Mornings With Om: Seeking Myself in the Nondual

M: Human beings die every second, the fear and the agony of dying hangs over the world like a cloud. No wonder you too are afraid. But once you know that the body alone dies and not the continuity of memory and the sense of ‘I am’ reflected in it, you are afraid no longer.

Q: Well, let us die and see.

M: Give attention and you will find that birth and death are one, that life pulsates between being and non-being, and that each needs the other for completeness. You are born to die and you die to be reborn.

Q: Does not detachment stop the process?

M: With detachment the fear goes, but not the fact.

Q: Shall I be compelled to be reborn? How dreadful!

M: There is no compulsion. You get what you want. You make your own plans and you carry them out.

Q: Do we condemn ourselves to suffer?

M: We grow through investigation, and to investigate we need experience. We tend to repeat what we have not understood. If we are sensitive and intelligent, we need not suffer. Pain is a call for attention and the penalty of carelessness. Intelligent and compassionate action is the only remedy.

Q: It is because I have grown in intelligence that I would not tolerate my suffering again. What is wrong with suicide?

M: Nothing wrong, if it solves the problem. What if it does not? Suffering caused by extraneous factors -- some painful and incurable disease, or unbearable calamity -- may provide some justification, but where wisdom and compassion are lacking, suicide cannot help. A foolish death means foolishness reborn. Besides there is the question of karma to consider. Endurance is usually the wisest course.

Q: Must one endure suffering, however acute and hopeless?

M: Endurance is one thing and helpless agony is another. Endurance is meaningful and fruitful, while agony is useless.

Q: Why worry about karma? It takes care of itself anyhow.

M: Most of our karma is collective. We suffer for the sins of others, as others suffer for ours. Humanity is one. Ignorance of this fact does not change it. We could have been much happier people ourselves, but for our indifference to the sufferings of others.

What I love about this teaching is Maharaj’s essential message that once we lift the veil of fear, all will be revealed.  He says, “But once you know that the body alone dies and not the continuity of memory and the sense of ‘I am’ reflected in it, you are afraid no longer.”  This continua of consciousness is reincarnation or rebirth, and it is the logical conclusion of dependent origination and emptiness as the ultimate nature of reality.  If nothing is born, then nothing dies.  And out of that emptiness, “This arises because that is; this, having been produced, produces that.”  The Advaitic response is: “that life pulsates between being and non-being, and that each needs the other for completeness.”  This word “need” is interesting; the Buddhist would say “depends on.”  And for “completeness,” they would say reality.  Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.  “Give attention and you will find that birth and death are one.”  This is monistic language and I believe what distinguishes Advaita and Buddhism.  Again, Buddhism would say that birth and death are inseparate, which vitiates the notion of theism or monism. 

“With detachment the fear goes, but not the fact.”  This is very consistent with Buddhist thought.  Nonattachment reflects the wisdom of understanding the ultimate nature of reality, and the “fact” is conventional reality, where birth and death, both mental constructs, exist as a condition of ignorance. 

Maharaj further explicates the idea of wisdom into the teaching.  He says, “We grow through investigation, and to investigate we need [direct] experience. We tend to repeat what we have not understood [ignorance]. If we are sensitive and intelligent, we need not suffer. Pain is a call for attention and the penalty of carelessness. Intelligent and compassionate action is the only remedy.”

As an extension of suffering, the questioner inquires about suicide, and Maharaj raises the issue of karma.  He reminds the questioner that a “foolish death is foolishness reborn.”  This belief in suicide complicating and even causing a worse fate in rebirth is related to the idea of dependent origination and ignorance within an evolutionary context.  As we further and further purify negative karma through the cultivation of wisdom and compassion, we move closer to realization, or Enlightenment.  Suicide would undermine that whole process.  And thus, it doesn’t “solve the problem” of suffering.  It in fact increases it.  “Endurance is the wisest course.”  Or, tolerate what’s intolerable as one gains greater and greater wisdom through practice.

i was unable to post yesterday, something screwy with the internet. anyway, i just would like to write a few brief words about these posts, Om. i'm not sure what anyone else has experienced, readings over these posts over the past couple of days, but i must say i quite love them. nisargadatta has that sort of style of conversing that i love perhaps most; the way he lays it out straight, direct, yet also carefully guides, yet also endlessly challenges...

and your commentary strikes me as most appropriate for our continued discussion, to move further into Buddhism and Advaita, and, in doing so, to get ever closer to what's right in front of us. these posts are not about some abstract location to reach, or some meaningless spiritual realization to attain; they are about showing up, about caring for self, about cultivating compassion and wisdom. they are about struggling on the path and facing the nature of things, frightening as it may at first be. i believe these posts are about helping us to live (and to die!).

where did everybody go?

Despite the fact that I requested this discussion, so to speak, I haven't been that active in responding to the posts, but I want y'all to know that I have been reading along.  I just looked up this dude on Wikepedia and now have a better understanding of where he's coming from, which is very helpful for me to understand his ideas--context is very important to me.  I also find it hard to grasp complex ideas by reading.  I need the live discussion I think, to really ingest it.  I wish we could have a study group or series or something like that.  I think that what I love about my yoga asana practice is the aspect of putting it in the body, in addition to the constant processing of it all with my nomad crew.  Meditation can be a way of ingesting too, I guess, but on my own I feel a little lost.  I've been trying to develop a sitting practice at home in the mornings.  I'm starting to enjoy it and I love thinking about those of you who I know are sitting alongside me.

