Our Only Practice

Our only practice: 

really, our only practice is one of allowing - and indeed, it's a practice of a full lifetime commitment, all the way to the last breath taken and surrendered. We are learning to allow what each moment holds without the interference of our denial, that everything is happening in the only way it ever could and this is proven by virtue of whatever's appearing right now. This isn't a blind acceptance or a call for inaction, no, it's more dynamic than that, the practice of allowing is an artful acknowledgement of what's present and our own fluid response in return. It's a play between recognition and response that continues through an entire lifetime, a practice, and once aware that life is constantly allowing, we're more relaxed and easy through the manner we respond. 

we're artist.

living our only practice.

for me this is the true gift of meditation, each moment is a small recognition of allowing, that often thoughts appear and seem to intrude upon a peaceful state of mind. An immediate reaction would be to push the thought away, denying it's moment to appear. And yet through many years of practice I've come to simply bear witness to a thought's arrival, knowing my effort to deny its appearance only leads to further battles of the mind. It's the art of allowing, of recognition and response, and even an initial reaction will find that it's allowed. Everything is, always. It's how life works. 

our only practice is to know that everything's allowed.

even our wish that things were other than they are.

and that's where the real practice begins, our commitment to this art, knowing that our greatest heartache in life is just as pure in it's place as all that gives us pleasure. We are free in our response, but not in what life delivers, tragedy befalls us all, illness and death are always near even as we deny their presence. It's just how things are. So our only practice than isn't one of truly allowing, we are not the ones who decide what's allowed within our lives - no one is, life unfolds with its own course of nature, and we are simply currents in its flow. Our only practice is to see, to bear witness to it all and respond in a heartfelt manner, compassionate, joyful of life even through the pain it often seems to bring. An artist is called to beauty, to add meaning to an empty canvas or a page, if only for themselves alone. 

 that's our only true practice. 

life, allowing...

and the beauty and art of our response. 

~

Peace, Eric 

A Different Type

A different type:

this seems a different type of silence, a subtle quality to it that's not really the absence of sound as it is a fullness that allows every sound to be and emerge noted by my attention. This is the silence of the morning, with my own inner stillness matched to it now, a meeting point between the pureness of my listening and all that's heard these early hours - or perhaps even deeper still, where there is no separate notion of listening and the distinction of sound, but only the silent nature of a primordial mind far greater than my own, and it's from here that every thought and sound emerges, vibrations all...

and from this, my morning world created,

it's a different type of silence.

or maybe my listening is simply different at this hour, softer in discernment, allowing, and the morning offers no edge between this deep silence and the sounds that reach me now. This is the quality of meditation that I most cherish, everything so still, my breath hushed to the point of just a quiet motion barely sweeping through me...listening, and hearing the exactness of the morning, no labels, nothing identified as being outside of this very moment. 

the morning existing, just as it is.

now.

always.

only.

indeed, it's a different type of listening.

but really... it's how the world is always found.

~

Peace, Eric 

Meditation and Awakening

Meditation and awakening:  

 does meditation lead to awakening? Well that's an often and hotly debated question in certain social media circles, and as a long time meditation practitioner, a student and a teacher, as well as someone who has had a profound experience of awakening - I'm often asked to weigh in with my opinion. I seldom do. Honestly, it's just not an issue of which I'm interested debating upon, although I'm always happy to discuss both topics at length. For me, meditation and awakening can't be truly separated, they're not two different things with one leading inevitably to the other, and I don't believe that awakening has one true cause that can be pinpointed to anything for certain. 

meditation is what I do.

awakening is what I am.

and the two belong together, seamlessly so. 

but it might be different for you, and I'm perfectly find with that and have no need to argue otherwise, it seems there's no sure answer that will really satisfy everyone. And we don't need one. Meditation and awakening become a certain flow at some point, and again, for me at least. Every time I sit I find that I expand a little more, a surrendering occurs, or perhaps it's better said that I more clearly notice the constant surrender already now taking place. My physiology changes with meditation, my biology, I am hardwired down to my very cells for a natural awakening to occur. It's just happens and meditation is simply what I'm called to do, my sitting filled with love for the exact thing I'm doing. 

yet my own most profound awakening didn't occur while I was sitting, it was active, sudden, and lasting. It also continues, engulfing my meditation practice as an aspect of its expansion, my entire life a single process of awakening now. Meditation and awakening aren't two different things for me, one doesn't give cause to the other any more than sunset causes the moon to rise or the next morning's dawn to appear. They aren't separate events, being far too seamless to viewed apart in anyway. I'm sure someone else might provide a more definitive answer. From me...this one will have to do. Meditation is awakening. 

it's just one thing.

seamlessly so. 

~

Peace, Eric   

One Great Ecology

One great ecology:

from the subtlest level of whatever desire gives first cause for particles to swirl as our existence, all the way to earth itself and every life-form, mountain range, stream and ocean - it's an ecology of one thing only, self-supporting, the presence of our true and pure being. We could call this God, Brahman, the ultimate reality of existence. But really it's just mystery, unknowable, and we can only surrender ourselves as being aspects of this one great ecology. 

in this light we are part of a living system, essential in our role of breath and being, and that we find ourselves conscious, aware, brings us added pleasure to our role. We are able to know ourselves as belonging to this one great ecology, serving in various ways that expands our sense of individual happiness, and thus the entire universe gains from our appreciation of simply being alive and in service to each other. Perhaps that's the only true and certain point of life...

to be of service to the world.

