Contemplative Currents Podcast

Seye Kuyinu
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Gentle reminders, mindful contemplations for those seeking to explore the depth and essence of our being, the glorious Mystery that we are. seyekuyinu.substack.com

  1. 4D AGO

    The Messy Ground Is Holy Ground

    I tell you, it seems like most of my life, I have waited for “this part” to be finally over so I can just move on to other good things. Like when I was in the University. I hated it so much! Life seemed impossibly hard. My classes were difficult to understand and quite honestly, I was disinterested in most of my courses because I was more focused on making ends meet(in my immediate situation) than learning about lipids and “the anastomosis of the heart”. Oh, I hated exam season too, particularly because I had a lecturer who wanted to be bribed before he’d let anyone pass his exams. Yes, true story! It was kind of the small corruption that captured the larger indignity of my whole experience. I was not financially buoyant. My parents were struggling to make ends meet, and meanwhile, my own ends couldn’t even meet anything! Not to talk about having three meals a day. I know this does sound like the beginning of one of those grass-to-grace stories. I don’t even intend for it to be that way(and there’s no success story on this one). But what I am saying is I was broke, hated school, no longer cared to be a medical doctor, and to make matters worse, I schooled in Northern Nigeria, which was an incredibly humid, dry, and hot location compared to where I grew up. So even the physical experience of being in school was so darn frustrating. My gosh! I just wanted to finish, get my degree, and finally start to work and make my own living. That was the finish line! Everything beyond it was where real life would start. No? I just wanted to leave and finally make real money and be an adult! Nobody told me! Well, nobody told me. Nobody told me that this would be yet another spiral. “When I get a job, I will finally breathe!” “Oh, when I get a better-paying job, I will finally be happy.” “When I move to a better city, then I’ll feel alive.” “When the political climate shifts, then I’ll relax into the life I’ve been meaning to live.” My goal post has shifted again because when I retire and finally own that plot of land with two cute donkeys, three goats, and egg-laying chickens, then, then, I will finally have arrived. To be honest, a part of me still does this. A part of me can’t wait to be retired, cash out on my 401k, sip pina colada from the rewards of past investments, chil on my four-acre plot of land with all the donkeys, chickens, and goats I can enjoy tending. And more realistically, my mind finds comfort in hoping that the political climate changes because perhaps then there would be a beautiful conclusion for me, and I would finally stop living in this limbo and enjoy the life I’ve been wanting to enjoy. But I’m not bamboozled. Not anymore. I know exactly how this plays out. There will always be yet another thing waiting for me to finally conquer once I escape this particular reality. Interestingly, coincidentally, all the mystics have been here, seen it, seen through it, and they’ve been hinting at this since like forever. Lessons from Mystics of old I was shocked and inspired when I read about St. John of the Cross, who spent years in a prison cell, literally a closet, beaten once a week, starved, humiliated by his own religious brothers. Yet he didn’t write his most luminous poetry after the cell. He wrote the poems that we so enjoy reading during. He didn’t wait for the suffering to end before touching something …eternal. The dark night was literally his terrain. Meister Eckhart, the great Dominican mystic, once said something that still rattles me: “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘thank you,’ it will be enough.” Not thank you for the life I’m going to have. Not thank you for when things finally shift. More like…thank you for even this. Isn’t that outrageous if you think about this? Or if you’re in a funk, how can you really relate to this? The Desert Mothers and Fathers, one of them, Abba Moses, when asked for advice by a young monk, simply said: “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” Not go find a better cell. Not wait until the conditions improve. Sit. Here. Now. And let this be the teacher. Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching(Chapters 6 and 28) pointed to the same thing: the valley doesn’t become fertile by climbing upward. It receives everything precisely because it stays low. The Tao doesn’t hurry, and yet everything is accomplished. It so happens that while I recognize the internal movement …the reaching, the leaning toward some future where things will finally be arranged in my favor, there is a growing recognition. A slow, almost reluctant, clear seeing. This path... where I am... is the only way. It is literally the only place I can be and the only place I need to be. Of course, with this kind of leaning, we are bound to question: is this some form of resignation? A giving up without trying? A spiritual bypassing dressed in contemplative spiritual garbage talk? Well, in this clear seeing, I tell you what: There is a weird, might I say, psychotic—acceptance that where we are is exactly where we need to be. And that acceptance, when it is full, comes with a strange enjoyment. Not enjoyment like pleasure or entertainment. More like the enjoyment of a river that has finally stopped fighting its own current. The enjoyment of my weight, your weight resting fully on the ground. Brother Lawrence, the 17th-century Carmelite monk, spent decades washing dishes and repairing sandals in a monastery kitchen. He wasn’t waiting for a more spiritual assignment. Or like the prosperity gospel disease of evangelical circles, he wasn’t waiting for someday God blessing him with plenty of money. He(as the books about him now calls it) practiced “the presence of God” among the pots and pans. He wrote: “The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer.” I bet you, he didnt’ have some superhuman equanimity. He just stopped making the distinction between where God was supposed to be and where God actually was, which, for him was right there, in the greasy water, in the worn leather. Oh, I think he even suffered severe pains late into his life. Ramana Maharshi was once asked by a devotee: “How long will it take to reach Self-realization?” He replied: “Self-realization is not something to be gained. It is already there. All that is needed is to get rid of the thought ‘I have not realized.’” In other words: you’re not on the way to the way. You’re in it. This way—with all its mess, all its discomfort, all its unresolved spirals—is the way. I am no longer bamboozled Yeah, I am no longer bamboozled waiting for ‘good times’. Unfortunately Fortunately, the spiral doesn’t stop. The next thing I’m waiting for will arrive, and right behind that one too, is another waiting. What shifts for me now is not the circumstances, situations and scenarios I am in. What shifts for me is the relationship to where I stand. And somehow, this shift is also in the body, in the breath, in the way I stand, the recognition of the ground I stand on. That ground is the only thing that’s real. And in that realness, I am fully carried. Ah! It’s just this very moment. Totally complete. Contemplative Prompts * What are you currently enduring that you’ve been treating as a hallway to somewhere better? What if the only thing you can change internally is the orientation you have. So instead of a hallway, could it be a room you were meant to inhabit? * Where in your life are you postponing enjoyment, presence, or peace until a condition is met? What does that postponement cost you today? * Sit with Abba Moses’ phrase: “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” What is your “cell” right now? What might it be trying to teach you that you’ve been too restless to hear? * Can you recall a time when something you desperately wanted to escape became, in retrospect, the very thing that shaped you most deeply? What does that suggest about where you are now? * What would it feel like, not as an idea but in your body, to stop leaning forward? To let your full weight rest on this moment, this ground, this life as it is? Did you read this one? If you liked this one, I bet you, you’d like these other posts: Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity. Thanks for reading Contemplative Currents! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

