Welcome...

Come meander with me on the pathless path of the Heart
in these anecdotal,
sometimes inspiring, sometimes personal meanderings of the Heart's opening in the every-day-ness of life...

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Free Floating Anxiety...


How interesting that July started out with a new “Passion for Life” and is ending up in deep underground pools of free floating anxiety.  I hadn’t realized that these underground pools were still there, waiting to pull me under and nearly drown me.  And it wasn’t the “big event” of the shooting in the movie theatre that triggered it.  No, it was the little things that sent me head long back into contraction… 

The week started off with breaking off a professional relationship with someone when I realized we were not on the same wave length spiritually, nor did we share the same vision - for me. Instead she had her own agenda, and my red flags kicked in to full gear when I realized this was not going to be a beneficial relationship.  It triggered anxiety to intuitively step out and do what was “right” for me.  The old message that it isn’t okay to be “real”/honest/authentic – to say “no” – to pay attention to my intuition and not just follow the path of another – taking on their perspective.  Strangely, stepping out, following my inner Voice, was the trigger for a week long episode of familiar disabling anxiety.

I am aware that this is a deeply engrained, life long, neuronal pathway that is like a constant stimulus in the brain that says, danger, danger, life is dangerous – being who you are is dangerous…  And there is evidently a remembered response of anxiety in the body-mind.  By Tuesday I was beginning to slip away into the pull of its currents.    

“We”, well actually DH decided that it was also time to take our car in for transmission repair the same week that we also had some preventative plumbing issues taken care of…  It was a week of over stimulation, and by Friday I was drowning in the cesspools of anxiety unable to come up for air.  I was paralyzed by what others would consider to be a small series of life events.  I know I was primed for this in childhood.  It has been my modus operandi through life.  But through the mind muck I *was* able to realize that life was really only reflecting back to me the hidden trauma and anxiety that was already there, residing in the underground pools – waiting for me to notice - again. 

It’s interesting to me how some people can go through life barely scathed by life events, not disabled by anxiety, and others, like me, are sensitive to the external stimuli of trying to juggle life... Some are just better jugglers.   Even if I know it is only the mind mechanism at play here – it’s debilitating.  It’s my blind spot, so-to-speak, where I am not fully aware…

It was also interesting to watch how this feeling escalated out of control, even knowing that all I had to do was return my awareness to the ever-present Primal Beingness that holds it all.  It became clear that I was still identified with this anxious, fear mongering mind within – not the Essential Being that we are.  But no amount of meditation, or trying to switch perspectives would allow my mind to ‘let go.’ Believe me, if I could have found the perception switch I would have changed to a different channel!  So I rode the waves, and free floated in the experience of anxiety as treacherous as it felt at times.  And I still feel it creeping up on me, as car issues have not been resolved.  There have been other issues created by messin’ with the transmission that we were not prepared for.  Apparently there is a deeper awareness to be discovered here… No, not about the car.   So I surf the waves once again – free floating – holding on to the life raft of awareness that there is something present here beyond the fear, that is untouched by any life experience.

It is challenging to practice deep acceptance, to keep turning my awareness towards Primordial Presence and remember the Primal Message of life – that there is only Beingness – the vast field of Aware Consciousness - in which all of life occurs – including its anxieties. It is challenging to remember that this Primal Being is at the Heart of every experience of life, no matter how painful.  And to remember that everything that happens in life, and our reaction to it, is to bring us to greater awareness of our True Nature – to wake us up to our True Nature.  Evidently I’m still waking up, expanding awareness *through* the experience of anxiety…

From a non-dual perspective there is *nothing* that can affect this Primal, Essential Beingness that we are.  And yet, the body-mind tells us differently.  Through our beliefs *about* life, and how it should be happening; about how we see our self, or how we believe we should be, and what we identify ourselves with - the mind-identified person - anxiety arises.  Instead, when we identify with the Vastness of Being, it is the life raft that allows us to float on the sea of life… 

Just writing about this has brought perspective again ~ ~ ~ ~ 



Friday, July 27, 2012

Beyond The Yellow Brick Road...



