You have not been educated to that you could be perfect from the beginning.
You think you will be perfect at the end.
And therefore a journey comes into play, the birth of all religions comes out of this.
So do we need the journey?
For a while, that seems unavoidable… we must taste the tax for having a life.
Mooji, You Can Be Free Today
Thanks to FaceBook I have reconnected with a friend I’ve not seen in over twenty years. Mark and I taught TM together in the late ‘70’s.
What a marvel to compare notes about the path after thirty years.
We speak the same language. We share the same roots… and a lifetime of practice has flowed past the bridge.
I asked Mark which non-dual teacher he likes the best.
I wasn’t that surprised that he said, “Mooji.”
Mooji’s soft, gentle, loving manner feels so like Maharishi to me.
Turns out, Mark had the opportunity to sit an hour with Mooji in personal dialog:
My question was about my teacher of Vedic wisdom (MMY, of course) teaching that the human nervous system over time and through repeated alternation of meditation and activity develops the ability to maintain pure awareness 24/7.
His response, quite lovingly, was, "Bullshit."
Ah! So Maharishi’s teaching left Mark with the same question I had – is awakening spontaneous and in the moment, or is there some kind of process, a ripening, that’s required?
I tried to look at this sometime ago. Now’s as good a time as any to revisit the subject.
Why? Because paying the tax bill has become just about unbearable to me.
Or, perhaps these words of Joan Tollifson will make the point from yet another angle.
I came to Joan on a tip[ from another FaceBook friend. Someone I have never met and known less than a year.
Some say enlightenment is the absence of suffering,
some say it is the absence of non-functional thinking,
some say it is the end of identification with the thinking mind,
some say it is the absence of ego or the dissolution of the separate self,
some say it is the absence of any sense of agency or of being the author of the thoughts and actions that arise.
Some say it is the realization of Oneness,
others describe it as the merging of difference and unity.
Some compare enlightenment to lucid dreaming in the waking state and say that it is the abiding realization that all of consciousness is a dream state, including the entire movie of waking life and the whole spiritual search.
Some insist that enlightenment manifests only as saintly behavior and is characterized by being soft-spoken, generous, kind, vegetarian and pacifist, while others insist you can be enlightened and still be an alcoholic, a meat-eater, a womanizer, a thief, a warrior, or someone prone to angry outbursts.
Some say enlightenment happens suddenly and irrevocably at a particular time on a particular day, and that it is a permanent, final shift;
others describe it as a gradual unfolding;
and some say that it only ever happens Now and that it never happens to somebody…
Who has it right?…
Who (or what) is it, exactly, that would be enlightened or unenlightened? …
Enlightenment doesn't “happen.“
It is.
It is neither gradual nor sudden, and what is realized is both ever-present and ever-fresh.
It can appear gradual in the story where it seems (in retrospect) that awakening was a shift that unfolded slowly over time—that which is false was seen through ever-more clearly, ever-more deeply, ever-more subtly, ever-more often, ever-more completely….
To say, “I am enlightened and it happened on May 2nd at two o’clock in the afternoon,” sounds to my ear like a good story.
To say that “I am not enlightened yet, but maybe someday I will be,” sounds like a different story.
Both stories refer to a “somebody” that I have been unable to actually find, a “somebody” that is the bottomline myth or idea (the snake in the rope).
Joan Tollifson, Am I Enlightened?
I like Joan. Reading her entire article is worthwhile.
And if that is too many words, click here and watch a bit of video.
How very different from Mooji.
I just love to see the packaging!
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Don’t Think Twice
When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure witness.
We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer, and stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two.
The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining oneself to be something: "I'm this, I'm that", continues, but only as a part of the objective world.
Its identification with the witness snaps.
Nisargadatta
The other morning as I munched my breakfast granola, I began to wonder if I was simply depressed.
My life seems incredibly empty and has been these past many months now.
Nothing seems to really capture my interest and when it does the motivation that gets stirred doesn’t seem to last.
I have been trying not to run away from this emptiness, this sitting doing nothing, going no where, no great meaning, no great purpose.
But, it goes against the Protestant ethic big time.
And too, I turn sixty my next birthday – now is not the time to be wasting life.
It’s easy to panic and the only antidote I’ve found is faith.
Faith lies in a non-dual teaching that runs something like this:
There are traps that can come up with this process of going from an initial glimpse of awakening to abiding awakening.…
there is still a human being with a human mind that is trying to make sense of things. The mind is even trying to make sense of awakening itself…
The mind will start to say, “Oh God, I no longer have any purpose or meaning.”
