Stronkey Kong -- Bodhisattva transforms flaming hornets into butterflies

[Stronkey Kong]

Let the filing begin....

 

 

It's basically judgement day for every stack of papers sitting around my apartment.

[Stronkey Kong]

 

It's Sunday evening and I'm sippin' kombucha while my first loaf of bread bakes in the oven. This coming week will by my last week of day shift, so I'll be planning out the switch back to nights.

 

Mindfulness: I meditated twice today. First in the morning following my tummo breathing exercise (which might actually just be a typical Taoist breathing exercise), then later in the evening. In the evening I tried gom (analytical meditation) using Buddhist logic and trying to dig down into the emptiness of self, etc. for a deeper realization of self and reality (more on this below). I didn't get very far. I'm too used to just following my breath and I found it hard to maintain the train of thought. But I also don't have much more than an cursory/introductory understanding of how to practice it so...

 

Lotus posture: I the full bout of stretches this morning... it is becoming quite a routine. I skipped them before the second round of meditation and I can feel the difference when I sit on the cushion.

 

Nourishment: The bread is coming!

 

I'm also making a big batch of bbq sauce flavored seitan to eat for lunch at work all week.

 

Movement: No qigong today. I had thought about it just to get a few exercises added to the tally and get ahead of the game, but with all the stretching, meditating, cooking, cleaning, I kinda didn't really have time.

 

Abode: The filing is done! ... err kinda. There's one more pile I overlooked on my desk, and another box of notebooks and things I need to go through. But that will be done another day.

 

As a bonus, I cleaned up the old fish tank stand by my bedroom window. It had a plant, an old Betta tank that had become full of coins, and paper clips and phone charging cords... you know, shit that used to be in my pockets... so I moved that aside. Now the (overgrown) plant has some more space. Then there were a couple more smaller plants on the  window sill... along with two more dead plants. I cleaned out the pots of the dead ones, trimmed dead limbs off one of them, and then took some of the over growth out of the big one  and replanted those in some new pots (it reproduces via bulbs  that resprout), one in a hanging pot above the stand, and two more in other pots in the living room by my piano. Then I took some other small pots and sowed some flower seeds I had laying around from years ago when I had access to a garden (marigolds and coleus) just for the hell of it... they're pretty old and not stored well so who knows if they're still viable.

 

Eventually, I'm going to put a little Buddha statue there as a reminder to practice.

 

What remains to be done... I still need to clean the entryway and the corner shelf in the living room (I got a lot of stuff off of it when I packed up the glassware, but it needs more work. Yeah. The living room still needs to be cleaned and organized better. Then there's the office/lab/studio/junk room... which has improved but still needs a lot of work.

 

For next week:

Drop off glassware at Goodwill

Clean entry way

Clean corner shelf

Remove soil bins from junk room... it's a long story

Continue filing/go through old notebooks

 

Knowledge: I wrote out all thirty Tibetan characters with vowel marks. Holy fuck was that a pain in the ass. Firstly because there are plenty of them. Second, different sources do not agree on exactly how to write them... and because they are teaching different writing/printing styles. Further, different sources describe how to pronounce them differently... which are probably only near approximations of how to actually say them. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are still compound characters, and Tibetan characters that represent Sanskrit characters... which means they re-use their own characters and make new marks or just write them backwards.

 

I also attended my beginning Buddhism zoom class. It was a really good, useful class. We talked about Tibetan Buddhist logic and how to use it in meditation, and it really helped to clarify some of the trickier concepts surrounding Buddhist philosophy. This was also why I tried some analytical meditation this evening.

 

Wisdom: I'm gonna finish up that last chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva tonight and call it done. Next, I'm going to read Nagarjuna's Mahamadhyamakakalika (did you actually read that or just skip to the parenthetical phrase looking for help?) which is considered the principle work on the madhyamaka or great middle way and the basis of mahayana Buddhism.

 

================================

 

Oof.... I stopped typing this before 9 o'clock to go deal with the bread (which is delicious BTW) and now it's past 10 and I need to go to sleep soon.

[WolfDreamer]

Looks like you're doing well, my friend.

[Stronkey Kong]

8 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

Looks like you're doing well, my friend.

 

Thank you. I am clicking along pretty well at the moment.

 

===============================

 

Except...

 

It's the bread!

 

 

It's not like it causes immediate GERD... it just gets in my system and then everything I eat gives me a little GERD.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

15 minutes ago, Stronkey Kong said:

It's the bread!

 

 

 

It's not like it causes immediate GERD... it just gets in my system and then everything I eat gives me a little GERD.

