Grody. To the Max.

I think perhaps the best part about MNJ and MH living in TN is the fantastic pictures that they send. Like say this one...

Who thought that would be a good name for their company? My favorite part is that as MNJ was giggling and taking a picture of the truck, the driver came around the corner and said, "yeah, I get that a lot."

I was beginning to think I was over my jetlag, but then I was wide awake at 4 am this morning.

Karma

The heart is our garden, and along with each action there is an intention that is planted like a seed. We can use a sharp knife to cut someone, and if our intention is to do harm, we will be a murderer. We can perform an almost identical action, but if we are a surgeon, the intention is to heal and save a life. The action is the same, yet depending on its purpose or intention, it can be either a terrible act or a compassionate act.

-Jack Kornfield

I think there's a strong relationship between intention and karma. Karma is kind of a mysterious thing because we aren't always fully conscious of our intentions. We don't understand why bad things seem to always happen to us because we don't always understand our own intentions. That and sometimes bad things just happen.

-JonJon

HKG to PDX

I'm home. I left Hong Kong Sunday morning. Tara took this picture on the train the night before I left. We thought this couple was funny. And comfy. Sometimes on the train you are just tired. Also notice the man's Gucci bag in his lap. I love that Chinese men appreciate a nice man bag.

I rode the bus to the HK airport and that was fun. There was a rack for luggage on the bus and there was also a place for those in wheelchairs. I was one of the first on the bus and everyone after me thought that the wheelchair space was for their luggage and everyone put their bags there. Fortunately no one in a wheelchair got on the bus. If I was in a wheelchair, I would have been pissed. The other problem was that the wheelchair space wasn't built to contain luggage and so all the bags slid out into walkway and soon it was littered with suitcases. The best part is that no one did anything about it.

Also on that bus a man sat next to me and he was eating what looked like a powerbar, but it was kind of floppy and about as big as his forearm. When he chewed it, he made that grody noise of someone chewing loudly on a banana. It was disgusting.

The plane ride home was much better. The plane ride there was long because I sat next to a lady with a very restless babychild (Not quite a child but more than a baby. I guess they call that a toddler) Anyway, I also had a window seat and anytime I got up to use the bathroom, the lady next to me wouldn't move at all. So to get out, I basically had to straddle her and give her a lap dance. She didn't even tip me. Whatever. One the plane home, I had an aisle seat AND the seat next to me was empty. I didn't even mind when my movies stopped working half way through the flight. Although I was a little upset when they ran out of omelets for breakfast and I had to have rice porridge instead. It wasn't even like sweet rice. It was like chunky papier-mache paste. (I hope you read that with a French accent.)

Anyway, the last couple of days there we had fantastic weather. Tara and Owen and I went for dim sum and that was delicious. We also hit up H&M. I had never been before and fell in love. Fortunately, I learned Portland is getting an H&M in June. In the meantime, I will be getting over jet lag.

Now I Become Myself

Now I become myself. It's taken

Time, many years and places,

I have been dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people's faces,

Run madly, as if Time were there,

Terribly old, crying in a warning,

"Hurry, you will be dead before--"

(What? Before you reach the morning?

or the end of the poem is clear?

Or love safe in the walled city?)

Now to stand still, to be here,

Feel my own weight and density!...

Now there is time and Time is young.

O, in this single hour I live

All of myself and do not move

I, the pursued, who madly ran,

Stand still, stand still, and stop the Sun!

-May Sarton

As our development of self grows and our heart becomes less entangled, we begin to discover a deeper truth about the self: We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart. When our heart is free from the contractions of fear, anger, grasping, and confusion, the spiritual qualities we have tried to cultivate manifest in us naturally. They are our true nature, and they spontaneously shine in our consciousness whenever we let go of the rigid structures of our identity.

-Jack Kornfield

There is a vitality, a life force that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.

-Martha Graham

Pictures from HK

Ok, I can't upload any of my pictures since I don't have my camera cord, so I stole some pictures from Tara to give you a little bit of a taste. This one is me and G at Victoria Peak. We went Sunday afternoon and the view is apparently amazing, but all we could see was misty fog. We might try again on Friday.

Here's Big Buddha on Lantau Island. And G. Just, you know, contemplating the essence of Buddha.

