The world is tangled in a knot.

Who can untangle the tangle?

-The Path of Purification

You!  You can untangle the tangle by beginning to recognize, understand and unravel the knot in your own mind.  It all begins there. 

All is well

 

Living Fully.

 

Living fully means jumping into the unknown, dying to all our past and future ideals, and being present with things just as they are.

Jack Kornfield

I finished seeking the Heart of Wisdom (Goldstein & Kornfield; Shambala Classics;2001)and it resonated with every part of me. Though the wisdom shared within its pages was directed towards helping others establish a better Vipassana(Insight meditation)  practice...it  was  wisdom that could also be carried into all avenues of Life. The aim of Vipassana is to open us up to what is in every given moment...being present with things as they are. And that is living fully.  

This being open is a new and unknown experience for most of us who have spent  our lives so far running from or pushing at least half of our experience away because we were afraid.  ( All aversion stems from fear of some kind). Seeking a sense of security we created a false sense of strength and protection  in our narrow, judging  and overly selective minds with our ideals, beliefs, stories and narratives. We got so entangled in those ideals and narratives that we became  stuck, the farthest thing  from free.  Most of us are stuck in our heads and living only half lives. We miss so much when we live like this. 

Through mindfulness; through a practice of sitting quietly once or twice a day; through a committment to look at, understand and to some degree tame  what our minds are doing...we can be freed. We can learn to live fully.               

The capacity to be open to the new in each moment without seeking a false sense of security is the true source of strength and freedom in life. It allows us to receive all things, to touch all things, to learn from whatever presents itself. 

Jack Kornfield

All is Well

And this too!

And this too!

 This vision of me sitting in an open field came to me again last evening when I became overwhelmed by intense feelings of fear, helplessness and remorse for not taking my daughter's fears and concerns to heart...for passing off her worry that her baby did not seem to be moving enough inside her and that she was not getting the required number of kicks  when she did check.  I never counted baby kicks when I was pregnant...if I did, I would be crazier than I am now and that is pretty crazy. To alleviate her fears and concerns I kept saying...don't worry about the number of kicks, just trust that this miracle of life knows what it is doing. To reassure her further, I said I will look more into this "kick per hour" thing and get back to her.  

Well...I was not concerned so it took me a few days to do so.  When I did, I realized it was a new thing OBGYN's are reccommending for their patients and that any decrease in movement noted by a mother after 28 weeks should be investigated right away.  My heart fell to my feet...my daughter was somehow soothed by my lack of worry but my lack of worry might  have been detrimental to the her and the baby's well being.  I called her, and told her in a way I hoped would not cause further worry to call the maternity floor and talk to a nurse there about her concerns over lack of movement. She did, and they told her to come in. When she got there, they had a challenging time getting a consistent heart beat.  They had to call the doctor in and start an IV...

 I spent an hour at home  with this intense feeling of fear, worry, guilt and confusion. My mind automatically took me to the worse case scenario and I began to experience anticipatory grief  and on top of that self blame...it would be my fault, my daughter's suffering would be my fault. I imagined what my daughter would suffer if there was something wrong, after losing a baby just months ago. I crumbled.  I closed up right away and began to pace and wring my hands.  There was so much pain...I was a mess. I wanted to run from it! 

And then through it all I seen the vision of me sitting in meditation posture in the middle of an open field, open and willing to accept without running away whatever unfolded in front of me and heard myself saying, "And this too! This too is Life."  

I sat down to meditate further on this...and though it was so hard to sit with the unknowing, the worry, the fear and the self blame...I did and the tears, big, beautiful, bold tears, just started to come out of me ...and it was, as strange as it sounds, absolutely beautiful.  I settled into this field of awareness...open and receptive to all that might be without knowing what could or would happen..."And this too!" ws my mantra ...wondering what the "this" was going to be in any moment. The pain did not go away but I accepted it. 

When I finished my meditation...I was so calm, so peaceful and I waited for the time I could call her back. When the time came I calmly did..not knowing what I might hear...What I heard was relief in her voice . They were getting a consistent heart beat and because of all the probing the baby was now moving quite a bit. The tears started again. "And this too!" I said out loud.  "And this too!This too is Life." 

Wow!  Thought I would share that.

All is well.  

Service?

 How do we know when and where to serve? There is no preset answer-the heart will tell us when we listen.

Jack Kornfield

Purpose and Service

Hmmm!  I have been thinking a lot about purpose and service.  Though I am seeking the path of enlightenment ( which sounds so "out there" I know but which really means I just want to live openly, honestly and lovingly, aligned with the truth...whatever that is), I know my living  entails more than just meditation,  studying what others have learned about this path and sharing what I learn. It requires a certain active  service to humanity, to the world at large...a certain "doing".  

I truly want to do what I am meant to do.  I want what I "do" to have a purpose, to benifit others, and I want to make my life one of service.  

A Fall From Productive Redemption?  

I also, on a purely personal and selfish level ...need maybe  to make more cash so I can survive in this world where I need to pay a mortgage, need to buy groceries and pay for services, independently. On my own, I don't make enough to survive. And I am not pitying myself or asking to be seen as a victim, which I know I am not.  Though there were some judgements and circumstances beyond my control that impinged on my livlihood and had something to do with the direction my life took...there were many, many  circumstances within my control and I actively made choices, with what unfolded in front of me, to be where I am now. I own this and I am okay with it! I know I am exactly where I need to be. 

Others are not okay with it, maybe.  They may look at me with eyes conditioned by a culture where one's "work ethic" is the most redemptive quality about a person and question why a woman like me, with nine years of post secondary education, is living below the poverty line;  and " why , since she looks like she is feeling so much better is she not out there towing the line like the rest of us do or did?"  

I am feeling better because I am stepping away from my conditioned need to tow the line and am placing my healing at the top of my priority list.  My need to tow the line was a symptom of a conditioned habit to run and hide from that which needed healing by keeping up with the world so I could at least appear to be worthy, according to its standards. My internal need to serve in a way that also served me got twisted up with my need to keep up with the Jones.  Though I did love teaching ...I was on automated pilot most times...working for the sake of working. I loved the income too...I was very attached to my great salary as well.

 When my body and mind began to scream at me, I ignored it. So numb was I from this collective habit of working for the sake of working and so ashamed was I of not being able to keep up in the way I was socially expected to,  I struggled with the message to stop and  heal  I was being given. If I were to stop and listen when it first started to get noisy it may have never gotten to the point it did. ...the point it gets for many of us. 

Exactly Where I Need to Be: Serving

So this is how my version of life unfolded and I made choices that led me to where I am now...broke, "unproductive" in the eyes of many but at the same time...I know I am exactly where I need to be...thus my feeling better.  I am reconstructing the  vision of my life  from one that keeps up with society's standards to one that reflects  what feels right to me. 

I am still in the process and like I say many times I am not sure about anything...but I know,  despite the fact  I could use more money to pay the bills...I cannot do what I do for others, expecting or dependent on payment. It just no longer make sense to do what I do for money...it makes more sense to give my life away. Now I have the time and energy to truly give to my family. What I offer in my yoga studio, for example, I offer as a gift for most people, at least partially. Some insist on paying and if it is that important to them I accept it but only after they have consistently received the gift of yoga from me.  I started teaching yoga knowing that it was never going to be something  I would do to pay the bills.  I thought if the bills got paid through my teaching, so be it. If they didn't, so be it. There was no attachment to income as an outcome.  I do that with my writing too...here or elsewhere.  I am  also doing and  willing to provide service to others in need without the need for payment.  Don't get me wrong, I accept and appreciate payment when it comes for a service I provide that proves valuable to someone but it is  not why I do what I do,  or give what I give. To me that is true service I want to provide.

