Author: barryschade@gmail.com

I have long been attracted to the sensual quality of words in poetry and enjoyed their ability to allow me to share in the hidden experiences of the writer. This has mostly been in some context and the emerging magic has been in the weaving of words together. Some words are taking on an ability to stir deep feelings in me without the context of syntax, or rhythm or woven imagery.

All words have some cognitive resonance and recognition, as long as I understand the language. Some words, all on their own, can stir sensations beyond the enjoyment of recognition. I find that even without context, words like “emptiness” bring on sensations that ripple through my body. “possibilities” is a word that conjures up a murmur that relaxes all of me. “Inbetween” instantly takes me to a deep sensation of recognition and being centered.

I know it is my past experience with these words and my deep immersion in them that causes this sensation in me. It is like they are a small opening into a space that is wide and wonderful. Just by thinking them, they instantly remind me of where I have visited before.

There is one theory that language has the effect of rewiring the brain. We think in patterns conditioned and even formed by the assemblage of words in our language. I think that the rewiring of my brain might also be associated with individual words. The words individually concur up whole wide experiences that would normally take many paragraphs to describe

I think that I normally have rich experiences that I associate with individual words. When speaking with others, I use those words, realizing that there is no way that they can understand the full meaning that those words have for me.

I am aware that some words not only have that rich depth of meaning for me, but they also cause sensations. The ones I am thinking of conjure the feeling of unmistakable peace and calm. It is nice to have my brain wired to them. It is nice to have them so accessible.

I sometimes reach out for a hand, and none is there.

I wonder if this is just part of being human in the midst of others like me, or is it an invitation for me to relax into a realm of no formations. There is a rich joy in the experience of being connected with another person, a plant, a rock or any other entity. This is mirrored in the rich joy of being connected with nothing at all. The beckoning lure of nothingness extends a powerful invitation to enjoy the sphere where there is no recognition, but all things abide.

I am caught in between the poles of this duality in my life. The invitation of each is so strong, and sometimes very distracting. Perhaps there is an in between where both abide.

I’m never quite sure what people mean when they talk about “being present.” I am even rather vague about what I mean when I say that I am present. However, I am noticing that there are a group of characteristics that show up when I experience what I consider being present. Actually, focusing on those characteristics of experience sometimes help me have an experience of being present.

There are traditionally five aspects of experience, and paying attention to them makes my life much richer. I have more experiential contact with what being present is about. Although they can be looked at individually, they are like the panels of a five-sided ball. While they can be understood when examined individually, they are best experienced when observed all at the same time. Experience is the bundle.

One obvious aspect of experience involves material form. This is the sensory aspect of experiences and includes all matter and the related physical sense impressions. A tea cup sitting next to my keyboard and my seeing it is an aspect of experience. My feeling the warm cup in my hands and pressing my lips against its hard rim all are aspects of my tea cup experience.

Whether this is a pleasant or unpleasant experience is a wholly mental activity and a second aspect of experience. Every experience is pleasant, unpleasant or neither-pleasant-or-unpleasant. Sometimes this is called feeling tone, and it is a basis for developing likes or dislikes, which is another aspect of experience. If I recognize the experience as neither-pleasant-or-unpleasant, it typically means I am tuned out, not paying attention. I am in a moment of delusion. To experience being present, I have to know if the experience is pleasant or unpleasant.

Recognition of the tea cup is another aspect of experience and a second mental activity. In my constant stream of sense activity, I am constantly singling out objects that I recognize. I relate this current experience of seeing and holding a tea cup to a mental storehouse of previous experience. There is great vulnerability and chance of error in this aspect of experience. Recognition or perception is not always accurate. It is important that I suspend beliefs, desires and fears in experiencing a tea cup. It is a challenge to recognize things as they are and not as I imagine them.

A fourth aspect of experience is my attitude to what I perceive. This aspect is also a mental activity and includes all the things that express my will and motivation. This aspect of experience includes a vast range of mental experience: likes, dislikes, confusion, joy, tranquility. My experience of the tea cup can include a great assortment of moods and emotions. My attitude to perception is a major part of the moment of experiencing the tea cup. I often experience my tea cup as comforting, soothing, tasteful, delightful.

