Tannishblog

This week I am again confronted with a common theme in my life: Self-absorption. This is my Karma-cleansing in progress.

For the past decade, as I embrace Buddhist tenets, I am meeting people who can show me myself as I have been. They are as different from each other as can be, but what they have in common is varying degrees of Self-Absorption. As I embrace the theory that everyone I meet in life is here to teach something, I am open to what I need to learn from them.

I grew up with people who were self-centered. Nothing outside of their worldview could be valid; and must be scorned. As I, myself, was often beyond their worldview, I was therefore scorned. As a result, I also became self-centered in defiance. Otherwise I would be destroyed as an individual, a damaged soul. Such was the vehemence of the incessant attacks against my personality and perspective. End result: and angry, self-absorbed young man tossed unto the world. I hated, was angry, couldn’t stand anyone’s views but my own.

I was miserable.

But a book changed all that. I worked in the receiving room at a Barnes & Noble when I open an incoming box and saw an elderly smiling face of the Dalai Lama shining out. He was captivating, but not as much as the title of the book: “The Art of Happiness.”

“That’s just what I need,” I thought. I was right.

I read the book, delved into its practices. I learned more about meditation and Buddhist teaching. For a while I hung out with a Shambala Temple nearby. My healing had started.

Then began the parade of Hurting souls who were mirrors of me at different phases of my earlier life. The first was red-faced Anger. The next was Intolerant and Racist. The third was a Thief, followed closely by the Egotist. Next, the Maniac and the Worrier. More recently I have met the Slacker, and this week I have to deal with the Embittered Soul. All are reflections of the person I once was. All are here, I believe, to help cleanse me of my past, to prepare me for a future rebirth where I can grow further and become more compassionate, closer to Nirvana.

The theme of Self-absorption is the reason I live this life, to rid myself of it’s influence, to raise a daughter free from it’s grip, to stare it down and transcend it. The Echoes of my Soul whom I meet, tortured people that they are, are my friends. They are here to help me. And if I can share my experiences with them, perhaps I can help them as well in their journeys toward Nirvana.

I truly hope so.

Am I the only one who doesn’t care about the imminent interment of Michael Jackson? I’ve been wondering this all week, followed closely by the observation that, in this brave, new century the News Media is utterly clueless about what people care about. They are anachronistic constructs of a by-gone era doomed to follow the Edsel. I will not miss them.

Micheal and Farrah aren’t the only ones that died this week. So, too, did the Old Media. Not a tear is shed.