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I think I finally  found words to describe something I’ve been experiencing  for about two years now.   As I have practicing what I have called ‘awareness,’ it has seemed to happen in more than one way.    There was a simple awareness, perhaps more appropriately called attention.   I concentrated my attention on something, like the keyboard or a candle.

There were also those times when I felt very different as I stared at something.   Everything else around seemed to drop into the background or periphery.   A deep feeling of relaxation rose in me and the keyboard or candle took on great importance.    Sometimes it seemed that I was studying it not as a flat visible surface but as a three dimensional object.   I could experience its insides, its history, what it did.   Touching the granite surface on my bathroom counter was like reaching back in time and I felt the surface of something that has been through eons of change.

I now have just read that there can be two steps of awareness, and I think this is what I have been stumbling into.    The first step is becoming aware of an object.   It is something that happens when I see the keyboard, notice a burning candle, touch the granite counter or hear the ringing bell.   For me, it is simply paying attention to something.

The second step is more engaging and mysterious.   I take this step when I look deeply into an object.   I touch it deeply, I absorb the sound with my whole self.   The feeling is as if I am shedding light on the object, extending my illuminating awareness deeply into it.

This second step is where the subject and object become one.   The boundary between me and the item dissolves.   The item and I are no longer separate, but we seem to merge.   Part of me seems to extend out and enter into the keyboard or candle;  the keyboard or candle seems to move inside of me and be absorbed.   I understand it in a way I never did by simply observing it.

I’ve noticed that this two step awareness is not just about objects and people.    It also applies to my own body.    It is a deep awareness that is not restricted to one part of my body but is felt throughout my whole body.    The palm of my hand is observed in a way that radiates through my whole body.   My feet touch the ground in a way that my whole body experiences.

At first, it frightened me when I felt the boundaries dissolve.    It felt as though I was part of an alternate reality because everything, everyone became different whenever it happened.    Now it is becoming rather common, even though I often have to remind myself to turn on the second step of awareness.

I often feel radiant and have to be attentive to the flow of energy.   My enthusiasm can bubble over, and other people aren’t quite sure what that is about.    When the boundaries dissolve,  the experience can feel intense and energy flows between whatever or whoever is before me.

I like it when the boundaries dissolve.

 

There is nothing mysterious, nothing revealed , nothing tricky about mindfulness.    It is perfectly natural.   More important, because it is based on the natural order of things, it works.    The mind is allowed to do its natural work and the tension of life relaxes.   The tightness of life lets go.  Natural energy flows.

Mindfulness and the pursuit of the middle way cultivates non-attachment, non-clinging, and non-aversion.   It is the way of release and freedom.   Mindful practice reduces tension, fear, anxiety and suffering.   Mindfulness recognizes and releases natural intelligence.   I don’t need supernatural inspiration or secret tricks.   I just have to wake up and pay attention.    The intelligence is revealed naturally.

Gods and Goddesses may be standing by and witnessing what I do, but they do not need to intervene.    In fact, an intervention would disrupt, disturb nature and go against the order of things.   Mindfulness relies on the innate energy and true nature of humans.   It allows my energy to flow and move to natural consequences.

Mindfulness relies on no promise of future happiness or relief.    In a strange way, the promise of future reward would create a tension and be a repeating source of suffering right now.    Waiting is frustrating.  I want it, I can’t have it yet, I want it and it is nowhere to be seen.    Pie in the sky is worse than no pie at all.

Joy and freedom result from mindfulness right now.    A good life naturally can bring passing joy and happiness.    A generous person experiences the joy of giving while they are being generous.    But then the joy is gone.

Mindfulness avoids the discontinuity.   It is a different way of experiencing and interacting with the world.   It is what naturally happens in an attentive mind.    It does not rely on the satisfaction of good acts, even while that joy is present in good acts.   Every act and every experience becomes a neutral action.    Action is neither good or bad, but it is the mindful awareness that makes it joyful.

