Barry Garden Path

I live with many traces of my past.    My history is part of me, but it’s not quite the same as it once was.    I still feel a connection with people, places and things that were once part of my experiences, front and center.    They are still a part of me, but I see and experience them differently.   I have moved to another place, crossed the river, and my whole world looks a bit different as I take it all in.

Today, this is so true of my experience with religion.    Christianity shaped and influenced so much of my life and how I saw reality.     It was a lens though which I interpreted the world, and had a profound effect on how I lived.  It would be foolish for me not to acknowledge that religion continues to be a part of me.    However, even that has been transformed.

Some people talk of having rejected religion, or left the Church.    I don’t think anyone ever really manages to do either, once religion has been part of their life.    However, I think that we all get to choose how we experience religion, and that makes a great difference.    And it is actually a more honest and accurate approach.

I prefer to approach this issue as a gardener.     Right now, the lush  blooms of last year are a memory and are in my compost bin.    The flowers haven’t really gone away, but they definitely are being transformed.    They are becoming the rich humus that will nourish and support the flowers that bloom in my garden this coming summer.   And so it is with my experience with religion.

The religious experience that once was such a lush part of my life is more than a memory.     It has been transformed into something new.     I haven’t left it behind, I have not walked away from it, I have not rejected it.    I think it is a part of me, but it has been dramatically transformed.   I can see that it nourishes and supports me, but not in the form it once manifested.

Some people press flowers and try to keep them just as they were.    I place mine in my compost bin and they undergo a great change that makes them nothing like the plants that grew in my yard last year.    But they also become an intimate, integral part of the plants that will be part of the future garden.

I’m pretty sure that no one would say today that I am religious or that religion is part of my life.   I, on the other hand, prefer to think that I am someone who composts.     I have transformed my religious past into something quite new and pleasing.    The religion is still there, but it has been wholly transformed.    Dare I say it has been composted?

 

I just pulled a small stack of very old and worn books from the bookshelf.   Pinocchio,  The Story of Babar, Doctor Dan the Bandage Man and three Uncle Wiggly books.    All of them have evidence heavy use and repeated readings.    All of them are more than sixty years old.   As I open them and scan the aging pages, I am aware how deeply my heart is embedded between those soiled covers.

The resonance I feel reminds me that I still have roots in those simple stories.   The tales come back to me without my even looking at the words.   I remember the experience of reading them a long time ago.   Even though I have moved far from the fables in those books, their effect still lingers.

My attention to the actives of Pinocchio, Babar and Uncle Wiggly were eventually replaced by the fables of my many involvements in religion.    The stories coming out of my religious culture slowly shaped my view of the world for many years.    The stories nourished me, guided me, helped me see beyond my ordinary experience.   I don’t see them as wrong or misleading.    But I do know that their time and usefulness has passed.

Fables have a use and benefit, but there comes a time to put them aside.    I have gradually been moving into a world where reality is best known through direct experience.    The unseen world is best left alone, not explained, and accepted for what it is.    It is better for me not to try to populate my world with imaginary beings that live between the old, worn pages of fables.

I talked with a friend this past weekend about atheism and whether it makes sense.   For me, it is not even a relevant issue, not worth worrying about.    What is evidenced to me is what I know.    All else, everything beyond my experience, exists  only in the world of fables.   Does God exist?   Yes, in the world of fables.

All around me I watch adults caught up in the fables of their youth, still playing the games taught them by imaginative elders.    I don’t particularly feel critical of them.    I just wish they could take their rightful, mature place in the world.    I wish their eyes could truly see the reality surrounding them without the distorting veneer of an imagined world.

I think many who choose to live in fable-land are leading good lives.    I think that the stories provide reasonable road maps for being socially and morally connected.    The fables teach many how to stay on the desired path, how to reach a desired outcome, how to find a place to belong.   Many have followed these lines on the map.

I’ve chosen a different way and discovered that there is much more not included on those road maps.   The old fables tell  me little of the wild wonders of wandering off the path, outside the story-line.   It is becoming apparent to me that I have not rejected the fables of religion, but I have simply left them behind.    I’ve chosen to put them back on the bookshelf, with all the other rich and insightful texts that have populated my life.    And I still have roots in them.

There is another rich and exciting story out there, waiting to unfold.     I know it will be mine alone, none other like it.   There really is no accurate road map.     I love the excitement of stepping off the road into that rich and inviting void.

Time to turn the page again.

 

To sit on my cushion and meditate is nothing less than transformative.   I become aware what it feels like to be present, to show up, to exist.    The awareness begins with a feeling of intimacy with the fading sounds of my bell.    It morphs into intimacy with the reverberations of the bell traveling in my  body.

