2016.09.09 - Bliss of Being

Probably my last report for the PaB-TSK sessions of 2016. I'm not quite reflective yet, which has to do with a currently too busy and too new schedule, and a large plate of projects I must and/or want to do (qualifier - yes I feel fortunate to have said projects and reasons to be this kind of busy at the moment) by around year's end. I'm trying this new thing of deadlines. ;-) My official report in session yesterday had to do with exercise 34, but although I'm chatty in sessions, I rarely let myself come to the conclusion of a report, opting rather to throw out what when I read back sounds like a side comment or something more flippant than the way I've actually held the focus, is or was. The reason I came back to exercise 34 was that it is about integration and embodiment.

Having looked at space in a TSK way, then time in a TSK way, then knowledge in a TSK way, the last chapters were more expressly about Being. It may seem, having crossed each others' paths over and over again in this group called Play as Being, that we should be experts on the topic, except that, Being has proven an illusive topic that repels anyone approaching as an expert. :) Great Space, Great Time, Great Knowledge = Great Being? By the end of the reading my general sense was, No, just (the play of) Being (infinite forms). Like 'ordinary mind' and 'ordinary life' may be Great Mind and Great Life hiding in plain view until 'the expert' is more quiet. Like not recognizing that one is happy except in retrospect or coupled with some effort of appreciation to make it so, make that seen. Or not really actively knowing the Person(s) within the persons one is with (including ourselves). 

"Still small voice"

There are so many practices one is already doing, just not expressly, deliberately seeing them. We are already dreaming, but extracting the wisdom magic hidden in a dream is a form of appreciation if not the very thing. We don't know what will be the result. We are already walking, but may not feel walking without looking for time within that time we are already in, to see what that might mean. 

There is no beginning to practice
nor end to enlightenment;

By the closing chapter I felt acutely aware of life's rituals within quests I may not have identified yet and may not yet identify or need to identify...knowing not fully embodied, but that can be trusted as Being's endless play...leaned into. Mick mentioned his "Jekyl and Hyde" and Bleu brought up The Great Gatsby... characters with dimension because of not only what they know of themselves and their world but also what is hiding in plain view. We get glimpses through conditions, through others, through practices, of what we are already playing at, what is already available toward what life is and may yet want to be. Or patterns/tendencies, sadnessess that may want to be exposed and integrated (see video also posted in comments for the 9.08 session). Exercise 34 is about inherent energetic nourishment available to do that kind of work of life perhaps... excavating authenticity. The basic practice of stopping and just not distracting oneself from what is, has been around a long time for good reasons. :)

Everyone already knows Joseph Campbell's line "Follow your bliss" to the extent that it has become somewhat cliche' or an excuse, but lately I've kept coming back to many wider contexts within which that 'juicy' line is found:

". . . And so I think the best thing I can say is to follow your bliss. If your bliss is just your fun and your excitement, you’re on the wrong track. I mean, you need instruction. Know where your bliss is. And that involves coming down to a deep place in yourself."      J.Campbell

And Brain Pickings did a nice job of some other highlights:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/0...power-of-myth/

Other references that came to mind:

"Guard your heart with all dilligence for out of it flow the virtues of life."
Proverbs 4:23

I like thinking of virtues and bliss together, as nourishment for aspirations, which is not mere ideals perhaps, like Campbell's quote above suggests. When we talked about Jay Gatsby's single minded desire and enchantment, some of what was missing was awareness that didn't fit into his picture perhaps, of both himself and others, both 'light and dark' tendencies. :) Going to read that again.  

And this one, which isn't as obviously relevant to the other points but kept floating up:


The butterfly sleeps well
perched on the temple bell
until it rings.

- Buson

This has been a practical report, but there is a report within the report that has to do with long life practices and elixirs of immortality... things that come up in fantasy stories of mythical lands like, the 'kingdom of heaven spread upon the earth that no one sees', etc. Could go on and on...