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.

Hmmmmm?

We enter the mystery of life, and spend a great deal of time attempting to make sense from our universe.  With this in mind, it can be helpful to distinguish our beliefs, our faith, and what we accept through consensus learning.  We try to organize our world through language and just how we structure our thoughts can have a very profound effect on our relationship with others and our universe.  This is why ancient Toltec wisdom suggests we be impeccable with our words.  Brother David Steindl Rast suggests we go through the following exercise before we speak:  a. What do I mean?, b. How do I know (suggesting that if it’s not through direct experience, keep silent), and c. Even when it is knowing from direct experience, so what?  Such honest appraisal of our expression brings us to a humility and openness seldom found, but so deeply craved for in our ‘right’ vs. ‘wrong’ knowing universe.  Greg Braden speaks to this in his book The Spontaneous Healing of Belief.  He sites a runner who’s had direct successful experience in completing several marathons.  When asked if he believes he can do it again, he replies, “I believe I can do this”.  It’s based on his past experience.  Yet, what happens when the questioner adds new information, saying it’ll be run at 14,000’?  The belief weakens with the introduction of uncertainty outside of past experience.  While he doesn’t have direct experience with this, he still may have faith that he can do it.  His assumptions and possibly second hand information and inference from others may strengthen his faith.  He could sample run at 14,000’ and add some objective information that would strengthen or weaken his faith.  Yet, his belief can’t be fully substantiated until he actually runs the entire race at that elevation.

This dilemma is perhaps most evident in our various global faiths about what happens when we die.  There’s simply no scientifically documented account from a human who left their body for several days and then came back to tell us what happens.  Each religion carries myth and ritual and various traditions feed the faith of their followers.  The belief in ‘knowing’ what happens when we leave our bodies is not based on direct experience.   It’s based on faith in second hand information.  It’s not based on common consensus from documented scientific study.  This brings us to one of life’s most perplexing issues.  How do we determine truth in matters of deep mystery?  Over the centuries, those wielding the most power dictated societal ‘truth’.  Whether accurate or not, the person in the most powerful office could simply command authority of belief over those subjected under him/her.  This parental attitude of “Because I say so” seems to be dramatically challenged in this day of rapid change.  It begs us to all examine the nature of authority and decision making.

The Program for a New American Century played a huge influence in the Bush administration’s belief that it had world dominant authority to take offensive actions against other nations.  It forces us to examine where authority to intervene in another nation’s affairs comes from, particularly when it’s from a preemptive attitude rather than from a retaliatory position.  America intervened with a belief about what’s best for government in the Middle East. It did so without the consensus belief from other nations. Today, as we face governments that appear intent on gaining power through means of threat, we come to question the alternative to the Bush doctrine of force without consensus from the global community.  

We’re also at pivotal points in consensus belief in key issues dealing with personal freedoms.  Exactly when does the soul/personality enter the human form?  Just as we’re learning more and more about what happens when form leaves, we’re also learning more and more about how soul comes into form.  These insights from quantum physics have more congruency to ancient spiritual wisdom and conflict dramatically with the old dualistic paradigm and authority dictated from various religious organizations.  Issues of abortion, gay rights, capital punishment, preemptive war, and gun control, etc., continue to draw billions of dollars from various church and political organizations attempting to sway community consensus on these issues of belief.  Real attempts to steward the health of a nation are often sidetracked by these issues of belief and the emotive fights that ensue around them.

Society’s greatest challenge is to hold peace in these areas of uncertainty, as consensus assigns authority, yet holds an open mind to ever changing information and conditions.  As we look at the harm done from holding beliefs of bias against race, gender and religion, we can see the dramatic evolution in changing mindsets with an accelerated change in landscape.  The dominant consensus for authority in the executive branch of government was to give authority to a man of color, intelligence, and apparent sincere desire to collaborate.  This is a tremendous shift in orientation from the forceful Bush approach of “Because I say so”.  There’s willingness to open to participation from others.  There’s recognition that our global community is changing at a pace never before experienced and creative input from all corners will be invited.

Are we finally coming to a shift in how we determine our acceptance of belief?  Can we move beyond antiquated notions that things don’t change?  Can we accept the scientific facts of entropy…that energy disperses?  Can we recognize the now scientifically documented belief that everything is connected, everything affecting everything?  Can we finally move to that space where we once again touch the commands of all ancient spiritual traditions…the command to act with others with the knowledge that we are each other?  Can we move beyond forceful authoritative stances of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and start dedicating our resources to exploring deeper questions?  In effect, can we move from persuasive monologue to open listening and dialog?  Can we move from our strategies of cleverness from the mind to actions from the heart?

It’s my contention that when we openly move to actions from the heart we touch divine authority.  When we can surrender our beliefs and fixed notions of ‘knowing’ to the deeper collaborative circle, God provides the healing response.

