Story of the Day... Yet Another!

Deeper
Originally uploaded by YAR!.

I received another Story of the Day from Story People. It’s entitled, “Personal Plateau.” It goes like this:

I don't want another opportunity to learn & grow, she said.
I just want to eat crackers & watch Oprah & pet my cat.

Words, words, words and stories. They are sitting on my nerves!

I was reading The Truelove by Patrick O’Brian last night. Jack Aubrey, naval captain in the Napoleonic Wars, is at sea on a broad reach to Figi. He is encumbered by legal correspondence from England and among other problems finds he must appoint a new chaplain to a couple of parishes. He enters into the following conversation with his friend, Dr. Stephen Maturin, naval surgeon and spy:

“I have the particulars of the advowsons I told you about some time ago. But tell me, is Martin an idoneous person?”
“Idoneous for what?”
“Oh, just idoneous. Two of the livings, if you can call them livings, are vacant; and this letter says I am required to present an idoneous person.”
“As far as benefices are concerned no one could be more idoneous, fitting or suitable than Martin, since he is an Anglican clergyman.”

And then later, there was this little do between Clarrisa Oakes, stowaway and prison escapee from New South Wales and Dr. Maturin:

“I had almost made up my mind to send you a note asking if I might consult you. But perhaps female disorders lie far outside the purview of a naval surgeon?”
“In the nature of things he has little to do with them. But I am also a physician and therefore omniscient.”

God, I love it! Doctors were omniscient even then? What are these characters about?
What does idoneous mean?
I don’t know - either, any, all of this. But, somehow all this blather was just perfect to my mood.

In the past few weeks I have listened and listened to Byron Katie CDs while laid up in bed with a bad back and legs that would not work. She is into Spiritual Inquiry – really looking at the stories that we tell ourselves, though she calls them “judgments.”

“The sky is blue.” That’s a judgment. It’s also a story.
And if that is – Everything is… I guess.

Notice what you’re telling yourself.
So often it is not true.
So often it is causing pain. That’s Katie’s whole deal. So, I have been noticing.

I have been noticing a lot. Try staying alone in your house for about two weeks and just notice all the insanities that rumble through your head and living room… stories….

Take for instance the fact, “She left me.”
Of course, not unlike “The sky is blue,” this too may be a story. But you have to start some where.
So, OK- “She left me.”
Now what? The stories start.
There is hers. Do I believe it?
There is mine. Do I believe it?
Yahda, yahda.
I went with hers and have been processing that for over a year.
Most of the time now, I can live fairly easily with it. I have accepted "what is."
And that is good. The pain is over.
Katie’s, Tolle’s, Adya’s whole thing (in one flavor of another) is “Accepting What Is” or being-even becoming- a “A Lover of What Is.”
I’m still not close to Loving that she left me, but Accepting was no mean feat either. So, I have been pleased and it gets me compliments from many corners.

But what did I discover these past couple weeks?
The stories come in layers. (Bette Boop puts hands to cheeks, “Oh, NO!”)

Yes!
I went with “hers” initially because deep down it was what I wanted to believe.
It had this noble, spiritual tinge that I preferred to my own initial, “She done me wrong!” This latter more dramatic version expanded so easily into mean and painful thoughts.
But then, both She and I knew all along there were other versions.
My sister had her interpretation, our friends had theirs.

Story after story, I would not listen to...
Until, I had the privilege of lying around the house for ten days.

We start with the story we most prefer (however awful it may be) … and adjust to that.
And then voila - you are freed to accept the next story, the next interpretation of the very self-same “fact.”
Dang! This is not the best discovery!

Yet, it seems that each version of the story is a bit easier to accept.
And this must be progress, given that originally any one of these renditions was more than I could face.

In part this ease arises from being more alert to when my inner gears begin to spin. I can take a breath and let it go before they gather all that much momentum.

And too, maybe I’m just a bit more tolerant of the stories others choose to tell.
So many stories, no one is more real than the other.

So many stories, each adjusted to the pain their teller can endure.
There is kindness coming here.
Or, with a nod to Adya who likes to quote William Blake, “A fool who persists in his folly becomes wise.”

Connection

pick one
Originally uploaded by Mr. Mark.

This just in, as I write: an email with yet another Story of the Day
(Actually it and others are from “She Who Left Me.” So, I’ll let you decide if she’s really gone.)

This newest story is entitled “Connection.”

there came a moment in the middle of the song when he suddenly felt every heartbeat in the room & after that he never forgot he was part of something much bigger

Which brings me a bit more rested and relaxed to another teaching of Adyashanti:

The Nothing that is Everything does not explain Everything.

(Or is it explains Anything?) Doesn’t matter- his point is in a true Unity and Wholeness, everything affects everything. A single cause and effect is simply impossible - not withstanding the fact that if you drop a rock on your toe… OUCH! (it’s all so paradoxical)

Just a Brief Note

Yangon, Myanmar
Originally uploaded by JET_ny.

I am alive and well and kind of running in too many directions at once. So this is just a quick little note - to those who may stop by and be disappointed by the lack of action.

Please check out my other blog: Silence: A Gallery.

I have been inspired! ... Over there... Not here.

This is verbal. That is visual.
You got to have the whole Yin Yang thing working for you!
Yes?

... No... (oh, how sad.)
Beep. Beep.

Salle de Bain Sanity

Bath 2
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao.

I’ve not written much for the last month or so. Today I realized the trouble started in part after self censoring a ditty I’d written called, “Salle de Bain Sanity.”
Censorship - it doesn’t work!

I’ll just have to live with the risk of my sister once again calling to inquire because, “You didn’t sound well!” Well, hey, it was nice to talk to her. I think I am going to have to just let one rule of this Blog be… honesty… even when you’re stupid. That seems the only way.

So, perhaps a month late, here you go: “Salle de Bain Sanity.”
(And I am so happy you get to see the retro mint-green tiles.)



As it turns out I do my best thinking in the bath tub.
As it turns out the bathroom is my inner sanctum.
I use to think that locale was my bed, but as I’ve aged I tend to lose consciousness too quickly for the bed to be of much use.
So, I am left with my bath tub kind of by default.

Default…
The fault lines are what need exploring and exposing. And that is often a messy process of excavation. How handy to be so near water and a tissue.

So I lie there soaking in the warm waters of the tub, the urban dweller’s substitute for the Oceanic and tell myself a story as I try to think things through. And soon I realize…

“The Greatest Story Ever Told” isn’t in the Bible. It’s “The One You Tell Yourself” about your self (small “s”).
And what is even funnier (to me) is that people give me credit for this- this story telling. I’m a great story teller, down right life of the party. That’s what story telling is- pure entertainment. Such a ruse and yet, it is “pure” in the sense that there’s always the outside chance something wise might be conveyed.

So let me begin here with the retelling (cause All stories are Always a retelling) of a story that I actually got published in the Sun. I called it “The Secret of Life.” (Maybe… I’ll have to double check that fact.)

This story really began with a dream, a dream I had when I was a teenager:

Pop and I were standing in this line of silent and disheveled people, under a blackened night sky tinged by the red fires of Apocalypse lying just over the horizon. No one was in charge, yet we all seemed totally subdued. We just waited there in line, unconsciously, slowly inching forward.

Peering up ahead I realized that we were waiting to enter this dilapidated shack of an outhouse, just this classic clapboard thing. One by one, each person entered.
And No One ever came back out. The line was disappearing into this toilet.

And as the line crept nearer I realized, “The Secret of Life.”
The Whole Secret was Not to go in there. Just refuse.
It was that simple.
Just don’t go in and you’d be saved!

I tugged on Pop’s arm. We had to get out of the line. I tried to explain. He wasn’t listening. I tugged and shouted. “No, No! Don’t go in! Listen to me!”

I was still screaming and pulling on his arm as he did this slow motion header right down the tube. Like that, he was gone. Only the swirl of flushing water remained.


