What An Itch Revealed About the Eternal

The other night I experienced the itchiest of itches. At first, I got up to get something to scratch it with but then I decided that it would be fun to simply sit with the itch. I noticed that what I was calling “an itch” was actually something a lot more fluid. At first the sensation of a kind of prickliness dwelled in one place on the surface, then it moved deeper. At one point it became a kind of pulsing and at another it disappeared altogether, only to reappear a little while later. Was it really all the same thing? As I brought my attention, awareness and curiosity to my itch, I recognized that it offered a wonderful opportunity to explore the meaning of impermanence, space, awareness and conditioning.

We are conditioned to chase pleasurable experiences and avoid discomfort and unpleasantness. Without being a biologist, I’m guessing that it’s hardwired into us and has been incredibly adaptive for surviving. When faced with discomfort or pain we often seek relief immediately. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with seeking relief from pain or discomfort. It is not masochism that we’re after. But what if our discomfort or pain had something to teach us about who we really are? What if instead of reflexively seeking relief from one’s discomfort, one became curious about it? What exactly is pain or discomfort anyway? Sometimes we do not have the luxury of being able to relieve our discomfort or pain. What happens then? I decided to look into what this simple discomfort could show me. For me, the itch became the opportunity to look deeply into reality. It was perfect because it was not so difficult as I imagine chronic or serious pain could be and I knew that I could stay with it and glean valuable lessons about fluidity and the changing nature of phenomena. Something as seemingly insignificant yet “stable” and consistent as an itch was a doorway for insight.


As I sat with the ever-changing itch I became less aware of it as an “itch” per se. A big space existed and in it was this “movement” which was traditionally labeled “itch”. There were sensations; pressure, tingling, sharpness, shifting. Soon the desire to scratch the itch disappeared and soon after the series of sensations I had been calling an itch disappeared altogether too. In a way it was a beautiful microcosm of our lives. The itch was born, lived for a while and quietly disintegrated into nothingness .

Our minds try to give the world a sense of continuity and stability but at some level nothing is as static as it seems; it is changing all the time. It is all born anew each moment but for our mind which strings it together.

So the itch was physically uncomfortable but could it tell me something about emotional discomfort or pain? When one experiences emotional pain what exactly is it? Does it stay the same over the course of five minutes? an hour? a day? The next time one is feeling emotional pain, what happens if one sits with it for a few minutes? Is it constant ? Do other thoughts/feelings enter one’s mind/body? what is the story that is being told? What is the texture of the pain? What is the mechanism by which it keeps going?

It seems that emotional pain must rely upon our minds re-telling the story over again and resisting what is going on right now. It is common to seek relief from the pain by re-hashing what "injustice" or "difficulty" or "problem" one is experiencing. It’s as if we think by re-telling the story it will come out differently, or we can soothe ourselves by dwelling on the details but does that really have the capacity to bring sustained relief? What if instead of circumventing the pain by telling stories about it, what if we focused on the pain itself? -- where it hurt? what it felt like? (not the story about it – but what it felt like in the body/mind) what it might be trying to tell you? What if you weren’t even trying to get rid of the pain but instead, just letting it be there? It is like somewhere we were told that pain is bad and therefore we must get rid of it. But is that really true? It seems to me that pain just is. What happens to one’s sense of self when one allows the pain to simply be there? Who or what is it that can watch the pain being felt?

Frequently when one experiences emotional pain one adds the layer of “I" should not be feeling this way” but where does that come from? Who says one should not feel that way? The fact is that one IS feeling that way and to argue with what is will always cause suffering. In fact, it probably is the definition of suffering.

Clearly emotional pain and discomfort are similar to the physical discomfort of an itch in many ways.
Observing the itch also offered me insight into addiction. Ultimately, addiction at some level, is rooted in a false sense of self. With an addiction, the addict identifies more with that which they crave, rather than see what they crave as something that passes through who they really are. I am reminded of how powerfully compelling behavior is often likened to “itching to do something”. Yes, one may want the object one craves but so what? What happens to YOU if you do not get it? (Now I am leaving aside physical addiction to something for a moment – but even in those cases, ultimately what happens to one if one does not get the object they crave? It may feel unpleasant or painful or may perhaps even be deadly but why is even that not ok? I do not mean that to be morbid. Who do we know/feel ourselves to be both in the absence of what we crave and in its presence? When I felt compelled to scratch the itch, somewhere I had dialed into the back of my brain a story about my discomfort. Perhaps it was that my discomfort would never end if I did not attend to this itch or that even if I managed to avoid scratching now I would certainly scratch later. Somehow the itch felt enormous and bigger than me and it crowded out all else. Really that is a flip-flop of reality. With addiction our sense of identity becomes so narrow that we define ourselves through our addiction and we are unable to relate to the world except through the craving. Dissolving an addiction seems like it would require a reimagining of oneself, a true recognition of ourselves.

