Barry Garden Path

Every morning and every evening, I sit and I unfold, spreading the wings of my mind. It is a very relaxed move of mind and body moving as one.

Without hesitation, I plunge like a falcon into the limitless space around me and slowly settle into an uncontrolled glide. As I relax, I release my senses and my mind.

I set the sails of my mind and catch the rush, the spirit winds of the universe. I become filled with the energy and exhilaration of all that surrounds me.

I rush forward, totally unaware of the direction I am taking or the destination I am hurtling toward.

It is a good way to begin and end my day.

I don’t remember the exact words they used, but I recently heard someone describe mindfulness as being mind and body in the same place. For me, the idea is the same, but I like to think of mind and body being in the same space.

I notice that the more I have been able to experience mind and body as being in the same space, the more I have a deep feeling of something I regard as mindfulness. When I am mindful, my body becomes full of my mind and my mind radiates throughout my whole body.

Becoming aware of my body in a deep and intimate way has allowed me to experience my mind in a way that is both deep and clear. I experience how my body and mind occupy the same space. I remember how I once considered my mind to be in my head, and there it seemed to be contained. Then I thought of my heart being the seat of awareness.

It has been true that this concept of my heart seemed to expand the realm of awareness. However, it is only since I have learned to think with my whole body that my mind and awareness seem to push away limits that confine awareness. By extending my awareness in the whole space of my body, I actually touch the realm of no-limits, no-boundaries.

My experience with Jhana practice, a practice of deep concentration, has changed how I see mindfulness. This practice of deep concentration has totally been in the space shared by mind and body. The experience of concentration is not solely an exercise of the mind. It not is an adventure, an experience of clarity and vibrancy that extends through my whole body. Body and mind share the same space. My whole body is aware.

With this kind of mindfulness, the sensory limits and input of my body diminish. I experience an awareness throughout my body that seems beyond the sensory limits and the space filled by my body. Body and mind are experienced as the same, they are are experienced in the same space.

I notice a similar thing when I am aware of others. There is an initial awareness that focuses on the physicality of their presence. I am aware of their body in space. Then that awareness quickly changes, when I am mindful, into an awareness of a deeper entity that is much more than bodily limits.

I don’t think I experience that more focused, mindful awareness of others without first encountering their physical appearance and presence. That first body awareness, that first physical encounter can be either a hindrance or an invitation to deeper awareness. Mindfulness of others does not always come automatically or habitually for me.

However, I am more inclined to routinely be aware that my mind and body occupy the same space. This is becoming a growing way of deepening awareness. It is also a way that I can experience deep pleasure and joy. It is an experience of mind and body in the same space.

As I began my seasonal gardening two days ago, I became aware how the experience of being in my garden lingers. I just began to really notice and experience it.

There is snow a foot deep in much of my yard. I struggled to plod to my destination plants. It was hard to keep my balance in the piled up snow as I reached to trim bushes. All the while, my lingering awareness of the plants around was being stirred and refreshed.

I began my seasonal gardening two days ago by trimming Hydrangea bushes back to my preferred height. I shaped them to a size from which they can now bud and grow very soon. They yielded to the hands of the gardener. I think they got the message as firmly as I felt it: this is how you will unfold and manifest your wonder. With that small trimming gesture my lingering role as gardener has been awakened.

Their urges to grow and mine to garden have been dormant for months. We have been alive, but not so vibrant as we are about to become. The remnants of growing and gardening have lingered, and the shared experience of being in this garden will soon be shared more actively by my plants and me.

Right now there is some stubble sticking out of the snow, still clinging to the experience of last year’s growth and aliveness. The dried stalks and wooden stems are solid and unmistakable signs of the lingering presence of plants all around me. Now there are boot tracks in the snow, indicating the lingering presence of a gardener.

I took a deep breath this morning and remembered that in every breath I take, there a lingering remainder of plants that grew and thrived in my garden last season. The oxygen and other substances from plants that filled my garden last year still linger. Some of those plant substances still linger and contribute to the air I take in with every breath.

It has been a time of dormancy for my plants and for me. It will soon be time for them to wake and arouse from their time of lingering. My time of awakening already began two days ago.

Interesting how my mind has been trained to focus on flesh, even the notion of flesh. When I hear anything about sexual abuse, assault or misconduct, my mind goes directly to the carnal. The image of flesh flashes, even for a brief instance, into my mind. Flesh becomes part of the problem.

Even the concept of sexual assault is outfitted with the image of whatever physical action may have taken place. My imagination is given a role to play without my even trying. I may quickly shift to the trauma, the nature of the abuse, the personal harm. But there typically is an imagined role for flesh to manifest itself, to become part of the event. Flesh gets intermingled with the assault, the abuse. Maybe even obscuring the abuse or assault.