Peace is an ongoing practice.  My fixed notions of belief jeopardize peace.  Whenever I stand in judgment of another’s sense of ‘knowing’ I jeopardize peace.  In practice, my most responsible approach to peace may be to simply question my perceived adversary with the question of, “So where do you find the authority of your belief?”  This may then be followed with, “So where do you find the authority to command that I believe what you believe?”  In matters that are not solidly founded in scientific research, the only response may be to defer to the laws of the land as voted upon by the people.  In dictatorships, the people have this freedom taken from them.  At this point a higher global authority needs to be invited in.  And so we struggle with our Rowanda’s, Serbia’s, Darfur’s, Sri Lanka’s, and Burmas.

I’ve personally had years of conflict with adversaries holding different beliefs about our agreements.  They employ tactics of anger, intimidation and threat to encourage acceptance of their belief system.  My most successful response is to non-emotionally hold to the question of authority.  Simply put, “From where do you find your authority to make the demands you do?”

It’s like they say the sky is red.  I see the sky as green.  Our judicial system is set so we all spend thousands of dollars trying to persuade an ‘authority’ that the sky is indeed red or green.  The authority (judge, arbitrator, or jury) then is vested with power to determine the color of the sky.  They have authority to rule from their ‘belief’.  The sky may be blue, however, given the persuasive arguments presented, we have agreed to live by their ruling that the sky is red or green.  Some of life’s greatest pain comes from our later discovery that the sky is indeed blue, even though we live under the belief that it’s red or green.  Certainly, there was a long period of transition before people accepted the notion of a round earth.  Unfortunately, in most legal disputes, we’ll never have the absolute evidence that documents the blue sky.  Without DNA, accurate video recordings of events, etc., we’re asked to rely on the plastic, inaccurate memories of the parties in dispute.  The more we learn of our limitations of memory, the more we discover the lunacy of accepting eye witness reports as factual evidence to be used as sole evidence against another.

It’s a low level vibration that claims truth from the dictum of “Because I say so”.  At higher levels of vibration, we speak of our direct experience (knowing) from the heart.  We listen without judgment, with curiosity to further explore the unknown.  We carry faith that a richer answer will be provided from a deeper collaborative question.  We recognize the pitfalls in taking things personally, in feeding ego’s desire to fixate on an answer, and we drive in deeper courage to face life’s uncertainty.  We recognize the responsibility we have to participate, to show up and pay attention, to do our best to collaborate, and to be at peace in knowing the result is always surprise.

In summary, our deepest gratitude can come from flexibility in our belief system.  Our greatest courage comes from our deepest humility, in forever holding curiosity to another’s sense of knowing and not knowing.  A life dedicated to power accumulation, persuasion, and dominion over the freedoms of others may ultimately turn out to be the most constricting prison imaginable.

It seems so much of relational life is trying to work the balance of giving and receiving power/authority.  We can see the lack of effectiveness in solving problems from force.  Whether in government, church, or family, most pain comes from one party trying to convince another party that it is ‘right’.  We meet one another with a mental set of ‘knowing’  what’s best.  Tremendous energy and effort is spent in persuasive attempts to convince the other to agree with their opponent’s position.  Yet, as we see in nature’s law, the harder we push the more resistance we create.  Create a force and up comes an equal or opposite force to push back.  This approach is antiquated, hasn’t worked for years, and we now risk our future in our stubborn refusal to evolve to higher levels of collaboration and cooperation.

We know it works when two opposing parties can empty their bias to hear one another’s point of view.  The science of active listening and dialog has come a long way in the past few years, yet we continue with most of our business, government, church and family relations moving from persuasive monolog or game playing to one party’s advantage and another’s disadvantage.  The weak and the unconscious simply bow to the more powerful authority without question.  The strong and the conscious mind will always courageously hold open the door to dialog in respect to the requirements of collaboration.  There’s faith and trust in putting all party’s concerns in the middle to see how a better answer is given when opinion, bias, and belief is surrendered in sincere desire to determine what’s best for all with harm to none.

Tremendous pain and damage can result when we resolve to engage the persuasive process.  When we can’t or won’t step from our notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ we’re caught in the soup of conflict.  Noam Chomsky has written that violence and discord underlies all attempts to persuade, to change another.  The peace practice requires we empty our minds to hear one another outside judgment, that we respond without rehearsal from the heart’s response, and we recognize in some way we are each other.  Former Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara, came to this wisdom many, many years after his term of service.  In his movie The Fog of War he lays out his ten most important lessons in resolving conflict.  His first and most important insight was to empathize with the enemy.  He basically admits the entire conflict that cost 58,000 American lives was based on false premise that could have been discovered early by actively engaging the dialog process.  Clearly, this happened again with Iraq.  Unfortunately, in both instances tremendous persuasive power was put to a weak congress, an uninformed public and a conflict driven media.

