Parent/Child Identities (#201)

14. Crazy me! I go and take care of all the things that are disturbing my sleep and feel very tired. I had crashed at the Zen Retreat last night, the text and so I (Adams) walked to the hall through the falling snow. It was extremely quiet in SL and as I go down the path toward the hall, I almost feeling like the appearance is in RL. The visual is combined with the sound of the wind here in RL. It was a bit of a magical moment.

13. I sleep for a few hours and then wake up in 2009 dreaming about working out problems for the upcoming exhibition in SL. The dream is mostly about Daoism but I think Hinduism enters in too. It seems to be mostly take place in SL but there are museum cases and artifacts too so it is a combo. I was reading about Daoism and working on Hinduism last night. I have an urge to get into SL and go to the hall and work on a display idea I have.

[Sleep meditation here]

12. When I woke up this morning it all seemed so clear. As I end the day I feel a little more cautious. I remind myself I have no clues to my bicycle or firefighter dreams. They both represent a different type of dream for me. Any other loose ends? Wow, the wind is howling outside as I write this. God/Being knocking on my door? I am opened. I close my eyes and hearing the steady sound of the wind, can imagine the spirit of God coming through the wall and funneling straight into my heart. It is a comforting notion.

I could have used this presentation of the appearance of the sound of the wind for my exercise. On one level it is inspiring and comforting. On a second level it is threatening to people exposed to the cold and wind. On a third level it is just part of the weather pattern moving across the area. It could be turned around and level 2 become level 1. Then level 2 would note that the cold is important to reduce the number of insect pests and for nature to get its rest.

11. I read a little about yin yang today and it seems the opposites do not balance as much as exchange places. An example is a hill. In the morning the hill is sunny on one side and shady on the other. In the afternoon it shifts. So maybe it is not the shifting that is unreasonable but the lack of shifting. During the project, one identity took over and kept the other side at bay. Thus I was out of balance. Is that what I needed to learn? See the identities and know that I need both? It is so easy to do with my avatars. When my “practice” needs a jump start or a boost in energy I usually can find it using the one.

10. F. I read back over yesterday’s post and realize I forgot to think about God/Being watching me. There is a spoon watching me too and I am trying my best not to manage its affairs. I imagine seeing myself from the spoon’s position. I go to thinking about God/Being. I think about how much trouble I had dropping selves earlier and could not get back to a state where I could think about God.

On a possibly related note I learned something new at PaB today and that is Metta, a word that I had heard before but didn’t ask about. For my future reference: One meditates and thinks thoughts of loving kindness or good wishes in the following order to  1. Yourself; 2 a good friend; 3. a neutral person; 4. a difficult person; 5 all four; and then 6. gradually the whole universe

9. I go out for a walk after supper. It is a crisp, very cold evening with sustained wind gusts. There is a quarter moon with Venus just a little below to the left. There are tall puffy clouds here and there in the sky lit up by the moon against a very dark sky. It is New Year’s Eve. On a second level, many people will be lonely and/or unhappy tonight thinking of time passing them by. Some will drown their sorrows in drink and there will be a good number of traffic accidents tonight. On a more neutral level the night will pass mostly as all nights. The moon will continue around and soon disappear across our western horizon. The temperature will continue to drop tonight as the warmth dissipates into the clear sky. Tomorrow the earth will have continued its spin and the sun will shine again on this side of the planet.

8. F. I start assigning attributes to the identities and decide that what I wrote is garbage.

7. F. Stopping from other things and a long morning session at PaB.

6. Pema also pointed me (#200) to my statement about getting energy from one of my identities. Or is it from selves…as I think back to calling on my pre-PaB, pre-SL self to implement the project. But that was not what I referred to. I was thinking of the second identity I uncovered. Yes, I will need to explore the second one a bit more. I had drawn up my summary too thinly. There is more there to the second identity. It is the voice that listens and often yells “Hey that isn’t so” but my explorations seem to indicate it may be the engine that drives my spiritual quest. Yes, I can look into this more. What the heck was my other identity doing during that time? I have to explore that too. There is the city/country dichotomy wrapped up in my identites. The spiritual/non-spiritual. I begin to see the non-spiritual side. The part where I learn to depend on my own abilities. But hey, they are impressive but they don’t have any imagination…they can only go so far. And they lead to unhappiness. Yes, I am only scratching the surface. I begin to undertand the timing of my crisis with God. But I still maintained the other identity which spoke in other ways and maintained a yearning, often suppressed, for the peace that comes from being touched by God. I can see conflicts along the way between these identities. This sometimes seems almost stereotypical yin-yang. Hmmmm. The two opposing viewpoints. The “total openness of appearance” with its two opposite levels and the neutral level. Pema, you have been pointing me to all of this!!! Am I that transparent? So these it seems that I must learn to live peacefully with these identities, learn to love them for what they are. I begin to realize they are each gifts from my respective  parents although they have been developed, nurtured and honed by me. Looking at it through this lens I begin to see many of my conflicts in a different light..how each of these identities dislikes things about the other..or is it me that does the disliking?

