Mar de Jade, Mexico 2008

I could really use a glass of wine or a beer right now.I don't know how much of a party girl I am at the moment, but eager for some conversation.

I actually began writing this earlier

. It is hot, humid and grey today . I am settling into the dense air, letting it enclose me like a blanket that I want to kick off with my feet. It has been a long time since I visited here. It is only me, alone, as we all are, with our thoughts and feelings.( Maybe no so alone since you stopped by Kate)  One of my teachers once said that despite all the work we do to be present with others in our/my work with the sick and dying, when it comes to our own lives and family, we are presented with the biggest task, perhaps the greatest learning challenge.

 

I have often wondered how I would feel when the time came and I would find that either one of my parents needed support to live out their lives as their bodies failed them and the world became too large for them to safely navigate. When I received the call that my dad was rushed to the hospital and that I was needed to stop what I was doing and head towards their city, my first reaction was triggered by decades of old material, feelings that were as automatic as opening the refrigerator door and grabbing something to eat without thinking about whether or not I was even hungry. I didn’t want to be interrupted. I didn’t want to suddenly have to take charge of anything. I didn’t want to witness either of my parents fear and pain. Not now, not ever, not again. I have my own life. What do they want from me? What do they really expect from me? What will I do out of guilt?

 

The torment began instantly. Why can’t I just be there for my parents as I am for the others that I serve. Yes, I have a past with my parents. But I am striving to live in the present. Be here now. Be who I am now. If I can not be who I am with them, if I can not be present with them, if I can not understand my boundaries with them as I do with others, then what have I been working toward all these years? I ask these questions, not as a way to guilt myself into doing or acting in a way that is not true – but as a way to think about who I am and who I want to be. What I need to do is, quite honestly, is for me. I have to live with myself and my actions long after they are dead. In a sense, that is what matters. Being the daughter they always wanted, being the “ideal daughter,” is not the issue – those are just formulations. Being a compassionate person, being able to see them simply for who they are, is the point. If I can do that, then I can give honestly and give with an open heart. Guilty giving is not true. Its fool’s giving. All the work I have been doing is being put to the test – I have to embrace what comes at any time – not just when it is convenient or easy. It has been a week, that has no time attached to it. So much has happened. So many emotions have come and gone. And I find myself feeling a greater sense of balance than I ever thought possible because things are as they are and I am greeting things as they come and not as I imagine.

I will write soon.   So much twirling in my head.   Thank you for asking.

And how are you? 

I  think we are the only ones who are taking this walk these days.  Maybe winter will bring in some souls from the cold.

 

Hello Bodhi and kateinthesummer -

I am still here - the others have left, perhaps for good, perhaps they will return.  I think the change in seasons may bring some voices home or find new ones as the daylight fades.   So I am the welcoming committee for the moment - do come in, take a seat, or just wander.  I would love to know more .... more about your thoughts, your feelings, your struggles, your way of finding your path through life. 

There are so many changes in my life - always changes, but sometimes I am more aware of them than at other times.   I have watched my parents settle more  into a deep old age - a long gradual process that tricks me into thinking that it just happened overnight.  I see what I have not wanted to see.   It reminds me of the time when I have seen a child ( after not seeing them for a few weeks) and he or she has miraculousy grown taller and more mature like one of the flowers in the garden. I am struggling with my heart - asking myself  why, when it comes to my parents my heart struggles to stay open.  The answer, I know is obvious - loads of baggage, the mingling of the past with the present - but I constantly find myself wondering why I can not let go of the past, of my relationship to them as a daughter and just see them as people at the end of their lives with the same compassion I have for others I know much  And so, I sit , trying to allow myself to feel what I feel without guilt.  Feelings are only feelings.

 

 

Thank you Bodhi for stepping in so courageously.  I am glad to know that I have not been the only lurker on this blog!  I love the title of your post--Stepping In--it has so much meaning for me in that it implies a conscious choice to engage, to act, to take a risk, to join.  I am very conscious of where I'm currently "stepping in" or "holding back" in my life right now, and what it's giving or costing me as a result.  And to be mindful of that, and to examine it, seems like a good new practice for me, so thanks for modeling the way. 

