Deeper into the mystery

Have spent many hours in meditation in the last few days. I have been listening to dharma talks on you tube and recordings and have gone into the meditation in a much more intense way.
         The stuff that hits me is intense and sometimes overwhelming M when she was here saw one of the meltdowns. A quick recovery but lots of pain and suffering during the process. THat process is not going to let up either. so what should I do. THe strategy I had needs to updated and enhanced . Before what I would do when I noticed an afflictive emotion was to passively observe it , that works to a point but I need to be more effective since these afflictions are coming at an increased rate and shown no sign of diminishing. Therefore the new strategy is to watch as things become intense and rather than observing I feel where in my body there is tension and then exaggerate that muscle tension as much as possible , something like the old Canadian Air Force stationary exercises I learned a long time ago.
            It can lead to some intense emotions in a big hurry but once they are felt intensely they go away when I relax the muscles. This is the new strategy I will use it until I need something stronger.
          Have move much of my stuff from the back yard the railroad tie garden that I had had back there for 20 years is gone. Removed J's stuff from storage so a friend of his can store it at his place.
           Saw the internist BW today and got tested for allergies. I seem to have a  mess of them. I am going to work with them so my immune system is free to work on the difficult process of dealing with cancer and not get distracted.
           Have not heard from SHinzen Young but there is an old story that one has to ask a Zen master three times before they acquiesce to help. Letters phone messages count for two so tomorrow I call again.
       Am going to here Michael Schapiro the local Jewish Mystic. He sings  gives a talk and I dance, sing and listen. A good thing to do on a night when it is cold and I would like to be with people.

A good day for which I am grateful

On this day in 1945 the Red Army liberated Auschwitz.

Visited with K in the morning he is horny,quadriplegic , and angry. I listened , he is a kind person in an difficult place,
         I did notice that his computer is next to him but he can not use it so I am working with R to see if we can get the thing to work with nothing but voice commands , if the software is available.

I spent the afternoon doing Hospice volunteering down at Ryan house , the facility near St Joseph's hospital. It is a  pediatric hospice facility , however  one floor is for adults.

A lady from Ohio who had a brain aneurysm while visiting her sister in Yuma. No facilities in Yuma to care for her and she has been transported to here. Family is the sister who comes when she can and child in Alaska.

Sat and read Be Love Now , fell asleep for awhile, and went back to the book. Read the section with Ramana Maharshi, what a great man and how deeply moving is his story.

Went to a discussion of Buddha's brain last night very interesting group of people we passed the bowl and spoke. I remember to people in particular. A lady who was enjoying just being with her husband on a pleasant afternoon and had a feeling of dismay which she went to her cushion and observed for several minutes until it passed. It just reminded me of the small blessings that can be overlooked in a life of focus and drive. Also a young man at ASU who had learned an interesting lesson about the difference between have to and get to. The mere substitution of one form of phrase for another turns a curse into a blessing. 

K whose home we were all attending gave me a lovely present of a stone with the word healing etched into it.

Spent the rest of the evening listening to SHinzen's dharma talk about fear. What I understood of it was to observe the aspect of it that is in the mind and the aspect of it that is in the body. If both  are observed in real time the level of fear that is there is additive if they are taken without awareness the impact is mathematical progression that quite steep. THere is just so much awareness that can be brought to the moment and it ca either be locked around the fear and the effects of the fear or it can be used to observe the flow of the fear letting some of the locking go .

Did that this morning in meditation. I awoke afraid as I often do and watched as the body had a specific feeling to it . My mind was not thinking about anything much but so I turned my attention completely to the body . In no time I felt the fear transform into a feeling of well being and with some nurture positive moments I felt wonderful. Happy to have the love of God guru and girlfriend and reveal in it.

Plan for a day

        Today I Did a feel in meditation (focusing on the inner life of emotions) and for a good half hour I just felt depressed.
         Then impermanence came forth to my great surprise , yeah I still have to practice it to remember how to do it.
I saw my therapist yesterday and that helped a bit. She said that I had a balanced sense of both the suffering and the spiritual effect that it was having on me.
Reassuring words.
I am making up a list of questions for the internist today , I invited the ex to participate so who knows if she will make it.
My friend J sent me some information about a place in Tucson where he went it was healing for him and I plan to get together with R and maybe J ,folks I went to John of God with, and some others to have some general discussions and maybe some brainstorming and have J talk about it.
This doing everything by myself is not an effective strategy.
A prayer I sent to the Prima Amiga:
May you feel the gentleness of your soul when you are in deep meditation ,may it be  as if a voice is reminding you to be loving with yourself.  May the feeling that have in hearing that voice be kind and thoughtful ,sympathetic and strong, wise and joyful , serious and frivolous , courages and forgiving and above all loving.

