The crack in everything

[lazariuk]

For me, Jack you appear as a 'curious emanation from a being', and I am enjoying your beauty.

It didn't take you very long to get closer to runny cheese. Have a glass of port.

[abby]

How could I pass up a conversation that might go about asking in the right way? No expectation of answers, just comforted and delighted to be in this company. Do me a favor and act like I've been here all along.

If you say that the crack in everything is what the waking have in common, then the crack in everything potentially could encompass a whole lot. Some things we waking have in common are:
birth
moving through our lives
experience of love and loss to varying degrees
relationship
other experiences in between birth and death of less interest to me
dying.

That seems safe enough to not preface with 'I believe.' The heart of my experience is what I listed above. It is what makes the world a worthwhile place to be and life good enough. It is also the stuff of heartbreak. Heartbreak because we get attached, and we have no idea how or why anything. This reminds me of something Snow wrote in the newsgroup earlier this year. I sincerely hope he does not mind me quoting him here.

'We are all so frightened. If the truth be known we are afraid - and unsure.
No matter who you are with, no matter how many people are around you - there
is a loneliness. Absolutely nobody can comfort or completely heal the
worries that come, or convincingly answer the questions that are there. We
can fool ourselves some of the time, pretend that everything is OK, act like
we are strong. But in the end the reality of our predicament, our fragile
existence, the impermanence, our temporary form, pelts us with a fear that
seems unbearable. What is going to happen? Who can help me? Where can I go?
Somebody please wrap your arms around me and tell me everything's going to
be all right. Why can't we understand why it all has to be taken away, why
we have to be taken away? I have no answers, sister Dar - I truly wish I
did. But there is something called 'love' - something called 'tolerance'
too. There is nothing else we can do but be as kind to each other as we
possiby can - embrace one another when things hurt. Because we are all here
together, for some reason. In a way I suspect that reason is beautiful, but
it's just so hard to be sure. It's just so tempting to feel hopelessness. So
many reasons to be depressed. Our visit here is quite brief, or so it seems.
We have to try to make the best of it, and be optimistic - and enjoy every
moment that has been given to us. Keep yourself safe, because there is
enough pain. I often think of you. x'

Having quoted him there, I think what he wrote touches the crack in everything. Earlier in the thread, Daka suggested that impermanence could be the crack in everything. Is it possible that impermanence is the thing that contributes sweetness to life? This sounds like it would imply that the world is drudgery but for the crack of sweetness. That is not what I intend. Nothing is perfect; everything is of the world. Like Geoffrey said, there is always a certain loneliness. We try to men the wound of existence five million ways. Is our attempt the crack itself? It seems to me that the experience of being in the world is cracked through and through. We will always fail. In my own language, the words of which I gathered from Leonard Cohen a decade ago, we are trying to be at home in this world in which we find ourselves. We were not educated in its ways and no one was given a roadmap.

So what's the light that gets in through the crack in everything? Is it Geoffrey's love and tolerance? Is it the degree to which we can relate?

Sometimes I find that the way my life is happening leads me to wonder, but not believe, that the universe might be unfolding just as it should. One of the events that turns my attention in this direction is synchronicity allowed by intuition. Synchronicity I think of as meaningfully related events occuring together or relatively near in time, maybe meaningless when seen alone but with another event take on meaning. But not just events- ways of being as well that span time. Intuition I think of as knowing without knowing how we know, meaningful because it urges positive action or synchronous experience. This kind of experiences comforts me as I move through this enormous, mysterious universe all alone.

Nevertheless, Leonard said,

'I know that I'm forgiven,
But I don't know how I know.
I don't trust my inner feelings-
Inner feelings come and go'

Does intuition count as an inner feeling? It's certainly an experience that has to be in the moment. I don't trust my inner feelings either. I trust something, though, when I act in a way to encourage synchronicity. It's knowing. I should just read what I've typed above. Intuition isn't a feeling, it's a knowing. Maybe no trust involved whatsoever.

Isn't that a wonderful point Leonard makes, though, that inner feelings aren't to be trusted? That those feelings are unreliable? I don't want to rely on anything that isn't true.

Next thought. I was struck by Martin Buber saying that there's only so far we can go with Buddha. Where do we go when we're done with Buddhism? Do we go with Martin Buber? Do we have to go it alone? I like the company of Leonard Cohen since Buddhism failed me, or I failed with Buddhism. Or we parted ways. Something like fifteen years ago, I sent Leonard a poem I wrote for him. In it I wrote:

'it is in this small eden
that he becomes my brother
and keeps these cold nights warm
with the words that float out
like golden hair swimming
through water'

In my predicament, that's quite a miracle.

all kinds of warmth,
Abby

[daka]

Abby

If I said something like "welcome"
I would be disrespecting
your wish to be treated
as if you have been here
all along,
so I will just say,
'Hello'.

daka

[Manna]

Hi Abby. Nice to see you here. I skipped Buddhism and went straight to Buber. Or maybe Buddhism is yet to come for me. Every five years or so I meditate a bit, ha ha.

