Tag: focusing

Patience and Seeing

On October 7, 2017

In Focusing, Gendlin, Inquiry, Mindfulness, Poetry, Positivity, Radiant Citta

I intended today to write about regret; but in the early afternoon, I gathered my materials together and I painted. At first the process felt a little mechanical, but very soon I found myself absorbed.

Amongst the interesting things I did was to make up a yucky mix that worked perfectly for the red eucalyptus stems in the painting. How does that happen? It looked awful as I mixed it, but I knew it was right; and it worked well, enlivening the whole canvas. I was now engaged, and seeing colours that were mysterious – like the blues which I invited into the black in the setting.

After I’ve painted, I find I’m sensitive to colours everywhere I go. Suddenly the rock-faces hereabouts turn up colours which I don’t usually see. The forests are showing a myriad of subtle greens, and tender reds in those same greens. The way the sunlight plays on the sandstone cliffs at sunset is fresh to me.

As I walked back to the house, from my studio, awake to the unfathomable being of the world, something rose up in me: a felt sense without words.

Going inside the house, I made a cup of tea, and sat down to invite that sense, to ‘say hello’ to, that ‘sense of something.’ Like all felt meanings, it was murky at first. It’s the kind of thing that, if I didn’t know better, I might say was ‘nothing,’ or at least unpromising. It could easily be dismissed by someone not familiar with what Eugene Gendlin calls ‘a felt sense.’ Or, if such a one could at least respect it, they might be satisfied with calling it ‘mysterious’ or ‘ineffable,’ and enquire no further.

However, sitting alongside it, giving it some space and some kindly attention, in the way that I’ve learnt and practised over several decades, more could come there. Like a shy fawn, it could only peek out at first, but then come into view. The poet Ted Hughes has a piece called The Thought Fox that suggests the cautious, even wary, way a felt meaning emerges.

That’s why Gendlin called his practice Focusing – because when we give it the right kind of attention, this vague ‘something’ in the middle of the body goes from murky to clear (as when in the old SLR cameras the frosty circle of the centre of the lens went from blurry to clear when you got the correct focus.)

So, now, what came clear was an understanding which I haven’t been confident about, hitherto. It was this: what I had just been immersed in for that period, breathing in and out, painting, was an introduction to the radiance of being as it exists in my own body. It was revealed through the art of seeing. And, then I recalled that the artist Brett Whitely had once said that the only reason to paint is to learn to see.

I now had the words for the experience which occurred immediately after the painting session. “Radiance.” As I had come away from the studio, the radiance everywhere was intense. In one sense it dissolved all differences, revealing a deeper unity through the very ordinary miracle of seeing.

On the other hand, the radiance shone – from the inside out – in every leaf, every grass-blade, and even in the buildings about me. The pittosporum as I passed it; the concrete path where I walked; the tangled jasmine in the corner, the rough steps into the house were luminous.

I had intended to write something about ‘regret’: about the harmful things I’ve done, the hurts I’ve caused which I regret the most. Instead, I find myself back at the easel, marvelling at the black with phthalo blue, painted over a green-black underlay — at how the purples peek through, in the afternoon light. And, those tiny, yellow spots in the eucalyptus leaves. The red line around that edge, there.

Seeing is for developing the heart. It would also be strong, my regret, if I arrived at the end of my life without having learnt to sense the wonder of the ordinary. All my learnèd philosophy would have been just empty naming, if I hadn’t embodied it, thus to see the world afresh.

When I look carefully
I see the nazuna blooming
By the hedge!

– Basho, trans. D.T. Suzuki (Japanese ‘nazuna’ could be translated ‘shepherd’s purse.’)

Thinking from Interdependence

By admin

On May 11, 2016

In Body, Enquiry, Focusing, Mindfulness, Positivity, Practices

“All relationships, attitudes, and situations can keep us prisoner in a cycle of suffering if we apprehend them unwisely (ayoniso manasikāra). On the other hand, any situation can also act as a springboard toward liberation if it is considered wisely. Thus it is not the people, things, and situations that we get involved with that are responsible for whether we suffer or make progress on the path of liberation. Rather it is the way we deal with them, the way we apprehend them that is responsible.” – Mirko Fryba (1989), The Art of Happiness: Teachings of Buddhist Psychology.

