The Art of Zen Living

Back in March, I spent a few weekends on reducing the amount of stuff that owns me. Yes, you read that right. The further along in this project I get, the more I feel like I was the one that was owned.

The first part of this journey came to be when I decided I wanted to know if I could live in a one bedroom apartment, or if I need a 2 bedroom.  I’d been living in a one bedroom only because I have a garage I paid extra for.  Lots of my stuff lived in that garage so that I could have room to live in the apartment.

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When I moved back to my apartment, there was an ant pile out next to the sidewalk right where my parking space used to be. I found it REALLY irritating. I’d notice it every time I was out there, and I’d kick it over sometimes, or drop water on it if I was adding water to my car, and I didn’t bother watching where I walked unless there were a LOT of ants out, and only then to avoid getting bit myself.

Some days, it would set my mood for the drive, or for the next several hours.

Then I accepted the first precept: I will avoid taking life.

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“Happiness arises from the timely company of friends.
Happiness arises from having few needs.
Happiness arises from accumulated virtue at life’s end.
Happiness arises from seeing beyond suffering.”
- Dhammapada verse 331

I have been both fortunate and challenged as I’ve started trying to learn about Buddhism.

Fortunate, because about a week into it, I came across the Urban Dharma website, and found a series of wonderful podcasts from Ven. Kusala Bhikshu.

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I’m not planning to regularly take weekends “off” - living, even Zen living, is a 7 day a week proposition.

This weekend, however, I’m moving.  I’ve really enjoyed my apartment, and there are things about it that I’ll miss.  I’m looking forward, on the other hand, to having one of my close friends and confidants as a room mate.  The house also has room for a garden (the vegetable kind - more on vegetable and Zen gardens coming, stay tuned!) and an area I can use as a workshop.

There will also be a lot of room for my cats and zen kitten to lounge around the pool.  As much as they love being out on my little lanai, I imagine it will be like having their own, private nirvana over there.

Depending on how things go, I may post again over the weekend.

Regular posts resume monday.

My sister looks at things differently than I do, and often will see things I don’t.  We were talking about how sustainability fits into frugality, and she asked why I wasn’t posting about my bread baking experiences.  She made an excellent point that home made bread is not only frugal and healthy, it’s also one of the very basic tasks that we no longer do for ourselves.  Two months ago, I couldn’t have baked a loaf of bread - my sister still can’t bake one.  I’ve learned to bake regular bread, a nice “no knead” bread that has sort of an artisan texture to it, and Irish soda bread.  I’ve been having a blast trying new things (as an example, my basic bread recipe seems a little dry for my taste, so my next loaf is going to include a bit of olive oil for moisture) and learning different baking tricks.  My sister suggested I do a series of articles on my adventures with bread - her reasoning was that if I could do it, then anyone could.  Sometimes I think she sees me as kind of a big, sweet semi-trained chimp.  I’m not sure she wouldn’t be mostly right.

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My original plan had been to write about “enough” tonight.  The best laid plans of mice and men, well, you know the rest.  Or I hope you do, because I don’t, exactly - something about aforementioned plans going awry.

Instead I’m going to share with you a bit about my day.  I was over at my mother’s house, planting some ground cover and shrubs for her.  In the flower bed in the back, there is a small palm tree of some sort - I believe it’s a date palm.  What it is doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that it’s fronds have razor sharp spikes that can impale a man and cause him to bleed to death in a matter of seconds.  OK, that’s a slight exaggeration, but they are sharp, and they hurt when you’re trying to work around them while digging holes to plant in.

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I came across this line during a dialog earlier today:

“research consistently shows that there is at least some correlation between having money and being satisfied with life.”

Can someone point me to that research? My experience and my observation in life has been that if you have enough money to meet your basic needs (food, shelter and clothing) then happiness depends on having enough money to meet your wants and desires. You have two choices - learn to make more money, or learn to want fewer things.

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I posted about Fitday.com a week ago with some initial impressions, but I’ve been using the site now for about 2 weeks.  In that time, I’ve had moments that range from good (Oh, cool!) to bad (Huh?  That can’t be right…) and downright ugly (Oh, that’s NOT good!)

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Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
And the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared

A good friend of mine made the observation that I’d been a very difficult person to buy a gift for even before I started changing my attitude towards material things. It’s an excellent question - what DO you get someone that is living simply? I put together a list of suggestions.

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I learned something this week.

I’m not good at writing about myself.  I was surprised to learn that, since I can talk about myself until even *I* am tired of hearing about me.

I have finally posted the “My Story” page.  Sometime in the next week, I’ll post a page that covers the story behind this blog, how it came about, and why I chose the title.