As one would expect, my little brain has been running rings around its self (it already goes quite quickly but its really been outperforming lately) over the past week while I thought about my past with this new perspective.
So, I think, yes, this stuff has effected almost all of my social interactions in quite an insidious fashion. I think I am now much better off in recognizing the cause and that given that, I should be able to start making changes that will eventually make me a much easier person to get along with. I have no delusion that these changes will be instant. The habits of a lifetime need to be overcome here, but hey, better late than never.
There is the temptation to feel that I have uncovered the big self mystery and that this is fully responsible for all my shortcomings, but that simply isn´t true. There is no doubt that it is a big issue (certainly the biggest), but I still need to keep an eye out for other insights into why I do the things I do.
There is also the temptation to say of my past bad behaviors "it wasn´t my fault" and then move on with clear conscience; but for me that doesn't feel right either.
If we all did that and decided to blame all our actions on the prior actions of others, then there would be no responsibility at all!
No, I feel that even though there are reasons for the way I have behaved, it was still me that behaved that way and I need to take responsibility for it. Its all in the past now, and there is precious little that I can do to change any of it. About the only thing that I can do is to admit it.
So, here and now I state for the record:
In the past, I have often behaved poorly for reasons that I did not fully understand. My poor behaviors have caused to some extent many people to be hurt unnecessarily.
I am truly sorry for the hurts that I have caused you all and I humbly ask for your forgiveness.
I'm sure this blog will be read by few enough of the effected people, but certainly many of you have known me for years and have no doubt suffered ill effects on many occasions.
I will also be writing a few personal letters to some of my closer friends to say it more personally.
That's about it - I'm sorry. I´ll be trying to do better in the future :)
Just in time? - Just in time for what?
Well, Just in time for the rest of my life :)
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
The Number Of The Beast
"This is my fear. This is my dread.
These are the contents of my head..."
Just a week or so ago, I had dispatch one of my old demons; but Id really just chased it out of one of its guises and back to its original form. I have not let it go at that and although I have been distracted by experiences with inner "lights" and the like, I have been working on the Dragon problem in the background.
Yes, I'm hunting Dragons again but metaphors are far to hard to maintain this time...
Over the last day or two, through random interactions with random people, Ive had some new insights into where the problem went and this time its the really big one! - I'm gonna need time and help I think ... but what ever it takes...
At the close of the last episode I had clearly decided that I didn't need to worry about what I should do with myself to try to be happy. The solution to this was of course to be happy and then do what feels right from there.
Now I'm the first to admit that I am not the happiest person in the world, but the harder question is WHY?
That's a real tricky one and Ive not had success in answering it in the past but we´re here to give it another try.
Ive long felt that my biggest personal challenge and the one thing that I would change about myself if I could would be to not be as frustrated as I am - To be less impatient!
The root cause of this frustration is however much harder to track down.
Recently I spent a good deal of time in the company of someone who was both particularly intolerant of my behavior of easily becme frustrated over apparently minor things... and particularly able to provoke the problem by virtue of the different rates at which we each move through our lives. Despite these significant issues, I found that I liked spending time in their company. Initially the relationship was a balance of supportive and critical, but it didn't take long for the supportive to evaporate and the critical to escalate. There was no understanding on their part of my behaviors origin and no real interest in it either. The fact is that at the time, I could not have identified the true source of the problem anyway so it matters not. When I failed to be able to deliver on the "just let it go", "its such a small thing", the commentary changed tune to "whats wrong with you", "just don't do that", and "I'm done with you today".
OK, that's a fairly normal response as far as my experience goes, but early on, while there was still support, I recognized the situation and I deliberately decided to really take myself to task and get control of my behavior. I felt I had a good stringent and provocative situation that I could use to really watch myself and to dominate the behavior, so I stuck through the criticism and swallowed it up as best I could and tried to change...
While I did make some significant gains on the issue, it never went away and it was sad to be a disappointment.
So, what went wrong?
Well, Nothing... I did great!
I'm in better control of this behavior than I have ever been before... Trouble is, I now realize that I can never win fighting it this way...
I was wrong to try to dominate it... That's what I have always done, and that's why it has always returned later, stronger.... Dominating it just feeds it!
So, What the hell is it?
Here goes...
For the most part I am a relatively stable and decent person. I'm a bit unusual, but my friends would I'm sure say that I am an intelligent, good person with a great capacity for humor and creativity. A good friend with a kind heart. However, I'm pretty sure that those same friends would likewise admit that there has always been an underlying sadness and the ever present capacity to get frustrated quickly. As best as I can tell, I have always had this behavior and Ive never really been able to track it down.
The trouble is that Ive always looked at the problem logically and analytically and from that stand point, the culprit is very well hidden. I'm trying to listen to some subtler internal information these days and this is what I have come up with...
The frustration is a repressed form of anger. Anger is of course highly unacceptable in our complex social society and lots of it gets repressed in lots of people - nothing new here. So the question is, why do such little things manage to get me so worked up? Even though I stay more or less in control as a good social creature does, it is still very apparent that I get angry easily.
Why?
Well, I think that the little trigger events of daily life are tapping into a much bigger source of anger that was bottled up long long ago and has just been growing ever since. When I try to repress and dominate the small frustrations of everyday life, I put it in the same place as this other anger. When I unplug the cork to put the tiny little annoyance away, I have to hold back the full force of all this other stuff that's in the bottle - And this is really big, And it pushes me way "off balance" trying to hold it all down - and that's what people notice. ...And I don't blame them!
The trick here is that I have never connected the two angers before because they are completely unrelated - It would make no logical sense to me to connect them!
But emotions don't seem to care about logic (yeah, we all know that but for me, on this issue, only at the intellectual level) and I'm sure that this is what is happening.
So whats the big bad anger in the bottle for?
The anger is from pain!
Pain, if not let go, tends to transform its self into either sadness or anger. Sadness is a completely impotent feeling - you can do nothing but feel sorry for yourself. Anger on the other hand is incredibly potent but very difficult to control and direct without doing serious damage to innocent bystanders and even to ones self.
So, Ive been dealing with this enormous pain over many years by oscillating between sadness and anger. Ive gotten pretty good at keeping it well under control and Ive certainly hidden the source of the problem quite well - best of all from myself! However, I'm sure my friends, and even most people who pay attention would readily acknowledge that they see the anger and sadness in almost every thing I do.
Back to the root cause...
This was very hard to track down, but once I made the link , it was clear as day. The pain is from lack of love!, and it has been there as long as I have memories...
At first pass, that seems highly unlikely and it is hard to find a culprit. I had a very benign upbringing. There was no violence whatsoever (verbal or physical). I can only once remember seeing my parents argue with raised voices... and there was no abusive language, just raised voices. I was never beaten or abused. I have absolutely never been in a fight or even seen one up close. I have experienced no traumatic incidents of any sort. I have never seen a serious injury. I have three siblings and none of us abused the others or was treated any differently by our parents. I was quiet in school and never very rebellious. My family was far from wealthy and there were four children, but all my material needs were met. We never went hungry or had need of shelter. My parents got married at age twenty and never got divorced or separated or wanted to as far as I could tell. This sounds just perfect and is far from the normal experience of childhood from what I know of most other people.
So whats the problem?
The problem is that there was NO LOVE.... virtually none!
... To clarify, what I mean here is that there was no affection... and a child cant tell the difference between love and affection.
I honestly can not remember a single occasion when I was given a hug or a kiss from either of my parents or my siblings for the sake of it! I can only recall a single occasion when I was sad that I got a hug from mum, and never that I recall from dad.
This is VERY unusual.
This is VERY bad.
This is in fact the most subtle and elusive form of abuse that I can think of, but it absolutely is abuse! Love is the MOST important and nurturing experience that a child can have - no; NEEDS to have. I have no words to express how profoundly this has affected me now that I recognize the cause!
In the past, I have always looked at the lack of bad experiences and concluded that while it wasn't particularly affectionate, there was no real problem here. My intellect had always passed over this and decided that I forgave my parents for their minor short fall on the affection because they did so well on all the other "important" stuff, and that of course they loved me.
But the little child in me has always craved love and never got it. I can now review my behaviors over the past 40 odd years in a new light and I can see that that is what I always wanted, but that because of the lack of it, my actual behaviors have always driven it away.
I understand now why I have almost no connection to my family (less so than any other person that I have ever known). There is no love there! There is no hate either... Its just a polite empty space! I think of them as my family as I have been taught to by social norms, and I'm sure they think of me the same way. But that's just the intellect; Emotionally I am an Orphan, and it shows in my emotional state of today... I just didn't know it till now.
OK , so now what?
The answer is, "I have no idea!".
This is so deep and ingrained. There is no way that this need for parental love can be achieved at this point. I'm also so emotionally walled off now that I suspect I barely know how to feel love at all. This has been observed in various ways by most of the women whom I have been involved with over the years, but none of them has ever managed to help me figure out why (and in truth, none of them have really given it a try) - Not their fault. I have never had a good working model of love, so I probably don't even know how I'm supposed to feel. Its not true to say I don't know how to feel emotions at all; I'm sure my friends would agree that I have at least reasonable access to the normal range of emotions. But it would be fair to say that my entire emotional makeup is built on a fundamentally flawed foundation. The anger caused by the pain of no love is so big and so strong that I have no idea how to get it out and let it go. I think it became anger in my teen years. I think it grew into rage by my late twenties when my first real relationship ended (she left me for some other guy of course) and eventually I left nothing but "scorched earth" of my entire life in Australia. I'm now over 40 and even though I seem to have been barely aware of it as a force in my life, I'm sure it has grown to an order of magnitude bigger again... I just don't have a word that I can describe it with! Likewise, the alternate version was sadness in my teens that grew into grief in my twenties, and again, I can find no suitable word for what it is now.
I know it has to go, but there is barely anyone to target it at (though that would be unjustified in truth) and I have now idea how to let it out without "raising" my life again! I don't even know how to really get in touch with it. I know for sure that intellectualizing it and analyzing and forgiving self and others will absolutely NOT work. I need to connect with these emotions in order to let them go. I'm not afraid of getting in there to deal with it, I just don't know how! In the past I have tried on occasion simply venting my anger (though I didn't really know the source) at inert objects or the heavens but it absolutely fails to connect and it just gets nowhere. I think I have to deal with it as pain ( the root cause) but what process to excise it? Im sure that acknowledging it and its consequences helps immensly. I think that writing it down and expressing it outside of myself helps too(though I'm sure it hurts others in various ways). But I don't really know what else to do with it, and it is still most definitely there and very big but also very remote now that several decades have passed!
This was far from easy to see, and very hard to write.
I need to work on this more, but there it is,
This is The Number of My Beast!
These are the contents of my head..."
Just a week or so ago, I had dispatch one of my old demons; but Id really just chased it out of one of its guises and back to its original form. I have not let it go at that and although I have been distracted by experiences with inner "lights" and the like, I have been working on the Dragon problem in the background.
Yes, I'm hunting Dragons again but metaphors are far to hard to maintain this time...
Over the last day or two, through random interactions with random people, Ive had some new insights into where the problem went and this time its the really big one! - I'm gonna need time and help I think ... but what ever it takes...
At the close of the last episode I had clearly decided that I didn't need to worry about what I should do with myself to try to be happy. The solution to this was of course to be happy and then do what feels right from there.
Now I'm the first to admit that I am not the happiest person in the world, but the harder question is WHY?
That's a real tricky one and Ive not had success in answering it in the past but we´re here to give it another try.
Ive long felt that my biggest personal challenge and the one thing that I would change about myself if I could would be to not be as frustrated as I am - To be less impatient!
The root cause of this frustration is however much harder to track down.
Recently I spent a good deal of time in the company of someone who was both particularly intolerant of my behavior of easily becme frustrated over apparently minor things... and particularly able to provoke the problem by virtue of the different rates at which we each move through our lives. Despite these significant issues, I found that I liked spending time in their company. Initially the relationship was a balance of supportive and critical, but it didn't take long for the supportive to evaporate and the critical to escalate. There was no understanding on their part of my behaviors origin and no real interest in it either. The fact is that at the time, I could not have identified the true source of the problem anyway so it matters not. When I failed to be able to deliver on the "just let it go", "its such a small thing", the commentary changed tune to "whats wrong with you", "just don't do that", and "I'm done with you today".
