just be it It’s about the work involved in establishing a dedicated practice to feelings of a bigger belonging through practices aimed at increasing feelings of compassion, gratitude and forgiveness
Approaching Thanksgiving 2008 I can’t help but wonder where we focus our gratefulness. In difficult economic times we seem to move from gratitude for our ‘stuff’ to gratitude for the opportunity to participate. There’s new hope that we can participate in the operations of our family, community, state, nation and planet. There seems to be deeper appreciation for what is working as we move from a nation of complaint to one of potential and possibility.
Can I daily hold a place of gratitude in my heart for the young? They have so far to go and we’ve done so much damage. Can I hold a place of gratitude for those in the middle? They have to do the brunt of the work, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult in these times. Can I hold gratitude for the elderly? They’ve come so far, given so much, and contributed so much to my learning.
This Thanksgiving, may we hold space that Gratitude Practice become a regular curriculum in our educational system as we systematically examine what we’ve received from others, what we’ve given, and what we’ve done to trouble others. This could be the single most important element to our true pursuit of happiness since joy is a necessary consequence of our gratefulness. Yes, grateful for my stuff. Yes, grateful to do what I can do. Yet, most grateful to ‘just be’.
I’m looking for more quotes from you or writers who’ve inspired you in verbally trying to aim to a sense of ‘being’. Here are a few of my favorites.
Dainin Katagiri Roshi describes it as follows in Returning to Silence When you want to express the total function of a thing, say a fish when it swims in the water, the function of the fish is exactly one with the function of the water. That is why you cannot see exactly the total function of the fish becoming one with the water. But real fish is no-discrimination-between-water-and-fish. They are one, but they are not one because they are two, but they are not two. They are really working together, so we can say, “Looks like a fish.” “Looks like a fish” means it is not exactly a fish. If this is true is it water? No, it is not water, it’s a fish, but it’s not a fish. It is just oneness. This is called “looks like just going, looks like just coming.” P. 35
From The Protean Body by Don Johnson
…I walked out onto a dock in the Gulf of Mexico. I ceased to exist. I experienced being a part of the sea breeze, the movement of the water and the fish, the light rays cast by the sun, the colors of the palms and tropical flowers. I had no sense of past or future. It was not a particularly blissful experience: it was terrifying. It was the kind of ecstatic experience I’d invested a lot of energy in avoiding. I did not experience myself as the same as the water, the wind, and the light, but as participating with them in the same system of movement. We were all dancing together.
In The Silent Pulse, George Leonard writes:
At the heart of each of us, whatever our imperfections, there exists a silent pulse of perfect rhythm, made up of wave forms and resonances, which is absolutely individual and unique, and yet which connects us to everything in the universe. The act of getting in touch with this pulse can transform our personal experience and in some way alter the world around us. P. 11
A Course in Miracles describes it as follows:
Everyone has experienced what he would call a sense of being transported beyond himself. This feeling of liberation far exceeds the dream of freedom sometimes hoped for in special relationships. It is a sense of actual escape from limitations. If you will consider what this “transportation” really entails, you will realize that it is a sudden unawareness of the body, and a joining of yourself and something else in which your mind enlarges to encompass it. It becomes part of you, as you unite with it. And both become whole, as neither is perceived as separate. What really happens is that you have given up the illusion of a limited awareness, and lost your fear of union. The love that instantly replaces it extends to what has freed you, and unites with it. And while this lasts you are not uncertain of your Identity, and would not limit It. You have escaped from fear to peace, asking no questions of reality, but merely accepting it. You have accepted this instead of the body, and have let yourself be one with something beyond it, simply by not letting your mind be limited by it. Chapter 18, v. 11-12
Gratefulness, by Brother David Steindl Rast describes it as follows:
If we want to know what God says in a tomato, we must look at a tomato, feel it, smell it, bite into it, have the juice and seeds squirt all over us when it pops. We must savor it and learn this tomato poem ‘by heart’.
The New Being, by Paul Tillich, touches it with these words:
Life accepts you; life loves you as a separated part of itself; life wants to reunite you with itself, even when it seems to destroy you.
The famous bluesman, Otis Spann, has referred to the blues as ‘a doctor’ that sometimes heals, sometimes
doesn’t, but it aims to help one move through the pain of life.
The blues and blues/jazz is a rich form of surrendered harmonic alignment that carries us through suffering to freedom. Just Be It features harmonic alignment through the blues in a variety of musical configurations for all occasions.
Ride: This blues band performs every other month at Washington Square Bar and Grill in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. The current band membership is starting its fifteenth year. Ride is best known for creating a live party atmosphere with a compilation of blues and rock songs that facilitates moving energy and healing.
