Witnessing from the Heart

Gel 1, a photo by Seeking Tao on Flickr.

…the spaciousness of Awareness is a different aspect of awareness. There is also the agape.
Adyashanti

I want to try to get down some description of this year’s retreat with Adyashanti. He changed the format a bit from previous years. For one thing he led a guided meditation each day. One meditation I particularly liked tuned us into “the different aspects of Awareness.”

This started with the head – waking up on the level of mind as it is sometimes called, leads to experiencing a great spaciousness - and experience of one aspect of awareness. By contrast, when that wakefulness drops down to be centered in the heart, things feel very different. Before I left for the retreat I was just tumbling to what might be involved. In “witnessing from the head” (or what seems to be what's usually refrred to as witnessing) there is a radical duality of witness and the rest of the world.

In witnessing from the heart, that distance is simply too painful to endure. The heart insists upon closing the gap – a gap cuased by judgments, denials – all the human pettinesses seem to become intolerable and start burning up within this fire of heart ripped wide open… or so it was beginning to appear to me.
As Adya led us into awareness from the heart the experience was much gentler.
I thank Evelyn Rodriquez for these quotes from Adya which give you something of the flavor:


There's a type of awareness that's very connected to the heart. There's an awareness most people are used to that is connected to the mind--it's a sterile, alert awareness. If someone asked us, 'Are we listening?' We'd say, 'Yes I am listening.' But it's a listening from the neck up."

Yes, there is an awareness that’s from the neck up and that’s where most awakening occurs. I like this comment from a reader at Being Ordinary as it speaks of “having a gap instead of a head.” Yes! Here lie the roots of Douglas Harding whole Headlessness techniques.


The ‘Big kaboum’ is recent, 10 weeks now so I like to say that I’m doing my baby steps in a fully awakened life. I had a couple days of doubts after coming down from the Bliss state during which time I could barely function and was literally not in my body anymore. Very hard to describe obviously. I haven’t really gotten back fully into my body in some ways, and I guess that state is common to all of us that have awakened.
The feeling of just having a gap instead of a head.
Tristan’s comment at Being Ordinary


So there is awakening on the level of the mind. And maybe, particularly so these days, with the emphasis on mentally based practice of self inquiry as opposed to let’s a practice sensually focusing on the sound of a mantra. And perhaps Adya is hinting at this too as he points out:
An expert has a hard time opening the heart... To be open is a state of innocence.

But, once awake, awakening can go deeper.
... the heart is opening up as it were and really interacting with what's in your environment or what's going on inside.
It's through the heart that we perceive Oneness.

I like the word Agape. It's a selfless infinite love. It's just a love for what is. It's unconditional.
An unconditional love is also un-caused. There's no reason for it. The reason there is no reason... is because it's an aspect of your being. It's a pre-existing aspect of your being. It's just there. It's the love that's just loving. There's no reason why it's loving. It's just loving. It's an aspect of the truth of what you are.
Love is always there. It pre-exists anything that may happen. Anyone you may meet. A lot of times we don't experience this because we're protecting... some idea or image of ourselves. Or we're emotionally protecting or layering."

Opening of the heart is necessary if we are going to come to the fullest of ourselves.

The deepest forgiveness is realizing there's nothing to forgive.
True forgiveness is not something you create or manufacture - you discover it.

The reason for this is our nature is agape. It's an aspect of our being. If we cut off an aspect from our being--if we withhold it from someone or something or some event--then you're literally severing a part of yourself. It's a way of putting ourselves in a virtual prison. We're withholding our own nature. We're hiding it from ourselves.
For most people this is so unconscious they don't really know what they're doing....

and that's about all I can say for now.

Drop That

Canvas F, a photo by Seeking Tao on Flickr.

Do not mistake understanding for realization, and do not mistake realization for liberation.
Tibetan Saying

I mentioned yesterday that "I am suspicious" - that what I experience may be what Maharishi called Cosmic consciousness and God consciousness. I wanted to just leave a note on how that suspicion arose. I also want to emphasize, this is just a suspicion. Something to consider, a possibility to inquire into. So, here’s how the suspicion arose.

My friend, whom I call my little spiritual irritant because just about anything she says seems to have this way of irritating me, sent me a quote. We have been at this for two years now, and I am finally looking at these little irritations as marvelous invitations to explore where some misconception has velcroed onto spaciousness.

So, my friend sent me this quote. She actually thought I’d like it:
I am pleased enough with the surfaces - in fact they alone seem to me to be of much importance. Such things for example as the grasp of a child's hand in your own, the flavor of an apple… the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind - what else is there?
What else do we need?
Edward Albee

Well, I really took issue with the phrase, What else is there?
What else is there? … there’s the infinity of pure being!
The absolute never changing seemed to get ignored with this concentration on the surfaces of the ever changing, and I found that really irritating.
So, I offered back quotes of Andrew Wyeth:
Most people come to my work through the realism and then discover the abstractness.
A sea shell lying on the sand is frozen in time, eternal.

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.

She smiled at the thought of irritating me and explained:
I find those details to BE the essence of the abstract, at every moment, in each precious sensation or experience or whatever.

I didn’t find that explanation helpful to my irritation. But, I read it over several times, slowly, trying to get what she was saying…
details are the essence of the abstract…
the essence of the abstract… is the details

Bam, it hit me. That is a statement from the point of view of Unity, Oneness.
The understanding immediately brought back a saying we’d previously argued over:
The world is illusion.
Brahman alone is real.
The world is Brahman.

My friend speaks from the perspective of that last line: The world is Brahman.
And I am sitting there trying to get her to agree that Brahman alone is real.
I was arguing from the perspective of duality – of Cosmic consciousness and God consciousness.
My next thought was, “Wow! Why do that? Drop that!”
Shortly after that, I realized I was taking my position because that is what I know. It's no theory.
I stagger through this world of illusion day after day, taxing my body, trying to ignore this “radical duality” between Brahman and the world.

Then there was a quiet "hummmm". And the suspicion arose. Is that’s what’s going on here?
This might be what's called Cosmic consciousness and God consciousness.
That was rather surprising.
And, upon this suspicion another thought rose.
Perhaps, I should consider Unity. To that point I'd no idea what Unity might feel like on an experiential level.  What if I looked...
It’s almost as if by simply allowing “perhaps the time is ripe,” actually permitted experience to shift.
Now, as I re-read this, I can only think, "Thick as a brick!"  How'd I miss this?  And so simple! Drop one belief and everything shifts on its own...

So, this Sunday I leave for a week’s retreat with Adyashanti. Last year I asked him about being stuck in the witness and he told me I’d have to discover for myself how to “witness from your heart.” I had NO IDEA what that meant. He said it was something like that Catholic image of ripping open the flaming heart of Jesus. I knew the image, but it was no help.

However, from the moment of the thought, “Drop that!” something shifted. First, the witnessing became quite intense. An abstract infinity seemed intent upon pouring down into my head. It obviously needed to work its way throughout my body. And that wasn’t happening. I ended up missing a fair amount of work and sleeping 12 hours a day as my body tried to adjust. The strain seemed to throw me into vertigous migraines.