 

And Emily, thank you for welcoming us to this somewhat intimidating blog.  I had been thinking about walking away, not because I felt unwelcome, but rather because I felt unskilled and embarrassed and uncertain the way one sometimes feels at a party of strangers.  And when I think about that and Bodhi's comment, I am struck by how much it reminds me of being pulled into a circle of people who are dancing, and then suddenly being thrust into the center, expected to go solo for a moment with some cool move before sliding back into the safety of the gyrating ring.  I'm not sure I've always got the beat of the music in this place, but I really like it so I hope the party continues. 

 

 

My, that was a most excitingly unexpected response from you, Bodhi.  Thank you for such a thoughtful reading. Your questions reflect a very deep interest in what the particularly Eastern traditions discern between “real” and “illusory.”  Your post speaks to such questions as "What is real?" "What is the nature of language?" "What is the nature of intimacy?"  "What is the nature of interiority?" "How is the psychological related to the spiritual?"  So, as in all thoughtful dialogues, we must first begin with a clear definition of the terms we are attempted to convey (that is, given that language can at best only point to what we know through direct experience).  And so, I'll begin with your first questions:

 

"How does the mind decide which illusions to accept or reject and having done so, continue to build the frame representing each individual, basing the impact of each new experience on an illusional, if not delusional frame of reference?  And how does one adjust or perhaps even deconstruct the frame in order to formulate a new, more honest sense of self and then risk stepping out and letting it be expressed to others?"   

These questions first refer to "What is real?  If I may, I will respond with excerpts from a number of my previous posts:

 

From `THE VEIL OF FEAR’ :

You nestle into position, legs folded, back straight, arms flowing downward and coming together like two streams meeting; hands forming a pond from which light will gather or gently cupping the knee as body comfortably eases into a quiet sustaining.  Only joy is this, the body no longer betraying itself in the tension of contact with the world.  But, even as breathing finds its gait, its rhythm, mind cannot stop craving and grasping after thought.  Contact with the world is buffered significantly, the body itself now a cushion.  But, mind is having its way and is loath to be stilled.  

The world as it is depends on mental activity, for mental activity is the world or, more accurately, mental activity is awareness of the world.  Mental activity is the brain interacting with its environment in the mechanics of consciousness.  At the moment of awareness of that activity, the individual mind is born.  Mind is the awareness of that mental activity.  Mind is the subjectivity that is consciousness itself.  Consciousness is what it feels like from inside.  Of course, there is no actual “inside;” inside is merely a metaphor of that feeling, of consciousness aware of itself.  As the brain matures and the mind develops vis-à-vis relationship (other minds), awareness increases, that is, self-awareness increases, though it doesn’t necessarily deepen.  Increased awareness means becoming aware of more, while deepening awareness means becoming more aware; that is, increasing one’s (self) perspective regarding the levels of consciousness unfolding through maturity and development.  As one develops (deepens) one’s awareness of self, the awareness of self itself opens up into awareness of self’s interconnectedness with other selves. 

Without the deepening of awareness, the understanding of self’s ultimate lack of independent existence and permanence will never occur.  Mind and its accompanying self will be rendered ignorant (Ignorant means to ignore the ultimate nature of reality and is related in a more reified form to the Judeo/Christian idea of sin—to miss the mark.  In Christianity, for example, Original Sin refers to the fact that we live essentially blind to the presence of God.).  It is only in this understanding, or awareness of the ultimate nature of reality – Emptiness-- that the experience of the separateness (fracturedness) engendered in mental activity itself will be healed.  Suffering is the inability to understand or realize the ultimate interconnectedness of all phenomena, all existence.  Suffering, in its primordial state, is fear.  We are all in our ignorance in a constant state of fear.  We all exist under a veil of fear.  Lift the veil of fear and all will be revealed. 

