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.

When the mind leaves Love (the Divine), obstacles appear.

The illusion is that I somehow “am” this body and this mind, somehow separate in my sense of ownership.  Yet, in truth, I have no idea about who I was before entering this body or what/who I’ll be when this body wears out.  As my awareness deepens to the illusion of thoughts, I can see how they are just mental formations that can carry me further and further from the reality of the next arising moment.  Yet, there’s a truth that forever keeps feeding this consciousness, a command to Love in the face of the delusive separating mind.  At the end of the day we seem to find the journey wasn’t about some spiritual linear achievement but about our capacity to choose Love.  At the end of our occupation of this body we all surrender it, we all experience the body’s wearing out, we all say good bye to our friends/family/stuff, and we all have the wake of actions taken while inhabiting this body.  At some point we come to see the journey wasn’t about what we have, what we’ve achieved, or how much people seem to like us.  Our peace or misery comes from a review of how dedicated we’ve been in dropping our obstacles to Love.

A spiritual practice dedicated to dropping the illusion of a separated ego seems essential.  Some have referred to this process as ‘self settling into Self’.  Actions directed from Self are without exception driven from Love.  Any notion of ownership appears absurd and there’s a sense of radical humility in the less obstructed journeyman.  The lower vibration of the separated mind more frequently moves from fear.  Caught in perceptions of ‘right’, the wake of these actions is usually turbulent, disharmonious, and out of rhythm to the beauty of the Divine.  Interestingly, those choosing Love (Oneness) by definition must drop their obstacles to those choosing Fear (Twoness).  There can be no exception to One just as there can be no exception to choosing Love.

So where does violence begin; where is opportunity robbed; where is harm done?  Without exception, harm occurs when actions move from a sense of separation.  Violence begins where the sense of belonging stops.  The practice is to forever deepen the sense of interconnection.  The perception of helping or hurting another vanishes as we deepen the felt sense of Oneness, helping or hurting self as Self.  In choosing Love, the choice seems to be full acceptance of the moment, no matter what.  Instead of ‘my’ body, it’s ‘this’ body, gifted to me, meeting ‘this’ moment, gifted to me.  The mind’s work is to dig for the gift of what’s given.  The will is needed to make space for drilling into the mystery of what ‘is’.  Meditation/prayer seem to be the best process.

The aim is to drop obstacles to Love, to live in appreciation for what’s been given, to meet others’ restlessness as our own, to forgive mistakes, to have the courage to openly meet new arising moments free from judgment, yet forever motivated from Love and our sense of interconnection.

The journey…..to drop our obstacles to Love.

The gift…the opportunity to participate.

The result…sustainable joy and a rhythmic/harmonious wake.

The way we language our response to these questions can determine the degree of peace or restlessness we carry through our day.  It influences our degree of joy or suffering.  I’ve personally found the first step is to eliminate my sense of possession or ownership of a body.  It’s been difficult, but productive to move from attachments to what I “have” and what I’ve “achieved”.  With some awareness, it’s quite easy to see that’s not who I am.  For sure, I carry a wake of my life, but that’s not what pushes the boat forward.  What’s happened before had to happen for my awareness of this moment to be where it is.  A great practice is to give thanks for all of it because from those experiences, painful and joyful, my awareness has arrived to where I am, now.

So how do I move from a defined sense of identity, from an attachment to my story, my body and my mind?  Again, here’s where language is tremendously helpful.  General Semantics instructs us to strike the verb “to be” from our language, recognizing the individual nature of perception (i.e. instead of saying ‘the banana is yellow’, say ‘the banana appears yellow’).  This respect and honor to our individual experience fosters peace over war and softens our journey to grow.  On the contrary, the degree to which we attach to our notions of ‘right’ vs. ‘wrong’, to our fixed belief systems, determines our slowed journey as we become entangled in conflict.  I’m not sure who said it, but I resonate with it: We can choose to be right or choose to honest. In honesty, we’re curious and open to explore with intention to what’s best for all with harm to none.  In honesty, we realize we have no idea who we were or where we’ll be when these bodies wear out.  In honesty, we know there’s no awareness of creating our bodies.  In honesty, we see the value to saying ‘the body’ and ‘the mind’, rather than attaching possession through use of ‘my body’ and ‘my mind’.  I don’t know who I was before the body carried me (nobody).  I don’t know who I am in this body (somebody).  I know my journey is to turn awareness over to what’s bigger than me, but what’s still connected to me, in unobstructed love (somebody else), and I’m at peace knowing I can’t end when the body drops off (nobody/somebody, emptiness is form and form is emptiness).  With an attitude of no gain, but one of depth, love and respect, filled with wonder and humility, the separated illusion of ego drops away.  I am All and I am Nothing.  I am simply my moment to moment Awareness, deepening in my intentions to remove obstacles to Love, deepening the felt sense of our interconnection with all beings and non-beings.  Within the realm of One Love we treasure divinity.  We can see how our problems all stem from the belief we’re separate from God.

