{"id":413,"date":"2009-01-07T12:54:26","date_gmt":"2009-01-07T19:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/?p=413"},"modified":"2009-04-05T14:34:02","modified_gmt":"2009-04-05T21:34:02","slug":"ceiling-fan-sutra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=413","title":{"rendered":"Ceiling Fan Sutra"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was one of those nights that despite my best intentions, I became embroiled in outrage by my teen’s attitude.\u00a0 All day I kept repeating to myself … He’s going to be tired when he gets home<\/em> … as it was a Monday following a weekend with Dad.\u00a0 I reminded my husband and eldest daughter to make sure they remembered that Dan could be cranky today and that we should all have a bit more grace and compassion.<\/p>\n

But Grace was not on the menu as I was preparing dinner tonight.\u00a0 Perhaps I had become over tired myself, dicing the vegetables for the stir-fry.\u00a0\u00a0 Or maybe my outing earlier in the afternoon had worn me out.\u00a0 It’s funny how the mind still wants to figure out a reason … when there are an infinite number of interwoven causalities for any particular circumstance.\u00a0 What I know for certain, is that I became very angry, very quickly and shouted at my son over the loud stove-top exhaust fan.<\/p>\n

But the bio-chemical fume would not end there.\u00a0 My mental story decided that I was equally irritated with my husband who should<\/em> have been trying to help the situation as it spiraled unchecked into the anger-zone.\u00a0 By the time I perched myself on the little wooden stool at the side of my husband’s computer desk, my heart at started to skip.\u00a0 It was the perfect peptide storm!\u00a0 I was angry at my son, my husband and now my own heart for not doing things MY WAY.<\/p>\n

I fled up to my room to use a biofeedback device in attempt to calm down my body – even if my mind was still a runaway train.\u00a0\u00a0 As my pulse returned to a more pleasing rhythm, my mind began plotting how I was going to resolve <\/em>this figment of war.\u00a0 Hundreds of thoughts raced through my brain that began with phrases such as:
\n\"thought-bubbles\"<\/p>\n

But it was impossible for me to sustain any of the mental rationalizations.\u00a0 I knew in my heart that everything just happened, exactly as it did.\u00a0 And in that happening<\/em> … it could not<\/strong> have been any other way.\u00a0 In that moment, there was no guilt, but more importantly there was no opportunity for blame.\u00a0 My mind game was so use to puffing my ego up with thoughts about how I was wronged. <\/em> It was a pro at making a convincing case that things should not <\/em>have happened.\u00a0 But the Teaching was too deep into my Beingness and there simply wasn’t anyone<\/em><\/strong> present who could believe these petty objections.<\/p>\n

Despite, the failures of my mental discourse, I was keenly aware that my body was still holding on to the anger.\u00a0 I still felt<\/em> angry at a very cellular level.\u00a0 My body was tense.\u00a0 I could feel the pain in the back of my shoulders and a ways up my neck.\u00a0 There was an uneasy turbulence in my intestines as if everything was moving at an erratic rapid pace.\u00a0 Quickly thoughts of You shouldn’t be feeling angry now that you understand the Teaching,<\/em> flashed on my mental LCD.\u00a0 But this too was swiftly spied as just another trap set out to feed the egoic mind.<\/p>\n

I laid my body down on the duvet that was folded at the foot of my bed and reached for the remote control to turn the ceiling fan light fixture off.\u00a0 The room was now only illuming with moonlight that poured down through the faux stained glass window at the top of our vaulted ceiling.<\/p>\n

As I stared at the ceiling fan above that was slowly winding down, I thought of the Circle of Samsara.\u00a0 Going round and round in our suffering.\u00a0 A thought.\u00a0 An emotion.\u00a0 A peptide.\u00a0\u00a0 Each of us doomed to repeat the cycle over and over and again.<\/p>\n

I watched the five long blades became uniquely identifiable as the motor lost momentum.\u00a0 A moonbeam accentuated the tiny dust particles that began to float down and settle as the mechanical wind died down at last. \u00a0Slower and slower the paddles spun counter clockwise.\u00a0 My thoughts seemed to slow down in lock step with the fan.<\/p>\n

But just as I thought all movement had stopped … I watched an unexpected thing occur.\u00a0 The blades began to spin backwards.\u00a0 I watched mesmerized for a few more moments until all visible movement came to an end. Everything found its own balance.\u00a0 Not quite the way I had pictured in my mind, but a perfect equilibrium nonetheless.\u00a0 And all that I needed to do was to sit back, motionless, and watch the show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was one of those nights that despite my best intentions, I became embroiled in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dharma"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":570,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}