Simple words

Yes it has been a long time since the last update of this blog. That will happen, dear reader, from time to time. There are many reasons why this happens. Busy-ness is often a factor of course. Laziness (who me?) may be too. Complacency (surely not!) may be another.

Of these, complacency is the most interesting for me at the moment. But is it actually complacency? When, through one's practice, one reaches a level of experience and understanding that has far exceeded anything personally experienced in the past, and when one gains deep and lasting insight into what I can only describe as my true home - a state of enlightened being, sometimes the question becomes, "No rush. Being is all. What else is there to write about?"

And yet that is what I say when I'm not in that state, not when I am in it! When in that state of enlightened being - and I dwelt there for a while whilst writing this - I have a sense of clarity and deep purpose - perhaps pure will - that totally belies the apparent hippie-like attitude of the above!

There are many people who may read this and pick it apart for evidence of duality in the writing as a pointer to the writer's lack of pure experience. To that I say, "Crap!" Is it possible to write successfully about Being or the experience of Becoming? No. These are fingers pointing at the moon. And I will be the last to cloak my words in the impenetrable intellectual claptrap used by so many. They carve out a self-selecting audience and provide only the opportunity for mental masturbation. What use is that to the average reader? And since those words are futile to describe "what is", yet simple words will suffice to hint at paths and to encourage, why not stick with simple words?

I'll do my best. :)

Thoughts on ESBS

• The drowned kitty look is slowly receding! [See previous post.] The effects are still with me though and I am still only firing on 2 cylinders. This precious human form is so fragile. One part of me is grateful for the medications, and is resigned to the obvious dependency I now seem to have on them. But behind that, and overarching all, another part of me cruises through the illusion and continues to see things as they really are.
• Had a long chat about ESBS with Piet Hut last night. It's amazing how experience unites us but words can separate! It's easy to jump on the limitations of a metaphor as though that's what the speaker really means, when actually they don't. When two people have one experience, something that is indivisible, it's expression... well, I'm falling over myself already! There's more work to do here. Piet and I have arrived at the same experience - maybe - by complementary routes. Or have we? Ha ha! Being can itself guide that next step.
• There's a box on the floor in the middle of the kitchen. Its contents are wonderful, amazing, - I've sampled them several times - and ... I keep on walking round the box the long way. Skirting it. Acknowledging its presence but putting off opening it again. Dancing around it. Jumping over it. In fact doing anything else other than sitting on the floor beside it, opening the lid and diving right inside. The label on the box says, "ESBS". What is stopping me? It's only partly comforting to know that the person who sent me the box also, on occasion, does the same dance! What is going on?
• When Being sees, there are no edges. No longer can I point to a separate thing. Neither is there an I to point. I thought of the lenticular cloud. It appears solid and stationary. You think you can point to it and say, "It's there!" But it is constantly dissolving on its trailing edge and being added to on its leading edge. Its presence is an illusion everyone can see. Click here to see an animation of a lenticular cloud.
  
• I previously touched on seeming to have the awareness of the thoughts of other enlightened beings while in the Enlightened state. Rarefied stuff eh!? Now I wonder whether that was because I shared the same mental continuum or mindstream with these other beings. If so, what does that make me?!
  

ESBS 2

I am so tired today. I feel as though I could sleep for weeks. Perhaps it's a result of a recurrence of laryngopharyngeal reflux disease, itself due to running out of lansoprazole, and in turn due to my doctors' surgery being closed all yesterday, which is finally in turn due to a strange peculiarity of Scottish society, namely, that there exist special public holidays that are limited to one city or town, and that are difficult to predict if you're not a local and your daily work takes you across several boundaries. [pause for breath]

• My head feels as though it is stuffed full of wet papier-mâché. The superfine awareness of ES is there - somewhere - but I can hardly feel it. The blunt tool of BS is also accessible. And my body registers the effects of these two consciousnesses. But my mind can scarcely acknowledge anything.

  It seems an important point to note about the physical body and how it reacts so strongly to what we're tuned into, often more so than the conscious mind. Even if I feel "I don't want to meditate, too tired to do prostrations..." (substitute whatever practice you get up to), I am still going to reap at least one benefit.

  Reminds me, in a way, of water divining, or more generally dowsing. Mental attunement using faith as a switch simply works. The body responds. The tools - the rods etc. - are mere mechanical amplifiers. How does it work? Don't know. Doesn't matter. It just does. It's harmless and useful. You keep the enabling attitude and the response bypasses your consciousness straight into the physical effect.

• Don't expect too much else of me today. I now have the lansoprazole, but I still feel like the picture at the top.
  

