Author: Liz

Buddha Balboa

Remembering 9/11

9/11.  Numbers forever etched in our hearts and minds.

There’s not much that I can add here that hasn’t already been said about that horrific day in our country’s history.  It will forever leave a deep wound in each of our hearts. 

I was in NYC that day.  We all moved around in shock after the event…in slow motion, like a nightmare that we couldn’t shake.  Is this for real?   How could this happen?  So many questions…so much enduring pain.

We must always, and I mean always, remember that day and the loved one’s we lost.  Time leaves a scar but the feelings remain.  Strong, unending love that can never be extinguished.

Life is not an easy road…we experience pain alongside joy, fear alongside comfort.  This is how it is.  So I believe it is our responsibility to remind ourselves each day that we are fortunate –  even in the midst of struggle or sadness – to be here and to be given the chance to live our lives as best we can. 

Be safe my friends. – BB

Buddha Balboa

Unfinished Business

Good intentions.

We all have them.  I have them every day.  I suspect you have a list of them as well.

As I was cleaning out my email Inbox, I noticed all those emails – offers, classes, promotions – that I just never got around to doing.  I save them as “unread” with the expectation that I will get back to them, and partake.

I want to…I really do.  But I also know there is only so much time in the day, hours in my week.  Time management appears to be one of the greatest complaints of our modern society.  “I don’t have enough time” is uttered more than “Please” and “Thank you”.  Many a final thought before falling asleep is what we didn’t get done that day.  We are overwhelmed and underpaid by our dear friend Father Time.

So, what do we do about it?

Perhaps we just do what I did with my emails – I deleted them.  I got ruthless for a few minutes and deleted all those that had either been sitting there too long, or that I just knew I could “let go” this round.  There’s only so many shows I can buy tickets to, seminars I can attend, or Walkathons I can donate to before I hit the saturation point.  I see it like the fine art of whittling – when you take a basic tree stick and fashion it into an amazing utensil, perfect for hotdog roasting over a campfire.  Scrape away what you don’t need and get to the “point.”

It’s a difficult task, I know.  We go through this while spring cleaning our bulging closets; when scheduling the kids school and sporting events on the refrigerator calendar.  We run up against the ole clock, time and time again, praying for just a few extra minutes.

I give you permission to let go of unfinished business (not that you need my permission, but it helps to get the friendly nudge.)  To understand that there are ALWAYS going to be things left undone – and that it’s perfectly okay to do so.  The universe will understand, I promise.

What unfinished business can you delete from your list?  Let me know. – BB

Buddha Balboa

TBIF – Thank Buddha It’s Friday

TBIF – It’s summer and a Friday…who wants to be working?

I offer you this to ponder today and over the weekend:

Darren Rowse, blogger, thinker, speaker (creator of Problogger.net) said he asks himself this question at the end of every day – “What gave me energy today?”

Great question….really great question.

I love the way he phrased it – that instead of asking what he’s passionate about or what his passions are, that he looks for what gives him energy – what he refers to often as “the spark.”  Think about it for a second.  What gives YOU energy?  What excites you with that energy to move forward, to investigate, to learn….to keep reading, to figure out…that thing that gets you up early each morning or keeps you up all night?

It’s different for all of us.  What excites one person may bore another.  But we all have that energy producing interest that lights our brains on fire.  Darren suggests we fan the flame and watch it grow.

Make a list – without thinking – just put down things that get you goin’….and see if there is a connection or a path they take you.  And then follow it.

Cool, right?  Gives me energy just thinking about it! – BB

Buddha Balboa

The Great Escape

We spend our lives running.  Running away.

As a card-carrying member of the Western culture, I realize that we are a group of dodgers.  Generally speaking, we do whatever it takes to avoid pain, discomfort, fear and unhappiness.  YET, fear is the invisible wall that we continue to crash into over and over again.

We are uncomfortable with sadness.  We loathe pain.  We outrun emptiness by any means.  Because we haven’t been taught how to handle it.  OR that it’s a normal part of human existence.  I repeat, it’s a normal part of human existence that we all experience.

I’m not glorifying or glamorizing human suffering…not by any stretch.  I myself try to work around my unhappy moments, try to minimize pain (both physical and emotional.)  Let’s face it – pain and sadness are not welcome friends.  BUT, they are a part of what it means to be human…so in that, we can either fight it or come to understand it and, for lack of a better word, embrace it.

When my mind wanders and recalls a sad or painful time in my past, and I start replaying it in my head, I catch myself shaking my head quickly, as if I were saying no, attempting to shake off the memory like a pitcher does to a catcher in baseball.  (No, not that pitch.  I don’t want to throw the slider.)  Painful memories and thoughts are uncomfortable – they make us squirm in the seat of our souls.  So it makes sense that we “don’t want to go there.”  Why would we?

However, from a Buddhist perspective, we can stop running.  We can transform our fears and our feelings of emptiness instead of trying to eliminate them.  As Mark Epstein, M.D., so beautifully explains in his book ‘Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart’, our Western therapy has spent much of its time trying to eradicate our feelings of insufficiency, emptiness, and fear and finding the source of our problems, instead of taking a more Buddhist type of approach by learning to face these feelings and tolerate their existence in our lives.  Now I know that sounds so “heady”, but doesn’t it also have the gentle peal of the truth bell?

It just amazes me how we (and I include myself in this communal grouping) are constantly running after happiness and away from unhappiness making for a lot of exhausted people.  We waste precious energy in all those unnecessary psychological calisthenics.  Mark Epstein (he’s also a psychiatrist) uses meditation personally and professionally as a way to help manage this frenetic storm.

I sometimes want to scream out in the streets (but don’t for fear of being locked up) that we should all stop chasing our happiness tails….because we will never catch them.  We do not land on Happy Island and set up our tents and live happily ever after drinking coconut flavored beverages with sippy straws.  It just doesn’t work that way.  Storms blow through, tents get destroyed and our tropical beverages go sour.  Even on an island in the middle of nowhere, life has a way of finding us.

We don’t always get to see the troubles of others – we are most often bombarded by headlines of success of those more fortunate than ourselves – those members of societies elite.  Their lives appear to glisten like gold in the noonday sun – all polished and untarnished.  But it’s not real.  It’s a facade, a mirage.  Even the most powerful of us must sleep each night.  Even the richest of us goes to the bathroom.  Even the most famous experience death.

So this is my thought – there is no escaping.  But that isn’t a bad thing – it’s reality.  It’s honest and gritty and truthful…and, if you’ll allow me here…quite beautiful.  It takes the pressure off – knowing perfection and unending joy and bliss are myths – pots of gold that are forever unreachable.  Letting go is a part of the Buddhist philosophy.  And in letting go we gain so much more than we lose.  Letting go of impossible ideals is the only way to relax into the life we have and make it our own.

Now where’s my coconut drink? – BB