Comparing the contrast

Children are the chorus at this mountain lake: a swimming pool with boats, a raked beach without salt or waves. It is easy to revert to what I know: heat, clean sand and waves - when in a foreign land. But if this be my home now, then this is what is mine to know. Memories are not how things should be; this is how things should be.

Comparison. I find myself falling into it often, and what I notice often follows is some form of stress: anger, frustration, resentment. What is to compare? This is this and that is that. That is all.

When I look at it, I notice that the only reason I compare is to be better than, even if it’s to be better than you at being worse than you, a better victim. It is one way I choose to remain separate: comparison requires an other, this to be separate from that – and therefore somehow comparable.

Comparison is competition, and all competition requires a loser.

There is no comparison. It is all this, and I can’t compare this to this: it is all the same. Beach, no beach; waves, no waves; hot or just a bit warm: it is no different. It is just this. Pure, simple, this.

No comparison, no competition. Winning without a loser.

The paradigm of paradox

The sun where once were clouds does shine. Two knees raised, notebook in the lap thus formed. Interplay of light and shadow on sheets. Contrast.

Without light there is no shadow. The shadow the Yin to the light’s Yang. Perhaps. Nothing exists without contrast, without something to compare it to. Duality is the source of existence.

It is like giving a baby a mirror and showing it that the image in the mirror is itself. An amazing moment, the moment the baby begins to exist in separation.

No lap without the knees. First the thought, then the image. All arising and passing away.

Nothing and everything, this and that, you and me: none can exist without the other. It all started with a thought, ‘I am…’ No start without an end.

Chicken and egg. Which came first is not important, what is important is that it came. No coming without going. No existence without death. No story without an ending.

No way home, for home was never left.

All the same to me

The sun has melted the clouds, the girls laugh upstairs, and the clock ticks, reminding me that no two seconds are alike.

And yet, somehow, it is all the same. I remember traveling through California, Arizona and Mexico last year and having that experience: there was some quality that was all the same. I couldn’t place it, it was just my experience that it was somehow all the same.

There is an equanimity about such an experience. I guess it is the very essence of equanimity: for the internal to remain equanimous, the external must be experienced as that.

Or is it the other way around? I am told that thought is cause, experience effect. I am told it is all projection. The external a manifestation of the internal.

There I was experiencing equanimity and I didn’t even know it! I love that. I love that the experience is impossible to name; the truth impossible to say. I love that I have glimpsed something unspeakable.

And I love that I sit here trying to find words to explain it!

It's axiomatic

Waiting for words. I have been reading how the Vedic people in India realized they needed nothing but words and fire. For the moment it feels as though I have neither. They would carry out an elaborate daily sacrifice and that was all. They left no trace but their words: no temples, no architecture, no infrastructure. They trod lightly upon this delicate Earth.

And they were almost right. Ultimately – whatever we do – there is nothing left, not even words. They morph, distort, become something altogether different, and then as their relevance is lost they fade into obscurity. It is all a flash of consciousness, only some flashes appear longer than others.

I was also reading how every proof requires an axiom. It is impossible to prove all of anything: the central point of any proof is the axiom, and the axiom cannot be proved. It is the nature of an axiom.

So the entire universe we live in rests upon the axiom that it is real. Where is the proof? Every proof of reality you attempt to show me relies upon the axiom that it was already real. Circular argument.

So where does that leave us?

Unfinished business

Last night I lay on the floor as the thunder rolled through me. The whole house shook to its roar, an energy of other proportions.

This morning I watch the rain ease off after a nightlong solid dump. Those clouds just got to be exhausted now. There’ll be flooding around these parts today, I’m sure.

And the cat buries her face in my arm, clawing me gently, a suckling kitten grown old. I bite my fingernails, the cat suckles: what is the difference? Acting out unfinished childhoods.

Childhood is never finished. Where there is innocence there are signs of the child, and underlying all of this is a profound innocence. It is inescapable, try as we might to deny it.

Manifestations of fear would try to drive us away from our innocence. And who is it that fears? Who is afraid of the dark? Of monsters under the bed? Of spiders and mice and other creepy-crawlies? It is the child. Always the innocent child.

Downpour

Downpour. Loud and heavy the rain pounded the roof last night. A thousand hammers beating on tin. A percussive symphony. Cacophony. And with it the light show: bright white fireworks accompanied by thunder’s drum roll.

