Perfect dialogue ends in silence

I begin, continue and end my classes with dialogue on many levels. Each class is always different from a previous class. The content of the class changes because different students show up and because I'm different too. The idea of a locked in syllabus, a fixed program of studies is good because people need structure – yet, they also need to explore and make the subject their own. That's where dialogue comes in quite well. 

True dialogue brings meaning to life. It expresses profound love. We are born to sing, gesture, and talk with each other. Our group survival depends on that. To love one another and love the whole of creation is our destiny, purpose, or dharma. Opening up to “fields of new possibilities”, becoming wildly creative, like children, and joining the play of creation.

Each of us knows so little; others may help us gain a greater view. Adjust worldviews - incorporating greater information, knowledge, and wisdom.

The perfect dialogue ends in silence; a silence that feels complete in itself. A sense of unity with all-that-is pervades; along with a feeling of completeness.

Concentric Circles

“You will walk differently alone, dear, through a thicker atmosphere, forcing your way through the shadows of chairs, through the dripping smoke of the funnels. You will feel your own reflection sliding along the eyes of those who look at you. You are no longer insulated; but I suppose you must touch life in order to spring from it.”

-F. Scott Fitzgerald from his novel Tender is the Night

Be Here Now

"What keeps you from that place that gives you that total feeling and experiencing and knowing of fulfillment is all of this posturing, all of your thoughts, all your way of organizing your world, all your plans, all your games you're exploring."

-Ram Dass

I Sight

After a long and stressful day, it's helpful to engage in activities that calm and relieve the anxiety which has built up after many hours of work. This can be done through many methods: mediation, taking a hike or simply watching the sunset. Yet, there are other methods to unwind and sometimes they seem more appealing due to the quick relief they provide. It seems so simple to use a method which delivers instant gratification. This is only temporary. Look at an object though a bottle. The image which you see is skewed due to the refraction of the light. By attempting to use this method to unwind, it skews what is truly present. It's incredibly different then what is seen by the unaltered eye; it is a broken image. Don't refract the light after a long day by looking at it through a bottle; embrace the last rays of the setting sun.

Lullaby

Some days you wake up and stay awake. Some days you wake up and fall back to sleep. It's easy to fall asleep. What's difficult is waking up; staying awake when you're so tired.

Our work

Our work, our labor, is to awaken to our true nature which was forgotten due to false identification with the content of consciousness. The theory and practice of meditation help us again realize (make real) our true nature. When I speak, write or listen to these words, I am in the realm of theory; when I take in the meaning of these words, I inform and transform myself along the path of self realization. It’s very, very important to remember that words are not what they refer to. “The map is not the territory.”* Speaking or writing about meditation is not meditation. Meditation is in the gaps between the words, between the thoughts. But the word “gap” is not the same as a gap itself as-it-is. Get past the word – allow the great silence to come. At the point of great silence is the great labor of liberation. **

* Famous phrase summarizing one of Alfred Korzybski’s great work on general semantics.
** Published in Meditation: Waking Up to Life by Americ Azevedo, Cognella Academic Publishing, 2010.