Dark Side Of The Fractal

That is so, so, SO true! I've known for years now that my mind / cognitive patterns are fractal in nature, that they are designed / arranged that way. (Now whether this is "natural" or because I consciously ordered them that way, I don't know.) It's not only fractal, but holographic, meaning that every part of the fractal mirrors all the other parts -- it's pretty complex in there and I've dedicated my life to understanding and awareness of it. And yep -- when the neurochemistry is good, wow! it's fun!!! But when it's not so great, well, it sucks beyond imagining.

Frankly, my "basement" is A LOT further "up" than it ever used to be -- I just don't get "down" the way I used to, mostly because I won't let it happen. When it starts to happen, I know it's happening (it's that awareness thing) and that I have the power to make it stop by changing my chemistry. Not that I can't look at whatever I was looking at before -- I just look at it through a different chemical matrix. (The chemicals for anger, despair, depression and shame just cloud my clarity, so those are the ones I try not to let propagate when I feel them picking at the edges of my mind. These are the things I see as obscurations to reality, rather than an inherent part of reality.)

I have totally chosen this path, have chosen to keep my eyes open to all the parts of the holographic fractal, unconditionally, regardless of what I see there. This is why I was SOOOOO dark in my twenties -- I had to stare through a lot of shit to get to the shiny stuff. :<) Now it's 98% shiny..... 99% on most days... but that small percentage draws my attention as I say -- hey -- what is this shit? And why is it on me?

Vipassana is helping a lot. I'm cross-training (per Ken Wilber's research) between meditation and physical exercise every, every, every day. (I have the cognitive and psycho-dynamic parts of the Basic Four pretty well covered, but was lacking in these other two.) Vipassana has become my "zen" practice, the thing I do regardless of how /what I feel in the moment -- I don't question or hesitate, I just do. It has been a short time, but I can already see how this is causing my psyche/fractal to become more cohesive, allowing me to see all of it at once, or to see the larger patterns in it, rather than being sucked into every single story/detail.

I had gotten to a point of frustration with my process, of knowing that I needed to push through to some other plateau rather than slipping back into old mental habits, and I think this is the key for me, i.e. meditation every day. (And specifically Vipassana.) It gives me a stability, a blank slate, a place to see reality how it IS without any of my stories.

It is funny, too, how many of my experiences I shy away from. Some of them, though I've been pushing toward them for years, once I break through, I then shy away and sort of pretend that it didn't happen. I've been experimenting with focal length for years now and have learned to *see* reality differently -- very, very differently. Then I read Buddhist texts, or watch the "Down the Rabbit Hole" version of "What the [bleep]" and think -- damn -- this is how I'm seeing reality now, through my eyes, at least when I'm not shying away from it. So what's with the fear?

I am thinking that Vipassana will help with that, too -- in that "allow all things to arise and disappear without attachment" frame of mind, I don't tense/jump when conventional reality melts away and I experience everything as space with little floaty bits of stuff cascading through it, exchanging bits of me with bits of the environment, swirling colors... much like a fractal, though with more intentional forms. (This is also how I saw when I was a child -- seeing this is what brought me back to meditation again and again when I was a kid. Staring into this space and noting that I could create objects within that space / out of those bits was what entertained me when I couldn't sleep.)

In a sense, I feel like I've "gone back to my roots" by taking up a Vipassana practice -- it is very much like the meditation I started doing as a young child. It is what kept me stable, kept me in touch with my center, kept me from losing my self, regardless of what was happening externally. I have no expectations for where this will take me, but it feels like a necessary part that has been missing.

Really, I could say that I'm through the tough spot I was going "ARRRGGHHH!" about -- knowing there is a way past it, what that way is, and DOING it have helped immensely. So, thank you again for inquiring, for supporting, for understanding -- I appreciate it immensely!!!!

Have a great weekend and be well,

How i Am

Thanks for inquiring and thanks for the support / encouragement -- I really appreciate it!

I am doing all right -- better now that I got all that stuff out and had an hour long cry. (I hardly ever cry anymore -- that's probably as much as I've cried in the past four years put together.) I don't know quite how to describe it, but ever since the whole "insight into emptiness" event, everything in reality keeps seeming to get "closer" to me somehow. People talk about "armoring" of the self, of "putting up walls" to keep things out. These metaphors aren't really metaphors -- that is more or less what happens -- and all of those walls are slowly crumbling away.

There are still things in my life that I was resistant to -- financial stuff, career stuff, transcending anger are the three I can think of. These things are now right on top of me, so to speak, and with the awareness I have of what is going on inside of me, it can get frustrating to watch in horror as I react in conditioned ways, even though I don't *want* to. I listen to my internal dialog, the stories I tell myself, my ego-attachments and clinging, my dualistic thinking.... bleh. I just wish I could find the flush button and let it all go, all at once, and have it stay gone. I feel like I'm wearing clothes that I've outgrown -- they are just too tight, restrictive and uncomfortable. I don't "dislike" them -- I just don’t want to wear them anymore. The nineties are over -- these shoes hurt my feet!

I'm working on it, though. I meditated the other day and keep getting the same answer every time -- meditate. Every day. Ken Wilbur says it, Rob says it, every single Great And Enlightened Master says it. I told Rob that I feel like because I'm such a talented student, I try to skate by without doing the homework, but when homework is 30% of your grade, that still means a C (or a D depending upon the grading scale) no matter how brilliant you do on the test or the term paper.

So, I've decided to pick up Vipassana meditation, because I can do it anytime, all the time, once I become practiced at it. (I can *do* this kind of meditation, I just don't most of the time, at least not regularly.) I'm also looking more into the Integral Model -- Rob assures me that Mr. Wilbur can show me how to build a tree made out of velcro for all of these realizations to stick to. Of course, that will mean meditating every day. :<)

That's just it -- I have so many insights, so many pieces, and I get glimpses of what I / my life could/ will be like once it is all integrated together, but at the moment it all still feels like a million little pieces that I'm trying to juggle at once, and I inevitably drop one or many of the things because I am trying to keep ALL the balls in the air. I really need a system to make this stuff All One Thing, or at least a few manageable things. Again, Rob assures me that the Integral Operating System will show me how to arrange and organize my bits into one solid whole. So, that's what I'm doing about it.

Really, it is sometimes the uncomfortable writhing and frustration that leads to the breakthrough -- it just gets so overwhelmingly stupid that even my ego isn't strong enough to convince me to hold onto it any longer. I am really struggling to exercise my free will, my autonomy, my choice, after living this long in a culture / paradigm that twists all of that into a complex mechanism of internal controls designed to keep one extrinsically controlled and enslaved. I am closer and closer to true empowerment, but the resistance at this edge of it is very, very strong. I will not give up, I will not be deterred, but there are times when I just want to yell ARRAGGHHHAHAHGH!!! This shit is HARD!!!!! But, I guess if getting out of samsara was easy, everybody'd be doing it. As Rob put it, I want to take ten million years of human conditioning and just !poof! transcend it. I look at him and say, well, yeah. :<)

It is frustrating, though, to go back and forth, knowing when I'm "in the shit" that its inherent existence is illusory, that it is only existing because I am self-creating it -- I am standing in the shit I shat. Empowerment and responsibility are hard to swallow sometimes -- probably because I come from a culture that wants to turn that into "it's my *fault* that I'm suffering," rather than "I have the power to end my suffering." Bleh. It is confusing to see all the tracks at once, to see the intersections of karma in every interaction, to grasp the intricateness of conditioned and unconditioned reality. Sometimes I think I should have studied Zen. :<) It's all so one/none oriented. But no -- I had to choose Tantra with all its myriad multi-layered realities on the inside out side of emptiness. Yes, it is perfectly fitted with my brain and thought structure, but damn -- some days, it's no picnic. (But the days it is -- WOW! -- what a picnic!)