OK, that's a fairly normal response as far as my experience goes, but early on, while there was still support, I recognized the situation and I deliberately decided to really take myself to task and get control of my behavior. I felt I had a good stringent and provocative situation that I could use to really watch myself and to dominate the behavior, so I stuck through the criticism and swallowed it up as best I could and tried to change...
While I did make some significant gains on the issue, it never went away and it was sad to be a disappointment.
So, what went wrong?
Well, Nothing... I did great!
I'm in better control of this behavior than I have ever been before... Trouble is, I now realize that I can never win fighting it this way...
I was wrong to try to dominate it... That's what I have always done, and that's why it has always returned later, stronger.... Dominating it just feeds it!
So, What the hell is it?
Here goes...
For the most part I am a relatively stable and decent person. I'm a bit unusual, but my friends would I'm sure say that I am an intelligent, good person with a great capacity for humor and creativity. A good friend with a kind heart. However, I'm pretty sure that those same friends would likewise admit that there has always been an underlying sadness and the ever present capacity to get frustrated quickly. As best as I can tell, I have always had this behavior and Ive never really been able to track it down.
The trouble is that Ive always looked at the problem logically and analytically and from that stand point, the culprit is very well hidden. I'm trying to listen to some subtler internal information these days and this is what I have come up with...
The frustration is a repressed form of anger. Anger is of course highly unacceptable in our complex social society and lots of it gets repressed in lots of people - nothing new here. So the question is, why do such little things manage to get me so worked up? Even though I stay more or less in control as a good social creature does, it is still very apparent that I get angry easily.
Why?
Well, I think that the little trigger events of daily life are tapping into a much bigger source of anger that was bottled up long long ago and has just been growing ever since. When I try to repress and dominate the small frustrations of everyday life, I put it in the same place as this other anger. When I unplug the cork to put the tiny little annoyance away, I have to hold back the full force of all this other stuff that's in the bottle - And this is really big, And it pushes me way "off balance" trying to hold it all down - and that's what people notice. ...And I don't blame them!
The trick here is that I have never connected the two angers before because they are completely unrelated - It would make no logical sense to me to connect them!
But emotions don't seem to care about logic (yeah, we all know that but for me, on this issue, only at the intellectual level) and I'm sure that this is what is happening.
So whats the big bad anger in the bottle for?
The anger is from pain!
Pain, if not let go, tends to transform its self into either sadness or anger. Sadness is a completely impotent feeling - you can do nothing but feel sorry for yourself. Anger on the other hand is incredibly potent but very difficult to control and direct without doing serious damage to innocent bystanders and even to ones self.
So, Ive been dealing with this enormous pain over many years by oscillating between sadness and anger. Ive gotten pretty good at keeping it well under control and Ive certainly hidden the source of the problem quite well - best of all from myself! However, I'm sure my friends, and even most people who pay attention would readily acknowledge that they see the anger and sadness in almost every thing I do.
Back to the root cause...
This was very hard to track down, but once I made the link , it was clear as day. The pain is from lack of love!, and it has been there as long as I have memories...
At first pass, that seems highly unlikely and it is hard to find a culprit. I had a very benign upbringing. There was no violence whatsoever (verbal or physical). I can only once remember seeing my parents argue with raised voices... and there was no abusive language, just raised voices. I was never beaten or abused. I have absolutely never been in a fight or even seen one up close. I have experienced no traumatic incidents of any sort. I have never seen a serious injury. I have three siblings and none of us abused the others or was treated any differently by our parents. I was quiet in school and never very rebellious. My family was far from wealthy and there were four children, but all my material needs were met. We never went hungry or had need of shelter. My parents got married at age twenty and never got divorced or separated or wanted to as far as I could tell. This sounds just perfect and is far from the normal experience of childhood from what I know of most other people.
So whats the problem?
The problem is that there was NO LOVE.... virtually none!
... To clarify, what I mean here is that there was no affection... and a child cant tell the difference between love and affection.
I honestly can not remember a single occasion when I was given a hug or a kiss from either of my parents or my siblings for the sake of it! I can only recall a single occasion when I was sad that I got a hug from mum, and never that I recall from dad.
This is VERY unusual.
This is VERY bad.
This is in fact the most subtle and elusive form of abuse that I can think of, but it absolutely is abuse! Love is the MOST important and nurturing experience that a child can have - no; NEEDS to have. I have no words to express how profoundly this has affected me now that I recognize the cause!
In the past, I have always looked at the lack of bad experiences and concluded that while it wasn't particularly affectionate, there was no real problem here. My intellect had always passed over this and decided that I forgave my parents for their minor short fall on the affection because they did so well on all the other "important" stuff, and that of course they loved me.
But the little child in me has always craved love and never got it. I can now review my behaviors over the past 40 odd years in a new light and I can see that that is what I always wanted, but that because of the lack of it, my actual behaviors have always driven it away.
I understand now why I have almost no connection to my family (less so than any other person that I have ever known). There is no love there! There is no hate either... Its just a polite empty space! I think of them as my family as I have been taught to by social norms, and I'm sure they think of me the same way. But that's just the intellect; Emotionally I am an Orphan, and it shows in my emotional state of today... I just didn't know it till now.
OK , so now what?
The answer is, "I have no idea!".
This is so deep and ingrained. There is no way that this need for parental love can be achieved at this point. I'm also so emotionally walled off now that I suspect I barely know how to feel love at all. This has been observed in various ways by most of the women whom I have been involved with over the years, but none of them has ever managed to help me figure out why (and in truth, none of them have really given it a try) - Not their fault. I have never had a good working model of love, so I probably don't even know how I'm supposed to feel. Its not true to say I don't know how to feel emotions at all; I'm sure my friends would agree that I have at least reasonable access to the normal range of emotions. But it would be fair to say that my entire emotional makeup is built on a fundamentally flawed foundation. The anger caused by the pain of no love is so big and so strong that I have no idea how to get it out and let it go. I think it became anger in my teen years. I think it grew into rage by my late twenties when my first real relationship ended (she left me for some other guy of course) and eventually I left nothing but "scorched earth" of my entire life in Australia. I'm now over 40 and even though I seem to have been barely aware of it as a force in my life, I'm sure it has grown to an order of magnitude bigger again... I just don't have a word that I can describe it with! Likewise, the alternate version was sadness in my teens that grew into grief in my twenties, and again, I can find no suitable word for what it is now.
I know it has to go, but there is barely anyone to target it at (though that would be unjustified in truth) and I have now idea how to let it out without "raising" my life again! I don't even know how to really get in touch with it. I know for sure that intellectualizing it and analyzing and forgiving self and others will absolutely NOT work. I need to connect with these emotions in order to let them go. I'm not afraid of getting in there to deal with it, I just don't know how! In the past I have tried on occasion simply venting my anger (though I didn't really know the source) at inert objects or the heavens but it absolutely fails to connect and it just gets nowhere. I think I have to deal with it as pain ( the root cause) but what process to excise it? Im sure that acknowledging it and its consequences helps immensly. I think that writing it down and expressing it outside of myself helps too(though I'm sure it hurts others in various ways). But I don't really know what else to do with it, and it is still most definitely there and very big but also very remote now that several decades have passed!
This was far from easy to see, and very hard to write.
I need to work on this more, but there it is,
This is The Number of My Beast!
The Plan
Those are some images of the Las Pyramides "compound" and the lake etc.
So, I mentioned that I'm planning to stay here a bit longer to get some more work done on the "inside".
The follow on course here takes three months and everyone Ive spoken to says its well worth it. Traditionally, I'm not an "everyone" and I have to think carefully before deciding to do what others do. In this case, I think it is a good choice. It is however far from an easy choice!
To do this will mean that I get back to Vancouver in early August rather than May.
To do that means that I will have consumed absolutely all of my financial reserves. I will have absolutely no more "liquidity" and will still likely have to face several months of living in a very expensive city and paying an expensive mortgage before I manage to get a paying job.
This means significant debt! - bummer!
Its also coming into rainy season down here and that is going to be less pleasant as well as meaning that when I do ride North it will likely be uncomfortable too.
It seems also that my writing is not going to win me any income as this Blog has not been picked up and syndicated by any major literary agencies - a fact that simply baffles me :))
And it seems that I am likely to be more choosy about jobs this time since the last one did me so much damage that I feel strongly disinclined to hop back into the same pot of boiling water. I have no idea how I am going to deal with those problems, but they are problems for the future, not now.
Right now, I feel a very strong desire to get to the bottom of things on the inside and do what I can to make changes.
So, I'm here for three more months. And it is going to be quite intense in some ways but quite boring in others. I hope that I get fully absorbed in what I'm doing or I'm going to go crazy - Well, more crazy than I already am.
On the blog front, things are likely to be very personal and probably boring for others for a while, but don't worry, It wont last since there is a far larger silence period in the next course (40 days) and even then, I am expecting all of us students to start the silence early - since this is where the inner work of the course gets done.
So, I expect there will be about a month of blogging and then I'm gonna go quiet. Probably for 50 -60 days.
That's a long time of no talking but that's how it goes.
It ll be interesting to see what I come out of it like.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
A Little Prayer
Those who are religious will likely be offended here - brace your selves.
It seems to me that everybody prays, myself included.
I know that's a bold statement, but when you get right down to it and "the chips are down", and things are looking bleak, I think we all call on something "larger" to intervene and help us out. Now, for myself and other erstwhile "non-religious" folk, we only do this in real adversity and only when there are no other options and we really don't want what is happening to be the way it is. But I stand by my statement, I think everyone prays.
Sidebar:
I recall someone at some point telling my that the psychological origin of this behavior is likely derived from our childhood. When something bad, and out of our control happened, we would call for Mum or Dad. They of course seemed all powerful to our little minds and they would intervene, and save the day. So, when we are all grown up and something that we cant control and is bad happens, our instinct is to call for a bigger better version of the Mum and Dad of our childhood. Rings true to me...
Back to the story:
Now, in more mundane situations, I have always felt a little self conscious at ceremonies where there is a public prayer . It feels wrong for me to say something that I don't believe in - though I only feel it with the reference to the deity involved... The rest of the sentiments involved are always good and I have no problems with them.
Now off on the tangent of my problem with God!
Well, its not really a problem with God, its a problem with the crappy religion (note, the word is not "religious") experiences of my life. Which is to say the crappy way that the religious instructors "pitch" their God to the general public.
Now I can only speak to my own experiences here and it is undoubtedly different for others. However, throughout my early life, all I ever got from the clergy (generally Christian based religions) that crossed my path was - If your bad, you go to hell and if your good you go to heaven, and by the way, we are the judge of what is good and bad. Oh, and here are some rather dull songs that we can all sing together, and here are some very old and wondrous tales but don't expect any miracles in your practical life.
That's a bit simplistic, but more or less, that is what they were selling.
As I got older and did some of my own thinking but still only experiencing these very limited representatives of God in my world, I still found things wanting... I mean, any God that will damn any non-believer to hell just because they don't believe in God! That means all those people throughout history who have not had the good fortune to meat someone who is Christian! That's BULLSHIT! Likewise, the fervor of the Christian missionaries (and any other religion for that matter) and all the horrors and atrocities that have been committed against innocent indigenous folk throughout the ages, it all just makes me sick!
Then I did more thinking and I thought about a situation where two otherwise identical people have to make a moral choice. They both make "the right" choice, but one is motivated by their belief in God and the other (non-religious) is motivated by their belief in "just doing good". So now I get to decide who I have more respect for... and the answer is the one motivated by just doing good. Now, I know that most enlightened religious folk will say that they are both the same thing but that's not what was being sold to me...you get the point.
The basic point here is that any God that uses fear to coerce belief in any form whatsoever is no God of mine, and never will be!
