Practicing tong len

To let it be. My friend told me his word of the month was "let". Now, I'm hooked on to it. Let suffering be suffering, to let pain be pain, to let grasping be grasping. In doing so, I'm simply labeling them for what they are without judgment, I find. While it is challenging, I also notice that it increases my awareness of what things are.

Today, I noticed how much suffering was there around me. Sometimes I'm so focussed on my own suffering that I miss those of others around me. Today was a day when the reverse happened. I noticed the joy, the pain, the confusion and the sadness in people around me. I was touched by the state of two people in particular.
One is a colleague. I noticed in his eyes a lot of sadness, over what I do not know. I inquired about how he was doing. Not knowing if should push it any further, and how I should do it, I didn't push any further. I simply did some tong len for him.
The second is a neighborhood friend I practiced meditation with today; the same one I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Despite the fact that he is in a lot of pain and suffering, he has an amazingly positive attitude. Hanging out with him gave a lot of confidence in myself fro some reason. Also, it made me feel so much more blessed and damn lucky; for my health is a luxury compared to his.

I was at the Dalai Lama's talk recently. He talked about biased and unbiased compassion; the former based on actions and the latter based on the person. I thought it was a pretty good way of expressing it. The compassion I had expressed today might be partially biased. But there is the slightest possibility that they were unbiased. That makes me feel better. I've been trying to be more patient and compassionate recently. Perhaps my efforts are in the right direction. It feels fulfilling when I just do something out of compassion, without expecting anything in return. But, I'm worried about letting myself be abused by my own new found enthusiasm for compassion. I'm known to do that.... I should keep an eye on to catch these patterns early before they excalate into something bigger.

Low self-image

I went to my T last week. I couldn't take it anymore. I was not able to sit with my depression. I was too embarrassed to talk at all. But, it was good in some ways to see how I was holding on to some old, very old patterns. I find it hard still to let go of some of the embarrassment associated with my own body--my self-image.

I get angry thinking about it. I get angry at (one of) my molester(s). I had felt anger before, not at him, but as a more generic anger directed towards the injustice, the society that led to such injustice and so on. I somehow didn't direct my anger at him. I saw him only as a product of the society and didn't blame him. But since last week, I'm angry at him. For screwing my life up, for screwing the life of the other kids,... for making me ashamed of my own body. The onus of the body image factor might be on me, but the initial direction was misguided.

Once an arrow leaves the bow, it is not easy to turn its direction. That is what is going on with my self-image. It has been reinforced by several other incidents. Sadly, I didn't realize the automatic thoughts in this process, until last week. Instead, I had used my issues with self-image to chastise myself even further, only leading to a recursive deprecation of self-image.

I'm now trying to school myself to build it again, rather erase the old patterns and lay the foundation for a new healthier one. If it is like anything else I've faced already, it is going to be a long and bumpy road with more pain than I would perhaps like. Hopefully, I'll have the courage to continue down this road, to make at least some progress. It does give me a hint of hope to know that others have made it beyond this point... hopefully, I'll make it too.

Actions and expectations

I learnt a lesson from my own words today. I was writing a post on karma theory today. I was interpreting one of the famous lines from the Bhagavad Gita, "karmaNye vaadhikaraste..."

My own interpretation of the line is, "Do your actions, not based on the expected results". It is easier said than done, of course. But, writing about it made me realize that I was not doing as I was saying. I was expecting certain results and doing things accordingly. I was doing things without being aware of my own expectations on the results. This led me to feel disappointed, sad, and even depressed that despite all my efforts the results weren't as I expected them to be.

As I thought more about it, I realized what unconditional love meant... to do what I'd want to do, irrrespective of whether or not it is reciprocated. It is has to come from within, out of a choice to do what I really want to do, whether or not the results turn out to be as we expect it to be.

As I write this, I also realize that my interpretation is more akin to the Buddhist interpretation rather than a Hindu interpretation (in practice).

Freaking out at intimacy

I was watching an episode (Florida) of Law and Order: SVU (Special Victims Unit) today. Towards the end, there was a scene that struck a chord with me and my life; rather, my own experience. There is a dramatic stand-off where Benson, the lead female protagonist in the show, explains how when a girl is kissed by a boy, she doesn't freak out. Later she explores the possibility that the girl was molested as a child.