And Just like that I woke up in a sweat.
What a horror. You can know, you can be screaming the Secret of Life, and you can’t change a thing.

“The Secret of Life.”
That phrase means a lot to me. My seventh grade science teacher used it and so thrilled my soul that I knew right there I had to understand. He was talking DNA and RNA and I resolved to become a molecular geneticist, though it’d be decades before I new the label.

And taking that header of a dive means a lot to me too.
Maharishi used to say that meditation was like diving, simply take the correct angle and let go. Gravity will do the rest.
You execute an effortless dive into the Absolute.

And Adyashanti says that Where you go is into the Nothingness (that is Everything- but first you have to really understand… NOTHING.”

So as I soak here in my tub, viewing yet again those cool, mint-green retro bath tiles and allow that Silence and gap of witnessing to arise, I decide to simply accept the Gap.

Maharishi use to say, “Never try to bridge the Gap.”
Adya might say something like, “Approach with curiosity.”

So I do that.

And there ahead of me is such a hole. Such a chasm I could simply take a header into. It’s as if I am standing out on the end of the high dive trying to screw up the courage to simply lean over and let go.

That’s what I’m doing.

I’m trying to get my courage up, because this is no belly flop I’m risking.
This is The Great Flush. This is down the tubes into Nothingness. And even the splash I’ll make will get sucked down after me, pulling all Creation down the tubes also.
I mean this is direct perception!

“That’s all folks!”
The Loony Tune would be over.
There’d be no more stuttering.
No one talking and no one watching.

…As it turns out, I not only made up the story but also the audience.

A Little Context

Chapelle des Petètes, 1740, France
Originally uploaded by Feuillu.

First a definition: “witnessing” is the experience that meditators sometimes have of feeling the self as separate from activity. Tolle calls it Presence. I think it arises in part from an experience of Silence.
(See also, Enlightenment & Witnessing, July 6th, 2006, or The Freeze Response, July 10, 2006.)

I was thinking about this “witnessing” that keeps throwing itself into my face. And now I am totally, utterly confused. It (both the witnessing and perplexity) has been going on for so long now it’s getting on my nerves.

Over a year ago Evie and I were talking about it. Laughing really, for the bottom line back then was, “I’m either enlightened or hypoglycemic.” And I really could not decide. Now, there is the forest of Over Thought Confusion and Clueless Ignorance if ever you want a museum specimen of such an animal.

So a week or so ago, I was reviewing the conversation in my ever thinking head and once again I was having a good laugh at how stupid can I be, when I noticed… for years now I have been watching the witnessing and trying to explain it away.

I spent months, if not an entire year, watching the hypoglycemia explanation until I was really sure, “No. That’s not the cause.” So after that, I seamlessly switched to another excuse: “decongestant medicine head.” I have come up with one culprit after another, until just last week it became “Candida metabolites” and I saw the pattern in my madness.

Then it hit me, “Why all the excuses?”
“Why not just except it?”

And with these two questions finally came an authentic answer which broke upon me in tears.
“I cannot accept that.”
I realized that if enlightenment were handed to me on a platter, I’d not be able to reach out and take it.

What a strange revelation. I could not accept that which I so long for.

Well, at least now we’re getting to some really useful stupidity.

I resolved to behave differently.
Instead of excuses, how about curiosity?
What can I find out about this witnessing?
What about this Gap between me and Creation?
I’ve started looking and stopped trying to explain.

A couple days later, I wrote out “Salle de Bain Sanity.” (I hope I spelled it right- if not- Oh well. It’s not the only mistake out there; is it.)

River of Dreams

Moonset 2
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao.

This is something of a total non sequitur, but I keep coming back to it, probably because I am up walking around just about every night in the middle of the night. And too, I discovered that a recent pre-dawn photo of the moon from my bathroom seems to be the perfect illustration.

So the story goes like this:
A few weeks ago, I was driving to work when this old Billy Joel song came on the radio. “River of Dreams” is a boppy little tune and so I was bopping along, singing happily. I hadn’t heard the tune in a long time and I don’t think I’d ever really noticed the words. Well, now I heard them and they hit home.

Later I googled the lyrics. And here, I have them edited for you, just to share and make my point.

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
From the mountains of faith
To the river so deep.
I must be looking for something
Something sacred I lost…

I’m a searcher for something
Taken out of my soul
Something I’d never lose
Something somebody stole.
But the river is wide
And it’s too hard to cross…

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep.
Through the jungle of doubt
To the river so deep.
I know I am searching for something
Something so undefined
That it can only be seen
By the eyes of the blind
In the middle of the night…

We all end in the ocean.
We all start in the streams.
We’re all carried along
By the river of dreams
In the middle of the night.

What’s he doing?
If you can, read these words without the tune.
These are not words to which I’d ordinarily happily bop along.

These are words to which I would most likely dramatically and tragically slowly progress, insisting to my self that surely someone will eventually notice and offer sympathy if not salvation.

But, you know, obviously, you don’t have to play it that way.
He doesn’t. They don’t.

(Here’s how Billy Joel does it on YouTube.)

And if you don’t have to, why do you?
Isn’t happy boppy better than slowly tragic and dramatic? (Feel free to cast your ballots)
And yes, This is a lesson regarding consciousness.

Yeah, That’s It.
And I think my moon through the magnolia is the perfect image- not too tragic… it’s the view from the toilet for god’s sake. And it’s not at all bad!

So enjoy.

The Quest

Ancient Nun
Originally uploaded by Arddu.

Well, I guess it’s time for me to get my act together and put something up for March. Perhaps not what I REALLY want to say, but hopefully something worth sharing.

To be specific, some thoughts (that I’ve edited down) on seeking by Adyashanti. Check out his website for the quote in it’s entirety.

"The quest for enlightenment is the quest for truth or reality. It’s not a quest for ideas about truth—that’s philosophy. And it’s not a quest to realize your fantasies about truth—that’s fundamentalized religion. It’s a quest for truth on truth’s terms. It’s a quest for the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence.

"In your quiet moments of honesty, you know that you are not who you present yourself as, or who you pretend to be. … One day you’re an indulgent, worldly person; the next a pure, spiritual lover of God. One moment you love your image of yourself, and the next you loathe it. On it goes, identified with one self-image after another, each as separate and false as the last.

"When this game of delusion gets boring or painful enough, something within you begins to stir… It is the intuition that there is truth, although you do not know what it is. But you know, you intuit that truth exists…

"Once you receive this intuition, this revelation, you will be compelled to find it. You will have no choice in the matter. You will have consciously begun the authentic quest for enlightenment, and there is no turning back. Life as you’ve known it will never be quite the same."

Seeking & the Chickadee

Where did that chickadee go?
Originally uploaded by Marc Shandro.

Adyashanti continues:

"A great Zen master said, “Do not seek the truth; simply cease cherishing illusions.” If there is a primary practice or path to enlightenment, this is it—to cease cherishing illusions. Seeking truth can be a game, complete with a new identity as a truth-seeker … But ceasing to cherish illusions is no game; it’s a gritty and intimate form of deconstructing yourself down to nothing. Get rid of all of your illusions and what’s left is the truth…

"As the master said, “Do not seek the truth.” But you can’t stop seeking just because some ancient Zen master said to. Seeking is an energy, a movement toward something. Spiritual seekers are moving toward God, nirvana, enlightenment, ultimate truth, whatever. To seek something, you must have at least some vague idea or image of what it is you are seeking. But ultimate truth is not an idea or an image or something attained anew. So, to seek truth as something objective is a waste of time and energy. Truth can’t be found by seeking it, simply because truth is what you are. Seeking what you are is as silly as your shoes looking for their soles by walking in circles…

"The energy of seeking will be there in one form or another until you wake up from the dream state. You can’t just get rid of it. You need to learn how to invert it and use the energy to deconstruct the illusions that hold your consciousness in the dream state. This sounds relatively simple, but the consequences can seem quite disorienting, even threatening. I’m not talking about a new spiritual technique here; I’m talking about a radically different orientation to the whole of your spiritual life… if you’re like most spiritually oriented people, your spirituality is your most cherished illusion. Imagine that."

