Process

How is it even possible for me, to write something here which illustrates an understanding which itself is not captured by words? And then to instil within that writing the element of formulation within that understanding which is at odds with the very understanding? Zazen seems to express it but how could I really 'know'? And of course my own experience is only that- the experience which is expressed in the paradox of apparent separation. Without digressing into solipsism, and without dictating and imposing a formulation onto everything, where is the middle ground? The term 'heart-mind' is sometimes used in respect of all this and like all words is both useful and confusing. And so yesterday DC and I revisited in new clothes an old argument we have been having off and on now for almost as long as we have been together. He is an academic and in my fantasy (for all assessments are to a greater or lesser extent fantasy) totally fused in his occupation and identity. Further, the academic process is a web of knowledge ever refined, added to and rebuilt without end in pursuit of expansion of the mind's purview. And this is good, larger than any individual and meaningful. It is not however, reality. Reality is both larger and smaller than words. Our argument comes when for me the lens of this process is placed in front of every aspect of life and I feel squeezed by it. As I push back against it he feels rejected. As my life is informed by my own fusion of Zen, Taoism, western psychology, ecstatic movement practice, work in the construction industry, etc. etc... I write to craft a lens by which the small glimpses of that which defeats capture might be seen. Seen not in itself, for it has no self, but by what it reveals. And always with the knowledge that any realisation / appreciation / whatever word fits best, that may have passed through my being is very partial whilst neither partial or whole. And the thing is that not a word of this is any different to what DC wrestles with in his writing. Where that difference lies is possibly, in the validation of the academy. I do not wish to be dictated to by that which in my school years was as much a filter of ascribed worth as it was a vehicle for growth. Nor do I wish to have every creative floret of life assessed by it. However, I too am very given to intellectual rigor and greatly value this process. It is enough for me to play with words whilst wrapping them in their own limits, trying to avoid saying nothing of value or let them generate their own sophistry. In all respects there really is very little difference between DC and me.

I largely wrote the above before walking over to an EMDR session. What follows in this paragraph is post session, recalled as best I can remember. The focus of today's session was the period between about 16 and 24 years of age where it seems there is still unprocessed fear informing the emotional landscape of the present. Initially the images, memories and feelings are diffuse, vague and not readily available. There is probably a lot of numbing out in it. That after all is the function of compartmentalisation, set aside, don't fully go there, not feeling this, we have to keep this ship sailing. But sticking with the EMDR process images come, felt sense and meaning surface. I seem unable to meet the only available script, I'm not enough, small, isolated, rooms and others disappear to be replaced with black. My head brightly illuminated remains. The pen I'm following with my eyes stops, 'what do you notice?' I describe as above and the feelings of fear and of tiredness, about a 30/70 split. 'Stick with that.' The pen moves and I follow with my eyes. Images across this period of time come and go, a sense of younger to the left, older to the right, the black clears, left to right. The rooms return the people return but I've been erased. The pen I'm following with my eyes stops, 'what do you notice?' I describe as above. 'Stick with that.' The pen moves and I follow with my eyes. I reappear interacting with others, thin, sparse lines of connection form, there's a brittle feeling. The enormity of the task of surviving starts to penetrate, there is fear, tiredness, there's no option but to keep going. I do not know that it is ok not to be enough for the script, there's no other available. The pen I'm following with my eyes stops, 'what do you notice?' I describe the brittle connections, feeling not enough. I add '...and I wasn't enough, I couldn't inhabit the available script'. The sequence and timings written here may be slightly muddled, but the tone is close enough. Somewhere in the process the split of fear and tiredness shifted towards 50/50. The aloneness, heavy and dark shifts with lighter periods of connection and progress and threaded through all of it is determination. As the session draws to a close after similar cycles I'm aware that the erasure, from today's vantage point where so many other scripts are available including the transpersonal, resonates less with fear and more with liberation. But this vantage point was only reached after traveling in the boat of the erased. At the time it was out of range. I'm sure the coming weeks will see the process continue.

Saturday, DC and I visited the Bowes museum to see the Vivienne Westwood and the Norman Cornish exhibitions. Both vibrant with the wider creative life force yet very different. The Westwood I notice is mainly of clothes for women and I note that there are more opportunities for women to dress up in more different ways. Dressing up hasn't really ever featured large in my style. The Cornish exhibition is virtually alive- the sketched figures seem almost in motion and totally at one with the culture and environs in which they resonate. I casually wandered past resident exhibitions wondering vaguely about aliveness, the wider erotic and sensuality just short of sexuality. Later I would play about with this territory in 'conversation' with an AI. Setting up the scene with it and feeding it previous posts it did generate some interesting depictions of what I was circling. I particularly liked this:

The beautiful is the appearance of harmonious vitality within a relational field. The erotic is that same harmonious vitality experienced as participatory and generative. Sexuality is one possible flowering of that participatory vitality.

I think it was probably my poem, 'Returning' from the 7th July that put it on the map! What I think is at the root of this is life's deepest desire to express. And how can we as human beings be the conduit for the richest expression? Illuminated and illuminating. What is it that remains after the erasure? What resolves in the synthesis of the diversity depicted in the above paragraphs? What remains to be resolved? What flowers in both the resolved and the unresolved?

A Handbag?!

