I’m agitated, anxious, fearful, frustrated, overwhelmed, annoyed, exhausted, and confused by the myriad relative permutations of stories, meanings, views, beliefs that are carried along in the material and immaterial consciousness of humanity. I do not know how to navigate in relation to and existence with all of this “reality.” It’s too much, inane, and irrelevant for me to continue to attempt to take into mindful consideration for making choices of intention, attention, and activity. Though the difficulty I observe I am experiencing is that I am seemingly unable to disconnect from, transform, nor surpass the ubiquitous collective conditional consciousness that causally formed and continues to reinforce the views and beliefs that appear to be non-harmonious with the nature of the Way and hence seem to be causing suffering for me.

I do not have actual answers for what may resolve this situation universally and relatively, wholly. Meditation with right understanding helps relieve suffering temporarily. Mindful concentration in activity also helps relieve suffering temporarily. Believing any particular story also appears to relieve suffering temporarily, but likewise, so does acting towards satiating any particular desire.

Is there any salvation or resolution, or are these concepts of transgression–actually impossible notions of permanence, separation, and meaning? Cause and conditions persist in function which evolve with all else in open moving contingent existence.

It is my current observational belief that self-referential (aka ignorant) attachment to any single or assembled ideas, things, thoughts, feelings, senses, perceptions, desires (aka skandhas et cetera) is the onset of disharmony within the actual nature of existence.

While the Eightfold Path is the Buddhist way of practicing the end of suffering, I do not yet understand this endeavoring and the functional means by which it actually ends suffering. It seems so complicated of an accumulated borrowed consciousness to manage to be a viable means of practicing the daily activity of detachment, flexibility, goodness, attention, and open conscious awareness. Maybe this is precisely why I am so frustrated, because I do not yet see how and what I need to do in my own relative life that fulfills this practice of harmony within the Way.

Understanding how seriously I believe in and value opening (my) consciousness to universal true real actual existence, is it possible for me to let go of my relative limitations and reorient my lifestyle relative, personal living acknowledgement of conditionality, function, and actuality? Seriously. May I seek refuge in non-separation, impermanence, and emptiness while managing the conditionality and relativity of daily human social economic survival? And moreover, how can I embrace my wholehearted and mindful intentional orientation toward exposing the universal truth and way of existence in my livelihood? A functional question may be to figure out what my skills, competencies, and deep interests are so that I can embrace, practice, and manifest the natural Way within my work, life, relationships, and survival.

If I could/would take on Gandhi’s challenge to “be the change you want to see in the world” seriously and realistically, then I would choose to elevate universal truth to the collective borrowed consciousness of humanity. There’s some relativistic, subjective David purpose!

How can a human handle any and all life issues well?

Life issues are commonly considered situations of dissonance in our life, rather than resonance. This recognition helps me understand that all life issues are a matter of perception and viewpoint. In another moment, an hour or year from now, I may view and perceive any particular issue quite differently because I will have gone through learning and experiencing that widens my understanding. What I am striving towards here is the realization for the widest possible perceptual view so that I may understand any and all life issues well in the moment I am experiencing life. Handling life issues well appears to require an open consciousness.

Annie Payson Call’s 1914 book, How to Live Quietly, is a helpful resource for me to explain the need for the opening of conscious perspective. “What brings peace is when we face the selfishness in ourselves squarely in its true form, — acknowledge it, repent of it, and refuse steadily to act or speak or think from it. I say “in its true form” because so keenly do people seem to dislike to know themselves that they will take credit to themselves for acknowledging a wrong, and persistently call it by another name, rather than face the evil in themselves for what it really is. They will say, “I am wrong here,” or “I am wrong there” in minor places, without facing in the least their besetting sin.” If we meet our own restrictions of view and consciousness and let them go, refraining from acting on or from the dissonance that arises from those views, we practice the discontinuance of creating and maintaining divisions and views.

It is my current understanding that all conflict is a matter of attachment plus limited perspective. For example, if I adhere to any political, religious, philosophical, scientific, or personal views, then I attach to that limited perspective. That viewpoint may help me in one particular moment and hinder me in another situation. However, as a human being I am inherently limited by the nature of my embodied existence; and yet, I am also unbound by any particular attachment to any particular view. This understanding of the malleability inherent in conscious awareness frees me from the equation of conflict and enables me to handle any and all particular issue well. But, I must actually detach from views, beliefs, opinions, etc in order to realize this flexibility to deal well with all issues. This may be the essential meaning of the Tao te Ching phrase “wander the world without cares,” for if we return to non-egocentric consciously aware presence, then we may move freely around and through the issues of dissonance we find in our lives of contingency.