Something also seemed to happen with my heart. I began to see deeply into the simplest moments: a freshman wandering the halls looking at science posters, an old woman walking up the street … noticing could reduce me to tears by the beauty that was revealed. I began to notice how things are one, as direct experience.

Last weekend, I went to a workshop with my Taoist Teacher. My silent request was for the energy imbalances of my physical body be soothed. Energy work is a Taoist forte and they didn’t let me down. In essence, my heart was ripped open in a meditation. I discovered that sacred flaming heart… words do not suffice, and the classic image is right on. With that opening the infinity stuck around my head descended into heart and from there belly.  There's physical comfort now.

So, that’s the note. I’m not sure that any of this matters. But, oddly, just as I was convinced there’s no point in this blog, several people wrote and said “thank you.” So, oh well. Here’s a note. And maybe this is the best way to end for now:
Anyone who has “seen the nature” is unlikely to claim to be an enlightened person, even when a master has confirmed the experience; he or she simply knows what a glimpse of enlightenment entails. Indeed, anyone claiming to be enlightened is probably acting erroneously from an inflated ego, which a teacher has been unable to contain. Simple humility alone will normally prevent any such claim.
Sheng-yen, Illuminating Silence: the practice of Chinese Zen

I know times change. But, this rings true to me. I like it very much.

Staying True to Your Own Experience: One Step

Carousel Monet, a photo by Seeking Tao on Flickr.

The psychological ‘I-concept’ has no nature of its own, is no ‘thing’, and could not possibly create genuine ‘bondage’. There cannot be any such thing as bondage at all, but only the idea of such. There is no liberation, for there is no thing from which to be freed. If the whole conceptual structure is seen as what it is, it must necessarily collapse, and the bondage-enlightenment nonsense with it. That is called Awakening, awakening to the natural state which is that of every sentient being.
Wei Wu Wei

I have been spinning round and round for some time now trying to answer the question, “Am I awake?” And I haven’t been able to decide.
This seems ridiculous to me, as I had assumed it must be very self evident.
But, for months and months now there’s been this internal debate running in a circle.
Just when I think, “ Yes. I’m awake.” … doubt creeps in…. “No. Look at that.”

However, there has been this kind of slow slide, until at some point a couple weeks ago I had the thought, “I have the suspicion that this is Cosmic Consciousness and God Consciousness.” (see definitions below if needed)

It was a strange thought to me.
First, it seemed rather disappointing. “This is it!?” Not what I’d expected!
Secondly, it seemed strange that I could now have a strong suspicion, and yet still really resist making any claim. Declaring anything just felt/feels all wrong., not ture.

Still, over time it seemed at least the suspicion has a solidity that seems genuine. It has an integrity that isn’t going to slip away.
So, I was going over all this in my head to a friend with whom I argue over expressions of awakening. My friend is clear: She is awake and she is liberated, "free".
Then, in my head there was the thought, “I have a suspicion that this may be CC or GC. But still, I cannot say that I am free.”

I cannot say that I am free.
I heard those words and came to a full stop. I thought them very strange.

I cannot say that I am free.
It was utterly nonsensical to me. Why?

What does it mean to be free?
I had no idea!
I realized that desiring to “be free” wouldn’t even cross my mind if my friend hadn’t dropped the phrase in there. That was part of the strangeness. What was that desire about?

What is there to be free from?
I had no idea! Absolutely clueless…
I looked around my backyard, at the trees, the sky, the dancing of the leaves. I looked inside myself… I looked outside my body…

I could not find anything to be free from…
And that was when I realized why I would never say, “I’m free.”
There’s nothing to be free from.
There is only One. There is not Two.
It all rests within myself. Inside, Outside: there is only One.
And Momma, there is no “free from.”
The issue cannot even come up. And that's why is made no sense.

Oh! Well, that sounds rather familiar, doesn’t it.
But, I never saw it coming.
I was stunned by my own innocence. (I've heard all the phrases ad nauseum)

But, all I saw was what I couldn’t say.
And I had to laugh. It all felt a bit back-asswards.
But, how else would a Bralley do it? I am a bull and not a ballerina.

Doctrines, scriptures, sutras, essays, are not to be regarded as systems to be followed. They merely contribute to understanding. They should be for us a source of stimulation, and nothing more... Adopted [as a belief], rather than used as a stimulus, they are a hindrance.
Wei Wu Wei

I'd like to post this here by way of a thank you to the friends who take the time to talk.  We may not agree.  But, if we use the words of wisdom as a stimulus, the results can be a spontaneous and innocent inquiry.
And a moment’s realization... still not making any claims.  And I am sure my friend understands, completely.
     ******
End Note.  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi described three levels of enlightenment or knowledge of the Self:
Cosmic consciousness so named because it is all inclusive—it simultaneously includes transcendental consciousness along with waking, dreaming, and sleeping. Adyashanti has described this as “radical duality” as the witness so strongly sees the world as illusion and the Self as Reality.

God consciousness is cosmic consciousness coexisting with the development of refined sensory perception such that perception and feelings reach their most sublime level. On a practical level, people feel an incredible expansion of the heart. In practice, the heart is crying “No!” to the duality described above.

Unity consciousness occurs as one experiences Being, the substance of transcendental consciousness, or pure awareness, as the basis of and permeating all aspects of life: everything is perceived as nothing but expressions of Being. Even though the diversity of life is still appreciated, what dominates is the experience that all aspects of life, are nothing but the self-interacting dynamics of pure consciousness.

Be soft in your practice. Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall. Follow the stream, have faith in its course. It will go its own way, meandering here, trickling there. It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices. Just follow it. Never let it out of your sight. It will take you.
Sheng-yen

I’m going off to practice for awhile.
This seems a nice thought to share upon parting.
Oddly, perhaps, Sheng-yen was a Zen Master cultivated amidst the classic rigors… and then he leaves us with these words: Be soft in your practice.
Perhaps softness allows better for the living of paradox.
Perhaps softness allows better for simple stopping, the simple dropping.

Memes and the Tortoise and the Hare

Petri Plate 4, a photo by Seeking Tao on Flickr.

A meme is an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures…It was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976).
Wikipedia

Here are some points I have been thinking about:
1)   Spiritual Paths seem to change with time. Advaita now has neo-advaita. This causes arguments.
Some say you can become enlightened in about 30 minutes and “I’m done.” Some say it can take a life time and always opens up to greater depths. This argument is getting very nasty in some places. (Curiously, what doesn’t change is the presence of fundamentalism: rigidity and the willingness to destroy in the name of Truth.)
2)   We used to think that enlightenment changed the personality into that of a saint. Now, there’s clearly a distinction. It’s been put this way for clarity: Saints are those who display the ideals human behavior. Sages are those who have realized the true nature of the Self. This dichotomy began with Eastern teachers’ sex and money scandals. The behavioral license seems to have been cut loose path direct path emphasis of no-self. There’s no one to be a jerk. Jerkiness just happens, while no-me is free.
3)   Spiritual paths aka “how we spiritually evolve” are memes. Thus, we can expect “the teachings” to follow the laws of genetics: to change and mutate into new and fitter forms with time.
4)   The ability to evolve itself evolves. Thus, if you wanted to graph the speed of evolution, at some point you’d expect it to go parabolic.

