This is an outline of a talk given on September 15, 2021
Mindfulness and Intimacy 9/15/2021
Here we are, obviously connected by words and by images on our screens
- Also, less obviously, but we know it, we are joined together through infinite connections that extend beyond our capacity to conceive.
- We are intimate and also mindfully aware of this.
Beginning: I invite you to close your eyes and relax
- Allow yourself to feel connected to your chair, and know that you are one with your chair.
- Allow yourself to feel connected to all of us in this meeting, and know that you are one with us.
- Allow yourself to feel connected to all the world around you, and know that you are one with all that is.
- Open your eyes.
That is an experience of intimacy and what it is like to be mindful of it
- It is what we cultivate and develop in our practice.
- We are all familiar with intimacy and mindfulness.
- We all have some sense of how to be mindful, how to be focused on what is here in the present moment.
- We also have some sense of how this intimacy and mindfulness can produce a joyful life, a compassionate engagement with what is right here and now.
- I confess, my major ambition is to experience intimacy with the world and be aware of it.
- I’m trying to figure it out; I don’t have answers, but I do have some observations.
- I am inviting you to think about intimacy and mindfulness this evening.
- Perhaps deepen our capacity to experience this intimacy and mindfulness, something we cultivate through practice.
I am aware that Intimacy is a delicate word, a delicate topic, because of common speech, our minds tend to go to intimacy of sex.
- When I met a close friend of mine several years ago, she said “no intimacy.”
- I knew that, in common speech, meant “no sex.”
- And so it has been, though I think we have a lot of intimacy in our relationship.
- I think of intimacy in a much broader fashion.
Offer a list of seven observations, any one of which could invite reflection and discussion.
My first observation about intimacy is that intimacy is a given.
- All our relationships have intimacy, even if we don’t experience it.
- We are intimate by nature; we are naturally connected to all things; will we experience it????
- Intimacy is a way to go toward what is deepest and most powerful about being human.
- The reality of natural intimacy is a basis of our practice.
- Thay teaches us about interbeing; we are naturally that connected, with one another, intimate with everything.
- We miss out; we aren’t often experiencing that intimacy or being mindful of it.
- Learning to be open to that experience of intimacy is part of our practice.
- First observation: I am already intimate with the world; I want to experience that intimacy and know it
Second observation: experience vs. know, intimacy as experienced vs. mindfulness
- Think of being inside watching it rain outside; watch the raindrops run down the window pane; that is mindfulness of the rain.
- Now think of running outside into the rain and feel the rain on our face and body, soaking your clothes; that is experiencing intimacy with the rain
- For me, intimacy and mindfulness are two sides of the same coin.
- One depends on the other; they grow together as I practice. They are the twins of my practice
Third observation: intimacy relies on intimacy with self; based on sensory awareness
- What I observe with my senses is foundational for experiencing intimacy
- I include real and imagined sensation.
- This is counter-cultural: our culture seems either caught up in the senses, or avoiding sensory experience.
- Our practice recognizes that the senses invite mindfulness; it’s front and center: hugging meditation, walking meditation.
Fourth observation: Nature has a great role in the experience of intimacy and becoming mindful.
- A group I sometimes sit with: Awake In the Wild
- Nature not only calls me to my senses but also invites me beyond to a deep experience of intimacy.
- Nature invites me to step beyond my habitual, cultural views.
Fifth observation: Experiencing intimacy softens and requires a softening of my sense of “mine”.
- Intimacy is about experiencing things as they are and not something to be possessed.
- I think for me this especially applies to my experience of intimacy with others; trying to possess someone, even a partner, interferes with intimacy.
Sixth observation: Experiencing intimacy is counter cultural, I must go against my culture if I am to experience intimacy with others, with the world.
- Especially means rejecting the notion of possessing things and people.
Seventh, and final observation: Experiencing intimacy is challenging and raises questions:
- How do I experience intimacy in a culture that so strongly encourages possessing, possessing things and person?
- How do I experience intimacy in a world that seems to threaten my safety?
- How do I reconcile my inheritance from my ancestors that seems so aversive to intimacy?
- What are the roles of boundaries? Do they help or hinder intimacy?
- How do I become intimate with something repulsive that I don’t want to be close to or part of, such as racism, ageism, homophobia, misogyny?
- The list could be long, and I am sure you can add to the list of questions.
That is part of what I invite you to share: what is puzzling about intimacy. What works? How is it part or not part of your practice?