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.

The non-dualistic traditions speak to the interconnection of all things, to the illusion of ‘other’.  Even when we get to the core of most religions, the proponents advised us to love one another as ourselves, even our perceived enemies.  Our suffering is fueled by the illusion that we’re separate.  We end up violating the spiritual mandates when this illusion is fed by fear, greed and our ignoring of (ignorance) this interconnectedness.  This was perhaps best captured in the sobering times after World War I when America made its strong commitment to strive for world peace.

The United States Congress passed a resolution seven years after the end of the war, on June 4, 1926, requesting that President Calvin Coolidge issue a proclamation to observe November 11 with appropriate ceremonies.  An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U.S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday; “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as ‘Armistice Day’.”  The word armistice is a noun designating a state of peace agreed to between opponents so they can discuss peace terms.

Given this is the 11th year in the new millennium, there’s special significance to this event.  It’s an opportunity to shine the light brighter on the non-dual.  It’s a time to pause in honor to the whole heart, to the mystery of life and the opportunity to be.  It’s a time to humble ourselves to the mystery of life, surrendering our notions of ‘right’, our anger and our desire to persuade, and our apparent addictions to control. It’s a time to ask if we want peace or control.  It’s a time to reflect on the cause of our restlessness.  It’s a moment to cultivate the ‘feeling’ of spiritual security, holding a space of silence, minimizing words, allowing some healing from the pain of past violence.

The word ‘heal’ roots from ‘to become whole’.  No doubt, we move in and out of the feeling of Being One as we move through the material world.  Some wounds run deeper than others.  Yet, in the end, our complete healing can by definition only come when we return to ‘wholeness’, to One.

For several years I was mystified by how many times it was 11:11 or 1:11 when I looked at a time piece.  When Internet search engines were developed I learned I wasn’t alone.  Thousands of others have had this experience and they attribute it to being a reminder to One.  I’ve had some inexplainable experiences directing me to participate with sound in this event.

I’m not forecasting anything with this day.  It’s just a time where we can all say a prayer for one another, sincerely hoping there’s less suffering as we wake up to our interconnection, our non-twoness.  It’s realizing that when I wish you peace from the restless mind, my mind quiets.  It’s realizing that my healing is interdependent to your healing.  It’s hearing the spiritual masters saying we’re inseparable, no matter how hard we push the illusion of two.

May we carry Big Hope this 11/11/11.

May we suffer less.

May we move to healing.

May we touch joy and gratitude from the ground of our Being

May we lay down our arms

May we find our Whole Heart

May we find a deeper Tone

May we rest in the peace of knowing we can never be alone, never separate.

Cultivating deep abiding in:

Just here.

Just this.

As opposed to the suffering in:

Just there.

Just that.

We need to express what we feel we are, our beauty.

And, yet, we don’t know who we are.  Ahhh, the mystery.

Love is what’s found in the space between generosity and gratitude.

People ask, “So why meditate?”

One answer is, “To cultivate the influence of the Ultimate.”  It’s in contrast to our continual focus on the material.

Meditation is not trying to get away from thought, but aiming to enter thoughtlessness.

Meditation is letting go the thought we’re separate, cultivating the deeper feeling we’re connected, we belong, and we’re never alone.

The paradox in practicing mindfulness is that the mind aims to be mind empty rather than mind full.

Thinking still happens after liberation, but there’s no one listening.  It’s simple, ordinary, and stunning.  Everything arises as new.

Under the influence of greed, fear and ignorance or compassion, forgiveness and gratitude?  In the later, winning is nothing,  but being your best is everything.  Just aim to be your best expression with harm to none.

We’re pushed hard to be good competitors and good consumers.  Yet, we’re ultimately damaged by the spirit of competition when it’s the extreme grasping at another’s loss.  This precious moment is all there is.  We may temporarily feel better for winning over another, but it’s not long lasting.

“Best” as defined by 100% attention is a moment to moment thing.  This takes a lot of pressure off.

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

A strong desire to be “better” may be the comparative that prevents you from full attention, from being your best.

If you want to be your best, surround yourself with others who want to be their best.

When the mind leaves awareness (the Ground of Being), obstacles appear.

“If your mind leaves the sound of the horn, obstacles appear”  Trumpet teacher,  William Adam

When the mind leaves the posture, obstacles appear.

When the mind leaves the breath, obstacles appear.

When the mind leaves the tone, obstacles appear.

Conformity is overrated.  Precision and education is underrated.  In conformity, depth sacrifices to approval.

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

I have my experience and you have yours.  Mine can never be yours and yours can never be mine.  The illusion/delusion is that I can make mine yours.

I can never have your experience, but deep listening and empathy helps me approach it.

The greatest addiction of all (intoxicant) is the notion of ‘me’.