In Love, when the earthquake comes, we’re solid in our felt sense of One.  The relief to the transitory nature of each moment comes in knowing we can never be separate.  Bodies come and go. Flowers bloom and wither.  Entropy and energy dissipation happen.  The mind creates thoughts that come and go.  Yet, separateness is an illusion.  It may be time to ban the use of ‘birth’ and ‘death’.  It implies a beginning and an end.  We can’t prove an absolute end, so why not just be more semantically correct and say ‘changed’ or ‘transformed’?  No thing is nothing.  As science advances we’re just beginning to better understand how emptiness is fullness and fullness is emptiness.

So why are we here?  Most great spiritual teachers would say we’re here to ‘wake up’.  Wake up to what?  To Love and our resistance to it.  While we’re tempted to think our salvation lies in our good deeds, perhaps the greater message is that it’s not at all related to some linear progression of spiritual achievement, but rather to our deeper exploration of our created obstacles to Love.  Recognizing this gift of life, could we be here to keep from taking anything for granted, to steer from complaint, to cultivate our relationship to ‘this arising moment’, and to forever dig deeper into what our heart calls us to?

A regular meditation/prayer practice seems most helpful in listening to the heart’s (Divine) call.  This work of cultivating depth through stewardship and awareness helps slow energy dissipation so we can deepen along the way in this body, ‘being/doing’ to the fullest.  It seems good to cultivate a higher vibration that smashes our restlessness.  It seems helpful to take a pause, to not loose our sense of Unity.

Whether it’s music, meditation, yoga, boardsports, circle communication process, children, in relationships, being in nature or sacred meals, I feel deepened through the cultivation of One.  These are dedicated practices that require focus, attention and vow to still the mind of Two.  Yesterday, during a yoga class, my teacher said, “You can never do too much yoga.”  While she was referring to the specific practice she was teaching, yoga means “to yoke”, “to join as One”.  Within this spirit, we can never cultivate One too much, especially in a culture that feverishly promotes Two through messages of greed, fear and the ignoring of One (ignorance).  My passion to cultivate the experience of One has been deeply stimulated by Brother David Steindl-Rast.  He describes this experience of the mystery in his book, A Listening Heart:

“This visible and this invisible meet at the crossroads  which we call our heart.  When we say “heart”, we mean that center of our personal being where we are one with ourselves; yet, not with ourselves only.  In our heart of hearts we are one also with all others– and with the Ultimate, with God.  St. Augustine affirms from his own mystical awareness a truth of which every human being has an inkling: “In my heart of hearts God is closer to me than I am to myself.” p. 23

“In one of his Poems for the Hours of Prayer Rilke describes the beginning of our life’s journey in a kind of miniature creation myth.  This myth is so relevant to our task of making sense of the senses that I will paraphrase it here:  God, in creating humans, speaks to each one of us personally, but only before we are completely fashioned; after that, God goes with us out into the darkness and is silent. The Creator’s words which we dimly hear, before we are led out into the night, are these: ‘Urged on by your senses, go forth to the very brink of your longing.  Clothe me, the Invisible, in what is visible!” (But how can this be done?)  ‘Grow like a fire behind all things so that their expanding shadows keep covering all of me.  Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.  Keep going, no matter what.  No sensation is too far out.  Let nothing separate you from me.’  (And then, the Creator’s parting word:) ‘The Land which they call life is near.  You will recognize it by its serious demands.  Give me you hand!”  p. 24

Brother David captures the power and beauty found in deeply listening to the pull we ‘dimly hear’, the motivation to cultivate One in a world that screams Two.  The Rilke story commands us to stay from the experience of Two, always choosing to practice One, through beauty and terror.  Whether on a beautiful walk through the woods, in the mountains, or by the sea; whether facing a predatory enemy, serious illness or deep wound, the choice is always to deepen to the felt hand of One, ‘at the crossroads which we call our heart’.  In a world of Two, our journey is to vow our practice to One, and you can never do/be too much One.

‘So take my hand in you hand.  Say, “It’s great to be alive”.’ Lyric from Elton John’s movie Friends.

In Oneness, you are never alone.

When our minds leave Oneness, obstacles appear.

