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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A simple practice is to return to our breath. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sample

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

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

From The Protean Body by Don Johnson

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

In The Silent Pulse, George Leonard writes:

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

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

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

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

The Blues...Just Be It

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

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

Commentary on the Blues

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

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

Sample audio songs:

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

Five Long Years video at Stasiu’s

Don’t Keep Me Wondering

Ride… Blues to rock your soul…

Check the calendar for performance schedule.

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

Sample songs:

I Shall Be Released

Check the calendar for performance schedule.

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

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

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

From Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching:

The Way abides in nonaction
Yet nothing is left undone.

From The Heart of Being by John Daido Loori:

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

From The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo:

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

From Returning to Silence by Dainin Katagiri Roshi:

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

Wholehearted Living by Somebody Else:

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

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

Wholehearted living always aims deeper.

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

Check the calendar for dates.

Brothers...Just Be It

Today’s relational focus seems to violate the notion that ‘we are each other’, a notion that’s been repeatedly expressed through ancient spiritual wisdom and now in science.  We can ‘feel’ this need to surrender to understanding.  Just Be It provides several opportunities to study and train in the dialog process.

Listening Skills Training: Participants will study the art of nonjudgmental listening and apply this skill in role play and real situations relevant to their need.  Whether in family or business relationships, skilled active listening technique is a science that demands repeated training for effectiveness in collaborative efforts and conflict resolution.  Given that violence begins where listening stops, effective listening training may be the most potent path to harmony and peace.  Nonjudgmental listening from the heart is the center in moving from monologue to dialogue. (more…)