And it poured until the clouds were exhausted. Like an angry man, they can only vent so much.

And now it is still. Nothing moves in the aftermath. Like the object of an angry man’s abuse, recovering from such as assault takes time. A tentative chirp in the distance, the slight wave of a dandelion, mark the start of said recovery as the water stops flowing and starts seeping. Life blood.

Persistent, life is.

Married!

Is this married life: go, go, go, go, go? Yesterday the celebrant signed the papers and now we’re as good as married. Married! It only took me 36 years.

I remember doing The Work a week or so ago on the belief that marriage traps me. One of the turnarounds was that it was liberating, and what came to me then is that it would liberate me from all my limiting beliefs about what marriage would be like. I think it has. It really feels like a weight off, a burden lifted.

It’s still bizarre talking about ‘my wife’ though. Or my stepkids. Fiancée was one thing, and I kind of got used to that, but wife – wife holds a whole lot of meaning for me, it seems, that I am yet to investigate. Well, here’s my chance! If ‘til death do us part sticks, then I guess I’ve got the rest of my life.

Married! How can one word appear to change so much? The adventure begins. Again.

Rhythm

Last night I sat outside and watched the fireflies blinking. A plane drifted overhead and joined them, tail trailing red and white lights. Last night I held a firefly in my hand. I would like to make a firefly lantern: dozens of fireflies in a jar, ideal for moonless nights.

The wind this morning is restless. It shares its rhythm with the trees, drifting in and out like sleepy dreams on a lazy morning. Change in the weather warning.

There is a rumbling in my stomach that chants like a Tibetan monk singing, “Feed me, feed me.”

And E wraps her arms around me in a way that says, “Love me, love me.”

The television is a mirror, the washing basket a history lesson, and the dog barking in the distance a call to the gods. They are not listening.

An airplane rumbles overhead, getting lost in the breeze down here; the tall grass dances with the leaves; the barn at attention, unblinking.

There is a rhythm to all of this. Can you find it?

What do you think of this?

What I've noticed is that some people can't handle criticism at all, while others seek it out as a resource. My friend Rachel and her friend John - who were both at the School for The Work with me (no coincidence there) - are in the latter group. This is them in San Francisco going straight to the heart of it. Rachel also has a Summer Inquiry Project planned, which is worth checking out.

Timely

There are times when the words can’t find the page. On other occasions the page soaks them up, a sponge.

There are times when I am so in love with the world and everything in it that I soak into it, transparent; and then there are times that I reject it.

There are times when you and you and you are equally perfect in my eyes. Mostly though, you are special and you are not, while you are just plain contemptuous.

And yet all time – eternity – is one. There is nothing special or different here - it is not possible. Eternity is the entity. Within, it looks tumultuous; but as an entity it looks complete. It is complete, it has no choice.

Eternity is all and here I lie within it. How is it that the finite seems so real? How could anything be important in the midst of the infinite? How did I make this seem to matter? Guess I must be cleverer than I thought.

Solstice

Solstice. Top of the cycle to you! A day like any other, only a little bit more of it. The sun don’t get no higher.

Solstice. Focus of gatherings from Stonehenge to New Mexico. Somewhere in these 24 hours people are prostrating, worshipping, chanting, contemplating, decrying the big ball of fire in the sky. And why not? It holds a fairly significant place in our existence. Without it there would be none. Not here, anyway. And with global warming, it could hold a fairly significant place in the end of our existence. Our relationship with Ra is tenuous, it turns out. Any drought victim or skin cancer sufferer will attest to that. Giver of life, taker of life: master blaster.

Solstice. Day like any other.

A year ago today

A year ago today I was wearing all white and a turban, sitting in a large outdoor shed, staring in a woman’s eyes, holding a pose and repeating a mantra – along with over a thousand others. White Tantric Yoga, Kundalini style. A year ago today I was taking cold showers and was less than 40 days away from meeting E. A year ago today I was in the desert mountains of New Mexico. A year ago today I didn’t know it, but I was about to travel through 15 states in two weeks.

A year ago today I was well along the path that led me to this. And I had absolutely no idea. What path am I on now? Where is this leading? This morning, instead of staring into a woman’s eyes I was staring at a wall, attempting to form a cone within a square. This is hard work too, though not as taxing as the Kundalini Yoga event. So where is it leading? Soon, E and I will most likely be married. Where is that leading?

