My 2020s Journal

[silene]

My 2020s Journal 

Thu 27feb 2020

I meant to start a new journal in January to welcome in the new decade, the 2020s, here it is (a bit delayed), carrying on from my old journal, Wish you were here on the journey to nowhere (now-here). 

I've been catching some of Leo's more recent videos and he's right that they're getting deeper and more advanced, and I had a little chuckle with 'Total Awakening live in real time part 2'. He is saying how he is God speaking through the avatar of Leo and totally awake etc, while on the wall behind him are 3 sculptures in the shape of a number 6 - 666 - postmodern irony isn't it As well as an old video from 2016, 'Guided Meditation - the next level of meditation' - which is about where I'm at with my meditation. Let go, let it be, let go so much I let go of letting go. 

Copying my 2020 New Year's Resolutions, (year plan) here for reference so I don't let it slip!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
Mon 30-dec19 New Year's Resolutions. 

1. Physical. 
   1.1. Diet. 
        Reduce: hydrogenated, trans, saturated fat, refined carbs , sugar, salt,  artificial sweeteners,
        processed food in general. Acrylamide. Caffeine.
        Increase: fruit, veg, unrefined & unprocessed natural food, water, herb tea. 
        Reach BMI =21.5 and waist/height ratio = 0.48. 
   1.2. Exercise. Mainly walking & gardening. Also Hatha yoga for physical suppleness, preventing backache.
   1.3. Regular sleep routines.  Decluttering, sell or give away old unused stuff. 

2. Intellectual knowledge, broadening understanding, education.
   2.1 Spiritual videos for theoretical knowledge, 
   2.2 Follow up new leads on spiritual teachers (see later post).
   2.3 Pick up on learning Python programming, build some simple apps eg a calculator, a meditation timer. 

3. Meditation and mindfulness/awareness. 
   3.1 Meditation. Improve my daily routine to ideally 30 mins morning and evening, but aware this is a
       tough challenge, especially in the mornings! 
   3.2 Mindfulness/awareness. Practice what I am learning from books etc. If more support needed,
      look for other material. 

4. Service to others (eg karma).  Voluntary work.

5. Nature connection. Gardening, wilderness, environmentalism, rambling. Prudent living, crafting, DIY.
      All of these, as time allows.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

[silene]

Mon 23mar20

I'm studying the Hsin Hsin Ming, the Chinese poem which begins:

"The Great Way is not difficult,
for those who have no preferences.
Let go of longing and aversion,
and it reveals itself.

Make the smallest distinction, however,
and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth.
If you want to realise the truth,
then hold no opinions for or against anything"

How am I attached to my likes, and repelled from my dislikes? I have my desires and dislikes pulling & pushing, and according to some Buddhists I won't be free till I extinguish my desires and become a sort of zombie Buddha. But I can't accept this, it's so easy to misunderstand it.
I need to see the source of my desire: is it coming from my unconscious instincts like my survival instinct?
There's a process creating a push-pull  layer on top of my natural state of equanimity (= unconditional love).
To want to get rid of it, that would just be more aversion.
To see the whole movement of instinct, pulling attraction & pushing aversion.
To sink down through the layers of instinct to the depths of spacious equanimity.

Our lockdown has just been extended to only leaving home for essential reasons, alone or in pairs with people in your household only, to be enforced by the police. Non-essential shops etc will close.  I've been working from home for a week now, I'm lucky to be able to continue working. 

Edited March 24, 2020 by silene
clarification.

[silene]

Where am I on the Spiral?

I've seen Leo's series on Spiral Dynamics (SD) which goes through the levels and leaves me with the impression that we progress through the stages in succession. Some other people in the forum measure their progress as a percentage in various stages: eg 

% of me is stage:
 40  blue
 40  orange
 15  green
   5  yellow
   0  turquoise
100 total 

I understand that approach but I'm trialling a different method to gauge my development. I will give a percent completion for each stage, this may give me a clearer picture of my shadow, the areas where I need to focus on. 

% complete for each stage: 
100  purple    - no further work needed
100  red         - "       "       "       "        
  80  blue       - some remaining work 
  60  orange   - work in progress 
  30  green     - "       "      " 
   5   yellow   -  had a glimpse but not very far yet
   0   turquoise  - not really started yet 

I'm doing some work on these areas such as family life for blue; career and intellectual knowledge for orange; relating with diverse people and nature for green. I could revisit my year-plan (aka new year's resolution) to bring SD colours into my various ideas, to make sure I'm covering the bases. 

