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.

My life study has been to examine how language impacts our life experience. In 1972 I had an amazing stoke of luck and timing. I was studying language and communication disorders at the University of Minnesota when Katagiri Roshi, Minnesota’s first Zen priest moved in two blocks from where we were living. I had been fascinated with comparative religious study and was eager to learn what this Japanese master could teach me. I had previously studied General Semantics and was taught about the arbitrary nature of words and the meanings we put to them. Basic tenets of this study were that the map (word) is not the territory. It recognized that ‘meaning is in the person’. There is no such thing as absolute meaning. The study of interpersonal communication taught me how active, persistent listening and unquenchable curiosity is the main tool for moving closer to consensus meaning. It’s characterized by questions like, “Tell me more”, “I’m not sure about what you said, did you say….?”, “Can you go deeper with that?”. There’s an open inquiry that takes place where we recognize the limitations of words, where we acknowledge that meaning is within each of us and if we really want to meet one another it’s going to take some real work. General Semantics and Zen clearly pointed out the pitfalls with our ‘semantic reactivity’. My ancestral religion, Lutheran, had stressed the power in humility and silence. The Psalm 46:10 states, “Be still and know that I am God”. I had found great peace and joy when sitting still without words. Katagiri Roshi taught me the practice of quieting the language (chatter) of the mind with instruction in zazen. It was a very precise practice that stressed the importance of posture and stillness of body to hold a still mind. He continually made small adjustments to my seated posture and instruction to holding attention to the breath. I found an amazing increase in vitality the more I did this practice. It was almost as if my attachment to the words in my head, the never ending thoughts running through my mind, drained my energy. The release of these thoughts settled my feelings and emotions down. The complaining and anxiety in my head passed by like clouds in the sky. He taught me to be firm and dedicated in my practice, just as my mentor in General Semantics had taught me to view this as a life long practice. They both spoke to the power in holding a ‘witness mind’, almost as if standing outside the concept of oneself just looking at the thoughts that come up.

At first I was taken with the amazing sense of peace and vitality found with this practice of ‘witnessing the language in my mind’ and letting it go. My work improved, time expanded and I accomplished more, and I seemed to be ‘doing my best’. It was working so well, yet what Katagiri Roshi called my ‘excusing mind’ kept coming up with reasons to stop a dedicated practice of stillness, of meeting God without words. We would sit in stillness most mornings at a very early hour. I had made a vow to hold to this practice and yet, my mind of dissatisfaction wanted to sleep longer. The practice of ‘stillness’ was not a natural skill. It became clear that the more I did it the better I got at identifying my wandering mind. I could more easily see how thoughts (language) bubbled up, how easily it was to attach to them and grow them, and eventually they carried me from the task of stillness in the moment. Katagiri Roshi explained how it’s impossible to stop thought completely through a sitting session. He suggested that we look at stillness like a ‘bounce’. With a quiet body and mind, we can meet God without thought/language, touch that moment free from our notions of time and space, and then find ourselves back in thought. This eased my frustration with whether or not I was ‘good’ at this practice. It was clear that it’s just human nature to have a restless mind that fills with desire for conditions to be different. I was learning the skill of witnessing this mind of dissatisfaction, seeing how I suffered to the extent I attached to my internal complaints, and observing the peace that came when I let these attachments go. I was still plagued with thoughts of ‘not having enough’ (greed) and ‘anxiety of the future’ (fear). The daily practice improved awareness to how these negative thoughts could throw me off balance. More importantly, those moments where I bounced into stillness gave me the most profound sense of belonging. This practice increased sensitivity to the impermanence of each moment and the illusion of my concept of separateness. Words can’t describe this and I can only use words to point to this ‘felt’ experience of ‘meeting God without words’. There was a sense of support, no matter what. The feeling of being ‘alone’ was gone. These experiences fed a confidence I hadn’t known before. Some have called this ‘grounding in the groundless’. Katagiri Roshi used the analogy of how we’d respond when the earthquake happens. With a deeper awareness to how the mind plays with us, with practice in meeting God without words, it was repeatedly shown how the less reactive mind produced less of a mess from my actions.

Today I get to share these practices with others looking for a more successful life. I’m careful to not call it meditation, yoga, prayer, mindfulness, or any other term that tends to trigger resistant semantic reactions. For me, it seems best to point out the value in giving our minds some relief from the never ending chatter that seems to cause so much suffering. We recognize the value in tension/relaxation in most life skill training. We deplete ourselves when forever holding a tense posture. We stretch ourselves, deepen, and grow stronger when we tense and then let go. That’s what this process is about. With an estimated 60,000 thoughts per day, well over 90% of them being repeat thoughts, we’re worn down. The results of dedicated practice/training in meeting the moment without words/thought are substantially documented as beneficial to the quality of one’s life. This practice of meeting God without words gives us the strength to meet the arising moment with solid grounding, knowing we’re supported and connected with one another in a deeper way. Better knowing our ‘center’ we’re more likely to hold our balance in facing what comes up. The more we can hold our balance, the less likely we are to hurt ourselves or another. The more aware we are to our thoughts (internal language) the more our ‘doing’ can align with our ‘being’. Breaking the illusions of our separateness, we become the action, we better meet each other’s joy and suffering as our own. We become more sensitive to the limits of language, grow our curiosity, and forever search for how we can steward this very gift of the next breath, family, community, nation, planet and future generations. The practice of ‘Be still’ grows the depth of our relationship in God, diminishes our complaint and feeds our sense of ‘great fullness’.

