Mindfulness Check: Is Your Mind Elsewhere

 If the mind is elsewhere the taste of  food that is eaten is not experienced; if the mind is elsewhere we do not see what is in front of us.

Deepak Chopra on the Vasisthas (The Secrets of Healing, Spotify) 

How much of your food do you truly taste? And how much of the world in front of you do you truly see?  How mindful are you?  How  present are you in this here and now? 

Is Your Mind Else Where

If I could put you on pause right now with some special remote control and got you to observe on some multi sensory screen your experience in that moment on pause, how would you  answer these questions without thinking too much about it, I wonder :

• Where are you and what are you observing and experiencing here in this very moment?
• What are you visually noticing around you in regards to light, colour, spaciousness? Is it pleasant, unpleasant or neutral to your senses?
• What is directly in front of you? What is the colour, shape, visual texture of that "thing"? Is the experience of looking at it pleasant, unpleasant or neutral to your senses? 
• Is there anyone around you?  If so, how physically close to you are they?  Can you sense if their visual presence is neutral, pleasant or unpleasant? 
• What are you hearing?  Can you notice any noise in the background? Is it pleasant, unpleasant or unpleasant? Any sounds in your near vicinity? Pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? 
• Can you hear your own body?  The crinkle of hair over your ear? Your breath? Your heart beat? 
•  If you were just speaking before I paused you, what did your voice sound like? If there are ppl around and they are speaking , without concern for what they are saying, how does their voice sound?  Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• What are you smelling?  Notice all smells around you? Nature smells? Body smells? Artificial smells and toxins? etc Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• What about touch sensation?  Reach out to that thing in front of you and that person near you...remember they are on pause too so its okay lol? What does it feel like to touch it? Cool or warm? Soft or hard? Any other textures?  Now is it pleasant, neutral or unpleasant?
• Can you taste anything right now?  Have you just taken a bite of something or can you get something from the air around you ...what is that experience like for you?  Salty? Sweet? Bitter or sour? Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• What are you doing?
• Is this activity something that requires effort or non effort? Speed or slowness? Tension of muscles or stretching of muscles? Are you working alone on this task or with others? If others are involved how do you work together? How do you need each other to get this task done? Is it a  neutral, pleasant or unpleasant experience ? 
• What time of day is it? (Without looking at a clock...is it morning, afternoon or evening) ? 
• Let's get back to body:   How does your body feel in general? Energetic, awake, sleepy, drowsy or tired?   Any tension anywhere?  Where? Any softness anywhere?  Where? Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• What is your posture like?  Are you sitting, standing or lying down? Are you leaning forward, making yourself small  or are you  tall and expansive?  Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• If you were using your hands: what hand were you using or what hand was doing most of the work?  What is the other hand doing? Are your fists opened or closed? Can you feel any sensations in your palms?
• Check in with your jaw, your brows, your eyes. How does the jaw feel...is it clenched or relaxed?Are you furrowing your brow or is it relaxed?  Squinting your eyes or are they relaxed?  Is the felt experience here  pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• Are you smiling, frowning or is your mouth neutral?  Is this pleasant, unpleasant or neutral ? 
• Where are your feet? Are they making contact with the earth...if so where and how?...Check to see how that feels.  Is it pleasant, unpleasant or neutral?  
• Now if you are standing or walking when I paused you, were both feet on the ground or was one in the air...feel that foot in the air and the foot on the ground.  Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• If you are sitting or lying down, what parts of your body are making contact with a surface?  How does that feel? 
• Can you feel your breath? Were you on an exhale or an inhale when I paused you?  Was your belly and chest expanded or contracted? 
• What were you thinking? What thoughts were in your head just as I paused you?  Were they present focused on what you were doing? Or were they unrelated to what was going on in this moment?  Were they future or past focused? Were they perceived as  pleasant, unpleasant or neutral?
• What other mental modifications were going on in that head of yours? Any emotions? Can you name them quickly?  Were they pleasant , unpleasant or neutral?
• Were your reacting as a consequence of these emotions and thoughts? Maybe feeling that reaction in body as a tightness in belly or a clenching of fists or a tensing up of other muscles?  Maybe feeling a need to act and you were making plans to or moving into automatic body movements in order to do so? Maybe you said something or were about to say something in response? Maybe you were using or about to use  one of the habitual defense mechanisms...pushing down and trying to quickly distract , diminishing with more thought, denying and avoiding with more  thought, or activity etc? Maybe you were thinking about how you could fix this moment and make it better or how you could get to the next moment where you convinced yourself that  things would be better?  Or maybe you were trying to figure out how you could make this one last?  Was/is  this  a pleasant, unpleasant or neutral thought experience to your psyche? 
• Lets get back to breath both to observe and anchor.  Is your in- breath shallow or deep?  Long or short? Can you feel the air coming in through your nostrils? Which nostril is dominate? Can you feel your whole chest expanding , your belly expanded?  Does it feel like the air is going in all the way or is it getting stuck somewhere?  Feel those muscles in your chest, diaphragm, shoulders and back ?  Are they moving smoothly with every in breath or does it feel awkward? Is the rest of your body tensing with the in breath or softening and relaxing? Are you forcing the in breath or letting it come naturally?  Is the in breath pleasant, unpleasant or neutral?  
•  Did you notice a pause after the in breath? How did it feel? 
• What about the out-breath?  Is it deep or shallow? Long or short?Can you feel the belly, then the chest softening and releasing on the exhale.  Can you feel the air leaving your nostrils?  Which one seems dominate? What about those accessory muscles ...are they moving smoothly or awkwardly? Is your body tensing or relaxing with the out-breath? Are you forcing in anyway or is the breath natural and effortless?  Is the out breath pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? 
• Did you notice a pause after the out-breath? How did it feel?

Now you have completed your mindfulness check? I bet that when you were doing whatever it was you were doing you were not aware of many of these points I asked you to check, right?  You may have been aware of what you were thinking but that thinking probably seemed like your entire reality at the time and everything else about this moment I paused you in was not experienced by you ( unless it was very pleasant or unpleasant, that is).  You more than likely were not aware that you were thinking and that that thinking was taking you away from your moment experience until you paused to check. 

If that is the case, don't beat yourself up.  That is the case for most of us.  Being mindful and staying mindful is not as easy as it looks.  It requires so much practice.  If  we all had remote controls that paused us several times a day so we could ask ourselves these questions as we observed ourselves on pause,  it would be a lot easier to learn this wonderful tool for living. But atlas...there is no such thing. In the courses I am  taken there was provided for study a research article where an app was used on the phones of  15,000 participants in a study to get them to pause several times a day in order to do a much less detailed mindfulness check in order to assess the effect such mindfulness checks had on stress reduction and life satisfaction.  Well obviously the results indicated that that the apps were very good in reducing stress and improving one's satisfaction with life.  Such apps would be very beneficial but really we don't need an app.  Do we? We just need to get in the habit of ,at least once an hour, checking in with ourselves.   The more we do these mindfulness checks, the more mindful we become and the less we need to check in. 

Hmm  Something to think about.

All is well! 

(I will link the article at a later date) 

Honoring the Disturbed Feelings

 Only by joy and sorrow does one know anything about themselves and their destiny. They know what to do and what to avoid.

Goethe

I came here to write after listening to the below podacst.  I looked down at my notes and just wanted them and the direct quotes to  do the teaching. So here they are

Quotes from Michael Singer (Some may be somewhat paraphrased)

The Earth is the place where the soul is sent to evolve. 

The world is your teacher and it is all just one big spiritual practice.

Everyone of you have just the right Life needed to take you to God.

Life is not bothering you-you are bothering yourself about Life.

Everything that seems to  happen to you, is "just an event in the universe."

There are no good or bad experiences, just experience. 

Life is vibrating in front of us.  Some vibrations are nicer than others, but all are just vibrations.  They are not always comfortable- so what? 

Let it come in and let it go.

Can't resist the event ( it has already happened) but you can resist awareness of the experience.  The energy of the experience, however, does not go away. It can get stuck inside of us as a samskara.

The meaning of Life is Life.

If I was okay inside I would honor and appreciate every single Life experience that unfolded in front of me. 

I am a greater being because of each experience.

The world unfolds, we just experience it. 

Life is neither for you or against you-it is just unfolding in front of you.

Your consciousness is a ray of Light from the sun.

Every second of your Life, you have an opportunity to go to God. 

We need , at some point on this crazy ride, to stop pushing away that which we fear will bother us; stop blaming Life and the outside world for making us a mess inside and just open our hearts and arms to what ever She (Life) gives us.  Life didn't make a mess inside, we did.  When we finally get around to cleaning out that mess, we will feel so much peace.  Hmm! Please listen!

All is well! 

Michael Singer Podcast ( July, 2021) Giving meaning to the time between your birth and your death https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgNZs6_GmQs

Intention and Liberation

 The intention is the direction the soul is looking in and the will is the power that drives it there. So pay attention to your intention.