A typical set list is taken from the rich heritage of Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield and Freddie King through to the Grateful Dead, Bill Withers and Lou Reed. Ride pays tribute to the connecting experience these songs stimulate.
Band Members: Gerry Dahl, Bass and Vocals; Steve Husten, Drum Kit and Vocals; Mike Bruns, Guitar and Vocals; John Layton, Guitar; Randy Johnson, Vocals, Trumpet and Harmonica, and Jonathon Townsend, Drums and vocals
Unvarnished Music Festival and Windsurf Championships 2008
PeaceMeal: For a softer, background blues/jazz atmosphere, this group performed weekly at Washington Square Bar and Grill for three years. PeaceMeal has played background alignment music throughout the Twin Cities area. Performing as trio or quartet, this band features Dan Parker on bass, Steve DeGenaro on guitar, and Randy Johnson on trumpet, harmonica and vocals. Occasionally another horn or a keyboard player will sit in with the band. When it’s important to keep the volume down so you can have a peaceful meal and/or conversation, PeaceMeal perfectly augments your special occasion.
There’s general acknowledgement of a ‘shift’ in the way we process our involvement in the universe. This change had been forecast thousands of years ago and now we can literally sense a quickening or acceleration of this new way of experiencing things. This change dramatically affects our relationships not only to one another, but to all elements of nature. We find ourselves relating in a very different way to plants, animals and the various gifts that contribute to our very breathing. There’s an experience of connectedness and with this experience comes a dramatic change in the way we process our moment-to-moment living.
We stand outside the old paradigm need to control. There’s a trust or accepting in the unfolding of events and we come to see the damage caused from our previous attempts to fix things we thought were wrong. We come to a deep appreciation for each moment, for the very gift of breath, and discover consequent joy and happiness in breaking the chains of comparison, judgment and criticism. In the new paradigm we take responsibility for our thoughts, speech and actions, in full recognition to our creation of reality.
So how does this relate to ‘riding’? Isn’t all of our life action about movement within the moment? Whether riding a great wave or driving our car or engaging another in dialogue, there’s an element of courage involved in our surrender to receive what’s presented, what’s present in our awareness. So when approaching an ocean wave, the old paradigm has one divided from it, somehow in a competition or war that’s aimed to conquest. The riding style of the old paradigm is more aggressive, driven by ego’s desire to conquer, compete and somehow receive validation through another’s approval or praise. It’s more taken with notions of one’s doing-ness and achievement. New paradigm riding involves a much deeper listening to the unfolding events. The water and wave are approached through a notion of love and surrender. All boundaries of separation are broken as the rider literally experiences his/her ‘wave-ness’ within the core of the heart. The rider does not separate from other brothers and sisters engaging the wave, and he/she intuitively moves to stay out of another’s way as the process unfolds. All notions of ownership, blame, inferiority and superiority vanish as the rider meets the moment in full wonder and gratitude for the opportunity to participate. We’ve shifted our paradigm from ‘just doing it’ to ‘just being it’. At this moment of stepping from our separation we move just past the edge of our ability in creative response.
From Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching:
The Way abides in nonaction
Yet nothing is left undone.
From The Heart of Being by John Daido Loori:
What is the right view and the wisdom that allows the barrier to be broken down? It always comes back to Be the barrier. That is the right view. Be the barrier. That is the right wisdom. This is because, from the very beginning, the barrier is nothing but yourself. There is no barrier. When you realize there is no barrier, the barrier becomes a dharma gate. If the barrier is Mu, be Mu. If the barrier is the koan, be the koan. Anxiety? Be the anxiety. Fear? Be the fear. When you are the barrier, it fills the universe. There is no longer a reference system. There is no separation—no self and other, no self and barrier, no self and Mu, no self and the koan, no self and the breath.
From The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo:
When we withdraw our gaze from its egoistic preoccupation with limited and fleeting interests and look upon the world with dispassionate and curious eyes that search only for the Truth, our first result is the perception of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that surpasses infinitely our ego or any ego or any collectivity of egos, in whose balance the grandiose produces of aeons are but the dust of a moment and in whose incalculable sum numberless myriads count only as a petty swarm.
From Returning to Silence by Dainin Katagiri Roshi:
Each movement was beautiful and completely independent, but simultaneously each movement was connected. There was no gap between her and the ballet. Within the limitations of her life fading away, she took care of each form with wholeheartedness.
There is no gap between her and the dance. They are just one.
Wholehearted Living by Somebody Else:
When doing life wholeheartedly we touch being. Meeting eternity within each moment, we experience impermanence and our interconnectedness. Within this experience, we are the full expression of our action, outside any mental formations of separateness. Wholehearted living comes from the spirit of what’s best for all, with harm to none. There’s a deep sense of stewardship, of engaged action dedicated to ‘taking care’.
