Author: Ryan Klette

  • Vision quest part 1 – Introduction

    Vision quest part 1 – Introduction

    When I first heard about a vision quest, I was young. It sounded like a terrible idea even though I knew it was a respectable thing to do. I mostly feared that I wasn’t  made out of the right stuff to undertake such a journey. In the end, it took me 13 years to complete a series of 4 quests.  I had to redo my first and then took space between quests to build up  my will.

    A vison quest really is a strange thing. Even now when I think about it just sounds too far out. You mean you just sit there and do nothing for all that time.   What on earth  could be the point.  There are no formal teachings,  no new knowledge,  no nothing at the end of it not even a certificate to validate your achievement.  Truly, the  ego doesn’t get much on this one. So what is the point and that’s something I’d like to answer  in a few parts. This then is part one, an introduction to my quest.

    Firstly to say that I am so grateful for all the support I received not just from the bottom of the mountain but from friends all over that gave me the strength to  go do this. This is the essence of ubuntu, the deeply felt sense that I am because we are.  I exist within culture, community, family, friendships, relationships. For much of my life the idea of community felt far away. I errored in the opposite direction. My story went something like  I don’t need anyone or at least don’t want to need anyone. I aimed for fierce independence which got me nowhere quickly.  

    These years of vision questing have healed so much  of that. Even though I sometimes felt overwhelmed by the support I received,  I needed it the most this time and felt a growing comfort in being  able to relax into the arms of community. That’s the beauty I think,  that we all get a chance to do this for one another in this ebb and flow of giving  and receiving.  It has been a time of receiving support and I think this alone was incredibly healing for me. 

    One of the first insights I received came early on when 13 days felt like an eternity. Even when it gets really tough, a little voice told me, don’t wish this time of nothing away.  The first 4 days without food and water are always challenging for me and this quest was no exception.  I think the difference was that I wished it away less. I was able be with the extremes of thirsts more than usual, more curious about my bodies response then afraid. As for the rest of the days, I’ll get to that. For now to say the theme of staying with the entire process, beginning to end was the most prominent of all.

    To say a few things on the practical side. The actual vision quest space is small, about 15 sqm and you have nothing to entertain you, not even a pen.  One of the things I’ve noticed is that it feels natural to want  to be as comfortable as possible. And why not try. On a vision quest however, the bar for comfort is dramatically lowered. You accept that many of your moments won’t be comfortable ones.  It’s a case of do what you can then let go and this is an ongoing process.

    I notice one day for example that I could move a branch for more shade, or change the angle  of my tarp so that the rain runs off better. It feels good to evolve things and equally as good knowing the limitations. I’d say overall I have got a lot better at finding and making improvements in my space, working with the setting as well as possible. In that way I see it a little bit like a substitute for scouts training that I didn’t do much of in my youth. I have learned to value this line of practical intelligence so much. It has always been my weaker hand, and as Marcus Aurelius would say, its a good idea to develop skills that don’t come naturally or the ones we neglected in some way.

    Next  post – reckoning with my story. Acceptance runs deeper than words.

  • Middle road

    Middle road

    One of the most useful ideas I ever heard was Ken Wilber’s distinction between absolute and relative truth.   It’s this seemingly paradoxical idea that the world  we are accustomed to  characterised  by polarity (no one thing can exist without its opposite)  also contains a non-polarised dimension – an absolute truth or Big mind as Wilber likes to say that has not been split. It’s the spacious, open awareness that we relax back into in meditation or what Sam Harris calls the “prior condition”.

    Hurts more bother you less

    Ken Wilber

    Why this distinction is so useful to me is because it explains what our evolution can look like. Instead of thinking we need to be untouchable or if we are walking a spiritual path,  that we need to look like a more together kind of person less effected by worldly concerns we can hold a different point of view.  Evolving as these human creatures involves feeling more. That means it hurts even more but at the same time bother us less precisely because of the absolute realm.

    When we are walking in both we know both realities as true. In absolute terms, there really is no problem to solve and we can relax in that. In relative terms, there is much work to do. Over leaning in either direction results in imbalance. On the one side it looks like spiritual bypassing and on the other crushed by the pain of humanity. The middle ground is this profound line  by Wilbur – Hurts more but bothers less. That we can feel the full spectrum of humanity and be grounded in what can never be touched. 

  • Meditation & brushing teeth

    Meditation & brushing teeth

    I get up every day and brush my teeth, it just happens without question. I have a whole life behind me to make it one of the most natural habits.  I miss it for a variety of good reasons if I don’t do it. Same can be true for meditation. I can approach meditation like I would brushing my teeth. Not waiting for the ‘right’ days or skipping when my mood is not right.  I notice the benefits when I  show up every day a little bit at a time no matter how I am. No matter my condition is the really important piece because being willing to show up for anything builds a capacity to meet life in a more meaningful way.

