Making tectonic shifts

Good day, all!

As I was reading through posts on this blog, my self-critical brain noticed the few different times I have promised (mostly myself) that I would write more often but have fallen off the face of the earth since. Life’s been busy, man – let’s start again.

Kittu the monkey is a new character that has arisen in stories to my toddler, and my younger one still wakes up too many times to let me get the sleep I need. All said and done, I am trudging on, not quite joyfully. Here I start my chanting and practice anew.

The goals are – 1 – 2 hours chanting daily plus some New Human Revolution reading too. Frim this moment forward, I will see clearly my blockages and negativities and fight head on. Enough post partum slack – it is time to win.

Today’s goal is to bring up my life condition – and this will be evidenced by 2 characters –

1. Motivation – I will live my day more intentionally
2. Cheer – I will spend time with my kids with more joy and patience

Come back tomorrow for a recap and more goals.

#NMRK

The dumpster fire

Tears well up as soon as I think too long about the world. There is too much noise and the chaos is overwhelming.

How does one navigate this? How am I keeping the flame going? It is faith.

I read this week in a message from a friend this tip: if you have a spiritual practice, double down. She and I met through faith. The organization I practice with was founded in post WW-II Japan. From the determination and fighting spirit of those Japanese citizens who, after seeing their land and their families burn alive, decided they would create a world that embraced the dignity of life using hope and hard work.

We are so much better off right now. Do we deserve to give up, then?

Shakyamuni Buddha (Siddhartha/ Gautama) had a cousin and brother-in-law Devadatta who betrayed his trust and parted ways from his teachings. This story is usually cited to show Buddhahood exists in evil-doers. It could also mean, weakness within usually leads to downfall or regression in faith.

In another context though, Nichiren Daishonin, a 13th century monk and originator of the practice, says: “Devadatta was the foremost good friend to the Thus Come One Shakyamuni, In this age as well, it is not one’s allies but one’s powerful enemies who assist one’s progress.”

This circumstance, right now – this dumpster fire is what will help humanity display greater compassion and courage than ever before. And bring forth our collective wisdom to uproot our own tendencies of anger, greed and foolishness from our lives individually.

It’s not over yet. Let’s be compassionate to ourselves, lets rest as needed, but let’s never give up.

Knock knock!!!

How is it going y’all??

I’ve been busy with working really hard to crack my stagnant rut of a career situation and have not been motivated to write anything recently. I sure miss it though!

Things are moving. I’ve challenged myself in many ways and exerted myself in my Buddhist practice with an intensity I never had before and things are showing progress. I’ve gotten a really positive opportunity coming along to work in a company that seems really fun and on the tip of the growing passive house industry with possibilities of growth, both in terms of knowledge and scale. It will be such an honor and a great learning experience to do this and I cannot put into words how thrilled I am to be my best at this role!

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

I’ll write again soon 🙂

Inspiration Station

Here, my mentor and third Soka Gakkai International president Daisaku Ikeda describes so wonderfully the concept of HAPPINESS.

In a sense, life is a series of difficulties. No life is without its problems. But happiness is not merely an absence of suffering.

Happiness shines in a life state capable of overcoming any form of suffering or hardship and transforming it into joy. This is a state of genuine fulfillment. It is the ability to advance continuously, always creating value, never daunted by adversity. Buddhism enables us to achieve a better life, a life of complete satisfaction, while accumulating treasures of the heart that will endure forever.

Let’s Pretend It’s a Monday (and that a month did not just pass by)

Woops!

After all the housekeeping notes and all the damn planning, I totally slacked on paying attention to this blog. I was very uninspired all of March. As I was explaining to my mother, it felt like a black cloud was blocking out the sun and keeping me in the dark.

I did my darnedest to pull myself out of the funk though, I promise.

I attended conferences, traveled to Boston and spoke to multiple people in the industry. Unlike previous times, this funk was not entirely induced by a lack-of-action or lack-of-progress situation. Or maybe I’ve gotten better at facing it head-on and not feeling trapped by it. It got dark, I got a flashlight and kept moving. Towards the end of the month though, the battery in the flashlight did die. I could absolutely not smile through it and the people in my life started noticing it as well. But stay with me here, folks … I put on my Byakuren uniform and spent 2 evenings supporting activities at the New York Cultural Center.

As if to make up for a month of no activity, my first shift was crazy and unbelievably hectic. With a smile on my face and a YES on my lips, I ran up and down the 5 floor building for 3 hours getting stuff done – and it all got handled so gracefully. What wonderful training Byakuren is! One of the girls that did the shift with me, we’ll call her Y, was also coming in after a prolonged break from doing Byakuren. The other one, we’ll call her Z, is one of my most favorite people in the SGI. 100% positive and real, just meeting Z always livens my mood. In spite of being sick, she supported and helped Y and myself pull through one of the hardest shifts. I practice a faith that says that we should be thankful when struggles come around, for it helps one identify the areas that need training and gives you the actual opportunity to tackle it and defeat it. We all did a good deal of human revolution that evening.

