Wednesday, December 19, 2012

You


Close your eyes and reflect on how you came to be here.

If you come up with
a means of transportation,
or the day's progression to this point,
or a recollection of family lineage,
you have a long ways to go.

Amid billions of stars,
over billions of years,
here YOU are - right now.

You are an artful presentation of 
an amazingly-crafted arrangement of matter,
a temporary form of pure energy.

The very same energy
that spawned the stars
billions of years ago.

That you can sense
color and sound,
smell, taste and touch,
should absolutely vault your mind
back to the beginning,
...and forward
...to the beginning. 

Monday, December 10, 2012

Stillness, Beyond the Story



Several perplexing questions have circled round in the human mind for a long time.  These big questions pertain to the nature of reality, of God and of the human being.  

These questions have not so far produced certain answers in the usual sense, and they are not likely to in the future, but they do seem to all point in the same direction.  The following thoughts are written in an attempt to shed some helpful light on the knowledge that lies in that direction.  

Some of these thoughts may be inconceivable, or may be objectionable to the intellect or to the emotions.  The purpose here is not to assert an argument, nor to proselytize a belief, nor to arouse reaction of any kind.  Paraphrasing Lao Tse, whether understood or not, things are as they are.

.  .  .  .  .

By all appearances, the human being has been on earth a very long while and has developed into the sapient life form we know today by means of an organic, evolutionary process.  (This statement does not preclude the existence of God, it just allows the matter to be more nuanced than a creed or bumper sticker.)  Despite our desire to see ourselves as being special, we are not substantially any different that any other organism, except for one, key trait.   

While we do emerge, reproduce and recede in the pattern of other living things, what sets us apart is our ability to think.  In this case, that means the ability to create and communicate abstract concepts.  Conceptualization is our competitive edge in a challenging environment and it the reason for the proliferation of our species.

When this ability was still fairly new, humans first created concrete, strategic concepts to prevail in conflicts with the environment and with each other.  As we developed, and our consciousness grew to include abstract concepts which are the foundation of language.  With language came stories, which we could use to explain the challenges of the mysterious.  We began to hear the little story-narrating voice in the head and wondered whose voice that was, and conceptual deities were born.  Abundant, conceptual narratives (stories) have been created ever since for all aspects of experience.  Our story-crafting trait has been labeled: the ego, the false self, me, the little voice in the head, etc.

Along the way, humans have co-evolved with stories; we are necessarily the only story-based species that could inhabit this planet during the period of our tenure.  We have all but eliminated any hints of potential, competing narratives.  

Through stories, we embarked on a distinct, self-evolving path of development.  By means of our technological innovations in agriculture, science, medicine and the arts, we have accelerated evolutionary pace by a quantum leap forward and our numbers have burgeoned.  Objectively, this resembles organic urgency.  Within the organic complexity of humanity, our urgency has agency; it is a purposeful expenditure of resources because it has portent.


.   .   .   .   .   

All stories are necessarily subjective creations, despite any impassioned claims to the contrary.  The Word of God is a valid metaphorical concept; the metaphor’s connotation lies in the direction pointed to by the perplexing questions described at the outset.  The difficulty lies with a growing number who are turned off by the metaphor’s denotation, because it is a parochial, heavily-edited canon of far-fetched concepts.  

The story of God and humans has co-evolved a long time, and it now seems its face value-acceptance is in decline, as overall church attendance numbers indicate.  However, the urge to know the connotation behind the metaphor is stronger than ever, it's just that the obscuring, conceptual (denotative) layers are losing their simplistic relevance and should properly fall away, in a manner of speaking.  Indirect, prescriptive forms of this urge for knowledge are giving way to a desire for direct experience.

The only possibility for truly objective knowledge is that which can be known firsthand, through direct experience, apart from all conceptualization.  Any attempt to conceptualize experience - even the most spare and calculated description, devoid of any interpretation or judgment - is one step removed from direct experience.  This makes all the difference.

With the first added thought, direct experience just crossed over into conceptual representation, which is subjective, and which is the same as the essence of human nature: a conceptual (self-)representation that is one key step removed from objective reality.

These written words are also conceptual representations or abstractions; recall that they are offered as an attempt to shed some helpful light on the object of sought-after knowledge of reality - which is only knowable through direct, first-hand experience.  No matter which words are used here, all are inadequate conveyances for certain meaning; they can only serve as direction indicators.  In this inquiry direction, often the most helpful use of words is to say what reality is not

Our stories, our beliefs and our identities have been commingled for millennia.  Because one’s identity is invested in (and derives from) one’s story, it is an urgent matter that one’s story be accepted by others; it is the means for belonging to a group, and so it is a perceived matter of survival.  

Most of human history is composed of narratives that were violently forced into acceptance by prevailing groups or by dominant individuals.  Common themes emerged and were woven into the same story fabric until it became a single, prevailing narrative that asserts an elevated, if not deified, status for our species.

Very little of recorded human history actually corresponds to objective reality.   The small group of historical individuals held to be enlightened by direct experience with reality is comprised of some who were systemically persecuted and some who have been highly revered.  In several cases, elaborate religious narratives have been promulgated in their honor, and wherever these stories met with resistance they were forced into acceptance with prevailing violence and/or synthesized with previous stories for easier acceptance.  In some cases the narratives include strong enticement for acceptance, such as reward in the afterlife.  Notwithstanding, the original insights from first-hand knowledge are the object of the perplexing questions mentioned above.

Despite our naive, perennial desire to create a story with fairytale characteristics for ourselves, reality continually intrudes.  In the past, these problematic intrusions were episodic, but overpopulation of our species and the subjective distortion of our co-evolving story has forced the issue.  

An emerging organic pattern of decay that we find deeply disturbing is increasingly apparent.   For many of us who are firmly caught up in the story, this seems inconceivable and denial needs to be fortified.  Some of us prefer simple distraction rather than consider the implications at all, while still others desperately search for solutions within the bounds of the story.

The human story is based on the flawed premise that we were somehow put in charge of things on the exoteric level.  From this mythological basis, we have been busily inventing  ill-conceived solutions to misperceived problems to forestall the inevitable recognition of, and reckoning with, reality.  

