Visible to the Naked Eye

“If the doors of perception were cleansed 

every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. 

For man has closed himself up, 

till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”
― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 

“Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child 

 -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

 ― Thich Nhat Hanh

 

I've been a Geek all my life.

As a kid, I was curious.  Extremely curious. I was fascinated by the critters, trees, flowers, rocks, winds, clouds, the moon, the stars.  I wanted to know the names of everything.   

I wanted to understand it all.

I loved the hands-on exploration of science and technology, too.  I wanted to know how it all worked. 

Whenever the opportunity presented itself, I took things apart to see how each part related to each other part.  I wanted to know how something did what it did. 

In elementary school, I found a discarded box camera in the alley, scurried home, and promptly took it apart.  I then wondered why the world looked upside down as I gazed through one of the lens.  So, I grabbed my science textbook and skipped ahead to the chapter on light.  Soon, I had figured out how to use two of the newly freed lenses, some cardboard and scotch tape to make a telescope. Then, each evening, I charted the position of Jupiter as it moved through the sky outside my bedroom window -- until another interest took center stage.  (I think it was baseball.)

Thankfully, I was usually acknowledged by various adults in my world for my zeal to learn.  

 

Yet, like many of us, my earliest perceptions of the spiritual dimension of life were not supported.  Instead, they were consistently ignored, dismissed -- or squashed.  In a society that mostly doesn't believe in the existence of a subtle realm of unseen, formless entities and energies, it seemed clear that my parents, foster parents, social workers, and teachers didn't seem to have a clue.

I suppose that should come as no surprise.  

 

The dominant culture in the western world has been immersed for centuries in a worldview increasingly shaped by capitalism and scientific materialism.  What has been presented as spirituality has been saturated with a distorted, often white supremacist, highly judgmental, dogmatic form of Christianity, relegated to horror stories about unseen malevolent spirits, or dismissed as mere superstition.   

 

The way most folks view and experience their lives has been shaped in the cauldron of these cultural forces.

 

Scientific materialism denied the existence of a spiritual dimension of life.  Capitalism presented the world as a competition among separate individuals over limited resources.  And, rather than support an exploration of the spiritual dimension that exists in the midst of each moment, Christianity taught that the primary spiritual goal was an eternal life in a Heaven that existed only for those who have died.  Furthermore, entering Heaven demanded conformity to a specific set of beliefs  -- and obedience to an authoritarian power structure that enforced a restrictive set of rules, sometimes violently.  (I attended Catholic school for five days before I bailed.) 

 

Even worse, perhaps, Christian Heaven was presented as an exclusive club -- reserved for members only.  According to the prevailing doctrine, the rest of humanity was doomed to spend an eternity in a cruel torture chamber called hell.  For some Christians this horrible fate included Christians from other denominations!

WTF?

 

As a kid, this version of a God of Love never made sense to me.  Yet, my heart was drawn to something.  I was drawn to something in early childhood at Passover Sedar as I gazed at the empty chair set for Elijah.  A few years later,  after my mother had converted to Catholicism, I felt something at the first Mass I attended.   Then, as the chaos of my childhood years continued, I felt something at the chapel services of the Baptist children's home and summer camp my younger siblings and I lived in.

 

Yet, there was an energy embedded in the belly of the Christianity I experienced in those settings that rang tilt.  The fire and brimstone Fall and Redemption focus of the gatherings didn't reflect the Love that I read that Jesus was teaching.  In fact, I came to think that Jesus would still be turning over in his grave at such blasphemous bullshit -- if only he had stayed there.

Beyond Belief

 

Now, at age 78, I'm still a Geek.  For more than half a century, I've focused a lot of time and attention on the exploration of the spiritual dimension of life.  Over the years this exploration of spirituality has included decades of meditation, time in residence at several spiritual communities and handfuls of intensive retreats with a number of teachers. 

 

I also continue to pour through volumes of the spiritual literature, humanistic psychology, philosophy, neuroscience and modern physics.  I've got stacks of books in various stages of reading, re-reading, and research notes strewn around my apartment.  When my eyes tire, the internet delivers dharma talks, interviews and discussions.

Perhaps, most importantly I've sustained a personal daily meditation practice for decades, and now meet with a small circle of kindred spirits for meditation and support every weekday morning on Zoom.