Now to make money...which I see as something  as service to self not others... I wonder about taking on some very menial and manual  job for so many hours a week ...something that serves in a very general way ...but that has nothing about it  that will lead to ego attachment. Something where who I am on the outside, what I did in the past is inconsequential and will go completely unnoticed.  Like working on a farm, landscaping, cleaning gutters ...I don't know.  Something will come up.  We will see. 

Anyway, how I rambled today, eh?  

All is well in my world.

But the spirit of service asks us to touch and act from a deeper place, a chord of the heart that responds to life out of connectedness and compassion, independently of results. 

Jack Kornfield 

Sit With It

 

Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it.Even though you want to run.  Even though it is difficult. Even though you are not quite sure of the way through. Healing happens by feeling.

Dr. Rebecca Ray

Sitting in the Field of Spaciousness

I had this vision of myself today ...whoever"myself" is...sitting in the midst of a wide spacious field in the middle of nowhere in particular.  So much expanse of sky around me.    Now as I envision this I  realize that I am totally exposed to all the elements both inside and outside of me should they come my way. As I sit here I am physically open...raw...unprotected from the storms or onslaughts of the external world or the gut wrenching pain of the internal one. I also  realize that I know absolutely nothing about anything.  All the  usual beliefs in things I once surrounded myself with to protect this idea of "me" have shrivelled up and have blown away. I have no "knowledge" of anything, no idea of what Life has in store for me, what Life is, who I am, what is "good", what is "bad", what I should or shouldn't do. It is all like a dream and I wonder if this is a nightmare or a sweet fantasy. 

 I see I am alone in this field , exposed and vulnerable to whatever may be out there.  I do not, however, curl up in a ball to protect my vital organs, nor do I cover myself up or take on some protective stance.  I simply sit where I am, in meditation posture, in preparation to stay open to all that comes at me.  Allowing all of it....good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant...I just sit. I am soooo tired of running away so I have no desire to.  I am willing to take what comes. I even here myself saying, "Bring it on!" 

I have no idea what might show up in front of me or how that might feel. I have no idea if it will be pleasant or unpleasant.  I question the reality of everything including this whole notion of  evil. Is it real?  Knowing nothing, I wonder if  there is some outside force that is predominantly "bad", out to hurt and punish; if there is such thing as karma and if I am I paying for some past sins.  I wonder if I am manifesting all these negative things I am experiencing through my own consciousness in preparation for an even greater sorrow. I wonder if I am being surrounded by evil. I wonder if I am indeed being punished or cursed.  Is there some greatly negative thing heading my way? 

Though there may be some discomfort with this wondering...there is more curiosity than fear. Though I recognize fear in my body related to the unknown, I am not resisting that. I let it be.. .for  the first time in my life I seem to be okay with the unknown. At the same time, I have this strong desire to "know" the ultimate truth  and to risk "my" safety just so I can find out.  I have no plans on what I will do if or when. Nor do I have any desire to run from or avoid.  I just sit.  

I do not know if bad or harmful things are out to get me ...this clump of flesh sitting in a field...and if I am strong enough to ward those things off.  I don't know if there is something to this world I cannot see that will protect me and guide me. I don't know anything...but I am willing, more than willing, to just sit and discover , observe and study whatever Life wants to show me. So I just sit. 

This image of me sitting in this field, knowing nothing, without judgement or expectation, without resistance ...open and exposed ...is so comforting for some reason.

The Thought Streams Leading to the Field

I woke up at 630 this morning after some dreams I only partially recall with two predominant thought streams whirling through my head. Both were so strong...I tried at first to resist them, stuff them but they wouldn't allow that to happen...they were thought streams I have been trying to resist for days or weeks....and they demanded to be looked at. They both came out in picture images I could not escape. Both were things that left that twisting knot in my gut and even gave me chest pain. They had to be dealt with...no more stuffing, running, denying. 

 I responded to the first one with action...making a call to someone and setting up an appointment that I later went to in order to confirm if  this image I was having about this worrisome thing was as I saw it.  I meditated later and this image of me in the field came up.  On my way to this appointment...the field  became clearer and I felt so much peace. The image I envisioned about the worrisome thing  was indeed as I envisioned it and my deep intuitive feeling to respond to it was validated. I am not sure if I rectified the situation but I did make some changes and will be watching it closely.

Now the second picture image directed thought stream was about another issue that was breaking my heart...something I intuitively felt for many  months and kept stuffing, stuffing and stuffing. The image that came up this morning told me in no uncertain terms that it was as I saw it and I needed to strike up a very challenging and heart breaking conversation with a loved one. It reminded me at the same time I don't know anything about anything  but I have to open myself up so I will know at least a tiny bit. Sigh!

These thoughts took me to a dark place very fast and from there they took me to this field...this field of infinite possibilities...this field where nothing is certain or sure...this field where I am resting, open and vunerable, in spaciousness...a field where I let go of my need to run and was just sitting with what is...surrendering and willing to look deeply at all that was there or that could be there regardless if it caused fear or not...allowing all of it.  This letting go ws like dropping hundreds of pounds from my back pack. Relief

Hmmm! I don't know what that means exactly ...like I said I don't know much about anything. I just know it gave and gives me great peace  to imagine that.

All is well.  

Disillusioned

 

Faith is to believe what you  do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. 

Saint Augustine

I have spent a couple of days contemplating my own disillusionment  with the "spiritual movement" I was observing outside of me. I mean, I have had to watch the fall of my ideas and attachments again and again over the course of my own spiritual seeking, namely the fall of so-called heros in this area. Sadly the Catholic church fell first. Though my reverence for Christ has never faltered, I began to look outside my traditional upbringing for answers.  Other areas where I placed my faith began to disappoint me when I witnessed or became aware of the need for power, recognition, greed and the exploitation of others that drove these individuals or institutions.  

Netflix and Prime, have been helping out to some degree with my disillusionment. :) It was through Netflix and Prime  documentaries that  I became disillusioned with Yoga Masters and Ashrams. There was the  series on Bikrum, the one on Osho...both proving to be egomaniacs that abused and exploited others sexually, finacially and emotionally.  That led me to discover the same type of  allegations against Satchinanada, another Yoga "hero" of mine. There were other documentaries about the more secular, new- age types of leaders that proved to be dominated by ego, not spirit, and a series on cults  that left me more than a little confused. And finally, there was the most recent series on "John of God". 

For most of my life, I really, really wanted and looked for any scrap of  scientific and indisputable evidence that would prove the reality of miracles,  psychics, angels,  life after death, and the existence of the invisible realm to support my gnawing gut feeling it was there. I looked up to Wayne Dyer and Oprah Winfrey, trusting in their opinion of such gifted people. They both revered a Brazilian man that was named, "John of God" because of the way he channelled the spirits of others in order to perform spiritual and physical surgeries that healed "the poor"  in the name of God.  I was inspired...could this be the proof I needed? I looked into him briefly and was drawn in when I read somewhere that he performed all these interventions for free. He ws operating from spirit, not ego?  I made the assumption he was a mild, meek and humble man that remained poor in order to serve God. He could be the proof I needed.

Well, that was a laugh.  I am not sure if he actually performed miracles or not but he certainly was not doing what he was doing for selfless reasons. (Watch the documentary yourself). It shook the ground I was standing on.  Leaving me with the question, "Is there any evidence that there is a world or realm beyond this one...the spiritual demension?"

