Love and Live!

    “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities – brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.” John W. Gardner  

    We are, as Bruce Cockburn sang, "lovers in a dangerous time." We anxiously twitch to echos of the worn out phrase, "It's Do or Die!" in far too many, far too popular blow-em-up action movies, in our own tortured imaginations, and even in the reality of war-torn lands.
    Most of us have almost forgotten our true nature, which is always gently whispering encouragement, "Love and Live!"

“And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts;
a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused,
whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
and the round ocean and the living air, and the blue sky,
and in the mind of man; a motion and a spirit that impels
all thinking things, all objects of thought,
and rolls through all things.” William Wordsworth 

“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.” William Wordsworth

    “How can an Ego that is lost & entangled … find its way out and recover the right relationship to the Self (Universal Consciousness, Ultimate Reality)? The answer is this: since the Ego has become lost through forgetfulness & fear, it can find its way home through the opposite of these two: mindfulness & trust. In its innermost heart, the Ego never fully forgets the Self – the puppeteer – but its memory is dulled, as in sleep. The Ego can be aroused from that sleep and return home to the Self – becoming ‘I myself’ again, like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
    It is important to remember that the Ego is not a third entity in addition to the I and the Self. The Ego always remains the I, but it is an I all shriveled up, because it lacks the expansive awareness of the Self that unites it with every other I.”    David Steindl-Rast. “You Are Here. Keywords for Life Explorers.” Orbis, 2023. EXCELLENT, PROFOUND & PRACTICAL!

    Iain McGilchrist's 2021 two-volume book, "The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World" covers in masterful detail, how we deal with reality in two very different, complementary ways: left-hemispheric dominance (essentially serving the "Ego") and right-hemispheric dominance, with an appropriately subordinate supportive role for the left hemisphere, (essentially serving the "Self").

    “I found out from robots the most crucial rule of all for living. Human minds are constantly being thrown off the track by complications. The picture is rarely clear. We are told everything has buddhanature (Divine Nature), and we try to act accordingly. But then we discover that someone we know has done something perfectly execrable (dreadful, appalling), and we begin to doubt. ‘How,’ we ask ourselves, ‘could anybody who would do an evil thing like that have the Buddha (Divine) inside him?’ We feel that our trust has been betrayed, and we resent the person even more.
    But robots are simpler than people. So are mountains and rivers and plants and animals and insects. Suppose these less complicated creatures begin to cause us difficulty. In that case, we have no trouble seeing that the fundamental cause is our failure to function in accordance with the principles of the universe. The machines, the mountains, the rivers, the plants, the animals, the insects all tell us that we, filled from head to toe with the buddhanature (Divine Nature), have nevertheless not succeeded in being what we ought to be.
    When we forget to respect the buddhanature in the wind and the water, typhoons and floods inform us of our lapse and show us in no uncertain terms how we have not lived up to the buddhanature within ourselves. When we forget the buddhanature in automobiles and other machines we have created, a warning comes to us in the form of accidents or pollution. Everything in the universe constantly tells us that the way to perfect our buddhanature is to respect the buddhanature in other things & people.”
    Masahiro Mori. “Does a Robot Have Buddhanature? A Leading Figure in the Field of Robotics Investigates.” Tricycle March 21, 2023.

    “All that we behold is full of blessings.” William Wordsworth

    When we sit and meditate, the Ego does its best to retain control by chattering on, the same circular "story of me" we endure day in and day out.
    Mercifully by relaxing, remaining still, and listening deeply to the silence, we periodically return home, disappearing in Mystery. Each time we return with a mind-heart a little bit more open & wiser.

"Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Donovan

 

Technologies of the Sacred

“The mystery, the essence of all life
is not separate from the silent openness
of simple listening.”

Toni Packer

    "Awe gives you this big picture, it makes you open up, it makes you creative, it makes you think outside of the box — everything we need in doing good work." Dacher Keltner PhD

     "Fear, suffering, and focus … enable adventurers to release hidden powers and access other realms of experiences. … extreme adventure is not only a spiritual search, but also a spiritual tool. And it is the same for all of us, adventurers or not. The hardest, most challenging experiences of our lives can enrich our existence, revealing our true identity, awakening us to a greater awareness of our own potential, and opening us to the infinite beauty of the universe.”
    Maria Coffey. “Explorers of the Infinite. The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes – and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communications, and Touching the Beyond.” Jeremy P. Tarcher / Penguin, 2008.