Ultimately, we are the space that contains the itch and the pain. We are the observing of the itch and pain. In that space the itch came, morphed, and dissolved into the sweet no-thing-ness. So will we.
But to quote Eckhart Tolle– only the eternal in you can recognize the impermanent as impermanent.

Amy's Poem

 

 

 

 

When I speak to my friend now many years gone

Do not conclude that I’ve failed to move on

 

She possessed wisdom beyond twenty two years

To that I am drawn when darkness appears

 

A whisper aloud spoken soft in tones piano

Is joined with my voice in silence's daft echo

 

To corners of solace where world's get tuned out

And the voice of compassion need no longer shout

 

 

To Amy again, my troubles I send

And who else to trust but my very dear friend

 

The candle casts shapes on a wall just behind

Flames flicker, Smoke curls, as if to remind

 

That life does continue to sway and to dance

And only with movement do we each stand a chance.

 

A wick stands encased wrapped in blankets of flame

But though it seems trapped, no one’s to blame

 

The fire, as fire, is set there to burn

And wick without fire has naught but to yearn

 

True, leave it could not, that is not a wick’s lot

Can it rewrite its story command its own plot?

 

It can.  Tis true,  by being true to its being

For it's in that call that our essence finds freeing

 

For a fire’s to burn and wick’s is to stand

And each doing its part, is part of what’s planned

 

Let the whole world move through, relax, be alert

In the universe's dance there’s no way to get hurt

 

With perspective and motion you’ll view different sights

So in the end cower not from even the scariest frights

 

With vantage and movement  you’ll find different things

But from each chosen spot you can join that which sings

  

The flame, wax and wick belong to the candle

And each with the other, knows it can handle

 

The tasks of its calling, sums greater than each

That to glow with endurance alone’s out of reach

 

But together they make one complete whole

With each part playing its integral key role.

 

My troubles earlier sent, soon fade in the light

As darkness gives way to the candle’s soft light

 

My whispers and cries to my friend quietly

There are answers, and soothing. Amy’s answered my plea.

 

Rain

 

Splat, drip, plunk, sploosh

raindrops careen hard into car's glass

crashing almost, alien.

The arc of mechanical arms swinging side to side

sweeping droplets off the clear, curved surface.

Flattened ovals pulled like shooting stars

across the transparent galaxy, trailing off.

To see, we look beyond you to the space

between your liquid origin's existence

and beyond even the path of

your arrival.

Headlights

slicing

the

distance,

parsing

reality,

ever a digit, a beacon 

pointing towards the moon;

to where both the explosion of stars

and collision of raindrops

are but a bead

 in a wellspring

of unlimited potential

rippling forever

outward.

 

Laughter

Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers and the Dalai Lama)

A friend gave me this picture of the Dalai Lama sitting and talking with Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers. It is taped to the bulletin board at my desk, and  is a magnificent snapshot of joy and the epitome of contentment.  It is two masters simply enjoying each others company.  Its inspiration derives from its simplicity.  They are intently absorbed in a conversation that is making both of them heartily laugh.  It is both incredibly intimate and wonderfully public.  Cameras were clearly present (for we have the photo) but it appears as if, for each of them, nothing but the other person exists.

I remember a section in “Readers Digest” that I used to read as a young person called “Laughter, The Best Medicine”. Mostly I would find the magazine at my grandmother Yankee Doodle's house.   She got this moniker because when we were little she would sing us "Yankee Doodle".  The name stuck with me and my siblings until she died when I was in my twenties.  Only my siblings and I called her that, the other cousins did not.   At grandma's house, while reading "Readers Digest" there were two sections to which I always looked forward; one was the drama in real life and the other was laughter is the best medicine section.

Laughter is good medicine. There are many studies concluding that laughter as medicine is indeed good for people physically and psychologically. It boosts the immune system, relaxes the body and protects the heart.

When was the last time you laughed?

