Finding Wisdom

I feel so confused and disoriented when I really want life to be other than it is.
SO LET GO OF WANTING ANYTHING OTHER THAN THIS.

I feel lost and foresaken when I consider that those who “love” me argue against me and reject me.
SO DO NOT ARGUE, DO NOT TAKE THEM PERSONALLY, AND DEEPLY ACCEPT ALL AS THEY ARE.

How do I manage to enjoy this lonely life?
RECOMMIT TO BEING HEALING ENERGY AND PRESENCE WITHIN, AND EVENTUALLY WITH PRACTICE, WITHOUT. THIS ENERGY IS INFINITE TRUTH EMBEDDED IN THESE WORLDLY FORMS.

How do I let go of all the clinging to what I want and avoidance of what I don’t want?
LET GO OF YOUR SEPARATE SELF-BASED CONDITIONED IGNORANCE AND BE ILLUMINATED BY THE BEAUTIFUL INFINITE ENERGY OF TRUTH

ONLY IN AN INSTANT OF CLARITY, THIS MOMENT BECOMES BOUNDLESS.
THIS EXPERIENCE IS SIMPLE ENLIGHTENMENT.
THERE IS NOTHING TO GAIN, FOR THIS THUSNESS IS IMMEASURABLE.
WHY CONTINUE WITH THE CONSCIOUS STRUGGLE OF THINKING, PERCEIVING, AND FEELING AROUND IRONING OUT CONDITIONED REALITY? HAVEN’T YOU LEARNED WITH ENOUGH PAINFUL SUFFERING THAT SUCH UNDERSTANDING IS ENDLESSLY FUTILE?
LETTING GO MEANS DISCONTINUING, DETACHING, RELAXING, ALLOWING, ACCEPTING, AND PEACEFULLY ABIDING IN THIS SITUATION AND MOMENT, ALWAYS HERE AND NOW.

PLEASE LISTEN TO YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE, FOR SUFFERING MAY BE ENDED NOW. IF CONDITIONED DELUSION DISTORTS YOUR NATURAL BEING, THEN IMMEDIATELY RETURN TO THE TRUTH THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW WITHIN. AS SUCH, REALIZE GREAT JOY, HEALTH, PEACE, COMFORT, ENERGY, CALM, WISDOM, AND RETURN TO LIVING TRUTH IN NATURAL FORM NOW.

healing energy and presence

How do I choose to commit to a new vocational direction in life with all my ignorance and unassuredness in making a good and right decision? It sure is a risk, to change, to switch careers, to listen to a deeper sense of my being in choosing the work that I would appreciate doing each day. I suppose it is not as big of a risk as I took when I was younger and knew even less about myself and the world when I decided on my current work field. Seems true enough. Now I feel a bit more confident. Nice.

I want to become a “healer.” I think I have a lot to offer others, if they want my assistance in their movement in change. This is a reciprocal function as well. By helping others, I will be helping myself too. I need the support as much as you do, and this is nearly always true for us humans. I think that embarking on a vocational path of helping others heal, I too will continue to heal.

This is a large step of opening for me: from wounded to healer. But it is in deeply knowing the woundedness that I am rising with self knowledge into loving compassion. Awareness is the key for healing into being harmoniously present. A process of unconditioning and re-learning trust of our natural being is in staying true to the Way things are. How can deep irrevocable healing take place in any other way? We certainly cannot dupe ourselves into healing! That’s simply swapping out one illusion with another, and then, another after that. That’s conditioned existence, not living with and accepting emptiness.

Today, the day of the new moon, an irrevocable synergistic opportunity of possibility in harmonizing myself with the Way, I want to commit to my new path in being “healing energy and presence.” This is my consciously aware recognition that I have been headed in this direction for a long time and that I am very deeply interested in helping others who may ask me to assist them in healing changes.

I am currently particularly attracted to Rolfing, Feldenkrais, and Zentherapy. I am nearing the final (tenth) session with my friend who is a Rolfer. This is influencing me, as I learn the structural aspects of the body. I have received a small amount of Feldenkrais instruction which helps me to understand the function of the body. Zen practice also inflences me greatly in re-directing myself in the Way. I practice Qi Gong and Butoh too – healing movement modalities. I am also influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine in receipt of acupuncture, herbs and Taoist wisdom. In these ways, I have been moving into a general field of movement, awareness, mind/body practices, and healing. I do not know what else to say at this time other than list these wonderful influences and continue to be grateful for their presence in my life.

realistic apology

My ego conditioned mind self really liked you. I wanted to be with you for this lifetime, growing in intimacy and togetherness. I failed to decipher the difference between the ego-self and the very boundless soulful energetic Self. This led to a relapse into depression, getting caught up deeply in my own egotistic  issues and merging with the grandiose energy and awareness that cannot be claimed as ego nor harnessed for ego’s masked use. Actually, it/we can, but it’s not the same as freely flowing beyond suffering with the Way we are and everything is. We are not conditioned minds, yet that’s exactly how the mind thinks: linearly. We are bounded by our conditioned minds and bodily forms, though this itself is not the cause of suffering as our conditioned minds and aching bodies may try to trick us into believing. Our cause of suffering is wanting things to be other than it is due to the ignorance of our conditioned minds and restricted bodies. With awareness and paying attention in the normal functioning of both mind and body, awakening occurs naturally.

