Good day good people,
Creating moon, by working with whatever pattern we have chosen over these many weeks, has required a long period of self-observation. This kind of self-observation also brings with it the task of sacrificing our suffering. Red Hawk reminds us, “Inevitably, such observation leads to constant identification and results in suffering, because such ‘i’s’ begin slowly to see that they are helpless. This leads to an ever-deepening series of shocks, which gradually serve the function of awakening the unconscious Being within. Now a new force, from a different level, has entered the field of observation. The awakening of the Being provides new possibilities” (Self-Remembering, p.90-91).
This is helpful news. As we are willing to sacrifice our suffering—identifications with “all self-pity, all self-cradling, vanity, secret, absurd fears, all self-sentimentality, all inner accounting, all pitiful pictures, all sighs, inner groans, and complaints”—they are “burned up in the fire of increasing Consciousness” (Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p.1090). This is the sacred alchemy that we participate in, thus we needn’t be disturbed by what we see in our unconscious center of gravity or moon but rather can be grateful that the seeing provides the material that continues to feed the conscious center of gravity or inner moon.
As we go into this week, considering all of our efforts and surrender to this process of creating moon, let us take a snapshot of where we are now. Our individual and collective work with creating moon in ourselves has no doubt brought about some fruit. Let us take an honest, clean look at what has developed in ourselves over the course of these months. That is to say, let’s not fall into viewing ourselves more lowly or highly than we ought.
Wisdom teacher Maurice Nicoll says, “By means of self-observation, by Observing ‘I’ which is an internal sense-organ, try to notice where you are in yourself at this moment, to what thoughts you are consenting, with what feelings you are identified. Have you yet attained any power of inner freedom from yourself, from your mechanical reactions, your mechanical thoughts and feelings induced by external circumstances? Or are you taking everything in the way you have always taken everything?" (Psychological Commentaries, p. 356-357). These can be helpful questions to consider from time to time as long as we are not using them to measure ourselves. The invitation is rather an honest and objective inquiry that can allow us to see whether adjustments need to be made in regard to our work of creating moon.
Create some space to reflect on his questions in regard to the habit you chose to work with during these months. You may also want to reflect on the following: How would you describe your ability to identify where your center of gravity is? What are some of the ways you notice it? What are some of the differences you are aware of when your center of gravity is pulled by the automatic moon outside of yourself versus the conscious moon inside yourself? As you sit with these questions you might want to respond through writing, speaking them aloud by creating a voice memo, drawing or using whatever creative means you are drawn to.
Although our work with creating moon continues on, next week we will turn our attention toward creating sun in ourselves.
With love,
Heather
Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
MMonday, October 14th with Catherine
Reading: “Blessed are the man and the womanwho have grown beyond their greedand have put an end to their hatredand no longer nourish illusions.But they delight in the way things areand keep their hearts open, day and night.They are like trees planted near flowing rivers,which bear fruit when they are ready.Their leaves will not fall or wither.Everything they do will succeed.”
— Psalm 1, translated by Stephen Mitchell
Chant: Be still and know I am God
Tuesday, October 15th
Reading: "Faith suggests that we are in fact complete and never separated from God, but we just have not found it out yet. We have not awakened to the loving presence of God within us that is forever waiting to be discovered. In this perspective, the primary gift we can give to one another is to practice Centering Prayer faithfully and allow circumstances to refine the experience of peace that occurs. The abiding state of peace that God calls us to in the Beatitudes maintains itself in daily life. Life happens. God works with our willingness and consent to bring about the transformation of our inmost being into the eternal happiness for which we have been created." —Thomas Keating, Consenting to God As God Is
Chant: abide in me, as I abide in you, we are one, we are one
Wednesday, October 16th
Reading: “Whatever it is that allows us to take a step back from the vicious circle of reactions, commentaries, and attractions/aversions that keep us glued to false self "programs for happiness" in fact unfolds within the sphere of witnessing… the emergence from "ordinary unconsciousness" into "awareness of being": What I call ordinary unconsciousness means being identified with your thought processes and emotions, your reactions, desires, and aversions. It is most people's normal state. In that state you are run by the egoic mind, and you are unaware of Being.