Yesterday DC and I enjoyed the glorious spring sun walking along the beach from Alnmouth to Boulmer and back. Whilst walking (and reminding ourselves and each other to enjoy the sparkling sea) we discussed thoughts raised by our recent viewing of the BBC's The Great Philosophers (a history of western philosophers in 15 parts). We've not been watching in order but rather selecting episodes which look appealing. We will get round to watching them all I'm sure. The series dates from 1987 and is quite wonderful in its no nonsense, no frills straightforward serious approach. Just two erudite people sitting on a sofa illuminating at a reasonably high level the writings of some of the finest minds. No fancy camera shots, no trips around the globe, no pandering to short attention spans and competing for an audience. Much of our discussion was to reflect that one way or another we're all dancing around the same handbag of the empiricism v idealism conundrum, this ultimately leading through questions of causality towards the question of free will. But we decided to stop short of that question for we had quite done the rounds of something which had made it already a largely irrelevant question. I'd approached the ideas from a Buddhist perspective; interdependent origination which to me, through emptiness (śūnyatā) takes the handbag away.

We stopped at Boulmer and drank tea from a flask and enjoyed my mother's home made cake, which was lovely. That she and my dad are still despite their frailty able to make cake and that we all share so much love despite the inevitable frustrations of life is a constant source of amazement to me.

In the evening we watched the film Pride about the group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). It's a feel-good movie as opposed to a detailed documentary but I think the take home message is not weakened by that - connection, community, acceptance, care and compassion are what give life joy. And as I write this a phrase which is a favourite of DC's comes to mind - "distinctness without domination, with the distinct participating in each other" by Theodor W. Adorno. For my own part Adorno's “Greyness could not fill us with despair if our minds did not harbour the concept of different colours, scattered traces of which are not absent from the negative whole” reminds me that all my fears and frustrations must surely stem from the beauty of the possible. I should add at this point that I've not read the original works of any of these great thinkers and I'm grateful to those that both have and have produced works that I might appreciate. The film Pride covers the interaction of the LGBT and mining communities, a coming out story and the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. There's a moment when the fictional character Joe 'Bromley' is taken by the hand and kissed in a night club. The scene marks his initiation, is late in the whole story of his involvement with LGSM and is suffused with warmth and the ripening of his coming out. It is sharply contrasted by later scenes of his parents hostile response and the victimisation and queer bashing of other characters. But eventually we see Joe leave the parental home and thus take another step to come home to himself. The sound track to the film is a rich and joyous one and very much in harmony with my own dance inclinations. For me emptiness / śūnyatā doesn't take away our individuality it invites us to truly expand into it. It's an enormous ask - to truly respond with openness to each moment, not to shrink back in greed or fear from what is being asked but to be the living embodiment of the highest potential available to each of us. This is our humanity, our compassion, although it comes with clouds of confusion and fear and is inevitably way bigger than we can grasp or fully meet. To truly live is to dance this koan. It isn't enough to only read philosophy, or think about it in the abstract. Sooner or later we will be faced with the 'chopping wood and carrying water' of our everyday lives. But can we JUST chop the wood and carry the water - FULLY in response to that enormous ask? Can we live each apparent choice of our everyday lives in each arising moment as the bright colours of the distinct dancing with each other in mutual co-operation, support and enjoyment? In our everyday lives we are described by neither empiricism nor idealism, we are suspended between heaven and earth. We must not recoil like Lady Bracknell in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest exclaiming 'A handbag?!' for we are all in and dancing around the handbags of delusion. Much easier said than done. And even then always with our own little grab bag of karma...

The Koan

 The koan arises naturally they say, and this way of looking at life is I think, worthy of some consideration. My koan is certainly tied up with fear. Fear which is closely tied to an appreciation of emptiness. It was by study of Zen Buddhism that I gained some clarity into the spiritual significance of what had previously been only a psychologically informed appreciation of my experience. Buddhism brought a wider philosophical understanding and the prospect of a greater peace than had been hoped possible. And more than this it brought a much greater depth and level of meaning to my life. Zen, by cutting straight to the heart of things with its uncompromising attitude to reality made what had been dimly understood and greatly felt and feared into a purpose. My understanding that things are so transient and vulnerable, clarified by the language of Buddhism as dependent origination, emptiness, made access to non-duality in the everyday a positive prospect. Couching this as the koan if I remember to see it that way, makes everything fuel to the fire of enlightenment. Through meditation both on and off the cushion and trying to keep to the precepts my experience might widen and deepen leading to a more compassionate, enriching life.