Our sense of humor, like our fingerprint, dna or retina are our own. What may make one person laugh often makes another cringe.    What we laugh at bears our individual conditioning.  It is both uniquely ours and simultaneously beyond us.

Have you ever wondered where laughter comes from? It is easy to think its our own that it belongs to us, but when you laugh do you choose to laugh or does it simply come. Why are some things funny to you and others not?  They may even be funny at certain times and not at others.  It is clear that certainly some of why we laugh is conditioning. Perhaps even most of it is conditioned.   Translated jokes often fall flat because the meaning is lost in the translation; a particular idiom in one language does not always carry over in another. If you have been conditioned in a particular way you are more likely to find some things funny. At the end though, laughter, like sorrow, passes through us. We cannot say exactly why something is funny it just is funny.

I often said that for me crying was always easy because it always simply felt like something bigger than I was moving through.  I believe it might be the same with laughter. Laughter is an amazing gift. In essence it is the ability to truly see something and celebrate its existence in a manner of speaking. It is a moment of taking off the mask that this life is so serious. It breaks down the subject / object construction. When you are caught up in laughter it is very easy to simply sense there is only this.   Boundaries become more porous amidst great laughter.

That is some of the beauty of the picture between the Dalai Lama and Fred Rogers.

What about the dark side of  laughter? Are some things just NOT funny? Are some things OFF limits?

Answer: It is often said that tragedy and comedy are two sides of the same coin. That said,

I don’t know – how would you answer that question for yourself? Are you trying to cede the authority over your own sense of humor? Do you want permission to laugh at something? What is holding you back from laughing? I would venture its someone’s approval or disapproval? What does that mean or suggest?

The last time I laughed was  Saturday at Star Trek. There were a number of places where I laughed out loud.   My laugh is quite boisterous.  My partner speaks of knowing she loved me when she loved my laugh.  I often laugh at parts that many others do not laugh or in anticipation of a joke that is about to come.  I am often amused by that observation.   Laughter sits in many ways at the nexus of some interesting ontologies.   It is both an incredibly private act; what makes you laugh is uniquely derived from the conditioning you've experienced but at the same time much of that conditioning is subject to societal and cultural influences.  On the other hand, jokes and humor rely upon shared perpsective and understanding.  Perhaps that is why jokes and what is funny can often be such a touchy subject.  "Inside joke" comes from the ability of jokes to circumsribe social roles, include and exclude and consequently influence how people feel.   Peoples feelings get hurt when some jokes are told.  Jokes are often used as a social navigation tool.  "We are like them - they will find this funny - those people over there they won't find this funny therefore I won't share it with them".  How often have you not shared a joke or limited who you shared it with  because you were afraid?

It is very easy to take a joke serioiusly.  It is very easy to take a joke to actually mean something.  A joke, if it reflects anything, reflects its teller's idea of themself much more than it reflects anything that might really be true.  That said, they can still hurt.  It is very hard to remember this in the moment.   The power of humor, and  jokes and laughter can be used for ill too so this is not subscribe to anything that makes you laugh is necessarily good.  Jokes can be incredibly mean spirited. Because  most people are not aware of who they really are, they are susceptible to others words triggering pain. Jokes can hurt immensely,  they can exclude and make one feel alone,  they can tap into our unresolved issues, hurts and deep seated fears.  Beacuse we carry the conditioning of culture and few have worked through the pain of the many, many messages in society that would hide or undermine who we are in our glory,  jokes can diminish and they can be used to exclude and ostracize.  But for all of that, it is important to note that ultimately joke's only have the meaning and power we give them and to note that they do not touch who we are in our core. 

If a joke triggers something in us, is that not a place where we are giving ourselves a substance that might not really be there?  Is it the case that we are taking ourselves too seriously? Is it not to be falsely duped by a mirage? It is a mirage that nearly all in culture and society ascribe to but a mirage nonetheless.  Though this may be difficult, notice what happens internally and externally  the next time someone tells a joke?  Does it exclude?  Do "you" belong to the inside experience in the joke or the outside?  How does that change (or not) your experience of the joke?  The joke can be your practice.

So if a joke ultimately means nothing does that mean that we have license to create and repeat mean jokes or that if something mean is said that I should do nothing, since its not real anyway?

