I find myself returning to the basics, and in the context of this website, this is the basics of awakening and healing.
A FEW BASICS
When it comes to awakening, what are some of these basics?
Our nature and how to notice and explore it for ourselves.
How to live from this noticing.
The pitfalls on the path, including the misconceptions some have.
The wrinkles that come from our very human messiness.
And also some of the basic structured explorations that support this. In my case, inquiry to notice my nature (Headless experiments, Big Mind process), basic meditation, training more stable attention, sense field explorations, heart-centered practices (tonglen, ho’o), inquiry into beliefs (The Work), and so on.
WHY THE BASICS?
I find that returning to the basics helps me in several ways.
It helps me refine and clarify.
It helps me discover something more essential. (Than I was previously aware of.)
It invites me to explore if there are basics I have left out.
It helps me balance out any tendency to go into complexity. (Which also has its place.)
It helps me ground. (And not get too caught up in intellectualizing and fanciful complexities.)
It helps me prioritize and focus. (And not get too lost in the periphery.)
It helps me communicate a little better with myself and others.
Personally, I also find it helps me stay in contact with the childlike in me, with curiosity, awe, and wonder.
SIMPLICITY AND COMPLEXITY
The basics here mean what’s essential.
Is that the same as simplicity?
Yes and no.
The basics are simple in that the essence of it is often simple. And the basics offer simple pointers and reminders.
At the same time, there is an infinite complexity there as with anything else. There is always more to discover and explore. There are always new perspectives and angles we can take on it. There are always new contexts we can understand it within. And so on.
In this exploration, following the basics typically leads to insights into the complexity. The basics help ground our exploration. And getting lost in the complexity and forgetting the essentials can be fun for a while but is ultimately a distraction.
DRAFT FRAGMENTS
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And when it comes to healing?
Our hangups, emotional issues, traumas, and so on come from and are maintained by separation consciousness. They are parts of us suffering and caught up in separation consciousness.
Deep healing often requires us to align a bit more with reality, with oneness. It requires a shift in how we relate to anything related to the issue, and it requires the part of us caught up in suffering to align a bit more with reality.
One aspect of this is examining the beliefs these suffering parts of us hold onto, find what’s more genuinely true for us, and invite these parts of us to realign.
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Both are part of life and this exploration, and there is beauty in both and in the wholeness they are part of.