When everything goes wrong, treat disaster as a way to wake up.

This morning I lazed awake, sloughed through sunrise with half glazed over eyes. 7:33AM, my cell phone said when I finally let my vision focus. These days I sleep in: 7:33AM is at least an hour from my most recent usual rising time.

My best friend is my first love and also a Buddhist monk it turns out. It took the disaster of his depression at age sixteen to encourage me to purchase Thich Nhat Hahn's Being Peace for him. I asked the clerk at Waldenbooks (a bookstore chain that was long ago replaced by bigger stronger bookstore chains) what may calm a restless and sad mind. She suggested this slim and succinct novel and somehow for him it planted an unrelenting seed of monasticism. I did not necessarily mean to hand the gift of a life work's worth of focus to my ailing love then, as I'm sure he did not mean to hand the same gift back to me a decade later when I could find no pleasure in my own life.

Did you know that Buddhist monks have the opportunity to Facebook chat? In the depths of the deep wood of the monestary life, between teacher studies, silent sesshin, and sitting zazen, one may use the dial-up internet connection to connect to humanity and larger popular culture. As my oldest friend logged on and made himself available to the world in which I live I shared the tale of the overcoming of my own personal years-long disaster.

I bought my own copy of Being Peace just a few months ago and despite my propensity to relish in the process of WORK I understand the point of sleeping in a bit, sitting and doing nothing. Sometimes nothingness is the quickest way to heal what hurts. A lot of the unrest is from too much expectation and attachment to somethingness. I've experienced this first hand

In the closing moments of our conversation my friend forwarded me a list of Lojong slogans; words to live by, words that help. They are as follows:

First, train in the preliminaries.
Treat everything you perceive as a dream.
Find the consciousness you had before you were born.
Let even the remedy itself drop away naturally.
Stay in the primeval consciousness, the basis of everything.
Between meditations, treat everything as an illusion.
As you breathe in, take in and accept all the sadness, pain, and
negativity of the whole world, including yourself, and absorb it into
your heart. As you breathe out, pour out all your joy and bliss; bless
the whole of existence.
Understand your attachments, your aversions, and your indifference,
and love them all.
Apply these proverbs in everything you do.
When practicing unconditional acceptance, start with yourself.
When everything goes wrong, treat disaster as a way to wake up.
Take all the blame yourself.
Be grateful to everyone.
Don't worry – there's nothing real about your confusion.
When something unexpected happens, in that very moment, treat it as a meditation

Work with the Five Forces. The Five Forces are:
1.Be intense, be committed.
2.Familiarization – get used to doing and being what you want to do and to be.
3.Cultivate the white seeds, not the black ones.
4.Turn totally away from all your ego trips.
5.Dedicate all the merits of what you do for the benefit of others.

Practice these Five Forces and you are ready for death at any moment.

All teachings have the same goal.
Follow the inner witness rather than the outer ones.
Always have the support of a joyful mind.
Practicing even when distracted is good training.
Always observe these three points:
1.Regularity of practice.
2.Not wasting time on the inessential.
3.Not rationalizing our mistakes.
Change your attitude, but stay natural.
Do not discuss defects.
Don't worry about other people.
Work on your greatest imperfection first.
Abandon all hope of results.
Give up poisonous food.
Don't be consistent.
Don't indulge in malicious gossip.
Don't wait in ambush.
Don't strike at the heart.
Don't put the yak's load on the cow.
Remember – this is not a competition.
Don't be sneaky.
Don't abuse your divine power for selfish reasons.
Don't expect to profit from other people's misfortune.
In all your activities, have a single purpose.
Solve all problems by accepting the bad energy and sending out the good.
Renew your commitment when you get up and before you go to sleep.
Accept good and bad fortune with an equal mind.
Keep your vows even at the risk of your life.
Recognize your neurotic tendencies, overcome them, then transcend them.
Find a teacher, tame the roving mind, choose a lifestyle that allows
you to practice.
Love your teacher, enjoy your practice, keep your vows.
Focus your body, mind, and spirit on the path.
Exclude nothing from your acceptance practice: train with a whole heart.
Always meditate on whatever you resent.
Don't depend on how the rest of the world is.
In this life, concentrate on achieving what is most meaningful.
Don't let your emotions distract you, but bring them to your practice.
Don't let your practice become irregular.
Train wholeheartedly.
Free yourself by first watching, then analyzing.
Don't feel sorry for yourself.
Don't be jealous.
Stay focused.
Don't expect any applause.


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In other news, when one looks at an on-line thesaurus for synonyms for happiness they will find that "Can't Complain!" is offered as a viable replacement. I wonder if the paper version offers the same alternative?