Preparing for the next step

First time in weeks when I got up early and  because I could not sleep .

I am prepared for the day with the big event taking place at 9 am when I have a phone consult with Richard Lamm MD.  I have about twenty questions that I have prepared and wish him to review in dealing with provenge and the current numbers that I am  dealing with dealing with PSA. 

My cousin M will over hear the conversation either on conference call or another phone. Take some notes and give me some feedback about what was said. 

I have another appointment tomorrow with my Internist  to help me with some other decisions clear up any questions from today and think about a naturopatic approach using Bloodroot.

Emailed G and asked her if she  could free some time to go to Lamm's office Feb 22 with me . Another set of eyes and ears, S offered to but she is more a last resort . It is not fair to her because for many reasons.

M leaves this afternoon and I will be on my own again.

Did a nurture positive meditation this morning, my separation from Prima Amiga is a good way for me to find myself even though it is damn painful at times.

 I am not asking for more;-)

I was praying MOnday night and I got to the place where I gave up and submitted my will to Maharaji ,CHrist ,love, being, god. The voice in my head was saying thy will be done and I meant it. Not my but thy . 

That is what is going on.

An open letter to SHinzen Young

Hi,
During your last retreat in LA you gave a lecture about the aesthetic qualities of mathematics. I sat enraptured by the talk and the following meditation.
When we retired from the chapel to meditated and observe, I went to my room and stood in front of a mirror and attempted a technique that I had not done for 30 years. As I looked into the mirror my physical countenance disappeared. It was an ability that I had acquired in an serendipitous way but after developing it as  an interesting phenomena, I was warned against pursuing it . I took the warning seriously and ceased .
Recently diagnosed with an advanced form of prostate cancer, I have had to face a number of choices that have various degrees gloom . The prognostication in the allopathic world is one of maintenance . I am pursuing these paths and have been using the skills that I have acquired in meditation to make  choices.
I had also be told by Ram Dass who I consulted at the beginning of my odyssey that the most important thing to do would be to follow my heart. That is a chief reason that I found myself as one of your students. I have followed my heart.
Recently I have become more cognizant of the situation I face and understand from my guru (Neem Karoli Baba) that I am already healed I just have to figure out how.
In a slow building towards realization I believe that remission, a word that has emerged quite prominently in various meditations that I had in LA is possible and achievable.
Since I have already done that which is generally considered impossible and I did it through the serendipitous guidance that I received from you I would like to pursue the process of using meditation to put the cancer into remission in hopes of not only doing for myself that but creating and path that others might walk to heal their own cancers by understanding that that which is considered impossible is possible and the limitations are in the mind.
Would you be willing to help in this process of  making remission a identifiable path that anyone could walk?
It certainly would make the process of dealing with the diagnosis  enjoyable and that is I believe is part of the method of achieving remission and even cure.
Would you please help?
Thank you ,

Watching

             Watched yesterday as I went through some of the tough parts of my psyche , had a good straight conversation with one of the members of US too the prostate cancer support group. He is a former ASU mathematics professor who helped me understand the statistics that I was looking at dealing with Provenge. It was encouraging since it brought forth a clear notion of what was not being measured by the statistics and what was left out of the study and how the study was potentially biased.
The questions around provenge are the statistical difference between the number of stroke victims in the control group and the study group.  Were the questions asked in such a way as to be unbiased, what were the statistics compared to a general category of people matching them to age and race and class backgrounds. 
How much influence did the Dendron company have in the publication of the results of this report. Did they pay for the study , the editing , the publication and how much influence did that have upon the results.
He also gave me an idea of where to obtain the raw material from the studies , Mayo in Scottsdale has a library that will give those results to anyone purportedly. You have to ask for the correct study and be definitive.
My friend also recommended that I talk to a local layman about the subject R is an authority on the subject and is very helpful.
We also discussed Snuffy Myers in Charlottesville and how he worked closely with my LA doctors. Something to consider more throughly.
We talked about Chemo , I told him of my objects and he said Hospice might give some help but since we had explored that already and I had rejected the idea I remain very unconvinced.
After which my emotions were something in knots so had to pull them apart one by one. The fear  factor was there it expanded and contracted as I watched. Despair expanded and contracted sometimes expanding as fear contracting sometimes inharmony. Loneliness played a role. Each or all would get intense then break and go back into nothingness. THey came and went in waves. That was good for an hour of meditation. 
THis stuff feels like therapy in action. It is not like if I ignore it, it will go away.
Spent the rest of the evening doing a little cooking and talking to my cousin M. Am thinking about the will and found out from her husband R ,the judge, what to do to make a will.

