Observing

 When you observe rather than react, you reclaim your power.

Denise Linn

Man! Life is really an amazing thing to observe and what is even more amazing to observe is our human "reaction" to what Life offers. 

Sometimes we are so stuck in the dramas of Life we can't see what is really there...we are too close to observe.  It is like trying to look at your reflection in a mirror while your face is pressed up against the glass.  To really see  the reflection of what is for what it is , you need to step back and keep some distance between you and what you are observing.  

Observing Life

Well many of us are going through Life with our face pressed against the glass,  seeing nothing clearly. By stepping back we can observe how Life breathes events, people, challenges , so called "blessings" into our experience and how she breathes them out.  Coming, going, growing, changing, dying...every "thing" going through this process. Nothing permanent. 

Observing Nature

We can observe this in  the ever changing pattern of nature, especially a Canadian landscape in Autumn.  When I look out my window I am aware of the foliage beginning its change; my potted plants are turning brown; the apples on my trees are starting to fall to the ground; hummingbirds have not visited the feeder I put out for them in days; the Blue Jays are developing the tufts on the backs of their heads;  it is getting dark at night a lot earlier; and the light during the day has shifted to a lower density. Life's offering  is changing exactly as it is meant to.  

Observing What the Senses are Picking up

What are you hearing right now? What are you seeing? Smelling? Tasting? Feeling? 

Observing the Body

We can observe our bodies.  I observe my body when I meditate.  I am aware of the sensations within it...the pain in abdomen and pelvis, the knot in my gut, my heart beat, the heat of a hotflash and the clamminess of skin that follows, and mostly my breath. These sensations are always changing...coming and going.

Observing the Mind and the Story it Tells

My mind's narrative is changing so much...almost everyday.  Somedays the story is about me as a victim...and other days it is a story about me as the hero...and the days I find most peace in...my mind is creating a story about me as neither a victim or a hero or maybe both...can't figure that one out yet. :) Doesn't matter really because it is all just story.  It is when I can step away from story that the chapters of some mental book just fade away ...and it is all empty.

Observing the Heart

My heart is changing...somedays open and somedays closed. This will determine my reaction to life circumstance, more so than life circumstance powers the opening and closing of my heart. 

Connecting Learning to Videos

I listened to several little videos today as I was sitting at the table sipping my tea, pondering this idea.  In one of those videos Kim Eng was describing how we were not so much the "doers" in this Life, though doing is always going to be a part of our expereince while we are in these bodies...we are the doingless emptiness that Life creates through. If we want peace in this Life we need to:

Be the hole in the flute that Life creates through. (Kim Eng)

Alan Watts in another video ( listed below) describes how we can escape the  conditioning that tells us we should control the music being made by our incessant doing and by not making  mistakes .  I know I feel like I need to make up for my mistakes in judgement and treatment of others.  I see my last reaction to circumstance as a "mistake" that set me back from my spiritual development when it was nothing more than a very understandable human reaction considering what events Life has blown into my expereince over the last few months. I felt like I had to do something and at the same time I was terrified I would make a mistake and do the wrong thing that would hurt others or myself. I found some console in these words:

You must remember , you cannot make a mistake. 

Everything is happening exactly as it should. 

I was also comparing my level of spiritual understanding with that of others and gaining some sense of "superiority"...thinking and writing here that I was more evolved.  Both Eng and Watts reminded me that we are simply all where we are meant to be. We can't rush this process in Self or others to get to some proverbial finish line. There are no superior or inferior stages of growth...they are all necessary and important:

In the process of growth, the oak is not better than the acorn. (Watts)

I did make the so called "mistake"  of creating in my mind a story where I was somehow superior to others because of where I was spiritually...when I am just where I am. I kept thinking, "I should be further ahead than this!"  We are all evolving and are presently at different stages of that development.  Because I am "here" and I perceive others in my living situation to be "there", that does not make me any better or any worse than them. And momentarily seeing myself as superior is not a mistake but a symptom of where I am at this level...I can look at it and learn from it. 

Hmmm! We understand this so much better when we step back away from the glass.

All is well!

Kim Eng (Sept, 2021) What Does Life Want? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZOrPAWGzg0

Alan Watts (March 2020) Escape Societies Brainwashing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmtg2bg-VVA