Where's my Ox?

 

Sayings of Joshu #370

A monk asked, "When there is only a shade of difference - how is it then?"

Joshu said, "Coarse."

The monk said, "When one responds to the situation -what is that like?"

Joshu said, "Distortion."

 

        Rinzai said: “Turning to the outside and applying oneself (to it) is a stubborn fool's errand.”

      If you master any situation you are in, wherever you stand, all becomes true; you can no longer be driven around by circumstance. Even if in your former, unregenerate days you had committed the five heinous crimes they turn into the ocean of deliverance.  

     But students nowadays do not know the Dharma. They are like goats, nuzzling and nibbling at everything they come across. They cannot distinguish the servant from the master, nor the guest from the host. They enter religion with a wild heart, shouting noisily.

    One cannot call them true leavers of home; they are just ordinary laymen. A man who has left home should know how to see clearly and calmly, should know Buddha from Mara, the true from the false, the worldly from the sacred. If he has got this knowledge, he can truly be called a leaver-of-home.

    If he does not know Buddha from Mara, then in effect he leaves one home only to enter another, and is what is called a karma producing living being. He cannot yet be called a true leaver-of home. For if Buddha and Mara happen to appear in one form, he could not differentiate them. Yet, as the gander king knows how to drink only the milk from a mixture of milk and water, so does the clear eye (know how to differentiate). 

   Followers of the Way, just beat up both Buddha and Mara. For if you love the sacred and hate the worldly, you go on floating and sinking in the ocean of birth and death.

A monk asked: “What are Buddha and Mara?”

  The master said: A moment of doubt in your heart is Mara. But if you can grasp that the ten thousand things are unborn and that the heart is like an illusive fantasy, then no thing even of the size of a speck of dust exists — everywhere is purity — this is Buddha. It may be said that Buddha and Mara present the pure and the tainted state; yet as I see it there is no Buddha, no living being, no past, no present.

   Those who can realize this, do so at once, without training or testimonial, without gain or loss. There is no other Dharma. Were there a special one, I say it is like a phantom and a dream. This is all that I teach.

   Followers of the Way, the one who at this moment stands alone, clearly and lively right before the eyes and is listening, this one is nowhere obstructed; unhindered he penetrates everywhere and moves freely in the Three Worlds.

   Entering all kinds of situation, he is never affected by them. In the fraction of a moment he goes to the bottom of the scheme of things. Meeting Buddha, he talks with Buddha; meeting patriarchs, he talks with patriarchs; meeting Arhats, he talks with Arhats; meeting hungry ghosts, he talks with hungry ghosts. 

 

......... *author thinks that the key to where she intends to direct this blog is contained  up there. Can't be very sure because she is really all screwed up not knowing just how to approach this topic.  Real life meets Zen.  How does Zen deal with....  and it has otherwise been termed a " Carol Induced Hell" but it was not her design. *.....

 

If I treat my life situation as if it was a Carol Induced Hell to solve then the guiding powers that created this universe won't have to be disappointed that they spent all that effort giving me the ability to write, for nothing. (is the stalling tactic working?)

My brain wants to jump to the interpretation of the quotes in light of the life situation before I even try to describe the situation. I kinda feel like Arlo Guthrie sitting here waiting for it to come around on my mental guitar again so I can play it for you. I mean I got some kick ass things to say about those verses. Like the one about being unaffected by situations. 

For the last four years I have been trying to work on myself. To be alone and work on my stuff. And I feel good about  all that. But the people in my old life are dragging me back in.  There is going to be a grandchild, and my daughter's situation is not positive.

All of a sudden there is a dark cloud over my eyes when I look toward the realism of the future vs all the potential newness of the clean slate possible with a baby. Daughter's future will not be dissimilar from the habits of her past.  And I can't even be sure that my former and current habits will not steal time from that new baby.

I mean... that is, that I do not think I can bear psychologically to just stay sitting here in my little alone life that I love, while she will be going thru so much difficulty. Yet at the same time I cannot really do for her, what she needs to do, and it my be hard for me to be forced to allow her to make mistakes and learn or suffer from them. But not just her suffering but the new child's suffering as well.

I will have to sit back and watch new trauma be created thru the mistakes of my daughter's life. That could be transformed into different or less bad trauma if only she would be smart now. Which young people seldom seem to be capable of doing.

