Falling

You're falling and there's nothing you can do about it. Nor is there anything to grasp onto as you slide.

There's that damned question again.

Observe the way your mind moves, works, without having any preconceived ideas about it. A moment will come when you discover yourself to be the witness. Subsequently, when all striving has left you, you will realise that you are the light shining beyond the observer. Reality is neither a product of the mind nor the result of a whole train of thoughts, it just is. The only method we can suggest is to observe impartially the way in which your mind reacts in the different circumstances of everyday life.


--Jean Klein, Neither This Nor That I Am

Self-inquiry: Does my story figure into it?

It was huge to accept that the practice of direct, inward looking need not be contingent upon the details of the story of my life. At least not in the way that I previously believed. If we wait until every aspect of our life story is acceptable to us then we'll really never muster more than a half-hearted attempt to engage in meaningful action. It will be relegated to the scheduling of meditative practice. "OK, 15 minutes is up." And, think about it: Isn't our life story one of the roots of the impulse to seek respite? Respite from the suffering we see in the story of our life experience? That's a damned racket.

Now, there is something to note here. In the course of continued looking, repressed "shadow" material will 100%-guaranteed bubble into plain, inescapable view. Not being able to escape The Unbearable may provoke an earnest evaluation of the way we tell ourselves the story of our lives. This may translate into the kind of surrender that results in deep changes in our life. How long have I accepted the job, spouse, social circle, use of leisure time (get back to work, robot!!!), and so on, that hasn't been working but it's just more comfortable to keep it going because I am terrified of life without it? That could be where the story needs attending to. Something like "keeping the house in order " and "right effort ".

In any case, we look at ourself, look at the compulsions, look for the source of my thoughts, look to what is habitually in my attention, look for myself, look for me. And we do it when we don't have to attend to some life necessity.

Dream Sequence 1/13/09

In this dream, I was a resident of Los Angeles. I got a job as part of the cast on a reality-TV type of show (probably because, at the time, the TV in the living room was tuned to HGTV as I slept). I went in and felt a bit removed from what was going on but otherwise had no trouble playing along.

At one point in the taping of the latest episode, the cast took a break. I took a liking to one of the young ladies there, who happened to be sitting in front of me but facing front so her back was to me. I don't remember what, if anything, was said between us, but a magnetism between us eventually led to an embrace. I mean, it was a really tightly-held, long lasting hug.

During the hug, I felt so good, so fulfilled, so liking this person. This feeling of warmth and very strong fulfilled longing seemed to emanate from my chest. I was no longer in my head but in my chest. The feeling was so incredibly intense.

The embrace eventually ended and we resumed our positions in the room, just sitting in the dimly lit room and waiting for the taping to resume so we can get back to work. Another female who sat to my left whispered to her, "I think he really likes you". The satisfaction from this shared recognition lasted for a fraction of a second before the woman I embraced whispered back, "Yeah, he's making 70,000 dollars". Of course, not having made $70,000 a year in seven years, I immediately understand that she's not talking about me. Then she looked to her right and locked hands with an unseen male. The girl to my side, completely oblivious to me and to the embrace I shared with her friend, smiled approvingly. I felt that her ignoring me was a sign of her rejection of me.

So, at that point I felt rejected and betrayed but figured, hey, life goes on. But, I sure wasn't going to continue on with the rest of the episode, even though it was my first day there. I resolved to silently make my exit from the scene. I started through the doors but quickly realized that I had no idea about how to get back home. I retraced my steps back 100 or so feet back to the entrance of the building.

I asked a bespectacled African-American man (the only one I saw the whole time there) who worked at the information desk by the entrance of the building how to get to where I wanted to go. He smiled in recognition. I told him, "I guess you can tell by my accent that I'm from New York City. (That's something I've told people on a number of occasions since moving to Athens.) Up in NYC, we got the buses and the subways and all that (something else I've said a few times, too)."

....

I guess an internal timer must have gone off, because the dream abruptly ended at this point in the sequence. It was time for me to go to an appointment with one of my clients.

Lingering feelings/thoughts/impressions:

• Rejection/Betrayal (though, this time, not leading to a total meltdown)
• LONELINESS
• signs of recognition
• the NYC-accent schtick identity thing I do
• lost, needing directions
• an African-American of my age being the only trustworthy one
• still walking away when things get too much to handle

Physical: A lingering knot of tension in my chest. 3 to 4 hours after the end of the dream sequence.

Could be related to affliction/vulnerability. Or, is that what's been there the whole time?

Look and see.

Peering at the mind is like looking through a microscope. The heretofore unseen phenomena are brought straight up to the close-up field of vision, though there is a sense of peering across some distance.

The moving mind is a complete tempest. It is blind in its movement. Individual thoughts bubble to the surface. Lest the doubt emerge that it is but another ego-construct/game, sense how the tension no longer sticks to the sides of your head; rather, it swirls around >you< -- in a way, creating that "barrel" through which the peering happens.

It's a really draining process. Probably why it's important to conserve energy (that is, to not fritter it away on irrelevant action). Also probably why attention to afflictions to the ego is so important. It all kinda works the same way. But, with focused, intent peering within, it's much more intense.

