Barry Garden Path

What does it mean to have a spiritual life? That question comes up directly from time to time. It comes up daily in many indirect ways as people in my world seem to struggle with what it means to be human, what does it mean for us to be alive. There are so many ways of addressing the nagging issue of what it means for me to be alive in this moment, in this day, in this time of life. I constantly make decisions about what to do based on what it means to be alive in this moment, in this time. I act in a way that answers my question of what does it mean to have a spiritual life.

I basically see myself as a spiritual being trying to figure out how to live in a human body. My body seems so obvious. It is what everyone sees as my body presents itself in so many places. My body is what constantly makes its presence felt to me. My body is my obvious presence in the world. It is the obvious connection with other people, with the chair on which I am sitting, with the emerging plants in my garden. My body is always with me and connected to me. It presents itself as a constant source of energy and a means to connect.

My spiritual life is not so obvious, but it is present in everything I do. It permeates every part of my body and saturates every movement I make. My body is so much more easy to experience. All my senses are constantly on call, allowing me to have an experience of the world around and inside me. My senses seem to be the essence of my experience, but there is more. There is an awareness and an experience that constantly lurks beyond my senses. I am a spiritual being traveling in a human body. I am a spiritual being whose aliveness can be experienced in real time as readily as my body experiences sensation.

My body brings energy into every situation. My body experiences anger and my body experiences desire. Experiences of my body can energize and animate my body. The same experienes can energize my deep awareness and animate the less obvious part of me. My spiritual side, when awakened, can embrace all the notions, experiences and energy of my body. My spiritual self, when I am aware, can experience all things present to my body. The touch of a plant or a person can become more than the simple sensation of touch. But I must be aware.

My spiritual life is always with me. However, it requires a different kind of effort and practice for me to be aware of it, to experience it. I am a spiritual being, but that is not always so obvious. I am slowly growing in my ability and my awareness of what it means to live as a spiritual being. It is becoming more and more a part of what my body experiences and what it does. I’m learning what it really mean to live a spiritual life. It is nothing special, but it is becoming part of everything my body does.

Space is where I go whenever I choose. I have not learned how to live there. It is mostly a place that I visit. For the most part I simply dissolve into my inner space. Inner space is both a retreat and an exciting plunge. For me, it is an experience of deep concentration and limitless involvement. Inner space is where I am most focused and where I see how I am connected to all things.

It has been years since I first accidentally fell into inner space. I stumbled into a place where all things are present. Once I learned what that entrance felt like, I found that I can boldly go there whenever I want. All the world around me disappears from my senses, and I feel the most intimate union with it at the same time.

For me, the path to inner space mostly begins with my senses. A single breath, felt in my nostrils or sometimes in my chest, is my first step. My deep awareness of that sensation is the second step. My breath experience as known is the singular focus of my attention. That knowledge is the rim of my inner space.

My mind loves that knowing focus on something as simple as my breath sensation, and my mind dissolves in a rush of enjoyment. It relaxes, it lets go, and the plunge into that limitless inner space begins. For a moment I allow that pleasant experience to continue, my mind all the while focused on my breath as known. I can simply linger there, or I can choose to open to the awareness of limitless space, of infinite intelligence. At that point, all connnection with sensation has faded away. Sometimes, I have an awareness of total emptiness, with an embracing connection to all that is.

While it is somewhat traditional to begin with the breath in order to enter into inner space, I more frequently experience touch as the stepping off point. It could be as simple as touching the top of my desk or a plant in my garden. The starting point frequently is touching someone on their arm or holding them in a lingering hug. In an instant, I let go of all preconceptions and know the sensation just as it is. As quickly, I plunge into the realm of inner space, the place where intimacy and awareness explode.

If I am deliberate, vision can allow me to take that first step. What I see opens me to inner space and the object of my awareness becomes part of my inner space. It may be as simple as looking intently at someone who is speaking, their words becoming part of my inner space. It can be as thrilling as looking into the night sky at the end of my dock and realizing that what I see and what I experience inside of me are the same.

Inner space is where I experience what Rilke expressed as “The darkness of each endless fall. The shimmering light of each ascent.” I don’t dwell in inner space, but I go there often. I experience inner space at the hourly sound of my bell and I touch whatever is near. I often invite each spoonful of my cereal as a taste of inner space, and also each forkful of food that enters my mouth.

I often step into and out of my inner space. I don’t exactly live there but I am practicing.

As I hear the reaction of people to events I know of, I am noticing how my view of the world is shaped by what I think. What I see is shaped by what I expect to see. I like to think that I have an open mind to see what is really present or actually happening. But I know that my world is, for me, shaped by my own view.