Of course, before seeing Big Buudha, we had to stop and get some candy floss. Candy floss as big as all of our heads put together. I suggested we save it for later and weave it into an edible blanket.

A distant view of Big Buddha taken from the village.
And this is my new Chinese bride. See how we are hitting it off? We can barely keep our hands off each other. My parents will be so pleased.
Today Tara tasked me with doing some grocery shopping while she put the kids down for naps. I went rogue and bought myself a little treat. Chocolate pretzels for men. I don't know why they are specifically for men. I ate some and it was a long, thin pretzel stick with dark chocolate in the middle. So far nothing has happened. I'll let you know if I notice any changes. G asked for some and I told him he would have to wait until after dinner when his dad is home. Then the men folk can eat them while Tara watches. Because she obviously can't have any.

Some things I love

I love being conscious of the process of getting to know someone. Noticing how they fulfill certain expectations of who I thought they were and also being surprised by how they unfold to me in unexpected ways. I love the practice it gives me at letting go of my own impressions of who a person is and allowing them to be who they are, practicing not needing to categorize or put in a box. Allowing myself to notice and appreciate they many different sides to a person.

Friday I traveled to Hong Kong island with my sister. She had organized a youth talent show for church. I generally don't mesh well with teenagers. It's an age group I don't identify easily with. Maybe because of my own awkwardness I felt as a teenager. I felt like I didn't understand them when I was one of them and now even though I've grown out of that and become comfortable with who I am, it's not an age group I interact with regularly and so I don't have so many opportunities to grow out of my perceptions of teenagers.

So Friday night at the talent show, one of the young women was in charge of getting the show going. I didn't really pay much attention to her other than that she was just the one up front getting the show started. Saturday night, my sister showed me this video of her on youtube. It was taken as she was recovering from the anesthesia after getting her wisdom teeth out. It's kind of long, but really funny:

Then I went to church with my sister and this girl happened to be the first speaker. The topic of the meeting was Uchtdorf's October 2009 talk called The Love of God. Her talk was by far my favorite. One thing she said was that it doesn't matter whether we are seemingly perfect or have committed a world of sin. God still loves us. More important than what she said though, was the spirit she conveyed. She obviously felt a lot of love, whether it was from God or her parents or others at church. It was obvious she felt it deeply and as a result it helped me feel it too. I love how my perception of her was gradually transformed over the weekend as more and different sides of her unfolded to me.

I also loved seeing Big Buddha on Lantau Island yesterday. It seems to have become overly commercialized and sadly the monastery is kind of an after thought in a back corner of the place, and it almost seemed like a buddhist theme park and a total tourist trap, but I loved it. I kind of loved that G, my 2.5 year old nephew was just as excited to see Buddha as a child going to see Mickey Mouse. Maybe even a little bit more.

I also love not keeping track of time. I love going to bed when I'm tired and waking up when I'm done sleeping. And then reading in a quiet apartment until the others wake up. I love watching G hail a taxi and listening to him tell the taxi he did a good job when we arrive at our destination. I love that Thursday I will have a suit that was tailored to fit my body. I love that today for lunch we are having dim sum. I love making plans and then sometimes not following them.

And the plot thickens

The other day over dinner, my brother-in-law was telling us about something he had read in a parenting book about letting your child make decisions, but also letting them experience the consequences, good or bad, of those decisions. An example was letting them choose what time they go to bed at night, but then making them get up at the same time the next day. I think it would also be important to mindfully talk through the experience with your child about what it was like to stay up late and then suffer the consequences the next morning. This is obviously a simple example, but I think it illustrates an important point. Guiding your children through difficult things to give them the tools to be able to process them in healthy ways as they mature.

The next morning I was wide awake at 6am, because that's what happens in the 15 hour future. I read from A Path with Heart and read something a list of 5 skillful means for working with difficulties, with a description of each means. The one I was reading about was called "Enacting it Mindfully." These skillful means are to help work through those difficulties or demons that just keep coming back and haunting us. Whether it's of our own doing or the doing of others, or most likely, a combination. The idea of Enacting it mindfully is to fulfill whatever difficulty or demon that keeps repeating itself while being aware of what is happening throughout the whole process.

The caveat is given, though, that you probably shouldn't do this if it involves genuine harm to yourself or others. Like if you feel like strangling someone who drives you nuts, you probably shouldn't carry through on that. The second caveat is that you must do it mindfully.

