Monthly Archives: June 2013

Living ‘mind-less-ly’ in the present moment

by contoveros

I am a shapeshifter. I’ve developed the ability over the past five years to shift from one form to another by simply manipulating my mind to do the bidding of my higher self. 

You see, there are two of “me” inside of this shell of a body. There’s the “me” created by my ego, also known as “my mind,” and there’s also the “non-me,” the one that surfaces when the mind is gone. It is this entity, one that is pure consciousness, that takes over when the mind stops all of its thought processes.

The true spirit or energy mass that’s within me is always there, always in the present. I can’t connect to it when that part of “me” is dominant. I fail to be aware of the energy, the spirit’s existence. By halting and stopping my thoughts, however, the consciousness “arises” and takes over. Forms of all shapes and sizes come into focus. A flower, a tree . . . the wind on my face . . . the smell of garlic . . . the softness of a woman’s hand across my brow.

Our Consciousness Exists This Very Moment

If consciousness did not exist in the present, none of these forms would exist either. Think about it! If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? Well, we know you have two parts to such an auditory phenomenon. If there is no one to hear sound, then you cannot have sound. If your consciousness is not present, then you cannot have . . . well, fill in the blank.

And, if your consciousness is always being placed on hold by the mind that always wants to think up reasons, excuses and answers to something for the future or from the past, then the forms that exist in front of our eyes, within the earshot of our hearing, the taste of the mouth, the smell of the nose, the touch of a hand, then how can we say they truly exist? Yes, a flower will appear to our senses, but our thoughts will not include its beauty, its texture, its “poetic-ness,” so to speak.

Fear, anxiety, and depression cannot exist in the present without the support, nay, perhaps the “leading role” played by the mind. Just think. You stop thinking, and you stop the worry, the confusion, the lack of wholesome goodness inside of you. Without your mind insisting that you continually think of something, that thing will eventually disappear, diminish, or slide off the radar screen.

Consciousness Arises in the Present Moment

All you need to do is place your awareness like a laser beam onto one of your five senses. Focus as if your life depended on it. Life in the present moment does depend on you living in the present, sans thoughts of any kind, sans the emotions that go with the thoughts, whether we like them or not. Thoughts trap us, entice us to cling to them, to always be grasping for their contents, their so-called can’t-live-without-them ideas, concepts, and a whatnot or two.

So, I shape shift. I will my inner being to focus on my breath, my five senses, and to stay fixed there for as long as it takes for the mind to quiet down, come to rest, and hibernate. The present opens to me like a flower. I “shape” the moment like the observer shaping reality in a particle/wave shape-shifting quantum physics laboratory experiment.

Now, I am more in the moment than I have ever been, with thoughts of the moment, which, incidentally, never really existed.

Can’t Always Think You’re in the Moment

You can’t “think” of the moment, the present. You lose it as soon as you call forth the idea. By the time it is “formed,” time has passed you by. The present has long gone. You’re someplace other than that present moment when your mind thought it could pin the present down to the now. Now is gone from the mind’s eye, as soon as the mind starts to eye it through the thought process.

It’s the “thought-less process” you need to be in and recognize the present. You have to “feel” it, experience it, live it. You’ll love it more and more as you return to it.

Just think about it. Now, stop. Be it. Be in the now right now.

Breathing to ‘Right Self’ is a Lifetime Job

by contoveros
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To ‘be or not to be’ Gay and in Love again

by contoveros

     Deborah loved with a love that was more than a love. Cupid’s arrow struck her just as a choir of angels sang and a special cherub played the most beautiful music in all the land over an ancient lyre, the same instrument that a shepherd boy named David once played to honor the God of the Psalms. 

She loved Fran with all her heart, her mind, and her soul. And she wanted to shout it out to the whole world that there was a love that would never end, never grow old, never die. She needn’t say a word, however. Her devotion and adoring demeanor spoke volumes to those of us meeting the lucky couple for the first time in Philadelphia, my City of Brotherly Love, on Friday night, the summer solstice.

Love shone all around Deborah when she spoke of Fran, and a well-disguised, shy girl from within her nearly blushed as her lover looked deep into her eyes to acknowledge an almost palpable affection. Light from a thousand stars sparkled from their mutual smile, their caressing eyes, their in-tune and synchronized hearts, which seemed to beat as one.

