Hey, so... sometime I iz a lazy mofo. Sorry, but living life is sometime more interesting than writing about it. My meditation has gotten real strange.
I rode with an old friend to Wilmington. He was taking his son down to some music convention. The boy plays in a coupla bands. He's been playing a long time. I have been attempting to get both of them to meditate for a long time. It's like talking to a fence post. They don't seem to understand how important it is to do something for themselves that nobody else can do for them.
Jack Kornfield, who teaches meditation and writes books and produces audio tapes on the subject called meditation the "art of arts." It makes sense to me, because what a meditation practice does is to create an overview. What I used as an example yesterday in my futile attempt to communicate what meditation accomplishes, was about how to get to that overview. The overview is important because it allows one to have the mental acuity to perceive opportunity when it arises. There exists certain moments in life where one can do miraculous things if the timing is right. A moment too soon or too late and the opportunity vanishes. I don't gnow why things work this way. I don't care. These moments don't appear to exist as a creative effort, but are doors that open where creativity does the most good. They don't appear to exist as something that one has control over, but definitely something one can be-co-me with, and go along for the ride.
I know both of these guys are going to read this, so this entry is somewhat redundant for what I talked about yesterday, and intentionally redundant.
When I sit down to practice my meditation I start by thinking about my perineum. Every time I sit, I have to find it all over again. I find where it is by feeling for it. I use my imagination to place my conscious mind at that location. I attempt to feel where the base of my penis ends and my rectum begins. I feel for it. I seek to place my consciousness as exactly as I can on that particular spot, and then decide to direct my breathing from there. The next thing I do is to make sure when I exhale that there is no more tension in my lower belly. At the beginning there always is. Optimally, I let my belly flop as much as possible. When I have let my abdomen relax as much as possible I find that I can inhale from as deep in my belly as is possible.
I'm particular aware when I'm doing it right. I can feel that when my belly is as relaxed as possible, then I am going to be able to draw the next breath from the deepest part of my being, and simultaneously realize that when I do that, the air I draw into my lungs is automagically going to stimulate the right sensitive areas at the top of my nostrils where the air turns down toward my lungs. When I begin to feel this happening then I begin to actually feel the perineum area where that holy spot exists. That holy spot has a direct connection with the crown chakra, and activates it without having to pay any attention to it at all. Helen Palmer, from whose audio tapes on Enneagrams I learned this method, states that energy follows the attention. Pay attention to that holy spot at the perineum and it empowers it. It begins to buzz. Then, what happens when it begins to buzz will lead you to the next thing to do. Nobody can tell you that.
One of the things that happens that is easy to describe is that my breathing goes on autopilot when the holy spot begins to buzz. I no longer have to pay attention to the holy spot or my breathing. The crown chakra starts acting up, I feel it buzzing, and my attention goes there. That's how the overview comes into being. It's almost like my body has an autonomous reaction to the buzz. It goes into a sort of catatonia. This catatonia happens at the alpha-theta transition when the sleep state approaches. It takes some getting use to because it exist as a state of paralysis that prevents the body from reacting to the dream sequences that follow. It prevents your body from responding like it does when you're awake in the normal beta state. For example, if you dream of being chased by monsters, this catatonia/paralysis of your body keeps your arms and legs from responding to the dream activity, and your body stays in your bed during the sleep state. Sleep walking is a an exception to the rule.
This paralysis is sometime associated with a phyical vibration, and also exist as an indicator of when you can leave your body to do astral travel. When you are trying to get out of your body to astral travel, this paralysis is what tells you when to perform the ritual used to get out. I do that constantly during the beta state, so that isn't all that interesting to me. What is interesting to me is the next step in my meditation.
The paralysis indicates to me that I'm shifting into warp drive. Sometime there is a loud pop similar to a crack of electricity discharging across my brain. I'm free of concern with my body, and it's fixing to get numb and disappear from interfering with my released conscious awareness. Once that happens, I do seem intellectually aware my body exists, but for all practically purposes, I can no long feel it. I attain to a somewhat disembodied state that allows me to "see" these cyclic opportunities where I can allow myself to get pulled into situations that would not ordinarily be there for me in a "normal" state of consciousness that is attached to identifying with my persona and physical being. This exists as a state of "is-ness". The normal state of consciousness only works in an ex-is state of being, where consciousness is shuttle-cocked back and forth between polarities in such a way that one gets caught up in either the future or the past. No opportunities there. Opportunity happens cyclically, and it ain't no good to you as an afterthought. What you shoulda done and second guessing only brings suffering.