I’m not much for the debate format. When looking for real character in national leaders, perhaps the most important qualities for me are how well they can listen and how well they can hold their center/balance when under attack. I’m looking for the strength of their backbone (courage to stand strong), wishbone (intention and faith to steward our communities, nation and planet to sustainable actions that have concern for all), humor bone (ability to find the humor in oneself and situations, to not take oneself too seriously) and hollow bone (ability to be flexible, acknowledging that we don’t have all the answers, that deeper listening and respect for one another goes a long way to a bigger solution).

We want leaders that authentically show loving kindness to those they serve, that are capable to meet others in their suffering, that can serve to feed hope and joy in themselves and others, even through the most difficult of times, and perhaps most importantly, can ‘hold their center’. Some have called this virtue ‘equanimity’. It’s a powerful trait that comes from a strong sense of belonging to something bigger than one’s image of self. When we’re caught in notions of ‘us vs. them’ we tend to leave that bigger sense of support, a support that our Declaration of Independence has called Divine Providence. Our two party system has us attacking one another much like cancer cells in our body. We all want the body to live, yet we’ve separated from our spiritual mandate to care for one another as ourselves, attacking one another as an enemy over seeking understanding from our common dilemma…to live in harmony in a rapidly changing planet. We ‘think’ we’re right and they’re wrong. We become vulnerable to the good opinion of others, seeking approval from others, caught in the notion we can ‘change them’, denying the very freedom our forefathers advocated in founding our country.

So why did Donald Trump and Tim Kaine lose? They were thrown off center and lost their balance when under attack. None of us truly know what we’ll do when under attack, but we do know it takes a dedicated life practice to ‘hold our center’. The reactions of Trump and Kaine clearly showed me their inability to solidly hold their balance when arrows were thrown their way. Clinton and Pence held their posture without ‘losing it’, without losing their composure. We’ve seen Clinton hold her composure under hours of exhaustive scrutiny from a legislative inquiry. It’s why it was quite humorous to many of us when Trump questioned her stamina to hold center and awareness through difficult circumstance.

We tend to stray from discussing our spiritual practices when discussing politics, falling back on the ‘church separate from state’ mandate. Yet, we’re a spiritual country/planet and we know that our back bone builds ‘unborn security’ through spiritual practice. The more we cultivate our sense of wonder for the Mystery/Divine/God (whatever you call it), the more willing we are to cherish the moment, acknowledge change and accept the reality of impermanence. Moving to a spiritual mandate over materialistic mandate, the more we can break the illusion of our separateness, and the better we can see the need to meet one another with loving kindness and compassion in the midst of our joy and suffering. This spiritual awareness moves us from warring monologue to an invitation to dialogue. It moves us to be more scrutinizing of our actions, aiming to not cause harm. Yet, to the extent we’re caught in our ego, sense of ‘rightness’, and the illusion of our separateness, the more vulnerable we are to losing our center when the earthquake happens.

I can’t say with any certainty who will hold their center in the face of the rapidly changing times we’re now facing. I do know that whoever loses their center usually makes a mess of things, reacting from greed or fear. I do know that these positions of leadership require a solid backbone and having watched all of the political debates thus far, Donald Trump and Tim Kaine have shown weakness in their backbone. Every spiritual tradition advises a daily ‘practice’ for growing deeper into these various bones. As a voter, I would love to have an interviewer ask what these candidates ‘do’ rather than what they ‘believe’ when it comes to their life deepening into the four bones (back, wish, humor and hollow). We’re looking for who’s ‘real’, who’s got authenticity. They fight one another on this issue. The media is mandated to report conflict and perpetuates the fight. Yet, when it comes to our real security, it will be the leader who can hold the reactive mind at bay with a backbone that can meet the moment with the most balanced response for the welfare, stewardship and sustainability of the family, community, nation and planet.

It’s of basic human nature to live with a restless mind. Sometimes we wish things could be as they were. Other times we’re anxious or hopeful about what’s to come. The fact is, change happens and nothing is permanent. Yet, we struggle to find our way through another day. Hopefully, we can find just a little peace, some sense of satisfaction with what’s before us. Our political climate feeds on dissatisfaction, forever focusing on ‘what’s wrong’. The traditional conservative side somehow pushes us to believe we can go back to what was. They seem to want a more homogenous world to live in, one with walls, not bridges. The progressive side seems quite anxious about this and wants to ‘push’ what they think is effective change. When either side pushes, the other side seems to push back harder. As a result, we stagnate the workings of our democracy as we lock into our notions of being right.