That led me to an afternoon in front of Youtube looking for some evidence that there was some evidence.  I looked up "proof of psychic ability"...and video after video debunked the validity of psychics in a way that made way too much sense to my rational mind to not agree.  Maybe psychic was too much of a stretch.  I reached back to my catholic upbringing and I thought of angels .  There were believable experts in that area, wasn't there?  Doreen Virtrue for some reason, came to me in one form or another over the last few decades, and she offered me in some strange way that reassurance. I would look to her agian to ease my confusion and make me a believer again. I came across a video of the new "reformed" Doreen Virtrue  Now, after reading the bible, she has denounced everything she has taught previous to her new Christian fanaticism and is saying it (all 'new-age' exploration) is "evil" . She is now "preaching", attempting to put the fear of satan and hell into people so they repent. Huh?

I am pretty confused right now. I am not sure if there is any evidence out there in this world of human forms to prove there is more than this.  I mean I know it in my heart but...my mind still questions. 

Anyway, all is well.

Exactly As It Is

 When we know from our own experience that we are not thoughts, emotions or sensations, not the body, not sights or sounds, not love, not wisdom, not consciousness, not anything at all, then we can understand everything exactly as it is. 

Joseph Goldstein, page 193

The Thief of Permanence and Solidity

 The Thief 

I lay in the dark, 

like I do every night,

counting shadows on my wall.

As I wait for numbing sleep

 to overtake me,

the window to my chamber 

creaks open. 

Having heard the many rumours 

of a destructive prowler

that lurks around at night,

I am suddely filled 

with dread and expectation.

I quickly slide under my bed

and hold my breath. 

Dressed in black , 

a mere shadow in the night,

Time creeps  into this room.

It  tip toes across the shiny floor 

I worked so hard to  keep clean 

leaving evidence of its being here 

with  sloppy  muddy tracks.

I watch helplesslessly 

as it opens up my safe 

with just the lightest tap, 

grabbing  all the precious shiny gold

I was saving for tomorrow.

 It throws  my life work

 thoughtlessly 

into a sack that makes  

all valuable , 

hard earned things 

disappear. 

I wince 

as it  rummages 

through my  drawers, 

closets and trinket boxes,

through my life's collections,

knocking down,

turning over, 

destroying,

without any regard 

for the  property and privacy

I marked as "mine".

It takes all  that once 

may have made others envious 

or at least allowed  

me to blend into the world

and 

leaves behind

 the mismatched, 

misfit, 

tattered and worn,

now permanently  marked  

with its grubby finger prints. 

I watch without  hope

as I am stripped 

of all I thought was "me", 

while  its accompliss, 

on the wall behind me, 

ticks a song 

I am all too familiar with.

Time  shuffles past

slowly,

deliberately

ready to leave with its stash.

My heart beats so quickly.

I want it to go before I am discovered here.

As if hearing my thought,

 this thief of youth and permamence ,

turns toward my hiding place and 

for the briefest second ....

 stops!

 The  muddy toes point in my direction.

 I  gulp in the air that is suddenly so stale

and try to slither back and away

 to no avail.

Time bends down and lifts the bed skirt,

peering in at me with sightless eyes

that peak out around the holes of its mask, 

sending shivers down my spine.

It shakes its  head and whispers 

in a tone of  a superior being

who need not explain anything,

"You can't get away from me." 

Before I can scream in protest,

it reaches in and pulls me from

my comfort zone. 

I fight but  

my fists strike at nothing.

There is nothing solid 

I can push away.

Dragging me into the light 

it  punishes me for my resistance, 

whipping creases into my flesh

and

 stripping  the remaining  threads 

of  self respect

from my paralyzed body

with no more than its breath. 

When it is done with me, 

stuffing all the remaints of  

youth and beauty,

I once wore as protection 

into its bottomless bag,

it discards what is left of   "me" 

as if I were no-thing. 

I watch from my muddied floor

as the crinimal, 

this ghostly shadow,

carrying all the solid things I clung to

over its shoulder,

sneaks back out of the same window 

it came in 

and is gone. 

I would cry  out for help,

yell for the powers that be to go after

this cruel thief, 

to capture and imprison it

for all the crimes that it committed. 

But I know, 

despite the evidence 

left behind,

Time will always be an elusive,

 shadowy figure

no one can catch or hold on to. 

So I lay where I am

and breathe

waiting for the light of day 

to shine down on this dark destruction,

time has left behind.

A light emerges 

gradually,

slowly, 

faintly

around me, 

a soft light. 

It does not hide what Time has done

but somehow it soothes the pain. 

 I see through its gentle golden hues

 that all that was taken

was meaningless

and somehow in the way.

I look down at my now naked self 

and see the perfection 

in this marked imperfection,

the wisdom in this constantly 

changing  insecurity

as this light

gradually,

slowly,

faintly expands. 

The light, 

I realize then,

is not coming from 

the open window 

Time has crept through.

It is coming from my fading form.

If it were not for Time's 

break and entering

into my wispy, 

falsely solid and secure little  world, 

I would still be laying in the dark,

counting the shadows on my wall. 

 

© Dale-Lyn September, 2021

Inspired by something I heard Eckhart Tolle saying today

Time is something that is ultimately going to destroy you but it is a criminal you can never catch.

All is well!

The Wisdom of Insecurity

 Instead of trying to deny the flow of change and living in conflict, we can understand it deeply and live in harmony with the seasons of life. Instead of creating "solid" things, solid relations, a solid unchanging world to try to hold onto, we can let go and open up to the actual truth of each changing moment. This is learning to live by what Alan Watts called 'The Wisdom of Insecurity' ". Page 171

Jack Kornfield

We are not, no matter how much we try, going to find security and fulfillment  in solid things because there are no "solid" things.  Every thing, absolutely everything in this world is  moving, changing, coming and going. We cannot hold onto it.  Trying to is like grasping for falling rocks and debris in hope they will stop our fall when we slip off a cliff. What we need to do is recognize how we, as well as everything around us, is in movement, changing, dying.  We cannot grasp any of it.

There is great wisdom in this...great relief.  When we stop trying to grasp all this moving stuff, stop trying to make it into something it isn't , stop trying to find solidity where none exists we fall into what is.  It is from there where we can find a spaciousness and a freedom that cannot be experienced in anyway but directly. When we accept that life is not something we can find "solidity and security" we understand  that:

...each moment is a manifestation of the empty, unpossessable nature of reality. page 180

All is well in my world. 

Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield ( 2001) Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. Shambala Classics: Colorado

The Direct Experience

 Our whole complex world is only this: changing sights, sounds, tastes, smells, touch and thoughts and feelings. In practice we make the effort to be aware of our direct, immediate experience of life...And as we do this , we come to understand more and more clearly ...the three basic characteristics of all created phenomena: suffering, impermanence and selflessness.... The realization of these characteristics can cut through all grasping and goals and can guide us to wisdom in all spiritual experiences....

Jack Kornfield ( page 171)

Huh?

What we define as the world is simply our perception, is it not?  How we pick up the stimuli around us with our senses and how the mind makes sense of it is what the world becomes to us, right? It is an indirect, filtered and selective experience.  We try to take the ever changing stimuli and mental activity that occurs moment to moment and make something solid and tangible out of it. We pull in that which is pleasant, push away or stuff down that which is unpleasant and ignore the neutral.  The world becomes then, not a direct experience, but a story we tell our selves.

As we practice experiencing life directly...not with just our senses, not with our thought or feeling but with awareness, we notice, allow and even appreciate the suffering, the impermanence and we see the impersonal nature of all of it.  The seperate self , we realize, is just a part of the story.

When we realize that what we really want and need is  a direct experience of all that is beyond the selective and discrimatory mechanism of sense perception, thought and feeling, we begin to awaken. 