Awoke this morning and did a nurture positive meditation. Thinking of something that inspires me and seeing hearing and feeling. It started by seeing Prima Amiga in my mind, then playing our song, in my head and within a minute or two  feeling a deep presence of love. I remembered a meditation that someone in which someone said realize how much love & care you have for this person , and recognize that they have the same for you . From there is was tears of bliss for an hour.

What's happening

Good morning not  a lot to say, doing a meditation, in which I have been watching the mind talk and feeling the reaction to that speech in the body. It grows in intensity reaches a peak recognition of the tightness of the body and is followed with relaxation . The mind stops and for a few moments there is peace, followed by a sleepiness and dropping of the eyelids , then a new recognition of that event and  tension in the body sets in ,opening the eyes  causing the mind to spew forth something or another until the tightness becomes intense whereupon that is recognized,and  relaxation begins the mind stops the eyelids droop  and this goes on for hours. 
It has something of a metronomic quality to it.
I am not sure that Prima Amiga's brother wants the merits of these meditations but he is getting them.
My cousin M is here but is not feeling well so we did not do anything much yesterday, she is complaining of chills and stomach upset. I put her in the hot tub , that did away with the chills for awhile but she still has upset stomach. THought I would take her to the local acupuncturist to see if that would help.
We are talking about Provenge , meditation and wills,
One thing that  is important is that the two of you begin to talk a little more  since she has the power of medical attorney and you will be seeing what is going on it is important for her that she has a feeling of how you observe.
THe house continues to be cleaned gave K( the yoga teacher) all of my metal plant stands and grow boxes, her son may take the railroad ties.
I see the full moon a lot and we are together at that moment for me.
Skyped with J yesterday , he is enjoying the blessings of his life and I am glad to hear of them. WHen I know more about the medical stuff I will talk to him about it.

shinzen Young retreat in LA 1 and three quarters

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

           How do I make a decision?            That seems to be the big question for the day. I was told of a way that SHinzen has organized and observed thinking so that one can observe the factors of ones own decision making process and learn how to accentuate the aspects that lead to worthwhile decisions and observe the things that lead to poor decisions.

           How do I decide to do anything? When I first got the diagnosis I was possessed by fear but rather than succumb to its paralyzing effects I took action, some good, some bad, some indifferent.  Among the good actions I list; seeing Ram Dass in Maui, going to see Alan at the 4 immeasurables weekend, setting up a food source through Devil Spice Food, getting W to instruct me in setting up bookkeeping with the insurance and tax people in mind, and getting the prima Amiga involved in some of the decision making.

           The indifferent decisions were to follow the advise of the ex-wife in going to get reiki training and going to the naturopath. I have not followed up upon Reiki because while I have had some good experiences I have also not gotten the type of intellectual support that I find critical. The ex is very smart and follows the rules to the letter but does not have a creative bone in her body. So she just does what the protocol is and does it perfectly.  This is great in the profession that she followed that of pathologist, because who wants a pathologist whose mind wanders creatively while looking at a sample of their anatomy to check for cancer or not.  But Reiki requires a feel and for me naturopath requires a sense of interconnectedness with the patient.  The ex would not be aware of either one of those qualities. 

           I do not wish to cast aspirations upon the ex ‘s character it is the highest, nor her judgment which in her field is outstanding but when it comes to humanity the lack of connectedness is palpable. It is a feeling that when things get tough, you’re on your own.

