Still-Dripping
David Peckinpaugh
e-mail:  nakedmonk@i2k.com

 
How long can you sit? How long can you face mind? How long can you witness those arisings and passings, those willings and wontings? How long can you be intimate with your own self, your own process, your own undiscovered wildlands of inwardness? How long? A moment? A minute? An hour? A lifetime? A Life-times a Life-times? How long? Or, how not-long?
 
Stillness, not necessarily silence.
 
There are some general misconceptions about and along the Path of Our Greater Unfolding. There are simple and not so simple distinctions that we can all be more aware of; these distinctions alleviate requisite amounts of suffering, suffering brought on by judgments that can arise within us when Stillness is not Silence, when Stillness is not Emptiness, when Witness is witnessing much rather than little, some-thing rather than no-thing.
 
The overt focus on the goal of Silence can lead to judgments of and about the Process; to a tendency to dissociate from the not-so-silent, the less than empty, all of that "stuff" that floats on Mind's surface..... the bubbling froth and foam of psyche and soma.
 
Don't take it all so personally
 
After all, this "stuff" may not always be about you, per se. Maybe this "stuff" is a more or less collective phenomena, the content of a greater field than the eye/I can see or sense---maybe the "stuff" is just the frothy foaminess of an involuntary act of Our existence, one that touches each and every sentient being---in lands both pure and  polluted, pristine and private, privileged and public. Maybe our personal boundaries are not so personal anymore? Maybe mind-stuff is just that---mind-stuff. Not your mind-stuff or my mind-stuff---just mind-stuff.
 
After many moments of inquiry and investigation I have begun to wonder if we really do need to distance ourselves from the processes of Being/Consciousness (and the content of those processes)?  Is it not so that we, along with all of our more or less self-reflective brethren, must, as a necessary part of Life, learn to deal effectively with both the process and the content of Consciousness?
 
It does not necessarily "need" to be our task to sever the move-meant from the Still-meant, or to sever the self from the Source of self. The sword of severing has a tendency to always leave some-thing cut off, some-thing severed and dissociated, some-thing untouchable---always untouchable---an aspect of Consciousness that is slayed again and again, never allowed, never let/left alone to be and flow where it will and shall.
 
Why not Source and self?
 
Why not? Is not self an aspect of Source--crazy or insane, lucid or clear, lost or found, thought-full or thought-less? Is not Source naught but aspected/diversified selves/cells? Why not notice--learn to differentiate---the relative qualities of Being as mutual, and not be so caught up in the dissociation nightmare, in this either/or thinking, in the dissociative syndrome which severs experience from experiencer, observer from observed, observed from the art/act of observation---mind-content from mind-context?
 
 
To Differentiate or Dissociate?
 
There are relative differences. In both form and function we can and do notice diversity. For instance, our bodies are composed of many functional forms, all of them apparently doing/being, at once and the same, a formulated function and a functional formulation. Our toes serve the function of balance and support while walking. Toes are formulated around a function..... the function of mobility; and toes function around a formulation.... the formulation that is toeness. Toes are both form and function: A blessing honored, acknowledged, noticed, allowed, received.
 
Is this form/function mutuality so in relation to thought and mind? Are form and function allowed to relate in our conceptions of our conceptions? Are mind-content and mind-context understood as being mutual in the same way that we can sense the mutuality of toe form and function?
 
 Forms as these functions; functions as these forms.
 
When form is not dissociated from function, but allowed differentiation, then the form of our body/mind can be seen as intertwined with the functioning of this very same body/mind. Form and function are then seen/recognized as being married at a level of depth that I would dare call original (Origin-All)---and attachment to exclusive aspects of body over mind, mind over body are let go of  (the same with form over function and function over form).
 
Form and function are not, metaphorically speaking, two lost souls who just happened to drift into close proximity with one another---the marriage of form and function is not a haphazard commingling. No, form and function are co-dependent co-arisings that origin-8'ed simultaneously; meaning that they are open-ended, recursive loops of formulated functionings---or, if you prefer..... functional formulations. Like the figure 8, form and function flow and recur through each other.  If form is the top half of the figure 8 we can see that it will flow into and through the lower, function half of the figure 8. Recurring again and again....  form and function.
 
Functional reformulation.
 
Life: Flowing, formulating, functioning, reformu-l8'ing.
 
