Author: barryschade@gmail.com

It is painful for me whenever I notice the tyranny of a controlling wife. There are men who also play the role of a controlling spouse, but I am especially sensitive to those wives who habitually want their spouses to be different. I am sad to witness the males who buy into this tyranny and surrender control, who yield to the emotional pressure, who capitulate to a social pattern.

I know why this tyranny seldom fails to get my attention. I have experienced what it is like to be close to someone who wants to change me, who wants me to be different. I easily see it in my friends. Sometime it is masked as a form of care, of wanting things to be better for their husbands. But it is still a thinly veiled form of tyrannical control.

I want my male friends to experience acceptance and support. I want them to be out from under the tyranny of spousal control. I want them to be free, but they seem hooked in a bargain that keeps them restricted and restrained, just as their wives want. I am sad that it seems to be a control that continues to be freely given, and not much is likely to change.

There is something deeply primitive about touching another person. It is both deep and reassuring. It reaches back in time so far that I can’t even imagine what its roots must be like.

For quite some time, I have been learning how better to be aware. This has had a lot to with becoming more skillful in how I concentrate my attention, how I am aware both internally and externally. I have mostly seen this skill as being dominated by my higher functions. Concentration is a human function and I have experienced it as having a lot to do with connecting with reality in a particularly human way.

I have been very aware that my body plays a huge role in developing any form of awareness. It is a gateway to a kind of union that is more than physical. As important as my body is, I have felt challenged to use my consciousness in a more profound manner, to enter into a kind of concentration that goes beyond tactile.

I also notice, even while I grow in my ability to concentrate and focus, I am also drawn to be aware in a way that is deeply rooted in the primitive aspect of touching, being a tactile being.

I take keen delight in being aware of a flower or another human in a manner that involves a high degree of concentration and focus. I also experience an attraction to be aware in a way that is fundamentally involved with touch or my other senses. I take delight in the sound of a friend’s voice, the touch of a plant, the sight of snow hanging on trees.

The deeply felt touch of someone’s arm is a connection that relies on the physicality of their presence as well as my ability to be focused. The primitive part of me remains very much an active part of me.

While I may be exploring the higher abilities of my being human, the part of me that is physical constantly demands involvement. I am both, and neither part will be ignored.

For someone like me, who has spent his whole life living by rules, it is quite an awakening to realize that rules don’t really guarantee anything. Some rules might suggest possible, even probable consequences if I cross the line, but not much more.

My car sounds a “beep” when I wander across a white line unintentionally or without signaling my intention to change lanes. It gets my attention, just in case I am not aware or paying adequate attention. Beyond that, the “beep” doesn’t have much effect.

Rules are the sounds of a “beep” indicating that I might have become unaware and wandered out of a path that I or my culture may have defined or outlined. Rules are not a guarantor of failure or success, only an indicator of wandering. Rules are not like laws of nature.

Some of my best, most consequential decisions of my life have occurred when I decisively ignored the “beep” and crossed a rule.

I often encourage gardeners to pay attention to but not be obsessed with the rules of gardening. This is especially true if they are to experience the joy of gardening. I listen to what others say about meditation, but I end up doing it my own way.

The same could easily be said of the way I try to live my life. I try to be aware of where the lines are, be aware of possible consequences, pay attention to the “beeps.” I sometimes ignore what I have been told.

There are no clear paths, and only some white lines. The possibilities seem to be without limit.

It is not easy for me to release the tenacious grip I have on the illusions created by my mind. However, that grip is slipping. For many years I have lived in a world of virtual reality. I am slowly beginning to peek around the goggles that have formed this illusory world for me.

This should not be a big surprise for me. I often use modern technology that mimics the virtual experience that occurs so naturally for me. I often experience the presence of friends on FaceTime , using a technology that creates virtual reality. I have the assistance of a multitude of devices that send energy from where they are to where I am.

Using FaceTime, I sit in front of a device that displays a virtual image of them complete with sound. Just like that, I experience their presence, even though they are miles away from me. I feel their presence and respond to it, even though we are apparently separated by great space. Unaffected by a notion of space, I experience them as present.

The same would be true if they appeared in a recording. I can experience presence independent of time because devices have created an illusion which I respond to. Technical devices have created a virtual presence by transmitting energy and information.

It is easy for me to imagine that my mind makes a world present much like a DVD player makes images on the DVD present to me. I see and touch an ongoing hologram, and my mind creates the reality.

Living in an illusory world is a newly-discovered skill for me. Actually, I’ve always lived in such a world, only now I am deeply aware that all is illusory. Real, but illusory.

It finally makes sense to me what the physicists and spiritual teachers have been telling me. I live in a world that my mind forms and exists only in my mind. It is based on energy and information that routinely stimulates nerve endings in my hands and eyes. In a true sense, it is a reality that exists, but only in my mind. Perhaps that is what counts most for me because what is in my mind allows me to maneuver around.

