Toward Intimacy

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

    Enlightenment and Awakening are usually used to mean the same thing: experiencing reality directly, without the illusion of separation from everything, seen and unseen. 

     Intimacy implies direct, real-time connection and engagement, without any interference. Example: witnessing a beautiful scene in nature so that in the moment, we're 'lost for words' and can vividly remember it 60 years later. I witnessed such a clear starry night sky around midnight when I went outside after studying in first year university. Perhaps more important than the perceived, because I've seen & forgotten hundreds of clear starry night skies, was the letting go (from fatigue) of continuous thinking & self-talk, and then suddenly facing nature's splendor without words getting in the way.

    To be immersed, with all our senses innocently open, in an experience and rest in it, simply savouring without separating ourselves from the physical, full-body sensory 'isness' with our words, ideas, opinions, commentary, is a rare, brief phenomenon lasting seconds. Most of us are deeply conditioned by our materialistic, hyper-rational culture, and thus completely identified with the continuous running commentary 'story of me,' so letting that go can feel like voluntary ego death.
    A key component of meditation is practicing to rest in awareness with mental, emotional & physical stillness & silence continuously, for longer & longer periods of time. So we're not forming opinions or judgments, but remaining equanimous - emotionally neutral, stable, all our senses open, peacefully, intimately connected to everything right here, right now. 

    During meditation “you are not escaping the world; you are getting ready to fully embrace it.” Christine Skarda

     “Love is the quality of attention we pay to things.” J.D. McClatchy

    “There are only two ways to live your life.
     One is as though nothing is a miracle.
     The other is as though
     everything is a miracle.”         Albert Einstein

    Most of us are usually continuously lost in self-talk, which rarely has anything to do with present experience. So at best, we're partially engaged with whomever or whatever we're doing ie nowhere near intimacy. Our mood depends on the degree to which the world of our self-talk clashes with our present moment reality. In this all-too typical scenario, we're too busy to stop to smell the roses, and would assume nothing in life is a miracle.

    Our self-talk is essentially our opinions about past or future events. Our opinions are strikingly less detailed & variably distorted compared to actual events. So imagine being free of self-talk, how much more vivid, detailed, accurate & 'engaging' our appreciation of everyone & everything would be. I suspect the difference would be akin to a falling-down drunk becoming completely sober. Life would appear miraculously rich.

    Spiritual practices to facilitate Awakening include Self-Inquiry eg asking ourselves 'Who is suffering?' and then progressively going deeper & deeper than our name, age, sex, address, occupation, etc, etc, until finally we might wordlessly feel into our 'original face before our parents were born.' Persistent open mind / hearted curiosity and sequentially letting go of 'easy rational answers' is key, as we go deeper & deeper to remember our own and everyone & everything else's Origin.

    Below, is an imho very worthwhile 14-minute 'direct pointing' to help us remember who we truly are. Watch this short video at least twice:

  Angelo Dilullo: "Awakening - What is It and How to Do It"

Starting Fresh

    Welcome to a brand new year! This can be the best year we've ever lived. And yes, it is entirely up to each one of us.

    Forget about past New Year's resolutions. What I'm suggesting is on an entirely different level than losing weight, or consuming less booze or weed. How about initiating a radically positive shift in your life?

    How often do we catch ourselves repeating a set of thoughts, speech or other behaviors that we regret, feel ashamed of - that make us feel like bratty kids rather than mature, evolved adults? These tend to start as critical, disparaging, demeaning thoughts about others. It's best to intercept & stop these frequent slips at the earliest thinking stage.

    So what's with all this criticizing self talk? We're very, very familiar with these story lines, because we repeat them many times every single day! They're like a trail we walk many times each day, where there are very slippery downhill slopes, and we know where these are, can feel the downward incline immediately, and know that if we take just one additional step, we'll slide all the way down to the bottom.
    Once we start criticizing, we have unconsciously assumed a separate identity - our 'small self' (neurotic pain body), from which we can look down on inferior 'others.' It's an embarrassingly dumb, messed-up sense of self, but it's the only one most of us (incorrectly assume we) have.
    This is very much like children who've been removed from abusive homes. When asked whether they wish to be placed in a foster home, or return to their abusive family, most choose the latter - because they fear the unknown more than 'the devil they know.'
    We also get a sick sense of comfortable familiarity, as we sink into our crappy little assumed 'separate self' - almost a sense of 'being right' - like a destitute homeless person crawling back into a crumbling, wet cardboard box under a bridge. The question, 'Would you rather be right or happy?' applies here. When strong emotions like fear, anger or hatred take over, we may (briefly) feel absolutely sure we're 'right' but are actually miserable.

