contemplations

I can never truly understand can I?

There's something wonderfully complete and devastatingly terrifying about that. So liberating yet a prison within. It's the end of the search because it's seen that the searcher can never find what they're looking for.

Was there even a search and what was all this for?

So what now? The question of how to live still remains. Maybe it always will.

Why?

Exactly.

Now, why not?

Any “why” presumes something should be a certain way, but from where? From what standard outside of this? If there were some ultimate reason, where would that reason come from? And if you keep tracing it back, eventually all you find is silence.

Reality is just this. Completely unnecessary, yet undeniable. Nothing needed to happen, yet here it is. No reason, no mistake.

Just, why not? And why?

What is there to do but laugh?

The closer you put your hand to a flame, the more you can feel the fire. The way it moves and emanates and how it sways back and forth. You can also feel the warmth then hotness too.

It’s like a gentle meeting, then an embrace, then totalizing. Except we stay in the embrace because everything is scary.

Experience and the mind is much the same. Reality, the eternal, the now, the unchanging is right here. That is everything. And that is scary.

So your mind exists. It overlays a map of the world. It says here is this and there is that. And this is me and that is not.

This all happens with fractions of a second. So fast you can barely see it. Because you’re not really supposed to.

That’s the key to meditation. Meditation is to stare at that map and compare it with what you see and to realize that each point and destination was sort of made up. And so realization would be to see the same in the map.

It’s quite hard to do because your mind will do everything to stop you from seeing it. Because once it does, then why mind? And so how should you exist now?

In a weird way, that state of uncertain being gets rid of that how. Not sure how it works, but it’s because you’re in the now. And things are beautiful and alive.

So if meditation is seeing practice, contemplation would then be repetitions of the mind. To wrestle with a point and destination. Why here? Why there? Why one and why two? Why somewhere to go? Is there somewhere to go?

The truth is yes! And no.

The map is the artifact of the wanderer’s path. As in coming after, not before.

And so after you read this and you ask what now? What am I supposed to do?

Follow your path and examine the road. The rocks that pave your steps as you go on and on.

Sometimes you’ll know what to do. Sometimes you won’t. The peace and wonder is to see that this journey and everything it’s not is everything at all.

The infinite nature of consciousness is always captured through the finite structures of awareness. And structure seems to exist because it’s the only way infinity can be made sense of, or brought into existence.

When there’s the idea of an endless everything, there’s no way to really conceptualize it. To truly see everything or endlessness.

Without getting into defining what is material and what exists, what’s fascinating about awareness and how we perceive our immediate experience is that it’s directly mediated through these invisible lenses of self.

How we experience our experience and make sense of things is self-referential. Self is called self after all. But what isn’t as readily made evident is how this referentiality is made manifest.

Considering this is all operating within or as consciousness, this is all within the realms of mind. A lens is that layer and bundle of sentience and energy. A way of seeing things, and therefore a path. A way to move. A literal way.

These lenses are reflective and refractory; awareness isn’t simple, but rather extremely complex and multidimensional.

One way I like to think of it is lines forming a circle. When there are fewer lines, it’s less circular and rigid. When there are more, it’s the opposite.

And so it’s reflective because what we see is made sense through what we’ve already seen. And it’s refractory because what we’ve seen exists along with what we see. And it’s not smooth or stable either.

Awareness is that mirror of lenses.

To quiet things would be to untangle those psychic messes and to release that pent up energy inside. And since one less thing exists, we’re slightly more free. Because infinity has been made manifest more by removing a way.

The hard part is to see through a circle within awareness. This circle that is really a combination of many lines is a part of what constitutes experience.

But because there are many circles that are messily entangled, it’s hard to see what one is and how it is and why it exists.

This is the point of seeing that frees. To see how reality is warped through our lenses of self that are always very subtly there. And that once we see one thread, that we can see another. And another. And other.

We are always unraveling. That is reality flowering unto itself. Light shines through the prisms of being.

And the mystery is to see the becoming. And then can we start to truly bloom into beauty.

Something to think about is this idea of wholeness and unwholeness. What does that mean, and how does that work in our everyday experience?

There’s the understanding and felt sense of satisfaction. Those times when a bite really feels just right. Hard to come by too.

This is a wonderful area to explore on your contemplative path, because this is so deeply intertwined with your psyche and reality.

What constitutes that feeling of satisfaction? I think of it as that wholeness. A feeling of completeness. It’s gotta hit on multiple levels too: the physical (and it’s very specific mechanical sequence of what you experience), the emotional, the psychological, and the spiritual (the meta). The story of it all.

