Repost - Buddhism for the Mentally Interesting

This post comes from This Compassionate Life, which is an excellent blog I recently came across via Bec's blog at me plus bipolar. I consider myself a Buddhist believer, even though I'm not practising. My mum and brother are both followers of the Mahayana Tibetan tradition so there's a lot of Buddhist thought and conversation when we all get together. I really liked this post, as it's simple and straight forward but contains a lot of good information. Here is an excerpt for those interested in Buddhism and how it might relate to mental illness, and please go and visit This Compassionate Life for even more interesting info...

Buddhism for the Mentally Interesting
This is part 2 of the post that began with Meditation for the Mentally Interesting a couple of weeks ago. Meditation in the Buddhist tradition, while eye-opening and supremely useful, is only one part of what Buddhism is all about. I dither about whether to call myself a Buddhist on a daily basis- some people say you need to believe in rebirth & karma to be a Buddhist, some people say you need to practice with a teacher- I don’t fit into either category. Either way, though, the fundamental concepts of Buddhism resonate deeply with me, and have been instrumental in shaping both my worldview and how I approach mental health and mental ill health. Here are the Buddhist ideas that have made the biggest impression on me from a mentalist point of view:

The Four Noble Truths
The Buddha’s basic teaching is summarized in what is known as the Four Noble Truths, which are:
1. Life is suffering (dukkha in Pali- suffering is only a loose translation)
2. The origin of suffering is craving (attachment to desires)
3. Suffering ends when craving ceases
4. Freedom from suffering can be attained by following the Eightfold Path (acquiring wisdom, practicing ethical conduct & training in mental development through right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness & right concentration)

That really is Buddhism in a nutshell- these four statements are layered in complexities, but they are also very simple. It seems obvious to me now that everybody suffers, no matter how healthy they are, how much money they have, how isolated or how loved they feel. As long as people cling to wanting more, wanting less or burying their heads in the sand (more on those three things later on), there is always going to be dukkha- ranging from the feeling that something’s not quite right to immense emotional suffering on both an individual and societal scale. My personal level of dukkha is on the more extreme end of that continuum, but emotional disorder or not, we’re all on there somewhere....
[EDIT]
...As I understand it, the concept of what is known as Buddha nature comes from Mahayana Buddhism (which is the branch of Buddhism that the Zen and Tibetan traditions sprang from.) In my opinion, for someone who struggles deeply with their mental health, it’s one of the most powerful Buddhist concepts because the idea is that everyone has the capacity to become awakened, to become a Buddha. To deeply see the nature of reality and have the poisons of craving, aversion and delusion fall away. Everyone can be free. And what’s more, you don’t have to change yourself in any way to do this- your true nature is already there, just waiting for you to wake up to it. If you want to try to think of it in Western terms- everyone is basically good.

Just think about that for a second, what that would mean. The idea of Buddha nature is so different to what is pervasive in our culture, informed as it is by the Christian concept of original sin; and it is, of course, so different to what my emotional brain regularly tells me about myself- that I’m a horrible, evil person, intrinsically bad, intrinsically broken. But Buddhism invites me not just to believe, but to experience the reality of my true nature for myself- as a constantly changing stream of life. There is nothing there for labels like ‘evil’ or ‘bad’ to cling to. There is just life; pure, unadulterated life. Experiencing life, really living in every moment, is the essence of Buddhism. That is why I practice.

the only things that I know, I know too well

One of the things I liked most about my new dating partner Colin is when asked in his profile what were the 5 things he couldn't live without, one of the things he chose was "hope". I love that answer, it's something my regular readers know I pride myself on, even when life is at its darkest. But the problem with hope is that is leads to dangerous things like expectation, longing, anticipation, and then the plain vanilla terror of rejection.

I am struggling at the moment with trying to remain hopeful and positive, yet not place too much emphasis on how much Colin is tied up in that -- to hope for the best yet prepare for the worst, perhaps? Since I last wrote we have had another excellent date, one of those dappled afternoons where conversation and laughter flowed over us like the sweetest of waves, and are planning to meet again this coming Wednesday night. He has a lot going on in his life just now, and in many ways the timing is terrible as he leaves soon for a month in the USA. He will be away for my 40th birthday party, which makes me sad, as I know I would have enjoyed it more had he been there. But even knowing him, knowing he exists in the world and may like me, makes me happy. I can survive a month without him, though hopefully we will have progressed slightly further along the dating path by then as things remain ambiguous at the moment. I'm suffering from the "he's just not that into you" blues, whereby the time he spends studying, working, living his life transmogrifies in my mind into dates with other women, avoidance of me, yadayada. Sigh. I am so impatient, just wanting to know once and for all whether he likes me, how much he likes me, where he sees this heading...