I find that one of my issues about settling down is that life becomes predictable, but it ain’t necessarily so. I look at where my mind has traveled, at where life has taken me, since I returned here in November, and I don’t know that any of it was predictable. The only thing that appears the same is four people living in a house together, and no element of any of that has remained the same either.

It seems the obvious isn’t quite so evident when I look at it closely. The obvious turns out to be only the apparent, and the evident becomes transparent. The mystery may be inescapable, after all.

Seasonal Circles

The blackberry outside the window is racing skywards. The window’s panes act as markers for its growth, and today it is half way to the top. Breakfast in bed blackberries are on order, and all I need do is wait for the sun and rain and air and soil to serve it up. A butterfly flitters around it, generating a shadow across the room and life is full this morning.

I harken back to winter when all was a sheet of white, when the trees were sleeping, and the contrast couldn’t be more complete. The seasonal circle here is full.

Drifting inwards, I see the cycles within me. I see how each experience seems so complete: when I am down it seems there is no way out; when I am high on life it feels like forever; when I am in love – as now – the fullness bears an apparently unbreakable totality.

Inescapable expressions of the moment. Here now turns out to be all I’ve ever known; all else has only ever been a story.

Rest in peace

Sunday – so they say. Domingo, Dimanche. The seventh day. Day of rest. Ha! As soon as I’m done with this, off to work I go: first at the venue and then on the house. Day of rest! What’s that?

To be fair, my days are filled with a lot of respite, but a day filled with rest I am barely capable of. I recall Vipassana – ten days of sitting in silence – being some of the hardest work I’ve ever done. So if I’m working overtime being perfectly still, when do I ever get to rest? When I sleep? Even then, of late I’ve noticed that I’m active even in sleeping. My dreams are busy, and more often than not I awake more exhausted than I was when I went to bed.

The mind is relentless. Without this, this body would stop breathing, stop pumping blood around itself and this form that I call me would cease to exist. Not such a bad thing, maybe; but the point is that mind is never at rest. I can be restful, but never completely rested.

So it follows that it can’t be possible to truly know peace while identifying as this. All I can do is approach it or stop identifying as this. Which would I choose? All I now is what I’ve chosen so far.

Top of the morning meanderings

Top of the morning meanderings. I notice that I would rather close my eyes and drift than pick up these pages and write. I often approach these writings with a sense of trepidation: what am I going to write today? I have nothing to say. It often takes me a while to allow the pen to take over and say what it has to say. While I think it is I who needs to have something to say, the task is a difficult one.

I remember someone once saying that writing a blog about your philosophy of life would take about two or three entries and then it would be over. I recall someone else saying that’s what I do here. And I wonder. To me, little of this is philosophy. Philosophy is questioning, theorizing, arguing. Philosophy assumes there is an answer that can come from its questions. Thousands of years of questions and it still makes this fundamentally flawed assumption.

The ideas presented here are not new; I would never claim that. Nor – to me – are they theories. They are based on experience, or come from a hand that is not guided by me. And the words I read when I’m done reflect those of people who know the experiences that are written about. No, there is nothing new here, nor nothing personal about the philosophy.

Leave the new thoughts – if there are any – to the philosophers. I’ll take the wisdom of the masters instead. No questions, no doubts; no question, no doubt.

Light - Weight

I sit here, alone, with the house to myself for three days. A wonderful opportunity to regroup my thoughts and rediscover the lightness that I once knew so well. There is a heaviness I have found I associate with relationship, with family. Maybe it comes from a perceived burden of responsibility; maybe it comes from a belief that I need to take such things seriously. I don’t know. I have simply noticed the weight where once I had feathers to fly.

And I do not know what this means. It is just an observation. To prefer one to the other is to judge, and I am not in a legitimate position to take on such a responsibility. Which, of course, is not to say that I don’t.

And there it is! This is where the perceived burden of responsibility begins: judging against it. The ego’s a tricky little bugger, isn’t it? It makes something seem real, then judges against it; sets itself up to fail, then bemoans the lost opportunity. Cleverness is its trait, as is the pride that it derives from it.

I’ll take understanding and humility instead, thank you. That is where the lightness lies, where peace dwells.