So, I am sorry I got so confused. It’s such an ordinary thing, because we are typically living ordinary lives in such conditioned reality. I want you. I want intimacy. I want deeper loving. I was(and still am) willing to practice with my conditioning and deficient body, but you weren’t(and still aren’t). I can’t continue using that fact against myself. I have apologized profusely for my ignorance and the troubles that I have caused. I am grateful beyond measure for all that I have experienced with you. Even though I was attached to “us” and “you,” I know, not in a conditioned way, that I love you. If I distorted this love, then I know my conditioned mind would be in control. NO.

This love experience will continue to grow within me like the roots of a tree, filling me up with awareness of life and the beauty of being. I am grounded in a profound understanding that awareness itself is the key that unlocks the conditioning of the mind and restrictions of the body. I pray for the strength to commit to this evolutionary path of awakening and to offer this to all who ask of me. I cannot force anyone to embrace awareness as I do, for this is a relative truth that harmonizes within my specific being with the energy of absolute universal existence.

wanted: relationship harmony

I awoke this morning to a disturbing dream of my father and me arguing. To describe briefly, I was living at home, my childhood home with my parents. We were sitting down to eat a simple breakfast together. I was rushing around getting my stuff together to visit a new client. As we were eating, I introduced a strange grater made from bamboo to add a condiment to the food we were eating. I asked if anyone else wanted to use it. My dad said sure. I wondered if I should ask if he knows how to use it, but decided not to. My dad proceeded to cut his food with the utensil, at which point I exclaimed in order for him to discontiue his action.  What ensued was an argument, the details of which I cannot remember well. The tone was not terribly harsh, though I felt very hurt as my father would not delve into deeper levels of talking and understanding in order to learn and bring forth mutual harmony in this difficult moment we were having. And, my highly emotional frustration grew in relation to deeply knowing that it is possible to bring relationship harmony into this situation, if we only both wanted to.

I feel I am at the point of isolation, due to the most intimate people in my life not wanting to bring harmony, communication, learning, and understanding into our relationships. This appears true not only with my father, but with a couple of my siblings, and even my ex-fiancee. Even though I too have gone through a period of my life where I ex-communicated someone I was dating, I do not understand why or how these very significant close people in my life continue to maintain their walls as if they are protected from something they fear. Do they fear learning, opening, changing, growing, harmony? No. They fear intimacy which erodes their beloved sense of ego-identification–whether they realize it or not. Thus, they close me out of their lives or parts of their lives. I’m left in my own awareness of the wall they are putting up in between us. Hence, suffering for both of us, though they believe it is beneficial for them to separate what is unseparable and live in maintained ignorance and dualistic thinking about this and that.

It doesn’t suffice for me that this exists as it does. This is suffering which doesn not need to exist, if we only just understood that healing and peace is possible in these relationships. I realize it, I continue practicing and nudging these people along, yet I seem to make very little progress in introducing non-dual awareness being with these people. I practice it myself to the best of my ability, but they don’t even seem to see the worthiness of my activity. I bring an interesting grater to the table, or concepts about the unseparated, impermanent, empty quality of reality, and what I receive is “get the fuck away from me,” stop talking about awareness,” or “I don’t want to work on us anymore.”

Herein lies my isolation. The very concepts that bring my conscious awareness to the reality of human existence appears to separate me from the people I love and want deep natural harmony with in this short lifetime. I do not know what to do next, for my words and actions appear to fail miserably to bring about deeper “being with.” Very sadly, these key people in my life with whom I desire an ever evolving closer relationship with, prefer to put up walls in front of me. Their ignorance and fear is causing me great frustration, even as my intention is deep harmonic resonance of being alive as we are. Ahh, but this active being requires conscious letting go, open sensitivity, willing flexibility, and intentional attention on being one with one another.

I don’t want to leave these key people in my life as they have walled me out of their lives! This doesn’t seem to be an egotistic desire, as much as an authentic sense of harmonizing with my own father, brother, and significant other. I suppose even uttering “my own …” is too egotistic, attached, and wanton. Actually it is very important for me to realize that I WANT something that their egos do not want; harmony. What do they want? Well, they’re focused on their own desires. My desire is to be very deeply present with people and nature in life. Why can’t the people who say they love me, love me too? I understand neither of us are perfect in this endeavor, but please don’t put up walls. Or, if you do still need to put up a wall, make it temporary and don’t shut me out so rigidly. I love you too and want flowers to grow and water to flow along the paths of our being together. If there is a wall, there will be no light nor movement. You will have stopped us from being one.

Now, I sit in solitude; quite sad, and slightly hopeful still. I know, without thinking, that harmony is the way of all being. Refreshingly, I may look to earth’s elements for solace in this journey where humans want no harmony as we do. Oneness of being is always present, empty, forever.

Your wall, and my walls too, exist when we cling to self/ego and do not faithfully trust in the greatness of the Way that is.