 Recently DC was talking about transcendence and perhaps having my koan in mind to some extent, I responded that those with an understanding of the spiritual significance of this are generally reluctant to speak of it for fear of doing harm, and he concurred. Altered states of consciousness, whether through meditation, music, dance, sex, alcohol or other drugs seem to have been a part of human experience for a very long time across many cultures. The harm or good any of this may cause depends upon intention, degree of awareness, precise details of the activity and energy expended. User beware! Let's consider that list a little: meditation, music, dance, sex, alcohol and other drugs. The first four have a history of links with spiritual practice, alcohol is a suppressant which blunts awareness and other than in small quantities to 'take the edge off' and promote a relaxed social mood is off very little benefit and can do a lot of harm. Drugs are numerous and dangerous. Some have a history of links to spiritual practice but generally not that held by established sanghas. Interestingly, there are current medical trials of psychedelics to help with anxiety and depression although they are not available as treatment options at this time. Aldus Huxley wrote of the 'reducing valve of the mind' and whilst I think we need take care with this notion there's something in it. Altered states of consciousness and transcendence have their place and if approached with the intention to surrender the self to the reality of the universe without craving experience can lead one to realise Buddha nature understanding that it's not an individual one but One that is. And then we return to the koan in daily life. Chop wood and carry water. These two aspects of life, form and emptiness, the mundane and the profound might be seen as an axis upon which I sit and struggle with fear, confusion and failing to keep the precepts, enjoy the vibrancy of life and its sensuality, play out past and create further karma... The koan unfolding. Unless any of these musings or the practices to which they refer result in greater compassion and ability to live happily causing minimal harm then they are at best useless but perhaps amusing and at worst harmful. Thankfully, the Buddha's recommendation to follow the 'middle way', steering us to the 'heart mind', does I believe, make the koan as indicated above, everything fuel to the fire of enlightenment. Which, when held by and holding the everyday struggles is an awfully magnificent prospect. The hour by hour experience is far less lofty.

I'm reading The Wild White Goose, the diaries of Roshi Jiyu Kennett during her time in Japan. There's a section in which the koan is discussed. Jiyu comments that people receive their koan at different times. This idea (of their koan) probably needs some 'unpacking' but the diaries don't go there and I don't feel confident to say much more than that the basic idea seems to match my experience. Jiyu goes on to point to the relationship of the size of the koan, the time one's had it and their degree of spiritual development. (The words used here aren't exactly hers, I'm aware that this sentence is fraught with possible confusion and it's difficult to be clear about the nature of temporality.) In this way of looking at things I think I may have received my koan at birth. I was induced, it was a difficult labour and I was cot nursed for the first couple of days. I imagine this was a stressful entry to the world. But who knows? I developed into a sensitive, cautious child. The koan was given further complexities as I developed OCD at about 9 years of age and realised I was gay at about 13 or 14. So, an interesting 'grab bag' of karma which by placing me in some respects outside the 'norm' has I think, given me or forced me to gain insight. These days I'm hard pressed to say where the size of my koan and the level of insight and/or spiritual development (that's not the right word) and the unfolding karma leave me. But such is the nature of koans.

Beauty

Yesterday I saw in the news pictures of the inside of the restored cathedral of Notre Dame and they were so beautiful that I could feel tears welling up. I remembered a couple of years ago being in Paris outside the hording around Notre Dame and being similarly moved. For me it is the symbiotic relationship of the beauty of that created, which through our visual sense we perceive and the beauty of our humanity in doing this work which is moving. It has been a couple of weeks in which I have found my own relationship with the construction industry brought into focus. I marvel at the strides the industry has made in terms of tolerance and inclusivity, of the sophistication of the procurement and design practices now common place and the squaring of circles. I despair at the same old problems mostly caused by lack of investment, impossible budgets and timescales. I see myself having grown out of the harsher social environments of the industry as now somewhat of a dinosaur and yet also still fuelled by the same irrepressible determination to be as authentic as possible. I found myself listening to Jimmy Somerville and the energy of overcoming repression shone through the music and I was also moved by this and remembered the struggles. Recent posts here chart and indicate my questioning of the Buddha dharma and circulate about the nature of our being and any kind of liberation from suffering. When I consider the above beauties and struggles, the awareness to be experienced through meditation, through sex, through engaging with work, family and friends, with my partner DC who always has the capacity to illuminate, through music and the works of others I regain a sense of the fragility of our condition as beauty. It is in this field that I remember that there are those who realised Satori and I wonder, what do I wonder? What am I to make of this strange falling through life with its dialectic, its reaching out for boughs to hold, to remember that the sound of a stone striking bamboo or anything for that matter might in the ripe mind trigger the falling away... Does that really matter? That's an awfully big question. The divine isn't anywhere but this very moment in this very place but the depth of this is, to borrow a phrase an 'elusive obvious'.

 

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!

Daliland

 Last Saturday evening DC and I watched Daliland a movie depicting aspects of the life of Salvador Dali. We enjoyed the movie and despite the fictional aspects and limited exposure of his life we were surprised to see the less favourable reviews. I found myself seeing the made-ness of our lives whilst watching and a vague sense arose of the pregnancy of Emptiness / sunyata. My thinking mind was drawn to contemplation, but of course can't ever grasp that which is beyond reason. And yet the mirror like quality of mind sometimes becomes at least a ripple in its self revealed. Writing these words I see they create pictures and both illuminate and obscure the experience. Mixed with glimpses of Emptiness the vitality and eroticism of form was also present. How could it not be given the nature of the protagonist?! And so there is in this I suppose an opportunity to consider the spiritual paths open to us to see our true nature. The inward, meditative and the outward sometimes ecstatic. As ever the movement between these states and the colours of our character determine the path, the steps and the experience which unfolds. And for me the middle path seems the best suited. I wonder to what extent the mystery of all this might shift towards a greater capacity for peace and equanimity together with joy even in the midst of life's vicissitudes. However careful I've been not to chase spiritual 'experiences' but rather to incorporate as best I can the dharma into daily life there's always that slight tone of practice to get somewhere or rather escape the risk of untenable suffering. And glimpses of our true nature can all too easily seem to mark the way. Which they both do and do not as far as I can see. The reality of each day is there before me with all its delusions. Did Dali have any choice but to be as extravagant as he was?