 Perhaps I recognize this in her since it is a lacking that I of the feel in myself and perhaps it is why we were married for twenty-two years.

           I digress, the poor decisions were signing up for something with the gym that I did not use did not fully understand and failed to follow up on. It was a financial decision that I did not get good use of.  

I have undone the financially poor decisions, am contemplating how to deal with the indifferent ones.

           Over the year I made many decisions as to how to proceed. The general criteria that I have used are that of following my heart. But the question remains how am I making decisions. Not what are the decisions good or bad but what is the process that I go through to reach them?

Well got an answer, found that the associate of SHinzen has already thought through and publish a decision tree using the mindfulness process now I will have to apply it.

shinzen Young retreat in LA 5

Friday, January 7, 2011



           SHinzen live in a fascinating world and spending time with him is transformative in so many ways After the morning meditations in which I did a body awareness scan and got to the place where I was scanning and perhaps sleeping but I wonder if that is entirely true since I never felt that I lost my consciousness I was watching the mind explore the body albeit in a very dreamy way. I would call it hypnogogic awareness if anything. Anyway after an hour and a half of that I went to the lecture in which SHinzen talked of the aesthetic aspects of numbers and how the use of imaginary numbers, for instance the square root of a negative number, gave depth breadth and length in a dance like way to the limited feel of the number line.

           Then we went into the meditation on flow. Well in hypnogogic sleep, the time that is before deep sleep and is not awakened consciousness thoughts flow in very fluid manner, nothing has any holding spot and the mind makes free associations without hindrances of formal inductive or deductive reasoning. 

                The whole experience was dance reminding me of the meditations that I used to do with Swami Muktananda in the 70’s. After an hour of this type of meditation we had a break and I wandered over to my room and decided to experiment with the old siddhi of vanishing, looked into the bathroom mirror concentrated in the relaxed flowing way that I had been doing all morning and my image disappeared in the mirror.

           Went back for more after the break but Shinzen introduced another concept he wanted to have in our meditations and it was possible but way to difficult for me to incorporate everything else at the same time.

           Lunch did some computer work and then had some of the last of the food that I had brought. Planned pretty well should run out of food at the same time that the retreat ends I will be eating a lot of rice though.

shinzen Young retreat in LA 4

Thursday, January 6, 2011

           Though we are on a silent retreat there are times when there is interaction with SHinzen or teachings that are given. I continually remain impressed with the kindness, courage and determination of the people that I meet.  It puts what I am going through into perspective, not better not worse just different outwardly.

           The beauty of the way that each person deals with the challenges is breathtaking.   Compassion, clarity and wisdom I have observed in abundance. Listening to the erudition of some of the people is amazing. One of the participants gave an impromptu description of an ancient Israeli harp; TS Eliot’s The Four Quartets was the for me for last night unexpected. Using various methods meditation to go into nothingness and the forms of nothingness that rend different effects.

           Some of these methods open the heart that all things are an expression of love that flows like a great river carrying everything with it, other methods open the senses and take them beyond themselves. Leaving the mind clear and the conclusions obvious.

           I am filled with hope and love and can feel the expansiveness that goes with it and then I see something that reminds me of my own mortality, in this case some lab reports from October. Immediately I notice and contraction in the level of joy and happiness and well being. What makes being here so important is that the observation of those phenomena is exactly what we are talking about in the lectures. Nothing is inherently unstable and falls into opposites expansion wishes to continue into infinity and contractions wishes to continue into oblivion. To notice the change in direction of these is like watching the breath. If one could inhale forever it would not work likewise if one could exhale it would not work there must be both and so must it be in all things of duality. It is the point of being here to note the changes and live mindfully aware of the contraction and expansions of existence and with practice tune into the finer and finer changes that taking place.

           What a gift to be here.

They are going to do an all night meditation if I get up later I will go

shinzen Young retreat in LA 1 and a half

/2/11

           First entry for the new year. Most interesting insight that I have had at this retreat  dealt concentration on outer phenomena. . Shinzen had us do a practice run of meditations on the sensations of the body, spatial hearing; back, front, side ,above, etc  . And seeing.

           The results  are that I came to see that with deep concentration I can see things continually in motion , the leaves on the trees, the grass in the process  of growing , a city transforming from cars moving to buildings rising and being  taken down again. It is all a process that is continually changing.