    Most of us are completely unaware how incessantly we tell ourselves what we don't like vs what we do like - our 'preferences' - the chief purpose of which is to reassure ourselves that we have a solid, permanent identity - which deep down we know is false.
    As we gradually learn to notice & keep letting go of self-talk about preferences, we gradually learn to become intimate with everyone & everything, rather than remaining alienated, due to reality being severely distorted & edited by our preferences.

    “… live in reality and enjoy the moments that are unfolding in front of you. That’s what you can do. Use your mind to be creative, inspiring, and do great things. Don’t let the mind always be thinking about itself and what it wants. Learn to enjoy life as it is – instead of limiting the ways you can enjoy it to serve your past impressions.”
    Michael A. Singer “Living Untethered: Beyond the Human Predicament” Sounds True, 2022. A VERY USEFUL GUIDE TO LIVING JOYFULLY - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

    We can only appreciate reality when we no longer look at it through the dense fog of our preferences. We can gradually learn to recognize, accept, and stop being slaves to our preferences.
    We are free to choose the quality of our lives because it is independent of external conditions as perceived through our preferences.

 

Portrait in L'Harmattan gallery lharmattan.com Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec

 

Finding True Self, Peace & Joy

    Advanced spiritual practitioners are well aware that we all have two, very different operating systems. The egoic separate self is one most of us habitually contract into under stress & tend to stabilize in, even without stress. The other is the open, spacious, peaceful, timeless, silent, unitive state of awareness or true self that is always there, but for most is usually hidden, veiled over by our egoic self's fearful striving to control our lives for survival & reproduction.
    "When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished." Mihály Csíkszentmihályi PhD

     Our small, egoic self (& it's constant, very loud spokesperson, "ordinary mind's self talk") can only see consensual dualistic relative reality - of adversarial relationships, competition to get to the top, which even includes war (rape, plunder & murder). Small self's / ordinary mind's natural byproduct is dualism & rigid materialism - where ego can, or soon will be able to control everything ("promissory materialism" - a joke for everyone, except materialists).
    Our true self, when we don't drown it out by setting off our alarms, experiences ultimate reality. We all experience this occasionally, at least fleetingly. We are most likely to experience our innate authenticity & ultimate reality when we feel relaxed, open to & engaged with the flow of life.

     Psychologist Csíkszentmihályi researched the "flow" state & summarized it as: "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, & thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost." Mihály Csíkszentmihályi PhD
    An important component of "flow" was autotelicity - performing acts because they are intrinsically rewarding, rather than to achieve external goals; learning to enjoy situations that most others mind find miserable; associated with curiosity, persistence, & humility. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi 
    Despite the formality of scientific language, "flow" seems remarkably similar if not identical to a common experience shared by serious meditators, mystics, saints, extreme adventurers, surgeons, artists of every description, and all who intentionally spend time being intimately engaged with whatever the present moment holds for them. A very impressive real-life example of this is detailed in the book : Michael A. Singer “The Surrender Experiment. My Journey into Life’s Perfection,” Harmony, 2015.
    Intimacy is a direct, heart-to-heart expression of unconditional love (nothing to do with reward / personal gain ie not transactional.)

    The huge practical problem in our lives is that most of us live as if a fire alarm was constantly ringing, resulting in our small, separate mind running & ruining our lives, and completely obscuring our authentic, true self.

