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.

They Didn’t Teach This in School

I wish someone would have taught me the Second Law of Thermodynamics when I was in grade school.  It’s really not that difficult to understand and states, “Energy spontaneously tends to flow only from being concentrated in one place
to becoming diffused or dispersed and spread out.”    The ‘big deal’ about this is that,

“all types of energy spread out like the energy in a hot pan (unless somehow they’re hindered from doing so) They don’t tend to stay concentrated in a small space; they flow toward becoming dispersed if they can — like electricity in a battery or a power line or lightning, wind from a high pressure weather system or air compressed in a tire, all heated objects, loud sounds, water or boulders that are high up on a mountain, your car’s kinetic energy when you take your foot off the gas. All these different kinds of energy spread out if there’s a way they can do so.”  Frank Lambert has fully elaborated on this law at http://www.secondlaw.com/.  It’s a law that helps us accept the natural tendency for people, animals, elements and all things to disperse energy and break down.

This law explains scientifically why we ‘tend’ to engage in behavior that may not be healthy.  It can explain our tendency to not follow those instructions we know are healthy for us.  We can speed our ‘entropy’ through ingestion of toxic foods or drink, drugs, smoking, mindless TV, sexual misconduct, stealing, war and violence or any other number of common addictions.  Or we can slow the dispersion of energy by ‘practicing’ the teachings common to most ancient wisdom.  By slowing our disintegration we actually speed our evolution to a higher being. Interestingly, this process requires ‘action’, the application of certain ancient laws that have been passed down through the ages.  So what are these laws?

Perhaps the best test of whether an action was destructive or health promoting is a review from the future.  We place our actions in a higher level of consciousness when we project forward, concluding we’d take the actions again if given the chance.  It means our actions will carry integrity when we pause to project into the future an image of our satisfaction just prior to initiating the action.  With this increased consciousness we move from our lower self and inhibit actions stimulated from negative emotion.  Ancient wisdom often directs us to take actions on our neighbor as though that same action were to be taken upon ourselves (The Golden Rule).  The main Law of Huna wisdom states that the action must be done for the best interest of all concerned with no harm to anyone.  All ancient wisdom stresses the “practice” of gratitude and forgiveness, yet we continue to destroy ourselves and one another through our lack of appreciation and our inability to let grudges go.

Actually, the truth test on whether an action inhibits entropy can be found in whether it’s “working” or “not working”.  Clearly, fear and anger have shown to never be effective except when one’s immediate physical well being is threatened. 

Universal wisdom shows that ‘what we put attention to grows stronger’, so if we put our attention to ‘dis-ease’ and wishes to return to ‘normal’, we’ll grow our ‘dis-ease’.  If we put our attention to ‘wellness’ and those actions that promote health, we’ll grow in gratitude to health.  There are entire communities where elderly people recite their health ailments like a daily mantra.  As a society dedicated to ‘comfort’, ‘ease’ and ‘pleasure’, we’ve been raised outside the power in “use it or loose” function.  Without proper body use we’ve grown to a nation of obesity.  Our addiction to TV, computer games, spectator sports, gambling and other forms of ‘mindless’ consumption has resulted in the speeding up of our energy dispersion…of the entropy of a nation.

The solution to the natural pull of entropy is in “the practice” of the ancient laws.  Belief systems and thoughts without disciplined practice only hasten entropy.  When all ancient spiritual teaches direct us to reverence for life, why do we continue to war with one another?  When wisdom tells us conflict resolution comes only from love and listening to one another, why do we hold to the ‘belief’ that our security will come from weapons and war?  When we know our children’s happiness can always be sourced to gratitude, why do we not teach our children to say ‘thank you’ as a stimulus to their happiness?  When we know all grudges must be ‘cleared’ for health, why do we continue to prevent our healing?  When we know drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, fatty foods, sugar and heavily processed foods hasten our entropy, why do we continue to destroy our bodies with them?

