Hi Wisp

As a fellow overthinker, I can relate to the ‘what if’, ‘should I’ traps. Speaking for myself these traps usually involve control issues and ego. I want to control my enviourment, my experience but mostly to feel safe. You can miss out on quite a bit of life trying to keep safe and avoid anxiety. Of course its anxiety either way. Funny the one place we do have some control, the stories we tell ourselves, we tend not to take. Nothing like the ‘what if’s’ story to take you for a ride.  Do we tell our stories or do our stories tell us?

As a practice I was taught that if you hear yourself using words ‘what if’ to pause, step back and observe.  Notice that we don’t tend to finish the thought, leaving it hanging at the worst thing we can imagine.  At one level we play the ‘what if’ game to reduce anxiety, what if it rains…I will pack my rain gear.  But that only works if we finish the thought and don’t leave the what if hanging.

Of course most of our ‘What if’s don’t appear to have a answer, which is why they hang… what if people don’t like me, what if I make a fool of myself, what if I don’t like what I learn about myself… ahhhh!!!!

Pause, step back, observe.

Notice how these possibilities have always been present in every moment of your life and your still hear. Sometimes they even happened, most times they didn’t, either way you dealt with the situations, sometime well, sometimes not so well, your still here.  Notice that when we look back at the all the things we feared, how many have turned out to be False Evidence Appearing Real (F.E.A.R.).

What if? … I’ll deal with it, as I always have, some times well, sometimes not so well, I’ll learn…

Great thing about the retreat is that I’m pretty sure you meet many others that have the same ‘what if’ and fears as you have, maybe you will even talk about them, maybe not.  Still what if… what if during the retreat you experience a few moments without anxiety or any what if’s? What would that feel like?

Reading your post it seemed to me that a part of you wants that.

Reposted to remove the formatting and make it more readable – wish edits were allowed

I was watching an episode of Yellowstone the other day where the main character made the following statement.

“I spent all evening on the porch staring at mountains, listening to birds… Heart still empty. I take a shower to wash it away like dirt, but you can’t wash lonely off. So, I surrender to it. Best I can do is sleep through the lonely.”

“I can’t reflect at the end of the day. Evenings are for forgetting. But in the morning, I remember.”

Something achingly sad about those words. An emptiness that isn’t empty, I feel and ‘know’ the words. (The emptiness experienced here is not the emptiness as suggested by the teachings of Buddha. We are not falling here but holding on… of course we fool ourselves believing were not falling.)

After hearing those words my first thought was to wonder if ‘loneliness’ was an emotion or state of being? Probably both are true at the same time, yet I’m not sure I experience loneliness as an emotion. I am more likely to say that I feel sad because I’m lonely… In that context is sadness a distraction from looking at the experience of loneliness in the eye? I suspect I pretend I can rather wash lonely off then face loneliness .

On the topic how to deal with emotions I’m wondering how others experience and deal with loneliness

Ever wonder why the Buddha is most often pictured as laughing?  Siddhartha on being ‘enlightened’ – lightened – I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment.” One does not have to be a monk to gain nothing 🙂

Something from Campbell, Myths of Light –

“D.T. Suzuki once remarked, “You know, they tell me when a baby is born, the baby cries. What does the baby say when the baby cries? The baby says, ‘Worlds above, worlds beneath—there is no one in the world like me’” . So, all babies are Buddhas! What’s the difference between Queen Maya’s baby and all the other babies? Siddhartha knew from the beginning that he was Buddha; all the other babies are caught in the illusion of materiality and the worlds of perception and sensation, but not him. Buddha means “The Awakened One” or “The Illuminated One,” and what brings one to illumination other than a deep, penetrating, attention to life, life exactly as it is, an attention to life that allows one to realize that the forces of nature, the pulse of the cosmos, course through and pulse in you, too. The nature of the Universe is your nature as well.”

