The Cedars
OK
In the quiet darkness before dawn, the sound of a southeast wind through the cedar boughs and rain falling on the ground. The smell of wet earth.
Such a very small step it is to step out of 'my life' and into Life. How simple.
Access: Public
Sunday Drive
OK
The Quest
OK
An analogy:
It's like a recurring dream. This particular dream could take a variety of forms but each variation has this in common; that all I want to do is get home and go to bed. Just lie down in in the safety and warm comfort of my big glorious bed and relax. But I can't seem to find my way home, or I have to accomplish some important task first, or fight off the bad guys, or prove myself against some noble challenge, or get the right person to love me, or save a child, or stamp out a burning duck, or fashion a trombone out of pasta and perform for the Pope... I don't know, whatever. The point is that in all these dreams I'm trying SO HARD to just get home and lie in my bed but I just can't seem to find my way back there!
So let's look at this thing. Where would I actually be during one of these dreams? Or in between these dreams, or when I wake up from one of these dreams? The WHOLE TIME I'm in BED! What do I as the character in the dream need to practice, perform, achieve, learn or understand in order for me to 'get there'? Nothing of course as I am actually already lying safe and warm under the covers. Obviously no particular thing in the dream needs to happen in order to accomplish what is actually already the case. What happens in the dream has absolutely no bearing, no relevance, no effect on This that IS.
When I wake up in the morning and the me character in the dream ceases to exist (if it can really be said to ever have existed) it is seen that what was sought so earnestly for in the dream is already so. Here I Am.
The Shy One
OK
What strange and wonderful animal is this that has stepped out of the twilight of the woods and is standing still and alert on the trail looking back at me. I have no name for it but I seem to have a memory of having glimpsed it before. I instinctively reach toward it and it naturally moves away. When I move to follow it returns to the darkness of the forest. I dive in behind with a determination not to let this thing escape me. It moves invisibly through the trees as I pursue blindly with increasing fervor although I can't shake the disorienting impression that I am actually the one being followed and so closely and silently that it's feet land in my own footprints as I step out of them. This creature is maddening! Lost, torn, and exhausted I finally have to give up the chase, stop where I am, and collapse in the ferns at my feet. This hunt is hopeless, I'm stopping here. But I wonder where here is. I have no idea how I came or how to get back. Too tired to care for the moment, I lean my back against a tree and close my eyes. Anyway this place is fine, in fact quite nice, and so utterly quiet now with just the sound of my own breathing slowly winding down...
How much time goes by before, without opening my eyes, I suddenly notice with amazement that I can feel the magical creature I've been chasing curled up in my lap?! I feel it's living heart beating under my fingers, it's soft fur quivering with aliveness, it's warm breath on my skin, and I am flooded with love!
Look
OK
Why am I still so stuck?
Why is WHO still stuck? Who is it that is stuck?? This so called stuck person exists only within these thoughts of 'stuckness'. Before, after, or outside of these thoughts, this stuck story, where is the stuck one? - Poof -
But I keep having these thoughts over and over.
Another thought. It has the label 'memory' attached to it. It's just another thought that has appeared. No problem whatsoever.
Please find me the one who is stuck before you take one more step.
You are completely free.
You are completely free!
Take it from here...
Effort
OK
"It's so hard to stay present. This spiritual stuff can be hard work."
What if being present (or even waking up, embodying your true nature, enlightenment, and all that other fancy stuff) was just as simple as say suddenly noticing the sensation of your tongue in your mouth, the feeling of your feet on the floor, or the sound of rain on the roof? What if it took no more time, effort, understanding, or practice than that and what if it was just that ordinary?
What if instead we had to use all of our will, energy, effort, determination, intellect, imagination, and time just to maintain the ego, an identity for ourselves, or the belief that "I" am the one in the story? What if we had to pour all of our thought, attention, desire and intent into this continuous effort just in order to stay 'endarkened'?
In other words what if waking up started looking a lot less like something one does and a lot more like just giving it a rest!?
Hmmm... :)
-"Hey mister, why are you banging your head against that tree"?
-"Because it feels so good when I stop"!
Improvement
OK
Do you have a vision of the person you would like to become, or can think of ways that you would like to improve your self or your life, physically, emotionally, spiritually? Beyond that are you interested in doing your part in helping to improve the way we humans relate to each other and to all the other life on the planet, to create a more balanced and harmonious way of life? In bringing about a better world for future generations?
I applaud you and celebrate your energy. It's just that I have to tell you that you've stumbled onto the wrong blog for discussion of these topics. What I write about here is definitely not about self improvement nor for that matter about improvement of any kind. My interest and focus here is on what is. As in IS. Not in what will be, might be, should be, or could be. But also not I hope even in thoughts, ideas or theories about what is. Before all that. To me it's the difference between reality and fantasy. Hmmm... This could be difficult.
Before I continue perhaps I should add that I am as moved as the next person by inspiring acts of compassion. People acting selflessly for the greater good in ways to help others and serve as a catalyst for healing, connection and understanding.
Phew, OK now let's see, where was I... Oh yes, I was saying 'hmmm'.
I'll now just speak carefully and for myself. There's not that much to say. What I find is:
That the desire to improve myself or my life has the effect of cutting me out of life and immediately blocking the flow of life.
That this wanting something better, something different, or something more, blinds me to what Is.
Hope, like some kind of beautiful, inspiring, endless, insatiable disease, springs from and feeds on the false belief that there exists some other time in which improvement can occur when in reality there is only this moment.
- This - timeless, sacred, perfect, only -
Heartbreakingly ordinary. Closer than here. Sooner than now.
Exactly This, in the presence of which no thought of improvement is possible. No improvement is needed. Clean, clear, brilliant, torrential. A flowering destruction, continuously unfolding, overflowing. Stillness exploding. It doesn't exist for my benefit whatsoever.
It just Is.
I just Am.
presence
August 2008 