Inside Outside

It's all paradox.

He got it, _really got it_ , on a Tuesday afternoon walking from the store to his car, which, as grace would have it, was several blocks away.

The last moment he would know zipped up experience, twinkled, and winked out of existence. This was life, of course, not death. Time wasn't there anymore (of course it never had been); judgements ceased to exist (judgement meant difference, difference meant distance, distance meant space and time, and none of that was here). True to Genpo Roshi's analogy, the mind kept on churning out thoughts like the stomach secreted acid. But now, well NOW. He was here. Is here. Presence. Watching the thoughts come and go.

As he made the walk back, everything was at once the same and startling new. He was at the place where enlightenment and non-enlightenment were inseparable, because there was no difference; sensations rained then showered; crimson purples and lilac epiphanies all a glorious dance in now-here (so close to no-here) and tears streamed and arced and exploded in floral brilliance and the sky turned and the ground sang all of the mantras were ever becoming one because they were one and

The door closed behind him and contraction set in, so quickly it made his head spin. Which was confusing, because that presupposed movement, and up until the time he had entered the car, that whole pesky movement - distance thing was a part of the past oh SHIT! Time was clearly back, the language showed it now there was past again and he desperately wanted the experience back.

Time out, chachi.

Yes?

Step out of the prose for a moment.

Ok, what's up?

Well, you've gone seriously south here. And before you start, I'm your creator so I can talk about time and space if I want.

Fine.

So what's with wanting an experience? That's separation AND desire which is more separation and on top of that you are wanting to 'get' a state but you know - or at least you KNEW just a few minutes ago (when there wasn't time) that all of that dissolved in awareness, you simply were, there was nothing to get.

Right, and I get that.

Intellectually, right?

Right.

Almost more than intellectually, I can remember what it felt like, I just don't get why it disappeared when I got back in the car.

I can help with that.

And help I did, easy enough at this layer, simply reach into the monitor, pull the protagonist out via the scruff of his neck ala kitty momma and BANG he's outside the car and back into the backless.

How's it feel?

A kaleidoscope. No need to want wildness or drugs or booze or experience or feeling better or worse or anything. Everything wrapped in time and separation has fused, zipped, and twinkled out. It's all good. How else could it be?

Nice to see you back, but here's the thing - how do you handle getting back on the bus. Or in your case, back in the car?

Well, to start with, in and out are...

Don't worry about Lucknow disease, I'm god here, I get it.

Cool (smile). There's nothing to do when I'm back IN the car. I see how I was contracted, but that's gone, dissolved, i AM what watches that whole game now.

Cool (pluck, into car)

And the whole thing starts over again. A little attenuated this time, but the same presenting symptoms.

(Pluck out of car)

(Pluck into car)

You know, I think that this is basically making him carsick (literally) but it's sure given me a picture of very, very personal Samsara.

You mean the wheel that I need to hop off on?

Why yes, little protagonist, that.

You mean this one? (Pan up, notice many spired wheel over protagonists head, with whole galaxies and ghosts realms and heavens and hells all storming in a funnel cloud over his head and...

now this is strange.

Is it?

I've reached in before, but never had anything come back out of the monitor before

Any last words?

And with that, I see with Meister's eye that is god's eye looking back at me

Protagonist and I touch hands on either side of the monitor and there is silence as we both merge back into that which was there all along.

You mind if I wrap up now?

Don't mind if you / I do.

namaste.

Happy?

Happy?

It's complicated.

Doesn't mean I can't find out for you. Let's have a look at the feeling factory. I've got the key, just stay behind and keep your safety belt near. What's that? Oh, just the usual - flashlight if things get dark, some cortisol and sugar if you get somewhere dangerous and want to go old-school on the monsters' ass. Couple of reminders of visualizations there for you too, but to be honest, they're a little like books in that if you get into a situation where you need them, if they're not already tucked away in your noggin then you probably won't have a chance to fully engage them.