Michael Singer

We all have intentions...everything we do is "intended" to some degree or another.  And we all have will, what Michael Singer refers to as the greatest power we have within us.  Will is the power behind everything that has to do with "us", as these "individual" beings . We have power over our thoughts, feelings and even our bodies.  We may not exercise that power but it is there. The question is : what is your intention?

What is Your Intention?

Is your intention to smoke or not smoke?  Drink or not drink? Work or not work?  Eat or not eat?  Breathe or not breathe?

 Even breath is an intention.  Yep! If you intended not to breathe...I mean really intended not to breathe, you wouldn't.  Let's just hope that is never, ever your intention. 

So we intend something...say to stop drinking, when we recognize we have a problem. We then have the intention not to drink.  What keeps us  from drinking in that 24 hour period is purely will. That is when we activate our will power.  Will is the engine of the car that takes us in the direction the steering wheel (intention) is pointing.  And we have to be the drivers, right? We are the ones that determine the direction...determine the intention.  We cannot take our hands off the wheel not even even for a minute.

  Now, there are going to be times when mind steps in and says silly things to us to get us to steer the car in another direction. ...or in an example Michael Singer uses.."to get us to take our hands off the wheel and jump into the back seat". (Not recommended lol). We always have a choice...to stay steadfast in our intention, keeping our foot on the accelerator or to listen to mind.  Mind (ego-mind) may tell us to jump in the back seat; it may tell us to steer in the other direction that is familiar which might mean for that person trying to stop drinking...to take just one drink. It might tell us to stop and go nowhere. It can be very, very convincing but we do not have to listen! We can keep reminding ourselves of our intention. We are the ones that drive the car.  It is our intention and our will that determines whether or not we get to the point intention is steering us.  It doesn't matter if there are obstacles on the road or not; doesn't matter what shape our vehicle is in.  If we intend not to drink in this 24 hour period...we need to pay attention to what our hands on the wheel are doing and we need to recognize just how powerful this engine of will is.

The Highest Intention

The intention that we truly want, whether we know it or not, is the intention to be Self -realized, to be free of all the junk inside us so we can be just that.  Right now my intention on this journey is peace of mind...no matter what is going on around me ( and there are so many challenging things going on) I want to remain centered and peaceful.  I call on Will by  turning on the ignition and away we go ...down a highway I truly want to be on.  Mind is definitely around saying things like "Steer here! Steer there!  Turn around!  And sometimes even "Jump in the back seat...this is all too crazy!" but I keep my grip on the wheel, feel the power of will beneath me and I keep going.  You can too.

Why?  Why do we keep allowing this Higher Intention to steer us?  Because we know where it is taking us.  The more I go inward, the more I listen to these wise individuals that have been where I am now and who have freed themselves, the more I want what they have.  I want peace, a free, clear mind and the liberation that comes with that :

If the ego self is dead, you will not limit your consciousness. If in you the very notion of calamity , poverty, elation, pride, dullness and agitation do not arise, your ego self is dead, then you will be liberated while living. Utter purity will prevail in you because you will be a liberated sage when ego mind is dead. 

The Vasisthas as recited by Deepak Chopra

I don't need to be a sage but I do want to be free of all this clutter in my mind.  Though I am not a drinker I can understand why people drink. I imagine, though,  if they too  could clear away the stored stuff within them  that keeps getting triggered; if they could stop listening to ego mind and stay steadfast in their intention igniting their will power again and again , (maybe  even going so far as to push ego mind  out the door of the moving vehicle)...they might realize as I hope to, that without ego chittering and chattering, there is no calamity...no reason to stuff back down what comes up with another drink. Then they may get the freedom sobriety offers.  We all want the freedom of sobriety whether we drink or not.  We all want liberation from our much too busy minds. 

All is well in my world

Michael Singer Podcast/ sounds True (July, 2022) S1 E5 Your Highest Intention: Self Realization. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXJo-vw6EEo 

Getting to the Beauty Inside

 You are very beautiful-you are-not the mind, not the personality-you. The one who is in there when you relax is very beautiful and you will start to experience that beauty.  People call it Light, people call it joy...spirit...Shakti...Chi...whatever words you want to use.  You will start to experience beauty inside because  that is what is there. 

Michael Singer

We all need to learn just how beautiful we are. Beneath these overactive minds and busy bodies and personalities there is something so pure and beautiful that requires a certain process and lots of learning to access. 

Hooked On The Learning

Oh the learning, the learning, the learning.  I share so bloody much of my personal life because of this learning. I see every moment as a learning opportunity and as a learner it is my duty and privilege to share in order to pass on this learning.  I know it sounds so...as my children would say..."cra-cra" but I am utterly  compelled.  I may not have much zest and excitement in my little version of life these days but this desire to learn has such a pull on me, I couldn't untether myself if I tried. (Even though...an "untethered soul" is  ironically where the learning is taking me).  I am in this learning venture 100 % . Part of that learning is teaching, whether or not me or anyone else on the planet finds it annoying  lol.  

If you are reading this, at least if you are coming back to these pages, you are learning too and possibly teaching  against your ego's protests as well. :)  Why are we on this path and now that we started it finding ourselves unable to get off, even if we wanted to? 

Why We Get On This Path?

So, by changing your mind, you change everything. If only we could understand this point, we would see that there is nothing wrong outside; it is all in the mind. By correcting our vision, we correct things outside. 

Satchidananda/ The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Maybe you realized like I did years ago, that the old ways of doing things: letting the first three levels of mind run the show...being consumed in likes and dislikes, wants  and do not wants...just doesn't bring what we truly want in our lives, which is feeling okay inside. Michael Singer in his podcast ( linked below)  reminds us that if we are being really honest with ourselves, if asked the  question, "What do you truly want from Life?", we would answer, "I want to be okay inside." And feeling okay inside means being able to feel peace, love , joy, strength, enthusiasm and wellness. Though I never really looked at it this way, I knew for a very long time that I wanted "peace" instead of this monkey mind that never shuts up and that leads to so much unrest.  Peace of mind became my goal when I started on this learning venture. So I embarked on this very simple but, oh so challenging, journey that some might refer to as the spiritual path. I may never reach the final stage of this learning...what might be referred to with words as "complete enlightenment" and I can not say even that that is my intention...I am in this for the peace of mind. I will, however, go as far as this road takes me. 

How Do We Achieve Peace of Mind, Let Alone This "Beauty"? 

So how do I get to this peace of mind? Well Michael Singer offers several stages one goes through from victim of a restless monkey mind to truly transcended/ascended being. The final stages are fascinating and sure, if Life takes me that far, I will take em...but again...peace of mind is my goal for now ( and now is all there is, right?) .  So I am trudging through  the first few stages he speaks about in, The Stages of the Spiritual Path: The continuum of Letting Go. 

My View of the Process

I see it this way: I am presently learning to step mentally back a bit, relax and observe my tendency to want and not want.   I see so clearly that though this is a conditioned and "normal" way of approaching Life as a human being...it  does not take me closer to my goal of peace of mind.  It takes me farther away. It causes more stress than peace! 

Bouncers with  Lists at the Mental Club

I use this analogy to help me understand the process.  Maybe, it will help you too. I see three  bouncers or gate keepers at the door between my psyche and the external world. These bouncers are Cittas: My "ego-/"little self" mind, "judging/discriminating mind" and "Desiring mind" .  Their job is to protect and avoid disturbance inside my mental club, my version of life.  Each bouncer has a clip board with two lists on it.  A "Want it! Allow it! Make sure it comes in even if you have to go out of your way to pull it in" list and a "Don't want it!  Don't let it in! Keep it out even if you have to beat the crap out of it !" list. So these bouncers are very much busy and en-gaurde 24-7.  There is always, always something showing up in front of them  and they are always going through their lists and doing their jobs.  They are great bouncers but they work so hard they are driving us crazy. 

 And  on top of that these lists are very faulty. The trouble with the first list is that the bouncers let in guests  we think we want  just because they made the list, only to realize when they get in that we don't want them, they are not peaceful and pleasant but noisy and disturbing guests.  Or sometimes the guests on the "I want" list only stay a few minutes and leave, creating an empty feeling of loss or sometimes we want more and more of these guests but we just can't get them....no matter how busy these bouncers are at trying to lure them in, we just can't get them(/ the things we think we want)  to come in.  The trouble with the second list is that whatever the bouncers try to keep out becomes even more determined to get in. Unwanted guests  will sneak in through windows and back doors and they  will get in. They do not go away.  They get in and because they do not want the bouncers to discover that they snuck in...they will stay in the shadows to avoid  painful punishment at the exit door.  It will therefore get very crowded inside our minds. crowded, loud, chaotic, overloaded. The bouncers, so busy looking "out there" do not have a clue, nor do they care, what is going on "in here".  Their job is to select what shows up as Life unfolds externally  from the list,  only allowing in what is wanted, pushing away what isn't.  While  ourinsides get more and more messy!

So What Do We Do? 

