Set Your Chickens Free

In trying to present meditation without credentials and as a Way of Being, I have learned how to say the things that allow some of the habitual mental reactions to this teaching to relax.  When I heard that Dorje Denma Ling was presenting The Posture of Meditation, my research clicked on the words, alignment and relaxation and I stepped out of my shadow to attend.

Meeting Will Johnson was so much more than expected.  He has a relatively large, long body that is not that often seen in meditation halls for obvious reasons.  The usual presentation leaves people with that physiology in considerable pain, quite quickly.  He sat in front of us revealing the gentle moans of both pleasure and pain, describing a way to work with ourselves through the felt experience of breath moving body.  Urging us to allow the inevitable movements to bring us to an inner stillness that can never be found by any kind of “holding against” or even “holding for” … no holding!

The content can be summarized by an interview with Will in Tricycle but the experience of spending time with him goes beyond any verbal description.  He asked for far more of us in terms of time and persistence than most modern meditation programs dare e.g. the evening sessions from 8 to 10 pm took us beyond the tiredness and resistance he compassionately acknowledged, but he did not indulge the escape artist inside.  This, in itself, showed the way to work with our habitual resistance, not just to meditation, but to change in how we relate – what we come for in the first place, but are often disappointed in somehow not achieving.  Reframing habitual struggle as a process of discovery, led to sessions that began to shift from, “how long until this is over” to “I could become so curious about where this is going, that I might get past longstanding evasions to doing it at all”

We talk about journey, even adventure, but are mostly stuck in our patterns of shutting out what is labelled uncomfortable.  For me he not only got me to encounter physical discomfort directly and properly, but in so doing, my relationship to emotional discomfort was exposed.  The cocoon was being rocked and gently rolled towards freedom.  Thank you Will.

The following was written as a short review for the program coordinator:  Having spent far too much time in meditation halls where people torture themselves, I came to hear Will because of the keywords alignment and relaxation.  He added so much more; an experiential description of what we label "not too tight, not too loose" he spoke of as an "amoeba-like pulsation" and the head on the shoulders is floating like a fisherman's cork.  Stillness is not holding against, but results from allowing the breath to move the body.  Our practice became a dynamic experience rather than a struggle to hold either a static posture or conform to some kind of static concept of what we should be doing.

A starting point for those who need to know

Last week I saw an item stating that George Soros was urging the Chinese to step up and become the leaders they are in the global money world, control the price of their currency in a way that helps all, etc.  This morning’s news had a piece on the Nobel Prize to a Chinese dissident which drew my mind back to Mr. Soros’ and I found this article that describes an interview he gave a couple of weeks ago.  There are enough links and references in this for anyone interested in the global economic outlook to pursue.  Mr. S is dubbed an eternal optimist, but we always need at least one of those at any time.

An Argument from Right Field that explains the root of confusion

I don’t know how I find these things … well, that’s not exactly true, since they are, apparently, revealed in a pretty timely manner. 

Exhibit A:    Richard Wetherill writes in 1952 The Tower of Babel (free download) a description of human behaviour independent of religion that suggests we are responsible for distortions in our view caused by rationalizing wrong choices … Alpha Publishing gives away his writings.  Irritating and enlightening, they remind me of the precepts and the 8-fold path, summarized splendidly by

Exhibit B:  U Pandita in another freely offered work, In This Very Life, The Liberation Teachings of the Buddha. (1992) He begins by stating that the rock bottom foundation of buddhism and practice is sila, morality and goes on to artfully label this, “A Basic Sense of Humanity”

Bottom line here is that lying (especially to oneself) is what confines us to an experience of confusion.  Our glimpses of the possibility of transforming various poisons often lead us to imagine that we can skip over this basic stuff and then wonder why our practice is often lost in a fog of distractions.  Oy vey!

The first reference gives a stepwise description of unwinding the distortions we have built into our view.  Mindfulness gives us a choice to operate such a process.

