Tag Archives: recapitulation

A Day in a Life: Peaceful Mind

May 23, 2012 Jan 4 Comments

So Chuck and I have lately been writing about mindfulness meditation with the goal of achieving compassion, for ourselves and others. We both spent some nights dreaming with the Dalai Lama, thought to be the incarnation of the Buddha of Compassion, and indeed his life has centered on bringing the concept of compassion to the modern world. But what about mindfulness, what is it and how does one achieve it?

Photo by Jan — Some mindful reading aids...

I like to think of mindfulness as a practice of achieving a peaceful mind, the true nature of mind. By constantly reminding myself that my life is a journey, and by acknowledging that everything that happens in a day and in a lifetime is an important part of my learning experience, I am able to bring myself closer and closer to achieving the goal of peaceful mind. Sometimes I get there for long periods of time, and other times I may only touch down for a few minutes a day, but the more I remind myself of my goal the easier it becomes to quickly experience peacefulness of mind.

Even during recapitulation, when in the throes of a memory, one can use the practice of mindfulness to ground the self and stay in the adult present self. Reiterating often that life is a journey of self-discovery helps anchor one in reality, even while another part may be experiencing something from a painful past. Mindfulness is that anchor, the anchor of awareness that we are all on journeys, that we are all in our lives to learn something, that we are all sentient beings capable of incredible feats. The first incredible feat is to remember these things, to change how we think about ourselves and our lives by constantly bringing our attention back to these truths. The second incredible feat is learning to let go of what normally fills our minds so that we can rest a moment in the peacefulness of empty mind. Mindfulness is building awareness of ourselves beyond the usual cogitations of the mind, awareness that the perfect state of mind is peaceful. It is what our minds seek most of all.

It is possible to begin training in mindfulness simply by bringing attention to what we are doing throughout the day, staying mindful of the moment. In such mindfulness practice peace exists. Now I am mindful that I am sitting at my computer and writing, but I am also mindfully aware of my breath, of my calm heart, of words flowing out of me.

In a little while I will make a cup of tea. I will sit calmly with my tea and drink it mindfully, focusing on its nourishment, letting thoughts go as I remind myself that “I am drinking tea, I am drinking tea.” When I take a walk, I remind myself that “I am walking now, I am walking.” I focus on my breathing and my next step, letting thoughts go. As thoughts return, as they always will, I simply bring my attention back to what I am doing. “Oh, yes, I am walking!” When I go to yoga class I calm my mind by saying, “I am in yoga class now, I am present in my body in yoga class.” I constantly remind myself to come back to the moment, to where I am and what I am doing in the moment. In so doing, I allow all else to escape the confines of my mind, leaving room for a few moments of empty, peaceful mind.

This mindfulness practice of constantly re-anchoring in the moment, aids in allowing worry and stress to be absent, however briefly. Given a reprieve it will often leave of its own accord, for in reality it does not exist if we do not give it a home to exist in.

Begin the process of mindfulness meditation in everyday life simply by being in the moment and then re-focusing on being in the moment. It doesn’t need to be something that we sit and do at a certain time each day, though that is perfectly acceptable too. In the end, by simply allowing it to become a natural part of everyday life, it grants us its gifts more frequently. By constantly reminding ourselves to be mindfully aware, we train our awareness to be mindful more often and pretty soon we find that it comes to our rescue when we most need it, such as in a moment of intense recapitulation as I mentioned.

Being able to anchor ourselves in the awareness of now, reminding ourselves of the truths of our journeys upon this earth and the desires of our spirits to learn and grow, helps greatly as we face our recapitulations. The more we are mindful, the easier it becomes to be mindful again and again. One day we might notice just how peaceful our minds are and, however brief the moment may be, take it as a sign of achieving the goal of mindfulness.

With mindfulness comes compassion; it just naturally seems to lead the way there. We find that compassion does not really need any explanation. One day we just find ourselves experiencing it because we have already taken on the biggest enemy of compassion: the old mind with all of its directives, judgments, condemnations, repetitive voices and tiresome criticisms. By letting it go we become open to new ideas, new thoughts, and incredible feats of mind never before thought possible. One day we find that all of our thoughts are compassionate ones, all of our ideas embrace a new paradigm, encompassing a broader worldview where everyone is equal.

By opening the mind to peacefulness we allow new energy in, and it comes in calmly, aware that something is different now, that the mind is no longer accepting the old way, for it is only interested in peaceful emptiness for all.