George Sanders, a writer for the New Yorker, spent the summer following the Trump campaign trying to understand what the draw was. In an NPR interview he speculated that our differences in tolerance for diversity may be genetic, going back to cave day times. It seems that half of the group wished to stay in the cave and local surroundings to preserve what was. They grew their fear in venturing to new areas. The other half were the pilgrims who couldn’t resist going out to explore and learn at the risk of possible danger. It may explain the draw to conservative values from homogenous, rural areas.

Yet, the real danger is found in mindlessly growing our dissatisfaction through fear, greed, and anxiety or even worse, just giving up in apathy to what’s before us. We’re lulled into our notions of self-importance and self deception with the illusion that other people are responsible for our happiness, and that we can change them. Angeles Arrien has written:

“When we expect others to make us happy or we are invested in changing them, we enter relationships for selfish, arrogant, and immature reasons. In both instances, other individuals are seldom seen or appreciated for who they are. Instead, they are rendered as objects whose purpose is to serve our narcissistic needs. When we release these illusions, our relationship dynamics change, and we become more self-sufficient, collaborative, and interdependent.”

We’re living is what appears to be rapidly changing times. Transportation and technology have made for an increasingly diverse environment. Our work is to seek understanding in this diversity of economy, political and religious orientation, sexual and medical revolution, and basic blending of race and culture. Our democracy and spirituality are built upon calming the mind of anger and dissatisfaction as we collaborate in the pursuit of joy for all, touching with compassion and understanding that which is before us.

The greatest enemy to our family, community, state, nation and planet is acedia. When we give up, when we can only complain and grow our anger we risk the well being of all. Today we seem to have an agreement to simply not express our hopes for the future. Many of my friends who are much smarter than me have given up, complaining about ‘the system”. Our political choices are discarded as ‘no choice’ and they claim to be worn out with the gravity of media’s focus upon conflict and what’s not working. Yet, when we go down the road of non-participation we grow the mind of dissatisfaction. The pursuit of happiness is found in our “opportunity to participate”. The joy is a necessary consequence of our gratitude for this opportunity. It’s why we all work to end oppression from those who would strip the ladder of opportunity.

So next time you’re tempted to ‘change’ another, don’t. We’re most effective if we can agree to seek understanding, to acknowledge our worlds and life experiences are vastly different, and recognize the critical importance in how we participate and collaborate in hospicing our release from fixed, static minds that have been too heavily fed in the poisons of dissatisfaction (greed, fear, and ignorance to our interdependence). It doesn’t happen overnight and it’s a continuos lifetime practice since it’s of human nature to wrestle with our restless mind.

When we attach to a thought we can grow it, elaborate on it, feed it and put ourselves in a position to defend it. We call this a ‘belief’. These thoughts are shaped by where, when and who we’re born with. As a child born on a small Minnesota dairy farm, my life was quite homogenous. The only cultural diversity we had was Mexican migrant workers and some neighbors who switched to Czech speak when they could hear my mother listening in on the nine party telephone line. I was taught to believe that red tractors were better than green tractors, Norwegian Synod Lutherans had a lock on heaven, the Russians wanted to kill us, and if you work hard enough you can get the American Dream. Today I can see how my attachments to these thoughts as a child continue to cause me suffering. Years of life experience, education and travel have taught me a huge lesson, to hold an open mind. I’ve come to see that some green tractors are better than red tractors, racial diversity is way more fun than just hanging with white people, the study of comparative religions has deepened my spiritual inquiry and the American Dream isn’t about excess, stuff and greed.

When I ‘think’ I’m right and you’re wrong there’s usually a rise in anger. The attempt to push another to my way of thinking has never gone well for me. Yet, we do influence one another in very powerful ways by the way we act in response to the way we think. I’ve found it helpful to put focus on what ‘feels’ right as opposed to locking into fixated thoughts. It seems that when I close my mind to new thought learning stops. For me, real spiritual inquiry by definition demands an open mind in full respect to the vast mystery of the unknown. When I can bow in awe to all that ‘is’, in respect to this very gift of being, I can humbly meet uncertainty with a sense of grounding that needs no cognitive defense. I can allow you to ‘think’ what you want while at the same time standing tall in the real center of my being. This is what’s been called holding ‘uprightness’. There’s a centering and alignment. It’s beyond defense, persuasion, anger, greed and division. It’s what many find in the midst of great suffering, that ability to get back up when knocked down. It’s the hope that’s found the morning after, when all hope had seemed to be lost the night before. In nature, it’s what’s called harmony. The dissonance of argument is gone and we come together in honor and respect to our shared suffering.

