just be it Just Be It is a practice of presence that recognizes the limits of language. When aware of silence there is a state of inner still alertness. You are wholeheartedly present.

I have studied the communication process for the past forty-five years. I’ve taken graduate courses in psychology, linguistics, interpersonal communication, comparative religions and communication disorders. I’ve taught these courses in college and have worked on them over and over. So why do I feel like I’m still a novice? Why is everything I’ve learned so extremely difficult to apply? I’ve recently been reviewing some wisdom imparted from Byakuren Judith Ragir, a well respected female Zen priest, outlining teachings from the Buddha on Right Speech. Some things need to happen before we can move to dialogue and a more whole communication: 1. Is it kind? 2. Is it necessary? 3. Is it true? 4 Is it helpful? These questions must be asked before we move to the next questions to answer before speaking: 1. If it’s untrue, incorrect and unbeneficial, unwelcome and disagrreable to others – don’t say it 2. If it’s true, correct but unbeneficial which is also unwelcome and disagreeable to others – don’t say it 3. If it’s true, correct, beneficial but which is unwelcome and disagreeable to others – the one skilled in Right Speech knows the time to use such speech 4. If it’s untrue, incorrect and unbeneficial, but which is welcome and agreeable to others – don’t say it 5. If it’s true, correct but unbeneficial and is welcome and agreeable to others, don’t say it and finally, 6. If it’s true, correct, beneficial and is welcome and agreeable to others, the one skilled in Right Speech knows the time to use such speech. So what is ‘timing’? The right time to deliver your message skillfully is when you and the other person are both upright and non-reactive. Are you both grounded and alert? Can the other person hear what you want to say? If it is a difficult truth, is it a time when people can handle being uncomfortable. Real dialogue with those we differ from is like walking a razor’s edge. It takes tremendous courage, balance and rhythm. Not only are we witnessing our semantic reactions to the words said, but we have to be reading our partner for their semantic reactions, fully understanding how language is made of arbitrary symbols and ‘meaning is in the person, not the word’.

This process has become dramatically apparent as we’ve suffered through another political campaign cycle filled with hurtful, malicious speech, idle chatter, gossip, rumor and needless speculation. This kind of speech leads us further into an illusion that we’re separate and alienated from others. As various groups vie for our approval and support, we’re further drawn into the realm of opinion and judgment, speculating on the underlying viewpoints of those we fear may threaten us. We can then demonize them in ‘us vs them’ battle carrying the illusion that somehow ‘we know’ and ‘they don’t know’. Dr. Martin Luther King recognized the poison of this kind of speech when he wrote, “We lose our persuasive power when the other can smell our contempt for them.” Isn’t it interesting that he stresses the nonverbal element of face to face communication? We’ve regressed to our electronic, non face to face communications, giving up over 70% of the information necessary for accurately reading another’s meaning. We can take a Tweet, email, social media post or text and apply just about any meaning to it we’d like for fitting our view of the world. And off we go spinning into the stratosphere, promoting our message to those who would listen. As we do this we polarize further from each other. We gravitate to a mono-diet of the news that fits our sense of ‘rightness’.

Brother David Steindl Rast, a Benedictine monk, once advised me on the following before speaking: 1. Always examine what the intent of your speech is and always come from compassion for the listener. Bottom line, “What do you mean?”, 2. “How do you know?” Is it second or third hand information? This is especially true in today’s rapidly changing media world where news standards have been sacrificed for increased audience. Brother David suggested it wise to hold silence unless what you’re speaking comes from first hand direct experience, and 3. “And if you clearly know what you mean and it’s from direct experience, so what?” This is especially challenging because so much of what we say is directed to seeking approval from others or narcissistic monologue. A compassionate communicator is forever cultivating sensitivity to the listener’s stability, grounding and curiosity, always assessing the potential value in what’s being opened up.

So let’s look at the use of language in our mind. Essentially, we’re of human nature to have restless minds. In the present moment, a thought or feeling will arise. We can elaborate on it and then we have a choice to attach to the thought/feeling and grow it, or we can let it go. The degree to which we attach to it (or the degree to which we seem to let it attach to us) determines how much we suffer. A thought can bubble up, we can expand on it, then attach to it, and ultimately come to that point where we’ll fight for it. This has been the cause for over five thousand wars, it’s killed millions of people, and now has us embattled in a dangerous world of polarized thinking. It’s not out of the question to say our very existence is threatened by our immature communication skills. Perhaps the best use of communication skills came when President Kennedy gave his speech at the American University:

All this is not unrelated to world peace. “When a man’s ways please the Lord,” the Scriptures tell us, “he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights–the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation–the right to breathe air as nature provided it–the right of future generations to a healthy existence?

Kennedy had impeccable timing with this speech and later Kruchev credited this speech as a major reason for their relaxation in pursuing a major war. He met the Soviet’s with compassion. In his eighties, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara stressed his military lessons over decades of service. First on the list was, “Empathize with your enemy.” So how do we begin?