When I recently heard a couple of references to the sexual abuses attributed to the leaders of the Shambala community, my whole notion of the situation seemed to center on the physicality, the fleshy part of what happened. There was a subtle notion of abuse, of misconduct, but the notion of “problem” seemed to fall largely on the flesh.

It took an effort to step back and discern the harmful aspect of what had taken place, without the concern for the flesh aspect. Sexual contact was not itself the problem. The problem was the misuse of power over other humans. The problem was the likely unequal relationship between individuals. The problem was the breaking of trust and expectations of the Shambala community. Fleshy contact was not the problem.

I easily get focused on the fleshy part when I would rather be looking deeper, at the real human harm taking place. I think a kind of voyeurism clouds discernment. It is easy to get distracted by the sexual part and see it as the problem. Instead, the abuse of human relationship is the problem.

When hearing of sexual abuse or assault, it is important for me to get beyond the imagined sexual activity. I want to get beyond the flesh and instead be attentive to the harm, to see the true nature of things. I want to see the problem clearly.

I have resisted calling myself a Buddhist, even though I have friends that have attached that name to me. I think it sounds too much like a membership in a club or organization.

The name does not capture much of the transformed part of me. It doesn’t say enough about my reality, the skills I have acquired.

When I was identified as a Catholic, the name said more about the organization to which I belonged, and that association was not something I welcomed. Being seen as a Catholic revealed little of the inside me, what went on behind the name.

Perhaps the name Catholic said something about the beliefs and behaviors Catholics were known or expected to embrace. For that reason alone, I was able long ago to shed the characterization of being a Catholic.

To say someone is a nurse says something about the skills that individual has acquired. It doesn’t really say anything about an organization to which they belong or whose identity they share.

I just heard yesterday a discussion of people becoming Buddhists and it was all about having acquired an identity. It was not about how they had undergone an inner change, acquired skills of concentration or developed an aptitude for insight. Perhaps those were implied in the small print, but the discussion did little to make that obvious.

I call myself a gardener because that is what I do. I resist the name of Master Gardener because that mostly says that I have joined and been admitted to a group that uses that name. The group is identified by the name.

Perhaps the name Buddhist does identify the aspirations and intentions that I have. It may say something about choices that I made and intend to make. But that is not enough for me. If I have a named identity I want it to say more about who I am and what I do.

For now, I just say that I am someone who meditates. That is enough.

So many places are given meaning by remembering what human activity took place there. A battle, a birth, a signing becomes the reason a spot on the earth, in the universe, is of significance.

Why not have the perspective of a cat or a dog and see places simply as they now exist? A cat or dog does not care what human venture happened in this or that spot along a road, in a field, in a city.

Why should I?

It has been some time since I began distancing myself from any expression of faith and decided to mostly rely on what I experience. For me, there was just too much imagination involved with faith, mostly someone else’s, and not enough observation and insight. Mostly I was becoming faithless in the arena of religion, a process rooted in my early 20’s.

I was mistaken to see faith as belonging only to issues of religion, and I’m noticing how much faith plays a role in so many areas of our lives. Today, I’m especially impressed by how much people rely on faith when it come to political views. Faith, not observation and insight, seems to guide the political decisions and actions many people take. I’m wondering about how faith affects my own political views.

My training and education in religion required that I have a hefty dose of faith to guide me along. In those days, faith charted out a world of unseen realities and promised a future with little observation or experience to support it. It went beyond the known and sometimes even pushed aside the known to reveal a world unsupported by anything I could see or did not want to see.

Religious faith enabled me to trust a reality that would support, sustain and save me. Relying as it did on the unseen, it was little more than imagination and superstition. Faith had no basis in my experience and relied heavily on the imagination of others.

Being faithless has given me a vantage point to notice how so many people rely on faith in the arena of politics. I see so much evidence of people going beyond the known and believing in a reality that is unsupported by anything they can see or want to see. Their political faith allows them to ignore the observations they can easily make and fashion a world of unseen, even false realities. Their political faith allows them to trust in a future that has little observation or insight to support it.

This is my way to make sense of a political environment clouded in so much untruth and imagination. The political arena has taken on the aspects of faith and superstition. Perhaps it has always been so, but it now appears more obvious to me. It is easier for me to think of so many people acting out of faith and superstition, rather than out of greed and malicious intentions. They just can’t see.

I prefer to live in a manner that is faithless.

There is space inside of me that encompasses and makes sense of all I encounter. This space reaches out and translates everything I encounter. In this space, I experience reality. It is where I encounter the essence of flowers and wind. It is where I absorb whatever comes to me or whatever I seek out.

This space has no definition or shape of its own, but is shaped by whatever I might absorb. Like the amorphous arms of an amoeba, this space reaches out and yields to what it encounters so that each essence might be intimately realized and absorbed.

Through relaxation and concentration, this space becomes pliable and flexible enough to be able to absorb. Then it is shaped by reality, and, being pliable and yielding does not shape what it encounters. This space, ideally has no definition or design, but takes on the definition and design of reality when allowed.