The fifth aspect of experience is the knowing quality of my mind or consciousness. It is like a cloak thrown over the rest of the experience. It is the most complex concept of experience, and is the most basic knowing of my tea cup. Consciousness is like the hand passing in front of my face. It is simply there.

There are times that I examine my experience from the perspective of each and all these aspects. Like a pilot going through a check-list before take-off, I check each of the five. Then I hold them all together in my attention, like the pilot who is aware of all the green lights at once.

It is one experience after all, and it is necessary for me to hold all five aspects in mind in order to understand it. I hold them together in one moment, one experience, while still being aware of all five aspects. It is that collective understanding that forms my sense of being present.

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At what point will I no longer be the one-who-sees and all that remains is the seeing? The boundaries have seemed hard and fast. But I lean to the time when there will no longer be a seer and only the seeing will prevail.

So much of my life has been devoted to setting boundaries, defining who and what I am. Much of this effort has been in the interest of creating my sense of self as I have come to understand who and what I am, and what I am not. Now I am not so sure I want to continue that selfing project as I begin to experience a different way of seeing. Something has begun to feel loosened. That boundary between myself and the world around me seems to be less fixed than I thought.

As that boundary becomes less and less stable, so does the notion of “myself” seem to weaken.

There are times that I look across the room and the couch in front of me no longer seems so separate from me. My experience of someone who is seeing the couch becomes unstable as I become simply atune to the seeing. What had previously been a narrow and focused experience of my seeing the couch has shifted into a wide and spacious experience of simply seeing. The couch is being seen. I am not so aware that I am seeing the couch.

This happens in other ways. As I walk down the snow-covered sidewalk, the firm pavement is simply felt. I am not so much aware that I am feeling the hard surface under my feet. The sidewalk is being felt. Music comes from the black speakers near my chair and I am not so aware that I am hearing a flute and harp. There is only the soft experience of a flute and harp sound being heard.

Seeing in this changing way is more than simply being more mindful. When I am mindful, I am still quite aware that I am the one being aware. “I” show up routinely, even habitually. Seeing without boundaries is more of an experience of unity of attention. The one-who-sees fades from the experience and attention centers on the seeing quality of mind. Boundaries soften and there is a kind of absorption, shared space. Distinctions and forms become less important.

There have always been unique occasions when this kind of seeing was possible. I mostly remember this type of seeing when I was in the presence of a vast landscape such as the Grand Canyon or waves on what seemed a limitless ocean. In those settings, it was easier for “me” to step aside, to get lost. Now I am happy that this kind of seeing is much easier to experience, and I don’t have to travel to distant places.

The more I can remove the seer from the experience, the more likely this quality of seeing will occur. Snow, people, lights, couches, candles, Beethoven. All become vibrant and present when they are part of this kind of seeing. More and more I am becoming less the one-who-sees and only the seeing remains.

Trying to understand better who I am, I examine the traces left by my ancestors. My emergence from the substance of the cosmos has been shaped by the hands and minds of those who have proceeded me. I look for the traces they have left behind.

The traces tell me about the ancient use of fire, a legacy of my progenitors. Traces were left by them some 400,000 years ago, and the results are part of who I am. Much of what I am is the consequence of actions taken so many years ago and I know them by the subtle traces that remain.

My inheritance is defined by the scratches on bones left by ancestors who ate the last of the wooly mammoths. The traces they unknowingly left behind tell me part of the story of what it means to be human. Hints of my legacy define in subtle strokes the emergence of the creature I am now becoming.

So too the written marks on tablets and stone are traces of minds who transformed the world and shaped my culture. Today, on the anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee, I am reminded of the indelible traces my ancestors have imposed on my own life by the horrible actions they took against fellow humans. The traces all remind me of the history that lives in me.

I did not come into existence without those many traces of the past that defined both my inheritance and who I am. When I was born, I entered and became a living part of a world shaped by those who individually and collectively left traces of their lives behind them. I was born with instructions, traces written by the hands of the many who lived before me.