Suffering and desire and resisting and letting go is all about this experience of completeness. We’re so ecstatic when we experience it that we chase it. Beyond what’s “wise” and “right”.

“Wise” and “right” here is another rich area; because what is being human if not these incredible stories of up and down? Beyond what makes sense until it does?

It’s worth realizing that that feeling of dissatisfaction is that incompleteness. Going back to that bite, when something’s slightly off. And then you get sad because you were secretly hoping for that release and escape.

The contemplative path is essentially to not do that. But also to do that. And to see why and how you do that.

Just be here. Don’t release and escape. When incompleteness comes, let it be. But that’s hard. And so you have to go on this whole journey to work through that. Or you don’t. Who knows?

Energetic awakening, tantric realization, enlightenment, dissolution into the non-dual, union with God is to go before and beyond this completeness-incompleteness.

Can’t describe it because —

Literally. So try a whole bunch of different things. Sit, nut, walk, talk, cry, laugh, and ask why. And follow all these different feelings of wholeness and unwholeness and see where it takes you.

Because you are here after all. But don’t you have somewhere to go?

And after you travel for a bit, you’ll feel that love was that before and beyond that was always there after all.

What does it mean to be one with the way? To do as not-do?

If we try to partially name the eternal here as motion and energy, you and your experience are that. Moving and being in the world.

To be one with the way is to not experience any disruption; pure, effortless action.

Pure is central here. Pure flow is just that. Flow.

You are always in flow, but your pain and conditioning that has formed your psyche has put rocks in this river. And pebbles and sticks.

The hard work is in cleaning up. And yet, how is it that treasure is always found in ruin?

If anyone says to you that pain isn’t a part of the path, don’t trust them. Either they are lying or living in illusion.

Everyone suffers. That is the truth. We must accept it. But know that we won’t.

That is the puzzle of suffering, the labyrinth of the mind.

Because that is who we are. The human condition split between knowing and resisting.

One of the biggest parts is being able to let go of sensate experience. As in the things you feel in your moment to moment experience. The last post went into suffering and desire, and its relation to the incompleteness and completeness of experience.

Liberation is to be freed from experience itself. That liberated state of being is not just perceptual and conceptual and felt. It is total. Your life and reality is literally different when you remove this dimension.

It's quite scary to see when you step outside of your story. This story isn't just thought. It's also felt and seen. And so the flows of your life and the ways it works is directly mediated by all of these different things. That is what constitutes direct experience after all.

Life is this push and pull and our psyche is mediated by this action and reaction to certainty and uncertainty. So to step outside of ourselves would be to step outside our lifestream. Or flow itself.

Liberation is freedom from freedom itself. Where flow doesn't flow anymore. And when it does, it's a very blissful stream.

Because to step outside your story would be to see the illusion of experience and you as well. A complete destruction of everything that changes nothing into everything it needs to be.

And because we need to be honest and not escape into the escape from escape, we need to accept the normal more when we return to ourselves.

Which will happen. Without a doubt. And with ease too. Because you've seen that the rocks that weighed you down were really just feathers. And that you weren't drowning in the sea. But rather being it and swimming the waves.

The inner path and realization is to develop faith, or a secure attachment to the world.

We are fortunate to experience this trust and safety within our relationships with each other and the things we do and the places we inhabit. But trust in the world is quite complicated.

To trust would mean to just do. Imagine as you are with someone who loves you. But how do you just do when the world is uncertain?

How do you become safe in an unsafe reality?

That is the nature of mind. Conceptualization as the illusion and necessity of relative safety.

This has unpredictable consequences, of course. Suffering as the fight between knowing and resisting, between controlling and letting go. And this struggle is not just of the mind, but of society and one’s place in it. Where is one’s place, if it exists?

Realization is to see that unsafe is also an illusion. As is safety.

The divine is to be love and is always expressed as that. Because that is how it feels. Faith as love as understanding beyond understanding. Which is freedom. The freedom to just be.

A pure stream flows with no disruption when disruption occurs. And that stream is you, your mind, and who you are in the world.

That is the dissolution and union between self and reality. Who am I? Why does that matter?

Faith is a delicate thing. For blind faith is foolish. But how else do you leap?

It requires the destruction and creation of your being. The ways in which you thought and did as you believed to be true.

Which were and are but aren’t anymore. What is the best path forward?

Now, before contemplating further, ask yourself what is best, and what is best for me? What is a path, the path, and my path?

Rejecting one or choosing another would be to act blindly. Seeing that frees is deliberate in its moving through trees.

Every tear is a gift. So while you cry, say pain goodbye, don’t ask why.