A half life away

Half way through the month that takes us half way through the year and time’s half lives race by in supersonic motion. The thing about supersonic motion is that the sound can’t keep up with you, and time is the same – the way it flies. It is gone the moment it is noticed and no moment can be grasped. It is all a memory.

I can talk of this, now, but what I am really talking of is that, then. It is impossible to talk of now, for the moment the first utterance is made, that moment is gone. And that is what makes this moment so amazing and every new moment a mystery: it is impossible to describe or define as it slides on by.

It is also what makes every ‘I am’ a lie. How can I know what or who I am in this moment? The truth is closer to ‘I was’ or ‘I could be’, and nor is there ever enough evidence to support either of these claims. We are still discussing a collection of indescribable, indefinable instants. It is all a lie, a story.

It is said the truth is stranger than fiction, but it’s not. What we would call the truth is fiction.

Falling away

A vague emptiness drifts through my head. Words do not reach meaning. They form then dissolve before I can make any use of them. Thoughts too are indistinct, just a gentle sea of incomplete concepts. A judgement here, an opinion there, a belief floating by as driftwood, and all falling away before I can make sense of it.

The ring in my ear an undertone for the dog's howls in the distance. Where is the meaning?

Falling away: a full cloud sprinkling. Falling away: a distant voice echoing. Falling away: dust drifting.

There is a world outside this place and it fades in and out: a voice, a clunk, an engine rolling, a hairbrush brushing. It is there but I am not. He is trapped somewhere, and this morning attempts to drag himself out of the maze and identify as me again. He wants to give me a reference. He wants to make this real, to call this body 'me'. But the rubble that is falling away pins him under for a few moments more. Instants of respite. Flitting freedom. Television snow tuning in.

The worst thing about today

“The worst thing about today is that J’s looking after us.” L’s opening salvo this morning. Oh well, if that’s the worst thing about today, I guess we’re in for a good one. I’ve had J looking after me – one way or another – for the past 36 years, and he doesn’t do such a bad job – most of the time.

I watched where my mind went after she said this, and besides a minor deflation the moment it was said, not much happened. I didn’t seem capable of getting upset about it. I tried – sort of – but I just couldn’t do it. I dwelled on it, but it felt meaningless. And by the time E tried to discuss it with her, my mind had moved on to other topics and spent some moments attempting to recall what she was talking about.

And who knows, after all? What looks to be the worst thing about today could turn out to be the best thing that could happen. It is so often the case that I am finding it pays not to get in the way; not to judge a situation, but to watch it instead.

The worst thing about today is that if I’m not here for it, it’ll be gone. And I can rectify that.

Without questioning

The sun finds a small gap in the clouds and an explosion of warmth covers me, then it goes back into hiding. I look for it and white glare stares back at me. Another stormy night: thunder and lightning preceded by fog; by low, low cloud. The fireflies were a galaxy of short-lived stars, and then when the fog descended they switched off. Too much energy to expel for too little visibility, perhaps. Now this morning there is dampness, an avian chorus and growth. Green, green growth. It is so powerful here that is seems as though you could actually watch grass grow. In Australia we get one crop of hay a year; here they get three, and all within a window of just over six months. They have been baling up the first crop these past couple of weeks: mechanically grazing, industrial cattle. And at the bottom awaits a sea of green, vibrant, pushing up, defying gravity, skyward to start another crop. Unquestioning.

How many times would you need to slice me down before I decided it was pointless and gave up? Where is the override switch that allows me this self-defeating luxury? Maybe it’s true that I’m given nothing I can’t handle. Maybe, without questioning, I would continue to thrive until the time came to rest. Without questioning, maybe I would just be an organism serving its purpose. And if I could look at my life without questioning, maybe that is precisely what I would see.

Not quite good enough

The sun is out after a stormy night and I am tired after staying up late to hear my football team throw away another opportunity. That seems to be what they’re best at: discarding opportunities, refusing to be great. Their constant underachievement has become the running joke of the competition, and any semblance of respect anyone has ever had for them is diminishing as rapidly as their opponents kick goals against them.