A balanced, grounded mind comes from silence. Love, faith and hope come from the courage to set our fixed notions of ‘knowing everything’ aside. It’s my greatest desire that whenever we meet we aim to not cause harm, to recognize our humanity, and to breath together in silence and stillness. When we can settle into stillness we’re now making not only ourselves ready for dialogue, but we’re respecting the process and honing our skills at reading whether the person we’re meeting can receive our words as kind, necessary, true and helpful. These are some traits of speech I think we need today:

1. Gentle speech, causing all beings to be calm
2. Sweet elixir speech, causing all beings to be clear and cool.
3. Nondeceptive speech, everything they say being true
4. Truthful speech, not lying even in dreams
5. Great speech, being honored by the divine;
6. Profound speech, revealing the essence of things
7. Steadfast speech, expounding truth inexhaustibly
8. Straightforward speech, their statements being easy to understand
9. Various speech being spoken according to the occasion
10. Speech enlightening all beings, enabling us to understand according to our inclinations

After the record breaking Women’s March this past Saturday I was taken with how hungry the media was for ‘what’s next?’ No doubt, there was a lot of fear and anger that drove the attendance. Immediate threat is usually what wakes us from our slumber. Yet, it’s my intention and hope to move from dogmatic belief to a deeper curiosity as we sit in stillness with one another, aiming for a deeper compassion and stewardship for one another’s welfare. Our Declaration of Independence calls this a reliance upon divine providence.

Aitken Roshi:
To respond is to come forth from a place of peace
To react is just to bat the nasty ball right back.

Deep listening demands a stilled mind, a curiosity that’s open to receive what’s presented without semantic reaction. Most of the time, when we think we’re listening we’re really reacting and rehearsing our turn at an expressive response. Someone says something, it triggers a meaning from our experience, and away we go. Yet, the curious mind, seeking to understand, will hold the reactive mind at bay. It holds respect to the difficulties involved in communication and dedicates attention to understanding the speaker. This requires tremendous skill, a dedicated practice, and a clear intention to understand better the meaning the speaker is trying to convey.

It is a rare treat when someone holds their response and affirms their attention with a nod of the head or a vocalization affirming their continued attention. Certainly, eye contact is a big bonus along with several other nonverbal cues suggesting continued intention to listen. Yet, without a dedicated awareness/stillness training, that kind person is still assuming they understand without demonstrating clarification. When is the last time someone attempted to demonstrate their understanding with a paraphrase? How about a, “Tell me more, please.” We all have something to say, something to explore. The human communicative experience is testimony to our need to be face to face with one another as we seek understanding, the capacity to move closer to being in the shoes of the other.

So just because we’re not talking doesn’t mean we’re listening. We’re busy with our thought triggers, we’re reacting, we’re planning our response, etc. Yet, if we really want to see into each other (intimacy), moving past the superficial layers of communication, the quieted mind is an essential component. We must lay down the conversation in our mind to hear what the other is saying. This is real compassion, the syrup of love. This is full wholehearted attention.

Yesterday my daughter-in-law was subjected to a militarized response to a high school altercation. A mentally disturbed student wielded a knife, refused to release his weapon upon command, and a security officer shot him. My daughter-in-law teaches at this school and was walking outside when she heard the commotion. She saw students frozen in shock, failing to take cover. With the alarm announcing lock down, she gathered twenty-three random students and tried to find a free room to mother hen them to. Her hands were shaking so violently she couldn’t lock the door and thanks to a fellow teacher, they secured themselves in a room of uncertainty.

Many of the students had cell phones so they could gradually start to make some sense of the situation. After an hour of lock down six officers abruptly entered the room, all guns drawn on them. Their force and authority of questioning was what she has been most terrorized by. She is a white teacher in a school of vast diversity, many of her students unsure if they’ll be forced to leave the country they were born in, many having only known their life experience in Reno. Fortunately, they all obeyed and none of the officers used their weapons. This was her first experience in having a loaded weapon pointed at her. She stayed in lock down with these students for three hours. She had not used a restroom since eight o’clock and they did not release until after three. She was afraid to leave the room for fear of gunfire. Finally, an officer with an assault weapon escorted her.

This story is still unfolding and I’m the first to admit we’re far from knowing what happened. No doubt, we’ll all weave our story according to our worldview. Currently, the student is in critical condition. The officer is suspended on paid leave. The students and faculty got a two hour delay from returning to school today. And we’ve all been terrorized by an incident that we hope we can learn from. So how can we have better outcomes in our reactive society?

The best action is always one that comes from experience, alignment, and the capacity to move with best intent for all and harm to none. It’s not easy and we don’t know if that’s what this officer did. Clearly, the mentally disturbed student violated a key rule: always respect authority, but always know there will be a time where it’s your duty to question authority. If someone’s holding a gun on you or has capacity to incarcerate you, best to do what they say. In the heat of emotion is no time to pose the question or resist. In 2003 our family attended a spiritual retreat with the Madison police force. We all grew in empathizing with the challenges faced in this difficult job. At that time I deepened my compassion for their work and vowed to always try to see any situation through their experience. Previous to this I had met traffic violations with my frustration. After hearing their challenges, whenever I was stopped I apologized for putting them in the position of having to approach a stranger, not knowing if they’re armed or not. I haven’t been issued a ticket since that retreat. Previous to our election I derided my disgust for Donald Trump. I have done this with Nixon, Reagan and G.W. Bush. However, once they’ve been awarded the authority to lock me up or kill me, perhaps best to temper my commentary. I’ve always found it puzzling how so many have shown lack of respect for our current President. I can think of several citizens I would have imprisoned for treason given their harmful behavior. Given Trump’s militaristic cabinet picks, I’d suggest to those comedians having a field day with him that they may want to show respect before their lives are made difficult.

I know what a militarized government feels like. In the late ’60’s I frequently visited Chicago. Mayor Daily had a police force beefed up from the convention riots and it was commonplace to be frisked given our longer hair. It was profiling. It wasn’t right. Yet, during that oppressive moment, it was no time to resist. I’ve counseled my sons to do what you can to stay out of people’s way. You never know what their experience is. Tragic results from road rage attest to this. Our family will never own a gun for a sense of protection. We’ve worked on our skills of non-resistance and disarmament. Statistics now show that the possession of a weapon in the home increases one’s risk of harm by 400%. If someone wants to steal my stuff and they have a weapon, I’m going to respect them as well. Again, all situations are different and all we can do is deepen our practice at holding our center for when the earthquake happens.

