Month: October 2025

The experience of falling is becoming somewhat familiar to me. I don’t mean the actual physical act of falling to the ground, but the feeling of plunging into a kind of void. Falling means that my whole body does seems to let go and plunge into something outside of me, something surrounding me.

I find that, in conversation, I often refer to the lines from Rilke, “You see, I want a lot. Maybe I want it all: the darkness of each endless fall, the shimmering light of each ascent.” I feel like I am breaking out of my body and diving, like a bird, into the space around me. I associate falling more like descending into darkness, but I have a sense of being surrounded by an aura of light. I feel like I am no longer constrained by the parameters of my body. I reach out of my body and am in touch with whatever presents itself.

The experience of falling is triggered by many things. For me, it is most often triggered by the experience of touch. Anything or anyone I touch can summon me to fall into their presence. It can be the edge of my desk, a plant in my garden, my sweetie present beside me.

I remember vividly the first time I experienced this kind of falling. I was dropping onto the edge of my bed, a common movement when I would plop down on my bed. However, this time my body did more than fall backwards. I felt like it was falling into a dark void. The feeling went through my whole body, from the top of my head to my feet on the floor.

My alarmed reaction was that I had experienced a stroke. I consoled myself that it was at least a small one. But the next morning, my doctor assured me that nothing that radical had happened. I had no loss of body function and I had not damaged my brain. It took a few moments, but I decided that it was a gift experience. I had learned something new and different. Once I got beyond my alarm and fear, I realized it was quite wonderful. I had a new sensation of falling. And I could do it without harm.

Actually, it is something I now do with great delight. By falling into something or someone, I feel a connection that is more intense and intimate than I had ever experienced before. It is as though my whole sensory apparatus dissolves, and I flow into whatever is present. It is like falling in love into whatever or whoever is before me.

I no longer think that my experience of deep falling when I sat on my bed was an accident. I had been opening my mind and my experience to the practice of jhana. It is a meditative practice of entering a state of deep joy, calm and clarity. It is a practice of concentration that opens into the realm of formless perception. My sitting onto the bed with a jesture of letting go, my falling onto the side of the bed in an uncontrolled manner gave me the experience of entering into that formless realm just a little. I had broken through a constraint.

I know it was only a small taste of what could be experienced. It was a small experience of falling, of letting go. But it allowed me to experience what it was like to fall into nothing, to fall into the dynamics of the universe, to fall into the energy of love.

I now realize that I am learning more and more what it feels like to be in love with the world. “Falling in love” has a new and delicious meaning. By letting go of all my constraints and perception, I can fall into whoever or whatever presents before me. It is an exciting experience of “the darkness of each endless fall.” By letting go of all my perceptions, I experience the world in a new and intimate way. By opening my experience to nothingness, I realize my deeper connection with so much.

I am slowly learning how to fall. Falling comes in short and unsteady spurts. Gradually I am learning the significance of a motto I set for myself years ago: “A day spent without falling in love at least once is a day not well spent.” I intend to fall as often as I can. Falling is becoming a rich way of living.

I know that I carry a jewel inside of me and I have the intention to share it wherever I go. That intent alone qualifies me as a monk, even though I no longer wear the robes of a monk. This intent is not for my benefit alone, but for the benefit of everyone I encounter.

The jewel I carry is my ultimate nature. It is the jewel that radiates the hopes and loves of all previous generations. It is, as some say, the jewel of my Buddha nature, my nature as a spiritual being. I do not walk in the secusion of a monastery. I openly walk in the world of humanity and all beings so that I may reveal and share the riches of being vibrantly human.

The jewel within me is not mine alone. I attempt to live out the generosity of being human. My generosity is not so much in food and matertial resources but in the flowing energy of the universe. I recognize and affirm the presence of all I encounter. My recognition is in a loving embrace.

Many years ago, I proclaimed that we are all born to be lovers. That is the glowing nature of the jewel I carry. It is my nature to be a lover. I share the jewel of my nature wherever I go. I walk in the world as a monk.

I learned a long time ago that ritual is a delicate portal to the spiritual. In my teens, I noticed daily that a priest in the seminary chapel, Father Martin, would go through the ritualized motions and language of the mass in around ten minutes. This is a ritual that typically takes around thirty or more minutes. I learned then that ritual could become rote. And that has been a foundational experience for me. I resolved not to follow that practice.