Wholehearted living doesn’t just happen. The deeper we touch our actions through disciplined practice and resolve, the closer we come to surrendered performance that touches the fabric of all. The past no longer spits out our capacity to touch the present. When doing is wholehearted there’s great ease of performance leading to what some have called style. Outside of cognitive noise, the mind/body meet the moment fresh to it’s unfolding…each ‘doing’ new.
Wholehearted living always aims deeper.
Workshops on peak performance in sport and music will be scheduled periodically.
Today’s relational focus seems to violate the notion that ‘we are each other’, a notion that’s been repeatedly expressed through ancient spiritual wisdom and now in science. We can ‘feel’ this need to surrender to understanding. Just Be It provides several opportunities to study and train in the dialog process.
Listening Skills Training: Participants will study the art of nonjudgmental listening and apply this skill in role play and real situations relevant to their need. Whether in family or business relationships, skilled active listening technique is a science that demands repeated training for effectiveness in collaborative efforts and conflict resolution. Given that violence begins where listening stops, effective listening training may be the most potent path to harmony and peace. Nonjudgmental listening from the heart is the center in moving from monologue to dialogue. (more…)
Our deepest felt sense of inter-connection transcends the limits of language. This is particularly evident when a separating wound is deep. When it’s too soon for words, but time to break silence in the healing process, the healing sound of the horn can assist in bringing us back to harmony and inter-Being.
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together…We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. Max Planck, Noble Prize Physicist
Horns for Healing: Horns for Healing sounded at Virginia Tech one week after a horrific shooting incident, sounded the horn at Minnesota Remembers, a memorial shortly after 9/11, sounded the horn at a ceremony after the I35W bridge collapsed, and has participated in a number of individual memorial services.
The Story
On September 21, 2003, in the early evening of a Palm Springs desert, I located the back of a parking lot where I thought I would be free from disturbing anyone. After playing my trumpet for about twenty minutes I was visited by a few doves with an amazing presence. It was if they could see though me, touching the core of my soul. Within minutes more doves arrived, at least one hundred. I could hear them speaking to me. Tears came to my eyes and I could sense their pleas, the cries of desperation. I kept playing, but didn’t really put together the message they were sending. I knew something very profound had happened to me and was too afraid to mention it to my family. We retired and shortly after 3am it was like being hit over the head with a sledgehammer by those doves. I woke fully engaged in a state of awareness that was riveting and proceeded to receive one of the most direct communications of my life. The instruction was clear and concise. It was a most profound challenge to sound the horn.
The doves have been our greatest inspiration to a loving existence. Their message was vivid…the violence is increasing as we fail to listen to them. Their plea was for help. They despaired that the bells were no longer being heard. They cried from being filled to overflowing with grief at our increasing appetite for violence in the movies and TV we watch, the violence in the computer games our children play, the violence in the toxic substances we ingest, and the harm we cause one another, within the family, community, nation and world. Their tears came through God, the Force, Source, Unified Field, or whatever name you apply to point to this creative source of life. They despaired at our numbness to practice the teachings of our ancient spiritual teachers, our failure to take pause in gratitude for this very gift of life. In the clearest of divine communications, they said, “It is time for the horns. You people need to be shaken from ‘busy-ness’ and fear to take pause in the name of peace and harmony for all creatures, human and animal, for all plants, for all minerals. The sounds of these horns will inspire a movement for others to signal their desire for healing and a sense of stewardship for future generatons.”
Conch Shells for Kids: Ancient wisdom has shown the value to increasing our ‘circle of belonging’. In an age where notions of separation, nationalism and ‘small belonging’ threaten global healing it becomes increasingly important for our youth to expand notions of ‘belonging’ to the global community. Before our violence upon one another there existed the one Golden rule to live by. Pila has referenced this as Aloha mai ke Akua ipo: “to love yourself as you love God”. Within the full understanding of this Golden Rule we come to “experience” the reality of damage done to others is truly done to ourselves.
Within our acknowledgement that healing comes from “intention”, Horns for Healing will donate a conch shell to those school classrooms willing to make a sacred contract to sound the conch shell for healing at the beginning of the school day. Teachers would direct all students to send their thoughts and heart energy to a world without violence.
Oliver Wendell Holmes describes nature’s horn, the conch, in “The Chambered Nautilus”:
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous toil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old
No more.
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:–
Build
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
Sounding the horn for harmonic alignment…return to wholeness:
• Memorial services.