As the form of the eye reveals and allows for the function of that eye; as the form of the hand reveals and allows for the function of that hand; and, in a manner befitting our sexuality, the form of our genitals reveals and allows for the fullest functioning of those very same gentials. (Square lingams and round yonis wouldn't work too well for procreation now,  would they??!!)
 
Form is formulated into the functional; the functional is re-formulated into further formulations. Round pegs seek round holes seek round pegs seek round holes seek..... 
 
 
Yang directives seek yin receptives.
 
Simply allowing What Is, in a psychological sense, to flow, to formuleight/8 as IT will, develops a more functional psyche. Rigidity through bounded separation is out, on the inside. Watch Life..... flow where IT will... within and without.... as thought-river meandering to kiss lakeshore... evaporating to form shadow casting cloud.... dispensing with itself into falling, waving ocean.... rocking shore of All-Being.
 
 
We can't fit square pegs into round holes, can we?
 
Yet, the above statement is exactly what the pathology of dissociation seduces beings/bodies into believing/imagining they can do; that square pegs are meant for round holes; that the related can be unrelated; and that this unrelating can lead to well-being...... or monetary gain of some sort or other.
 
Dissociation leads to many illusions, phantasms, delusions that suggest form and function can be separated and toyed with like legos or lincholn logs, like play-do or silly putty. We can simply build, relate, unrelate, connect, disconnect whatever we want, with no consequences... or so it is imagined. Consequences, in actuality, are often harsh and sever when form and function are indiscriminately severed because of greed and/or ignorance.
 
"Watch me hammer a square peg into a round hole", we all seem to have said at one time or another. "Watch me prove to you that force and might will win out!! You'll see!!"
 
 
Then, the ensuing struggle.
 
A show of brutish force the whole world over has sought to take the related and unrelate it---to dissociate the always already related from Itself. A result: Fragmenting nightmares rain down in vile acidity within the psyche of modern peoples.... such dispossession, such inhumanity, such wrenching of the seamless fabric of our shared existence.
 
To, for instance, distance the noosphere from the biosphere (a noosphere that is intrinsically/extrinsically related to and braided as One with the biosphere) is not getting it done. To separate and sever What Is just so from What Is also just so, leads to insanity, pathology, a dissociation fragmentation propagation. To kindle the fires of idealism which says, "if we can just get rid of this then all will be well", was the way of Hitler, as he sought to exterminate the Jewish and Gypsy Other. Hitler, an idealist, not unlike other idealists who deny Existence (What Is) in favor of a preferred vision. Just hold to your ideas about how it all should be, and then put forth a plan to make it so..... as if only you have the answers and no one else. Hhhmmmmmmm.........
 
Apparently we must meet the idealist eye to eye, bow down to their vision, secede one more subjective mindflower to the will of their so-called objective mine/mindfield, or we are forever "less than" in their eyes/I's. Tyranny is fostered by "know-it-alls". Totalitarianism is furthered by him or her with the set in stone answers. Good, bad, indifferent..... does it, qualitatively speaking, really matter?  It, rigid idealism, is all much the same in means and ends---deny What Is--then nurture an ideal--and ultimately separate/dissociate from them who are different/indifferent to your ideal. These maddened attempts continue; continue to dissociate What Is just so from What Is also just so. Death results, as the denial of Other than that which fits the Vision sends thought-bullets straight through the heart; these our dissociative results; these--denial and death--the residue of dissociation.
 
 
We cannot live well or long dis-connected.
 
What are those ideals that are too cherished to give up? How do we want to remake people and the world? What vice are we attempting to slay.... perhaps cutting out our most tender aspects in the process? What sword do we swing to and fro out of fear for this or that thought; this or that complex, neurosis, psychosis or pathology? What can we not accept? What are we distancing from? What just now is too tough for us to swallow? What is it about your self/your world that you can not accept? When does your breath tighten against What Is? your heart contract? your blood begin to boil?
 
 
What is unacceptable? Therein lies the obstacle to peace.
 
The death and denial of "other", that which we see outpictured on the new programs, is akin to the death and denial of those aspects of the psyche that we can be led to bring about within our meditations. Some thoughts lovely---better save them. Some thoughts vile---better kill them. Kill one, nurture the other. And this is even before we have become intimate with the vile, the sick, the depraved, the outcasts of the psyche.
 