Peace,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Creating A Dreaming-Waking Mandala

May 16, 2012 Jan Leave a comment

Photo by Chuck — Dreaming with the Dalai Lama...

I set my intent and then I dream.

For the past week the Dalai Lama has come to me in my dreams. Sometimes when we wake up in the morning Chuck tells me that he has also been dreaming with the Dalai Lama. This is significant. What I am learning from the Dalai Lama is important. He has been teaching me how to handle the energy of now, the pushing, almost volatile energy of late that has been unrelentingly asking us all to face ourselves, what comes to us from within, while simultaneously withstanding the onslaught of the turmoil of what comes to us from without. We have all been suffering lately through the same kind of energy that Buddha encountered during his 49 days under the bodhi tree. And, as Chuck mentioned in a recent blog, the energy is not going to stop, it is coming at us with the speed of light!

This kind of energy circulates through our lives often enough that by the time we are adults we should be pretty used to it, but that doesn’t mean we handle it well. It takes awareness—recognition that we are in this type of energy state again—as well as a concerted effort to achieve balance and calm so we can not only maneuver through it but learn something as well.

In my first dream, the Dalai Lama handed me a fifty-pound bag of sand. He then instructed me to create a circle with it, large enough for me to walk around in. He showed me how to use the sand to build a little wall, just a few inches tall, sloping upward to a point, as if to create a small mountain range. The point, he told me, was to create a barrier between what was outside and what was inside. I worked on building that wall all night long, getting it just right, refining the edges, perfecting the circle. It was satisfying work and by the time I was done I had created what I set out to do.

The next night, the Dalai Lama came again. This time he instructed me to define quadrants within the circle, four equal areas that defined my life. The first quadrant became my inner world, the second my work in the outer world, the third my relationships with others, the fourth my home and my personal life. These quadrants, he said, must always be in balance.

When I woke up from the first dream it was pretty clear that the Dalai Lama was instructing me in making a mandala, a dream mandala, I thought. Little did I know that it was more than just a dream manifestation. By the third night I understood that it was a working mandala, merging the Shamanic process of recapitulation with a most important Buddhist practice. On this night, the Dalai Lama taught me about detachment, probably the most important practice in both recapitulation and Buddhism.

On this night, the Dalai Lama taught me that I must constantly utilize and hone my practice of detachment as I encounter the onslaughts of energy that are constantly present, whether from within or without. He instructed me to face what comes to me, to dissect it thoroughly, understand it completely for what it is and what it is teaching me, and then to let it go and move on. I sat in the different quadrants of my mandala and did as he instructed. His hand gestures were always prominent in these dreams, but this night they were broad sweeping movements as he demonstrated pushing the finished product of my inner process away, actually expelling the energy beyond the walls of my mandala. “Be done with it!” he said. “And then move on! That is detachment!”

By the fourth night I was beginning to wonder if he would come back. I wasn’t really surprised to find myself in his company once again. This time he spoke of compassion, instructing me in achieving calm within no matter what came from without, but with gentleness and compassion for myself as I went through the process of detachment. He told me that I had to get to a place of detachment in order to fully understand compassion, and that I had to get to a place of compassion for myself if I was going to truly be able to be compassionate toward others. He told me this was an endless process of facing both the inner and outer world, for there will always be something new each day to figure out and detach from with compassion.

The next night, he instructed me, in a final note, to remember that all of this had to happen with awareness that I—my ego self—was not all that important. What was most important in all of this practice was honing my awareness so that I might also hone my energy. This is the ultimate reason and the goal in life. The daily challenge, he told me, is to face what comes in life in full awareness that it is the path to enlightenment, to full awareness and use of energy. How I express my energy through this body that is me—how I meet others in the world, and how I elect to live my life—all matter.

In essence, the Dalai Lama was pointing out that we are already on the path. We have always been on it. Our path is personally significant; we are the only ones who can walk it, taking the journey that we got. We are all, however, equally outfitted with what it takes to make the trek along that path to enlightenment. As my dream encounters suggest, it just takes utilizing a few practical tools in how to use what we innately possess: the means to achieving full awareness in our dreaming and waking lives.

