Author: barryschade@gmail.com

Seduction mostly has a bad name. That bad rap was even continued by Garrison last week. Thursday was Rilke’s birthday, and to mark the occasion Garrison Keillor wrote about how Rilke traveled around Europe and seduced rich noblewomen. The way Garrison presented it, it was not a compliment. To me, Garrison protrayed his own misogyny and notion of male dominance over women. It was a distorted and narrow notion of seduction.

True, there are times when seduction is coupled with manipulation. Someone may seduce another in a way that involves deception or control. If someone has power over another, seduction can be manipulative. The power could be out of many things including wealth, station, custom or relationship. Sometimes seduction is related to deception when someone is not who they pretend to be. Unfortunately, there can be many corruptions of seduction.

For me, seduction can be a deep invitation to an intimacy that is freely offered and freely exchanged. Seduction is a free giving and a free response. There is no element of control or manipulation. Seduction into intimacy is a choice that invites a choice between free individuals.

I recognize this kind of seduction when I acknowledge that the beauty of a garden seduces me to enter into in and actively pleasure in its presence. I am invited by the forest to give my full presence to its velvety and inviting presence. The sound of music filling my home seduces me to yield to an open acceptance of its beauty and excitation. The snow falling outside my window seduces me to a deep appreciation and engagement with the mysterious wonders of winter.

When I pass someone in an open space, our eyes meet and the smiles we exchange convey a seductive acknowledgment that mutually affirms our presence. I know when I speak to someone, it is a seductive invitation to respond. If we choose, we can begin an exchange that is more than simple words. There can be times that we choose to feel the presence of one another. The seduction begins with exchanged words, but it can go deeper into a mutually felt presence. If we choose.

Perhaps I am simply revealing my acknowledgment that I am a seducer. As I go through my day, I routinely seduce many people around me. And I am often seduced by then as we enter into many pacts of intimacy. For me, seduction is a common experience as I am seduced by the world around me and people who willingly open to me.

I am aware that not everyone who has attempted to seduce me has been successful. I have many times chosen not to be seduced. Or I have set limits to the degree that I am willing to be seduced. It has been my choice, just as I freely offer that choice to anyone that I gesture a seductive invitation. While I know my chosen limits, I think that my default presence is to be seductive. I want to be intimate with the world, and I offer that invitation to join me in intimacy often and freely.

Sometimes, I think that the fear of genuine intimacy has caused seduction to acquire a bad name. An inability to be intimate has stirred fear in the closed hearts of many. The only kind of seduction they can imagine is one that is manipulative, absent of intimacy. I choose to see a kind of seduction that is freely given and invites a freely chosen presence. I offer an engagement that is without deceit and without control. I invite an experienced presence equal to mine.

Sadly, the way that Garrison protrayed Rilke’s seductions does not encourage a view of free exchanges. I think that Rilke had a lot to offer because I read his poetry. How much that entered into his seductive behavior I can only guess. It is enough for me is that I am seduced to enter into his world daily . And I guess that many others may have freely entered into that same world, each in their own chosen way.

Solitude has been puzzling to me. For me it has been a tricky affair. I value my ability to descend into a region of solitude. But the absolute immersion of Anchorites in solitude has actually seemed quite distant from the human condition. We are by nature connected, and a denial of that connection in total solitude seems misguided.

Solitude for me offers me an experience of having no distractions. I cultivate the ability to let go of all sensory experiences and, free of of engaging thoughts, descend into the darkness of an endless fall. I take this brief plunge into solitude many times a day. I relish this quick experience of solitude. In a strange way, it opens me to experience an immense realm of connection.

Tuesday, I found myself standing on the light rail platform at fifth and Nicollet, waiting for the train. I was typically alone in isolation. I notice an older couple standing quietly not far from me with their hands on green luggage. They are likely waiting for the blue line to take them to the airport. I decide to break our solutude that we stand in and soon, for several minutes, we are sharing thoughts about going to school for free when you are older. The train arrives, and I am aware that we remain somehow connected as they head off to the airport.

I know that I dwell in my own solitude. But I also know that we have always been connected, being part of this vast intertweined universe, even while we stand apart on the LRT platform on a cold December day. For a few minutes, we allowed ourselves to eperience that connectedness. We allowed ourselves to fall into part of the loving energy we each carry in our apparent solitude.

That we are alone is a great deception. I defy the belief that we are alone every time I hug someone. I am not alone, you are not alone. None of us lives in a solitude that must remain impenetrable. Still I am convinced that my being comfortable in solitude opens me up to a generous invitation for others to experience connection with me.

I am not afraid when I lose myself in the solitude of nothingness. Losing myself in a loving connection on the LRT platform or a lingering hug is both appealing and natural for me.

In a strange paradox, being able to enter solitude with ease allows me to enter connection with an equal degree of ease. It is my familiar notion of “both / and” that colors so many of my experiences. I think the Anchorites only practiced living part of the paradox. They practiced how to look inside the window, but not outside it.

I like and embrace my solitude. And I have the same zeal about experiencing deep connection.