Resonance happens.  The idea of ‘me’ drops away.  The illusion of the individual is exposed.  Nothing’s pushed and boundlessness happens.

The art of wholehearted aging, living and dying doesn’t know thought, words or the intellect.  The heart abides in the feeling of the Ultimate.

Settle the mind into silence and then you’ll experience Reality.

Good music may come from the subconscious or unconscious, but definitely not from the self conscious.

Graceful aging involves a soft approach where we let the eyes surrender the details of entropy and we go deeper meeting the surprise of each arising moment.  ‘

Deeper doesn’t mean more.  More doesn’t mean deeper.  More is not necessary.  Deeper is.

Not taking things for granted moves us to appreciation, awareness, and gratitude, eventually landing in joy.

Let’s drop the notion of political party.   Can we just have a conversation about the stewardship of family, community, nation and planet outside notions of being ‘right’?

Do you want to feel all right?  Then give up the thought that you’re right.

Be humbled by the notion that we’re entitled to nothing.  Be joyful in gratitude for the gift of what’s given.

In pursuit of answering just where you belong, how far will you go?  And what are you a member of?  How do you belong?

The illusion (delusion) is that things stop.

I’ve arrived!  Now what?  Everything is still moving (changing).  Nothing stopped.

Beware (fear, greed and ignorance) or Be Aware (love, forgiveness, gratitude)

Come on Peace.  Grab a piece of me.

The antidote to the pain of greed is generosity and simplicity.  So where do we find sustaining joy?  It comes from the felt sense of fullness, never from the felt sense of lack-ness.

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

The is no audience, just the fear of judgment.  So be played to your fullest.

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

Don’t become obedient to the child.  Become obedient to dedicated stewardship of the child’s welfare, health and education.

Not this moment? Yes, this moment.

From the intellectual development of the illusion of object permanence, we start our training in desiring a different moment.

Rockets of desire seldom launch when there’s a sense of yearning (restlessness).  We must first carry our gratitude and depth of awareness for what is so we can open and make space for the new.

The source of our restlessness can be found in our difficulty facing uncertainty.  We are drawn to create an object of desire.  This attachment creates anxiety about the inevitable felt loss we face as the Law of Impermanence works on us.  Yet, when All is subject, we are humbled in the experience of the Divine and its mystery/simplicity.  This is the purpose of meditation, to silence the thinking mind as we cultivate the feeling of the Divine.  It’s deepening our faith in the undivided Mind, what Ken Wilbur called “the One without a second”.

Wilbur has written, “For the sages of every time and place have unanimously maintained that the Absolute is actually ineffable, unspeakable, utterly beyond words, symbols and logic.  And not because it is too mysterious or too sublime or too complex for words, but rather because it is too simple, too obvious, too close to be caught in the net of symbols and signs.  Because there is nothing outside It, there is no way to define or classify it.” p. 226 The Simple Feeling of Being. He goes on to make the distinction that this is not pantheism stating the Absolute is in everything.  It goes further to the Buddhist commentary on, “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form”.  Wilbur writes, “…the entire Absolute is completely and wholly present at every point of space and time, for the simple reason that you can’t have a different infinite at each point”  p. 228 The Simple Feeling of Being. I once heard a nun describe it like a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.  This realization breaks our logical notions of time and space.  Our journey is to wake from the trance of the subject/object illusion.  Our meditation helps cultivate this awareness of the Absolute.  In the stillness, outside the illusion of Two, we deepen the ‘feeling’ of what Thich Nhat Hanh has called “inter-Being”.  We discover that we can “always touch the Ultimate”; it’s always here in this arising moment.

As we step from our tendency to objectify we discover a tenderness that causes less harm.  We become more mindful of the impact of our thoughts, words, emotions and actions.  As we soften our reasoning mind and our attachments to ‘being right’, we deepen in our compassion and understanding for one another.  Cultivating the ‘feeling’ of the ‘not two’, we can step into the shoes of those we’re in contact with, even our perceived enemies.  While we aim to reduce the suffering in the world, we can hopefully minimize the harm caused through our illusion of subject vs. object.  As we subjectify everything, we are confidently humbled in faith to the omnipresence of the Divine.  The illusion of security through the material and pleasure through consumption diminishes.  Abiding in the present moment with deep sense of ‘being home’ strengthens.  At this point we touch the creative, expressing what we feel in wonder to the mystery of not knowing who we are.  At this point of awareness there is no division, all is Subject.  At this point we touch possibility.