 

In doing so, I continue to make a committed effort to cleanse the doors of perception.  

 

I'm grateful to be able to say that I get at least a little taste of the open, spacious, miraculous nature of life most every day -- on and off the zafu.  When I remember to come into the present moment with an open heart and a clear mind, I am aware of an infinitely expansive dimension of being.   From what I've seen, it's clear, luminous, benevolent Presence embraces all that is, ever has been  -- and could possibly ever be.  In the vast expanse of open awareness, Reality asserts itself -- and it glows.  It's beyond belief.  

 

Contrary to what some folks say, you don't have to die to go to Heaven.  The Sacred exists right  here in our midst.  

 

Although I didn't have a way to express it, I sensed this as a kid.  (You probably did, too!)

(READ MORE)

Unless You Change and Become Like Children...

 

At this stage of the journey my memory cells don't always deliver the goods, yet there are two events in my childhood that remain quite vivid when I cast my attention in their direction.  They both helped form my own personal version of the Fall. 

 

The first occurred when I was six or seven years old.

 

Unlike the world today, in that era most children were allowed to wander around outdoors during the day to investigate the world and play.  My mom had just been released from Chicago State Mental Hospital -- yet again -- and my two younger siblings and I  moved to live with her in a hotel alongside the Illinois Central Railroad tracks in Chicago Heights, IL. 

 

It was a beautiful sun sparkler of a late spring day.  Out to explore the world, I had wandered into the middle class neighborhood nearby.  Unlike the downtown city blocks that were dominated by concrete and brick buildings, brightly painted houses and well manicured lawns prevailed.  After a time, I came across a patch of dandelions glowing in the sunlight along the sidewalk.  

 

They stopped me in my tracks. 

 

With picture perfect white clouds overhead parading through a vivid blue sky, I was spellbound. The array of yellow-gold blossoms was dazzling! Immersed in the miracle of life just being life, time became irrelevant.  I don't know how long I stood there.

 

Then, with childlike enthusiasm, I seized the opportunity to add my own creative energy to Nature's magic.  I picked a few of the gray-haired, elder dandelions, and breathed the seeds into flight.  Silver spaceships in the sun, they glistened in the arms of the gentle, warm, breeze.

 

I was in utter Delight, awash in the Beauty of existence.

 

Then, with a thunderous roar, a very angry man exploded out of the front door of the house.  Red-faced, he charged down the sidewalk screaming at me for "destroying" his lawn!

 

My heart fell.  In an instant, Heaven was transformed into Hell.  

 

Frightened, and confused,  I apologized and quickly retreated.  As I remember it now, it was my first inkling that belief structures held such power.  He and I appeared to live in different realities. Since the man was a stranger to me, though, I was able to write him off as just being seriously mistaken about dandelions. 

The second event occurred the following year.  Since it involved my mother, it had a more powerful effect on me.

 

I had slept in on a Saturday morning.  Without school tying my day to the hands of a clock, time had dissolved in the Timeless.  There was no place to go.  Nothing to do. 

 

I sat on the edge of my bed, gazing in wonder at a stream of dust motes dancing through the brilliant shaft of sunlight that had eluded the lowered shade.  The world was alive with the spectacle of countless mini-shooting stars bursting into brilliance, then disappearing from view.  I don't know how long I sat there, wide-eyed, enthralled.   My eyes and heart and soul were swept up in a “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,” miraculous light show.

 

Then, my mom burst through the door --  and barked, 

"Don't stare!" 

 

My heart sank.

Crestfallen, I felt that I'd done something terribly wrong. In the blink of an eye, I descended from the grandeur and amazement of directly experiencing the sacred beauty of existence into the body and mind of an eight year old child experiencing fear and shame.  Paradise lost, the Miraculous receded from view.

In a chaotic childhood full of abuse and abandonment, my interactions with the world of adult humans continued to tie me up in knots.  My eyes tended, more and more, to scan for danger, not beauty. The events of my childhood created a layer of armor over my tender and gentle heart.  This hardened heart became part of the wounded ego structure that created my view of myself and the world. 

And Then

I didn't get another glimpse of the Sacred until I was a senior in college in the spring of 1968.   And, of course, in that era a certain "herbal medicine" was involved.

