Feed Me, Feed Me Pleaded the Hungry Ghost

Yesterday, I was on the way to meet my sister for dinner when I felt and heard a hungry ghost inside of me – feed me, feed me it wailed. It was a marvel. I was fascinated.

Over the years of working on patterns, habits, conditioning and attitudes, I don’t believe I have ever experienced the past’s struggle to reassert itself as a hungry ghost. As I was approaching a stop sign, I thought – maybe I could… (partake of an old experience). A quick response – Why, aren’t I through with that? And then this feeling from my gut that moved up into my chest and then into my head – feeeeeeeed meeeeee…

This is not a Halloween tale, though the timing is timely! It was kind of spooky because the presence actually felt ghostly, like vapor, fog, amorphous. It was wafting up and around and through me like swirling smoke – and it was definitely hungry. One little morsel won’t hurt, will it?

Wikipedia – Hungry ghost is a Western translation of an Eastern phrase representing beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way. In Buddhism, Hungry Ghosts are ghosts only in the sense of not being fully alive; not fully capable of living and appreciating what the moment has to offer. Although the Eastern terminology and metaphor is very different, the concept has strong parallels with similar concepts in western psychology.

My hungry ghost was most definitely connected to the animal soul. It’s hunger spread to the pelvis, to my arms and legs – the hunger was everywhere except in the presence and awareness observing this phenomena. My mind was working overtime in trying to figure out how to have it’s cake and eat it too – feed the ghost and live one’s realization.

In the end, I settled for a nice Pinot Noir and some delicious fish tacos.

From New York to True Nature

Ian McKay interviews Jessica Britt, a Diamond Approach teacher, about her spiritual journey. Jessica has been a teacher of mine for over 20 years. In addition to teaching the Diamond Approach, Jessica works with the Medicine Wheel

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How Often Do We Hedge Our Bets

I like to watch Texas Hold’em Poker. I’ve never played it, though I have thought about playing poker online. My friend, Holly, is on her way back from France and coincidentally, I received an email about the above linked poker site.

It got me to thinking about how we bet on life, or don’t. It’s the old question of do we walk the talk or do we hedge our bet. Are we “all in” on our life and practice or are we taking it easy, procrastinating or even being lazy.

Perhaps the daily quote on the Diamond Approach Facebook page contributed to me examining the current state of affairs:

It’s possible to examine the extent to which our lives reflect the truth we know. What kinds of foods do we eat? Do we exercise? How do we manage our schedules? Do we find out what we enjoy doing and then set about doing it? Do we allow ourselves the rest and the aloneness that we need to experience the preciousness of reality? Or do we spend day after day being lazy and procrastinating, living routines that makes us miserable? What do we do in terms of our relationships? Do we try to live those relationships according to the truth that we know? Do we apply the experiences we’ve had of ourselves and others and the world or do we reserve our insights for special occasions? Do we create the kind of environment that supports the actualization of the truth? Or do we believe that it’s sufficient to experience ourselves as precious, and then expect the angels to come and clean our room every day?

We’re talking about very practical matters here. We’re talking about applying what we know and what we learn, making the effort, expending the energy to live with sincerity. We do the Work, we practice the teaching, every minute of our lives, not only when we meditate or go to a session or a meeting. For example, if we know that we are more in touch with ourselves when we are relaxed, do we try to pay attention so that we’re as relaxed as possible all the time? Do we organize our time and our life so that we minimize confusion and unnecessary activity?

So we see that there are practical sides to loving the truth for its own sake. To love the truth for its own sake, which has to do with the heart, we have to involve the belly. The Kath, the Hara, our belly center, supports the heart’s love of the truth. The heart cannot survive on its own, cannot survive without the support of our actions, which are centered in the belly. Sincerely loving the truth is ultimately useless if we don’t sincerely live the truth.

Years ago, I used to fly over to Las Vegas from Los Angeles every Friday night and play Blackjack all night. I was interested in card counting at the time. I’m happy to report that I broke even for the six months I did that. I don’t know what the fascination is with poker, but Texas Hold’em is interesting and the game is changing quite dramatically as a whole new generation of online players with a lot of aggression show up at poker events.

It’s an interesting moment when a poker player goes all in, risking everything…. well, at least for that hand, on that day, in that tournament.

Just got me to wondering – am I all in on life and daily practice?