I wasn’t sure I was going to write about the most recent violent tragedy here. I’ve been attempting to find the words all week.  My heart feels a deep compassion for those who *survived* this most recent act of violence; for the ones who are traumatized deep in their psyche, that will carry this wounding for life.  My heart aches for their brokenness.  May their hearts and minds find solace and healing. 

~

We all live in “The Matrix” of a sometimes painful world – a name coined by the title of a famous movie of the same name – a world apparently gone mad.  As many of you know, “we” experienced yet another traumatic, violent event a week ago - one of many violent outbursts from “The Matrix” that continually occurs all over the world everyday.  But when they happen in America, or very close to us, we tend to be shocked – as if we feel we are immune to such happenings.  Then we get focused and fixated on the event – on the drama - and “the evil one” with 24/7 TV coverage.  But what if the “evil one” is a messenger – of sorts?  What if these tragic events are a cosmic wake-up call to come out of “The Matrix”: our dramas, our characters, our illusions and delusions of comfort and entitlement, safety, security and conformity – a call out of our dualistic “spiritual” ignorance.

What if the “evil one” isn’t – well – “evil”? What if he is just like us – experiencing deep pain, confusion, anger, mis-identifying with his character, experiencing mental illness due to the circumstances and events in his own life – and then acted out of that deep pain.  I’m assuming, like me, you have known people who have acted out of deep pain and despair.  Even if they haven’t become delusional and killed anyone, or themselves, they still wreak havoc in other people’s lives – emotionally, and sometimes physically.  But are we not also supposed to try to understand and have compassion for these so-called “dark ones”?  It’s much easier to throw people into black and white categories – and dark dungeons – finding self-righteous dualistic explanations of good and evil for the tragedies that play themselves out in life – like a movie. 

Isn’t it ironic that in a country where the majority *watch* violence, in the movies and on TV, or video games, or read it in books, or even write the books, that we are appalled when it actually happens *to* us.  Just *watching* the violence from a distance allows us to be unaware of the consequences of violence, the trauma that is experienced for the rest of one’s life, whether it be soldiers with PTSD, or the consequences of domestic violence, world terrorism, or domestic terrorism, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse – and every other kind of abuse that man does to man in its ignorance of its own True Nature – our Eternal Beingness -  not to sound too abstract, too esoteric, or too simplistic here.  Isn’t that why some of us are on the “spiritual paths” that we are on – to discover and *know* this Heart of Beingness that we are – some call it Enlightenment.  And isn’t that what ignorance really is – the *not* knowing this Beingness that we really are - which then creates all this havoc and suffering; duality, separateness and drama; the need to separate black and white, good and evil; the need to separate ourselves from life’s darkness, out of fear – as if we could.  I’d like to think that simply living more deeply *aware* of our True Beingness is enough… But maybe that’s a delusion as well…

“Spiritual teachings” say that whatever happens is all part of experience of “The Matrix” we live in – the result of the deeply grooved habituated matrix of the unawakened mind – AND – that it all happens *within* the greater context of Non-Dual Beingness/Consciousness; Beingness seamlessly experiencing ItSelf…  In other words, Beingness/Consciousness experiences and is inseparable from the totality of human experience.  There are not two separate entities called Beingness and human, or “good” and “evil”, or dark and light, opposing each other, independent from Beingness.  It’s hard to accept that the dark and the light are of the same Beingness, especially in times like these.  Almost sounds blasphemous doesn’t it…  We want to separate them out, and say no, that can’t be right!   It should be all light! – all “good” – all “peace.”  This *shouldn’t* be happening.  But it is…  Can’t we *do* something about these people!? (As my mother exclaimed.)

Some spiritual teachings say that the Pure Beingness (Consciousness) that we essentially are allows life to be exactly as it is, experiencing it all, embracing it all with deep compassion and love for humanity’s brokenness and the unfolding of life as it does. We share our humanity – and – a universal compassionate Beingness beyond the sometimes villainous characters we meet on the yellow brick road…  But are we able to see that Beingness from the open, aware, compassionate Heart of Being - no matter how clouded in darkness that may be…



There is only
Grace and Love…


~


“It is time to wake up from the dream of non-duality,
with its clichés like: “there is no me”, or
”there is only Oneness”,
and truly meet each other.
For it is our sons, our daughters, our mothers and fathers
and husbands, and beloved friends that have just dropped dead.
No formulas about reincarnation,
karma, soul journeys and the existence or non-existence
of the afterlife will hold up here…

[It is the] furnace of intimacy – the intimacy
of the broken heart…”






Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Wonders From the Depths of Being...


Bask in the passion of Truth – of Life;
the passionate Truth of Being.
Let yourself deepen into the
Depths
of the
Nameless Ocean of Being,
and become aware
of the
Truth of Being
that you are…

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
July 2012


Wonder of wonders, I may have discovered my reason to get up in the morning. J  It seems it is to *experience* the Adventure of Being – whether one calls it Being, Awareness, Consciousness, Existence, Essential Nature, True Nature, Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness, The Beloved, The Great Msytery, Emptiness, Love, etc.  Any name we give it is merely a description, a characteristic, a quality, an attribute.  But what is this Presence – this Ubiquitous Presence that just IS, that we *feel* as the very basis of our being, of life, of living?  I recently experienced it as the primal passion of Being, the Passion of Being for living ItSelf - here… There’s an Aliveness that wells up, that wants to know ItSelf and be known – intimately - to be acknowledged, experienced, and to be expressed.  Beingness Itself, beyond the mask of “me”, wanting to experience and express ItSelf – as life – as us.  Have you felt it…

I listen to and experience the depths of Being through sitting meditation, through becoming intimately *aware* of Beingness at the depths of Silence, aware of what is Aware of every experience, every thought, every feeling.  Aware of the fluidity, the movement and the tangible depth of Being.  It is Being, expressing ItSelf *as* life.  There is a subtle tingling, a “vibration” of “livingness” going on continuously – unendingly – at the depths of Being… It’s wondrously amazing. The “Emptiness” of Existence is alive and constantly generating Itself in the vibration called life.  There is a deep resonance within the depths of Being – a deep primordial hum of “livingness” – the silent hum of the Universe that vibrates all life into Existence – OM.  It is a deep Aliveness that cannot be interpreted or labeled.  It is not even really “Joy.”  It’s not even “Awareness”.  I can only describe it as a natural, ongoing, all pervasive “Knowingness” – Omniscience – “Omness” (is that a word?) J  But that’s just my experience…  How do you experience the depths of Being – if you care to share…

And in truth, what wants to *be* and just *is* cannot be put into words! Even though we try :) Being has to be experienced – felt – known internally.  It requires complete openness to and immersion in the depths of Being, without agenda - untethered; a willingness to dive deep, to be still, to be aware, to ask to know the Truth of Existence, to listen at the depths of Being and go beyond everything that we *think* we know conceptually - and just know intuitively with the Heart…

Are we willing to *know* with child-like wonder that we *are* the living, breathing Om of the Universe, that we *are* Beingness itself – reverberating through time and timelessness…

Now that’s a reason to get up in the morning! J



Photo
Cloud cover tinted blue
and “radial blurred.”



Sunday, July 15, 2012

Just Breathing...


I am soothed by the sound of my husband’s rhythmic breathing
while I lay next to him at the edge of sleep,
waiting to slip off…

I feel gratitude for this moment,
this breathing,
this man,
his being,
the sheets,
the pillow,
the bed…
the silence,
the awareness,
just Being…

and fall into rhythm with my own breath…

Just breathing…

The silence outside the window late at night
is pungent,
leaving me rapt,
sinking more deeply
into timelessness beyond time,
letting go of thought,
just awareing the night,
being breathed by the Silence of the Unknown…

I hear the sound of the ceiling fan
breathing its own whirling rhythm…
feeling the breeze of its breath
gently move the strands of my hair…

Just breathing…

And I am suddenly gone…
slipped off the edge
into slumber
until
just
before
rising
the
next
morning

Again finding myself
at the space at the edge,
before awakening,
before rising…

Aware of just Being…
Conscious of
the Stillness
before thought

Just Breathing…


Mystic Meandering
© July 15, 2012



Photo
Inside a Sea Shell




Thursday, July 12, 2012

Outside the Box...


Life/Awareness/Existence/Consciousness
*delights* in expressing ItSelf,
delights in ItSelf, in Living ItSelf…

 *How* It expresses ItSelf really doesn’t matter to IT.

 Aware Consciousness has no concept of “non-dual awareness,”
 or “spiritual” language,
 or the concept of “spirituality”,
or religion…
 IT *sees* everything as ItSelf,
 and therefore not separate from ItSelf.

 The idea that Consciousness is “non-dual” does not even occur to IT.
IT just IS…

 It doesn’t *see* dualistically,
but apparently expresses ItSelf dualistically;
a paradox…
 It does not see the self, the me, as a problem to overcome,
 to get rid of, or merge with.
 The whole “me/no-me,” “self/no-self” dualistic concept doesn’t exist to IT.

 I constrained Beingness
 by subtly making those dualistic delineations,
 splitting Existence in two – in the mind – through thought;
 instead of just Being what I already knew myself to be.
 My SELF!
That is -
BEingness being ItSelf…
Consciousness aware of Itself as “me” – as ItSelf -
seamlessly and fluidly one Beingness…

What a relief!
 Such freedom!
 I can just BE!

 Living from the Heart of Being
 and not the framework, the mental scaffolding,
the “spiritual” self-image, the self-construct.

The Aliveness that wants to express here
was muted
 *through* constraining myself
 to the frameworks and scaffoldings of
 *conceptual* ideas,
 interpretations,
and beliefs…
trying to fit myself into a nice neat “spiritual” box,
with an appropriate label for future delivery.


 Evidently life is about
 *experiencing* that Aliveness now,
 aware of the Life that already lives me – “outside the box.”

Our Eternal Beingness experiences ItSelf through
all experiences,
all expressions,
whether happiness or unhappiness,
joy or sorrow,
as experienced through
this “me-mechanism.”

Beingness experiences ItSelf as everything…
and No-thing…
No distinction…

Bliss,
and beyond Bliss…
 

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
July 2011
Revised July 2012



You might also like:



Photo:
This affect is created by
using the “Invert” function
in Adobe Fireworks.
Taking a mediocre photo
and giving it life! -
looking as if lit from within :)



Thursday, July 5, 2012

The Sacred Adventure...


“True adventures start with an inclination to enter the unknown.”

Sarah Ban Breathnach


Life is asking me to redefine “the path,” – again - to deepen into a new adventure – a new way of seeing, being, and living.  I am embarking on what feels like a “Sacred Adventure” – a new step into the unknown, opening to new directions, new perspectives, new attitudes, new awareness. Being open to what is really living this Life called “me” – and – at the same time, allowing myself to just be who I am.  As Ramana Maharshi said to those who were searching for the Truth – “Be as you are…”   I didn’t realize how freeing it was to allow myself to just be myself…  I don’t have to strive to know the Truth, to be “spiritual” or “non-dual” – or “enlightened.”  I can just be who I am – as that is who Beingness IS.  Imagine that! :)  I don’t have to be self-conscious about using words like “I”, “me”, “my” – in pseudo non-dual awareness – because it’s all just Awareness, all Consciousness expressing Itself – no distinction needed.  Imagine that :)  I don’t need to worry about whether I’m coming from the ego-self (“little me self”).  I only need to BE and let BEingness reveal ItSelf, express ItSelf, live ItSelf – through “me.”  


I continue to gradually shed the conceptual frameworks that have defined and informed my life so far – the boxes of life that have tended to constrain this authentic expression of Being; extricating my sense of self from the life dramas as well.  This shift in consciousness may take some time.  But some days it feels like I am waking up to a new adventure of Life in which I am finding an incredible sense of Aliveness, peace, adventure, laughter, lightness and boldness – a new passion for Life living Itself through this mechanism called “me.”   Realizing that Life truly IS a Sacred Adventure of Being…  Hope you come along…



“You’ve got to make a conscious choice every day to shed the old -
whatever ‘the old’ means for you -
old issues
old guilt
old patterns
old responses
old resentments
old rivalries
[old beliefs]


We no longer have the luxury of wallowing
in what’s held us back;
the emotional baggage…
[spiritual labels and definitions]
[misconceptions, mis-identifications]


Both authenticity and adventure require
the willingness to shed what’s safe
and predictable
in order to
embrace
a new
passion,
your authentic life…”


Sarah Ban Breathnach
Something More
Excavating the Authentic Self



And so I have been asking myself: what is it that allows this Beingness that I am to come Alive within?  What is it that allows this Passion of Being to come alive and really live ItSelf here, *through* this vehicle called “me” – and what I have called the “me-mechanism.”?  What allows me to experience this Aliveness that is inherently my Inner Being?  I didn’t *try* to experience it. I can’t explain it.  It is just there!

And how about you?  What inspires you to walk *toward* Life?; to walk into the unknown?; to *live* the  Passion and Aliveness of your Being? 


“…question and quest beyond the distracting entanglements…towards the pure light of understanding.”




Sunday, July 1, 2012

Passion for Life...

I am re-posting this piece of prose poetry from Friday’s post (with a little different ending) because it really sets the tone for July - Passion!  I am feeling an emergence of passion for Life again - something I haven't felt in a long time.  I'm turning a page, leaving old dramas behind, and returning to a passion for living again.   I know it’s full of “I wants” but it's not about this "little self wanting." There is something welling up deep inside that wants to express, to live, to BE.  So just know that those “wants” come from the deepest yearnings of this Heart and a deep passion for what is True…


I want to walk through life
truly *seeing* - truly Aware…
 *Awake* to the Truth of Eternal Being…
Open to Life –
 not with mental judgments, opinions, and interpretations
 of what is happening,
 or what should be happening,
 or what I wish would happen,
  but with receptivity,
 openness,
 acceptance,
 allowing.

I want to See *everything* as Living Beingness;
 every leaf that drops,
 or snowflake that falls,
every being -
 with the same innocent wonder and amazement as I did as a child
as if seeing Life living for the first time…

  I want to be in Love with Life again –
 if I ever was…
  Maybe Loving Life in new ways –

I want to Hear
the laughter
in my
Heart


I want to Experience
everything
with curiosity
and equanimity


I want to Notice…
every thought,
expression,
and feeling
as it arises
without
trying to confine it,
or suppress it
before it is expressed;
or correct others
in their expression.


Save me from the arrogance of
thinking that I know what others need,
or how to “help” or “fix” them;
allowing others to be who they are,
trusting that Life is taking
them where they need to go,
just as It is me…


Let me be free from the entanglements
of the mind
that keep me compliant,
and complicit,
with the world’s ways…


Life is a paradigm of endless pathways,
and I want to risk not following the rules,
the well-worn paths.
Instead - rising above
the familiarity
of “the path”
to see what’s *really* here…

I want to live
in
the simplicity
of
the
ever-unfolding
luminosity
of
Truth.


And may I have the courage
to speak with fierce grace
to those who would try to
quell this passion,
to strip this enthusiasm,
and suffocate this spontaneity
for
the radiance
and
clarity
of



the


Passion


of 


Life




Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
January 1, 2011
revised July 1, 2012