Relationship, Relationship, Relationship

     "All shall be well,
      and all shall be well,
      and all manner of things shall be well." Julian of Norwich (1342 – 1416) English Christian mystic

      “So long as one is merely on the surface of things, they are always imperfect, unsatisfactory, incomplete. Penetrate into the substance and everything is perfect, complete, whole.”
        Philip Kapleau. “The Zen of Living and Dying. A Practical and Spiritual Guide.” Shambhala, 1998. 

     How do we feel on reading such statements by saints, mystics & other serious meditators / contemplatives? Where do we land on this spectrum?: 

vehemently disagree
confused & lost
intrigued
intellectually agree
emotionally agree
completely agree (intellectually, emotionally & physically)

     The closer we are to vehement disagreement, the more aversion we have towards some aspects of our life & our selves AND the more craving we experience towards other aspects of our life & our selves. Powerful aversion to all (people, things & situations) that threatens our survival, health, happiness, wealth, status, etc, and craving & clinging to all that guarantees our survival, health, happiness, wealth, status, etc seems absolutely obvious, healthy & reasonable to most of us.
     YET, at the same time, we all know at least subconsciously, that our ability to control constant change, aging, sickness & death is an illusion. So most of us, for most if not all our lives, live "merely on the surface of things." We half-pretend (delusion) we can keep our "self" from changing, aging, getting sick & dying, AND at some level, we experience life as hard, cruel & meaningless.

     But an interesting change occurs when we stop pouring so much energy into aversion, craving & delusion. We start to experience intimacy with who we really are, everything around us, with all of life. This often happens after we suddenly realize that we only have a very short time to live (trauma-associated growth); following other major traumas ('shipwrecks'); during aboriginal sweat lodge ceremonies, vision quests, & other spiritual practices; insights, 'heart openings' & other mystical experiences during serious meditation practice. 
     Many of us have experienced more trauma than we may consciously realize. Psychotherapy would greatly help to free us from a prison of PTSD-like reactivity. Relying on spirituality alone when psychotherapy is necessary ('spiritual bypassing') prolongs needless suffering and obstructs spiritual growth.
     "On the surface of things," life does suck. But when we "penetrate into the substance," when we become intimate with reality, everything changes.

      "You learn about a thing ... by opening yourself wholeheartedly to it. You learn about a thing by loving it." Barbara McClintock - Nobel prize-winning geneticist

     "Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough." George Washington Carver  

     "When we give our hearts to whatever we do, to whatever we experience, or to what is happening around us, without personal agendas or preferences taking over ... the space of awareness, is exactly the same."
       Amaro Bikkhu "Small Boat, Great Mountain." 2003   www.amaravati.org/downloads/pdf/SmallBoat.pdf 

     "All IS well,
      and all IS well,
      and all manner of things ARE well." Julian of Norwich (modified)

To Know What is True ...

     “To understand our true nature, consciousness must take a journey that reveals all that we are not. For most of us who long to know God, or to know what is true, this is a long inner journey in which our shadowy sides, stuck points of view, traumas, and emotional contractions appear to be faced and released. Consciousness enters the vastness of emptiness in which there is no-self, that is, no personal self – just one cosmic self, one consciousness penetrating all existence. Some of us feel this to be God, some feel it to be our true nature, and we resolve to deepen our awakening. … 
     Our thinking mind is not big enough to grasp the whole of our journey to enlightenment. It has created models, like yoga science, Buddhist insights, and esoteric practices, but these do not convey the essence. We might understand the chemistry of water, but that is not the same knowing of water as drinking it when we are thirsty.
     This limitation of thought calls us to rest instead in this unconditional openness, allowing it to permeate the cells of our body. When a heart embraces this emptiness, it becomes possible to bring unconditional compassion and love into the world.” 
       Bonnie L. Greenwell. “When Spirit Leaps. Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening.” Non-Duality Press, 2018. 

