Author: barryschade@gmail.com

Some days it is more difficult to step into “Yes.” Some days it is challenging to meet the world just as it is and give my full attention to it, to step into it without resistance or constraint. On other days it seems so natural, so easy, so full of my inner energy, so fluid to yield to whatever presents. And on some other days, that natural ease seems so remote and hard to grasp.

A fog sometimes settles in, obscuring the identity of the world. The understanding of it all seems so obscure or at least obtuse.

What I want is to step into “Yes” with energy and enthusiasm. I want to open myself to the totality around me. I want to welcome the world as it is and as it unfolds before me each unique and precious day. I want to see thing as they are and not pine for them to be different. I want to accept their invitation for me to show up. I want a welcoming intimacy with it all.

In truth, it is very attractive to accept each person as they pass by or, in any small way, enter into my sphere of awareness. I want to say “Yes” to them all. I want to become skilled in that form of speech.

I know in my heart that I am part of a wondrous universe, and I want to step fully into that universe without reservation or resistance. I want to shout “Yes” again and again. I want my vocabulary to be reduced to one central word, “Yes”.

Be still my heart, learn to speak that one syllable. Forget the rest. Strip off all the trappings and expectations of culture and enter naked into the wholeness of reality. Learn the native tongue where the most important thing to speak is “Yes”.

I’ve complained a lot. I have resisted and pushed against my culture for much of my remember life. I recognize how deeply that rejection must go.

This continues to cause me much ambiguity and uncertainty as I try to relate to others who appear much more guided by what the culture prescribes. Most seem uncertain or even hesitant about how to relate so someone like me who walks a path unlike many others.

I remember how when I was in high school, I was not “one of the boys.” I found my own way of running in the woods and burrowing into books. I could act in very conforming ways, but internally I found myself separate from the culture that guided others around me. We had common ground, but I had little interest in following the way that most of my peers went.

This resistance to culture followed me into the classroom where I disputed what teachers said and where I wrote papers that took a different view of commonly held perspectives. I found in time that I could not be an honest teacher of religious tenets that felt alien to me, and so I left the monastic group I had been part of for a dozen years.

I have always pushed against what my culture tells me about being male. I have developed my own view of sexuality and other expressions of intimacy, separating myself from what I consider to be too extreme or too restrictive in my culture.

Now I am discovering that the culture that I have been pushing against on what now seems like surface issues actually has a deeper and more sinister aspect. All this while I have been living in a white culture that has a great impact on many of the cultural trappings I have been resisting. At the root of many issues I have instinctively pulled away from is a dark notion of what it means for me to be white.

The white culture that I was born into has lost its humanity. My white culture, based as it is on the enslavement and continued suppression of others, has warped and caused us to lose our sense of what it means to be human. Being culturally white, affects most expectations of what I am and what I am to do.

I am now trying to look at the big question of how to reclaim the humanity I have culturally lost by the way my white culture continues to treat those we see as not-white. I wonder what it will take to create a white culture that is more rooted in the common humanity we share with those we see as “others.”

My struggle against my culture has taken on a different, even startling dimension. It has gone to a different level. As I search for a revitalized white culture, I am uncertain about just what it might look like and wonder who I would be walking with.

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?  

Perhaps it was only a scripted part of an entertaining movie. But it left a lasting notion in my heart and comes to mind frequently. In the movie “Avatar,” the indigenous people greeted one another with “I see you.” What a wonderful way of meeting another person. What a wonderful thing to think and then say to another person, to plants, to rocks.

To be seen by another is such an affirmation and recognition of my presence. I know what it feels like not just to be noticed but to be experienced and acknowledged in such an open, unprejudiced way. I want to see everyone with those eyes of openness . I want to feel that experience of seeing and being seen.

In my culture we have a practice of shaking hands when meeting. It can be a real gesture, but it is so weak. I have heard that shaking hands means that “I am not armed,” I hold nothing in my hand that can harm you. I suppose it is a useful gesture, but I would rather it were more than that, more than a cautious letting down of shielding and protection.

I want my meeting someone to be more of an open exchange, a deep affirmation of presence. I want it to be an acknowledgment that we see one another without prejudice or assumptions. I want us to say that we see one another just as we are, and have that to be true.

