two insights from burning man

1.

on lsd tuesday night at burning man
beautiful lights
loving just biking through this world
in which so many people are so radically fucking alive
radiant with creativity and energy and sex and love
danced a little at a trance camp, kinesthesis
i had led an erotic massage workshop that night (before dosing)
moaning reaching stretching power and presence
then at the trance camp
i danced for 20 minutes unbroken eye contact
with one of my students - only, i only found out it was a student when i saw
him 2 days later
for me it was a new spontaneous connection
for him looking into the eyes of someone who gave him a gift
in sum, a beautiful night

but
i couldn't meditate
not in the daytime (fell asleep in vipassana)
or even on the acid, which usually ushers me right "in"
i felt light with this unease
but my heart was aching for the Lover
so i paused at the edge of the open desert
the city buzzing and thumping
and i asked god"where are you"?

and then i realized
who is asking whom?
the asker is the answer
and then i realized
the first question god asks
in the bible is
"where are you"?
god is asking god
the questioner is the answer

and at that moment
the search over
(the only thing that keeps us from happiness
is searching for it)
i realized Who is here
and who has been here all along
and what a paradise i was in
there is nowhere to be but here

that is so crucial at burning man
where there are always 1000 things going on
and somewhere, somewhere, yes, there might be something more fun
but: nowhere to be but here
now
too

radical acceptance has long given me trouble:
how do i square it with seizing the day, living intensely?
but a real intense embrace of the moment
is really "seizing the moment" in the most radical way

enlightenment does not lead to magic powers
but it may look that way to others
because the enlightened one is so at peace with now
that it seems to us
she must have everything she wants
which is true, of course,
not because she has magic powers
but
because she wants everything


2.

so, we missed our flight from reno
had to take the 11am rather than the 640am
plus then i was routed to newark
while my bags went to laguardia
enough to lead to great frustration
but it didn't. i was succeeding at accepting.
being swept along
at the laguardia baggage place today,
the person couldn't find my bags at first.
she was looking, and some man she knew ran into her
and they were very happy to see each other
and chatted for a bit.
it was at that moment that i realized
how contemplation and ethical action are so closely related.
ordinarily,
i would be very anxious and upset about the bags
and that would cause my reactive mind to be even more upset
that this attendant was wasting my time saying hi to her friend.
but in the mindstate i am in now,
i thought "well, this is great.
this is how god is at this moment: in the airport,
looking for my bags. and what a treat, i get to do my retreat
amidst such loving energy."
it was like watching a really good show
except feeling it also

like all truths, this one is banal until it is felt.
it came from the simple core that "there is nowhere to be but now"
so the question upon any experience
becomes not "how/where could this be better"
but "what is the flavor of this moment"

many moments may really be hard to redeem
but in this one, there was much joy
and so i didn't need to do too much gymnastics-
just get out of my ego's view of the world
to see that there was something really nice there

no guarantee that'll work when there isn't
but at least for myself,
it's progress to be able to do it when there is

we found the suitcases later.