On humble desire

First we say, let it be done to me according to your word. And that’s overwhelming, because God’s word is everything, not just some things. God’s word teaches us to pay attention to the quality of impermanence: it’s both “letting go of pleasure” and “steeling yourself for aversion.” Each has their way of conveying God’s real presence. It’s just–we’ll miss it if we fail to learn to let go and steel ourselves. The lesson is held in trust until we learn the skill. [bxA]

Next we say “I want to see.” Only when we realize we’re blind, that we’d miss the messiah standing right in front of us; only then does this come out of the depths. And even then, maybe our eyes, when they open, open only just a little. We end up saying “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” A further touch from Jesus is necessary to see things as they are.

Egos want things to be exclusively pleasant. When we run into our non-self, who is the “Christ within” then he himself provides a way of wanting everything. When his words “if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done”--when these words come from your mouth as if they are your own, then you learn why preference, choice, and judgment can be harmful. As you learn this, ego loosens its grip.

Ego is a muscle of survival, not a muscle of adaptability or thriving. All day you are surrounded by somebodies, saying “here he is” and “there he is.” Do not go off in pursuit. After a while all those somebodies prove shifty, die off. Within and without, things get very quiet. Luckily, amidst your crowd of thoughts, there is one who embodies full acceptance. He is you, but he is not the “you” that’s familiar. He is a nobody, not a somebody, and he’s calling you to become nobody as well.

“The Word/Silence paradox is a person, and he is within you.” This is a hard saying, but true. The blind man, who didn’t know his healer because the latter had escaped into the crowd of thoughts, was asked “do you believe in the son of Man?” and he responded, “Who is he, sir, tell me so that I may believe in him.” The healer said “I am the one who is speaking to you.” The message: when quiet is so deep that it moves inside you and speaks, when absence, gazing back at you, blinks first. Even after everything else is silent, what speaks in that silence is Christ incarnate. And this can be anything. The sound of the wind, the pop of rain on a copper roof: anything you hear with the open ear of selflessness, instead of an ear closed by ego. After silence, what’s left is Christ.

Christ is nobody, silence enfleshed. He does nothing, has nothing to offer. But he takes that and multiplies it: all this means is “becoming nobody is totally safe and healthy.” To him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Blessed are those who take no offense.

Christ has no tantrum but yours

Everyone likes Theresa of Avila's statement that "Christ has no body now but yours, no hands but yours." It's flowery, beautiful, and fills people with positive feeling. But the fact is, the same is true of things that cause an aversion response: Christ has no disregulated nervous system but yours, no pain receptors but yours, no veins but yours to pop out while angrily flipping tables. Christ has no tear ducts but yours to cry tears of blood later, after embarrassingly losing it--publicly and for good reason. [bxA]

Ekhart Tolle spoke of a pain body. Bessel VanderKolk spoke of the body storing trauma. The internet is full of five minute videos about befriending your nervous system. None of this is false: the whole world is shouting out in the street, that the one who bears your sins, who lives, suffers, dies and rises--your own "non-self"--is within you.

Of the dry bones in need of prophecy, the prophet Ezekiel was told "These bones are the whole house of Israel." Christ has no body but yours in which to fulfill the law, the prophets and the psalms, so in reality the one to whom we speak of relaxed flesh and calm breath is ourselves. As he did with Legion, he waits humbly for you to stop living in the world like it's a tomb, to drop the rocks with which you judge and gash yourself, to sit still, clothed and in your right mind.

I will tell you a mystery: you, me and everything else, we are all the messiah. And it's not a big deal.  The only reason strangers, the hungry, the homeless the imprisoned couldn't be the Christ is because we had expectations about how "the one who is to come" would look and act. Christ came so we'd jettison the ideas that keep our eyes from seeing, in what's right in front of us, the living Word. He overtly said he was the sheep gate, the shepherd, he said he was bread and wine and light and the Way. And he wasn't being metaphorical. The messiah is now the true nature of all that is seen and unseen. The real kicker (and the thing that'll really stretch you) is that he's also dog shit, the one cursed and crucified; he is the dirt and the one who falls three times in it, bearing unmerited weight.

This is so that we'll wake up and realize we expected God to be exclusively pleasant--so we'll arise from sleep and realize how safe it is to be entirely wrong. If God is what is pleasant, then those pleasures are like the flowers of the field. We simply have to learn to let go. If God is what's painful and unpleasant, it's totally safe. We simply have to learn the right situations and times in which to set our faces like flint, to give our backs to those who beat us, to realize that egos don't stop being egos even for the righteous--not just the guilty, but also the innocent can be judged, should a time come when the unjust are granted power. And it's all ok. It'll be wounding, but we'll become mindful of our vulnerabilities, quiet, careful to read the spirit before we speak or act.

So what's to be done with mind, body, nervous system? Be still, and you will know--but not before your life becomes the purgatory intended for all the saints. You will see your survival needs, and the eight manipulations the mind devises to suffice them. (You have heard "gluttony greed sloth sorrow lust wrath vanity, and pride are sinful. Amen I say to you, they are merely distractions--simply shift your attention to the sensations of the body, and you'll be ok.") Even after you have awakened, you will see your frustrated higher aspirations lay bare other compulsive thoughts. (You haven't heard "self-pity, shame blame remorse rationalization resentment self-aggrandizement entitlement"--Amen, I say to you nonetheless--these will emerge even after you've awakened.  Simply shift your attention to the sensations of the body, and they will pass.)

Breathe, Listen and Feel--keep doing it until even thoughts of self go away.  At first, this will feel dissociative--sometimes negative, sometimes neutral, eventually positive enough to be preferred to a life of craving and attachment.  This is awakening is a preparation for the empty mind of Christ.  Let go of action, thought, emotion, sensation, and the judgments you place on energy. You are already deeply alive, but you are not justified in perpetuating an ego story. It is Christ within you living dying and rising. It has been this way the whole time, and you are only just now learning to focus your attention and intention so you can see it.

