Visions and Dreams, #1 and 2

6:30 am

Did my morning sit in my bed as usual, but fell asleep. Had a remarkable, clear - what, vision? It was a teaching-dream. I had spent most of the night having a series of dreams about missing an airplane flight, or being late for the flight, or whatever. This time, mom and i were in a car - i think it was her car, but i was driving. We had plenty of time before my flight but she wanted to stop at Hudson nursery. But i was still feeling rushed. We stopped at a red light behind a bunch of traffic, and the scene was more like new york than tampa - cars, close buildings, smaller streets with crosswalks, etc. I got out of the car and walked across the crosswalk. I was thinking (sort of, it was a dream) it would be faster to walk! Then the light changed and the traffic got moving. i realized that mom was in the car, in the passenger seat. Oops, i messed up. The other cars cleared away and i looked for hers so she could either pick me up (i was about a block ahead) or i would go back to her. I waved at cars which looked similar to hers but none stopped. Where i had gotten out of the car, there was no one there anymore - i jogged back to that spot. Nothing. I looked up and back for a bit, feeling abandoned, confused, and that i had screwed up. Didn’t know what to do. Saw that hte nursery was only a couple of blocks ahead so i walked there. I figured she must’ve driven ahead out of anger for my getting out of the car, and i would meet her there - after all, she knew where it was.

I walked through some back alleys, noting it was 7am would the place even be open, and got to the nursery. Before i got there, in one of the alleys, my car (keats) kind of appeared around me. Part of me realized it was a dream so i didn’t worry that the alley was turning into a narrow stairwell - i knew keats would just make it because it had to be a dream. Drove into the parking garage of the nursery, and mom was there. I pulled in, and overheard her making strained small-talk with someone else. I got out of the car. She said “I want to be reimbursed for the cost of hte busfare, the lost time & earnings - and i want a sofa-full of apologies.” She was clearly upset. I was feeling very guilty and sad. I didn’t know why i had done this. I said “in the future, it would help me if you could say how you feel.” She said she did do that, i said no she said what she wanted. I realized i had to sit to figure out what had happened. So i did. A little later i came out of it and she was reading a magazine. I was crying. Now the scene had shifted so we were in my room here, although it wasn’t quite how things are here- more spacious, and shared with my roommate. I said to mom, through tears, “It’s just, I’m doing all this practice and i keep thinking (hoping?) It’s making me more sensitive..”

“And it’s not,” she said. I felt she was right. I screamed “So fuck it! Fuck it!” I was a little astonished that i broke silence that way - so dramatically, and loud.

My roommate came out of his area, naked, and really buff (i.e., not like in reality). I asked him, “Did you ever have a time on retreat where you just did the complete opposite of what would’ve been compassionate, right, etc?”

“No,” he said, and walked away. (At some point, my mom was speaking and searching for the name of an author, which he provided - clark, or something.)

At that point, I realized I had this all wrong. “Wait a minute! First of all, it was a dream - I’m not responsible for that. I didn’t choose to get out of the car – it was a dream!” I never got to my second point - i was going to make up a reason why i got out of the car, namely, to scout out ahead or something, but i never got to that. “This wasn’t my fault.” I got very angry with my mom, realizing she had disapproved and judged – and look, i had felt upset and lost! I said something like “Listen, you bitch, you’ve disapproved of me for thirty years. When i handed in a quiz, and got a 95, what was the first question you asked me? What i got wrong. Nothing was ever good enough for you. But i am beautiful, i am light.” I felt myself becoming light. I also noticed my roommate kind of looked up when i started yelling at mom. And then i noticed mom’s face seem to shrink. She was upset. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, holding her. And then said something like, but this is what you’ve done to me.

she accused me of trying to blame her. I said “This isn’t about blame–” She said, “It is. You just don’t see it.” I closed my eyes and saw a geometric pattern. I started to say, “It’s not about blame. It’s about the causes and conditions...” But I became upset with her, because here she was again, judging me and disapproving.

i woke up at that point, with a deep sense of realization. This isn’t about whether she was a good mother or not. I’m sure she did do the best she could. Nonetheless it had certain effects on me - that’s what it’s about. The feeling. And i have felt disapproved of, disappointed in, for 30 years. I feel it is so animating everything i still do. Kamala’s talk last night - maybe I’m not doing the practice right either. Disapproval, disappointment. The reality is i need the affirmation that i mock - stuart smalley. Because i am constantly when the chips are down repeating what my mother said - you’re not good enough, you’re on the wrong path.

i was a sensitive, creative kid who drew designs and made up fantasy worlds. But instead of encouraging me to be more of who i was, they applied correctives to make me more ‘normal,’ make me into someone i wasn’t.

