I am all of it

Just a note: I’ve shifted the “rules” for post­ing com­ments on this blog. You will now see your com­ment appear directly, with­out a delay for approval. I really want to hear from all of you, so click on the post title, above, and leave a comment!

As human beings we have the poten­tial to dis­en­tan­gle our­selves from old habits, and the poten­tial to love and care about each other. We have the capac­ity to wake up and live con­sciously, but, you may have noticed, we also have a strong incli­na­tion to stay asleep. It’s as if we are always at a cross­road, con­tin­u­ously choos­ing which way to go. Moment by moment we can choose to go toward fur­ther clar­ity and hap­pi­ness or toward con­fu­sion and pain.
The above quote is from Pema Chödrön’s new book, “Tak­ing the Leap,” Chap­ter 1: “Feed­ing the Right Wolf.”
This link leads to the entire first chapter.

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At night, when all the world’s asleep,
The ques­tions run so deep
For such a sim­ple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.
The Log­i­cal Song — Supertramp

Today’s arti­cle will be short. Dar­bella and I just watched the movie, “Amaz­ing Grace,” which tells the story of the decades long bat­tle to end the slave trade in Eng­land. The movie is quite mov­ing and inspir­ing; mostly point­ing to the incred­i­ble for­ti­tude of William Wilber­force.

I thought about the use of “us” vs. “them.” (The infa­mous “dual­ity” issue.) As in, “How could those peo­ple take so long to end the slave trade?” Or, “How could ‘peo­ple’ have slaves?”

Often, clients are caught in this “dual­ity” issue. They’ll spend an hour indig­nantly blast­ing a par­ent or spouse, and the theme is, “All they do is crit­i­cize.” They totally miss (sep­a­rate them­selves from) their own crit­i­cism of the other.

©Walt Kelly

Well, here’s a flash. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ To quote Walt Kelly, cre­ator of “Pogo,” “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Each thing we see around us is human behav­iour. Our ten­dency to put things “out there, not me” is per­haps the most sig­nif­i­cant erro­neous belief that keeps us stuck.

The key ques­tion is: will I wake up to ‘all of it,’ or will I remain asleep?

Or, as a friend recently Twit­tered, “I spend way too much of my life wan­der­ing thru park­ing lots look­ing for my car…” Far, far too often we are so dis­tracted by “other things” that we for­get who we are, where we are, and why we are here. As opposed to the cen­tered, quiet aware­ness that comes from non-duality, and ask­ing, “What am I?”

Wak­ing up requires see­ing the extent and depth of the pain and ill­ness we all suf­fer from. It requires star­ing this pain in the eyes, and not blink­ing. Pulling the, “Well, that’s awful, but it’s not about me” is the refrain of the deeply asleep.

One of the rea­sons for sit­ting zazen (med­i­tat­ing) is to be present with “all of it.” As I see the deep weird­ness of my thoughts and incli­na­tions, it becomes increas­ingly dif­fi­cult to place blame or think that they are some­how unre­lated to me, and me alone. The more I sit, the more I see how the things I would rather pre­tend are remote from me are also a part of me.

The key is to sit with our­selves and with “the entire catastrophe.”

We begin by sit­ting here, own­ing it all, with­out dis­tract­ing our­selves with judge­ments, or with “them vs. me” foolishness.

This is me, this is all a part of me, and I can fall asleep in denial and blam­ing, or I can “wake up and live consciously.”

If I choose to see it and stay awake, I can exer­cise com­pas­sion.

I like to think of com­pas­sion as being present with some­one, or some sit­u­a­tion, and sim­ply “being there, with no agenda.” No fix­ing, no explain­ing, no dis­tanc­ing. Com­pas­sion is feel­ing your feel­ings, and sit­ting there, wide awake, any­way. No run­ning away, dis­sem­bling, or falling asleep.

I invite you to reflect on the ques­tion asked by Super­tramp. Please, tell your­self who you are. Are you awake? Will you let go of “us vs. them,” and sim­ply be present, until all sen­tient beings awake?” And then, what might the world be like?