Author: barryschade@gmail.com

I am beginning to know what it is like for me to plunge into my inner life. I have begun not only to experience what it means to have an inner awareness. I am also growing in relational awareness. I am experiencing what it feels like to be connected to the world around me. I can sense the special, not always visible relationship I have with people, plants and the planet.

I would like to have an expanded group of companions who are ready to take that same plunge with me. My Sangha is moving more and more in that direction as we become more accustomed to speak of our inner life and allow others to plunge into those special and sometimes secure spaces with one another.

We take refuge in our collective, growing awareness of an inner life we all possess and are willing to share.

I have companions who are willing to take that same plunge with me and together explore those intimate recesses. At this point, nearly every one is constrained by factors that limit the degree to which we can share in a joint plunge. Perhaps this is just part of being human and living in a relative, conditioned world.

I am aware of some of the constraints that temper the plunge. They are conditions that limit and restrict our freedom to plunge together. The constraints include such things as time, distance, life commitments, cautions, awareness …… all of which restrict our freedom to plunge. Perhaps this too can change.

Yesterday, I sat across the kitchen table from one of my dearest friends, talking for the longest time. We each slowly, carefully, trustingly unfolded the pages of our current lives. With transparent courage, we revealed the contours of our lives to one another.

Today, I understand better, not only how she now experiences life, but how I experience my own inner life as well. I am aware how we each were engaging in a loving form of midwifery, mutually supporting and encouraging the exploration and presentation of our inner selves.

I became aware of realities which were not so clear or apparent before we sat down across from one another. I understood aspects of myself that were not so obvious earlier. I hope the service of midwifery she gave to me was reciprocated in what I offered to her in mirrored fashion.

This is what I want to do on a daily basis with every person, plant and rock I meet. It is what making love with the world, especially one another, is all about. It is what I do when I help someone else to experience the joy of living in their own skin. It is the gift we give to one another by our speech, by our looks, by our touch. I want to summon from others the joy of participating in the energy of the universe, the deep pleasure of being aware, the exuberance of being alive.

I engage in a small form of midwifery every time I am in contact with others. I especially affirm their presence and deep value when I acknowledge them in the fullest way I can, when I am fully present myself and clearly communicate that.

This is what I did last evening as I sat down in a circle of the members of my Sangha. When I first settled down, I relaxed into being deeply present. I then extended the invitation to be present to all those sitting to either side of me. Together we relaxed as we faced the center of the circle. We let go into a loving time of being in a common space.

We were quiet together, we spoke of the contours of our hearts. We revealed aspects of our lives and practice with trusting transparency. We listened attentively and drew awareness out of one another. We each took turns engaging in loving midwifery.

Again and again, I find myself taking antidotes for most of what I have been taught. The constraints, the rules, the norms of my culture need to be broken so that I can escape from the chrysalis of my transformation. Each move I make towards freedom is an antidote that dissolves the forms and confines of my past.

Mindfulness is my favorite, most effective antidote. It detoxifies all the constraints of forms and concepts I once was so lavishly taught. The experienced joy of a relaxed and concentrated mind has freed me from the rigors I so studiously examined, learned and absorbed.

My sitting in meditation may be a relatively small part of my day. But it has become an important lesson in the skilled antidote of no effort, of release, of letting go. I carry that antidote with me throughout the day. It is a skill that I am elated to have discovered. It is an antidote that, like micro-dosing, infuses my evolving awareness with freedom and joy.

My aloneness is an antidote that continues to have a slight bitterness and sting. However, I am aware of its powerful effect. I may still resist its bitter taste, but I also know that it brings me a love of my own self, my no-self.

This is something I seldom experienced when living with a partner, and I believe that living alone has become my needed antidote to marriage. Marriage may be a necessity in our culture for many, especially for the young so that they may experience a taste of security and apparent permanence. But it is also a solution with serious side effects.

The alluring taste of a promised secure future is the bait in a trap that imperils intimacy. Intimacy is not fostered where there is no freedom. The proffered forbidden fruit of a certain future is a lie that attempted to shield me, like many others, from a world that is uncertain and unpredictable. The antidote has come to me by being open to and embracing a world that is fundamentally ambiguous, uncertain and unpredictable.

