I’ve had blogs in the past, but I don’t remember how I kicked things off. Like, do I write a “hello! I’m Sonnjea!” post? Or just jump right in? Or some combo thereof? I guess I’ll explain the blog name and that should suffice for post numero uno.
Sonnjea 2.0 isn’t accurate because I’m actually on about the 27th incarnation of myself, but 27.0 sounds lame. And everybody sort of accepts that 2.0 implies new and improved and that’s what I am. Well, improved, anyway. I’m faaaar from new. As a human, I’ve got five+ decades under my belt. As a Buddhist, about 11 years. Probably that’s when the journey to 2.0ness officially began, but it wasn’t until five years ago this month that I started to consciously strip away all the layers of fear and insecurity and arrogance and judginess and just utter crap that I had been accumulating. I was like a hoarder of bad personality traits. That’s where the “recovering hot mess” part of the blog name comes in. And now, time for a Buddhist sidenote…
The Ten Worlds
In Nichiren Buddhism, we believe in a concept called “the mutual possession of the ten worlds.” The ten worlds are described as our states of being at any given moment and include hell, hunger, animality, anger, humanity, heaven, voice-hearers (it’s not as creepy as it sounds), cause-awakened ones, Boddhisattva, and Buddhahood. Any of those lower worlds can be lumped into the hot mess category. The good news is the concept of "mutual possession" means that each of the worlds contains within it the potential for all of the others. So when you are in the depths of hell for whatever reason, you still have the ability to instantly experience the enlightened joy of Buddhahood – and that’s because we all inherently possess this Buddha nature*. It’s just that expressing that 24/7 is not something most of us have managed to do in this crazy world we live in.
Anyway, the reason I can’t say “former hot mess” is because I still have my moments in the hot mess worlds… and that okay. Life is a journey. I’m happy to be able to share mine with you.
*You don’t have to be Buddhist to have a Buddha nature. Your “inherent Buddhahood” is just what we call your highest self, your enlightened nature, your godliness… you get the idea. It’s just semantics. We all have the inherent potential for pure goodness. Even that guy.
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