into / out of / through

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The best way to control cows and sheep is to give them a big, grazing field

Suzuki Roshi

I feel like all these silent meditation retreats have been excellent training for the next several weeks. In fact, in a lot of real ways I see all the same dynamics arising around me and inside of me as very similar.

It seems like it doesn’t matter if your isolation was a choice or not. However you’ve found yourself there, isolation forces you to sit alone with everything that makes you the most uncomfortable. The discomfort is a persistent melody, like a tune stuck in your head – you can try and drink it away, or eat it away, or drugs it away or anger it away – but it turns out to be an infuriating game of whack a mole. The truth, of course, is that it always has been – but in isolation, there is a deep and frightening realization of the truth that there’s no “doing” it away – that the old tricks don’t work the same way, or are just not available. There is nothing to do, nowhere to go, no productivity tricks to rid yourself of the powerful emotions. Just you and your discomfort that rises and falls – cresting and collapsing – like waves.

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the uses of imagination

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The psyche consists essentially of images. It is a series of images in the truest sense, not an accidental juxtaposition or sequence, but a structure that is throughout full of meaning and purpose; it is a ‘picturing’ of vital activities.  

CG Jung

Last year, towards the end of a 10 day meditation retreat with a well known teacher, I sat the Yaza.  The Yaza is an all night sit – from 10pm to 6am the next morning.  The intrepid leader leads the small group through a sequence of traditional sitting and walking meditation, maybe a break for snacks, and the always entertaining yaza march – in which all the yogis line up and march military style around the neighborhood.

Somewhere around 4am, after the march, I was sitting and was visited by an Angel.

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A mystic take on the concept of SIN

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I’ve been thinking lately about SIN – that old favorite device that pits the virtuous against the rest of us.

Growing up in the evangelical church, I was terrified of Sin – there was an overwhelming sense that there was nothing I could do to stop it – that it was always right there waiting to pounce on me.  That no matter what I did, how much I tried to be a good person – there was always a sin following me around.  We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of god afterall.

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Know what you want so you can chart your course

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I’m involved in a lot of different faith communities at the moment, most centered around social media.  In all of them, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a christian group, a secular self help group, or a witchy group – everyone seems to be stuck around making choices about their daily spiritual practices.

This question most often comes up around meditation – some people really struggle with it – but it also comes up around navigating the cornucopia of options out there for the spiritual seeker, which I chalk up to the plain old decision paralysis of the modern world.

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the good heretic

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For a long time this space has been In Secret Knots.

In Secret Knots was mostly focused around a specific brand of spirituality, specifically from a pragmatic Buddhist lens.  Alas, all things change (including me!) and while I’m still highly involved and in love with pragmatic Buddhism, I’ve also branched out in a million ways, with so many new insights and spiritual ideas that no longer fit in the container of Pragmatic Buddhism (or anything really).

The Good Heretic is an idea I’ve been thinking about for quite some time.

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Grief & saying goodbye

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This weekend I’m leaving my apartment that I’ve lived in for 7 years.

It’s hard.  Harder than I expected it to be.

The reasons I’m leaving are all so expansive and good.  In the past several months I’ve bought a house, I got engaged, and I’m moving on to a whole new phase of life.  I’m deeply excited about the future, but as the move gets close I’m also discovering more and more sadness around saying goodbye.  Not just to my apartment, but to a whole phase of life.

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Mindfulness for fear and anxiety

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One of the great things about practice is that over time, you start seeing things more clearly.  At first for me this was great, I noticed I was growing the skill to see through the emotional layer of other peoples comments, to the truth of what they were saying.  When I found myself in arguments I noticed that sometimes I still got sucked up emotionally, but I had a new ability to pull out and get perspective and clearly see where they were hurting and what they were asking for.

So that’s great.

Unfortunately, with outward clear seeing also comes inward clear seeing – and one day I realized that I was clearly seeing my anxiety and fear in a much different way.  I realized that I had been existing for quite a while in a bit of a soup of fear and anxiety – low grade and pervasive.  As if there was always something that was making me uneasy or fearful.

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Things in progress, and other things I do

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So, I’ve been trying to keep up with regular posts but things have been unraveling a bit on the home front!  Don’t worry, my practice is as strong as ever.  As one of my early teachers said “When you feel like you don’t have time to meditate, that means you should meditate more!”

All the things that are happening are good!  I bought a house and we’ll be moving in Labor Day weekend.  There’s quite a bit of remodeling that we’re working on, so things have been fairly hectic sorting things out, finding contractors, discussing design details, researching security systems and smoke detectors.  You know, all that good stuff that I’m pretty sure will never end (will it ever end?)

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A theory of unified spirituality

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When I talk to people about their spiritual practice, one of the big complaints I hear frequently is “how do I integrate my practice into my daily life?”

I hear this from meditators, but also from other types of spiritual practitioners – it’s as if we have two lives, our spiritual lives and our regular going to work, taking care of kids, doing grocery shopping and sitting in traffic lives.

On a level everyone knows that’s not true, that it’s all the same – but we experience it as separate.  It’s not that nuts then to want to integrate things together, to be able to hold that peace of practice (whatever it is) – as we move through the world.  I mean, isn’t that the point?

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2nd Path – Craving and Aversion

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After speaking with my teacher yesterday and fully outlining my cessation and “mind f*” experiences that have occurred since January 1 2017, he concurred with Shinzen that I have likely…. at some point…. tripped into stream entry.  Apparently stream entry is typically followed by weeks of bliss.  For me, first path was indeed followed by bliss, but also by a total re-organization of how I saw the world that felt pretty scary.  Crazy visual hallucinations, feelings of not being in my body, weird energetic experiences etc.  My hypothesis on this is that I just haven’t been meditating for very long – seriously only for about a year and a half.  I just didn’t have the strong anchor of the dharma and sangha to root me into the experiences – so they were all frightening at first.

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