The Circle Has No Sides

We human beings are pretty complicated.  It seems neuroscientists are discovering more and more how we move between a variety of consciousness states.  I recently heard one use an analogy to the discord in our political system. He said it was like we each had a variety of political parties in our head vying for attention.  As he described why we sometimes do things which harm and other times do things which steward, I was reminded of Hawaiian Huna wisdom.  It basically speaks to a low, mid and high self.  The low self can be much like the undisciplined child, seeking ease of the restless mind through consumption and mindless actions.  The mid self is our conscious self.  It’s what we’re aware of during our waking state.  Our higher self is considered our divine nature.  Huna contends that our mid self can’t speak directly to our high self.  Also, our mid self has to send directives to the low self to make decisions which don’t harm and hopefully help.  Without the help of tapping our divine nature, we tend to be under the influence of the relative, material world.  A dedicated spiritual practice will lead us more and more under the influence of the absolute world, the Ultimate.

The relative consciousness functions from a perspective of duality.  We deepen in our sense of separateness and sense of linear time.  We tend to grow our fear and anxiety, often grasping for what was or worrying about what will be.  In the absolute there’s an easing as we cultivate an acceptance of change and our interdependence.  When in the consciousness of the Divine we’re no longer stressed about the impermanence of things.  We’re no longer filled with despair from feelings of separateness.  The divine settles us into the peace of the here and now.  A cultivation of singularity, of nonduality, brings up the illusion of birth and death, beginnings and endings.  When in the consciousness of the Ultimate, the main response is gratitude.  There’s a great fullness, a sense of peace, of having arrived.  There’s a palpable experience of ‘enough’.

In contrast, a consciousness failing to cultivate spirit will grasp for more.  As we struggle to fill our hunger in the delusion of our separateness, we grow our focus on special interests.  Our insecurities have us investing heavily in persuading others to think like us as we perceive our sense of security from others’ acceptance.  Systems become corrupt as we come under the influences of greed and fear.  The failing of our world economic systems can be credited to systems falling under the influence of greed and fear.  Functioning from the relative, material realm, we’re deluded to think winning at the other’s expense is everything.  Under the influence of the Ultimate, winning at another’s expense is nothing.  Being our best is everything.  A grounded sense of our interdependence has us cultivating generosity, compassion, moderation, listening, curiosity, open mindedness, forgiveness and kindness.  This cultivation of the nondual experience has us deepening to the feeling of sharing the same boat.  The analogy Thich Nhat Hanh uses is that of wave and water.  In the relative world, we perceive our form as wave.  As we approach the shore, we may hope to cling to our identity as wave form, yet as we crash on the shore we come to realize (from ultimate consciousness) that we always were, always have been, and always will be water.  For sure, the form changes and we can experience this each day we study our body.  Yet, the Ultimate consciousness stands outside our relative mind’s notion of time and space.  Given the now scientifically proven truth of our interdependence, wouldn’t it make more and more sense to nurture and cultivate our relationship with our higher self?  Don’t you think this is what Jesus was speaking to when he advised us to love one another, even our enemies, as ourselves?

We can’t escape our need to function in the relative world.  We need to function with one another under the laws of the material world, using our notions of time and space in stewarding ways.  Yet, when we’re more and more under the influence of the Ultimate, we take better care of one another.  The questions change from how to compete and consume without regard to others’ harm to how to help in the reduction of one another’s suffering.  Our attachment to notions of being ‘right’, ‘special’ and separate from others begins to evaporate as compassion grows.  Rather than focusing on differences and persuasion, there’s a move to common sense and deeper understanding.  The fear based need to get as much as we want at the expense of others diminishes as we make space to cultivate joy in wanting what we get.

I was taught the American Dream was owning a house, having a family and a steady job.  We’ve come to see that the house is a liability instead of an asset, and there’s nothing steady about the job.  Under the influence of the relative world it’s easy to see the growing of despair.  We wanted ‘this’, but got ‘that’ and so we fill with complaint.  When under the influence of the Ultimate, there is no complaint.  Put simply, there’s just growing awareness that ‘this is this and that is that’, ‘form is emptiness and emptiness is form’.  Our capacity to meet challenge and discomfort with a sense of spiritual security deepens us.  Our tendency to numb the discomfort deepens our suffering.

A lot has been written about life purpose.  The Dali Lama has said we’re here to live in joy.  I’ve heard others say we’re here to be kind, to love one another, and to leave a gentle wake.  I like the one that advises us to do what we can to reduce the suffering of others.  Huna Law says we should examine our thoughts, words, emotions and actions from the notion of ‘best for all with harm to none’.  Under the influence of the relative world, we may be tempted to reason an acceptance of collateral damage. Under the influence of the Ultimate, directed from the heart, there is zero tolerance for collateral damage.

Moving through our day, through our life, it’s helpful to put awareness to what we’re influenced by.  Where are we influenced by the perception of material need?  What exposures do we have to experiences that grow the restlessness from the toxins of greed, fear and ignorance?  What exposures feed us in deepening the influence of the Ultimate?  As we deepen our influence from the Ultimate, so do we find our integrity.

