maps, metaphors & musings
The infinity of intellect seems to clog the pipes of creativity
When the entirety of understanding is attempted to be born all at once
A living breathing organism is born into life
The way it is born into time
gradually
Limb by limb
Breath by breath
Becoming intimately familiarly
With the ways in which the waters of Time flows
through and around creation
with loving warmth
and nourishing embrace
saying “slowly… your time will come”
“spirituality is about getting in touch with reality”
science is a mode of conceptualizing the nature of the world and spirituality is the means by which we live in relation to the truth. One is grasped with our minds and the other is integrated into our way of being.
in other words, science is a language of clearly examining how the observable universe works, Spirituality is the practice of integrating our being in accordance with that universe of self-less interrelation.
When considering the ways in which science describes “truth” to us, we often expect a definitive “answer” or secret revelation through which science can reveal to us the unseen truths behind the facade of appearances. In reality, the most simple dynamics that science has helped us conceptualize regarding the nature of life can be some of the most informative in helping us live according to “truth”, such as the following:
-that life is interdependent and interrelated
-that reality transcends the scope of the individual
these two statements are so self-evident when looking at the world that we take them for granted… however if we were able to move our understanding of this down from our heads and into our embodied sense of living, this -i’d argue- is the essence of sprituality.
in conventional terms, spirituality is often ascribed to modes of thinking and being that open us up to larger and more expansive notions of experience that transcend our attachment to our isolated self-senses.
This means expanding our consciousness beyond our narratives and, ultimately, beyond our temporary experience of our bodies on this earth.
I once had a physics professor who, despite not identifying as spiritual, to me embodied this definition of spirituality. His decades spent as a physicist studying both the largest and smallest scales known to man led him to engage with the world with wonder, awe and humility and a deep understanding of our interconnected nature with all living beings with a concordant awareness of our individual temporality.
To me, this is spirituality… not to get caught up within a “higher” level of stories and narratives about the way the world is, but to allow our knowledge of the expanse of the universe that we live and participate within to inform our actions, values and sense of space, time and ourselves.
At every opportunity
Where reality offers me an easeful invitation
Into the level of upper knowlege I aspire to,
Or to the creative wave I wish to ride,
I feel resistence
Feeling the threat of suffocation
Of perfect understanding
Or a creative life realized
Even insulated by all I desire
I feel sad to leave behind the unsustainability & transience
Of unfulfilled potential
I feel closest to God
When my views and gifts are a secret between Them and I
Not yet ready to invite the world into my sacred circle
I promise to extract that nameless, placeless thing I crave from being formless
And then surrender myself fully through the door of realization
Next time…
these paintings depicting the purification of various animals along an ascending path are a popular visual metaphor for the process by which a contemplative practitioner cultivates total cognitive clarity & mental mastery.
the benefit of seeing this process so meticulously explained is that it breaks down the order in which various cognitive faculties are to be developed and describes exactly what is to be expected at every stage.
additionally, it helps us conceptualize the potential pitfalls that our own Self – development journey may suffer from if we skip or combine steps.
this process exemplifies the science of subjectivity that Buddhists have cultivated and teach.
2. ego leads unconscious attention leads desire
3. Ego and attention turn to Self, ego still leads attention, laxity appears (not pictured: desire behind Self)
4. ego, attention and laxity become half purified
5. Self takes lead but stays vigilant about tempering attention, ego trails behind
6. Self can turn to face forward keeping attention on short leash, ego follows, laxity disappears
7. Separation of attention from ego, release of now fully purified ego
8. Leading fully purified attention without leash
9. fully pacifying attention
10. using attention as a vehicle for accessing skillful means, higher levels of consciousness and tantric realization.
Q: Why is the scientific method not a comprehensive method of deciding validity/truth?
A:
it starts from the assumption that information about reality is valid only if its empirically verifiable (with measurable (according to the capacity of our instruments) physical effects) and repeatable (relatively constant/stable). These are 100% valid assumptions for certain purposes (like most of the purposes science is used for) but they are assumptions based on a very limited definition of the word “real” — a definition heavily informed by biological necessity and we equate the explanatory power of science within a certain domain (the one we live most of our conventional lives immersed in) with its inherent truth… which is again another assumption.
Alchemy is the art of transforming energy from one state to a higher state. What “higher” state means in this context is a state that serves the harmony of the autonomous self. this is in contrast with “lower” states of energy that may serve egoic patterns but that disrupt the harmony of the total system of the Self — ie. the self’s relation to the Whole.
Typically this transformation results in a liberation of energy from rigid systems (built off reified self-other separation). Such systems are rigid because energy gets stuck at the level that we disassociate from it ie. once we distinguish between whats in the domain of “self” and what is “not self” we create a fracture in the Experience of wholeness and bar ourselves access to the fragment of Experience that we designate “not self”.
This energy gets stuck in that system of relating to reality (whether it be a particular relationship to oneself, an other, or reality at large) and an energy system that is practiced and perpetuated over time concretizes into a mindSET.
What is the mechanism by which energy can be liberated from the self-perpetuating nature of a particular mindSET?
The simple answer is: through compassion.
Compassion is the fundamental means by which we REcognize, REmember, and REsonate with that exiled energy that we “otherized”/fragmented from our Experience when we designated it as “not self”.
Compassion and love is therefore the ultimate alchemical process.
Perpetual cycles of unconscious whim
Closed eyes whipping frantically around
The trance of forgetfulness weighing heavy on our eyes
The mechanical determinsim of dullness
The evolutionary lineage of distraction
The centerless center
Remains the eye of the storm
With every arising
Or what we call moment in time
How do we choose to be
Where do we choose to illuminate
What world do we choose to live into fruition
From our birth into Memory
Nestled between a mother and father
Trying to find an elegant balance
Both sides of infinity love you
Something flows through us
I do not know what
I form little nets
To catch some dew
As it passes by
She flows through my fingertips
And doesnt like inhibition
But sensitivity
And dialogue
She flirtily abides
Keep the direction pointed outward
Resist the tendency to resist
(Isnt it always negate yourself out of the negative?)
And from here hopefully we find some flow
I wonder if this too is how we are to live our lives
In harmonious balance with the interlocking forces of all
Directed outwards
and inwards to dialogue
To feel the interstices
But not to the point of falling back into solidifying the pushback
Can we have courage to be sensitive
to a face too magnificent to behold
And do not confuse a temporary turn away from this depth
With its disappearance
God has mercy
Both in offering omnipresence and respite from our sensitivity to it
And do not confuse the darkness in this cavern of the belly
With the shadow forms that it contains
Becasue its power encompasses and transcends what the mind can comprehend
So we sit in enchoes of knowingness
Resonating from time immemorial