Thanks for being there (wherever you are!), being my friend and being supportive of my weird twisty turning life-path. When I got your email checking on me, I felt warm and happy; your concern meets my needs for friendship, support and encouragement. Thank you very much and have a fabulous weekend.

Be well,

fMom

ARRGHH!!!!!

ARGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARHAAGGGAAAHHJJJAJAAAHHHHAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

{pantpantpant}

ARRRRAAGHHHHH!!!!!!!! ARAAHGGAHHHHHAHAAHAAHH!!!!!!!

Get it off me! Get it off me! Gawddaaaaamnn this stuff is HARD!!!!! FUCK!!!!

(Arraaaghhh!! and etc.)

I have all these heads -- I'm used to being complex. (That was the most life-affirming/creative thing I could think to use the schizophrenia for. I started consciously stretching my mind in all those directions when I was about nineteen. Constant stretching. To this very day. Twisty twisty twisty.) But now I'd like to stop, at least some of the time -- I need a neutral position.)

My head won't stay off -- it is driving me crazy.

Do you know what it's like, here, in my head? There's so much NOISE in here, I can't hear myself think… or rather, I can't hear anything but me thinking. I need a sabbatical, a vacation, a refuge from all the stories.

Somedays, I want to claim that it is the awareness that causes this….. tension, but that isn't the case. Now that I know this is all empty -- saw it with my own eyes -- even wrote about it, lived it, became it -- my ego(s) keep popping up, running around and claiming that they own the place.

ARRRGGGHHHH!!!!! Seriously.

I want Samsara to stop and STAY stopped. But it doesn't. Blinky blinky blinky, onoff onoff onoff.

I resist material success, equating it somehow with spiritual failure. (The part of Me was played in that sentence by a cultural Midwestern paradigm designed for self-perpetuating oppression. I have lots of those heads in my head.)

Seriously, I am willing to give up all stories and ideas of who I am so that I can just be who I am. I'm trapped in my own story, a character in a plot I can't seem to escape. I'd finally stepped away from the couch, backed away from the subtext, then BAM! back in the story again.

It is best, I think, to not even think about the story if one is trying to step away from it.

I am aware that the only force in the universe that is oppressing me right now is ME. My karma, my choices, my conditioning, my habits. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! Gawd, why can't I let it go? And keep it gone? I DO NOT WANT THIS. It SUCKS. By NATURE. I know this, I know how to let go of it, I have in the past let go of it, I know what it is to be free of it, so WHY, oh WHY do I find it in my hands again? It's f'ing CREEPY the way it follows one around. Karma, conditioning, habit. GET OFF ME!!!!! BLEH! DONE! GO AWAY!

This is not dis integration -- I do not desire the erasure of parts of myself, but rather the patterns in which I am arranged. My bits are mine, my bits are me, but I have choice -- am the only one in the universe who can make this choice -- about how I arrange them. But I want someone else to do it for me -- what the hell is that?! What kind of conditioning / paradigm / invisible worldview engenders such a giving over of autonomy, choice and freedom? WHAT THE HELL IS MY HEAD TRYING TO DO TO ME?

And I wish it was just my head, but it's not -- it's the head I got from sticking mine into the cultural paradigms, seeing through their filter, and calling that reality. I've changed my view of reality quite a bit since then, but it's like little…. elves or something come and put these wretched glasses on my eyes while I'm sleeping. Every day an effort to pry them off my face -- it usually takes hours, most of the day, until I feel anything like an autonomous person again, and by then I've often already acted in conditioned ways. (Luckily I am aware now that I can stop as soon as I have this realization, rather than feeling impelled to continue the story.)

I think I need a retreat. Seriously. I'd like to hire a zen master to come live in my house….. nix that, I've already got four… five, if you count me.

AAARRRRRRGGHHHH!!!!! Change is HARD. FUCK! (Say, now that's an idea….)

It is difficult to watch one's personality in meta, knowing that all personality is empty. Who is that? Who am I? What kind of story are we telling? I've become the audience, the chorus, and wrestle for the pen to become the author.

My life is empty, a blank screen. I choose the character(s), the plot, the drama or lack thereof. (Suddenly the lyrics from my sweetie come to mind: We're all actors in a badly written play.) Man, sometimes this sucks, even for a reality show. It's all just a show, but it's so fucking believable.

I can view reality in so many different ways that sometimes I'm not sure which view is most efficacious. It seems that no matter how I view it, what I eventually see is my own karma racing toward me to bite me in the ass. My mind often resists the knowledge that I am the one doing this to myself -- I feel it skittish around the edges, refusing to land on the boulders of certainty, not wanting to fully embrace its autonomy in order to cease the pattern.

I want the patterns to cease, desperately (maybe that's the problem) but find myself impelled by conditioning in very inopportune moments. Repeatedly. (That is my pattern.) Little by little I erase these patterns; sometimes they drop away entirely for longer and longer stretches of time. I know that this is the nature of the evolution from a state to a trait, but DAMN, it's hard to keep going, pushing forward, when it feels like a constant push.

I mathematically quantified my level of subjective resistance to freedom. At the moment, I have a score of -11. Any time this score is a negative number, I am probably going to feel lethargic, drug down, entropic, dismal or despairing -- in these cases, I am running on credit, taking from resources gained in the past or borrowing against resources to be acquired in the future. In other words, I am not energetically making a profit -- my efforts seem to outweigh their fruits.

Ignorance. Can I really claim it as the affliction from which I suffer anymore? No, I am more wrestling with attachment (as in clinging)/ aversion) and anger these days. Part of me wants to say that I wish it was ignorance, though that isn't actually true -- despite the common saying, ignorance isn't bliss. If I know then I also know there is a way out and more or less how to get there. If I don't know, then I don't know there is a way out, much less how to get there. If I didn't know, I would be stuck, not realizing that my feet even could go anywhere else, but knowing and walking are two different things.

Perhaps I am ignorant about how to not be ignorant. Part of ignorant is "ignore," and that is definitely one of my afflictions. Not too many things, but certain things I have a strong propencity to want to ignore. Or even if I don't ignore them, I have a way of not looking at them directly. I still feel this internal resistance to particular parts of reality. I think it is habitual bracing because these are topics I used to have very negative reactions to thinking about. Just thinking about them was constrictive, stifling. I think I am afraid that I will still react that way, or the bracing is just automatic, a habit.

Fine. Yeah. I have all the afflictions. I'm still stuck, inside this head. Periodically. This is one of those periods -- has been for a bit now. I know I'll shake it off again, that this is just part of the state/trait process, but damn -- I had it for quite some time that last time.

Well, I guess a big uninterrupted dose of emptiness will do that to someone. (I have practice not shying away from stuff like that, thus little resistance once my eyes adjust their focus.) I await my next view of it, working on developing patience as I go.

You know, I have persistence -- I just wish I had efficiency, too. The two together would be… well, not a -11.

Bleh! Conditioning. Just because I can easily see where the pattern came from doesn't mean I can change it instantaneously. It changes, but sloooooooowly like an iceberg. Waiting for me to get my shit together is like watching water freeze.

Sigh. Well, at least I'm not screaming anymore.

Ferocity

When you look at the dynamics of the system of control, do you feel angry? Frustrated? Afraid? Do you value freedom and liberation? You mention wanting to change the system and are wondering if you can let go of anger and still have the drive to do that -- would you be willing to hear some thoughts from someone who has also wondered the same thing myself?