So now that we have a little insight into my rather lacking experiences of youth, back to the problem of praying. So the reference to God is a problem. Likewise, I have not found resonance with other religious behaviors like blessings etc. And, now, here at the meditation centre, there are lots of little praying ceremonies (at the start and end of every meditation session etc). So, what to do in these situations?
Well, as I have said, I do actually pray, just not to a deity. If a deity gets mentioned in a prayer, I feel guilt if I say it and don't believe it.
So, I made a tiny little prayer that works for me:
Thank you for today.
May I make the best possible use
of all the opportunities and experiences that come my way.
May I heal, may I grow and may I navigate my choices well.
and I can say that, and I feel no guilt, and it makes me smile :)
Maybe its useful for you too :)
It seems to me that everybody prays, myself included.
I know that's a bold statement, but when you get right down to it and "the chips are down", and things are looking bleak, I think we all call on something "larger" to intervene and help us out. Now, for myself and other erstwhile "non-religious" folk, we only do this in real adversity and only when there are no other options and we really don't want what is happening to be the way it is. But I stand by my statement, I think everyone prays.
Sidebar:
I recall someone at some point telling my that the psychological origin of this behavior is likely derived from our childhood. When something bad, and out of our control happened, we would call for Mum or Dad. They of course seemed all powerful to our little minds and they would intervene, and save the day. So, when we are all grown up and something that we cant control and is bad happens, our instinct is to call for a bigger better version of the Mum and Dad of our childhood. Rings true to me...
Back to the story:
Now, in more mundane situations, I have always felt a little self conscious at ceremonies where there is a public prayer . It feels wrong for me to say something that I don't believe in - though I only feel it with the reference to the deity involved... The rest of the sentiments involved are always good and I have no problems with them.
Now off on the tangent of my problem with God!
Well, its not really a problem with God, its a problem with the crappy religion (note, the word is not "religious") experiences of my life. Which is to say the crappy way that the religious instructors "pitch" their God to the general public.
Now I can only speak to my own experiences here and it is undoubtedly different for others. However, throughout my early life, all I ever got from the clergy (generally Christian based religions) that crossed my path was - If your bad, you go to hell and if your good you go to heaven, and by the way, we are the judge of what is good and bad. Oh, and here are some rather dull songs that we can all sing together, and here are some very old and wondrous tales but don't expect any miracles in your practical life.
That's a bit simplistic, but more or less, that is what they were selling.
As I got older and did some of my own thinking but still only experiencing these very limited representatives of God in my world, I still found things wanting... I mean, any God that will damn any non-believer to hell just because they don't believe in God! That means all those people throughout history who have not had the good fortune to meat someone who is Christian! That's BULLSHIT! Likewise, the fervor of the Christian missionaries (and any other religion for that matter) and all the horrors and atrocities that have been committed against innocent indigenous folk throughout the ages, it all just makes me sick!
Then I did more thinking and I thought about a situation where two otherwise identical people have to make a moral choice. They both make "the right" choice, but one is motivated by their belief in God and the other (non-religious) is motivated by their belief in "just doing good". So now I get to decide who I have more respect for... and the answer is the one motivated by just doing good. Now, I know that most enlightened religious folk will say that they are both the same thing but that's not what was being sold to me...you get the point.
The basic point here is that any God that uses fear to coerce belief in any form whatsoever is no God of mine, and never will be!
So now that we have a little insight into my rather lacking experiences of youth, back to the problem of praying. So the reference to God is a problem. Likewise, I have not found resonance with other religious behaviors like blessings etc. And, now, here at the meditation centre, there are lots of little praying ceremonies (at the start and end of every meditation session etc). So, what to do in these situations?
Well, as I have said, I do actually pray, just not to a deity. If a deity gets mentioned in a prayer, I feel guilt if I say it and don't believe it.
So, I made a tiny little prayer that works for me:
Thank you for today.
May I make the best possible use
of all the opportunities and experiences that come my way.
May I heal, may I grow and may I navigate my choices well.
and I can say that, and I feel no guilt, and it makes me smile :)
Maybe its useful for you too :)
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Learning and Teaching.
Throughout life Ive been in lots of teaching situations and lots of learning situations as well.
Ive been reflecting on the difficulties associated with teaching and learning over the last few months and I'm going to put down in writing my current thoughts. No doubt I will offend just about every professional teacher out there, but this is how I see it:
Note: I'm not just talking about teachers in schools. It applies just as much and even more so in our daily interactions with every other person that we want to exchange knowledge with.
We can all learn how to be better teachers, and for that matter, better students as well; I know for sure that I can!
In my opinion, teaching is a very high calling.
If it is truly done for the purposes of just giving the student learning and does not involve the teacher getting something for them self (like ego or status) then it is truly one of the highest callings there is.
The sad thing is that this is rarely the case. The result of this seems to be that there are actually very few really good teachers. Its understandable that there is so much "short-fall" though, since teachers are people too and we all have our share of human frailties.
I'm going to assume that the teacher-learner interaction is a respectful one in both directions - otherwise, "all bets are off" and it just amounts to the use of force...
My thoughts on how to teach well, boil down to just two simple rules and one helpful suggestion, and are as follows:
Rule 1 - You can NEVER push learning!
Rule 2 - The teacher MUST go to the student!
Suggestion - Use complements, not just constructive criticisms!
To expand a little:
Rule 1.
Learning can only be pulled by the student not pushed by the teacher.
It matters not one jot how much effort the teacher applies to the problem, if the student is uninterested then the knowledge wont go through. This is why the best teachers (particularly in class situations) spend a good deal of effort making the subject they teach interesting - These are the teachers we enjoyed being with and why we remember those lessons.
This rule is usually not really a problem since the interest in humans learning instinct is innate and highly developed - probably more developed in us than in any other species - it is in fact what makes us so successful in our evolution. However, if the student really does not want to be in the lesson then there is nothing that the teacher can do. Often the learning instinct can seem quite hidden, but it is an abnormal situation (usually meaning there are some other really big problems in the students life). The other culprit, sadly, is the teacher (in a class situation anyway). It is amazing how some teachers can really take the life out of a subject and otherwise able students will completely switch off. That said, the basic point stands - The student has to be motivated to learn.
What if the teacher tries to push?
Well this is a real common problem and it usually means that the teacher really cares that the student understand - and that's what makes it such a shame. As soon as the teacher tries to push knowledge, tensions will rise. This is different to offering knowledge and then letting the student decide if they want it (in a classroom situation) - no tension here. But if the student doesn't get it or doesn't want it, and the teacher tries to push, it almost invariably causes the barriers to go up in the student (as well as the teacher). Then the teacher pushes harder and gets frustrated and the student gets a completely different lesson to the one being taught!... Instead of learning about the subject at hand, they cant help but switch to "learning how to deal with this annoyed and pushy person that they don't want to be around". Its amazing to see that the teacher cant figure out why the lesson is going so badly - They care about the student, they know the subject matter well, they are talking the same language - but the student is just being belligerent and willful and refuses to hear!.... ... No; Actually the teacher is pushing the information and the student is on a completely different lesson!
What if the student says "... yes, but..."?
Well, that means that the information presented by the teacher is in conflict with some understanding that the student currently has. Now if the teacher simply says - No, Your wrong, its like this..." then there is a very high probability that the student will immediately feel their opinion is being dismissed and that the teacher is being very condescending and has no real interest in helping them but is more interested in their own ego ... downward spiral!
Yes it is completely to do with egos on both sides but that is a real issue in any interpersonal exchange. If the teacher truly wants to impart the knowledge then it behooves them to :1) politely acknowledge the students point of view, even if they disagree with it - Its just a point of view and it can change with time and help. 2) The teacher needs to address the misunderstanding and help the student with this step first before returning to the original problem. Again, trying to force the exchange in any way will just put the barriers up and we are back to a violation of Rule 1.
What if the student says "... but I cant..."?
Chances are that what they are actually saying is either "...I don't know how...", or "... I'm afraid...". In the afraid case, it is usually a practical lesson. In the case of the "don't know how", they really just don't know how. The student has not said it correctly and unfortunately, the teacher usually just hears denial and then starts to push... And we know where that goes! So what they really mean is "I need a smaller step please because I cant make that leap". This is where rule 2 comes in.
Rule 2
It is to their great shame that teachers often use the phrase .... "Well, you just..." when trying to teach an apparently dim witted student! The use of the word "just" means that the teacher has forgotten what it was like before they knew what it is that they now know and are trying to teach. If the student could figure out how to do it then they surely would do it! - Everyone likes to understand. Nobody likes to feel stupid!
The problem here is that the teacher has taken too big a step for the student to be able to follow. The student can only guess at what they don't already know and this is really tricky stuff and apt to often go astray. The teacher on the other hand has the privilege of knowing all the ground they are working on and probably everything in the area as well. If the student does not "get it" then they are missing a piece of information somewhere. It, needs must, falls to the teacher to figure out what that is and fill in the gap. Often the best way is to try to explain the situation in a different way. Unfortunately the teacher often just repeats the same information , the same way, and at a louder volume - not very helpful!
The trick here is that the teacher MUST be able to step out of their own knowledgeable perspective and into the students place. A good teacher will be able to do this, figure out what piece of information is missing, and fill in the blank without "Pushing" or alienating the student - for which, the student will be grateful and reward the teacher with understanding the lesson. In a class situation where the communication is largely one way, a good teacher will explain the lesson in several different ways to try to get the idea across to many students, all with different experiences and perspectives.
Again its a simple rule, the teacher has to bridge the gap because the student simply cant.
The Suggestion.
Well, everyone knows its nice to get complements. We all learn much better if we get complemented about our efforts on a regular basis. False or insincere complements don't count here, only real ones, and we are pretty much all able to detect the difference.
Everyone also knows that it is hard to get a criticism - Even if it is intended to be constructive and is given with all the good intent in the world.
The student who is never given complements and only ever given criticism will soon enough feel stupid, inadequate, and dejected even if they are making great progress. Too often, teachers forget to apply the complements but are all to ready with the criticisms, and its a crying shame. Its so easy to give the rewards, but we forget and assume that the student knows they are doing well - not so. It is far more fun to learn with rewards than with punishments and a happy student is an interested student who will learn faster next time - Use plenty of complements!
Them´s my thoughts :)
Ive been reflecting on the difficulties associated with teaching and learning over the last few months and I'm going to put down in writing my current thoughts. No doubt I will offend just about every professional teacher out there, but this is how I see it:
Note: I'm not just talking about teachers in schools. It applies just as much and even more so in our daily interactions with every other person that we want to exchange knowledge with.
We can all learn how to be better teachers, and for that matter, better students as well; I know for sure that I can!
In my opinion, teaching is a very high calling.
If it is truly done for the purposes of just giving the student learning and does not involve the teacher getting something for them self (like ego or status) then it is truly one of the highest callings there is.
The sad thing is that this is rarely the case. The result of this seems to be that there are actually very few really good teachers. Its understandable that there is so much "short-fall" though, since teachers are people too and we all have our share of human frailties.
I'm going to assume that the teacher-learner interaction is a respectful one in both directions - otherwise, "all bets are off" and it just amounts to the use of force...
My thoughts on how to teach well, boil down to just two simple rules and one helpful suggestion, and are as follows:
Rule 1 - You can NEVER push learning!
Rule 2 - The teacher MUST go to the student!
Suggestion - Use complements, not just constructive criticisms!
To expand a little:
Rule 1.
Learning can only be pulled by the student not pushed by the teacher.
It matters not one jot how much effort the teacher applies to the problem, if the student is uninterested then the knowledge wont go through. This is why the best teachers (particularly in class situations) spend a good deal of effort making the subject they teach interesting - These are the teachers we enjoyed being with and why we remember those lessons.
This rule is usually not really a problem since the interest in humans learning instinct is innate and highly developed - probably more developed in us than in any other species - it is in fact what makes us so successful in our evolution. However, if the student really does not want to be in the lesson then there is nothing that the teacher can do. Often the learning instinct can seem quite hidden, but it is an abnormal situation (usually meaning there are some other really big problems in the students life). The other culprit, sadly, is the teacher (in a class situation anyway). It is amazing how some teachers can really take the life out of a subject and otherwise able students will completely switch off. That said, the basic point stands - The student has to be motivated to learn.
