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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3238, Saturday, July 26, 2008, Editor: Mark
Cold Poem
Cold now.
Close to the edge. Almost
unbearable. Clouds
bunch up and boil down
from the north of the white bear.
This tree-splitting morning
I dream of his fat tracks,
the lifesaving suet.
I think of summer with its luminous fruit,
blossoms rounding to berries, leaves,
handfuls of grain.
Maybe what cold is, is the time
we measure the love we have always had, secretly,
for our own bones, the hard knife-edged love
for the warm river of the I, beyond all else; maybe
that is what it means the beauty
of the blue shark cruising toward the tumbling seals.
In the season of snow,
in the immeasurable cold,
we grow cruel but honest; we keep
ourselves alive,
if we can, taking one after another
the necessary bodies of others, the many
crushed red flowers.
Mary Oliver
Disease comes, and the organs fall out of harmony.
We're like the four different birds,
that each had one leg tied in with the other birds.
A flopping bouquet of birds!
Death releases the binding, and they fly off,
but before that, their pulling is our pain.
Consider how the soul must be, in the midst of these tensions,
feeling its own exalted pull.
- Rumi
The Myth of Better
We are conditioned to believe something that has very little
truth to it, so little truth that it's more accurate to call it a
myth: We believe that things could be better. We deeply believe
that we can have a better experience or a better life or become a
better person. And, of course, the flip side of this is that we
believe that things could be worse.
One clue that this belief is a myth is that not everyone agrees
on what's better or worse. There's always someone who thinks the
exact opposite of what you think. You don't even have to look to
others for such contradictions: What you think is better or worse
is always changing. What you once felt was good often becomes bad
and visa versa: One day you think it would be better to be in a
relationship, and then when you're in one, you think it would be
better to be alone. The fact that your ideas about better and
worse are so variable is another clue that this is a myth. Better
or worse are just ideas with no substance orfinal definition.
The effort to try to make things better or to avoid something
worse is our suffering. In order to hold the idea that something
would be better, you have to narrow your awareness. Take the
example of a relationship: In the beginning, we're all masters at
narrowing our awareness onto all the good qualities of the other
person. This narrowing of awareness is effortful, and it causes
us to suffer. This struggle is not natural, so awareness doesn't
stay contracted. Just naturally, our awareness expands, and we
see not only the advantages to being in a relationship but the
disadvantages.
Or visa versa, for example, if we've been avoiding something we
consider bad and then it happens, with time, our awareness
naturally expands to realize that it's not all bad. Those who've
experienced something like cancer often speak about the
advantages, the tremendous blessings in their life, from having
cancer, even when they may be dying from it.
No one can keep the illusion of better oing constantly because of
the effort it takes to keep awareness narrowed; so it naturally
eventually expands. When this happens, it often feels like waking
up because the experience is so different. You wake up out of
your particular dream of better, and it's often a huge relief.
You wake up, for instance, to the fact that you're in a
relationship with a real person, and it's both good and bad.
Then, if you still choose to move forward with that person,
you're doing it with more truth, with your eyes wide open.
We're so used to operating from this conditioning that even when
we wake up from one dream of better, we usually latch onto
another, although the next illusion may be subtler. For instance,
you may now see that a million dollars won't make your life
better, but you still believe that enlightenment will, so now you
suffer over that idea. Or you might think that life will be
better if your internal state were different - if you felt this
way or if you didn't feel that way.
What would itbe like to be here without referring to any ideas
about what would be better or worse? What would it be like to be
here without moving towards something "good" or away
from something "bad?" It's possible that just as much
would happen in life. Life wouldn't stop. What would it be like
without any extra effort and struggle?
When we stop creating the division between good and bad, we begin
to experience all of what is instead of just half of it. Our
perspective is more complete because we're no longer denying half
of it. Having ideas about better is like having blinders on. What
you see with blinders on is only a part of the truth. If you're
aware of the blinders, then there's no problem if, for a moment,
you step into just a part of the truth. At times, it's even
functional, like when you're balancing your checkbook: It's
better to add up the numbers correctly. If you're willing to
explore and question the underlying assumption of better, then
you can hold this idea more lightly, with more flexibility Then,
if the numbers don't add up right, it's not a big deal.
The other question to ask is, Who is it better or worse for? Not
only does the idea of better or worse make our experience very
narrow, it makes the sense of our self very small. In order to
even hold the idea of better or worse, there has to be a me that
it will be better or worse for. Whenever you take on the idea of
better, you feel very small.
You also have to watch out for the idea that it would be better
to never think in terms of better or worse. The myth of better is
so much at the heart of our struggle and suffering that even when
it's pointed out to us, our tendency is to turn that into a
struggle as well. This myth is functioning all the time. It won't
go away and it doesn't have to. Just become aware of it and learn
to be flexible about it. Sometimes it's necessary to step into
the idea of better for a moment, like when you're at a restaurant
and you're handed a menu. But if the idea of better starts to be
believed orbecomes fixed, the sense of your self becomes very
small and you suffer.
What is it like when you do have an idea of something being
better? By the way, none of these ideas are yours or your fault.
They're just what you've been told all your life, which is why
there are so many opposite ideas within each of us. What's it
like when you take on a small self? That small self is just as
mysterious as a larger experience of your Being. The experience
of this small self, this contracted state, is not any better or
worse than the experience of more of your Being; it's just
different.
How many different small selves we all have! Every one of your
ideas of better is related to an idea of who you are: If you
think it's better to get drunk and bust up a bar, there's an
identity that goes with that. And if you think it's better to sit
in meditation and be in touch with Peace and Being, then there's
an identity that goes with that - an idea about who you are.
What's it like when you just give up yur ideas about how things
might be better and your concern about how things are going?
Things are always different, but they're never better or worse.
That anything could ever be better or worse than the way it is,
is an illusion.
It's all a question of what you are devoted to in this moment.
Are you devoted to things being better or to what's real, what's
true, what's really going on? There's no judgment here because
there's a richness to the experience of having an idea of better
and striving towards that. However, the possibility exists for
that striving to release and to realize that striving isn't very
relevant - you've been devoted to better your whole life, and you
still haven't gotten there. You've been devoted to avoiding
worse, and it still comes around. Even when you do reach
something better, it's never enough.
When this is seen, it's possible to get in touch with a deeper
drive, or longing - the longing to know what is really true.
Rather than getting rid of any of the ideas abot better, just let
your devotion get bigger. It's still fine to try to make your
life better in practical ways. The important thing is where your
devotion lies. What are you really devoted to in your life right
now? Is it the biggest truth?
Besides, do you really know what is better? You've taken it all
on faith. You've believed what others said was better, but right
now do you really know what is better? You don't really know what
would make your life better or worse. So, now what? You don't
know. What's it like to not know? Life doesn't grind to a halt.
In fact, there's something very alive about this place of not
knowing. When you don't know, you look around a little more.
You're more present to what's really going on.
Without the idea of better, you can know things just for the joy
of knowing things. You can know, for instance, the difference
between one shade of green and another. They're different, but
one isn't better or worse. When you're not narrowing your
perception onto an idea of wat's better, you're free to
experience the richness of life and take in the differences. You
can start to really enjoy whatever you're experiencing without
the added layers of your hope.
- Nirmala