darkness and awareness

Stuck, alone, misunderstood, mirred in the effect of convoluted nurtured (humanly conceived) karmic conditions;
fearing the future, wanting simplicity, not knowing what to choose or what may happen, desiring authentic connection–
even as I may have subtle sublime groundedness in a variety of peaceful practices–
it is through awareness I can see my life appears to be lived largely in the darkness.

It is rather obvious I “have” intellect, knowledge, experience, consciousness, mindfulness, attentiveness, authenticity, intentionality, skills, and awareness. Yet nevertheless, I appear to be immersed in darkness. Is this simply the limitation of being a (contemporary) human–ignorant, desirous, selfish, inauthentically networked with humanity and nature? Or, is this simply the way life is–unknowable, immeasurable, inexact, unpredictable, imperfectly perfect, bound by physical form for a while? Why do I feel so disconnected from Truth in this contemporary social living human being form? The dark depressing disconnection IS CAUSED BY psycho-socially enculturated ego identifications with the worldly ways of activity. In short, we’ve brainwashed ourselves and continue this onward. When there is no seeming freedom from these ways that appear to be the only way to live and options for living, then the rest is unknowable darkness. I may ostracize myself, you may enjoy partying, she may focus on the role of mothering, he may concentrate on making money for survival for his family and community–however, the brainwashing continues like the plague and suffering is the effect.

I’m way too aware and have tread far enough along this spiritual journey so as not to omit the obvious universally inherited state of ignorance of humanity. And, now, in our contemporary culture, with all of the potential along with the problems, we cannot seemingly secede in the attempt of recreation! We are not free from the conditions that humans have created! I am entangled in the mess I’ve been born into. Even as awareness informs us of the eternal and infinite qualities of nature, we’ve enslaved and continue to condition ourselves with separated, permanent, and finite understandings of life. Based on my own experiences and my frequent listening to amazing spiritual humans, it appears quite impossible to find worldly harmony without thorough unification with that which is unknowable (aka God, Source, the Way, etc.).

Can anyone or any culture any longer live Truth as it naturally is in authentic aware co-creation of harmonious living despite worldly conditions? That is the only life I want to live, but I know not how to do such, nor what activities to choose in this worldly existence that may be actually beneficial. The myth of

The Healing I am going through is thoroughly transformative; I’ve been simply graced with one enlightenment period that allowed me an authentic experience of Truth and Beauty in human being and living. And in retrospective memory, while it did last an entire year, it was a mere taste of freedom from suffering, like a warm vacation from the coldly contradictory borrowed consciousness we karmically inherit being born as humans in our culture. Some cultures don’t have it quite as “bad” as most contemporary Westerners.

I make small steps to arrive into conscious awareness; this is my authentic practice. Meditation, inspiration through art, movement, journaling/writing, discussions, listenings, receivings, givings, gratitude, nature, experiences, understandings, and such ways gracefully allow me to open to this thusness here and now as it all is. I “have” or am awareness, though I am also in the dark, cold and alone. The only reconciliation at this point is unity, wholeness, oneness. I do not and cannot seem to know how this will occur nor what I should choose in activity beyond what I already practice that may suffice for actualizing the manifestation of thorough oneness of the Way in my relative and absolute human beingness. I suppose I mention this last sentence largely because most people seem to hold the opinion of me that I am already obsessed and over-thinking all of this spiritual process and transformation to my detriment. Fortunately or unfortunately, I continue to live in not knowing what or how oneness may manifest in my life.

It seems as though human life must become reintegrated somehow from this disturbingly divisive split from natural being and oneness. The only reason why we impose and brainwash ourselves with a separated, permanent, and egotistically ignorant knowledge is because we do not see beyond what we’ve learned and do not realize it is possible to live beyond these worldly confines of culture. Will the government imprison me for claiming this earthly existence with the authentic authority of being sustainable nature itself? I, aware nature itself, recognize and declare this inseparable, impermanent, immeasurable planet a natural preserve! On what more realistic ground does any identified human have to counter such obvious Truth?