In this light, you will understand why meditation is ultimately the only way to lift the veil of ignorance and fear, because it is the only way to completely still mental activity, the very source of ignorance and fear.  What I described as Samadhi in my retreat in Tulum, it was at that moment when mental activity ceased that I “experienced” the veil of fear lift and dissolve.  In this nondual state of consciousness, where the object of consciousness (mental activity) dissolves, I think it would be incorrect to say that “the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object.”  It is probably closer to say that subject and object both dissolve into Pure Awareness, which is the union of emptiness and cognizance.  The most important point is that suffering in the form of primordial fear completely dissolved, along with space, time, birth, death; indeed, emptiness itself (as a conceptual reality). 

And so, working backwards from that point, one could observe how fear emerges and ripples outward into consciousness in both pervasiveness and intensity as it wraps itself around mental activity itself in the seemingly infinite forms of language (concepts).  What I mean is that everything we think has fear associated with it because it is the very activity of mentation which engenders fear.  This is why I say that understanding as comprehension through psychological process followed by understanding as apprehension through meditation is the ideal path for dissolving fear and alleviating suffering.  And the vehicle of this most exquisite journey of awareness, of course, is relationship, the intimacy of relationship.  That relationship is the vehicle makes total sense, for isn’t the ultimate nature of reality interconnectedness?  Master relationship and therefore master reality.

Intimacy ergo sum.

Om mani padme hum

From `THANK YOU, ARNOLD, A FEW MORE THOUGHTS’

If you will indulge me, I would like to write a bit on meditation, because it addresses perception and conception at their barest conditions. When you speak about direct experience (“when I begin to experience something”), you make clear that it involves a series of moments of, we might even say, “intimacy,’ because there is very little in the field to interfere with the emotions that are evoked. The mode of experience is mostly emotional and intuitive. Thinking, in the form of conceptualization, is minimized. That is, until you make a judgment, which takes the form, as you say, of “I like this” or “I don’t like this.” I would be interested in knowing what impels you to go there, but that’s another discussion.

Judgment is part of a conceptualization process that also includes naming and categorizing, an experiential mental image, fact-connecting conceptions, or term-connecting conceptions. All this takes place immediately and unconsciously, even when we think we’re having a pure experience of suspension. It’s merely a matter of degree. The idea of meditation is to minimize those erroneous, deceptive, and distorted perceptions and conceptions even further than what we typically experience in our engagements with art or lovers. I mean, the interpretive mechanism is halted!

The Buddhist philosopher, Nagarjuna, in his various writings, but particularly in his “Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness” (the treatise I’m more familiar with and which I highly recommend to everyone because of its accessibility), went through great efforts to help us understand how mind functions and how faulty thinking causes suffering. His basic premise is that consciousness is always consciousness of something. As the translator, Daniel Ross Komito, tells us, it arises and ceases as a series of moments, and that any phenomenon which arises does so in dependence on certain conditions and causes. Visual consciousness (along with all other perceptions), for example, arises in dependence on three conditions: an eye organ, an object and the actual cause, which is the immediately preceding moment of consciousness.

This is part of a stream of moments of consciousness that stretch across time and therefore has continuity. What’s fascinating about Buddhist thought is that mind is considered a sixth sense organ, but is different in that it is a responsive and reflective organ and apprehends its objects through the influence of subjective dispositions. The objects of mental consciousness (mind) include concepts, memories, emotional states, or perceptions.

With very long and practiced meditation, we will never be aware of the “raw images” created in perceptual consciousness because mental consciousness registers the objects of mental consciousness. It is possible, though and the closer you get to achieving this, the less and less suffering you will experience!

Our “thoughts” are unable to separate mental images from bare perceptions, and thus thoughts are always deemed erroneous and distorted. The objective of meditation is exactly this: to train the mind to understand its own erroneous understanding of perceptual and conceptual cognitions. This understanding absolutely alleviates suffering.

