It’s been a little over a week since we’ve been here and I’m starting to feel the usual retreat fatigue. I’ve got a cold and I had a fever last night (can I fish for some sympathy out there???? ). Alistair slept on the sofa in the living room in the early morning hours because of my cong
ested snoring. This morning I decided to rest a bit longer and skip the Sunday morning talk, only to discover that the sangha house plays host to a Buddhist version of Sunday school. There were kids everywhere, running, yelling, crying, etc. Not much rest for this girl.
The Big Mind process has been running a lot of energy through this body of mine. It seems that I’m both clearing and breaking down. The best illustration of this was during the afternoon’s session when I kept slipping back and forth from the elation of I’m getting it to the despair of I ain’t fucking getting it. I kept falling in and out of the slip stream of the experience as it was unfolding. Honestly, sometimes I’d be listening to the conversation between Roshi and someone else and I’d swear that I was stoned -- but I wasn’t. It was just that kind of expansive, we’re-in-the-experience-here-but-there-really-isn’t-a-word-or-name-for-it-and-we-can’t-know-it-but-just-be-in-it kind of experience. As my dear friend Sharon Brain wrote to me recently, she wondered if pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to write any words other than IS-NESS. She could be right.
So it seems that having a cold is both breaking down my resistance as well as messing with my head. If I can only let go and hang out with it I might really “get” it. (The Voice of My Teacher says: there’s nothing to KNOW - it's unknowable.)I do know that when I let go, I feel soft.
In a few days I’ll write more about Roshi’s teaching on The Path of the Human Being that he did on Saturday afternoon. It was out of this world. His brilliance seems to come from the way he beautifully uses the Big Mind process to illustrate AND give an experience of Zen teachings. It’s absolutely incredible.
ested snoring. This morning I decided to rest a bit longer and skip the Sunday morning talk, only to discover that the sangha house plays host to a Buddhist version of Sunday school. There were kids everywhere, running, yelling, crying, etc. Not much rest for this girl.The Big Mind process has been running a lot of energy through this body of mine. It seems that I’m both clearing and breaking down. The best illustration of this was during the afternoon’s session when I kept slipping back and forth from the elation of I’m getting it to the despair of I ain’t fucking getting it. I kept falling in and out of the slip stream of the experience as it was unfolding. Honestly, sometimes I’d be listening to the conversation between Roshi and someone else and I’d swear that I was stoned -- but I wasn’t. It was just that kind of expansive, we’re-in-the-experience-here-but-there-really-isn’t-a-word-or-name-for-it-and-we-can’t-know-it-but-just-be-in-it kind of experience. As my dear friend Sharon Brain wrote to me recently, she wondered if pretty soon I wouldn’t be able to write any words other than IS-NESS. She could be right.
So it seems that having a cold is both breaking down my resistance as well as messing with my head. If I can only let go and hang out with it I might really “get” it. (The Voice of My Teacher says: there’s nothing to KNOW - it's unknowable.)
In a few days I’ll write more about Roshi’s teaching on The Path of the Human Being that he did on Saturday afternoon. It was out of this world. His brilliance seems to come from the way he beautifully uses the Big Mind process to illustrate AND give an experience of Zen teachings. It’s absolutely incredible.
1 comment:
Hello Dear Ones,
Pat, thank you so much for keeping us 'with you' as you journey here. Hope your cold is better.
I'm incredibly interested and excited by what you're learning. It so resonates with the company I've been keeping lately (Adyashanti and Oriah Mountain Dreamer; and earlier, Deepak, Eckhart & Walsch). The more I hear, the more what's being said (awakening to & integration of dual/non-dual reality) sounds exactly the same (which, of course, makes perfect sense...) but how to make the shift from comprehension to embodied living -- from "through me" to "as me' -- is where I absolutely need teaching and guidance. Adyashanti says it only takes a moment to 'wake up' ...but it may take 5 or 10 years to get the hang of it. I agree. I just don't want to take that long :^). Not only do I think it isn't necessary with the right guidance & tools, but I also think we don't actually have that many years before our planet experiences something on the order of a 'birth crisis' (the ending of one world as we know it - into the beginning of another). So sometimes I think those of us who are being shaken out of our slumber have an essential role to play in terms of supporting the transition process and helping people not be so freaked out...
Keep us posted!
Much Love,
Stephanie :^)
Post a Comment