In my dream encounters with the Dalai Lama, I was being reminded that we all face lessons in detachment in our daily lives, every day. The four quadrants of my dream mandala are the places that my personal challenges occur. But the Dalai Lama was also reminding me that we are all Buddha, going through the same kind of suffering that the Buddha went through in his 49 days of suffering. We must learn the same lessons that the Buddha learned, how to withstand the tension of what comes to us, investigate it—in a deep process like recapitulation, for instance—then let it go having learned what is most important. And then move on. There is always something new to move onto.

I learned, once again, that although the process is endless, the rewards are immediate. Each day, as I move around in my dreaming-waking mandala, I find that as I face what comes, the world without eventually changes, meeting me differently too. Where I am, so is the world. If I am in balanced calmness then I meet similar energy without. If I am avoidant, that too is what I encounter without, avoidant energy.

Art and Photo by Jan — I have already constructed a magical wall...

One day I may find myself in the relationship quadrant and another day I may find myself in the outer world quadrant. It doesn’t matter where I find myself, the work is the same, to face what comes with awareness that my reason for being here is so that I may evolve. What must I face today and how will I face it? Will I remember that I already built a magical protective wall to hold in the energy that is important and to keep out that which is not?

I must remember that I am well prepared. All I really have to do is set my intent. And what was my original intent that brought the Dalai Lama’s energy into my dreaming-waking life? What it always is: to change. I find that there is really no other intent I need to put out there. Every day I ask to change, to keep changing, for I find there is no end to the magic and awe of life in change. “Let me change,” I ask. “Let me change.”

By constantly returning to my mandala, I am offered structure when I often feel that I have no structure, nowhere to turn, or no anchor. I do have it, a gift from the Dalai Lama himself. His own energy utilized far beyond his own physical body. That is his intent.

I sit in my mandala and set my intent to change. Try it. It really works!

Most humbly offered, with love,
Jan

See also Chuck’s recent blog: Achieving a Quiet Heart.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: So, What’s It All About?

May 9, 2012 Jan 1 Comment

On my father’s eightieth birthday, as we sat around the crowded dinner table, I posed a question.

“Dad,” I said, “you’ve lived a long life, reached this ripe old age of eighty. Do you have any words of wisdom to impart to all of us on this momentous occasion?”

My father looked at me and then glanced around the table at the rest of the family, everyone wondering just what he might say to such a question. His gaze turned to the table laden with food and he simply said: “Pass the butter.”

Laughter erupted, but that was all he said. He didn’t follow it up with a single word and we were left to wonder. Is that really what it’s all about? Pass the butter? Was he telling us that his opinion didn’t matter or that he just didn’t have anything to say about life? Was he suggesting that nothing really matters in the end, that the only things that matter are what comes next? Was he implying that my question was too much to respond to, too impertinent to spring on him like that?

My father was not an outwardly expressive man, kept his thoughts private for the most part, though I always suspected he had a thoughtful, rich inner life, as I expect everyone does. At one time in my youth I had admonished him to quit wasting his imagination on fears and put it to creative outpourings, for I saw, at an early age, how fear consumed him. I knew that in his youth he had been a poet with aspirations of becoming a writer, but those dreams got interrupted, usurped by duties of marriage and family.

As I experienced my father turning from my question that evening at the dinner table, I felt not only a pang of rejection, but, by far, a deeper sense of dismay, for I could not fathom that someone could have lived so long and not been able to speak from the deepness of his heart to his own family. At the time, I was deep into my recapitulation, investigating myself in a most thorough manner, constantly asking myself challenging questions and demanding that I find the answers within. I was learning to trust my heart, turning to my inner self for the answers I sought, and thus I could not imagine that he had not, at some time, done the same. For, as I said, I expected everyone to have a rich inner life. But now I know that not everyone chooses to explore the inner world of the deeper self in quite the same way and beyond that, that many roads lead to a path of heart.

I will turn sixty this year, and I hope that if my children ask me to impart some words of wisdom that I will be as succinct as my father, that perhaps I will be able to wrap it all up in a nutshell and say, this is what life is really all about: Pass the butter. For I think my father’s answer says it all.

He was really saying, without self-importance, without attachment, without needing to uphold anything: This is how I do life, how are you choosing to live your life? And indeed, that is a most private endeavor. Can I be as detached as my father and fully own my own journey, and without judgment let others live the life they choose?

