The Guns and the Jade Buddha

(Repost from my first blog in honor of greeting the new year with our eyes open)

I remember the room with the toy closet. It was my father's bedroom in my grandfather's house. The desk, the electric keyboard…there were a few of my father's things he kept in his childhood room at his father's house.

There was a dresser with a number of jade sculptures including a sitting Buddha...he was smiling. This Buddha was rather large. In my memory he sat at least 18 inches tall. I liked the way the jade felt...so soft and tough at the same time. It was a curiosity to me -- what was this Buddha all about? How does Buddha fit into life? I was an avid reader and I read as much as I could find about it and surely my learning about other cultures, religions and spiritual practices began there.

I also remember the gun racks. There were two, each holding at least a dozen antique shotguns and rifles. It was hard to even look at those racks as a young child. The intention of their presence filled the whole house, not only that bedroom. The guns created the bass notes for everything I felt while being in the house: they resonated with the rhythms of cold violence. At the heart of this beating pulse was a darkness upon which the potentials of beauty, learning, and even spirituality could not be laid.

Instead there was this dichotomy; this incongruity. All still incomprehensible today.

My father was a man I never knew; one no one ever really knew...and there is no possible way to know now.

Who might he have become had he been raised by different people? As today I stand on the razor's edge, Krittika, with certainty I see -- he would have been more like me. He would have understood the darkness as a vehicle for transformation and for reaching higher good instead of using it in the ways that he chose. He would have been fully human; but he was not. He might have been knowable; but he was not. Still, I remain grateful to him for all that I am. Only because of who I am must I stand on that razor's edge. Only because I am there do I know both darkness and light.

I watch shadows play in the brilliance of the day; I squint at the brightness that creeps into the darkest of corners of the night. I remain in balance...I remain aware. I remain knowable.

I remain present.

The guns and the jade Buddha: they are in the same room.

Be ever mindful. Walk with joy.
___________

Vajrapani (artwork by Dhyana Zagri) -- Vajrapani, Guardian of the Dharma, is the Destroyer of obstacles. He is one of 3 celestial bodhisattvas or archangelic protectors. A bodhisattva is one who has chosen to reincarnate in order to show the path to Nirvana or enlightenment. Vajrapani is the holder of the Diamond Thunderbolt or Vajra (symbolizing the power of compassion) an emblem of the concentrated power of the Buddha and the Vajrayana way. He is said to be the last Buddha to appear in this world cycle, wears long snake necklace and tiger skin loin cloth, symbolizing the conquest of anger. In his hand he holds the Vajra or Dorje in Tibetan, which is the quintessential symbol of the ‘diamond vehicle’ or the Tantric Vajrayana Buddhist path.

FallOut

NEW YORK (AP) — The founder of an investment fund that lost $1.4 billion with Bernard Madoff was discovered dead Tuesday after committing suicide at his Manhattan office, marking a grim turn in a scandal that has left investors around the world in financial ruin.

Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, 65, was found sitting at his desk at about 8 a.m. with both wrists slashed, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. A box cutter was found on the floor along with a bottle of sleeping pills on his desk. No suicide note was found.

Sad indeed...

Could this be any one of us? I am mindful that it can be.

Trust and Teenage "Don't Tell Mom"

"Trust what can be trusted
Offer what can be offered
Ask for what can be given
Make clear how we want to be predictable & unpredictable." twitter.com/consciousjack

I was reading Tuesday's NYTimes when I can across the article, "What to do if Patient Says, 'Don't Tell Mom,' " and thinking about my friend Samantha and issues with her 10 year old Noah when I recognized myself in the article.

At nearly 17, I nearly lost my life. The situation that precipitated the illness was one of a lack of trust. Mom didn't trust me; I didn't trust Mom. Interestingly, I was not offered an obvious place to put my trust and the doctor that saved my life was her doc and I did not feel comfortable to trust; so much so that I lost my interest in medicine as a vocation.

As I was healing, my interaction with him was tenuous at best. I was completely honest and trustworthy with information I was willing to share. I was untrusting with the unpredictability of the relationship between the doc and my mother and I did share what I could comfortably with him. He didn't trust me because he knew I was withholding information from him.

As I look back, it was the lack of clarity of the relationship we had with each other of predictable and unpredictable behavior that guided our interaction -- from my experience, it was not possible how to know when people were being predictable or unpredictable. When I trusted, I had been let down...very much so. It was impossible to know what information could be trusted or not.

Later, when I was given an opportunity to trust, I could not see it. I didn't have a clear understanding of how to trust:

"Trust what can be trusted
Offer what can be offered
Ask for what can be given
Make clear how we want to be predictable & unpredictable."