Author: barryschade@gmail.com

When someone described me yesterday as a former buddhist monk, my first impulsive action was to correct her. Her reaction caused me to realize that she was strangely correct and actually very insightful.

My arc to buddhist thought has been a long and gradual one. I may have appeared, in my younger days, to be a Franciscan friar. But actually I had begun to think more as a buddhist monk might think. I was still a very young and inexperienced monk when I began to turn to and rely on my own insights and early experience. My own observations became a trusted guide to my thinking, living and decisions.

Initially , this was not so clearly an act of rejection of the concepts handed to me by trusted teachers, those purveyors of religion whom I listened to. Initially, I was more likely to bend traditional concepts to fit my own way of thinking. I actively scavenged traditional concepts to support and justify the way I thought.

First, I would focus on what I had evolved to understand. Then, often with serious study and research, I would search how traditional thought might fit. I might even select marginal ideas that seemed to conclude what I had already come to understand.

My teachers called this sophistry, and that was not considered a compliment. Those were the people who knew no other way than what they had been carefully, forcefully taught. They may not have challenged my thought process as sophistry, but I knew they saw the pitfalls of my approach.

Those who may have been aware of my rebellious thought process, mostly honored my ability to shape their view of the world to my own. To them, I was a rather compliant monk. The one teacher who resisted my thinking had to experience the open defiance of someone who was recognized a top student.

Now, years later, I notice that I have been describing myself as a former monk to my two sons. It is my way of describing my former life in a monastery with a term out of their fantasy world of gaming. For them, a monk is someone with mystical powers. For me, that has been a mildly reliable description of how I have come to see my growth in the experience of insight and mindfulness.

I realize that I have a deep identification with the notion of being a monk. I have in recent years thought of myself as an urban monk, as one who lives and moves in a world of tangible, active humanity.

My monastery, my separation from the active world is my home, my garden and my mind. I am not at all barricaded in that monastic place. Instead, I invite friends, lovers, and even strangers to enter my place of retreat. It seems that my heart flows out constantly from that sacred arena of seclusion. I often return to my monastery for time to reflect, to read and to write.

I know and now understand that I am walking in footprints formerly set out by the Buddha and by a hundred generations of the Buddha’s followers. Some things feel very familiar, some things feel new. But I don’t at all regard myself as follower of the Buddha, even though the thoughts of the buddhist tradition often give rich meaning to my own experience. I am still a non-conforming monk, I suppose.

Instead, I consider that the living Buddha resides in my own heart, still guiding me in subtle ways. This has, unknown to me, always been this way. The arc of the Buddha’s presence has been long and often subtle, anchored as it is in the early days when I was first a monk.

I think that I have never left the life of a monk, even though it is now a form of life that is strictly interior. In some ways, however, it manifests itself even more today in the way I relate to people, plants and the planet. The connections I experience daily are what I consider to be the life of a dedicated monk.

I may not manifest myself in the robes of a monk any longer, but my heart is still that of the young monk who set out on this arc of living many decades ago. I continue to be the monk I believe I was destined to be.

I am aware that I could not do it alone. I can become unfolded only so much alone, but in reality I am not alone. The unfolding, the opening up has been the result of tender presence and gentle touch. There are some things that require the presence of a companion.

I know that, like the large maple tree in my back yard, the buds have been there, formed and folded, but waiting to open wide. The buds open only when they are touched by the soft, warm breeze of April. For me the breeze must be in the form of the touch of spoken words, the caress that comes in many ways.

The awaking is an unfolded slumber that has finally surrendered to a call of an April breeze that is both close and yet distinct. Perhaps, it is the diminishing illusion of separateness that has brought this unfolding experience. Feeling the presence of an-other has been to experience the sameness we both inhabit.

For me, there is a recognition that the unfolded bud has now become the essence of the April breeze, and the breeze is now the essence of the bud. Both are forever changed. The memory is all that exists of the past. The opening is now what is present.

When the bud has unfolded, it is no longer just a bud. It is now a bud touched by the breeze. The breeze has become a lasting part of the unfolded bud. Both are forever changed. Neither bud or breeze can return to their former state.

This is a wondrous place to be, a wondrous thing to experience. Know that the experienced mingling of essence is but a discovery of what already exists. However, there is such a great joy that there are moments when I can be aware that we actually connected as one.

This kind of joy demands that the bud and breeze can yield to the other. Perhaps, it requires that two people be both April breeze and bud for the other. It becomes apparent that when the buds are open, there is no turning back. There is no longer a breeze, no longer folded buds. April has truly arrived, the world will no longer be as it was. The unfolding has occurred.

I’m beginning to think that it must require that someone be somewhat fearless to be in a dynamic relationship with me.   

I am choosing what I consider a fully human and wonderful freedom.   I choose to be both a free spirit without bounds and still deeply connected, bound as a close and loyal friend and lover.