Where does our suffering come from?  Isn’t it because we ‘think’ we’re separate?  Isn’t it because we’re caught in our resistance to change?  Isn’t it because we’re drawn to the illusion of duality over the reality of our interdependence?  And isn’t our peace found in touching stillness, feeling the interdependent and impermanent nature of all things?  For me, this is what our great spiritual teachers have shared.  While we struggle with words, the directive is to love one another as ourselves because we are each other.  Our pain and suffering comes from our ignorance to this.  Our healing, rooted in the word ‘wholeness’, is cultivated through our transformation from dualistic thinking to nondualistic ‘feeling/thinking’.  When we reference God, we speak to omnipresent (11 letters), that God nature can’t be divided.  This brings us to an awareness of the fragile nature of things, to the mystery of our relatedness, and to a deeper vow of compassion, generosity, and love.

Can we say love is nondualistic and notions of duality are obstacles to love?  Aren’t the virtues based in a sense of One?  Aren’t the poisons of greed and fear based in Two?  Doesn’t our cultural focus on competition at the expense of others and our mindless consumption without regard to harm create more suffering?  So how do things change when we move to greater awareness to One?  What happens when we let go notions of Two?

Stepping from notions of Two to One, we may discover the following:

Debate moves to dialog.

Need for fixed answers moves to need for deeper questions.

Conformity and persuasion moves to precision and curiosity.

The need to be ‘right’ moves to courageous curiosity.

Dogma and rhetoric moves to expression from the open heart.

Busy-ness diminishes to make space for cultivating stillness and silence.

Thoughts, emotions, words and actions are examined for potential collateral damage.

Gratitude for what ‘is’ deepens.  Pain is reduced through dedicated forgiveness practice.

Awareness to interdependence and impermanence drives our mindful, quality living.

The art of ‘taking care’ deepens as we aim to reduce suffering in ourselves and others.

In wholeness, we awaken to the delusions of time and space, honoring the mystery.

Greed, fear and ignorance transform to generosity, courage and humble confidence.

In short, we’re here to love.  Love is One.  The more we practice from One, the more peace and joy we live in.  For several years, when I’ve looked at a clock, I’ve been struck with how often it’s been 11:11 or 1:11.  Now more than ever, I take it as Universe (God, Source, the Indivisible) ‘waking me’ to the power and truth of One.  We can numb ourselves to this or we can wake.  The social trance of Two is accelerating just as the awakening to One is picking up speed.  It would seem that 11/11/11 is a critical mass point where more and more of us are waking up to the indivisible, to the truth that God is in each of us, in everything, indivisible.  With this awareness we’ll lead more generous lives from moderation, compassion, gratitude and forgiveness.  From this awareness we’ll find our healing, our awakening to Wholeness.

Success in life is about the vow and consequent courage to show up, pay attention, be/do your best, and to have the humility and grace to know we can’t control the outcome.  In today’s ‘busy’ world, too often we’re distracted from showing up.  The excusing mind creates many obstacles to meeting the situation the heart draws us to.  The restless mind often keeps us from showing up 100%.  And by definition, we can’t be our best if we’re less the fully present.

These past few days we’ve had strong fall winds and I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to play in the wind and water with fellow boardsport enthusiasts.  The power of fractal energy is at work when I find myself in the presence of others aiming to be their best.  I suppose you could call this ‘common sense’.  What you have in common with others influences you.  If you want to have a closed mind, hang with those who carry a closed mind.  If you want to have an open mind, hang with those who are curious, holding an open mind.  If you want to stagnate, hang with those who want to stagnate, staying the same.  If you want to deepen your life experience, surround yourself with others who want to deepen their life experience.  If you want to be your best, hang with others who want to be their best.

It seems that life begins at the edge of our comfort zone.  Pro snowboarder, Tom Burt, has defined ‘extreme’ as action just past our previous level of performance.  There’s a stepping into the unknown, but with a sense of stewardship.  If we’ve jumped a five foot cliff, the next step would be a few feet higher, not a fifty foot cliff.  There’s a love of life and a deep listening that feeds our sense of support in drilling deeper.  Some call this ‘Big Hope’, this felt sense of being supported by the universe (God, Source, etc.).  I suspect this is the essence of faith.

I recently competed in a windsurfing speed trial in Worthington, Minnesota.  I felt the support of a community, of the conditions presented, and the equipment provided.  Conditions manifested that allowed me to step from fear to a sense of surrender as the GPS unit on my arm registered speeds I’d never before reached.  I had shown up, practiced and trained in full attention, and was now able to lay down fear as I melted into the conditions that brought me to my best.  Being in the presence of other skilled riders aiming to their best supported me.  There was deep satisfaction in knowing I had given my whole heart to this action.  There was nothing comfortable about it, yet the action itself, at the moment of peak speed, was effortless.  I recall the famous quarterback, Joe Namath, saying his peak experience in football was when he felt he was being played by the manifesting conditions.  Rather than struggling to fill the desires of the grasping mind, there’s a release, a surrender to the non-struggling mind that’s filled with a deep sense of support from the conditions presented.  There’s an indescribable joy for the opportunity to participate, to just be vital in each unfolding moment.