It really does one's head in, this balancing act between liking someone and wanting them to like me, yet not actually putting too much emphasis on the importance of same. I don't know how to like Colin without putting my heart into it. I don't think I would like to be someone who could play this weird game of keeping my cards close to my chest. So I think I just need to live and love and all consequences be damned (within reason).

Title from Richard Easton's Pastel Gothic, great local artist

the dizzy, dancing way you feel

Here’s the best and the worst thing about life. You never know when it’s going to surprise you, and throw you the most amazing unexpected curve ball that changes everything. This is what’s happened to me, people.

My date with Bachelor No 2 was a bit of a non-event, no sparkage and heavy-effort conversation, and he took three phone calls on his cell phone during our date, which I found a bit rude. So he went into the “no, thank you” pile. A week later, along comes a new prospect, who sounded great in his profile but you just never know. It's easy to write a great profile, not so easy to impress in person. We talked for a couple of hours on the phone and really hit it off. Then I met him for bowling and dinner on Saturday and to use a terrible pun, I was totally bowled over! Bachelor No 3, let’s call him Lloyd, made me laugh more than anyone has in years, and he’s smart and sensitive and handsome and interesting. Most incredibly of all, HE LIKES ME. He really likes me. I am trying to play it somewhat cool, but we’ve seen each other every day since Saturday and it’s progressing nicely. For the first time ever I feel coy in writing this blog, like there are details I want to keep to myself rather than sharing every darn thing the way I usually do. Suffice to say, I can’t wipe the smile off my face and the hope in my heart is stronger than ever. I’m determined to enjoy this as long as it lasts and try not to sabotage it with my crazy ways.

Thank you to the always gorgeous Joni Mitchell for today's title, it's from Both Sides Now.

six months on, the winter's gone*

My friend Michelle and I submitted an application for a rental house this morning. Very VERY exciting, and also completely terrifying (in the way of all great things lol). Am I sane enough to leave the comfort and safety of sharing a house with my parents? Can I keep working and therefore support myself financially? How will it feel to have to leave my dog and one cat behind, as logistically there is no way my new arrangement can include them? These are all things I believe I can overcome, mostly because there is NO OTHER CHOICE. I simply cannot remain in this state of flux that I've inhabited since I split up with Mr Ex and began the long process of becoming mental. I refuse to get left behind as the rest of the world, and the potential of my life, moves on without me. I feel compelled to get out there kicking and screaming, which may just be a side effect of the atypical anti-psychotic but what the hey...

It's a small-ish, grotty-ish duplex, with two bedrooms, fairly big living area and a small study nook type thing. Crapola backyard. Has my main requirement - a bath tub. One addiction I don't need to get rid of - phew. It's a mauve-lilac purple bath, actually, tres posh. The place also has ceiling fans (bonus, as jeez it's getting hot in here), a new stove, built-in robes and is 30 mins from my workplace. Currently I spent 1.5 - 2 hrs travelling each way, and oh man am I OVER that. There's a lot to be positive about, even though Michelle and I jokingly call it the "Juliette Lewis skanky duplex". It's also extremely cheap - $260 a week (for my O/S friends that's approx 138 GBP, $230USD) which is $40 a week less than most of the places we've looked at. 80% of places in Perth are over $400 a week these days, which still freaks me out. Rents have doubled in the last ten years, and I can guarantee that my wages certainly haven't increased by that much.

Anyway, apart from that there's not much news. My nanna is fairly ill with a pulmonary condition and has pretty much been bedridden all week. Am fighting the guilt about the chance of me moving out and leaving her... I have a bastard head cold, which is annoying me, and it's hot again - yuck. I've been doing well on my current medication (40mg fluoxetine a day, 10mg amisulpride, plus supplements) and Dr A told me last week he was proud of the way I had managed my work issues and was moving ahead. I know he gets paid to "validate the Borderline" but it was still nice to hear. My family are also being extremely supportive, even though me moving out will leave them financially and logistically in a hard place. My mom especially will miss me, as I share cooking, shopping, supporting roles with her. But we are looking to the future, and I need to step out from under this codependency umbrella, ella, ella....


* Belle & Sebastian - 'My Wandering Days Are Over'

not somebody who's seen the light

Sometimes I like to do Sudoku puzzles. I always carefully write the answers in pencil, so I can rub them out and start over, but every now and again I just can't solve it and the puzzle ends up illegible - scratched and rubbed raw. No matter how many times I try to erase and rewrite the answers, there are the odd Sudoku puzzles I just have to accept as failures. Draw a line through. Either throw them away, or turn the page and start a new one.

What if a life is like that? Are there a finite number of ways in which I can try to make things work? What if next time I try to reimagine myself and start things over, it's just too late? Maybe the bare bones of my life are so fragile and patched up that I need to draw a line through it and start a new one?

These are the things I think about.

(title from Hallelujah, all versions I think, but my favourite is Leonard Cohen's original)