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. 8H AGO

    Content, Context, Container of Consciousness

    There are moments that move me out of center. A phrase said in passing, a tone, a memory that catches me sideways, and suddenly I'm no longer here. I'm somewhere inside the reaction. (Remember the one I wrote about my coworker?) For most of my life I assumed those reactions were simply mine. I assumed they were “my thoughts”. Yes, we tend to claim them as our own. I assumed my feelings were my feelings. The bare fact of being me. But sit long enough with any of them and a different realization starts to surface. If you’ve not done this before. All you have to do is sit long enough in silence and you’d notice this fascinating thing. You begin to notice that the reaction is not one thing. It has layers. And underneath the layers, quieter than any of them, something is holding the whole arrangement. Three of those layers are worth naming in a framing I’d call: content, context, and container. In this exploration of who we are — who we truly really are, even these triggers are a part of the journey. A very interesting tool of conceptualization to use for this investigation is to pull out from the linearity in which we engage with experience, pulling it into the three layers: content, context and container. And here’s how: Content Most of us originally think we are trapped by what we think. To be honest, we believe that our thoughts are our own thoughts. We believe that we can shape them, change them, mold them, stop them. Despite our constant failure with these projects of control, we still stay adamant about our belief that we can. We have not investigated closely enough how thoughts create the coloring of meaning. That coloring is what is responsible for two people to see the same thing but experience them differently. Let’s call this layer the content layer. It is where thoughts play. It is where our emotional states lay. It is in fact where the experience of experiencing lives. Can you verify it? Then it’s there. Can you witness thoughts? Yes. It’s content. Can you witness sensations? That’s content. Context How about the context layer? It is the lens in which the content of experience is filtered. Imagine if two people heard the sentence, “you need to change.” For one person, it lands as encouragement. Maybe for the other person, it lands as rejection. Why? Because the content is identical.The context is different. The first person may have grown up around mentors who challenged them with love. Their context interprets change as growth, possibility, or movement. The second person may have grown up around criticism and conditional approval. Their context interprets change as “you are not enough.” Same words. Different world. That invisible interpretive field is context. Or let’s put it in a contemplative frame. Imagine if you witnessed a thought that said, “I am alone.” The content itself is that thought. The context can be an interpretation of abandonment, of freedom, of peace or even failure. Well, maybe even solitude. Or see even silence as an example. Silence in a monastery feels sacred but in an argument it feels threatening. Meanwhile silence at the ocean feels expansive. The silence was still silence. But the context is different. Got it? Container Now the container. Let me put it this way. If you could imagine for a second that you’re at the theater watching a movie. The content is the movie itself. All the explosions(if you’re like me stressing myself out with action packed movies), the dialogue, the sappy romance…all of it is the content. The context then will be the genre and interpretation of it. If you believe it is a comedy you would probably laugh when some crude jokes are made. Same words that may move you differently in a different context. Now, the container becomes the screen. I have a little sketch here to illustrate what I’m trying to communicate. Because our association with experience is trained on the senses and perception, we tend to find only solidity in it, denying the reality of the other layers. In particular, the entire container in which and WHAT WE ARE. My dear explorer, first of all, don’t you just see that this is just absolutely weird. I mean all of THIS. It is so unexplainable, mysterious and generally humbling to think that anything exists. No, I’m not talking about just the heady sense of awe. Not turning it into another spiritual idea. I mean stopping long enough to recognize the sheer impossibility of experience itself. Look around you for a second. A sound appears in consciousness. A memory appears and then disappears. Examine the sensation of your hands. That tingle tingle hushy tingle feeling that YOU are not generating. Or the image of these words and how you can understand the symbols that is the letters. Or the feeling of being a person reading an essay right now. Where is all of this appearing? Not metaphorically. Truly! Where is it appearing in? What is this space in which experience is unfolding? And stranger still, what is it that knows experience is happening? We move so quickly through life that we rarely pause long enough to encounter the raw fact of being here at all. Yet beneath our every thought, beneath our interpretations of anything whatsoever, beneath every identity, there is this open and inexplicable field in which the entire drama of existence unfolds. The ancients called it spirit. Some call it awareness. Some call it consciousness. Others remain silent because language collapses when you realize it’s not even an object. All objects arise in it. And honestly, silence might be the most accurate response. You cannot step outside awareness to examine awareness the same way an eye cannot fully turn around and see itself directly. Yet somehow, unmistakably, it is THIS. RIGHT HERE. Before every thought. During every emotional outburst. After every emotional drama. After every experience. Quietly present. Holding the entire universe of life. Do you see it? Is that not what eternal life is? A Small Experiment Set the essay down for a moment. You don’t need to close your eyes. Notice one thing that is here right now. A sound. The pressure of your body against the chair. A thought passing through. Whatever shows up first. That is content. Now notice how you are meeting it. Is there a leaning toward, or away? A faint judgment, a flavor of welcome or resistance? You don’t have to change it. Just see that the meeting has a quality. That is context. Now, the harder part. The sound is happening. The leaning is happening. Both are appearing somewhere. Not in your head, exactly. Not in the room, exactly. Somewhere more intimate than either. Don’t try to find it. Just notice that something is already aware, without effort, without your having to arrange it. Rest there for one breath. That is the container. 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

    10 min

  2. 4D AGO

    Even the birds know it. I am just here to learn.

