Owen's Practice Journal

Self and other are one. I'm sure of that now. It feels as if something is being burned out of me. As if the emotions and delusions that came along with the package of a separate self have been thrown on the fire of THIS. Just THIS pain. Just THIS tears. Just THIS delusions.

The world is burning.

Okay, this has been interesting.
One moment, brutal re-observation (see previous post). Full, excruciating mindstorm. Probably the worst one I've had. But given everything over the last few days, I'd take 100 of them over the earlier variety. Re-observation, but nothing to do about it. It's somehow so much worse when there is no assumption of somebody to protect. But, paradoxically it also makes it so much more personal.

Now I seem to be back in equanimity.

Anyhow, I've alternated today between crying my eyes out on the cushion to feeling like I've been had in the biggest practical joke ever. I keep flipping off my little statue of the Buddha.
What an *******.

Great reports, Owen! Thanks for sharing this with us. Keep 'em coming...

It feels as though this is becoming normal, but I keep having revelations as to all the implications of the change. It is almost as if large chunks of my psychology just don't seem to apply any more.
Conditioned reactions, all setup to protect an idea of me keep popping up and I start laughing as I realize it.

I was walking back from the park last night and just stopped dead in my tracks. I tried to explain to my friend that I just noticed that this chronic fear which has plagued me since... well forever, was gone. Absolutely gone. Anxiety comes up, pain comes up, but the fear of them seems to have gotten turned off. And it's not the kind of fear that would come up if somebody were to put a gun to my face, just an old chronic dread that something was going to happen to me.

The instinct to flip off the Buddha has gone, now it's back to bowing. I suppose this will alternate from now on.

I keep thinking about all the people who don't know this, and my heart breaks for them. In the end, that's the only bad part of it, my friends who don't understand and keep suffering needlessly.
I feel the urge to help and do something about it. If I could just give them my eyes for a half-second, everything would change. Just This. Endlessly. No problem.

The desk in front of me is just an ordinary desk, and I'm again just an ordinary person.

Peace and love.
-o

I've held out posting this until I got a chance to talk to Kenneth, but now that I've done so I'll put it up. This was the email I sent a couple days ago.

From: OwenBecker
To: kennethfolk
Sent: Aug 6 2010, 9:55 am EDT
Subject: wow

Hey Kenneth,

It feels like I'm done. Heart is open, insight disease is cured.

I didn't post this yet, but last night as I was getting out of the shower I had the strong feeling like something was close. I got dried off, dressed and killed the lights in my apartment, leaving only the glow of the upper east side. I then lit some incense, and sat. No goal in mind other than to see what was really going on in my reality right now. I wasn't conscious of any jhana, by that point I'd dropped all of my ideas about life, dharma, meditation. Anything other than the desire to find out what was going on in the moment was left behind.

(continued)

Very quickly, I felt intense fear. Not of anything in particular, just profound dread. I remembered somebody once explaining to me the reason that in so many pictures of the Buddha, he has one hand touching the ground. With a similar motivation, I asked the world to bear witness to all the suffering I'd experienced up to that point. Something subtle then shifted. I knew then that I was ready to get up. Couldn't put my finger on why. Later that night I woke up from a nightmare of dead, skeletal hands trying to pull me down into the ground. I woke up, filled with the usual post nightmare anxiety but at the same time totally accepting of it. It was just anxiety. No problem. Nothing for it to grab hold of. As I posted on the forum, I felt it spin for a while and then disappear, like everything else. I had lots of thoughts of "Is this it, is it done?" and then the doubt and fear around those did the same thing. Just evaporated with nobody to grab hold of.

Right now, everything is exactly the same except one small thing, my perspective of who I am in relation to it all has deeply shifted. The sensations I previously thought were self are no different than any other sensations! They are all the same. Stupidly common and filled with Buddha nature are the same!
Ordinary mind is BUDDHA!

I spent my whole life looking for something that was right in front of me. I can't help but laugh at it. It finally feels done. All I had to do was let go of my preconceived notions of what it was supposed to be like! That was the last part, to willingly enter into the unknowing and let it become intimate.

Thank you. I have such deep gratitude it is beyond words. Thank you. Thank you.
-o

So that's that then. I want to thank Kenneth and everybody on this forum for all of your kind support. I'm going to ask Kenneth to close this thread now, and I'm going to begin again on a new practice journal. See everybody there!

Gassho.
-o

Big Congrats, Owen! Now you can be a normal happy human being for the rest of your life!