Personally, I recognize I am uninterested in creating new myths or art of entertainment. I love authentic creative art of all forms–such is natural and beautiful Truth. However, I am much more heartened by the seeming need to convey the underlying universal Truth which we must honestly wake up to and harmonize with, if we are to survive with nature in living with the energy of all being beyond suffering. My disconnection is not only my own suffering, but the suffering of humanity on a universal scale that I am particularly sensitive to and aware of as caused by the contradictory enculturation of contemporary civilization. I live here and now, in the midst of strife and beauty inseparable, impermanent, and beyond knowing. My journey continues as I recommit to being this force of the Source of transformation from separated mind to aware natural being. I know not where this life manifestation will take me, yet it is clear I must be a True Way Follower, not an automaton of karmic conditioning. Such is my authentic life purpose, may I be graced with the ability to continue.

healing our understanding

I was listening to Tavis Smiley’s special radio segment called “The Medicalization of Race” (December 20, 2009). It’s a roundtable discussion about race in light of The Human Genome Project and contemporary cultural and scientific understandings. They were talking about how race is a culturally created designation.

I recall in my Cultural Anthropology studies how xenophobia is near to the root of making fearful generalizations of the other; hence, race an easy catch-all for the other colored humans. We’re all colored. In this way, the race designation isn’t entirely about color or physical differences, be they hair, body types, or genetic mutations, it’s about a fearful, culturally conditioned, dualistic, karmic identification with and against the concept of race. Race is a conceptual separation of humanity, based on egocentric karmic conditioning.

Our true nature is essential, free, healing and beyond the separatism and contradictory nature of egocentric karmic conditioned thinking and doing.

In my deep and lengthy investigation into reforming my path towards an authentic livelihood within culture, I realized something central and inspiring at the end of Tavis Smiley’s race panel discussion. It appears everyone needs healing of understanding. If we are openly honest about our co-existence with nature, humans are in a quandry as well another growth phase. The averting socio-environmental disasters and enabling a beneficial co-creative growth phase is dependent on re-under-standing (healing our understandings) as a function of disidentifying from egocentric karmic conditioning and re-co-creating our living practices in accordance of compassionate awareness, loving acceptance, and our indisputable universal true nature of oneness, change, and emptiness.

To be a little more specific about how this realization is important in my personal vocational path, I have needed to re-understand life in order to live it. The personal and cultural conditioning I’ve learned has brought about significant suffering in my identified life. I’ve also observed that there are many people who don’t perceive or feel like I do; which is further evidence of the grounding fact that identification with our constructed views is largely our existential understanding and worldly doing mode. However, the universal human commonality is the same: identification with our karmic conditioned enculturation and idiosyncratic coping mechanisms causes suffering for ourselves and others. While our contemporary social understanding may be that this is an unfortunate side of our limitation as human beings, this is not the truth. Healing our understanding is re-under-standing that views, beliefs, opinions, values, goals, purposes, and such complicated, conflicted and fragmented thinking is not our true nature; it is egocentric karmic conditioning, borrowed collective consciousness, and learned historical enculturation. Hence, healing our understanding is vital towards over-coming our stubborn egos, sheepish complacency, and oft hidden suffering.

I suppose one of the amazing previously uncherished strengths of my character is the ability and tendency to investigate my and others’ experience of life with the curiosity of it’s universality. In this sense, I am more like an adventurous mountain climber, independent avant-garde artist, or homestead permaculturist. Typically, I care much less about a fleeting view than the intuitive intention that causes it. I both experience and observe gut wrenching suffering and physical pain, unexpected crisis and the woe of lament, though I recognize a deeper aspect to this living. As such, I simply consider myself a bodhisattva because my path has been an investigation of suffering–it’s causes and cessation. Unwittingly and authentically, enmeshed in my experiences of suffering due overwhelmingly to the firm grip of egocentric karmic conditioning, original nature is known within me as the opening door of conscious awareness that is finding original harmony with being alive here and now amidst everything as it is.