[silene]

Picture of tomato seedlings - I'm planning to do a series to show the lifecycle. It's a variety called Red Cherry sowed on 22-mar-20. I'm going to grow them outdoors so it usually takes ages for the tomatoes to ripen up. 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by silene

[silene]

weds 1apr20

I've started reading Diana Winston's book 'The little book of being'. It's about her meditation style called Spectrum of Awareness, which describes 3 levels of awareness: focussed, flexible and natural awareness, all of which we can practice with formal meditation.

Focussed awareness is really another name for mindfulness concentration style practice; using effort to practice being aware of an object, moving it back when we stray.

Flexible awareness is a middle stage, being like choiceless awareness of objects in the mind, but still having objects and a subject which is aware.

Natural awareness is her name for the non-dual awareness of awareness, broad awareness without objects of awareness. She also calls it Buddha nature, luminous mind, ground of being, the nature of everything. 

It's an approach I've more or less come to myself before reading her book; but it is giving me some ideas to tweak my practice. She stresses there is no hierarchy between the 3 levels, and taking a more intuitive approach to meditation practice. Recently I've followed techniques pretty rigidly for focussed and natural awareness (1 week focussed + 3 weeks natural per month) but this is beginning to feel a bit mechanical. So when I've read through the book I will try and let go of controlling the technique as such, and allow my mind to feel its way to whichever state of awareness is appropriate in the moment. I already have a little bit of anxiety and excitement about this, as I have been rather technique orientated about my meditation practice for a long time, and letting go of controlling my mind feels like a good step to try. In any case, the contradictions involved in the mind controlling itself do seem a little neurotic when I put it like that.

[Everyday]

 

 

On 29/03/2020 at 5:33 PM, silene said:

Picture of tomato seedlings - I'm planning to do a series to show the lifecycle. It's a variety called Red Cherry sowed on 22-mar-20. I'm going to grow them outdoors so it usually takes ages for the tomatoes to ripen up. 
 

Nice man!

[Zigzag Idiot]

On 2/27/2020 at 3:34 PM, silene said:

Let go, let it be, let go so much I let go of letting go. 

?

8 hours ago, silene said:

Natural awareness is her name for the non-dual awareness of awareness, broad awareness without objects of awareness. She also calls it Buddha nature, luminous mind, ground of being, the nature of everything. 

That works for me.

I'm curious if she also equates natural awareness with presence?  Or if she says,,,

[silene]

@Zigzag Idiot  I've not seen her call it Presence yet, but I'll keep an eye out. I would equate them myself though. I still have desire for states of mind like that, it feels like a bit of a trap, wanting to end selfish grasping, even for spiritual stuff! 

[silene]

Link to the Diana Winston session in Sangha Live for reference. 

https://sangha.live/dharma-library/the-spectrum-of-awareness-practices-2/

[silene]

Tues 7-apr-20. Three rather random unconnected streams this time.

1. 
Our understanding (the map) isn't exactly the territory (the environment or even ourselves). A really accurate map of the world, if you zoom in,  will have a little picture of the map itself. And then zoom into that picture ... and there's an infinite regression caused by self-reference. I guess approximation is the price we pay to avoid paradox, as the quantum physicists found out.

2.
When we go out for our daily walk allowance we see rainbows in the windows of local homes, drawn by children as a symbol of hope and solidarity to the community; now with teddy bears in the windows too. There was a rainbow I saw today with the message 'This too shall pass', it reminded me of a poem I read in a Unitarian publication a while ago. It's a message I try to remember whenever things look bleak; I could do with a ring like in the poem. But the one thing which doesn't pass is the present moment itself, which is eternal. Even though the millions of phenomena, processes, are passing through the here-&-now, the nowness itself is always present. At least, when I'm awake and conscious. I've just contradicted myself; here-&-now awareness comes and goes as I wake up and go to sleep. Is the present moment passing through all the phenomena, or the phenomena passing through the present moment? Or is this just another unnecessary duality? 

