Barry Garden Path

I know it is my cultural background that I have such an association with sleaziness whenever someone speaks of an “affair.”   Having lived in a Catholic environment simply reinforced what society was already impressing on me and my attitudes.  Just last evening, as I was reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s writing, she used the word “affair” and I noticed that it drew out all the sticky, messy feeling that the word still haves for me.

I actually think that an affair can be a wholesome experience, genuine and responsible.   The notion of an affair has gotten a bad rap because the culture has put such an emphasis on restricting love and sex to marriage, to an unending commitment to be a couple.   I’ve come to think that this is not only an error, but it is even harmful.   Thay and I don’t agree on this.  In fact, my own feelings don’t seem to agree with my mind.

I think that affairs can be an opportunity for unconditional love.   This is not the love associated with the feeling of “being in love.”   Unconditional love is freely given, expects nothing in return, is transparent.   It is based on an awareness that comes from mutual openness.   An affair based on unconditional love is not grasping, is not possessive, is not dependent on the security of promises.

Love of this nature does not come easily.   It is something I may be learning how to practice for a long time yet.    Something I have noticed its that genuine love does not end.    It does not go away, even though an affair may end.   Love is an openness that simply persists and will endure  even when a relationship ceases, no matter what form that relationship has taken.

Our culture may have many good reasons for trying to institutionalize love and make people expect a loving relationship to last forever.    I think that is not normal, even if it is possible for some.   I think setting up the expectation and illusion of a permanent relationship promises a false security that undermines love.   Disappointment is inevitable.

So while I acknowledge that few affairs might be ideal, I think an affair is an opportunity to learn to be totally in the moment.   It is an opportunity to tap into the energy of desire without grasping.   It is an opportunity to be totally focused on the individual present without expectations of return.   Experienced this way, affairs can be timeless.

I’ve decided to create my own monastery.   There will be two resident guests, Sorin and Nathan.   But I will be the abbot, novice, cook, gardener and choir.   I will welcome visitors, even visitors who might want to stay a short while.   Except for my resident sons, I intend my life to be a solitary one.

I once lived the life of a monk,  for about twelve years a long time ago.  In a practical sense, it was a monastery without walls because we all came and went, our lives intermingled with the outside.   The monastery was a place of refuge, reflection, rule and community.    I’ve since lived outside any kind of monastery and have no intention of going to a community of monks.   However, I want some other aspects of monastery life.

In my mind I have already drawn the perimeter of my newly-founded monastery.    It extends to the margins of my home and as far as my flowers grow and bloom.   In a reverse of monastery tradition, the garden surrounds the dwelling, and not vice versa.

I will live by the Rule of Barry.   No one else will determine how I think or live.   In time, I expect to color outside the lines of my own Rule.   My life will truly be a time of reflection and gardening, and those will be subject to change.   It will be a time of exploration, so the Rule will have many open and fuzzy edges.

Yes, there  will be candles and incense.   The food will be wholesome.   Some clothes will be soft and hooded.  I intend to turn my mind inward, independent of my imagination so that I may see outward in a more discerning manner.

The senses will play an important role.   My monastery will be a place of sensory delight.   I will enliven sensory experience by creating new brain pathways, allowing my mind to become aware of sensory experience in a deeper, more realistic way.   This is different from being immersed in the realm of the senses.   It is giving intense attention to what my senses encounter.   I intend to be aware of the real world that lies beyond my senses.

So what of the traditional aspects of a monastery:  Poverty, Chastity and Obedience?   I am already reducing my dependence and attention to material things.    While not austere, I want my life to be simple.   Chastity will be lived not in abstinence, but in being sexual only with someone with whom I share love and awareness.   I will be obedient only to my inner vision and its voice, and not follow directives from others.

I intend my monastery to be a place of simple beauty, wholesome love and free of external constraints and expectations.   It will be a garden of compassion and a fountain of loving kindness.    I hope many will visit and share it.

 

 

I feel the urging of culture to put my life in order, to over-ride the reality of randomness and probability of it all.   There is no certainty about me or any of us, but my fellow citizens want the comfort of order, the comfort of knowing where I fit in.    It is upsetting for most of them if I attempt to blur the lines, to change the hard outlines into dashed lines.

My culture is constantly asking me “Are you married, divorced or single?” (“Are you spoken for, do you belong to someone, are you available”)   My culture wants to know “Are you christian, jew or muslim?” ( “or are you one of those crazy other groups?”).