“Deep in the soul, below pain,
below all the distraction of life,
is a silence vast and grand –
an infinite ocean of calm,
which nothing can disturb;
nature’s own exceeding peace,
which ‘surpasses understanding’.
That which we seek with passionate longing,
here and there,
upward and outward;
we find at last within ourselves.”         Richard Maurice Bucke MD (1837-1902)

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Beyond Personal Identifications

     “Occasionally we feel movements of pure, awakened consciousness – free of conditioned thought – and we are fully present without separation. This may happen during meditation when the mind chatter stops, when we feel a silent and deep state of intimacy with life and nature, or in a crisis demanding our full attention and immediate response. Awakened consciousness responds from an immediacy that is unaffected by personal history. It is intuitive, spontaneous and direct. Awakened, pure consciousness exists before and continues beyond personal identifications. In this state, we may:

• have multi-dimensional experiences and also see the simplest creation, like a flower or a child, as wondrous and miraculous;

• know ourselves as profound stillness; and

• sense presence without any attachment to the one who is present; it is something that has always been with us, but we have been unaware of it because of the many distractions of the mind and emotions.

     Consciousness can wake up under many circumstances. Before and after an awakening, many of us experience a state that is free of ego, as if there is no ‘me.’ It is a sense of vastness and space, which is commonly described as emptiness. Emptiness can cause us to feel lost and ungrounded because the sense of ‘I’ is gone, but this emptiness is pregnant with potential. Releasing ego-identity is essential as consciousness becomes ready to realize the truth of itself.”

       Bonnie L. Greenwell. “When Spirit Leaps. Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening.” Non-Duality Press, 2018.

 

Halifax Central Library

Always and Already

     “by seeking reality (or Buddha nature, or awakening, or enlightenment) as if it is something other than what we are and something other than what is happening in this moment we unwittingly avoid it, in the sense that our seeking causes us to not perceive what is already and always the case.
     In this very moment, the awareness that is reading these words, the awareness that looks out, the awareness that sees, the awareness that is hearing the sounds around you – recognizing that awareness, before you even try to be aware, is the doorway to the fundamental reality. That awareness is the awareness of the infinite; that awareness is itself the infinite being aware.
     It is fine to have an awareness practice in which you are trying to be more present to what is happening. That has its place, but I am talking about something different: not trying to enhance the quality of your attention, but relaxing into the nature of awareness itself. Then you come to see that everything else is in a constant state of change and you, whatever you are, are always there, whether there is something occurring, whether you are having an experience or not, whether you are thinking or not thinking.
     What you are is always here, and the only thing that is always here is awareness or consciousness. It is in every experience, and it is in every sight, sound, smell, taste, and sensation. There is no need to try to get rid of anything you see, or smell, or taste, or touch, or recognize. If you are trying to get rid of it, that means you are trying to change objects, which keeps you stuck in the world of objects. For the sake of self-recognition, we should relinquish being stuck on the object of our perception, of our awareness, and allow awareness to sense back into itself. Awareness, when it is sensing back into itself, is an open, spacious, empty, attentive quality. 
     If you sense into awareness itself at any moment, you might recognize yourself to be awareness itself.”

       Adyashanti. “The Most Important Thing. Discovering Truth at the Heart of Life.” Sounds True, 2019.

Mimmo Paladino illustration

Mood, Self-concepts & Time

"Sometimes I go about with pity for myself
and all the while Great Winds
are carrying me across the sky."

Ojibeway Saying

     Regardless of our situation, be it objectively pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, we can embody EITHER 
         • a pleasant, natural, peaceful, authentic, nurturing mood, intimate with whatever is in the present moment OR 
         • dysphoria, in an adversarial or defensive mood (filled with fear, anger, impatience, distractedness, bitterness, cynicism, etc), escaping from the present moment, to the past & future.
     Such dysphoria is caused primarily by our attempts to create & maintain a solid, permanent "self", despite our deep understanding that the "self" is just an ephemeral concept. 
     'Excessive self-concern' or 'noisy ego' is closely tied to another human idea: time. (For a detailed examination, see: David R. Loy. “Lack & Transcendence. The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism, and Buddhism.” Wisdom Publications, 2018) 'Time-poverty' is a major stressor these days. Paradoxically, the more anxious we are about not having enough time, the more time we squander by dwelling in the past & future.