That does not mean that every act is without harmful consequences.   However, the consequences of mindful actions taken with discernment, based on the natural intelligence in human energy, are likely to be beneficial.    Done mindfully, even actions that have negative consequences, can be a source of learning and discernment.

Harm is much less likely to occur from intentional, mindful acts.   By knowing the nature of what I am doing, by mindful attentiveness, I am less likely to cause harm.   My natural human  energy and skill in understanding it makes it possible for me to act in an appropriately human way.

For me, this especially means learning the skill of using my mind in a natural way, free of the distortions and constraints I have placed on it.   I aspire to become more skilled in acting with loving kindness because it is the natural way.

There’s nothing special about this.   It is simply the pragmatism of natural consequences, guided by a skillful mind.

 

 

I think there is a shadow in Buddhism.   Sometimes, it appears that the practice encourages a kind of withdrawal from the world.   Sitting quietly in a darkened place has the appearance of disengagement.   I know that this is not a true representation.   I am finding that the practice actually is making me more in touch and aware of the world, more concerned about issues, less distracted by lesser issues, more discerning about what is real.

However, one area I am still trying to work out is the position that teachers such as Thay take on sexuality.    Rather than promote engagement with this aspect of who we are, the practice seems to push sexuality to the side.   Rather than showing the path to engaged presence, the path seems to be one of withdrawal.

To me, this is most obvious for the monks who practice celibacy.   They are the ones I primarily listen to, and they clearly are disengaged from sexuality, at least in the lifestyle they follow.   For them sexuality is put aside in a box and they choose not to deal with the challenges presented by our sexual nature.

When sexuality is discussed for laypersons, it is also put aside in a box constrained by the cultural norms of marriage.   It appears that same-sex expressions of sexuality are off the mark in the writings of teachers I have read.    Sexuality is certainly complicated, hard to deal with.    Some teachers attempt to make it less complicated by putting it in a box.  Sexual engagements are narrowly defined and constrained.

The middle way of Buddhism does not advocate withdrawal from the world.   There is to be no excess, either in denial or indulgence.   The practice is based on the observation that suffering is the result of clinging and attachment.    There is a way out of this problem, and the path is the one of the middle way.

It is my intent to be totally present in whatever I do, drinking tea, washing dishes, touching someone, walking into Target.   What matters is how I do it, with a mind that is clear and peaceful, attentive to what is happening, and full of wonder at the present moment.   I intend to act in a manner that does not superimpose on reality any mental constructs such as clinging,  attachments or preconceptions.

Like all of my relationships with reality, I expect that the wholeness of sexuality is free of suffering when it rises from my being truly present, aware and fully engaged.    Non-attachment and non-clinging are characteristics of true sexuality just as they are characteristic of any other ways of relating to the world.

Withdrawal from sexuality or narrowly defining it is not the middle way.   Putting sexuality in a box is not the path of the middle way.  Rather, true sexuality  is a possible path to freedom and liberation.

Sometimes, it even feels uncomfortable to speak the word ‘body.’   It almost seems foreign, not part of our comfortable vocabulary.   It’s not as though I’m even referring to specific body parts which ‘shall not be named.’   It is unfortunate that for so long I have felt disassociated from my body, and I get the impression that this is true of many friends.

I am slowly reclaiming my body, and it as transformative as learning to breathe under water.    I have been stirring up energies in my body that have been under my radar for as long as I can remember.    My sensory apparatus is being rewired and reconnected, probably becoming much like it was 76 years ago.   When the bell rings, my whole body listens.    My taste of food settles into my arms and legs.   My mind has reclaimed many of the old nerve pathways that roam through my body from head to toe.

For all the shallow attention we give to our bodies in the media and in shaping our appearance, it is unlikely many of us actually live in our bodies.  We live in the abstraction of our mind.   The experienced relationship between what we know and what we can sense with our body is so disconnected from who we are.

I now realize what an insight it was for the book to be titled “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”   My body is me, and the more it comes back to life, the more I enjoy the energy flowing thru it.   My body is enlivened with soaring ideas, my mind tingles with delight with whatever I touch.