Saring Unconditional Love with Each Other

Taking her hand, Fran walked alongside this beauty of a woman, offering a silent prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving step by step through the long summer night, the longest night of the couple’s young lives. Too soon, they disappeared from view, leaving behind just a memory and an image of what any one of us would give a million dollars to have: the unconditional love of another human being, another man, another woman, even for but one moment of a gay, rich life.

Here’s to Deborah and Francesca. Two women in love. True Love among true lovers, if you have ever seen it in this or any other lifetime!

* * * *

     They were a sight to see and to glorify when you need to recall what love could be, and is, all about. The purest emotion God created for His creatures to share with Him and with one another, sans color, creed, national origin, or sexual orientation. Love has always been color-blind and gender-neutral for the young and old, the sick and the well, the poor and the not-so-poor; even for a 64-year-old whose soul mate just turns out to be a 21-year-old.

Love has triumphed in our world. It’s exploded into space, signally all the many universes that Planet Earth will allow all love to flourish from whatever source or sex it manifests.

Okay to Love and Marry, says Supreme Court

Today, I am Gay. Today, all of us are as Gay as we would like to be or not to be. That is the question the US Supreme Court answered in a shout to the entire world that all who love will never be prosecuted or persecuted for whom they choose to fall in love.

I feel elated and so happy for those who have hidden themselves for far too long. We, society, could not see until now that love is not confined to procreation. It can’t be regulated and legalized only to those wearing opposite types of clothes or having genital differences. Love arises in all of God’s children, no matter how dissimilar one person might be to you or to me.

————-

Fall in Love, Everyone.

Fall for anyone you like. Fall in love again with someone you don’t even like but stay together for the sake of the children. It’s legal. It’s holy. It’s fun!

It’s as gay as gay can be, and it’s all free for you to be or not to be.

Divine Mother, Spare the Fem-in-’em Now

by contoveros

Take ’em. Break ’em. Make ’em.

     O Grand Master, it is your females that will save this species. It is through their power, their innate abilities, that man will be saved. Compassion and love must rule the day again. And power must be crushed by the mallet of humility before any dare sends another child into war that old men dream of winning as if playing games of adolescent ruffians. 

     Ouch! Give up my manhood? Turn in my boxing gloves, my rifle, my drink? What will I become when I grow up? Who will I protect, gather food for, “sexualize” in thoughts actions and deeds my every waking minute?

Divine Mother

Be Still and Know that I Am God

You will bow and respect for evermore your Divine Mother forevermore. I will take your life away as quickly and as surely as I have given it to you. Obey this: Be Still and Know that I Am God.

     I need your strength to build, not tear down; to give hope and not despair; to “fight” without lifting a fist but by raising your spirit so mightily it will dash to pieces the most formidable enemy your kind has ever faced.

     Give me your blood in the fields of corn and rice, not the fields of battles. 

                                                 (See Divine Mother)

————-

Skillful Means Needed for Gentle Wisdom

     Shed tears not for fallen comrades but for the joy in conquering obscurations you never thought could be overcome.

     March proudly waving flags of festive, holiday colors to announce a new day is here, and that you will never return to the days of old guts and glory.

     You will thrive only when realizing that skillful means discerned with honest and gentle wisdom must be employed in all human endeavors.

     Love, tolerate, and above all, learn patience as the antidote to all the poisons your kind has been exposed to. Do it now. Tomorrow may be too late.

     I will spare man, but only if he spares the feminine within himself.

Pass on Unconditional Love Right Now!

by contoveros

You are the catalyst for my greater love. Your existence right here, right now, awakens in me another time, another place, when unconditional love blessed me. 

     My grandmother loved me this way, unconditionally. So did my dog, Willie. I think of them both when I need to love very deeply.

     I’ll think of you now while contemplating the Divine you also have helped ignite and allow me to shine a light on. I’ll carry that light always, and in the darkest hours of forever more, I’ll have our brief moment to reflect on when there seems no love will ever come my way again.

Pass it on. Pass it on.

     This kind of love is not ours to keep, but to share until the day we die and find the consciousness of love is eternal. It never extinguishes.

     The spiritual love we obtain in this life, the Kabbalistic student says, is retained for our next life. It is in the giving that we receive, and when we receive love for the pure act of giving love, we become twice loved.

