Tag: AH Almaas

Some Random Thoughts

On By rrainefioreIn Awakening, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Here are some of the random thoughts running around in my head lately.  They may or may not be related to each other.

A feeling that is coming up a lot for me is the feeling that there is not enough for me.  It has been coming up every day especially around the time to eat and when we get to a new accommodation.  What if I’m the last one in line, there won’t be any food left.  Oh my god, I have to make sure that doesn’t happen.  What if there aren’t enough beds for me?  What if I have to sleep in a room with 10 people?  Oh My God.  I have no idea where this is coming from.  It’s somehow connected to the unwanted thing I’ve been feeling too.  So, more on this later as it makes itself clear.

It seems that everywhere I go, there is a cute guy.  I kind of hoped I would meet someone special on vacation or while in Thailand, but I always find myself attracted to one person on the tour or boat that I’m on.  Then I start wondering what they think, who are they, are they interested, etc.  Why can’t I just enjoy people’s company without there always having to be a potential of my future boyfriend.  It’s very frustrating.  Is this just human nature or am I still resisting alone and oneness?  Has anything really changed on this journey?  My feet have been hurting a lot lately and I think I am noticing that they hurt more when I’m thinking about a guy.  Then again, if I’m thinking of guys, my head is in the future.  So, is the foot hurting more global about living in the future instead of being present.  I feel like 80% to 90% of me is present most of the time, but the rest is living in thoughts about the future.   Then I am aware that I am in the future.  Then I’m in the future and present at the same time.  Future = Foot hurts.

Here are some good AH Almass quotes from the book I am reading.  They better explain what I was writing about a while ago.  Even if what we are experiencing isn’t “happy”, “peace”, “joy” or some other perceived good thing, we can still be present with it and see what we learn.  It doesn’t have to be seen as bad or suffering.  Instead, be curious and experience it fully.  “Even if we can stay present with an emotion or manifestation, it doesn’t immediately transform into its True Nature.  An emotion is not just a simple reaction to whatever is happening in the present situation. Usually the emotion has an entire history”.  He’s talking about being aware, being an observer on the outside.  I am very good at this and it’s happening almost 100% of my day.  But he is also talking about a different level of being present.  This, is what I tried to explain in past blogs:  “Normal awareness is observing experience from a distance, with the detachment of a subject viewing an object.  Not only noticing it, but you are also in contact with it, you are touching it, feeling it, sensing it’s texture and quality.  You are not only looking at it from the outside, you are aware of it from the inside as well and from all directions, from everywhere.  So presence brings in the quality of immediacy of awareness, which means having no distance between the awareness and what we are aware of”.

I think Americans are the loud kid on the playground – Hey look at me!

I would consider doing odd jobs and “lesser” jobs to live abroad, but not at home.  Why?

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

Dis-identification

On By rrainefioreIn Awakening, Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Not much new.  Lesson plans, teaching, market, too tired in the evening to do anything, sleep, repeat.

So, I leave you with another Almass quote that I read today.  I’m having more and more moments of feeling fuzzy and feeling like nothing is quite real.  I think this is dis-identification of the body.  So, of course, this chapter has perfect timing, again.

“We are continuously concerned about what happens to the body – about whether the body is comfortable or not, whether the body is getting what it wants or not.  Is the body getting comfort and pleasure, or is it in pain?  Is it secure from threat?  Is the body liked or not liked?  Is it thin or fat?  Tall or short?  All these are big concerns in our minds.  Our deepest issues are based on physical concerns, rather than concerns about whether we are loving, compassionate, or free.  Even though we might have these latter concerns, they are not as fundamental as our involvement with our physical body and our physical world”.

Oh, and random photos, I leave you with random photos.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

 

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Crepe Cake

Thoughts

On By rrainefioreIn Awakening, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Yesterday I got a body scrub.  It’s the first time I’ve felt clean in over a week.  I just am hot and sweaty all the time in Sam Ngao and I don’t feel like I’m really getting clean when I shower only to be sweating 3 minutes later.  Then Wednesday I didn’t have any water at the house so there was no shower to be had.  I had some coffee shop time, some pool and read Game of Thrones time and I did some coloring in my new Under the Sea coloring book.

I tried Tinder again.  Made some matches and chatted with a few guys.  I was hoping to meet someone to have dinner with, but didn’t.  I posted about it on facebook and got a bunch of replies cheering me on or telling me how to Tinder better.  At some point it just seems like a lot of work and by the time I was hungry I was glad to go eat alone.  I need to move somewhere cooler.  I think the heat takes all my energy and motivation.  Of course, I’m also questioning all my thoughts and beliefs about ‘alone’ too since that has historically been my biggest issue.  In the past I would swing between craving a relationship and not wanting to be around any people.  Now it no longer feels like a swing with big highs or lows on either side.  It feels more like an electrical short.  One minute I want company and conversation, the next I want to sit alone, then another minute I’m completely indifferent.  It switches so quickly that it feels silly to make any plans because it’s going to change.  It switches quickly, but none of it has much emotional charge to it.  There’s no craving, no sadness, no longing, just a quickly changing preference.  Now if only that would happen with my opinion of the heat…..

Today has been uneventful – breakfast and more coloring.  I ventured out to explore more of Chaing Mai and then went and hid from the heat in a coffee shop.  Think I’ll try to explore more after I write this blog.  Or give up and go back to the pool.