I have experienced times when I thought that it would be "easier" if I believed in blame, but I truly don't anymore. You, who have known me for a long time, probably have little difficulty in imagining me as someone with a lot of anger at the system -- that anger (i.e. at the whole system, as opposed to any particular person or people) was the source of the rage I experienced for a long time. I eventually got past it because I came to see it as just participating in the very thing that I wanted to change, i.e. the system. This came about initially as an intellectual understanding -- in other words, I was "out debated" by someone whose paradigm was, actually, more all-encompassing and wise than the one I began with. Then, the internal self-transformative work to REALLY transcend the anger / blame structures within myself, to dismantle all that conditioning. This is difficult for anyone (though not impossible for anyone) but for me it was... well, ego-shattering. So much of my self-concept and identity was wrapped up in She Who Is Righteously Angry that it required more or less letting go of all ideas of myself. (Ahh, emptiness....)

The thing is, someone who blames the system, is angry at the system or rebels against the system is still being controlled by the system -- to me, freedom comes from not participating in the system, for saying "no thank you" when faced with its illusory paradigms of control. SO MUCH of the control people experience comes from internal sources -- they are copies of old, external sources that are outdated and no longer exist as a "punishing entity" in the now. Free will only exists in the now, and until one is living there (rather than being controlled by the past / conditioning or fantasizing / fearing the future) there is no real place in which to make choices.

Some thoughts on anger....

We are conditioned to believe that anger is inevitable, that it is an inherent part of the human psyche, that it is "hard wired" into us. As someone with more experience with anger than with any other emotion, I no longer believe this. There is a ferocity with which an organism will fight for its life in a classic fight or flight situation. This occurs at a very primitive level of the brain in a place more basic than emotion. Add a level of complexity and you have a limbic system, and thus an emotional state that produces and is produced by a particular set of neurochemicals and receptors. Add another layer of complexity and you have a neo-cortex which tells a story about these chemicals and makes sense of its reality by labeling this state "anger."

To me, what we have in modern times is a particular belief structure about this state of life-affirming ferocity that has been twisted through our paradigm of anger, violence and the debilitating belief that these states are necessary / inevitable. There can be ferocious anger, but there can also be ferocious love -- I find the latter much more life-affirming and energizing. It gives me clarity, whereas anger always clouded my judgment. It gives me tremendous energy and motivation, whereas anger always quickly wore me out and produced few positive results. It gives me compassion for and unity with all beings in the system, whereas anger demanded an object to be pointed at. It gives me freedom, whereas anger only gave me another chain to attach my soul to the system.

The Tibetans / Buddhists have only three things that are considered poisonous to humanity -- only three little things that keep any / all of us living in a samsaric conditioned state. Those three things are ignorance, attachment and anger. (The root cause is ignorance, which leads to attachment, which leads to anger.) Now that I am living in my body, I've noted (consistently, every time, for more than a year) how SICK I feel every time I've reacted with anger. I immediately have a headache, my neck hurts, and I frequently hurt myself because I use my body in ways that it does not want to be used. It *is* toxic -- I feel like I've been poisoned every time I use it.

I don't (nor have I for several years) see anger as an emotion unto itself -- it is pretty much always a cover for something else. Anger gives a chemical / psychological sensation of protection, of taking fear, vulnerability, shame, anxiety, etc., and exploding it outward. However, this to me is not fearlessness -- fearlessness is feeling the fear and moving forward anyway, WITH the fear, not hiding behind anger. It takes more bravery to let go of anger, to let go of the illusion of blame and extrinsic control structures. Anger DEMANDS that we believe that others control us; it DEMANDS an object, thus creating duality, paradox, conflict, violence.

In our culture, we are given exactly two choices when faced with circumstances that do not lead to our happiness -- we can blame ourselves or blame others. This comes from a belief in the two most violent words I know -- should and deserve. Any time anger is happening, it is fueled by these concepts. Erasing these concepts erases a whole lot of anger and creates a rather interesting and liberating paradigm shift. To me, compassion / empathy (for self and/or others) is the antidote to blame – it transcends anger and replaces it with love.

I view anger as the opposite of happiness -- it is possible to be sad and happy at the same time, to be grieving and happy at the same time, to be melancholy and happy at the same time, to be tense, relaxed, ambiguous or befuddled and happy at the same time, but I've NEVER been angry and happy at the same time. The only "happiness" in anger is a toxic sort of drunkenness at being able to coerce or control another person with one's anger, of forcing one's will onto another and thus giving the illusion of power or invulnerability. Oh wait... hey... wasn't that the very thing I was angry about? (And thus the cycle starts again…..)

Seeing this experience manifest in myself, surely I can find compassion within myself for others who have done likewise..... if / when I find compassion for myself.

To me, anger is just the crack cocaine that keeps people addicted to samsara. Sometimes the anger is directed outward (anger, rage, violence) and sometimes it is turned inward (shame, depression, guilt) but it is the same toxic substance. I do not believe it is necessary or inevitable -- just habituated.

Despite what I thought while I was still addicted, smoking didn't really "fuel" my intellectual process -- in fact, it took away vital energy from my body and brain and replaced it with toxins that, in the long run, wore down my system and de-energized my mind. In the same way, anger doesn't "fuel" anything that will lead to changing a system that is based on and fueled by the same paradigms that produce and support anger -- that is like believing that war will lead to peace.... in fact, exactly so. (If we could just kill all of those people who are killing all of those people..... oh wait, now we ARE those people.) Forcing people to stop forcing people…. Well, you see the circular nature of this.

Don't get me wrong -- though I have these views of anger, I still value its presence. To me, anger is the big warning bell that goes off and says THERE IS SOMETHING GOING ON THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED! NOW! This is valuable, but the alarm is not the fire. If I feel anger today I ask -- what needs of mine aren't being addressed? What "should" thinking am I engaging in? For me, generally, this usually comes up as mild irritation -- that is about as much anger as I can tolerate in my diet. Of course, if I ignored it, didn't address it, pushed it aside, suppressed it, or didn't directly deal with it, then it would and will explode. Because it is SO IMPORTANT to me for this not to happen (for about a million reasons) I pay attention -- close attention -- to my anger. It rarely, rarely comes up anymore, but that is only because I attenuate and honor my emotions so diligently these days, while at the same time being unattached to them -- this allows greater flow and choice, more freedom about the quality and flavor of my days and actions.

So, that's my short essay on anger and why one need not cling to it in order to change the system that is not meeting one's needs. In fact, that system is relying upon anger as The Final Reaction to the realization of controls, thus it is designed to suck you right back into it just when you thought you were getting free. Nope, I prefer to be a conscientious objector -- when offered anger, I just say no -- non servium -- I will not participate. I am aware that I have free will, that my freedom is within me -- I don't believe in the dichotomous thinking that is required to embrace anger -- I refuse to give over that much power to some extrinsic source.

So there is my drive -- ferocious love.... you should see me when I roar.

The Emptiness of Should

I have (finally, mostly) learned to let go of should entirely -- it was hard, hard, hard. However, it is the cause of so many unnecessary unhappy states of mind, so it was/is worth it to me. (It is likewise the cause of all anger, whether directed outward or inward.) When I note resistance in myself to, say, something that I know would benefit me, I stop and ask -- Do I believe I should do this? If the answer is yes, then I just started happily giving myself permission NOT to do it. I took a break from all "should" activities for a while. (This was one of the immediate post-emptiness effects.) I "erased" all pictures of what I should be doing, where my life should be going, what I should eat, what I should do to clean the house -- all of it. I turned my expectations into a blank state to be filled with choices rather than shoulds. (Here is a blog I wrote about it when I did this as an NVC exercise: http://fyshmomnvc.blogspot.com/2007/03/translation-should.html )

This clearning (ok, I own the word) was incredibly helpful -- I felt such a release of pressure. Not only that, but I felt so much more fulfilled in my days -- once the expectations of what I should be doing were removed, there could be no disappointment. (Disappointment arises from expectation.) There came a point where I could say -- you know, the days when I do such and such, I feel happy, free, liberated. On the days where I don't do such and such I feel heavy, oppressed, unjoyous. I could look at this as an observation without evaluating one state as "good" or "bad" and then make conscious, should-less choices from that information.

