Freedom

"What is freedom?" sounds like a dry philosophical question, but it isn't.

The answer to the question has real practical value when it is known.

But I don't know it.

I'm guessing that "I" never will!

And yet beyond the knowing of the I, there have been some delightful flashes of recognition here about freedom that I felt to share with you, and to share with you how they occurred.

~

So...I was listening to a podcast by John Wheeler on Charlie Hayes's blog on "the practical value of this" and I came across a pointer about the nature of freedom and choice that felt like it might be true, but it was also clear that I couldn't quite connect with it. As is often the case, it certainly didn't "make any sense"!

The suggestion was that although there is no-one who chooses, there is a choice. Paradoxically, the choice is to choose what is actually occurring, as opposed to fighting it.

(It's true that doing this doesn't sound much like a choice in the conventional sense).

Then I had two quite strong experiences of knowing that it is true - the first walking down the street where there was a powerful experience of shifting from resisting "my" experience to embracing it. The second was on the dancefloor doing meditative dance, which was very similar - a powerful experience of loving every aspect of what was arising through me and in me.

Once again, revealing the gap between hell and heaven to be paper-thin.

What follows are the words that emerged...


~

Freedom is always available here and now through choosing what is.

It is not freedom in the conventional sense of “freedom to do anything” or “freedom to choose anything”, which are illusory anyway, because they are just ideas.

It is not freedom from the circumstances of life, but freedom in the circumstances of life.

And although it is not freedom from life’s circumstances, it is freedom from suffering.

It is freedom in the sense that you are unbound and you know yourself as that.

In the paradox of the dream, where it appears that there is someone who chooses, it appears that there is a choice to embrace life as it happens or to resist and reject it.

In the moment of choosing to embrace what is happening, it may be realised that there never was anyone to do the choosing, although there was an apparent choice to be made.

This is tricky to speak of, because to speak of it is to touch on the heart of the mystery of life and who we really are.

And yet we must speak of it, because beyond escape from physical incarceration, it is the only freedom worth the name.

~


A previous question I posed myself was:
How to be with strong/difficult feelings or sensations that arise?

It turns out that this is a misstated question. Or even a non-question.

Being with the feelings isn't just easy, it's more fundamental than that -
It's a done deal.

The feelings are already the case.
That I am with them is already the case.
I am with the feelings whether I like it or not.
There is no choice here.

If there is a choice it is to choose the feelings (that I'm already having).

The question now becomes: how can I enjoy the feelings I'm actually having?
Where is the satisfaction in the feelings I'm having?

In answering this question the focus shifts from the future-oriented trying-to-change-how-it-is to the present oriented loving what is.

And as it does, there is freedom.

~


love

Daniel

If life appears to be a question

So, it was the last day of 2009, I had finished a session of meditative dance and there was this pain around my heart.

It was a familiar physical/emotional pain that I've known in many forms for many years. Not a sign of medical emergency, but a well-known pang that was dull and sharp all at once.

And in that moment I didn't like it. Not one bit.

The familiar questions arose to accompany the familiar pain:

Why do I feel this pain and tenderness again?

What can I do to make it go away?

What is wrong with me?

And then, as if by magic and certainly by grace there was a shift, something softened and I realised that (and this doesn't really make sense to the mind) the pain/tenderness around my heart was the answer. It wasn't a problem, it was what I was looking for. The following words arrived as I walked home through the snow and picked up my pen to write...

The pain in my heart is the answer.

The sound of my breath is the answer.

The snow melting on my tongue is the answer.

The sound of my pen writing is the answer.

The page of my notebook turning is the answer.

These words appearing are the answer.

And they would be so if they were written in Chinese...

...or indeed a language long-forgotten that no-one understands anymore.

~

If life appears to be a question
Then life if the answer.

~

Why does my heart feel tender again? Because it does.
What can I do to change it? Nothing.
What is wrong with me? Nothing.

~

There is only what's happening.
The why is not important.
"Why?" presumes that you need to understand something, which you don't. Not really.
It refers to the past with reference to the future.
It is functional.

You don't need to understand something to love it.

You don't need to know why.

You just do.

Because you are.

~

You don't surrender in order that you might get what you want.

You surrender in order that you might want what you've got.

And you don't surrender.

But surrender may happen.

~


If life appears to be a question
Then life is the answer.

With love

Daniel

Sound and silence

Sitting this evening in satsang with Pamela, sinking in, some words came...and then some more words came... and then after and in the silence some more words came.

I felt to share them with you.

Dx

~

There is sound and silence together

We are form and formless together

How different am I from the silence?
Where does one end and the other begin?

~


All problems are imaginary.