Emily Dickinson can say "I’m a nobody who are you are you a nobody too" and we call it poetry and immortalize it in anthology for all to read. Christ can say "you are in fact not who you think you are at all. That one is entirely insignificant, more a worm than a person." But, at this, we lose our minds. Of course, losing our minds is the point. And worms, themselves, have a gospel to preach. You see, the worm never dies, just like the divinity whose echoes animate our decaying flesh. We will not all die, but we will be changed along with whatever faith, hope and love remains to us. It is totally safe, totally cool, totally gross and unpleasant.

Christ, you see, didn’t come to only live life‘s prettier bits. He came to be everything. The day is dawning, and the light is breaking for each of us. The silence says it, over and over, if we only learn to listen. Remaining me. Return to your family and friends and tell them all that the Lord in his mercy has done for you. Go and do likewise. Answer for yourself: whose ears were these words meant to open?

What is your route in?

The internal dimension of Christianity remains largely unexplored.  Here are the facts: what's theologically true matters very little if our relationship with the compulsive mind keeps us from hearing, seeing, tasting, accepting life as it is. [bxA]  A healed mind knows that we live, move, and have our being in God--but we are full of distractions that literally lodge themselves between us and "freely using our senses."  So, for the sake of the healing of the mind: Christ became everything--bread, wine, shepherds, sheep gates, vines, light, truth (indeed, all that is seen and unseen)--and he did all this by becoming nothing.  The scriptures say "Being in the form of God he emptied himself"--and "befriending our nervous systems" will involve, ever after, going to do likewise.  The thought "I am" is not the same as the experience of hearing and seeing with focused intent.  For people whose ego says they're permanent, the Gospel is "give up self and do not judge." Psychologically, though, that's a death, and "I died daily" is a hard pill to swallow. Long story short: Christ becomes everything impermanent, so that we might be unafraid of impermanence--but we must install the guru in our own bodies to learn the lesson.  St. Therese said "Christ has no body but yours" and unfortunately Christ's suffering is still perpetuated in that body.

After the eight evil thoughts of the lower self (gluttony, greed sloth sorrow lust wrath vanity pride,) there are the eight evil thoughts of the higher self (self pity, shame, blame, remorse, rationalization resentment self-aggrandizement, entitlement.)  These afflict those who, having seen in themselves the divine image, are still uselessly seeking to profit from it.  After the Dark Night of the Senses and the Dark Night of the Spirit, there is the dark night of the self:  Elijah could not hear until he let go of his pious self concept "I have been very zealous for the Lord of Hosts and they are seeking my life."  The Apostles could not hear until they accepted that persecutions were the lion's share of what the gospel would gain them.  They couldn't see until they'd listened and prayed, waited and watched, seen the divine look back at them from the "abyss of everything."  

Christ's rhythm of disappearance and reappearance binds itself to the internal, psychological and emotional work we need to to.  Remember: Christ became what's impermanent so we could accept impermanence.  Here are a number of examples:

    As Self fails, Christ replaces self. Listen: The gospel of John says "Because I live, you also will live."  Paul says "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me."

    As "clinging to attractions and pushing away aversions" gets old, Christ becomes aversions and attractions. Listen "Whatever you did to the least of my brothers, you did to me." Also "Always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ will be made known in our mortal bodies also."

    As cosmic principles fail, he becomes a cosmic principle.  Listen "He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,  and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross." Collosians 1: 17

    As Knowledge fails, Christ replaces knowledge. Listen: "When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God." 1 Cor 2:1-5

All of this is accomplished through a very concerted effort at living in the body and not the mind.  It's a spiritual method called "recollection:" and it entails five things.  1. Focus attention (prayer with the mind) and intention (prayer with the guts) on physical sensation. 2. Breath until thoughts of self subside and the ear and eye of the heart open. 3. Listen until thoughts of self subside, and "Kol damma daqqa" the "sound of everything" renders itself audible. 4. Feel until the senses turn inward and, by the movement of the spirit, release stress stored in the body.  5. Lastly, pray mantra until you experience "feeling and sound are one."  When you can feel where sound is being produced in the body, it becomes an anchor while your body lets go of tension.  Temporarily, "you" cease to exist, while the body continues.

And what is the result?  We accept that no thought, action or sensation is ours, with which to build an ego story.  They all belong to Christ.  We accept that the pronouns "I, me and my" don't lead back to anything real.  We develop the equanimity to learn lessons from both pain and pleasure, beauty and ugliness, aversions and attractions.  And so, when we suffer, we're not too shaken by it.  Right before Paul says "always carrying in the body" he says "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."  This increased patience, increased acceptance of life as it is--this is the wage of the gospel.

Shits and Giggles, Giggles and Grins: On Koans, The Cross, and Cosmic Jokes

The Father is happy, despite leaving in place the bits that egos would see as bad. Unlike egos, he can direct his attention to things that are good and beautiful without needing what's bad and ugly eliminated.  Unlike egos, he can direct his intention to a sort of "raw fascination" with even life's hard lessons, and doesn't need reasons for sadness eliminated.  Unlike egos, God can ignore the what's captivating for the sake of focusing on negative space, and thereby wait for the figure-ground reversal of a perspective flip.  That's an art term--we'd call it a "conversion experience."  Egos will call this "dissociation," but waiting for a conversion experience is very grounding--the gospels signal the prodigal's "conversion experience" with the words "he came to himself."  The Kingdom of God is within, and going within is the medicine necessary to see the suffering around us, and work for its diminishment. [bxA]

Whether self-imposed or not, suffering's reduction involves knowing the score. There are lessons in both aversion and attraction. Learning them means "setting our faces like flint" amidst the things that cause aversion responses, and intuiting when to let go of the things that cause attraction responses.  This is as simple as "expecting work to suck, and being unsurprised when it does."  It's as simple as "applying some gentle force in the service of leaving office conflict at the office."  It's as simple as saying "I want the chocolate cake, but I don't want what eating it will cost me." Gluttony, greed, sloth, sorrow, lust, wrath, vanity and pride don't manufacture control or security.  Self-pity, shame, blame, remorse, rationalization, resentment and self-aggrandizement all take a nervous toll in anxiety that exceeds the temporary highs they afford.  It's trite but true: wisdom is learning to breathe, listen and feel until these forms of self-harm recede from our attention, until we recover the intent to be here, now, just as it is and just as we are.

