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PeterParticipantTee
I resonate with that. One breath I’m connected and ‘know’ and the next not so much.
In those moments when I struggle I remind myself of TS Eliot’s words
“I ask my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”(Sometimes the Lords Prayer which can be a ‘centering prayer’ when G_d isn’t projected outward, as it establishing ones place were we are both ‘smaller then small AND bigger then big’ in every moment)
I note that Stillness and waiting is a important notion in re-connecting to that ‘knowing’ of Self in the path of meditation and or ‘contemplation and action’ – A kind of a ‘Wu Wei’ – the creating of space for the happening to happen…
Always found those story’s of instant enlightenment fun and wondered how often or if those who experienced that needed to experience that moment over and over again – perhaps till the realization that the present moment isn’t a slice of time or space. 🙂
PeterParticipantThanks Tee for the introduction to Dr. Tori Olds. Makes me feel more hopeful for the future when I discover persons like Dr. Tori Olds.
I’ve been exploring ‘contemplation’ which also evolves the notion of the compassionate observer as a path to the capital S Self experience.
I have also hoped that G_d cares… loves me… lately when that thought arises, the notion that ‘I am’ It… as everyone is It (the drop of water also contains the ocean – As above so below, as below so above – our person are “maps” to the above as the above reveals the person) Anyway when that hope arises I wonder if I’m asking if ‘I’ care and love ‘me’ in the moment when the thought arises.
When Jung was asked the question if he believed in G_d (G_d-Christ – Brahman-Atman – capital S -Self) he replied that he did not believe because he knew. He was highly criticized for that answer and he didn’t explain himself as far as I know. But I think that having had the experience of the capital S Self it isn’t something you believe or hope for its something you ‘know’ (To know not intellectually but from the source of the Self which is also what Dr. Tori Olds hinds at when she talks of the Mind that is free.) Joseph Campbell also hints at the ‘knowing’ verses believing in his dialogs. I’d go so far as to suggest that all the wisdom traditions, when not viewed as a set of rules, reveal the same truths.
PeterParticipantHi Brandy
Memory is a trickster so its not something I can be certain of. At the time that experience and others engendered questions more then answers not that I was fully mindful of that. At the age when Life happens I think such questions are filed away and it is only in hindsight that I sense that the questions were… being worked on. Having often fallen into the trap of indifference while trying to convince myself it was healthy detachment, I wonder about that period of my life.
Hi Tee
Thanks for the Youtube recommendation. Intriguing thought that ‘what’ observes the parts is the true self
PeterParticipantRichard Wagamese – says it better
“From our very first breath, we are in relationship. With that indrawn draft of air, we become joined to everything that ever was, is and ever will be. When we exhale, we forge that relationship by virtue of the act of living. Our breath commingles with all breath, and we are a part of everything. That’s the simple fact of things. We are born into a state of relationship. Relationships never end; they just change. In believing that lies the freedom to carry compassion, empathy, love, kindness and respect into and through whatever changes. We are made more by that practice.”
The sound of one hand clapping – Aum
PeterParticipantHi Brandy, I’ve often wonder if perhaps if what I experienced was a healthy detachment or a dissociation to protect myself. Could both be true at the same time?
I was reading about the Enneagram. Its suggests that you can’t change the type that you are. The task is to be mindful of your type so one might better spot its traps and gifts. A odd point they made was that though you can’t change your type it wasn’t the natural type you were born with. At some point something confronts our world view which causes us to compensate our natural type to our survival type. (Suggesting that Type can change however it seems when our blank slate of our natural being is written on its a WORM type programing – Wright Once, Read Many.) Since posting that memory I can’t help but think that moment was more impactful then I have considered. Seems detachment is the superpower of my Type but it is also its kryptonite, more comfortable as a observer then someone that engages in life and a hard lesson that indifference likes to disguise itself as detachment.
Enjoyed your post Tee. Perhaps it comes down to noticing when we have emotions and when our emotions have us. I might also argue that like our emotions the ‘ego’ has a important role to play in becoming. (also need to notice when our ego has us.) Seems we are more then the sum of our parts.