Our species is not responsible for anything other than its story, and this much is a significant obstacle because it is still mostly beyond our present ability to even recognize it as a story, let alone attempt to create a more sustainable plot line.  Our story is us and we are our story.

The linear nature of a story means there’s no going back to re-write earlier chapters just because the plot may take an unexpected and disconcerting turn.  Stories have beginnings and endings, and so if the human story was in book form, which chapter would we would likely be writing now?  



For the steadfastly-rational, who would be skeptical of the idea that anything valid and reliable can be known from intuitive sense, venturing beyond this point is somewhat like walking on thin ice.   From here, one will have to engage words more loosely, in the manner of engaging poetry - allowing indicators to indicate.  Patterns for organic development reveal some analogs with which the unknowable might be intuited.  

The question may then arise, “Is there any hope for the human race?”  It depends on what is meant by the question.  There never was hope for the happily-ever-after ending we might wish to create.  In other words, “hope” is a concept, and the future for our version of conceptually-filtered reality is waning.  An agonizing sense of loss is an understandable and appropriate reaction to this scenario because, of course we should be deeply attached to all things human; how could it be otherwise?  “Gains” and “losses” are compelling concepts, and we like the one much better than the other.

Another compelling concept is "time".  If we could just have a little more time.....maybe then....

Individually, we hope to live a meaningful life which includes a feeling of connection with others and of following a personally rewarding direction that is genuine to our natures.  Collectively, our hope is probably not so different.  But, there is very little that is genuine about either our collective or individual directions.  In this case “genuine” means inhabiting a nominal investment in the human story while remaining open to experience of the timeless, formless, essential nature of reality.   “Genuine” is a balance between inward-and outward-directedness.

Without a genuine sense of being a reverent witness to much that is mysterious and miraculous, any feelings of reward on the personal level will be temporary, at best.  We are driven by dysfunctional, unsustainable myths and so we are disconnected from others, from the planet and from our true natures.  Our story has an imaginary, and lofty, arc of indeterminate length and it is incompatible with a finite planet.  

If hope rests within the bounds of an unsustainable story, sensing the approaching end of the story naturally elicits a feeling of great despair.  Widespread ineffectuality, malaise and other environment-related symptoms are to be expected - and are developmentally appropriate on the scale of species evolution.   The story could not have gone any other way, and the end necessarily follows after the fullness of the story has played itself out, just as seeds ripen as the plant withers.

Hope does exist - in a sense - elsewhere.  The “hope” we are looking for will be found in an unimaginable, new (non-)form, outside of our story.  It can be presently found in knowing that the forms of life we perceive all around every day can also be sensed at the level of their essential nature; a quality of interconnectedness and animation that is distinguishable from the conceptual, holographic representations we must normally respond to. 

The religious-minded might call this 'walking with God', but that seems a limiting and confusing reference for others.  Also, for the religious-minded with a working concept of heaven: any imaginable scenarios labeled “afterlife” are necessarily still within the story bounds, and so are necessarily excluded from a non-conceptual realm.  Speculation about the End Times, or the Hereafter is utterly pointless and counterproductive.  However, the non-speculative present moment is a supremely worthwhile point of focus. It is our responsibility to acquire the ability for that focus.

It is perhaps the most enticing challenge for the human mind to attempt to conceptualize the non-conceptual, but the ever-futile effort always yields the same result - an inadequate substitute that often leads to confusion or argument.  There is a singular, all-pervasive source for inspiring reverence, and though it cannot be adequately named, still, it may be helpful to try to imagine an infinite, unified, realm that is somehow as all-embracing and sustaining as we once knew amniotic fluid to be.

An impulse, independently felt by many, has been articulated (often rather awkwardly, often with apocalyptic gloom) that indicates an approaching evolutionary threshold: not viewed as an abrupt, tragic end to the story of our species, but rather a transformational opportunity. Understandably, this notion meets with a great deal of skepticism.  

There are myriad, precedent models (analogs) for a similar, transformed stage of organic development, perhaps most familiar among seed-producing plants, or among some insects that undergo metamorphosis.  Even changing forms of physical matter, such as that of water changing its form in reaction to radiant energy, might be a somewhat instructive model.

Although there is no historical or physical evidence to prove it, it is perfectly logical that the human being should harbor transformative potential.  Clear, scientific evidence could not reasonably be expected to exist for this claim.  Our species' transformative potential could not mimic another's, but it can be indicated by examples of others.  An incremental stage toward transformation is happening at this moment, by one's consideration of the very possibility.

Organic development occurs as a reaction to environmental forces; until there is a developmental need for transformation, there is no developmental need for it, nor even for an indication of it as a potentiality, ergo: this present indication of it means there is an approaching need for it.  

There is no prophesy here, only an analysis from observations of organic patterns.

Human transformation is necessarily unimaginable; prior knowledge would be useless at best, and it would derail earlier and present stages of development at worst.  Even if a caterpillar had consciousness, it could not possibly imagine entering a chrysalis and emerging with a mastery of flight in a three dimensional world.   If it could somehow know of it, it might not strive hard enough to be ready for its transformation because it might instead think it will be ‘taken off the hook, regardless.’(i.e., "Salvation!")

It is important to note that not all organisms with transformative potential cross the threshold into the next stage of development.  Even striving is no guarantee of success for pre-conscious beings, but in their case it does even the odds to those of chance.  

Human striving includes an important and advantageous distinction over that of pre-conscious creatures: a higher degree of desire.  In this case, “desire” is meant as a creative force, not meant as wishing for personal gain or gratification.  The closest concept of this might be indicated in this way: desire equals striving, plus reverence.   The Latin root, reverentia, indicates ‘to stand in awe of’.  Further, 'awe' indicates deep humility and deep love.  To fully utilize desire, one must first know reverence, otherwise one is left only with wishing and ineffective, egocentric striving.

.   .   .   .   .

As noted above, humans have held a competitive advantage for development to this point by virtue of our capability for abstract conceptualization.  It seems paradoxical that this is also now a potential disadvantage or barrier for further development.  Indicators point to habitual, subjective thinking as being our approaching evolutionary limitation, just as it was formerly our means for emerging from pre-conscious level of development.  Fully living in a story necessarily entails a story ending.