    “The importance of non-ordinary states of consciousness for ancient and aboriginal cultures is reflected in the amount of time and energy that the members of these human groups dedicated to the development of technologies of the sacred, various procedures capable of inducing them for ritual and spiritual purposes. These methods combine in various ways drumming and other forms of percussion, music, chanting, rhythmic dancing, changes of breathing, and cultivation of special forms of awareness. Extended social and sensory isolation, such as a stay in a cave, desert, arctic ice, or in high mountains, also play an important role as means of inducing this category of non-ordinary states. Extreme physiological interventions used for this purpose include fasting, sleep deprivation, dehydration, use of powerful laxatives and purgatives, and even infliction of severe pain, body mutilation, and massive bloodletting. By far the most effective tool for inducing healing and transformative non-ordinary states has been ritual use of psychedelic plants.
    Mainstream psychiatrists initially dismissed and even ridiculed native ritual events as products of primitive superstition based on ignorance and magical thinking. They relegated non-ordinary states of consciousness of any kind into the domain of psychopathology. This situation gradually changed in the course of the twentieth century, particularly in its second half, when Western scientists actually made some major contributions to the armamentarium of the technologies of the sacred. Clinical and experimental psychiatrists and psychologists had the opportunity to acquire firsthand experience with chemically pure psychedelic substances and with a variety of laboratory mind-altering procedures from sensory deprivation to biofeedback. They also witnessed the effect of non-ordinary states of consciousness in various forms of experiential therapeutic techniques using breathwork and bodywork, such as neo-Reichian approaches, Rebirthing, and Holotropic Breathwork. Those open-minded enough to take on the challenge of these revolutionary tools thus had a chance to discover their power and their great therapeutic potential.
    When we recognized the unique nature of this category of non-ordinary states of consciousness, we found it difficult to believe that contemporary psychiatry does not have a specific category and term for these theoretically and practically important experiences. Because we felt strongly that they deserve to be distinguished from altered states of consciousness and not be seen as manifestations of serious mental diseases, we started referring to them as holotropic. This composite word means literally ‘oriented toward wholeness’ or ‘moving toward wholeness.’
    The name holotropic suggests something that might come as a surprise to an average Westerner – that in our everyday state of consciousness we identify with only a small fraction of who we really are and do not experience the full extent of our being. Holotropic states of consciousness have the potential to help us recognize that we are not ‘skin-encapsulated egos’ – as British philosopher and writer Alan Watts called it – and that, in the last analysis, we are commensurate with the cosmic creative principle itself. Or that – using the statement by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French paleontologist and philosopher – ‘we are not human beings having a spiritual experiences, we are spiritual beings having human experiences.’
    This astonishing idea is not new. In the ancient Indian Upanishads, the answer to the question ‘Who am I?’ is ‘Tat tvam asi.’ This succinct Sanskrit sentence means literally: ‘Thou art That,’ or ‘You are Godhead.’ It suggests that we are not namarupa – name and form (body/ego), but that our deepest identity is with a divine spark in our innermost being (Atman) that is ultimately identical with the supreme universal principle (Brahman). And Hinduism is not the only religion that has made this discovery. The revelation concerning the identity of the individual with the divine is the ultimate secret that lies at the mystical core of all great spiritual traditions. The name for this principle could thus be the Tao, Buddha, Cosmic Christ, Allah, Great Spirit, Sila, and many others. Holotropic experiences have the potential to help us discover our true identity and our cosmic status.”
    Stanislav Grof, Christina Grof. “Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy.” State University of New York Press, 2010. 

    Psychiatrist Stan Grof (above) spent 50 years doing pioneering research on the use of entheogenic plant medicines (ayahuasca, psilocybin, peyote, etc.) and Holotropic Breathwork. Holotropic Breathwork, which uses circular breathing, music & bodywork, harnesses the intrinsic healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness. Grof's book explores the healing, transformative, & evolutionary potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness accessed through Holotropic Breathwork, and their great value as a source of new revolutionary data about consciousness, the human psyche, and the nature of reality. 