It  boils down to ‘conscious’ living.  Do the actions we take hasten or slow the natural tendency for things to disperse energy?  It’s about ‘awareness’.  Perhaps the biggest steps we can take to slow our entropy would be regular meditation, exercises for strength, flexibility, and endurance, mindful consumption, and a disciplined practice to ‘review our actions’ with full consciousness before we take them. In the tradition of Hawaiian Huna, our actions either build positive or negative energy.  They promote positive speech, frequent contact with nature, gratitude and forgiveness, and harm to none with service to others.  When we’re uncertain it behooves us to ‘wait’, clear our thoughts and direct our request for clarity from the heart. 

My great curiosity deals with how we’re drawn to unite and separate.  Spiritual tradition and contemporary science have shown conclusively how we’re all connected.  Curious minds seek to explore common ground for deeper meaning.  This leads to increased sense of interconnection and peace.  Minds closed to drilling deeper focus upon persuasion to belief systems encased in fixed notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.  Curious minds drive from love and inter Being.  Minds dead to curiosity drive from fear and the pull to separate.

The courage to continually dig deeper is the core meaning of theological exploration and scientific discovery.  As soon as our curiosity diminishes with notions of an answer we somehow have diminished the vast expanse of the great mystery, the Divine.  We must examine what ‘faith’ means to us.  Are we carried through our day in courageous faith to the unknown, the mystery; or are we carried by a fixed belief system handed down from another who we’ve given authority over us? 

As a child in the 1950’s, I was raised in a culture putting strong emphasis on the correctness of parent, teacher, preacher, and government.  As a teen, a wonderful Lutheran college challenged me to go deeper in my curiosity about the Divine, a dishonest president moved us to always question authority, and my parents allowed a deeper dialog about our transformative times.  From 1968 to 1971 change was happening at an accelerated pace.  No matter how fixed people were to notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, it was almost impossible to kill curiosity about what was happening.  Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated.  Racial tension was burning up our cities.  Vietnam was robbing us of our youth.  Our government was lying about our military purpose, killing our protestors, and moving more and more to a police state.  In 1968 Nixon won the election promoting the notion that he was looking out for the ‘non-dissenters’, the ‘non-questioners’, for those dead in their curiosity about what was going on.  Yet, in this period from 1968-1971, so many who voted for him began to ask questions.  As a twenty-one year old college student I experienced the burning of our college administration building and was blamed for the incident since we were near the building when it was set ablaze.  We worked a water brigade to put the fire out, but were still accused.  The questions were deep and the local community opened their doors.  They allowed their curiosity to awaken.  We allowed their questions, without need to change them.  True dialog happened and this was one of the richest moments of my American experience.

Brother David Steindl Rast has poignantly described the deep respect we owe to the words we speak.  He suggests that before we speak we examine what we really mean, that we only speak from first experience, and finally, that we ask the question, “So what?”  This abruptly takes us from the destructive position of ‘knowing’ and need to persuade.  We’re speaking strictly from our territory of experience, holding back on trying to impose our map on another.  This is what we did in 1971 when we entered homes.  We allowed others to speak their truth of direct experience and were then invited from their curiosity to speak ours.  We weren’t allowed to speak second and third hand information.  We were invited to dig deeper for common ground, eventually finding our unity in the human experience.

Curiosity, it’s perhaps life’s greatest gift and challenge.  When facing our dukka, our feeling of restlessness or ‘unsatisfactoriness’, we have the choice of drilling deeper, medicating and numbing ourselves, or stopping our curiosity with blind faith from another’s authority.  It seems the most precious ingredient to successful living, family, community, nation and planet is curiosity.  Curiosity about common sense and the common good seems to work best.  It’s an American right to be curious, to respectfully question authority.  We’re now seeing our very survival as a nation depends upon asking these deeper questions.  Whether as citizen, journalist, educator or theologian, without curiosity, with fixation on special interests and class, age, racial and religious division, we run a perilous journey similar to that of cancer cells within the body.  Curiosity, a deeper listening for deeper understanding, tolerance and patience, all driven from love and felt sense of unity…this is where healing comes from.

