Philosophy

Beyond Indifference

There is a certain violence in nature.  There is an underlying indifference to life that is paradoxically a movement that keeps life changing and evolving. It is the nature of all physical form to rise and fall, shift and die.  We see this in large movements like earthquakes and floods and fires caused by lightning and in smaller circumstances such as lifeforms that feed on other lifeforms or battle one another for the right to procreate.  Our planet and species were created through eruption and wild intense forces of nature.  As humans the roots of this indifference and fierceness to survive also lies in our shadow,underlies many of our darker patterns and is evident in the decline of our bodies as we age. As pure awareness  it is seen that all of these movements toward upheaval and destruction are just part of who we are.  When consciousness awakens itself and the stillness of our true nature is known we can see with equanimity the naturalness and inclusiveness of the world as it is. This part of what we are has limitless acceptance of what is. As Adyashanti often says, "It has no argument with reality." But this does not mean we then turn our back on the human condition and have no response to it.  We are source playing humans at the moment and when this source is awakened in us it moves through an open heart and generates compassion and love, creativity and responsiveness.  In knowing we are all of this world we may be moved to respond in ways the limited mind would not.  When our identification with personal suffering in our  past, and our emotional resistance and rage and grief is over, we are more free to bring something authentic, healing and useful into the world. We don't need to be indifferent and are free to move spontaneously.  From a non-dual perspective we can rationalize we are not our body/mind , and think "Why do anything?"  But if you look closely you can sense this must be a mental rationalization,  because the fully awakened being is not personal, and is moved by a recognition of being one with others.  Instead there is a movement that is impersonal, but inclined toward the healing of suffering, the feeding of the human, the nurturing of the planet, bringing harmony into the whole. Many call this movement love, but it is not the love that is looking for something in return. It is simply the complement to the destructive and painful forces. It moves through us and not from us.

Genuine acceptance of the fact that destruction and death are an aspect of living and being in form, frees one to bring more harmony and love into the mix rather than rage and resistance.  I can't speak for other life forms, but while we exist as humans we have a capacity for the wisdom to end our psychological self-destruction and the pain in our species that perpetuates it. It is our dream we are living and as we become more harmonious and awake as a species the dream can evolve more harmoniously.

Seeing Through the Fog

I look out my windows and see that Ashland is blanketed in fog this morning. I’m reminded that this is often the condition of the human mind.

There is a cloudiness that causes confusion or blind reaction because so many experiences have happened over the years that leave impressions which dull the light of  clarity.

There is a way of seeing that is clear and immediate, open and responsive. How often do you see things that way?  Most of us have to wade through many hours of indecision, second guessing ourselves and others, reactivity, mood swings and other aspects of our dividing minds before we make a move.  We listen to a myriad of thoughts about ourselves and everyone else as if  a mere thought could be true and more significant than the moment in which we are living.  It is amazing we ever get anywhere.  I am not saying you should never  weigh an important decision, but wouldn’t it be easier if we knew ourselves well enough to have an immediate sense of what is right for us.  Then we would move with the flow of the river or the Tao as the Chinese philosophers described it. Our life would become more natural and integrated with the world around us.

All of us are part of an unfolding, a movement , of life itself.   Each of us is presented with the possibilities of the day every morning when consciousness arises out of sleep and into the world of form.  There is a natural and intuitive way to move into the day, in response to what is arising and in tune with our openness to it.  Sometimes a morning meditation puts us consciously in tune with this place and we can move on into the day without the fogginess of our cluttered minds.  Some people have rituals that help them orient to the day.  When I was a young mother I remember having such overwhelm just getting everyone fed and off to school along with myself on the way to college classes that it felt like I was just plowing through life, barely noticing what was going on around me.   The spirit is easily overwhelmed when the mind is running our lives like a business.

Today there is a natural rhythm in me that seems to come from the heart or the belly.  I have days that are very active and days that are quiet, but  this “I “ is no longer goal-oriented or task-oriented.  Generally there is a flow into the life, whether there be sun or fog.  The spirit is open to either and curious to see what it brings. Life is more peaceful this way.

How do we stop listening to our cluttered foggy minds and get in touch with a deeper  awareness within us?  For me it has been through the willingness to be still, to drop awareness into the heart, to notice awareness is what moves through the body/mind stirring sensation, looking through my eyes, listening, noticing emotion rising and falling, noticing thoughts rising and falling, noticing everything that arises and falls in life.  To be this awareness without attention on that which I am aware of, to get curious about what this internal presence really is, has opened a door  into  a place more deep and true and clear than I ever knew when I was living in the fog.