Already That

 

So I say the Self is not reached. You are the Self, you are already that. The fact is, you are ignorant of your blissful state. Ignorance supervenes and draws a veil over the pure Self which is bliss. Attempts are directed only to remove this veil of ignorance which is only wrong knowledge. The wrong knowledge is the false identification of the Self with the body and mind. The false identification must go and then the Self alone remains. Therefore realization is for everyone: there is no difference between the aspirants. The very doubt you can realize and the "I - have-not-realized"  are themselves the obstacles.  Be free of obstacles. 

Ramana Maharshi

I just listened to a timely and captivating lecture on the nondual Vedanta's view of knowing and being, offered by Swami Sarvapriyandanda (who I never heard of until today).  On my way home,  after a trip to the ophthalmologist's office for further Glaucoma testing, I was feeling "unsteady". I was holding onto my side as if that would somehow make the pain there go away. I have been overwhelmed by the circumstances unfolding around me and in me lately . Vulnerable, would be a good descriptive word to use here.  I felt "unsafe"  as I often do when I am driving, especially in a vehicle in desperate need of an inspection,  that seemed to be pulling to the left while the  big Exclamation mark flashed on the dashboard. I have, as I have written,  been feeling like I was losing control over so many things in " my life"  lately beyond what 'my' car was doing, 'my' eye was doing, and what 'my' body was doing. Stuffed things are bubbling up from the bottom of me and boiling over as I deal with the many "going ons" affecting this version of Life I call "me".  "My" experience of life is not a pleasant one these days. So I prayed as I drove  for some comfort, some ease and I wondered why I just cannot seem to find it. Am I not doing things right in my attempt to realize Self/no-self?  Am I not prioritizing what is really important by taking the spiritual path towards enlightenment?  Isn't it suppose to be easier when we do that?  I have come so far in my understanding, haven't I? Am I not supposed to be feeling peace no matter what at this point? I just felt so "unsteady". So I prayed for both comfort and answers.

As if my prayer was being answered, when I got home I felt greatly pulled to YouTube and to the video linked below entitled simply, Knowing and Being. It was exactly what I needed. The teaching offered, based on Advaita Vedanta, the non-dual school of Hindu philosophy is so much like the learning I have received from Buddhism. They line up beautifully. 

In the Shadow

Swami Sarvapriyananda began by reciting a line from T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Man: Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow. I realized instantly that I have been living in the shadow. I am living, like so many, in the gap between knowing and being. I have been doing the self-help thing since I was a teenager and doing the heavy duty spiritual practice for over a decade by embracing Eastern Philosophy.  I have been reading, listening,  studying and practicing it but I don't seem to be manifesting anything beyond the "knowing". Why is that? 

The more you "know" the bigger the gap gets between knowing and being..

I failed to remember that I do not need to know in order to be, because knowing is being. 

All efforts at self improvement are just fine.  They help to tune down the madness so you don't appear so mad...but...it doesn't cure us from this madness. 

Already That

None of our physical world and externally directed actions will get us what we really want. The solution for all of  Life's so called problems  is indeed enlightenment,  Self-Realization and Knowing who we really are.  But the thing is, regardless if we know it or not...we are already that which we seek to become....we are that. Tat Taum Asi. Nondual Vedanta, just like Buddhism, teaches that knowing is being. You are already that whom you seek to be ( divine), everything is already alright, you already have all the things within you to be complete and happy...you just don't see it and you just don't see you as you really are. We are simply lost in illusion and delusion and tend to be overly attached to that which isn't real.  If we want to experience realty, to "be"...we just have to remove the veil of ignorance Maharshi speaks of in the above quote. 

Enlightenment does not make you  Brahman. You are Brahman but your goal is to come to see it and be it. Knowing is being. 

Swami tells a story about the lion cub who after losing his mother in a hunt shortly after his birth is raised by lambs.  He grows up believing he is a lamb.  He eats grass like a lamb.  He bleets like a lamb.  He timidly runs from predators like a lamb.  Then one day another lion spots him in the pack of sheep and captures him.  He tries to convince the young lion that he is a lion not a sheep but all the younger lion says in return is, "Baa! Baa! Please don't eat me big scary lion. Baa! Baa!" . Taking him to the river, the other lion forces the young lion to look at his reflection in the water comparing it to his own and then he forces him to roar. To his utter surprise and delight, the young lion realizes who he really is...a lion, king of the jungle.

Moral of this story? Even when the lion thought he was a lamb...he was a lion.  He was always a lion. He was just delusional operating in a world of illusions.  Believing he was a lamb, did not make him a lamb. Being told he was a lion, didn't make him a lion, He was already one. Looking at his reflection in the water didn't make him a lion...he was already one. Hearing himself roar didn't make him a lion.  He was already one. All these things did was help him to realize who he always was. Enlightenment won't make us beings closer to God...it will just help us to realize we were always beings close to God. 

Two Major Components of Enlightenment

The lecture goes on to discuss the nature of enlightenment as having two major components.  The first component is what Swami referred to as, The Paradigm Shift. Here we shift from a body-mind focus to enlightened awareness where the problems of "me" disappear.  You see, it is only the body and only the mind that has the problems, right?  All "problems" belong to this realm, don't they?  It is in the body that we have physical pain and illness, aging and death.  It is in the mind that we have the concept of pain and suffering, limitation, of unpleasant, of anger and grief etc?  When we shift to pure awareness there are no problems because we go beyond the limitations of body and mind. 

The second component of enlightenment is the ethical manifestation aspect. There seems to be certain expectations of those who are fully evolved, Self-realized or enlightened. These beings are said to be selfless, fearless, peaceful, kind and compassionate to all, loving of all equally, possessing great wisdom, and serene.  Because they have solved all their problems forever, they are believed to be free. 

In order to be truly enlightened we must not only have shifted our knowledge and awareness, we must be living as an enlightened person as demonstrated in the second component. If we say we have realized Self but are still slipping into reactions all the time with others, getting angry, grumbling and complaining; if we are still clinging to material world things, still attached to body and mind in anyway...we are not truly enlightened.  We may be able to teach like we are...but in truth we are not. 

An enlightened being gives away their right to grumble and complain

Non-Dual Vedanta

The goal of nondual Vedanta, swami teaches, is to become free while living. Until we not only "know" who we are but  live as fully actualized beings,  we will continue to suffer. We achieve true Self-realization through 1) obtaining knowledge of reality 2) eradicating deep seated desires ( attachment to the external world) and 3) deep absorption or samadhi ( getting beyond ego)

Attaining all three of these simultaneously is the ultimate goal and it is said by doing this that we will have true liberation...freedom from suffering and bliss. 

For many of us the first part...attaining the knowledge is the easiest of the three and where many of us are stuck.  I know I am.  I mean I have not attained true realization by any means but I do know I am not this body or mind and that the world around me is illusionary.  I know there is so much more than this that I perceive with my five senses but man, I still suffer.  Why?  Because, I am still trapped by desire, by preferences, by my attachment to this world of form.  And I have not reached anywhere close to samadhi. I have not attained all three levels. So Life, doing what Life does, keeps throwing things in this direction and I keep reacting to them. I suffer. And oddly,  the fact that I have more knowledge now than I did before I first started this journey  seems to create even more suffering in me. It is like I am (the intellect) riding an elephant. The intellect knows what it wants and where it wants to go but the untrained elephant doesn't always agree with my directions.  It has other things it wants. Until I train it with repetition and practice it is going to continue to take me for a ride instead of us travelling as "one".

I walk away from this talk knowing I  need to up my yoga practice, all limbs of it, if I want to end this sense of suffering once and for all.  Starting at Samadhi, I need to work my way down to niyamas and yamas(rules of conduct) .  Swami has a lot to say about pranayama which is interesting and he goes beyond controlling the breath in his discussion to "steadying the being"... anyway.  It is interesting.

So much was gained from this lecture that I cannot transcribe here.  Please watch it for yourself.

All is well in my world.