Have a great trip.   I am making myself invisible and am hiding in your backpack.  I'll be sitting everyday in one of your pockets and sending you hugs.  It will be wonderful to hear your stories when you return.  Be safe.  Be well. 

 I recently read an interview of Robert Thurman in which discussed his beliefs in Buddhism.  One of the things Thurman said stood out to me; he said that Freud called the quest for enlightenment infantile regression. At first glance I found this statement interesting and immediately assumed that Freud meant this comment in a negative way.  After reading through some of Om’s recent posts from, I Am That, and thinking about this statement I feel that Freud’s comment is significant and in fact an affirmation of the healing nature of a quest for enlightenment or integration of Buddhist philosophical teachings in the role of the psychoanalytical process. (Granted I know very little about Freud and his views so Om, please correct me if I am wrong).  

We have been looking at Buddhist philosophy, meditation, compassion for all beings and intimacy in relationship while independently fostering our own analytical process of self-awareness as a mechanism for growth, healing and enlightenment. Since each of these are pretty complex ideas and tend to challenge our fundamental belief systems (our current reality) it has been important to me to assimilate them into my life as independent constructs. Now that I am more comfortable with understanding each and practicing I can see a very positive impact on how I feel and on my actions.  I can clearly see how together they each play an integral part in my healing and that in fact this analytical process is infantile regression. Infantile regression is necessary in order to heal and mature past the suffering and actions that are governed by a faulted psychological development that I had little control over. 

woops double post

hi again --

this is me, homo sacer, a friend of one of you, but maybe not recognizable

I've been studying both buddhism and psychoanalysis for a while now, just dabbling in the ocean of each really.  I have been reading Mark Epstein's excellent book "Thoughts without a thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective"  Occasionally it seems clearer to me, but often I am left with more questions than answers. 

Meditation does open up new territory for me bit by bit, always vaguely at first.  I am worried that I am not opening up... though last year during winter I was having a hard time, trying to escape my sense of despair and depression.  Today I feel clear, a little detached and unemotional.  I am having a writer's block... though that has usually been the case.  I have spent about every other day or every few days in meditation for about a half an hour to an hour.  But it seems boring because I am never uncovering interesting things about myself... just boring things.  In the book it says that eventually a meditator will reach states of terror and bliss, but I have not experienced anything like that. 

Because I haven't had strong emotions when meditating, or for that matter for a long time in general -- I haven't been depressed, in other words--I have not really felt the need to develop "bare attention" -- attention to my emotions without identifying with them.   In fact I don't know anything about meditation because I have not been taught how to meditate. 

However, I can probably assume that it has had some stabilizing effect on my emotions--perhaps allowing me to reconcile the feelings before allowing them to get out of hand.  But I don't want to just stabilize myself. I would like to become clear and capable of doing what is necessary to be who I want to be--an empathic person, an effective social worker, a peace activist.  But seeking identity-related "ends" such as those is not a good way to begin a practice of Buddhism.  I can say it is for a greater good, but it's also for my own good.  And although taking care of myself is a good aim, I am also conscious that my ego needs to be sustained along the journey to letting go of my "Self."  

I finished reading Thich Nhat Hanh's "Being Peace" today. I think that Thich Nhat Hanh must see how judgement of imperfection may come across as rejection, instead of acceptance.  

This is a small but profound book.  I have literally been thinking for years on the topics in the book and haven't ever reached answers until I found this book.  The answers he gives do not map out a uniform path, but offer guidelines on how to walk our individual (and our collective) paths.  In one of the precepts he says:

A religious community should take a clear stand against oppression and injustice, and should strive to change the situation without engaging in partisan conflicts.

This does not mean we should not be silent about injustice. It just means we should do it with awareness and not take sides.

I have felt that in our political and personal lives, we often feel that we must take one side or the other.  Non-duality means we must recognize the reality of both the oppressor and oppressed, which contain different kinds of suffering.  In the same way it requires us to see how our identity "selves" which are imaginary constructions are not one thing or the other, but both and neither (Thich Nhat Hanh says that since all life is interconnected, it is "empty of a separate self" and "containing all selves.")  I wonder how that can inform or change the "peace movement" (it's more like "stagnation" these days, but we can change that!) How can we support the ending of war without being violent in our demands for the end to war?  I think more and more that we need to consider making a new kind of non violent, non-political movement in order to stop war, to truly be able to see how oppression is a dynamic, inter-linked process, how each of us is oppressed and how most of us are bystanders and / or oppressors.  

Non-dualism may not be helpful when you are homeless to know that you are connected to the person who grimaces when passing you, who owns a $5 million apartment, or when the car bomb hits a marketplace that has your son in it.  So this is a knowledge that is especially relevant to the more privileged, I guess.  How can we create responsible communities if we are trying to be mindful of the imbalances of political and social power, especially how we form and who is in our spiritual and political/social communities (for example, not everyone can afford $15 yoga or recognizes certain signs of belonging based on identity-related dependencies we have...  fashion, apartments in Manhattan, educated culture and etc, etc.) 

anyway -- a digression -- because what I was originally going to say was that the taking care of raging emotions with compassion for yourself (leaving aside the question of whether the self exists or not) -- seems really the first step to reconciliation with yourself and others.  

sorry for the long post.  ;)

George, George, come here. Quick, look!