 

My second experience with marijuana had swept me outdoors about midnight to take a solitary walk around the hilltop campus of the small liberal arts college in Iowa that I attended.  A few years before the Dutch Elm disease would emerge to sweep them away, ancient and stately Elm trees were a prominent feature of the landscape.  

 

At a certain point, I stopped to gaze at one of them.  I think it was the first time I was actually able to SEE a tree since I was a child.

 

In the moonlight,  the silent and boundless beauty of this "ordinary" tree (one that I had passed by daily for years,) became extraordinary.  I was awestruck by its Presence.  Then, as I stood there in wonder, my awareness expanded and everything became extraordinary.  I was aware that Life itself was infinitely expansive, sacred, imbued with a profound sense of miracle and mystery.  

 

Sitting here now, I feel the same Presence. (If this is a drug flashback, I'll take it. LOL)

 

Of course, the argument is made in certain quarters that drug-induced altered states can not be trusted in the quest to directly perceive Reality.  At this stage of the journey, I don't believe that is true, but the various religious prohibitions on 'intoxicants" is perhaps a reason my curiosity led me to explore Hatha Yoga as a spiritual practice.

 

Unlike today, in the early 1970's, there weren't many yoga studios or classes outside of the major cities.  Living in small towns in Iowa and Illinois, the only guidance I had was in books and public television's "Lilias, Yoga, and You" viewed on a tiny black and white television.  

 

I'd been practicing for about a year when I saw A Guide to Yoga Meditation by Richard Hittleman at a bookstore during a trip to Chicago.  I bought it, drove home, and poured through it in a single sitting.  Then, after my wife had gone to bed, I re-read  the instructions on candle meditation, fired up a candle in the living room, and sat down. 

 

I don't know how long I was sitting there concentrating my attention on the flame, but at a certain point there was an powerful change in the quality of my awareness.  It was like someone threw a switch.  My "point of view" expanded.  The boundary between inner and outer dissolved.  I could actually feel the flickering of the candle inside my body and mind.  In those moments, in childlike wonder, I felt the Presence of the Sacred once again.

 

This experience convinced me that I should probably begin a serious meditation practice. 

I'm glad I did. 

 

These days, I Simply Sit Still, usually with eyes open, by myself for a fifty minute hour every morning.  When the weather permits,  I often do this outdoors at daybreak.

 

Then, on weekday mornings,  I meditate a bit more, practice mindful movement, and compare notes with a small group of kindred spirits on Zoom. 

 

Having experienced the value of more extensive periods of silent practice,  I also host a daylong  meditation retreat once a month at a local yoga studio.  For years now, I usually do a three day personal fasting retreat at least once or twice a year.   Sometimes, I'm lucky enough to Sit  for a day or two during monthly sesshin with my old buddhies at Valley Zendo.

So, these days, I simply sit still and be quiet -- a lot.

 

To be honest, though, I don't think that all this Sitting is a sign of an "advanced" practice. With my childhood history and my acute sensitivity to the collective unconscious, I really need it.  It takes time to slooow down, relax my body and breath, clear my mind, and  allow my heart to open.  It takes time to enter into the timeless reality glowing in each moment.

 

At this stage of the journey, I've long discarded the goal of attaining a state of "perfect eternal bliss."  There are subconscious knots and aversive energies that will  still emerge from my own personal conditioning.  And beyond that, the collective unconscious in this era is rife with dark and violent energies.  With Practice, I have learned to embrace the gamut of what may appear in my heart and mind with kindness and compassion.  (Tonglen Meditation, as presented by Pema Chodron and others, continues to be incredibly helpful.)   I'm grateful to say that I can now navigate my life with an open heart and clear mind --  much of the time.

 

For sure, I still collapse into old patterns all too often.  Yet, although I may have a "bad day" once in while,  a daily meditation practice continues to provide enough "presence of mind" to  notice the emergence of reactive negative energy pretty quickly.   With consistent Practice woven into my daily life, I can usually return to my breath, relax my body and mind,  and readily return to engage life wholeheartedly.

When I do, the One Love has my back.  Infinity is visible to the naked eye.

 

It just takes Practice.  

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