    One-day, experiential courses : https://holotropic.ca/events/

 

Fourth State of Consciousness

     Most of us are surprisingly USED TO feeling: stressed, unsafe, "not myself", upset, uptight, angry, stingy, grumpy, reactive, rigid, confused & at least vaguely homesick. This is our normal waking state of consciousness.
     WHY do most of us ONLY RARELY & BRIEFLY feel: at ease, safe, authentic, peaceful, spacious, unconditionally loved & loving, nurturing, joyful, equanimous, creative, wise & at home?
    Could feeling pleasantly at ease, safe & loved be a sign of being in a different state of consciousness?
    Could then the opposite, being grimly certain that life is nothing more than stress & "ordinary unhappiness" lock us into our (stressful) normal waking state of consciousness?
    Could even a bit of flexibility, curiosity, or inkling that there might be more to life than "ordinary unhappiness" open the gate, allowing a shift into a different, more pleasant state of consciousness - one which most people only rarely & briefly experience?

  “Whether you think you can,
               or you think you can't
               feel at home & at ease in this world – you're right!”                     Henry Ford, slightly modified 

     Eckhart Tolle on how we ALL CAN realize this deeper state of consciousness:
    “There is an equivalent of dreamless sleep in our ordinary existence, but most people are not aware of that dimension of consciousness that is possible for human beings. And although spiritual teachers have spoken about it, and pointed to it for thousands of years, it still is not common knowledge that there’s a potential in every human being for realizing within him or herself a state of consciousness that is deeper, infinitely deeper than the ordinary state of thinking-and-doing normal life. I sometimes call that state spaciousness, inner spaciousness, presence or stillness. In Indian spirituality, they call it the fourth state of consciousness, turiya. [pure consciousness, the state of enlightenment, the background that underlies & pervades the three common states of consciousness which are: waking state, dreaming state, & dreamless deep sleep] Most humans don’t know that it’s there for them. And that is the greatest tragedy of a human life, to miss the possibility to realize that fourth stage of consciousness.
    There is an assumption by spiritual seekers, even in India, and anybody who hasn’t realized it for themselves, or even had glimpses of it, there’s an assumption that that fourth state is extremely hard to attain and you need countless years of spiritual practice or countless lifetimes to finally achieve the fourth state of consciousness. And that belief actually prevents you from realizing it within yourself because that state of spaciousness is already in you all the time. So if you have the belief that it’s something that you need to achieve at some future point, then that belief, that thought, would continuously prevent you from realizing it now. Mentally, you will always project. You’ll say, ‘I’m going to meditate because at some point I want to achieve the fourth state. That can be a great hindrance in your meditation because it prevents you from going deeper into the present moment which is where the fourth state is. Or one could almost say, it’s not just where the fourth state is, but the present moment is the fourth state – the space of now, not what happens in the now, but the deeper, the space in which it happens. The background to your life is continuously there, and continuously also often seeps through in between two thoughts. You take a deep breath between two thoughts, and for 3 seconds you were free of yourself. And for those 3 seconds you might look at something or whatever, and just experience a moment of peace & aliveness. And then of course you get drawn back into thinking. And then at another time a little space comes in again when you’re maybe tasting something, perhaps there’s just the perception of the taste, without any mental interference, just an aware presence behind the sense perception. And then you notice that the state is always there. Every thought exists in that space – it’s only a wave movement in that space.
    And so it’s not something that you need to attain as if you didn’t have it, because it’s already here. It is essentially who you are. It is intrinsically one with the essence of your being. And if you don’t know that, then your life is very limited to just a little person, with no transcendent dimension to your life whatsoever. And so we are here, in order to deepen our realization of inner spaciousness. That’s all. So you realize something that is already here, rather than needing to look for it. So why do you often not realize it? Because you overlook it, just like the fish may overlook the fact that it’s surrounded by water and starts looking for it. “Where is the water? People keep talking about the water.” And the more the fish looks, the less likely that it’ll find the water.
    So that spaciousness is something that at first may appear in your life as a glimpse. At first, in many peoples’ lives, they don’t know that that is spaciousness. They experience it as heightened aliveness or a deeper sense of peace or joy, an absence of problems for a little moment. ["causeless joy"] So they don’t know that this is a different dimension (or state) of consciousness that has suddenly arisen. They can still confuse it with something else, as I did when the shift happened, and that was a rare thing. In my case, it happened and kind of stayed. For most people, it’s a more gradual thing. It comes gradually for us in glimpses, and then suddenly it’s there for a longer period of time, or you go deeper into it, and there’s a gradual transformation of consciousness. It might be so gradual you don’t even notice it.
    And when it happened to me, I didn’t realize that there was spaciousness. I wasn’t familiar with the word ‘spaciousness.’ I didn’t know anything about the ‘fourth state of consciousness.’ I knew nothing about ‘presence’ or even ‘mindfulness.’ I didn’t realize even that my mind had subsided and become spacious. All I knew is suddenly life is very peaceful. This moment feels so good. That’s all I knew. 'And where does this peace come from?' I asked. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was the depths of who I am. Realizing the depths of who I am was joy and peace. But I didn’t have the words for that. I couldn’t call it ‘the depths of who I am.’ I just thought, ‘Why am I suddenly so peaceful?’ … There was no understanding of where this peace originated. How did this peace come about? The understanding came later.
    Some people are totally, continuously unhappy, anxious, angry, fearful or continuously upset, or continuously in a state of deep discontent - and there are people like that. A not-insignificant proportion of the population live in an almost continuous state of discontent in one form or another. There’s always a residue of anger. They’re just waiting for the next thing to be angry about, to be upset about, [hypervigilance, preparedness to definitively eliminate the next assault, due to history of trauma]. Or they’re totally unhappy & depressed and everything is just dreadful. Or they’re approaching the borderline of what we conventionally call sanity and insanity, and then they step beyond this borderline, and then they’re declared clinically whatever. So there are many people in mental institutions who are so obsessed with their minds, that there is no space between thoughts whatsoever. And people are very unhappy, totally unhappy. They experience virtually no relief from their mind. So no spaciousness at all makes for a very unhappy life.
    Imagine if you could only dream but never reach a dreamless state. You would go insane, because you need the dreamless state. Now in ordinary wakefulness, you also need the spaciousness. And if you have absolutely no spaciousness, you go virtually insane.”
    The Fourth State of Consciousness - Eckhart Tolle (Sub ESP) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bim73icRzCk