It’s early 2009 and I have that same felt sense of accelerating change.  We’ve smashed some barriers to the curious mind, electing a president of multi race background, seriously considering a woman for president, and accepting a senior candidate.  The world applauded America’s curiosity.  Perhaps the biggest challenge will be to challenge our capacity to religious tolerance and curiosity.  Our survival and success will depend upon our capacity to practice curiosity and willingness to peacefully step into the land of “I don’t know”.  When the curious mind is allowed to move to the uniting heart we move to a new dimension that acknowledges our interconnection.  When we can explore the fundamentalist mind, it’s willingness to execute violent acts in the name of ‘belief’, surrender our need to claim ‘correctness’, we just may find the courage to ask, “Is what we’re doing working?”  More importantly, we just may discover a larger stewardship to those who follow us as we ask, “Is what we’re doing working to create a more peaceful planet for our children, their children and the children to follow?”  Curiosity leads to broader questions, forever leading us to an appreciation in the ‘gift of the given’.  Curiosity and gratitude for what is open the door for more abundance.  Our fixed beliefs, a strong notion of ‘knowingness’, and our restlessness running amuck will lead to our demise.

Just Be It

Live long enough and you’ll observe the cyclical nature of everything.  We’re raised from a linear perspective, under the illusion there’s a beginning and ending.  We’re drawn to the allure of a fixed answer, a defined destination, a relief from the reality of constant change.  Yet, our modern scientific research and ancient spiritual wisdom clearly shows the bottomless depth of our search into the mystery.  A Catholic nun once put it geometrically into the following phrase: “God is a circle whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.”  This captures the notion of harmonic alignment.  As a pebble falls into water, the ripple spreads infinitely.  As we experience the Divine, it no longer makes sense to intellectually conceive of God “out there” or “up there”.  There’s a “felt sense” of God that drives from the heart, a pull to the mystery of our interconnection.  In breaking third dimension theology notions of subject/object, of me here/God out there, we come more and more to see there’s only subject.

The experience of God everywhere, much like the circle, breaks all notions of us vs. them.  Rather than personifying an evil object out there, we come to accept the felt sense of stewarding thoughts, emotions and actions vs. destructive thoughts, emotions and actions.  In honoring the Divine which knows no boundaries, just as the circle has no sides, we come to a deeper experience of loving one another as ourselves.  Further, we carry a deeper sense of stewardship to all animate and inanimate gifts, all needing gentle care and acceptance as though feeding our very hearts.  In effect, we experience our brother as ourselves, our enemy as ourselves, the mountain as us, and the ocean as us, etc.  The illusion of separation is broken much like the illusion of a wave’s separate form is broken when it crashes on the shore. The wave may have just forgotten that it was always water.

The circle has no sides and continually asks us to drill deeper into the mystery.  The root of “communication” is “communion”.  As Christ ritualized in Holy Communion, we become one in the felt tasting of one another outside our addictions to fighting and difference.  As such, we find our curiosity may be what feeds us most in pursuing a deeper life.  Our practice would be a deeper listening, without judgment and fixed belief systems.  In effect, our deeper theology would always seek the deeper question rather than ending the learning process with a fixed answer.

Uncle Les, a kahuna living on Maui, once said he’d like to start a school with the name “No BS”.   The “BS” would designate “Belief Systems”.  The very root of theology, theos, designates a continuous drilling deeper into our understanding of the mystery, of the Divine.  Once we settle into a fixed belief system, thinking we have the answer, we create the opportunity for violence.  The famous linguist, Noam Chomsky, has said that violence is behind all our attempts to persuade or change others to what we think is “right”.  The famous artist, Robert Rauschenberg, was memorialized with the following statement that drove him to revolutionize modern art, saying, “There are so many more interesting ways to be than ‘right.”  In summarizing the key to the success of the infamous Motown Funk Brothers, Joe Messina said the key to their success was that “they listened to each other and liked each other”.  Albert Einstein, in The World as I See It, wrote the following:

The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls.

Einstein recognized the absurdity in stunting our growth with the dangerous words, “I know that”.  The entire format of debate, aimed to compete against another, to break another down for a judgment of who’s “right” pales to the more spiritual notion of dialogue, where we actively listen to one another until we get the felt sense of being in the other’s shoes.  Almost all military leaders finally come to this realization after years of service in fighting “evil doers” without first going deeper into understanding of their enemy.  The former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, realized this is the number one insight from all his years in public service when he released the Academy Award winning documentary The Fog of War.

