The Kingdom of Nirvana

I think one of the things I really enjoy about my blog is that I never really started blogging to say any one thing and in the process made my blog a catch all for everything. It is good for me, because I am not a writer and I don’t routinely jot down my thoughts in journal, instead I get to talk about what interests me and I don’t have to worry about anyone judging me because my blog isn’t enough about art or parenting or anything else, and at the same time the blog is about these things, because, ultimately they are part of who I am.

I suppose in an odd way if you wanted to know me, or at least what interests me, all you have to do is read the blog. Except that the really personal stuff doesn’t make it in here. Usually because it is too painful or to humiliating or something, and really how much do you want to know about a person?

And then I read this piece by my friend the unreliable narrator, or this blog about the life and writings of my friend Oleoptene, or this blog by my friend Stuart and I see them routinely holding out their flaws and inspecting them, sometimes for insight, and sometimes for humor, and I think “well, I have done that” the thing is, they routinely are able to pick up the little nuances of their life and hold them to the light for the precious jewels that they are, and I don’t think I can.

I am both supremely confident, and horribly insecure simultaneously. I want my blog to be ABOUT something, and I don’t. I want to share a PART of myself, and I don’t. I mean, how much of yourself do you share on a routine basis? and with whom?

I have maybe a handful of close friends that I could call up on a moments notice and say, “I’m scared” or “I’m pissed” or “I’m drunk.” And they would totally understand. But mostly I think this is really so much masturbation and I can’t, or really I don’t share myself. Again me being both confident and simultaneously insecure.

The irony is I am a gregarious, often outspoken individual who sees himself as shy and insecure. So, is the problem that I don’t have enough friends or that I don’t “share” myself with others, or is the problem really just a problem in my head?

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that it is all in my imagination. But then really this in not a problem of my not being open, it is a problem of me getting caught up in my head, and it is a fairly typical problem for me. The more I think about a thing, the more I think I am convincing myself of the truth and, ironically, the less “real” that thing is.

I can sit here and convince myself that I am this or that but the truth is I do not have a realistic picture of myself in my mind, and the more I think about myself in the abstract, the less real that image of me becomes. Perhaps this is why the Buddha would discourage his disciples from engaging in abstract philosophical talk, as reason tends to focus on and extract singularities from a great multitude and hold it up as a truth, when in fact, nothing exists in a vacuum, not even Nirvana.

Nirvana is probably a really good example of what I am talking about here, because most westerners don’t really understand Nirvana and tend to think of it as a kind of vacuum attained by the extinction of all desire and as the penultimate experience of a world denying religion, when in fact Nirvana is probably more aptly defined as “pure presence.” In Nirvana the meaning of life is discovered in openness to being and “being present” in full awareness.

Thus the old t-shirt adage applies: “To be is to do. To do is to be. DoBeDoBeDo”

Both Buddhism and Christianity agree that man’s present condition is not in right relation to the world around him or the things in it. If I can’t even think about myself and form a “real” picture of who I am, how much less real is the world to me? Mankind bears a propensity to falsify his relation to things and spending inordinate amounts of energy justifying those claims. The Buddhists call it Avidya and the Christians call it Original Sin.

The noble truths of Buddhism begin, life is suffering and suffering is caused by desire. My experience tell me that this is true, especially when I think about myself reasoning myself out of a problem. It is the equivalent of desire desiring itself out of desire. It is unattainable.

In yesterdays post I talked about “change happening all at once over time.” If I am uncomfortable with some part of myself, then I have only to look at myself as the source of discomfort. If I am uncomfortable with some aspect of the world (traffic, school, people) again, I, not them, is the source of discomfort. I choose to be uncomfortable. I am responsible for my own feelings.

In my last post I said, the answer to the problem of change is time. That is all there is. The more I try to grasp and contain the feeling, the less I am able to experience the feeling for itself, as I am busy "thinking" about the feeling and not actually going through the motion of feeling frustrated or insecure. The more I try to form a picture of myself as that person, the less like that person I think I am and thus the more I perpetuate my own problems. The folk adage is "time heals all wounds" and I would add "and reveals all shortcomings and defects of character."

Life is not about the trifling of my problems and my joys, Nirvana, say the Buddhists, exists in the world around me. The New Testament says as much about the Kingdom of Heaven(Lk 17:21). It is here. It is now. I just have to shut up and enjoy it.