It is intuitively sensed that we have fully inhabited and nearly exhausted the conceptual world of form.  In a manner of speaking, the linear trajectory of our developing, collective thought patterns is losing momentum and spiraling toward a circular pattern.  As a caterpillar consumes the last of the leaves on its branch a cocooning impulse arises.

It is our cherished ability for conceptualization (again, the ego, etc.) that has been as protective and necessary as our skin, which now must be regarded as something like a hardening chrysalis shell.  It must be transcended all together at some point if it is not to essentially serve as a crypt.  

The essence of our transformation is that of dissolution of, and detachment from, form, and a surrender of the urgency of conceptualization.  What follows is a reemergence into a reality that is as unimaginable to us as becoming a butterfly would be to a caterpillar.  Creating a conceptual relationship to existence was our task, transcending that creation is now our aim.  Concepts will be as irrelevant and unsustaining to the human mind as chewing on a leaf would be to a butterfly, which now is only sustained by nectar.  

There is a component to human transformation that is not mysterious: striving to fulfill one's responsibility to engage the stillness of reality, beyond the story.  There is also a component that is mysterious and the religious term for it might be "grace".  Since it is mysterious, and could be seen as a gift, there is no point speculating further about its nature - it is not our responsibility.
.    .    .    .    .  

Everyday engagement with the world naturally incites reaction from a subjective point of view.  However, for one who is pre-occupied entirely with a subjective perspective, within a small-scale field of time and space (a smaller story), the result is likely to be complete ignorance of any impact of rapid and profound change on a larger scale, unless some objectivity filters through.  The frog in the pot of water illustration applies here, wherein the frog cannot know the stove has been turned on and does not notice the water gradually warming, all the way to boiling. 


.     .     .     .     .

Indicators for loosening our attachment to form might be sensed by the advent and recent ubiquity of two-dimensional screens (TV, computers, camera phones, tablets, etc.).  These are sources for ready-made, visual conceptualization and these have led to the suggestion that great exposure to these media impoverishes the imagination.   It may be so for that aspect of it pertaining to generating original ideas, but it has greatly enhanced the collective ability for visual fluency.  Creativity is a generative asset, but generative capability is not as urgent now as compared with a time when our species was 'coming of age'. 

Linguistic fluency leaped forward with the invention of the printing press.  Visual fluency has been increasing since the invention of the camera, and has taken a huge leap forward thanks to electronic visual representations.  Viewing the iconic image of the earth rising over moon's surface, we sense the organic wholeness of our planet.  Now, with computer graphics illustration we can accurately visualize DNA strands being replicated on the molecular level by specialized cell structures.  Billions of people can now glimpse vivid images of distant galaxies provided by the Hubble telescope.  

Visualization is the ascending cognitive ability and it will be the paramount instrumental means for further development. Verbalization has been key to development thus far, but its pre-eminent value is waning and further reliance on it will present as an obstacle to overcome, because it heavily relies on concepts that are easily misinterpreted and more often, simply insufficient. 

Words are losing their capacity to convey sufficient meaning in a world that reveals increasing depth and complexity. Widely-shared images convey instant understanding, or in some cases misunderstanding, but the potential for mass synchronicity is the fundamental truth of the medium.  There is a developmental purpose to the compelling nature of the electronic screen; it is a craving for the stuff of visualization.

A growing number of individuals now find greater existential reward through virtual experience as an avatar in artificial and simulated life games, to the extent that their outward engagement with the physical world is diminished; the term “cocooning” has worked itself into the vernacular with interesting coincidence.

Much of human life experience that, until recently, involved direct engagement with other life-forms is now becoming, or soon will become, available only as remote or abstract experience: from food production and procurement, to various forms of commerce, to making social connections, to education, to warfare, etc.  Linguistic-based institutions, both social and political, are decaying into polarized and contentious involvements, slowing from inertia toward the default state of systemic dysfunction.  

Increasing numbers of previously-unconnected people are mobilized via handheld visual screens for dynamic social involvements, such as demonstrations and flash mobs.  New forms of shared culture, conveyed in memes, are instantaneously transmitted around the globe, irrespective of geographic or political boundaries.  While some conceptual aspects of human interaction are more disintegrated than ever, the emerging image for humanity is one of non-conceptual (virtual) unity.


.    .    .    .    .

   

If the countless, global and satellite networks we have created for energy transmission, communication, and transportation could be represented with connecting fibers, the image would be like that of a dense, web-like, energy-charged fabric wrapping around the earth.  In addition to the density of this network fabric, the frequency spectrum of human-generated electromagnetic waves grows ever-broader.  

The chemical composition of biosphere within this sheath of interwoven energy strands is undergoing tremendous change just in the last few decades.  Imbalanced concentrations of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus (including their various compound forms) are growing greater than at any known point prior to the anthropocene (the era of noticeable human impact on the environment). Human-produced toxins, synthetic and natural, are permeating the soil, water and air in hypertonic levels in a growing number of various ecosystems.  

These are significant, profound and irreversible changes that may be productively considered, or denied or ignored.  Regardless, it seems the rate of change in biosphere chemical composition could be plotted on a geometric, if not exponential, curve.

For one deeply-identified with the human story (which is largely the same as the personal story), these notions either cannot exist because they are inconceivable, or they are abhorrent because the story isn’t supposed to go this way.  For others who can shift perspective to include some objectivity, above and beyond the human story, some sort of transformation certainly seems desirable, if not yet plausible.


.     .     .     .     . 

How does one come to terms with, or approach, transcendence of conceptual-based reality?  

How does a salmon get the urge to swim upstream and, for the first time in its life, leave the water to jump up a waterfall?  It is speculative to say, but it could well be that the same source for instilling such a compelling, and seemingly unnatural, urge has made possible this present exchange of ideas as a preparatory step.  In other words, you might have found your way to this point by desire.

