Tag Archives: no mind

Always Right on Time

20 Jan

sick-child

When my kids were little, sick days – strangely – held a welcome clarity.

A day full of activity was instantly erased and turned into a day of service for the ill.   While I sympathized with their bodily suffering, selfishly, I enjoyed that I knew what I was supposed to do;  with absolute single-mindedness or even no mindedness,  I was to care for them.

Really, everyday, we know what we are supposed to do, but often it doesn’t feel like that.

I have the memory of floundering with questions throughout this life: What am I supposed to do?   How do I shape my experience?   How do I spend my time and energy?  and the dreaded,  WHAT IS MY PURPOSE?

Every micro moment of our now is a mirror of the flow of what is.   The Sick Day holds a clue for EVERY DAY.  For me I see that I am to Accept the Moment, the Flow, the Mirror of right now.

Sometimes, I am able clear the decks and merge with the flow.  Sometimes, I resist.

A recent example from my corner of resistance turned to flow:

I was late for work on Thursday.  I had a momentary knee jerk of the speedy, rushy, worry stress.  My body said, yuck, I don’t like this feeling.  This time,  I was able to see it, switch into the now and just observe the experience of being late, without attachment.  I arrived about 5 minutes late to a hallway full of students; we exchanged smiles and laughs while I unlocked the door and apologized for keeping them.  The experience was actually enjoyed, as there was no worry, guilt, shame, just flow.

Here’s a surprise:  the flow of respect and love with my students even increased.     It seems they felt closer to me in my imperfection and my comfort with that.  I saw that they also loved being able to forgive me.

But even if the reaction to my tardiness had been what one thinks of as unpleasant, that mirror could just be observed as well, without definition. The lack of attachment, though, often does seem to allow others to join the flow with me, I observe.

My purpose is to do this now in this body, to live it, to watch it, to experience it – all around me.  It is clear, moment to moment, we are always right on time 🙂

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“I” have every reason to worry,

19 Jan

but i don’t.  🙂

Improvisation and life – YES in a body is grinning, breathing, morning tea, a bit of a thrash to Seeingm‘s share;  thoughts are a passenger in the backseat…Enjoy Spacious Satyrday!

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Spiritual Boot Camp

15 Jan

bootcamp

I signed up.

I must have.

This is what some days look like at spiritual boot camp.

There is something so right on about the recognition that it is now, not in the summer, not after I stop working, not in the next life.  Like this Blog Name (http://awakein365days.com) suggests, this is it.  You’ve got to admire the full blown focus.

In my purse on my catch all little notebook, a Mooji Quote, that had been scribbled in haste, was found just as the floor fell out from under me in 2011 as I left my 20 year marriage.

“Push everything aside; Find out who you are.  The rest will sort itself out.”

Those were the right words to help me adjust to the new groundless state of moving forward; even though, I felt like a quaking mountain of goo at the time.

For a long time I thought that in life people matured and learned and became wiser.  I assumed this to be true. This is not true for a good many people.

I really saw this once in an overheard conversation between two people in their 70’s.  I heard mean gossip, deeply masked pain, and ego feeding codependencies without any shielding so immature, so similar to a middle-school dynamic, that I was shaken and heartbroken for them, for all of us.  We all know these sides of ourselves.  We are this in our forgetting.

These two had been practicing their religion devoutly for their entire lives.  Where was the growth?  Where was the change?    I had that Peggy Lee moment…

My searching began to recognize some souls awakening with humility, grace, humor, and ease.  I began there.

Tangible growth can happen; certain behaviors can fall away for good; that is not all there is.    Not from effort does this come, but by illusions being dropped, for good.

Enlisting.

Something hears you when you make this choice.

Things appear that are needed to help you along the way.  Those two screamers above are not an unfamiliar mirror to me.  My darling daughters in teen years have proven to be the most wonderful sand blasters I could have ever invented.  But just as often, what is sent is soft and gentle: a breeze, a dolphin encounter, a hand-written note.

Some days feel an Everest climb, but then I see the cookies and lemonade at the next plateau and I keep on.

Always it seems less of me there is, the more flow occurs, and the more and more peace I can hold as a space for all of us.  Loving the peace inside, wishing you the same. X!

Here we all are, one by one, waking up !

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Is a New Paradigm Just Another Pull of Duality?

13 Jan

between

On one side of the crevasse is an opening of cooperation, flow, creative play,  music, poetry, dancing, sharing, appreciation, connection, personal sovereignty…

The other side is our known “Down the Rabbit Whole” world about which Alice would no longer say, “Curiouser and Curiouser,” I suspect.  She would be wigging out!  Ramped up chaos, lies, distraction, imbalance, escalation,  noise,noise,noise…

Joseph Campbell in one of his lectures said, “The world is a mess.  The world has always been a mess.”    Through one view, that is sort of the point of the world, isn’t it?  Duality, polarity, paradox.  Perhaps it was never intended to be fixed – merely experienced.

