Wouldn’t it be great if ?!: . . .

I had a first-rate marketing partner. Someone excited about my work, wanting nothing more than to help me fully realize it and get it out to the public. S/he would be self-motivated, adventurous, capable, full of marketing ideas, and loving to bring them to fruition. She’d pay for herself immediately. She’d love the challenges of connecting with people and bringing money in, and bring a wonderful energy to it all. A true partner, absolutely trustworthy and close friend. Friendly, personable, dynamic, detail-oriented. She’d help me focus. She’d help create a buzz about what we do, help us create work, and get it out to the world to great effect. She’d be a magnet for collaborators, employees, and eager friends and patrons.

She’d help me refine and develop the vision of my work. She’d help me marshal and manage all our resources to complete our projects, always ready to move beyond what we’ve done up till now.

(Now: let this go, and let the magical forces create it!)

Today, zazen at day’s end was most potent, reacquainting me with the simple, profound practice of just being here, upright, dignified, whole; and how it fundamentally evaporates jitters and anxiety.

The power of zazen, Zen sitting meditation, is fundamentally different from almost anything else we’ve done before. Mostly if we’re uncomfortable, we just keep trying to find something else that will make it better. But at a certain point nothing works. We’ve tried everything, and everything only makes us more manic. We just get so sick of ourselves that out of desperation, even, we think, “There’s got to be a better way!” The desire for comfort and happiness has become a claustrophobic insanity. We seek something outside ourselves, and nothing helps. Then we may finally recognize that what we really know so well is how to make ourselves miserable, though we may be clueless how to stop it.

So zazen is just about stopping. Just stop, physically stop, sit upright, and breathe out, allow space. Take ten slow breaths. Allow the craziness of your mind to just be, just be with that. Let it be crazy. Zazen, as uncomfortable– against our grain– as it usually is when we start, allows all that extra shit of our “busy mind” to begin to settle away, and soon will reveal the fundamental peace and fulfillment and power we’ve lost touch with maybe for a long, long time. Frightening for a moment in its uncompromising alone-ness, our natural mind space has a chance to be recognized, and what we were instinctively terrified of, we actually discover is the door to our fundamental peace and freedom.

Losing our way is not a problem. It’s part of our innate navigational system which, by letting us know we’re off course, points us toward meaningful, accurate self-correction. But through that self-correction, we find our true way again that is so wonderfully deep, refreshing, and empowering.

I’m discovering that much of my management of CFS, even using different methods, is giving me access to my exhaustion so I can get restorative sleep, which is usually so damned elusive. None of the tools I mention here works well every time. But more often than not, when I do

1) The Work (of Byron Katie), I find peace, freedom from physical pain, understanding–and deep, immediate access to my exhaustion, with sleep following almost immediately. The exception, and it’s significant, is that it doesn’t work well when I’m too groggy or exhausted, which is pretty often. Then working better are

2) taped guided meditations, and as I relax, I generally pass soon into deep sleep. The “Healing Yourself with Light” by LaUna Huffines guided meditation series is perhaps the best of all I’ve found, with the caveat that I invariably fall asleep rather than follow the guidance (as I do with all of them). The Brian Weiss, M.D. meditations are more “fun,” more involved, and longer. I also use shamanic drumming recordings for journeys of my own, and this can be easier, since there are no instructions.

3) Gentle yoga stretching will relax me enough to settle into deep, blissful sleep. My body absolutely loves the result of this work, but I’ve never caught on to the practice very well. I have, however, researched available resources for doing yoga gently, and I heartily recommend “Yoga for Your Life” by Margaret D. Pierce and Martin G. Pierce, which Ifind sensitive, relaxed, remarkably easy and effective, and quite different than anything else I’ve found.

If these don’t work, I usually finally groggily

4) admit defeat and choose to rise to a difficult daily life, knowing that at some point the exhaustion will overwhelm me, and I’ll eventually be crashing for an hour or two or more. “Crashing” can be dramatically quick: it’s not unusual for me to pass out even as I’m sitting fully upright (very uncomfortable) and not even be able to make it to bed. Likely I will not be fully refreshed, and I’m usually spaced out for at least some time afterward, even the rest of the day. Even if I feel really well, typically there’ll be a dramatic fall-off a couple hours later.

