The Great Suffering - A Simple Man

The Great Suffering is one of many perceptions and sensations
felt in the body, and happens simultaneously with the 
awareness of the Beauty around us - in the formless Field of
Awareness.

Everything is overlaid with acquired knowledge, and the
psychological and somatic conditioning.  The immediacy of
our experience becomes veiled, overlaid by unconscious,
reflexive conditioning.  The overlay applies to the totality of
experience and what it feels like to be alive.

The Great Suffering comes about as we learn of the darker
aspects of Nature and humankind.  The aspects of the Great
Suffering are not innate elements.  Nothing originally overlays
our Naked Essence. Can we come to an Experience of Being
that we have known before the constituents of The Great
Suffering clouded our Essence?

Our Essence is the Essential me unshrouded by all that has been
acquired over the course of a life; all that is not native to us.
It is the feeling of Aliveness.  You can feel yourself.  You can
feel the Field of Awareness Itself - which is the Feeling of
yourself...  You have to keep bringing your Attention back to
feeling yourself as the Source, which is prior to the arising of
thought...

Who then am I?

The Formless Aliveness, the Essential self , recognized and
remembered.  

Excerpts from: An Affair of the Heart
by - A Simple Man

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

A Creative Universe - Thomas Berry

Empirical inquiry into the universe reveals that from its
beginnings in the galactic system to its earthly expression
in human consciousness the universe carries within itself
a spiritual as well as physical dimension.  Otherwise human
consciousness emerges out of nowhere.  In reality the human
activates the most profound dimension of the universe itself,
its capacity to reflect on and celebrate itself in conscious
self-awareness.

[we need to]...establish a deeper understanding of the spiritual
dynamics of the universe as revealed through our own empirical
insight into the mysteries of its functioning...

When we create, it is not purely out of ourselves, but out of
a continuation of the creativity of the universe...


Thomas Berry
From: Dream of the Earth

with thanks to Heron Dance

~

Intuition is the mainline to the Universe. It's how the
Universe communicates.  It's the flow of Awareness
that comes from the Universe...

my husband :)

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Rediscovering Myself - Derek Walcott

The time will come
when,with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here.  Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine.  Give Bread.  Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows your heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit.  Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

Original title: Love After Love

~

Photo - me of me :)

 

The Soul's Secret Signature - C.S. Lewis

...Are not all friendships born at the moment when at last you
meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and
uncertain at best) of that something which you were born
desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all
the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and
day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking
for, watching for, listening for? But you'be never had it...

All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have
been but hints of it - tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite
fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear.
But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came
an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself,
you would know it.

Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say:
"Here at last is the thing I was made for."  We cannot tell each
other about it.  It is the secret signature of each soul, the
incommunicable and unappeasable longing, the thing we
desired before we met our wives [husbands] or made our friends
or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our
deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife [husband] or
friend or work.  While we are, this is.  If we lose this, we lose all.

C.S. Lewis
from: The Problem of Pain

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
[the True Friend] -

and say, sit.  Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

With thanks to The Beauty We Love

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Star Burst Crystal

The Play of Perceptions - Nancy Neithercut

"Awakening" is utterly uncaused...

All trying or trying not to try merely perpetuates the illusion
of something to get or some-one to "get it."

There's nothing you can do to "get it."

There is no path, no method, no practice.

"Awakening" is not a belief or understanding.
It is not about getting rid of beliefs.

You cannot erase yourself.

It does not happen in the character [called "self/me"].

It is a shift that occurs in the brain.

The brain imagines things like gods and selves.
We try all kinds of things to join together the separate
pieces to create unity - but all trying merely perpetuates
the illusion that some-one is trying - chasing their tail.

You may have had a glimpse of the feeling that life is
just doing itself [living itself], this edgeless centerless flow,
and you will do anything to try to get it  [the feeling] back.

Yet trying merely perpetuates the illusion.

All of life always occurs by itself.

It is intuited and cannot be captured with words or knowing
in a conventional sense because it is beyond belief,
imagination or understanding - and although there may seem
to be techniques in order that you may feel this, all these
techniques do is give you the idea of it...

This recognition, this deep knowing feeling tone of
seamlessness... embraces the mind with the  most wondrous
sense of awe.

It is an unfathomable, untouchable, un-pinpoint-able edgeless
vast expanse ever emerging never done nor undone,
seamless, fleeting, momentary, without time nor non-time,
neither moving nor non-moving - that has no name or
 non-name, unknowable yet deeply felt.

There is not me, not two, not one.
All we can know is that there is an un-interrupted,
invisible symphony of what we call perception and the
simultaneous recognition of it.  It is known and felt deeply -
the pulsating aliveness vibrantly appearing as anything and
everything.

There is no separate thing called life.  You are simply
Awareness [Beingness] aware, aware through a
symphony of perceptions, the streaming of you, of me,
of we...

[This recognition] is the end of everything you held to be
true about yourself and your world, including the ideas of
truth...

Nancy Neithercut

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

"Everything is a play of perception.
Life is an ongoing exploration of this
dance of perceptions."

Mitch Rosacker
Self Discovery Studio

~

Mandala Art - Mystic Meandering
2013

Which do you see - a crescent moon
or a caricature profile of a baby's face ? :)

Solitude - Fred LaMotte

...fall into the space between thoughts.
This space is Presence.
It is Eternity.
It is the Self.

It is in solitude that love becomes
self-luminous, omnipresent.
Solitude is our "refresh" button.
Solitude refreshes our sanity.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Self-Discovery - Sandy Jones

I discovered there is no reason to try to pull life apart
into 'ego and not ego' or self and not self, or real and
unreal, higher self or lower self.  As if we could
possibly separate Life and all that it is, from itself
and its very own totality of self-knowingness.

No, I found it can't be done.  It's not the way to love
and peace and joy and the unbridled being of who we are.

One day I discovered.....that I am the living awareness of
Something that is infinite and forever.  Life is the Living
Divine Mind being this awareness [that] I am.  It is my
very Self-knowing.  It is me and it is all that Life is.
It is nothing but love and Light and Self-knowing. And
this Awareness does not come from out of me, I do not
possess this Awareness, this living infinity of me, but it
does live as the life and light of all that I am.

We are the Light of the All in all.  Living awareness,
knowing itself as Identity, as you and me.  I am the
Self-Knowing Identity of the Ineffable All That Is.

And yes, I can only speak for me and what I have
found.  But for me, the journey here, in this world of
time and matter, is not about achieving some void of
no-me, to become emptiness or living without a sense of
self.  No, not at all, for me, it has proven itself to be
totally the opposite.

Life led me home, the ups and downs, the painful losses,
the tears of love, the anguish, it all brought me home.
It was the hard teachings led me back to myself, this
childlike innocent beauty and happiness, back to my heart,
to understanding the unbound freedom from fear.

Life is about Self discovery, walking into it all and seeing
the beauty of everything, including our self.  There is no
way to know Life/Presence without you and me, this self
we are, right here in the middle of it all.  I am an aspect of
this All inclusive wholeness, this ineffable Mystery that is
knowing itself to be.

It took me a long time to find this freedom, this fearless
knowing of this eternal light that is being who I am.  It
took a conscious choice to be brave, at first, trusting what
had been revealed to me, leaping in and living it all.
I cannot be otherwise.
I am the wonder of its ever unfolding beauty and grace...

Sandy Jones

The Colors of Change...

I took myself and my head cold out for a photo excursion today
and discovered the brilliant colors of change.

"Life is this simple:

We are living in a world that is transparent
and the Divine is shining through it
all the time."

Thomas Merton

"Through our eyes the universe is perceiving itself.
Through our ears the universe is listening to its harmonies.
We are the witness through which the universe becomes
conscious of its glory, of its magnificence."

Alan Watts

 "Reflections don't affect the mirror.
There is only Existence that is unaffected
by our experience."

Bentinho Massaro 

"When I  run after what I *think* I want,
my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety;
if I sit in my own place of patience,
what I need flows to me
without pain...

From this I understand that what I want
also wants me, is looking for me
and attracting me.

There is a great secret here..."

Rumi

~

Unfortunately the sky was not its brilliant blue

(the top photo was taken last year).

We had cloud cover today because a storm is coming in tonight

with wind and rain,
 which means the leaves will be gone tomorrow.
And normally we don't get the brilliant reds and oranges!
An unusual year...

Primordial Intimacy...

“The key is constantly ‘returning’ your awareness to the awareness of Primordial Consciousness, Primordial Presence, Primordial *Life* before form.  We are constantly challenged to wake up and remember this…”

This came out of a conversation with my husband the other day, in the face of life’s challenges that are currently occurring here on an ongoing basis that I lament about and feel pulling me away from this deeper sense of Awareness.

However, I also know that intentional and conscious awareness of Primordial Silence is the key to “remembering” – for me.  The Primordial Silence of Life calls to me, like and old friend – inviting me, waiting for me to respond, to come and be still – to be aware.  All I need do is consciously turn within and *meet* It - the Primordial Life *in* everything, the Primordial Silence that *is* Life - and feel It, experience It, open up to It.

I’ve been trying to put a *face* to this Primordial Silence that just IS – with names like Spirit, or The Infinite, or The Divine, or God, when in Truth, it is the vast nameless Unknown – and even that is still an attempt to name it, to bring into focus what is simply Divine Simplicity - Awareness that cannot be “person-ified.”

Intimacy with the “Divine” (Primoridal Consciousness) is what we are “made” for – stripping everything else away, all resistances, all ideas and names *about* what that is, or thoughts *about* what it should look like, and allowing the veils that keep us from this Divine Communion of Silence to drop away…  Letting Primordial Silence/Presence permeate every cell – rather - *recognizing* that it permeates every cell – that IT is WHAT we are, and have never been separate from.  This *awareness* of Primordial Silence is the medicine, the elixir of Life – dissolving everything that has allowed us to believe in separateness from this Divine Intimacy that is eternally present in ItSelf – in us.

It is a conscious endeavor to remember that no matter what is going on, there is always Intimacy with Primordial Silence – the Ground of Being, of Existence and all that exists.  I just need to keep re-turning to It: the awareness of Primordial Intimacy with Life ItSelf!

Photo: raindrop on screen
digitally colored

Crossing a Threshold...

I am about to cross a threshold into 63…  The numbers don’t bother me actually.  It’s the little things that are happening in this body and mind…  I’m actually surprised I made it this far!    Someone once told me that age is all in the mind.  But they don’t live in my body. J   That was flawed even before birth – leaving life-long malfunctioning of the mechanism.  We all have our physical issues, right…  And so at 63 I find the body more challenging to live in…  And the mind is losing its words, using wrong words, unable to articulate like I used to – finding blank spaces where words once were. Like in the previous post, I used the word obtuse instead of obscure, and furtive for fertile… I have since corrected them – and hoped you wouldn’t notice J - but still – words sometimes evade me.   Interesting experience.  Life as I’ve known it is winding down.  I’ve felt this for the last decade – this slowing down of the body mechanism.  Resisting it, or denying it, is like trying to hold back the inevitable.  And so I accept, adapt and refocus – well sometimes… J   Most days I’m just stiff, achy and fatigued – and forget who I really am – and I don’t mean my name J - but who I am at the core of Being – Being ItSelf – because I am preoccupied with the body…

63 is feeling more and more like a crossroads of some kind internally, more than any other threshold that I can remember, and even that ability is getting thin.   But it can’t be “business as usual” any longer.  I cannot spend time on what does not enrich and enliven.   And I must dive deep to find it…

There are deep internal rumblings of something wanting to emerge – to be seen, faced, acknowledged, recognized, even birthed…  There is still something here that wants to *Live* to be *enlivened* - a passion for Life - although felt less frequently.  The internal “shadows” seem deeper and longer in this waning time, as if there is still unfinished business – a deep wound that still needs healing… I know it is still the wound of separation.  Although some would tell me that’s all in my mind as well… J

 No matter what “spiritual path” or how much “spiritual practice” I do, or moments of “awakening” and “non-dual awareness” I experience, there is still a deep heartache and longing for “The Beloved” - for “Home”  -  to return to the root of what I’ve been longing for all my life, since childhood –  the Truth of Existence.  It has been my driving force.  No matter how much I read, or intellectually understand that I’m “already there”, and that there’s nothing to search for, nowhere to go, no “returning”, IT has to be realized, IT has to be *known* intimately through direct experience – apparently over and over again. J  The Self is still calling ItSelf back to ItSelf – back to full Awareness…

As long as it is there – this call - I will follow the longing of the Heart, and dive deep into the depths of Being – like the root of the Lotus…   Several years ago I had a “vision” in meditation of the long root of the Lotus going all the way down through the depths of the water to the bottom.  I didn’t understand what I was seeing then, but I see it now as a call into the depths of Being, to follow the root of Being all the way in.    This is my true threshold to cross – no matter how old… 

“Go IN & IN & IN
until you come to the pure Self - luminous,
the place of pure Being.
Return to the root…
Become aware of who is Seeing…
Go back & back to who you really are – Spirit.
The “final door” is going from form to formless -
Beyond the beyond – the eternally Quiet.

You have to go all the way back before you see
that behind all ‘this’ there is all this in its OM,
its unmanifested form -
seeing the OMness of everything…
Live consciously in all of it,
seeing the OMness of it all…”

Ram Dass

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:

Collapse the Scaffolding

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 :)

Who Are You.....Really?

I found this beautifully inspiring video...

It was words I needed to hear,
to Remember…
May they inspire you too…

Video by: Kosi

The voice is Gangaji

What Happened to "window sitting..."

Since my announcement in May that “window sitting” had resumed, there’s not been much window sitting. And I miss it. My husband’s new job requires that we get to bed earlier. We were both night owls before his job started, I would often window sit from mid-night to 1am, after he had gone to bed, when the house is completely quiet. Out of necessity we must follow a different pattern now. But the other night I was unable to sleep, and my restlessness was keeping him up. So I came to the window. It was like coming to an old familiar friend, just to sit and listen, just to be there in silence – at 3:44am…

This late night, early morning, window sitting affords me a quiet respite of awareness, just awareness, just noticing the utter stillness – probably why I like coming to the window in the middle of the night.

I notice that in this wondrous Silence that suffuses everything, thinking subsides, becomes background noise, and Awareness takes over – That in us which is Aware – the essential Self - or however you name ‘This” that IS you.

So what is noticed that this Awareness is awareing? The soft sound of dogs barking in the distance, and maybe the yip of a coyote; the sound of a plane overhead; the smell of night; the physical sensation of sitting at a window – seeing; the headlights of a car on the distant road – and I remark to myself – who is out at 3:45am!?

A car stops at a neighbor’s house across the street, a man gets out and walks to their front door. Awareness watches curiously. The man walks back to his car and drives off. I cannot see, but I assume he delivered a newspaper… The event, simply Silence in a lovely ballet of movement.

Another car passes on the street. I had no idea that so many people were up at this time.

This Silence is so *full.* And I don’t mean full of things or activities – but the Silence embodies Fullness. It is Full of ItSelf, expansive and open. It is untouched by extraneous noises. It suffuses me and makes me *aware* of ItSelf – awareness aware of Awareness… It feels like “home.”

I notice that there are other neighbors up as well, lights blaring bright in their houses – have been all night – night owls like me maybe… Not sitting at their windows necessarily, but I wonder what keeps them up – these fellow insomniacs. Do they know the Silence? Do they know Its touch, Its breath, Its movement? Do they know IT is who they are? Do they even want to know? And does it really matter if they don't?

I don’t want to be so preoccupied with the extraneous structures of living that I don’t continuously, intimately experience this Silence, this Stillness that is the foundation of all being, all life – the awareness of which occurs for me at the window. Some call it impersonal Emptiness, Vastness, a Void. But I feel Its Fullness, Its Aliveness, Its Vibrancy, Its Intimacy, especially at the window when I can really listen, really hear it, really feel it.

I need to find a way to continue to come to the window, to experience the depth of Stillness that resonates here in this Heart… Because I’m not just coming to a window, just an object in Awareness – but to the vortex of Reality ItSelf; the Aliveness of Life – that just happens to be experienced at a window – a symbol of an opening. It’s all happening inside anyway – inside the window of my Heart. It could just as easily be my meditation chair, or in a bath tub. *Knowing* this Reality is the passion that enlivens this being – propels this being through existence – what animates this ‘me’ here and now. I can’t help it. It’s what’s in my Heart. I would actually stay up all night if I could, if this body didn’t need to function during the day…

Is this selfish, wanting to steal away to the window, to bask in this wondrous Silence, to want to *know* It, to experience This Silence that we are – that Aware, Awake, Alive space within that enlivens… I can’t imagine *not* wanting to *know* “This.” Is it selfish to want to hear and enjoy the music of this Divine Symphony and dance – like a mad woman dancing, moving breathing in unison with the Divine…? Is it delusional to not want to sleep-walk through life, only focused on what’s in front of my nose every day – not SEEing the Reality that is living this life with wide awake eyes? I think not…

The Silence draws everything into Its loving embrace, enfolding everything, wanting to be recognized – to be known. Once known, once felt, the personal and worldly concerns are seen in context as part of ever unfolding Life; Life expressing ItSelf, Being ItSelf.

Tree branches begin to sway in Its gentle breeze. Life dances in Its own music. Life sings to Its own Silence.

I hear the first bird waking up. It is 4:24 am. Others soon join in. I am up with the birds! They are so happy to be awake, chirping their melodious songs to each other, calling out their morning calls, waking each other up. Life waking up to ItSelf again, except that It’s been awake all night long! I would not have heard this wondrous morning oblation, this ode to Joy, if I hadn’t been awake at the window.

~ ♥ ~


There is a wondrous video posted over on 'this unlit light'

The Space of Grace Window...

Sinking into stillness comes easier now
as I feel the closeness of Beloved Awareness ~
waiting…

The rhythm of Awareness is like a lullaby,
holding me in the splendor of Grace…

Awareness awareing me ~
me awarening Awareness…
The River of Awareness flowing as One…

Not two ~ just Awareness,
awareing ItSelf sitting at the window…
An embrace of One…

Awareness, The Beloved, is right here,
right now,
always;
as close as the breath.

The pure open space of Grace
allows everything, welcomes everything;
Awareness ItSelf inviting ITself to Be…

The purity of this
vast space
is clean and clear,
drawing me in;
inviting me to surrender;
to
dive
into
the
depths
of
wide-awake
Awareness

Pure Grace…


~*~

Mystic Meandering
copyright
May 2011

Sensing Being

Monday I found myself at different times of the day being aware of Being – internally – the inner fluid flow of Being (Buddha Nature, Self, Awareness, Spaciousness, Stillness). It was as if I was being pulled inward, as I was *doing* things – like preparing a meal, doing the dishes, working outside. I would feel this inward turning to inner stillness. I have experienced this before – this turning of awareness inward and feeling this still Presence in the middle of “doing” – not just in the stillness of meditating.

As I sat reading that evening, I couldn’t focus on the words, so I put the book down and just allowed Awareness to take me where it wanted to go – seeing life through my eyes. As I looked around the room, and the things in the room, I realized that “things” aren’t just “things” in this field of Awareness. I experienced that *everything* is Being taking form. “Awakening” is the *seeing* of this; seeing the still, alive fluidness of Being in and as everything – even the inanimate car across the street! :) And - “Awakening” is seeing what is seeing; that innate awareness that sees, knows and revels in the seeing of it all. Consciousness revealing ItSelf to ItSelf.

I also sensed that this Being that we are is inherently *aware* – aware of Itself *as* “things”, as “us.” Only it sees no distinction as things, us, etc. It sees only ItSelf. As I saw that, I also experienced that everything has awareness - is Awareness. It’s in the molecules. It’s the stuff of space – of life. Everything sings with innate aliveness. I’ve known this all along, but it seems to be waking up again. “I” seem to keep falling back into the trance of separation – of not seeing – but Self keeps calling me back to ItSelf – if I’m listening. And apparently even when I’m not particularly listening It calls to me…

And so this has been my practice this week: this sensing of Being, this recognition of inner Being, inner Awareness, as well as awareness of Being in the surrounding environment, and in the ordinary “doings” of life. Awareness awaring ItSelf…

I have also found this week, so far, that it is relatively “easy” to experience this sense of inner Being inwardly, relatively “easy” to *see* it in Nature, the environment, but where I seem to get hung up is *seeing* Being *in* people. I have noticed on several occasions that there *seems* to be a veil there between us human beings that *seems* to obscure the view, unless one is *really* looking – really *seeing.* I have tried to *sense* Being in the people I have met this week, but usually all I see is the “trance of separation” in their eyes… I know that people see that veil here too at times – hopefully not all the time. It’s a veil that we hide behind, that keeps “us" from deeply recognizing Being in ourselves and one another. It’s the wound of separation. It’s hard seeing through this veil at times, into what’s *really* there – the inner space of Beingness behind the trance. No wonder “peace” is so illusive… We’re not really *seeing* through the veil into Being – into the Spaciousness that we all are…

Thursday morning at the hair shop, while waiting my turn, I watched the people to see what I could see. There was a lot of chatter but no connection - no sensing of Being. Everyone was going through the motions of pretend connection – without the *awareness* of inner Being. And then one woman brought her white-haired elderly mother in for a hair-do. The woman left to do an errand, while her mother waited, and returned before it was my turn. She was flipping through a hair fashion magazine, showing me the pictures, humorously commenting on these rather unrealistic, extreme hair fashions that only models can wear – not women in their 60’s. In her eyes I sensed a sparkle of light, not the dull veneer of trance…

After my haircut she was still seated in a chair by the door. As I stood up she kindly commented on my new “do.” I paid the hairdresser and turned to walk out the door. As I did, I felt the fleetingness of the moment and wanted to say something to her, so I paused, bent down, and said: “Bye – nice to meet you.” She looked at me with a sparkle of surprise in her eyes, smiled and said: “Nice to meet you too!” Seeing beyond the veil opened another crack in my Heart. Yes, Virginia – there is a radiant Being in there - in everyone. You can sense it, feel it and see it - beyond the veil… Look deeply…

~*~

istock photo

Reflections on the Movement of Consciousness

In times of stillness I can often internally feel myself “step back” into the larger inner Stillness, or Silence,” in a *conscious* movement of awareness going inward, settling in. I become aware of Awareness Itself – the vast, alive Field of Awareness within – or Beingness – or Buddha Nature… It is an experience of fullness – not a dead zone. The other morning I experienced it as a wave receding back into the Ocean – as if “I” was just gently rolling back into the vast depths of the Ocean: the wave receding back into Itself essentially – or curling back on itself… It’s like the wave of “self” falling back into Self – never separate entities in the first place – only a *movement* of the Ocean of Self/Awareness/Stillness/Consciousness – rising up to meet life and then receding back into pure Essence. You could say it’s a movement of Self-Awareness; Awareness becoming aware of ItSelf – over and over again…

In “meditation,” which for me is a deep communing with this vast Oceanic “Stillness” – the Aware Awake Presence of Being - there is the awareness of the movement of receding into the depths of Stillness; not as a separate “self/me” receding into anything – but as the Ocean Itself receding back into Itself, folding back on Itself - recognizing ItSelf. It seems the waves of the Ocean are a *natural movement of the Ocean.* What we call the “me” or the “self” is really just the wave of the Ocean rising and falling within Itself… Consciousness rising and falling within Itself. Except that *as* the “me” Being seems to have forgotten that, only focusing on Itself as the “me”-wave…

To say that there is no “me to step back” – as some do - is only partially true – in my experience. There is no *separate* “entity” of a “me” *from* the Ocean itself . The “me” is actually a movement *within* the Ocean that creates a wave of Itself that rises from (not out of) the Ocean to dance, to experience, to play with the wind and the shore - with life. So to focus attention on whether there is a “me” that exists or not is to become focused on only a small part of the movement of Consciousness, and not recognize that the underlying movement *is* Consciousness Itself – the Ocean-Self. There is no distinction. It’s just the rising and falling of the Self *as* Its “self” (as its wave-self.) Or, said differently – Being gives rise to the “self” to interface with life.

To espouse that the “me” is only an appearance *in* Awareness *assumes* the appearance of the object is somehow different from the field of Awareness that it’s supposedly appearing in. This just creates more separation. So to state that there is nothing but appearances is just word games. There is nothing but the movement of Consciousness *in and as* all appearances! The wave is the Ocean as well as the wave… It’s all Itself…

To say that everything is “just an appearance”, or that nothing exists except appearances, doesn’t mean that the “appearances” aren’t *real*, which seems to be implied in this kind of supposedly non-dual lingo. They (the appearances) are all the *substance* of Awareness/Consciousness being Itself… It doesn’t mean those things don’t exist, and should not be dismissed as not being real. It’s just *seeing* that the form is *really* the manifest Stillness, Emptiness dancing – the field of Awareness *appearing as form * - not *separate* from form. Emptiness is form and form Emptiness.

A “person” is a wave of the Self – living, moving, as the “me.” When it is said that there is no person, that there is nothing but appearances, that creates distinctions in Awareness. It’s the mind still trying to explain Reality by breaking it into pieces of this and not this – creating separation that isn’t there in the first place.

To say that there is no “me” is to say there is no wave – but there is. To say “we” do not exist, that there is no “me” is like Being denying the Existence of Itself. And I don’t think that’s what Existence had in “mind.” :) Don’t ask me how I *know* this, I just meditated and this is the wave of awareness that arose…

So all the wranglings with words in a lot of the contemporary (non-Buddhist) “non-dual” blogs seems like a lot of mumbo-jumbo to me. It sounds impressive to those who are “seeking” – but it’s just a play of words. I like the direct experience myself… Or, is it that Being likes the direct experience of Itself appearing in form… :) So “I” just “step back” into the Stillness of Awareness and *experience* It: the movement of Consciousness… Consciousness experiencing Consciousness; the Self seeing ItSelf; Awareness aware of ItSelf - awareing… :)

~*~

istock photo

Life as it is...

Come bathe in the pool of Pure Awareness everyday.

No seeking, no questioning, no agenda.

Just lay back into the Vastness of Beingness that just IS.

Feel the Spaciousness holding you, breathing you, living you…

Relax into this Vastness that holds

all experience of all that is, all that you *think* you know…

Just let it all be held here,

suspended in Knowing Awake Awareness.

Be still here and listen…

What are you aware of?

Awareness aware of itSelf, as you~

as your experience…

Allow yourself to *be* Awareness itSelf…

What do you see?

What to you experience?

Just ‘This’

Life as it presently IS,

being lived…

being experienced…

just Life living itSelf…

With awareness…

With acceptance…

With compassion…

~*~

Christine

May 21, 2010

Photo - christine