"Awareness of Being" is what witnessing is fundamentally all about. And whether this Being is experienced as an "it," a "who," or a more indescribable sense of inner positioning…, most the great spiritual paths insist that without some fluency in inner observation, we will never move beyond the egoic, narrative self with its endless stories that most of us mistake for the seat of our personal selfhood. In fact, "the unobserved mind" is Tolle's succinct definition for egoic selfhood itself.” — Cynthia Bourgeault, Heart of Centering Prayer, p.79
Chant: sink into the taproot of your heart, sink into the taproot of your heart (by Heather Ruce, words from James Finley)
Thursday, October 17th
Reading: “Who is this inner witness?… In various traditions the witness has been identified with "Real I," "the true self," and "essential being," but all of this naming misses the point. Witnessing is, if anything, a verb: an innate capacity of human consciousness to be present to itself as a field of awareness. Though personal, it is not a person not—an other—but a subtle capacity of consciousness itself, so far as we know gifted to the human species alone. Its purpose seems to be to keep track simultaneously of the horizontal axis—our life in time—and the pure divine awareness that is always intersecting this axis. Robert Sardello refers to it as "encompassing consciousness," and that is as good a job description as any. It is a more spacious way of being within oneself, of not losing the forest for the trees. Some would even say that this conscious interweaving of the horizontal and vertical (or finite and infinite) dimensions of existence is the specific cosmic task we humans are charged with, as our part in the mysterious alchemy of divine self-manifestation.” — Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer, p.79-80
Chant: blessed is the one who turns around and awakens, blessed is the one who opens blinded eye (by Epiphany today)
Friday, October 18th
Reading: “[W]itnessing turns out not to be a mental operation at all. It is not about paying attention to anything, but rather about discovering an innate inner sense of gravity that offers itself as the seat of attention, the place one pays attention from. The access route is not through cognition, but through a much more somatic imprinting… Once one finds one's way to this inner center, it becomes the place to which one's deepest sense of selfhood automatically returns, like a pendulum coming to rest. From this place it is possible to "know" by coinciding with reality, not by thinking about it. Thus, the tedious self-consciousness and "double vision" of mentally centered witnessing drops out, to be replaced by a spontaneous inner freedom that can simultaneously rest in being while paying attention to the now. "Look, Ma, no hands!"— for the witnessing presence is held deeper, at the gravitational center of one's being, leaving the mind free to do what it does best: keep track of the temporal scene.” — Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer, p.85-86
Chant: Open my heart, open my heart (by Ana Hernandez)
Saturday, October 19th
Reading: “Father Laurence [Freeman] remarked, ‘Every time we meditate, we participate in the death of Christ.’
"He is quite right, of course. The practice of meditation is indeed an authentic experience of dying to self not at the level of the will, however, but at the level of something even more funda-mental: our core sense of identity and the egoic processing methods that keep it in place. When we enter meditation, it is like a "mini-death," at least from the perspective of the ego (which is why it can initially feel so scary). We let go of our self-talk, our interior dialogue, our fears, wants, needs, preferences, daydreams, and fantasies. These all become just "thoughts," and we learn to let them go. We simply entrust ourselves to a deeper aliveness, gently pulling the plug on that tendency of the mind to want to check in with itself all the time. In this sense, meditation is a mini-rehearsal for the hour of our own death, in which the same thing will happen. There comes a moment when the ego is no longer able to hold us together, and our identity is cast to the mercy of Being itself. This is the existential experience of "losing one's life." — Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p.81
Sunday, October 20th
Reading: "Just as in meditation we participate in the death of Christ, we also participate in his resurrection. At the end of those twenty or so minutes of sitting, when the bell is rung, we are still here! For twenty minutes we have not been holding ourselves in life, and yet life remains. Something has held us and carried us. And this same something, we gradually come to trust, will hold and carry us at the hour of our death. To know this—really know this—is the beginning of resurrection life.
"This existential understanding of the "losing one's life/ finding one's life" paradox is significant in two important ways. First, it allows us to hear Jesus' message of inner awakening within the context of the wider Wisdom tradition to which this teaching actually belongs... virtually all the great spiritual traditions of the world share the conviction that humanity is the victim of a tragic case of mistaken identity. There is a "self" and a Self, and our fatal mistake lies in confusing the two. The egoic self, or cataphatic self, is in virtually every spiritual tradition immediately dispatched to the realm of the illusory, or at best, transitory. It is the imposter who claims to be the whole. This imposter can become a good servant, but it is a dangerous master. Awakening—which in Jesus' teaching really boils down to the capacity to perceive and act in accordance with the higher laws of the Kingdom of Heaven—is a matter of piercing through the charade of the smaller self to develop a stable connection with the greater Self...this means becoming intimate with our spiritual identity, the sense of selfhood carried in our spiritual awareness. Whenever we make this shift from egoic to spiritual awareness, we are authentically "losing our life"— even if it is only for the duration of the meditation period!” — Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p.81-82
Chant: when was I ever made less by dying, when were we ever made less by dying
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