Feeling Left Out

 Last week, my 6 a.m. meditation buddy, Elizabeth, reported that, during meditation, she had felt a very familiar feeling of being left out. She recalled a reading group she was part of, but she hadn't heard from them since last summer. Were they meeting without her?

Feeling left out is one of my very familiar go-to places. I could give you a hundred examples, similar to Elizabeth's. They are meeting without me. No one told me about.... Everyone else is (or has).... They all seem to know about [something i don't know].

Elizabeth said, that during meditation, she felt the thought from a place of Awareness, and the thought turned into a pleasant vibration. The thought was gone. Gone.

I said, "Well, that gives me hope."

The following morning, i saw HOPE floating among the trees in my yard.

The belief that I am being left out is just a thought. A thought that, if i pay close attention, is a vibration. 

Sound is a vibration. You can "hear" sound throughout your body as it vibrates your bones. That vibration can be pleasant. Though roaring motorcycles might be unpleasant. A thought is nothing more than inner hearing; hearing an inner sound with a very weak vibration. But it does vibrate. Use all your mindfulness to notice this.

The thought/belief of being left out dissipates into emptiness.

Doubting Tulips

 I ordered tulips last month--not to plant in the ground. When i don't know [fill-in-the-blank], i come to a complete halt. Doubt assails me.

Where would i plant tulips? Where could i plant tulips? I have no idea. I do not know.

It's interesting to realize that my obstacle is doubt. Previously i would have called it procrastination, but that carries a judgment. My bad, which pretty soon feels like i'm bad for not planting tulips.

But doubt is a different mind quality. Doubt is a worthy opponent. I watch its characteristics. I-don't-know mind  stops me in my tracks. 

Knowing the ways of the I-don't-know mind, i can predict when doubt will show up, and i can guess what will come next. In my case, it's dullness. One obstacle gives rise to another. If this happens in meditation, i doze off. If it happens in the garden, i forget the tulip bulbs.

But i've figured out a way around doubt. My work-around is to plant the tulips in pots and winter them over in the garage. I'll decide where to plant them next spring.

Harvesting Hemp

 

A friend gave me 2 hemp plants in June, which grew to be six feet tall and 2 feet wide. So what can i do with hemp? Other than make rope. I would like to harvest some hemp seed, but all i have are buds and flowers.

For now, it's cut and drying in the shed.

Here i am, face to face with don't-know mind. I don't know what to do with hemp, and i don't know what to write about it.

I much prefer knowing what to do, knowing something, knowing anything! But that kind of knowing is not available right now.

So i settle into don't-know and feel how it feels in my body. Uncomfortable. A slight tension impels me forward to wanting. Wanting to know. Wanting to find out.

In the meantime, i have to be satisfied with "Don't know."

Clear Seeing

The teacher at the retreat talks bout sati-sampajanna. Sati means mindfulness. Usually sampajanna is translated as “clear comprehension,” but I’m trying to expand my sense of the word. Sometimes it’s referred to as “seeing and knowing” things as they really are.

English has a huge vocabulary for the material world, but it’s rather poverty-stricken when it comes to words that describe the inner world and the spiritual world.  Just think. Until just  25 years ago, we didn’t have the words metta, loving kindness, and self-compassion in the dictionary. The words Dharma, karma, and mindfulness were known only to a select few; now they are the n common usage.

Sam- means  whole or complete, though it’s often translated at “right” meaning proper. The ending -nna is the same as our word know. (In Greek, gnosis.)  Now the question is: Which kind of knowing?Eskimos May have 28 words for snow, but English has only one word know to cover many shades of meaning.

As I contemplate this, my personal translation of sampajanna becomes “complete knowing.”

Hmmm. I walk down to the end of the driveway, and there is beautiful Mount St. Helens with a blanket of snow on top of her two rounded peaks. On this clear day, I can clearly see. And knowing (which kind?) is omnipresent.

Bonanza of Broccoli

Here's my vegetable garden this year:
--3 green bean plants
--40 broccoli (the voles didn't eat the seedlings!)
--12 zucchini & summer squash
Yes, i also have tomatoes. onions, garlic, and basil, but you just never know what's actually going to sprout in the garden.

So i'm planting green beans again. Okay, i'm using 12-year-old yellow bush bean seeds. Maybe they won't germinate. But as insurance, i've also planted two other types of beans, and those seeds are last year's seeds, so i'm crosing my finger.

You just never know. Actually, this applies to most of life. I love knowing. I truly get a little thrill from knowing the right answer. Yet, knowing is an evanescent thing. I could never have predicted this summer's garden score. Only 3 bean plants. And a bonanza of broccoli. (Send me your broccoli recipes!)

Here's the big question: Can you be comfortable with NOT knowing?

I, for instance, do not know who i'm going to give all this broccoli to.

"I Know. I Know."

"I know. I know." Tsoknyi Rinpoche calls this phrase the Western mantra. How often we say, "I know." Our conversations are also peppered with unconscious, "You know?"s

Chances are that although you and i "know" something intellectually, it hasn't penetrated our being into "knowing." Robert Heinlein called this thorough knowing "grokking" in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land.

Our Western mantra doesn't transform us. The knowing of the mind is not sufficient. We are still at the beck and call of habit. When the body "knows," then we well and truly DO know.

We think that everyday knowing is sufficient to get us through. When knowing soaks into us, soaks through us, there we will find release.