So I discovered that these bouncers and these lists...this process of trying to control, and manipulate what came into my life experience by liking and disliking...does not bring peace.  It creates an overcrowded and chaotic mess inside me. I discovered that what I have to do is step into the mind and from there I have to fire the bouncers I had depended on for so long.  I need to let  ego-mind, discriminating-mind and desiring-mind go.  It is hard to let them go.  I am not sure what will happen to my life without them. But I am committed to doing just that. I do  want to send them away with some appreciation for what they tried to do for me. I know they were only doing their jobs.  I will give them a good severance package and wish them well but I know I have to  let them go.  And I must insist they take their lists with them when they go. I guess, I am still in the termination process to some degree. The disgruntled bouncers have not left the building completely yet. They are still dragging their feet  as they head for the door, trying to convince me I still need them while  they wave their lists in my face. .  I just cannot engage myself in their conversations any longer.  I have to learn to ignore them until they are finally out the door. Sigh

At the same time I  am firing the Cittas,  I am learning to leave the entrance and exit doors wide open as I open up every window. I am looking for a cleansing breeze to freshen up my mind. I am also learning to stay back in True, spacious mind, to relax and release there,  while guests come in and out...allowing them all, resisting none. I simply want to  welcome and observe, look deeply into what they may be bringing with them, how my body and mind "feels" with their presence, appreciating whatever shows up and then watch each guest, each thing, each experience  leave through the open exit door. (Not always able to do that...sometimes I find myself running to the door to shut it on something that might be trying to get in or going outside my mind to find something  I can pull in that will make me feel better.  I am a work in progress).

 With no bouncers they come and they go freely.  I don't expect or want any of them to stay forever. I do my best to  react to none of it and when I can avoid reaction,  this spaciousness inside me gets wider and wider.  Even more beautiful...yes it is starting to get beautiful in here...despite the fact it is far from cleaned up...the old unwanted guests that were hiding in the corners because they were afraid of the bouncers are now free to leave.  They are gathering their courage and starting to emerge and move toward the open doors. 

I am letting go.

Spend every moment of your life letting go of that part of you that is trying not to let go.  

Michael Singer

Well this is the stage I am on now and it is challenging enough.  Though the stage of transcendence is alluring...I am not striving to get there. I am doing my best to just relax and release here.  Like I said, the bouncers with their want/don't want lists are still around.  Maybe my goals may differ when they are completely gone but for now...I am okay relaxing here. So I just let go and relax here.  This  too is a beautiful  part of the healing journey. There is beauty here. 

All is well. 

Michael Singer Podcast/ Sounds True ( April, 2022 )  The Stages of the  Spiritual Path-A Continuum of Letting Go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W23Qob0d6rA

Troubled Mind? Do Not Like Or Dislike

Tied by your thoughts, you lose the truth, become heavy, dull, and unwell. Not well, the mind is troubled. Then why cling to or reject anything? If you wish to move in the One Way [be peaceful, and happy, in harmony with Life], do not like or dislike even the world of senses and ideas. 

Seng-ts'an Hsin-Hsin Ming as interpreted by Eric Putkonen

Another Interpretation of Hsin-Hsin- Ming I read today  as I still ponder this idea of embracing Life as Life is instead of allowing this notions of "me" to get in the way. 

A Reaction Beginning

Been feeling much better and getting to the point where I can completely forget about the woes of my body again.  That is until,  I over exert like I did this morning, and symptoms return with a very loud reminder to "Slow Down!"  Having the pressure,  pain and weakness  in the body is one thing...but having them in the mind is another. My mind still wants to  follow those symptoms and that low energy feeling.  I was so "up" before the  symptom-reminder and now I am  on the verge of going down, down, down. Especially when my daughter comes to me with an onset of symptoms, while I am experiencing mine ( and I did not mention to her that I was)  so similar to the ones I had for years: sudden run of palpitations with a rate of 160 , sweating, pressure in her chest, SOB and that awful mental feeling that goes with it.  Her heart rate  has been up over 130 for days which she tolerates....but then it will jump up to 160, 170, 180 for no apparent reason.   I want her to go in for an ECG and am strongly encouraging it but she won't go.  (At the same time I am remembering my experience when I was a little older than she was going in with these same things, again and again being miscounted. I don't want that for her either...I want her to trust what her body is telling her and not walk away confused like I too often did). But she needs to be seen and treated!  

From Poor "Me"   to  A Fear for "Others"

This is familial, whatever this is, is familial.  Why wouldn't my children have it? It is not like I conditioned her to believe she has "this"  ....I did just the opposite.  Though in the beginning of  her symptoms years ago (she ws passing out in high school gym class)  I did take her  in and insist she  be evaluated, I soon learned then the  futility of "me"being her advocate. Because of the assumption attached to me...she got referred to a  specialist who dismissed it all as "insignificant". (Very familiar words to my ears).  Somehow, I fear,  my situation contaminated hers.  So over  the last few years I causally responded  when she approached me with her concerns, "Mention it to your doctor when you speak to him.  Maybe it is just anxiety or the fact that you are out of shape ( yeah right).  Don't worry about it. Just mention it...but if the rate stays above 160 for more than a an hour or the pain gets bad...go in. Please go in!" I want her to go in, as an adult, without me  and any "assumptions" attached to me in the way of her assessment.  I have another daughter with the same symptoms...her pulse, however,  is completely irregular when she is having her runs. I know it is atrial fib but she won't go either. Man! How can I advocate for them or encourage them to get the help I never got, even though I want it so badly for them?

An Opportunity to Practice

After all I wrote yesterday, after all I have learnt over the years in my practice, I still have a mind that wants to react.  Still have an ego-mind that sees this as happening to "me" ; still have an intellectual/conceptual mind that is analyzing the data and determining that it is a "bad, wrong, shouldn't be" kind of thing and I still have the desiring-mind that wants both my daughter's and my own  symptoms to be gone and more importantly wants the "disturbance" they cause in my mind cleaned up. This is, then,  a good opportunity for practice. 

The Practice: Do Not Like Or Dislike

Anyway...I was feeling up this morning and now I am on the verge of reacting. I feel the tentacles  of "worry" around me, shame and fear resurfacing to sit by my side...and they are such annoying house guests. I want nothing more than to slap them across the face and send them back down to the basement ...but I know doing that is not wholesome or skillful.  So I breathe, just as I encouraged my girl to do.  I take three deep breaths in and and out and then I sit quietly and just observe my natural breath going in and going out. I call on the mindfulness, happiness and joy I have stored with in me. Then I step back mentally from the situation and I observe it all. I feel my body supported by gravity and I feel the symptoms.I observe my mind skipping back to the past and forward into the future. I remind myself that is not "True Mind" through which I am seeing when I do that. I make an intention to observe all this with "True Mind".  I focus on breath again.  I encourage  the body to relax.  If there is resistance there I observe that.  I allow that.  I nurture that with self compassion and understanding. Then I notice "worry, shame and fear" sitting beside me, how they feel in my body, how they feel in my mind and forgoing the urge to push them back down I say, "Hello friends.  Back again are you?  Sit beside me and tell me what you feel I need to hear. Or sit beside me and say nothing. Just be as you are." 

 I affirm  that this is my experience right now: agitation brought on by body symptoms, worried about my daughter's symptoms, shame that I cannot help her in the way I want to help her, fear for both of us, sadness.  This is my experience. I do not need to like it or dislike it.  It just is! Now from my seat in  the True Mind, I relax and observe, allow and investigate and I nurture myself and all that is. Hmmm!   

Then I get up an make an appointment for her, with her permission, that is.  And I hope she gets in soon.  And I hope that when she does get in she will have a favorable outcome.  But that is beyond both our control.  It will be what it will be. So I then find myself praying,  "May there be peace and wellness, then, may there be peace and wellness". 

How do I feel after this mindfulness practice?  Tired lol. Symptoms are gone, worry and shame and fear have all diminished significantly though they are still lingering around.  I notice them but I am not about to engage too much. I feel better. 

Hmmm!

All is well. 

Seng-T'san, Hsin Hsin-Ming : Verses on the Perfect Mind as translated by Eric Putkonen. https://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Hsin-Hsin-Ming.pdf

Seeing Through True Mind Instead of Old Mind

 When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend. And when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the old way. When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist. 

Seng-T'san Third Patriarch of Zen, Hsin Hsin Ming

I have read the Third Patriarch a few times but every time I read it, I seem to be learning like I am reading it for the first time. Every time I read the Tao Te Ching, it is an absolutely novel experience.  Every time I hear or read the Vasisthas it is like I am learning something new.  Every time I read a passage from the Holy Bible ...blown away...I see it in a way I never remotely considered seeing  it before. And every time I hear any great teacher speaking to this ancient wisdom I become  a brand new student in the classroom.  I don't know what is up with that, but I listened to Michael Singer addressing these amazing truths in his podcast, Looking into the Lake of Life for the third time today and it was like it was the first time. I even wrote about it a month or so ago. The notes I took then were so different than the notes I took this time and I have pages. And it always seems to tap into things I learned before and addressed even before I tapped in to these specific pieces of wisdom.  Like the poem I wrote about Narcissus over a year ago and added to another recent entry.  It all just comes together.  All this learning comes together to one major truth.  We are not what we see...in fact we are in the way of what we see.  (And I use the term "see" loosely.)

