Barry Garden Path

Becoming who I am has not been my own doing alone. I am aware, as I look around me and inside me, I have been transformed by many peoople. These are the many individuals who have loved me and been loved by me. It is a transformation that continues each day and constantly evolves.

I am aware how I have been transformed by those who love me. I have not evolved alone. I am a collage of all my lovers, some of whom are dead and some are alive. All are with me, and for this I am grateful and mindful how they have such a profound effect on me and continue to do so.

Sometimes when I have been loved I have been able to respond in kind. Sometimes I did not respond so well. Still I am a collection of all these lovers and I have been shaped and molded by them. All are part of who I have become and are part of my future as certainly as they have been part of my past. Many are eminently part of my present.

The transformation process continues. I am enriched and changed daily by my sweetie and the loving circle that surrounds me. I look at my parents before they had children, I look at gifts given to me so many times in the intervening years and I am reminded how I have been transformed by those who have loved me. I am also attentive to how poorly I sometimes responded to that love. I have often resisted acceptance of that love. But now I give myself more fully to it.

My transformation continues daily, shaped both by those who love me and whom I love. It is a process it has taken me decades to sort out, oftentimes resisted. But now I know I want it all. I embrace each endless fall and each shimmering ascent. I will be both transformer and transformed.

I think I struggle less when I learn how to struggle. I get less done, but what I do is easier. This especially is true in how I approach gardening. If it doesn’t give me joy, I typically don’t do it.

I admit to being one of those drivers who drive at or slightly above the speed limit. I am less intense, even though I realize I may frustrate more ambitious , anxious drivers. I may take note and even comment about drivers who do dumb or outrageous things . But they bother me less. I struggle less.

Much of my life has been supported and helped by academics. A structured way of thinking has given shape to my exploration, my ruminating and my actions. I have benefited greatly by the role of academics as my life took on structure and a pattern. The woven way of my life has given me identity and stability. Now I am entering more and more into the spaces between the threads of the academic weaving.

I recognize that I am learning how to enter into the chaos, the realm of the formless. I am plunging beyond academic structure into the unstructured. Like my garden, I am living more and more in a realm of controlled chaos.

My personal form of academics has given shape and structure to my life. I have followed the structure of a belief system, of a way of organizing my life, of entering every day. I have lived in the realm of the structured known, and the adventure lay in the realm of the chaotic unknown.

I have become open to a whole new aspect of reality. The universe is now considered to be 6 percent known matter and 94 percent dark unknown something. My life feels that way as I open to what lies beyond the known and structured.

This is what entering the realm of darkness means to me. I still maintain a certain amount of structure in my life, but I let go and open to the unknown more each day. My notion of time gives way more to the every present now. I let go of structures that could give meaning and embrace the nothing that lies between the fabric threads of my life. Academics are less important when I am in free fall. I embrace the adventure. I want it all.

I think I have struggled all my life to live an authentic life. Mostly my attempt to be authentic has shown up as “doing it my way.” What I now realize is that I was actually paying attention to what I felt deep inside. I was giving secondary value to what others were telling me. I agreed with what my teachers or my culture told me, but only if it felt right.

I now consider that awareness, mindfulness is not a key to understanding everything. Mindfulness is a key to feeling everything. Feeling is a reliable way of connecting with everything. Feeling is my reliable path to authenticity.

Being attached to a way of thinking is a disturbance to authenticity. Learning to pay attention to my experience allows me to become more authtentic. Paying attention to my experience is something I feel with my whole body. Being authentic requires being immersed in feeling.

Men have a hard time being authentic, immersed as they are in the expectations of our culture. Raised on a diet of patriarchy, their ability to be authentic humans is stiffled. Their experience is clouded by patriarchy. Being authentic requires clear experience of feeling, and many men are hampered by notions of patriarchy, by social notions of what it means to be male.

Being a Buddhist can interfere with authenticity. Attempting to follow my or someone’s notion of the Buddhist path will cause me to ignore what I already know by paying aettention to my own inner guidance. My inner humanity is a more reliable guide. I trust my feelings more than I trust the notions of someone else, even the Buddha. To be authentic, I immerse myself in concentration on my inner feelings, my inner guidance.

Following any model can only get me so far, and then I have to be guided by my own authentic guidance. I experienced this as I followed the path of Catholicism. The guidance of the Catholic path only got me so far, and along the way I kept nudging my awareness to what was going on inside of me. The Catholic way, and the Buddhist way, may give me guidelines that are like safety railings along the path. But my own internal guidance shows my authentic way.

