Jon linked last week to a podcast on nonduality - from a logical (as opposed to spiritual) perspective.
Things are not as they seem - there is a percieved, or apparent, reality... and then there's reality, which I then termed absolute reality. (Sometimes one sees both at once.) Amusing that Steve uses different words... what I call percieved reality is his "objective" (because everybody thinks it is objective!) reality... and my absolute reality, called nondual by many, Steve terms subjective, which has become his point of view.
Vocabulary aside, Steve's description of the series of events that started him was all too familiar: he approaches reality from a logical, rational point of view.
As did I. When searching for the true nature of reality, what better way to go than to ask, what do I know? What can I prove? (The brilliant premise, of course, being that truth can survive questioning. Well, it can, but the warning on the back of Hardcore Zen was several months too late for me.) The answer, as it turned out, is, next to nothing, and I can't really really be sure about that, either. Hold loosely, indeed! Every foundational assumption has to be tested and ultimately cut loose. And so Steve, like many of us, has found a framework to describe his experiences, though admittedly also doesn't have enough data to declare it more than a work in progress. Being the logical/experiential type myself, I do appreciate stumbling across another of the same.
The question of creating reality has been making its rounds lately. Andrew and Meredith bring it up, and so does Jon, obliquely. Oh yeah, and so did I. And it doesn't seem to be going away.
Steve's suggestion is that we create reality by intentions within ourselves or toward others. Being the logical, you-have-to-prove-this type, I am not ready to believe anything I haven't experienced... and Steve even covered one of my favorite questions - do we merely experience things because we're looking for them? Maybe not, he says. (By the way, I liked his use of the word "framework" and discussion of a high degree of correlation (because it reminded me of my observation on fractal-ness).)
So what about the state of no-mind, of being without expectation, just going in as the observer... then what's that? Whatever is - is spontaneous. Oh, duh, I know this one. That is the true Zen.
It's looking increasingly as though my intentions are creating my reality. "Give present reality momentum in the direction of your desires." One of my architectural fantasies is distinctly headed toward reality - one signed contract, one potential client. When I learned about the potential client on Friday, I distinctly had the sense of having created that one myself. This followed a minor architectural fantasy being approved by the client at first sight, the previous evening. I tend to keep my intentions secret, not that I'm afraid they'll fail, but that I don't want to risk being discouraged by anybody, lest I believe it. (It doesn't work long-term, but can derail things, which is just messy.) Nonetheless. The greatest fact of my trajectory is that I shall be an outstanding architect.
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3 comments:
Excellent post, Julie. Thanks for sharing your insight and summarizing so beautifully how it's working through you and upon you. (Bah! Language! As if you and it were separate!)
"...I tend to keep my intentions secret."
As is the case for most, but there are the rare occasions when we have become so intimate with our secret, nurturing it back to health over and over again after many repeated assaults and brutal abandonment that we feel we can't keep it inside any longer. It begins to express itself through us, as us and we are helpless- It moves in accord to its own momentum and we are left behind…It stands in the spotlight, It shines…and yet we are confused in the moment thinking it is something we did.
All we did was let it burst forth, let it flow back to it’s source- and we really had no choice, like ripe fruit it simply fell from the branch, no longer needing any other support. The time was ripe. The time is always ripe.
I have no doubt you will become an outstanding architect. If your designs are as beautiful and spontaneous as your words and thoughts are, there is no avoiding it. If you put as much care into your work as you do discovering who you really are, you may come to find they are both the same and your gift to this world is simply allowing the expression, the intention to burst forth.
Hi Jon! You're welcome, and thank you; this felt like a disjointed collection of thoughts.
Isaiah, your imagery here is so beautiful. My comments in response cannot parallel it! But still - it's become easier to accept a compliment than to try to explain that it wasn't me, really, that equally essential was it that I more or less just uncovered...
Architecture has boundaries imposed by clients; sometimes the door's left wider open than other times. I've been coming to terms with the realization that what I will produce is better than what most will, and thus, though not the ideal, still an improvement, and still worthy. But the artist-architect knows no bounds, and beauty will leak out in one medium or another...
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