3.
My limited time commitment to my practice is my biggest limiting factor, I could get a lot more mileage out of another 30 mins or so sitting per day. I can't seem to follow meditation techniques very well, I start off ok for a few weeks then adapt it to my own version. Eg with the Spectrum Of Awareness,  I haven't even finished reading the book yet, but I am starting off, not with the recommended traditional concentration like mindfulness of breathing (which I prefer to do on its own), but just letting the monkey mind be for some time - like do nothing - until it resolves its restless chattering and settles down naturally. Then I seem in a better place to let go into (beingness) and broad deep awareness can appear; perhaps it's always present just in a subconscious layer I don't access very often. My quietly rebellious, non-conforming, even heretical, pattern is what has led me to broad-minded communities like Actualized and Unitarians, even though these are very different in other aspects.

[silene]

Sat 11-apr-20



Day 21. Tomato seedlings growing fairly quickly onto the true leaves now. It looks like I've sown them too thickly and I'll need to prick out soon before the roots get too entangled.

When I have a glimpse of mystical awareness, there's a temptation to make comparisons with 'regular' life, and generate dualities. Doing vs being, grasping vs letting go, emptiness vs fullness, spirituality vs materialism, that type of thing. Integration can mean finding a wholeness so that life doesn't start to feel split or compartmentalised by these dualities. I guess there's a cycle of integration and disintegration, coming together and falling apart - re Leo's video on Division vs Unity.  My inquiry is to see if the 'nowness' of the eternal present moment is one with the apparent flux of contents, or are the changing contents distinct and passing through, in time, as it were. Rather like the analogy of the eternal TV screen with its changing images. Is the present moment a point travelling through time, or is it the whole of time?

Being & becoming is a duality. Perhaps we can call it a meta-duality because 'being' is itself a nonduality formed from the collapse of the subject-&-object duality; being is another name (according to me) for the total unified eternal present here-&-now itself; becoming is the flux of changing processes/phenomena which are the fragmentary contents of being. What can I call it when this meta-duality collapses? Be(com)ing, be/com/ing perhaps. I'm basically looking for a vocabulary free of God-language, so I'm using this ontological (being) language instead. More importantly, how do I see, notice be(com)ing? I seem to flip between the duality of being & becoming; nondual and dual consciousness, and, as well as increasing my time in nondual mind (eg when meditating) I feel the next breakthrough could be entering a state beyond both (or combining) duality & nonduality, is there even such a thing, or am I merely creating intellectual philosophical abstractions?

Meditation practice has been slipping over the past few days due to it being the Easter holiday period: I seem to find it easier to keep my spiritual practice going when I have the structured routines of working life. But I have been practicing in other ways, such as mindful gardening in the unseasonably warm & dry weather at the moment. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by silene
Typo.

[silene]

I usually meditate at night, before bed, but today I had some spare time in the afternoon so I did 30 mins. The difference was I was aware of the daylight, my more actively thinking mind, and also the amount of caffeine in my system. I'm realising that I take too much caffeine and it's making me hyped up when I need to be more chilled. Reducing caffeine is one of my new year resolutions so I'm looking at ways to do that. I like tea & coffee so don't want to stop altogether, perhaps by having a time limit, 2 or 3 pm for my last cup, then have herb teas like my favourites camomile and fennel.

I'm having a mini crisis over Actualized's increasing tendency towards the use of psychedelics as a spiritual practice. Not just Leo but among the MCES forum too which is one of the ones I mostly visit (others are the Journals, SEGP and SEP. I've usually kept out of threads about psychedelics as it's not my path, respecting other people's choices (within the law of course) and not wishing to get involved in heated debates about it. But the centre of gravity seems to be shifting, and I am waiting to see if Leo keeps to his decision in the 'Outrageous Experiments' video to stay off his psychedelics.

I'm thinking there are (in simple terms) two strands to spirituality: moral/emotional development (Leo calls it emotional mastery) and mysticism (like nondual experiences).  Psychs appear to give a fast track to mysticism, but I'm not convinced they help so much with the moral/emotional side. Maybe I'm wrong as I've never tried psychs but it appears to me they can give an unbalanced approach if practiced by themself. I'm probably a bit puritanical, it all means I'm content with a slower path to mysticism if it means I'm also progressing on the emotional/moral side too. So I stick with things like meditation, yoga, nature & gardening.

