Out of My Mind
Folding the Mind
The Dilemma
An Essay on the All
Strong Weaknesses
Larry, The Stick Pony and Me
Flowing Upstream
Hershey Satsang
Enlightenment In A Can
And Then The Buddha Said....Yadda, Yadda, Yadda
Ego Spam
The Well-Dressed Mind
Everything I Know About Enlightenment I Learned in Kindergarten
The Inner Shaman.....or "Ain't That A Shaman?"
In The Wee Small Hours Of Five o'Clock A.M.
The Phantom of the Optional, With Apologies to Andrew Lloyd-Weber
The Sleeping Teachers List
Buddhahood
Swami Z And His Darshan
Feedback
Have you ever fallen through a hole in your imagination and landed face down in reality? I do it all the time. I think that I am twenty years younger and forty years wiser. Actually, I am wider but not wiser. However I may slice it, I am full of bologna. Just ask my spirit guide, which happens to be down on his luck.
His name is Larry and he rides a stick pony. Every now and then he does a cameo on Jack Hannah's Animal Adventures. You can always spot him; he is the one with the mullet hairdo. He used to have a 'fro,' but it became 'too.' It had to go.
Anyway...Larry sez to me, 'Vicki, hon, you gotta be more current....you know, more hip. This nonduality thang is gettin' some wear on it. Perhaps you should tout your talent for reading pig lips or something.' With Larry, it's always something but never anything to amount to much. He parks his stick pony in strange places but never gets a ticket.
Larry and I sometimes meet for coffee at Dunkin Donuts. He is partial to coconut cake and I favor double chocolate cake. He never pays for mine and says it is because I owe him. "Whoa, Larry....and I am not talking to your stick pony. When was the last time you did anything for me?"
Larry could use some dental work and the donuts are not helping his appearance any. His gums are as glazed as his eyes. He thinks and thinks and finally comes up with this......"I rescued you from reality when it was almost becoming too true."
"What in the heck does that mean?" I said.
"You were on the brink of becoming real and I brought you back to Egoland. Just think...had it not been for me, you would be writing a book called Enlightenment, The Fast Track to Now. As it is, you are still here and full of your bee-you-ti-ful self."
"You got that right," I said. I looked in the mirror there in Dunkin Donuts and saw what looked like a log in Larry"s eye. I would have plucked it out, but it looked sorta cute on him.
It is relatively easy to go with the flow when one is flowing downstream, but how do you flow upstream? I mean, can a Slinky go up the stairs? I have one of those lives that seem to require a lot of flowing upstream. The result is that I am black and blue from bumping into things. I order products and throw the packaging away. You know the ones I mean, the ones that require every last bit of the original packaging if you hope to get your money back. You either have closets full of original packaging from 1975 or you have lots of stuff you hate but could never return. That is just one of my problems.
The ides of January loom ahead. Forget the Ides of March. The ones in January are sleety. That brings me to another one of my problems. My fat from the holidays is not only flowing upstream; it is settling around my waist. Although this is nothing new, I would prefer to be sleek, svelte and sophisticated. I have lumps of Nestleâs Jingle Bells candy around my waist. I have eaten every last bit of every last bite and now what in the heck can I cook in January. Chili, chili, chili. Brrrr.
Flowing upstream is made more ridiculous wearing big fuzzy slippers and a ratty old robe. Sleep escapes me in January. It has gone south for the winter and I lie in bed fantasizing about sleep. If I could dream, I would dream of going on a vacation where people like me are crowned Queen for a Day. I would be garlanded in monkey feathers and anointed with Oil of Olay.
Men, of course, never reveal how miserable they feel in January. They are too busy eating the chili we cook and trying to warm themselves by our backsides. If the feminine influence gets influenza, look outza! Everything they have will be flowing upstream and they will be asking you to take care of it. Iâm not being cynical, just factual.
All kidding aside, Janu-weary is a kissing cousin to Febu-ugly. I long for March when not only my slippers but the month go out like a lamb.
Strong WeaknessesSomeone said that they liked my "strong weaknesses." I have never forgotten that phrase and have used it more than once. It aptly describes my ego. When I write, it is always from intuition and to my dismay, I am forever making fun of myself. "She who writes" is out to get me. I once said, "how come, if nobody likes me, everybody is out to get me?" It was a joke, albeit a feeble one, at my own expense.