    12 min

  2. FEB 2

    What Milo Taught Me About Desire

    I have had a lot of background conversations about my orientation towards the concept of Prayer from the last post, the one called Pray, Not As Prey. These conversations have circled around questions I've been living with for years: What do we do with our desires? How do we hold our wanting without being consumed by it? Is there a way to pray that doesn't feel like begging an indifferent universe? I want to share something small that's become another doorway into how I see these questions, courtesy of the most patient being I've ever known. I have a 9 am check-in with my teams before my day kicks into full gear. This has happened every single workday for the last 5 years since working mostly from home. Milo has learned this rhythm and so he’s been used to me giving him treats right before the meetings begin. Originally, the treats have been my small indulgence to keep him occupied before I disappear into my day. These are treats that would take him about 20 minutes to chew to get him preoccupied. When he was a puppy I made this a thing so he would not chew up my baseboards or get in trouble doing things he shouldn’t. But over the last 5 years, through some ‘canine efficiency’, he has reduced the amount of time he consumes these treats to about 4 minutes. I am talking about large chews that take smaller dogs days to chew. And the darn packaging would write “long-lasting entertainment”. They lied! Now, here’s the challenge! I’m facing what I call ‘my daily heartbreak’. Well, our daily heartbreak. After one supposed-to-last-twenty-minute treat, he comes back for more! But here’s how he does it: he doesn’t beg, he doesn’t whine or scratch or bark. He’s the most patient dog I know...perhaps the most patient being I’ve ever encountered. So instead, he sits quietly beside me and stares at me. Not just for minutes! Not just for an hour! He stares at me for hours on end. HOURS! Daily! I tell you. I am not even joking! At this point, you’re probably like ‘oh, then just give him some more’. I do! But it gets to a point where you know it can’t be healthy feeding him treats that much, especially when it affects his eating, compromises his wellbeing, shorten perhaps, the very life I’m trying to protect. So, just waiting, with an unwavering focus that would put most meditators to shame, his eyes track my every movement, his body remaining still, poised, and hopeful. The entire architecture of his attention bent toward just one freaking simple single possibility: one more treat, sir. But I need YOU to understand this. He stares at me for roughly three hours daily and I’m not EXAGGERATION! Three hours of patient, quiet, unrelenting hope. DAILY! Now, seeing him do this day after day, I am often so moved to something beyond pity. It’s more like grief mixed with helplessness mixed with a strange, aching recognition of my own hopes and longing. How can he want something so badly, sit so patiently waiting, and yet unsure why nothing is happening to satisfy this desire? If only he would let go. If only he went to lay down in the patch of sunlight by the window, played with one of the darn toys he’s refused to play with, chased the shadows that move across the living room floor. His suffering through waiting and hoping I’ll throw him a bone (pun very much intended) would not be so acute, so prolonged, so utterly consuming. In caring for him, in witnessing his suffering, in realizing there’s very little I can do besides either giving him a lot of unhealthy food or withholding what he desires, I find there’s no way I don’t care for his well-being. My refusal is an act of love, even as it looks to him like denial. Even as it feels to me like cruelty. And then the reflection here for me, as it always does when sitting long enough with anything real, is: What if... just what if he had the ability to know, to be satisfied that I have his best interest at heart? What if he could hold both his desire and his trust simultaneously? Would he not realize that what he currently has is enough, and that in the right time, he would be rewarded with what is actually good, not just what he thinks he wants? I sit with this question. I turn it over like dough, kneading each corner. Turning it around in the mind, turning it over to myself: What would it be like if I realized that what I have is all I need? Of course, someone may say “that is you resigning or diminishing your desires and could be some form of bypassing”. But could we look at it clearly. Oh, I do have strong desires, desires that move through me like weather systems, powerful and undeniable. Can I commit them into what I’m calling the Well of Knowing, trusting that the Universe is not dead, not indifferent, but fully alive and responsive to deal with things as they should be? What then is the role of prayer since I see it not as a cry to an entity that needs those desires spilled out before taking action? Is prayer dead then? The question itself feels almost heretical in our age. But no, I don’t think it is. Maybe another way to see prayer is that it could be an invocation of truth to desire. It’s not the killing of desire, but the offering of it to something larger, something that can hold both our wanting and our wellbeing in the same hand. Once again, my desires aren’t mine. I could not have created a desire. They arise from the field of Nothing. It seems to me then, when I remember this—when I really remember it, not just think about it, then the ground on which I stand becomes the only stable ground. Not because it’s solid under my feet, but because it’s true. Literally. And in that ground, I am fully carried. I don’t have to carry myself. In that awareness, I am reminded that nothing needs to be added or removed. Just this —complete. In With Open Hands, Henri J.M. Nouwen writes, “A person with hope does not get tangled up with concerns for how his wishes will be fulfilled. So, too, his prayer is not directed toward the gift, but toward the one who gives it. His prayer might still contain just as many desires, but ultimately it is not a question of having a wish come true but of expressing an unlimited faith in the giver of all good things. For the prayer of hope, it is essential that there are no guarantees asked, no conditions posed, and no proofs demanded, only that you expect everything from the other without binding him. Hope is based on the premise that the other gives only what is good”. He continues, “Hope includes an openness by which you wait for the other to make his promise come true, even though you never know when, where or how this might happen”. Thinking about ‘the ground’, I think about the clarity of what the Buddhists would call cosmic interdependence, the understanding that nothing exists independently. It is obvious, isn’t it, that all phenomena and all beings are caused to exist by every other phenomena and beings. Oh, can’t we all see it? That our existence as human beings depends on earth, air, water, and other forms of life. Just as our existence depends on and is conditioned by those things, they also are conditioned by our existence. Our longings, our desires, they are part of the miracle of Existence! If they are truly emergent in me, then they belong to Existence. I call it that, you can call it God. And if that is true, if it is true that what I call my desire belongs to Existence, then the words of the writer of the first epistle of John, 5:14 may be pointing to something important. He wrote, "if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us, and we know we have obtained the requests."If we can clearly see that we are not separate from existence, that the many different things— rocks, flowers, car exhaust, Milo are expressions of us, and we are expressions of them, if we can see that existence is true to itself, we can learn to trust this ground. And that’s the hardest part! Geez! That, right there is what to practice— Trust! Reflection Prompts: * What are you waiting for with the same patient intensity as Milo? What would it mean to lay down that vigil, even temporarily? * Where in life might denial actually be an expression of love—either from yourself to yourself, or from something larger toward you? * What desires are you holding that might benefit from being offered to the “Well of Knowing” rather than carried alone? Suggested and related readings Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity. Thanks for reading Contemplative Currents! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