    Many of my recent conversations with close friends have circled around sustenance, the uncertainties the current economy presents, the ‘rising cost of eggs’, the incredibly tough job market and just general tensions in a more unpredictable world— not like anything was ever predictable. In the corporate environment, these conversations have become more scary. I currently work in IT and I have watched wave after wave of layoffs and the tensions that are created in different technology spaces. It feels so surreal to be able to feel in the air the thickness of uncertainty. And so, in reflecting on this while writing live on my garden bench, I watch as birds land on the feeders right beside me. They take a few bites, look around, then fly off again. None of them seems interested in building a warehouse of seed for emotional reassurance. None of them seem to linger with the haunted energy of “what if there is not enough tomorrow?” Part of me finds this almost unreasonable. If I were a bird, I would stay at the feeder until I physically could not eat anymore. I would gather extra seeds, create contingency plans and then build tiny bird spreadsheets of all the locations with the best seeds. I will probably sell a course on “How to be a seed millionaire”. But what I’m seeing is quite different. They seem untouched by the psychological weight of future scarcity as they arrive lightly and leave lightly. I am so inspired by what nature presents. But before I go on, I am extremely careful not to romanticize nature. I love to spell out the brutality that is the reality of nature. The same birds I am watching now, quick at the feeder and unhurried in the trees, are also hunted. Some go hungry. Some that I see may not survive the next winter. Some would have their nests ripped out. And the truth is, nature has no shred of sentimentalism in it. See, I won’t be using birds as proof that life is always materially comfortable and that nature naturally provides. That is simply not true if you pay close enough attention to life. However, might I attempt to shift us into a posture that reveals what wild birds could show us about another side of life. We could hold that posture and superimpose it on our reality goggles of perception. First, I want to lay out this one posture. Birds wake into uncertainty every single day. They don’t store narratives about tomorrow(well, as far as we know). In fact, if we would call it singing, they sing before they would secure the outcome of the day. They participate in the world wihtout the burden of carrying the world psychologically. “Allegedly!” In observance, using the wild bird as a reference point, there seems to be a difference between how they respond to uncertainty versus how we become internally consumed by uncertainty. No wonder the biblical framing ascribed to Jesus points towards contentment with today as opposed to the trying to figure out tomorrow. Even in that framing, the point was less “nothing bad happens to birds” and more “life is held by something larger than out anxious control.” And that ‘something’ is my Incredible Fascination. I want to add that being provided for may not be devoid of difficulty. Maybe we could look at it instead, as a participation in a living process. The birds search for food, they build nests, they migrate when needed, none of it passive. And yet they do not appear to psychologically collapsed about the burdens of tomorrow, morosed by the empty bird feeder at 9842 Gelbert Blvd. This is what draws me to the old reflection about the birds of the air. Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet ... Birds don’t live easy lives but they seem free from the kind of mental burden many of us carry every waking hour. You know that constant anticipation of future lack. My gosh! I know of it! In reflection, it’s easy to see how birds illustrate a trust that doesn’t have guarantees as part of the package. If anything there’s an asterisk that points to the fine print. Perhaps because they don’t sit down to think about ROI while analyzing all of the risks they need to take. They seem to move around without relying on a complete map. There seems to be an enoughness in the present moment, while instinctively participating in what is already available. This also includes flying away at the slight sign of harm. See, my fellow explorer, there is clearly an intelligence that moves through it. That intelligence is not like a cosmic vending machine that proponents of ‘the law of attraction’ tout. Instead, it’s more like an ongoing relationship with reality itself. Provision does not lift participation from our hands. It lifts the loneliness from our shoulders. Oh, am I not so grateful for the provision from the great Fascinator. Tha I would be gifted a mirror the last week. That I would be bought food from Green Papaya, that I would be handed a source of living, however little. The giving that I am giving, the receiving that I receive— all of it in service to the participation in that living process. And so I sit. Another bird lands. Another bird leaves. The feeder lowers a little. The day keeps unfolding whether or not I authorize it. There is a kind of company in that. In noticing that life is already moving, already feeding, already singing, long before I lift a finger of effort. Whatever this Fascination is, it does not ask me to stop participating. It asks me to stop participating as one who is separate from all that is. 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