…It’s as if the ego was a big balloon, and now all the air has been let out.
Through the perception of reality, the balloon has been deflated, and all that’s left is this limp piece of rubber.
But, the balloon is still there, and it’s asking, “What happened? What happened to the air? What happened to the meaning in my life?”
Adyashanti, The End of Your World
There are also little snippets of direct experience:
When for the briefest, clearest moment I see that “I” simply don’t exist. Instead there is an infinity of Nothing.
Or, walking along I notice screwed to the sidewalk a metal plate of such stunning - what? “Beauty” falls so short it’s totally inadequate – it’s the merest tip of an infinity of “what?”
Again, it’s Nothingness – Incredible, infinite, stunning beauty of Nothingness blasting through the metal plate and sidewalk. The intensity makes me double over and wonder about throwing up.
No, this is not depression.
But, there are many similarities.
So, this morning I was open to the possibility…
When out of the blue this song comes from my car radio:
It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don't matter, anyhow
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don't know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on
Don't think twice, it's all right.
Bob Dylan,
except the Four Seasons were doing this ridiculous falsetto version that made me laugh out loud.
I’ve loved this song from the moment I first heard it many years ago.
Because it was written by Bob Dylan and sung by the beautiful, beautiful Joan Baez,
I mistakenly assumed it was ex-lovers having bitter banter and twisting the knife.
But, not today.
This morning a whole new interpretation seems so obvious.
I have been in love with my little ego self and now that relationship is coming to a close.
True Self is separating from false self.
It hurts.
It’s confusing.
The relationship is dying...
When the rooster crows at the break of dawn, look out your window and I am gone... just like that. I'm Nothing. History.
But hey, how wonderful to be getting on with a more awakened life…
So, Don’t think twice, It’s alright!
I didn’t know and now I do.
It was all a simple misunderstanding, a misidentification:
I'm a-thinkin' and a-wond'rin' all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I'm told
I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don't think twice, it's all right
Yes, I loved that ego.
I thought she was a real woman, but now I see she was just a begining, a child -
and she wanted my soul - my entire being!
But having seen infinity, I must be true to that, where ever that may lead.
I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, gal
So I'll just say fare thee well
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right
No, this is not depression.
It’s just a strange, uncomfortable period.
Time is precious and not to be wasted, if that is even possible, and I’m not sure that it is…
So, don’t think twice, it’s all right.
Enjoy the music instead.
Monday, October 12, 2009
For Eve: Fierce Grace
…the image of my grandmother holding the cutout organza fabric over a tea light candle to make the petals of a flower on my dress… My mom pinning the lace to my bodice while I rest my arm on her shoulder for support...
If it weren't for the bad, I'd wonder if life could get any better.
Eve Bralley, Let It Rain
I love this image – three generations of Bralley women preparing for the wedding.
I have it in my mind almost as a still life.
But, nothing seems so still in our lives just now.
Eve is scheduled to begin chemotherapy four days after she is married:
Fierce grace is on my mind.
There’s nice grace and there’s fierce grace – sickness –
taken to your knees until you see something essential - that’s fierce.
We always value easy grace as being better than harsh, fierce grace…
When you see what fierce grace is trying to show you, then fierce grace doesn’t need to be so fierce.
Adyashanti, excerpted here
When you really understand fierce grace, you see that in the end it is ALL Grace.
Even, as we still retain our preferences.
I lost a friend to breast cancer several years ago. She had spent her life devoted to her meditation practice. She had been a vegetarian for decades.
And she was enraged that “after all that work” she had to undergo chemotherapy.
I can hear her now, “It just kills me to pump these poisons into my body!”
What a juxtaposition of intentions contained within that phrase:
“It kills me” and we are envisioning “The Cure.”
But, how often is killing all tied up with Life?
Fierce grace is just that: fierce.
The only way I know to the way to swallow without choking is to clearly recognize: even this is Grace.
I have another image, stored on my computer.
It is a close-up a petri plate. On it grow some of the bacteria that I’ve worked with for over twelve years now.
Streptomyces are the source of 70% of the world’s antibiotics.
From Streptomyces also come adriamycin and bleomycin, two of the drugs composing the ABVD treatment, the standard chemotherapy for lymphoma patients.
In the lab, you can see the drugs of Streptomyces diffusing into the agar of the petri plates: red and orange, blue and purple, even yellow and green when they are purified.
The colors have always delighted me.
