The other night, I went over to play poker with a bunch of guys from work. I was very grateful for the chance to get to know all these very cool people in a more relaxed context. Nonetheless, it was kind of draining for me. The more people that are in a room, the harder it is for my anxiety, for my comfort level. I’m an introvert and lots of social interaction and stimulus can be pretty draining for me. But, these are great guys, so, after a while, I began to settle in to a safe and secure energy. As we were playing cards, at the table with the seven of us around, my anxiety and insecurity really settled down. I quit being distracted by my fears and just started to notice everybody. Us men playing cards! How fascinating we are! All of our different postures and facial expressions, our focused energies on the task at hand! My insecurity went away for a while and I was swept up in this energy of interactions. This, of course, is very special for guy that NEVER used to be able to sit around comfortably with other people.
When I sat down to meditate this morning, I went through my usual steps. As usual, trains of thought were loud and distracting. At first, I was totally consumed by them, although I was sitting, eyes closed, breathing deeply, alone and undisturbed.
Eckhart Tolle says something about the simple act of noticing that you’re fully identified with the stream of thoughts in your head is itself the beginning of awakening into presence. So, very passively, I welcomed the streams of thoughts that were coming through my head, because they would be just another chance for me to Observe them. Whatever the thoughts were, whatever the subject matter was, it doesn’t matter. You can fill in the blank. There’s always something that the mind is contemplating, analyzing, ruminating on, preparing for, re-imagining. This is the thing about the ego-mind that is fascinating, and can be fun to watch in this meditative, observational way.
As I was attempting this just now, I felt it start to work. I felt that the thoughts weren’t really filling up the whole space in my head. It felt like there was some space between that which was observing and the streams of thought. It reminded me of that game of poker, where these streams of thought were like the other guys around the table. Whatever they were, they were just fascinating! I just felt so lucky to be sitting here, having the chance to observe! And not only that, but that there was actually all this fascinating stuff going on for me to actually to observe! It was then, in this giddy state of gratitude, at about 18 minutes into my 20 minute meditation time, that all thoughts completely stopped. For the rest of my meditation, I simply felt the Presence. I felt held and it was wonderful. My Father was holding me, and caring for me. Now I’m ready for my day. May I take His direction of my thoughts and awareness with me whither I go.
self-consciousness
If there’s nothing there, how are we even here?
We know through science that the universe is composed of ever-shrinking building-blocks. We know that there are sub-atomic particles, and then particles that compose those sub-atomic particles, and then things get so small that we are totally incapable of measuring them. We can only theorize about what the nature of the smallest particles is. One theory is that the most basic building block of existence is string-theory, which says that the smallest components of extant matter are strings, which really aren’t matter but simply packets of vibrational energy. But if there is vibration, it must be vibrating in some medium. What is this medium, at the ground of all extant matter?
This is where the purely scientific, for me, bridges over into spiritual experience. That foundation of all existence is nothing that we can perceive. A part of me responds to this idea with nihilism, with cynicism, with panic and confusion. How can there be nothing there!? But then, how is there this consciousness that I experience. How is this consciousness able to even ponder its own nature? And the nature of all existence? The idea that consciousness permeates all things, even down at that fundamental level, brings me comfort that there really is some Higher Power that’s indestructible and incontrovertible, transcendent of all things.
When I say “brings me comfort”, I realize that must be my ego talking, the temporal and impermanent set of thought-structures that has been constructed out of continuous misperceptions of reality, that needs, above all else, to survive. I think this ego is comforted by the hope that even if it seems at first that the fathomless void at the foundation of being must be the end of any hope for continued existence of the ego, there is actually a chance that the ego will continue on because there is this Omni-present and Omni-scient and Omni-potent that will include even this measly little ego.
When you put that on the table, I think it would be both true and untrue. I suppose the ego is more like the wave on top of the ocean. The ocean’s linear history of material existence will include the memory of that little wave, but once it’s passed on, it simply goes back into being nothing, as far as being a wave goes, but indeed, all the component parts that made up the wave, all the molecules of water, they have returned to the ocean.
Still, both conclusions (1, there’s actually nothing behind all existence and we’re actually just a dream of our own atheistic selves, and two, we’re just an unimportant and anonymous and forgettable wave in the ocean of existence) leave something to be desired. They both have their merit but they both don’t quite have that ring of Truth that I sometimes hear in lovely statements, in postulations about the nature of our connection with a Higher Existence. So, here’s something that I think contains both those conclusions but has that ring of Truth: Our purpose in this existence is to be a vehicle for the awakening of consciousness. We are notes and dancers in a beautiful symphony. So vital yet still only an infinitesimally small part.
Devolving consciousness :(
Well, this morning’s meditation felt totally unproductive. I guess that’s not a bad thing. A total lack of production is exactly what I’m going for, I think. When the activity of my thought-machine is totally in idle, there’s that space where everything feels peaceful. Even more so today, I didn’t even have enough mental activity going on to comment on those silent spaces. Really, it even felt like the winding down of mental activity that happens right before I fall asleep.
That makes me think about what Eckhart Tolle says about the evolution of conscioussness. Conscioussness has gone from primitive animals where there, presumably, isn’t as much thought-construction and just more present-awareness and then to being human beings, where there is nothing but mental thought-construction. Then, the next step is to go beyond thought-construction and into that empty space that transcends, that is, goes beyond and includes what was before, thought-construction. Eckhart also talks about how we can get to a place of no thought-construction not by evolving, but by devolving, like in drunkeness or those moments before we pass out from exhaustion.