David, Eric, I done my best by you. Have a good life. Your exquisitely crafted personalities may not show up on my radar much longer. I'll only see in you what you ignore, and my speaking to that will only convince you were right about me from the gitgo. No blame.
Sunday, May 18, 2003
The red Peterbilt pulled up the on ramp to I-10 at Wilcox, Arizona. I halfheartedly stuck out my thumb not expecting to catch a ride with an eighteen wheeler. Most of the drivers are not allowed to pick up hitch-hikers for insurance reasons or company policies. I looked up at the driver to wave at him as he drove by. It was an older man. Instead of passing me by he stopped the big rig right beside me. I opened the door and he told me to get in. I grabbed my pack and jumped in the truck, and he continued up the ramp and into the traffic of the Interstate.
We rolled along without talking for a coupla minutes, and then he turned to me and told me that God had told him to pick me up. I kinda knew what that meant, I was going to get saved again. I waited for the sermon to begin.
Instead he began to tell me about how hard it was to get a load outta California when he went out there, but that he was lucky and got a load of frozen fish to haul back to Mobile, Alabama, which was his home. He told me that the contractors in California drive a hard bargain when bartering with the truckers because they know how expensive it is to go back toward the east coast empty and pay for their own fuel. There isn't much manufacturing going on in the plains states and there isn't much of a chance to pick up a load on the way until they get near the Mid West. I could feel him checking me out as he talked.
As I listened to him, I realized he was older than I was, so I asked him how long he had been driving trucks. He told me he was 74 years old and had been driving trucks since he was 18. He told me a little bit about how he had gotten into it and what kind of trucks he had driven in the early days before diesels had become dominant. He still had fond memories of the huge gas engines that had been a lot more powerful as far as torque is concerned, and how he used to be able to pass slow traffic a lot quicker than with the diesel engines. But now, the diesels were a lot better than in the old days.
He was proud of how he had started his own trucking business. At one time he had over a 100 trucks on the road and was making a lot of money. He told me that his daughter run the company now, and that they only had about 40 trucks, but that he wasn't involved in managing the company now. When they had gotten into tax trouble a while back, it proved to be too much for him, and he bought himself this truck and was running independent. Just doing what he wanted to now, and only used the company to arrange for his loads.
We rolled through New Mexico pretty quickly. This old man had a lead foot. He must have averaged about 75mph hour. As we approached El Paso and the long stretch of west Texas he said he was going to stop and fuel up at a truck stop soon, and asked me how long it had been since I had eaten. I just told him it had been a while cause I thought that was what he wanted to hear, and it turned out it was. He told me they had a good buffet line at the truck stop and that he was going to buy my dinner. At that he picked up his cell phone, told me he was going to tell his wife he had picked up a hitch-hiker, and he called home.
I only heard his end of the conversation, but it sounded like his wife was worried about him picking me up. He kept telling her that he knew she had warned him about picking up hitch-hikers, but God had told him to pick me up, and that he was going to be the Good Samaritan and feed me. He seemed to take a lotta pride in this. Just after he finished his call, we came to an intersection that had several truck stops and we pulled in to one of them and went inside.
I followed him around in the truck stop to let him lead me into whatever it was that we were going to do about food. As I walked behind him, I noticed that he had this bent over way of walking that didn't seem much different than the way he sat in the truck. I guessed that he had been driving a truck so long it had shaped his body to fit the seat. He walked with his shoulder hunched forward, his knees bent, and the only real difference in his posture was that his head was held straight up. From the side he was shaped like an "S".
The food didn't look that good. It had been sitting on the steam line for a long time under those heat lamps. There was a separate salad bar that looked a little better, and I decided to each mostly from it. When I finished what I could he encouraged me to eat all I wanted. He reminded me I could go back as many times as I wanted. I ended up eating more than I wanted to show my appreciation, but the food was really lousy.
Soon, we were back on the road and through El Paso and headed through Texas. We didn't talk much. I did ask him if he was going to stop anywhere to sleep. I vaguely knew that truckers can only drive so long before they have to take a rest break. He said he didn't pay any attention to that, because he knew how to keep his logs in such a way that the cops couldn't prove he hadn't stopped. He intended to drive straight through.