I’ve not always been successful in following my resolve. Ritual has been an important part of my life. I have often said that I like ritual. The ritual I like has been a signifiant and repetitious portal to the spiritual. I have also learned that ritual can lose its value when my attention strays, when it is not focused on the meaning of what I am doing. Ritual can become something like cultural custom, even in the seclusion of my bedroom.

Every morning, I light a candle, I burn incense, and I invite my singing bowl. This is a prelude, a portal to my entering into mindful movements and a period of mindful sitting. The candle, the incense, the bell are all important factors that open my heart/mind into a ritual space, a spiritual space. Some days it is very effective in opening that portal. Some days my attention wanders, and the ritual becomes rote and less effective. Still I go through the motions every morning.

I am wary of the danger that I may at some point be going through the actions and no longer be entering into their true value. I may even cling to the ritual, unwilling to let go of something very familiar but without its savor. That clinging could be a clear sign to me that I have lost the value of the ritual.

I am attentive to my experience in the seminary chapel, and I am habitually alert to the danger of ritual becoming rote. For me, the whole value of ritual is not just familirity and ease. Ritual is of value to me beause it opens me into a spirit realm that is not always so present to me. The candle, the incense, the bell are sacred objects for me, but only if I make them so. Only if I make them so each time.

I wholeheartedly embrace ritual. And I want it to be an embrace of awareness.

A great obstacle to my being able to say “Yes!” to the world is my sense of self. For me, self is a reminder of Paradise Lost. It reminds me of losing that original state I experienced when I was born, of losing a time that I felt connected to all things. As soon as I was born, that primordial and unspecified experience was quickly interrupted by sensory experiences that fed me notions of separation. I emerged into a flurry of experiences that convinced me that I was a separate self. Now I try to return to the lost paradise experience of being connected to all things.

Individuation seems to be a requirement for functioning in the world. Growing as an individual gives me a framework for reacting to other human beings and all entities around me. But individuation comes at a price. To attain a notion of separation, of identity, I had to embrace the myth that I am separate. I see that I have stepped into a paradox of contradictions. I am both connected and I am separate. I practice at holding that contradiction as close as I can.

Aware that I function as a self, I practice at ridding myself of self. I practice at entering a realm of nothingness. I allow myself to plunge into a realm of formless perception. Without form, I once again exerience what it is to be connected to all things. I not only glimpse the lost paradise but I also momentarily step into it. All six of my senses dissolve and let go.

The paradox of that experience is that it has a foundation in the senses. I usually begin with touch, and then I embrace all my senses. I embrace them only to quickly let go of them. Maybe it is more like entering into them in such a way that they no longer function as senses. I deeply accept them, I free them, and they free me. The sense of self drifts away. Without my senses, I plunge into the brilliant and infinite darkness.

I cannot explain it any other way. When I lose my sense of self, I find all things in the resulting void. I forgot what that was, what I had lost, as soon as I emerged into the world. I could never have known what I was missing until I experienced it.

Pleasure is a tricky word. Maybe “sticky” is a better description because it attracts all the cautions our culture has about the sensory. Pleasure often is associated with sensuous, and that notion has all kinds of associations that our culture has hijacked both positively and negatively.

For me, pleasure is all about delight and joy in living. In one way, it minimally gives me a relaxed refuge from all the fears that confront me in my dreams and throughout my day. By relaxing into the yielding embrace of all that causes me fear, I am able to metabolize what otherwise would cause anxiety. By allowing myself to fall into the endless darkness of what threatens me and summons fear, I experience the calm thrill of soaring flight.

But there is so much more offered by pleasure. In so many ways, pleasure invites me into the delight of the rich experiences that awaite me throughout the day. Most of those experiences are founded in the senses. I walk through my morning garden and touch the grass, brush up against plants, look all around at all that is alive. I enjoy the deep pleasure of the bright awareness that surges through me. I stare at the dahlia in a vase on my table. I hug a friend and linger in the soft feel of their presence. My pleasureful day is sometimes punctuated by gently touching the butt of my sweetie. My contact with my world is flowing with pleasure, and my presence is repeatedly filled with joy.

I mostly try to do only those things that give me pleasure. I garden in a manner that gives me the joy of gardening. I tell friends routinely that if something about gardening is not giving you joy, it is only yard work. I may be sad about the loss of a favorite plant, but I am also embracing that it has done what it has chosen to do. My joy is in seeing it be the kind of plant that it is.

