Great Lovers

Hola Everybody,
Ultimately, we're all fools for love... LOL

Great Lovers

Love is never enough.

We all like to pay lip service to this thing we call love. We like to say it -- a lot. For example, we like to say, “I love you.” We want to be loved, or rather, to have other people use the word in reference to us (“he loves me”). I submit that what we don’t like is the action of love. I hate to burst your bubble people but love isn’t a feeling. Nope, love is a verb -- love is an action.

One of the reasons I am so amazed at some of the shenanigans on the internet is that I find it hard to understand how people can get caught up in the illusory trap of “falling” in love with someone they’ve never met. I certainly can understand developing some affection and having a feeling for a photograph and internet profile, but falling in love?

::blank stare::

In my book, that’s grounds for having someone committed. And yours truly isn't exempt. I will admit to having fallen into that trap myself. Photographs are fun and they never really let you down like real people do. For example, today's blog photo is one of a series of photos someone sent to me a few years ago. No, I didn't fall in love with her, but I sure would love to have tried. LOL In actuality, the photos are a fake. Rather, they are photos from someone who had created a fake profile -- the photos were of someone else.

Those who are great lovers (meaning people with a capacity to love) know that within the framework of being in love there’s passion, desire, hope, wonder, appreciation, enjoyment, affection, ecstasy -- the whole gamut of the most profound emotions and energy states. However, as I said before: love isn’t a feeling, it’s an action, an act of will. All the feelings in the world and $2 won't get you on a NYC subway, which is another way of saying that feelings won’t get you too far. Love isn’t texting someone a pic of your private parts with the caption “thinking of you” (though I will concede that might be fun under the right circumstances). Love isn’t copying-and-pasting a Facebook status for all your friends to see so that they can copy-and-paste the same. In fact, I would say doing that is actually an act of hate. However, I do appreciate the photos, so keep ‘em coming, champ.

I’m kidding! 

But the point I’m trying to make is that when we truly love someone we extend ourselves to the person and for that person. That’s the act of love, or love action. It’s not clicking a mouse, or sending a text, or even saying “I love you.” Love isn’t that feeling you get when you first become obsessed with the object of your desire. Love, lover, is an act of will for the benefit of another person with no expectations. In more technical terms, when we love someone we extend our ego boundaries -- close down our defenses -- to include that other person as part of our identity. In a way, love compels us to merge with another individual, in the process creating an enduring bond. This is the part that scares many of us because severing such a bond can cause a lot of pain.

It’s the same when you experience a profound, knee-knocking-grand-mal-seizure-like orgasm: it’s a transcendent spiritual experience. Your ego defenses come tumbling down and for that brief moment, your sense of self expands to include so much more than the small, fragile, fearful mini me -- you know the part of you that will vote for Clinotn because... Trump. As a side note, this is one of the reasons why organized religions put so many taboos on sex, because ultimately sexual energy can be one of the most transformative, liberating, and spiritual experiences.

But I’m getting off track here… 

The first way that great lovers express their love is through something simple and obvious. It is what is at the heart of the experience of love that's so simple, so basic that is so easy to overlook is listening -- listening and attending. Sadly, at least in my experience, very few people attempt to hone their listening skills and at best listen at a very superficial level. Our society offers very few opportunities that teach listening at deeper levels.

We are born to bond. Without bonding, infants literally wither and die. As adults it’s the same for us: without connection we die physically, psychologically/ emotionally, spiritually. We are human and the defining experience of being human is bonding. We are wired for connection -- we’re walking/ talking neurological feedback loops. We become human through bonding, and as adults, bonding doesn’t end. As we mature, we continue to evolve to the point that we can bond with a special someone in a healthy manner. This bonding demands the mastery of certain skills, skills that allow us to make contact, to establish relationships, and communication skills that promote understanding. 

How do we do this?

The simple answer is by entering into our lover’s world. By matching and resonating with our loved one’s way of thinking and feeling, we begin to understand them. Empathy, a key emotional skill, is the ability to see the world through another’s eyes without losing ourselves in the process. This is part of the act of love -- or love action -- and great lovers fine-tune their empathy to high levels. On a superficial level, there’s listening, but at the more profound levels there’s listening in order to understand and that takes effort, time, and consideration. It takes a commitment to honesty and a willingness to become transparent (or translucent), so that the energy of love can shine through us with as little distortion as possible.

Active listening is difficult, it takes practice. Like sex, it’s not a natural act. Love must be practiced as you would practice a musical instrument. In my experience, too many people are too caught up in their small needs and neuroses to strive toward being a great lover. Most of us, it seems, would rather ride the carousel without risking the brass ring.