Read somewhere that the SELF is a circle without circumference which center is everywhere – each person, small s self (each thing?), is the center of the circle without circumference, the SELF – (G_d, Brahman-Atman…) When we look for the self we do not find it because were It only imagining ourselves separate from It. (Allan Watts like to joke the the Self liked to forget that it was IT so that it could delight It Self when It remembered… or something like that)
To love our neighbor as ourselves isn’t then a reflection of how we love ourselves, or not only that, but that our neighbor is also It and so also our Self. Begs the question what is Mind? LOL
PeterParticipantA refreshing post
Reminded me of a high school moment. A Summer night I was with group of friends and girl friend who sometime during the night was making out with another close friend of mine. What I remember is my other friends being concerned as they assumed I knew and I remember thinking oh they need me to be upset. That night as I lay in bed that night I had this odd sensation wondering where emotions came from. It wasn’t that I wasn’t hurt, disappointed… mostly confused, emotions were present but not.
In that moment its possible I was in a kind of shock were I dissociated myself from the experience, only in bed that night I remember it more as a moment of clarity – we experience emotions for many reasons, but we are not our emotions.
Begging the questions what are these things we call emotions and where and what was this thing I experienced as ‘self’ that experienced them.
PeterParticipantI don’t think its a stretch. What your describing sounds a lot like repression which for sure trigger anxiety attacks. Not surprising a some part of you knows whey a larger part of you does not want to know – blocking flow – experienced heart palpitations and all the stuff assoicated with that.
My untrained guess is that the unconscious issue that you would prefer not to make conscious is something to do with the notion of death. If so facing your fear and concept of death, making that conscious should help reduce the number and or intensity of future anxiety attacks.
PeterParticipantHi Jamie
Your posts are well written and articulate. It seems to me that within your writing are also your answers? “I enjoy writing” that could be a great place to explore?
Happiness, one of those words with so many associations, something we so badly want to grasp and cling to, where the grasping and clink transforms it into something else… usually not happiness. The word certainly comes with a lot of baggage let alone when we add the word ‘BUT’. I want to be happy, but….
I’ve often used that phrase in the past. I want to be happy… but… but I’m afraid to be… but I don’t think I deserve to… but life isn’t how it should be, could be, if only (ego, control)… but I don’t want to be disappointed when the moment of happiness passes….. Have you ever wondered about this one? I want to be happy… but what if I’m happiest when I’m unhappy?
We are complex simple creatures. Of course all these notions are stories, perhaps at some level illusions of our own creation. Stories we tell because at some time they are/were useful to us but perhaps now are habit. (A practice of meditation and contemplation can help detach from our habit of thought.)
The task, as you are engaged in, is to look past the stories and words to get to a place where you are (you are never not thier), and from that place find a way to say YES. Yes to yourself, your situation, your emotions, your thoughts, non of which are you. Those are just things you get to experience. The good and the bad, experiences with labels that don’t exist in a world that is non-dual and everything is connected.
If I may a comment on your statement: ” We don’t need to be kind and loving to toxic people, to people who abuse us and put us down. Instead, we need to set boundaries with them. Likewise, we don’t need to be kind to selfish, self-centered people, who only care about themselves. You can be kind and loving, but wisely, with boundaries.”
Just something I noticed with your conclusion “You can be kind and loving, but wisely, with boundaries”. Implies that creating healthy (wise) boundaries is a act of love and kindness for oneself and the other even those that have hurt us (the other is also ourselves) to which I agree and suggest a path to become unstuck from your question? To set healthy boundaries with your thoughts, your past, your hopes… is a loving act you can gift yourself? ( Boundaries that don’t require labeling, if only’s , should of, could of… toxic, selfish…. One can set healthy boundaries without labeling)
Happiness I think, like Joy, isn’t something we create but a something in a moment we get to sometimes experience and if we are wise express our gratitude for, breath in, breath out…
Happiness not something we want (desire) but create space for, no but’s… a extra place setting at the table if you will.