Christ healed the demoniac. Despite Legion's great desire to join the Apostles on the boat, he was told to go home and speak gratefully to his family and friends. In other words, he was rejected by the one who healed him, then invited to act deliberately only on the nobler half of his emotional response. More than causing gratitude, this would initially cause grief.  As in all the miracles where Jesus either does nothing or tells someone to go away, both the grief and the distance are a mercy.  Shadow work throws practitioners back on themselves, purifies ego, craving and attachment.  Divinization is a strong catechesis for the self, offering "Christ's real presence in humility" as a grounding influence.  These days, there are many people seeing God and their own ugliness--but Jesus' methods teach the lesson of Naaman the Syrian: afflicted with leprosy, Naaman was told to wash in the Jordan seven times--something entirely unglamorous.  His servant reminds him: if he'd been told to do something heroic, he'd have done it.  It's a sign of pride and vanity to balk when purification's a matter of bearing daily unpleasantries.  Jesus says "do what's normal repetitively" and leaves us scandalized by our own boredom.

Legion would have known, viscerally, why waiting is important. The question is "is the one in need the same as the one receiving?" The Teacher said "blessed are you who are weeping now, for you shall laugh." Laughter and weeping deal with the same bodily sensations--the same unremitting tensions.  When "letting go of self" happens before the disgust response ceases--when there's an energetic, emotional or perspective shift within the sensation--laughter is the result.  The Teacher said "blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled."  When a Christian hears "later," the secret's that equanimity and kenosis must come first.  Equanimity, because pain and pleasure are just sensations, and kenosis, because emptiness will not abide being pried open by the willful energy of self.  Emptiness only opens to those who have become the nothing they are seeking.

So many stories depict the tensions commending our spirits into the Father's apparent absence and coming to oneness.  Legion is like "the adulterous woman" without the crowd--whether true or false, the adulterous woman had to sit still amidst accusations.  Legion is like Peter James and John who suggested building tents at the Transfiguration, but didn't know what they were saying.   In other words, Legion had to learn to sit still in a position of tension. Eventually he'd become quite practiced at this.   He would have had to drop the rocks with which he gashed himself.  He would have had to install the Father in his mind, the Son in his body, the Spirit in his nervous system to peacefully admit what he didn't know and tolerate the psychosomatic purge.  And he would have had to listen to the silence of the tombs where he lived until that silence went, as it were, inside him.  After that, clothed and in his right mind, he would have been with Christ alone.

Laughter seems instinctual, but comedians craft sets like zen masters craft koans: "one hand clapping" invites us to intuition instead of intellect, realization instead of reason.  Koans yield no answers till egos yield to confusion.   Similarly, a good joke walks us into something we're afraid to face, then makes us sit in it.  Fear, rendered communal, loses its power.  "Punchline" is an interesting label for the end of a joke.  In Zen, a bloke walks around the meditation hall with a big stick, administering light blows (first on one shoulder, then the other) to sleepy meditators who request it.  Jesus says "when someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer them the other."  If we have the cheek to equate a joke with a blow to the face, a tooth loosened by initial witty banter requires only a well timed punchline to be knocked clean out.  In such a guts-level confrontation with divine humor: fear, aversion and disgust all shift, and our laughter is the signal we've let go of it.  

The first word of the Psalter is "Happy" and, like the Tao Te Ching, the rest of the work is an exposition of that first word.  As hard as it is to understand intellectually, sorrow and abandonment and and suffering are all contained in divine happiness.  To see all of this in ourselves is to look at the cross and live.  The Psalter's first full line is "happy indeed is the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked."  A mirthful man can be happy-in-deed, he can work without anxiety, because he's not attached to outcomes.  A happy man need not follow the counsel of the wicked.  Though it feels tense on an ego level, he'll have learned to wait while the Spirit's energy rises to his heart.  See, in the heart, divine energy is called the Spirit of counsel.  Practitioners are grounded enough, attentive to subtlety enough, that the "counsel of the wicked"--craving and attachment, in other words--are no longer interesting enough to move compel the body to movement.  If attachment is bacon, practitioners are simply too tired to break out the skillet. 

We'll be here now when we become everybody and everything. It's not that the wicked are bad, and we ought not follow them.  It's that the wicked are within us and, indeed, they are us.  The poor we'll always have with us, and the wicked will always have the option to be turds in the cosmic punch bowl.  The last trumpet is silence, and it sounds, always, for the just and the wicked alike. When we become nobody, nothing and nowhere, so will they.  Glory, glory be! 

The Mind

 

Go into silence. When the mouth gets quiet, you will notice that the head gets loud. You will notice compulsive thought, which arises on its own, and deliberate thought which you have the capacity either to author, or not.  Before you awaken, you will notice eight varieties of compulsive thought. As awakening progresses, there will be, added to those, eight more. [bxA]

The “evil thoughts of the lower self” are gluttony, greed, sloth, sorrow, lust, wrath, vanity, and pride. Gluttony is an avoidance of vulnerability using the comforts of food.  Greed is an avoidance of vulnerability using new possessions or status.  Sloth is an avoidance of vulnerability by mishandling the anxious pressures of life– doing too much or too little. Sorrow is an avoidance of vulnerability by using sadness to manipulate.  Lust is an avoidance of vulnerability by distracting yourself with attractions to others’ bodies or attention. Wrath is an avoidance of vulnerability by manipulatively overreacting in anger.  Vanity is an avoidance of vulnerability by attachment to your own excellence. Pride is an avoidance of vulnerability by preoccupation with your own self-sufficiency.

