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

I’m quite frightened by leaders who ‘think’ they’re right, losing their curiosity to the mystery of damage from the ‘clever’ mind.  I’d much prefer leaders with strong spiritual foundation, who ‘feel’ what’s right, who then act upon it.  They rise above their ego’s desire for more power and wealth, aiming to act with what’s ‘best for all with harm to none’.  These are leaders who’ve done well at cultivating Big Hope, inspiring us all, as human beings, to be and do better.  These are leaders who carry humble confidence in following heart’s draw to make spiritually sound decisions in line with the tenants of our great spiritual traditions, some of which are listed below.

1. Aim to act without harming other living beings or the planet.
2. Aim to use speech that does not cause harm.
3. Aim to long term, mindful sexual relationships that cause no harm.
4. Aim to consume moderately and mindfully.
5. Aim to steer from body/mind consumption that intoxicates and numbs us to harmful thoughts, emotions and consequent actions.
6. Love one another as oneself, continually aware of the poisons of greed, fear and ignorance to our interdependence.
7. Cultivate awareness to the impermanent nature of all things, cultivating gratitude and stewardship for those who follow us, honoring the wisdom from those who’ve proceeded us.

As I try to understand our national incapacity to hold a conversation, it seems we’re locked in dogmatic notions, refusing to listen to one another.  Some stress more local and/or state government.  Others stress the needs for federal government.  I suspect we all hope to offer ‘opportunity’ for all, to weed out those areas where opportunity is robbed, and ultimately, to leave our bodies knowing we at least haven’t made things worse through our presence, thoughts, and actions.  Democrats have been accused of welfare handouts and entitlement programs that enable continued lack of opportunity and participation.  Republicans have been accused of protecting the benefactors of greedy hoarding.  Both have caused great damage to the American Dream, land of opportunity and participation.

It would seem time to truly come to the table with deeper respect for the collateral damages caused from our ‘thinking’ mind.  Our heart mind knows that promotion of mindless consumption is bankrupting us.  Yet, we continue to push an economy that simply can’t live on others’ money.  Our war efforts have not made us safer.  Our profit centered health care will break us.  The uneven distribution of wealth has made us a two class society incapable of offering the education needed for growth and opportunity.  Our selfish, self interest lobbies have made the political system inoperable.  The top 20% hold 85% of the nation’s wealth.  The top 1% hold 40% of the nation’s wealth.  Yet, we’re spiritually mandated to live in moderation.  Media owned and operated by those holding this wealth brilliantly shape our consciousness to accept this unbridled greed as investors become more cunning at playing our financial institutions, rapidly growing their portfolios with little benefit to the greater society.

Media puts more attention to a political candidate’s capacity to raise capital than to their moral foundation.  Conflict debates are promoted and televised when we really need to see the skill of a candidate’s capacity to act with moral integrity in a crisis situation.  Our spiritual institutions need a voice in speaking to the foundations for a candidates thoughts, emotions and actions.  Those candidates carry the humble confidence of a Gandhi, Mandella, King, etc. will stand out.  Those candidates who are living the spiritual code to do what’s best for all with harm to none will stand out.  Those candidates who inspire us to Big Hope in times of trouble, as did FDR, Eisenhower, and Kennedy, will stand out.  Those candidates who can effectively negotiate and compromise thought without compromising spiritual integrity will stand out.  It’s time to rise above the football rah rah mentality that politics has embraced.  Our survival as a nation and planet depends upon it.

Moment of Silence

Almost one week ago a human being with a very closed mind, tortured in feelings of isolation from a closed mind, caused tremendous harm to so many.  His actions stole the lives of so many and forever changed the lives of us all.  And here we are, still yelling at each other, ‘thinking’ our way of seeing the world is the correct way.  Well, maybe that’s just the way we’re built, forever struggling with the poisons of greed, fear and our ignorance to our interdependence upon one another.  Yet, for me there’s Big Hope that we can touch a higher ground.  Shortly after 9/11, an eleven year old boy suffering from a fatal disease, captured that higher ground.  Mattie Stepanek wrote the following poem on that day:

For Our World

We need to stop.
Just stop.
Stop for a moment.
Before anybody
Says or does anything
That may hurt anyone else.
We need to be silent.
Just silent.
Silent for a moment.
Before we forever lose
The blessing of songs
That grow in our hearts.
We need to notice.
Just notice.
Notice for a moment.
Before the future slips away
Into ashes and dust of humility.
Stop, be silent, and notice.
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.
Be for a moment.
Kind and gentle, innocent and trusting,
Like children and lambs,
Never judging or vengeful
Like the judging and vengeful.
And now, let us pray,
Differently, yet together,
Before there is no earth, no life,
No chance for peace.