Violence ripped us apart a few weeks ago when a lone gunmen in Tucson went on a shooting rampage that brought the country to pause.  The vibration of our nation raised as we met the suffering of those injured and those left with the pain of losing a loved one’s physical presence.  As a community, Tucson stepped beyond the response of revenge.  News reporters captured the victims’ compassion for the parents of the shooter and stayed from fueling further division as they stayed on to report the healing of a community.  Even today, I would suspect most of us put our attention and prayers to the future healing of such deep wounds over our anger at the shooter’s senseless act.  Ancient spiritual teachings and collective wisdom would have us deeply look into the mind of the shooter in compassion.  Through a deep understanding and empathy with the person, as us, we’ll move closer to healing and reducing the possibility of future senseless acts.

Today there’s a nation facing the very real potential of anarchy.  Egypt has drawn millions to the street who felt oppressed, not listened to.  When people feel there’s no hope, when they feel it’s over, violence is inevitable.  This is quite different than pushing different political agendas.  It’s a true ‘up’ rising, as people once again discover their worth, taking their opportunity to participate.  Unfortunately, the conflict in Egypt has been framed as ‘anti-Mubarak’ and ‘pro-Mubarak’.  The mind of duality seems to limit it’s capacity to this didactic approach.  The mind of One looks deeper into the situation.  That’s exactly what the faculty and administration of Valparaiso University did in the spring of 1970 when a conflicted campus community shut down the university after Nixon invaded Cambodia.

It was a turbulent time with the nation deeply divided on the merits of our military involvement in Vietnam.  The country was as polarized as I had ever seen.  About ten per cent of the student population felt the situation was hopeless and committed to extreme measures to be heard.  Classes were disrupted by protesters and hunger strikes were begun.  An administration building was burned, suspected from an outside agitator.  Emotions were hot.  Yet, rather than introducing violence to the situation, the Valparaiso staff invited a dialog.  Rather than dichotomizing students into factions of ‘pro-war’ and ‘anti-war’, they listened and discovered the common ground.  Neither side wanted violence.  At the end of the conversation it was clear that some students just wanted a return to the stability of their studies.  Some students could not continue their regular studies in light of their impassioned desire to participate in what they thought democracy called for.  In a brilliant move, they negotiated to allow the protesters to pursue their aim responsibly in an independent study project, receiving pass/fail grades in their courses up to the meeting date.  The contingent was to allow non-protesting students to continue their studies uninterrupted.  Common sense prevailed and the university was made stronger through such an act of integrity.

So how does this apply to Egypt’s current situation?  Today the media is claiming a showdown between ‘pro-Mubarak’ and ‘anti-Mubarak’ factions.  In fact, it’s the wrong frame.  It’s a showdown between those who want a return of stability against those who had no stability and hope before the protests.  It’s a showdown between those who want the protesters to go home vs. the protesters who essentially don’t have a home.  A dualistic mind can only think in terms of winners and losers and seems to thrive on the fight.  A mind of One would create a deeper dialogue aimed at common sense.  At the end of the day, people are concerned about their quality of life.  They want an opportunity to participate.  Mubarak stands for many as a leader who failed to nurture this.  Rather than inflaming the situation with ‘win/loss’ mentality, those without hope need some way to know they’re engaged, given the opportunity to participate in the changes they see as necessary.  The diplomatic response would be to enlist representatives from both parties in a forum where they could deeply listen to each others’ situation.  Most protesters are not interesting in destroying the stability of their neighbor, even if they have no stability.  Most citizens of stability are not interested in starving the less fortunate so they can have more.  The thirst for greed and the fear fed for each other can be diminished when they break the illusion of ‘two’.  We are our brother and sister and our aim is to support one another as ourselves.  Just as the Valparaiso staff and students did in 1971, the Mubarak administration could engage a dialogue with protesters about the changes they see as necessary.  The citizens wanting a return to stability could engage in the dialogue, with both parties seeking common ground.  Violence would be subverted, protestors would feel they’ve been heard and tended to.  Those seeking return to stability could once again open their doors.  True democracy would show bright, unlike the extreme polarization that runs rampant today.

Just as Tucson stayed from ‘right vs. wrong’ revenge judgement, a desire to do what’s best for all with harm to none makes us all better.  A mind of One would raise the planet’s consciousness much like Mandella, Gandhi, Dr. King, the Dali Lama, and many others have done throughout time.  The dualistic mind of the media wants to play this like a football game.  The mind of common sense would play it seeking to find the common elements of those involved.  True compassion is our willingness to meet each others’ suffering from the mind of One.