The Moon in the Marble

I couldn't resist this title - so evocative. I'm spending the week with my dear friend Niels in Cluny. This wonderful old building which has seen so much life, constructed as a hydropathic hotel and for decades the home of Findhorn Foundation staff and guests is now once more home only to a few people. The restart of guest programmes after the Covid lockdowns lasted only a short time and in September last year came to an end. Walking around the spaces and recalling so much that unfolded and letting it go it's strange to experience this once full and alive place now at an ending. Nobody knows what if any future the Findhorn Foundation has and thus what may be possible for this building and its grounds. A place which so many have poured love into and who have benefitted from its holding. It has held and been held. And so I'm grateful for all I've gained from this place including the opportunities to share looking after it. Now I'm enjoying a little retreat time and being with friends. This bright and frosty morning out for a walk passing by the cemetery I recalled the words of an Essentials of Psychosynthesis course leader from back in 2009 - 'Oh, lets go look at the moon in the marble!' he said on a clear full moon lit night coming back from the pub. And so we all joined him looking for polished marble in which to see the reflected moon. That course was held here by the Psychosynthesis Trust, it wasn't an FF course. I enjoyed the course a lot and the events of that week although not related to the course would lead to my spending time here as a resident, but that's a whole other story... Today what seems more relevant is not even to reflect upon the past or to 'work' at being present but rather to just relax. It would be easy to write about the mirror like quality of the mind, to draw out evocative pictures and play with the qualities of the moon and marble but I don't need to do that. The words 'the moon in the marble' do enough by themselves in that respect.

The world seems to be in a difficult time; climate change, wars, economic problems etc... There is talk in various circles about trauma and I certainly have my share of it. And I've certainly not been able to stay 'on my perch' in all of it. Any aspiration from those early days of 'spiritual practice' to reach a place of unassailable equanimity (as if!) has been flushed away. Fortunately, I knew of the dangers of such subtle clinging and so haven't been left totally denuded. I bounce back. In that respect 'practice' has helped. Relax! Sometimes one does have to accept that there are limits to what can be controlled. Poetically we know this and hence the evocative nature of the moon in the marble. 

Three Thousand Years of Longing

Last week with DC away in London I watched the movie Three Thousand Years of Longing and this week we watched it together. I enjoyed it the second time as much as the first. It's visually sumptuous and the tale doesn't tire with telling. There's a line in the dialogue where the question is asked is love real or just a madness? The love in question being romantic. And in a turn more sophisticated than is usual in most movies, the point is also made that love brings out of our selves that which we hitherto had not seen or been able to express. The themes of truth, beauty, freedom and love run through the movie and I've found my self contemplating them in the context of the three poisons - delusion / ignorance, greed / lust and hate / aversion / anger described in Buddhism. Further, I wonder how we are to grow in the way or in any other way for that matter, pointed to by this bringing out of ourselves that which was previously unseen. Yes, as life challenges us and / or we experience that which brings delight, interest and captivates us hitherto aspects of possibility lying dormant awake. In Buddhism the diminishing of the cycle of the three poisons to be replaced with a more capacious acceptance shifts experience. The euphoria or intoxication of 'in love' fades and reveals a deep connected relationship or little but projection. Always there is the ungraspable nature of truth hinted at by everyday realities. Sumptuous scenes displayed regularly throughout Three Thousand Years of Longing like tableau evoke richness in the broadest sense and as DC pointed out might draw comments regarding orientalism. Their effect through this richness is to generate the promise of greater knowing and to bridge between the mundane and the magical. Magic is central to this movie but as is fitting to a tale about narratives it is a vehicle for exploration of our condition as much as it is employed for our amusement. Amusement, often thought of as trivial distraction to while away time of course usually does reveal our condition.

Drawing back from this I sense a heady mix sitting on top of the anxieties provoked by dealing with our everyday problems of a leaking roof and bringing our house up to scratch, the backdrop of climate change urgency and geopolitics. We are fortunate in having reasonable financial resource and living in a part of the world not caught up in immediate environmental disaster or warfare but having grown up with the constant shortage of money it is difficult to ever feel that I've escaped the risk of catastrophic economic ruin and the knowledge that micro and macro environmental disaster is unfolding in the world does add a tension and sense of running out of time. Time, were it to run out would presumably put an end to all experience and perhaps give Hamlet his sleep of no more. He of course wonders is it only our natural cravings and attachments to favourable experience, our very life force as exemplified in the Red Thread koan that keeps us facing life's vicissitudes or is it that we suspect that time and bad experience are possibly without end. It's a valid question for much anxiety is underpinned by the fear of not just loss but everlasting agony. That some part of us didn't reach its flowering in any time seems to remain as an everlasting reality beyond the end of time as much as any reality in any time remains beyond time. We are in this sense caught in our temporal nature. Whether any enlightenment can bridge the realms of time and timeless has been a quest of our creation narratives. These too are alluded to in Three Thousand Years of Longing. It's a tale about narratives. Returning to considerations of time I see that whereas in the first half of life there's a sense of there being plenty of it ahead, in the second there's a sense of a wisdom in consolidation (as opposed to fossilisation). It is perhaps the fear of unravelling which I find alarming in these times I think.

