The Second Remembrance-Illness

 There is one consolation in being sick, and that is you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.

Henry David Thoreau

All is well!

Where Love Comes From

 Love is the shakti flowing through your heart...

Michael A. Singer

Singer asks, in the below linked podcast,

What melts your heart?

I am going to list some of the things that melt my heart:

• my granchildren: the things they say, the way they laugh, their hugs, and just being with them is the highlight of my life these days
• being in nature: sometimes I just look up at the trees in my yard or on the trail where I walk everyday and I feel this overwhelming awe......the sound of life out there is amazing, the smell of thawing earth, the feel of the breeze on my face...I have this need to get my fix of that everyday
• the birds: chickadees, finches, grossbeaks, blue jays, woodpeckers, and ravens in winter...and robins, flickers, morning doves, and my crows in spring.  That first sound of robin song in spring always makes me tear up.  I love listening for the music of all birdsong every morning and watching them at the feeder...they will often send scouts to the branch outside the window where I write to let me know their feeder is empty and I think that is so cool.
• animals: all animals...from insects to blue whales have a way of opening my heart when I get to watch them, shoot them (camera), interact with them etc.
• The sun....As a Canadian I tend to savour sunlight because we do not get as much as others who live closer to the equator. I love light and I love watching how the light changes throughout the year.  Right now we are experiencing the light of early spring reflecting off the snow and it is warm and hopeful. I feel a melting in my heart when I feel those rays reaching me and warming me. 
• Happy, healthy loved ones: When I get to observe those I love...my children, my siblings, my friends, or students/coworkers in their moments of expressed happiness and wellness, I feel my heart melting.  I love it when others are touching their light. I know that happiness and wellness can be very transient experiences...so every moment one feels happy and vibrant...is a moment to rejoice. Observing others happy makes us happy. 
• Laughter:  I love laughter.  I love to laugh.  I love to hear other people laugh.  Laughter was such a medicine for my family growing up...it melted away a lot of pain and reminded us of love.  
• Great poetry and literature: Yeah I love beautiful words.  Sometimes they are like soft, golden knives that peirce so easily through all my shells, melting my heart.
• writing: I realize more and more that it is not the outcome of my writing that warms my heart...but the act itself.

Oh, there is so much more but I would be here for days.  Yeah, certain things melt my heart.

When something "melts our heart" it is opening us to the experience of love.  We allow the energy of that thing inside. The thing we need to remember, though, is that love is not coming from that thing...it is simply coming from a flow that is constantly wanting to be set free within us.  These things simply open the channels a bit so this shakti can flow through.  The love is already in us because this shakti is love. It is that internal love we are experiencing when we say, "I love ...".

When our hearts are frozen and contracted, when we do not feel love...or worse when we feel its counterpart: fear, it has little to do with what is happening out there...it has to do with us not allowing Life to pour right through us the way she is meant to. We might have stopped Life from coming in and then we inadvertently stored and stuffed all the things we wanted to avoid experiencing. We jammed up the flow of love with these samskaras and then spend our lives holding them down and trying to stop them from being triggered.  We close! We resist!

Love is openness and allowing of Life to be all she is.  A lack of love is purely resistance to some of what Life offers us to experience. It is a closing to the "suchness" or "what isness" of Life. 

Real love is internal and unconditional. It is not what the "me" deems as loveable, pleasant, heart melting that matters when it comes to the experience of love.  It is the removing what is in the way...that matters.

What is in the way of us experiencing love?  The blockages, the stored stuff, the samskaras are in the way.  What is in the way is the "me" ( the psyche, the personality, the ego)  that was built on these things.

To truly love, the "me" has to get out of the way. 

The answer to bringing more love into your life has little to do with finding your soul mate, or attaining more of those experiences that "melt your heart". The answer is in cleansing out the stuff in the way and learning to stay open and blockage free.  The answer is in not closing to anything Life gives you. That means learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. 

...learn to handle situations that are uncomfortable and you will start to feel shakti...if you open and release, shakti will come up....Let Shakti come up ...and welcome her...when you do, our idea of love will be a joke...

Hmm! Something to think about.

All is well! 

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( March, 2025) Love is Not Found, It's Freed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onE0QdRwSak&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=5

Okay with the Human Mess

 Cleansing,

feeling,

healing,

and touching

what is-  [the Shakti under the blockages and the suchness of Life, and Love]-

through opening 

The new mantra created and used by this human I call "me" 

I think "okayness" is a state of being that is highly underrated.

What is okayness?  I believe it to be a state where one is open enough to allow Life to flow through without resistance. 

I am, as I have said many times, on a mission to cleanse and open to Shakti and the suchness of Life.  I am seeking the unconditional love that I know is within me, under all the blockages I have created over the years.  At this stage of the process, I am seeking to be okay with what is.  Being okay with what is involves a process of cleansing (out the blockages), feeling and experiencing what is there, healing by allowing it all to just be what it is,  honoring the process, and letting it all flow through the opening that emerges when we do this. Shakti will then be free to flow through.  When shakti flows, love will flow. 

I am very content, at this point of my journey, to be able to just touch this shakti...to get glimpses of it.  I know the ultimate outcomes of such a practice can be blissful enlightenment when shakti flows completely free.  I am not so attached to that outcome, though.  I accept that I may never get there in this life time. I am content with momentary touches of peace, and love that come with this state of "okayness with what is".  I am so, so grateful that I am getting those touches and glimpses, that I am feeling okayness. I can see how I am feeling more and more okay with the human mess and I see that as true progress. :) 

Does that mean that Life is no longer difficult? No. 

As it is for many, it is still messy right now for this human I call "me".  It has been messy and chaotic for a long, long time. I am finally finding a certain "okayness" with that. I am resisting, less and less, what Life offers me and am beginning to accept and honor it all. I know that the work that needs to be done has to take place within me.  It is my job to cleanse myself and to free shakti. It is my job to open to love. This healing, this love is not the responsibility of anyone else nor will it be found "out there". The world didn't break what is apparently broken in "me", and the world cannot fix it.  Only an inner practice will do that. :)  

The above mantra is something I use often in my meditation practice now. I realize, however, that the majority of this practice takes place off the cushion or mat  and in real life activities. As the title of this blog site suggests, we wake up in a busy world. Yet, in this busy world we need to stop and be still often.  So I take 20 minutes to an hour every morning and evening to sit in stillness and check in with what is going on within me. I watch whatever is there...I feel it...I asked to be healed from it...I observe the resistance and I will myself to be okay with that.   I embrace it, I talk to it, I listen to it ( without getting too caught up in its story). I allow it to stay before I allow it to go. Then I check in with whatever is hiding below the resistance and do the same with that.  I do my best to be okay with whatever shows up. 

Because of my practice both on and off the cushion, I recognize and accept discomfort, more and more.  In order to tap into the "felt experience" that is awareness, I need to detach from the story that used to carry me and keep me away from the felt experience. It requires getting out of our head and down into the actual experiencing. 

If you can let the discomfort make it through you than you do not need to know what put it there.

When you learn to handle situations that are uncomfortable you will start to feel shakti.

(May be somewhat paraphrased)

I have had the living experience lately of taking care of my three year old grandson for the week.  There was no time to be in my head. I felt my heart open...so very open during our time together.  I felt myself more present and in the moment than I have been for a long time.  I felt that experience of love!! 

I also had the opportunity to be with my other two grandchildren, more than I have been able to be since the situation changed.  It was lovely.  We played and laughed. I listened and watched them experience Life. 

I also felt at the verge of crying in many of those moments. Why? Because being around these innocent, yet very wise three and four year old beings opened me.  It opened me to the moment; it opened me to the  awe-filled experience of Life; it opened me to love. It opened me enough for shakti to begin to push up against my blockages.  I felt(and feel) some long stored stuff emerging into conscious awareness...I am feeling that too. 

And I am okay with it all! 

My grandson went home yesterday after 9 days with Nana...and though my body was saying, "Thank God!" my heart was both saddened by a sense of loss his absence is now creating and at the same time grateful for the opening into okayness that deepened in me. I love the experience of being open!

Hmm!  How I ramble, eh? :)

Anyway, I hope that you too are experiencing such openings in yourself...and are able to touch any shakti that is being released...even if it is only in trickles (as is my case most times). 

The human experience is all so beautiful, even when it is messy.

May you and all beings be well.  May you and all beings be open and free to touch the flow of shakti within you.

All is well!

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( March, 2025) Love is Not Found, It's Freed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onE0QdRwSak&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=4

 Grace is perfect, even when my life isn't!

Deepak Chopra

All is well!

Internal Ethics and Cognitive Dissonance

 The good things, do them

the bad things, don't do them.

Purify your mind.

This is the teaching [of the Buddha].