If jumping into the air for a fish can be seen as something of the opposite of swimming in water, then transcending conceptual existence must also be something of its opposite.  The opposite of conceptualization is silent, non-conceptualization.  Stillness, or mindfulness might be better terms.  

By its nature, thinking is a noisy, compelling clamor of internal, interpretive and narrative activity.  Thinking is non-stop story-crafting.  Stillness of the mind is simple - but not easy - because of our deep conditioning to accept the noisy activity as being normal, or even essential.  

Deep, empathic engagement with others, and/or, with the arts are two excellent ways to quiet the habitual, noisy activity of the mind.  For various reasons these may not be available to all, and so there is another means that is more universally available.  

By observing any natural object, such as a rock or a flower, it can be sensed that it exists in stillness, and the vestiges of that same stillness exist in the observer's mind from its pre-conditioned state.  Stillness in the mind resonates with the stillness in the observed natural object.  This resonance introduces one to reverence: stillness is indeed awe-inspiring and not at all a boring, or threatening absence of stimulation.  

Recognition of still existence, first of natural objects, is the goal; “recognition” means to know again.  This is not new learning, it is remembering or dis-covering previous (since obscured) knowledge.  “Remembering” suggests the return of a part to the whole.

Quiet observation will be anything but quiet at first.   The conditioned, noisy mind will interject all manner of narration, whether descriptive, argumentative or just distracting.  This is natural and worth noticing; that ability has been a key survival trait in order to develop this far.  

To develop further, one’s mental activity can also be observed from an objective viewpoint as something that also exists, just as the rock or the flower exists.  With intentionally-objective observation, persistent thought habits soon lose urgency and relevance, and tend toward the trivial and amusing.  Truly worthwhile and creative thinking can find room to flourish once the limitations of habitual, often circular, thoughts are recognized.  

While sitting comfortably with body awareness, conscious, rhythmic breathing helps relax the grip of the world of form.  It is possible, through loosened attachment to form, to sense the essential existence in stillness of things, apart from their physical descriptions.  

Thoughts of any sort arise out the same background stillness, it’s just that they jostle one another and crowd together and obscure the stillness of the mind.   Thoughts regain urgency and take hold of the attention if they cause reaction of either resistance or attraction, so they need only to be given recognition - because they exist.  

Once thoughts are known for the existing word-form-entities that they are, they can be spread apart a bit to notice the spaces between them.  The attention’s “depth of field” is then refocused through those spaces and beyond them to awareness of a vast, non-conceptual space of stillness.   

With refocused attention and deepened awareness, the experience of knowing stillness - from a state of stillness - becomes simply an acquired ability, like any other, and it is then always readily at hand (even noticeable in the vividness of a car brake light in an otherwise-frustrating traffic jam).  It may be noticed that this first-hand experience of reality is often accompanied by a sense of recognition and belonging.

When this opening occurs, and raised consciousness, or expanded, objective awareness is present, and if you are with others it will flow through you and encourage potential for the same in others.  If you are engaged in any of the arts it will manifest in the music or the visual medium, etc.  and it will be known by others who will feel held in stillness by the experience of perceiving the work.

.      .      .      .      .

As the salmon positions itself below the falls, ready to make its jump, it is not asking itself if this is possible.  It is not crafting a story about success or failure, or life or death.  It has no conceptual ability, so there’s no mental noise to transcend.  It, too, exists in stillness - just as you do - the main differences are that you have conceptual ability, a habit of living in a story, and greater capacity for desire.  

There is some degree of desire in the forces that inform the fish as an animal, compared to the flower with even less, and to the rock that is not informed with desire.  The human is informed with the greater degree of desire, which again includes the capacity for reverence.  Observing animals gives one a sense that, in the stillness of their existence, they have some nacent capacity for reverence, especially in those in closest association with humans.  Anthropomorphic musings - or- intuitive sense observations?  It must be up to the individual to determine; persuasion to accept an idea as a belief is a ridiculous and shallow aim.

In its striving, the salmon uses the current to jump out of the current.  Sentient beings have the responsibility (to their species) to strive up to their desire potential.  The sapient human being has the responsibility to strive by consciously using desire to transcend Desire.  

As the salmon reaches its source destination, its responsibility is discharged and its striving is over.  Our striving is also to move beyond striving.  We are already using conceptualization to transcend concepts, even at this present moment.  We will develop awareness of our attachment to form and we will use it to loosen and transcend attachment to form.  

We want to again know love, before it became attraction.  Our desire is to re-member being before it dis-integrated to become beings.  We strive to know light before it became the sun that warms us with us with beckoning.           

 Most, if not all of the above ideas are neither new, nor necessarily original to this post.  Albert Einstein pointed out long ago that the thinking by which we have created our problematic situation will not be the same thinking that can solve our way out it.  Jesus offered the helpful pointer of being in the world, but not of the world.  Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Buddha is his smile.

 With the direction perhaps now better indicated, this is about as far as words can take us.  Still, further exploration of all these ideas and more can be found in many places.  Here are few links that could be explored:  evolve.org, eckharttolle.com, and taicarmen.wordpress.com.  Also look into the deeply rewarding work of Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

A Short Story of No Story


Imagine all the memories you can recall, and that you can gather them together into a collection called, “My Past”.  Recall them in quick slideshow fashion, or many of them, because there are too many to remember all at once.  But let these stand for every bit of past experience you’ve ever had since you were born.  

Now, odd as it sounds, consider how much (if any) actual, physical weight each thought or memory has and you realize they’re not much more than little wisps.  They’re like the idea of tiny fireflies, much too small to even be fireflies.  Now imagine holding the entire memory collection in the palm of your hand and then gently pouring it like a fine, weightless powder into a small box with an opened lid.  Once the last bits drift down into the box, gently close it up, and set the box aside for just a moment.  Your entire past is safely kept in that little box.

Now, do likewise with all the wishes, dreams, concerns and thoughts you can imagine about the future.  You'll find them in that special area of daydreaming called, “My Future”.  You’ve made some plans, and you have some hopes.  There are some worries, some deadlines and some expectations - of your own and those that others have of you.  Try to mentally review as many of these as you can, and as you do, consider the minuscule physical sense of each one.  Collect these all together in the palm of your hand and gently pour them into another small box and carefully close the lid on it.

