Experiment - Dear Buddha 12/30/09

Needless to say, my life is still in shambles.  I'm not complaining.  Just stating facts.  I decided that I'm gonna try an experiment where via a pseudo-journal I write to the Buddha (inside of me, kind of like a prayer), in the hopes that I'll be able to piece some shit together.  I hope it's amusing for readers, but most importantly, I hope it'll help me figure some shit out.  NOTE:  I say Buddha inside me because The Buddha said his attainment of enlightenment (how he was then named "Buddha"), was an intangible that everyone can obtain.  All the answers reside in the understanding of ourselves.  

Dear Buddha:

I still haven't found what I'm looking for.  I don't even know what it is I'm looking for.  I'm searching for meaning in my life, but am plagued by the demands and expectations that society requires of us, it's citizens.  I've now spent the better part of 6 months blindly searching and undertaking things, activities, etc. in the hopes that an answer will fall into my lap.  

I look at how I got here, and like everything significant that happens, I was thrown into this position despite all my attempts to avoid it.  My intention with marriage was not to get divorced.  My intention with going into business with my wife was to maintain a secure financial position.  But despite what my intentions were, they changed into expectations that are now just royally fucked.  I've spent the last 6 years under the impression that my professional goals were noble and for the good of my family.  I'm now coming to realize that I was a close employee who made good money for my in-laws.  Even looking back on my marriage, it seems I was too soft.  Unconditional acceptance breeds contempt in my opinion.  It's something that can be given freely, but when you expect the same from someone else, it ends in disappointment.  

Going forward, I have nothing but great fear.  I expect hardship, but feel I'm not prepared to face it.  I've done a lot of personal investigation and can plainly see the pitfalls that befuddle man, but am somewhat powerless to determine what it is to do about them, and ultimately, realistically how those delusions will affect me and my goals for what I want to spend my life doing.  My only goal really is to find a niche where I contribute my energy and my life for a purpose that can ultimately serve my fellow man.  But how does one do that?  I watched "Up in the Air" today and was blown away by how easily we are conditioned into our own perverse realities where we waste away our precious time doing duties for a conglomerate that sees us as faceless cogs in a perpetual machine.  I've subjected the last 6 years of my life in the delusion that I was self-employed only to find that we all answer to someone, who answers to someone else whose only goal is the bottom line.  

To make matters worse, I'm plagued at home by my uber unhappy marriage.  I've made a personal agreement to not pass judgment on anyone; especially my wife.  But the same cannot be said about her.  It hurts hearing all about my shortcomings.  It angers me to hear about how I spend money on stupid things (ie: yoga classes, buddhist books, fast food), and while I can agree to some extent, I'm then subjected to the name brand clothing, shoes, accessories, and facial products that are then classified as a "business expense."  I steam at the double standards, yet for the most part am powerless (or too cowardly) to say anything about it.  Through compassion, an understanding can be reached.  At least that is my interpretation from your teachings.  But why do I feel like such a bitch/pussy/wuss?  I'm being walked all over, and while it only really affects my financial outcome (material world shit that is impermanent), I have a hard time letting that aspect of my life go.  

I grow more and more weary of not having a direction to go.  I tire of being lost.  But most of all, I am tired of who I am right now.  I'm so fucking tired of being scared.  I don't have the stamina to feign positivity.  I'm angered at how easily it is that my daughter (4 yrs old) can be bought off by her mother with Barbies, clothes, etc.  I look into the mirror and in my reflection I see the last 2 years, 1 month, and 6 days that I have endured without sex.  I don't pity (or self-pity) the reflection.  I loathe him.  Not for the apparent loss in focus.  Not for the depression that he attributes to being lonely/lazy.  I loathe him because I don't know who he is.  I don't know who I am anymore, and I now question who it is I ever was.  And in that internal reflection, I know that whoever he is, it's not real anyway.  I know your purpose in your teachings of nothingness was to inspire the student to understand that personal attacks hold no water, it saddens me to know how much faith I have in that delusion that I have deemed "me."  I desire to let it go, but cannot.  I'm too weak.  My heart longs for compassion of others.  It screams for it at times.  But I know those moments from the past and how fleeting they are.  Yet I still wish for them every night.  

Tomorrow the new year begins.  My wife has already explicitly told me that her plans are set and so are mine.  She is going out.  I am watching my daughter.  In my delusion of what I constitute as compassion, I comply.  My mind says that it is through understanding.  My gut tells me it's because I'm too scared to stand up to her.  I don't have an answer as to which is reality.  I'm closing this letter without hopes or expectations of the upcoming year or for tomorrow night for that matter.  I only hope to keep in my forethought that I can experience the present and for good or bad endure through it.

Fudo 

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