After God’s initial call, but before Christ has suffused your mind, you’ll still deal with compulsive thought, only these will be shot through with what seems to be divine mandate.  Not just “I want X,” but “God says I ought to have X.”  It will make them harder to let go of.  The “Evil thoughts of the higher self” are self pity, shame, blame, remorse, rationalization, resentment, self-aggrandizement, and entitlement.  In self pity, there is an “I” who shouldn’t have to deal with the stresses of the moment. In shame, there is an “I” who can’t deal with the mistakes involved in gaining experience.  In blame, there is an “I” who attributes causes for our behavior anywhere other than ourselves— to circumstance, to the behavior of others, whatever. In remorse, there is an “I” who emotionally grasps at past  mistakes, hoping to wield control over them. In rationalization, ego hopes  to avoid the discomfort of changing the things that we can.  In resentment, the ‘I’ uses ill feeling at “bearing unequal weight alone” to attempt to manipulate normally uncontrollable factors.  Self aggrandizement isn’t just vanity, it’s an “I” that’s avoiding lessons about nervous system regulation, because it’s so accustomed to being exempt from stress. Entitlement is simply an ‘I’ that believes the world should be as it wishes, an ‘I’  that is unwilling to deal, and incapable of dealing with the world as it is.  

Especially when combined with the legitimate trauma of personal history, the evil thoughts of the lower self and the evil thoughts of the higher self will be a source of great preoccupation.  But it should be said: your mind is built to let thoughts arise, and let them go.  Your nervous system is built for feeling and letting go.  Attachment or clinging will proliferate anxiety, and that very self-imposed suffering is just your mind and nervous system saying “this is more than we’re built for.”  Our job, with our ego, our capacity for craving and clinging and attachment, is simply to bear witness.  The more we witness our sinfulness, the more we can let the thoughts arise, let them go without acting on them.  In the beginning, there might be a painful period when we think “self is all that we are.”  Gradually we’ll come to say “I am my trauma-induced pain body, but I am also higher self and non-self” and it’ll awaken Christ within.  Eventually, once the self has entirely identified with Christ, we’ll watch as he says, in us “into your hands I commend my spirit.”  Those “steps”--like stations of the cross–will become faster and faster.

The eight evil thoughts of the lower self will be so hard to deal with that you will be tempted to attach to spiritual things just to get away from them.  This is called spiritual bypassing, where the positive content of awakening is used to ignore the negative.  You may be so unlucky as to experience great consolations, especially when the prayer journey is new, and the positive feelings of the prayer journey will make it all the easier to ignore your attachments, your ego, your unprocessed trauma.  Before the end, this will be a source of self-imposed anxiety and suffering.  This is normal, it’s perfectly safe, and it’s a terrific bummer.

The eight evil thoughts of the higher self will be so difficult that you will be tempted to use the inherent dignity of your identity to manipulate.  This is called spiritual materialism, where the consolations of the spiritual life are seen as exclusive to you–they’re seen as making you better than others.  If there are consolations in prayer, they will increase the risk of seeing yourself as better than others.  Before the end, this will be a source of self imposed anxiety and suffering.  This may render you a jerk temporarily, but don’t worry: silence will make you intolerable to yourself, and this will help you let go.

Too many years of endless crisis management and stimulus response loops of desire fulfillment have left our ability to focus attention and intention permanently damaged.  Ego is only capable of attention when distractions are eliminated.   Ego is only capable of focusing intention when gratification is immediate.  Ego is only capable of doing things that make sense.  And so the words of Matthew’s gospel prove true: “To what will I compare this generation?  It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to one another ‘we played the flute for you and you did not dance; we wailed and you did not mourn.”  To the things of life, we have all the wrong responses, because we have settled for thinking about life instead of living it.  We have substituted gratifying desire for feeling the emptiness of our physical bodies. 

The ego has no more effective strategy than to act on afflictive thought, to make it temporarily go away. There’s a need to learn to deal with afflictive thought without acting on it.  First, sit in silence 20 minutes a day.  Breathe, listen and feel.  The fear, in particularly scary compulsive thoughts, is “it’ll always be like this.”  That’s a big lie.  When afflictive thoughts arise, a number of strategies are effective in lessening their intensity. Redirecting your attention to the feeling of the breath, to the sound of the air conditioner, to the physical sensation of your left big toe–all of these strategies are effective in diminishing worry.  That diminishment isn’t instant, but as patience grows, so does confidence: “shifting attention” can replace “acting on thought” as a way to diminish their intensity. In your psyche, you may notice two difficult thoughts.  One is “a suggestion to self terminate” and the other is a deep confrontation with insignificance: “you are nobody and nothing.”  Self-termination and insignificance are difficult thoughts for the ego, because of how final the consequences are.  But learning to shift attention to physical sensation can give us an effective tool for letting go of even the scariest of thoughts.  

Over time, even the scariest of thoughts become understandable.  As the lines blur between life and death, pain and bliss, sadness and joy, we can use our higher self to care for our lower self.  The lower self’s whole identity comes from never-ending crisis.  Suicidality is an understandable suggestion for a mind at the end of its rope–the occurrence of the thought can ultimately function as a radical indicator of the need for self care.  But it’s through the daily grind–life itself–that the ego is destined to die.  Though it’s scary to hear “you are nobody, and nothing” looping through your head constantly, watching thought arise and depart while we breathe in and out teaches us that “self” is merely a thought.  It is as impermanent as everything else.  And furthermore, letting that thought go is absolutely safe. Move the body, tick items off to do lists, work a miserable job.  Even “automatic pilot” reassures us that, should we choose to let go of the voice in our head that refers to itself as “I, me, and my”--all of the needful things will still get done.  In short: In response to the world saying “nobody cares” Christ became a nobody who still manages to care, and it is absolutely safe to let go of our identity and become “a nobody who cares” along with him.

