free fall

Dear Robert,

I am enjoying the engagement with this on-line community. It is remarkable how many share the common experiences and shifts in perception that your book has constellated.

I’d like to share a bit of a personal update, if I may. Seemingly past the very powerful initial flush of realization that occurred just a few weeks ago and settling in, as it were, to this spinning gyroscope of newfound perception, I find myself continually without a “fixed point” from which to take my bearings, as once I struggled for, there is a sense that this is “uncontainable-open-sky”.

Feeling as though some sort of surrender occurred when this shift took place, it has become clear that there was no willingness on my part to surrender but, more accurately, my position had been overrun.

Primarily I feel a sense of equanimity but occasionally this sharp sword of discernment (Manjusri riding a lion with a sword in his hand is the Buddhist image of it) gives rise to shreds of confusion and frustration. At times the ice is thin. The most noticeable difference, if one were to compare, is that these sensations and emotions are no longer recognized as a “state” or identified as “myself” but rather as a passing cloud, blossoms blowing across the snow. Yet this is somewhat troubling.

In Zen the term “empty sky” is used in much the same way “ten thousand things” is used: that which is no container, encompassing all. In Dogen’s words, “To forget the self is to be realized by ten thousand things.” This is the essence of “just being”. “Thusness”. Nothing added, one head, not two. Perhaps, is it troubling to “not find oneself” in the picture having become what seems to be miniscule, yet remaining relevant?

The telling of your tale has come forward with profound effects, and I imagine, to be truthful, if as in the case of “Richard”, somewhat of a burden, at times. Many others and I deeply appreciate your honesty, sharing of ideas, and clarifications.

I would like to inquire if you might share with me some of the experiences shortly after your initial realization. All sensations, fabricated mythology, and “past” remembrances are just that; grasping at straws. But, as I said, standing in the light of realization casts a deep shadow as well. Does it seem that such a shadow must necessarily fall upon one’s former sensibilities?

Have you ever seen the book “The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse”, translated by Red Pine (Bill Porter)? His translation of “Cold Mountain” is recognized as one of the better ones. Perhaps your friend Robert Hall may know about him. Stonehouse was purported to have said: “Where there’s a Buddha you can’t remain. Those are dead words. Where’s there’s no Buddha, hurry past. Those are dead words too. Now I understand living words”.

When questioned about his understanding he replied; “When the rain first clears in the late spring, the oriole on the branch sings out.” A very lovely metaphor pointing to appropriate action as it arises without complication. So it is! This “just be-ing” has become the reality of what I formerly called “myself”. At times these perceptions seem incomprehensible and unbearable in presence, often leaving me stunned. Your comments are most deeply appreciated.

Dr. Robert Hall, 2014

Hi, Richard—
Interesting that you mentioned Manjushri and Robert Hall in the same letter. Robert and I used to meet weekly to discuss these matters, and often those meetings were not entirely peaceable. In those days, Robert was an ordained Buddhist priest, a traditional teacher of Vipassana meditation, and the charismatic leader of a sangha here in Todos Santos. He is still all those things except that the word “traditional” no longer fits. His vision lately has turned radical. He has devised a kind of meditation retreat that is unparalleled as far as I know. This combines days of silent mediation with evenings of Gestalt psychotherapy. It’s powerful, and “Buddhist” in name only. I’ve never attended one, but Robert invited me to the farewell dinner of a retreat with his favorite students who came over here from the Mexican mainland—I was the only outsider--and had instructed the students in advance that they could ask me questions. The questions were coming from a very turned-on place. Remarkable, really.

But, as I was saying, at the time we met, Robert was teaching straight ahead Theravada Buddhism, which I regard, not as “Truth,” but as a kind of philosophy informed by acute psychological insights, with some unfortunate piety and even more unfortunate worship attached to it, probably after the fact. For me, some of those teachings ring true, and some don’t. But I seem to be skeptical by nature. Robert, as he will tell you, is more of the bhakti type. One of his books is called “Buddha Now.”

So two very different types hashing out our perspectives, and it wasn’t always easy, particularly for Robert, who later told me that a few times he left our meetings ready to call the whole thing off. But, by the skin of his teeth, I suppose, Robert hung in there with me, and nowadays we find ourselves like two birds, if not in the same tree, at least in the same little part of the woods. Robert read my book and got it all 100%, no questions asked, which, since he was the first reader, was a very excellent hit for me.