In conclusion to this particular post, “healing our understanding” may be the authentic work that I may be capable of and suited in doing vocationally. This is about healing my understanding into original nature as much as helping other people heal their understanding and healing our collective human understanding too (a paradigmatic shift towards natural, original being). “How?” is the practical question I must also attend to, fortunately there are uncountable directions for manifesting this Wayward purpose. The arts are certainly a viable means for engaging re-under-standing, however, seriously cultivating authentic conscious awareness practice is inescapably at the core of personal actualizing and enlightening. Also, I enjoy how this phrase so caringly addresses the possible change from a limited egotistic view to a healthy aware conscious presence. The idea that understanding could be healed is truly heartwarming rather than judgmental and conditional. Like the body, our mind (as if there was ever any separation) may heal naturally too. Oneness is our original nature.

seeing into my core issue

I could use a little writing about my core issue. It’s after midnight, yet I have had an interesting evening of discussions and observing myself as well as others. I talked with my best friend about my persistent loneliness and sense of disconnectedness from others. Fabulously, I recognized that my suffering in loneliness and disconnectedness is not entirely habit and attachment, but an incomplete healing of my own relationship with my father. I say “my own relationship” because this is about how I view and experienced my father growing up and how I was conditioned through my childhood. Obviously a grand mix of experiences, it is fascinating to see and know that nearly all of the break-ups I’ve had in my life seem to be filtered through the deeper suffering of a lack of connection and love with my father. I say “lack” because that is how I perceived it as a youth and habitually still do. This is actually the root of my core issue number one. My issue isn’t reducible to a concise statement that the relationship with my father was lacking in love, but that I still need, want, desire, crave a profoundly authentic deep relationship with a significant other. Do you see how this is coming together past into future, all merging into desire for that which is not? Hmmm, the root of all suffering! Anyways, this is for me to see and free myself from the conditioning and causes of that conditioning. There really wasn’t a way out of it. But now, with conscious attention and seeing with compassion into my conditioning and root causes of suffering, I may let go very intelligently. I’m certainly not running away, and I am not ignoring my issues. This true letting go is compassion, releasing my egocentric karmic conditioning through the seeing of how it causes suffering in my specific life. Interestingly though, this is a large open window into the suffering of all people. Tonight, in my conversations with people, it seemed quite clear that lack of connection kept people suffering and moving to relieve that suffering. But if we can be with ourselves as we suffer, really getting to see our own suffering and the causes of it, and the potential for ending the suffering, then our issue dissolves from the deep seeing into the True nature of our being. (Yes, I am loosely describing 3 of the 4 noble truths.)

This has been a late night writing session, so please forgive my less than stellar structure and flow. Gratitude.

Reference: “two core issues” – Core Issue One

fearification

I might as well get a bit playful with the fear that has plagued my life. On the radio this morning, I heard a coach tells his team to work hard and don’t return off the field saying “I wish I had… .” I reflected on my own life and thought about how hard I work on overcoming my own personal issues, at authenticity in relationships, at my jobs, exploring beneficial new activities, and trying to be open to others in life. I usually feel very undervalued for this hard work. I don’t have a coach, guru, significant other, or parent that supports my work. I’ve discovered I need to do this work for my own self and in relation to being with others.

obeygiant.com

The wet cement of suffering I wade through in life is conditioning and the causes of such conditioning. Early coping mechanisms for dealing with perceived abuse, social dissonance, and high sensitivity are now very inadequate ways of living an adult life. It’s clear my childhood was fraught with fear which enforced intended behavioral patterns of listening, obeying, paying attention, and doing things as instructed. I was really taught how to follow and fear was the primary method of coercion for making me do what I was told. I’m playfully calling this fearification as I dive into how this has functioned in my life, because this word allows me to seriously view the use of fear–by using intended or actual verbal or physical punishment or reward–to make someone act in a preferred way through the lens of unconscious ignorance.