 
What Light awaits to be revealed in the Dark?
 
Free-association is a fact of life. All is relation. In and out. Free-association is the Way of the Living. All is inter-relation and free-association. In or out.
 
I believe that it is our inability to hold the space open for Life that ultimately squeezes Life into a box of limitation/separation; a box that we then try and climb into---and sell to others---it's nice and cozy inside, right? Yet, our boxes may offer secure space, yes? But can Life as a Totality live within the walled zones of our boxy becomings? When boxes become the norm, then separation cannot help but come about---boxes have walls, walls separate and divide. Life is not whole in boxes. Life is contracted and squeezed in boxes. Life is congested and narrowed in boxes.
 
Life, as a whole, lives, and freely associates with All; All that is simply Actual Presence, personified Now....... within or without..... boxed or boxless. This free-association is so. Life transcends and includes our boxes... our prisons.... our walled machinations. In meditation and in activation---unless we freeze the free-associations that just want to freely associate..... Life shall relate.
 
 
What is, is, so as to be lived with, not run from.
 
IT comes back around... IT always comes back a-round.
 
So, why isolate? Why box and encapsulate? For safety? Security? Comfort? Need? Necessity? Doesn't the air gets bad in those boxes of ours?
 
Allow free-flow......  simply be-cause.  Be-Cause That Which Is, Is Always Already Associated.....  Freely Associated and Related.
 
 
The related will always seek to relate.
 
Might as well allow for this relation then. Who knows the gift in relation? The one who free-associates, who freely relates by association.
 
Dissociation is the subverter of free-association, the denial/negater of the unbreakable/bonded relatedness of What Is. The obstinate act and crude art of dissociation is dis-ease---dis-ease with What Is. The movement away from bonded associations towards a separative mentality that seeks to kill, cut, tear, divide, rent, and wrench the All into fragments of distance-making is the movement towards dissociation. This movement is gut-wrenching. The belly aches as psychic ties are wrenched apart and asunder right before our sacred eyes/i's.
 
Dissociation is such a crude and dull movement, is really the root of blatant and blind atrocities, is quite likely the death knell of Life's intrinsic interpenetration (relatedness is just so; that which Is, simply as it Is---namely this, and this. This, just as it Is, without dilemma or equivocation.)
 
Just this,
 
Free to Be,
 
Letting Sea
 
See Sea
 
via ME.
 
Such as this;
 
Free-seeing,
 
All-relating,
 
Through All of
 
ME (MatteredEnergy).
 

 
Where and while dissociation would sever ties and seek to create a false distance between the braided elements of Life, differentiation merely notices that those braided elements of Life are mutually significant and co-arise as the intertwined aspects of necessity and novelty (LIFE). Braided elements of Being, be-ing Beingness, just Are.
 
Surrender. Free-associate.
 
The braided elements, the intertwined aspects, as a Holy Whole, just are; are Life. In a Holonomically arranged, embedded, and embeddable Suchness, Life is related and embraided with Life---recursively and recurrently---constantly so.
 
The braided constituents of Life's leaning and living, loving and learning are embedded within a relatedness that is denied only unto dis-ease, and only dis-ease. The braided constituents of Life's leaning and living, loving and learning are embedded within a relatedness that is honored only unto ease, and only ease.
 
Differentiation is merely that nooshperic capacity and function that honors the diverse suchness of Our embedded relatedness; dissociation is an incapacity, one which seeks to deny, to sever, to undermine the ever-present relatedness of one intrinsic embraided element of this from another intrinsic embraided element of this. Differentiation is merely "seeing" all of the difference as play and process; for purposes of a Greater Unfolding (a diversification of oneness).
 
Differentiation can be as simple as noting uniqueness within the context of an indubitable inclusion; a simple noting/noticing of difference, wherein relative quality and quantity does not lead to absolute inequality. All is allowed to reside/abide within an inclusive space of one's own naked awareness.
 
 
Still dripping...... after all these years.
 
So, in meditation/contemplation, in stopping, there is, at times, no stopping. Stillness but no silence. Spaciousness but no Emptiness.Thoughts still drip one by one and two by two, though I's/eyes still sit in restful repose. Desires and diversions still wet the roadways of the mind, even when I's/eyes are still; actless on those desires and diversions. Drip..... drip...... drip..... goes the faucet of the mind. Drip.... drip.... drip...... stillness still abides.
 
