Osho on Isan

Last night I was reading a talk on Isan given by Osho on November 1, 1988. When I read this a deep realization stung my brain :

After sudden enlightenment, a certain cultivation is needed because the sudden can become a
glimpse. Your sleepiness is so deep, your unconsciousness is so vast that a sudden glimpse, a
lightning... and again dark clouds have taken over. That beautiful moment will be remembered by
you; you will start even doubting it: ”Did it happen or did I imagine it? Was it a reality or a dream?”
But the sweetness of it will remain with you. The fragrance of it will remain with you.
Cultivation after enlightenment simply means to avoid any situation that can destroy your glimpse.
You have to pour your whole energy into the glimpse to make it more and more authentic, more and
more deeply rooted in you, so that it becomes an indubitable truth. No clouds can destroy it and no
sleepiness, no inertia is able to take it away from you.

When I was 23 I spent a summer in meditation. I did not go to a temple, rather, wherever my body was, that is where I meditated - at home, at work, while walking or running through the woods and fields, while playing guitar on the bank of a creek. Zen and Buddhism were new to my mind, and I felt that if what they shared were true, that there was indeed a path and a way to inner peace and happiness, then I wanted to be a part of it. Perhaps it was all a ruse, though, but I had nothing to lose by practicing what I believed to be the heart of it all - simply focusing the mind upon the breath, with nothing else required. The determination and diligence I put into it astonishes me today - I was living the life of a monk without master and temple, without guidance from a living person, I only had the words from ancient texts to guide me through the thorny days of work and rest.

Changes began to happen inside of me, in the mind, and with it came insights and peace and smiling. On a certain day I was given what Osho calls a glimpse. At the time I did not know it was a glimpse, I only knew that a strong shell inside of me had shattered, and this allowed a radiant light to infuse my being. I was thunderstruck, overwhelmed with surprise and remember thinking as the light washed over me - "does everyone live like this, I feel so foolish to have lived with my eyes pointed toward the darkness all these years." A few moments later I knew that no, not everyone lived like this, for if they did there would be no wars, no killing, no discrimination, no sorrow - the earth would be filled with light beings who had cracked the code of the senses.

The reason I am writing about that special and rare day is because I did not know what to do with it, how to relate to it, and did not know how to sustain it. For it was only a glimpse, and after 24 hours the shell inside of me began to heal and the light was again being cut off. I fed off the memory of it, and to this day still recall the sensations and the experience vividly. When I read the above quote from Osho I was able to see where I had gone wrong - I had continued to meditate for the rest of the summer, but I allowed the meditation to slip away with the coming of a new year, and this allowed the glimpse to merely become a relic of memory, and no longer a reality of my being. It inspired me for all the rest of my days, but I was no longer living in the light. What should have been done was to continue meditating, every day, and as Isan says, cultivating the glimpse so that it can be sustained and perhaps even grow.

When I began meditating in Eugene I intuitively knew it was the key to returning to the light. The illness prevented me from focusing upon it, but now that I am healing I can begin again, fresh, given yet another chance to crack the inner hull of the mind. Whether I am successful or not is not as important as the effort. I now know that meditation is all it is said to be, I simply have to practice it with a sincere heart and a dogged determination.

Twenty Months

Twenty months have passed since my last entry. During the first week of the 3 month meditation term (September 22, 2013 - December 22, 2013) I was stricken with a serious lung illness which prevented me from meditating at the temple. After two missed weeks I attended morning sessions when possible, but eventually stopped going altogether because my health began a rapid decline.

When my lease ended on August 31, 2014, (total time in Eugene, OR: July 12, 2012 - September 30, 2012, living at KC's home, 2306 Onyx St; and October 1, 2012 - August 31, 2014, living at 2290 Monroe St) I reluctantly decided to leave Eugene and move to Las Vegas (arriving September 1st, 2014) so as to avoid the wet and cold Oregon winter. Instead of improving, I lost more strength and stamina. I left Las Vegas in the middle of January, 2015, feeling very old, and traveled by city bus to Boulder City, where I lived in a hotel for a month. I then hiked 18 miles into the desert and lived in a tent for a number of days on the shore of Lake Mead. Surprisingly my body began to improve a bit. The nights were long....and cold...and windy. I listened to the coyotes and the silence of the barren land.

A day came when I reached out to grab death's hand, but even death rejected me. I was a ghost in hell - not wanted in life, or death. A recurring thought was "it's just me and God now." I hiked into the desert again and when I came to a cliff I looked down and gazed upon large jagged boulders, an unforgiving hardness. I thought briefly about throwing myself over the edge. I stood there under the blue sky, with nowhere to go, no one to see, and finally, nothing to be. There was nothing left except my sick body and my glowing consciousness. I thought of van Gogh, and Claude from The Masterpiece, and a neighbor who had hung herself in a garage. Hemingway, too. And Bukowski, who often wrote that he would have killed himself, but did not have the courage. The rocks looked cold and mean, and the thought that this was merely another test - isn't life just a test of our consciousness, a way to learn how not to be duped and overwhelmed with sense illusion and dream - that to jump to my demise would be the wrong decision. No, I was going to let death grab me, I wasn't going to go begging at its doorstep. So I turned away and thought about the man who had jumped off the Morningstar building because of money problems. At the time I imagined it to be wrong, his mind was simply muddied with dream and he was so caught up in that dream that he took it for ultimate reality, and this I could not abide. I walked away from the ledge, back down the mountain and into the flats of the desert, realizing I still felt the same way - simply remain calm, keeping the mind clear, and to let go of everything, save the body and consciousness.

A few days later, at the beginning of March, 2015, I was on flight to Chicago. I was now living with family, sleeping in a bed in a warm house protecting me from a harsh cold winter season. I decided to try to fix my body with the help of a doctor, because I was incapable of working, or even getting up in the morning. Surgery was scheduled, and then performed, and now I am recovering, daily increasing my health and fitness. Running, meditating, and looking for work in the city. I am still weak, but am confident I can recover the vitality which will allow me to rejoin the dream of the living.

I ran 6 1/2 miles this afternoon, and also had a job interview over the phone. I am still uncertain if the circumstances surrounding my existence are favorable or not. Yesterday I was crossing a busy road and was almost run down by a car, and it appeared death had finally opened its door to me, but no, the car slowed and veered at the final moment, and I continued to walk on my way, letting go, letting go, letting go...