  3. MAY 13

    Take It and Go

    In our 7am Peace Chapel Meditation group this morning, we read and shared from the anonymously aggregated sayings of the Desert Fathers. It brought to inspiration one of the most beautiful and freeing realizations for me. The thoughts on attachment, how we attach to things, people and ideas, and what liberation from these mistaken positions could look like. From the passage: Two elders were staying with each other and never quarreled. Said the one to the other, “Let us quarrel the way people do.” In answer the other one said to him, “I don’t know how a quarrel begins,” but he said “Look, I am putting a brick between us and saying it is mine; you are to say, “No, it is mine,” and that is how it begins.” They did so and one of them said “That is mine.” And the other one said, “No, it is mine.” And the first one said in reply, “Yes, indeed; take it and go.” And off they went, finding nothing to quarrel with each other about. Isn’t it so darn intersting that this brick, is everything we hold and silently call ours. House, the property, money, relationships, friends, pets, the dog who lies at your feet while you read, the years that have already happened, the years that have not yet happened, the car you drive. We even have a brick for ‘my life’. Every quarrel I have had, every grief I have felt, even the fear that wakes me up at four in the morning begins exactly where the elder said it begins— the moment a claim of this is mine is made. The moment that small, almost unnoticeable word “me/mine” lodges itself somewhere behind our breastbone, the brick stops being a brick and becomes a fortress that we put a flag on. It’s also so freaking intersting to see that the moment we do that, somehow, like clockwork, sometimes sneakily, life comes and rearranges things. Have you not noticed? For me, sometimes it’s that incredible friendship, or that job or a title I hold dear. For some it may be that their friend moves, a diagnosis that changes the prior status of things, or a pet that suddenly starts to limp in old age. We, in introspect, then discover that we were never as solid as we thought, things that visit us as provision etc were never as stable as we concluded. We may then begin to see that our experience of things, relationships, positions etc are more of visitations than a thing we could ever lay a hold of. I am keenly aware that nothing is mine. Nothing could ever be mine. Nothing taken was mine to hold onto, nothing I have achieved was mine to acheive. Everything can and will be taken…not by me. Just taken, the way light is taken back into evening. And the crazy thing is that this is not something philosophical. It’s so literal when we can allow oursevles to relax into our bodies, release the tension that grips subconsciously at the need to control anything. That in essence is what surrender is and then we experience clearly this understanding of nothing ever being truly owned. Meister Eckhart had a word for this. Gelassenheit. Letting-be. Allowing what is, to be what it is, without the small hand of the self stepping in to claim or to refuse. He went so far as to say that the truly poor person is the one who knows nothing, has nothing, wants nothing as the deepest kind of freedom. The freedom of someone who has finally stopped pretending the brick was theirs. The Tao Te Ching points the same direction, sideways. The sage acts without acting, and so nothing is left undone. Water does not own the riverbed. It moves through, shaping and being shaped, never claiming, never refusing. And somehow the valley gets fed. In the 12th verse it says, Colors blind the eye, Sounds deafen the ear.Flavors numb the taste. Thoughts weaken the mind.Desires wither the heart.The Master observes the worldbut trusts his inner vision. He allows things to come and go.His heart is open as the sky. The Desert Fathers were sons of the same insight, sitting in their cells, calling no thing their own, and finding that what was left over(once all the bricks had been handed back) was a peace that bewildered the empire that had birthed them. I want to be careful here, because teachings like these often get heard as a kind of cold detachment. Someone may then say, Well, does that mean you are careless with things? Well, why not just give me everything you have? The opposite, in my experience. The grip is not the love. Often the grip is the very thing that holds love at arm’s length, busy defending a perimeter that was never really there to defend. To live without the claim is to live with the hands open. To love a partner without owning them. To run a business without owning the outcome. To pray without owning the answer. To live, even, without owning the life — receiving each day the way one receives a guest, knowing the guest will go. The brick that the elder handed over with such ease was no less real for being given away. If anything, it was more itself. Merely given. And the quarrel? No real quarrel could ever find a true foothold. So this is the contemplation for today. Is there a brick somewhere you have been defending or holding tightly. A role. A possession. A version of yourself. A future you have been writing in your head. Notice the grip. Notice where in the body the claim lives. And then, very gently, do what the elder did. Hold it the way you would hold something that was loaned to you for a little while. Cool to the touch, particular, present, yours to enjoy. Yours, perhaps, to hand back when the time comes. Yes, indeed. Take it and go. And see what is left when nothing has been taken from you, because nothing was ever yours to begin with. Prompts to sit with this week * What is a brick you are quietly defending right now? Is it a role, an outcome, a person, a self-image? Where in your body do you feel the grip of mine? * Recall something you once held tightly and have since lost or released. What does it feel like in retrospect? Was it the thing itself that was painful, or the claim you had made on it? * Sit with this for five minutes: Everything I have today was given. Everything will, in time, be taken. Watch what arises. Is it resistance, grief or a strange relief. Don’t try to fix it or do anything about it! Just notice it. * Pick one thing today: your morning, your coffee, your conversation, your body and receive it as a guest who has come to visit instead of something you own. What changes when you hold it that way? 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. It’s totally free! You will 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