    Those who've taken MBSR courses, or have participated in guided meditations might realize that the instructions guiding you to pay closer & closer attention to subtle physical sensations such as posture, muscular tension, temperature in various parts of the body, subtle sounds in the distance, etc are all geared to bring about inner silence (quieting of self-talk) and inner & outer stillness (cessation of physical, mental & emotional restlessness), focus on the present moment, and therefore, allow you to shift into & thereby directly experience this fourth state of consciousness - your true self - which is always present but easily drowned out by self-talk & other restless distractions.

Too Beautiful to Die?

“Don’t prioritise your looks my friend, as they won’t last the journey.
Your sense of humour though, will only get better with age.
Your intuition will grow and expand like a majestic cloak of wisdom.
Your ability to choose your battles, will be fine-tuned to perfection.
Your capacity for stillness, for living in the moment, will blossom.
Your desire to live each and every moment will transcend all other wants.
Your instinct for knowing what (and who) is worth your time,
will grow and flourish like ivy on a castle wall.
Don’t prioritise your looks my friend,
they will change forevermore,
that pursuit is one of much sadness and disappointment.
Prioritise the uniqueness that make you you, and the invisible magnet that draws in other like-minded souls to dance in your orbit.
These are the things which will only get better."                         Judi Dench

    "The Buddha taught that all phenomena, including thoughts, emotions, & experiences, are marked by three characteristics: impermanence (anicca), suffering or dissatisfaction (dukkha), and not-self (anatta). These three marks apply to all conditioned things—that is, everything except for nirvana. According to the Buddha, fully understanding & appreciating the three marks of existence is essential to realizing enlightenment.
    Everything changes, the Buddha taught. This may seem obvious, but much of the time we relate to things as if their existence were permanent. So when we lose things we think we can’t live without or receive bad news we think will ruin our lives, we experience a great deal of stress. Nothing is permanent, including our lives.
    Dukkha, suffering or dissatisfaction, is among the most misunderstood ideas in Buddhism. Life is dukkha, the Buddha said, but he didn’t mean that it is all unhappiness & disappointment. Rather, he meant that ultimately it cannot satisfy. Even when things do satisfy ― a pleasant time with friends, a wonderful meal, a new car ― the satisfaction doesn’t last because all things are impermanent.
    Anatta—not-self, non-essentiality, or egolessness—is even more difficult to grasp. The Buddha taught that there is no unchanging, permanently existing self that inhabits our bodies. In other words, we do not have a fixed, absolute identity. The experience of “I” continuing through life as a separate, singular being is an illusion, he said. What we call the “self” is a construct of physical, mental, & sensory processes that are interdependent & constantly in flux.
    It is the illusion of a separate, permanent self that chains us to suffering & dissatisfaction, the Buddha said. We put most of our energy into protecting the self, trying to gratify it & clinging to impermanent things we think will enhance it. But belief in a separate, permanent self leads to the craving that, according to the four noble truths, is the source of our suffering.
    The Buddha’s teachings, especially the practice of the eightfold path, provide the medicine to cure our illusions, so that we become less self-centered & less attached to impermanent things. As we investigate the truth of the three marks of existence, we develop factors of enlightenment such as equanimity—the ability not to be jerked around by our likes & dislikes — and serenity." https://tricycle.org/beginners/buddhism/the-buddhas-three-marks-of-existence/ 

    Nirvana (above) - which alone is NOT characterized by impermanence, unsatisfactoriness & not-self - is the awakened state or enlightenment.
    The Buddha was a human being who around 500BCE felt the urgent need to end his own & humanity's existential suffering, found the cure for it, and over a 50-year period, taught thousands of others to reach his level of awakening from suffering. His teachings are universal - for everyone, so there are even Catholic nuns & Jewish Rabbis who at the same time are highly accomplished practitioners of Buddhism, especially Zen.
    Below are glimpses of awakening - experiences of a higher dimension than conditioned phenomena, our usual frame of reference, so words are inadequate:

    "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen

    "Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. 

If only they could all see themselves as they really are. 

If only we could see each other that way all the time. 

There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, 

no more greed… I suppose the big problem would be that 

we would fall down and worship each other....

There is no way of telling people that they are 

all walking around shining like the sun...."                                 Thomas Merton

 
    "If we could really, really, really see right now, all that we really, really, really are, we’d see the infinite mystery of God pouring itself out and giving itself away as the intimate immediacy of all that we really are. That vivid state, in the fullness of that state, would be the unitive mystical experience. And then we can learn to be habituated in that state and translate it into love for other people." Jim Finley Interview https://batgap.com/james-finley/

 

     “We are here to find that dimension within ourselves that is deeper than thought.” Eckhart Tolle 

 

    “Carl Jung said, ‘How can we claim the years have taught us anything, if we’ve not learned to sit & listen to the secret that whispers in the brooks?’ 

    So if I look at a fire, for example, with ego-consciousness, I see a fire. But if I gaze into the flames, in that contemplative gazing at the flames, I sense in the flames the intimations of the holiness and the mystery manifesting itself as this flame. 

    That’s why I think when we try to talk about it, we’re trying to grab it in words. But if we sit in meditative silence infused with love, the state of wonder, we intimately taste directly for ourselves for which no words can be found. That’s why we long for the experience to which our words are aluding to, and how to stabilize in it, and how to share it with people.”  Jim Finley EXCEPTIONAL Interview https://batgap.com/james-finley/

“You know you have loved someone
when you have glimpsed in them
that which is too beautiful to die.”                                      Gabriel Marcel

 

by Mollycules www.BuddhaDoodles.com

 