Wow, is that real?

What do you mean, is that real? Of course, it’s real. No body could fake that.

Yeah but it doesn’t make much sense to do it that way.

What other way is there to do it?

I wouldn’t know.

Exactly.  That’s why it has to be authentic.

Hmm, I wonder sometimes.

Why can’t you just believe, George. It’s all I am asking for.

I am a skeptic.

Why?

It’s just the way I am. I don’t trust much.

God, I can’t imagine how you make it through the day with that attitude.

I ask myself the same question about you all the time.

Why’s that?

Because it’s impossible to trust so much in this world. People find ways to use it against you. They take advantage of you at every turn. That’s why I am a skeptic until proven otherwise. I save myself a lot of pain.

And you miss out on so much.

Different ways of living life is all it is.

I couldn’t live like that. What would be the point, it would just be joyless.

I have fun.

No, you don’t.

How do you know?

I have seen you “have fun.” It is not fun at all.

To you it isn’t. To me, it’s everything.

I am trying to get you to open up, George. Trust a little.

I think you are trying to change me.

Every one and everything changes. There’s nothing wrong with it.

You don’t get me, Marina, do you? I like being the way I am. It works for me. I don’t want to change.

God, you’re so infuriating at times. It’s impossible to go anywhere with you because you kill the experience. I am done with you.

That’s fine with me. I never trusted you to believe in me anyway!

Did you ever read those George and Martha children books, Nico?  It's about two hippos, who live together.  I can't remember if they are siblings or husband and wife, but they are always having disagreements.  This dialogue sounds familiar, but I don't think that it's from those books....

Is this from something you are writing?  I mean, obviously you are writing it, but is it a piece of something larger?  It sounds very intriguing, this relationship.

Why the hell did you bury this brilliant poem underneath a post?  Damn, I love this poem and for so many reasons.  This first stanza reminds me of Rilke's poem reminiscent of Rodin:

           ... I can conjure you at will.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
and grasp you with my heart as with a hand;

But, I’m already getting ahead of myself.  For James, the part is the whole for, as Rilke once shared regarding Rodin’s armless sculptures, “Nothing necessary is lacking.”  Ah, you see, I went right to Rilke and Rodin.  How could I not with this line?: “how is it that your hands are?”  There could have been a myriad of second lines, but here is sheer poetic radiance: “and this sinking feeling,”….  One of James’ rare commas; why this, why now?  “Sinking” has got to be one of the most palpable and terrifying images and when married to “feeling” we feel the dread of helplessness, the flailing arms foundering in emotion.  I also want to mention how James’ placement of this almost cliché revitalizes it; it sounds so original here.

“why did I create it/when you hands are/and are yours?”  This is one fascinating and intimate conversation.  First, the narrator is talking to a potential lover whose hands must be striking in some way as they take on a life of their own (hence the allusion to Rilke’s animism).  And then he speaks to the hands themselves, even before the lover again.  It’s as if the hands have a distinct quality independent of the lover.  And then the Buddhist touch: “why did I create it.”  There is a double meaning here: “this sinking feeling” must engender the craving mind that “creates the dual aspects of consciousness that, in turn, delude the `I’ into inherent existence and objectification.  Secondly, not only are the hands separate but the lover is perceived as separate, too, and so the craving and grasping of desire now take over. 

“i can't/leave/you/alone/i can't taste you/i can't help myself./i needn't.  Here we are under the Bodhi tree seeking understanding of suffering and mind finally easing into its non-attached center.  And now the philosophical (James often has the metaphysical eye seeing into the poem’s and hence, mind’s, seeing).  The realization of emptiness is revealed in the understanding “because all i see is i”  and the syllogistic “and your hands are yours;” and the psychological emerging from that truth: “and if i were to touch them,/your hands/perhaps/i would risk everything.”  There is always at least the double meanings.  To risk everything means to risk the relationship, but it also means the potential loss of wisdom, a much greater loss.  On a psychological level, this is the fetishistic mind fixated on objects out of fear of intimacy as it grapples with subjectivity. 

And here comes my favorite couplet: 

it is my responsibility
to touch your hands

I tell you, this really breaks me up.  When all is said and done, when the psychological gets shaken out in the wash of realization, there is this amazing non-theistic truth, and paradox.  Though there ultimately is no `I,’ the conventional self (which, by the way, IS the psychological self) literally has the whole world in its hands (whether it realizes it or not), and so, IS completely responsible for the world of all beings seeking touch.  The power of this truth is equal to the freedom one feels when one understands the nature of responsibility, the ability to respond.  This realization is what prevents harm and violence and cultivates compassion and lovingkindness. 

And so, “this sinking feeling,” in the hands of a seeker (even one who struggles with sitting :) is an amazing opportunity to fully sink and rise in the wisdom of faith and knowing.  And, of course, James is learning more and more each day, that the relationship is one powerful yoga from which to mirror his spiritual quest.