Next, imagine standing and holding one box in each hand, arms a little extended about waist high.  In imagined stillness, you can feel the lightweight boxes, so rather than looking down at them, you look straight ahead at a vast emptiness - a distant fogginess with nothing at all to focus on.  It’s so much like the same view of the inside of your eyelids, that you’re not sure if your eyes are open.  Yet, out of your lower peripheral vision, you are vaguely aware that there is a small table standing right in front of you, also about waist high.  And, it reminds you that you’re still holding the two boxes.  Reflexively, you set the boxes on the table and then let your arms rest at your sides, and resume your distant gaze at the dimensionless depth.  

You don't remember moving but somehow you are now sitting comfortably, and the table must have been moved because you have a full view, looking out at nothingness and you are just you, without your past and your future.  The contents of those boxes made up the story of who you are and they've been set aside and so you are sitting there without even a story and it’s perfectly still and comfortable, and you’re aware without a story there is nothing that needs to be thought about.  Your sense of time seems to have been misplaced with the boxes, and you are content to just be there, or here, or wherever this is doesn’t even matter.  All you are actually aware of is that you are breathing and even that is automatic, regular, relaxed.  You gradually lose awareness of your body, your mind drifts elsewhere, almost like you’re having a dream while you’re awake.  Your body isn’t numb, you’re just not sure if it is still there or if it has somehow become part of the vastness before you and around you.  It doesn’t seem to matter either way, because your attention is compelled by the utter, empty stillness! There's nothing interesting at all about it, there's just nothing at all, period.  Before you had emptied your past and future into those boxes, you never had a chance to do much besides think about, and rethink about, your story.  Now, without your story, you are actually beholding "nothing" and in a kind of ridiculous way, it's fascinating.  A slight smile comes with the thought there's really nothing quite like "nothing".  Or, no thing is like....whatever, there's no meaningful way to describe nothing.   Words begin to seem heavy and awkward and really, beside the point, if there is one.


There was actually a lot of weight in those boxes.  Even though they were small and seemed very light, as soon as you set them down, a lot of body heaviness left with them and you now feel lighter than you ever have before.  It's a delightful, liberating feeling.  Without a story and a body weighing you down, you could even be floating.  You wonder, what's left of me?  And the question answers itself because you're aware that you are left only with awareness.  It’s not awareness from the senses, because you’re not seeing or hearing or feeling anything.  And yet it’s like you have all that and more.  Much more.  It is more than enough to fill you, it is you.  You don’t have awareness, you are awareness!  It is you, and it is without or beyond time or limit and it is life itself and it is everywhere and you are it... .  .   .   .    .     .      

-   -   -   -   -   -

Some people dismiss these kinds of ideas with the comment, “it’s just imagination.”  They will also have stopped reading before now, if they ever found their way here in the first place.  But, if these imaginings seemed vaguely or slightly real to you, it wasn’t "just" your imagination.  It was/is an actual awareness in you that was reawakened and that is often left in a forgotten or overlooked corner of "imagination".  This was no story, the story is in the boxes.


p.s.  If you have never heard Eckhardt Tolle talk, nor read his books, this video is worth taking in, many times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvZs35QPXz4&context=C4618aa7ADvjVQa1PpcFNHAbIVMaiy6TbnKU4_3U4p1MWvr6nTe5I=

Saturday, March 17, 2012

The Unfolding Story...


We consider life mostly as a story.  It’s hard to see it otherwise.  On a personal level, the plot details are extensive and the story-crafting is painstaking and persistent.  There is an urgency to the unfolding story and it demands focus in nearly every waking moment, and even some more during light sleep.  The story is continuously being written and re-written, told and re-told, to anyone who will listen, even if it’s only the little narrator/editor in the head.  While that is often the voice of our harshest critic, it is still our favorite listener and biggest fan.  We are gratified to consider ourselves the authors of our own stories.

More objectively and abruptly, the whole elaborate plot line can be replaced with a short dash, between the birth and death dates on a tombstone.  It seems very harsh to reduce it that way, and yet that is the story of the cemetery.

Beliefs, opinions, things, events and even the other beings in our lives are the content of our life stories.  The content comes and goes with time as the tally of gains and losses accumulate.  The content could be compared to toys in a sandbox.   In this view then, life plays out within the walls of the sandbox like the play of a child using toys in an imagined story.

So, as a young child plays with toys in a sandbox, the early focus is on the toys and how they fit into the story.  There may be some awareness of the sand and the four walls, but that might only go so far as to name the sand and sandbox as being “mine”. 

Gradually, the growing child broadens the focus on the toys to exploring the whole sandbox.  Appreciation for the nature of sand may develop, and it may be enough sometimes to let it flow through the fingers and feel its warmth.  It may even eventually be understood that toys are pointless without the sand.

The toys rust and get broken and are replaced with new ones.  Sometimes there may be so many toys that it is hard to enjoy the sandbox because of the clutter.  They might be tossed out of the box, just to keep the playtime story simpler to imagine. 

It may be that one is fortunate enough to see that the toys are incidental and that it is the sand that is unchanging.  One may grow to reflect on the limitations of the four walls and take a glimpse beyond them.  Imagine a child looking up to see countless sandboxes, each with a child playing with toys.  

Now, imagine becoming aware that all the sandboxes are scattered across an endless beach of the same sand...  
            The sand has no story.  It just is. 

Imagine being able to intentionally set aside your story for a time.  Without that to command your attention, who, or what, then, are you?


Many Christians observe the start of Lent with an Ash Wednesday service where the minister may say, "from ashes you were made, to ashes you will return."  Sometimes they use the word "dust" instead. Given the images presented here, it could just as well be considered as Sand Wednesday.



Saturday, March 3, 2012

Successive Approximations: the Practice of Life

Some years ago, aspiring school teachers who studied the approach to effective instruction were told to: "Diagnose, remediate, monitor and adjust".  Those terms assume a dispassionate, objective view of others who are trying to learn.  For example, not included in the list are: "yell, freak-out, sulk, or fret".  Yet, if one were to observe any given classroom long enough, they might easily see some of these work their way into the mix.  Why? It's human.  Even the best teachers are still human, although we expect them to "rise above" that baseline label.

