[jurnalkduo]

I don't really know how to gauge my progress, I just try and be mindful of myself and my thoughts, and just live, and not avoid/overreact to suffering and painful situations. I think I used to be as good at this as I'm rediscovering, and though there are resonant echoes of pain rippling out from the ongoing process of going through divorced, I find that I feel more comfortable with myself again. It's a relief to finally feel the passage of time; it's like experiencing the more pronounced than usual peace of a sunny day after a stormy night.

I skim and re-read texts that cover the Four noble truths, and the Eightfold path. I continue to make my way at an inconsistent rate through The Dharma of Star Wars, and have recently read through it's discussion of five aggregate which was intergrated into a discussion about the nature of us as individuals being an empty concept. I was fascinated by the description of how everything in creation that interacts is penetrating and interpenetrating all things they come into contact with. The thing is, I can recall the generalized particulars of these concepts, but I couldn't count off on my fingers the four noble truths, the five aggregates and the eightfold path. I can only ever remember one or two items at any given time.

I've felt delight over encountering wisdom. Dark rage flares inside me at the merest hint of what I'm calling entrapment doctrine. I was perusing passages from a book called modern Buddhism, and was disappointed to encounter elements of what I feared were doctrine set out for one branch of Buddhism (it doesn't put me off Buddhism, I just felt disappointed). It worried me a little, contemplating humans as empty far enough troubled me in a similar way that it bothered me when I watched Christians' on a discussion forum try to figure out how they were not de-humanizing humans while they credited all of a human's goodness to an unproven Holy Spirit.

I've armed myself to the teeth with a ton of books; The Heart of Buddhism, Penguin's newer Buddhist Scripture anthology, the Buddhist Bible. I am aware that buying all these books one part obsessive behavior, and another part attempts to compensate for deficient dopamine production in brain activity (a small dose of happiness from getting a new book). I'm still mainly using The Dharma of Star Wars as an introduction; I feel a certain amount of peacefulness while reading through it, while at the same time bemusement that this book is the only one that seems to connect with me, an irreverent text that uses a somewhat vulgar fictional universe to synthesize Buddhist concepts. It connects with me, yet also makes me wonder about if I'm disconnected from the world.

I've noticed that reading in general has been a different experience recently, given what I've learned about the way my brain operates; a constant barrage of thoughts, whirling around and chasing each other, going from tangent to tangent. Reading (fiction or non-fiction) has become a new experience, because I notice that it has an organizing effect on my mind. Unfortunately, it still only works on the reading material that I choose; reading I'm compelled to read by someone else is still a struggle to deal with, attention-wise.

I still can't banish the concept of a God who disappoints, though. I wish I could kick that concept out of my mind, or forget it, or have my thoughts lead me inevitably to rationalize why it's illogical or impractical, but the conception of God that's lodged itself in my brain is one that I can't dislodge, whether trying actively to banish it, or by ignoring it, or trying to come to terms with it in an accepting way.

There peace in some measure, and continued frustration in other ways. The balance between peace and suffering feels more evenly stacked now, perhaps. I hope.