Advice to a Friend

Meditation is about centering, turning your focus inward, relaxing, calming, quieting the voices, just being… it is about allowing the silence to surround you, comfort you, and finally, in the most still, calm, quiet moment you can imagine, sometimes you can hear the voice of the infinite residing inside of you. It’s an amazing, powerful, transforming thing – this turning inward.

So, you mention many times that you were “all over the place” – and it occurs to me that you might find some training in a simple form of meditation useful. Don’t go into it looking for this silence that speaks – it’s another one of those gifts that happens when it happens, not when you prepare for it. But just the act of turning your focus inward would help you from being or feeling "all over the place."

One thing at a time.

One practice.

One breath.

One-ness.


We tend to become what we focus on. Thoughts of fear, anxiety, sanity won’t help you. It doesn’t serve you at all. It’s like when you’re getting a shot from the doctor and your staring at the needle. Or you get a cut and you’re watching the blood ooze out… that focus hurts you. So again, all this to suggest a different focus. One that is calming, inward, looking at your journey.

Learn to observe yourself

Learn to see your heart

Learn to see your soul

Learn to marvel at your complexity

Learn to enjoy your simplicity

Learn to see

Learn to feel

Learn to breathe

Learn to be

Just be

Be silent

Find your center

Find your core

Let that inner wisdom speak to you

It is there

I promise

It is your rhythm

Find your beat

Find your drum

Let the music move you

Let it soothe your savage beast (the one that is all over the place)

Dance

Sing

Rejoice

Let go

Breathe

Love

Live

Laugh

Shine

Lemons and Mystics

Expanding on my previous dialog, almost all mystical liturature begins by telling us that the mystical experience is "unknowable" Here are a couple of examples:

The primal center is the innermost light, of a translucence, subtlety, and purity beyond comprehension. That inner point extends to become a "palace" which acts as an enclosure for the center, and is also of a radiance translucent beyond the power to know it. The "palace" vestment for the incognizable inner point, while it is an unknowable radiance in itself, is nevertheless of a lesser subtlety and translucency than the primal point. The palace extends into a vestment for itself, the primal light. From then outward, there is extension upon extension, each constituting a vesture to the one before, as a membrane to the brain. Though membrane first, each extension becomes brain to the next extension. (From the Zohar, one of the older Jewish texts on Kabballah)

See... the analogy is, none of us could possibly comprehend the center, or even the next step away from the center. The best we can hope for is to start to understand out there in some subdivision well separated from the palace.

And this one from the Tao Te Ching

The Tao which can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao; the name which can be uttered is not the eternal name. Without a name it is the Beginning of Heaven and Earth; with a name it is the Mother of all things. (Tao Te Ching; Chapter 1)

Again, there are many, translations of every verse in the Tao Te Ching, but again, the essence of this one suggests that no words could possibly describe the Tao. Again, we're just too limited to understand. There is more, much more from many different traditions that all suggest those who claim to "know" the Tao, don't understand it.

So, again, following my previous threads, I would contend that mystical vision, mystical understanding, the mystical world view is not so inaccessible.

A common saying (perhaps too common), is that "A picture is worth a thousand words"; and yet, no matter how many times you read the word lemon, it does not convey the same thing as a picture of a lemon; and could a thousand word essay actually produce the same thing as a picture? Probably not (though some may come close). Even more so, can a picture of a lemon produce the experience of tasting a lemon? Could you express through words, pictures, movies, sound, the experience of tasting a lemon?

And this is my point. While it may be true that the experience of the Tao and the Zohar, and other traditions are indescribable, so are all of our human experiences. That's why we use words. You cannot directly relate any experience to another human being (Vulcan Mind Melds not withstanding). So lacking the ability to telepathically communicate ANY HUMAN EXPERIENCE we resort to words (and pictures) to describe them. And after telling us we can't comprehend the Tao, the Ain Sof, or the mystical experience, all mystical liturature then goes on to describe it, like we do any human experience - in words.

