The Power of Love.

This simple meditation technique is close to my heart. In fact, it's close to everyones heart. Here's how it goes: 

Sit comfortably, close your eyes and just think about a person you‘ve loved with all your heart. Dwell upon that person, or even that pet, you have been most enamored of, most attached to, the being whose presence you have most treasured. Even if he, she or it is physically no longer in your life, even if the memory causes you pain, don't turn your thoughts away from the very real love. Just think about that beloved being.

Then, after a few moments, let go of the thought of that person or being and put your attention simply on the feeling. Feel the feeling. Dwell upon the feeling, that intense and beautiful love. Because the feeling existed long before the object of your love came in front of your eyes and other senses. Slowly then, follow the feeling to its source deep within you. Recognize that heart-space within you. The feeling and that space have always been there. Dwell upon the feeling within that space.

Eventually, after a while, you can envision that space to be like a pond that, when a pebble is tossed onto it, causes ripples. Imagine those ripples, those vibrations, spreading throughout your body. Envision with your mind’s-eye those vibrations of love flooding your system with all that goodness. Feel the life-sustaining, healing power of love spreading throughout your own body. 

You can dwell upon the feeling within that place, that heart-space, for as long as you wish: a minute, twenty minutes. And you can envision the force of your love and affection vibrating to every part of your own self. And you can also envision the power of your love and affection vibrating beyond: to embrace your beloved, your family, friends, your community, and back. 

When you’re done, wipe your hands together, gently over your eyes. Then get up and make yourself a nice cup of coffee or tea. 

does that make sense?

I bought an empty can of paint
The colour wasn’t right
Without a brush to paint things with
One wall took half the night.’ Alex Braun.

it would seem that i’ve now deteriorated to the point of watching day-time television. yes, at two-thirty in the afternoon, wearing my favourite pair of underpants and nibbling crackers, i watched ‘the marvellous mrs. maisel’.

in my own defence, of course, i‘ll do what any privileged, self-aggrandizing old white guy would do. i’ll place the blame elsewhere, anywhere else actually. the reason i’ve now become so degenerated as to be watching day-time television is due to amazon. if that doesn’t entirely do it for you, then i’ll throw in xplornet. in fact, this is the fault of globalization in general. i’m the victim here.

that’s exactly why i love haikus, fanciful verses such as mr. braun’s, or koans like: ‘what’s the sound of one well-washed hand clapping?’ it encourages one to think. it may not make sense, may even make one crazy. however, it may also make one think outside the proverbial box. it may even precipitate one unraveling a greater truth about the world or oneself. hey, it’s gotta be as good as trying to make sense out of what’s goin on in this reality. and i believe that’s the point.

does it make sense that, right in the midst of reading about the horrible scurge plaguing the earth, with hundreds of thousands suffering in various ways, that the article is interrupted with: ‘here’s why so many astronauts have owned chevrolet corvettes’. so, since this oft-repeated so-called ‘unprecedented time’ has forced me to purchase certain necessities on-line, such as refrigerator magnates, decorative duct tape and a murder-mystery novel, it behooved me to join ‘amazon prime’. at least it seemed like a good idea at the time. because then i’d allegedly have free delivery, free audio-books and be able to stream videos for free. it’s all free free free, with my monthly payment. what could possibly go wrong(?) that was a rhetorical question. 

well, almost immediately after spending my father’s hard-earned money i discovered that the items are quite often quite over-priced, the books are quite always not free at all and my internet here in st. cecelia de masham is quite crappy, in spite of my paying top dollar. it cannot quite handle streaming videos from prime, at least not during the evenings. which brings us right back to day-time viewing. 

“Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh how I wishe he’d go away.” Hughes Mearns.

does this world make sense? is there a deeper meaning? amazon will not ship ‘tylenol extra strength’ to quebec because it’s illegal. one needs a prescription in quebec. amazon will send along the regular-strength tablets. so i guess our great leaders and law-makers collectively assumed us folk so simple-minded we wouldn’t figger out that we could simply take one-and-a-half ‘regular strength tylenol’ tablets if we wanted a little extra strength. ok, actually a friend pointed that out to me.

be that as it may, does it make any possible sense to cut funding to the world health organization, whose sole purpose is to ‘direct international health within the united nations' system and to lead partners in global health responses’, right smack dab in the midst of the worst pandemic of our lifetime? of course not. but, blame had to be shifted and i had to watch my program. i highly recommend it, by the way. 

“In a wonderland they lie, 
Dreaming as the days go by, 
Dreaming as the winters die. 
Ever drifting down the stream,
Lingering in the golden gleam,
What is life but a dream?” Lewis Carroll.

the tangibleness of nothing.

sometimes i honestly feel as though i’ve nothing to say, nothing to write. and having mentioned as much to my buddy alex this morning, during an exchange of texts, he suggested i then write about nothing, the tangibleness of nothing. that made me smile of course. this is a guy who reads voraciously and has done silent retreats, he fixes engines and builds furniture. and yet he gives me full credit for knowing something important about ‘nothing’.

i was quick, however, to point out that every tom, dick and hari-anand seem especially eager these days to communicate their great knowledge. “yeah, that’s true,” alex retorted. “however, i’m pretty sure their nothing looks a lot different than your nothing. and even if nothing is nothing, their description of it will have quite a different feel.” that did it for me. i committed to giving it a try, a little later. because right then it was time for me to, well, do nothing for a while.