I want to be more than aware of the world. I want my every attentive look to be an invitation for someone or some aspect of the world to enter into cascading darkness, into the swirling dynamics of the universe, into the deep embrace of intimacy.

Every experience of mine is also an invitation to engagement. It is not only about me. It is also about the object of my open attention. I not only reach out, I also invite in.

I want my life to be more than my reaching out to connect with the world. I want to be an invitation for others to enter into the farthest reaches of reality through me. I am a live conduit. My openness is not for me alone but also for anyone or anything I encounter. I want to be a welcome sign for the wonders of the universe.

I am an invitation for anyone open enough to see. I want to be an open invitation for anyone willing to enter.

I am present in a vast pool of possible experience. I know that my experience is not absolutely unique to me. The universe is filled with vast, surging energy. It is also formed by an intellignece that permeates and shapes everything that has existence. It is not a chaotic or random universe, but a universe pulsing with intelligence. I exist in that vast pool of intelligence, and my experience is guided by it. And I have a role in how I participate.

My participation in this vast pool of intelligence is not at all random. My involvement and alignment is guided by my decisions and actions. So too do all my associations guide how I make my way into this pool of experience. My participation in the universe was highly conditioned from the moment I had awareness.

For me, the obvious impact of my culture has shaped how I experience the world, how I make my way through the pool of world intelligence. I am aware how my culture is ever ready to impose dogma on me, tell me how to choose to act, shape how I experience the world. In many ways, this has allowed me to participate in the world in a useful, even meaningful way. It has also been on the ready to limit how I am present in the vast pool of universe intelligence.

My parents and all my ancestors have had a significant role in shaping my experience. Like the culture, they have been standing around me telling me what to see, what to feel, how to interpret the world. Especially for the early part of my life that was very useful. Then I learned to say “no”, and I began to shape my own movement through the pool of experience.

My own degree of openness to that vast array of potential experience has been influenced by how I have been open to the energy, the love of the universe. My own innate desire and deliverate decision for intimacy has allowed me to be shaped and guided by a multitude of individuals and events. I am a product of the many individuals and parts of the world that I have allowed to stand beside and penetrate me.

How much I have been shaped and formed by the world around me has to a large degree by what I allowed in. It has been very important that many aspects of the world and individuals have chosen to be close beside me. It has also been important how maleable I have allowed myself to be. Being open to all the experience that has presented has been a practice I have spent much of my life learning.

I am grateful for all aspects of the world which have been present to me. I am grateful for all those individuals and entities who have presented themselves to me. I am also grateful for my learning to be maleable and open to the wonders of the universe. It is a process that continues as I plunge deeper and deeper into the pool of experience. I continue to learn how to open to the intimacies of the world. I fall ever more deeply in the love of the universe.

I am curious about the level of resolve that enters into most of my days. From the time that I wake, I dip into a well of determination and begin a process of engagement that is guided by what I want to do, by what I choose to do. Some if it is predetermined by what I have chosen to do in the past. Some of it is recently preplanned by what I intend to do on that day.

It almost feels like a ritual that I have created to shape my day. But there is also a flexibility in it all that allows deviation from that ritualized pattern. My day progresses, guided by an evolving feeling of resolve. It may appear to many that I am inflexible, guided as I am by such a resolve. Perhaps I am both the beneficiary and the servant of my resolve.

It is curous to me because I know that meeting the expectations of others has been such a part of my life. I have always wanted to excel in ways others find acceptable. I have learned to perform, and perform well. But I also know that I have usually wanted to do it my way. I could comply, but I would do it in a way that tapped my own internal resolve. My own creativity fed my resolve, and I could still comply with the expections of others, but in a way that made sense to me.

This may have simply been a result of my being on the autism spectrum. I have wanted to live in the world of neurotypicals and get along with them. But I have wanted to do it in a way that made sense to me. I have wanted to do it my way. I have often been able to put a new, personal twist on whatever I have been doing. It would be close, but not exactly what the typial world expected.

My sense of resolve has given me a good dose of fortitude and resilience. Being able to do things my way has allowed me to be both compliant and non-compliant. I could put my own inner energy into whatever I have done, as long as I could do it my way. That inner energy has been a source of fortitude. I have confidence. I get things done, but in my own time and in my own way.

That experiece of fortitude has scarcely ever happened without the support of friends. I have often been surrounded by friends who have supported me and even valued me in how I did things my way. Because of others I have been able to live many of my days with resolve. I have been able to do things my way.

I remember very well when I decided to be close. I was twenty years old, and I recognized that I had been living in a way that did not include being close. I don’t think I understood just what that meant, but I knew I was missing something that I wanted. I have spent over sixty years exploring what that all means, and the unfolding continues.

I recognize that, for me, a number of things are involved in being close. My own transparency is a huge part of my being open to closeness and inviting others and the whole world into closeness. I have noticed that as I have become more comfortable with who I am and relaxed in sharing all aspects of me, the easier it is for me to be close. Perhaps it has something to do with being in my eighties, but I care less and less what others think and how they regard me. I will live the way I choose. I like being me, and I don’t need to put on pretense. I am at ease with being close and not worrying about how I will be seen.