So today I mourn the fact that my daughter-in-law and her students were traumatized by having weapons drawn upon them. I meet the pain of the elderly grand parents trying to raise two very challenging boys. I mourn the guilt the school administrator feels who recently admitted this disturbed child to the classroom. Yet, she had no choice given budget constraints and law. I mourn the security officer plagued with how he could have handled this better. I mourn the child in critical condition from his gunshot wound. I mourn the deep suffering we experience when acting from fear and anger instead of love and justice. But most importantly, I ask what we’re doing to enhance our skills in disarmament? How do we train to more balanced living, making less of a mess of things, training the reactive mind to “Stop. Look. And then Move.”

As a family, community, nation and planet, our very survival depends upon our capacity to step from forceful reactivity to skilled disarmament. We must ask our president elect who he’ll have around him with these skills. Where did they get their training and what’s their resume in ending conflicts without violence? These are the real heroes to me. The last president I recall who had these sophisticated skills was JFK, thanks in large measure to the tremendous speech writing collaborative he had with Ted Sorenson. So, President Elect Trump, you’ve shown us your taste for surrounding yourself with fighters. You’ve declared your faith in military force over diplomacy. Yet, today, my question is, “Who will you have who has the skills to disarm?” I love America and my freedom. I know I have limited information. I know violence and war gets all the media attention. And today, I deeply want to know who has the skills that you obviously don’t possess, to disarm those people/nations who would seek to harm us. This is where our real power is. This is where training to alert, aware, balanced action always leads to best for all and harm to none.

Our very survival will depend upon our capacity to move from the lower levels of brain function to the development of skills in the pre cortex. Some have tied this movement to the heart. It’s part of our spiritual journey and why so much of our deeper religious teachings speak to this. It’s that place where we can embrace uncertainty in faith to that which is bigger than us. It’s a place where we can move beyond our limited notions of thinking we’re right and others are wrong. It’s more about our willingness to sit in humble stillness to a deeper knowing, seeking understanding to that which we’ll never know, but we can forever challenge ourselves to know better. So how does this upgrade to higher function look?

The most obvious is found in the courage to live for deeper understanding with compassion to all living things. The temptation to divide and separate in survivalist thinking diminishes and our thoughts, emotions and actions are aimed to ‘not cause harm’ and to ‘bear witness’ to those places where harm is occurring. Today great harm is caused in our judicial system as we lock into didactic judgments of ‘guilty’ vs. ‘not guilty’. Higher function would add another category called, ‘we don’t know’. When we have the courage to embrace uncertainty we find our pure intention to dig deeper. In the justice system this takes the form of restorative justice. The party of complaint sits in open inquiry with the suspected causer of harm and they mediate a deeper truth about how to move forward. This justice relies on our faith that eventually truth comes up and moves away from the antiquated ‘right’ vs. ‘wrong’ thinking. Again, it’s what’s at the core of all major spiritual traditions. We all make mistakes. We all miss the mark. The mind can be an extremely volatile thing, and if we truly apply the Golden Rule we’ll work together to a healthy evolution of body/mind/spirit.

Holding on to our ‘notions of knowing’ would seem to be a dis on grace given. Our prefrontal cortex recognizes how little we know. Our reptilian survival mind locks into a closed thinking cycle and works to force a dominance on others from the poisons of greed, fear and anger. The mind of separation pushes to force others to fixed beliefs. Our suffering today is the result of our attachment to these poisons. Spiritual mandates focus upon not doing harm, living a life of simplicity and moderation, sharing, seeking depth in our living, generosity, forgiveness, curiosity and faith. Real faith surrenders in humility to what we don’t know. Real faith dismantles those antiquated methods of governance that support big money lobbyists, the perpetual war machine, and questions the callous push to disregard those in deep suffering from global conflicts and economic stress. Real faith recognizes we do have abundant resources to feed and house everyone when our greed to hoard material wealth is exposed. When we move from our separated reptilian mind to collaboration we sit together in search of understanding. Real faith moves with urgency to dismantle the 15000 nuclear warheads that serve no function but to stimulate other nations to create their own. Real faith recognizes this planet and life on it are a gift from the divine, an opportunity for us to smash our illusion of separateness. The reptilian mind, even when it knows the train is headed for a mountain wall, wants to speed it up with denial. Greed and fear denies that even use of one hundred nuclear warheads would end life on earth as we know it. Greed and fear proclaims the mantra of ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ ignoring the scientific evidence and spiritual mandate to steward the land, air and water we’ve been blessed with. Real faith would have our corporations valued not only by quarterly profits, but penalized or rewarded for harm/benefit to employees, customers, community, nation, international community and environment. Real faith and exploration of the stilled mind reveals our behavior today as similar to ants in the sugar bowel. Our fixed belief thought and mindless consumption are leading us from an awakening to a deeper sleep.
We do have a choice. We can fall into a deeper sleep or wake up. We can continue to exert our violent ways upon others, causing harm from our thoughts of ‘righteousness’, or we can open in curiosity to better understand the mystery. We can experience a deeper connection with this gift of life by dedicating to a practice of stillness, dismantling our fixed belief. We can teach our children to respect authority, but also forever question it. We can educate to deeper questions rather than fixed answers. We can balance our Dept. of Defense and State (War) with a Dept. of Conflict Resolution (Peace). We can open our limited spiritual beliefs to embrace diversity of all faiths, discovering the common truths they all carry, first and foremost, to love one another as ourselves because we are each other.

