Day Fifteen, Enlightenment as Forgiveness, part one

Day Fifteen

Enlightenment 

As the First Stage of Forgiveness

Take something that someone did “wrong” to you.

Choose two chairs.

This is the game, to go back and forth between these two chairs.

Here’s the game..

Enlightenment as Forgiveness Game #1:

Think of a minor “crime” someone has committed.

They’ve said something you don’t like.

They’ve supposedly insulted you.

They didn’t return a call.

Didn’t treat you with respect.

On, and on.

Not major.

Not breaking any laws.

Just the normal troubles of living around other humans with their busy lives, and selfish ways, and habits and ongoing sleep.

Oh, well.

They did something.

You decided to get tweaked by it.

The game requires two chairs.

Remember the meta-concept: Learning is the noticing of a difference that makes a difference.

This is about that.

It is not about “being good.”

So here goes.

Sit in the chair we’ll call SUFFERING

In this chair listen to the words in your head that justify your suffering.

They are almost over and over about how this person did such and such wrong. How it’s not fair, or mean, or selfish or something.

Anyway, sit in the chair and go over and over the words.

Now

Shift.

To a chair we’ll call: BEING PRESENT

In this chair, look at the world around you.

Notice your breathing. Your breathing in and your breathing out.

Notice your arms and your legs in the moment.

Notice gravity.

Have a smile on your face and place that smile about something you are seeing or hearing or sensing or breathing, in the moment.

Hang out in the present.

Have ZERO OF THE EARLIER WORDS IN YOUR HEAD

Just be present.

Like a dog, or tiger or river otter.

Being alive and aware in the world of now.

Feel what this is like.

This (learning is noticing differences) go back to the SUFFERING CHAIR.

Start up the words again.

Experience that world.

And shift. (Learning is about noticing differences that make a difference).

go the BEING PRESENT CHAIR

Hang out there.

One more time:

The SUFFERING CHAIR

and

the BEING PRESENT CHAIR

And then smile, stand and take a walk.

Notice your feet touching the ground as you walk. Notice when you mind wants to talk in a way that causes suffering. Notice when you are present and enjoying the world as it is just now.

There is not the “right” way to be.

And most of us would rather be happy.

And, the choice to suffer is always one of our options.

Hmmm.

Keep walking.

Keep aware of those feet and that sky and your breathing.

What’s that like, to be you, or this planet right now?

To be experiencing your experience in the moment, in all moments, as if everything is “meditation,” that’s one way to enjoy the possibility of “enlightenment.”

So, your choice: enjoy it if you want to.

Cheers

Chris

be present, even in grief, it's the doorway to God

WAKING UP

If I’m present I’m really alive.

It’s not the only game in town, and (AND) it’s necessary to at least two of the other great games of this overall game called “being alive.”

--happiness

-- love

Another essay could be written ( and has been, search through the blog) on the impossibility of happiness and love without being present. Discover this for yourself, or transmit any time of un-happiness or un-love to a time to happiness or love by becoming present.)

And there’s one game that can be played from not being present, and often is, and it’s a big and fun game in life. It’s this one:

--making money.

Lots of people have discovered that it’s a lot more fun and lot easier and lot happier ( and….full of love) game if played from being present. And it appears that a messy version can be played, and even played well from what I’d call, copying Gurdjieff and many others, a state of “sleep.”

And then the last great game…

--Service. Helping others. Making a difference.

Ah, me oh my. You can be of service and be asleep, and it can work, but it’s a perilous situation. If surrounded by peaceful and almost saintlike people, who are also good at self care, you / one can get away with being asleep.

And, on the other hand, burn out, and grumpiness and feeling ripped off, can be so prevalent. There is a great passage in Brothers Karamozov, where a gal admits that she has a hard time give to the poor because they aren’t sufficiently grateful.

Lots of prayer and quiet time, which is often close to being present, can help people get away with being of service without a practice of being present, but usually, the people you are serving will suck you dry, since there is really no you there to be around them, just your good deeds.

And that’s that.

There is one more great reason to be present and it’s almost as if it’s your way to salute the universe for the wonder of being alive. Which is kind of like happiness, but on a quieter and more reverent sort.

And being alive is the gift and the glory.

And here we shift to the second half of this discussion, a “harder” part, and it is about his: how to be present when someone we love dies.

They are gone.

No longer in our lives.

We are still alive.

They aren’t.

This can hurt.

This can wound so deeply our whole lives are turned inside out.

Rumi’s endless poems of love, which he didn’t write, but shouted out while whirling and his disciples wrote down, came from his grief at this beloved mentor and enlightenment friend, Shams, being gone. The suspicion is the jealous disciples and even some of his own children murdered Shams.

And in that grief, plunged to the depths, he found a love and poetry that has nourished our souls throughout the ages.

And if we aren’t Rumi ( yet!), what to do?

Be present.

To reality.

Reality is what we see right now. What we hear right now. What we are sensing in our bodies.

In our bodies the grief may be surging in great ferocity, and we can always meet that with awareness. What ever we are sensing, we can be aware of those sensations in the moment.

Moment by moment.

Breath by breath.