I have been articulating a process understanding of yoniso manasikāra; one which will point us back to our ‘ancestral field,’ back to our present-moment combodied experience.

I first came on the term yoniso manasikāra in Myrko Fryba’s The Art of Happiness: Teachings of Buddhist Psychology. This book is a detailed study of a therapeutic application of mindfulness, presenting Fryba’s ‘Satitherapy’ (literally, Mindfulness Therapy). Fryba was a pioneer of mindfulness-based psychotherapy. (The more recent editions are titled The Practice of Happiness: Exercises and Techniques for Developing Mindfulness Wisdom and Joy.)

We can build on Fryba’s presentation by making the body more central to the vision. So, adopting Blanchard’s and Gombrich’s thinking (that yoniso manasikāra means ‘making in the mind according to origin), but with a slightly different emphasis inspired by Gendlin, I translate yoniso manasikāra as: forming our mind by resonating with the matrix.

This is not as mysterious as it sounds. It means forming out mind by checking with our sense of the whole; thinking from our bodily-felt situation, freshly ground our knowing and our thinking. We can ponder whatever needs to be pondered, by zig-zagging between the old terms and our open, unbounded, bodily-felt sense of the situations (or topics we engage with).

If we think from what is not yet a content, from the ‘interdependent whole,’ the result will be: novel uses for words or phrases; and, where old terms don’t work any longer, entirely new words and phrases. Fresh perspectives can be applied to previous work in the field.

The difficulty with many expositions of the practice of mindfulness and of the way of freedom is that they tell us what is to be done, point us in the direction of the practices, but don’t articulate the ‘how’ precisely enough. I believe that practitioners can be given more concrete support to find the way to a revolution at the base of consciousness, by training attention more precisely.

Mirko Fryba: “Repeated thorough apprehension of situations, repeated direction of the attention onto the pathways that lead out of unpleasant experience, and repeated attentiveness to the good—these are important principles of liberational mind-training in general and of wise apprehension (yoniso manasikāra) in particular. Through repetition we make ourselves familiar with what is worthy of attention and make ourselves better able to penetrate the important aspects of reality.”

Now we can add: “…by attending to the bodily-felt sense of situations.” Practitioners have been trusting their felt sense, in an ad hoc way, for centuries. Not all bodies are alike, though, and only some will be skilled at accessing the felt sense. But, what is wise attention, if we don’t include the bodily-felt root of our contemplating?

Whence does wise pondering arise, but from a ‘felt sense,’ the direct referent of our speaking and thinking? It doesn’t arise in a vacuum. (See Gendlin, Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning).

One day I saw a very experienced Vipassana teacher pause and sense into his body, as he looked for the right words to say what he was experiencing, and what he wanted to convey. I recognised that glance inward, and so I asked him, “What do you call what you did, just then?” His answer was: ‘Wisdom. Paññā.’

Pausing, sensing inwardly, finding the right words, resonating the words against the feel of that place in you, sensing the rightness, and receiving what comes next as a result. All this is yoniso manasikāra – bringing one’s mind into accord with the matrix.

The womb which generates grounded thinking is found in/though/as the experiencing body. This is an important reason why we practice mindfulness of the body – to touch directly the implicit ‘more’ which is found in the changing flow of present moment experience – here we find the matrix for grounded enquiry.

“The energy or the “material” out of which life situations are created is already present, but the frame of reference or “form” in which they are cast is a matter of choice. The frame of reference is determined by the matrix (yoni). The technique of choosing and applying a particular yoni, which is called yoniso manasikāra, or wise apprehension, is the foundation of all liberational strategies.” – Mirko Fryba (1989), The Art of Happiness: Teachings of Buddhist Psychology.

By admin

On May 1, 2016

In Body, Enquiry, Focusing, Meditation, Mindfulness, Positivity, Practices, Radiant Citta

You’ll notice that in this project, that I will – on the basis of a particular experience and theory of language-use – use words that are commonly thought of as ‘metaphysical.’ Some modern Buddhist writers have an apoplectic reaction, when they see the phrase ‘’the deathless.’ And, they reject words like ‘transcendent,’ out of hand. These are words which, nevertheless, point to experiences.

I have no doubt that any word can be helpful when used by one person, and misleading when used by another. The difference will be in how the user grounds the use of the word. Does the speaker, in mindful presence, say ‘transcendent’ or ‘deathless’ while basing their word-use in present-moment, felt experience? Or, do they speak only through theory, or only supported by some unexamined opinion? There’s a big difference.

