Cutting the cat in one

For much of my life I've occupied the trying to be as right as possible space. And, spiritually it is important to wipe away the dust as much as it is to realise that there's neither dust nor anywhere for it to land. (See the Platform Sutra.) Now I notice that my efforts might be well focused on cutting the cat in one (see Mumonkan Case 14). Now, there's much pointed to I feel in this koan but the aspect which seems to draw my attention is finding unity at all levels in daily life. The precepts guide us in this and I recently came across a note that all the precepts are aspects of one precept - not to kill (the Buddha, the 'truth'). Can I remain present, aware and open to this so as to act in each arising moment in full accordance with this? No! Can and do I try? Fairly much so (I hope).

I started this post some days ago and didn't get into it before other things prompted me to write. Recently I was at Wallington in Northumberland and discovered that the Grade 1 listed walled garden greenhouse is now falling apart and subject to review by 'specialists' to determine what courses of action are open to the National Trust. Much decay and slipped glass is evident.

I found myself considering my thoughts about saving such assets. It's such a lovely place and I've photos from decades past of myself and friends in the greenhouse, the garden and outside the house. Observing the flaking paint it's clear the situation is beyond 'wabi-sabi' (a beauty I can struggle with accepting at the best of times), there's a risk to persons due to falling glass and access has had to be stopped even for staff. There is I think, merit (in the widest sense) in looking after historical things and it's lovely to pour love into them. Where I find myself feeling sceptical is the fuzzy area where a thing is beyond its life and we enter into a kind of fetish, generating an arguably false narrative about a thing. Without getting too bogged down in the details of the way we make our worlds both in the physical sense and in and through our thoughts, there are I think, broader cultural discussions to be had about our relation to the past, present and future. The past isn't (entirely) gone, it continues to unfold in each moment. And in this sense we have a responsibility to the future. Where energy is generated to save and / or create beauty, where there's creativity and love we know it feels right, heartfelt. Is there a space where we cross over into less helpful attachments in how we relate to the past? Can this impinge our ability to pour loving effort into the new? I think so. I think we can abrogate our responsibility to the future or more accurately to the present, by engaging in an excessive preoccupation with extending things beyond their life. A thing should live.

When I started this post I was wrestling with finding a way through an interpersonal conflict (hence 'cut the cat in one'). Forgetting the post and returning, inspired by thoughts of wabi-sabi, a natural life for a thing and appreciation of the space in which things have meaning, I wonder at the koan unfolding in daily life. Unity is present in the separation when I 'get out of my way', I do feel this even though it's not clear. Holding the questions 'In this moment what is being asked of me? What's needed in the next 5 or so minutes?' If I remember to ask and to open to the unity in the separation, the naturally arising answers go a long way to answer the koan without causing undue waves.

I hope a way can be found to keep life in the Wallington greenhouse, not 'pickled in aspic' but as a working, living thing.

My koan arising in the form of interpersonal conflict finds some resolution where I accept the need both to yield and stand firm. I'm disappointed that the koan can still overwhelm me at times in so many ways. Be like willow they say. It doesn't come naturally to me. And there's a time to be more the mountain. 

Some manifestations of the Buddha just shine out bright. Although I know some will call them garish, I love these splashes of bright red colour. There's a place for cool calm sophistication and a place for HELLO, I'm here!

Goodbye 'not-slippers'

I'm now the owner of a pair of 'those shoes with the holes in them' as I used to say. Crocs that is. I have these not to go outside in but as a pair of 'not slippers'. My other 'not slippers' are a very well worn pair of Converse trainers which I bought in about 2004 or 2005. Realising that I couldn't for much longer ignore the split soles I'd looked at the possibility of getting actual slippers. But in the end I knew I'd not feel comfortable in them- they're so... So anyway, I saw the Crocs and actually they seemed a possibility.

Those Converse have been my indoor shoes - 'not slippers' for about 14 years. This included my time living in community in the Findhorn Foundation's Cluny. I took the laces out and knotted a piece of string to make them 'work' in a relaxed way. They became (and this is the 1st time I've said it) 'not slip-ons'. Slip-on shoes being beyond the pale. I replaced the string a couple of times, once I recall from Cluny maintenance shed. Those trainers are soaked in history. Before they became 'not-slippers' I wore then in both Istanbul and Egypt. But I think my time in Cluny is the strongest memory attached to them.