Breaking Down the Quote

Let's take the quote above and understand that a bit better first.   

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way...

Four  key words here: mind, exists, undisturbed, and the Way.

The Mind

The mind is this tool we are equipped with to help us make sense of this physical world as well as our inner world.  It extends beyond the limits of the body ( the 'brain') but is not near the level of importance as the spirit, soul, Deeper "I", Self, Higher Consciousness (whatever term suits your fancy). It is like a radio by which we can pick up the vibrations of the inner and outer world, of consciousness. 

Patanjali explained the mind as Citta and taught that within this Citta were different levels ( different knobs or ban widths maybe?) . The first three are simply "modifications of the mind" that are like clouds over an open sky.  The forth level is the natural state of mind, like the sky itself. 

 At the most basic level, where most of us operate nearly 100 % of the time,  we have the "ego mind", the mind that is wrapped in "I" and "me". Then we, from there,  have the "intellectual- mind" , that part of us that discriminates, judges, perceives...makes those distinctions between "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong", Should be" or "shouldn't be".  And then  we have the "desiring-mind",  the mind that gets attracted or repulsed by  outside things because of the senses. ...the part of us that says, "I want that. That will make me feel better."  or "I don't want that.  That will make me feel worse."  Finally, underneath these three levels is the natural, open, spacious and  peaceful state of mind. I call this "True Mind". The first three mental modifications get in the way ...filtering our experience and preventing peace from coming through. All the while consciousness is available to come through each of these levels if we clear the path for it to do so. (Satchidananda , 2011)

The other Terms

Exists...refers to the process of being...being here and now...what is. 

Undisturbed...the ability to remain calm, peaceful, smooth, unaltered, stable, in harmony with what is...not bothered, not "offended" .

The Way...the Taoist term for the flow of Universal Life.  We may refer to it as the Will of God, the energy of the Universe...it really doesn't matter what terms or words we use because they could never adequately explain what this is.  

So when our mind is in its natural state , when it is  operating without mental modifications, flowing with Life rather than against it, present moment focused and is therefore calm and undisturbed,....

... nothing in the world can offend.

When we are absent of "ego-mind" and any notions of "I" or "me"; when we are not discriminating, judging and perceiving aspects of Life as being "good, right, should be" or "bad, wrong, shouldn't be" we are not rocked by what shows up in our experience, we are not blown here or there, we do not feel the need to react. 

What is Offence? 

Offence is simple a mental reaction brought on by little me's attempt to grasp or push away what it judges and perceives as pleasant or unpleasant to the senses and is therefore able to "disturb".  There  is disturbance in the mind and therefore in the body when we are offended.  It is, however,  never the forth level of mind that gets disturbed ...only the first three. We are just too lost in  the first three to notice. 

And when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the old way.

Seeing from the Forth Layer of Mind 

When we realize that how we see the world is determined and distorted  by these three levels of Citta and learn to see from the forth layer of the mind instead...external things become what they are and not what we imagined them to be. Everything we look upon is a projection of our inner experience. The emergence of this world is no more than thoughts manifesting itself. ...The universe is  a long dream...we create worlds as the natural expression of our beings. (Deepak Chopra on the the Vasisthas).  

Not Woo-Woo

This is not as woo-woo as it may seem.  If you are really  depressed one day and you look outside you are more than likely going to see any dark clouds in the sky that might be there, you may be more likely to notice and store any less than kind remarks made toward you, noticing the frowns on some rather than the smiles  on others. Right?  If you wake up happy and well, on the other hand, you are more than likely going to notice the silver lining in a sky that is quite cloudy and dark, and  the kind words and smiles from others.  Are you not?  And if you are like most humans on this planet absorbed with this idea of you as a separate little person, and as this separate little "me" see yourself as the center of the universe you look upon... everything you see and experience you are going to perceive as personal to you, are you not?  You are going to fail to see the impersonal nature of the universe and will be "offended",  and at the  mercy of being disturbed by it if it doesn't go "your" way.  So you will do what we are all conditioned to do...grab for that which will bring pleasure and disturb you less...push away that which is unpleasant and has the potential to disturb more,  while you completely ignore the billions and billions of neutral things Life unfolds in front of you every day. (Neutral only because the intellectual and desiring parts of your mind sees no use for them). 

The point is: We tend to see Life not as it is but how we assume it should be in order to meet the needs of an idea ( reflection on a lake) we have of "me".  

When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist. 

This is simple right?  If we stop looking out at the world and saying "This is good, right, should be...I want that" and/or "This is bad, wrong, shouldn't be...don't want that!" and therefore stop reacting the way we do to whatever Life gives us or doesn't give us by grabbing and clinging and seeking and striving for the "good stuff" and pushing away, resisting, denying, struggling against, and stuffing the "bad stuff",  our whole worlds are going to change aren't they?  Both the outer and the inner?  First of all we are going to be so much less exhausted.  Man, the physical and mental energy it takes from us to live like this! And then we are going to realize that without entanglement in these first three levels of mind, these mental modifications, these Cittas, these judgments, excessive thinking, perceiving, discriminating... all that which makes up " Old Mind", the habit mind so many of us follow, a wonderful thing happens.  .Just like clouds, that obscure a spacious blue sky, all aspects of old mind float away to reveal "True Mind". True mind is a clear and spacious mind that is naturally peaceful, that cannot be moved by wind, that cannot be disturbed or agitated by anything "out there" and that doesn't recognize any "little me" for it is everything. 

And when we operate from this mind, what type of a world do we see?  We see it for exactly what it is. We let go of our obsession with a personal little self that is so easily offended, and  does not even exist really  and we get to, for the first time, know Life for who and what she is! We stop getting disturbed when she blows this way or she blows that way.  We stop trying to fix her, control her, make her go our way and be something she isn't! We just let her do what she is going to, marveling in all of it.

Wow! So much learning! 

If you think there is something to fix out there, you are broken. ...Everything that ever ws, everything that ever is, and everything that will ever be...is God. There is nothing else. Life is God made visible. You are looking at aspects of the Divine.

Michael Singer. 

All is well! 

Deepak Chopra & Adam Plack (2011) The Secret of Healing: Guided Meditation for Transformation. Spotify 

Michael Singer Podcast/ Sounds True ( April, 2022) S2 E5 Looking into the Lake of Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G1zvgJvm7Y 

Sen T'san / Age of the Sage (n.d.) The Third Patriarch of Zen Versus on the Faith of Mind  https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/buddhism/third_patriarch_zen.html

Sri Swami Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Yogaville: Integral Yoga

Bearing Fruit

 Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it dies alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life  loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 

John 12: 24-26 ESV

Hmm!  Now that is a potent piece of wisdom and it has a lot to do with what I have been pondering today. We truly do need to let go of  many of our notions, don't we, if we want to be happy and free? We need to let go of a lot of stuck stuff within us, that are consequences of these notions of us as separate little beings. We need to stop clinging to the illusion of life, we perceive when we see ourselves  as individual grains of wheat. We need to be willing to let the ego die for it isn't real and what we gain from letting go of it, from "dying onto self",  is freedom .

As Deepak Chopra reminds us in his translation of the Yoga Vasisthas, Be firmly rooted in the non-existence of the ego...which is the individuality, the apparent grains of wheat  we come to see ourselves as. All just a notion that prevents us from bearing the fruit we are here to bear. 

What are these fruit that we bear  when we are willing to let go of our mind's never ending attempt to create and cling to   the life we love and when we are willing to die (mentally surrender to Life and whatever she unfolds in front of us)? 

The Vasistha answers that question: 

Mental distraction and distress cease, just as the ocean becomes calm when the wind ceases to agitate its surface. There arises self-knowledge within and the realization  of truth puts an end to the perception of the world illusion. Infinite consciousness alone shines.  There is an experience of bliss, not granted to the ignorant, who are full of desires. Even as shoots may emerge from burnt leaves, a new life may emerge from this. However, he who would avoid entanglement in delusion,once again rests  in self knowledge.constantly. Such are the fruits of your absence, o mind, and there are countless others.   

Say what crazy lady? 

When we stop listening to the mind, following it here and there and everywhere and rest in the quiet Self (Infinite Consciousness)  below its surface, we are no longer "bothered" "perturbed", thrown around like waves on an agitated ocean. We are not so screwed up. We get out of Life's way and we simply enjoy the experience of whatever we are offered moment by moment. We do not react.  We do not judge.  We do not grasp or cling to that which the ego mind says is pleasant, distracting  and non triggering to any memory we store inside.  And we do not push away that which is triggering, that which allows pain to emerge.  We do not stuff down and are finally freed of all the stored "junk" inside us, making room for things to  blow right through. We accept it just like we accept the wind blowing across our faces. Without ego, there is no judging of pleasant or unpleasant, of grasping, clinging or pushing away. When we truly realize Self, and rest there when the wind blows, we remain at peace.  More than that, we can experience a bliss that the ego-dominated mind could never give us. The only condition is...we must constantly, constantly practice keeping ourselves free from the tangles ego can wrap us in. We must constantly be mindful and on guard. Every moment of every day...we must chose the Deeper Self over the "little self", Infinite Consciousness over our puny little minds. We must drive the vehicles we are in and not allow mind to...because as soon as we take our hands off the wheel...the mind will drive us into the ditch, and we may find ourselves lost in ego once again.