So, that's it for now. I hope to be back to posting a bit more regularly again. Many misadventures to report!

Road Kill
Originally uploaded by tommy forbes.

Authentic Ignorance

From “Silence”

The mind hurls itself
into sacred questions.
But Silence remains
unmoved by the tantrums.
She asks only for nothing.

Nothing.

But you won’t give it to Her
because it is the last coin
in your pocket.
And you would rather
give her your demands than
your sacred and empty hands.

Adyashanti, in Emptiness Dancing.



I have been having tantrums quietly in the privacy of my own home.
To wit, tip of the iceberg: This Blog has not gone as planned.

When I began I thought that I’d be sharing some of the lessons I’d learned from my fairly intense, somewhat unique, and multi-decade experiences with meditation. This background, coupled with the fact that I’m a scientist by trade, training, and inclination, made me think that I was special and had something useful to offer.

Well, thank you.

It took awhile but what has become clear is that I simply have my own brand of ignorance and arrogance. (Ignorance and Arrogance: I should write a story about how the two met at a tea I hosted and they immediately lock-stepped into a tango… another time perhaps.)

As I was saying, I suppose we all bottle our ignorance in a somewhat unique yet generally universal form. But create a Blog in its honor?! The nerve!

Yeah. Yeah! I know, that’s called “branding.”

Oh, God! The ignorance rolls out non-stop it seems. P. Bralley taking up with “branding.” Does that mean I am finally in advertising!! Geeze.

I keep discovering the wabanga I have stepped in.
(Well, discovery is good. Wabanga is bad, said the Non-dualist.)

Anyway, today in the bathtub, it occurred to me that the byline under “Seeing for My Self” shouldn’t be “a scientist’s blah, blah ….,” but rather, “A Commentary on My Authentic Ignorance.”

What is Authentic Ignorance? It is the dribble from one whom:

1) Isn’t enlightened, yet dares to opine on the subject.
2) Knows full well that her troubles all stem from stories the ego spins out, yet continues spinning.
3) Then, upon seeing her own partaking of #1 and #2 proceeds to self flagellation with snappy little plastic bats… bang, bang, bang upon the head.
4) And finally, fully complicit in all of the above, spontaneously collapses into the laughter of self recognition and is lifted momentarily by a little wave of love.

I was pleased with this outline. Then I realized others call it “living the full catastrophe.”

OK- the Full Catastrophe, Authentic Ignorance.
Oh well.
That’s all I have to offer.

And thank you, Kalibhakta. I do enjoy this…
and promise to attempt to confine such catharsis in the future to my bathtub.

PS. Take a moment to click on the picture offered here. There’s a good commentary.
ENJOY.

Story People
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao.

Story People

I love this card from StoryPeople (a great little website- where you can sign up to receive the story of the day for free. Check the links.)

They come up with all these short pithy “stories” that have a rather amazing way of showing up at just the right time. Things like:

"I only promise the little things. The big things don't pay attention to what I want anyhow."

and

"this is a magical beast that holds the secret of light & shadow in a safe place in her heart & when it has been too long grey, she starts to dance & laugh & cry & sing & the sunlight fills her up & spills in wild abandon back into the world again"

or

"I finally settled on Buddhism, she said, but it's more than just a fashion statement. I've always done some of my best work in my bathrobe."

And then they add a drawing of these colorful people.

So, this Christmas having finally found my way through one hell, hard year I received this card, “…& there may be many things we forget in the days to come, but this will not be one of them,” which brought tears all round, and which I still hold onto and treasure…

Then the other day it hit me, “Story People” - we are the people who tell ourselves all these stories. Noble stories, funny stories, tragic stories… all these stories that Eckhart Tolle and Adyashanti have so clearly shown cause all the Trouble. All these stories that the ego spins to hold itself separate and special and ultimately ignorant. If I didn’t know for sure before, I do know now- just how subtle, delicious, seductive remaining ignorant can be.

So, what’s your favorite story?

I think mine regards “the seeker.”

But, that’s another story.

Thy Will not My Will

Trust
Originally uploaded by osbock.

When you allow awakeness in, you will find that it plays games with your life. It doesn’t move according to the agenda of the little me, the one who has all these ideas about this or that happening when you awake. The awakeness could care less about the agendas you have. It’s moving, and it’s not listening to what you want, and you are grateful that it’s not listening. You discover that it has its own movement, which I suppose is what real surrender is- following that movement. This is the real meaning of “Thy will be done.”

Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing, p13

Asleep in a Dream

Caught in the Web
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao.

It's only a vague memory now. Was it Mom singing "Asleep in a Dream" or was it Pop singing, "Asleep in the Deep? And did one of them play it on the piano? So long ago, but I still can hum the melody. Even at five it haunted my heart.

And over fifty years later I find I have made this painting. A child in cocoon. A child waiting to awake. A child caught in the strings and webs of life?

Mystics say it's just a dream from which we're waiting to awake.

I'm waiting.
I'm waiting.
I hear this melody playing upon my heart.

Abrupt and Sudden… a Commentary

Defining Boundaries
Originally uploaded by HatHome.

I’ve been asked to explain my understanding of the story of Abrupt and Sudden, which goes like this:

The lord of the south sea was Abrupt; the lord of the north sea was Sudden. From time to time Abrupt and Sudden got together in the territory of Primal Unity, and Primal Unity treated them very well.

Abrupt and Sudden planned to repay Primal Unity’s kindness.

They said, “People all have seven openings, through which they see, hear, eat, and breathe; Primal Unity alone has none. Let us make openings in Primal Unity.”

So every day they gouged out a hole. After seven days, Primal Unity died.


To me, this story is a lesson in not insisting upon poking holes or making divisions in something that by its very nature is Unity. In short, it urges us not to live in ignorance of our own state which is One with the Tao.

Abrupt and Sudden represent humans living only their relative, ever changing natures. Lords of the Seas, their consciousness is localized in the shallow, choppy waves of seas. They seem unaware of the silent depths of the true ocean- the territory of Primal Unity. So they insist upon trying to make Primal Unity appear just like themselves… a big mistake.

So upon first reading, to me, the story is about the interplay between the Absolute and Relative: the Unbounded, never changing and the Bounded, ever changing. So, you could say the story is about boundaries.

And that is why this story probably has its greatest impact emotionally on a more personal level, for “boundary issues” are played out in most personal relationships and are the grist for a lot of painful therapy. The impact of this pain, familiar to us all, is in this short story as boundaries are violated through innocent ignorance.

The story has this sweet feel going and then it says, “So everyday they gouged out a hole.” With that one word, “gouged,” things take on this whole other direction and feel. Gouge is not a nice word. It speaks of violence. It speaks of abuse.

Abrupt and Sudden, out of kindness, thought Primal Unity should be different. And they forced their ideas upon him.

How often have we received similar treatment? How often have we been the perpetrators?

Make no mistake- Everyday we give as surely as we get.

One Further Thought

Hole II. Rameswaram
Originally uploaded by entrelec.

“Perpetrator” is a heavy word.
So let me end with these additional words (abridged) from Pema Chöndrön’s “Awakening Loving-Kindness”:

[The Buddha] taught that there is a kind of innocent misunderstanding that we all share…as if we were in a dark room and someone showed us where the light switch was. It isn’t a sin that we are in a dark room. It’s just an innocent situation…

The innocent mistake… is that we are never encouraged to see clearly what is with gentleness. Instead there is a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should try to be better than we already are, that we should try to get away from painful things, and if we could just learn how to get away from painful things, then we would be happy. That is the innocent, naive misunderstanding that we all share, which keeps us unhappy.

Meditation is about seeing clearly… It’s seeing our emotions and thoughts just as they are right now… It’s about not trying to make them go away, not trying to become better than we are, but just seeing clearly with precision and gentleness…

The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself. … Our neurosis and wisdom are made of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom. Someone who is very angry also has a lot of energy; that energy is what’s so juicy … that’s the reason people love that person.

The idea isn’t to try to get rid of your anger, but to make friends with it, to see it clearly with precision and honesty, and also to see it with gentleness. …The gentleness involves not repressing the anger but also not acting it out. It is something much softer and more openhearted. … So whether its anger or craving or jealousy or fear or depression- whatever it might be- the notion is not to try to get rid of it, but to make friends with it. That means getting to know it completely… and… once you’ve experienced it fully, to let it go.

Jeanette Winterson: We Make a Difference

In the Wind
Originally uploaded by AZ Sun God.

My apologies to those I’ve promised “answers.” I’m working on them. Meanwhile, I came across this from the February column of the poet, Jeanette Winterson. (I’ll add a link to her.)

I love her spirit!

February:

I was reading about the polar bears today, and how we will have destroyed their habitat within our life-time. Meanwhile the oil-men are pleased because they are going to be able to drill into permafrost and run their 4x4’s for longer.

For the first time ever, I have momentarily given way to despair. I look at my geo-thermal heating system, and my eco-bulbs, and my recycling, and my half a bag of rubbish per week, and all the trees and hedging I’ve planted – not just now but over the years, and I feel like I’ve done nothing – or rather the something that I have done is nothing.

But I know I can’t think like that. No matter how little, no matter how pointless it seems it has to be done, because as well as the direct impact, there is something harder to quantify, which is a spirit of change. And that only happens when more and more of us believe that our efforts are worth the effort.

If one more person says to me ‘Ah but China… meaning so what’s the point of anything we do, I will stuff their smug, knowing despondent face in a bucket of low-fat yoghurt.

HOW WE LIVE MAKES A DIFFERENCE. If we fall victim to the ideology of apathy we go straight down into that Dante circle of Hell reserved for those ‘who wilfully live in sadness.’ The sad shake of the head, the worldly-wise shrug of the shoulders, what can we do? Answer – everything we can do, big and small, and bring up the kids to do better. There might still be time. I believe in second chances and miracles, whatever the weather, whatever the science. Oh God, give it a go. Who is to say for sure that it’s too late?

Speaking of Faith, HERE

It's a Small World
Originally uploaded by bubba trout.

A friend came for tea and a visit yesterday. After years of depression and exhaustion she's gone off her medication to simply be with what she feels. She is tired of doing "as she should." She's tired of being her “husband’s bracelet” at affairs where people speak of things that hold no interest for her. She wants to do what she has longed for since she was a little girl.

She wants to touch God.

And she is no longer going to be put off by lack of permission, a checklist of obligatory to do’s, nor the terrifying Nothing that she sees inside. She decided to do what makes her happy, despite her minister’s warning against self-indulgence.

So she came to tea and held Bennie in her lap and ran her fingers through his fur and bit into her first falafel.

So, here. Here is a poem to her courage. Here is tribute to her choice and to her path.

Here is for all of us.

I came by it via National Public Radio’s Speaking of Faith program on depression, the link to which you’ll find either below or under links.

Here

is a tree abundant with lemons, in dark midwinter. Here
is another instance of embrace, you call it
the ocean meeting the horizon. Here
is your chair, your orange cat, your cup of cranberry tea.
Here is the rain no one was sure would fall.
Here is the conversation, did you think
you wanted another? Here is your daughter
coming downstairs to call her dog, this dog,
who bounded into our lives the summer you thought
nothing so comical would ever again be possible.
Here is the love that seemed impossible, as much
in your hands as that rock you're holding,
picked from the crest of a hill you thought
you didn't have the strength enough to climb.
Here is your joy, that created itself
without your knowing it;
here is the sunlight pouring through leaves
of pyrocanthus, lush red berries, the last sunlight today
between layers of cloud & evening.
Here is the life you meant when you said
to your friends after the walk & the good
morning's work, I wish I were living
my days like this, & she
handed you the carrots she had peeled
only for you, just at that
moment, & smiled
at everything, & said to you, You are.

Anita Barrows poet, psychologist, and translator of Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God.

And in case I don’t get the link put in, here it is for Speaking of Faith in simple text:
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/newsletter/20041111_depression/

Everlasting Inheritance

Superboy
Originally uploaded by immortallyyours.

An Unfinished Poem by Adyashanti...

Listen now, or lose your life, for what I have to say is what you have imagined in quiet moments but have failed to realize in full. Perhaps you were too timid or astonished at the critical moments, or couldn’t find the courage to step through the veil of your frail life when the door was opened for you.

Or perhaps you wanted to keep your life as your own, and chose to hold onto a few pennies when you could have had gold. No matter, for yesterday has passed into the dust of remembered dreams, and tomorrow’s story is yet to be written.

Which is precisely why you and I are now here together. You and I. You and I. Oh, the sheer mystery of it—how could anything be more grand? Stand with me here at the precipice and take my hand in yours, for I am good company to those ready to depart familiar ground. If not, then let loose of my hand now and take that of a more familiar companion. For where we stand is known, but our next step will not be—nor the one after or the one after that.

So shoulder all of your longing and intent and leave all else behind. I give you fair warning: The world you are about to leave will not be there when you return. For nothing truly left behind is ever the same upon our return. Let us not waste any more time on discussions or debates; you have surely been caught in those tide pools too long already. Too much talk is wearying to the soul and evades the spirit of things. Longing is the true measure of a man or woman and alone has the power to draw us out of ourselves and into the vast air of eternity. But we shall not rely only on the winds of longing, for they can be fickle and unpredictable. We shall also need the fire of intent—that fine-tipped arrow of courage flying true and straight to its goal, piercing through the fabric of our dreams as it goes.

This is as fair a day as any to begin the journey back to your origin. So lift your foot together with mine and we will step off the well-trodden paths and into the uncharted woods where the essence of things lies waiting for you to open your eyes.

Adyashanti, 2006.

This is the first half of his poem. It blew my heart wide open.
Please see his Teachings on his website if you’d like to read more. There is a link… under “LINKS.”

CRANE WIFE

Crane Wife
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao.

The Decemberists: The Crane Wife was voted the best CD of 2006 by the listeners of National Public Radio’s program “All Things Considered.” The album was inspired by a Japanese folk tale, and centers on two song cycles, The Crane Wife and The Island, the latter of which was inspired by William Shakespeare's The Tempest.

The Crane Wife has also inspired me. I have shortened the Decemberists’ lyrics to the version I give here. I played the song repeatedly as I made this painting- from the scan of a Korean coin out of my cookie jar and some sheet metal I found in the middle of the highway we take to go sailing…in the summer.

It was a cold night
And the snow lay 'round
I pulled my coat tight
Against it falling down
And the sun was all...
the sun was all down.

I am a poor man
I haven't wealth nor fame
I have my two hands
and a house to my name
And the winter's so...
the winter's so long.

And all the stars were crashing 'round
As I laid eyes on what I'd found.

It was a white crane
It was a helpless thing
Upon a red stain
With an arrow in its wing
and it called and cried...
it called and cried so.

And now I helped her
now I dressed her wounds
And I held her
Beneath the rising moon
As she stood to fly...
she stood to fly away

My crane wife.


While there are many variations of the old Japanese tale, a common version is that a poor man finds an injured crane on his doorstep, takes it in and nurses it back to health. After releasing the bird, a woman appears at his doorstep with whom he falls in love and marries. Because they need money, his wife offers to weave wondrous clothes out of silk that they can sell at the market, but only if he agrees never to watch her making them. They begin to sell them and live a comfortable life, but he soon makes her weave them more and more. Oblivious to his wife's diminishing health, his greed increases. He eventually peeks in to see what she is doing to make the silk she weaves so desirable. He is shocked to discover that at the loom is a crane plucking feathers from her own body and weaving them into the loom. The crane, seeing him, flies away and never returns.

(Thanks to Wikipedia for this Info.)

Abrupt and Sudden

odd ornamental ball
Originally uploaded by Rob E.

Finishing up my breakfast this morning I spied on the corner of the table my copy of Cleary’s The Taoist Classics, Volume I. I picked it up thinking that I needed to put it away. “Nothing useful here.”

Then I noticed that I’d attached a little stickum tag to the edge of one page. “What is this?”

Opening the book, I smiled. I had forgotten Chuan-tzu’s story of Abrupt and Sudden.
It bears repeating, sharing, living non-forgotten:

The lord of the south sea was Abrupt; the lord of the north sea was Sudden. From time to time Abrupt and Sudden got together in the territory of Primal Unity, and Primal Unity treated them very well.

Abrupt and Sudden planned to repay Primal Unity’s kindness.

They said, “People all have seven openings, through which they see, hear, eat, and breathe; Primal Unity alone has none. Let us make openings in Primal Unity.”

So every day they gouged out a hole. After seven days, Primal Unity died.

Bones of Light

belated quietly nonetheless so real
Originally uploaded by purple freedom.

So, we passed a year yesterday.
At 7 a.m. I thought, "A year ago today I was screaming in the phone..."

A lot can happen in a year. So much so things can become almost unrecognizable. Still, there is continuity.

A couple days ago, Becky sent me this. It was the story of the day from "Story People." And this is what it said:

Bones of Light

I remember we sat in the swing on the front porch & as the dusk came on us like a song, dark throated & sweet, he told me about the beginning when we had bones of light & hair that burned like the sun & I asked what happened then? & I felt him floating there in the soft dark & finally he said we forgot & I said I never would, but sometimes I do & I understand now why he put his arm around me & said nothing more.

I am not sure I understand this story, not the words. But I do understand something of it. Something deep down inside beyond words and all the thinking.

Thich Nhat Hanh tells a story

Azalea & Bath Paint
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao.

The other night I heard an interview of Thich Nhat Hanh on the radio. By way of introduction they explained that during the Viet Nam War, he participated in the Paris Peace talks. After the war he was expelled from his home country- because he had firmly refused to choose a side, and so he came to live in France, establishing Plum Village.

“Thay” as his students call him, is over eighty now. I did not know that.
I did not know that Martin Luther King had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
I did not know what Thich Nhat Hanh really teaches.

I did know that I love to listen to his voice. So soft, so gentle, so very much at peace, and so very filled with kindness.

So, I went online to find some of Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings. They do exist there.
But what I’d like to share is this simple story that I found.
Through it, I hope you’ll have the opportunity to simply hear his voice.

No heady lesson here. This is a chance for the learning that goes straight to the heart bypassing intellect, as Thich Nhat Hanh is “being peace.”

The Beginning of a Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh in Plum Village, France.

Today is the 28th of July 1998, and we are in the Upper Hamlet. We are going to speak English today.

When I was a small boy, at the age of seven or eight, I happened to see a drawing of the Buddha on the cover of a Buddhist magazine. The Buddha was sitting on the grass, very peacefully, very beautifully, and I was very impressed. The artist must have had a lot of peace within himself, so that when he drew the Buddha, the Buddha was so peaceful. Looking at the drawing of the Buddha made me happy, because around me people were not very calm, or very happy. When I saw the drawing of the Buddha I was very impressed, and I suddenly had the idea that I wanted to become someone like him, someone who could sit very still and peacefully. I think that was the moment that I first wanted to become a monk, but I did not know that. I wanted to be like the Buddha.

You know that the Buddha is not a god, the Buddha was just a human being like all of us, and he suffered very much as a teenager. He saw the suffering in his kingdom, he saw how his father King Suddhodana was trying hard to make the suffering less, but he seemed to be helpless. So the political way did not seem to him to be a very effective one. As a teenager the young Siddhartha was trying to find a way out of the situation of suffering. He was always searching and searching for the way. I think that today many young people also do as the young Siddhartha did: you look around yourselves, you don’t see anything really beautiful, really good, and really true, so you are confused. You are searching, looking very hard to see whether there is something really beautiful, really good or really true to embrace and follow.

I was very young, and yet I did have that kind of feeling in me. That is why, when I saw the drawing of the Buddha, I was so happy. I just wanted to be like him. And I was told that if you practice well, you can be like a Buddha. The Buddha is not a god; the Buddha is just a human being like us. Anyone that is peaceful, loving and understanding can be called a Buddha. There were many Buddhas in the past, there are Buddhas in the present moment, and there will be many Buddhas in the future. Buddha is not the name of someone; Buddha is just a common name, to designate someone who has a high degree of peace, who has a high degree of understanding and compassion.

When I was about eleven, I went for a picnic on the mountain of Na Son, together with several hundred boys and girls from my school. I was very excited about that picnic, because I learned that we were going to climb the mountain Na Son, and on the top was a monk, who lived there as a hermit and practiced in order to become a Buddha. I had had picnics before, but this one was so special, because I knew that if I climbed to the top of the mountain I would see the hermit, see someone who was practicing in order to become like a Buddha. So that was my secret hope, to be able to meet with the hermit. A hermit is someone who practices alone, who does not want to be disturbed, and who wants to devote all of his time to the practice.

At that time I did not know anything about the practice of mindful breathing, or mindful walking; I did not know what walking meditation was. We organized in teams of five boys, and we brought with us a few bottles of boiled water, and rice balls. We squeezed cooked rice into the shape of bread, and it was so compact that you could cut the rice into slices, and you would eat your rice with sesame seeds, crushed roast peanuts, and a little bit of salt. I think that in Plum Village you’ll have to organize that kind of picnic some day--just a slice of rice, eaten with sesame seeds—it’s very delicious. Since I did not know how to practice walking meditation, we tried to climb as quickly as possible. We got very tired. We had hardly come halfway up the mountain before we were exhausted, and the worse thing was that we had drunk all our water. We got very thirsty. So we tried our best, and when we had climbed to the top, we were completely exhausted, and thirsty; and we were given the order to prepare our picnic.

I did not care a lot about eating. I wanted to go and look for the hermit. But it was very disappointing—someone told me that the hermit was not there. Imagine my disappointment! A hermit is someone who wants to be alone in his hut. Imagine…he learned that three or four hundred children were coming! So he must have gone somewhere and hidden himself. I believed that the hermit was still somewhere there in the woods, and that if I ventured into the woods I might have a chance to see him and talk to him. So I left my friends, my copains, there, and I went alone into the forest. The forest was large, and there was not much chance of meeting someone who wanted to hide himself in it.

A few minutes after I went into the forest, I began to hear the sound of dripping water. The sound was so clear, so nice--like the sound of a piano. It was so interesting that I tried to go in the direction of the sound. Very soon after that I discovered a very beautiful natural well, made of blocks of stone. The water was very high, and when I saw the water, so clear, so refreshing, I was so happy, because I was extremely thirsty. To see the water was something wonderful. So I came close to the well, I looked down, and I could see every detail at the bottom of the well. The water was so limpid. I used my hand to cup the water and I drank it. It was so delicious, I cannot describe to you how delicious it was. I had never drunk anything like that. Believe me, it was much better than Coca-Cola, even Coca-Cola with ice.

After having drunk the water from the well, I felt completely satisfied. At that time I could not describe my feeling, but now I think I can describe my feeling: it was the feeling of being completely satisfied, when you don’t have any more desire, even the desire to meet the hermit. Very strange—why? Because in that moment, as a small boy, I believed that the hermit had transformed himself into a well so that I could meet him privately, in a kind of private audience with the hermit. You know, I had been reading a lot of fairy tales, so I really believed that the hermit had transformed himself into a well so that I could meet him personally. So I felt very privileged; I felt that I was the only one who could have that wonderful opportunity of meeting the hermit. Then I sat very close to the stones, and I lay down and looked at the sky. The sky was very blue. I remember also seeing a few leaves of a branch that was close by, hanging across the sky. Just a minute later, I fell into a very deep sleep.

I don’t know how long I slept, but the sleep must have been very deep, because when I woke up I did not know where I was. I had to look around to realize that I was on the top of the Na Son Mountain The space was so special, the circumstances so special: I alone was allowed into that space to have that wonderful encounter with the hermit in the form of a well. I did not want to leave the well. I wanted to stay up there, but I remembered that my friends must have been waiting for me. I had just suddenly disappeared, and that could have made them very worried. So I had to leave the natural well with a lot of regret. On my way down, suddenly a sentence came to my head, not in Vietnamese, but in French: "I have tasted the most wonderful water in the world." That water may symbolize a kind of spiritual experience.

When I arrived, my friends asked me where I had been. I did not say anything—I did not tell them anything. I don’t know why. It seems that I wanted to keep the event as something sacred, I did not want to share. I had the impression that if I told them about that, I would lose something. That is why I was not talkative at all, that afternoon. You know, my first experience with a Buddha was seeing the drawing on the cover of a Buddhist magazine, of someone sitting on the grass, very peacefully. My second encounter with the Buddha was when I was on the top of the Mountain Na-Son, and drinking the water from that natural well. Later on, when I was twelve, I made the determination that I would ask permission of my mother and father to become a monk, and I kept that secret for many years. It was when I was about sixteen that I formally made a request, and it was very fortunate that my parents agreed.

I have met my hermit in the form of a well. You may have met your hermit also, but you might not have recognized it. Your hermit may have been in the form of a tree, a rock, or a person. I think the moment when we meet the hermit of our life we are transformed, we know where to go. That was my case--when I met my hermit, I knew where I had to go. That is why I asked my parents to allow me to become a monk. Becoming a monk is just one way; there are many other ways that are equally beautiful. So I wish that every one of you here would be able to meet your hermit very soon. And you must be very attentive in order not to miss him, because you might meet him, and yet not recognize him. The hermit can appear to you at any time. But if you are mindful, if you are attentive, when your hermit appears, you will be able to recognize him at once. It would be a joy for me if, someday when you meet the hermit, you will write me a letter, saying "Thay, today I have met my hermit, and I’m very happy, I know where to go now." Don’t forget to do that.

Strange Thoughts, Strange Blessing

pool_feet
Originally uploaded by backyard_flower.

I’ve been having strange thoughts. So, what else is new? Well, these are stranger than most the odd things rolling round inside my head. These thoughts, coming unbidden have made me sit up and pay attention.

The first strange one occurred a few months ago. I was soaking in the tub and staring at the bathroom tiles. They are this retro light lime green. They are quite a contrast to the floor with its 5” X 5” black and white squares. This is not a bathroom interior I’d have ever chosen. I bought this house for the kitchen area. But, the bathroom tiles have grown on me. They’re actually kind of soothing and I've fallen into the habit of lying in the tub and staring at the tile and the play of light on white porcelain accessories. I find this practice soothing, yet the scene feels unfamiliar. It doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. So while I lay there soaking, relaxed, yet puzzled by the lack of familiarity I had the thought, “Who are you?”

I didn’t see the answer coming and it shocked me by its radical strangeness: “I am a habit waiting to be dropped.”

Having heard myself think that, I shifted in the tub.

What did I meant by that? I'm a habit?

I had realized in that moment that I maintained my entire existence simply due to habit, and somewhere deep inside I was getting ready to just let that go of doing that.

The insight worried me. It hinted at more change than I felt comfortable admitting. If I were to drop the maintenance it felt like everything would dissappear. Ooooh, dear!

But, as I say, that was months ago and as far as I can tell, I haven’t dropped a thing- aside from the usual tubes and caps and other small things you really want to hold onto.

Strange Thought Number Two

mousehouse
Originally uploaded by karto#.

Then a couple days ago at work I was wandering through the building connected to our own. I was trying to track down some guy whom I had never met and who’s name I couldn’t pronounce. I was being forwarded from person to person, lab to lab, in something of a wild goose chase. Finally I’d found him, concluded my business, and started back through the labyrinth of hallways and labs, when I came upon another woman. Even from a distance I could see that she was lost and going to ask for help. She was obviously lost, and just as obviously I knew I wouldn’t have her answer. But, here we go. Let's play it out. I was already grinning at her when she met my eye.

“Where’s the ladies room?” she asked.

I had no idea. Except I did know of one way the heck down this hall and over the bridge and… I was still explaining when she interrupted.

“Oh, here it is.”

“Or, you could use this one.” I was still smiling inside as I walked on, now examining how the room numbers were on these plates that stuck out into the corridor. I was just walking along really noticing how they’d built the building, when I had the next strange thought.

It wasn’t really a “thought.” It was more a tactile experience and vision, a direct perception of my internal state. “Something” not quite immaterial came up from my belly buzzed around my brain and then exited from my forehead. Outside of me this flow of “something” became the very building I was examining.

I thought, “This is all my own creation.”

And by “This” I meant not only the building but also my body and the whole Big Bang Shebang. I also felt how very tenuous this act of creating all Creation was. I could feel the effort incurred in the “bringing forth.” While not really that big a push, it still required energy. And have I ever mentioned how basically lazy that I am? I can't see doing this forever.

But then my next thought was, “Ohhh! That’s how God did it in the beginning.”

And then I thought, “Uh oh!”

The implications in the whole gestalt were too big headed. I didn’t feel like going there.

I took another tack. “Of course! That's what you think you see, because that’s what your brain does. It creates what you experience.” I am just me, aware of the tweeking that it takes to have your senses function. And I got to wondering if "enlightened vision" consists (in part?) of being able to see deeply into what your nervous system does.

Strange Thought Number Three

Accidental Angel and Fish Spirit Search For Survivors Dispense Blessings
Originally uploaded by B I R D.

(Less you think all my strange thoughts involve a bathroom.)

We now get to the last strange thought to date.

Last night I was lying in bed, in the process of going to sleep. As usual, I'm lying there and talking to myself. I've no recollection about what. But, I happened to ask myself, “Are you happy?”

My first response was "yes." However, that didn’t seem quite accurate. But, upon reflection neither did a simple, “No.”

Again, I didn’t see the answer coming.

It rose up out of my gut presenting my conclusion to the sincere inquiry, "Am I... what, what?" The answer wasn’t even a thought at first. But taking words on to describe itself, I heard perhaps the strangest thought of all, “I don’t exist.”

I jumped back to, "Well, I'm pretty happy. Mostly happy. Happier than a while ago. ... I don't exist?"

Strange Blessing

Order
Originally uploaded by musicmuse_ca.

Of course I do exist.
But, those words coming up force a moment’s self reflection.
I don’t seem so attached to the “me and mind” of life that now surrounds me.

Last year so much of my external world was stripped from me. I lost my little dog of 15 years. I lost my partner of 20 years. I lost the house in which we'd lived for almost as long. I lost the "we" and became much more an "I."

I’ve tried hard to replace things. The new retro-bathroom replaced the Arts and Crafts. Somethimes when Bennie puts his muzzle up against my face and his soft breath warms my cheeks< I get confused and think it's Annie. But he’s not her. And I try to keep that straight and love him for his own sweet being. Becky and I still talk almost every day and get along just fine. But she’s no longer there when I settle down to sleep. She’s not there in the morning. She’s not there to share all the little comments on the daily do.

So much is no longer there.

The world I lived in a year ago no longer exists. Memories grow distant almost exponentially. And in its place are those light mint tiles.

Silent, cool and still too new to really register as “mine.”

A while back, Becky asked me if I could find any blessing in our having parted. Well, I could make a short list if pressed. But intellectual understanding aside, in all honesty it hasn’t felt that great. I’d not have chosen this. My new life was forced upon me by Becky, and through her by the Universe. And you have to go with what you get.

But then, all these strange thoughts started; strange thoughts that are actually goods signs of going deeper, good signs of waking up.

I think that removing so much of the structure from my life has removed much of what I have falsely identified as “me.”

I've had a cleansing of the windows of perception allowing my true self to shine through more unavoidably.

It can be the Strangest Blessing.

I think of the people in New Orleans. I think of my friend, Mary. Huge, gruel loss may be a universal. I believe the term Adyashanti applied to this quality of the Universe is “ruthlessly caring.” I’ve been talking with Mary about it being “radical.” I think that word encapsule enough challenges for me.

Such a blessing. Radical and strange. Lose just enough to strip your soul naked, but not enough to make you just give up… Not that Mary and the folks from New Orleans have been defeated. It’s just that some folks seem to have to stagger on through desolation longer.

I was lucky. I was blessed.
I got the Momma Bear chair of grief, “Just right.”

How Very Strange In Deed

come closer.
Originally uploaded by solecism.

Adyashanti’s Winter Newsletter has thoughts that bear upon all this. They are entitled “Everything Comes Back to Nothing.” Here’s a shortened version of what he said:

Inexplicably it comes. When you least expect it. For a reason you can never know. One moment you are striving, figuring, imagining, and then, in the blink of an eye, it all disappears. The struggle disappears. The striving disappears. The person disappears. The world disappears. … Only awareness remains. Nothing else. …

Then everything- all the struggle, all the striving, all the thinking, all the figuring, all the surrendering, all the letting go, all the grabbing hold of, all the praying, all the begging, all the cursing too- was just a distraction. And only then is it seen that the person was, is, and ever will be no more than a thought. With a single thought, the person seems to reemerge. With more thoughts, the world seems to reemerge right out of nothing. But now you know.

The incarnation is nothing more than a thought. A thousand incarnations are but a thousand thoughts. And this amazing miracle of a mirage we call the world reappears as it was before, but now you know. That’s why you usually have a good laugh, because you realize that all your struggles were made up. You conjured them out of nothing…

And so at times we talk, and I pretend to take your struggles seriously, just as I pretend to take my own seriously… We are making up whether we need to hold on or surrender or figure it out or pray to God or be purified or have karma cleansed- it’s all a thought… There is only what you create and believe to be so. And if you like it that way, have at it!

But we cannot continue this absolute farce indefinitely…It’s impossible. Everything comes back to nothing.

And then it’s a bit harder to hold a straight face consistently for the rest of your life.
Adyashanti, Pacific Grove, CA. 2006

Walking in the Air

Walking in the Air
Originally uploaded by JumpinJack.

Or, as I originally started this …What is going on here?

Having had insomnia for months now, I have gotten in the habit of listening to the radio in the middle of the night. Tuned into NPR, the classical station has introduced me to some beautiful music. Recently, it was “Walking in the Air.” Unable to remember all the orchestral and boy soprano info, I tried first to track the CD down at Borders during Christmas shopping. I failed. Christmas in Vienna with Sarah Brightman and Placido Domingo was sold out. So was the new age piano version by George Winston. And after that the listings got strange. Older- 1980’s or Western- Kenny Rogers.

So today I tried again, this time with Amazon.com. Nothing was quite right. Most CDs were too Christmasy or instrumental. I wanted that cutting boy soprana I had heard in the middle of the night. To my surprise it was a celtic woman’s CD that proved to be the exact version that I wanted. When I heard Chloe Agnew’s “Walking in the Air” I burst into tears. She had simply sliced my heart open.

Still, I hesitated. The CD over all was pretty slow. I figured it would ultimately just depress me.
I kept searching. I found the Wikipedia entry which gives background and a rather complete anthology: "Walking in the Air" is a song written for the animated short, The Snowman, which was broadcast on TV in 1983, published on videotape, DVD, released as a single and LP. In the second part of The Snowman story, the boy and the snowman fly to the North Pole. "Walking in the Air" is the theme for the journey. It also gave the words. The only words in the entire soundtrack:

We’re walking in the air
We’re floating in the moonlit sky
The people far below are sleeping as we fly
I’m holding very tight
I’m riding in the midnight blue
I’m finding I can fly so high above with you
Far across the world

The villages go by like dreams
The rivers and the hills
The forests and the streams
Children gaze open mouth
Taken by surprise
Nobody down below believes their eyes

We’re surfing in the air
We’re swimming in the frozen sky
We’re drifting over icy
Mountain floating by
Suddenly swooping low on an ocean deep
Arousing of a mighty monster from its sleep
We’re walking in the air
We’re floating in the midnight sky
And everyone who sees us greets us as we fly

Well, you have to hear the music for the full effect.

And I continued to google on until I came somehow to YouTube.

What was this? There’s a video clip of a rock concert. Longhairs, tee-shirts, drums, roar of the crowd and this guy is dedicating the next song to a dear friend. He comes and hugs. A woman in long flowing white gown takes the blackened stage, cups the microphone in her hands and sings, “We’re walking in the air…”

I scroll down. Another video: A punked out Asian girl is distorted by leaning so close to the camera. She’s cupping… a karoke ? mic and singing out of key with complete earnestness, “We’re walking in the air…”

I scroll down some more. Yet another Nightwish video. Appparently this rock band in Europe has made a version with a montage of painted and photographed images to accompany their rendition. It’s all about(to my mind) incredible night skys but in the last third, during the refrain, the images switch to different cultures: Asian, Native American.

What is going on here?

Boy soprano, opera star, old cartoon Holiday special, rock concert, and karoke. Not just here on Atlanta's PBS radio, but in Europe, Asia… the images made it clear… all around the world people are being caught up by this old song. They’re singing in every way shape and form, “We’re walking in the air…”

So, what is going on here? I think I know...

Hearts are being opened. Longing and desire, hopes so very private and tender you only dare to let them out cushioned by the darkness of the night are finally being freed. And it seems that in every one of those hearts there is hope and longing to transcend borders, boundaries, gravity.

This is one expression of spiritual awakening, the stirring of our souls.

For walking in the air… the spirit taking flight in simply shear delight (sorry, I started singing) …flying in the air is the time honored dream image of spiritual longing.

And we- you, me and the whole human population of this planet need to know that anything is possible if we just wake up.

We need to realize that hearts are being opened. And in that act there is always hope.

And I do hope your computer can connect to YouTube and see the video.
I’ll try to get that link up and going. …anything is possible.

And PS: After writing this, I went to Flickr for an image. Click on it. I promise I didn't fiddle with the entry in the slightest way. I tell you, the dream is everywhere.

Stick Snap

Stick Snap
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao.

Happy New Year!

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to my new Blog site. It’s not really meant to be a chatty place. Rather, it’s meant to be an online gallery where I can share my paintings and images. I call it Silence: A Gallery.

The name is meant to emphasize that what I am attempting in my art is to awaken the experience of Silence in others. Silence is the form in which I most readily experience the Absolute. Some have called it Zen mind. I’m not sure the words or exact term matters. What matters is the experience.

But, by way of commentary, I do offer these words by Edward Readicker Henderson which I have excerpted from his article, “The Sounds of Silence,” that appears in the Jan/Feb 2007 issue of Spirituality and Health.

Holding very still, I listen, hard.
Some people say they have heard the northern lights, a crackling like sheets from the dryer and full of static.
I don’t hear anything.
And that makes me wonder: what else am I not hearing? …

Sounds arise, fall away, as transient as the breath itself. From where I sit, writing on my back porch, I hear the scratch of my pen on the paper, the neighbor’s radio, the creak of my oak chair when I lean back. The jet buzz of a rufus hummingbird punctuating the chirp of at least three other kinds of birds I can’t name.