The attention often  changes into a focused awareness of the rising and falling of my breathing core.   My arms, my legs, my head all quickly get the message.     This is the time for all of me to feel present.

The attention I feel is not in my head but in my whole body.    My awareness is not a passive acceptance, but an active reaching out into an immense void.    My awareness is not receptive alone.  It is more like a search light that shines out and brings back to me all that surrounds me.  I embrace and I am embraced.

This feeling of being intensely aware can be regenerated frequently throughout my day.   I just have to remember to be aware.   It is not a struggle to make it rise to the surface of my experience.    It is difficult to remember to flip the switch, turn on the attention, become aware.

It takes me less than five seconds to become aware, once I choose to be present.    Then my feeling of awareness and intimacy can embrace just about anything.    It could be the rug under my feet as I walk across the living room, the person sitting before me, the food I am putting in my mouth.   It has become relatively easy to be aware, to show up, to be present.    I just have to remember to do it.

Awareness for me has become a chosen activity.   It is not something that simply happens to me.    It helps for me to be in a receptive posture, but awareness is something I do.   It is a paradoxical relaxed alertness.

For me, “aware” is not an adjective, it is an active verb.     I aware.

 

 

 

 

It was just a short while ago that mindfulness seemed so illusive.   Actually it was hard.    Sitting down for meditation was a challenge, and I found it hard to get into the groove.  Distractions were sticky, powerful and difficult to allow to fade away.   My mind wandered rather freely on its own.   I wrestled it back into the groove again and again.

I guess that the groove has gotten worn into me a bit, because mindfulness now seems so simple.   My body seems to remember what it feels like, and I just have to  remind myself what mindfulness feels like.

I still go for long periods of time during the day when I no longer remember the experience of mindfulness.    My body and my mind wander.    I forget to pay attention, even though it is so simple to be attentive.   I also get distracted very easy, but the distractions pass by only if I remember not to hold on to them.    It is really quite simple, if I remember to relax and pay attention.

Even though I may only sit for ten to fifteen minutes, meditation is rather simple and not a chore.    It certainly is not a big fight to stay focused or to pay attention.    My  mind often wanders and wants to explore.   However, once I realize my mind is exploring, my body brings my attention back to what is happening here and now.   I am sitting.   Nothing else.   It is really quite simple.

I am not sure I can even explain what this is like to any one.    Mindfulness is such a personal thing, based on experience.     I’m obviously basing my thoughts about mindfulness and meditation on what I have experienced.    I got some guidance and advice.     But I really had to explore and figure it out for myself.    I found and made my own simple groove.   That has made it simple.

With time and practice, that groove gets more stable and deep.    It’s really quite simple.

Too much emphasis is placed on making good choices.   My basic choice is to pay attention, and not much else matters.   I want to be aware.     If I am aware, all the rest will follow.

Many people have debated for a long time whether humans have a free will.   Heroes of mine, such as Brian Greene, simply deny that humans have free will.    I’m wondering if it even makes any difference.  I’m beginning to think that I actually don’t have a choosing power that is totally free, but I have a different perspective than a cosmologist like Brian.   I think what what appears to be a free-will choice of mine is simply a rational follow-up to what my mind has perceived.

I don’t put much effort into making decisions.    What I really want to do is pay closer attention.   That’s a decision that may mean something.

Sometimes, I simply need to pay attention for a longer time.    Rushed decisions are often logical decisions, but they are made on  limited, often faulty information.    If I have allowed  my data gathering to take its own sweet time, I am more likely to make decisions that I won’t want to change later on.

Part of the faulty data gathering is often not so much factual, just incomplete. Faulty data often means that I have been paying too much attention to my feelings.   My feelings put the spotlight on and highlight specific pieces of information.    Based on my feelings, I pay too much attention to those pieces of information.   Anxiety and fear often precede and shape rushed decisions.    These and other feelings rush me into actions that are based on faulty data or limited information.

I especially want to pay attention to my feelings and be aware of how they are influencing my attention.

I also seem to be more satisfied with the outcome when I take my time to make decisions, to choose a course of action.   Decisions made with a speck of information are actually not free decisions.   My decisions become free by allowing myself enough time to gather information, absorb the whole reality, immerse myself in an intimate awareness.    Appropriate action follows focused awareness.   In effect, the decision becomes no decision.     The action naturally follows awareness.

My choices are all about choosing to pay attention.    All else will follow, naturally.

