Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: awareness

  • I Am Made of You

      It is this disinterested but completely allowing contemplation of the body in the world that the body loses its ‘me-ness’ and the world loses its ‘not-me-ness.’ In this way bodily sensations no longer cry out ‘I am separate, I am exclusively you” and perceptions of the world no longer cry out, ‘I am separate, I am not you.’ Everything sings out, ‘I am made of you.’ ~ Rupert Spiria


    Is this a drawing of a duck or a rabbit?

    A catchy little trick from NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) was to ask a client if he or she was sure enough to be unsure when that person could see conflicting points of view. This week it has come into clarity how vital it may be for each of us to move toward willingness to live in a state of asking that of ourselves: “Am I sure enough to be unsure?”

    The point is freedom from identification with any point of view; a full freedom from attachment to ALL points of view. This does not mean I won’t have a point of view. Of course we will. The shift comes as awareness reveals whatever the point of view, it is simply a point of view.

    Points of view can be very similar, somewhat similar, somewhat different, radically different, or even diabolically opposed. I think you will agree that way too often solidified points of view which are widely differing or diabolically opposed can become deadly. Literally….

    At the very least solidified points of view have an impact on rapport and can damage relationships, cause stress, and rob us of our natural state of harmony and happiness.

    Decades ago it was pretty easy for me to hold a firm intention to have freedom from a “negative” point of view, and to observe the changes within myself when I was free from that point of view. I could quite easily and notice when my Debbie Downer was in charge, and I could choose a better feeling thought. This was quite skillful at that time.

    The past several years I have been studying Sacred Darkness with a group of others who are also intentional about awareness with a capital “A.” What is sometimes called “pure” awareness is not a limited awareness of this or that, and it is not attached to a particular point of view. Even preferences of positive or negative are simply part of the continuum of The All That Is.

    For sure, I prefer feeling positively, but can you see that this preference is also aversion to feeling negatively? I remember so well letting something negative “go,” but continuing to hold the point of view that it was or is negative.

    Aaron’s Daily Reflection:

    Many of you were raised with this idea, “Hold it in the light and it will dissolve.” What do I do if it doesn’t dissolve? And of course, sometimes it doesn’t dissolve. If the conditions are present and have not yet been purified, then that condition will arise and will maintain itself until the conditions dissolve. If the conditions for body pain are still there, the pain will remain, no matter how much you try to love it. You do not love it to make it go away. You hold it in love — the body pain, the anger — because that spaciousness is what allows the conditions to dissolve. If you hold it in a kind of idea of love, saying, “I will love it. I will love it. Why is it still here? I’m loving it so hard! Why doesn’t it go?”, well, you’re just more and more contracting, more and more caught up in whatever has arisen, because you’re trying to smash it away.

    Rupert Spira is a teacher of non-dual awareness. He is the author of the opening quotation. His words are still a bit foreign to most humans when we try to use the finite mind to know or speak about the world. However, Spira’s work assures us, “It’s not possible to view the world directly from awareness’ perspective,” because, “There’s no room in the infinite for the finite.”

    Awareness needs the finite mind to know the world. The finite mind holds points of view.

    Every point of view is finite but love is infinite.

    Perhaps one way human beings are able to open to and enjoy the sweet fragrance of infinite love is by being sure enough to be unsure…. I am made of you.

  • Learn, Grow, and Change

    One of the most extraordinary aspects of our humanity
    is our capacity to learn, grow, and change.

    ~ Sheryl Chard (Gratefulness.org)

    One week ago today I got a call from the son of my long-time business partner, Joel Bowman, asking who in Kalamazoo could take his dad to the ER.

    Of course, I am in Florida. A former student, Deb Doerschler, is also still in the south-for-the-winter location. Joel’s wonderful friend, Bob Kipp, was at their place up north. I suggested a neighbor who has been part of the behind-the-scenes support for the past several years. Thankfully, she was able and willing.

    Joel was admitted to the hospital that evening.

    I was so angry a few days later when Joel’s son did not even let me know that Joel had been moved to a skilled nursing facility. Two of Joel’s friends had tried to visit him at the hospital, and were told he had been discharged.


    The anger has born fruit. (Uncomfortable emotions have a way of doing that.)

    Wednesday night, seeking some inner peace around the situation, I was led to watch “The Roots of Anger” by Thich Nhat Hanh on YouTube. Here are my notes:

      You don’t have the right to keep your anger to yourself alone more than 24 hours.

      You should tell him or her but in calm speech. If you cannot do it, you can write it down on a piece of paper.

      Sentence one:
      I suffer. I am angry, and I want you to know it.

      (I don’t know why you have done such a thing to me. I don’t know why you have said such a thing to me. I suffer very much. I’m angry. I want you to know.)

      Sentence two:
      I am doing my best.

      (I am practicing mindful breathing and mindful walking, generating the energy of mindfulness in order to take care of my anger, in order to bring relief, and then I will be looking deeply into my anger to see what the root of my anger is. That is to see whether it is my wrong perception that has created anger, maybe because of some of your unskillfulness.)

      Sentence three:
      Please help me. I need your help.

    Thursday afternoon as I was doing yoga, awareness visited me and opened my heart. I had total body memory of the first night my mom was at an adult foster care home. After dropping her off, I had my best night’s rest in months.

    Relief from my uncomfortable emotions because she was not in her own home totally hid from awareness her uncomfortable emotions because she was not in her own home.

    Compassion for all of us washed over past, present and future.

    When I was able to speak to Joel while he was in the hospital he told me he had been taken captive, was being held in some industrial compound, and some kind of experiment was being conducted on him. I said, “I understand totally that from your perspective Western medicine might feel like that, but you are in Bronson hospital. Nancy Anderson took you to the ER because you were very sick and could have died if you did not get treated immediately.”

    I encouraged him to look on the walls of the room. Could he see a white board with his name on it? Yes, he could. He told me it also had the date and the names of the doctor and nurses assigned to his care.

    “It isn’t aliens who are taking care of you,” I assured him.

    To which he replied, “In a way, we are all aliens….”

    Profound awareness.

    These past years I have often been angry at Joel’s son and daughter-in-law. I have been an alien to the roots of that anger. The roots of that anger had been guilt and pain over my lack of awareness for my mom’s emotional needs during that time.

    And for all of these years I had been an alien to the forgiveness and peace awareness brings.

    Awareness frees us.

    Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’