The Wandering Yogi 5: Acceptance and the Now June 28, 2008
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Acceptance is often a term one encounters in spiritual practice and in other areas of personal growth. It is certainly a term I have heard many times and a concept that I thought I had an understanding of. However conceptual understanding of acceptance does not produce much transformation and for me lately my practice with acceptance has become more experiential. Acceptance has often been something I have struggled with because if what was happening was not to my liking it felt like accepting it would be perpetuating it or inviting more of it. If I accepted that I didn’t have much money I would be validating it and ensuring that I would continue to be broke. So instead of accepting I unconsciously resisted and fought my experience when it seemed to be hostile or negative. What I didn’t realize is that the very act of resisting it is what made it hostile or aversive. In other words the external situation was not really negative but just what it was, instead my unconscious judgment was that it was negative and my resistance to it caused it to resist back further validating my perception. Resistance to anything seems to create a counter force in the opposite direction. But this fails to take into account that I am the source of my experience so when I am fighting or resisting what is I am creating separation between myself and life, imagining that the qualities I experience in the situation are inherent to it rather than my projection.
The way to really see this process first hand is by practicing acceptance. When I began to truly accept what is, accept the present moment the resistance and fighting dissolved and I could see things with greater clarity. Things didn’t seem as hostile or aversive anymore. I also realized that acceptance does not mean that we continue to create the same experience over and over by condoning it or become passive. Not at all. It means that by not resisting what is we become free to change it if that change is needed and if change is needed we will be able to see clearly just what needs to change and how to accomplish the change because our action comes out of spaciousness and the joy of being ok with the present moment. When we are resisting what is our action has the quality of coming out of that resistance and so produces results similar to it in quality which is not usually any better than what we were resisting in the first place.
What it comes down to for me is that if I first accept or surrender to what is I become fully present and in touch with my experience and therefore my power. I realized that I have created my experience in this moment and it cannot be other than what it is but by accepting it and taking my power back I have the ability to create something different if thats called for. By accepting what is I become truly free because there is a deep source of peace that is allowed to shine through the experience of the moment when we are surrendered to it. That source of peace is pure consciousness, the divine, the unmanifest, emptiness or whatever you prefer to label it and it is the source of everything. The only place to find it is right here right now.
Happiness vs Peace June 18, 2008
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In my practice lately one distinction that is becoming more clear and at the same time up leveling my experience is the experience of peace compared to that of happiness. So much of my life has been spent seeking happiness at first externally but more recently internally. Wishing happiness for myself and others as well and working to create it wherever and whenever possible. I began to adopt the perspective that instead of anything out there creating my happiness I am the creator of it and thus its source is within. That shift from an external source of happiness to an internal one was quite powerful. However I’m beginning to see the focus on happiness itself as an obstacle because it still seems connected to the world of form whether its external forms such as people, money or experiences or internal forms such as an identity, a happy state of mind or conceptual ideas of love and compassion. This is still quite a limited experience and since it is still connected with the world of form it remains transient and subject to its opposite.
What now seems more powerful and freeing is peace. The deep peace that comes from being fully present, being connected with present experience without judgment, resistance or avoidance. The deep peace that in the stillness when thought has subsided and the mind is at rest shines through from the very core of being, the divine. From here happiness even in its most noble and selfless forms seems shallow and trivial. It still feels good but more like a passing shadow on the surface of consciousness. Pain and suffering too when one is connected with being still hurt but are seen as equally surface and temporary and are permeated with this energy of peace. For me this makes the temporary states of happiness and pain far less important, they are still necessary experiences and I sometimes get caught up in them but they just don’t seem worthy of very much attention anymore.
The seeking of happiness and the avoidance or resistance to pain consume so much energy, its amazing to feel that deep sense of peace from the level of being when I’m able to let that go for a time.
The Wandering Yogi 4: Surrender June 16, 2008
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I seem to have reached a new stage lately with my process of transition and transformation. Until recently so much of it has been an experience of fear and anxiety, of self doubt and judgment and feeling like a victim even though I consciously chose to take the path of renunciation. Lately however those negative emotions which I realize needed to play out as part of this process have begun to subside somewhat. What has begun to shift the experience is surrender. I’ve reached a point of surrender to my in the moment experience, a place of completely accepting what is and that subtle shift in perspective has changed things significantly. It has transformed the experience from one of fear and confusion to one of joy and freedom. I feel like I’m no longer fighting or resisting so much. I now feel the limitless possibility of where I’m at and realize my ability to build a new outer experience from here that mirrors much more clearly my inner purpose of awakening. The idea of surrender is that as long as you are fighting what is, the now or the present moment, you are disconnected from being or from the divine because the present moment is the only way to access it. When you surrender to what is you immediately reconnect with being or spirit and all possibilities become available again. It does not mean that you remain in a situation that is not serving you but only that you no longer fight it and by not fighting it are able to see clearly what action needs to be taken if any. I continue to practice this in each moment.