The time has come.  We can no longer try to solve 21st century problems with 20th century communication models.  It simply doesn’t work to devote that vast majority of our wealth to militaristic efforts to control others.  It’s now time to sit in circle, adult to adult, to go deeper into the question of, “What do you really, really want?”  Rather than centering upon argument, negotiation and difference, can we shift to a focus on common sense for the common good, for the very survival of the planet and future generations?

While it’s often dangerous to simplify contrasts to a binary view, nature seems to work this way.  The way we approach life can often be broken down to one of “subject” or one of “subject vs. object”.  This is central to the delineation Just Be It makes between directing our actions from heart’s ‘being’ in contrast to mind’s ‘doing’.  Some of the delineations are listed below:

Just Be It, Inc., is an organization dedicated to participation in the healing of the planet through increased awareness to the power of “presence in the moment” and happiness as consequence for recognition of the gift of “belonging”.   All ‘practice’ comes from awareness to life’s affirmation with each breath in, followed with ‘thank you’ and consequent joy for each breath out.

Just Be It, Inc., functions from a perspective of nourishing the body, mind, and spirit to greater potential performance in participatory action to a more peaceful planet.  Upon ‘arrival’ to the moment, in gratitude for the opportunity to participate, Just Be It, Inc., points actions beyond notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, in recognition to the divine wisdom located within the hearts of all creatures, in recognition to the “non-duality” of the universe.

Current Project Focuses

A. Mindfulness Retreat Center: In recognition of the need for ‘space’ to nourish oneself to renewed freshness and clarity, Just Be It Retreats provide programs of practice aimed at more mindful living.  Through scheduled daily periods of mindful breathing, walking, meditation, eating, writing, speech and listening, and body sport activity, participants ‘stretch’ into deeper levels of life action aimed primarily to those activities the heart draws one to.  The participant’s decision to ‘make space’ for listening to the heart with clear intention to nourish the body, mind and spirit contributes to more sound life intention and solid direction in where one’s attention must go.  While these retreats deal with ‘spirit’, they are nonsectarian and they serve to deepen one’s understanding of any particular religious background.

B. Horns For Healing: In recognition that our response to this gift of ‘belonging’ must aim toward global peace, Horns For Peace is dedicated to ‘sounding the horn’ daily with intention to ‘conflict resolution’ and our full ‘arrival’ to peace.  In a time of increasing violence, where it’s more difficult to hear the dove’s cry, we come to recognize the need for increased volume in our ‘pleas to peace’.  Horns for Peace will contribute a conch shell to those classes willing to commit to ‘sounding the horn for peace’ each day.  Particularly in times of apparent growing conflict, we must hold our optimism by ‘seeing peace’.  This is best done through ‘toning’ since the more delicate sounds of the dove and bell seem to be lost in ever increasing distraction.  The ‘volume’ aiming to peace must be turned up if we’re to evolve from our adolescent methods to solving conflict.

C. Teaching “Thank You” As Source of Happiness:  Just Be It, Inc., will work to further understanding of the power of gratitude in one’s arrival to personal peace and happiness.  Currently, there is no apparent research directed to the importance of teaching children the use of ‘thank you’ as a source of ‘their’ happiness. The use of ‘thank you’ beyond mere etiquette function carries great power to heal the planet.  Educational programs will be created and research in this area will be supported to clearly show the improved sense of well-being found through an attitude of gratitude.

D. Consulting:  Success in life and business is becoming increasingly more dependent upon finding peace in these times of accelerating change.  Randy Johnson is available for consulting and speaking engagements for all organizations looking to increase awareness to ‘quality’ performance.  Johnson has directed speech and language clinics in the Canada and the US, taught Interpersonal Communication at Valparaiso University, and successfully founded and headed up one of the largest boardsports companies in the country, now in existence for more than twenty years.  Johnson’s main area of interest is in conflict resolution, creating genuine customer and employee loyalty through gratitude, and enhanced performance through mindfulness training.

E. Educational Materials and Events:  Just Be It, Inc., is dedicated to the acquisition and assembly of insight wisdom harvested from music, writing and speech.  In a time where it seems too few take the time to pause in reflection to ‘what works’, Just Be It, Inc., will aim to contribute to the collection and preservation of these insights for continued movement to humanity’s nourishment to peace.

F. Just Be It Apparel: Throughout the course of history we’ve used clothing to demonstrate our interests and ‘level of knowing’.  Those following a lifetime of spiritual pursuit wear a particular dress that tells others of their ‘practice’, whether it’s a monk’s robe or a nun’s way of dress.  Practitioners of the martial arts communicate their level of skill through the color of their belt.  The purpose of ‘Just Be It’ apparel is to serve as a means to communicate this mutual level of deep knowing in a particular area of interest.  It’s a way for one human being to communicate to another that their depth of knowing within this particular area has resulted in experiences beyond boundaries, experiences that have touched the divine.  It’s an invitation to others within this ‘community of mutual interest’ to initiate dialogue.   It’s a statement to others of our commitment to ‘heart’s pull’ within this area of intention and attention where understanding grows deeper day by day.  It’s clothing that designates deep commitment and discipline, in honor to a particular area of interest.

