March 2, 2014

I was washing dishes and there was a moment of contentment where I noticed how dangerous contentment can be because in that moment I noticed a feeling that said “I don’t need enlightenment right now.”  There was something in me that wished it could stay in that moment where everything was OK so that I didn’t have to venture out into the unknown of trying to wake up. It was like a false sense of safety and it scared me a little.  I realized how alluring a sense of security can be and how any sense of security is a lie since it can only be temporary. So any allure of feeling good and wanting to stay there goes directly into the box.  It reminds me of the Sirens’ song.  First you are enchanted and you forget where you were going.  Then you’re smashed to pieces.  I must remain vigilant!

January 10, 2014

I started a new early morning weekly Zazen routine at a local Monastery.  The interesting thing was that I had a very strong experience of Deja Vu of being in the Zendo and of seeing it exactly as it is.  Don’t know what it means.  Deja Vu for me is usually the experience of something I foresaw in a vision earlier in my life but have forgotten.  I assume it may have some significance.

February 17, 2014

Somewhere in the distant past I  made a journey of ten thousand miles into the misty realm of ego and separation, to experience the tragedy, comedy, and romance of life.  Yet my home has never left me and is not so lost and far away as I dreamed it to be.  The journey itself was imaginary, and so was the time spent absent.

January 22, 2014

The previous “just another character” insight (December 23, 2013) continues to evolve.  In a group meditation where I was maintaining a no-thought condition there was a momentary detachment from identification with my body and mind.  These were there, but AWARENESS was just noticing them.  The separation was very subtle so that I can’t describe it other than to say that something seemed to let go of something.  On deeper analysis later I decided that it was just consciousness relaxing it’s identification with something and/or relaxing its separation from everything else. It was a momentary attenuation of the ego.  Ego is simultaneously an identification with a particular viewpoint and a separation from everything else. I called this attenuation “indescribable un-attachment” when it occurred. There was something very cool about it – comfortable.  But if any insight makes me feel special, I throw it in the box.

December 23, 2013

This insight occurred not long after the “Simple Truth” insight as an expansion of it somehow.  I was with a group of people and I was watching myself and it occurred to me that each person in the room was a character just like my character, and that the only difference was that I was witnessing my character, Pip, from an interior viewpoint.  In other words I was looking through this character’s eyes and seeing the other characters as external while in actuality it was ALL being seen at once. There was the immediate sense that the whole of my present experience, the people, the room, my body, etc,  was like a movie being projected on a screen and I was somehow uninvolved in it.

At the moment I saw this there was a disconnection from my character and I was now looking at a room full of characters, none of which was me and none of whom was more important than any other.  This caused a bit of sadness as I had though this character, Pip, who I took to be myself, was special.  Intellectually I understand the illusion of separation but I am still deeply identified with my character.  And now I saw him as just another character. This was a kind of let-down. Like it ruined the movie and I wanted my money back.  The idea that I am this character and “out there” are other characters, is a judgment but not a reality. From this new perspective life is “just happening.”

This detached perspective continues to arise spontaneously,  as well as whenever I contemplate it. It’s more pronounced, if it occurs to me, when I’m with others. The world appearing as a movie is quite psychedelic when it happens, as if I’m having a lucid dream but not really participating in it. Doesn’t last more than a few seconds.  There is also the vague sense that I am the space in which my experiences are taking place.  While I believe this is the truth, it’s not yet a realization.

January 9, 2014

So I have this box.  It’s an imaginary box but as we all know, imaginary is just another form of real.  Imagine means to create an image.  You build something.  You can build a bird house or a poem but what we call imaginary is usually just built in your mind although it can be given another form in another reality. This accounts for everything created by the human race, which all started as something built in the mind – as imagination.  Ultimately nothing “real” is ultimately real, whether solid or imaginary, because nothing is what it seems to be.  It’s all experience, and all experience is awareness taking form. Some forms we call imaginary and some we call perceptions.  We give meanings to things but meanings are all imaginary.  Best not to believe anything too solidly, including this.  :  )

Anyway I have this box and I find it very useful.  Anytime I have any negative or un-useful thought, feeling, image, or whatever, I throw it in the box.  The box isn’t a furnace or a wood chipper so anything I toss in there isn’t destroyed, which I find ineffective, but just removed from my immediate attention or consideration.  It’s like an opening to a bottomless pit.  This works very well for me.  It gets my mind off the thing and I feel like I’m starting fresh, clear, and unaffected.  Kind of like when you discard unwanted Poker cards for something better. Or maybe like when you just fold.  I use “Le Box”  mostly with thoughts I consider ego based or which I feel are leading me astray in my movement toward awakening, especially during meditation or self inquiry.   It really beats just trying to ignore them.

But the key is the attitude accompanying throwing something in the Box. You accept that the thought (or whatever) is there but that it has nothing to do with the truth of what you are, and has no intrinsic veracity.  There is no questioning about why you had the thought, no fighting with it or dealing with it in any other way – you just chuck it.  Get it off the game board.  No conflict – it just wasn’t serving you.  It’s like spilling something on your sock – you just take it off and get another sock. You don’t burn the sock.  Well I guess that depends.