Bridges, Not Walls

It’s been an amazing week in light of the Tucson shooting.  While the pain, wounding and suffering are massive, it’s interesting what happens when we’re drawn into the pause of violence’s aftermath.  While our ‘important’ people are very cautious to not blame our mindless, angry speech for the actions of a mentally ill shooter, there has been much needed attention put to the power of words and our respect for one another as human beings.  Unfortunately, not a lot has been said about just what it means to be civil.  I understand that the word originates from the capacity to live well in a city.  It goes beyond tolerance to a sense of interconnection and interdependence.  It drives from compassion, generosity and common sense to evolve.  This would necessarily require a vow to open mindedness.  The origin of politics goes to civility, seeking common sense solutions for the best of the city.  Unfortunately, greed for power, authority and wealth have created selfish interests which undermine our willingness for civil discussion.  It’s rare to see a common sense dialogue.  Most of our legislators are trained attorneys, skilled in the techniques of persuasion.  Their educational training places almost no attention to the skills of active listening and dialogue.  We’ve seen our politics digress to arguments of blame, manipulation, fear, intimidation, and every tactic of persuasion possible.  Our political campaigns focus upon difference through combat style debates and inflammatory TV, Internet and radio ads that would have us believe we’re a truly polarized divided nation.  The nature of politics today has been anything but civil attempts to make common sense decisions for the best of all with harm to none.  So it’s been refreshing to see this topic at least touched upon over the past few days.

Last night President Obama referenced the ultimate question, pointing out that as we face our death the real sense of our life meaning will come down to how well we’ve loved.  It won’t revolve around how many metals we’ve received, how much fame and fortune, how much power and material accumulation, etc.  We’ll say good-bye to all of these, yet the results of our loving actions will continue.  The results of the heroic actions in Tucson will forever live on much like those of the 9/11 heroes.  Their wholehearted, open actions of courage raised the consciousness of the planet.  The most poignant message from President Obama was a challenge to honor those heroes of Tucson with speech befitting to this higher consciousness.  So just how do we do this?

It makes no difference what political party, race, religion, etc., one belongs.  What counts is our convicted civility to hold an open mind.  A great democracy demands we step from our ‘righteous pride’ and sense of ‘knowing’ to a humble curiosity to grow and learn.  This takes the greatest of courage.  Can I face others whose concepts and thoughts are vastly different from mine with a fresh, open mind, willing to explore?  Can I dedicate to cultivating surprise and curiosity in my journey to deepen understanding?  Can I approach others from a deeper desire to uncover our common sense rather than judgmentally focusing upon our apparent differences?  This requires the deepest courage and results in the best society.  It drives from faith and hope, from a much deeper knowing.  It has nothing to do with persuasion.  There’s a vow to cultivate the open mind, to step from fear in courage to participate, and to humbly receive the gift of this participation.  It’s a recognition that our very embodiment as a human is precious gift, providing the opportunity to participate.  It’s a realization to convict ourselves to joy, no matter what.  It’s conviction to dialog, to steward a hopeful future, and to humbly hold our place as an interconnected being.

Our great spiritual teachers strongly recommend space to cultivate our appreciation through prayer and/or meditation.  This has been a great week for this.  Again, it occurred during a week of Oneness (1/11/11), a week where we could all more deeply touch the gift of our humanity.

Circles Have No Sides

Violence has been described as “that which robs opportunity”.  From the mind of Two (greed, fear and ignorance), we inflict harm upon another from the delusion that we’re somehow separate.  Somehow caught in notions of our “rightness”, we inflict our judgment upon others, exerting our force in persuasive attempts to get them to change.  Interestingly, change is always here.  Cultivating curiosity, the compassionate response is to listen, even to those who we’re tempted to judge as ‘unenlightened’.

Have you been watching the news coverage of the “Tragedy in Tucson”?  It’s not one to make sense from when approaching from a position of Two.  Shortly after such deep wounding (separation), the only authentic response is silence.  I went to Virginia Tech one week after the shootings.  I could feel the darkness and pain on the campus when I was still miles away on my approach.  The mainstream media circus had left, clergy trying to sell their answers were trying to talk to students, yet the only genuine response seemed to rest in the collective stillness and silence.  This was also the more common experience after 9/11 and other deeply wounding tragedies.  These silent moments after such deep hurt give us pause to touch our humanity.  We find a moment to diminish our fear and anger, to embrace those whose thought is not our thought.  The breaking of this silence is a delicate matter.  At Virginia Tech I blew the horn at a ceremony one week after the shooting.  It still may have been too early, but it was a sounding of unification, in harmony and rhythm once again found after such dissonance and separation.

The Sound of One was heard loud and clear from outer space when Rep. Gifford’s astronaut brother-in-law challenged us to be more mindful with our words. Flight controllers in Houston fell silent as Scott Kelly spoke via radio from space:

“We have a unique vantage point here aboard the International Space Station. As I look out the window, I see a very beautiful planet that seems very inviting and peaceful. Unfortunately, it is not.

These days, we are constantly reminded of the unspeakable acts of violence and damage we can inflict upon one another, not just with our actions, but also with our irresponsible words.

We’re better than this. We must do better.”

