Hello Readers,
Some of you may have noticed fewer posts these past several months. During a 2 1/2 hour meditation this morning, where I gained tremendous clarity on a number of things, I realized that it is time to close Metaminute. I am fortunate to have writing inspiration, yet, Metaminute is not the venue to which I'm now called. I will be returning to poetry and working within creative writing for the first time. Beyond this, I believe the blog fulfilled its personal goal--to sustain me, and share with others, this spiritual path upon which I found myself. I learned a great deal during this time, and I learned even more over recent weeks. Thank you for reading, for your comments, and for providing this platform. Perhaps another time will come for Metaminute. Until then, I look forward to reading your blog entries and following you offline.
Be well,
R.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
The Monkey
This is an excerpt from Chogyam Trungpa's Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. This chapter addresses "The Six Realms" which is an analogy for samsara, the first noble truth about life's difficulty. This particular part resonated with me at the moment:
"How can the monkey get out of this seemingly endless, self-contained cycle of imprisonment? It is in the human realm that the possibility of breaking the karmic chain, or th circle of samsara arises. The intellect of the human realm and the possiblity of discriminating action allow room to question the whole process of struggle. There is a possibility for the monkey to question the obssession of rleating to something, of getting something, to question the solidity of the words that he experiences. To do this, the monkey needs to develop panoramic awareness and transcendental knowledge.
Panoramic awareness allows the monkey to see the space in which the struggle occurs so that he can begin to see its ironical and humorous quality. Instead of simply struggling, he begins to exprience the struggle and see its futility. He laughs through the hallucinations. He discovers that when he does not fight the walls, the are not repulsive and hard but are actually warm, soft, and penetrable. He finds thathe does not have to lseap from the five windows or break down the walls or even dwell upon them; he can step through them anywhere. That is why compassion, or karuna, is describes as "soft and noble heart." It is a communication process that is soft, open, and warm.
The clarify and precsion of transcendental knowledge allow the monkey to see the walls in a different way. He begins to realize that the world was never outside of himself, that is was his own dualistic attitude, the separation of 'I' and 'other,' that created the problem. He begins to understand that he himslef is making the walls soid, that he is imprisoning himself through his ambition. And so he begins to realize that to be free of his prison he must give up his ambition to escape and accept the walls as they are."
"How can the monkey get out of this seemingly endless, self-contained cycle of imprisonment? It is in the human realm that the possibility of breaking the karmic chain, or th circle of samsara arises. The intellect of the human realm and the possiblity of discriminating action allow room to question the whole process of struggle. There is a possibility for the monkey to question the obssession of rleating to something, of getting something, to question the solidity of the words that he experiences. To do this, the monkey needs to develop panoramic awareness and transcendental knowledge.
Panoramic awareness allows the monkey to see the space in which the struggle occurs so that he can begin to see its ironical and humorous quality. Instead of simply struggling, he begins to exprience the struggle and see its futility. He laughs through the hallucinations. He discovers that when he does not fight the walls, the are not repulsive and hard but are actually warm, soft, and penetrable. He finds thathe does not have to lseap from the five windows or break down the walls or even dwell upon them; he can step through them anywhere. That is why compassion, or karuna, is describes as "soft and noble heart." It is a communication process that is soft, open, and warm.
The clarify and precsion of transcendental knowledge allow the monkey to see the walls in a different way. He begins to realize that the world was never outside of himself, that is was his own dualistic attitude, the separation of 'I' and 'other,' that created the problem. He begins to understand that he himslef is making the walls soid, that he is imprisoning himself through his ambition. And so he begins to realize that to be free of his prison he must give up his ambition to escape and accept the walls as they are."
Friday, November 20, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
About Contradiction: Indian/Not Indian
Fritz Scholder came to mind, for some reason, during my Indian Law class this morning. I saw an exhibit over the summer of his work. I really like his style, vision. More so, I like his complexity as an artist and person. His work reminds an audience about their our own contradictions in all of its bold color and vividness.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
More on Multiverse
I am a fan of multiverse, even alluding to it in the previous post. Family Guy breaks it down in its own Family Guy way:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/98264/family-guy-road-to-the-multiverse
http://www.hulu.com/watch/98264/family-guy-road-to-the-multiverse
To Know
This week, I learned, that some things are just between me and God.
Earlier last month, I felt a lot of anxiety from my brain to my body. Stress swarmed around me like a cloud, even if I absorbed only a portion. I felt imbalanced, from too much work, and too little non-work. When I began noticing that I missed certain aspects of myself, I set to "re-organize" things. I believe that there are an infinite number of opportunities and ways to exist in the world in the same way some scientists believe that there is infinite space, time, and other phenomenon. I had to create a different way of existing, and part of this required me to create more space for spirit.