I also gave myself the freedom to Just Do whatever I feel like doing, to pick a thing and DO it -- not think about it, not plan to do it later, but just DO IT. If I have the urge to dance, I dance. If I have the urge to fold laundry, I fold laundry. If I have the urge to write, I write. I have "free times" scheduled to just do whatever comes to me. I look forward to these times every week, and now that I have the freedom to do whatever I feel like doing, I am amazed at how much and how joyously I do things. For the first few weeks, I did very little -- I think I was trying to make sure I wasn't "expecting" myself to do particular things, that I really had let go of should. But as I learned to trust this, to trust that I didn't have should motivations, that my autonomy was really being respected, then I was able to exercise my free will a lot more freely and actively.

I've also found it INCREDIBLY helpful when I note resistance to stop, right then and there, and ask myself what it's about. How do I feel? Where do I feel it? Is my chest tight? My stomach knotted? Does my throat feel closed? Am I feeling... vulnerable? Fear? Irritation? Looking IN my body helps tremendously -- the body often feels things that the mind can ignore. Once I can find the feeling (usually "under" the resistance) then I ask -- what need of mine is causing this emotion? What am I needing/wanting that this situation doesn't fulfill?

Whatever comes up, I empathize with (rather than saying "That's stupid" or "There's no reason to feel that way" or whatever other unhelpful / conditioned thing I could think to say.) I talk to myself in my head the way I would talk to someone else, asking "Are you feeling constricted? Do you need more freedom?" or whatever it is. I often experience an incredible mental / physical sensation of release from this -- sometimes these are things I've probably felt for thirty years (or more) without anyone, including myself, ever stopping to understand the state without judging it.

In a sense, it is similar to Transactional Analysis, though instead of "analyzing" I'm empathizing. It is *so* much more effective, in my experience, and leads to much greater clarity, understanding and release from tension.

One other thing -- I've found it incredibly beneficial to bring up emotions in meditative states, to just sit and feel how emotions feel. I look in my head, at my cognitive story lines, the pictures in my head, the words associated with the feeling, the sensations in my body, etc.. I practice bringing up emotional states, observing them, then letting them go. This helps me to identify emotions when they come up so that I know what is going on inside of me. It also gives me practice in letting go of constrictive and/or explosive emotional states when they arise, in that I have practice and know that the state doesn't have to consume me or take over my entire mind, thus I have more free will / conscious choice even in the midst of strong emotions.

I have one other question for you -- how/where are you in experiencing compassion? I ask because that (compassion) has been the whole key to this liberation thing -- I totally understand now why Great Compassion is a prerequisite for Emptiness -- the latter without the former just leads to meaninglessness and despair (thus the Existentialists) where as compassion WITH emptiness leads to great expansiveness, freedom and bliss. Compassion, for self and other (though of course in the end these are no longer separate categories) was integral to liberating from conditioning for me (and for lots of folks on liberation paths throughout the ages).

By compassion I don't mean an intellectual understanding of the benefit of compassion (though that's important too) but also a heart-felt, heart-opening outpouring of compassion for.... well, everything, including the self (which is the most difficult for many people in our culture). I ask because empathy is really just an "actionable" form of compassion, a technique that engenders compassion, a way of using language that creates a paradigm shift into compassion. (I would define compassion as a combination of understanding and acceptance that eventually leads to love.) Having copious amounts of compassion makes everything else easier to transform -- it becomes the effortless energy always available that fuels the process of transformation.

Ritual: Compassion & Nonattachment

Below is the excerpt I mentioned regarding the chanting / movement / prayer / ritual work that I did the other day. Just so the references make sense, I was working in a room filled with an art display by abused, neglected and/or orphaned children. The art is part of their therapy with each piece describing the emotional state they were experiencing while making it. There was also some writing by the kids as it pertained to their art hanging on the walls.

It was a healing ceremony, primarily focused on the Medicine Buddha. I chanted and danced A LOT -- it was actually rather physically taxing, especially since it had turned hot that day but the air conditioning was not yet on in the space. However, as soon as I was in "in the zone," I was much more focused on the work I was doing and keeping the flow of rhythm steady. (I created my own rhythms with instruments on my ankles.) I have no idea how long it lasted -- maybe a bit over an hour. Anyway, below is the description.

****

I feel so grateful to have had the opportunity to focus a practice like that in a space with such strong referents for suffering and love, regret and hope. I used the specific indicators present in the room as a focal point to invite Buddha heart/mind into those who have suffered childhood abuse and neglect, first through the indicators in the room, then to the city, and out out out etc., to include all children of that generation, then those older (back through history) and not yet born (up through the future) that they might not grasp onto the suffering and/or heal from the pieces that stick and continue to generate suffering. I then dissolved any perceived duality to include all of those who have ever abused (thus many of the same beings/soul matrices) that they might open their hearts to self-forgiveness and unconditional love, acceptance, healing and empathy. Then, I did what I could to cut the ties of karma between the illusory dichotomies of "victim" and "abuser." I took the suffering from all of these interactions from beginningless time until all beings enter Nirvana and moved it through me, feeling and experiencing that suffering as my own, then transforming that into Buddha mind/heart and sending it back upon the newly cut lines of karma to be received instead of the energy generated by the suffering, i.e. replacing suffering with bliss. I do not keep the suffering (thus, the importance of nonattachment) but rather move it through all channels of my bodies at once without grasping with the ego-structures of judgment or bias. When that moves through the heart, it touches and creates an outpouring of compassion, and thus bliss.

I am grateful to have the tool of nonattachment, to be able to open myself fully without grasping -- this work would be debilitating without that. Tonight I had The Mother Of All Flashbacks -- it was like a deck of cards shuffling by filled with images of the suffering I had experienced energetically the day before coming back to me in a wave. (It takes it a while to go out to the ends of the universe and circle back around, but since it generally does, I wasn't surprised to see it coming.) It was about five hours approaching, but once it was all the way there, it lasted less than five minutes in which I was able to sit with it, open, and let it move through me unhindered. (I had the sensation in all of my chakras of a very fast train or a comet blasting through space.) As it moved through, I consciously opened my hands of all ego-attachment to my own participation in the dynamics of trauma and/or abuse, thus as I was cleansing the karma of all who have participated in this type of suffering, at the end, as it flushed through, I sent my own right along with it as I emptied. I was very glad to have had similar experiences, and thus tools, to accept that much at once without it knocking me over -- when I remember to be empty the wind has no effect.

******

I'm a bit stiff today, perhaps from the above ceremony, or maybe from all the yard work I did afterward. It was very moving, very fulfilling. Oh -- that's one more thing -- I actually started and worked on the ritual for three days before, so this is a description of the completion or culmination of the ritual. Though I had experienced some feelings of mild anxiety or vulnerability prior to doing this work (in a somewhat pubic place!!!) when I was actually there in the space working, I forgot completely about any of that. One thing I did learn was that, when it's hot, I barely have enough breath to dance and chant for a long time, so that's something to practice / consider for the future. (This is usually not an issue, so I'm pretty sure it was the result of the heat.) I noted before hand a conditioned resistance to doing something like this where anyone MIGHT hear/see me, but that didn't change my ability or certainty about doing it -- I think in the future I will experience less resistance about doing something like this again.

Thanks for your support and encouragement -- it helps meet my needs for safety and acceptance, and thus clears the way for meeting my need for authenticity.

Two Weeks: An Historical Perspective

Previously, you asked if I had noticed anything different in my day to day life post-realization. That was two weeks ago -- I had a few answers then, but now I have more.

