Kindred Spirit

 

Earlier today I hiked up at Mt Toyon. I walked past the vista point with the bench and out “my” little remote trail, where I generally just stand and take it all in—the silence, the greenery, the trees, the grass, the bushes, the breeze, the view through the trees to the ocean. I feel how my body is in the moment, I settle down into it exactly where I am standing. I don’t consciously “merge myself with nature”; it just happens, like exhaling and inhaling: I take in the forest as it takes me in. I take in the silence as it takes me in. Yet, most strangely, I felt a presence, a person, close, but, looking around me and gazing up the path I had taken, saw no one. So I let that go and started walking back on the path I had taken there.

 

As I exited the path, I noticed a young woman standing there looking at me. Her presence was a surprise to me, though I realized I had already previously felt it. We spoke as if we knew each other well and deeply. She spoke of her current state of mind and I spoke of mine. She shared with me her view of how she was, in so many words, and of her interests. I was amazed at her honesty and place of self-knowing. There was what I perceived as an immediate trust between us and also our ability to understand each other. She carried with her a Buddhist meditation bench on which one sits and kneels. I was most impressed by this, for I had built one for myself probably forty years ago and had used it for the last thirty years before storing it in the garage, where it is now. We talked about many topics and our personal sense of things.

 

I have walked on Mt Toyon for ten years and have always wished to meet someone on the trail and to be able to engage in a deep and enjoyable discussion with them. And today it actually happened. The very fact that she goes to the same out of the way place in the forest where I go touched me. “Here is a person with whom I share something in common,” I thought. To be able to share a deep meditative state of mind and to be understood by another is quite rare. We seemed to be able to understand each other on a philosophical level. Compared to me, she was quite young, yet she expressed such depth and honesty as if she were without guile. It was a most pleasant experience that I appreciated. I gave her my card listing my various blogs, email address, and my quote: Too much irony makes one overwrought (which not every gets). It was a rare and special moment. I have my wife and a few other friends with whom I am able to share of myself on a deep level, but to come upon such a rare person in the forest “just like that” is a rare pleasure. I am grateful to her for her openness and trust.

Sitting on the Beach Out of Time

 

I find myself sitting alone on the beach of a tropical isle. The sun shines, the surf rolls gently, the air is warm. I am clothed in my usual tartan flannel shirt, grey shorts, and sneakers with white crew socks. I am comfortable upon a large piece of driftwood. I watch waves crashing upon the reef a short distance away. I do not know how I got here or where I am. I have no other belongings or gear or food. I seem to be sitting here out of time and space, surely out of the world as it is normally known by me. I seem to be quite physically alive yet wonder if I have not perhaps died and somehow been delivered of this place, which is of heaven at the moment. I am not worried right now about my survival, though I turn and look inland from the beach where I see a forest of palm trees and some thickly-leaved trees with underbrush. The land rises, becoming darker and rockier as it rises into a jungle before becoming steep, fissured hills and eventually much higher mountains. In fact I don’t know if this is an island; it could be a peninsula or even a coast, though from where I am, it is bounded by the ocean on three sides and I am unable to see a beach that doesn’t appear to curve around rather than extend itself straight in any direction. I would rather just sit here. I don’t really even want to know if I am dead or alive; I am just here.

 

I recall a few nights ago when I sat in my big recliner in front of the fire. I seemed to lapse into a kind of sleep. My eyes were closed. I sat there even as I sit here. What I first noticed was that my mind was a blank; I was not thinking whatsoever. I felt as if I had just vanished, as if I simply did not exist. I had no feeling, no preference or non-preference. As I said, it was as though I did not exist, as if I were not there, or even a ghost of the presence I once was. I don’t have that sense of no-being as I sit here now. My mind is not blank now. But the similarity is that I am out of time and place; that I am in a place that does not exist. But I am aware that I still somehow exist, for I am noting my thoughts and reflections, though, if I am out of time and space, that doesn’t make sense.

 

One thing I like about being out of time and space is that it puts me out of the world at large; out of its ebb and flow, out of its history, its interactivity. When I am in the world I feel defiant towards it and its inhabitants, its expectations, even its necessities. I have the thought that “I must survive” which means that I must consider what I must do to find water, food, fire, warmth, comfort, safety. But I also have the thought that it may be that I do not have to have the thought, that I may not even exist. What has come to my mind and my experience for some time is the Cartesian notion that “I think, therefore I am” in reverse: “I do not think, therefore I am not.” The truth of this thought has been borne out for me time and time again when, particularly in meditation, I had no thought of “I, myself.” When that happened, “I” did actually cease to exist. So, as I sit here, I do wonder if I have been overtaken by this “not selfness.” Still, I appear to see the waves rolling in and feel the warmth of the sun upon my skin. I realize that there are people in psychiatric institutions who are still alive in their bodies but have left themselves, have gone blank. Perhaps I am one of them who has simply “gone blank” and found myself here on this log in this place. What happens when one no longer lives in one’s memories or in the normal tensions of being in the world? We are led around in our bodies until life finally leaves them.