Mantra

For anyone at the end of their rope, the prayer that works is correct prayer. Other traditions depict God as humble enough to say “I am as my servant thinks of me. I am with him when he remembers me.” At the very least, for us, this means: the way that makes life manageable and serene is the right way. A grateful heart is one that knows suffering well enough to desire its diminishment for all. The advice “pray constantly” was not a mandate that should worry us. Instead, it’s an acknowledgement that, when you repetitively pray a single phrase, it will work its way inside you and become self-generating. Those working with a mantra will notice an initial period where the words compete with their worries. Then they’ll notice that, with a bit of gentle insistence, compulsive thought will diminish and the word will flourish. Mantra may attach itself to automatic movement–to rosary beads passed through the fingers, to items placed on shelves, to heartbeat or breath–and this will happen to the point where the words and thoughts themselves become sporadically unnecessary. In the press of responsibilities, focused intent will preserve a mantra that will mentally come and go. But the mantra will eventually flip–beneath all sound, always the quiet is wordlessly chanting the word, and you will simply listen. Of course, of that silence, it is correctly said: “You can show devotion to Christ, but you can’t stay.” The frustration implied there is part of everything, and the humble know the truth of it. [bxA]

There will be plenty of time for doing and thinking. God will glorify his own name. If your worries rise before the sun, say “the Lord himself will fight for you, you have only to keep still.” Zen masters report that, after the first experience of emptiness– the need to return to normalcy afterwards makes them feel “utterly ruined and homeless.” It is no wonder the Lord said “Foxes have dens, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” The Lord’s heart, pierced by the lance, flowed with blood and water until it was empty. In the ancient world, temples were usually full of riches–but when Jerusalem’s temple was sacked, the Holy of holies was found empty. In a way that is only verifiable by experience, the mind of Christ is empty too. Contemplation is a gift, the temporary feeling of interior emptiness. Recollection turns that emptiness into a portable practice. Obedience is emptiness in action. Humility is emptiness that practice has rendered quickly accessible.

When you wake, say “morning by morning he wakens, wakens my ear to listen as one who is taught.” How many of us hoped to uplift our mind and heart to God, only to find the light of prayer making our shadow apparent? Brokenheartedness, friends, is the bride of the Word. Of the practitioner, too, Isaiah’s words would apply “He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed, for righteousness, but heard a cry.” Your own suffering will help you see the anguish of others. Jesus said “the poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.” For those who think about this verse, meaning abounds. But Jesus is beginning to viscerally contend with his impending suffering and death. For those who can feel it, the silence behind these words is weighty indeed.

Whenever you begin your work, Look to Christ and say “he must increase, I must decrease.” You will begin to see what motivates your words and actions. Compulsive thought will clarify itself. Dealing with this will be the source of a great deal of inner work–some of it obviously spiritual and downright laudable. But at the end of the day, that is all “self.” And self is not an adequate muscle for humility. John said “Among you is one whom you do not know.” For a great many unresolvable mysteries, the apostles had a name, and it was “Christ.” Unknowing, nondoing, nonbeing–these are a person. Just as, psychologically, the Trinity was for Jesus–a transcendent personality both within and beyond him–so Christ is for us.

When work gets intense, say “I live, but not I, Christ lives in me” Thoughts, emotions, and sensations aren’t ours, and they aren’t rightly used to reinforce an ego story. All thought, all emotion, all sensation is Christ’s. When we can’t bear it, there is one within us who can: he sets his face like flint, and learns the lesson of aversion. Things arise and he lets them go–he’s learned the lesson of attraction. He breathes, listens and feels. Times of trouble will come, but when they do, it will be for that hour that we came into the world.

When distractions deprive the day of its prayerfulness, say “Father, why have you forsaken me” Practitioners say “I believe, help my unbelief.” Anyone in the thick of it–who isn’t connecting to what once caused happiness, is not admitting atheism, but instead embracing impermanence. Non-being purifies existing, non-doing purifies action, and unbelief, though it feels like “doubt” on an ego level, purifies belief. All flesh is like the grass. Prophesies, tongues and knowledge will all pass away. The Lord took impermanent flesh, suffered, died, was buried, descended, rose as a stranger, then ascended. Faith, hope and love will not die, but they will be changed. Impermanence is eternal–it’s a truth more enduring than even “selves and identity.”

When people’s shadow emerges, say “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” The community, see, is a mirror: and you will only respond generously when you see yourself in them. Are people attached to their preferences? So are you. Do people become angry when their plans are frustrated? So do you. What are the circumstances that find you cynical? What are the circumstances that find you judgmental? The “fullness of time” is not exclusively pleasant, and “the acceptable time” that witnesses God’s help will not be a time of abundant inner resources. Jesus was objectively, physically suffering, and he said “Father forgive them.” For us who’ve suffered less than that, admitting (in tight spots) that we, too, become jerks–this is the least we can do to be with Christ. So we say “Father forgive us, for we know not what we do.” That unknowing, when it becomes cause to diminish suffering, will become great strength.

When needs go unmet, say “I thirst.” Anger is unadmitted sadness, sadness is unfulfilled need, need highlights vulnerability, and vulnerability teaches us control and security are not guaranteed. Work remains for anyone who is, as yet, unaware of this. Meanwhile, for those pushing too hard, eat and sleep, lest the journey be too much for you. The Lord knew what we needed before we asked. In a deep sense we, ourselves, were the ones unaware. It’s a truism unless it’s simply true: in prayer, we learn to listen–not just to God, but to ourselves.

And when you must choose between suffering and prayer, entrust yourself to the one who prays when you cannot. Say “into your hands I commend my Spirit,” and go through the motions till the day is done. The Lord said “Do not worry. Who, by worrying, can add one hour to his span of life?” Just as those with addictions say powerlessness is the first step, so those with selves discover, after much faltering, that “giving up self” should be the first step. Viscerally, you will know what Jesus meant when he said “blessed are you who weep, for you will laugh.” The spring in each believer–the one that made their eyes a fountain of tears–will well up with laughter, life, gratitude. With persistence, the truth comes to light: All that’s not ego is the Almighty.

How does dissociation feel? Preparedness for Christian Enlightenment.

Start using any medicine for denial–scripture, entheogens, yoga– and they’ll tell you: awakening entails a purgative stage. This is the “psychological dumping” spoken of by proponents of centering prayer. Of the calm in monastic silence, Abbots have said “placidity teases out toxicity.” They’re right: the beginning of awakening is a real inner-garbage carnival. We would feel none of it, though, if it weren’t for love making us feel safe enough to let go of it. To remember “this whole thing is happening because of love” is otherworldly difficult, but succeeding at it pays dividends in serenity.

Here’s the bad news: for us who are called to everything, half of everything sucks. There is a stage where the psyche, in preparation for enlightenment, dissociates. If you want to know how ready for enlightenment you are, ask yourself “how does dissociation feel?” Of course, those in denial will say they don’t feel anything. And they’re telling the truth. Denial is a state where awareness is so completely turned off that we don’t feel anything.