• Invocation to healing ceremony
• Celebratory events such as weddings, anniversary, legacy parties
• Any special occasion where the healing vibration of horn sounding facilitates alignment to our inter-Being.
Check the calendar for conch shell training and performance schedule dates.
Happiness is a necessary consequence to gratitude. Yet, we seldom, if ever, find gratitude practice in a school curriculum. Many school administrators claim this area of training is for the church or family. Yet, it’s perhaps the most important skill, next to listening, for success. Ancient spiritual wisdom across traditions directs us to find gratitude for what “is”.
We’re frequently told to make space to find the gift in the given. Michael Beckwith has said we must give thanks for what is so we can make space for new opportunities to come in. The expression of gratitude through “thank you” is not the etiquette function we’re accustomed to. It’s not about just expressing gratitude for another’s gift to us. It’s about the ‘felt’ sense of fullness for the ‘opportunity’. Brother David Steindl Rast has described it as joy for the ‘opportunity to participate’. To experience our core Being, we have to participate with our whole being. Paul Tillich attributes this full participation as the key to faith, courage, and knowledge in life. Essentially, the practice of gratitude is forever carrying joy for the freedom to be engaged in the gift of the moment. In gratitude, we take nothing for granted. It’s gratitude that is the source of our courage to face the challenges of the world.
Group and individual skill training is offered in gratitude practice. Additionally, Just Be It is seeking partners in research of the pragmatic function that has too long been neglected.
From his book Gratefulness, Brother David has written:
Even the predictable turns into surprise the moment we stop taking it for granted. P. 9
Gratefulness is the measure of our aliveness. To live life open for surprise, in spite of all the dying which living implies, makes us ever more alive. P. 12
We cannot be mindful without being grateful. As soon as we awake from taking everything for granted, there is at least a glimmer of surprise and a beginning of gratitude. P. 47
Check the calendar for workshop dates and events.
From Just Be it
pp. 160-177
A Lesson in Gratitude, Happiness and Healing (as spoken to an elementary school class)
Who here has ever been hurt? Did you cry? Do remember how you got better? What happened? Did you see how you felt better when you or someone else sent your hurt some love? Did you see how it felt worse when you sent anger to what you hurt?
Let’s pretend we stubbed our little toe on a door. At first we may cry when our toe sends an ouch message to the brain. And if our brain keeps thinking about it, did you know that the ouch just gets bigger? Who of you wants the pain to get stronger? No one? So let’s learn a way that will always get us back to feeling happy. How many of you want to get back to feeling happy after getting hurt? There’s a magic word that will help you. This special word is thank you.
We can look at what’s broken and give it love or anger. If we look at it with love, we’re saying thank you for how it worked before it was broken. If we look at it with anger, we’re mad because it’s not working like we want it to. Some people only look for what’s not working. Do you think they’re happy? Probably not, unless they’re looking at it with love and care, just like a doctor may look at your hurting toe. The best way to start feeling happy is to say “Thank you, toe. Thank you for sending that message to my brain. Thank you for helping me walk today. Toe, I love you and think you’re great for helping me stand and walk.” When you do this, you’ll see that all of a sudden, Toe is feeling better and so are you. If it still hurts, move around your body and say thank you for all that’s still working. Look at your other little toe. Say, “Thank you, toe. I love you and know you help me walk, stand, run and are very dear to me.” Move your thoughts to your little finger. Say, “Thank you little finger. It’s so amazing that you can move up and down when my brain says to. You’re always there when I catch the ball, eat my food and so many other things. Thank you for working so well.” Your body likes to hear you give attention to it. It’s a very good friend and wants to serve you well. It wants you to always see what’s working. Breathe in and say, “Thank you lungs, for taking in air and feeding oxygen to my blood. Thank you heart, for sending fresh blood all around in my body.” When you do this, all of a sudden, you’re not thinking about your stubbed toe. All of a sudden you realize your toe doesn’t hurt as much, and you’re feeling so happy for all that’s still working.
So who wants to be happy as much as you can be? Do you know Abraham Lincoln? He said, “You can be as happy as you make your mind up to be.” Who remembers the magic word for making happiness? Yes, it’s thank you. So if something’s not working, will it get better if you get mad about it or if you send it love? What works better, saying thank you for all that’s working or being mad about everything that’s not working?
Here’s something you can do every morning when you get up from your bed. It will help you feel happy. Just wiggle a little toe and say, “Thank you, toe, for moving when I ask you to.” Open and close your eyes and say, “Thank you eyes, for opening and closing when I want you to.” They like this, and each time you do it, they feel so happy. Some mornings do it with your hands, sometimes with your legs, sometimes thank your nose for still smelling. There are so many parts of your body to say thank you for…so many things that are working so well. And guess what, when you think about them you don’t even think about what may be hurt or the ouch of your little toe. Sometimes you can even wake up and say, “Thank you. It’s such a great not stubbing my toe day.” And you know what? This even makes you feel happy.