Swami Sarvapriyananda/ Vedanta Society of Southern California  (n.d.) Knowing and Being. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSbTaIDYTb0 

On Seperateness

 This sensation of being a separate lonely individual is a hallucination.

Alan Watts

The following are just some words of wisdom about this illusion of separateness we collectively share because we have been conditioned to do so:

Alan Watts more or less tells us we are not just Awareness in a sac of skin, we are awareness.  Our sac of skin does not separate us from one another as it seems to.

This sense of separateness often leads us to search for completeness, fulfillment and love outside ourselves and we seek to  form "special relationships" 

The minute I heard my first love story,

 I started looking for you 

not realizing how blind that was. 

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere, 

they are in each other all along.

Rumi (from Ram Dass video linked below) 

A Course in Miracles refers to it this way:

In reality you are perfectly unaffected by all expressions of a lack of love. These can be from yourself and others, from yourself to others, or from others to you. Peace is an attribute in you. You cannot find it outside. ACIM. Chapter 2-I-5:6-9

There are three planes/spheres of existence, according to Ram Dass: the ego plane (this idea we are separate), the soul plane (we are connected to source on some deep level but each has a unique karma), and the plane of pure awareness (that goes beyond the skin and the soul connecting everything at the deepest level).

We start out as pure awareness, knowing who we are,  but quickly realize a sense of separateness and then begin to use other people's eyes to reflect back to us who we are. The ego is built. The whole ego is basically relational. So we seek others to help us understand who we are on the ego level. We form relationships based on our and their 'specialness'. 

After fascism and communism we got into "individualism:" a worship of our "somebody-ness" Ram Dass

A Course in Miracles refers to this sense of separateness and our use of special relationships throughout the text and lessons within it.

The special love relationship is an attempt to bring love into separation. ...You seek but for your own completion, and it is they who render you complete.  The special love relationship is but a shabby substitute for what makes you whole in truth,  not in illusion. Chapter 16-IV-7-8

When will we learn that we are already complete and whole and the love we seek to feel and share is already in us?

All is well. 

ACIM Foundations for Inner Peace

Ram Dass The Breath Inside the Breath Part 1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGIKAaOFhCc

Alan Watts. The Ways  we lose our identityhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dDxGkQ5NkQ

Self Pity

 Self pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

Maya Angelou

I am sitting here with my tea. The tea is lovely but my mind isn't lol.  I have jumped into the van of self pity and am picking up a lot of speed as I go down that road.  The wind of "oh woe is me " actually feels pretty good on my face right now and there is a nice distracting hum to the momentum. It is almost comforting. But I know it isn't taking me where I really want to go. I also know that this comfortable feeling will soon become hard and uncomfortable. Sigh! 

The Pull of Self Pity

There is definitely an inviting pull to this type of mental reaction to life circumstance, isn't there?  Something that lures us in with the promise of lollipops or puppies and before we know it we are being swept away as innocent  victims to some mind made villain. We go off telling people our stories about what lead us here in hope that their sympathetic reaction will allow us to sit back in this van and keep going.  (It is so much easier to be swept away than it is to take responsibility for our minds, our own lives, isn't it?)  And we will defend ferociously how we have no choice but to feel the way we do as we wait for the sound of violins to play through the surround sound around us. 

The thing is I am not an innocent child with an underdeveloped brain trusting that which seems trustworthy but isn't...I am an adult with an untamed mind who knows better.  I chose to jump into this van.  I  knew from so many past experiences where it was taking me. I knew I was being lured and manipulated by an old programmed tendency in my psyche. I knew the comfort it provided was only temporary and that it would soon become very hard and uncomfortable.  I was so "aware" yet I climbed in anyway, in hope that I would find some comfort, some reprieve from this perception of "overwhelming hardship"  I have been experiencing. I wanted to feel good and sorry for myself. I still do.

The Story

Why? Why do I feel the need to feel sorry for myself? There are many reasons. I am alone now, managing on my own (which is actually okay because I am one of those odd ducks that is okay being alone...but I have to add 'my alone status' in there for added dramatic effect lol).  My phone got cut off yesterday because I could not pay the phone bill. The dog just ate one of the last cans  of catfood that I have been trying to conserve so I could feed my cats. (I am more concerned about keeping my pets fed than I am about feeding myself...what is up with that?)  The vehicle I was left with has an outdated inspection sticker on it and a cracked windshield  I cannot afford to replace.  I cannot even afford the fine if I get pulled over. Heck...I cannot afford gas lol.  My eye is sore and my vision in it is getting increasingly blurry. I wake up every morning with this pain in my side and I don't know what it is...that drags me back to my memory of all the many experiences I had in health seeking waiting and waiting to find out what things were...knowing, because I am somewhat bright, that they are all something but seldom having the ease of a quick diagnosis...just the waiting, the waiting, the waiting. (Now that statement there was definitely a dramatic attempt to pull the audience in so they would pity me as much as I am pitying myself right now....my bad...just came out as a reflex.)  I really, honestly, do not know how I am going to financially survive here alone on a 900/mth pension income and with a 1000/mth mortgage...even my poor math skills tell me that there is something really wrong with that equation.  (Now, I was really trying  to keep this van moving with the pity of others by sharing that!). I have been dreaming non stop about my old job, reminded of how much I loved teaching, how much I miss it  (and how I miss the stable income). Then there are my children that need me in so many ways and I am tired and dragging myself around to provide.  I have a daughter who is dependent on me financially because she is too ill to work ...imagine. I tried to get support for her  but the necessary support people outwardly refused to fill out the required forms. I have been left with the care and responsibility of three dogs...one who eats everything she can get her mouth on and one I have to carry up and down the stairs because she is recovering from ACL surgery. That just exhausts me sometimes. 

Oh...I could go on and on about my so called "woes", there are many,  but telling this story over and over again to myself and to others is all part of a mental reaction....a desire and a clinging to that psuedo-comfort self pity provides. Man, I jumped right into that van this morning and I am somewhat reluctant to leave.

Can anything good come from this self pity reaction?

Yes...if and only if we are aware.  Any time we react in a less than wholesome way to Life as it is and we catch ourselves, observe ourselves doing so...it is a positive thing.  It is just like we are catching our mistakes in the classroom lessons we are working on and learning from them.  We can correct them before we bring our work to the teacher for marking. Or we can even learn from them afterwards.  Every slip on our path towards higher realization, is a learning opportunity.  We cannot improve upon something unless we are aware it needs improving. My mind, most our minds, could be improved. This little trip I am taking down the road of self pity is a reminder to me of this unwholesome tendency and when I observe it, I am detaching myself from it.  I am no longer lost in it. Therefore I can do something about it.

We do not need to punish  ourselves for feeling sorry for ourselves. That is counterproductive. I am not going to  "beat myself up" for this lapse into self pity.  I am going to, instead, wrap it (and the "me" that is experiencing it)  gently in mindfulness, loving kindness and compassion. I am not going to resist it, struggle  against it by saying, "it shouldn't be". It is.  I am not going to  push it away or down like I would normally want to do.  I am going to notice it, allow it, sit with it, embrace it and give it permission  to leave on its own when it is ready. Just as I write this I feel it starting to leave.  Hmm!

The other thing self pity can give us is an opportunity to express and release the deeper emotions beneath it. Self-pity is often a surface cover for feelings of grief, loss, sadness, and despair. It is much easier to get caught up in the drama of self-pity than it it is to simply "feel" and experience these emotions under its cover. Self-pity will make me cry and if I keep it up and sit with it,  what is under it starts to simmer and boil up  pushing the cover of self pity right off the pot. The other emotions will come up.  Truth is I do feel great loss. I feel grief over the losses I have experienced over the last few years...heck...over my entire life.  I have been trying with great effort, though automatically,   to suppress and repress these feeling but there is so much ungrieved loss inside me, under this flimsy shield of self pity.  By allowing self pity into my awareness, I allow the other deeper feelings to come to the surface so I can sit with them until they are spent.  In short...I need a really good cry and self -pity can start that pot boiling. 

