Becoming Free

Attain complete emptiness,

Hold fast to stillness. 

Tao Te Ching, #16

When I was young, I dreamed about becoming enlightened, liberated, like Buddha. It seemed that if I “worked hard enough” I would become free. But it was not clear what one would “become free of”. So there was a deep problem. Perhaps, doing more meditation, or living through all the binding non-liberating possibilities, or finding the right teacher, or reading the right book – something would liberate me, then I would be happy and not suffer at all.

The years passed, it become apparent that becoming enlightened is not an event. Some people have spontaneous enlightenment experiences, glimpses that soon fade away. Enlightenment is not an experience. Call it wisdom. Not the wisdom found in books; but, a wisdom that slowly grows within the heart-mind until one day we awaken to a new way of being, living. We discover we where already free – but did not know it!

THE RIVER RUSHES

The river rushes,
The last rains of spring.

A rose bud in my hand
Opens;
Its petals fall to the ground.

This Moment—
A clod of earth
Between my fingers,
Crumbling to dust.

I brush it off,
And reach out
For the next touch.

Springtime
To summer sunlight.

I am that Light;
And I am the dust
Returning to the Earth.

                         Diane Shavelson (~1999)

Fields of dreams

Our lives are like fields of dreams within a luminous empty screen of pure consciousness. Within those dreams come a few thoughts, insights, and realities that are eternal – that are not dreams. Such thoughts are true comfort and wisdom within the uncertainties of life.

Basic Reality

Basic reality cannot be realized by  
words, thoughts or pictures 

The Ultimate cannot be realized by 
words, thoughts, or pictures 
Un-expressible it is  

Beyond knowledge it is 
Go toward stillness until arriving 
at peace beyond understanding 

There within nowhere 
the you that is you just is   

Presencing

Engaged in endless desires 

mind darting place to place
forgetful of true deep nature
looking for jewels of enjoyment
within illusions and flickering desires
water passing through our fingers 

Living is showing up for our own lives. No one else can do it for you! Where would you “be” if you don’t know you’re here?  “Presencing[1]” is the process of coming to full presence. Real presence is quiet and still.

An old friend asked, "What happens after you die?" Without thought, I said, "Nothing". They looked stunned.  Either way it is nothing. If you really don't die – nothing changed. You die – nothing changed. Consider this deeply.

It is not so much about being alive or dead; it’s being awake to this moment that is life. The intensity of wakefulness is how alive you are. Good sleep, paradoxically, is a sound basis for stable wakefulness. Waking up requires going to sleep. Remember to exercise, eat good food and keep good company. Attend to the general environment all around – the air, the ambient sounds, the tone of the times, and so forth. That means to adjust your distance closer or further away as needed.  Enhance your inner resolve to be alive, to be awake.

Modern civilization’s great “dis-ease” is intentional distraction. Our everyday world is built on distractions. Technology, new products, advertising, sales people – all of them want our attention – their livelihoods depend on your attention

Your real livelihood is your real life which depends on bringing your attention back to the present here and now. Every morning, our place on earth turns toward our local star – the sun. And, we, over and over, need to turn toward the life experienced – this very present, ever present moment here and now. This is active intention called “presencing”. 

Feel with the whole being, be present to the rich textures of body, mind, and heart! Face life. Live life. Live today.

---

[1] The word “presencing” was introduced to me by Frederika Kreitzer, who was a graduating Philosophy student at UC Berkeley. Thereby turning the noun (present), into a process, a verb (presencing).

Fabric of the Universe

Modern quantum physics suggests that 
uncertainty is woven into 
the fabric of the universe. 
Each of us reflects the 
wholeness of all that is. 
Can't be certain 
we'll be here tomorrow.  
Statistically, chances are good 
for being correct when saying, 
"See you tomorrow morning." 
That's not absolutely determined. 
So be humble. 
Nothing is certain - 
not even death and taxes.

Sonnet

Putting all your love into something leaves you empty; expecting love to be returned so as to fill the void which has been created. 

Love everything to the fullest extent.

Just don't forget to direct that love inward too. 

You can't give what you don't have.

Love yourself.

This is how you can love others.

Hippie Days

"That was a long time ago", Americ

So Many Years

Coming of old age is easy - it just happens. Difficult are the goodbyes coming one upon another with accelerating velocity - demanding new levels of self mastery. 

Roots of the Golden Rules

The world's religions are rooted in experiences of cosmic consciousness. Often these experiences came after long periods of isolation and fasting. By looking at this common root, we can come to greater understanding of the unity within the diversity of religions.

All Life is Meditation

A lightly guided meditation for your day.

Breath of Life

A long time ago, I killed a mouse in the kitchen by dropping it into a bucket of water. Thinking that would drown him. But it kept swimming back up to the surface. The mouse eventually drowned. At the moment of death a white mist came out of its mouth into the water. That was the mouse’s last breath - as if “seeing” his life spirit leave the body. One of the most memorable experiences in my life. 

Quiet Morning

Recording quality is low, but the message is important.