Brother Spirit

Exploring the Mind

I have been very interested in exploring my own tendency towards arrogance lately, or at least exploring the motivation from which I make my behavioural choices. I am fascinated with exploring my mind. That fascination can make each moment an interesting moment rather than a difficult one...but...that doesn't mean it isn't painful or difficult to do so. 

Like many, I have a tendency towards shame when I remember and then judge some of my past behaviours or tendencies. It is a very visceral feeling for me.  I feel it in my gut with a sensation like a twisting knot.  I cringe. I feel the body curling forward automatically as if I need to protect that spot (myself from my own samskaras). There is, with that, an emotional experience of not only shame but of fear as well.  I think some punishment is going to come from somewhere. I go from saying out loud to the air, "I am sorry," to possibly even, "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned." (If you were raised Catholic, you will understand where that comes from lol). It can be a very "uncomfortable" experience. I then find myself very resistant to the experience and I automatically go back to the tendency of pushing it all back down.

All I may have done in the past, according to this memory, is say something that came off as less than kind or make a mistake that I assume inadvertently caused another to suffer to some mild degree. Maybe, I failed to say hi to someone I passed and realized later that I didn't do so.  Maybe, I did something with what I thought were pure intentions but others deemed it as arrogant, making me quetsion my motivation. Maybe, I drew too much attention to myself and liked it. 

This what I experience is cognitive dissonance.

What is cognitive dissonance?

Cognitive dissonance, in my understanding, is when what we do, say, or express energetically does not feel comfortable to body or mind. Might have conflicting beliefs or have a desire to convince self or others that we do or do not believe what we do at the core. 

According to Brother Spirit, it is a mismatch between our actions and the values we have or that we claim to own.

The" Be humble and good" belief 

I was raised to be "good" which meant being quiet, not causing any trouble, not hurting anyone, denying self, being "nice", and humble. That is a core belief.  I also have an added socially enhanced belief that contradicts that, "To redeem your shameful mistakes: Be strong, speak up, get what you want, get noticed, do something significant...be assertive even to the point of arrogance." I use the latter to deny my core belief, but that old shame core belief will still get triggered again and again. Sigh!

I do see when I reflect that neither belief is healthy, and I am working my way to their dissolution...but I still feel cognitive dissonance again and again. I especially feel it when I see myself trying to redeem myself to some professional image. I catch myself having or have had an experience of being "arrogant" and automatically I find myself cringing forward. I want to punish myself for being arrogant...and then when I return to adhering to the shame based core belief,  I want to punish myself for being so "pathetically humble or delf defacing". I do not like it either when I catch myself for being "nice" for the sake of appeasing a core belief. I am "harsh" to this self when I catch myself in the midst of either tendency. 

Avoiding Discomfort

Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable and I want to avoid it.  Brother Spirit lists ways in which we tend to avoid such uncomfortable moments.

We are profoundly adverse to discomfort ...we need to look at the ways we avoid feeling this discomfort and learn instead to become at peace with it

When we feel this conflict, we tend to ...

• change our behaviour
• justify our actions
• add other behaviours (supplement with less conflicting and "positive" behaviours more in line with these core beliefs)
• or we ignore or deny the evidence

I do all of these things when the feeling emerges. Hmmm! Let's go back to the memory and from the memory reflect on the dilemma of decision making that arose based on this situation.  Many times our decision making needs are ethical dilemmas.  

Ethical Dilemmas?

An ethical dilemma occurs when we need to make a choice between two modes of actions and that entails having to deny one of our moral principles or go against one of our core beliefs. 

Most of us have conflicting core beliefs. For me, for example, I have this belief that I need to be nice, quiet, good and humble(which is also a moral principle)...I also have a belief that in order to feel less shame I need to be assertive, strong, seen, accomplished, successful in some worldly way, and that, of course, can lead to arrogance. When I am acting from my shame based ego...I tend to go against my socially conditioned redeemer ego.  When Redeemer is in charge I am transgressing my moral principles and my shame -based core beliefs. Sigh!   

So how do we make the right decision, say, when we are deciding if we should write and then promote a book to support language learning that may help others and help us at the same time, even if we do not see ourselves as experts? Seems simple enough, doesn't it? Sounds like a good thing to do...so why wouldn't the choice automatically be, "Go for it?" 

Well, such decisions are not so easy to make when you have battling egos like I have.

The Right Choice

Brother Spirit tells us that in order to make the "right" choice, the most skillful and beneficial one we need to know if our choice will: reduce pain, or increase pleasure. Which is our major motivation for most choices we make, is it not?  

The writing of this book helped to reduce pain in this human I call "me.  It was a distraction away from some pretty heavy life circumstances. Did it increase pleasure?  Yes, again it increased pleasure for this human I call myself.  I love to learn, write, and teach.  I could do all three with this book creation, so it was a great "pass time" for "me".  Was it a pain reducing pleasure for others?  Hmm! If it were to be what I set out for it to be: a tool for reducing the pain of a language barrier done in a fun and interesting way...then yeah.  The intention was for it to reduce suffering and add pleasure to others.  I have yet to see it doing so, however.

We also need to ask, "Will this be helpful or unhelpful?" I wanted this book to be helpful.  I learn better when I teach so it was very helpful to this human...but I am not sure if it was, is, or could be helpful to others?  I fear sometimes that it might even be unhelpful being that it was created through learning, not established expertise.   

We need to take it further to ask, is it beneficial or unbeneficial? The problem with the first few questions is that they are self and other focused.  "Little me" seen itself as a separate entity getting something from this book creation, but it also looked at "the others" who might benefit. It may have been beneficial to separate entities but how did it benefit the world as a whole?  Hmm!  Probably very insignificantly, if at all.  

A step farther: "Is it skillful or unskillful?" I did quickly ponder that question. More specifically, I asked, "Is this a skillfull or unskilful use of my time and energy? Could that energy be directed to something that would impact the world more significantly? "  

Hmm! These questions are not enough because we are not contemplating who  we are saying this choice should be beneficial for?  Others? And what others?  Who are the Others? Or is it to be beneficial to "self", meaning which of the two egos should this decision serve? 

A better question then is, "Are/were we deluded or awake when we make or made that that decision?"  I can see on reflection of past choices that if I am serving either my shamer ego or my redeemer ego...catering to shame-based beliefs or the redemption ones that can lead to arrogance...I am deluded.  If I am not serving Self and the One consciousness, I am not awake enough to make a proper decision that will truly serve. Another great quest to ask is does /did it open or close us?

Internal Ethics

When we are reminded of past mistakes or less than wholesome choices...when we feel the inklings of cognitive dissonance brewing inside us, it is a wonderful time to look at our "internal ethics." What are we experiencing and why?  Are we noticing any conflicting beliefs or conflicts between our choices and our principals? Why does this feel so uncomfortable? What is my tendency when this feeling arises?  Do I want to escape it? Do I go to thinking about how I can change my behaviour to make this feeling go away? (In my case am I shifting from the directions of one ego and going to the next?)  Am I trying to justify why I did what I did to make the guilt and shame go away? Am I supplementing with other more positive behaviours that appease whatever ego needs appeasing? Am I trying to ignore the evidence?

Victim?

Another common tendency I have, shared by many I am sure, is that  I try to slip into victim mode.  "I couldn't help it.  It was self defense.  Look what happened to me...this is why I do what I do etc."  And when we become victims, we need to vilify others to sustain our self identity as victim. "He/she/ they made me do it!" 

Rushing Decisions

Often when we are faced with any decision...we are in an uncomfortable situation that we quickly want to escape.  We make quick decisions just to escape the discomfort of having to make a decision. When we make decisions this way we spend the future trying to rationalize these decisions or we change our beliefs or values to match the choices we made. 

I wrote this book on a pure compulsion.  When the time came to make a decision about what to do with the book once it was written and how to get it out there....I was torn.  I quickly made a decision to send a copy here or there, give this person or that person a copy along with an explanation...I wasn't seeking profit, but I did need to cover printing costs and to pay myself at least a couple of dollars per book for the work. As soon as I put it up and out, Shamer kicked in big time. "Who was I to write this book anyway, let alone give it to people?" 

And because the decision was already made, I started to transgress my moral principle of staying humble and allowed Redeemer to step up with, "It is a great and noble thing I did!  It will help!  I had the skill set to write this book.  I was the one to do it and get it out there! etc."   It never felt right...I could still feel the conflict between humility and arrogance brewing in my belly.   

We also tend to adjust our views and values to account for our behaviours. When I do something out of arrogance, I might say, "That's okay.  I am allowed to look after myself and do something that would get me noticed etc. It is good to be noticed.  People who stay in the shadows do not help others."  

If I do something that makes me appear humble to myself or others I might say, "Look at how humble I am.  I am more spiritual than most because of my humility."