And in the flow of merely experiencing this world, the above picture is not actually accurate.  The two sides actually overlay one another – they are occurring together.  The mess is still here, not ignored, but can be watched with attention, without  emotional sway.  The bliss and flow can also also watched with attention, without emotional attachment.

One moment follows another  and it is a pretty good show from this seat.

The idea that we have participated in creating this amazing murder mystery theatre show for ourselves is simply wonderful to me.  Think of this.  We thought up:   Crop Circles, Oceans, Aliens, Tornados, Mystery Schools, Palm Reading, Basil,  Sex, Soul Mates, Geometry, Black Holes, God, Lucifer, Quarks, Secret Societies, Kittens, Weather, Flowers, Hitler, Lobster, Worms, Films, Paint on Canvas, Unseen Realms, and most of all, unfathomable SPACE surrounding us between micro particles, between atoms, between planets, between solar systems, between galaxies, between multiple universes even…IMMENSE SPACE between everything –  just to the brain-aching tip of what we can fathom – and  we plopped ourselves here with Amnesia.

Damn we are good!

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Zen and the Art of the Parking Ticket

9 Jan

Parking meter.

It is sort of a thing in Charleston, parking tickets: a ubiquitous visitor to anyone who ventures downtown, tourist and local alike.  Those “ticketers” are GOOD at their job, and I have always paid the ones I deserved:  the forgotten meter time, not really a spot ticket, oops, I thought it was Sunday ticket (free all day Sunday).

But this time, I had a case.   I read the back of the ticket and figured out I could squeeze by the DMV Appeal Hours between dropping Chloe off for dance and picking up Eden…yada yada.

Forgive the tedious details…I want to get to the main point, which is a Zen Master at the DMV…I swear it is true.

I rode the elevator up with a woman, after showing her where to go.    She was in a huff, “I lived in NYC for 15 years and never got a ticket.  I’m here one week, one week!”

The appeals ended this particular day at 6 pm and she and I sweated our tight arrival together, arriving at 5:56 pm.  I thought they would say, too late.  But in we go…there are 4 of us there.

The women behind the glass make it clear that all they need is to get our names and info on the list – we are to wait to talk to The Man. I wish I could remember his name.

I am last on the list.  After sitting a few minutes,  a slow moving, large, authoritative black man emerges from his office.   He owns his space and does not show his cards.   He calls names out one by one and in each one goes.   In quick succession, the first  two offenders are quickly dismissed out of his door with polite “thank you’s and have a good night” and grins.  “You too” he calls after them.

My compadre from the elevator is before me and she gives me a grin and a thumbs up as she heads out the door.

Once I’m seated across from him in his office, surface conversation ensues, totally unrelated to the ticket, but it is his BEINGNESS that is radiating out from him no matter the words.  He is fully present with me and he knows what he is to do with purpose and grace.  How often do we experience this in others?    He is here to diffuse, to accept, to excuse…everything about him radiates peace – AT THE DMV – AT THE TICKET APPEALS OFFICE – really?

So I tell him my story, and he nods and says, “I know that parking lot, very old, you can hardly see the lines…of course you are right.  No problem.  Have a nice night Ms. T.”  I get the feeling that we are absolutely bowing to each other in mutual kindness, respect, love.

I know I am drawing out a story that is small and personal.  But I think, more and more we are all having these experiences when we are present to the moment, honoring the flow, saying “Yes, and…” to life.

I read a book years ago called Breakfast at the Victory by James Carse –  a philosophy professor at NYU.  In the title story, he illustrates a master (much like my parking ticket appeals officer)  shining through the owner of the diner he frequented every morning on his way to work.  Every move of pouring coffee, idle converstion with customers, wiping the counters was pure, radiating beingness.  If we are observing, we know IT when we see IT- and we are drawn to IT because these beings, workers,  masters in our midst are mirroring our true being back to us.

We are becoming masters of our own beingness.  The way an animal in nature inhabits its grace, beauty, perfection without resistance, we humans are remembering how to be.

BirdsCedarWaxwings

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Trusting What Is

8 Jan

trustfall

The lesson is always for the self.

The way of the path, for me, since it has not been an instantaneous, permanent remembering, seems to be about encountering the perfect mixture of circumstances, chaos, escalating hot heads, etc. 🙂 to help me find myself in a reactive state (much to my “spiritual identity’s” dismay) so i can ferret out the tendrils of identification with thought within and RELEASE…ah, the relief.  Like waking from a nightmare.