According to Nagarjuna, what creates problems with conceptual cognition is the mixing of mental images with perceptions, along with a fundamental belief in selfhood. The example Komito uses is a rose. “If one cognizes a red rose growing on a vine, one’s cognition of the rose is said to be deceived because one is incapable of separating one’s conception about the rose from the mere appearance of a red shape, which is all that is actually cognized by a visual consciousness.”

“If I neither think “the rose is impermanent” nor perceive the impermanence of the rose, I am deceived about the mode of existence of the rose, which is impermanent.”

By calling it a rose, I am deceived about the mode of appearance. These are considered distorted conceptions. What makes a perfect cognition is that it is fresh and infallible. Not fresh the way we might ordinarily think of it in its subjective form, but even deeper. Fresh means that it is the first moment of cognition of an object in a series of moments which cognize a particular object. Infallibility means that a perfect cognition correctly ascertains its object and eliminates misconceptions about it. We are able to induce certainty about objects based on valid reasoning.

 

From `NAGARJUNA: RESPONSE TO ARNOLD’

What are the qualities of the actual cause?”

Nagarjuna (through his translator, Komito) suggests that the first five material sense consciousnesses are passive because they receive impressions of material objects; the sixth, mental consciousness, is responsive and reflective. As you correctly observe, passivity doesn’t make sense regarding mental consciousness; what is considered passive by Nagarjuna is the receiving part of the eye organ when individual consciousness makes contact with an object. However, mental consciousness, as the immediately preceding moment of visual consciousness, for example, is active, responsive, and reflective.

What Nagarjuna calls the “preceding moment of consciousness’ is an immediate condition because consciousness does not occur in a vacuum; it is part of a continuum or continuity of moments of consciousness. In this way, mind is seen as both an “organ” like the eye (which is a dominant condition for visual perception), and an immediate condition of consciousness. And so, mental consciousness requires an organ (mind), an object (a rock) and an immediately preceding moment of consciousness (actual cause).

Visual consciousness is less confusing because it is dependent on an organ (eye—called an “dominant condition”), and object (a rock—called an “object condition”), and the immediate condition of consciousness (actual cause).

The qualities or factors of the actual cause (the immediate preceding moment of consciousness), Nagarjuna tells us, are the subjective secondary mental factors, derived from past memories, emotions and concepts (what are called karmic formations, but I won’t get into that now). What occurs as an active process (which, by the way, is not a cause/ effect dynamic as we typically think of it, in a mechanistic way; it is more a dynamic of prerequisite conditions, which include immediate mechanistic cause/effects dynamics), is that a memory or mental image arises at the same moment as the arising of the mental consciousness.

Notice how I say “arises,” which gives the impression that it’s passive, which consciousness isn’t. This is a very critical point, because I believe Nagarjuna wants to emphasize the interdependent conditionality of existence, not the independent, isolated conventional view Westerners are familiar with. He says, “This arises because that is.” This means that things do exist in some way, but nothing exists on its own. He also emphasizes that nothing can be its own cause, “this, having been produced, produces that.” Everything that appears can only appear because it’s conditioned and therefore, in turn, conditioning in a constant, ceaseless transforming. It’s subtle in some ways, but crucial for understanding Buddhist philosophy and psychology. And because of this conditionality (called dependent origination), “things” (phenomena) cannot precede relationship! Things can only be defined through relationship.

And so, for all subsequent moments of the arising of the visual consciousness associated with a specific object, mental images memories, emotional responses, etc. will be mixed with that visual consciousness. These immediately preceding moments of consciousness are what you refer to as “the mind’s whole universe,” which Nagarjuna calls “karmic formations,” those immaterial aspects of individual consciousness which are traces in memory left by previous actions across a multiplicity of lives of which form individual consciousness in certain ways (dispositions). And these moments of consciousness, together will serve as the condition for the arising of all subsequent moments of mental consciousness. Further, except for the initial moment of the arising of a visual consciousness of a certain object, all subsequent moments of that visual consciousness serve as objects for a mental consciousness.