This dissonance is terribly uncomfortable and because I have had so little feedback indicating that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to do, I feel a bit cringy and torn inside whenever the feeling and thought emerges, "I shouldn't have put this book out there.  Who did I think I was? " 

At the same time I am intrigued by this thought and the self reflection it leads to.

A Mirror

We need a mirror to look into so we can see what we are doing. May be uncomfortable but necessary.

The attention we pay to the world is a moral act.

 The kind of attention we pay changes the nature of what is manifested.

Seer and seen co-arise.

I guess what I am trying to say, is that we need to pay attention and be mindful of what we are experiencing during decision making, as well to what we are experiencing when we remember our less than skilful behaviours based on unmindful decision making. 

Don't resist the discomfort that comes with both. Look deeply into it and be kind to whatever arises. 

We need to learn to be comfortable with the discomfort that comes with facing the truth we already know under our pseudo value layers, under our behavioural choices...

Don't be afraid to ask before each decision we make. "Will this be skillful, helpful, beneficial to Self (many)? If so, it is a 'good thing, do it!"  "Will it  make myself or others suffer?"If so, it is a bad thing, don't do it!" 

I know with this book, the only one who will suffer is this "me". Yet, I have made other decisions in the past that might have  lead directly or indirectly to the suffering of others.  That is not a nice feeling when I remember those things. The question still needs to be asked: 

 "Oh, did I cause these people to suffer, these beings to suffer with that decision I made in the past that is arising in my memory now?"

After that question is answered,  we can gain the insight needed to do better with the moment we are in now. We need to reexamine our value systems, our beliefs and get rid of the ones that do not serve all. 

We need to learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable if it brings us to Truth and helps us to purify our minds. 

Suffering is not something we have to avoid...it may be our greatest of teachers.

That which we called intolerable...is tolerable; that which we call uncomfortable...is fine. 

Our deepest core beliefs and our most significant guiding values should be based in love. How will we know they are?  By looking deeply into our internal ethics even when it is so uncomfortable to do so. 

Learning to be comfortable with discomfort is the antidote to cognitive dissonance!

All is well!

Plum Village/ Brother Spirit. ( January , 2024) When your World View Begins to Crumble: A Chance to Wake Up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8exs11Mrl94&t=6313s

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Happy Moment?

 This is a happy moment? 

This is a difficult moment...

This is a survivable moment...

This is a tolerable moment...

This is an okay moment...

This is an interesting moment....

This is a new moment...

This is a safe moment...

This is a nondual moment...

This is an interdependent coarising moment...

This is a fascinating moment....

This is a wonderful moment.....

This is a happy moment.....

Brother Spirit/ Plum Village

There was so much inspired thought and wisdom gained from listening to Brother Spirit today talk  about congnitive dissonance and learning to be okay when things don't seem okay....but ....I do not have the time to eloborate. :) 

So, I will leave you with the progressive self talk approach he shared when faced with a difficult or challenging moment that may come when facing truths about one's self. I will get back to the rest of the learning when I have more time and space. 

All is well.

Plum Village/ Brother Spirit. (January, 2024) When Your World View Begins to Crumble: A Chance to Wake Up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8exs11Mrl94&t=6313s

Reminded of the "Awe"

 He could no longer stand in wonder, and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead- his eyes are closed.

Albert Einstein

Watch the world through a three-year old's eyes and you cannot help but to stand in wonder and being wrapped in awe.  They are the true scientists and the true spiritual gurus of this world. Spend time with one to open your eyes to how amazing this world is.

Hmm! 

All is well. 

 

No Agenda

Engage the next moment without an agenda.

Pema Chodron

My entries might be sparse over the next week.  Watching my three year old grandson and there is little time for "me" or "my" personal indulgences. I am enjoying every moment of it but man, is it exhausting lol.  How did I do this with four? Anyway...I will try to pop in sporadically during the week, when he sleeps in like he is doing this morning or during nap times.  The problem is, I tend to fall asleep after each story is closed too  :) 

There will, obviously, be no agenda.

All is well

Crying Over Spoilt Fruit?

Your committment is to action alone, not to the fruits of action.

Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities; and never be attached to not doing your duty. 

The Gita

Ten hours of work on a ppt presentation to support the English Language teachings in the book I wrote. It left me pondering the purity of this mission.

 I worked hard on this book and these teachings. Was going to put this presentation up with a few others on a youtube channel I created for the purpose of teaching to help.  No fees, no pay, just wanted to help newcomers and its gone.  Something happened with the saved file and it needed to be repaired...I was stupid enough to repair it and it left me with 7 slides...sigh! It was a good and helpful presentation...It is a good and helpful book.  It seemed to be a good and helpful purpose... wasn't it?  I am questioning if the challenges and obstacles I am experiencing in my attempt to pursue this little mission are there to tell me to stop and look at my motivation.  

Maybe I shouldn't be doing this? Maybe this is arrogance, an ego motivation underlining everything I did here and that is why it isn't just flowing out into the world in a helpful way?  I don't know. I really did not start out attached to outcome. I had an idea.  Thought I could do something helpful and I set out to it.  I worked hard and was dedicated to this and I really enjoyed the process....I got absorbed in the process.  It was fun!! I love learning!!  I love teaching!! I love serving in any way I can! I love using the skills I have to help! I also got "distracted" from all the drama going on around me while I was working on this.  I had a challenging situation yesterday morning and I went to the PPT presentation, partially for escape. 

Anyway, I worked hard. I created something pretty cool. Then in a second or two it was gone. 

The process of this entire project felt good...It was more fun than work...but maybe the intention is not as pure as I think it is and  the finished project was never meant to be?  

It...this that I created and create...is not getting out there... is not helping anyone.  (Well, I had a couple who said they really found it helpful and that is enough, I suppose.) But if ego is doing this for its own selfish reasons, I need to look at that too.  Ego would get in the way of this doing any good, wouldn't it?

Lets look at why our egos might take us into such service, service that isn't entirely selfless.

 Maybe ego likes the idea of putting itself out there to get attention...in my case ... as a skilled teacher? It wants others to see it as such.  Teaching has always stroked my ego, leading to a subtle arrogance. That isn't pure.  

Maybe it is feeling some sense of moral superiority by doing this? Maybe, I see myself as higher on the playing field, in some way, than those I am helping? That isn't pure. 

 Maybe it is doing this to stay distracted from all the junk going on around the "me"?  It is an escape from the relaities of Life. That isn't pure. 

 Maybe it is Redeemer ego stepping in to pull "me" away from that sense I am not good enough again. Redeemer is always around when it comes to my writing and teaching.  Yeah.  There is a bit of Redeemer arrogance in everything I do...to compensate for that which is at the other end of the spectrum.  I have this "Succeed here in order to hide where you fail there" kind of thing going on. Yeah, if I am being honest, this is a big part of my motivation.  My ego has taken a beaten over the years with having to leave the  job I loved  and that sense of productivity and purpose being an educator once gave me.  Though I complain about not being as finacially stable as I would like to be, earning money was seldom the motivator for anything I did. I wanted to redeem myself by being a person who did something of  measurable value in the world.  

Though nursing offered me a wonderful opportunity to serve and give, as well as a good, stable income...it beat my ego into the ground (never felt like a nurse) and it wasn't until I stood in front of a classroom for the first time that I felt true ego-redemption. Yeah...even though I know how ego is in the way of us experiencing who we truly are...I catch myself still seeking ego-redemption even with my intention to serve and help. Hmm!  That is interesting.

Anyway, this just came out of me this morning as I sat here...crying over the spoilt fruit of action. I will learn from this too. I will keep going doing what I set out to do...no matter what obstacles come my way...or no matter how much good it actually does.  Those fruit are not my business...my business is to simply do my duty.

All is well!

We Cannot Escape Growing Old

 The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The First Remebrance:

1. I am of the nature to grow old.  There is no escaping growing old.

The Upanjjhatthana Suttra

Allis well!

A Lay Person's Look at the Five Remembrances.

 Sometimes reality hurts, but not as much as the Illusion we create when we don't want to accept it.

Jim Storm

All is well!

Motivated by Arrogance or Shame?

 Arrogance is a way for a person to cover up shame. After years of arrogance, the arrogant person is so out of touch, she doesn't truly know who she is. This is one of the greatest tragedies of shame cover-ups. Not only does the person hide from others, she hides from herself. 

John Bradshaw

I am starting a couple of new little video projects.  Why?  I have no clue. The first one will be a good look at The Five Remembrances as I offer a lay person's very imperfect perspective of them. The second one is going to involve our langauge and the relative connotations we place on certain words.  Instead of answering questions from the jar...I am thinking of pulling out a word commonly used with a variety of different judgements attached to it. I will speak on that word...off the cuff...for a certain period of time. 