September 11, 2001

This is a request for you to consider a pause from your busy mind to touch that higher ground, that ground that stands above greed, fear and our ignorance to one another as brother and sister.  For a moment let us, stop yelling, fighting, and hurting one another.  For a moment, let us open our hearts and minds to one another in the very gift of this next breath.  For a moment, let us meet the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Norway, the land of peace and harmony.  For a moment, let us just listen deeply to one another.

Stillness

“Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean and what their purpose is.  Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for.  We do not know.  Let every image held of everyone be loosened from our minds and swept away.

Be innocent of judgment, unaware of any thought of evil or of good that ever crossed your mind of anyone.  Now do you know him not.  But you are free to learn of him, and learn of him anew, without the past that sentenced him to die, and you with him.  Now is he free to live as you are free, because an ancient learning passed away, and left a place for truth to be reborn.” Course of Miracles,  Chapter 31:1, verses 12-13, p. 648

This is real courage.  This is commitment to Truth, to an open mind, to birthing action from hope and faith, knowing we are forever supported.  It’s knowing that feelings of aloneness and separation have been born from thought, thoughts that can be released.  As we release these thoughts into the eternity of ‘this moment’ we find relief from restlessness, touching the stillness.  We find “a world in which there is no fear, and everything is lit with hope and sparkles with a gentle friendliness.  Nothing but calls to you in soft appeal to be your friend, and let it join with you.” CoM, p. 641.  The cultivation of this stillness is what provides the courage to face impermanence and the sensitivity to touch “the universal Will” that all living things remove obstacles to awareness of Being whole.  In stillness, there is non-duality.  In stillness,  we experience that nothing remains unchanged but the Truth of our One-ness, and our fear to face it.

Amazing Grace…Still Here

I know so many friends who are deep in their suffering.  There’s tremendous stress that comes from their restlessness to be somewhere else or to have a different situation.  For some it’s unemployment, giving rise to much space to feed the restless mind.  For others it’s a serious illness that challenges their notions of ‘forever’.  In all cases, it’s the mind wrestling with the Law of Impermanence.  Everything changes, moment by moment.  The quality of my life revolves around my willingness and capacity to embrace what comes, to breath in gratitude for the gift of what’s given, and eventually fill with joy and enthusiasm fed from the opportunity to participate within this next arising moment.

When I was young my parents taught me a prayer that forced me to face the reality that some day, I too, would die.

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

And if I die before I wake

I pray the Lord my soul to take

This simple prayer really, really worked for me.  I woke with joy and enthusiasm for the gift of another day, no matter what.  It gave me the ‘felt’ sense that I am more than my body, that I’m more than this limited time in it.  Today I have to ask my friends, “Is what you’re doing to face your suffering working for you?”  Most of the time they’re not curious about what’s worked for me.  I’m now living sixty years in this body and feel somewhat obligated to share what’s been discovered in truth through 100% working for me.  I don’t mean 90% or 80%.  This is learning that goes to the core of the soul, touching flesh and bones, resonating with every cell within the body.  It’s learning that deepens with every breath, moving in alignment with the belly and the heart.  It’s learning verified through aware doing in full alignment to Being.  So dear friend, “Is what you’re doing working for you?”  If affirmative, I suspect you’ve stopped reading this.  If not, where’s your curious mind?  Here are a few things that always work for me.