But, in reading up these past few weeks on the drugs comprising ABVD, there have been times I’ve simply broken down in tears.
I hate this!
These damn drugs are so toxic that if you get them on your skin they’ll blister.
And the Solution!!! - inject them directly into your veins.
Shit!
Fierce grace.
I want to turn away. Let this thing just pass on by.
But, we don’t have that option.
Eve is going to do this.
Evie has done it once already.
So, I’d like to offer up another image: the Streptomyces that delight me.
And may Evie take this knowledge with her as she moves through her chemotherapy.
These drugs come from Life woven deep into the earth.
Streptomyces is not some foreign species.
All our lives we have known and loved them by their smell: that delicious freshness of the earth just after it has rained. … that smell’s not really “earth” but these bacteria.
From Streptomyces diffuse the molecules we inhale as we renew ourselves from Nature. Essence of earth and air and water is actually essence of Streptomyces.
Granted, these good smelling molecules are lipids – not the drugs that get injected.
But, they flow from the same source, the same bacteria.
So, if one were trying to gain an impression of Streptomyces’ as an entity, the main impression I have as a scientist is of a rainbow of colors and the Life force of the elements.
That’s one side of the coin of Grace.
Now let’s turn it over – flip from science to spirituality.
In his teachings Maharishi always eschewed talk about the airy-fairy.
He wanted us to speak in scientific terms: like doxorubicin and bleomycin.
So when he wanted to teach about the Celestial, the realm of angels and devas, he chose to speak of “impulses of Creative Intelligence.”
That’s what I am trying to convey here: the Creative Intelligence behind a bacterium and the molecules it produces.
Because, behind the gross lies the subtle.
And at the subtlest level, words like deva, angel, even God are what traditionally have been used.
Maharishi told us that behind every form in Nature lies an impulse of Creative Intelligence. He wanted it to sound like it was an abstract law of nature.
But, if you read about the Findhorn Garden you can find descriptions of Creative Intelligence’s varied forms and the personalities these impulses can take.
And these angels have an impact:
I had never set out to learn to talk with angels, nor had I ever imagined that such contact could be possible or useful. Yet, when this communication began to occur, it did so in a way that I could not dispute. Concrete proof developed in the Findhorn garden… The garden was planted on sand in conditions that offered scant hospitality and encouragement for the growth of anything other than hardy Scottish bushes and grasses requiring little moisture or nourishment.
However, through my telepathic contact with the angelic Beings who overlight and direct plant growth, specific instructions and spiritual assistance were given. The resulting garden, which came to include even tropical varieties of plants, was so astonishing in its growth and vitality that visiting soil experts and horticulturists were unable to find any explanation for it, and eventually had to accept the unorthodox interpretation of angelic help.
To Hear the Angels Sing, Dorothy Maclean
At Findhorn they talk about the plants, flowers, vegetables.
Here, I am talking bacteria and molecules confident that every aspect of Creation has it’s Celestial level.
I am thinking that behind the Streptomyces there must be a most awesome angel.
Awe-some in the ground trembling sense.
It must embody some aspect of that fierce grace that brings us to our knees -
raw and archetypal power.
It cuts us down as it wakes us up and offers us a life we never had envisioned.
Perhaps you doubt the possibility, so let me offer another image:
I see your father last Christmas Eve. As a special gift I’d given him a sword – the kind of sword that made me realize why in legends swords always have a name.
This sword was no inanimate object.
There was something, something fully awake, behind the awesome gleam.
Yes, there is that word again: awesome.
I had worried about the appropriateness of such a lethal weapon.
But, after all the Christmas cheer had died down I watched unnoticed as your dad picked up the sword.
A change I’d never seen came over him.
He quietly circumambulated the living room. His attention turned within.
He was also settling into the feel of the sword: Its weight, its balance, its potential for lethality and violence.
But, he didn’t seem to be focusing upon death or any evil intent.
He was feeling into power.
I watched the power of the sword center him.
I watched as he merged his own power with the swords potential.
And at that moment lethal weapon became sacred object.
There is no contradiction here – only fierce grace.
I hope you can remember this when you receive the chemo.
I hope you can discover the sacred weapon flowing through your veins diffusing into tissue.
May you bathe in the powers of earth and air and water, and let fire consume the cancer.
No poison here to haunt your life – only fierce grace.
Life is full of grace—sometimes it's wonderful grace, beautiful grace, moments of bliss and happiness and joy, and sometimes it's fierce grace…But this fierceness is also beautiful.