At home in the Park

In the spring of 1990 my business partner and I stopped at People's Park in Berkeley. We sat on a log among the homeless people. Some were cooking food. Others rolled around in the grass with their loved ones. Some smoked weed and some drank booze. Most dressed in rags, tie-dye shirts, jeans, long hair, short hair, leather jackets, and bare chests.

We were two businessmen sitting there with them—would-be land developers. Such was the power of People's Park to attract all kinds of folks. A worn-out looking Park resident came up and said, "What are you guys doing here? You don't belong here!" My partner responded, "We're people too!" We kept sitting. The long-term resident shrugged his shoulders, indicating we were okay. We had established our turf on a log.

Dozens of homeless people lived in People's Park. Eventually the University built a volleyball court, and pushed some of them out into the streets of downtown Berkeley. But the Park remains; people still live there. For nearly 40 years People's Park has been a symbol and a home to people who did not or could not live the "American dream"—all for different reasons. There's freedom there. It is a freedom akin to crossing the Frontier in a covered wagon. Dangerous, lonely, and alienating, but space and time are your own in a way that no mortgage payer or renter ever knows.

Some Park people refuse to live in shelters. They want the street. This is their home. Others were in complete misery. They were there because they fell off the edge of the housing market. Not enough money from odd jobs, too few friends and family, a mind slipping away from the stress of life, and no housing they could afford. A formula for coming to the street as home.

Some of my radical friends from 15 years back became disgusted with the Park. One noble liberal preferred to work for social justice from his antiseptic non-profit office, while taking offense at People's Park. He wanted those dope-smoking bums out. He was once a radical fighting the establishment—now he and his associates were establishment but they didn't know it.

I've had my moments close to the edge. Only my friends kept me from the street. My business partner had similar troubles. You owe it to yourself to hang out with the dispossessed. As the Depression proved, very little separates us from the street.

Playfield Of Consciousness

Atomic Friend

Lately, I've been playing around with the fanciful idea of the "atomic friend." This is not about nuclear energy, it's about how we perceive the world. When we look across the table at somebody we're having dinner with, for example, we don't see that person or friend as photons cast in our direction — we see facial expressions. Likewise, we don't perceive sound vibrations, instead we're aware of words and tones of voice, which themselves are as full of meaning as facial expressions are full of meaning.
This view of the "atomic friend" is something we get from subatomic physics, our perception of ultimate reality below what we experience in daily life. It's sometimes referred to as reductionism — the idea that we can define things at a level and say, it's nothing but that, it's nothing but photons, it's nothing but sound vibrations. Yet that's not how we experience life. We experience it with meaning, and love.
The same reduction process happens very commonly in modern society, without the benefit of any knowledge of subatomic physics. We just have to look at the sophisticated games people play around money and power, for instance. Instead of appreciating a child's requirement for love, many people simply give the child toys and money as a substitute for love. They've reduced the relationship to a very quantifiable thing called money, saying "Well, I can't afford to really spend time with you" — that's a subconscious thought, of course — "I can't afford to really spend time with you, but I can give you money, because that's what I'm spending my time doing, and here's the money that expresses my love." Well, somehow the love gets lost in the experience. It's like reducing facial expressions to photons.
It's the same with manipulating people as pawns in power games, in order to aggrandize one's own self or ego. One can manipulate hundreds or thousands of people as an executive, without much concern at all for the feeling experience of the manipulations — like moving a factory from one part of the world to another without experiencing or even paying attention to those things, because we've reduced it to a game of money and power, saving money, or the wonderful joy of the power, being able to move all those materials and people from one place to another. Thes behaviors, I like to say, are truly unconscious.

Audio to text transcription, editing, and augmentation
by Peter Good. Cartoon by Terry Pettengill.

Ordinary and Extraordinary Life

Ordinary life flows on until there's an opening into the extraordinary; a vision of the absolute, transcendental, vertical dimensions of reality. Ordinary life dominates our awareness. The chores, the tracks laid down by education, family, childhood, youth, middle and old age. Sometimes, it feels good; sometimes disarming. We may entertain or distract ourselves for we can't always bear the ordinary condition.

Into every ordinary life come truly difficult events that break the habitual patterns; creating openings into the extraordinary. Amazingly, the extraordinary just shows up by way of grace alone - arriving into a humble simple ordinary moment - while washing dishes by hand! Or, walking with a young child.

Let the Good News be Told

Before the sun rises, let the good news

be told. Today is a better day. Today

I'm feeling well again. Today love rings

the Earth with wisdom and power.

Sitting, standing, breathing, eating, day

dreaming, flying in my memory from spot to

spot in the ocean of past scenes –

now a youth, now a lover, now a student,

now a father, now an older man. Pain and

joy flickering like stars in vast

velvet spaces.

The Begging Bowl

The Begging Bowl was clean;
So the Busy People
Glimpsed their Sweet Reflections
As their Coins Dropped in,
And they Rushed on, Out-of-Sight.

But the Blind Beggar,
His Dark Eyes Shining Bright
Out from his Life-Long Night;
With his Grief-Softened Heart Open Wide,
Basking in Delight
“Saw” only their Sweet Light.

Which begs-the-question:
Which One is the Beggar?

                                  Diane (Nov. 2012)

Meditation Question and Answer Session