    “Once I stop shaping reality into a theatrical performance with myself at its center, mindfulness allows the world to surprise me. The universe becomes delightfully open-ended.” Belden C. Lane 

    "When the mind appears, reality disappears. When the mind disappears, reality appears.” Bodhidharma 

     So our small mind, by way of constant "self talk," is constantly telling us how uncomfortable we are, and reminding us of our preferences: all that we "must have", and all that we "must avoid", in order to survive & be happy. Fixating on these attachments keeps us constantly self-centered, stressed & striving to be somewhere else, do something else, become someone else RATHER THAN be intimately engaged with whatever the present moment presents us.
    “By giving up our attachments in life, we open ourselves up to more opportunities, more spontaneity, and more chances to cultivate deeper connections with others.” Lama Tsomo

    “The mind is a wonderful gift, but the voice inside our heads ("self-talk") can also be a never-ending source of suffering. That’s the last thing we need when we’ve already got so much of the outside world challenging us. We can spend our lives trying to change those external conditions to ‘be and feel OK’ — when the real problem is what’s going on inside.
    The solution? Surrender – the willingness to let go. To realize that ultimately, our thoughts, emotions, & even our body are not who we are. We are the indwelling consciousness witnessing it all.” Michael A. Singer

    Much of our repetitive thinking is about escaping discomfort by getting some things & avoiding others. Our life experience has surely taught us by now that no amount of getting & avoiding can lift us out of "ordinary unhappiness." Buddhism teaches that this obsessive self-centered actually causes unnecessary suffering. Surely we're ready to start inhabiting our far more evolved, true self - often just referred to as "Self."
    "The thoughts change
     but not you.
     Let go of the passing thoughts and
     hold on to the unchanging Self." Sri Ramana Maharshi

    So what am I learning, if ever so slowly? It's ridiculously easy & common to remain overwhelmed by our past traumas & resultant reactivities, which guarantees continuous unnecessary suffering. Though many assume that this is 'just the way life is,' and 'nothing can be done about it,' that's just a 'helplessness & hopelessness' slump we all need to get past, from time to time.
    Even in the absolutely most horrible cases of suffering, it's been shown that it's best to let go of our 'hurt child' identity, and instead direct our energies toward embodying our 'wise elder' identity (transpersonal Self or divine identity), and thereby nurture ourselves & others so we may all thrive ie be the best version of ourselves ie true self or Self.
    Being authentic is our only way to peace & joy, that is independent of life's constant ups & downs, aging, sickness & death.

Finding the True Essence of You (Self) - Eckhart Tolle Explains (20min)

 

Gradual AND Sudden

    VERY serious, DEEPLY committed spiritual seekers, Bill & Susan Morgan, who've spent a good chunk of their lives meditating, including a 3-year silent meditation retreat at the wonderful Forest Refuge (in Barre MA), and who a week ago returned from a 1-year silent meditation retreat, shared some of their insights last night with over a hundred folks who gathered around them for a New Year's online sitting.  

    Bill shared that he had always gone on retreats planning to have the BIG awakening experience - by which he meant the final, once & for all, complete enlightenment, where suddenly, he would be completely transformed forever.  

    But that has not been his experience, and it's certainly not for lack of interest, know-how or effort. Interestingly, and this is important for all of us, Bill & Susan have come to realize that focusing on the goal of an earth-shattering experience can easily overshadow the many, small but meaningful insights we all invariably have on this journey. So while most of us will not experience sudden mind-blowing fireworks, we WILL gradually experience deeper & more abiding levels of calm, peace & gratitude. And this is wonderful!

    Society's present focus is overly self-centered - survival & "success" of our self & closest loved one(s) first & foremost. So it's very counter-cultural & counter-intuitive to shift from striving to achieve a sudden dramatic personal goal and to instead, recognize & value calm, peace, gratitude, equanimity, stillness, silence, interbeing, spaciousness & intimacy with ALL. Even within Buddhism, and some other spiritual disciplines, there is debate over sudden vs gradual awakening (though there is general agreement about the life-long necessity to skillfully integrate spiritual insights into one's daily life).

    Appropriate self-care & self-compassion are important parts of life, in context of the BIG picture, which includes everyone & all else.
    "Our talent for division, for seeing the parts, is of staggering importance – second only to our capacity to transcend it, in order to see the whole."
    Iain McGilchrist https://channelmcgilchrist.com/home/ - AN ESSENTIAL DEEP DIVE towards WISDOM & BALANCE 

    “As we travel through life, we are all seekers
     after something larger than ourselves…” Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer PhD

    “The inexorable yearning for something beyond the mundane or the explainable runs deep in the human psyche. It arises from an urge to find meaning in existence, for something bigger than ourselves. It also comes from a need to belong, to experience life in terms of a harmonious interaction – with others, with nature, with God, with the universe. An interaction that was once part of the human condition.
    In hunter-gatherer societies, religious belief was always linked to nature. Facing constant danger, people sought ways to live in harmony with the unpredictable environment by worshiping the earth, its elements, its wild animals. Life was shot through with spirituality. And the powers of ESP, or psi – contact with the dead, premonition, telepathy, astral travel – were accepted as an essential part of man’s interconnection with nature.”
    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. FASCINATING!