No aware, loving, compassionate, and true human would use fear to force an egotistically desired result! I know this now, yet I still stumble along far too much in the unconscious conditioned coping mechanisms I learned as an innocent little bubba. I am trying to let go, but no one every taught me nor showed me how to live this day-to-day life in calm, open, careful, and energetically masterful ways! The old coping mechanisms and habits are the actions I learned for dealing with a life of stress, condemnation, rules, criticism, limitation, and fear. I wonder who may have actually seen that me and my siblings weren’t just well-behaved, but fearfully coerced into doing so. God, all parents (not just my own!), adults, teachers, and all authorities were the enforcers that my parents unconsciously recruited in their memetic structure of raising the people they procreated. Sounds a bit odd, but even now it resonates with tons of twisted relative truth. My life is thusly stained with patterns of rebellion, fearful obeying, silent resignation, expressive outbursts of stifled energy, reading volumes of self-help and health resources, self-marginalization from society because I think I don’t fit in with others, and thinking I am strange and inappropriate. This is the one result of fearification, though it appears to be prevalent enough. I sure don’t have a statistic, but the abundant “problems” of our contemporary world suggest that people are highly identified with their own conditioned coping mechanisms.

So, how shall I move on from the conditioning? Conscious seeing of the conditioning with both compassion and the authentic aspiration for transformation to the other shore of naturalness and being. Meditation is clearly key practice. But what about the unknown and unexperienced living activity that exists beyond the abandoned unconscious habits, learned strategies of behavior, unrealistic thinking patterns, and typical routines? Often times I think that I can’t let go of my father or fiancee because then, I will have abandoned them in the pool of ignorance and conditioning. Isn’t it my purpose to help those whom I love? Or is this too a conditioned way of considering relationships, love, and conditioning?

Enough with the questions about the unknowable. Fantasy will only provide another story, not living presence in actual life. I don’t want to create another ignorant story, however masterfully devised. Here I am reminded of the Constructive Living tenets: know your purpose (how, by what means is true authentic purpose known? meditation?), accept your feelings (I’ve been practicing this for nearly 15 years), do what needs to be done (attentive action is our real relationship with everything), and Naikan reflection (how I have caused trouble for others, gratitude for everything). Constructive Living provides a way for us to practice living beyond the conditioned ways we’ve developed. This is just one way, yet it is a good one for supplying a structure to work with in transforming our lives from identified fearification to authentic conscious presence in our own lives.

I also want to mention that yesterday was Class 2 of Cheri Huber’s What You Practice Is What You Have email class. Her class is copywrited, so that is all I can mention about it. I’m following the rules.

