The things that come to pass...

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.

written in the day, july 28

backing off
taking a moment to stop and feel
and i know
and there's no question
the stillness that i am
troubles press, but they are out there
on the other side of the screen

some days it helps to read my own writing
reel me back into that
not the writing but where it came from - me.

...

funny sometimes it only takes wishing for something to realize - it already is.

Mystic's Drift

In some beautiful way, it would describe that path,
always flowing downhill. And how before I know it, the scenery's entirely changed,
and knowing nothing except the path.
And the path is forward, always forward,
so seeming-inevitable that we wonder about predestination.
Noting the new surroundings, I wonder, how did I get here?
and can't remember being anywhere else, but dimly, so far passed.
And yet I slid here, so silently, that I myself didn't even notice the shift.
Here I am, a drifted mystic!

Found Poem

"there is a peace that words can't touch
it dwells in silence, within
expands to fill me, blows beyond,
supernova

press into this body, hide in an embrace
no wonder i've eaten and drunk little of late
could paddle an eternity or skate for miles
i will go on forever
this body, though, cannot, i should care for her."

-June 7 2006

Touch the Sound

Exquisite treatment of ordinary sound...

The last movie was a symphony and a cacophany rolled into one. "Touch the Sound" is in some ways a crash course in being present to the moment and whatever's going on.

"There's sound absolutely everywhere. We have to listen. That's it, really."

Perhaps 'mysticism' is mostly comprised of noticing the things that most people overlook. The film is rife with footage of a recording session in a warehouse - completely improvised music. And amazing. When the instruments fall silent, there's the most profound silence; that's perfect just as it is.

"Silence is probably one of the loudest sounds and heaviest sounds that you're ever likely to experience. At the end of the day we still know that within everything we see there's sound. I mean, we know that, we just don't have that sensitivity to know what is going on around us." Good observation.

Partway through, I had to move the cord and transformer-thingie for my laptop, to plug it in; the battery was running low. Found myself attentive to every noise; the fine cord, heavier one, transformer, stool, frame, cushion, the sound of my bare feet, creak of floor, crack of an ankle; it was a symphony in itself.

"We are the sound."

Something to sit with.

I'm one of those people who'll often have music running through her head; it takes an effort to turn my attention outward, to be attentive. Just sitting, listening - sometimes there is too much to take in - but when it's a little quiet, and it's possible to pick out everything and appreciate it... well, the world really is perfect, just as it is.

Try this on.

"I figured out how to hang on as long as I want. It's all a matter of making friends with the Malkovich body: rather than thinking of it as an enemy that has to be pounded into submission, I've begun imagining it as a really expensive suit that I enjoy wearing." -Being John Malkovich

My impetus for posting is the discovery of another framework that helps. The words encapsulate the experience of disidentification (mine have been more or less happenchance) in a way powerful enough, for me, to recall it.

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.