Unglued

Unglued is an apt term, and often, a good thing.

I came unglued during some drama with my family yesterday. My upset-button got pushed, not by my family, but by my believed thoughts. 

Un-gluing is painful, like birth pangs, the birth of openness, the birth of nothingness, the void.

My self-image was threatened and a cascade of protective measures shot into action in the form of blaming, accusing, projecting, shouting, arguing. Protecting what? Protecting the cherished idea in the head of who I am. Protecting the image in the mind's mirror.

Unglued, pulled apart, taken off the pedestal in my own mind. Who do I think I am?

Today there's some fasting, some thought fasting. There's a part of me that is sick-unto-death-of-thoughts-about-me. 

Those me-thoughts clunk themselves out, self-reflection is an old habit, but at least I'm a bit unglued from the insanity in my head.

And I've apologized to my family, both in spoken and written words, and my apology is real, and I wish to make repairs and amends however I can, and life goes on.  And I hope the thought-structures of the imagined egoic identity become more unglued in the usual bumps and bruises of daily living.

Let all the bombs be inside of me not outside of me and let them blow away delusion.

~

Gratitude for photo: http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2007/10/

Sound and Light

Years ago I came across two sentences and they have never left me:

"The spiritual journey," says Thomas Keating, "is not a career or success story. It is a series of  humiliations of the false self that becomes more and more profound."

The world stood on its head.  For decades I had been seeking accumulation and self-enhancement when in fact all along the deeper longing was for the very opposite: diminution of that heavy burden of an imaginary ego-self .



This morning I was watching a video of Dr.Vijai Shankar  in which he asks, "What is thought?"

               I paused to consider this.

Thought is a word, he observes.

And what is a word?

               Again, I stopped to wonder what a word actually is.

A word is a sound.

              Thought is essentially a sound vibration, whether it is uttered out loud or not.

Mind is thought.

Thought is sound.

Mind is sound.  It is a vibration, a pattern, an appearance.


There is sound (mind) and light (awareness).

There is sound and light, there is mind and awareness: these are the two indivisible dimensions or aspects of reality.

Sound is form, light is formless, and they are one.

There is sound and the light of consciousness that is aware of sound. 

Sound and light occupy the same space and are inseparable.


For much of my life attention has been circumscribed to the thought-trance, hypnotized by the sound of the mind.

Yet the light bathes everything and it has always been free.

This light feels like home, and it does not make a sound.  The light loves sound without needing to make a single sound itself.


~
Gratitude to Thomas Keating, quote is from his book
http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/site/PageServer
Gratitude to Dr. Vijai Shankar
http://www.nevernothere.com/dr-vijai-shankar
Gratitude for photo: http://www.coosacreek.org/way/?m=200910

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.

Chinese proverb







I used to feel that a moment free from thought had no particular value. I used to feel that thinking was a better way to spend time than not thinking. I used to wallpaper every moment with a million ruminations.

Thinking felt productive, like it was getting me somewhere, finding answers, figuring life out. A blank mind, free of thought, was a wasted moment. It was zoning out, vegging out, goofing off, being frivolous. Thought was the vehicle to wisdom, understanding, and insight.

I was bound and determined to think-my-way to happiness.

And every thought took me away from the realm of no-thought that is happiness itself.


It has also been a surprise to discover that alert no-thought is actually more intelligent than thought. The space of no-thought is the source of any intelligence that shows up in thought. The no-thought that is "upstream" of thought is the source of creativity and wisdom.

While thought can be a beautiful and powerful tool, a lot of thought is unnecessary and destructive. Who doesn't have a merciless voice of internalized self-criticism? Or, even worse, a secret voice of thought that whispers hopes of personal specialness? Self-hatred and narcissism are two sides of a coin that have one thing in common: me, me, me. Which is the point of the bulk of thought: to conjure and perpetuate this huge fiction of separate me-hood. Thought builds up an imagined sense of me that must be constantly maintained and expanded. It is exhausting. It is a parasite draining life energy.

The me-image is fragile and flimsy and insecure by nature, as any image is a frail and evanescent thing. An image (especially the self-image) has a bottomless craving for attention, for without attention, where is the image? Poof! It is gone that easily.



These days there is a treasuring of the space of no-thought, whether thoughts are present or not. In the morning when consciousness opens its eyes on a new day, it savors the glint of silence between thoughts. So many of the thoughts that arise are recognized as unimportant, or as luring conscious attention towards hooking into some new drama of suffering, stirring up a new pot of pain.  Sometimes the unnecessary suffering cooked up by thought-stories is caught early on and the drama is side-stepped, nipped in the bud.  Other times I'm swept into the waking dream of thought lock-stock-and-barrel and ride out the storm.  Either way, all the while the space of no-thought gleams with fathomless presence. Attention opens from the thoughts to the space of awareness in which the thoughts occur. Such freedom here now in this space!

~
Gratitude for photo of Mourning Dove available at this link:
http://www.bird-friends.com/pics/MourningDove/MourningDove3LR.jpg

Distinguishing interpretation from actuality

               The drawing is either two faces or a candlestick, depending on how we look at it.