Anyway,  there are both unwholesome reasons and wholesome reasons why I shared this. In all honesty, the part of me still so identified with "my story" is looking for pity and possibly compassion from others when I really need it from myself.  At the same time I know this is a universal human tendency I share that others could easily recognize in themselves. 

It comes down to the basic premise of all  teachings here. The more we understand our minds both on the individual and the collective level...the better off humanity and the world will be.  Let's look at our own tendency towards self pity and learn and grow from it.

All is well. 

 .   

Beyond Words to Experience

 Each of us is an aperture through which the universe is observing itself.  

Alan Watts

I listened to Alan Watts today and it was a very useful transaction of words...that helped me to understand conceptually that which goes beyond words. Both videos spoke to this idea that the understanding we are truly seeking cannot be described in words yet as conditioned humans when we seek to understand something , Watts reminds us, we are often just looking for a translation of that something, the going ons of the physical world, into language and words.  As long as the words are there, however, they are in the way of us truly experiencing that 'something' we are trying to understand.  

When we first attempt to go deeper and try to 'define' who we are and what God is...it gets even more confusing.  We cannot define ourselves and we can not define God with words! When we do this, it becomes even more confusing and counterproductive to us 'knowing' and 'experiencing' that which we are attempting to know and experience. Duality, that which comes with language, gets in the way of understanding: we see a knowing and a known, a doing and a doer and a giver and a receiver etc.  This duality  gets in the way. 

The most important thing we can do to understand at the experience and feeling level is to clear our head of thoughts.  Of course, we cannot stop thinking  but we can stop losing ourselves in the thought process and instead... experience life in the present moment. The more we do this, the more we touch or fall into that spacious emptiness, that shunyata, that oceanic view , that yoga...that truth of who we really are is 'experienced' and 'felt'. 

The thing is we are that which we are seeking to understand. "Tat Taum Asi: You are that",  are great words that speak the ultimate truth and can be "felt" in the experiential realm of Life but mean nothing to the conceptual mind. They are just words.   These words have great limits but the truth that is the space behind these words can set us free.  We need to access that space behind the words.

Watts tells us that through meditation we can become aware of what is without naming or labelling it...just experiencing it, sensing it, feeling it and allowing it to be as it is.

For example we can,

Listen to the sounds of the world in the same way you would listen to classical music...without asking what it means. 

We just listen, allow, feel and experience without words.  For sure shootin the mind is going to do what it does...it is going to think.  Thoughts and memories and judgements will pop into our minds but we do not need to bother with what is said.  Just listen to the sound of the voice in our heads.  I personally like to group all thoughts that come into my mind under a big cloud of "thinking" without labelling, analyzing, or explaining but I never thought to pay much attention to the sound of my internal voice at those times...to note its texture and tone. We can just allow all sound, even our own internal noise, to be a part of the symphony. as we experience what is now. 

I often ask in my personal and guided meditations, "Who is listening?" to help myself and others to connect with the observer but Watts said that too gets us all tangled up in the duality of language. He suggest that we simply notice instead that "There is a watching". And as we focus our attention on our breath we can ask, "Are you doing that or is it happening to you?" Then we can simply realize, "There is breath in and there is breath out."

We also need to release our "effort", our striving to attain this realization of Tat Taum Asi.  He tells us if we can simply "be" mindful or meditate for the sheer de-light of it, adopting an attitude of "it doesn't matter" we can become like surgeons with a steady hand...much more effective in our practice and in our approach to Life. We need to realize we are incarnations of that which we seek ( God) otherwise we will spend our lives putting great effort and strain into trying to be God...changing, fixing, attempting to alter the "what is" of that which is occurring around us or to us. 

Peace is all about letting go of our words, our striving, and our opinions of how "it should be" so we can fall into the spaciousness of what is. 

All is well in my world. 

Alan Watts / The Spiritual Library( ) When you stop talking to yourselfhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDg2ko4HYos

Alan Watts/UCLA CommStudies ( ) Alan Watts Speaking at UCLA 2/21/1973 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro0bjhfg4mg

Deeper Consciousness Potential

There is potential in every human being for realizing in her or himself(themself)  a state of consciousness that is deeper-infinitely deeper-than ordinary thinking and doing in everyday life. 

Eckhart Tolle

We already have all the conditions we need to be happy within us. 

Beneath all the the thinking, busy doing, story telling, and identification with self is the realm where true peace, happiness, joy and Love exists.   In yogic terms we have Turiya, that forth stage of consciousness that we can always fall back into.  The Buddhists would call this Shunyata and the Taoists would call it Kung but it is all basically "spaciousness." It is the precious empty background of our existence.  

Contrary to popular belief, we do not need to strive to attain spaciousness...we are spaciousness.  We just need to realize it. How do we do that? Through mindfulness and concentration we can gain insight into this realization. The energy of mindfulness makes things true and alive,Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us. By coming to the present moment, truly coming to it with mindfulness and concentration, and through embracing the miracle of being...we tap into our true spaciousness, into our shunyata, our Kung and our Turiya. Hmmm!  

All is well. 

Eckhart Tolle (n.d.) The Forth State of Consciousness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bim73icRzCk

Thich Nhat Hanh (n.d.) Mindfulness, Concentration and Insight in Everyday Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2uV1V1M_3g

Rays of Consciousness

 To know yourself as consciousness is the most amazing liberation...not a liberation for the person, but a liberation from the person.

Eckhart Tolle 

The Source of all Life expresses Itself  in all of us.  We are parts of the One Consciousness just as a ray of sunlight is a part of the sun.  We are rays of light, we are expressions of consciousness.

We are not separate single selves.  How can we be when we, like the beams of light that shine down upon us,  are expressions of the Source? 

The greatest miracle, Tolle reminds us, is that the world, the Universe is conscious.  How do we know that?  Because we are conscious.  If the rays of sun light are the sun, we, as expressions of that consciousness,  are consciousness.

Pretty cool, eh?

All is well.

Eckhart Tolle(n.d.) How to Get True Guidance.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYCwYmk6248

Writing Without Readers

 I write to discover what I know.

Flannery O'Connor

Hmmm! Wondering what has happened to the outreach of this blog.  Why am I not getting through?  It seems I have been pushed into the closet of cyber space and locked in there. My previous readership has been disconnected from me as a result. I feel like an unpopular  outreach worker who, because of some mechanical issue, is now unable to deliver the bit I have to deliver to those few people on the street who may actually want it. I mean I just do what I do because I do. I seek to  serve through my writing of this blog for selfish reasons, because service helps the "no-self" in me to grow and the "me" to lose its significance...but part of me fears that all of the sandwiches in the back of the van will spoil before they ever feed another hungry belly (mind). It was okay if many or most of them were refused before. As long as I was able to feed a few others, the time and energy it took to make them was worth it. Now that the readership is often at zero, I question why I keep coming here. I am not complaining.  I am not asking this to be some  way other than the way it is.  I try not to do that with anything in my life anymore...but curiously I wonder: What is happening here and why?  Should I do something about it to improve my readership? 

Maybe...maybe not.  For now, it simply is as it is...just another thing unfolding in front of this form. So without too much attachment to outcome, without grasping or clinging to some idea "this shouldn't be", without any strange notion that this is bad or wrong and that I 'have to fix it or fight it asap...I just curiously observe it with a bit of wonder, accept it, allow it to be and simply come here and write anyway. I have no idea if I will ever get another reader and if I do how this will impact them. If  some inspiration comes to "me" to "do" something about whatever tech issue is preventing this from getting out there, I will, but for now I just write here. Something  tells me whatever happens after that doesn't matter.  My job, is to simply show up...do what feels natural and wholesome, and leave the rest to God.

All is well in my world. 

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood.  I'd type a little faster.

Isaac Asimov

Weeping and Rejoicing

 When the ego weeps for what it has lost, the spirit rejoices for what it has found.

Sufi Proverb

All is well! 

Grateful for Diminishment

 Diminished! Diminished!

The  wind calls out as it passes by,

tugging at my weathered bark,

urging me to cry: 

 

"I was once  a flowery beacon,
for all the world to stop and praise 

but I lost all my precious blossoms

to the weather's   wicked ways.