So today I still suffer from the thoughts deeply engrained as a child. Thoughts of superiority and inferiority plague me throughout the day. Smashing the remnants of my childhood bigotry is a continual practice. Embracing diversity and change is respect to the truth of impermanence. It requires a deep vow to upright living in the face of the unknown. It recognizes that no one is immune to suffering, that we’re here to help one another suffer less, diversity and change are, and the real American Dream is the opportunity to participate in reducing suffering within our family, community, state, nation and planet.

At the risk of sounding ‘right’, I have to say that the words and tone of the Democratic Convention align with my ‘feeling’ of uprightness. Many of the speakers spoke to a deep gratitude for the opportunities we have in this country, for the desires to engage our democratic government with an open mind rather than from a fixed notion of ‘thinking’ one is right. As we move through this campaign, I don’t want to argue. I don’t want to get angry with people I love and care for. I just hope we can all sit with an empty, open mind and ‘feel’ the heart’s desire to ease one another’s suffering. However, I do promise to listen to you with an open mind provided you can commit to listen to me for the same amount of time with an open mind. It requires a brief suspension of thoughts of rightness. It opens us to a bigger possibility when we can each ‘feel’ our center, touching uprightness over belief. This is the America I relish as I bow in gratitude to a lifetime of blessed experience in this great country of ours. I love the phrase, “Let’s make America grateful again”.

Our thoughts are linguistically based. Every thought we have is verbal. This chatter goes on inside our minds incessantly and the thoughts we attach to are called ‘beliefs’. We’re built to try to figure things out, to draw conclusions, and act in the way we believe to be right. In our polarized society we end up with heavy emphasis upon persuasion. Religions push to grow their membership based on what they ‘think’ is right and political parties push to grow their membership by doing the same. Our minds are built to come to conclusion. At one level we feel better when we ‘think we know’. Yet, the true spiritual journey is beyond language. There’s a universal appeal to fall to our knees in humility to all that we don’t know. Every spiritual tradition, at its core, advises that we ‘touch silence’, free from our thoughts of knowing. There’s a surrender that’s needed, and with that surrender comes our reuniting with the rhythm and harmony of the universe. Linguistically, when we do this we break the subject/object divide. It’s no longer me against you, I know and you don’t. Even when the problems seem big, in this stillness, we become bigger than the problem. Our real faith comes when we have the courage to touch one another’s humanity in openness, freed from our limiting belief systems. So how can this work practically in our 2.0 Upgrade to government? I think we can all agree that our polarized traditional way has frozen to the point that very little is happening in a time where we need to be accelerating our response to a rapidly changing world. It’s my contention that if we could come to a few basic agreements in our meeting rituals we’d break the ice and once again align in stewardship to our communities, states, nations and planet.

Most indigenous cultures had some form of this upgrade in their traditional background. When we set about facing big problems, I’d suggest that our belief oriented invocation be expanded to the following agreements:

We agree that we don’t have all the answers.
We agree that there is a spiritual element to our ‘gift of being’ and that we have a humble responsibility to be of stewardship to all people, places and things. We acknowledge the limits of language, the limits of our sense of righteousness, and respect the separation of church and state without abandoning our reliance upon what the Bill of Rights called ‘divine Providence’.
We agree at the outset of this meeting to suspend those thoughts we’ve attached so strongly to as we sit in silence with one another. As we let go our need to push another to our limited way of seeing the world we open ourselves for bigger solutions. As our brothers and sisters feel our desire to understand growing over our contempt and desire to persuade we agree that we more effectively loosen the holds of rigid belief in faith to that which is bigger than us.
We agree that our differences of thought arise from our differences of experience. We agree that our first responsibility is to better understand those who we’ve concluded to be wrong. We pledge to let go defensive listening and hard line persuasion in respect to the tremendous power of active listening. We mutually pledge to actively listen to one another with equal opportunity of time, free from the ineffectiveness of persuasion and violence, sincerely aiming to understand one another’s position.
We agree to first and foremost examine ‘who gets hurt’ with any decision we come to. The ultimate aim in all of our policies and actions is to ‘seek what is best for all with harm to none’.
We agree to sit in stillness, without language and thought, connecting with one another’s humanity. To simply sit, breathing the same air, free from the incessant chatter in our minds that feeds our restlessness. Sitting for fifteen minutes in silence, tuned in and tuned up to better face our responsibilities to all peoples, places and things.

This harmonizing exercise has proven effective over the ages and it’s dangerous to continue with our antiquated, closed minded approaches to problems that imminently threaten our planet. The stagnation has to stop as global diversity and change continue to accelerate. During this political campaign the media has gone to new lengths in pushing conflict and polarization. That’s just what the media does. It’s drawn to what’s wrong and desires to feed the fire for increased viewership. Unfortunately, as a nation, we’ve grown our anger and become more rigid in our beliefs. The above approach rises above debate, right vs. wrong, violence, and I believe goes a long way to healing our nation and planet, to once again finding our ‘wholeness’, our interconnection with all peoples, places and things. It brings us to that place where we all fall to our knees in gratitude and reliance upon ‘divine Providence’, with true desire for peace, joy and love to all.

https://archive.org/details/20160516071335  Click this link for an audio presentation on the above topic.