The path that has led me here has been horribly and beautifully orchestrated with my agreement.

In a fractal sense, every little release has an effect throughout our realm and other realms unseen.  Does that feel true to you?  No matter, because the release is enough for just tiny, amoeba me.

Now here is the freaky part – in the state of release, “I hate you” sounds the very same as “I love you.”   That blows me away 😮

Another lesson:   when I become nonreactive to a particular sticky spot forevermore, there is no thought that these changes in me will change another in any way.   I don’t mind.

Flowing to the bus pickup today, two girls who know my daughters get in my car – their ride has not shown up. I bow to the trust that I will take them home.  I experience no worry that it may make us late.  Then we get caught in a traffic back up and creep forward for many, maybe 6, lights in a row and it only feels like space to me.

Existing in the space of that which I already am, I find that time itself stretches and contracts according to the needs of the moment.

What’s not to trust?

Eckhart Tolle  is much clearer than I…getting quiet now.

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It’s Okay.

3 Jan

peace in chaos

Everything is Okay.  It is.

I’ve been here before.  The first time felt like coming home – remembering the place from which everything is okay.

I don’t know why or how I could cloudy up again once I knew this place existed, but that too is…okay!

There are mixtures of okay and not okay all around.  Large thrashings of misery, small whimpering expressions of pain, happy laughter, birds coming to life in the glowing morning, everything is okay – and it always has been.

I think it is coming up on 2 years when a breakthrough of okayness came while we were still living on the boat.  The marriage was in free fall, but something had shifted in me.

There was a fundraiser that my husband had planned to attend.  I mentioned that we could go together, but the time of leaving, the time of coming home, the price, the gas of separate cars, and the destruction of the planet came into the discussion and  I ended up staying on the boat while he went out.

As the light came in through the hatch the next morning, I realized that he had never come home.  And I felt peace.  (One beautiful thing about living on a boat is the way the light comes in through the hatches and wakes you up.)  A week before this peace, I would have been angry, worried, tied in a knot.  The light hit my eyes, his absence was realized and I wished him well where ever he was.

Soon after, I was able to make the steps I needed for moving my life in a more appropriate direction, but the drama was sucked out – a gift of the universe – helping me to come to the place where everything was okay.

A strange aside, I actually can smell the air of this place.  It is sweet, mild, delicious, slightly tropical (even in winter) – The Place of Okay has a tangible smell!  Does anyone else share that sensation?

So, how do I go from that place of peace to an off-kilter, reactive state again with the throws of teenage misery?  I don’t know.  Every time I remember The Place of Okay, I imagine it is for good.  And one of the days, it will be…which seems more than okay.

pathtopeace

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The Subtlety of No Agenda

2 Jan

Oh my goodness.  I just stumbled on a teaching much needed at this time.

fridakahlo460

I’ve been in a struggle for many months – which I have alluded to in this blogging expression, but I haven’t wanted to spell it out because the struggle, while mine, is not only mine.  My daughter has had an incorrect thought, from my perspective.  This lens she is looking through is a distorted doozy which has caused her much unhappiness and suffering.  Thoughts of separation do cause suffering.

But what I was not able to see was my agenda here.  I have not been able to fix her thought, correct it, punish it, banish it…The therapist wanted to medicate it.   Living with it expressing itself so aggressively, so painfully everyday for months and months has been exhausting.   Often I was smooth and nonreactive, but fatigue or sticky spots in me got activated and I was reacting largely at times.

I feel so cagey talking about it as “the thought.”  But it is not mine to share in a public way.  Just now on my jog around the block, a metaphorical equivalent occurred to me that might illustrate just why this “thought” is so difficult.  Imagine you are married and your spouse thinks that you are having an affair.  You are not, but nothing you can say or do changes this idea in your spouse.  This is a powerful and dangerous thought to daily, family life.  Every moment is rife with evidence to support the belief –  if you laugh on the phone, arrive late, engage in talk with someone, answer an email…any normal behavior can be interpreted as fuel to feed this incorrect perception.  The accused in this scenario can try to reassure, try to convince, try to walk the straight and narrow, but until the thought is no longer there, life is full of suffering for the believer of that thought.

Some days I think the incorrect thought is gone for good; actually, it seemed to leave for a whole week recently.   I got cocky and relieved and imagined it gone, so that when it reared its ugly head again, well, that is when I tipped the boat over.

I’ve tried everything…why?  I know better, but I have never been faced with such large suffering that I cannot fix, run from, or tolerate.  This only leaves what?

Opening my heart.

And staying there.