Still doesn't make a lick of sense? 

Once again,  I will encourage you to listen to Michael Singer.  I love the way he teaches and explains things like this  because it takes "spirituality" out of the conceptualization of being "woo-woo"  and makes it a very practical and rational necessity. He reminds us simply that we have a mess inside our heads and it is up to us to clean it up.  It isn't what Life is doing but what we are doing in response to Life that causes our so called "problems" and "mental distraction and distress".  The mess comes from a tendency we have, as humans, to repress, suppress, push away, deny that which we "judge" as painful. Maybe we had some childhood trauma, lost some loved ones, were sick or whatever and instead of dealing with it, instead of allowing it to flow through us like all energy is supposed to do...because it was so painful we learned early on to push it down.  So we may now have a lot of stored negative energy within us. It gets in the way of a natural flow of peace and bliss, blocking it.  

We Made the  Mess; We Need To Clean It Up

When we do not see ourselves as responsible for this mess...we are constantly going to be "looking out there" for ways to feel better and to prevent this mess from being triggered by more pain. This is what the ego dominated mind tells us we must do and we listen. So we learn to grasp and cling to the "pleasant", that which distracts us  and eases the  pain...and we push away the unpleasant, that which will add to the pain or make it come up to the surface where we don't want it. All our mental energy goes to searching for things to make us feel better and anticipating and being on guard against things that will make us feel worse.  We begin to attempt to manipulate life and others in any way we can so that we are not bothered.  

This is how most of get through our days.  This is away of living that is considered "normal" It leads to a hyper-alert, busy and restless mind.  It leads to some pretty messy insides. . Michael Singer, a business man, asks us to do a cost analysis on our plan of action.  When we do we see that what we get in turn for our effort is 100% cost ( making us sick and crazy) and 0% benefit, ( at the end of the day we are far from happy and our minds are still a mess. ) All that energy and effort and does it work ?  No...it creates more distress, more stress and more of a desire to distract.  It takes us farther and farther away from Self realization and truth which is truly the only way to happiness. 

What do we have to do then? 

Stop doing what we are doing.  Stop listening to the ego dominated mind. In fact, let the ego die.   Stop grasping and clinging.  Stop pushing away.  We need to stop getting in the way of Life and just let Life be Life as we experience it all. 

We need to be willing to take responsibility for our mess and make a committed effort to practice everyday to do things differently. We need to make a clean insides the most important goal in our lives. 

What does that have to do with the mess inside our heads?

We need to purge; we need a good thorough cleaning of our insides.  We need to get all that stuff out of us that is in the way of allowing the natural peace and bliss to flow. Now some of that stuff is pretty deep seated and entangled so it's best to practice with all the experiences we have going on around us now and to learn to stop reacting to those. Like the person driving too slow ahead of you, the unexpected bill you just got in the mail, the less than nice comment your coworker made about you etc.  Just practice noticing how these make you feel, allow those feelings to come in, try to re-frame them more positively ...like "Maybe there was some truth to what she had to say, I will look at it.  But this is her opinion and I am not her opinion." ; anchor self with breath; and  find that true Self beneath the mind and anchor yourself there. Relax there and observe and experience the  situation from that place where the wind can't reach you. 

Practice this constantly.  

Every moment, every situation offers us an opportunity to learn how to open and clean out our insides.We want it all out!  We do not want to add more junk to the pile we have stuffed...so we need to let these new experiences to blow through us.  We need to remain open to them.  And if we continue to practice moment by moment, eventually the stuff stored inside will just come out naturally and when it does, the energy of peace, bliss and Love will begin to flow up through us the way it is meant to. 

Hmm!  There is so much to this truth, this realization it is challenging to get it all down in one sitting.

All is well! 

Deepak Chopra & Adam Plack (2011) The Secrets to Healing. Spotify

Michael Singer Podcast/Sounds True (April,  2022 ) S2 E4: Taking Care of Your Inner environment https://resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/s2e4-taking-care-of-your-inner-environment/

Google Books: The Concise Yoga Vasistha https://books.google.ca/books?id=IbqFcTyGlEgC&pg=PA244&lpg=PA244&dq=Be+firmly+rooted+in+the+nonexistence+of+the+ego&source=bl&ots=086-QtMMAJ&sig=ACfU3U0Cuepyj2CeGNR26LkKfFLUG_5b2g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiKxI2dvIf4AhUlQjABHfgWApIQ6AF6BAgjEAM#v=onepage&q=Be%20firmly%20rooted%20in%20the%20nonexistence%20of%20the%20ego&f=false

Writing and Submitting

 I can shake off everything as I write. My sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.

Anne Frank

I do not have half the reason for sorrow or fear in my life as Anne Frank  had in hers but I can definitely relate to the quote above. Going back to my book to get it out has been so therapeutic. What isn't so fun, however, is the submission process.  Yuck! That is where I am at now. So though I still have a very ambivalent relationship with hope...I am glad it is in me now so I can go forward with this painstaking process.  Writing is easy...selling the writing, not so much.

All is well.  

Nothing Unreal Exists

 

The unreal has no existence. The real never ceases to be (never ceases to exist). Men [man...I wish these things were more gender neutral lol] possessed of the knowledge of the Truth fully know both these. 

Bhagavad Gita

That sounded very familiar to me and as Deepak Chopra recited this passage in his meditation series, The Secrets of Healing (2011) on Spotify it clicked as to where  heard it before.  

In the introduction of A Course in Miracles, it is written:

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists

Herein lies the peace of God. 

Hmm!  Now those are thoughts to ponder.

Note: 

Something quite strange is going on here and it leaves me a little uncomfortable again. I have another "O" on the readership numbers in my stats page.  I am perfectly okay with there being a zero readership...if there is a zero readership but either I have always been prone to a zero readership prior to this and the numbers I did get were exaggerated or I don't have a zero readership now. Well I do  get comments on occasion ( not always posted) and I do have people pointing out in person that they read my blog so I know "o" is not always accurate.  Analytics does not pick up a "zero" readership...definitely a small readership but a readership??? And the stats page, when I do have numbers, seldom displays  what was read anymore.  Just an abrupt change noticed in the stats page... just makes me question why.  If it is because my writing is not appealing to anyone , all good lol but if it is something else I would  like to know. The sudden change just leaves me a little uncomfortable. 

All good 

From Unworthiness to Perfected Self Love

 All you need is already within you. Only you must approach yourself with reverence and love. Self- condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors.  Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign you bear of love for yourself. All I plead of you is this: make love of yourself perfect. Deny yourself nothing, give yourself infinity and eternity,and discover you do not need them.  You are beyond.  All I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect. 

Sri Nisargadatta

As I have been writing about my little woes and how they have been affecting me,  I come across a video by Tara Brach....and it is almost as if I listened to this before I wrote what I wrote over the last two days but this is actually  more of an after the lesson  confirmation and validation of the insight I gained ( Of course Tara Brach has influenced me very, very much over the course of my awakening so far...so much of my "insight" recently is due indirectly to her teachings as well. )  

Trance of Unworthiness

She always speaks to something called the, Trance of Unworthiness, and I see how that has been a part, not only of my writer's block, but of this stuck feeling I had in regards to my own healing. Most of our obstacles in life, at the deepest level, have to do with a sense of unworthiness...an inability to love ourselves perfectly.

Loving Self Perfectly

She offered the above quote in her video and it resonated with me .  What does it mean? 

Loving the life that is expressing itself through us is loving self perfectly. And by self, "you", "me"  we are not referring to the narrative of self, the story of self, the personality, the ego, or to  the idea of a "separate self"  but to  the deeper Self. If we learn to love ourselves unconditionally, to open up and feel whatever we feel without judgement, the false self, this notion of us as separate, falls away and we fall into the reality of who we are.

What stops us from being kind to ourselves...not loving who we are? 

Many of constantly judge ourselves harshly, taking over where someone or something in our past left off. We fear that if we don't judge ourselves we will never improve...we will never become  the person who we are striving to be. Of course, that is foolish...normal... but foolish.

No one has ever judged themselves into enlightenment

Why We can't Love Ourselves or Feel Worthy

We often have a very challenging time directing love towards ourselves because it is too far from what we are feeling and because we feel so undeserving of our own love. Self affirmations of love ...like "I love you...me" can often seem so uncomfortable and unrealistic, like a lie...but we would benefit greatly by practicing replacing our self-contempt and self-condemnation with something more loving, or at least more neutral on a daily basis. 

We can start this cognitive restructuring slowly , taking small   steps...like just waking up each moment with a hand on the heart, "Hello you" or "Good morning, you".  The point is to make it a committed practice with a sincere intention...a willingness to put away our critical judgments of Self as we go through the motions, faking it util we make it, experimenting with ways that feel safer to us as we advance to the outward and sincerely felt, "I love you...Self".  