Because a fellow practitioner of meditation has asked me to share how I conducted my mind during the time I was in hospital for my cancer operation, I’ll mention one such experience and the practices which supported its arising, and say that we need a language to describe the beyond-normal experiences.

I was in hospital, and being present for my experiences in my usual way during this crisis, at times I naturally saw deeply into the dynamics and qualities of my arisen mind-states. I dis-identified with many a temporary perception or thought, because such identifications only obscure the present. I didn’t want to waste the opportunity with selfish mind-states.

Being under the threat of death, and being cared for by the hospital staff, I naturally entered into varying degrees of spacious stillness. Identifying grasping states, and not supporting them, meant that I sometimes experienced, instead, a wonderfully luminous openness, a non-reactive state, which remained when the habits dropped away.

When I shared what I experienced, a friend said that I was being ‘metaphysical.’ To me, I was just choosing my words to fit my experiences; and so, if that’s what metaphysical language can do, then well and good. Some of these experiences were the natural outcome of years of meditative practice; and some of it I specifically invited, with the practice of particular exercises.

For example, in normal times, if I seem to be dull, or dissociated, I can either engage with the dull state, to see what benefit I can find in it – what gems can be extracted from the ore. Or else, I can simply invite a non-distracted state, and simply rest in that. To do this I sometimes combine Voice Dialogue, Focusing, and readily-available tantric methods. Different approaches, for different times, according to need.

In hospital, with much going on – the coming and going of nurses, the voices in the hall, the lights always on, sleeplessness from the pain of my body – with so much happening, the ‘resting in spacious, non-dual awareness’ approach was more helpful to me, and so I chose to ‘cut through’ the contracted states of mind.

I would rest my attention in my whole-body breathing, and invite a state of pure consciousness, and, as a result, I would sometimes know the presence of pure awareness. (These two are different, the latter being more fundamental.)

One experiment which I did in hospital was to say to myself: “Let me speak to the one who is in a pure land, with radiant beings all around.” Then I answered myself: “I am the one who is in a pure land, with radiant beings all around.” (This is a Voice Dialogue kind of move.)

Then, I would bring my attention into my body, and allow the changes which came there, in response. I would name the changes brought about by the naming – including the pain – and I would resonate the words against my felt experience, just to make sure I had the right words to say it. (This is mindfulness and Focusing).

Sometimes, I could purposefully expand some of these changes, if needed (which I learned from Tarthang Tulku’s Kum Nye exercises.) For instance, if a feeling of bliss arose (despite the body’s condition), I could spread that bliss throughout the body, making it feel a lot better.

And, sometimes, there it was – a state people call ‘transcendent’! I was aware of a non-conceptual, purposeless, peaceful ground; a mind like space, without object, luminous and boundless all round. Then, in this naked awareness, I had an appreciation of this body and its trauma. It was a very clear, and caring space.

Furthermore, I spontaneously had a warm appreciation of these radiant humans working on the wards. I sensed the texture of beingness which was there in them, too – which was them. Such beauty, whatever the state of mind with which they were identified. Whether they were harried or bossy, or patient and loving – I could see their radiance.

At that time, through the radiance of my own mind, I knew the others about me had that, too. I had such compassion for them. If this is called mystical, then that’s just fine by me. Give me Meister Eckhart over Martin Heidegger, anytime.

What is it about us, which makes this possible? In the first place, I recognised that my mind was doing a projecting job, and I decided not to be fooled by it. Mindfulness and clear comprehension. I then took charge of my own mind, rather than leave it to my thoughts and emotions. Directed thought.

I invited an unusual (non-conventional) openness toward my experience, including toward the reactivity. Focusing, and Voice Dialogue. I invited the kind of openness taught by meditation teachers over the centuries. Most times this resulted in states of collected, luminous presence; but, occasionally a more profound dimension of reality was available: the deathless element. This can’t be invited, exactly, but it can be known, all being well, from a state which has been invited.

However, most of all, I trusted my deeper natural capacity for unconditional, boundless openness in that situation. It is this which makes peace in adversity possible. We can turn in that direction. I should say, by the way, that the ‘pure land’ concept, which I used in this particular exercise, points to nothing but one’s own natural clear functioning, unobscured by the ego’s limited purview.