I hope you keep writing
PeterParticipantJOSEPH CAMPBELL: And the moral is that the realization of your bliss, your true being, comes when you have put aside the, what might be called passing moment, with its terror and with its temptations and its statement of requirements of life, that you should live this way.
BILL MOYERS: What is that story about and I forget where it comes from about the camel and then the lion, and along the way you lose the burden of youth?
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: The three transformations of the spirit. That’s Nietzsche. That’s the prologue to Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
BILL MOYERS: Tell me that story.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: When you are a child, when you are young and a young person, you are a camel. The camel gets down on its knees and says, “Put a load on me.” This is obedience. This is receiving the instruction, information that your society knows you must have in order to live a competent life. When the camel is well loaded, he gets up on his feet, struggles to his feet, and runs out into the desert, where he becomes transformed into a lion. The heavier the load, the more powerful the lion. The function of the lion is to kill a dragon, and the name of the dragon is “Thou Shalt.” And on every scale of the dragon there is a “Thou Shalt” imprinted. Some of it comes from 2,000 years, 4,000 years ago. Some of it comes from yesterday morning’s newspaper headline. When the dragon is killed, the lion is transformed into a child, an innocent child living out of its own dynamic. And Nietzsche uses the term, ein aus sich rollendes Rad, a wheel rolling out of its own center. That’s what you become. That is the mature individual.
The “Thou Shalt” is the civilizing force, it turns a human animal into a civilized human being. But the one who has thrown off the “Thou Shalts” is still a civilized human being. Do you see? He has been humanized, you might say, by the “Thou Shalt” system, so his performance now as a child is not simply childlike at all. He has assimilated the culture and thrown it off as a “Thou Shalt.” But this is the way in any art work. You go to work and study an art. You study the techniques, you study all the rules, and the rules are put upon you by a teacher. Then there comes a time of using the rules, not being used by them. Do you understand what I’m saying? And one way is to follow…and I always tell my students, follow your bliss. (satcitananda – reality consciousness bliss – you are IT and not that)
PeterParticipant“Passion makes most psychiatrists nervous” – Joseph Cmpbell
Hi William
My suspension is that like Joy, Passion isn’t something one seeks as if it can be grasped but a experience that one might be surprised by in the moment.
The metaphor of the crossroads suggests the duality of choice of either or and that one path would be better then the other. If only we could know which one. (leading to anxiety and fear) Such measuring suggestive of the future moment when you will look back on the past and wonder if only or what might have been if I turned left instead of right, or maybe turned 180 or some other degree of a turn? It is in this moment that we imagine the future moment where we think back on the past moment where we pondered the notion of the crossroads through the eyes of a possible regret that we chose wrong.
The crossroads, I think implies a assumption that if we could just figure out all the angles and control them, bend them to our will (ego) as we imagine things could be ‘if only’ we make all the right choices… and then just maybe they will lead to this thing call passion. The crossroads were the past is always gone, the present never stays and the future never comes – We are undone before we begin when what we are looking for is something we already have/are but do not see.
I like what Joseph Campbell had to say when you talked about Bliss (satcitananda) – “if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
Something I have learned over time is that whatever choices you make, nothing you learn is waisted and will most likely lead you down paths you never imagined. Follow your heart, your ‘satcitananda’ with passion as best you can and enjoy the ride. You are the answer to your question. Dance
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown.” Alan Watts
PeterParticipantThanks Brandy that was nicely put.
PeterParticipantThe first time I heard the notion of centering prayer it was in connection to the notion of contemplation leaving me to wonder what the difference was between Meditation, Contemplation, Prayer – Centering prayer.
I haven’t found clear answers however my thoughts are that the general difference between meditation and contemplation is that meditation is a emptying (decent) that can creates space for the state of contemplation which isn’t so much as about thinking and words but a non-dual listening – Which is similar to a state centering prayer leads to which is a prayer that we don’t make happen, No intention other then having eyes to see and ears to hear, no ego or beseeching...) but a happening resting in and arising from stillness/silence.