    10 min

  4. MAY 11

    When Did The Leaves Return?

    One morning in March, I looked up and the tree was green. You don’t understand! I could have sworn that the day before, it had been bare. No leaves, branches looking so dry and dead. In fact, three nights earlier I’d used that same bare tree as an analogy on a phone call with a friend, pacing my backyard, probably irritating the heck out of any neighbors listening over their fences. All winter it had been bare, naked branches against a gray sky behind the yard where I’d been sitting most mornings with a book, a cup of coffee, and Milo at my feet. And then, three or four days into spring, it was a different tree. One day? Two? Three? When did the leaves return? I had been sitting right there! So I’ve been thinking about that tree a lot lately. About the impossibility of pointing at the moment when seeing actually shifts, when reality starts showing up as the undivided whole it always was. About how the change is undeniable and unlocatable at the same time. In several interviews, hosts have asked me, when did you start seeing things differently? And then I’d narrate an experience when things changed for me, some shift I could locate. Now I realize those are just stories. Like every story, mostly meaningless. Like every story, just a figment of imagination. Like every story, they just need to be dropped. The hope of the seeker is that one day, something dramatic happens and then they finally become enlightened. My gosh, no wonder the seeking becomes painful and endless. No wonder we become sad when the expectation of some grandiose event fails to happen. So we spend hours in meditation, prayer, fasting. Some reach for psychedelics. Some hope the experience that happened to “random guru” will happen to them. And then what? Sail into the golden sun forever?(I tell you this for free: even if one has an “awakening,” life will come back for its pound of balance). So here’s what seems true. We are always being refined. We are always being changed. Even our deep sleep is in favor of wakefulness. Each relationship, each circumstance, each event is in service of awakening. Everything we have ever encountered has been a tool for our “highest purpose,” whether we know it or not. So in some ways, there’s nothing to do. No meditation. No silent retreat. No need for yet another practice. And yet, the paradox has another face. The meditation, the practices, the silent retreat: those are also what the unfolding is asking for. The pull to lucid waking does the pulling. So what do we do? We take the posture of the five who kept their lamps filled with oil — the wise ones in the parable of the ten virgins. Their wisdom was this: they didn’t know when. And they kept the lamps filled anyway. Stay ready. Stay tended. Effortlessly! My gosh, the paradox is the joke after all. The ability to stay effortless yet ready? That’s the entire posture! Isn’t it just crazy that that’s what it means to be awake. LITERALLY! A few days after this event when I noticed the leaves had grown and the tree was back in its full glory, I went out and stood close to it. Up close, I could see the smaller branches still working, some leaves already flat and open, some still half-curled like fists. And on a low branch I hadn’t looked at all winter, there were tight buds that had clearly been forming for months. Months. The whole bare tree had been preparing all winter. What looked like a sudden green explosion was just the final visible move in a long, quiet rearrangement. I think waking up is like that. I will say then that the tree knew. The tree always knew. So the question isn’t whether anyone is waking up. The question is whether we’ll bend close enough to see what’s already growing. A small prompt to sit with this week: If you looked at your life as a whole, do you see what has been unfolding? Remember, you don’t have to make it spring. You just have to bend close. 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

    6 min

  5. MAY 8

    Start Here, My Friend!