From my father, I have learned that life is not about making a point or being right, or having the answers. Life is really just about choosing how you want to live and then doing it to the fullest. I know that my father lived his life according to his own values, that he made choices in alignment with what he felt was right. He was extremely honest, hard working, dedicated to serving others less fortunate, though he himself was not well off by any means. I know that in his own way he lived every day from a deeply caring place and that he gave without asking for anything in return, only that justice be served, that right be done, knowing that everyone matters. A man of few words, he expressed his inner life in his everyday actions, traveling a path of heart, giving wherever he met resonance in the world.

So, what’s it all about? I fully agree with my father. Life is just about choosing how to live and then living that life to the fullest, in whatever way is right for you.

Pass the butter,

Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Path of Sexual Maturity

May 4, 2012 Chuck Leave a comment

It takes decades to climb the many stepping stones to full sexual maturity. Great effort is required. Aging without effort guarantees only old age. Deep sexual union may, in fact, be the opus of a lifetime with the failures of the first half of life actually being the necessary preparatory steps for true fulfillment beyond midlife.

Those failures include the fertile years where nature, in a most impersonal way, secretly dominates the sexual drive, masking its demands for recreation in the inappropriate attractions that spellbind us into sexual union. Many of those unions, though they may achieve nature’s aim of procreation, lack compatibility, sustenance and duration.

Nature fully takes advantage of the naiveté of youth to romantically do its bidding. Beyond copulation, nature provides little to support relationship. Yes, it does provide bonding and nesting urges, on an instinctual level, but that doesn’t stop nature’s compulsion; it will not be limited. That’s its survival strategy: quantity of children over quality of relationship. And true commitment, true containment, is hard to submit to in the fertile years. All humans must reckon with this debt to their animal natures, with its exorbitant interest toll evident in relationship casualties. If we truly grasped the power of nature to commandeer even our minds during the fertile years, we wouldn’t take so personally our failures. We didn’t stand a chance against nature’s imperative.

Coexistent with nature’s biological dominance in the fertile years is the ego’s growing control over sexual life. These include encounters with adequacy, self-esteem, performance, power, and the ability to connect.

Some of the ego challenges that men may encounter as they attempt to firmly establish their potency and power are questions such as:

Am I attractive enough?
Am I virile enough?
Am I worthy of this person?
Can I approach and hold my own in interaction?
Do I know how to seduce?
Is my penis adequate, large enough?
Can it get the job done?
How do I turn her on, what’s the best method?
What’s the deal with oral sex? Can I handle it?
How are you supposed to do it?
Where’s the clitoris?
Can I handle a real life encounter?
Can I stop shaking?
Can I get an erection?
Can I maintain an erection?
Can I handle the responsiveness of her body?
Will I ejaculate too soon?
How will I know if she’s satisfied?
Can I share my fantasies?
How did I measure up?
Why doesn’t she ever approach me?
How can I get more?

Photo and art by Jan — Am I sexy enough?

Women are challenged by many of the same ego and self-esteem questions, but their are others specifically female related, such as:

Am I pretty enough?
Am I smart enough?
Am I desirable enough?
Do I have an attractive body?
Are my breasts too little, too big?
Do I smell good?
Does he really like me?
Can I tell him my dreams?
Will it hurt?
Where is my clitoris?
Will I orgasm?
How do I tell him he’s not doing it right without hurting his feelings?
Is this love?
Will he come back or is this just a one time thing?
What if I just want to cuddle, will he be okay with that?
What if he comes first?
Do I have to fake an orgasm so his ego isn’t hurt?
How do I stop him, say no, if it doesn’t feel right?
Why do we have to do it so often?
What if I get pregnant?

These questions and thousands more, including a readiness and willingness to commit, pervade men’s and women’s thoughts during the fertile years. Concerns are largely self-centered, only marginally relational. True readiness to be with, take in, and merge with another person, in mature union, transcends the ego’s preoccupations during the fertile years.

Biological aims and ego insecurities dominate the fertile years and must be experienced and burned through to prepare the ground for the depth of spiritual union inherent in sexual maturity at midlife and beyond. Midlife crisis is actually the spirit’s call to recapitulate and complete the learnings of the first half of life’s lessons to prepare for deep union in later years, what the alchemists called: conjunctio.

A major component of recapitulation is reliving our complete sexual history, facing the full truth, releasing the myths as well as the myriad of feelings combusted and stored around all sexual encounters. In recapitulation, we retrieve our freed energy; we enter our bodies deeply; we accompany the free flow of libido with calm presence and openness, as we prepare for union without barrier.

