Tag Archives: Nirvana

Composure

Composure: (n) the state or feeling of being calm and in control of oneself.

In pursuit of trying to maintain my composure, my passion often stomps out of the room, pissed off.

Do I have to make a choice?

Can I be passionately composed?

Or can I add composure to my passion?

Here is the basic tenets of Buddhism–supposedly the most spiritual state we can achieve is Nirvana, the Great Enlightenment, where we have achieved ultimate funny wisdom on words that begin with a Ccomposure.

Don’t think about the fact that it’s inhuman or that it’s a fictitious position–lasting only until enough travail and tribulation pile onto our shoulders.

Let us just consider whether removing emotional turmoil, emotional desire and emotional pursuits does anything other than destroy our passion, making us so boring that we’re only suited to live monastically.

Yes, I can probably maintain my composure if you give me all my whims and promise not to ruffle my feathers, but then again, that promise would probably be a lie. Because I would certainly come up with new whims and ruffle my own feathers.

When we speak of composure what we’re really hoping is to remove worry, frustration, dark thinking, and allowing a little light to peek through onto our present predicament.

Sometimes all you have to do is give the Earth ten seconds, instead of filling up the space with cuss words.

 

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Buddhism

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Buddhism: (n) a religion, originated in India by Buddha

Everybody’s got a different idea on the subject.

Some people think religion is like comparing various incarnations of cola. In other words, a handful of people Dictionary Bknow the difference–but most folks would just say “it’s a Coke.”

Continuing in the food theme, there are those who differentiate religions as bread, milk, meat and fruit. But I think all that’s ridiculous.

I think the most intelligent thing to do in assessing religion is to take a moment of your time to figure out what really works with humans on Planet Earth.

There are three things:

  1. People are people and they aren’t going to stop being people.
  2. We all care about ourselves.
  3. So it’s essential to find a way to care about yourself without ignoring everybody else.

This trio of ideas is immutable. It never goes away.

So a Jewish religion which believes that those who have trimmed penises are the “chosen people” might find themselves struggling in the social arena with that assertion.

Likewise, the Muslims, who feel it is their job to take over the world and insert Muslim principles into the heart of every human being, will probably suffer the slings and arrows of those who love a good barbecue pork sandwich.

And in the case of Buddha and his world-renowned Buddhism, trying to convince people that ignoring their desires and emotions is the path to Nirvana, seems to me to be futile.

Christianity, on the other hand, which has decided to bunk with Judaism, fails to deliver the best tenets of its organization as put forth by Jesus, who thoroughly confirmed our three steps by saying that once you find out how you love yourself, just apply that same measure to others.

There is an old saying, which translated, reads, “The only pure religion that is undefiled is to take care of women and children who don’t have resources and to keep yourself from being overthrown by worldly affairs.”

Buddhism suffers from too much introspection in a world which demands we consider seven billion options.

 

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Balloons

Balloon: (n) a brightly colored rubber sac inflated with air and then sealed at the neck, used as a children’s toy or a decoration.Dictionary B

Merrilee was one of our high school cheerleaders.

If you’ve forgotten, holding that position is similar to being a goddess. So an invitation from Merrilee to come to her home and participate in any activity whatsoever was a shortcut to social Nirvana.

Merrilee was having a birthday party for her friend, Judy. She contacted me to come over and help her blow up balloons. It crossed my mind to tell Merrilee that I had never blown up a balloon before, but fortunately I caught myself before committing high school cultural suicide.

So I went out, bought a small package of balloons from the local five-and-dime, sat in my room and practiced. I actually reached a point where I was able to get to the first stage of balloon-blowing-up–what one might call “the initial plumping.” Reaching that plateau, it gets a little easier.

But you see, here’s the problem: I practiced too much.

It was a hot day and by the time I got to Merrilee’s house, I was already light-headed from balloon inflation.

She smiled at me and said, “I know you’re going to be the best at blowing these up.”

My chest puffed out so much that I was sure she saw it, so I grabbed balloons and started blowing.

I wasn’t even ten minutes into the process when I became so dizzy that I thought I was going to pass out. I broke out in a cold sweat. I knew this for a fact–whatever happened, I needed to make sure that I remained conscious.

Apparently, I was beginning to turn “shades of ill” because Merrilee asked me, “Are you alright?”

I wasn’t, but reassured her that all was well. I started gulping big, deep breaths, which seemed to help my lightheadedness.

I thought I was about to escape the moment, when suddenly, uncontrollably, I threw up.

It was an unplanned vomiting, which I certainly would have stifled if I could. Fortunately we were outside and I ended up merely decorating the grass.

A pall fell over the gathering. At length, Merrilee said, “O-o-o-0-h.”

That was it.

Everyone jumped away, and it was agreed by a consensus of the conclave that I needed to go home.

I did.

It took a solid month for people to stop kidding me about the balloon escapade, and truthfully, to this day … I don’t know if it totally has been scoured from their minds.

 

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