Today, reading your post, I had the thought that I am the crack in everything.

[lizzytysh]

with the words that float out
like golden hair swimming
through water'

I love this aural-visual and image, Abby.

Thanks, too, for bringing Geoffrey here, again. I miss him.

I have a particular tape/cd somewhere here, seemingly long lost, which I've been unable to find. It was a meditation or spiritual-teaching tape/cd. At one point in the music, wherein a progression of it had taken me there, I felt an incredible and unbearable sense of lost timelessness. At first, I thought it was just situational, so tried it again, later... same effect at same point. Tried it several more times with same result and finally stopped listening to it, as I felt a kind of fear that was too suggestive of death eternal. I've no idea how the music managed to do that, but it did. If I come across it, I'll try it, again. It's been probably 10 years since I've listened to it.

When I meditated [TM] many years ago, with a room devoted to my practice, I floated through my life. Never concerned or upset or impatient about anything... people tended to ask if I was high. At least I was consistently low-key and mellow. An upside to everything.


~ Lizzy

[lazariuk]

Hi Abby
I was away for a couple of days but it has given me time to think about some of what you've written and you have written a lot.
You mentioned a curiousity you had about what Buber meant when he was saying that we can go far with Buddha but then we must go further. I have thought about that too and here are some of my thoughts. I don't know these things well and if mistakes are made I don't mind having them pointed out.
What Buddha said he was here for was as follows: "Of the past and of the present, pain and the end of pain" Someone might ask "Why do I need to be reminded of past pain?" and yet they obviously do because they do go there. I know something about pain, I know that it can only reach so far. If it happened already you might as well be done with it. What was what I think the best advice I ever heard about handling pain that has already happened is just do whatever you can to deal with it. Yell, scream, cry, shake your fist, punch something, hold on to it for all it is worth and just feel it. Feel it till you grow numb and you know that it is over. It is not going to return and you are probably not going to burst through with any big sense of healing or joy. Just a person alone and a bit numb, but with a little spot to travel on from.

My interest in Buber from that point is that he says that as far as Buddha goes is to say "there is a way" From there Buber says that he himself has no doctrine, no dogmas but that he can point as others have pointed before and that from there, there is meeting. One who he speaks of as pointing is the Greek who said "follow that which is common" and something about paying attention to "what the waking have in common"

I think I see what is being pointed to but have problems putting it into words. Leonard uses the expression "Let's be alone together, lets see if we are that strong" To me there is something about the song Anthem that points in the same direction and I have gotten this idea in my head that there can be a very real togetherness experienced in experiencing together and knowing what each other means in the words "there is a crack in everything" It is an intuition I have and maybe for reasons that I am just learning it requires also a little trust.

Does intuition count as an inner feeling? It's certainly an experience that has to be in the moment. I don't trust my inner feelings either. I trust something, though, when I act in a way to encourage synchronicity. It's knowing. I should just read what I've typed above. Intuition isn't a feeling, it's a knowing. Maybe no trust involved whatsoever.

I have an idea about this need for trust with intuitions.
There is a person in the forum named Diane who takes some very wonderful photos and of those there is a series that I have seem which I like a lot. They are of a tree in front of an abbey. When I see a picture of a tree or look at a tree I often like to be looking at it with my imagination as well and this way I am seeing the tree above as well as the tree below. Roots of trees are often very close in appearance to the branches. For this reason I like to see trees at the base of still waters so that the reflection is visible. For me intuition is a bit like that and it comes that I am sure that what I am seeing in front of me is showing me what is below the surface. The last picture that I saw of the tree was from an angle where it shows the tree leaning in a specific direction because of the wind. This has caused me to ponder that because of the surface of things being subjected to forces such as the wind that what is under will not always be shown clearly by what is above and that is why what we know to be true intuitions sometimes seem to be not working out right away and will require a little trust.

This is a very new thought for me and I am wondering if it makes any sense to you.

Isn't that a wonderful point Leonard makes, though, that inner feelings aren't to be trusted? That those feelings are unreliable? I don't want to rely on anything that isn't true.

I too, and hense my interest in what the waking have in common. Really have.

