Category Archives: Philosophical Questions

The Clock’s Lesson

Posted on by

Time tells us things, but never stops to think.

I awoke this morning in Bethesda, MD, in the room I grew up in. I looked out the window, through a high, distant patch of sky, a small hole in the dense foliage. I felt as if I were looking up to freedom from a place of pleasant imprisonment, to a place of infinite love from a world with all too much hate.

I thought of a meditation image where one thinks of the true Self as the blue sky behind the clouds. I lay in bed, thinking about this burgeoning Self, the blue sky I am just beginning to really know at age 46, about the importance of starting the day off right, with clarity and calmness.

I glanced at the clock to see what time it was, what time I was starting my day. The clock said 9:11 AM. Today is September 11, 2006. It was as if I were being reminded by that coincidence, being given my lesson. Today is a day for remembering and learning.

I thought of those who perished on this day five years ago. How many of them were just beginning to find themselves, as I am? How many had already done so and were sharing their love deeply with all those around them? How many hadn’t yet even glimpsed what they might have seen if they had had some more time?

The world changed that day. I wonder if those who perished then would think we’ve really improved things. Have we really tackled the hate behind those attacks? Or have we just obfuscated it, like so many more clouds obscuring the truly clear, blue sky? I wonder. What would “blue sky thinking” tell us? To hate back, or to find some other way?

I decided that my lesson for today was this: Not to add to the clouds of hate and mistrust. I think those who perished on September 11, 2001 would not want to see hate on top of hate. I will live this day actively toward clarity and compassion. I will try to help solve the problem by my actions, my life, rather than simply hating those who fumbled the opportunity we had 5 years ago to avoid war. I will try to forgive those who’s policies of hate have now caused the deaths of thousands of our soldiers. I will try to forgive those who started a war as a smokescreen to cover their own failures.

The clock reads 9:26 AM.

The Sound of my Soul.

Posted on by

It’s perfect. The garden view outside the window of my computer desk is beautiful, stunning in its passing perfection. It will never be the same again. Does it ever need to be? I have seen it. Or have I?

The power of doubt can be misleading. It can loosen sanity, unhinge it. An overdose, of sorts, blinding the simple sight of the soul’s awareness of the world. We doubt in order to discern, question to learn. But as with any tool, improper use can be dangerous.
Back Garden from House
A garden is a symphony of textures, colors, scenes, structures, singing four movements continuously, an ever rich and complex variation on multiple themes, an interaction of style and chance. My intervention is a duet, rather than a composition.

The sound of my soul whirs as its engine pumps through me. Blood carries the air of breath to my flesh and bones. Sparks of electricity flash, giving light to gray lobes. The body is the turbine of the spirit, its instrument. It’s how the soul learns of its own existence, temporarily cleaved from the raw stuff of stars. It will never be the same. Yet it continues beyond, and also precedes, the corporeal self. It is never born and never dies. Loopy African Daisys

The spirit that doubts itself is troubled. Be gentle and know your rightful peace. No fairy tale book need be consulted to affirm its presence. The garden hums its tune, singing a healing hymn, if one is listening.
White Flower Scene
Know your rightful Peace.

Hear your conscience.

Listen to your soul’s music.

It will never be the same.

abstraction, doing vs. being

Posted on by

fish in pond, Hocking Hills, OhioThe man who created personalities created a multifaceted self. He was a molish kind of man. At least that’s who he saw himself as at the moment. To others he was many things. Musician. Artist. Cook, Lover, Artist, Musician, Husband, Gardener, Egoist, Queen, queen, bottom, top, philosopher, poet, arrogant, self-absorbed, insecure, jerk, stupid, lazy bum, but always with that ever morphing idea of Self.

And the “instrument” one needs to learn in order to play out the natural grace of living is the body. Grace leads us to our core, the vibrant entity of our bodily existence.

There are two types of animals inside each of us. They are constantly in a fight for our personalities, one could say our souls.

One is greedy, malicious, selfish, lazy, hateful, bitter and leads to a living kind of hell, a numbness which says nothing about your life, or only that you missed the boat. This part never questions why, but just does, in order to get something: power, money, control, revenge. It runs ever faster to escape listening to its heart.

The other is loving, giving, modest, polite, nonjudgmental, honest, grateful, and leads to a graceful peace who’s value is never in question. This part knows that we can never really know why we are here, but also knows that the heart’s quiet voice nonetheless gives a simple answer: love and let love.

The outcome of the battle depends on which one you feed.

Sometimes I feel twisted, writhing with doubts, questioning my faults. Anyone who questions themselves will find faults. But living with grace allows us to notice and smile and be as modest about our weakness as we are our strengths.

According to my massage therapist, we are human beings, not human doings. I liked that idea. Just be.

Facing forward

Posted on by

stained glass leaded windowThere are things I just don’t like facing. I shut down. I tumble the discomfort into a jumble of words and throw the words out, lose them in the chaos.

I just had a party, a happy, boisterous noise of 15 people. When everyone left I was alone. Loneliness loomed. At first there was panic. But I sank down into it and it softened. Ultimately everything comes to an end. To believe otherwise is delusion. But to discount the value of the illusion of endlessness is also foolish. It is important to acknowledge the sadness of endings.

We are human, animal, flesh and blood. We need petting, barking, sniffing, munching, along with all the rich variety of human emotions attached to our bodies. Yet we forget this fact more often than we realize. There is so much activity that occupies us on a daily basis that we don’t often need to face our frailty, our mortal coil. Even our spiritual lessons distract us from the naked truth. Subscribing to the illusion of permanence causes suffering.