So, while it may not be an overly common human experience, it is still just that, a human experience. It is no more mysterious than a lemon, and how lemon heads, lemon merrangue, lemon juice, etc, all relate. We know it, inately, without anyone having to tell us. I think the mystical experience is like this as well. A human experience that we find sometimes in many ways, many paths, many views. but knowable all the less.

My blog is to continue to explore that line between the Agnostic and the Mystic where we make the unknowable more accessible; try to shed some of the mysteries of the mystics, and make the Agnostics more knowledgable.

The Long and Winding Road

In the last post I spoke of a way of seeing the world, one that seems common among most mystical traditions, but is new and often different from how most of us see the world. Another common thing I read in most mystical literature speaks to the Journey.

Simply put, the mystics suggest that the mystical journey is part of what brings one to the new way of seeing the world, to the place of peace.

So I want to present two ideas in this post.

1. I want to explore the idea of the journey
2. I want to make it more accessible to other apprentice mystics

We have a deep subconscious recognition of the journey. Most of us hear stories of a journey and often recognize it as a metaphor for our soul, or consciousness, or for at least something worth reaching for. Thousands of stories exist about journey's; all the way from the yellow dog (Disney), to Alice in Wonderland, to the Argonauts and their search for the golden fleece. Jesus made many journey's beginning with one in the desert. Noah made a journey, but then, so did Buddah, Mohammed, and many others. Many religions celebrate the passage of people from one place (state of mind?) to another. The journey often represents the journey of awareness or of awakening.

In the Bible the tribes of Israel were freed from Egypt (which often represents a state of captivity or of being asleep, unaware), and travelling for 40 years to get to the promised land. This is the metaphor of the mystical journey. We are all asleep, unaware early in our life. for some of us, something happens to bring us to awareness. we wake up. We discover there is a journey to be had. We don't know what it is, we just know that it is different than anything we have ever attempted before. and it is our journey. People may say to go this way or go that way... but something deeper, inside of us takes us the direction we need to go for ourselves.

And those who have realized there is a journey often identify with the idea, even to the point of taking on a name, or at least a title. Pioneer, Pathfinder, Trekker, Seeker, Searcher, Explorer, Journeyman, hunter, wanderer, pilgram, tracker, and many, many more names.

So again, while the mystics often talk about "the journey" (Tao is often translated into English as meaning "The Way"); just like learning to "see" the world in a new way, we are often left with the idea that the journey is long and arduous (40 years in the desert??? no thanks!). Symbollically our own personal trip to Mecca... But I'd like to suggest my own experiences with the journey that differ from this idea.

The journey can be fast. In a flash, in a moment you can suddenly have an insight and your way of seeing the world changes. More importantly, even if the journey takes a long time, just having the feeling that your on such a journey changes your perspective. The journey itself can bring a great deal of peace in and of itself. Finally, like some of my previous posts,

Finally, I'd like to suggest that the mystical literature often speaks of the journey as this magical, mysterious sort of thing - big, hard to get to; but my own experiences suggest that once you begin to wake up, you find your feet planted on a path, and off you go. It's more like the journey finds you, and if you don't resist too much, you'll find it simply becomes part of you, and not so mysterious or big or hard to understand. it is your OWN path. and that's what makes it powerful, unique, mysterious, beautiful, and full of wonder. Or is that Wander?

What color is your Rainbow?

Many mystical texts speak about "seeing" the world in a new way. Today I saw an article that made me think about this, but it isn't what the mystics have in mind.

This months Scientific American has an article about how color vision evolved. Too much to go over in a short blog, but the article talks a lot about how we see color and how other animals see color. We have cones in our eye that activate from three colors (trichromatic). There are many animals that only have cones for two colors (dichromats), and even a few that only have one. A few birds have sensitivity for four colors (tetrachromatic).

So there's lots of fun territory here, all about "seeing" the world in different ways.

What would it "look" like to see only two? What would it look like to see four? What did the first people who had three colors (and hence could now see many more colors than their two-color friends) experience? Think about all aspects of that experience? We could playfully recreate it, but let's say they could now see orange, and more reds. Would they be suppressed (burned at the stake), resisted, or just tossed off as a bit looney? We join Tribecca (who can see three pigments) and Dick (who only sees two).