And I notice that disrespect for them coming from me as well, and as I do I wonder what that implies. I have found that I am incapable of thinking something about someone else that I don’t already think about myself. So where do I disrespect myself? Oh, let me count the ways. I see that personal disrespect has been a driving force for me for most of my existence. I have used it in a distorted attempt to push me to greater heights. It may have led to me doing plenty and achieving a lot but, like the Dockers, I’ve never really finished anything off. I dabble. It’s like I don’t respect myself enough to allow me to succeed. The perennial boy most likely, I remain a self-fulfilled prophecy of not quite good enough.

I have been upset with the team, but I see that what has really upset me is myself. And I notice the disrespect in that and it hopefully allows an opening for compassion. Vicious cycles go nowhere, and that explains a lot.

Break a leg

The clock flashes, my skin itches, my nose blocks and all is well. The sky is grey, the trees wave softly in the breeze, and E cooks up a delicious smell in the kitchen. Saturday morning, Virginia time.

My realization yesterday seemed to be all I needed to float free from the thoughts that were drowning me. Knowing versus understanding. Knowing is so overrated. I notice that when I think I know how things should be, I suffer, and still I continue to try it. This is the unwinnable war with reality that Katie talks about. I fight it all the time, I lose, and I get up and fight it again. And I continue to wonder why I get upset. War will have that effect.

And I love that understanding comes from not knowing. It looks a little like this: when I don’t know how things should be I have an understanding that everything is just the way it should be. And that is impossible to understand when I think I know what my world should look like – then the judgements come flooding in and colour every single point of my perspective.

I love the flow of the cycles; I love that I can be party to it; I love that I play my role so convincingly that even I believe it most of the time. I always wanted to be an actor as a kid; it just took me this long to see how successful I have been in my career choice.

Wave motion

Time is relative, and at the moment it all seems to be converging at one point. It is a laser, cutting into my mind, performing an operation with random precision. There is no anaesthetic for this operation, and no science behind it. It is just time’s sadistic way of saying I am at its mercy. Time is not on my side; time is the enemy.

I am so glad that it’s an illusion! Somewhere, beyond this sense of being overwhelmed, is the peace of knowing that none of it matters, that nothing is real. Somewhere.

For the moment it feels real. For the moment it seems that I am incapable of coping, that I am being overrun. There is no peace in this, just desperate grasping at a rescue device tantalizingly close but still out of reach.

The rescue device is understanding; the incapacity comes from thinking I know. Every time I approach understanding, I begin to think I know, and the oscillation happens; every time I see I know nothing, I begin to understand, and it turns back the other way. Wave motion.

And at the moment the wave is big and I am drowning.

Obvious

The obvious stares us in the face, and it discomfits us so we look the other way; look at all the other possibilities but the one screaming, "Pick me! Pick me!" I guess the incessant yelling turns us off; I guess the obvious is only for those who are ready for it.

One leg out of the petri dish

Well, we seem to have made it through Armageddon relatively unscathed – just as we did 1000 years ago and 1000 years before that. So much significance people place on dates, and they’re entirely arbitrary. We’ll attempt to make a system out of anything if we can; try to make sense out of chaos; attempt to find order in insanity.

Why? There is a perfect order to everything, but it is beyond numbers and theories. Eternity does not need a system; it is the system. The infinite cannot be enumerated, so why bother trying?

It is so easy to get caught up in the ways of the world, when the world does not have a way. It is just a great petri dish spinning around a light bulb. Imagine bacteria attempting to make sense of their situation: do you think their behaviour would change once they realized their population would explode then die out? No. They’d just make a few ineffective attempts to stem the flow, debate the possibilities; conclude the worst; conclude the best; breed and breed and breed, and then die out.

And would life then be over? Of course not. How can the eternal die?

This really is not what it looks like, and that is why it doesn’t make sense. Recognise the insanity and that’s one leg out of the petri dish.

Ring around the moon

Heavy, heavy dew this morning. I am told that means a fine day ahead. Ring around the moon last night. I am told that means rain. Even nature is confused!

I couldn’t quite make out whether the ring was a dark rainbow or light smog. Smog is not common out here, though surely not impossible. It gets around, as most airborne things do. For the moment, it brings to mind standing on the northwestern tip of the Iberian Peninsula and seeing a thick band of smog from one end of my vista to the next. Just hovering over the ocean, like a wall. Across the Atlantic lay the US; somewhere, quite a distance to the north, the UK sat doing its thing; and to our right, hundreds of miles out of view, was the west coast of France. Nothing anywhere nearby to account for this golden-brown band across the water - nothing but our knowledge of geography.

