I've been sick for days now, and I think I reached the turning point last night. I laid down to go to bed, and I couldn't stop sneezing, my eyes were puffy, all of the energy had drained from my body. I couldn't keep a happy front up anymore - I was miserable. I was also depressed about it - I had missed the National Norba championships at Mammoth and I was feeling poor, alone, and hopeless.
Funny how no matter how many times I've been there and come back, I always think that this time, there's no hope, there's no way that anything is going to change. Here I am, and I feel like crap, my thinking is crap, and right now everything I see is crap. Why fight it?
There's a fine line between not giving into the negative and denial. There was a Dzogchen Rinpoche in town on Friday night and he had a lot to say about such things. First we must recognize and admit how we feel, realize the real cause, and then proceed to increase our postiive thinking and not get swept away by the negative, as if it were the truth, as if we were under the control of our emotions and feelings.
Why haven't we learned that in the West?!
I also had a big realization today about "enough." I realized that, for our culture and way of living and economy to survive, we can never reach enoughness. If we did, we would cease to want, we would cease to respond to the need for every increasing demand. It is impossible to find joy in that system as it is not geared towards joy - it is geared towards lack. We must realize this first and foremost if we are ever going to change anything, about ourselves or the world, and ever try to instigate a new way of thinking or being. We must first realize that we are surrounded by this thought feild - this cloud - at all times. It truly is amazing how pervasive it is, and how difficult it can be to really really see.
