The nature of our shared human egoness is to always attempt to make what is false appear to be true… (As the entirety of the phenomenal world is a demonstration of this principle, you see this, yes? [sic…It's especially visible in 'mass advertising'.]) Therefore as I sit here facing the blank canvas of this empty page, I listen to the chatter within my head having a 'this week's review' moment---a pre-writing back and forth dialogue about the learning events of the week (supposedly discussing what is worth sharing from the experiences) my ego's subtle but easily seen concern is 'to look good' to you. Nothing new there….I doubt there is a single human being who has not experienced this…as it (trying to look good for oneself and/or others) is a foundational egoic fundamental from which there is no escape [except via complete transformation of being]).
Yet I am also noticing that much subtler than my mind's chatter is my breath--- continuing its life-long rhythm-- and I see that sanity lies in the choice to simply be with it for a while, watching it receiving my life… and then, releasing my life.
Back at the Rainbow Gathering a wonderful little book appeared via a 'trading circle' exchange… a few of my home-made dried bananas for the book, Awakening Loving-Kindness, by Pema Chodron, whose teacher was the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa, Rimpoche. Because of it's tiny 3" x 4" size it has pretty much lived in my Peruvian shoulder bag, and I've been developing the habit of opening it each morning (each time to a new, randomly chosen spot) and have always been grateful for the thoughts I have discovered in it.
This morning's opening landed me in a exquisite commentary on meditation… specifically on focusing on the out-breath… the releasing…the letting go…the forgiving… side of our lives. As a result of contemplating Pema's suggestions, I've been practicing releasing both my breath (and a few of this weeks tougher learning moments) a bit more gracefully.
And, as I ended last weeks journal with the affirmational intentionality that we/I learn to follow our Christed nature more unerringly, my report this week now admits to numerous failures in that in the interim, all valuable as learning opportunities. I am so glad that this is always true--- that even in the seemingly worst of situations (when viewed spiritually correctly) what is really true is that a gift is being offered.
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One such failure occurred at a beautiful natural hot-springs (Bagby Hot Springs in the Mt. Hood National Forest). It was early morning and I was in the large communal wooden soaking tub by myself when a couple arrived to the other side of the privacy wall. When they noticed I was not at that moment 'in the tub' (I was cooling off a bit) they inquired if I was finished with my soak. 'Not quite yet', I responded, and then I invited them to join me (and returned to the tub). They did not, nor did they speak with me again, even when I repeated my invitation. They just sat outside where I could not see them (but where I was aware they were there), apparently waiting for me to leave. I felt increasingly uncomfortable and pressured, as I did not actually wish to leave. In fact, I had just spent an hour filling the tub and getting the water temperature perfect, and I had been anticipating the arrival of other people and to socializing over the next several hours. So this situation was the exact opposite of the outcome I was desiring, and given that, I started believing my mind--- about how rude these people were being, about how this was a communal tub and they had no right to expect to use it privately, etc. I made a third invitation attempt, certain that they could hear me, but still there was no response to me---only the whispered sounds between them continuing as the minutes passed. This was 'past reactivating' for me--- reminding me of childhood experiences where I was shunned---and the egoic resistance inside me increased… I forgot to watch my breath.
Finally, in a kind of angry upset social rejection pain, I stoically left the tub, gathered my clothes, exited past them without speaking or looking at them. As I left, I heard the man softly say 'Thank you'. Even so, drying and dressing out of their view behind a huge old-growth log, I found myself triggered, contracted, pissed off. This unhappy way of ending an idyllic soak was a vast contradiction to the chanting/singing man who had walked the mile/+ trail to the springs 2 hours before, but 'what is is what is', and thus I began my struggle to let it go, to shake it off, and regain 'presence', and my happiness. My problem (as I began the trail back now feeling emotionally isolated and disconnected from all the beauty around me) was that I had regressed emotionally to being a rejected child who was hooked on making THEM wrong, and keeping ME right. So for a while I did not make much progress. Finally, nature's beauty helped me out, as I came to a lovely little waterfall which my adult I knew I needed to photograph (for a future painting reference) and to get focused on doing that, I had to interrupt my child from obsessing about being insulted/rejected (or any of the other insane list of offenses that my mind was insisting on making real).
