur continued long enough to tear my posterior cruciate.  Ow, Ow, Ow.  After things healed a bit I kept riding and crashing without too much damage.  

One day at work I was walking along and SNAP, my ACL finally gave up.  The MCL was also gone so the only things holding my leg together was skin and muscle.  I now have a titanium knee. It works fine.  My left knee is not so good.  Most of the cartilage is gone and arthritis has set in.    

I get injections in my knee from time to time, and they help.  Some.  Mostly I live with some pain, cycling from mild to hobbling.  I will get another knee replacement some day.  I fall down.  I always have have to some degree, lacking much coordination.  Now it is worse as my balance is increasingly rocky.  I fall off ladders, down stairs, and even on level ground.    

On one of my trips down the stairs I bruised my left hip.  I figured it would heal, not being broken but no luck.  It’s sore, a lot, but aspirin and BenGay are helping.  The orthopedist I have gotten to know pretty well says there is arthritis and not much cartilage there.  She looked at me and suggested a hip and knee replacement.  Well, maybe someday.  

I look at these health issues as teachers.  Stuff doesn’t work well, it gets plugged up, it doesn’t want to flow, and it hurts. It is all likely to get worse.  My job is to adapt.  Life involves change.  It involves pain.  It is endlessly rewarding.  The pain may be limiting, but it does not necessarily lead to suffering.  After all, I can still look at car crashes in Russia on You Tube and make up lies for you to read.

Posted in Aging, Change, Current Activities, Falls, Health Issues, Knee and Hip Injuries, Motorcycle Crashes, My Story, Pain, Stories