I’ve enjoyed following the conversation.

“He knows the way through the desert and many people follow him. But they get tired following”

When Gautama becomes Buddha and returns he recognizes his task is to teach what cannot be taught. I think he knew we tend to mistake the path and teachings as the destination. Meditation by a still lake, so wonderful who would not want to stay but meditation is not the destination. The teaching is not the destination.

In Christianity I often wonder how many worship a book as being G_d. The words as the destination. But I do not find that a moment of rest though it may be a necessary part of the journey. As goes the saying one must lose God to find G_d.  Similar I think to “If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”

Dancing is a great teacher. When learning to dance your are not dancing, that ok learning is necessary. Dancing happens when you get to forget what you leaned and Dance. What you learned will be their if you trust the body, ears… the body always new how to dance. The mind only necessary to notice the moment.  But the mind will want to step in, judge it. the mind is too slow to dance. So easy to mistake the studio, the community the classes, the learning as the destination.

Next time you are meditating and stressed watch parts are you are not relaxed, where does your stress rest on your body? Where is your mind, where is your breath. There is no judgment,  just noticing, the mind quiets or it doesn’t, you are not your mind.

Being relaxed when Meditating is great Meditating while not relaxed is better. 🙂

A friend of mine had a experience/vision in which she felt connected to every thing. She described it as being very vivid, colorful… and being loved, of being Love.  She didn’t use the words enlightened.  She told me that as time passed she fell into depression. How to return and hold on to such a experience. She  suspected part of the problem was the holding on which was really a desire to remain. The view from the top of a mountain is wonderful but the oxygen is thin. We aren’t intended to live onto a mountain.

I had a experience equally vivid but not colorful as my experience was complete darkness/emptiness. A emptiness in which there was no fear, no anxiety, a awareness of everything which was no-thing. Perhaps pure consciousness. Like my friend everything/no-thing connected….

And then I thought “I”.

Their is a scene in the Matrix where Neo  enters the void of the matrix (here the void was white) and rows of clothes and weapons appear. The racks coming from nowhere and whizzing by Neo only stopping when he selects a item until he is fully dressed. Once dressed he enters the ‘world of the matrix’

That was what it was like the moment I thought “I” a peace of “clothing” (memory of identity) thrust onto me, forming me and pushed me from the void into the “waking”  world.

With the thought of “I” I remember thinking Nooooooo!!!! as I left the bliss of emptiness and experience of everything, clothing myself in my fears, hopes, anxiety… memory of I.

My memory forming my physical and mental bodies and pulling/pushing me into, I will use the words “waken world”.  Oh how I wanted to longed to go back, longed for home, but life is experienced in the matrix and I was formed to experience it.

I didn’t fall into depression… or maybe I have at times. No experience as been more vivid to my mind

The moment I think “I”…. I wonder if the clothes (and weapons) were chosen by me or for me?

The moment I thought “I”, I thought Noooo… what if I would have thought Yes?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by Peter.

“Before one studies Zen, “mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.” ― Dōgen

Thus we return home and see it for the first time.

What does it mean to be enlightened? To ‘see’ life as it is? Then the challenge would be how we respond to that Do we respond with a detachment leading to indifference or a Detachment that remains fully engaged. The problem of ‘sudden awakening’ what do we do when such a thing is experienced?

In the wisdom traditions its important to remember that words our symbols (the finger that points to the moon is not the moon)  thus the word death can be physical death and or phycological death.

With regards to the book of the dead and reincarnation one could read it as pointing to the now. That we die and are reincarnated many times in a life.  Enlightenment possible with every breath as is rebirth to a lower state of awareness. A ‘sudden awakening‘ could be followed by a ‘sudden un-awakening’

Many associate justice with the word Karma. A person gets what coming to them. Such a desire that karma be justice would be bad karma. 🙂

What is Karma?

