befriend the pain,
the pain that has controlled you for years.

The pain that men prefer to start wars, conquer a continent ,
start a political revolution, fight with their mother in law, check
their email 200 times a day,
rather than to sit for 5 minutes, and accept, that it is there,
it is part of me... after all these years .. trips .. degrees.. courses..achievements..
experiences.. it is still part of me.
Do  not despair , do not think that accepting it is defeat,
accepting it brings true transformation.. can I be humble enough
to accept that after going from a geeky teenager to a `successful adult'
I am still just at the start of this transformation.. at dealing with emotions that
I have run away from for decades.

How funny it could be if somewhere up there a
soul said to itself
`I need to learn to deal with this emotion..
so I will spend a 100 years in this body so that
sometime in these 100 years.. I will be so tired of
running away from it.. that I will spend 5 minutes
feeling it'

Meditating, it is always a surprise when moments of great peace come.
A certain negativity or defilement is in your mind. You are meditating on it with the
help of the body sensations and the breath. Who knows how long it will stay there..
then at an unexpected moment it dissolves , and you feel the peace underneath it.
The peace that the Buddhist belief says is part of the base of a pure mind -
`base' meaning it is the default state of the mind..  it is what is there when nothing else is generated,
when the negativities that were generated before are washed away.
Makes you think of the possibility of living continuously in that state of peace..
that as I understand it, is what life is like in the Brahmanic plane (if such a thing exists), and
that is only a pale shadow of what Nirvanic peace is like.
But I try not to think to much about these things - that are just abstract fantasies for me -
and focus on what is tangible for me - increasing and intensifying those moments of peace,joy , love ,
dissolving the resentment and the tensions inside of me.

Fears

I read somewhere that in addition to positive thinking, occasionally
saying your fears out loud can be good for you. Here's what I came up with
(p.s. obviously I think practicing Vipassana as taught by S. N . Goenka is better than both)

Snakes can crawl into my bed.
People think I am pathetic.
I will spend year after year alone in the same office,
thinking about the same imaginary mathematical objects.
Time will pass , and this body and mind capable of feeling love
and excitement will be wasted, not used.
I will be old and sick and miss my opportunity to have
beautiful young love.
I will be an old man lying in his bed, masturbating , dreaming about
the same women, the same things.
My denial of the actual reality will grow stronger and stronger.
I will drink more coffee, watch more porn, watch more Seinfeld reruns,
to escape from my loneliness, my decaying body, my frail health,
my growing sadness.

One unexpected day, while masturbating in my bed, dreaming about
a girl that was mine for a short time, the snake I feared for so long will crawl
into my bed. Looking into his eyes, he will say in my mind
`this is the moment of exposure, the moment of truth, the moment of payment
for a wasted life'

after spending time writing all this I will accidentally delete everything.

My love,
will I have another chance to sing looking into your eyes?
Preferably the corniest love songs.
Will our hearts meet again to expand together? Or are our paths destined stay separate from now on?
I focus on finding happiness here and now,
but once in a while I pray for more magical moments to share.

To quote westlife
`I'm reaching for a love that seems so far..
`So I say a little prayer, and hope my dreams will take me there,
where the skies are blue, to see you once again my love'
`....over seas from coast to coast.. to see you once again my love'

amazing how every love song seems to be exactly about you,
exactly true.

rings so true, by westlife.. wish I could write like this.
..
`If I let you go, I will never know,
what my life would be holding you close to me.
Will I ever see you smiling back at me?
How will I know, if I let you go?

night after night I hear myself say, why can't this feeling just go away?
There's no one like you, you speak to my heart
it's such a shame we're worlds apart
I'm too shy to ask (well.. don't identify with this specific line.. maybe `I'm to shy to ask for the 20th time')
I'm too proud to lose (well.. actually I would easily let go of that pride if we could make out on a  regular basis),
but sooner or later I gotta choose
and once again I'm thinking about taking the easy way out


`But if I let you go, I will never know,
what my life would be holding you close to me.
Will I ever see you smiling back at me?
How will I know, if I let you go?


..OK well actually rereading it now I think it's about a slightly different situation than I was thinking of,
but still most of it resonates with me.

Inner demons

whisper in your head
`let your emotions rule you'
`wait another day before doing what you should'
`don't even try to reach out to a hostile world'

while they think in their heads
`let us rule you'
`let us control you for another day'
`don't even try to break out of our hostile world'
`keep wasting your time, till the end of this incarnation, till the end of your opportunity,
when inner demons will again become outer demons, inner hell will again become outer hell'

We must focus on taking a small step away from hell each day, and be happy with that. Each day transform a particle of negativity to a particle of love,peace, happiness.
Particles accumulate. Consistent action pays off.

When you have no peace, it seems like a million things need to be just right for you to find it.
But at a moment when you experience peace, you know that peace is all that is needed for peace.

making plans, living in dreams,
our bodies and subconscious carry us in a different direction.
I try to merge conscious and subconscious, rather than living in a fantasy

Waking up suddenly, we vow to never fall under
the spell of evil again.
But the ocean's waves are so high , and
we sink below, not knowing how many years will pass
till our heads are above the water again.
The memory of fresh air, must direct us upwards,
prevent us from filling our lungs with dirty water.
That memory will keep one particle of our lungs sheltered,
until the time it is ready to manifest again.

Dormant gods have moments of hope.
Dormant Buddhas have no need for water or air.
Their hope is like stone.

In a battle for the heart of an angel, we should both lose,
so that she is never conquered, and can shine on us all.

In our quest to kill a demon, we should give up immediately or
she will start possessing us.

In an attempt to break out of this prison, we should die a 1000 times,
each time releasing one of the demons or angels that lives within us.

Miracles

At a moment of despair it seems the years have been in vain,
as the same brick wall of sadness stands there.
But a moment later you recall, that brick wall is
now soft like a cloud,
it evaporates as you step through it with your attention,
it has changed together with your consciousness.
As a bonus,
at that moment of recollection, gratitude dissolves resentment into love