Buddhist Intention Ceremony

It is upon us; this year of 2009 has snuck up from behind and kicked me square in the buttocks. I was trying earlier today to recall where I was on this day a year ago...and I was disturbed by the fact that I could not remember. I know that I was freshly 21, so I'm sure that had something to do with it.
This year, I am going to change all that...I am going to remember where I am. What I am doing.
Today, the 31st of December I am riding up to LA with my friends Luis, Matt, and Corey to atttend a Buddhist Intention Ceremony held by none other than the spiritual author made famous by his book Dharma Punx, Noah Levine. I am not sure exactly what to expect, other than somehting similar to what I have experienced of Buddhist ceremonies in the past. The ceremonies for Atip's death at the Laotian Bhuddist Temple were small but also one of the most beautiful things I've had the privelage of experienceing. So, I can surmise that this ceremony will be equally as interesting and beautiful.
This ceremony comes to me at a very important time in my life:
I wouldn't say that I am at a cross-roads, but I am at a crucial decision making point in my life where I must choose between hiding behind my comforts of the flesh and stripping them away to discover who I really am. I have chosen the latter. In the next few weeks I will be testing myself and stripping away all that is unnecessary. I have attended two traditional sweat lodges so far and I have two more to go before I take on my vision quest in February. The ceremony that I will be attending today will serve as a crucial opportunity to keep focusing my effforts and thoughts and to recenter myself.
After that, as oxymoronic as it may seem, we will celebrate. We aren't sure exactly to what extent, but, Luis has been invited to DJ for our friend's last minute New Year party. I have not been drinking much lately so I cannot imagine that I will be drinking any more than a few drinks if any at all, but as we all know, I have the tolerance of a hummingbird.
I hope for clarity, wisdom and happiness in this year of 2009.

Intention

Paper vs broadcast
Current mood: calm

Let's just be honest shall we? I have no idea how to say what I really want to say. To accurately convey my feelings and thought processes seems a task worthy of the gods in its difficulty. I guess I'll begin by sharing with you my latest mantra: My worth and confidence is self-determined. Seems simple enough right? Well, try chanting that every time you begin to feel sad or angry over something that someone has (or hasn't) done. I think you'll find that it will help you to realize that you are in fact leaving your self-worth and/or happiness or lack there of, to be determined by forces other than your own. This realization is one thing, but, perhaps the most difficult step is the next: To put that mantra into action.
I don't think living your life completely unaffected by others is 100% possible, but I do believe that if I can just start off by living my life being unaffected 75% of the time, and actually master this 75%, that the other 25% will come more naturally. I am the biggest culprit of demeaning myself over the actions of others. I have however, had moments of clarity where I am able to empower myself and focus only on me and my self-worth. But, those moments never seem to stick to everyday life due to my lack of effort to keep them there.
The people in my life are very near and dear to me. Friends. Family. Things that no human being wants to be without. I must remind myself that as much as I care for these people, they have no bearing on who my spirit is and how worthy I am of myself and living the life I have been granted. Some of those whom I hold dear may come and go. I have no control over that. I may let it sadden me for a time, but, then I must always pick up again and keep moving forward. There are a certain few in my life whose hands I hold more tightly, for I learn so much from them, care for them and would be so hurt to see them go. But, even these select few I must acknowledge have life paths of their own, and sometimes those paths take you away from each other. I, in my heart of hearts, hope that even though paths may split, that there is a mala that connects us to each other despite what our spiritual distance may be until those paths align again. Perhaps separate paths never do truly align, but rely on their mala to keep them spiritually connected as it does for Bhikkhus in prayer.
I believe that we all have the same ultimate goal: To extinguish fear, craving, hate, aversion and delusion. However, I have also come to find that it is disturbingly, yet not surprisingly, difficult to find people who actively strive to expel this negativism from their lives. Shouldn't everyone want to achieve this? Some of us are less aware or enlightened than others. This is why I am truly thankful for my friends who share similar goals regardless their location along their path to their self enlightenment. This is a long and difficult road for all of us. I feel so blessed and grateful to be able share my journey with people who's light burns so brightly. It serves as a reminder to continue my work.

A Terrifying State of Things

As I sit here listening to all the new rumblings on NPR I can't help but feel hopeless. Or, was it more like helpless? Luckily, I am not among those who have lost money in the stock market. I am however, forced to deal with the effects of inflation and uncertainty in the consumer market. The next story that catches my wandering attention is the story of forgery and falsifying/tampering with information. A friend of mine made a big deal about a CNN article covering the story about forged voter registration applications (supposedly by a democratic faction)...Yet, just today I heard a story about a republican organization passing out voting ballots to voters where Barack Obama's name was changed to Barack Osama which I see as very childish. There are so many theories, stories, accusations, etcetera flying around. I suppose that goes with the territory but it makes it so difficult to formulate a well-balanced and accurate opinion especially in the shadow of the financial crisis.
So what is one to do then? How do we get the correct information? How do we get information that is unbiased? The funny part about all of the very biased news coverage that is out there is that the first principle of Journalism is supposed to be getting the truth and remaining unbiased. Ha! What a crippling kick politics takes to journalistic ideals. I prefer to stick to KPBS and NPR coverage. While they may be biased sometimes, they at least try to provide lots of fair and balanced news.