In bed writing this morning. That’s unusual, I want to ground myself. It’s been a rocky night. Lot of awake periods, some disturbing experiences in dreams. Coming across Sean, wanting him to be lovely, sane, to connect with him. I was with T, and we tried to communicate but Sean was on some drug that removed him, and it was painful as I wanted him to come back to us and into the present. Another dream when I was reunited with T as an 8 year old and he was obese. I wondered how I could help him back to a healthy weight as realised it would be a while and difficult.
An opportunity to let go of some painful blockage of my unfulfilled hopes about Sean? Being shown the futility of trying to rescue those who don’t want rescuing? Some guilt about leaving T here with my parents when he got a little chubby? perhaps. The blocks have to be seen to be conscious and let go of.
I’ve been listening all night to Dzogchen teachings from James Low, who is extremely good at translating complex concepts into the everyday experience of them that is relatable. It was running in the background while I slept and was there when I surfaced. It’s helping the dissolving process, giving a useful context and practical perspective.
And which in turn is arousing fear from the ego. The part that really is not at all keen on dissolving. It wants to stay a separate individual thank you very much! It hates the idea that we are both the subject and object, it firmly wants to remain the subject.
I’m really happy to be here right now. Writing is grounding, and I remind myself that it is all okay despite the fears that arise. The Gayatri is never far from me, and has become such a good friend.
Just saw a therapy client and self compassion and self love is the theme. It’s such an honour to help a person restore their damages relationship with themselves, and to heal that sense of deficiency that haunts so many of us.
I’m reading this which I’m finding profoundly deep and useful, an excerpt is below.
By James Low….
The Resolution of anxiety
A) Origin and development
- The ground of all experience, and therefore of everything, is nothing other than our own presence. Neither the ground nor the basic given facticity of our own presence exist as entities. Although ungraspable by hand or thought or machine they are always available as the inalienable basis of each moment.
- Whenever we have an experience and experience ourselves as the experiencer of the experience, both subject and object aspects of this are revealed by the illuminating qualities of presence, just as the mirror shows the reflection of both my face and the room I am in.
- Commotion in the interplay of subject and object generates intensity of attention and identification, the arousal of which generates new patterns of experience. The subject, a mode of energy manifesting as a quasi-experiencer mediated through language, appears to be, that is, is taken to be, an entity, an enduring self-substance. This identification generates a ‘personal identity’ which is oblivious both to its own contingency and to the actual ground it arises from and moves within. The ground is forgotten by its own children, creating for them a burdensome ‘freedom’ and responsibility—even although these ‘children’, the play of subject and object, are never apart from the ground itself.
- Who is responsible? No one! The happenstance of the transient patterning of ephemeral moments is both the taker to be of something, and the something that is taken to be. Within this story, this play of shadows on the wall, there is the unfolding of what ‘we’ take to be our self and our world. No one made it happen. From the very beginning nothing substantial, nothing having its own self-defining essence, has occurred—except as a concept.
- With the felt experience of self and other as truly existing separate entities, subject and object continue to be related but apparently across a gap. Seeing opens up a field of separate objects that have to be made sense of. Being seen opens up the sense of being an object while also being a subject. One is defined by oneself and by others. In this tangle of opinions and judgements there is no simple truth to be found. This gives rise to the feeling of being isolated, lost and confused—with the consequent wish to establish order, predictability and control.
Learning to Rest with it All 