The limited view of the egoistic ‘me’ wasn’t helpful; and those circumstances weren’t conducive to doing inner work of the more emotional-psychological variety (though it naturally happened, in some measure, because with spaciousness, insights into reality and mind naturally arose). So, in that situation I mostly chose to cut through to boundlessness. It does, of course, help that, through inner work at other times, in more congenial circumstances, I had experienced such boundlessness. That makes it easier to recognise, when it arises.

I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity, here, to share that process, but my point is that there are non-conceptual realities – realities not dependent on thinking – which deserve a language different to that which we use for whatever has the property of transience, or ‘coming and going.’ ‘Deathless’ is such a word.

Oh, Hello, Papañca.

By admin

On October 19, 2015

In Body, Focusing, Mindfulness, Practices

It’s one of the toughest things about the human mind, that we regularly think, say and do on the basis of motivations that are unconscious to us. In the classic Buddhist approach a typical scenario goes something like this: I encounter a situation – let’s say, it’s illness. And, just when my body most needs my positivity (which would support my immune system, and help me find a solution), instead I am angry that I am ill. I despair that I am ill. Or, I see it as proof that I’m weak, useless, and ill-fated. Whatever – I, the human being, add unnecessary suffering to the suffering that I already have. Our personalities – especially our inner judge – might think that it is somehow doing us good, dumping all this negativity on ourselves, but it’s just dividing us. It’s, in early Buddhist terms, just ‘papañca,’ not wisdom. Freedom is nippapañca, the absence of reactivity. That’s synonymous with nibbana.

My analysis of the root meaning of the word papañca, is that it has two aspects. One is ‘conceptual proliferation.’ The other is ‘manifoldness.’ At this time, I’ll talk about the proliferation aspect, the ‘spinning out.’ It works, like this: I’m in trouble. That is, the basic trouble is that I’m unwell. At this stage, it’s just ‘body trouble.’ In reaction to this, though, I spin out with lots of irrelevant emotionality. I don’t recognise it as that. I think I’m talking truth. At this stage, I’m unconscious of what I’m doing, though, because I’m identified with a pattern of resistance to my ill health. “I shouldn’t be ill.” “I never used to be ill.” “What will others think of me.” “My partner will hate this – I’m ill again.” “My mother will criticize me, about my diet.” We might fall into “if only” mind. “If only I wasn’t ill! Now I can’t go to the class tomorrow! It’s not fair.” “If only I didn’t have this, I could be the best in the state!” “I could be…”

In this respect, it’s easy to see that papañca is reactivity. And, it thrives on our being unconscious of the delusion aspect of what we’re thinking. It’s irrelevant to the task at hand – which is to find the next step to take care of my health; or, if I’ve already done what I can, to hold my condition in compassionate awareness. Why compassionate awareness? Because on the one hand, that is healthier – that’s one thing, But, also because to be compassionate with difficulties is to optimise a pleasant in-dwelling. In other words, if the body is in trouble, why throw inner peace and insight out the window? It’s a waste of the precious energy I have available.

So, in reactivity I’m simply thirsting for things to be some other way, compared to my present functioning of my five sentient processes (form, feeling-tones, perceptions, fashioning factors, and consciousness) – some other way that I think they could be or should be. This is based on comparison to something that’s already in the library – the known. If I actually have the present moment’s fresh reality – an ill body in this precious now – I might have to face not knowing. We need the not knowing to discover our next step. However, in reactivity, papañca obscures my most precious asset – my capacity of grounding my mind in freshly unfolding actual experience.

So, what do we do, given that this is rolling on unconsciously, and seemingly relentlessly? Be assured, a gap will come, and when it comes, there’ll be a way to weaken the pattern. At some stage, the process of reactivity exhausts its energy. It’s like an arrow fired into the air. It has momentum for a while, but sooner or l ater, it exhausts the energy that it had in the beginning, and it falls to the earth. A gap comes in our reactivity, a pause, and we wake up: “Oh, dear. What’s giving me more trouble, right now? My illness or my reactivity?” This pause comes sooner, more often, and for longer, the more we practise mindfulness and/or Focusing. And, in the gap we can recollect our deeper and truer purposes, which gives us extra strength in the gap. Am I here to continue the species habit, or to contribute fresh ways to be in the world?

