"Everything Is Deeply Okay..."

I awoke this morning to a 2 inch dusting of snow and joy in my heart. I ran outside to quickly snap these photos (the first two have been color inverted digitally). However, I was not joyful because of the snow and crisp winter morning air, but because I fell asleep and awoke finding myself repeating the phrase – “Everything is deeply okay” – and knew it in my bones.  I *felt* it deep in my Heart of Hearts that no matter how life *appears* on the surface, everything *is* deeply okay.  On a much larger level than just our little existence here, it is Cosmically okay, when seen from the Cosmic view of Reality.  How I *know* this, I don’t really know, except that I read it in Jeff Foster’s book – The Deepest Acceptance last year. J LOL… (which I wrote about here.)  Seriously - that’s not really why either, although it planted a seed.  We can’t just read it in a book.  It has to become a *felt experience* with life…  And it is, gradually becoming my *experience* – a way of *seeing* – little by little, day by day – well some days that is – yesterday the view was not so "cosmic." J

Despite the intensities of life and living, and believe me there are many at the moment, there is a lightness of Heart breaking through the fog here, a letting go of the personal drama orientation to life – hopefully - at least for today J  Mostly there is more awareness that it is the mind, my thoughts *about* what is happening, that creates my mental suffering, the *thinking* that there is something “wrong” with the way life is playing itself out here, that life should be different than it is, and that I need to *do* something to make it fit my idea of what it needs to be. Like digitally enhancing a photo. :)  Instead there appears to be a collapse occurring.  Those mental structures, beliefs, and concepts that life must fit my image of what I *believe* it should be are collapsing, to a degree.   And, a realization yesterday that I am still trying to hold onto those beliefs about life that keep me tied to those mental structures and ego constructs that filter my perceptions of the way things really are, and *its* deep “okayness.”    

Shall we Dance :)

~*~

“*You* don’t have to be okay with anything.  It’s not about the me-person being okay.  It’s that everything is *already* embraced by *Life* ItSelf.  It is a cosmic okayness that goes beyond ‘I’m okay’, and ‘I’m not okay.’  We are totally free to respond to life experience in authentic, honest, human ways.  We are free not to like our experiences, and - on a deeper level to experience a total, all-encompassing okayness with the entire situation.  Underneath everything is a cosmic okayness.  It’s not about telling yourself that you’re okay when you are not.  It’s not about pretending to be okay, trying to be spiritual, trying to be peaceful.  You don’t have to be anything other than you are in the moment.  It’s about radical honesty.  It’s about seeing reality as it is, acknowledging it, and discovering that the situation is fully admitted into Life – already.  There is simply Life, in all its mystery, wonder, and timeless simplicity.  And in this recognition the illusion of separation between us and Life falls away, and we are no longer at odds with life as it is.”

Jeff Foster
From: The Deepest Acceptance

~*~

“The treasure of deep Being is buried under the rubble of personality…”

Coleman Barks
The Soul of Rumi

~*~

The first two photos are color inverted.
It makes them look more magical :)

How We See Reality...

I am posting this beautiful piece from the Moon Mountain Sangha Newsletter on how we see reality by Spiritual Director Dorothy Hunt.  It is something I have been contemplating lately…

Moon Mountain Sangha Newsletter 
Volume 71, October 2013

Using the mind to look for reality is delusion.
Not using the mind to look for reality is Awareness.

--Bodhidharma
from The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma, transl. Red Pine

"The mind of separation imagines it sees reality when, in fact, it is only seeing through its own conditioned filters, the “virtual” reality its mental constructs, interpretations and judgments create.  Look at anything in the room you are sitting in right now.  Look at it using your mind.  It will tell you the name, color, shape, whether it is pleasing or not pleasing to your conditioning, whether the moment seems boring or interesting.  The mind will deliver its opinions, and probably quickly move attention on to other thoughts that tell you how you really should clean your desk, or answer another e-mail, or have a cup of coffee.

Now look at the same thing “not” using the mind.  What is the experience?  For one thing, when the mind stops moving, stops telling itself what it sees, stops reacting--even for a moment--we become deeply present.  We see from a different dimension. When we are simply aware, it does not mean we lose our ability to remember names, shapes, and colors.  It means that we are seeing from the dimension of our being that is undivided, that does not place a “self” between the seeing and the seen. We become aware that the name is not the thing, and neither are our beliefs about it. The moment becomes more vivid and “alive,” more mysterious, and our experience more intimate.  Awareness itself is free of self and free of division. It does not “think,” yet is the light that illumines thought.

Look at the reality of “you,” who you take yourself to be.  Using conditioned mind to look, you will find many ideas and images of a self, a self you like or do not like, a self that is always the focus and center of your attention. There are many things about this self and the world it sees that your mind judges, resists, denies or attaches to.  Awareness, our own awake essence, sheds light on conditioned consciousness, sees it for what it is, but it sees without judgment, without separation, and without a need to escape a single moment or a single experience.  The reality it sees is simply an expression of its infinite ways of Being.  There is a seeing that is timeless and indefinable.  And in this clear seeing, there is freedom to respond to any moment from Openness.

Conditioned consciousness is not our enemy.   It just does not happen to define us. Conditioned mind has been programmed to think, feel, and behave in particular ways, some of which have been very useful in surviving and thriving, some of which bring great suffering. Conditioned mind cannot be avoided, as we are born conditioned humans in a conditioned world.  However, conditioned mind cannot free itself from itself.  

At some point, if we are looking for reality, for the freedom of our true nature, the egoic mind that thinks “it” will be the liberator, has to realize the futility of its own struggle.  We have to open to a power, a seeing, an awakeness, a compassion, a love, a grace beyond what the mind can produce or even fathom.  Whether we call this the grace of Truth, Awareness, or the Divine, it seems to appear when we have surrendered our demands on reality, our intellect’s insistence on its views, and have opened to the Unknown. In those moments, we may discover that we are the abiding reality we have sought, and that our mind is simply a phenomenon."

© Dorothy Hunt, 2013

Photo: Raindrops on screen,

 digitally colored

Rainy Day Walk

Yesterday morning I woke up – content… Surprised me actually. I almost never wake up feeling content with life, or life situations. The mind was evidently still asleep, which was fine by me! PLUS - :) it was raining for the second day in a row. That always brings contentment and a sense of aliveness to this being… We’ve been in extreme drought conditions here, the worst in years, so I was particularly enlivened to see rain for two whole days! I wanted to be out in it!

I grabbed the hooded winter parka and camera and drove about 10 mins to my usual walking place, that I haven’t been to yet this Spring, delighting in being out in the pouring rain, snapping pictures. And then I realized the camera was getting wet, and that I was out on the path all alone. The mind woke up: What if I’ve ruined the camera! I’d better be more vigilant about my surroundings. Check for keys and cell phone in pocket. I kept walking, occasionally looking over my shoulder – snapping photos for almost an hour. A lone jogger passed by. He looked safe enough. We said hello, and I watched to make sure he kept going.

On the way home in the car I realized I was so busy taking pictures that I never stopped to be still in the rain; to feel it’s splatters on my face, or hear it’s patter on my hood, to *really* listen to the Silence of Nature all around me. I sensed It in the background, but didn’t stop and revel in It. I was narrowly focused on the path, looking for things to take pictures of, but not really *seeing.* I considered going back to do the walk again, but I was already soaked. It reminded me that this is sometimes how I go through life – narrowly focused on a particular task, event, or circumstance, with a particular lens of interpretation, with some kind of filter in front of my face – like fear, anxiety, worry, caution, disgruntledness, judgment, anger - never really *seeing* Life; never really opening completely to that sweet child-like innocence of play, of enjoyment, even contentment. I felt a twinge of sadness with this realization, and stuck it in my awareness folder for next time: “Be sure to be fully *aware* of Life.” “Just stop.” “Be still.” “Listen.” “Really SEE Life.”

So here is a small montage of a walk in the rain through the camera lens. Hope you enjoy the rain as much as I do. The opening photo for the post at top was actually taken out my “sitting window” from Wednesday evening. Those below are from the walking path…