A most beautiful and open post, Camila.  Thank you.  You have been so generous with your experiences, I hope they are bringing you as much insight and peace as the joy they bring to me.  Language, in the context of identifying, naming and integrating this thought aspect of feeling, with the EXPERIENCE of feeling, which begins in the body, is the only way for authentic psychological and spiritual understanding and intimacy to occur.  This cannot be overemphasized.  Literally every moment of consciousness is infused with feeling and only in later stages of meditation are we able to sufficiently dissolve these feeling states as thought products.  It would be correct to say that feeling, consciousness and experience, in very general terms, are synonymous.  I am consciousness in that I feel and I experience in that I feel; and I feel in that I am conscious and experience.  Integration is the fullness, the robustness of that experience as interpretation and conveyance.  We first perceive as consciousness makes contact with the world, and then conceive or apply language to that perception.  The psychological integration of experience is just that: sentio ergo sum (I feel therefore I am).  The psychological is the conventional at its highest level of awareness.

This is in fact what Nico was describing in his fictitious narrative.  What we call real in the conventional sense is the relativity of subjective experience.  This is real to me, he says.  But, keep in mind, conventional reality is not the true or ultimate reality of emptiness, which sees things as they are unobscured by subjective experience.  Ultimate reality is bare cognition, which cognizes emptiness, the impermanent, changing interconnectedness of phenomena. 

Compartmentalization, dissociation or their cousin, repression, are ways of dealing with traumatogenic (capable of producing a wound or injury) experiences; that is, experiences -- originating in childhood – the feel threatening to the self’s integrity.  This is the way we protect ourselves from further relational injury.  It works remarkably well, except for one thing: it impairs one’s ability to become intimate and feel happy, and causes isolation and despair.  This is the false or shadow self that we hear about.  As I tell my friends, your pain was spawned in a relationship and it is only in relationship that reparation will take place.  Reparation is integration on a psychological level.  And integration of self is the interface of psychological health and beginning spiritual realization and understanding.

All Suffering is Born of Desire

Q: What is happiness?

M: Harmony between the inner and the outer is happiness. On the other hand, self-identification with the outer causes is suffering.

Q. How does self-identification happen?

M: The self by its nature knows itself only. For lack of experience whatever it perceives it takes to be itself. Battered, it learns to look out (viveka) and to live alone (vairagya). When right behaviour (uparati), becomes normal, a powerful inner urge (mukmukshutva) makes it seek its source. The candle of the body is lighted and all becomes clear and bright.

Q: What is the real cause of suffering?

M: Self-identification with the limited (vyaktitva). Sensations as such, however strong, do not cause suffering. It is the mind bewildered by wrong ideas, addicted to thinking: 'I am this' 'I am that', that fears loss and craves gain and suffers when frustrated.

Q: A friend of mine used to have horrible dreams night after night. Going to sleep would terrorise him. Nothing could help him.

M: Company of the truly good (satsang) would help him.

Q: Life itself is a nightmare.

M: Noble friendship (satsang) is the supreme remedy for all ills, physical and mental.

Q: Generally one cannot find such friendship.

M: Seek within. Your own self is your best friend.

Q: Why is life so full of contradictions?

M: It serves to break down mental pride. We must realise how poor and powerless we are. As long as we delude ourselves by what we imagine ourselves to be, to know, to have, to do, we are in a sad plight indeed. Only in complete self-negation there is a chance to discover our real being.

Q: Why so much stress on self-negation?

M: As much as on self-realisation. The false self must be abandoned before the real self can be found.

Q: The self you choose to call false is to me most distressingly real. It is the only self I know. What you call the real self is a mere concept, a way of speaking, a creature of the mind, an attractive ghost. My daily self is not a beauty, I admit, but it is my own and only self. You say I am, or have, another self. Do you see it -- is it a reality to you, or do you want me to believe what you yourself don't see?

M: Don't jump to conclusions rashly. The concrete need not be the real, the conceived need not be false. Perceptions based on sensations and shaped by memory imply a perceiver, whose nature you never cared to examine. Give it your full attention, examine it with loving care and you will discover heights and depths of being which you did not dream of, engrossed as you are in your puny image of yourself.

Q: I must be in the right mood to examine myself fruitfully.

M: You must be serious, intent, truly interested. You must be full of goodwill for yourself.

Q: I am selfish all right.

M. You are not. You are all the time destroying yourself, and your own, by serving strange gods, inimical and false. By all means be selfish -- the right way. Wish yourself well, labour at what is good for you. Destroy all that stands between you and happiness. Be all -- love all -- be happy -- make happy. No happiness is greater.

Q: Why is there so much suffering in love?

M: All suffering is born of desire. True love is never frustrated. How can the sense of unity be frustrated? What can be frustrated is the desire for expression. Such desire is of the mind. As with all things mental, frustration is inevitable.

Q: What is the place of sex in love?

M: Love is a state of being. Sex is energy. Love is wise, sex is blind. Once the true nature of love and sex is understood there will be no conflict or confusion.

Q: There is so much sex without love.

M: Without love all is evil. Life itself without love is evil.

Q: What can make me love?

M: You are love itself -- when you are not afraid.