The fruit  my limbs  once proudly bore,

thinking it was mine,

was swept away by greedy hands

for someone else's wine.

Leaves that danced in lively costume

against an Autumn sky,

have crinkled up, have fallen

and have so sadly  died.

My arms now bare and empty

reach up into the atmosphere

and as a  ghostly form of less than

my silhouette will so appear."

Diminished! Diminished !

The wind calls out as it passes by,

tugging at my weathered bark,

urging me to cry:

"What I had  is gone now.

I stand in my new pathetic  form.

Naked, exposed and all alone

I am vulnerable to the storm.

I  will  no longer cry out my wrath or

my need to make it right.

I  will just bow my weary head

and exhale remaining fight

And as the earth below me chills

and freezes with the frost,

I feel my roots open within the ground

and know that 'I' was never lost."

Diminished! Diminished !

The wind calls out as it passes by,

tugging at my weathered bark,

urging me to cry:

"There is a being  within me here

coursing through the veins,

opening up to allow what simply is

to free me from my chains.

This Life travels up into my trunk

and to the very tips of what I knew,

replacing the  surface illusion

with the sap of  what is  true.
 

 "I am." My branches cry out with joy as

I bend  to Life's  true song.

"It is as it is", the wind calls back

and it happily sings along .

Diminished?  Diminished?...

It may appear to the eye that does not see

but  the Self within me knows,
that loss has set me free.

Dale-Lyn , February 2020

I was reminded of that imperfect poem I threw together years ago after suffering yet another "material-world loss".  I am not sure what it was exactly...something to do with the finances, maybe.  It has taken me more than a few years to get used to the loss of a solid income and to live as I do now.  Still not used to it lol. It may have been that 'I' was reflecting on the loss of 'my' dream to sustain myself  as a yoga instructor ( Covid hit that dream big time), 'my' past  job and career at the time, 'my' reputation, or I was reminded again that  other good opinion of 'me' had been replaced with an assumption that has haunted "me" for years.  Surely had something to do with the loss of a certain degree of  'health' or the fear of it.  When I wrote that poem, I had the mass on my breast, was waking up at night with pressure in my underarms and was constantly waiting, it seemed, for tests and results, for  someone to tell me what it was so  I could breathe.  It took approximately one year and ten months for whatever it was  to disappear without 'me' ever being told what it was.  There was a sense of great loss that came, at that time as well,  with the realization that I could not protect my children from the immense amount of suffering they were experiencing. 

Yes, there was a lot of loss experienced by this "me" when I wrote that poem. Fortunately,  I was beginning then to truly see what Jack Kornfield and Eckhart Tolle were speaking about in the videos I listened to this morning...videos that reminded me of that poem. Loss and diminishment can bring us deeper into what is really important and we should be willing to see it, accept it, embrace it and be grateful for it.

This whole blog is about waking up to what is really important.  It was a sense of suffering that led me here and that keeps me here.  I see such tremendous growth potential in loss and suffering so I share in hope that others will see it too. We cannot close our eyes to pain if we want to expand and evolve as human beings. Loss is inevitable because all things are impermanent.  The materials we erroneously seek to possess and maintain,  reputation, the body , thoughts, feelings, relationships, any idea of 'success' is impermanent.  Things will come into our lives and go out of our lives.  Kornfield refers to life as a big "compost heap" from which beautiful things, and less than beautiful things can grow and to which they will return as they dissolve and decay. That is Life. We are delusional when we do not see the pain and suffering that is a part of Life but we put great energy  and effort, don't we, into not seeing? Most of us are delusional. Jack Kornfield reminds us that this "grasping"  to this delusion is so strong and powerful.  No wonder why we get lost in it.

Still we do not have to. We can ask a question when we perceive loss, struggle, challenge: "To Whom does all this refer?" Who is losing here? Little self is losing, ego is losing but who you really are...the Self with a capitol 's'  or as the Buddhist refer to it, the 'no-self'...is not losing. The essence of who we are: consciousness, presence and awareness is not losing. The place of the wise is in the eternal moment.  You can simply fall deeper into that Self/no-self like I have been able to do.  

Do not get me wrong...I still grasp big time...but that grasp is loosening a bit everyday and with every sense of "loss" my ego experiences. My sense of "little self" is diminishing ( much to its horror lol).  For example, I have had this mysterious pain in my side for months and unlike the pain I get in my chest when I am having spasms, or the pain I had in my armpit years ago related to the mass, or  the pain I had/have  in my pelvis related to the cyst...I cannot explain this one.  It doesn't make any sense to me. But my body is really crying out to be heard especially at night and when I get up out of bed in the morning.  This pain is very real to "my body" and to "my mind".  The fear that I will spend another two years with it, never knowing what it is...is very real to my ego. Yet to who "I am" there is no concern, no attachment, no fear and no "this shouldn't be." This part of me can wait forever for an answer (which is a good thing because I can't get into see my doctor about the results for another month lol).  And I am fully aware these results may, for a variety of reasons,  not show what is going on in there. Part of my life-challenge, my karma, maybe, seems to be in not getting validation from external sources for "my" experience. I may never know what is causing this pain. This pain may go away by itself in time without me ever knowing what the cause of it is, like the mass did, or it may simply go unvalidated by others  until it is too late.  I don't know. I have no idea what the outcome will be. I am not worked up at all about it. 

Why am I so okay with this?  Because I have had experience with loss! I have been diminished...well "little self" has been diminished so greater Self could shine through. I am so grateful for that!  I am operating more from that deeper space lately than I am from ego.  I know that I am not this body, not these thoughts , feelings or sense perceptions ( pain).  I am this amazing, non-possessing, pregnant void. I am witnessing the mystery of Life unfold within and around this form that others see as 'me'. Awakening is all about the diminishment of this "me", of self.  It is through that we will find all that which we seek, that which cannot be taken from us. 

It is all so cool to realize that and to be able to share that realization. 

All is well..

Jack Kornfield/Audio Buddha (2022) Buddhist Psychology: Delusion by Jack Kornfield. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN8UD5i9JI

Eckhart Tolle. (August, 2022) Awaken Through Loss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVZl9_crjrg

Beyond the Name

 What's in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name, would smell as sweet.

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

You are not your name.  You know that, right? The name is just a label, a mental construct, a convention in which we associate a lot of the "things" we think identify us with. Names represent our "self" identities and we often become very attached to them but we are not a name nor are we a "self". 

The following is a 20-25 minute guided meditation to help us get beyond our over identification with names, identities, role, forms etc to who we really are.

All is well!

Blogging Challenges

 Everything happens in the service of the evolution of consciousness.

Eckhart Tolle

Still not sure what is going on with this site. Readers are often down to zero which is not the typical norm even for me lol. No recent entry since September the 7th has been read according to stats on the post page. People are telling me they are not getting my emails and therefore are unable to access my blog.   I check the stats page and google analytics daily. There are a few (less than a few lol) tag ins from the  tiny buddha and some of the other sites I wrote for. I often see something from "Crocket wellness" ...a life coaching site?...and its associated url's..so I am assuming that is some type of spam getting through?  The only location I am seeing on my google analytics page lately is my own home town so I am assuming that that is coming from me as I come in to write my entries. Though it is very possible that my readership is down because others are not interested in what I have to say or how I say it the sudden change in stats points to the likelihood that I am blocked and I don't know why or how.  Likely, it is something I am doing or not doing but I am not sure.

I am totally okay writing for only a few people...one even...and I, for the most part, am okay with being that one. I learn as I write...I evolve a little deeper each time I process and share the learning. So I benefit from coming here everyday. And because I believe that it is through our own personal evolutions we can best serve others and  the world,  others are indirectly benefiting  by my coming here, even if they do not read a word I write. Yet, if it is part of my so called "dharma"....in my very imperfect and non expert way ... to reach a few others ...I need to figure out what is preventing me from doing that. What is the obstacle in my way? Is it other generated or me generated? As a baby boomer, who still fondly  remembers the day when people were reached by  using the rotary phone or Canada Post I am quite inept  when it comes to the modern ways of reaching people. I don't want to promote myself and do all the stuff needed with SEO's and  social media promotion to get readers.  I just want to write and share what I learn. I thought I found a way to do that here but maybe it is not the avenue I was hoping it was.  I don't know. 

