5-10-08: The Third Bull

I awoke with a fierce sense of myself. I courted it, it faded into fantasy, and then returned. I have been living with an aversion to the experience of being. I avoid feeling my true nature in favor of donning an infinite collection of masks. I have masks for every occasion except authenticity.

There is nothing more important than the experience of being. It is all we can know for certain. Everything else is guesswork.

Consider, for example, the masks I wear. They are designed by me to make an impression on you. All are based on my guess about what you might admire. (Note that this assumes also that you will admire a fake persona.) I am afraid of my fierce true self. I fear the power of it. It contains a dignity that I don’t think will fly in a world that I believe wants me to be a clown. I am afraid of what a genuine me might do to defend that dignity.

The most straightforward access I have found to my experience of being is a paragraph from The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Connecting With The Inner Body

Please try it now. You may find it helpful to close your eyes for this practice. Later on, when “being in the body: has become natural and easy, this will no longer be necessary. Direct your attention into the body. Feel it from within. Is it alive? Is there life in your hands, arms, legs, and feet—in your abdomen, your chest? Can you feel the subtle energy field that pervades the entire body and gives vibrant life to every organ and every cell? Can you feel it simultaneously in all parts of the body as a single field of energy? Keep focusing on the feeling of your inner body for a few moments. Do not start to think about it. Feel it. The more attention you give it, the clearer and stronger this feeling will become. It will feel as if every cell is becoming more alive, and if you have a strong visual sense, you may get an image of your body becoming luminous. Although such an image can help you temporarily, pay more attention to the feeling than to any image that may arise. An image, no matter how beautiful or powerful, is already defined in form, so there is less scope for penetrating more deeply.

The feeling of your inner body is formless, limitless, and unfathomable. You can always go into it more deeply. If you cannot feel very much at this stage, pay attention to whatever you can feel. Perhaps there is just a slight tingling in your hands or feet. That’s good enough for the moment. Just focus on the feeling. Your body is coming alive. Later, we will practice some more. Please open your eyes now, but keep some attention in the inner energy field of the body even as you look around the room. The inner body lies at the threshold between you form identity and your essence identity, your true nature. Never lose touch with it.



I suspect that if there is ever a world wide wave of awakening it will look like this.

I find me and then lose me again. It has been a theme with me for many years starting with my study of a little book called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. When you arrive at the point of being with your true self (the bull):

3. Perceiving the Bull

I hear the song of the nightingale. The sun is warm, the wind is mild, willows are green along the shore,
Here no bull can hide! What artist can draw that massive head, those majestic horns?

Comment: When one hears the voice, one can sense its source. As soon as the six senses merge, the gate is entered. Wherever one enters one sees the head of the bull! This unity is like salt in water, like colour in dyestuff. The slightest thing is not apart from self.

I think I am done with this blog now. Thanks for visiting.