The author gives a specific example of a teacher he studied with who was hooked on sweets. Gulab jaman, to be exact. This was in India. I'm sure gulab jaman is delicious. Anyway, one day we purchased a lot of gulab jaman. A "mountain of sweets floating in an ocean of sugary syrup." He then proceeded to eat as much of it as he could, being mindful all the while of what he was experiencing. "He saw the peacefulness that came the moment the desire ended (at the first bite). He felt the pain of the desire. He felt the pleasure of the sweetness. He sensed the pleasure turn into oppression as he continued eating the same desired object." I guess the key is being mindful of my thoughts and emotions. Beginning to understand what drives me to do what I do. Then it becomes easier to understand myself and become master of my domain. Remember that Seinfeld episode? :) And when I say master of my domain, I don't just mean of my external behaviors, but I gain more control of the weather inside me. To me, if I gain control of the weather inside, the external takes care of itself. I just become, instead of always trying to control the external or the facade.

The author goes on to say, "There are many ways to dance with our difficulties. Each one is movement from unconsciousness to open attention." He also quotes the Indian saint Ramakrishna. When asked why there is evil/difficulty in the world, Ramakrishna answered, "To thicken the plot." Jack Kornfield, the author of A Path with Heart, goes on to say, "These very plot thickeners, often the most difficult and insistent ones, can lead us to open our bodies, hearts and minds. In doing so, we discover that these were never our true identity. Under all the tears, the pain, the fear, and the anger we have contracted ourself around, we can find freedom, joy, and ease in the face of all life."

10,000 Buddhas and 12 angry monkeys

Yesterday was fairly action packed. I took a ton of pictures, but sadly didn't bring my cord to upload my pictures to Tara's laptop and she doesn't have any cords that are compatible with my camera. Frown face. She knows someone who has the same camera that I do though, so we may try to borrow that from her.

So yesterday Tara and G and I went to the 10,000 Buddhas monastery. The good news here is that Tara already has some pictures from there, so just pretend I took these pictures. Anyway, you hike up this really steep paved trail to get to the top and I pushed G in his stroller and there are times where the trail slopes by at least a 60 degree angle. G is not a small child. I got a workout.

The trail is lined with life size golden buddha statues and each one is different. At the top is the monastery and a building that is lined with tiny buddhas from floor to ceiling. Oh, and lots of burning incense. Here's a little bit of what's at the top.

And here's a view of the city from the top:

And here was the most harrowing part of the trip:

I know the monkeys look nice. And actually, one of them appears to be playing with himself, but the monkeys yesterday were an angry mob. We were heading down the trail and an army of monkeys appeared. At first it was kind of cute and fun until one of the monkeys bared his teeth and hissed and charged at this guy that was by us. And then it seemed like monkeys started to appear in the trees all around us. Tara actually screamed and scared the guy who got charged more than I think the charging monkey actually did. Anyway, we opted to hold off on heading down the trail until the angry monkey army dispersed. I had visions of Planet of the Apes and the Wizard of Oz and any other movie with creepy monkeys.

We went to Snoopy's World at the mall afterwards to decompress and then met up with Owen and then headed home. After dinner, Owen and I went over into China in search of a cheap tailored suit. We found his girl, Rosie, and she is going to hook us up. China China was definitely different than Hong Kong China. A smellier, dirtier and more persistent version. People really wanted me to buy watches and DVD's and t-shirts and stuff.

A couple funny things of note. I keep running into things. I think maybe because everything is so much smaller and more compact and I expect to have more room than I do and I just run into things. Or maybe I'm just clumsy. Yeah, that could be it too.

Also, I think the crosswalks are funny. There's a noise that tells you when it's ok to cross the street and it sounds like a Geiger counter. When your time to cross is almost up, the clicking noises are more rapid, thus appearing to signal the presence of a lot of radiation. It makes crossing the street kind of fun. Like pretending you are escaping nuclear fallout.

Ni Hao

I made it to Hong Kong and G and I are watching Thomas & Friends. I'm surprised I don't feel more exhausted right now. Yesterday was one long day. It's amazing to me that I traveled 15 hours into the future. Backwards. And that Monday just kind of never happened. Or Sunday just morphed into Monday and the sun never set. I was telling this to Tara when I got here last night and she gave me a cheesy frown smile and told me the sun would never go down on me. And then we sang some Elton John.

