A digest for conscious living
I arrived yesterday from my week long odyssey into nature and solitude. The cabin I stayed in was completely secluded, deep in the mountain forest with not phone reception and no neighbors for many miles. It was an amazing and relaxing retreat. Besides the hiking, reading, and chores that are necessary to keep body and soul together in a cabin with no electricity, or running water, I also meditated for between 2 and 3 hours per day. Under those circumstances, it seems like the line between meditation and activity becomes blurred. I really was “chopping wood and carrying water” out there.
I brought a journal with me and was prepared to write down all the reflections and thoughts that I was to have during this solitary retreat. The first and second nights, I was waxing poetic about nature, the beauty, the solitude, and my place in the universe. By the third day however, I began to feel less inclined to write about such things. It was not as if I did not feel like writing, it was just that I seemed to have less and less to say. Out of a sense of discipline, I still made entries into the journal, but they consisted mainly of a record of what I did- whether I hiked, what I ate; with very little about what I thought or pondered upon. When I finally questioned why I wasn’t feeling more motivated to expound in a philosophical way, I realized that a shift had occurred. I was simply not thinking very much about the “context” of life and myself in it. I was simply going about engaging in whatever activities were at hand. I had in fact begun to “Eat when hungry, sleep when tired”.
This really brings me to the central lesson that I brought back with me from my time at the cabin: Despite the incredibly convincing illusion that our mind fabricates, in truth, there really is no complex context to the actualities that make up our lives. The truth of each moment, each situation, is completely unique, and can only be experienced if we respect it enough to desist from making it fit into our story. This story, the story of our lives, with the main character being the identity which most of us believe ourselves to be, is really nothing more than that- a narrative. It is a way for our primitive dualistic minds to gain their bearings in order to keep from feeling lost in the infinite sea of existence.
Its not to say that we should seek to avoid context, or completely eschew the story which we have constructed. During the last couple of days in the woods, I had begun to feel very little at all; my mind was beginning to feel like a sheet of white paper, and it was only upon my return to my family, my home and my “life” that the overwhelming feelings of joy and gratitude poured through me. No, our story is good and necessary, but it is not the whole truth, and of this we should always remain aware.
Journal entry 03.09.2010- “Its cold but I have the windows open. There is a breeze blowing through the rooms which coaxes the flames from the candles on the table to dance. The sound of the stream gurgling outside the window is like sonic perfume foaming on the waves of the cold mountain breeze. A deep dark context for all other sounds is created by the slowly oscillating sighing of the forest as it is caressed by the wind. There is so much clarity here; its as if the lens through which I see my existence is polished by the slow steady flow of life in the mountain forest. I am very grateful.”
Good night,
Kikta