G. A Study of Language. How we ‘language’ our world determines our approach to life.  Do we language through love or fear, connection or separation?  How do we language our notions of time and space?  Do we language to close learning with answers or deepen our knowledge through pushing the question further?  After journaling for many years, Johnson discovered a key language element that facilitated ‘presence’.  Much of the writing could be condensed down to three words…just be it.  If we could just connect the authority of our heart with our ‘doing’ we could align with our true nature.  Johnson hopes to ‘deepen’ the Nike ‘Just Do It’ campaign to an ‘awakening to our doing’ in peace with the divine authority of the heart.  Moving from the separation caused through language of the head brain to connection of all through the heart brain, we stand in ‘wonder’ at the level of performance.  At this level, outside the boundaries created through language, we find the space to ‘touch the rhythm and harmony of the universe’ like never before.  The combination of Johnson’s study of language, sport and music with the practice of Zen Buddhism has given him a keen insight to the thoughts we continually allow to impact our living.  Johnson is currently assembling years of writing in his upcoming book entitled Just Be It…Waking Up to What We Do.

H. Circle Process.  Johnson has collaborated with several approaches to the ancient format of circle process.  Intrigued with the dialog process and deeper listening, this format of moving from shallow to deeper conversation has provided a safe container to explore a greater awareness of topics of interest.  While the conversational agreements may vary a little, they generally involve the following elements as laid out by Conversational Cafe (www.conversationcafe.org)

Open-mindedness: listen to and respect all points of view

Acceptance: suspend judgment as best you can

Curiosity: seek to understand rather than persuade

Discovery: question old assumptions, look for new insights

Sincerity: speak for yourself about what has personal heart and meaning

Brevity: go for honesty and depth, but don’t go on and on

I. Health Care Freedom.  The old paradigm of ‘disease care’ simply doesn’t seem to work anymore.  A true ‘health care’ system will place the majority of its resource on working the population to healthy living.  This necessarily requires a dedicated ‘practice’ aiming to honor body/mind/spirit in the ‘wonder’ of all that goes right.  Johnson sees this ‘health care’ provided to all and looks forward to the day that we can reduce the billions of dollars spent during the last months of one’s life in exchange to educating one another to the benefits of mindful living.  Johnson believes this move to mindful living can occur when we truly accept the fact that we are only temporarily housed in these bodies rather than functioning from actions of harm to a body we ‘deceive ourselves into believing will last forever’.  This project works to strengthen the power of integrative medicine, education to the power of regular exercise, mindful consumption, meditation and community participation.  Having faced a terminal illness with his son and serious health deterioration with his father, Johnson is available to listen to others who may be facing these difficult experiences as they, too, travel into a land of deeper questions.

J. The Blues as Language to Peace. A truth of life is the knowledge that once we receive we ‘know’ the loss of what’s been given is inevitable since nothing is permanent.  On the flip side, those who’ve experienced these losses discover their healing through eventually finding the gift in what has changed. Etta James has capsulated life into ‘Life, Love and the Blues’, capturing blues as a language that helps us move from the pain of lost love.  Otis Spann has referred to the Blues, as ‘a doctor’ that sometimes heals, sometimes doesn’t, but its aim is to help one move through the pain of life.  For over thirty years Randy Johnson has developed his taste, appreciation and expression of the Blues through trumpet, vocals and harmonica and is always ready to participate in the party this great musical form creates as performer and audience meet as one in the glory of the human condition. The Blues is a very deep language of the heart that processes us through the deepest of wounds. Affiliated in Minnesota with the blues band, Ride, Johnson also performs solo for special occasions, from weddings and anniversaries, to funerals.

K. Multimedia Presentation. While nothing is permanent, do you really want to risk losing the photo images you now have on paper?  Randy’s father frequently reviewed a DVD that’s compiled a lifetime of photos.  While a rare form of dementia robbed his father of recent memory, the images of days gone by helped him maintain an appreciation of his full life spectrum.  Simply assemble the photos and video clips you’d like digitized in a movie format and Johnson can create a DVD you can share with friends and family.  During the recent series of natural disasters one of the more painful experiences was watching families crying over destroyed photo albums.  Whether for a special family gathering, a relative suffering memory loss, transferring your photos to a web page for all to see, or just the security of capturing your images before they fade on paper, digitizing makes sense.