the deep pit of my suffering

Here i go again. I am beating myself up with an array of criticism and negativity. I cannot seem to think through any of it; i am fairly sure that it’s impossible. I need to give it up because it weighs me down, stresses me out, and taps my energy. Circumstances that occur in this conditioned world that I cannot deal with well cause me to pummel myself into trying to deal with it, but seeing that I am not. I am not dealing well with the demands of 21st century living and there is no avoiding it either. I must seemingly abuse myself with work, or lose the work, the money, the relationships, and the whole thing. It seems as though everything is on the line. I have lost one client this way. I was doing my work at my own break-neck pace (slowly, but surely and doing good work too) but being way past deadlines that the client needs is unacceptable for their situation. However, clearly, their situation is not my situation, even if it is interrelated. And this isn’t about upholding one’s word or not being professional, this is this way because of the suffering i experience which corrupts, confounds, and debilitates me. I’ve proven to myself i can battle myself to uphold my word and be professional. But now, i don’t want the battle anymore. I need to ease back when this battle seems to start. I don’t seem to win anything much. Even the “good” that appears to come from this warring is thoroughly stained by the self-sacrificing, unconscious, demoralization of forcing myself to do for others rather than take care of myself. THIS is a major root problem for me. Some might say “suck it up,” or “hard work is good for you,” but I don’t believe that anymore. It’s not true. I have done this year after year, within jobs and relationships, and have lost all of it over and over again, which seems to cause all the more suffering in the forms of loss, grief, and guilt. I haven’t taken care of myself. I need to change my ways of working. I take TOO MUCH ON for others, and often receive far less than it’s worth. But, too, I labor hard over what I do, beating myself up along the way of creating imperfect solutions and less than stellar work. I try too hard and get frustrated with the small details and the slowness of it all. It gets so heavy and I don’t want to do any more of it. I can’t live like this anymore. I get to the point where I don’t want to live at all, because I do not know a way out of this kind of struggle with human existence and relational being in this cultural worldliness. I fear there is no way out. Even my meditation practice seems to suggest that I am pretending if I think that some kind of perfect equilibrium may exist. Change is at core of the way things are, not some harmonic, blissful state of being with humans and nature. And, when I ride along with the work that I do, choosing to fail to see the contradiction in my action, the deep pit of suffering gurgles to remind me of it’s perpetually hungry ghosts that are ready to torment me. “Risk your livelihood for what you think is right,” or “coast along in further anguish in what is convoluted and stressful.” The problem here is that it is all worthless and meaningless. It is not a situation of choice, as it is an opportunity to rest in the presence of being and doing beyond personal commentary and evaluation. Ahh, but I am not a tireless robot, a machine of capable mind and body activity. I am a very lowly human, not great, not special, not ordinary, not anything but a living human being. I continue to feed off of a cultural paradigm as much as it’s food supply. I’m conditioned to live this way, and I am not so happy with it because I feel very abused by the seemingly concrete and oppressive conditionality of the way I am expected to be–on time, appropriate, suitable, smart, efficient, friendly, professional, etc. Honestly, I don’t believe all this stuff, because when I meditate, do qi gong and butoh, the thinking mind abates into rich sensorial aware presence where thought is secondary. But in the “real” world, the thought-time-space-ego-meaning structures are primary! WHY do i experience actuality and reality as an inverse relationship? Is this accurate and true? Krishnamurti and Zen monks seem to see this kind of a relationship too.

But this is where I typically stop in my tracks. What now? Back to the load of work? Onward with the sleep deprivation and stressing out my mind and body? Is it even possible for me to relax in doing this work? [Massive lightning just struck the earth a moment ago and took me by surprise. A lone lightning bolt of awakening!] Some rain follows. Ahh, another lightning flash makes the previous one less of a shock. I am already dulled by the plip & thap of rain hitting the urban ground. I don’t have anything left to lose. I don’t have anything of meaning anymore. It’s as though I have to maintain the meaning just to wake up in the morning and hurt myself all day long doing what I don’t care to do and for no particular reason. I have no one left in my life. Father, brother and ex-fiancee all gone. All I see now are token selfish gestures of “hi” and the same old conversations. That’s beyond boring, that’s ignorant samsara–on my part and theirs! I’ve lived a good portion of my life now, and I just don’t see any reason why any of this will actually change out of the ebb and flow of samsara. It’s a river egotistic life. How can I refuse ego without a war, and let go of cultural manifestations without isolation? How can I love myself in this milieu? How can I actually help anyone, as I struggle to the bone of my being? How can I be helped myself, by me, other, and nature? Why is my life filled with day-to-day struggle and difficulty in existing in this thusness of humanness?

I’m sorry, but I don’t know. And when I realize the nature of the way, some peace does flow within, but a glance at all that needs to be remembered, done, and practiced in work, social, and personal life–I gasp and want to go to sleep first, i don’t have the energy for it.

letting go is compassion

I’ve been sharing my struggles with life with a few people lately. I needed the input, because I wasn’t getting “far enough” and through my issues. (Two of my core issues)

Here are a couple quotes from my journal after a discussion with my brother who made time for me to talk over the weekend. “Let go, not of the loving and the authentic awareness connection in openness, BUT of the issue, the knowing, the wanting other than what is. Return to tending, being with, and resting in presence.” “The seeing that my issue of lamenting non-authentic connection with “loved ones” is causing suffering for me and for others and causing non-connection with current loved ones is revelatory.”