Actually, I prefer that we go beyond words and that we hug one another deeply. I prefer that we become aware of one another more deeply than simply seeing one another. If I could, I would say with wholly open eyes and heart, “I am you.” Sometimes that is what I feel. I never seem to say it.

Those words, “I am you,” are not common, but they can be a part of me just the same. It would be a routine reminder to me how we are all intimately connected. Now, if only we could let it freely show!

Seeing each other is one opening to intimacy, an initial recognition of how we are connected. For me to affirm that I really see someone is the beginning of an affirmation of the intimacy we naturally share. Seeing is an initial invitation to enter into a heart-joined experience of intimacy .

Some would consider it a flaw in my person that I want so strongly to be noticed, but I embrace it. I want to be recognized as part of something or someone, as connected to them in some deep and mysterious fashion. When I walk among the shoulder-high plants in the prairie section of Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden, I want those plants to be as aware of me as I am of them. I want to be noticed by them, acknowledged, confirmed.

I want my presence to be felt by people around me just as clearly and strongly as I feel them. I want the plants in my garden to direct their plant-awareness fully to me as I walk among them every morning and acknowledge them. Awareness cannot be a one directional street for me. I want there to be a constant exchange of noticing.

When I walk on the path down to the lake at my cabin, I want the ground to yield ever so slightly to my feet. I want the dirt and grass to feel my weight and my presence. They need not remember my passing, but I want them to notice and be intently aware when I am present.

For me it is about being reciprocal, of jointly feeling the connection we naturally share. I typically not only notice the presence of someone else, but I allow myself to feel their presence and acknowledge it somehow. There is nothing about the past or future involved, only the moment during which we notice that we are in a time of existing together. We are connected. I want to habitually be someone who notices that and is noticed.

Deep within my culture there is a framework that has been hidden from me. It is as hidden as the bones that make up my skeleton. And like my skeleton, it is essential to providing structure, support and shape to my culture. Knowing it is there, now helps me to understand the otherwise incomprehensible resistance I see daily to reasonable things like getting vaccinated and wearing masks.

I just finished reading “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson. I think I can better understand the deep and hidden energy source behind many people who are so strongly anti-vaccine and anti-mask in the midst of this pandemic. What seemed wildly unreasonable to me, now is a lot easier for me to understand. There is a deeply engrained and hidden force behind the resistance.

While not specifically about race, resistance has been made a hallmark of belonging to a certain caste that many white people are desperately trying to preserve. Many white people are trying to keep their position of privilege, even if it is only imagined. They want to maintain the caste system that racial injustice has supported for hundreds of years. It is the hidden agenda behind a wide assortment of cultural dynamics, and it is providing the energy that resists masks and vaccines.

The attempt to “make us great again” is deep and powerful. At its roots, the structural caste system is quite hidden. The manifestations, however, are very visible. Not wearing a mask or not being vaccinated has been made one of the symbols of belonging to a once-privileged caste. It has been made part of the culture of the caste. Caste identity gives the resistance energy.

I recognize that the issue of resistance to masks and vaccines is complicated, and the generalization about caste structure doesn’t always fit all individuals and specific situations. However, uncovering the hidden nature of caste and its role in our white culture has helped me make sense of what seems like wildly unreasonable resistance.

I don’t want to miss or underestimate the power of this deep and hidden caste system and how attached to it many people are. I also want to be aware how it affects decisions I make. I recognize that I have been born into the privileged caste by having white parents. It is the hidden structure underneath my white culture.

Where are the others? Some mornings, like today, I stumble around and wonder “Where are the others like me?” Am I so unique that there are no other beings who think and feel like me? Where is the natural linkage we think we have with other individuals? If it is real, why is it not at all obvious? Why is it not perceptible by me?

I sometimes think that I feel more of a connection with the tree in my back yard than I feel with other humans. My tree I can feel and touch, I can see its bark and limbs, I can hear the movement of its leaves. Is this supposed connection with others something I simply think, but don’t really experience. I have a memory of what that kind of experienced connection might have felt like. I also wonder if that is simply an imagined memory. Where are those others now?

Why is it that we hardly ever brush up against one another in the forest of existence as I do with my tree whenever I pass it, touch its bark, feel its solid presence. I walk in a forest of others and get only fleeting glimpses of movement, see shadows of unclear presence, hear a furtive rustle that does not repeat.