When in silence to the internal chatter, we’re “letting go the clinging to human thought, and this means letting go, or throwing out, human arrogance.  With that we become, as the Bible says, ‘as God wills,’ and then ‘the works of God will be manifest. (John 9:3)  We are constantly discriminating and dividing everything into this and that, based on our thinking.  To throw out sequential thinking, not tying one phenomenon to another, is to be prior to thought.  It is to be before the separation of things into ‘this’ and ‘that’.   …it’s to exist before separating this moment from eternity, or subject from object.     ….it enables one to experience directly.”   from Opening the Hand of Thought  by Kosho Uchiyama  p.  112.

Cultivating Increased Awareness and Gratitude for the Gift of Opportunity within the Present Moment

Brother David Steindl Rast has put his finger upon the issue of accountability and meaning stating a command to always ask:

What do I mean? (This relates to impeccability of speech)
How do I know? (If it’s not from direct experience, best to be quiet)
So what? (What is the meaning, intent and purpose of the expression)
With this criterion in mind, Just Be It, Inc. is about the following:

“It’s about the dedicated practice of felt awareness and gratitude to the present moment for the purpose of living well and in joy.”

“It’s about establishing daily practices for the purpose of cultivating an increased feeling of joining and belonging, weeding away the gravity of life’s pull to separation.” Based on deepening awareness to feeling and stilling mental formations, Just Be It acknowledges compassion, gratitude and forgiveness as “feelings” we can deepen by quieting the mind’s separating activity.”

Just Be It is not philosophy. It’s not religion. It’s not about thoughts. In answer to, “So what?” it’s about the work involved in establishing a dedicated practice to feelings of a bigger belonging through practices aimed at increasing feelings of compassion, gratitude and forgiveness. It’s about cultivating the felt sense of our connection with everything on a belief stimulated through quantum theory and ancient spiritual wisdom and personally substantiated through direct experience. It’s about assisting others in establishment of dedicated gratitude practice, awareness practice, listening practice, forgiveness practice, and compassion practice for the purpose of feeling a deeper connection with our larger community. It’s about training to still the dissonance of the separating thoughts of mind to better align with the harmony and rhythm of nature within the present moment.

This is practice dedicated to the shift in values and identities from doing to being; from ambition to meaning; from “I” to “we”; and from head to heart for the purpose of living a more whole life.

Katagiri Roshi on “Just Be” from Each Moment Is the Universe

“Ignorance is a misunderstanding because in terms of reality there is no separation—everything is interconnected. Yet, because of ignorance, we experience ourselves as separate, and we feel dissatisfied.

As human beings, we always base our thoughts on this misunderstanding. We always feel that something is missing from our lives. We think that to live a peaceful life we must get something that is outside ourselves. Then we try to get it. But actions based on thirsty desire just become the cause of more suffering. That is why Buddha’s teaching that suffering arises from desire based on ignorance is the second Noble Truth.

Buddha also taught that everyone has the capability to go beyond the ordinary body and mind and be fully present in impermanence with the whole body and mind. Then ignorance, desire, and suffering all disappear. That is the freedom we are seeking, the pure and clear state of existence where nothing is missing, the place where all we can do is just be. Then, from that place, truth comes up.”

Without awareness to my thoughts, they carry me away. When I’m carried away in thought I lose my balance. When I lose my balance and alignment I’m much easier to push over. My reactive mind is now much more vulnerable to making a mess of things. And when I’m trained in witnessing my thoughts I can better see how they’re making me feel. Are they feeding my negative emotions or positive emotions? Are they pulling my present moment attention from its center? If they’re negative thoughts feeding my emotions of anger, jealousy, hate, anxiety, etc., I may say, “I feel bad”. If they’re positive thoughts from compassion, gratitude, success, belonging, praise, pleasure, gain, etc., I may say, “I feel good”. In either case, we can feed these thoughts which feed the emotions. Yet, at some point we notice how the feeling changes. The good feeling praise has blame just around the corner. Failure is just behind success. Feeling accepted has rejection somewhere in its future. Just when we think we have it all it can be taken in a heartbeat. So the real spiritual question is, “How do I feel when things don’t go as expected?” Can I hold my balance and center in the midst of life’s changing winds? How do I meet diversity and those who challenge my map of the world?

