Thursday, August 30, 2007

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Sex

A good friend of mine who is, so to speak, "deep in the work," raised some fascinating questions about the nature of our work over the last few days. She ended up touching on a subject that is not discussed that often in the Gurdjieff work, that is, sex.

It's of note to me that in my extensive reading of Dogen, which now encompasses more than 1500 pages of text, I have yet to come across any discussions of sexuality. If Dogen's Buddhism has any weaknesses--and to me it appears there are few--one of them lies in its failure to mention, let alone come to grips with, this essential question in its theoretical structure. Christianity and Islam haven't done much better.

Why do we avoid the question? Eros is the biological expression of reproduction through union. For this level, it's entirely lawful, appropriate, and to be celebrated.

Man, however, was created to serve as a bridge to establish union between levels. So his reproductive potential extends all the way from the roots of the material world (atoms, molecules, minerals, proteins, cells) to the heavens (electromagnetic Being of a planetary or even solar nature). That is to say, the biological potential we express through sexuality is a mere fraction of what is actually possible for us.

If we come to it, we will understand our experience of the expression of that union as compassion-which has a distinctly vibratory nature, a resonance within the organism. Unfortunately this is quite difficult, because sex as it is, biological sex, misleads everyone.

Don't get me wrong; I like sex as much as the next person, and I think that sex is a good thing and a necessary thing. However, again and again we see that sex leads us into very difficult situations. Senator Larry Craig, who just got himself into terrible trouble over sex, is a good example of this. It seems evident he has deep-seated biological impulses that contradict his intellectual understandings. In the end, his impulses won out over a lifetime of investment in politics. Sex got the better of him, and it looks like it is going to cost him his career. If not more.

In order to understand this better, we need to see that under ordinary circumstances, the sex center routinely produces the highest energy available in the body (Gurdjieff called it Si 12). That means that sex center can do pretty much anything it wants, if it puts its mind to it. Larry Craig is just one sad example; few human beings get through a lifetime without abruptly discovering that sex has gotten them into trouble of one kind or another. In worst-case scenarios, such as AIDS, it kills them.

Mr. Gurdjieff's famous "struggle of five against one" can only be construed as masturbation in the crudest of interpretations. In refinement, we see it is ABOUT refinement, that is, the effort to prevent the other centers from being either parasitized or, conversely, flooded and overwhelmed, by sex center. Instead, the other five centers need to raise their own inner levels of vibration to the point where biological sex (si 12) does not dominate the organism, but assumes a more balanced role. And take note- it doesn't go away, which is what a lot of religions and teachings seem to wish it would do- by force, if necessary.

It becomes integrated.

The balancing of the centers and the consequent creation of the other two "highest" hydrogens (mi 12 and sol 12) brings with it the possibility of transforming sex energy, with its partner energies, into true compassion. And this was the gist of the conversation I had with my friend.

Real compassion arises from within the organism, not from within the intellect. Not even from within emotion. When I say that, what I mean is that real compassion is three centered, and springs from the union of the three highest hydrogens.

This force is transformational in nature. It is also irrevocable. If and when the body produces enough to promote a moment of true compassion, there is no other alternative. It cannot go in any other direction.

As we exchanged about this, my friend and I agreed that the most intimate moments of spiritual experience are not just intimate, they are sexual. They are, however, as she put it "trans-genital." The energy passes over into a realm, a rapture, that transcends simple physical experience. Hence the ecstasies of St. Teresa, whose union with God would have been obscene, were it not so pure.

Pretty technical stuff, I suppose, especially for those not versed in the intricacies of Gurdjieff's chemical factory.

All it means is that in the balance, we can rise above biological sex and open to the much greater forces of compassion and love.

At this point the seed of the divine implants itself in the soil of the body, and flowers grow.

Now go have fun!

Friday, August 31, 2007

Flowers in Space

Chapter 43 of the Shobogenzo is entitled, "Kuge," or, "Flowers in Space." I happened to be reading this chapter this morning as a natural consequence of my progression through the Shobogenzo.

As so often seems to be the case these days, the synchronicity was stunning. Flowers, after all, are the reproductive organs of plants -- that is to say, they are sex organs. (I like to tease my wife, who is a landscape designer by profession, by telling her that her gardening catalogs are all plant porn.) All this on the heels of yesterday's post. Cool, isn't it?

This beautiful chapter by Dogen deserves a read by everyone. Go buy the book!

Here are a few quotes. All of them are taken from the third volume of the Nishijima and Cross translation, published by Dogen Sangha Press.

"... blue lotus flowers inevitably open and spread inside fire. If we want to know the inside of fire, it is the place where blue lotus flowers open and spread."

"Not only in spring and in autumn do flowers and fruit exist; existence-time always has flowers and fruit. Every flower and fruit has maintained and relied upon a moment of time, and every moment of time has maintained and relied upon flowers and fruit... Flowers are present in human trees, flowers are present in human flowers, and flowers are present in withered trees. In such circumstances there are the flowers in space of which the world honored one speaks. Yet people of small knowledge and small experience do not know of the colors, brightness, petals, and flowers of flowers in space, and they can scarcely even hear the words "flowers in space."

He goes on; the man was a genius. Yes, the language is poetic, perhaps even obscure for our day and age, but Dogen points at a magnificent understanding.

Everything is flowers.

All of existence is eternally budding, eternally opening, eternally receiving. Every single object, event, and circumstance we see around us is born of these eternal flowers, which are infinite in number. The flowers have no dimension, they have no limit, and they belong to no time. The heart of flowers cannot be touched, but only sensed within our breath itself: and within every single one of them is contained the entire ecstasy of the universe, in its only and single act of creation.

Of course, flowers beget flowers. Every larger flower is composed of smaller flowers. And those are composed of smaller flowers still. Just as we, inhabiting these bodies, must find ourselves within flowers in order to discover flowers, so every flower can know itself, know the flowers of which it is composed, and know that it belongs to the blossoming of an ever-larger magnificence.

So we need to think and experience in these ways:

eternally budding,
eternally opening,
eternally receiving.

In the midst of these three actions, we may discover ourselves, and everything around us, eternally reproducing. When we combine the three ways of budding, opening, and receiving, we discover the fourth way of reproducing, of giving birth to the new.

To try to know flowers with the mind is like picking flowers. They become separated from the life that produces them. Of course we can admire them, study them, even arrange them perfectly under such circumstances, but we have deprived them of the natural conditions in which they arise. It is best, then, to come to know them through the inner landscape of the body; to discover them in the hills, the valleys, the swamps and ponds, and even the mountains which they naturally inhabit, and to observe them there, secure in the knowledge that they make up our world and stand prepared to receive the pollinators that visit them.

In seeking the flowers within us, we use sensation to seek the roots within us; then the stems, leaves, and branches. Eventually, we may catch the perfumed scent of the utterly glorious nature of reality, which truly is an endless series of flowers in space.

May your buds yield blossoms, and your flowers yield fruit.

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