Drudgery or Fun?

....... there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Shakespeare in "Hamlet"

Since I’ve taken up the habit of experiencing in the NOW, some of my emotional hot buttons have dissolved.

One of my old triggers related to menial chores – or at least ones that I used to think of as menial.

On the one hand, I disdained the stereotypical white South African of the apartheid era who lorded it over black people. On the other hand, when the going got tough, my inner white South African would come to the fore. I’d resent doing chores that were hot and sweaty, that were dirty, that were repetitive, that were boring, and so on.

My husband, Greg, and I met each other just over three years ago. One of the features I found attractive about him in the beginning was his love of nature, his knowledge of trees, etc.

That was all very well, as long as we did activities that I enjoyed, such as hiking. That didn’t involve work, in the sense that Mother Nature did all of the gardening in the parks that we explored.

It was an entirely different matter when Greg turned his hand to gardening, splitting firewood, pruning trees, and digging ditches on his rural property. In theory I believed in eating locally grown, organic food and doing all that environmentally friendly stuff that greenie weanies do. But, man, it’s hard work! Not only that, but it’s dirty, hot, sweaty, boring, repetitive work – or at least that’s the way it seems to a person who has an “attitude.”

While he was doing these kinds of chores, Greg would go on about how beautiful the spring blossoms were or how cute the birds were or how blue the sky was. I would think to myself, “Yeah, sure, but if we want to soak in nature we could just go for a walk. Why does getting out and enjoying the blossoms and the birds and the sky involve so much work?”

Yet, over many months, my attitude began to change. Bit by bit, I started enjoying outdoor activities. I don’t just mean recreational outdoor activities such as hiking, sailing and kayaking – although I still enjoy them too – but outdoor activities that involve hard, dirty, hot, sweaty, repetitive work.

Gradually I came to derive a sense of satisfaction from the completion of a task, however humble. I lost my distaste for getting dirty, and my tolerance for repetition expanded. Believe it or not, I started enjoying the blossoms and the birds and the sky to which I was treated while I was working.

These days it’s very rare for me to wonder why I should have to do what I’m doing.

Just in case you think I’m trying to pass myself off as a saint whose ego has dissolved, let me hasten to add that I still have some emotional hot buttons left! I’ll share one of them in my next piece.

Experiencing in the NOW

In an earlier post, I shared that I had found Richard Hittleman’s Guide to Yoga Meditation very supportive.

One of his recommendations is focusing on experiencing what is happening, in the moment.

As he points out, you either can experience something OR you can name it. You cannot do both simultaneously.

The two events – the experiencing and the naming -- happen in such quick succession that typically we believe they are a single event. With my exploration of Non-Duality, I’m coming to learn that experiencing and naming (or labelling, judging, or telling stories) are separate processes.

Naming or labelling causes no discomfort as long as we use it as a tool for functioning in everyday life. The phone is ringing, the traffic light has just turned green, from the sound of the running water I can guess the bath is as full as I need, and so on.

We can generate suffering, though, when we judge situations, when we read meaning into other people’s actions, or when we want things to be different from the way they are.

To get past the labels, the assumptions, the judgements and the stories, Hittleman suggests the following strategy:

As you engage in each of your activities throughout the day, do not resist any experience. Attempt to be aware of the essence of everything you are doing. Even in those everyday chores that you usually accomplish in a mechanical manner and which seem to be very boring, attempt to experience the nature of what you are doing. When you find yourself in what you usually thought of as an unpleasant situation, do not resist it. Throw yourself into the center of the situation. Feel it; experience it.

Each Non-Duality author that I've read has motivated me to do this. I would say, though, that the writings of Jean Klein, "Sailor" Bob Adamson, and especially Richard Hittleman have been the most powerfully inspiring in this regard.

Since I’ve been cultivating this habit, I’ve found it enormously helpful. Tasks that I previously resented –- because they were boring, menial, repetitive, difficult or for some other reason stressful –- have come to be enjoyable. I have been really surprised at how happily I’ve worked through chores that I used to detest.

We especially are prone to suffering when we make comparisons with the past or when we project undesired outcomes into the future. The practice of focusing on experiencing has the added benefit of keeping us in the NOW. If our attention is on experiencing, we can’t help but be living in the present. Problems tend to evaporate when we are in the NOW.

When I'm fully engaged in what I'm doing, my awareness of the "little me" -- what Hittleman calls the "ordinary mind" -- dissolves. I get into a flow, and feel at one with the work and with my environment.

Brought me to tears

This is the book review I published for Tao Te Ching: An Illustrated Journey by Lao Tzu, as translated by Stephen Mitchell, on Amazon's website on January 15, 2013:

I LOVE this book.

Unlike some other reviewers, who have read several translations of the Tao Te Ching, I have read it for the first time.

While I was reading, a thought crossed my mind, "Under which rock have I been hiding for sixty years? Why have I found this book only now?"

Of course that judgmental thought in itself is out of sync with the Tao which, like the ocean, accepts whatever flows into it, whenever that may happen.

Suffice it to say, I am extremely grateful to have stumbled on the wisdom of Lao Tzu.

There are so many compliments to pay this book. Where to begin? Lao Tzu provided the content, which is simple yet profound. Stephen Mitchel has provided a translation that is elegant and poetic.

I was going to say that this would be my choice if I was allowed to take one book to that proverbial desert island. But then it occurred to me that, having read this one, I would have no need of books. Its message is inscribed in my heart - and that always goes with me.

All the same, as long as I haven't yet been stranded on that island, I'm sure I'll return to this gem repeatedly, to savour its beauty and no doubt to discover fresh insights on subsequent readings.