“We clasp the hands of those who go before us,
and the hands of those who come after us;
we enter the little circle of each other’s arms,
and the larger circle of lovers
whose hands are joined in a dance,
and the larger circle of all creatures,
passing in and out of life,
who move also in a dance,
to a music so subtle and vast
that no one hears it except in fragments.” Wendell Berry, “Healing”

“We consist of and are sustained by interweaving currents of matter, energy, and information that flow through us interconnecting us with our environment and other beings.
Yet, we are accustomed to identifying ourselves only with that small arc of the flow – though that is lit, like the narrow beam of a flashlight, by our individual subjective awareness.
But we don’t have to so limit our self–perceptions ...
It is as plausible to align our identity with the larger pattern, interexistent with all beings, as to break off one segment
of the process and build our borders there.”
Joanna Macy

 

     Join Bill & Susan Morgan for their daily sit starting Monday, Jan 2, 2023 : https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/online-programs/

EVERYTHING is Workable

     The only real tragedy in life is clinging to the deadening dogma that life is mechanical & meaningless. 

 

     “We are human beings, endowed with an incredible dignity; but there’s nothing more undignified than forgetting our greatness & clutching at straws.” Peter Kingsley

 

    “When I allow myself to hope that the world will emerge from its present troubles, and that it will someday learn to give the direction of its affairs not to cruel mountebanks, but to men possessed of wisdom and courage, I see before me a shining vision: a world where none are hungry, where few are ill, where work is pleasant and tolerable, where [kindness and connectedness to others] is common, and where minds released from fear create delight for eye and heart. Do not say this is impossible. It is not impossible.” Bertrand Russell

    “… awakened living involves the boundless embrace of our precious, messy human experience in all its subtlety & complexity – the pain as well as the laughter, the confusion as well as the clarity – without either identifying with it or pushing it away. This unconditional openness is not a practice, it’s our natural state, our inherently awake nature, the timeless presence that welcomes reality just as it is because it is essentially not separate from whatever arises. … embodied awakening is the seamless marriage of form & emptiness, human & transcendent, vulnerable & indestructible, which meet right here & now – as you!” Stephan Bodian

 

    “The body is only an effect, of which Love is the cause. As I realised this I could release myself from the need to validate my being through any body or personality identity. Who or what I had been or am in body is truly an insignificant mirage next to the knowing of myself as Love. Knowing this, and what that love was to do, was the only thing that mattered.
    And that pointed me to one place alone. The past, memories of identity, or the searching of future attainments, are all the ego’s clinging to that which is not real. The place of love was and remains the being I AM, eternally NOW.” Isira “Buddha on the Dance Floor.” Living Awareness, 2015.

 

Fundamental Energy Crisis

     Very few of us seem to be aware of our real energy crisis. Yes, oil / gas / electricity availability is problematic, but to paraphrase Einstein, the energy / consciousness that got us into this dire mess CANNOT possibly lift us out of it, into a better future. Our estranged, adversarial relationship with our own hearts, each other & Nature is what's so painfully unnatural & unsustainable.

“If a living system
is suffering
from ill health,
the remedy is
to connect it
with more of itself.” Francisco Varela

    “an essential choice … confronts us all: whether to cling to the false security of our fixed ideas and tribal views, even though they bring us only momentary satisfaction, or to overcome our fear and make the leap to living an authentic life. … We can spend our whole life suffering because we can’t relax with how things really are, or we can relax & embrace the open-endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, unbiased.” Pema Chödrön, “The Fundamental Ambiguity of Being Human” Tricycle, Fall 2012

     We must wake up to & follow the consistent silent summons of our true nature to unconditionally love & nurture each another and Nature as the wise elders we are. 

    “Meditation asks, ‘Who am I?’ 

    Therapy asks, ‘How do I heal and become happier?’ 