Never Left Home

     Bruce Springsteen expressed it nicely, "everybody's got a hungry heart." It goes by many other names: "an itch we can't scratch," "ordinary unhappiness," "lack," "seeker," "neediness," "greed," "inferiority complex," "imposter syndrome," "low self-esteem," "desperation," etc. And unless cynicism & resignation have set in, we strive heroically to fill the bottomless hole in our heart with: work, food, shopping, sex, drugs, travel, and all sorts of experiences including spirituality: prayer, meditation & rituals including sweat lodges, entheogenic plant medicines like ayahuasca etc. But too often, we just "can't get no satisfaction."
     Non-dual methods offer a surprisingly direct approach to "re-cognizing" how we're far less needy than we can imagine. Two teachers have particularly impressed me with the clarity of their teaching: "Sailor Bob" Donaldson and John Wheeler.
     I highly recommend listening to their 90min talk - youtube video bottom of this page. The initial (Bob's) portion has poor audio, so the text below will help:

     “I don’t teach you anything, and we don’t tell you anything. What we do is point toward, and ask you to look to where we’re pointing to, to see for yourself, because there’s nothing that you’re going to get, nothing that anybody can give you. We’re talking about non-duality or the nonconceptual present awareness, just this, nothing else. And we talk in concepts. So again, anybody new needs to realize that the concepts themselves are not the introduction, nor recognition of this. And you also realize that if you came from some conceptual point of view, you can pull apart what we recite quite easily – whatever we say, because it’s all conceptual.
     So we ask you to learn, if you haven’t learned already, to listen. And when we talk about listening, we’re not saying ‘head-to-head’ - taking what we say into your head, trying to analyze it. So let it wash in, in what we call, ‘heart-to-heart.’ We’re not talking about your physical heart or anything in your body. I’m talking about using the word ‘heart’ as the core of beingness or you can use the symbol of spirit if you like. When we talk about ‘heart-to-heart’ – you know what heart-to-hear is already. How many times when you heard somebody that you’ve really felt close to, heard what they were saying and you realized, ‘My heart opened up to them’? When we talk about heart-to-heart then there is natural communication.
     When it’s 'head-to-head,' you’ve got to put your concepts against the things spoken, and nothing’s going to penetrate. But if it’s heart-to-heart, there’s an openness there, and that’s communication. And it mightn’t be in the words, because the words are concepts. There might be a natural resonance there – a natural recognition of your innate true nature.
     Here we don’t say, ‘it’s only for the few,’ which you’ll hear elsewhere, ‘you have to do this & that, and it will take time & years to get there & understand it.’ In this space, everybody’s right in everybody’s natural state if you like to open yourself and drop some of the conceptual beliefs you’ve held & kept there that have become the blockages that stopped you." Sailor Bob Adamson 