~

The protective mechanisms don't work.
We try to shut out what's happening (which is life).
We imagine we can.
We can't.
It's already the case.
It's already too late!

~

You are already free
Everything else is just a misunderstanding


~

Manifestations of separation (often experienced as discomfort)
come to us to see their true nature.

When they see it they can rest.

~

It's about what's true just now.

If all there is is resistance
then that's what's true
- "ahhh resistance is happening!"

And as that is made peace with...
then all there is there is whatever was being resisted...

And as that is made peace with...
there's nothing
(and everything).


~


There's just what's happening.
Which just is.
And then (within what's happening) there is an idea - in mind/body
that it shouldn't be this way
Which is really the idea of separation.

"it shouldn't be this way" is the ultimate lie.


~


The roles (I am: a man, my name, my job)
are associated with contraction
making us a subset of everything that is.

They are imaginary.

The contraction is palpable.


~


All we want to know (if we are not at rest) is:
Is everything ok?

When we are at rest - there is no question.
There is just love and wonder.


~

A flower never wrote a symphony and never will.
Is it any less beautiful?

~


A flower is a symphony.

It's been a long time...

Apparently I haven't posted here for quite some time. If you've been coming by to check for new posts, I'm sorry if you have been disappointed.

I guess that I haven't had the urge to say anything "long enough" to be worth posting on here, or if I have the urge to write it down has passed before the right moment presented itself.

I did have the feeling to write a piece entitled "I've never met anyone quite like you before", referring of course to meeting my self...and I still might, but it hasn't quite happened yet.

In the meantime I thought you might like to see some of the short things that I've posted into my Twitter stream over the past few months. Being "tweets" they are very short, but some of them are (I think) worth sharing and perhaps preserving.

The unattributed bits are by "me" (whoever that is). The other bits aren't (apparently).

I'd be interested in any reflections or responses.

Dx

~

All is well.
Anything you hear to the contrary
is just an idea.


~


"Be still and know."

W G Sutherland


~


Watching a Documentary about Polar Bears Trying to Survive on the Melting Ice Flows

That God had a plan, I do not doubt.

But what if his plan was, that we would do better?

Mary Oliver



~


It's true!

When experience is no longer "mine" it is endlessly amazing, surprising and fresh.

Meaning is seriously overrated!


~


If you are unable to be touched by your experience, you'll be forced to try to change it.

Adam Bradpiece


~


Can it really be ok for me to want to do so little?
Let me check.
Yes. It's absolutely fine.

I sink, soften and expand.


~


Sitting on the train at Paddington without a cup of Paul's amazing hot chocolate.
They had sold out.
That's how it is sometimes...

...in fact it is always like this.
It is only the appearance of "this" that changes.


~


No one is "more advanced" than anyone else.
You were always god.
You are that now.
And so are they.


~

Home

It's a long way home...

...and no distance at all.

Okay

You do not need to be healed.

You may heal.

And you do not need to be healed.

~

So what have we learned?

So...my experiment in tracking where my attention went for a 24 hour period ended about 11 hours ago [See entry below for details].

This isn't Seinfeld ("No sharing, no learning"), so what have I learned?

First the very unsurprising stuff:

* I spend a *lot* of my waking time thinking. It would be fair to say most of it.

* Thinking is addictive, and knowing this is not enough to stop myself getting sucked back into thought. Even though I knew I was doing this experiment I still easily got trapped in long cycles of thought without a break.

* Doing something that is both physically and emotionally engaging is a good way of getting out of thought - in my case dancing works really well.


Now the more interesting stuff:

(Much of this is not new, but it is getting much clearer to me, and this experiment has made it clearer still.)


* The experience of the world when viewed from thought is very thin. Painfully thin. As one of my teachers says "you have the keys to the palace and you are living the shack in the garden".

* Problems only exist in thought.

* The alternative is for me to experience the world directly, not mediated by thought. In this experience of the world there are no problems, only states of affairs.

* The best way for me to do this is to actively engage with it, this will always involve the heart getting touched by experience and will often involve the body moving in order for me to express my response.

* It is really important for me to take time ("Time out of mind"!) to take attention out into the world around - see, hear, touch, taste, smell what is going on around me even though the inertia of thought is pulling me in the opposite direction.


Conclusions

I am genuinely astounded by how narrow my ordinary experience of the world is (that is my experience from the world of thought) and how rich the experience of the world is when experienced directly and felt!

I resolve to spend just a little more of my time each day coming out of thought, into the world, allowing it to touch me and expressing my response.

I can't explain why but it feels like it matters.

As usual Mary Oliver puts it exquisitely:


"Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile, the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain,
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting.
Over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

~