This is especially true of my notions of space and time. They too are creations of my mind, created to make sense out of all the data my senses receive. These notions make it easier for me to navigate and interact with everything “out there”. They allow me to live in a relative world. no matter how illusory it might be.

What I hear the neuroscientists and physicists saying has a strange similarity to what the great spiritual leaders have been saying. What I hear them saying changes my every day. I hear them say that the apparent world around me actually exists independent of notions of space and time. It is illusory.

People of science do not have the answers, but they are at least able to remove the obstacles in my mind that might keep me from an experience of the timeless and non-spacial aspects of reality. They help my cognitive framework get prepared to allow me to actually experience the illusory nature of my world.

Most of my world is prepared to allow that to occur. Most of my world does not resist me experiencing it as illusory. Flowers and rocks are prepared to allow me without resisting to experience the consciousness of the universe.

Flowers and rocks offer little impediment to my experiencing how the consciousness of the universe manifests itself as flower and rock. The blending of my share of consciousness with the consciousness of the whole is comparatively easy for me to allow to happen. Much easier, at least, than the blending of my consciousness with people.

Humans seem to have this unique ability to interrupt or even block the flow of consciousness. I may be open to be aware of another human, but they too must be willing to reciprocate, to share the absorption in consciousness which flows thru us as though we are portals.

Humans have this ability to resist what is, to want reality to be something other than what it is. The flip side of this is that if the blending of consciousness is recognized and allowed, it can be an experience of immense openness, joy and contentment.

When this occurs, we can both be immersed in the vast plane of probabilities. All illusions have gone. The illusory nature of “things” had dissolved.

I am gradually entering a world where everything is transient. At the same time I am experiencing a small awareness of an aspect which is permanent, without time, infinite. It is a marvelous unfolding.

As I slowly allow myself to live in a world that I recognize as illusory, my mind is becoming comfortable with the loss of what I once thought was real but now realize is illusory. I am allowing my mind to become at ease in accepting the absence of time and space, even though this only occurs for short periods.

My mind finds rest and peace in an experience it was once trained to ignore or even reject. My awareness is slowly becoming accustomed to no longer rely so much on a world I now see as illusory. I still have a long way to go, but I think I see the shimmering outlines of a world I want to accept and enter.

Religion does not lead people or cause them to be good any more than meditation does. While religions may support and help people to maintain a good life, they may also do just the opposite.

It is true, I think, that religion can support the benevolent tendencies innate in humans. However, religions are equally capable of supporting malevolence and separation. There are many situations where religion validates and gives permission to the human tendency toward suffering and away from benevolence.

Religion typically is an expression of the innate and natural inclinations of people. The inclinations are innate and already part of who we are. Religion may offer a way of expressing those inclinations, but not always.

Religion has offered me ways of expressing what was already present in my human nature. It added nothing. I was born with all I really needed.

It is no longer enough or adequate enough for me to say that I am aware of someone. What I actually experience is affection. While this is especially true for numerous people in my life, it is also true of my plants and rocks. I’ve known this for months now, but it has been slow to emerge in words for me. I may speak of being aware and having an open heart, but what I really am experiencing and expressing is a deeply felt affection.

This realization has been growing since my retreat this summer. During the retreat, I had many situations when I exchanged bows with someone, even someone that I might simply run into while walking along a path. I finally understood that for some, the bow was more than a mutual exchange of recognition or awareness. It was an expression of fervent and mutual affection. I recognized myself as a giver and welcomed what I received. It was wonderful.

Now, when I speak of awareness, the word has such a cerebral, almost steely and aloof aspect to it. It does not at all reflect the depth of feeling that stirs when I become aware. Along with deep attention, I typically experience a deep feeling of affection. I’m recognizing this as a common experience for me.

It has been much easier and familiar for me to speak of the affection and excitement I might feel when I see plants blooming in my garden. It is more risky, maybe even too invasive, if I speak of the deep affection I feel when I meet or talk with someone. Speaking of affection indicates not only a special kind of attention but also a kind of absorption that generates deeply held feelings.

It is easier to speak of awareness, which is true. But that word, awareness, may mask the depths of what is actually happening. The experience of a relationship, even a passing one, can involve so much joy, glee and enthusiasm. However, I am reluctant to say all that.

I may go so far as to say how glad I am to see someone or be with them. But even that does not express what I am actually feeling. I have often told the gathered members of my Sangha that my bowing is an expression of affection, not just respect or acknowledgement. I am careful to allow myself to feel that affection whenever I bow. I am careful to live in a moment that overflows with more than just awareness. I take the time to allow myself to feel the accompanying affection.

I know that acknowledging presence is only a part of what I experience, and there are times that the experience of presence is shared. I know what it feels like to share that deep feeling of acknowledged presence. The level of absorption in one another is sometimes what I experience, and it gives me great joy to recognize it.

