Beginner's Mind - May 1st, 2008
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Beginner's Mind
Beginner's mind
It's time to start this blog up again.
I have already published three monumentally unsuccessful books, so let this be the start of the fourth.
I have a lot of thoughts about consciousness. The plan is to write a daily comment about some aspect of it, and fill those comments with searchable terms that anyone Googling topics related to spirituality and consciousness might search for. Hopefully this will slowly build up a network of intelligent compatriots: persons interested in, having questions about, observations about the pursuit and maintenance of dhyana, i.e., ultimate awareness. In the Roman version of Christianity--where I spent some time--they used to call this "ascetical and mystical theology", and they pursued it with extraordinary narowmindedness.
Recently I have been pursuing it through the practice of "trauma treatment", based on my observation that the principal obstacle to ultimate awareness is the set of trauma imprints inflicted on most human beings by normal child-rearing practices. I call this "the Alice Miller finding" and have written about it in several places on my web offerings. The method of trauma treatment I use is derived from Hakomi psychotherapy, but I don't treat it as psychotherapy; rather I agree with Gene Gendlin and his "Focusing" technique that the release of trauma imprints is a skill, not psychotherapy. In particular it is a skill that Gendlin calls "using the felt sense", and that I call--following Hakomi--"inner body sensing".
Once you clear out trauma imprints, the theory goes, ultimate awareness is just right there.
However, I also like the description by Donald Epstein of the stages consciousness goes through in clearing out these imprints http://lightworkers.org/node/8513 . [I was told about Epstein's work by Ellen Goldman, who did some work with me in a workshop on inner body sensing hosted by the Center for Kinesthetic Education here in NYC.] I like the way he starts with "suffering", i.e., the realization that there is something out-of-true about one's own inner reality. If you divide his 12 stages into 4 groups of 3, you find the same set of steps taken over and over again: (1) suffering (2) search (3) discovery. The first set of 3 steps ends with "trip": AHA! NOW I'VE GOT IT! THIS IS IT! THIS IS THE PATH!
A while back I read a story about some hippies who got picked up by Chogyam Trungpa one time when they were hitch hiking. The main thing they remember about their conversation with the great teacher was that he kept telling them, "Beware of trips, kids. Beware of trips."
Now, inevitably, trips will happen. I have done plenty of trips. What happens is that they produce more suffering and so the search goes on, and deeper awareness occurs. A lot of spiritual systems speak of "meditation" as the main tool for the search. I think that is a very trippy oversimplification. This is because "meditation" can mean (a) leaving the body as well as (b) going into the body. So, I say that the main tool for the search is this "inner body sensing".
I think that's enough for today.
Current Mood:  cranky
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