5. I wonder that I haven’t had any thoughts about the bicycle marathon or fire fighting dreams (see #200). What are they about? Who is the mentor and who is the uncle?

4. “Micro-managing the spoon” ???, oh my (see Pema’s #200 comments)

3. Gr.

2. TGT. I am alive, I feel a good deal better, ready for another day of this beautiful but seemingly very dark planet. Wow a dark, dreary day out there but I feel sunshine coming from within for now. I feel an urge to get started on things I have been neglecting.

1. I wake up this morning and it all seems to clear. I force myself out of my warm nest, my body and self complaining bitterly, to the computer to try to recreate what I am thinking.

We have developed a child identity we maintain maybe as long as our parents live. On the first level there is love, gratitude and loyalty and concern for the parent’s welfare. We have memories of how good it felt to be held by our parent when we hurt inside as a child. Parents always are interested in what we are doing. On the second level is resentment about unsolicited advice, greed (what is due to me), envy of our siblings (they are getting something that I am not getting) and judgment (so and so’s parents are cool). We carry memories of hurts from things parents did and/or said. On the more neutral level, there is a life long bond. Our parents are in ourselves. We carry their genes, have learned their habits. Looking it at the other way our parents had the same dreams we have, struggled with many of the same identities, and tried to find God (Being) in their own ways. We can try to avoid making judgments about their motives or relationship while finding our own way. As their child, we can try to remove the obstacles on our end, learn to see reality as it is, which might include trying to see our parents as they actually are, beyond the cartoon we have drawn up for our own use, knowing that someday we may have an experience that says to us, “oh that’s why they did that”.

When we become parents we develop a parent identity. On the first level it is one of unconditional love and concern for the child’s welfare. There is the memory of the overflowing of love coming out of our heart when we saw the little baby for the very first time. That bond never goes away. Parents are warmed by the energy and stories of their offspring. On the second level there is a resentment about a lack of gratitude, some envy of youth and freedom, and judgement (you are wasting opportunities); there is the feeling of unfullfilled role, wanting to still be involved when no longer needed (children grow up and sometimes parents yearn for the days when the child still seemed to need them). On a more neutral level we have a lifelong bond with our children and a duty not to inflict untold damage. They are watching how we live our life for hints about their own; judging us to avoid what they see are our mistakes. If we can see that the judging is an important part of their own struggle to find themselves, we can avoid being hurt by the judging. Learning to walk with God (Being) ourselves, to drop our own attachments, identities and “selves” may the best thing we can do for them. Then obstacles are removed from our end and we can better understand the obstacles on their end.

..and thus begins the fifth day of explorations into the “total openness of appearance”.

What Happens Now (#200)

13. F. Help me to see the neutral level in important things

12. On the spoon: if Being inhabits the spoon, then Being is looking at me though the spoon. I leave Being, a term that does not yet having real meaning for me except as a euphemism, and think about God inhabiting everything around me, watching me. Watching how foolishly I behave but loving me anyway. I look around at the things around me. Pema talks of the Burning Bush. I look around and think about God in every object, one by one. This then IS holy ground. I begin to see that when I touch things or other beings I need to do so with respect for God. Wow, wouldn’t it change one’s life if one thought like that as one went about one’s business. All of life would be holy ground.

11. I see an old photograph on the wall and I take it down to get a better look at it while I am writing but I am immediately sorry. It is covered with dust and it rubs off on everything as I try to put it in viewing range. It takes me awhile to clean up.

The photograph is a sepia tone but it has yellowed. The matting also has yellowed. The frame is deep set with a deep brown and black paint, and gilt on the innermost frame. The gold is cracked. There is a beautiful pattern painted on the gold in black. The picture is a farm. The top two fifths is a blank sky and the lower third is grassy. The house is on the left and runs from the center to about an eighth of the width from the left edge. There are curtains carefully hung in each window of the main structure. It is a white farmhouse with a standard box with an -a frame type roof and a porch in the front (2/3 closed in) and a one-story addition on the right. There is a large greenhouse extending forward from the center toward the right. In back is a fairly modest barn. There is a horse and buggy on the far left, partly hidden in shrubbery with a very well dressed woman in standing before it. A lone horse stands a bit behind that. There is a well-dressed man in a waistcoat holding a watering can a bit behind the horse and buggy.  There is a boy in a brim hat, and another hatless boy, on the steps, in front of the porch which has a lovely trellis and two chairs. Much further to the right is a seated woman. Finally in front of the side addition is a well-dressed man and woman and a boy with a little dog. Finally there is a litle church on a pole at the end of the greenhouse nearest the viewer, possibly a bird house, possibly a weather vane.

