clearinnewyork

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In the Dark (pt. 2)

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A series of video lectures - partly on how we be bullshittin’ ourselves among other things based around wisdom and self-transcendence.

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In The Dark

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i i i

Why is the third time a charm?

This feels like a magical question that can’t quite be answered. I’m so deeply drawn to questions like this.

I’ve returned to this space once again. This makes the third time that I’ve come back to do this work. 

How do we explain why we’re called to certain places, people or things? Do we even need to explain it? The curiosity in me so badly wants to. Some other part of me just says, “Just shut up and show up.” (That could sound harsh, but I say it in the perfect tone that snaps me out of the dreamworld I so often get lost in.) I guess it’s the showing up and listening that an answer could be revealed to us if there is one at all. 

Here I am. Answering a call. 

I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell speak about writing. He emphasized that the way we think about things and the way we talk about things ought to be understood as two very different things. That in conversing with others, generally speaking (no pun intended), we can’t talk about a thing the same as we think about it. He goes on to explain that through thinking on a thing it illuminates how we can talk about it (and thus write about it), and how we talk about a thing will leave us with something new to think about. 

I’m sitting here in Pennsylvania, visiting my old family home of the last decade, a place I’ve been to countless times. Each time I return, it’s like reopening a line of conversation I can only have when I’m here. Simultaneously I’ve left NYC and have temporarily closed a door - a conversation put on pause. 

Each time I come here, I see this place anew. I notice ways in which I’ve changed, and also ways in which this place has changed and the new ways of relating that come as a result of these changes. Sometimes I see things that I may have overlooked in the past (Driving down a familiar street with my father asking, “Has that always been there??”). Every single thing comes renewed to the pot of conversation and thought, mixing in all their flavors and morsels to taste at the dining table of aliveness.

What is that thing about three?

The One is like the whole, the beginning, the all-encompassing. 

Two is like the partner to one - a relationship, literally the coupling and union. 

Through the union of two comes the potential for a third - the birth and life force that comes from the relationship between two ones. This possibility lends itself to the possibility of all things, like going from a 2-D image into a 3-D world, in Three there is literally a whole new dimension and space for depth. Three’s a party.

But, there’s also some magical rhythm of things enumerated in threes, like we witness in so many sayings - “Past, Present, Future.” “Thoughts, Words, Deeds.” Beginning, Middle and End.” There’s some sense of totality in these phrases, the way they just roll of the tongue. They’re like short form ways of explaining infinite ideas. 

“Me, myself and I” is another triptych of an expression that adds more dimension to this investigation, pointing to the idea of there being three dimensions to one being. Three different parts of a one greater thing. And we don’t break the one down for no reason. The three parts are like the different sides of a triangle, they’re obvious segments with marked transition points where our senses naturally spot the “different” elements within a whole. But, it is vital that we do not mistake the parts for the whole. 

“The point is that the Buddha, in some of his teachings which should be interpreted rather than taken literally, said that there were there different vehicles or ways. These three though are really one, from the viewpoint of the ultimate end to which they lead. in a similar sense, all the high teachings of the Victors were enunciated as a means to produce the ultimate renunciation - the Buddhas knowledge -  within the minds of disciples. And renunciation is what, at the very beginning, urges one to develop a disgust for the cycle of life and set his mind on reaching freedom. This is why the attitude of renunciation is taught here first, in the first line.”

Unlike Mr. Gladwell’s suggestion, I oftentimes find myself trying to speak through the web of my thoughts in conversation (and writings, if that hasn’t been made entirely obvious by this very entry). It’s as if I’m speaking, knowing that there’s a great likelihood that something unknown will emerge - something that was hidden around the corner of my being, waiting to leap out. What a wild thought to think about how much of myself I know nothing of - the person I’ve spent every single second of my life with.

My understanding is only growing ever more firm in the assertion that, the showing up and taking action is the only way we can learn anything - about ourselves, about this life. It’s in the act of doing, a prerequisite of which is effort, that the learning process unfolds. And so, maybe now we can begin to get back to our initial question, why three is charmed? 

Maybe it’s that each time we genuinely show up to a place, and ask questions (that we truly want answers to), we get more information, and literally, we become more informed - there is actually more to us than there was previously. 

“Failure is the pillar to success.”

To know success we must know failure even more intimately. Success is granted to us after we’ve not just failed, but after we’ve failed honorably. Within a failure can be the smaller victory of learning something which will allow us to fail less horribly the next time we try. And if we do try again, we can wear that newly earned knowledge like a plate of armor. It becomes a part of our being that can only be lost if we forget. And one genius of failure is that it’s very often embarrassing, which so conveniently helps in our remembering.  

Three feels charmed because it is well down the road of commitment and sincere attention. We go a place and make some effort, return to try again, and then come back yet another time. This cannot happen on accident. Either we like the pain, or we’re determined to see this something through.

Clear in New York is but a means of making simple what has the appearance of the being most chaotic. "Taming a mind in the most thought-provoking of places,” I wrote some entry ago. I created this and then left it, returned again, and like the seasons, I seem unable to stay away. My return here feels inevitable and deeply charged with meaning. 

I’m now prepared to admit that this entry is my prayer for a charm - a wish that this third attempt be blessed with whatever is needed to complete the work. 

With a wish that this journey be minded by a faith that I can always remember and that will mind me in my darkest of hours. May I remember, to the best of my ability, all of the lessons learned from my honorable attempts of the past and that I may weave their wisdom into the braid of the present. I pray that I may open my arms to the awkward and unexpected shapes of the unknown, that I can offer kindness and compassion to the void that lives within my heart and to all the parts of myself that holds these contradictions. I pray that I may be kind and generous with everybody during this time and that I may remember to take full responsibility of all my experiences, emotions and feelings. I pray that I may forge and maintain a beautiful and attainable image of the task before me, so that I can continue with a composed dignity and grace as I take each step, and as I’m taken by every breath. I pray that I may keep the very aliveness of this great mystery always tucked in close to my heart. I pray for the courage to confront any and every fear I have with a creative and kind eye. 

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An Inspiration, In Preparation

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Reggae always good on a rainy typa day

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(From the Archives) “Doors”

We spoke of doors closing and doors opening.. I took my door off its hinges when we met, laid down a beautiful welcome mat and re-did all the lattice (?) in ornamental fashion; the most regal and refined floral composition inspired by the jungle fauna of your home country. I’d never been there before and so the work required me to do that which I knew nothing of. And as the limitations of the material and my ability to manipulate it began to reveal themselves, I reached thus further into the stretches of my imagination, off to some deeper and darker place that only some defiant love could have carried me across to.

And what emerged was some entirely new system of self. It was just there, at the very threshes of death, proceeding with such an elegant grace and some rhythm improvised at the avant-garde - hammer to awl was not that at all. Rather, what appeared was more of a song than a being - curious and probing of its own self, alive in the embodiment of its continuous unfolding, persistently redefining itself and exuding all of the inherent qualities existent in the word “evolution”. The mind was the body, the hammer was hand, the hand the awl, the awl the wood, and the air in between them all was the messenger of truth, carrying every stroke, full of intention, through the continuum of space-time with an unmistakable precision and unrefined power.

And what began to take shape was that which was beyond your already incomprehensible beauty, though stranger to itself…

(To be continued)

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Windows of Light pt.1

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What you appreciate, you alleviate.