Going Beyond Beauty

I woke up this morning, feeling fresh, well rested. I looked across the room to the blue curtain hanging by the brown wooden window frame. The contrast of bright blue on woody brown was stunning and I decided to linger with my attention there for a minute. As I continued to enjoy this vivid display of color, a sense of beauty arose in me.

"That's beautiful," I thought to myself, while looking at this vivid blue on brown arrangement of light.

"Ah, beauty!" I thought to myself next. I had been eagerly awaiting a chance to explore this beauty thing in greater depth. What is this thing we call beautiful? I investigated inwardly with an attentive curiousity. Ah, yes... beauty is a feeling, an emotion!

It sounds strange even writing it now, but in the moment it's so clear. Beauty is my enjoyment of my concept about the show of light I was watching. It's a sorta inward vibing with myself and my own thought "this is beautiful." Because I have concieved that I'm observing a "beautiful thing," I can experience a sorta inward pleasure with myself. Because "I" am witnessing the beauty, and because "I" am a part of this beauty - I get a warm pleasure inside. In essence, the beauty wouldn't even exist if not for "me!" and what a wonderful boost this is for "me."

"Ah, yes... this is what I've been calling "beauty." What a waste! Let me throw that out," I thought next. The absurdity of it required no further investigation. "Now, let me see what this experience actually is," I continued with the inquiry. What is this blue and brown? What is this seeing? What are these sensations in my eyeballs which are percieving color - vibrant, active, radiating.

I continued to look at the colors with the directness of my actual eyes. Abandoning the safe space behind the eyes where I could sit and observe - the safe space where "I" still exist. I lept forward, into the colors themselves, into my eyeballs, into the sensations. The colors were the sensations, the curtains were the colors, my eyes were the sensing. The sensing was active. These colors were not dead, lifeless, inert. These colors were now! These colors, the actual experience, was actually happening. Light entering eyeballs, a selection of wavelengths percieved by the sensitive apparatus of the visual organ. Each wavelength unique and distinct by it's very factual existence. The sensing was the most intimate and direct contact with these already existant colors.

Delight would be a small understatement. Pleasure fits well. What a joy these colors were. The joy was the sensing - there was no gap. No sensing first and then enjoying. The sensing was the enjoying. Sensuosness. The pure pleasure of unadulterated sensing. Actual color, actual light.

It was clear that I had left the territory known as the beautiful and was now traveling in a new landscape. This landscape was completely unknown as it's existence was only in the present moment. There was no way to have been there before, thus no way to have known it previously.

What was "beauty" had now opened up into a new world of sight and seeing. Beauty had fallen by the wayside. Things still held some resemblence to that old image of beauty. The experience was still fascinating, scintillating, vibrant, stunning, wondrous, active and dynamic. The pleasure of it had only increased if anything. But, beautiful? A far cry. Such a personal and self-referential adjective couldn't possibly describe this experience which was so much more than "I" could ever be.

Ah... time passed and I sat down thinking, "maybe I should write about that experience." I began to reflect on it (as I'm also reflecting on it now while typing.)

Reflecting thus, "going beyond beauty. What a wonderful experience," I began again to tune into my experience. This time I sat at my computer, music playing, soft light coming in through the blinds.

"Ah, yes. It's still here." *IT* being the actual universe as experienced through the sense organs. It is still here indeed! Ha!

I hear the music and once again take the leap. The leap into the sensations themselves, free from my self. The music surrounds me, it approaches from every angle, as I sit in the music itself - In the hearing, at the exact point of dynamic contact. The colors blend with sound, as it all becomes just raw sensation. This time the pleasure nears overwhelm, and literally knocks the breath out of me. I recoil to catch my breath. Physical waves of pleasure move through the entirety of my body.

This is new.

I've never ventured this far out before - this far beyond "the beautiful."

Habitual reactions come up. Mostly fear. "Oh, this is too much," and "oh, I can't take this," and "I can't handle this," and "this isn't good," etc.