Mental images, though it is possible they are subjective visual replications of an external object, they tend to be composed of a complex of images, ideas, assumptions, beliefs and emotions which are interconnected in a single image-like pattern. These, together with embodiment, are what we might call psycho-physical experience, or just the experiences of living we are all familiar with.

 

From `NAGARJUNA: ANOTHER TRY, BUT PILING HIGHER AND DEEPER’

I just want to stress again that Buddha’s aim in these teachings was to demonstrate how ignorance, defined as “the erroneous understanding of the nature of phenomena,” is bound to suffering. And so, developing non-erroneous or valid cognitions (perceptions and conceptions) is what alleviates suffering.

1. "What are the qualities of the actual cause?...

I am assuming that by “quality,” you meant an essential and distinguishing attribute or characteristic property of the actual cause, that is, of the immediately preceding moments of consciousness. These qualities I called mental factors, what Nagarjuna tells us are “derived from past memories, emotions and concepts (what are called karmic formations, but I won’t get into that now).” For the ordinary person, consciousness is never “raw consciousness,” it is never devoid of previous experiences. Thus, these experiences, the qualities or factors I believe you asked about, are what mold consciousness; and so, to be more precise, the “actual cause” is the immediately preceding moment of consciousness manifested (arising) vis-à-vis mental factors.

1. "Does the preceding moment of consciousness contain the mind's whole universe?"

My response was, yes, that “These immediately preceding moments of consciousness are what you refer to as “the mind’s whole universe”[actual cause/mental factors], which Nagarjuna calls “karmic formations,” those immaterial aspects of individual consciousness which are traces in memory left by previous actions across a multiplicity of lives of which form individual consciousness in certain ways (dispositions). And these moments of consciousness, together will serve as the condition for the arising of all subsequent moments of mental consciousness.””

2. "When you say that the "first five material sense consciousnesses" are passive and only the sixth mental consciousness is responsive and active, I think that you are using the word consciousness to mean differing kinds of experiences."

Here, my response was, “what is considered passive by Nagarjuna is the receiving part of the eye organ when individual consciousness makes contact with an object.” Nagarjuna considers the five material sense consciousnesses (physical organs), what he calls, the “dominant conditions” -- eye, nose, mouth, ear, skin-- passive because they are receptors of stimuli; “they apprehend their objects through the force of the objects appearing to them”. The sixth sense consciousness, mind, or mental consciousness, is “responsive and active” because of the mental factors I referred to which co-arise with mental consciousness. Mind “takes” the perception or concept as its object. It “APPREHENDS ITS OBJECTS PRIMARILY DUE TO THE INFLUENCE OF SUBJECTIVE DISPOSITIONS (MENTAL FACTORS).”

If you recall, “mental factors” designate how primary consciousness is molded by karmic formations (i.e., memory traces of experience left by previous actions), and which always arises in conjunction with a sense organ. Karmic formations are what control cognition (a process which selects specific aspects out of a perceptual field). Mental factors, which are not entities but merely descriptions of how consciousness functions, are activities of consciousness, which select and process raw data. Examples of mental factors include contact, intention, feeling, discernment, attention, concentration, appreciation, aspiration, recollection, intelligence, etc.

Nagarjuna, as I said, identifies mind, or mental consciousness as “both an “organ” [of mental perception] like the eye (which is a dominant condition for visual perception), and an immediate condition of consciousness. And so, mental consciousness requires an organ (mind), an object (a rock) and an immediately preceding moment of consciousness ([mental consciousness]/actual cause).”

The objects of mental consciousness (as an “organ”) could be concepts, images, memories, emotions, or perceptions. For example, the first, dominant condition: organ (mind); the second, object condition: object (concept/memory/emotion); and the third, immediate condition: the immediately preceding moment of consciousness (mind or mental consciousness). When the object of mental consciousness is perception (eg. Visual perception), the three conditions—organ (visual perception as the dominant condition), object (visual perception as the object condition), and the immediate condition (visual perception as the immediately preceding moment of consciousness) are all the same.