Why don't we have the same high expectations for ourselves: "to rise above" our selves?  In other settings, far from the noble aims of school, we see all manner of petty, reactive behaviors that make the rest of us "tsk, tsk" our disapproval (as we privately and habitually seat ourselves on the judgment throne).

'A dispassionate, objective view' is easy to apply in the abstract, but most of us humans basically are petty and reactive (perhaps especially when exhausted, which is what teachers often become toward the end of the school day).  For too many others, there's little better to expect at any time.  Too often, the ups and downs of daily life are taken personally and are felt to affect core issues of survival, when nothing even close to that is the case.  We can survive the loss of a parking space to a car that cut us off, and yet up goes the middle finger, along with an urge to vote the other driver off the planet.  At the moment of reaction, smiling at the other driver makes just as much sense; it would be more unsettling to the other and more calming for us, (although not if it's done as a weapon substitute for the middle finger!)

Toward bringing objectivity more consistently into daily life, a few exercises might be tried.  One is to imagine (remember) thoughts of an airline passenger looking down on the little cars scurrying around on the streets like a colony of confused ants.  For those in the cars, making it into the next intersection before the yellow light seems crucial.  Not so much from 30,000 feet.  The drivers are intent on their list of important errands, the overhead observer sees only bustling nonsense.  From a higher perspective, most of what we do doesn't matter all that much.

Another exercise is to take a usual habit of looking in the mirror and expand the experience, to the infinite.  Place another mirror behind you and just off to the side, so that your reflection is reflected, ad infinitum.  This demonstrates how a rather shallow, everyday experience (checking for one's own surface imperfections) can be rendered quite insignificant by considering one's place in an infinite context.  One's self image after several iterative reflections is small and recedes further until it's indistinguishable.

One last exercise is to take a walk through a cemetery now and then.  The stones mark the resting places of hundreds of people who thought they were each the center of the universe.  (But if that proves to be the case, it would seem the surest way to that end is by becoming part of the dirt.)  One can only hope that the denial of their mortality didn't rob them of too many of life's joys.

The point of objectivity in daily life is humility.  No one has truly mastered even the simplest of tasks.  Even conscious breathing is most often overlooked and the value of one, deep, conscious breath is amazing.  Reflexively, you're probably trying it now.

We're all just fumbling along through life and we might as well stay humble while we're at it.  When we're at our best, we try to operate with successive approximations, or as the instruction goes: diagnose, remediate, monitor and adjust.  We have a life practice going on with a goal of improvement.  Mistakes and tough breaks are for learning and growth, not reacting to out of base urges or personal feelings.

Humility has a common Latin origin with "earth", i.e. the ground (humus).  Normally, when we say one was 'treated like dirt', we pity him and despise the other's misbehavior.   Soil is far more noble than a human who would lord it over others.  Such arrogance will eventually crumble and erode, although usually not soon enough for the rest of us who don't mind working with a little dirt under our fingernails, at the practice of life.




Thursday, March 1, 2012

A Place to Be


My home isn’t as good as it once was, but I’ve lived here all my life and I’m comfortable.  Over time, the creaking noises have grown louder, and there are plumbing issues and the wiring isn’t that great.  But at least I have a place to be, which counts for a lot.

You might say it’s “cozy”, but I think it is just right.  There are only two rooms, the main room and the sun porch.  If you came inside, you’d see I spend most of my time in the main room.  It’s awfully cluttered and needs a good cleaning.  I would only describe it to you though, I’d never have anyone in.  

I also don’t go out.  I live alone, but I’m not lonely.  I have the radio for company.  Ah yes, the radio.  There is this damned problem with the radio, the little knob never did work right.  It won’t turn off, and the plug is out of reach behind the bookcase.  I can adjust the volume a little and change stations, but otherwise it’s always on. 

When the radio starts to drive me crazy, I go out to the sun porch.  It’s got big windows, and is filled with light and all kinds of house plants.  When I close the door behind me there, I am suddenly in another world, silent and warm and I reward myself with a deep breath of invigorating air.  I feel embraced by the room’s humid fragrance and am completely refreshed.  The sun porch energizes me and the peaceful feeling lasts long after I leave.

I know what you’re thinking, because I’ve also had the thought many times that I should just live out there instead.  But one has to make choices, and I think it’s important to keep up with the news and such on the radio.  Also, I know it sounds crazy, but it somehow seems creepy that the radio would still be playing, but with no one there to listen. 

Still, sometimes it’s hard to come back in from out there.  After spending a quiet afternoon gazing through the sunny windows, I often feel the urge to venture out the porch door for a long, pleasant walk over the green, wooded hills.....

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Presence: a Practical Plan


It’s easy to dismiss important ideas if they come wrapped in ‘New-Agey‘ jargon.  So that the following ideas aren’t lost in that rejection pile, let’s try to first to clear-up some jargon-ish language.

There are four key terms to define for these purposes (‘not sure how this squares with scholarly definitions): 
1.) Attention - a state of mind where perception or thinking is focused on things or ideas, either briefly (distractible) or for a sustained period (attentive/deep in concentration).  We can make a choice to direct or ‘pay’ attention, or ‘give’ attention to this or that thing or idea.
2.) Awareness - a perceptive state of mind only, i.e., absent thought. (It occurs between thoughts as the attention switches between awareness/perception and thinking.), 
3.) Thinking - a state of mind occupied by consideration of concepts, by either language- or image-based means, 
4.) Presence - a sustained focus of attention on awareness, completely absent of thought.
“Presence” is where fans of jargon might rather employ : ‘Beingness’, or “Oneness”.  It’s all good; there is a sense of merging one’s “self” with ‘nothingness’ or ‘everything-ness’ as one enters a state of presence, as it is defined here.  This is the point of meditation practice.


You might have noticed that "consciousness" is not defined or included.  It was addressed more fully in the previous post.  Presence leads to a "higher state" of consciousness.  For these purposes, we might say that consciousness is the ability to be attentive.  Paying attention to disciplined non-thinking (presence) enables the mind to transcend to pure consciousness: a Buddha state of enlightenment.  