    Staying connected to life feels better even when it means we feel things more intensely.  As Ken Wilber said, it bothers us less even though we feel it more.  The connection is the relief we are looking for and meditation gives us a reference early on in the day of what that experience is like.  Then we can notice how lost we can get  in all kinds of patterns and begin the most rewarding  project out there, waking up in the day we are in just as it is.

    Practice tip: I think the best way to get back in one’s  practice is start really small but do it every day. Pick a time, carve out a space in your day, preferably before  you get going, i.e. after your shower, tea or whenever you can find consistent time.  Pick a min duration that is super easy for you. Might even be 2 min. Sit, breathe, notice, allow. Rinse and repeat. Let it grow from there, if you feel to do more continue but either way when you meet your minimum threshold, have mini celebration. Feel the feeling of having completed your sit. Let that build in an organic way. It has its own way, we don’t need to do anything other than pay attention.    

  • Reimagining change

    Reimagining change

    Try as we might, we don’t change with good intentions alone.  It’s actually impossible not to change. We are changing every moment. Nothing ever stays still. The question is more how do we change in the ways that we want. I am writing this with myself in mind, what I notice about my own internal landscape.

    Part of the problem are my intentions because I am so often wrong about things so why would I assume to be right about the direction of change. In some ways its easy because outside feedback and inner intuitions find a meeting point. But perhaps in the most important ways, I simply have no idea about what I actually need and what a good direction looks like. For example, for a long time I thought corporate wasn’t the place for me to work. Turns out many years later I am happy to have corporate clients and work in an environment I once thought was unfit. In that frame I was convinced I knew what was right. What now then ? How might I be wrong about what I think I need or the direction I think my life should be going in? what does it feel like to relax the knowing? 

     It’s  often true that the part in me that wants the change is one who feels wounded or burdened in  some way. In other words the impetus to change is coming from a condition of the past.  It’s not actually a wish from an integrated self but rather an expression of unmet pain. A part that needs things a certain way in order to feel better, or a part that might be pushing away change in order to protect the hurt ones. 

    When a wounded part is not in control, the Self is free to move with the world in full acceptance of life as it is. One would not imagine needing to give advice about how to change to such a self. Without the burden, the self is open and responsive to life and the change that is happening all by itself. That self can live  in the moment and be fully available to potentials that just weren’t available to the other parts. The essential point is that all parts need to be included though, (as an ongoing practice) in order to embody the Self that can lead. The Self that can trust life.  

    The change is then more about letting go than it is trying to get something. To let go is to give space because space is what heals. It’s when we feel we have space to move that movement happens. As long as we feel stuck, it’s like nothing can breathe and if nothing can breathe we keep doing the same things, not learning from our mistakes and the mistakes of generations behind us. 

    Maybe a better way of framing change is aiming to stay as you are. Big leap maybe, staying the same is also the kind of challenge we signed up for. Born into a world where we were taught to be other than what we are.

    I think the hero’s journey is to come back to you as you and from that place, listen. So you might try this on for an idea – don’t change, rather let change happen by giving space to all of who you are.

  • this mind comes with me

    this mind comes with me

    Sitting quietly gives me the opportunity to see the content that is likely to show up outside of meditation. It’s the same mind I take with me so perhaps the most important moment in meditation is the last one, getting up. It can be a moment to continue to receive things  as they are. That way I don’t  leave my sit with a story about how it should be any different. I can continue to relax with this magnificent freedom that lets me move with life as it is.

    As I go about my day I can choose to place less importance on the little voice in my head and rather take in the beauty and wonder of life around me (all happening outside my control).  As I pay attention to the landscape  of my inner life, so too can I bring equanimity of mind to the circumstances that arise. Where I find myself in a reaction, I can take note and recognise that I lost my orientation and in a gentle way, return to this safe haven of awareness.

    Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is coloured by such impressions

    Marcus Aurelius, meditations

    I love this quote because it reminds me to question my thinking. Controlling the content of the mind is an incredibly stressful idea.  Seeing the thoughts for what they are – patterns of energy, is a much more effective way of neutralizing charged up thinking. We don’t need to buy into our patterns, often the trouble starts the moment we take our thoughts to be reality. Rather we can bring our attention back to the awareness in which they appear and discover a natural curiosity there. A whole world lives and breathes outside our conceptions.

    Guiding principle: Notice the patterns of thinking that shape you but also see that no pattern has control over you when you are awake to it. With awareness, the thought has no inherent power. It is no different to an itch on your skin, a simple sensation, energy in the body.

    Energy naturally settles when we allow it.