Hi Hare good morning,
Still away from home (what is home, but the place where there is an act of presence), would like to continue whilst on the road...
Did you want to explore Q5 further?
And...anything to add?
Q5 with its various bits has kept me looking and reflecting. Since you asked it has had a continuous unsettling effect. Here is a long exploration of the above question... apologies because it is a bit long...
Life as I live it now is full of things to do, to accomplish, to create, demands to respond to... It is a life mostly lived to respond ... To be out there... To be "there" for others, as it were. It is a life where in the last couple of years, there has been less and less of "me" and more and more of others".
Yet, that being "out there for others" and being "less and less of me", has a different flavour from that of the enquiry started with you a couple of months ago. Even though it could be easy to say, that the "being out there for others" is happening because of an insight into the nature of love and compassion, it is not quite the case. There is a sense that it has been more a reaction to loneliness and pain; a not wanting to be "one with suffering" -to live it as DE.
On the bright side however, there is also a sense that the same "being out there for others", started as an imperative to connect with life in the face of death -the death of significant people. In the lapse of two years I've lost four very important people -two were more important/ significant than the other two. Those people, I realised, provided strong connections to life and all what is dear, loved and appreciated. It was like losing the bond that makes one believe and experience what is beautiful, loved and unconditional in life. Besides, in the last seven, I have lost country, home and work situation -the last two, several times. These things make for solidity (not in the sense of solid, fixed kind of self), structure and a sense of being grounded. All in all, this person, I call me, started this enquiry quite homeless, settling into a new city and work situation and kind of creating connecting-to-life-bonds.
The experience of death was/is one of disconnecting from what seems to bring life to life. It was/is a terrible/beautiful experience. Even though it helped me to touch the void, which in itself is not a bad thing; it also made me realise that other than those connecting bonds, there is hardly any bond quite like that in my life. That in itself is a daily painful experience. From that place, it is possible to appreciate why there has been like an expedition to "out there" in search of connecting bonds.
The findings of this expedition, strongly suggest that a bond comes about during an encounter in present time. For a bond to emerge or to be felt, one needs to be present, needs to be within and without, aware of what's happening inside, and aware, as much as possible, of what is happening with others; aware of the situation as it unfolds moment-to-moment.
What does it has to do with Q5?
It has all to do with it… How a decision was made? When after the death of a loved one, did ‘I’ decide to ‘go out there’ to be ‘there for others’… I don’t remember haven’t made any conscious choice. I just felt something really strong, in the chest, in the belly, in the heart, in the guts, that acted as a kind of fuel that moved ‘me’ in the direction ‘to form new connecting-to-life bonds.” The experience is remembered as DE… no much thinking… just a constant ‘let’s see to where does this road would take me?’ It wasn’t something capricious or impulsive… it was something deeply felt, deeply experienced, a kind of knowing of what needed to be done… what needed to be done? What needed and is still needed is the capacity to live life fully and knowingly from the depths, with awareness and without much reasoning… slowly, lovingly, compassionately feeling and sensing each step … experiencing life profoundly, to the bone marrow.
This way of ‘moving’ about life marked a shift in the way things were seen, lived, thought about and experienced. There was something rather powerful moving under the surface, something suggesting that life as lived until then, had finished and wasn’t worth living in that way, anyway!
Even though no conscious choices (in the usual way they are conceived) have been made, the whole process has felt consciously responsible… really, honestly, there is no awareness of someone choosing, just of feeling, sensing, listening, seeing… and in an intuitive, organic kind of way moving about life…
That’s how it has been experienced in the last couple of years… there is a sense that all this enquiry has clarified the above mentioned process. Further, it has enhanced the process as a DE... because that’s how life is still being experienced day-in and day-out… new and refreshing ways of being and relating… powerful learning about life and attachment and loss… the learning has been ‘nothing to be attached to’ ‘nothing to lose’… and yet, there was that strong experience in the body… an experience of the end of a bond… a deep and nurturing bond… a life-giving sort of a bond…
Much has already been written, so let’s leave it here… for the time being…
Thanks for reading … all this reflecting sprung from Q5
thanks for reading -
Namasté - Akita