 

My name is Eddie and I’m single in recovery from civilization…

What Really Matters, no. 666

Hola Everybody,
I don’t have much today, but I made a commitment to posting at least one blog post per day for the year… so here goes.

I want to take a moment to thank two very special people who last night and today extended themselves to me that I have much to offer the world and, heck, maybe even brilliant and talented. Sometimes it’s to forget that we all have gifts to offer the world. Most of all, you reminded that what matters most is friendship and family.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your generosity and for reminding me of who I am.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Sunday Sermon [Stopping the War]

Hola mi gente,
First, I want to give a big shout and loud ¡WEPA! to fellow Puerto Rican and tennis slayer, MonicaPuig, for winning our beloved (and besieged) Island its first Olympic gold medal. If you’re wondering why Puerto Rico has its own team, consider that Puerto Rico is a colony (not “commonwealth” or “freely associated state”) of the United States. Basically, Puerto Rico has its own Olympic team because the International Olympic Committee has recognized the island's National Olympic Committee. The Olympic Charter explains that “the expression 'country' means an independent State recognized by the international community,” and the IOC recognized Puerto Rico as such an entity in 1948. And I’ll add that if you are ignorant of Puerto Rico and its history, there’s a (not so noble) reason for that.

On another, wholly unrelated, point, we unearth the following gem from our Only in New York files:

Most NYC subway riders are pretty nonchalant when panhandlers hit them up for cash between stations. Man, sometimes it’s like a show where contestant after contestant makes a plea for money. Some are weird, some are hilarious, many are bothersome, and some are tragic. Like the pregnant woman I saw the other day who pleaded, “I’m hungry and I have no place to go. Please, please, pleeeease help me!” And she was high.

So, when I was riding the train and I hear a panhandler announce he was collecting funds to build a time machine, I, along with some of my fellow riders, laughed. But then at the next stop a man who looked just like the first man, boarded the train and announced he was the inventor’s future self. He implored us not to give any money because “time travel will ruin everything.” Hilarious! Here’s a video:

And speaking of subways… 

Stopping the War

You can’t win a war anymore than you can win an earthquake.
 -- Jeanette Rankin

It’s been brutally hot here in the Center of the Known universe. The heat index outside yesterday felt like 115 degrees! The temperature in the bowels of New York -- the subway -- is probably more than 10 to 15 degrees hotter. So imagine that? Imagine then, that you board a train and its air conditioning is not working. Such was the situation for me this past Friday as I boarded the downtown no. 6 train. Needless to say, life in the Big City can be very challenging and stressful.

No sooner that I enter the subway when a man pushes up behind me and practically tramples me. Not only that, he’s yelling in my ear for those he’s with to “Come on! Here!” Then he pushes me again as three women, two with baby carriages, pile on into the car. To make matters worse, the women with the baby carriages decide to congregate by the doors and that adds to the increasing tension in my body. I see this as inconsiderate and unruly -- “ghetto.” Needless to say, I’m becoming pissed, so I turn around and this guy and I lock eyes. I see that he’s preparing himself for me to get confrontational, to say something, perhaps yell at him, “What the fuck is wrong with you,” or something like that. His eyes are wide in anticipation and he’s getting ready to respond with perhaps a “Fuck you, motherfucker,” or some such New Yorkism. 

And that’s exactly what I was going to do. I’ve had a really bad week. Yesterday I was informed that I would be suspended without pay from my job and will most likely be fired, I still need to find a place to stay as my welcome at my sister’s has (rightfully) worn out and it’s hot and… well, you get my drift -- the shit has gotten hectic. So yeah, I was ready to get into it, let him have a piece of my mind and I didn’t really give a fuck about the possible consequences. But something strange happens when I lock eyes with this man. I become conscious of the tension and contraction in my body and make an effort to relax and breathe, and instead of yelling at him, I say:

 - “Disculpame” (excuse me).

At that point, taken completely by surprise, the guy checks himself and after a pause he says:

 - “Naw man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you.”

I say:

 - “It’s Okay brother, no problem.”

We look at each other and nod our heads.

This gives me the time to assess his situation. He’s with several women, two of which have strollers with kids wailing in the heat, and there at least three other children in tow. He looks exasperated, having to guide the whole contingent while trying to maintain his own sanity in this sweltering heat. I take all this in and I get a different picture of this fellow human being. He’s going through his own tribulations and perhaps he’s not just an asshole -- he’s having a difficult moment. Perhaps he’s at the end of tether. As I take in this insight, I feel gratitude for not escalating the situation. I probably will never see this man again, but for the short moment we made contact, we were able to create serenity instead of insanity. The reverberations of our interaction were skillful.