Why am I doing this?  I honestly do not know why I feel compelled to do such things.  I know there is some practical reasoning.  I do want to keep the speaking skills sharpened and that means practicing both speaking impromtuly as well as putting myself out there a bit. The natural educator/learner  in me also wants to share what I learn and learn while I share. I fell, as well, compelled to do this.  The compulsion seems pure but I do fear there is still ego attachd to it... a  certain arrogance.  

Man, am I arrogant? The thought of being influenced to do what I do by arrogance, makes me a little sick inside.  Sometimes I look at what I do or did and after the fact realize that yeah, there was arrogance in it.  I cringe.

The book I wrote for newcomers for example...cringe!!! Who was I to write that and why did I give a copy to people who didn't even want it? I have that twisting cringing in my gut that arises when shame resurfaces.  That usually means I am recognizing at least some arrogance, as a motivator.  

You see, there is a crazy thing going on in me when it comes to shame. I feel shame when I am arrogant, and I am arrogant because of shame. 

Shame is a dominant emotion in me. It is an emotion wrapped around a lot of those memories and supressed/repressed experiences I stuffed in trunks in my subconscious.  There are a lot of those trunks.  I built an ego identity around that shame that I call "Shamer Ego" .  Shamer's job is to keep me small, very, very humble (below humble actually- cringing in a state of unworthiness). Standing out, according to Shamer, is "showing off", "not knowing my place", "a sin."  It pushes me to stay in the shadows and avoid being seen so as not to make a mess, or bother others. It is a very unpleasant experience when Shamer is out and about in my mind.

To compensate, to reduce or diminish the shame experience, Shamer Ego has a twin, an alter ego: "Redeemer Ego". Redeemer ego is there to help pull me up from the pits of shame. Its job is to create an image of pride...of confidence...of not just worthiness but of "success" and achievement and to make this me stand out proudly.  It pushes me to "do"...to :achieve", to  make " a name for myself". It gets a little over zealous at times and goes from creating a psuedo confidence to a psuedo arrogance. It makes "me" too big for my britches. 

When I get too big Shamer steps in again to pull me down. Usually with this question, "Who the he!! do you think you are?" 

Then when Shamer gets too heavy, Redeemer steps in with, "Lets "do" something to make you feel better.To show the world that you have nothing to be ashamed of, in fact, that you have lots to be proud of. "

Back and forth, back and forth this psyche and body are pulled. I am looking to find and maintain the happy medium between these two extremes. I am looking for equinimity. 

 I want what I do, what I put out there into the world, what I offer in terms of my "actions" (my only true belongings)  to be based on neither Shamer's or Redeemer's input.  I want my actions to come from a higher place. Where is that higher place? The higher place exists away from the battling ego's, away from the drama...and away from the objects of consciousness to the Seat of Consciousness.

So I question, why I do what I do all the time.  I look for Shamer and Redeemer in the background of these inspirations I have to determine if either is motivating me. They are both in me still...doing what they do...I feel them and sometimes I even follow their directions but I don't want to.  I want all that to stop.Hmm!

It begins with beinng aware....and then tracing my way to the clarity that exists in the Seat

Anyway, rambled off in my attempt to explain why I do what I do. 

All is well. 

Ultimate Destination? To Live in Ultimate Truth

 

By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unflailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination. 

Christopher Columbus

I don't quite agree with Chris.  I am starting to see that we are not to "prevail over" obstacles and distractions...we are to use them and be grateful for them.  They help us to see what we really need and want from Life.

What is our chosen goal or destination?  Whether we know it or not, all maps point to one destination: peace, happiness, joy, and love.  That is what we are seeking from every journey we take...be it to India (when we accidently land in the 'new world' like Chris did), or to the registrar's office to sign up for a new career, or to the dealership to get that Porsche we have been dreaming about all our lives, or to the Justice of the Peace to make our soul mate's our own. We believe  that these things will bring peace, happiness, joy, and love. Did Christopher Columbus experience these things when he landed on each new shore and for how long, I wonder. Or did he he have to hop right back onto another ship and sail away into the sunset?  Did he ever really find what he was looking for?  Or was his looking for new world's to conquer just a distraction?

My destination is knowledge.  I want to know all I can about the world we see and the world  we have yet to see. I want to know everything there is to know about the human mind. I want to know all about Life. Is this really my Life goal?  When I think about it honestly, I realize that what I really want is peace, happiness, joy, and love and I assume knowledge will give me that sigh. I am distracted.

I am really starting to see my distracting tendencies. 

Sitting here with my tea in a state of "Ugh! What is this?" I have been observing my restless mind since I awoke this morning. Tried to just center and relax when I was laying on my back...and I observed myself getting pulled away from distraction at least a dozen times.  I was already well into story each time I caught myself.  I  would pull myself back and say, "Okay.  That's okay.  I will try it again."  I would begin centered and thoughtless but before long there I was again...pulling myself away from yet another thought stream.

After a bit I convinced myself that it was just the posture...too relaxed and not alert enough.  So I popped up into easy pose with spine erect, grabbed my mala for anchoring purposes...and began a simple breath meditation.  Though I got pulled away into thought and story less, I still got pulled away....again and again.  I eventually had to accept that that would be my practice for today...observing my distracting tendencies.  Sigh!

Last night I had this recurring thought whenever I woke up.  I guess I was meant to remember it.

What we truly seek is the ultimate experience of living.

Spiritually or the search for the truth of consciousness...isn't really woo-woo or mystical or magical.  It is simply all about becoming aware of what we are focusing our attention on and asking, "Could there be more to this Life than what I am experiencing?  Am I focusing too narrowly on this thing I call me with all its thoughts, desires, and problems?  Am I living in stories in my head or am I living in the moment? What if I widen my lens and pull back? What will I see, or experience then? What if I pull right back, beyond the thinking mind with all its stories and identifications, to where this experience is being projected from?  Who or what is doing the projecting?  Who am I in all this?  Am I the projector, or the projected? What is the best way to serve this Life?"

A little deep for three O'clock in the morning maybe...lol...but that is how this mind I have been given to use works. 

Isn't everything, but the Ultimate Truth, a distraction? And how many of us are living in ultimate truth...in the most purest felt experience of peace, happiness, joy, and love?  What would it be like to live purely in Truth? 

Though it it is rudimentary step in the process of Living in Truth...awareness of distraction is an important component.  It is a good solid step forward on this path. ( And you can call the path anything you want...just words and concepts, right? You can call it spirituality, psychology, philosophy, a search for higher consciousness, the quest for true awareness...or as Columbus referred to his quests, "A search for new worlds"...You can call it Fred if you want to. What we call it doesn't really matter.  I am beginning to see it more and more as a scientific endeavour... a seeking of empirical evidence for reality. The direction we must go...is inward not outward.  That is why "yoga" fits into my description of it. ) 

Anyway, rambling this morning...my words are just as hyperactive as my thoughts. :) 

All is well. 

Knowing Less

 Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.  Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Rumi

Eckhart Tolle explains the importance of changing individual human consciousness in order to change the world t by first becoming self aware:

You can only change the world by changing human consciousness...and there is only one place that it can happen and that is in you...to practice self observation implies there is enough self awareness in you that you can observe yourself.

And as I have discovered in my own living practice, the more Self aware I get, the more the self diminishes.  The more I seek to know, the less I know. So this axiom set out by the Oracle at Delphi and to which Socrates ascribed, "Man, Know thyself" ...really means, I believe, "Man, as you observe self, see through your trying to know self...that the self you think you are  isn't real and the more you try to know this self and gain knowledge for this self...the less you will know." 

Eckhart Tolle puts it this way:

You know less as you become more aware...because the compulsion to judge continously isn't there.

So as I trudge along this path, feeling a bit "stupid" as I become aware of how little I know. I recall a line from Plato's Repulic,

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

All is well.

Eckhart Tolle ( February 18, 2025) Eckhart Tolle on the Importance of Self Awareness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srdASys9EIo&t=802s

Yogic Cleansing and Purifying

 You do not have to store these things inside...you have to experience them. Learn to be okay with what you experience.

...Life is a sequence of experiences you get to have. 

 Michael A. Singer

Instead of just experiencing Life...what do we do?  

We select what we want to experience. We then stuff and store a few selective experiences and focus all our energy on them. Mind takes over with these questions, "Okay, what can I do so that never happens again and I never have to feel it again?" Our energy goes to that thought, that resistance.  We close up and we do not fully experience the moment we are in. 

Even when we stuff and store positive things we are given by Life, we are forming samskaras and it is counter productive to our experience of Life. This "clinging" tendency  makes us focus on this, "What can I do so that I have this again, so that nothing or no one takes it away?" 

Our mind goes there...we follow the mind and we live in that thought process rather than in the suchness of the moment. 