Seeing divisions I cling to selfish separation and cause the existence of conflict; letting go of attachments I arrive in the actual oneness of presence. Here, now, in the actuality of existence, I attend to needs and manifest natural goodness, health and true peace.

Krishnamurti asks us, “Why don’t you change?” Meeting the challenge of answering this question, I see that I do not change because I am all too comfortable resigning to conditioned and repetitious patterns of activity. I tend to label this activity, criticize the patterns, and judge myself positively and negatively for the whole of it. This is really just more of the same insane, feedback-like commentary where nothing changes.

Now, to change, to bring myself to the actuality of existence and resonate with natural oneness, I must extinguish selfish attachment and turn my conscious attention to the activity that needs doing. Oddly enough, this endeavor is my responsibility as a human being, which if transgressed, causes suffering, sin, selfishness, misery, separation, dis-ease, delusion, wrong, false distinctions, et cetera. Herein is the priority of the practice of conscious awareness, for it is cultivation of natural emptiness, nonseparation, and change within our humanness.

May this post be a helpful reminder regarding the necessity of the practice of natural conscious awareness in every moment and situation of life.

Cheri Huber talks about the mentor within ourselves, though I just can’t seem to find this sort of entity, voice, info-stream–even though I’ve blogged and written from this peculiar source. I may still be at a disbelieving stage of human existence, rather than a recreational stage. Clearing the disorienting and confusing conditional information and views that I’ve accumulated seems to be more important than taking any imprecise action of creation. I wish I could detach, disidentify, disbelieve, and clarify more thoroughly and quickly, but I am so confused that I have no sense of what kind of a life I am able to live and create. I no longer understand what a person is, because I believe in actual non-separation, impermanence, and emptiness. Life does appear meaningless and unsubstantiated, particularly as humans have taken on the reigns of control for so many millenia. Well, the spaciousness and freedom of expansive consciousness has seemingly been depleted. I know not an avenue of living that seems harmonious with actual natural existence.

I’ve just stumbled upon a harsh realization I’ve opened to. It’s koanic in nature, which is likely why it has taken me so very long to see more clearly. On and off for at least two decades I’ve been wondering what to really do with my life. No perfect answer has surfaced, though smaller, subtler temporal possibilities have over the years. Some I have explored in hope of weaving a beautiful, coherent, synergistic life of purpose and joy. Some I have ignored in fear of the worthless, inappropriate, unsustainable, irresponsible foolishness of following senseless desires. There is no absolute answer! And, fearing this sort of an unsatisfactory conclusion, I have meanwhile suffered in hating opposition to relativity, self, views, beliefs, perspectives, opinions, subjectivity, duality, conditionality, contingency, and such messy delusional storyesque projections of human conscious activity.

The answer to my question is wholly relative thoroughly supported by the mysterious nature of existential reality–emptiness, non-separation, and impermanence. I can’t seemingly handle the truth! I often retreat into misery, especially after some  moments of beautiful experiences of reality living through me. There is no actual separation, no paused stagnation, nor no absolute meaning. I am thoroughly convinced of this truth as I actually know this intimately. I have adventurously and happily experienced a continuous year in this aware, flowing, open, centered being. It was the best year of my life–Feb 2005 – May 2006. Many who know me personally know how I talk about this period of my life.

But this is not what I am relatively living now, even as I am occasionally recapturing aspects and glimpses of that living now that reminds me of then. While I am reopening, there is much conditioned crap continuing to constrain my current life. Healing is a relative process unique for each individual human, even as there are many helpful universal themes for greater understanding and perspective along the way. There is no substitute for one’s own relative path of authentic practice! This has been a massive struggle for me as I feel so ostracized and unsupported in my unique way. For example, I strongly desire a deep intimate connection with a life partner, though I’ve found no one suitably open and willing to share such depth and range of experience. I feel as though I need another’s mutual presence and support as I perceive and project the lack of such an intimate experience with my parents in childhood. Hence, I feel quite insecure and estranged from most relationships because of a perceived lack of deep connection. How do I discontinue desiring that which I perceive I lack? How do I offer myself the ever-present interconnectedness of natural reality as healing supportive assurance? How can I [not] continue recentering myself in spacious non-attachment, acceptance of what is, and patient compassion of my relative conditioned existence?