Not Letting Love and Worthiness In

Truth is the inner place of vulnerability often has a hard time letting love and a sense of worthiness in.  I know that is my case.  What is stopping me from letting it in?  My mind always says, when someone professes love or care towards me, something like: They mustn't see me for who I am...if they did they would see I was not worthy of their love.  This crosses over into my health seeking experience. Even though I certainly was not looking for love or even a sense of caring from the professionals I seen, part of me wanted them to validate my worthiness for being in their office... but the thing is...even if they did, I was not able to let their view of my worthiness in. So it became, almost a self fulfilling prophecy. 

Tara Brach guides the listener into a little guided reflection by asking the question Who do you trust loves you?  Most people's minds will come up with someone who they believe loves them even if it is a pet.We can do this conceptually, but if we are then asked the question Can you let that love in? or How does it feel to let that love in?, we may realize that we do not know what it feels like to let it in because we can't. That love that we conceptualize as being ours  may hit the resistance of our protective armor. It may not be able to get past it. We, therefore,  do not have the felt experience of being  loved, or the felt experience of worthiness.  Can you let that experience of being loved  into your vulnerable place? 

We all get stuck, Tara Brach reminds us, giving out love or letting it in.. What we can do if we realize that it is not getting in...is  to feel our longing for it to come in, pray to let it in. "Please can I let this worthiness in. " Please can I let this love in." and just feel what it feels like to want that. 

Who or what are we praying to when we do such a thing?  We are praying to our heart that is already awake and loving.  " Love is always loving you." 

Pray??? 

Prayer is the bridge between longing and belonging." 

We can love ourselves into feeling loved.  We just need to learn what it feels like to let love in. It too is a practice.  We can close our eyes and think of someone or something we "assume" loves us...and then we see if,  first of all,  we are letting it in, and if we are not...we pray, "Please let this love in, please let this worthiness in". ...and we experience that longing  until the heart opens a bit more, a bit more, and a bit more. 

Practice

We can start with safe love objects like a pet or a child.  I thought of my dog that has been gone for a few years now. Conceptually, I knew she loved me as much as a dog can love a human. Closing my eyes on reflecting on her love for me was not a conceptual experience.  At first I had a hard time letting that love in but I kept praying and longing for the feeling of her love for me inside me, her love for me finally  made it past the armor and I felt a nice warmth.  That helped me to feel what it is like to be worthy of love...to be worthy in general.

I know that talking to the person I spoke to yesterday about my health seeking experience helped me to see how worthy I was for that which I barely received . Allowing that worthiness , I was unable to let in for so long, in  felt so exhilarating and healing and uplifting.  

Opening With RAIN

Opening up directly to the suffering /trauma of not belonging, being undeserving, unworthy etc can be done by  using RAIN .  R. recognize; A. allow; I. investigate, N. nurture. This is what I did over the last couple of days as you will see reflected in my most recent entries. . We need to first of all create warmth and space before we open to vulnerability. As we proceed we must be aware of any signal in us that says  "This is too much!" and go back to grounding, to a feeling of safety and peace.. There has to be some sense that we are ready and that it is safe for us to proceed. A practice of meta kindness meditation can create this space. 

Each step of RAIN helps the identification with ego to dissolve. Through the process we sense the story and then let it be a portal to explore  the "felt sense"  with generosity and curiosity.  Brach tells us we need to get to a place of "ouch" in our investigating...to a "this hurts" which leads to nurturing. We can experiment with ways to nurture self. I got to that sense of ouch in exploring my recent experience and though it stung it ws also so freeing. 

The end result of this is transcendence. After the rain...after we let in love we realize we are the love that is holding our being, that has always been holding our being...that is the shift. 

Oh so cool but you really need to listen to Tara Brach in the below link, not me. 

Oh, of what avail is it if we can travel to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves. This is the most important of all journeys, and with it, all the rest are useless. 

Thomas Merton 

All is well!

Tarca Brach (April, 2021)  "Make Love of Your Self Perfect",with Tar Brach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p70x2ztQ4m4 

Hope and Writing Inspiration

 And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that is a gift and a privilege, not a right. 

Ray Bradbury 

What is that feeling in me? 

You will never guess what I woke up with this morning....so, so uncanny !  I woke up with a feeling of hope! I mean real live hope infusing my present experience of Life with a good deal of Zest.  Hope and zest...wow! After all my talking about the unnecessary and sometimes unskillful purpose of hope in our lives, after feeling a bit more "hopeless" than usually with the unset of this bout of physical symptoms...I wake up to feel the energy of hope vibrating through me. I am certainly confused by it but  I am also excited and enthusiastic.  I have a purpose.  I feel confident that I can accomplish something of importance to me and most likely many others. Why? What brought on this dramatic change of heart?

A Change in View About Hope

I talked to a non biased person yesterday about my hopelessness, about my present set of symptoms and how they were triggering past trauma and shame, how I was trying to accept all this emotional energy  instead of pushing it back down, how I thought my health seeking trauma ( and that was validated by this person as something that would be very traumatic for anyone)  was preventing the old stuff that so wanted to come up from doing so,  only because it was in the way, blocking the exit ramp.  In order to release the stuck pain energy of  childhood trauma , that I feel so wants to come out, I had to release this somehow first .  Of course , "release" means letting go of the emotional energy that keeps getting triggered within us,  right? It does not require  a diminishing or a dismissing of the  experience or the emotions associated with it as if it never happened...It is simply  a noticing, an allowing, an accepting and even an embracing of all that memory, all that pain.  It involves a looking deeply into it...observing how it triggers us and how we tend to react and close down when we feel it.  Then we learn to stop closing to it so we stop closing to what Life provides for us now . Without that energy pulling us into reactivity, we learn to keep the psyche hotel door open so all  "guests" can come in  and out without any notion of over staying their welcome. 

From Hopeless Suffering to Hopeful Transcendence 

Anyway...my point is after this conversation: I realized, even more clearly, how I tend to keep pushing it all down.  With validation from a very wise, non biased person, I was able to see my experience as traumatic and "impersonal".  It happens to many people. And that...lead me to say, "I am truly ready to heal from this!"  And anyone who knows me, knows how I heal best...through my writing.  I was inspired to go back to my novel...realizing that any blockages I have been having with the revising of the  three books I have written  had to do with this "most recent" trauma pain being in the way, because all three books address in one way or another the suffering that comes with trauma...more specifically...the "transcendence" that can come with trauma. One book is based on childhood, the original wounding. One is based on this health seeking experience and one is a copulation of all my experiences in order  to show how we can transcend trauma and  "suffering".  

Unblocked and Unstuck 

I was kind of stuck in the mud for years when it comes to my writing ...spinning around and around ...going  back and forth from one book to the other, really feeling like I was not getting anywhere . I was sending each of them out but felt like I was sending a child to school when they were not developmentally ready to learn. I knew they all had to be revised before I could call them finished and ready.  The question was:  "Which one do I finish first?"  Each of them, as I wrote them,  offered a tremendous cathartic experience of opening up some doors so stuff could be released... but becasue of the lack of a natural flow and my going back and forth...it kept getting stuck.  I would get blocked in one book, go to the other, get blocked there etc.  Now I see what that natural flow is...just like in Life...I need to deal with the most recent "stuffed stuff" first ...allow that to be released upon the page...and the other stuff will naturally flow right out.  I need to stay with this book about my health seeking experience until that is  released in a truly healing way,  so the deeper, childhood stuff can come up.  So after I say, "The End!" with this book and mean it... I can go back  to my book about my childhood with my late sister until I can once again say "The End!" and man it.  Finally, from there I go to the book on transcendence because by then I will have more genuine "transcendence" to write about.  How cool is that?  

Inspired

So yesterday, after my conversation with this lovely and skillful communicator/listener I felt this great inspiration consume me. I went to back to my book and I sat down with it for what I thought was an hour... only to discover I hadn't moved from my chair in five hours.  Five hours!!! That is inspiration...that is zest...and why?  Because  now I have hope.  As contradictory as that sounds in regards to what I tend to think and write about "hope"; even though it makes me sound like a big fat hypocrite...I have "hope"  and it feels good!

Yes I have that future, confident  focus of "completing"  this "goal" but mostly I just want to write and heal in this moment.  That is what is so exhilarating for me.  I have happily jumped into the river, with my feet up, and I am allowing it to take me to wherever it will take me with this.  I am enjoying just being in the river, having that freedom of being unblocked and having my writing flow freely. .  But I also have this feeling at the same time, that it is taking me to a pretty good place. 

Everything from the restlessness I had a few months ago to the chest pain...and the triggered memories to this renewed inspiration has been guided by something amazing and invisible.  I know that.  All my suffering over the years has lead me to this point where I am right now. I am supposed to write!!! That is what I am here to do!!! I am to write   the story of " one person", offer the puny experience of one little being who comes  from a race of 7 billion to the world, just  so the universal nature of the human experience can be recorded in some strange way, observed through a few insignificant words and then maybe used to help another human being somewhere go, "Oh! I see!" 