Why all this desire to achieve, for fame, for recognition, for ‘love’ in the cheap sense. It’s not just that i wasn’t loved as a child – got that on my very first retreat. It’s that i need a sense of approval. When i envy Nate it’s because he pleases my mom.

have to process...

[later]

Here are some insights, or thoughts, arising from the above.


- The vipassana technique here is to be with the sense of being disapproved of in an intimate way. My read on that technique is we do so in order not to judge it, not to push it away, but to accept it. (A - Jewish reason) Because after all it is part of the One. (B-Buddhist reason) Because the clinging in that aversion/desire is the cause of suffering. It’s hard because I can’t really feel that in the body - I guess I’m just not that well developed. Q for teachers whether everything can be felt in the body and should we go looking for it, or are some states just in the mind. Now, there is a desire that comes up to remove the feeling - to do some psychotherapeutic magic that will make it go away. I’m good enough, I’m smart enough. I think the vipassana way is not to go there. Rather, as we get to really see that the sense of being not good enough is ‘just’ a mind-body event, it’s just something that happens, it will really be drained of its vitality. Because it will get separated from the story, and if we’re in the moment, where the story isn’t, all there is is just a mind-body state. Eventually perhaps the state itself will arise less, because the story won’t be replayed so often, and the state will be seen for what it is. But that kind of expectation can be dangerous and self-defeating, because maybe it won’t be that way. Maybe there are some psychic scars which, even if they heal, will never disappear. Meditation is not mental plastic surgery.

I’m finding that, in the body, this always-disappointing-mom turns into a simple sadness. The familiar lump in the throat, etc.

I do think there is also value in going into the story - but that is another practice, I’ll agree. Having said that some of the next points will be about things other than what is happening right now.

- Over the last few weeks I’ve really wrestled with what to do with my life, on a fairly large scale. I still think it isn’t too late - I could be wrong - to pursue some kind of political life. Despite having said to myself I’ve “resigned” from politics in the wake of this election, I definitely still harbor aspirations of running for congress one day. Nothing more than that, honestly; I could never see myself working in the white house (let alone running it, which is beyond out of the question). But admittedly there is still a sense of wanting to be a rep from somewhere, actually participate in some way. Plenty of mediocre people do it. But not many weird people, crucially. If I publish a book called ‘toward a queer jewish theology,’ will that be the rubicon? Will i never be able to do that aspiration? And if not, is it worth being more mindful now of things i say which one day may really place me beyond the pale? I think “The queer guy at the strip club” is one such piece. And i don’t think it’s only because it’s queer, i think if anyone wrote that piece, it could be dredged up later. Anyway, it makes me sad to think i need to self-censor in order to preserve something like that. Because I’m inhibiting myself, and because it seems unfair. Yet if that’s how it is, then I have to understand that there is a choice involved. More career-minded people watch what they say in public.

these thoughts bring up some nervousness, heart beating. A few breaths -> da lifnei mi atah omed...

What’s coming up based on this morning’s stuff are a few things. First, i am seeing that this dynamic of seeking public approval (fame, public office) and power are both in the service of healing my ego. This may or may not be true for others, but it is true for me. Finally I’ll get to boss the jerks around, instead of vice versa. Finally i will have achieved something. Something indisputable. (So easy to get lost in that future-story.) There’s a lot of self-centered desire there. Absolutely, there is also a part that is not self-centered; what if I could save a few hundred acres of forest, would that not make it all worthwhile? But i think more of it is about what it would mean for me. Achievement. Finally, I’d achieve my potential.

Whereas, as things are now, it’s very hard to see what I’ve accomplished. I haven’t done nothing. But the story is that i flit about from project to project, and am kind of wasting my talents. I was going to say wasting my life, but let’s keep it narrower.

earlier on retreat, i came to feel that this whole story is itself a denial of myself, my worth, and the present moment. And it is simultaneously a self-aggrandizing illusion. Why do i have to accomplish something for my life to be worthwhile? I would like to be worthwhile just for being alive. Not getting enlightened, not achieving something more worthwhile than the other people - just being. All that stuff on earlier retreats about ‘is this really better than just living a life of relative ignorance and having a family’ – the comparing is a denial of the present moment, and is implying that it’s not enough to just be here. Again, not even ‘be here now’ in the mystical sense. Just plain old being.