My experience has been that centering prayer often transitioned to contemplation which transitioned to meditation then back to contemplation and centering. The Common thread being a emptying and ungrounding which paradoxically lead to experience of being centered.
A Zen master might say nothing was attained. Not that the experience was not experienced only that the experience was is always present… for those with eyes to see and ears to hear… put another way we return home to see it for the first time, and that we work for that which no work is required, nothing is attained because each of us have always had and are it.
But another way, Einstein noted that the same level of consciousness that notices a problem won’t be the same level of consciousness that solves it. The tenancy is to try to ascend our way out of the problem by thinking our way into a new level of consciousness, to use the mind to grasp the mind, the eye to see the eye. However new levels of consciousness can not arise from ascending but only from first descending of which meditation, contemplation and centering prayer are aids.
In the end language is problematic. I appreciate the space to wonder. 🙂
PeterParticipantHi Lisa
Its clear your hurting, please know that you have been heard.
I’d like to comment on your last post
It doesn’t matter how hard I work. It doesn’t matter how much I care. It doesn’t matter how much time I devote to something. I will never be successful if the people around me do not want to see success.
That reads like your measurement of success is being determined by others? Which gives these others allot of power over you, power that is not thier to have or maybe even not want. (If I’m being honest when I give away my power to others it usually in a subconscious attempt to exert power over them, to get them to like and approve of me which is also a power game.) Either way the task would be to take your power back. I know easier said then done. A first step may be to tell us what does success look like to you, what would it feel like. Is their any connection to your vision of success to how you view others viewing you?
Movement creates Life, Stillness creates Love, to be Still, yet still Moving is everything. – Do Hyun Choe
I like that play on words, Still yet still Moving. Life ups and downs surrounded and supported by a calm compassionate Love, a love that includes self love. That is the sound of AUM…
“Aum” is a word that, what can I say, represents to our ears that sound of the energy of the universe, of which all things are manifestations. And “Aum”, it’s a wonderful word, it’s written A-U-M. You start in the back of the mouth, Ah, and then, Ooh, you fill the mouth, and M-m-m, closes it, the mouth. And when you have pronounced this properly, all vowel sounds are in that pronunciation: “Aum”. And consonants are regarded simply as interruptions of “Aum”, and all words are thus fragments of “Aum”, as all images are fragments of the form of forms, of which all things are just reflections. And so “Aum” is a symbol, a symbolic sound, that puts you in touch with that throbbing being that is the universe.
And when you hear some of these Tibetan monks that are over here from the Rgyud Stod monastery outside of Lhasa, when they sing the “Aum,” you know what it means, all right That’s the zoom of being in the world. And to be in touch with that and to get the sense of that, that is the peak experience of all. “Ah-ooh-mm.” The birth, the coming into being, and the solution to the cycle of that. And it’s just called the four-element syllable. What is the fourth element? “Ah-ooh-mm,” and the silence (stillness) out of which it comes, back into which it goes, and which underlies it.
Now, my life is the “Ah-ooh-mm,” but there is a silence (stillness) that underlies it, and that is what we would call the immortal. This is the mortal, and that’s the immortal, and there wouldn’t be this if there weren’t that. — Joseph Campbell
If you want to hear AUM, just cover your ears and you’ll hear it. Of course, what you are hearing is the blood in the capillaries, but it’s AUM: Ah – waking consciousness; ou – dream consciousness; and then, mmm – the realm of deep, dreamless sleep.
AUM is the sound of the radiance of G_d (transcendence).
The point is that this AUM heard in silence informs all things. All things are manifestations of it. Now you are inward turned.The secret to having a spiritual life as you move in the world is to hear the AUM in all things all the time. If you do, everything is transformed. You no longer have to go anywhere to find your fulfillment and achievement and the treasure you seek. It is here. It is everywhere. (You are It, as am I) — Joseph Campbell
Movement is Time creating Life – AUM – immerging from and returning to Stillness which is eternity creating Love, supporting Life – AUM
PeterParticipantNeedless to say our on again, off again history gives me hope that one day she will let me back into her life
Having been were you are I can’t help but wonder if at some level we invite the experience of being abused. Is that karma… as in our actions create results and we ought not be surprised when they do.