I am so grateful right now, so very, very grateful.  

This is hope. 

Back to the book! 

All is well in my world! 

Space in a Pot

 Where can the Self go when all that is, is within it? If a pot is moved from one space to another, the space within the pot does not move from one space to another for everything that is, is forever in space.

The Vasisthas, as offered by Deepak Chopra and Adam Plack in The Secrets of Healing: Meditation for Transformation (2011). Spotify 

Now I am not sure if I quoted that passage above  exactly...was listening as I did my Qigong today and told myself I would remember but I am not so sure I got it exactly right.  

All about that space, that emptiness, that "shunyata" (all things are empty of intrinsic existence and nature), isn't it? Space...all space is within us and we are all space.  We are pots containing space  but that space within us goes no where when we move from place to place...because what we think of as "us", "me" "You"...this pot...this body and mind is also space. Space is neither inside or outside "us". It is us

So this brings me to another quote I have scribbled down on the back of a grocery receipt...and once again when I jotted it down weeks ago, I assumed I would remember the author.  When do we learn, at this age, not to trust our memory lol? 

You should never trade your consciousness for the the object of consciousness.

I am going to assume it was Alan Watts that said that but I can not confirm that assumption. So what we so often do as human beings is focus on the object of consciousness which could be the pot...and want that, get lost in that, see that as our reality ...rather  than honoring, focusing on, learning from and "wanting" the consciousness that observes the pot...the space. If we really want to heal at the deepest ...we need to start focusing on the space, on the consciousness that is all aware of whatever shows up upon it, around it, in it...(whatever type of term you want to use so your mind understands). 

Self is not material.  Self is space, consciousness etc. Space is all there is.  

Hmm!  It takes a while to get that understanding clear in the head...well at least in "my" head.

All is well. 

Old Stuff Checking Out

 You are not here in order to go there. ...There is nothing to do, or nowhere to go, just this. 

Ram Dass

Zero readers...zero according to the stats page. I have never had that before lol. 

I have this impulse to skip, and dance, and sing out loud across the page. To swear on it, to type out a bunch of curse words in big bold letters....not becasue I am angry...only because sometimes it feels so  good to let out the forbidden and we can do that when there is no one around to witness. I just want to see what I feels like. I want to run naked through  some type of verbal sprinkler..(now that immediately provides an image none of us, and I mean none of us, wants to entertain for a second  ...oh but there is no one in this yard to imagine anything but me and I can't see myself ...so here I go...Wee!) 

I feel  the way one tends to feel when they look around to suddenly realize no one is watching them ...there is a certain freedom to completely be one's self.  But you know ( If I am talking to myself now when I say "you", I ramble to myself all the time  off the page...so it is all good lol), I am always completely myself when I write.  I can't be anything but myself when I come here. Writing is an expression of truth for me.  I may be a bit reserved,  awkward, shy and held back  around some people I know in person...but when I write it is like I open up and let it all out.  And, no offense to my imaginary reader, I don't care what others think.  I mean, I would never want to offend or hurt or be unkind..I have a genuine kindness and compassion in my heart for all....but I am not going to hold back on being who and what I am just to please anyone. Man, spent too much of my life as a people pleaser...done with that. (Well at least when I write lol).

Old Stuff Coming Out

I guess, I can share that what I wrote about over the last few entries regarding my chest pain and how it triggers past health seeking shame...has really been quite cathartic for me, helping me in ways I never thought it would.  I think ...it is time for the "old stuff" to leave and I have been experiencing the   process.  There is a lot of packing  going on, a lot of bumping and thumping  to get to the point of standing  in line to await one's turn to exit.  Obviously, the  most recently seated knots leave first because they are closer to the exit. The deep seated stuff, though impatient, has to wait for the space to come out. Maybe that is why I am getting chest pain and being triggered.  That pain has to leave before the original  trauma pain can  come up.

Really though, when it comes to releasing stuffed and stored emotion, we don't have to "do" anything, according to some pretty wise people.  We just have to be willing to stop resisting all the new stuff we  encounter, and  keep the heart open.  If we just keep the door open, all the old junk will just make its way to the exit when it is ready...we can then have a chat with each thing that resurfaces  as we stand to the side so it can get past; we can thank it for visiting; give it a hug or a warm handshake  and then we can  say goodbye. As we watch it totter off ,pulling its suitcase behind it, we can breathe a big sigh of release as if to  say, "Wow! Wasn't that an experience", and then  we wait  patiently and calmly for  the next thing to  come up. 

Singer suggests three things we can also do as it comes up and out and as we encounter "new" stuff:

1. Stay positive...as negative thoughts come to mind in regards to stuff that has just entered our psyche motel or stuff that has been around for a while...we can use a bit of cognitive restructuring to revamp those messages.  "This feels awful.  I don't know if I can stand this."  can be replaced with. "Hmmm! This is different, not all together pleasant but I can handle it. I have handled worse before. And all the determination, energy and will it took to keep stuff down or push it away...that was something pretty impressive...that's testament to how strong my will is.  I can do anything.  It may hurt a bit coming out but I will feel much better with it out of me." 
2. Carry a Mantra with you that soothes and keeps you open.  Practice this mantra on a regular basis so it becomes a subconscious belief you can turn to when you need it. "I am full of love and light." "It all is as it is and its perfect." "I can relax and release" 
3. Surrender.  Let go and relax into what is as it unfolds in front of you and as it is released from you. Sure there may be some pain.  If something is stored in pain , it will be released with pain. Just breathe and relax into it...don't get in its way by tensing up and resisting it.  Just let it go. 

There is always a karmic effect when we hold onto something, according to Ram Dass.  What we do when we resist pain, or  resist what Life gives us...is   get in its way.  We don't understand why Life is gives us the things she does...yet we automatically assume we need to somehow "do" something about it. That was my experience with my health seeking.  I was trying to change something I didn't even understand, not even remotely...Life.  When all I had to do is step back and observe and experience ... Just this!

So much learning. 

All good

Ram Dass/ Be Here and Now Network( March, 2021) Here and Now- Ep177- Perspective on Work and Money  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkoVnD3wsxo

Michael Singer Podcast/Sounds True ( July, 2021) Spirituality: the Exploration of Consciousness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE4_q7qdZ0E

A Lesson Thirty Years in the Learning

 When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace  is disturbed to no avail. 

Seng Ts'an, Third Chinese  Patriarch 

So...on yesterday's long winded entry,  I wanted to say that though my intention was to encourage a reexamination of the benefit of hope in our spiritual evolution,  it also allowed for some personal insight to surface. I realized upon writing, much more than I intended to, that  I am still stuck there.  

As much as I talk about living in and appreciating the now, at the mere thought of "chest pain", I am still pulled back to something that began 30 years ago. I still have that emotional pain  stuck within me like a knot tangled around my insides. It is probably more life limiting, more  detrimental to my health than the angina is.  It gets triggered so easily and I react so strongly  whenever that pain, that so wants to come out and be done with me, comes up.  My initial reaction is to reflexively attempt to push it back down so that I don't have to experience it  coming out. 

Pain On Top of Pain

It is the "shame" feeling I think, that is the hardest for me to deal with and that "shame" goes beyond that health seeking  experience.  In fact, that experience triggered some deep shame that was already in me long before I started getting chest pain. So I actually have a shame- upon -shame -kind -of -squishing-down- thing going on, a trauma over a trauma. I can see so clearly what Michael Singer is talking about in the below video. 

A Mind Disturbed

I created a very disturbed mind by reacting to my circumstances in the way I did. When the pain of childhood trauma was meant to flow through me as all emotion, all thoughts, all energy is meant to do... it, instead,  got  deeply stuffed within me. It was too painful then for my little mind...so I suppressed and repressed, pushing it out of conscious awareness. I actually fooled myself into believing it went away, when it actually remained, all along,  very much a tender, receptive-to- triggers part of my personality.  When  I encountered what I encountered in my health seeking ...it got poked,  triggered to the point it started to come up again and again. My mind said, "Too much pain!"   It convinced me, without words, that I  could not deal with the initial trauma, and therefore I could not deal with the trigger either...so I pushed that down too. I resisted.  

My resistance did not benefit me or others in my family.  And by my resistance, I mean  my inability to allow my emotional pain to just be expressed. I judged it all as "too painful", therefore "wrong, bad, shouldn't be". 

A Lesson Thirty Years in the Learning

Though these external events  were indeed extraordinary and very challenging by anyone's standards, I clearly see now how my resistance only made it all worse.  Like Annie, I encountered some difficult times and rainy weather,  and have  been at the receiving end of what could be viewed as "unjust"  judgement and treatment from  some  less than conscious human beings attempting to preserve their own egos. Still,   I could have probably dealt with it all in a much healthier way. I was, however, too busy, at the time,  "reacting" to the way it triggered old trauma while I went about resisting the resistance, to see that. 

 Could I have changed the situation, changed those personalities, made them see my truth, and  gotten what I wanted and now know I deserved if I responded rather than reacted?  Maybe not... but I could have had a lot more peace in my life, a lot less trauma and a lot less suffering if   I "surrendered" sooner and learned to relax into what Life was giving me. 

