Facing Emptiness: Seeing through my mind's compulsion to define things

Over time, my explorations in living consciously have brought me to indefinable territory. It is a realm of less and less boundaries with more and more spacious silence. Since definitions and understanding is what my mind lives for, it sees this spacious silence as emptiness. When I face what my mind calls emptiness and look closely, I see through the fictions my mind creates. What my mind defined as emptiness is neither empty or full. It just is. It's a field of being stirred into becoming by thoughts, words, actions and events. Stirring being into becoming, I sense the world resonating to life.

Learning to relax into and trust being seems to be my task in the field of Becoming. As the usual beliefs and stories become more and more transparent, it's strange and disorienting for my mind. There is less and less to grasp and more and more indefinable being to live. There is no problem in this unless my mind labels it a problem and fears for its survival. Since my mind is a story-making machine, it continuously tries to make some-thing out of no-thing. When no-thing won't cooperate by compromising its indefinability, my mind thinks it fails and gets depressed. Undaunted it tries again and again. Over time, my mind is learning that surrender is a more enjoyable option.

This reminds me of the story about the Japanese soldiers found on islands in the Pacific long after World War II had ended. These soldiers were so identified with the war they didn't believe it was over. Wise psychologists knew that these soldiers couldn't instantly change their beliefs. Instead, they had someone regularly whisper in each soldier's ear, "The war is over." Over time, the soldiers' experience showed them they were no longer living in a war zone.

Whether this story is true or not, it helps my mind settle into and explore the indefinable territory of being it finds itself inhabiting. This territory is not the territory of the conventional mind which values duality in all its forms. In the indefinable territory of being, pleasure and pain, success and failure, etc. are stirrings of silence into sound For my mind to revel in this indefinable territory is yet another interpretation, a "success", that is enjoyable, but transparent to the no-thing that pervades every-thing more and more.

Imagine all the problems that are created by our minds trying to define the indefinable. Conflicts, wars, discrimination, greed and all sorts of other problems can result from trying to fit the world into our definitions, no matter how well intentioned. I think John Lennon's had it right when he said, "War is over if you want it." Perhaps we would be better served by facing what our minds call emptiness, seeing through our compulsion to define it, and cooperating with the indefinable mystery of stirring being into becoming.  

Bones & Daffodils

Today I went up on Mt. Tamalpais to sense more deeply the shape my life might be taking after my mother's passing. I walked to a tree I have visited for more than 40 years. Beneath the tree were two deer bones and a spray of blooming daffodils. I have no idea who put them there or for what purpose. Encountering this combination of death and rebirth, in this place on this day, all I could do was bow in gratitude and awe to the Great Mystery that nurtures and guides us every day of our lives.

The Great Mother & The Great Home

After a long illness and a troubled life, my mother passed away. Despite her best efforts to create a beautiful home for us and her appreciation of art and literature, she never seemed to feel at home in this world. She never felt comfortable in her own skin. Hopefully, death has brought her some peace. My mother's passing stirred up many unresolved feelings and disappointments. It agitated much grief. At first, I wanted to avoid this grief, to distract myself from this mess of emotions. I wanted to turn away from my fears of mortality, the seeming futility of living and block out the mystery of death.

     In the middle of the night, however, I quieted down enough to experience my feelings. Below the meanings and stories of my mind, flowed vast tides of hope and fear, pleasure and pain, wisdom and uncertainty, and an ocean of emotion that could not be contained by words. In this sea of grieving, something shifted. Exactly what, I cannot say. But I experienced each sensation as a current of energy, a flow of consciousness. Feeling these currents of energy was to be alive. It was Being surging through the numbness of Not Being.

     Feeling these sensations of energy without clinging to them or avoiding them, I noticed the still space they flowed through. I sensed this still space as the womb of creation, the Great Mother that spawned my mother (and me) and nurtured us throughout our lives. I also sensed this still space, this womb of creation, as the home of all sensations, the home she (and I) always searched for. It was always in the background whether or not we noticed it.

