Ponder-Fodder: Might As Well ...!

Melikes:

"The Natural Freedom of the Mind"

Since the One Mind -- pure from the beginningless beginning
and with no need to grasp things other than itself --
has nothing to do with an intermediary or with a fixed plan,
the individual mind might as well be happy.

Since awareness has no objective relationship of any kind,
no specific direction or focus,
the individual might as well love everyone.

Since vision and commitment to vision
have nothing to do with complacency or fear,
the individual might as well be joyous.

Since action and goals have nothing to do with success or failure,
hope and anxiety,
and it doesn't matter whether they are won or lost,
the individual might as well feel content.

Since everything is an illusion --
with some more perfect than others --
with no relationship to good or bad, being or not-being,
one might as well laugh from beginning to end.


— Longchenpa, 1308-1363, Tibetan scholar, maste of the Nyingma tradition

My Half-Way Through Life Birthday Wish for ME..!

I found myself writing this on Facebook last night:

It's official: I have NO clue what I "believe" anymore.
And I notice two things about that ...
I do not care.
I actually feel better - nearly giddy with relief - about not caring ...!

And, thus far, it's still true for today. ;)

It's been a long and winding road, out of religion ... through the morass of spirituality ... and into ... Life.

I mean, I don't know what else to call this ... I'm alive, I'm here, I'm having this experience ... so yeah, it's Life. It doesn't seem to care what I call it ... it just seems determined to be experienced.

I'm done. Done with externally-impositioned-or-invented mindsets (& just think about THAT word for a minute!) that tell me how/what/when/why to act, think, feel, believe, or BE...!

It strikes me as uberly-absurd to think that something outside of me could even possibly define me, or make me feel "ok", or dictate my life in any sort of way...!

This has been building up in me for a while now, but I'm coming out - I am just feeling so TIRED of the "search" ... wanting OUT. It's as if we searchers "take on" a spiritual perspective, and then we adhere to it, and try to live up to it, and it's just another externaly-imposed religion! ARGH!

Yeah, wanna just LIVE ... enJOY life fully .. and my "morality" is part of me ... it's about love, loving self, loving others ... it's who I AM ... don't need anyone/anything outside of me telling me how to do it ...

I'm tired of trying, and trying harder, and pretending to "get/have" something that I just want to "get/have", or think I'm supposed to "get/have" (as IF something is MISSING!) ... I feel like the kid who said, "The emperor has no clothes on!"

C'mon ... it's time to admit the dude is naked.

When I was a Christian, I was surrounded by folks who said they "had a personal relationship" with Jesus ... and that they "felt the Holy Spirit" ... and these folks would fall down like cord wood when someone put annoying oil - I mean, anointing oil - on their foreheads. How often was I the last-woman-standing ... feeling torn between a perverse sense of pride for not falling, and a horrible sense of deprivation that I hadn't fallen ...?

When I was searching for enlightenment, it was the same ... I have been surrounded by folks who claim to have a relationship with their Higher Self ... that they feel this person inside ... guiding them, leading them. These folks would chant, and hum, and rub crystals... how often was I the last-woman-sitting-cross-legged ... feeling torn between pretending I was being transported, and a horrible sense of deprivation that I hadn't been enlightened ..?

Now, I'm not saying that I didn't "get something" out of much of that ... not saying it wasn't valuable, not saying it wasn't valid/required ... I'm saying ... I'm tired.

I'm saying I'm tired of feeling like I'm "out" and they're "in" ... that they've "got something" and I'm "lacking something" ... I'm tired of chasing after something I'm not even sure is real ...

I *exhausted* myself, trying to FEEL Jesus, trying to FEEL my Higher Self ... crying out ... begging ... reading endless books ... praying/meditating my heart out ... trying to surrender enough, let go enough, denounce enough, release enough, confess enough, positive-affirm enough, think enough, unthink enough, be good enough, lose self enough, find self enough ... ENOUGH...!

I'm saying I don't know what I know, what I think, or what I believe.

