"The secret voices of the innermost truth"

The title of this post, which comes from the quote from Siddhartha in my last posting, is an intentional pushing on the boundary of what I think I should try to write about. In other words, "who am I to write about the "secret voices of the innermost truth?"  and. who am I not to write about it?.  How far should I go in a public forum trying to sort out the mysteries of life and my role in the drama?  I suppose it comes back to goals.  I am not doing this to teach or influence.  I am writing as a process of seeking clarity.  To find out, as Hesse says, what is necessary. For some inexplicable reason I'm finding it easier to examine these things by writing this blog.

But the question of how much I should expose myself to other souls is a significant one.  I have to admit, I love getting comments.  They make me feel less isolated and alone.  But there is always a feeling that I'm dropping my pants in public. That embarrassing feeling probably helps me to not get too personal but I don't like it and wonder how much it is limiting what I could be discovering.

In the last section of Siddhartha, Govinda asks Siddhartha, "Haven't you found certain thoughts, certain insights, which are your own and which help you live?  If you would like to tell me some of these, you would delight my heart."   Siddhartha's replies, "...There have been many thoughts, but it would be hard for me to convey them to you....I have found: wisdom cannot be passed on.  Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness....knowledge can be conveyed but not wisdom.  It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it,  but it cannot be expressed in words and thought."   Despite this statement Siddhartha presses on, perhaps trying to explain why words of wisdom become foolishness.

"The opposite of every truth is just as true! That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided.  Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided, all just one half , all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness....But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided....a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful.  It does really seem like this because we are subject to deception, as if time were something real.  Time is not real, Govinda, I have experienced this often and often again.  And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between the world and eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between evil and good, is also a deception."

So when does foolishness end and truth begin.  The answer becomes,  at the same time.   The fool and the sage are the same.

Vision of faith

I was on  a retreat in a lodge nestled in Ponderosa pine trees outside of  Prescott Arizona in about 1988.  The priest leading the retreat asked us all to lay down on the floor, on our back, and get into a comfortable position using pillows and blankets. He then started a guided meditation asking us to imagine a restful place, etc.  I eventually stopped hearing his words and found myself lost in a corn field.  It must have been late summer because the stalks seemed twice as tall as me.  Initially I felt fairly calm. Isn't this interesting.  Nothing but cornstalks everywhere I looked.  Then I realized I had no idea where I was and no idea what direction to move.  This grew into sheer panic.  Pure fear.  Then it happened. An event which is in many ways beyond words but still fills my heart.  I looked up and exactly the same moment I was looking down at myself. Zap! I was floating above the cornfield and my eyes locked with the eyes of the small lost boy I saw below. A boy who was me at about the age of eight. At the same time I was the boy below looking up at the floating boy in the air.  We were the same but separated.  There was instant peace, tranquility, calmness, joy.  From above I could see the way I needed to walk.  I also could see a path beyond the cornfield that led up a mountain with a setting sun behind it.  The boy took a deep breath and walked confidently forward.

This vision remains important to me. It strengthens me. It reminds me that the answer to "what is necessary?" is always waiting inside as long as I don't let fear block out the signal.  It is the inner light of the Quakers, the secret voice of Hesse.  It is real and it is good.

Faith revisited again

I keep riding this horse because for me, at this point in my life, it's the crux of the matter. I am looking for patterns of past thinking and behaviors which will help me approach the future with more skill, wisdom and resolve.

In my last post I noted that some of the happiest times in my life was when I was deeply involved in a cause or a project.  Something I could lose myself in.  (How does this jive with the loss of self goal of Buddhism and meditation?)  I don't want the mistakes I made in obsessive involvement repeat themselves by me losing myself on some spiritual path. This aversion to single minded commitment is reinforced by my conviction most of the evil in the world is the work of true believers.  But you're either on the bus or off the bus. Right?

This is difficult.  I want salvation but what price am I willing to pay. There is a part of me that has a strong desire to become deeply involved in Buddhist practice.  To go to  a retreat center and spend months in deep meditation.  Will I lose myself or find where I really reside?

