The Places That Scare You...

What's with the Dobermans?
Here's the story, per Pema, excerpted from When Things Falls Apart:

The first time I met Trungpa Rinpoche was with a class of fourth graders who asked him a lot of questions about growing up in Tibet and about escaping from the Chinese Communists into India. One boy asked him if he was ever afraid. Rinpoche answered that his teacher had encouraged him to go to places like graveyards that scared him and to experiment with approaching things he didn't like. Then he told a story about traveling with his attendants to a monastery he'd never seen before. As they neared the gates, he saw a large guard dog with huge teeth and red eyes. It was growling ferociously and struggling to get free from the chain that held it. The dog seemed desperate to attack them. As Rinpoche got closer, he could see its bluish tongue and spittle spraying from its mouth. They walked past the dog, keeping their distance, and entered the gate. Suddenly the chain broke and the dog rushed at them. The attendants screamed & froze in terror. Rinpoche turned and ran as fast as he could - straight at the dog. The dog was so surprised that he put his tail between his legs and ran away.

ah, so i imagine this is also where her book title "The Places That Scare You" comes from...

TO EXPERIENCE FEARLESSNESS, IT IS NECESSARY TO EXPERIENCE FEAR.

The essence of cowardice is to not acknowledge the reality of fear. Fear takes many forms. We are afraid of death, we are afraid that we can't handle the demands of our life, and there is abrupt fear, or panic, when new situations occur. Fear is expressed as restlessness: how we move, how we talk, how we chew our nails, how we sometimes put our hands in our pockets uselessly. We have to realize our fear and reconcile ourselves with fear. However, acknowledging fear is not a cause for depression. Because we possess such fear, we can potentially experience fearlessness. - Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Want more wisdom? Get it delivered in your inbox weekly... Click here.

reminders to self

"For one human being to love another is the most difficult task of all. It's the work for which all other work is mere preparation." - R. M. Rilke

"If you do not love too much, you do not love enough." - B. Pascal

"Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself." - E. Dickinson

"There is no remedy for love but to love more." - H.D. Thoreau

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more." - E. Jong

"I'm not afraid of running out of love. The more I give, the more I have to give." - R. Brezny

"You're hungry for the Infinite, and the Infinite is hungry for you." - R. Brezny

Willing to experience aloneness,
I discover connection everywhere;
Turning to face my fear,
I meet the warrior who lives within;
Opening to my loss,
I am given unimaginable gifts;
Surrendering into emptiness,
I find fullness without end.

Each condition I flee from pursues me.
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so.
Who has crafted this Master Game;
To play is pure delight,
To honor it is true devotion.
-J. Welwood

Guest House

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-Rumi

"Thanks to them from whom the painful blessings flow, we are waking up."

(photo credit gratitude to wmlo for sharing the beauty)

all a big mistake?

She had been mistaken. She could feel the realization settling over her. The life she had been traveling toward - imagining herself into - the ideas and expectations that had been so solid only a few weeks ago - this life had been erased, and the numb feeling crept up...
Her future was like a city she had never visited. A city on the other side of the country, and she was driving down the road, with all her possessions packed up in the backseat of the car, and the route was clearly marked on her map, and then she stopped at a rest area and saw that the place she was headed to wasn't there any longer. The town she was driving to had vanished - perhaps had never been there - and if she stopped to ask the way, the gas station attendant would look at her blankly. He wouldn't even know what she was talking about.
"I'm sorry, miss," he'd say gently. "I think you must be mistaken. I never heard of that place."
A sense of sundering.
In one life, there was a city you were on your way to. In another, it was just a place you'd invented.

from Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

thought i knew ya

Thought I knew ya
Thought I could see right through ya
What a surprise to open your eyes
And find a hole in your soul
I thought I knew ya
Like I had a direct line
to some power greater than myself...
See you in the next life baby, Namaste!
-Martin Sexton, Thought I Knew Ya

seems i've fallen and i can't...

i drove very close to his sleeping body yesterday afternoon in the alley.
so close it makes me shudder.
with his dark clothes, i thought he was someone's trash put out.
i wasnt totally paying attention, fidgeting around, so i was surprised to look over and see his wrinkled dirty face, serere as a baby's, in sleep.
of course, i had somewhere to be, thus no time to stop.
a shining example of yoga off the mat if there ever was one.
while cooking dinner for friends, i checked to see if he was still around to take him some food but found emptiness where his bed had been.
emotions rampant.
get up! not working.
pema says: "when the rivers and air are polluted, when families and nations are at war, when homeless wanderers fill the highways, these are traditional signs of a dark age. another is that people become poisoned by self-doubt & become cowards."
and i'm supposed to sit with this???
why do i have a warm bed and he has the ground, a few feet from my bed?
like siddartha out of the kingdom, how was i so distracted before that i didnt realize just how hard life is?

more conversations from the alley...
7-year old chubby girl w/ a bright yellow bandana & matching shirt bouncing behind a 30-something guy down the alley...
but why do you drink alcohol?
look, i dont smoke pot, i dont do drugs, i drink. thats it.
but why? dont you want to remember your life & what happened yesterday? when you get drunk, you forget everything...
bless her.