I too have received the gifts of (rectal) cancer and other major body breakdowns--breathing through that "background anxiety" and getting to that dissipation of useless fear of an imaginary future in the present moment, which is all there is. The patterns of light through the leaves on the tree outside my window. The reality of being here now, how cancer and its possibility of recurrence brings us right to the heart of it. So I breathe deeply. I am here.
Sitting here in the airport with my older brother’s cremated ashes, waiting to take him to his “final resting place” in Michigan, so it was very timely and especially poignant to read your post on aging, sickness and death. I have found your recent posts to be strong, moving and clear distillations of many of your teachings. THANK YOU JOAN!!
Joan, I've been so nourished and wakened by your posts recently. The inclusive clarity of your seeing and elegant way you use words to convey it are so helptul to me. That old habit of feeling not good enough or not where I should be at this time in my life are always ripe for questioning. My life, as it is, is simply glorious. All of it.
I am a retired Anglican priest and about your age. I can relate exquisitely to your reflections but I think you might consider something else - the total and irreversible realization of ONENESS with it all. I have had a few incidents in my life when I have "felt it" and those moments have haunted me . . . in a good way. They have compelled me beyond my safe Christian position to, for many years, an uneasy pilgrimage. This has led me to the inexorable query "Who in the hell am I?" and the answer, ever so so faint is . . . a lingering with the experience of the word "I". It echoes deep deep down in my being and it call to me. Yes, it call. I know now beyond a doubt that there is peace waiting for me. It's a peace that has to do with subsidence into my "I" - my Ground of Being. Yes, it has to do with NOW but even more. There is a sense of conclusion about this call. It's a terminis . . . Oneness . . . that's the only word I can find to capture it right now. I'm heading there . . . I can taste it in the sense . . . ever deepening of "I" . . .
I think you emailed me once. Yes, I’m with you that feeling into what that word “I” most deeply refers to is a profound inquiry, one that can open in many layers to reveal nothing at all, absolutely everything, boundless impersonal aware presence, present experiencing, absolute zero, the absence of both presence and absence, the ground of being, groundlessness, the germinal darkness, the Tao, the Self, no-thing-ness—many different words for what no words can capture.
And the awakening journey, if we speak of it that way, is perhaps very much about subsidence into this groundless ground and eventually the realization that we have never been apart from or other than it. Nothing to subside or subside into.
When you say, “I know now beyond a doubt that there is peace waiting for me,” I don’t know if you mean after death or in some future depth of realization not yet reached—but either way, I don’t think in those terms. If we’re talking about realization, as I see it, that is always only NOW. If we’re talking about death, although I cannot know for certain, I imagine death will be just like falling asleep or going under anesthesia—experiencing will end, and I-Joan won’t be there to miss the show. It could be described as subsidence into the germinal darkness, which is perhaps the peace you mean, the peace of deep sleep. Life (Now-Here-Presence), which is seamless and borderless and never encapsulated, won’t go anywhere.
I’m actually always writing about oneness or unicity or nonduality—or as Zen puts it, “not one, not two” or “leaping clear of the many and the one.” This no-thing-ness or wholeness or not-two-ness is ever-present but often unrecognized.
I’m not a fan of notions about “total and irreversible realizations,” although it depends very much on how people mean this. If they mean that delusion and the felt or thought sense of separation and encapsulation (the me-mirage and the me-story) NEVER reappears, I would tend to suspect they are probably just not seeing it when it does—although I can only speak for myself and say that such a total absence of delusion is certainly not the case here. Moreover, I don’t find a persisting “me” to whom this or any other realization could be permanent or impermanent. The whole notion of “enlightened people” (or “permanently enlightened people”) strikes me as an oxymoron. But if by “total and irreversible realization,” people simply mean a deep realization of this non-separation, a realization that is never entirely absent, even in the midst of delusion, then I can relate—albeit it’s not an expression I would use. I find that kind of expression easily misleads people and sets them up to seek the impossible (in the non-existent future) or else to claim that they have found this (which leads to delusion and dishonesty).
Anyway, thank you for sharing your discovery. Wishing you all the best. 🙏
Thank you so much Arlene. Just returning from the cemetery with my 3 other brothers. Happy to have family at these moments. Also blessed to have the non-dual perspective of our eternal source. As Koan says…”everything is included!” THAT made this trip bearable. Thanks again.
Lovely anew. Thank you Joan, and be well!
With love, Magdalena
I too have received the gifts of (rectal) cancer and other major body breakdowns--breathing through that "background anxiety" and getting to that dissipation of useless fear of an imaginary future in the present moment, which is all there is. The patterns of light through the leaves on the tree outside my window. The reality of being here now, how cancer and its possibility of recurrence brings us right to the heart of it. So I breathe deeply. I am here.