The mind, as we all know, is a very tricky customer.  Let’s say you sit down to meditate and you begin to focus on pure awareness, with a goal of finding your way to presence.  At some point you might think, “Ok, it must have been 5 or 10 minutes already, so I must be aware by now and presence is just around the corner”.  Nope.  As long as your internal voice is describing thoughts, you are paying attention to thinking thoughts and not to awareness.  

We cannot perceive and conceive anything at the same exact instant; the attention can’t be split for most - if any - of us.   One cognitive function informs the other and so the two necessarily happen in alternating fashion.  The attention can be switched back and forth so quickly that it might seem they’re happening simultaneously.  Perhaps a small percentage of gifted individuals can actually split their attention, or maybe it's a latent ability within all of us.  I think that could be handy, say, for those who are texting while driving in the car ahead.

All the time in daily life, any act of pure perception is immediately followed by conceiving thoughts about it, in a relentless effort to find meaning and make sense of the world.  So, it’s especially tricky to just hang with awareness, or perception, and to not jump to naming or thinking about the experience.  Sustained awareness or presence takes patient practice; the Dalai Lama works at it four hours each day and reportedly said he would take a short cut if he knew of one.

Presence is at once a gift we give ourselves and others, and also our most pressing responsibility.  The allusion that follows below is that it is a kind of default mode - an ultimate and inevitable state of mind which future understandings and circumstances will force to the fore.   For example, animals in the wild would seem to have no choice but to live fully present.  Rather than fancy ourselves superior, we would do well to study and learn from them.

Our ability to pay attention to thinking is both the blessing and the curse of being human.  In the realm of thinking, there is dynamic of conflict that illustrates the downside.

Within most human beings, whether or not one is aware of it, there is a kind of urgent dance taking place between two opposing impulses: destructive and constructive.  This conflict underlies our essential, paradoxical nature and is the source of ongoing dissatisfaction with life.  The dance must go on, and we are driven to see what comes next, slightly more than we regret the missteps we just made.

We see illustration of this internal conflict from a wider, external perspective - zoomed out all the way to a view of our species' behavior.  There are ample signs of simultaneous human degeneration and regeneration, of evolution and devolution in all fields of human activity.

In many significant measures of the biosphere, we find disturbing trends pointing toward our extinction.  Since the dawn of agriculture, we have used resources unsustainably and that practice has compounded at an accelerating pace to the point where we now simply call ourselves "consumers".   A contrasting term, "stewardship" now seems archaic, in this age of near-instantaneous obsolescence.  Seemingly with intention, we have undertaken a course of certain destruction.  The drive to destroy can also be seen extending into societal institutions such as politics, education, and religion.

In synchronicity with this steep curve of destruction, we also see a rise in the rate of innovation and progress in all the arts and sciences, and in spirituality.  Development of capacities within these disciplines is racing upward and challenging each of us to stay current, hang on for the ride, or get left behind with obsolete technology and disproven dogma.  

It is often rightly argued that wisdom is not keeping up with our progress.  It's hard to think of a time when wisdom ever did keep up and could save us from our next mistake.  (The Cuban Missile Crisis might be one instance.)  And, that's a good thing, because trial and error is the homo sapiens’ modus operandi.  Wisdom is most often the product of mistakes, that is, if we are paying attention.

What we pay attention to is the basis for everything we can possibly experience.  Theoretical physicists are questioning in greater numbers whether anything exists at all apart from our perception of it; phenomena come into being in response to our awareness of them!  This theory reconfigures perception and conception into a ‘chicken and egg’ problem.  

(This writing is trying to call your attention to ideas that may be unknown to you, and to that extent they don’t exist for you. You may, in fact, have to switch around and ‘see it when you believe it’.  That is, the conception may have to precede the perception, in order to inform it.)

This physics theory is paralleled in the arts in the breakthrough by conceptual artists, who call attention away from the tangible product toward awareness of the creative realm from which art products are derived.  The question posed to all of us by these innovators is, "what is real?"  Or, “what is real?”...or, “what is real?”

Given our proclivity for predicting the future, one could conclude this conflict or dance (on the macro or micro scale) is logically moving like a story plot line toward some type of culmination.  (Of course, apocalyptic predictions are not new, nor scarce; the Mayans give us another nine months and two weeks and then...poof!?!)  

An image comes to mind for this conflict of a pair of eagles tussling with talons latched onto each other as they tumble in a spiral toward the ground.  At some point they see the ground coming up fast and realize this can’t go on.  Perhaps it's a victory to hold on the longest, but eagles are too smart to opt for self-destruction; in this they are way smarter than us. That is to say, they have no choice but to be present to life.

In this analogy one eagle represents environmental degradations that will inevitably lead to catastrophes of all sorts.  It would appear that the 'ground is coming up fast' for all of us whether we are skeptics or believers.  The other eagle represents the promises held by discoveries in the arts and sciences that 1.) we have capabilities unimagined just a few years ago, and 2.) what seems most real is what resides in the mind. 

 These are paradigm-shattering ideas to consider - if you can.  How can one begin to intellectually grasp the eventualities of these?  What can be thought about these trends?

The answer that is argued here is that there is no way, nor any point, to trying to intellectually work through or around this.  The brain is not equipped to rationally conceive of a strategy or a framework for the unthinkable/unimaginable.  Whatever (survivalist) foolproof plan one may secretly hold to, in that there is only proof of a fool.  Maybe the effects of a catastrophe can be mitigated for a time, but then what?

Now and then, life delivers a mind-numbing wallop and you are left with an abiding sense of meaninglessness.   In a catastrophe, such as a tsunami, hurricane or even the Holocaust, we see that communities spontaneously coalesce with almost no available resources to fix the problem.  They are bound together in presence, which is a bond stronger than disaster relief or class action lawsuits.  In the warmth of shared presence, the sharpness of painful or dire circumstances is diminished.  There’s not so much to think about as there is to be present to, or with.

