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Nondual
Highlights Issue #2359, Saturday, January 7, 2005,
Editor: Mark
Was putting away the dishes this morning...taking them one by one
from the washer...to
the cupboard...at the end of the task, I noticed a tendency to
speed up...to get on to the
next activity...to contemplate the next activity....the next
issue...the next whatever...and
then went back to the "putting away". Noticed my hands
reaching down, grasping the next
bowl...lifting into the air...finding a vacancy...placing on the
shelf...in the cupboard...and
the sound of the bowl touching the shelf. Then the thought...I
never noticed that sound
before...must have done that a thousand times...never noticed the
sound...then my hand
returning to its normal position at my side...turning to leave
the kitchen...and observing
my legs and feet swinging out in front of me...as I walked.
To pick up a little on the above noted tendency to speed up.
Seems...when I look again for
a reason for this...it is to escape a particular emotional
state...labelled an "issue".
And...surmising over time...that there appears to be no
escape...or maybe this choice
arises...to decline the invitation to avoid the state...the
issue...to speed up...to "get out of
Dodge". Yet no dodging for me now...to accept each and every
issue...as an opportunity
to observe it...to follow it to its core. And sometimes...if
vigilance comes...am able to do
this...to follow to the core...and there appears to be
nothing...or at most little feeling
remnants. Other times there is this yarn like ball...that just
doesn't feel like unravelling
itself...so I let it be. It's okay. Just to observe is way more
than enough!
A little more on this ball of yarn...that appears to feel like
not unravelinng. A gestalt...an
energy knot within the emotional -physical body. Don't know
really...doesn't matter what
labels I give it. Doesn't even matter if it really exists. But it
appears to at times. How I
react to it...what I do about it...is relevant...
I have spent a lifetime...skillfully...secretly...dodging those
inner...painful...balls of
yarn...that feel so tightly wound and bound.
But...somehow...through time...with the gift
of perseverance...have observed a loosening...some
unraveling...and some revealing.
Somehow over time...I have avoided to fight with the yarn...to
debate it...or even want it dead!
Yes...to finallly...relax enough to not have an issue with its
presence.
To accept...and with this acceptance...a new sensory world is
giving birth to itself:
At first more sustained vision....e.g. to observe my legs and
feet swing outward as I
walk...and then sound...as the bowl comes to a rest on a shelf.
How does all this relate to Advaita...not sure...for
certain....Could come up with some
satisfactory comments...but would be highly speculative...from
this view.
A big blue sky in Sedona today. Jim.
- Jim Keller, posted to AdvaitaToZen
We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does
not liberate, it oppresses.
- Carl Jung, posted to AlphaWorld
Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.
Don't try to see through the distances.
That's not for human beings. Move within,
but don't move the way fear makes you move.
- Rumi, version by Coleman Barks, Unseen Rain, Threshold
Books, 1986, posted to AlongTheWay
All truths wait in all things,
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon...
- Walt Whitman, posted to Poetic_Mysticism
Grace is not something to be acquired from others.
If it is external, it is useless. All that is necessary
is to know its existence in you.
You are never out of its operation.
- Ramana Maharshi, posted to MillionPaths
the old home
in the rain ...
i walk barefooted
in the endless sound
of water
there is Buddha
- Santoka, posted to ConsciousOneness