Starting the Hero's Journey

    I boldly suggest that each one of us is on our own individual hero's journey, and will complete it in this lifetime, or after an unknown number of lifetimes. Most of us don't seem to be in any hurry, however, completion - awakening - does eliminate tremendous amounts of needless suffering. 

     In the forward, Angelo DiLullo dedicates his valuable guidebook to awakening with, "to anyone who, from this moment forward, is willing to forgo comfort and predictability to venture into the unknown in the name of truth." We do love our comforts and can quickly get very upset if our wifi is unexpectedly lost for a few minutes.

        “… we live in a society of endless distractions and any of these can be used to avoid discomfort. Well, when we take up an investigation of our deepest truths, we are voluntarily putting ourselves in situations that, by nature, make it hard to distract ourselves. As we do this, we will often notice some discomfort. Sometimes it is a mild uneasiness. Other times it might feel more intense. Either way it can be tremendously helpful to simply acknowledge the discomfort. ‘Okay, I am feeling uncomfortable. What is it like? What does it feel like in my body at this moment? Do I have to do something to immediately distract myself like my thoughts or habits suggest, or can I just be with it?’ You might be surprised. What you’ve been running from for years might turn out to be tolerable, even enjoyable after a time.

    ‘The ultimate measure of a human being is not where he stands in moments of comfort & convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.’ 

    Martin Luther King Jr. 

 

    Perhaps you can only sit with the discomfort for a few minutes at first, and that’s perfectly acceptable. Over time you will start to recognize that you have an innate capacity to relax into whatever the body is feeling in the moment. With this relaxation, you may notice an alchemical process. The restlessness & discomfort will begin to transform into an experience of presence & wholeness. An intuitive realization might dawn – the discomfort itself was not what was making us distractible, restless, & irritable. These were only side effects of the habitual activity of running from our emotions. With this realization, we start to recognize that there is intelligence in discomfort. It is like a messenger telling you, ‘Look here!’ This will begin to replace the old habit pattern that seems to say, ‘Run away!’ As we experientially recognize our capacity to sit with these processes, a certain spontaneous willingness begins to emerge. We see that by voluntarily opening to the intelligence of these uncomfortable moments, we are simply acknowledging what is already within us. We recognize that to run from these experiences is to run from ourselves. We’ve done that for too long, haven’t we? All that running is what is causing our suffering. This separation from ourselves is what perpetuates that sense of separation from others, and from life itself.

    You will find (awakening) to be the adventure of all adventures. 

    BUT if it’s not your priority at this time in life, then by all means, put it aside and pursue what most authentically moves you. This book will always be available if you choose to return and readdress this matter. There is no judgement from me or the Universe. If you genuinely feel that it is your path to be an exceptional parent and raise a family, then that is exactly what you should be doing. If you want to throw yourself fully into art or music, then that is exactly what you should do. If you feel genuinely moved to pursue a life of scientific investigation, then by all means go do that. This is your life, so doing what feels most authentic and relevant to you regardless of social expectation is what will be most fulfilling."
    Angelo DiLullo MD. “Awake. It’s Your Turn.” 2021. VALUABLE GUIDEBOOK

    After my awakening experience, "everything changed. Everything changed. What really stunned me, I was in the middle of really a lot of turmoil in my personal life at the time and literally an hour before my awakening, there were all the problems I was dealing with in my life, and an hour later there was no problem anymore. And this has absolutely nothing to do with the denying of facts. This is not about denying that things are not working, or that it’s some kind of inertia or lack of action or downplaying or denying the reality of the situation. It’s because the narrative drops. When the narrative – the thought-created narrative – is not there, then you actually get to have a very clear view of the situation, rather than overshadowed by the narrative. There was a situation, I can tell you with certainty that happened following this awakening, that would have been really shocking, really painful and devastating, had it happened before that awakening. I would have been devastated. It would have broken me. It would have broken me. And yet here I was, in that situation, dealing with it with such clarity and grace that I never thought I would be capable of. I was completely stunned by the lack of drama that I know otherwise would be there. Was there pain? Yes. Was there shock? Yes. But there was such clarity of perception and knowing how to navigate this situation that really was both personal and impersonal at the same time. It even stunned Michael (Neill – my teacher at the time) because when I told him that, he went very quiet. He was speechless because he got to hear what I witnessed and the details of what was so shocking and painful, and when I then told him how I dealt with it and shared with him how I saw everything, he himself went quiet and he said, wow, unbelievable, even I think I would lose it in the same situation.” 
    Angelo DiLullo “Academics to Awakening! - Interview with Maggie” 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvqlmackJN0  

    "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern." William Blake  

Leonard Cohen - "What Happens to the Heart?"

