Category: Uncategorized

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.

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.