I think that my mind is constantly functioning against a backdrop of perception. I don’t interpret everything as though I know nothing. I have a whole tapestry of assumptions that I bring into every experience. My mind is actively shaping my world every moment to correspond to my view of what I think is present.

I am aware of that influence of view that accompanies anyone coming into my garden. What they see is highly influenced by their background notion of what a garden looks like. How they see my garden is placed against a tapestry of their view of a garden, and they experience my garden in that context. For people who have the view that a garden is the orderly placement of plants, my garden of controlled chaos looks much too unruly. It is not a true garden in their view.

For people whose notion of a garden is true random, not influenced by human hands, my garden is much too controlled. They are uncomfortable that my controlled chaos has too much order in it. They have their notion of what a garden looks like, and they are truly seeing my garden as not in the mold of their view of what a garden is.

I know I have my own personal view of the world, and I see things from my personal perspective. Like everyone, I choose my point of view, I am not confused. I simply see and experience things as they are filtered through my perspective. I make a special effort to have a view that is relaxed enough to see things as they truly are. I am aware that my mind is often on auto pilot and is ready to see a background pattern into which my experience must fit.

I interupt this default pattern by paying attention to my breathing. I routinely touch something or someone to break away from my preconceptions. I know that I can easily rely on a wrong pattern, a wrong view, if I do not interrupt what I experience with a focused attention to a sensory esperience like breathing or touch. I try to guide my mind so that it is more likely to have a passive role of experiencing the world as it likely is.

My automatic view often gets me through the rigors of the day. But I am also ready to interrupt my view with the challenge of “are you sure?”

I am aware of the importance that joy has in the face of cruelty and inhumane treatment of people. It need not be bubbling over, but joy is a significant antedote to keep my body from falling apart, from yielding to the darkness being visited around me. Fear is powerful in me, but so is joy. Joy helps me to relax, it keeps me shielded from entering the atmosphere of hate and it brings me closer to those I love.

The lack of joy in the oppressors is so obvious. There is no joy in how they relate to those whom they intend to harm and actually do harm. Those men and women are raw and brutes. There are no smiles, no calmness, no awareness. The federal government dug deep when they recruted the joyless invaders of our neighborhoods. These people are not the cream of humanity but the dregs. They lack the humanness of joy.

For me, anger can be a source of energy. It can also be destructive to anyone who is angry. Joy can be my insulation to the destructive power of my anger. I am not afraid to direct my anger at those who are harming me and my neighbors. I will not allow my anger to descend into hatred. Joy is my insulation to keep my anger from harming myself.

I am grateful that I am surrounded by close friends who help me remain joyful, even in situations that could generate despair. I think that I agree with Joanna Macy that despair can soften and tenderize the heart. Because of joy, I can embrace despair, and not be overwhelmed by its power. Joy is what keeps my heart tender when I am surrounded by cruelty. Being surrounded by loving friends who share my joy helps me keep a tender heart.

I could explain all those things that give me joy, but foremost are my loving friends. They help me maintain a joyful heart. They help me walk in joy in the midst of cruelty.

I notice that I have experiences of community in a number of ways. Not all experiences are positive. Some aspects of my community are large and other aspects are very small. Size often makes a difference in how I experience and relate.

I have a disturbing relationship with my largest community. In reccent years I am growing in my awareness that I am a linked part of the huge community of Homo Sapiens. I follow a tradition that holds a perspective of interbeing, of all entities being entwined and linked. For me, this has become more than a concept, more than a perspective. I have begun to experience what it means to be part of a species that has done great things and continues to do terrible things. I am currently aware that my species, the humans I am intimately linked to, has been engaged in doing terrible things to other humans.

I am increasingly aware that my species is currently engaged in doing terrible things to our fellow humans. As I allow myself to experience what that means, I have become increasingly weighed down by the reality. I live in Minneapolis, a community where that awareness takes hold of me daily. My community suffers at the hands of my fellow humans. That is a heavy thing to experience.

That same community has stepped forward with love, resistance and energy. This is also a community that holds deep respect nd support for what it means to be human. I experience a community that acts in a way that causes no harm. This too is my community, and it is an aspect that I prefer to embrace.

I also have the smaller community of Bryn Mawr in which I have lived for forty years. For decades, I have shared the lived experience of a few thousand people, struggling through many isssues and enjoying the benefits of a community that thrives and supports one another. I have joined many members of my community in my garden and shared the joy of gardening with many members who pass by.

I have a smaller community, a meditation group. This is a sangha whose name means community. This community consists of a couple dozen people who gather frequently to experience the common presence of one another. We listen to one another, we support one another’s efforts, we give hugs. We sometimes struggle with one another, we also share aspirations and joys.

