Thank you. So helpful. Found you through listening to you in Sam H’s Waking Up app - thanks so much for those sessions too - find I want to go back to them over and over.
Thank you Joan, this resonates deeply for me. Last week I decided to sign up again for a two week silent retreat this summer. I used to do this every year but with the pandemic I had stopped for 3 years.I realized how much I missed the practice, and how lately I had imagined I really didn't need it.I had been mislead by so many non-dual teachings that say something like: "Meditation practice is not necessary, do it only if you really want to". And yet...
Thank you and thank you writing in the gorilla joke! The topic of NOW can get weighty or deeply thought provoking at least for me, so a little humor goes a long way and reminds me to loosen up my grip and laugh!
Up this morning at 3:30. Nagging background of doubt about my practice. Inner voices related to comments from a trustworthy and wise friend who admonished about "being honest with myself." Useful advice, to be sure, but the doubt that arose is unnecessary, and I find this to be so by acknowledging and accepting, even embracing. This latest piece, Joan, was precision timed. Enormously helpful now.
Dear Joan, I love your articles and always read them. But, just curious, did you ever read the book of Suzanne Segall, “Collision with the Infinite: A Life Beyond the Personal Self”? She answered this questions in her own way.
Joan, your writing is a fount of clarity. I read and I feel compassion for my self which seems to get caught again and again in all the email messages I believe I need to read, the ways I keep seeking outside instead of letting go and resting here. And thank you for Mel's message that we need to bring forth this Buddha-nature, to channel it. That's what practice is for.
My experience of the spiritual search was kind of funny. It was the introduction to the idea of a special, transcendent state that is just ordinary mind unimpeded by ideas.
Dipa Ma defines mindfulness as simply knowing what you are doing, and when we are caught in the greedy mind trap of looking for enlightenment, we don’t know what we are doing. I fumbled around for a good twenty years before I picked up a book by Achaan Chah who helpfully explained that the nature of the mind is to be dissatisfied, changing, and empty- a reality immediately observed when you are looking instead of searching.
I also have learned that the sequence in Buddhist practice begins with practicing generosity and kindness that create conditions for a happy life so that transcendence isn’t part of the equation. I find that when I’m taking care to be kind to myself and others, I’m fine and happy, while when I go around the bend like I did a couple of days ago over the Supreme Court, then I’m pretty miserable and radiating an unseemly ill will.
"I’ve tended to avoid the word practice in most of my writing because it can sound like something rote, methodical, result-oriented, or like rehearsing for a future performance. I usually prefer to speak of exploring, discovering, realizing and enjoying the living actuality here and now."
and
"Awakening is experiential, not intellectual, and it’s not about belief. It’s about direct seeing-knowing-feeling-being. It’s never about a past experience or a future attainment. Awakening is always NOW."
and
from Mel: “Each one of us has our own perfection which includes all of our so-called mistakes.”
thank you so much for sharing!
much love,
myq
PS when i came upon "the feeling that you are chasing a carrot forever just out of reach" in the first paragraph, i was actually eating some baby carrots, so the carrot has apparently been inside me the whole time!
I do agree with not trying or striving to get somewhere when we’re already here. Your writing has helped me recognize the light is always shining on the multiple layers of awareness and instead of shedding who I think I am as the personal self, it’s opening to the wholeness that’s always been there/here/now but obscured by trying to be what you think others want and so many layers of otherness existing outside. My own discovery is internal. The love is…..just is, not other, not something to get or earn; it’s boundless and sometimes it bubbles up. 💗🙏
Reading this centered me right away. You explain and touched a lot on the concept of "purification" like "purification project for the phantom "me" !! I connected it with Mel's words "We think that delusion precedes enlightenment" like first I have to be "pure" and then I can be "aware"- good luck! Looking back I can see that I walked that path a lot. (and still do)
I find your whole analogy about watching TV and being pulled into the "soap opera" and the "drama" very helpful. It is so funny and so true!
It is also useful to hear about the default thinking that since "this is it" and "nothing is missing" we don't have to do our genuine search. Very clearly laid out. I love your writing.
Thank you!
Thank you. So helpful. Found you through listening to you in Sam H’s Waking Up app - thanks so much for those sessions too - find I want to go back to them over and over.
