Dialogues w/Oskar - Stressful situations, rock climbing, loneliness, motivation

We have had three subjects in our "Dialogues with..." series - Dominic, Rikki and John, on our communication as we worked through their processes.  Oskar is next.  Oskar is from Barcelona, Spain, 45 years old and works as an IT Service Manager at Catalonia University.  He is single, studied IT engineering for 5 years and is a rock climber and sumi-e painter.  He has meditated nearly every day for about 8 years.  

These are edited for clarity and brevity from emails over the last 3+ years - oldest first.  Most salutations and "thank yous" were removed.  my comments are in italics.  If anyone wants the original, let me know.

 Loneliness, rock climbing, motivation, looking for a teacher

G 

Hi Oskar,

Great that you found the article in Liberation Unleashed useful.   Feel free to translate into Spanish and post it wherever you like.

O

 I've been reading your blog for a while and I find it amazing.  The relation between awakening and science is something I was lacking for a long time being quite rational.  Also I'm glad to find practical steps outside of religion and tradition to see through the illusion of separate self.

Yesterday I bought your book and started reading it.

I've never been in the presence of an awakened being.  I don’t expect anything magical but people used to say that being in the presence of one and talking to him/her is useful for gaining confidence in the process.

Do you know of anyone enlightened in Spain or Catalonia? I must say that I'm not very confident about the state of awakening of lots of yoga gurus and Zen masters around here... :(

G

Ramana Maharshi

If you are meant to be "in the presence of an awakened being", it will occur, as will whether it really makes any difference.  Many folk went to see Ramana Maharshi; some were transformed, others felt "something", others felt "nothing" and saw only an old man in a loincloth lying on a couch.

There are many un-awakened yoga gurus and Zen masters;  your caution is well-advised.  Some are outright charlatans and are very successful and popular - it is surprisingly easy if one changes their hair, clothes and how they speak, to fool many folk.  Others are perhaps well-intentioned, but have no real experience on what they are saying.

The best way to find one of these folk is to do your practices as diligently as you can.  As the saying goes, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear".  your teacher might not even manifest "physically".  my main teacher, Ramana Maharshi, had passed before i was old enough to see him, but he is more real to me than any "live" person.

O 

I will follow your advice: keep my practices and let life unfold. 

you've been very helpful. 

Yesterday I felt very alone in a dream, feeling everyone being robots without self but with me still a person.  i couldn’t get rid of the illusion, so I was seeing the world empty and unfolding but couldn’t free myself.  Everything was ONE and without self except for me.  So I was alone in the universe and felt very, very lonely.

But I accept that dream as a good premonition :)

G

That is a prescient dream as to what it can feel like.

The sense of being lonely comes and goes, and as time goes on, and the brain stabilizes the new functional pattern more and more, the feeling goes away and it is a very sweet space.

you may also feel everything "within you", which amounts to the same thing.  The dream was not just a premonition, it is what awakening can feel like at first.

O

Oskar free climbing

you mention rock climbing in your book.   i've been rock climbing for more than fifteen years and last month I was climbing in Kentucky (Red River Gorge) for two weeks.

I'm not sure why but lots of rock climbers have a tendency to mysticism.  It could be because you face the possibility of death often and see clearly how many things in life are really not that important, or it could be because when you climb, you experience very clearly, no-self moments.  

I have the hypothesis that when your life is in danger, your body switches-off the non-vital systems to focus completely on the problem, and the ego goes away in that process...

After some minutes it always comes back.  But sometimes you reach the ground after climbing and then think "uau! I wasn’t there for some minutes, my body just did what was needed alone, and it did really well!!!"  

No thoughts, just action, perfect action, some call it "flow".  I wasn’t aware of that till I was a bit more mature in my meditation.

G. 

Oskar climbing

i'm not a rock climber, but my younger daughter is, and one of my long term folk is a dedicated climber, caver and skier.

It is a great way to achieve "stillness" w/the complete focus on the task at hand, knowing that if you lose concentration the consequences can be very severe.   As you saw, "you weren't there" and your "body did just what was needed alone, and it did very well!!!"  (The blogpost "Are our lives controlled by our unconscious brain" discusses this in rock climbing.)  