I think that joy in sharing presence is what happens when I have an open heart, and I am aware that someone else has the same kind of open heart. For me, simply experiencing my open heart can be enough for me to feel the deep loving affection. This often happens without anyone else being aware of it. However, it is blissful when the experience is mutual and shared.

For some time I have noticed that I have been training, practicing and experiencing awareness. Only recently have I realized that the focus and concentration involved with awareness produces deep feelings of affection naturally. The object of focus and concentration stirs more than awareness. Deep feelings of affection easily arise.

Now that I realize it is present, maybe I will begin to learn how to speak of affection.

I suppose I ought not be surprised that so much of my energy has been put into a world that is still becoming. It is an important survival skill that I have as a human, that I can anticipate what might happen and adapt. I avoid danger, I avoid failure by looking at events that haven’t happened but are only in a state of probable becoming. I also think that by paying attention to what is still becoming, I often miss what is happening right now.

I’m trying to change that.

So much of my life has been an experience of an unfolding of a world that is still in a state of becoming. So much attention and attempted awareness has been directed to what I anticipate or expect might happen. I know I am not alone in this. I have heard many times that the anticipation of some pleasurable experience is more powerful than the actual experience. The same thing is said of things I dread.

I think I have been living a large part of my life in this state, in this phase of becoming. Slowly, I am putting more of my awareness and attention into what is happening right now. I still make plans for the future. I think of meeting friends for tea or for an outing. But my life is less a time of becoming and the flow of energy is more in what has already become right now. I absorb more of what is happening in the present.

I am more attentive to the miracle of being here, not so much concerned about what is becoming. I care less about what I will become and what I will experience, and I care more about what I experience now.

I often attempt to manage, to control, to adapt to what is yet to be. This can be useful, but it often limits the scope of my true experience to my prior-conceived notion of what is becoming, not what actually is. When my notion of the future, what is becoming, turns out to be wrong, I am more inclined to resist what has actually become.

Based on what I expect reality to become, I limit my experiences and in a real manner shape my experiences because of what I anticipated. The unfolding of the moment is shaped by what I expect, and my reality is but a small sample of what is possible. I limit what has become my reality.

If you would be a companion of mine, this is what I want of you: I want you to be fully present, just as you are. I want us each to be fully present, and fully aware of one another’s presence. I want us to jointly experience the miracle of being there.

I want this to be true for all my companions. I want it to be true when we are standing together in a similar location or when we are separated by miles or years. I want the time we spend together to be as though there is no other time. I want there to be no past, no future. This is our one and only time and I want us to make the most of it. There is no tomorrow to rely on or anticipate. I want this to be the only time.

I want my companions to be part of a common awareness. I want us to know one another as we really are. I want to know and be known as fully as humans can be aware.

I want the barriers of self-protection to vanish, the shell of pretend to dissolve, the veil of illusion to disappear. I want no obscure vaults where treasures are kept, hidden and safe. If there are walls that might define who we are, they should be as transparent for us as crystal and as porous as mist. I want my companions to be as clear to me and I to them as our reflection in a mirror.

I want us to be separate in appearance, but truly the same reality, living in the same realm of possibilities. I want us to see one another with unshielded eyes, being aware of what it means to be who we are. I want us to recognize ourselves in each other as we become aware face to face.

I want there to be no resistance. Only yes.

I had been thinking of how my immersion in mindfulness is part of my uncovering my feminine. I now think of it more as a process of recovery. I am reclaiming what was lost. The feminine of my extreme youth is slowly re-emerging and I am taking possession, claiming, embracing it. I am deliberately recovering what appeared to be lost.

I am engaged in no accidental process of discovery. This is no sudden or gradual process of searching for something new. I am deliberately looking, feeling, searching for what was lost and retaking possession of what is mine. I am not exploring something outside of myself and applying it to myself. I am recovering my birthright to the feminine.

There are some simple and superficial things I do. I no longer hesitate to look for hats and scarfs in the women’s clothing section. Buying and using a hair dryer is more than just a way to dry my hair. I typically feel more at ease hanging out with women.

The recovery goes much deeper, however. I have for months been learning to feel and experience living at a deeper level. This is a level I associate with the feminine. I have little fear of the emotional aspects of me and I am probing that arena daily. I go deeper and deeper. I am not afraid of what might be considered a typically feminine response.

Today I allowed tears of joy to flow down my cheeks while I listened to a friend describe a profound experience in her life. It is not uncommon for this to happen, often beyond my control.

I also see all this as part of owning the feminine virtues that have long been a peripheral part of how I have lived. I am recognizing and recovering that genuine feminine part of who I am. I have seldom relied on the masculine virtues, sometimes even rejected them. Now I understand more deeply what that was about, what was really happening. My feminine had been stifled but it was not gone.

Now it is being recovered.