     Yesterday I sat in a room with a few hundred other people as Eckhart Tolle intertwined his fingers and said something like this, "Often people think that their interpretation of an event and the event itself are the same thing.  There is no such thing as a dreadful event.  All events are neutral.  'Dreadful' is an interpretation that is added to the event."  Eckhart disentangled his fingers, saying, "Waking up is when we see that the interpretation is not reality."  Eckhart held out one hand to represent the world of the mind, with its interpretations, judgments, opinions, and painful stories.  The other hand represented actuality, the event without any overlay of thought.  Presence is awareness freed from identification with mental forms.  It is who we are beneath our stories of who we are.

     Eckhart was talking with a woman with health problems who had lost her job.  "There are no dreadful events," he reiterated.  "There are only events, which can be challenging.  Challenges are real.  Problems exist only in the mind."   Eckhart's comments to this woman may sound unsympathetic, but they were the opposite. "Freedom is not dependent on pleasant conditions but on clear seeing," he said, and the woman looked as if a load had been lifted off her shoulders.

     For decades one of my worst fears has been the possibility of becoming obese, as obesity runs in my family.  Eckhart also pointed out that what we fear, we tend to attract into our lives.  When my husband and I became engaged to be married seventeen years ago, I said to him, "Promise me that you will divorce me if I ever get fat."  He smiled and replied, "Okay, I promise."

     Around the time I turned forty I went through four pregnancies in six years (three Cesarian sections and one miscarriage).  Gradually my fear of gaining weight became reality.  My sweet husband has also put on a few pounds, and thankfully he broke his promise to divorce me if I gained weight.  For years now, every day there is the relentless march of shameful thoughts in my mind for being overweight.  Every day there is a ready-made excuse to complain and hate myself and obsess over myself, etc.

     Can I distinguish between the interpretation and the actuality?  The actuality is the body weight.  According to a medical definition, I am overweight.  This actuality is neutral.  Further actualities are that I am physically fit, I am pain-free, and I enjoy walking.  I have a higher risk for weight-related health problems and I would like to lose weight.  None of these actualities produces suffering.

     The suffering comes in from the agony of thoughts of embarrassment, shame, unworthiness, and separation from others.  The suffering comes from the judgments, "This shouldn't be.  Things should be different.  I am a failure." etc.

     I am learning to distinguish reality (body weight) from the mental interpretations (this is a problem, this is unacceptable, this makes me miserable).  I am beginning to feel more at peace in my body right now just as it is.  I am in fact grateful for this body with its capacities of sight, hearing, taste, touch. I am grateful for the unfathomable mystery of this body that has been the doorway into this world for the three human beings I love most-  Chris, Mary, and Jack.

     Problems disappear when they are seen to be nothing more than mind-waves.  The actuality remains, but it is what it is, and it is non-problematic.  Even when the mind-waves reappear (habitual thoughts pop up again and again) they can be seen as innocent mind-waves rather than as a source of distress.

     This is similar to the shift that can occur when looking at a picture such as the one above; nothing actually changes, but there is a transformation in perception-  where there had been two faces there is now only a candlestick.  Actuality bathed in transparent awareness free of judgments emanates the peace that passes understanding.

(Addendum: Please see comment # 7 on this post for information about a subsequent talk where Eckhart speaks of dreadful events in the world.)

~

Clarity

   "Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone. "  (Alan Watts)

   "The most significant thing that can happen to a human being [is] the separation process of thinking and awareness."    (Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, p. 261-2)

    Muddy water is cleared by leaving it alone. Awareness is separated from thought by leaving thought alone.

    Whenever there is awareness of a thought, there is a separation between that thought and awareness.  This separation is clarity,  it is freedom from entanglement in thought.

     The separation process between thinking and awareness occurs when the muddy waters of the mind are left alone.  Simple rest clears the water.

    Water is always equally clear, whether mud particles are dispersed in it or settled at the bottom.  Awareness is always clear, whether it is filled with thought or whether thought is absent.

    However, when water and mud particles are mixed together, the clarity of the water is obscured.  When water and mud particles are separated, the clarity of water is easier to see.  There is no fundamental change, but the clear water that was always there is more evident when the mud particles settle to the bottom and are separated from the water.  Similarly, the clarity of awareness is unobscured when the mind is left alone and the process of separation between thought and awareness is allowed to occur.

    Why is the separation process of thinking and awareness the most significant thing that can happen to a human being?

    Our true nature as awareness is unrecognized when it is mixed up with thinking.  When the two are separated the clarity that has always been present shines forth unobscured.  There is recognition of essence.

   There is an art to leaving muddy water alone, to not resisting what is.  There is an art to true resting and non-interference.  Leaving things alone, letting thoughts settle down, requires a high-frequency energy of alertness.  Leaving things alone doesn't mean inactivity; it means yielding to the life flow instead of resisting it.

   Leaving muddy water alone means giving up the fight against what is.

   There is a natural attraction to the ease and effortlessness in which freedom is recognized and the sense of being a separate self dissolves.

    We are all one with the unfolding of reality in this instant, every instant, whether we are consciously aware of this fact or not.  We can't do it wrong.  Only thought says we can be wrong.

    In the ease of leaving thought alone, in the ease of not arguing with thought, there is the clearing of  muddy water and there is a separation of awareness from thinking. There is a separation of identity from the thought stream.  In this separation is the clarity of freedom, the freedom that has always been here and is now enjoyed.

~