1. If I want to make space for something new to come in my life I have to be filled with acceptance for what ‘is’.  This means filled with acceptance for what I have, do, and experience within this moment. My life is about ‘waking up’.  My awareness to this moment requires work.  There’s a practice that commands focus, precision and obedience.  My mind is continually creating thoughts of ‘not wanting’, of ‘dis-ease’.  I have a choice of trying to avoid this moment or ‘trying to fix’ this moment.  Yet, peace comes when I face and accept this moment as opportunity to participate.  This gratitude work yields a higher vibration, one of joy.  The higher vibration removes obstacles and I can embrace life with energy.  By accepting this moment as it ‘is’ I’m no longer separated and a huge space opens to receive what’s new.  I’m pulled to be around those who accept, are in joy and especially those who are enthusiastic about the next arising moment.
2. Be amazed for the grace we’ve received.  I’ve had several experiences where my life in this body should have ended.  This brush with an end to my time in this body has made me more aware of life.  I think anyone who’s lived sixty years has seen how precious our time is within these bodies, has seen or faced death, and now realizes our work is to ‘wake up’.  Amazing Grace has become a very special song for me as I fill with joy for waking to the gift of this moment.
3. Sometimes you may not know what your instrument is.  In my early years I thought I knew what would make me happy.  My desire mind created a craving.  I deeply desired to play guitar and to fly jet planes.  I was gifted the trumpet, harmonica, hang gliding, windsurfing, and kiteboarding.  I didn’t know how much I wanted children and grand children until I had them.  They now feed my joy beyond imagination.  My deepening relationship with my wife, mother and grandmother to these children, has found new territory never expected in my early years.  It’s softer and more tolerant, and much more accepting to the ‘new beginning’ within this second half of life.  Whether it’s family, boardsports, or music, this life is richer because of the joy I find in deepening the rhythm and harmony of our song. Again, it takes focus, precision and obedience to a ‘practice’ that cultivates the bigger sense of belonging.  One of my teachers called this Big Hope.  A famous trumpet teacher said, “When the mind leaves the tone, obstacles appear.”  A Zen teacher said, “Life is about removing obstacles and going deeper.”  I now know that intellect knowledge is very shallow.  The real learning comes from dedicated attention that absorbs into the flesh and bones, touching every atom and cell within the body.  The joy found in this learning is beyond the imagination, limitless, and filled with curiosity/mystery.
4. In the midst of the restless mind, patience is huge.  I’m finally improving my capacity to pause.  ‘Hot’ emotions have generally followed a restless, reactive mind.  Things always go better when I embrace the ‘feeling’, let go the growing of negative as I witness ‘change’, aim to ‘stillness’, and eventually move to action that at the minimum does not harm.  This requires letting go the need to fix, to be right, to defend, and to change a situation or person.  It’s once again refining the capacity to rest in uncertainty, seeing the delusion of resolution.  It requires returning to the matt for deepening into reception of the ‘rising moment’.  Poof!  Here it is.  Yes!  Thank you!  Joy returned.

Dear Universe (God, Source, Love)

Thank you for this restless mind and the struggles I’ve engaged to settle it down.  From that struggle I’ve come to where I am now.  Thank you for showing me the silliness found in attaching to ‘my story’.  I’m so happy to rest in faith, love, and the felt sense of Big Hope.  Touching the infinite, it’s all dance, letting go the critical mind in joy that I’m better than I was.  Thanks for showing me that judgement is my biggest obstacle to love, to the felt sense of belonging.  This has given me the strength to stand in the presence of another’s suffering, the courage to move into unfamiliar territory.  It’s given me the wisdom to find new space when thoughts arise creating negative emotions.  It’s shown me the power in tasting the future ‘now’.  Why wait when heaven is here, in ‘this’ moment.  The ordinary is no more, nothing taken for granted as all becomes perceived as extraordinary.  Thank you for the joy found in cultivating awareness to your Presence within my Being.  I am not my stuff.  I am not my achievements.  I am not separate.  I am the tone.  I am the breath, the dance, the harmony, the rhythm, the Divine.  I can not be separated and consequently relish this moment free from the fear of eventually surrendering this body.  Thank you for what Carols Castanada calls ‘the active side of infinity’.  Thank you for the taste of peace.

No body— before I had a body and after I let this body go

Some body— I have this body

Some body else— I am aware that I’m connected to more than my body

Take nothing for granted.

You’re entitled to nothing.

Don’t complain.

Cultivate your relationship to this moment with obedience to a diligent practice.

Meditate from the heart or belly.

This work, cultivating depth through deeper living, stewardship and good food, helps slow energy dissipation so you can progress along the way in this body—being/doing to your fullest.