This reminded me of myself freaking out when I kissed for the first time. I was confused. It was exciting for the most part and intimidating at the same time. It was more so when the girl I was dating wanted to have sex. I totally freaked out and I could not and did not go on with it. It still worries me that I might never be able to overcome it.

I presume some of you had similar experiences. I'd like to hear what your reaction was.

Dad and his love

I've been thinking about my dad lately. It was only recently that I heard him cry. I know he as cried before, and I vaguely remember once about 15 years ago when my grandma died. But never since then or before then. The way my relationship with him has changed over the past year, rather since I visited home in August last year has been really... fruitful is not quite the word, neither is revealing. Once again, I'm stumped by the lack of appropriate words for the emotions I'm going through.

I've been talking to by T about this. All my life I've been trying not to become my dad at many levels. Now suddenly, I've started seeing him as a complex person rather than as simply the person I don't want to turn into. But today, I realized something beyond that.

For the first time, I realized how he never really expressed his love in an understandable... well what I'm saying is that he never communicated his love for us very well. I now see that he really cared about us very much, he just didn't know how to show it. Perhaps I'm being too generous, but I genuinely felt it today. When I look back on it, I recall him being very frustrated when we didn't understand his love. All we saw was his frustration and his anger resulting from it. Nothing more. At least I didn't see anything more.

Today, I felt sorry for him and connected with him somehow. He did what he thought was best for us, which wasn't always best. He always did things out of love, but when not appreciated for it, he got really angry, but may be he didn't know why he even got angry for. He tried to tell us he loved us, but saying it is very different from showing it in action.

Once again, I don't want to end up like my dad; only, this time it is for a different reason, an entirely different reason.

Empathy

I felt transported to about 9 months ago, when I was brooding over things. This time it was different. First it was short-lived. Second, I felt it in a different way, very very different. It is hard to put it into words. But I felt the suffering not of my own but of the other. I could feel the sadness dripping in the atmosphere of the other. Yes, it is possible that it is my own misinterpretation, but I do not think it is. Nevertheless, this has left me deeply touched. Somehow I find this to be an eye,... no heart opening experience.

There is so much suffering in the world. I've been too very focussed on mine alone that I've failed to look at others. No, I don't mean that I've been so self absorbed that I've not noticed any of the suffering around me. I actually "felt" it this time. It was as if the distinction between me and the rest of the world simply disappeared. Thus, I felt their pain as if it were mine own.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but I found it pretty interesting to note that feeling of empathy rather than sympathy.

Child abuse in India

I saw this BBC news article entitled, Abuse of Indian children 'common'. First I thought they were talking about physical abuse. I know that physical (and emotional) abuse happens in nearly all of 100% of the families in India. Yes, this is going to sound like I'm stereotyping, but this is my experience as it is the experience of many of my Indian friends. Physical abuse is also common in school. I would not be exaggerating in stating that physical abuse is pretty much the norm.

Now, the surprise in the article is this:

Commissioned by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the study says 53% of the surveyed children reported one or more forms of sexual abuse.

That is huge! More than 1 in 2 kids! That is f****** disgusting. I f******* hate India for being what it is, for being so slow in even admitting it. I'm angry at every one of them hypocrites, and there is a damned huge lot in India, who do not even acknowledge that such things can happen.

In India there's a tradition of denying child abuse. It doesn't happen here is what we normally say. But by remaining silent, we have aided and abetted the abuse of children.

Fuck yeah! We are complete idiots to not see this happen. People who are not conscious of the dangers kids could be exposed to should not be allowed to have kids... heck neuter them! Yes, I'm angry, big time angry.
Reminding myself that sexual abuse is almost always under reported only makes me feel even more angry.

How is this for a statistic that came out of this government funded study:

Two out of every three children in India are physically abused, according to a landmark government study.

Am I the only one who finds anything wrong with this statistic. How is that if 1 in 2 kids are sexually abused, only 2 in 3 kids physcially abused? Where do they come up with these numbers that seem obviously flawed? More fuel to the fire!

They did get one thing right:

a disturbing finding of the study had been that 70% had not reported the abuse to anyone.

Yeah, try reporting that yourself in a society that denies such things ever happen. We consider ourselves morally superior that we refuse to look at our own dirt. The entire country is full of self-righteous snobs who live in self-denial.

I need to lay-off of writing now to cool off... may be I'll try to write when I'm a bit more cool headed.