It helps orient us deeper and deeper into our true nature…
Life itself has a tremendous capacity to show us truth, to wake us up, and yet, many of us avoid this thing called life, even as it is attempting to wake us up.
The divine itself is Life in motion.
The divine is using the situations of our lives to accomplish its own awakening, and many times it takes the difficult situations to wake us up…
If we’re ready to turn and face them, we can see and receive the gifts that they have to offer…
Adyashanti, The End of Your World.
If it weren't for the bad, I'd wonder if life could get any better.
Eve Bralley, Let It Rain
I love this image – three generations of Bralley women preparing for the wedding.
I have it in my mind almost as a still life.
But, nothing seems so still in our lives just now.
Eve is scheduled to begin chemotherapy four days after she is married:
Fierce grace is on my mind.
There’s nice grace and there’s fierce grace – sickness –
taken to your knees until you see something essential - that’s fierce.
We always value easy grace as being better than harsh, fierce grace…
When you see what fierce grace is trying to show you, then fierce grace doesn’t need to be so fierce.
Adyashanti, excerpted here
When you really understand fierce grace, you see that in the end it is ALL Grace.
Even, as we still retain our preferences.
I lost a friend to breast cancer several years ago. She had spent her life devoted to her meditation practice. She had been a vegetarian for decades.
And she was enraged that “after all that work” she had to undergo chemotherapy.
I can hear her now, “It just kills me to pump these poisons into my body!”
What a juxtaposition of intentions contained within that phrase:
“It kills me” and we are envisioning “The Cure.”
But, how often is killing all tied up with Life?
Fierce grace is just that: fierce.
The only way I know to the way to swallow without choking is to clearly recognize: even this is Grace.
I have another image, stored on my computer.
It is a close-up a petri plate. On it grow some of the bacteria that I’ve worked with for over twelve years now.
Streptomyces are the source of 70% of the world’s antibiotics.
From Streptomyces also come adriamycin and bleomycin, two of the drugs composing the ABVD treatment, the standard chemotherapy for lymphoma patients.
In the lab, you can see the drugs of Streptomyces diffusing into the agar of the petri plates: red and orange, blue and purple, even yellow and green when they are purified.
The colors have always delighted me.
But, in reading up these past few weeks on the drugs comprising ABVD, there have been times I’ve simply broken down in tears.
I hate this!
These damn drugs are so toxic that if you get them on your skin they’ll blister.
And the Solution!!! - inject them directly into your veins.
Shit!
Fierce grace.
I want to turn away. Let this thing just pass on by.
But, we don’t have that option.
Eve is going to do this.
Evie has done it once already.
So, I’d like to offer up another image: the Streptomyces that delight me.
And may Evie take this knowledge with her as she moves through her chemotherapy.
These drugs come from Life woven deep into the earth.
Streptomyces is not some foreign species.
All our lives we have known and loved them by their smell: that delicious freshness of the earth just after it has rained. … that smell’s not really “earth” but these bacteria.
From Streptomyces diffuse the molecules we inhale as we renew ourselves from Nature. Essence of earth and air and water is actually essence of Streptomyces.
Granted, these good smelling molecules are lipids – not the drugs that get injected.
But, they flow from the same source, the same bacteria.
So, if one were trying to gain an impression of Streptomyces’ as an entity, the main impression I have as a scientist is of a rainbow of colors and the Life force of the elements.
That’s one side of the coin of Grace.
Now let’s turn it over – flip from science to spirituality.
In his teachings Maharishi always eschewed talk about the airy-fairy.
He wanted us to speak in scientific terms: like doxorubicin and bleomycin.
So when he wanted to teach about the Celestial, the realm of angels and devas, he chose to speak of “impulses of Creative Intelligence.”
That’s what I am trying to convey here: the Creative Intelligence behind a bacterium and the molecules it produces.
Because, behind the gross lies the subtle.
And at the subtlest level, words like deva, angel, even God are what traditionally have been used.
Maharishi told us that behind every form in Nature lies an impulse of Creative Intelligence. He wanted it to sound like it was an abstract law of nature.
But, if you read about the Findhorn Garden you can find descriptions of Creative Intelligence’s varied forms and the personalities these impulses can take.
And these angels have an impact:
I had never set out to learn to talk with angels, nor had I ever imagined that such contact could be possible or useful. Yet, when this communication began to occur, it did so in a way that I could not dispute. Concrete proof developed in the Findhorn garden… The garden was planted on sand in conditions that offered scant hospitality and encouragement for the growth of anything other than hardy Scottish bushes and grasses requiring little moisture or nourishment.