It's weird… whenever I think back to The Event, it seems like it was two weeks ago. This has been true since two days afterward and remains true to this day…. which is some time longer than two weeks ago. How long will this perception last? How long have you felt this way? Oh, about two weeks. (six years later) How long has it been? Hmm… about two weeks.

There's one -- my time sense for increments of time longer than a day has gotten…. even more loosely organized than before. On the other hands, I'm starting to be aware of the movement of natural (for lack of a more descriptive descriptor) time segments, such as season changes, moon cycles, etc.. And cultural cycles / changes / evolutions, infinitely branching lines of karma moving in multiple directions through time -- I am acutely aware of my place in the time/space continuum (as Bill would say) while on the other hands I feel….. like I'm standing in a room in the center / outside of it not moving at all. I experience Now whenever I look for it.

It is funny -- we did an exercise in my NVC study group this weekend where, at random intervals (I do so enjoy those) we were asked to stop, focus, and note our feelings. Every time I stopped, I immediately dropped into a meditative state as soon as my eyes hit the carpet. I've meditated there lots (though in brief intervals) thus my eyes are entrained to the visual environment as a signifier of meditation and respond immediately. There is no prelude, no "getting there," no taking a few moments to clear my mind, but rather BOOM! just there. All the time. (Even with different carpet.) I've easily dropped into a meditative state for quite some time, but the quality of that state has changed -- now, I start by experiencing emptiness -- it's always Right There. (I am looking forward to more meditation, and perhaps more reports of such.) Which, even after thirty years of meditation is still somewhat of a surprise.

So, every time I was asked my feelings it was the same ~ a sequence that started with empty…. and I could have stopped there, but for the sake of continuing to note something for the exercise / use other words that might signify what I was experiencing for those to whom I was speaking, I went on -- expansive, open, relaxed, amused/joyful. (Those last two were somewhat interchangeable -- sometimes my joy sprang from my amusement; sometimes my amusement sprang from my joy.) This state (and my description of it) didn't change one bit from time to time -- it is just what is there now when I go looking. And if I want I can see more -- see it more clearly than I ever have -- but it is the "other side" of that default state. So that's different.

I'm also viewing Samsara differently now, sort of like a game. I've started perceiving "life's little obstacles" as tests, like in school. When I was in school, I liked studying hard, getting A's, acing tests. This was not because I wanted praise or recognition, but because -- damn! it was fun! I liked the challenge, I liked pushing forward, I liked reading all those books, writing all those papers, learning all that stuff. It felt joyous, life-affirming, expansive. I didn't think that school was "out to get me" for testing me -- it was its JOB -- that's what I paid it to do and why I was there.

So, that's how I see life now. (At least when I don't have my head totally stuck up in it…. which still happens sometimes.) I am sometimes choosing to view events as though they are tests and ask myself -- IF I were being tested, what actions would I like to put down as my choice? Hmm…..

This is leading to more fearlessness (not less fear -- not that there isn't that too, but I'm distinguishing between the two conditions) in many situations. Thus, I'm not reacting as much to my fear / impulsive hesitation -- I note it, but I know that I don't have to react to it. I can think about it, make a choice. If this were a test, what would I want to do? How/who do I want to be? She who is authentic despite anxiety? Or she who reads her lines from the cultural script even though it isn't what she wants to do/say? Do I want to strap on the goat hooves and dance? Or sulk in the corner wishing I "could"?

(This can also been seen to be part of my NVC practice, in that, as part of that, I had come to the realization a few months ago that I had strong needs for safety and acceptance. Underlying that was an unmet need for authenticity, but the other two needed to be met first before that one would feel safe enough even attempting to have itself met. After a few months of meeting the first two needs more consistently, the other need is now wanting to have itself met and feeling safe enough to do it.)

This is ironic to me -- only when I can see the emptiness of myself am I then able to fully BE myself. It is that whole free will thing -- I had to first find the space within which choice was possible before I could freely make conscious choices and not just repeatedly engage in culturally conditioned samsaric reactionary impulses. (By the way, this process is just like quitting other addictions -- it's just that this time the addiction is what I used to call reality. Hi, my name is Fyshmom and I'm addicted to Samsara….)

On that note, I have also been noting other changes, a slowing down in time almost, pauses between events that I would have used to label simultaneous. Part of this is awareness, thus awareness of those moments, awareness of now when I am in those moments. This leads to a lessening of the suffering of day to day life in that, in that pause, I am aware that I have the ability to make a conscious choice to suffer or not. An event arises; normally (though that word has lost a lot of meaning in the past ((haha)) two weeks) I would react with some sort of suffering. (Disappointment, irritation, anxiety, or any host of constricting emotional ((though I'm not sure if that is even the most accurate terminology anymore)) states.) Now, instead of reacting, it's like a little voice pops up and says "thisisoneofthosethingsthatoftenleadstosuffering
(inhale)
andyouknowifyoufollowthethinkingthroughallthe
wayyou'llseethatyoudon'thavetosuffer
(inhale)
soI'mheretoremindyouthatyoucanavoidthestateall
togetherandtrustintheemptinessofit!"

When I am aware of that moment, I often (though not always) choose not to suffer. (Often this means that I quickly focus simultaneously on not releasing the neurochemicals associated with that particular state of suffering and relax / not receive any of those chemicals that might already be on their way. By consciously holding that for a moment, it allows the moment to pass without attachment to the suffering, allowing it to thus be a moment without suffering. (All moments have the potential for suffering; all moments have the potential for bliss.) Which generally leads to the following moments being ones without suffering, and those after that, thus more moments without suffering. Etc.) There is a piece of time afterward, that if I chose, I could mentally recreate the event and the conditioned neuro/psychological components of the experience and go ahead and suffer even though I avoided it in "real time," but as of yet I have not been motivated to experiment trying this out in practice. I know I could, but why? That's just the sort of pattern I'm trying to transcend.

Hmm… what else…..

This is still Samsara -- sometimes I get some on me -- but generally it's much easier now to shake it off. Some things are stickier than others for me, but even the stickiest ones are more easily shaken loose now. I try to remember to shake it everyday and if it doesn't come off, keep shaking. Reconnecting with the emptiness over and over again helps -- (re)creating that state as often as possible is leading to the higher likelihood of it becoming a trait. (Though suffering is habit forming, I can learn new habits.)

I continue experimenting with focal length and visual perceptions of reality, and have combined this with other practices for some, well, rather strikingly interesting results. This is also coinciding with work dealing with embodiment, in theory and practice. Maybe I'll have more to say about that in two weeks. :<)

Be well,

fMom

EmBodyMeant

That is really interesting! When I first started examining my relationship to and within my body, I was rather shocked at how "disembodied" I was, and how I resisted allowing my consciousness to inhabit my body. At first I was unsure how much of this was trauma based, meaning it is common for people who have had experienced extreme pain in their bodies as youngsters to "disassociate" from them, to not feel them. (Freud's cases of "hysteria" in his formative work were on women who had numbness in parts of their bodies from no discernable physical cause. He based a lot of his work on their "fantasies," which were probably recollections of physical and sexual abuse. He realized this at first, i.e. that they were recalling actual situations that had happened, but because of the times / culture, he later chose to believe that they were fantasies of sexuality, thus his psycho-sexual model.)

After a lot of self-work and more examination of the culture, while the trauma might have had something to do with it, I believe now that the disembodiment is more of a cultural issue. From at least Victorian times, people have been conditioned to disassociate from their bodies, not to notice them, to ascribe the sensations of the body as weak or bad. Thus, eventually, we stop feeling them...and eventually stop moving them much. Just think about how many times children are told to "Hold still!" Moving the body causes sensations in the body. Eventually, they listen, and then you have a largely sedentary culture. In the end, I think that even these attitudes come from a need for safety and fears of pain -- the body can experience incredible levels of pain, and thus, over the centuries, we learned to adapt our brains to "tune out" the body and walk around like sentient pumpkins on stalks.