I sit in these Earth Science classes at the U of M and I listen to countless stories of how living creatures have evolved.   These are stories of success.   Right now it’s about dinosaur and flowering plants.    My thoughts frequently drift off to human consciousness and I think about how consciousness might have evolved in humans.   How did we humans ever evolve to have a body that can support our level of consciousness.

What puzzles me most is the question of how and why did consciousness make it more possible for humans to spread their consciousness-supporting genes into the next generation.    What evolutionary advantage did consciousness offer that made it more likely that it would be supported in the future gene pool.   Consciousness does not seem to follow evolutionary principles.     It may even seem to work against evolution.

Arguably, a trait has to give an organism some advantage if it is going to spread in future generations.   I don’t readily see how human consciousness makes it more likely that human genes would be passed forward.    I don’t see how more consciousness would be encouraged and therefore emerge.

It seems to me that the very emotions and drives that consciousness  attempts to mitigate are the very traits that have made humans such successful survivors and breeders.  We have been successful in moving our genes into ever-burgeoning populations because of traits related to aggression, aversion and grasping.    These are traits that consciousness seems to restrict, not promote.

Yet it seems that these same traits have made us successful breeders, and made those who possess them most likely to succeed in passing on their genes.   “If you are a star, they let you do it” is not a unique or novel notion.    The genes of Genghis Kahn are identified all over Asia today.   The genes of the Buddha seem untraceable.

I actually think that these dominating traits may have been temporarily successful, but will lead to the ultimate demise of humans as we know them today.   I don’t understand how they have been favored by the forces of evolution, but I also think they have taken humans down an evolutionary dead end.

Perhaps I am looking at a moment of time, a period of time that is just too short.   I am simply living in one of nature’s mistakes.    The time of human civilization is only about 10,000 years long.    In evolutionary terms, that is but a brief moment, ample time for a misadventure that will ultimately collapse.   I may be part of an experiment of nature that isn’t going to prevail.    10,000 years hardly even shows up on any kind of evolutionary record or time-line.

I think that the consciousness that has arisen in humans is not an evolutionary driving force, but it does offer us a way out.    Perhaps, it is an aspect of human development that follows some kind of unknown, undiscovered evolutionary principle.   It may give humans an advantage, if only if we choose to use it.    We will have to knowingly step outside of the known evolutionary guidelines and principles and discover a new way to evolve.

Consciousness is a natural aspect of all things, most easily recognized in living beings.   Humans have a great biological platform for consciousness.    I wonder if we will use this trait that gives us a kind of worm-hole through the naturally evolving  universe.

I think some of us will step outside the known laws of evolution and find a new way of evolving.   Right now, dominance by those who follow the brutal laws of evolution seems to be prevailing.     I am hoping for an awakening of the few who will find a way to survive.    The “fittest” will be those who have recognized and use the advantages of their evolved consciousness.

 

It has taken me many years to finally wake up and become somewhat aware.       I’m now only starting to realize what it feels like to be aware of flowers, of people, of food, of rocks.    It is a connection I never before realized was possible.

I’ve always been able to pay attention.    Being aware is more like being conscious that I am paying attention.    I am learning to be an engaged observer.   Until now, I barely scratched the surface of what it means to be aware of anything, of everything.    It is like being joined with everything, sharing the same time and space.    And I know I’m doing it.

I have no  idea just where this consciousness of mine  resides.    Certainly, it is not my brain.    It has already been a couple of years since I discovered that awareness is experienced with my whole body.    My brain plays an important role, but the kind of awareness I’m learning extends through my whole presence.   All converging conditions seem to be aligned in a new way and I am able to be intimately aware with all of me.

Now I’m unsure what “all of me” actually includes.    I am  learning how I have this symbiotic relationship with all the life forms living within me, the bacteria and fungi in my gut, on my skin, in my whole body.

The individual cells of my human body, the bacteria at work throughout my body, the living organism on my skin are all engaged in energy and material exchanges that converge to make me function.     I am all these life forms.    My awareness rises from the activity of everything that functions and acts as one form.

I am a convergence of many forms that I once regarded as separate, but now I wonder if we are not all actually one.   This causes me to ask:  do we share the same consciousness?   I have learned that many illusions have shaped the way I have lived my life    Perhaps the illusion of a separate self is one of those illusions.

I further wonder if this experience is unique to humans like me.    I wonder if the bacteria living within me, that are a living part of me, are also part of the consciousness I experience.    Do we “all” share the same awareness?   I really am not sure just where “my” body ends and “they” begin, so would the same ambiguity apply to awareness as well.   Converging causes and conditions have formed everything.   Perhaps a separate self just doesn’t make sense, or at least doesn’t matter.