So what are the magic words, thank you toe or I hate you toe? That’s right, thank you is magic and it helps you feel better. It also helps other people feel better when you thank them for what’s working. It just works to look for what’s working and say thank you. And if you must look at what’s not working, send it love from your heart. Soon it will feel better knowing that you’re thankful for all it gave you before it broke. So many times, this is enough to get it working again.
Outside the confines of my body…just be it.
Standing Outside Myself I “See” Where I “Must” Go
The famous Sufi, Rumi, wrote about how important it was to follow the heart’s way rather than the way fear would have us go. Interestingly the way of the heart is much more difficult than the way of fear. It commands action in contribution through our unique gifts and talents. It means staying true to that which we know must be done, even when those around us laugh at our efforts. Tremendous freedom is gained when we surrender our pursuit of happiness through seeking others’ approval to seeking our approval of heart’s pull. Standing tall in the “I” that remains after we die, we can see the power in our unique contribution while inhabiting this body and this body finds its ‘original smile’.
So where do we find happiness? How is it so many move through life so unhappy? How can we teach our children the secrets to happiness? Why are we continually caught in the false notion that happiness can come through accumulation and consumption, through dying to our work in retirement, through taking a just do me vacation to Disneyland or Las Vegas? Why do we ignore the simple answers to finding happiness? It’s so simple, yet one of life’s most complex applications.
It seems that when we offer these simple insights to happiness, most meet this ancient wisdom with disappointment. Yet, successful, happy living will always be found through our disciplined sacred intention to contribute in the healing of the universe, through our expression of gratitude for gifts given and through our commitment to standing tall in life affirmation. Simply put, happiness is found through a perceptual focus on “yes” with each inhalation and “thank you” with each exhalation. Within this body, the only thing we really need is breath. As long as we have it, we can find happiness through expression of gratitude for it.
Our willingness to see the abundance and to recognize our opportunity for perceptual shifts to the mystery of life leaves us forever in awe at the miracle. This leads us to never-ending happiness through our continuous flow of gratitude. Today, traveling this life gate transformation, may we scream in joy for the blessings received and the perfect intelligence of the universe.
Our Peace Commands Our Expression of ‘Thank You’ From Our Gratitude
Brother David Steindl-Rast says a working definition of love is “the yes to belonging with the whole of being”. He believes we can’t have gratefulness without acknowledgement of our belonging; to really come alive is an experience of interdependence. This seems to be why happiness has been related to cognitive expression of gratitude within the thank you response. There’s something that enhances our belonging when we move from the feeling of gratitude to the expression of thanks. This enhancement of belonging appears to be a great source of happiness.
Illumination
May all creatures find peace in everything, in complete belonging through expression of our gratitude in the thank you response. As life’s opportunity is forever gifted in the manifest, may our hearts necessarily pull us to thankfulness in what Brother David refers to as “a circle dance of gratefulness”.
Finding the Gift in the Given
Some amazing things happen when we have enough trust to receive all moments as gift. In the face of hopes gone down the drain and expectations not met, can we still face the mystery in wonder and appreciation? When we recognize the all as gift, our only appropriate response to any life event within this moment is that of gratefulness. Brother David says, “The Source continually gives itself into the manifest and then we give this back in thankfulness…it’s a circle dance of gratefulness”.
Within our acknowledgement of gratefulness through “thank you”, we find peace. Forgiveness is our release of disappointment for events and moments that fell short of our fantasy or expectation. As we release attachment to thoughts of what we think should have been, as we return to the moment in strong affirmation, we find our healing. We give thanks for insights gained through life’s greatest pains and suffering. We meet the mystery in the moment filled with gratitude and consequent peace and happiness.
It’s Our Job to Say Yes to Life
We can watch the animals and plants in nature and see how they say, “Yes”, to each moment. As babies, they are carefully trained in what to pay attention to for survival. We often mistake their keen attention for fear, yet we suspect they have no concept of time, necessarily living in the moment. It’s like we’re continually being shown through Spirit what “works” and what “doesn’t work”. So why do we as humans continue to act in ways that don’t work?
It seems as though we’ve almost come to accept a “not okay” universe by surrounding ourselves with those who may be filled with fear, regret and dissatisfaction with the way it is. Yet, we know it works to still see the gift in those events that cause us the most suffering. We know it works to see grace given through the intelligence of the universe. We know it works to be filled with wonder and awe in our belonging, beyond notions of separation, judgment and comparison. We’ve seen this naturally happen in cultures living outside the influence of power struggles and competition and we now see how crucial it is to find our connectedness and gratitude for this gift of life.