So we can continue as ants in the sugar bowel. Our new executive, legislation and judicial branches appear excited to exert their notions of ‘belief’ upon us. My reptilian mind wants to engage them in survivalist ‘right’ vs. ‘wrong’ debate. I’m tempted to elevate my sense of personhood, attacking their words and actions. Yet, too many years of living in conflict have shown this to not be helpful. So how do we move forward?

Just invite one another to sit. And if those we’ve invited can sit quietly, admitting they don’t know everything, then maybe, just maybe, we can climb out of that sugar bowel of greed, fear and anger before we rob life of the opportunity to participate. Today our news media has shown up to see what happens tomorrow with the Dakota pipeline issue. Their hungry ghost mentality is looking for what they think is a good news story. They love building conflict that ends in violence and deep suffering. I would love to see the Native American process of Council displayed for the world to see. Here we would have witness to the benefits of Native American elders in collaboration with key government officials and the key representative from the oil industry. Together, all would sit with an agreement to listen with curiosity, speak from the heart, release all attempts to persuade, and honor brevity of speech. This is really what our founding fathers were referring to in the Declaration of Independence when they called for surrender and reliance upon divine Providence. It’s what real faith looks like. It comes from our surrender to stillness, to that which is far bigger than we’ll ever know. It’s sourced from gratitude for the opportunity to be, feeding a sense of compassion and forgiveness. It’s what drives us together to solutions far bigger than we could have ever imagined from our closed minds. It moves us to a sense of stewardship, forever asking one another how harm is caused. It drives from a faith that breaks our illusion of difference and embraces our interdependence. Sometimes, this willingness to just sit with one another in clear intention to ‘not cause harm’ is all we need to keep from destroying one another. Sometimes the gravity of culture can cave to our spiritual mandate to care for one another. This is a moment in time that’s as big as any other moment that has pitted the reptilian mind against the mind of understanding and compassion.

Tomorrow will show us the play of power vs. force. The violent, forceful attempts to dominate another have so far shown to only grow the conflict to international awareness. This has been countered by the power capacity of Native Americans and supporters to ‘bear witness’ to the events. It has us asking how we can release the grasping mind to rest in our true nature of love and respect for one another and our planet. It’s played out against the horrific history we have with indigenous peoples and truly brings to light the hypocrisy of our current push to not allow in refugees who are facing issues of their very survival. The reptilian brain moves from the illusion of our separateness, creating multiple borders of belonging. The pre frontal cortex brain moves from the intention to break boarders, to move in compassion and stewardship to one another. The American Dream moves away from hoarding stuff and mindless consumption to a new era of care for one another, for our planet, for all beings. The weight, pain and suffering from the illusion of ‘having’ is exposed. A sense of spiritual purpose that’s larger than our violent limited beliefs feeds the new American Dream, the dream of opportunity for all. This is my dream, to sit together in stillness, fully surrendered from thought, filled with gratitude for the gift of life. If you’re willing to admit you don’t know everything, so am I. If you’re willing to move from the reptilian brain of righteousness to embrace uncertainty in humility to that mystery that’s far bigger than we’ll ever know, then maybe, just maybe we can steward a humanity to a spiritual awakening before it’s too late.

Shine On

What are those things you do that give lasting joy? Our consumer driven society works us all day long trying to sell us on pleasure. Yet, this inevitably has short term effect, yielding a vacuum and increased desire for the next thing. I’m talking about those activities we engage in that feed a lasting sense of well being. So often, when we’re filled with restlessness, we may resort to unhealthy eating, shopping, various spectator entertainments, intoxicants, etc. Yet, after engaging these pleasures we feel worse than we did before. We know this restlessness is part of the human condition. No one is immune. We’re either pulled to wanting what we had or pushed to desiring what’s not in front of us. Yet, our real joy is to fully engage the moment with a gratitude orientation for the opportunity to just participate in this life.

I wish someone would develop an app that would quantify our sense of restlessness vs. our sense of well being. The more we cultivate our awareness, the better we get at sensing this felt sense of well-being. We’re repeatedly directed by our spiritual teachers to do what we can to move away from negative emotions and thoughts. We know that the more we attach to negatives, the more we suffer. The more we put attention to the moment and to gratitude for the opportunity to participate, the less we suffer. For some people, this process comes naturally. For most of us, it’s hard work that requires daily practice. Making a ‘joy list’ is an essential part of this practice. When negative feelings come up, do we go for short term pleasure or mindful practice of those skills that increase our awareness and sense of well being?

For me, I loved chocolate, ice cream, beer, crusty breads, and candy. Sometimes I’d try to comfort myself with these foods. Sometimes I corrupted any experience of the present moment because my thoughts were entangled with my addiction to these foods. For me, these were pleasure foods that had negative consequence. I enjoyed them in my mouth, but later my body was confused from my lack of awareness. I shifted my food consumption emphasis from the pleasure sensation of the mouth to the feeling of well-being from the nourishment of the food. I’m continually amazed at our lack of regard to the ‘feeling’ of well being or pain following our consumption of various foods. Some call my abstinence from chocolate and ice cream ‘will power’. It is. It’s my will to nourish my body for a long term felt sense of joy.

So when the restless, complaining, ‘not enough’ mind turns on, what do you do? Do you go for the short term pleasure, or sustained sense of well being? Do you increase your suffering or reduce it? Do you move from pain to numbness, or pain to awareness?