This space within me is infinite in proportion and in possibility. It is not limited by concept or time. It is with me at all times, but I am realizing its nature only in small ways.

This space is free to absorb when I allow my concentration to plunge in to the depths of focused and free attention. That is something that comes and goes.

From time to time I enter this space through brief attention to my nostrils and the breath entering and exiting. By allowing the representation of that breath to manifest, I find that I have entered this space within me, and it is a wonderful place to be. From this undefined space, I can drift into an awareness that comes through absorption. Realities that seemed to be outside me, are suddenly inside of me and part of me.

I think that this space is where I truly experience the world. For so much of my life, this space has been limited and shaped by my imagination and concepts. It is now possible for an older mind like mine to become pliable and able to be shaped by realities not my own.

The space inside me is slowly becoming not just my rigid world, but a flexible world surrendering to a realm of infinite possibilities.

I spent most of yesterday with people who share a similar attitude about mindfulness and the perception that mindfulness creates. I understand better how perceptions shape and highly influence how I see and interpret reality. My perceptions both affect what I see and shield me from seeing things that do not fit my perceptions.

How else could so many features of climate change present themselves and so many people are not able to see what is happening. Their individual perceptions of the natural world shape and restrict what they are able to see.

I notice how many religious groups have been in the midst of sexual abuse and exploitation by their leaders. And yet so many members of those religious groups are unable to recognize and internalize the reality of what is going on. Pema Chodron has finally pulled back, too late perhaps, from her role in the Shambala community because of that group’s inability to respond in a manner that the situation and their values might otherwise demand.

Tens of thousands, perhaps millions of Catholics have sat mute in their pews, inattentive to the sexual exploits of their leaders. Their perceptions have kept them from seeing what has been right before them. Yet they have not responded to, and often denied behavior of their leaders inconsistent with their common values.

So many people have perceptions that shape how they see the terrible behavior of political leaders. The do not recognize, even see behavior that is not only repugnant but also not in their own best interests. Their perceptions bend and shape what they are able to see.

I wonder who it is that can see clearly, independent of the distraction of social media, news casters and preachers? It is not easy to separate myself from these outside influence that would shape my perceptions. It is challenging to see clearly with insight, not influenced by my culture, my teachers, my on-going sources of information.

For this reason, I sit and free my mind from distractions, at least a couple times a day. I slowly learn to see without the guidance and distortions in perception coming from teachers, culture, and media. I sometimes sit with friends who also try to develop the skills of mindfulness, concentration and insight.

Perhaps this will help me see more of the world free from a multitude of distracting, distorting perceptions.

I am aware how words add to the clutter in my mind. So useful in communication, words become clutter when I intend to understand an experience, become more deeply aware of some reality, or see clearly what a situation demands from me.

Words actually interfere with insight. While they may on occasion guide me to an awareness, it is more likely that words will become so much clutter that distracts and interferes with awareness. Words obscure insight.

This is especially true when I consider rules and precepts. Rules add to the clutter. While rules are very useful in a cultural setting, their effectiveness is limited to how people might relate to one another. Rules are a way of setting expectations among people regarding the kind of behavior we want of one another.

Rules are effective and useful in defining how we “want things to be.” Rules are not so useful when they become personal, when they enter my mind and become the focus of my attention. They add to the clutter in my my mind, a distraction.

Rules may from time to time become a place of reference, a way of noticing “this is how things are.” However, on a personal level, rules that direct any activity are not so useful in helping me to understand how things are. Rules do not lead to insight, but they sometimes may arise from insight.

Rules are clutter if they function like the white line down the middle of the highway that becomes the center of my attention. They are a peripheral reference point, not a focus of awareness.

The lame effectiveness of rules is evident in how I might learn a new skill such as pruning trees Rulesare are very limited in being able to teach me how I might best become intimately familiar with a way of behavior or acting. If I have a teacher who praises me or corrects me based on how I am pruning trees, the voice of my teacher soon becomes the focus of my attention. I want to please them, conform to their words, avoid their criticism.

Rather than focusing and becoming more aware of my pruning behavior, I pay attention to the voice, the rules of my teacher. I want to learn the skill of pruning trees, not the skill of listening to my teacher. The rules of my teacher become clutter in my mind and obscure my focus. The rules actually interfere with my learning. Rules of my teacher become a distraction, an abject of attention, rather than an assist.

Insight demands the elimination of clutter in my mind, and rules add to the clutter. Insight does not come from words and is typically inhibited by words, the rules of thought. Insight is an awareness that might generate words, but it is an experience of reality that is unspeakable.

Rules and precepts do not capture the undefinable mystery of reality that is accessed without concepts and words. Even though they may have some usefulness in explaining how things are, rules do not tell me how to experience reality..

Rules may suggest how things are, but they are not helpful in telling me what to do. Rules that tell me what to do add to the clutter of my mind.