When I first noticed the external assumption and judgement was being formed about me and observed how it was getting in the way of "my" truth as I presented with my very real symptoms , instead of saying, "Oh No!  This shouldn't be!", and beginning a desperate effort to make people see my truth...maybe I could have done something completely different.  Maybe, I could have taken a step back to see it all with a deeper perspective that went beyond mind and body. Maybe,   I could have said, instead,:

"Ohhh...this is what Life is offering me for an experience now. Wow! This is different. . I don't understand why this is unfolding the way it is unfolding but it's okay.  I trust  that I do not need to change what I don't understand about Life.  Maybe instead of trying to change it, fix it, control it in some way, I will just witness what  is happening inside me because of it? I will experience all of it."

" Okay...I can see that hurts.  I feel shame.  I feel frustration.  I feel confusion.I feel fear.  I feel a lack of trust. I feel devalued, diminished, unseen.  I feel punished. I see how this experience  is poking at some old wounds, wanting me to react.   Hmm! It feels strange, not pleasant....part of me really, really wants to resist this .. but I won't react. I will allow each of these feelings their time with me, watching them as they pass through.  I won't judge them as "bad" and push them down and away. I will experience it all...and then just observe it as it goes. I won't cling to any of it either. I won't  grasp for pleasant  experiences to distract with and ease the pain. I will just feel and experience it all. This is what living Life is all about...experiencing fully the 10,000 joys as well as the 10,000 sorrows. "

" I won't waste my energy hoping that "they" will see the truth and that things will be better  tomorrow. I won't distract myself from feeling and dealing with the unpleasant in my present.  I will notice, allow and accept this experience to be whatever it is, knowing that my peace is not dependent on any condition outside myself.  I will observe, and participate in this life experience without judgement or expectation,  finding meaning in it as I do."

" I won't get lost in this false notion...that I have  to "do" something about it. I mean, I will continue to speak my truth and seek what this body and mind needs and deserves but I will not struggle against what is or "fight" to make people change their minds about me. I will not spend my Life fostering thoughts of blame and injustice either , nor will I live as a victim.  They may or may not ever see my truth  and they may or may not ever  help me. That is beyond my control.  All I can do is speak what is true for me. The rest is up to Life."

"Sure it is painful but it doesn't have to advance to full blown suffering.Whether or not I suffer here, is up to me. Awareness, I have learned, is the true antidote to any state of altered well being. As long as I remain aware, allow Life and all she puts in front of me  to be what it is, this pain and all things with it ,will pass. That is the nature of things.  It comes in and it goes out. I will relax into this experience knowing that for now, (which is the only time that matters, in fact it is the only time there is) it simply is what it is and it is all perfect."

Wow that would have been a game changer, wouldn't it have been?  If I would have let go and stepped back in the beginning and allowed Life to take care of things...things could have been a lot different.  Maybe I would  still have chest pain...maybe even have  succumbed to it because I would not have gotten the diagnosis' and treatment I did eventually get for some of it... ( if that is what Life had in store for this body)...but...but   I would not have the big   fat folder  I now have full of tests that show "some" but not "enough" evidence to warrant the help  I felt I needed at the time  and that supports the  rationale for other's assumption about me.  And I would not have spent thirty years living in shame and fear.  My getting in Life's way, I see so clearly now,  actually made the situation worse on the physical plane. On the spiritual plane, however, ...didn't matter one bit what I did or didn't do for who I truly am is just a "happening" as well , an ever unfolding process just like all the other happenings  that unfold in front of me. It's just Life!

All is well in "my" life.

Michael Singer Podcast ( July, 2021) Spirituality: An Exploration of Consciousness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE4_q7qdZ0E

Warren Weinstein (n.d.) Third Chines Patriarch: Hsin Hsin Ming https://home.csulb.edu/~wweinste/HsinHsinMing.html#:~:text=The%20Great%20Way*%20is%20not,for%2C%20or%20against%2C%20anything.

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The Disease of the Mind

 The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction , however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold  no opinion for, or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. 

Seng Ts'an, The Third Chines Patriarch of Zen  

That last entry was long winded, eh?  I don't expect many, if any, will read it and that, maybe,  is a good thing. Something beyond my initial intention may have plopped itself down on the page.

But...

Questioning The Necessity of Hope in Our Spiritual Evolution

The intention behind it was to question the necessity of "hope" in our spiritual evolution.  Sure, hope is big in psychology and in building a strong character...but it does little, to no good, for the Deeper Self. In fact, reliance  on the future to provide external situations that are more favorable to our personality may keep us in that unwholesome  mental activity that  distracts us from what the Deeper Self is all about: recognizing, accepting and  appreciating Life now, as it is. Hope keeps us in our head.  It is not about the "now", the only time there is.  It is about some notion of a future time that will supposedly be better than this moment. And by "better" what we really mean is  ...it won't trigger a reaction in us. With this whole concept of hope and the need for it, we are deciding this moment, for whatever  reason,  is not good enough and we are then   putting our emotional energy into convincing ourselves  that the "next one" will be better. 

Can you see what  is wrong with that picture? 

Ask yourself the following questions: If you are feeling very dissatisfied with what is going on right now, is it the moment that is the problem?  Is it the challenging external circumstance or set of circumstances that showed up in this moment, this day, this span of time...that is the problem?  Is it the bad patch of the unfavorable, unpleasant  that is before you that is  the problem? Is it the illness the depression or the relationship down you are going through? Is it the financial slump ? The weather?  

"The Sun will Come Out Tomorrow" ?? 

Let's say you believe it is  the weather that is your problem. Is the best thing to do, then,  when it is raining....to spend your whole day singing  "The sun will come up out tomorrow..." and envisioning a better day tomorrow?  That is hope , right?  Sure it made Annie feel better...only because it took her out of the reality of her now and put her up in some future time that really does not exist anywhere but in the head. She judged her present moment as being terrible and something she really needed to escape, didn't she?  Her present reality ws the problem. We all probably would have done the same thing. It is normal for us to want to do whatever we can to escape what we judge as  "challenge, hardship, problematic,  unpleasant" and seek what we judge as "good, desirable, pleasant", isn't it?  Hope is a means for us to do that, if only in our minds.

External Situation...Not the Problem

But don't you see...it is this judgement that is the problem, not the situation. It is the determining  that this is good or bad, right or wrong, should or shouldn't be...followed by what mind does with these judgments ...that is the source of all so called problems  It is this grasping and clinging for the pleasant and this pushing away, denying, and stuffing of the unpleasant that is the problem. Resistance to what Life is unfolding in front of us right now ...is the problem.  This idea that we know better than Life what she should or shouldn't be offering us, is the problem. It is this habit tendency of the mind that creates the problem.

Don't Try to Fix Life;  Stop Reacting

When we judge something as unpleasant or bad, or wrong because it triggers something in our little personalities that we tend to believe are so much more important than they actually are, we resist it...we push it away from our conscious awareness using distraction, avoidance, denial, suppression and repression.  We put so much of our mental and physical energy in to attempting to keep the "bad" down and  the "good" in  by grasping, seeking, clinging to the "good" just so we do not disturb our delicate personalities. This process leaves a host of emotional experiences that were just meant to flow in and out of us...stuck within at the mercy of being repeatedly triggered by life circumstance, creating more and more pain. So we constantly get triggered by external circumstances...reacting here and reacting there. We erroneously believe that in order to stop the reaction we have to either "fix", control or manipulate  Life and make her do what suits us or we escape Life altogether by projecting somewhere in our minds. 

The Disease of the Mind

We can't control Life.  I don't care how many ways you manifest and imagine the future.  Life is going to do what Life is going to do.   Should we not just let her?  Should we not just learn to trust this thing that has been taking care of itself for billions and billions of years , seeing that she knows best? And get out of the way? Stop judging what she offers us as right or wrong, stop grasping and stop pushing away (which really means pushing down deeper inside us adding to the pile of unresolved emotions that want to come out)? . Should we not just let all experiences just flow through us without judging and reacting, resisting or clinging so we are free of them?  Should we not just learn to find that all the conditions we need for happiness we have right here and right now no matter what is unfolding around us, what is "happening" to us?  

Does hope help us to do that? 

Hope serves some purpose for the personality and if you want to serve the personality for the rest of your life...by all means foster hope. If you want to get beyond the personality, however, and break the habitual mind tendencies that keep us stuck...maybe reconsider if hope is a good use of your energy. Practice relaxing into what is instead. 

For more on this, much better explained, see the video below. and read the Hsin Hsin Ming 

All is well. 

Michael Singer Podcast/ Sounds True ( July, 2021) Spirituality: Exploration of Consciousness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE4_q7qdZ0E

Warren Weinstein (n.d.) Third Chines Patriarch of Zen: Hsin Hsin Ming https://home.csulb.edu/~wweinste/HsinHsinMing.html#:~:text=The%20Great%20Way*%20is%20not,for%2C%20or%20against%2C%20anything.