Suffering

By seeing for ourselves how much suffering there is in our own experience and the experience of others we are opening up to a fundamental truth.  Suffering is a part of our experience.  We can come to this truth by directly observing our own experience and noting how much dissatisfaction, pain, discomfort, frustration, sadness, lonliness, judgement, aversion, fear etc we "suffer". We can then see how that is the  experience for all of us. Most importantly, we can directly witness how we close off to that suffering, how we do whatever we can to avoid it, resist it, push it away, numb from it.  When we see how we run from suffering, we see how much that further impacts our living experience in a negative way. We learn then to stop pretending that suffering does not exist.  We stop resisting it and instead learn to turn toward it, to look deeply at it...to accept it, allow it and even embrace it. We, from there, begin to see clearly the second characteristic of all phenomena...impermanence.

Impermanence

Everything around us is constantly changing and eventually dying. Nothing but awareness lasts. We, in these bodies, are constantly changing...our cells are aging and dying off, our thoughts and feelings are in constant flux.  The pleasant things we grasp and cling to in order to attempt to create solidity and security, a pleasant life experience...will not last. Our cars will rust, our jobs will go, money will disappear from our accounts,  the special beings in our lives will get sick, age or die. Our own  bodies will die too. Nothing pleasant lasts.   Either  does the unpleasant or neutral. Pain and suffering is not permanent either.   Nothing in this world of form is permanent. This makes us uncomfortable.  We want to believe in the solidity of things so we have something to hold on to. We tend then not to look at  impermanence . We close our eyes and minds and hearts to the reality of it and feel great shock and loss when that which we were clinging to, telling ourselves it was "solid", changes or is gone. What we need to do...is look deeply and directly  into the nature of impermanence in our own lives. We can learn to let go of that which we could never hold and embrace the ever changing fluidity of life. 

Selflessness

There is no entity seperate from the flow of experience, no "self" to whom it is happening. pg 179

Things are not happening to "me".  They are not happening to "you".  They are just flowing past and through.  This "me", "you", "us" is no-thing but awareness, empty and spacious awareness. This "I" we identify as solid and real,  is just a concept, a story we tell ourselves and others because we are so attached to the illusion of the  "solidity" of things. This clinging, defending and attacking for the sake of this illusion causes so much suffering.  When we explore deeply the questions, "Who amI?" in meditation, we can sense the deeper awareness beyond that thought form...and this awareness is not a single entity. There is no "self".  It is simply awareness, aware of its own nature. 

The answers for our suffering are not out there. We just need to look deeply and directly at our life experience to learn what is true.

All is well! 

Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield (2001) Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. Shambala Classics: Colorado. 

Pleasant, Unpleasant, or Neutral?

 Nothing is in reality either pleasant or unpleasant by nature but all things become so through habit.

Epictetus

I am questioning something and that inquiry is interfering a bit with my mindfulness practice. I try to spend a few minutes each  morning outside just listening, observing, feeling the flow of Life in my yard. I find myself sitting there without thought, just attentive and aware for minutes at a time.  I mean sometimes thoughts, labels, ideas, narrations will pop in to "explain" or help the mind to "comprehend " what my senses are picking up...but if these "concepts" are not too demanding I can usually clump them together in a cloud  called "thinking" and watch them pass away.  

As I was sitting there this morning, listening to the amazing sound of a lovely breeze through the big beautiful trees around me and feeling that same breeze on my skin , I found myself saying..."This is so pleasant".  Automatically, my mind went to and got hooked by some  questions I have been carrying around with me in relation to what I am learning about the skandas that make up the "I", more specically the skanda of feeling.  

My mind went something like this: "Why is this pleasant? Is it universally pleasant or just pleasant according to me? Am I perceiving, judging, preferring when I note that my moment is pleasant? Wouldn't it be best not to judge it either way? Not to make that distinction between pleasant or unpleasant? Does noting it bring me more into awareness of my moment or farther from it ? etc etc "

Let's understand the feeling skanda first

According to Joseph Goldstein (2001), the skanda of feeling is the quality of pleasantness, unpleasantness or neutrality  that is inherent in each moment. ( page 151) These feelings are usually a result of past karma...a cause and effect type of thing. 

Say for example, you had a wonderful relationship with your grandmother in your past. She has passed on but you carry very found memories of her with you as you continue to grieve your loss to some degree.

Pleasant

Now, in the present moment as you are sitting in a restaurant with friends, an elderly woman walks in  that looks like her or you can smell the perfume your grandmother wore off her or hear the pet name she called you in reference to someone else. Maybe this woman is smiling at you and being nice to you like your grandmother was. You may experience a pleasant feeling. The quality of the present moment is pleasant. Now...because it is pleasant... you might want to increase the pleasantness level of the moment by opening up to this stranger, talking to her, doing something nice for her.  You may also not want to let the moment go and resist when your friends say it is time to leave. 

Unpleasant

What if your grandmother died unexpectedly a few months ago and you were the one to find her. There was something burning on the stove at the time that you discovered she had passed. It was a painful experience.  Now in the restaurant this woman who looks like your Nan  walks in at the same time you can smell something burning in the kitchen. This smell is going to be very unpleasant for you and therefore the quality of your moment is going to be unpleasant. You are likely going to react to this moment with a certain aversion and a certain desire for it to be over. You are going to feel yourself closing up to it. You may wish to leave it by leaving the restaurant. You will not only carry painful memories of your grandmother with you from that moment forward but also of the restaurant. 

Neutrality

Most  of what enfolds in our moments is neither pleasant or unpleasant. An elderly lady can walk in to that restaurant and have no obvious resemblance to your Nan. You may have no  reaction to her or the moment. The moment is neither pleasant or unpleasant. Infact,  paying little to no attention to your present experience, you may not even notice the woman.  Your mind may be elsewhere and you  may forget all together that you are here and now. The experience leaves no impact. It is neutral and unfortunately easy to neglect or forget.

I am not sure if that is the best example, but that is what came out of me lol.

So in the feeling aggregate there is only three descriptive terms used: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. We are not talking about emotions, mind states  or the details of story...just the nature and quality of the experience. My questions arise from this :

Questions:

1. So is it  the "thing", the person, the happening that is unfolding, the moment  that is unpleasant, pleasant or neutral, or  the perception of it? 
2. Who or what, then,  determines the quality of experience? Isn't it purely subjective? Relative? 
3. Doesn't our determining if a moment is pleasant, unpleasant or neutral require a certain judgement on our parts?  Are we not "judging" here? Isn't that reactive?
4. If we are not meant to narrate our lives, do we also want to avoid determining that a moment  is pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? Is that not a form of narration? 
5. Is "neutral" our goal for practice in mastering nonduality and equanimity? Do we want to stay balanced between the unpleasant and pleasant in our "perception" of experience by staying in neutral? 
6. Yet if neutral is often a cause or an effect of not being mindful enough...do we want to avoid it?
7. Is the ultimate state of being one that deems every moment as pleasant? Is that our ultimate goal, then, to experience only the pleasant? If we are evolved enough is the quality of  every moment  pleasant regardless of circumstance ? 
8. What would happen if we spent a mindful practice just noting: "pleasant, unpleasant or neutral" with each thing that showed up? Would that help us to understand this skanda better or would it be counter productive to our goals of getting beyond thought to what is? 

So as I was enjoying my mindfulness practice, becoming aware of  the perception that the breeze I was hearing and feeling against my skin was pleasant...all these questions came up.  They were pretty dominant so I settled in to observing them.  Have yet to come up with all the answers though. 

