Preferences

Part Two

The preference for things to be otherwise makes those things into a heavy load. But even in the midst of a cancer treatment, there can be “ah,” like when the nurse is so kind and helpful or when loved ones show they care. In fact, in the midst of such treatment, it can happen that all becomes "clear and undisguised” because all the usual dramas are swept away, sometimes permanently. As the treatise of Seng T’san continues,

When not attached to love or hate,
all is clear and undisguised.
Separate by the smallest amount, however,
and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth.
If you wish to know the truth,
then hold to no opinions for or against anything.

To “separate” is to be attached to the wild swings of drama in the mind. We can be completely lost in a story, totally in our heads. Clinging thus separates us from the truth of here and now, which, when you spend time with it, brings heaven down to earth and we know ourselves to be part of that (e)merging. Love and hate are still here, as are joy and anger, greed and generosity, and so on. There will always be preferences playing out as dualities such as these. Thoughts, as Ram Dass said, are of the thoughtless — meaning they come and go like the weather in a wide open sky that is unaffected by the clouds, rain, rainbows, or sunshine. We can be like the sky and not cling onto every thought, believe it, or even listen to it. Be as unaffected by thoughts, beliefs, views, and preferences as the sky is by the weather. There is constant change in the weather of the mind; we do not control this weather, but we are often lost in it, believing it to be true, and acting from that. As Seng T’san also writes, “To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.” Most experiences generate a push or pull, a for or against, desire or aversion; they produce an “Uugh,” or an “Ah.” It becomes a burden or something neutral or a joy. No matter the content or its tone, try to detangle from drama, so the mind can be naturally clear and open, receptive and responsive.

Irish poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue, writes eloquently about how beauty takes us beyond our very human dramas to the present moment, to the truth, to an eternal wisdom. Our human frailty is there “illuminated by a different light.”

The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere — in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves.… When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming… We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful, for it meets the needs of our soul. For a while, the strains of struggle and endurance are relieved, and our frailty is illuminated by a different light in which we come to glimpse behind the shudder of appearances, the sure form of things. In the experience of Beauty, we awaken and surrender in the same act. Beauty brings a sense of completion and sureness. Without any of the usual calculation, we can slip into the Beautiful, with the same ease, as we slip into the seamless embrace of water; something ancient within us already trusts that this embrace will hold us. *

(Italics are mine.)

“Without any of the usual calculation”! The mind is always measuring for and against, approve and disapprove, like and dislike, hate or love — that constant play of preferences is a filter in our mind affecting how we perceive reality and dance within it. With practice, contemplation, and surrender, perhaps we can find that “something ancient within us [that] already trusts that this embrace will hold us.” It is behind the shudder of appearances, behind our preferences, and it is the pause between cause and effect.

Another word that sums up cause and effect in all its complexity is Karma. The Eastern sense of the word has a more expansive meaning than because this happens, that happens — it can be past karma meeting present circumstances —including past lives — it can mean the co-emergence of everything everywhere all at once. (Great movie by that name also explores these themes — with quirky humour.) The following passage about karma from Ram Dass sums up nicely all I’ve tried to convey in this blog. This human birth is our five hundred years as a fox, our unique set of beauty and complexity that we can try to squeeze into a mold of personal dramas. Or, into which we can let go and trust the embrace of life.

There is an appreciation that incarnation, or what would be called karma, is a blueprint for your own awakening. You can call it: my life, my karma, my incarnation, my curriculum. It is a set of life experiences which you're creating. Because how you see reality and how I see reality are different realities, and the fact that yours is different from mine isn't by chance, it's by karma. And that karma turns into your dharma. That means the stuff that's given to you becomes your path. You use your unique entrapment as the vehicle for getting free of entrapment.

I love the following final passage from Seng T’san about the “One” and “All Things” that are cause and effect dancing, rising from the One and returning — the emerging game, the One shuddering into appearances. Our preferences operate to categorize and separate, so that we can push experience away or hold it close. But there is no separation when we reach out to touch what is within our reach; it’s Life that’s reaching, Love that’s touching.

All photos in this two-part blog were taken on walks and golf cart rides on my property over the past five-or-so years. It’s a joy to scroll through them!

Each thing reveals the One,
the One manifests as all things.
To live in this Realization
is not to worry about perfection or non-perfection.
To put your trust in the Heart-Mind is to live without separation,
and in this non-duality you are one with your Life-Source.

~

* Quoted from Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

For fun, here is Ram Dass reading The Great Way!