    Purpose work addresses the question, ‘Where do I belong in the ecology of life?’ Purpose guiding breaks the spell of our default purposes of safety, security, comfort & outward success, and orients us towards our true purpose, which is to embody our unique calling within. When we all have the opportunity to live our calling, we can support our collective true purpose: to become co-creators of our species’ evolution. We may, thus, give birth to more beauty, truth, & goodness into the world.” Jonathan Gustin https://batgap.com/jonathan-gustin/

    “Awakening arises in times of vulnerability and awkwardness between, before, & after where prior identities are canceled and anything is possible and nothing certain.” Lin Jensen

    "Spiritual growth is a fine-tuning of our ear to the needs of our heart. ... Once we abandon the belief that there is a more spiritually useful moment than the one we are in, we have embraced our life and infused it with the energy for awakening." We CAN "recover the sacred in the most remote areas of life, in the midst of difficulty and dissatisfaction, loneliness & despair. The reality of problems is challenged and investigated, and life begins to thrive free of circumstances & conditions. The heart takes over and is resurrected from the conditioned habits of mind.” Rodney Smith

    “Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein

    "One of the gifts of global uncertainty is that it requires us to recognize & release unconscious biases that have been passed down for generations. These include the perception that splits into opposites and values light over dark, speed over slowing down, productivity over attunement, and conclusion over not knowing. Awakening requires that we soften the habit of binary perception & restore our capacity for clear seeing. ... an embodied exploration of luminous darkness (is) our greatest ally in seeing clearly — from the heart." Deborah Eden Tull

    "Try to be mindful, & let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange & wonderful things come & go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha." Ajahn Chah

    "We are stars wrapped in skin.
      The light you are seeking
      has always been within." Rumi

Don't Give Up... by Mollycules www.BuddhaDoodles.com

 

Of Two Minds

     When feeling 'torn between' two very different yet seemingly valid choices, we might realize that "we are of two minds." We might have difficulty deciding between buying a nicer car for ourself - vs - help our adult child pay for much-needed renovations to their already heavily-mortgaged house.

    We operate at 2 very different but complimentary levels of consciousness:
        1) The common, default, symbolic egoic level (discursive rationality, personal-verbal processing):
            - ideal for: basic self-preservation, practical & scientific matters, manipulating the material world
            - our basic DOING mode – filled with talk & action
            - symbols = language (regular & “self-talk”) & images (real & imagined)
            - egoic = self-referential – centered around a separate “me, myself & I”
                (A quiet ego {“hypo-egoic”} is healthy & necessary; a “noisy ego” is problematic)

        2) A post-symbolic transpersonal level - known to meditators as “awareness”:
            - ideal for: life's most fundamental concerns: love, meaning, depth, values, aesthetics, constant change, aging, sickness & death
            - BEING mode – characterized by silence & stillness
            - post-symbolic = does not use language & images - these get in the way
            - transpersonal = having shifted from primarily egocentric separateness to primarily hypo-egoic, allo- & ecocentric (oneness) way of relating to life

    A healthy, balanced, meaningful life clearly requires that we learn to shift effortlessly between either level of consciousness, to most appropriately serve the needs of the present moment. This is an important skill we learn - directly, experientially - during meditation practice. https://jglovas.wixsite.com/awarenessnow/single-post/2016/03/22/two-levels-of-consciousness

     Our practice (formal sitting meditation AND informal normal daily life) is basically remember-ing to be intimate with our self, others, life itself. And we do this by learning to "let go of patterns in our mind & heart that violate love & violate openness.
    ... 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 alluding to, and how to stabilize in it, and how to share it with people.” James Finley PhD https://batgap.com/james-finley/

    • Many fear & rigidly resist change, resolutely clinging to their egoic (illusion of) control. It's very easy to identify completely with ego, misinterpreting any shift from this as life-threatening.
    • Some evolve / mature to high levels without any apparent formal practice.
    • Many are helped by meditation practice - watch Louise Kay's video below.
    • Some “break down to break through” via severe trauma followed by post-traumatic growth. Severe trauma, particularly when it involves "moral injury", can also result in PTSD.
    • Some experience severe psychiatric (existential) difficulties requiring therapeutically-administered entheogens - watch: "How to Change Your Mind" Michael Pollan’s 4-part documentary on Netflix.
    Taking these medicines under optimal conditions (“set & settings”) as illustrated in this documentary, helps “lift the veil” between our ordinary egoic mind & how things actually are (“ultimate reality”). At the same time, these medicines also diminish or eliminate fearful resistance to this fundamental shift in consciousness. Of course the patients with OCD, existential terror, etc in the film felt the urgent need to transcend their current troubled state, which certainly encourages bravery & curiosity.
    I have no personal experience with any of these medicines (entheogens), but recognize that they can provide access to the same path that serious meditators have patiently traveled for thousands of years.