Trees want to grow old and strong and then a beetle comes…or drought.  The chances for slowed entropy increase for the tree who’s paid most attention to stewarding those around him, roots reaching out for mutual support.

Mountains exist because their rock was slower to dissipate.  Yet, erosion happens, but it’s slower with the commitment of a mountain.

Nothing dies.  It just changes.  Nothing disappears.  It just changes.  Nothing stops.  It’s forever in motion.  Change varies according to our vibration.  It’s either fast or slow, high or low.

It’s good to cultivate a higher vibration that smashes our restlessness.  It’s good to cultivate space to strengthen our felt sense of Unity.  It’s good to break our addiction to busyness, our ‘too busy to Be’ mind set.

More on your body.

Your somebody is your body.

Give it your dedicated stewardship.

Never criticize it.  It’s doing everything it can to help you catch up to the beauty of response for the gift of your materialization.

If you have any sense of lack-ness, not enough-ness…Stop it!

This is a ‘dis’ on the grace you’ve been bestowed.  It’s a disgrace.

Rather, cultivate gratitude from the grace received to manifest in this body.

Our work is to be in joy.  Enjoy is tied to pleasure and the consumptive mind.  We’re forever left in the vacuum of desire.  Joy is sustainable, even as we move through the earthquakes of life.  When ‘in joy’ I make my best effort to love all life, to leave a gentle wake with minimal harm.

Quality living is about cultivating first hand information from the Divine.  You can function with second and third hand information, attached to beliefs and dogmas.  I want to taste the direct experience, outside the thought mind, aiming to reduce my felt moments of separation.

I have found ‘to be/do’ my best requires opening to the nonverbal/nonlinguistic experience…beyond thought.  Best performance of an action commands commitment to steer from thought, any thought.  A thought removes us from the power of flow (from coincidence/co-inciding) which is purely nonverbal surrender into the receiving of ‘this’ arising moment in 100% fullness.

For sure, this requires thought, practice, rehearsal, vow, obedience, commitment, etc., before we can surrender in flow, grateful for the unity of action outside of time and space, outside judgment from the critical mind and all its birthed obstacles.

Ride at Worthington Unvarnished Music Festival Rough Live Recording

The paddle, the board, water and air, body, mind...all as one.

I recently gave a lesson to a friend who is living in the midst of tremendous change and uncertainty.  This seems to be increasingly common as we face what seems to be accelerating change.  Perhaps it’s our finance, job, health, a weather event or some political agenda that impacts us.  In any case, we feel a sense of ‘un-grounding’.  This loss of stability can grow as we feed thoughts of ‘not enough’ and a sense of disconnection.  The gift in losing a sense of material security is a growing hunger to cultivate spiritual security.  In the throws of life’s pain, can I hold a sense of ‘big hope’?  Can I stand beyond the notion that I’m only my body and the thoughts my mind secretes?  Can I wake to a deeper feeling, one that finds peace though magnanimous interconnectedness?  Katagiri Roshi speaks to this wholehearted living, writing the following:

“We can see the functioning of the whole universe in all of our activities—walking, standing, sitting, and sleeping—not just in zazen.  When you act wholeheartedly, your activity becomes very clear, calm, flexible, and magnanimous.  It is boundless, and simultaneously it is you.  So studying the boundlessness of activity is studying the self.  This is called intimacy.

How can you know the meaning of intimacy?  You cannot see it objectively because intimacy is not the result of activity; intimacy blooms right in the midst of activity itself.  If you try to understand intimacy intellectually, as a concept, you never know real intimacy.  Delusion and enlightenment are also concepts, but the perfect, supreme state of enlightenment is completely beyond concepts.  You are already enlightened, but you can never conceptually know what enlightenment is because when you think of it you create a gap between yourself and enlightenment.

For example, when you swim (SUP), if your consciousness picks up one perception of water and a separate perception of swimmer (paddler), this is not real intimacy.  To experience intimacy with the ocean, you have to jump into the ocean and just swim in the whole universe with no thought of subject and object.  Without plunging into the ocean, you can’t swim.  So open your heart and be intimate with the water.  Completely depend on the help of nature.  Then the water takes care of you.  Your body is supported, your body is swimming, and you survive.  You and the ocean are one, and you swim right in the middle of the functioning of the universe.  That is great enlightenment.