I am aware that it must take courage for anyone to be a close friend or lover with me, to feel confident and self-assured in the freedom of mutual flight.   It must take courage to rely on me as a partner, but also on the strength of one own’s wings.   

It is difficult for me to imagine anyone in a relationship with me who is fearful of soaring flight or who is hesitant to plunge rapturously into deep and uncharted realms.   Friends and lovers alike must sometimes be confused and mystified by my occasional abandon and transparency, but still they arrive and stand by me.  Sometimes they soar with me, caught on an updraft of joy and elation.  

I am aware that it must require that someone abandon their fears and self-doubt if they are to be close to someone who is constantly exploring, constantly pushing into what looks like a life in thin air.   It turns out that some have faltered or turned aside, chosen something other than risky flight.   

However, I am grateful for all those other companions who have fearlessly come close, especially those who have accepted my invitation to imagine with me, take risks and be unconstrained.   

The realm of relationship is not a place suitable for ballroom dancing, a place where one leads and the other follows. I prefer the ways of contra dancing, where the roles of partners do not allow one to lead or dominate the other.

I’ve made the mistakes with partners, first being the one who dominates. Then I gradually became subservient as she clawed her way to a position of dominance. Not at all a nice way to dance.

I now choose a dance where we are neither dominant or dominated. I choose a dance that is instead a whirling frenzy of two people in motion, two people who have abandoned themselves to the dance.

I have gone through the difficulty of several serious break-ups. Twice I have had to deal with the challenges of getting officially divorced. People, on hearing me mention that I recently got divorced, have typically offered a sympathetic “That’s too bad.”

I think I have startled them when I have replied, “No, it has been good. Difficult, but good.” I have few regrets for the years I have spent with my partners. Nor do I regret the decision that we made, sometimes jointly, to end that partnership.

I think that I have actually learned a lot, and the evidence of that I see in the joy that flows through my life, day after glowing day. I may simply be someone who has to squeeze a number of avocados before finding one that is properly ripened and promises to please my pallet.

Perhaps I never have had the skill to recognize a ripe avocado when I saw one. Maybe recognizing and selecting a deep relationship is no different for me. Maybe the selection is by its nature a temporary one because I am learning to be more insightful as I go.

Sometimes, I had to learn just how to grasp and squeeze an avocado to recognize its degree of ripeness, suitability and promise. I think that I am getting much better at avocado picking. And I love the taste of a properly ripened avocado.

I think it is a terrible human trait. It is so limiting how I have this adept skill to compare what I experience with something else.

Perhaps the ability to make comparisons is what helped the early members of my species to survive. It may have helped them recognize differences and avoid a lurking danger.

But I see it as a trait and skill that now restricts how I might experience myself, people, plants, the planet. I make a great effort to unlearn how I have become so able to make comparisons.

I am learning to stare into the face of another person without a comparing mind, and the deep richness and beauty of that person is able to emerge, be seen and be felt. Making comparisons doesn’t help me at all. What helps me is to recognize that there is only what presents right now and that is all that matters.

I am better present and most joyful when I am aware of nothing that has gone before or is yet to come. None of that is of any consequence, there is no benefit, no reason to compare.

It is better if I drink in the glow, the beauty and glow of what is before me right now. This is the unique time that I am captivated, fully captured by the glow as I have never been before. Not even when I stared into the commanding presence of a great full moon.

I drink it all in, there is nothing to compare. There is only the deep feeling of being in the presence of radiant beauty. There is nothing quite like it. There is nothing to compare.

I am being lured into uncharted territory by the appeal of wildness. It is a persistent appeal that draws me forward, and I am not at all aware where it will lead.

I constantly struggle to shed the constricting chains and deceptive layers of domesticity and cultured convention. These conditioned strictures have shaped my life, my experience and my expectations. They have kept me separate and created an atmosphere of separation in which I have lived. I have the undeniable hunger of someone who lusts for wildness, for a life of unconditioned freedom.

I now understand better why two things have such an earnest appeal to me. The first has been the women’s movement and the second is Buddhist teachings.

For perhaps forty years, the women’s movement has held a fascination for me, and I never quite realized until recently that it was not just for women but for me as well.

I think that the struggle of women to be fully human and be recognized as fully human is very much like my own struggle. Those women who spoke out and acted out have been pioneers in their efforts to celebrate the essence of their humanity.

Not unlike wild animals, women were domesticated to be subservient to men. Many women have been casting aside the restrictions of that domesticity and subservience. Like them, I want the freedom to experience the freedom to be fully human.

Regrettably, I have heard very few voices of men who have had the courage to look and live beyond the purloined privilege of being male, embracing their deep humanness. There has been, of course, the voice of Robert Bly, but even he mostly celebrated maleness with a mixed message of what it meant to be simply human.

