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This week has been
personally challenging as I have resumed clinical work after a long
hiatus, and
I have been feeling rusty and unconfident. Much as Nicole wrote in her
e-mail
last week about how much less of a struggle it was to
simply lie
back and accept whatever unpleasant emotions and sensations arose, a
sense of
peace and calm developed within me every time that I was able to notice
my
insecurity and let it hang out with me for a while as I completed my
tasks for
the day.
Another theme that
arose strongly for me was that of self-improvement, and how my
motivations
for meditative exploration are tied up in this idea. I began to
notice how
there I perceived a deficit in myself, that I was somehow flawed
and in
need of repair, and that meditation was an antidote that I was
expecting to
make me feel better. It struck me in this noticing that there was space
to
still pursue a self-improvement without the need to perceive any sort
of
personal deficit that needed fixing. And then it struck me that the
entire idea
of making anything better or worse was misguided. Although this
understanding does
not always shine through, it is always there, ready to simply be. Being
knows
no improvement, has no deficit. No need for betterment, worsening, no
concept
of better or worse. The mind is astir now with thoughts, none of them
able to
inform this experience.
Responses
Rod, in your response
from last week, there seemed to be a great distinction
drawn between your everyday thought experience and
your meditative thought experience. It struck me (perhaps
incorrectly)
that this was a principal driver behind the dynamic tension between
your two
selves as you described them, in a struggle for unity. What if
there were
no difference, no distinction between meditative and everyday states?
What if
both selves were already one, with no need to make them any different
than they
already are?
Frank, I thoroughly
enjoyed your description of the Indian bus ride and how you fell in
love with
the seeming "imperfections" of the world - in so doing
sublimated them to be the perfection of the universe. One point of
confusion
for me (and perhaps for you also) is how the WH and this path operates
in
relation to the world. It strikes me now that this may be just another
subtle
mind trick to think of the world as a context of self and other. As
Piet
pointed out to me a week or so ago, what if "we are" simply turned
into "are?" There were no subjects, no objects, just appearances and
actions. That distinction of relationship versus self-exploration
breaks down
and there just is.