all questions return to the inner path

It's all bound by a common thread...

The nature of mysticism
I have been meditating on the nature of mysticism for some time now, and at last managed to record my conclusions: it is beyond thought, it is beyond logic. it is the inner path.

Everything is complete - here, now.

Mass
It's been a day of relief, in general. I was near tears throughout Mass. The divide between appearance and reality can be deep. But the experience of being there, is the answer in itself; nothing else is needed but presence. I've alternately known and wished to ask the pastor for confirmation - do you know what you appear to know? are we on the same path? Today would've been a question day, afterwards. But the homily was about the inner path, circuitously, but too carefully, and with too much truth spoken, to be accidental. We spoke later; nothing needed to be said; communication closes the circuit.

More thoughts
In early Buddhism and in Christ's walk, people were called to leave everything behind. And I think that's a necessary thing. We don't have to leave everything behind, but must - and this is essential - we must be willing to leave it all behind, to let it all go. It's like the proverb about setting the caged bird free. It brings the fullness of meaning to "who would lose his life will save it" - because true freedom is in holding loosely.

Even to life.

Fight Club
In Fight Club, we're invited to face a lot of horrifying truths. My reflection from the evening I watched it:

you can't get there without going all the way into the darkness
this - i am this, too
everything i hate, everything against which i would cover my eyes
go there - and become that.
it is needed.
to be unafraid to enter the darkest places, and to see that they are light
the fearlessness is important; it lets one enter truly, unprotected.

what's in there?

nothing. and that's freedom.

When I was in high school, I had an outstanding sparring partner; both epeeists. At practice, we wouldn't practice - we'd fight, going at it, hammer and tongs, until quitting time. It was living. It was fun. I understood, watching the movie, why they would fight. I've been there.

There seems to be some kind of taboo on acknowledging what we might be, what we're capable of - anything, specifically harmful things. I could be a murderer. Could. Am not, but could be - and I'm not at all threatened to say so. It seems like so many people would say, "oh, I could never do that" - perhaps, and this is only a suggestion - they don't know what they really are.

Tolle
As with Mass above, I know, and yet, I wonder. This afternoon's reading included Cohen's interview with Tolle, from 2000. It was nice to be able to relate, to find that anybody has found words to point to experience in a meaningful way. To me, listening to a teacher is a relief (that word again!) because somebody is finally saying something that groks. (The word "teacher" has never sat well with me, and there seem to be as many prescriptions as people. While we all are moved along our path in myriad ways, I will claim that a teacher is unnecessary, that truth can be found in many ways, and thus we all are taught.)

Even without a spiritual teaching or a spiritual teacher, I believe that everybody would get [to the place that is free of suffering] eventually. But that could take time. . . . A spiritual teaching is there to save time. The basic message of the teaching is that you don't need any more time, you don't need any more suffering.

I wrote to somebody, lately, that perhaps we are all moving forward, even if apparently backward or other-serpentinely, and thus, perhaps everything is in order. To the same end, Tolle commented upon watching over-busy New Yorkers:

They are running to a then. They are suffering, but they don't even know it. But to me, even watching that was joyful. I didn't feel, "Oh, they should know better." They are on their spiritual path. At the moment, that is their spiritual path, and it works beautifully.

Something else it's nice to find; words describing a thing I meditated upon while kayaking:

There's a vast spaciousness. There's a vast stillness and there's a little ripple activity on the surface, which isn't separate, just like the ripples are not separate from the ocean.

Another question lately - okay, nothing, so what now? Everything that appears to exist, doesn't; the only thing that does, cannot be understood in the conventional manner of things - it is beyond thought, beyond logic. So what is one to comport oneself toward this world thing?

Cohen: If someone simply asks you, "Is the world real or unreal?" would you say it was real or would you have to qualify the statement?
Tolle: I would probably qualify the statement.
Cohen: Saying what?
Tolle: It's a temporary manifestation of the real.

It's not as though that answers the question, but having some words for the hulking beast is helpful.

And a recurring dream
Since I was a child, I've occasionally had a vision, usually when I was ill, or had slept too warmly, and I recalled it the other day. There's always a delicate pale pink-purple flower, a single stem, in a glad bud vase on a table, outdoors, as though part of a restaurant patio (though I have never seen chairs other tables); a frail glassy tinkling sound goes with it. The other I could sense, but never see; an enormous crushing weight, which would destroy the flower like so much nothing; a deep, though not discordant, but rich and overpowering sound accompanies this; it's like a steamroller, but with the texture of marshmallow, and the character of a black hole, in a matter-of-fact unmenacing way. The focus of my dream shifts back and forth between the two; the flower's position seems precarious, but is never destroyed.

It fits my present experience: the insubstantial nature of what is seen, and the invisible overwhelming presence nearby.

No answers, but the framework, a more substantial way to hold the thoughts, experiences, questions - helps.