    13 min

  3. JAN 24

    Pray. Not as prey

    I want to start this by expressing my immense gratitude for the outpouring of love from my last post. I received dozens of private messages that I am holding so tenderly in my heart. I still am. You see, when I look at my life honestly, without doubt, I see how generously it has been held. Oh, the words of support! Thank you! You know, I could never in a million years have dreamed or willed myself to what exists in this experience of living— a family that cares so so steadily, a career that feels quite honestly like a dream, a business and an income that sustains me very fairly, the company of the very best books there are in all lines of my interest, and most especially the very best friends I could ever have. If I had better friends than I do now, I would explode! If the world crumbled and came back with us all in it, I will find each and everyone again: including you, who reads this from your inbox. Oh, I am so blessed to have been given the opportunity to love as deeply as I do, in the way I do, even if it’s handed back to me, half-opened, arriving unfinished or heart-shattering. Oh, I would shatter it over and over again to reveal my true self. How could I express these blessings without pointing to my roommate, Milo, who teaches me lessons that could never be penned. His presence teaches me more and more the efficiency of moving without words, being without apology, and the joys of companionship with that which is not cut from the same flesh or the same blood(oh, I could write a longer reflection on this). Yet, given the current direction in which the wind blows in this hemisphere, if sustained, I stand the chance of losing all of it. Emmm…not metaphorically. Literally! And nothing has prepared me for this possibility more than the steady practice of surrender(that I write frequently write about here). I understand now why the image of the Muslim at prayer moves me so deeply. Facing east, bowing to the ground, rising only to bow again. What an image! There is nothing ornamental about it. If anything it is a bodily confession. Oh isn’t it what we are called to do daily? Isn’t it what I must practice daily? As my will tightens against Reality, caught in my own illusion of separation, I am reminded to surrender, to bow to Reality, to the glorious Mystery. Again and again. Again and again. And again and again. Oh this must be what it is to be baptised. To die and be buried under The Water, to rise again to the fullness of Reality. And over and over again, we plunge into the Water of Life till we are fully buried, rising up to newness. A way of dying: prayer Perhaps death does not arrive all at once. Obviously! Perhaps it gathers quietly, as the different systemic structures and the structures of self reach their limit. Sometimes through unbearable pain. Sometiems through the most heart-wrenching, gut-ripping heartbreak. Sometimes through the grief of real raw unbearable loss. Sometimes, through the possibility of being chained unreasonably by masked men at night. Sometimes, through the slow exhaustion of holding one’s self together. When that threshold is reached, something just must give. This is where prayer meets me now. You see, I no longer see prayer as a request or negotiation. Gosh, who would I be requesting to? An entity we pray to who has to see people die, break apart, separate from families, and only waits to move based on emotional requests, called prayer? Surely such an entity must be a monster. As I have written here before, prayer no longer functions for me as a channel for asking or pleading or emotionally cajoling, using manipulative language that lowkey sounds like one party is trying to blackmail the other. Instead, it functions as a solvent. A way of laying myself down until there is nothing…absolutely nothing left to protect, nothing left to argue for, nothing left to defend. And so I start with prayers as poetry, the words moving my soul as I drink of the beauty of words gliding through my tongue, the assonances and aliterations and metaphors and imagery, the magic of expressions moved through vibrations in the vocal cord. What miracle it is to have words! What miracle it is to evoke what is present here, right now. What miracle it is that my desires are aligned with the desires of the Universe, the Universe speaking through me, as me. What miracle it is that I am slowly melting in the words, and the words are no longer words as they melt into mutters and mutters into hums and hums into silence, where I cease to be. Where fear dissolves. What miracle it is to know that I have never had a will, as my supposed will breaks into unity with the Divine, and all I am left with is the ‘not my will, but yours be done’. And in this assurance, I am made alive again. In this assurance, I can just be. I can do what needs to be done and rest in peace when nothing needs be done. Is this not your prayer too? A prayer May Your will move us where our fear tightensThat Your wisdom speakwhere our understanding collapses.That You take my need to be spared, my desire to be in control, and do with it what is true,leaving nothing false standing. Selected posts on Prayer:A Prayer Of ExtolationA simple recipe for meeting the DivineOf Prayer and the Anthropomorphic GodA Prayer In LonelinessThe Nectar of True DevotionLife Takes Care of Life A wider list of my essays on Prayers, and a longer one on Surrender. Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity. Thanks for reading Contemplative Currents! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

