Wholehearted Aging, Wholehearted Living, Wholehearted Dying

Many have said we really don’t authentically face our living until we’ve faced our death.  When my full heart ‘feels’ infinity, the time and space that’s outside of time and space, I touch the ‘whole heart’.  Zen masters and those pioneers in transformative psychology and interfaith spiritual studies have struck upon this.  When we can let go the grasp of desire for things as they were or as we would have them, simply (and most challenging) touching the felt response of ‘this arising moment’, we’ve altered the universe.

I recently turned sixty years old.  I spent three days returning to each new breath in wonder to the grace given for still ‘being here’.  There have been many moments where grace was given and I was spared severe damage to this body.  And here I am, typing these words, a new breath, a new acorn hitting the deck, a new batch of leaves blown from the trees, the dissipating hum of a plane flying away, the sound and feel of autumn, knowing that this moment will never return.

I attempt to ‘be’ here.  Yet, as my mind touches a new thought, a word, an experience I attempt to label, somehow I travel away from awareness to ‘this’ moment.  So ‘who’ is this ‘I’?  Is it the awareness of this body creating this word string from a thought in my mind?  Why not just rest in the silence of the heart, the ‘felt’ connection of all with all?  Why not just celebrate in nonverbal heart opening rather than cerebrate from the intellect?  It seems to work so much better as my one year old grandchildren demonstrate.  The whole heart doesn’t know thought, words or intellect.  It resides in the realm of the interconnected Being, beyond any notions of separateness.

With today’s bombardment of technological distractions it’s no wonder fewer moments are felt in wholehearted doing (Being).  We so suffer from the restless mind, being dragged here and there with our notions of busy-ness.  We’re so unaware of the harm caused from our actions as we’re continued in our delusions of separateness.  Yet, I have what Katagiri Roshi calls Big Hope.  Others may call it Big Faith in knowing one day we’ll all wake to awareness of our Divine Oneness.  The new math in The Great Healing (return to wholeness) will challenge that 1 + 1=1, just as 1/1=1 and 1 x 1=1.  When in the practice of the whole heart, the notion of being alone is absurd.  The notion of harming another is absurd.  The whole heart knows it’s only hurting itself and dedicates life to the curious mind, forever open to the next surprise in loving wonder for the gift to ‘be’.

A few years back I couldn’t help look at a clock without seeing 11:11 or 1:11.  As search engines evolved I was able to find others with this dominant repeating experience.  The general thrust is that duality is illusion, all is One.  Today major movies try to touch this notion of a Network, Matrix, God, Source, etc.  Yet, we’re still carried with the illusions of small belonging, fighting expensive endless wars, engaging in win/loose politics, sports, religion, commerce, etc.  While this is difficult to approach with words, most people have a felt sense of our interdependence.  Yet, our greed, fear and ignorance have us persisting the dualistic approach to the moment, the subject vs. object.  The Great Healing receives strong energy in 2011.  While ‘time is Being’, our felt sense of One will advance significantly on 1/11/11 at 1:11 and 11:11, both am and pm, and on 11/11/11 at 1:11 and 11:11, both am and pm.  The sad illusion that we’re separate will lose tremendous energy as light spreads to our felt sense of One.  While all I know is now, in ‘this moment’ I feel this advance of peace, outside of time and space.  I know thousands of other spirits have this same feeling and there’s tremendous joy in moving from material greed and fear to the realm of love, listening, curiosity, joy, gratitude, and the magnanimous.

Breathing in, I know I am not my body.  Breathing out, I know I’m not ‘not my body’.

Breathing in, I know I’m not right.  Breathing out, I know I’m not ‘not right’.

To really appreciate full, it helps to be empty.

To really appreciate life, it helps to face and know death.

When the mind leaves the posture, obstacles appear.

When the mind leaves the tone, obstacles appear.

When the mind leaves ‘this moment’, obstacles appear.

When the mind leaves ‘this breath’, obstacles appear.

When the mind leaves awareness, obstacles appear.

Conformity is overrated.

Precision is underrated.

Conformity is a dangerous condition where depth sacrifices to approval.

Multitasking is divided attention and counter to wholehearted being.

We’ve been trained from fear to meet survival needs, often at the expense of harm to others.  Whether in family, school, work, religion, community, state, nation, etc., the notion of ‘win’ is illusion, ultimately costing us real peace.

A strong desire to be ‘better’ may be the comparative that prevents you from full whole hearted attention, from ‘being’ your best.

In the end, all we really want (and need) is one another’s awareness.  So let’s ‘wake up’ to one another.

Rockets of desire seldom launch when there’s a sense of yearning (restlessness).  We must first carry our gratitude and depth of awareness for ‘what is’.  This opens the space for the new to come in.

Opening in joy to receive what ‘is’ slows greed’s venom, opening space for lasting joy.  We can live in love/generosity or fear; live in greed or gratitude/generosity; ignoring or awakened awareness and sharing.

I can move beyond the feeling of ‘overwhelm’ by deepening to that place beyond notions of birth and death.  This deepens our capacity to face restlessness and the suffering mind/body.

Not this moment?  Yes…this moment.  The journey from establishing ‘object permanence’ at two (training our mind for a different moment) is to once again move back to ‘this moment’, deepening our awareness to impermanence and interdependence.  Breath in ‘yes’.  Breath out ‘thank you’.

When ‘best’ is defined by 100% attention we see it’s transitory, momentary nature.  This takes a lot of pressure away.  Too often we’re damaged by the spirit of competition, the extreme grasping at the expense of another’s loss.  Winning yields a temporary pleasure, but it’s not sustaining.

Sustaining joy comes from not taking things for granted.  Moving from awareness to gratitude, we eventually arrive in joy.

Sustaining joy comes from felt sense of ‘fullness’, never from felt sense of ‘lackness’.

There is no audience, just our fear of judgement.  Be played to your fullest.

Judgment is an obstacle to love.  The brain can’t create and criticize at the same time.