It is through all this stored stuff that we perceive and interpret the world.  What we are looking to gain from the world is actually in us...beneath or behind all this stored stuff. ...peace, happiness, joy, and love. But all our stuffed stuff is in the way of us feeling it. This leads to reactivity and resistance.  So then what do we have to do?

First 

Don't store the negative things[or the positive things] that happen to you. 

Second

Be open to purification- a cleansing of all that is stored, a release of samskaras.  That is where I am at-- focusing on the release of samskaras. I want to cleanse my inner world so I am more open to the outer world. 

In the meditation video I posted last entry the samskaras are represented as trunks holding past memory and emotional energy related to experiences we stuffed and stored through repression and suppression. In this meditation all the trunks are lining and cluttering this vast tunnel that exists deep down in our psyches.  That tunnel might be our sushumna...or it can be the Life journey itself...Behind all these trunks is the shakti  energy that is blocked ...light, peace, happiness, joy, and love....that is meant to be flowing through this tunnel, through us, enhancing our lives.  We, however, lined its channel with stored junk (in trunks) with our desiring and averting. We blocked the channel  so we do not feel this inner flow, and we develop a tendency to look out into the external world for these things already in us.  We then end up stuffing and storing more...creating more blockages with more trunks.

How do we fix this? 

We want the trunks empty...we want the trunks gone. In the meditation...we go in to cleanse. We are only focusing on the trunks that are already partially opened...meaning that the samskaras are naturally being opened by life circumstance. Yet, their ascent and release is still being hindered by our resistance.  So, instead of resisting...we do the opposite...we seek and openly confront ( in a friendly and non-aggressive way) any samskara on its way out.  We experience it so it can be released.  

Of course, this is all just intention and visualization but hopefully this little exercise will help us to cultivate an intention of willingness and acceptance; it will help us to get past those resistant emotions by going through them; and it will counter our tendencies to run, stuff, escape, hide etc with our intentionally seeking and confronting. 

Hmm! I don't know.  It is beneficial to me so I share.

All is well

Michael A. Singer/ Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( February 24, 2025) The Sacred Time Between Birth and Death. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIo8_HmnQ6M&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=2

Contracted or Pure and Open?

Something is pure when it is not holding objects inside of itself...when it hasn't built false forms and stored them...

Michael A. Singer

Wouldn't you want to be able to say...

Life is Life and I am fine with it? 

Most of us live contracted experiences, all twisted up and caught up in our samskaras...closing every few minutes because we fear something out there may trigger one of them. So, as if curled up around these samskaras in a fetal position...protecting what we erronously assume is vital...we perceive and confront the world from that contracted position.  How limiting and unwholesome that is. Imagine being able to stand tall...with no need to protect that thing that doesn't serve...to be able to be open and free to what life gives us without an ounce of resistance.

Yogic teachings tell us that purification can give us that.  We just need to clean out the insides so that beautiful flow of light and love that exists beneath it can flow freely through. We need to allow for the release of blockages or samskaras. 

I am making purification the most important thing in my Life right now.  It is a process.  I have an awful lot of stored stuff that is painful...that I have spent my life to date trying to avoid. I see how much it was in the way. Now, I want it gone...all gone.  I tried to patiently wait for it to come up on its own as samskaras will do but man that is taking a long time.  A lot of it is on its way up and it isn't pleasant...it sucks!!! I hate that it is still stuck to me some how.  So, though I know better than to deal with the deeply entrenched stuff that may not be ready to come out...I want to help the stuff that is already on its way  to come out. I need a little help to cough up this furball lol. I did a little guided meditation to help. I share it cautiously and somewhat reluctantly to appease this compulsive need to share what I learn, or create that even remotely benefits this human I call "me". 

All is well!

Michael A. Singer ( February, 2025) From Chaos to Clarity: Unleashing the Power of the Mind.v=wNhe8Unqpv8&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1

Acceptance of Reality: The Five Remembrances

 Helter Skelter, Come What Made 

RamKrishna

Peace isn't about the expereince we get when the "good" things come our way, or when we avoid  the "bad" things of this life. Peace is what we experience when we are clean and clear and non reactive to whatever Life gives us. Hmm!  Even the hard stuff.  We can and need to accept the hard truths of Life if we truly want to experience peace.  Not so easy.

I have been thinking about the acceptance of these hard things. That brings to mind the Five Remembrances of the nature of Life, that Buddha taught.

1. I am of the nature to grow old.  There is no escaping growing old.

2. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no escape to having ill health. 

3. I am of the nature to die.  There is no way to escape death.

4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change.  There is no way to escape being seperated from them.

5. My actions are my only true belongings.  I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand. 

Can you accept the inevitability and yet the unpredictability of these things?  Or do you still cringe and close up at the mere thought of any of them? 

Once you openly accept all of these with a smile on your face ...than you will know your practice was successful.

This all came to mind when I amswered a question from the jar. Hmm! Go figure.

All is well. 

Releasing Samskaras: Clearing the Mind and Body of Blockages

If the mind is clear, whatever you do or say will bring happiness that will follow you like a shadow.

The Buddha

I share a little guided meditation  I created for myself...I am at the part of my life practice where I really, really want to free myself of all that which has been in the way for so long. Like most of us do, I had created blockages and a thick veil from which I experienced Life with my resistance to what is.. Being that I was on this planet for quite a while, it is pretty thick lol. I now want to clear my mind of these blockages, this veil...so happiness follows me and all those I encounter around like a shadow. 

I believe samskara release will not only heal us individually but it will help us to give more to the world, to Life in an open and honest way. 

This video was made for selfish reasons...I wanted something to assist me in getting in touch with those samskaras within me. I have learned a lot in the gaining of a Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher's certificate. I might as well use it for my own benefit, if not for others, right? I also gain even more from the wonderful teacher's out there that have been doing this for so much longer than I have.  This is an adaptation of many meditations I have listened to over the years.  It is therefore, not 'mine'. 

Anyway, have a listen if you care to. Just because I am breaking a cookie in half and offering you a piece doesn't mean you have to take it, nor does it mean you have to like it if you do. I still need to share.

All is well.

The Body: A Means Not An End

The body can bring you neither peace or turmoil; neither joy nor pain. It is a means and not an end. It has no purpose of itself, but only what is given to it. The body will seem to be whatever is the means for reaching the goal you assign to it.   

ACIM: Chapter 19: B:i:5-7

I awoke experiencing pain...not the same I was writing about in a previous entry.  This is the cyst causing this pain experience, I think.  This particular pain is there every morning when I wake up in varying degrees.  This morning it is a little more intense than before probably because of the bout of diverticulitis I assume I went through the other day and that still lingers a bit. I catch myself labelling it as "Super annoying!" and I look up again, "Man, didn't I have enough pain the other day? Why do I have to deal with this?"

 When I do that and say that to myself, I feel myself closing up to it in resistance.  I am tensing up around it.  I am emotionally tense.  I begin the story telling about how long it has been there (since 2017) and that nothing will likely ever get done about it or the other things, and I am too tired to fight to get something done about anything going on in this body.etc etc etc. (...a thousand little violins playing all over the world lol. Yep, this is self pity at its best.) 

So, when I realized where I was heading, I decided to take the focus off of "little me" and this body by doing a Tonglen practice.  I decided to do a meditation that I recorded a few years ago and had offered on this blog.  I went to that entry and lo and behold...there was a long winded tale there as well about the pain and health seeking experience of this human I call me. Crazy!  I was so embarrassed. Everytime I see myself going off on a tangent about my physical woes I get so embarrassed. "This isn't spiritual", I tell myself. "You sound like a hypochondriac.  No wonder why people can't take you seriously. Stay stoic and strong like you are tough and can handle all this pain. Don't let others see you sweat it out! Man, what is wrong with you?" 

I told myself that when I got up...I would revise, edit, or delete all that rambling to create an appearance of me as a stoic, strong human being. 

So, attention goes from pain...to the thought that I need to do something about it through external validation and care...to the story about the past ( health seeking experiences where I felt shamed for speaking out about the pain)....to fear about about a future of always having this pain and what will happen to this body...to awareness of a giving up....to self reprimand for even writing about or sharing out loud that I have pain and frustration...to shame and embarrassment.  And from there to a desire to redeem myself by pretending to be more stoic than I am when it comes to my body's complaints.  And all this in a matter of seconds!!! lol This is what my mind does whenever I experience pain. It feel like a knee-jerk reflex.

Eventually, I will pull myself back enough to fall into an acceptance and I will deal. Lately, I have been quick to recognize and catch myself slipping into this but some mornings it takes a little longer to get to this point. 

I definitely do not want to limit my awareness to this body or its experiences but I am guessing there is something I am supposed to learn from them; there is something I am to  explore  about my reaction to pain.  That is what it is...a reaction.  