It is so unfortunate that human culture has evolved to regard bodies as commodities.   As we became disconnected from the energy of the natural world, we seemed to lose the awareness of the reality in one another as well.    In so many cultures, relationships were converted into contracts about rights over bodies, ignoring that the parties were people.   For many, especially women, their bodies were no longer their own.    My culture associated flesh with sin, and I was urged to distance myself from contact with my body.

I’ve turned around, and I intend to go in the opposite direction I was taught.   I am becoming more identified with my body, it goes wherever my mind goes, it contacts anything I can relate to.   My mind and body are learning how to merge together.    I see others as mind and body.    No more abstracted persons.    Wholly flesh and blood and mind.   All are one.

For about fifty-five years, I’ve been sorting out what it means to be in connection with other human beings.   In particular, I’ve been musing about what our culture calls a relationship.   I now am trying to figure out what it means to interconnect, be in a relationship without clinging or attachment.   I think this is a new insight for me.

I am now wondering if there can be an interconnection without anxiety about loss, without grasping for continuity, without surges of jealousy, without worrying fear.   I would like to interconnect without regard for the future, only attentive to being present, here and now.

It seems that my culture conspires to stir up all the anxieties and fears associated with grasping and attachment.    It seems intent on making me suffer.   I have been encouraged to make promises about the future and rely on promises someone else must make.   I live in a culture that puts the emphasis on relying on what another person will do, not on what is happening right now.    I am trying to answer “will you be there tomorrow” rather than are you here now.    I am encouraged to promise “I will be there tomorrow” rather than make the most loving statement “I am here for you now.”

I am convinced that if I attempt to promise what I will do, I set up expectations I will never meet.   Promises lead to attempts to control, grasping, attachment.   All this leads to suffering.

Of course, this means that an interconnection can only be between people who are equal.    There is no possession, no ownership, no superiority, no dependency.   It means I have to be able to say, with true authenticity, “I am here.”   That is something I must first be able to say to myself.

I once tried to move through my life as though it were a three-legged race.   What I thought I wanted and would be helpful turned out to be not such a good idea.

 

I lie in bed in the morning, covers thrown back.    There is growing light under the shade and I wait for the full rising of the sun.   Soon that glorious, roaring ball of fire will show itself on the horizon and carry me into another day on an rolling wave of energy.

An immense ball of burning gas will spread its energy across my tiny world, bathing everything in its power.   It again will warm my cells, both with today’s rays and those stored from days past.   The sea of air around me will swirl with excitement, stirred into a frenzy by the energy pouring down from the sky.   It will become part of me and grow my connection to the energy of the universe.

It will penetrate plants with energy that will some day become part of me and energize my presence, further connecting me with the world.   Somewhere, the energy of the sun is penetrating plants that will become my food.   It is right now gifting me the future fire I will need to move and think and thrive.

The sun makes no distinction between good and evil, animate and inanimate.   It energizes everyone and everything alike, saints and tyrants, all are bathed in its rich abundance.   Its energy is shared by all.  It is a great equalizer until it becomes part of us and we take possession of all it can do.

I want to make experience my primary teacher.   I may rely on the experience of others from time to time, but only as a secondary source of information.   I depend on my own experience for gathering data, and those are the reference points I rely on most, the sources I trust most.   The experience of others can be interesting, but I take most of it in with a huge dose of doubt, even suspicion.

I would like to be able to perceive the world with the open mind of a child and the mind skills of a 76-year old.   I want my own eyes and ears, all my senses, to be my channel of information.  Then I want my discerning mind to observe what I sense.

I am trying to slowly rid my life of all the unreliable, untrustworthy teachers I have had for so many years.   I reject certainty and embrace an open mind unclouded by fear of the unknown.    I am realizing that much of my life has been filled with false information masked as truth in order to take away fear or create fear.