I do have my experience ... I have had a wide array of uncanny, attention-getting, sit-up-and-take-notice, surreal, beyond-coincidental experiences ... things I can't explain, can't label, can't describe ... some I can't share.

But I am SO tired, of trying to "get it right" ... trying to adhere to some particular religion, or perspective, or formula, or book, or teaching, or group, or mindset, or expectation ...

I'm so tired of the message that there is a part of me to accept (Higher Self) and a part of me to reject (ego) ...

... there's just me.

I am all that.

I am a walking contradiction, a complex and confused full-throttle human ... I am up and down ... high and low ... quiet and loud ... hot and cold ... happy and sad ... accepting and resisting ... bitter and sweet ... mean and kind ... jubilant and despairing ... shadow and light.

I am all that.

Here's what I know ... from observation and experience:

I am alive. I am here, now. I am real.

I am apparently meant to live this life ...

I am to enJOY this life ... how could I MISS that obviousness?!?

Look around, look in, look up, look down - I see beauty all around me ... full-living-colored, myriadly-textured, awe-inspiring, senses-ravaging BEAUTY all around me!

I am covered, head-to-toe, with exquisitely~operational nerve endings that beg for stimulation ~ from warmth, to a tickle, to a caress, to a crescendo of passion ..!

I have taste buds, and olfactory nerves, and ear drums, and eyes that SEE ... all absorbing endless input!

I have a body that moves ... that can climb mountains, dance to rhythms that compel me, paint the images in my mind, and embrace those I love.

I have emotions that feel the FULL panoply of expression ... and they arise without being bidden.

I am here to LIVE, to enJOY, to participate in this sensory-playground of experience ... not to imitate the experience of any other - not to "get something right".

If this experience takes me deep into uncharted territory, whether the frontier's horizon be ahead of me, or within me - so be it.

If it takes me into the opportunity to splash and play in utter simplicity of the golden moment at hand, so be it.

So, I'm changing the spelling of believe ... for me, it's now spelled "Be/Live".

So be it.

Ummmm ... Remember me...?

HOW many blogs, I wonder ... begin, every so often, with the phrase, "it's been a long time since I blogged" ...?

Well, here's another one of those.

I cannnot begin to fill in the uber-changing details of my life here ... but, suffice it to say that I have experienced great bliss, and intense pain, and more change than I thought I could endure, in a rather short expanse of time.

I am here.
I am breathing.
I am living.
I am learning.
I am experiencing.
I am surviving.
And I take it on faith that I am thriving ... even when it would appear/feel/seem otherwise.

And ... I have missed blogging. So, for today, I am blogging.

We'll see what happens tomorrow.

A friend showed up on Facebook, and shared one of her poems with me ... it was one of those "wow" moments, for it fit with something I saw, in my mind's eye, years ago ... read on:

Oh Divine Weaver,
I would not
have expected
You to use
the threads
of pain and
suffering in order
to weave a tapestry fit
to be your
covering.

You work so
silently in
the stillness.
I can never
quite catch
you at the
loom.

But I look
at this Heart
and
I Know,
I Know,
this is the
work of
your skillful
hands.

Who could
weave so
skillfully,
so compassionately,
so tenderly
as to not
tangle those
rare, and delicate
threads?

I only have eyes
to see the
underlayer -
quite messy it appears,
but I trust
that a work
of magnificent
beauty
is in the
making.

~Joan Burtner

Years ago, while in the very beginnings of this undoingness ... I remember having a "vision/image" of being on the underside of a huge tapestry ... it was being woven, above me, and I was watching. I knew it was about my life ... the problem, from my perspective, is that from "down here" it looked like a MESS! Tangles, and snarls, and knots galore ... and I could NOT, not even while squinting, make out the pattern ... it made NO sense to me. But then I knew, intuitively, that from the other side, from the "higher" vantage point, it was a work of art ... a very intentional, beautiful, even breath-taking tapestry, that was my life. Today, after not connecting with Joan for some months ... she showed up, and shared this poem ... and I am reminded ... and I am grateful. At least for this moment, I can rest in that gratitude.

Thank you.