I noted a while back how "two dimensional" I felt, as though I only have a front and a back, like a piece of paper. It wasn't until I started receiving deep bodywork that I realized I have SIDES, that I am 3D. This realization on a sensate level gives me a totally different perspective on three dimensional space in that I *feel* the space now that I occupy.

Can I feel my fingertips? From inside? Can I feel my gall bladder? Where is it? Can I focus my consciousness on the base of my spine and then slowly move it upward? WHERE do I feel my feelings? How does my body respond when I have a neurochemical surge that I label "anger"?

This is largely how I became able to manipulate my neurochemistry, i.e. I focused my consciousness on the sensations that particular chemical washes produced in my body so that I was able to *feel* the chemical component of an emotional state well before the discursive part of my brain started to tell a story to explain it. In the past, the story was the emotion whereas now I experience an emotion as the chemical, the reception of the chemical, the sensations in the body, the body's conditioned impulse, the mind's conditioned impulse (which is often to create the story), and, if I'm really on top of things, my chosen response to all of those components. This body-centered awareness of emotions gives those emotions a totally different flavor and allows them to have vastly different effects or outcomes on my life. (I am not my emotions -- my emotions are empty, as am I. It is all just components and pieces loosely held together in patterns, largely out of habit.)

One of the aspects of Tibetan Buddhism I've found beneficial is the idea of embodiment, that in meditation, rather than calling upon some outside deity to "worship," one conjures that deity, dissolves their own self-limiting ego, and becomes one with the deity / invites the deity to embody within them. What would Vajra Yogini do if she was here in my livingroom? Hmm.... let's find out -- we have the technology! (Note: This was one of my two Tibetan initiations. It has been vastly helpful.) Oh -- she'd dance around a lot, be blissfully happy, have no fear, feel compassion for all beings and cut all attachments. Am I willing to give up myself to be that? To let go of all ideas of Who I Am and instead be an empty vessel to be filled with divinity? For the good of all sentient beings? Oh, wait... I signed that contract quite some time ago. (I discussed the Bodhisattva vows with R. *extensively* before I agreed, or would allow him to agree... though he already had.... as had I more than likely.....but I digress.....) And, since I'm already committed, I may as well relax and go with it......

Ah, the body -- it is.... impermanent but oh so fun. It is what it is and is there whether we attune to it or not -- it just has a lot more potential for joyous experience when it is paid attention to. I sometimes see my body as a small, somewhat frightened creature which has been given to me to take care of. It does not live long enough to fully understand or comprehend its surroundings and on some level it realizes at all times the potential dangers to it, its vulnerability, the inevitability of its extinction individually and as a species. It is like the primitive parts of humanity, the simple life and death reality of living in this plane of existence.

I used to see it as this weak, largely pointless THING I was stuck inside of -- this restrictive meat suit that I couldn't wait to get out of -- but now I view it with compassion and caring. Yes, it *is* weak compared to the universe, but what of my strength if I am unable to gently hold it and care for it? Do I sneer at its fear? Or comfort and hold it, letting it know that I'll be with it through all things, that it will not be abandoned, that when it dies I will hold its hand through the process. Without my body I couldn't embody here, at least not in the way I have. Human rebirth is considered so precious because this is the place where all planes overlap, where samsara meets nirvana, where one can step through all existent realms. I realize now that the body is the perfect vehicle for this process, rather than a hindrance as I had thought before. (I have and have had through my life very strong memories of existence without a body, and comparatively having one is cumbersome and restrictive BUT it is also of short duration, thus I've chosen to enjoy it while it's here since it won't be for very long.) And, frankly, if I continue on this path with diligence (and I seem to have more of that now than ever before) there are ways to leave this plane of existence that don't even require dieing. (I explained that to my body, which is also where the ego-death fear resided, as a way to gently talk it into relaxing and letting go. Ego-extinction feels much like death, at least from my memories of having died in other lives. There is a moment of AAARRRGHH!! followed by a peace and bliss so profound that it causes involuntary laughter ((or the non-body equivalent)) at the fear one was experiencing just moments before. And, of course, with mind training and practice moving in and out of bardo states, even this transition can be done without fear, or at least with a significant lessening of it.)

Embodiment.... yeah. Right now mine is detoxing in quite an unexpected way. I've started to hydrate and all of a sudden I feel like *crap*! My cells are dumping waste products into my system at an unprecedented rate -- I've even had tarter build up fall off of my teeth totally out of the blue. I feel right now like I did when I was a smoker and had smoked three packs in one day, though of course I haven't smoked. In losing weight and drinking this much and having deep bodywork done and exercising.... well, it's all letting go and flushing out. Better out of my cells than in my cells, even though I couldn't feel it.

Speaking of which, this body is ready to get up and DO something with parts of it other than just its fingers, so off I go. Thank you so much for this dialog -- I like archiving it that way and building a sort of verbal narrative explanation for what is going on, where I've been, where I'm going, etc. It is very helpful to me and I appreciate you sharing information with me.

Be well,

Pain and Emptiness

Hmmm... that's a good question. Perhaps. It is possible that the strong trans-ego experiences I had during the intense parts of the pain "paved the way" for this realization. In looking back, ALL experiences paved the way for this realization, but maybe the pain issue was something that I needed to experience to get here -- Hmm.... good question.

When I was in that much pain, when all I could see were orange and yellow halos, I no longer identified with My Self, but rather had the experience of being all beings who had ever suffered. I was a man dieing on a battlefield thinking of his baby son; I was a raccoon terrified and confused on an interstate after having my hindquarters run over; I was a child hiding under a sink while soldiers broke in, pulled open the cabinet and shot me; I was a woman dieing alone in a forest somewhere after having fallen and sustained internal injuries; I was an old man with stomach cancer; etc., etc.. In the space of about an hour of screaming pain, I experienced it as millions of beings and could not, at any given time, told you which one of them I "really" was -- it just didn't matter. Some of the beings (many of them) were about to die -- others were not and would be enduring the pain for quite some time. I would have gone mad if I had tried to attach to any of them or to analyze the situation too much. Instead, I just let go, relaxed as much as possible, and just let the experience wash through me.

Was this experience a pre-requisite for experiencing emptiness? Maybe it was -- I didn't consider that before. It did give me a new perspective on identity and compassion, on what it means to suffer and the universality of that experience within samsara. I felt incredibly fortunate and grateful, even for the pain. Since then, I've also had a much more compassion-based relationship with my body and deep gratitude for what it can do, as well as a clearer understanding of karma and how it relates to / manifests in the body.

Searching4words

Mr. The Saw,


Quite true.

I've done the "expand until I and the universe are one" thing quite a bit -- I'd actually gotten to where I can walk around like that, feeling everything as the universe and/or as every being in it (i.e. the empty side or with form). The neural net and the universe are the same map -- I see very little distinction between my mind and the cosmos, in either a real or symbolic way.

If that is ego expansion / integration, what I've experienced now is ego annihilation. Not in a purely "destructive" way (though parts of it were pretty vivid in this sense -- I was grateful for the Chod practice / initiation I'd taken) but in the realization that I don't exist and never have -- there is no "I" anywhere. Everything I think, am, etc., doesn't exist, at least not in any absolute sense.

Of course that also means that everything is empty, including suffering -- if I am empty and so is suffering, then who or what is suffering? Where is this suffering and who is experiencing it? Poof -- all gone.... and of course so is everything else. Ahh, grasshopper -- that is the side of renunciation they don't mention until you find yourself doing it. Do you really want to transcend suffering? Really really? Are you willing to let go of it? Of everything? Do you really renounce it? Everything that causes it? Every thing?