after doing nothing for a while i shuffled on outside to shoot a few basketballs at my driveway hoop. a young lady who lives down the street walked by and said she wished she had a hoop on her driveway. she was bored. so of course i told her she’d be welcome to use mine from time to time. i even suggested that i could bring out one of my old balls for her to play with exclusively. the lady looked quite doubtful so i assured her that there was still a lot of life left in my old balls and anyway i could pump them up. 

of course it took me longer than it should’ve to realize my mistake. judging by her expression, and as our social-distancing seemed to increase exponentially, i perceived that maybe she didn’t even know how to play basketball. she maybe had just been making idle conversation. anyway, she beetled off down the street and i went inside to write a few lines about nothing in particular.

this being easter sunday, i wanted to consider the deeper significance of the resurrection, specifically as it might pertain to the idea of nothing or nothingness. but i knew that could be tricky and i’m always afraid of offending people. the fear lasted about a minute before i concluded that it was much more important to be candid. it’s my blog afterall, and my interpretations may indeed, as alex mentioned, have a different feel. you see, as much as the crucifixion to my mind is alot about nothing, so to is the resurrection alot about its tangible results.

when one decides to stop, to effectively do nothing, to meditate, one is essentially and immediately sacrificing ones personal identity. one is essentially letting go of who and what one has thought oneself to be. and inevitably a time comes when one rises up again but with a very new and additional sense, that one just may also be the very life itself that permeates and animates everyone, everything. then a daily practice of being nothing actually creates a sense of being everything.

the question begs asking: what does all of this have to do with the price of fish today? or would one be able to simply produce a bunch miraculously? in other words, what is the tangibleness of nothing? 

the only really miraculous power is the power to love unconditionally. and, while the world’s great philosophies and religions preach about oneness, the practice of meditation creates the visceral experience of it. then if someone, let’s just imagine, falls ill with a virus, one hates it and intrinsically wants to help. because it’s just a bit more as though one is helping ones own self.

“in the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the life that animates your physical form. you can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. you look beyond the veil of form and separation. this is the realization of oneness. this is love.” ekhart tolle.

stranger times.

waking up at ten in the evening last night was strange. waking up at ten in the evening in my truck with the seat fully reclined was even stranger. but that’s just the kind of times we’re living in right now. earlier, i was gonna go shopping so i got dressed. it was exciting. going to the grocery store right now is the pandemic equivalent of attending a concert at the troubadour. 

“love is like a beautiful flower that i may not see, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight.” helen keller.

dressing for the store was strange as well. i changed my clothes twice before leaving the house. i wanted to look good, but i also wanted to be comfortable. i felt like going dark, but i thought i should go light. none of that was the strange part. to be honest, looking good at this point, well, anyway i dressed comfortably, and i went dark. i still thought i looked reasonable. 

“i try to keep in my mind the simple question: am i trying to do good or make myself look good.” bramachari direndra.

the strange part was that i never actually got out of the truck. i phoned ahead and a very young, very kind and lovely girl from the store did the actual shopping. she simply tossed the stuff in the back, i drove home and immediately changed back into my pyjamas. it was eleven in the morning. strange. i don’t exactly wear pyjamas, by the way. they’re more like very fluffy yoga pants with a camouflage motif. they’re spectacularly ugly of course but almost indecently comfortable. but these are strange times. 

“the best thing to hold onto in this life is each other.” audrey hepburn.

in days gone by, when one friend or another talked to me about anxiety and even depression, i would always say that it’s the intelligent, sensitive folks who suffer that way. i’m no psychologist. that’s just something i believe. these days, anxiety and even depression is pretty pervasive. one would need to be rather unintelligent and quite insensitive to not feel some level of all that. as it happens, i’ve been called both unintelligent and insensitive many times in my life, but that’s another story. 

“love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a heaven in hell's despair.” william blake

it nevertheless behooves each of us, as it has at all strange times throughout history, as during all times always, to find our way through with a sense of decorum, grace, strength and even beauty. i haven’t any great secret, only i doubt it has much to do with when we sleep, what we wear or how much bathroom tissue we have.

“in the flush of love's light, we dare be brave. and suddenly we see that love costs all we are, and will ever be. yet it is only love which sets us free.” maya angelou

the question.

lots of folks, good folks, have been posting lots of stuff, good stuff. lots of folks have been posting good stuff, uplifting and enlightening stuff. i just wanna ask a question: have you been practicing?

it’s the question that burns in my heart and begs an answer. have you been practicing? but practicing what, you may ask? have you been practicing letting go? that’s the question. have you been practicing letting go? because that’s all that matters as far as i can tell, which may not be too damn far. but it’s all i’ve got. you’re brilliant enough to decide if it’s more than enough.

there’s no way i can sermonize, philosophize or even conjecture-ize. well i could, of course. only i don’t have religion, nirvana, kayvalya, not that i know of. i don’t even have tremendous faith. i got nothing except i been practicing. and letting go feels alright. that doesn’t hurt, doesn’t scare or make my lower half shake rattle and roll. that feels alright, more than alright as a matter of fact. there’s no way i can speak about the meaning of life or its purpose with great authority. only i’ve been practicing for a while now. and i don’t know why, but letting go feels alright. i do not know why, but that sure feels alright. so i gotta ask: have you been practicing? because sooner or later we all gotta let go.

lots of folks, good folks, are trying to help. they talk or write as though they know something and sometimes like they know a heckuva lot. sometimes they talk or write like they know it all. ok. who am i to say they do or they don’t(?) i’m just not that guy. i’m the guy asking simply: have you been practicing?