Now, here’s the wonderful thing: the body is the already on-going process, when a gap in a non-grounded process like papañca occurs. That is, the body is the always on-going process, and when the gap occurs, you can come back to the body, and feel the effects in the body, and find the way forward. Papañca is just repetitive, isn’t it? One feels trapped by it.

However, there in the gap, we can return to mindfulness of the body, right there, and recollect our skilful means. I can notice my breathing. Include my breathing in my awareness, even if it’s part of the illness. I breathe with the whole body; or, be aware of the whole body. Then I can name what’s been going on, and that starts a different relationship with papañca. Instead of being identified with it, it can be: “Oh, hello, Papañca. Fancy seeing you, here.”

Out of Compassion for the Affliction in the World

By admin

On August 3, 2015

In Focusing, Meditation, Mindfulness, Practices

I have encountered a very touching passage this morning, about the awakening of compassion. I was led by the scholar-practitioner in me to read Bhikkhu Anālayo’s latest book Compassion and Emptiness in Early Buddhist Meditation. I’m relaxing in a cafe in Balmain, in Sydney, having breakfast, after teaching a workshop for two days, sharing Focusing with nine precious people.

Anālayo’s book is not a beginner’s book; but is valuable for committed meditators (as was his detailed study of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta). And, I’m moved by a passage in which Anālayo quotes the Sakyamuni Buddha of the Chinese Agamas (and he says there is a parallel sutta in the Pāli Anguttara Nikaya. For those of you who love the Pāli Nikayas, it’s at: AN 4.186/AN II 178,27 [translated Bodhi 2012: 555]) The Sakyamuni Buddha is, in this sutta, represented contrasting penetrative wisdom and vast wisdom.

This may not be directly a post about dying. I’ll praise the practice of Focusing and its associated Philosophy of the Implicit, as well as refer to compassion in Buddhist meditation. Focusing and the Philosophy of the Implicit are definitely relevant to any deep exploration of dying and death. And, of course, the qualities of heart fostered in Focusing practice include and result in compassion. So, all this gives some of the context for why I am particularly moved this morning, by the Anālayo passage. The ten of us over the weekend, were exploring being here. We did that for the benefit of each of us there in the workshop, but also for circle upon circle of beings radiating out from our activities. More than one person there spoke of the healing occurring.

It was one of the most satisfying workshop experiences that I have had, from another standpoint, too. I finally – after more than fifteen years of teaching Focusing workshops – I finally taught my own workshop. I’ve been teaching Focusing from a pattern learned from my trainers, which has worked well enough; but this was very different. I think I have absorbed Prof Eugene T. Gendlin’s book A Process Model sufficiently during the last decade, that now I can truly teach Focusing informed by the philosophy that goes with it. It’s curious, how I can teach something developed by another, by Gendlin, and now know I am teaching authentically? How does that work? I can feel the next step would be to invite the love that comes, when I ask that question. However…. that would be another whole post, wouldn’t it? One about authenticity. Worth exploring some day, but now I’m talking about compassion.

I was moved by the courage of my workshop participants, and by their love of what is true and compassionate in this torn world. There was, in us all, a high level of interest in true experiencing and the welfare of the many.

So, now, to the passage that moved me. It mentions ‘dukkha.’ For those of you who don’t know what dukkha means, I suggest that you think of it as ‘skewiffness.’ It’s that quality of human life where you sense that somehow there’s a whole lot of suffering – in everyone’s life – that doesn’t appear to be necessary. It’s not just pain – like, I’m not talking, here, about my disintegrating hip; or, my post-viral chronic illness – but it is, at root, the sense that something in us is out of kilter. If you’ve touched that sense, you’re on track. The feeling is endemic in the species. It’s a form of disharmony that is produced by wrong inner vision. Now, here’s the passage that moved me:

:If … one has heard that “this is dukkha” and through wisdom moreover rightly sees dukkha as it really is; [if] one has heard of “the arising of dukkha”… “the cessation of dukkha”… “the path to the cessation of dukkha”, and with wisdom moreover rightly sees the path to the cessation of dukkha as it really is; then in this way … one is learned with penetrative wisdom …

My understanding of that fourth reality – ‘This is the path leading to cessation – is a little different. I accept this ‘path-to’ translation as useful, but personally, I’ve resolved the Nikaya’s presentation of human freedom a little differently. I propose, instead, that the path and the cessation are not two. I take a ‘path-as’ view. So, for me, there are four ennobling realities, which are:

1) there is disharmony; 2) there is a cause of the disharmony; 3) there is the cessation of the cause of disharmony; and, 4) there is the path which is the cessation of the cause.