Tell it like it is, my dear friend.
Sitting here in the airport with my older brother’s cremated ashes, waiting to take him to his “final resting place” in Michigan, so it was very timely and especially poignant to read your post on aging, sickness and death. I have found your recent posts to be strong, moving and clear distillations of many of your teachings. THANK YOU JOAN!!
Peter: I’m sorry for the loss of your brother.
Thanks again Joan. Please be well. Much Love.
Joan, I've been so nourished and wakened by your posts recently. The inclusive clarity of your seeing and elegant way you use words to convey it are so helptul to me. That old habit of feeling not good enough or not where I should be at this time in my life are always ripe for questioning. My life, as it is, is simply glorious. All of it.
Do you think that the “misdiagnosis “ were correct and engendered a shift in consciousness which caused the new diagnosis??
No.
One of your best posts.......of course it's hard to rate what is one of the best......but it really hits home. Home run.
I am a retired Anglican priest and about your age. I can relate exquisitely to your reflections but I think you might consider something else - the total and irreversible realization of ONENESS with it all. I have had a few incidents in my life when I have "felt it" and those moments have haunted me . . . in a good way. They have compelled me beyond my safe Christian position to, for many years, an uneasy pilgrimage. This has led me to the inexorable query "Who in the hell am I?" and the answer, ever so so faint is . . . a lingering with the experience of the word "I". It echoes deep deep down in my being and it call to me. Yes, it call. I know now beyond a doubt that there is peace waiting for me. It's a peace that has to do with subsidence into my "I" - my Ground of Being. Yes, it has to do with NOW but even more. There is a sense of conclusion about this call. It's a terminis . . . Oneness . . . that's the only word I can find to capture it right now. I'm heading there . . . I can taste it in the sense . . . ever deepening of "I" . . .
I think you emailed me once. Yes, I’m with you that feeling into what that word “I” most deeply refers to is a profound inquiry, one that can open in many layers to reveal nothing at all, absolutely everything, boundless impersonal aware presence, present experiencing, absolute zero, the absence of both presence and absence, the ground of being, groundlessness, the germinal darkness, the Tao, the Self, no-thing-ness—many different words for what no words can capture.
And the awakening journey, if we speak of it that way, is perhaps very much about subsidence into this groundless ground and eventually the realization that we have never been apart from or other than it. Nothing to subside or subside into.
When you say, “I know now beyond a doubt that there is peace waiting for me,” I don’t know if you mean after death or in some future depth of realization not yet reached—but either way, I don’t think in those terms. If we’re talking about realization, as I see it, that is always only NOW. If we’re talking about death, although I cannot know for certain, I imagine death will be just like falling asleep or going under anesthesia—experiencing will end, and I-Joan won’t be there to miss the show. It could be described as subsidence into the germinal darkness, which is perhaps the peace you mean, the peace of deep sleep. Life (Now-Here-Presence), which is seamless and borderless and never encapsulated, won’t go anywhere.
I’m actually always writing about oneness or unicity or nonduality—or as Zen puts it, “not one, not two” or “leaping clear of the many and the one.” This no-thing-ness or wholeness or not-two-ness is ever-present but often unrecognized.
I’m not a fan of notions about “total and irreversible realizations,” although it depends very much on how people mean this. If they mean that delusion and the felt or thought sense of separation and encapsulation (the me-mirage and the me-story) NEVER reappears, I would tend to suspect they are probably just not seeing it when it does—although I can only speak for myself and say that such a total absence of delusion is certainly not the case here. Moreover, I don’t find a persisting “me” to whom this or any other realization could be permanent or impermanent. The whole notion of “enlightened people” (or “permanently enlightened people”) strikes me as an oxymoron. But if by “total and irreversible realization,” people simply mean a deep realization of this non-separation, a realization that is never entirely absent, even in the midst of delusion, then I can relate—albeit it’s not an expression I would use. I find that kind of expression easily misleads people and sets them up to seek the impossible (in the non-existent future) or else to claim that they have found this (which leads to delusion and dishonesty).
Anyway, thank you for sharing your discovery. Wishing you all the best. 🙏
Fantastic, thank you so much Joan, and of course, best wishes for your health, we need you here for as long as possible
🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽
🩷
Thank you so much Arlene. Just returning from the cemetery with my 3 other brothers. Happy to have family at these moments. Also blessed to have the non-dual perspective of our eternal source. As Koan says…”everything is included!” THAT made this trip bearable. Thanks again.
Thank you Joan.
Heart-softening words pointing to.... simply just this......
And yet....
Thank you Joan xo