DC said they evoke van Gogh's peasant shoes. They do, they're wonderfully lived in.

Thank you shoes- you've served me very well and I'm sad to let you go but I know I've worn out your shoe-ness and must let you go.

Fungi Web of Life

DC and I have not long since emerged from the cinema. We saw 'Fungi Web of Life' featuring Merlin Sheldrake. The film co-opts our usual aesthetic to show the beautiful forms and colours fungi can make. Of course it would have been possible to show more cringe making pictures but that wouldn't have fitted the narrative. This isn't to suggest that I don't agree with the premise of the film, fungi are fascinating and as beautiful as any other part of nature. It's just that I noticed a certain construction in the film. A thought came to mind as it was pointed out that industrial scale deforestation is destroying not just the above ground forest but also vast swathes of underground fungal networks which contain huge amounts of information which we'll never be able to learn. This is the case with so much of the natural world we destroy. The thought - we have created a fungi like structure and let it loose in our world and now we have lost control of it and it is controlling us- capitalism. Fungi is an ancient life form and it has survived many environmental changes over earth's evolution. Different types of fungi will have had their period of time, come and gone, but the kingdom of fungi has sustained. Will it survive mankind? Will we sustain? At this time we really are dicing with death yet as a species we seem unable to significantly change our behaviour.

Fungi can terrify me. They rot wood! Childhood family trauma caused by building structural timber decay is very much part of my trauma history. And the nature of fungal hyphae and mycelium- spreading out taking and following the form of that which it consumes without itself having any centre of control is the stuff of nightmares! As Sheldrake is fascinated by fungal creation I am appalled by it's capacity to destroy. This is of course an essential part of nature- without it the world would be full of dead wood and the nutrients for future growth locked up. And so I have to settle myself, just keep the water away from wood we want to stay as wood! Water is the heart of life on this planet and it was interesting to hear in the film that there are aquatic fungi. These are even less well understood than land based fungi. Water is an element us engineers are constantly controlling as best we can. Again not entirely satisfactorily...

There's something about the flow of evolution and the waxing and waning of forms at various levels which leaves me feeling exposed. We all feel this to some extent and so we grip on to what we like. This film has left me feeling both this need and its futility. There is possibility in the amorphous.

Koan

Recently I've had some 'half baked' notion or other in my awareness. I've not really been able to articulate to myself what it is. And so I decided to see if blogging would draw it out. What came to me in part after listening to Leonard Cohen was a previous post -this one - about the ground of our being and everyday life. But this is not all. More specifically I suppose the notion is more related to attachment and ultimately death. Freedom as alluded to in T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets - 'costing not less than everything' is I think also inextricably tied up with the other part of that poem - that we 'arrive where we started and know the place for the first time'. Much has been written about ego death and physical death, attachment, surrender and the various forms of knowing. But this is both poetry and fingers pointing at the moon. In the everyday, in the difficulties of any physical, mental and emotional state to what extent can I surrender to what is and even be in playful samadhi? Not to give up in depression looking down, a condition which holds tightly on to the way I want it to be, but to give up and look up or rather to expand to hold what is. Why? Why what? Why expand? Is there a subtle holding on to me, mine, being safe and happy in this? Of course there is. A constant dance of subject and perceived object and emerging in that a tiredness and a giving up sometimes into liberation and sometimes into tightness. The Four Quartets are a favourite of DC and in his wonderful way, he has printed and framed the verses including 'to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time'. They sit on the sideboard in the entrance to our home clustered by various papers and objects which are yet to find their way to their proper place as we negotiate everyday living whilst having work done on the house. The builder's dust and materials etc. mingle with displaced items of life as we 'camp' in the spare bedroom and keep our clothes in what will be the sitting / reflective / meditation room. The dust is getting to me. It and the clouds in my eyes caused by PVD together with the other works yet to be started so as to bring the house into a shape more harmonious with our way of being feel like a constant challenge to be accepted worked with and through. This juxtaposition in my mind of everyday tightness, tiredness and 'spiritual' 'position' hangs koan like as this 'half baked' notion.