The Tibetan phrase is "Form is emptiness and emptiness is form." That pretty much sums it up, now that I'm here. It is the recognition on more than a cognitive level that nothing exists from its own side, that nothing is anything without any and everything else. Every thought I have is a construct; every THING anywhere is a construct that doesn't exist as anything more than a temporary pattern that disintegrates as soon as I touch it. It is quite liberating, but not how I expected it to be. By classic definition, I'm enlightened now. (The Great Compassion is part one; emptiness is part two. Put them together in balance and voila -- whatever this is.) I am finding it a process more than an event, largely, I think, because of my subjective reference as a finite physically embodied being who thinks of "instant" as being a few seconds rather than a few days or weeks or however long I'm in this totally blank state.

Rob assures me there's more, but just as with all stages of this path, he won't tell me what comes next so as not to bias my view or "rush" me toward the next thing. This is enlightenment, in the classic sense, but in another sense it is just the prerequisite for all other stages of enlightenment. I had, several months back, passed through all the classic states that indicate enlightenment is inevitable, but now.... well, now I'm here.

It's weird -- if my entire culture hadn't been stripped away in these moments of clarity, I would be all kinds of bummed out right now -- I can see why they don't recommend that people practice Tantra on their own without a guru -- there are a lot of places where one could go careening off the path, wildly, violently, with no hope of climbing back onto it for quite some time. It is / has been a bus that goes really really fast, regardless of how securely one is ON the bus. Sometimes it's been a fun ride as I sit in the seat, secure, watching the scenery go by. Other times I've been hanging by a strap from my ankle being drug under the bus, bumping along painfully, running over myself again and again, until I finally climb back on or let go of the strap. Either way, the bus does not slow down.

I am likewise fortunate in that Rob agreed to / made himself into the Teacher I'd need for this ride -- I do not know what I would have done without him. He achieved this state almost a year ago... or rather got there again. He's been here off and on for the past seven years, but I had a lot of karmic / conditioned stuff to process through before the field would be clear enough to clear it ALL the way off, bulldozer style.

Now I'm clear. I'm empty. I have no..... nothing. No stories, no identity, no dreams, no goals, no agenda, no bias, no dichotomies, no rights/wrongs, no attachments, no.... nothing. Rob asks how I feel -- feel? I feel different chemical components flowing through my neurochemistry. I could tell twenty different stories about how I "feel" at any given moment, creating a story to believe in to give my reality weight instead of "quotation marks." How do I feel? Vaguely.

But oh -- it is such a relief. I've been on a strong limbic system ride for SO long, have pushed the levels of "self aware" to such proportions as to have no peace at all inside of myself -- for every experience I had I had seventeen perspectives attack each one and analyze, evaluate, judge, categorize, etc., etc.. Do I like this? Do I agree with it? Is this what I choose? Is this right? Extrapolate to simultaneously doing this with twenty different minute tiny thought patterns at once ALL THE TIME for YEARS. Blah blah blah until I just couldn't take the din in my head anymore. I said enough. Silence. No more chatty chatty. No more bias.

And there was none. It was..... well, whatever it is that I still haven't quite developed words to describe. I'm just used to being able to describe some pretty abstract states, and I think I'll be able to describe this one, too... and perhaps I have, at least the first part of it -- just not in conventional language. Hmm... if you read that blog, tell me what you think.

Thanks for sharing and for being one of those highly nonbiased people to start with -- I feel comfortable and accepted by you whoever I end up becoming. Thanks for being witness to all the heads I've worn and for seeming to find me entertaining even though those heads continue to come off and/or change.

Be well and stuff,

fMom

Some thoughts on the body:

Dear Ms. P-------.

Though it is made of form and therefore impermanent, it is still a temple, a place for expressing gratitude for human (re)birth. Thus, even though a temple is made of impermanent materials, would one be any less respectful or polite when walking in its hallowed corridors? I mean, when I go into a temple, even somebody else's, I'm polite and reverential, yet I've largely treated my own like it was made out of cowdung and covered in leaves ~ a sacred structure, yet somehow warranting disgust and guilty avoidance.

These are my cultural referents for "body," no wonder I trained myselves not to be in it.

I have realized that just because I feel a boot on my neck doesn't mean that somebody else is standing on my throat. It is dichotomous nature to want to give that boot a name, to attach a head, a will, an intention. But there isn't any -- it's just a boot; that boot is powered by habit. That boot is empty.

Damn. I felt silly there for a moment when I realized that. (And here I was feminist, caught flailing about dramatically on the path wearing a skirt, no less, holding this empty boot on my throat and thrashing about dramatically. The audience knew the whole time that the boot was empty, but I did not. Thus that uncomfortable moment when I "wake up" and realize, oh, none of this is happening. So…. how do I get up and avoid embarrassment at this point? Oh -- I can't. ((Though once your friends have seen you tearing around your own house stinking drunk mostly asleep in a dream state destroying everything, wielding a metal closet hanger bar around at an invisible intruder, screaming, throwing ink, you figure -- yep -- those friends would probably tolerate seeing you in just about any state. Thus, you write to them when you realize you've experienced Wisdom Realizing Emptiness and have no idea who you are when that is the case.

(ring! ring!) Hello? I'm god -- and I don't exist! hahaha! Isn't that funny?

I mean, if I crash around my house randomly now putting on hats and wearing fingerpuppets on my hands, you'll probably just say "At least she's not wielding knives," and go with it. You've seen some unique things all these years, being my friend, so it's not like more unique things would come as a surprise to you. I mean, me not existing isn't going to effect our relationship.

It's weird, taking off cultural referents -- I want to make sure my friends won't laugh at me when I realize I don't exist. (Oh, silly -- they're saying -- we've known all along that you didn't exist -- we were just watching you thrash around with that empty boot on your throat. Nobody wanted to go near you, thrashing like that. I mean, think about it -- do *you* want to be the one to tell me when I'm thrashing like that that none of it is real? 'Course not, 'cuz projection is the whole name of the game in the "Little Drama Of The Boot," thus any head I see might be mistaken for the Head at the End of the Boot. Nope -- nobody with any sense would sign up to be the head I saw over the boot for very long. Seriously -- as much fun as I am to visit, I don't know many who'd'a'wanted to live with me for these past years as I "de-Samsarasized."

I am glad to have a friend who isn't shocked when I walk outside of my parenthesis, who is willing to have fun erasing the culture. We are some funny characters in some funny, funny story full of intergrammatical personshifting -- I liked going to the lighthouse with you and taking along your eye. You are the kind of friend one writes to with a fountainpen, metaphorically,

I feel comfortable knowing you ~ I feel very free with my punctuation. Relaxed. Which is what I'm finding it's all about. Relax it and move it all the time, grossly and minutely. The body is motion ~ it is when it holds still in time that it gets stuck there overmuch. The gross (See, maybe this is where it happened, or at least expresses it. By "gross" I mean "heavy enough to have weight, as in, matter," but what my culture translates is "ooooh, icky".) expresses fully the …. nonform, the flow, the movement itself instead of what it moves, the space…. if the gross relaxes enough to let it continue its already effortless flow through the universe -- now the consciousness is just aware that it is doing so, and thus relaxes and lets it, effortlessly, part of instead of thrashing about against, embodied, impermanent and eternal intertwined, beautiful, divine. I mean, this body is really neat once I actually climb fully into it and start feeling around a bit.

There is a cultural referent, a mirrored posture that is effected by breast carriage, which is largely effected by our attitudes about carrying them around. I sometimes experience people as a manifestation of their posture -- the way we arrange these things largely expresses our cellular level beliefs about them. (How do you feel about your gross matter?) I understand and imply the shoes when I note the pelvic carry. (No wonder women have more csections in this culture -- look at what their shoes and ergonomic lifestyle does to their pelvic tilt -- it's a wonder they can walk, much less have babies.) How women hold their bodies, to me, tells me what they believe about areas of the body that people in this culture associate with sexuality, and thus what they believe about their own sexuality. Are they accepting? Open? Supportive? Joyous? Energized? Strong? Confident? Engaged? Or closed, distorted, pained, constricted, cramped, ashamed?