Point Four comes strictly from concerns of molecular geneticists (of which or whom I’m one).
The ability to evolve, or “evolvability”, seemed really obvious to me the first time I heard the phrase. It’s not just that everything else in Creation evolves, so why not the ability to evolve… but there seemed to be the whole specific history of genetics revealing that Life (genes) invent new mechanisms to evolve at every major evolutionary transition.

So, when I hear that many people are awakening by directly inquiring into no-self, I cannot dismiss the possibility that awakening can be quicker now than in the past.
If spiritual paths are meant to evolve our consciousness,
If a shift in consciousness is the only means a person has to escape suffering,
If a shift in consciousness is the only hope our species has for survival,
If the ability to evolve evolves –
HEY! I should be hoping and expecting enlightenment to take less time.

That said, scientists NEVER think things are that simple. Turns out, they have only recently completed an experiment that demonstrates evolvability. I find the details illuminating:

A long-term evolution experiment on E. coli has been running for more than 50,000 generations. Two beneficial mutations arose in some strains prior to the passage of the first 500 generations. The researchers dubbed the strains that carried these mutations at 500 generations the eventual winners (EW) and those lacking the mutations the eventual losers (EL).

Surprise #1:  The fitness of EW and EL was compared. Both strains EW and EL had significantly higher fitness than the ancestral strain. But early on, the EL appeared fitter than the EW. The EW strains were at such a disadvantage that if these strains had not accumulated additional mutations, they would have gone extinct in just 350 more generations.

Surprise #2:  But, over time the EW acquired more beneficial mutations than the EL. These “later date” mutations enabled the EW to overcome their fitness disadvantage. In other words, the EW during their period of lesser fitness actually possessed a greater evolvability than the EL. You could see this difference in evolvability intially.  That's not so surpising.  The influence of genes isn't always obvious on the surface.

This saga of the bacteria reminds me of the tortoise and the hare.
The hare could get there quickly, but he had an arrogance that laid the ground for his ultimate defeat.
The tortoise in his own slow careful manner got there in the end.

These bacteria also make me wonder if perhaps the same thing isn’t happening with the memes of our spiritual teachings?
Direct path is great! Bam, you’re there: No-self. “I’m done.”
But, maybe, that leads to something of a dead-end evolutionarily (aka, eventual losers).
Meanwhile, some poor schlep of an Advaitan tortoise actually sits and meditates for 10 years, 20 years.
When he awakens, sometimes there may be no-self and sometimes there is an ego that could stand a little therapy and responsibility for that is taken.
And so change continues. Insights go deeper. Curiosity is maintained.
Maybe this is the EW, the deeply embodied enlightenment because the ability to evolve, evolvability is alive and well.  (for a different way of saying this, BATGAP has a really nice interview with Adyashanti regarding keeping a teaching fresh)

Does the world need more sages or more saints?
Does spiritual bypassing ever really work?
Does throwing a bomb for peace bring an end to war?

The other day I offered this quote, perhaps it’s again a good way to end:
Practice begins with enlightenment.
Suzuki Roshi

It's Not Your Life

Grandma , a photo by Seeking Tao on Flickr.

It's Not Your Life
It's not your life you said
And I remember exactly where we were
Not the time of year
Or even the weather
But the place on the levee
With the river on the right
As we walked back
And the rusty pump
Down the bank
Among the rocks
And the kingfisher
Cackling in the cottonwoods

And you were fierce
The way you said it
Not detached and indifferent
Like the night before in Forestville
But frustrated almost
Wanting me to get it
Urging me to catch up
So we can play together
On the same court

And I felt so ashamed
For complaining
For having the selfishness
To claim this series of events
As my own
To doubt the authorship
Of this particular short story
And the meanness
To question
The hand I was dealt
When it was not even mine
And I knew it

But mainly I was ashamed
For showing you my ugliness
For letting you see
My limbs bleeding with the pain
Of not getting it

But we played big stick with Honey
And walked on
Back to the car
Between the vineyards
Watching the evening settle over Healdsburg
And slowly my life became a memory
A series of shots
Like this one
With no place left to ask the question
Then whose life is it

For it's not that it's not my life
Over the hills and down the river
Houses friends and harpsichords
Whose life could it be
But mine
No we're not disputing that…

What we're saying
Back at the car now
Honey climbing in
Doors closing
Click of seat belts
Engine starting
The sudden contentment
Of nothing left to talk about
Is that
This simple crunch
Of tires on gravel
This hum of happiness
This wet dog smell
Is life
Delivered
But unaddressed           
        Tony Kendrew

I wanted to post this poem so I wouldn’t lose it. It seemed so perfect that I couldn’t bring myself to read another word. So, I can’t say I know Kendrew’s work. But, I discovered him through Pamela Wilson’s site.

If you don’t recognize what Kendrew is talking about, count yourself lucky.
If you do, count yourself as blessed.

All It Can Do Is Collapse

I just find for myself that when a structure lacks integrity, all it can do is collapse in on itself, and that's more how I see what's going on.
Lynn Barron

She was speaking about social and political events, but I took her words quite personally. And I looked to find more of what she might say to me, to me personally.
Why, because I feel this collapse occurringand I am having trouble putting the experience to words.

Last week, a friend sent some words and I started this whole quibbling in my mind.
I argued logically, until I discovered I was arguing for my own Un-enlightenment.
I thought of Adya asking us to watch, “How is it you un-enlighten yourself.” And I could see it in my actions, in what I had just written:

In trying to define things like “where you are,” you end up describing experiences on a checklist. My experience is that experiences come and go. What might seem like awakening or Unity might not be there tomorrow.

I can not say just what it was, but this observation, these words, felt somehow deeply wrong.
Part of the “wrongness” was its insistence upon “I am still not there.”  While I cannot say, "I am there," strangely it felt wrong to conclude the opposite.  It didn't feel honest.  The argument lacked integrity.
…when a structure lacks integrity, all it can do is collapse in on itself

Thoughts can be like that. No integrity. Something in the belly finds this quite revolting.
Some gentleness within the heart finds it almost unbareable.
… all it can do is collapse in on itself.

That’s not so bad. But, it’s also not so easy. You have to give it space and time and silence.

So, I watched Lynn Barron meditate and noticed that she gently rocked in the subtlest of circles.
I know that energy. It rocks me every day. Gentle energy trying to transform the blockages or simply stirring up a migraine. I know longer clearly differentiate.
But there she was rocking in the silence
and when she came out of meditation, this is what she said:

Now there are these four lights in the heart that are to be lit,
and one of them is called the light of submission.
And so when you sit in this way you place yourself in submission.
To be receptive to the bounties and blessings that come from Allah into your heart.

Yes, submission, that’s another way of saying sweet collapse. It’s not so much what I must do, but rather, can I be quiet enough to let Nature takes its course. Hands off. Mind off. Will off.