Zen Buddhism suggests that suffering arises when we want things to be other than how they are and that where there is hope, there is fear and where there is fear there is hope. Two sides of the same coin where the two can’t be separated from each other. Non duality has us imagine that by naming a pair of opposites a coin we have solved the problem of duality… only we can’t help ourselves from picking the coin up, flipping it into the air and calling heads OR tails and so we suffer. We hope to escape fear and wonder why fear keeps chasing us.
The Way suggests that freedom from fear is to become hopeless, which goes against almost every thing we have been taught. You got to have hope… right? OR maybe, what if, Liberated from hope and fear, we are free to discover clarity and energy in the present moment.
If we think about it our notion of hope almost always involves looking backwards to some unwanted past we wish to change or to some imagined future where where we can get Life to work out as we would have it be (read ego/control). Keeping us stuck flipping coins, this time for sure, in only, maybe, what if, should of, could of.. so we suffer.
What would your contact with your friend look like without the baggage of the hope/fear coin?
In Zen the notion of hopelessness is not the same notion as despair. That’s something we have been taught to believe, something I’ve bought into, only now I’m not so sure. Giving up the hope/fear coin is about learning to sit in, leaning into impermanence, groundlessness and uncertainty, which is actually the reality of everyone moment. Without the coin, being in that moment as is, eyes open.
Without mistaking the notion of ‘hopelessness’ with not having intentions or goals, Imagine yourself not feeling as if you must hope something… what a wonderful freeing feeling!
Imagine not living in this limbo of hope/fear and being honest with your friend. The history suggests your not going to be happy with the answer but at least you will know one why or the other. If you decide that that is not a risk your willing to take, fearing that you might lose what you have, then enjoy what you have as it is without the need for the hope/fear coin. You suffer either way however at least it would be a honest suffering.
Reading over the last I suspect I have been advising myself with regards to my own situation.. a exercise which I find oddly cathartic…. If I come off harsh I apologize.
PeterParticipantMy story is a sad one of half a lifetime that has been ruined by my inability to deal with my situation.
It may be more accurate to say that you are dealing with your situation only not achieving the desired results… though you are likely achieving the subconscious ones. Maybe its semantics but in my opinion how we tell our story is important. In the end its the story we live in not the moment of life as it is, which is a reason we suffer.
I like how Richard Wagamese put it: “Life is hard. There are challenges. There are difficulties. There is pain. As a younger man, I sought to avoid pain and difficulty and only caused myself more of the same. These days, I choose to face life head-on — and I have become a comet. I arc across the sky of my life, the hard times are the friction that shaves off the worn and tired bits. The more I travel head-on, the more I am shaped, and the things that no longer work or are unnecessary drop away.
It’s a good way to travel. I believe eventually I will wear away all resistance, until all that’s left of me is light.”I’ve been looking into the Zen notion of non-duality and spontaneity and what that means with regards to facing life head on, as it is. Uncertainty, doubt, fear, suffering these are things when faced the impulse is to back or even run away. The Way suggestion is to lean in. Funny its the same advice you get in the military when you find yourself ambushed, turn into the ambush and press into it.
Funny / Sad we suffer more from the stories we tell then from the actually happening. If true, a task on the path is to master ones stories, vice letting the stories master you. Either way you will suffer… still depending on the path you just might end up with better stories. Keep an eye out for victim and villain stories, thier often a sign of justifications, projections, shadow…. all the things we do in order to suffer in place and stay stuck.
Just as it is often the case that we are sad because we are sad, we suffer because we are suffering. Begs the question if its possible we suffer more form the notion of suffering then from the event where we were disappointment by a desire not turning out as we hoped and or willed it might.
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 