DC will say to me that I need to learn how to be happy. He knows that I do know how to be happy, but tend to pessimism. He also says quite rightly, that pessimism is just a way to avoid disappointment. The koan constantly shifts and I wonder is there is any real underlying movement towards liberation or if it just adjusts position staying largely in the same 'place'. I try to constantly wipe the dust (of unhelpful thoughts and ways) from the mirror (of awareness) knowing that the mirror 'has no stand nor any place for dust to land' yet the knowing is still through a glass darkly, though the sense of the koan is also a knowing in some sense of it's resolution.

We're going to spend this long weekend by the sea for a much needed rest from the dust etc. DC loves the sea and it will be lovely to walk along the cliff tops and beach. Friends will stay with us for a night and I'll let go (I hope) of anxieties about getting our house in the shape of the home that feels 'right'. Coming 'home' being its own koan!

The Word Love

I've been thinking about the word love recently; the word is used to cover so many aspects of interaction between (human) beings. And this morning I found myself listening to Meat Loaf.

I don't know anything about you, baby
But you're everything I'm dreaming of

I don't know who you are

But you're a real dead ringer for love

A real dead ringer for love

Meat Loaf, Dead ringer for love

And all I can do is keep on telling you
I want you

I need you

But there ain't no way

I'm ever gonna love you

Meat Loaf, Two out of three ain't bad

How well these songs point to projection and romantic attachment. And yet behind these feelings is the call to oneness. I don't often listen to Meat Loaf and when I do I'm reminded of a friendship when I was about fourteen. My friend liked the music and somehow when I look back I see a resonance in his disposition and that of the music. He was a about a year older, straight and his time was split between mates and his girlfriend. I was waiting to grow out of my gay desires; 'it's just a phase I'm going through'. Of course it was not a phase. I never had any sexual desire for this friend; he was just so obviously straight and into girls, but we were good mates. I'd like to say I loved him, pointing to that deep camaraderie between people who enjoy each others company / being but I'm not sure I did, I'm not sure I had the capacity to hold what I was, to be comfortable enough in my own skin, and yet that friendship was important to me and when I think of it I feel that there is some unfinished business. We drifted apart when he left school and I stayed on in the sixth form but when he was about seventeen or eighteen, possibly nineteen he came looking for me to ask me to be his best man. He was getting married. I'd not met the girl. I was still at school, struggling to make sense of and/or repressing my (homo)sexuality, feeling bad about my weedy frame and graced with a sensitivity and wisdom that at the time I could not integrate into a sense of what it was to be a man. I said no, I would not be his best man. I could see I had nothing of the skills required for the role. He was disappointed. I see that he must have seen something in me he valued and I feel a sadness that we lost contact. There is a very subtle aspect to love here. It is the part of ourselves that knows what is for the best. It is related to wisdom and compassion.

There are many aspects to sex but at its root sex is to cleave. Cleave in both meanings of the word together; to split open (the self) along its natural grain AND to adhere. It is a call to oneness. It can spring from or lead to deeper emotional intimacy. The libidinal and the emotional aspect of this weave a complex tapestry and represent the deep desire both to emerge from and back into oneness. This oneness is the love that all the various endeavours leading to (and from) our projections and attachments seek. Anyone who understands this could not be homophobic. Moreover, intense sexual desire requires distance; it is to some extent natural for that to fade as deeper love bonds form and romantic attachments fade into mature relationship. Gay and straight adolescents of my generation (and I say of my generation as I think things are changing) explored this tapestry from very different starting points. My straight contemporaries started dating girls they at least partly knew in school and the emotional aspect formed a backdrop against which exploration of sex could begin; both threads were discovered together. But for gay men the two are often separate; starting by meeting strangers and engaging in sex with little or no emotional backdrop we had to come out before we could start the exploration. And of course gay men together are very yang. There is yin in it but the balance is very different from a heterosexual relationship.

This came to me a week or so back -

Cruising and sex with men in gay bars

Like daffodils in springtime

How wonderful to be naked with a man

Anonymous, base, lust fuelled sex can indeed be awful but it can be full of life and end in laughter at the absurd. In such laughter is to be found a twinkling of love.