Illumination
May the hearts of all parents fill with the intention to teach our children. May we teach the strength in affirming this gift of life with each breath in and teach our children to find full gratitude with the miracle of each breath out. May we all meet our heart’s desire by working to find gratitude and peace for the opportunities that arise in easy and difficult times. Within this space, may all creatures find purpose and contribution to the healing of the universe.
Teaching Our Children to Say Yes to the Mystery
At a very early age, we can teach our children the value in an affirming attitude as they return to consciousness from sleep. As the child awakes, while still at an early age and filled with wonder, we can engage them in the joy for the gift of bodily movement, shifting focus to various body parts they find they can control. We can help them shift perception to various capabilities of the senses. In effect, our capacity to teach our children the affirming morning response, filled with gratitude and wonder for their very presence, can play a huge role in their life happiness.
We’re teaching them to give thanks for what’s working within this given precious moment, even when in the face of that which is not working. In effect, we’re working with our children to increase their awareness rather than deaden it. Obviously we can’t pretend that we’re awake in appreciation to the mystery. Teaching our children necessarily commands us to effortlessly be in that space of wonder, presence, affirmation and gratitude. This is the richest form of love we can give anyone, our complete attention and presence filled with gratefulness for their ‘being’ beyond notions of separation from us.
Breathing in Yes to Face the Moment; Breathing Out Thank You for the Gift of Opportunity”.
Breathing in we can wake to life in full affirmation. This is where we face the moment in wonder for the gift of opportunity. Within this gift comes our opportunity to share. Upon touching the heart, we are pulled to share our wealth, not from some sense of duty, need for approval, or guilt. It simply happens from carefully listening to our yes to life. Amazingly we learn to find the gift of opportunity especially in troubled times. We surrender ego’s tendency to think we can fix things. We come into the peace and understanding of receiving the intelligence of the universe just as it is. As we touch our heart, so do we touch those hearts around us. We find our connection at last, when we come to see that it’s not just about us. The fabric of our consciousness is threaded into the finest of cloths as we discover our full smile for the gift of opportunity.
Illumination
May we forever be filled from this gift of opportunity. As we polish the heart, we come to know our happiness…that beautiful place where our doing meets our being, that place where fear and pride vanish as we come to touch one another beyond notions of separation.
Weather and Pests
A lot has been written about attitude. We can see how our mental attitude affects our physiology, how it contributes to our healing and ultimately to our sense of health and well-being. Carolyn Myss has written about the negative impact of the language of ‘woundology’, where we get caught in focusing on what’s not working with our bodies. There’s the paradox about social acceptance of discussion of our pains and injuries mixed with our inherent discomfort in listening to another’s feared concerns.
It seems that those things that are uncomfortable for us, those things that test our threshold of whining, are what build character. In Minnesota there seems to be an overwhelming focus on what’s not right about the weather or what’s not right with the insects. Just as it seems people don’t want to hear us complain about what’s not working with the body, it seems best to not whine about the weather and the bugs. Healthy living and relationships seem to best function within the realm of gratitude for the very gift and opportunity to exist. Within this awareness comes our capacity to forever say yes to the moment, to discipline ourselves to say thank you, and to experience consequent happiness.
Teaching Our Children for Peace and Sense of ‘Well Being” in a World Bent on Violence and Anxiety
How is it that we lose that sense of wonder? The infant’s face is filled with awe at the mystery of life and the discovery of the universe. Yet, at some point it’s as if we’re pre-wired to attach to an experience of either pleasure or pain. From the very first development of cognition, as the child comes to the cognitive stage of object permanence, it’s as if we bring our children along the road of dissatisfaction. Parents and educators place great emphasis on training children in the ways of manipulating the environment through requesting skills. Inherent in requesting behavior is the notion that something is not right or missing. Actually, much of our learning is based on notions of getting somewhere that’s better than where we are. Much of our motivation to learn and work is motivated from fear of losing what we have. Yet, the richest contributions to humanity have come through creative efforts where the individual has maintained a sense of wonder in the creative process, forever filled with gratitude for the gift of opportunity to just be.
Who does not want their children to be at peace? Who doesn’t want their children to be filled with happiness and a solid sense of well-being? So why do we work so hard to train them in dissatisfaction? Why do we continually expose them to fear for what’s not working and notions of hope or luck from some outside source that can control their future sense of pleasure or pain? Isn’t our primary goal to contribute to the healing of the universe as we bring our children once again to a sense of wonder in creative response to the gift of opportunity? Isn’t our educational duty to cherish that sense of mystery and wonder throughout the child’s education? In short, wouldn’t the more effective teacher continually challenge students to go deeper in the question rather than memorizing static answers?