Walls and Vows

Walls are dividers. Physical walls offer us protection from that which exists on the other side. This may be quite necessary, as in building a home with insulated walls that protect us from environmental conditions like the wind, rain, and temperature. We also construct ideological walls in our psyche to protect us from cutural conditions. The physical and the mental, the internal and the external are dualistic distinctions, yet they are helpful for developing Right Understanding and the clarity of wise discernment.

I am not typically humble enough in my relationships with others. This is one of my remaining walls that I am deconstructing and unlearning. I learned this in order to protect myself and project an insincere confidence of coolness. The coolness has gotten me far, so to speak. Yet, it has also disabled me from connecting with others more deeply, something I know I desire to the depths of my being. It is original human nature to connect freely in the midst of all cause and conditions. We can say this takes love and compassion, though it also takes deconstruction of our walls. It is my egotistic self that denies an aspect of connection, which is my wall of arrogant coolness. People noticing my wall perceive me as righteous and indignant. I try to talk through the walls of others, meanwhile missing my own ignorance which causes a great problem and certain suffering.

What is fascinating is we don’t perceive our own walls as our unique problems that we need to address and debunk. My wall of knowledgeable arrogance and stylistic coolness traps me in ignorance, where I feel quite safe from the emptiness of existence. Now I know many people don’t even tread in this territory of “emptiness,” however, when understood as the universal order of existence, we may rest in presence rather than wall ourselves with what we know. I hope that makes sense. I’ll continue with my life example. When I say I want to connect with my brother and remain unable to see my own wall of arrogant knowledge, then I am the one who is ignorant and will remain ignorant until I wake up to my own walls. What is even more amazing to me is that I often talk with others about their walls that prevent connection within our relationship. They typically may agree that a wall exists in them as I have pointed out, yet have no desire to deconstruct the wall. The wall is there to protect them and they want the wall to maintain their egotistic structure they are working on. This is what I have been consistently ignorant of for most of my life–a deeply ingrained pattern, a wall of egotistic protection. I have been both comfortable with and unwilling to see that I have been very hypocritical in preserving my egotistic wall while trying to demand that others deconstruct theirs. I thought that in helping others see their wall, I was helping them.

Yet, even if this may be partly true, if we are not “ready” or “willing” to look at our own walls as impeding factors for fulfillingly free living, we will not see our walls as the problems. Our walls are always “the problem”, always the work that we need to do in opening to reality, in enlightening ourselves, in helping others. If I realize you have a wall in place, it is now my responsibility to respect you as you are, walls and all. In this realization and practice, I must be humble enough to ‘be with’ you without arrogantly calling attention to your walls that I sense and see, which is causes me to ignorantly and firmly erect my wall of arrogant indignation and cause suffering for both you and me. SO, heretofore, I take upon my second life vow to deconstruct my wall of hypocritical ignorant arrogant indignation and practice humble connection with others.

For the record, my first life vow is to always do my best.

seeing the resistance

I met the resistance in my father again today, just a few moments ago. He called to say that he doesn’t want to travel in the very cold temperatures tonight to drive me home from my second scheduled Rolfing Session. He supplied me with plenty of excuses, though I did my best to remain silent on the phone here at work. He said I should cancel my appointment. I then remarked that I want to go the Rolfing Session and I can find a way to get home somehow. He was immediately relieved and thanked me.

I can see I too have done this similar excuse-filled behavior with friends, girlfriends, and family. It’s very strange not only for me, but very much for the other individual who is asking something of me. We both are at odds because I make it known and stick to my excuses for NOT DOING what the other wants. Usually, this situation lingers like stinky cheese in the minds of those who I have disappointed. Sometimes the excuse is justified and reasonable, but even when it is, it is still an excuse NOT TO DO because I DO NOT WANT TO. It still stinks. How immature am I to want to do what I want over what others ask of me? For me, I can see it is typically selfish laziness that causes me to generate a mindstream of pseudo-reasonable excuses for inaction.

Seeing and experiencing the resistance within my father to do as I have asked of him, I realize the frustration that is caused as a result. The frustration arises from WANTING to NOT DO something and is passed on through excusing one’s self from what has been asked. This is essentially breaking one’s word, even if it is implied in the fact that we are friends and family of the one’s who ask something of us.

In this moment, I apologize to those I have frustrated due to my selfish laziness in wanting not to do what you have asked of me. In most situations, I could have left my selfish desire behind and answered your call for my assistance in your life. I see in this moment of experiencing my father’s pattern inaction where my pattern of inaction has originated, and, that I may consciously be able to circumvent the learned conditioned habit towards “being with” you.

peace & harmony

learning about purpose

Today is the first day of a distance learning class that I am taking: Living on Purpose via the ToDo Institute. This should help me grow in understanding MY purpose versus my usual perspective of eliminating personal viewpoints and goal-building. I guess I would say of myself that I have been reeking of zen in my thinking and talking about the Way, rather than living life in this moment without fabricated purpose. Oh, I do my best, but it seems much more like hypocrisy to me than equanimous fulfillment. Thus, I am on my way to continue learning about purpose.