     The willingness to feel the currents of both pleasure and pain is the willingness to feel alive. It is the willingness to notice the spacious stillness of the womb of creation and be at home with all sensations. Opening to the aliveness of both pleasure and pain and the home of these sensations is an affirmation of my life. It is a dynamic, living healing. I'm glad to be alive to feel this. I'm grateful to the Great Mother and The Great Home for birthing us, sustaining us and receiving us whenever and however we follow the currents of experience into them.

Life of Pi: Dwelling with a Tiger in a Lifeboat

I saw Life of Pi last night.
Here is what I came away with:

• Each of us has survived a life storm of some sort, the trauma of birth, etc.
• We each find ourselves out to sea in a lifeboat with a tiger (the wild , uncontrollable energy of life)... I do.
• How we relate to this tiger determines our life experience.
• The story we prefer to favor is either one that deals with the tiger or one that attempts to deny the tiger.
• The story that faces the tiger can awaken, enliven and free us to the what it is to live in this world.
• The story that attempts to deny the tiger puts us to sleep, dulls us and keeps us in mental and emotional chains.
• Any story perspective can be used to either face or deny the tiger (science, spirituality, art, humor, relationships, etc.).
• All the ways humans numb themselves with drugs, alcohol, judgement, religion, politics, worry, etc. can be attempts to escape the lifeboat and the tiger.
• The story that there is no story or that life is an arbitrary collection of subjective stories can be an attempt to deny the tiger and can put us to sleep in the name of awakening.
• Conclusion: When I feel more alive and connected I am dealing with my core relationship to the tiger. When I feel dull and isolated I am attempting to deny and avoid the tiger.

Enjoy wrestling with your tiger!

Contemporary Sacred Place at Skyspace by James Turrell

Places for gazing into the Mystery are created wherever people settle. From ancient caves through stone cathedrals to contemporary steel and glass structures, the builders of each era use current technologies to sculpt openings from their cultures into timelessness. James Turrell's Skyspace at Rice University is a sacred space for our times. It transcends religion and philosophy and invites us to directly experience the overlap of energy and matter, light and shadow, the heavens and the earth.       

The Pattern of the Flood

Here's a drawing from my book 24 Patterns of Wisdom. It illustrates how, despite our defenses, the beliefs and structures securing our sense of well-being are sometimes overpowered by forces beyond our control. Swirling currents dissolve the clear descriptions of who we are , why we are here and where we are going. The pattern of the flood is devastating. Yet, it is temporary.The flood can move us into the humility and gratitude that connects us more deeply with the rest of life and flows into renewal...Stay safe, stay connected, stay open.

Our Primal Bond With Clay

We share a primal bond with clay. Both are made of Earth's raw stuff, both are animated by forces greater than ourselves, both are  shaped by designs we did not invent. As we mold clay into the architecture that shelters us, we discover the blueprints of the soul supporting and guiding us.

Sacred Space is World Space

People think of sacred space as being separate from the world. My experience is that it provides a gathering place for the whole world. In sacred space, the totality of forces participate in a mysterious dance of stirring formlessness into form, lightlessness into light, silence into sound, renewing the world again and again. To enter sacred space is to enter the paradox of both finding yourself and rediscovering your connection to the whole world. 

Design Provides Vessels for Offering

Design provides vessels for offering. Each shape contains the imagination of its maker. The form of every designed object, from a chair to a concert hall, is a dream made tangible. As matter is structured by desire, it creates containers that receive the energies poured into them before they offer them onward into the stream of existence. In this way, the things we design reflect the vessels of our bodies-hearts-minds as we are shaped by life to offer life into the currents of living.

Thresholds of Transformation

Architecture invites us to cross thresholds of experience. It calls us to move beyond what we know to discover fresh nuances of the spirit-matter dance. Each portal is marked by twin pillars, embodying the hope and fear encountered at threshold crossings. Passing between these pairs of opposites and crossing into interior realms, we enter a unique sense of place. At these moments, we have the opportunity to see ourselves and our surroundings with fresh eyes. We can look again at what we thought we knew and sense it as if for the first time.