So, if you want to cultivate your best, train in courage to show up, take up a solid practice in mindfulness/meditation, and cultivate a deep, abiding faith in the support of the universe.  Finally, cultivate humility and gratitude for the gift of the given, no matter what.  Life is mystery far beyond our control and our courage to keep showing up is fed through this awareness.

This is a common phrase in Appalachia that gets more to the point than, “How you doing?”.  We usually answer the ‘doin’ question with an automatic affirmative response, even when we’re swimming in the negative.  ‘What’s working you’ gives an opening to really explore the current situation of your world.  Most of our responses may better be analyzed not from ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’, but from ‘peace’ vs. ‘restless’.  We could also respond from a sense of ‘being supported’ or ‘belonging’ vs. a sense of ‘not being supported’ or ‘alone’.  Given the accelerating nature of the universe, we all seem to be getting worked more now than we did in what appeared to be a stable time.  The platform seems less stable as uncertainty seems to grow.

I’m now in my ’60’s and what’s working me is much different than what was working me a few years ago.  I used to be very concerned about others’ good opinion of me.  I used to aim for more ‘stuff’, and I used to think success in life was about personal achievements and accumulation.  It seems more and more that my work is to cultivate gratitude for this gift of life, even in the face of an apparent lack of response from others.  It seems that intention to ‘not cause harm’ and ‘to reduce others’ suffering’ fosters a better sense of place, a deeper cultivation of belonging.

While the first ten years of life were about moving from nothing to a sense of somebody, this decade seems to beg a humble response as we learn to let go our need to be defined by others.  It’s a time to diminish the illusion of two, of me here and you there; a time to cultivate the felt sense of our Oneness, of our interdependence on one another outside notions of separateness.  It’s a time to cultivate a sense of grounding, of a Ground of Being, that’s always there, even in the most turbulent of times.  This is a time to once again visit the deeply curious mind, relishing the mystery.  This is what’s working me.

In America today it’s fascinating to watch the political contrasts. The Tea Party stands up to their perceived loss of freedom from what they think is a government grown too big. The Occupy Wall Street movement stands up to their perceived loss of freedom from what they think is private enterprise run amuck from lack of conscience.  Both sides would seem to agree that the system is broken, primarily from money’s influence in the political arena.  The Occupy Wall Street people are calling out greed, claiming the top 1% of the people who control 40% of the wealth of this country have invested heavily in their own self interests at the expense of the country and planet’s health.  Both would agree that it takes being in the 1% or heavy affiliation with that 1% to get elected, hence our broken system.

Abe Lincoln once noted that the Republican party was always known for taking better care of man and his money, noting that with conscience, man was always before money.  He also noted that the country’s demise would come from extremes in wealth distribution.  Today the bottom 80% control about 10% of the nation’s wealth.  Abe did credit the Republican party with always putting man before money, however.  Somewhere, this got lost.  Today, as we try to implement budget cuts at great harm to many of our citizens, we’re placing the power of money over the care of our citizenry.  More and more people are now against the wall with no hope.  When ‘life and death’ programs are called optional ‘entitlement’ programs, people’s survival skills kick in.  What was apathy turns to anger.  That’s what’s working a lot of folks around the world today.

So how do we move to a more ‘common sense’ approach?  How about by listening to each other to better determine what we have in common?  How about stopping the whine and exploring what we’d agree on for the health of one another?  How about exploring policies from ‘best for all, with harm to none’ intention rather than the heavily backed self interest lobbying that’s broken the system today?  How about diminishing the poisons of greed, fear and ignorance to our global interdependence, and increasing our generosity, gratitude, hope, faith, and compassion for one another?

The bottom 99% will never be able to ‘steal’ the wealth of the top 1%?  But can’t we compassionately explore their deeper suffering from hoarding wealth in full knowledge to the massive suffering in the world?  If we truly are here to ‘reduce suffering’, it’s no wonder we eventually meet deep pain as we end our time in these bodies, knowing our fear and greed kept us from loving others.  All spiritual traditions promote a life of moderation.  A simple life gives us more space to cultivate our ‘great fullness’ for what we have.  The more stuff we have to worry about, the less space we have.  It’s why those in third world countries smile much more than those in the top 1% of this country.