Hi Mai

Quite the year you are having

In a single year I was dumped, lost connection to my community, the markets crashed, lost my job and no one was hiring. Nothing made sense. The world as I thought and assumed it ought to be was not.  (The question behind the hero’s journey – how will you respond to Life as it Is. Yes? No? – Whoever has eyes, let them see – notice how much of the Journey is about learning to see Life as it is and not as we are….)

I wonder if at some point in life everyone faces such disruption in their lives. Not that knowing that lessens the anxiety, fear, disappointment, disillusionment, frustration, anger, existential angst… a person in that situation experiences.

Turns out existential angst was the one that caused me the greatest distress as I felt forced to question everything. Yet in a way it also proved to be a path out as it forced me ‘down’ where I had to feel and take responsibility for what I believed, felt, and thought. A difference in knowing a definition and ‘knowing’ the experience. Indifference was not an option.

As Phillip Simmons put it ‘Learning to Fall – The Blessings of an Imperfect Life’ It seems the way out isn’t up but down. Both Buddhism and Christianity (kenosis) have the notion of self-emptiness as a path to discover the Self in such moments. A kind of falling upwards, not for the faint of heart as it involves a lot of “dying.”

Something more practical… The two steps I took that year that kept me moving forward was finding a therapist to talk with and taking up ballroom dancing. You can learn a lot about yourself in dance class. A instructor once told me that dancing was a or of falling and catching yourself. (Just reminded myself of a book I read back then – The Art of Falling – by Kathryn Craft (lyrical portrayal of a young woman trying to come to terms with her body and the artistic world that has repeatedly rejected her. The Art of Falling expresses the beauty of movement, the stasis of despair, and the unlimited possibilities that come with a new beginning.)

Something by Phillip Simmons to leave you with (google – learningtofall excerpt – for the full chapter.)
“Think again of falling as a figure of speech. We fall on our faces, we fall for a joke, we fall for someone, we fall in love. In each of these falls, what do we fall away from? We fall from ego, we fall from our carefully constructed identities, our reputations, our precious selves. We fall from ambition, we fall from grasping, we fall, at least temporarily, from reason. And what do we fall into? We fall into passion, into terror, into unreasoning joy. We fall into humility, into compassion, into emptiness, into oneness with forces larger than ourselves, into oneness with others whom we realize are likewise falling. We fall, at last, into the presence of the sacred, into godliness, into mystery, into our better, diviner natures…

I would rather, at least for now, find victory in the falling itself, in learning how to live fully, consciously in the presence of mystery. When we learn to fall we learn to accept the vulnerability that is our human endowment, the cost of walking upright on the earth.

In the northern part of our town there’s a stream that comes down out of the mountains, and at one place that we call the Pothole it makes a pool of emerald clear water ten feet deep. Every summer from my boyhood until quite recently I would climb the rocks high above that pool and fling my body into the air. A summer was not complete without the thrill of that rushing descent, the slap of the water, the shock of its icy embrace. I have a photograph, taken two years ago, of what would prove to be my last such jump. In the foreground, seen from the back, my wife stands waist deep in water, shading her eyes with one hand, watching. She has never approved of this ritual, something most grown men leave behind with their teenage years, but there I am, half way down, pale against the dark rocks that I rush past. You can see my wet footprints on the rock over my head that I’ve just left. My eyes are focused downward on the water rushing toward my feet, and I am happy, terrified, alive.

We are all—all of us—falling. We are all, now, this moment, in the midst of that descent, fallen from heights that may now seem only a dimly remembered dream, falling toward a depth we can only imagine, glimpsed beneath the water’s surface shimmer. And so let us pray that if we are falling from grace, dear God let us also fall with grace, to grace. If we are falling toward pain and weakness, let us also fall toward sweetness and strength. If we are falling toward death, let us also fall toward life.” — Philip Simmons, Learning to Fall

Last night as I lay in bed I wondered if it wasn’t emotions and thoughts keeping me up but the relentless naming. Taking a note from Timar instead of naming I went to that “weight inside… and sort of like press on it” then let it flow… There is a lightness to having a thought or emotion and not feeling a need to name it. There is a time for that, just maybe not all the time. I wondered could the nothingness and emptiness hinted at be just that space that exists before the naming?