Next thought. I was struck by Martin Buber saying that there's only so far we can go with Buddha. Where do we go when we're done with Buddhism? Do we go with Martin Buber? Do we have to go it alone? I like the company of Leonard Cohen since Buddhism failed me, or I failed with Buddhism.

A third choice is that no one has failed and you still like the company of Leonard Cohen.

[abby]

Manna, I don't know what you mean when you say you though maybe you could be the crack in everything. Wanna help me understand a little?


And Jack- when we look at the reflection of a tree in the wind on water that is subject to that wind, the reflection will not be of what is happening above the surface but what is happening on the surface, which if I'm hearing you correctly, is what is happening under the surface. So the reflection seeming inaccurate corresponds to how our intuition might look like it's off when nothing seems to be confirming that we're correct? And if we have no proof that we intuited correctly, we can try to trust that we have, like we trust that the reflection on water affected by wind is in its way a correct reflection?

When we're looking at pictures of trees in the wind reflected in water changed by wind, we can't feel the wind, but know enough about wind to know why the reflection is distorted. I think I know a lot less about intuition so I'm reluctant to trust that I'm acting appropriately. Maybe I'm wrong. That's as much sense as I can make of it right now.


Abby

[Manna]

Manna, I don't know what you mean when you say you though maybe you could be the crack in everything. Wanna help me understand a little?

Well, it was a few days ago, and I am also not sure exactly what I meant. I think it was something about what I consider to be the world is limited to what I can perceive of the world. I'm the crack in my world, maybe you're the crack in your world. Something like that, not sure if it helps.

I thought Jack was saying that the tree had been bent by spending years in the wind. Since the roots are not exposed to wind, the roots and the branches would be less symmetrical.

[lazariuk]

Hi Abby and Manna

What struck me about Diane's picture was the effect of the wind over the course of many years. I will write and ask her if it ok to post a few of her pictures here. It is not just slight flickerings in the wind that I am speaking of that would be hard to understand, but rather long effects that can be explained in some detail to bring intuition into alignment.

I like what you said about being the crack in everything Manna and the explanation that you meant the limits of your perception. You might have worded it better by saying 'a crack' rather than 'the crack'. If you combine all of humanity's all time perceptions, including everything that we can get to with all of our instruments, we are still limited to a very very tiny amount. Of the rest we know absolutely nothing. I am not so concerned by what we don't know but rather the very little we can know and which the waking can know in common. Does that make sense ?
How about?
All of humanities all time consciously apprehended and communicated to self or others experiences is the crack in everything.

[abby]

Manna, your explanation helps a lot. Like, is it a wave or a particle? I don't know; I can't get rid of myself.

'All of humanities all time consciously apprehended and communicated to self or others experiences is the crack in everything' sounds to me like we as humans are so strange in the universe. It doesn't really make me feel at home, but maybe we've been very fortunate.

So we can see the tree's been bent over the years. We can also see what it would be like if it hadn't been bent and can account for each way it is different from its roots or what it would have been in a vaccuum. Do our personal histories cause a misalignment of our intuition? A misalignment with what?

Abby

[daka]

Thank God I have Buddhism!

daka

[Manna]

Thank God I have Buddhism!

Daka, you made a joke!!!!! Congrats, friend!!!

I bestow upon you some extra exclamation points, just to honour the occasion.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

re: humour.
I was told once that people laugh at a joke because learning releases endorphins and when you hear a joke, you learn something very very fast. That is why a joke that takes a long time to sink in and 'get' doesn't get quite the laugh, even if it is recognized as very funny.

[daka]

Thank God I have Buddhism!

Daka, you made a joke!!!!! Congrats, friend!!!

I bestow upon you some extra exclamation points, just to honour the occasion.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

re: humour.
I was told once that people laugh at a joke because learning releases endorphins and when you hear a joke, you learn something very very fast. That is why a joke that takes a long time to sink in and 'get' doesn't get quite the laugh, even if it is recognized as very funny.

Hi Manna
'
In am really glad and quite relieved that I made somebody laugh besides myself. I was beginning to get worried. I laugh at all of my posts (most of them), especially my poems. I am sort of addicted to humor.

Humor brings up another point. I love it. My biggest complaint about Buddhism is that it doesn't even acknowledge humor, hardly anywhere. It is extremely rare. One of our 24 books has a reference to humor (and I don't even find that humor funny!)
Yet the profound teachers use it like a scalpel to create the 'cracks' they want to create in our 'view' or 'wisdom' or morality' or whatever else they wish to impact.
What I am wondering is if the experience of (shared experience) of humor in interpersonal communication could be one of the "I-Thou" moments that Buber writes of. I hope you or Jack or someone has some light to shed on this particular issue for me.