Sometimes it takes a vantage from a different space to cultivate Oneness.  A previous astronaut, Edgar Mitchell, had a similar experience upon viewing the peace of our planet from space.  Upon return to earth he founded IONS (Institute of Noetic Sciences, www.noetic.org).  This organization’s mission is to scientifically validate this experience of one.  Their vision statement is:

The Institute of Noetic Sciences serves an emerging movement of globally conscious citizens dedicated to manifesting our highest capacities. We believe that consciousness is essential to a paradigm shift that will lead to a more sustainable world. We encourage open-minded explorations of consciousness through the meeting of science and spirit. We take inspiration from the great discoveries of human history that have been sourced from insight and intuition and that have harnessed reason and logic for their outer expression. It is our conviction that systematic inquiries into consciousness will catalyze positive concrete transformations in the world. In this process, our vision is to help birth a new worldview that recognizes our basic interconnectedness and interdependence and promotes the flourishing of life in all its magnificent forms.

Noam Chomsky has written that our attempts to persuade others always has an underlying current of violence.  It’s like our restless, grasping mind is struggling with what “is”.  In times of trouble our thoughts travel to wanting things different.  If only we could be like we were, or if only we could get to future relief.  Anything but resting in this painful place.  Yet, our experience and ancient wisdom leads us to rest in ‘this moment’, in meeting what’s arising here and now.  This is the formula the Buddha provided over two thousand years ago.  Our restless mind causes pain and suffering.  It comes from our attachments.  Our relief is to cultivate stillness, letting go our grasping, embracing the beauty of ‘this moment’.  Within the beauty of this moment we feel our basic interconnectedness and interdependence (Oneness).  We’re then directed to actions from a sense of wonder (one-der) and reverence.  From this place we aim to a higher consciousness that’s more sensitive to the harm from damaging speech, from taking what’s not been given, from sexual misconduct, from killing, and from the ignorance grown through intoxicants.  When Scott Kelly says “we’re better than this, we must do better”, it’s the same command as our great spiritual teachers.  It’s a moment of pause to consider cultivating a response to our Oneness.  For me, young Mattie Stapanek captured it best with his 9/11 poem:

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.

Mattie J.T. Stepanek
September 11, 2001

Have a healing moment this 1/11/11, a ‘One-drous’ Moment in Our Evolution

Years ago I was gifted with the repeated experience of seeing 11:11 and 1:11 when randomly looking at time pieces.  Finally, with the gift of search engines, I learned I wasn’t alone.  This was a common experience to subtly remind us of Oneness over the delusion of two.  The spiritual life directs us to a profound stillness where we can cultivate awareness to this Presence.  It’s a radical hospitality for all that is, in full gratitude for the gift of opportunity.  In the gravity of culture, where the messages of two abound through greed, fear and ignorance, the universe of One cultivates response from generosity, love, forgiveness and gratitude.

Tomorrow would seem to be a tipping point day, a day where more and more of us wake to the One.  Certainly, our great spiritual teachers commanded us to humble ourselves to the great interconnection of all, to the circle that knows no sides.  For those of you who can step with childlike openness, with the courage to taste the very Being of Oneness, transformation is upon us.  On 1/11/11, at 11:11 your time zone, please consider a pause to feel this Divine energy.  The adolescent mindset of “two” will diminish as we move to unveil the power of compassion.  Congress will reduce it’s fighting, the power and futility of war will be questioned, we’ll take a compassionate look at immigration, the War on Terror, divisional political and religious dogma, and hopefully grow deeper in our patience and love for one another.

Nature’s Law of Unity confirms that everything affects everything.  Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Dr. King, Mandella and a number of other spiritual leaders have clearly shown that where our notions of ‘two’ begin, our violence begins.  In Absolute Truth, the heart knows deep down that all is One.  John Lennon wrote, “Imagine the world will be One”.  Our great teachers have said that it is, we just need to wake to it.  In a universe of One, there’s no room for exception, no room for separation, and no room for judgment.

So tomorrow, no matter where your semantics are, please consider pausing for Oneness.  As Thich Knat Hahn affirms, we can always touch peace.  May we feel a shift tomorrow during this ‘one-drous’ year of ’11.  May you feel the ‘One-der’ as you step into that still space of interconnection.  In light of the Tucson shooting, a gift of the tragedy is the wake-up call for harm caused from malicious speech.  As we all deepen through our grief, may we further align with the heart’s resonance to One.  It’s a day to honor, to move beyond religion and politics, beyond notions of greed, fear and ignoring, to ‘touch, taste, smell, hear, and see the Presence of One.  It truly is a time of awakening to the Power of One (Love, God, Peace, Joy).

The Blessing of One is one of life’s greatest ‘One-ders’.