One small thing I will "do"...is take pics of these post edit pages as I write them...just as evidence or proof that I did indeed write them.  Why?  I don't know.  Just feel compelled to do so. Maybe I can take them someday to another site...another avenue of reaching out.  Who knows? 

Anyway...it is all good.  It is what it is.  I am not resisting this challenge of little readership despite my effort. I am simply noticing it, accepting it with curiosity and wonder and hopefully learning from it  My "surrendering" to it, does not mean I won't make changes, I won't take action...it simply means... for now...I notice, observe, question and allow.

It is all good. 

Surrendering Resistance To What Is

 

Yesterday I was clever because I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise because I want to change myself. 

Rumi

It was not my intention to sit here and summarize something I listened to today. I prefer to allow such learning to assimilate within me and just flow out in any way it so seems to need to...but I got distracted today by the three ring circus lol, and got pulled away from the shakti-inspired flow.  So when I sit to write...I just have my notes to go by.

So I will summarize and paraphrase what I heard today upon listening to Michael Singer in, Living a Life of Surender and Are you in there? Michael Singer on Insights at the Edge. 

So what I learned first and foremost is that surrender is our spiritual journey.  It doesn't mean hat we give up and give in, doing nothing to make our lives or the lives of others better.  It simply means that we surrender to what is.  We surrender our resistance and reactivity to what Life offers in every given moment. We accept, respect and honour what enfolds in front of us.  We allow it in to our conscious experience  without resistance.  We feel whatever emotional vibration that comes with it as it comes into our awareness.  This is the highest thing we can do to help the world and others...allow all to be what it is... allow the experience  in. 

Most of us have spent our lives collecting bad experiences ( also collecting good experiences that we are constantly trying to recapture "out there") . These experiences form knots or blockages, called Samskaras,  in us that prevent the natural flow of Shakti from coming up as it is meant to do. We do not feel the full, vibrant experience of Life because the Shakti is blocked.  And also because we are so busy distracting ourselves with what Singer calls " the three-ring circus": our sensory perceptions of the outside world, our thoughts and our emotions. 

We resist what it is.  We resist the negative or painful experiences of Life and we have a deep desire to resist what is unfolding inside us. Most of us operate from "lower heart"...which is our very human "conditional" heart. This heart will stay open as long as our samskaras are not aggravated and close when they get triggered. We can change that by using positive thinking, a mantra or witness consciousness when these samskaras get aggravated or triggered by what we are experiencing. We can learn to operate from the higher heart that remains open and at peace regardless of what is happening to us or around us. 

Anyway...the big thing is to do what we can to not resist and close our hearts to reality. We can  instead learn to  surrender to it so samskaras can be released and Shakti can flow through us.

All is well.

Surrender is very, very subtle and very, very powerful...It is the entire spiritual journey.

Michael Singer

Michael A, Singer / Sounds True ( ) Living a Life of Surrender. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCoa-90Teuk

Michael A. Singer/ Sounds True ( ) Are You in There? Michael Singer on Insights At The Edge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbVOWzCO8A

Breath: The Reminder of Impermanence

 Every breath is a small birth and a small death.

Pema Chodron

The breath is an amazing thing for all kinds of reasons. First of all and most obviously, it gives us Life.  Prana, in yogic tradition, is a vital "life-giving force" that is breathed into us.  Biologically, we  take precious oxygen ( and other gases) into our lungs with every inspiration and then it goes to every cell in the body so energy can be produced to keep us alive.  Without the in- breath...we would not be here in these forms.  Our bodies are dependent on it. 

On the exhalation we release the unnecessary, that which no longer serves, that which is the end product of cellular metabolism...the "garbage" so to speak.  If we do not release this we will smother and die in our own  form-created toxicity. We must release that which does not serve. The out breath allows us to do that. 

Our breath helps us serve the world and other beings in it. We take in breath so our bodies are functionable and able to serve.  We breathe out CO2 and other gases that other beings breathe in so they can survive to serve us...and they in turn create oxygen for us to breathe in. Breath is a very interdependent process. 

Breath also acts as an anchor that keeps us centered and that can bring us home to our spacious centers when we stray off. Mindfulness of breath is one of the oldest and simplest meditation practices there is.  When we stop our busy work to put our attention on the in breath and especially the out breath we slip out of the dramas and Non-Stop Thinking  of our mind and come back to body and moment. The breath is all about the body and moment.

I learned something new and cool today about the breath from Pema Chodron . The breath can remind us and help us to find peace in the notion of "death". It reminds of us of the impermanence of all things. The breath is short lived...every in breath is a birth and every out breath is a death. Through awareness of the breath we see how all things arise, and how all things dissolve. There is a coming and a going to the breath as there is to our physical form and all things of this physical world.  Yet, that which observes the breath is awareness and awareness never dies. It is who we are.  Breath mindfulness reminds us of that and it also allows us to relax into the fear of death because it relaxes the body and mind.

It is all pretty cool. Don't you think? 

Pema Chodron/ Belfast Buddhist (2016) Pema Chodron-Relaxing With Impermanence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBYGBi80OK8

Awareness and The Bell

Awareness has no sound but it makes the awareness of sound possible. Awareness is not in time, has no location, but allows us to have the experience of time and location. Awareness is who we are...the True Self that is never born, that is not subject to death...that is our eternal home. 

Deepak Chopra

All experience is just sensation taking place inside us. It really isn't happening "out there" , it is happening "in here." All of it. We tend to project it out there and "other" it or "personalize" it with: "Why are 'they' or 'it' doing this to 'me' ?" We fail to realize or accept that it isn't personal nor is it anything more than a sensation we experience. All sensation is...is awareness.  We are not that which 'happens' , we are  that which is aware of it happening...we are that awareness.

The Bell Brings Us Back To Our Eternal Home

This can be understood in the Buddhist use of the bell. A beautiful relationship exists there.  The bell is not "struck" or "hit" or "rung"...it is gently invited to come into our now and bring us home.  The experience of listening to it, allowing that sensation into our moment  can take us home to our True Self ( though the Buddhist doctrine may not use that terminology) to that conscious awareness that we are. 

There is a Gatha in Thich Nhat Hanh's, peace is every breath, that I love: 

Body, speech, and mind in perfect oneness-

I send my heart along with the sound of the bell.

May the hearer's awaken from forgetfulness

and transcend all anxiety and sorrow 

(page 125)

The bell can take us out of our busy minds and bring us back to breath, body and moment if we let it. It can bring us home.  As whole beings (with oneness of body, speech and mind) we open our hearts to the sound experience, allowing it. We can embrace it with the intention and wish that all who hear it will wake up from the illusion of thinking they are separate and suffering entities of the "outside world",  with pasts and futures and see, instead, that we are all just presence, essence, consciousness and awareness of this moment.   

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that there is a process to mastering the bell. It starts with inviting a "half sound" of warning that it is time to prepare so we stop what we are doing and make ourselves available for that experience. This half sound allows for one in-breath and out- breath followed by a ten second pause before the full sound is invited. Then there are three rings, each allowing for three full breaths and each followed by a ten second pause. This practice can bring us home.

Listening is the experience. We listen as the awareness we are. It is an "internal" experience. 

May the sound of this bell

penetrate deeply into the cosmos.

In even the darkest places,

may living beings hear it clearly,

so that understanding may light up our hearts

and, without hardship, they may transcend

the realms of birth and death.

(page 126)

With this understanding that we are part of the whole cosmos, therefore the cosmos because we are the awareness of it,  we can be "enlightened". When this light fills our hearts we can help to light the world. The bell can help us transcend suffering by removing the illusion of what we believe ourselves to be and offering the truth of who we really are. We are eternal awareness and we sit in awareness of the sensation of the bell ringing, we come home to that truth.