    8 min

  4. JAN 18

    Choosing to love, no matter what

    I am currently bracing for a season of solitude, putting structures in place for minimal physical interactions with the outer world, keeping documents and important paraphernalia in easily accessible locations, making sure I can easily access emergency contact while figuring out guardianship for Milo, my doggie roommate. In this space, I have also been exploring, as practice, deeper levels of what it means to be free within. In the confines of my own home, projecting the safety within to the chaos that I am seeing without. I am opening up to the experience of grief, heartbreak, at the same time the truest experience of what it is to open up my heart fully…despite! Beyond the logistics of the things happening under the surface, there is a deeper preparation happening for me. In this dense, liminal space, I have been practicing what it is to be free using the confines of my own home. I am attempting to project the safety I cultivate inside to the walls of this house, to the chaos I perceive without. This paradox forces me to reflect on the people and systems that surround us. I find myself holding tight to the inspiration found in the life of Anne Frank. Confined to an attic, stripped of agency, she famously chose to believe in the inherent goodness of humanity. From her, I am learning the critical distinction between systems of oppression and the people trapped within them. And it is so so easy to conflate the two. It is easy to look at those who ride on the wings of broken systems and see them only as enemies. I am learning that we can choose to love the person while still giving reverence to the terrifying power of the systems that shape their movement and behavior. We can acknowledge the machinery without dehumanizing the cog. This brings me to the ultimate question of agency: What is in my control, and what is not? Is loving those who hurt us, who persecute us, actually possible? Is there a pathway to it that isn’t just …spiritual bypassing? Surely, it must be possible. If Viktor Frankl could find meaning in the ashes of Auschwitz, if Nelson Mandela could emerge from twenty-seven freaking years of imprisonment with a vision for reconciliation rather than revenge, then the capacity exists somewhere within the human spirit. It is difficult— excruciatingly so. But I know it’s possible. For me, this is where "practice" falls. How can I look at a person who has truly hurt me and choose to see them as an extension of myself and not a villain? How do I move beyond the performative dance of forgiveness while arriving at a place of true recognition? And what lies beyond my control? Clearly, changing entire systems of oppression single-handedly is out of reach. But perhaps there is a different way to view these behemoths. Can we look at these so-called broken systems and see them as indicators of a deep, starving hunger rather than monsters? Can we see the violence and the oppression as a desperate, twisted cry for attention that the brokenness is calling for? When I ask these questions, I feel a physical shift. If I can let my chest area melt, if I can allow my heart to actually open, the contracted polarities of good vs. evil, us vs. them, they seem to drop away. In that space, I am left only with the raw, difficult, and yet beautiful work of being human. Navigate this season with ancestors To navigate this season of solitude and inner expansion, I look more closely at the “ancestors of isolation”, those who turned confinement into a cathedral of the spirit. I think of Anne Frank: The Separation of Soul and System. Anne Frank’s brilliance wasn’t just her optimism it was her ability to maintain an identity separate from her circumstances. As I referenced, when we mistake the system for the person, we lose our ability to empathize. What I learned in her story is that people often act out of fear and conditioning. The system provides the script, meanwhile the person reading it is often just as lost as the victim. By seeing the “good” in people, Anne wasn’t denying their capacity for evil; she was acknowledging that their core self was being suppressed by a poisonous ideology. I think of Etty Hillesum, the Guardian of the Well …while Anne Frank is often remembered for her optimism, Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman in Amsterdam who eventually perished in Auschwitz, offers a fierce, mystical pragmatism. In the face of impending doom, she refused to let her heart turn into a stone of hatred. She famously wrote, “Every atom of hatred we add to the world makes it still more inhospitable.” “Such words as ‘God’ and ‘death’, and ‘suffering’ and ‘eternity’ are best forgotten. We have to become as simple and as wordless as the growing corn or the falling rain. We must just be” Etty reversed the traditional flow of prayer. Instead of asking God to save her, she promised to save God. She wrote: “You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.” My gosh! That always moves me! I have loads and loads of quotes from her life. In fact here are some: * “Such words as ‘God’ and ‘death’, and ‘suffering’ and ‘eternity’ are best forgotten. We have to become as simple and as wordless as the growing corn or the failling rain. We must just be” * “The externals are simply so many props; everything we need is within us” * “There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God” * “The more peace there is within us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world” * “We could fight war and all its excrescences by releasing each day, the love which is shackled inside us, and giving it a change to live” * “Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that’s not too awful either, but never, never give up” * “I no longer believe that we can change antyhing in the world until we first change ourselves” * “Ultimately we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others.” In reflecting on her very short life(she was killed at 28 years) and as I figure out guardianship for Milo, I think of myself as the guardian of that “piece of God” inside. My choice to withdraw is an exciting stage for retreat for me, a sentry duty to protect the inner softness from the hardening effects of the world. I think of Nelson Mandela and The Long Game of Reconciliation. Mandela’s confinement was physical, but his mind roamed free. He realized that hating his jailers would only keep him a prisoner of his own bitterness. He cultivated a “freedom within” that eventually manifested as freedom for his nation. I am learning that my internal state is the one territory that cannot be occupied unless I surrender it. Mandela used his time to learn the language and history of his oppressors to understand how to dismantle the fear that drove them. I think of Viktor Frankl. Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, coined the concept that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. I am learning that meaning is not found in the environment; it is forged in spite of it. If you can find purpose in your suffering, even if that purpose is just to remain soft in a hard world—you transcend the suffering. Practical notes for Solitude * Somatic Release: When you feel the contraction of anxiety or anger, physically touch your heart. Breathe into the tightness. The body holds the score of the outer chaos; you must manually reset it. * Mental Exercise: When I feel anger toward an oppressor, I visualize them as a child before the system got its claws into them. I address the human beneath the uniform or the ideology. * The “Other Self” Meditation: When thinking of those who hurt me, I try the practice of saying, “Just like me, they wish to be happy. Just like me, they are trying to avoid suffering.” It neutralizes the demonization process. * Routine as Ritual: Order in my immediate environment creates a psychological buffer against the disorder outside. The in and out effect also applies see The Mirror And The Dance. * Document the Light: Just as Anne Frank kept a diary, documenting her internal shifts. I have a practice of doing just this, noticing moments where I drop the “polarities.” Somehow, these serve as a tool and roadmap when the darkness feels absolute. * Useful Information: Just like Mandela, solitude can be used to study the ‘perceived enemy’. Understanding the roots of the chaos outside, knowledge dissolves fear that the hatred feeds upon. * Holding the question: When grief takes a hold of me, when I feel overwhelmed, I ask, “What is this moment asking of me?” I don’t bother going through the rabbit hole of asking “Why is this happening?”. The focal point holds the question, “How can I respond to this with integrity?” In a lot of ways, I see that when we shine a light on the human spirit, we are doing the most revolutionary work possible: we are refusing to let the chaos outside dictate the climate inside. Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity. Thanks for reading Contemplative Currents! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