Sometimes I feel like I have been living behind the lead bars of stained glass windows.   In this way, mostly filtered light has penetrated my inner world.   From my birth, my perception of the world has been shaped by my family, my culture, my ancestors, all humanity.   While some of this teaching has been useful and kept me safe, much of it has been an unreliable representation of the world.    The teaching has been contaminated by fear of the unknown, the unseen and the unpredictable.

My birthright has been hidden away.   The fears and suspicions of my fellow humans, past and present, have muted my innate tendency to search and explore the unknown, to understand the voice of my heart, to live in harmony with my one world.

My inheritance has been tainted by my teachers.    I have been misled and betrayed by those who continue to teach and encourage me to live in an imaginary world.  I do not want to be taught to avoid the very world that I need to embrace to find joy, harmony and peace.

I want to rely on my own experience above all and question the rest.

I remember what it was like to have each moment planned.   I liked to live my life at the edge of the headlights, in anticipation of what would happen next.  As  I climbed stairs, I was looking at the steps before me and hardly noticed the feeling of tread beneath my feet.

I am becoming a bit more reckless about planning my ‘future’ life.   I am doing less planning and more paying attention.   My body seems more alive and less anxious.  Maybe I’m reprogramming my Aspergers brain.

It is but a small change because I still plan much of my day.   I still think I know what is going to happen, especially what I am going to do.   I often decide what I am going to have for dinner a couple of times before the afternoon is spent.

However, I yield to the current a little more.    I let moments wash over me without attempting to control and guide them.    I find that I leave unsaid many comments I was about to insert into a conversation, and it is OK.

More of my life is recklessly out of my control.   I am still far from being able to surrender to the flow of time, but I am learning to enjoy the waves rolling over me.   Playing in the surf can sometimes upend me.    But I am less touched by my anticipations, less fettered by my view of how things ought to be.

It is a reckless way to live, and admittedly more full of peril.    It is also a life with less fear and full of more potential than I could ever imagine.

I don’t know why this happened to me, but for much of my life I have rebelled against any renunciation of the desire to know.    It has gone against my grain to come up against any lazy refusal to want to know more.   Something has mostly had to have a rational thread running through it before I could embrace a pattern of  thought.    I have not been able to be satisfied with dead-end conclusions.

So why did I get involved in a life that eschewed reason and relied on faith to explain the world.   I now listen to words coming out of that church tradition and it seems like another planet.   Worse, it sounds shallow and wimpy.

As I look  back, I think I made it an intellectual game to create a construct that at least made internal sense.  I remember learning church law and its details so I could run through the maze of the law with out being hurt.    I made the parts work together, even if the parts were imaginary and the whole made no sense.    It was like writing a novel and making all the parts make sense together, never mind if the story itself made sense.

I now realize how commonly this side road off the path of rationality has not just been unhelpful.    It has set back the development of western civilization by thousands of years.   People developed an intellectual malaise that allowed them to be satisfied with their own ignorance for thousands of years.   Religion played a prominent role in the subjugation of intellectual advancement as it was, at the same time, complicit in keeping certain groups of people in power.   The alliance between Church and State has been with us for centuries.

Long ago, the Greeks made great advances in pursuing an understanding of the world through observation and rational thought.   There were those who found joy in the pursuit of knowledge, never being content with  today’s answers.   Ignorance was a springboard to discovery.  They expressed a joy in rising from today’s unknown to better, but never complete knowledge.

Then the Romans came and disrupted the Greek culture.   They were the engineers who built arenas for people to take delight in the death of gladiators.   The works of the Greeks were also suppressed and hidden by new religion that preferred to  solve mystery by faith and allegiance to doctrine.  The middle east gave us  three great religions, all relying on a combination of suppressed reason, ignorance and faith to explain the world.

We may be catching up with those Greeks in relying on reason to figure things out, only 2,500 years late.    I am convinced that I can know, and that sometimes it is hard work.   I reject the limp and feeble reliance on faith that may allow me to feel certain, but know it is not true.

I am pained by the satisfaction I see in the dim eyes of those who walk in ignorance, guided by faith.   How will they ever have compassion for what they are unable, or unwilling to understand.   I rebel against our social complacency with ignorance.