Much of the translation of Zen deals with the distinction between the dualistic and the non-dualistic mind.  I’ve found it more helpful to contrast two against one rather than ‘non-two’.  There’s a negative energy when I introduce ‘non’, almost contradicting the Buddhist rule for relief of suffering, the release of grasping.  Within our complete arrival to ‘this moment’ we aim the heart to uncover Oneness.  This is a feeling cultivated to alleviate the suffering from the obstacles of duality we’ve allowed.  The calibration of our consciousness rises to the extent we grow this felt sense of Oneness.  The great spiritual teachers all instructed us to feed this sense of wonder.

“The significance of Krishna, Buddha, Christ, and Allah was not their personal presence on the planet but the truths they revealed and espoused, and the calibratable high energy which accompanied the teachings.  All enlightened beings tell the populace to ignore their personality or personhood, but instead, to focus on the teachings.”

from David Hawkins, The Eye of the I, pp. 45-46

These basic teachings are to love one another as oneself, to hold gratitude, to forgive, to not judge, to hold moderation in the material world, and to forever deepen in our awareness to the gift of All.  Our deepest gratitude comes in forever recognizing our opportunity to participate to the fullest in evolving the universe through our awareness to Oneness.  Our dualistic mind wants to fill with ‘doing’, achievements and accomplishments.  It fills with notions of success against another’s loss, poisoning us to ‘have more’.  Interestingly, globalization and the recent economic downtown have given us pause to examine the ‘us against them’ premise.  Suddenly, notions of being #1 evaporate.  We start to review the result in cultivating our notions of separateness (patriotism, nationalism, war, persuasion, etc.).  Our politicians try to persuade us that their actions from the dualistic mind have somehow made things better.  We’ll never know what could have happened had we been less reactive to 9/11.  Spiritual wisdom would have held us from revenge.  Today South Korea was attacked by North Korea.  The news reported that South Korea diligently returned fire.  We’ll never know how the world’s reaction could have been different had they not returned fire.  We do know that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara held grave misgivings about our decisions to war with Vietnam.  His Academy Award winning documentary, The Fog of War, details how our lack of awareness sucks us into conflict.  He strongly advises those who follow him to find their greatest military strength in ‘empathizing with the enemy’.  This is another way of saying ‘cultivate your sense of Oneness’.  As Christ has advised, “Love your enemy”.  The dualistic mind fights this notion.

We’re often carried away in our need to be ‘right’.  The human race exists today because one man, Tommy Thompson, created a way for Kruchev to back down from nuclear war without losing face.  Ted Sorenson and Robert McNamara both confirm we were as close to nuclear annihilation as we’ve ever come.  In today’s media world we’re fed through angry rhetoric that feeds the dualistic mind.  It’s hard to find those willing to carry a ‘curious conversation’.  Rumi has said, “Somewhere out there is a field…a field beyond right knowing and wrong knowing.  Let’s meet there.”  This is the field of the curious mind filled with wonder and gratitude for what’s presented ‘here and now’.  This is a field that needs a lot of obedience to the cultivating process.  We’re continually fed news from the dualistic mind that forever focuses on ‘what’s wrong’.  The common discourse comes from the judgmental mind screaming what needs to be done, often deaf to any possibility for dialogue and discovery.  Our children are numbed to sleep with TV, cell phones, computer games and social network dribble that moves us further from awareness to our Oneness.  Yet, our great spiritual teachers say we’re here to ‘wake up’, not go to sleep.  In fact, ‘buddha’ means ‘to wake up’.  So back to the top, recognizing that the universe changes when you breath in a sense of wonder, a sense of Oneness.  This is why we’re here, to discover the power of the Divine within each and every one of us.

Can you imagine the power we have when facing our moment to moment experience from a sense of wonder?  Breathing in this moment, sense Oneness with the tree, the plate, the floor, the person in you presence, etc.  Now take it to the next level and breath in Oneness in the presence of your enemy.  This is the strength practiced by Mandela, Gandhi, Dr. King, Mother Theresa, Walesa and other spiritual Avatars who’ve shaped history in our evolution of consciousness.  A sense of Oneness can’t comprehend a calculation of ‘acceptable collateral damage’ in war.  It doesn’t understand the notion of killing for sport and pleasure.  A heart that’s removed the obstacles to Oneness meets All from a sense of reverence.  The deeper we cultivate our felt sense of interconnection the less harm we do.  At the end of the day the real question of success is asked from the position of support.  How have I supported others?  How have I held gratitude for their support of me?  How have I caused trouble from my dualistic mind?

The mind of Twoness is drawn by greed, fear and ignorance.  The mind of Oneness aims to generosity, compassion, love, courage, and the curious mind, the mind of wonder.