Relationship and singularity is an antidote to the lie of separateness and duality I have been taught. I have repeatedly tasted the joy of overcoming separation and becoming related to people, plants and the planet. I see myself intertwined with much of what I experience. I relax into a connection I never saw or was ever taught to see by my culture.

I embrace the relationship and connection I have with the woods, my friends, my garden, the people on the bus, the joys and anguish of all I see. I am learning the antidote that allows me to expand and absorb it all. The relationship antidote has made me larger, stronger and more full of life.

Dance is an antidote to many of my physical and emotional constraints I have dutifully learned. This is a new discovery of mine as I yield to my uncertainty about how to dance, as I allow my body to move without constant mental direction, as I stare into the eyes of partners, as I float from one exchanged smile to the next. Dance is becoming an antidote to a well-ordered, controlled and distant life. For now, it keeps me from a sedentary life.

Perhaps my antidotes do more than simply free me from much of what I have learned in my earlier time of life. Besides giving me freedom and joy, my antidotes also give me an exuberant elixir of life.

I do not want much to fill my open heart with expectations and notions of the future. Gradually, in tiny steps, I am developing the habit of paying attention to what is happening right now and not searching through mirages of what might be in the future.

It is not easy to stay focused on the experience of walking through the kitchen, sitting down at my computer desk, lifting my cup of tea. My mind has been habituated to reach into and examine mirages of what might happen next or later in the day. Being able to anticipate the future is a noble human trait that has probably supported the survival of my ancestors. For me, it is time to unlearn some of the habits and skills of diving into mirages of what might lurk around the next corner, the next moment, the next encounter.

The more I am anchored in attention to the present, the less I am disturbed by changes in future plans. Things often do not turn out the way I imagined they might. If I have not clasped those future, unreal events I find it easier to flow with changing times.

Some planning is useful, but I am learning to recognize when I am invested emotionally in those orchestrated mirages. There is a point where the plans become an object of grasping, and it is difficult to deviate from the future I have not only imagined but even begun to live in.

Expectations easily cause me to grasp for what might be or could be. Many of those mirages I create involve how I will relate to something or someone. This might not be so much of a problem if I am imagining and anticipating my walk through the garden. A sudden rainfall might disperse that mirage, and hopefully this disruption of my grasping would be minor.

Much more risky is an expected experience of some kind of relatedness with another person. Humans are very changeable and unpredictable. They have a unique ability to resist what might be, and so someone else has a great power to disrupt any mirage I might have created about how we will relate to one another.

The more I pay attention to what is happening right now, the less I am drawn to invest attention and energy into what might happen in the future. The present can be a very effective distraction from mirages of future happenings.

Above all else, it is important for me to feel connected to all things. It is important for me to experience the connection that exists between everything that exists.

This is especially true for humans, who are the most potentially aware entities I know of. Humans are the most forward expression of consciousness I am aware of. We have the greatest potential to experience connection, and yet we resist. I, unlike all other non-human entities, can say no to connection.

I am encouraged to say no. I have lived in a world wickedly shaped by dualism. Men and women are separated, counties thrive on their pretense of nationalism, races are kept from being connected. All around me, there is the attempt to confine the deep feeling of eros that drives me to be connected. With all my being, I yearn to be connected to the earth, but I am taught so many ways of keeping myself not-connected. Eros is thwarted.

Sexuality has become a place that we can hide out, pretend to be a separate self. We have so many social norms and conventions that frustrate our nature of being sexual beings. I have lived all my life in a world of duality where the choice is either restriction or excess. There is a middle road of developing deep awareness but it is not a way we are taught or encouraged to follow.

I would like to be free of the personal conditioning that has kept me from being connected. I think that escape from dualism, the middle path, is a place of healing and release from the trauma of separateness.

In this culture, there is much resistance to being connected. The middle path is not a road often followed. Still, I choose it.

I don’t understand this strange and dominant attraction that calls me into a deeper experience. I feel an underlying longing for rocks, for my desk, for plants, for many living things. It seems that my core has an innate longing that reaches out. I am drawn to so many things that I encounter, even things I casually amble past.

This longing is hardly ever as strong as it is when I consider or am present with other persons. I have a longing to experience their presence with the same earnestness I feel when my hunger sits me down before a lovely meal.