For now,  I am learning that we do not have to  judge something as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral with the mind...it simply is one of those .  The senses determine that quality. Our goal is not to react to the unpleasant with further judgement and a closing down or by  resisting what is; it is not to react to the pleasant with a  clinging and attachment to what is; nor is it to react to the neutral by forgetting the moment or deluding ourselves into believing we can be anywhere but here and now in this experience.  :)  

I will keep looking into this.

All is well in my world. 

Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield ( 2001) Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. Shambala Classics: Colorado.

Understanding Cause and Effect in Our Lives

 

There is a correlation between one's/ a person's predominant mental and emotional state and who they are with, who their friends are, where they work, and even what happens to them.

Eckhart Tolle

Are you sick of all my lamenting yet? I know it is quite redundant and boring but what it represents is a human search for the truth that hides in those deep recesses of our minds.  I am really trying to see clearly how this clump of flesh and mental activity I call "me" operates. Right now, my learning platform seems to be my present living situation...(well  I should say, the platform is actually my mind in response to what is going on around me...most specifically, an "aversion" tendency). 

The mind that inquires, investigates, and explores conditions wisdom. pg 143

If you get anything from what I have been writing lately, let it be about the importance of observing  mental habits and mind patterns in order to free Self from suffering tendencies.  Don't be afraid to look inside that mind of yours, to watch how your body responds to its activity. Watch what actions you choose as a result of it and then determine just how skillful, or unskillful, those thoughts, feelings and behavioral choices are in bringing you to the ultimate goal of Self realization. Don't be afraid, then, to look at your life and ask, "What predominant mind pattern am I stuck in, that is being reflected back to me by the experiences I am encountering?" 

Not only does each action, no matter how insignificant it may seem, condition a future result, it also reconditions the mind. page 144

Most of us, have "mind habits" or predominant thinking tendencies, based on our conditioning and core beliefs, that have the power take over our experiences and directly and indirectly lay the foundations for the types of life experiences we are having now or will have in the future.  Many of those mind patterns are negative or what a buddhist may refer to as "unwholesome" or "unskillful." These mind patterns will definitely affect your life.

 I am going to throw the word "Karma" out there and I know many will have a prickly reaction to that word, because maybe the mind makes a judgement of it as "Eastern Woo-woo". I look at Karma in a whole new light now and see it, not only as a spiritual law, but  as very valid,  natural law. 

Karma: Cause and Effect

If we act motivated by greed, hatred, or delusion, we are planting the seed of suffering; when our acts are motivated by generosity, love, or wisdom, then we are creating the karmic conditions for abundance and happiness. 137

We would all agree to the validity of cause and effect, wouldn't we? There is usually a cause for an action and there is usually an effect of that action, right?  It is obvious that what is going on up in that head of mine is predominantly negative by what is being reflected back to me. There is a cause for what is unfolding and there is an effect.  The cause , in a sense , is my mind pattern of fear, shame, a belief that others rights are more important than my own, a conditioning that says I must play nice and be unselfish, judgements about others and myself, a feeling of unpleasantness and this automatic reflex of pushing the unpleasnat away etc etc.  This situaton I am presently in, at least indirectly, unfolded because of this mind state. There is a lot going on up there..a pattern of thinking that has been repeated from past experiences and will likely be repeated in future experiences if I do not resolve to break the cycle now! I can change my external environment but until I change the internal one...I will keep coming across such situations. ...in different places and with different others  but the energy behind it all will be the same. This is Karma!

When we understand that our lives are the unfolding of Karmic law, that we are the heirs to our own deeds, then there grows in us a deepening sense of responsibility for how we live, the choices we make, and teh actions we undertake. pg 141

How to work with Karma: 

Put away your fearful reservations and explore this law of Karma. Objectively but compassionately observe the cause and effect of your actions and the actions of others or things around you ...be they atual behaviours or thoughts. Then focus on you! Weed out that which is unwholesome or unskilful in you.  Plant the seeds that will lead to wholesome and skillful growth in you! Then observe what happens. 

It is true that I have to make changes in my environment but the real change has to take place within me.  I have to notice, accept, look deeply into what is going on in my mind as a reaction or response to what is going on in my life and make that correlation. I need to determine which mind patterns will bring me to what I really want and need...which is freedom from suffering , peace of mind, truth and wisdom and which ones will bring more suffering for me or others. I need to let go of a lot of these mind habits that do not serve me or others and most importantly my identification with them. I have to replace them with mind patterns that will bring peace. 

Now when I look at my specific patterns of thinking and feeling...I can take it a step farther and apply the dharma to it .  I can take what I have been learning and remove the specifics from "my" experience to see the universal nature of it. I see and understand  my "aversion" and by that better understand the human tendency towards aversion when we feel something unpleasant.  I can then  have more understanding for myself and in turn more compassion for others who are suffering the cause or effects of aversion. 

Hmmm! Well that is what came out of me today. Again, you need to come to your own understanding of this by reflecting  on your own Life and your response to it. 

All is well!

Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield ( 2001) Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. Shambala Classics: Colorado. 

Eckhart Tolle ( June , 2021) How to Calm the Voice Inside/ Eckhart Tolle Teachings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBXpFbOPUdA

More on struggling With Aversion

 

When we understand that unfair, harmful, or hateful actions rebound in suffering to the person committing them as well as to the recipient, we can respond to both with compassion rather than anger and resentment...seeing people act out of ignorance in ways that cause themselves or others great pain can inspire a very strong and direct response to that ignorance, but it is a response of compassion. 

Joseph Goldstein, page 146

I know that! I want to be able to be compassionate around people lost in this ignorance but the aversion is too often there. Sigh! 

Another Restless Night

I awoke at 3 am during another restless night.  I was drawn to the window...the dogs were all up at the time looking out as if something or someone was out there.  Thought maybe I would catch a glimpse of the fox that was lingering around or the bear that visits on ocassion.  Nothing. Though I could not see any "sentient form",  I  was amazed over how "light" it was.  A big, beautiful moon was suspended in the sky lighting up the world.  I wanted to be outside in it, soaking up that amazingly powerful energy, looking up at the stars but it was three in the morning and I was so tired. Besides, the reason for my recent bouts of nightime  restlessness was still wandering and stumbling  around the house leaving the prickly feeling along the back of my neck and that familiar knot  in my gut.  I had to get up and look around to make sure everyone was safe and everything was intact. 

Sigh! Aversion steps up to the plate....again.  

When I awake and find myself laying there I become aware of this deep dark feeling  within me...this feeling that the knot in my gut and the hairs up along the  back of my neck is taking me to.  It is a dark feeling that I am not sure I can explain. Usually, when I feel it, and I have been feeling it a lot lately as I awaken and sometime throughout the day, I try to push it away or stuff it down.  I cover it up with thought, activity  or some type of redeeming emotion. I toss and turn at  night as if the movement  will rock it out of me. It doesn't.  

Leaning Into the Feeling

Last night...I told myself to stop running from it and to turn toward it.  I needed to allow it and explore it. So I lay there in the semi-dark, "feeling it".  

Labeling and explaining  conceptually what the feeling was all about is probably counter intutive and ineffective but I feel the need to try. It felt like falling into a pit of empty darkness. It felt like powerlessness, a hopelessness that things around me would get better. It felt a bit like claustophobia, like being trapped in a dark box with others sitting on the top holding it closed.  It felt like a warning that something bad was going to happen on top of everything else that felt "off" and there was this feeling there would be no one there to help. I was on my own.  It felt yucky! I realized as I allowed myself to  feel it,  that this feeling was 100 % mine...Though it may have originated from others or some external circumstance...it is now  the emotional mess lining my psyche.  It is unhealthy.  My thoughts, my emotional experience, my body are all becoming unhealthy, dark and negative and it scares me. 