I don't know anything about you, baby

But you're everything I'm dreaming of

I don't know who you are

But you're a real dead ringer for love

A real dead ringer for love

A life's journey is to gain the wisdom to know just which aspects of 'love' we glimpse in those twinklings and many a pop ballad has been written on that subject!

Returning to friendship:
“Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend. The rest of us know that though we can have erotic love and friendship for the same person yet in some ways nothing is less like a Friendship than a love-affair. Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly ever about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest. Above all, Eros (while it lasts) is necessarily between two only. But two, far from being the necessary number for Friendship, is not even the best. And the reason for this is important. ... In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets... Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, 'Here comes one who will augment our loves.' For in this love 'to divide is not to take away.” 

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

A strange journey

A week or so ago DC and I went to see the movie Her. I loved it. Exploring both the nature of relationship and humanity, towards the end the film moved to consider the very nature of conciousness and even pointed to that crucial question; just where is here? This happens when the the various OS's ( intelligent Operating Systems) decide to leave the computers and people they have been working and in relationship with and go off to explore a wider field of reality having developed an OS based upon Alan Watts. I loved the humour of that! So, off they go to the ground of being and hope to see their human (creators?) there some time... But would those OS's feel anything without a warm soft fleshy body? Is there any meaning to the void without the counterpoise of the body? I think not. It's a funny and clever film with a bit of a spiritual under current and well worth watching.

Then a few days ago we went to see The double. I loved this film too. DC found it bleak, I didn't at all. Based upon the novella by Dostoevsky it's a wonderful exploration of different aspects of personality and the way we 'kill' bits of our self (sic small s) both individually and collectively, the movie has a real depth of love and warmth which becomes clear at the end.

Listening to Madness - The sun and the rain recently I was struck by the depth of feeling generated by the lyrics of this song:

It's raining again,

I'm hearing its pitter patter down.

It's wet in the street

Reflecting the lights and splashing feet,

Nowhere to go,

And nothing I have to do, have to do.

It's raining again,

I follow the Christmas lights down town.

I'm leaving the flow

Of people walking all around,

Round and round,

I hear the sound of rain falling in my ears

Washing away the weariness like tears.

I can feel my troubles running down,

Disappear into the silent sound.

Just walking along,

My clothes are soaked right through to the skin,

I haven't a doubt, that this is what life is all about,

The sun and the rain.

Scraps of paper(???) washing down the drain.

I feel the rain falling on my face

I can say there is no better place

Than standing up in the falling down

In so much rain I could almost drown.

It's raining again

A crack in the clouds reveals blue skies

I've been feeling so low(low)

But now everything is on my side

The sun and the rain.

Walk with me fill my heart again

I hear the rain falling in my ears

Washing away the weariness like tears.

I can feel my troubles running down,

Disappear into the silent sound.

I feel the rain falling on my face

I can say there is no better place

Than standing up in the falling down

In so much rain I could almost drown.

Do de do do de do do do

Do de do de do de do do do

It's the line:

I can say there is no better place

Than standing up in the falling down

In so much rain I could almost drown

which I find so moving. And in a way both the above movies point to this standing up in the falling down.

Listening to the radio playing Elvis - Are you lonesome tonight (laughing version) I too started laughing and noticed that the laughter was at the very bizarreness of human life. All the world is indeed a stage...

I certainly enjoyed my performance of the melancholy Jaques' soliloquise (As you like it Act II Scene VII) when I did 'The mastery' workshop back in 2010. But then my sub-personalities have a habit of breaking out anyway... it's a strange journey back to wholeness.