Our head continually draws us to subject vs. object.  Our notions of “doing” and “having” feed the illusion that we are separate when our heart leads us to the harmonic, circular notion of “subject”, of the Divine, of our enemy as us, our surroundings as us, as Thich Knat Hahn labels our “inter Being”, as Paul Tillich labels the very “ground of Being”.  Rumi’s famous line, “Somewhere there’s a field beyond notions of right knowing and wrong knowing, let’s meet there”, captures the need to dig deeper, to explore the mystery further, to surrender our defense, and to forever honor the never ending nature of the circle and cycles of life.

Entering what seems to be an accelerating circle of change in 2009, may we forever honor the mystery?  Curiosity, wonder, and mystery….just ‘be’ it.

Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.” 

Robert Rauchenberg from NY Times obituary, May 14, 2008

….help us to calm our emotions and to see our “interbeing”—to see there is no separation between you and me, between you and any other person, to see that we all “inter-are.”  As my friend Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “All life is interrelated.  We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, Creating True Peace

Best words to master in true inquiry from love.  “What do you want?”, followed by the loving willingness to stand in silence and love until a response is given.  The real work is in quieting our mind from solutions and judgment to prepare the ground for the other to honestly respond.

Best words to end a conversation and perhaps the most damaging words one can speak are, “I know that”.

Randy Johnson from an insight delivered June, 2006, after a marital dispute

The ultimate reason to create, teach, speak or write is to dissolve the veil of separation and reveal the intimate union of all existence…to awaken a recognition of ourselves as One with all that is.  Stacy Lawson blog,  http://www.staceylawson.com/blog.htm

The politics of fear, sold through the voice of an authoritarian parent figure, limits our voice to the short term.  We end up with a focus on “self defense”, praying that “Daddy” will take care of things.  The selling comments are generally of separation.  For example, “We’ve got to get them before they get us” breeds a military of force with unlimited expenditure.  There’s a nationalistic focus with unquestioning loyalty to the parent figures in charge.  This approach quiets the populace, diminishing the questioning of authority to an act judged unpatriotic.  Today, even through our election process, few contenders question the federal budget dedication to “self defense” and debt service.  A focus from fear does not align with a stewardship and more often than not drives from greed and ignorance.

A politics driven from sense of stewardship and vision aims to the long term.  Many indigenous tribes ran their visions seven generations out.  Rather than spending 60% of every discretionary tax dollar on “self defense”, the primary focus would be on “Self defense”.  Our political decisions would be driven from a longer term perspective, would recognize the speed of change, our planetary interconnection, and our mandate to collaborate internationally for the health and well being of future generations.  A platform of Self-defense would aim to nurturing our planet from moderation and gratitude.  It would recognize that harm done to any life is harm done to oneself.  As such, a new voice would vision a planet aiming to a radical transition from our current politics of fear, greed and ignorance.  A true citizenry of hope would recognize that if we can’t “see” it, how in the world can we expect to manifest it?  With a vision of doom and gloom, anger and blame, fear and despair, we present a collective consciousness that does not bode well for future generations.  It’s time we all sat in front of the future generations and addressed long term stewardship.

“Dear grandsons and grand daughters, great grandsons and great grand daughters, and on and on, may we always drive our thoughts, emotions and actions from what’s best for all with harm to none?  We here present our vision for a planet of healing and nourishment for future generations.  Please hear our words.”

1.  We vision a politic that focuses on compassion, generosity and moderation.  Decisions in family, community, nation and planet will be driven from a perspective of “what’s best for all with harm to none”.

2. We vision a politic that views our children as our most valuable natural resource.  As such, budgetary spending will focus upon enhanced health and education to meet the rapidly changing universe with the skills necessary of harmonious living.  National budgets from all nations will be transparent, aiming to diminish the current trend toward ever increasing military spending.  Military objectives will command service without harm.  We vision a planet void of nuclear weapons.  The international community will not be tolerant of actions that harm innocent civilians and all citizens will be able to witness diplomatic forums where those who violate the law of harmony find their voice.  Healing will come from genuine aim to understanding rather than forced military actions that risk harm to even one innocent civilian.