What if the teacher tries to push?
Well this is a real common problem and it usually means that the teacher really cares that the student understand - and that's what makes it such a shame. As soon as the teacher tries to push knowledge, tensions will rise. This is different to offering knowledge and then letting the student decide if they want it (in a classroom situation) - no tension here. But if the student doesn't get it or doesn't want it, and the teacher tries to push, it almost invariably causes the barriers to go up in the student (as well as the teacher). Then the teacher pushes harder and gets frustrated and the student gets a completely different lesson to the one being taught!... Instead of learning about the subject at hand, they cant help but switch to "learning how to deal with this annoyed and pushy person that they don't want to be around". Its amazing to see that the teacher cant figure out why the lesson is going so badly - They care about the student, they know the subject matter well, they are talking the same language - but the student is just being belligerent and willful and refuses to hear!.... ... No; Actually the teacher is pushing the information and the student is on a completely different lesson!
What if the student says "... yes, but..."?
Well, that means that the information presented by the teacher is in conflict with some understanding that the student currently has. Now if the teacher simply says - No, Your wrong, its like this..." then there is a very high probability that the student will immediately feel their opinion is being dismissed and that the teacher is being very condescending and has no real interest in helping them but is more interested in their own ego ... downward spiral!
Yes it is completely to do with egos on both sides but that is a real issue in any interpersonal exchange. If the teacher truly wants to impart the knowledge then it behooves them to :1) politely acknowledge the students point of view, even if they disagree with it - Its just a point of view and it can change with time and help. 2) The teacher needs to address the misunderstanding and help the student with this step first before returning to the original problem. Again, trying to force the exchange in any way will just put the barriers up and we are back to a violation of Rule 1.
What if the student says "... but I cant..."?
Chances are that what they are actually saying is either "...I don't know how...", or "... I'm afraid...". In the afraid case, it is usually a practical lesson. In the case of the "don't know how", they really just don't know how. The student has not said it correctly and unfortunately, the teacher usually just hears denial and then starts to push... And we know where that goes! So what they really mean is "I need a smaller step please because I cant make that leap". This is where rule 2 comes in.
Rule 2
It is to their great shame that teachers often use the phrase .... "Well, you just..." when trying to teach an apparently dim witted student! The use of the word "just" means that the teacher has forgotten what it was like before they knew what it is that they now know and are trying to teach. If the student could figure out how to do it then they surely would do it! - Everyone likes to understand. Nobody likes to feel stupid!
The problem here is that the teacher has taken too big a step for the student to be able to follow. The student can only guess at what they don't already know and this is really tricky stuff and apt to often go astray. The teacher on the other hand has the privilege of knowing all the ground they are working on and probably everything in the area as well. If the student does not "get it" then they are missing a piece of information somewhere. It, needs must, falls to the teacher to figure out what that is and fill in the gap. Often the best way is to try to explain the situation in a different way. Unfortunately the teacher often just repeats the same information , the same way, and at a louder volume - not very helpful!
The trick here is that the teacher MUST be able to step out of their own knowledgeable perspective and into the students place. A good teacher will be able to do this, figure out what piece of information is missing, and fill in the blank without "Pushing" or alienating the student - for which, the student will be grateful and reward the teacher with understanding the lesson. In a class situation where the communication is largely one way, a good teacher will explain the lesson in several different ways to try to get the idea across to many students, all with different experiences and perspectives.
Again its a simple rule, the teacher has to bridge the gap because the student simply cant.
The Suggestion.
Well, everyone knows its nice to get complements. We all learn much better if we get complemented about our efforts on a regular basis. False or insincere complements don't count here, only real ones, and we are pretty much all able to detect the difference.
Everyone also knows that it is hard to get a criticism - Even if it is intended to be constructive and is given with all the good intent in the world.
The student who is never given complements and only ever given criticism will soon enough feel stupid, inadequate, and dejected even if they are making great progress. Too often, teachers forget to apply the complements but are all to ready with the criticisms, and its a crying shame. Its so easy to give the rewards, but we forget and assume that the student knows they are doing well - not so. It is far more fun to learn with rewards than with punishments and a happy student is an interested student who will learn faster next time - Use plenty of complements!
Them´s my thoughts :)
The Evolution of the Giraffe
pation... :)))
Wrote a draft of this before the silence...
Well, the unusual topic of "What the heck are those little knobs on a giraffe´s head for" came up again the other day - Truly, I had nothing to do with it, It just came up :)
Once it did come up though, I felt gratified to be able to provide an intelligent answer:
The modern giraffe (or garden variety if you live in Africa - They really are liable to turn up in your garden there...) that we are all familiar with is, as science tells us, the result of a very long chain of evolutionary "selection" processes.
The secret to those funny little knobs on their heads would be clearer to most people if one of their very near relatives had not become extinct around the end of the seventeenth century. Much like the Dodo on Mauritius, the "Madagascan Micro Giraffe" became extinct at the hands of man...
These diminutive creatures were more closely related to the modern giraffes forebears in that they were very small and not very elongated! Try to picture a creature about the size and shape of a Chihuahua (yes, the little dog), but it has the same camouflage pattern of the giraffe... except that it is in a dark green colour rather than brown. And of course, it has those funny little knobs on its head too (although they are larger in proportion). Yes this is a strange looking little beast indeed. However this creature was perfectly evolved to live in its natural habitat - The vast Broccoli woodlands of pre-colonial Madagascar!
In the days before the colonization of Madagascar, The plains were covered in sparse woodlands (not dense forest) of broccoli. The broccoli was grazed by small family groups of the micro-giraffes (usually a couple of adults and their offspring). Because the broccoli was sparse, the giraffes were vulnerable to attack (mostly from the co-evolved giraffe eagle) and they of course evolved defensive camouflage to minimize this risk. The camouflage pattern we are familiar with, but the colouring was green to blend in with the broccoli. If we now imagine these micro-giraffes in amongst the broccoli heads, and we imagine that at the first sign of danger, they freeze motionless and close their bulging little eyes ... With those knobs on their heads, they just seem to blend in with the surrounding broccoli heads...
And so we can now see where the knobs come from.
The giraffe from the nearby mainland of Africa that we are now all familiar with has evolved further after the island of Madagascar became separate from the continent. This was due to the changing climatic conditions, and as the broccoli grew and changed with the climate, so did the giraffes - As the country became more arid, the broccoli grew more sparse and deeper rooted to find the deeper water table. Likewise as conditions got harder, the only broccoli to survive the voracious feeding from the giraffes, small though they seem, were the plants that grew taller than they could reach. The giraffes also evolved and thus elongated, and the colour of their coats adapted to match the more arid climate, but those little knobs remained. Till we have the situation we see in Africa today with giraffes grazing on the sparse acacia trees of the African savanna (Acacia trees are directly related to Broccoli!) and still having funny little knobs on their heads - There was apparently no selective pressure for the knobs to de-volve.
Back to the story of the Madagascan giraffes... Alas, when the island was colonized, the Europeans were quick to spot the bounty of the vast broccoli woodlands and they set about harvesting the crop without regard for sustainability, as was the usual story in that era. Within a few decades, the wanton destruction of the micro-giraffes habitat had given rise to the giant economic broccoli empires that would just as soon disappear as their natural resource was tapped out. The poor micro-giraffes were of no economic value at all and were simply hunted to try to preserve the broccoli, and eventually they died out in obscurity when their habitat was gone. Another sad story of man's thoughtless conquest of nature.
And there you have it, the origin of those knobs on the giraffes head.
p.s. Credit must also be given to Mike and Jason (former co-employees with me) for assisting in the uncovering of this most interesting evolutionary tale.
Wrote a draft of this before the silence...
Well, the unusual topic of "What the heck are those little knobs on a giraffe´s head for" came up again the other day - Truly, I had nothing to do with it, It just came up :)
Once it did come up though, I felt gratified to be able to provide an intelligent answer:
The modern giraffe (or garden variety if you live in Africa - They really are liable to turn up in your garden there...) that we are all familiar with is, as science tells us, the result of a very long chain of evolutionary "selection" processes.
The secret to those funny little knobs on their heads would be clearer to most people if one of their very near relatives had not become extinct around the end of the seventeenth century. Much like the Dodo on Mauritius, the "Madagascan Micro Giraffe" became extinct at the hands of man...
These diminutive creatures were more closely related to the modern giraffes forebears in that they were very small and not very elongated! Try to picture a creature about the size and shape of a Chihuahua (yes, the little dog), but it has the same camouflage pattern of the giraffe... except that it is in a dark green colour rather than brown. And of course, it has those funny little knobs on its head too (although they are larger in proportion). Yes this is a strange looking little beast indeed. However this creature was perfectly evolved to live in its natural habitat - The vast Broccoli woodlands of pre-colonial Madagascar!
In the days before the colonization of Madagascar, The plains were covered in sparse woodlands (not dense forest) of broccoli. The broccoli was grazed by small family groups of the micro-giraffes (usually a couple of adults and their offspring). Because the broccoli was sparse, the giraffes were vulnerable to attack (mostly from the co-evolved giraffe eagle) and they of course evolved defensive camouflage to minimize this risk. The camouflage pattern we are familiar with, but the colouring was green to blend in with the broccoli. If we now imagine these micro-giraffes in amongst the broccoli heads, and we imagine that at the first sign of danger, they freeze motionless and close their bulging little eyes ... With those knobs on their heads, they just seem to blend in with the surrounding broccoli heads...
And so we can now see where the knobs come from.
The giraffe from the nearby mainland of Africa that we are now all familiar with has evolved further after the island of Madagascar became separate from the continent. This was due to the changing climatic conditions, and as the broccoli grew and changed with the climate, so did the giraffes - As the country became more arid, the broccoli grew more sparse and deeper rooted to find the deeper water table. Likewise as conditions got harder, the only broccoli to survive the voracious feeding from the giraffes, small though they seem, were the plants that grew taller than they could reach. The giraffes also evolved and thus elongated, and the colour of their coats adapted to match the more arid climate, but those little knobs remained. Till we have the situation we see in Africa today with giraffes grazing on the sparse acacia trees of the African savanna (Acacia trees are directly related to Broccoli!) and still having funny little knobs on their heads - There was apparently no selective pressure for the knobs to de-volve.
Back to the story of the Madagascan giraffes... Alas, when the island was colonized, the Europeans were quick to spot the bounty of the vast broccoli woodlands and they set about harvesting the crop without regard for sustainability, as was the usual story in that era. Within a few decades, the wanton destruction of the micro-giraffes habitat had given rise to the giant economic broccoli empires that would just as soon disappear as their natural resource was tapped out. The poor micro-giraffes were of no economic value at all and were simply hunted to try to preserve the broccoli, and eventually they died out in obscurity when their habitat was gone. Another sad story of man's thoughtless conquest of nature.
And there you have it, the origin of those knobs on the giraffes head.
p.s. Credit must also be given to Mike and Jason (former co-employees with me) for assisting in the uncovering of this most interesting evolutionary tale.
Last Day of Silence
I can see you trembling in anticip...
ation!
- I just love that line from the rocky horror picture show :)
Well, The last day of silence started out with watching the sunrise over the lake from the dock - very nice.
After that we had the usual yoga, and I must admit that it was a bit tougher on a completely empty stomach. I felt very empty and even a bit nauseous after we were done. This was however the exact same feeling I had fer every day of the last three years working for that HighTech company - So it turns out that I am well able to deal with the sensation.
After that I went to my room to see what meditation would bring today....
No luck on the lights today though. I did manage to get to a very peaceful and "remote from the physical" place though. This may be the realm of "quiet mind" since I got absolutely no interruptions from my usual extraneous thoughts. My mind was however far from quiet as I was totally engrossed exploring the sensations I was getting - not sure if this experience will likewise prove unrepeatable for a while.