(image bitten off of Art Ticknor's Self Discovery Portal site: image by Gregg Fletcher)

The mind stops by means of falling bricks.

And the mind needs to stop long enough to look at the source of MY STORY.

What's the relationship to a practice of self-inquiry to those moments when the lies feel too much to handle? Who knows. Some systems favor a slowing down to an eventual stop, while others favor a quick build-up and release of tension, causing a "short circuit". Sometimes it seems that the lies just get too big and uncomfortable and the meltdown just happens, ready or not.

In any case, the mind stops and looking >>straight through<< is temporarily possible. "Temporarily" because the thought stream eventually starts to "stick" as before, and the opportunity is lost. Until the next attempt. Keep trying. Take rests.

But, when the chance is there, take it! The mind stops. Keep looking until the buildup gets too much to handle. Then the rest kind of is handled from a different vantage point.

Assuming that's what you really want.

More dreams

1) A day after the back to back dreams (making this a back to back to back type of thing) I had a dream of hitting a Latino dude who was walking in a crowd. I wanted to hit and run, even more so when the wails reached fever pitch. I couldn't see the state of the person I'd hit but the wails seemed suggestive that he was a goner. But I was incredulous that a simple sideswipe (I had seen him out of my peripheral vision at the last second) could be so deadly. I turned the car around and headed towards the crowd. The dream ended.

2) I dreamt a familiar type of dream. The neighborhood movie theater. Tucked away in an indoor mall, but it was a local place without upscale pretensions. There was a familiar feel to the arcade-type mall feel, with its multitude of peeling posters on the walls outside. Just as familiar is the combination of St. Marks'-8th Street (Manhattan) and Steinway Street (Queens). Dream memory has eroded much but here goes. I ask what appears to be the manager or owner of the movie theater for something. I think drugs but it's very hazy at this point. He had an older man with coiffed silver hair (late 60s?) employed as a bag man. He was otherwise friendly. It was a favor of some sort. The movie theater was experimenting with screening a hard-core porn film. The crowds came for sure. I peered in and saw two young ladies in the audience sucking each other's breasts, which, by the look of them (baggy and obvious filled with some kind of liquid) were obviously implants. I appeared to attract the wrong kind of attention. The boss and his pal acted sympathetic to me, and we said our goodbyes. I also squeezed in a short apology. He said, no problem, he will have our silver-haired bagman help me close things up in the theater. As I walked to the theater area of the indoor mall, I wondered why the owner/manager was being so cool about things. Either that was that OR he was planning to take care of me in a not so good way. As I approached the lovable, irascible get-it-done guy, my worst suspicions were confirmed. He came at me with a tape measure. The metal tape was jagged and rusty. A tape measure used as an assassination weapon, wow. Anyway, I wrestle the tape measure from Mr. Bagman and I do him in instead by strangulation. I remember returning to the site some time later to reflect on the turn of events.. The dream ended at this point.

I haven't yet come to an understanding of these dreams. Nor have I pieced together the meaning of the dreams I previously posted, although the commonality of the interpretations point to something about a struggle to meet the repressed and unacknowledged parts of the personal narrative.

Cause and effect: Where the cure isn't

An interesting example describing a common mistake that I and other seekers have made at some point in their inquiry popped up just this morning.

Say there's a big old wart or corn or something planted somewhere on your body that is just itching like hell. Creams and other medications just aren't working. So you go to the doctor with your problem. Now, what do you tell doc? Do you identify the problem as the itch, or as the wart itself?

Similarly, we talk of our existential, spiritual problem (i.e., a life of suffering, alienation, craving and fragmentation) being that of attachment with phenomena in our experience. Attachment is an aspect of ego-existence. The mistaken and hypnotized insistence on a self-sense as a central, core component of our being gives rise to attachment. The point is, should attachment be the focus of our inquiry as spiritual aspirants, or should it be the self-sense itself?

We recognize the troublesome itch as an effect of our wart and so come to recognize that an effective treatment for the itch is removal of the wart. In the same way, attachment is an effect of the sense of self that dominates our experience and confounds us into admitting it as a central part of who we are. Thus, we are best served to not get hung up about attachment and instead go straight ahead (as a topic of self-inquiry) into the sense of I-Me.

A couple of notes

1) There has been, for the past couple of weeks now, a higher than usual rate of incidence of deja vus, strange coincidences, and moments of strange synchronicity (thinking about someone seconds before they call, mentioning some topic to someone who was recently thinking about the same, and so on). Jury's out on the significance of such weirdness or on its usefulness to my inquiry.

2) At the same time, and especially the past couple of days, the core dissatisfaction has been increasingly difficult to ignore, rationalize away, or attempt distraction from.

I see these as opportunities to look within with a better attitude and firmer resolve.

Obstacles

There's always gonna be obstacles. The thing is, you don't let those obstacles become what determines where you go.-- Pearl Fryar, A Man Named Pearl

Inspiring. And I would say it applies to all pursuits, including spiritual pursuits.