I recently spent a couple of weeks alone on a solitary retreat in some woodland…
It wasn’t a lonely time though, because the first sentence isn’t really true… it wasn’t solitary… human and non-human life was all around me…
With water from a spring, warmth and light from the sun, food from the earth, breath from the air,
living in the senses …
and with none of my usual commitments…on or off the internet…
how I spent my time, whether in day to day tasks, sitting and moving practice, prayers… or with a friend… could be in response to the changes in weather and my mood…
A friend! on a solitary retreat?…
Well this was a non-human friend who engaged me in useful contemplation and made me laugh out loud…
Seamless Integrity made no demands yet was available and was a delightful and enriching companion … : )
Within that book there is a wonderful sentence which neatly explains how our lostness in samsara is perpetuated by the habitually dualistic way with which, in ignorance of the truth of ourselves, we relate to experience.
I read it with knitted brow three times over…but it still seemed incomprehensible…just a string of words…(which in some ways it was, as there was no punctuation)…yet I was very troubled because these days I usually have no difficulty following what James says – and this was a key point.
Then, feeling thick as a brick… an idea arose, and I tried to read it out loud…
and to do this effectively I had first to add the punctuation and then emphasis, in the right place…
After a couple of attempts the sentence came off the page and began to take shape and sound right, as it finally became comprehensible…
Then I laughed out very loud …both in relief and appreciation….
– it was a wonderful A-Ha! moment which I think is useful to share… as it was reading the text out loud that helped a tricky bit sink in, just as, in reading the Heart Sutra out loud and having the words flow through as you engage with the meaning.
As James remarked, reading a text out loud gives a different presence from silent reading … and and as we walk deeper into the dharma and out of out entangling confusion…it’s truth gradually reveals itself as the ongoing truth of our manifestation…
The new recording of part (iv) Ch4. of the Open Door, is below and this links with that…and also a note I made from page 8 of an unnamed book…
Whilst Page 8 of Seamless Integrity is incredibly helpful with its orientation for practitioners it’s not from there… this note says ‘in giving rise to Bodhicitta… avoid getting involved with conceptualisation’ … amen to that!