The more I practice the art of awareness, witnessing my thoughts and emotions, increasing sensitivity to their transient nature, the more freedom I find when returning to the beauty of the moment. I love the phrase, “Beauty is always there, always ready to be noticed, even in the most dreadful of circumstance.” Some have called this, “Making space to find the gift in the given.” Essentially, when I can release thoughts of the past which have captured me I can find my strength to hold balance. Dropping the linguistic stories in my head, returning to the nonverbal sensory/perceptual experience opens a portal to a deeper life experience. It allows me to drop my fixed identities of ‘who I am’, letting me see that it’s an absurd question. I’m not all the linguistic labels I carry, and yet I’m not nothing. I like to say I’m “awareness residing in this body”. With an open, curious mind this awareness sees how thought works. It observes flexibility in nature. Wherever I turn I can witness allowance vs. resistance, tension vs. relaxation, persuasion vs. dialog, balance vs. imbalance. Meeting diversity, my small notion of a fixed self may be scared. As awareness I see it as opportunity to learn.

When I eat without awareness I can see how my belly grows. This has consequence to affect my posture and results in back pain. Witnessing my thoughts of frustration, I work to let them go and find gratitude for the perceptual gift given. I thank the belly for the sign. I thank the back for the pain signal that motivates me to more mindfully consume. I find great joy in the relief of the back pain as the extra belly weight diminishes. I’m filled with gratitude for the practice of awareness, sensitizing me to how the body/mind changes moment to moment through thought and emotion. I’m elated for the contrast of “what I don’t want” vs. “what I do want”. In brief, I want a balanced, aligned mind/body that carries more and more a sense of “well being”.

So how do we carry a growing sense of well being when in the midst of another political campaign? I have to carry gratitude for all those out there focused on what they “don’t want” because they help me better put attention to what I do want. Politics is about persuasion and the “I know that” mind. Closed minds are forever engaged in combat about what they think is right. I’m much more interested in the ‘yes’ mind focused on what it sees moving forward. The political party of “NO” has gifted me the energy to more deeply ask what I do want. It’s clear that when we attempt to change others to agreement with us they just dig in deeper to their contrary position. If I’m to truly influence the change I’ve imaged, I first have to have the courage and skill to empty thoughts of being right. My success in this endeavor is dependent upon my willingness to meet diversity with an open mind, ready to receive their positions of vast difference. I can witness their negative emotions and hear their negative thoughts and with enough training I can hold balance and alignment, holding the felt sense of well being. It’s the felt sense of well being, fed from compassion and gratitude, that opens the other to diversity. When I try to push without this I’ve found that I almost always make things worse. In that case, when I’m not solid on what to say, it’s almost always better to just not speak.

Life is conditional. There’s definitely cause and effect. I only have control of my thoughts and emotions and following actions. I don’t have control of your thoughts and emotions. I can only invite you to go exploring with me as we mutually try to better understand the territory from our very limited maps. This is the difference between monologue and dialogue.

The meaning of words is in the person. Perhaps one of the strongest, most heavily loaded word combinations are labels taken in the battle between those who are against abortion and those who are for personal choice in this matter. For me, pro life carries the meaning of ‘reverence for life’. I think most of us aspire to this. We’ve been exposed to the Golden Rule, we’ve seen how the loss of this reverence seldom works out well. I doubt any of us, deep down, takes life for granted. I suspect none of us is arrogant enough to think we’re responsible for the creation of what we call our ‘being’. As we learn more about the complexities of the human body we’re further humbled to the mystery of it all. Science and most religions have instructed us in the consciousness of interdependence and the illusion of separateness. It’s now quite apparent that when we hurt another or hurt the gift of our environment, we hurt ourselves. So to me, pro life means an utmost respect to the gift of life presented. The idea of a truly spiritual life is captured in the words from A Path With Heart:

Living a spiritual life does not demand high ideals or noble thoughts. It requires our caring and kind attention to our breath, to our children, to the trees arounds us, and to the earth with which we are so interconnected. p. 296

The reverence for life recognizes the mystery and the desire to forever deepen our understanding of one another. Pro life necessarily holds an open mind to the unknown. A deeper listening is required to meet another’s suffering as our own. The mind of compassion is the mind of pro life and pro choice. It’s a mind that has the courage to enter ‘I don’t know land’, seeking alignment of the head and heart. I am not pro abortion and I am not anti abortion. I am not immune from fear, greed and the illusion that I’m separate from your pain. And for me, the real meaning of pro life means developing a vow to support each other through our life challenges. And if I’m not strong enough to do this, at least I can do what I can to not cause further harm.

For me, pro life means that when I encounter the opportunity to participate in the end of physical life, I have awareness that clearly shows these intentions come from love rather than fear. These are some of the most difficult of life decisions. Anyone who’s put down a pet from love knows this. When we witness death from fear, anger and revenge we all feel like we’ve lost a piece of ourselves. When love for the person/animal/plant moves us to these decisions, we’re more careful with our thoughts and actions.

