Nothing Religious (or even spiritual) today

Sesshin ended last Sunday.  Then on Tuesday, the last beloved guests returned to their respective homes.  Since then I have been basking in solitude, doing nothing "productive".

I have washed and folded sheets, drinking in their clean fresh smell and soft silky feel.  I have piddled around rearranging bookshelves and organizing both Lammi bills for payment and some computer files.  I have gone through 3 countries worth of clothes, storing some, cutting others into rags, (Juha - I have a piece of cloth for you to use in your rakusu sewing project), and, I have grumbled while putting glasses and cups and plates and whatnot back into their appointed places.

Yesterday, I whistled some Dixie (you probably have to be American to know that quip), listened to some music and an audio book while I started on returning the Lammi kitchen to non-sesshin condition.  Today, other than washing out refrigerators taking things to the recycling bins and packing away a few perishables into mouse-proof storage, I have no other "plans" and will let the day unfold as it will (again).

I miss these kinds of days. They do not come all that often anymore, and they are exactly what I experience on long trails: quietly succulent, exquisitely peaceful, and deeply satisfying.  There is a sense of timelessness as one thing effortlessly flows into another - step after step, breath after breath    ......and noticably, on days like these, there are no other human beings in sight (only have had a few skype meetings this week).

This leads me to wonder what it is about other humans that can alter this currently present "solitude self" state of mine.  I put "solitude" in quotations here because I am beginning to realize that the alteration I experience when people come into sensory range, may have nothing to do with aloneness at all.  In fact, it is probable that this particular "solitude self" configuration just coalesces more easily when alone. This must be true because, with a very, very few - very, very intimate companions, this present morph/experience can, and does, appear.

Oh - I can list all kinds of "true" explanations about why this is probably so, but these explanations don't REALLY answer the question of why/when/what/how/who.  (What is this?  Don't know!)

For the most part, I do not find being with people aversive, just different - (busier somehow), and in the past, extended solitude has always led me back into a longing for contact with others of my species.  Interestingly, animals do not disrupt this "solitude self" as people tend to, but actually enhance it when we acknowledge one another though looks and sounds.  This makes me think about relational being and I wonder if there is some kind of lack in my usual connection (full trust?) with folks that makes most of my interchanges with people somehow incomplete.

Hmmmmm......as I write the above, the veil is pulled from the mirror and I can see it is indeed a lack on my part, a turning away from "full frontal boundary-less engagement".  (That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one!  -  lol)  I think more often than not, when I am with people, there is a small portion of myself always held apart in "observation" (neutral noticing?  - hypervigilant monitoring?  - analytical categorizing?) and as I taste this space in this moment, it definitely has a defensive flavor.  It doesn't feel like this is a large part of what is going on most of the time, but I can see/remember that this "non-emotional" intellectual observer can grow much larger when threat is perceived (accurately or inaccurately). And when it grows larger it becomes "cold"(?)   (Is this the same observer or different? Don't know - Do know that "solitude self" doesn't have a noticeable "observer"  What is that?  Don't know!)

But onto other navel gazing in solitude ---

I experience solitude as a "fasting" from communication/interaction with others of our kind.  This fast develops/creates/enhances the hunger of loneliness in me .......and then, from this space, each morsel of connection/conversation/presence is savored for the unique flavors inherent in each.  Gluttony of connection on the other hand seems to lead to indigestion, hedonism, and mild discomfort (dissatisfaction?) for me.  I feel like I am "waking up" again from an unnoticed "sleep" in these few days and hours of alone.  I ask myself - "Must one (I)  be a hermit to truly experience the preciousness of all, of each and every person?"   I answer myself, "Don't know!"

Oh - and one more paradox before we finish today, -  I never miss solitude days when they are not here.  I only miss them when I return to them.

Some Very Preliminary Musings on God, Ego and Mysticism East and West

(Hmmmmm......   big topic this).

This musing is sparked by discomfort I experience when Christian writers seem to speak of God as something other than creation, something outside of creation.  When they do this, they almost always allude to, or speak directly of, this God as having a game plan of some sort, complete with desires and the consequences of desires, (anger, joy, sadness).

Now, beyond what may or may not be accurate, let me speak of the hook on which I hang.