Thank you Joan, this resonates deeply for me. Last week I decided to sign up again for a two week silent retreat this summer. I used to do this every year but with the pandemic I had stopped for 3 years.I realized how much I missed the practice, and how lately I had imagined I really didn't need it.I had been mislead by so many non-dual teachings that say something like: "Meditation practice is not necessary, do it only if you really want to". And yet...
Thank you and thank you writing in the gorilla joke! The topic of NOW can get weighty or deeply thought provoking at least for me, so a little humor goes a long way and reminds me to loosen up my grip and laugh!
PS: I love your sense of humor too!!!😃
Just what I needed, as usual ❤️❤️❤️
Anne
fantastic and the book is on my list! thanks for what you do
Endless exploration and discovery. A beautiful love affair with Life.
Up this morning at 3:30. Nagging background of doubt about my practice. Inner voices related to comments from a trustworthy and wise friend who admonished about "being honest with myself." Useful advice, to be sure, but the doubt that arose is unnecessary, and I find this to be so by acknowledging and accepting, even embracing. This latest piece, Joan, was precision timed. Enormously helpful now.
Dear Joan, I love your articles and always read them. But, just curious, did you ever read the book of Suzanne Segall, “Collision with the Infinite: A Life Beyond the Personal Self”? She answered this questions in her own way.
Joan, your writing is a fount of clarity. I read and I feel compassion for my self which seems to get caught again and again in all the email messages I believe I need to read, the ways I keep seeking outside instead of letting go and resting here. And thank you for Mel's message that we need to bring forth this Buddha-nature, to channel it. That's what practice is for.
My experience of the spiritual search was kind of funny. It was the introduction to the idea of a special, transcendent state that is just ordinary mind unimpeded by ideas.
Dipa Ma defines mindfulness as simply knowing what you are doing, and when we are caught in the greedy mind trap of looking for enlightenment, we don’t know what we are doing. I fumbled around for a good twenty years before I picked up a book by Achaan Chah who helpfully explained that the nature of the mind is to be dissatisfied, changing, and empty- a reality immediately observed when you are looking instead of searching.
I also have learned that the sequence in Buddhist practice begins with practicing generosity and kindness that create conditions for a happy life so that transcendence isn’t part of the equation. I find that when I’m taking care to be kind to myself and others, I’m fine and happy, while when I go around the bend like I did a couple of days ago over the Supreme Court, then I’m pretty miserable and radiating an unseemly ill will.
So much wisdom. Thank you
dear joan,
thank you for these beautiful words, as always.
i like these passages a lot:
"I’ve tended to avoid the word practice in most of my writing because it can sound like something rote, methodical, result-oriented, or like rehearsing for a future performance. I usually prefer to speak of exploring, discovering, realizing and enjoying the living actuality here and now."
and
"Awakening is experiential, not intellectual, and it’s not about belief. It’s about direct seeing-knowing-feeling-being. It’s never about a past experience or a future attainment. Awakening is always NOW."
and
from Mel: “Each one of us has our own perfection which includes all of our so-called mistakes.”
thank you so much for sharing!
much love,
myq
PS when i came upon "the feeling that you are chasing a carrot forever just out of reach" in the first paragraph, i was actually eating some baby carrots, so the carrot has apparently been inside me the whole time!
I do agree with not trying or striving to get somewhere when we’re already here. Your writing has helped me recognize the light is always shining on the multiple layers of awareness and instead of shedding who I think I am as the personal self, it’s opening to the wholeness that’s always been there/here/now but obscured by trying to be what you think others want and so many layers of otherness existing outside. My own discovery is internal. The love is…..just is, not other, not something to get or earn; it’s boundless and sometimes it bubbles up. 💗🙏
Reading this centered me right away. You explain and touched a lot on the concept of "purification" like "purification project for the phantom "me" !! I connected it with Mel's words "We think that delusion precedes enlightenment" like first I have to be "pure" and then I can be "aware"- good luck! Looking back I can see that I walked that path a lot. (and still do)
I find your whole analogy about watching TV and being pulled into the "soap opera" and the "drama" very helpful. It is so funny and so true!
It is also useful to hear about the default thinking that since "this is it" and "nothing is missing" we don't have to do our genuine search. Very clearly laid out. I love your writing.