Once upon a time there was a boot, and perhaps, once upon a time, that boot more often than not had a foot in it, could actually force tyranny and influence upon someone else's free will. But now, the boot is largely empty… filled, mostly, with habit. (Habit is strong, but finitely so. Free will, once applied, is infinitely stronger.)

Me'amiche said once that the health of a society could be largely predicted by assessing the posture of the women in it. I am thinking that as we learn to stand up tall, straighten our spines, strengthen our cores, be *in* our bodies, driving around these temples consciously, then we'll have ourselves a party. Reclaim the boot from my neck, put it on my foot and dance. With fingerpuppets. (And maybe eventually knives, but only when I'm awake…. and not drunk.)

Maybe I could call it "Particle Feminism." -- : -- I'm no longer a wave.

Be well,

fMom

Yo, SasquactchyBoy ~ 'sup?

I'm....um.... I don't exist anymore. There. I've said it. Out of the closet quickly, so to speak. I've discovered my nonnormatism and embraced it. Metaphorically. Symbolically. Really. (Those things are the same thing and they all are empty.) See why I can't leave the house? I'm.... impulsive. For lent I detached from empatterned suffering, from Samsarically conditioned impulses. (I am happy to have a nonbiased life.) Now that my impulses are no longer Samsarically conditioned, the universal foot on my ass often kicks me and says "NOW!" as soon as I have one. As I don't exist, I feel it inappropriate to try to stop this.

My Self has disintegrated -- I am not my values, my feelings, my relationships, my past, my conditioning, my body, my patterns, my etcs.. I isn't anywhere -- it does not exist. This is.... unexpected, even though they told me what to expect. (Ego identity -- poof! gone.) I feel.... unknowable, alien, empty. I don't know who I am or who I'll be, only who I was, which no longer exists. There is only now -- the rest is potential. The past is not the present unless I recreate it to look alike. (To view samsara most believably, walk backward through life, hypnotized by the past or glancing fearfully at the future, and ignore or miss the now. Objects in mirror are emptier than they appear…..) Free will only exists in the now -- it is alive, dynamic. To cage it in stories is to take away its ability to act. Culture is about hiding free will, about enclosing it, caging it, shaming it -- whatever it takes to get it to not act, to not be itself. If it acts, all suffering ends. Now.

Free will is renunciation ~ I use my free will to no longer participate in samsara. It is my choice; I exercise it. And if I exercise it every day, I get to keep it.

But anyway, back to me -- I don't exist. It's disconcerting every time I remember, which is often. (Remember, I'm exercising!) I am a collection of intellectually rationalized parings of dichotomies -- the tension was the only thing holding me together. Once I relaxed and let go of all the conflict, I just sort of……. expanded. Disappeared. I have not yet found an end to the emptiness.

Doctrinally speaking, I'm enlightened now. (Not just because of / as indicated by this, but because this was the piece I was missing, or rather set aside while I worked on all the others.) It feels…. not at all even a smidgeon how I expected. That is part of the point -- it can't be expected because it is wholly new.

Beginningless time; karma. Let go of self; empty. Huh. That's…… new. Nothing. Wow. After all that build up and it's…. empty. Just like they said. Wow.

It is… open. Unconditioned. Nonbiased. Empty. Within this space can I enact freewill, can enact Now. No wonder my wheels would get stuck in the muck -- it is the nature of the muck, the nature of samsara. ( -- it's here to be sticky -- it's all it does -- it does it very well -- since beginingless time -- it's developed some pretty complex stories -- we're one of them -- ) Let go of the muck; let go of the stuck. I am the wheel, time, spinning. I let go of the wheel -- for suffering to be empty, I must be ~ would I be willing to give up my self to end suffering? I already have -- it had become unbearable.

That's another thing -- I didn't expect enlightenment to be the thing I squeezed into when pressed against a wall too tightly in samsara. I didn't know if you just pushed on those walls hard enough, they'd totally crumble -- poof! -- just like that. It's good to know, though -- it's a handy tool, that "popping outside of samsara when it gets too intensely samsaric" thing -- it's helped me many times, though I largely forgot soon afterward. If I couldn't do that, hell -- I'd'a'been crazy. This is one crazy head I'm wearing, let me tell'ya. I think everyhead is this crazy -- it's just that I've become aware of the myriad infintessimal refracted reflected parts of this head and can see them all spinning in slightly different realities, pretty much all the time. It's… dizzying at times, especially when I remember that me, this me who's talking, doesn't really exist is just a poof! thing that was/is for a moment and then blinks back out of existence.

It's just blinking, but that first (it's not even really the first but those in samsara aren't freely given this information so they don't know that) time it feels like extinction. And it is. It is in one sense, but then the blink completes. In anything that exists as form this is true -- it shares an unendable relationship with emptiness, with nothing. It is nondichotomous pairing, and when one can see that instead of paradox, well then one has on his steppin'outshoes, my friend. (taps; bows; whathaveyous;)

Anyway, I'm finding it challenging to translate this state in a verbal medium, though because I am me, I am trying. (I'm too weird for words, and I mean that in the Norsist of senses.) If I write post cards along the way, will you read them? I don't know where I'm headed on this wacky road trip, but I'm taking along your friend (or rather we're taking turns taking each other) and I'm not sure when we'll be back. I'm afraid if I don't start describing the scenery now it will be incomprehensible as the desert becomes more….. empty. (Oh the things that grow on the fringers of life where the niches are uniquely shaped…..)

Feel free to comment. Or not. I support the exercise of free will (use it or lose it) and trust in yours. I am currently holding rather still as mine expands and expands through empty space. In a sense, moving into this state is instantaneous; in another that instant has lasted more than a week now and shows no signs of ending. The place where I stand viewing them both as nondichotomous union is Now, moving, steadily, through time. I surf. I check out the waves. I remain unbiased.

Unbiased -- it washes through all the space where I used to be, erasing my values, my judgments, my evaluations, my dichotomous thinking, until I see the space where I used to be, empty, unconditioned, unbiased. It is empty and I am in it; I am in it and I am empty.

Postcards. No edges. (Having an empty time; glad you're here!) Paintbrush. Noodles.

I would paint you a picture but it would be empty -- can you draw that? Emptiness? I am wandering in emptiness…. not even wandering, just holding still watching it expand out toward everything and encompass it. (empty.full.empty.full.) Thank you yee holyhairyone -- your gentle acceptance and asymmetrical growl give me metaphoric comfort here, in the midst of nothing.

pease. with butter.

fMom

A World Without Paper

I live in a world without paper, without flat planes.... at least without planes which can be folded and tucked away in pockets that no one can find.

Hold out hand, grab space, tuck and fold just so.....

But no -- either I've forgotten the space-time origami or the paper here is just too thick.

Virtual paper. Happy zippy electron paper. Nobodybereadin'mydiary paper.

Here we go 'round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush....

All this space, all these secret places to write.... [sniffsniff] .... sort of reminds me of Home. Notime. Nospace. Emptiness. Shunyata.....

But of course this is Home, This is That -- it's just turned stuff side out. Stuff. Not-stuff. Two sides of the same coin .... or, more specifically, the union of an infinitely sided coin with the piggybank that can hold it.... though really the coin and the piggybank are the same thing.

Shhhh.....

Such a silly fear, that one could eat the other, as if the coin actually ceases to exist when it drops into the slot and disappears. What's at the bottom of the rabbit hole.....? What spins down there where the fractal comes to one singular

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?

Grow an eyestalk -- go see for yourself.