Pass it on. Pass it on.

     Who loves you? You know I do. I always will. Forevermore!

Pass it on. Pass it on.

Writing Tomorrow of Love You Feel Today

by contoveros

Why write of an experience, when you can experience it?

There’ll be time enough for writing when the chapter ends and a new one begins at the stroke of the pen.

Live now.

Live in the present.

Love now.

Love in the presence . . .

Write with the love you become tomorrow.

Eating Meditation Tastes so Good Now

by contoveros

What can I teach you, Little One? What will I impart to you that you can carry with you when you feel the need to touch the Source you crave so much?

You have chosen to come closer to your spirit. It resides within, but your thoughts of this world prevent you from seeing the larger world inside. Now I must take your hand and walk you to the table, sit you down, and “show” you how to show yourself the easiest way to Nirvana.

     Eat! 
Sit quietly, close your eyes, and chew each bite over and over again. Eat while guiding your thoughts to the food you’re processing inside the instrument God created for us to truly nourish ourselves. Bite the food ever so gently and chew it.

Chew for All who Help Provide the Food

Chew for the farmer that planted the seeds in the ground that helped the rainwater seep into it, and the sun to open it to the atmosphere above, where day after day it grew more and more until removed from its home by loving hands that gathered it for market.

Chew for the driver that delivered the food to a processor who cleaned, shaped, and bundled the food to prepare it for display on supermarket shelves for customers like your mother to pick and choose while planning to feed you at our dinner table.

Chew and then chew again for what the nutrients each bite will offer.

Chewing with All Teeth is Downright Delicious

Now for the fun part: chew for the taste of it. Yes, chew with all of your teeth, including those near the back of the mouth that see less work when one hastily runs through the daily task of eating. When you chew this way, taste buds that have not awoken in many years suddenly awake, surprising you with how rich and downright delicious the food substance can be. It’s like discovering a treasure hidden right beneath your nose!

Eating meditation is this game. Gaining wisdom and inside knowledge is the aim. But you can’t do this alone. Be constantly aware of the other tool given to us to practice our journey with the breath.

I’m asking you to walk and chew gum at the same time, got it? Actually, you should breathe and chew each morsel simultaneously, “sensing” or “feeling” the food and the air. Be cognizant of each. Focus on nothing but them until you can widen your scope of awareness to include other parts of your body, the parts that tense up without us even thinking about it.

Focus on Tense Areas of Body while Chewing

I bet you dollars to donuts that if you take a survey of yourself now, you’d feel some tenseness in the body, particularly in the shoulders. Go there. Focus your mind there, not once, but often during the eating process. I don’t know why, but we tense up a lot. Even when there appears to be no earthly reason to “be on guard,” we stay as coiled as a metal spring waiting to force a jack-in-the-box to pop out to warn us of danger, a threat, or possibly some other leftover primordial reflex action.

Calm down. Calm down the body just as you’re calming down the mind by focusing on the where, the how, and the why of the food in your mouth. You fooled yourself into not thinking wayward thoughts while chewing again and again.

Time to swallow and feel the passageway the food now travels. (Check on those shoulders and loosen them again!)

Compassion Arises when Food is for Thought

Practice this technique when you are alone, Little One. Practice it with like-minded persons who understand that the way to one’s heart can be through his or her stomach. Love and compassion arise when you choose to make food for thought.

Truly Living May Just Be Worth Dying For

by contoveros

The thought of going to prison never bothered me. I’d survive and flourish behind bars, where I’d have more than enough time to reflect and write which I have found is my true love in life.

No, I could kill without worrying about the consequences. It would be my first offense. I am certified as a Vietnam veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I don’t see any judge or jury putting me to death for the crime.

All of this went through my mind when I was waiting at the train platform, and a rather tall, white guy walked in front of me. I was standing near the tracks. I was close enough and in line with others standing on either side of me that I never thought someone could make their way between me and the tracks. But the man did. He walked around me. He stood directly in front of me. No one else stood that close. I recall thinking how totally inappropriate and rude his actions were.

That’s when I Planned to Kill Him. 

I know how to kill, having been trained in the infantry and as a parachutist who learned not to care about pain. I got used to it, and bared up under it so many times, it became almost second nature to welcome it during a new and challenging task. Like murder.