    Welcome, fellow explorer. If you found your way here, ‘something’ must have brought you. Maybe you saw one of my videos. Maybe a friend who said you should read this. Or maybe it was a discussion you and I had inspired me to forward a link. Or maybe you saw a Substack Note somewhere while you were scrolling down the Substack rabbit hole at 11pm and this piqued your curiosity. Whatever the path, I’m glad you’re here. Let me tell you what this is, because I think you’ll know quickly whether it’s for you. Contemplative Currents is a weekly newsletter for people who have, somewhere along the way, been seekers. People who’ve read all the books: the Richard Rohrs, the Eckhart Tolles, the Thomas Mertons, the Byron Katies, the Kabir Helminskis. People who have explored the Christian mystic paths, Advaita Vedanta, Zen and other nondual paths. People who have meditated, prayed, journaled, fasted, sat in silence, went on meditation retreats, sat in groups. People who have done the work. And still, somehow, feel like something is missing. Well, not necessarily in a desperate way. But you’ve felt that sense that what the books, the videos and what the teachers were pointing at is closer than the books and the teachers made it sound. That maybe the actual thing has been hiding in plain sight all along. That maybe you’ve walked past it a thousand times this week. Or maybe you’re that person who has had that glimpse! That big wide open glimpse(you know what I mean?) and then boom! It disappeared. If that resonates, you might be in the right place. Friend, here’s what I’m doing here! I’m not a guru. I don’t have it figured out. I don’t even believe there’s anything to figure out. But that’s another topic for another day! I’m not enlightened. I don’t even know what that means. I have a roommate dog named Milo, a watercolor practice, a writing life, a day job coaching software teams, and a small group of friends who gather to sit in silence on Thursdays. I read Jean Klein or Ramana Maharshi and don’t always understand him. I watch some of Angelo Dilullo’s videos and have floating question marks above my head. From time to time, I sit with grief that doesn’t always lift. Other times, I notice a cardinal in my backyard and feel the biggest opening. I get a $3,000 car repair bill and feel something close. You see, that opening and closing is what I have then discovered is the function of a slow blue-flame burning joy that’s always present. In fact, I wrote an essay called Overjoyed to express that. Yikes! That opening and closing, that there is the work! Looking, together, at what’s actually happening — and noticing what was already here that we kept missing. I write because I have found joy. It was hiding somewhere beneath all my drama. And so I express some of it here. I write because sometimes it helps clarify the seeing. And I publish because, somewhere along the way, I figured out that my seeing helps you see, and your seeing helps me see, and the looking is shared whether we sit in the same room or not. So that’s the offer. We’re going to look together. I’ll bring my week. You bring yours. Some weeks the looking will land with both feet on the floor. Some weeks it’ll be a small turn that you almost miss. Some weeks I’ll just point at something simple, like a single line …and we’ll sit with it. For all of these, I have no curriculum, no path to graduation, no level to reach. Just the simple looking that’s always looking, and the slow recognition that what we’ve been searching for has been right here, PRESENT, the whole time. As I type this, I feel the overwhleming bubble of joy emanating from the recognition of this grace…this grace that stands so close to us that we miss it. We miss it because we focus so much on the ‘story of our lives’ that we don’t explore the Life itself that stands so obviously as the orchestrator of what even perceives the said “stories of our lives”. So a few practical things, since you’re probably new here. * I send two notes a week. A longer piece on Sundays, I call it the Long Walk. A shorter one on Wednesdays, sometimes a contemplation to try, sometimes just a single pointing. * Once a month, on the first Sunday, I write what I call a Letter to the One Still Looking. This will be a piece that sits with one of the questions I keep getting asked, or that I keep asking myself. You know those questions? Like What do you do when meditation feels fake and copped out? What happens when grief makes God feel absent? How do you tell the difference between presence and dissociation? What if this searching is just nonsense? Are you in a Oneness cult? What can I really do to wake up? Are you enlightened? What is enlightenment? The kinds of questions you don’t see addressed honestly very often. Or when they are even addressed, they are made of abstract nonsensical jargon. See, I’ve been there! * And once a month, I open a thread with just one question. It’s also a place for readers to reply to each other. I refer to us as Explorers. Not students, not seekers. Explorers. Here’s why? We start as seekers, we find(because when you seek you find), then you realize nothing was missing. The mistaken journey to God ends. And a journey in God begins. In that endless journey, you find it has always been about exploration. It’s the looking together at what’s already here, what’s already true. If you reply to anything I write, I read it. I write back when I can. I’m a real person(not AI) on the other end of these notes, and you’re a real person on the other end of mine. That matters to me. And in some way, you and I share of this unexplainable Essence. If this resonates, you can subscribe at the top of this page or the bottom. It’s free. It will stay free. Yes, it will always be free. You may see a paid tier. That is just an option to support this writing channel(and for those who will receive a free copy of my upcoming book, Beyond Silence). All content here will be remain free. If it all doesn’t resonate, that’s okay too. Maybe the thing you’re looking for is somewhere else and I hope you find it(we always do). But if there’s a small turn happening as you read, if some part of you is leaning forward, then sit a minute. Read one or two more pieces. See if the looking matches what you’ve been almost-noticing all along. The work is already happening. We’re just learning to see what’s already here. Welcome. Three places to begin if you’d like: * A Lived Doorway essay— for a feel of the texture * A Wrestle essay— for a feel of the depth * A Practice piece— for something to try this week 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

    9 min

  6. MAY 5

    I'm in love!