A friend recently reported a strong unexpected physical reaction to the departure of student and fellow practitioner of a particular school of yoga.  Given the Law of Attraction, stating that which we give attention to grows stronger, it’s little wonder we feel a sense of loss when another’s energy diminishes through lack of physical presence.  Just as cells in the embryo cluster before they go off to make hands, feet, heart, lungs, etc., all life seems attracted to the similar, where the texture of life duplicates.  It seems that our ease in life is largely impacted by those we surround ourselves with.  As those with passions similar to ours nurture our spirits and deepen our passions, they also contribute to a felt pain and potential fear of entropy as we let them go.

We can see this in the inanimate world as well.  It’s more difficult to be a meadow on a mountain top than on the plains.  It’s more difficult to live as a wave in a pond than in an ocean.  It’s more challenging to be a mountain on its own (volcano) than one in a full mountain range.  With humans, we can see it’s more difficult to practice the laws of common sense when surrounded by extremists, more difficult to live in peace when surrounded by violence.  If you want your children to be close minded, steeped in a strong belief system, surround your children with closed minded people steeped in strong belief systems.  If you want your children open to receive new experience, surround them with people open to receive new experiences.  If you want children of fear, surround them with people of fear.  If you want courageous children, surround them with courageous people.  If you want to be angry, surround yourself with angry people, listen to angry radio and music, and watch angry TV.  If you want to appreciate the value in seeing the big through the small, be around people who appreciate seeing the big in the small.  If you want to erode your character and talents, be around those who erode their character and talents.  If you want to be sick, be around those who whine about their injury or sickness.  If you want to be strong, be around the strongest people who are able to be the hope and healing for those in suffering.

When looking at nature and fractals, with all the unique communities, can we see what we want to be around?  Is it a community that celebrates life, lives without fear in stewardship to the earth, one another, future generations, etc., in full joy and wonder for the mystery?  Do we want to be around awake people or those going to sleep?  The amount of joy or suffering we experience through life can very much be related to the energy we hang with.

Ready (Be Present), Reset (Empty), Be

We’re learning more and more about fractals and how repeating energy patterns work.  Ancient spiritual wisdom has directed us to release our attachment to the material if we’re to experience peace.  We’re directed to let go our identification with belief systems, achievements and accomplishments, and our accumulations.  And yet, this is a big leap.  More comforting is the notion of energy reset.  Essentially, is my practice deep enough to forever bring me back to the surprise of beginning?  Am I awake enough to forever touch the moment’s wonder, beyond notions of expectation and knowing?

My heart says loud and clear that everything is in everything.  I can smell the power of the infinite spiral over the mind’s tug from linear time.  And yet, who am I but the moment’s awareness, forever sensitive to the power of fractal energy.  In essence, my circle of belonging must never close.  Practice of the heart simply can’t process criticism, complaint and judgment.  Heart practice can’t rehearse.  It accepts what is, in all of its ‘that-ness’, forever connected in loving, positive energy.  Heart practice is driven from curiosity and authentic desire to learn and grow. Actions and intention move from the heart with the innate vow to not harm. 

As we move deeper in life we grow a deeper listening.  With a more awakened ‘doing’ from a felt deeper sense of connection to ‘all’, common sense forever leads us to decisions that are best for all with harm to none.  The notion of debate, persuasion, negotiation, selfish interest, selfish power at the expense of others, and our low form of politics and justice are obsolete to the effectiveness of dialog and circle communication process.  Moving forever from separation to joining, from wounding to healing, we become aware of the repeating patterns of harm vs. no harm.  Yes, my head brain lives from generations of those who’ve come before me.  It instructs me to be clever, to amass more stuff, and to strive for recognition for what I’ve done and what I have.  And my stomach brain forever pulls me to judgment of good and bad and a strong desire to fix things.  And my sex brain is wrestling with the dissolution of form and body change.  And how wonderful life balance is when authority over all these brains is given to the heart. No harm is done.

Interfaith endeavors drive from the heart.  Collaborative diplomacy works when it drives from the heart.  A deeper education ensues when it comes from heart’s passion and thirst to study with genuine curiosity.  Health care heals when the patient becomes actively involved in participatory wholeness.  Notions of helpee/victim vs. helper/power authority vanish as we forever ‘reset’ beyond what we identify with.

Here’s the trick.  We don’t disappear.  Energy patterns forever repeat.  Family most readily shows this as the passions of my father, mother, grandfather and grandmother, great grandfather and great grandmother, and on and on, forever live within the moment of this experience.  And now as I experience deeper awareness to my grandchildren, my heart explodes with joy in honoring them as ancestors of the future–the children who will in some way be recipients of this work of transformation and ‘reset’.

These children will move from head and stomach’s desire to fight and separate.  Real security will not come from guns, military, walls and fences, cognitive religious belief systems and power struggles.  It will come from our disciplined practice to pay attention with deep acceptance to what is, to ‘reset’ in wonder, gratitude, and surprise to the ‘arising moment’, and ultimately align with heart’s knowing that we are each other.