But enough of that drivel. I need to unload on a few unwary readers. Just two or three of you will do. Tell me the truth--and do be honest--do you ever have days when it hits the fan and you hit back. That is how stupid I am. Just flailing away at the facts of my poor, miserable existence.
I wrote a piece about running into my vanity stool once and said it was a metapor. Last night, one of its legs broke and threw me to the ground, causing me to wet my pants. Mother Kali, honest to God, are you that mad at me? Is it going to be skulls and bones for dinner, because if it is, I am eating out!
I need a softer, gentler self-image--perhaps pearls at the neck instead of bones. But wait, I keep forgetting. I am a shaman....and once a shaman, always a shaman. I know that is what I am, for I have dreamt of being one. My suffering entitles me to conjure with the big boys and girls. But I am such a sissy shaman. I have done nothing about it but carry a certain secret knowing. Behold, I offer it to you. Have a free spell on me. I do Hershey Kisses conjuring...looking under the couch when I get really desperate.
I need to end this essay with a strong weakness, for that is what I called it to begin with. My biggest problem, my strongest weakness, is that I isolate me from me and therefore can find nothing but loneliness. It hurts so bad I canât tell myself. If I could, I would. But I canât so therefore I am telling you. If you are like I am, you will appreciate this honest clue. Look inside your heart. The emptiness will become full and you will wonder why you ever felt alone.
Hershey Satsang
Most days I go around in bits and pieces. Part of me thinks and part of me feels. Even bigger parts fail to get up in the morning. What can I do about living such a divided existence but admit it?
There is a really dumb part of me that tries to administer chocolate to the system. It believes in the sugar solution to almost anything that life dishes out. It is particularly fond of “good deals at the drugstore.” I hurriedly clutch a fifty-five cents off coupon for a bag of Holiday M & M peanuts. I have paired it with a one dollar off coupon from CVS and so I cop a bag for a mere forty-five cents. What the hips don’t know won’t hurt them.
Since I am on the spiritual path and give myself over to it for much of the day, why am I so easily conned into buying candy? It goes hand-in-hand with the idea that I can make myself happy. I have never been able to do that, but try to convince the part of me that loves chocolate. To her, bliss is a Kiss. Ammachi, the saint from India, doles out Hershey Kisses to her devotees that come to her for darshan. That makes me love her even more. It is not enough that she hugs and heals us all; she throws in a sweet to boot. I don’t think God will mind.
The disjointed parts of my persona sometimes meet in the hallway of my central self and it gets dazed and confused. “Hi, Vicki, want a Hershey Kiss?” Self Number Two replies sleepily...”I just got up.” Self Number Three, the anal-retentive one, wants me to get back to a more nutritious eating plan. What does she know?
You are wondering how I am going to square up kissticism and mysticism. It’s not hard when you are as mixed up as I am. Think of me as a box of bridge mix and that will help you see how deeply confused I am. I am one part nuts and three parts sweet (an optimistic ratio, I admit).
Some of you reading this are saying, “Tsk, tsk, she needs to go cold turkey on her chocolate-eating compulsions.” That happens next week, when I will eat a cold turkey sandwich, followed by Kisses and pumpkin pie, etc. And I will be having darshan with a chocolate santa before you can say Reese’s Pieces.
The Well-Dressed Mind
What is the well-dressed mind wearing these days? Does it wear Eckhart Tolle like a stole? Deepok like Reebok? I want my mind to go to a nude beach and wear its birthday suit. There it could recline on the sand and fan itself with the fronds from a nearby palm.
Nothingness is what the well-dressed mind should be wearing. No Vera Wang, no Tommy Hilfiger, just nothing, bare beingness. You shouldnât even need to wear a sunscreen or an aluminum hat like in the movie ãSigns.ä No, you gotta have faith in stark reality.
I want my mind to kick off its shoes. No Manolo Blahniks for these tootsies. No Dr. Schollâs for the soul. Nope. I donât need any mental Frederickâs of Hollywood either. Twoness is not what itâs about, girls. Actually, tell that one to the men.
