This particular discussion group is focused on practicing. The practice is the point, not the specific content. Whatever content we choose, is only being chosen as a venue for practice. This is not to say that we can't find or don't find value in our practice. We can and do. But when we are practicing the practice, our aim is to improve our practice.
October 23, 2009 at 18:19 | MW
last night I sent Sensei an email, and what transpired over the course of a few email responses is pasted here to start off this new discussion thread in the hope that it will lead to more helpful opportunities for us all to practice the practice in the moment... any moment, and on any topic... thanks to MW for being open to starting this group, and to Sensei for suggesting it...
*****
Dear Scott (Sensei)...
i just wanted to drop a note your way to thank you for all that you contribute to the discussions at Eternal Awareness, for the time and care and patience and inclusiveness you give... for the ongoing demonstrations of practicing those principles right there in your postings... yours and MW's efforts in contributing to this site mean a great deal to me, and i feel incredibly blessed and grateful to be able to ask questions... i want to let you know how very much you are helping (not only me but clearly others as well)...
as i have several of your articles open on my computer this evening i was about to go to sleep and just wanted to thank you for providing so much amazing material to use for practice and further study... there are differences i see every day in my giving and interacting because of practice... i am practicing a lot on shifting my focus away from the ways i fall down, and focusing more on the successes and wonderful changes i am seeing in myself... when i do fall down it's becoming more of a positive learning opportunity, and less of an opportunity to have more tools to beat on myself with... i really see the ways i am being more helpful and positive in my giving to others because of my practice... (and as an aside, the interior castle is becoming an interesting and useful meditation too, which seems to be very congruent with the practice of principles... some mansions are more outward facing and some are more source-ward facing... )...
you wrote the following on your Great River Institute site:
"And because I see people as already being eternal, I focus my attention on supporting the idea of us each having purpose and reasons for being here. This also makes it much easier for me to be forgiving and supportive, since I can see most people have no idea why they are here or where they were before. If you don't know why you are here, or where you were before, it becomes much harder to know where you are going and what you should be doing now, in a practical sense."
this alone is a daily practice worth doing with every single person we ever come into contact with every day... how much more peaceful and supportive and understanding we can all be, how much more compassion and patience we can have... just to see everyone this way... just to see ourselves this way...
gratefully,
jo
October 23, 2009 at 18:47 | JO
JO;
Thanks for writing and I am gladdened to hear that my work and contributions are helping. Sometimes it can be hard to look through our problems. Sometimes it can be the hardest thing ever for us to do. But when we do and when we begin to see ways to do it, it leads to our liberation. Everything opens up when we are willing to see our way through.
Your comments below show how much better you are understanding the practice. Regarding the website interactions, usually in posts, people just want to vent or to posit ideas and their takes on things. The real practice is usually missing. The EA site has been offering practice. It's hard to do, but for many people, it's the first time they have seen what it looks like to actually practice in the moment. For others, its a chance to hone their practice, and for some, it may not be interesting at all, because they are looking for something else.
When I practice, I think about what I want to be more about and I aim my efforts in that way. I feel the challenges and the unknowns, I feel the old habits and I know my limitations are with me too. But I look toward the ideal and offer myself to practicing.
When you go to move forward in yourself you will need to let go of some of the backward. Don't be afraid to let the backward thinking go. We build up habits over time that convince us we have to be certain ways. Sometimes the habits are not what we really want to be about, but we use them to see our way forward and this just brings the problems forward. Take a chance when you step into your practice, to stand on new ground. Endure the feelings of uncertainty. Aim yourself toward a particular point and value and have faith that you can find that point.
Give yourself a picture to aim for. Make that picture more real each day by practicing somehow to make it real. Allow the real form to evolve and keep your inner eye, your heart and your actions on the target.
scott
October 23, 2009 at 18:48 | Sensei
Scott...