On a deeper level this is a portrait or a family and their farm. We can assume they have two horses they value and one buggy because they proudly have arrayed them for the photographer. On e can imagine them possibly sprucing things up unless this was an itinerant photographer. They would have put on their Sunday best clothes and discussed where to stand. It is interesting that they spread so far apart. One might assume they either had a group portrait taken too or they only had the funds for the one picture. One might imagine this hanging in the living room of that house, proudly displayed for many years. Maybe the photograph was sold in an estate sale at some point. It is sad thinking of it separated from the family.

On a more neutral level this is an object, a fading photograph in a pretty frame. There is a story but it is lost.

10. I am entertaining doubts about my conclusions. Do I have it all wrong? My fears seem so silly…so full of “self”. They definitely are of the negative, sometimes possessive quality. The neutral must exist. I am just not seeing or understanding it. Is that because I do not accept what I am? That would deem to circle back to the identities in which case my conclusions are not so off. (I corrected a typo “oft” here). Correct conclusions seem to not so oft.

9. For the fun of it I go back to the spoon. What am I to the spoon? The spoon sits by me. The spoon occupies the space with me. The spoon feeds me. I conclude that I am nothing to the spoon. It cares naught whether I exist or not. Does it affect the spoon whether I use it or someone else or whether it is buried in the ground for 500 years?

8. F. I stop. I haven’t been able to concentrate on my exercise today. Cleaned up some leaves. Could only concentrate on the task although I tried to look at appearances. I am just tired. I have a crazy idea that the engine that drives me might be wrapped up in one of the identities. There is an easy way to test that if so. I resolve to do that this afternoon. I begin to look at my close relationships on the three levels. I can see the two from both ends, i.e from me and toward me. What is the neutral level?

7. Went shopping for some clothes today and was surprised (I shouldn’t have been) at the way SL has changed my perception of clothes. Still I did not dwell upon it too much because I still knew what I needed, went about my business and departed quickly. But it was an instance where I was a visitor from SL looking at clothes in RL. Maybe when I think about it, there will be something there.

6. I fall asleep again and wake up without seemingly having dreamed. The weight of the blankets feels heavy on me and my eyes sting. I have the silly thought that I am glad that I did not dream about being a policeman. I reread Pema’s comment from #198. I missed the fact that level 2 has a more possessive quality. That doesn’t relate well to my number 2 identity I don’t think. That may be a bit more confirmation that it is an identity. I now have some new eyes to look at things; in a away I have become an immigrant in my own land.

5. Gr. So much for which to be grateful…

4. TGT. Another day of life on planet earth. I wonder if I will begin to see things differently now.

3. I just read Pema’s comment on the blog yesterday. I like the word “inclusive” better than “neutral”.

2. Well after writing, I did go to sleep with memories of feeling close to God when young. At that time I thought God was with me and helped me. The collorary was that I could not do anything myself without God. What I learned when I lost God I found I was quite capable of functioning. What I missed was the beautiful feeling of being one with God.

For the rest of the night I seemed to have a very different dream with some variations. I was going to be a firefighter. It started with a mentor showing me the ropes. On the way we passed a building with open windows. My mentor shouted a friendly greeting into a basement window and a voice shouted back. It was my mentor’s uncle in there with his buddies. Through the night I learned to fight fires with bad equipment. The town was poor and could not afford new equipment. Our first fire engine was made of lead. It melted somewhere through the night. The uncle kept appearing. He seemed to be jealous of my mentor and kept doing things to help that put us all in danger. He may have been the one responsible for the lead fire engine getting too close to the fire. There seemed to be no other point to the dream. One significance is that I never remember dreams like either of these two before.

Other family members report of having weird dreams with the bug. Does the bug help seeing things with new eyes?

1. It is the middle of the night and I have woken up. I am wide awake. I had a silly dream about bicycling to North Carolina on a dare. Someone said I couldn’t do it in two weeks and I set off to prove them wrong. I spent a little time imagining a route. I have no idea what that is about but I was sneaking my bike on to the train for the first familiar leg of the journey. Am I embarking on a new journey?

I also have been thinking about incidents that might have formed my identities but I don’t think that is what has me awake. I feel I may have identified the first time the voice of Adams the rebel appeared; it was a memorable incident in childhood with a voice saying “no it was not all your fault”. But I know it won’t help to dwell on the past except maybe on how it differs from the present which is where my fears are located. I know that I need to drop the fears. Pema brought up the movie metaphor again tonight. If I am able to drop these identities that go so deep. and the fears that accompany them, in other words, if they are just a movie, then I will become an avid believer in the metaphor. That seems only fair.

In October I see a great sapce and my body gets frightened and I do not sleep regularly for two months. That settles down and I am able to see past two long-held identities and now I seem to have scared myself again. In the back of my mind I believe there is the question being asked, “what do you do to make sure your fears do not become reality?” I not only need to see clearly but I must learn to act, to `think more about others, and yes, to be more compassionate, or in Chrisitian terms to love more freely. Faith, hope and love…the greatest of these is love. Therein lies all my sense of urgency. I think back to the night I asked God to come through the door and I felt the presence. But I know now I was not ready to see beyond my dark,  little closed in space. I am opened up this morning. Please come in.