It sometimes seems that we are sitting next to one another on a giant airplane rushing through space. I may be so close to others, and yet we sit in our own unique and isolated bubbles. We are scarcely touching or looking, even while we are dimly aware someone is there. The others seem more like shadows than a manifestation of the extraordinary beings they are. So it seems to me, and I suspect it is how I seem to the others as well.

We remain aware of one another, but in an oblique and sadly distant way. We are only slightly aware of the other person sitting next to us on the imagined plane. We are so close, but never touch. And so we remain apart.

I sit and wonder “Where are the others” as I stare into my book. And they sit and stare into theirs.

I’ve been thinking of how, in the vast expanse of the universe, would I recognize myself. What distinguishes me in such a way that anyone could answer me: Who am I? Among all sentient beings on this planet, what distinguishes me from all others?

I am, first of all, a man who wants to be fully alive no matter how many times I have traveled around the sun. I want a deep intimacy with the world, and that is characterized by my being an attentive gardener. I want to be a guardian of the world I see when I wake in the morning.

I am someone with an open heart and I welcome anyone wanting to join me in my adventure of plunging into the world. I am curious and an avid student of the world, living and not living. I teach about plants to anyone who seems attentive and I participate in discovering geology through classes at the University of Minnesota.

I love to read, and I am currently nestled between the covers of: Caste, My Grandmother’s Hands, Until The End of Time, Mindfulness And Intimacy, Fidelity and Educated. I am engaged in four book circles with other readers.

Currently, my favorite poet is Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer whom I read daily along with Rainer Maria Rilke. I have a daily meditation practice and exercise program.

The question is still: Who am I? I am a man who is determined to be deeper and deeper in love with life. I stumble in that pursuit, I recover, I turn corners frequently. I do my best to turn away from the desire to possess or be possessed. Instead, I try to experience myself as part of all that is. A unique part.

It is such a circular kind of thinking. It is a circular way of seeing things that I often find myself following to define and describe what is real. All I know, all I have to go on is what I perceive with my senses. My senses alone tell me what exists. My senses connect me to what I determine is real. It is often a circuitous route, but it always comes back to what my senses tell me, what I learn through my senses. It is a circle.

It is typical that physicists fabricate laws to explain and define reality. Those laws and definitions have constantly changed as perceptions have changed. Even those explanations and laws are based on sensory observations.

For me, the laws of physics describe what is real and project what can be. They all are ultimately based on sensory experience, on what senses have perceived. It is a circular way of thinking that I say what is real only based on what my senses pick up. Anything else that is real is beyond my knowing. It would be foolish to say that nothing exists outside my bubble of perception and the thinking based on it.

The tools that physicists use all are extensions of the senses. Even the tools that look into what happens inside atoms and how small particles perform convert it all into sensory data. All my knowledge is based on this way of gathering information.

It makes no sense to me that some people limit reality to what they can perceive with the senses. It is a circular way of thinking. Of course, their reality is limited to what their senses perceive because that is how they define what is real. That is a circle.

I realize what it is a gift for me to feel useful. It is something I want. In any setting, I want to be of use and to feel useful. I have my own notions about how I can be useful. I am aware of my potential to be useful. But from a practical side, I am only really useful when my usefulness is accepted and received. I can think of myself as a potentially useful gardener, but I am actually useful to my garden when my gardening is effectively received.

The same is true of my human interactions. I am effectively useful only when what I have to offer is accepted and received. This morning, I am aware how that applies to my presence on the Annex Board.

I not only want to be effectively useful, but I also want my usefulness, my useful presence to be recognized and sometimes acknowledged. I want what I say to be listened to and be heard. I want my involvement to be accepted and maybe even valued, and not routinely resisted. I want to feel useful in just about every setting I enter.

For many years I have watched it happen to others as they were dismissed as not being of use. Sometimes I have intervened to affirm their usefulness when it was not being recognized by others. Today I am especially aware how this dynamic happened to me last evening. This time it was I who felt aware of what it feels like to not feel useful, and I am reminded how I am resolved not to cause others to feel that way.

I also learned that I must either find a way to shield myself from the experience of dismissal, or remove myself from the situation where I am not effectively useful.

For years I lived in a situation at home where I did not feel of use. I am now recognizing that my involvement with the Annex has run its course. I realize that I am not considered useful enough, not effectively useful. Most important, I no longer feel of use.