[The next] practice is called accompaniment and you do this practice with someone who knows the way because you're trying to go into your deep heart.
And so there is another light that is to be lit, and it's called the light of faith.
…faith is acceptance by the heart of the truth of God's revelation.
Now, this revelation has been streaming forth in consciousness since the beginning
but for some reason your heart hasn't really been able to accept it as the truth
and so you have a lot of doubt and uncertainty.
So this is another light that is to be lit in the heart.

I was crying with these words, as I knew their truth.
Despite all the experiences I’ve had, years and years and years and still, I cannot accept.
What more do I want?

The third light that's to be lit in the heart
is the light of gnosis
and this is the witnessing of the real.

I understand witnessing. There is so much of that. I understand Real and unreal. I feel like I do not have to worry so much about this light.

And the fourth is the light of unification.

Bam! With that word my heart broke.
Unity, I just don’t get. Even though I’m beginning to suspect, I walk around positively dizzy with the physical denial. I walk around within the ocean waiting for it to swallow me up, or perhaps desperately thrashing in the water like some fish upon the land trying to remain separate.

Last year about this time, Adya told me that I needed to learn to “witness from the heart”… and that I’d have to discover how to do this for myself. He couldn’t tell me how. But, he added, think of those picture of the flaming heart of Christ – the heart with those hands ripping it wide open.

…one of the intentions of doing practices
is to bring light into the chest
so that this particular quality of knowledge of God can come directly to you
so you won't have a teacher telling you what it is any longer.
You will actually know what it is because you will be having the experience of it
in your heart in a way that is very unique to you
and that you will understand in your own way
so that you can continue to travel deeply…

it's the interior teacher that's now guiding you.
I have one story that might help you when you get to that place.
And it's from the 14th century Egypt, and it's from a desert father.
A monk came to see Abba and said
Abba, I observe fast. I pray. I maintain stillness.
I try to keep my thoughts pure.
What more can I do?
The old man stood up, invoked,
and his fingers became like ten burning lamps of fire.
If you wish, he said, you can become all flame.

So, there you go, kind of full circle in a year. When better to finally collapse.

Lynn Barron shared one more thing:
When you're going into the deep heart, you'll reach a point
where a great deal of fear comes upon you
And I'm going to read something from Rûmî that may help.
Rûmî asks what is there to be afraid of:

Don't be afraid of nonbeing.
If you want to be afraid,
fear the existence you have now.
Your hopes for the future,
your memories of the past,
what you call yourself
are nothing.
So nothing is being taken from nothing, and
a nothing is being absorbed by a Nothing.

Writing Poems

Omega garden, a photo by Seeking Tao on Flickr.

Say it again
Say it again I didn’t hear.
I could not understand.

And so, once again the sun rose
through the trees
illuminating translucent leaves
and the most delicate of tendrils, just so.

Just so I might hear.

Yesterday, while having breakfast on my back deck and mostly sitting quietly, this poem came to me. I just noticed hearing it as I was looking at the woods.
I liked it a lot and jotted it down.
It helped me notice there's such patience and love within Nature's mechanics; patience and love as aspects of that ineffable being, the Light, that shines through your eyes and mine sometimes so brightly.

Today, I came across these words.
Once again, such perfect timing:

At one time I was composing poems.
Poems used to flow out of me and, in this flow, I just added Nisargadatta.
I was reveling in composing poems until my Guru cautioned me, "You are enjoying composing these poems too much; give them up!"
What was he driving at?

His objective was for me to merge in the Absolute state instead of reveling in my beingness…
When this beingness goes, the Absolute will not know "I Am".
Appearance and disappearance, birth and death, these are the qualities of beingness;
they are not your qualities.
Consciousness and the Absolute: the final talks of Nisargadatta

... ok, I was going to stop here, but let me take this a bit farther as I seem to have many friends thinking about death these days.
Nisargadatta also has this to say:

the knowledge "I Am" must go back to its own source.

Now, consciousness has identified with a form.
Later, it understands that it is not that form and goes further.
In a few cases it may reach the space, and very often, there it stops.
In a very few cases, it reaches its real source, beyond all conditioning.
It is difficult to give up that inclination of identifying the body as the self.
I am not talking to an individual, I am talking to the consciousness.
It is consciousness which must seek its source.
Out of that no-being state comes the beingness.
It comes as quietly as twilight, with just a feel of "I Am" and then suddenly the space is there.


In the space, movement starts with the air, the fire, the water, and the earth.
All these five elements are you only.
Out of your consciousness all this has happened.
There is no individual.
There is only you, the total functioning is you, the consciousness is you.
You are the consciousness, all the titles of the Gods are your names, but by clinging to the body you hand yourself over to time and death—you are imposing it on yourself.
I am the total universe.

Many of these words link up to experience for me. 
When things shifted back in 1975, I found the space. 
I saw how air, fire, water and earth arise as movement starts.
"No individual" is becoming more and more apparent.
And yet, overall, mostly I live in "and there it stops."

Still, I do know from experience of a place beyond all conditionings, all words, all mentation.
And as Nisargadatta says, "the consciousness is you" and "consciousness must seek it's source."
Otherwise, we impose time and death and suffering upon ourselves.

Enlightening the Shadow

Practice begins with enlightenment.
Suzuki Roshi

Until one has tasted the essence of what we are, none of it’s going to make sense.
Jon Bernie

So, having tasted. Now what? (And, if you’re here, surely you’ve had an inkling.)
Or, perhaps it’s more than merely a simple taste. Perhaps you’ve swallowed the whole meal. Now what?

Wayne Liquorman gave some nice definitions in his interview at BATGAP.
Saints embody the highest ideals of human behavior.
Sages have realized their true self.
Traditionally, we seem to have blurred this distinction. We want our sages to be saints.
Now those who have awakened are telling us, “Not so.”
And sometimes I think, well then why bother.

In his Ordinary People interview Jon Bernie got me thinking about the shadow although he never mentioned it by name.
Posted just below Jon is an interview with Scott Kiloby and Scott speaks directly to the point. He speaks of deeply realizing “no-self” and still, something had to shift.
In speaking with other teachers on non-duality Scott noticed they, like he, were actually feeling quite conflicted. Turns out, “no-self” can create a shadow just as easily as a “separate me.”
That’s one angle to my point here. But, I have another much more personal.

Sometime ago a friend asked me, “What happens if you never decide if you are awake?” I still can’t answer that to my satisfaction. But, I think it leaves things unfulfilled. I have had so many tastes, and still something needs to be resolved.
I really liked how Scott talks about walking the middle way: sometimes no-self, sometimes me. In fact, every time I open my mouth to speak, I will be a me.
Can I be comfortable with that?

I recommend listening to Scott.

Trade What You See, Not What You Think

Besides blabbering here like some spiritual idiot, part of my time these days is spent trying to learn how to swing trade stocks.
I love this exercise. I am constantly amazed that trading presents spiritual principle after principle.

So, I have just completed my third trade.
And once again, I am trying to learn from my mistakes.
Stopped out within the first 3 minutes of today’s trading even when the pre-market quotes showed the stock was trading up, I was out my $50, just like that.