When we look at life as the pursuit of happiness, peace, and joy, we can see our grasping, restless mind is our biggest obstacle.  We’re heavily trained to feel thirsty for the next advertised thing, bombarded by advertisements through multiple media channels.  We’re told we can’t be at peace until we ‘achieve this thing’ or ‘purchase that thing’.  Yet, our happiness is grounded in cultivating appreciation for what’s been given rather than feeding our never-ending desire for what we’ve been trained to think we want.  Our lasting happiness is found in grounding to joy for the opportunity to just be.  It’s grounded in knowing we did what we could to not harm others.  We did what we could to alleviate the suffering of others.  We cultivated the truth of awareness to being each other.  We walked in humble confidence to the beat of our heart’s knowing, committed to show up, pay attention, tell the truth, and softly hold our vulnerability in not controlling the outcome.  Hopefully, we’ve come into our integrity, better knowing when to stand up, when to hold silence and when to step forward.

I think what’s really working us in our ‘knowing’ we’re all One, yet our acting like we’re two.  The upcoming 11/11/11 event is a symbolic reminder that we’re all One.  We can continue our dysfunctional ways or we can wake up to this.  It’s in hope, faith and love that I stand in gratitude to more and more of us waking up to this truth.  For effective leadership, we need those who live from One, outside the illusions of ‘right’ vs. ‘wrong’.  We need leaders who can take the shift to collaboration, deeper listening, and momentum to a higher vibration.  Our political debates need to be turned to dialogs.  Our candidates need to be tested for active listening skill and for their understanding of all spiritual traditions.  We need to end the pointless rhetoric and violent persuasion and test our candidates with hypothetical situations. We need to know how they’d handle them based on their spiritual background and world view.  We need to explore their deeper wisdom.

Dysfunctional government run from the influence of money over people’s interests will eventually fall.  Corporations without a moral conscience, aimed solely at profit and pleasing shareholders, will eventually fall.  The health of our family, community, nation, and planet will depend upon our capacity to love one another as ourselves, to steward a deeper care for the impacts of our thoughts, words, emotions and actions.  If our policies and political rant clearly show potential to harm others, it’s time to pull back and cultivate deeper ground.  It’s time for our real spiritual leaders to call out the poisons of greed, self interest, fear, and the temptation to ignore our interdependence upon one another.  It’s time for us to all pause, to ask what we’re here for, and to let this be what’s really, really working us.

It’s pretty easy these days to feel like the sky is falling.  Actually, the news is filled with stories about space debris falling to earth today.  The global stock markets are falling.  The state of Georgia just executed a man who’s guilt was in doubt, turning a deaf ear to the Pope and to former President Jimmy Carter.  Our summer weather events have smashed records since before we started taking record.  Our elected leaders seem less capable of holding a conversation than any time in previous history.  Our church leaders seem more committed to holding silence to this turmoil.  And here we are, facing the next moment, directed to find our solid grounding.  Economic turmoil, war, health care crisis, and on and on it goes, change works its way and deepens us to find our spiritual strength.  These are all very big problems, but I’ve always liked the hope found in the statement, “When the problems seem big, you’ve got to get bigger than the problems.”  So how do we accomplish this?

I’ve found great relief in discovering the fact that there never is any such thing as complete resolution.  Tempted as we may be to ‘do’ what we think is ‘fixing things’, the risk of mucking it up further through our efforts is great.  As soon as we think ‘our map’ is the correct one, we’re tempted to persuade others to agree with us.  We can adopt a notion of being ‘right’.  Yet, the actual territory is far too complex to ever lock into our notion of understanding.  It’s why I like education and religion that always speaks to deeper questions rather than to fixed answers.  It’s why I like moving from the heart rather than from the head.  In the midst of big problems, we’re humbled to the mystery of life.  In the throws of trouble, oftentimes the best thing we can do is simply ask the question, “What can we do?”, and then deeply listen to one another.

After studying interpersonal communication for forty years I’ve seen how our refusal to listen to another is often in reality a violent act.  Our attempts to fix, change, and persuade another to our view of the world most certainly have an underlying dimension of violence.  In times of big problems, it seems best to deepen to faith.  This is a deeper faith that gives us grounding to support that’s far beyond our limited scope of perceptions, thoughts, emotions and consciousness.  It’s a deeper knowing that goes from small hope to Big Hope.  When the surface of the ocean is thrown about by wind and wave, can we hold our grounding to the floor of the ocean?  Can we find our strength and solidity in knowing we’re all interdependent on one another?  Some amazing things happen when we can shift from our perceived cleverness of mind to the humble confidence of the heart and deep spiritual confidence, knowing we are each other.  Suddenly we get bigger than our differences.  We get bigger than our nationalism, political party, social class, religion, race, gender, etc.  I’ve heard several friends recommend silence when tempted to conversations about religion or politics.  This often is a best course of action in the presence of someone addicted to their particular map of the territory.  Yet, in the throws of big problems and deep fear of a falling sky, we must start the conversation.  We must move from the nonproductive format of debate to honest dialogue.

