Reflection 534

Welcome!

After the Crucifixion, the Resurrection

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. Chris.