{"id":7289,"date":"2015-09-07T11:22:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T18:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/?p=7289"},"modified":"2015-09-08T10:34:19","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T17:34:19","slug":"inviting-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/?p=7289","title":{"rendered":"Inviting Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cape<\/a><\/p>\n

Working With Memories \u00e2\u20ac\u201c (DTS Exercise 18 – Pastness Knowledge), can be quite similar to inviting \u00e2\u20ac\u0153light as source by sinking \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbeneath\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 the contents of mind, turning to inward illumination.<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d DTS 212 That is what Ken and I were doing while exploring memories, though we approached from different perspectives outwardly, you could say we both approached\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Neither accepting thoughts as guides nor rejecting them as enemies, we grow intimate with the byways of the ordinary.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 212<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6A day at the beach has me remembering a friend who died here playing in the surf, many, many years ago. I was away at war, but was told what happened by my best friend. Our friend was big, with a face like a prize fighter; pushed-in nose, slight cauliflower ears, short black hair in ringlets when wet. I doubt he ever had a fight or even knew how. He was a facilitator, he mediated or alternatively, his imposing appearance gave anyone thinking of fighting a good reason to keep themselves in check. This day he was happy bodysurfing in a roiling Cape May surf, after a Nor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122easter had passed through the previous day stirring up the waters. <\/p>\n

In those days we bodysurfed with our arms at our sides, so only our heads peeked out ahead of the wave as we rode it. A successful run was catching the wave just right, just ahead of its apex and riding it like a board into shore. This time, however, our friend caught a large one, but instead of the wave rolling in, it rose high and crashed driving him, and his head, straight into the hard sea floor beneath him, and broke his neck. <\/p>\n

Those on the beach, talking in their chairs, noticed him floating face down close to shore. At first they thought he was playing, but after a few moments my best friend ran down to the surf and turned him over. He was looking up at him, blinking, paralyzed, unable to move or breath, his face turning bluer\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ken and I have been working with memories for many months, they are the stuff of our lives, we make them every moment, some pleasant and some not so much. The point is to see them, and also see through them to their structure, and not simply be carried away by the story and its emotional charge\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6NOT by cutting yourself off from your feelings, but by allowing them to arise and then by fully embodying them, not flinching and turning away. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not useful to enjoy only the fuzzy warm and good-feeling ones, and avoid the painful ones if you can help it. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how you unearth what remembrances are made of. The high and low rest on an ocean of emotion that runs beneath everything we do. Better to understand and be intimate with the nature of the experience of emotion than be unaware, and thus often set adrift.<\/p>\n

My friend, Ken, is remembering a different interval, a child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s low to the ground, perhaps simpler time, fun\/not fun moments that scurry like sand crabs along the surface at the edge of an ocean. The single-minded ambition toward the wet and wonderful, the free and fulfilling, ever changing sea\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 <\/p>\n

Ken sent me an altered version of this poem after wrestling with it. He said feeling exasperated at having to fuss with the re-write\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Such tanglings! Such a fuss! Is there never a finish? Next question: Is there ever a start? Could be that’s what so enchanting about the sea, the unending touch of it, like a child’s sense of a long car trip, are we there yet? Lean into stillness, finish doing the dishes, then think of what next to do, then take a step. Rinpoche once asked me: in what direction would you step to get closer to the edge of space? I mumbled something and wandered off towards an empty cushion.<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Day At The Beach<\/strong>
\n\tBy Ken McKeon<\/p>\n

Huntington Beach<\/p>\n

I.
\nI’ve had it with the noisy badgering days on the beach,
\nLoaded down with gear: blankets, an umbrella,
\nChests of food, drink, candy bars, cookies,
\nBags of Frito’s, carefully wrapped up sweet pickles.
\nAll of it we trundled across hot sand,
\nThe bulky load slipping from my hands
\nTo elbows to knees and gone, then
\nBack to hands with a pained lift and trudging
\nOn to the best spot our now seaside family could find,
\nThere we proceed to goop ourselves up with lotions
\nAnd oxides and voiced cautions to everybody,
\nWarnings of cramps and rip tides and drowning,
\nUntil finally we’re all set except for Susan
\nWho left her cap in the car and has to pee
\nAnd misses her phone, and television and nearly
\nEverything else that she can’t have here
\nAnd when are we going, she can’t wait,
\nAnd what’s for lunch, she wants a Drumstick,
\nAnd although I did not know the words back then
\nI could give a flying fuck, that’s what I felt.<\/p>\n

II.<\/p>\n

And I turned to quickly make my way down to the sea,
\nThe sand before, going dark and damp, with silvery
\nBubbling edges, with moving oncoming watery sheets
\nOf flattened out waves in their final reach to shore,
\nTo me so happily caught up in the chill rush that welcomes
\nMe out into its building receding, until it joins
\nTo become yet another wave, with more seen now
\nFurther out, darkly lofting only to topple down walls,
\nThese in their crash and smash with me diving as I
\nHave been taught under the shove and tumble
\nOf surf break, then rising breathlessly up to find
\nMyself singular in the grey hiss of the after being,
\nWondrous magic silence of a new world with sky
\nHigher, further still than I’d ever thought to think.<\/p>\n

III.<\/p>\n

Now, that’s off, it’s all a mist and I within it
\nBegin to look for myself in the others I find
\nAround me here, there, and we grin and laugh
\nAnd speak in low tones speechless words
\nAnd it’s really neat, even a sea change we’ve
\nUndergone until the rise and slap of a wave
\nBounces us back and we play on through
\nThe afternoon until a loud voice calls out we
\nHave to be going, so I slowly make my way in
\nFrom my unnamed brothers, in from the telling sea,
\nTo find a dry towel, I use it, then I turn
\nTo pick up some stuff and head back
\nTo the car, each step an aching now,
\nA match of sorts to my shivering self,
\nDone now, done with what I had just come
\nTo be out in this day’s opening deepening
\nWays, ways older than old, ways new to me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Working With Memories \u00e2\u20ac\u201c (DTS Exercise 18 – Pastness Knowledge), can be quite similar to inviting \u00e2\u20ac\u0153light as source by sinking \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbeneath\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 the contents of mind, turning to inward illumination.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d DTS 212 That is what Ken and I were doing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,43,195,51,76,85],"tags":[43,100,169,195,159,40,144,78],"class_list":["post-7289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-general-tsk-discussions","category-being","category-intimacy","category-knowledge","category-light","category-memory","tag-being","tag-emotion","tag-higher-knowing","tag-intimacy","tag-light-2","tag-poetry","tag-stories-2","tag-thought"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}