Lately, I haven’t had much use for this computer. Marina & I will watch a movie or an anime series, and then use it as an oversized MP3 player. Thus, letters don’t get written and e-mail becomes progressively less patient. Many of the tasks that are planted when I’m caught up in some attachment become untended seedlings when awareness stops cultivating them. This happens less & less often, but the garden of John’s life does look a bit haphazard to the critical eye. Unfinished projects & wildflowers scatter the scene. However, when stillness moves and a single new seed is introduced, the landscape of this experience changes dramatically. These are the only plants that will be enjoyed long-term, as they require no effort to maintain. Native plants, as it were. Slowly, season-by-season of now, we’ll experience what an un-affected John-life looks like.
Isn’t it funny how easy it is to be caught-up in random fantasy? Some experience leads to drama, building upon concepts & fed by fear, etc. (…etc., etc., etc…) Lately the dream unravels pretty quickly. It can only be built upon the fiction of “self”, which feels too odd & unreal to stick around for more than a few minutes. ...But those few minutes can lead to enormous noise! Physical changes spur mental concepts making a feedback loop into growing emotions & further physical tension and even more turbulence. No wonder it becomes so easy to catch!! As those sensations become evident, a simple return to presence pulls the plug on the whole cycle. Nowadays it’s a nearly unconscious shift. The experience of a physical body alone, which seeks relaxation & avoids tension, will use sensation as a wake-up call to awareness. Mind, only seemingly separate from body, can notice a different “feel” of “now” vs. “dream”. That is, when doing its thinky-thing & categorizing experience, or simply inventing experience outside of now. The mind is definitely a useful tool, but only when we give it a job it can handle. Planning out strategy for playing the game of Go? Yes. Memorizing medical patterns? Sure. Discovering the nature of self & non-duality? Umm… not so much.
"So?" I get the question almost weekly, “How are things going?”
What answer can I make? “Yes, they seem to be continuing to go.”
When there is no shattering of experience into sweet & sour, there is only this continued experience of… experience. In order to be polite, one has to invent a dualistic idea which cannot describe anything. It's what we all do. It's what society is based upon.
Like I’ve said before, to answer their actual unspoken question, “This body is becoming healthier & more relaxed, though changing with age. The mind is becoming more focused & capable of thinking. The experience of emotion is still a blend of physical sensation & however much mental attachment I pour into it. (However, the experience of quiet, unchanging bliss that is the nature of awareness is ALWAYS present… but I’m not labeling it as emotion here.)
In short, "I feel fantastic!" This tends to work best.
John’s Taiji Quan is improving, and my knowledge of its possibilities is also growing. (Relatively, of course, this makes it seem that my Taiji is getting steadily worse, which shows how silly mental judgments are.) Not teaching very often, though running some pretty poorly attended classes upon request. My silk coiling (twining up from the ground) has improved tremendously after Master Xiaoxing showed us how to move the hips correctly. The experience of coiling moving up & down the body like liquid fire is really worth developing; but the feeling of the hips & shoulders moving together is even more pleasant! The universe continues to place at my doorstep the prospect of learning to do an “internal” fajin. That is, to touch someone lightly on their body with any part of my own, and to make that person bounce away through a wave of energy that transmits through physical mass without obvious external movement (like a hydraulic pressurization). Just like you might see on a bad “kung fu flick”, it seems unreal. The fact is, though, that it does exist! I’ve been bounced around with a nearly invisible movement. It’s funny, this sort of “magical” martial power is the reason that I pursued the internal arts to begin with. They remained hidden for the first decade of practice, and only when I stopped caring about marital skill did they make their appearance. (This universe really does handle timing & synchronicity well, and has an awesome sense of humor!) At first, I showed it no interest at all. What would I want to throw people around for? And it kept coming back. And again. …And again. It even found me when I was in Costa Rica. Seriously, what’s it all about? Once I released my distaste & resistance to martial concepts, I noticed it consistently making appearances in John’s life. However, it wasn’t until a friend mentioned its possible uses in a clinic that my ears pricked up. The ability to send controlled waves of movement into an area of stagnation? Different than qigong & without wasteful needles? Hmmm, this sounds much more useful. So, perhaps this will be the next course of John’s life, or maybe it was just presented to dissolve aversions toward martial techniques. We’ll see how these ideas progress.
