Sometimes, the Mind Reveals its Depths: Maybe We Carry Ancient Caves in Us Even Today, as We Sing Our Moments onto Their Walls as We Live

I was talking on the phone with a friend who was concerned and anxious about the psychological health of their child. After I hung up, I felt how vulnerable he was and I am ⎼  that we all are. That we are all, every minute, so close to psychological and physical pain, to suffering. We have our routines, beliefs, and understandings, our relationships that create and maintain our sense of normalcy and reality. But that sense is not always as secure, nor as complete and skillful as we’d like.

 

And then I felt, no, I could see something almost indescribable. In my mind, along with the reality of my home, and the trees, bushes, and plants outside, appeared something like a tunnel, darkened by countless ages of humans and the earth. And the suffering of my friend and their child seemed to fit so readily in that tunnel; all our fears, worries, suffering fit in that tunnel as if it was made to do just do that. There was so much emotional pain there, and so much more in addition. Joy? Insight? So much of what all of us shared.

 

And it was so vast; anyone could easily get lost in it. I could easily get lost in it. It could be fearful and yet somehow comforting, intimately, infinitely comforting. And then it was seemingly gone. The birds sang. The food my wife was cooking sizzled.

 

What was it? Was it a revelation or like a waking dream? Did I imagine it, or see something that rarely shows its face? Was it a glimpse of something always with us, but beyond our grasp or control? Or maybe a random image or delusion?

 

Maybe it was related to the collective unconscious that Carl Jung described, filled not only with our own memories and the memories of all beings, but archetypes, the universal or innate patterns of imagery and thinking that have appeared throughout human history? Maybe it was related to what Australian aboriginals call the dreaming, or other cultures call the great dreaming of the earth.

 

In his book The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin describes creator beings who sang the world into existence; song being the original speech of humans. The origin songs were called songlines, or dreaming tracks, and mark the routes followed by creator-beings as they carved the earth during the Dreamtime, or time of creation.

 

But dreaming tracks are not solely about the past. They mark both a where and a when, a time and all time, or the continuous process linking the Aboriginal people to the land and heavens. According to Wikipedia, a knowledgeable person even today can navigate vast distances, cross deserts and mountains, by singing and following the directions in a songline.

 

Even in the daytime, it seems there’s an underlying stream of imagery running through our minds of which we’re only partly aware. It’s dream-like, in that it’s more emotional in organization than rational. All thoughts can share this dream-like quality, in that they can appear as real as day but be more of a personal fabrication, like a dream of night. So, there’s a bit of dreaming in the day and a bit of awake awareness at night….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

 

We Are Always in Conversation with the Life that Surrounds and Sustains Us

The world is constantly in conversation, talking with itself, or maybe singing to itself.

 

As I stood in the front yard this morning, gypsy moths by the hundreds fluttered around our trees in the yard. Sunlight bounced off their brownish wings, a blue jay was flying between the moths, leaves dancing with wind, while a car crunched the gravel on the road and a crow cried out. I disliked what the moths represented, the oak, maple, and apple trees stripped bare of leaves. But at that moment, all was different. The air itself felt alive and was speaking.

 

Peter Doobinin, in his book, Skillful Pleasure: The Buddha’s Path for Developing Skillful Pleasure, describes how we can use thought to improve thinking. When we are working on a complex task, or we have an appointment later in the day, we talk ourselves through it or to it. We remind ourselves what we need to do or what time we need to leave our home in order to arrive on time. Likewise, when practicing mindfulness, or maybe anytime, we can remind ourselves to arrive right here, now, to be present, to fully focus on whatever task we undertake, or be aware of the quality of our breathing.

 

For example, before a meeting, or engaging in an important conversation, we might remind ourselves to first stop, take three conscious, deeper breaths. Notice how fast or slow, deep or shallow are our breaths, then our thoughts. Notice how we feel before engaging with others.

 

We use thought not only to arrive on time or complete a task but to construct an idea of ourselves, or an identity. We plan our future, select labels for our character, write mental reviews of past actions as if we were writing a review of a movie or play. Thoughts can pop up so easily.

 

In Buddhism, thought is considered the sixth primary form of consciousness, or sense consciousness, following sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch/feeling; it is closely tied to sense experience. So we need to remember that a thought has a different quality than direct perception. It can weigh a great deal emotionally. It can block or expand our viewpoint, aid or obscure the senses in discerning how completely tied we are to the universe. But when isolated from the senses, thought colors are less brilliant than that of bird wings, flowers, or a sunset.

 

Bruce Chatwin, in his book The Songlines, takes us to the Outback to learn about the First Nation People of Australia and the creator beings who sang the world into existence; song being the original language of people. The original songs are called songlines, or dreaming tracks, and mark the routes followed by creator-beings as they carved the earth during the Dreamtime, or time of creation.

 

But dreaming tracks are not solely about the past. They mark both a where and a when, a time and all time, or the continuous process linking the Aboriginal people to the land and heavens.

According to Wikipedia, a knowledgeable person even today can navigate vast distances, cross deserts and mountains, by singing and following the directions in the songline.

 

In this way, maybe we sing a songline to reach ourselves, or sing ourselves into existence through song.

 

Two metaphors, songs and conversations, or songs as conversations and vice versa. I don’t know which is more apt. We hear the universe singing; we hear the universe in conversation all the time but maybe don’t know exactly what we’re listening to….

 

*To read the whole post, please use this link to The Good Men Project, who published the piece.