The question, then, is not so much, "What is wrong with my/this body?" or "What am I supposed to do about it?" when awareness of pain arises...  as much as it is, "Why do I keep reacting this way to pain in the body?" 

I know I can handle pain. I have a basic idea of what is going on physiologically when I have these pain experiences so I no longer need to be told by others or validated for my experience like I used to be. I am not afraid of whatever the future holds for me in this body once I get past the automatic reactivity. I know I am not this body and I am not afraid of it dying. 

Why do I write about it then?

I am sure no one wants to hear about this human's experience of pain. BORING!! Though there is great learning in it for this "me", it is truly insignificant.  This body is an amazing vessel and I am so lucky to have this one...and I want and need to look after it. I do not, however, have to be obsessed with it or worried about what might happen to it. That is where the shareable learning comes in.

When I have pain and am not extra careful to  transmute it...this reaction carrries me away very quickly. I imagine many others also have reactivity based on their own unique experiences of past pain. I am, it appears, still very much trapped and entangled in a story. Are you? There is a big samskara stored in this "me" regarding past experiences. I do not wish to  be constantly pulled into a reaction that takes me away from the Seat of clarity and presence I work so hard to stay in. I bet you don't want that for yourself either. Hmm!

 Love and acceptance for the experience of the body is so, so different than a fear based clinging. I am at the point where I am truly learning to love and accept the body and its experience without a lot of attachment or aversion, but personal mind will still on occassion get tripped up by this samskara in me. If I am not mindful...it will carry this "me" into a fear story. I need to allow for the release of this samskara...as well as all other samskaras in here.

Every physical pain experience is doing us a favor.  It is triggering past wounding...allowing it to come to the surface to be dealt with and released. The pain is one thing, reactivity and resistance is another.  It is reactivity and resistance that turn pain into suffering. We may not have much control, as human beings, over some of the things going on in the body and the experience of pain it might lead to, but we get decide if that pain becomes suffering.  

I have decided not to suffer. So I appreciate my pain and am grateful for how it can help me to "truly" cleanse and heal. 

That sounds strange I know but I see it all so clearly.

All is well in my world. 

Acceptance: The Most Effective Analgesic

 Acepting pain can be difficult. It's just better than the alternative, which is to live in a state of perpetual suffering.

Vidymala Burch and Danny Penman

Didn't go to work today.  Up most of the night with abdominal pain, fever, and chills.  It might be the stomach bug that made its way around to this body, or it could be a bout of diverticulitis.  Thinking it is the later only because of the nature of the pain. It remains in a much subtler form. Figure we will know in time. If the same pain comes back to that intensity again this evening...I will venture that my guess is right. 

Judging Progress Through the Pain Experience 

Regardless of what it is, I always see "progress", if that makes sense, when I watch this human I call "me" experience physical pain. (Are you finding my referring to me in that way a little 'strange' ?  It started out as strange to me too but it makes perfect sense to 'this human I call me" now lol). 

The pain, last evening and during the night, came in waves, as pain often does, with crests and troughs and periods of peace in between each wave. Sometimes the waves were pretty small and sometimes they were quite large scoring 9/10's on the pain scale bending me forward. It felt like I might pass out during a couple of those waves. I even had thoughts during those big waves, "This might be the end of me...maybe it is good if it is the end of me...this pain would be too much to bear over a space of time." The pain experience was intense, to say the least.

Realizing we are not the pain, or the body experiencing the pain

I realized fully, though I was distracted by the pain, that I was not the pain...that it was just an experience this human was having, temporarily taking me from the peaceful nature of who I really am. I was distracted but it was very understandable as to why I was distracted. Yet, I didn't get lost in the distraction.  There were a few moments of resistance, for sure, but I was able to bring myself back to acceptance pretty quickly.  

The "I" as Pain Coach

I (whoever this "I" is- higher consciousness, the Self, the field of energy from which all things emerge...I do not bloody know lol) was able to not only observe the pain but  was able to participate in it from a Seat of awareness with out getting lost in it. "I" was there during the whole experience. I was like a coach coaching this human form with calm reassuring encouragement..."Breathe...Okay the pain is cresting. Relax the body, breathe....breathe. It will subside.  It will pass, it will pass. There it is troughing...relax, relax until the next one."  I went like that through hours of rounds.  And finally the pain subsided and I was able to fall and stay asleep for hours at a time.

The Old, Habitual Way of Dealing with Pain

I am fully aware that if I were to have gotten  lost in that pain last evening, became all absorbed by it, identified with it and the body once again which was my previous normal human reaction to pain; if I were to "resist" the experience, the pain would have been even worse than it was. I probably would have passed out, and I might have ended up in the ER. I dealt with the pain without closing to it! That is a sign of progress.

Acceptance of the Unpleasant Doesn't Mean Not Getting Help For It

Do not get me wrong.  That was not an enjoyable experience. Not at all.  It was NASTY!  I do not want to have to repeat it again but if this is what I think it is, I know I will have to eventually...if not tonight, I will have to deal with it during another bout in the future. I do not close to that reality.  I accept and honor that reality. It is what it is; it will be what it will be.

I am also not saying that one should endure such pain without seeking medical intervention. Not at all.  I am still really not sure what that was last night or if it even required sometype of medical intervention.  I was just willing to take the chance and wait it out. I do have a nursing background to base such decisions on. If it didn't go away I would have gone in. I am also truly realizing I am not this body and what is happening to it is not necessarily happening to that which I am ( whatever that is). That is where I am in my understanding of things. I honestly do not fear death. That being said, if I were to witness another experiencing what I experienced during those high waves of intense pain, I would have strongly encouraged them to get help. I would never have encouraged someone else to take the chance I took...to use the intense pain experience as a part of their practice. We need to remember that pain is an urgent communication from the body that something needs attention.

Practicing Acceptance with Mild Pain Experiences

I would, however, encourage others to use mild pain experiences as part of their practice. I started with Charlie Horses which were once considered the "vain of my existence".  I get Charlie horses all the time and at one point in my life, I almost lived in fear of them.They friggin hurt!  As soon as I got the first sign of a cramp in the soul of my foot and the toes started to spread I would panic and begin stomping up and down on my foot. The pain would shoot up my calf , up the back of my leg and right to my hip. All muscles would become rigid with resistance.  It would last sometimes for five minutes or more. All absorbing.

I decided one day to stay open, instead of closing to the experience; to allow the pain experience of a Charlie Horse, instead of resist it; to relax into it, instead of further tensing up against it. Wow! What a game changer. When I felt the pain starting, I learnt to take a deep breath and encourage the rest of my body to relax. "Breathe...breathe...breathe. Relax, relax, relax." When I relaxed the pain experience relaxed.  It doesn't go away completely but it diminished significantly and it lasts for only a few seconds now. Amazing. 

I used the accepting and relaxing technique during bouts of angina...the pain didn't go away and I still needed to take the nitro at times but it was much more doable and less intense.  The fear of such attacks went away. ( Note ...the type of angina I have is less likly to result in a heart attack than other types of angina...I would not recommend using this for angina.) 

When I stub my toe, or burn my finger...I use this technique and it is like wow! So much easier to cope with.

The Key is Non-Resistance

What turns physical pain, or any type of pain be it physical, mental or emotional into suffering is resistance.  Resistance increases tension which increases pain.  Resistance to what is...is the main cause of suffering. Pain isn't suffering. Pain just is.  Resistance to pain is suffering. Acceptance than is the antedote. 

We need to hear pain, listen to it, check out what it is telling us, and deal with its cause but we do not need to make it worse by resisting it.

All is well. 

Languishing: The "Neglected Middle Child of Mental Health" Is Still Crying for Attention

 Part of the danger is that when you are languishing you might not see the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive. You don't catch yourself slipping slowly into solitude; you're indifferent to your own indifference. ...The neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and focus-and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021.

Adam Grant

Languishing, as well as flourishing, was a psychological term that became popular when COVID was forcing the world to isolate.  I heard and studied this phenonemna in a Psychology certificate course I took during my own isolation, offered by PhD psychologists (and Matthieu Ricard)  from all over the world. 

It isn't 2021 anymore, is it? Yet, here I am with an experience of languishing. Even though the pandemic is all over, I am observing this human I call "me" endure a "felt experience"(Annaka Harris)  of  a dulling of delight and a dwindling of drive. Hmm! I want to look at this languishing in very objective terms for I am sure I am not the only one out there experiencing post-pandemic languishing. Am I? I also want to relate it the awakening process for I know in my heart that my sense of languishing is aggravated or confused by a consciousness that is beginning to see itself, and at the same time my awakening process is being intensified and confused by this languishing... they are intermingled.