It was a bit of a stunner.  I'd convinced myself the stock was going up, when right there in front of me, I can now see quite plainly that I should have stayed out. The stock's chart did not have the pattern that I search for and want to trade... a chart pattern I originally chose because of its inherent simplicity and easy recognition.

I can see that now, but I couldn't see that yestareday. Instead I was driven by what I thought: murmuring emotions, hopes, desires confused my eyes.  There was all that going on beneath the thoughts I loudly heard.
I wrote out a detailed plan prior to the trade and appeared to be following the rules all the rules for trading wisely. And still, I failed to see my blindness
I made an amateur mistake!! I broke a premier principle, I had heard many times and whole heartedly advocate:
Trade what you see, not what you think.
And, I am blown away by how simply the mind overthrows the senses!  Subtle mind even over throws loudly thinking, reading with your lips moving, following a check list mind.

Trade what you see, not what you think.
Can I do that?
It’s simply a material version of Fierce Freedom yelling the spiritual directive at me: Don’t think! Look!
But, can we do that?

What I love about trading – worth the $50 I just lost – is to see the incredible subtlety of just how difficult it is to quiet the mind and simply go with what you see… because we do think. We have to think. So, even when you have been told the principle of freedom and it makes sense and you agree… still to actually do it!
That is something else.

So here is a cartoon, in celebration of dear, dear (and costly) imbecility, aka “being human.”  They're talking about trading, but don't let that fool you. As seekers we do this all the time.     

Different Perspectives

i am curious how you might explain further the idea that knowing the name of my cat captures the essence of our different viewpoints.
Fierce Freedom

I thought I’d address my friends comment here, just to do it justice.
Let me begin by a story that supposedly Jeff Foster tells:
He was out walking with his mother when she said, “Oh, what a beautiful tree.” In reply he launched into a long explanation of “There is no tree!”
A year later, he realized his response had been somewhat ridiculous. Of course, there was a tree to be enjoyed while on a walk.

Having realized there is no-self, how long and how loudly do you want to keep beating that drum?
I think you and I differ on this point.
To me too much drum beating or “fierce freedom” risks inherent contradiction and outright fundamentalism just as surely as a right-to-lifer shooting a doctor does.

And how does my asking for the name of your cat address our different perspectives?
It too centers of the emphasis we place upon the experience of no-self.
I have no idea what logic initially led me to make that statement regarding the name of your cat. Memory is gone.
But, while struggling to recall my thinking, this image filled my mind:

Your viewpoint was represented by the line. Mine was somehow held by that little dot.
It was a curious situation to be asked for a stream of logic and only come up with an image. But, with time I realized that our perspectives lay rooted in the differences between the two.

Now, I can say this:
When I hear, “There were three cats: roach, spider, cricket,” I notice that my heart goes, Ahhh. I draw closer and pay attention. And when I discover, “Roach died,” again I feel my heart.
In knowing something as simple as a name a whole story springs up and with that story comes love.
I don’t want to miss that, even at the risk of being lost or hurt by what unfolds.

Now, I grant you “roach” has nothing whatsoever actually to do with ultimate truth.
And perhaps its only due to my conditioning it has an effect upon me. But, rather than jump, “Oh God, a story! Stories can’t be true.” I am happy to enjoy the wave of love.
Knowing that the tree is an illusion, why not go on and enjoy it?

You could say that this is my perspective. And it struck me that in all of our discussion of the profound experience you had surrounding the death of roach, you never named her (or him - I still don’t know that detail). And it struck me as very curious that you felt no need for naming.

It was always, “The cat died.”
It sounds almost like Joe Friday wanting “just the facts ma’am.” And Joe will get the job done.
He just proceeds from a different perspective – that of the intellect, that serially logical gray line.
The intellect inquires into the nature of the self and discovers there is no-self to be found.
It realizes the danger and allure inherent in a flowery story. It is only logical to reduce the risk of slipping back into a self, back into illusion - so shave the story back “to just the facts.”

But, “The cat died,” is just as much a story as “Roach died.”
In one case intellect, and likely ego, does a cutting back? In the second case heart, and likely ego, surrenders into love.

To me our perspectives appear either predominantly intellect or heart centered. The heart would like a name, simply for the warmth. The intellect feels no need or even prefers the nameless.

That said, I would also emphasize that it’s probably much more accurate to say, one steps forward from the left foot while the other begins with the right. You obviously are learning deeply about love. And I can use my head. Heart and mind do work together, just as surely as left and right foot do… but still, there seems to be a preference of footing.

So, to end this in the spirit of merging heart and intellect, I’d like to share this video.
I never knew that the idea of love was brought to the west by the Sufis. And I love the concluding line:
this is the shoreless sea;
here swimming ends
always in drowning

The “Transparency of Things”

Every time I open my eyes I invite the world to take shape. And every time the world takes shape I am invited to open my eyes…
And every time it is seen, it dies…
And every time I take it in I too die and in dying am known as this
Rupert Spira

Last time I was talking about what happens after death.
To this my friend, Becky, commented “dying is happening each moment.”
Here, Rupert Spira beautifully elaborates that point.

The transparency of things is a phrase that haunts me. It speaks directly to the beauty found within this process of arising and dissolving.
If I were to utilize the Bubble Diagram that I also mentioned last time, I would place my finger at the bottom, the finest, deepest level of the mind. To me transparency is possible only at that juncture where that initial impulse of thought arises from pure Isness. 
There is a transparency that shines through material creation, as if all the world were stones that have been wetted down with water so that they sparkle in the sun. And while it makes no sense to me to speak of being able to see Being, there is the sense that this indeed somehow happens.  To call this the transparency of things seems very appropriate and beautiful to me.

In other interviews (part 1, part 2), Spira explains the ancient teaching nama rupa satchitananda which he breaks down into name, form, Isness, knowing, peace.
While Rupert translates ananda as peace, I have also heard it translated as “bliss.” But, you get the flavor. With Transparency comes joy and beauty, something to thrill the heart.
Right there too is nama rupa, name and form.
I think that is why I feel the urge to know the name of Becky’s cat. It’s not just that some cat or the cat died, but rather one particular, unique and never again, little cat… by the name of…?

Some Speculation

P. Bralley with Bubble Diagram, ca '73.

it's unavoidable that the body will die.
brain function ceased.
no more thoughts.
no more perceptions…
there is no you.
when the body dies, there's not going to be a special essence that wafts heavenward.
there is no you.
Fierce Freedom

I have a friend. At least I think she’s out there somewhere, though we’ve never met in person. Her voice and thoughts get communicated to me through the computer in a manner that leads to me to believe that someone out there exists.
However, I can also say the same thing regarding the behavior of the computer and my father. After he died, he seemed to be communicating that way too. … and at the time that really rattled me, but that’s a ghost story for another time.

I mention my friend now, because from time to time she’ll say things that stick in my head. She’s been helpful and challenging in this. The quote above is from her.
She’s an ardent “no self” advocate.

I appreciate that. But, I entitled this whole blog, “Seeing for My Self.” By that I meant, my effort in this spiritual quest has been to try to understand my own experiences. This has included past-life flashbacks, devas, guides, animal spirits, and as mentioned above, Pop’s ghost. I could put all of these experiences in quotes (because they embarrass the scientific part of me) – but I won’t. I just want to present a short list of the kind of "data” that has challenged my mind.