Last night I watched a TV show I hadn’t seen before.  ‘Modern Family’ had received five Emmy’s last week and my curiosity got the best of me.  The dominant theme was showing the tragedy/comedy found in our attachments to a sense of being ‘right’.  I hope more artists can help us cultivate humility to our false sense of knowing.  A deeper sense of wonder and awe will help us move more mindfully, dedicated to minimize the harm we may cause from holding to our beliefs.

I admire people whose love and compassion are palpable.  There are great spiritual beings walking amongst us who seem to do better at smashing the illusion of duality.  They raise my vibration.  I’ve briefly touched the deep heart, finding a peace that dissolves the pain from a restless mind.  And then, I get frustrated because I want more of this and the pain grows.  Fortunately, I’ve learned that you can’t stay in this space.  Katagiri Roshi says we can just bounce.  Touch it and bounce.  He says we grow our faith through the return to the dualistic mind from that deep peace.  The very knowing that we are One gives us the faith to handle big problems.  The very knowing that we are One gives us strength to face imminent change.  It gives us the power to let go, to make space to find the gift in the given.

This work of holding stability in the face of a falling sky is courageous work.  It commands the strength of vow.  The more we practice the more we extend the experience of the bounce.  It’s beyond words, thought, emotion and perception.  It’s re-membraning back to the Divine within all.  It’s what drives us to find our common sense.  From here the questions change.

1. How do we work as a community, nation, planet to foster deep care and stewardship for one another?
2. How do we create programs that meet one another in our suffering?
3. What can we do to foster a deeper appreciation for our opportunity to walk the earth?
4. What can we do to not harm others’ opportunity to walk the earth?

The questions change dramatically when driven through love, compassion, generosity, faith and forgiveness.  They change when we move from the dualistic mind stuck in ‘win/lose’ maps.

So what’s the gift in big problems?  It helps us see the need for an open, creative mind.  It humbles us to the need for a deeper faith.  It’s what gives us confidence to face all our problems with the stability needed to move through them.  It helps us deal with the nature of uncertainty from grace and compassion.  Perhaps we need to change the names of our political parties to Open vs. Closed.  Then, perhaps we could call a spade a spade on those who refuse to dialogue.

How Do You Define 'Weed'?

It seems we’ve gotten ourselves into quite a mess through our American tendency to objectify ‘evil’.  Can we move to a more helpful definition of this word?  When we try to describe it as something bad which exists outside of us we naturally set ourselves up for increased war.  Our great spiritual teachers have implored us to see ourselves in each other, no exception.  Yet, we continue to compare ourselves to others, judging others as better or worse than us.  How would things change if we recognized we all have the potential to harm?  Actually, isn’t this a better way to define evil…looking at the action of harm as opposed to some idea of ‘evil doer’?  Such a definition would have us rename our current War on Terror and Terrorists to a War Against Harming Each Other.  Rather than pitting us against one another based on difference, we’d recognize our common capacity to feed the seeds of greed, fear and ignorance.  This is what feeds the internal pain we all carry.  This is what causes us to accept collateral damage without question.  This is what wants us to avoid the earthquake of human morality that’s shaking the ground beneath us.

Something radical happens when we smash through the notion of our separateness.  When we move from the felt experience of inner vs. outer, one vs. two, freedom vs. bondage, peace vs. suffering, the heart leads us to the very seeds we need to water, even in the most difficult of times.  We’re basically examining where we find our solidity, our foundation, our spiritual security.  It won’t be through unlimited expenditure on militarism.  It won’t be through grasping to our material wealth.  It won’t be through any of our grasping to stop change.  It will come through the cultivation of our felt sense of being connected with everything and our consequent vow to not harm.  It will drive not from our complaint and restlessness, but from our sense of gratitude and desire to steward a better life for those here and those who follow.  It will come from recognizing the Divine within the present moment, taking great care that our thoughts, emotions and actions at the minimum cause no harm.

In this definition of evil, we all recognize the potential for evil that lies within each of us.  We recognize the harm that comes from judging ourselves better or worse than others, in demonizing others, in failing to meet each other’s suffering mind in compassion.  This view looks at the actions fed from greed, fear and ignorance as seeds to our continued fighting and failure to touch God in felt sense of inter-Being.  It steps from the reasoning mind to the feeling heart.  It moves from love, gratitude and forgiveness in humble confidence.  It moves with solidity in the midst of the earthquake.  It’s where we integrate with All, where integrity lives.  It’s beyond need to persuade.  It’s just showing up, full attention to this moment, accepting this as this and that as that.  It’s not mind hope, but Big Hope, in full gratitude to the support of the Universe.  It’s beyond despair, feelings of overwhelm, and dissatisfaction.  It’s real peace.  It’s the cultivated feeling of arrival, of Home.  Rather than judging us vs. other, of focusing on difference and separation, it’s the embrace of all as One, even the two.

