Stages, Part the Third

Thanks, Nikolai. I'm not quite as high today. Frankly, I'm sort of struggling to understand what happened, what the effects are and will be and how best to deal with them. I have no desire to do much in the way of work right now and, of course, that's messing with my job, big time. What I do want to do is go sit. And sit, and sit, and sit. I want to watch the world flowing by and just enjoy it. I do actually lay awake most nights but that's not for any reason other than to play with experience. Embed, test. Un-embed, test. Is this real? Pinch. Really real? Pinch. Really, really real? Pinch. Testing, testing, 1,2,3.... And I feel like I'm getting sort of "out there" by posting all this here but I promised to keep an online journal and so that's what I'm doing.

Whatever is happening is very definitely an opening and a simplification. Experience is infused with awareness. By that I mean a "door" has opened and awareness seems to have flowed in, soaking everything. I'm calling it awareness because I don't have the proper word. It is the ongoing recognition of the enormity of absolutely everything and whether it is occurring in the foreground or the background it's always there. Nothing about this organism is different in regard to physical and basic mental processes. It's not that the I/me/mine is gone. It is not. It's just not the central focus of existence any more and it's apparent that I/me/mine is the same kind of phenomenon as all other phenomena. The same emotions, tendencies and preferences exist as they always did. But something new is in evidence and the only way to describe that is that awareness permeates everything in experience. Awareness has been pulled "down" into the small context of the ordinary such that the ordinary is infused by it, described by, defined by it, inextricably intertwined with it -- and I'm absolutely certain it was always that way but not seen that way.

I keep going back to May 6th and trying to revisit what the f**k happened and I can't because no "thing" really happened. The most descriptive thing I can say about this "event" is that a thought occurred to me and that thought was something like, "just get out of your own way," and then this flow of awareness followed immediately, causing me to laugh out loud at how simple "this" is. In one moment I was seeking like a fanatic. In the next moment it was clear that seeking was extra and a complication. So everything appears as it is, where it is, and as only that. That's the simplification part.

My dog, an Australian Kelpie, has taught herself how to escape the fenced in back yard by nosing the latch on the gate up and then open. This means I'll have to construct some new Kelpie-proof mechanism for locking the gate. This dog has been a challenge from the beginning. I'm thinking I should get her started on zazen and Mu!

Those Australian dogs are extremely intelligent little beings. Tried feeding it vegemite?

True story:

My wife and I were sitting on the front porch last night. It was a beautiful evening. Calm, cool, but late spring-like and filled with birds and animal sounds. At one point I turned to her and asked,"So, how much of what you see right now do you really *see* and how much is just filled in by your mind?" She turned and looked at me, smiled, and asked, "Do you REALLY want an answer?"

I don't get no respect.

Before: Where is everything?
After: Everything is right where it is, dummy.

Before: What is all this?
After: Who cares? Enjoy!

Before: There's no "me," right? Right, boss? Right?
After: Boss? Ahahaha!


Yeah.

"
Before: Where is everything?
After: Everything is right where it is, dummy.

Before: What is all this?
After: Who cares? Enjoy!

Before: There's no "me," right? Right, boss? Right?
After: Boss? Ahahaha!


Yeah.

"

i imagine if the "boss" completely gives up running things there must be some profound peace

There is no boss, as any boss in the sense I meant it is a pernicious illusion, sometimes almost completely hidden from view.

"
There is no boss, as any boss in the sense I meant it is a pernicious illusion, sometimes almost completely hidden from view.

"

I know what you meant
I thought my reply was in keeping with your wavelength and revelling in how nice it must be -- i really need to figure out how so may of my posts seem to disconnect so completely

Sorry, Mike. I just wanted to be clear. Glad you got it.

There's nothing to add and nothing to take away. This says it all. Raw acceptance of everything, as it is. Just IS.

Hey Chris I am very happy to see this thread. When you stopped your old thread suddenly I could sense that something big had happened with you. I am a bit curious because there are so few people out there writing openly about this stuff... in order to add more data to the community how long has it been between 1st path and whatever this was?

Do you want that in calendar years or yogi years?

Haha feel free to share both. Or Neither...

"
There's nothing to add and nothing to take away. This says it all. Raw acceptance of everything, as it is. Just IS.

"



P.S. I've been answering in emoticons a lot lately, as there is really nothing more to say.