The longing to be close, to join my presence with others is strong and non-discriminating. It feels like something more than a simple sensory awareness, though the longing of flesh to flesh is part of the draw. While the longing is best and most easily described in terms that include the senses, the longing is deeper and often seems to ignore the sense realm.

There also is an innate resistance to yield to this longing. The longing encounters a caution, a resistance in rocks, plants and people. They all seem reluctant to yield and suddenly become one. The separateness contradicts the longing.

Where is the secret passage? Where is the entrance that my core longs so strongly to fine? It must exist, otherwise why would this key sit burning in my hand? Otherwise, why would my heart reach out so fervent and trusting?

The longing is such a strong leaning of my heart, there must be another center of this attraction. There must be another pole to this magnetic pull.

She came to the front door with a simple interest. As she rang the doorbell, she had no notion that the door would open into a yet unseen world of possibility. A place not hospitable to a timid heart.

She brough only a small request, and it was met with the opening of a book with flaming pages. The proffered invitation of flames might well send her away. Or it might draw her deeply in to an evolving narrative, a story illuminated by the burning, all-consuming pages.

There would only be the enveloping light and energy of an experience fully realized. All would seem to have gone, passed away, as the next burning page turned with fiery brightness.

The question became whether she would enter in or hesitate to become part of the all-dissolving blaze. As her hand moves away from the pressed doorbell, the moment of decision approaches. What was once simple might become quite complex. What was distant and safe might become absorbing and uncertain. The vast world of infinite possibilities is about to open and reveal itself.

Once entered, there is no turning back. The past has gone up in flames. There is no past to reclaim or enter once again. There is only the torched opportunity that is realized in a consumption of what once appeared to be real. It is an invitation to enter the fire.

With the turning of each blazing page, all appears to be lost. And so it is, so that it might be fully felt. The fire is not only a destroyer, it is the creator of light, the beacon of insight, the acolyte of illumination.

It must be more than some accident that I want to be so connected. The desire, attraction, gravitational force toward intimacy is so strong it must be an essential part of who I am. I think it is no accident that I want to be connected with everything around me.

The attraction toward absorption calls out to me with such a dominant voice. I am very aware of my desire to touch and know the cold surface of my bathroom counter, the soft yielding grass of my back yard, the last person I touched as we exchanged awareness of one another. While this desire to experience, be connected with, interact with seems to be strong for all things, it is never stronger than my desire to connect with fellow humans. I think it is a deep part of who I am.

I think this has something to do with the reality that the sexual drive is so unique in humans. It has to be about more than simple reproduction because, unlike warthogs, we join to one another whenever we have the urge, not just when we are fertile. Warthogs only make love when biology is right for them to produce offspring. Humans can come together with intimacy whenever we choose to allow the barrier between us to dissolve. Our drive to connect is more than simple biology.

We are mainly spiritual beings. Biology is secondary.

My desire to connect with other humans is driven by more than simple rules of biology, though biology can play a part. The awareness of others generates an attraction that seems to arise at every turn that there is an opportunity to connect. The urge to be close through the union of spirit is strong and rises frequently for me. This must be more than simple biological attraction or desire pushing, urging me to be connected.

Attention seems to be a simple threshold experience of awareness. It opens into a penetrating experience of presence that goes beyond anything my senses or imagination can convey.

Most humans seem to have a deep hunger for this kind of intimate, spirited connection. Rather than saying “No, No” I think we should be saying “Yes, Yes.” It is our nature to be connected in the realm of the spiritual, and we seem to be stuck and focused on our attention to biology. We forget that we are spiritual beings trying to learn how to be human.

Perhaps, for now, it is all we can muster to allow for free and warm hugs. Could our society handle unconstrained hugs? I don’t want those limp feigned hugs, weak imitations of connection. Not those imitation hugs that serve more to hold people apart.

I mean to pursue a robust contact with one another that says with every fiber of my biological being, “I know you are there. I am aware of your presence. I know we are connected.”

I have moved in the kind of world where so many things feel uncertain. I’m pretty sure that I have made this move deliberately. I am neither sure that the path I have chosen will be satisfying or that I will want to continue.

So much of the past life that I chose to live is fading away. There is a lack of clarity about what lies ahead, including what lies immediately in front of me. Sometimes I feel like I am stepping into a mushy cloud where there once was solid ground. Sometimes my mind is enveloped in silent darkness and only sees a wide grey, pre-dawn horizon.

