Catherine Ingram [Ingram - Passionate Presence: Seven Qualities of Awakened Awareness

Seven Qualities of
Awakened Awareness

Catherine Ingram

DIAMOND BOOKS

SECOND EDITION 2008

Published by Diamond Books

P.O. Box 10431 Portland, OR 97210

www.DiamondBooksInfo.com

Copyright Catherine Ingram 2003

All rights reserved

ISBN 10: 0-9789193-1-9

ISBN 13: 978-0-9789193-1-3

First edition 2003

Published by Gotham Books, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

ISBN: 1-59240-002-7

Lyrics from Please Forgive Me used by permission from David Grey.

David Byrne song titles used by permission from David Byrne / Index Music.

Lyrics from Boogie Street and Waiting for the Miracle used by permission from Leonard Cohen.

Lyrics from Bob Dylans Youre A Big Girl Now Copyright 1974, 1975 by Rams Horn Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.

Lyrics from All I Have To Do Is Dream written by Boudleaux Bryant, 1958 by House of Bryant Publications, renewed 1986.

Translated excerpts of Rumi Coleman Barks, used by permission. Poetry by Daniel Ladinsky used by permission.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Cover design by Wick Design Studio
Printed in the United States of America

To my brother Glenn Ingram

(1963-2002)

For love

ALSO BY CATHERINE INGRAM

In the Footsteps of Gandhi

A Crack in Everything

My life and work rely on a network of supporters that has allowed me the time to write this book while running an organization that services an international community. To each of those people, I offer my sincere gratitude. However, I would like to specifically express appreciation to those who have had a direct hand or eye on this book or who have helped with its publication.

I offer my sincere gratitude to my friends and colleagues who read all or part of the original manuscript and who offered editorial suggestions or advice: Ron Alexander, Martha Bardach, Brandon Bays, David Berman, Andrew Beath, Ann Buck (and to Ann especially for providing writing refuge by the sea), Bob Chartoff, Leonard Cohen, Richard Cohen (and to Richard for his laser eye in editing), Julie Donovan, Jeff Gauthier, Hanuman Golden, Alexa Hatton, Jim Hurley, my brother Bob Ingram, Arthur Jeon, Helena Kriel, Mick Marineau, Mignon McCarthy, Geneen Roth, Steven and Merlyn Ruddell, Bob Wisdom, and Michael Worle.

My overwhelming appreciation goes to my friends who helped shape some of the most important concepts of the book: the young geniuses in my life, Sam Harris in Los Angeles and Diarmuid OConghaile in Dublin; my longtime and wise assistant, Maria Monroe in Portland; and my sparkling muse for the allegory, Mimi Buckley in San Francisco.

I offer my heartfelt thanks to those friends whose guidance in various aspects of publishing was most helpful: Lama Surya Das, Mark Epstein, Tara Goleman, Mark Matousek, and Sharon Salzberg. For design consultation, I thank my friends Zeida Rothman and Patricia Ziegler; and for execution of the design, John Morris-Reihl for the interior and Birgit Wick for the cover.

Lastly, I wish to express my gratitude to all those who call me teacher for all that they have taught me.

Over the millennia the search for meaning and belonging has been humankinds most fervent pursuit, and to that end religions and philosophies abound. Yet, in our time, many people feel alienated from all religion and philosophy, sensing them to be based in superstition, dogma, or hierarchies of power. The need for meaning and belonging remains the same, yet the traditional options for fulfilling that need have less and less appeal. In desperation, we have turned to consumerism, technology, and celebrity voyeurism as our new religions, and these, too, have proven unsatisfying. The modern world, for many, has become a soulless place.

Out of this disappointment comes a large and growing interest in finding meaning that is not based in beliefs or traditions, but instead relies purely on direct experience. Many people sense the spiritual, the mysterious breath of existence. Yet, though they sense the mysterious, they remain grounded in reason. Rational mystics, I call them. It may seem to such people that they are alone in their view, that they are not fit for either religion or the marketplace. They may feel that they are not fit for this world at all.

I know well the loneliness that comes when one no longer feels part of a spiritual tradition yet is wary of a purely mechanistic or biologically determined view of life. Some years ago I experienced an existential depression that lasted several years and fostered a cynical view of reality. Having previously been on a spiritual journey since the early seventies, I had studied with renowned teachers in Asia and the West and had immersed myself in a worldwide community of meditation practitioners, primarily in the Buddhist traditions. In addition to rigorous meditation practice, we studied what in Sanskrit is called the dharma, which loosely translates as truth or the way. For over a decade I had also worked as a journalist specializing in consciousness and activism in order to have access to and, in a sense, private tutorials with some of the great spiritual leaders and thinkers of our time. These were heady years of feeling part of a growing spiritual movement.

But there came a point when none of it made sense anymore. All religious beliefs began to fall away and seem nothing more than fairy tales attempting to assuage anxiety about the purposelessness of existence and the fear of death. This falling away of beliefs occurred completely on its own and was the last thing I would have wished. After all, it is very comforting to have a nice coherent story about the purpose of life and a belief in the hereafter. Instead, I plummeted into a vision of reality that was pointless and heartless. Having long since seen the futility of finding peace in the pursuit of power or money, and, now, set adrift from any connection to dharma, I felt a stranger to every world. I no longer spoke the language of my oldest and dearest friends, and a cold desolation engulfed me.

The silver lining of the cloud of depression is that it sometimes opens us to fresh perspective. When our strategies have failed and we have found no consolation in any quarter, we can either fall into madness or into realizing that what we have always wanteda passionate aliveness at peace in itselfis, strangely enough, found in a simple shift in perception.

In my case, meeting my teacher, the late H.W.L. Poonjaji of India, awoke in me a clarity that objectively viewed the story of my depression and pierced through it to underlying peace, dissolving the depression along the way. Poonjaji exhibited a possibility of living in the quiet center of ones being while remaining fully engaged in activity. His was a passionate expression of life, devouring its delights while remaining aware of its tragedies. Nevertheless, one sensed in him a silence that the world did not touch.

Despite my many years of meditation practice, I had never experienced inner stillness in an ongoing way. I had tried to come to that inner quiet through techniques of taming the mind, and that had been futile. Yet now all effort to still the mind fell away and my attention began to effortlessly rest in the silence beyond thought. Crazy thoughts continued, but interest in them lessened. Movements of mind, emotion, fear, or elation became as waves on an ocean of peace. An acclimatizing process began to occur on its own. Just as mountain climbers, when approaching a high altitude, must spend time camped at points along the way with no particular task other than to let their bodies adjust to the new altitude, I could feel my awareness adjusting to silence while doing nothing to assist it. The silence did all the work, just as being at the higher altitude does the acclimatizing work for the climbers.