The experience of connecting with the land in Costa Rica changed life enormously. Now, I find myself spending more time in the garden than any other place. Planting, or sitting quietly, it’s one of the few expressions of sanity here in Babylon. Learning about soil, seasons, waste, water in the desert, and the joy of food you have a relationship with. Our backyard is developing quite a nice little micro-climate. The Gaiam environment along the river will always remain my ideal of physical experience. My body craves that feeling! Our body/mind is part of our environment and will synchronize with the space we’re in. (Although even this statement shatters wholeness into one, and one into two, and is illusion. It’s necessary to butcher experience in order to express with language, …so everything I write here the best I can do… & totally untrue.)
Also, cultivating my home-life has become a constant pastime. Nourishing a relationship with Marina, cleaning the house, playing with the dogs, throwing-out clutter, etc. It’s amazing how many “weeds” can spring-up in a home due to neglect or mistreatment! Pull them out by the roots early & often. Watering the “soil” through communion & making space for new growth is really important. Also, be prepared to let things die when the season passes. And, always, shine the light of awareness upon anything you want to grow. This is the greatest secret to our success!
There should be two different words for love in English. One for romantic love or the affection we feel for our “loved ones”, and one for the experience of one-ness which arises after freeing ourselves from the myth of separation. Maybe that’s compassion? I’m not sure which word might be used here. One is conditional, the other is not. If one hand is cut while slicing carrots, the other hand quickly stops the bleeding & helps the healing process. It’s not done through a sense of obligation, morality, kindness, appreciation, or anything else. The hand helps because it’s not separate from the other hand. Right? The same body. Different tissues, but they are one. The aid lacks an emotional or mental context, and that’s how you know it’s real. So, what I might call “real love” is not possible to experience (through the mind) until one has disengaged the concepts of self & other. Until then, it’s all just a kind of self-ishness. Not that it matters, since the universe is the same whether or not we acknowledge it mentally.
Someone said something like, “Wisdom is knowing that we are nothing. Love is knowing that we are everything.” The funny thing about this love is that it’s not shaped the way in which I expected it to be shaped. That is, I no longer feel the need to treat injury or illness in myself… or in others. I no longer feel compelled to heal myself, or my environment. I used to imagine that an awakened person would want to devote their lives to the poor, or to healing the sick, or whatever. Instead, I no longer see anything wrong with anything. So the compulsion to heal is gone. The need to “fix” can’t exist if the concept of “broken” is missing. So to are gone the concepts of “sacred” and “worthy”. What does this mean? Well, I don’t give treatments very often anymore, since sickness is the same as health. I don’t crusade for causes since right is the same as wrong. I don’t try to be a nice person since good is the same as bad. I don’t try to share the internal arts with everyone since my reverence for the past & future is gone. I don’t strive to change my life circumstances since all experience is essentially the same peaceful expression of wholeness. It’s all one, yo! (Although even “one” is too many…)
One funny side-effect of disconnecting a sense of “self” from this body, is that taking care of it has become more enjoyable. That is, to develop a healthy body which functions well.
In the same way, when releasing a sense of “I” from the mind, there’s a desire to care for the mind. That is, to develop a healthy mind which functions well. To do this I’ve been using training tools to strengthen the capacity to focus, to strategize, and to memorize. The games like go, new meditation methods, and memory mnemonic techniques have been very helpful!
Folks often ask about our time in Costa Rica. Typically, when I’m done describing the experience, they ask why in the Hell we’re back in Tucson. That’s a tough question to answer without the above explanation occurring first. In almost every way, living on the farm was superior to a life in Tucson. (For example, it’s healthier to live a gentle farm life in pristine environment with local fruits & veggies, and a conscious community. Right?) However, when the need to force change upon an experience vanishes, then you’re left wherever you are. That’s Tucson. My only life “anchor” is Miss Marina, and she wants to build a life in her hometown with the teahouse. Thus, until the flow of qi changes direction, this is where I stay. You all, however, are encouraged to make the move to Costa Rica right now. Do it. Go. It's amazing.
At this moment of experience, there’s no way I can relate to where John’s life grows next. I have a few ideas, but those rarely take shape anyway. This time, rather than imagining that “I” can force the “world” to do something for “me” (as opposed to doing something against me?), the actions will happen on their own. Each moment takes care of itself. SO much easier!
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The freedom you look for is where you look from. Happiness is a direct experience arising from your innate nature.
-Jac
