The images we see on a mirror are reflections, but they lack substance. In the same way, conventional phenomena arise from (and in) the basis-of-all, but they are not ultimately real.
If the mirror is dirty or warped, the reflections will be dull or distorted. Similarly, some of our perceptions can be more valid (clear) than others.
Appearances are false: insubstantial, impermanent, and dependent on multiple causes and conditions. And yet, they arise continuously.
Source: Appearances
It was a brutal year for Smokey D.
The Downtown Eastside graffiti artist lost 17 friends to overdoses, including Dawn, his girlfriend of a decade. After being clean for “a long time,” Dawn died at a party where she smoked crack and heroin cut with fentanyl, said Smokey, 47, who asked that his real name not be published.
“It ripped a hole in my heart, man,” he said. “I always thought I would die before her.”
Since an overdose crisis began sweeping across B.C. — killing 755 people in the first 11 months of 2016 alone — Smokey has painted a dozen murals, memorials for those who have died in the community and warnings about the dangers of using fentanyl-tainted street drugs without others present to call for help.
Fentanyl, a toxic opioid, has been detected in 60 per cent of illicit-drug overdose deaths this year, according to the B.C. Coroners Service.
“It killed a lot of people in my world, so I have no time for it,” Smokey said
In an alleyway near Hastings and Carrall streets, where people use drugs with health care workers nearby, Smokey’s brightly-coloured tributes and fact-based murals have some people calling him the “Underworld Street Reporter,” he said. Before Postmedia located him, drug users heaped praise on his paintings for keeping them aware of fentanyl’s deadly toll.
Smokey’s obsession with graffiti began when he was in high school in North Vancouver. He credits the 1984 film Beat Street, a drama exploring New York’s hip hop culture, with exposing him to a style of art he would spend the next three decades making his own.
He eschews costly street-art spray paint for whatever materials he can get his hands on. Most murals take 30 minutes and many are painted in moments of anguish, such as an alleyway tribute to Dawn he painted in the twilight hours one morning in June.
“Bright colours are good in a dark place,” he said.
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But despite his tremendous loss in 2016, Smokey remains thankful for blessings in recent years.
In 1994, after a stint selling heroin and cocaine in Vancouver’s rave scene, Smokey found himself addicted, couch surfing and growing apart from his family. In the decade that followed, he was slapped with charges and jailed for his graffiti.
But he hasn’t seen the inside of a jail cell for eight years, he said. He believes Vancouver police are no longer bothered by his murals, which are mostly contained to the alleyways near Hastings. “Maybe it’s the messages, you know?” he said.
He’s grown closer to his eight-year-old son, who lives in Richmond, and in 2013, he became a participant of the SALOME prescription-heroin trial at the Providence Crosstown Clinic. He credits SALOME with helping him maintain his health and housing while keeping him out of trouble.
With tainted street drugs killing so many in B.C., he believes more drug users should have access to pharmaceutical heroin in a clinical setting.
He holds hope that his community can overcome the crisis taking so many lives.
“I just want people to stay positive,” Smokey said. “I don’t want people to see it all gloomy down here.”
neagland@postmedia.com
twitter.com/nickeagland
“The happy inner soul inside of you is waiting to come back and start again!
Harmonious balance is indeed an affliction but one cannot feel pleasure without pain”.
You know that feeling of angst;
Pain and anxiety that seems to linger.
It is simply impermanence;
It is part of balance.
I just wanted to remind you;
It is going to be okay.
And that “Everything“;
Happens for a “reason”…
Hold on, Be strong.
-Nina
Assigning blame is emotionally charged. Whether we assign blame to others or ourselves, the negative emotion that accompanies blame is unskillful.
Blame entails not only assigning responsibility for an unwelcome consequence, but also imputing malice or evil intent to the one performing the act.
The law of karma, as taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni, lies beyond all concepts of human morality, right and wrong, good and evil. It is merely the understanding that causes produce effects. Gravity does not intend for us to fall and hurt ourselves when we trip; fire does not intend to cause us pain when our skin is burned by a flame.