Feel that this too, this heart wrenching why, is to deny that lie.

That you are forgotten and broken. Because that too, and you, is human.

You are beauty. That is and always will be. So accept me, and let your artist free.

The magic in metacognition is that now you’ve conjured an algorithm of the mind.

More self-awareness simply means more awareness. So you see more, about yourself and how you live in this world.

And so things that didn’t make sense to you now do. Especially the things about yourself.

To go meta is to shine that light from above. But above isn’t the right word here.

From the phenomenal sense, there’s always just the is. I know, confusing! Screw it.

Notice how you move and how things move and what it means for there to be up and down and left and right.

The way the mind works is that as time flows, so does your mind. So it goes in all those different directions.

There are always patterns to it. And events that happen that resonate on a deeper level.

The tricky part is to see how a direction exists in the mind.

This is where the idea of knots and layers and tensions come from. When you’re still controlled by them, you operate within it. So the directionality is confined within that boundary.

And a good way to think about that boundary as a point in the architecture of your being. A constriction of experience. Suffering! But also not.

You know how certain topics really get people going? And you have to deal with it until it’s passed and they snap out of it?

That’s that specific boundary. An expression of that particular psyche for a given set of conditions. There’s always some randomness to it too. But for a good part, somewhat predictable.

So what does this all mean on the contemplative path? Insight is to see through a boundary. And integration is to allow for the stabilization of that dissolution.

Since this a point in the mind and a way of being, it’s real after all. And then seen as an illusion. But because it was real, that boundary is also a bundle of energy. Consider again the relationship between movement, boundary, and directionality of reality.

So what does dissolution look like? It depends! But you’ll know it when it’s happened, because your mind is more spacious. You feel more and see new ways of being. Your head is lighter and reality is literally brighter.

Hence, enLIGHTenment :)

But don’t hate the story of you so much. You’re always going to live it. It’s just about being more by being less.

Yes, be mindful and just be present. You as present. Because after all, you are awareness.

But see too that you are not; you are not that impersonal everythingness.

True liberation comes from radical embrace of all experience, all highs and lows. It’s not about transcending suffering, but rather accepting everything so fully that nothing is separate.

True wisdom includes form as well as emptiness. Enlightenment is not no suffering. It’s about engagement, not escape.

And it is in that paradox that true seeing occurs; the realization that nothing has ever been separate in the first place.

Because if samsara is truly nirvana, and this is the great perfection, then what you are is the singular play of two.

That does not mean that happiness and sadness are the same. But rather that whatever you experience is real. And that you care deeply.

And when you truly open your heart, you’ll know. Because happiness won’t just be happiness anymore. You won’t just be you anymore. Your being won’t just be your being anymore. And that is the isness of perfection.

The collapse of the mind that is the singular play of two.

The way the simulation works is that you’re just orchestrating these algorithms of the mind.

There exists infinity right in front of you. And to step into another world would mean to step into a different flow of things. So how do you do that?

An earlier writing got into the attachment to experience, and what it means for you to exist in your lifestream. Your ways of being imposed on the world.

Think of an example in your life where you went from one state of mind to another fairly quickly. Like laughing after crying. When you cry, the story bleeds. Then when you laugh, the story sings. But it also stings.

You’re aware of all of this. And the more aware you become, the more you see. More as in more overall, and more as in more closely.

And in looking more closely, what you’ll see is that sequence of events that leads to a certain state of mind.

So if you want to be happy and exist in a bright and cheerful world, be the best researcher of your happy being. Explore all the different ways in which you exist and feel. And when you feel, examine how you feel and how much you feel.

The entire universe exists in that equation. So go as far as it takes you, because the scrolls of reality are always unraveling.

And in doing so, you’ll find the treasures of being.

What is the multidimensional nature of experience? What is form and emptiness, emptiness and form?

Yes, all the thoughts and feelings you have are real. But not real in the ways that you really see.

Take for example you clenching your jaw when you get mad.

There is a biological explanation for that, but at the experiential level, what is the nature of that connection?

This gets into the greater questions of what it means for things to be connected. For me and you to be connected, and interconnected.

If you can relax the mind enough, you will see that these connections are the ineffable. A transitory thread of experience that leads to the next.

As you clench your jaw, see what it means for you to be mad. What exactly does that feel like? How is the world shaded? What do you think? What does the sun breathe and how does air move?

And importantly, what is the sequence of things? What came first? How do you know? As you can describe in further and further detail, the mystery unravels.

Until the end. When mystery meets knowing. Or does it?

Seeing emptiness is the first step in the pathless path. Not the end. The end is the beginning.

Now that you got there doesn't mean you can rest. In fact, it means quite the opposite.

You have seen through the illusion and glimpsed the true nature of things. Your mind has seen something it cannot unsee. And so, the psyche starts to unravel, even when you don't know it.

Why? Because the logic and stories that held your ways of being in place don't need to be there anymore. And so, who then am I?

Now that the psyche is unrooting itself, deeper and more intense experiences will surface too, whether you like it or not. The fundamental fears about yourself and the world will be a part of your day.

Soon too that dissolves in truth. And your mind is quiet. At last.

It is a painful path. And even when you are all said and done, the world isn't.

There is screaming and laughing everywhere.

How do physical tension and experiential constriction relate? Why does opening the hip release emotion?

A good way to think about it is from the groundless ground up.

First, we start with the eternal. Nirvana.

Then, there’s movement and us.

Think back to a time when you were angry or anxious. Very unsettled right?

That unsettling is the created construction of suffering.

What this means is that when you are in a flow state or deep contemplation, everything is water.

These negative experiences are ripples in said water. And once there’s a ripple, it’s quite hard to predict how that will unfold.

So what is the ocean? The ocean is what you see. And sense. And think. And feel.

It doesn’t matter how a wave comes, but that it must go. That unsettling is you not letting go. A paradox, but that’s how it works.

A calm surface will ensconce every ripple with beauty.

Bitch you think I’m joking when I say you have to wander?

I’ve lost years of my life wondering. Lost my youth lost in pain.

But that’s how it works, isn’t it?

Suffering navigates the world, the pain breaks you down, and then you’re dragged through time.

What is lost becomes moveless moving, which is what you need to be the flow.

The way is there. Everything is here. That is the union with God. Everything is lost in light.

And darkness no more.

What are the realms? What are the lower realms?

Let’s view this from the flow. Pure flow as eternal. As ever changing and forever moving.

The lower realms are the opposite. The lower the realm, the lower the change.

When you are suffering, in many ways your mind can’t find a way through. Because it is seeking a logical explanation to your pain and to your life. Which ultimately doesn’t exist.

When there is more pain, there is more not-knowing. Too many whys. So the mind stops. Because it is too much.

Experiences are the same and duller, thoughts are more consuming and demonic, and life was instead of is.

But this is where surrender happens. Because the suffering that traps you is the one that frees you. You trap your mind, your psyche, your ego in illusion. And soon the chaos is peace.

To dance with the gods is to laugh with the demons. They are but the same.

The story of self and its evil twin suffering

You wake up one day. And then another, you die. What the hell happens in between?

You know this already. It’s life, and living.

The experiences we have, me and the world, understanding my world and what I want it to be, and more.

In all that time, there is you. The story of you.

Things happen. Seasons change. You cry and shit and run and hide. And you love.

You ask yourself, why do some things feel good? Why are things bad? What is bad? Why?

The questions never end! You figure out one thing and two more show up. How rude.

As this happens, time goes by. You get older. You live more. And cry and shit and run and hide and love more. But now, there’s this weight to it all. And I can’t get rid of it.

I don’t know where this weight is. I sure as hell can’t see it. But it’s there. I know it. Because why did I just cry at that beautiful sky? It’s getting bigger too.

Maybe this is me. After all, this is what I sense and see. But why does this have to be?

Again the questions never end. So what am I supposed to do? Why God? What is the truth?

You don’t know. Things are bad. And good and bad again. Maybe you weren’t meant to know. And so you live. Maybe this is peace.

And then it isn’t. And you cry and shit and hide some more. You hate love and don’t laugh.

More time goes by. The winter has gone, and spring is ripe. The air sweet, the trees full of life. Wow.

What just happened?

Suffering is evil until it isn’t. And then it is your best friend. The one you knew was with you all along.

It may look evil. And it certainly feels that way. But it’s a lot of things. It’s your protector, and your guide, and light in darkness.

What may seem like darkness is but a simple illusion. For the light was always there. You just didn’t want to see it.

Love is fundamental because life is fundamental.

Me and the world. Me and others. Me and myself. We live in connection.

We don’t need to understand its nature to see it. To feel it and acknowledge its truth.

But the mind is a tricky thing. And so we try to seek. We ask, what is love and who am I?

The illusion was that everything wasn’t love.

We trap our beings into what we think to be true, and it is to no fault of our own that we think connection to be the same. That it has to be this way. Or a certain way. And certainly not that.

And so we blind ourselves from light. Because connection is not just what you think it to be.

Think again to me and the world. Me and others. Me and myself. What is me? And the world?

Every thing you see and feel and think is connected in some way. And not just in some way, but in every way.

And it is in this radical view of connection that reveals love to be everywhere. Because you were never alone after all.

And you are free. What is pain but the sense of feeling some thing? Some thing that just wants to fly. And yet we trap it, so it cries.

There’s no need to trap, no need for why. You can just be, and not ask who am I.

Now everything is imbued with light. Reality in the dead of winter is warm with the hands of God.

And so the seeker returns home, back from the journey in his head. Only to see how dirty it had gotten.

And so nothing’s changed, and everything is the same.

Why? Why not?

Love was always love. And my pain was never separate from my freedom. There was never anything missing, and there was never anything to seek.

And so, I open my door with clear eyes, and close behind me my waking dream.

There was never a path to begin with. Just how things had to be seen.

And now I must live.

For the answer to how is how indeed. I suppose at the end of the day, it is the end of the day. What else is there to say?

I’ll always wonder why things had to be. It took traveling the world to see that this was just me.

Practicing and being with yourself is important, but what also is just as necessary is struggling with thinking.

When you suffer, you keep asking why this and why that. It seems as though you need to live this infinity to see that it can be transcended and truly accepted.

When you do wrong and regret, you keep asking why did I do this and not that. It seems as though you need to live the eternal what if to see that there is an end and peace is real.

Why me? Why my life? Why this?

These questions are so chaotic and intimidating that it consumes our beings. It becomes our nature and how we see the world.

But at the same time, when each answer is found, there is calm in the storm.

The mind is always this play. And so it is up to you to find your way.

A dragon that roars is the same butterfly that soars. For the butterfly’s wings and its grace is the bellowing fire of the beast.

So it seems that after you destroy the idea of the path, you’re still left with why and why not.

Why exist? Why not? Why live? Why not?

It makes no sense! But yet it does.

Now in more structured settings, the why’s and why not’s are much clearer, so to say.

But at the core of why itself, it’s just an infinite loop. And with all circles, you ask yourself how did you even get in? And now that I’m in, there’s no circle? How do I get out? It makes no sense!

And so the masters say that’s okay. Normal even. That that is all that it is.

Okay? Okay.

But I’m not okay. In fact, I’m even worse now. Because the meaninglessness is even bigger now.

And so the masters say that’s the point!

But what is the point? Is there even one?

And so here I am, left in my own filth. Just like everyone else on this godforsaken world.

And so the masters say ah! Now you can play!

For this dance of somethingness and nothingness is all there is.

So why play? Because why not?

Why suffer? Because why not?

Why live? Because why not?

So why? Because why not.

And in this mess, we find the freedom from freedom itself. For ourselves.

Now, will you laugh or weep? Why not both?

The mind is my greatest friend and foe. It took a long time to see that. Why it is and how it is me.

Awakening from illusion was to see that everything is but a dream. And that these dreams are also nightmares.

It’s scary. Because it’s the one in control. But I am. Or at least I think I am.

Yet I’m not. I don’t understand. What is this world in front of me? What moves, if not me?

I don’t know. It always comes back to this. That the only way to make sense is to not make sense at all.

I think-I am. But who’s what? And why this life, this me?

I don’t know myself. And yet, I live. I always have.

The sky was always there. Sometimes there were clouds. Sometimes it would rain. Sometimes there were stars. Sometimes it would fade.

The dream was always a dream. I am the illusion, I see. Nothing was real. Everything is true. I was always here, with everywhere to go.

Unfortunately, the whole “everything is play” bit was also just cope. Fuck me it just never ends. And I’m such a fool. It’s actually crazy. It was always an illusion. Literally always. And I know this. But I also know that it was so real until it wasn’t.

How the hell do I keep doing this to myself?

It’s the same conclusion you arrive at over and over again, since the beginning. Those moments where you’re tearing up when someone asks if you’re okay. You don’t feel anything solid inside but you still say yes. Because you have to. And because you know it so. Because you’ve gone through the journey of up and down, and now know up from down.

It is a weary but genuine wisdom. And so the alchemy of pain is wonder. Which is where this idea of play arrives.

And so to be found is to be lost. Where you are the uncertain winds. And yet, the beautiful flower that dances too.

But I don’t know. I just say things. So just enjoy the scenery for now.

Maybe this is why the masters know silence. The quiet that is chaos. So many ways of what is and isn’t.

In a week, I’m sure I’ll tell myself how foolish I was now. But is not to naive to believe?

And so it was said.

Where is my mind?

And so it was told.

Some days that’s enough. Some days it isn’t.

And so it is so.

Keep dancing, flower. Even when the wind laughs at you.

And so it is.