[Snarkyfishguts]

I've been thinking about this, and wondering, do you have the same reaction with toast?  Is it ALL bread or different types?  

 

Bread is hard to give up. But feeling sick is no fun either.  

 

*hugs*

[Stronkey Kong]

1 hour ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

I've been thinking about this, and wondering, do you have the same reaction with toast?  Is it ALL bread or different types?  

 

Bread is hard to give up. But feeling sick is no fun either.  

 

*hugs*

 

I think it might just be the amount I eat in a day... I should just cut back to a couple slices. And it's not all bread, just my homemade bread... which is the best!

 

Coffee and stress are factors too...

 

============

 

Ugh!

 

I've been a super helpful member of mt team today...

 

But now I'm totally done people-ing.

[Scaly Freak]

4 hours ago, Stronkey Kong said:

I think it might just be the amount I eat in a day... I should just cut back to a couple slices. And it's not all bread, just my homemade bread... which is the best!

 

Your home made bread is the bread you can control all the ingredients of.  How convenient.  

[Stronkey Kong]

1 hour ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

Your home made bread is the bread you can control all the ingredients of.  How convenient.  

 

Yes, but if the optimal ingredients for taste are also optimal for producing heartburn then I'm stuck.

 

I really am starting to think it's just stress that's causing most of it. Today I had no bread, and I still got a tinge of GERD, and this happened while I was working on the oldest, funkiest, most frustrating machine in the lab today. It just won't sometimes. The software crashes kinda randomly, or it stops talking to the machine itself. It is slow, and it gets upset when you do the slightest thing wrong. Ugh! ---> GERD

[Stronkey Kong]

 

For creativity...

 

 

I was shopping online for little Buddha statues, and none of them really "spoke" to me. Then I realized, I have two pounds of sculpey* and some mediocre creative capabilities... I should just make my own graven image Buddha statue. So there it is. next to the incense and the plants and the minerals.** It's not finished yet. But I do have a pretty good, rough figure sculpted up.

 

* Sculpey is a plastic, clay like substance. You mold it and shape it, then bake it and it solidifies.

** Yes, minerals, not healing crystals. I haven't gone off the deep end here... yet.

[sarakingdom]

38 minutes ago, Stronkey Kong said:

** Yes, minerals, not healing crystals. I haven't gone off the deep end here... yet.

 

Okay, but you're pushing it, buddy. Let me know when we hit seeing auras or feeling the vibrations of the universe.

[Stronkey Kong]

Just now, sarakingdom said:

 

Okay, but you're pushing it, buddy. Let me know when we hit seeing auras or feeling the vibrations of the universe.

 

No auras... but I can vibe...

 

[Snarkyfishguts]

8 hours ago, Stronkey Kong said:

 

I think it might just be the amount I eat in a day... I should just cut back to a couple slices. And it's not all bread, just my homemade bread... which is the best!

I could eat all the homemade bread, which my stomach doesn't approve of either.  

 

8 hours ago, Stronkey Kong said:

Coffee and stress are factors too...

Yeah, both of those can be real jerks!  *hugs*

8 hours ago, Stronkey Kong said:

============

 

Ugh!

 

I've been a super helpful member of mt team today...

 

But now I'm totally done people-ing.

Way to people! Do you get a day off now? Because that would be awesome.  

[Harriet]

5 hours ago, Stronkey Kong said:

 

For creativity...

 

 

I was shopping online for little Buddha statues, and none of them really "spoke" to me. Then I realized, I have two pounds of sculpey* and some mediocre creative capabilities... I should just make my own graven image Buddha statue. So there it is. next to the incense and the plants and the minerals.** It's not finished yet. But I do have a pretty good, rough figure sculpted up.

 

* Sculpey is a plastic, clay like substance. You mold it and shape it, then bake it and it solidifies.

** Yes, minerals, not healing crystals. I haven't gone off the deep end here... yet.

 

Nice! An altar is a good place to do your spirit work. I hope you will find it cosy and conducive to practice.

 

 

Still working on mine. That's a megaladon tooth, btw, not a crystal.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Hey, that looks like rose quartz to me. Crystals! It's fine as long as they have a purpose and you don't use the word "metaphysics", which will rightly upset the metaphysicists.

 

4 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

Okay, but you're pushing it, buddy. Let me know when we hit seeing auras or feeling the vibrations of the universe.

Sometimes I think I might be touching the membrane between conscious experience and the black and starry pool of the unconscious mind, which contains the bones of wisdom and the broth of intuition gathered by my foremothers and guarded by my patron goddess. Apart from that I'm totally normal.