So next time, when things don’t happen as expected, ‘reset’!  This is great opportunity for gratitude practice.  Reset to zero, and all is gift.  Reset to zero doesn’t wipe out the felt energy of past experience.  That fractal energy pattern lives forever.  It simply lifts the weight of unconsciousness from us, providing the energy to once again touch the moment.

So next time you find yourself drawn to unconsciousness and separation, breath in a resounding affirmation to ‘this moment’.  Do you ‘reset’ awareness when watching TV, surfing the Internet, consuming food and beverage, rising from bed, making love, playing sport, going to bed, etc.?  The formula of Ready, Reset, Be provides great spiritual security in these rapidly changing times.  

I just wanted to jot down some thoughts I had about ‘big hope’, ‘wholeheartedness’, ‘confidence’ and ‘feeling’ in relation to another perspective of prayer.

“That situation (person becomes supreme person, who is melted into the universe) is unknowable with our consciousness. It’s impossible for me to express it in words. But maybe you can feel that it is true, that Buddha’s activity is something that could appear in your life in the future. If so, that feeling becomes a kind of prediction, foreknowledge, or hope. That is called big hope.” P. 145

“It is possible to make that foreknowledge become real. Hope comes up, you do something with full devotion, you forget yourself, and you change the structure of time and space. Then, even though you don’t see it, people feel that.” P. 146

“All at once the past swallows up the present and spits it out. Pop! At the pivot of nothingness the next moment unfolds and a new world appears.

“The past, the present, the future are beings, but they are interconnected right now.” P. 111

Quotes from Each Moment the Universe by Dainin Katagiri, edited by Andrea Martin

In The Isaiah Effect Greg Braden introduces a fifth mode of prayer that “allows us to merge our thoughts, feelings, and emotions into a single, potent force of creation.” There’s a stepping from time, where we offer gratitude for what already exists, rather than expressing lack and asking for something to be answered.

Express by a SW Native American:

“When I was young our elders passed on to me the secret of prayer. The secret is that when we ask for something, we acknowledge what we do not have. Continuing to ask only gives power to what has never come to pass.”

“The path between man and the forces of this world begins in our hearts. It is here that our feeling world is married to our thinking world. In my prayer, I began the feeling of gratitude for all that is and all that has come to pass. I gave thanks for the desert wind, the heat, and the drought, for that is the way of it, until now. It is not good. It is not bad. It has been our medicine.

“Then I chose a new medicine. I began to have the feeling of what rain feels like. I felt the feeling of rain upon my body. Standing in the stone circle, I imagined that I was in the plaza of our village, barefoot in the rain. I felt the feeling of wet earth oozing between my naked toes. I smelled the smell of rain on the straw-and-mud walls of our village after the storms. I felt what it feels like to walk through fields of corn growing up to my chest because the rains have been so plentiful. The old ones remind us that this is how we choose our path in this world. We must first have the feelings of what we wish to experience. This is how we plant the seeds of a new way. From that point forward, our prayer becomes a prayer of thanks. (not a prayer of thanks for what we’ve created, because creation is already complete) Our prayer becomes a prayer of thanks for the opportunity to choose which creation we experience. Through our thanks, we honor all possibilities and bring the ones we choose into this world.”

Neville, The Power of Awareness

“make our future dream a present fact by assuming the feeling if our desire fulfilled”

(stepping from time, restlessness gone)

Johnson, This Precious Moment…Just Be It.

“As we launch into action, we often continue to carry our notions of separation of body from the event (subject/object). Yet at the highest levels of performance we surrender in full confidence to the insight that nothing is in our control but our willingness to give it up in full gratitude for the opportunity to participate. As we come to respect our core being-ness, we come to still the mind in full attention to the precious present moment. There’s consequent happiness from gratitude for the gift of belonging. At this moment, we step beyond pride, fear, judgment, and comparison, with the map surrendered, touching the territory outside notions of time and space.”

Michael Beckwith “We must stand in full gratitude for what is so room is given for new to come in”

Brother David Steindl Rast “Harmonious living requires making space always to find the gift in the given”. Happiness is a necessary consequence of gratitude. You ask, “Gratitude for what?” For opportunity…opportunity to participate.”

I can relate to my “change of prayer” as a youngster and how it played out 15 years ago with my two boys, relating a sense of ‘feeling’, ‘gratitude for gift given outside of time’, ‘confidence’, and ‘big hope’….touching the field of intuition.

Nothing separates…it’s always connected. Only energy dissipates, arising and dissipating….growing where attention is put, entropy where it’s not. This sense of connection is felt through the heart, thus “wholehearted” living and action. Cognition is separating and it’s why it’s so important to study the power of “feeling”.

Thich Knat Hahn speaks of our storehouse of feelings….positive and negative. Mindful living waters the seeds of positive, connecting feelings and brings them into the living room. We aim to leave the negative feelings of separation in the basement, and have confidence that they change and can dissipate just through observation.