    Dear friends, I have not written as frequently as I normally do. That’s because a lot of interesting things have been going on here. To be honest, I almost cannot keep up with myself at this point. Still, 159 essays in, I've enjoyed experimenting with different styles of writing while finding a consistent voice, and the most authentic way I can share of this experience of awe. And that's exactly why I'm excited to properly shape Contemplative Currents within a strategic frame. One that brings more value to you, opens more room for what wants to come through me, and becomes something you or I can return to from time to time. I want to make something very clear. I do not position myself as a teacher, a guru, or someone who has achieved anything that isn't already the case for you, for me, for anyone. There's no ladder I've climbed, no special state I've arrived at, no insight I hold that you don't already have access to. My excitement in carrying out this project is simply this: to bring some simplicity and clarity to what our seeking— and our restless quest for "more" tends to overlook entirely. The very thing we keep reaching for is often what's already here, waiting beneath the noise of the search itself. I tell you this: with tears in my eyes while writing this at this moment, I feel so incredibly blessed to share of this experience of living. That I can live, love, be broken down emotionally, be built up in confidence, argue with friends, dance in sorrow, swirl in joy, mourn a loss, break up in shame, enjoy the taste of tacos from Cantina Louie, get a new pair of glasses, rack up $4.99 wine bottles at Trader Joe's, walk Milo at dawn while the neighborhood is still half-asleep, fumble through a hard conversation and find my way back to ease — that I could listen in love and care to my closest friends as they share with me their challenging times, fully present to their pain while quietly holding what I know are temporary moments, never rushing them past what they're feeling. I get it! Because everyone’s pain is connected. Oh, all of these finite experiences are an incredible joy! That I can sit on my bench and point attention back to the source of attention itself, gaddamn it! Right there, nothing missing, nothing to chase. The outpouring of joy is delightful. Oh, wasn’t it the writer Paul who said, ‘count it all joy…’ These are the reasons I enjoy writing here, connecting with you, connecting with the world. And so, friends, you should expect in the next day or two a new cadence to my work here on Substack. If you haven’t already, please check out the About page of this Substack. Also, there are more interesting things coming. Here are some, and here are the highlights: * First and foremost, the Hold Within app is now live but only for Android. I hadn’t bothered making the announcement till I finish up some paperwork with Apple. But if you have an Android app, please go ahead and download the app for your own contemplative practice. The Hold Within app can be accessed through https://holdwithin.app/ * Secondly, I am excited to also add a visual angle to Contemplative Current. I will be adding a YouTube channel for this. * Thirdly, I have been invited on a few podcast interviews, some already lined up for the next couple of months and I’m super happy to share of the excitement of these conversations. Special shout out to Inside the Minds Eye for this interview. You should check out Adam’s other YouTube content too! Great stuff. * Progress on my upcoming book had been put on hold with all of the shifts this year but I’m glad to let you all know that I’m about 90% done with the first draft. * If you don’t already know, I released a new single called Hey Brother. You can find a link here https://seyekuyinu.com/music. It’s inspired by my recognition of all beings being a part of this one universal family. More on that later. And music video is underway. * I have also updated my personal website, https://seyekuyinu.com, to include and indicate that coaching services for me will remain free as I’m abundantly provided for in my other businesses. Also, while a paid tier is going to exist on my Substack starting from next week, every single part of the content uploaded here will be free. Forever. The paid tier will just serve as an opportunity for voluntary donations + a free signed copy of Beyond Silence, my upcoming book. Once again, more to come on that. * Also, if you didn’t already know, I am a part of Bayit: Building Jewish, as a game designer. We recently put out one of many board games, Journey To Sinai which can be gotten on GameCrafters. It’s a cooperative game of wandering, waiting, and revelation. Oh man! There’s so so much I want to talk about. I hope in some ways, my excitement is contagious and you become infected by this excitement. My hope, my deep hope in this time, is that what I share here on this Substack brings so much value to our shared experience of being. That in some ways, what gets exchanged here, me to you, you to me is in the deepest truth an expression of the incredible joy that is Living. For anyone who subscribed recently, I’m incredibly glad that you are here. I hope, yes I really do hope that this platform does not grow beyond where I don’t have the time or bandwidth to respond meaningfully to each and every email. Today, what bleeds out of my breathe is so much love. Love held within and beyond the context of this shared being. Love, Seye Kuyinu 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