Plunging into the ocean is your effort.  The usual idea of effort implies the egoistic aspect of life.  But you should understand swimming (SUP) from two aspects: something created by your effort and something created by nature’s effort.  When you make your effort and jump in, you can see the other aspect because something appears that is beyond your effort.  The universe is helping you; nature is taking care of your human life.  Then swimming (SUP) is called vivid activity.  This swimming is called play– playing with the water, with all sentient beings in the water, and with the five skandhas of your body and mind, before your conscious of them.  Your consciousness cannot pin down what intimacy is because consciousness is very picky, always picking out one thing and looking at it separately.  So consciousness never knows the true sense of action.  But we can know in other ways.  You can intuitively know something simultaneously with action.  That is our practice.”

Each Moment is the Universe, pp.143-144.

Lately, I’ve been teaching with a colder water temperature.  I’ve not been using wetsuits, providing greater motivation for students to ‘stay with the action’.  I assure them that when their body and mind are absorbed in the activity, they will stay on the board.  As soon as they chase after a thought or feeling of fear, they will greatly increase their chance of falling in.  Loss of attention and focus allows the subject vs. object separation to grow.  It takes strong devotion (almost vow) to totally be absorbed in the activity, growing the unity of your body, your mind and the object.  This is real security, where confidence blooms in the face of uncertainty.  Real confidence comes from penetrating ‘this’ very moment.  Again, Katagiri Roshi writes about this:

“This practice is for everyone.  Any area of the human world—art, music, sports, or whatever you do–requires this life.  But the question is: What degree of confidence do you have?  When you have a very strong, stable confidence every day, it is called spiritual life.  If you don’t, it is called art, music, or sports.  In the practice of art, oneness appears, but outside of art it doesn’t work, so you are confused.  While playing sports you can understand oneness, but outside of sports you cannot see it because you don’t have confidence.  When you don’t have confidence, the oneness you experience is relative truth.  When confidence is always with you, oneness becomes absolute truth.  To have strong, stable confidence every day, you must concentrate yourself on making the effort to constantly approach and penetrate this very moment.” p. 146

In stillness, the light shines through. The feeling of support grows.

wMay 22 Cultivating Stillness Workshop

“Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean and what their purpose is. Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for. We do not know. Let every image held of everyone be loosened from our minds and swept away.
Be innocent of judgment, unaware of any thought of evil or of good that ever crossed your mind of anyone. Now do you know him not. But you are free to learn of him, and learn of him anew, without the past that sentenced him to die, and you with him. Now is he free to live as you are free, because an ancient learning passed away, and left a place for truth to be reborn.” Course of Miracles, Chapter 31:1, verses 12-13, p. 648

This is real courage. This is commitment to Truth, to an open mind, to birthing action from hope and faith, knowing we are forever supported. It’s knowing that feelings of aloneness and separation have been born from thought, thoughts that can be released. As we release these thoughts into the eternity of ‘this moment’ we find relief from restlessness, touching the stillness. We find “a world in which there is no fear, and everything is lit with hope and sparkles with a gentle friendliness. Nothing but calls to you in soft appeal to be your friend, and let it join with you.” CoM, p. 641. The cultivation of this stillness is what provides the courage to face impermanence and the sensitivity to touch “the universal Will” that all living things remove obstacles to awareness of Being whole. In stillness, there is non-duality. In stillness, we experience that nothing remains unchanged but the Truth of our One-ness, and our fear to face it.

Holding Stability in an Unstable Environment

About ten years ago I found myself stuck on a steep mountain slope. I had miscalculated, thinking there was an opening at the top. After climbing 1500’ I came to the conclusion it was impossible. Looking down, I discovered the rock surface was unstable for any misstep. I had taken a book up and when I set it down I watched it tumble several hundred feet. I sat in stillness for some time. I prayed, knowing the slightest error would result in my death. I needed stability in the ultimate of unstable conditions. I needed support. Each step down was with wholehearted awareness. Each completed step carried my deepest gratitude for the opportunity to take one more step, for the support the slightest ridge gave my foot. And that’s how it went for hours as I felt graced to experience another moment. Dainin Katagiri writes about this ‘step by step’ phenomenon in Returning to Silence:

“….let us imagine you are climbing up a mountain cliff. That situation is just like being on the verge of life and death. There is no way to escape; you cannot complain. If you are there, all you have to do is just be there. If you act instinctively you could die. If you are nervous, you could die. should you depend on the intellect, you could also die. So you have to depend on the mountain, your mind and all circumstances. You have to watch carefully and understand. Your consciousness must be clear and know what is going on there. Then, after using your best understanding, your body and mind should depend on just one step. This is action. This is the process of one step without being nervous about what will happen in the next moment, or thinking bout when you will reach the peak, or how far down the bottom is, or who is climbing, or how much farther you can keep going like this, or that you could die. There is nothing to think about, nothing to depend on. All we have to do is just be there using all the things we already have: consciousness, mind, mountain and weather. Then we have to act. Just take one step, a pretty simple step.
What is this one step? Is it to understand about living by studying philosophy or psychology? I don’t think so. Finally they must be thrown away. All we have to do is just live. Take one step, and that one step must be stable. This means, after using your consciousness with your best effort, then act, wholeheartedly. This one step is really not just one step; it is the universe, including the mountains, your mind and consciousness. All things are completely melted into one step. What is one step? One step is the mountain. One step is the weather. One step is you. One step is the true way to live. It is really to attain the Way.” p. 106

Isn’t this what vital living is, finding stability in the face of each unstable arising moment? In the face of impermanence, can I vow to aim to Divine nature, whatever tradition I’ve come to it with. Isn’t it about facing the feelings of ‘ending’, of ‘aloneness’, knowing that God is in the action of ‘this’ step. Can we afford to miss our appointment with the next arising step? Our wholehearted attention is called forth. Our life or death depends upon it. This emergency situation attitude, dedicated in equanimity, is the base of just be it…here and now.

To love one another and all things as ourselves.

This is a pretty big question that lives with us continuously. Our great spiritual teachers have provided us with some pretty consistent direction. Jesus says we’re here to love one another as ourselves. Buddha instructs us to ‘wake up’ to the interconnection of all things and to the constantly changing nature of things. Islam has charitable giving as one of its five pillars. Indigenous cultures profess the need for stewardship in exchange for our opportunity to be here. At the core of all of these traditions, the message seems to be that we’re here to connect, to never feel alone. Shame comes from the feeling and fear of disconnection. Either I feel ‘enough’ or ‘not enough’, which condensed down gets to the core of our sense of worth.

The root of ‘to heal’ is ‘wholeness’. If we feel worthy of love and belonging our heart is whole. Our capacity to step out with courage, to be active in the world without fear of disconnection, comes from our deeper sense of belonging. Deeper listening is allowed through a willingness to let go of who we thought we ‘should’ be in receipt of waking to who we are. As we come to more fully embrace our vulnerability we courageously step into the unknown. This is the birthing ground for joy and creativity. The famous theologian, Paul Tillich, titled a book Courage to Be. We can live our lives in shame, filled with ‘not enough-ness’ or we can touch the ‘connection’ of all beings and things.

In his book Each Moment is the Universe, Dainin Katagiri writes about this intimacy of connection:

“You act on the surface of the ocean, and your action is stable, walking firmly at the bottom of the ocean. This is called bodhi. When you and your practice are stable in this process, all sentient beings come together and you are one stable being, walking at the bottom of the ocean and swimming on the surface of the ocean.” p. 104

“Even though we understand who we are, we have to see what we are. Are we separate from the grasses, trees, or birds? No, we are grasses and trees, snowstorms and fine days. So we have to learn what the storm is, what winter is, what spring is. We have to understand everything in our whole life. So accept that life is just a continuation of learning. Day after day, life after life, we just have to learn constantly. That’s enough.” p. 104

“Grass is being, so each grass is the entire world, you are the entire world, and the whole world is the entire world. Nothing is left out; nothing is wasted. Then you can live with all sentient beings in peace and harmony.” p. 104

The real challenge is to hold this ‘feeling’ of Oneness in the face of those struggling in the dualistic mind of disconnection. We can repeatedly see the source of our suffering is found in our felt sense of ‘not belonging’. This is a question of examining where our sense of connection stops, where we limit our love, and where we refuse to forgive. The key learning of connection is observing the obstacles that come up each time we act from feelings of separation. Our shame and violence arise from where our sense of belonging stops. We can numb ourselves into a comfort zone within our small world. Yet, eventually the flood, climate change, radiation, immigration issues, etc., comes to reveal a world where all things come together and melt into One.