     "In the beginning you might hear a few pointers to essentially get you looking in the right direction. You’ll hear many different types of pointers. If I start sharing my experience or my understanding, I might come out with a certain set of pointers & concepts as how I would frame what is the essence of what Bob was pointing to. I often come back to the basic pointer that you hear quite a lot that, there is this nature of reality or truth that is accessible to us, and if we are curious to where that resides, or how we would look at that, or where we would find that. We also often hear something to the effect that, ‘that is what you are,’ or ‘that’s already what you are.’ So this natural state or reality get’s pointed to, but in a practical way, when you want to notice that, or want to recognize that as an actual direct recognition, where you look for that, where you access that is pointed to be exactly, precisely where you are, because your natural being, your natural state is that reality that’s being talked about. So that’s a way of using pointers, & some words & concepts to try to get us simply to look in the right direction and notice something in our experience.
     Now once we have a grasp of that, or basic sense of that, then the concepts & the pointers can fall away, and we’re just in the immediate recognition of something that’s not a concept, that is present in our experience. That’s really what this is about. Not so much about what the concept or the word is, or how it’s stated or who says it or anything like that, it’s actually something that’s being pointed to. It’s important to keep that in mind in any of these teachings & pointers, so we can go immediately into noticing what is the nature of what is present in our experience here right now, that isn’t framed by any concept. There’s clearly something here. Each one of us is present, existing, aware, alive, conscious. Whatever that is, whatever that reality is, if you notice that you’ll see that it’s not word, or an object, or a pointer. It’s not even a teaching. There’s really no particular teaching or school of thought that really can capture that, or own that, or kind of have the rights to that so to speak. But still that natural being, that knowing the essence of what we are, is actually present for all of us, even right now in this moment. And I think what we find is that, at the end of the day, as we’re looking at this, resonating with it, that that’s what you recognize at the end in terms of where the pointers are pointing to. So I would say just to encourage you to pause the concept, pause the question, pause the mind trying to grasp some particular understanding, and just simply relax & notice something very simple & available which can be pointed to.
     So I could call it ‘the fact of your being’ or ‘that innate conscious presence that’s here right now, that’s at the root of all of our natural functioning & seeing & knowing & thinking’ and that’s there prior to any description, word, or label. Once you get that, once you resonate with that, and once you realize that that’s what we can notice, that that’s what really being pointed to, it just goes to an immediate re-cognition, an immediate looking & seeing that in direct experience.
     It’s quite interesting because what you’ll find, is that a lot of those pointers that are used, turn out to be someone attempting to describe what your natural being is. So just to give a flavor of a few things that I would say, and encourage you to also notice right now that there is that effortless, natural given reality of your being here right now. And that’s not an attainment, and it’s not even an awakening, it’s not a liberation or some kind of spiritual state. It’s actually simpler and prior to that. And in looking at that, and recognizing what that is, you’ll find that it’s not troubled by questions & problems. It’s not divided from anything. It’s not searching for anything. It’s not limited or defective or anything like that. So the amazing thing about this is when you follow that pointer and you actually examine in your experience to just simply be curious about what is the nature of what we are here, you immediately come face to face with this obvious, undeniable fact of your true nature, and it is already having all of those characteristics we might have been searching for.