Day 3 of Experiment (#199)

13. I end the day grateful for last night and this day. I prepare for sleep feeling peaceful, and if a dream should come to obliterate that peace, I will welcome that too, and recognize it for the appearance it will be. [I can't help to wonder, just a little, that as I do nothing and allow what I have seen to sink in, what effect it might have on my selves and their manifestations. I am looking forward to finding out.]. There have been a few PaB days that I hated to see end. This is one of them.

12. I am realizing the conflict goes back very far. I also understand why it has been affecting me now when it was in the background before. I am thankful it is at a time of my life when I have ways to understand it. Still it created some fears which need to be dropped.

11. ZRM. I have just discovered another identity. This one is set in opposition to the other, creating inner conflicts. I don’t think the conflict can be resolved but neither of them is me. I resolve to put them behind me if I can, to wear them lightly if I can’t.

10. F. I am wondering if I did the assignment today. I feel I did. I did not get outside for a walk but the outside came in anyway. I also explored levels of my dream. I know that I don’t fully have a working knowledge of the “total openness of appearance” but it just the third day. To see such a big identity lurking there…seems a good day’s work. It is amazing to me that I saw one aspect of it this summer and did not recognize the rest although I was aware that it still was speaking to me. An idea occurs to me and I look back at my prayer ending yesterday. Yes, I asked to see what was still clouding my vision. It seems I had help from outside as well as from friends (Pema and Corvi). I am in awe. I give thanks.

9. BrM. I decide to just stop for a few seconds or so. I need to just let things settle down before continuing the experiment I think.

8. I decide to go back and circle around again this time to summarize. This fall as I worked on projects, my selves took over. It caused suffering (using Buddhist terminology). Pema pointed out that I need to drop the selves to listen to God. The idea was not new to me. I was unable to do this in the fall. Pema said I needed something more and introduced the concept of “total openness of appearance”. He spoke of three levels: the surface level, the level with opposing elements, and a deeper, more neutral level. While doing this I stumbled across, and fell over, another identity which is related to those I saw this summer. I am stopped trying to apply three levels to multiple layers of this identity when maybe I just need a way to make it less of a burden. In other terms it is an issue related to life’s transitions and I can see the wu wei principle of acceptance with that.

7. It is a good few hours since I wrote down #6. While doing other things on a basic level, I have been thinking of the dream and my reactions to it. I hit a personal land mine of sorts this morning and I find myself temporarily halted on this point. The dream is related to earlier dreams. But it was partly triggered in this case by questions concerning my denial vis-a-vis Adams. Reading about wu-wei and the walrus, centipede, snake and wind, and following one’s nature is another catalyst. Of course that cuts both ways. But then there is the simple fact that I can drop all of the selves to listen to God is another level. Round and round in circles I go on the one level, maybe two levels. Yes, there are two levels. I must find the neutral level on this issue. Maybe it is the level in which the grandfather praises the son and grandson on their abilities with wheelbarrows, thinks about how much better they will be not having to support him, reassures them it is OK, and sings and praises God on the way to the woods. The grandfather who is an inspiration to them. What a different story that makes!

6. Something extraordinary has happened. I suddenly remembered an important dream I had last night. The dream distorts other people in a very personal way to get at a message for me so it will remain an unpublished post. It is also involves death in a very cold-hearted way. This is the second time I have looked at death in dreams with no compassion for the person. What part of me is so unfeeling about death of others; is it self? As Pema suggested I began to look at the dream on other levels and the dream is not what it appears to be.

There is a Chinese story with Confucian origins. It was illustrated in stone. In it a grandfather is being a rather large nuisance. The father decides it is time to take him out to the woods to dispose of him. He asks his son to help. They put him in a wheelbarrow and are wheeling him out to the woods. The son asks “Father, who will help me when it is time to wheel you out into the woods?” The father is shamed and realizes he is doing wrong, and they turn around and go back home.

Like all lessons, it is sometimes learned too late. What happens if the grandfather is effectively disposed before the father becomes a nuissance? It is too late to right any wrongs there. The only recourse then is not to be a nuissance. Are we a nuissance simply by not seeing clearly, by allowing our self to dictate our actions? It is so easy to unwittingly hurt people when we have the power to do so. So on another level this is not about how one might have wronged the grandfather but about how one might be wronging others on the way to becoming the grandfather. If the grandfather had seen that, and put aside self, there might have been no need for the wheelbarrow in the first place.