You gotta have heart to go nude in your own mind. No belief system covering up your private parts. No girdle smothering your innermost thoughts and feelings. Just the facts, maâam, just the facts. And the fact is, the mind is as unreal as its clothes. Now donât go telling that to your shrink. That would put him out of business. Keep it to yourself.
There is only one problem with the mindâs nudity. When it returns to the garden (and I donât mean Madison), it will have to meet the snake. I have been told that the snake is a rope, though this has not been scientifically proven. So when you meet the snake, donât take a bite of the apple and youâll be fine. And if you do, grab a fig leaf and hold on. But thatâs another story.
Everything I Know About Enlightenment I Learned in Kindergarten
Enlightenment is something that I continue to think about. If understanding is the booby prize, can enlightenment be far behind? Just what the heck is it that I am supposed to do...Lord knows I have striven until I am as blue in the face as Krishna.
Donât get me wrong. I am as determined as the next guy to win the elusive prize. Because then I could go on the lecture circuit and tell the unwashed unenlightened a thing or two.
I would start with this....a grand summary of all the best axioms. Donât put a head on top of your head... .the wind is blowing, not the flag....put down that woman, youâre still carrying her.... hey, dope, thatâs a snake, not a rope....I am just a finger pointing toward the moon....I am sitting by the river selling river water, and perhaps my favorite,--stop, my cup is overflowing. I have always wanted a bigger cup size. Here, here, a toast of river water to the unwashed unenlightened.
Okay, okay, I get it. I already have it--it must be contagious. But thereâs no cure for the enlightenment bug. It is going to drive you to think--to think about how nice it would feel to be enlightened. Our birthright has been snatched from us, recycled and sold to us as Osho puffs.
And mantras--donât get me started. We all use mantras all day long. ãI donât need this, I donât want this, I canât stand that.ä Or ãhere, give it to me, I need it, where can I get this wholesale....ä
Joko Beck tells a story about a man who was waiting for the enlightenment train. While he was waiting he busied himself taking care of others who were waiting and so he forgot that he was waiting...until he no longer cared about his own enlightenment.
You see, itâs not that we choose to do good deeds while awaiting our ultimate enlightenment. Itâs the way that God has set up this paradoxical thing called life. It is how things work. If you really want to be enlightened, you must wait your turn. Be polite, donât push, respect your elders, etc.
The people inside the enlightenment seminars are being told the same things that their mothers and fathers told them. Itâs just couched in different terms. Namaste just means be nice to people, satsang is birds of a feather flocking together, and seeing God in everyone is Aretha singing r-e-s-p-e-c-t.
The Inner Shaman.....or ãAinât That A Shaman?ä
I am beginning to think that I am a shaman. All I need to set up in business is a card that says so. Vicki Woodyard--shaman.
After all, shamans are wounded healers. They usally go to the edge or the underworld or someplace weird like that. You can read all sorts of descriptions about them but who has really met one? Therefore you canât be sure that I am not one.
Maybe you are one, too. We could form a Home Shaman Network and sell our services. Let me know if you are interested or qualify.
Of course, if you tell me that you are qualified, I wonât have the foggiest notion if you are for real or not. For shamans are not found in words but in wounds. They are in conniptions, not descriptions.
I have had more than one conniption fit and maybe I know something that I donât know. You see, being mysterious is another of those shamanic qualities that we can all share.
The shaman is a wounded healer, which means that he must have a little Dave Barry in him if he is to succeed. If you havenât told a good joke lately, or at least laughed at someone elseâs you probably ainât no shaman.
My inner shaman is beginning to come out and quite frankly, I was hoping to keep her at home for just a bit longer. Maybe until she got the hang of muttering curative phrases without reading them from a book.
But like it or not, my inner shaman is coming to the fore (she plays golf, which really tees me off). Oh, my God, she is wearing Liz Claiborne golf shorts and a belt of tiny human skulls. As Austin Powers would say, ãGroovy, Baby.ä
If you, too, think that you might be a budding shaman, call me and letâs voodoo lunch. I hear that they serve wounded healers first at the golf course clubhouse. You just have to show your Shaman scars and youâre in.
In The Wee Small Hours Of Five oâClock A.M.
