Hi Sinister, I just got all inspired by James Gilmer's terrific post and I want to add my two philosophical cents worth on happiness/sadness and zen things: I think James is so right when he says that "we aren't our pain. We aren't our sadness or our shyness or even our happiness." And also, "But you don't realize you can take the glasses off. That you're not your loneliness and you're not your sadness or any of that." But I've struggled a lot with the fact that I may know that my mood is self-imposed but I still can't seem to fucking get rid of it at times. I thought it was a lack of willpower on my part. Or lack of true desire to get rid of it. So that added guilt to powerlessness to the original mood and just made matters worse. I read a book about a type of Zen practice called Shambhala. Now, I'm loathe to try to be an expert on it to 1500 strangers but from what I gather, it's a secular type of Buddism. Anyway, I don't know much about zen at all but from what I learned about Shambhala it's not about detatchment so much (or "sitting on a mountain and staring at your belly button" which I never really understood about zen practice, myself.) but about totally being here in the world, not above or outside of the world at all. The part about it that I agree with the most is its suggestion that moods are moods. You will get them. They are like the weather. When you meditate you will think about your grocery list or have a bitchy thought. Even if you understand that you needn't be unhappy, you will get depressed and caught up in silly things from time to time. Once you think you are beyond impure thoughts and feelings, you're in big trouble. That's delusion. You can't beat yourself up over your moods. That's just more nasty energy. You have to have a light touch and a sense of humour about the whole thing. You've got to love yourself (sorry for the corniness) and love that you're such a loser. Be there in your failure to be a perfect person. Stick with yourself. Don't try to disown yourself like a friend you're ashamed of being seen with by the cool kids. Don't repress your moods but don't let them carry you away either. Ride them out like a tree in a storm. (think Tree Lullaby, if you were hoping for some content in this post) They can touch you and shake you - in fact it's BEST if they touch you. You're living in this world after all. You might as well experience it fully. Take everything as an opportunity to feel things more deeply. Be curious. This is not to say mope and wallow. Don't hang onto a mood or use it to thwack in other people's faces. Don't hide out in a mood or let it define you. But admit that you're feeling it. Don't be ashamed to feel it. As soon as you get the strength to open up within a mood, the strength to break free of it will naturally follow. Anyway, that's what Shambhala suggests and I've never read a philosophy that suited me more. One more thing: When my dad died, a friend of mine gave me a piece of paper with a story on it he'd written about a King whose son goes away to fight and never ever returns. The King is distraught and nothing will console him. The people try everything they can think of but nothing will lift the King's sorrow. One day an old man turns up and gives him a ring engraved with four words. He tells the King that these four words have the power to make sad people happy and happy people sad. That was the end of the story. Then my friend gave me a box. Inside was a ring engraved with the words "This too shall pass". The ring catched my attention in little silver flashes in my saddest and happiest moments. It's a good reminder and a good wake up call. Love, Kate +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+