3. We vision a politic where profit is taken away from those engaged in war, health care or education process.  A moral conscience will once again be restored when the corporate world’s current profit only motive is eliminated.  We vision a planet where all citizens nourish body and mind through adequate food, shelter and education.  In the spirit of “pursuit of happiness”, all citizens will have opportunity, regardless of sex, race, nationality, age, etc.

4. We vision a world of tolerance and understanding.  Citizens will be mandated to study history to be sure not to repeat the same mistakes, to study various spiritual traditions for similarities and differences, to care for the body with regular exercise and meditation, and to view all personal, business and political decisions from a perspective of long term effect.  Whether from the science of quantum physics or ancient spiritual wisdom, citizens will hold deep regard for our delicate interconnectivity.  Everyone counts, every thought and feeling matters, every action affects everything. A refocus on the arts, on rhythm and harmony, curiosity, and disciplined resolve to go deeper, will drive our humanity’s evolution.

5. We vision a world where all citizens are taught the laws of compassion, gratitude and forgiveness, not as religious dictates, but as necessary practices for the very survival of humanity.

6.  We vision a planet of wisdom councils.  Elders of the family, community, nation and planet will meet to take action on various issues of concern.  All laws will be directed from the mandate of “best for all with harm to none”.  When unique circumstances present to these councils, they will be addressed accordingly rather than rubber stamped from a law upheld by biased “parental” court figures.  The pro life/ pro choice conflict will vanish as people see they are pro life and pro choice, addressing issues from best for all, harm to none.  An attitude of “I know that” will shift to an attitude of curiosity, understanding and compassion.

7.  We vision a planet where nurturing, stewardship and the art of “taking care” takes a front position to the parasite of greed, ignorance and fear.  In the healing of our planet, America, community and family, we recognize that change happens, energy dissipates, and our commanded purpose is to slow entropy, nurture one another, and forever hold aim to a better world for our children. Our command is to care for the body/mind, hold feelings of hope and well-being, love our family with deep resolve, actively contribute to and participate in our community, and hold reverence for the very gift of life on this planet.

There are two very basic laws of the universe.  What we put attention to grows stronger and what we don’t will grow weaker. The first is call the Law of Attraction and the second is called the Law of Entropy, otherwise known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  It’s really quite simple.  If we put energy to something we slow its deterioration; if we don’t apply it the loss of energy is faster.  We can look at this from a personal, family, community, national, or global perspective.  We could say that putting energy to slowed entropy is good stewardship.  From an ecological global perspective, we become more aware of our carbon footprint, expending less energy through conservation.  At a personal level, we become more and more aware about what works in the stewardship of the health of our body/mind.  The focus of this article is to focus on our personal ‘practice’ in slowing entropy of body/mind.

It’s now accepted that regular exercise, a moderate and healthy diet, and the avoidance of toxic consumption lead to slowed entropy.  For sure, we’ll all one day say good bye to these bodies.  Also, there’s never a guarantee that if we exercise good body/mind stewardship we’ll live longer.  Yet, our quality of life seems dramatically richer when we ‘practice’ those disciplines that work for slowed entropy.  Our bodies clearly manifest a different outward look when we mindlessly consume food and drugs.  As we learn more and more about the destructive effects of toxic foods we become more aware of our need to ‘practice’ with resolve.  Mindful living slows entropy and aids in disciplining us to the ‘practice’ of that which works.

What works for one may not work for another.  Yet, it seems universal that stress speeds entropy and present-minded living slows it.  Living in the present, we meet the moment in peace.  Living in stress, there’s a tension gap between where we are and where we want to be.  This gap often robs us from our appointment with life, creating conflict and dissatisfaction.  Mindful living must not be confused with lack of ‘doing’.  Paradoxically, the more aware we are, the more we participate, the more we put our energy to living, the slower our entropy.  Some have called this the ‘use it or lose it’ principle.  When we neglect the exercise of the body it speeds deterioration.  When we neglect exercise of the mind through rigid belief systems, we speed deterioration of cognitive function.  Mindful living commands openness, willingness to adventure into the mystery, and resolve to maintain our practice to increased awareness.