After that, I had a sauna and then went for the usual swim in the lake. Then one more meditation in the sun (nothing special this time) and then I had a bit of a snooze before working on my reflecting that we are all doing over these five days.
Sidebar:
I was still really enjoying the silence and I think I may start wearing ear plugs as a standard procedure when I'm not in traffic or the like. I seem to be a "sensitive little flower" and in particular to light, sound and touch (not so much taste and smell though). Even with dark sunglasses I´m always squinting, and I spend lots of time wincing at loud noises (although most other people don't seem to find the same sounds to be a problem). I end up getting very stressed out by the overload on my senses and that makes me not much fun sometimes.
Then in the evening we had the closing meditation session for the five day silence. It was quite the ceremony with much incense and many candles and chanting and invoking of the powers of the four elements and the universe etc. All quite fun and very moving for many of the people involved (may have been contributed to by five days of near starvation and silence?) .
Then everyone started talking like there was no tomorrow...this was a very new experience for most people but less so for me - I spend lots of time in my own company :)
I did talk to a couple of people about the Light, and the general opinion was "sounds like the light" but they were not very experienced people. I have not spoken to the senior instructor at the centre yet and her opinion would hold more weight. I also have a couple of other contacts that I need to talk to about it.
Anyway, after that I went out and stuffed my face with food and beer at a local restaurant with the other students - yeah, sounds like he´s really enlightened doesn't it! - then again, maybe it does ;)
And then finally I dragged myself off to bed.
So I'm back in the world of communication again now :)
ation!
- I just love that line from the rocky horror picture show :)
Well, The last day of silence started out with watching the sunrise over the lake from the dock - very nice.
After that we had the usual yoga, and I must admit that it was a bit tougher on a completely empty stomach. I felt very empty and even a bit nauseous after we were done. This was however the exact same feeling I had fer every day of the last three years working for that HighTech company - So it turns out that I am well able to deal with the sensation.
After that I went to my room to see what meditation would bring today....
No luck on the lights today though. I did manage to get to a very peaceful and "remote from the physical" place though. This may be the realm of "quiet mind" since I got absolutely no interruptions from my usual extraneous thoughts. My mind was however far from quiet as I was totally engrossed exploring the sensations I was getting - not sure if this experience will likewise prove unrepeatable for a while.
After that, I had a sauna and then went for the usual swim in the lake. Then one more meditation in the sun (nothing special this time) and then I had a bit of a snooze before working on my reflecting that we are all doing over these five days.
Sidebar:
I was still really enjoying the silence and I think I may start wearing ear plugs as a standard procedure when I'm not in traffic or the like. I seem to be a "sensitive little flower" and in particular to light, sound and touch (not so much taste and smell though). Even with dark sunglasses I´m always squinting, and I spend lots of time wincing at loud noises (although most other people don't seem to find the same sounds to be a problem). I end up getting very stressed out by the overload on my senses and that makes me not much fun sometimes.
Then in the evening we had the closing meditation session for the five day silence. It was quite the ceremony with much incense and many candles and chanting and invoking of the powers of the four elements and the universe etc. All quite fun and very moving for many of the people involved (may have been contributed to by five days of near starvation and silence?) .
Then everyone started talking like there was no tomorrow...this was a very new experience for most people but less so for me - I spend lots of time in my own company :)
I did talk to a couple of people about the Light, and the general opinion was "sounds like the light" but they were not very experienced people. I have not spoken to the senior instructor at the centre yet and her opinion would hold more weight. I also have a couple of other contacts that I need to talk to about it.
Anyway, after that I went out and stuffed my face with food and beer at a local restaurant with the other students - yeah, sounds like he´s really enlightened doesn't it! - then again, maybe it does ;)
And then finally I dragged myself off to bed.
So I'm back in the world of communication again now :)
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Tripping the Lights Fantastic!
Day four of the silence did not start out proceeding in a very effective fashion!
I couldn't manage to get any good meditation time in in the first half of the day. I got watered while laying in the garden by the gardener, The wind was strong and the waves on the lake were huge, so swimming was quite the chore. Then while clambering out of the lake, the waves knocked me around and I got a cut foot... not having a great time I must say.
So I worked through it anyway and I must say that the diet of fruit only is not making me feel at all bad. I am barely noticing it as an issue at all. The last meditation task was again alone in the group meditation space and I usually have a good session here and get some sort of peace. Today however, it was really hard work. I was really struggling to keep my mind quiet. When I had more or less decided that today was going to just be one of those days, things happened rather rapidly...
I could feel the pressure in my forehead getting stronger, then the sort of swimmy inner colours that I see when I meditate started to get brighter and lighter, then a sort of spinal tingling (like when something suddenly startles you) started up my back and then the colours got even lighter and brighter until ...it went white!
There was Light! - (really bright - white out!)
And there was ringing in my ears
And I got a hot flush over my head and my brain went blank...
And then after about half a second the colours came back and I got sweat around the sides of my head and the tingling subsided.... hmmm
So I still had the colours going on and I deliberately tried to re-evoke the feeling, and after about ten to fifteen seconds I managed to do it again. Then I got one more shot at it before I couldn't manage it any more, and came out of meditating....
Holy Celestial Fire Batman!, What was that!!!
Now it may not have been THE LIGHT but it was definitely A LIGHT.
Ive only been doing this meditation stuff for 29 days, so Id be rather surprised to have reached "enlightenment", and anyway, I'm sure I'm still full of all my usual human frailties after the event just like before.
To describe it, Id say it felt just like an orgasm but it was up in my head, not lower down as usual. I'm pretty sure it was just a physiological effect and my brain released some sort of endorphin (pineal or pituitary gland Id guess) and that is all well and good, but the real question is "where did my mind go?" Trouble is, I was not there long enough to be able to tell.
One thing is for sure though... It felt really good and Id do it again if I could!
...
Why hasn't anyone told us about this before! - I'm sure it is actually in many of the books I choose not to read :)
This isn't sex (no fun before or after, just the fireworks) but its pretty damn good!
...
This explains why all those Tibetan monks are able to stay celibate up in their monasteries!
...sneaky little rascals! - Whole new take on "Dirty Minds"
And I'm in silence too, so I cant talk to anyone about it! I´ll have to wait till silence is over tomorrow night before I ask around for more learned input on the subject.
But for now, the question is, "I wonder if it will happen again?"
I don't know; We´ll have to wait and see - I suppose that would effectively be "Mental Masturbation"... But not tonight dear... I'm too tired!
We´ll see what happens tomorrow, but I don't know what the likelihood is. Usually it takes me several more days to get back to some sort of event that I get for the first time - Just how it seems to go. Also, tomorrow is not the same schedule - We have no food and I don't get to use the main meditating space, and my room is not as good, so I expect things will be different.
Turned out to be a good day after all... Cant wait for what happens next!
I couldn't manage to get any good meditation time in in the first half of the day. I got watered while laying in the garden by the gardener, The wind was strong and the waves on the lake were huge, so swimming was quite the chore. Then while clambering out of the lake, the waves knocked me around and I got a cut foot... not having a great time I must say.
So I worked through it anyway and I must say that the diet of fruit only is not making me feel at all bad. I am barely noticing it as an issue at all. The last meditation task was again alone in the group meditation space and I usually have a good session here and get some sort of peace. Today however, it was really hard work. I was really struggling to keep my mind quiet. When I had more or less decided that today was going to just be one of those days, things happened rather rapidly...
I could feel the pressure in my forehead getting stronger, then the sort of swimmy inner colours that I see when I meditate started to get brighter and lighter, then a sort of spinal tingling (like when something suddenly startles you) started up my back and then the colours got even lighter and brighter until ...it went white!
There was Light! - (really bright - white out!)
And there was ringing in my ears
And I got a hot flush over my head and my brain went blank...
And then after about half a second the colours came back and I got sweat around the sides of my head and the tingling subsided.... hmmm
So I still had the colours going on and I deliberately tried to re-evoke the feeling, and after about ten to fifteen seconds I managed to do it again. Then I got one more shot at it before I couldn't manage it any more, and came out of meditating....
Holy Celestial Fire Batman!, What was that!!!
Now it may not have been THE LIGHT but it was definitely A LIGHT.
Ive only been doing this meditation stuff for 29 days, so Id be rather surprised to have reached "enlightenment", and anyway, I'm sure I'm still full of all my usual human frailties after the event just like before.
To describe it, Id say it felt just like an orgasm but it was up in my head, not lower down as usual. I'm pretty sure it was just a physiological effect and my brain released some sort of endorphin (pineal or pituitary gland Id guess) and that is all well and good, but the real question is "where did my mind go?" Trouble is, I was not there long enough to be able to tell.
One thing is for sure though... It felt really good and Id do it again if I could!
...
Why hasn't anyone told us about this before! - I'm sure it is actually in many of the books I choose not to read :)
This isn't sex (no fun before or after, just the fireworks) but its pretty damn good!
...
This explains why all those Tibetan monks are able to stay celibate up in their monasteries!
...sneaky little rascals! - Whole new take on "Dirty Minds"
And I'm in silence too, so I cant talk to anyone about it! I´ll have to wait till silence is over tomorrow night before I ask around for more learned input on the subject.
But for now, the question is, "I wonder if it will happen again?"
I don't know; We´ll have to wait and see - I suppose that would effectively be "Mental Masturbation"... But not tonight dear... I'm too tired!
We´ll see what happens tomorrow, but I don't know what the likelihood is. Usually it takes me several more days to get back to some sort of event that I get for the first time - Just how it seems to go. Also, tomorrow is not the same schedule - We have no food and I don't get to use the main meditating space, and my room is not as good, so I expect things will be different.
Turned out to be a good day after all... Cant wait for what happens next!
Resuming Transmission
Note: This was written during the silence but not posted (since letting stuff out is OK but not taking in any new distractions. Likewise some of the following posts were written during the silence.)
This is BLISSFUL!
Yes, three days without anybody talking to me, and three days without having to listen to mostly empty prattle.... ahhhh :)
I could easily do more of that. In fact I think I like the whole of the human race way better when they are not talking. - hmm, that reflects quite strongly on me I guess :)
But seriously, when people are not filling in time with social chit-chat, they spend almost no time standing around blocking doorways and pathways and in the kitchen, if they are at the stove or fridge or sink, then they are actually involved in using that facility and not just being in the way. This has meant that a huge amount of my usual frustrations in a social kitchen just are not there. I expect not having a frustrated grumpy me around the place has made other peoples lives better too :)
Sidebar:
The social banter and generally interrupted activities of life are not really a problem for other people, just for me. I seem to do almost everything at about twice the rate of a normal person. This means that I tend to get easily frustrated when I am unintentionally obstructed by other people going at their slower rates, and of course, other people cant figure out why I am in such a hurry or why I get frustrated. I admit, that it means that I am spending a little too much time living in the future rather than the present, but even when I stop and remind myself to be in the moment, I still move way faster than other people. Ive felt guilty about this behavior for quite a while... though mostly because other people seem to want me to feel guilty about it! But Ive thought about it carefully and I just plain like to do things efficiently and quickly. I think there is nothing wrong with it and in this regard I'm perfect as I am, and while I do aim to seriously reduce my frustration levels, I don't plan to feel guilty about doing things quickly any more!
I will of course still have to continue to try not to let my rate of activity be a disturbance to everyone else - that will still be a challenge! - Ahh, that's off my chest, so now we can move on :)
Back to the week of silence:
I admit, that over the last few days I did slip up a few times and I probably uttered a total of about a six or seven words. Mostly it was a hello to someone when I met them unexpectedly on a path around town. There were also a couple of one word comments that I made when something funny happened...hmmm I think it would be a good thing if I get a better handle on that behavior. Don't get me wrong, I think the comments I make are very funny, but other people are a bit liable to "not get it" and I hadn't realized that I was quite so impulsive in releasing such comments to the world. Oh well, more to work on.
Each day has gone something like this:
Up at 6:20am and immediately do a half hour of meditation in my room.
Down to Yoga class for an hour at 7am
Back to my room for another half hour meditation at 8am.
Breakfast at 8:30am - just peeling tropical fruit and eating it.
