Bowling for Budddha

First, I want to say that I am thinking of everyone effected by the hurricane. It is a crazy disaster that no one ever expects. If you're out there, help everyone. Take care of each other.



Now, onto the blog. Last night I went bowling with Hope, my other best friend. Yes, I have two. I'm super awesome that way. Obviously, bowling isn't about Buddhism, it's about knocking down pins. It's about being competitive and talking shit while you bowl like crap. Well, if you bowl like me anyway.

Anyway, you wouldn't think it's about Buddhism, but you'd be wrong. I was listening to a Dharma talk about being mindful and what that means the other day. While I was bowling gutter balls, it came to mind somewhere between saying, "fuck," and laughing my ass off. Maybe, I thought, my problem is that I'm not really being mindful of the moment. Maybe my issue was I was too busy trying to come up with a comeback after I threw the gutter ball to avoid the gutter ball.

So, I try it. I pick up my purple ball, which had already bruised my thumb but butch was purple I wasn't using another ball, and I marched towards that line, I did my ridiculous little hop and I THOUGHT about where I wanted the ball to go. I was aware I was releasing the ball and that it was going to knock the shit out of those pins. I got a strike. Hope was like, "uhh I'm supposed to be kicking your ass," and I was like, "Buddhism bitches, being mindful gets strikes."

Now, you say, "Amanda, fucking duh. You are supposed to take your time when you bowl or that shit goes all kinds of wrong," and that would be true. That being said, I'm not a patient person. I and definitely someone who lives about two steps ahead of what I am actually doing. In fact, I am thinking about how many hits this blog will get and I haven't even posted it. It's just a fact of who I am. Buddhism is all about the opposite of that; being mindful.

Take that a few steps farther and it is a great way not to get caught up in past or future. I don't know about you , but when I do manage to live in the moment I am a hell of a lot happier.  And isn't that what life is all about, living through the great moments? Being a photographer I am always capturing people's moments, but I was missing out on so many of my own being preoccupied with what test on what bone would turn out to be what or what bill we could pay what week and what we could live without for a few days. I think, maybe, had I known then some of the things I know now I would have been able to step back and remind myself that worrying about the future wasn't going to change it and having a huge blowout fight over something that may come to pass is just such a waste of time and I might have been able to enjoy my life more. Sure, we were poor and shit was tough, but my kids were healthy and happy. Shouldn't that have been my focus? Who knows.

Now, I guess the lesson I am putting out here is, always be mindful of what you are doing. It seems so fucking simple; think before you do shit. Yet, a lot of us don't do that. Instead of complaining about the end of summer, be aware of the beauty of the fall because if you get so wrapped up in what you will do next summer how will you ever find the time to jump in a pile of leaves?


Hopefully someone out there finds this blog helpful. I'm just learning, so by no means am I a teacher. don't we learn better as a group, though? We are pretty social animals.

Angry Girl, signing off.

The Post Not Heard Around the World

First things first. What inspired me to do this blog? A copy paste from another blog of mine should help explain. So, without further ado, An Open Letter to Ryan Hurst.

So, yea, hi. It’s been a while, blog.

I wanted to find a way to thank someone for really helping me in a round about way. When that person is Ryan Hurst and you’re some girl who lives in Ohio, well, it’s problematic. lol

First, a little back story. For the last few years of my life I have been dealing with the fall out of my husband’s non-compliance in taking his diabetes medicine. He’s had four toes amputated and was off work. Take your insulin, peeps, it’s important. I had to get a crap job at a Walmart portrait studio and we struggled, a lot. It always seems worse when you’re in the thick of it.

Now, on to the reason for my thank you.

About two months ago my best friend and I were talking about Sons of Anarchy. Yep, we love that show. She was telling me about a picture she downloaded for her wallpaper and I was telling her about one I downloaded because Opie (Ryan Hurst) had on such an amazing shirt. I’ll post the picture in just a second, I know everyone likes visual stimulation. So my best friend was all, “Oh, really what kind of shirt is it?” So I send her a link to the picture and she agrees it is an awesome shirt. In true Hope fashion, she then goes on a hunt to find the shirt online. When she does find it (http://theidproject.org/node/773 ) she also comes to find that this is actually a Buddhist philosophy  So, I was curious and I turned to my dear friend Google.

Here is the picture by the way.

Yes, that is the actual wallpaper on my laptop right now. I know, I know. I digress.

How to continue from here, hmmm.

Watching the breadwinner of my family be taken out of the game from late 2009 until August of this year was hard.  On top of that is the lingering reality that, at age twenty-eight, you’re dealing with a disease that ultimately kills people and it is eating your loved one up piece by piece. By the time you start loosing appendages to diabetes it has already wrought all kinds of havoc you can’t see and coming to terms with the fact that your husband probably won’t live to be an old man is a hard thing to do. I’m not the only one who gets that. Many people have, unfortunately, been in my shoes.  You lift your head high and you go on with life. You try not to be angry or resentful. You try to not hold on to all the negative emotions. If you’re me, and I am lol, you fail at that.

You think that once you come out on the other side of something like this you’ll take a big breath, sigh, and say, “Wow I feel better.” Really it’s more like this; Deep breath, sigh, “Why am I still pissed off?”

Fast forward to my conversation about the shirt with my best friend.  We joke and laugh about how awesome it is. We talk about how Opie’s life is an awesome walk through a field of tulips. All the while, I am looking up stuff about Buddhism. At first, it’s just curiousity. I like to know about the things that truly define people. The way I see it, religion, faith, spirituality, you pick the name of it is one of those things. Basically, I’m that insufferable person asking you 48765345769453 questions about junk you don’t really want to talk to me about.

As I read things really start to click and jump out at me. I keep researching. And researching.

Then, another amazing thing happens, I start letting shit go.

Seriously, it’s like a little kid letting popcorn fall out of the cart at Target. I’m just watching it bounce on the floor as I walk away. For the first time in months I am less pissed off.  Less pissed off is a great place to be.  I keep reading.Everyday I am a little bit less pissed off as a person. I stop worrying about the disease and how much time it might steal. I let it go. Little things I used to really enjoy start to be enjoyable again. It’s like waking up from a deep, long nap. Though it hasn’t been long on my path of research and discovery, I have an a-ha moment. I want to be Buddhist.

It’s suddenly like my life is this open book full of blank, fresh, pages replacing the dark, angry, dingy pages that were there before. I really wish I could describe here all the ways that Buddhist teachings, the rather small amount I’ve read so far, have helped my life. I wanted to write this huge touching, but funny, letter of thanks, but it is so hard to accurately relate the amount of change I’ve seen from this.

Why post such a deeply personal thing on such a public forum you ask? Simple. When we affect massive change in someone’s life, whether indirectly or directly, knowing the person is grateful always makes us feel like the things we do are worthwhile. I thought about it for a while before deciding to go this direction. Hell, maybe someone will read this and get curious like I did and read up on it and be changed too.

So, Ryan, Mr. Hurst or whatever a random girl from Ohio should address you as, thank you. Sure, you didn’t walk up and give me The Angry Girl’s Guide to Buddhism, but you did change my life. Even if it was just a t-shirt.