Speaking from Stillness is a fun series transcribing unscripted thoughts while on morning dog walks in my jungle valley. I walk in stillness, then allow whatever arises to get recorded and transcribed. I try to keep them short. The transcript is lightly edited for clarity.
Speaking of non-duality here, it sometimes gets a little bit cold, a little bit at arm’s length, when you speak of the ideas of, ‘Well, don’t worry about the past…let it go. You can’t control the future…stay in the now. Feel everything fully…and then release it.’
That is the way of non-duality, that is Liberation from suffering, that is possible once there is Awakening. And that is the ideal.
But what happens when there’s true, powerful grief? What happens when there’s trauma, and it’s real? And that exists in this moment.
That has entered my Existence. The disappearance of my lead dog (Mariposa).
Who I’ve built my life around. And we have built a pack around. And built our activities around. And where I live is based on her as well.
And then to have her one day just disappear. Still entirely unknown of what happened. If she’s okay. If there will be a reunion or not…entirely unsure, and possible to never know that.
I’ve come to realize in the days, the difficult difficult days, that she is also my last real tangible attachment. I do care deeply about the incredible love and relationship that we had, and for her to be well and thriving…over just accepting. There’s also a deep part of our remaining identity…she is connected in a direct line to my Awakening itself, and the last four years of trust and surrender, which I’ve practiced in my valley.
So an attachment and an identity, and a life built around.
Now, have I felt all of these moments, these traumas, these thoughts, these potential rages, and despondencies, and pain, and confusion, fully? Yes. Has that been helpful and useful? Absolutely.
Have I begun to come to terms that I cannot control the outcome, and must allow what occurs to occur? Yes. That is true.
Can I also see, when I speak of living without attachments, how difficult it is to recognize there is one attachment left, and how painful it is for a rupture, a detachment. But not just a death, but a disappearance. Not a finality, not a closure, just a perpetual state of uncertainty. Yes.
And I will say that…I think back on some of the things that I did say (here on Substack), and perhaps they felt clinical…in the moments after this experience began.
But I am now feeling that they are spoken from a place of Truth. But that the true human emotion, and the confusion, and exasperation, and rage, and rationalizing, and what could I have done different, and how will I punish those who are responsible?
I think all of that is to be felt…is to be real.
I wish not to live in a space of perpetual equanimity. And to live in this marketplace of the world, that doesn’t seem feasible or useful.
But there are lessons to be learned from grief and from trauma. And by no means are they easy, and by no means are they instantaneous.
Life is to be lived through the body and the mind. I will also say that, wow, have I been angry with non-duality.
What does it matter? The intense nihilism (sometimes present) is a direct contribution from a spiritual-identity, created by the Ego, which is just waiting to seep in and lash out. Interesting to see that as well.
At this moment, it’s been almost two weeks. And it’s been hard, and continues to be hard. And I feel like there’s going to be much exploration here on this topic.
But for now, it feels enough just to name the contours of the difficulty, of not just speaking of how you deal with grief and trauma, but how you live it…
With this Knowing, with this Perspective, from this place of Now.
Yeah, and I feel I will come back to this again.
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I am a Pathfinder, and help guide Truth-seekers on their Awakening Path. If this resonates and you’d like to investigate this approach, my website link is below. I’m happy to book a free introductory conversation to share a bit more!