I practice joy by meditating. For me, meditation is not a burdensome, rigorout task. It is an opportunity to plunge into the pleasure of a quiet mind, to soar into the realm of formless perception. The experience may only last for a moment, but the warm, relaxed glow lingers. I often stop throughout the day when my bell rings on each hour. I touch something and feel the pleasure of touch throughout my body. My body has learned to respond from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet no matter how I am connected to my world. I am charged with the pleasure of the moment.

My days are filled with pleasureful moments. My body feels the presence of the plants in my garden, the clerk in the checkout lane, the friend stopping by to say hello. I know that pleasure is a tricky word, but it is all mine to own. After all, I have embraced the role of trickster. I choose to be full of pleasure and to share it.

I’m fussy about being instructed. I welcome the times that people tell me what they have experienced and what they have observed. This happens every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon when two professors share what they have observed about the world of vertebrate paleontology. They never instruct me about how to act or what to think. They tell me what they have learned.

I do not want to be instructed about how to experience anything. Tell me how you experience this or that, but do not tell me how to experience it. Share with me your experience. In that I welcome being instructed. Do not try to instruct me in how to experience anything. I will decide that myself.

It is my intention to show up whenever I have a chance. That begins at the start of the day when my feet hit the floor and I show up once again by moving out of the comfort zone of my bed. It is the pattern I have followed for a long time and it is the beginning of my showing up. The pattern is not just one of physical presence but it involves showing up with all the awareness I can muster.

I move from the bathroom to my stationary bike. I listen to a pre-programmed podcast then move to my bedroom. I follow the same pattern of lighting a candle and incense, doing the same mindful movements, then sitting to the sound of the bell. I show up in the same pattern every day.

The pattern unfolds further as I show up over my cereal bowl and feel the spoon in my hand and see the contents of the bowl rise to my mouth. I show up to the texture of the fruit, nuts and cereal against my tongue and teeth. My spoon rests beside the bowl again and again, a pattern I have learned to follow as I show up to my eating cereal.

My tea cup follows its own pattern, and I feel the shape of the cup against my lips. I show up to the hot tea, just as I have many mornings. The pattern unfolds.

There are many patterns that repeat daily. My attention is to the showing up that I can do without any planning ahead. I can be more aware of just what it is that I am doing because the patterns shape much of my day. I am able to show up much more frequently and consistently because I am guided by patterns.

I do not intend to move through my life in a mindless way. I intend to show up in whatever situation that presents itself. Much of that showing up is guided by learned patterns, for which I am grateful. Many patterns guide my steps, and I show up.

Awakening has been a gradual process for me. And it continues. I want it to continue for the rest of my life. I want the unfolding to go on and on. However, my attention has been drawn lately to the gradual unfolding that began many years ago. It has manifested again and again, usually in small ways that almost went undetected at the time.

I was reminded of one of those small awakenings when I stumbled on three photos of Sheila. These were photos randomly put in a folder with other items from my distant past. She was the daughter of friends of mine, and we did fun things together like go on bike rides. But only a couple of times, and then she disappeared from my life.

As I looked at those photos of Sheila, I realized how my heart had been touched by those brief times together. The residual feelings reminded me of how she had freed up a part of me that had a small but lasting effect on me. Through our non-romantic play, she had broadened a portal of feelings in me. That brief experience was an awakening in me that now has been repeated an endless number of times.

Gradually, I have come to embrace the notion that any day not spent falling in love at least once is a day not well spent. I have learned how to open my heart to many things and many people. Each opening has been another expansion of my awakening. The life force inside me has been gushing out more and more as the portal to my heart has grown increasingly larger. All the potential energy inside of me, the erotic energy of the universe, has become more awakened with each expression of loving.

It is easy to look back to my past and see that countless individuals like Sheila have summoned something very deep and vital out of me. So have my daily walks through part or all of my garden summoned that loving energy. Awakening is not an affair my head but of my heart. Again and again, I have bravely released my heart into what has become an endless fall into vibrant darkness.

It is all quite complicated actually, but I am aware that my awakening has been a gradual process that began with a conscious decision when I resolved to open my heart as I left my teens. That decision has taken me to many places in other people’s hearts. My own heart has become more open and gradually more generous with the energy bubbling up inside. The portal to my heart has become more open as the universal energy flows in and out. I have deliberately given and received. And I know there is more to come.

Each day, I renew my resolve to fall in love with the world I encounter. I resolve to open the portal of my heart a little more. Awakening is a slow maturing process, and I embrace it. I look forward to the awakening that is yet to come.