Change and Stillness

Yesterday DC and I attended the Quaker meeting in Keswick. There was talk before the meeting about the future of meetings and the Quakers and I'd heard similar words recently at the Newcastle meeting. There was ministry regarding change. I was drawn to speak, I sat still and said nothing but the urge persisted and I resisted until it was clear- stand. 'Everything is changing all the time, but it is cut through with stillness.' I've seen this clearly in the past and it seemed in the meeting to be the concise response to the questions raised in the ministry. I sat and felt into the space again. I wasn't entirely comfortable with way the word cut had come out- too sharp, too much me in it. Maybe this should have been said in afterwords. It was close to the end of the hour. The clerk ended the meeting. There was no afterwards. One of those present came straight across and said to me 'thankyou, your ministry was concise'. This point is important to me as it is I suppose a road through the everyday to what is perhaps pointed to with 'A little point and Satori'. For an explanation if needed look here. The question that I find arising now is the ultimate one of 'faith' - does my experience continue in any way after death? Is there significance to this 'little point'? I've not crossed it nor approached it deeply enough to have experience which would qualify me to respond to the question. But I have wanted the answer to be such that there was a meaning in the answer beyond the rational. Because without that... without that the weight of everyday rational meaning is unbearable. And yet if there is a finite end then at least there is an end to any pain at least for a single being. To answer this question of faith it is not good enough to merely recognise our interconnectedness in the living everyday world. It is perhaps to ask as Hamlet does '...what dreams may come?' But this too is a disturbance. His place of asking is not neutral. The ripples of his mind obscure the very ground upon which they sit. The question might be better put as 'when the mind is still where does it sit? And thus where and what were those ripples? Well, we know how the Platform Sutra puts it so there's nothing I can add. In truth it's still very much through a glass darkly at best for me. And something, no-thing, was concisely conveyed. 

This September

 It is a time of transition. Mid September brings a mellowness and a sense of impending stillness. There is much change going on in the world and in our own tiny corner of existence DC and I are soon to move house. For a variety of reasons I find floating through my mind consideration of... Of what? Of appreciation of the challenges, changes and stillness... the spiritual 'journey'... Elliot's words 'costing not less than everything'... Recent years have been very challenging and I have often lost sight of the stillness in which the motion of the challenge takes place. Returning to the desire to reach both a place of safety  and insight whilst releasing any such imagined position into the reality of the present ever unfolding moment there is reflection.

Surrendering to the moment with an open heart and mind doesn't seem to be a natural disposition for me. My mind is constantly grasping for control. Yet there is seeing this without adding too much further. Over the passing years since first coming across the Buddha dharma, understanding, appreciation, and much more have naturally shifted. The picture of a spiral is often used to describe 'views up the mountain'. But whilst useful this reinforces the notion of a journey with the attendant risk of an asymptotic goal. In practice there is both the need to keep 'polishing the mirror' and to realise reality in the present. Certainly much of that reality now is tiredness. Hopefully the coming transition will afford rest and renewal. And in that there may yet be more clarity and peace.

 I suppose that implicit in all this is the koan at its most basic. The panoply of challenges each encompassing various wants and needs, the access to wisdom at both intellectual and visceral levels- the being and doing in each moment. And how aware, how conscious am I in all this? Indeed where am I in all this? I hope the coming autumn will afford opportunity to feel into all this. 

Enlightenment - Warp and Weft

It was back in early 2006 when I first started to explore what is somewhat vaguely called 'the spiritual aspect of our existence'. I say vague because by its very nature any definition of 'spiritual' is only approximate or tangential. I was finding my way after the rug had been puled out from under me and Findhorn Foundation (FF) Experience Week (FX) quickly led me to Zen Buddhism. How I ended up doing FX  is a whole other story but it's fair to say that the eyebrows of a number of friends were raised. I had been what might be called a rationalist fundamentalist and the FF was out there floopy - woo woo. In practice though that woo woo would be a swift gate to wu (wu Chinees or mu Japanese). And it was in that period of fairly rapid shift when my friend John Kennedy recommended The Doors of Perception by Aldus Huxley. I read it with interest and my recollection is that the concepts fitted with much else I was studying although I knew that the chemical way to adjust what Huxley referred to as the 'reducing valve of the mind' was not for me. No, my path would be zazen. (And zazen has been my way from that time to this.) The Doors of Perception has sat unread in my library since that time. So then, it was interesting to read a quote of Huxley in a work colleague's email:

“To be enlightened is to be aware, always, of total reality in its immanent otherness - to be aware of it and yet remain in a condition to survive as an animal. Our goal is to discover that we have always been where we ought to be. Unhappily we make the task exceedingly difficult for ourselves."

I responded that Huxley captures it well and that I recall Meister Eckhart is quoted as below by D.T Suzuki in a chapter titled ‘A little point and satori’ in his book Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist

"The union of the soul with God is far more inward than that of the soul and the body… Now, I might ask, how stands it with the soul that is lost in God? Does the soul find herself or not? To this I will answer as it appears to me, that the soul finds herself in the point where every rational being understands itself with itself. Although it sinks in the eternity of the divine essence, yet it can never reach the ground. Therefore God has left a little point wherein the soul turns back upon itself and finds itself, and knows itself to be a creature."