I knew he must have felt some of the same fatigue I was feeling, but he didn't act like it. Maybe that fatigue is what got him to talking about his family. I can't remember all the details, but it was a strange tale. He had been married several times. His first wife was from Baltimore. She proved to be a no good bitch, and he had left her after their first child. He had gotten married again to a good woman by whom he had a couple of boys. They were pretty good boys, but he didn't trust them to take over the company. Somehow he was contacted by his daughter from the first marriage. He had not seen her for years. She wanted to come to see him and get to know her father, and he paid for her to come down to Alabama to visit. His wife had died, he and his sons didn't get along, and he was lonely. When she came down to Alabama to visit he hadn't told his children about her, and they thought she was a young girlfriend. Turned out he fell in love with her at first sight. He wanted her to have everything, so he married his own daughter. This was the woman he had talked to on the phone.
I didn't realize that this old man didn't know he had told me what he had told me. I don't know whether he thought I wasn't listening or that he hadn't realized what he was telling me. I was listening, and so as we cruised through Louisiana I begin to ask him so questions about why he had married his own daughter. I was extremely curious. For some reason I didn't really care, it wasn't any of my business, I just found the whole situation very odd, and even weirder that he had actually admitted this to a total stranger. My questions seem to startle him out of his fugue, and when he realized what he had told me, he got very hostile and angry at me, and denied vehemenently that he had said what he said. He told me he was a good Christian now, and that he and his wife went to church regularly, and that he had said no such thing. It didn't surprise me at all. People tell their most personal stuff to strangers they think will never come into contact with anyone they know. After all, who would listen to a bum? No blame.
The rest of the trip to Meridian, Mississippi was driven in silence for the most part. It seemed like the closer we got to where he was going to let me out, the madder he got with me. I knew he was just angry at himself for blabbering out stuff that he knew could be turned against him, but he didn't know how I am, and that people had been safely telling me their secrets most of my life. He was just scared because he seemed to have betrayed his own confidence. No blame.
I was born about 20 miles from Meridian. We moved to North Carolina when I was two years old, but we had come back to visit my parent's families who lived in this area all my early years. I had moved back there for almost a year once before, and I knew this place pretty good. The problem for this old man was that where he lived in Mobile was less than ninety miles away, and I had family there too.
When the old man got to Meridian and pulled into the place where he would fuel up, I got my stuff, and then followed him inside to buy a candy bar and a coke. He hadn't spoken to me since he realized what he told me, and he didn't speak to me again. I had followed him inside just to see what his response would be if I acted friendly with the people inside the store. He literally turned pale and could barely sign the credit slip for his fuel. I deliberately left the store before he did so he could see me walking away. I guess I will never know why God had told him to pick me up.
We rolled along without talking for a coupla minutes, and then he turned to me and told me that God had told him to pick me up. I kinda knew what that meant, I was going to get saved again. I waited for the sermon to begin.
Instead he began to tell me about how hard it was to get a load outta California when he went out there, but that he was lucky and got a load of frozen fish to haul back to Mobile, Alabama, which was his home. He told me that the contractors in California drive a hard bargain when bartering with the truckers because they know how expensive it is to go back toward the east coast empty and pay for their own fuel. There isn't much manufacturing going on in the plains states and there isn't much of a chance to pick up a load on the way until they get near the Mid West. I could feel him checking me out as he talked.
As I listened to him, I realized he was older than I was, so I asked him how long he had been driving trucks. He told me he was 74 years old and had been driving trucks since he was 18. He told me a little bit about how he had gotten into it and what kind of trucks he had driven in the early days before diesels had become dominant. He still had fond memories of the huge gas engines that had been a lot more powerful as far as torque is concerned, and how he used to be able to pass slow traffic a lot quicker than with the diesel engines. But now, the diesels were a lot better than in the old days.
He was proud of how he had started his own trucking business. At one time he had over a 100 trucks on the road and was making a lot of money. He told me that his daughter run the company now, and that they only had about 40 trucks, but that he wasn't involved in managing the company now. When they had gotten into tax trouble a while back, it proved to be too much for him, and he bought himself this truck and was running independent. Just doing what he wanted to now, and only used the company to arrange for his loads.
We rolled through New Mexico pretty quickly. This old man had a lead foot. He must have averaged about 75mph hour. As we approached El Paso and the long stretch of west Texas he said he was going to stop and fuel up at a truck stop soon, and asked me how long it had been since I had eaten. I just told him it had been a while cause I thought that was what he wanted to hear, and it turned out it was. He told me they had a good buffet line at the truck stop and that he was going to buy my dinner. At that he picked up his cell phone, told me he was going to tell his wife he had picked up a hitch-hiker, and he called home.