"The EA site has been offering practice. It's hard to do, but for many people, it's the first time they have seen what it looks like to actually practice in the moment. For others, its a chance to hone their practice, and for some, it may not be interesting at all, because they are looking for something else." This is very true... And in itself this demonstrates principles. I think the thing that has so incredibly struck me just in this last week is how the principles open things up... open things up to inclusiveness, to possibility, to tolerance, to understanding, to making room for all of us to be what we want to be more about... it's not about making a point or being right or telling anyone else what they should be doing, but rather in opening and opening some more, opening so wide that we all feel freedom and safety to break out of our habitual ways of being that we don't want to be about, ways of being that have maybe felt safe at times for their familiarity and service in a way, but aren't what we really want to be about...what i also love about it is when we do struggle, practicing again in the next moment gives us all the space to try again in that new moment without being nailed to the moment that went before... as you suggest, our habits can be such hard work to break free from, but breaking free is facilitated when we have that space and opening, understanding and patience, for one another, and for ourselves...
"When you go to move forward in yourself you will need to let go of some of the backward. Don't be afraid to let the backward thinking go. We build up habits over time that convince us we have to be certain ways." ... Yes, i saw this very clearly in the ways i tried to contribute on the discussions on compassion... i found myself struggling with compassion, even asking for a definition for it when i've never wanted a definition for it before, or felt a particular struggle with it before... we can all have better compassion and we can all practice it better, but i asked myself why i was making someone else's struggle my struggle when it wasn't my struggle in the first place... a backward habit to give over to the uncertainty i feel about myself... but what was the uncertainty i was enduring?... i decided to actually look this time...it wasn't uncertainty about compassion... it was uncertainty about feeling certainty about compassion... therefore, what the uncertainty was that i needed to endure became a lot clearer...why can't i let myself be certain about compassion?... just because someone raised a question about it?... i need to have more courage about letting that kind of backward thinking go and give certainty some room too... after all, there are some things we all feel some certainty about... why would we want to run away from certainty into the arms of more uncertainty...
"Aim yourself toward a particular point and value and have faith that you can find that point.to make it real."
"Allow the real form to evolve and keep your inner eye, your heart and your actions on the target." ... I really LOVE this... and it really works... seeing that it works makes all the hard work to look through our problems entirely worth the effort and practice...
thank you for writing back with this... it's the most wonderful way to start out a new day of possibilities and practices of being what i want to be more about...
jo
October 23, 2009 at 18:50 | JO
From my perspective, and from the point of our practice, this is some of the clearest focus I have seen you in. I think you should consider asking MW to start a new entry called "practicing the practice" and post our conversation points below. This would help others understand the practice better and I think it would be a good thing to offer...if you are okay with that. If not, just know I see you standing in the practice right now better than ever. You can see it does not have to be stressful when you are willing to give it some space in the moment, and when you are willing to genuinely use that space for what you want to be more about. Everyone tends to drift into habits, getting lost in content...but we can do this if we are truly willing.
scott
October 23, 2009 at 18:51 | Sensei
"You can see it does not have to be stressful when you are willing to give it some space in the moment, and when you are willing to genuinely use that space for what you want to be more about."
i am feeling the willingness to open up space as something very liberating, not stressful at all... there have been times i've thought that if i could just have control over a moment and bend it to my will it would make me feel steadier and more confident ... and if i could get someone else to agree with me, all the better for me to feel justified... but instead what i am finding is the exact opposite is true... with an ever increasing opening of space and just simply setting of my focus on my intended reasons, there is expansion of a moment into something really limitless... there is less of a hurried, reactive feeling or a need to control or bend a moment to my will... it's much more of a quiet and relaxed and easy way of being, and seeing things more the way they are, as opposed to the way i think they are, or think they should be... there is less talking and more listening, not only listening to others, but also listening to the moment, if that makes sense... there is nothing to force, no point for me to argue ... on the one hand it's like being in a flow and carried along, but not in a limp, impotent way at all... because at the same time there is a calm sort of certainty about some things, and i'm actually finding myself more comfortable about being certain about them... when i am making space, it is obvious to me... when i am not making space it is becoming increasingly obvious to me, and happily, it is becoming increasingly obvious inside the moments themselves...
October 23, 2009 at 19:59 | JO