Awakening flips that script, turns awareness to the empty spaces in our bodily awareness, so that we say, instead, “I feel nothing.” Feeling nothingness is, on a bodily sensation level, the beginning of coming out of denial. Ego will tell us we’re making progress: but this is merely the beginning of calamities.

Dissociation feels negative at first. We see ourselves, correctly, as way too identified with both varieties of evil thought–and we see our host of anxieties, produced by those attachments, as self-imposed.

Years of stress get chucked at the nervous system–and as this is too overwhelming, it’s stored in the body. Intense sensations are like traps we’re caught in: we worsen them by trying to wiggle out of them. It’s terrible on a sensation level–pains of all sorts surface, often connected to strong memories. As we become aware (and let go of) whatever memories we’ve attached to them, the various sensations diminish in intensity.

One who settles in to dissociation will witness a change in its character. Now no longer painful, it merely feels numb. The ego that wants to feel positive sensations complains inwardly, but numbness is definitely an improvement on negativity. Properly speaking, disidentifying with the “you” doing the feeling didn’t produce the change, but the changes arose together.

We realize that attention and intention, centered on sensation, accesses a spot that is both painful and blissful–a spot which eventually suspends the ego doing the labeling. As gurus have said “there isn’t much room for ego when all you’re doing is breathing in and out.” As we increasingly let go of the narratives behind our pain, ego itself relaxes. The dissociation which felt negative at first, which felt numb for a moment, has become not only tolerable, but preferable to the self induced anxieties of our egoic game-playing.

Eventually, “being in the body without a self” becomes something we’re entirely comfortable with. The disciplines of recollection, “breathing, listening, feeling and mantra” actually become anchors. Breathing, listening and feeling diminish the intensity of afflictive thought, and mantra provides “the feeling of sound” as an alternative to afflictive thought. Directing our attention and intention properly allows mind and emotion to do whatever they need to.

Triumph changes. When Jesus rose, he rose with his wounds still open. He offered Thomas the opportunity to probe his wounds–he allowed people to hurt him, in other words–so that they could awaken. Being able to feel our wounds at all, much less allow them to be worsened by others, mindlessly or deliberately–for one who was once entirely unaware, this is victory.

In the beginning, we didn’t know that indulging desire, forming an ego, coping–these all take a toll of self imposed anxiety. Now we know. Our lives aren’t necessarily “better or worse” for the knowing. But they are undeniably fuller.

The Consciousness of Christ

By self-surrender to a Triune God, Jesus anted up to the emptiness and impermanence of things. He waited, watched and prayed; he healed, eschewed judgment, gave up self because a transcendent, loving Other waited in the abyss. Jesus embraced self-emptying, even when kenosis was a cross, painful enough to make that "other" seem absent--and he did it because "living in the body free of ego, sin, attachment and craving" was possible. When we've ceased to judge, given up self, on the other side of a perspective flip, we will know the answer to how and why he did it. [bxA]

Tradition said to the Lord, "Hear O Israel," and it made, of his consciousness, an empty echo chamber filled with paradox. Jesus' heart was empty, we know that from the lance, the water and the blood. History tells us, when the Roman General Pompeii sacked Jerusalem, though he expected to find the inner chamber of Israel's temple full of riches, the Holy of holies was empty too. So when Paul says "we have the mind of Christ"--defining that involves paying dues to stillness, emptiness, humility, contemplation, obedience. Christ emptied himself--and in light of sayings like "all flesh is like the grass" it seemed, simply, to be cooperating with the impermanence of things. We're here to ask "how might we have the mind of Christ?" And--with deep reverence for the beauties of being, thinking, doing-- if we end anywhere other than serene silence, we end in error.

Responding generously to "Hear, O Israel" involves a discipline later tradition calls "recollection." Defined as "the in-gathering of the senses," recollection involves the disciplines of breathing, listening and feeling: the very things a modern psychologist would recommend to ground those having a panic attack. Whatever the goodness of recollection and modern psychology, we'd be remiss to forget: nervous system regulation and the wherewithal for radical grounding in the body are the foundation of Israel’s God concept.

• “Breathe” is the first command. People might disagree: spiritual materialists would say Moses saw a creosote bush aflame. Mystics would say Moses had a non-dual experience of the “light body” that was his own nervous system. No matter which is true, Moses emerged having heard the sound of a breath cycle, “YHWH,” and called it God’s name. 
• “Listen” is the second command. Isaiah took this seriously, saying “morning by morning he wakens, wakens my ear to listen as one who is taught.” In his cave, Elijah had to endure earthquake, wind and fire, had to give up his pious sense of identity over and over--in the end, though, he heard the sound of "kol damamah daqah" the sound of sheer silence. 
• "Feel” is the third command. Psalm 22 says “I can feel all my bones” and Ezekiel was told to prophesy to dry bones, first about flesh, then breath. 

These three commands are an entry point for the law, the prophets and the psalms. But a question remains--how did Jesus render his identity malleable enough to undertake any of this? He did it by using the Jewish ideas of "Father, Son and Spirit"--not to justify himself, but to call forth a capacity for living with things as they are. This meant that the trinity was, primarily, an inner reality, and that this 3 person deity was an "inner other" who, when he came close, augmented the devotees emotional toolkit.

From the Father, Jesus learned equanimity. Jesus learned to wait while desire and fulfillment, stimulus and response detached from each other. He learned to watch till the abyss blinked first. He felt the difference between listening to noise and listening for silence. In life's illogical spaces, he learned to wait patiently for the realizations of intuition. He sat at the feet of aversion and attraction: letting go of what was pleasurable, holding fast through what was painful, until the lessons of both became apparent. It was Jesus' "life with the father" that made him see all of this, and having seen, unseeing was impossible.

To the Father, the Lord said said "I want to see," and though he was looking for righteousness, he saw bloodshed. But what Christ beheld was also, always, the beholder. (If it were not so, why would St. John Vianney later say of Eucharistic Adoration "I look at him, he looks at me.") When Jesus looked intently, he saw himself in everyone and everything, and vice versa. In strangers, the hungry, the homeless, the poor, the naked, he saw his own consciousness gazing back at him. Christ sought the Father in his surroundings--and in bread, wine, sheep gates, light, clear paths and grapevines, a transcendence whose consciousness felt like his own seemed to be seeking him also. The "otherness" of the abyss would blink and then disappear. All of this rendered Christ gentle, made Jesus want to find the lost. Whether or not it was pleasant, Christ couldn't unsee what he'd seen.