Off to the herb garden to sit and "connect" with the "physical" world at 9am
Contemplation and writing notes about my physical world at 9:30am
Back to the "compound" at 10am for a sauna
Off down to the lake for a long swim at 10:30am
Dry off and contemplate/make notes on my "emotional" world at 11am
Back to compound again at 11:30am for lunch - usually a couple of Avocados and a fruit shake
Pottering around for an hour or so. - my time.
In my room for half an hour meditation at 1pm
Then contemplating and making notes on my "Mental/intellectual" world at 1:30pm
Off to the "temple" (its a big pyramid) to meditate for half an hour at 2pm
Then contemplating and making notes on my "Spiritual" world at 2:30pm
Then another hour and a half of my own time.
Then back to the temple for an hour long group meditation session at 5pm
Then make dinner (usually vegetable soup) and clean up.
Then off to my room to do my own thing since there is not a lot of chat! :)
So, that's what my days looked like. Each day we worked on different aspects of our four "realities" - ie what our goals are, where we are now, advantageous and disadvantageous factors for achieving goals etc.
This is all familiar stuff to me since I do it every year (usually in January) just for my own benefit anyway. I don't usually divide it up into the four categories that they do here but it is the same stuff.
One difference here is that there is no real place for experiential type goals as they get captured under the Emotional heading - ie things that make me feel happy. I usually have quite a list of these - like flying my paraglider etc.
Anyway, after reviewing the list it looked quite familiar. There were of course some differences as always, and these include the removal of any more big mountain climbing trips, as well as the idea of sailing in a yacht for an extended time (thanks to that crossing of the Caribbean!). And there were the new additions of a committed meditation program and the idea of further motorbike voyages. On the whole though, it was the usual list.
You probably noticed that there is a lot of meditation involved here. And for my part I am quite new at this. I am as yet unable to maintain a "quiet mind" (well, I get more of a temporary stalemate situation where I have to maintain high concentration to block out the constant barrage of stuff that wants to come in) for more than about a minute and it takes a good deal of effort. You think Your mind is full of crap!....You should see the rate that stuff pops up in mine! - Its like a bloody machine gun firing range in here!
Anyway, I spend a good deal of effort clearing away the crap and I am slowly getting better. I spend the rest of my time in my head trying to figure out what to do in here! That is to say I am experimenting with what effects and sensations I can get happening. There is a lot to try and its all very subjective, so its really hard to figure out if I am working in good directions or just wasting my time on a dead end. There are also very few people I can talk to about this stuff since the staff here at the "school" are largely inaccessible for chatting - cant blame them, Id like my own private time as well.
By the time the day was over, I was usually quite tired out and my mind/brain felt like mush.
Needless to say, I have been sleeping quite a lot lately :)
This is BLISSFUL!
Yes, three days without anybody talking to me, and three days without having to listen to mostly empty prattle.... ahhhh :)
I could easily do more of that. In fact I think I like the whole of the human race way better when they are not talking. - hmm, that reflects quite strongly on me I guess :)
But seriously, when people are not filling in time with social chit-chat, they spend almost no time standing around blocking doorways and pathways and in the kitchen, if they are at the stove or fridge or sink, then they are actually involved in using that facility and not just being in the way. This has meant that a huge amount of my usual frustrations in a social kitchen just are not there. I expect not having a frustrated grumpy me around the place has made other peoples lives better too :)
Sidebar:
The social banter and generally interrupted activities of life are not really a problem for other people, just for me. I seem to do almost everything at about twice the rate of a normal person. This means that I tend to get easily frustrated when I am unintentionally obstructed by other people going at their slower rates, and of course, other people cant figure out why I am in such a hurry or why I get frustrated. I admit, that it means that I am spending a little too much time living in the future rather than the present, but even when I stop and remind myself to be in the moment, I still move way faster than other people. Ive felt guilty about this behavior for quite a while... though mostly because other people seem to want me to feel guilty about it! But Ive thought about it carefully and I just plain like to do things efficiently and quickly. I think there is nothing wrong with it and in this regard I'm perfect as I am, and while I do aim to seriously reduce my frustration levels, I don't plan to feel guilty about doing things quickly any more!
I will of course still have to continue to try not to let my rate of activity be a disturbance to everyone else - that will still be a challenge! - Ahh, that's off my chest, so now we can move on :)
Back to the week of silence:
I admit, that over the last few days I did slip up a few times and I probably uttered a total of about a six or seven words. Mostly it was a hello to someone when I met them unexpectedly on a path around town. There were also a couple of one word comments that I made when something funny happened...hmmm I think it would be a good thing if I get a better handle on that behavior. Don't get me wrong, I think the comments I make are very funny, but other people are a bit liable to "not get it" and I hadn't realized that I was quite so impulsive in releasing such comments to the world. Oh well, more to work on.
Each day has gone something like this:
Up at 6:20am and immediately do a half hour of meditation in my room.
Down to Yoga class for an hour at 7am
Back to my room for another half hour meditation at 8am.
Breakfast at 8:30am - just peeling tropical fruit and eating it.
Off to the herb garden to sit and "connect" with the "physical" world at 9am
Contemplation and writing notes about my physical world at 9:30am
Back to the "compound" at 10am for a sauna
Off down to the lake for a long swim at 10:30am
Dry off and contemplate/make notes on my "emotional" world at 11am
Back to compound again at 11:30am for lunch - usually a couple of Avocados and a fruit shake
Pottering around for an hour or so. - my time.
In my room for half an hour meditation at 1pm
Then contemplating and making notes on my "Mental/intellectual" world at 1:30pm
Off to the "temple" (its a big pyramid) to meditate for half an hour at 2pm
Then contemplating and making notes on my "Spiritual" world at 2:30pm
Then another hour and a half of my own time.
Then back to the temple for an hour long group meditation session at 5pm
Then make dinner (usually vegetable soup) and clean up.
Then off to my room to do my own thing since there is not a lot of chat! :)
So, that's what my days looked like. Each day we worked on different aspects of our four "realities" - ie what our goals are, where we are now, advantageous and disadvantageous factors for achieving goals etc.
This is all familiar stuff to me since I do it every year (usually in January) just for my own benefit anyway. I don't usually divide it up into the four categories that they do here but it is the same stuff.
One difference here is that there is no real place for experiential type goals as they get captured under the Emotional heading - ie things that make me feel happy. I usually have quite a list of these - like flying my paraglider etc.
Anyway, after reviewing the list it looked quite familiar. There were of course some differences as always, and these include the removal of any more big mountain climbing trips, as well as the idea of sailing in a yacht for an extended time (thanks to that crossing of the Caribbean!). And there were the new additions of a committed meditation program and the idea of further motorbike voyages. On the whole though, it was the usual list.
You probably noticed that there is a lot of meditation involved here. And for my part I am quite new at this. I am as yet unable to maintain a "quiet mind" (well, I get more of a temporary stalemate situation where I have to maintain high concentration to block out the constant barrage of stuff that wants to come in) for more than about a minute and it takes a good deal of effort. You think Your mind is full of crap!....You should see the rate that stuff pops up in mine! - Its like a bloody machine gun firing range in here!
Anyway, I spend a good deal of effort clearing away the crap and I am slowly getting better. I spend the rest of my time in my head trying to figure out what to do in here! That is to say I am experimenting with what effects and sensations I can get happening. There is a lot to try and its all very subjective, so its really hard to figure out if I am working in good directions or just wasting my time on a dead end. There are also very few people I can talk to about this stuff since the staff here at the "school" are largely inaccessible for chatting - cant blame them, Id like my own private time as well.
By the time the day was over, I was usually quite tired out and my mind/brain felt like mush.
Needless to say, I have been sleeping quite a lot lately :)
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Radio Silence
Going into the last week of the meditation course now.
This involves directed meditation/reflection, fasting, and absolute silence. There are four days of fasting with liquid foods only. This is a bit of a pain since I will have to spend time in a crowded and poorly equipped kitchen turning recognizable foods into slurry! It gets easier on the fifth day though because then we are only allowed water :)
The intent here is to make one take a good hard uninterrupted look at ones self. The fasting also messes with your body chemistry a bit and gets your brain working in ways that it otherwise would not.
Ive never really tried this sort of thing deliberately before, but I must admit that I have had probably three or four day periods when I was climbing mountains solo that have been in complete silence and with very little food so I don't imagine that it will be too much of a problem.
Whatever the case, "I'm going along for the tour" and there will be no more posts for about a week.
We´ll see how it goes.
This involves directed meditation/reflection, fasting, and absolute silence. There are four days of fasting with liquid foods only. This is a bit of a pain since I will have to spend time in a crowded and poorly equipped kitchen turning recognizable foods into slurry! It gets easier on the fifth day though because then we are only allowed water :)
The intent here is to make one take a good hard uninterrupted look at ones self. The fasting also messes with your body chemistry a bit and gets your brain working in ways that it otherwise would not.
Ive never really tried this sort of thing deliberately before, but I must admit that I have had probably three or four day periods when I was climbing mountains solo that have been in complete silence and with very little food so I don't imagine that it will be too much of a problem.
Whatever the case, "I'm going along for the tour" and there will be no more posts for about a week.
We´ll see how it goes.
More About that Duck!
OK, so that was a long and convoluted post with perhaps just a little too much metaphor.
So I shall explain a little more about the duck...
As I said, the duck is a little character that showed up a few times in the cartoons of Michael Leunig. Leunig is/was a weekly cartoonist for many years in a major Australian newspaper - Hence the only people likely to "get it" would be Australians, but even then it is quite obscure.
For many years I have deeply admired the works of Mr Leunig and I have always felt that he had a "direct line to my soul" so to speak!
His cartoons are all hand drawn with ink and nib and are usually centered around kind and humble little men living their kind and humble little lives in the often not so kind world.
The duck in particular is a companion for one such little man named Vasco de Pajama who is an explorer in the great big world. He journeys far and into unknown lands where he is alone and poorly equipped. In such cases he always seems to remain calm and when things are looking bleak, he calls on his direction finding duck to indicate what direction to head. The duck is, as for me, his link to his subconscious. This is an exact metaphor for my own inner wanderings and thus I have adopted his duck!
On that note, another of Leunig´s cartoons comes clearly into my mind:
Again it is a humble little man and he is walking along a simple path through a meadow with a bird singing in a nearby tree. In front of the man, the path curves up off of the ground and loops back over, and is originating out of the top of the little mans head. The accompanying poem goes like this:
Let it out, let it go
Let it all unravel.
Set it free and it can be
a path on which to travel.
... and so shall it be.
This blog has been snap-shots of my "stream of consciousness" on this, the most rewarding and memorable trip I have ever had. The trip seems to have taken an unexpected turn (then again, maybe not so unexpected!) but I intend to keep on following the path wherever it may lead. Likewise, I intend to keep writing in my blog.
So, I may be writing about some very personal and mostly internal stuff for a while, and I understand it may not be of interest to some of my readers. If you find that is the case then by all means, sign off, and I bid you well in your own paths :)
For the rest of you who wish to "see what happens next", Hang on, and lets go for a ride!
It could get pretty weird from here :))
So I shall explain a little more about the duck...
As I said, the duck is a little character that showed up a few times in the cartoons of Michael Leunig. Leunig is/was a weekly cartoonist for many years in a major Australian newspaper - Hence the only people likely to "get it" would be Australians, but even then it is quite obscure.
For many years I have deeply admired the works of Mr Leunig and I have always felt that he had a "direct line to my soul" so to speak!
His cartoons are all hand drawn with ink and nib and are usually centered around kind and humble little men living their kind and humble little lives in the often not so kind world.
The duck in particular is a companion for one such little man named Vasco de Pajama who is an explorer in the great big world. He journeys far and into unknown lands where he is alone and poorly equipped. In such cases he always seems to remain calm and when things are looking bleak, he calls on his direction finding duck to indicate what direction to head. The duck is, as for me, his link to his subconscious. This is an exact metaphor for my own inner wanderings and thus I have adopted his duck!