Surveys constantly ask me “Are you male or female?”  (“Make a choice, there’s no opting out?”)   I have to routinely answer “Are you white, black or hispanic?” (“So which caste do you belong to?  How much respect do you deserve and get?”)

Many routine forms want me share “What is your level of income?”  (“Are you with privilege or without privilege?”)    I am asked to reveal “Which age group do you belong to?”  ( “Are you young and vital or old and of little use?”)

All my life I have resisted my culture wanting to know where I fit.   Maybe it is simply to keep things in order, maybe it is to comfort those who are nervous around uncertainty.   I’m not immune to it all.

I am aware how I put all my screws, electrical plugs and many pieces of hardware in identical containers with labeled categories on accessible shelves.   I know where each of these tiny items fits in my workroom.   I get a measurable amount of comfort from that.    I can more easily navigate the workroom and, in spite of the other chaos, find most of the things I am looking for.

I think my culture wants a similar level of comfort by imposing order on each of us, of wanting to know how I fit in.   I’ve begun resisting this pressure in a small way by not checking the appropriate boxes.   I no longer claim my right to privilege by declaring I am “white.” (“I’m, thank God, not one of those other groups.”)

My claimed religion has been easy since I think most religions no longer offer me inspiration or refuge.   “None” or “other” is an honest and accurate declaration.   I never have liked the defined institution of marriage, so I think single (unconnected) best identifies my singularity and individuality.

I am going to be checking a box for an income not my own.    I’ve kind of liked being “male”, but since I really am somewhat androgynous in gender, I’ll probably check both options.   For my age, I think it should be more than a calendar reference to how many years this body has been alive, and capable of use.   A measure of mental age may be more appropriate, in my case much younger, and very much of use.

I know I’m not helping those who want to be comfortable and know how I fit in.   But I don’t like their sense of order, and if they want to know about me they will have to come up with better forms.

When I say joy of touch, I really mean to include the pleasure of touch.   I think the two are meant to be joined together, although I suppose it is possible to have one without the other.

I am aware how pleasurable it is to wrap my fleece cloak around me when I first sit on my pillows.   I instantly become aware of how soft and warm the fleece feels as soon as my body touches it.   The awareness is instant joy.    Not a delayed reaction; it is a thunder bolt of deep joy.    I am intensely in that spot in space and in that moment of time.

I have learned what that feels like, and the more frequently I feel it the more easily it arises.   It is an experience I bring into the simple things throughout the day.   My hands touch the coolness of the hard smooth granite in my bathroom.   A shock of joy.   My feet touch the sidewalk as I step from the bus.   Joy!    My teeth crunch down on my fiber cereal.   Sheer joy.

I have begun to rewire my sense of touch.    It is gradual and slow, but effective.   I think there must have been a time that I had nearly ‘lost touch’ with my sense of touch.   I was hardly at all attentive what my sense of touch was communicating, or trying to communicate.  Once I started to pay attention, I found that my touch had a lot to tell me about the world, including my own body.

My hands now can slowly move through the air, and I can feel the coolness and the pressure of the air as I press up against it.    I put food in my mouth, and I feel it crunch between my teeth.    I feel the bark of my maple tree and I am aware of the tree thanks to my touch of touch.

There are times that I can feel my hands entering space, pushing aside all the unseen fabric I once thought as a void.   My upturned hands experience the passage of many fields and the pressure of the atmosphere pressing down upon my hands.   At this point, I’m not sure if this sensation is the effect of my imagination or my changing senses.   I do know I want to have a sense experience of realities I know are there.   My sense of touch is my chosen connection.

Touching other people is a source of great joy, now that I am learning how to pay attention to touch.   The pleasure of touching soft, warm skin is only part of it.   The awareness of the touch is what brings such joy.   A casual touch, an extended handshake, a lingering hug.   They are all touches that create awareness and bring me joy.

Any of these physical contacts in the past could have been a simple touch sensation with minimal experience of joy.   Now they are so much more expressive for me and bring such deep joy.   I think that my mind has reclaimed my sense of touch for me.   Sheer pleasure, sheer delight!

 

 

Unending love is the truth.   Unending relationship is the fable.

After living in this world for the major part of a century as a human, I am coming to the conclusion that while human relations are finite, love is infinite.    I am convinced of this for many reasons, some of which are from experience and some are more theoretical constructs of my mind.