To me, to speak of God as an entity (separate or not) with will to do and desires to fulfill, seems to be  an anthropomorphizing of this which we call God.  In this WE make God into our likeness, and when I do that, I can definitely fall into seeing God as a dictator with resources and understanding no greater than my own.  Resentment then arises as I see "unfairness" of being at the whim of another, all be it, all powerful something/somebody.  This type of relationship just seems false to me somehow, and if not false still something I am happy to rebel against and be punished for.  God in this limited (false?) form reminds me in some ways of the Twilight Zone episode of "Its a Good Life".  

I probably have this sense of trepidation, distrust and rejection of an anthropomorphized God since I grew up in a home where parents were unstable, immature and who thus, tended to be very conditional in their love and acceptance of me, of each other, and of everything and everybody else.  If I had experienced a home where parents were more accepting of life as it is and who were able to consistently exhibit a love not predicated on my or other's behavior or attitudes, then perhaps I could surrender to such a conceptualized God.  Is this ego?  Is this not wanting to be less than anything else?  Perhaps, perhaps not - I don't know - and I fall back into habit (being?) of many years now and become the question(s) "What is this?"  "Who is it that rejects?"  - and I answer myself  -"don't know" - and relax into what is.

The Christian mystics often speak about us not being God in a way I relate to........ in a way that seems the same as my parlance of the wave not being the ocean but yet is the same as the ocean.  The ocean is not the wave(ing), but is. The wave(ing) I am, is the ocean expressing its ocean-ness.  I am -and -  I AM.   I see/experience/am multiplicity and unity - NOT - greater than and less than (though this would be part of the whole as well (verse from Affirming Faith in Mind - "Distinctions such as large and small
 have relevance for you no more. The largest is the smallest too—
here limitations have no place").  In this, surrender is joy.  

I suspect this dichotomy I am addressing in this preliminary musing is a tempest in a teapot, but it consistently hooks me.  So far, Finley, Rohr and Bourgeault (teachers of the Living School) speak more loudly of waving-s of sea than they do of God the creator apart from creation - though the will of God, the desire of God is still there in their language and I wriggle upon the hook.

Now let me speak briefly of the word which has brought me to this discussion today.  That word is unworthy.

I see this word over and over again in Christian literature.  "We are unworthy. I am unworthy" of, (fill in the blank), God's love, God's mercy, God's sufferance to my continued existence, Grace, etc., and in response to such a statement comes:

1) First a a visceral experience of outrage.

2)  Second, an understanding that to hold a position of unworthiness of one's self, and thus being the opposite of God, (dichotomy) actually strengthens identification with the personality/ego, (which is simply the clothing covering simple centrality).  This position of unworthiness is supposed to free us from ego/personality but fails more times than not - and often results in creating an ego-morph of "false" humility. (my opinion).  

3) and Thirdly, if I but change the wording a bit to create the concept/understanding that "I" (relative and universal) cannot, need not do anything to be/experience the totality of oneness (God), (or cause it to disappear), then, there is relaxing into "truth", that sense of wholeness which I experience as love.  

Necessary re-framing?  Egoistic manipulation?  Bridge building between isolated morphs?  Intellectual grappling with paradox?

"Who asks?" - "Don't know"

- to be continued -

Same - same but different. Different - different, but same

I haven't had much to say lately.  It seems that the conflict I have been feeling while "straddling" the divide (my perception) between Christianity and Buddhism has pretty much faded away.  Not to say that I don't still grapple with worded concepts while recognizing the "sameness" of the "non-dualistic state/"buddha nature"/"unity of the cosmos".  I do, but I am enjoying the whole process and am benefiting terrifically on many levels.

1) an increased freshness of personal practice
2) better intellectual understanding (new perspectives) of what practice is which then allows me to better share the "fruits" of practice with others
3) recovering a part of Karen which had been placed to one side for many years which now equals an even greater ease in the world these days
4) new friends
5) --- and I never thought I would say it, - but-  there is a joy in dusting off and using my "critical' faculties and "learning" again in the academic arena of life.

So all in all, this is turning out to be a very stimulating, overall pleasant experience.