And as I also said in my response I have investigated this quite deeply over the years. The rug pulled out from under me had left me one way or another with little choice. Now what is tricky to convey concisely here is how the terms self, soul, God, creature and awareness might be understood. It is here that mu the first koan in the Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate) sprang up for me and still does. Because in some ways as Huxley (among others) points out that we have always been where we ought to be, that is to say that mu is clear, it is yet also hiding in plain sight. We are conditioned, dependently originated and deeply connected. Whilst constantly in flux (indeed we are that flux) there is that which sustains and there is a movement between the absolute (the unborn) and the relative (of everyday life). Not nothing but no-thing, form and emptiness mutually revealing. That of course is all very well but do I remain in playful samadhi? Nope! And so here I remember the inspiration for the title of this blog- Case 5 in the Mumonkan - Kyōen's "Man up a tree". Now I've interpreted (or imagined) this koan as pointing to a number of aspects of my life - my Buddha nature and my everyday interactions. And in particular a bit like Kyōen when the rug was pulled from under him what was I to do, how would I put one foot in front of the other? That is to say with much of what I'd thought I could rely upon as who and what I was shattered, what place in the world and what place the world in me could I find? Painful as those times were the gift was nothing less than the flowering of an understanding which surpassed anything I would have come to I think had the rug remained. There would be other challenges too, most notably the Red Thread koan. And here I return to my love, my DC who has been with me on the journey of my life for thirty years. He is a most wonderful man, the finest of heart and mind. And vicissitudes or not I'm grateful that we have always been where we ought to be - warp and weft weaving our life together.

"To be enlightened is to be aware, always, of total reality in its immanent otherness - to be aware of it and yet remain in a condition to survive as an animal." I sort of see this as the warp and weft of form and emptiness - our Buddha nature. I've tried to take care not to grasp for enlightenment as a salvation but rather to stand as a dear friend says - on shifting sand with one foot on a rock. And I very much doubt that Kyōen's experience upon hearing a stone strike bamboo will be even approximated in my awareness. I'm still far too 'intellectual', too 'in my head' I see that little point with my rational mind. But, I see also that the years have deepened early experiences. Experiences where might I say the point became at least seen through a glass darkly and perhaps not so darkly. And I'm as caught up in my dramas as ever! The birds leave no trace in the sky yet not I. 🤷

It's enriching to work with colleagues and good to be able to stand on that rug whilst remembering - shifting sands and one foot on the rock. At times I've wondered this past winter if I'd come to the end of my relationship with the Buddha Dharma; the challenges have once more seemed immense and so intense that I've have to let formal sitting go for a while. But the email exchange referred to above triggered writing this post and in writing the depth of the Dharma is remembered and the Dimond shines.

Homage to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. And blessings to John Kennedy as he lives the later stages of his terminal illness. His light is one of the warmest.

My Love!

 This weekend marks the end of the first week back at work after two weeks off sick and one week holiday. I enjoyed being back at work although I'm still feeling in the getting better phase of post covid ill health. Two weeks ago I took the following pictures. They're not perfect and I've deliberately not edited them just as when taking them I decided to 'take and see' ie keep tapping the shutter 'button' on my smart phone camera as the changing display in the sky evolved. What I wanted to capture was DC's delight and wonder at the display. When I see him like this I know why I love him so much. There are many other times I know why I love him so much too of course!

It's tempting (for me) to write posts that try to succinctly (I hope) capture vast swathes of my 'field of being' maybe like a cloud experience(s) in a vast open sky of... Here I go again... But really DC's smile captures it all.

Election Result

I find the landslide win at the recent UK general election by the Conservative Party depressing not just because of the direction they will take and the things they will do but because it says a great deal about both the political system we have and the people of the nation. Without going into reams of detail what I think we are witnessing is a huge failure by all of us to address the very issues which brought this government to power. Disenfranchised communities who backed Brexit and then voted for the Conservatives are those that have been hurt the most by the neoliberal processes which this government will now supercharge. Our political system is failing to address the need for detail, clarity, fairness and transparency. At a time when it is clear that as a species we are killing life on this planet at a frightening rate; loss of flora and fauna and changes to the atmosphere and climate are now well established facts, we are heading further and further down a separatist road. In a time when we need holistic global analysis and action to deal with the problems we face we are isolating ourselves and perpetrating the very economic folly which has fuelled this awful mess. On the world stage similar stories are playing out and international climate summits fail to make effective inroads as the world's politicians lack the statesmanship and vision to see that a paradigm shift is needed let alone to know what that shift is. Economists continue to talk about technology solving the problems while they talk of continued economic growth. Nowhere is there serious talk of what it is we as a species actually need to be happy let alone to even consider for one moment spiritual questions around the very nature of our being. This is the real darkness in all of this; we are going to go further and further down a selfish, narrow minded, me first road where the basic delusion of a separate self that can have whatever it wants with no care for the consequences is hailed as the only truth. When we could have come together in recognition of the basic human paradox; that we are both separate and absolutely one with everyone and everything, we have instead decided to take more of the same fruitless steps that have brought us to the edge of the precipice.