this isn't meant to imply that we must all dedicated our lives to noble deeds and jobs of higher purpose - although that certainly remains an option to those who feel called to do so. But I believe that our greatest service is at the localized level of being, that our happiness is essential to the world, and further, that it gives cause for the universe to expand itself in pleasure. This isn't the fleeting happiness of gaining fortune and favors, or owning things that give us fleeting satisfaction - no, this is the sincere and simple happiness of knowing that we belong within such a beautiful world, that just by being alive and drawing breath we serve as a universal expression of momentary experiences, that we are the universe knowing ourselves through our individual ways and stories. 

one great ecology of beingness. 

of course this is only speculation, a morning's worth of words playing from my mind and fingers, typing out these words as quickly as they're given. I'm in search of poetry and not at all concerned with the factual expression of the universe. But it makes me smile to write this, it feels as if a subtle truth has been spoken after all - and in some deep and certain way, I feel that perhaps I've been of some service in my writing and the joy I felt this morning, 

and that the universe right now...shares my smile of pleasure. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Melville's Way

Melville's way: 

it was Melville's way, inspired by an ocean's vision, yet written entirely from a Berkshire's view of farm and fields, sun burnt corn husks substituted for the actual sea. The story of Moby-Dick took place in Herman Melville's mind, transforming farmland into an ocean's scene and mythic quest for the Ahab's whale. The ocean is always within us, our primordial home, saltwater coursing through our veins even now. In a true sense, we've never severed the ancient pull of tides, and find ourselves still called to wander on its shores, tempted to swim back to the depths of our origins one more. 

Melville's way was to transform farmland into the ocean, separated by hundreds of miles, and yet those inner tides were so strong and vivid as too pull his soul directly to a whale's chase across the water's vast expanse. This was a true transformation for the author, not purely imagined, but the actual spray of ocean's foam felt across his brow, the smell of brine filled his nose, waves knocked against the barn from where he wrote his tale. 

this wasn't done by his imagination, not a literary trick of his mind.

he simply called himself home.

his inner ocean all along.

and Melville's way is our meditation, that we are in our primordial midst right now, at home within the infinite reach of the cosmos. Our ocean is silence, and we are always at its shore, seamless really, a thought's edge from the depth of our existence, available to explore. For me, it's the mantra that acts as the ship for my exploration, but it could be the breath, or sensation of the body. Anything. It really doesn't matter because we are home right now, residing in the silence of the ocean, both wave and shore simply vibrations for the creation of our world. Meditation is our Melville's way of remembering where we truly are right now, with an ocean coursing through the very body of our existence. 

home. 

~

Peace, Eric 

First Note

First note: 

there's a narrow window of quiet in the time just before dawn, even the few sounds to reach me are somehow muted by this hour. I wake early for this, to be immersed in silence, meditate, perform my rituals of writing, coffee at hand and then the wait for words. There are times when I'm tempted to sleep a little longer, rolling over for a few more minutes, or more, as it's early enough that I could extend my sleep by an hour and still not cut into the productiveness of my day. But then I would miss that first note of the morning's birdsong - how it emerges from the almost pure silence of its hold, and then seems to hang in the air for my notice, artful, a sound woven through the quiet as if just for me to hear. It's always one note, tentative, and with a long return to silence after before committing to entire song. 

it seems somehow a holy moment.

these are the moments right after sitting in meditation, and I find myself as deeply hushed as the morning, what few thoughts appear drift slowing through my mind without added commentary of mental chatter. I am as untouched by thought as the sky is by any passing cloud. This is unique to morning, at least by its depth and the quality of stillness. Perhaps this is why that first note of birdsong resonates so deeply, as I am so purely receptive to its greeting, listening to its first, gentle, almost seamless break of silence, its hushed and easy return to the quietness of the moment...and then giving voice to actual song. 

this is my participation, bearing witness to this inspiration, that very first note of morning song, my listening essential to the uniqueness of its creation. Without my presence this moment wouldn't happen, not in this way, as I am the added element to this listening that takes great pleasure to its arrival. Maybe tomorrow I will miss this, rolling over for one more hour of needed slumber, there's always that chance and sometimes it's a temptation. But not this morning, right now I am fully immersed in song, inspired, warmth of coffee, and easy flow of words. 

it seems somehow a holy moment. 

~

Peace, Eric  

Not A Problem

Not a problem at all: 

no matter how the hard problem of consciousness it viewed, either that it arises from non-sentient matter to somehow give us the experiences of the world, or that consciousness exists throughout all matter, perhaps varying by degree of measure, that by its very nature everything alive is imbued with a certain innate sense of self-awareness - no matter how it's described, or the argument eventually concluded, our own answer plays out with each breath taken, with every tear shed through sorrow, and the joy felt by witnessing another morning's sunrise. I's not a problem at all, hard or otherwise, we are alive, aware, and that our world abounds in mystery. 

it's enough to know that somehow this is so.

not a problem at all.

my preference is a direct approach, to leave philosophy and debate aside and simply point towards my own seamless experience of being aware, knowing that it's so without need of answers as to why, or how, this awareness came to be. In a truer sense, it's not an experience at all, but more a recognition that an event is taking place, that's there's a quality happening unique to this moment alone, and already, even through my notice, is shifting in subtle, mysterious ways. I can point to this directly, it's happening now, and now, yet always elusive, evading any conceptual understanding and defying explanation. Yet it's not a problem at all...it's simply living, and being aware that life happens completely on its own, and that we just a temporary point of its expression. 

of course that's only my description, not meant to be accurate by any means of science, philosophy, nor anyone else's view of conscious explanations. We're all entitled to our stories, our interpretations of events and experiences and however they unfold. None of this is a problem until we make it so - and even than life continues in its play, happening perfectly on its own no matter what conclusions are ever drawn. It's not a problem at all.

only life....

continuous,

happening.

now, and always now.

mysterious. 

~

Peace, Eric