 

((hum, those two paragraphs came out really bottle necked there Jessy, maybe take a smoke and find some tunes while I try to clear it up. 

       She is going to be moving back home to the former toxic life she left so that she can make herself part of the grandchild's life. And this plot was going fairly well;  the mental preparations lining up etc; until she learned that it will not be the ordinary kind of bullshit hell of living with stupid deluded people but EVEN WORSE.

     The baby daddy was caught trying to solicit a minor online for sexy stuff. Chances high that he will do a few years, but then again this is the new liberal order and they think kid diddling is ok so who the hell knows.....now I am getting bottle necked....joins me for that smoke. Oh; trigger warning,  our rusty filter may leak vomit inducing exaggeration- BRB)) 

 

**** Plays Pin Ball Wizard***

  Ya know, Bodhidharma said in the "wake up sermon" on page 73 of the approved Red Pine edition of the Zen teaching of Bodhidharma; "Mortals (that is what he called humans) keep creating karma and mistakenly insist that there is no retribution. But can they deny suffering? Can they deny  that what the present state of their mind sows the next state of mind reaps? How can they escape? But if the present state of mind sows nothing, the next state of mind reaps nothing. Don't misconceive karma."

 So I am sitting here sowing thoughts and deductions of possible events to come. Of pattern behaviors exhibited by narcissists and liars and groomers. Also trying to work out how my child is where she currently is.  While I could just get to all the Zen snappy om nothingness interpretation stuff....for you to taste the rainbow, you will need to get dirty with how it is truly  made up of your self. Good, bad, and ugly. And life ain't pretty is it?

Suppose someday my daughter will have a moment of supreme insight into her pure true nature. Well, if it is already one state, then she is already such.  Now that is a hard one for my mommyhood addled brain to accept.... i mean 'mothers' ami right?

She will come to her own acceptance of vanish poofy woohoo 'i am enlightened ' and it never mattered anywayhoodness. But does that mean it was not real or gut wrenching, or painful for multiple others? Maybe some would say this thinking here is what the zen masters meant to point you away from.   They all just spoke of shutting up the thoughts I am wanting to rumble here before you.

Is it so? If I am studying the nature of having these thoughts, what they are, what they say that can be so distracting to the mind. Maybe people are mired  down in the concerns of the potentials of the future or the ramifications of the present, the injustices  that await for them after they have had their meditation and dharma session.

Bodhidharma was asking, how do you escape?  

.....

Are we bottle necked again?   I don't wanna think about my daughter problem anymore. Oh... that is what we was going to talk about... her... we can't  just do the simple zen whamo *all cured* stuff just yet. It is a process. *oh sigh*.....

** listens to "Love, reign o're me" by the Who**

I mean, I can guess at what the majority of readers in the human race might be thinking. It is a no brainer, right? I would have NOPED the fuck out. But she has not. She has sat there three weeks anon being depressed, confused, and hearing the lamentations of the B-daddy family not knowing their boy was like this. Such a shock. And can they be part of the baby's life still?

I know, i know...a lot of mixed reactions from the crowd. Varying levels visceral consideration. My child wants to hope that somehow her boyfriend can have something to tell her, after the trial, that will make sense of his mistake. Ya know maybe he has a split personality, ya know. She just knows that his whole family is shocked and knows that he loves her.   We have read our reddit stories haven't we? We do understand the concept of dogging a bullet, don't we?

What can I DO for my child! Besides tell her clearly that is how pathology operates darling. He will say anything. If he was being very loving toward you at his age it may be because he was hoping to use a relationship to curve or stop himself. Or fucking bloody hell maybe to grow his own.

She was all "but I thought he was the one"...**bites my tongue off; I despise the deception we put on ourselves to avoid the first pain of a hard truth.** 

She says that the grandfolk, who have not yet bailed out their own poor baby boy at 5000 bond, will help her get on assistance and housing close-by. So they can still love the baby.  ....**face twists...I am not totally heartless but there have GOT to be provisions and supervisions here I mean pedos don't just break themselves! You maybe complicit, you may have not believed him when he told, you may have done it. Maybe you didn't know. Maybe the influences that created it are still blind to you. That is ok but....um...we don't just keep doing things blindly pretending there is no pedo stuff to be concerned about.  And what about the liar, if he has managed to keep secrets so well for a while then the chances are that he is pretty good at convincing his mother that he is all better now, maybe he will find Jesus while in jail and be scared straight or something. ( that is my mommy addled sarcasm not something my daughter said)

She said...."yeah i know" . Implying that she is aware that he will likely try to worm his way into child's life. But she said it in such a way that she also knows she just does not have the balls to prevent it......