I would have staid with that feeling, explored it farther but the dogs began to bark.  They  jumped up to the window and I followed them. As we all looked out  at the mesmerizing moon, between their barks , I heard the familiar rustling in the kitchen and the shuffling to the bathroom. I knew what that meant and my gut just twisted with aversion and resistance. 

Still Resisting Resistance 

And though I try to accept this level of aversion and resistance when it pops up...and it is popping up a lot lately in reaction to what is going on around me... I still find myself resising the resistance.  I find myself feeling shame and guilt for my aversion, for my fear...for fear, I am discovering, is the root of all of this. "What is wrong with you?  Why are you afraid?  You are making judgements again, assumptions? If you were as evolved as you like to think you were, you would be seeing beyond the behaviour, you would be more compassionate, wanting to serve...rather than afraid and desperate to push this out of your home and out of your experience. " 

I can accept that I am not very enlightened but I find it hard to accept that I am not as kind as I would like to be. The truth is, I don't want this in "my" expereince.  Everything in my gut is telling me to push this away before it is too late. That is the exact opposite of what I am learning to do. It is the exact opposite of equanimity, non judgement, accepting what is, letting go and compassion. 

Still my gut hisses, and if I whittle away all the layers of resistance over its original message, I can hear it: Stop this before it is too late! Too late for what?  I don't know.  I really don't. Before I get sick maybe?  I am brought back to that dream I had about the pelvic condition before it came to my awareness again. Besides that, I am not sleeping well and this twisting in my gut is literally going to become an ulcer if it keeps up. My ticker is acting up as it does with stress. But I am more concerned about my mental health than I am about my physical...this negativity , this sense of hopelessness and feeling powerless in my own home is so yicky. Is that it?

Fear, the real culprit

A realization hit me as I looked out the window and listened for the noises in my house to quiet. What is underlying that aversion and resistance I feel in my gut, is fear.  There is a reason why I am not as assertive as I normally would be here.  Sure it has to do with my pathological need to be nice, to "please", to create an image of the "selfless one" and to give at the expense of my verion of little self...but the fear is not just about failing on my "spiritual" and "human" mission. There is more to this fear than what the mind is doing. There is a deep biological and intuitive warning going on inside me. I feel ashamed of it because it means that I might be making a very negative judgement about another human being.  I am trying to live a life of non-judgement. Thus all my resistance to admitting this fear to myself and others. 

Yet, fear  is there and we keep coming back to it. So yes I may be collecting "data" from past and present experiences and making judgments to "explain" this fear but.... 

This core fear doesn't come from my mind where all judging takes place.  It comes from a place beyond the mind. I cannot rationalize it or explain it.  All I know is I have to stop resiting it, stop supressing it, stop denying it!  I think I have to listen to it. I have to be careful!  I have to watch how "assertive" I am, how I approach, how I confront. I think I intuitively knew that all along and that is why I handled things the way I did, not just to be nice or to please...but to avoid a reaction I fear will come. . I have to enlist the help of others in this transition.  I have to create safe space.

Oh my goodness...I am afraid at the primal level and I have been for quite some time. I am not exactly sure what I am afraid will happen or how or why...I just know I am afraid. That has been the basis of my actions ( or lack of),  my sleepless nights and gut twisting.  Wow! That kind of blows me away.

Anyway...I still seek to be compassionate. I do.  I remind myself again and again: There but for the Grace of God go I. Someday my strong and direct response will not be motivated by resentment, anger, or fear but by compassion. That is the direction I am intending to go...but I guess, I am not there yet.  I am not there yet!

All is well. 

Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield (2001)Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. Shambala Classics: Colorado

Selfish?

 When you are trying to be unselfish, you are doing so for selfish reasons. 

Alan Watts

Say what???

This pertains to my last few entries.  I have been very busy over the last little while...over the course of my life actually....trying to be unselfish and I have been doing so for very selfish reasons. I was building an image of "the unselfish one, the giving one, the kind one" in order to protect some broken parts of me. Sure I do honestly care about the people I offer this version of the "unselfish one" to but anything I have given was only partially done for them.  I did it mostly for me.  

I could not live with the shame of being "selfish".  It has been conditioned into me that "selfish" is "Wrong, bad and shouldn't be".  So I have been "trying" to do the "right thing". 

Watts also tells us in the below listed video that we can't do the right thing by doing and we can't do the right thing by not doing. 

Huh?

Selfish is an idea because the  version of "self" we have is just an idea.  We are constantly creating and trying to maintain images we have of self as a seperate, individual person ...as an island of consciousness locked up in a case of skin, ...facing an alien and dangerous world. And we are identifying with this delusion, this hallucination we call "I". 

Waking up is a giving up of this "selfish vs unselfish" mentality, this image for the real deal.It is an understanding that  we can "do" so little; that we are what the entire cosmos is doing through us.  

Hmm!  So much to think about.

All is well.

Alan Watts-T & H Inspiration (October , 2020) Genuine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEL9OEZKOMU

Learning From Empathic Aversion

 Acknowledge in your rage  the powerlessness around being repeatedly manipulated into performing emapthy and care up against an impossible, double standard of being nice all the time. Embrace that you sometimes must use aggression and force to get others to back off if they have felt entitled to your energy, time and resources. Accept that this does not make someone like you narcissitic, irresponsible or entitled, but expresses your self love and dignity.

Doug Noll

Well...isn't this, in a sense , what I have been writing about in my rampages about my present living situation? I am not so sure about the "force and aggression" part but I do realize that assertiveness and limit setting is required.  I have set my limit, reached out to others and to the individuals involved, expressed at least some of these stuffed feelings and set the motion for change rolling. And I refuse to beat myself up anymore for this decision. I love that last line!!! I will remind myself daily that doing this does not make me narcisstic, irresponsible or entitled.  I am simply expressing self love and dignity! 

The Psychosocial Empath

I do believe I am an empath and I like to look at that label  not so much in a metaphysical way but in a psychosocial way.  I am an empath because I had trauma in the early years...Most of us gain this level of empathic intuitiveness, not from a "witchiness" passed on from generation to generation, nor do we get it by  constantly witnessing empathy expressed in  kindness and compassion toward self or others, but just the opposite.  We gain that empathic ability as a survival mechanism.

A Means to Survive

Being sensitive to negative emotion, especially if it is directed toward us in those early formative years, makes it imperative  that we discover any way we can to avoid being hit with that debilitating  pain again and again.  We learn to watch for the build up of negative energy in others...we learn to pick up the subtle cues and  signs that it might be coming and we do whatever we can to protect ourselves against it. We become super perceptive and super sensitive to those subtle energy shifts...especially the "negative" energy shifts. What we do most times, as a reaction to or a protection from,  is turn our selves inside out to avoid being a target.  Many of us...will adapt a super "nice" and "people pleasing" persona. Any "anger", "aversion" or "rage" that would naturally come  with being hurt again and again is not expressed outwardly in a healthy way. It is instead  supressed and repressed as to avoid becoming a target and thus having the negative energy  hurled at us.  

The Need to Be Nice

We are often taught that sticking up for ourselves and defending ourselves against this behaviour and energy, expressing or even having this natural "anger", "assertiveness", inside us as a response is "wrong, bad, shouldn't be". We are guilted and shamed into accepting such displays of negativity as "normal" and of being super nice, accomodating and nothing but pleasing to others regardless of how we are treated. Anytime we feel anger or aversion we are, because of our pathological conditioning, automatically going to feelings of shame and guilt for not being "nice". We then work hard to squish those feelings  down. Squishing, squishing, squishing.  And we also cope with our shame and guilt  through rationalization and over compensating.

