In so many ways life is simple, except perhaps between our ears.
If we focus our attention outside our own consciousness, our own heart, our own soul—which is to say in the direction of the worldly world—the experience of duality is the only sure thing. Everything, and its opposite.
As a result, we are never completely happy, peaceful, and so forth. The other shoe always drops sooner or later. And many of us come to believe this is how it is. Outcome is our measure of life. I love you and if you leave me I’ll be miserable. Maybe I’ll get over it if I win the lottery.
Then there are us crackpots.
Who knows what happened in our previous lives, but we walked into this one saying, “Oh yeah? Prove it.” We accept only that which is in harmony with our own experience, our own intuition, the voice of our heart. Boy, can we be a pain in the ass. Though a lot of fun, too. We look for the gift in everything, even when it’s us being a jerk.
Since pretty close to day one, the game of my life has been to develop a singleness of attention on that which transcends all phenomenological considerations. What I call the essence of existence, that which does not come and go but is always present. What a mouthful.
I speak from the pain of ignorance, that great teacher, the futile hope that some change out there will magically change the me within.
Plus a lifelong fascination with making up stories about how the universe works. My best at the moment says the spirit of the universe is playful, loving and deep. And, that we’re all souls making our way through who knows how many incarnations to consciously realize our True Identity: A manifestation of You Know Who. The title of a book I hope to write is: “We’re All Going to Heaven Whether We Like it Or Not”.
Simply holding that possibility up to the light, turning it every which way and exploring what gets revealed can keep us enraptured for aeons I bet, as the awareness within us continues to grow. No wonder the great lesson of death is that we never die.
Somewhere along the way I realized that I’m the man behind the curtain of my every feeling and thought. The cause of anything other than joy is my misperception.
Instead of seeing life as this or that––sane or nuts, peaceful or jeetzy, brave or wimpy––I choose to see all that razzmatazz of duality as simply God putting on a dramatic production of absolute nonsense.
The purpose is sublime. Sooner or later the pain of nonsense (including the insanity that people and stuff outside of us is responsible for how we feel) becomes something we wish to overcome, to free, so we set upon expanding our consciousness. At that point in our evolution, gold is right around the corner—even if many incarnations away.
Over time, we give up blame. We take up meditation, spend years whining about how rotten we are at it, until the day we fall off our cushion laughing. We fall in love with a 500 pound gorilla: taking responsibility for everything we think and feel. We attempt to serve others with every breath we take. We invite Pema Chödrön and Baby Jesus over for poker, and they clean our clock.
Meanwhile, we bow to every form of nonsense we encounter for we know it is nothing less than God Alone, in drag, leading us home by helping us spot delusion a mile away.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. is quoted as having said, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
yes!!!
My most recent daily spiritual text consists of a second run-through of The Untethered Soul, by Michael Singer – all about stepping behind the heart, relaxing it and letting go – totally identifying with the witness that I AM, rather than the thoughts, emotions, events and other objects entering my experience. Like a big exhale.
I’ve never done anything for Lent, not being Catholic or particularly fond of the practice of abstaining. But I like the ritual so this year I decided to ADD something, instead of taking away: a Death practice for 40 days. A daily contemplation – maybe a couple of days in a Death lodge of my making (practice I learned on my vision quest many years ago), certainly some reading, I don’t know what else yet, just that it will be for 40 days and I’ve no doubt more life will be resurrected in me by Easter. I seem to have started already – I ran across an app that reminds me 5 times a day that I am going to die, and offers an inspiring quote about death. I love it! It’s such a great pattern interrupt. As are your writings, Steve. Awesome, irreverently reverent, profound, and laugh-out-loud. All in a few short paragraphs! 🙏🙏🙏 for being you.
Celebrating Absolute Nonsense may be the most concise, persuasive and right-on chapter I have read in in My Two Cents. What a resource you are in taking the next step for all of us. I too still beat myself up about being a lousy meditator.