5. Gr.

4. The blinds are golden and the room is beginning to glow too. This appearance seems a new one to me so I do not have to imagine I am a visitor. And what to do about this beautiful appearance other than appreciate the presence. The light keeps changing and the gold is becoming whiter. The light coming through the closed blinds is on one level. The sun rising up in the eastern southern sky is a second level? But deeper still, we know the earth is spinning and the sun only appears to be rising. The light is traveling millions of miles (Is it 93 million or is that to the moon – I forget my childhood astronomy). On one level the appearance takes place in my little box-like space. But my little box-like shape is being acted upon by the larger space on the other side of the blind. The appearance is from without although the glow changes the appearance of everything within. It lasts only a minute or two and is gone and I am in a different presence.

3. I woke up this morning feeling an unpleasant sensation over my whole body; when I tried to focus on the feeling it disappeared. I conjure up an image of a mighty battle between the good guys and the invading germs.

2. TGT. Another day to be alive on my favorite planet.

1. During the night, listening to my air cleaner, I began to hear two distinct sounds, both pulsating. There is a deep sound of the motor and the higher pitched sound of the air. I began to imagine the sound waves fillling the air, two sets of waves. That is another level. I begin to imagine sound waves everywhere. The dog barks and a different set of waves comes right through the walls.

Second Attempt (#198)

7. Help me to drop the things clouding my vision and see more clearly, that I may recognize it when you are near.

6. Hint to myself: what is unique about this house that might attract fresh eyes? what changes? what is the essence? what is it?

5. ZRM. I am sitting here breathing deeply, having just opened my eyes. The past week or so here, I have been content to just sit. But I learned I should be asking “What is this?” and I realize that I must ask it on different levels. Since it hurts to keep my eyes open, I close them again and listen. What is that sound? On a surface level I know it is an air clearner. On a slightly deeper level I know there is a sound of a motor and a sound of air rushing through holes; I do not know which is dominant but I could take the machine apart and find out. What is it which may be deeper? Is it the air being cleaned so that I have fewer particles entering my beleagured nose? It is cleaning the air in a very limited space. If the space was not enclosed, the machine would not work. Is that a deeper level? The sound will be with me all night; I have something to ponder.

4. F. I have too much self today to get into this exercise methinks

3. The following is another try after Pema’s comment to yesterday’s blog entry:

This time I am just dropped off here. I am invited to use a vacuum cleaner. Ho Boy! I politely thank my hosts. I take it out of the closet. It is a canister model and I sort through the pieces to find what I need. I plug it in to the wall and think about the electricity. I wonder how it is generated and how far it has to travel to get here. Hmm. I have no idea. On my way here I saw power lines going north-south just east of here and other lines coming up from the southwest. Somewhere something is turning to provide the electricity to power this thing. I turn on the machine and there is a hissing noise. I look and some of the air is escaping from a crack in the housing on the underside of the vacuum cleaner. It had been duct taped and I smooth down the tape to lessen the escaping air. There is a motor in the closed pushing air out the back and thus drawing air into the not quite so air-tight housing. The air then comes up the rods I am attaching to the hose and through the hose, into the compartment and out the back. OK that part is very simple. I begin massaging the rug with the proper attachment which has a motor beating the rug. I begin to imagine what is going on down there. A little duststorm created with the beating and that being sucked up. I think of microscopic objects. The dust back is supposed to collect allergins but not dust mites. I wonder about all the germs sneezed and coughed up this week by all the family members. Are they caught by the back or am I just picking them up and spreading them around. Or does the suction or heat of the machine kill the germs? I think about the air coming out the back of the machine. What is it carrying? I watch the attachment go back and forth. I begin to study the floor inch by inch, square foot by square foot. To the germs this is a tremendous space for me it is another enclosed space.

Hmmm, was that not a good example or I am missing something. I think of the day when I was outside and saw the trees, clouds, sun and sky as if I never saw it before. I have a feeling that it is something like that I want to exerience.

2. Gr. Among other things, for PaB and my SL friends

1. TGT. Alive again for another day, at least temorarily. It is a bit ttoo early.

Total Openness of Appearance (#197)

12. I am sinking fast Teach me to learn from these petty aches and pains. Teach me to allow my body to do the work of fighting the invaders of my physical body. It is my job toe fight the invaders that cloud my sight. Teach me to appreciate when I am completely healthy.  Help me to learn to appreciate all appearances and to lift myself away from clouded seeing. May the peace that passes all understanding….be with all.

11. Note to myself…I just added the Clouds of Unknowing to my links. This was the 14c work by an anonymous English mystic-monk that was quoted in the Saturday 7:00 session today. Ah, so much to read, and so little time….

10. It is clear in #7 that there is much behind the tree (and much else) that my observer does not see. I he asked he would learn more.

9. I am having trouble focusing on more than one thing other than the cold today. When I focus on one thing it makes me forget. When I try to expand that I feel awful. Hmm. That is an observation of an appearance.

8. Just the slightest bit of commentary. I am aware that I must begin to see the total openness of appearance in things like love and anger and such and not necessarily the physical but it is an easy way to start this exercise. Hopefully I will find the way to expand this.