After sleeping on this I realize that I am making a judgment, but feel justified in doing so, a dangerous position, for sure … Exhibit A suggests there is an Absolute Right in terms of right/wrong (and that we know what it is) and we moderns/post-moderns recoil, but the buddha did describe a whole series of “rights” … the following paragraph illustrates CTR’s take on one of them:  (arrived just in time forwarded by Jan Watson)

RIGHT SPEECH:  In Sanskrit the word for speech is /vac/, which means /utterance/, /word/, or /logos/. It implies perfect communication, communication which says, "It is so," rather than, "I think it is so." "Fire is hot," rather than "I think fire is hot." Fire /is/ hot, automatically – the direct approach. Such communication is true speech, in Sanskrit /satya/, which means "being true." It is dark outside at this time. Nobody would disagree with that. Nobody would have to say, "I think it is dark outside," or "You must believe it is dark outside." You would just say, "It is dark outside." It is just the simple minimum of words we could use. It is true.

From "The Eightfold Path," in /The Myth of Freedom and the Way of
Meditation/, page 121 in the Shambhala Library edition.

What's Happening Here?

Why these dark rooms appearing on the light background?

Simplest explanation is that I have begun to do most of my writing in dark rooms ... a green room and an orange room that are how computer screens appeared into the 90's until the advent of Windows (I know; Macs never did) ... we are now so used to the clutter of 100 options, gadgets and tools that the flow of words to "paper" is subject to many distractions.

I am also teaching meditation in various ways and talking to myself about it as well.  So putting the tracks, opening up the dark rooms, here is a way for my dear readers to experience the contrast described in the piece below.

STOP for Being: A meditation instuction

This happens in another room; A present place with others learning meditation …

To see it completely, Click on it (Press Ctrl + to enlarge) … to return, Click the back arrow in your browser.

John Sherman cuts the crap out of Advaita

Advaita, often the headline name for non-dual philosophy these days  …  and while stating that our True nature is one with the infinite and that our imagined lives are, well, just that … this view often puts people’s backs up, or does not get enough traction to form a path out of the human maze …  check out this statement which is the intro quote in John’s recent ebook, available free on his website:

In spending our lives learning to tell our story, mostly to ourselves, we really only meet ourselves in terms of either reflections of our bodies in a mirror or in comparing concepts we have of our “self” with what we imagine other “selves” are or think, etc.  Self-definition  …  hard and frustrating work, that nobody really has to do.  Who cares?  John is talking about looking directly at our experience of being alive, of existing … without regard for what we find or not.

Video clip of John in action with a questioner …  doesn’t get much clearer than this  … part 2 if you’re interested.

… and finally a quote of direct pointing what to DO …

“Most important is to hold your attention on something that you believe to be your self. Since your self is everything whatsoever, it does not really matter! There is no way of determining, of defining, of pointing to some particular experience that is your self. Most important is to find some location in the mind that seems to be you, and to hold your attention there — without regard to all the Advaitic nonsense. I say nonsense because, in the context of one who is earnestly seeking for an end to their belief in the experience of separation, all of these ideas are nonsense.  For the one who believes oneself to be the doer, the thinker, the sufferer, all the ideas that deny the existence of the doer, the doing, the done, the sufferer, the suffering, all of these ideas are useless.

You must start where you are. Make this effort, just for
today. Find some thing that feels like “me”, and hold onto it. And
when your attention skitters away from it, hold onto it again.
Ramana promises that a) the actual entry into the core of ego is
the dissolution of ego, which does not mean that ego disappears;
and b) if you try for nothing other than this, with all your heart,
you will be successful, you will be unable to fail.”

… this is from another free ebook found on John’s site, “Meeting Ramana Maharshi”

In a pretty small nutshell

Pointing out the nature of human experience beyond the fantasized “self”  … This is Jean Klein in his 90’s at the time of this speaking.  I have stalled in his book, “Transmission of the Flame” on these opening paragraphs.  What further can be read?

Right Here, Right Now …. John Wheeler

"There is no ordinary life. Life is a grand display or flowering within the vast and clear presence of the divine intelligence. Every leaf and piece of dust is cradled in an expanse of light and presence. That presence-awareness that contains all things is also the deep presence of love and peace always. It is your own real being. The universe being revealed in each moment is aflame with the presence of exquisite love. In that, even the most ordinary thing is a unique and wonderful expression of the underlying oneness of all."