Stanley Kunitz has been a voice I have come to love. His words speak to me of the deep human, genderless energy of being a gardener. But it has mostly been the voices of women who have spoken to the wildness inside me. Their daring bid for liberation does not feel foreign or strange to me. Instead it speaks to my own deep desire to be fully human, unshaped by the conventions of centuries of control.

The second thing that has been of similar appeal to me has been the traditional teachings of Buddhism. The voices of Buddhists have resonated with and reinforced my own desire to experience what it means to be fully human.

The experience of deep concentration offers a clear window into the spiritual nature of humans. It has shown me a glimpse of what is possible. More than any other path of insight, the buddhist teachers I have encountered have given me a map of liberation, a taste of wildness.

They have shown me how to free the natural human wildness. For me, Buddhist teachers offer the experience of leading an unconditioned life and being fully human. This brush with wildness has given me the nascent feeling of being fully alive.

I may have all the appearances of being male, and I am definitely male-identified. But my heart is neither male or female. It is becoming abundantly clear that it is a combination of both.

As I grow more confident in my coming out as a human, I am especially gratified for the female voices and the presence of great women in my life who have awakened the sense of feminine in me. I am grateful that they have allowed me to walk beside them and share their path to wildness and freedom.

I am grateful for all my spiritual teachers who, each in their unique fashion, have encouraged me to enter a world of unconditioned wildness.

I thought I was walking more slowly because my body was starting to slow down. It just might have something to do with getting older. Then I began to realize it wasn’t that simple. I began to notice that I was moving more slowly at the same time that I was much more aware that I was walking.

I quickly discovered that it wasn’t that much of a problem for me to walk more quickly. Perhaps I still did not walk as fast as my sons. It just was no longer my habit to walk fast.

The past couple of years I have become accustomed to paying attention to my walking when I would go across a parking lot. It became my normal practice as I would leave my car in the parking lot to go into Target or Menards. I would deliberately pay attention, be mindful that I was walking. I was alert and aware of my surroundings, I consciously felt the hard asphalt surface as each foot pressed against it. My hands and face would feel the air. It gradually became a very engaged tactile experience.

Then I started paying attention out of habit, but the experience had changed. It was no longer just my feet that were in touch, my whole body had become alert to what was happening. My attention wasn’t so focused on my feet or my hands and face anymore. I clearly felt different.

Maybe its has been as simple as my no longer really paying attention. However, I don’t think that is what has been happening because I have a deeper, richer sense of being present. There still are times when I am very aware, perhaps deliberately aware that my feet are moving forward, one in front of the other. Now, however, my awareness is more general, more global.

I feel more like I am walking in a bubble of alert awareness. I am simply there. The experience is typically less tactile, more deeply felt. I move more slowly. My body moves through space with more deliberateness. I have a deeper sense of being in the place that I seem to occupy. My whole body tingles, not just my feet or my hands and face. There is no urgency to hurry or move forward.

I have a similar experience of slowness when I am around people or just about anything else. It almost feels like a kind of abstract, formless awareness. And I find that I move more slowly, more deliberately. I listen more attentively. I look at things with a deeper awareness that almost seems like I am looking through them.

I experience more things in unfamiliar ways. My experience is less tactile, and more deeply felt. It also feels like it happens in slow motion.

It still remains relatively easy for me to return to the tactile, sensory experience. I can be intently aware of the hardness of the pavement I step on, the rough surface of the tree I touch with the palm of my hand, the soft warmth of the person I wrap in a lingering hug. That happens relatively easily when I focus on the sensory connection.

But the experience has become pervasively more deep and rich. What lingers, colors and slows my movements has become less sensory and more an experience of my heart. My days unfold in this background of subtle awareness that opens me to a slow moving current of joy.

Perhaps I still look like an old man who walks slowly. How would anyone suspect that I am basking in a feeling of being intensely alive. Neither would they understand how that feeling of being alive would probably evaporate the second I sped up my pace.

I suspect that this all has something to do with being open to the feeling of being present. It is an experience that is most pervasive in the early part of the day. Most of the time it diminishes as I approach evening. At that point, I am probably just moving slowly because I am tired.

I think that language can be so confining. It causes me to make mistakes in my thinking and in my speech. Language can be misleading and often a mistake. When I said “I love you” to a dear and deep friend, I misspoke. I confined to language and concept what cannot be confined.

I made a mistake. I wish I had realized that there is no “you” and there is no “I” when it comes to love and in what I meant to say. It was a mistake to suggest that there is a giver and a receiver in what was happening at that moment.

What I meant to say is that we have entered the arena where love is deeply experienced and readily flows. We have surrendered to a field of love and allowed it to penetrate our every fiber without resistance. The energy of love is now allowed to flow.