I woke up too early this morning. Now that Iâve checked my e-mail and had breakfast, I am at a loss as to what to do. But I always am. That is why my life is not perfect. Still guessing after all these years...still following compulsions and revulsions, attractions and aversions.
I have said before that I have met my inner core of peace and can return there when I choose to do so. The problem is that right before I get there, there is a trap door. Maybe itâs the door to doom and deception, because it is much more tempting than the Door of all Doors. This trap door enters into the I am the Doer zone--all advaitists beware. For donât we all know by now that we are not the doer?
Not this puppy! I am not even paper-trained yet as far as avoiding that thought goes. The Force keeps hitting me on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper when I have accidents, but still I forget. But my nose is cold and my heart is warm and my little old tail is wagginâ....And I know that there is a dog, for whatever thatâs worth.
The mind always wants to give the dog a bone to chew on and I must admit to being quite fond of them. I especially like the juicy news of how bad things might get if I donât ãdo.ä In this way my karmic connectedness with all things emotional and ennervating continues. This puppy is panting in its eagerness to jump in there and straighten things out. It makes lists of things to do and even gives this list a deep name...my ãto doä list. Doggie, donât! But I like to jump on the furniture of my mind and bury bones there. I donât want to run out of things to do.
Sometimes in my doggie dreams I chase rabbits and find big steaks to eat. I jump and quiver and slobber as I sleep. Not too different when I am awake and jumping at opportunies to catch a conversation with my self. ãWhat are you doing just sitting around like that? You need to be doing something.ä Doing-schmooing. Whereâs my rubber ball?
The Phantom of the Optional, With Apologies to Andrew Lloyd-Weber
I canât help it--titles come to me. I have more good titles than the law allows. It is a nuisance, because then I have to write a piece to fit the title. But then again, if choicelessness is a fact of life, I have no choice but to write this and you to read it. So letâs keep it brief, shall we?
I always say that understanding that there is no doer is one of the last dominos to fall, with apologies to Fats. What I mean to say is that there is no one there apart from here and vice versa. I am everywhere present doing all of it all the time, even making the donuts. I got up so early this morning that I could have, if I had wanted to...there I go again.
But thereâs no where to go and nothing to do. Whatâs a nonentity to do? Scooby Dooby Doer, Where are You, er? I keep dogging the issue, as Dr. Phil would say. Itâs ruff....my ãIä gets no respect, with apologies to Rodney Dangerfield. I would apologize for being overly apologetic, but I have no choice.
Okay, okay, youâre getting tired of me running around in circles. I will now get to the point of no return. If there is no one there, there is no such thing as karma and therefore no one to do anything either good or bad. We are all in this together, singing as a group.
That half-mask that the Phantom wore is a good example of how we do everything half-masked. That way, we put off getting clear about our options. We donât have any...unless we happen to be a new car, but thatâs another title and Swami Beyondananda owns the title, ãDriving Your Own Karma.ä
Now I know that some of you got up earlier than me, although I doubt it, and you are already composing serious intellectual responses to send to me. Donât do it--thereâs nobody home.
As I was lying down for my afternoon nap, Iâll be darned if a funny thought didnât pop into my mind. It would give me no peace until I got up and drug myself to the computer and composted, excuse me, composed...the following. Note to myself: Need to get a following....
Rules for Becoming A Sleeping Teacher
l. Donât miss nap time. Milk and cookie prasad is given afterwards.
2. Never use the word drug as in ãI drug myself to the computer. ã To be a Sleeping Teacher you must not use the word drug unless you are slyly insinuating that you knew Don Juan personally, not to mention Jon Lovitz.
3. Refer to the Sleeping Teacher list often...at least every time you turn over or turn your mattress. Say to yourself and to anyone who will listen..."The Sleeping Teacher List is a doozie" (as in snoozie). I often get my most unenlightened thoughts right in the middle of my spiritual siesta.
4. Never kick an awakened teacher. Those of you who are awakened teachers know who you are. Cover your famous fannies.
5. As a Sleeping Teacher (not to be confused with a Schlepping Teacher, thatâs a whole Înother schtick entirely, having to do with toting your own karma) communicate no deep thoughts to recalcitrant students. Rem (Rapid ãIä) movement is to be taken as the teaching.
