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You ask about the origins of empty-mindedness.  One was my experience of long, drawn-out arguments with shouting, crying, begging, with-holding, accusing, sulking, withdrawing, and attacking.  Words and acts from the past would be dragged in to make a case.  Threats and demands would be made to gain the advantage.  Finally, through exhaustion, we would reach a position where each of us would abandon the attack and just express our needs.  It felt like a summer squall had blown in and passed over, leaving flooded paths, downed branches and litter all over.  At that point we were able to hear the other person and accept their needs as real.

After a long time, I saw that the argument was merely the precursor to this place of communication and potential resolution.  I never liked arguments, and these days, I choose to go directly to that post-squall place of self-expression without attack, where I can clearly distinguish between what I want to happen and what other people should do.

A second contribution to empty-mindedness has been a decade or more of sitting.  I won’t give instruction here, but through repeated practice, the ability to separate thoughts and actions, still the mind, be present and distinguish between thoughts and direct experience makes access to a center point of stillness easier and easier.

Lastly, I have done a number of Enlightenment Intensives, 3-day events which excel in removing the fog of language and revealing the truth underneath.

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One of the remarkable things about you is how much I am drawn to being present when I am with you.  I attribute that to your total acceptance: you offer a place for me to be myself — more than that, you encourage and rejoice in it.  This is so rare a quality in this world that I joyfully respond to it.

I am present when I respond and react to what is actually happening, rather than using what the past has taught me, or reacting in order to bring about some future outcome.  I don’t claim to be anywhere near perfection in this; presence is a matter of the degree to which we are focused on the events in front of us.  Neither do I claim that being present is always the most desirable state.  Sometimes the future needs attention, too, so we try to control the world in order to make our imagined future come to pass.  There are times when that is appropriate, but often it’s like always ordering the next meal while you’re eating the current one.

Being present is an important part of non-interference.  By being present, the world just is, so I can let you be who you are, which in turn gives you the opportunity to be present.  It’s a virtuous circle, and having experienced it, why would either of us ever want it to be any other way?  That is why I was so sure early on, even though I could not articulate the reason, that not only hadn’t we argued, but that we probably never would.

There is another aspect of being present that we have both remarked on, which is the experience of newness that it brings.  Nothing is ever the same, and it is very mysterious and counter-intuitive.  You would think that settling in for a movie or walking around the park would become drab through familiarity.  They don’t.  I surmise that they are intrinsically different – there is no Groundhog Day.  The walk I am taking on Thursday is never confused with the walk I took on Tuesday.

Another way to put this is that we are not constrained by our past, which gives us an extraordinary sense of potential, change and growth.  By being open to what is present, we are open to change.  It is not suppressed in favor of what has been, nor rejected in fear of what might happen.  The result is a sense that we always have more to do and more to explore.

P.S. In writing this, I really enjoyed some of our earlier posts on the subject:

• Union…Principles…Guidelines on 3/19
• The Path to Peace on 1/21
• Why do Things Always Change? on 6/11
• Being Present In The Moment is Celebrating It All! on 6/12
• Presence and Union on 6/15
• Spontaneity and No Rules on 7/14

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You use that wonderful metaphor of a thumbtack on the dance-floor, and how inhibiting even one can be.  I want to expand on that a little.  We’ve talked about this as 100% acceptance, and how different that is from 99%.  It’s not just 1% better; there is a qualitative difference to it.  I can be myself without any little voice inside checking what I say and what I do.  I can admire other women.  I can say I want to work late.  I can wear the same jeans all week.  It’s not that I am oblivious to your needs, for I enjoy doing things that bring you pleasure, but they never turn into expectations.

It is so liberating to have the space to be myself.  In other relationships, after a while I found myself to be partially missing, as if small chips of myself had been destroyed over time, and I had to leave to experience my self again.  I didn’t see it in those terms so much at the time; it was more the experience of being in a cage and needing to roam free.  I interpreted that (or my partners did for me) as a resistance to commitment, but now I am not so sure of that interpretation.

I don’t have any of that with you.  This is amazing to me, and I still cannot decide, after all this time together, how this has come to pass.  I do know that an essential part of it is the total freedom that you grant me.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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For me, it starts with non-interference — the position of allowing you to act as you choose, without my attempting to influence your decisions, big or small, as you travel through life.

I do this because I do not want to control you.  Why would I take on the burden of that responsibility?

I do this because you are not a child who must be taught the ways of the world for your own good.

I do this because of the pleasure of experiencing your views, pleasures and desires.  Why would I want to narrow my world by making those more like my own?

I do this because I do not feel threatened by you, physically, financially, emotionally.  I started with an assumption of trust, and the more time passes the more I am confirmed in this.  Another way to put this is that you are practicing the same non-interference.

How cool!  I am not assailed by criticisms or put-downs; I feel accepted, seen, honored.  Because of this, I am able to express myself, be myself, live my life without feeling in any way diminished.  On the contrary, I not only remain completely myself, but my world is added to by the intimate communication that flows between us because this complete acceptance means there is nothing to inhibit its passage.

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We know that good relationships can exist, because we have one.

But we’re not going to write and tell how relationships should be, because we don’t believe in telling other people what to do.  Instead, we have chosen to tell how we are and let the conclusions speak for them selves.

Kit

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Dear Kat,

The experience of union we have during sex is so intense and other-worldly that it confounds my brain, so I loved this morning’s conversation and I want to record it here.

Since Aristotle, Western culture has been based on classification: something is A or not A, and this viewpoint is a tool for the scientific method and a premise of Western culture.  In contrast, much of Eastern philosophy believes in the essential oneness of the world, and that the self is illusory.  Based on our experience of both being conscious of union and yet retaining full consciousness of our selves, we suggested that this paradox applies to the competing world views, too; that the world is at the same time both separate and unitary.

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