I pause and consider the facts: Well, certainly I wouldn't live very long if I'm not breathing, so catching my breath is a sound idea. But, having the breath knocked out of me is just a startle response to the rather surprising stimuli of such intense pleasure. There's nothing about the pleasure itself that is overwhelming. Ok, excuse diverted.

I continued the inquiry. "Could I live there forever?" And the next fear became clear: "Ah... but it will consume all of me. Like a black hole, it will absorb me completely." And for some reason this seems "scary"? The scariness of it evades me at this moment. A flurry of other reactions and resistance shows it's head - all of it unfounded in any sort of sensibility.

It's like a tin can called "beauty" was sitting on my shelf and I naively decided to open it. "Experience" popped out, and now there's no getting it back in. In fact, I'm not sure I can even find the can anymore.

I sit, continuing to type. Yes, there is still work to do. This isn't, at all, the end of the journey, but the end of this little tale. A tale which continues on as this moment, "this only moment of being alive."

Meeting Mokshananda

California is a wonderful place for all things related to mind, spirit, psychology, and the inner journey. Especially wonderful is Santa Cruz which happens to be home to an enlightened master named Mokshananda (who knows how many enlightened beings are in this town, perhaps quite a few.)

I wanted to go to a dharma gathering of some sort and meet some like minded individuals, and also to continue my ongoing process of inquiry. So, I looked in the Santa Cruz area and found quite a few options. Big on my list to visit are Vipassana Santa Cruz, and the Burmese monastery in nearby Boulder Creek. But I found a gathering with Mokshananda to be the first event which really fit well with my schedule, so a couple months back I went. I'd been meaning to write something about it for a while, but it's also been nice to let it sink in a bit and be able to write on it with some perspective.

I found Mokshananda on the website of Adyashanti, who apparently was one of Mokie's teachers. Of course, one of the most obvious things about both these teachers is their use of funky Hindu names despite the fact that they are zen teachers who are white guys from California. Even funnier is that Mokshananda goes by Mokie, and Adyashanti goes by Adya. But, whatever... we're all a little quirky I guess.

The Adyashanti lineage seems to teach a sorta amorphous non-dual enlightenment that's only very loosely based on zen, and is most commonly transmitted through Satsangs (a hindu concept which basically means a community gathering "sangha" to explore truth "sat"). So, it's got a very Advaita (Hindu non-duality) feel to it as well.

Anyway, I went to see Mokshananda and found it particularly amusing that he decided not to give a themed talk on that particular day. He started by saying "well, most of you seem like familiar faces and have heard everything I have to say, so I'll just open it up to questions instead." Doh! I haven't heard any of it, yet! In fact, I'd never heard anything from Mokie before, since I only found him on another website and decided to check it out because it was close by. What's also funny is that the one time I went to see Gil Fronsdal he also decided not to give a talk, but rather just answer questions instead. Oh well.

I arrived a minute or two late for the gathering and so everyone was already sitting in silence. Mokie was sitting on the big red couch in the front of the living room, and everyone else was scattered throughout, sitting on the floor or in chairs. I found out later that this was actually Mokie's house I was sitting in. Cool! It's not often that a spiritual teacher just says "hey, c'mon into my house and let's talk."

He had on an Independent beanie (a skateboarding brand) and he looked pretty peaceful sitting on his couch in silence. What was also obvious very quickly is that almost everyone there was older than me with the majority being over forty, and maybe a couple folks nearer to my age. Mokie looked like maybe about forty years old himself, but maybe he just looks good for his age (edit: I just found out he's in his late fortys). It was quite an eclectic group too, like maybe comprised of ex-hippies. No matter - I was happy to be there, whatever the crowd.

Although I didn't really get too much sense of what the teaching was, I really enjoyed hearing Mokie's responses to questions, and enjoyed asking a question of my own. I'm not sure his answer helped me too much, however. He was big on the practice of asking the question "who am I?"

So, in the end I can't say much about him as a teacher. I still feel fairly unacquainted with who he is. But, he did have a very welcoming attitude and made it clear that I was certainly welcome to come back again. I may take him up on that, as I like the idea of a simple teacher living locally and easily accessible.