With little awareness, I became part of a world shaped by ancestors who left many revealing traces. To become more aware, I study whose traces to better understand just what it means today for me to be part of humankind. The traces left by them are not so much for my inspiration as they are a definition of who I am.

I am also noticing that the traces I cause around me are defining what the present has become. My world is etched by traces of who I am, very like the scratches left on bones or chips on stone tools left by my ancestors.

I leave more than footprints that indicate, or at least suggest, the kind of creature I am. The traces say that I am a builder of roads so that I can move about more easily. I am a destroyer of forests so that I can have an unlimited supply of toilet paper. I am a creature who uses fire to create light and motion.

I like to remember that I am also a gardener who creates beauty around me. I produce enjoyment and nurturing for creatures both different and like my own kind. My traces tell what I have become.

I’m not sure what she had in mind, but I think she pretty much sums it up. Margaret Atwood has supplied the words that might well serve as the epitaph for humanity:

…..Sorry about that. We got stupid.

We drink martinis and go on cruises…….

I consider Truth a great virtue. I aspire to live and practice the virtue of Truth in whatever ways I can. The opportunities are many and constant. For me, the practice of the virtue of Truth is a way of wholeness, integration and alignment.

I don’t think anyone can give me Truth. Truth comes only through my experience of it. I back away from anyone who claims to be telling any Truth other than their own experience. While this happens in a numbers of venues, it is especially an issue in areas of spirituality or religion. So many illusions of Truth are presented on behalf of a religious point of view. I am wiling to listen to people who are reporting on their experience and I turn away from any suggestion of dogmatism.

Practicing the virtue of Truth is made more difficult by the distortions and distractions of fear. The response of fear to a perceived threat is part of being human. So often, fear energizes the illusion of a threat and makes it more difficult to experience reality just as it is.

I am determined not to resist what is. I am determined not to make anything into something it is not just because I wish things were different. I want to experience the world as it is and not as I want it to be. I want to speak in such a way that my words come from my experience of Truth. I do not want to misrepresent reality and instead I will be an instrument of Truth.

Practicing the virtue of Truth is not easy. My life is full of so much exposure to illusion that it is difficult to experience reality just as it is. So I cultivate awareness and insight so that I can more readily practice Truth. It is the only great path I find worth following.

Today, I am feeling a deep sadness that so many humans are unaware that our time to thrive is quickly coming to an end. For only a few thousand years, humans have thrived and successfully enjoyed the Earth. Most humans seem to be unaware that their success has begun to come crashing down. The final act has begun, and so many are unaware.

Our amazing success as a species is the ironic cause of our looming failure. Only twelve thousand years ago, there were perhaps 4 million humans on the Earth. Within the next 5 thousand years, that population had grown only a slight amount to 5 million. Disease played a major role, most likely, in limiting the human population growth.

The next five thousand years was a different story as the number of humans grew to 100 million. Most likely, acquired immunity to common diseases fueled this growth.

That growth spurt, however, was small compared to what is happening right now, and most people are unaware. In 1975, the 4 billion humans alive reached what is considered the carrying capacity of the planet. Within the next 25 years that number had nearly doubled. It continues to expand. The ingenuity of humans has supported this growth, yet most humans remain unaware of what is happening.

Most humans are unaware of the reality that the life web on which we rely is crashing. There may be some vague awareness of climate change, but most are unaware of the gravity of the situation. The natural system that has supported our rise and our survival is rapidly changing. Insect populations have already greatly diminished. Birds have disappeared, and forests are a fraction of what they were not very long ago. The increasing extinction of individual species is a harbinger of what is to come. The sweet spot in a reliable weather pattern that has allowed humans to flourish is no longer stable. It is changing in what are mostly unfriendly ways.

Half the population in the US shuts their eyes to what is happening and remain unaware of the peril. Many cannot even come to grips with the lethal dangers of a COVID pandemic and they choose a path of misguided risk.

This will not be the first time nature has rebooted. This will be the first time that humans will be part of a massive extinction. Perhaps there will be aware humans that survive. In the past, the species who could adapt were the lucky survivors. Perhaps humans who have the special characteristic of awareness will survive the approaching change The unaware will likely perish.