    13 min

  5. JAN 7

    The Mirror and the Dance, the World and Perception

    When I’m not so heavily caught up in my own life drama or sulking over how incredibly harsh the world seems to be at times, when I’m not doomscrolling from under a blanket curled up like a deplorable fetus lost in the narratives of news around the world and my existential fears, brewing like a moka pot that’s about to boil over, is seen through, I enjoy playing with the display and dance of form through the events, circumstances and opinions that flood my way. Perhaps this short essay is an invitation to you to see how radically beautiful our direct experience can be…and I’m not even referring to a play with the mind or our constantly exaggerated thought processes. I am talking about a very very subtle shift in perception that changes how we see(instead of what we see). Isn’t it incredibly obvious that there is nothing outside of us. Everything happening is undeniably inside. Oh, I say this and(believe it or not, I shrug in real life while writing this) still fall into my own grief..which I realize needs no fixing. You know why? I will tell you! See, the world, my world is a reflection happening WITHIN myself. However we even define and describe ‘self’. Most of us move through life acting as the “repairmen” of our own existence. We look at the external world—our relationships, our environments, global events—and we see a checklist of things that are wrong, broken, or out of place. We believe that if we can just rearrange the furniture of the world to match our inner preferences, we will finally be at peace. If you’ve ever worked with an excellent therapist or a professional coach who knows what they are doing(not the self-proclaimed coaches), they act as mirrors to bounce off the words of our worldly perception as opposed to telling us what to do to fix situations. Why? Because our perception clearly impacts how we move in the world. But it’s not so much about changing our perception. I will leave that to psychology and self-helping. I am speaking about how we even hold perception in our damn hands. There just is a deep truth to explore, a “wonderful setup” to examine. We must start with this assertion: the external world is not a separate, hostile territory to be conquered. It is quite truly, a reflection. It is the play of forms in the mirror of perception. I will explain it with mirrors. The Great Hall of Mirrors If you were standing in a hall of mirrors and found yourself frowning in the mirror, you don’t try to walk over to the glass and physically twist the reflection’s mouth into a smile. If you did, you’d be there for a long time, no longer frowning but now frustrated and also fighting now to move the frown that turned to frustration into your own self-imagined mould. Instead, with intelligence, you could see that the reflection is secondary and the source of the reflection is in fact the primary reality. In the contemplative traditions, this is often described as the world being a projection of consciousness. The external is not separate from the internal; they are two ends of the same stick. The joy of this realization—the “intense play”—comes when we stop judging the reflection as “good” or “bad.” Or as I like to say in person, we need to stop bleeding the symptom and repercussion of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Side note: my darn entire practice is to learn to remember this. A mirror does not judge what stands before it. It reflects a rose with the same precision and willingness that it uses to reflect a garbage can. Clearly, the miracle is not the content of the reflection, but the capacity to reflect at all. And that is what really fascinates this mind named Seye. As the Sufi mystic Rumi beautifully said: “The nature of reality is this: It is hidden, and it is hidden, and it is hidden. The nature of appearance is this: It is revealed, and it is revealed, and it is revealed.” In the same fragrance, the writer of Proverbs 25 writes, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” You see, the “forms” we see are the revealed dance of the hidden consciousness. So then when I notice unpalatable appearances, I dance! Well, let’s be honest, that happens only when I remember. But let’s pull the thread to its origin, let’s follow the breadcrumb to our very existence! Why do we even exist? To suffer? I reject this idea! I think that suffering exists within our perceptual lens but so do other things! These appearances are the most ridiculous dance! The Divine Play (Lila) Why does this setup exist? If the inner is whole, why project an outer world at all? The answer in many Eastern traditions, is Lila (Sanskrit for “Play”). Consciousness projects the world not to solve a problem, but to experience itself. It is a game of hide-and-seek played by the One appearing as the Many. When seen, the heavy burden of “fixing” the world drops from our shoulders. We realize that the play of forms is exactly that—play. It is a creative expression. The observed reality becomes a playground for the Observer. “So are you saying we shouldn’t fix anything? Isn’t the world broken? Do we then fold our arms and watch the world burn down? Can’t you see all the evil in the world? ” No! No! No! You may be missing the point if you don’t catch the subtle hinting here. Now, let me go slower, painting this out gently while sharing this insight in a way that doesn’t suppress or bypass real life f*ckery. The Wonderful Setup We often fall into the trap of thinking the goal of spirituality or self-improvement is to create a “perfect picture”—a life with no pain, no conflict, and only pleasant forms. But consciousness is not interested in only the pleasant forms. Consciousness is interested in being. Think of a master painter. A painter does not only use bright pinks and soft blues. They use shadows, stark lines, and chaotic splashes of red. The joy of the painter is not just in the pretty meadow; the joy is in the act of painting itself—the capacity to bring form out of the void. Or in Genesis 1 terminology, “light out of the formless and void”. When we realize that our external reality is a projection of consciousness, we stop obsessing over whether the picture is “good” or “bad.” We begin to marvel at the mechanism itself. We realize, “Wow, look at how powerful this awareness is! It is so potent that it can appear as a difficult boss, a beautiful sunset, or a quiet room.” This is the “play of forms.” The universe is then seen not as a courtroom where we are being judged but a playground where the One is pretending to be the many. The Observer is the Observed The core of this contemplation is the collapse of the distance between “you” and “it”, between “me” and “you”, between “they” and “us”. In our ordinary state, we feel like a tiny subject inside the body looking out at a world of objects. We say, “I see the tree.” This creates a duality: the Seer (me) and the Seen (the tree). This duality is useful for moving around and interacting with objects but it also creates friction, fear, and a desire to control when not seen from the other vantage point. If you look closely, can you find the line where the seeing stops and the tree begins? The renowned philosopher and mystic Jiddu Krishnamurti spent his life pointing to this specific realization. He famously said: “The observer is the observed.” He did not mean this metaphorically. He meant that without your consciousness, the tree does not exist as you know it. And without the tree, your consciousness would have no form to take in that moment. They arise together. They are one movement. When you look at a mountain, you are the mountain. When you listen to music, you are the hearing of the music. There is no tiny person inside your head watching the movie of life; you are the movie, the screen, and the light all at once. Nothing to Fix, Everything to Explore This is where the joy enters. If the observer is the observed, and if the external is a reflection of the inner, then the war is over. Usually, we approach life with a “Fix-It” mentality. We think, If I fix my bank account, I’ll be happy. If I fix my relationships, I’ll be safe. This is the exhaustion of trying to comb the hair of the reflection in the mirror rather than combing your own hair. When we shift to the view of “Consciousness at Play,” the mandate changes from Fix to Explore. * Instead of asking, “How do I get rid of this anxiety?” we ask, “What is the texture of this energy? How is consciousness taking the shape of tightness in my chest right now?” Anxiety then begins to morph all by itself. I don’t say we explore this to get rid of anxiety! I am saying we explore this because we can explore. The consequence becomes the morphing of anxiety into insight, the transformation of insight into peace. Ah! But we need to remember to explore. Don’t we? * Instead of asking, “Why is this person annoying me?” we ask, “What part of my inner landscape is appearing as this person to show me something about myself?” No!!! Don’t psychoanalyze the hell out of this! I am suggesting we dissolve the self-and-other-ness of the situation and see that the annoyance is only happening within. The person is a projected form that’s erupting the said conditions or situations. In so doing, we can deal with the world but we know that our first point of call is within. You see, my relationships are me! When there is chaos, I take full responsibility. Why? The chaos is happening in me! Do I have to fix the relationship? Yes. But only through the direct dance within my insides as the inside flows to mirror the external! Isn’t that fantastic? As the Sufi poet Rumi wrote, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” He didn’t say the wound is a mistake to be erased. He