6. Wipe your mouth. You ãDozinâ Zengis" are moistly slobbering in your sleep.
7. This is not a rule but an encouraging memo to Sleeping Teachers: At last count, awakened teachers had reached the quadrillions. Some are no longer in the Milky Way but in a galaxy far, far away. Thank God.
8. The Sleeping Teachers List is motivated by honesty. A good Sleeping Teacher never lies...unless he is sleeping, which doesnât count, does it...
9. Time to get up--time to make the donuts. We doze but we never close.
10. If you would like to become a Sleeping Teacher, the rules of admission are strict. But I forget what they are.
A few of you reading this may be of the so-called Awakened Teacher persuasion and think that being a Sleeping Teacher just might be easier...and you get to wear jammies instead of those miserable loincloths. I know what youâre thinking.....can I aspire to become a Sleeping Teacher?.....in your dreams!
I gave up seeking enlightenment when I realized that buddhahood would just make me look fat.
We are told to kill the buddha if we meet him on the road. Judging from his depictions in art down through the ages, we are more apt to meet him at The Waffle House. I bet the buddha liked buttah.
But kill him at The Waffle House?--câmon. I couldnât kill anybody at the Waffle House, especially Buddha.
If Buddha and I occupied a booth at the Waffle House, we would probably say nothing except ãPass the syrup.ä And that surreptitiously. Nothing of an enlightening nature would be transmitted. His secret is safe with me.
Oh, I might ask him to explain how some people try to put a head on top of their head. ( I think you must put a piece of cardboard between the heads, but thatâs just my opinion.)
I might secretly long for him to give me the transmission, and maybe even an extra set of windshield wipers), but I would never press him.
Frankly, the buddha is trying to get away from people. After all, people donât want enlightenment....they want a buddha pat. They want the buddha to tell them that they donât have to change.
Donât you think heâs getting a little tired of that? He knows that there is no one there to change. (Btw, I hope they donât have one of those no shirt, no shoes, no service signs because the buddha is barefoot ). I find myself trying to divert the waittressâ attention from this fact, but she is looking at the buddha boobs--pretty impressive for a man.
ãHoney,ä she says to Buddha Man, ãcan I get you some more coffee?ä
Buddha just looks at her and winks. Wait a minute....could this be Santa just out of the sauna?
Whoever--
If you meet Buddha and me at the Waffle House, donât kill us. Weâll just get a bigger booth--and you can join us.
Recently a message board that I post on was hit by spam. This led me to reflect on how my ego is spamming me all day long and I am letting it. Sometimes it sends me multiple messages concerning my body. ãYouâre fat....youâre fat....youâre fat....you used to be thin...youâre fat......ä And then the antispam starts piping up....äyouâre not really fat...itâs the pants...youâre not really fat...itâs the pants.ä Sheesh.
Who is monitoring this message board? Apparently I let just anyone join. Some of the meâs that have registered are downright insane and some are decidedly silly. One keeps singing the words to American Pie as I ponder the meaning of life. Bye, bye, Miss American Pie...Bye, bye, Miss American Pie, Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie.
One of the most ingenuous way it slips past me is to pretend to be my friend. It wants to ãhelp meä and in this way manages to fill my inner board with redundancies such as, ãYouâre not so bad, youâre not so bad, youâre not so bad.ä Of course, before long the flood has changed to posts of ãso and so is worse than you, so and so is worse than you, so and so is worse than you.ä At times I vow to quit reading these posts made to my heart by my brain. The brain spam is a brain scam. Tom foolery. High jinks. And some is downright dangerous. Crucify him. Crucify him. Crucify him.
Actually, all spam is bad because it is coming from the depths of the machine. Way, way down below is what we donât know. And what we donât know does hurt us...does hurt us...does hurt us.
There will never be a really good solution to the problem of spamming. It can be seen for what it is, though. It is a monstrous attempt to modify reality, but reality has the final say....the final understanding.
The message board has a vital purpose and it should be taken care of with an urge to understand how easy it is to get spammed and not even know it. Once you know it, you know a way to get rid of it.