What it might look like is this: 1. a first fresh moment of bare visual consciousness (perceptual cognition) 2. visual consciousness becomes the condition for the arising of a moment (second moment) of mental consciousness, which becomes a mental perception of visual consciousness (conceptual cognition); 3. mental consciousness mixes with mental factors (i.e., co-arising with mental consciousness), such as, memories, emotions, concepts, images; 4. all subsequent moments of visual consciousness mixed with mental consciousness and mental perception and mental factors together serve as the condition for all subsequent moments of mental consciousness. We call this mental consciousness “thought.”

3. “I think that you are using the word consciousness to mean differing kinds of experiences.”

This is true (though the terms are different in Sanskrit and Tibetan), and what makes it challenging. According to Nagarjuna, there is only one fundamental consciousness, called “primary consciousness.” Consciousness is defined as “awareness which is clear and knowing.” The different usages of consciousness are due to the fact that consciousness arises and ceases moment to moment in conjunction with a sense organ and shaped by habits and mental factors, and so is experienced as a “consciousness of something,” why I said at the beginning of the post, "the “actual cause” is the immediately preceding moment of consciousness manifested (arising) vis-à-vis mental factors."

Om Mani Padme Hum

From `CONTINUED DIALOGUE ON RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE TRUTH: DEATH/NO DEAT’

 “What does it mean to say, “I am alive”?.... I always think that when people come to life, it means that they bring their universe and plug into the general universe.  I look at life as a union – the union between the physical identity, which is my body, and me, or rather, my mind.  If the physical identity is not occupied by a mind, then it doesn’t survive.  The separation of the physical identity, the body, from the mind is called death…. Death is a separation – disconnecting.”

 

A seemingly simple statement that I think we can all agree with irrespective of our convictions or “beliefs.”  But, not evident is how deep this statement by Gehlek goes and how much wisdom behind these words.  For one, underlying this formulation is a philosophical or metaphysical ground which speaks to two truths: relative and absolute consciousness.  The world we see and live in, in its human perceptions and constructs, is not the real world; but, it does exist as we see, order and participate in it.  If you hit me hard enough, it will hurt, if you shoot me in my heart, I will likely die.  And in this world, as it exists, there is great pain and suffering.  And all the psychological elements of that suffering – trauma, neglect, maltreatment and miscommunications, betrayal and loss -- these all exist.  How can anyone deny that?

But, that’s only part of the story; in fact, though the most painful, it is the least important aspect of the story.  This is beautifully expressed in the Upanishads:

 

“The self that I ordinarily see,” says the aspirant, “—this is not Me; the world as it presents itself to me with its divisions and contradictions, this cannot be Real.  With intellect alone, I remain outside of everything.  I ask something in Nature what it is and receive as an answer only my own categories and classifications.  Led from one thing to another, I do not grasp what is.  `Who are you?’ – I might silently ask another, and as soon as I make noise within myself, I fail to find the answer.  Desires, needs, attachments well up within me and bind me to what I should not be.”

 

As I said, one cannot talk about reincarnation, and freedom from birth, death or suffering without a philosophical context from which to make logical sense of these phenomena.  Further, as I have suggested, one cannot fully understand nor integrate these phenomena into a cohesive psychological and spiritual worldview of interconnectedness without personally having direct experience of the nondual level of awareness conscious from which the worldview speaks.  Gehlek Rimpoche says again,

 

“My understanding of reincarnation came gradually through a long process of learning from the great Buddhist teachers.  Learning from the great Buddhist texts.  Learning through debate, through meditation and practice.  After all that, I can now say I have some kind of firm and unshakable belief in reincarnation…. It comes from a deeper consciousness that lies at the heart level, a kind of pervasive understanding”

 

As you can see, meditation plays a key role in understanding some very profound truths, truths that ultimately require a total understanding, not merely intellectual comprehension or even faith itself.  To this end, I would like to share again my meditation experiences at Tulum and describe perhaps a modest but direct engagement with these phenomena.  As I said, on my retreat I brought no books or writing materials.  Reflections and recording followed my experiences. 