This increased awareness raises our gratitude for the precious moment that will never be again.  The Law of Entropy states that everything is in process of change.  Nothing stays the same and nothing disappears.  This law is in tension with the Law of Interconnectedness.  Everything affects everything and our awareness to this feeds our ease with the Law of Entropy.  When we mindfully care for our body/mind, we care for all.  When we neglect and abuse our body/mind, we speed the entropy of all.  Simply put, our resolve to increased awareness ‘heals’ and our lack of awareness ‘wounds’.  Our resolve to practice stewardship to body, family, community, nation and planet leads to longer living.  Our practice of numbed or distracted living leads to earlier deterioration.

A simple practice is to return to our breath. 

Breathing in, say ‘yes’ to the opportunity to participate in this life.

Breathing out, say ‘thank you’ for this gift and for the resolve to practice increased awareness.

Yoga is a healing practice.  There’s recognition that the body loses energy over time, but there’s also recognition we can slow this entropy through our practice.  Increased awareness from yoga provides the ‘felt’ sense of our interconnectedness…our joined state of being.  Some have referred to this felt sense of connection as love or compassion.  It’s definitely healing.  In contrast, our sense of separateness speeds entropy and dis-ease.  Yoga, meditation and other practices leading to increased awareness and mindful living are not easy.  They demand tremendous resolve and discipline.  Yet, the sense of peace, harmony, gratitude, and ease of living continue to feed our ‘practice’.  Knowing our practice heals body/mind, family, community, nation and planet is strong vitamin to the depth and strength of our yoga practice.

The basic meaning behind ‘theology’ involves ‘going deeper’.  As such, curiosity may be one of the most divine attributes we could cultivate.  The strength of our religion may interestingly go to the core of our willingness to forever go deeper.  While our cognitive belief systems stop our spiritual depth with notions of right and wrong, our heart energy forever drills deeper into the felt experience of our interconnection.  The challenge is to find God within the heart of ‘all’.  In his book Honest to God, John Robinson writes:

A statement is ‘theological’ not because it relates to a particular Being called ‘God’, but because it asks ultimate questions about the meaning of existence: it asks what, at the level of theos, at the deepest mystery, is the reality and significance of our life.  p. 49

He goes on to point to the main question of ‘where’ is God.  A didactic approach, one based on subject/object, would place God ‘out there’ or ‘up there’.  Yet, the Christian theologian Paul Tillich speaks of God as the ‘ground of Being’, stating:

The centre of our whole being is involved in the centre of all being; and the centre of all being rests in the centre of our our being.

The god whom he cannot flee is the Ground of his being.  And this being, his nature, soul, and body, is a work of infinite wisdom, awful and wonderful.  p. 53  from The Shaking of the Foundation

Forever drilling deeper, outside the walls of knowing, further into the abyss of the heart, we touch the Divine, as Tillich referenced, ‘the ground of our Being’, beyond notions of the subject/object divide, touching the mystery of subject as one.

I put together a few of my favorite holiday tunes, hopefully for your listening pleasure.  The backgrounds are from Abersol and Leonard.  The mix is quick, down and dirty. The tones are from the heart.

Sample

I’m looking for more quotes from you or writers who’ve inspired you in verbally trying to aim to a sense of ‘being’.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Dainin Katagiri Roshi describes it as follows in Returning to Silence When you want to express the total function of a thing, say a fish when it swims in the water, the function of the fish is exactly one with the function of the water.  That is why you cannot see exactly the total function of the fish becoming one with the water.  But real fish is no-discrimination-between-water-and-fish.  They are one, but they are not one because they are two, but they are not two.  They are really working together, so we can say, “Looks like a fish.”  “Looks like a fish” means it is not exactly a fish.  If this is true is it water?  No, it is not water, it’s a fish, but it’s not a fish.  It is just oneness.  This is called “looks like just going, looks like just coming.”   P. 35

From The Protean Body by Don Johnson

…I walked out onto a dock in the Gulf of Mexico.  I ceased to exist.  I experienced being a part of the sea breeze, the movement of the water and the fish, the light rays cast by the sun, the colors of the palms and tropical flowers.  I had no sense of past or future.  It was not a particularly blissful experience: it was terrifying.  It was the kind of ecstatic experience I’d invested a lot of energy in avoiding. I did not experience myself as the same as the water, the wind, and the light, but as participating with them in the same system of movement.  We were all dancing together.