***************

Today, I watched a couple of lectures given by James Finley of the Living School and read several of the texts assigned.  These included an old favorite:

Once again, this is a book I have not revisited in more than 20, perhaps even 30 years.  And, once again, it is fertile ground in the re-plowing.  Same - same, but different.  Different - different, but same.  I can hold both same and different at the same time, but for me the "sameness" seems more true, and I ponder once again, how is it we all cannot see the "sameness" everywhere - in everything - in everyone?  As humans, we connect with the experience of sameness and separate with perceptions/feelings of difference.   The universe is both unity and multiplicity at the same time.  Its just that, it seems to me, if one "knows' sameness, then when one separates existence into convenient "parts" for study and analysis, one never feels threatened by "other" for at another level we know "other" is part of the whole, is us.

Sometimes when I land here, I feel very tired and sometimes enormous sadness overtakes me.  How can people treat each other, other sentient beings, the earth itself, they way they do?  How is it they cannot see our oneness?  They suffer so!  And, they cause so much suffering in their blindness, in their aloneness, in their pain.  I wonder how is it I cannot communicate this "wholeness" to them - and then I remember, no one could give me this experience either.  I had to sit still.  I had to do/be practice.  I also remembered, that this sense of wholeness and embeddedness is not a constant.  It still fluctuates, and even though I "live" here most of the time these days, I can still feel isolated and cut off from "other" too from time to time.  It is not a choice when the "perceptual" field shifts - but it is the choice made again and again to be aware of such shifts when made, that allows us not to be overwhelmed by such shifts.   Same - same, but different.  Different - different, but same.  Unity in multiplicity.  Multiplicity in unity.

I grew blue holding life as it is today.  Sometimes I think things will never change - and on days like this, it is not okay that this may be true.  (So much pain forever and forever!  I don't want that!!!)  Then an unknowing bodhisattva sent me this, (never knowing of my "blueness").

Just the medicine I needed.  Yes!  It is there, innate kindness and empathy, and I remember that it is possible for all of us to open to this, and that, even when we run into those who would harm us or others, we can still connect empathically with them through their (and our) fear, rage, disgust, etc. which they are experiencing in the moment.  We can always connect as human beings (or with other sentient beings as well - ie. scared dog tries to bite rescuer) as both of us know how terror, hate, anger, jealousy, etc. feels as part of the experience of life.  So, today I could connect with all the others in the world who feel the same sadness as I did today, who are, like me as I was an hour ago, feeling as if the world can never change, and that it SHOULD be different than it is!!!!).  

                                                          We are never alone - ever!

I cannot choose what feelings come to me or when, but I can choose how to work with them.

"May all beings attain Buddhahood"

Lamb Chops and Charlie Horses

Finished up sesshin yesterday and now I am writing this blog post from a car driving around the northern most portion of the Baltic Sea from Sweden to Finland.  Amazing this technology!!!  WiFi and Smart phones may have their isolating aspects, but this ability to instantaneously communicate with anyone on the globe at any time, (I just finished a quick chat with my daughter who lives in the USA near Atlanta Georgia), is just mind blowingly marvelous!

I have been in a quirky mood ever since I saw my first hedgehog in the wild yesterday.   This little bundle of cuteness just appeared in my flashlight beam early in the morning as I was walking from my cabin to the zendo.  He was totally engrossed with what he was doing and where he was going and just waddled past me on the path as if I were not there.  I think I smiled through the whole day - my students must have thought I was truly zen bonkers!

Anyway, being in a light mood (and wanting to hang out here a bit longer), I decided to read a book that has been on my "To Read" list for several years now, Christopher Moore's book, Lamb

The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years — except Biff, the Messiahs best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story in the divinely hilarious yet heartfelt work “reminiscent of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Saviors pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But theres no one who loves Josh more — except maybe “Maggie,” Mary of Magdala — and Biff isnt about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.

OMG!  I haven't had so much fun in a loooong time.  This book is hilarious!  And I am noticing, it is also working in some strange way to "demystify", "normalize" God, Jesus, Christianity, etc.  for me in a very good way.  Anyway, just thought I would pass on the fun.

- Oh - and the Lamb Chops and Charley Horse title, --- anyone out there besides me remember those puppets and Sheri Lewis?