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| Just Labels |
I have written a lot about 'impermanence', 'transience', 'having no identity', 'nowhere to hang my hat', 'the empty atom' 'my NDE', 'have a cup of tea' and all of this I have experienced at first as an idea that made sense, and intellectual understanding, then a profound statement and something to contemplate and deeply ingest and even to the depth experiencing them in not an ordinary manner as if it were in another space of mind and even living it and yet it still remained somewhat unreal in the sense of 'can this really be true, is this real, come on now Geoff /Shack, then I came to share this over the years and still my Ego self fought the final surrender'.
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| Wikipedia |
I appreciate this image above may seem to be morbid; however when I finally learnt the advanced Kendo (Japanese Sword Skills—the way of the sword) and Sensei gave us an imagery; 'feel that you are facing the katana ((刀, かたな) ) TYPE OF SWORD) and see yourself being cut and eventually you went through all the limbs and then the head being severed and when your were not repulsed or fearful(I never got to that stage and so I only used shinai (撓う) Bamboo practice Stick yet I could handle the sword only for ceremonial use or practice with Sensei only.
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| Colchester Forensics |
Then my work in Forensics and add to this Hospice work with patients who were close to passing and I got feelings of impermanence and transitory existence first hand physically and the horror of crime and the perceived insanity of 'inculcation and brain washing' which I have written about extensively as well and when you come face to face with your own mortality then it really hits home and can shock and make one shy away and bury one's head in the sand or as many of my colleagues, some police officers and traumatised soldiers can lead to drugs, alcohol, weird mental states and just plain burying one's head in the sand. For me it was facing the 'sword' of death and with meditation and assistance from my mentors in my study to become a psychotherapist with Sifu and Sensei as well.
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| Life Balance Studio |
Mind you my NDE did somewhat lessen the tension or mystery however at the age of four (1942)I was always puzzled by it until I started meditation and the Martial Arts. All this and thousands of writings in SHACK, the workshop experiences (670 of them with workshop participants all over Europe and Canada) and the 'peeling of the Onion' of the layers of hard encrusted inculcations, brain washing until surrender and the fear of being a vulnerable corporeal flesh being and many as seeing me as not living up to my potential, lazy, not ambitious and a lack of confidence throughout the many years as mainly a lone wolf and to finally give up the workshops, the martial arts and to arrive at retirement and last few years of absolute nothing. To go from extreme doing, science to a very simple abode with nothing to do do or offer other to write myself out in SHACK / GEOFF.
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| Water Soluble Label |
So when this hit me this morning 31st March 2024 it floored me, lying in bed after a day of this shift I have been feeling in which everyone of my experiences felt like a past dream and a dream itself in a lucid state, I was punching disks and then I felt the presence of my mother(she passed in the early 80's) and as I came to punch the last disk, I failed and had no power and my heart felt it skipped several beats and I had to get out of bed and cough and later in the day it came to me all I have written above was shown to me as an empty label, just another cadaver, I did not feel deflated at this 'inner message' I felt ordinary as if I now embraced the impermanence, stripped of more deep embedded inculcations and lodged tight brain washed 'seeming real spontaneous unconscious automatic pilot reactions and responses, I felt more 'honest' and all this Dr Geoff, PH,D workshop presenter, failures and modest achievements, the busted broken relationships wiped out to a certain degree and not feeling guilty or rather not feeling anything about the past as if an old movie which the TV keeps churning out at Easter, Christmas and what have you is meaningless, the fears and anxiety gradually not meaning anything, I felt a certain amount of freedom and I saw in the 'vision' I was just another label on a corpse and my name was who the corpse was Geoff Freed and was not who I was and am. Who was this something that left the corpse God alone knows.
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| C.S Lewis |
Just of late I have found as I looked, heard, smelt, touched, felt or a silent quick flash of knowing a silent chuckle and sometimes a spontaneous laughter almost hysterical but not quiet and from it I gleaned 'there isn't anything real, permanent, it all fades away in time and in dream or illusion like state is not real, there is no reality and all will fade in the course of impermanence, in fact when transience is recognised and felt time only exists for the amount of structure that form held its form. My body gone will be the number of years it existed in time and as I am not well known or have a family who do not care about me and a few friends, the memory will be on a label, because my body is due when the time arrives for cremation and then there wont be even a label'. Some say freedom at last.
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| The Disciple Maker |
The image above depicts for me 'Dying whilst still in the Body' in other words the only death are the brain washed inculcated ego human unconscious store box of many incarnations and karma. In this the mind is 'empty mind' 'the still quiet mind' and in this seemingly boring empty mind if explored without prejudice and fear, merely lowering oneself into the void, the barren wastelands and desert and on doing so one may discover a jewel, a solace with tranquillity, the only death here are the hasty noisy thoughts that once invaded the mind and caused al sorts of emotions and anxiety. In the image above what is coming out of the person are the bran washed, indoctrinated programmes. The conditioned mind. So can one still live without a defined label and not die corporeally?
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| ImgFlip |
Why is the empty mind perfection or near to it as it were, because in space there is a potential and that potential is the consciousness, not in the brain, the brain merely acts as receiver for consciousness like a TV for its programmes. In emptiness which is just consciousness without thought it is perfect until 'the cup of awareness is filled with erroneous thought which in human terms leads to duality.' THOUGHT that emanates from consciousness is like a projectile that leaves awareness not from the thought processes of analysis and sequential incremental thought, the intellect, consciousness has its own offerings that once released are not stored.
So dying whilst still alive in the body is possible and an analogy the bottle of consciousness is like a bottle afloat in the sea filled with sea water and the cork is the ego evaluating and not letting the sea water fully in or out, when the cork that which contains the egoic programmes is released the consciousness of the local mind as it were in the bottle joins the non local consciousness and one is one with source that is unimpeded.
So where am I now after all the above. God alone knows. Or Maybe God does not and if one has a concept of God in words, could it be just another programme? Or is the concept of God another label maybe until one's label is empty while alive in this mortal coil?
SHACK aka GEOFF
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