Given these experiences I took a fairly strong exception to my friend’s statement about nothing drifting heavenward after death. But, it seems rather speculative to argue as if I were certain about what happens after death. So, I just let the thoughts sit there.

Then, yesterday, I came across the thoughts of Rupert Spira regarding death. He makes some very interesting points from a deeply non-dual, no-self perspective:

...there is no mind, body or world, as such, so we cannot meaningfully speak of their possible survival. The mind, body and world are simply the names that thought gives to the current thought, sensation and perception…
However, this does not mean that when a sensation/perception (the body) disappears, it will not be ‘followed by’ a thought.
In that sense there is nothing to suggest that the mind does not survive the death of the body.
Thoughts keep coming after the ‘body’ has disappeared.

Whoa! I hadn’t seent that coming.
I think of Maharishi saying, “Thoughts seem to come from somewhere deep inside” - his point being most people really couldn't say from where.
I think of Adyashanti and Byron Katie emphasizing that we don’t think our thoughts. Thoughts just come. They think us.

Rupert explains his point this way:
Thoughts keep coming after the ‘body’ has disappeared.
In fact, that is exactly what happens at night. When we ‘fall asleep’ the body, that is, the current sensation or perception vanishes, but dream thoughts and images appear. This is the experience of mind without a body.
In fact, mind is always experienced without a body.
The body is just one of the possible ‘shapes’ of the mind.

One of the hardest concepts for my scientific mind to grasp was the idea that the body does not generate consciousness. Rather, Pure Consciousness, Awareness, the Self precipitates into solid form. That form may be an animate form with a brain that expresses consciousness. It may also be inanimate: a mountain with an awesome presence. Or it may be animate sans nervous system: an ancient redwood which again seems wise and conscious.  In essence, only Consciousness can become conscious. 
It is not really what I learned in biology, that unconscious matter evolves to become conscious, VOILA!  No. Sometimes though, Consciousness can become conscious - like when brains evolved.  But, Consciousness was there all along, even in the rock.

I am also reminded of the Bubble Diagram.
Maharishi used to explain how thoughts arise within the mind. He said, the mind is like an ocean with waves upon the surface. At the bottom of the ocean a tiny bubble forms and begins to rise. As it arises, the bubble expands until it bursts upong the surface. So thoughts begin the from depths of Pure Consciousness and rise within the mind, through unconscious levels, up into the thinking level of conscious awareness where they are finally experienced.
He also said those quiet, silent depths were the level at which celestial beings existed, but he didn't want to dwell on angels.

I’m thinking that it is at these deeper levels that thoughts continue without a body.
That can be after death. Or it may be picked up while we are alive.
But, in either case, a “me” is never really the author, the instigator, of the thought or of the “thought form.”
It’s non-dual. No-self. And still, and yet, a thought appears.

What is also interesting to notice is the thoughts and feelings of the waking state tend to become the environment of the dream state.
In other words, what was on the ‘inside’ during the waking state becomes the ‘outside,’ in which the dream seems to take place…
There is nothing to suggest that this pattern will not continue after the ‘death’ of the waking body, which as we have already seen, is simply the disappearance of a bodily sensation, but not necessarily the cessation of mind.
Rupert Spira

Actually, why wouldn't the arsing of thoughts continue. 
To argue otherwise seems to say Pure Consciousness depends upon a me...
Just some thoughts, I thought I’d share. And I get to use this old picture that I recently found at Mom’s house: me with the bubble diagram, during my teaching days when Madras shirts were the rage.

This Interested Me... (aka no title today)

Buddha At the Gas Pump had an interesting interview with a fellow by the name of Jan Esman. Rather than address the points in it, I went to Jan’s website and clipped a bit of his teaching. I feel like things for me are taking a new direction and this may be a good way to kind of shift the discussion gradually.

I hope you have the time to listen to Jan’s story. If not, maybe you can read on:

Pure is-ness is prior to I AM. In pure is-ness, there is no "I" that "IS", hence no I AM.
I AM is a gross state that does resemble the absolute state of pure being, but it has a subtle ignorance at its core…
Self-remembrance [meaning inquiry or resting as awareness?] leads to the I AM state, and no further.
Once fairly established in the I AM-ness, your awareness can fold back in on itself and short circuit, so to speak.
But the step from I AM to pure being is best taken by grace and Shakti.
It is so easy to get stuck in I AM and think you have reached the goal…

In I AM ness you are a witness to everything exterior including all levels of the mind and ego, except I-ness. But the final wipe out of ignorance has not taken place, there is still an I that believes it IS and it claims to be the Self, but it is not.
In basic Self-realization, this sense goes away also and there is just serene void.
Self-realization is prior to soul.
Soul-realization is realizing one's I AM-ness…

Last year I asked Adya about being stuck in the witness. He said he couldn’t tell me how to do it, but I had to learn to witness from the heart and not the mind. I had no idea even what “witnessing from the heart” might mean. A heart does not observe, a heart dives in and unifies. Although, yes, a heart can look upon with love. And, something seemed to soften. The gap began to close, or so I recollect. Still, despite a feeling of emptiness, I still remain with ego.
I also seem to have lost the interest or ability even to practice self inquiry, resting as awareness, seeing into no-self:  all the things I have been doing.  No more doing!  I have flung myself off some cliff.
I want to just drop the thinking and trying, and simply do. 
I want to drop deep and let the energies I've cultivated through my Taoist practice and working with Evie (helping her with her cancer)... I want to just drop into That.  Even, I would say, even something, the sweetness, beyond all Those.

Access to I AM is not access to the Self.
It is access to "a higher self", but not The Self.
You can use I AM as a doorway, but it is easy to get stuck there…
I AM is thick as a brick, so to speak. It is really a kind of voidish, subtle self without form.
Personality can observe. When I AM and personality get mixed, you have ego.
I AM wants to be something, so mind offers its dubious services. This is the birthplace of personality.

Access to “a higher self” that is still not what I’d call The Self seems to be the essence of my Taoist teaching. I have considered this a shortcoming, and yet I have enjoyed and benefited immensely from the practice. In fact, I’d even say, “It has been necessary.”

Access to Self rather than I AM is best achieved by "riding" on a surge of Shakti since Shakti is the Self. This usually requires shaktipat (kundalini-awakening). If you, however, can experience awareness as pure being-energy and let awareness become fully aware of itself, then you can momentarily snap out of I AM-ness and into pure being, or is-ness.

I am wondering if spontaneous qigong and channeling are another means to “riding on a surge of Shakti.” It seems to be the way I am naturally progressing.

Try the shakti-breathing… Here it is:
1.Breathe in to the count of three. Sense energy rising up the spine to the brain.
2.Hold your breath to the count of three. Sense energy radiating from the brain in all directions.
3.Breathe out to the count of three. Sense energy radiating from the brain in all directions. (or from the entire body).
Repeat.
It is important to find a nice and relaxed tempo so you can keep at it uninterrupted for 45 minutes. If bliss comes or shakti fills your body with love, just surrender to it and merge.

