2012.05.23 _ 43

acceptance: internet outage as opportunity

Found it hard to convey a notion of 'pure experience' this morning, also to myself. It is easy to default to "well it just isn't conveyable" but I don't feel this is true exactly. What if no one ever said that something (whatever it is) wasn't/isn't possible.

Mother Teresa said we draw our circles (of family) too small. After 3 years of participating in many sessions, and this week participating in quite a few... I am asking myself why it has seemed so important to me over the last year especially to seemingly 'return' to an emphasis on direct experience as a group, while (I have been) still having an "idea" or example (of a particular way of positing questions as explorations) of what that "direct experience" means. It has perhaps in some ways, constricted doing that myself... hiding in the wanting "the group" to do that... which seems in a way, immaturity.

So I think even when the internet comes back, as an experiment I will not come to sessions for at least a few days, excepting Friday's dream circle [arbitrary boundary yes, but realizing that internet returning would thwart intentions, and also other matters online to attend to :)

I heard an interesting talk about allegory recently, in learning more about an epic poem "The Fairie Queen"… an allegory is a kind of story lesson in which the central character sees others as less real, or as just showers of the lesson. There is also a kind of converse to that, where the central character is less real with others on pedestals of a sort.

Transcendence may mean dropping this "lessons thinking" altogether… no central character view and no others…. closer to effortlessness. This is a bit what "free in its place" means to me... that even Pema's framed explorations are just tastes of an even more 'personal' in a way, epoche'. Dropping prescribed notions, or at least 'trying' that. edited 16:48, 23 May 2012

I was doing a quick body scan meditation this morning and I suddenly realised I don't actually need to name all the parts I am scanning :-) just move my awareness around my body. Interesting what you are saying Eliza. I have to practice direct experience more, not just the idea of direct experience.

Writing about today, the morning after...

Karuna-metta early...

Reading Eliza's notes above... I feel for my dear sister... but I struggle to find words that haven't become overlaid in common parlance with finger-pointing, and I don't feel that nor want that.

More overlays... Transcendence: such an odd word. Means so many different things to different people at different times. Given so much importance. Yet means so little. To be brutally honest, I live nearly all the time in a state of transcendence. Does that make me feel superior? No. If I notice it at all, it brings compassion. It has been variously seen as supercilious or dismissive... and that's hard to escape when you have a sense of fun. Oh well. I let go...