disrupted sleep. beautiful dream.

don't sleep well these days. takes a while to fall asleep and keeps coming in and out of it. anyhow last night i dream in one of these short sleeps. beautiful and bright dream. a huge crowd gathers in front of the room hwubby and i live in for a spiritual event. our room is one of several in the back of this space. a huge space. so crowded i have to crawl my way through rows and stacks of people. at one point i have to snake around and under a grand piano. once the event is over people flow out in all directions. i look up and see a splendid vista behind the crowd. i am gazing into spectacular gorge just before sunrise. the top slightly flat-bottomed v is filled with misty, lovely, exquisite pre-dawn lights. the bottom inverted flat-bottomed v is shimmering, midnight blue water. two vast triangular pitch-black masses form the awe-inspiring gorge. then the next scene is this bustling eating scenario after the event. people sit around little tables nibbling. i see this swami, an elegant beloved woman in her seventies. she is beaming. she says to me, in her lyrical voice and kind tone, kind of hungry, need some food. i scurry around very concerned i will not be able to find food good enough for her. i find this old woman selling dollops of chapati dough. i get some only to realize i don't have a rolling pin. anxiety is building up fast. just before i awake it comes to me. toast and tea. i feel this relief. of course. toast and tea are enough and good enough.

aaaah. the remnants of unworthiness, inadequacy.

try whatever. play. see where it takes you.

i'm having an experience of the law of inertia. it takes a lot to get the action started. i need to do rewrites on the manuscript. i see resistance, fear, frustration, i'm way over my head, this is too much to handle, what am i thinking, the world doesn't need another novel, blah blah blah, popping up like whack-a-mole.

i confide in hwubby. he says, god is with you, i love you, you are great, keep breathing deep into your belly, feel your feet planted into the floor, the chair supporting you, then, this is important, set the timer to a session of 20 to 40 min, dive in, then get up for a 5 min pause, go out into the garden every so often.

so here i am in the beginning of the first session, sipping tea (yum cha), asking my inner self, where should i begin? open a new doc? or make a copy of the first chapter and use the 'tracking changes' feature? response comes quickly. try 'tracking changes'. try whatever. play. see where it takes you.

right away i realize i don't trust myself. in the words of my editor, lacking confidence. it's part and parcel of the old tendency of unworthiness, afraid of making mistakes, fear of getting lost.

enough of this. i've gotta move on. get out of my head and into the body. i know what to do. i'm not starting from a blank slate. i've already got plenty of good stuff. i am a wonderful writer. i'm building on what i have. dig in, suk wah.

feelings of unworthiness are expressions of yearning

i have a teacher dream, a teaching dream. it digs out entrenched tendrils of unworthiness.

here's what i remember so far. i'm walking with a few classmates from secondary school, laughing, carefree when i see my meditation teacher coming out of somewhere picking people to study with her. i watch other people being chosen, feel some envy, inadequacy, and then i'm being picked as well. but, instead of being grateful i focus on trying to get a seat at the table as close to the teacher as possible. then i go away, do something, and proceed to return. i find myself being delayed by unseen forces. upon return the study has already begun. the whole table is full except a spot at the end. the teacher turns to me, beams and says something. i can't recall what she says. in the dream i am all worked up about having to sit at the far end of the table. as a matter of fact, the table is not that big, just regular size. i'm not paying attention to the study at all. then comes a pause. a big scene in an ornate bathroom with heavy, carved wooden doors. then i'm walking back. the teacher comes out from around a corner. what unfolds then is a scene where she, i and a couple of girls sitting in a cozy gazebo, hanging out. she leans back, puts her feet up. and mostly, what i am thinking in the dream is, why am i not sitting next to her? after a while, someone passing by notices the teacher, starts talking to her. she gets up in mid-sentence. i wake up.

this morning's meditation i see these long forgotten unworthy feelings in the tween years, teen years, young adult years. i had no name for it back then. i couldn't see it for what it is. i thought it was because i was not enough, not good enough, did not have enough. though now i understand that such feelings are really expressions of my yearning to connect with inner self which is worthiness itself. instead i tried to find something, someone to make me feel worthy. over and over and over.

i am once again reminded that those impressions are not totally wiped out from my consciousness. not yet. so i have to be gentle with myself when they come up. don't beat myself up. don't even ask why. just be aware of it and determinedly direct attention back to the breath. hwubby says, yeah, that's turning away from darkness, towards light.

deadliest residual habitual tendency

a dream. i'm walking by the back door of a hall where my meditation teacher had just given a public program. two of my classmates from secondary school in hong kong are with me. my mind is open, quiet. the door opens wide and my teacher walks out. pure lights stream out from her. sweet, gentle lights. warm, bright lights. sublime lights holding hints of all hues in the rainbow. i pause in my track. in the dream i have no expectation other than enjoying her presence the way it is. out of the blue she turns in my direction, walks a few steps forward, and with a beaming smile asks me directly, is there a bus? i take it seriously and say, yes, it is at...she cuts me off with a delightful chuckle. i realize she is joking around, loosening me up. then she hopskotches away, singsongs, i have two hatha yoga teachers.

i tell hwubby all about it. he says, it sounds like a happy dream. i say, yes. no sooner than i said it i felt a whisper in the far horizons of awareness. no, you can't be that happy.

right away i see it for what it is. the deadliest of all residual habitual tendency. unworthiness with its extended family like inadequacy, not-enough, not good enough, not have enough, etc, etc, etc. i just watch it while holding my attention tight as i can on the flow of the breath. i'm determined not to feed it with any other thought. period.