I only heard his end of the conversation, but it sounded like his wife was worried about him picking me up. He kept telling her that he knew she had warned him about picking up hitch-hikers, but God had told him to pick me up, and that he was going to be the Good Samaritan and feed me. He seemed to take a lotta pride in this. Just after he finished his call, we came to an intersection that had several truck stops and we pulled in to one of them and went inside.
I followed him around in the truck stop to let him lead me into whatever it was that we were going to do about food. As I walked behind him, I noticed that he had this bent over way of walking that didn't seem much different than the way he sat in the truck. I guessed that he had been driving a truck so long it had shaped his body to fit the seat. He walked with his shoulder hunched forward, his knees bent, and the only real difference in his posture was that his head was held straight up. From the side he was shaped like an "S".
The food didn't look that good. It had been sitting on the steam line for a long time under those heat lamps. There was a separate salad bar that looked a little better, and I decided to each mostly from it. When I finished what I could he encouraged me to eat all I wanted. He reminded me I could go back as many times as I wanted. I ended up eating more than I wanted to show my appreciation, but the food was really lousy.
Soon, we were back on the road and through El Paso and headed through Texas. We didn't talk much. I did ask him if he was going to stop anywhere to sleep. I vaguely knew that truckers can only drive so long before they have to take a rest break. He said he didn't pay any attention to that, because he knew how to keep his logs in such a way that the cops couldn't prove he hadn't stopped. He intended to drive straight through.
I knew he must have felt some of the same fatigue I was feeling, but he didn't act like it. Maybe that fatigue is what got him to talking about his family. I can't remember all the details, but it was a strange tale. He had been married several times. His first wife was from Baltimore. She proved to be a no good bitch, and he had left her after their first child. He had gotten married again to a good woman by whom he had a couple of boys. They were pretty good boys, but he didn't trust them to take over the company. Somehow he was contacted by his daughter from the first marriage. He had not seen her for years. She wanted to come to see him and get to know her father, and he paid for her to come down to Alabama to visit. His wife had died, he and his sons didn't get along, and he was lonely. When she came down to Alabama to visit he hadn't told his children about her, and they thought she was a young girlfriend. Turned out he fell in love with her at first sight. He wanted her to have everything, so he married his own daughter. This was the woman he had talked to on the phone.
I didn't realize that this old man didn't know he had told me what he had told me. I don't know whether he thought I wasn't listening or that he hadn't realized what he was telling me. I was listening, and so as we cruised through Louisiana I begin to ask him so questions about why he had married his own daughter. I was extremely curious. For some reason I didn't really care, it wasn't any of my business, I just found the whole situation very odd, and even weirder that he had actually admitted this to a total stranger. My questions seem to startle him out of his fugue, and when he realized what he had told me, he got very hostile and angry at me, and denied vehemenently that he had said what he said. He told me he was a good Christian now, and that he and his wife went to church regularly, and that he had said no such thing. It didn't surprise me at all. People tell their most personal stuff to strangers they think will never come into contact with anyone they know. After all, who would listen to a bum? No blame.
The rest of the trip to Meridian, Mississippi was driven in silence for the most part. It seemed like the closer we got to where he was going to let me out, the madder he got with me. I knew he was just angry at himself for blabbering out stuff that he knew could be turned against him, but he didn't know how I am, and that people had been safely telling me their secrets most of my life. He was just scared because he seemed to have betrayed his own confidence. No blame.
I was born about 20 miles from Meridian. We moved to North Carolina when I was two years old, but we had come back to visit my parent's families who lived in this area all my early years. I had moved back there for almost a year once before, and I knew this place pretty good. The problem for this old man was that where he lived in Mobile was less than ninety miles away, and I had family there too.
When the old man got to Meridian and pulled into the place where he would fuel up, I got my stuff, and then followed him inside to buy a candy bar and a coke. He hadn't spoken to me since he realized what he told me, and he didn't speak to me again. I had followed him inside just to see what his response would be if I acted friendly with the people inside the store. He literally turned pale and could barely sign the credit slip for his fuel. I deliberately left the store before he did so he could see me walking away. I guess I will never know why God had told him to pick me up.