Anyways, just stay close. It's my factory and the reporting lines are mostly respected.

Ok then, where's the light - oh there. Shit! Bulb's burned out. Pragma - you busy? You're never THAT busy, I know, cause if you were sector 7 - relationships and homebuilding - would be a lot less choppy than what it is. Listen - can you get a new bulb in there - thanks mate.

Ok. Let's see - where too first? Autonomic? That's a good place to start, get a real time view of what's going on. They're up the stairs here, follow me.

Phew, little out of breath - Hi Otto. Otto's world here is all about self-regulation, he monitors without getting involved too much. See that guage over there - vitals. It spiked as I came up the stairs there, settling back down now. That vat over there is fight or flight - always kept at a simmer, you never know. Not a lot happening here right now. Otto, can you let us in the lift there - thanks partner.

Ok, we're going downtown, mate. This is where the bad boys hang out. Id runs in and out of here like it's a public library; trying to get him secured better but its all about time isn't it.

Here, best idea is to look through the viewing window. WHOA big fella. Now here is a good example. Dread and fear. The big grey blob - that's dread; the blanket - well, it looks like a blanket anyways - that's fear. Real bedfellows those two.

What's that? Well, we're getting to your answer, but answers without context are like swallowed sneeze - tight, constrained, and pretty unfufilling. You really NEED the environment before you can paint the picture. We're almost done.

Look down - see all the gasses - well -that's the easiest way to picture them. Plexi floors give a pretty good show yah? The gasses are the good guys, delight, grace, freedom, and mixed together into a pastel powder blue - happiness. They're constantly mixed at a fundamental level, then they settle into the predominant shade. Hmmm? Yes, those are two way pipes between Otto, the Badboys, and the flooring. Happiness piped in calms and diffuses, Otto and the Badboys get aggressive, they can feed into the gasses and create a real shitstorm.

So. To answer your question. Yes, I'm happy. I'm also enraged and ecstatic. Manic and depressed. Grace filled and contracted. All depends on the timing mate.

Heraculitis.

Friends and Questions

Just got back from a nice walk with kpio and his dog opsbi.

Just prior to the walk, I was in the tub, watching the ebb and flow of awareness, and being in touch with what I AM.

Interesting, though, to watch what happens when I engage with others. In this case, my I AM disappeared to the background, and the little i am came into the foreground. In this case, 'i am' was:

Intellectually engaged
Wanting to be accepted
Narrowly focused
Contracting
Questioning what I thought i was

Some fear there too. Moving from a place where I know where I am am and where I am coming from to questioning some of that, while I was in the small place.

Hard to put into words.

I am moving out of a self-constricted space that has dominated me for the last 10 years or more, where I was anti-social, contracted, waiting for the SOMETHING the becoming, at whatever level, that would let me engage in social circles from years naught that otherwise frightened me with their legacy and pain. How could I go meet high school friends when I wasn't? Wasn't: musically, personally, or creatively 'there' yet?

And yet, realizing non-dually where I have been along, it was easier, cognitively - let's make that no effort at all - to think of getting together with friends from the past. Realizing that there is no separation, the gap in which fear resided disappeared.

And so, I got together for coffee and a walk. And yet I constricted. Still have a bit of it in the pit of my stomach....

What it was was a piece of me, connecting with him.

As our dialogue went beyond people and memories from the past into pure ideas - Gladwell; change being an absolute; anthropology and population control - the small I dissolved into the idea space. But still limited, looking back in retrospect.

The big I awareness is:

boundary-less
without second
without image
without constriction
without contraction
without small I

And then, the paradox...that out of THAT which can be better described using negatives (not this, not that - like drawing a chair just by outlining the space around the chair that is NOT the chair), everything arises.

THAT cannot be discretely articulated, but can be experienced.

Even that's not accurate. It cannot BE experienced, that would denote going from here to there. It IS experience.