Then, after thinking and understanding these things, some calm relflection allowed me to let go and realize that letting go in awareness is compassionate action. And, it was clear, and still is rather clear that this letting go IS compassion. Awareness is the truth of our being in existence, which is non-egotistic and non-dualistic and non-thinking. The simplicity of this calm and simple truth is so often unknown and unexperienced because we are not letting go of our “egocentric karmic conditioning,” as Cheri Huber puts it. And then it is also clear that there is nothing to gain when we let go. This isn’t about health or peace, this is about seeing that we are creating our own suffering and we can realize it’s cessation through the compassionate activity of letting go of the madness of all of it–ego, conditioning, thoughts, feelings, sensations, body, habits, consciousness, desires, avoidances, beliefs, ideas, et cetera. This is where Krishnamurti is so helpful in reiterating over and over that “the seeing is the doing.” When we see that we are causing our own suffering by not letting go, then letting go is compassionate activity.

Gratitude to all wise teachers, aware friends, and those who don’t quite understand, because learning abounds if we are open to the way things are.

on suffering

Tonight has been unusual and I feel very compelled to write about my experience here and now. I have already written in my handwritten journal during the experience. So, this blog post is reflection.

I walked home slowly and reflectively from the bus, returning from a typical day at work.

I was tired and annoyed about the build-up of stress throughout the day. I awoke to the day quite nicely in the morning. I rested for a few moments and decided to take a bath before getting to many tasks I needed to do. Though after the bath, relaxed bodily yet stressed mentally, I returned to resting. I was highly annoyed and agitated in thought though my body was resting, nearly sleeping. I slept lightly for a couple hours. Upon gently waking, I did not feel like moving, as though I was very depressed. I was very agitated in not wanting to suffer nor participate in any suffering. Slowly, as my thinking went onto more tangible aspects of life (like wanting to eat and needing to do work), I sat up at the edge of my bed.

I wasn’t about to do anything, feeling miserable, I wanted to resolve the suffering situation I was in. I started writing in my journal. I was writing about how conflicted and delusional thinking is and that I continue maintaining such thinking.

I researched a little on the internet after writing a question with a lot of emotion: Why am I not released from my suffering like before in my life? I read some of thework.com and did some of the work I am not unwilling to do anymore.

I continued to write, but a little more focused. I quote my journal here.

I am very annoyed by all the contradictory thinking delusion that causes suffering in this world/for humans. This “prevents” me from feeling peace, because I see the existence of it (the delusion and the suffering). Thusly, I do not know what to do since suffering appears to exist beyond my natural existence/original nature. Even as delusion in the conscious brainwashing and habitual karma of humanity, not Jesus, Buddha, nor any heros change the fact that the delusion persists like a plague! Ironically, humans survive even with such stress and self-inflicted pain! So, then, how can I be free of suffering in my own life as I know most other humans suffer greater duress and even unconsciously to the point of causing greater suffering? I don’t know how to live a life free of suffering (because I know the cause–ignorant desire for things to be other t h a n t h e y a r e!)

There it was/is! The extra spaces between the letters meant I was getting it! I smiled and realized the illogical, contradictory thinking feedback that was happening in my brain that caused the annoyance, frustration, and suffering. The belief I held so strongly to was debunked through simple logic. NO WONDER! How could our mind, brain, body, energy be flowing peacefully with such inconsistency and hypocrisy! How can we live well with all life if our minds are messed up with contradictory beliefs and untruthful thoughts. This is a truly wonderful moment of realization for me.

I nearly immediately calmed down and started doing the work I needed to do. After I did my work for a couple hours, I decided to write this post. I am happy to offer this to you as plainly as I have.