I suppose this morning’s meditation had some tones of devolving. It wasn’t as vibrant as it is other days. There’s usually a vitality that electrifies my body when I access that space. That wasn’t there this morning. Nonetheless, I’m sure accessing that space, one way or the other, has its benefits.
Self-centeredness and Surrender
I like talking about the ego as if it’s an aspect of my human-beingness. I like to think that it’s the stream of thought-constructions that are interpretations of external stimuli, fears, instincts and emotions. These interpretations are running computations that can then begin to feed on themselves, becoming interpretations of interpretations. All of this interpreting takes the form of mental noise and streams of internal mono or dialogues in our heads. For me, it gets so loud that I begin to think that the mental noise is what defines me as me. I identify my own beingness almost exclusively with the words that stream through my head.
This, of course, is an inadvertant and unconscious trap that comes with being human. There are greater depths to this human experience but my conscious awarness is blocked from knowing them because of the loud noise of my head. I never quite realize that there’s something deeper, more peaceful, more expansive, more loving.
To calm and subdue this loud mental noise. I explore spirituality, a big part of which, for me, is meditation.
One vein in spirituality can be described as the fight against “self-centeredness.” Spiritual progress is the extent to which we reduce our self-centeredness. If we’re not centered on self, then we must be centered on Something Else.
But for me, I’ve always had difficulty with the idea of selfishness and self-centeredness. For the longest time, my understanding of what it means for me to be self-centered and selfish is just that I’m a shitty person. And that’s about as deep as I went with it. Ok, I’m self-centered, I know, I’m shitty.
It took me a long while to have the experience of changing That upon which I was centered. What I was hoping, from my self-centered perspective, was that I could just change the content of my shitty head to something noble and good, and then I wouldn’t be self-centered anymore, because I wasn’t shitty anymore. Essentially, I was intent upon trying to fix a broke-brain with a broke-brain.
That ego I talked about at the beginning is more how I understand self-centeredness today. What it means to be self-centered is to be lost in the illusion our ego-minds create of reality. That’s all. It doesn’t mean we’re shitty people. We’re just falling for the trick momentarily.
When I’m in the midst of what feels like a life and death struggle, I don’t think the terms “selfishness and self-centeredness” are very helpful to me, or many other people. Have you ever had an addiction that was killing you? Ever not been able to quite give it up although you thought you absolutely wanted to? Ever been victim of compulsive behaviors and wanted so badly to quit? Ever been so wrapped up in a resentment that it was making your every waking moment a living hell? It was creeping into every one of your thoughts and actions throughout the entire time you were awake, day after day? For me, when all of these situations have been happening to me, it was never helpful for me to hear, or to tell myself, “see, your problem is just that your selfish and self-centered. Just quit being selfish and self-centered and you’ll be fine.”
For me, what’s been helpful in these episodes, is a little different than flogging myself with the terms “selfish and self-centered.” Those terms have somehow become tools of my ego-mind to interpret and re-interpret myself into my own illusory hell-hole – when I’m lost in identification with my ego-mind. For me, when I “hit my bottom” with whatever struggle, my core self comes up against a wall, it’s at the end of its rope with the suffering, and I say to God, or Whatever is there to listen to me, “I don’t care if my life is a living hell from this moment on, I don’t care if it kills me, I’d rather die then continue on with this. Take this [addiction, resentment, compulsive behavior, judgement] from me. I don’t care what the hell my life looks like after You take it. Even if all my worst fears come true, I won’t care because at least I’m standing with You.”
For some reason, we partly believe that letting go of this painful thing will cause us catastrophe – “what if I can’t drink?! That will be hell!” “What if I forgive that guy?! This whole fucking world will be full of assholes that get away with everything!” “What if I don’t get to spend hours compulsively worrying about how much money we need?! Our finances will collapse and we’ll die!” For me, that’s why it’s even a struggle to let go of it in the first place – because of these unconscious beliefs.
As I understand it today, that refusal to let go is what “self-centeredness” is. Thankfully, I don’t have to go through earth-shattering crises of addiction or compulsive behavior to reduce my self-centeredness, i.e. my illusory and confused ego-mind. From those bursts of surrender in those crises, I have corrective experiences. They show me the light of surrender. They show me what “abondonment of self” feels like and when it happens in meditation, I know to focus on it more. I can cultivate this experience of surrender in my righteous living and meditation and prayer practice.
Pretension and Luddites
What to write about today? I read one of my earlier posts to my wife and, in reading it over, I thought it got a little pretentious in its attempts eloquence at points. I mentioned this to her and she said, “yeah”, in non-committal agreement. It made me pretty insecure. Oh well, it’s fun to be eloquent. But I do appreciate the feedback that it could be a little over the top. Why not dumb it down and let the ideas speak for themselves, rather than having to dress them up linguistically?
It was difficult to meditate this morning. I wasn’t totally committed to it. It was in the middle of making cinnamon rolls and getting ready. I never got very deep, I couldn’t clear my mind very well. I had to start doing a mantra and paying close attention to my breath: “soh hum.” That helped me to clear my mind a little bit. I did have the thought of the story of the Ludites. I thought of those first protestors that took it upon themselves to destroy and burn factories simply because they disagreed with it, and thought it was threatening they’re way of life. That seems pretty immature and selfish and cruel to me. I think if I were involved in a protest in these modern times, and I happened to totally agree with my whole protest group, I still don’t think I’d be down with group destruction of other people’s property because of my beliefs. But I wondered if the group dynamics could rouse us all to hysteria and if there were enough violent people destroying stuff, would the rest of us say, “well, we’re already accomplices since we’re here protesting, might as well throw some rocks ourselves”?
gusmeditates 