azoru's Blog

Yet another day I had to see a loved one go.  Today I had to to sign off on putting my dog to sleep. 
He is of 15 years old, and was like a baby sitter to me.  During my primary school years, I had to wait for the school bus on an Elder Neighbor's driveway. One day she brought home this young French Poodle. Afterwords, it became a routine that each school morning, the French Poodle would come running out barking until I greeted him properly. Perhaps that is whom I learned my manners? There was a year where I would wait for the bus in solitude with the company of none, but the French Poodle.  After my neighbor had passed away many years later, my family had inherited the French Poodle. 

It was a tough decision.  My dog was struggling to breath on the vet's table with his mouth dark gray.  I really wish I was more sensitive and in sync with other living things. Did he want to keep struggling to breath but die at the comfort of his home? Or did he want to go painlessly? He kept making eye contact with me all while I tried so hard to read what he was trying to tell me.  Did I make the right decision? Is he happier this way?  I wish I could have spend more quality time with him.  Such regrets.

After I arrived home from putting my dog down, I sat alone in the darkness and silence of night, and could feel it.  I felt the gentle cold breeze, the bare tree, and the dark sky, that everything is connected.  Therefore his energies will be recycled back into the universe, whatever that is suppose to mean.

My apologies to all. I have craved EP for a long time it seems. Alas however, Internet connect is scarce. :-(

Hopefully a resolution will recover this problem, because miss reading EP stories! My mood: very annoyed

Hurray! I'll be traveling alone this weekend.  First I'll stop at Texas then Nevada of The States. On the way home I'll stop by Illinois.
Traveling is so exciting! My flight is in 10 hours!

Once I come back, I can catch up of friend's stories!

Have pleasant weekend to all!

In the middle of the big busy city, so many options to select a place to eat catches your eyes as you roam the crowded streets feeling tiny from all the tall buildings. You finally stop at this one place that looks no different from any other place, bare windows and all. You enter and it's a vegitarian resteraunt.  At this time you hear a small wooden dong -like sound held by a woman dressed in a cloak. You turn to your left woman wearing a maroon over black, robe. You take off your shoes and enter a room without benches but small squared pillows with a second smaller rectangle on the front side. You look pass the pillows and see a gold wall lit with a robe of small yellow lights.  Three golden life size statues of a man siting in Indian style with his hands resting on his legs with both hands open, one over the other with the two thubs almost toutching. Men and women are divided with men on the left section of the room. (If you are a woman, don't make my mistake and stang by the men's section.) A bald woman in a brighter colored robe with a yellow robe hanging from her neck streaching to her lower back, leads the ceremony. The whole room is then filled with prayer Sutras being chanted through a vocal meditation. These sutras are in a foreign language and even though your booklets have Roman Alphabet underneath the Foreign characters you still have no idea what these sutras are about. You have to stay forcus and can not allow straying thoughts to distract you otherwise you will become lost.  However, there is always a near by person awaiting to assit you when you lose track. The man next to you tells you "Na Mo" (addressing a Buddha) [a Buddha's name] "Fo," and after each second Buddha named, one side of the room bows to the floor, men and women alternating. After each session a shorter and faster pase story like chant is sung while standing. Both of these sessions alternate for almost an hour and a half. Then there is a short break. 

Then there is the lunch offering. This time everyone holds a incense stick taking turns to move to the alter in pairs, one from each side of the room. Once at the alter, you point the bottom part of the stick to your forehead then stick it in to a vase of sand, bow then go back to your place. Again durring the sutras, women in robes are helping you follow along to repeat sertain sections three times, and appropraite times to knee, or floor bow. 

 Today was my first visit to a Chinese Buddhist Temple. After the session we had a fine vegitarian buffet and sat in a table with three other Chinese Buddhists. They were so friendly and started conversations with us. This was my first time using metal chop sticks. (I didn't know what they were at first, since I was used to wooden ones) I had some awesome spicy tofu! Wednesday nights are the meditation teachings and Thursday night was a visit from individuals from Tibet.

 For some reason I decided to visit FB today and received a message from a friend asking why he has not seen me in the health club lately. Then I remembered it was a Thursday! So I blew off reading at the coffee shop to go to my Pilates and Yoga classes. For some reason, they had to get a substitute for both classes. (It's taught by the same instructor). She introduced herself saying that she has training in both to teach and is only substituting for this week. Just then I had in a feeling in my chest telling me that she's the real deal at yoga. The pilates she lead was much more strenuous then the with the normal instructor. Afterwards was the yoga.  Again, much more strenuous. She also had us stay in Child Pose while she read a passage from Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements." Then she went around the room doing this gentile massage thing on our backs. I also like how she explained positions to us. She would use her own symbolic descriptions in order for us to feel the positions better. For an example, when we were in Warrior 2 Pose, she asked us to have our forward arms reaching to our futures while our back arms were afraid to let go of the past. Again, our normal instructor usually does not use these metaphors. At the end when we went in Shaba-{Pronunciation please?} where we meditate on our backs. Again she went around the room this time gently toughing our foreheads. 

It was an awesome two hours spend. Only now I'm behind on my cardio! :-P

My mood: very serene

 

 I'm going to be honest when I say that the nice weather and sunlight now bothers me. Two of what were once my favorites, but the fact that many good memories are gone and the second fact of nobody to share the outdoors with.  My current friends are not into going out for a walk talk, and would rather stay indoors watching televisions, or they complain after 10 minutes of walk. I do occationaly go for walks alone dispite the danger of solitude walks in a high crime city streets even in daylight.

