Month: May 2026

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.