Manifest Spontaneity

Francisco Varela Looking back over my life, whenever I’ve tried to model myself off of someone else, either on their own recommendation or on my own hope of salvation, it has not worked.  I also see many times when I could have listened to someone’s advice and benefitted greatly, but through arrogance, stubbornness or good old-fashioned self-determination I ignored it as not applying to me.  Between these 2 poles, I suspect that there is a middle-way of being.  Being willing to listen.  Being willing to ‘hold myself the principal witness’ ultimately.  Open to outside interaction without being addicted to it.   William James In terms of my moods (and their dysorder), it seems like I listen too hard to my internal voices.  When I’m hypomanic, this results in an arrogance such that I ignore messages from the environment.  I know best, and I am responsible for enacting my unique vision for how my life should be which no...

My own personal ecumenism.  Part of me feels disingenuous regarding the spirit of this blog, that my-own-personal-ecumenism is a little too cognitive, a little too conceptual, a little too wishful, a little too witty.  At the same time I’m reconnecting with the resonance I felt with the phrase, which occurred to me 4 days ago, as I write this.   Jamgon Kongtrul of Shechen, root teacher of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and one of the founders of the Rime movement within Tibetan Buddhism. I’ll say a little about the circumstances in which it arose.  I was cleaning my kitchen and listening to a talk by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche on his guru, Jamgon Kongtrul of Shechen (you can listen to the talk here ).  Kongtrul Rinpoche was one of the founders of the Rime (ree-may) movement within Tibetan Buddhism.  Trungpa Rinpoche was disparaging the western academic interpretation of the Rime movement as eschewing distinctions between the different lineages within Ti...

Here is some of the poetry I wrote just before and during the Ziji Collective leadership intensive at Karme Choling.  Before Having gone to bliss Hope & fear are like detours That end where they began. Dropping persona and facade, True creativity & interest Are exposed as the ever present      tidal-wave of nowness. Beginning Arriving is an abrupt      And gradual                           process. The drala of this land is      Instantly wakeful. Habitual holdings, guardings, evadings      Relax                slowly. Like a moon Caressing the meadow, Waxing one half A rich column of smoke      pirouetting its way               up      into an uncontrived blue sky. Enlightened Society      sounds...

I spent this last weekend at Karme Choling in Barnet, Vermont.  I was there for a leadership intensive with Shastri* Nick Kranz focusing on the practice of social meditation.  Already, I can feel myself being drawn into the role of the slightly detached explicator as I write this, wanting to explain the word ‘Shastri’ and what the practice of social meditation is.  That role is very comfortable to me.  I think I actually do that with myself as way to distance myself from difficult feelings.  Information and it’s accuracy is soothing to me; it’s how I get ground.   Last weekend was hard.  Social meditation is about creating a culture where the norms and customs nudge us toward being genuine and awake, in touch with our humanity.  Doing this practice and being around 55 other people doing it too makes any disingenuousness on my own part vivid.  Not always clear.  I didn’t always have a clear idea of what was going on, I just knew ...

Last weekend I attended the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago.  I got to stay with Graceheart, which was good because I needed the support, and she’s a pro at support, especially when it involves letting me feel yucky feelings.  Yucky feelings there were a-plenty.  Right now I feel stuck.  The projects that I’ve worked on up until now, that I’m presently trying to finish up aren’t compelling to me.  When I look at them, I think something like, “Why would anybody want to devote part of their life to understanding THAT?”  Those projects are taking up most of my mental bandwidth right now.  The research that I’m more interested in right now, that I could see myself working on in a post doc, is not what I’ve been spending most of my time thinking about over the last month.  I was describing this to Graceheart’s flatmate, when she asked me why I got into this field in the first place.  I could not think of any compe...

This last three weeks I keep telling myself that I want to make a post here. With so much that’s so important happening in my life, there’s no shortage of material.  Three weeks ago I returned from an 8 day retreat called Enlightened Society Assembly at Shambhala Mountain Center (SMC).  I heartily recommend both.  Those 8 days marked a major shift for me — I’m still finding out exactly what that shift is entailing.  I know there’s a shift because I feel different.  Not quite so self-conscious and worried about whether I’m measuring up to expectations.  What’s really live for me today, though, is death.  I promise that I did not premeditate that sentence, but now that it’s out I’m going to have to leave it.                                         ...

The reason that Maitri and I travelled to <midwestern city> is for our sweethearts’ wedding.  It occurs to me that the plural possessive form in the object of that sentence requires some elaboration.  Maitri and I are polyamorous.  Basically, that means that our commitment to each other doesn’t include ‘forsaking all others’.  Polyamory (sometimes ‘poly' for short) comes in just about as many flavors as there are people practicing it.  Maybe in a future post I’ll elaborate on the specifics and ideological underpinnings of this way of conducting relationships, but for now I’m going to stick to how things actually play out in my experience.  I will emphasize one more point, though, which is that the relationships that occur under the umbrella of polyamory (or even more generally ethical non-monogamy) happen with the knowledge and consent of all involved.  So no deception, no secrets.  Maitri and I are each dating both members of the cou...