Here is a slight variation on a common topic…

Our stories create a limited identity for us, and to the extent we identify with it, we are at odds with reality.

There is an identity to justify, defend and prop up. Someone may see something in us that doesn’t fit, and we feel a need to defend against it. Or our human self may do something that doesn’t fit, and we feel a need to defend our identity there too. We are at odds with life as it is, and there is a sense of drama and struggle.

So whenever this happens, it is a great opportunity to notice our identification with a particular identity. We take the offended identity as true, but what is more true for us? What do I find when I explore it for myself.

Someone may say “you are …” (fill in the blank). I notice a reaction to it, a movement to defending an identity, and this is a sure sign that I identify with and take a story as true. There may be stress. Tension. Hurt. Defensiveness. Reactiveness. Getting caught up in stories.

And I can meet and explore this in different ways. I can allow and meet the experience, and the fear behind it. I can notice the belief behind it, and find what is more true for me. I can feel and see the characteristic in me, as a part of my human wholeness, and our shared humanity.

In each case, what I find is that behind the initial reaction, there is pure gold. I find another piece of my lost wholeness as a human being. I am released out of a false - and too narrow - identity. I find another aspect of our shared humanity right here. I experience more of the fullness of who I already am.

If I get caught up in defending the threatened identity, all the usual things happen. A sense of stress. Tension. Conflict. Separation. (To myself and others.) Getting caught up in obsessive thoughts. Hurt. And more than that, I miss out of pure gold. I miss out of finding a previously excluded piece of my own wholeness.

The only problem is that most of the time, I don’t know what people think about me. They just don’t tell, at least not if it is anything they see as unfavorable. I miss out of the gold because it doesn’t happen that often. So what can I do?

Fortunately, there is a way around it. I can use any statement that comes my way, no matter who or what it is about and where it comes from (including my own thoughts), and turn it around to myself.

How is it true for me? Can I find it right here? What happens when I inquire into the beliefs and identities preventing me from feeling and seeing it in my human self? What happens when I allow myself to feel and see it right here?

Whatever statement comes up, I can turn it around to find it in myself.

This process leads to a healing and maturing of who I am, as this human self. And it releases identification out of stories, which makes it easier for what I am to notice itself.

It is pure gold, so why wait?

(more…)

I read about the hoop snake of North American folklore, which seems to have fascinated generations.The hoop snake bites its own tale, as the ouroboros, to form a circle and then roll down a hill like a wheel towards a hapless victim, who is then skewered on its tail.

We like scary stories with vivid imagery in general, and this one may have more to it as well.

The ouroboros is a universal symbol and reflection of wholeness, including the wholeness of who and what we already are. The wholeness of who we are, as a human being, independent of how fractured it may seem to us. And the wholeness of what we are, this awake emptiness within and to which all form arises, inherently absent of an I with an Other, and absent of beginning and end, outside and inside, and so on.

So how it is that our own wholeness charges after us and viscously skewers us on itself?

In general, whenever there is a sense of disturbance, it is our own wholeness calling us, and since we don’t like it (it is a disturbance after all), it can be experienced as being chased by it and skewered on it.

We are happy with our beliefs and identities, and life shows up outside of these beliefs and identities, inviting us to discover ourselves as more than and different from what we took ourselves to be. But since there is safety in the familiar, we cling to it and may even reinforce the apparent boundary between I and Other. Life doesn’t give up, so the disturbance persist. And the more we resist it, the more discomfort we experience, and the more the whole dynamic is experienced as being viscously chased and skewered by an Other.

The irony is that we are on both sides of the boundary, chasing and skewering ourselves.

We as the wholeness of this human self offer an invitation to discover ourself as more than what we take ourselves to be, outside of familiar identities. And we, as awake void and form, absent of I and Other, invite who we take ourselves to be to discover ourselves as already and always this awake void and form.

And another irony is that although a lot is happening in the world of form, nothing is really happening.

Everything happening within the world of form seems very real and substantial as long as we take ourselves to be form, and only form. But when this field of awakeness & form awakens to itself as this field, it is all revealed as the play of awakeness. It is all this awakeness appearing in temporary forms, while never stopping being just awakeness, insubstantial and inherently untouched by any forms it creates itself into.

A great deal is happening within the world of form, but since it is all the play of awakeness, from the view awakeness nothing is really happening. In the midst of everything happening, nothing really happens.