No, I don’t know any Kung Fu or any martial arts. But I could break the man’s neck from behind. And, if that failed, I would wrestle him to the ground and die before letting him get up as I smashed his head again and again on the platform, caring not a whit about the mess I’d make. I’m strong. More importantly, I’m strong-willed.

Breaking an unwritten Rule is Dishonorable

     He deserved to die, I rationalized and actually saw myself as a champion of the underdogs who play by the rules on train platforms. You have to honor another person’s space. You can’t stand too close to another person until or unless you see the train pulling up, and everyone tightens up the ranks, bunching together to stand at the spot you believe the train steps will come to a halt.

Why break such a rule? Why place yourself in front of someone else just because you’re taller than them are? Or younger? Or slicker? Someone like me may just kill you and use the opportunity to leave behind a staid and predictable life that’s losing whatever meaning it once may have had.

My action could be considered justifiable in a weird sort of way. No, not in a legal sense, but in a Karmic sense, if you know what I mean. I’d create some negative karma but prevent others from getting such negativity in their thoughts and desires to kill as much as I wanted to kill him. I saved them and the rest of all sentient beings a large and cumulative amount of negative karma, that I could be considered a saint in some religions.

Watching my Speech, Thoughts and Relations Now

I bring this up now only because I asked the Universe to correct my old way of life. Certain actions occurred in response to my wishes.

But instead of acting, I became a “watcher.”  I was no longer the actor, but someone above myself looking down on my speech, my thoughts, my relations with others and events that became ripened by different causes and conditions.

No, I killed no one. But I entered a state of mind where I saw a different reality. A reality that has always been there but was blocked by my mind. My mind kept me busy with one thought after another: a fear here, an anxiety there. It jumped from an emotional thought from my past to a future where nothing, but catastrophes existed. And then my mind would race, with me having no control of it.

     I feel better now. I control my mind even in the most disastrous moments of life. Who’s to say they’re disastrous? Not me. Not anymore. I’ve gained the equanimity to treat the glorious and the profane the same way. As an observer. Not a slave to emotional and useless thoughts. Just an observer of the thoughts.

Try it.

     It Could be Worth Dying For . . .

Yearning for you grows with each touch

by contoveros

     What is a monk to do when he is lonely? When he is blue?

     When you reach that low point where you feel you are the loneliest person in the world, who or what do you turn to for relieve? 

    The Dalai Lama says, “Don’t scratch the itch.” Better still, he cautions, “Don’t have the itch in the first place.” I paraphrase His Holiness‘ words, but not their meaning. * Don’t have the itch in the first place.

     That may be easy for a virgin entering monastic life as an adolescent. But what do you tell a grown man or woman who had not entered their spiritual path until experiencing the warmth, comfort and love in the arms of truly caring and compassionate mate?

     Something so good could not be so bad.

Experiences that Unite can Last a Lifetime   

     Even years later when one has only a dim memory of giving oneself completely to another so that both could share the ecstasy that Buddhist say comes only upon death — and in sexual union! It can be an out-of-body experience that unites, shattering the dualistic mind, if only for a second or for a lifetime.

     Should I give up this yearning for the mere touch of another? Should I mark it up as just another depravity on my part, a defilement that my mind causes in my dreams and my waking hours?

     Why has such an overwhelming sense of sexuality come over me as I draw nearer and nearer to spirituality?

(By clicking on the following sentences, you will be linked with my book “Ithaca Insights.”)

     Take on a consort, Michael J. Didn’t Buddha have a wife and child? Didn’t Shakyamuni Buddha, or Siddhartha, take a Dakini on as a consort in one of his many incarnations?

     Who, then, are those lovely women I see sitting on the knee of a Buddha? And what can a bodhisattva do when a woman wraps her most intimate parts around his most private ones in those paintings that suggest Nirvana can be reached through some tantric practice with an able and willing partner?

     Forgive me for still being human. I dreamed I felt the warmth of another as we rode an escalator together, and our shoulders came into contact immediately. The contact remained throughout the time it took to scale the short distance. The warmth from the touch lasted for what seemed like forever. I never wanted the ride to end, for the shoulder to be removed. I could have died and been happy right then and there.

     I awoke and felt compelled to plead my case to the Universe, hoping I’d get the answer my soul could live with. Break it to me gently, please.

