From The Under 35 Project: “Captain Hook and Indian #2: A Love Story Ruined by Epically Unrealistic Expectations”
From The Under 35 Project: “Captain Hook and Indian #2: A Love Story Ruined by Epically Unrealistic Expectations” |
- From The Under 35 Project: “Captain Hook and Indian #2: A Love Story Ruined by Epically Unrealistic Expectations”
- Build Your Own Hut - Bolt Hole
- A Buddhist Reflection on Listening
- Paintings of Kongtrul Jigme Rinpoche on display in Boulder September 27
| Posted: 21 Sep 2012 04:00 PM PDT
My first heartbreak happened at the tender age of 13. I had a crush on Captain Hook, aka Zach, a 13-year-old boy who had magically avoided acne. I played Indian #2, a nothing to a celebrity like Zach. (Don't get me started on the racial politics of Peter Pan.) One day, I saw him entering our local Dunkin Donuts just as I was leaving. He held the door for me, and our eyes met. Suddenly, I could hear Lenny Kravitz crooning, "I wonder if I'll ever see you again," in my head. I was smitten. I pined after Zach from afar during rehearsal, imaging myself as the Tiger Lily to his Captain Hook. When the play was over, I decided to announce to him that I liked him. I locked myself in my bedroom with a phone and the school directory. For the record, I had already memorized his address but not his phone number. His phone rang once. I asked for Zach, describing myself ambiguously as a "friend" (someday a girlfriend?) Unfortunately, he had absolutely no idea who I was. In retrospect, he was very polite about the whole situation, but I quickly mumbled, "Never mind," hung up, and cried. I remember this middle school rejection distinctly because my dreams were epically unrealistic. I somehow hoped that 1) Zach knew who the hell I was despite the fact that we had never talked to each other and 2) Zach secretly loved me back. Ten years later, I worry that I'm still epically unrealistic when it comes to love. I was recently very interested in someone. Let's call him Joe. We were both Buddhist. We had graduated from the same college. We were both teachers. I imagined us raising social activist, politically radical, yet humble, Buddhist babies together. We started spending hours together. Had I finally convinced some unsuspecting fellow to date me?? Nope! According to him, we were Good Friends. We would never be a Buddhist power couple together. The disappointment was crushing. I felt like I was 13 again, calling a boy who had no interest in me. (Except this time he knew my name.) I was filled with self-doubt. Was I being naive that we could successfully be in a relationship? Did I not put out the right signals that I wanted a relationship? In short, were my hopes as epically unrealistic as they had been in middle school? Then I beat myself up for feeling insecure. How could one person, whom I had known for a month, affect my emotions that much? I prided myself on being an independent woman. I had built my self-esteem slowly and painfully over the last ten years, and I refused to allow other people to threaten my sense of self-worth. Ultimately, I realized that my pain, insecurity, and disappointment were the results of attachments to epically unrealistic expectations. I use "attachment" here in the Buddhist sense, which means a futile attempt to hold on to what is impermanent. In a short amount of time, I had latched on to certain expectations of how things were "supposed to" go. I was attached to the idea that mutual attraction inevitably leads to a relationship. (This is partly because of social conditioning–I like you, you like me, the next step is dating…right?) I was attached to the feeling of someone being attracted to me. I was attached to the possibility of dating someone. Basically, I really wanted things to go a certain way, and when they didn't, I suffered. Now, with Zach and Joe in mind, I try to date without any expectations. This does not mean expecting the worst, i.e. "You are probably a serial killer, so I will be happy if I leave intact." Rather, I tell myself, "If we date, great. If we are friends, great. If you are a therapist who can help me overcome my fear of slugs, great. If we never see each other again, then I am at peace with that too. I will enjoy the present moment, whatever it brings." If I am able to maintain that clarity, then not-dating will not feel like rejection. Not-dating is simply another possible outcome of the interaction of two people. Let's be real: Dating without expectations is hard. There are so many expectations and attachments that we carry with us on our dates. Conventional dating is "supposed to" be full of judgment and insecurity. "Do I look good? Am I talking too much? Am I being too blunt? Do I really want someone who can't handle my bluntness? How can we raise children together if we're not blunt?" Not attaching to these thoughts requires mindfulness in each moment. Romantic expectations have been harder for me to see and let go of than any other expectations. I know that if I lose my job, I can find another job that suits me well, and I do not need to panic. If I lose money, I know I still have means to survive and people who can help me. Yet if I lose the possibility of a relationship that never even existed, I suffer. I want so badly for a relationship to work, I forget that even attraction is something to let go of. People come into our lives for different reasons, and it's impossible to predict what that reason will be at first glance. Non-attachment is about appreciating each moment for what it is, without wishing for things to be different. Because things aren't different. When I was 13, I wasted time fantasizing about how things could be different with Zach. I wasn't cast as Tiger Lily, and would never be kidnapped by Captain Hook. Instead, I should have just introduced myself. Maybe then, when I called, he would have known who the hell I was. And maybe, just maybe, he would have loved me back.
To see the rest of our Under 35 Project posts, click here. To read more and submit your own work, visit the project's website. Read More @ Source
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| Build Your Own Hut - Bolt Hole Posted: 21 Sep 2012 02:00 PM PDT Wower! This looks right up my street. Sunday 23rd September at 8.00 pm GMT. A new series with Kevin McCloud, of Grand Designs fame, starts off by building himself a bolt hole in the woods. Sound romantic? Read on....
