I am a Children’s Librarian living in the Portland, Oregon area. When I am not Children’s Librianing I like to play with cameras and film. I also like playing the ukulele, knitting, sketching, and hiking.
Monday is our hiking day and Fall is the hiking season! We have had fantastic weather for it lately. Today we hiked to Ramona Falls on Mt Hood. It is a mellow 7 mile hike that features beautiful views of the mountain. The hike goes along the Sandy river, which is really interesting. The river changed it’s course two years ago and you can really see how powerful the event was. I was last here before this catastrophe. It looked much different this time!
I would like to run this trail at some point. It would be totally doable and fun. A steady incline to the falls but the run back would be all downhill.
I have this weird thing with Tsunamis. I have nightmares about them all the time. In fact, the night before the March 11 2011 Tsunami I had a dream that I was in one (which was really weird, having not known about the tsunami at all before I went to bed that night).
So every once in awhile I think about these disasters and feel the need to face whatever this fear (or whatever) is. Last night was one of those times. We watched this amazing documentary on Youtube about the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. I highly recommend it. In fact, I will post the video here if you want to watch it.
The Indian Ocean Tsunami claimed 250,000 lives on December 26, 2004. 250,000 people!! Doesn’t that fricken blow your mind?!? According to the U.S. Census, there are 210,000 people living in Spokane, WA. So it would be like the entire population of Spokane dying. I can’t even wrap my mind around it. It is so horrifically devastating.
The documentary follows the Tsunami’s path of destruction through the Indian Ocean. Survivors are interviewed and video footage from their cameras are included, so you can see what they went though.
You might wonder why I put myself through this. Why do I watch films or read books that recount such suffering? I don’t know, really. But I do know that hearing the stories of people who have been though such things makes me feel a little bit more compassionate. So maybe that is why. Maybe sometimes I need a dose of compassion so I can feel connected with my fellow humans.
The film is very very sad, but there is also a bit of hope in there too. In the video footage you will see that people help each other. Sometimes they are not successful, but the point is that they try to save their fellow man, even when they are in danger. It made me realize that people are good. Deep down at the core they are good.
English: Painting of Gautama Buddha sitting in Dhyana, unharmed by the demons of Mara. Sanskrit Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra manuscript written in the Ranjana script. Nalanda, Bihar, India. Circa 700-1100 CE. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Last night at my Sangha we had a guest speaker talk about the story of Budda. I have heard the story many times and seem to get something new from each listen or reading (this video is excellent if you are interested in learning about his story, btw). This time, the part of the story that really stuck out was Buddha’s encounter with Mara as he was sitting under the Bodhi tree:
During the night, he was visited by Mara, the evil one, who tried to tempt him away from his virtuous path. First he sent his beautiful daughters to lure Gautama into pleasure. Next he sent bolts of lightning, wind and heavy rain. Last he sent his demonic armies with weapons and flaming rocks. One by one, Gautama met the armies and defeated them with his virtue. (From http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/Buddhism/footsteps.htm)
There are many versions of this story. The one told last night included magical feats such as Buddha turning arrows into flowers as he sat still.
This is a familiar story to me because it is in the Bible. Jesus also has an encounter with the devil while in the desert, and he also rejects the devil’s temptations. The bible’s devil is evil personified. He is the devil. A real being that actually, physically comes to Jesus to tempt him. Jesus reaches superhero status by overcoming temptation from the devil himself. He does this by fasting for 40 days. We read this and we are made to feel that there is no way we could do this. I mean, that is the whole point. Jesus is God and that is why he could overcome temptation. And that is why we need Jesus.
Mara is the the personification of evil in the Buddha story. Every other time I have heard or read this story I have viewed Mara the same way I have viewed the Devil in the bible. As a real entity that came to tempt Buddha (in the lore of the story, that is. I don’t actually believe in the personification of evil). HOWEVER, for some reason last night something just clicked. Mara is in Buddha’s head. Mara is Buddha’s thoughts. And Buddha was able to shut those temptations down himself, with his own thoughts. That is pretty powerful.
We all have our own Mara. And you know what? It is all in our head. As quickly as the arrows come at us, we can turn them into flowers. We can do this, just like Buddha did.
This reminds me of something that happened to me a few years ago. I had an episode of sleep paralysis. I was in that state when you are in-between sleep and wakefulness. I opened my eyes and looked above me and saw a demon sitting on Rafael and me*. When I looked up at it it slowly moved its head toward me and looked into my eyes. As I woke up, terrified, I thought to myself, “this isn’t real” and the demon dissolved into thin air like a cartoon character.
Blatherskite 