"Flow" is experienced by elite athletes, chess grandmasters, artists, teachers, etc. as well as climbers.  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book "Flow" was a great "study" of the phenomena.  your whole life can be that way if you just "aren't there".

O 

I think that as I'm lacking the presence of a master, sensei or guru, that this emailing could help me to fill that loss. Books and blogs do the same function and for me they are a great motivation, while trying to be very selective and not believing everything I read.

Rajiv Kapur
advaita teacher

My practice is mainly trying to do formal meditation abiding in the I-sense, mostly following Ed Mujika’s and Rajiv Kapur’s instructions and trying to keep my awareness, and self-questioning the rest of the day, turning back to that silent presence every time I recall the need to do so, and trying to be aware of feelings and thoughts as they arise.

Am seeing how useless thoughts are, and thinking intellectually that the “I” has no scientific proof of existence.

When I was climbing for two weeks, I couldn’t meditate much.  I'm finding it very difficult to meditate again like my body or ego doesn’t want to do so, but in daily life I'm feeling more and more focused, alert and aware.  It's strange.

I'm seeing clearer and clearer when thoughts and feelings arise, and I pass some time in silent awareness even while working, driving, at meetings, having a tea...

I can now feel how my mind generates a motivation for doing something.  It's felt without words, impossible to explain, but I feel it, and how then my "I" says inside my head the same thing that my mind-body-self was going to do, repeating like a parrot something that is not HIS idea but an idea coming from the subconscious.

It's amazing, it's very subtle and I'm not able to feel it always.  It happens very fast of course, in less than a second.   But, even though I knew this is how it works I didn’t expect to be able to feel it!  To see it!

G

i don't know Ed Mujika's or Rajiv Kapur's teaching, so couldn't comment on that.  What you describe sounds excellent especially the "rest of the day" work on self-inquiry.

What you describe as sitting meditation being "worse" and the other 15 hours being "better", is the target we're aiming at.  This work isn't about improving your meditations, it is about making your daily living better. Excellent work is likely occurring in both meditation and moment-to-moment during the day, "off line".

your "seeing clearer and clearer..." is excellent.  That is exactly as it proceeds, naturally, and
"normally".   you're doing really well.

Stressful situations, living in flow, moment-to-moment

O  

Your positive feedback is helping me a lot as are your blog and articles.    Another great factor motivating me is that I always felt a I bit out of the religious-thing, more agnostic than buddhist or advaitic.

You say it is about making your moment-to-moment living better.  Now I feel at peace most of the time even now that my life is going through some stressful situations (changing my home next month, a relationship that I think I have to end, lots of friends with economic problems...).  I should feel bothered but I don’t!  

Flowing w/the Tao

I'm not yet able to feel that no matter what happens it will be OK, but I'm able to wait in peace and see what happens without worrying much.  It has little to do with ME because there's no me to worry about.  I just don’t think much about past or future now...

It's funny that these changes in daily life happen so slowly that I wasn’t even aware of them until I start thinking about it.  I wasn’t aware that day after day I'm taking life more like flowing with the Tao... :)

Sometimes I get a little stressed again for a while, but these moments are fewer and fewer...Now, I feel that the main thing I want to do is keep up my practice, and all the rest is felt like secondary right now.  It's sometimes a bit worrying too... :)

G

It is for situations just like yours that this work is so useful and important.  Realizing that whatever happens is just what happens, and is out of your control, is the best and most effective possible action one can take. 

If you are fully present, and not lost in thoughts, worries and stories that do nothing positive but take you out of the moment and "into your head", you can be much more "useful" to others and to yourself.

Being fully present, in the "now, now, now", and moving in the flow of the Dao/Tao, even for your relationship that may be dancing its way to its end, and the economic distress that your friends, region, and country are experiencing, is the best and most powerful action that can be taken for them and for "you".

O 

While I write this I'm feeling a soft peace that is with me most of the time now.   I think my practice is moving in good direction. 

Every day that passes I'm more sure that awakening is really possible and I see a bit clearer how the process is unfolding, how thoughts get weaker or felt as not important, just redundant and disturbing.  

Awareness, peace and some detachment from the world arises slowly...