All is well. 

The Chopra Well (n.d.)Stress Relief Meditation With Deepak Chopra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9to9VQ8MUo

Thich Nhat Hanh (2011) peace is every breath. Harper One: New York

Thich Nhat Hanh /Quentin Genshu (2019) Thich Nhat Hanh How to Really BE Yourself all the Time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdlqUt3PfaY

Approaching Change With Curiosity

By replacing the fear of the unknown with curiosity we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us. 

Alan Watts

Just a quick post for now. In the process of preparing for a major life change .  Will be busy helping others get ready to leave as I continue to can pears...(man...so many pears lol). I realize that the canning, though something I literally enjoyed "the fruits of" lol,  was a distracting activity that numbed me from the feelings of uncertainty arising because of this major life change.  These individuals embarking on their new venture are not the only ones leaving the comfort zone. I am stepping into the "unpredictable unknown" in so many avenues of my life tomorrow. I have no idea what will unfold in front of me after that...well maybe "an idea" but no expectations.  I am hoping I can watch it all unfold like an audience member being entertained by a great performer...or as a serene nature lover watching autumn leaves float by on a stream.  I am more curious than fearful.  What will happen to this "me" financially, relationship wise, emotionally and spiritually after tomorrow? I will just have to wait and see, I guess.  I am hoping we can all find some peace, at least, in whatever unfolds. 

All is well!

Observing Uncertainty With Cool Detachment

 In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty...in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe. 

Deepak Chopra

The pain in my side is getting worse.  Though I push my body despite it, it is limiting what I do.   After two days of  heavy cleaning and two more days of canning...this body is pretty tired and sore.  I actually felt the pain  moving up and settling into the left side of my chest yesterday...stopping me in my tracks.

Just Observing

 Please know this is not a complaint...just an observation.  I...whoever "I" is... am just observing my body and observing my mind responding to my body...and it is so, so cool to be able to do that. It is with a very calm, cool detachment that I observe. I allow without building too much story around it.  It simply is what it is. For the most part, I am observing, somewhat curiously without attachment. 

Observing the Slips and the Coming Back

I mean...I am not an evolved being yet, lol.  I do regress. When I do "slip" and fall back into the story, past memories of my experience, and future "fears",  I simply observe myself doing that. I stop thrashing around, float to shore, pull myself back up and observe myself observing.  That is pretty cool too. Realizing that I slipped again and that I brought myself back is an amazing thing.

Knowing Internally

As I have in the past, I "know" something is happening inside this form regardless if others know it or not. And I realize, for a variety of external reasons, they may never "know" it until it is too late.  

A  Challenge From the Universal Conductor?

An "important" challenge I have been experiencing most my life is this inability to get validation for what is happening in this form, validation for "my awareness" of what is happening in this form. It seems other "assumption" and "judgment "and "ego-preservation"  as well as just bizarre circumstantial interference kept getting  in the way.. Maybe, I am finally realizing,  this is "my appointed challenge", then...that which is needed to get me to go deeper. Maybe I am not supposed to have the validation yet and I am meant to endure the shaming of other opinion and assumption. I don't know why but I accept the challenge...for the first time in my life I am not resisting this challenge.  I accept it. 

Maybe They Are Right and You are Just Cra-Cra?

Reading this you might find yourself questioning, "Well maybe the reason why you do not get validation is because there is nothing actually wrong with your body.  The professional experts would know more than you do. Maybe they are right in their assumptions about you...maybe you are just a crazy, lying, attention seeking hypochondriac?" 

Yes, I could see why you would think that.  Until this mind of mine is quiet, I am more than a little cra-cra. They could be right. In fact, I questioned that possibility many times in myself when tests did not show right away what I was experiencing, when the experts shared their opinions that were so different from my own. I believed the professionals much more than I ever believed my self. 

So why did you keep seeking validation??

I continued to "present" with my signs and symptoms because my body was telling me to...not my mind...my body.  It whispered to me, and when I didn't listen, it talked loudly to me.  When I didn't listen to that, it shouted and then it yelled until it was screaming at me...and if I didn't listen to that it spoke to me in very clear dreams. "I am hurting...I am breaking down...something is not in balance...get help." 

The Body Speaks

Believe me, after all the "shaming" I experienced over the years in my health-seeking, the very last thing I wanted was to go back for more. But the truth was...my body was crying to be heard and healed. My mind definitely had to be healed and that was, I knew, going to play a huge part in the body healing. I was all about healing the mind.  I had no problem putting my energy there  but the body itself still seemed to  need some outside assistance. Getting assistance meant people had to "believe me". More importantly, I had to believe me. That was difficult at first.  I couldn't always hear the internal wisdom through all the external opinion. After a while,  I really wasn't listening for it. Freedom from fear and shame became my mandate...not wellness.  

Being Able To See

Being somewhat bright, I could intellectualize what was happening in this body.  I could see it.  I could, in a sense, diagnose myself or at least come up with some very valid possibilities to explain the things that were happening. Few  would listen, let alone confirm the validity of my rationalizations. Then the Universe started playing its part offering me a special type of validation: family members were becoming ill and even succumbing to the things I was seeing in myself.  They were getting diagnosed with what I was diagnosing myself with. I was told it was all just coincidence. Still small things that proved I knew what I was talking about would get diagnosed in me to prove, at least, that I wasn't "lying" as I was accused of on many occasions. Still, it wasn't enough.

Accepting The Challenge

So I guess, that is when I began to accept the fact that others would not see or understand what I was understanding.  I began to do what I had the power to do to heal my body. I left my beloved job, retired early even though it meant I would barely be making enough to survive on...I fell deeply into all the limbs of yoga, developing Hatha sequences that would help the "ailments" I  was dealing with and  went  even deeper "inward". I wrote. And I did heal, noting a remarkable reduction in cardiac symptoms. 

But as the challenge was probably needed for greater reasons, other things started to show up in my body. They seemed to need a diagnosis  to replace the cardiac issues....like solid masses palpated by physicians, post menopausal bleeding, pain in specific areas   And again...these things did not get validated though I knew in my heart what they were. Years of testing and specialist reports got added to my chart. When I would share, "Could it be this?  Could it be that?", I was consistently shut down. Months and years would pass before the evidence to support my own self-diagnosis were realized by others. The evidence was always there but it took years for them to see that what I had suggested  was "right". 

Have I slipped Again Into Story?

It may seem that I slipped back into story again in my relaying of the details of my experience but I can assure you there was little to no attachment to this story. I was simply relaying it as the witness and not the main character in it.  I was not lost in the drama of the past.  Simply aware that that is how it went down externally and that all that is truly important is how I handle it internally, from here, in this moment, now. 

So, there has been pain in my left upper quadrant since May and it  is getting progressively worse. I know there is something going on in there. I had tests done...an ultrasound  in August, and a CT scan yesterday to see what might be happening  internally.  I have not heard back about the ultrasound and am more than peaceful waiting until the CT results are back.  It simply is what it is and I will find out when I find out. I am just calmly curious as I observe.

What will I find out?

I will find out if my pain will be validated, and thereby possibly indirectly leading to a validation of all previous "complaints" or if it won't be, leading to a strengthening of the assumption made about me. 

Either way, I am okay. I have no preferences.  

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. Third Zen Patriarch

I don't know what my future holds.  I leave that to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the Universe.  In this moment, I simply observe this uncertainty with cool detachment.

All is well!