I am also happy for a loose community of individuals who care for me and support me. These are men and women I can genuinely say that I love. We share our lives actively, we make room to sit with tea. We listen intensively and intentionally. We cascade into the presence of one another. We are attentive to the physical and immaterial aspects of one another. We step across the boundaries of our individuality. It is no surprise that this is the community that I experience freely and without burden. This community lives what it means to be linked and entwined.

Experiencing what it means to be part of the human community is burdensome and sometimes makes me sad. I also experience the richness of the community around me, especially those individuals who are closest to me. It gives me joy to enter more fully into the lives of all those who have chosen to act in caring, loving, human ways. These are the people I most easily recognize and accept as members of the human community.

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Knowing that I am linked does not always mean that I feel good about it. I have a growing awareness of being linked to the expansive fabric of the universe. I am part of it all. Every part of me has been around for a very long time and I am linked to all those other parts. My history is linked to a history that is so much bigger, so much more than me. That includes humanity.

The part of being linked that helps me feel good about it all is the deep linkage I feel with my friends. Being linked with my friends is so much deeper that the notion of being part of the fabric of the universe. The energy that flows between us is so affirming. It is so attractive. Referring to people as my friends sometimes bypasses the reality that these are people that I love and who love me.

Referring to them as my friends disguises my experience of longing to be close, with people I consider to be my friends. It is a linkage that generates a deep feeling of being linked with love. These are love-friends with whom I have eperienced a mutual affection and longing.

Then I am faced with the reality that I am somehow linked to many who act out of malice and hatred. The experience of this linkage is not at all pleasant. It pains me that I am connected to people who are responsible for horrid actions.

I am dragging the consequences of those humans who act maliciously and treated people and the world so badly. I carry the burden of a humanity that sometimes does not act out of love but out of hatred. I am linked so intimately with all of humanity that I cannot escape feeling the horror of what my fellow humans do to one another. I am not separate. I don’t always feel good about that.

When I become overwhelmed by the felt experience of being linked with all of humanity, I turn my attention to those with whom I am linked by love. I take refuge in my friends. When I become too aware that I am linked to all the anger and pain generated by so much of humanity, I take refuge in the loving links I have with many others.

These are more than friends. I turn to the links that are more than simple friendship. I remember that our common bonds are more than simple ideas but are an abundance of acts of love. I allow myself to feel immersed in the experience of linking acts of love. I feel the deep expression of love we have for one another and for many others.

Knowing that I am linked doesn’t always feel good. But I can choose where I pay attention to my linkages.

I have a deep longing in me. I became slightly aware of it when I was about twenty years old. I have become more aware of of the longing as years have passed and as I have become more free in experiencing it. It has been a gradual letting go, a gradual falling into a void.

The longing expresses itself in many ways and many sources. I am aware of it many times, but especially when I notice that it is reciprocated. People, animals, plants and places can all be an object of my longing. The occasion of longing may be as simple as smiles exchanged when passing in the skyway, a deep hug, the eyes of a dog, a walk in a beloved community of plants.

I am no longer surprised or puzzled when the longing happens. I am increasingly aware that we are all connected in the fabric of universe, animate and inanimate beings alike. I have moments when this connection is more clearly experienced. There are moments when I relax into the connection and the longing to be close surges through my body. Never to be grasped or possessed, the object of my longing persists and the glow of its presence fills moments, hours and days afterwards.

I feel this longing when I look at my blooming amaryllis and when I look around at all those seated in a circle in my Sangha. I feel this longing when a friend comes through my door or I look out my window at the snow covered yard. I know that the intimacy is already there, and I have but to allow myself to experience it.

For me, it is simply a matter of letting go and falling into the presence of whatever or whomever is there before me. For some, this is what they call falling in love, into love.

Perhaps it is special, but it has become more and more of an habitual experience of mine. Falling into the experience of longing is the way I choose to live.

I honestly don’t know what to do with my enemies. I am fortunately surrounded by many people I love and who love me. But there are those enemies out there that seem intent on following a path of intolerance and hatred. I can’t ignore them because their actions harm so many of their fellow humans and affect those I love.

It is not enough to judge their actions and declare them to be in the evolutionary backwaters of humanity. They act in a way that is inconsistant and even oppositional to the very traits that have made us successful as a species. They act in a way that ignores that humans have prospered because we evolved to care for and support one another. They hoard resources, contrary to the human tendency to provide for those who are hungry or weak.

They do not understand their inheritance as humans. They appear unaware of what it means to be human and care for one another. It is not enough for me to repeatedly remind myself that they are “dumb shits,” and turn away. I cannot ignore them, even while I attempt to keep them from stirring my anger. I will not be consumed with feelings of rage, even while I routinely feel a smoldering rage inside me as I witness what my enemies are doing.