Recapitulation itself is an arduous process. As we climb the stepping stones to full maturity we learn that it takes time, patience, and a deep yearning for, and commitment to, the truth and fulfillment of this life. During recapitulation, ego issues and traumatic underpinnings that once froze the free flow of sexual energy are discovered for what they truly are, dismantled and released. Recapitulation is conjunctio within the self, as energy previously separated is reclaimed and merged into a unified whole within the self. From this recapitulated place of wholeness, extraverted conjunctio, matured sexuality, is possible with an “other.” If the residual sexual issues from the fertile years are not resolved through recapitulation, these issues will be carried forward, interfering with conjunctio, both within and without.

After recapitulation, the physical changes of midlife, and beyond, matter little. With ego relativized through recapitulation, full spiritual, sexual union—at the deepest energetic level—is completely possible! After recapitulation conjunctio is no longer thwarted by such issues as body image or mechanics, for no physical limitations or ego limitations can stop true sexual, energetic union. There simply are no limitations! Two fingers alone can touch in ecstatic orgasmic union!

For those still in the midst of the necessary challenges of the fertile years, stay patient. Full sexual maturity awaits if you allow yourself to have your own necessary experiences and acquiesce to recapitulation when it beckons. For those with limited or deeply compromised sexual experience during the fertile years, recapitulation provides the necessary process of integration of self that will lead to openness to union in later years, when true union is really possible, offering the ability to fully actualize the sexually mature self, in true relationship!

The full realization of sexual maturity ultimately includes the biological, ego, and energetic or spiritual dimensions of our beings. It’s far more than nature just taking its course. It requires us, as conscious beings, to evolve as individuals to really meet each other.

From the nest,

Chuck and Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Achieving A Quiet Heart

April 27, 2012 Chuck 1 Comment

What did Buddha really go through as he sat for 49 days beneath the bodhi tree, intent upon achieving a quiet heart? As he sat, his petty tyrant helper, Mara, projected a rapid-fire succession of intense scenes before his eyes, provoking feelings of lust, sadness, terror and rage. Buddha’s challenge was to remain fully open to his experiences and simultaneously arrive at the place of a quiet heart.

A quiet heart is the place of groundlessness. In groundlessness nothing is rejected, the full experience is felt and known. There is no attempt to “get grounded,” no need to “attach” to something to stop the action and restore control. Nothing in the flow of images or evoked feelings has the power to interrupt full presence, full awareness, and full living in the present moment.

No wonder it took Buddha 49 days of nonstop sitting to fully achieve a quiet heart, the groundlessness of “enlightenment.” That is, 49 days on top of years of prior training. We should all keep this humbly in mind as we face the deep challenge of recapitulation. It’s a process! Here are some of the major components of that process to keep in mind: that every journey is unique, with its own components.

As with Buddha’s quest, the goal of recapitulation is to achieve a quiet heart amidst the parade of truths and myths of life lived, as they present themselves in the form of memories, bodily sensations, emotions, and beliefs. Can we stay fully present with the images that appear, whether slowly collecting or rapidly firing, as memories coagulate and come into sharper focus? Can we stay fully present with the physical sensations, at times so subtle as to be dismissed, at other times excruciatingly painful or pleasurable? Can we stay fully present with journeys of disintegration, dissociation, blackout, the terror of pending death, times of dissolution and altered awareness? Can we stay fully present with emotions that have been sealed away for a lifetime, that come coursing from the heart like a raging river, a current of energy that leaps across synapses of never-used neurons along the motherboard of the spinal column?

Can we stay fully present with overloaded, interrupted circuits—physically painful, emotional misfirings? Can we allow the pent up energy of emotion and sensation to release through the breath, the tear ducts, the voice, the genitals?

Can we be fully present with the voices of old beliefs, constructions that defended the selves of bygone years? And, finally, like the Buddha, can we be fully present with the fullness of the experience with a quiet heart, with no attachments or need to stop the show? Can we be fully present in groundlessness that fully opens us to enlightened life?

We must remember that Buddha spent countless hours encountering and honing these components of recapitulation before he achieved the quiet heart that allowed him to step into groundlessness.

We must be patient and nurturing as the heart unlocks its feelings, as the body releases its memories, as our newly discovered neurons stretch and grow in order to carry and release our long pent-up energies.

Enlightenment awaits in the form of new, fully present life—NOW. And that means life unfiltered by the vicissitudes of the past, energy freed and restored, fully present, ready to live NOW.

Chuck

Riverwalker Press