Sunday, May 24, 2020

The Felt Sense of Authenticity

     For many of us, it's obvious that addicts to heroin, alcohol, gambling etc are "looking for love in all the wrong places." These people bet everything that the next hit will make them happy, while we who are not addicted (to these substances) are clearly aware that each hit for an addict is just another step closer to 'rock bottom.'
      After meditating for a while, we may notice something truly surprising. During meditation, after the mind has settled down, and our center of gravity has descended from the storm-clouds of our mind, to our heart and or abdomen (hara), we might experience a subtle sense of kind presence, ease, stillness, warmth, silence & peace. Gradually we might learn that we're able to just rest in this wholesome, natural state of being - feeling, experiencing, BEING rightness, authenticity, kindness & joy. We realize that we actually deserve to rest & directly experience: "Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to be."
     Then suddenly, we're lost again thinking about our old 'story of me,' concerns, anxieties, etc. Now we experience a tone of 'something's off' - unpleasantly familiar yet not really who / what I really am, stress.
     So in daily life we can be 'clean & sober' OR 'addicted.' During meditation we can be kindly aware - as if we were a loving wise grandmother caring for her only beloved 4-year-old grandchild - OR - regretting the past, fretting about the future, & in the process, forgetting or unable to lovingly care for our own life & that of others.
     We can't 'fight, flight, freeze' at the same time as 'tend & befriend' - the two ways of being are mutually exclusive. The former often feels like a life-or-death emergency, shutting / shouting down our much quieter, gentler 'affiliative sensibility.' Sadly, many of us are predominantly in 'fight, flight, freeze.' This is not by choice; is not helpful; & is definitely not sustainable. This emotional pandemic has been around for decades before the current viral pandemic.
     Meditation has a great deal to teach us about how it feels to be authentic vs how it feels when we're being driven by ancient survival instincts & conditioning that no longer benefit us; and how we can learn to gradually live more & more realistically, authentically, freely & with greater joy
     Susan Morgan gave a wonderful talk & guided meditation on this subject on May 29, 2020. This one (& more) can be found here: https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/resources/daily-sit/ OR here: https://www.billandsusan.org/copy-of-daily-sit-april-2020

     Humanity as a whole is gradually waking up, evolving. “What we really want … is for humanity to hold nature sacred again. What we want is to move from a society of domination to one of participation, from conquest to co-creation, from extraction to regeneration, from harm to healing, and from separation to love. And we want to enact this transition in all our relations: ecological, economic, political, and personal. That is why we can say, ‘The revolution is love.’Charles Eisenstein “Extinction and the Revolution of Love.” January 2020 https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/extinction-and-the-revolution-of-love/