This doesn’t seem that far removed from what I was recently telling my friend Mary to try, though it was something I just made up as I saw the truth in it.
Mary can rest in a solid quiet meditation. But its very solidness has becomes a restricted solidity that she’d like to grow/go beyond.
“To go higher you must go deeper,” my Taoist teacher says.
I saw a rock dropped into a glass of water. As the rock settles, notice how the water rises, maybe even overflows. Mary needs to do this.
How?
Breath out, exhale through the eyes.
Feel the breath, the energy and light resting in the belly on the inhalation and then direct that out through the eyes, exhale.
I told her about Annie – consciousness streams out through our eyes. Practice that consciously.

How did I know this? I was channeling and could see and feel it and even facilitate the flow by moving my hand along her torso. My Taoist practice seems to be providing access to a gentle Shaktipat ability.
It’s not the “direct path” of the neo-advaitist, but it seems to be “my path.”

P.S.   In the BatGap interview, near the very end, Jan says:
Kundalini is not a restricted energy within the body-mind, astral system, where ever... it is a condensation of the Self, like a contraction. And as such, it contains the essence of your ignornace.

These words hit me like the beauty of a poem. I understand yet for a moment cannot explain. There were only tears.  True Self becomes our ignorance, even as it moves to set us free.  My God, the beauty!

Eye to Eye

Bennie, my other little dog

I take many photos of my face… I do not know why I do this.
I am not particularly fascinated with it, and I cannot say there is anything at all I hope to find there…
Whenever I see myself in the mirror, or in a photo, it is in some way like looking at a newly made map of a continent surveyed and explored for the very first time.
Excitement and possibility.
Unknown and dangerous.
There are no memories or experiences of the thing.
Takuin, Self Portrait

I like Takuin. I like him a lot. He is so obviously awake.
It feels soft and good to visit his site and the Asian flavored beauty there.
But, when I read these words, I felt such a wave of dismay.

Geez, I look into the mirror and I have memories. Or at least a head full of thoughts and is that not experience?
So, I exhale in dismay. I am nowhere near awake!
I am flooded by the very kinds of impulses Takuin encourages one to drop.

I read his words again in some desperate attempt to understand, only to find more failure:
When I look into a mirror or at a photograph I am fascinated.
I can be stopped cold by fascination: “My god, is that what I look like?”

It seems the deepest mystery.
“I am that.”
It is totally astounding…
“There are no memories or experience of the thing.”

Suddenly, I understand!
Takuin just chose different words like:
newly surveyed, explored for the first time, unknown, excitement.
Now, I see they fit. Their poetry was just slightly at a different angle.

I have been wrestling with the question , “Am I awake?”
But, looking in the mirror and being presented with my supposed face, simply undercuts so much confusion.
I KNOW that I am not my body. Who I am is Mystery beyond words.
Otherwise, the mirror could never be so strange.

It is so obvious.
I had a little dog once, Annie. She loved to climb the kitchen stairs so that she could peek through the banister and meet my partner or me directly eye to eye.
Eye to eye.
Even a little dog recognizes that she and I, that consciousness, pours most clearly through the eyes. Forget this body stuff.
And if a little dog knows this, surely I can get it too.

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.
The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.
Dogen

But, you see, we can look into a mirror with a couple different levels to the focus.
Sometimes I look and focus on my face, the reflection of the Light.
Sometimes I look and instead notice a greasy smudge or scar upon the glass. The moment my attention goes to the imperfection, I lose all notice of my reflection. And I get lost in the mirror's dirt.
But, that doesn’t mean for a moment that the image, the reflection, has disappeared.

Eye to eye, there is only Light.
And of course we are awake.

But, there will be times the focus falls upon the flaws.
That is an interesting phenomenon, that little subtlety of focus. Even with the routine of looking in a mirror  sometimes we look and notice the glass instead, if only for a moment.

The Fourth of July

Martha Raber, Patty Bralley, Mary Raber ca. 1964

You’re not much of a farmer if you don’t have tomatoes by the Fourth of July.
Pop

My father spent his boyhood summers on his cousins’ farm in North Carolina working the tobacco fields. For an only child being raised in a boarding house by a widowed mother, summer was a time for being “all boy”, having brothers, and listening to rain falling on a tin roof deep into the night.
Yes, this gentle, sweet man made wonderful attempts to appear tuff.  So, from time to time he'd come out with these kind of pontifications like this one on tomatoes.
It was a challenge to me and my city gardens well into my fifties. Finally one spring, I resorted to the planting of a new hybrid that already possessed small fruit.
Voila: tomatoes by the Fourth of July!
Except, I felt I’d cheated.

Growing up, the Fourth of July was a day celebrating freedom and family, in essence what I’d now call: fullness. By the Fourth of July summer seemed the only existence. School was long forgotten and a lifetime in the future.
We lived at the swimming pool on burgers, Seven-Up, and fries. Our bodies were brown and strong.
There were colorful swim meets every Saturday that we always seemed to lose, but somehow that didn’t matter in the least. It was enough to try our hardest.
Today, this optimism seems remarkable and somewhat inexplicable.
But, I suspect an explanation rest somehow in love. It was enough to simply be together in the elements of sun and water, family and friends. I was in college before I realized that not everyone enjoyed this norm.
I never really recognized my blessings.

There’s a buzz to summer, a drone below and subtler than all the hoopla and fireworks.
Cicadas hum in the still, damp mornings before the heat silences subtlety.
Cicadas buzz this cyclic sine wave, crescendo passing from treetop to treetop like some cosmic OM .
There’s more here than meets the eye. Something is occurring that you might not notice.
Within the hot, white fullness of the Yang, there is that one black dot, the turning point of Yin.

It is this turning point that I notice now.
It’s this turning point that’s become the Fourth of July’s significance to me.
The dogwoods that bloomed in April now show one little tuff of red leaf. They weren’t there on the thirtieth. But, today they are.
The tulip poplar dropped its first yellow leaf on my house deck last night.
Amidst the watermelon and fireworks, road trips, swimming pools and grills, the tide has already turned…
even as the day is full and warm and wondrous.

What season are you in?
It’s sweet to notice both the surface and the subtleties.

Starlings Over the Moor

Yesterday, before everything broke loose* I was watching this video.
It’s kind of old news, but yesterday I met it with new wonder, as I’ve been thinking about the phrase “connecting the dots.”
By that I mean, how do we put together the story of our life?
How do we connect the dots?
There’s actually a multitude of ways as independent life events simply arise and then dissolve.

I feel like my family is struggling on how to connect the dots. I know I am.
We’re being invited, herded, even forced into breaking old connections (that is to say, beliefs) and realizing new ways of being.

And then to see that nature just stirs wide swaths of this “connect the dots” energy through the air for the sheer joy of physical expression… it’s very beautiful and mysterious to me.



*(Evie “failed” her PET scan and once again they must do a biopsy involving a hard and painful surgery to get behind her breast bone.)