In The Silent Pulse, George Leonard writes:

At the heart of each of us, whatever our imperfections, there exists a silent pulse of perfect rhythm, made up of wave forms and resonances, which is absolutely individual and unique, and yet which connects us to everything in the universe.  The act of getting in touch with this pulse can transform our personal experience and in some way alter the world around us.  P. 11

Everyone has experienced what he would call a sense of being transported beyond himself.  This feeling of liberation far exceeds the dream of freedom sometimes hoped for in special relationships.  It is a sense of actual escape from limitations.  If you will consider what this “transportation” really entails, you will realize that it is a sudden unawareness of the body, and a joining of yourself and something else in which your mind enlarges to encompass it.  It becomes part of you, as you unite with it.  And both become whole, as neither is perceived as separate.  What really happens is that you have given up the illusion of a limited awareness, and lost your fear of union.  The love that instantly replaces it extends to what has freed you, and unites with it.  And while this lasts you are not uncertain of your Identity, and would not limit It.  You have escaped from fear to peace, asking no questions of reality, but merely accepting it.  You have accepted this instead of the body, and have let yourself be one with something beyond it, simply by not letting your mind be limited by it.  Chapter 18, v. 11-12

If we want to know what God says in a tomato, we must look at a tomato, feel it, smell it, bite into it, have the juice and seeds squirt all over us when it pops.  We must savor it and learn this tomato poem ‘by heart’.

Life accepts you; life loves you as a separated part of itself; life wants to reunite you with itself, even when it seems to destroy you.

The Blues...Just Be It

The famous bluesman, Otis Spann, has referred to the blues as ‘a doctor’ that sometimes heals, sometimes
doesn’t, but it aims to help one move through the pain of life.

The blues and blues/jazz is a rich form of surrendered harmonic alignment that carries us through suffering to freedom.  Just Be It features harmonic alignment through the blues in a variety of musical configurations for all occasions.

Commentary on the Blues

Ride: This blues band performs every other month at Washington Square Bar and Grill in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.  The current band membership is starting its fifteenth year.  Ride is best known for creating a live party atmosphere with a compilation of blues and rock songs that facilitates moving energy and healing.
A typical set list is taken from the rich heritage of Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield and Freddie King through to the Grateful Dead, Bill Withers and Lou Reed. Ride pays tribute to the connecting experience these songs stimulate.

Band Members: Gerry Dahl, Bass and Vocals; Steve Husten, Drum Kit and Vocals; Mike Bruns, Guitar and Vocals; John Layton, Guitar; Randy Johnson, Vocals, Trumpet and Harmonica, and Jonathon Townsend, Drums and vocals

Sample audio songs:

http://www.archive.org/details/RideAtDecoys2007

Five Long Years video at Stasiu’s

Don’t Keep Me Wondering

Ride… Blues to rock your soul…

Check the calendar for performance schedule.

PeaceMeal: For a softer, background blues/jazz atmosphere, this group performed weekly at Washington Square Bar and Grill for three years. PeaceMeal has played background alignment music throughout the Twin Cities area.  Performing as trio or quartet, this band features Dan Parker on bass, Steve DeGenaro on guitar, and Randy Johnson on trumpet, harmonica and vocals.  Occasionally another horn or a keyboard player will sit in with the band. When it’s important to keep the volume down so you can have a peaceful meal and/or conversation, PeaceMeal perfectly augments your special occasion.

Sample songs:

I Shall Be Released

Check the calendar for performance schedule.

There’s general acknowledgement of a ‘shift’ in the way we process our involvement in the universe.  This change had been forecast thousands of years ago and now we can literally sense a quickening or acceleration of this new way of experiencing things.  This change dramatically affects our relationships not only to one another, but to all elements of nature.  We find ourselves relating in a very different way to plants, animals and the various gifts that contribute to our very breathing.  There’s an experience of connectedness and with this experience comes a dramatic change in the way we process our moment-to-moment living.