     I’ll return to my cave after the verdict.

* * * *

*(If one is itchy, then one scratches himself.
Better than any number of scratches
However, it is when one does not itch at all.”

— His Holiness the Dalai Lama quoting Nagarjuna, the Indian scholar, with a three-line thought on the question of Erotic Love.

Saying ‘I Love You’ Twice Blesses Me!

by contoveros

“I Love.”

It’s an affirmation I can live with over and over, day in and day out, from one lifetime to another, without ever getting tired of saying it.

It is in the giving of love that I’m twice blessed. I got so much of it when I come into your presence that I can’t keep it in, and I must share, or I know that I could die. And so, I tell you that “I Love You,” and hope that you never stop listening to me. Even if you blush and say that I’m only kidding and scold me, saying “Stop that, Michael. Quit playing around.”  Continue reading →

God needs no Out-of-Body Experience

by contoveros

Too often I hear someone talk about an “out-of-body” experience as if it was the greatest thing since, I don’t know, the invention of peanut butter. Astral projection is another feat people speak of in hushed tones as if their trip from one place to another meant everything in the world.

Well, I’m here to tell you there ain’t nothing like the good old-fashioned “In-Body” experience to get the blood rushing and the ecstasy flowing. ” It’s your body now, stupid.” You don’t have to go chasing some Holy Grail to find the answer “out there.” It’s here and it’s now. 

I was reminded of this when I suggested to a novice of the *Middle Way to try the “Body Scan” method of guided meditation. She sat for 25 minutes in a group and grappled with one thought after another. It was tough, she told me, but this dear child had taken her first steps toward enlightenment. They were baby steps.

With a little guidance, she made it through a sitting meditation. A brief walking meditation followed, and if her experience was anything like my first walk, she probably felt awkward, unbalanced, and out of shape. (See: Why must this path hurt so much?)

Need a Little Concentration in Meditation

The body scan can help with the concentration needed in meditation, I realized when I was giving advice to her several hours after our one-on-one talk. Find an instructor or a CD where someone could “guide” you through a scan, I suggested. Follow the guide’s instructions and focus on the part of the body the scan takes you.

The scan is nothing more than an attempt by a meditator to be acutely aware of one’s sensation of touch as it relates to, let’s say, your right foot. Upon hearing “right foot,” you make the foot the single-minded object of your attention. Feel the toes, focus on the big toe, now try to “sense” the toe next to it, and then the group of toes. Can you feel the pinky? The tip of the pinky?

It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out where the guide will take you next. Choose another part of the foot, say the insole, the ankle, or the heel, and allow your mind to hover there, being aware of each chosen part. Eventually, you’ll touch on all the parts and be amazed at how much easier it was to nudge thoughts out of your way!

Remove all Invasive Thoughts while Meditating

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call an “In-Body” experience. But don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. If you’re like my new novice friend (is that a redundancy? A “new novice friend“?), you’ll probably need a little help from a friend, or at least, a friendly voice. That is, until you’re able to gently move your meandering and invasive thoughts “out of the picture,” and become one with your body.

I experience a tingling sensation, an effervescent feeling while “in focus.” It’s generated by some low-level motor-like engine running constantly throughout the body. A warmth blankets me, while providing a coolness at the same time.

Staying as ‘I Am’ in the Present Moment

All needs and desires are gone, save one. A wish to stay where I am – as I am – for as long as the peace and calm will effortlessly carry me. Amazingly, I am totally aware of everything around me. I am much more than this body “chilling out” in this space, this time. There is no past, no future, and the present stretches from beginningless time to endless time. My consciousness feeds off some Mother Entity that is all around me and in me.

I bow to this power, this Divine Energy. Make me your water bearer, O Divine Mother. Let me be the instrument to share your unconditional love with others. Let them sip from your wisdom and the body of knowledge that’s stored inside their empty vessels. Be still, I will tell them. “Be still, and know that I am God“ is the Bible quote that can help us Be Still with the Divine.

     Now Rejoice in that Moment!

     (*The Middle Way is the path of moderation, between the extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification.)

Don’t let me believe in all my thoughts

by contoveros

     I’m so scared because I don’t know what to do, nor who to turn to. Flashes of insights, intuition, and a “knowing” that borders on the Psychic have arisen in me and I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse.  Continue reading →