Meditation, Thoughts & Emotions

     After years of serious meditation practice, many of us expect to reach a stable state of equanimity, if not pure bliss. When this doesn't happen, we wonder if we've messed up somehow.
     Thoughts, emotions & body sensations will always continue to change (anicca), and will continue, at times, to be unpleasant (dukkha). However, self-inquiry & meditative experience tells us that these things are not who / what we are (anatta). 
     It takes a LOT of wise, continuous practice - on AND off the cushion - to let go of being so thoroughly identified with our thoughts (self-referential internal narrative), emotions & body, and start to hold ourselves much more lightly.
     A few Buddhist perspectives on this common dilemma:

     “The meditator’s path is not about trying to become perfect. It is a path that leads to inner freedom. I have found meditators to be some of the most idealistic people in the world. It makes sense that we would be; after all, we are aiming for the highest happiness. But when idealism is self-centered – as in ‘I’ have to be perfect – it is debilitating and exhausting, certainly for ourselves but also for those around us upon whom we are projecting our need for perfection. As the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki reminds us, practice is making one mistake after another. 
     … Aiming for perfection can be seductive and compelling. Given that the society in which we live supports the idea that perfection is attainable, it can feel like our own personal fault if we are not.” 
       Narayan Helen Liebenson. “The Magnanimous Heart. Compassion and Love, Loss and Grief, Joy and Liberation.” Wisdom Publications, 2018.

     When practitioners complain about suffering, Zen teachers would ask them: "WHO is suffering?" The intention is to nudge the practitioner toward the direct experience of not being able to find any trace of a solid, fixed, unchanging "I". 
     If we ask ourselves this question, we immediately leave the victim role, and assume an observer role, which is MUCH more spacious, free & clear.
 
     “The fundamental change, the turning of the page from illusion to clarity and understanding in my process of nondual awakening, occurred after many, many hours of self-inquiry and yoga while working with ‘I am not this body’ and ‘Am I this body?’ …” 
       Gary Weber. “Evolving Beyond Thought. Updating Your Brain’s Software.” CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017.

     For a deeper insight into this essential topic: 
• Guy Armstrong. “Emptiness. A Practical Guide for Meditators.” Wisdom Publications, 2017. 
• Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. “Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree. The Buddha’s Teachings on Voidness.” Wisdom Publications, 1994.

Morning meditation

Three Wonderful Books

     Short quotes from 3 exceptionally useful books:

     “When nothing is needed from the object* to fill up my lack, it can be just what it is … no longer frustrating because there is no longer anything lacking in me that I need to project as something lacking in my world.” 
        David R. Loy. “Lack & Transcendence. The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism, and Buddhism." Wisdom Publications, 2018.

     Loy's book is a detailed, slightly scholarly examination of our universal gnawing sense of "lack" - not being enough in some irritatingly impossible-to-resolve way: not good enough, not smart enough, not rich enough, not attractive enough, not happy enough, not secure enough, etc, etc. BUT Loy explains what, from a Buddhist perspective, we can effectively do about this.
     *"Object" can refer to people, animals, things, activities etc. we crave for, try to possess, try to hang onto, etc. in a futile (materialistic) attempt to resolve this sense of lack.

     A series of simple exercises presented in the next book, by Weber, show us how:
“a) thoughts are about the past and future,
b) thoughts are unpredictable and beyond your control,
c) most thoughts contain the I,
d) trying to not think is difficult,
e) thoughts are continuous,
f) you can’t predict your thoughts,
g) you have thousands of random thoughts,
h) your thoughts come from and go to emptiness,
i) your 'I' is a changing cast of ad-hoc characters.
     These insights are critical to having the mind see its nature and, amazingly, and fortunately, begin to unravel itself from its craziness.”
       Gary Weber. “Happiness Beyond Thought. A Practical Guide to Awakening.” iUniverse Inc, 2007.

     Weber's book is super-concise, straight-to-the-point. It's especially useful if you've already done a fair bit of reading about awakening, yet remain identified with your thoughts ("self-talk"). There are useful, beneficial types of thinking: such as for problem-solving, planning (vs catastrophizing), etc. The type Weber advises we learn to release is by far the most common form: self-referential internal narrative (SRIN) - obsessive, excessive self-concern - all about "me" "myself" & "I".


      “To recognize an emotion as an emotion is itself a wise response. This awareness of the truth of things, that an emotion is a mental state, offers a little bit of light. This light allows us to view the emotion wisely instead of through the eyes of delusion and ignorance. Awareness offers a pause. When we observe and accept, ‘Ah, anxiety is like this,’ for instance, we can experience an intimacy with the raw actuality of the experience instead of papering it over with thought.
     Because all conditioned things are impermanent, painful emotions are subject to change. We practice sustaining the awareness that an emotion is happening here and now. There is the object – the painful emotion – and there is the knowing of the object. Because the pain is happening here and now, it is workable here and now. The story of self begins to ease and dissolve: how I was in the past, what happened when I previously experienced this, why it is this way now, given it is this way now it will be this way into the future … all of this is just the arising of thoughts that are inherently empty and occurring here and now.” 
        Narayan Helen Liebenson. “The Magnanimous Heart. Compassion and Love, Loss and Grief, Joy and Liberation.” Wisdom Publications, 2018.

     Liebenson's book is warm, gentle AND wise. Emotional reactivity reminds us when our behavior is not quite as psychosociospiritually-evolved as we would like it to be. Maturation is a life-long journey - one step at a time ...

Fogo Island, Newfoundland