Some people have asked me about my ‘joy list’ as an example. Here’s a list of some of my favorites.

Review photos of my family, recalling gifts of the past, recognizing the fleeting moments in this live and just making space to acknowledge how so many have been such great support to my joy and sense of well being.
Meditate daily. The mind is a very dangerous thing as we’re so often entangled in negative thoughts. It takes tremendous discipline and skill to pause, to cultivate the silence between thoughts, and to allow the presence of that which is much bigger than our ego’s attempt to identify us as separate from the Divine. While I practice at least thirty minutes each morning, whenever restlessness comes upon me with negative emotions, I know I can meditate to once again discover lasting feelings of well being.
Yoga. This body that gets me around is the only one I have or will have. It’s huge mystery and performs so many functions beyond my awareness. A daily practice of yoga provides lasting joy as I develop greater awareness to the body, deeper listening, and cultivate a stewardship to lasting health. I consistently find a greater sense of well-being from all moving meditation practices, but have particularly found a place for yoga.
Breath instruments. A deeper sense of well-being is very much dependent upon breath and our awareness to it. Centered, balanced breath that comes from deep within the diaphragm provides great stability for meeting ‘what comes up’. My primary breath instrument is the trumpet. Even though I started playing at the age of eight, each moment the mouthpiece touches my lips, it’s new. Breath is the most important element. This awareness of depth, balance, and centeredness transfers to my secondary instruments, harmonica and voice. Whenever negative emotions and thoughts seem to be grabbing me, I know I can go to these instruments for relief.
Engaging in an activity with intention to relieve another from suffering. I know my healing from suffering is best fed from doing what I can to make myself available to others for the purpose of easing their pain. I’m particularly filled with a sense of well being when meeting pain and suffering of those who’ve been oppressed. When I can actually do something that creates opportunity for someone who’s freedom to participate has been obstructed, my sense of well being soars. When I can feel their imprisonment as mine rather than taking a ‘fix it’ attitude, my sense of participation leads to lasting joy, just for having met their suffering. In short, compassion yields deep joy when we have the courage to engage in it.
Boardsports. There’s something about putting my entire bodyweight on a single surface that alleviates my suffering. This activity takes great awareness, attention to the moment, and balance that challenges us in new ways. When caught in my mind’s restlessness, I always know that engaging in boardsport will bring me to greater sense of well-being, whether Stand Up Paddle, windsurfing, kitesurfing, skateboarding, wakeboarding, or snowboarding. The kinesthetic focus on ‘cultivating stability on an unstable platform’ is great practice and preparation for meeting the surprise of the next moment.
Engaging others in deeper conversations. While I get temporary joy from surface socializing with friends, the lasting sense of well-being comes from deeper conversations with those who are also exploring their spiritual journey. Conversations with curious, open minded and vital people feeds my soul and sense of well being in a very rich way. I find it helpful to have a list of those people willing to do this. It’s like going to church with an adventuresome mind, willing to ask deeper questions, forever humbled to life’s mystery.
Take a nap. Sometimes fatigue comes upon me. Taking a brief nap (about twenty minutes), can often change my sense of well-being, feeding me with new energy for meeting the next moments of the day.
Mindful consumption. I know I can improve my sense of well-being by holding awareness to foods and/or drinks which nourish and sustain. This is especially helpful when done with others from a sense of gratitude and community.
Engage nature. Taking a walk, ski, bike, or board into nature always improves the sense of well-being. Several in the mind/body health field recommend a minimum of thirty minutes in nature each day for a balanced life. When I’m particularly carried with negative thoughts and emotions, this is my ‘go to’. Get outside, breath deep, and just keep moving. It’s extremely effective at helping me to get bigger than the problem, even when the problem seems big.
Gratitude practice. Did you know that joy is a necessary consequence of gratitude? No matter how much pain and complaint we may be caught in, when we move to gratitude we increase our sense of well being. Try it. I was told this by a Benedictine monk when I was over fifty years old. It should be taught to every child at an early age. What parent doesn’t want their child to be happy? Well, here’s a practice that can do this. Yet, it is a skill that requires practice. When caught with feelings of ‘not enough’, ‘make space to find the gift in the given’. Some have said it’s not about getting what you want, but rather, wanting what you get. This practice at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day provides great momentum for lasting joy and sense of well being.

These are a few things on my list. They’re my ‘go to’ when negative emotion grabs me. No doubt, I’ve got my short term pleasures. Yet, over the years, I’ve seen how they’ve not served me, and so often, have harmed me. If this article has helped you think about your list, I’m happy. We all suffer. Our work is to let go and engage in practices that feed our sense of joy and well being. Throughout the day we’re tossed by the winds of change, moving from pleasure to pain, gain to loss, praise to criticism, fame and disrepute. We get ourselves in trouble when we step from our calm, joy and sense of well being. Life goes better when we can move from a sense of spiritual security, with balance and equanimity, holding a feeling of well being, no matter what. I hope you’ll consider your joy list after reading this. Do it when you’re feeling a strong sense of well being. Write it down. Make it your ‘go to’ when things get rough. Holding our light when an earthquake happens works better when we’ve cultivated our joy list.