The buddha is a shadowy figure at best to me. Try as I might, I can never remember what it was that he said exactly. Frankly, I just remember how he looks. Fat little guy with bare feet and his hands thrown upwards into the air. Quite possibly he was an early weatherman...who knows.
Of course, sometimes he is seated in a reflective posture. He is more than likely counting his fat rolls....love handles, mayonnaise...call it what you will. Letâs be frank...the buddha was obese. If he had to have his body fat ratio calculated, it would not have been a pretty picture.
Didnât he say that all of life is suffering? I know that I have been suffering ever since I sat down at the computer to write this piece.
Buddha is a buddy of mine. I met him at the Waffle House and he bought me a cup of joe and sat with me in buddha posture as he buttered his waffle. He seemed unattached to the outcome of eating all of those waffles.
ãBuddha, buddy,ä I asked him, ãarenât you worried about your cholesterol count? Are you on Zochor or Lipitor yet?ä He regarded me quizzically and said nothing. He chewed and swallowed each morsel daintily. His aura was redolent of bacon grease.
As he got up to leave, I cautioned him that he shouldnât travel alone, as people might try to kill him if they met him on the road. ãNot to worry,ä said the round little man, ãif my disciples donât kill me, the waffles will.ä
ãThen why donât you quit eating waffles and for heavenâs sake, stop being a buddha. Just be ordinary. Then no one would try to kill you.ä
ãYou donât understand,ä he said wearily. ãI am ordinary. That is what makes me the buddha. Itâs you disciples who are trying to make me extraordinary. If you knew how ordinary I was, you would let me eat my waffles in peace. You would let me go and come to your senses.ä
I opened the door of the Waffle House and let him precede me into the cold, dark night. His secret is safe with me.
I am thinking of marketing a new product, called Enlightenment-In-A Can. Wherever you have a bald spot in your consciousness, you just reach in and spray this product on. Once it is on, it stays on for eight hours. During this period, you can appear on talk shows telling people the secret of life. Yes, you can tell Oprahâs audience how it is.
You can sign tee shirts at bookstores everywhere, claiming that your book is in the galley stages. You can pass out mantras by the bucketload. But at the end of the eight-hour period, you will turn back into an unenlightened one. You must drive the freeway without divine guidance, take out the trash and balance the checkbook all by yourself. Real life returns. (This insures a return trip to the can.)
I will also have focus groups for this spray-on enlightenment. They should be able to tell me what the median age is for the product.....I am thinking forty-ish or fifty-ish....Visa Card-ish. You know the type. They favor shorts and sandals and carefully sculpted bodies.
I will remind them that their enlightenment will wear off in eight hours unless they get another fix. Making tapes of how to spray the product on seems mandatory. We love instructional materials, donât we? I will show them that by slowly rotating the can, they can cover every square inch of consciousness. They will have an inner astroturf of truth....guaranteed.
This could be a heady business. If you are interested, there will probably be a franchising opportunity. Letâs work together on this. With your money and my enlightenment, say it with me...."Together We Can."
Yesterday Bob and I had a bad day at his oncologist. His platelets are low and I was lower. I asked various and sundry people for help, then all of a sudden I remembered that I am That. Wunderbar, I am one with all creation. All of us together equal ãMe, too.ä This club is all-inclusive and comes with instructions called ãintuition.ä
I am rather tired of all the ãI am thatä popularisers who write books and disclaim learnedly about their impersonal ãI amâs.ä All together they equal ãMe, too.ä For are we not the very same ãI amä? Of course we are. I highly recommend asking for your money back from anyone who has taken it on the insistence that he was and you weren't. Get your boxtops back.
Welcome to my world, where I am that and you are too. I am suffering and not nearly as intelligent as I have claimed to be, but you are probably not either. I bet you have accidentally put your groceries into someone elseâs cart a time or two. I walk into walls and forget to enter checks that I have written. Even so, I remain That. And That is That.
An Essay on the AllI am getting new flooring in my kitchen. Everything in the kitchen has been moved into my office and I am looking at it. Generous person that I am, I will share with you.
The flooring materials were not delivered until I had waited a full eight hours. Lightbulbs and Bushâs beans.
At the very moment of the truckâs arrival, a sudden thunderstorm struck. Clothes rack and laundry bag.