Spirit really asks little of me in my relative life. It only asks me to be. I had found this difficult in the recent past, particularly around thoughts. I was always thinking, and sometimes, I tell myself: "Stop." I am slowly growing better at being quiet. Quiet invites silence, under which I can surrender. Silence, I've found, is my best mode of listening, because, Universe offers me instructions when I listen. September was an exceptional month for Spirit; October for mind. But this week, I had to slow my mind to see everything else.
My life "re-organization" at the end of October entailed less space for thinking, and more space for thriving. I made schedule changes; I made priority-changes; I made pacing-changes. All of this was helpful. But there was a neglected area: I had to re-align my mind to reach my spiritual dysphoria. I interpreted this instruction after two weeks.
What I noticed during the month was that I was internally reacting to "new-news." Information that I learned that seemingly changed a situation one way or another. The funny thing, though, is that not a thing had changed--only my perception changed. My mind had turned to see things as challenging, difficult, or negative. In sangha, we call this outcome a "story." We construct other thoughts based upon a false thought about a condition of a form (an element which makes up other things). I had successfully dismantled stories before but I had never witnessed it in the making. I did so because mindfulness training had allowed me to slow my mind. I saw my mind receiving information, reacting to it, and piling on other thoughts to make sense of it. When I noticed this, I began pressing a "self-destruct" button in my brain. Power off. I did this by saying, "Everything's changed, nothing's changed." I'd recite this until the story disappeared. It's proven to be a helpful mindfulness tool, and a tool that has allowed me to dismantle an incredible harmful story that I had recited over recent months.
The story is this: I feel fundamentally misunderstood. Strangers make assumptions about me. Family respects, though, cannot comprehend me. Even dear friends, in certain areas of my life, must take leaps of faith. I actually was thinking this week, as I do from time to time, maybe I should leave law school to become a monk or nun (it doesn't much matter to me these days). I seriously contemplate this idea, among others, every so often. Folks don't get it, which is well. What is sometimes difficult is feeling like you are on a perpetual island, even distant from the ones you trust and love. There are many moments where I feel loved, but few where I am understood.
This is how I have chosen to exist during this lifetime. This may change, and change many times over. It may not. What God has been telling me, and I have not appreciated until recently, is that it just is. There is no loneliness when you see the universal reflection. And, when I am confused about this part of the path, I simply need to listen. I cannot, and should not, explain this way of existing.
It's between me and God. And, from there.
Post Script: To put this entry into a little more context -
"The spiritual path does not go that way. It is a lonely, individual path."
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Chogyam Trunpa
Earlier last month, I felt a lot of anxiety from my brain to my body. Stress swarmed around me like a cloud, even if I absorbed only a portion. I felt imbalanced, from too much work, and too little non-work. When I began noticing that I missed certain aspects of myself, I set to "re-organize" things. I believe that there are an infinite number of opportunities and ways to exist in the world in the same way some scientists believe that there is infinite space, time, and other phenomenon. I had to create a different way of existing, and part of this required me to create more space for spirit.
Spirit really asks little of me in my relative life. It only asks me to be. I had found this difficult in the recent past, particularly around thoughts. I was always thinking, and sometimes, I tell myself: "Stop." I am slowly growing better at being quiet. Quiet invites silence, under which I can surrender. Silence, I've found, is my best mode of listening, because, Universe offers me instructions when I listen. September was an exceptional month for Spirit; October for mind. But this week, I had to slow my mind to see everything else.
My life "re-organization" at the end of October entailed less space for thinking, and more space for thriving. I made schedule changes; I made priority-changes; I made pacing-changes. All of this was helpful. But there was a neglected area: I had to re-align my mind to reach my spiritual dysphoria. I interpreted this instruction after two weeks.
What I noticed during the month was that I was internally reacting to "new-news." Information that I learned that seemingly changed a situation one way or another. The funny thing, though, is that not a thing had changed--only my perception changed. My mind had turned to see things as challenging, difficult, or negative. In sangha, we call this outcome a "story." We construct other thoughts based upon a false thought about a condition of a form (an element which makes up other things). I had successfully dismantled stories before but I had never witnessed it in the making. I did so because mindfulness training had allowed me to slow my mind. I saw my mind receiving information, reacting to it, and piling on other thoughts to make sense of it. When I noticed this, I began pressing a "self-destruct" button in my brain. Power off. I did this by saying, "Everything's changed, nothing's changed." I'd recite this until the story disappeared. It's proven to be a helpful mindfulness tool, and a tool that has allowed me to dismantle an incredible harmful story that I had recited over recent months.