I have learned that I could become a good Catholic or a good Buddhist without ever becoming a good, authentic Barry.

I resist the urging of some people around me who speak of being compassionate in the Buddhist way to perpetrators of harm, such as the leaders in our government. My whole inside rebels to that notion. My whole body is aware that these people are a danger and are harming many. They are a danger to me. Ignoring that danger and harm is spiritual bypassing, a lack of being immersed in the suffering being caused. My body, with all it feels, tells me to pay attention to those harmed and extend compassion to them and their suffering.

Not being in touch with my own suffering and that of others is a lack of being in touch with my inner human guidance. I cannot be authentic, I cannot be authentic Barry without being in habitual touch with what I feel. Shielding myself from my feelings, ignoring what I feel, is not helpfu. I want to pay attention to my guidance to authenticity and wholeness which comes from inside.

I am ready to touch and be touched by my world. For me, my sense of touch is pivotal in how I relate to everything. More than any other sense, touch is the avenue for me to enter into a deep connection with everything. I imagine that my first awareness of my surroundings as a newborn was through my touch. The world I became aware of awaited my touching it, and I entered into my first intimacy with all that is.

My sense of sight is highly important to me. It brings me joy and awareness of all my surroundings. Even as it is a critical sense for me , sight is constantly telling me information about what I might touch. I more deeply understand the shape of things I see, like the tree on the boulevard. Seeing the tree has meaning for me because sight reminds me of the times I have touch the roundness, roughness and hardness of that kind of tree. I see my garden plants, and I know what it feels like to feel the texture of their leaves, the softness of the petals of flowers. I see a friend, and I am instantly reminded what it feels like to embrace them in a hug.

When I am eating my cereal, I pause after each spoonful and feel the shape of everything in my mouth. My son tells me that his reaction to food is more to its texture than to its taste. I tell visitors to my garden that touching is a feature of being in my garden. I teach kids how to touch anything in my garden using one finger. The bell sounds hourly on my phone, and I am reminded to touch whatever is near and become connected with the essence of what I touch.

All my senses tell me the assorted characteristics of things. But for me they all hint at what it would be like to touch and be intimately connected. I think that I am already part of everything and everything is part of me. Touch is the most efficient way for me to experience that connection. It is the hub of all my sensory experiences.

Maybe it is the hub because I mostly experiece my connection with my whole body. I may be touching my chair with my hips, but it is my whole body that is aware of the chair. I may be holding someone’s hand, but my whole body typically is aware of their presence. Perhaps touch is like the main stem of my sensory connection with all that is. Deep awareness is internal to me, but that intimate level of concentration embodies a foundation of touch awareness.

For me, everything is waiting to be touched. Everything is waiting for me to realize deep my connection. Touch is so important to make that happen.

The use of electronic screens typically interfere with meaningful connection. For me, using screens to communicate are mostly helpful to communicate information, but they are a poor substitute for mutual, in-person awareness. Rather than bringing me together with people, screens offer a glass barrier and emphasize the myth that we are separate. Any level of interaction offered thru screens is dramatically inferior to that experienced face-to-face.

For me, there is a dramatic difference if I am using a screen to connect with one person rather than a group of individuals. Screening with a group may offer a chance to share information, but it offers little to experience the presence of individuals. It is very difficult to experience a group of people on a screen, and I typically feel like I am an outsider looking in. I am not a felt part of what is happening, even when I actively participate. Screening with a group makes all of us outsiders, we are very tangentially connected. Our separateness is emphasized.

Screening with an individual is significantly different for me. Even though we are separated by distance, I often feel their presence. I can focus on one individual, and experience them in a way similar to seeing then across a table. I can focus on one individual, unlike a group screening where I see everyone at once and my attention is scattered and very surficial. I experence a focused interaction when only one image fills the screen.

There is a lack of deep listening when there is a crowd on the screen. If I am sitting with a group of people, face to face, I can focus on one individual at a time. The opportunity for reciprocity is there, even though many of us may be in the room together. This seldom occurs when the group is on a screen.

Awareness is experienced in my body. I am much more able to have deep awareness of someone when they are the only one on the screen. My body does not experience a group in the same way. It recognizes the distant and diluted image of numerous individuals. There is no singular focus, and I do not have meaningful interaction when a group is on the screen.

Of course, I always prefer the physical presence of an individual. I can be able to have a similar experience with one individual on a screen, especially if they are someone I know very well. This is not true for a screened group. A group on a screen may offer a chance for shared information, but screens do not facilitate a common experience for a group.

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.