This uncertainty has permeated so much of my daily life. It includes simple things like accepting the ambiguity of the bus arriving on schedule, the unpredictable delivery of the morning paper, the delayed arrival of a friend. Uncertainty especially shows up in how I relate to other humans, including those closest to me. I am no longer certain what I expect in relationship with anything, but especially friends. I seem mostly to be able to focus on broad notions and intentions.

I have chosen to live by myself, meaning that I deliberately choose not to have a life with a partner. I am convinced that the security, certainty and definition of having a partner is mostly an illusion. I don’t see that choosing a partner fits into my life. I am choosing to stay away from the illusion of certainty offered by having a partner.

However, I don’t know what that decision implies. I’m not at all sure what I am stepping off into. Uncertainty reigns.

Not a day goes by that I don’t reflect on what it means for me to be alone, without a partner. The one notion I keep returning to is that I want to be deeply aware of others and be deeply involved with them. For this, I don’t have much of a guidebook.

I do not want to possess others or have the guarantee of a permanent connection. But I want to be deeply aware of them, who they are, what is happening right now. I resist the allure of a certain future, as I attempt to embrace the notion of an unplanned future.

My culture offers some time-tested models of how to establish a lasting and certain relationship. The success rate is rather low. The kind of intimate relationships I intend to develop are more than the typical physical intimacy of lovers. I want an intimacy built on mutual awareness, mutual presence. And I am uncertain whether that is possible. I’m not even certain how to attempt to do it.

I see that I have stepped into an uncertain arena which seems to lack definition, and it has few markers left by others who have successfully gone before me. Maybe that is why it feels so uncertain.

This feels like a spiritual opening that invites me into nowhere. Maybe that is what happens when I choose to step into an arena where all possibilities exist.

As I try to shed a life defined by known concepts, I am moving into experiences that have little precedent for me. I am deeply uncertain about many things, including how to relate to other things and other persons.

If I am genuinely giving myself over to exploring, I feel I must shed all prior notions and expectations. I must give up the notion and pursuit of certainty. About all that is left is my determination to remain acutely attentive and aware.

Once again, I’m wondering why it is such a big secret. It took me a long time to realize that awareness is such a rich source of pleasure. Meditation can be so pleasant. But that pleasant aspect is so seldom emphasized or even mentioned. Meditation and the many forms of awareness seem to be undersold as something forced, strict and constrained. The opposite is what I experience: it is relaxed, pleasant and free.

I certainly employ meditation as something useful. It is a training ground for my mind. My mind develops a habit of awareness. It makes it almost effortless to become aware throughout the day. It is a micro-dosing of deep concentration that endures and serves me whenever I intend to become more aware.

But it is so much more than an effort of training and preparation. For me, it has become a focus of the pleasurable delight that comes from a concentrated mind. The pleasant awareness alone has become sufficient reason to pause and give my my attention to anything. It is such a pleasurable experience.

It also paves the way to a deeper awareness that for me is on the way or closely akin to absorption. It simply makes it more attractive and easy.

I no longer am sure what is meant by the cautious comments about “sensory delight.” Sensory delight is often represented as undesirable, or at least a distraction. My experience is less of a distraction than a reminder to move from involvement with the sense experience to an awareness of it. Mindful eating can be a pleasant taste and sensory experience but the awareness of it is even more pleasant.

Sensory experience is more than the softness of touch, it is the pleasure of being aware of touching, aware of the object of touch. Lovely music is more than the experience of pleasant sounds, it is also the pleasure of being aware of the sounds.

I wonder about the meaning of all the warnings about desire. I think the caution is more aptly directed not at the object of desire, but the disturbance, grasping, and distraction associated with desire.

A relaxed and focused mind is a flowing source of pleasure. Giving my attention over to any object is a fountain of deeply experienced pleasure. My attention could be on a description of how rivers change their channels, it could be on the taste of an avocado wrap, it could be the sight of a friend walking down the street, it could be the pressure of a friend’s shoulder against mine while we sit in an atmosphere of music.

I can see that being aware is more than the simple pleasure of hearing or seeing or touching. The awareness of a concept, of food or of a person is more than simple attention. It can be a pleasant surrender to absorption and an experience of intense pleasure.