Mindfulness in Times of Great Conflict
Right after the start of 2000 my wife and I saw The Messenger in the theater. Being a bit on the autism spectrum, I tend to dive deep into subjects that interest me. While raised Lutheran, I was no more willing than to admit to a Deist worldview. "There is a god. It's not me." Two years later I had plowed through about forty books on the development of western civilization, my soon to be ex-wife had relapsed after thirteen years of sobriety, and I'd had a belly full of coercive evangelical pressures in my personal and professional life.
2004 was the year of change for me, in which I converted to Buddhism, and seeing in John Kerry much of what I'd seen in a previous small boat commander who became president, I pulled a straight Democratic ticket for the first time in my life. Jewel Heart was the local Tibetan Buddhist group and I received the White Tara initiation in 2005.
My life utterly imploded in 2007 thanks to Lyme disease. I was torn loose from Omaha, but I found AudioDharma and have been following Andrea Fella ever since. I'm western, Buddhism has only been here 150 of the typical 500 years required for it to merge with a local culture, so my practice is a bit of a melange. Tibetan Buddhism is a Vajrayana practice, while Andrea's teachings are Theravada - polar opposites in some ways. Despite being seriously ill I continued my mindfulness practice. In fact, I'd say the ability to observe without reacting saved my life in 2008, and that focus has let me wade through all the post Lyme health troubles I've had, troubles that would have killed others.
Between 2008 and 2010 my natural leadership abilities caused me to evolve from J. Random Kossack to the front man for a group of writers covering forty four House, Senate, and Gubernatorial races. If I had to pick the one thing that set off all the hate group attention I face, it would be smashing Ruth McClung's campaign funding and preserving Congressman Grijalva's seat. I got personally attacked by Andrew Breitbart, and then that fat slug had the poor manners to drop dead in the middle of a fight with me in early 2012.
I'm writing a book that'll cover all the historical conflict and my Substack at rauhauser.net is where I transfer my experience to the next generation.
The thing I hated the most about being in conflict? That, combined with the unnatural pressure that social media use puts on one's mind, it stole that sense of serenity I had from 2004 - 2009. Amazingly, I've come through the Lyme bog, I more or less got my brain out of hock a year ago, and now I'm trying to get back to that place of ... meditative equipoise ... I guess that's it.
I can't be the only one struggling with this.
This area is awful quiet ... anybody else walking this same path?
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