One final note, I cannot recommend highly enough the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. He is in my view a true spiritual teachers who expresses universal truths in words that speak directly to a higher part of us and in a way that is easy to understand. His teachings along with regular Zen practice has upleveled my practice tremendously.
Who is the dreamer? June 8, 2008
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I’ve often engaged in the contemplation that this life is a dream and the enlightenment process is awakening from the dream and realizing it to be a dream thereby ceasing to identify with it as solid and inherently real. So from this perspective what is the dream? The dream is the fluctuating constantly changing world of form in which we live. Just like in a night dream when we don’t realize we are dreaming we are swept up in the content of the dream and so react to that content as if it were solid and real. When we become lucid in the dream we realize that we are dreaming while still in the dream. This realization allows us to cease identifying with the content of the dream and instead identify with the dreamer. We realize we are creating the dream and therefore can choose to end it, change it or engage it. We take back our power from the illusory dream.
If we think of waking life a denser version of dream although equally illusory and lacking inherent existence we can cease to identify with the waking dream of form and instead identify with the dreamer who is aware of it. Recently I was reading from Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth and he brings up the question of just who is the dreamer from this perspective. The dreamer is not me, the “I” or my sense of self because when I wake up from the dream and cease to identify with the world of form my “self” is recognized as equally illusory and part of the dream. But if its not me that awakens from the dream then who is it?
Tolle addresses this in an interesting way. “The dreamer is not the person”…..”The dreamer is the absolute reality in which all forms come and go…..the dreamer is consciousness itself. Awakening from the dream is consciousness freeing itself from form and becoming aware of itself. The universe becoming aware of itself through the channel of us……
Going June 8, 2008
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I step out onto the sidewalk and head down the street, the road in front of me.
I don’t know where I’m going just that I’m going.
Who is it thats going?
I thought I knew
Now it seems I don’t
“I” often fights to know
Because the knowing is all it knows
But knowing isn’t all its cracked up to be
Its like a cloud of smoke on a windy day
There one instant and gone the next
So whats left?
Nothing, nothing at all
And in nothing
Everything
So I just keep going
gone
gone beyond
so be it
The Wandering Yogi: 3 June 8, 2008
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Well its been an interesting process lately. I’ve let go of my counseling practice yet again. This was the second go at it but I was not able to attract the clients to make it work despite feeling great fulfillment in the work I did do with people. However I’ve come to realize that I do want to work with people and perhaps the reason why it hasn’t worked so far is that I have not quite found my approach to doing this work. The way I was doing it before even though it was labeled contemplative counseling and had eastern techniques incorporated into it was still mostly a traditional western approach or that is mostly talk therapy, work at a cognitive level and I don’t think that represents what I am here to offer. So I’ve let go yet again to allow spirit to guide me and focus my attention on my own unfolding path in the present moment with trust that I will see guidance when it is needed. Trust is such a primary factor in my day to day experience now.
In the meantime I’ve been attempting to do various types of odd jobs including general labor type gigs, yard work and some of my old technology type work with mixed results. It has been very frustrating because even after putting a great deal of effort into these things they seem to yield little financial return and instead produce the most bizarre experiences. Like the other day when I went to help a woman with her yard and felt completely ill at ease working there and then dreamed her up to be displeased with how fast I was working. After I accidentally pulled up her sunflowers in an awkward attempt at weeding she freaked out on me and I proceeded to remove myself from the situation and head off down the street feeling like I had certainly stepped into the most freaked out world imaginable. I’m giving these kinds of jobs a chance in any case to bring in some resources as my current goal is to be able to provide for my own food and expenses prior to getting a place. The jobs are coming in it will simply be a practice of being present when I’m at them and focusing on the work and being of benefit to the person as best as I can as well as look at what these experiences have to reflect to me about where I’m at and what I’m putting out there.
I took this process to my group the other night and shared my frustration around livelihood and the reflection I go was being asked the question, what is it I really want to do right now. My answer when money is put aside is to do spiritual practice, to meditate, so the group suggested I put aside a few days to do just that and maybe a clearer direction would emerge out of that. Seems like a no brainier its just the fear is an obstacle so much of the time and clearly is also coming up as the part of me, the ego, that does not want me doing intensive spiritual practice. Resistance. Well I’m going to do some of the things I’ve been wanting to do including spending some time meditating several days in fact, taking a mushroom journey in the park on the next nice day we have and doing an urban vision quest by spending a night wandering the streets. Am I sounding crazy yet? Yes/No? Well I am to me, except that one of my teachers says when you walk the path you indeed become crazy because you identify with mind less and less so your actions and decisions don’t make sense at a rational level because thats not where they are coming from. Hmmmmm makes me wonder what the difference is between going crazy and awakening. Oh wait yes the difference is awareness, is one aware and conscious of what is happening or have they lapsed into unconsciousness. I’ll let you know…..