What do you do or say when the victim IS to blame past a certain point? And worse they are your own flesh and blood?  What ever mistakes you made....how much have they upon the child's self direction?   I mean when I felt threatened by my ex's parents I took my kid and ran back home. No matter how toxic home is.... I  think for all it's faults it is not like the devil I do not know.  The devil I know never beat on us or diddled kids and  he paid the bills. Other than that you just have to let his bullshit and negativity not get past your filter.  HE AIN'T DIDDLING KIDS!!!!!

I am moving back to that old house with my ex husband for my daughter's sake. For that baby and also for my son.  

Maybe now I can start to think about the Rinzai quote soon. About mastering every situation. About what is mine and not mine. About my practice here away from home, and thoughts on keeping it when I go back to home. Like where is this home?

Do you know what my daughter has against her father, what triggers her father's irrational temper tantrums? Their whole tension ( that is to say current as of her whole life) is that she is very lazy. Very lay about, no ambition, no self power.  He wants to try to help get her set up to live, he wants to make sure she has a car and can get by. He is a complicated kind of asshole. See for all his wanting to be her safety net, cheerleader, and manager, he had crippled her.  And I can't tell if it is his evil intention to have people like that to him or an trying  to protect and do the best but it just is not working kind of situation. 

I know my motherhood fault was over protection from negative consequence. But damn I thought I taught her enough other things that the negativity would not get this fucking karmatic. I mean she doesn't do drugs, not an alcoholic will to the bare minimum  but never the dishes.

I am lazy too. I mean I got all my pans in the sink and will be stubborn and not eat till I feel like cleaning.  Bad trouble with self motivated self care. ....

.....

But what can I do?  How does a Master of the situation they are in deal with....well what is there to deal with in this tiny moment?

Everything else is hypothetical and statistical and emotional.  All I can do today besides be available for the daughter, is save money just in case what ever.  The hard thing for me is  how it is to watch.  As Bodhidharma mentioned, each moment's mind leads to the next.  If it was you or me we would have "noped" out as soon as the initial shock wore off. Because we have got a whole bunch of human hormones of mommyhoodness screaming at us to protect the child no matter what.

During my daughter's second set of formative years I was not the main influence upon her, but my ex was staying with his best friends. Who where exploiting him and putting me down and even made it their purpose to destroy our marriage. They also scapegoated my children. They also where a text book abusive relationship. Daughter learned to not speak up, because that is how best friend's wife handled difficult situations. Only my daughter did not pick up the good southern house cleaning wife syndrome. She kept my lazy g.r.i.t.s. rebellion. Not to mention that her father doesn't have a back bone to fight for a good principle.  Instead of punching his friend out for starting to ever put his wife down like in the good ole days, my ex decided to agree with the fault finding. It was a fine poison that burned over seven years, then then damage to our children really started.

Isn't it funny how we are each completely responsible for our lives? Each proper choice we failed to make.  Each gut reaction we over rode because of fear or good reasonable excuses compound and complicate. And if we misconstrue karma, that is to keep adding to the next moment of mind the script of the previous moment of mind. Or if we find a moment of mind with no reaping, we would reach back to the previous moment of mind where there was sowing. Just so we don't get bored.

But still how does all that help the human that is sitting here in the result of their own victumhoodness?  How does someone who is my daughter just be the master in her situation?

Remember earlier I mentioned the thought that if she ever does then she would find her path was laid out clearly and her mind/nature was always pure. Even now it will act in such a way that will eventually resolve itself.    I mean either life will punish her with loss, or she will find something larger than herself to fight for, or she could....well I have no unearthly idea now do I?

Her choice and it's results are not mine. And if that result puts that child near or far from me I can only deal then. This is pretty hard. I bet a bunch of people would be saying they would fight via law for the grand child...go against the daughter and ...all kinds of forceful mean and nasty things.