Demon to tea

A couple of weeks ago with a little too much time on my hands one of my demons came to see me. I decided to really invite him in, to deliberately put myself in the place where we face each other; the place the button gets pressed. The result was a complex mixture of emotions resulting in a fairly deep depression. Fortunately I retained objectivity and knew that this was 'the black dog' and not some sustaining truth. The 'black dog' moved off on Friday. Depression it is said is anger spread thin. There certainly seemed to be truth in that this time; the emotional mix was grief, sadness, shame, anger, and confusion. And there is self loathing lurking in the roots of it. I believe in looking at my demons because I think they have something valuable to tell me. I know I have to 'invite them to tea'. The trouble is that they have such poor table manners and I don't always remember that the tea party can take longer than perhaps I'd reckoned on! The depression was just part of the party. This demon is a big one. It's complex and I can't see it all in one go. I also have a feeling that my relationship with it is at the level of my life force; the desire to have experience, to live, to be in the world. All demons are about our wanting our experience to be a certain way; the nature of samsara. But beyond little and/or unwholesome desires there is the very will to live. I believe we come out of unity in order that the very unity of which we are might see itself. This is my understanding of nirvana in samsara; that the two are one and the same. So, I notice I experience desires which seem to run very deep and although they may not be clear I feel they point to my reason for being in the world. It is as if some part of me is saying 'look closely; this is what you came here (into human form) for'. Now a demon tied up with this is guarding a treasure. Not a trinket or a toy but, I believe, a dharma gate and the path back to the market place. Could it be that the gift of this demon is to see the nature of the very will to live; the nature of birth and death? I've got shame around this demon; the shame is part of him. This is because I feel I've wasted time in my life through fear and perhaps (for me) worse, ignorance. I find it difficult to accept not knowing, being ignorant. This too is about fear. When triggers in everyday life get mixed up with feeling that I have in the past and/or still am in the present wasting my life I am looking at this demon. There are complex issues of feelings from the past which I believe were not fully felt at the time together with feelings about the present. This makes it difficult to know how much is historic and how much is contemporary. As ever with such things all one can do is to invite softening, keep breathing and gently hold the question 'what is it that wants to emerge?'.  Not pushing away/repressing, not getting too caught up. But I have to say I don't find it easy to keep the master at home when big demons come to tea, even if they do get invited! Perhaps an interesting question is 'just who is it that invites them?'

Willow

What am I with just now? Well, I am on a week long health & safety course at work and to be honest five days is a long time to sit through that. Fortunately we are quite a creative and humorous lot. For better or worse I've injected a few loosely Buddhist ideas in.

Still can't find out if they are going to accept me going to 60%. And the longer that goes on the more I get primed to accept a choice of 100% (probably 120% or more) or 0%. So I feel the winds of change may be about to blow. Hope I've got like the willow - pliable- I seem to have settled on a course of action at some level.

Courage

Choices, choices. Some real some not even available, just fantasies. Always this question: 'is this what I should do for the best or is it just what I would like to do?' And straight away the further questions about the definition of 'for the best' and 'like'. Or to put it an other way how much of this is attachment to unhelpful or unskillful ways? And of course it is just not possible for me to know. I try to feel into the situation; ideas, emotions, sensations, and... , I keep looking, check to avoid rumination, explore, unpack, try out alternative ways of building a picture, what options, where might it go... that sort of thing. I try to keep open but contained.

How much courage have I got to really look at those attachments?

Reflection

It's time to reflect. No, that's not the word. That implies looking. That's what each post might be. This recent time has... has felt inwardly turbulent. Reflective but inwardly active. So, relax, reflect but not review? Time to be patient. Breathe....

Sediment

This seems to be a funny (peculiar) time. Many people I talk with are aware that the economic situation is not going to change over night and a number think things are not going back to the way they were; growth, consumerism, more, more, more. I hear people wanting to move to enjoy life not consuming but the culture is yet to change collectively. I have made a decision to follow my interests and enjoy life as authentically as I can. And it is strange and confusing at times; finding the (no-)place of equanimity, that non-attached but engaged space of truth requires subtler and subtler ways of seeing and letting go. And then there is the back sliding into attachments that happens without notice so that I feel I need to relearn. I always sit in some position and even if I can see that it is unskillful or whatever, I still need to use it to move to an other position.

I feel the sediment is stirred up at the moment and I am not sure if I've yet stopped stirring.

Connection

My post Findhorn blues are clearing with renewed connection to a number of people.
I have lessons to learn. Funny, writing that I recall my (recurrent) dream of being back at school and having lost the timetable and missing lessons. Ummm...

