Waking Up

Wake up early on Sunday mornings.

The advantages of this are you can more fully enjoy the weekend if awake. You have less stress getting your work done that needs to be ready for the week. You can fall asleep early so the shock of getting up Monday is smaller.

Four Noble Truths: A System?

The four noble truths are the Buddha’s foundational teachings on suffering and the end of suffering. But, decide for yourself whether this is a system or not. Is a framework for understanding how to cope with reality a system? It’s not clear to me yet.

The four noble truths (for those of you unfamiliar) are:

1. There exists suffering in our lives

2. Our identification with resistance to pain and clinging to pleasure is the cause

3. Letting of our clinging and grasping to pain and pleasure will bring about that suffering’s cessation

4. There is a way that leads to this letting go which involves cultivating a certain view, conduct, and mental posture centered mostly around non-judgmental awareness

Given that there are no specifics provided beyond that (at least for the sake of this presentation), it would be perfectly acceptable to discuss what lifestyle may be most conducive towards ending suffering. Of course, one might even have a problem accepting that life is about “ending suffering.” I would maintain that a lot of this ends up being a semantic argument more than anything. If a child is crying, there is a sense that you want that crying to stop, but if you approach it that way, it’ll probably just continue. Instead, if you go try and take care of the crying child, the crying may stop instantly. So ending suffering may be the result, but not necessarily the right way of having an intent. Again, the semantic circles you can get caught in are less important than the practical debates about peoples’ actual experience. If someone embraces suffering, and it makes them feel good, you could either say they embraced their suffering, or you could say they ended their suffering through embracing it.

So, here’s a rephrase of the four noble truth system from a more tantric approach

1. There is suffering in life

2. It’s there no matter what, so you might as well enjoy it

3. So stop fearing your suffering and embrace it

4. Through adopting that view, loosening up your rigid conduct, and putting your heart and soul into things, you will eventually not be afraid of life anymore, and you’ll be able to enjoy the entirety of your life, pain and all.

Really, it’s a linguistic trick, but it does have real implications for the way people try to traverse these paths. They are both effective “orientations,” (not systems!) depending on the temperament of the person.

There is, of course, the real beautiful Heart Sutra, which basically says…”Hey, there’s actually no suffering.” This is the extreme version of my second version above.

Partying and Taking Care

System Sally is all for a nice time. That being said, do not do anything that is likely to cause unnecessary harm. There are many activities that can provide genuine fun where injury is common or at least unpreventable, so there is no reason whatsoever to add any potential for injury or harm.

Loud music is already harmful to your hearing, why make it intentionally louder?

Large gatherings of people can be uncontrollable so why add more things to the mix that make it more uncontrollable?

The body is a sensitive breakable organism, why introduce more chemicals, fits of violence (even the “loving” variety), or general disregard into the system?

It is important not to take what I am saying and think I am suggesting to lock one’s self up and never do anything. Quite the contrary, life should be explored, and the body should be pushed to its limits. It is the intention that matters, and it is important that life and fun is never lived as a mere result of not caring about the fate or future of body and mind.

Cooking your Food

Some people don’t get hungry until a certain time in the day. Some don’t get hungry until 9am. Some don’t get hungry until 11am. Some, perhaps those that sleep until noon, don’t get hungry until 2:30p. The idea is is that stomach/body is in a slight fasting state when it’s sleeping. Your blood is getting purified and whatnot and just because you awake doesn’t mean your digestive system is all ready to go again.

At this point, however, you may have already gotten ready for the day, and now your energy is giving you that sense that the world is out there already churning its gears and you should go join it. But you know the second you sit down somewhere, in the next few hours you will be hungry. If you’re on a budget and you can’t run to the neighborhood burrito shop you’ve got a little problem on your hands.

You have a few options at this point

1. Take a granola bar
2. Take the ingredients you’ll need to cook yourself a meal (if the place you’re going has a kitchen)
3. Go to the neighborhood burrito shop

The System for Not Engaging Systems

When you are not actively using your systems (i.e. thinking of them consciously) usually a default system kicks in. This is different for everybody but here are some of the default systems built into the human being:

1. Try not to die

2. Stay generally responsible

3. Stay generally clean

4. Let most systems slide (this usually means sliding back to basic systems from childhood. for example, still using soap in the shower but not caring what kind of soap, or what your overall procedure is)

5. Let people notice your systems have slid and being okay with it.

6. Wondering why you ever needed systems in the first place

Chairs

Sit only in chairs that are stationary. Sit only in chairs that are hard.

The advantages to this are many:

For some reason many chairs on wheels will resist your forward advances to the desk you are working at. It is good to be snug up against the desk, and an uncontrollable wheely chair will not help you with this. Reclining is nice, but sitting up straight is way better for getting work done and staying awake. The best chair has four legs, no padding, and a high straight back that you’ll only want to rest on for a minute or two.

Motorcycle

Do not ride motorcycles or mopeds. They are not safe.

Soup

Eat hot soup on extremely hot summer days.

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Sitting Outside

When sitting outside either playing guitar or reading a book or using a laptop, get a tripod seat very much like golf seats that are portable and shrink down when lifted. I believe EMS still sells these.

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Sitting in a car.

When sitting in a car, lean back put your left foot forward and your right foot curled underneath your left leg.

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