Some have defined ‘sin’ as missing the mark. The mark is love. When we fail to meet our brothers and sisters in compassion, we betray science and our religious mandates to love one another as ourselves because we are each other. There simply can’t be black and white answers in this arena as we argue with one another on our ideologies. These matters of giving and taking life need deep listening and heartfelt conversation from the heart that carries reverence for life. Each moment is eternity in these matters. Each moment comes with decisions best made from the very center of one’s being.

A true pro life stance carries a very strong “yes” to a bigger belonging. It necessarily involves a life dedicated to providing opportunities for all peoples to participate in the beauties that life has to offer. Pro life decisions have given us the pause and respect to steward our parks, to aim for health care and education for all peoples, to receive refugees in need, to aim for housing and food for those in need, to humanize our justice system with rehabilitation programs, to move to sustainable energy practices that minimize harm to our environment, to recognize our planetary interconnection and eliminate threats to the continued health of our environment. Pro life is what drives innovation and collaboration in stewardship to the health of all things and beings, etc. To me, that’s what pro life means.

The mind trained in stillness has raised awareness to balance. We’re pulled from balance with feelings and thoughts of dissatisfaction. The mind at peace in the moment, freed from thought and images that remove us from awareness to the moment, will generate more balanced action. It may be one of the more important actions we can take in feeding consciousness. The cerebral cortex plays a key role in memory, attention, perception, awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. Putting attention and perception to the nonverbal, pre-thought experience has been shown to improve awareness and raise consciousness. The social, biological and mind/body benefits from this disciplined practicing of stillness have been dramatically documented in recent research. Ancient cultures have been aware of the positive benefits of collective breathing and/or toning. The focused awareness on direct experience before thought/image settles the mind from all of the linguistic chatter that stirs us up. This practice has a harmonizing impact that fosters collaboration and communication over violence and attack. It’s a practice that feeds one’s strength to embrace uncertainty with an open mind over fighting to persuade another from the closed mind.

These minds are beautiful. The brain alone has over 86 billion neurons. The digestive system has trillions of living microbes. What we’re learning today about the microcosm and the macrocosm must humble us all to how little we know. And our minds are continually working to figure things out, to make sense of what’s happening, and to create a story that works to relieve our restlessness. Yet, real peace comes when we can surrender in stillness to the moment. It comes when we can just let go to the ground of being. This letting go requires practice because our linguistic brain is continuously feeding a monologue that’s impossible to stop. Yet, this awareness training increases our sensitivity to this chatter. The more we practice the sooner we recognize how we’re being carried away by these thoughts. The less time needed to observe these thoughts, the more we can extend our experiences into the nonverbal.

Why is this important? In addition to the physical and mental health benefits that come from training the mind in stillness, one’s attentive ability is dramatically increased. Perhaps the most important skill in life is to love. Many would define the key element of love as attention. The greatest gift we can give to another is our undivided, focused attention. Yet, how often have you truly been listened to? This type of active listening is rare because it too requires a great deal of practice and training. Most of us are rehearsing a response to the person speaking. A multitude of judgments and comparisons may be coming up. We’re built to try to make sense of another’s experience from our limited experience. Yet, no one can have your experience and you can’t have their’s. We can only have our experience of what we gather the other person’s experience to be. And so it goes with them. If we’re both really good listeners, we come closer to understanding. All to often, our distracted minds have us taking turns in our narcissistic monologues, totally missing the mark on the meaning the other was really driving at. I suspect this is why we focus today on superficial topics like the weather, sports teams, our toys, and gossip about other people. Yet, we’re all craving attention to go deeper, to be listened to in a safe and supported environment, free from attack and persuasion. That’s the real power in training the mind to stillness. Essentially, can I hold ground in a groundless situation, can I ‘just be’ in the face of turbulence and attack, can I hold a balanced posture when the earthquake happens? This is what I call ‘response ability’ as opposed to unbalanced reactivity. It’s what leads us to actions we can look back on and say we’d do it again in clear consciousness. It’s action that’s solid, grounded in the Golden Rule, and leaves the world a better place.

Today over fifty nations meet to discuss how to better keep nuclear materials from threatening states and individuals. It would be my hope they could all sit together in stillness, collectively breathing, touching their gratitude for the opportunity to participate…to just be. It’s my hope that this process would increase their sensitivity to the gravity of the situation. Today’s nuclear bombs make the Hiroshima bomb look like a firecracker. Even the smallest regional use of a nuclear warhead would hurt us all by depleting the ozone layer, global black rain, and a dramatically impacted food supply. To me, the only human response to nukes is to recognize their lack of utility and move forward once again in dismantling them. I recently recalled a cartoon depicting aliens from another planet viewing life on earth. A fellow alien asked if we had intelligence. The reply was, “It seems they do. They have discovered fusion and atomic energy, however, they’ve developed bombs and they’re pointing them at themselves.” We ultimately come to see how precious life is and how we’re all connected. Hopefully we have the sensitivity and awareness to realize this before it’s too late.  It’s my experience that training the mind in stillness leads to more “response able” actions.