I feel stupid for having no words to describe their sounds, no language that can even meet theirs with understanding…

I hear buses rumble by past a block away.
I cannot hear the slightest trace of the butterfly that flits its pale wings over the vast expanse of my unmowed lawn. Not the slightest trace.

What else am I missing?…

If I sit hear long enough, will I hear a sound that suddenly makes it all make sense, the tracer bullet of enlightenment hitting me right in the third eye?

Or will I simply hear butterfly winds?

Zen master Dongshen wrote, “How extraordinary! How extraordinary! The insentient express the Way! How mysterious! If you listen with your ears, it is incomprehensible. If you hear sounds with the eyes, it is truly knowable.”

So I invite you to visit Silence: a Gallery. (I've added a link to the links list.) Perhaps you will experience some hint of what awaits discovery when "you hear sounds with the eyes."

Namaste and Happy New Year.

No Such Thing as a True Story

No Such Thing as a True Story
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao.

I received a small book for Christmas, Awakening Loving Kindness, by Pema Chödrön. One chapter in it is entitled “No Such Thing as a True Story.” She begins by recalling that in Taoism there’s the saying, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.” And then explains that another way to say this is, “As soon as you begin to believe in something, then you no longer see anything else.”

Well, now, this is interesting to me. I believe in a lot of things. And so I started thinking before I read another word. Pema Chödrön however took the discourse in another direction.

“Holding on to beliefs limits our experience of life. That doesn’t mean that beliefs or ideas or thinking is a problem; the stubborn attitude of having to have things a particular way, grasping on to our beliefs and thoughts, all these cause the problems… You want to have something to hold on to, you want to say, ‘Finally I have found it…’ This is a human thing. But in Buddhism there is a teaching… It says, ‘If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha.’ This means that if you can find Buddha and say, ‘It’s this way; Buddha is like this,’ then you had better kill that ‘Buddha’…”

So how does one do this? Pema admits that the approach sounds pretty aggressive. But, she describes it as requiring the ultimate of non-aggression. It requires one to “look ones beliefs straight in the face, honestly and clearly, and then step beyond them. That requires a lot of heart and kindness.”

“When you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha, means that when you see that you’re grasping or clinging to anything whether conventionally it’s called good or bad, make friends with it completely and utterly. In that way it will let go of itself.”

She then tells the story of a god who knew that people love to believe things to be true. So, the god to provide a teaching and have a bit of fun created a large hat. It was brilliant blue on one side and flaming red on the other side. He then walked straight down the middle of a road that had many people working in the fields on either side. All the people stopped work and stared in amazement at the god. Afterwards amidst much talk and excitement, “Did you see the god!!” the people compared stories. It was then they discovered that some thought god wore a blue hat while others were equally convinced that god wore a red hat. Walls were built. Arguments, rock throwing, name calling ensued.

“Then the god appeared again. This time he stood in the middle and turned to the left and then he turned around to the right, and everyone started to laugh.”

May we remember this lesson in the year to come. May we remember it as individuals living amongst our family and friends. May we remember it as a nation as we live in a world increasingly violated by those who believe in God.

And may we also remember these words of Adyashanti:

“…the goal of Buddhism is to create Buddhas, not Buddhists, as the goal of Christianity is to Christs, not Christians.”

I also invite you to click on the picture and read about it. I really like it.

Christmas Spirit

Christmas is almost here.

Christmas Spirit
Originally uploaded by markcveitch.

Since a picture is worth a 1000 words and I have no words to share just now, I thought I'd post some nice photos from the folks at Flickr.

If you click on the image you can see a larger view and read the photographer's comments. You can also (if you have the time) explore the links offered up by this person. It leads to words within worlds... and alot of beauty.

My love to you, and have a very Merry Christmas.

Patty

Proud Mary

proud mary
Originally uploaded by Elan Photography.

orphan tree

orphan tree
Originally uploaded by Veronika Lake.

Hospitality*

Hospitality*
Originally uploaded by imapix.

If a Tree Falls in the Forest and There's No One Around to Make A Buck Is It Still Christmas?

If a Tree Falls in the Forest and There's No One Around to Make A Buck Is It Still Christmas? - II
Originally uploaded by xylonets.

Caught in the Snow

Caught in the Snow
Originally uploaded by creativity+.

Words of Christmas and the Baby

Originally uploaded by abhayah~.

Becky and I celebrated our twentieth Christmas early this year because soon she’ll be off to other climes with someone else she now calls, “Baby.”

We three have given one another a rather surreal year. And while I’m not sure if “surreal” is the most appropriate word to use, we could certainly start there if we agree to throw in pain, rage, turmoil, fear, insanity, sailing on the water, learning about love and blessedness as well.

Nothing has been easy. Not even last night, though we knew that we were now arriving at our own version of “Peace on Earth.” Still, emotions were at such a pitch twice we had to stop and recompose, forcing Baby finally to ask, “Are we going to do this every year?” Those were just the words we needed. They broke crying off into bashful laughter.

Then this morning, I came across these words by Jeanette Winterson. She’s a poet and of course much better with her words than I. These particular ones are from her December comments and they seem to put the events of “we three’s trials and tribs” into a larger context of the Season. So I pass them on to you. Perhaps you’ll find something of yourself amidst her sentiments.

Jeanette Winterson: ….it doesn’t matter what God you worship, if any, what matters is how you approach the spiritual life – what TS Eliot called, ‘a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.’…

Some people find that any religious poem or piece of music or painting feels closed to them, but that is usually because the piece has become too overlaid with ideology, or stolen for some false purpose, or that we ourselves lack the courage or the patience to see though the wrapper… [But]… if Christmas is to have any meaning – and it should – let it be its own message, and not one of fake sentiment or religiosity. The birth of Jesus is about new life, new beginnings, new possibilities, and it happens not when everything is going well, or in a 5 star hotel, or when we’ve just won the lottery, but in there with the animal feed, in the stable, cold and dark and unprepared for. This is a no-frills moment. Anyone can be generous and easy when everything is perfect – but a new chance, for yourself or others, just doesn’t usually happen that way.

Change, when it comes, is often uncomfortable and not at all how we imagined it. The clichés and the sentiment aren’t present in the Christmas Story – we added all that later. An unmarried mother gives birth in a stable – try that now and the tabloids would be after you as unfit, the child would be taken into care and Joseph would be named and shamed – and given a DNA test.

It is an uncomfortable story, and one that is worth a close reading. The moment, when it happens, is never easy, and the miracle we say we long for brings as many problems as it solves, because it demands an entire re-configuration of who we are.

(... And if you still have a few moments to doodle round the blog, return to the photo I selected here. Click on it and view it large sized on the Flickr website. I love the little shed reflected in the red bulb. And the snow flurries coming down... lovely world is captured here. Enjoy!)

When Your Heart Bursts

Azalea & Bath Paint
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao.

I wanted a photo to illustrate some words of Adyashanti's that I came across today regarding the relationship between student and teacher. When I got to this particular part I burst into tears. Why? ...I think it was desire. So, here is what I read:

Adya: Most people come to satsang to hear what I have to say. I ought to give them popcorn and coke and send them off to the movies. It would be cheaper, and the seats are more comfortable.

Q: So why should we come here to satsang?

A: Because your heart wants to burst open, your mind wants to crack, and you are ready to die for freedom.


... probably you haven't had as strong a reaction as I did. But anyway, there it is.

I went on with my day too. I "had" to work on my "paintings." One result, I'm posting this picture which is the photo I posted earlier today (see the next entry below this one) now transformed by what I put it through.

It's curious to me.

I printed the photo out on special paper and then did my chop and squiggle thing and then scanned it back into the computer. It looks diferent now. The picture has "gone through me." Both it and I were transformed a bit. The change is visible in the image. You'll have to take my word about myself, about a heart that wants to burst and a mind that needs to crack... and as for the dying... that happens on its own if you do the first two right.