It's in relation to the Father that Jesus saw that he could become nobody and still manage to breathe, listen, feel, and love. He gave up his "will to avoid discomfort," accepted the father's call to an "everything" that included suffering. He surrendered his spirit to a Father who seemed absent when pain and the limits of energy rendered spiritual work and bearing suffering mutually exclusive. Without control or security, Christ bore suffering in the absence of certainty that he was capable of it. He gave up his physical form, with only prophetic clues that the Son of Man would rise.

And in relation to the Father, he learned that he couldn't, and didn't have to make it happen: all that is written in the law, the prophets and the psalms was coming to pass, whether he wished it to or not. Because it was for "this hour" that he'd come into the world, he had long learned not to say "save me from this hour--" but instead, said "Father, glorify your name." He knew that his deeds of power could be done apart from the faith of the crowds, and that the sign of Jonah meant, primarily, that he himself would spend three days in the heart of the earth.

As he grew in his understanding of divine sonship, Jesus saw all that is distant and impersonal become immanent. Assimilation of divine sonship was measured in "how personally you hear the messages of scripture."

• For Jesus, in the Scriptures, time collapses into now. (If it were not so, why would St. Paul later say "Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.) Unless they led to remembrance of God's goodness or hope, past and future were useless. Passover remembrance was useless unless it made the past present. "Why is this night different from all other nights?" 
• For Jesus, all places were here, and all distance was the distance between the way things were, and our acceptance of it. (If it were not so, why would the psalmist have said "I lift my eyes to the mountains: from where shall come my help? My help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.) It didn't matter that the Lord was in his temple in Jerusalem if the body wasn't "the gate of heaven and the house of God" to begin with.
• For Jesus, and in the scriptures, all potential was realized, and must be realized. This wasn't all good. (If it were not so, why would Christ, who knew no sin, have become sin?) For every three youths whose suffering lead to "one who looked like a God," there had to be a Nebuchadnezzar. And those voices were, somehow, parts of Jesus' psyche. In this way, Jesus cathected the grace of sacred history, and used its evil as material for shadow work in preparation for bearing the great suffering of the cross. 
• For Jesus, in the Scriptures, all agency was personal. The question "whom shall I send" didn't matter if the answer was "someone else." It only mattered to the extent that the answer was "here I am, send me." 
• In the scriptures, all dualism collapsed into sameness. (If it were not so, why would Laban and Bethuel have said "The thing comes from the Lord. We cannot speak to you bad or good.") Psalm 139 says "if I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there." After a while it didn't matter whether it was height or depth we're talking about, but only being with the Lord. 
• For Jesus, in the scriptures, links between cause and effect were shaken. The Galileans whose blood pilate mixed with their sacrifices were not worse sinners than others. The man born blind wasn't a terrific sinner, nor were his parents, to merit blindness.  Jesus essentially said "Spend more time thinking about repentance and less time thinking about cause.  Spend more time thinking about God's glory, less time thinking about blame." 
• In the scriptures, for Jesus, all desire collapsed into need, and it completely undermined the utility of power and control.  (If it were not so, why would Jesus have said "I thirst"?) Jesus hoped to free us from worry: "This very day your life will be required of you" he said, "And the things you have laid up, whose will they be?" And again "do not say 'what are we to eat, and what are we to drink. Your Father knows that you need these things." Just as they did with Christ, the collapses of time, place, agency, potential, dualism cause and desire serve to make each of us, personally, ready to live in the now, reconciled to the past and willingly prepared for what was to come.

As he became increasingly conscious of the spirit, Jesus also grew in suffering. Both suffering and bliss made him hyperaware. Action was motivated by thought. Freedom on the level of action entails paying attention to thought. Thought was motivated by emotion. Freedom on the level of thought entails paying attention to emotion. Emotion was motivated by sensation. Freedom on the level of emotion involves paying attention to sensation. Sensation was motivated by energy. Freedom on the level of sensation involves paying attention to energy. Energy is something we judge. Freedom on the level of energy involves giving up self and not judging.

Christ and the Chakras

Your spine is the Mount of the Transfiguration and the Via dolorosa all at once. Whether it’s painful or blissful, at each chakra: Christ becomes literally present in what he means to teach you. [bxA]

At the root chakra, the spirit of fear of the Lord rests and remains.  Here, Vulnerability is Christ, and Christ is vulnerability. Over time, it becomes willingness. 

At the sacral chakra, the spirit of knowledge rests and remains. Here, Poverty is Christ and Christ is poverty. That becomes gratitude.

 

At the solar plexus, where the spirit of might rests and remains, Lack of control is Christ and Christ his lack of control.  That becomes virtue. 

At the heart Chakra, where the spirit of counsel rests and remains, Christ is empathy, and empathy, is Christ. That becomes compassion.  

At the throat Chakra, where the spirit of understanding rests and remains,  Silence is Christ, and Christ is silence. That becomes honesty.  

At the third eye, where the spirit of wisdom rests and remains, Consciousness is christ, and Christ is consciousness. That becomes acceptance. 

At the Crown Chakra, where the spirit of the Lord rests and remains, Nothingness is Christ, and Christ is nothingness. That becomes commitment to others.

Recollection, a spiritual path

Remember Moses, who said "The Lord himself will fight for you, you have only to keep still." Recollection, or "the in-gathering of the senses" is the law, the prophets and the psalms. Breathe.  No moment exists when we are not praying. Listen: we will be not two with all who say "Hear O Israel...the Lord is one." Feel.  Our own dry bones are the whole house of Israel.  Doing this, we will be happier--nothing we need will be outside of us. 

