(2/10/09) Tree was recently ask a series of questions about her relationship between the transcendent and activities.

1. The relationship between the transcendent and Meditation?
I sit quietly with an awareness of mental activity and an energetic aliveness in my body. With complete effortless acceptance of whatever I am experiencing in the moment comes a great ...letting go of the heaviness that comes with being a ...person and relaxing into the Now. Ahhh, home again. I Am.

2. The relationship between the transcendent and Physical exercise?
Often as I walk or run in the woods, my mind gets more active and likes to do the ...hamster-on-a-wheel thing, spinning repetitive concepts and stories about the past and the future. Some of the time I suddenly find myself swamped with thoughts, but more often I can just watch the thoughts, allowing and accepting them. This allowing, saying ...yes to what is, creates a separation, a space between …me and the thoughts. I am that space. It is a total high at an affordable price. Yeeha!

3. The relationship between the transcendent and Driving a car?
The answer to this is pretty much the same as #2, but in addition, to watching thoughts, I get the added bonus of feeling and sometimes watching ...anger. I drive with two large dogs in the car that ferociously and fervently bark at everything. I have tried to stop them, but cannot. They are my sadhana. They bark, I pretend I am calm, they keep barking, pain and anger starts creeping in and I can feel the tension in my body. The tightness in my body is a reminder to allow whatever is. I say ...Yes, I allow it to be. The anger lets go of me. And then I do it all over again. It can be fun.

4. The relationship between the transcendent and a moment of great love or sorrow that impacted your life and that you experienced as transcendence?
Any moment where I realize there is only the Now, which is my Very Self, not the form or thing which is happening, but the space in which things happen then I am love.
I did have the experience with both Bean's birth, and my friends Chuck and Gary's deaths of ...something else walking into the room, a presence that was absolutely transcendental. Interesting that it was with birth and death, a doorway to a Presence that is before and after form.

5. The relationship between the transcendent and a change in emotional intelligence?
Emotions are transient forms. We are the Very Self, and the Self is here for the play. If you don't identify with it then it is just the play. When I refer to emotions I am talking about the forms that exist in the realm of duality: happy/sad, good/bad, joy/sorrow. "Feeling" has no opposite, it is what we essentially are: love, bliss, peace, deep intelligence, the words can only point to it.
Once you don't identify yourself with emotion, you can watch and allow them to pass through, which is the play.

6.The relationship between the transcendent and Empathy?
I have found that if I am listening to someone, if their eyes start tearing up, mine do too. I have stood and cried with complete strangers in hospital waiting rooms and vet offices, hugged them and never seen them again.

7. The relationship between the transcendent and Nature?
I love the woods. When I sit, stand still, or lie down quiet in the woods, I am so amazed at the silence that emanates from everything, from a tree or animals. The silence in me recognizes the silence in them, it is the same silence. They are incredible teachers. And O the Coyotes!

8. Transcendence in a church, in a business meeting, or in any situation where the experience was unexpected?
That would be in any situation where I have identified with my thoughts and my mind becomes attached to a mental position, which in its simplest form is ...I am right, therefore you are wrong. It is the physical tension that gets created by this concept that reminds me to be aware of what is happening inside my body at that moment, without judging, just accepting what is. And then I experience the thought as a concept created by the mind to maintain the illusion of separation. I am not my thoughts, I am. Tension can be a great teacher too!

9. Describe a real moment that you would consider cosmic or transcendental in your life?
The most cosmic moment in my life was the realization that I am not my thoughts or emotions. O my! Freedom at last! I am the space in which the thoughts occur. Sometimes I lose myself in thoughts, but I always return to the awareness of the Very Self.

10. Describe your experience and understanding of prayer and its relationship to silence?
I don't pray, who would I pray to? Silence and stillness is who we are. I Am That from which Gods are born.

11. Describe your experience of love in relationship to silence
In Silence we are love.

12. Describe your experience of unconditional love in the context of spirituality?
Spirituality is just another conditional idea. Unconditional love …is the only game in town. Conditional love is not love, it's an idea of what love is.

13. Describe any experience of transcendence you have had in art, science, business, or friendship?
I sculpt a form and thoughts come in and out of my head. As I sculpt I treat the thoughts the same way you would in meditation, I don't mind them, I don't let them guide me, I just effortlessly return to sculpting the form. In sculpting, my awareness usually goes into my body, and the mind stills. It is a great form of meditation.

14. Describe experiences of witnessing while asleep or awake and the impact on your life?
I go back and forth all day, I become immersed and identified with thoughts (to get things done), this creates a slight tightness in my body which makes me notice, and then I completely accept whatever sensation is occurring in that moment and in that ...Yes, I become Aware. I become what I Am.

15. Describe any experiences you have had with death and the impact of the experiences on your consciousness and your understanding of spirituality and humanity
One day I had a shocking revelation that my fear of death is the fear of the death of the small self, the ego. Previously I had a kind of fantasy of an enlightened Tricia that was just a wonderful-in-everyway, filled-with-bliss version of me. Ha! There is no me! Ha!! I am a concept created by my mind! No need to get personal, it's not even my mind, it is the human condition! Ha! So now I say, Today is a good day to die! Yeeha and amen!

16. What do you mean experientially that you realized you were not your thoughts?
About three years ago I was sitting on a couch with Toc visiting with our dear friend, Arebear. It was a very quiet and calm experience, I felt incredible bliss. I suddenly realized the bliss was the absence of thoughts, the absence of mental noise, and feeling bliss was simply what I was. What I am.
Any thought, belief, emotion, or memory is a form. All forms are temporary. Once you know that you are the formless, you can enjoy or simply allow all forms to arise and pass through. This is the play of the Absolute. It (which is you) creates endless forms, to witness It's Self in them all. What fun! Pain, sorrow, joy, happiness, agony, and ecstasy are all forms passing through Consciousness.

17. Having had celestial experiences when you were young how have they changed your life?
They were breakthroughs into an experience of a deeper consciousness. It was beautiful.
The thing is, I could have those experiences into deeper consciousness, but then in activity I would continue to identify myself with my thoughts, my story. I would replace the story of "I am a janitor in Alaska" with the story "I am a TM Teacher and a spiritual seeker" Both are forms, just different versions. There was a tendency for my ego to become even more identified with the spiritual story, to become even more trapped in form of the teacher. Only until I realized that I am not my thoughts, "that which is perceived, is not the perceiver", did I know who I am.

18. In Switzerland you met with Maharishi do they remember that first experience with him?
We had waited for hours to talk to Maharishi. It was 2 in the morning. He came out of a room and started walking down the glass hallway that connects the Kulm and Sonnenberg. In the middle he stopped and waited. It was quiet and dark with the snowing falling all around the glass and covering the world outside. We took turns, Lizzy and I, walking alone down the hallway to stand still next to Maharishi as he whispered things to know. And years late I realize that I am that space in which that experience occurred.