In many respects, we can see we do the most harm when moving from our head with a sense of “I know that”, rather than moving from awareness to heart (wholehearted action) in our deepening to the play of impermanence and interdependent co-origination.

“Seeing the total functioning of time and space simultaneously gives you a deep appreciation toward human life. That is wonderful inspiration.”

Dogen says: see something with wholeheartedness; hear something with wholeheartedness. Without this actual practice, you can not make illumination alive in your life.

p. 84

Where are you on your thoughts of creation? This seems to be the core of much of our global malcontent. The neo Darwinists carry a belief in survival of the fittest. On the other end of the spectrum, those believing in creationism and intelligent design hold that a God ‘out there’ made man in final form in a ‘likeness to God’. Both extremes are dualistic in nature and encourage collaboration as long as we believe what they believe. Yet, today we find our advances in science evidencing our interconnection with everything. Our current global economic crisis is dramatically highlighting the fallacy in thinking the most wealthy and famous will always be the most fit to survive. Wall Street is collapsing from years of pushing for higher short term quarterly profits at the expense of a moral conscience. As we face radical adjustments in our felt sense of security, our basic belief systems become more and more challenged. Do I raise my fear from a perspective of others coming to get my stuff? Do I lose my sense of worth when I lose my job? In effect, how do I language my thoughts and speech through this rapidly increased change in our understanding and experience of the world? Who and what do I trust? Those holding to a strong religious belief carry a ‘survival of the fittest’ attitude in their belief in second hand information about ‘making it to the promised land’. There’s a linear thought system that has worked well for the churches of different religions. It says that if you ‘do this’ and ‘believe that’ you’ll be rewarded in eternity, unlike those who miss this golden opportunity and continue suffering through eternity. It carries a strong notion of being right, judging others, and often carries a command to get others to think and believe the same things without any first hand experience. Again, who do you trust?

We’re now facing a massive paradigm shift in our thinking. Notions of superiority, of being the ‘good guy’, and offering help to fix things when help has not been asked are being turned upside down. The neoconservatives of the Bush administration repeatedly implemented policies from a sense of ‘rightness’ at the expense of curiosity. Unfortunately, a strong sense of ‘knowing’ kills the cooperative/collaborative experience. This resulted in massive military expenditures on false information that now contribute to a failing economy. The failure to transparently ask deeper questions about the nature of preemptive unilateral war, violations of our humanitarian treatment of prisoners, refusal to dialog and mediate with other countries, and a continued religious belief agenda permeating our legal system dramatically reduced our progress to cooperation/collaboration.

After 9/11, we had a rich opportunity for global cooperation/collaboration in our attempts to step beyond the toxicity of religious dogma. Unfortunately, we stepped up the battle on whose God is the ‘right’ one as fundamentalist Christians battle fundamental Islamic peoples in ever increasing numbers. We just endured our most expensive political election with all parties claiming a strong Christian belief system. While we made major strides in breaking intellectual, gender, age and racial prejudice, will it take another forty years to break religious prejudice? Will it be too late before we start cooperating/collaborating in slowing global warming? Will our justice system and political system crumble from our lack of cooperation/collaboration? Will our health care and education system continue to entropy as we cling to our fixed notions of us vs. them? Will we continue to suffer immensely from our current global economic correction? Or will we use this as a rich opportunity to once again touch the ancient spiritual commands to cooperate and collaborate?

Some questions to ponder?

Is the dramatic increase in gun sales the last frontier in our transformation to love, gratitude and forgiveness?

What concrete steps are we making to simplify our lives, reducing the harm we cause others, things and our planet? (In travel, diet, general consumption, relationships, etc.)

In the face of crisis, of rapid change, am I moving more and more to appreciation of the present moment and sharing my resources or further from the moment in anticipation of increased suffering in the future, hoarding what I have and mourning my loss of recognition for past achievements? In effect, am I ‘feeling’ harmony and rhythm with life’s interconnection, or am I disharmonic, numb to what ‘is’. Am I moving from compassion or fear? Am I moving from a desire to fix and be recognized or a desire to connect and collaborate?

Are my comments from curiosity and increased desire to listen or from ego’s desire to persuade? Is my language and presence energy gaining or energy draining? Am I free from complaint, in gratitude for the opportunity to participate in what ‘is’, making room for more new to come in? Am I filled with anxiety, complaint, and fear about losing my ‘stuff’ and my approval from others for what I’ve done and what I’ve accumulated?

Am I burying my head in the sand, just hoping things will get better? Am I increasing my awareness to what is through increased stewardship to body, mind, family, community, nation and planet?

Who and what can I trust? Where is God? Who am ‘I’? What do I really, really, really want? What do I really, really need? What commitments must I make to move in this direction?