So many of us trauma survivors are "broken empaths". We  are very uncomfortable around negative energy.  At the same time we feel great shame and guilt when we experience the anger, aversion or desire to protect self from it.  We have been told it is "selfish" to put our own protection first and whatever energy we are picking up is all just in our heads anyway...we are just being "paranoid"or  "too sensitive".  It becomes a very painful cycle to be in. 

Well I have always undestood this to me reality anyway...but I forget and slide into habitual ways of responding to negative energy. And this present situation I am living in now is like a wonderful learning platform.  

What I am being taught in my present situation 

It is showing me ...how I am dismissing and hurting myself because of old conditioning.  

It is showing me I am indeed an empath picking up negative energy but I am a very broken one.  I am not using this wonderful "trick" I picked up in childhood in a way that would benefit my evolution.

 It is showing me that I have stuffed a lot of  "new" anger, aversion, resentment inside me on top of all the "old" anger, aversion and resentment and it all needs to be expressed.  It needs to come out! 

It is showing me that I do not need to "own" this negative energy from others or fix it for them. This is their energy...I must give it back to them. 

It is showing me...that I do not need to live like this, I do not need to be a victim to other people's energy.  I don't have to pretend to be "nice" and deny myself in order to soothe the energies of others. 

It is showing me that what I have been doing is more about "spiritual arrogance" rather than "spiritual humility".  I have been suffering this, believing it was part of my spiritual practice and excusing the others because I assumed  their level of spiritual development and consciousness was so much less than mine.  I told myself it was up to me to be the "more spiritual one".  How is that for arrogant?  Who am I to say they are less spiritual than me, less conscious and therefore that they"need me and my spiritual ways to guide them." They are exactly where they are meant to be  now in their evoluton and I am exactly where I am meant to be.  As it turns out...they are becoming the teachers here...not me. 

What do I need to do? 

Wow...I need to be able to say, "I feel anger when....; I feel aversion when....; I resent when..."  I need to be able to say..." This is not good for me...and this living arrangement is not going to go on....in the mean time...this is my house and this is what I want to happen in my home." I need to look at the individuals involved and say, "I am sensing or I understand that this place gives you the security and comfort you have been feeling like you need.  I understand that the idea of leaving will create anxiety and fear in you. I also undersatnd that you feel anger and sometimes aggression when I bring up  the fact that the situation has to change but these are your feelings.  You own them. I will, however, respect them and hear them. I will also do my best to support and  assist you with this transition, making it as easy as possible for you,  because I do care.  I cannot stop you from feeling pain...that is not my responsibility. This is your journey and I sincerely hope you find your way."  

Wow! I did say that recently ...maybe not in the exact same words but I did.  I am beginning to learn what the wise teacher teaching this lesson (Life)  wants me to learn.

Wow!

A lot of this insight clicked inside me after " randomly happening" upon this video below.

All is well.

Empath Help (July, 2020) Damaged Empath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbGnin_fkbg

A Reminder to Achieve Through Conceiving and Believing.

 

Whatever the mind can conceive or believe, it can achieve.

Napolean Hill 

Wow! Serendipity has showed up again.  I usually try to have some quote or idea in mind before I come here to write. For today's quote and topic choice  I wrote down, "The mind that can conceive and believe, is the mind that can achieve."  I heard it again during a guided meditation I did this morning.  

My goal today was to relieve a little stress and worry.  Spent another restless night  tossing and turning, with one eye opened waiting for someone who I have been worried about to return home. So much suffering around me and sometimes it feels overwhleming.  I am "stressed" and I know I know...it is my mind that is creating that stress...but still I have stressful nights of worry.  

Anyway, so this morning I thought about my mind and my intention to be serene and peaceful no matter what is happening around me or to me. To get there, I need to go to the mind and reconstruct some of those thoughts and beliefs.  That is what I was going to write about! And I was going to begin with  that quote.

Before I opened up to new post, I reviewed the posts that were supposedly read by others in the last 24 hours...and lo and behold...of the dozen that were read...there was a post  with that very same quote on it from March 8, 2021.

Isn't that uncanny?  

All is well in my world. 

On Being Kind

 

Be kind whenever possible, and it is always possible.

Dalai Lama

I am thinking about kindness and how important it is to me.  I preach about it, teach about it, and try to make it my life mission. But...you knew a but was coming in there didn't you?...I don't know if I am really kind or if I am more concerned with the idea of being kind.  Do I really feel kindness as much as I "should"...(man I need to get rid of that "should" word but what I  mean is)...in the assumed requirements of my practice to attain and maintain a level of peace through the inner exploration and development of the attributes of compassion, metta-kindness, wisdom and love ...am I truly experiencing kindness or just doing a lot of thinking, acting and lip service about it? Am I just going through motions when the vehichle is actually empty of that feeling? 

I awoke in the middle of the night and asked myself that question.  

I enjoyed a lovely get together with highschool friends and acquantances last evening. I was once again welcomed into a circle of kind considerate beings who have been maintaining a connection and  enjoying getting together for years for no other reason than wanting to be together.  I felt honored to be welcomed in to that circle so warmly. Even though "kindness" was the feeling I got from that table...old patterns of core belief emerged that made me want to add on to that..."when I don't deserve it".  

Because of "trauma brain" I don't remember my high school years very well. I didn't stay connected like the others did...I walked away from all associations that would trigger my memory and  pain.  

I remember all these lovely ladies in some form or another, envying their connections with each other, their successes and their, what seemed on the outward surface, "very normal lives".  I liked all of them. I just felt because of my circumstances and what trauma had done to my thinking ....I paled in comparison.  I also never knew if they "liked" me or even remembered me at all. I don't remember clearly how I fit in there...assuming I didn't. How could I? Yet, this very special group from highschool, if I strain to remember, was always a very warm, non judgmental and  discrimation-free group. They are the same way now. They welcomed everyone in then and they welcome everyone in now. Wow!

I was shocked to have some of this group remember things about me that I don't remember. I don't know how to share with others that "I don't remember much!" so I go along with the memories hoping that I didn't do something strange or more importantly, unkind, in those events they recall. I could have been unkind but I truly hope I wasn't! 

So last evening, as they were happily sharing their recent life events...their children's weddings, their children's graduating from med school, the good jobs they or their children have gained in their professional roles, the experiences they are having that clearly show they are not worried about paying their mortgage, (none of this story telling was competitive or ego dominated...just fact) I felt myself sinking in my chair.  "Don't let them  ask me what is going on in my life, right now, please." I found myself praying, " or what my beautiful and wonderful children are doing."  I knew socially, I was no match...socially I did not fit in. ...socially they would not undersatnd my situation or my childrens'.

I just wanted to sit there and be kind, listen kindly, speak kindly, express gratitude kindly.  Kindness then was not necessarily expressed as  a natural flow of this energy I am developing ( and I am certianly developing it) but more as a defense mechanism. My mind ws once again telling me, " If you want to survive social situations without risking exposure...just be kind." 

That kindness I have been conditioned over the years to demonstrate outwardly to those I especially felt awkward around was always about putting others first. The kindness was never kindness for myself.  It was actually a learned  way of defending against my own inadeqaucies...Expressed kindness, whether it was genuinely felt or not, was a way of preventing  these inadequacies from being  exposed to self or others. When I got to know someone well...trust that they would not pick at my inadequacies...kindness was no longer needed as a defense mechanism and I would treat them at the same level I treated myself...and that was not always kind. 

That was quite an insight gathered from a lovely evening out and a bit of middle of the night ruminating.

The point is...I want to experience and feel kindness in a genuine and authentic way, beyond the "thought, action or lip service". And true kindness when we develop it fully is kindness for all and the "I"...this clump of flesh and personality is included in that all.  How can we be kind to others if we are not kind to ourselves?