The plane ride was so long. I flew from Portland to Seattle to Seoul to Hong Kong. The last 3.5 hours from Seoul to HK was the longest flight ever. I was dozing in and out of consciousness and each time I thought I had dozed off for a long time, but really I think it was never more than 5 minutes. On the flight from Seattle to Seoul, I was surrounded by babies/toddlers. The one right next to me was pretty restless and so was her mom. At one point both of them had some part of them resting on me. I just put in my ear buds and watched Up in the Air, Nine and Crazy Heart. All movies I had been wanting to see. Now I just need to see the Hurt Locker.

My brother-in-law Owen picked me up at the airport and we got to Tara and Owen's apartment at almost 1:00 am. I probably got to bed by about 2:00 and then was wide awake at 5:30 am. Awesome. So I listened to a Mormon Stories podcast while waiting for everyone else to wake up. This morning we went for a little walk and I got a tour of the neighborhood. G is a bit of a celebrity. Everyone wants to say hi to him.

Anyway, it's time to go take a shower. More to come from the the 15 hour future.

Resonance and Rhythm

This weekend I caught up with my friend Lizzy. She lived in Portland for just a few months, but there was a nearly instant comfort between us. She was telling me about her recent technology fast. I think she was looking for some creative inspiration and decided to fast from nearly all forms of technology. Even her cell phone, I believe. I think she checked email only occasionally for work purposes. Can you imagine? No internet, no cell phone, little to no email. She blogged about what it did for her here.

As I was talking to Lizzy about what it did for her and all her new ideas and plans she has, I was reminded of a quote that I got earlier that day from David. The quote is by James Hollis, an author and Jungian analyst in Houston, Texas. Here it is:

The act of consciousness is central; otherwise, we are overrun by the complexes. The hero in each of us is required to answer the call of individuation. We must turn away from the cacophony of the outerworld to hear the inner voice. When we can dare to live its promptings, then we achieve personhood. We may become strangers to those who thought they knew us, but at least we are no longer strangers to ourselves.

I think fear often gets in the way of listening to and following that inner voice. We get set in roles that are comfortable to us and that people come to expect of us, and we let that dictate how we live our lives instead of shutting out all the voices and just listening to and following that inner voice. It’s amazing what happens when you shed the complexes and roles and expectations of others. You start living according to what you actually believe and according to who you actually are and everything you do starts to have more resonance and rhythm. Try it.

Lubricant POW!

It’s been a while since I’ve done a cell phone POW! If you are new, POW is short for Pic of the Week and it’s where you take a picture of something funny you see with your cell phone and send it to me and I post it on here. In the past, there has been the Wiener POW! and the Chucky POW! and Goat with a bag on its head POW! and many many others, including the dirty BYU poster POW! So if you see something ridiculous, take a picture of it and send it to me. It’s fun.

So this picture was snapped by Christina’s sister-in-law Amber at the grocery store. Apparently, the person in line in front of her was in need of some personal lubricant. Lots of it. I wonder if this woman had to buy all of that on a dare. Who honestly needs that much lubricant? Discuss.

More very important items of business

One. The main purpose of this post is to shame Courtney for not believing me when I told her that Express sells jean shorts. I told her that I needed to get some shorts for my trip to HK, and she kindly informed me that I was not allowed to get any jean shorts. I texted her informing her of the jean shorts and she replied after I had already left Express saying she didn’t believe me. I did an about face when I got her reply. I clearly had to march back and take a picture for proof.

Two. Will you please notice how nice the picture is that I took with my Droid? I don't know if it's just that spring is in the air or what, but I'm still deeply in love. I downloaded a zen meditation timer app. Did I tell you I also downloaded an app to help me learn some basic phrases in Chinese? So far I’ve mastered “wua hur pee jeuw” (phonetic), which means, “I drink beer.” I have a feeling that phrase is going to come in handy.

Three. The Merriam-Webster word of the day on Saturday was esemplastic: shaping or having the power to shape disparate things into a unified whole. The example sentence is so fantastic:

"The prison walls of self had closed entirely round him; he was walled completely by the esemplastic power of his imagination — he had learned by now to project mechanically, before the world, an acceptable counterfeit of himself…." (Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel)

Four. I love My Religious Blog and I love the most recent post.

Five. Happy Birthday MNJ!!