Yesterday, a poem came out of me with vivid imagery I didn't really see or understand until the words were on paper.   In that piece, as imperfect as it was poetic wise, was a very strong visual message.  I spoke to my artist daughter afterwards to clarify that image. The poem depicted a pocket watch( me as form, I guess) with a cracked and creased face (age and scars from the trials of life)bobbing up and down in a muddy puddle as many people above walked over it ...not seeing it...not hearing how it was malfunctioning with a second hand that could not keep up with the rest of the world. It had the experience of slowly becoming waterlogged (weighed down by life and the movement of other beings over it) with the fear of drowning. The subjective "felt experience" of the watch was that it was very aware that something was broken within it but was unsure what it was. It was also aware that it wasn't keeping up and  that its "malfunction" (imperfect doing) was something no one else would notice. It was suffering.

It was also slowing down to experience this suffering and the rest of the world was still moving so fast. There was this great distancing between what it was now doing and what the rest of the world was doing that it felt like there must be something very wrong with it. (This happens alot  when we begin the awakening process doesn't it?  We don't know if or how we fit in.) 

It was not quite sure how it got there in the muddy puddle (suffering) but it knows it must have fallen from the pocket comfort zone of one of those fast moving people above it, through a hole that was always there....meaning it was bound to happen at some point, there was bound to be a detachment from the comfortable idea of who it thought it was, from the "person". (The faster we move with this hole in us the more we will detach from what is important ... this watch is very, very important to a sense of being). 

I visualized afterwards that most of the image was in monochrome with the exception of a butterfly and a lotus flower floating around in the puddle with it. The colorful butterfly represents a hopeful view of Life and a freedom that we cannot seem to keep up with when we are still focusing on body. The lotus flower represents a true freedom from suffering...a way to be here without the need to be "fixed" in the old ways and without the need of human rescue tendency. What is needed is not an escape from suffering, a return to old human habits. What is needed is awakening.

That is what came out through me yesterday when I felt the need to write a poem.  I really didn't see these images until after the poem was written.  It is so cool how that works. When the "me"we all identify with gets out of the way, a creativity can flow through us that is so amazingly wise and visual. There is always a message for this "me" in what I write, even if it takes days to understand it.

This little poem clarified the experience of languishing both pre-awakening and during awakening. In the busy world of fast moving people with their dirty boots...which I was a part of for most of my life...there is definitely a suffering but alot of that suffering is supressed and repressed as we stay busy out there and don't look down into the suffering self ( the samskaras etc). . There is definitely a feeling of discontent but we spend our lives trying to "escape" it....run from it, numb from it, deny it, or pretend it isn't there.  The languishing is getting lost in that momentum.  In the early awakening world experience...we slip down or make teh choice to go down into that suffering we were previously running from.  There is no escape route. We admit to suffering. We slow down and it seems like we are malfunctioning but it through that slowing down, that settling into the suffering experience that we find the only way out which is through.  This poem not only depicted the human experience of languishing to me, it showed the way out. 

Your home base is what you identify with.

Michael A. Singer

I am languishing both up here in the busy world and being down here in the muddy puddle. Since these are still the early stages I, as consciousness, still go back and forth between these experiences, offering two different types of languishing.  Life feels pretty crappy right now. This human I call me really doesn't like it. The world (and its events) is rainy, dark, and I have to splash through a lot of puddles.  A lot of movement is required and nothing seems to be getting "done" and I am not going anywhere.  This is languishing. Where I am when I slip back into awakening is not pleasant either. I go from being a person running around in my dirty boots to being a non-self within this clump of matter...a broken clock ( still in this form but aware that I am not this "me" and really not sure what I am suppose to do down here to contribute to the world). This too is languishing.

You are no longer identified with ego but you are identified with being the one that is watching the ego.

How did I get here?

There was always this hole in my so called comfort zone of "me". The "me" is this thing I worked so hard to create and maintain so I could keep up with the human momentum. Yet it was lined with holes. The more I moved and felt the struggle...the more likely something was going to slip through one of these holes.  It did. The clock, which represents time of course, aging, and the vital life force (prana...beating of the heart) slipped through that hole and landed in the puddle.  The focus of  consciousness then was moved from being lost in the busy momentum of life to staring up and watching everything in a colorless way. I went from a "felt experience" of being conditionally up only because I was keeping up with the rest of the world-something that took so much of my energy and broke me a bit, to another "felt experience" of being down in the suffering that has always been there, recognizing a certain brokenness, a certain malfunction, as I look up at the world I was once blinded by. There is no colour in that world and I realize that I no longer want to be saved by it. 

The lotus flower represents the true rescue.  What is the true rescue? Awakening, of course. So what  I am praying for is a little support while I awaken (the threads of the lotus roots cradling me to help me deal with this the suffering and the fear of drowning). I want to find peace where I am, as I languish until I heal.  

This languishing down here in the muddy puddle of discontent, though it seems so awful...is actually not a bad thing.  It is where I need to be to get the rescue I really need.

What practical thing did I get from all that?

I need to meditate more.  Go figure.

All is well. 

Adam Grant (Decemeber 3, 2021) There is a Name for the Blah You're Feeling:It's Called Languishing. New York Times.

Annaka Harris (2019) Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. Harper

Corey Keyes (2024 ) Languishing: How to Feel Alive Again in a World that Lets Us Down. Crown.

Michael A. Singer/Temple of the Universe/ Sounds True ( February 17th, 2025) The Mind is Not the Problem: Identifying With It Is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKv8ikOvstg&t=1374s

Experience Itself

 Our experiince of consciousness is so intrinsic to who we are, we rarely notice that something mysterious is going on. Consciousness is experience itself, and it is therefore easy to miss the profound question staring us in the face in each moment: Why would any collection of matter in the universe be conscious? 

Annaka Harris, Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind.

Discovered a new book I want to read.

Stormed in here in my part of the world. Lots and lots of snow. :) Hope you are cozy and warm wherever you might be.

All is well!

Languishing? Experiencing "Low Grade Mental Weariness"?

 

Languishing crept in after a period of extreme stress, grief, or lonliness-a sense of low grade mental weariness that can be easy to dismiss, especially since indifference is one of its symptoms.

Languishing puts you squarely in the present and makes you aware of all that is going on around you, but it's not mindfulness; it's hypervigalence. In moments of pause, it starts to feel like you aren't really living like you once did, and too many things feel out of your control. 

Corey Keyes

If I am being completely honest with myself I have to admit I am not happy.  I am languishing in a muddy pool of discontent.

..as soon as I wrote those last few words...I heard "Poetry time!" in my head lol.  

Without further adue...I step away and let whatever this is do its thing: 

Languishing

Languishing in a muddy pool of discontent, 

my body clock ticks and tocks

in awkward sporadic movements. 

The slightly warped second hand can't keep up

with the butterfly movement of Life

that flutters beyond my grasp.

The malfunction goes unnoticed. 

The busy world  walks over me

as another hour, another day

and another year  

flitters beyond my reach.

Water log?

A rusty spring in the internal mechanics?

May be these are the causes of my disturbance?

Or maybe it is the dust of a heavy life

that has been trapped for so long

beneath this cracked and creased face 

I call "me",

that makes me lag behind the world?

Or maybe this mechanical failure

is due to the place...

where I strangely find myself 

drowning in this discontent?

How did I get here?

I don't recall falling from 

the comfortable pocket of safety 

I once claimed as home,

through the hole that was always there.

I don't remember dropping with a splash 

into this uncomfortable and wet unknown

but regardless...here I am.

I wonder, as I bob in this pool of muddy water

thick enough, it seems, to pull me down

below the murky surface,

if there is a spring missing

or a nut or bolt loose in the center 

of this human known as "me"? 

I still tick and tock...tick and  tock...

but I can no longer make sense of the rhythm... 

a few missing ticks and a few missing tocks,

a broken sound deafening to my ears

but unheard by anyone else.

No one notices my nosiy, delayed existence.

They trudge through Life's many puddles,

disturbing the waters on which I bob,

with their dirty rubber boots

that tramp about, keeping up 

with circadian rhythms,

so unlike my own.

I swallow the effect of their momentum,

choking on it,

ticking and tocking in my unusual way.

Surely I will drown.

I close my eyes,

I long for the silky threads I once read about

to emerge from the lotus flower,

a flower, I am told, that blossoms in such places.

I pray that if such a thing exists

it finds what is left of  this mechanical "me",

that its feathery strength reaches out to cradle 

this broken form in a protective hold

that will save it from drowning 

in its own malfunction.

I pray for something to rest my weary being on

as this casing  ticks and tocks 

in anyway it can

until it ticks no more.

I pray for a rescue  much greater than 

what can be offered by a human hand

or a watchmaker's tool.

I pray for freedom from my 'self'.

 © Dale-Lyn (Pen) February , 2025

Don't judge lol...it just came out.

All is well!

Seeking the Truth About Consciousness

I rather accept the best...the closest to the truth we can get and work on that.