As discoveries blossom in the arts and sciences, new theories point toward a shrinking circle of explainable reality.  When meaningful words fall away and category boundaries melt and merge, awe is all there is left to experience; an awareness of, or presence to, the existence of all else.  This was a realization clearly known to Albert Einstein.  His intellectual prowess was complemented by a rich imagination and he pushed the frontier of the knowable forward by a quantum leap.

It is my belief that the end of life, each human has some sort of experience of a sense of transition.  I'm thinking this time around, the opportunity will be forced on a different scale and schedule; that every consciously-inhabited person will be faced with making a consciously-chosen quantum leap.  Some might call it "Rapture" or "Judgment Day", etc.   Regardless of label, such a momentous event will require being ready to make some sort of transition, or transformation of being: a developed facility of/with presence.  (Yet, undertaking some noble assignment while thinking this is my ticket to heaven is folly.  There are no goals to achieve in this sense.)

Forty years ago, The Moody Blues' album, Seventh Sojourn included these
lines from a song called You and Me*:  "What will be our last thought?  Do you think it's coming soon?  Will it be a comfort, or the pain of a burning wound?"  My take is that our last thought, whenever it comes, won't be a thought at all.  Rather, we'll be attuned to a thought-less presence to our existence as part of the whole.


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Human as the 'Total Package'



"The earlier concept of a universe made up of physical particles interacting according to fixed laws is no longer tenable. It is implicit in present findings that action rather than matter is basic. . . This is good news, for it is no longer appropriate to think of the universe as a gradually subsiding agitation of billiard balls. The universe, far from being a desert of inert particles, is a theatre of increasingly complex organization, a stage for development in which man has a definite place, without any upper limit to his evolution."

--Arthur M. Young 
The Reflexive Universe




"The universe...is a stage for development in which man has a definite place, without any upper limit to his evolution."
___  _____  ___

Arthur Young, like Albert Einstein and a small, select group of other scholars and researchers have deep understanding of difficult subjects and can use words with economy and great skill to illuminate the obscure.  What follows are words chosen with much less-disciplined scholarship and much less eloquence - and even less economy...

      The previous post highlighted the shortcomings of words when it comes to considering esoteric ideas.  We'll see if a graph can help, or not - along with more words, that are also insufficient to explain the unexplainable.  The 'Total Package' human being is partly a biological being and partly other than that.  I offer an illustration of a three part being, a view informed by Anthroposophy.

The goal of this overall, however, is an attempt to bring together bits from many teaching sources I've come across in the last forty years or more.  I believe I was very fortunate to have recognized the parts of a bigger picture as they came along; sometimes like a swinging 2 x 4, aimed at my forehead.
___  _____  ___
The graph shown below has a timeline across the bottom that could be drawn in a circular shape to represent that the beginning and the end are the same point.   But it’s not customary to think of time working that way, and it’s easier to understand the passing of time in the usual, linear form.  The timeline represents an example human lifespan of about 80 years for any given individual.

There are values represented beyond either end of the timeline and these are also not conventional ideas.  We are accustomed to thinking that little else exists, if anything at all, which is not found in the field of time.  The values beyond the frame of the timeline are the basis for understanding the overall significance of the graph.
Line A (solid line) represents the human ability to functionally inhabit one’s body: degrees of mastery of its facility and faculties, so the arc peaks around late adolescence or early adulthood.  This line pertains not only to human biology, but also to that of perhaps most living things.  The approach to the curve peak (i.e., the “prime of life”) is naturally more urgent than the decline.

(Lines B & C depict non-biological, less commonly-understood qualities - though they represent concepts of much contemplation.  Consideration of their very existence gives rise to all manner of reaction, quite often contentious - too often in the extreme.  The whole controversial subject is often politely set-aside with, “it’s a matter of faith”.)

Lines B1,2,3 (short dashes) represent human connectedness to others and attachments to things: the degree to which we follow the desires of our senses and other urges.

The controversy here rests on whether there is such a thing as a transmutable soul.  If yes, then a line representing soul development could enter or exit the timeframe at any point on the vertical scale, depending on how many attachments remain to be negotiated (“karma” to the Hindu).  Or, the line could not exist at all because there is no such thing as a soul.  Here, there is a line (with three alternative trajectories) and that makes the argued position obvious.

Line B1 shows a case where a soul enters life with some unfulfilled desires, acquires more and then satisfies many of them and loosens their claim on the soul “going forward”(for the next incarnation).  In such a case, the line roughly mirrors Line A.  This might be called 'living a temperate life'.

Line B2 shows a “high needs” profile, where “leftover” desires are inborn and more come along close on the heels of the others.  This demanding scenario typifies an early stage of life for most of us, but here that stage continues along.  Excess baggage was brought in, hauled around and left with through the revolving door.  (These souls deserve love, not judgment - because everyone is to some degree "high needs", compared to our ideal selves.)

Line B3 shows a case where the nature of desire* may be fortunately understood sometime in young adulthood to mid-life and the line arcs downward from there and tapers off. (*e.g., Buddhist teaching about the endless cycle of Desire, Fulfillment, Regret...) This line ends because the desires are satisfied and they die with the body.  

(note:  these ‘B’ lines each exit the graph at a point lower than their entry point which is to illustrate some degree of karmic “progress” for the depicted incarnation.)

Line C  illustrates an assumed realm where our spiritual essence exists “off-the-chart” except in this life.  The path of the line (long dashes) indicates a stage of withdrawal from, or rebelling against, unity with the spiritual whole and it dips to its lowest somewhere below the peak of Line A.  From that low point it could stay level or rise on any number of paths.  In this example, the line depicts one who has reconnected with spiritual ideas and seeks answers to ever-deeper questions.  Perhaps gradually, following discovery of some source(s) of inspiration, the line continues upward by force of attraction toward reunification.  The descent and ascent of this arc connotes the idea of spiritual rebirth. 

___  _____  ___
[According to my understanding, all reader comment-posting is enabled on this blog, but I've heard that there's been trouble with that function.  I've occasionally had replies via Facebook or e-mail.  If a comment is brewing for you, I'd like to hear about it - by any convenient means.  My e-mail address is at the top of the page.]