Labour And Preserving Life in A Jar

 There is only ten minutes to the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Labour

I have been physically busy over the last few days on the weekend designed to give us a reprieve from labour lol. Though my body is tired and sore, missing the yoga I have been limited in doing because of this pain n my side, I put myself to work.  I love hard physical labor...that would shock all those who know of  my disdain for housework...but I do.  I love using my body for some useful purpose, putting it to task.  And though cleaning for myself is like a "I will get to it someday"...cleaning for others who are unable to because of their own physical and mental limitations is something I actually enjoy. So I cleaned the apartment downstairs while the tenants were away. I told Google  to play  my man "Bruce" ( Bruce Springsteen, in case you are wondering) and for hours each day I  worked along at what first  seemed to be an insurmountable task until everything was clean and tidy. It may not have helped the pain in my body, in fact it made it worse,  but it helped the discomfort in my mind.  I was not using this work as a distraction.  I was using it as a single point of focus. It was a wonderful mindfulness practice where I was not focused on outcome but on being there for each of the many steps needed.  I enjoyed it.  I enjoyed the finished product but had no real attachment to it.  I knew that it would not stay the way I left it for very long and I was perfectly okay with that as I shut the door behind me. I found joy and meaning in the actual labor. Strange, I know. 

Ten Minute Life Span?

Then I canned pears.  My pear trees were more than generous in their giving this year. The branches of one tree in particular, was drooping with the weight of its abundant harvest. I didn't want to ungratefully waste that harvest by allowing the fruit to just fall. Such a bounty was meant to be given away... so we decided to can. I never canned pears before so it required some research and learning.  I made a batch of what I call my "Soft and Sweet" pears...hot packed in a light syrup. And today I intend to make a big batch of what I will call my "Rustic pears" ...unpeeled, cold packed, with just a hint of sugar in the liquid for preservation purposes. These fruit, though seemingly imperfect, are so yummy and don't need added sweetness. I prefer peelings on fruit ( as long as they are free from chemicals) because of the extra fiber, minerals  and vitamins found in that. I want this batch to be as close to eating a pear directly from the tree as possible.  Imagine having that sensation experience in the middle of winter! It is like I am capturing the perfect moment in time and "stilling" it in a jar instead of in a photo.  Ultimate  savouring! I want as many people as possible to have that experience and my trees are making that easy. Of course, I will give away as much fresh fruit as I can but you know pears...they do not last long. So I will also busy myself canning, probably could make 36 jars of both kinds ...no problem ...and  will give most of them away. I love having this mini-purpose.

Inspiring me to make pickles and salsa too!!! It is a joy to take what nature offers, and using these bodies that were meant to labour, preserve and share its bounty.

All is well!

Learning To Let Go of Preferences

 The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

Third Zen Patriarch

"Sensory perceptions", "Thoughts", "Feelings", Emotions", "Judgements", "Views", and "Actions".

Instead...

Wouldn't it be great if, instead of getting lost in the story and drama of the mind when things go wrong, we could just notice and group whatever comes up under one of these categories of mental formation/modification?  Instead of  allowing the narrative to take off when someone, for example,  stands you up, instead of allowing yourself to get lost in the starring role of that drama with, "I can't believe they didn't show up!  How rude!  Man, they are so inconsiderate.  I have been such a good friend and they treat me like this??? Imagine! That is so bad, so wrong.  It shouldn't be!",  you could simply watch and label it as "Thought! " 

Wouldn't it be awesome if instead of getting all worked up when you  form judgments, you could just say "Judgement!" ?

Wouldn't it be cool if when you feel the drama build up in your body...a knot forming in your gut, hands closing into fists as you begin to pace back and forth, when there is the feeling of agitation and discomfort , you could just say "Bodily Sensation!" ?

When you notice  the typical anger and resistance towards  the incident brewing inside, you could just say, "Emotion!"?

When you call someone else just to complain.  "They didn't show up!  They always do this...they are so inconsiderate." You could just say "Reacting!"? 

When you catch yourself   looking for pity and validation for your "self"  in the starring role of this drama as righteousness victim, you could just say "seeking to strengthen ego identity".  

When you get what you want from the other and it is giving you an identity, a certain power, you could just say, "Wrong Collective View! " ?

When the anger builds as you tell  yourself you have a "right" to it, and you call the person who didn't show up. When they do not answer you hear your mind saying "Oh they forgot about me, did they? Of course, that is just like them!", prompting you to leave a nasty, nasty message on their phone and storm off....you could say "Wrong Action."?

Normal To React

We don't tend to do that though, do we? Instead of just noticing the tendency of the mind to react a certain way, instead of noticing the conditioned reaction to sensory perceptions, instead of noticing the bodily response, the thoughts, the feelings , the emotions and the judgments as an objective observer and "learning" from it...most of us allow ourselves to get pulled right in.  Ego-self  often gets louder than our calm, wise  Self.  We get pulled in and we close off the connection to wise Self. 

Another Story...

Now, after you spend hours fuming and lost in the drama your mind created, you find out that the person who was supposed to show up got in an accident on their way to you, how would you respond then?  You would lose yourself in another drama, another reaction  wouldn't you? One where you are the villain, not the victim. 

Normal but Not Necessary

Do not beat yourself up for this reactivity.  It is a very "normal" conditioned tendency most of us have within us. You are not alone and most people would empathize and sympathize with your plight, agreeing that you are indeed the victim or the villain. But it  serves absolutely no one when we react in this way when things are not as we prefer them to be. 

Preference Is The Problem

It is our preference, and our desire for things of the external world to be a certain way that leads us into this mess..  When we slip from observer to victim or villain in our mental stories, we do what most of the population does but it is so unnecessary and so unwholesome. 

Learning When Things Go Wrong

The good news is we can use this reactivity as a learning opportunity! When things go wrong, when things are not as we prefer them to be, we can take a step back and observe how the mind is working. We can simply watch it and at some point instead of closing up to the experience with our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, emotions, judgements, views and actions...we simply "don't close!" We allow it all to be exactly as it is and simply observe. We learn! 

We can learn to stop reacting, to go deeper, to stop preferring  from every less than preferrable situation we experience. 

All is good. 

Let's be grateful for all those occasions when things go wrong.  They are always an opportunity for going deeper....It is always miraculous to suddenly realize you can be free of externals, as far as your inner state is concerned. 

Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle () Staying Present When Something Goes Wrong: A Meditation With Eckhart Tolle.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXXmvcYCG34.

Michael A. Singer. What Do You Really Want? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-9j3AjdO3E

Ailing Soul; Ailing Body

 The soul suffers when the body is diseased or traumatized, while the body suffers when the soul is ailing.

Aristotle

My soul is ailing.

I feel pain in my body and it says so much. My body, my container,  that has been storing all this corrosive junk inside me...that has been so busy using the mind, its master switch, to squeeze those hoses tightly to prevent more "bad" from coming in,  therefore inadvertently  limiting the  infusion of joy into my experience over the course of my life, over the last few years, especially the last few months...resulting in a mere dribbling of what I am able to give...is breaking down.  I know that. 

In my awareness, I am merely witnessing it...no longer feeling the need to call out to the mechanics to come and fix it.  I put myself in shut down mode and I am simply observing what is...wondering if  this container is repairable or if it is approaching its expiration date. Is it time for a replacement? There is no fear...just a questioning.

Hmm! I am just observing.  I am not clinging or grasping or resisting any longer. I am just noticing and allowing. In this "shut down" I know a lot of toxic sludge is rising from the bottom and coming up making the experience of Life I am perceiving and offering a little more  contaminated, darker and heavier than I want it to be...but the sludge has to come out. It is the soul's wish. Whether there is any hope for restoring this container or not...I want it to be clean and spacious inside. The residue has to be flushed out so I can experience that spaciousness of what I really am. 

All is well

The Process of Life

 The Good Life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination. 

Carl Rogers

Containers in the Life Factory

I just had this image of me as a big container( the body) in a factory for the  experience of the "Good" Life...abundant, joyful, loving Life. 

In this factory, I am simply one container of 7 billion that look kind of like me, and trillions and trillions of others that don't. The whole purpose of this factory of "life" is to create  a full experience  that the factory owner can enjoy through us.  We in turn get to enjoy it too as important instruments in this factory...as important elements of it. We are shareholders in the company that created us.  We are the company and the finished product...not separate containers.  Each and everyone of us is the whole. 

Form in Space

What appears to be important in this factory is the "form"...that which makes each container and all other structures in this factory , that which appears to separate each structure from the "other". Yet the whole structure was built in space and within each container is that space and each atom of form that creates the "appearance" of this factory is space...Spacious emptiness is what makes this factory what it is. Yet, in limited awareness, we can only perceive the "form".  Because we can not see the One Unifying space, we see each container as separate from the other instead of the "whole" and tend to believe that is the way it is. 

