know that the truth is not a problem

When we lack awareness of the true situation, it is difficult to respond skillfully to what we encounter in both external and internal life. Instead, we react according to the karmic habits of grasping and aversion, driven this way and that by unhappiness and illusory hopes. Taking action based on these confusions is what is meant by lack of awareness in behavior. The result of such action is the reinforcement of attachment, hatred, and ignorance and the creation of further negative karmic traces.

^{The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep}

Paying Attention while Letting Go
Vigilance with Non-Interference
Clear Mind – Balanced Mind
Notice Everything & Let It Be
Not Spaced Out – Not Caught Up
Awake – Relaxed
Presence with Acceptance
Seeing Clearly and Having Patience
Being In Touch & Feeling OK About It
Heightened Awareness with Diminished Reactivity
Observing while Allowing
Clear Perception – Radical Permission to Feel
Clarity and Acceptance
Looking and Loving
Attentive &_Neutral
Not Distracted – Not Grasping
Less Confusion – Less Attachment/Aversion
experiencing reality without suppression or identification
careful observation in a balanced state of non-self-interference
precise awareness with gentle matter-of-factness
^{a nice reminder by Greg and Judith Smith. i keep it on my fridge}

under the guise of this goal i presented an idea to someone who i love and value… i said maybe we should tell each other:

1. one way you have made my life better today
2. one thing you are afraid to tell me

seems good, right? when the truth is not a problem then nothing he’d have to tell me could be a problem, right? wrong. i mean, i guess in theory, right. but the scary thing HURT and i don’t know what to do with it. it’s just here now. yes it can help me to grow. and in theory make us feel closer because we don’t have this hidden thing between us. but now i’m in a ton of pain and i don’t know if i can ever face him again.

great experiment, huh?

i’d like to find a non-intrusive non-pressurizing way to let the drifter 43things guy know that i’d like to know him. we don’t know each other, but have corresponded some, and i have always been impressed with his (seeming anyway) authenticity and sincerity regarding his own personal work, his spirituality, etc. impressed also with his aesthetic sense. and he’s got great taste in music. and also i think he’s cute.

i’d like to know him. he hasn’t acted really like he’d like to know me. these truths should not be a problem. guess i’m worried about rejection and humiliation but i’m putting this goal under this heading because i would like the truth to not be a problem for me, no matter what it is.

last weekend i spent the entire weekend in his town at a meditation retreat. it was actually a lot more than a meditation retreat, it was really more a paradigm-busting, life-changing slumber party. he would have loved it i think, and would have gotten so much out of it, and of course being right there i remembered him. it seemed dumb to not have let him know about it or to have invited him along. but i couldn’t email him and tell him about it because i didn’t think i could deal with any sort of non-responsiveness. i was just too shy.

Stopping and seeing what is for me and knowing that it’s not a problem, it’s only a problem when I struggle against it. Even the hard parts, even the distasteful parts. Even the happy parts. Fear. Lustiness. Depression. Humiliation. Even worrying that things are a problem. All unproblematic, if they are my truth. Staying in truth means losing the shoulds. Means feeling what I feel. Means letting go of the worry about how others will react to me. Means dropping my self-protection and defensiveness. Because I don’t need them. I’m ok as long as I am living within my truth.