I'll be back with a lot of new content soon but...

... I'll be without internet access until mid-July.

In the meantime, here is a very moving video in which a longtime Buddhist practitioner, Sexton Bourke, talks about the value of an ongoing meditation practice as he faces his death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_popout&v=6Jtfo-0hke4#t=90s

Empty

Krakow - main square

So this big idea of mine's not going so well. This trip is supposed to be the end of wallowing in the hurt of losing my job and the reclamation and re-dedication to this project. I've been trying so hard to get back to this full-time, I should be thrilled, right?

To allow for jet lag, I arrived a few days before the Auschwitz retreat actually began. Maybe that wasn't a perfect plan. A little too much time alone to think...

Wawel Castle

Krak's Mound

Pedestrian bridge with lovers' locks

I walked all over Krakow this morning - through the market square just as the sun came up, to Wawel castle and down through the kitschy dragon's den, through the reviving Jewish quarter (Kazimeirz), all the way to the prehistoric Krak's Mound, then back across a pedestrian bridge covered with padlocks with lovers' initials carved or written into them that wasn't on my map, and finally back to St Mary's Church.While I walked and looked, I was fine. But, stop for a hot chocolate, and I'm a mess again. Still. I can't get myself back. The hurt won't burn itself out. Dented ego or work head that doesn't want to get it: it's over.

Done.

Move on.

Funny. The job was different than anything I'd done before, different than anything I thought I'd ever do, but I'd just decided to stop questioning my decision to be there. I could see the good it was doing in a place that had the money to have an impact and I was working with people I adored. So, just three weeks before the end, I bought two new suits.

I hate those suits.

I can tell you I am not wearing either of those suits right now.

I know, I know: it's a good thing the job ended or I wouldn't be walking around Krakow, I wouldn't be back working on this project, I wouldn't be able to get some cattle car cheap ticket to go visit Luke while he's on his semester abroad. But the hole I'm in is deeper and scarier than even the job loss. I'm having trouble getting back in to this project.

It took me so long to get comfortable with what I'm doing, to get over the embarrassment I sometimes feel when I tell people who have known me for a long time what I'm doing. A number of them have been supportive, some even enthusiastic. But I've also lost a few friends who think I'm nuts.

Before getting on the plane, I tried to sit down to catch up on some of the old notes that I haven't posted yet but I got nowhere. Instead, when I had any energy at all, I obsessed about a friend who hasn't seen me since I told her about this project several years ago. When I told her about The Heathen, she smiled. She tried to look interested. She was not a convincing actress. I haven't seen her since. I hadn't really thought much about it but, every time I sat down to work, I couldn't think about anything else. It feels like part of a wall of shame between me and returning to the work that really means something to me.

I feel empty.

Empty. Empty. Empty.

And I don't think it's the kind of empty Zen Buddhism wants you to feel.

I am suffering because I am attached to what other people think about me and to what I think about myself. And that sucks.

Outside St Mary's Church - point taken

Other people's lives

Attachment is the cause of suffering. Here I am, the summer is gone, and I’m beating myself up, using my picture of what my work life, my work output, is supposed to look like and doesn’t. While I’m typing these very words, I’m mindlessly knocking back a cup of coffee while chomping Famous Amos oatmeal cookie crumbs all over my keyboard. That’s after buying and eating a chocolate MoonPie at the convenience store when all I meant to buy was milk for the coffee I’m now drinking.

Sure great how those eight grueling days of mindfulness training made a real difference in my life.

So what has filled the void? What stories have moved in to the vacuum left by those I'm not telling? Luke, sixteen year-old Luke, may be breaking up with Amy after a year. I'm like a gossip magazine addict or a mangy dog waiting for the crumbs of information that fall off the table. I'm obsessed. Better than feeling what I feel when I'm not.

Attachment sure does cause suffering. I suffer when I don't measure up to some yardstick I imagine, then I flail around looking for anyone else's plot twists to agonize over because anything's better than feeling what I feel.

What a whiner.

Enough. Just type.