    18 min

  6. 12/29/2025

    When we seek, we find Nothing

    The rather harsh personal truth that’s sometimes difficult to communicate is that I do not mind dying. I sometimes say that if I were given the option to silently disappear without anyone grieving or remembering that I ever existed, I would do this without thinking twice. No, it’s not that I’m nihilistic. Well, maybe some. Rather, it’s that what I am on the external(the personality, character, attributes, relationship to others) has nothing much to do with who I truly am. It’s clear to me that before I was born, I was. After I die, I will. I also joke that when we do die, we would realize we did. That which realizes the end of the personality is itself not ‘dye-able’. So, clearly, nothing of this earthly existence is much of material value. It’s at this point that the argument props up with the question of ‘legacy’. This, in my opinion, is another attempt for the ego to reify itself when true Aliveness is only found in the Divine who was before matter, before constructions, before ideas and legacies. By true Aliveness being found in the Divine, I want to establish that the Divine is that in which all things find form. Form being cast into existence is still not separate from the Divine. That is to say, all things are made of the Divine. The Heart Sutra would express this with these words, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form”. In sharing this thought with a friend, I could sense the grief and the confusion. I could sense how they felt I probably was depressed and perhaps life’s circumstances had really gotten me into this ‘contraction’. “Oh”, I replied, “I can so relate to the Gnostic text of the Book of Thomas where Jesus tells seekers, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will rule over all". I don’t claim to rule over anything. But I can tell you I have been a seeker. I have found. I was disturbed(more on this later, Chris Ogunlowo) but here I am marveling! So where’s the joy in all of this? What’s the point of it all? You see, the way I see it, the more obvious it is that happiness cannot be found in(and would never ever be found in) external events and circumstances, accumulation of wealth, property or status, the more readily it is for us to reassess how we see and define happiness. Okay, I will admit for the 10,000th time, the sheer joy of being alive is a miracle. Not just the personal miracle of acknowledging the ‘wow, that I am still alive is a miracle’. I mean, the fact that an aliveness happens: that things have life, that things have expression, that humans can reflect, that plants can grow, that matter vibrates, my gosh…it is a darn miracle. It is the most fantastic mystery. It is the freakiest most brilliant magic! Yet being alive in the physical sense is just a micro-aspect of Aliveness as a whole. I look at this aliveness of form, the aliveness of the character called Seye as the substantiation of something else that’s more …alive— another conjoined Aliveness that is itself pure potentiality. I see it in the way a fire is already alive. But gunpowder is raw potential waiting to happen. Or how a lightbulb is the substantiation of electricity but raw electricity is pure potential. It turns out I’m not a light bulb. It turns out I believed myself to be a beautiful glassy lightbulb with colors different than others and similar to some others. I then explored and realized I am in fact electricy. And in finding out I am electricity, I also realized you are also not a lightbulb. You are in fact the same electricity that I am. And so, in knowing this, the relative sense of happiness, my relationship with happiness that is sparked by attention, recognition, ambition, success, vitality, ...all of these things are clearly seen as ebbs and flows that have absolutely no truth in them. They do point to truth, I would admit. I do not deny their signaling. You see, external treats are really a relaxation into the sense of self-sufficiency, a wink-wink-nudge-nudge at what already is the underlying truth to them. They do not last because the moment our needs are met, the moment the thirst is quenched, another sense of lack arises again. Wait, tell me where I am wrong here?! Isn’t it obvious that the moment we get that degree, we suddenly see how important it is to get the next higher degree? Or when we buy that new car, the one we have been wishing for all along, our joy lasts a few more hours, days or months and suddenly we realize we should have gotten the other one. Or when we finally land that dream job, a few more months passing by, we then start to recognize the dysfunction that exists in the job and start getting seduced by another job out there that could have been better? What, oh what, is the nature of this contraction if not a signaling to that which does not contract, that which is self-contained, self-sufficient, self-sustained? It seems obvious to me then, that when we truly and genuinely seek, through contemplation, we find. At first, our thirst would temporarily be quenched. This is where we often stop. This is where all the mindfulness crowd ends. We suddenly realize that free tool that helps with sleep, confidence, mental wellbeing and so we think that’s the