We stand outside the old paradigm need to control.  There’s a trust or accepting in the unfolding of events and we come to see the damage caused from our previous attempts to fix things we thought were wrong.  We come to a deep appreciation for each moment, for the very gift of breath, and discover consequent joy and happiness in breaking the chains of comparison, judgment and criticism.  In the new paradigm we take responsibility for our thoughts, speech and actions, in full recognition to our creation of reality.

So how does this relate to ‘riding’?  Isn’t all of our life action about movement within the moment?  Whether riding a great wave or driving our car or engaging another in dialogue, there’s an element of courage involved in our surrender to receive what’s presented, what’s present in our awareness.   So when approaching an ocean wave, the old paradigm has one divided from it, somehow in a competition or war that’s aimed to conquest.  The riding style of the old paradigm is more aggressive, driven by ego’s desire to conquer, compete and somehow receive validation through another’s approval or praise.  It’s more taken with notions of one’s doing-ness and achievement.  New paradigm riding involves a much deeper listening to the unfolding events.  The water and wave are approached through a notion of love and surrender.  All boundaries of separation are broken as the rider literally experiences his/her ‘wave-ness’ within the core of the heart.  The rider does not separate from other brothers and sisters engaging the wave, and he/she intuitively moves to stay out of another’s way as the process unfolds.  All notions of ownership, blame, inferiority and superiority vanish as the rider meets the moment in full wonder and gratitude for the opportunity to participate.  We’ve shifted our paradigm from ‘just doing it’ to ‘just being it’.  At this moment of stepping from our separation we move just past the edge of our ability in creative response.

From Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching:

The Way abides in nonaction
Yet nothing is left undone.

From The Heart of Being by John Daido Loori:

What is the right view and the wisdom that allows the barrier to be broken down?  It always comes back to Be the barrier.  That is the right view. Be the barrier. That is the right wisdom.  This is because, from the very beginning, the barrier is nothing but yourself.  There is no barrier.  When you realize there is no barrier, the barrier becomes a dharma gate.  If the barrier is Mu, be Mu.  If the barrier is the koan, be the koan.  Anxiety?  Be the anxiety.  Fear?  Be the fear.  When you are the barrier, it fills the universe.  There is no longer a reference system.  There is no separation—no self and other, no self and barrier, no self and Mu, no self and the koan, no self and the breath.

From The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo:

When we withdraw our gaze from its egoistic preoccupation with limited and fleeting interests and look upon the world with dispassionate and curious eyes that search only for the Truth, our first result is the perception of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that surpasses infinitely our ego or any ego or any collectivity of egos, in whose balance the grandiose produces of aeons are but the dust of a moment and in whose incalculable sum numberless myriads count only as a petty swarm.

From Returning to Silence by Dainin Katagiri Roshi:

Each movement was beautiful and completely independent, but simultaneously each movement was connected.  There was no gap between her and the ballet.  Within the limitations of her life fading away, she took care of each form with wholeheartedness.
There is no gap between her and the dance.  They are just one.

Wholehearted Living by Somebody Else:

When doing life wholeheartedly we touch being.   Meeting eternity within each moment, we experience impermanence and our interconnectedness.  Within this experience, we are the full expression of our action, outside any mental formations of separateness.  Wholehearted living comes from the spirit of what’s best for all, with harm to none.  There’s a deep sense of stewardship, of engaged action dedicated to ‘taking care’.

Wholehearted living doesn’t just happen.  The deeper we touch our actions through disciplined practice and resolve, the closer we come to surrendered performance that touches the fabric of all.  The past no longer spits out our capacity to touch the present.  When doing is wholehearted there’s great ease of performance leading to what some have called style.  Outside of cognitive noise, the mind/body meet the moment fresh to it’s unfolding…each ‘doing’ new.

Wholehearted living always aims deeper.

Workshops on peak performance in sport and music will be scheduled periodically.

Check the calendar for dates.