monthly buddhist carnival – the weird and cranky edition

angry buddha sculpture

do
not
act
from
ego.
it is a sticky little
mouse trap that
begins
with
a
wheel
running us in
circles.
get off.

(from full on arrival)

today is a weird day for me, completely, it seems, driven by ego.  today is june 15, time for a buddhist carnival, like every 15th of the month.  today, i will take you on the back alleys of the carnival – you know, the ones with the empty boxes just barely stacked behind the circus tent, with the lion tamer hissing at the trapeze artist, and the guy who runs the merry-go-round lighting up a joint for the fourth time today, and it’s only quarter past five.

let me show you a bit of the ego that drives the circus of this blog.  maybe the shock of the 100-watt light bulb will scare the ego away.

aha!  and already we have the ego talking – because that’s the language of the ego:  “scare”.  fear works, doesn’t it?  just ask any abused woman who stays with the guy who beats her day in day out.  ego knows that fear works, it keeps people trapped.  trapping – that’s another thing this ego knows about.  i’ve spent most of today trapped behind the computer, and not because someone put me in a cage, no – simply because i trapped myself there.  cranky, with only a glimpse of pleasantness here and there, i didn’t want to go anywhere and do the things that move my mood ahead.  and you know what?  there was a grim satisfaction with all of that.  check up on lexulous, go to twitter, check email, round and round and round – “a wheel running us in circles”.   “you hate this!”  “yes!”  i can feel my teeth clamped together, ready to snap at anyone.  i haven’t started dinner.  i haven’t written this blog post.  grrrrr.  “you hate this!” “yes!”  round and round.  there’s a sense of wicked pride in wasting time.  grrrr.

(there’s probably something underneath all this. )

it feels strange to spew all of this forth in a blog post; i’m not supposed to do this – what am i, a 15-year-old emo who regales her audience with every detail of her oh-so-fascinating inner life?

grrr.

but it felt like i needed to try something different.  so there you go, you heard my ego talking.  and now for some people who have way more interesting things to say, this time simply as links to interesting buddhist blog posts i came across in the last little while:

http://www.thereformedbuddhist.com/2010/04/early-western-buddhist-scholars.html

http://rogernolan.blogspot.com/2010/05/perspectives-no-self-anatta.html

http://www.prairiewindsangha.org/2009/10/five-contemplations.html

http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2010/06/bg-176-the-place-of-the-erotic/

http://buddha-inside.blogspot.com/2010/05/answer-to-anger-and-aggression-is.html

http://www.tibetanbuddhistaltar.org/2010/06/the-original-longing/

http://buddhismnow.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/jinkji/

http://www.ovimagazine.com/art/3993

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