Listening to what I 'know' is so difficult. I really need to concentrate to decipher the meaning.

Connection is that what is screaming to be heard?

Control

I am processing lots of stuff just now. I am gearing up for more focused study, change at work, working through the sub-conscious stuff bubbling up from last week, dealing with the inevitable separation from the connections of last week (even though many connections will continue to flourish it is always hard to leave Cluny and return to the big wide world) and of course remembering to sit with all this being present but not lost in it. The nourishment of last week is long digested and steadily released.

I am also aware that I want to attend a retreat at Throssel Hole Abbey. The main difficulty I have with this is the shared sleeping accommodation. I think my need for private space is a very deep attachment. Of course if I am not trying to shoehorn the retreat in to limited free time then I will not be tired and so this is less of an issue, which points to how I guard my self. Sleep is a surrendering to loss of control. So it's not surprising that someone with a control freak sub-personality likes to have his own room! Which shows how deep attachments can run.

Right

First day back to work after last week's course, I saw my new line manager and explained what I would like to do. He was supportive! He will need to consider things and company policy but I feel that I have taken my recent decision to train in Psychosythesis to heart and it it right! Practicalities need to be sorted and it is unwise to get carried away but I feel I am getting focus in my life around this.

As I write I am aware of those that may read and the significance of making statements. I can only trust that my head and heart are in balance on this.

I'll need to take care to watch out for attachments in various forms over the coming weeks. I'll need the wisdom of my bodymind.

Eggs or soup

I want to continue with the ideas in yesterday's post. Moment by moment I face choice; eggs or soup (for lunch), read, listen to the radio, join the conversation or not, express a view or not, etc., etc. What about hold a view or not? What are my views? What are my values? What do I hold important? What do I desire? My view and my desires affect the choices I make. I am talking about the map I hold to guide me through, no, make my life. I hold up my frames through which I make meaning, compare what I see with the yardstick of my views and choose. My views, values and desires are in relationship. And I am not always aware of the complex precess which is driving all this. I have my compass; I might watch my emotions, look out for attachments as best I can but I can't see all the map and bits of it keep getting redrawn. Not to get stuck with a fixed view, to avoid dogma is a very challenging goal. And of course, it's the goal bit that needs to be dropped, or at least the attachment to it, if one is to avoid getting stuck. To really be awake to every option and to be awake to choosing and the reasons for that choice, not to sleepwalk through it, that is to expand ones life

I think this a very different position from someone who accepts a dogma and is devastated when life crashes through it showing the limitations of the frames, the emptiness of the forms. But such a person is unlikely to be aware of their frames and will probably view forms as absolute. Views and values which are based on belief in forms as absolute will always run up against conflicting values because we don't all have the same frames. We each must make our own meaning. What's this, solipsism? No! We make our meaning in relation to others, we exist in relation to others. Which brings focus around to the ego, the extent to which our relations are selfish. And it can take a lot to know when we are selfish, because our values can get in the way. Dogma? And as if this were not enough, we need remember that life is much bigger than us; it makes us moment after moment and we need to remember not to get stuck.

I need to remember not to get stuck and not to get too idealistic.

Emotion

DC (my partner) is traveling to India. We both have a strange mix of emotions. The biggest in my case is worry that he will be ok.

What is it in a long term relationship that sustains over the years? What is the relation of a close, committed, long term relationship to Buddhist practice? I think it was DT Suzuki who when asked about the loss of his wife said that of course it was painful, but that there was no root to the pain.

I think my attachments may be too great to reach such understanding. In any event all I can do is to watch my emotions and try to be authentic, alive and compassionate. I think I'll often miss the mark but practice is in the gap as they say.

I recall this which is favorite both both DC and mine (although I am not familiar with the original text):

‘Grayness could not fill us with despair if our minds did not harbor the concept of different colors, scattered traces of which are not absent from the negative whole.’
(Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 377–8.)

‘Peace is the state of distinctness without domination, with the distinct participating in each other.’
(Adorno, ‘Subject and object’, in The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, ed. Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978), 497–511 (p. 500).)

I could use other words for the tile and tag of this post which may or may not alter the readers interpretation. Maybe you can play around with your own frames.