Comparing Mind – Junkyard Dog of a Critic

The problem with in-laws

Is the concern

For their family values

Not you

The mind’s orientation

Toward the soul

Is similar ———– JH

It’s impossible to judge a book by its cover if there is no comparing mind. If there is no reference point for comparison then, it’s damn difficult to find fault with anything.

Now, a comparing mind can be a good thing when it’s functioning free of the “judging mind”;  “inner critic”; superego; or “junkyard dog”. It helps us to get home with a sack of oranges instead of a box of zucchini. But, unless we have engaged in specific work on this part of ourselves, it’s a given that it is running amok and causing us an enormous amount of suffering.

If we really look into the situation, we find that this junkyard dog is just plain mean and nasty. It’s being driven by self-hatred and it’s using our libidinal energy (life force) against us. I wish it weren’t so, but the situation is even worse. Continue Reading »

Self-Realization – Beyond Concepts, Beliefs, Attitudes & Attacks

I got on the spiritual path at age 19. The experience that precipitated my interest in spiritual development, self-realization, God-realization, enlightenment and such was, at that time, just mind boggling. Today, I realize that the experience involved a descent of essence into my consciousness and body, and an awakening of the point.

Like many, I have spent years seeking, searching, making half-assed attempts at meditation (daily practice), attending workshops, retreats and in the course of events spending more than tens of thousands of dollars. In the process of all of that, I matured (to some degree!) physically, emotionally and spiritually. My journey or process deepened. My orientation reoriented. My interests and curiosity started going places I could not have imagined.

Today, I find myself here – not going anywhere, no interest in changing or making something happen. It seems things change on their own and that there is an intelligence guiding it all that is more in touch with what I need to unwind than my mind on it’s best day could offer up. A real weight-lifting experience – so to speak.

I recently attended Byron Brown’s Soul without Shame workshop, a 3 1/2 day teaching on disengaging from the superego / inner critic. The superego / inner critic is one of the places of arrested development in our psyches and souls that constantly attacks and undermines our realization. Interestingly, in the beginning it actually serves us to move toward deeper realization, but then it really gets in the way. Doubt is one of it’s most effective tools. It also works through other people by producing attacks from the outside.

So there I was minding my own business two days after the workshop reading a magazine when I came upon this:

The harder you hit this material, the more powerful it becomes.  F. Daniel Tsai, Novana

And that is where and how the words bulletproof and realization crossed paths in my brain and got me to thinking and contemplating bulletproof realization. I haven’t the time, nor inclination to share the breadth and depth of my contemplation, but I will say this – if we want to bulletproof our realization – live our realization, without goals & artifice. Openness, curiosity and not-knowing are better supports and servants for orienting us.

Realization is practice. Practice is realization.

Some Thoughts on “The Moment”

We know reification is at work when we think of it as this moment or the next moment. The moment is actually out of time.

Time is rushing at us

From everywhere

From all directions

From inside and outside

From the past and future

Physical time

Emotional time

Psychological time

It’s absolutely

Incredible

How

All of time

Fits into the

Moment

 

The Inner Heart

When heart touches earth,

it also whispers upon the wind,

engulfs the sea,

and hears itself in every breast

How is it possible

to breathe in all of this beauty

and empty oneself

into the moment?

Sleep

Is the gift of God

Don’t waste it on escaping this world

Or flee there in boredom or despair

Sleep for the sake of the soul

Refresh yourself for tonight’s dancing and revelry

A rested body and mind

Is a great gift to throw into Nothingness

 

Lay your body in the lap of the Beloved

Deep sighs of the burden surrendered

True support, the Divine Current

Lay your head against the Beloved’s bosom

Sighs of relief from separation

Acceptance, the disappearing into Transparency

Touch your heart-cheek to the Beloved’s

Sweet melting sighs of ecstatic release

The rich Perfume of The Beloved’s neck

Is what you are

 

Oh come, you

Who work and struggle

Who suffer and wander

Who are weary and worn

Rest for the sake of the soul

Lay you heads and bodies down

Lay your heart-cheeks upon His mercy

Rest for the sake of the soul

 

One moment

In Absolute sleep

Will

Change

You

Forever

 