Resistance to  this suffering feeds “it” and engages my own ego as well.

Here is a teacher I stumbled across who reflects the subtlety of having no agenda in the face of the ego of another in the delusion of separation.  The practice of being present and totally open in the face of such suffering unlocked a difficult situation for this man.

Rupert Spira shows me here how this “other” that I am judging as incorrect is my own, intimate self.  There is no other than awareness.  Reacting, constricting in any way is judgement.  This is a slow and quiet answering that takes Mr. Spira 13 minutes, but this talk is full of truth for me today.

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Life is Just a Ride

31 Dec

Today, I feel like telling a story.  It is MY story, but I also recognize, I am not this story.  I could be watching a movie, and yet some part of me wants to get some  stories out on paper/screen to let them go on down the stream.

Obligation:  The act of binding oneself by a social, legal, or moral tie.

weightof the world

I was happy in the obligation of my marriage, I thought.  The deeper, higher pull of my true self knew that I could never wake up under the obligations I had tied myself too.  This higher plan knew also that I would never walk away in good conscience, so when the heat of unreason, discomfort, bi-polar episodes, insane financial risks, absenteeism, and other deal breakers I fail to remember, grew into a raging fire of destruction, I had to go.  I went along making everything normal until I couldn’t pretend anymore.  Divorce seems unfortunate through many current lenses, but through my lens, I’ve come to see the separation as beautiful and freeing through the space of time, detachment from story, and clear air of my Sovereignty – which I had forgotten.  That was just one stripping in my path – many more masks came  off after the first.

What strikes me today is that my Freedom is from Obligations…not all, but many I lived under for most of my life:  There has been a stripping of the obligations of my childhood religion, the obligations of the religion of my marriage, the social obligations of being part of a couple, the obligations of being part of social groups, the obligations of being part of a social class, the obligations of memberships,  the obligations of home ownership,  the obligations of a “belief” system, the obligations of buying into the mythology of my country, the obligations of consuming  news media, the obligations of caring about pop culture, the obligations of empty interactions…you get the idea.

Community is lovely and something different entirely.   Real community is about love, choice, and resonance.  The choice to help, to accompany, to attend to, to facilitate with others from the heart is not about obligation at all.  This interaction organically arises and expresses our truth, even when we are doing hard work!

What is left?  Emptiness, stillness, undefined moment after moment in the space that smells like vanilla and cream.  Joy!

I just dropped off my daughter at her friend’s house for a New Year’s Eve Party.   This family  is Greek Orthodox and  they derive much joy from a grand, interactive culture.  There was dancing on the beach this morning, guests in from out of town, music, food, family, friends. 🙂   But leaving their house was a relief to me.  Why?   I realized on my drive back home how wonderful it feels for me that through these years of tearing away of identity that I am not obligated…I do what I chose to do, for the most part.

Life is a ride, and we get to choose, and sometimes getting to that freedom comes through the recognition of our freedom from Obligations:  I am just a baby of this understanding.  Recognizing that this marga journey is just a ride is just the beginning!

Also I bow to the higher purpose of HM, my ex, for playing just the role needed at the intensity required to help me shake my sleeping self awake enough to step up to what was required of me.  From a long, zoomed out view, his role was one of love and of the higher purpose, I have no doubt of that!  Here is a bow to him in the higher fields!

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Man Overboard

29 Dec

Image

Sometimes falling out of the boat is the best thing that can happen.

When I found myself once again in a struggle with existence, relationships, overwhelm, and fatigue last night and this morning, it took me a while to remember to give up.  Now “I” give up, for real…back to little “i” once again!

Time to get back in the boat and let the mother carry me…mothering for the mother.

“Leave your existence to existence, stop caring for yourself
so much and let the universe care for you;
it is the best mother.
There has to be some trust, not just belief,
because trust is intimate…
something lets go to this invitation to stop holding yourself
and let’s go to existence instead.
The very letting go will be observed in your presence.”

-Mooji

I orchestrated the perfect scenarios to pressure wash the hidden corners of clinging.  Turns out, I have an identity that is called “The Good Mother,”  and when she feels threatened, she rocks the boat a bit.  Actually, she turned the boat on end so I could finally see the imaginary WEIGHT of her.  She was dried off, tenderly cradled and sent on, back into the energetic stream.

It all sounds so easy after the fact, but in the throws of forgetting, the thrashing is anything but easy.

How many of these labels do we carry around with us?  Good Mother, Hard Worker, Good Girl, Quick Student…what are some others?  Let’s get them on their way.   They are really heavy!  The Light Body is actually Lighter 🙂  Universe likes to Pun!

Enjoy your flow in the river, if you happen here.   Nice to share the ride with you!

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