It’s intriguing to me that only after a dozen years of dealing with CFS am I realizing that all these tools point directly and exactly into the same place. Fingers crossed, but lately I seem to be using them with much more consistent success than ever before.

From email to my dear sister, Carol:

Hi, Sweetie! (Or is that not PC?)

Just got an email update from Mom. Sorry about your pain. Glad that you’re managing it.

I’ve started my blog, http://bproc43613.wordpress.com/ It’s not fully up yet, but check it out!

One aspect this blog will address is tools of various sorts I’ve found helpful, such as those that have helped me work with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. There’s a lot of overlap here with teachings I also call spiritual teachings. For instance, after several years of experimentation, I’ve learned that Katie’s Work will most times free me of physical pain. I still find it amazing, but no kidding.

Another very helpful teaching has been Martin L. Rossman, M.D.’s “Guided Imagery for Self-Healing.” The book is more helpful for background. More practical are the companion guided meditation tapes. He makes a very sensible and compelling argument for the efficacy of this approach, which utilizes relaxation techniques, and then visualizations. These are getting more and more use among cancer patients. You might find some relief or insight with this process.

For background, many healing traditions start with the understanding that pain manifests only when there is resistance to it. When relaxation or insight can be brought to bear, pain is no longer an issue. Relief (and freedom) is the result. These tools are ways to possibly access this.

And a wonderful book of support is “The Art of Getting Well” by David Spero. Ever gentle, compassionate, practical, wise.

With love,

Bruce

Hi Arne,

You’re just the second person to leave a comment on my blog, and such a thoughtful message, so I’m grateful! Your comment has inspired me to post the following two excerpts from Seth’s teachings, which I refer to often, and which seem to me to get at the heart of Seth’s teaching. I thought you might like to see them.

(from: “Dreams, ‘Evolution,’ and Value Fulfillment” Session 891)

New Year’s Resolutions

1. I will approve of myself, my characteristics, my abilities, my likes and dislikes, my inclinations and disinclinations, realizing that these form my unique individuality. They are given me for a reason.

2. I will approve of and rejoice in my accomplishments, and I will be as vigorous in listing these– as rigorous in remembering them– as I have ever been in remembering and enumerating my failures or lacks of accomplishment.

3. I will remember the creative framework of existence, in which I have my being. Therefore the possibilities, potentials, seeming miracles, and joyful spontaneity of Framework 2 will be in my mind, so that the doors to creative living are open.

4. I will realize that the future is a probability. In terms of ordinary experience, nothing exists there yet. It is virgin territory, planted by my feelings and thoughts in the present. Therefore I will plant accomplishments and successes, and I will do this by remembering that nothing can exist in the future that I do not want there.

(From “The Way Toward Health”)

1. I am an excellent creature, a valuable part of the universe in which I exist.

2. My existence enriches all other portions of life, even as my own being is enhanced by the rest of creation.

3. It is good, natural and safe for me to grow and develop and use my abilities, and by doing so I enrich all other portions of life.

4. I am eternally couched and supported by the universe of which I am a part, and I exist whether or not that existence is physically expressed.

5. By nature I am a good deserving creature, and all of life’s developments and parts are also of good intent.

6. All of my imperfections, and all the imperfections of all other creatures are redeemed in the greater scheme of the universe in which I have my being.

All my best
Bruce

I found an active internet newsgroup for the Seth teachings a couple days back, moderated by Robert Butts’s new wife. Amazingly, it seemed he was still alive, all these years after Jane’s death, and so much older than her, to boot. Each day the list is to send me a summary of the day’s postings.

My first posting was last night: Robert had died. What a strange beginning!

I would have thanked him for his and his wife’s work: the psychic adventures, Seth’s teachings–and equal to these, their complete openness in sharing the ups and downs of their whole lives with us. Even though they were chronologically a generation older than my Sixties/Seventies generation, they were entirely of it: unconventional, adventurous, open, without pretense, questioning of authority, playful, daring, democratic, artistic. Of all my favorite writings, theirs–along with May Sarton’s journals–are always the most welcoming and comforting companions. To this day, after thirty years, never having known Jane and Robert personally, I’m still always glad to open one of their books and enter their lives again, as dear friends.