We can move unconsciously or consciously. We can wake up or stay asleep. When we move from heart knowing rather than head knowing, compassion, gratitude and forgiveness thrive. When we expand our notions of belonging, breaking the illusion of our separateness, we discover the true motivation to ‘not harm’. In compassion, we discover how our courage to meet another’s suffering is really our awareness to their suffering met as our suffering. Our spiritual mandates are:

1.Forever work to expand your circle of belonging. Where we stop growing these circles is where our violence begins. Violence is the robbing of opportunity. Wherever we oppress or rob another of opportunity, we’re ‘missing the mark’, the definition of sin.
2. Growth is humbling oneself to ’not knowing’, to engage the curious mind, forever open to surprise. The divine is too big to ever think we have all the answers. Yet, the head or conceptualizing mind is continually trying to convince us ‘we know’. Our deepest faith and hope would have us move to a different kind of knowing that’s fed from the heart. It’s a consciousness that will forever have us in an open, curious posture. It recognizes how real learning comes from an open mind that always asks deeper questions. Our ignorance settles in when we move from the ‘I know that’ mind, the mind unwilling to explore. This mind humbles itself in stillness/silence, essentially using the mantra, “I admit the mystery is big and I don’t know everything”.
3. The spiritual journey mandates we surrender in silence to hear the divine. If effect, the Word is found in the gap between the words. The mandate is “Be still and know I am God”. We can function in thought/language or rise above thought. We function in language or go below thought and language with drugs, tv, games, etc., numbing ourselves to the moment of experience. Or, we can go above thought/language, in silence, to that space before thought. This requires resolve to practice.
4. Practice more, speak less. Become more aware of the precious nature of the moment. Increase attention, relax and accept what presents, appreciate by finding the gift in the given, deepen with allowing, and ultimately move to affection as we break the illusion of our division. This is the essence of a centering practice. As with anything, what we put attention to grows stronger. The more we practice, the more aware we become. The more aware we become the more we grow our desire to ease suffering, to minimize the harm we cause. Ironically, many have called this ‘mindfulness’, when in reality, when we go above thought, we’re practicing ‘mind emptiness’. It’s a place of peace and feeling of ‘great fullness’.

The core of any contemplative practice will lead one to the ‘practice of stillness’. The core of movement in the spiritual journey will always ask for surrender to the unknown. Pema Chodron has written a book entitled Embracing Uncertainty which beautifully addresses this. As we progress to consciousness, moving from sleep to awake, we grow our confidence in meeting what comes up. Just as in the Quaker tradition, we speak when the heart has a downloaded message from the divine. We hold silence when our ego is driving our speech from thoughts of ‘knowing’ fed from greed, fear and the illusion of our separateness. The heart knows when to stand up and when to bow down. The growing awareness of this is the center of the spiritual journey.

Whether we voted for Hillary, Donald, a third party candidate, or were part of the 50% who didn’t even vote, the vast majority of voters were protesting a broken, dysfunctional system in dire need of an upgrade. Change is accelerating at an amazing speed and we simply don’t have time to stagnate in our capacity to adapt to it. Our small brains struggle with trying to make sense of complexities that are far beyond our egos solutions. We ‘think’ we can be on the winning side, when if fact, we all know the circle has no sides. The mystery is simply too big for us to ever think we have all the information. Some have said that our informational society doubles in what it knows each day. That means, what we’ve learned in history up to this moment is doubled due to the tremendous capacities of technological development. Yet, our juvenile mind seems to want to work from ‘knowing’ what’s right and what’s wrong. These small minds want to lock into fixed solutions for issues that are far beyond our thought. We end up pushing antiquated political agendas at our peril. We refuse to open to solutions that are bigger than us. We push science to validate our limited thinking rather than to discover new territory. We’re no longer the pilgrims we once were. We’re a society filled with fear and complaint and our country simply doesn’t function when that’s the driving force. So what can we do? My suggestion is to humbly acknowledge that we don’t know everything.

The famous Sufi mystic, Rumi, once wrote, “Out there, is a field. It’s a field beyond notions of right knowing and wrong knowing. Let’s meet there.” Our Declaration of Independence says that our true freedom relies upon the protection of divine Providence. There’s a deeper faith that’s far beyond our temptation to put complete trust in any political leader, party or branch of government. It begs us to come together, in humility and dedicated service, to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor”. There’s a sense of stewardship from knowing ‘we don’t know’ and the quality of our living is dependent upon this pledge to our interdependence. When we sit silently in the field of uncertainty we find our real grounding. It’s not in some political platform designed from special interest lobbyists. There’s little centering found in media that feeds on conflict. We can take religious beliefs from controlling our laws, but it’s an ugly picture when we take spirituality and the sacred out of politics. We must all come to ground and admit ‘we don’t know everything’. If we truly get the divine, we accept that we’re just beginning to touch the tip of the iceberg. When we do this we open to bigger solutions. We appreciate the failures of our past efforts to push our sense of rightness.

We’re all going through our spiritual journeys. We can read all of our spiritual texts advising a life of moderation. We all know we’re to love one another, even our perceived enemies. We’re all perplexed by the tremendous harm that’s come from the hoarding of wealth as we witness millions of children suffering from lack of food and shelter. We’re somehow caught in the illusion that we’re separate from one another. Yet, deep within us, we all know that when another dies from our recklessness, fear and greed, we also experience loss. So what can we do? I can’t change you. And my happiness is not dependent up on you. I can touch true freedom when I can let go my notions of blame, complaint and entitlement. The center and calm I create within my own mind calms and centers the world. So next time we meet, can we ask Rumi’s question? Can we spend our opening time by just admitting, “We don’t know everything”? Can we pay attention to one another, accept one another’s honor to ‘just be’, allowing one another to be carried by the thoughts we’ve been exposed to through our journey, appreciating our vast diversity, and ultimately, touching one another’s heart in stillness.