 

[sarakingdom]

16 minutes ago, Harriet said:

Hey, that looks like rose quartz to me. Crystals! It's fine as long as they have a purpose and you don't use the word "metaphysics", which will rightly upset the metaphysicists.

 

The only acceptable new age/pagan use of crystals:

 

17 minutes ago, Harriet said:

Sometimes I think I might be touching the membrane between conscious experience and the black and starry pool of the unconscious mind, which contains the bones of wisdom and the broth of intuition gathered by my foremothers and guarded by my patron goddess. Apart from that I'm totally normal.

 

Beef stock sounds easier, and more useful. I've never had luck sourcing wisdom bones, and apart from a white bean soup made with intuition broth, I'm coming up blank on recipes.

[Harriet]

20 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

The only acceptable new age/pagan use of crystals:

 

And steven lol

 

20 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

Beef stock sounds easier, and more useful. I've never had luck sourcing wisdom bones, and apart from a white bean soup made with intuition broth, I'm coming up blank on recipes.

 

It's easier, but not necessarily more useful. Just differently useful. You know I'd share the recipes if I thought you wanted them but I reckon you're doing okay with pratchett- and star trek-based mythology-and-wisdom soup. (It's like ham and pea soup. The mythology is the ham, the wisdom is the seasoning. No one has yet discovered what the peas correspond with, but it is known to be A most nourishing pot).

[sarakingdom]

1 hour ago, Harriet said:

And steven lol

 

 

1 hour ago, Harriet said:

(It's like ham and pea soup. The mythology is the ham, the wisdom is the seasoning. No one has yet discovered what the peas correspond with, but it is known to be A most nourishing pot).

 

The peas are the cheap bulk in which the ham nuggets and spices sit, so I assume they correspond to gifs.

 

[Harriet]

1 hour ago, sarakingdom said:

The peas are the cheap bulk in which the ham nuggets and spices sit, so I assume they correspond to gifs.

 

What a beautiful and touching song.

Yes, yes, I can see this soup in my mind's eye. Myth, wisdom, and nugget gifs

[Stronkey Kong]

23 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

I could eat all the homemade bread, which my stomach doesn't approve of either.  

 

Yeah, both of those can be real jerks!  *hugs*

Way to people! Do you get a day off now? Because that would be awesome.  

 

I don't think it's the bread anymore... more likely it's people. Lately, I've only been getting GERD triggered at work when I'm under stress and I have to people a lot. I had some bread at breakfast, and again when I got home. I got GERD in the middle of the work day while one co-worker kept interrupting me to help her run her machine while I was dealing with constant issues on the shitty old machine.

 

No days off, but tomorrow is my last day on day shift. Next week I go back to nights, which involves a lot less peopling. For two weeks I'll be the only one in the lab at night and I can crank up the music and work at any station I damn well please.

 

20 hours ago, Harriet said:

 

Still working on mine. That's a megaladon tooth, btw, not a crystal.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

Hey, that looks like rose quartz to me. Crystals! It's fine as long as they have a purpose and you don't use the word "metaphysics", which will rightly upset the metaphysicists.

 

Sometimes I think I might be touching the membrane between conscious experience and the black and starry pool of the unconscious mind, which contains the bones of wisdom and the broth of intuition gathered by my foremothers and guarded by my patron goddess. Apart from that I'm totally normal.

 

 

Cool altar... I see lots of weapons... symbolic or... you know, doing what weapons do?

 

That's the whole point isn't it?!... Where to start... In Zen they call it "Big Mind." The Nyingma and Dzogchen practitioners call it Rigpa, (primordial mind or clear light consciousness), more generally, that's Innate Buddhahood. Though, the Buddhists say it's empty.

 

You say it's full of yummy bone broth... tell me more.

 

18 hours ago, sarakingdom said:

 

The peas are the cheap bulk in which the ham nuggets and spices sit, so I assume they correspond to gifs.

 

 

Yes... that, or the chaff of life... the drudgery and work we must undertake to experience and appreciate the ham and spice. Myth and wisdom could not be fully understood or appreciated without lots of bland, fibrous filler material.

 

And, yet, as we seek the ham, we learn to appreciate the delicate texture and mildly sweet, vegetable flavor of the peas and  how its minerals and fiber support us and make us regular. Thus, we come full circle, and learn to live life more fully.

[Stronkey Kong]

 

I'm really liking the shape this little Buddha is taking.