The story is this: I feel fundamentally misunderstood. Strangers make assumptions about me. Family respects, though, cannot comprehend me. Even dear friends, in certain areas of my life, must take leaps of faith. I actually was thinking this week, as I do from time to time, maybe I should leave law school to become a monk or nun (it doesn't much matter to me these days). I seriously contemplate this idea, among others, every so often. Folks don't get it, which is well. What is sometimes difficult is feeling like you are on a perpetual island, even distant from the ones you trust and love. There are many moments where I feel loved, but few where I am understood.
This is how I have chosen to exist during this lifetime. This may change, and change many times over. It may not. What God has been telling me, and I have not appreciated until recently, is that it just is. There is no loneliness when you see the universal reflection. And, when I am confused about this part of the path, I simply need to listen. I cannot, and should not, explain this way of existing.
It's between me and God. And, from there.
Post Script: To put this entry into a little more context -
"The spiritual path does not go that way. It is a lonely, individual path."
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Chogyam Trunpa
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Crying Light - Living In Between
"Let I
Shy cry
Under the light
Let I
Cry sight
A child at night
I can
Have courage
To receive your love
I can
Step steps
Follow my blind
Inside
My self
The secret grows
My own
Shelter
Agony goes
I was born to adore you
As a baby in the blind
I was born to represent you
To carry your head into the sun
To carve you face into the back of the sun" - The Crying Light, Antony and the Johnsons
To explain this feeling of living in-between, let me return to an August post. In August, a dear friend invited me to The Church of Two Worlds, a spiritualism church in Washington DC. Spiritualism is a Christian school that believes in mediumship to connect with other spiritual beings and God. My father was raised as a Christian Science, which is distinct from spiritualism, but it falls within a tradition that teaches God's omnipresence. Many of his beliefs have passed onto me. In the August post about receiving the dharma that you need (i.e. you will always be taken care of if you are willing to receive) I described the latter half of the service in which the minister conveyed messages from spirits onto audience members. It was quite the experience. I had two messages conveyed to me--both powerful--but there is a particular one with meaning that I did not fully appreciate until now. The medium said, "Your ancestors are rooting for you. Don't give up. There's light ahead."
A couple of weeks later I joined a friend in a regular Saturday morning sitting meditation. Only two of us practiced that morning so we had a chance to deeply share our sit with each other when we finished. We got onto the topic of a book that she had read, called Many Lives, Many Masters, a several-decade old book written by a psycho analyst's past-life regression experience with a patient. I believe that reincarnation is the continuation of life and life-force energy, and I have my an understanding of previous lives of my own. I borrowed the book, reading it in a single day. I was simply blown away. For at least two reasons. On one hand, I was beginning to see how spiritualism, phenomenonalism, magic, and other systems of thought to which I think glean universal insight blend together. On the other hand, the book thrust me into a condition which Buddhists call "absolute truth," or a spiritual existence, apart from our day-to-day existence. This is far from any degree of enlightenment. It's more like a SuperAwareness where you feel more adept in surveying deeper truths while also being present-minded. I have felt more detached over the past several weeks for this reason.
Many Lives described seven spiritual realms in which we ascend as we re-discover our true nature as One Spirit. I thought that the number of seven realms was intriguing because seven is a celebrated number in numerology and other traditions. So, as I've contemplated, and lived through, my practice during September, I have thought less about "right," "wrong," "good," "bad," but instead I have asked: what will contribute toward spiritual development? What is the spiritual (not worldly) lesson here? This re-orientation, different way of thinking, is making a lot of sense to me at the moment.
I continue to work with my energy-worker who observes my brighter aura all of the time (which reaffirms my belief that I am on the correct path). I have since started another book about Atlantis which is re-introducing me to occultism, a broader school than spiritualism that recovers "hidden knowledge" through psychic-ism, shamanism, mediumship, meditation, etc. I believe, like many occultists do, that we all have these gifts of being as we discover more about our true capacities. This is, in part, why I value reiki so much, and why I believe that it came into my life when it did. I'm reminded that it is all here.
I am thinking more about mysticism, herbal medicine, and all of the "alternatives" to conventional Western well-being. Tomorrow I will attend Pathway's Natural Living Expo with another dear friend who has accessed chakra-cleansing. There is a lot to learn in a single lifetime!