Two stray dogs appeared out of nowhere and began protecting my house. From what? Vegetable bins and throw rugs.
The van backed up to get closer to the house and broke a limb off my cherry tree. Mop bucket and iron.
They finally delivered the thirty-six packages of flooring and an odd assortment of go-withâs. Umbrella stand and whisk broom.
During the course of the day, I ate too much and got stressed out. Paper towels and Scrabble board.
I am grateful that the day finally ended. Vacuum cleaner and lampshade.
Is getting a new floor worth it? Rock salt and yardstick.
Will I ever get my kitchen put back together and my office clean once again. Refried beans and chicken broth.
What does this have to do with nonduality and being one with everything? Extension cord and toilet tissue.
Makes sense to me. Photo albums and remote control. I found it!
This essay was not written to enlighten anyone but to find the remote control. I had no prior knowledge that I had even lost it. Pillowcases and watering can.
Gotta go. The news is on.
Vicki can be reached at Vicki.I am a guest in this world. I know that, not because Rumi tells me, but because of a little item called a ãguest towel.ä I never feel more like a transient than I do when I visit someoneâs powder room in order to go tinkle. I flush the toilet, wash my hands, easily avoiding the use of the ãguest soapsä piled up in a little gold dish. What is not so easy is drying my hands. There it is--the guest towel. This particular one is folded neatly in a little plastic tray. It is trimmed in satin and clearly not meant for me, a mere ãguest.ä
I have become ãotherä than the guest towel. Only someone depraved and deranged would use this dusty little dainty. All of my subterranean guilts have risen to the surface in this guest towel hell. What if I use said towel. It would arouse the sleeping dragon in the guest towel ownerâs mind. But, of course, there is only the Self in all beings and it knows better than to use the guest towel. Satan is watiing on those who do.
My hands are wet and I am wearing silk. This intensifies the problem. Who matters more, the guest towel owner or the silk-wearing, self-obsessed guest. I secretly want to use it just to spite her, but the price tag on this simple act would be enormous. I would face multiple rebirths just to pay the owner back. Ram Dass would say that it is best not to go there. That is what got me into trouble in the first place. Going in a powder room. The next time the urge arises when I am a guest, I will ask pitifully if I can use the masterâs bath. There I will find great terry cloth towels hanging sloppily from every conceivable place. There will be one hanging crookedly from the shower bar and maybe one on the floor. I donât care where it is; I just care that I will pay no penalty for using it.
Some of you reading this may have guest towels lurking in your own dear sweet ãpowder rooms.ä I say to you, ãGet them out of there before someone gets hurt.ä Do you really want to have one of your best friends take more human births just because they used a few square inchs of a ãno no.ä I think not. Thank you for listening. No guest towels were touched in the writing of this small contribution to world peace.
Ain’t That a Shaman
A while back I wrote an essay entitled The Inner Shaman or “Ain’t That a Shaman.” I think I talked about being a shaman, albeit a bit on the silly side. I have no reason to back down from that surmise. It has only grown in theory, if not in practice. The word “shaman” is a scary one to me. When I Google up results for the word, I grow quite pale and I am already see-through sheer. Anyhoo, here I am again talking about my shamanic powers.
How does one know he/she is a shaman? For starters, I dream that I am on occasion. I also know it from my energy field, which tends to be a knock-em-over-with-a-shaman’s-feather sort of field. There is also fried rice growing in it, but that is another story. I plan on selling that one to the same magazines that write about crop circles. I say we need some good crop triangles. And along with the shamanic drumming, I say we need some good strong cowbell.
Shamans rarely strut their stuff in the open. They tend to favor clandestine affairs involving sick people, eagle feathers and a tad of twine. (At least I find it comes in handy.) Shamanic drumming gives me a headache. I prefer hamboning--Put that in your Google and reference it.)
That would make me a world-class shaman. “Hambone, hambone, where ya been...round the world and I’m goin’ agin.” If anyone would like to avail themselves of my shamanic services, there is a sure-fire way to get a hold of me. Offer me cake. Now mind you, shamans don’t generally use a lot of carbs, but I am the exception to the rule. Give me Sara Lee over chicken gizzards any day. We can sit by the fire and sing Kumbaya, but let’s make sure we have cake.