           This is not a new idea it is one I have had before and is very common as an insight.

           The second part of the meditation was a deep concentration upon the moment by looking at finer and finer moments everything came to a halt. The plane in the air , the car on the freeway, the sound of fan motor with finer and finer one pointedness everything ceased to be in motion but is completely static. The only moment in which all of us live, “now,” when brought completely into awareness is fixed and  static . Nothing has any prescribed future since the moment now is all that can exist.

           This reminded me of a story of two monks arguing if the flag was moving or the wind. The master came along and said that it is your mind that moves. I\

           I had heard that story but did not grok what it meant until that moment. Werner Heisenberg  , the great quantum physicist , wrote that one can tell the position of  a particle or one can determine the direction of  a particle but one cannot tell both.

           At the  deep level of understanding that intense concentration of the moment brings that becomes self evident. The car going down the freeway is in the moment at a certain point the  more certain that the observer is of its location the less certain the observer  is of the direction.  Is that the moment of  ; an empty tank,  tire failure , an accident, the great California earthquake,  all of  which have declining percentages of probability but that was what Heisenberg was postulating.

           All that stuff I have heard about for years was demonstrated during that meditation.

           My reaction has been ,”so what”, how can that help me with what I have to deal with .  Last night I got the answer, there is a scientist in Chicago who demonstrated that by merely focusing intently and a relaxed and equanamous manner that the health of the focuser improves physical and emotional.  We will see.

           To catch up on what transpired while the blog was being written  I am going to write a parallel entry.

Shinzen Young retreat in LA 3

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

            I am last so long and then things begin to change. Today I arose at 4 unable to sleep. There was a general sense of well-being but tiredness. The cold that I have been struggling with seem to coagulate in my sinuses and made sleep difficult. Did do the mantra Om Mane Padme Om with everyone but noticed that I was not able to get to the low notes that I love since they reverberate in the heart.

I am getting the hang of his talks and I take lots of notes in the pictorographic format. That seems to b his style and I love it that it makes me think in pictures.

He makes pennants for things like concentration clarity and equanimity and how the mind works to deal with each one of these states going shallow or deep if there is an equality of one with the other and how the mind tastes each in which he uses a symbol of a mouth from Hieroglyphics.

           He quoted from a teacher of the 19th century named Mahasai Sayadal who formulated the idea of having the labeling of mental processes be part of the Buddhist practice.. He also discussed and showed in hieroglyphs of the breakdown of the system that he has been amalgamating, it divides any spiritual experience and by the process of breaking it into constituent elements allows for the whole the be reassembled so as to be repeatable and comprehensible for reintegration into the personality.

I speak of this very dryly but what is happening to me is anything but.

           The elements consist of see, hear, and feel, and they are noted in the forms of in, out, rest, flow and gone. When I am looking at this screen I am seeing out. If I form a mental image in my mind of the screen that is see in, when the image does nothing or stops in my mind it is at rest, when the image transforms in the form of words appearing it is flow when I look away it is gone. The same is true of hearing and feeling.

In general the process that I have described happens all the time to each of us and we accept as totally natural, which it is. It works continually it is just that as one becomes better and better at observing it the results from the behaviors that emerge from personality begin to change.

So to give powerful example, which I am being hit with quite often, let me exam shame. The drugs that I am taking make my body, tired, among other things and sitting in meditation in a comfortable chair has the effect of putting me to sleep, much more than before. I snore so that I disturb my fellow meditators, most have been kind but it happens. This coupled with the fact that I am alone in that this is a silent retreat brings this type of activity and the resultant emotions to the fore. I am proud, and to have to be awakened in these circumstances feels shameful. If you agree or not is not the point. What I am feeling is the reality in that moment.

The technique is to note what is happening in the body. Tightness in the chest and throat wetness in the eyes by feel out and be aware in real time what I am describing to you in these pages. In a flat sonorous voice the mind recovers and regains its equanimity the experience is fully participated in and the power of that shame has been diminished to the degree that I have consciously experienced it.

           Shame is in the human condition and it certainly is something that I have experienced in the past in situations that are embarrassing and hurtful there will be more to come I am training in letting go of the grasping of not wanting to experience what I am experiencing. I can either do it mindfully or not mindfully is the path of freedom or not is the path of suffering unconsciously.