 

Following my Recognition of nondual awareness, I felt compelled to go back to one of my teacher’s, Franklin Merrell-Wolff’s brilliant recordings of his own Recognition experiences.  Translating these experiences is incredibly challenging and, as Merrell-Wolff says, “if we were to regard our most abstract concepts as being of the nature of tangible bodies, containing a hidden but substantial meaning, then this transcendent thought would be of the nature of the meaning without the conceptual embodiment.  It is the compacted essence of thought, the sentences of which would require entire lifetimes for their elaboration in objective form and yet remain unexhausted at the conclusion of such an effort.”  What he means is that everything is contained within this transitory but profound insight and translating it with accuracy is impossible.  At best, we can approximate and confirm our findings with other seekers who report similar experiences.

 

Obviously, I will share what I think are a few key observations of which will hopefully convey the plausibility of reincarnation, and the relative value of birth, death and suffering as dependent on but distinct from the absolute nature of time, space and consciousness, which are completely free from birth, death and suffering.

 

During a prolonged and practiced meditation, the first effect in consciousness is a shift in what might be called the “base of consciousness.”  And the final step, speaking from a relative perspective, is a leap into Nothing accompanied by an “utter fullness,” which in turn presents the world as illusory or dreamlike.  This was my fifth night, as I mentioned, and I felt and knew I had “arrived.”  There was a sense of instantaneity and luminous clarity spread out beyond limits and measure.  In relative terms, I was transplanted into a “supernal region” of awareness, what others have described as the Real.  Being on the beach, I could call it a Wave whose effects have continued to this day and have become part of my normal state of being.

 

This transformation in consciousness further recast the meaning of self.  Embodiment means allowing for logical observation, but as one strips away the “sheaths” of self-identity through an analytic meditation, the object of consciousness no longer remains and yet there is the realization that Consciousness is the ground upon “which all relative consciousness is strung like beads upon a string.” This metaphor of a string of beads has a playful story behind it.  When having lunch one afternoon, a beautiful, young 5 or 6 year old boy, named Sebastian asked if I would purchase a string of beads to raise money for school.  I was happy to assist and now wear the beads as a reminder of Sebastian, his education and the string of conditions and causes that may lead to his own realization one day.  In my heightened state, I experienced the whole beaded connection from Consciousness to Sebastian’s birth, his beads, our coming together at this particular moment in time and purifying all negative karma in an act of lovingkindness and the potential for this act to create other infinite acts of lovingkindness throughout Sebastian’s lifetimes. 

As a mathematician, as well as mystic, Merrell-Wolff called this state of Pure Subjectivity “zero” or an “evanescent point.”  This state is the realization of the “I” as zero.  This One or Unified Whole is more like an enormous fusion of interconnectedness and universality, and so, as transcendent of subject-object relationship, it simultaneously the infinite multiplicity of self-identity and the objective contents of consciousness (this is the formulated emptiness is form, form is emptiness of nondual awareness). 

 

In this very heightened state, I knew I was beyond space, time and causality.  I had an immediate flash of the whole phenomenal universe in space and time and the conditions and causes of evolution and mind; and how reality as we perceive it is a complete construction derived from mental activity itself.  These are self-imposed forms allowing for order in a relative sense but substantially open to change.  When you step out of the confines of space and time as we perceive it, all beliefs (eg, regarding birth, death and suffering) and their concomitant negative afflictive emotional states dissolve; they must because loss as a perception is what causes suffering, not loss itself.  The immediate cause of this perception is the failure to understand nondual reality, which reveals loss as merely a relative part of an infinite linking to a whole, inseparable universe.

