Not Knowing

So what are we doing as we gather to practice together. We are learning how to practice presence. We are exploring the many ways  we block presence and all the opportunities for opening. And why are we doing this? We seem drawn to something deeper, some pull, some longing, some desire for something more real, more peaceful, more here, more embodied more true. In some important way this is not psychological work. Yes we have to deal with issues because they come up and pull us away from our true selves and back in the suffering. But the point of exploring them, facing them, is so that we are not so caught by their habitual pull into our habitual conditioning. Healing can happen along the way, and that is lovely and real, but ultimately this is about seeing, knowing, feeling that we are not what we take ourselves to be. We are not the bundle of suffering, even if all our feelings, thoughts and beliefs scream that is exactly who we are. We are humans OF being. We have all forgotten this ages ago. 

Ego development is necessary to make it through childhood, and  to live in the world. So lets not knock the ego. It got us here! For some people, and I assume you are among them, it is not enough to live the life of ego. Perhaps there is too much suffering and we get it at some level that no amount of therapy will get to the root of our suffering and fix it. Maybe we have had glimpses of what we really are, moments of deep peace, moments of love, of awe, beauty. Maybe we are drawn to God, to Divine Emptiness. Maybe we don't know why we are drawn, we just are. So we are doing this because at some level we can't help it. We are called to practice presence.

And we are called to practice being present in the world because that is where we live. To bring our bellies, our feet, our arms and legs, our not knowing, our curiosity, our love into the world. We are called to live this in the world. So when you remember to sense yourself, to bring yourself back to this moments you are bringing presence into the world. And the world needs this desperately, so very desperately. Even a second of self remembering is precious.

And as we practice presence and as openings happen you will meet the superego. It will slip in unnoticed except you will start to feel on edge, ashamed, anxious, collapsed...Or it may hit you with a two by four crushing you into a puddle. The superego can come from within or you may project it onto others, the world. Either way it is trying to shut you down, return you to your usual conditioned  small, childlike, deficient, suffering, lost, doubting, frustrated, hopeless, mournful, envious self. The superego sees you as a child that needed to be a certain way to make it, survive in your family. It is simply doing its job to return you to your familiar self consistent with the narrative of your life. Spiritual work will bring forth openings, expansion of your consciousness and awareness  which will challenge the familiar self, so the superego will do its best to bring you back into the shape and familiarity of how you know yourself and how you are supposed to be. This is inevitable. So don't judge yourself because you have a superego!!!!!

There is good news here. If the superego jumps all over you after a moment of opening, or jumps all over you as you enter the chapel, or when you open your mouth to speak into the circle, or beats you for not doing the practice right, for being confused, for being the worst person in the group, o for not meditating,  for forgetting to be present 24/7, it means that opening is afoot. The superego won't bother you if you stay within the confines of the familiar self, the conditioned ego. It may even praise you for being good!  So when the superego is up it means that opening is in the air.  So we have to take on the superego, banish it when it beats us up, question why we believe all the abuse, become conscious how it operates. It can be a blunt instrument, it can be sneaky, it can even sound ever so reasonable. So if we become aware of it, and you will be shocked how ever present it is, then we have chance of turning away from its aggression towards our precious experience, OUR experience, OUR moment in the now, OUR presence, whatever it is. Our felt experience right now is the only living moment. This living moment is the opening into what is deeper, quieter, subtler, silent, peaceful, into the opening of our being as presence, as the divine that we are, here now. It is through our brokenness, vulnerability, sensitivity, tenderness, exposure that the living spirit breaks through. This is not about becoming perfect beings, self improved beings.

 Forgive me if I seem fierce this morning. Whenever I write or speak about the superego, I experience a kind of fiery passion. 

So what has this do with our last session on not knowing. Many of you saw the deep shame, anxiety about not knowing. Some of you grew up where knowing, being vigilant was a way to survive. Some of you remembered the precious curiosity of the child who seemed unconcerned about not knowing. Some of you were drawn into the relief of not knowing, into the possibility  this opening, this spaciousness of the mind at rest. Some of you saw the endless chatter of the mind busy trying to plan, to figure, to rehearse and the exhaustion of that. Some of you encountered the superego. ( Exercises: Tell me something you don't know; Tell me how you think and feel about not knowing; explore what it is like to not know.)

What is important is that we begin to welcome those moments when we reach the end of the story, the end of the stream of thoughts, that blank space, the confusion and  disorientation. In those moments we are moving out the familiar stream of thoughts beliefs and feelings. Something fresh, something new can arise. Perhaps it is the open sky of mind, or perhaps some insight bubbles out of nowhere, and we say"oh I see, I understand" or perhaps we simply land here, being with whatever is arising. So rather than not knowing being a failing, a dead end, it is in fact the opening.

Remember this is not about rejecting knowledge. We need it, we love it. It is necessary to live in the world, it is necessary to grow and learn. But knowledge is not the same as wisdom. Wisdom draws on knowledge, but it arises out of the spaciousness of not knowing.