Is that what your heart tells you to do?  Reality is capable of holding all.  It is only a dualistic mind that wants things to be one way or the other.  It is the dualistic mind that says well if its not real why should I bother.  It is the dualistic mind that reels in the freedom of not having a presription for what to do.   Reality often says "both and".   In the absolute,  "meanness"  does not exist,  but if you conclude from the that that action is useless, or that you can then be mean then you have missed the point. You are no longer in reality.  Reality asks a nimbleness of us it says it is all possible but that it might be is advisable that one take action after a joke that is mean spirited, even if that joke does not ultimately mean anything. 

Laughter is a truly amazing gift.   Laughter is a signature for our unique humor.    This is perhaps a tad blasphemous and certainly irreverent but I don't sometimes wonder if life itself is not a grand joke.  I don't in fact mean it the way that many might take it.  I mean it in the most generous way.  I mean it as something that is filled with such intense wonder, humor and joy.  I mean it as a great comedy show that is always producing amazing gaffes, fantastic ironies, jolting jokes and phenomenal twists.    If we could slow down for just a moment, and realize that its all going to be ok I suspect we might be laughing a lot more.  

Find the funny and laugh!

Truth

 

Of recent, I have been thinking, musing, meditating and reflecting,  a lot, upon truth.   I feel drawn towards what it is asking of me.   It seems that it is calling me moment by moment to a new kind of life, a new kind of adventure.  It is not one in which I understand much, but that is part of what makes it exciting and vibrant. 

 As a little boy, I always dreamed of being some kind of hero.  I dreamt of slaying dragons or flying deep into space and discovering new planets and species.   (Can we say science-fiction geek) I would be face to face with danger and fear and I would prevail.  I was thrilled by those who sacrificed themselves for all of humanity.  I admired  martyrs or savior archetypes.  I am still drawn to that kind of fiction.  Give me Frodo Baggins or Paul Atreides,   Katniss Everdeen, Commander Amelia Shepard any day.  I will always take them. What is interesting now though is that I can feel that adventure in life itself.  As truth’s voice becomes clearer not necessarily on any cosmic or grandly goal oriented scale but in the minutiae of heeding its moment to moment requests, I realize there is more than enough adventure in even the most simple of lives.  For me to align with truth in the moment requires a submission and staggering courage.  Standing  as who you are, unfettered and undaunted by the myriad ways the world tells you otherwise is thrilling.  This is the adventure.  

 It is easy to make truth a concept, a simple set of rules, prescriptions, ideas, commandments, laws, bargains, and  justifications but truth precedes them all.  Truth gives rise to them all.  They all try to capture truth, but fail because truth is ever moving even in its stillness.  It is quieter than all those concepts and yet much more powerful,  in part because it does not need anything else.  Truth is its own contentment; it is it own end.  As this silent voice is felt moment to moment to moment I recognize that I do not know anything.  I recognize that it could ask anything of me in the next moment.  It is anything but predictable.  This makes for a very exciting existence.  Anything in the world could show up and many things we have not even begun to imagine could appear too.  What could be more exciting than that?   What could be more exciting than answering that call?  The courage to truly be who I am with all my beauty and ugliness, perfection within my imperfection is mindblowing in its vibrancy. 

The call of truth to meet truth in all it manifestations in the world is exciting.  It is also terrifying.   Currently I can feel the schizophrenia.  On the one hand safety exists.  One can always do things the easy way.  One can always keep the status quo.  One does not need to rock the boat.  (And of course this is ultimately fine).   Truth has no need for judgment only our minds and ego’s do.  On the one hand it is not hard to say things like you have always said to people around you.  There is safety in saying I’m fine when really I’m really frustrated.  There is safety in telling the white lie about  someone’s outfit so as not to hurt their feelings.  There is convenience when we take the pens from the office but don’t believe  we will get caught.  There is ease in pretending  not to see that person as they approached elevator so that we could get to our floor more quickly.  There is safety in remaining  quiet and not saying hello to that person who passed us by because we were afraid they would think we were creepy.  There is safety in keeping quiet when our colleague gossips about another colleague.  There is convenience when we rapidly consume precious resources.  The path of safety always exists.  And in then end who ARE is more important than what we do.  But the calling is about embodying the perfection of our essence.   Safety becomes less appealing relative to truth.   