From time to time, I have a situation when I could easily say “I’m a Buddhist,” but I don’t. I resist announcing my identity with groups, especially a group that might be construed as a religion. I don’t think that any group characterizes who I am. I prefer to say “I live in Bryn Mawr” or “I am part of the Master Gardener program.” When it comes to saying whether I am a Buddhist or not, I mostly say that I follow The Path of Buddhism.

Actually, I would prefer to say that I follow The Way, but that is what the Mandalorian says. He clearly has first dibs. Also, Disney probably has the expression copyrighted. When the tradition of Buddhism offers the Middle Path, it is offering The Way out of suffering and to awareness. For me, this is The Path. It is what I follow.

I am aware that I am following The Path as I move from one room to another in my home. I just returned from a walk around my block, and my feet were attentive to moving along The Path. Yesterday, my reaction to finding an opossum in my squirrel trap was subdued surprise. Amused acceptance, not anxiety, is my way of following The Path.

Following The Path has an air of equanimity about it. There is no right or wrong, there are no excesses, there are no hard and fast rules. The Path takes me into a place of vacant emptiness at the same time as it conveys the feeling of thrilling abundance. When I follow The Path, I am both strangely disconnected and intimately joined. Because it is the middle way, The Path is free of both aversion and attachment. The Path goes nowhere; it is enough to be on The Path.

Staying on The Path is not always easy. The Path is buffeted by hindrances that make staying on The Path difficult. Distraction is the main hindrance that makes it difficult for me to stay on The Path. There are antidotes to neutralize the hindrances, and for me that means cultivating focus and concentration. There are practices that help me follow The Path.

I may not want to call myself a Buddhist, and I don’t think that I can claim to follow The Way of the Buddha. I do say that I follow The Path I have been shown by the Buddha and by the many individuals who found awareness on The Path. I follow The Path of Buddhism.

I sit on the edge of my bed and look out a window that stares into darkness. It is a darkness that has crept in. Only a few months ago, I would have been looking into a bright morning of light. Today there is only darkness. I see darkness everywhere. It is that time of year when the darkness sneaks in, slowly and quietly taking over more and more of each passing day.

As I gradually descend into this time of darkness, I feel the echoes of my past when I was enveloped in the weeks and works of Advent. For four weeks, I once allowed myself to consciously descend with other aware Christians into a darkened time of year. We knowingly surrounded ourselves with notions of darkness, mirroring the world around us. For us, it was a time that lead to a coming event at Christmas that would turn it all around.

For many people, it was a time to accept the darkening days as time crept toward Solstice when darkness would reverse the world and the sun would once again slowly return to bring light to each day. It was for all of us a time to settle into darkness, knowing that a celebration of light would come in a few weeks.

In recent times, that same darkness invites me to enter into a sphere of emptiness. Today I put aside the notions that give shape and definition to my days. I allow myself to settle into an experience of no shape, no form, no perception. Darkness reminds me to enter an arena of total letting go and descend into emptiness as a routine part of my life.

These days, when I am surrounded by darkness, it seems easier to touch the experience of nothingness. It is a time of emptiness where all is as quiet as a time of Advent. At the same time, the darkness feels so alive with the promise of infinite possibility. Surrendering to emptiness and entering a sphere of nothingness, I gain a sense that all is present. Unobserved but present.

I cheat a little during this darkening time of year. I may often look out my windows into darkness much more as the month of December advances. I have cheated darkness by populating my darkened yard with many tiny lights on trees around my home. Their soft glow reminds me of the promise that in the darkness there is light that can and will emerge.

I can celebrate my gradual entry into the emptiness of a darkened, indistinct world, knowing there is an abundance and richness enveloped by that cloak of darkness.

The darkness may lack form and substance, but it is also rich with abundance I may yet experience. Christians bring a faith and promise to their observance of Advent descent into darkness. I bring a confidence of emerging wholeness to my descent into emptiness. Whether I am staring out my window or sitting with closed eyes, darkness is not my foe. Darkness is my friend inviting me into a new kind of experience. I try to allow that experience of emptiness to happen. Sometimes it comes.