So today, how do I feed the mind of Awareness to Oneness?  How do I feed the mind to Twoness?  My peace comes in knowing the Universe expands and heals with each breath in of Oneness, of wonder.  Breathing in you, breathing out me, touching our Oneness outside notions of time and space.

Is it possible to move beyond all the division of partisan religion?  I know we’ve had a lot of pull to use the words ‘interfaith’ and ‘intercultural’.  These are expanding notions that deal with the reality of getting along in our universe, a universe that increasingly shows us we can’t survive without getting along. Yet, these are words that seem to move from tolerance and understanding rather than deeper desire to find ‘the common’. In years past, under the directive of Newtonian science, we seemed to think there were answers and positions of being ‘right’.  We had to look at our experience and then follow the map that made the most sense to us.  Yet, today, it’s increasingly evident that two truths found at the base of all religions are being substantiated by contemporary physics.  When we step beyond the distinctive differences of our world religions, universally they agree that 1. Nothing stays the same, all things change, and 2. Nothing is independent, with everything affecting everything.  These truths are the foundation of religion’s premise that all is One.  We could call this ‘common sense’.  The temptation is to act from a dualistic mind, claiming ‘our One’ is the ‘right One’.  We’re continually bombarded with a culture that wants us to deny the Law of Impermanence and the Law of Unity.  We’ve become extremely sophisticated in our methods of persuasion, whether it be in politics, religion, commerce or family.  We somehow believe we matter more when others are ‘pushed’ to our way of seeing things.  Yet, we’re continually shown how real creative work comes from a surrendering of calcified beliefs, opening in a deeper faith to the power of Oneness.

It may be helpful for you to know of my deep love and appreciation for Lutheran and Buddhist teachings. They’ve worked together to deepen my life experience.  Yet, from a transreligion perspective, these are teachings of my direct experience and my lack of experience with Islam, Native American, Hindu, Judaism, and other religions. My ignorance of these other religions should play no bearing on the validity of their core underlying truths, truths claiming God’s omnipresence.  There are multitudes of traditions that expose the sacred nature of all things, the God nature in our universe.  As such, they all direct us to reverence for the very gift of life and the opportunity to participate with minimal harm.

Our contemporary physicists have now made it abundantly clear how little we know.  We see how science can’t reach beyond the limits of perception; it only takes us to the threshold of awareness, that place of not depending upon perception.  Yet, our science progresses through entering the field of intuition, fully surrendered in science to the gift of insight from a still mind.  Our typical logical, sequential mind has surrendered to the effortless unfolding to the divinity of All That Is.  An evolved ‘knowing’ comes from a deeper faith and surrendered obstruction.  We’ve gone beyond fixed belief systems to the direct experience of the Divine, of Oneness.  Rather than ‘pushing’ in a stressful desire to the illusion of what’s been, or abandoning the present moment for the illusion of the future, the emptied mind opens to receiving the Presence of One.  Our deep attachments to smaller belonging circles transform as we transcend to a Bigger Belonging, a Bigger Hope, a deeper reverence for what Is.  Brother David Steindl Rast calls this ‘a great fullness’, playing upon the words to deepen our gratefulness.

So how does this change us?  Suddenly, we’re no longer sucked into bipartisan wrangling.  We move beyond our insecurity and need to persuade others.  Our movement comes from love, the felt sense of our interconnection.  We focus on what’s common in our higher thinking, moving to common sense dialogues.  Judgment diminishes and negative notions of the comparative heart lesson.  We listen more generously, with an open heart, solid in a deeper knowing that there are only deeper questions.  We compassionately ask others to ‘tell us more’,  ‘go further with that’, ‘so how does that feed your hope and joy’, etc.  We reduce our desire to change others to ‘our way’ of seeing things. We step away from our sense of ‘rightness’.

When we touch the realm of ‘transreligion’ we enter the realm of Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, etc. in truly seeing our enemies as us.  The ‘us vs them’ dichotomy vanishes.  The calibration of human consciousness rises exponentially as we listen more and more, speaking less, but speaking with more care and precision.  We commit to minimizing the harm we do others as we ‘feel’ their Divine.  Our actions move from love, not fear and anger.  We meet new situations with a sense of equanimity, no matter what.  We recognize it’s not in our capacity to ‘resolve’ anything since every thing is moving, the next arising moment now before us.

Can our politics advance to the transpartisan party?  Can we move beyond our simplistic bipartisan mind?  Can our church leadership help us diminish violence by stepping up the Oneness conversation and stepping down the ‘we’re right, you’re wrong’ monologue?  Can we advance into the transreligion movement and help put scientifically based truths on the curriculum of all schools? Can we move beyond the illusion that excessive wealth is ‘not causing harm’?  Today’s politics have placed close to 30% of America’s wealth in the hands of 1% of the people.  The dualistic, competitive mind has caused great harm.