Science has substantiated the mystery of our interconnectedness. Ancient spiritual texts from most religions and indigenous cultures have commanded us ‘to do what’s best for all with harm to none’ in stewardship to our healthy evolution. How can I minimize harm with mindful, energy gaining speech, curious listening from the heart, watered seeds of positive thought and emotion, and ever increased ‘felt’ sense of our oneness?

Can I surrender my notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in deep curiosity to explore the mystery further? Can I hold love for my perceived enemy, in full allowance to their different life journey, free from my need to ‘change’ them? Can I serve as one who connects, who is an energy enhancer, practicing movement to a higher vibration? Am I practicing movement to a higher thought of cooperation and collaboration?

Am I sharing my background and resource from the heart, free from ego’s desire to be recognized? Am I strong enough to weather the storm of silence when others decline my assistance? Can I hold humility to the gifts of my life experience and training, offering my willingness to participate only when others have consented to my contribution?

Am I forever willing to drill deeper into the question or have I stopped the exploration in notions of my correctness?

Everything is energy. We are energy. Energy is vibration. We are vibration. Energy dissipates. We dissipate. Everything dissipates. Energy doesn’t disappear. We don’t disappear. Nothing disappears. The dissipation of energy can be slowed by putting greater attention to it. We can increase our chances of slowing entropy by “taking care”. As energy, we slow our entropy by ‘taking care’, by following the common sense rules of stewardship.

Perhaps our greatest lesson is practicing movement to a higher vibration. The low vibration of anger, fear, greed and mindless consumption appear to speed our entropy. Our evolution to a higher vibration through compassion, gratitude and forgiveness seems to slow our entropy. Our life practice is to forever move to a higher vibration through the practice of “no complaint, no complaint”. The higher vibration releases grudges from the past, finds deep gratitude for the gift in what is at the moment given, and forever “feels” the interconnection of all things. The higher vibration is a positive energy field that recognizes the seeds of negative emotion, but refuses to let them grow their toxicity. The higher vibration waters the seeds of loving kindness, forever touching the “arising moment” in mystery and wonder.

In times of deep wounding, the connecting vibration energy can be severely thrown from harmony. Oftentimes, these events are followed by prolonged silence as we travel deeply to once again touch our interconnection. At some moment, sound can be introduced as we once again find vibration alignment. This can be through tones, eventually moving to more complicated harmony and rhythm, eventually opening the window for words.

In deep wounding “the wholeness” has been ripped apart. The source of ‘to heal’ is ‘to make whole’. Our sense of separateness, our ego, continually pushes from the felt sense of interconnection, tempting us to dualistic battle. We are then more tempted to speak than to listen. Yet, our reconnection to energy and vibration is served best through deep listening.

Our energy increases as we go to a higher vibration that’s free from judgment. Our energy increases with our commitment to not harm others through our thoughts, emotions, speech and actions. Our energy increases through our fearlessness and courage in drilling deeper into life’s mystery through active listening.

This awareness of vibration energy is work. It requires moment to moment practice as we continually correct ourselves to a more evolved ‘being’. Good food for this practice consists of meditation, exercise of the body, the food of practicing one’s passions in contribution to universal connection, frequent communication in nature, dialog with friends and family, conscious nourishment of the body with foods that gain rather than drain energy, adequate rest, etc. Our life contribution to a higher vibration is all we can ask…a life of authentic being that’s forever increasing in ‘felt’ awareness of our interconnecting energy.

Our key to peace and health necessarily lies in our deeper understanding of the abstraction of time. Whether it’s a fantasy of winning the lottery, retiring, arriving in heaven, achieving fame, etc., there’s a projection to the future that robs our arrival to this present moment. We’ve carried a notion that Never, Never Land is a place where all conflict is resolved, all suffering gone. Yet when we look at it grammatically, we can always touch this peace in the present moment. In A Course in Miracles, we have an eloquent description of how we must forget the past in order to become whole. Our capacity to re-member our original oneness is presented in the chapter called The Function of Time:

The ego has a strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that your questioning might well begin. The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful. Remember that its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by making the future like the past, and thus avoiding the present. By the notion of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the future, making them continuous without an intervening present. For the ego regards the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms.

“Now” has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of past hurts, and it reacts to the present as if it were the past. Chapter 13, Section IV, #4

The key to touching our being-ness stands in our willingness to step outside of time. Our re-connection, in contrast to ego, commands our surrender into the virgin quality of the present moment. Our return to light commands our acceptance that time is merely a mental abstraction. Our notions of linear continuity only imprison our capacity to just be.

The First Noble Truth in Buddhism states that all suffering arises from attachment. We’re then instructed to release from this imprisonment. The Christian tradition commands us to forgive our enemy, to treat them as we would be treated. The wisdom from most ancient spiritual traditions states that the road to peace comes through forgiveness and compassion. It comes through our waking to the present moment, in full arrival to the glory of Never Never Land. As stated in A Course in Miracles, “Now is the release of time.” Chapter 13, Section VI, #8