Also, I’ve been putting more time into working out and getting fitter. Endorphin or whatnot, right? I do feel great for it.

Life’s hard, people. It just is. Sometimes the hard parts last much longer than you thought they would. But you are the only one that can keep you motivated and moving forward.

To paraphrase a quote by the second SGI president Josei Toda, the quest for happiness is a relentless struggle against the negative forces. No matter how hard we have exerted ourselves till today, if we stop moving forward for even a second, we create and opening for the negativity to enter.

Just keep moving! You’re heading in the right direction!

To new beginnings!

I am back here after a really really long time now. In the time I was gone, I went to India and got married to Aditya! It was an absolutely amazing wedding. I doubt if any Indian bride has had so much fun at her own wedding. That done, we came back and have started our lives as husband and wife. Life is pretty damn good. I have joined the NY Zone Byakuren group, a behind the scenes group that supports activities in the New York Culture Center – of the Soka Gakkai International. It is essentially a training group for young women to help them become strong and capable individuals in all spheres of their lives. I am four shifts old and I really look forward to my shifts! I missed a study meeting last week though, bummer! Apart from that, I have PhD applications sent out to a few Universities and am chanting for those to materialize quickly! I have started a course on Coursera and it is a whole lot of work, I am so intimidated by the sheer volume of reading involved! I cannot believe I did 4 times this on a daily basis in Grad School! Hats off to Savini-past!!!

Updates aside, I have been cleaning up my act about being too much of an internet troll and doing productive things everyday and doing a good job of it too. A few minutes ago, Adi told me that I spend too much of my precious time on youtube and even though I had not been, I started doubting if I was doing enough! Seems like it takes very little to push me back into my vast ocean of “I’m not good enough”. This tells me two things. One, I need to chant more and clean up my karma a whole lot more because I am nowhere close to self-confident. Two, it is important to be clear in communicating and appreciating what people do around us. I quote SGI President Daisaku Ikeda, ” Praising others is not pampering them. In a stress-filled society, words that warm the heart are more significant than ever. They sustain and strengthen others, inspiring them to strive toward personal growth”.

It is so important to express gratitude and appreciation for everyone. Thank you for reading! 🙂

With that and lots of love!

Gujjus, Trekking and Para sailing!

9/01/2013

Today was pretty intense and fun. I woke up at 3:15 am to go to Lake George. My friend and her group of friends were going to pick me up at 4 and I was very worried I wouldn’t hear the alarm  go off. That is probably why I woke up even before the alarm. They were a bit late and that gave me some time to chant and by 4:40 am, we were all in 2 cars all set to leave. It was a group of 10, every person but me a Gujarati. As is common with all of us, we tend to go off in out mother tongue and forget about the only person who does not understand a thing. After a bit of interrupting conversations and asking them to speak in Hindi, a coffee break, a couple of hours of sleep, we had completed our 3 hour drive to our first stop, Potterville. I was insanely happy about the name though it has nothing to do with the Harry Potter series, which I am quite a big fan of.

Potterville has an underground river and some pretty neat waterfalls. It also is famous for the rocks and massive natural rock bridge. It has some of the oldest rocks in North America, and has the entrance to the largest marble cave. The place is impeccably designed and maintained to have easily trek-able hiking trails, beautifully displayed geological specimen and an ample amount of benches and swings. Below is a picture I clicked of the natural rock bridge.

The best part about road-trips with Indian families is that we carry a whole lot of food, and Gujaratis in particular carry entire meals. One of Viral’s friends had come with his wife and her family. Aunty had made Handwa ( a snack akin to a spicy cake) for everyone and had bought soda, hot tea in flasks and special food for two members of the group that were fasting. So once we were done with the trek, we sat on a picnic bench and devoured all the yum food she had.

Our next stop was Lake George. Viral and I had been wanting to para sail there and we soon found a place to do it. It was so much fun, it has to be the most relaxing of all the adventure sports! The view from atop was breathtaking. I would really love to do this with Aditya one day and then I’m gonna carry a  camera up and click photos from up there. We then had some snacks from a restaurant close by and made our way back home by 6 pm. Back home by 10 pm, it was really an amazing day barring the language barrier I faced. Para sailing is amazing, just is!

With that and lots of love!

Because I said so!

8/29/2013

This is post # 7. One whole week of daily blog posts! Yayyyyy! I am so proud of myself right now. It is so important to me because consistency is key to being successful at anything.