That song brought me back. Thanks for that Roberta. Of course, back when I enjoyed the feeling of the song but didn’t really listen…  “mountains are mountains and waters are waters… after, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters”

(Repost to make it easier to read)

A horse with no name
“On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can’t remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain

After two days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
And after three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed
And the story it told of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead

You see I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can’t remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain

After nine days I let the horse run free
‘Cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with its life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love

You see I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can’t remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La la la la la la..

I think you express yourself quite well  Brandy and I relate to what you’re saying. Over the weekend I metaphorically stepped in ‘dog poo’ and did not laugh and instead lost contact and trust in that ‘flow’ (Tao).  Meaning I went for a ‘ride’ and could not manage to get out of my head. Feeling empty but resisting letting myself be ‘empty’ – I felt alone (empty) while filled with expectations, doubt and fears..

I’ve been doing morning yoga and the instructors likes to remind us to return to stillness before starting the next sequence of movements – Ah I thought everything emerging from and returning to stillness (emptiness – Settle the mind, quite the heart, stillness.) I’m, hoping the physical practice becomes a stronger internal mental muscle memory – as above so below, as below so above kind of practice. That when I inevitably ‘step in it’  again, before jumping into the next sequence of movements and thoughts, return to stillness (such a simple thing yet when you ‘in it’ is so difficult to do… even when doing yoga . Guess that’s why they call it a practice. Would be nice to have as a muscle memory, so my reaction to stress would be a response.)

Tao Te Ching references the idea of emptiness, which you point to Helcat.

“Thirty spokes converge on a hup but it’s the emptiness that makes the wheel work.
Pots are fashioned from clay but it’s the hollow that makes a pot work.
Windows and doors are carved for a house but it’s the spaces that make a house work.
Existence makes a thing useful, but nonexistence makes it work.”  – Tao Te Ching

Emptiness a change of perspective on what allows something to be useful and work? The jug useful and working as it is emptied and refilled, empty and refilled… If its never emptied the contents are going to go stale?

“I think there are a lot of us out here who just want to rest in truth and goodness…but where does one find truth and goodness? That’s where our searching leads us.” Well said.

My thought is that compassion may be the key to knowing when were on a helpful path to truth and goodness. Should that be Love? Humm… Seems I find my experience with compassion more trustworthy then love.  Anyone else feel that way?… maybe because compassion is less likely to be attached to desire and the other stuff and things that are usually without emptiness – not useful or working?   Is a act of compassion a act of ‘self’ emptying?

Apologies for the freeform of thoughts, wanted to see where it when

Hi Helcat. I don’t think finding meaning in outcomes is a negative unless if we forget that outcomes must be impermeant. The task then would be able to come to terms with the reality of impermanence.

Brandy, you bring up a challenging thought, what does a person do when the space of self-emptying one is to rest in becomes an uncomfortable feeling or fear of emptiness?

Recalled a story that Pema Chodron tells in her book ‘When Things Fall Apart.’ She was instructing a student on meditation – suggesting a “gentle touch of awareness on the everchanging out-breath, ungraspable and yet continuously arising. When you breathe in, it’s like a pause or a gap. There is nothing particular to do except wait for the next out-breath.”  The student replied – “But that’s impossible! There’s a whole part where there’s nothing to be aware of!” (fear of this emptiness and time of waiting?)  Pema goes on to explain – “This was the first time I realized that built into the instruction was the opportunity to completely let go… meditation as the willingness to die over and over again… as each breath went out and dissolved, there was the chance to die to all that had gone before and to relax instead of panic.”

Latter she goes on to talk about hopelessness and death noting: “Turning your mind toward the Dharma does not bring security or confirmation. Turning your mind toward the Dharma does not bring any ground to stand on. In fact, when your mind turns toward the Dharma, you fearlessly acknowledge impermanence and change and begin to get the knack of hopelessness (emptiness?)… If we’re willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. This is the first step on the path.”