7. OK, I try again with something more obvious:

The plane landed at the airport and I had to go up on the airport roof to get on this vehicle hanging from a continuous stretch of I-beam. It took me to a train stop and I had to figure out which way I was going. The signs did not include my destination. No one semed to know until finally someone said, that town is right next door to ******. For that you need to go to the platform over there. Well as I was going, a train stopped and departed. I had a long wait but eventually I saw a train coming. It blew right past. Hmmm. It must not have seen me (and the 47 other people standing here). Finally a train stopped and I got on. It was very crowded at first but after about ten minutes I was able to get a seat. The train arrived at my stop and I got off. I had to go down a long flight of stairs. At the bottom I asked how to get to my destination. Someone pointed to a yellow vehicle and said it was a cab. I was directed to the back seat. Before I had the door closed, the vehicle took off and I was pressed into the back seat but then the veicle stopped abruptly and I lurched forward. I asked the driver what had happened and he mumbled something and a “red light” and me just getting off the boat. I politely explained I had taken a plane and he snorted. A few more lurches later, we pulled up in front of a house. As I was getting out, the driver said something about “fare” and “money”. I realized he wanted a gift for giving me a ride. I gave him some currency but he said “sorry bub. that’s no good”. I went to the door and the kind people came out and satisifed the driver. I could tell because he drove away. They all gave me a hug and I hugged each one back. “Come in” they said. I entered the house and to my great surprise there was a tree inside. Not any kind of tree. They explained it was not a real tree but a plastic one. I looked it over. They knelt down and pushed something into a box and the tree lit up in bright colors. All the lights were blinking. It was an amazing site. There were colored balls hanging, and figures, and lanterns, and metal images of buildings…and birds. A beautiful angel graced the top and looked down at me.  I could not take my eyes off this tree. Finally they begged me to sit down and my eyes were still glued to this tree. The lights seemed to be dancing to some song that I could not hear. What an amazing place this is in which I have landed – dancing trees in houses.

6. I go out and have some exchanges with people in the house. Everyone seems irritated. The bug has made people terse. None of us are at the best. I know there is a love down deep that is unaffected by the bug.

5. Now that done, I remind myself once again of the task at hand. I don’t have a reference point for what should be different, possibly because I haven’t traveled far and wide enough. This sounded so easy. Just look around with new eyes. I never saw this room before. I have no association with these things. I look out the window and what am I seeing? Where do the judgments come in? What is the surface level? To go from love and anger to the things around me seems to require a shift in thinking.

4. I am a spoon, sitting in a bowl, and I am about to be removed from the presence of the the behemoth that just used me to shovel food into its mouth. My task completed, I am about to be transported out of its presence. I will be given a bath, placed on a rack to dry and shoved in a drawer with my compatriots until the next behemoth grabs me. Once in a while I get mixed up with the forks and my stay in the drawer is not so pleasant. Forks have prickly ends. They also are not as handsome as we spoons. My experience with behemoths is rather limited. Usually I come in contact with just two parts that seemd to be called “hand” and “mouth”. The hand is very aggressive and manipulating. I can be sitting here peacefully and it will come and pick me up and then I am under its control. The hand most often seems to use me to pick something up and then move it to the mouth.  The mouth has a soft part that rubs along my cup and seems to gently remove the contents. I am born for a function and I do it well. I can not be a fork which stabs “food” or a knife which cuts it. I pick up the loose parts or the liquid parts. I can not be a fork or a knife. I am a spoon. Inside the mouth are very hard things. When they scrape against me it makes a rather unplasant scraping sound. I don’t know too much else about the behemoth. It never seems to put me into the things called “ears”, or “nose”, or “eyes”. I think the eyes are for forks. There must be something smaller to put things into the ears or nose. I am too big for that. I seem to be made for the mouth but it might be fun to try one of the other places some day. I must find a way to ask hand.

3. This brings us to the assignment. I told Pema that sounded beautiful but how do we do it?  So my assignment is to be an immigrant in a strange land and try to look at everything without an agenda, no preconditions. I already have muffed it with the cold.

2. As one might expect, #1 is not the complete story. The phrase in today’s title is Pema’s. If one reads back through this blog, I lost my way a bit this fall. Last week Pema showed me a way to look past my selves while respecting their importance. This appears to be the second step I need to do and it will take some work on my part. I understood it best in terms of love. On the surface love is a wonderful, delightful experience. On another level, though, there may be possessiveness, jealousy, petty needs, etc. “I want that”. On a still deeper level is “something more neutral”. I was able to recognize this deeper level that is the lasting love that is not too jarred by either the highs or the lows.

Pema Pera: and when we go yet deeper into it, we may find something more neutral
Pema Pera: neutral with respect to the two top layers
Pema Pera: but in fact also more blissful, more open, more rich.