While there is safety as a choice,  for this body/mind currently,  the gap between truth and embodiment of it in the world is increasingly challenging.  It is becoming more painful  to act out of alignment. But its not even painful because I expect more of myself or have some idea of how I should behave exactly.  It’s painful because as I’ve realized more thoroughly  what I am, I  want to consciously be it all the time.   In the past,  I have been motivated by reward or by fear.  Believe me they still operate.  But they seem to be very juvenile forces for moving and action and it feels like they  take place in this much larger arena.  Terms like retribution, payback, reward, punishment  and even karma,  and  justice how they are sometimes used, rely upon the future.   They rely upon something being different than it is now and  depend on a notion that things are at some level wrong with this moment as a means of moving people to do act.  That feels less interesting.  How often  I have been motivated to do good for the promise of some cookie or sweet treat or to avoid something bad.   But actually there is a motivator that is beyond each of those and it is who we are in our core.  It is the essence of the world.

 In some religions people are afraid of some grand judgment from God that will banish us from “his” presence or that we will suffer at some later time.  I say Baaah.  In truth, we suffer more than enough for anything that isn’t aligned with truth.  Love is all forgiving.  In fact, in a way, for love, forgiveness does not even exist because from love’s perspective whatever it is that would “need forgiving” is ultimately just another manifestation of love itself.  It is just love showing up in some other way.   There is no grand judgment that one fails and is punished or rewarded for.  Not being aligned with truth IS its own suffering.  It is its own hell.   And if there is the notion that something is too big or “evil” for forgiveness that is not true either.  Truth is all embracing, the end.   God is ALL forgiving the end. There is not anything anyone could do that would ever move them out of the divine’s grace.  At the same time, I don’t wonder if most, if not all of any current pain (that isn’t purely physical) doesn’t come from unresolved past moments in which we were not aligned with truth.   It’s like the shape that shows up, who I take myself to be are all the places where I am not transparent.  It is all the places where pain has latched on to some kind of framework and I am creating a somebody out of it.   Yes, the pain happens.  It is absolutely real.  Yes, it hurts.  But who hurts?   Who is it actually happening to?  In fact, exactly who am I?  Am I this body?  Am I my thoughts?  This projection into the future? Am I my past experiences?  

Increasingly I can hear and feel something that wants to be expressed and I can tell that to be true to it I must let go (even amidst uncertainty and fear). Again this letting go is not on some grand scale.  This is not splendor on display.  It is again meeting truth moment to moment to moment and who knows what it will request.  If up to this point in my life I had clear plans for what needed to be done and what needed to be saved, and what  theories of action in the world might bring about lasting change,  it feels as though they are about to be subsumed in a silence driven by the heart.  Silence animates all regardless of whether or not we have paid attention to it.   It is this silence whose drumbeat continues to  resonate more clearly.  I will keep you posted as it all develops.

 

What Do I Call You On This Day?

 

I

God is brokenhearted today.

I see it in the eyes of people all around me.

A monk immolates himself in protest against the regime

Another gunned down as his brothers watch in horror.

A woman cries “why not me” as her lover rends her heart

by choosing another.

A mother wraps her bald head in a scarf pretending it is

winter’s grip which is icy.

A child cries as she is kicked in the head by her friend on the swings.

Her friend cries too.

So many tears, such incredible suffering

And yet in the space of the story so much is left unsaid.

 

 

II

The girl now committed to justice in a far away land.

In the spaces.

A father toiling to change gun laws.

In the spaces.

Lovers gazing into the silence of each other’s eyes.

In the spaces.

Researchers mapping complex molecules and genes in a puzzle of

Dazzling and cosmic proportions. At stake the soul of existence.

In the spaces.

 

III

One could say that it's the ying and yang

Black and white, the give and take.

And this too would be right.

But even these are too neat and shiny a ribbon for

A package of infinite beauty.

Today, I will call you life.

on the lines and in the spaces.

All of it everywhere

So rich, so simple, so bittersweet.

 

 

Dangerous Truth

Before they put him to rest they sang songs that called him nice.

And celebrated him with accolades.

He was always diplomatic, sweet,  careful.

words weighed to balance equations as he spoke.

Angling  pictures perfectly on the wall.

But even colorful, flat two-dimensional portraits can only represent depth.

And what is emerging now is no longer nice.

Instead it speaks of bare honesty.

honesty that will let nothing hide.

honesty of a searing glare.

honesty  willing to

sacrifice all because it is all.

Truth will set you free.

It will strip away more than you bargained for.

It will ask everything of you.

It will take everything.

If it did anything less, it would not be truth.