“Divinity is present everywhere but obscured by identification with the mind and the body.

The Eye of the I is the Self of Divinity expressed as Awareness.  The unmanifest, transcendental divinity of Allah/God/Brahman/Krishna becomes manifest as the Self/Atman–the immanent divinity.

Spiritual evolution occurs as the result of removing obstacles and not actually acquiring anything new.  Devotion enables surrender of the mind’s vanities and cherished illusions  so that it progressively becomes more free and more open to the light of Truth.”

from David Hawkins, The Eye of the I  p. 30

“Having a Big Mind means to remain unbiased and open.  It is the mind which does not stamp a fixed value on everything, nor decide on things simply by feelings and sentiments. This does not mean that we become like vegetables, knowing or understanding nothing.  We have to delve more deeply than that into the significance of Big Mind.”

from Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, How to Cook Your Life

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

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

Creative art may come from the subconscious or unconscious, but definitely not from the self-conscious.

The antidote to the pain of greed is generosity and simplicity.

“If your mind leaves the sound of the horn, obstacles will appear.”  William Adams

Consider a screenplay entitled  “Stuff”

I don’t really care what political party you are.  Are you capable of having a conversation about the stewardship of family, community, nation and planet?

Entitled to Nothing.  Grateful for Everything.

Let’s explore just how you belong.  How far will you go?  Where you stop is where violence begins.  (a case for open minds)

The illusion is that things stop.

Conformity is overrated.  Winning is overrated.  Just aim to be your best expression with harm to none.

Aging…do it softly.  Let the eyes surrender detail of entropy.  Go deeper.

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

Aging and life experience produces asymmetry.  Our work is to hold balance, alignment and energy.  This takes discipline.

It’s important to teach our children that ‘empty = full’ and ‘empty = not empty’.  It’s a deeper question without answer.

Our practice is to let go the ‘thought’ that we’re separate, cultivating the deeper experiential feeling that we’re connected, belong and never alone.

The paradox is that when practicing ‘mindfulness’, the mind must be emptied.

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

When the mind leaves the posture (the breath, the tone, the present moment, God), obstacles appear.

The poisons are fear, greed and ignoring.

The antidotes are love/generosity, gratitude/generosity, and awakened awareness/sharing.

Opening to joy for what we have slows greed’s venom, opening space for lasting satisfaction.

It’s all blessing.

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

Beware (fear) or Be Aware (to love, generosity, forgiveness and gratitude)

Celebrate or cerebrate.  Feel or think?

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

Judgement is an obstacle to love.

The brain can’t create and criticize within the same moment.

There is no audience.  Just the fear of judgment.  Be played to your fullest.

So where do we find sustaining joy?  It comes from the felt sense of full-ness, never from the felt sense of lack-ness.

There are different kinds of happy.  Cultivate our awareness to different kinds of happy.  You can’t build anything on a negative belief.  This determines creative beauty or ugly destruction.

Everything that’s happening is the expression of wholeness.

Thinking still happens after liberation, but there’s no one listening.

Simple, ordinary and absolutely stunning.  Everything arises as new in love-ness.

Meditation…not ‘trying’ to get away from thought, but aiming to enter thoughtlessness.

The greatest addiction (intoxicant) of all is the thought of ME.

No one has ever killed anybody.  The idea anyone has done anything falls apart.

I have my experience.  You have yours.  Mine can never be yours and yours can never be mine.  The illusion/delusion is that I can make mine yours.  This is where violence starts.

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

The dualistic mind believes in permanence, yet impermanence is Life.

Not taking things for granted moves us to appreciation, awareness and great fullness, eventually arriving in joy.

How do contemporary physics teachers explain Oneness…the scientifically proven interconnection of all things?

The whole heart doesn’t know thought, words and the intellect.

Periodically fill out your ‘feeling’ card, on a 1-10 scale, identifying where you are: enough vs. not enough, lacking vs. full, negative vs. positive, bad vs. good.

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

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

Conformity is overrated.  Precision and education are underrated.  Conformity is a dangerous condition where 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.

Oh…damaged by the spirit of competition.  Competition is the extreme grasping at the expense of another’s loss.  The moment is all there is.  I may temporarily feel better with a win.  I may relish beating you, but it’s not sustaining and the vacuum once again arrives.

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

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, thus opening and making space for the new.

Not this moment?  YES, this moment.  From our first tastes of object permanence we start our training in desiring different moments.  Our work is to return awareness to this arising moment, fresh. I want to be HERE!

Perhaps the most absurd trend is how we’ve made multi-tasking (split attention) a skill in comparative, with a reward to notions of better, all at the expense of our best (quality).

Bows and wows to you!