On that note, another of Leunig´s cartoons comes clearly into my mind:
Again it is a humble little man and he is walking along a simple path through a meadow with a bird singing in a nearby tree. In front of the man, the path curves up off of the ground and loops back over, and is originating out of the top of the little mans head. The accompanying poem goes like this:
Let it out, let it go
Let it all unravel.
Set it free and it can be
a path on which to travel.
... and so shall it be.
This blog has been snap-shots of my "stream of consciousness" on this, the most rewarding and memorable trip I have ever had. The trip seems to have taken an unexpected turn (then again, maybe not so unexpected!) but I intend to keep on following the path wherever it may lead. Likewise, I intend to keep writing in my blog.
So, I may be writing about some very personal and mostly internal stuff for a while, and I understand it may not be of interest to some of my readers. If you find that is the case then by all means, sign off, and I bid you well in your own paths :)
For the rest of you who wish to "see what happens next", Hang on, and lets go for a ride!
It could get pretty weird from here :))
Friday, March 14, 2008
Battle is Joined
Waxing metaphorical?
So I gird my self in such defenses as I have - My scorched, dented and scratched armor is not so sparkling any more but it has stood me in good stead in past engagements.
When ready, I don my plumed helmet and take up my shield and trusty sword, I then advance into the darkness to track down my quarry...
I find that I'm becoming more familiar with these dark places I have inside. I have recently taken to hunting down the demons of my fears and have fared well enough against my chosen adversaries.
This time is a bit different though! The dragons I have successfully dispatched while not all small, have been the more solitary beasts - They work alone and are easier to track down and to corner, and then I can face them and deal with them. This time however it is an old and cunning beast and it does not work alone. There is a group of them and they work as a team. When I have tried to deal with one in the past, the others nip and snap at me from all sides and it has been all but impossible to keep a clear objective and press home the attack. The end result in the past has been a truce from both sides and I have then withdrawn to safer ground to recover. The situation is the same this time, the only difference being that I am more determined and all I can do is hope and try.
What does that all mean?...
Well, when I try to analyze why it is that I cant choose what to do, I end up dealing with all sorts of other fears that I have and it becomes a "chase my tail" exercise with no clear conclusions. The conclusions I have are:
When I ignore the obvious selfishness aspects, I look at my options and I look at all my diverse interests and I find that I could choose any of them and pursue it with ease and with a pretty good probability of turning it into a reasonable living in a few years. When I do look deeper, I try to be realistic about effort and financial issues and commitments and satisfaction and creativity ... And all the other factors that go into deciding what to do. However after looking deeper into each option, I am still unable to choose any one of my interests as clearly above the others. Result - stalemate!
The truth behind this problem is that deep inside I am not quite that selfish and that I feel a very strong need to do something that makes the world a better place for all and that I should apply my incredible good fortune to something of worth.
So then I look at all the "good" things I could do and I again try to assess all the other factors that I did before. I seem to find flaws in all of these options as well; flaws that are for one reason or another more than I am prepared to deal with at present.
So now what?.... back to the metaphor...
It doesn't take long to close with the enemy, and battle is joined.
Its the usual struggle and I am pressed from all sides by the den of dragons. Again I cant seem to get any real progress... But it turns out that I was wrong!, and this is not many dragons but just the one with many heads! I can hack off a head but it does not kill the beast and the heads grow back just as quickly as I cut them off - So, how do I kill this thing?
Things are going more or less as usual...Badly!..
I'm hacking away and heads are rolling, but there are always more and I am tiring... I'm getting scorched and floundering in the mess... Its starting to look like I'm in real trouble again and I'm looking around for options when I notice my duck in the middle of the fray! - Yep its a duck!, and it is pointing a quacking and it is telling me something...
Don't worry, I'm familiar with this duck.
It lives down hear in the dark most of the time. In the past I have not had that much to do with it but recently I have been seeing it more often and learning to value and trust it.
The duck is pointing at the dragons body and I have been hacking away at heads... Trust the duck!... So, ignoring the snarling heads I wade into their midst and plunge my sword into the body of the beast, aiming for the heart!...
This gets results...
The dragon howls in anguish, and then simply disappears!... and a strange calm descends on the place, leaving me and the duck to consider the new situation. The duck ruffles its feathers and gazes up at me with a playful expression in its eyes (as only a duck can!)
This turn of events is very unexpected and I'm not quite sure what to make of it all.
One thing is for sure... The duck was right!
I think Ireally like the duck!, and so I'm going to spend more time with it, and I'm going to take it with me as I go back up into the light!
... What the heck is he taking down there in Guatemala???
A deeper analysis of my problems with all the possible solutions suggests that the truth here is that I don't feel a strong enough "resonance" with any of these career ideas....hmm
It seems that its the FEEL that matters more here than the details that I have been fighting with!
It doesn't matter how many ideas I come up with, I am always able to find reasons why not... It wont ever matter what I choose to do on the outside - I will always find external things dissatisfying and unfulfilling in some way!
The solution must come from inside. I must find happiness from inside before it will come into my outside life....
The basic question of "Doing what, will make me happy?" has been transformed into "What will my happiness make me do?"
This is a profound and powerful truth for me!...
A dark and leaden thought has been transformed into one of light and gold!
This is true Alchemy!
Hmm, this sort of idea is common knowledge and is easy enough to say but this time, I really understand it... Just one problem though - how do I go about achieving it?
This is where the duck comes in. The duck is actually an "inside" reference to a character from an Australian cartoonist that I will explain in another post. It is a "direction finding duck" and it represents my intuition and instincts - it is my connection to my sub-conscious.
In the past this aspect of my personality has rarely been given the opportunity to spend much time in control of my choices. Ive been thoroughly trained for my entire life in the rational and logical method of making choices in life. This time however, I'm listening to it and it is a deep truth and a powerful tool. It slays dragons!
But did it really?
Well, sure, it seems to have slayed the one I set out to get...Truly, that problem has just "disappeared off my radar" so to speak.
But I think it was just a "shape shifter" and has just changed form... hmmm new tricks from the beast!
It is now a different field of combat though, and one that I am not so well trained to fight on.
What to do... well, I know where the problem now is - inner satisfaction and happiness, I know I need to learn more about myself to win the fight with this monster, and I now know that I have a new and powerful ally - my intuition...the duck.
So I am going to set about working on my self knowledge in an earnest way and while the esoteric studies such as meditating wont solve the problem I have, they will certainly help me to learn more about myself and get a better handle on the issue...
Ive thought about things a bit more and decided that the month here on the meditating course has been helpful but when I get back to the city, I´ll just fall back into the old habits when the stresses come back, as they surely will.
Therefore, I have decided to spend more time here and build some better habits and spend the time on self discovery.
Who would have thunk?... certainly not me... but there it is, I'm going to stay here a while longer.
... He´s really lost it this time! :))))
So I gird my self in such defenses as I have - My scorched, dented and scratched armor is not so sparkling any more but it has stood me in good stead in past engagements.
When ready, I don my plumed helmet and take up my shield and trusty sword, I then advance into the darkness to track down my quarry...
I find that I'm becoming more familiar with these dark places I have inside. I have recently taken to hunting down the demons of my fears and have fared well enough against my chosen adversaries.
This time is a bit different though! The dragons I have successfully dispatched while not all small, have been the more solitary beasts - They work alone and are easier to track down and to corner, and then I can face them and deal with them. This time however it is an old and cunning beast and it does not work alone. There is a group of them and they work as a team. When I have tried to deal with one in the past, the others nip and snap at me from all sides and it has been all but impossible to keep a clear objective and press home the attack. The end result in the past has been a truce from both sides and I have then withdrawn to safer ground to recover. The situation is the same this time, the only difference being that I am more determined and all I can do is hope and try.
What does that all mean?...
Well, when I try to analyze why it is that I cant choose what to do, I end up dealing with all sorts of other fears that I have and it becomes a "chase my tail" exercise with no clear conclusions. The conclusions I have are:
When I ignore the obvious selfishness aspects, I look at my options and I look at all my diverse interests and I find that I could choose any of them and pursue it with ease and with a pretty good probability of turning it into a reasonable living in a few years. When I do look deeper, I try to be realistic about effort and financial issues and commitments and satisfaction and creativity ... And all the other factors that go into deciding what to do. However after looking deeper into each option, I am still unable to choose any one of my interests as clearly above the others. Result - stalemate!
The truth behind this problem is that deep inside I am not quite that selfish and that I feel a very strong need to do something that makes the world a better place for all and that I should apply my incredible good fortune to something of worth.
So then I look at all the "good" things I could do and I again try to assess all the other factors that I did before. I seem to find flaws in all of these options as well; flaws that are for one reason or another more than I am prepared to deal with at present.
So now what?.... back to the metaphor...
It doesn't take long to close with the enemy, and battle is joined.
Its the usual struggle and I am pressed from all sides by the den of dragons. Again I cant seem to get any real progress... But it turns out that I was wrong!, and this is not many dragons but just the one with many heads! I can hack off a head but it does not kill the beast and the heads grow back just as quickly as I cut them off - So, how do I kill this thing?
Things are going more or less as usual...Badly!..
I'm hacking away and heads are rolling, but there are always more and I am tiring... I'm getting scorched and floundering in the mess... Its starting to look like I'm in real trouble again and I'm looking around for options when I notice my duck in the middle of the fray! - Yep its a duck!, and it is pointing a quacking and it is telling me something...
Don't worry, I'm familiar with this duck.
It lives down hear in the dark most of the time. In the past I have not had that much to do with it but recently I have been seeing it more often and learning to value and trust it.
The duck is pointing at the dragons body and I have been hacking away at heads... Trust the duck!... So, ignoring the snarling heads I wade into their midst and plunge my sword into the body of the beast, aiming for the heart!...
This gets results...
The dragon howls in anguish, and then simply disappears!... and a strange calm descends on the place, leaving me and the duck to consider the new situation. The duck ruffles its feathers and gazes up at me with a playful expression in its eyes (as only a duck can!)
This turn of events is very unexpected and I'm not quite sure what to make of it all.
One thing is for sure... The duck was right!
I think Ireally like the duck!, and so I'm going to spend more time with it, and I'm going to take it with me as I go back up into the light!
... What the heck is he taking down there in Guatemala???
A deeper analysis of my problems with all the possible solutions suggests that the truth here is that I don't feel a strong enough "resonance" with any of these career ideas....hmm
It seems that its the FEEL that matters more here than the details that I have been fighting with!
It doesn't matter how many ideas I come up with, I am always able to find reasons why not... It wont ever matter what I choose to do on the outside - I will always find external things dissatisfying and unfulfilling in some way!
The solution must come from inside. I must find happiness from inside before it will come into my outside life....
The basic question of "Doing what, will make me happy?" has been transformed into "What will my happiness make me do?"
This is a profound and powerful truth for me!...
A dark and leaden thought has been transformed into one of light and gold!
This is true Alchemy!
Hmm, this sort of idea is common knowledge and is easy enough to say but this time, I really understand it... Just one problem though - how do I go about achieving it?
This is where the duck comes in. The duck is actually an "inside" reference to a character from an Australian cartoonist that I will explain in another post. It is a "direction finding duck" and it represents my intuition and instincts - it is my connection to my sub-conscious.
In the past this aspect of my personality has rarely been given the opportunity to spend much time in control of my choices. Ive been thoroughly trained for my entire life in the rational and logical method of making choices in life. This time however, I'm listening to it and it is a deep truth and a powerful tool. It slays dragons!
But did it really?
Well, sure, it seems to have slayed the one I set out to get...Truly, that problem has just "disappeared off my radar" so to speak.
But I think it was just a "shape shifter" and has just changed form... hmmm new tricks from the beast!
It is now a different field of combat though, and one that I am not so well trained to fight on.
What to do... well, I know where the problem now is - inner satisfaction and happiness, I know I need to learn more about myself to win the fight with this monster, and I now know that I have a new and powerful ally - my intuition...the duck.
So I am going to set about working on my self knowledge in an earnest way and while the esoteric studies such as meditating wont solve the problem I have, they will certainly help me to learn more about myself and get a better handle on the issue...