destination. But when we fully drink, then we would thirst no more. Outer pleasantries, achieved goals, outward successes become the icing on the cake leaving nothing to hold too firmly to. Terrible events do not stop. Gosh, they don’t. Turns out they are part of the package They are part of the package— you know, you can’t have the heads of the coin without the tails. From my current viewpoint, the rather difficult aspects of living the human life become something we also don’t hold tightly to. Why? Because the whole thing....every part of it is part of the divine play. Why enjoy that one scene and not the other. When the curtain closes, and it surely will, we would marvel at all the beautiful characters, the plot, the believable costumes we all have been wearing. They were well done. We may suddenly see there was no ‘we’, there was no ‘us’, no enemies, no friends. No dictator nor subjugates, no parents and children, no man no woman. There no longer exists the branches, as each individual branch falls to the ground in return. There then is only the Vine and we are it. Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity. Thanks for reading Contemplative Currents! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. That way, you support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

    9 min

  7. 12/27/2025

    The Posture of Surrender

    In conversations with my more intimate friends, when we share the difficult experiences we face, the more dense matters of being alive in society, it is not uncommon for me to share what I have found to be the ultimate stance of our existence in this plain of experience: the posture of surrender. Surrender, it seems clear to me is the only practice that this incarnation, this instance of being has been called to do over and over again. “When you say surrender, what are you surrendering to?” My friends would ask as a follow up. I explain and quite expectantly wait for the next question which never fails to proceed. “How do you surrender?” I ask them, as I suggest now, to look when the mind is not stirred up, when the mind is not reaching, not resisting, not hunting for comfort, distraction, productivity, or relief. In such a moment, you may notice this if you can come to terms with this simple fact: you didn’t choose your place of birth, your race, your gender, your metabolic rate, your preferences for ogbono over waffles, how your tongue rolls or how your pinky and ring finger are not separable when you spread your hands wide enough. Physics has felt more boring to you than art and so being an aeronautic engineer would totally bore the hell out of you? And nothing you could do could change this orientation. Isn’t it incredibly obvious and bewildering that you didn’t choose any of these aspects of manifestation? If we could look long and hard enough at this, would we not find it easy to see that our being is in fact not ours? (So whose is it? Ah! Wrong question! Keep searching!) This being was not authored by a personal hand. And yet a sense of authorship appears. A sense of control. A sense of separation. Where does it arise, if not from thought?Is it not our thoughts that rise up to claim ownership of our destinies, mistakes and inadequacies? Is it not our thoughts that somehow rise up in times of success, to claim that it was indeed our(its) hardwork, our(its) morality and our(its) own doing that resulted in whatever acheivements and successes we take pride in? Maybe, just maybe there has been something else working in the background all along! Something that moves all things. Let’s call it Grace, for the sake of this essay. It is this Grace that our personal minds claim as its own doing. Yet, our bodies live, life unfolds spontaneously. Our thoughts arriving afterward to sign its name at the bottom. Maybe when we drop the sense of personal achievement(the ‘I’ thought) and see that we are always being done, then we can truly “consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spoil: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the filed, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” Is it not when we surrender to living and being that we get the opportunity to see what the Tao had been saying all along? In Tao Te Ching(48), it says, “when you arrive at non-action, nothing will be left undone’. In Tao Te Ching(2), it writes, “The Master can act without doing anything, and teach without saying a word. Things come her way and she does not stop them; things leave and she lets them go. She has without possessing and acts without any expectations. When her work is done, she takes no credit. That is why it will last forever”. When surrender happens, we see that living moves forward without need for commentary. Being stands unfiltered, unadulterated. And this has absolutely nothing to do with belief. It is also not some kind of strategy or coping mechanism. It is clear seeing. To hold this knowing without turning it into a religious view, to rest in it without claiming it as a technique, that posture is surrender. Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity. Thanks for reading this! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. That way, you support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