I made a mistake by not remembering that love is a natural state of the universe, and all I can do is decide whether to resist it. It is not something I can do, there is no action to take as suggested in “I love you.” It is not something I can receive except to yield to this force that has already penetrated the essence of who we are. It is the core of our nature.

To say “I love you” is a mistake if I imply anything less or more than I see and witness how we are connected and how love flows between us. I not only do not resist that connection, but I let go of any attempt I might make to confine it. I do not place any conditions or promises on it because that would be like a cage around a wild falcon.

I do not think that love is something that we pass from one cup to another. It is, instead, an ocean in which we swim, live and breathe. It is in every fiber of our being and not something we give to one another.

Even though there may be times that I think that I can genuinely say “I Love you,” I also realize that it is a mistake to think of a “you” and a “I.” Perhaps I can truly say that my heart is open and I am stepping in to a remarkable kind of engagement. It is an engagement in which we relax, let go, allow the connection between us to be evident.

This is a realm of engagement where the pulse of love might naturally be experienced. It is the realm where the power of seeds sprout and falcons soar. What I can do is attempt to align my awareness with the mysterious energy that is prepared to flow in and between us.

I cannot give love any more than I can give the rays of the morning sun. I can do my best to not cast a shadow that obstructs or distorts the full brightness and warmth of the sun. It would be a mistake to put an “I” in the path of the sun’s rays, as it would be to put an “I” between you and me.

Of course, neither is there a “you” in the engagement. There is only the awareness, the consciousness that is able to absorb the warmth and depth of the deep force which I try not to obscure or obstruct.

I may not be able to confer or to give love, but I can help another to experience the warmth and depth of the love that readily flows in the universe. I think it is possible to step beyond the constraints of language and the mental constrictions I often place on experience. I think it is possible for me to engage with another in a manner that allows love to flow and be deeply experienced.

I know my part rather well because I have learned to have an open heart that readily steps aside and allows the deep energy of love to arise and flow. I have noticed that others have a similar skill, and that gives me hope. I want to help others to have the same open experience. To do that, I am convinced that we must remove the barriers between us. That includes no longer making the mistakes of “I” and “you”.

I must not create dikes or channels to control the flow or condition the flow of love. Also, I must neither grasp or resist the flow of love. It is foolish to predict or promise the future of love. It is a mistake for my mind or language to try to control what cannot be controlled.

I’m not really sure about all that is going on, but I have this feeling of gradually going deeper and even deeper. I’m noticing how it affects the way I look at people, how they seem to have more of a richer individuality than I might have recognized in the past. It has been a slow and evolving process.

Even the walls of my room seem to have more substance and presence. My contacts with living beings, plants, animals and people all have a deeper aspect. I even see how this happens while I watch those naughty squirrels bound across my yard.

When I watched the seven performers on the Orchestra Hall stage yesterday, I was aware of them in an almost tactile way. They seemed more present than I can remember in any past experience. Today, the memory of their presence comes up with a sharpness that seems etched ever so slightly in my own heart. Something of them is still with me. I can feel it.

As I remember them, each of the seven performers is distinct in how I remember them. Each is somehow unique, each has their own characteristics, each has their own voice. It is as if I had reached out and absorbed part of each of them, four men and three women. Today I feel like I must have experienced them with a deeper alertness and awareness such that their presence lingers in me.

Even as I am recognizing this deeper way I experience the world, I am also aware that it is uncertain whether others can accompany me in this adventure. I struggle with the growing recognition that I am venturing into an assortment of experiences I will perhaps encounter all by myself, alone.

I may long for a deeper connection with people, plants and the planet. However, I am not sure how that is going to happen with people. I think that the desire to connect with people must be reciprocal. Humans have this unique power of being able to control their transparency. Even for well-meaning individuals, the ability to be present, transparent and self revealing requires a degree of self awareness.

I am finding that I can go to that deeper place with only a few of my companions. Even with them I have not enjoyed the kind of reciprocal awareness I would like to have. For now, it is wonderful just to experience the presence of one another as best we can. We are doing our best, and that is rich enough.

I see that there are an assortment of factors limiting the connections I have with others. We struggle with limits because we still have underdeveloped skills to be present. Fear of letting go and plunging deeper limits our relational awareness. We each have our chosen constraints, aspects of our life-styles, that limit the depth to which we can connect. We each struggle with a myriad of conditions, personal and circumstantial, that we have yet to overcome.

In spite of some frustration, I am noticing that my grasping is diminishing. I am slowly letting go of my attachment to my deep desire to be connected. The desire remains, but I am weakly engaging in a kind of surrender. I am not giving up, because I don’t consider deep connection a futile enterprise. I am accepting that I and my companions perhaps just need time to grow, and the deepening will occur.

While I may not be certain, I do believe that the deeper awareness will come with them or with others.