Allan Watts suggested, which I think applies to hope. “The instant we become motivated by fear, we become unfree. So long as the mind believes in the possibility of escape from what it is at this moment, there can be no freedom. When you are freed from being out to improve yourself, your own nature will begin to take over.”  As Dr Old’s suggest one’s own nature being the capital S Self and a practice of hopelessness that involves the realization and embracing ungroundedness. To sit (be) in that still place from which all things arise and return and ‘Be not afraid’?

Movement is time, stillness is eternity.
Movement is what creates life
“Stillness is what creates love,
To be still, Yet still moving
That is everything!” – Do Hyun Choe

“The central point of the world is the point where stillness and movement are together… Movement is time, stillness is eternity. Realizing the relationship of the temporal moment to the eternal—not moment, but forever—is the sense of life… Realizing how this moment in your life is actually a moment of eternity.” Watts

Reminding me of something from – Richard Wagamese

“I Used to believe my body contained my soul. That was fine for a while. But when I started thinking about oneness with Creator (all things), I came to believe that it’s the other way around. My soul (one Soul) contains my body. It is everything that I am. I am never separate from Creator except within my mind. That’s the ultimate truth, and I need to be reminded, to learn again, to learn anew in order to get it. When I do. I know the  truth of why my people say: that we are all spirit, were are all energy, joined to everything that is everywhere, all things coming true together.”  – Richard Wagamese

Then “Nothingness (this moment?) is really like the nothingness of space, which contains the whole universe. All the sun and the stars and the mountains, and rivers, and the good and bad, and the animals, and insects, and the whole bit. All are contained in void. So out of this void comes everything and You Are IT” – Watts

We end where we began. In the circle without circumference and whose center is everywhere – each of us is the center, a center? Nothing and no one is separate and everyone belongs. The present moment is the circle, eternal. Nothing arises, nothing ends, there is nothing to attain as you are and have always been IT. (there is no you, only the circle) Having such a realization there is nothing to fear so no need to hope or worry, nothing to stop a person from engaging in the world? The experience of such a Self, as Dr Olds pointed out, connects the person to the 8 C’s of authentic Being – compassion, confidence, calmness, creativity, clarity, curiosity, courage, and connectedness. From such a center, again nothing to fear?

Well that was fun…. Something to ponder 😊

The monk on hearing the Buddha speak was instantly enlightened, in a state of bliss the monk walks home and steps in dog poo did the moment pass or does he laugh?

Hi Tee

I took TS Eliot’s words as a method of creating the space for beginner’s mind. To let go of what you think you know and how you feel things ought to be and instead – self-empty.

The first time I came across the passage I wondered what he could mean to hope for the wrong thing. Isn’t hope a good thing?

In hindsight on my experience hope I think I can say that more often than not hope for the wrong thing as it only amplified what it was that I wished to avoid.

Then Eliot makes the statement that hope is in the waiting or is waiting which I take as trusting, not knowing, the beginners mind) – a different kind of hope that isn’t hope for a outcome.

The poet Vaclav Havel noted “Hope is a dimension of the soul, an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizon. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.” Hope that acknowledges Life as it is, is, good – transcends duality.

I was latter surprised to learn that there is a Buddhist practice of ‘Hopelessness’. (release of fear)

Pema Chodron spoke of Letting go of Hope. She noted the relationship of hope to fear. The opposite of hope is not hopelessness but fear. Where this is hope there is also fear, that in a world of hope and fear we are always looking for a way out of something that has started to feel uncomfortable.

“Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present.”

Anytime we hope for a certain outcome, and work hard to make it happen we also introduce fear. The fear of failing, fear of loss…. Hopelessness on the other hand is free of fear and thus can be liberating. We no longer associate Hopelessness with despair and instead as a process of waiting – emptying –  Tao – the stillness (silence) from which all things arise and return  – Aum

Thomas Merton also talked of the journey into hopelessness. “Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.” – In the space created in such hopelessness the self observes the Self, the relationship with all – one might say the 8 C’s emerge:  compassion, confidence, calmness, creativity, clarity, curiosity, courage,  and connectedness.