The Way of It

The ultimate turnaround is to begin again, to forget what I’ve learned, to stand there, naked, hands to the side, and allow the fire to burn. I notice it burns anyways (sometimes). Resisting that only makes things worse (it seems).

But, wait. Why would that be a good idea? “I don’t ever want to suffer like I did before” turns around to “I’m willing to suffer like I did before” and “I look forward to suffering like I did before.” Isn’t it so that a sane mind doesn’t suffer, ever? Something doesn’t add up here, it seems.

Except for when it does. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life running away from my thoughts, and I notice that I still do that, sometimes. So practicing being willing and looking forward to the worst that can happen allows me to catch up with myself, to recognize the parts of me that I sometimes miss. Once seen, they can be met with understanding. It doesn’t matter what it is: if it’s part of me, I want to love it. And what would escape the world of what’s for me to love?

Besides, I’m not superstitious. Inviting dread doesn’t bring it to my life. It just means I’m open to it, and when this is so what appears to be dreadful is simply not so. The whole thing is pregnant with paradox:

Resisting dread is dreadful in the extreme

So I welcome it, open to it

Then I can’t find any

Even as it comes and swallows me alive pinching my every nerve

I look around and it’s all open space.

What is there to fear?

As I write this my computer interrupts me to inform me that “new processes have been scanned” and that my computer is hence free from adware and spyware.

For now

To realize that I’ve been mourning the loss of what I never had.

What freedom!

She is the priestess of a god that doesn’t exist.

I once loved her, like in the cartoons,

my jaw to the floor, red, silky toys reflected on the memory of those vast green eyes.

With the power to burn or to heal,

what she does with that prowess is not for me to grasp.

All I know is that I make myself vulnerable and notice that nothing burns,

nothing remains.

We walked the streets of San Francisco, we visited Alcatraz, we played at the Montaña de Oro dunes, we hiked to the top of Cerro San Luis, we played at the San Luis Obispo rock climbing gym, we kayaked in Morro Bay…

But the most important part was that we were together.

Maya, Tad and Eduardo messing around in California … See my Tabblo>

What if it was all a lie?

What I think I am never existed in the first place

The blood of Jesus

flows through your veins.

(On the other hand, how could I know?)

The trust that has been placed on me by my teachers

I shall not defraud

From doing The Work on my most shameful and embarrassing thoughts I have been able to see how innocent the whole enterprise of believing my thoughts has been, how there has been no substantive reality to thoughts such as “I’m a terrible person,” “he wronged me” or “I’m ugly.” Making friends with the thoughts that would tear me down has been an incredible journey and as a result I am so much happier and relaxed.

Now, it only dawned on me recently that there was an entire class of thoughts that I was still not comfortable with and that I still secretly wished would go away: the thoughts that would tell me that “I’m better/smarter/more compassionate/more enlightened than others.” Having these thoughts, I felt, was not only wrong but actually proof that I had not learned anything in all these years of dutifully practicing self inquiry of this or that type. My resistance to those thoughts was such that I did not even want to look at them, let alone question them. To push them away, that’s what I’d do with them.

One day, however, I began to notice this very fact and that felt really humbling. I can see them now and humor them, accept that they are there, when they are there. “What have they got to do with me/with what’s real?,” I tell me. It’s such a good feeling, to befriend what is, and what is sometimes looks like thoughts I would label as those only an arrogant person would have.

And is that true?

…

My answer to this question brings me closer to the realization that it is OK to have the thoughts that I have. It really is OK. It’s only a problem if and when I believe them, and I have The Work for that.

It’s a good thing, the workings of it all.

The ways that you love me

Leave me to myself

Thank you