ESBS 1

What is ESBS? Basically another extension of Play as Being. YSBS was "You Seeing Being Seeing" - what I have called "Seeing as Being" in this blog. ESBS is "Enlightened Seeing Being Seeing". As Piet says, "Briefly, the idea is to explore in a kind of fantasy or imagination how it would be if you had a fully enlightened way of looking at the world around you, as ES replacing YS; and then to contrast that to BS. Are they the same or not? If not, what is the difference?"

• So I finally get round to my first try at this. I am at work, so I start with "You Seeing" anyway as I've found that is a good way to focus. Then, to transition to "Enlightened Seeing," I simply say, "I am an enlightened being" and the now familiar power rises in me. My mind becomes completely clear. Somewhere I hear myself say the words from a Buddhist prayer "I have the clarity of the yidam". I had expected to be carrying the "history of me" as a kind of personalisation - as an enlightened being awoken from ignorance - but I find none.

  So I switch to "Being Seeing" and there is hardly any difference. Hardly but there is something. I think later maybe there was no individualisation at all as Being, whereas ... so hard to describe ...

  Minutes I try quickly to go back to ES and find that it is the difference between seeing absolutely clearly and seeing only oneself everywhere. Perhaps that's just a play on words but there's a subtle difference in feeling.

  And now I feel that last hop in and out of ES has left me reeling - my head a little blown apart - and 'normality' hurts. I think that Enlightened Seeing is the place to be, permanently. That's where I'm going. And I can see how far along the road I am already.

• I read Adam's blog for the last few days. She is way ahead of me. Very inspiring! She has done ESBS a few times and I see similarities with my own experience. [I later add two comments to her blog, one for the 3rd and one for the 4th.]

  I slip straight into "Enlightened Seeing" and feel that powerful clarity, and... I feel this is my home, there is really no need for me to see other than this, be other than this. I skip "Being Seeing". I have no need. Now as I am typing this I think I am still solidly in that Enlightened Seeing consciousness.

  A colleague passes by - a conversation about a book - an enquiry - some advice given - we joke ... and all the time I maintain the enlightened consciousness and see a worldly emanation of me interacting in the physical and social world.

  Then I finish typing. An email notification pops up - a twinge of... what was that feeling? - and I am still floating a little above the normal awareness.

• Into Enlightened Seeing as I am sitting late at work, pretty much alone. The clear uncluttered thought of asking and deciding what to do right now. The motives of an Enlightened Being are mine.
• Enlightened Seeing. I see all that Being is. And I can feel the thoughts and minds of those others who are enlightened. We have a role to play in our illusory separation. I choose that way. It is to be done... Later I remember the esoteric astrology quotes for Capricorn and Pisces: "Lost am I in Light Supernal, yet on that light I turn my back," and "I reach my father's house, and turning back, I serve."

So what's the difference? Why is there a difference? Had I expected there to be a difference?

Well yes there is. Drawing on today's experience and the experience of the last couple of weeks, Being Seeing does not appear to be interested in the small individuals as there are no individuals. We are just thoughts of being, as are the stars and galaxies. It's amazing to see dimensions and distance fall away when Seeing as Being.

So it would have been the presumption that the enlightened being sees as Being. And yes indeed they can. And it's a necessary step for them. It's a realisation. It's life changing. But it seems to me only a prelude for what comes next. Because when one can more or less reliably get to the point of Seeing as Being, what comes next is a choice. And it seems a choice reminiscent of one in Buddhism: the way of Hinayana or the way of Mahayana. BS or ES?

Seeing as an enlightened being brings clarity of seeing, clarity of thought, clarity of motivation. You can see as Being and that brings the knowledge that you can at any moment become Being (or be become by Being). You can see the illusion and you can wear that illusion and duality lightly. Yet you also have the clear communication of the commonality of purpose with other enlightened beings. You are acting in concert with them.

It makes sense but it's not what I expected. I actually prefer it this way!

Monday already?

But that means my last blog entry was ... two clear weekdays and a weekend ago! [shakes head in disbelief]

Well, what to report? I had fun constructing a so far unnamed building and gardens on Second Life. I first started the design on Wednesday, did a prototype build on Thursday and found that the normal duplicate/drag/copy/undo/rotate technique I've been using on Second Life for a while wasn't exact enough to produce the building I wanted. On Friday, I thought of how to do the peripheries. On Saturday I redesigned the proportions, then I spent over nine hours building it, aligning each part exactly by eye and hand, and landscaping the whole area in tune with it. [photo above - unfurnished] Then on Sunday morning I added some basic seating and it was ready to show to people.

Come to think of it, that didn't leave a whole lot of time for anything else!