Intimacy?

Mindfulness or Intimacy?

I gave this talk at Blooming Heart Sangha on 2/16/2022

I invite you into a question I’ve been asking myself:

It actually is kind of a retraction; certainly a clarification
In October, I talked about Mindfulness and Intimacy as though they were somehow the same.
I even said they were two sides of the same coin.
Now I’m not so sure.
Lori often reminds us “Are you sure” and now I’m not at all sure I agree with what I said in October.
I think something like a real distinction can be made between mindfulness and intimacy.
I often think and talk about these things and I’ve lived a few months and I notice that my experience has changed.

It’s not a two-way street; I think I can be mindful without experiencing intimacy.

I can’t experience intimacy without being mindful.
I realize these are just words, concepts; they are not a thing.
This is more than a simple distinction of words; I think the two words point to a qualitative difference in experience.
Intimacy is not just experience of more mindfulness, it is qualitatively different.

I know this is my distinction, my choice of definition.

It is not what Ben Connelly seems to say. In “Mindfulness and Intimacy”
It is my experience
It’s an important distinction, because it says “there is something more than mindfulness.”
Old saying: “ First there is a mountain; then there is no mountain; then there is.”
Mindfulness and intimacy are at the opposite ends of that saying.
The opposite ends of the saying also reflect a difference in experience, and I know I am clearly not at the ultimate end of the intimacy…..not yet.
It is a continuum, and my experience is somewhere along it.

Problem: I often talk with an English major friend of mine about how language is essentially dualistic.

That is a problem.
For me to talk about Mindfulness or Intimacy, I use dualistic speech, dualistic terms.
But intimacy experience moves beyond dualism, beyond dualistic speech, beyond concepts.
Your language in describing your experience likely has a different meaning than mine;
Mine will be different in four months.
But we have to use words to talk about it, and here goes……

First, Mindfulness; For me, Mindfulness is less juicy, but focuses on some aspect of experience

Usually means being aware of some aspect of experience I am not typically conscious of.
Mindfulness is a first step; typically focuses, brings my consciousness to some kind of sensory or mental experience.
Mindfulness is foundational; Thay says it is an antidote to many things such as suffering, anger, loneliness.

For me, Body is foundational for most experiences of mindfulness.

Mindfulness often rises from sensation. Clapping hands to feel the tingling energy.
Mindfulness can be focusing on breathing, sitting, walking, eating, and so on.
Body scan is a help in becoming familiar with mindfulness.
For me, there is a point when I become aware of my whole body at once; ready to step over into intimacy.

Second, intimacy; That movement into intimacy is harder to describe

Mindfulness is like watching rain run down the window pane; intimacy is running out into the rain, putting whole self into the experience.
Intimacy is beyond knowing about something, but meeting it with an open heart, an open mind, a sense of wonder
I know, I can be mindful of the granite top in my bathroom: its hardness, its coolness, its 200 million years in the ground.
Intimacy is merging with the granite without being aware of any of those things. A step beyond dualism, beyond concepts. It simply is and I am connected to it.
“First there is a mountain…….”

I have a harder time launching into intimacy with the shungite stone around my neck.

It is a great exercise in mindfulness. I often focus on its 2 billion years in the ground; I feel its hardness and sharp edges, its black shiny surface.
But I have a hard time feeling any kind of intimacy with it
Perhaps not enough sensory data to launch me.
Since I began thinking about this, the sense of intimacy has grown.

What about senses: Intimacy involves and depends on a launch beyond sensory

For me, it includes abandonment of sensation;
Requires that I go beyond the conventional, beyond habitual views.
An experience that may reach toward the ultimate. …..still thinking about that.
I know it demands a surrender to a feeling of free-fall, absolute letting go
That is beyond mindfulness.

What About people: Mindfulness can be independent of other people, but other people often play a huge role in intimacy for me.

Families teach a lot about intimacy; certainly true for me
for some that means learning that intimacy is inviting and juicy; for others that means learning that intimacy is a scary and dangerous place……it is better remaining alone. I got a lot of the latter.
Lovers are often associated with thoughts of intimacy, and they too can teach the dangers or the wonders of intimacy. I’ve experienced both.
I am still thinking about ancestors and wonder what you think: how have they affected your ability to experience intimacy?

Last thought; I am convinced that I can be mindful without intimacy, but I cannot be intimate without mindfulness. However there are things I’m trying to figure out

Intimacy is beginning to seem something like absorption to me, but I’m not sure.
For me it is a kind of boundary-less merging
Experiencing no distinction.
Not the same as possessing; I think there is nothing that involves self.
Something like a small taste of nibbana, emptiness
“First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is”
That is about as close I get to understanding intimacy.

I still have more questions; but I also have some for you:

What do you think intimacy is?
Is it part of mindfulness or different and distinct?
What is your experience of intimacy”
What has been the role of family, ancestors for you?