I awoke early this morning, about an hour before my usual alarm, bladder calling and sat down to relieve myself with the friendly meow of my cat looking for breakfast before her regular time. Thus began my day, as most - very ordinary and without fuss nor fanfare. No inherent plans other than the routine of the week with kids, food, work and household maintenance. Cat fed and coffeepot on - I felt compelled to take some meditation time on the couch wrapped in my wife's precious blanket she gew up with. Still, no ferverant direction or calling - just the checking of messages and a few reminders before I saw the app my Pastor had passed along to me - a 30 day Christian program on resilience with about 10 min a day. I started the program and it led me through an introduction moving into a few verses from the Bible which I listened to with mostly neutrality. Then, in the silent background, my daughters alarm could be heard - the sound of a disgruntled inventor who likely never slept at night due to a partners snoring - deciding the time had finally come to get even with a blaring, pulsing, scratching vomit of a invented sound sure to send people from dreamland to hell within seconds. Or not. The sound continued for seconds and minutes and soon became the object of my silent time. Breathe in, and let go - breathe in and let go. Amen.
And soon became the object of my silent time and the focus of it.
One not existing without the other.
Harmony
I arose and set out to my morning tasks - coffee, first and foremost. Coffee is important. Then, I needed to make a main meal this morning - something called homemade hamburger helper - a dish of ground beef, onions, pasta, tomatoes, milk and beef broth boiled with pasta until al dente. Add cheese and voila - meal in the pan. Sandwiches for my kids - dang - no cold cuts today - no tuna, no extra something meatlike to place inbetween the slices of cheese and salad leaves under a coating of mustard seed mustard. Oh well. Cheese sandwich it is. Breakfast for my father-in-law as per usual , left over oatmeal warmed up in a pot with a bit of water to add moisture and heat to this globular mass - add bananas or presto - done and served on the table for later.
All the while, I began listening to an old Alan Watts snippet called - "Trust the Universe" and he chatted about the different ways we call God but at the same time are pointed to the fact of God being beyond anything we can imagine in our mind. "Zen is a way of life, a state of being that is not possible to embrace in any concept whatsoever - so that any concept or ideas will have as there object showing you the limitations of words and of thinking." He skillfully continued with his soothing voice to indicate how through times we have tried to name God or this one universal basic energy and have not succeeded as a way to truly experience God. Instead, we give hints and in the Buddhist philosophy he indicates this universe is one Tathātā which means 10000 functions or 10000 things - One Suchness and we're all One Suchness. One Suchness that comes and goes - on and off, hide and seek. The Chinese yin and yang - the Christian suffering and salvation. And particularly today, his expression of how a baby comes into the world and starts to point out at things calling da, da, da - that and that and that and that. Look at that. Look at that. Everything to this baby is in mesmerization as he/she begins to become comfortable with the world and know it eventually depending upon this knowing whether unconscious or conscious. And this dependence for which I hold a precious thread within myself, tied up with all of these ideas and concepts reminds me of how one doesn't exist without the other. The baby cannot know the "da" or "that" without himself/herself being aware. The yin cannot exist without the yang. My actions do not change and modify without the input from my environment - be it the world or my own genetic instinct. In this world of duality, one side of the coin expresses there is another side. A question already indicates there is an answer. Vica Versa.
Now for some reason, or state of grace, this hits me today. I sit with internal arguments everyday about certain struggles with the country I live in, its language, the different mentality, the overwhelming history and actions and habits of the people - different from mine. My relationship with my wife and her character and drive. My kids, their school and life as it is unfolding in this technological flood of information and self-indulgence. All this - hitting me, challenging me, pushing me. All this, resistance - giving me fuel to the fire to look for relief, to look for answers, to understand and to find a way to be with it all. My walk towards God, my spirituality, my thousands of audio podcasts, my travel and my inner journey - all motivated by the I am THAT principle. I am the resistance to THAT (which I don't know) and at the same time - this resistance and motivation in me is my own THATNESS, I am also THAT. This da da da or as we return to Alan Watt's description of Tathātā.
My Suchness , my Being beyond all these experiences either positive or negative yet my small "being" has this interdependent relationship with life. There is no me without the life around me and similarly - there isn't the same kind of life around me, without me. No grandiose ideas or objects but everydayness. There is no cat without my feeding it. No meal of the day without my preparations. No breakfast without my recycling. No words without my writing and experiences. Is there a Me without life around me or a Life without Me?
No. Who I am today, leading me to this moment, to this article, to this paragraph and indeed to the very words right now - are all a part and parcel of the world I have faced. Indeed, as I have read with bewilderment in the past never really understanding -
"everything you have every done has brought you to this moment."
Why is this important then? What's the intrigue and the spark which goes off in my inner engine? Because, it is precisely all the affairs, people and characteristics I don't like which has pushed me to this moment. Every curse thrust upon me by life or my own mind, has become through process, work, challenge forgiveness, letting go, mercy etc , has become a blessing. Yin and Yang. Suffering and Salvation. I may not fully feel it or get it but here is the crux of it and let me just point it out in bold so you don't miss it:
There is no loving salvation without loving suffering
There is no love for the light without love for darkness
There is no achievement of reaching the soul without all the resistances as part of the path.
There is only Love.
There can only be love for it ALL. Acceptance of it ALL. And if grace continues to abide, which I believe it will - some sense of this Suchness or God or Universe will pierce through my veil of humaness. Without words or feeling or movement - yet a quality holding both, holding all, embracing all and in the end infused among everything and everyone of us. Indeed as ITS own act through me and everyone of us.