Supported in a New Womb

Today I celebrate the day I left my mother’s womb.  I know we call it our birth day, but really, this wasn’t the day I began.  I doubt I had thoughts of ‘not enough’, fears about losing what I had or not getting what I want when in the warmth of my mother’s body.  I suspect I met each moment as it came and I probably did this to a certain extent until I developed language.  In fact, before that moment of language’s separation, I probably had no sense of being a separate self.  Can I say I was ‘nobody’?

I’m not really sure when I became aware of this body, but I do know that in my first ten years of life there was great support for coming into this body.  You could say I was becoming ‘somebody’.  I had left the support of my mother’s womb to enter another womb, filled with support from those around me, the atmosphere, and other forms of nourishment that caused me to blossom into a certain sense of identity.  Now, here’s this body some sixty-one years later, recognizing that I’m not ‘some body’.  That was illusion.  There’s awareness and history.  Yet, as I traverse this decade of life within this body there’s a deeper cultivation of ‘let go’.

I’m still in the same womb, the womb I found when leaving my mother’s womb.  It just takes much more effort to nurture a sense of equanimity in the face of this ‘let go’ experience.  I can feel truth in attaching to something bigger than my body.  It seems absurd to get lost in thoughts of beginning and ending when it’s been such a mystery so far.  When I really stop to listen, to touch the stillness of the ultimate, there’s a deep sense of re-membraning.  I’ve never left the membrane, yet my thoughts would have me believe I’m separate.  When I quiet the active mind there’s a deepening of this felt sense.  It can’t really be touched by words since they’re the separating subject/object tool that makes this so difficult.  Yet, when I empty the thoughts, the words, the naming of feelings, emotions and perceptions, there’s a deeper remembering.  It says you are supported.  It says you’ve always been supported and you always will be supported, no matter what.  It’s that felt sense that gives one the courage to let go, even in the midst of apparent crisis, knowing we’re never alone, never separate.  Paul Tillich writes, “Love is stronger than death.”  I think this is what he means.  Love, the everlasting feeling of embrace and support, will always win over the ego’s pull to separate.  Mother Theresa said we lose our peace when we forget we belong to each other.

I know we live in very uncertain times.  Some respond from greed, fear and ignorance to our interdependence.  They do what they can to scare us and would control us by pushing for laws that fight tooth and nail against nurturing our interdependence to one another and nature.  Their thoughts, emotions and actions fail to nourish compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude, the key drivers to touching the ultimate.  I don’t know where I came from, I try to deepen my awareness to this next arising moment, and I sure don’t know where I’m going when this body wears out.  Yet, I do know I’ll find peace in reflecting on those moments where I did not cause harm.  I know I’ll find joy in reflecting on those moments where I expressed kindness and gratitude for the opportunity to participate in this life.  I know I’ll feel happy for those moments I held my silence in honor to the awe and mystery of the Divine.

This celebration day I hope you’ll find a way to make space to cultivate the gift in the given.  It’s been said our real present is deepening our awareness to the present (moment).  I’m learning to live with less expectation.  My notion of hope has changed dramatically.  I used to attach to my sense of being ‘somebody’, thinking I was responsible for fixing things.  I’m deepening my awareness that nothing is ever fully resolved.  Everything is continually changing, moment to moment.  This is this, that is that, and then, the next breath.  The peace that comes from that is found in a bigger hope.  Holding this hope deep in the heart is finding the courage to let this body go when it wears out in preparation for the next womb.  For me, it’s knowing God intimately.  As we travel the latter years in these bodies, may we forever meet our newfound ‘differences’ with confidence and surprise.  This seems to be the essence of graceful aging.

For sure, we don’t want to leave these bodies.  Yet we will.  Part of our journey is to cultivate our intimacy with the Divine so we may have a courageous letting go into the next womb, fully embracing the uncertainty of what’s to come.  Real peace comes from a deep sense of knowing the Ultimate, knowing we’ve always been connected and supported, knowing we can never be separated, and our work is to wake up to this truth we’ve fallen asleep to.  Whether it’s called waking to Love, God, Ultimate, Divine, or Oneness, it’s the source of our compassion, forgiveness and gratitude.  May we all cultivate this stability in the face of unstable circumstance.  May we all grow our compassion and support for one another.  May we never take for granted the gift of these body/mind’s and the opportunity we’ve had to participate.  May we forever grow our appreciation for the gifts of ‘this womb’ found within this arising moment, breath by breath.  No birth, no death…just a new womb.