Ego and craving, thought and manipulation--they leave anxiety and self-induced suffering in their wake.  Spiritual bypassing will ask us to cling to prayer's consolations, but it is an end-run around trauma that we can no longer afford, and spiritual materialism will tempt us to use even our prayer for self-exaltation.  But we are not special: instead--like Christ--we are everything seen and unseen, and we are also nothing at all. [bxA]

We cling to what we're attracted to, and the joys are temporary.  We push away what we're averse to and the relief lasts only a moment.  From the impermanence of things, learn that letting go is the lesson of attraction, that setting our faces like flint is the lesson of aversion.  The gospel is written in "the way things are" and the stones are crying out.  Learn to transition from "not hearing anything" to "hearing nothing."  When we accept the lessons in everything, it creates equanimity. When we hear nothingness, we will see the Lord face to face.

Attention is impaired, but it's ok. Survival involved a hustle our nervous systems were unprepared for.  Vulnerability is scary, but that's why the Lord gave us the sacraments--so we could walk real slow into our basic human needs.  Gluttony, greed, sloth, sorrow, lust, wrath, vanity and pride will present themselves as solutions to our poverty.  If they say to us "Look, he is in the wilderness" do not go out. After the self dies in baptism, you will no longer need security to live in happiness.

Intention is impaired, but that's totally safe.  If "getting what we want" no longer satisfies, that's by design.  We're wired for "willing simplicity."  Self-pity, shame, blame, remorse, rationalization, resentment, self-aggrandizement and entitlement will assert themselves as distractions from vulnerability. If they say to you "look, he is in the inner rooms," do not believe it.  When the self dies daily, you will not need control to rejoice. 

When stored trauma fills us with physical pain--if you cannot forgive those who caused it--abandon judgment of the sensation.  It will feel dissociative, but dissociation is a cross on which our perspective will shift.  We will be one with him who said "My spirit fails, my heart is numb within me" and dissociating will feel negative.  We will be one with him who said "heal me, my body is racked, my soul is racked with pain" but we will notice that attentiveness to sensation has increased.  Eventually we'll say "I can feel all my bones," because the one who said it from the Cross is within us. We will be glad, at least, to be able to face the sensations.  When our perspectives flip away from self, we will be one with him who said "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Give up self, and do not judge.  Use the Eucharist to grow in virtue and intentionality.  When the lower self shows us our own ugliness, say both "I am not that" and also "I am more than that."  When the higher self shows us the divine image, say both "I am that" and also "I am nothing."  On the cross, Christ became "a nobody who cares"--and just like him, we can still love, long after letting go of our "somebodiness." 

For the humble, neither life nor death can threaten.  For the obedient, neither emptiness nor fullness can terrify.  For those given contemplation, impermanence is the door to the eternal. For the recollected, neither light nor darkness is blinding.  Die in baptism: you will see people but they will look like trees.  To die daily, look intently: you will see things as they are.  You were blind because you only saw what you wanted to see--namely, what's pleasant, on your own terms.  To be restored to sight, want everything--even what's painful--on God's terms.    

  

The Mind of Christ

Paul said “we have the mind of Christ” but he didn’t talk about it. We can infer, from the fact that the heart of Christ was drained empty, from the fact that, when the temple in Jerusalem was sacked, the holy of holies was found the same way: the mind of Christ is an empty mind. Contemplation is a temporary taste of emptiness, obedience is emptiness carried into action. Humility is emptiness that’s become an effortless default. “Christ” is the name for when emptiness eclipses identity. “I live,” says the scriptures, “but not I, Christ lives in me.” No sensation, emotion, thought or action is ours to build an ego story from. They belong to Christ: if you want to be freed from anxiety, say “always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ may be made known in our mortal bodies also.” If what you can’t accept becomes Christ, there might be reason, in the end, to not only allow it, but be devoted to it. [bxA]

Turning the grace of emptiness into a virtue is quite a task. The way to do this is “learning to focus and direct intention and attention.” Focus attention and intention on sensation until thoughts of self cease: as it is written, “keep looking, but do not comprehend, keep listening but do not understand.” The way to do this is to learn the mechanics of bearing aversions and attractions. Christ became the true nature of all things seen and unseen, and half of that is terrifically unpleasant. He became strangers, the naked, the homeless, the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned. All of those often need more than an individual can give. He became sheep gates, light, bread and wine–things that his audience would have interacted with daily–and he did not become only those few things so that he, or God, could be accused of absence from everything else. Where is God? God is everywhere. No thought, sacred or secular, can say otherwise without proliferating suffering.

When you can finally do, instinctively, what you could never have done for yourself, Christ has come to live with you. Turning your attention toward what’s joyful without reasons for sadness being eliminated, Steeling yourself to sit the lessons of aversion, learning to let go of the temporary enjoyments of attraction, learning to use sensation to focus attention and intention, learning to pay attention to subtle variances in negative and positive sensation, to direct focus toward negative space in the body–all of these are signs of the presence of Christ.

The Trinity within becomes the mental manifestation of the invisible evolution of your consciousness. With the Father, you learn to observe ego without identifying with it. You learn to create without controlling, to be still in insecurity until the energy shifts, to be fascinated with the opportunities of vulnerability instead of fearing them. With the Son, you learn to choose compassion and reframing. You reparent yourself, and join in Christ’s recapitulation of all things. With the Spirit, your character flaws become your gifts: you turn the trauma responses of hypervigilance and impulsivity into deep presence and obedience. You see what motivates choice, action, and emotion, and can care for it.

Students who have the mind of Christ have been made aware of, and sufficiently freed from ego, attachment and craving–such that they have been rendered basically voluntary. They will have sat next to gluttony greed sloth sorrow lust wrath vanity and pride until the long term costs of following those thoughts exceeds the short term benefits. They will have sat next to self pity, shame, blame, remorse, rationalization, resentment, self-aggrandizement and entitlement until the limits of their effectiveness at meeting needs emerges. If they have an attraction response, their enjoyment of it is not clingy. If they have an aversion response, their disgust with it does not forestall learning. They have let go of security and control, faced fears and vulnerabilities, developed inner and outer hustle.

None of this is a great revelation. It’s just claiming the space that is your own incarnate wonkiness. But where self help, the help of others, solutions sought in prayer have all failed, this has succeeded: not permanently or perfectly, but in a way you those who do it can truly bank on.