I guarantee that our world would progress more positively if our branches of congress could open all meetings with, “I admit that I don’t know everything. I honor your journey. I commit my life, fortunes and sacred honor to this endeavor. And acknowledging the mystery of divine Providence, I sit with stilled mind and speech, aiming to not cause harm in search of a bigger solution.”

As Donald would say, “Today’s problems are huge”. And when the problems are big, we have to get bigger than the problem and work from a higher vibration lest we be carried in ignorance to the promises of a narcissistic paternal leader who thinks he/she is God.

SAINT ROMUALD’S RULE

Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish. The path you must follow is in the Psalms—never leave it.

If you have just come to the monastery, and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want, take every opportunity you can to sing the Psalms in your heart and to understand them with your mind.

And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up; hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.

Realize above all that you are in God’s presence, and stand there with the attitude of one who stands before the emperor.

Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with the grace of God, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother brings him

It’s of human nature to suffer. No one escapes it, yet we often carry the illusion that others may suffer less. This can lead us to a victim mentality. From here, things go downhill. Our work is to allow the light to enter through the crack in the darkness. When we can let go our attachment to the wound we can grow our healing. It’s why we’re so inspired by those who’ve suffered such deep wounding, only to show us how to live with more vitality.

Today, my daughter-in-law and granddaughter are in Paris, one year after the night club terrorist attack. Their love meets the suffering of this special town. For several years after 9/11, I attended a conference in New York City called “Fearless”. It addressed how we move through such deep wounding and I felt extremely honored and privileged to be with those who had directly experienced such horrific events. I visited New Orleans a couple years after Katrina and was amazed at the power of music in revitalizing a community we all thought would die. I played my horn at Virginia Tech in a healing ceremony one week after the mass shootings. I have a neighbor who witnessed my cracking moment upon learning of a son’s life threatening disease. He met me in silence. Recently, we experienced an election of extreme division. He was on one side and I on the other. We don’t know who really lost, but again, he’s willing to meet my deep suffering. We’ve had friends we’ve hospiced through painful deaths as we met their suffering and inevitable release. And I’ve had friends where it was too much to meet their suffering. Maybe you’re one of them, and I apologize. I work with prisoners to hopefully alleviate some of their suffering. We teach them how to put attention to the gift of the present moment by focusing on breath and stillness. Many return week after week and report on a more successful week with reduced suffering. Many don’t return.

I know my attachment to negative emotions seldom, if ever, helps. And I’ve seen how a small light can fill a room of darkness. Our spiritual mandate seems to be that of joy, of no complaining or blaming. Yet, our mind is restless. When faced with ‘this’, we want ‘that’. One of my greatest life challenges is to say, “I’m here. I want to be here.” Yet, in the face of suffering, there’s a continual thought of “I want to be back there”, “I want it different”, “I’m afraid about what’s coming”, etc. We’ve had human icons who’ve faced suffering with capacity I can’t begin to imagine. These Mother Teresa’s show us what’s possible. Yet, even she knew when the extreme suffering she encountered grew negative emotion it was time for rest. My wife has worked as a hospice volunteer, sitting with imminent death. The desire to fix is no more. There’s simply a desire to ‘be’ with the other, receiving the other’s transition as our own transition. The most eloquent example of holding joy in the face of extreme suffering comes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran minister imprisoned in the death camps of Nazi Germany. One prisoner was puzzled by Bonhoeffer’s ability to hold a smile in the face of such atrocity. Finally he asked him how he could manage to do this. Bonhoeffer pointed to the guard assigned with leading people to the gas chambers and said, “I’m filled with gratitude that I’m not him”. Finding the gift in the given is what gives us strength to move, to hold our center, to meet one another’s suffering beyond the realm of our mind’s division.

The ultimate skill is to deepen our compassion for each other. Can we meet one another’s suffering in full presence? Where do we lose our center? Where do we find refuge in gaining strength to deepen our courage in this work? It’s essentially a question of, “Where do we show up and do our best?”

Throughout life, we can be knocked down or thrown off balance. We think things are going one way and then, puff, events take another turn. We say, “The rug was pulled from beneath us” or “I was knocked off my feet”, or “It was like getting kicked in the gut”. Our sense of control or ‘knowing’ is completely undermined as inexplicable events unfold before us. We have several choices at this moment. We can resist and push back. We can run, trying to bury our awareness to what’s happening. Or we can wake up. In effect, we move from fight or flight and arrive to that which is bigger. I like the phrase, “When the problem seems big, get bigger than the problem”.

Last night our country elected Donald Trump as our president. He ran a campaign that fed on our fears, anger and sense of separation from the rest of the world. He has promised to build walls, to ignore how we damage the environment, pushing the notion of America’s dominant strength in the world. We all face the poisons of fear, anger and the illusions of our separateness. Pluralism is something that challenges our sense of knowing. It’s easy to get caught up into thinking we can somehow turn back the hands of time. Mr. Trump’s campaign was built upon anger and complaint. It’s a reactive state that fails to recognize the importance of a centering practice. If someone pushes on us, then we push back on them. It’s ego and pride driven rather than moving from spiritual grounding. A centering practice asks us to “stop, look, and then move”. It recognizes the spiritual nature of all things and beings. It pledges to only take actions that come from the grounding of the central spiritual theme, “Love one another as yourself because you are each other.”