Yet beyond that truth, or perhaps encasing it, is the brute reality that we have no choice but to involve ourselves in the lives of others, as much as we can. Even though doing so causes us the suffering of endings. This paradox both intrigues me and shakes me to the core. Regardless of the “meaning” of life, it’s obvious we must live it somehow, embrace some belief. To do otherwise is suicide, unless you are meant to become an extreme ascetic. (or a lost puppy, like me)

Even within the company of another we are ultimately alone, a separate mass of nerves. I’ve never been comfortable with that idea, but none of my experience has proved otherwise. My own reality, my body, mind and unique path doesn’t permit full convergence with another person. At least not yet, not in this life. Sharing with others my deepest emotions, my deepest understanding, my greatest epiphanies, offers momentary connection, then passes like an orgasm. All we ultimately have is the illusion, frame by frame, to use in some cut and paste, pointillist storyline of meaning.

So the party is over. The joyous roar which filled the void has ended. I cradle the sweet sadness of being alone.

I watch. I see the curve, the rise and fall of those waves. Ultimately it’s the waves, rather than the epiphanies, which comfort me. It’s like breathing. I sigh and turn the page.

It’s All Good

Posted on by

double wedding ring quilt
This evening I meditated for the first time in awhile. I sat for over an hour in a chilly, dimly lit upstairs room, facing a north window, staring mostly at a desk I hardly use anymore. (especially since I set up this computer facing south in a different room on the first floor) I’m not sure why I meditated now or why I hadn’t for many months. I think I needed to reconcile the distance I feel from blogging, from words, thoughts, ideas. I needed to just experience, clean out.

Years ago I found a source of power in the detachment I learned from focused meditation. (I’m talking 15 years ago.) Detachment freed my fears, allowed me to breathe new air, new life and ideas. I felt free to grow and learn, to improve. Then I began to cling to that feeling, that essence of detachment. I began to mythologize it. And its power quickly faded. I wondered and searched for why it faded. I didn’t have a regular practice and soon “gave up”. (I don’t have a regular practice in anything, except irregularity.)

Sitting tonight, I tumbled with thoughts as I settled my posture to relieve the discomfort it caused. I tried to slow my breathing, which tends to become over excited and then I hyperventilate. I tried to calm my mind. Calming the mind is like trying to calm a restless sea. Doing less is better. So I just let. And let.

And let. The desk before me occasionally revealed itself directly in the swirl of words and images, the monkey mind flitting as a moth in the garden on a summer night. The desk’s wooden structure is as simple, platonic as it gets. Square angles, average proportions, no frills. Utilitarian. Probably oak, or some other hardwood, I’m guessing it was made in the forties of fifties, judging by the deco-ish drawer handles.

The three drawers at the right of a cubby hole for the user’s chair have been stained blackish, perhaps from thousands of touches by human hands. What of the lives of those hands? What of their fate? Did doubt tremble in some? Did sex film those fingers? Chocolate cake? Perhaps this desk was used in a factory office, where soot or other noxious particles permeated the building. Perhaps the lungs which breathed while sitting nearby have expired. Unknown, these possible histories flex in my imagination. What of the forests from which the wood came, each individual tree? And on. All this noticing happens in a second.

I shift my focus to the objects on the desk, which tell tales of my own recent history; a Japanese handmade paper candle shade, decorated with dried flowers within the fibers of the paper. It was given to me by a friend years ago. So simple and timeless and fragile. I consider its value, which soaks beyond its paper structure. Nearby sits is a small ceramic pot to burn fragrant oils. Functional, round, glazed white, it heats a few drops of oil by a candle placed below. Both remind me of past habits, now faded, to practice yoga and meditate here by candle light and (often lung-clogging) oil scented air. A tiny pocket notebook lies open, unused for months now, where ideas for poems or posts were noted. Other objects litter the desktop, adding to its history heap.

This bit of noticing brought me some clarity.

When I notice the ephemeral state of any thought or life, none of this matters. The pain and cold in my body are only temporary. Is any level of pain unbearable when considered against nothingness? Such awareness frees ties to the frail body. I can see so many choices, so many words, so many possible lives fanning out from here. Each choice excludes millions, and creates others. Yet just one is me just sitting. So I sit… and sit. I notice. I am older.

Long ago I read Sartre’s “Nausea” and was profoundly affected by it’s cynical, existential tone. I often feel the nausea of not knowing who I am, not really knowing, only placing meaning, choosing from the emptiness. Nothing matters in the long run. It’s all relative to the vast space and time we are so good at ignoring. I don’t behave so cynically, but inside, I still feel it’s all just illusions, temporary patterns. So I choose to live the illusions, the subjective experience in general, of beauty, happiness, food, love, sex, trust, music, family, friends. These are what I rely on to compose and anchor my detachment. Otherwise I would just float away.

This sitting session helped me. Detachment is powerful. Frightening. Enticing. A burden and a gift. I am responsible for how I live.

I have work to do. I have goodness to share. I matter. I know. It’s all good if I breathe in synchronicity with the heartbeats around me.

The photo above is part of an Amish “double wedding ring” pattern quilt, from OH, 1930s. The interwoven circles could symbolize the inter-relatedness of all life on this fragile sphere.

technorati tags- , , , ,