I don’t do well in most group situations, aside from movement workshops or honest intelligent discussions on the nature of reality. However, I am also growing increasingly disenchanted with interpersonal connections, of which I used to embrace gratuitously and compulsively in seeking deeper connectivity with fellow humans. The combination of these influences appear to be leading me even deeper into personal practice of solitude, meditation, embodiment, aware presence, non-attachment, letting go, acceptance, flexibility, opening, and returning to honoring healthy personal lifestyle activity.

I stopped watching TV a decade ago because I realized it was annoyingly time consuming and I really wanted to do more productive and creative things with the time and energy of my life. I haven’t been considering movie going as wasteful, largely due to the relative higher quality of movies over typical TV shows and the highly personal perceived benefits I think I receive. I also understand that movies and TV are similarly inane activities; and movies are much more expensive than TV. In addition, I listen to a fair amount of NPR, BBC, iTunes electronica stations, and philosophical and spiritual podcasts. Though, I do think I may be wasting my time, money, attention, consciousness, and life with all of this media consumption. I remember so little of it for conscious use and recall.

I saw The Adjustment Bureau at it’s opening at midnight last night. It was quite good, but I’m not interested in writing a review. I’d like to describe how the story of this movie is affecting my consciousness. I stayed up quite late after seeing the movie in spontaneous contemplation and concerted journaling. The dominant control of The Adjustment Bureau of humanity is a compelling, yet unoriginal theme found in other related movies such as 1984, The Matrix, Avatar, Tron, et cetera. It is the idea of “the plan” which seemed to get me thinking. “The plan” for each human and all of humanity is nearly identical to the concept of fate, though it is controlled by The Adjustment Bureau. In this movie, humans are presented as unable to deftly handle the challenge of deciding their actions with appropriate rationality and fall victim to their emotionality causing great suffering.

I often reflect that humans are “controlled” by their karmic conditioned, relative egoic emotional ideology formed by chance, natural and cultural conditions, and conscious and unconscious self-will. Can I actually consciously create a new plan for myself? I haven’t had much success in doing so beyond the terribly strong dominance of the karmic conditioning I’ve experienced. Successes I have had were naturally impermanent–like seasons, relationships, lives–fleeting like now which dissolves imperceptibly into the past, into a story of a human’s life. Time and meaning are constructed realities. I didn’t construct the beginning of my biased conditioned life of meaning upon which my personality has evolved. Inasmuch, I don’t like my personhood, yet am what I am due to my neighborhood, childhood, familyhood, et cetera. Other than this conditioning, there is no self, there is the emptiness of natural original being, which is how everything including me exists. The futility of fate, the plan of The Adjustment Bureau, is exactly what David Norris challenged, even if in earlier versions of the plan, David and Elise were together.

Interestingly, lately I have been thinking I am at “ground zero” of my life. I don’t have much going on, and I seem to prefer more emptiness than somethingness, though I feel miserable most of the time, not relieved of the contemporary stresses of life. I have felt exhilarating relief from attachments in the past, clinging to no particular thought, feeling, nor activity. But, this is not my experience now. I am experiencing a lot of fear, confusion, negativity, overwhelm, loneliness, purposelessness, and unknowing. I am wondering if it may be possible for me to be able to create a plan for myself. This is what this movie is helping me consider. I don’t know if I can reset myself with a new self created plan or if all my past karmic conditioning will continue to dominate me. I don’t see into the future, as it is wholly unknowable, if sometimes practically predictable. That’s how conditioning controls me, it’s the same old cycles of activity and suffering: samsara.

I believe life is not a game, yet humans have distorted it into a constricted rule bound existence. Life is not the world of conditionality, yet it is. The natural conditions of the universe have converged to form a planet of life and beings of conscious awareness! That which ignorant humans have created have converged to form massive cultural structures of delusional reality. Some cultures have actually enabled happiness! The concept of Shambhala is a good example of human aspiration towards equanimous cultural enlightenment. I believe humans should study nature diligently from birth to understand how to be one, versatile, and empty like the nature of reality. Then, we may manifest natural goodness as the basis of our cultural, social existence of equanimity and peace in harmony with actual natural reality. Egocentric karmic conditioning is what isolates, stagnates, and fills us with identity, misperception, and meaning–none of which is necessary for human society living in aware consciousness interbeing with natural existence in the present moment.

Maybe I only really need a plan in order to counter the delusional dominant cultural conditioning. That sounds too rebelliously individualistic to me. There isn’t a reset button; there isn’t a delete, let go, or forget key. I am still very much unknowing of what to do in and with (my) life. Emptiness enables, non-separation unites, and change flows. Seems as though the inspiration from this movie isn’t nearly enough to circumvent the conditioning of my life. Uggh.