The Nature of Nature

Today I was looking out the window at the forest. There about 30 feet up in the lower branches of a tall ponderosa pine sat a lone grey squirrel tail up, hands holding its morning meal. As it was chewing away, the branch suddenly broke luckily not at the tree but further out on the limb. Within a split second the squirrel jumped to the neighboring branch and without a moment lost continued to gnaw. Now, I was going round and round, thinking how lucky the squirrel was and how it avoided a potentially tragic demise. Suddenly it struck me that the squirrel didn't seem to care at all. Didn't even move too far away, didn't drop it's meal, didn't test the current branch for strength, didn't survey the broken branch to find out why it broke. It just moved and continued to eat. That got me really seeing how nature just is what it is. The dormant trees aren't praying to God for a good set of leaves come spring. They don't worry about the overcrowded unmanaged space they are in or the potential of being cut down with the new development coming in the spring. The tree nor the squirrel seem to weep or worry. They just are; taking what comes next.

Haiti

Matador

Refraining from internal monitoring could resemble the dance between Matador and bull. Internal monitoring and thoughts are the bull. The red cape is the sticky stuff of shenpa teasing the bull into action. The matador is the loving self gently and smoothy stepping aside with out getting gored watching the thoughts arise and fall. And the arena becomes the reminder to always remember to keep the space. One is not pinned in the corner by thoughts.

I've heard the true matadors fall in love with the bull.

Interesting play on word.

Gentle Perspective

Get up and sit.
Oh just a bit longer. Sleep feels good.
Get up and sit.
Okay just a minute.
Get up and sit.
I'm so lazy! I rather sleep than sit. I'm pathetic.
Ah my child you're not lazy you just can't see where sitting will take you. How can you expect yourself to want to do something if you don't really know what you will gain from it.
Thank you for being so gentle.
You're welcome. Now get up and sit.
Okay.

Dead Letters

This last month I have been in a work situation that has brought up a lot of shenpa. Today I met with Bill and we talked about it. I am dealing with a co-worker who is creating a passive aggressive atmosphere and it is triggering my PTSD. My practice is allowing me to clearly see the breakdown of what is happening in my mind, my body and what is reality. He isn't really all that bad but my old defense mechanisms are kicking in full blast. I am really aware of how physically tense I am.

The gift Bill gave me today was that he said he wasn't really hearing my felt experience of what was happening. It was all in my mind. My logical mind was explaining the story, feelings, I was out of body. In my reading of Trungpa's "Glimpses of Abhidharma", there was a part in there about taking emotions all the way through. To finish them out. Bill was able to show me how I was not doing that. I would start to talk about how I was feeling (the felt sense) and then my mind would quickly negate it with a logical reality check of what was really happening. I know I'm being vague but I don't really feel like hashing it out here. But instead wanted to talk about how one tool in working with emotional issues may be the dead letter. Not stopping my self logically with my mind but instead tenderly proceeding to allow my body and emotions to flow freely. Go where they may. Run their course. This is an opportunity!

The key is gentleness and tenderness with myself. Know that I am a warrior to take this stand at my fear and jump into the shenpa space (being held by God).

Beginning

I am floundering again. But I trust that it is good. The whole thing of who and what I am. What I think, what I've done all that is melting away. I am trusting that I am the ice who by nature is water. I am dissolving to who I truly am (not). Today's link from the Tricycle Blog was just what I needed. An actknowledgement of how I am feeling and then a way to work with it. The teacher or spiritual friend is important at this point. I am hoping Bill will be that but I must look at the Sangha more I feel. My isolation must end if I am to move further on this journey.

Fear is what happens when reality collides with our personal fiction. Our practice is based on expectations—expectations about who we are, why we are practicing, and what our practice should be. As our hope disintegrates, it may be replaced by fear. Our characteristics, personality, all of our beautiful plans and ideas are like snowflakes about to fall on the hot stone of our meditation practice.
-Lama Tsony, "Facing Fear," from the Fall 2006 Tricycle. Read the complete article.

I'm Right! There is nothing!

Today I stumbled into this article by Cynthia Thatcher which talks about the importance of striving for the present moment because once we see it for what it is, we can attain a true happiness beyond anything we could imagine. I often struggle with nihilism. The dreary mood I often find myself in because of this sense of the deeper I go the less I can hold onto and the more I feel I am loosing myself. I know this is the whole point of Vipassana. But when I really think about it I often go to that place of what's the point of living. I have been able to temper this in the last few months and can say the extreme ends of emotion and thought seems gradually to be moving to the middle way. Today in reading Cynthia's article gave me a better sense of these feelings and of a new direction to focus.

"To the mind with bare attention, even the suds in the dishpan—as their bubbles glint and wink in the light—are windows on a divine radiance. That's the myth. But the truth is almost the opposite: in fact, the more mindfulness we have, the less compelling sense-objects seem, until at last we lose all desire for them."

Read the article in its entirety. What's So Great About Now?