Meister Squeakheart

 

Meister Squeakheart (aka Dojo)

Feb. 8

5:30 am, or thereabouts. Dojo the cat spends a good deal of time prowling around on my desk, right in my face, if he hasn't been fed in the morning. He has an odd, very high-pitched squeak unique to me in all my years of being a cat custodian. It’s endearing. 

He's a fluffy white squeaking hairball, Meister Sqeakheart. Having a presence like him around one first thing in the morning gives one cause for optimism about the future. If evolution can, in the end, produce Meister Squeakheart, it has miraculous properties (it's true we already knew that, but it's good to be reminded) and may do other very great things for the planet. 

It is not over, and all is not yet lost. 

Meister Squeakheart proves it.

We find our self here in the midst of the great unknown of life, making it known by living.

There is this mistaken impression that we can— that we do— somehow make the great unknown known by thinking, but the thinking alone can’t do it. The body has to exist its way through life and the feelings have to feel their way through life. For the most part, they’re creatures of the present moment. Thinking can imagine, which in some ways frees it from the present moment; but already this is misleading.

For example, I'm here this morning with a bit of time to think and write before I begin the other routines and tasks of the day. When I do have this time, I use it to evaluate; to see how I am inside from a relatively simple point of view, living in this one moment and experiencing this single life that I know of. 

As anyone who reads my notes from the morning knows, this always begins with breathing and sensing; but those are mostly of the body, and it is this immersion in the experience of the body and its own intelligence that interests me first. The mind wanders all over the place during the day like a stray dog; it can be trained, but only to an extent. The Self needs to be aware of it and keep an eye on it, but restraining it too much would be a mistake, because the dog would suffer and refuse to cooperate when cooperation is needed. But the body; the body stays here and is always a reliable partner. So it's where I begin.

From here, I will live today forward into darkness.

One of our friends is dying, perhaps already dead, as this is written. Last night, we collectively honored her presence and her life in a group meditation; and one hopes she will move into this last great unknown, the great gift of all the love that there is at the beginning of life, throughout life, and at the end of life, with as much freedom and care, attention and grace as she has moved through it so far. The intrusion of this thought punctuates where I am; a pause.

A stop.

Everything with we humans ends up being a long statement of opinion. Even opinions about the opinions of ourselves and others. Little enough time is spent just being here, taking things in, being grateful. This is why I begin in such a way each morning, in order to try and just be. 

True; it's my opinion this is a good thing. Yet through experience I know it provides me with an organic consistency that cannot be had from most social media, from the New York Times or Fox News or CNN. This organic consistency cannot be left in the hands of others or relied on without attention and intention. I have to know it’s there, to form a good relationship with it, to be here. In the midst of this great unknown, it’s a relatively small thing to ask myself to be responsible to this extent.

There’s some thing about us that believes that we can become great enough to know the unknown; that there’s something in us that could grow to be larger than what we are. Generally speaking, I find this to be true; yet what grows, if it grows and as it grows, grows here within the original small self. The original small self is a fragment of the Natural Self, the Original Self; it can only reassemble itself into any larger Self incrementally and through long work and suffering.

Even so, to presume that anything on this level can know truly things from other levels is a form of arrogance. I remember my teacher Betty Brown, who was of not-inconsiderable insight and development, asking me whether I didn't think it was a kind of arrogance, that we try to grow into creatures of greater understanding. She certainly came to that conclusion late in her life; and although I haven't reached her November age yet, I begin to see what she was getting at. We all secretly believe that even if we are not gods, we can become them. 

This lie lived out right in the face, so to speak, of our nothingness.

Well, these too are opinions. It's what we consistently fall back on.

These are my thoughts for this morning.

Hoping that you find yourself in good relationship today,

warmly,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.