    5 min

  8. 12/21/2025

    The Muted Colors of Vibrant Intimacy

    One of the most challenging invitations of this human life for all of us is or would be the call to intimacy. We often limit the call to intimacy to an outward experience like the sometimes clumsy dance of physical and emotional connection within and without our relationships. We learn to navigate the landscapes of a partner’s heart, we learn to build bridges of trust, and to find shelter in mutual understanding. This external intimacy is a world of vibrant, primary colors: the bright red of passion, the sunny yellow of shared joy, the deep blue of sorrowful empathy. It is essential, beautiful, and a universe unto itself. And yet, there is a deeper, quieter, and far more radical intimacy that awaits all of us. It does not require another person. Instead it requires a sincere willingness to turn our ‘looking’ inward. This, my friend, is the intimacy with the raw, uncurated self, the journey into an inner room most of us hvae kept locked and unvisited most of our lives. This is where the colors become muted, subtle, and infinitely more complex. Entering this room requires a unique kind of courage. It asks for a relentless, moment-to-moment candidness. To enter this space is to agree to be utterly, uncompromisingly naked with one’s self. On this table, we must place everything we carry: our fears, our joys, the fragile globe of dreams; the heavy leaden weight of our shame; the shimmering, gossamer threads of our hopes; the cold, jagged stones of any type of guilt. We must lay them all out, side by side, under a clear and steady light of pure unbiased observation. This, is practice! The Practice. It is not a one-time confession or a touch-and-done situation. It calls for a daily appointment. It is the practice of sitting in that room, with the door closed to the world’s demands and noise, and lovingly acknowledging every piece of ourselves on that table, on that altar. In that room, we must learn to hold the splintered fragments of our secret fears with the same tenderness we give to our most cherished aspirations. We must see the beauty in the intricate patterns of our ,what we thought was our brokenness and the light that glints off the sharp edges of regret. It is to turn to the unconditional self-acceptance that feels, at first, like an impossible feat. In the sustained silence of this naked room, as we continue to sit with the “packages” of identity: the hopes, the fears, the stories we tell ourselves, we begin to notice the space between them. We begin to notice the quiet hum of the room itself. We become suddenly aware of the quality of the light that illuminates everything without any darn preferences. When we can face ourselves so squarely that we see the complete, transparent emptiness at our core: the sky-like nature that holds the clouds of thoughts and feelings, a monumental shift seems to occur. It is here that God seems to step in. But oh, God didn’t step in from an entrance. This is not the “visitation from a distant deity who was waiting for you to become sufficiently pure or open”. No, it is a grand and breathtaking noticing. It is the wave, in the midst of its rising and falling, finally realizing that its very substance is the ocean. It is the sudden, earth-shattering recognition that our own fundamental being and the Being of God were never, for a single moment, separate. The room, the table, the light were not mere metaphors for a space inside. We see clearly then that we indeed are the Room: the silent, aware space in which all of life happens. And the packages on the table? The hopes and dreams, the aspirations and fears, the shame and guilt? We see them for what they truly are: mere objects. It becomes so incredibly laughable to see they are objects that we glued ourselves to. We begin to see that they all are experiences that can be picked up, examined, and even set down. They are clouds passing through the vast, open sky of Awareness. This is the vibrant intimacy that is painted in muted colors. An intimacy that’s not loud or dramatic. It’s one that’s quiet, unwavering. It’s the peace that comes from finally seeing that our mistaken self was the temporary character in the story and who we are is the silent, loving awareness that witnesses the entire play! It is the discovery that the most profound love affair we will ever have is with the boundless, divine space that we have always been. Life feels intimate without intensity. Sacred without effort. Ordinary without loss. Contemplative Currents is a free (bi-weekly) newsletter that aims to shed light into our daily experiences as opportunities for contemplation of this glorious Mystery. If you’d like to support my work, please consider subscribing and/or sharing this free Substack. If you’re looking to monetarily support, buying my book, This Glorious Dance: Thoughts & Contemplations About Who We Are, is enough. I’m grateful for your support in whatever capacity. Thanks for reading Contemplative Currents! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. That way, you support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit seyekuyinu.substack.com

    7 min
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Gentle reminders, mindful contemplations for those seeking to explore the depth and essence of our being, the glorious Mystery that we are. seyekuyinu.substack.com

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