 

I was not seeking bliss or nirvana.  I in fact had no concrete expectations of what I would experience.  In general, I was further seeking a deeper understanding of the ultimate nature of reality, which I knew would lead to freedom.  Unlike Merrell-Wolff’s description, however, I did not experience primarily a freedom from guilt, but rather a complete freedom from fear.  Following this complete freedom from suffering at the hands of fear, the words emerged, “Lift the veil of fear and all will be revealed.”  This was a most powerful insight given its implication for all beings who live in a constant state of fear and bound by the suffering it imposes. These are the bindings of even discrete layers of ignorance, the inability to understand the ultimate nature of reality. 

 

I have finally been able to write as I rest between oaks, maples, shagbark hickories, and pine. These are my neighbors now as I work the land and design the gardens.  I can lay down words like the paths leading to the many new sacred rooms I am creating for meditation.  The words are leading to this or to that but always ultimately to the same noncomposite space where manifestation emerges as if out of a black hole or from behind Planck’s wall.   Manifestation is mind but mind is empty and nothing but empty, just like every blade of grass or molecule of desire seeking the word.  And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  And God dissolved in the word.  And the word dissolved in the silence and in the hooting amidst the creaking shadows of pine, birch, and beech, awaiting my return like morning, now each day, in light, as if death returning, without the force of dying.

Emily, your writing is rich with honesty and rings of someone who has experienced the joy and happiness of life’s true meaning – emptiness, if only for a few drifting moments.

It sounds to me as if you are evolving to a heightened sense of self awareness, and of your connections to the world – congratulations and may I offer a toast to you if only via my screen. Although uncomfortable, how exciting. I smile to myself when you say, you “feel that [you are] completely honest and equally a fraud. [You] have faith, but no beliefs.”  As I journey down my own life path, I’m coming to discover that much of what I “thought I knew to be ‘reality’ or believed in, has no lasting meaning, a solid unchanging interpretation of who I was and how I fit into the world” is nothing more than a dillusion - but isn’t life an evolving illusion.  I struggle with holding on to relationships, of remaining loyal when it is long past time to let go – allow guilt, shame and longing to keep me tethered.  

Recently the only times I have truly felt a sense of inner contentment have been those fleeting moments while meditating, when I have drifted off to a landscape free from the past, free from imposed thoughts, and self depricating judgements which have kept me imprisoned in the illusions of the past. This is the space where I truly feel connected with the world and feel the illumination, the warmth of the cosmos radiating from every atom in the universe.  Where time seems suspended and all is good.

If each and every moment of our lives is truly unique and never to be repeated, if I honestly and whole-heartedly believe in the impermenance of life, than I have to accept the ever expanding avenues  my mind may venture on this journey both in this life-time and the next. I am beginning to view this as the expansion of my identity, and as long as I allow feelings and thoughts to flow in then who I am will continue to change.  I believe this is when I am the most honest to others and most importantly to myself.  When I try to force myself to believe, then I am a fraud to myself and have diminished my own abiltiy to connect.  It is impossible for me to fathom the mind’s potential for never in my life did I expect to be where I am this moment.  I thought I “knew” what my reality was, both its limitations and possibilities. Does this make me a fraud for giving myself permission to walk away from all those assumptions and into the unknown without an agenda or overwhelming desire to control my destiny.  I hope not. 

Mindfulness doesn’t come naturally for me.  I am perhaps one of the master control freaks of the 20^th century, but I am trying to let go, to believe the dillusional frame I constructed of “who I am” with the help of others, is not who I truly am or can be in this life, or the next and most importantly I’m lying to myself if I believe I control anything. I’m coming to see life more like the child’s toy tube with a prism at one end.  Each time the prism is turned a new and exciting pattern is created and the previous one becomes a memory never to be experienced again.  Is one moment more valuable than another, one more honest or “real”.  I have come to see the equinimity of each and try to enjoy each one as I enjoy the unique expression of each water wave approaching the shoreline.

 Emily, thank you for sharing.