If someone tells me they will love me forever, I’m inclined to accept that as something I can rely on.    If someone tells me that they will stay in a relationship with me for the rest of their life, I think they might as well be asking me to buy an unseen swamp in Florida.

I’ve been examining the years of my life, and I have discovered something interesting.    There is no one whom I have loved, including those classmates that I loved just a little bit, that I no longer love.   All those individuals with whom I had some kind of loving relationship are still intimately connected to my heart.   Even the ones involved in tumultuous break-ups.   The relationship may have weathered away or blown up, but the core of love remains.

This is quite surprising, and even a little unsettling.   It has given me an intense feeling of uncharted openness and unexpected peace.   It has allowed me to reside in those lingering aspects of the loving connections I once made.   I feel I can open those old filing boxes without fear, remorse or danger.   There is no inclination at all to attempt to reopen any fragments of a relationship that might remain.   That would be an illusion, a fantasy.   I am content to know that the love endures.

This observation has many ramifications.   It has given me a new way of hearing the bleating “I went back to her because I loved her.”   “I stayed with him because I loved him.”   “We got married because we love one another.”  I now think those kind of decisions are based on a confusion between love and good judgment.   A decision to leave or not go back does not mean that the love does not endure.   It is a judgement that it is time to move on.

My eyes are opened more about the implications, or not, of opening my heart to love individuals.    I know that if I make that decision, the love will persist and endure;  any relationship, by its nature, won’t.   The love is infinite and without end.   The relationship is a random expression of  probability, captured in a moment, certain to change, and by its nature finite and with end.

Love is a natural aspect of being.  The priority has become obvious.

“Relationship” is such a tricky word.    I think it takes on unique shades of meaning every time it is used.   I have many relationships, and each one of them has its own identity.   This has been incredibly confusing and even disruptive when I’ve talked with someone about a possible relationship.   There hardly ever is time or opportunity for a definition of terms.  I try not to use the word.

In our culture, the default meaning of a relationship is a “couple”.  The presumption is that people in a relationship have agreed on some kind of joining and see themselves, even vaguely, as a couple with all kinds of implied expectations.   There may even be unspoken rules.    For me, that meaning is so far off the mark that it is alarming.    Actually, I’m rather critical of that presumption.

Often, the notion of sexual connection elbows its way into the meaning given to a relationship.    For me, that has not typically been part of a relationship, even close one.     Sometimes my relationships have been sexual, and sometimes there has been no sexual engagement.    That has depended on the terms of the specific relationship.

Just by being seen as a kind of coupling, a relationship is frequently mistakenly seen as being protected by a wall of definition and exclusivity. The emotional energy of individuals in a relationship is expected to stay inside the relationship and  be directed at one another.   I see this as neither helpful or healthy.

Of course, by implication people in a relationship are expected to be immersed in love with one another, and no one else.   This is a pretty narrow view of life and I think ultimately undermines the real love between those in a relationship.

I see myself in many relationships.    I think every one of them is a loving relationship, but in many different ways.   If I am in relationship, I am in love almost by definition.   I once thought that meant one individual at a time, but I abandoned that idea.   I’ve allowed myself to have an open heart, and feel I’ve become a much more loving person in all my relationships.  That includes the emotional energy that tags along.

I regret that “relationship” has taken on such a narrow meaning, but I really haven’t come up with a better word.   The closest I have come is “companionship.”   I am connected with my companions in so many different ways, none of them as a couple or as exclusive.  Yet I love all my companions, in evolving ways.    I try not to have assumptions.  Hopefully we talk enough to devel0pe a common but changing understanding of what that means.

I am convinced that I am changing the wiring of my brain.   The more I experience mindfulness, the easier it becomes.    I think I am making new pathways in the neurons of my brain.    This is allowing me to see and experience the world differently.

When I was born, my wiring was rather simple, and I learned how to see the world through experience.   As time went on, pathways in the neurons were established, and my sense of time and space were developed.   My sensory data was stored in a pattern that came from experience, over and over again.   My wiring got more extensive and complex, as well as fixed.

By engaging in mindfulness,  I am taking charge of the operations of my mind.   I am living less and less in those stored images that make up my fantasy world.   These are the familiar brain patterns that are suppose to help me make sense of the world.   Some of that is changing.  The illusions around me have less and less significance, as I am able to look through them at the reality lurking behind the illusions my brain has created.    I look less and less at the sensory images as reality.