  7. APR 27

    The Yoga of Turning Attention Back

    Do you know what the source of attention is? Like, if you’re paying attention, where is the location of that which projects the attention? I wish I had known this earlier. And if you haven’t seen this yet, this might save you years of searching in the wrong direction. The thing is, all meditation practice, underneath their techniques and the various traditions, the fasting, the prayers, the rituals etc. They all point at this one singular thing: they are attempting to help you stay longer in concentrated awareness. That’s it! That’s all they are doing(for the most part). So, the breath counting, the visualizations, the mantras and all of that, they are really a scaffolding for the same building. And the building is just sustained, undistracted attention. But why does this matter? Oh! It matters a whole lot! In concentration, you begin to see what moves and what stays constant through all movement. And then it becomes clearer where the movement emerges from. You see where movement comes from and then you start noticing the flow of attention! Oh, you don’t know what I am talking about? See, most of us experience attention the way we experience water from a tap. Sometimes, and when we pay attention, we may notice what it lands on, what it fills, and what it drains from and then we chase after the object of attention. For example look at how thoughts move. Look at any thought! A thought appears and then almsot instantly attention flows towards it. Or you may notice an emotion rising and then your attention rides on it. Instantly! Or see a sensation too! It calls within the body and then attention answers and moves towards it. Attention moves object to object to object. Over and over and over again. But somehow we have not made the bigger Inquisition! Where does attention come from? This is one of the most fascinating discoveries. Writing about it to give the answer is of course impossible. But this is a discovery that even transcends the mind’s utility of understanding objects. I tell you, this practice of tracing where attention comes from is foundational to any deep spiritual practice. I insist you try this now. Rather than following attention outward toward the next thought, gently turn it around. Well, that’s the best pointer for this…turn attention inward. Not to think about attention but to sense where it arises from. This sounds confusing or even like a moot idea. Why would anyone do that? But practice it. Attempt it! Bring attention back to itself. Or try to this. At first, you find the ‘yourself’ you’ve always called ‘yourself’. The “me” behind the eyes, the familiar sense of the individual who is doing the noticing. That’s the first important discovery. Most people live their whole lives never pausing long enough to find even that. But stay with it. Don’t settle there. Because the “me” is still a location. It is still a point of view, a perspective, a gathered-ness of experience that calls itself a self. Ask again: where does this “me” arise from?What you find… or rather, what finds itself, is not another object. It is more like the recognition of what was always already present before attention even spawned from anywhere. It’s almost like it’s prior to aliveness itself. Almost like aliveness came out of that sense. In Buddhist lingo, it would be called Emptiness. It is the awareness that isn’t owned by anyone. In particular, not owned or originated from a self. It would infact appear to be the source from which the individual perspective pours out, the way light pours from a lamp without diminishing the lamp. Finding this, it becomes less convincing that you are a self enclosed in a body, separated from the world by skin and circumstance. What remains during this discovery is a kind of seamlessness. No inside and outside pressing against each other. No self-straining toward others. Just the source, this aliveness, awareness, the ground of being— breathing as everything it appears to be. What’s interesting about this is it moves away from the realms of mere philosophy to a direct noticing, that available in any ordinary moments. Practicing this turning inward, then, is not the accumulation of spiritual experiences. It is the gradual wearing away of the habit of looking only outward. Until slowly(at least for me it’s slowly), like dawn, you find you cannot locate where you end and anything else begins. It is such a wonder! Such a mystery! The Mystery! 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