Oh, Now Here We Go

I’m having a bit of trouble explaining what’s unfolding as Mary, Evie and I meet to meditate twice a week. The shorthand I use in my head is to simply say something shamanic is unfolding. It seems to involve channeling for me.

One concern I had with this is that it felt like a very dualistic activity… and here I’ve been trying to cultivate nondual awareness. Oh well, so go the best laid plans.

Here is a quick post just to share my own surprise. It’s Janet Sussman being interviewed on Buddha at the Gas Pump. Back when it was first posted I wasn’t so enamored by it all. Janet seemed rather full of herself and they got off on talking about higher beings and other planets… CLICK. I turned it off.

But this morning, I decided to revisit. Taoism has a lot of shamanic practice and yet speaks of awakened and enlightened masters. So, I find I’m become a little more opened minded regarding paths. And it occurred to me maybe that what’s Janet’s describing.

Two things I want to share:
First, at about the 1hr 45 min mark there’s a nice discussion about the opening of the heart and vulnerability. Mind opens to true Self and then the heart can open… or sometimes the reverse can happen.

Second, at about 1 hr 55 min, Janet says she is a musician, plays piano, and would like to sing. She then proceeded, to my great surprise, to take a bow and cut loose with the exact behavior that has started flowing through me as Evie, Mary, and I meditate. She calls it singing. I call it shamanism. Look closely at her facial features. This looks like channeling to me. But, if non-dual awareness does it, what is there to channel? It’s just another part of the flow of Life.

And as Janet says, it heals.

Waking Up Out of the Teaching

P Bralley and young friend, ca 1952.

You know, it’s all jazz.
Leonard Bernstein explaining Beethoven’s Seventh to Bobby McFerrin

I illustrated my last post with a self-portrait.
Let me share here the source and reality of that photo. I was standing by my sandbox.
But, which image best illustrates or "explains" the gist of me?
It feels to me like they both make wonderful commentary.
So, which is better? Which preferred?
It all depends upon the point I’m trying to make.
Historical roots are addressed by the sandbox view;
Spiritual aspirations by the self-portrait… perhaps.

This appreciation for different points of view seems to be occurring in regards to teachings and paths.
Several threads of experience have become intertwined and have brought about a shift for me:
First, I found I could no longer make the effort of self-inquiry. I am no good at that. And even resting as awareness, something that felt quite easy suddenly became too great an effort to even think about.
Secondly, when I meditate with Eve and Mary often I start channeling. Initially, we went with this because it falls within the realm of our Taoist practice, but more importantly, it’s shown itself to be very helpful to Evie as she deals with the physical challenges of chemotherapy and stem cell transplant.
Finally, I got tired of all the chattering debates at sites like Buddha at the Gas Pump: the neo-advaitist, “No Ego!” versus advaitist, “Don't be so sure!"

And maybe there's a fourth experience here:  I (?) let go.  Well, something wore out or surrendered without my even attempting to do anything.  Something stopped in a rather non-event. I noticed a little feeling: "exhausted" or "defeated" drifted through body and psyche. But all that was rather subtle.  Rather, daily activity tracked along the above events, and the words I was pondering were Scott Kiloby's:

The thought of myself and the thought of a cliff are equally both thoughts. There’s nothing about the self that makes it really not exist… the cliff doesn’t either…
We make the big deal about no-self and then we think the tree exists.
They’re all just thoughts.
“An unreal concept can’t disassemble itself,” but an unreal concept can drop a rock on its foot. The whole no-self thing becomes a mental concept, “I don’t exist.”…
People say it as they want it to be true or they sense that it is true.
But the word, that insight is an after the fact kind of a thing… It’s not like, “Oh, there’s nobody here.” And now I have to live as if there’s nobody here.
That’s a person trying to be a no-self.
Scott Kiloby talking with Jeff Foster

… at least I think that’s where this rough transcription comes from. The comment that an unreal concept can drop a rock is probably my own commentary.  The quote is probably Rupert Spira.  Anyway, I found these scribbled words on my dining table when I finally cleaned the papers off.

On the other side of the page, there are these words:
Scott: I could really believe I stumbled upon some truth in my concepts, but really they’re just words floating by.
Jeff: It’s like two birds singing. Two birds singing and that’s it.

Around this time I read an essay by Scott entitled, Waking Up (Out of the Teaching).
It felt really right to me:

The possibility of waking up out of the dream of being a separate self, through the use of a spiritual teaching, is amazing…What is more amazing [for me] is the possibility of waking up from one’s own teaching, lineage, tradition, or message.
It’s like waking up from the idea of “I know how it REALLY is” into an openness that wants to explore the diverse landscape of life —to explore how it is within each view.
So that becomes my new language —openness.

It’s funny. As I copy and paste this excerpt I realize that Scott uses the word “openness.”
I didn’t remember that and it's a seldom used word (for me) that I've been thinking about.
My tendency is to define "open" in terms of being tolerant and willing to listen.
But, recently I realized that's how I feel these days physically.  The inside of my body and mind feels Open as in “wide open spaces.”
Open can be a Nothingness that is far too rich to be considered nothing.
And it does no good to really think about this.
It’s something that is rediscovered in each moment, always new and unexpected.
No preconceptions. Just look.
Where are you standing if you’re not holding onto any teaching?

… there will be truth in any word you come up with… at least for that one moment.
Cause, it's all improvisation
when you're open.

Self Portrait

Self Portrait, a photo by Seeking Tao on Flickr.

The image is an impression of the truth, a glimpse of the truth permitted to us in our blindness.
Andrei Tarkovsky

Today’s my birthday.
Today, I become sixty-one.
And as it turns out, I recently created the self portrait that you see above.
I didn’t set out to do something so self-centered. I was simply typing at the computer when I noticed the sunshine falling on a canvas in the corner. One thing led into another – kind of like all the rest of life - and when I was done, I was quite pleased.

Now, I have this image of the little girl.
So much has changed, gone from memory so completely, I have to wonder, “Is that me?”
"Who was there when I was only two?
"Can I recognize myself?" ... even as
I am invited into what has not changed in all these sixty years.

The body is so very changed, and yet, around the eyes I see feelings I still feel:
Wonder.
Longing.
Something sacred and a mystery.
And one step back, prior to the feelings, now, I see that too.
I come to what is always and already “me.”

Wakefulness shines through a body.
Something streams through the child’s face and even now I know myself as the little girl you could say and yet, not the little girl that’s in the picture.
What shines through and is recognized is not within the details, not about the physical shape, specific feelings, or all the here and there’s and thens of sixty years.
But, even though It cannot be captured in one word or picture’s thousand, it doesn’t mean It goes unnoticed.
I study the self portrait and discover something shining through.

The idea of infinity cannot be expressed in words or even described, but it can be apprehended through art, which makes infinity tangible.
Andrei Tarkovsky

Yes. Infinity becomes palpable.
Sometimes the “me” is apprehended, recognized.  And then we get to understand birthdays in a whole new way.

That which is unborn is that which we were before we were born, are during this life, and will be after death. Until there is a conscious realization of our unborn nature, our experience of life will forever be dominated by the egoic drive to survive.
Adyashanti

Which I guess brings me to the Song of the Day as the perfect ending: