Death and Resurrection

I remember, around the age five years old, walking through the dining room and thinking "I am, I exist--I could have not been at all! How tremendously lucky!" With this thought there was an awed respect for fate for somehow having procured my escape from non-consciousness.

Today, there is a sense that it is impossible that I could have not been. Even if this particular body had not been born in the physical world, I still would have been. Consciousness, life and existence are surely a miracle and a mystery, but I don't feel anymore that scared relief from having escaped the dungeons of oblivion, darkness, non-being; because, how can the clarity be dimmed, the void obliterated, the space closed off, my awareness not be? E.C. USA.

I encountered On Having No Head purely accidentally while on a kind of retreat in the mountains. I saw the point of some of the exercises, but still felt that there had to be more. This was in 1988. In 1989 I was consumed with the question of Who Dies? The problem was I knew the answers intellectually; perhaps even had a feel for what was being pointed to, but death and its fears still consumed me. In 1993 I re-read The Little Book of Life and Death, and BANG! How silly, no one to die! I then invited Douglas to South Africa where we had a wonderful and packed 18 days. K.P. South Africa

Dear R. Just after we were last in touch my father had a stroke and began the process of dying. I was away for a few weeks to be with him and my family. This concluded with his funeral.

I have wanted to tell you that being able to be headless at such a time was of immense assistance. I often spent time alone with my father while he was in hospice. It was clear that he was aware of things going on around him during the last few days of his life. His breathing would change when spoken to, etc. He could not speak or gesture, but by allowing myself to be "open space" there was a unity, peace and clarity to the situation. In a sense I felt that the most important and helpful thing I could do for my father was to be open space. I was able to be more present, alert and clear, and this allowed me to be more useful to my father and family, but I feel the benefits far exceeded anything outwardly tangible.

As I continue to explore this remarkable form of self inquiry I find myself avoiding thinking about it, explaining it (even to myself) or wondering about where it is all leading. It just feels right..

My sense of it, is that once one realizes one is not ultimately subject to death, to ageing, to any limitation or separation, that one is imbued with this amazing calm, peaceful, healing silence and stillness--one's whole attitude towards the experience of incarnation is changed from one of constant and changing anxiety to one of peace, understanding and happiness towards that constant and changing anxiety--in love and peace, B. U.S.A.

Hello everyone, I've been away for a long time. Last year was the most difficult one I've ever had to endure in terms of sheer physical discomfort. Also, I was professionally under the gun and, even worse, facing the prospect of losing someone very dear to me.

It seemed to me that physical pain and emotional pain presented unique difficulties. When they rose to a certain level and became chronic, it was almost impossible for me to say there's "pain there, to no pain here". It was so global—not at all like the finger pinching experiment where you can use the perception of distance as an aid.

I'd like someone who's been through a really bad time and managed to keep Seeing to tell me how you did it. I was not able to. W.

Hi W., I'm glad you are back, and I hope you are feeling better. I was wondering about you. I hadn't seen any posts. I was off too for a while.

Well both. Really hard times, (and it's relative no?) make it harder and easier to See. (My experience anyway.) Maybe not at the same time. :>)). (But "Seeing" isn't difficult or easy.)

Consider the possibility, that it's not the difficulty of the experience, (per se) that "makes" Seeing "easy or difficult". You know like that poem you might see on an old sampler, "One ship sails East, one sails West, while the selfsame winds doth blow, 'tis not the gales, but the set of the sails that determine the way they go."

That makes it sound like a "character thing" though, which it's not, unless hard times are what give characters their character. (You are both ships.)

Somebody once heard about a family of great "Seers" so he went to get some lessons. He asked the Mother, "Is Seeing difficult or easy?" She said, "It's the hardest thing in the world, like trying to thread a needle with a rope." He asked the Father, "Oh, it's the easiest thing, like falling out of bed in the morning after a good night's sleep." He asked the Son, "Sometimes it's difficult, sometimes it's easy, like a wild horse that has barely been tamed." He asked the Daughter. "Not difficult, not easy, on the tips of a thousand blades of grass, is the Patriarch's meaning."

I'd always heard that "God" would not give a person more than they can stand, and I have to say, speaking from personal experience, that that is bullshit. God, (or maybe it's middle management) gives people more than they can stand all the time. (The bleating of the "don't complainers" notwithstanding.)

But God does not give you more than you can survive. (Otherwise, you'd be dead, ha ha!) And eventually, God "pulls the plug". To make it even better, this God is You. You are That.

Well, here's what happens, (again, only by experience). After some period of time, (long after it is "impossible" to stand it for another minute), it becomes easy. And right around that time, or a little later, other people start feeling it when you are around, without your even saying anything, and connecting gets easier.

Living from That which is Seeing, takes a lifetime. The reward is indescribable. Seeing takes only a moment, the reward is indescribable. I think you know this.

You say you "were not able" to See. But Seeing is happening all along underneath and as it all, underneath, and as, whatever habitual awareness is going on, that and that and that, all of that is constantly happening in the field of Seeing. There is resistance, so Seeing isn't Seen, but you have never been anywhere else.

"Seeing" isn't different, isn't "special". It's just not making anything while awake. Then See.

"Seeing" is "getting rid of what you haven't got." Seeing is what already is if a person does not make any delusion, any thinking. Doesn't refer it to a "self". Then emptiness, so it "falls into the heart". Then anything is possible, Joy and Compassion can flower in an infinite empty space with nothing at the center. "Body and Mind have dropped off, dropped off, you really must experience this!"

How in the hell does that happen? (I have no goddam idea.) But it does happen. Sometimes from doing an exercise, sometimes by forgetting to think for a moment, sometimes by painting, physical exercise. Whatever. Sometimes from going through hard times.

And it is not dead emptiness, it is all of life.

We learn attachment to survive. So it is very difficult if someone we love as a special person is in danger. But it is possible to Love completely in the face of death. Then we live and die in each other, not separately.

One is only heartbreak. The other is Blissful Heartbreak. Much greater Pain, and much greater Bliss.

Somebody once went to a great great Master of Seeing, and presented some suffering, or some understanding or something. The Master said, "Sentient beings become deluded, and lose their way." So the guy got a little angry. "How about you Master? Do you ever lose your way?" So the Master said, "I almost don't lose my way."

Four horses, one runs at the shadow of the whip, one when it sees the whip, one when it feels the whip, and one when the pain of the whip reaches it's bones. A great Master of Seeing said, "The fourth horse is the best horse."

Why?

After the crucifixion, the resurrection.

Good to See you again. C.

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