I better start reading Buber

all good things

daka

[Diane]

What struck me about Diane's picture was the effect of the wind over the course of many years. I will write and ask her if it ok to post a few of her pictures here. It is not just slight flickerings in the wind that I am speaking of that would be hard to understand, but rather long effects that can be explained in some detail to bring intuition into alignment.

Hi Jack, I haven't followed this thread and I'm not sure what you are talking about but yes, sure, you can post some of my pics if you like, and thanks for the thought, although I think I should point out that the tree by the abbey looks as if it is growing at an angle in the last pic I sent out, because I was playing with my (very) wide-angled lens at that time, which can have a distorting effect on perspective. But if you mean the lone tree that was bent over by the wind, well, yes, one of the reasons I like that tree is cos its growth has been wind-sculpted.

Here's a pic I took from under a yew tree that might better illustrate "there is a crack in everything, that is how the light gets in" (complete with tree reflections in the water for you):

Graveyard1.jpg (56.32 KiB) Viewed 5914 times

I think this diamond-encrusted skull (it's a 3D sculpture) from Damien Hurst, which I really admire, beautifully illustrates the crack. He titled it, For the Love of God:

fortheloveofgod.jpg (59.15 KiB) Viewed 5914 times

I see you are talking about Buber again. Since you first mentioned him, I noticed that somebody quoted him on here, as their signature, sorry can't remember who it was, and the quote was something like, "When two people communicate authentically, God is the energy that surges between them." That's a pretty excellent way to describe the beautiful experience of true intimacy between people, I reckon.

Cheers,

Diane

[lazariuk]

'All of humanities all time consciously apprehended and communicated to self or others experiences is the crack in everything' sounds to me like we as humans are so strange in the universe. It doesn't really make me feel at home, but maybe we've been very fortunate.

At home in the universe is probably something that would be used to decribe someone who looks like they are very comfortable where they are and wherever they may roam. Such a being comfortable may well come when what we once thought to be a home has dissolved, or other forms of dissapearence.
I like the line "Every heart to love will come but like a refugee"

When you use or think of the word universe often people have some kind of static picture in their mind and they can feel like they have lost their place in that picture. It doesn't seem to match their experience. It was pointed out in this thread that words are dynamic and can change. If we think of universe as the biggest word we can use to describe the most we are able to describe then it is likely it will need to have a much different meaning if it describing that we are experiencing. The following is a definition based entirely upon experience. We are not use to that and so it might be difficult to understand at first. I think that taking the time to understand what is being said can make things much more comfortable for someone feeling homeless. It is by Buckminster Fuller:

301.10 Universe is the aggregate of all humanity's consciously apprehended and communicated nonsimultaneous and only partially overlapping experiences.
302.00 Aggregate means sum-totally but nonunitarily conceptual as of any one moment. Consciousness means an awareness of otherness. Apprehension means information furnished by those wave frequencies tunable within man's limited sensorial spectrum. Communicated means informing self or others. Nonsimultaneous means not occurring at the same time. Overlapping is used because every event has duration, and their initiatings and terminatings are most often of different duration.1 Neither the set of all experiences nor the set of all the words used to describe them are instantly reviewable nor are they of the same length. Experiences are either involuntary (subjective) or voluntary (objective), and all experiences, both physical and metaphysical, are finite because each begins and ends.
(Footnote 1: The complex of event sequences is most often characterized by overlappings. A man is born, grows up, has children and grandchildren. His life overlaps that of his grandfather and father and that of his children and grandchildren. But his grandfather's life did not overlap his children's nor his grandchildren's lives. Hence, partially overlapping.)
303.00 Universe is the comprehensive, historically synchronous, integral-aggregate system embracing all the separate integral-aggregate systems of all men’s consciously apprehended and communicated (to self or others) nonsimultaneous, nonidentical, but always complementary and only partially overlapping, macro-micro, always-and- everywhere, omnitransforming, physical and metaphysical, weighable and unweighable event sequences. Universe is a dynamically synchronous scenario that is unitarily nonconceptual as of any one moment, yet as an aggregate of finites is sum-totally finite.

Abby I put this here not really feeling that at present I am understanding it all but because there have been times that I have and probably will again. What I do remember is the happiness it brought me one time that spilled over into a dream I had one night. One of those flying dreams that people have but this time when I went flying away from the familiar I was completely without fear because I knew that I could never get lost in Universe because of something that Fuller showed me about universe.

I think what made it hard to hold onto was the fact that I was not communicating it to others or talking with others about it.