Dr. Susan Blackmore (parapsychology-neuroscience)

I would rather be unhappy than fool myself into thinking something exists that doesn't exist.

Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn (neuroscience-contemplative researcher-Closer to Truth interviewer)

I believe consciousness is a primary aspect of nature. Infact, it is what physical reality is made of but it isn't enough to say that.  We have to bring that into the scientific world view.

Dr. Federico Faggin (physicist-informational technology-neuroscience-contemplative research)

We tend to,in our culture, privilege the objective and so the subjective is unreliable and mooshy and soft and  we really don't want to attend to that...

Dr. Marilyn Schiltz (Anthropology)

...[as we explore polyphasic levels of culture and begin explaining Life through different levels of consciousness] we see that consciousness is extraodinarily plastic...there are states of consciousness available to us that we really didn't know about...that consciouiness can be cultivated and developed...

[The hard problem: What is the relationship between matter and consciousness?]

Consciousness has much greater power, much greater plasticity and certainly seems more independent than our contemporary scientific research.

Dr. Joe Walsh (neuroscience-psychiatry-contemplative research)

Ontological Evidence and the Study of Consciousness

Ontology, by the way, is the philopsphical study of being and of knowing how we exist. The question arises, is there multiple ways of knowing how we exist? 

I have had a life long desire to merge spirituality with science. I believe both fields of thought and "knowing" can be one...I truly do. I love the idea of using empirical evidence to validate the existence of the unseen and the unknown. (Isn't that what science is all about anyway? At one point subatomic particles were unseen and unknown, were they not?) 

I am drawn into spiritual teachings (consciousness teachings) that do that. I want science to prove what I know in my gut to be so real...as "real". 

I am more interested in understanding conciousness. I want empirical support for this postulate I have that says, "Consciousness exists both within and outside the body.  It is the constant that never changes...that is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. It is who we are!" 

That feels like "core truth" to me. My mind, however, will not settle without question on any idea. It needs to explore it and gain evidence for it. So, I look into both the "spiritual" teachings (most scientists would refer to this as the study of the contemplative practices or "idealism") and the scientific research done on this.

From a Yogi's Perspective

Yoga, to me, is the perfect merger between these two fields of thought. As a yogi, I study and experiment with consciousness from an inner perspective...my own mind and through my own  human behaviour. My focus is on taming the ripples of my mind, understanding suffering and how to get beyond it, so I can obtain and maintain a state of true peace for myself, and therefore so I can serve the world at a higher level. My biggest desire is to prove that "consciousness (therefore who we truly are at the deepest level) exists outside and within the body and that it isn't just a function of brain activity."  

Siddhis or Psychic Phenomena

I practice yoga but have no real need to reach the point of yogic understanding where the siddhis become a part of my reality. Siddhis are what most of us would refer to as psychic phenomena: telepathy, psychokinesis, clairvoyance etc. Some would even add the belief in reincarnation in there...(well that is a given for many eastern faith beliefs and possibly even for Christianity as documentated prior to the selective ommission of gospels by the church....but it is said that some very enlightened yogis could transverse through life times. ) (Getting pretty woo-woo, huh?) It is said that yogis who reach true samadhi will attain these "gifts". 

Though I personally have no desire for these things in my own life...if someone, somewhere could prove the reality of their possibility...the theory about consciousness being expansive and "outside" the body would be proven true, would it not?  So therefore, I look into things like mediumship, psychic abilities, Out of Body Experiences, Near Death Experiences, Past Life Regression etc. 

No Evidence of Paranormal Reality

I am fascinated with psychics and wonder if they could be the links that teach us about the reality of an independent consciousness that is eternal. I watch certain psychics or mediums and question their sincerity.  Though I truly want to believe they are legitimate, I often find myself saying "I didn't get a feeling they were sincere. No...that didn't make sense.  That seemed like  cold reading and mentalism more so than actually providing a validating piece of information.  And wouldn't spirit...if they were putting all that energy into coming through...be more specific than "Who is the person that starts with A.?"  

I feel so sad when I evaluate the evidence of paranormal activity and an expansive consciousness and see it as doubtful. I want so desperately for others to prove the reality of the expansive nature of consciousness  to me. Truth is, I don't even know how to define consciousness in words. So I go from extreme materialism ( no consciousness) to extreme idealism ( all is consciousness) in my seeking outside of me for answers. 

We are asking what is it [consciousness], when we haven't even got a definition of the thing we are trying to find what it is....we are grappling around with a mystery.  I would say that the extreme materialism and the extreme idealism are utterly doomed.

Susan Blackmore

There is so much research out there. There are scientific research teams trying to prove the same things. Much, much qualitative research has been collected with subjective findings that lean heavily in the favor of this theory but so little quantitative research has proven anything objectively.  For example, people have collected thousands and thousands of NDE reports that show the same phenomena amongst the experiencers, but experiments have often failed in showing that people can read minds or remote see what is in a box miles away. 

Yes, I am skeptical to a point but also truly, truly want to believe. What does that make me?

I think that open minded skepticism is an incredibly healthy attitude and I think there is a tremendous amount of nonsense that isn't true and so to be able to develop some kind of discrimination about what is true and what isn't [is important]

Dr. Marilyn Schiltz

I feel almost sick when researchers, with the same pure intention, state openly that they have  failed  to prove the paranormal nature of consciousness.  Of course, I do know that just because"science" says it hasn't proven the existence of such and such...it doesn't mean that such and such isn't real. It just means  that it has not yet been proven true using the scientific measurement tools of the day. And at the other end of the stick...just because spiritual teachers claim such and such as truth...doesn't mean it is true either. 

Anyway, I want science to prove what yoga has been claiming for years.  I listened to Dr. Susan Blackmore yesterday with great hope she would put my mind at ease.  She didn't.  She is an Oxford Grad with a PhD in parapsychology.  She started her undergrad with the intention of studying psychology and physiology (after my own heart) which probably meant she was interested in studying neuroscience, I assume. She had a drug induced OBE in her freshman year and from then on became obsessed with the paranormal and with the idea that she would prove its reality. She wanted to prove that consciousness existed outside the body. She got her PhD in parapsychology and spent twenty years researching psychic and paranormal phenomenon. She announced in the video I watched that she then left the field of parapsychology because of great frustration that she wasn't able to prove anything.  Infact, her research findings lead her to believe that there were no paranormal phenomena. She returned to neuroscience to explain her OBE and then spent the rest of the video proving how altered brain function was responsible for the phenomenon experienced by those having OBE's or NDE's. Sigh!

I love the science and see how it makes sense in explaining these things. At the same time, my gut is screaming, "No! No! There is so much more to it than that!  Her findings are explaining only so much!" 

...perhaps the ontology or the model of reality held isn't wrong...it is just incomplete...

Dr. MarilynSchiltz

Is that resistance to what she said based on a deep desire for there to be more or on some inner knowing?  I don't know.  I really don't.

Like Dr. Walsh, I want to prove the fundamentals of ancient wisdom tradition true using science.

The challenge is how to bring these two streams of knowledge [contemplative and neuroscience]  together...any true quest for wisdom and for knowledge really has to be willing to look at all the information we have, all the data both from those who have spent years exploring internally and those who are exploring the brain, the body, physics...all the mechanistic information we now have...

...the answers you get depend on how you examine the question...

Dr. Joe Walsh

Just as there are parapsychologists switching gears and  turning to neuroscience to explain consciousness, there are hard core scientific minds who have previously focused on neuroscientific explanations for such phenonemna turning to a certain degree of parapsychology to explain consciousness. Look at David Bohm, Dr. Joe Wlash (above), Dr. Eben Alexander, and Dr. Federico Faggin....to name a few. What does that imply?

So... I went on another knowledge quest today and opened up to Closer to Truth Podcasts. Man, where have they been all my life? lol

Hmm! I guess, I will keep looking.  I need proof either way.  Of course, that truth will come for all of us when the body dies, won't it? We will all find out then. 

All is well! 

Dr. Susan Blackmore/ The Weekend University ( November 12, 2019) The Science of Out of Body Experiences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VoixOyTPwg

Closer toTruth/Dr. Susan Blackmore (2024?) Susan Blackmore-Why is ESP so Intriguing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jp_qYnD0P4

Closer to Truth/ Dr. Susan Blackmore (2024?) Susan Blackmore-Toward a Science of Consciousness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTlxcrB7yvE

Closer to Truth-Marilyn Schiltz (2024?) Marilyn Schiltz- Why is ESP so Intriguing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2F5Kt1Oy7I

Closer toTruth-Roger Walsh (2024) Why is Consciousness So Baffling? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2pNiawiV0k

Science and NonDuality (2017?) Science is Ready for Consciousness: Federico Faggin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14Q_W6H_nZk