Dear Peter:

(Taking a few slow breaths, feeling the pain in my shoulder from tightness, from twitching it, a tic; hearing the tinnitus static noise- so far, no benefits to relaxing- hearing a far away plane in the sky.. pain increasing in my right shoulder, plane or some kind of aircraft getting closer, less pain in shoulder.. exhale.. again, slower.. feeling hungry for the first time this morning, exhale, now to your yesterday post):

“Instead of a frantic seeking of meaning and purpose as a life line to hope“- frantic is the antichrist of calm, not a helpful state of mind. See, right here: my mind goes straight to duality, frantic vs calm. Which is okay (another duality, okay vs not okay), but duality has a very important place (balanced with nonduality) in human life.

“As I open to experience of the eternal within the temporal my breath slows and I experience a calm where the desire to label, measure and judge fades“- it’s a good idea, following a bout of duality-movement- time, as in mine right above, to pause and return to nonduality- stillness-eternity. (Taking slow breaths, hearing the aircraft again, didn’t notice it while under the influence of duality-movement-time).

“It’s not so much ‘movement VS stillness’ as it is ‘movement AND stillness’.  To experience the ‘stillness’ in ones often frantic ‘movements’. I’ve taken up yoga and its wonderful to experience the moment when in a difficult flow you find yourself still“- so, both at the same time, as in the brain moving at the same speed as the body, not faster… not frantically. Not ahead of oneself. I like this (duality: like vs dislike… and stillness: I like it but not too much).

“The go to metaphor for nonduality is that of the coin. Only its not a great metaphor as we can’t help ourselves from picking the coin up, flipping it in the air and calling heads Or tails which immediacy pulls us out of the eternal nonduality (garden) and back into the temporal playground of duality, measurement, judgment… language… ego consciousness“-  oh, so it’s about not being in a rush to pick up the coin; let the coin be still, be still watching the coin. See something other than 2-sides.

“In nonduality its not OR but AND, the coin has no sides! No matter how small a piece you cut off from the coin the piece will contain both, right down to the smallest particles. Here we see the problem of language as language exists in the temporal experience and not in the eternal“- the coin is much more than 2 sides. Duality is over simplifying the complexity, complexity we have no words for.

“We have no words for that which is both up and down, in and out, good and bad, happy and sad, left and right, fast and slow“- we over simplify because we humans are .. not intelligent enough to understand the complexity. I suppose we get to be more intelligent than before when we realize that we are.. not as intelligent as we thought we were.

This explains a whole lot.

“Note how so many of the problems in our connected/disconnected digital social media experience arise because between the 1 and the 0 it’s always 1 Or 0 when our experience is analog, that of the AND. In the digital world it’s Like OR dislike, agree OR not agree, with me Or against me… in the linear digital algorithm it’s the OR that rises to the top of our feeds,  which is not great for connection or the experience of stillness in motion“- brilliant, says I (while being humble about my intelligence as I evaluate the quote above as brilliant).

“It took me decades to discover that teachings are not meant to be believed but experienced. (I am very much of the ‘head’ type)“- yes, experienced.. I see. The “head type” does get ahead of itself, rushing, frantic, crashing into insanity.

“To as you indicate to ‘sit’ in the stories  in that stillness state of being.“- replying here has been a meditative experience for me, one made possible by you, thank you!

anita