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| Life as A Rice Cake |
The rice cake is plain and simple. There it is. It shows up much like everything shows up, plain and simple. But plain and simple isn't how we feel about what shows up in our life. We paint the rice cake with our emotions. We feel something for the rice cake! We feel love or hate or indifferent. Our feelings for the rice cake takes us up, down or flattens us.
And we go on the emotional ride with just about everything.
Emotions want to rule our composure and overrun us with agitations of highs and lows. And many of us believe a life without emotional overload is a dull, passionless life. Actually, Zen points to the cultivation of emotions but they are not the emotions rooted in the Jack-in-the box. The emotions that want to run roughshod over compassion, kindness, joy for others and equanimity are the passionate emotions of a self that wants to let loose, have fun, get high and the many variants of an eat, drink and be merry path.
Compassion, kindness, joy for others and equanimity are not painted on the rice cake. And they do not lead to anything in particular in the service of the self. They are present when we transcend Jack and the delusions of Jack. The cultivation of these emotions is stopping the old habits of allowing the like, dislike or indifferent patterns to continue without restraint. When the emotions rule, you say, do and think things that harm. You know, it's those times when you say to yourself, "What the hell, I deserve it." That is Jack!
Yup that's me--the "jackette" who relishes the eat, drink, and be merry kind of existence. Sometimes lots of fun..However, those same emotions (i.e. rage) can get triggered instantaneously, causing very harmful effects--like last night. She was out of the box in full force (and I actually thought I had been making "progress") in a flash. When its triggered-- very difficult to choose not to react in habitual ways. I'm hoping that as I keep watch of what's going on i will gain strength to let go of self-justification and water the seeds of kindness and forgiveness instead.
ReplyDeleteEileen, when you know where you are, practice occurs.
ReplyDeleteIn order to continue, one must begin.
Begin to practice and be dispassionate
about "jackette."
Don't become indolent.
Liz