For example, thinking about how to not have any thoughts, during meditation (which is thinking)! Or thinking about how it will be when I’m enlightened, which is the separate “me” fantasizing about the “future” of my “story” while all these concepts are illusory.  “Shwoop” – right in the Box.  Most of the things I throw in the Box are very subtle thoughts and attitudes that are ego based and which get in my way.  These are hard to describe and I’ve forgotten most of them.  Cuz I threw ‘em in the box!  Ultimately everything will end up in the box as clarity continues to evolve.   Hmmm, just threw that in the box.  Why?  You had to be there – in my mind.  It’s one of those subtle things.

If you wish to try “Le Box 1.0”, well, you just downloaded it to your mental data bank for a free trial.  I consider it  “shareware” for the mind – mindware.  You may send me a $5 donation if you find it useful.   :  )    Thanks!     Pip

December 3, 2013

Big long dream with many parts. Then I was in a room talking with Unmani and I was describing my recent shift and experiences to her but she didn’t seem to understand and was dismissive.  Then she said something that I didn’t understand so I had the thought that maybe she wasn’t really enlightened.  But on the other hand maybe she was just knocking me harder to wake me up.  My reaction was all ego. Perhaps that was her  Kyosaku – her Zen stick.

November 25, 2013

I was in a room with Adyashanti and a bunch of other people and he was talking.  I was walking around feeling light and kind of energized, scatterbrained, and in great spirits.  When he would say something I would say something about how that was not exactly true, and I was practically giggling.  But the main thing in the dream was that I was getting it, although I don’t get it now.  But in the dream it felt like I was seeing the truth clearly.  Adya would look at me each time with his mouth open but kind of smiling like he was thinking “what is going on with this guy” but like he’s knowing that of course I am right and nothing he is saying is exactly true.  Part of this was me imagining he’s thinking this, which is an ego thing and maybe I was even speaking up because I wanted him to see that I could see the truth.  On one level there was no ego there but on another level there was some tinge of ego.  But usually when I say things like that it’s because I sincerely want to share to help others to get it. But the neat thing is on some deeper level where this dream was being generated there seemed to be deeper understanding where I really did get it.  That was the best thing about the dream

November 15, 2013

I was meditating and letting everything; letting go of all my thoughts and then of all my perceptions and at one point it reminded me of dying where I have to let go of everything.  So I imagined letting go of my body and my life and my memories and everything I could imagine. There was also just the sense of letting my life BE as opposed to having any kind of attachment to it.  As I continued to let go there was a feeling of  traveling into a pure expanse of nothing, or of vast space, or of light.  It was a good feeling not in the sense of joy but in the sense of setting down a heavy burden.  I recognized also a kind of a trust in letting go, that it will be ok.  You don’t know if you will ever see this life or this body or anything you are familiar with ever again or even have any memories of this life at all.  You trust because the trust is that what you DO have is unshakable.  What you do have is something you cant lose.  It’s funny because you have no mental connection to it; you have no thoughts about it and no memory of it or anything.  You’re not believing in it or trusting it based on any kind of belief or thought.  It’s like you’re letting go of everything that you were holding on to but the one thing you’re not holding onto is not something you can even let go of.  It’s what you are.

The trust in that, because you are still in duality, is really like you are trusting something beyond you, like God, that has always got your back.  It’s always with you.  It might be taking you away, like a parent taking you away from the candy store, but at least you know you are safe; you’re in  in safe hands, and that even though you don’t get to be with the candy, it’s ok.  There might be a little tantrum there but ultimately you know that you are loved, and you know that’s more important.

November 9, 2013

There was a moment yesterday while washing dishes when I felt that everything was perfectly OK as it is.  But this was more than a feeling.  It was a momentary realization where I felt and SAW that this was the truth;  that everything was OK just as it is and that nothing had to be realized.  Funny, because this was a realization.  Certainly AFTER a realization nothing has to be realized.  My initial response was “is that it?” meaning: is that all there is to it?  So there was a truth noticed that quickly slipped away.  The noticing slipped away.  I can’t describe or convey this very well.  But in that moment it seemed so obvious and clear.  Like: “what was the problem anyway?”  Immediately after this I saw how, when some teachers express this truth and it sounds so lame, we have to imagine there is some deeply esoteric meaning in their words.  Even now as I contemplate this realization it seems too good to be true, too easy, and therefor impossible or untenable somehow.  I didn’t notice any sense of  “no self” in the realization, but the realization was just a glimpse of something. There was a “cleanness” and clarity.  Reminds me of my “peek behind the curtain” insight mentioned in my talk with Adyashanti.

Later: This insight expanded over the next few weeks into other insights and left me with the feeling that enlightenment is not such a big deal.  At the same time my movement toward knowing  the truth seems to have increased somehow.