Base, Part 2

The theme for today is (a little more about) Base.

Many sayings and folktales are about Base, without naming it.

If you build a house of straw, or place its foundation on the sand,
it won't last.

You don't miss your water until your well runs dry.

There's the fable about the ant and the grasshopper
or the man who didn't want to cut wood for the fire
and burnt his furniture instead.

Usually base is invisible and taken for granted
until it emerges from the background.
This is called an emergency.

Base is something that is usually ignored,
sometimes unknown, even unknowable
or knowable only in special ways.

Why is that?

The biggest, and in many ways the best
illusion
that people have is
that they are separate individuals.

One way to describe this
is to say, they don't know their base.

This is not surprising
since the base is what the deepest parts of oneself
stand on
fall into
and arise from.

Knowing about, and directly
It's possible to know "about" base through stories and concepts
but to actually know it
is to know oneself
in the doing, by "selfing"
at the mysterious edge.

Being a person
is like sitting on a branch of a large tree.
It seems insecure
you feel like you're out on a limb.

You are not on a branch, you are a branch
of the tree of life.

Follow back the branch, to bigger branches,
to the trunk, the root:
where it finally ends up
is the earth,
a ground we all share.

A majority of the world's religions and practices
are about maintaining base
in the face of life's various temptations
to go too far out on a limb
or to make sure the tree and branch are strong.

Knowing and Language
The culture of literacy is a great thing
but it puts a screen of language between us and the world.

It's like, rehearsing what one is going to say
then later saying it
rehearsing what one is going to see
and then later seeing it.

Except that sometimes we forget the seeing
and the relating part
and don't get the medicine.

In the garden
I don't know Gladiolus from Australopithecus
but there's a Peanut Butter Tree
and it's pretty easy to identify.

The Base of Knowing

Science continues to rediscover the base:
that awareness,
communcation
and language
spring from being present, active, and relational;
knowledge comes to the party later.

We make stuff up as we go along
acting, moving, responding,
anticipating
in the moment, in the world
as body/mind
and the tree of life work.

Metaphors

Is the tree of life a metaphor?
Is "base" a metaphor?

Yes, but not as a figure of language
in which an abstract language thing symbolizes something else:
"real" metaphors don't need language to exist
or for us to know them.

Life its its own metaphor.

When you see a real tree
(or a real anything)
it is offering itself to you
and you are offering yourself to it
and that relationship
is a kind of medicine.

That's what it is for a thing to be real.
With it you have the reality of the tree
and without it, a concept or a picture.

Emptiness

Some people wonder
What is underneath the base?
The answer is emptiness
but that doesn't mean a thing that is vacant or still,
like a hole in the ground,  or a room with nothing in it,
but rather a constant arising and dissolving.

The idea of emptiness-as-a-thing
is a common myth in most cultures.

"Empty" seems scary to some people
like an empty stomach or bank account
or a house one's intimates have abandoned.

And it seems attractive to other people.
When stressed out or frustrated,
it's easy to imagine that it might go away
and you'd have some peace.

Living isn't that way.
It's constantly somewhat stressed and frustrated
like a car that has the engine in gear and the brakes on.

Living is to be balanced between opposing forces
at the edge of chaos
at the right distance out on your limb.

When peace is not emptiness
but following the flow of life,
stress and frustration are other names
for the same life forces
we call motivation and readiness.

A river is another real metaphor
of something constantly moving towards its base
it doesn't rush and it doesn't hold back
sometimes fast, sometimes slow,
sometimes wide, sometimes deep.

Practice

How can we put this into practice?

There are some forms, and rules, and structures
well worth talking about

but discovering them is like going on a garden tour
where the idea is to see what's there
rather than being told the names of things:
You start with a few "hints"
and then .. look.

One key is gratitude.
Awareness and appreciation go well together
to increase the value and depth of experience.

What do you depend on,
and take for granted
or consciously maintain?

Nature?  
Health?
Movement and how you carry yourself?
Friendships and relationships with people (and animals)?
Legacies from your ancestors?
Skills and abilities you have developed?
States of mind or consciousness?
Knowledge?
The Internet?
Meditation?
Prayer?
Your quick wit and good humor?
Patience?
Wisdom?

Like an animal,
human, or person
you have evolved in a certain way
with this unique and changing combination
of capacities and abilities.

Some of these may be places you are trying to "go"
others are what you "come from"
or that you "are"
or all of these.

What "hints" are you aware of today?