Yesterday I went to deliver a job application in person, and drove through three towns, only to find out that the organization had been relocated to elseware. Then today I had made plans with the only friend who said yes, 12 days in advance and she had backed down. Oh well, I'm used to this.

Usually I am the type of person who if make plans outside and it rains, we can then dance in the rain! No rain is going to stop us from having fun! But now...eh. No luck I guess.

My mood: very disappointed

 Too much noise all arround here. It's all the people, the chaos, violence, politics, anger, greed, everything. I really wish I could take a break for just two months just to have enough quiet to listen to myself and work on spiritual development. Two months, is that too much to ask? 

I would like to come back when I have more self understanding and better understanding of the world around me. I would like to come back with a clearer mind with out thousands of exterior distractions fogging my mind.

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What the heck? It's not working? Darn thing is disabled. Try this link: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VntFEWF8I8A

I do not mean to offend anyone with this video, but it still has a pretty interesting concept.

My mood: pretty nostalgic

Yikes! [WARNING! Not for the weak heart!]

http://www.spike.com/show/27237

 

 Oh wow, the guy on my tea box (Green Tea Kombucha), does really exists! Yogi Bhajan sounds familar. So I did a little reading on Mr. Bhajan and looks like he is a part of the Kundalini Research.

If I was alive then, I would probably attend his lectures. 

http://www.yogibhajan.com/ 

This is a random memory. But I remember when a group of friends and I were staying over a cottage for holiday, and we stayed up all night in great conversations. My friend's boyfriend was describing his hostility towards ignorant people. Then to reestablish the target of his hostility, I asked him if he sees all ignorant people as intentionally ignorant. Then I descried my opinion, in which there are two types of ignorance. Subject 1: the individuals are not exposed to knowledge and therefore does not know that that knowledge exists. But if given the chance to that knowledge, they will most likely desire to learn and gain that knowledge. Subject 2: The individuals know that the knowledge exists but refuses to accept its existence and therefore refuses to learn it all together. 

This is of course asuming that understanding is automatically available for each situation.

Can you think of examples of both?

 

My mood: pretty thankful

 I am very determined to heal this soul and discover my true self! Right now I am a split between two selves; the one that hangs on to the past and suffers with all emotions, and the other half, that grows spiritually and finds a well balance in the self with its world, an everlasting strength, and not allowing anything to control the self. 

On one of my earlier meditations, the focus was "who am I?" At some point in that meditation I heard an unidentifiable voice say "she is Divine." Its time to Honor the Divinity within.

Nights smile eternal, you can't see ahead
You forbid your soul to triumph
Conceive while you grow
You'll reap what you sow
It's your challenge not to fail
Will you fail?

No!

Form your visions, forge your key
Don't proceed to sit in silence
Flashing schemes throughout your brain
Keep your soul alive

It is you who must find the truth and find it on your own
Fill yourself with meaning, lead yourself homeward
Take a deep breath, because life is waiting for you

Uncage!

Nights smile eternal, you can't see ahead
You forbid your soul to triumph
Conceive while you grow
You'll reap what you sow
It's your challenge not to fail
Will you fail?
No!

Will you fail? Will you fail?
No!

 

Song: Nahash

Artist:Stefan Hertrich

 

 

Om Namah Shivaya is said to be a Mantra that when done, you discover your true self because you accepted and acknowledge the divinity within you. 

http://www.swamij.com/om-namah-shivaya.htm

I don't know if I belive this, but it do enjoy the concept!

My mood: pretty hopeful

 I have a lot of hate, anger, guilt, and shame spawn from this situation. And maybe even malicious intent. But I'm trying to work very hard to convert these energies to positive ones. I do not allow myself to stay angry or hate anyone or anything. I need to make change and move on!

So I got my mom to ask her coworker (a practicing Buddist) questions about meditation since I am a newbie.  I frequently hear random voices in my meditations, some I recognize and some not. This is weird since I never hear sounds in my dreams, i just know everything happens in the dreams. I also see alot of blocks and geometric shapes in my meditations. My mom's coworker told her that these were all parts of the past. But as I keep practicing, they will eventually go away.

Then I did this one meditation with the focus of purple, saw a random wave of faded colors, purple, but it kept being interupted by other colors in perticullarly green, and yellow. I wonder if they represent the Chakras. 

I want to get better at meditations. I also want to learn how to do meditations for others such as compasion etc.

Speaking of pasts. I know I always have these flashes that randomly come to my mind, of memories. Some of them are mine, but some of them do not belong to me.  Where does these memories come from? Them seems to also be summoned by some of my meditations. Did somehow other people's pasts come to my head? Or are they from a past life of mine? What ever they are, who knows?

 

 

 I'm trying to fight this storm in my mind.  Because this mind plays racing games with me. One second I feel like dancing on top of the world, while the next minute I'm dazing off into space with no emotion or alertness drowning in my confusion and sadness. I'm not used to these unbalanced polar moods.

Now is the time though, to search.  I want to learn. I want to learn about life, about death. I want to learn everyone's story. I want to learn what really does make the world go round. I want to learn what dreams tell us and whose watching us. I want to learn more about medical mysteries. I am searching for answers from everwhere! I want to learn about my role in this amazing world! All while fighting this chaos in my mind...

My mind is my worse enemy.

My mood: somewhat sleepy
My health: been better

 And so my name is fading away from this world.  Soon I'll be a forgoten memory that means nothing.

But the flames do not mean death without a rebirth. And a new name to earn...

My mood: a bit hopeful
My health: not great