Oh, Clayton, I forgot! Lots going on with family and other stuff the past few days. I have a 14 year-old graduating from 8th grade this week and that has become a major life experience and time sink

It's been, best I can determine, about five years. I have to say "best I can determine" because I managed to access first path before I knew what it was. I was just following Daniel Ingram's very explicit instructions from MCTB (original online version, printed and unbelievable dog eared) and had a number of fruitions over the course of a few years. I realized what it was later on when Kenneth explained it to me.

Stupid, huh?


*** Shout out to my dharma brothers Jackson and Alex! ***

"*** Shout out to my dharma brothers Jackson and Alex! ***

"

*** Yeah! ***

I'm having an interesting time with my job. I was highly wired to succeed. I mean laser beam focused, and for years and years. I was, because of this, a wreck during most of my career. Worrier. Overly attached to the job. My job was very highly correlated to my sense of identity, of self. It contributed to that sense, filled it in, made me "what I am." This is why i started practice back int the '90s. That connection has been all but destroyed by what has happened. This makes sense, of course, but it turns into a surprising (to me, at least) consequence. It's a bit unnerving. It's very, very different and, as Kenneth says, probably much healthier. But it's taking some getting used to, needs integration, what have you. Oddly, there is some guilt about this as things that I used to dive into lay fallow for days. People I used to snap to for leave messages that go unanswered for a time. It's not that I don't care. I do care. It's that the importance of anything that is not right here and now, that is not truly and authentically urgent, gets relegated to the "wait until it matters" pile.

I also feel like I'm floating. Not physically floating but experientially and metaphorically. I am not tied down to anything. The tendrils of emotional attachment still have power, though I can see them at work. If I'm distracted and busy or highly attuned to a task the tendrils can grab and hold on an then it takes a conscious re-orientation to disentangle again. But much of my time is spent in this enormous experiential environment that seems to be bounded only by the shell of awareness that surrounds the entirety of THIS. Practice, it seems, leads to really knowing the fullness of experience, and that view, that unbelievably clear view, is what matters, what frees us, what gives us the space to be fully realized human beings.

Ya gotta love that.

"I'm having an interesting time with my job. I was highly wired to succeed. I mean laser beam focused, and for years and years. I was, because of this, a wreck during most of my career. Worrier. Overly attached to the job. My job was very highly correlated to my sense of identity, of self. It contributed to that sense, filled it in, made me "what I am." This is why i started practice back int the '90s. That connection has been all but destroyed by what has happened. "

cmarti, this is amazing to me for a range of reasons. I'm very interested to hear more of how this develops for you if you feel inclined. When advanced yogis never share their experiences it leaves a lot of space for yogis working with beginning levels to fill in the blanks with unfounded notions. Thanks so much for your example and for talking about it.

This is the good stuff, Chris-- the point at which the practice of the skills gives way to the practice of the life. And to paraphrase Robert Earl Keen-- 'the road goes on forever, the practice never ends.'

Who'd a thunk, back when we were striving to get somewhere [else], that that's the GOOD news!

[and Amen to mpavoreal-- accounts of postawakening practice are precious as rubies]

Thank you both very much for your kind and encouraging words.

mpavoreal, I do plan to continue to comment on my practice and related developments here, especially if folks get something out of it. Roomy, yeah, there's just no end to practice and clearly there's no end to the need for practice. This will be something I do forever, and for various reasons that have and will no doubt continue to change.

cmarti, if I remember correctly you started practicing in the midst of a demanding career, a family, and without benefit of retreats and progressed mostly on your own, until you met Kenneth? And "with my job. I was highly wired to succeed. I mean laser beam focused, and for years and years. I was, because of this, a wreck during most of my career. Worrier. Overly attached to the job." Man, can I relate to that! I've been worried that spending so much of my week in work-wrecked mind states is a big hindrance. But none of that proved unsurmountable.

That's true, I've never been on a formal retreat. I was/am however, extremely serious about practice. I think dedication, making meditation a serious daily habit and being wiling to experiment to find what works best for you all make a big difference. Working with Kenneth has really, really made a difference since I started doing it, so I highly recommend him.

I've had this happen too on several occasions. Hard to describe, only that everything is the same but the significance is different. Everything is perfect as is and there's a wonderful feeling of unity in diversity (not oneness per se, but things aren't seen as separate - or as one, just as they are).

I believe this is what the zen guys call kensho