I will say, for friends and readers, who are skeptical that there are different ways to understand what this all is. I could not accept reincarnation until very specific details about a past life were conveyed to me during my first year of college were recited to me, almost verbatim, in April 2008. I could not explain it otherwise. Since, I've had many more experiences, but these ideas have also resurfaced more subtly. In holistic organizing, for example, we call, and thank our ancestors for their guidance, before we embark on our work. I often do this in spaces dominated by Black-folks or Southern-folks. For many of us the "presence" of spirits supplies our strength and courage. This is also true in numerous other traditions and spaces. All I can offer is that an openness may expose you to a lot of things, but never, nothing more than you can handle.
Receiving our own crying light.
*http://www.pathwaysmagazineonline.com/Pathways%20Online/expomainpage.html
Shy cry
Under the light
Let I
Cry sight
A child at night
I can
Have courage
To receive your love
I can
Step steps
Follow my blind
Inside
My self
The secret grows
My own
Shelter
Agony goes
I was born to adore you
As a baby in the blind
I was born to represent you
To carry your head into the sun
To carve you face into the back of the sun" - The Crying Light, Antony and the Johnsons
To explain this feeling of living in-between, let me return to an August post. In August, a dear friend invited me to The Church of Two Worlds, a spiritualism church in Washington DC. Spiritualism is a Christian school that believes in mediumship to connect with other spiritual beings and God. My father was raised as a Christian Science, which is distinct from spiritualism, but it falls within a tradition that teaches God's omnipresence. Many of his beliefs have passed onto me. In the August post about receiving the dharma that you need (i.e. you will always be taken care of if you are willing to receive) I described the latter half of the service in which the minister conveyed messages from spirits onto audience members. It was quite the experience. I had two messages conveyed to me--both powerful--but there is a particular one with meaning that I did not fully appreciate until now. The medium said, "Your ancestors are rooting for you. Don't give up. There's light ahead."
A couple of weeks later I joined a friend in a regular Saturday morning sitting meditation. Only two of us practiced that morning so we had a chance to deeply share our sit with each other when we finished. We got onto the topic of a book that she had read, called Many Lives, Many Masters, a several-decade old book written by a psycho analyst's past-life regression experience with a patient. I believe that reincarnation is the continuation of life and life-force energy, and I have my an understanding of previous lives of my own. I borrowed the book, reading it in a single day. I was simply blown away. For at least two reasons. On one hand, I was beginning to see how spiritualism, phenomenonalism, magic, and other systems of thought to which I think glean universal insight blend together. On the other hand, the book thrust me into a condition which Buddhists call "absolute truth," or a spiritual existence, apart from our day-to-day existence. This is far from any degree of enlightenment. It's more like a SuperAwareness where you feel more adept in surveying deeper truths while also being present-minded. I have felt more detached over the past several weeks for this reason.
Many Lives described seven spiritual realms in which we ascend as we re-discover our true nature as One Spirit. I thought that the number of seven realms was intriguing because seven is a celebrated number in numerology and other traditions. So, as I've contemplated, and lived through, my practice during September, I have thought less about "right," "wrong," "good," "bad," but instead I have asked: what will contribute toward spiritual development? What is the spiritual (not worldly) lesson here? This re-orientation, different way of thinking, is making a lot of sense to me at the moment.
I continue to work with my energy-worker who observes my brighter aura all of the time (which reaffirms my belief that I am on the correct path). I have since started another book about Atlantis which is re-introducing me to occultism, a broader school than spiritualism that recovers "hidden knowledge" through psychic-ism, shamanism, mediumship, meditation, etc. I believe, like many occultists do, that we all have these gifts of being as we discover more about our true capacities. This is, in part, why I value reiki so much, and why I believe that it came into my life when it did. I'm reminded that it is all here.
I am thinking more about mysticism, herbal medicine, and all of the "alternatives" to conventional Western well-being. Tomorrow I will attend Pathway's Natural Living Expo with another dear friend who has accessed chakra-cleansing. There is a lot to learn in a single lifetime!
I will say, for friends and readers, who are skeptical that there are different ways to understand what this all is. I could not accept reincarnation until very specific details about a past life were conveyed to me during my first year of college were recited to me, almost verbatim, in April 2008. I could not explain it otherwise. Since, I've had many more experiences, but these ideas have also resurfaced more subtly. In holistic organizing, for example, we call, and thank our ancestors for their guidance, before we embark on our work. I often do this in spaces dominated by Black-folks or Southern-folks. For many of us the "presence" of spirits supplies our strength and courage. This is also true in numerous other traditions and spaces. All I can offer is that an openness may expose you to a lot of things, but never, nothing more than you can handle.
Receiving our own crying light.
*http://www.pathwaysmagazineonline.com/Pathways%20Online/expomainpage.html
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