So, those of you following how I find AH Almaas relevant to my journey, the rest of this is for you.  I know that I’m not seeing life correctly.  With this knowledge, it shouldn’t matter where I live or what I do.  There is no real basis for waking up with the dreads, not liking teaching, hating the heat or thinking I should be planning what is next.  The chapter I’m reading is talking about how the world we live in is all concepts in our mind.  “Even if our mental world is lonely, and we gain little pleasure from our experiences, our thoughts are familiar and give us an illusion of security and control that binds us to them. We may see no alternative to this way of understanding ourselves and our world.  Because we believe it’s reality.  How can we think of an alternative?  Even if we think of and long for freedom, we think of freedom within that world”.  He suggested a meditation where you observe your thoughts.  Not the content of the thoughts, don’t try to figure out what they mean, but just notice the thinking process.  When does the thought arise, when does it stop, how long is the gap before the next thought arises?  It doesn’t matter what the thought is about or how it makes you feel, just look at the strings of thoughts and gaps.  No need to do something or react to the thought, see it as thinking itself.  I’ve tried this a few times.  It’s interesting.  That’s all I’m going to say about it right now.  Try it and see for yourself.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore20160512_144023_resized

 

Gardens

On By rrainefioreIn Awakening, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I didn’t do much exciting today.  I spent a good part of it at the coffee shop.  I don’t think Thais hang out in coffee shops for hours the way we do so they probably think I’m nuts or wonder when I’m ever going to leave.  So, rather than spend the whole day there I tried to go shopping.

I don’t know why, but going into the stores around town makes me very uncomfortable.  I’m being stared at.  I don’t know what half the stuff I’m looking at is.  And if I have questions, forget it.  I feel uncomfortable at the market, but I like it.  I don’t like stores.  Weird.  So, shopping didn’t take up much time.  Now what do I do?

I chased the mouse around the bathroom quite a bit today.  Then tonight, found him dead.  The bathroom is mine again, well, not really.  There are probably 8 small geckos living in there and some bugs.  Why do jumping spiders live near the toilet?

I tried to find the orange house of the lady who made me promise to come visit her.  I didn’t find it.  There were a few peach colored houses and some cedar colored houses.  Too bad it wasn’t pepto bismol pink because there was only one of those and it was unmistakable or that equally obnoxious green house.

I went to the gardens up by the dam.  At some point the road has manicured lawns along it and beautiful landscape.  This makes me sad because I live in the woods and I want to live in a place with lawns and landscape.  So this brings up the question:  Why do certain things make us relax and others don’t when in reality, one isn’t better than the other?  I think it’s a combination of familiarity and programmed preferences.  The manicured lawns remind me of the US and of wealthier/nicer neighborhoods.  The woods I live in make me think of snakes, bugs and other crawly things.  There’s trash everywhere and it’s wild and uncared for.  Granted, I’d rather look at pretty flowers than trash in a pile of dead leaves, but it’s the way looking at one vs the other actually changes the way I feel, my emotions, my nervous system, my energy level.  The reality is one is not actually different than the other (except the trash), both are nature.  My friend Corina and I were discussing this the other day as we were comparing me trying to rid my house of mice and tokays and she had squirrels in her garage.  Somehow, the squirrels were not as bad as mice and tokays.  But in reality, what is the difference?  I also noticed this when I was in Vietnam and they drove on the “right” side of the road.  I felt my system relax a little.  I noticed this in Singapore too.  Everything is clean, people drive politely, there are gardens and art everywhere.  Why is planned landscape better than natural?  I think part of may be because of the intention that was put into creating a garden or art, but it’s still interesting how physical the reaction is, not just a simple “aw, I like that”.  And how automatic the reaction is that we may not even notice it enough to ask the question.  So, apparently I want to live a wealthier lifestyle and I’m drawn to the things that represent that to me.

I read some more of Diamond Heart Book 4.  I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s just amazing that whenever I read AH Almaas, he’s speaking directly to me as if he just wrote that chapter for me 5 minutes before I decided to read it.  This only happens EVERY time I read his books.  This time it was about how the problem is that we aren’t seeing correctly.  We aren’t seeing reality.  We are seeing concepts we learned a long time ago.  We are seeing concepts in our brains.  I was just talking about how I feel like I’m not seeing correctly.  And I think the previous paragraph fits into this as well.  Maybe I should read more Almaas and less Game of Thrones…….

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

 

 

On By rrainefioreIn AwakeningLeave a comment

Still really enjoying reading Diamond Heart Book 4.  Whenever I read anything from AH Almaas, it feels like he wrote the exact thing I needed to read that very day.  This is what stuck with me today:  “White blood cells defend and protect and then they are cleaned out of the body.  The personality defends and protects.  It needs to be clarified”.    I’ve been sick a lot this year.  Does the body go through a similar cleaning process as the personality is being clarified?

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

On By rrainefioreIn AwakeningLeave a comment

I was reading Diamond Heart Book 4 today.  It started out talking about how people that claim instant Realization and that realization doesn’t happen this way.  It’s not instant, it’s nonlinear, it’s a process.  I was just discussing this with Lisa and how I want to write about my process in this blog.  As I was reading this, I could see colors swirling on the white page.  Fun!

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore