Hollow ween

 

there is an emptiness
at the center of life
that is very full

and words can't eat that
cake
no
trick nor treat
can bring the words to life,

they point tho,
they point:

look
listen
wait
no hurry

you are already there

good

rules and Rules and Love

there are many rules in life one of mine is "do tai chi before computer stuff"

and here I am breaking the rule

we'll see if lightning strikes me down

(almost all rules are untrue,
and then again:
please mainly stop at red lights,
car people)

life is so simple, isn't it:
one now after another

and I couldn't wait to announce
the ridiculously obvious news

ah, me
ah, my
the dancing in the streets
that is God's preferred way of wasting time

and in God/ Life/ Yes
time is brightly un-wasteable
(you heard that word first here

maybe)

so good for you
dancing in the streets of your heart
or busy
or suffering

all is food for the alchemy of
now

we have so little to lose
by embracing the impossible

what does that mean?

break some rules
dance in the streets
make some more money
love more that you are supposed to

see what happens

we think it "just can't get any better"

and then it does,
when we ask:
"It that True?"

so far,
no lightning


wow

The Joy of Divorce/ Separation, 2

Beautiful conversation with a wonderful woman
last night.

Several of us around, all with various takes on her suffering
vis a vis this quite wonderful man with a minor flaw:
he had rejected here.

Advice A: it's alright. We've all been there.

Advice B: We all love you. It's okay.

Advice C: Go through it.

Advice C is close, but not quite there.

The secret is that at every moment we can either be present to our
experience or identified with it.

She was feeling rejected.
Sad.
Embarrassed about crying.
Frustrated that she'd "tried so hard" blah blah.
Comparing all the others who'd wanted her and he, who hadn't.

All this is fine,
if felt in the present.
Felt as emotional feeling.
Felt as physical sensation.
That's just life, being lived, being experienced.

But who is watching this?
The real Self, who is empty and wordless and always
complete?
Of, the image/ mask/ socially conditioned self who has
to live up to various stories:

Stories like: relationships should last forever.
I had good intentions, so it should have worked out.
I was good/ kind/ open/ loving/ whatever so that other should have been.
The other should have been different.
The other should have blossomed with my love.
And so on.

Nice stories, and some people get their robots in line
enough to make these stories seem to come true,
but for this wonderful woman the stories were
dying,
and she took that personally.

Sorry, sweetie: the death of the story is good
news.
What's left in the emptiness?

You.
You breathing.
You experiencing your suffering when you attach to the story.

This is the glory of Byron Katie





Judge Your Neighbor
Write it down
Ask 4 Questions
Turn it around

Question 3: How do you react when you attach to/ believe the thought?

This is our chance to experience our experience. To watch and feel and confess and admit and realize: this is how my life is when I believe the story: X shouldn't have rejected me.

We can feel and experience our tears, or sadness, or frustration, or hurt, or disappointment.

But believe this?
Well: advice A is sure: Everyone buys into their story and suffers, so it's okay for you to suffer to.

Byron Katie and anyone who can come to the present would say:
suffering is optional.

Believe the story and suffer.

But what about question #4 : Who or what would you be without the thought? Without the story.

(If this is going too fast because you haven't done yet
the work of Byron Katie, look at all the postings with this label
The Work of Byron Katie postings in this blog
and/ or
The Work of Byron Katie postings in SlowSonoma.com blog
and/ or
Go to her Website: thework.com)

Back to suffering as optional:
Who are you without the thought?

Go there. And find out.
You won't have a thought to tell what it is,
because that's another story.

But you will have an experience.
Of your real self.

Adyashanti
calls this real self
Emptiness Dancing.

He's got a book of the same title:
It's worth getting.

And life is worth living there.

We really have only two choices:
Mindfulness
or
Mindlessness.

We can hide behind our masks, and pretend to be alive
in the mindless state,
but when divorce or separation or loss or death happens,
the mask drops.

Choices are like the advices above:
Feel bad that you are empty of your mask.

Or, the advice of mine, not listed above:
Discover your real self,
the one behind the mask,
the emptiness dancing and deeply gloriously grateful to be
along for this Earth existence ride.

Each breath is precious.

And now, just a bit more Byron Katie:

judge your neighbor/ parent/ ex lover
write it down
ask 4 questions
turn it around

One of the postings you'll get to in the slow sonoma blog
is the advanced use of the turn arounds.

For here, thought:
He shouldn't have rejcted me,
turns to
One: I shouldn't reject him.
And she was, vigorously: rejecting his rejection.
But if rejection was what he was,
then loving him
gives her only one choice
(the choice that ends all suffering):
to love his rejecting.

Second turn around:
She could stop rejecting herself.
This she "got," off and on,
and then went back to apologizing for how
she was being,
which means,
rejecting herself.
She shouldn't feel this way. shouldn't carry on. shouldn't have fallen for him.
blah, blah. one rejection after another.

Third turn around:
he should have been rejecting.
'
Why?
So she could learn what real love is
and
wake up to enlgithenment
not as a grand big ass thing,
but as the thought by thought
way out of suffering and into sanity.

So there.

Good.