However, through my telepathic contact with the angelic Beings who overlight and direct plant growth, specific instructions and spiritual assistance were given. The resulting garden, which came to include even tropical varieties of plants, was so astonishing in its growth and vitality that visiting soil experts and horticulturists were unable to find any explanation for it, and eventually had to accept the unorthodox interpretation of angelic help.
To Hear the Angels Sing, Dorothy Maclean
At Findhorn they talk about the plants, flowers, vegetables.
Here, I am talking bacteria and molecules confident that every aspect of Creation has it’s Celestial level.
I am thinking that behind the Streptomyces there must be a most awesome angel.
Awe-some in the ground trembling sense.
It must embody some aspect of that fierce grace that brings us to our knees -
raw and archetypal power.
It cuts us down as it wakes us up and offers us a life we never had envisioned.
Perhaps you doubt the possibility, so let me offer another image:
I see your father last Christmas Eve. As a special gift I’d given him a sword – the kind of sword that made me realize why in legends swords always have a name.
This sword was no inanimate object.
There was something, something fully awake, behind the awesome gleam.
Yes, there is that word again: awesome.
I had worried about the appropriateness of such a lethal weapon.
But, after all the Christmas cheer had died down I watched unnoticed as your dad picked up the sword.
A change I’d never seen came over him.
He quietly circumambulated the living room. His attention turned within.
He was also settling into the feel of the sword: Its weight, its balance, its potential for lethality and violence.
But, he didn’t seem to be focusing upon death or any evil intent.
He was feeling into power.
I watched the power of the sword center him.
I watched as he merged his own power with the swords potential.
And at that moment lethal weapon became sacred object.
There is no contradiction here – only fierce grace.
I hope you can remember this when you receive the chemo.
I hope you can discover the sacred weapon flowing through your veins diffusing into tissue.
May you bathe in the powers of earth and air and water, and let fire consume the cancer.
No poison here to haunt your life – only fierce grace.
Life is full of grace—sometimes it's wonderful grace, beautiful grace, moments of bliss and happiness and joy, and sometimes it's fierce grace…But this fierceness is also beautiful.
It helps orient us deeper and deeper into our true nature…
Life itself has a tremendous capacity to show us truth, to wake us up, and yet, many of us avoid this thing called life, even as it is attempting to wake us up.
The divine itself is Life in motion.
The divine is using the situations of our lives to accomplish its own awakening, and many times it takes the difficult situations to wake us up…
If we’re ready to turn and face them, we can see and receive the gifts that they have to offer…
Adyashanti, The End of Your World.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Qarrtsiluni - Words of Power
Qarrtsiluni has published a photo of mine along with a brief commentary.
They also did a podcast - my first experience with that.
They did a nice job, I think.
Check it out!
They also did a podcast - my first experience with that.
They did a nice job, I think.
Check it out!
Home From Retreat
Well I’m back from retreat and kind of wandering around the house and city.
What to say?
I was moved to see that people in all shapes and forms are awakening. How very hopeful for the world!
Adya gave a satsang on “Listening” which has inspired me to be more aware of how open or closed I am to the moment. It seems also the easiest, non-doing way to meditate as true listening is done with all the senses.
One theme running through the week was “stories” - recognizing how we spin simply “what is” into this whole drama. I was quite moved the last day when a woman stood to ask a question. She said she was a “literary agent.” She loved stories. She admitted that she actually “trafficked in stories” – and we all laughed for at that point she did seem somewhat akin to a drug dealer. … well, I have just realized I can’t tell her story here. But, she asked her question with such integrity – such integrity to the truth, that I was in tears.
Adya also spoke of a Zen master, Layman Pang. My interest aroused, I found and thought I’d share a Layman Pang story here. Stories, stories… enjoy them!
[Layman Pang] got the idea that a person needed solitude in order to meditate and ponder the Dharma, so he built himself a little one-room monastery near his family home. Every day he went there to study and practice.
His wife, son and daughter studied the Dharma, too; but they stayed in the family house, conducting their business and doing their chores, incorporating Buddhism into their daily lives.
Layman Pang had submerged himself in the sutras and one day he found that he, too, was in over his head. He hadn't learned to swim yet. On that day, he stormed out of his monastery-hut and, in abject frustration complained to his wife, "Difficult! Difficult! Difficult! Trying to grasp so many facts is like trying to store sesame seeds in the leaves of a tree top!"