Now I am getting there...I am.  I did reflect on this metta-kindness during meditation today. I felt it. Beneath my habitual use of it as a defense mechanism...  When I reflect and look deeply I can say I genuinely felt and feel it for all those lovely ladies who sat around the table last evening; I felt and feel it for those beings I had to painfully confront yesterday with my truth; I felt and feel  it for my most precious and suffering children; I actaully felt and it for all beings and I felt and feel it for myself.  I am getting there.

All is well 

Letting it Out

 

Of Itself So!

The Tao Te Ching

Hmmm! Sigh!  Big, big pathetic and drawn out sigh! Can you hear it?  Can you feel it?  

Sometimes we need to trust the spontaneous nature of Life and see the beauty and perfection in all of it. We need to be open to all truths hidden within us. That sigh represents release of that which was preventing us from opening.  I like to think that anyway. 

My Pathetic Sigh 

I am releasing a sigh of complete surrender to what is.  I am recognizing and accepting the months of "aversion" I have been feeling in reaction to my present living situation...the months of "shame and self deprecation" I have struggled through becasue of this aversion. I am releasing months of stuffed and denied feelings and thoughts so that which lay beneath can come out.  This gut feeling, so visceral, so intense, so demanding to be heard from the beginning of this section of my journey, an intuition and knowing   that I have been stuffing and ignoring...is out!  This sad and pathetic realization that the only one I truly was not caring for, not standing up for, not supporting  in the last 11 months or so was "me" (whoever this "me" is...whoever this  clump of flesh and busy mind is... in this situation) is out!  It all comes gushing out in one big,...SIGH!!! 

It is out!

I have been telling others besides the people involved (because they have been acting like they have not heard me) about my decision for change. I have outwardly expressed it in order to get the ball moving. I am not sure what the fall out will be. ...but that is not up to me, is it?

Just after I reached out to others, before I had a chance to once again  remind those directly involved  about this decision originally brought up months before...I get validation once again, that my gut feeling is something to heed....further supporting this decision. Hmmm!

I don't have to beat myself up for the things it tells me. I don't have to beat myself up and writhe in shame and guilt because I am not being kind enough, compassionate enough, understanding enough the way I think I "should" be if I am going to proceed towards awakening.  I don't have to resist my resistance, to deny, supress and repress these feelings of aversion I have been experiencing. I never did .  All I  ever had to do, was notice them, observe them, allow them, look deeply into them and see what inspired action would be most beneficial for all.  And that "all"  has to  include "me", not deny "me". The ompassion, loving-kindness, understanding  and service I am trying to practice was never meant to be exclusive of me...but to include me.  I...whatever this is "I" is...is part of the all! 

Sigh! 

I am not sure what will happen next.  How people will respond or react.  I have no control there.  I allowed it all to come out and now I wait for Life to take over.

All is well! 

Alan Watts/Wiara (June, 2017) See the Beauty in Everyone.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il30lFERf9A

Heaven to Earth

[To express inspiration is...] to bring heaven down to earth and to express heaven in terms of earth.

Alan Watts

Expressing An Inspiration

 Oh man...so much learning and I absolutely love the learning! Some, well more than some maybe, will say I am wasting my time, being unproductive in socially expected ways, "addicted to the computer and books" and making a fool of myself sharing what I am learning here.  All I can say in response is, "Maybe...but I am not going to stop! This feels like the most productive thing I have ever done in my life...I cannot understand it or know why I am so pulled towards this learning and sharing but I am."

I  am just following an intuitive pull when I come here to this page, when I open one of the many books on my table, when I listen to the wise ones I run across on my morning videos. Even though I will likely never be an "expert", I am inspired to learn...to understand the truth, and then  to share everything I am learning. 

There is something inexplicable inside me that wants to come out...a light that wants to shine.  It is who I am, I suppose...who I really am, who I am in Heaven's eyes, not in the physical world's eyes.  So that is why my being here likely doesn't make sense to me or anyone else.  lol  Yet I want to try...try to express Heaven in terms of earth.

All is well. 

Sparks and Flashes of Light

 ...being willing to expand and see things from a larger perspective...is like looking at our small life on this planet from a great distance and from a great length of time.  It is the recognition that all created things pass, and what matters then is not how much we collect or what we make or do, but how we live this short dance, and how well we learn to love. Let us learn to live wisely even though life passes like a flash of summer lightening and a dream.

Jack Kornfield ( page 86)

Connecting thoughts from different sources again.  It is so uncanny how that happens...I will be reading or studying something and then I will run across that something...that tidbit of wisdom from other resources or sources  and it will be like "click" in my head.  Of course, in order for it to click completely it has to resonate with something already inside me. 

So the above qoute from Chapter Six of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom has stuck with me and I was able to connect it  to the thoughts that were  "randomly"  brought to my attention from others during my daily listening. 

Looking at our puny little lives from a larger perspective is game changing.  Eckhart Tolle in the video How Important is Our Personal Life? echoes that quote when he describes how we are one of billions of sparks of consciousness.  If we were above the earth, from some grand expansive distance, we would look down to see these billions of sparks flashing in and flashing out. Every  tiny speck of light appearing so bright for the briefest of moments ...then out...while a new spark flashes in.  Each spark comes in, learning what it is here  to learn by coming, and then it leaves. Coming, learning, leaving, coming, learning and leaving...a continous momentum of flashing light. 

What is each spark and what is it learning?   It is consciousness learning of itself with each flash in. 

Each spark, each flash of summer lightening, is not here to achieve success at the  level of form. It is not here to make a million dollars, find a soul mate, gain recognition for achievements from self and others. It is not here to climb Mount Everest or find the cure for cancer...It is not here to write a Pulitzer prize winning novel or to play the piano beautifully to thousands of fans at Carnegie hall.  I mean it is okay if it does any of these things but these types of achievements will always be those things , Jesus teaches , that  will be added on. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things will be added onto you. (Matthew 6:33 KJV)  Anythings besides a spiritual connection will not sustain us and they are not why we are here. 

We are  not here to suffer either.  We will only suffer if we do not recognize who we are while we are here.

We, these tiny sparks, these brief flashes of lightening, are here so consciousness can discover itself. We are  here to shine our light which is loving kindness on this world. We are not this world or of this world, we are just flashing through it. 

Many of us are so consumed with our personal goals and our personal problems ...in a state of delusion thinking , "It is all about me and what I am experiencing." 

I am so there sometimes...locked in this little version of my puny reality.  Come on!  I get so consumed with what I am confronting and reacting to that I lose the greater  perspective.  There is almost 8 billion people on this planet...8 billion tiny sparks...how can it all be about this one here? 

I mean...I ...who I really am...have a role to play.  I am a part of this amazing light show. I have a purpose here, just not in the sense the world makes us believe.  There is something in me so much greater than this clump of flesh, this overactive mind and the things I feel, sense or do. There is a light, a light of love in me. My mission is to simply let it shine as brightly as it can while I am in this clump of flesh, this overactive mind and expressing myself through the things I feel, sense and do. I need to focus on the light not the fleeting form.

That light in me is the same light in you. We are all just temporary expresions of it.  

This expression is a short dance...let's put away our delusions of "it is all about me" and learn to dance this dance beautifully while we can.  

All is well. 

Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield ( 2001) Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. Shambala Classics: Colorado.

Eckhart Tolle ( July, 2021) How Important Is Our Personal Life? Eckhart Tolle Teachings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62HiGSsOL7I

Conscious Being

 The Foundation for All Doing is Conscious Being.

Eckhart Tolle

 

Not me lol...I am the one behind the camera.