The Individual Container

Like every other container, there is a hose going into "me" ( the name the container gives itself)  and a hose going out.  Everything that enters is meant to mix together and then flow through leaving no residue. We are given the amazing opportunity, as individual  containers to  experience this process with great joy and love. 

The Secret Recipe

The factory design is perfect leading to the perfect product. There is a recipe being used that  we cannot "know"  with our limited minds. The creator knows that recipe well, which ingredients to add to each individual container to create the perfect mixture that will l add to the "whole" when it leaves us.  This process is a  perfect one surviving billions and billions  of years. 

The Desired Ingredients

So many wonderful , "pleasant" sensations and feelings flow into us  from the  life circumstances we encounter in order to create the full experience. They flow through the hose that says "in". They add tremendous texture and taste to what we "personally" experience and to what comes out of us, intent on making the finished product amazing and delightful for all other containers, for the factory, and for the factory creator.   If , however, we are not fully mature and aware of the factory's mission statement, our job description, and  our connection to all other containers on the team, we may become a little self absorbed, imaging it is all about us. We may come to believe  that we are the center of this every changing factory. We may then be  tempted to  keep some of the "good" feelings inside our containers for our "little personal selves". We may become extra  alert in our attention and selection of the stuff that comes in, determined to get as much of the good stuff we can, grasping and clinging and holding onto the desired ingredients instead of letting it all flow through us. When we do that we are not fulfilling  our role, our purpose and we therefore fail to serve the factory. When we fail the factory we do not serve the others in it and we ultimately do not serve ourselves. We do not enjoy the process.

The Unwanted ingredients

The mixture of Life  we are intended to help create requires a variety of different experiences to come into us through that "in" hose. Many are tasty and desirable. Some of the ingredients that go into the mixture, however, are not always pleasant and may even be seen as painful, dangerous, toxic and corrosive to our insides if they do not flow through as quickly as they come in. These ingredients of anger, pain, fear, confusion, sadness, loss..., however,  are so necessary for the full experience of Life that the manufacturer is trying to produce through us. Still, if we are not aware of our true purpose in this factory, if we begin to believe that we are just separate containers, randomly placed here or there,  and not an integral part of a whole complex network...we may get lost in the  desires of "self". We may then attempt to block this "potentially painful" stuff from coming in...squeezing these hoses as tightly as we can or pushing the "slush of pain and suffering" down into the bottom of our container so we do not experience it. When we do that these important ingredients  do not mix well with all the other important ingredients of Life  and they do not flow through as they are meant to. The toxic slush accumulates inside us, corroding and damaging our insides living a thick residue instead of spaciousness. The  hoses also become so plugged and constricted that  even the ingredients we want are unable to flow through. We close ourselves off from receiving from Life all that is and therefore our "output" of Life is so greatly diminished. 

The Neutral Ingredient

There are so many "neutral" ingredients  that are meant to flow through too...and because of their elemental nature may flow through easily. If we are too busy looking for the "bad" or the "good" the neutral can slip by  without us even noticing them.  If we do not "notice" them, they will not mix with the other ingredients well and our "output" will be lacking in holistic quality. Neutral ingredients are just as important in creating our experience of Life as are the others. 

All Ingredients and Sticking to the Recipe

Every single ingredient is called for in this recipe to ensure a quality product. All ingredients of sensation, feeling, experience are meant to come in, mix quickly with each other in our awareness, and flow out. As long as we see ourselves as separate containers , fending for ourselves, desiring and clinging to some ingredients ,denying or pushing down others we alter the recipe. We get in the way, preventing the intended product from being experienced. We are interfering with Life! We can create great suffering for ourselves and others when we do that...when we think we know better and try to alter  the the original design. We do not know better than God!

Can you see yourself as a container with an "in" hose and an "out" hose? If so, what kind of product is coming out of you?  Is it the miraculous one that was intended for you? Are you expressing Life in its full mystery and beauty? Or have you altered the recipe? 

Altered the Recipe

I can see myself as a container...meant to be full of the space on which this factory was created, meant to have a free flow of experience "in"  and an undiluted flow of experience "out" as I remain "empty"...but that is not the way it is.  

I know the hose that is there to let the good stuff flow in is  pretty closed off to receiving.  I have a big clot of  unworthiness blocking the flow, and a kink brought on by squeezing it  in order to stop any more "bad" from coming in.  This   keeps the "good" from flowing in freely.  Yet the negative  still gets through a channel of "deserving of punishment" .  I see myself as an independent container left to my own devices, not worthy to handle the "good" ingredients and deserving of  the toxic feelings of the "bad". With this wrong view ,I have altered the recipe big time.  I am lacking in enjoyment and have overabundance in toxic sludge.   My mixture is way off balance. Though I sincerely want to give. and fulfill a purpose here...what comes out of "me" from the hose that says "out" is often coming out in pathetic  dribbles. Or it comes out contaminated  with the toxic sludge of past pain that floats to the top from the bottom of "me" .  Like many of the containers,  I am full of sludge when I am meant to be clean and spacious. I am corroding on the inside, and pinched off to allowing more of the positive in.  I have altered Life's recipe, Life's design big time.  I created a mess where there was supposed to be nothing but inviting space for all experiences to flow in  and out of "me".  This new stuff that I created with my grasping and my resistance is so thick, it barely flows. Still, I am desperately trying to give from the small dribbles that come out of me. Obviously, it is not enough.  I am not serving the other containers, I am not serving Life and I am not serving myself. The version of this recipe I created with my need to fix and control Life...is hurting "me"!

Allowing the Boss to take Over

So what does one do when they realize they have goofed up in the factory and are not producing what they could produce?  They give the controls back to the factory Creator. They allow the boss to take over. 

A "shut down" may be called for so that all containers can be repaired and cleaned out. That "shut down" is a stopping in our doing, our achieving, our fixing and controlling. We find that "shutdown" in stillness. We use mindfulness and meditation to open those "in" hoses to all that is...the pleasant, unpleasant and the neutral.  We remind ourselves that we don't know the recipe. We don't know what ingredients are required to create the  finished product....we do not need to.  We do not have to "do" anything but let it in. We can simply experience it all coming through us exactly as it is meant to . We allow it inside and we mix it with mindful awareness.  We cling to none of it.  allowing all of it  and then when it is mixed with awareness we let it all go. When it goes, the toxic sludge we have stored inside will go too...we let it.  We cling to none of it.  We make a clean and spacious inner container our priority for the sake of the factory, for the sake of the finished product, for  the sake of all other containers and for the sake of our own happiness.  We just allow it all to flow through, enjoying the process as we do.

Hmm! Well that is what came to mind.

All is well. 

Who is listening?

 Who is looking when you have no labels for your perception or when you're listening to a bird or the sound of the ocean? ....Who is listening? Are you there, a person, with a history, that is listening or is there a deeper I that has emerged  and the sensory perception is happening against the background of or in the deep space of that deep I?  In which case, you could say that  the universe is listening to itself, ...suddenly that listening is an enormous addition to the universe. The universe is awakening to itself, to its own depth. and its own beauty through you. But you can only fulfill that function...if you are not excessively burdened, excessively trapped in your personalized sense of self. 

Eckhart Tolle

In the early beginner guided mindfulness videos, that I do at this point mostly for practice, I neglect, intentionally, to ask that very profound question: Who is looking and listening?  I just want the individual to simply look and listen without judgement first...I want them to practice doing that before we get to the point where they can start becoming  aware of being aware. 

This ancient wisdom that Tolle passes on in his video can be life changing and freeing when we are ready to realize that truth.  Of course, that notion of getting beyond our personalized version of self is a part of the equation here.  The universe can not listen to the sound of the ocean through us if our overactive minds are in the way.

Anyway, it is all good.

EckhTolle (August, 2022) What is the Main Purpose of Your Life? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5NFgN-djJQ