His wife retorted, "Easy! Easy! Easy! You've been studying words, but I study the grass and find the Buddha Self reflected in every drop of dew."
Now, Layman Pang's daughter, Ling Zhao, was listening to this verbal splashing, so she went swimming by. "Two old people foolishly chattering!" she called.
"Just a minute!" shouted Layman Pang. "If you're so smart, tell us your method."
Ling Zhao returned to her parents and said gently, "It's not difficult, and it's not easy. When I'm hungry, I eat. When I'm tired, I sleep "
Ling Zhao had mastered Natural Chan.
Layman Pang learned a lot that day. He understood so much that he put away his books, locked his little monastery-hut, and decided to visit different Chan masters to test his understanding. He still couldn't compete against his own daughter, but he was getting pretty good.
Eventually he wound up at Nan Yueh Mountain where Master Shi Tou had a monastic retreat. Layman Pang went directly to the master and asked, "Where can I find a man who's unattached to material things?" Master Shi Tou slowly raised his hand and closed Pang's mouth. In that one gesture, Pang's Chan really deepened. He stayed at Nan Yueh for many months.
All the monks there watched him and became quite curious about his Natural Chan, his perfect equanimity. Even Master Shi Tou was moved to ask him what his secret was. "Everyone marvels at your methods," said Shi Tou. "Tell me. Do you have any special powers?"
Layman Pang just smiled and said, "No, no special powers. My day is filled with humble activities and I just keep my mind in harmony with my tasks. I accept what comes without desire or aversion. When encountering other people, I maintain an uncritical attitude, never admiring, never condemning. To me, red is red and not crimson or scarlet. So, what marvelous method do I use? Well, when I chop wood, I chop wood; and when I carry water, I carry water."
And I am home from retreat.
Went to the farmer’s market this morning. Kept being surprised by the realization I no longer had to maintain silence.
Silence has become so natural.
The hardest part of retreat was when we were told to leave the meditation hall and that “silence is now ended.”
My heart felt like a spear pierced through it.
My stomach tightened and I tried to hide my tears.
There are some pictures that I took while at Omega.
You can find them here.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Silent Retreat
I am off tomorrow for a five-day silent retreat with Adyashanti at the Omega Institute. That means today is full of house cleaning, last minute shopping, and packing - then off to the airport Sunday morning, 5 a.m.
Can’t say that I carry with me much of a conscious agenda. Though I am one unconscious bag of hopes and desires.
In practice, I’m just going to listen to the satsangs and do the meditations… I look forward to the silence.
Perhaps something in me will shift.
It’s time … I think.
But, maybe not, who knows?
There is one situation I would like resolved: duality.
Adya speaks about “The Container of Silence” at a retreat.
To me Silence is just another word for Unboundedness or Consciousness.
What I am uncomfortable with is how “I” seem to rattle about in this Unboundedness.
It really feels like a container – a vast, vast tin can of the universe in which I rattle about.
What could be more dual?
I often view this in two dimensions, as a cross section of the ocean.
On the surface amidst the waves “I” exist as thoughts and activity. A little deeper, just below the surface swirl my emotions.
In these regions of waves and currents run all the stories my mind creates. Over time I’ve come to take all that less seriously.
The moment you realize that Stories are just that – stories, there is something of a disconnect. Entertaining, distracting, dramatic, painful – or not. Some are even useful to a point… but, none of them are Ultimately Real.
With the disconnect it’s as if the mental content’s volume gets dialed down. That doesn’t mean the stories stop – all the chatter action keeps on going – but the words aren’t really listened to.
Now, I’ve come to notice there’s an actual physical buffeting that supports the mental agitation.
I hadn’t expected this. It’s like being tossed in rowboat on the waves of the ocean –thoughts no longer matter – there’s just the buffeting. And this buffeting (is this actually what “karma” is?) exists not only in my head but is broadcast from every single person’s mind. The room at any given moment is this swirl of desires, fears, plans, laser bullets of conflicting emotions zipping all about. It’s physically uncomfortable and I have trouble hearing my own self think.
The other day at work I suddenly realized I felt so weird I stopped working and sat down quietly at my desk over in the corner…
“What is going on?”
I felt the waves - a cacophony of to-do’s.
I noticed the ocean – it’s depths, solitude, and silence. And then to my utter surprise I saw that ordinarily, between the surface activity and ocean depths there’d always been this “me” - this ego – swimming.
And for the briefest, clearest moment I saw that there was “no-one” there.
