@Kris:

Please keep us all updated on the developments through comments (or the contact form, if you wish to continue through e-mail).

I am very interested in what is going on within you. It may seem blinding or frenetic or smoggy to you (or not), but there is the height of love and beauty there. It is all for you, but it is not necessarily happening to you, if you can understand that.

And thanks to everyone else that commented along the way, as well.

I’ll be updating photos from Gokayama soon (on Flickr).

There is no obstacle but the one you hold. Your resistance to what is. As we begin to step back from mind, the ego can be quite concerned and can create the ‘endless blind alleys’. Fear can arise, which can come in many forms. Again, look to the silence, look to simple being. The mind is not the way out of the mind. Allow it to be as it is, true or untrue, wrong or right.

Sometimes, its about change too. The old is falling away. New choices are present. One feels out of balance. Again, just being is the center. It is the shifting that causes confusion. Clarity will return, then the next step will come.

I also am aware that to experience unity one must include humanity and all its viciousness, greed and self obsession.
As you say Takuin, we are nothing short of nature itself. I can intellectually grasp this, how could we be anything else, but to deeply feel it is something different.
Here is the biggest obstacle.
The pull to withdraw feels so real, so true, like something deeper and more profound, something that exists before thought. Or is it a clever disguise??
Again, there are only the endless blind allies of the mind.

Davidya, there is definitely a feeling of separation from the world and a need to be alone, a sense of death or no future is the best way i can describe it. A complete lack of motivation to ‘get involved’. The old reasons for living don’t have the same attraction.

Thank you again, guys.

Going within is an important part of opening but as Takuin observes, we are in the world. Without that aspect of life, your spiritual development will not “stick”. Your experience will be wishy-washy.

I was recently told that in order to be you must do. We are in the world to give expression. If we do not express, we miss an important part of our being.

Sometimes there may be a strong drive to go within. But look for the balance. And watch for resistance. Sometimes a strong drive to withdraw is driven more by avoidance than true opening. Takuin covered the judgment aspect that can also take place.

As Takuin observed, the One includes everything, inclusively. There is no other. As a wise man once said, “enlightenment can be found even in the smoke of a rotting bus.”

In the meantime, you may find a growing sense of separation from the world. Thats normal, but see it as a step, not a goal. A process to go through to leave the old behind. To step out of individual into the Being you already are. The old ego stories may come up to judge it this or that but pay more attention to who it is that is observing these things. That is the right path to follow. There you will find that it is the movement of being, the reason for doing, that is love.

What you say may very well may be true. I would still question it all; this movement of retreat. Is it a retreat based on the idea of one thing being better than the other? Retreat is not the best word to use because it implies that one wants to get away from something that seems to be dangerous, lacking, unclear, or whatever. But is there any danger, lack, or fogginess of being? Or is it just more ideas of what could be? I am not saying it is or it isn’t, but it is something to meditate on.

Let’s make sure we are clear about this; you are not a mere part of nature and you are not separate from it, you are nature. You are everything that is beautiful in this world of natural phenomena. The mind stopping beauty of a flower is ever present in you. If there is a separation there, it is due to the activity of thought and has nothing to do with what you really are. Be sure the need to get back into nature is not part of the illusion the self has designed. In other words, the only thing the self can do is separate; it is the prime domain of thought, the differentiation, the this and the that, the me and the them.

It is interesting to consider. Humans believe that this world belongs to them, and can be manipulated to suit their own selfish needs. This separation, this greed and need for destruction, is part of the reason humans believe they are separate from nature. Nature exists and can only be. A tree or a beautifully flowing stream never ask how they can be loved, how they can get more, or how they can manipulate the environment. They can only give love, completely and irrevocably. And no matter how much damage we do, how many trees we cut down, how many rivers we bleed dry, it will always give love and only love.

Humans can do the same. But we don’t. It is all just so silly.

I can understand this feeling you have. But question this as it goes on within. What is it that decides the menial versus the meaningful? Do you think that through separation this thing will come to you? Separation is there if we can look into it.

You want the end result, yet you may feel a need to separate yourself from the world in order to have it. There are so many questions that arise from this simple movement.

Is it an end result, or is it a living reality?

Is it possible to separate menial and meaningful life? Or is it all simply life?

It may seem like a high goal; to be aware, separate, enlightened or whatever. But you attack life as it is and separate it into the menial and the meaningful. It may seem like a strange way to put this, but it is a movement of violence. You can reach an apparent goal through violence, true, but more will be destroyed than could ever be gained.

I am writing this to you, Kris, but I am not at all saying that you have a problem, or that something you have done or said is wrong. Absolutely not. If there is this feeling of lack and a meaningless existence, that will be your greatest teacher. You can learn far more from that than you ever could from Takuin or anyone else.

You are on the edge now. The edge of the beautiful and the taxing; the free being and the image tightly held in bondage. Only you can move into this freedom that is already present. You may listen to others, and you probably should, but in the end you will find that it was a movement completed on your own.

The movement of separation is violence, yet one hopes to be free of pain and suffering through separation, creating more violence.

Separation can never bring unity. Be the light to the world you wish to possess. Let it go and be what is.

I’m writing this from Toyama, and we’re about to go to the oldest temple in the region. I can’t quite remember the name, though. So far, I’ve no clear pictures of the mountains, but we’ll see what happens today.

Thanks to everyone for adding their comments and making a great conversation. I’ll disappear for a bit more, but I’ll return in a few days.

I dont know if this is something that could be addressed in another post by Takuin or you but it is something which i am currently stuggling with so please allow me the space to put this query to you.

With this increased observation of the mind has come a powerful urge to retreat into nature and disengage from life. I am aware that this is probably detrimental, but there is also the sense that to engage the mind with other minds and the menial everyday ’stuff’ would halt the opening that may be taking place…..any thoughts??
Thanks for your time by the way