We see the world as we are not as it is. Karma the filters/memory through which we see through. Sadhguru argues Karma is memory. “karma is like old software that you have written for yourself unconsciously. And, of course, you’re updating it on a daily basis! Depending on the type of physical, mental, and energetic actions you perform, you write your software. Once that software is written, your whole system functions accordingly. Based on the information from the past, certain memory patterns keep recurring. Now your life turns habitual, repetitive, and cyclical. Over”

Moments of enlightenment are moments when Identity (ego) is detached from memory. One experiences the moment as it is without filters. The martial artist trains so that their reactions are responses. The dancer dances when they stop trying to dance. They ‘forget’ what they learned (no memory)  and allow what the leaned to happen.  The act of free will is a forgetting. detachment, letting go… what ever words work for you,  of will.  = Sudden problems after awakening. Being, Allowing… while  remaining fully engage with life as it shows up.

And perhaps one step further…. “KNOW ” it as Love. Mountains are mountains and waters are waters. You are the mountain, you are the river. ..

Hi Travel (not all that wonder are lost)

The word “nostalgia” comes from two Greek roots: νόστος, nóstos (“return home”) and ἄλγος, álgos (“longing”).

Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own phantasy. Nostalgia a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. At the same time Nostalgia is mourning and or longing for same imagine future that cannot be. The Past become the Future without a Present. And they say Time Travel isn’t possible. 🙂

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Nostaglgia is a kind of wound. The word wound so close to the word wonder; a wound is a wonder. Life opening and then healing itself . “Wounds” an invitation to enter into the raw and real of human life and then to wait for the wonder.

I love the wound of Nostalgia. Hearing a peace of music that sends me back in time to a memory revisited. To see how time flowed from that point. Sometimes painful lessons learned, but having learned something less painful. The wonder of the healing comes from allowing the feelings to flow.

The longing isn’t for the past or some future that cannot be but for home which is in the present. Be Present

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. . . . Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. – Hermann Hess

Eric

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd – The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.” ― Fernando Pessoa

Regret is one such absurd emotion and so as the Buddha noted – Life is suffering even if illusion we make it real.

Is there any way to stop this? How do u guys overcome regret?

All the things: mindfulness, detachment, gratefulness, forgiveness, grief/mourning, physical exercise, eat healthy, sleep, drink water… stopping.

And Or as the Buddha Yoda said – “There is no try only do“.  If regret is getting in your way stop letting it.

Recognized that you can’t change the past and then stop trying to change it.
Recognized that a part of you likes to feel bad about the choices made and not made and  ask yourself what is your payoff for doing so.
Then stop it if you want better… or own it it if you don’t.  Be honest. When you catch your self regressing into regret, take a breath, say hi to the thoughts, have a laugh at the absurdity of the ego desire to feel bad, and let it go.

No experience or anything learned is a waisted, it was as it was to get you to this moment and you are exactly were you need to be to move forward.

I liked Philips Simmons – Learning to Fall: the Blessings of an Imperfect Life

Now I find myself in late August, with the nights cool and the crickets thick in the fields. Already the first blighted leaves glow scarlet on the red maples. It’s a season of fullness and sweet longings made sweeter now by the fact that I can’t be sure I’ll see this time of the year again….

From our first faltering steps we may fall into disappointment or grief, fall into or out of love, fall from youth or health. And though we have little choice as to the timing or means of our descent, we may, as he affirms, “fall with grace, to grace.”

Hi Liz
I have quite a number of friends in the same situation. coming to terms with what cannot be so your not alone.
My own situation is being single with no children which is not quite the same but I can say. I’ve had those nights of anxiety wondering what if, if only… The most painful state of being is remembering a future that can never be.

Can you master this inner pain? Yes. I think a place to start is to honor your experience of loss as it is a loss. Will this pain of this loss fully go away? Maybe not but by honoring what you feel you may discover that you don’t have to clink to the experience of loss and can let it flow.

Not being able to communicate your experience of loss in a safe way with your husband may be part of the reason this loss hurts so much. Anita I think may be able to help you with that.