I cannot simply lock my enemies in the basement of my life. They have surrounded me and those I love. They are having a real effect on the social world we have constructed and the given world we have inherited from the universe. I wish I could ignore them, but I am very aware of the harm being caused by my enemies. I am sad that I hold them at a distane, outside the realm of those I love.

My enemies are a sign of my own shortcoming. I fall short just by my identifying them as my enemies. I want to be aware of them and alert to their presence, but I refuse to be drawn into their circle of malace. I am watchful and wary, and I am sometimes acting in opposition. But I will not dishonor my own heart with the same kind of hatred and rage that consume my enemies.

For now, it is enough to keep my heart from being affected by my enemies. I will protect my heart from my enemies. I rely on those who love me and whom I deeply love.

A reflection on the childish behavior of some adults.

Childhood is always imperfect. I don’t think any of us had a perfect childhood. The notion of a perfect childhood is a myth. We go through life attempting to recover from what we experienced as children. There are no exceptions, but the degree of imperfection is highly variable.

For some, childhood could be marred by a lack of food, shelter or affection . We never recover the connection with the world we felt when we were born. For others, the experience of childhood imperfection is much more dramatic. Many childhoods are scarred by blatant abuse. Physical abuse, includig sexual abuse, is a common experience in childhood. Trauma comes in many forms.

Many people never recover from the trauma of childhood. They carry with them the experience of an imperfect childhood and often continue to live it out. Sometimes they inflict on others what they have learned. Sometimes they simply react to situations the way a two-years old might have a tantrum. Some never grow into sexual maturity and, as an adult, relate to children the way they would as a child, spreading abuse in their wake.

Fortunately, many people have the insight to recognize the imperfection of their past and choose to craft what they have not experienced. They choose to make what has been missing. It is a choice to plunge into the unknown and untested. Rising out of an imperfect childhood can be difficult, but it is also a choice. Many spend their lives learning what it means to be a human being. They make choices to learn what it means for them to be a human being. They choose to shed the imperfections of their childhood.

Many of us experience guides and aids along the way. When we are fortunate and observant, we learn how to abandon an obsessive clinging to the imperfections of our childhood. The help sometimes comes in the form of other humans. Sometimes, it is simply the dramatic and abundant world around us. We are often given chances to recover, but we must be observant and choose.

I sometimes become aware of the imperfections of my childhood. I also remind my kids that they did not have perfect parents. But I also tell my kids, as I tell myself, it is not sufficient to be aware of the shortcomings of childhood. To observe the shortcomings of my past is the beginning of a healing and growth. I may never achieve the perfection of my human essence, but this is a good time to move in that direction. I choose not to be limited by my past experience of imperfection.

I have an occasional practice of redeeming words that have a slightly unsavory aspect. I wash them up a bit and then embrace them in my common vocabulary. “Seduction” has been a recent word that I have burnished a bit and then claimed it as an attribute of mine. This morning, I have chosen to see myself as incorrigible. It was perhaps applied to me in jest. But I see it as insightful and accurate. I am incorrigible.

I recognize that I truly am a follower of patterns and rules. I yield and accommodate most social norms. But I also push back at boundaries. I sometimes find new meanings in old expressions and make them my own. I love following a path through the woods, but occasionally I wander off into areas that appear untouched by human trafficking.

Long ago, I was chosen in a seminar to play the role of trickster. It happened by lot, by blindly drawing cards out of a cloth bag. I never thought much of it at the time and I dutifully played the role of trickster in the group. Looking back, I realize that the name I pulled out of the cloth bag was truly my own. I am a trickster. I can be quite conventional and at the same time I can see situations with an awareness that is not at all common or conventional. I choose my vision over that of many others. I may go where no one else is choosing to go.

Perhaps this is simply one of the gifts of being on the autism spectrum. I see many things in non typical ways. I choose to make situations make sense, but I do it in a way that makes sense to me. I choose my own way, I choose my own path. That path goes beyond, or at least pushes up against, the boundaries that others see. I abandon or at least push against what is typically seen as normal.

I am aware that I push against the normal with confidence and conviction. For me, it is a normal thing to do. Being a bit of a trickster is simply who I am, and I wear that label with a deep sense of personal identity. A trickster does not hesitate to walk outside of what others see as norms. For me, that is about the same as being incorrigible.

I am not about to change. I embrace who I am, and the norms I see are the ones I follow. It is my vision of things, and I am compelled to follow the vision that I trust. I resist any attempt by others or institutions to impose norms on me. I resist control, especially if that control attempt to impose a norm on me that is not my own. I am comfortable being abnormal. I guess I am truly incorrigible.