A little shout-out to Landmark Education, while I go on about how all this is new to me. I completed my graduate degree from Stanford University in January 2012. I stuck around the Bay Area looking for jobs, finding little success and getting more and more depressed with each passing day. I was feeling like a failure and had pretty much convinced myself that it was impossible for ME to find my dream. This went on for three months and I had firmly established an escape mechanism – a sort-of- addiction to anything related to watching movies or TV shows online, even ones I absolutely did not care for. Somewhere in March of 2012,my fiancee’s sister-in-law, who lives in New Jersey recommended me to a position at the logistics firm she worked at and that came through. I moved to the east coast, found a support system, a job that paid some bills and went to work begrudgingly everyday. It was then that my future in-laws came to attend their son’s commencement from Columbia University. Papa and Maa are the most amazing people you will ever meet and I am so thankful to Aditya for giving me this ever-supportive second set of parents. It was Papa’s suggestion that I do the Landmark Forum. Having reached the peak of helplessness and frustration, I agreed. It wouldn’t do any harm would it? I would recommend it to anyone because it empowers you immensely. Landmark taught that I have the ultimate power in my life. It transformed me and I am an incredibly happier person for it. It also let me open myself up to this Buddhist practice which constantly empowers me to stay calm and focused as I face daily life. It gives me the courage to do what I say. This blog was started after I chanted for an hour and said to myself that I am going to bring into my life, that which I lack the most – CONSISTENCY OF PURPOSE.  The only thing I was consistent before was idling away my time.

I end with what I aspire to do. I want  to work hard, tirelessly and continuously every single day, I want to always be happy with where I am and I want to be my best person. I want to love and be loved and contribute to Kosen Rufu (world peace through everyone being absolutely happy and reaching their full potential). And I will. You know how I know that? Because I said so!

With that and lots of love,

“Thank you very much” (said like Bhabhi – my sis-in-law who got me this job- says it)

to Bhabhi, for believing,bringing me here and giving me so much acceptance.

Writing on Paper

8/26/2013

How long has it been since you wrote on paper? Not shopping lists or scribbled phone numbers, but a letter or a note or just some thought you had to get out of your head?

Apart from the occasional greeting card and thank you note at work, I had not written anything for the longest time till last week. I had a deadline on the passage to share at an SGI meeting, I was feeling the stress as it was my first time presenting anything there, and my massive laziness streak has always been supported by the internet. The laptop was proving a bigger distraction than anything else and I decided to write in my notebook instead. Since that day, I have hardly stopped. I even have my little purple notebook on my desk at work and I keep jotting down topics and thoughts, things people said and anything else that strikes me in general. Reading those notes at the end of the day, as I am doing now to make this daily entry, I see how much stuff actually happens in my drab daily life! If you ask me how  my day was, today, I will have so much to share! Had you asked me yesterday, I would just have described it with “the usual” or “good” or “normal”. But really nothing is ordinary! The people who you meet daily, the ones you pass by on the street, the sparrows by the old abandoned building on the way to work or even those basement windows taped with newspapers. Every random thing probably has a story just as captivating as the next random thing. Just the thought adds so much freshness and novelty to each passing moment!

Now to recap my day, Mondays at work are usually very busy and this one wasn’t too different. I was supposed to go get sushi and dumplings with a friend but her schedule changed at the last moment and that meant I had the time to go to the monthly district planning meeting at Shweta Aunty’s place. (I am running the discussion this month, and I am already stressing  :P) Since it was just the two of us at the meeting, it ended up being daimoku and gongyo for an hour followed by us sitting down and having an hour long heart-to-heart about home lives, childhood, parents, wedding planning and the death of loved ones. She invited me to have dinner with her family and I agreed – no one who has stayed in a hostel will ever say no to home cooked food. I also got to spend time with her mother-in-law Janaki, or patti (Tamil for grandmother) as she insists I call her. She is honestly the epitome of loveliness!

With that and lots of love,

Vasippu nandri (Tamil; Translation: Thank you for reading)

for Patti, I love you so much!

The Joy of Family

8/24/2013

What is family? To me, it is those people who love you for who you are, who tell you when you make big mistakes and who stand by you even if you make bigger mistakes.

Any Malayali would attest to this fact, the best way to start a day is with a glass of filter-coffee and idlis. Thanks to my flatmate and her lovely parents, I woke up to a mother telling me that I won’t get my coffee if I don’t get my ass out of bed and brush my teeth. Coffee, 4 idlis, a bath and 2 loads of laundry later, I was all ready to leave for the special meeting commemorating Sensei’s (SGI President Daisaku Ikeda) Gohonzon birthday.

I met Aditya and got some late lunch from Whole Foods. Is it just me, or is their food/salad bar obscenely priced? Anyway, we went in early to secure good seats for the meeting. It was truly phenomenal. Powerful daimoku for an hour, over 50 Gohonzon conferrals, an amazing faith experience, an outstanding fife and drums performance by the Ikeda Youth Ensemble Taiko group, super guidance and emcee-ing all brought to a close with everyone singing ‘Forever Sensei’ supported by the Brass Band. I said this before, and it bears repeating, the SGI community never fails to inspire me.

Oh, and on the note of family, today’s post is dedicated to my naughty nephews Gokul and Pranav and my most adorable niece Gouri, whose babbles in the morning lit up this Ichamma’s (Malayalam for aunt) day! For you three, UMMMAAAA!!

With that and lots of love,

pinne kaanam … kaananam! (Malayalam; Translation: I’ll see you later, I should see you later)

(in honour of all the Malayalam movies I grew up on)