So, if one has heard this teaching, and has become involved the tasks that correspond with each of these realities, and has seen the realities rightly, then one is ‘one of penetrative wisdom.’ However, the Agama (Sakyamuni) Buddha goes further, to indicate the possibility of a territory called “vast wisdom”:

If … one does not think of harming oneself, does not think of harming others, does not think of harming both; and instead … one thinks of benefiting oneself and benefiting others, benefiting many people out of compassion for the affliction in the world, seeking what is meaningful and of benefit for devas and humans, seeking their ease and happiness; then in this way … one is bright, intelligent, and with vast wisdom.”

Gendlin’s Focusing (when taught with the Philosophy of the Implicit) is vast wisdom. It is a complete practice of self-knowledge. And it’s a practice of non-harm, and of benefit for all beings. I presented Focusing, over this last weekend, as a full path in its own right, grounded in Gendlin’s Philosophy of the Implicit. It has been created and propagated for the benefit of the world. Focusing doesn’t belong to anyone. It doesn’t belong to psychotherapists, artists, school teachers, architects, or peace-makers – all of whom use it. It is human.

By practising Focusing, “one does not think of harming oneself, does not think of harming others, does not think of harming both; and instead … one thinks of benefiting oneself and benefiting others, benefiting many people out of compassion for the affliction in the world, seeking what is meaningful and of benefit for devas and humans, seeking their ease and happiness.” (Here, we can take ‘devas’ to mean any possible or impossible beings.) It is, indeed, a vast wisdom. Deep bows to Gene Gendlin and all his students. I am moved by these two great paths, actualising vast wisdom.

What’s My Being-With Like?

By admin

On June 19, 2015

In Enquiry, Practices

“On their deathbed some people look back on their lives and are overwhelmed by a sense of failure. They have a closet full of regrets. They become disheartened when they reflect on how they have overlooked the preciousness of their relationships, forgotten the importance of finding their “true work,” and delayed what some call “living my own life”” – Stephen Levine, A Year to Live
Somewhere during my forty-fourth year, one evening I was nurturing a question, about my unlived life – in the kind of territory which Stephen points to, in that quote. Although I hadn’t found Focusing, I had, by then, come to learn to ask intimate questions of myself, in just the way that I later refined in Focusing. That is, that night I asked my question with a gentleness, and with a pause for feeling into the ‘more’ which might come in the middle of my body, about the question. (Now that I think of it, I had been doing hospice training for a couple of years, so that probably contributed to this gentleness. My mentor spoke of listening to others in the manner of an ’empty bowl.’)
So, this night I was emptying myself for my own question. I asked: ‘What, if I died now, would I regret not having developed? What have I neglected?” I paused, and listened inwardly, in the soft middle of my body. And, from a long-forgotten place in myself came the knowledge which burst into tears: “The artist.” it said.
I began to bring art-making into my life, and even entered an art competition that year. In the next year, I enrolled in Art School, at the old East Sydney Tech; and held an exhibition with a friend, by the end of that year. I don’t think it’s merely coincidental that in that same year I turned the corner in my spiritual work, and I also discovered that I would never go mad. To honour who you are can come in all kinds of forms; for instance, just speaking your part in the meeting with the regional or departmental who-evers can lead to a subsequent spiritual opening.
I won’t pretend that I had a revolution. I’m still doing my best to let the artist live in me.

The point is that we can always make a start in honouring who we are. I posted something in this vein – about people’s end-of-life regrets – on my positivity blog, a while back. Here is a list, recorded by Australian palliative care nurse Bonnie Ware, in her book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me;
I wish I didn’t work so hard;
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings;
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends; and
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Short as it is, it’s a formidable list of transformations possible. However, here I want to emphasise the spirit of the inquiry we can bring to our unlived life, the ‘being-with.’ What is your ‘being-with’ like, your way of being with the questions you ask inside? Do you drop them in, like small pebbles into the still pool of your precious body? Can you ask gently, curious about what might come – not knowing, actualy, what the ripples will be like, those intimations which may appear there? The Earth is groaning for want of our intimacy with bodily wisdom.