Energy vampires

I once blogged about ‘emotional vampires’, but have recently come across the term, ‘energy vampire’, which is a different variation. They are sometimes also known as ‘psychic vampires’. Energy vamps as the term suggests siphon your energy.
The fiasco at work I blogged about exhausted me so much I took half the day off and [...]

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Melancholy baby

I have been weepy all week.
There. I’ve come out and said it. Ordinarily, I’d wait to process the pain before confessing to it, my Capricorn moon preferring to hide in the basement until it passes, but I have been bolstered by the courage of those like the inimitable Lucy Looking Upward to bear [...]

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Love and possession

As the Sun (self/ego) opposes Uranus (unpredictability, sudden change) today, bringing to light our need for, and often also our fear of, change, we are given a little taste of the greater struggle to come when Saturn (the planet of discipline, constriction, and conservatism) opposes Uranus on the 4th of November later this year. Yes, [...]

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Recycling toxicity

I wondered a little while ago about getting upset with people who choose to live emotional toxic waste dumps. Last night, my unconscious must’ve been trying to tell me something because the word ‘tonglen‘ popped up in my dream. I know very little about Tibetan Buddhism but I do know a little bit about [...]

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The truth of attachments, or attachments to Truth?

I woke up this morning with an inner agitation that began with yesterday’s encounter and I knew I’d taken the bait, against my better judgement, once again. It wasn’t enough to sit with, feel, and name my anger. It was necessary to act on it. I wasn’t sufficiently present.
This morning, I didn’t have to [...]

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Sitting with desire I

The cause of suffering, it is often cited of Buddhism, is desire, attachment or craving. We suffer because we crave what we (think we) don’t have. And we crave any number of things, both tangible and ephemeral — ice cream, a bigger house, a bigger car, someone to love us, we may even crave a [...]

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8 for ‘08

I’m excerpting Judith Gayle’s ‘Big 8′ for 2008 here. Couldn’t have hoped to say it better myself.

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Stand-by / by-stand

Can we stop our buttons being pushed? Meditation helps me catch myself out before the situation escalates, but can I stop the button being pushed in the first place? We can’t stop the push-er, but can we stop being the pushed? Can we drain the power and render the button inert? Can we be by-standers [...]

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Like, unlike, dislike

Aversion, I am learning more and more, is not the opposite of attachment but is attachment in extremis. One is averse when one becomes attached to that which one is not averse to. The way I am imagining it is like a primary school lesson in magnetism — opposite poles attract, and like poles repel. [...]

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Post retreat pond

I got back from a weekend retreat in a lovely part of the country this afternoon. The meditation was at times wonderful, at times painful, at times plain tedious, but no doubt always useful. It even brought some clarity to some questions I’ve been working on in the thesis.

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Knowing when to give up, Part III

Parts I and II.

Serendipity is wonderful thing. Our Zen group had a visit from a teacher today and somehow the things he started talking about made me think about what I was going to post here though I never quite got to raise it in the discussion.

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Headless chicken

Whoever invented the expression got the right idea. I’ve spent the past week jumping through administrative hoops trying to get my thesis submitted and examined. The UK-wide industrial action boycotting examinations and assessment seems to be more inconveniencing than effective, but I’m much less reactive than I might’ve been, even though the outcome has a [...]

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