Thank you for this article. After I finished reading, I contemplated what it spoke to me. I realized it points me to my present experience, which, like all of life, is impossible once examined closely. If everything arises within and between relationships, what actually exists, if anything?
When I connect with my present experience, with it's visual scene (a keyboard, a laptop monitor, my living room, etc), the physical sensations, the sounds, smells, thoughts I have, emotions that arise, I realize that experiences seem impossible. When do they begin? When do they end? What are they? As we inquire into them, they disappear. So where and how do they exist?
It should be impossible that anything exists, but I think you and I can agree that it does...or does it? I prefer to walk through life in the space between and around existence and non-existence, which I think is similar to what you are pointing to in your article, coming closer and closer to the reality of experience in every moment.
Thank you for this inquiry, it brings me to a place I love, delighting once again in the miracle of life.
Yes! I notice these last years that I have a visceral, lived experiences of paradoxes and finding that as I investigate one half of the paradox pairing, each makes the other more alive.
The more I know a coastline to be edgeless, the more alive and beautiful and mystical the singularities of pebbles, ocean, sand, creatures, tides become to me. The more I know myself to be more-than-human, made up of ever shifting relationships, the more my sense of myself becomes grounded. I find it wonderfully strange that when I looked to be more than just a human having a human experience, through meditation or spirituality, I was just lost. The more that I look to be closer to myself as a human, in this human experience, grounding myself in my life and my experiences, and place, and time, and relationships, the more expansive my experience becomes.
I also notice that it's possible - and I find, I want to - to be in the mystery you so gorgeously describe and be in the practical too. In the facilitation pods, it's been fascinating to find that we can take one experience one of us has had and investigate it together through self- and shared-enquiry. And when we do this, we can discover horizontal and vertical relationships and threads and imprints that were activating and activated within just this one experience. And we leave each call with so much insight that we can then apply to our work, but also a new insight into who we are as people.
Yes to this: "The more that I look to be closer to myself as a human, in this human experience, grounding myself in my life and my experiences, and place, and time, and relationships, the more expansive my experience becomes."
How and why has it happened that in our religion and spirituality, we are led away from deep grounding in our experience to pursue some other more desirable state of consciousness or experience?
Similarly, we are taught to look for our fulfillment from other sources than from deep and supportive relationships with our own selves and the people in our circle of care. However, like you point out, when we instead focus these relationships and what is actually possible to access and contribute to each other, it's truly amazing what emerges. My life has become richer and more abundant since I have started focusing on intentionally developing mutually supportive relationships with myself and others, including the beyond human world.
Thank you for this article. After I finished reading, I contemplated what it spoke to me. I realized it points me to my present experience, which, like all of life, is impossible once examined closely. If everything arises within and between relationships, what actually exists, if anything?
When I connect with my present experience, with it's visual scene (a keyboard, a laptop monitor, my living room, etc), the physical sensations, the sounds, smells, thoughts I have, emotions that arise, I realize that experiences seem impossible. When do they begin? When do they end? What are they? As we inquire into them, they disappear. So where and how do they exist?
The entire universe is like that. The coastline paradox points to this (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-its-impossible-to-know-a-coastlines-true-length).
It should be impossible that anything exists, but I think you and I can agree that it does...or does it? I prefer to walk through life in the space between and around existence and non-existence, which I think is similar to what you are pointing to in your article, coming closer and closer to the reality of experience in every moment.
Thank you for this inquiry, it brings me to a place I love, delighting once again in the miracle of life.
Yes! I notice these last years that I have a visceral, lived experiences of paradoxes and finding that as I investigate one half of the paradox pairing, each makes the other more alive.
The more I know a coastline to be edgeless, the more alive and beautiful and mystical the singularities of pebbles, ocean, sand, creatures, tides become to me. The more I know myself to be more-than-human, made up of ever shifting relationships, the more my sense of myself becomes grounded. I find it wonderfully strange that when I looked to be more than just a human having a human experience, through meditation or spirituality, I was just lost. The more that I look to be closer to myself as a human, in this human experience, grounding myself in my life and my experiences, and place, and time, and relationships, the more expansive my experience becomes.
I also notice that it's possible - and I find, I want to - to be in the mystery you so gorgeously describe and be in the practical too. In the facilitation pods, it's been fascinating to find that we can take one experience one of us has had and investigate it together through self- and shared-enquiry. And when we do this, we can discover horizontal and vertical relationships and threads and imprints that were activating and activated within just this one experience. And we leave each call with so much insight that we can then apply to our work, but also a new insight into who we are as people.
Yes to this: "The more that I look to be closer to myself as a human, in this human experience, grounding myself in my life and my experiences, and place, and time, and relationships, the more expansive my experience becomes."
How and why has it happened that in our religion and spirituality, we are led away from deep grounding in our experience to pursue some other more desirable state of consciousness or experience?
Similarly, we are taught to look for our fulfillment from other sources than from deep and supportive relationships with our own selves and the people in our circle of care. However, like you point out, when we instead focus these relationships and what is actually possible to access and contribute to each other, it's truly amazing what emerges. My life has become richer and more abundant since I have started focusing on intentionally developing mutually supportive relationships with myself and others, including the beyond human world.
Really enjoyed that Anna-Marie
I'm so glad! Thank you, Richard.