                    --------------------------------------

This, today’s reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s `I Am That’ is a perfect marriage for our posts on feelings.  What Maharaj does here is help us to see the difference but overlapping aspects of psychological and spiritual awareness.  When we speak of spiritual, we merely mean that which begins internally and is transpersonal, that which transcends but includes conventional awareness, the reality of duality, subject and object.  Convention means the material world.  But, happiness or joy, as I like to call it, is impermanent on a conventional level.  For happiness must transcend as well as include conventional experience.  This is harmony.  “Harmony between the inner and the outer is happiness. On the other hand, self-identification with the outer causes is suffering.”  What makes this statement so interesting is that even optimal psychological well-being, in this world, will not create permanent happiness.  What it will create is the opportunity and portal for spiritual realization.

(Will continue later :)

“The self by its nature knows itself only. For lack of experience whatever it perceives it takes to be itself. Battered, it learns to look out and to live alone. When right behavior becomes normal, a powerful inner urge makes it seek its source. The candle of the body is lighted and all becomes clear and bright.”

There are two levels of causes: inner and outer.  The inner causes are what we are interested in regarding healing, true change and transformation.  To see only outer causes is to objectify oneself and miss (ignore) one’s entire resource of wisdom and repository of joy.  Yet, before self is sufficiently self-aware to perceive the germs of illusion, Maharaj suggests that suffering must occur.  This makes sense when we realize that the cause of suffering is ignorance (the inability to understand the true nature of reality, which is empty of inherent existence).  So, in this sense, suffering is our greatest teacher.  Because we fail to realize this, however, we lose moment to moment opportunities to set ourselves free.  It’s as simple as that: realize the source of your suffering and the suffering ceases.  Pay close attention to the signs and develop a strong intention and earnestness to succeed in your spiritual quest.  Don’t judge feelings and thoughts, just look at them with the keenness of an eagle. 

“Q: Why is life so full of contradictions?  M: It serves to break down mental pride. We must realize how poor and powerless we are. As long as we delude ourselves by what we imagine ourselves to be, to know, to have, to do, we are in a sad plight indeed. Only in complete self-negation there is a chance to discover our real being.”

I love when different religious orientations converge in their teachings.  This is most true of Maharaj’s statement: We must realize how poor and powerless we are.  He is referring for one’s preparation for the salvation of realization, that deep wisdom we call emptiness.  Salvation (from the Latin, salvation), which suggests a “storing up,” needs to be understood in the context of self-seeking, where it is connected to the original idea of sin, which means literally, to miss the mark, to lose self-awareness.  This principle of losing one’s self-awareness brings salvation and sin back to the seeker, to the very interiority of spiritual seeking, rather than outside the seeker, where forgiveness will be granted by a God who has power over the seeker. 

This is how I interpret Jesus’ saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."  This exquisite beatitude best exemplifies the quality of spirit revealed in self-seeking; it is not the literal giving up of this world, but the transcendence of one’s attachment to this world as the real and ultimate reality. “Only in complete self-negation there is a chance to discover our real being.”

When the notion of sin and salvation are aligned to the practice of self-seeking, they are once again elevated to the realization of one’s true spiritual nature through the “storing up” of consciousness.  The energy one transforms through meditation (and prayer) is “saved.”  The seeker finds salvation as she breaks through the illusory perceptions of this world and surrenders to the Light of Pure Awareness or Christ Consciousness.

And the very paradox of that realization often begins with the words, I’m in pain.  And though the seeking is deep within one’s interiority, I’m in pain is in our conscious experience, the pain of emotional suffering longing to empty out the “poverty of spirit”-- an emptying that, for me, is the work which has its roots in the relationship. 

The Unknown is the Home of the Real

M: Ask yourself: ‘To whom it all happens?’ Use everything as an opportunity to go within. Light your way by burning up obstacles in the intensity of awareness. When you happen to desire or fear, it is not the desire or fear that are wrong and must go, but the person who desires and fears. There is no point in fighting desires and fears which may be perfectly natural and justified; It is the person, who is swayed by them, that is the cause of mistakes, past and future. The person should be carefully examined and its falseness seen; then its power over you will end. After all, it subsides each time you go to sleep. In deep sleep you are not a self-conscious person, yet you are alive. When you are alive and conscious, but no longer self-conscious, you are not a person anymore. During the waking hours you are, as if, on the stage, playing a role, but what are you when the play is over? You are what you are; what you were before the play began you remain when it is over. Look at yourself as performing on the stage of life. The performance may be splendid or clumsy, but you are not in it, you merely watch it; with interest and sympathy, of course, but keeping in mind all the time that you are only watching while the play -- life -- is going on.

Q: You are always stressing the cognition aspect of reality. You hardly ever mention affection, and will -- never?

M: Will, affection, bliss, striving and enjoying are so deeply tainted with the personal, that they cannot be trusted. The clarification and purification needed at the very start of the journey, only awareness can give. Love and will shall have their turn, but the ground must be prepared. The sun of awareness must rise first -- all else will follow.

               ----------------------------------

I love the experience of synchronicity, the seemingly mysterious of the ostensibly coincidental!  My friend asked my to read this particular teaching of Nisargadatta this morning, where Maharaj asks: `To whom it all happens?’  This simple opening addresses all the posts of the last day or so, Dependently Dependent’s post on the experience of “now,” Emily, Nico and my posts on suffering; and Sacer’s latest post on just trying to figure it all out and integrating action and spirituality.  Maharaj’s response: “Use everything as an opportunity to go within. Light your way by burning up obstacles in the intensity of awareness. When you happen to desire or fear, it is not the desire or fear that are wrong and must go, but the person who desires and fears. There is no point in fighting desires and fears which may be perfectly natural and justified; It is the person, who is swayed by them, that is the cause of mistakes, past and future.”

I said in my last post that, when all is said and done, it comes down to silence.  Of course, I didn’t mean silence itself but silence as an opening to emptiness, to no-self; to the self that no longer identifies with itself as an inherently existing entity, as an independent, permanent existential fact.  All the concerns, sufferings and even pleasures we discuss are all caused by our belief in a separate self.  And so Maharaj asks, `To whom it all happens?’  There just is no “whom” to be found outside of conventional reality, the reality we impute identity through mental constructs.  I say silence because silence through meditation is the ONLY way to realize, discover, understand, know – any word you want to use – this fact.  We can talk about no-self until we’re blue in the face but no words will pin it down and make it experiential plausible or real for you without your direct experience.  I say we can be free of suffering and you say, prove it.  and I say, sit.  “When you happen to desire or fear, it is not the desire or fear that are wrong and must go, but the person who desires and fears.”

“During the waking hours you are, as if, on the stage, playing a role, but what are you when the play is over? You are what you are; what you were before the play began you remain when it is over. Look at yourself as performing on the stage of life. The performance may be splendid or clumsy, but you are not in it, you merely watch it; with interest and sympathy, of course, but keeping in mind all the time that you are only watching while the play -- life -- is going on.”

This is the logically formulated statement of nondual awareness but it is nothing more (and everything more) than its words.  Sit, will you, please, just sit.

Em, beautifully said.  I am wary of the sufferer and the joy in the suffering.  I have seen too much attachment and indulgence and flighty effulgence coming out of the idea and emotions of suffering.  It is one thing to use suffering as a marker, which is the psychological and spiritual practice; it is another thing to find joy in suffering.  And this is exactly what I don’t trust of the cunning mind, the mind that wants to suffer as a thwarted way of regaining connection.  I see too many namers and blamers and pity-party-ers and sour grapers and victim-makers walking around the streets of life to trust suffering.  What I love about your post is how it seems to conflate two things: suffering and joy; and, the logic of that conflation: that suffering exists therefore it will always exist.  (“I believe that suffering exists and will always exist.  Look around – there is so much.”).  There is something slippery and subtle and seductive to the mind that attached itself to suffering.  War and violence exist but I don’t find believe they have to.  War and violence begin in our minds--  in mine and yours – and will remain until we have the strong conviction that they don’t have to.  Will war and violence end in our lifetimes or before the sun implodes?  That’s not the point.  The point is, as you so clearly relate, “when I am suffering, that is the calling to do the hardest work, to dig the deepest, to get to the root of feelings and understanding.”  This radicalizing of suffering, dismantling it at its root, is what freedom from suffering is!  As I argued with Arnold a while back, during meditation, there are in the beginning, very brief moments where there is the cessation of suffering, the realization of a deep peace.  The suffering simply dissolves.  Whether this is a second or five seconds is not the point.  That the brain is wired to desire is not the point either, because brain is not the whole story on the evolutionary ladder; it is a rung.  Mind has the capacity to override to a great degree brain mechanisms.  For example, as part of MIT’s brain research, very advanced meditators have altered brain chemistry to such a degree as to respond to ostensibly shocking images or stimuli with complete equanimity and peace.  The old mind over body cliché is real.  This is what the Buddha realized and thousands of masters and practitioners have since. 

Here is a perfect example of your statement that I disagree with (italics mine):

“I believe that I will always suffer as part of the ebb and flow of life, but the key is not holding onto it, not claiming it as a permanent part of my life; not creating a story to hold it, because when I become attached to my own stories I become inflexible in how I see.  Once I attach to a story, it becomes fixed.   Desire is what causes suffering.”

I totally agree with your formulation that the key to freedom from suffering is not holding onto it.  It is absolutely true that we suffer because we get attached to our own stories.  I love this.  But, that doesn’t mean that you will always suffer.  This conclusion is exactly the conclusion that I am suspicious of and don’t trust.  You have the “key” but don’t believe it is the key, based on what you are saying.  The ultimate meaning of the key is that, by reaching a level of awareness and compassion that realizes the nature of suffering, we then TRANSCEND the ebb and flow of life.  We are no longer IN the ebb and flow; we have risen ABOVE the ebb and flow.  That is, we no longer suffer even though the suffering is all around us on the conventional plane of existence.  As individual consciousnesses that realize that “individual” and “consciousness” are nothing more than mental constructs, nominal dresses we impute to consciousness, we are free from suffering.   Now, achieving that self-realization is another story, of course, the when of realization.  But, when is an absolute certainty that emerges out of a cultivated faith.  You (anyone) ask me to prove it and I say: okay, sit.  But, no one is willing to sit and find out for themselves.  What can I do but watch the wheels go ‘round and ‘round, pick my nose and sit, write and love?  While, by the way, I am still suffering because of my persistent self-centeredness and egocentric strivings :)

 hey Emily -- so i got home from my trip to Nepal a few days ago, and have been catching up on the blog and settling back into New York City since then. i've wanted to say something in response to all of the conversations that have been going on, with homo sacer and om and nico and megan and you and camila... but in most cases i just missed them. i got here just a little bit late, and those conversations that are still ongoing, well, i've had a tough time writing anything over the last few days. it's not strange being back in new york -- it feels pretty natural, actually. but my timing is a little bit off and i'm still a little bit sick from something i caught a week or so ago. but i think i'm started to get a little back on track. 

but anyway, as to my feelings, i'm doing rather well. i feel joyful. i've been enjoying life a lot more lately... for most of the past month, in fact. i was having a rather drab time of it before leaving for Nepal, but i was able to free myself up of much of the weight i was carrying around. i had felt a bit paralyzed, unable to make a decision. for me making decisions is a very important thing. i've begun to notice that too many people create circumstances in order to avoid making decisions. they paralyze themselves. i used to do this far more frequently, and unconsciously. i still paralyze myself sometimes, though now thankfully i tend do something with it, to look at it and to try and figure out what i'm doing and why. i went to Nepal and made many decisions. i eased up. for example, the decision to come home. i wrote a fun little prose piece about the decision to stay in Nepal. see, i wanted to leave, but there were no flights available, so i decided to stay :D then when i was in Bhutan my folks found an alternative for me, and so i came home after all. but there's still that moment, when i decided to come home, then found out that it's not possible. and then what?

so i'm feeling joyful. it's fun, walking around smiling and laughing all the time. i get serious, too, lately. i have moments of sadness and anger. it's sort of unfamiliar, though, in a most wonderful way, that i seem to be returning to joy, as though i am joy and then i experience all of these other emotions and then come back to home base: joy. i've been having a lot of fun with all of my feelings and relationships and difficulties. i've let out a lot of air, there's much less pressure.

so anyway, here's my little story. i wrote it in Bhutan:

---------

when i went to the airport i had many feelings. i was still sick, and really felt quite lousy; also i was a bit sad to leave my new friends, but also very grateful and satisfied to have been able to say goodbye to them -- for a few hours it looked as though i'd have to leave without seeing them again. that was very nice. and, of course, there was my excitement to head to Bhutan, and my determination to make it the last outing of my July adventure. i made the decision to leave Nepal as soon as possible -- perhaps even the day i get back from Bhutan. but when i got to the airline's office, no one was there. one person told me a half an hour; another person told me two and a half. Nepali time makes both sound like an eternity, and i was still unsure how long was necessary for checking-in to my fight to Paro. i finally found a number and called up the office in town -- no flights available before my scheduled flight. nothing at all? not even business class? nothing. drats! all that drama sank in -- i'm trapped, trapped in Nepal. i stilled myself a moment, knowing i needed to take it easy, make a few decisions, and get myself through all the hoops before my flight. i found a phone and called home to leave a message: i'm going to bhutan but would like to leave on the 28th or anytime early if possible, here's my flight info, if no change is possible, or if the only options are massively expensive, i can survive just fine in Nepal for two weeks, thanks, talk to you hopefully soon. a few hours passed, which included sitting and waiting, standing and waiting, and walking through all the security, customs, etc, airport stuff. i rested my weary head on my guitar case for some time, and then boarded the plane.

i sat down and smiled. Bhutan. and after Bhutan -- who knows? and all in all, that wasn't a problem. here's what i said: if i've got to stay in Nepal for two more weeks, i'll stay. but look at that once more. i know it sounds tautological; it sounds as though i'm just stating the obvious -- but appreciate the poetry of the statement, look into the paradox of the need to say it. look into its joy and celebration. sing it. if i've got to stay, i'll stay. not everyone would say this. i myself would not have been able to make this statement -- at least not in earnest -- just one year ago. one year ago perhaps the best i could do was to say, with ragged would-be self-reassurance, "if i've got to stay, i guess i'll stay." it is not only the change in words -- it is the change in feeling. but i can point to the difference in feeling with words. notice the difference. if i've got to stay, i guess i'll stay. resignation -- paralysis. there is no choice, so what am i to do? on the other hand: if i've got to stay, i'll stay. determination -- decision-making. there is no choice for action, so i must decide otherwise. i cannot physically leave, that much is clear, but how do i feel? how shall i respond? i cannot choose whether to fly early, so what can i choose? i will choose to stay; i will make it my choice to accept staying. suddenly there is nothing so scary about staying. it is not being forced upon me. i'm not trapped. you will say, "no, you are still trapped. you cannot leave Nepal. you want to leave but you are unable to, where is the choice in this? you have chosen nothing, you have had the decision taken away from you." but do you see how disastrous this way of relating to the world can be? this is so dangerous. i wish to leave, but there is no flight available, and because i rely so much on the rest of the world as though we are separate, because i see myself as passive to its movements, left ignorant by the immensity of it -- because i see things this way, if there is no flight available, i am crushed. i am devastated. my plans have failed, i am stranded, deserted, a stranger in a strange land with no direction home... frightened, lonely, and small. this is how i still feel about the world, how i still see things. but already you can witness the changing, the remembering -- you can see it in this very simple moment. i was still sick, still without contact, still just as "trapped" as a moment before -- yet i made a decision. i recognized how little it matters whether i leave right away or two weeks later. why? not because i would feel the same either way. no, it is best to be able to make these decisions and to do so on one's own time. i was ready to leave, and it would be best to do so. would i have been sad to have my meeting with those people i miss, my meeting with new york and my guitar and so many other familiarities and love -- would i have been sad to have the time before that prolonged? yes. would i have felt a little sluggish in Kathmandu, with the smog and the noise and so much else? yes. and sometimes these little paralyses can be very serious indeed, and i do not wish to dismiss those occasions when very much is taken out of our hands. i am speaking of no extremes, and speaking of nothing other than my own experience. go into your own experience and tell me what you feel -- i have no argument to take up with that, whatever it may be. i only ask that you listen closely when i say, "if i must stay, i shall stay." why did i say this? why did i say these words, and why after smiling? why did it take me up until that moment in the airplane -- not when we were in Bhutan, not when we saw Everest mid-flight, not when we took off... just when i sat down. what happened then? i will tell you what -- i had no more need of fighting. why is there no need of fighting? better yet, what is there no more need of fighting? ahh, there it is.

It is a beautiful Monday morning.  I am sitting on my balcony overlooking the little pond, where, this weekend, Arnold discovered a baby fish swimming with the big guys.  I am thrilled, like a new mother, to see how healthy this little body of water is and that babies were born ( and not all gobbled up).  I have seen three different size frogs either floating on the surface of the water or sitting on the lily pad, which has a beautiful apricot flower in full bloom.  Bless you again, dear Noah, for creating this little gem and leaving it in my hands.   I feel more and more that the connection to this little pond, to the trees around me is essential for health.  Without this, I feel cut off.

It is quiet on the blog these days, but I write to myself ( as well for anyone who stops by) because it is a way to formulate my thoughts and put them out there to see with greater distance.  You, my imagined audience give me comfort, ease any sense of lonliness. I was reading in Norman Fisher’s book,  Taking our Places, A Buddhists Guide to Growing Up”  how he felt the day he took his son to college.  He said it was one of the saddest days of his life.  Reading this, I felt relieved; I am not alone or crazy in these feelings that well up as I prepare to take Anya to school at the end of the month.  There is a trap ( isn’t there always) when I get stuck solely in the idea that I create my own suffering, as if these feelings of loss or sadness are somehow wrong, or an indication that I am not in touch with the deeper meaning of life.  Facing these challenges are the meaning of life- seeing them, feeling them, growing out and up from them. Overcoming suffering is not the same as denying suffering.   These growth spurts come with enormous emotions: sadness, fears, and joy.  I feel, just as Anya must feel, that I am cracking my shell from the inside out.   As she learns to fly, I must  fly anew. 

just been incubating a bit, while I read along, still on a daily basis.  I'm enjoying having Em back too!  I'm a big fan.  I can't believe it's already August, when those transitional feelings of nostalgia, loss, and yearning begin to stir as the Fall approaches.  I'm not ready to let go yet though!  This summer, at least, I feel like I've enjoyed it more than most and have gone to the beach more often (something that I am learning brings me instant peace and contentment).  Although I am not preparing for such a major life shift as you, Emily, I understand where you are coming from.  Something is working its way through me.  I have been asking for clarity and inspiration about what I want to do when I grow up, or at least a sign of what comes next.  For now, it's still brewing and I am observing.   Nico, keep on pecking at that shell, as you too seem to be in the process of rebirthing yourself.

much love to all.

Just lovely to "see" both of you this morning.   I woke up early, as usual, and fed the cats and Mr. Plumbean, then took a walk as if I am still walking my dog.  Finished sitting, and letting all those emotions stir - boy, I am forever amazed at how I try to prevent myself from getting close to the things that make me sad; I fight it and it only makes it worse.  At the retreat, we did an exercise where one person asks another, " Tell me a way you avoid your suffering/pain?" and you answer; the questioner says thank you, and ask again; over and over for ten minutes.  It is surprising what happens after a few minutes.  The next quesiton is " What's right about avoiding your pain?"  Again, after a few minutes, it is interesting what bubbles up.  And the final question is: Tell me a way you experience compassion?  Again, for ten minutes.   It is a reminder, at least for me, that there is warmth and compassion near by - like hearing a hello from both of you!   Seriously, the joy is enormous.  I think, if I am honest, my greatest fear is lonliness.  That deep empty feeling.   And yet, I spend so much time alone, writing and sitting, which feeds me - but there are times when I bump up against my deepest fear - the big all consuming blackness when I forget to let the light in.

 Cam - I am so glad you have been enjoying the summer and getting to the beach!  And Nico, Nico, Nico:  what keeps you from getting close to your suffering?  Hugs

It is a double dip of isolation for me.  Like you, I spend alot of time alone, which leads me to isolation sometimes when I am not aware and introspective.   In a way, I think I keep isolating myself to learn to master it by recreating it.  But it is a losing situation because I will never be able to master it.  I can only feel it and the feelings of fear that surround it.  But I have been feeling them as they have been keeping me up at night, especially on the weekends.  Any little noise will wake me, so I find myself up at night, to the early hours of the morning, caught in a restless semi-sleep.  Then I go through the day in a constant fog for lack of sleep.  But last night I got out, saw a movie, did some writing, and was able to sleep a good sleep.  Thanks for asking.

How's Plumbean these days?  Enjoying the hot summer days?