           I did go hiking in the local hills and they are quite beautiful, Catalina Island is near and the ships ply the channel between them and the mainland.

Shinzen Young retreat in LA 2

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

           How do I make a decision?            That seems to be the big question for the day. I was told of a way that SHinzen has organized and observed thinking so that one can observe the factors of ones own decision making process and learn how to accentuate the aspects that lead to worthwhile decisions and observe the things that lead to poor decisions.

           How do I decide to do anything? When I first got the diagnosis I was possessed by fear but rather than succumb to its paralyzing effects I took action, some good, some bad, some indifferent.  Among the good actions I list; seeing Ram Dass in Maui, going to see Alan at the 4 immeasurables weekend, setting up a food source through Devil Spice Food, getting W to instruct me in setting up bookkeeping with the insurance and tax people in mind, and getting the prima Amiga involved in some of the decision making.

           The indifferent decisions were to follow the advise of the ex-wife in going to get reiki training and going to the naturopath. I have not followed up upon Reiki because while I have had some good experiences I have also not gotten the type of intellectual support that I find critical. The ex is very smart and follows the rules to the letter but does not have a creative bone in her body. So she just does what the protocol is and does it perfectly.  This is great in the profession that she followed that of pathologist, because who wants a pathologist whose mind wanders creatively while looking at a sample of their anatomy to check for cancer or not.  But Reiki requires a feel and for me naturopath requires a sense of interconnectedness with the patient.  The ex would not be aware of either one of those qualities. 

           I do not wish to cast aspirations upon the ex ‘s character it is the highest, nor her judgment which in her field is outstanding but when it comes to humanity the lack of connectedness is palpable. It is a feeling that when things get tough, you’re on your own.

 Perhaps I recognize this in her since it is a lacking that I of the feel in myself and perhaps it is why we were married for twenty-two years.

           I digress, the poor decisions were signing up for something with the gym that I did not use did not fully understand and failed to follow up on. It was a financial decision that I did not get good use of.  

I have undone the financially poor decisions, am contemplating how to deal with the indifferent ones.

           Over the year I made many decisions as to how to proceed. The general criteria that I have used are that of following my heart. But the question remains how am I making decisions. Not what are the decisions good or bad but what is the process that I go through to reach them?

Well got an answer, found that the associate of SHinzen has already thought through and publish a decision tree using the mindfulness process now I will have to apply it.

THe SHinzen Young retreat in LA

12/28/10

Arrived in Los Angeles today to see the Tibetan Doctor and to begin the SHinzen Young  meditation retreat . It is a longer version of what I was doing in Oracle Arizona so I will chronicle what is going on here and try to catch up with the backlog of experiences that have transpired since my last posting.

           Start with the arrival of prima amiga on Dec. 7 . Her arrival is a blessing for me and one that I devoutly look forward to. We have crossed the Rubicon in the aspect of deciding to have a loving relationship so there is no longer any doubt in my mind about having a spiritual partner for life or lives if you will. It has taken us three years of building this relationship with each other and the foundation is rock solid. Now we are looking to building a beautiful edifice based on awareness , honesty , and joy. It was something that I had wanted in the marriage that I was part of but that desire had to wait until the proper person came along.  Our previous spouses came form our particular needs in the outer world whereas what we do together is work with manifestations of the outer that is the reflection of  the inner.

           My birthday was the 9th  of December and to celebrate I invited all of the meditators that I knew for a sit t my house. Pot luck watch the sunset and the sit. About 15 people showed up on Thursday night and we had a chance to enjoy a beautiful sunset. A surprise person showed up in the form of a therapist that I have been seeing for  several years , she never goes to any events and by happenstance she called me several days before the party and accepted  my invitation.

               The evening was magical a beautiful sunset which was watched in meditative quietness, excellent food, a gift from the prima Amiga of a meditation bowl which when struck resonates with the heart accompanying one into the meditation with the heart vibrating. After the meditation the prima amiga had everyone tell of  something that they had been inspired about me. Something which I am not used to hearing and I thought it was the most marvelous of birthday presents. To hear how people love  are inspired and respect me was a great honor and one that I will cherish the rest of my life.  I  see how adulation could be a major addiction.

 More tomorrow.