Ive thought about things a bit more and decided that the month here on the meditating course has been helpful but when I get back to the city, I´ll just fall back into the old habits when the stresses come back, as they surely will.
Therefore, I have decided to spend more time here and build some better habits and spend the time on self discovery.
Who would have thunk?... certainly not me... but there it is, I'm going to stay here a while longer.
... He´s really lost it this time! :))))
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Hard Country
Getting towards the end of the meditation course now.
This has made me think about what I'm doing next.
This has made me think about my imminent return to Canada to look for a new source of income.
This has made me review my recent employment again... And this is not pleasant!!
I knew this would be the case when I finally got down to it and so back when I finished work about a year ago I decided that I would not deal with it till I had had my break. The intent was to ensure that I was fully able to commit to my break without being held down by worries of the future. The break was to try to shed the stagnant and restricting life that holds me in my old behaviors and habits.
This worked very well for most of my travels though I did do a bit of a review of the past when I was stuck waiting for a clutch about three months back. After that I was happily distracted again by my travels.
However, over the last couple of months, since I turned around in Ecuador (actually since I landed in Columbia), the subject of future direction and employment has been simmering away in my head. This has had the expected and unfortunate effect that I have been less happy and more broody.
I was still unable to really get down to processing it while I was traveling and especially while traveling with someone else from a completely different background - and that just added to the internal bubblings...
But now I´ve been alone at this meditation course for a few weeks and it has surfaced with a vengeance and I have had to go in deep to do battle with the monster ... And it is a big nasty one, and is very hard to subdue!
The problem that I have is quite unusual it seems, since I have never met anyone who I felt really understood my sufferings. My friends would nod and sympathize but I don't think they really understood how it was for me, though I do think they understood the magnitude and importance of the issue for me. The issue is really quite simple but the burden I have carried from it is unusually large.
My problem is that I don't know what I should apply myself to!
I have known for years that what I was doing was not satisfying and that it had been getting worse. The last three years working for a soulless high-tech company that had lost its way were absolutely crippling for me and I stayed way too long.... I stayed because I couldn't figure out what else to do!
This seems strange to most people I try to explain it to since I am most uniquely situated with almost everything I could possibly want to let me apply myself to whatever I want:
I am a white male in my early 40s with a professional career.
I can easily earn more than $100K per year and have a net worth of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I have no wife (or ex), no children, and no parental or sibling responsibilities.
I am intelligent and have excellent health and a wide range of extra curricular activities, interests and skills.
My only "tie" to anything is my mortgage and in reality the house could be easily sold if I felt like it. All this is a privilege beyond most people in my country's dreams let alone the rest of the world.
I am truly one of the most fortunate people to have ever lived - Sure there are plenty I see with more than I but realistically, I am fantastically well off ... and therein lies the problem!...
I just cant figure out what to do and it makes no sense to anyone.
So this is the ground I am working in.
The problem is that I have been working it over for many years without much progress. I have in truth been struggling with it since I first had to try to decide what I should do after year ten in school.. No clue! All my choices since then have more or less been made by default as delaying tactics while I worked on the problem.
The first time it really came to a head though was fifteen years ago when I finished working for the Australian Antarctic Division as an engineer weighing penguins in the Antarctic... The best job I have ever had - though it had its down side too.
At that point, a relationship also ended and my whole world basically fell apart... I ended up spending a year traveling and soul searching and the "rolling stone" came to rest in Vancouver Canada. Then the "long strong arm of economic rationalism" took control and I again submitted to just doing something that brought in money and didn't really deal with my problem. From there I have rolled on in the usual "buying time" manner but have always been processing the problem in the background.
Through the years, the processing has been slow and has to this point not actually solved the problem, though I have to say it has given me many rewards and insights into my own, other peoples, and the worlds workings. The cost however has been that I have been quite a broody personality and that makes it hard for people to like me if they only get a brief glimpse of who I am... And that is quite isolating and that contributes to the broody etc. etc.
However the demon has still been lurking there and his time to rise has been coming as I have frittered away my financial resources while I traveled... And rise he has,... And this time, Slay him I will!
Hmmm Slaying dragons was not on my itinerary when I set out on this trip, but I guess it does actually fit under the umbrella of "adventure touring".
"Hard Country" indeed!
This has made me think about what I'm doing next.
This has made me think about my imminent return to Canada to look for a new source of income.
This has made me review my recent employment again... And this is not pleasant!!
I knew this would be the case when I finally got down to it and so back when I finished work about a year ago I decided that I would not deal with it till I had had my break. The intent was to ensure that I was fully able to commit to my break without being held down by worries of the future. The break was to try to shed the stagnant and restricting life that holds me in my old behaviors and habits.
This worked very well for most of my travels though I did do a bit of a review of the past when I was stuck waiting for a clutch about three months back. After that I was happily distracted again by my travels.
However, over the last couple of months, since I turned around in Ecuador (actually since I landed in Columbia), the subject of future direction and employment has been simmering away in my head. This has had the expected and unfortunate effect that I have been less happy and more broody.
I was still unable to really get down to processing it while I was traveling and especially while traveling with someone else from a completely different background - and that just added to the internal bubblings...
But now I´ve been alone at this meditation course for a few weeks and it has surfaced with a vengeance and I have had to go in deep to do battle with the monster ... And it is a big nasty one, and is very hard to subdue!
The problem that I have is quite unusual it seems, since I have never met anyone who I felt really understood my sufferings. My friends would nod and sympathize but I don't think they really understood how it was for me, though I do think they understood the magnitude and importance of the issue for me. The issue is really quite simple but the burden I have carried from it is unusually large.
My problem is that I don't know what I should apply myself to!
I have known for years that what I was doing was not satisfying and that it had been getting worse. The last three years working for a soulless high-tech company that had lost its way were absolutely crippling for me and I stayed way too long.... I stayed because I couldn't figure out what else to do!
This seems strange to most people I try to explain it to since I am most uniquely situated with almost everything I could possibly want to let me apply myself to whatever I want:
I am a white male in my early 40s with a professional career.
I can easily earn more than $100K per year and have a net worth of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I have no wife (or ex), no children, and no parental or sibling responsibilities.
I am intelligent and have excellent health and a wide range of extra curricular activities, interests and skills.
My only "tie" to anything is my mortgage and in reality the house could be easily sold if I felt like it. All this is a privilege beyond most people in my country's dreams let alone the rest of the world.
I am truly one of the most fortunate people to have ever lived - Sure there are plenty I see with more than I but realistically, I am fantastically well off ... and therein lies the problem!...
I just cant figure out what to do and it makes no sense to anyone.
So this is the ground I am working in.
The problem is that I have been working it over for many years without much progress. I have in truth been struggling with it since I first had to try to decide what I should do after year ten in school.. No clue! All my choices since then have more or less been made by default as delaying tactics while I worked on the problem.
The first time it really came to a head though was fifteen years ago when I finished working for the Australian Antarctic Division as an engineer weighing penguins in the Antarctic... The best job I have ever had - though it had its down side too.
At that point, a relationship also ended and my whole world basically fell apart... I ended up spending a year traveling and soul searching and the "rolling stone" came to rest in Vancouver Canada. Then the "long strong arm of economic rationalism" took control and I again submitted to just doing something that brought in money and didn't really deal with my problem. From there I have rolled on in the usual "buying time" manner but have always been processing the problem in the background.
Through the years, the processing has been slow and has to this point not actually solved the problem, though I have to say it has given me many rewards and insights into my own, other peoples, and the worlds workings. The cost however has been that I have been quite a broody personality and that makes it hard for people to like me if they only get a brief glimpse of who I am... And that is quite isolating and that contributes to the broody etc. etc.
However the demon has still been lurking there and his time to rise has been coming as I have frittered away my financial resources while I traveled... And rise he has,... And this time, Slay him I will!
Hmmm Slaying dragons was not on my itinerary when I set out on this trip, but I guess it does actually fit under the umbrella of "adventure touring".
"Hard Country" indeed!
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Om
I´m over half way through the meditation course now and I have the following results.
1) Babbu is taking a real beating!
The regular morning Yoga is of a very slow and mild kind (Hatha) where poses are very often sitting or laying down and are usually held for about 45 seconds each. There is no rush and no sweating, but there is definite toning work going on. Added to this is the diet of mostly fresh tropical fruit that is actually just a result of my laziness- We can eat what ever we want but the fruit is easier than me cooking so that's what I do. Poor Babbu has virtually receded to a minor perturbation in my rapidly toning midsection :))
2) Meditation is a mixed bag.
I was initially making great progress and able to minimize thoughts and saw some very nice colours moving around in my inner vision when I started. I was also getting really good sleep. That however deteriorated slowly, and now after two weeks I am more or less back where I started with very interrupted sleep and my thoughts seem to be able to push straight through into my mind again while meditating. I'm guessing that this is more or less the way it goes as one develops better skills and the brain "fights back", so I'm just going to persist with it and see if I can build some better skills - The conflict escalates!
3) ´I'm getting some interesting experiences.
Much of the initial course material was focused on the ideas of non-visible planes of existence that we occupy as well as the regular physical world. The theory goes that we occupy the other planes independently of the physical when we are unconscious or sleeping and even before we are born and after we die. So then we are taught that we can remember these experiences from dreams etc if we practice and that we can also take direct control of these experiences and direct our actions and therefore explore and learn about these other planes... So the story goes...
Now, normally I get such poor sleep that I don't manage to remember anything about my dreams, and in fact, this still remains true. However, as a result of the course (meditation and practice techniques) I have had some short experiences that fit the Lucid dreaming and Astral traveling descriptions. These were very interesting to say the least. I have not had time to explore much yet (15 seconds or so of full awareness and control before I wake my self up) so I will have to get better at it before I have a strong opinion about it all. For the present it could be real or could be the result of suggestion (auto or otherwise). I´m sure the rest of the world can look it all up on the web and see if they think its real or not but I prefer to avoid the external speculation and figure it out for my self from personal experience.
Guess I´ll have to stay and meditate a while longer so I get better at it :)
1) Babbu is taking a real beating!
The regular morning Yoga is of a very slow and mild kind (Hatha) where poses are very often sitting or laying down and are usually held for about 45 seconds each. There is no rush and no sweating, but there is definite toning work going on. Added to this is the diet of mostly fresh tropical fruit that is actually just a result of my laziness- We can eat what ever we want but the fruit is easier than me cooking so that's what I do. Poor Babbu has virtually receded to a minor perturbation in my rapidly toning midsection :))
2) Meditation is a mixed bag.
I was initially making great progress and able to minimize thoughts and saw some very nice colours moving around in my inner vision when I started. I was also getting really good sleep. That however deteriorated slowly, and now after two weeks I am more or less back where I started with very interrupted sleep and my thoughts seem to be able to push straight through into my mind again while meditating. I'm guessing that this is more or less the way it goes as one develops better skills and the brain "fights back", so I'm just going to persist with it and see if I can build some better skills - The conflict escalates!
3) ´I'm getting some interesting experiences.
Much of the initial course material was focused on the ideas of non-visible planes of existence that we occupy as well as the regular physical world. The theory goes that we occupy the other planes independently of the physical when we are unconscious or sleeping and even before we are born and after we die. So then we are taught that we can remember these experiences from dreams etc if we practice and that we can also take direct control of these experiences and direct our actions and therefore explore and learn about these other planes... So the story goes...
Now, normally I get such poor sleep that I don't manage to remember anything about my dreams, and in fact, this still remains true. However, as a result of the course (meditation and practice techniques) I have had some short experiences that fit the Lucid dreaming and Astral traveling descriptions. These were very interesting to say the least. I have not had time to explore much yet (15 seconds or so of full awareness and control before I wake my self up) so I will have to get better at it before I have a strong opinion about it all. For the present it could be real or could be the result of suggestion (auto or otherwise). I´m sure the rest of the world can look it all up on the web and see if they think its real or not but I prefer to avoid the external speculation and figure it out for my self from personal experience.
Guess I´ll have to stay and meditate a while longer so I get better at it :)
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