What about the tree just outside my window and the rocks in my garden.   Are they aware of what it means to be alive as a tree or be immersed in the soil as a patient rock.

I  know that most people would say that a tree or rock could not be aware.    But what a terrible mistake it would be if they were wrong.   What if a tree were aware as a tree, a rock aware as a rock, and a human aware as a human.

As for me, I will continue to talk to the trees as I pass by and the rocks as I move them about.    I’m convinced that in that moment we probably share the experience of what it means to be aware.   We intimately share and merge who we are.

I have long recognized that the concepts we have of a God are a reflection of ourselves.    Most of my notions of a God were fashioned in an imagined images of myself.    This is not especially unusual because so much of the world I create around me is  a reflection of what is present in my imagination.

What my eyes perceive is built on top of a life of experience.  The tree I see is  largely a reflection of what is present in my memory of what a tree is like.  My reference to being able to experience the tree is, regrettably , often a reflection of my self.   Most of the time, the tree is out there, I am in here.

It takes a developed skill to learn to be aware of what a tree in front of actually is.    It takes being able to enter into the tree and becomes intimate with it.   It requires me to put aside notions of self, and forget that there is the other.

If there is no self, then there will be no reflection of self in how I regard the world.   There will be scant reflection of self when  any awakened individual regards the world.    An awakened individual would experience a vastness in which they are intimately present..    There is no self.    There is no personification.

I wonder if this is what individuals like John of the Cross experienced when they felt the dark night of the soul.    He talks of the abandonment.    There was absolute aloneness.     Perhaps, having let go of the notions of self, there was no longer a personification of God.    Without a sense of his own person, he no longer had a notion of the person of a God.

Perhaps he had broken through the mirrored illusion.   There was only emptiness.   Then, the story goes, there was intimacy, bliss, ecstasy.

 

Emptiness comes and goes.    It sometimes falls across the text I am reading on the page of a book, and I fall into the text.  I do not hasten to return.

Sometimes emptiness follows me as I walk down the stairs and overtakes me as I reach the last few steps.  There is no bottom.

My mouth opens to receive food, and my lips close around the unformed void.    There is nothing I would rather savor.

The path in my garden is becoming worn by the vibrant emptiness that accompanies me on my walks.   My plants lean into my moving aura.

The skin of my hands passing through the air has become accustomed to the touch of the emptiness all around me.

There is only emptiness.

In the West, there is a nebulous arena identified as the world of mystics.   Mystics  like John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, Francis of Assisi, and Clare are considered unique, a bit odd and far outside what most of us consider normal human beings.   I think my meditation practice and experience of mindfulness is touching on the outside edges of the world of mystics.

I’m not sure what the experience of others might be, but my own experience is plunging me into a deeper reality that can hardly be explained except by metaphor.   “It is like…..” is about all I seem able to say.    I do think that my experience is not the normal experience of most people around me.    In many ways, I have had to abandon the normal, be ready to experience something altogether different.

New insight is often subtle, but it is a genuine awakening to an untouchable and unseen reality.    I’m not sure I can adequately express it, and I think it must be experienced to be understood.   I have read some of what John of the Cross has written, and he makes sense to me if I remove the personification of God.   It is easy to get lost in the God-metaphors and never get to the reality of the John of the Cross experience.

I appreciate some of the intellectual framework of both western and eastern science.  But the reality is present in the experience.    Science is a wonderful guide, but the insight comes to an open and unformed mind.    The “Aah hah” moment must be directly experienced, not just understood.

For me, it works when I can let go with my intellect and be totally receptive to whatever appears.    My intellect is helpful sometimes in pushing back the illusions that my imagination is so willing to provide.   I often find myself either staring or falling into an immense emptiness.   It is such a wholesome place to be.

I wonder about the ‘dark night of the soul’ that western mystics like John of the Cross experience. I think it may have been an essential step along the way to insight, to awakening.    The total loss of a personal relationship, the total feeling of abandonment by a personal God were perhaps opening the mystic to awareness and essential union.

Once the personification of divinity was abandoned, once the illusion of a personal connection with the divine was surrendered, only then was there peace, bliss, ecstasy .   If John of the Cross were an eastern mystic, he would have called it nirvana.

I have tried to understand what the eastern writers mean by the illusion of the self.    I have begun to embrace some of what it feels like to let go of the sense of self.    The disappearance of the self is perhaps a passage through which I must go.    I wonder if I will see the footprints of western mystics along the way.