     So that can allow us to appreciate some of these pointers, but always knowing that the pointer is not what it is. But in seeing that distinction, you can appreciate the pointers, you can enjoy the pointers, and you can be at a meeting like this and hear this being pointed to and following the pointers, but simultaneously actually directly recognizing, as it’s being discussed, that reality of who you are. And the beauty of it is it starts right now in our direct experience, if we care to recognize what’s being pointed to. And this is something that people I think miss, is that what you find is that we’re not really talking about attainment. It’s not a particular experience. It’s not a particular moment. It’s not a shift. It’s not a penny dropping. Nothing particular needs to happen, which is I think in spirituality we often subtly pick up that kind of idea that, ‘When’s it going to happen?’ ‘When am I going to be there?’ ‘Somebody got it and somebody didn’t get it.’ And subtly the mind is just kind of projecting into the future, imagining there’s something that’s going to happen to me and then ‘this’ will be the case.
     And it turns out, which is a wonderful understanding, that that’s not the case actually. Even the most rarefied, absolute teachings that you hear, also turn out to be a little bit too complicated. So we often hear ‘awakening.’ And it seems like so and so got something at a certain time. So that would lead us to feel like maybe that could happen to me, or something like that. But that’s all conceptual. That’s all in the imaginary, conceptual picture in the mind, because if you actually look in direct experience, that awake, conscious aware presence is actually already functioning. It’s already completely clear and evident. So there we were waiting for awakening, waiting for the shift or something to happen, not actually noticing that the awakeness or the awareness or that reality was actually there without even needing the shift or the awakening. In seeing it like this, the whole structure of spirituality concepts just glides out of the picture, because you realize you don’t need anything what you already are. All those natural qualities are given by default in what’s already present.
     This is the kind of thing that Bob pointed out to me, and that he shares. And I was able to listen to what he was saying, and just check it out and find the simplicity of the truth of the meaning of those pointers. But at no time was there some exotic awakening or shift or moment or something like that because it’s too complicated. Then those age-old pointers about ‘you are that’ and ‘your mind is the Buddha’ and ‘this is who we are’ – we recognize that, well this is what they’re trying to say, that you already are the truth of what you are, that you are that. And at that point, the need for the pointers, or the need to understand what it is and where it is and all that – that whole thing is no longer necessary for who we are because there’s that direct recognition for ourselves of the truth of what we are. It’s a simple appreciation & recognizing of something that, as was pointed out to me once, that one of the keys to it was that it’s so incredibly simple, so totally basic, and in a way so clear, so obvious that often we’ve just stepped over it and missed the essence of it. So you hear a lot of these pointers today and if you really follow what’s being said, it’s pointing back again & again & again & again in various different ways to that same basic message. And you don’t need a lot of pointers, or a lot of meetings, or a lot of time, or a lot of chewing over it, because all of that is still missing the simplicity of it. Just one meeting like this, or a discussion or heart-to-heart talk, or hearing just one direct pointer that resonates can in itself be quite sufficient, quite enough for us to notice that. So that’s just one attempt to try to share this." John Wheeler

 

 

Openings

     We're conditioned to "see things, not as they are, but as we are" - ie from our personal, conditioned perspective. And to the extent that we're similarly conditioned (traumatized) by life, we share a similar, egocentric, contracted perspective - consensus reality.

