Thursday 29 March 2018

Self Concern...and true Inquiry

This is poem that wrote itself at about 5am on the last day of a stunning (and very challenging) 2 week retreat this February.

I feel very vulnerable sharing this because it feels like a very precious revelation and because my mind is fearful that I can't or won't live it.  And living this revelation is what my heart yearns for over and above anything else. So here it is...


Self concern 

Tonight at 4.30am I experienced 
True inquiry
Perhaps for the first time. 

It was touching. 
It was beautiful 
It was stunning. 
It was undeniable. 

Awareness noticed that the being was indentified
So it remembered itself
It entered life through the heart as Presence 
And simply recovered intimacy with itself
And wept as it remembered
The heart of intimacy. 

Tears of gratitude. Coming home. At last. 

Then it said:
“From here we can start”
Touched it cried gently again and said:
Now we can start”

Awareness as love
Noticed an attitude of self concern arise 
Gosh! It said. 
Interesting!
What’s that?
So it started by asking “what’s it like?”
And by becoming in it and as it very soon 
From the inside it simply knew. 

But the inquiry didn’t stop
It continued dropping 
And unfolding
By itself 
Until something like a deep resting place was found 
And awareness was satisfied 
And touched. 
That it understood. 
Then inquiry went on inquiring into other things 
Such as appreciating the nature of inquiry!

Stunning. 

It wrote the above 
With the help of clear rested mind
At 5am
When being decided it had better things
To do than 
Sleep. 

~

The self concern:
“Am I ok?” is
Really “Am I fundamentally broken?”
Fundamentally useless and unloveable 
Will I be left alone and unloved?
A broken thing
On the scrapheap 
Alone, lonely and suffering 
Forever.

From a place of self intimacy 
It can be seen that this was never true. 
I was never broken/wrong/
That this was just a painful untrue cherished belief 
At the core of who I thought I was
And who I have habitually taken myself to be

I didn’t discover the truth of this 
Love discovered the truth of this 
Through inquiry 
Because it wanted to find out 
What was at the heart of suffering
Because love is interested 
In everything 
Including pain. 

Inquiry did inquiry 
Being discovering itself 
Because it wants to find out
Because it cares. 

Awareness was doing inquiry 
Into “me”. 

~

Having been fully understood. 
From the inside
The attitude of self concern
Need not 
Ever be taken seriously 
Again
Instead it can be consumed
As the first course
Of the banquet
Of the remains of who I was.

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