But first I have to reclaim control over my sensory images, pay careful attention to them as I  back away.    I need to develop an awareness that allows me to step back and watch my senses, not live in my senses.   What I see and touch is not reality but an image of reality ,  developed and refined over years of practice.   I am putting my mind back in charge, which is what happens in mindfulness or meditation.   But first I have to watch my senses and pay attention to them, which is different from living in them.

All this new experience is rewiring my brain, laying out new pathways among all those neurons.  I am beginning to know a little of what it is like to develop this new habit of mindfulness.   My new wiring is taking over more and more.    I clearly am seeing people and things in a new way, and it comes easier with time and practice.

It is my deepest desire to stir in all my world a sense of its own loveliness.    I’ve learned that it is my particularly human ability that I am able to bestow love on all reality and remind everything I meet that it is lovely and loved.   While I may be in the role of lover, I am in the same moment the messenger that all things are worthy of love.  It is an unconditional love that simply recognizes the loveliness of all things.

First I have had to learn to recognize and accept my own loveliness.   I am grateful for all those who have convinced me and helped me become aware of an inheritance that is all mine.   My life has been filled with people who told me of my loveliness until I am now convinced that it is true and appropriate.  I am so much less inclined to grasp for the recognition I so ardently sought.   I do not falsely feel unworthy.

I am now more inclined to accept my innate loveliness, indulge in it, be aware of it in a relaxed manner.   I smile at myself more, allow mistakes, expect  only that I be me and take joy in that.   I am more able to awaken a sense of their loveliness in my companions, and most people I meet.   I can gaze at them with awareness and a smile that stirs a little of the feeling of what it means to be a lovely human.

I am able to walk through my garden or my woods and convince my plants that they are lovely.   I will soon tell my garden flowers daily how lovely they are.   I will touch them and lovingly feel the firmness of their stems, the softness of their leaves, the yielding fragility of their blooms.   I will remind them daily how lovely they are just by being flowers.

I want to take the message and affirmation of loveliness to all my friends and companions.   They are lovely, they are lovable.   It is a gift I give by loving them, by giving them my full attention, my full presence.    By immersing myself in their loveliness, I too am the beneficiary.   I indulge in their loveliness and feel the joy.

I am developing a revised notion of what it means for someone to been of  my beloveds.   Thanks to Elizabeth Gilbert, I am beginning to make a helpful distinction between present and absent, real and imagined, them and me. I’m slowly shredding the mythology my culture has taught me about relationships, coupling and marriage.

By my own experience, and the guidance of Gilbert, I’m realizing what an unfocused distraction a beloved can be when they are absent.  I conjure up images, I have unspoken conversations, experience imagined interactions.   None of it is real, but my body and feelings respond as though the fantasy is actually happening and I am part of it.   My mind and emotions are held captive, all by an imagined exchange.  I am so distracted I miss out on what I am actually doing.   This is not a good or helpful thing to do.

I would rather learn to be wholly present and attentive when I am with a beloved.   I want to apply this to anyone whom I love.    When they are present, I want them to be totally in my mind.   When they are not present, I want them to be out of my mind.    I don’t want a fantasy to be the source of my delight or my agony.

I do not want to give any of my beloveds the power to direct my attention and energy when they are absent.    I want my beloveds to become a focus of my attention when they are here.    This is a gift I want for myself.    It is a gift I offer to anyone I love.

Sometimes, like today, it is unsettling to realize how dependent I am on my body.   In a very real way, my body is who I am.  It seems to be my only connection to my world. At the same time I have an awareness that seems to be able to watch my body, maybe not even be co-extensive with my body.    Yet they seem inseparably joined as one.

My body has been my gateway to mindfulness.   My body is where awareness begins.   That beginning could be a touch felt, a glance seen, a sound heard.   By being attentive to what my body senses, I am able to quiet my mind and find that joyful ease that rises from a quiet, attentive mind / body.   Mind and body mirror one another.    My presence is changed when they work together in this way.

I sometimes think of how I will be affected if my body becomes so impaired that it no longer supports an alert mind.   I think of a time when the neurons in my brain no longer function as they currently do.   Will I some day slip into the fog of dementia or alzheimers?   I wonder if I will have an awareness that persists in spite of my impaired body.

Being dependent on this body of mine has been a grand adventure so far.   I want to continue that adventure as long as I can.  I want to keep alive in me that spark of life that has been passed down to me from the first living cell.   It is a spark on which so much seems to depend.