     But we can be pleasantly surprised:

      A long time ago, in first year university, after spending a long day studying in the library, I stepped outside into a cold, clear, star-filled night and was instantly awestruck by the crisp, majestic, silent beauty. This was so startlingly wondrous that its vivid memory continues to reverberate over 50 years later. 

     This was not a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle of nature (in suburban Toronto). My mind happened to be too tired to put up the usual filters of conditioning, so I accidentally perceived ordinary reality as it actually is, in its raw splendor. I was able to see 'innocently,' like a child. Maybe this is what Einstein meant by living life "as though everything is a miracle." Indeed, research shows that happiness is determined by our quality of awareness, not of the external environment. Killingsworth MA, Gilbert DT. “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind.” Science 2010; 330(6006): 932.

     To avoid sitting in traffic, I arrive very early for morning MBSR sessions, and park near a favorite coffee shop. On leaving the coffee shop the other morning, I passed by my car and noticed that I could now move it forward to free up an additional parking spot. Right after I did this, while walking the usual route to the MBSR session, I became aware that everything suddenly appeared vividly alive, friendly, happy.

     That small act of kindness was enough to shift my perspective & state of being from habitually slightly contracted, to open-hearted spacious awareness - and thus shifting my quality of life from neutral to wonderful. 

     At my first longish (10-day) silent meditation retreat, the intensity of my perfectionistic GI-Joe striving, my physical, mental & emotional tense contraction, and resultant overall suffering - progressively climbed to the absolute peak of tolerability for 9 days. Most of the time I was in a painful muscle spasm, as rigid as if I had been in a full-body cast. Mercifully, by day 10, a deeper wisdom*** took over from my ego, my body completely relaxed, after which I sat in blissful ease, time flying by as if the last day of sitting were a minute long.

     *** “… the mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. The rider is our conscious reasoning – the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes – the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior. … the rider and the elephant work together, sometimes poorly, as we stumble through life in search of meaning and connection.” 

       Jonathan Haidt. “The Righteous Mind. Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.” Vintage Books, 2012.

     “When a living system reaches maximum stress, it can respond in one of two ways: it can either descend into chaos or it can jump into a higher order.
     In biological systems, this is the point at which a species either becomes extinct or re-creates itself as a more complex and intelligent organism.” Amoda Maa

     "The last two decades have seen a growing body of research focused on post-traumatic growth (PTG) in the aftermath of highly stressful life events. Such positive growth may include better appreciation of life, better relationships with others, deeper spirituality, increased personal strength, recognition of new possibilities, and a positive change in health behaviour. Theoretical explanations for these positive changes propose that growth emanates from disruptions in worldviews necessitating a revision of beliefs to reflect a new reality. These disruptions cause distress but also act as a potential catalyst for PTG." 
       AnnMarie Groarke et al. “Post‐traumatic Growth in Breast Cancer: How and When do Distress and Stress Contribute?” Psycho‐Oncology 2017; 26: 967–974.

     “When worldviews change, new possibilities can emerge, even within the same set of circumstances. Worldview transformation … is a fundamental shift in perspective that results in long-lasting changes in people’s sense of self, perception of relationship to the world around them, and way of being.” 
       Schlitz MM, Vieten C, Miller EM. "Worldview transformation and the development of social consciousness." Journal of Consciousness Studies 2010; 17(7-8): 18-36.

      We have the choice to intentionally, methodically, gently, progressively "lean into," carefully investigate ("listen deeply"), and unconditionally embrace & nurture all of life. This is a movement from fearful, egocentric, reactive, rigid contraction towards loving, allocentric / ecocentric, responsive, flexible, openness; from being on autopilot as a fearful child, towards consciously embodying a nurturing wise grandparent.

      “We suffer to the exact degree that we resist having our eyes and hearts opened.” Adyashanti.