Category: Mindset

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.

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. 

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.  

I think a sense of space and capacity are our some most valuable resources Before you turn on the world, make sure  you are ready. I had this thought after an hour or so of ‘readying’ myself this morning. I started the day with a little movement, writing and sitting and noticed even then, an apprehension to turn my phone on. I knew that in doing so the world would come flooding in. 

Turns out  I was ready enough because I was able to maintain the state I cultivated in my quiet time. When I noticed myself becoming tight and tense, it was easy enough to take a short time out and remember the reference I created at the beginning of the day.

Ready to me means uncluttered, open and receptive to life as it is.

Guiding principle: In order to maintain a ready state I need to notice how my system responds to the world coming in as I move through my day. Could it be more exciting that we get to choose a response to life that is new and unconditioned by paying attention in a certain way ?

It takes a lot because there is a momentum behind us. When I stop, I sometimes feel I am too far gone so why on earth would I stop if it means facing up to the direction I am headed. Continuing on whatever track I am on feels easier.

Stopping means I would need to do something different, dopamine is hitting from all sides. Stopping means I’ll lose the buzz of those neuro-chemicals. From this this point of view there simply very little that makes sense about stopping.

Rather go and get to some other point where all this matters less, maybe at the end of the day when I am reminiscing about what a busy day I had.

But what if stopping didn’t  mean change.  That I could  stop  anywhere and say to myself, whatever interesting behaviour I am in the midst of, that  somehow it’s all ok.  Slow down a little,  invite curiosity and pay attention without the weight of needing  or wanting to find a more perfect person at the other end of it.

Instead, oh here I am. Isn’t that interesting. Gravitating in this or that direction, being distracted, emotional or frustrated  in some way,  pleasure seeking or avoiding, doesn’t matter. It’s all food for consciousness.  And to me more interesting that anything, as I am less afraid of the content so it goes  that I am less afraid of the stop because I know  I am  bound to face the momentum of the past and there is space inside  to hold it all. But and this is a big but, a little bit at a time. When I push myself to look too hard at the content of my thoughts, feelings and sensations it’s easy to become overwhelmed, despondent and uninterested. Gentle awareness works best.

Sometimes it really is ok to leave the world exactly as it is and rest in the awareness that never changes. There is too much too enjoy!