The ability/capacity to differentiate between the One who is noticing the irregular drippiness of mind from the actual movement of that drippiness I'll call naked awareness.
 
Naked awareness is not the drippiness of mind, not the pouring rains of thought; naked awareness is that which notices/sees/re-cognizes drippiness as simply a rain of thoughts--or lack thereof.  Naked awareness just notices and just "sees" drippy difference as drippy-difference, not as drips of "things" or "objects" of mind-movement that One "needs" to dissociate from, to get away from the influence of, to dispatch to a far away domain in imagined space/time. No, the drips are all right.
 
 
Yes, indeed, the drips are all right.
 
Suffering arises when we want the drips to not be drips, the fears to not be fears, the concerns to not be concerns, the thoughts to leave us alone (maybe we should leave thoughts alone, eh?).
 
Naked awareness.
 
Naked awareness is that "seeing" within the spaciousness of an embrace where drippy desires/aversions can simply arise/dissipate---as they will. Naked awareness does not need to create distance. Naked awareness simply allows the "play of the wisdoms" to play----song after song after song---endlessly, unthreatened by that movement, by that thought, by that desire, by the fear or the stupor, the vice or the vengeance. Just drips...... wetware of mind-matter...... just drips.... that's all.
 
Naked awareness is the art of merely noticing What Is. We ask, "What Is coming and going within the expanse of nakedness?" That is all we notice. Asking one question. Noticing all passingness.... all arisingness.... all dissipation... all arising... all dissolving..... For the nature of what is coming is to soon enough be going. And the nature of what is going is to soon enough be coming. Yes, coming around once again. So, what's the dilemma here with these comings and goings?
 
What is coming and going? Only question. Just one question.
 
As such, naked awareness is simply the still embrace of all the conjugal fucking of thought after thought, thought upon thought, thought breeding thought, mind making mind, making more mind making more mind. Naked awareness is the spacious presence of allowing of What Is to Be What Is, without "need" to change or alter, modify or toy with. Naked awareness gets intimate with What Is before it "seeks" to change some-thing. Naked awareness is just with it all; no shutting down or turning away, just naked, aware presence.
 
Why should we alter what we may not yet know intimately?
 
Intimacy is crucial in these transpersonal depths of Ours. Intimacy is merely the engaged immediacy with What Is---no exceptions. Naked awareness does not create distance from, but floats whatever IS within a space of inclusive communion. Besides....
 
There is no-thing to run from......
 
......which is literally true, in a psychological sense. Until that moment when no-thing causes Us to move we are not free yet. I am not talking a desireless existence here. No, I am speaking of a psychological fact born of investigative inquiry over many, many incarnations. One must, necessarily, entertain all of the ghosts and fantasies, and do so without re-acting to them as some-thing to run to or run from; free beings are not reactive.
 
This sort of "staying with" calls for great courage and perseverance. This sort of "staying with" requires a naked presence--a Presence beyond i-dentification, a Presence which is that Stillness; Stillness willing to pervade and abide with that mindfuck/chaos i-dentification.
 
Stillness, allowing such mindfuck/chaos i-dentification, if that is What is active Now, knows no threat from the chaotic vortex of frantic mentations. The wild is allowed to be wild. The flow allowed to flow. The flood of thoughts allowed to be a flood of thoughts. Maybe the frantic just needs to burn off as a wild, too long repressed energy? So, let it burn. Further repression and denial just brings us back again and again to that point of "staying with", of the necessity of "attending to" What Is. Let the wild play... and the beasts frolic....  all shall tire sooner or later---all shall go their way. So, why resist?
 
 
Who needs to tame who?
 
Who needs to control?
 
Who?
 
Who needs soft guidance?
 
From who?
 
Who needs a gentle touch?
 
Maybe those thoughts we run from, dissociate from, wish were other than what they are? Maybe inwardly we simply need some soft spacious noticing, some naked awareness; a non-judgmental presence? Just naked. Disrobed of "shoulds" and "musts", "have-tos" and "gotchas". A soft, spacious noting. A naked awareness. Just a Still Presence.... eternally abiding with....  with it all.....   nakedly... aware.
 
 

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