When water comes in contact with a surface, that surface becomes wet. We do not blame the water for making the surface wet –that is its nature. Similarly, when our wrong views (ignorance of the nature of self and all phenomena) and afflicted emotions (attachment, aversion, and indifference) lead us to act in unskillful ways, there is no question of guilt and blame.
The purpose of acknowledging the law of karma is instructive, not punitive. When we understand that there is a relationship of cause and effect between our actions and the consequences we experience, we are liberated from victimhood. We are no longer subject to a random universe where evil befalls us without rhyme or reason. We are free to make our own way.
We do not study the law of karma to learn the specific reasons ‘why’ something happens. That exercise is futile. We understand the law of karma in order to make the determination to place positive, skillful causes in the continuum of our experience from here onwards.
The law of karma, of cause and effect, is not meant to lead us to recrimination, guilt, and blame. On the contrary, it is the acceptance of our capacity to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, and embrace happiness and the causes of happiness.
Source: Karma and Blame
We sell, crack to our own out the back of our homes
We smell the musk at the dusk in the crack of the dawn
We go through “epidodes ii, ” like “attack of the clones”
Work ’til we break our back and you hear the crack of the bone
To get by just to get by
Just to get by, just to get by
We commute to computers
Spirits stay mute while you eagles spread rumors
We survivalists, turned to consumers
To get by just to get by
Just to get by, just to get by
Ask him why some people got to live in a trailer, cuss like a sailor
I paint a picture with the pen like norman mailer
Me and willa raised three daughters all by herself, with no help
I think about a struggle and I find the strength in myself
These words, melt in my mouth
They hot, like the jail cell in the south
Before my nigga core bailed me out
To get by just to get by
Just to get by, just to get by
We do or die like bed-stuy through the red sky
With the window of the red eye
Let the lead fly, some g. rap shit, “livin’ to let die”
This morning, I woke up
Feeling brand new and I jumped up
Feeling my highs, and my lows
In my soul, and my goals
Just to stop smokin, and stop drinkin
And I’ve been thinkin, I’ve got my reasons
Just to get (by), just to get (by)
Just to get (by), just to get (by)
Just to get (by), just to get (by)
Just to get (by by by by by by)
Just to get (by), just to get (by)
Just to get (by by by by by by)
We keeping it gangster say “fo shizzle”, “fo sheezy” and “stayin crunk”
Its easy to pull a breezy, smoke trees, and we stay drunk
Yo, I activism attackin the system, the blacks and latins in prison
Numbers of prison they victim black in the vision
Shit and all they got is rappin to listen to
I let them know we missin you, the love is unconditional
Even when the condition is critical, when the livin is miserable
Your position is pivotal, I ain’t bullshittin you
Now, why would I lie? just to get by?
Just to get by, we get fly
The tv got us reachin for stars
Not the ones between venus and mars, the ones that be readin for parts
Some people get breast enhancements and penis enlargers
Saturday sinners Sunday morning at the feet of the father
They need somethin to rely on, we get high on all types of drug
When, all you really need is love
To get by just to get by
Just to get by, just to get by
Our parents sing like john lennon, “imagine all the people watch”
We rock like paul mccartney from now until the last beatle drop
This morning, I woke up
Feeling brand new and I jumped up
Feeling my high’s, and my low’s
In my soul, and my goals
Just to stop smoking, and stop drinking
And I’ve been thinking, I’ve got my reasons
Just to get (by), just to get (by)
Just to get (by), just to get (by)
Some people cry, and some people try
Just to get by, for a piece of the pie
You love to eat and get high
We deceive when we lie, and we keepin’ it fly
When, the people decide, to keep a disguise
Can’t see they eyes, see the evil inside
But there’s people you find
Strong or feeble in mind, I stay readin’ the signs
Some people cry, and some people try
Just to get by, for a piece of the pie
You love to eat and get high
We deceive when we lie, and we keepin’ it fly
GoodnightNina. 
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