Poke around in here to find more ….  John is always pointing to direct experience, so if “you” think you need a “break” and can forget about “yourself” for a nanosecond or two … the fabled Kingdom may appear.

Catch you if I can …

It has been a moving experience for the last 3 months  …  settled into 3 times the area, room to breathe for both of us and the cats and a pretty decent space to work in … 2 months off “work” and out of sync with what used to be my world account for the gap here as well.  Worth it for sure and a lot of information has flooded my gates and will soon, I hope, appear here for those of you who can only keep up with me this way.

David Wilcock has also been busy writing a book he had not planned and releasing a new video … he describes all of that in his blog.

Here is the workspace … I know, not much different from the point of view of 2 screens and some books …

And the view from the 10th floor window at night … main thing is still big sky, like at “home”  … both places deservedly called Grand View.

Daytime view … looking over the arm Cowie Hill and Fairview/Rockingham …

“Feature wall in living room”  …  plus the added feature of open space indoors ….

Dining set that sort of fell from the sky  …  Dakin place sold and Ethan had to get rid of a lot of stuff fast, so we “helped”

Most Important Post here thus far

Big claim, available for all readers to test in experience/understanding … this document represents as far as I can comprehend the unification of all the traditions and most significantly the inner, often secret facets of them i.e. Kabbalah. Christian mysticism, Sufism, Vedanta, Tantric schools, the high Masonic degrees etc.  I would think and hope that you will feel a thrill of recognition as you read this … with the dawning realization that none of us is separated from our sincere brothers and sisters, no matter the differences in symbols, myths and cultural stories.  I am experiencing a personal healing of conceptual pain from past, more shadowed judgements tossed out by those who taught us our traditions.  I know that as you read this, that ancient, habitual, cultural judgements will be stirred, but at the same time it is calling us to see the Unity we inhabit and we can read words that surprise us; power words that are common in origin and intent to remind us of our Unity (cf footnotes).  All of this, even the seeming differences, exist within each of us.  We can allow this co-existence and also allow peace to enter.

It seems to me, that the relative is honoured here, within a Song of Praise to the Absolute and both are seen as integral to our human source and experience.  The ultimate realization is that each of us is experiencing a call to allow for this larger understanding to play out in our own lives and experience as we learn to let go of separative judgements in order to bring our own disparate parts into harmony by our inner work.

It is long and deep and requires some patience to pursue this and my understanding is meagre … those of you like Ray and Scott who have much stronger connections to your respective traditions may be able to help the rest of us come to further insight and I encourage you in the most heartfelt way to attempt to do so.  I believe that this is what we are here for.

Link to Gerald O’Donnell’s New Year 2010 message

Please leave whatever comments might occur to you, so we might wrestle with this challenge together somehow.  A most cheerful and blessed New Year to all of you, David

________________________________________________

Footnotes in the headlights:

Gospel of Thomas

This all strikes me as the ultimate message of Basic Goodness

His use of Ra ”the one across”  and David Wilcock’s bedrock reference in The Law of One material which is spoken by Ra.  Also appearing as: The Egyptian Sun God.

While the Tantric schools are non-theistic and therefore do not speak of the One, Unity is the Absolute pointed to continually.

Could Zen be somehow associated with Zion?

I remain, full of concepts, while having mixed minds most thoroughly in this life with Rod (non-conceptual buddhist), Ray (non-conceptual Hebrew), Rainer (non-conceptual Shambhallian) and Scott (non-conceptual Christian), constantly encouraged to go forward, allowing everything by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

In some ways, this is all going too quickly and I am going to have to leave cookie crumb trails in public for some of you, in order to not have duplicate efforts.  Here is one for Scott, if interested in the Gospel of Thomas as a sermon topic.  (article by F. F. Bruce, who is)

What might be a multi-coloured herring showed up doing this work.  It certainly is part of the 2012 theme.