It seems our largest imperative in teaching is to forever bring to awareness the beauty of the moment and the divine intelligence of the universe as we come to full acceptance for what is. As we teach our children to touch the divine through the heart, they will find their creative contribution and connection, forever in gratitude for all that is working, even through the most difficult of life circumstance. This is where they find peace and well-being in a world that seems focused on violence and anxiety.
Life’s Greatest Healer…Gratitude
Across cultures, from the most ancient wisdom, comes the knowledge that our greatest healing arrives through gratitude. Within the space of our gratitude for the very gift of this moment, we move outside notions of victim, need and the very separations of life that have caused our pain and suffering. Many cultures have attributed healthy living and success to our capacity for setting sacred intentions, experiencing and expressing gratitude and making life affirmations through the day. To the extent we can move into this space, we discover our healing. At this moment we surrender all notions of victimization, judgment, criticism and fear. Enveloped in love and faith, we come to the deeper understanding of our belonging and response-ability to participate in the evolution of the very healing process.
Gratitude, Key to Happiness within the Art of Presence
There’s something about gratitude that necessarily puts us within the experience of this present moment. One of the key elements to healing for those grieving the loss of a loved one is their ability to give thanks for the time they had with this person. While the recollection of past experience may result in separation from the present moment, at that point in consciousness where we give thanks, there’s simply no way to be out of presence.
When engaged in a sport activity, the action of giving thanks for the moment assists our connection with the elements and the style of action. We may frequently find ourselves caught in comparison, attached to thoughts of previous experiences. Yet, when we do arrive into the gratitude response there’s a connection with the moment’s unfolding, outside of thought, where happiness fills the heart.
Illumination
Holy Spirit, this gift of the moment is so precious. May all creatures come to celebrate this gift, moment by moment…breath by breath, facing the wave of all living circumstance.
Paradise…A State of Consciousness
We can travel the world looking for the perfect place, that space beyond fear, anger and sadness. Yet, wherever we land we can find people filled with the complexities of these emotions and thoughts. So where do we find true peace and happiness? It seems the recipe is found in the mix of a consciousness filled with a sense of enough-ness and gratitude. When we can lift our awareness from a sense of lack-ness to one of enough-ness, we move to a higher state of consciousness that expands opportunity. This sense of gratitude in enough-ness motivates us to action in respect to the awe of this gift we call life. There’s nothing stagnant about enough-ness. It’s vibrant, filled with color and has a deep sense of being that moves far beyond our notions of limitation.
So can we help our children find paradise? It certainly doesn’t seem to be a state of mind for which we’re pre-wired. It needs to be taught, carefully bringing the child to awareness of the peace and happiness found in each experience of gratitude. This is particularly difficult in our consumptive society where our children are continually being sold on products that will fill their lack-ness. Bombarded by commercials throughout the day, they’re told that they’ll be happier with a particular product. Worse yet, they’re told they can’t be happy without this product and the process of wanting is fed. Suffering grows and temporary happiness is found when the product is purchased and the wanting stops. Yet seldom does the consumption of the product produce paradise…a true and lasting peace and happiness. Rather, the addiction to wanting grows and we forever try to feed an insatiable appetite when all we need to do is cultivate our consciousness of enough-ness and appreciation.
The Art of Teaching Happiness Through Gratitude and Life Affirmation
As parents and teachers we’ve been entrusted with the sacred task of teaching our children how to be happy. In a world filled with increasing messages of fear and separation, this can be difficult. We want our children to maintain their innocence and sense of wonder, yet we don’t want them to willingly get into a stranger’s car. We want them to appreciate the beauty of nature, in awe at all of life’s daily miracles, yet we don’t want them exploring without our protective eye on them. No doubt, this is a delicate balance, this teaching of wonder and of protective instinct. We’ve witnessed an overload emphasis upon the teaching of fear over the past years. We seem to allow our children to watch excessive violence in the news, TV shows, computer games and movies. We let them listen to violence and anger in their music. We coach them on the importance of staying away from strangers and places where they may encounter strangers. We train the virtue of survival and defense. Yet we seem to have lost a focus on teaching happiness through gratitude.