Across the ages and around the globe various cultures have understood that we are part of nature and have looked into the nature of man. The various philosophical, psychological, and religious traditions have taught ways to know and control the self. The mystics have pointed to experience between the individual and the unknowable ground of being. The arts have revealed windows and vistas through prose, poetry, music, painting, dance, theatre etc. etc. through which we expand our consciousness and come to know our nature. I suppose that I'm essentially working here with the belief that The Unborn (The Source, God, Oneness) through the illusion of separation gives rise to form that it may come to know its self. What I think the depressing feeling prompted by recent political events is about is a feeling that the majesty of the human experience, the warmth of compassion and the joy of creativity is diminished and that we may even run out of time and cease as a life form to exist within the very near future. And yet I must recognise my own projections in all this; the sense of my own mortality colouring my understanding. I simply don't know where we as a nation and indeed as a species are going. All I have is this moment. And it is good; I am very fortunate. All there is to do as ever, is take each step with as much integrity as possible. Joy is not precluded, nothing is certain, there is meaning and purpose. And I am reminded once more:

‘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).)

That I have the above quotes is due to my wonderful partner DC. That we have each other is so amazing and rich that nothing in these apparently dark times should make us abandon the colours and the peace, the warmth and the culture of the best of all of us.

As we find ourselves surrounded by the festivities of Christmas may we all connect with the Christ energy, the awareness of our true (Buddha) nature, the beauty of our paradox, the warmth of our humanity. And in the coming term of this government's office may we remember our true (Buddha) nature.

Waiting

A few weeks ago DC and I visited his dad and stepmother. DC's dad has dementia and is thus somewhat confused and appears to confabulate. Yet I wonder just what the relationship between his experience and 'reality' might be. It's quite a question if one stops to consider it. As he has no real purpose there is a sense of waiting about him. Waiting for the next thing to happen, be it say a meal or time for bed. The comings and goings of people seem to exercise him greatly. Most of these people appear to be in his imagination. Again our passing through space and time both in the physical world and in our imagination is perhaps more of a question than we might realise. All this seems to point to our construction of self and its dispersion in dementia. Yet what is it that remains? Our Buddha nature, life energy, ongoing relationship with others? I would say a resounding yes! In a way I can see DC's dad slipping away and yet in another only the form has changed, there is no 'slipping away'. The visit made clear to me just how 'married' DC and I are and how his dad and I are without doubt bonded through that. As we left, DC's dad kissed me goodbye (he's not done that before) and I was moved to tears. I think (before 'enlightenment') we are all waiting in one way or another. And what we are waiting for is the acceptance found in unconditional love. Visible to me in our departure was the connection between the four of us, a connection which at root is this love. Like views up the mountain this love can be seen with degrees of clarity (and sameness). I once directly experienced it as God's love (though it is perhaps better not to try to speak of such things). And I'm quite convinced that our everyday experience of the bonds of a family are of the same love if a different view. I've experienced my own self being somewhat shattered by stress and ill health and yet the glass is not wet by the water, the mirror reflecting experience is not shattered though it does reveal the shattering. Will I wonder, 'I' ever experience that love and the mirror together as my True Self? Not one glimpsed in the other but the unbounded. Paper does not refuse ink, it accepts all, like the mirror, like unconditional love. My experience still contains this duality of loved and lover yet it feels cut through with one. Yet not (yet) One.

Nicholas Heiney

On Wednesday I listened to a program on Radio 4 in which the writings of Nicholas Heiney were brought to life. I was at times in tears. He was clearly a beautiful and gifted 'soul'. He committed suicide aged twenty three and I wondered; would I feel so moved by his writing if he was still alive? I think the answer is yes! For me he seems to have touched (at such a young age) and described with great clarity, and wisdom the very kernel of human life, the very heart of spiritual awareness.  There is (for me) something of the utmost importance in the expression of such wisdom in the life of a person. Bless you Nicholas.

His writings have been collated in to a book:

http://www.songsend.co.uk/index.html

_/\_

Dude

Yesterday driving over to 'The Park' to check the progress made by contractors installing temporary boiler plant the radio played Desert Island Disks. There was time to hear two snippets between the talking; Wagner: Tristan und Isolde: Dolce e calmo (5 VIII. 1957, Athens) and Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations. Both very moving pieces evoking the inevitable sadness at the bottom of human existence and pointing at the same time to that deep knowing of our true home and the desire to return there. And as when any work (of art) becomes a finger pointing to the moon we see where we are and feel a gap (between heaven and earth) that is almost filled by the pointing. Almost yet not... The Lark Ascending but never quite reaching... Rothco's paintings opening a portal to an other world that we feel we could almost step through... Almost, but not quite, at least not literaly. There are of course no gaps; they are filled by experience. This experience is our appreciation of the work (of art), of our world.

There is of course, a place here to explore the connection between life and death; the most basic of all dualisms. Eros being a good place to start. For love and life force, move us with all kinds of desire (both wholesome and unwholesome) to have experience. Not the least of which is the experience of some La petite mort be it through sex or art.

