Chip Monk

Well, its been some time since I last posted here, last semester was difficult as well as just being very busy on other projects and breathing in and out on a daily basis. So I will play a little catch up on a few posts hopefully while I have a some time off.

This was a Dharma Talk that I gave a few weeks ago at the temple. I was also able to run a mini-retreat and a Thursday Service (which I will cover at a different point).

So here is the gist of the Dhama Talk:

True story.

A few years back when we lived in Clarkston and I was working at home, I used to walk down to the mailbox which was located on the road away from the house. We had a large double lot that was covered with many tree (trees produce sticks in abundance). We would collect the sticks through the summer and put them into a pile to later burn, this "burn pit" being located down the yard near the mailbox. So I would walk by this burn pit on my daily walk to the mailbox.

Once day as I was walking by the large pile of kindling to get the mail I heard a rustling in the pile and saw a chipmunk sticking his (or her) head out from the pile. From the dry grass around the entrance, it was obvious this chipmunk had made this pile of kindling its home. And so I thought to myself "What a dumb chipmunk! How can you build your house in a pile of stick that will eventually just be burned down! How stupid can you be!" (or something to that effect).

So I continued to get my pile of mail and turned around to walk back up to the house. As I was able halfway up the hill, I stopped as I looked up and saw my house, and car in the driveway, and the pile of bills in my hand and actually stopped (I really did stop, that is not added for dramatic pause). I saw my pile of kindling in front of me, maybe for the first time. At this point in our lives, my business was failing, we couldn't pay our bills and we were about to have our world burn down around us...and it eventually did.

Stupid chipmunk...

We eventually lost that pile of sticks, ironically before I ever had a chance to burn that little pile of kindling down (that chipmunk is probably still there paying taxes).

And so we moved to a new part of the woods and started to rebuild our little pile of sticks once again. We made better choices, picked up better sticks, built our pile in a safer way, but here again three or four years later, I find myself in the same pile of sticks about to have my world burn down again. Not the same as last time, we have a solid foundation this time, but I can see the fire coming to other areas of what I call my life. So what I really learned in this process is I am where I am again because the one thing that is constant in both these situations is me, stupid chipmunk. I am the one who didn't change, I only changed the pile around me.

So, many people know me, and know my face and name in a number of areas in my life - at the temple, at work, in Iai, my friends, family etc, but they really don't "know me". I as well see people in those same situations and know their names, and may know a little bit about who they are, maybe some back story, but I also don't really "know them" either. But the important part is that I don't really "KNOW ME" and most of them don't really "KNOW THEMSELVES".

There is a great term in Latin: Temet Nosce - know thyself. Not having an idea who you really are is a huge hurdle for most people. Many people may say, "What are you talking about! I know who I am, I know all about me". But you probably don't, and if you do, rarely do people embrace what that means, or know how to live with and develop "who you are".

That is ultimately the work we do on the Buddhist path - trying to remove all those combustible sticks around us and strip it all down to the root, the source, the inner chipmunk.

We are, living in America, under a great deal of false expectations and influences on who we should be and who we should not be. We should all be beautiful, built, smart, rich people. We should care about the lives of stars and what new trend will get us back into the fold of the rich, and beautiful. If you are my age and came of age during the days of the 80's movies, you expect to have a relationship where the hunky Jake Ryan shows up with a birthday cake on your table for your birthday, all family relationships are just one funny experience away from bringing you all back together, the cool guy always gets the right girl in the end. We don't think these things influence us, but they do. We think the world owes us our happy ending, and unfortunately real relationships are extremely difficult and don't work out that way. I know so many people going through a divorce right now, that I have lost track. The national rate is at 50% - that's 1 out of every 2 marriages will end in divorce. We were raised with unrealistic expectations, and the sooner we abandon those expectations, can we get to who we really are.

These expectations we also put on others as well as ourselves. We teach our children about a fantasy world that will only disappoint later. Not every little girl becomes a princess, not every little boy grows up to be an explorer. Nobody reads stories about growing up to work in cube farm surrounded by an apathetic work force. We need to stop putting these expectations on our children, our friends, our spouses, our teachers and our leaders. There is a reason those things are labeled "fantasy".

That doesn't mean stop trying, or stop caring or letting yourself go - it means get back to the moment and get out of your head. Get away from your preconceived notions of how it "should be." Your head is a pile of sticks you build around you. Or as my good friend Tyler Durden says: the things you own eventually own you.

So remember - Temet nosce, stupid chipmunks, temet nosce.

(I didn't have the ability to link this video during the talk, so this is a "web exclusive")