Have you ever noticed the decreased expression of wonder on the faces of children as they advance their years of education. The preschoolers and kindergarten children generally present faces filled with smiles, happiness and a sense of life appreciation for the unfolding moments of the day. The ones that do not have often been put into a passive life experience by parents using the TV as a main stimulant. Parents can be coached back to linguistic stimulation with their children by teaching them the skills of self talk and parallel talk. In self talk the parent describes their present moment actions in short sentences. In parallel talk the parent describes the child’s actions in short sentences. These skills have been often regarded by language therapists as the two most important skills for stimulation of language development. They have a focus on the present moment. Consequently it is not possible to project into the future about what might happen or to dwell in regret for what happened in the past. The child’s notions of time are still too limited, and this necessarily puts emphasis upon the precious present moment. Magic can happen in these moments when the parent fully surrenders to the wonder of the child’s changing perceptual focus.
Within this moment of magic, can we teach happiness? Can we teach skills that the child can draw on for the rest of his/her life, skills that will bring a return to the happiness response through the most difficult of times? It would seem that we must, and that we’ll profoundly change the universe through some simple changes in our approach to early play with our children.
This is not the etiquette “thank you” expression that relates to another’s approval. This is fully surrendered “thanks in wonder” for the precious gift of life received. The child would seem most ripe to receive this instruction while still in a natural sense of wonder for the world. We could break down various body movements and specifically give thanks for the gift to move…to make action. For example, we could take the child’s hand and ask them to move a finger, express wonder at the magic in this ability, and teach them to give thanks for this blessing. They could be taught to breath in deeply, and then breath out, followed by expression of gratitude for the gift of air. They could then experience the most important teaching; they would notice how happy they feel when giving thanks for these gifts. They would see that gratitude is the key to a lifetime of happiness. They would learn that whenever they’re not happy, all they have to do is look at their little finger and move it, giving thanks for this gift, and they’ll once again find happiness. Or they could return to the breath in gratitude for its moment-to-moment life restoration. They would no longer grow their suffering. Isn’t this what we all want?
Lasting happiness will not be found in a pill and it can’t be genetically programmed. We see that lasting happiness can’t be found through consumption and material accumulation. It’s not found through achievement and accumulation and our continual desperate attempts for control and power. Happiness comes from our expression of gratitude and we must teach this thank you response to our children for their lasting happiness.
Cultivating Increased Awareness and Gratitude for the Gift of Opportunity within the Present Moment
Brother David Steindl Rast has put his finger upon the issue of accountability and meaning stating a command to always ask:
What do I mean? (This relates to impeccability of speech)
How do I know? (If it’s not from direct experience, best to be quiet)
So what? (What is the meaning, intent and purpose of the expression)
With this criterion in mind, Just Be It, Inc. is about the following:
“It’s about the dedicated practice of felt awareness and gratitude to the present moment for the purpose of living well and in joy.”
“It’s about establishing daily practices for the purpose of cultivating an increased feeling of joining and belonging, weeding away the gravity of life’s pull to separation.” Based on deepening awareness to feeling and stilling mental formations, Just Be It acknowledges compassion, gratitude and forgiveness as “feelings” we can deepen by quieting the mind’s separating activity.”
Just Be It is not philosophy. It’s not religion. It’s not about thoughts. In answer to, “So what?” it’s about the work involved in establishing a dedicated practice to feelings of a bigger belonging through practices aimed at increasing feelings of compassion, gratitude and forgiveness. It’s about cultivating the felt sense of our connection with everything on a belief stimulated through quantum theory and ancient spiritual wisdom and personally substantiated through direct experience. It’s about assisting others in establishment of dedicated gratitude practice, awareness practice, listening practice, forgiveness practice, and compassion practice for the purpose of feeling a deeper connection with our larger community. It’s about training to still the dissonance of the separating thoughts of mind to better align with the harmony and rhythm of nature within the present moment.
This is practice dedicated to the shift in values and identities from doing to being; from ambition to meaning; from “I” to “we”; and from head to heart for the purpose of living a more whole life.
Katagiri Roshi on “Just Be” from Each Moment Is the Universe
“Ignorance is a misunderstanding because in terms of reality there is no separation—everything is interconnected. Yet, because of ignorance, we experience ourselves as separate, and we feel dissatisfied.
As human beings, we always base our thoughts on this misunderstanding. We always feel that something is missing from our lives. We think that to live a peaceful life we must get something that is outside ourselves. Then we try to get it. But actions based on thirsty desire just become the cause of more suffering. That is why Buddha’s teaching that suffering arises from desire based on ignorance is the second Noble Truth.
Buddha also taught that everyone has the capability to go beyond the ordinary body and mind and be fully present in impermanence with the whole body and mind. Then ignorance, desire, and suffering all disappear. That is the freedom we are seeking, the pure and clear state of existence where nothing is missing, the place where all we can do is just be. Then, from that place, truth comes up.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Let's Get in Touch