..and:

Pema Pera: so “total openess of appearance” is what we can see/feel/experience/notice when we really broaden the way we deal with all phenomena
Pema Pera: by dropping as much as possible any limited context
Pema Pera: any agenda
Pema Pera: any special interest

…and:

Pema Pera: if instead we can really appreciate each phenomon for what it is
Pema Pera: if we can be totally open for all appearance
Pema Pera: for all that appears as it appears without adding our own agenda
Pema Pera: then in turn we can enjoy the “total openess of appearance” that the Universe is ready to present to us

1. The boat has landed me in a strange country. The crew requested that they keep sailing for someone else and it semed a reasonable request; they are not ready for life on the land so they dropped me off at the nearest coast. Here I am for a new adventure, a new metaphor. I seem to have brought my cold with me. Judging from the rest of the family (I am the last to get it), it still has not peaked. It is best I keep my eyes closed. Somehow this little bug seems to be a timely test of sorts to me. Is it possible for me to observe the symptoms without judging it, without trying to cure it…just accept it and maybe even appreciate the appearance of the symptoms…..or even the germs that have invaded my body, doing battle with my immune system. Ah another crew, those imune guys. Beaten back in every early battle, even now they are rallying and there is no reason to doubt they will win at the end. They are fighting and dying so valiantly…all for me. There is no one else left in the house to infect so this group of germs is doomed. All I have to do is just let my immune guys do their thing. In true wu-wei fashion. I don’t have to do anything.

Jingles Away (#196)

9. I am sailing home as a first step to my new journey given to me by Pema tonight. I will summarize tomorrow morning but for now I enjoy the wind whistling through my hair. The crew worries about trying to find new jobs in this tough economy. I assure them I will stand by them but I too worry a bit. It is so hard to leave the familiar and try something new. Am I up to it? I look up at the stars, feeling much more than a bit small at the thought of the tremendous space up there. Help me make this new task meaningful. Help me to learn about the “total openess of appearance”, to understand beyond the presence narrowness of my perception.

8. ZrM. From a card given to us from Martie: “Certainly we can’t always transform pain from meaningless suffering into a sense of spaciousness, but at least we can practice seeing into the layers of beliefs and resistance that hold our suffering in place, thereby coming closer to gently opening to what is. But seeing into the layers of beliefs and resistance is often difficult, because our conditioning can go very deep.  Yet, left unexplored, these beliefs that are most deeply hidden are the very beliefs that run our lives. ” Tomorrow it will be clearer how timely this is for me. For now as I try to concentrate through my headache and aching eyes, it is enough to try to appreciate what this bug is doing to my body. I must see the past the bug; it will be temporary.

7. Did not write much today…not sure what I may have learned or done. We are supposed to get watched by a spoon. I don’t have one right now but there is a little Buddha watching me. This one is in a box and amde of something which is whitish. The Buddha may be a bit grossed out with my sneezing.

6. …and selves, you know who you are, Pema said to tell you that what you are is “far, far better than existing”

5. on “selves” from Pema:

Pema Pera: well, yes, they have a purpose within the story of your life
Pema Pera: but not outside
Pema Pera: and the you who you really are is outside
Pema Pera: beyond
Pema Pera: enjoying the story but not as part of the story
Pema Pera: once you begin to see that, you are free
Pema Pera: and you can help others to find that freedom

4. F. A very bad cold. Trying to appreciate the feeling but rather I seem to be appreciating the fact that I usually feel well. One thing is that the lousy feeling is in the body and not the self. The self is limited to complaining about it.

3. I am out of sync with the commercial Christmas world which spends two months saturating us with Christmas, and then just as I pick up some interest, it is no longer cool. Now a week of thinking of all the things we have lost to have a reason to stock up on spirits for New Year’s Eve. But in the church calendar, Christmas is just the first day and culminates 12 days later with the three wise men. Oh you wise guys in the commercial sector, you missed an opportunity.

2. Gr.

1. TGT. Remembering it is enough to just be alive.

Christmas (#195)

3. Not much time for reflection today

2. Gr.

1. Alive for a wonderful Christmas day with family. It was good.

Quiet Day (#194)

4. Silent night, Holy night. Hearts open. A little bit of magic in the air too. Joy. A long winter’s nap. Angels singing. Sleep in heavenly peace.

3. It is a quiet day writing-wise, not necessarily otherwise. In preparing myself for the exhibit, I read a bit about Daoism which included the concept of wu-wei. It is more than just doing nothing. It is following one’s nature, an example being the walrus jealous of the centipede, who is jealous of the snake who is jealous of the wind. Each must follow its own nature and be what it is.  Is it our selves that get us in trouble trying to be something we just are not fit to be? On the other hand we can surprise ourselves with what we are capable of.

2. Gr.

1. TGT. It is good to be alive again on this wonderful planet earth

New Moon on Old Snow (#193)

7. F. The hour is late for me. This evening I could feel the weight of a self as I went about my business. I am not sure which one it might be. Help me get back to my core self so that I am open to receive.