     We all know what it's like to have an intimate relationship with people, pets, hobbies, projects, etc. Intimacy means being completely open to & engaged with whomever or whatever we're with. We also know the effect that intimacy has on time - instead of 'time-poverty,' we experience timelessness, 'the eternal now.'
     Being in an adversarial relationship with anyone or anything (eg our job, car, computer etc) clearly feels unpleasant, stressful, unhealthy, unnatural - a situation most of us would like to correct as quickly as possible.

     Being intimate with literally everyone & everything - 'life's 10,000 joys & 10,000 sorrows,' 'the good, the bad & the ugly' - is ideal from a Buddhist perspective, and shared by mystics & saints of all the world's wisdom traditions. Avoiding difficulties is an important primitive biological reflex but is inconsistent with human maturation & wisdom. Acceptance, including self-acceptance, self-compassion & 'leaning in' with kind curiosity to deeply examine & understand all that we once feared, are essential to growing up. (See: Kristin Neff. “Self-Compassion. The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.” HarperCollins, 2011) Intimacy feels 'like home,' authentic, natural, healthy, right.

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

     “The whole idea of compassion is based on the keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings which are all part of one another and all involved in one another… 

     The whole purpose of life is to live by love.”            Thomas Merton

 

Our Sense of Lack

     What do we typically do when feeling anxious, lacking, hungry, empty, fragile, needy, inadequate, etc? 
     It's very practical to deeply investigate this BECAUSE, whether it's obvious or eating away at us subconsciously, we very, very often DO feel like this. But why? This is an important question. And we all need to find answers AND solutions - if there are any.

     From a Buddhist perspective, “we experience life as frustrating because our usual understanding of it is deluded. Buddhism holds out the possibility of an alternative to this, a liberation from delusion, but such liberation is not common and so cannot be derived from an analysis of everyday life.” Again, according to Buddhism, "we can end our sense of a lack and our flight from it into the future, by realizing that from the beginning nothing has ever been lacking." 
     According to Blaise Pascal, “ ‘We do not rest satisfied with the present, for the present is generally painful to us.’ … ten minutes’ meditation confirms it. If our root problem is not fear of death, which looms in the future, but an always gnawing sense of lack right now, the reason becomes obvious. Dwelling in the present is uncomfortable because it discloses our nothingness, our groundlessness, and time is the schema we construct to escape that sense of inadequacy. … the mentally ill invoke the past only as a substitute for the present, as a need to defend against the present, and that the past is realized only to the extent that it involves a de-realization of the present. In contrast, those usually considered well-adjusted use the future to defend against the present. Time allows us to flee into the future (when, we believe, our sense of lack will finally be resolved) or the past (when, as we recollect, there was little or no lack). … complete felicity [happiness] is discoverable only in our recollections or in our expectations. Each tends to feed on the other. Individually and collectively, we dream of the Golden Age to come, which will restore the dimly remembered Golden Age of the past (our childhood, Periclean Greece, the 1960s).
     In sum, time is the canvas we erect before us to hide the sneering skull, the bottomless void. On that canvas we paint the dreams that fascinate us, because they distract us from our immediate situation and offer the hope of filling up our sense of lack. But if our experience of time is conditioned by our fear of death and our denial of groundlessness, true acceptance of them should reveal something hitherto unrealized about the nature of time and the things ‘in’ time.

     Being-Time

          He to whom time is the same as eternity
          And eternity the same as time 
          Is free from all contention.                        Boehme”

     Avoiding the contents of our present moment - our actual life - causes suffering. Awakening, or liberation from suffering, is: "intimacy with everything" - an open-heart-minded acceptance of everything, right here & now - our actual life. 

     The quotes above are from the highly-recommended, but challenging book:  
       David R. Loy. “Lack & Transcendence. The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism, and Buddhism.” Wisdom Publications, 2018.

Simplicity, Patience, Compassion

     It's always important to remember that wisdom traditions are pragmatic ie teach methods that, through direct experience, are known to work. Follow the suggestions that sound reasonable. If they work for you, do more of the same; if they don't work for you, put them aside for now (but come back & try them again later ...).

I have just three things to teach: 
Simplicity, Patience, Compassion. 
These three are your greatest treasures. 

Simple in actions and thoughts, 
you return to the source of being. 

Patient with both friends and enemies, 
you accord with the way things are. 

Compassionate toward yourself, 
you reconcile all beings in the world.                 Tao de Ching 

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