Anyway, one day when Robert and I were sitting under a tree conversing, I said something along the lines that such and such Buddhist idea did not comport at all with my understanding, except that, to be honest, I think I used the word “bullshit,” and other such language. Robert looked at me and said, “Oh, now I get it. You’re Manjushri.”

Robert is quite ill now, and I love him a lot, so I enjoyed being able to write that just now. Yes, as you say, “remembrances are clearly just . . . grasping at straws.” So I just found myself grasping at one.

Well, with that out of the way, let me try to reply to your question.

I was fairly young when that unmistakable “initial flush,” as you called it, came over me. It was 1985, I think. I saw what I saw, and there was no going back, but it was not always easy. Regardless of my seeing that nobody is “doing” anything—all of this is just arising as it must (or “arising as it does,” if the word “must” seems deterministic)--I was still quite attached to my image as an artist. I struggled for years trying to accommodate to both modes having to live together in the same body and speak through the same mouth. I would not say that equanimity was my most common condition in those days. I was on a mission of some kind, I can recall that much, but I cannot remember what the mission entailed. Vanity and self-importance had something to do with it.

The struggle between name and form, as opposed to what one “really” is, was never resolved by anything I did, but by force majeure. I was struck down by a devastating illness just on the eve of an exhibition and book signing at which I was to be the star, and that was the kind of lesson you never forget. This body I call “my” body has a life of its own. It is not “mine” at all.

“Like a falling star, like a bubble in a stream, like a flame in the wind, like frost in the sun . . . ” (Gautama, the Buddha)

So, if your body is not “yours,” what, if anything, is? I understand when you say that it can be “somewhat troubling” to suspect that the answer is “nothing at all.” That is what I call “free fall.”

I got used to it. But I have had a lot of good luck. I was in love with a beautiful woman when the free fall began, and she has stuck with me all these years, including the year of that illness during which I was useless and ever since, while I, falling forever through vast vistas in my mind, immersed myself in study, art, and my work as a psychotherapist, almost at times like a monk.

Fortunately, I avoided blathering about my “awakening” as I see people do, so that vision wasn’t wasted and bartered for status, money, or authority. And because it wasn’t ill-spent, and because I wasn’t teaching it, these ideas have been free to flow and change as they will.

Because I am not a spiritual teacher, but just an ordinary human, I am not beholden to anyone. I am not obligated, and so I do not regard you or anyone else as a burden. Put that out of your mind. Everything I do or don’t do is one hundred percent pure self-expression. It issues forth as it does, and I am not judging it.

It’s good that I am not, because I have said many things that a year or two later seemed questionable or at least sophomoric. Thank god I don’t have to apologize for being human. Some of that imprecision and error was just pure laziness--when asked about “awakening,” instead of diving in totally to my own experience, sometimes I'd resort to catchphrases and boilerplate. I think those days have passed. This all feels utterly honest; perhaps that accounts for the “common experiences and shift in perception that [my] book has constellated” as you put it.

But this “nonjudgment” of self and others is not some stance I have affected because someone told me that judgment is “bad.” If I don’t judge, that's because I am in no position to judge. Yes, I am awake, and I know it, but awakening never ends. Something I said today might need revision tomorrow. There are no experts in the art of living, which is an art of improvisation without certainty. We are all in this together. If there is to be a goal at all, let it not be “enlightenment”—that will o' the wisp—but ordinary sanity.

I don’t know the poems of Stonehouse, but that sounded like something I might say to myself.

I appreciate your candor, Richard so I will offer some advice:

Now that the scales have fallen, don’t worry about this stuff. Just let it all flow like water in the arroyo making its way to the sea. Ideas are just ideas, whether they came from some “master,” from Robert Saltzman, from the man in the moon, or right out of your own mind. Meanwhile, this aliveness just is what it is, and if that feels uncomfortable at times, it just does. We are, after all, human primates, not “gods.” Our mentality evolved for survival and reproduction, not for comprehending the ultimate secrets of the Universe to the point of total confidence and freedom from all anxiety. The desire for that may be a false lodestar indeed.

We are not required to attain anything, I say. Nothing. This is not a test. When that is seen, one can relax.

春有百花秋有月 Spring comes with its flowers, autumn with the moon,

夏有涼風冬有雪 summer with breezes, winter with snow;

若無閑事挂心頭 when useless things don't stick in the mind,

更是人間好時節 that is your best season.

Wu-men Huai-kai (無門慧開 Mumon Ekai)