Apart at the seams

[hagar]

In Taoism, realization is analogous to the occurence of return. Return to the origin, home.

 

This can mean many things; return to the original mind, original chi, original emptiness, or in more mundane terms, it can symbolize the return to a state of mind or nature that was present before the concepts, emotions, preferences and intellectualization emerged.

 

Being close to a little child that experiences everything for the first time, I am forced to re-experience this process of coming into the world, with the joys but also the lingering sadness that follows: The sadness of witnessing the unaware purity of mind becoming aware, becoming conditioned.

 

And at the same time, in myself, through my practice and life, I am experiencing an equally strong transformation where I cannot trust my intellectual filtering of life anymore. And I find myself living more directly through my emotions. I'm starting to experience how at a certain stage of practice life cannot but force itself on you and I can't help but feel. I find myself bursting into tears watching the news, or listening to someone talking from the heart, or seeing an old lady sleeping on the bus. It is as if I find myself safer and more vunerable at the same time. But mostly quite stupid and lost

 

During sittings, I experience this quite profoundly, and I wonder if anyone have gone through anything similar. It is as if the notion of witnessing is not really accurate while meditating. It is more like neutrally being part, expressing life. I get angry, sad, happy much faster, and it passes faster, and its almost like being in my teens again.

 

Anywayz, returning is also returning to a more direct experience of life, and also being forced to become more sincere, more honest and less intellectual, less in control, more ridiculous. It is more like when you were a child, being in the situation you were, with no preconceptions, just reacting, just feeling.

 

And, to explain what I mean:

 

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...videoid=8560008

 

'So, life becomes more like this, what was once kitchy is now fresh, profound and...home

 

OR: I'm finally but slowly becoming aware that I was, all this time a fruitcake...

 

h

[Cameron]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Bh8z4Qr6M

[rain]

Edited October 10, 2007 by rain

[doc benway]

Hagar,

I've had a very similar experience. In my case, it started with having children. My connection to them heightened my emotional experience dramatically. Now it's more pervasive. It feels to me to be a natural progression. I guess we're returning to our nature. This would seem to be more connected with physical, sensory, and emotional experience than with analytical thought. My teacher also tells me it is a normal stage in the progression. In fact, I've been actively cultivating the experience of sensory and emotional reception/awareness as a way of disconnecting from the thought train. It has reduced my daily anxiety quite a bit and has helped me connect more closely in relationships....

Steve

[ThirstyTraveler]

Hagar,

 

All my life I have been trying to avoid or fix my emotions. Now I am just falling into them and discovering that there is a richness and an inherent dignity to being a human being full on. It is touching to be in such a vulnerable space...sensitive like a child...I can be hurt easily. For me they seem to be the key to feeling fully alive and a natural part of the human experience.

 

I heard a teacher once say that the emotional body will stretch your capacity to allow the present moment. It is like it prepares you for the unpredictability of the infinite (where anything can arise).

[rex]

I've had a very similar experience. In my case, it started with having children. My connection to them heightened my emotional experience dramatically.

Me too! My teacher said that this was an excellent opportunity to develop a genuine deeper compassion that will only benefit one's practice.

[mat black]

I love this thread. Hagar and everyone else sharing the experience of rediscovering the experience of unconditioned innocence.

 

Hagar "..........where I cannot trust my intelectual filtering of life anymore"

 

When I saw John De Ruiter in 2001, he said "you used to have the eyes of a litle boy. Let them come back"

Those words went deep.

 

My neices and nephews are aged 1, 7, 9 & 10 They havce no idea that, just by being themselves, they are great teachers. Affection, honesty, sincerity, wonder............they express all this and it opens it up in me.

Edited October 10, 2007 by mat black

[Mal]

[VeeCee]

[Mal]

I had a professional tell me once that if you worry about being mentally ill, then you're probably not.

 

A good rule of thumb

 

However, I feel that if I've helped even one person then it's been worth it.

 

Cheers. I just feel bad 'cause she had nowhere to stay the night and I could have called my kung fu school and got someone to look after her just as easly as giving her $20, which was not enough to help her and wasn't a strain on me. i.e. I took the easy option.

 

But I was scared to call my school incase she was lying and I then looked stupid for wasting everyones time on a "street person" In retrospect I should have just checked her story with the police, didn't think of that at the time.

[rain]

go with your gut feeling. me and a friend met a bunch of alcoholics/bums in the subway. one guy was way younger and barefeet. it was winter. he was obviously ill, but no doubt soon woud have reached an even more sinister state of helplessness due to cold, so we invited him to stay with us. Conversation, we found him some shoes and clothes, a meal, a warm bed, and we all slept soundly. we thought. next morning he excused himself for not finishing the meal, his liver couldnt take much. he had slept a little, had peed in a beer bottle afraid of waking us up flushing the loo. Then he took my hand an stared me straight in the eye and said; "lady you are crazy to do things like this. I was awake most of the night and could easily have taken advantage of you in any way. promise me you won't do this again." I know he was sincere, but what resonated in me was a picture of sad angry and desperate person playing the bad guy.

 

if he had freaked me out though i think it would have been a different story..

[freeform]

When I noticed that my mind was not in control, I started opening up... between every thought is a space and even within thoughts there are holes of nothingness - we're used to having our attention on the stuff (thoughts) rather than on the holes and empty space. So I started directing my awareness on the holes and discovered something - the holes are where the magic comes from... The first thing that came up is emotion - a gushing torrent of emotion - the whole backlog of 'emotion for no reason' came through and it was a little unsettling -

 

emotion when you're looking at it from the point of view of 'stuff' is very different - it always seems like some external thing is causing it and there is all that mental anguish of trying to control those external things to stop some emotions and have more of other emotions... From the point of view of 'holes' emotions are felt - not seen or thought about but felt deeply - they arise as internal indicators - they're like trackers helping you on your journey through the wilderness of life.

 

I remember when I was 13 I experimented with the sensations of having my hand in hot and cold water - I decided to really feel what's happening rather than think about it - I discovered that there was cold in hot and hot in cold - it was all sensation, only the mind sees the separateness. Similarly when I was young and getting bitten by mosquitos, I would scratch the bites hard and that would only satisfy me for a second and the itch would get worse - so I decided that instead of jumping to the conclusion that an itch is irritating, I would put all my awareness on the actual feeling and keep it there - as a result I noticed that I gravitated between irritation/pain and extreme pleasure - after a bit of time concentrating on it I couldn't tell the pleasure from the pain - it was just sensation - so guess what happens now that I put my awareness on the sensation of emotions?

 

After the initial torrent of emotions everything settled down - I feel emotions unguardedly - sometimes I catch myself in mental anguish, trying to control it all, this is a habit of a lifetime and I'm surrounded by it every day... so it's a little difficult to not go back into this habitual slumber... The gift that comes from the holes is that intuition follows the initial torrent of emotion... It's a simple sort of intuition - I dont see the future, or lizard people or lottery results... instead, when I'm really in the flow of this non-practice, I just watch where I move - I watch what my body decides - it involves courage and trust - one day I watched myself not go to work (is this my mind just playing tricks so that I can be lazy all day?) it turned out that the office watercooler was contaminated with salmonella - 80% of the office spent weeks puking (reminds me of Cam )... I also get strong emotions around some people so I either feel myself retreating or coming closer...

 

anyhoo enough for now - all the best and worst to you all!

[rain]

.............

Edited October 11, 2007 by rain

[hagar]

[arnquist]

Just wanted to say this thread is awesome, thanks Hagar.