And at the same time, there is the self-delusion that comes from this idea of, if i acheive, then I’ve really achieved something.

this morning, I’m feeling like all this should be specified even more. This is about pleasing mom. Not her literally, but ‘her’ as the dream-projection, the image of her i have from childhood.

i don’t think i even journalled my experience with the visualization from gay soul. Where i met my guide outside the cave and he was beautiful, androgynous, glowing, etc. The sun figure was this young boy - 11,12 - naked and beautiful and sensitive... and of course effeminate, vulnerable, and the rest. Then the moon was this terrible witch (terrible and awful in the thunder & lightning way, not the yecch way) with bolts of lightning and awe, etc. I mean, look at that and compare it with typical imagery surrounding the mother (warm cuddly) and the father (thunder god)! I have it backwards. Talk about queer. And whatever biological genetic basis there may be for this, surely it also mirrors my childhood family situation. Not that dad is the sun-child - i think that’s me.

I almost forgot - after the main dreams were over, i reflected on it for a while and then drifted back to sleep briefly. A delicate, curly-haired, dark-skinned, skinny boy came to me in my role as teacher and asked if i could teach him the 4 noble truths. I said sure, and embraced him, and felt a great deal of warmth and compassion toward him. That was it - i woke up, and realized, that boy is me. I’m trying to give to him what i never had.

interestingly that is not such a new insight - it goes back to camp, at least 10 years ago. But then i thought it was about not having good religious teachers and guides. Now i think it is more primal than that. It too is about mom and me.

To wrap up the politics thread, which is boring me now, i realized this morning the truth that i ought really to do what no one else is doing. What is my unique contribution? This, too, is not new, but it feels new in context. Let’s say that there is a choice: either publish the homoerotic god poems, or run for congress. How many other people are writing those poems? Forget the stuff about “the Path” being superior to everything else. Let’s just talk about me and my uniqueness. If it has merit, and I’m the only one doing it...? Whereas, environmentally, politically – surely there are many other talented people with my level of intelligence, more than my level of dedication, and way more than my level of skill dealing with people. (I almost wrote ‘patience’ but the only reason i need so much patience is that i don’t like it to begin with. If you really like people, you don’t need patience so much because you enjoy it.)

as i sit with the idea of really committing to my life of idiosyncrasy, there is a discomfort. In a strange way, i think the practice is here the opposite of ‘trust your feelings.’ It’s not really an issue of trust or mistrust - just know them, see them, accept them. Maybe they’re telling you something really important, and maybe they’re not. Maybe all the discomfort is telling me is, you have a deep-seated issue of not feeling approved-of, not feeling worthy or good. But see all that desire and aversion – maybe those could loosen.


I feel very grateful for this gift of vision.

I am not sure this is orthodox vipassana practice, but I’m not sure that’s not-ok.

Note that the career stuff above doesn’t make teaching kabbalah or queer theology necessarily the right thing. Kabbalah in particular i think has so many problems with it. But i could teach it just as another set of stained glass, but with the self-consciousness that that’s what it is. My concern is, i don’t want to do violence to the tradition itself. That seems cheesy and unfair. Maybe even arrogant. Yet at the same time, the tradition itself has much i find not only irredeemable but moving in the wrong direction. Remember: either you preach to the choir all the time, or you meet people where they’re at, which means providing them with a ‘spiritual’ experience so that then they thirst for more. I would never have gotten to where i am had it not been for the idea of spirituality in general, and kabbalah in particular.

i guess i just want some more respect around the word kabbalah. If we just take it to mean anything that enables us to receive - well, that really could be anything from body electric to poi. To buddhism, of course. I think if i can be clear about that in my teaching it’s ok to innovate.

Concentration, and minute attention to shifts in the body, mind, heart – these techniques have been very useful today. Plus, i spent time working on my sources of suffering - that seems right too. Noticing also the desire to do the right thing, to get approval from the teachers...


This morning, last night, and yesterday day have been really major days. I’m feeling almost drained. As i intend to say to guy, the only thing that enables me to do this retreat is the practice itself. Impermanence, but also massive shifts and stuff coming up-> stability.

Ok putting down the machine for a bit.