Hibiscus Kid:
I've been working with my teacher for about a year now.
a good start.
Taking stock: I haven't gotten my goal of hitting a path - that is probably my fault.
when something has to give, or there is fault to be alloted, in failing to meet the expectations and hopes, it is always the hopes and expectations, the blamer and the blameworthy, the fault and the judge of fault, that lose in the long run. Your process, your meditation, your experientially emerging path, is what wins, every time.
let the market crash.
Also, it's difficult to measure what progress means sometimes...
good. the harder it gets to measure progress, the better off you'll be, until it is finally impossible to "measure" "progress." Then your practice will be clean.
Has this been a waste of time and money?
you would have to show me something that isn't a waste of time and miney, for me to make that distinction in this case.
Is this whole endeavor a good investment of resources?
lol.
go find something better. you're screwed, H Kid, and i think you know it.
Am I all that different today than I was a year ago?
you're different than when i showed up in late January, i do know that. You're braver, taking more initiative across the board, owning your experience even when it's weird and doesn't fit in the template.
Is meditation helping me grow as a human, or how much of this is just natural maturation that comes with age - does it matter?
Bernadette Roberts tells a story about meeting an old woman who was, like Roberts, recognizable in No-Self. She said the woman had never done any practice in her life except live. Okay. But with you in accounting mode here, do you really think you can sit on your hands and watch the tree rings accumulate until you are that old woman? That would be the highest practice of all; i doubt anybody at all on DhO could stand it. Way too passive.
What if I keep spending money and time on teachers and retreats and daily sitting and nothing happens?
what if you stop, and nothing happens? What if, in general, nothing happens. What if, as far as making anything happen, you find yourself defeated?
It's even more difficult to tell because in some ways I'm better off, and some ways I'm worse off. None of this seems like anything I read about in MCTB or TMI or when reading about the lives of other practitioners.
Dark Night has a tendency to burn up all the best books, the ones we've relied on most, like a momma bird kicking a fledgling out the
nest: time to fly or die.
There's no hurry, HK, truly. DSit like you have forever. No fear holds up: sit like you're bulletproof. Trees can't see themselves grow, but one day you'll notice what a big shadow you're casting lately.
love, tim