The next stop is mine and the guy looks at me and asks:

“Is this your stop?”

I nod my head yes and he starts barking comically at his contingent to get out of the way and make room for me. As I step off we nod at each other again, perhaps in recognition of what just happened. 

And just like that we create the world we want to live in. Sure, I was in the right. He was being inconsiderate (in my estimation) for stepping on me and pushing me. But what good is being right if I use that to create self-righteous indignation? What do I win? What good is right if it leads to so much wrong? Sometimes we have to let go. Sometimes we have to choose to stop the war -- this interminable argument with life.

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

The First Noble Truth

Hola mi Gente,

Wish me luck! Just... do it.

* * *

Responding to Suffering

What is the Noble Truth of Suffering? Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering: in short the five categories affected by clinging are suffering.

-- Samyutta Nikaya LVI, 11

A lot of people get a quizzical look when I tell them I’m a practicing Buddhist. I understand that I may not fit the stereotype of a spiritual seeker: I cuss a lot, get angry, sad, happy, horny -- the full catastrophe! I certainly demonstrate little patience and don’t tolerate fools easily. What’s more, I am politically motivated, an engaged activist. Too often people don’t see the connection. From my perspective, spiritual practice is not as an escape from the world, but a way to engage it in a conscious and ethical manner.

In short, my activism is a response to suffering. I mean, look around, there seems to be a lot of it going around, and, as the historical Buddha very likely put it, there’s a lot of suffering in life. Indeed, Buddhism’s first truth is simply an acknowledgment that to live is to know suffering (dukkha). But what is suffering? The First Noble Truth is generally translated by almost all scholars as “The Noble Truth of Suffering,” and it is interpreted to mean that life according to Buddhism is nothing but suffering and pain. Both translation and interpretation are misleading. It is because of this limited, free and easy translation, and its superficial interpretation, that many people have been misled into regarding Buddhism as pessimistic. Nothing could be further from the actual practice. 

I’m going to doing something sacrilegious and offer a rather oversimplified interpretation. It’s not a satisfactory one, but for the sake of concision, I’ll introduce it now. I have a simple formula for suffering. For me, suffering is pain (what is) combined with stress (what we bring to it):

pain + stress = suffering

I gave it away early in the post because I need to construct my post rather quickly today.

Let me expand on this a little just so we can create a foundation. Suffering arises because when we experience pain -- when we are injured or startled, or are treated unfairly -- we normally react by lashing out at others and even at ourselves. We are conditioned to believe that this will somehow lessen our pain. It’s almost like shooting yourself in the foot as a response to being shot. In Buddhism, the image of two arrows is used. We act in such a way that a second arrow is shot, at us or others, on account of the pain of the first arrow. When we shoot the second arrow, we “pass on” the original pain. We have to admit, if we look at this critically, it’s not an effective (or even mature) coping strategy. If we’re honest with ourselves, however, we recognize that we all do it to a certain extent. 

So! According to my “formula,” suffering can be understood as a kind of resistance or reaction to the pain (or unsatisfactoriness) of the present moment. We tend to react physically, emotionally, and/ or mentally when we experience unpleasant sensations, emotions, or thoughts. With physical pain, the tendency is to become tense or to contract around the area where the pain is coming from as if this will somehow lessen the pain. Some doctors say that 80 percent of what patients experience as pain is not the result of the original cause of the pain, but rather the resistance to the cause. See?

pain + stress = suffering

It’s the same with emotional pain. A perceived slight from someone close to us, or the break-up of an intimate relationship, will result in a flood of emotions, culminating in psychological and often physical pain. We might generate anger, judgments of others, and ourselves, and then rationalizing our reactions. The tension usually builds compelling us to seek release from the pain through food, shopping, sex, or mindless entertainment. As humans, we do this individually as well as communities and nations.

For me, the work of spiritual practice is not to get rid of the pain, but rather to learn how to open to pain and suffering when they appear in ourselves and others. In this way, I can learn to be present with the pain, but without suffering -- without compounding the pain.

My political work and activism is informed by this framework of responding to pain. The people you see spreading all the hate and vitriol are effectively causing others and themselves suffering. It’s a suffering based on the delusion that we are somehow not connected. Compassionate responses to such behavior can manifest in many different ways. Sometimes it can take the form of what I learned to call fierce compassion. Its modern-day equivalent would be called “tough love.” A lot of what I’m seeing today calls for this type of compassion. The tricky part -- indeed, the hardest part -- is maintaining a compassionate heart in the face of so much mindless hate.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…