At the time I saw this strip of smog, I was mortified. It was proof-positive of our destruction of the planet, of our interference with nature. On nature’s behalf, I was outraged at my fellow man for allowing this to happen.

Today, a brown-stained ring around the moon doesn’t have quite the same impact on me. A while ago I realized it is all nature. If it is composed of atoms, it must be nature. It just isn’t the way I used to think nature should look. Maybe today I’m not so arrogant to assume that I know what nature should look like. Maybe today I’m not so arrogant as to make life on Earth my business.

And because I like to have life around me, I will continue to do my best to preserve it. I’m just less inclined these days to disdain those around me who have other priorities.

What do you suggest?

I so rarely know where these posts are going to go. Usually, I don’t even know what they’ll be about. I just sit and wait and watch what comes out, and it can be quite a fascinating process. I’ll be writing away – like now – thinking, 'This is going nowhere.' And then a revelation comes swooping in and I am grateful yet again that I took the time to sit and write.

It has been suggested that these posts are too self-absorbed, too much like a personal journal. It is intended that this discusses things that many would consider personal, and only for the purpose of demonstrating that they’re not. The idea is that the thoughts presented here are – in some way – your thoughts too. That – as Katie says – there are no new thoughts. It is an experiment with group mind. It is another perspective, a way of looking at these age-old thoughts in a different light and seeing their fallibilities, their insanity.

I’m just attempting to follow simple directions. What would you have me do? What do you suggest?

Chaos wasn’t meant to be easy

Waking to a day can be stilted. Morning bits and pieces floating in and out until the mind paints a picture to make sense of them. That picture makes it all look like one thing – a composite – but it is merely a work of art, a trick. This isn’t supposed to make sense! That is why babies cry so much: the muffled bubble becomes a rampant, insane assault upon the senses. Making sense of it is all we can do to maintain some vestige of sanity. Chaos wasn’t meant to be easy.

Too hard

Rain patters percussively on the tent roof as I slowly wake inside. I’m getting soft in my old age, finding it hard to sleep on the ground these days: body sore, aching in the back, the hip, the shoulder, the arm – wherever, it seems, I had contact with the ground. Soft.

I think I would like something softer to sleep on, and then I wonder whether maybe it is my hardness that is part of the problem. I am bony, thin, and do not merge well with the contours of the earth. My density is higher than average too, as I don’t have any fat to spread me out, so maybe my points press harder against the ground too. Larger people have a place of contact when they sleep; skinny people like me, we have a point of contact. Points poke.

Hardness is not giving; hardness is a sign of resistance. I think I would like to be irresistible. I think I would like to soften.

Reflecting upon reflection

Television at the end of the bed reflects my image back at me, black screen lit by the sun gleaming in from the window to my right. Reflection of an image staring back at me.

White sheet, blue t-shirt, black pants melding with the dark wall behind. Lines ill-defined. The window a picture framed on the wall, source of light. Me a statue, still, reflecting.

This is what I do: I reflect. I have no choice in the matter. I am a mirror for you to see yourself in. You are my looking glass too. Life is a hall of mirrors, reflections everywhere; never the true image to be seen. This thumb, this pen, this hand: but an image that I’ve made to help make this reflection appear different from that. Distortions. The mirrors are curved, coloured, cracked, but they remain mirrors all the same.

Reflecting upon reflection; what else is there left to do?

Spin Cycle

June already! Seven months I’ve been here, ten months since I met E, and here comes summer. Another summer. So many cycles, so many times around and around, like a washing machine. By gee, I hope this is the rinse cycle! I’ve certainly been through the wash.

I threw myself in for I thought I was soiled and needed cleaning, and now I’m starting to see that maybe I didn’t; maybe I was already as clean as could be, maybe only my thoughts coloured the cloth.

But it is ultimately all thought – all mind – so even if I was pristine, still my thoughts kept me from that realization. Like a dung pile covering a wedding dress in a box: the dress remains perfect, but getting to it is dirty business.

But why would I put dung in a washing machine? No amount of washing will stop it from being dung. No amount of cleansing will alter my thoughts. But I am the wedding dress and my thoughts are but the dung.

What I need is a shovel!