Louise Kay's wonderfully gentle, skillful, very practical approach: 

 

It's All about Relating - to Ourself, Others, the Universe

     May these insights intrigue and inspire ...

     The most important question a human being needs to answer according to Einstein: " 'Is the universe a friendly place or not?' ... If we believe that the universe is unfriendly ... peace will be elusive at best." Joan Borysenko. “Fire in the Soul. A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism.” Warner Books, 1993.

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space.
We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in all of its beauty.
The true value of a human being
is determined primarily by the measure and the sense
in which s/he has attained liberation
from the (separate) self....
We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking
if humanity is to survive."

Albert Einstein

1934

      “By giving ourselves unconditional kindness and comfort while embracing the human experience, difficult as it is, we avoid destructive patterns of fear, negativity, and isolation. At the same time, self-compassion fosters positive mind states such as happiness and optimism. The nurturing quality of self-compassion allows us to flourish, to appreciate the beauty and richness of life, even in hard times.
      ... you are only being asked to relax, allow life to be as it is, and open your heart to yourself. It’s easier than you might think, and it could change your life.” Kristin Neff. “Self-Compassion. The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.” HarperCollins, 2011.

      “I would define love very simply: as a potent blend of openness and warmth, which allows us to make real contact, to take delight in and appreciate, and to be at one with – ourselves, others, and life itself.
      ... love is the central force that holds our whole life together and allows it to function." John Welwood. "Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships. Healing the Wound of the Heart." Trumpeter, 2006. 

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

      "I was born
       when all I once feared
       I could love.” Rabia Basri 

     "Once we are willing to be directly intimate with our life as it arises, joy emerges out of the simplest of life experiences." Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara

      During meditation “you are not escaping the world; you are getting ready to fully embrace it.” Christine Skarda 

     "... everything yearns to be met. Everything yearns to resolve itself in love – that love being the open space of acceptance, of allowing, of staying resolutely present, and unconditionally open to every nuance of your inner experience." Amoda Maa. "Surfing the Heart of Darkness: Suffering as a Doorway to Liberation." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXlUsBYbv0w

     “Your task is not to seek for love,
      but merely to seek and find all of the barriers
      within yourself that you have built against it.” Helen Schueman

      Intimacy is what practice is all about: the realization of the essential lack of distinction between self and other that inevitably leads to wisdom and compassionate action. Intimacy with the depth of our being – authenticity – is the essential first step. Then, with the help of loving-kindness meditation, we bring intimacy into our relationships with others, starting with those dearest to us and moving on to those who don’t seem dear at all. We can grow in intimacy to include everyone around us, all of society, the whole world and all the beings it contains. Pat Enkyo O’Hara “Most Intimate: A Zen Approach to Life's Challenges.” Shambhala, 2014. 

     We spend a disproportionate amount of time & energy, fearing for our life. This is almost always because we're reacting to past traumas (instead of engaging with reality) and/or we're fearing & trying to avoid ego death (instead of accepting & engaging with the unavoidable reality of physical death). 
     To see what a (spontaneous) shift from fear-based, survivalist self-centered, adversarial, fight / flight / freeze "ordinary mind" to an evolved tend & befriend "open heart-mind" level of consciousness looks like, listen to (or read the transcript of) this documentary: CBC Radio, The Current: “This B.C. woman lodged hundreds of 911 complaints about the homeless. Now she's advocating for them.” https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-28-2019-1.5148615/this-b-c-woman-lodged-hundreds-of-911-complaints-about-the-homeless-now-she-s-advocating-for-them-1.5148621

     An overview of Intimacy with the Real World: http://www.johnlovas.com/2018/11/intimacy-with-real-world.html

     With due respect to William James, most of our thoughts (self-referential internal narrative) are echos of our conditioning. Better thoughts cannot eliminate discretionary suffering.
     “We are here to find that dimension within ourselves that is deeper than thought.” Eckhart Tolle
     We can access, and can integrate, a deeper, far more evolved level of consciousness than the ordinary discursive thought level.