The swimmer had disappeared.
I no longer had a center.
It was as if I had nowhere from which to establish a point of view - and that was the physical discomfort that I felt.
I felt the physical discomfort.
Realized how logically impossible the situation was.
Shook it off and went back to work.
It makes no sense when put into words, beyond perhaps duality is inherently uncomfortable.
The waves are actually the ocean. Philosophically – I know I am the ocean, the One.
But philosophy doesn’t cut it when it comes to actually living life.
For now, mostly I feel like a person straddling two rowboats, one foot in each, acutely aware of the instability of the situation.
Either be totally identified with the story of the waves, or melt deliciously into the ocean – but straddling the two can only lead to a groin injury.
So much for spiritual metaphors!
Better to clean the house and pack my bags.
Chop wood, carry water.
Can’t say that I carry with me much of a conscious agenda. Though I am one unconscious bag of hopes and desires.
In practice, I’m just going to listen to the satsangs and do the meditations… I look forward to the silence.
Perhaps something in me will shift.
It’s time … I think.
But, maybe not, who knows?
There is one situation I would like resolved: duality.
Adya speaks about “The Container of Silence” at a retreat.
To me Silence is just another word for Unboundedness or Consciousness.
What I am uncomfortable with is how “I” seem to rattle about in this Unboundedness.
It really feels like a container – a vast, vast tin can of the universe in which I rattle about.
What could be more dual?
I often view this in two dimensions, as a cross section of the ocean.
On the surface amidst the waves “I” exist as thoughts and activity. A little deeper, just below the surface swirl my emotions.
In these regions of waves and currents run all the stories my mind creates. Over time I’ve come to take all that less seriously.
The moment you realize that Stories are just that – stories, there is something of a disconnect. Entertaining, distracting, dramatic, painful – or not. Some are even useful to a point… but, none of them are Ultimately Real.
With the disconnect it’s as if the mental content’s volume gets dialed down. That doesn’t mean the stories stop – all the chatter action keeps on going – but the words aren’t really listened to.
Now, I’ve come to notice there’s an actual physical buffeting that supports the mental agitation.
I hadn’t expected this. It’s like being tossed in rowboat on the waves of the ocean –thoughts no longer matter – there’s just the buffeting. And this buffeting (is this actually what “karma” is?) exists not only in my head but is broadcast from every single person’s mind. The room at any given moment is this swirl of desires, fears, plans, laser bullets of conflicting emotions zipping all about. It’s physically uncomfortable and I have trouble hearing my own self think.
The other day at work I suddenly realized I felt so weird I stopped working and sat down quietly at my desk over in the corner…
“What is going on?”
I felt the waves - a cacophony of to-do’s.
I noticed the ocean – it’s depths, solitude, and silence. And then to my utter surprise I saw that ordinarily, between the surface activity and ocean depths there’d always been this “me” - this ego – swimming.
And for the briefest, clearest moment I saw that there was “no-one” there.
The swimmer had disappeared.
I no longer had a center.
It was as if I had nowhere from which to establish a point of view - and that was the physical discomfort that I felt.
I felt the physical discomfort.
Realized how logically impossible the situation was.
Shook it off and went back to work.
It makes no sense when put into words, beyond perhaps duality is inherently uncomfortable.
The waves are actually the ocean. Philosophically – I know I am the ocean, the One.
But philosophy doesn’t cut it when it comes to actually living life.
For now, mostly I feel like a person straddling two rowboats, one foot in each, acutely aware of the instability of the situation.
Either be totally identified with the story of the waves, or melt deliciously into the ocean – but straddling the two can only lead to a groin injury.
So much for spiritual metaphors!
Better to clean the house and pack my bags.
Chop wood, carry water.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Wordless
I came across this video of Mooji. It’s the closest I can come to explaining why blogging has become so difficult for me.
Trying to put words to my experience seems to actually hurt, as if being verbal rips some physical tissue made of almost nothing.
Words simply don’t do justice.
Words simply don’t make sense.
The moment a description arises I see how the exact opposite is also true, and then the next moment how nothing I could say is true.
… and if not true, why speak?
But this video presents perhaps an even more compelling point - how the heart is impacted by these changes.
Remaining wordless and silent with the heart seems the way forward for me now.
"Is it a sad discovery?" not really... and still
The heart is breaking. The heart is melting.
My job is to just let all this happen and go about my daily do.
It all feels somewhat strange and lonely on inside and looks extraordinarily ordinary from the outside - if one accepts as normal a fair amout of tears in public.