And this too, be can be aware, that we are alive, that we are aware, as we sense this sensation of grief inside us. Balancing that with awareness of gravity and light and breath and sound, as per yesterday’s blog on Ten Fingers, Ten Toes, Belly, Eyes, Ears and Nose, might make it “easier,” and no matter.

We are alive.

We are in love with these sensations, or we could be, as this is the way to honor our life exactly now.

And then, there can be suffering. Pain is one thing, suffering another.

The suffering is not real, but always sets of words, always of the sort that “This should be different,”  or “That should have been different.”

That is, we are demanding that Reality change to suit our wishes.

The elephant should be a card table. Impossible.

The rabbit should be a dog. Impossible.

This past event should never have happened. Impossible.

To fight reality brings suffering which is different than pain. Last weeks essay on the four questions and the turn around can always get us out of the suffering.

The pain remains as long as it remains.

And when we are present, we are riding the surf of reality, no matter how rugged.

Something is being ripped open, and in the stillness of not filling our minds with all the words that create suffering, and in the hot furnace of sensing the actual grief in the moment, something new can be born.

What it will be can’t be predicted.

The present can point to and wish for a certain future, but reality can play funny and beautiful and mystical games with us.

That’s it’s job.

Our job.

To be present and love what is.

This is either too many words, or not enough, and words are all a bit of a lie, and maybe they can point to the rose garden. Maybe we will walk there. Maybe the thorn will prick us deeply and we can be aware of our wound.

Maybe we can look at the sun reflecting in the drop of blood and see the meaning of our love and our lives.

Who knows?

If we are present, we’ll be there to find out as we discover.

Day 24: The Work starts: Is it true?

suffering  call to us
sometimes,
the crazy whisper/ yammer/ chatter/ taunt/ shout
of our mind,
nothing better to do
than
complain about others,
complain about us,
complain about our complain,

our mind, foolish patterned slave:
telling us the world is wrong

and that's today's game
today's "job"
(some of the best work
ever):
start the Work,
( you know: thework.com)

an inquire of the mind
with the mind

since behind each unhappiness
is a thought,
notice that thought
and ask the question:
Is it true?

That's all,
one two three:

feel unhappy/ suffering
notice the thought behind the feeling
ask the question, #1 in the work of Byron Katie:
Is it true?

"Just" ask


good

Byron Katie, 101

You've got stuff bothering you.
Little stuff: someone didn't smile when you said hello.
Big stuff: your mate went out and had an affair.


Everyday stuff: your friend, lover, buddy should appreciate/ respect you more.

You feel bad.
Good. You always will until you don't, and
here's a way to don't...

The work of Byron Katie......

1. Judge your neighbor (complain)

2. Write it down

3. Ask four questions

4. Turn it around


Why judge? Cause all our complaining is judging.
Be honest.
Don't be too good.
If you feel bad there's always a judgment.

Write it down.
Why?
Slows it down.
You can see the root of your suffering in a couple of words:
Mom should have been nicer to me when I was growing up.

Small batch of words, and it can lead to a lifetime of suffering.

Or: to liberation.

Ask the four questions.
Here comes liberation.

1. Is it true?

Mom should have.....
Is that true?
I want that, wish that, can have people agree, but is it true like gravity, or the color of the sky, on being on an inbreath or outbreath?
You decide.

2. Can I absolutely know it's true?

That Mom or Dad or friend or lover should have....

Can I know, in the big scheme of the universe that this bit of reality "should" have been different?
Can I know that this wasn't there for me to learn.....


Those two questions help to realize: is this thought true or is it opinion/ belief/ idea.

The next two questions are practical Buddhism: try out attachment, try out non attachment

3. How do I react when I believe the thought?

That Mom should have
That Dad should have...
That ex lover should have....

Write the list down. Feel how the suffering comes when we grab onto the thought.

4. Who or what would I be without the thought?
Either empty mind. Or, not believing the thought.

Mom, Dad, ex lover are still what they are, but we don't believe the should have been different.
Not to be good. Not to forgive. Not to "judge not that ye not be judged"
But to discover, who and what are we when we let reality be reality?

Experience the difference.

I offer this addition: move from place to place or chair to chair as you hang out in question #3 and question #4.
Experience the difference.
Don't mentally choose, but let life tell you where you really want to be.



Judge your neighbor
write it down
ask four questions
turn it around


All's left is the turn around, the famous "seeing others as the mirror."
And you turn the darn sentence around:

Dad shouldn't have been so critical of me.
I shouldn't have been so critical of Dad.

So and so should appreciate me more.
I should appreciate so and so more.

See our own inability to practice what we preach.
Get humor and humility.

And the "back to ourselves" turn around.

Dad shouldn't have been so critical of me.
I shouldn't be so critical of me.


So and so should appreciate me more.
I should appreciate me more.

Cut out the middle man.
Stop waiting for the love appreciate approval we want and give it on back to ourselves.

There you go.

Judge your neighbor.
Write it down.
Ask four questions
Turn it around


The WORK of Byron Katie.
Can't just snap your fingers.
Got to work a bit,
half an hour, and hour maybe for a couple years of therapy
or Buddhist meditation.

A good trade, bargain, pathway, game, liberation path.

Try it.
Or not.

Good.