Tribecca asks, "Could you hand me that orange?"
Dick replys, "orange? what's that. do you mean this grey?"
T - "well, I suppose. but it's orange."
D - "what does that even mean?"
T - "I'm talking about the color"
D - "Yeah, it's grey"
T - "no, it looks like the sunset"
D - "well, at least you got that right."
T - "so you like all the colors?"
D - "what colors?"
T - "just hand me the grey..."

This article is mostly just to get you thinking about different ways to "see" the world. Nothing too deep or mystical, except that it feels odd to try to think about new - unnamed colors. And what it means to try to see them in your mind. Can you name all the 24 million colors you can display on a Mac? I know I can't. but I can see them. If asked, I can point to 10 or 15 different shades of yellow in a painting and probably name most of them (yellow, yellow green, light yellow, kind of a orange yellow, but not as orange as that one, etc.). But the colors are relative. I might point to a different shade first next time and call that yellow and shift my answers just a little...

So, i keep talking about seeing new colors. Does it seem possible that we all see the world a little differently? Or is the difference probably pretty minimal. One of the points of the article states that some women have four types of visual pigments instead of three. What if you're one of them? Can you picture how the world might look different for other people with more or less than you? That's where all the fun begins.

ok, that's it for now. "See" you later.

The Art of Letting Go

Life has a rhythm, it cycles, it turns, it wheels, it spins, and it never stays still. Yet, too often we want to change that rhythm, we want to rush it, or slow it, or stop it altogether.

We only seek to change the rhythm out of fear

The wise learns to dance with life's rhythm, to enjoy what life brings, and to let go when the time has come to move on. Most of what we learn in society is the opposite of this. We cling to what we are afraid we will lose. We run from that which scares us. But life ebbs and flows. Joseph Campbell spoke of this dance:

The warrior's approach is to say 'yes' to life. - yes to it all
To participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world

(A Joseph Campbell Companion, pg. 17)

As I sit here working on the next phrase, I find myself thinking about rhythm and fear and the circle of life, and I wonder what to share. What do I fear? I find that the challenge of writing a blog, to me, is having these airy, heady ideas, and then bumping into real life. Discovering that I feel out of rhythm with life myself, and wondering how to get back in step. That I have all these ideas in my head, ideas I have seen change my life, bring me peace, helped me weather some tough times - but they don't always help. And if I share the darkness, can those who read still see the light?

And it is exactly in writing that last line that what I really want to express comes ringing through, for me. The importance of fully embracing life, the good with the bad; the bliss with the terrifying; the beauty with the mundane with the disfigured (yes, even reaching only for the extremes still misses the point of embracing everything).

Mystical Orange Juice

Most mystic literature begins by telling you how impossible it is to comprehend the mystical experience. Here's an example:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

But if you think about life for a moment, you'll realize that all of our experiences are like that. How would you describe the taste of freshly squeezed orange juice to someone who had never tasted it before? We fill books trying to explain both the similarity and the uniqueness of being in love, traveling abroad, etc. Human experience is unexplainable - but we never stop trying. The mystical experience is just another experience. One that brings some unique feelings and insights, but so does falling in love, or touching the stove for the first time.

Hotdogs and Coffee

I heard a joke the other day that works well for this blog.

Rene' Descartes walked into a breakfast nook to order some food. The waitress walks up and asks, "Would you like some coffee?"

"I think not." he said. and promptly disappeared.

Ha. I like that joke. and that's what I want to talk about. I think writing a blog is challenging. I love my wife's blog (http://bobbilewin.blogspot.com/) for the simple reason that she write well, and writes from her heart (and I might be a little biased... maybe... just a little).

What did the Dali Lama say to the Hot Dog vendor? "Make me one with everything!"

In the world of posts about mysticism or being an agnostic... I just want to be the mustard. And maybe on really good days, I can be the relish.