And for your convenience here’s a link to Wordless, Part 1.
Trying to put words to my experience seems to actually hurt, as if being verbal rips some physical tissue made of almost nothing.
Words simply don’t do justice.
Words simply don’t make sense.
The moment a description arises I see how the exact opposite is also true, and then the next moment how nothing I could say is true.
… and if not true, why speak?
But this video presents perhaps an even more compelling point - how the heart is impacted by these changes.
Remaining wordless and silent with the heart seems the way forward for me now.
"Is it a sad discovery?" not really... and still
The heart is breaking. The heart is melting.
My job is to just let all this happen and go about my daily do.
It all feels somewhat strange and lonely on inside and looks extraordinarily ordinary from the outside - if one accepts as normal a fair amout of tears in public.
And for your convenience here’s a link to Wordless, Part 1.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Question is Important
She wasn't looking
when they took this picture:
sitting on the grass
in her bare feet
wearing a cotton dress,
she stares off to the side
watching something on the lawn
the camera didn't catch.
What was it?
A ladybug? A flower?
Judging from her expression,
possibly nothing at all,
or else
the lawn was like a mirror,
and she sat watching herself,
wondering who she was
and how she came to be there
sitting in this backyard,
wearing a cheap, white dress,
imagining that tomorrow
would be like all her yesterdays,
while her parents chatted
and watched, as I do
years later,
too distantly to interfere.
Dana Gioia, "Photograph of My Mother as a Young Girl"
Recently my mother emailed me noting that now, at age 83, she had been wondering, “Who am I?”
Was she the person people took her to be?
Was she the person she imagined in her mind?
While she didn’t say it in so many words, in the silence I could tell she didn’t think so.
I made no explanation when I replied to Mom.
Her comment rests in memory, along with this poem Garrison Keillor read a few days ago which brought to mind this picture from my family’s past.
These disparate elements came together once again, this morning as I listened to a YouTube video of Mooji and did my daily asanas.
He was addressing what he called an important question – this question of “Who am I?”
And he briefly mentioned fear.
My last post about Mooji also brought a comment about fear and so the bow is tied – something I felt like sharing.
Enjoy.
What is watching all, experiences all, goes by the title “I”.
And then now even the sense “I” - even in its subtlest expression is also perceived.
What remains?
What remains?
And your answer, I don’t want.
I am looking for something else…
You are moving into the absence of you.
About now fear will come. Is it enough to stop your looking?
Fear also is some construct.
What watches that?
How much further to go?
What distance to cover?
Who are you?
I would take the answer from wherever it comes.
There is no last step to take.
There is no leap to happen, no explosion to occur.
Mooji, The Question is Important
when they took this picture:
sitting on the grass
in her bare feet
wearing a cotton dress,
she stares off to the side
watching something on the lawn
the camera didn't catch.
What was it?
A ladybug? A flower?
Judging from her expression,
possibly nothing at all,
or else
the lawn was like a mirror,
and she sat watching herself,
wondering who she was
and how she came to be there
sitting in this backyard,
wearing a cheap, white dress,
imagining that tomorrow
would be like all her yesterdays,
while her parents chatted
and watched, as I do
years later,
too distantly to interfere.
Dana Gioia, "Photograph of My Mother as a Young Girl"
Recently my mother emailed me noting that now, at age 83, she had been wondering, “Who am I?”
Was she the person people took her to be?
Was she the person she imagined in her mind?
While she didn’t say it in so many words, in the silence I could tell she didn’t think so.
I made no explanation when I replied to Mom.
Her comment rests in memory, along with this poem Garrison Keillor read a few days ago which brought to mind this picture from my family’s past.
These disparate elements came together once again, this morning as I listened to a YouTube video of Mooji and did my daily asanas.
He was addressing what he called an important question – this question of “Who am I?”
And he briefly mentioned fear.
My last post about Mooji also brought a comment about fear and so the bow is tied – something I felt like sharing.
Enjoy.
What is watching all, experiences all, goes by the title “I”.
And then now even the sense “I” - even in its subtlest expression is also perceived.
What remains?
What remains?
And your answer, I don’t want.
I am looking for something else…
You are moving into the absence of you.
About now fear will come. Is it enough to stop your looking?
Fear also is some construct.
What watches that?
How much further to go?
What distance to cover?
Who are you?
I would take the answer from wherever it comes.
There is no last step to take.
There is no leap to happen, no explosion to occur.
Mooji, The Question is Important
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