Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning the Summer of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.
___
November 3, 2010
Student: So has your life changed a great deal since this teaching started to come through you?
Michael: Thats an interesting way to put it. But my answer would be in some ways yes in some ways not at all. For example, it feels like my center of gravity has shifted pretty radically. Stuff doesnt stick like it used to. This doesnt negate passion but rather keeps it from latching onto anything. So I still feel things like I always have, maybe even more intensely, but I dont get hammered by them.
Student: Because theres nothing to hammer?
Michael: That works. On the one hand, theres nothing there to oppose or to resist. On the other hand, theres something there for that realization to be met.
Student: Okay, fine but I know you well enough to know that you dont float around in bliss. I know that you dont go around in your life thinking, Im you, you’re me, I’m that, I’m that too, oh, look, awareness.
Michael: Right. Its not something that is co-opted by the mind. Ive just become more completely normal. And its nothing special, really. Its the natural result of what comes out of a deep stillness practice.
Student: It almost sounds like learning a language. Like when you learn Italian, let’s say, and there comes a day when you are not translating the words in your head anymore. There is only Italian.
Michael: Parla bene!