    11 min

  8. APR 17

    Esoterism, wonder, miracles and exploration of being

    See, any exploration in contemplation(funny I say this because contemplation is in fact that exploration), has to go beyond the content of one’s experience to the origin of experience itself. You don’t just drink water, you go to the source of the water. That exploration is, in fact, the true unveiling of one’s self. Or in other words, a discovery of Mystery. In that exploration, one may find something so darn obvious that it evades our own seeing! It’s the understanding that there’s no ordinary vs extraordinary, no spiritual and non-spiritual, no here and there, no this and that, no myself and others(ultimately, of course). Contemplative explorations lead to the fundamental foundational knowing in which all categories of this vs that sit. Only then can one see that distinctions are orchestrated by the self-referential mind. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We just have to not be lost in its utility. And this is part of what makes a contemplative practice, a searching for the Unspeakable, truly rewarding. We can’t doubt, for instance, that there’s a world. We experience a world. We sometimes call it reality. We trust its existence because it feels solid, feels reliable, feels independent of oneself. For instance, we don’t doubt that everyone else experiences what we experience. But we gotta pause for a bit. We have to go deeper. So let’s explore! Everything you have ever called the world arrives as experience. Is it not true? Color, sound, sensation, thought. You do not step outside this stream to verify it. You remain within it. Or so it seems. Would you also agree that what we sometimes call reality is already filtered and shaped by memory and then conditioned by language? We see this in simple ways. For instance, two people walk into the same room, one of them feels a type of tension. The other feels warmth or doesn’t even sense anything. Yet, the room has not changed. The world each one meets is different. Not slightly different! No, no! Fundamentally different. So does the room change? Or is it the attendance of our perception that gives the room its characteristics? The truth is, every moment we live in is filtered through a lens we did not consciously design. Your upbringing, my fears, your desires, my language, your expectations... even the mood we wake up with every morning. It somehow adjusts the world we meet. You see what I mean? If you are tired, the world seems dull. If you are in love, the world glows up. You see possibilities! If you are afraid, the world tightens and looks dangerous. In all of these, it feels like the world itself has changed. What are we doing? Oh, it is this: we inadvertently take what arises within and project it outward. Then we call it reality. So could it be said then that our experience, more closely seen, is not even something we are observing but something we participate in. This may feel unsettling at first, but let’s go yet another layer deeper. At this point, you may begin to agree with me that reality is not fixed. And so, if it’s not fixed, what can we truly rely on? Honestly, my friend, could you entertain the fact that the world we live in is not what is present but how we hold it. Pure and simple. Oh, man! This begins to open a door that many traditions have pointed toward, often painted in strange language. Prayers! Miracles! In fact, what we call psychic phenomena sits right at the edge of this understanding/misunderstanding. Telepathy. Intuition. Precognition. Most people either dismiss these or treat them as rare powers. What we label as psychic may not be supernatural or extraordinary. It may be sensitivity or some form of variance. The problem is not that these things are impossible. The problem is that our model of reality is too rigid to include them. We assume solidity. Separation. Fixed edges. But if we could entertain for a second, the fact that reality is fluid and participatory, then the extraordinary is just ordinary. Life, all of it, the esoteric, the seeming ordinary, the metaphysical…all of it simply ordinary. Consider the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand, often marked in headers as the Feeding of the 5000 in many Bibles. The narrative is usually framed as a miracle. The feeding of 5000(3000 in some translations) is framed as something that breaks the rules of reality. But what if the assumption is wrong? What if it did not break reality, but revealed something about it. Look at the situation again. There was scarcity, a crowd, limited resources, a shared belief(of Jesus’ disciples) that there is not enough. That belief then shaped perception, tightening the field, narrowing down what was possible. People(well, Philip here) held back, guarding his own truth that saw lack everywhere. Now imagine a different perceptual angle, one that was a deep deep recognition of sufficiency. If one person stands in that, fully, it begins to affect others. The emotional field shifting, allowing the lack or the sense of lack to loosen and then people begin to see differently. And act differently. They share, revealing what they had hidden. They participate in abundance. Suddenly, what seemed impossible becomes visible because perception changed, and behavior followed. Experience reorganized itself ordinarily to create what others in the sidelines would say is extraordinary. This is a way to view the story. In fact, it deepens the story and its lessons, instead of making it this magical, miraculous occurence. And the hints of these things are everywhere. A leader walks into a room with calm presence, and tension drops. A parent reassures a child when they are exhibiting fear and the fear dissolves. A shift in interpretation changes an entire relationship. Nothing material has changed, yet everything feels different. These are the little aspects of experience. So what is more powerful? The external arrangement, or the perception that organizes it? Now, none of this is about controlling reality or abracadabra-ing things into reality or validating a law-of-attraction fantasy. I am saying, in short, we are not separate from anything. Not even the appearance of anything. We are part and whole of the field in which everything ‘shows’ up. The practice here, and the orientation this should pull us to is awareness. In awareness, we see thoughts as thoughts, not facts. We see feelings as movements, not definitions. We see the world as appearing, not as something fully pinned down. We begin to notice more. Feel more. Respond less from habit. We begin to see that we are creating the miracle of life each moment and the miracle of life is creating us each moment. We are less likely to be locked into a single version of what is happening. Awe then begins to deepen as the extraordinary becomes ordinary and that ordinariness is no longer reduced. Soon, it becomes so freaking obvious that every conversation is energy in motion, every moment is a field of perception unfolding, even the sense of self loses its solidity, as it is seen that the focal point which was before seen as “me, going through life, as person” is truly an unfolding of the Universe(seen and unseen) itself. Unmoving, yet allowing all movement. Empty, yet full of everything. The rather interesting thing is seeing that the question, “What is reality?” may be a foolish question. Not because it is unanswerable, but because it has no static finality. It is unfolding like a flower that’s in slow bloom. And you are not separate from that unfolding. You and I, and all creation are that unfolding. Oh, my! Does that seeing, not make one’s inquiry soften, where we no longer need to solve reality. Instead we meet it! We meet it in all its messiness! In its rawest, crudest, rudest, meanest form. Oh! Man! That’s what Grace is! Question for you: “What have you assumed to be impossible because you believed reality was fixed?” 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! You know subscribing is totally free! 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

    11 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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