There IS

A point

At the center of me

That IS

Not of this world

All moments

Within and without

Intersect here

All directions

Lead to it

It is not even

A nanosecond’s width

In space-time-existence

It connects all moments

And threads of time

Reducing all time-maps

To nothingness

It is the non-function

Birthing the Golden Mean

Resolving all mathematics

Into null

It is the priorness

The no-place

Of the emergent bubble

It is not here nor there

But everywhere

It cannot be found or located

But is the core

Of the Everything

It is the utter calm

The completely still

To say

It is this or that

Is a deception

It does not exist

But is the ground

That gathers every

Present moment

Into nowhere

It is the Not-Now

Of timelessness

It is the ground of NOT

Gravity-mass-movement

And the soul

Longs for its

Intimate kiss

Cessation

Time

Has a way

Of complicating life

Here

Is the key

Of how

To make life

Very clear and simple

Enter

The moment

Night

Came silently into my house

Illuminating dark spaces

The hidden, the forgotten, the not-known

Night

Put the mind to rest

And bedded the heart

In the still-point of rapture

Night

Kisses my face

Until I am no more

Than it

Mystical Poets

Most Minds are Common Thieves

Well at least mine is and has been. Part of the natural state of my mind and mental activity seems to be nothing more than simple, endless theft – always stealing someone else’s ideas and utterances. I offer no apology for my stealing activity, I understand it as part of the mind’s mechanical functioning.

Damn, it’s a little more subtle and complicated than it appears. There’s this pesky identity that likes to assert ownership of “stolen goods.” Well, be that as it may, our minds like to gather up content, repackage it and sell it to the unsuspecting masses as original content.

No wonder we become bored and jaded with life at times. Our world is filled with stolen goods activity supplied by almost 8 billion mechanical bull-shitters. Like many of you, I love to read fiction and go to the movies. Do we ever really see or read anything new? Endlessly rearranging content to sell ourselves an “original bill of goods” requires a lot of distraction and impaired awareness.

And don’t fool yourself, I’m not about to stop. Not only is stealing masochistically and sadistically pleasing in its veiled form – I can’t quit. The identity conundrum again. The mind is going to continue to do what it does automatically and unconsciously. The thief is going to continue stealing – it is simply part of what it does.

Oh well, I guess I will just have to rely on honor amongst thieves unless there is some other dimension of mind beyond thievery.

Moving Beyond 6 Senses – Awareness & Consciousness

As a continuation of my thoughts on Sensing, Looking & Listening, I must consider the senses. Seems obvious, but Sensing, Looking & Listening, if practiced and explored with sincerity, quickly leads beyond the senses.

The beginning practice of Sensing, Looking & Listening is associated with sight, sound & touch. As a first step, it is often suggested that one begin with the toes of one foot and move up the leg to the hip – slowly sensing each segment of the foot and leg. The sensing then moves to the fingers of the hand on the same side of the body and proceeds up the arm to the shoulder – again, sensing each segment as the awareness moves up the body. The practice then proceeds to the opposite shoulder moving down the arm to the leg and terminating at the toes on the opposite foot.

As one gains proficiency sensing the body, looking and listening are added. When adding looking and listening, the practice is to not “go out” to see and hear, but to allow perception to come in – think receptivity.

The art of sensing often carries a bit more emphasis as it is said that sensing is closer to how the soul perceives. So let’s look at this – what are we really exploring and developing? Our sensitivity for sure, but what does that imply? Ultimately, we are nurturing our capacity for awareness and consciousness.

The soul is the field of consciousness, the medium of experience. More basic than consciousness is awareness, so what we are is fundamentally a self-aware field of experience. It shouldn’t be too much of a leap to understand how sensing is closer to how the soul perceives.

If we are the medium of experience, then experience arises within the medium. This (us) self-aware medium perceives and knows by being “in touch” with what is forming within it – sensitive to the arising. The sensitivity is basic perception.

One really cool thing is that the forms arising in the medium are also “of the medium. In this world, what we perceive of as physical forms, thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensations are all forms of, and within, the soul. One can experience this as a telescoping of perception – think about the endless reflections you see when you stand between two mirrors – forms within forms within forms. Not only this, but dimensions within dimensions within dimensions.

An Evolution of the Practice – Sensing, Looking & Listening Beyond the 6 Senses

Imagine you are in a sensory deprivation chamber – what is sensing, looking & listening?

Ponder, wonder, contemplate…

Does Reality Add Up?

In the August issue of Scientific American, Mario Livio explores – Why Math Works – Is math invented or discovered? A leading astrophysicist suggest that the answer to the millenia-old question is both. Here’s what Mario offers in brief:

Cosmic Mathematics