Is there anybody who could record the program onto a CD please? Just drop me a line. Thanks Read More @ Source
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| A Buddhist Reflection on Listening Posted: 21 Sep 2012 11:00 AM PDT  Listen up, folks! There are different levels of listening that normally we do not explore or even know of that well. This is because we're so caught up in the world, with its many, many distractions that our desires feed on, sustaining themselves and begetting more desires. We're too busy to stop and listen to the world around us, including the people we meet. In fact, we're usually too preoccupied to listen to ourselves, never paying attention to these bodies and minds that we take to be our selves. If we do manage to wriggle free of the entanglements of the passions for a moment, however, we can learn to see things as they truly are and not as we take them to be. We can learn to listen. Listening to the world: The visual sense is predominant for most of us, most of the time. We rely on it to identify and negotiate the world around us, and in doing so build up our worlds of delusion upon it. We see, we want, or we see, we dislike. Vision is so caught up in our desires and misconceptions of this life that it can take another sense all together to challenge those misconceptions. If we close our eyes right now and simply listen to the world, we can open the door of wisdom. What can you hear in this moment? I can hear insects in the tropical evening, as w! ell as m usic flowing from the stereo speakers in the room that I'm writing. These sounds aren't full of desire or delusion in them selves, are they? They're simply what they are: sounds. It's what we think and feel about them that make them appear pleasant or unpleasant, desirable or undesirable. Listening to others: So often in life we don't really listen to each other. We wait for the other person to cease talking so that we can air our views and opinions (no matter how misguided they may be). We don't make the effort to actually listen to the other person's tone of voice, choice of words, and what they're talking about. We hear them, but don't truly listen to them. We're unaware of just how upset they are if we aren't taking note of how they saying what they're saying; they may be angry with us, frustrated with life, or making subtle invitations, but if we're not attentive to them, we'll miss all these signs. And then we'll wonder how we missed what they were really saying. We'll be astounded by our own ignorance, born of the fact that we didn't listen to them. Listening to ourselves: Not only do we fail to listen to others, including the ones we hold most dear, but we don't even listen to ourselves. Our bodies produce all subtle (and unsubtle!) sounds, including the creaking of bones, the chewing of food, the swallowing reflex, and the sound of our breathing. Listening to the breath, for instance, we can determine if we are more agitated than we realize, or discover that we're not as fit as we previously thought, panting like a randy poodle! The mind can be listened to also, in the sense that we can he! ar the s ilence that thoughts, feelings, and memories appear in. Ever had a song that sticks in the brain and repeats endlessly despite our wish that it didn't? Well, next time that arises, try listening to the silence that surrounds it, and see what happens to the annoying tune. Listening to the sound of silence: The American monk Ajahn Sumedho has for many years talked of 'the sound of silence', an inner sound that can be heard if one quiets the mind to the point that it opens up to the subtlest of noises. This sound is also called the 'primal' buzzing or hissing, and appears to be a kind of ringing inside the ears rather than outside of them. It's a physical sound that isn't 'out there', but rather 'in here'. Listening to this sound has a calming affect on the mind and helps it to develop concentration also. It gives consciousness something less distracting to focus on, enabling one to let go of other noises as well as the 'inner voice' that normally rambles on about every little event that occurs in our lives. It leads us to the real silence that's found not in tranquil surroundings, but within ourselves. Listening to the silence: This silence is with us always. But usually we're unaware of it because we never listen out for it. We don't know where to look for this transcending silence: we never imagine that it could be found inside ourselves. Once we've become alive to it, we can focus on this silence and notice that all sounds arise in it, whether the sounds of nature or of humanity, whether outside of us or within us. This silence is ever present if we have the skill to listen to it. It's a peace that ! we take with us everywhere we go, but are normally completely oblivious to it! It puts all our delusions and desires into perspective, as objects in audio-awareness. They lose a lot of their power to disturb us, seeming much less important in this sea of tranquility. So, true silence is found whatever audio objects can be heard. Even in the deafening din of loud music, the silence is still here, as calm and unaffected as ever. If the mind can be turned away from particular noises to that in which they exist, then a radically different way of experiencing oneself and the world will be discovered. Those distracting sounds will lose their power to disrupt the contentment that lies at the very heart of every human being, and is waiting to be found and fed upon. For feeding on this silence leads us to our real home: peace. This can be achieved by truly listening to the world, others, ourselves, the 'sound of silence', and ultimately silence itself. And this silence is one that can never be disturbed, whatever the cacophony that inhabits it!  
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| Paintings of Kongtrul Jigme Rinpoche on display in Boulder September 27 Posted: 21 Sep 2012 10:00 AM PDT
Some of Kongtrul Jigme Rinpoche's latest paintings will be shown in Boulder, Colorado next week, as a fundraiser for the Sangdo Palri Temple. The temple is currently under construction at the Longchen Jigme Samten Ling retreat center in nearby Crestone; you can read more about the temple and follow its progress here. The exhibit will be held next Thursday, September 27, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at 503 Kalmia Ave. in Boulder. (Guests should park on the street, as driveway space is limited.) If you have any questions, call 720-338-2301. You can see more of Kongtul Jigme's paintings at kongtruljigme.com. Read More @ Source
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Here's the latest from The Under 35 Project, by Susan Yao.
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