July 31, 2008 at 3:05 pm (Spirituality)
Tags: What's next?
Just going along, spirit-floating.
Not a lot is happening, and I am not making things happen. They take care of themselves.
Coming and going, these micro-events, one here, another over there, wait, now over here again.
And so on.
Don’t identify. Detach. Be like a boat on the waves; let them take you. Agendas, expectations, plans, to-do lists, ambitions: they squeeze the “what’s next?” out of us.
Don’t you just want to see how it all turns out, not as a spectator but as a part of the whole?
July 28, 2008 at 10:49 am (Life, Spirituality)
Tags: stillness
I learn the way of listening, silence, stillness. The more I express myself through word and action, the more do people take issue with me. I don’t understand myself to be a ‘difficult person,’ but maybe I am one. I must be one. I have passed the week convincing, arguing, explaining or justifying things I have said. Why so difficult? What am I saying that is so challenging?
Today, in the quiet space of restraint, and then waiting, and then the soul-soothing rest, I discovered how the energy can turn, revolve, move, transform. Something larger than my own expressive striving arises, and it opens the way to true relationship.
July 22, 2008 at 3:53 pm (Life)
Tags: Jung, Near Death Experience
Following his near-death experience, Jung reflected, “…now I should have to convince myself all over again that this was important.”
He was referring to life, and how full of imputed significance it seems, until we get a slice of the wider view.
I confess that I struggle with the idea that any thing I do is important in any way. Most of it – not all – just seems a little silly, especially that we are often so serious about what we are up to while here in the body. Like Jung, I might prefer to float in the Beyond rather than engage in the nonsense of earthly life.
Alas. Here I am.
I’ll admit that I find the little things – manifestations of sorts – ease my experience here, things like Baroque music, a poem by Rumi, a comfortable chair, a fine gin Martini (at least 3 olives please), the intense look in the eyes of a Bull Dog, the hand of a soul mate holding my own.
Mostly, Jung reminds me: it’s OK to relax and enjoy the ride of life. Most of it just isn’t as important as we think it is.
July 14, 2008 at 1:10 pm (Spirituality, Work)
Tags: luther, tagore
“This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.” -Tagore
Martin Luther speaks of the ‘hidden God,’ Deus absconditus, dwelling silently within the mystery of brokenness, the cross. Doing paperwork at a desk all day, for most of the work week, demands from me an ongoing meditation practice, one that empties me again and again. I dissolve into the paper, the desk, the keyboard. If I had a guru, I would be told, “Become the mouse.”
All sense of will and choice is abandoned. It just is, this work. Constant. Unrelenting. The personality can either be driven into insane preoccupations with what “should” be…or it can go to sleep. In the nondual realm, however, the personality is not even needed, and peace follows upon peace, the gentle filling with fresh life.
I walk in emptiness, yet I am somehow able to keep showing up at this odd party.
July 11, 2008 at 8:04 pm (Life, Spirituality, Work)
Tags: identity, Work
I’ve been arguing with God today.
It’s one of those phases: my personality ignites and demands, like an impudent child, to know just what the hell is going on here.
God listens.
Sometimes, we find ourselves doing tasks that seem like a waste of our time, skills, gifts, abilities. And yet, we do them for reasons unknown to us at the time, perhaps as ways to teach us who we are. We observe ourselves, alive in these God-breathed contexts, surprised to meet some unexpected layer of identity.
July 9, 2008 at 3:06 pm (Life, Spirituality)
Tags: relationship
In reacquainting myself with the teachings of Krishnamurti, I am reminded that all of life is relationship, and that relationship is a mirror that reflects our true selves back to us. We can act upon the world, thinking we already know who we are, who others are, and can thereby contribute to the ongoing and pre-existent insanity.
We think we know.
Perhaps, by chance, we can act, walk, and speak in relationship to and with the world and, without any judgement of ourselves or others or ANYTHING, discover something new.
July 8, 2008 at 11:21 am (Spirituality)
Tags: Letting Go
The whole of my life seems to be about learning how to let go.
On the micro-level, a new
life-giving
breath
cannot be inhaled until the previous breath has been released.
That’s where it all begins
and ends:
with the breath.
Then, we’re asked to let go of cars, clothes, homes, lovers, spouses, children, parents,
the leaves on the trees each autumn,
our very selves.
Open your hand,
your heart,
and whatever is sitting there,
let it fly.
Enjoy what you have, right now, as a gift.
None of it – not even yourself – is yours.