This all means I'm debating whether to pause as an active forum member and just focus on my journal, giving more time to the other spiritual forums I belong to. Or will I stay here as a voice for non-drug mysticism. Maybe I will be labelled as unawakened etc, but then again I shouldn't predict people's reaction.

Tomato plants Friday 24-apr-20 (day 34). I potted onto separate pots, but only had room for 6 indoors, the rest are in the mini-greenhouse outside (and are smaller than these). Today (Sunday 25 April) I moved these 6 plants to join the others, as they are now getting big and leggy.  It's a waiting game (and guessing game) now for the last frost of Spring, which would kill them off if they aren't protected. I usually plant outdoors mid-late May.

Edited April 26, 2020 by silene
Fomat.

[Everyday]

1 hour ago, silene said:

Tomato plants Friday 24-apr-20 (day 34). I potted onto separate pots, but only had room for 6 indoors, the rest are in the mini-greenhouse outside (and are smaller than these). Today (Sunday 25 April) I moved these 6 plants to join the others, as they are now getting big and leggy.  It's a waiting game (and guessing game) now for the last frost of Spring, which would kill them off if they aren't protected. I usually plant outdoors mid-late May.

They look loved. 

 

[silene]

mon 1jun20.    Extract of one of my previous postings (15may20) copied here:

https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/48901-the-homosexual-talk-about-society-and-rights/?page=2

"In my experience of race, nowadays it is always self-selected with surveys and the like, you choose which 'race' you belong to from a list of tick boxes. The attempt to find biological evidence of race was a feature of the eugenics movement of the 20th century which was suspect to begin with and degenerated completely with the Nazis. In theory, now you can belong to whichever racial group you choose, or none (as I do). I have made a decision recently to refrain from assuming anyone else's racial identity without the other person stating it for themselves. "

Racial identity like all others I see to be relative, a product of circumstances, I want to start a campaign for a 'none' racial identity in the census. I especially take issue with the options put before me of white or black. There's a story about Peter Ustinov when asked about his colour at the border security (I think it was in South Africa). He said 'pink' which is not what they wanted - people should fit into one of the government pigeon holes not just make up their own category - even if it's much more accurate. I'm like that, there is no such thing as white or black skin, just varying shades of brown. Looking at it this way emphasises the relativity of skin colour (and by extension racial identity) and may help to bring us together; calling ourselves black or white is pushing us apart into opposites. What happens to mixed race people in that scenario?  Barak Obama for instance is still sometimes described as 'black' when his father was 'black' and his mother 'white' so perhaps he could be called 'grey'.  But I'll not do that, as I said earlier, race should be self-identified. This issue is once again a hot topic in the news over the death of a man from police restraint methods.

I'm currently reading 'The Zen Doctrine of No Mind' by DT Suzuki. The historical quotes about Hui-neng and others take a little getting used to; I have read about and practiced Zen before, but it has a certain style which I need to tune into, rather like reading Shakespeare or something from a different time or culture. But DT Suzuki's commentary (published in 1949) is easier going for me as an essentially 20th century person. One key phrase which keeps recurring is 'seeing into your self-nature' as the essence of Zen. Isn't this comparable to self-inquiry? Although Zen is a relatively pure path, it is still quite conservative - eg preferring to cling to Japanese culture and traditional anecdotes from hundreds of years ago - nothing wrong with that if it's what you want, but I am English and don't see the need to put on a veneer of Japaneseness for the sake of spirituality.

The tomatoes are progressing, I took these pics yesterday (day 71 or 10 weeks old). They've started flowering and side-shooting during May (they're outdoors), also we have strawberries ripening already which is a record in my memory.
 

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by silene
Formatting.

[silene]

Well it's ages since my last post. The strawberries are long since over and tomatoes all picked waiting for storing and preserving. I'll try and get a picture before the frost kills the plants off. 

I finished The Zen Doctrine Of No Mind and now reading Zen Mind Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki (no relation to DT Suzuki I don't think) also Life Spirit by David Usher. I don't normally read 2 spiritual books at once, but I've got a Life Spirit group discussion starting soon. 

I've still got the on-off meditation habit, had a lapse for a few days this is my main blockage at the moment. 

[silene]

Last pic of tomatoes before I cut them down. All picked and will die off when the frost comes   Life carries on through the seeds they've grown, if I sow them again next year but I will prob choose another variety.