Category: Uncategorized

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.

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.