Potential customers who, like me, have not read the Tao Te Ching, may be interested to know how I found out about it. I'd read "A Thousand Names for Joy : Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are" (Byron Katie's commentary on excerpts from the Tao Te Ching) and, before that, "Loving What Is : Four Questions That Can Change Your Life" (which describes 'The Work' of Byron Katie). I'd found those books supportive too.

Yoga Meditation

In rummaging through our storage room, my husband recently unearthed a handful of books that dated back to his hippy youth.

One of them was Richard Hittleman’s Guide to Yoga Meditation (Bantam Books, 1969).

This was a real find!

Hittleman’s explanations of what he calls the “ordinary mind” and the “Universal Mind” are the clearest and most concise that I’ve read so far!

He provides strategies for detaching from the paranoid “ordinary mind” and experiencing the expanded awareness, strength, security, and peace of the “Universal Mind.”

Some of the activities are specific meditation techniques that you would employ by setting aside time, finding a quiet space, and so on.

Some of the strategies, however, are attitudes that you can adopt while you’re going about your everyday life.

I read – but did not take on board – what Hittleman had to say about reincarnation. He believes in it, but I’m pretty sceptical about it. I consider that to be a minor detail, though. His and my difference of opinion on that topic does nothing to detract from the practical support I’ve received from his book.

I am so glad my husband dug up this book!

Letting go of the "little me"

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was re-reading What’s Wrong with Right NOW unless you think about it?

On this reading, the book is turning out to be a gem. It’s interesting that a couple of years ago I found it merely okay. Back then I didn’t understand why reviewers raved about it. Now I would say I’ve joined the fan club.

This time around, I’ve been finding it very interesting to see what Bob Adamson has to say about the entity that most of us think of as “I” or “me.” I find that he provides a very clear explanation of this.

As I’m making my way through this book, I’m finding myself relaxing more and more. Increasingly I seem to be letting go of “me,” that is, the apparent me that previously felt a heavy burden of responsibility for ensuring that things turned out okay. I’m relinquishing goals and desired outcomes.

The image I had of myself, which was based on my past, is loosening its grip on me. I worry less about the future. On examination, I find that many of my fears centred on the survival of the “little me” and maintenance of the little me’s ongoing membership of “the club.” (“Club” is my multi-purpose label for any reference group to which I may feel attached.)

With greater – but not yet perfect – consistency, I am trusting Intelligence Energy to work things out. (Intelligence Energy is one of several terms that Bob uses for Universal Consciousness.)

I am living more in the NOW.

As I’m easing my demands on myself, I’m finding my judgements of other people letting up. I feel warm towards them and enjoy their company.

As so many Non-Duality authors have stated, Universal Consciousness is like a mirror. The apparent other people with whom I interact, the apparent “me” that interacts with them, and the apparent events in which we apparent entities participate are like reflections in the mirror. Regardless of whether the events are “good” or “bad,” and regardless of whether we feel “happy” or “sad” about them, they can have no more effect on my essence (Universal Consciousness) than a reflection has on the mirror in which it’s reflected.

Bob uses another analogy that I don’t remember seeing elsewhere in Non-Duality literature. He talks about a mirage. He says it looks so like water, you could swear it was water. Yet, he asks, can the mirage wet your shoes? I like that metaphor! When I find something disturbing, I ask myself, “Can this situation wet my shoes?” That quickly puts things into perspective for me.

At the coal face

So far on this blog, I have not shared details about my “problems.”

It occurs to me that you, the reader, may regard me as a lady of leisure who is tinkering with these concepts of Non-duality.

I have thought that it might give me more credibility if I told you the issues I was wrestling with.

The challenge with that is that my family members value confidentiality more than I do. In order to give you a sense of what I’m “up against,” I’d have to tell you their stories too. From what I know of them, I believe they would feel hurt and betrayed if I did that.

Suffice it to say, in my immediate family we’re dealing with cancer, mental illness, and serious financial challenges that seem to permeate every aspect of our lives.

Perhaps this is enough information for you to get a sense that I am an ordinary person who experiences what in the “normal world” are considered to be “difficulties,” just like most people.

To me, my exploration of Non-duality feels very practical indeed. It is not merely a theoretical exercise.

What's wrong with right NOW?

After a two-year interval, I am re-reading What’s wrong with right NOW unless you think about it? by “Sailor” Bob Adamson.

This book had been recommended to me close to the beginning of my exploration of Non-duality.

Although I did get something out of it back then, it resonates with me a lot more now.

Adamson’s style is less accessible to me than the writings of Rupert Spira, Francis Lucille, Jean Klein, Nathan Gill and, above all, Byron Katie.

However, it has felt supportive to me to read different authors. Each one expresses the same concept a little differently. The cumulative effect is a growing insight into the nature of Reality.

Certainly it feels good to have included “Sailor” Bob’s book in the mix.

My current reading of What’s wrong with right now? is reminding me that I – the “little me” that I think of as Judy – can do nothing.

Bob uses the analogy of a poker that’s red hot when it’s been in the fire. My imagining that I have power is like the poker’s imagining that it is the source of its own heat. Of course, if the poker is removed from the fire, it cools down.

The reason that I’ve appeared to have done this or that during my life is the result of my having been a channel for what Bob calls Presence Awareness. There are other names for It – Universal Consciousness, God, etc. It is That One that actually has done everything that I’ve previously attributed to Judy.

Recently I’ve faced several challenges. Whenever I’ve wondered how I’ll meet tight deadlines, how I’ll do something that appears complicated, and so on, I’ve felt overwhelmed. When I’ve reminded myself that I am not the doer, have let go of results, and have regarded myself as an instrument of The One, things have flowed.