And the particular shape of the gap seems to be determined by my general mood before experiencing the work. Yesterday I had a sense of purpose and attcheivement; I was making things happen and they were going well. There is a connection here between this inner longing to return home and our time here in human form, on earth, in the world, where we do 'our thing'; purpose. For me the fall of Adam and Eve points to the need to come out of the garden (of unity) in order to experience (that very unity). It is by engaging in useful meaningful work as part of the wider community of beings whilst holding an awareness of our true nature that we return home. Hell is our separation. But as ever, it is the same separation which lets us see; Samsara and Nirvana one and the same.

These were my thoughts as I drove along. I parked the car and called DC to check on how he felt about the Wagner. We've had a talk before about Wagner; Wagner was not a dude. Wagner could have been a dude but he was just too nasty. Which is a shame, because fundamentally this means that he failed to fully grasp the connectedness of life and thus the value of all beings. A dude you might have gathered is a character who is sorted, knows the (true) nature of human life, is thus happy and good to be with. Fundamentally someone at ease and aware. The application of the name dude was one of DC's during a conversation about the 'greats' of history. Bach, apparently was a dude (I'll have to check that with DC). Einstein was a dude. The Buddha of course was a dude. Yes, DC confirmed Tristan und Isolde did point in the way described... but that doesn't get Wagner off the hook, in fact it puts him on it!

Philosophising at an end I commented on my deft shift between such things and engineering skills and chalked up a few cool points. We all need a few positive strokes.

I walked up to the site and said 'hi' to the guys setting the heating plant to work. Heat was soon flowing into various buildings and warming the occupants. The archetype 'Engineer' is a dude. 

Awareness

I am feeling a lot brighter, a lot lighter. The life passing through is more agreeable, or there is more agreeableness. It's part the longer, lighter days and part connections with people. And it feels like the balance of Being and doing might become more comfortable; the next crop (see previous postings) might be soon.

Being and doing, awareness and 'who is it that does?' True Self and the various aspects of self are what I take Rev Master Mugo to be pointing to in this post on Jade Mountains. The whole question of what to do with ones life seems to me to remain which ever way one does. Life is expressing, Being is, doing unfolds. Responding to what is creatively and authentically without adding or neglecting. Sounds simple, but I rarely find it that way.

It all passes, how will it be later, how will I feel? What actually changes? Is it actually much different when I feel different? Sun faced Buddha, moon faced Buddha.

Poem

I read Jade Mountains, and liked the poem in this post. Together with the Eckhart Tolle I've been listening to, it reminds me of the distinction between I and me; the experiencer and the experienced.

I (or rather me, my ego self) is trying to find what I want to do with my life these days. What do I enjoy, what work should I look for, how do I find a group to connect with in some shared purpose? I feel a strong need to be creative. I can't just sit and watch.

I am about to start some volunteer work. That should help.

Wild Love

DC and I saw the movie 'Sex and drugs and rock and roll' about Ian Dury, last weekend. Fantastic! Dury's 'I am not here to be f***ing remembered I am here to live!' a shout to us all!
Dury did not have an 'easy' life. Rediscovering the music I bought a few tracks over the net for my MP3 player. Such energy.

Walking over the town moor the other day, I noticed a sucking sound and turned to see a whirl pool vortex sucking in air where the lake formed by snow melt water was being drained through a pipe under the path to the other side of the path. This drainage arrangement was put in a few years ago and makes the path much more usable. Anyway, I rolled a snowball and threw it into the vortex. Good shot. The sucking stopped then as the ball rolled out started again. The ball circled the vortex before being sucked in and down... Like Alice in wonderland I thought and looked to the other end of the pipe... would it come out? Pop, there it was. Were we now in wonderland, samsara transformed?... Buurr, too cold for this... enough poetic day dreaming, time to walk on, a warm home beckoned.

Just finished reading Wild Love by Gill Edwards. I enjoyed it. Some parts I found not quite in tune with my thinking/feeling but much of it is. I particularly like her exploration of the difference as she sees it between co-dependant merging v connection with Oneness and separation v individuation. Much along the lines of my own thoughts all that.

And on the subject of merging into the collective verses individuation and the path to awakening, I note the writers of Star Trek Voyager explore this with the Borg. In a repeat episode we watched recently, Seven of Nine is severed from the Borg collective and her human body starts to regenerate but she still thinks as Borg and can't bear the pain of separation and longs to be reconnected. She can only hear her own mind and longs to hear the others again. The Borg assimilate; no room for individuation, no harmony of difference in unity. This is co-dependant merging, but Seven of Nine is 'liberated' and must face the illusion of her isolation. She must take up the challenge of discovering her identity and connection to not just the Borg but to the universe. Quite a challenge that! Time passes, as it appears to, and she settles down to become to use those school report terms, a useful member of the team... Which is to say, assimilated into the American way...

Dealing with our pains and accepting what is while remaining open to the joy of life is no simple challenge. It is unconditional love for each and every aspect of our experience not a stoic knuckling down. It requires an infinite expansion of consciousness, there is always more 'work' to do to see that we are perfect as we are. No wonder it sometimes feels like Alice in Wonderland! Hit me with your rhythm stick!

Which is NOT to say party on without a care but care to and as we party on.

Beautiful Movie

DC and I have just returned from the cinema. We saw Departures. A very beautiful movie. Very moving. Life shown; immanent and transcendent.

In gassho.