Since the beginning of man, the predominant myth was “us vs. them”. We’ve been programmed to live in a mindset of conquest. There are those who win and those who lose. The warrior was time honored and we were taught to believe the harm we caused our perceived enemy had little or no negative consequence upon us. I suppose the gift of modern technology is in showing us how flawed this myth is. The reduced value of conquest was most blatantly shown with the introduction of the atomic bomb. It became clear that what we do to each other we do to ourselves. With the strength of today’s nuclear weapons there is no winner. No conquest. With the further advent of communications and transportation we see there’s simply no way to live in an isolated universe. Those who cling to the old mythology try with all their power to insulate their subjects from the transforming paradigm. We can see the resistance to change in Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea and many within our country who would attempt to build walls rather than bridges. No doubt, the pace of change is accelerating and it’s only human nature to want to cling to the old mythology. Yet, it’s the closed mind that refuses to open to a broader global consciousness that threatens the existence of us all.

When I was younger I thought an invasion from outer space would bring us together. It was clear we needed to get bigger than our differences. The Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam and now the vague war on terror have woken many to the fog of war and the conquest mind. As a child I relished the game of Monopoly. It coached me well in the conquest mind and greed. Today I find it humorous that many of those who won that game in real life have come together to see how they can give their wealth away for the betterment of humanity. They are some of the clearest examples of this transformation from fear and greed to healing and nurturing.

The new mythology is not based upon attack and separation. It’s based on communication and the desire to understand and join together in the pursuit of a higher quality of life for all things and beings. It recognizes that everything is connected and no one is immune from the pain and consequence of selfish actions. This new paradigm has been perceived as ‘soft’ by the divided conquering mind. It will do all it can to hang on to it’s perceived notion of dominance. Yet, there’s no escape. Those who hang to their belief in holding ‘the right religion’ clearly see their future is threatened as the old military mythology is promoted. Those who cling to wealth from the use of polluting fossil fuels will tire of insulating themselves from air too dirty to breath. Those who hold the belief that climate change is to be ignored will see their beach front property flood. Those who would deny education and health care to the poor will see anarchy from the uneducated and the spread of disease from those we refuse to care for. The old mythology necessarily imprisons the conquerer in fear of being conquered through their ignorance of our interdependence.

While the old mythology was based on the divided mind, the new mythology puts emphasis to the wholeness of the living experience. The old mind is caught with individualistic survival thinking and the new mythology would be driven through collaboration and communication. This transformation is happening, being pushed along with greater speed by the closed minded actions of today’s militarists and right wing. We can see the threat brought to our freedoms and our very planetary existence. I believe we can all agree that we’re living in uncertain times. We’re living in times that require balanced actions that carefully consider the experience of those we perceive as our enemies. The most dangerous words we can say to each other are, “I know that”. It’s the clear mark of the closed mind. The new paradigm recognizes the need to empathize, to seek understanding, and to work together for peace and harmony. The new paradigm invites us to sit together in silence before taking actions from old paradigm thinking. It places deeper respect to one another, surrenders the righteous thinking/belief of the conquest mind, and moves to wholeness.

Our current political setup shows us clearly how we’ve outgrown the old mythology. Like a cancer, our various political parties fight one another to the level of disfunction at a time when we need dramatic stewarding actions. Our supposed system of checks and balances has cracked as fixed beliefs/ideology block us from our curiosity to find better solutions. The new mythology would put a media emphasis upon those trained in the skills of dialog and open minded diplomacy. It would be dominated by exploration from questions like, “What do you want?”, “What do you think we can do together?”, “Tell us more.”, “We hear you saying you want __________. Is that correct?”, “We hear you say you expected ______________, but you got ________________. So now what?” The new paradigm would show us more interviews like this. The new paradigm would see this as the most important skill our world leaders could hold.

The old view, driven from fear, greed and ignorance of our interdependence, is the view of “No.” The new, global consciousness is driven from the “Yes” to belonging. It puts focus upon how we can serve one another as the turbulence of climate change, rapidly advancing technologies, a widening wealth/power gap and warfare to mention a few, threaten us all. It’s time to ‘just be’ as we discover the bubbling up of real questions and solutions rather than the absurdity of the questions currently being asked from our political candidates. Big money in politics has failed us. Profit driven education and health care without moral conscience have failed us. Devoting most of our national budget to military expense has failed us. Distracting our populace with conquest sports entertainment has put us to sleep. Numbing the populace to TV, drugs and bad foods has failed us. Pushing ideology has failed us. Arming our populace with guns has failed us. Ignoring the stewardship of our environment has failed us. Lobbyists and special interests have failed us. It’s time to wake up to the global consciousness myth before it’s too late. It’s time to sit together, to join, to communicate, to breath the same air in gratitude for the opportunity to participate in our healing.