That little waterfall was the window I needed for grace to begin to speak some sanity to my heart… for had I not ever come to a hot springs with a beloved hoping we would have it all to ourselves? And were there not many non-amourous reasons for this… perhaps she had had some unpleasant past experiences/traumas… perhaps he knew this and was feeling very protective of her… the man's 'thank you' had in fact carried the tone of an apology, I remembered. I begin to see I had allowed myself to break the cardinal rule of 'Don't take anything personally' [please see "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz if this idea this is new to you]. As this new line of thinking entered my heart, like a rapid spring snow melt, my anger lifted, and I was able to let go… releasing the breath, releasing the pain, releasing being offended…as in the line from the Zen sutra: "when a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist (in the old way)"….
As a lightworker, I have noticed that part of the job is that I must often allow myself to be insulted by other people… without experiencing any internal or external reacting. Generally these are not conscious or intentional insults… usually they are just the stuff of life being delivered by our civilization of duality dwellers (and occur as a result of people in general not getting what unity actually is or what it means). We all suffer these insults, which come in the form of being 'made fun of', or not being taken seriously, or any other form of subtle judgements revealed by body language or spoken tonality. I have realized all these mean nothing 'about me', that in truth they simply reveal I am being perceived as 'an other'… and that the work of being a lightworker for the Unity requires me to ignore them as if they never occurred. I am usually pretty good at this…so life gave me a test using one of my 'sacred cows'… my love of hot springs (which to me are often 'like being in a temple').
As presence was invited to return, I saw that my failure of the test lay in my attachment to my own desired experience (and not being open to Divine Intention being something different from what I had in mind; also, of course, in believing my own mind [as a distinction from following my heart]). It turned out that Divine Intention knew exactly what it was doing …. within minutes I found myself meeting a man on the trail whom I quickly realized was the actual reason for my being there. His name was also David and he had been sitting by that same little waterfall earlier when I had passed by chanting (singing along with the Snatum Kaur album playing on my iPhone earphones). In his young 30's, crew cut, heavily tattooed and well muscled, he looked like a 'bad boy', but his energy emissions confirmed he now was 'a new sadhu'. Our meeting was exquisitely timed. Three weeks before he had come into the woods despondent over personally traumatic relationship circumstances. Searching for answers, in those weeks a series of synchronistic meetings with people delivering expanded awareness teaching and learning miracles had increasingly awakened him. He was now well 'lit up', and I was his next such miracle, delivering (as we shared exploring a side stream and suddenly discovering a hidden waterfall) a several hour info-log/dialogue/conversation about various sadhana and lifestyle options for his future, including an introduction to ACIM, simple meditation instructions, and the exchange of contact info and the joining of this recipient list. In all this David was a sponge, absorbing easily, intently listening, intelligently questioning. So satisfyingly different (I imagined) from being back in a hot tub with strangers doing the subtle dances of superficial relating with strangers (i.e., scanning for authentic connection while exhibiting 'being cool'). Flipping reality, I now felt grateful for the part the privacy seeking couple had played in the day…. for sparing me what I had thought I wanted. How cool God always is….
Which leaves me/us back once again at:
No accidents ever.
And: "attach cannot be limited. Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray…" (from the 3rd Zen Patriarch).
And: (via Pema Chodron, paraphrased) "as you focus awareness on your out-breath, 'thinking' will happen. Just let the 'thinking' go… This is probably one of the greatest tools that you could be given…to (on the out-breath) just let thoughts go…. (for) to (be free is to) not be caught up in the grip of worried or angry or passionate or depressed thoughts…."
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