I will soon no longer have a job.  I will wake each day and have to decide how to spend my time.    I don't want want to fade away but I want to be at peace. I want to feel as alive, awake and connected as possible but I don't want this desire to be twisted either by being mindlessly busy to fend off emptiness or by locking myself away in a monastery   So I want the perfect balance between contemplation and engagement, being and doing, having and letting go, stimulation and calmness, attachment and non-atttachment, belief and skepticism.  The Middle Way?  The Golden Mean?  Mindfulness/paying attention and acceptance may be the best operating principles. Easier said than done.  And what if it's the wrong choice.  Second chances may be running out. 

Living with clarity

In my first posting I seem to be setting goals for this whole operation. I want to be more accepting of myself and what I do. I want whatever I write to not be too constricted by a perceived need to have it be well-planned or thought out. And I want my writing to help me try to connect with guiding forces which will help me through the "tricky end game."

One of the things I'm trying to accept is that this blog is mainly going to be about me. I find this repulsive. It's not that I think I'm repulsive but there's an alarm bell that goes off when I turn the camera around.(My new iphone has a lens on both sides so all I have to do is push a button)

This reaction will hopefully help me come to terms with the egocentric bogeyman. It's frankly embarrassing to say too much about myself. What the hell does that mean? I hope it's more of a function of a belief that communal issues are more important than personal concerns. But I'm afraid it has more to do with feeling and thinking that there's fundamentally something wrong/embarrassing about me. That's truly fucked up and something I want to somehow get beyond. Easier said than done.

After typing the above lines I went to my book rack looking for my copy of Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach.Tara was one of the teachers at a retreat I attended at the Insight Meditation Society and her teachings and her book have been very helpful.

Well, I couldn't find her book but I picked out a book by Rodney Smith called Lessons from the Dying. He was a teacher at another retreat I went to at IMS. I opened the book to a random page and here is the first thing I read....

"There is an opportunity at death to give up all self-images, positive or negative. For peoople who have a low sense of self-worth, negative qualities can be more tenacious than positive ones because we believe in them more strongly. We often believe that we deserve to suffer, given how badly we feel about ourselves. We can even feel guilty for being happy."

He gives examples in the book of people who were successful in "working through ...negative self-images and dying with clarity."

Dying with clarity.
I want to live with clarity.

The opening quote of the book is apropos.
"Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a person to rehearse his freedom. A person who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave." - Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

Holding hands in the dark

I've just spent thirty minutes trying to come up with a blog title I can live with. Right Now! Right Now? Write Now? Write Now! As usual, resolution is ultimately compromise. I guess it finally comes down to acceptance. Accepting that my efforts are all right if they are from the heart and don't do damage. Accepting that despite my struggles with aging and pending retirement, joy and peace are lurking out there ready to pounce. All I have to do is let down my guard. Hell I could try to couch this in Buddhist terminology but it comes down to my choosing to be mired in past conditioning or deciding enough's enough. And it is.

So will I let my freak flag fly or continue to try to craft something solid, thoughtful and organized... certainly worthy of an "A" or at least an "atta boy". Impulsive rant/stream/vent or structured, thoughtful treatise. Some of both I hope. But there's a part of me that clearly leans toward the spontaneous. Somewhere I picked up the notion that less filter equals more truth. I think Allen Ginsberg and his ilk had a lot to do with that. I have an audio clip of him reciting "Howl" that I play to be reinspired re the power of art and balls-naked self-expression.

There's a new film out about him "Howl" I haven't seen it yet but the promo piece looks a bit too Hollywood to me. http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2072249881/ I glad he's getting attention I hope it doesn't sanitize him too much.

I am starting this blog as a way to connect. Connect with guiding forces which will help me find my way through this tricky end game. The form, timing and content of these hoped for hand holders through the dark are far from being clear. I invite you to be part of this journey and perhaps we can hold each other's hand along the way.