Yeah, oh sigh, this is similar to my error of wanting to protect her from pain. Could never tell which hell was best for all concerned.

I am not much more worthy as a parent to become the sole caretaker for that baby. But I have great faith that I am capable of assisting as a family to heal up and make corrections and grow and love this child as we go.  Maybe I can talk up the family dream to my daughter.

Would a little realistic dream be a better path of persuasion that to wait for the master liar and his family to eat her weakness?  Could I now, since I have done much work, help my kids learn to make boundaries?

Hum.  I have to entirely let go of my fears when I speak to my daughter. I think it is a good thing to sow that I should talk about the family plans of doing family stuff. Of coming together thru thick and thin as we do and have done. To speak of seeing the child as important.  That we all want to provide a secure environment. And that can't be done with baby daddy family ....oh...wait...trying to deflect from pedo stuff.  

Goal is to build up that fierce mommyhoodness adrenaline. And self esteem.

Well crap this blog is taking too long...no way I can post this to my main hang out.

Why is life so much easier for other people? They seldom think their minds thru so intrinsically.  I really screwed up man....fucking zen.

SO what have we come to?   **locomotive breath and a bit more mindless smoke before I wrap this shit show up**

....

Pre-post script; stepping away from my keyboard and publishing early.  Somewhere in this brain of mine are  the finishing thoughts but they are not ready to pop out. Gonna reflect on the big picture, and get back at some point.  (( it is difficult to scroll up to the quotes to fashion my next words so that is why pre publish for easy scrolling review))

List of my mental errors as they pop randomly into my head.....GO!

I think that I have to take on the negative heaviness of the world view of my ex as the "reality" I am heading to. The dismal feeling of they are failures, the resentment.

       1) is this thought his or part of my personality, feeling that I am a failure? Duh. I have also used such words against my daughter. "do you want  to be a, stop being a" So how much of this so called ex's emotional presence is being projected onto you?

.... that is a trick question.   

      2) it is myself that does not accept my children as they are. Particularly my daughter. So when I hear my ex say that he accepts his daughter the way she is, what I really hear is my anger that "he" sees my daughter as ...er ma gr.....fuck you Rinzai!

..... you are welcome.

 

Therefore the key to keeping myself as master in the situation is noticing that I am projecting the interpretation of the situation. Holding on to the emotional rumination of it. Which is also a mistake parents make. What I want to do for this child, is notice them, see them thru in a loving way.  I want to do this for my daughter but not to tell her what to do , or judge her for what she chooses.

But I am also making the mistake of over concern for the child later on when it is my own child that needs the loving encouragement. This is a kind of deflection from dealing with my daughter. As I am holding that resentment.  holy crap.... I am a shit heel.

It is error to think that anything can get a chance at being better in some unborn future, as if we can skip over the mother as a lost cause and hope to buffer for the child.

Eeek...crap that was some shit thinking there, wasn't it? But I think I was going that route.  To " be there for the child" yet also hold the notion that I have to "sit back and watch daughter make mistakes." I suppose I was really whining that I did not know the motivational words to give her strength. But ....feeling loved and wanted and supported are how strength is grown.

I have for a long while been focused on feeling unloved and how bad it feels.  And I am overlooking how this is a teaching, bonding, healing, foundational moment for my daughter and her child.  And that is how I seek to curb my speech. But sure yeah is too wrong for me to be emotional about "you need to nope yourself outta there, find your own government house or roommate with dad or maybe me  brother and you can all figure it out."

 ** thoughts drifting into fantasy and hope and I feel better. I will work on not taking on and trying to battle old worldview energies. That will be helpful toward keeping my ox in my own pasture.***

I'll be back if I think of another error.

 

 

 Update later the day of this writing. She has seen the black and white paper that showed her what they got on her baby daddy... it was enough for her to move back home.  Though all the heartaches are not solved, they happily await us a bridges to build and cross as they arise. But without one major X factor  new karma shit. 
Perhaps she can fall in love with the Child, it is ok to know they are "the One" now.

((psst but it still isn't pretty butterflies and rainbows all the time))

All the prayers of all who can relate to the troubles of life are appreciated.