Then it’s on to the healing rituals and ceremonies. Sure, I know that is what is supposed to cure you of what ails you, but it can be much simpler than that, really. Love is what makes the world go round, what heals it and ultimately makes it grow. I say we have some cake, love each other and see what happens. If that doesn’t work, see me after class and we’ll make a construction paper mojo.
Vicki can be reached at Vicki.
Folding the Mind
Fold your mind up and put it in your pocket. You may have to use a number of creases to get the job done efficiently. Just work with it and see how easily the mind can be moved from one place to another. I usually fold mine four times, but I tend to be obsessive about such things.
Got it? Once your mind is in your pocket, you are free to make another observation. Your mind doesn’t care where it is located; it can still get to you. It can still see that you are having a bad hair day and it will tell you from your pocket.
Oh, it’s no good moving it to another place. I have tried that. I have put mine in the freezer just to shut it up. It spoke to me in frosty terms, saying that I needed to lose three pounds, all in my waist.
I am open to hearing your ideas about places to put your mind. If you have ever had your mind in the gutter, you are probably aware that isn’t a good place for it to be. It comes into contact with sewage and rubbish. Yuck.
Once I put my mind on hold, just like “thought-waiting.” It managed to back things up until I couldn’t decipher a word that it was saying, so I had to feel things instead. Big mistake. Have you ever felt a thought of being unloved? It isn’t pleasant at all.
I have tried starving my mind, but anorexia of the mind is utterly deadening. It grows thinner than thin and taunts you with the knowledge that it can die, but not in a good way.
There is only thing to do with the mind and I am right on the brink of telling you....but you already know. It has something to do with fashion...think “see-through.” I wear mine with comfortable slacks and a pair of sneakers.
Some people think that the things I write are silly. That is because I keep my mind in the funny papers as much as I can. Sometimes I even put it on the TV so it can look at me and I can look at it. Better than cable and much cheaper.
This essay was written from my back pocket and was constructed entirely of lead-free ideas and can be recycled, deconstructed and eaten for breakfast as it contains six grams of fiber.
Out of My Mind
I took my mind out of my head and unrolled it on the kitchen table. It just fit. I had been having lots of buzzing, droning thoughts and wanted to take a good look at them. First I stood up and looked and then I sat down. I could see nothing going on in there. All I saw was a pure little mind, as innocent as the driven snow. (I love a good cliche, don’t you?)
So, confident that I was imagining these pesky little thoughts, I carefully rolled the mind back up and skillfully put it back into my right ear. (I take it out on the left side and replace it on the right. (I tend to be compulsive.)
I put the teakettle on and got a cup down from the rack. Should I have tea or coffee (The mind wanted to know what the body was going to have. By this question, I knew that the buzzing was starting up again.) I told it I would have coffee and a couple of cookies. (I also knew, by answering myself, that the mind had reinstated its bifurcation as if by magic.)
The two-way dialogue was off to the races. I knew that soon I would disappear into the buzz and the emotional brouhahas that would soon begin. I would drink my coffee without tasting it and eat cookies in the same way. So discouraging. (The inner critic had arrived. It looked a little like Roger Ebert. Was it hungry? Maybe that’s how I was gaining all of this weight...by feeding the multitudes, and not in a good way.)
With a total sigh, I resolved to take the mind out and examine it again. This time there were crumbs on the table and the mind recoiled as it touched bits of cookie. It was such a purist.
Nope, there was nothing on the surface of the mind. It was a clear pond reflecting my body as clearly as a mirror. I smiled at its ability to do that. What a mind I had....so trusting that it mirrored anything it saw. I bowed to the purity of it and my reflection in it. As I rolled it back up and put it back through the right ear, I hoped things would go differently now.
They didn’t. I could go on, good reporter that I am, to describe how often I do this. Once I went to a shrink and told him how many times a day I was taking my mind out to examine it. He said he knew I was out of my head. He tried to give me medication but I refused. When the bill came, it was exorbitant and at the bottom he had written a personal note: Patient is just like every other nutcase I have ever treated. And what I told her seemed to go in one ear and out the other. Exactly!
©Vicki Woodyard 2005 All rights reserved