Holding a position of separateness eventually breaks even the strongest dictator. We can try to escape it from greed, fear and ignorance, but we eventually experience more and more shame and restlessness. Today, in America, we’re the most in debt, obese, medicated and addicted society on the planet. We’ve placed great emphasis on educating to the dualistic mind, stressing consumption and comparative competition. We try to bury the ‘whole’ heart, striving for more and more. We spend trillions trying to keep others from getting ‘our stuff’. Politicians and religious leaders spend billions in propaganda trying to sell us on a false sense of certainty about the Uncertain. We pretend that there’s no collateral damage for these efforts. Yet, we feel one another’s suffering…the politician’s, the terrorist’s, the religious leader’s, the Right Winger, the Left Winger, the conservative, the liberal, and on and on. Yet, our lesson is to commit to intimacy, to ‘feeling’ our connection and showing the courage to have a respectful conversation.

We can ignore one another, numb ourselves to the harm of our actions and inactions, act as ants in a sugar bowel greedily eating more and more until we explode, or we can truly let ourselves be seen as the connected Divine beings we are. We can move from the ‘whole’ heart, letting ourselves be seen, fully embracing our ‘enough-ness’.

The Dali Lama says we’re here to learn to live in joy. Katagiri says life is just a continuation of our learning. We could essentially eliminate all of our belonging boundaries and divide our political/religious parties into ‘open minded’ and ‘close minded’. We’re either grateful and courageously curious or we’re stuck in our small world of judging one another. We’re either living a life or joy or one of continual restlessness, desiring things to be different from what they are. Our real spiritual security seems to rest in our capacity to ‘wake up’ to Love, to the full felt sense of our being Connected. Here’s where our real sense of worth comes from and we’re here to hold it and to support others in their awakening to this truth. While we must walk the surface of the ocean, our peace comes from awareness to one foot always grounded on the bottom in awareness to our interdependent connection.

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Years ago I taught progressive relaxation to some of my communications students.  I was always amazed to discover how few had a felt sense of the actual ‘relaxation’ response.  They received training in tensing and then letting go.  Many never could truly reach a state of complete muscle relaxation when tested.  They ‘held on’ with muscle tension, resisting the ‘let go’ response involved in relaxation.

I like the definition that ‘stress’ is the distance from where we’ve been or where we want to be from where we are.  The logical conclusion would mean we reduce stress to the degree we’re able to ‘arrive here, now’.  If I can fully engage the moment, in complete awareness to what’s arising and what it offers, I’ve left the stress zone.  Many spiritual traditions would direct us to this.  For example, Buddhism says we’re either in sukka (peace) or dukka (restlessness).  The Buddha sat in stillness for forty-nine days in search of relief from this restless mind.  The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path were his insights from this opening.  Essentially, the ‘dis-ease’ is our stress/suffering.  The cause is our restless mind.  We can alleviate this by ‘letting go’ and maintaining certain practices that deepen our sense of interconnection and awareness to the constantly changing moment.  In the Christian tradition I’m moved by Philippians 4: 6-9:

6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

9 The things you have learned and received and heard and seen ^ain me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

In both traditions, the remedy seems to be in finding the ‘no complaint, no complaint’ zone.  Another way to describe it is ‘no struggle’.  This is challenging work, in the face of a constantly changing circumstance.  Holding relaxed presence in the face of the earth quake or conflict is truly the sign of a master.  Our deeper journey seems to be to remove obstacles to Love, to be ‘great full’ for what is, to meet each other’s restless mind in compassion, and at the very least, to not cause harm.

The relaxed, stress free mind seems to be well received by the body.  This mind fully receives the opportunity to participate in the unfolding present moment.  In this full attention the Divine manifests and all is possible.

So try it out.  Just sit, breathing in, breathing out.  No wanting to be back there or in the future somewhere.  Just witness the moment’s opportunity to breath in, deep.  And then to breath out, slow.  Cultivating the desire to really, really, want to be ‘here, now’, seems to be the time tested method for reducing stress and enhancing mindful action.  The evidence can be found in watching the master make the most difficult look effortless, as though completely outside the boundaries of time and space.