 

 

So glad I decided to make one instead of buy one.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

The Buddha is coming together nicely. I'm remembering more about Buddhism from my world religions class (The professor had just been on sabbatical a couple of years before and spent a lot of time with buddhist groups, so that section was very thorough). I remember talking extensively about Pure Land Buddhism, and watching a Buddhist service with the namu myoho renge kyo chant. Is Nichiren a form of Pure Land buddhism, or are they two separate groups? 

[Harriet]

2 hours ago, Stronkey Kong said:

 

I'm really liking the shape this little Buddha is taking.

 

 

So glad I decided to make one instead of buy one.

 

It's really nice. It has a little of the softness around the face and neck that you see in many depictions of the buddha and similar characters.

 

2 hours ago, Stronkey Kong said:

Cool altar... I see lots of weapons... symbolic or... you know, doing what weapons do?

 

The knife is for symbolic severing only. The wand (whose mundane job was as a spindle for spinning yarn) is for conveying intent and will.

 

2 hours ago, Stronkey Kong said:

That's the whole point isn't it?!... Where to start... In Zen they call it "Big Mind." The Nyingma and Dzogchen practitioners call it Rigpa, (primordial mind or clear light consciousness), more generally, that's Innate Buddhahood. Though, the Buddhists say it's empty.

 

You say it's full of yummy bone broth... tell me more.

 

Spoiler

The sources I have been reading for my spirit work (women's myths, texts on dianic wicca) work on the premise that many women feel cut off from some of the most authentic and spontaneous aspects of their minds and emotions--by trauma, socialisation, a harmful environment etc. One of the myths I loved was that of the bone woman. She collects the bones of dead wolves and then sings over them until they grow ligament, muscle, fur, and return to life. She is a hag, or crone--the sacred elder woman who used to be associated with wisdom but who is now disregarded and disrespected by a woman-hating, youth worshipping society, and she carries the wisdom and intuition of all your foremothers and she wants to hand them on to you, if you are but receptive. Allegorically, the bones are forgotten or broken pieces of yourself, and you're meant to sing (possibly, finding their right creative and authentic words or actions? I am unsure) to knit them together again. Wicca, including dianic wicca, mentions the unconscious mind a lot, as they use the idea of Jungian archetypes (supposedly residing in our collective unconscious) that we need to make sense of our lives. The unconscious mind is sometimes portrayed as a pool that we can dive or be submerged in, and I saw it written that the body is the interface between the conscious day to day life, and the unconscious world of spirit. I liked this a lot and have remembered it. When meditating or reflecting on my own sacred hag deity, the visualisations that came most easily were a pool representing the parts of my mind I wanted to access through meditation. A dark and starry pool. To meditate is to be submerged.

 

 

My practice involves making my own rituals and forming associations and metaphors that are useful for me, so I can read different sources and see what sticks. So obviously I thought of a pool full of my ancestor's bones (containing the marrow of wisdom), and clearly bones in water are stock.

 

 

My brother is a buddhist, and there are many parallels between his practice and mine, though his encourages dissolution of the self, whereas mine encourages reinforcement of (some aspects) of it. They have more in common, though, than more "transcendent" religions, for buddhism seems to have aspects of immanence and transcendence, while dianic wicca and the other pagan practices I'm borrowing from appear to be immanent.

 

2 hours ago, Stronkey Kong said:

Yes... that, or the chaff of life... the drudgery and work we must undertake to experience and appreciate the ham and spice. Myth and wisdom could not be fully understood or appreciated without lots of bland, fibrous filler material.

 

And, yet, as we seek the ham, we learn to appreciate the delicate texture and mildly sweet, vegetable flavor of the peas and  how its minerals and fiber support us and make us regular. Thus, we come full circle, and learn to live life more fully.

 

Very wise. Mindful acceptance of the peas keeps us grounded in the present, which is the only place and time in which we can fully savour the ham.

 

[fearless 2.0]

*waves*

 

[PaulG]

16 hours ago, Stronkey Kong said:

And, yet, as we seek the ham, we learn to appreciate the delicate texture and mildly sweet, vegetable flavor of the peas and  how its minerals and fiber support us and make us regular. Thus, we come full circle, and learn to live life more fully.

I’m beginning to understand why visionaries such as Gandhi had whole journals dedicated to tracking their BMs.

[PaulG]

13 hours ago, Harriet said:

It's really nice. It has a little of the softness around the face and neck that you see in many depictions of the buddha and similar characters.

Many historians say the softness of his features was also a consequence of his enjoyment of ham.