So thanks kpio. The fear and contraction, albeit a day later (this post being finished 24 hours after I started it) help point me back to THAT.

Subject.

namaste

Co Dependant Quilting

A reader asks "Shadechaser, I've noticed that marriges-in-atrophy commonly have discernable themes that can be traced back years to the courting days. Could you comment on this, preferably with a homey metaphor since it IS the Christmas Season?"

My readers are my most precious commodity, and far be it from me to not take suggestions from either one of them. Sure, I'd be happy to.

Marriages in atrophy can be thought of as an emotional patchwork of frozen patterns. Take co-dependency:

The marriage starts off amiably, but a pattern is developed early on, sheathed in good intentions. The wife acquiesces to make the husband happy. Or this, she believes, is her motivation. Doesn't want to rock the boat with him, better to take her husband's position in things and make him happy than come out with her own opinion and risk having conflict, however minor. So there is peace, or at least the appearance of peace. Problem is, as the pattern matures over the years (gets more emtionally embedded in the relationship, subtler, a living breathing entity that has a mind of its own) it darkens. The husband feels closed off from his wife; there is a subtle sheath between them; he is never getting the straight goods - naked honesty - from her. When he brings it up, she, of course, acquiesces and promises to try harder - but this is an endless loop for her.

So we have both of them:

Contracted, confronted, contracted, confronted. Constant in and out, but no FORWARD.

Take this pattern, add years and lots of fetid Id-Bits, and you have a nice, many threaded emotional patchwork you can throw over the marriage. It is equally effective at keeping things comfortable while cloaked; warm but detached; safe but muffled.

Islands in the Stream

So, in my kosmic geography (small k, Mr. Wilber, as it's everything in MY existence, which is clearly just a part of the great K Kosmic. Ultimately, there's no separation so there shouldn't be an issue), we have this stream:

(Underattachment in childhood -> search for meaning -> overattachment in first love relationship -> relationship breakdown -> existentialist drowning -> Getstalt dialogue-> Witness!)

Problem is, the endpoint of the stream is a state that comes and goes. When grace reveals it, I can identify with awareness and witness. But then contraction comes like a thief in the night, covers grace like a dark blanket, and I continue on in spite of mySelf.

The Integral Framework provides a map for navigating this topography. I will have states (witness) intersecting with stages in my life. And that stage is somewhere between postmodern and integral. Reaching for 2nd tier, at times touching some of its border lands, but not Realizing enough of what I've tasted to actually move into the new geography and say goodbye to the old for good.

It comes out so clean on paper - just do what it takes to move to a higher stage, continue the practices that will bring true realization of the states, and yowsah, you're there.

But it takes so little to come apart into a deconstructed mess.

Let's listen in, shall we, to the other stream, River Ego, exploring old canyons and inventing new ones in the internal eosystem.

pretty straight forward, all you have to do is take a quadrant approach, balance it through regular practice. simple! booya! Or is it, because the associative path to that is a stream towards needing a community to practice in, that should be a part of the quadrant approach should it not? Sangha? Community? And then you have Cohen and company, who at one glance seem credible and cutting edge, connected with Wilber for Gawd's sake - but on the other hand, just don't sit right at some level. He's violent with his student's egos - and on one hand it's needed but on the other hand, seems to lack compassion. And then what about just meditating and exercising, isn't that enough of the quadrant life to keep me moving, well, that would be without a teacher, and that doesn't seem right, or maybe the teacher is my group of teachers and readings throughout the years.

And through it all, failure. I've tried for permanent changes so many times, and always they have fallen short. Maybe this too has to be accepted, unconditionally.

So many books I've bought and haven't finished that I should finish. Any one of them could be the answer

Maybe that's the thing, maybe they are ALL the answer

But if they were, why would I still be searching and looking for the answer, for my purpose.

Maybe, mayhap, because I have discovered truth but not REALIZED it.

My ass hurts.