6. F. Some days it is just tough to stop but in a way, today has been a long stop. I am disengaging, taking stock of what I have done in the past three months. In the process I am looking around, trying to tie up loose ends and preparing for re-engagement after the new year.  The end of the day will complete a longevity milestone, one that I had doubts of ever achieving. I realize I have been looking to this point instead of planning ahead. I have no long range goals for the collection. I need to work on that.

5. Just for the fun of it I try an exercise from the new Phenomenology Workshop.

I look at my mini-Buddha statue on my desk. I try to remember where it came from. I think that one of my former co-workers gave it to me. It is gold colored but must be bronze. It looks like Buddha but is in fact a piece of hollow metal, probably fairly simple in chemical composition. It exists in space, looks solid, but is open on the bottom and contains space inside. here also will be space inside the atoms, etc. the object exists but its function is simply to look like a Buddha. One can look at it and meditate or ponder ts existence as I am doing now.

Day after day I sit here on the desk looking out. Every morning the the plateau lights up and a rather large being sits down opposite me and mostly stares into space directly over my head. The being also concentrates on something out of my view directly below the plateau on which I exist. There is something rather large on the plateau with a cable that runs past me. The being periodically grabs that object and moves it back and forth, or around in a circle. When the being lifts the object, a red glow emanates from beneath it. Sometimes an object will hit me and turn me in a different direction. The being notices me and turns me back to look at it. It then feels like a gentle creature. The being is not as constant as I am. Some days the light does not appear and the being does not come. The being must not like dark.

4. Dropping selves is not the only thing I need to do this time of year. I think I need to drop work now. Why do I find it hard to disengage in December? I seem to be afraid to let up.

3. Gr.

2. TGT. Another day to be alive again on this beautiful cold planet

1. I woke up early this morning at a time I am not normally awake. I passed by a south window and through the trees was a big light, very low in the sky. With the frost on the windows and the fact that it was through the trees, I could not see it very well. It seemed moon size but it appeared full and it was not anywhere that I am used to seeing a moon. There had been a full moon just a week ago. Getting the binoculars, a most marvelous sight began to appear as I focused on the object. It was a quarter moon seen through a forked branch with snow on the limbs. The light danced on the white ice covered snow against the various shades of dark – the tree limbs, other trees, houses, sky. I thought a bit on how so much of what we see is illusionary. First the mystery of the apparition until I could see clearly the binoculars but also the fact that the moon is not actually a slice of light.

Christmas Selves (#192)

9. Help me see what I do not see

8. APAPB. A very long time since I have attempted this. Let’s see how it goes:

I close my eyes to concentrate on the effort and I can feel my selves lifting away. The Gloria from Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass is playing in the background. It has been a long time since I have listened to the piece and I feel overwhelmed with the simplicity and the beauty of the soprano solo. I wonder how many people have been moved by this over the years. Can this be some kind of connection between us through the composer/artists inspired by God or Being. Composers must connect with Being in their composing; artists in their playing. This composer certainly was thinking about God. I then think about how the music is similar to a movie or a painting. There is nothing to see or touch though. It reaches a single sense..sometimes two when the sound vibrations are felt. The Credo begins and here are the vibrations; I am shaken from my peaceful mood.

I have succeeded in dropping my selves for a few minutes (the bell rang again before i was done).

7. YSBS. I see a person sitting in front of a computer. I see a real life self thinking about eating, whether it will be warmer for the trip home, and the clutter around waiting to be cleaned up. I see a former self still angry, worried about the economy and the job, confused about will happen when the break comes, etc. I see avatar selves thinking about the upcoming exhibition, SL/PaB friends, and what they’ll wear for the next PaB meeting, etc. BS: a person sitting thinking, in an enclosed space within bigger and bigger spaces. Looking closer the person is a series of ever smaller and smaller spaces. {Note: do these spaces connect?]

6. F. Spend a few seconds thinking about the selves and how the core me might be different. I remember APAPB and YSBS exercises. It has been a long time since I did either of them

5. F. Having trouble stopping today on two levels. First for the 15 minutes and then also stopping in terms of self. But then I am clearing my workspace of accumulated “things to be done”. I vow to myself to try to stop regularly.

4. One would expect elves and not selves this time of year. But self/selves seems to be something that comes with Christmas…trying to recreate the excitement of some Christmas long ago and the memories of family. The dingy city streets of youth are transformed into Christmas wonderlands. Remembering Christmases past, the selves grieve that the present seems so lackluster. The winter darkness is coming on. Where are all those people of the memories? Yes, ’tis the time of year when we need to put our selves aside for a time and see more clearly. Ho ho ho!

3. Nothing spectacular happened last night. No dreams, visions or other visitors to my night except for the sound of the wind outside the house. Also selves don’t stay dismissed for too long. Like children they clamor for attention. Like children they bring joy and worry.

2. Gr.

1. TGT. Appreciating a very very cold, icy, windy day. Winter is here early this year. It is good to be alive.