 

I used to walk back to my “perch” atop a redwood trunk far back in the Forest of Nisene Marks and sit there contented as if I could literally sit there forever; that this was “my spot.” I would only get up after a long time because the world called me with its social and existential responsibilities and practicalities; “everyone knows one cannot sit upon a tree trunk in the forest lost in nowhereness and everywhereness forever.” But sitting here on this beach is different; I didn’t walk here but, rather, just appeared here. Does that make any difference at all? And this “defiance” of the world, of being in the world, that I have; where did that come from? From my simple experience of being in the world and not liking it? From having to be born too early? For having to be born in the first place? Born into a physical body? After being free of such or being in another more preferable form? From having to live in fear of the pain of beatings? Or simply from the rejection felt from them? Does sitting here on this log then present me with some kind of a test in which I choose or reject life in the world for all the future? If it is such a test, I do not yet choose to make a choice. Perhaps I can just sit here for an eternity. My life has already felt as if I were sitting here for an eternity, waiting for a directive from On High; an On High that remained silent because perhaps it too did not exist. Is my test, then, to decide whether or not it does exist? Or to even realize for myself that it does or it doesn’t? If that’s the case, I still wait for such a realization—which may never come. And if it did, I just might not realize it; I might not even notice it.

 

Where I am right now may be like the holodeck on the Enterprise, a make-believe, manufactured reality of my own making. The sun may not set; it may stay just as it is. If it did get dark, I would probably be convinced that it had enough reality that I should begin at least to insure my own survival. That’s the natural response anyway.

 

Usually I just give up when nothing is there to say or realize. I am not interested in “wasting my time.” Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, refusing to leave until he had clarity. Now clarity is not necessarily understanding; in fact it could be the very opposite of understanding. Buddha became one who lives for others without self-concern: a bodhisattva. Or so tis said. And I know that when I cease to think about myself, I no longer identify myself to myself, and the whole thing of me being “I” just vanishes: “I” no longer exist. In American culture, this is the opposite of what we see as “normal”; we no longer “assert ourselves” because we realize there is nothing to assert.

 

In the same vein, I see that nothing in itself has any meaning; it is as it is and that’s it. I may fit into the scheme of things, into the “great chain of being,” and be defined by its location primarily, but it “means” nothing at all. And even locating something as here rather than there, which defines to a certain extent, does not give it meaning. Now, just because it’s a fire does indicates that it will function according to its “nature,” which is to be hot and therefore possibly dangerous if one puts a hand too close to the flames. (Though the narrative stops here, it is not over.)

NO ACCIDENTS OR ALL ACCIDENTAL

It's been a while since I've been here but today I crossed paths with Scott and Emily at what is called the Buddha Bridge a mile or so beyond the remote parking area at Nisene Marks Forest State Park. I was blathering about the inherent absence of meaning in existence whereas Scott stated that there are no accidents, which is to say, to me, that there is inherent meaning in things, in what happens. I said that things or events have no meaning in themselves but, rather, are given meaning by ourselves. Scott seemed to believe that meaning exists independently of our response or interpretation or understanding of things or events. Perhaps it was simply the words we were using, for I see events that occur to be fate, which is to say happening as they happen. Jung had a term, synchronicity, which might be exemplified by an external occurrence that coincides with an internal state of mind. Two people were present as I crossed the bridge. They greeted me as I greeted them. Then we spoke at length about various things, kind of bouncing our thoughts and perspectives off of each other, all within the "container" of our instant relationship, our "connection," which was quite trusting, and if not the same track, was of the same spirit. To me it was fateful, which is to say it occurred and we all chose to participate with each other, which is what happened. Was our crossing paths accidental? Or was it fated? If it was fated, who fated it? Who meant it to happen? I say that I fated it and they fated it, causing it then to move beyond more that simply crossing paths. Now, some believe that "things are meant to happen" which coincides with Scott's sense of no accidents. But what if nothing had been said? Would we say that also "things are not meant to happen," which is to say that they still are happening but are happening differently? 

I definitely enjoyed this conversation with these people. Scott noted something about the validity and value of hugging people. This struck me, causing me to realize that I go off into my head, my thoughts, my talking perhaps even as a distraction. I became aware that the body also exists and seeks to participate, to be included. Scott added that it is the "heart," which then made me realize that, yes, this is another element of being that I sometime do exclude, perhaps because it is somewhat "risky" to extend oneself vulnerably in that way. At the end of our conversation, we hugged. It expanded my own level of trust and acceptance; it was joyous. I was very surprised at how I felt. I walked away with a smile. 

I think that when one opens oneself to others and they open themselves as well, there is a recognition of the other as oneself. One can intellectually believe this or even remember it, but at the moment in the situation, especially in the physical contact, it is real--not thought about or interpreted but actual. I gave Scott and Emily my card which has my email address on it and invited them to visit my wife and I when they are in the area. We could have a good conversation and enjoy the moment. And since I gave them my card which listed my current and past blogs, God forbid, I thought I might actually add to this blog. A personal touch.

As I have aged (today is my 73rd birthday), I have found myself to be interested in other people, in what they think, in how they feel, in what the world and their existence in it is to them. And I make a distinction between what it "is" and what it "means." I think that is the distinction I was trying to explain and understand when I spoke to Scott and Emily today. They are two very fascinating, sweet people.
I do give such meetings great meaning. I am grateful for such a fate. And am always aware of the quote on my card: Too much irony makes one overwrought.