When I woke this morning to hear of the election result I buckled over. My stomach tightened and I felt a massive drop in vibratory energy. My mind quickly went to fear and anger about the future of our country and planet. I was caught in thoughts of despair. This is where I’ve come to find great value in dedicated centering practices. It was absolutely necessary to heal through this pain with various consciousness practices. The sky was blue and spacious. The sun was shining and there were still a few birds singing. During meditation it took tremendous resolve to let depressing thoughts go as I returned to breath awareness. During yoga practice I had to embrace those who voted for Trump as me. We are one, beyond notions of separation. Filling my heart with compassion for their suffering and my broken heart, I was somehow better able to find center. These practices are healing. They help us awake in consciousness to the fantasy of our divided minds.

No matter how you voted, I can’t stress enough the importance of developing a solid centering practice. In these times of rapid change, the cultivation of stability on an unstable platform becomes increasingly important to our health as a family and planet. Develop a practice where you become more aware of how thoughts grow emotion. When we water the seeds of fear and anger we suffer more. When we water the seeds of gratitude, joy, kindness and compassion, the vibration rises and we heal.

I’m intending to do what I can to move more and more to “no complaint, no complaint”, in gratitude for the opportunity to ‘just be’. It means I’m perhaps best to hold my words while this wounding is so deep. We have all entered the ‘land of I don’t know’ and we’re in for one very interesting ride. If we can dedicate to holding our center, waking to consciousness, and loving one another, deep down, we all know that’s what we’re here for.

I recall a yoga instructor telling us that depth isn’t as important as the grace in which we move in and out of our postures. The Law of Least Effort advises us to move in resonance to what is from a deeper listening. From here there’s a fluid movement that gracefully takes us to the edge where we meet our balanced posture in stillness. It’s the same with any performance. When we let go and allow, trusting in that which is bigger than our concept of self (ego), the dance reveals itself in harmony and perfect alignment. The word ‘grace’ is related to ‘gratitude’ not only by the first three letters, but by a meaning that opens us to a bigger belonging. Rather than ‘trying’ to accomplish something, we surrender to a new ground that’s supported in a way we can’t describe in words. It’s where the real music is found.

We don’t have to be a well trained performer to see this. It’s naturally obvious to most of us when someone is feigning the passion in their performance. Last Saturday night Lady Gaga, a huge talent, broke with grace when she clumsily moved from hat on to hat off in her performance. The rigidity of movement was also seen in her movement to sitting on top of the piano. Her voice was impeccable, yet her capacity to blend movement with voice was hampered by the resistance to let go. So how do we get to that point of grace? With practice. Our life practice is our practice and it’s how she got to the point she’s at in performance. Rehearsal with resolve brings us to the point where we can surrender and let go to grace. Yesterday I was windsurfing with a friend who got caught in a huge gust. His sail contorted, the board went up on it’s tail, and he was close to complete loss of control. Had he not had thousands of hours of sailing experience, he would have blown up. With grace, new ground is discovered that allows us to go to our edge, just past what we had conceived as possible. When I’m performing with our blues band it’s now undeniable when I’m surrendered in grace to the moment and when I’m caught in my concept of self. The audience knows this and enters the space as well. The barrier created in my mind of ‘us vs. them’ is gracefully and humbly released to something bigger.

So how many political speeches have you heard that are filled with grace? This campaign cycle has seemed to be worse than others for it’s violence. Or maybe we’re waking up to the ineffectiveness of disgraceful campaigns. Michelle Obama seems to be the only one that has this somewhat figured out. A line she used, “When they go low, we go high”, has been frequently used in the campaign. Yet, going high means we stop complaining and move to the ground of faith, hope, and stewardship in meeting the demands of our rapidly changing world. It steps away from judgment with grace, humility and surrender to that which is bigger than all of us. It’s a turn of politics that moves from the profane to the sacred, from the secular to the spiritual, from ‘God plus fear’ to ‘God minus fear’. Our politics are defined by whether or not we feel the universe is safe or dangerous. A deeper, graceful approach recognizes that we are all interconnected, change happens, and our work is to seek understanding in finding the gift in what is. This felt sense of ‘great fullness’ comes from the sense of gift rather than from our ego’s sense of control and it’s need to ‘fix’ what’s broken. When we step into grace we have the courage to go deeper, to grow curiosity to bigger solutions, to move from monologue to dialogue, to move from argument to collaboration, to move without resistance to a ground of understanding that recognizes our need to support each other. When we step into the grace displayed by Gandhi it’s obvious to see how we need to ‘be peace’ rather than push peace. It’s obvious that when we attack others we attack ourselves. It’s why one of the great spiritual precepts is to ‘not speak ill of others’. It’s when the dominance of negative ads, complaint in politics, and argument have brought to such low levels in threatening our democracy.

Grace does not move from greed, fear or from the illusion of our separateness. It doesn’t come from that place of dissatisfaction or restlessness. It moves from our center, heart aligned with head, in balance to that bigger sense of belonging. A life practice of stilling our thinking mind, just letting thought and concept go, brings us to that place of grace. With resolve to lead a more graceful life we can practice breathing in, noticing where resistance lies, feeling the sensation, and then with awareness, letting go, stepping from our conceptualized notion of being a separated self. Some teachers have referred to this as the process of ‘self settling into Self’.

So where do you move from? From head or heart, with an open or closed mind, in curiosity or dogma, from fear or faith, from anger or love? Michelle Obama gave one of the most brilliant political speeches recently, simply by focusing on the word ‘maybe’. It stepped from the ground of absolute, dogmatic knowing to a questioning. No doubt, she’s political and she’s working within a political environment dramatically out of step with the times. Yet, she seems to be hospicing the death of these old world approaches to electing government officials. Check out her speech and see if you were moved. Was it filled with grace?