Also, I have always liked my sense of touch, but that is more evident now than ever before. I like touching things. I especially like touching other people. It is not simply a sensory eperience, but it is an open door to deep awareness. I can in an instant, become aware of the presence of others, whether that be a plant in my garden or someone I know.

Touching means that I have become much more of a hugger. I hug men and women alike. Not a quick and release hug, but a lingering hug that allows me to be deeply aware of the other person. Someone recently said to me, “We all need a lot of hugs” I totally agree, as a giver and as a receiver. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I know how comfortable, even assertive I am about hugging. I sometimes wonder just how others are feeling about hugging. Most people seem to be a deep part of hugging and repeatedly hug me. But I want to feel assured that it is truly what they want.

I guess I think that hugging and, by extension, closeness is part of being human. While closeness is not unique to our species, humans have a deep engagement with being close. It has, in my mind, been one of the reasons we have prospered as a species. The experience of being close has been a huge part of why we have been successful. Even Neanderthals, I am convinced, valued and practiced what it means to be close. The presence of flowers in Neanderthal graves of individuals has been seen as evidence of abstract thinking, even some kind of religion. I think Neantherdals buried their companions with flowers because they were close to them, had a deep feeling of closeness with the dead individual.

In our culture, women seem to be more adept at hugging and all forms of closeness than men. I thnk that our culture has visited a curse on manhood saying that men should remain distant and aloof. I want to join what women seem to find and enjoy. Being close is a dramatic and central feature of being human. Regardness, I am choosing to be close. My resolve has not wavered since, at twenty years old, I set my sights on being close. It is who I am.

I continue to stroll through evolving notions of what it means for me to be open to the world. I constantly explore what it means for me to fall in love with the world. It takes on many aspects and it is a constantly changing of experience.

Most fundamental, it has involved my sense of touch. It has meant for me to become aware of how I was aware of what I was touching. It was an open awareness and an awakening of how I was aware of what my body experienced. I noticed how I felt when I sat down from a standing position, I paid attention to what it felt like to breathe, I deliberately touched things and people and noticed how I sensed their presence. Many sensory experiences became an open door to feel the presence of the world. My sense of touch became my opening to the world around me.

Being open in this way caused me to lose a sense of self. I became connected in a way that dissolved my protective carapace. I moved outside my protective, defining sense of self. I felt the deep connection with whatever or whomever I was touching. In an instant, my “world” became less defined and unbelievably expansive.

By becoming open, I have learned what it means to experience the “darkness of each endless fall.” My openness often loses its own definition and I have an sense of limitless space and an immense realm of emptiness. I become open because of a body sensation like breath or touch.

For me, this becoming open is a decision. I know I have agency. I become open deliberately. If this is free will, then I embrace it.

My deciding to be open is more of a decision to remove barriers that keep me from being open. It is almost a natural response, and it is an experience of great joy. By being open, I do what brings me joy. I fall in love with many people and with all sorts of things. It is not adequate to consider how many people I have fallen in love with. Falling in love, being in love has become more a state of existence for me. I routinely sweep many aspects of the world into my loving open arms., into my open presence.

I am grateful for every additional day I wakeup to. Each day, I am learning more and more how to become even more open. I understand it in new and different ways with each open experience. I reflect on my experience, I learn, and I open some more.

It has taken me a long time to recognize just how white I am. My actual skin color hasn’t changed much, except for occasionally showing the effects of gardening without adequate sun protection. My attitudes and spontaneous reactions tell me more about how white I am. I didn’t decide to be white. It came from being born of a white family lineage in a very white southern society. Now I get to decide just how white I want to be.

Being white in my culture is not just about how I react to traditional racial issues. Being white is also about how I act and react in my whole community. It’s not only about how I regard those whose skin tone is different from mine. I recognize how white some of my pale companions are because I am beginning to recognize just how white I am.

I instinctively respond to situations with an attitude that I know what is right. I often know the right solution to a problem. At leasst, I know the direction that is better. For me it is an attitude of white privilege, of knowing what is right and true better than others. I assert my whiteness when I think I am aware better than others or know the correctness better than others. That includes better than other people who look as white as I am.

I see whiteness in others who are close to me whenever they assert how right they are. I find myself in conflicts of whiteness. It is a contest of who can assert their whiteness. I am asserting my right of privilege, my whiteness whenever I claim that I know better than others. I feel white when I allow myself to feel attached to what I see is the correct or better approach.

It is this attachment to what I see as true or correct that reminds me that I am asserting my white privilege. I recognize it in my resistance to listen to an opinion that is different fron mine. I see it when I am evaluating an opinion to see if I agree. I recognize it when I feel that someone is trying to control a situation to conform to their notion of what is true or correct. Any time I participate in a disruption of the feeling of togetherness, I am being white. I am being white when I lose the feeling of community. I am being white the more I see companions as other.

I am slowly emerging from a feeling of wanting things to be right and true because I know what right and true means. I am slowly emerging from being managed by my being white.

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.