Take care of the body

Take care of your body.  It is the only place you have to live.
-Jim Rohn

Day 22 for the pain; day 20 for the more objective symptoms (signs, I guess). I might see if I can get into see someone tonight or tomorrow. I know I have to 'do' something.   

Doing is sometimes necessary

In my desire to sit and be, I  hope I haven't given the impression that 'doing' is never necessary. There are many times in Life when action is required. I also hope I did not imply that the body is not something we have to take care of.  It isn't as significant as many of us think it is, but it is a wonderful, miraculous vehicle that allows us to do what we are here to do: Experience Life and communicate that experience with one another.  We need to respect it and honor it for that reason.  So we do, on occasion, need to do something to take care of the body. The doing, however, has to be conscious and inspired doing rather than unconscious and reactive.

Reactive Doing

Reactive doing is ego based action done out of fear and resistance to what is happening in the present moment. It involves denying, projecting, blaming, acting out against someone or self, numbing, avoiding, attacking or defending. It is counterproductive to true healing.

Well as soon as I experienced the pain 22 days ago I could have panicked.  I could have got lost in what my mind wanted to say about it, dwelling on the worse case scenario.  I could have been consumed by it. Without questioning, I could have reverted back to old dependency needs and belief systems that's said that only someone or something outside me can fix this. I could have rushed off to the nearest emergency room and said, "Do something about this or at least tell me what it is."  Considering my past history, that would not have been all that productive.  The pain would have likely been dismissed and the other symptoms diminished. I would have mentally owned that causing more shame, more tension and eventually more pain.  I may have been told to 'wait and see'. I would not go back a second time. I would have reacted from ego, not the deeper part of Self.

The doing that we can do without...is the reactive doing.

Inspired doing

Inspired doing is the action that comes form a higher guidance.  The deeper part of Self directs it and it takes us towards real healing with forgiveness, acceptance and peace.

By sitting with the pain for a bit and not 'doing' anything but watching it from that calm space, getting to know it, accepting and allowing it I was freed of the resistance and the  fear.  My mind was clearer.  My body wasn't ruling.  My decision to wait and see seemed justified.  I knew in my heart it wasn't going to matter if I waited one week or three, so I allowed myself that time to become somewhat 'friendly' with what was happening. I had time to remove story, drama and narration from the physical experience so that I could see clearly.  I determined what I had the power to do  about it and asked the question: "Is medicine really necessary?  Do I have to seek outside myself for a solution? " The longer the signs and symptoms persisted I realized that it would be a good idea to get it checked out by a body mechanic. 

So I go with a calm mind, confidence that my symptomology is worthy of consideration, and with a willingness to accept whatever it is for being what it is. That is inspired doing.

That doesn't mean you should wait 22 days

I waited because I had a good understanding what was happening and what the risks were.  I kind of triaged myself.  If you are not sure, however, don't wait.  Pain, remember, is a way your body communicates with you...it tells you that there is something going on inside be it physical or something else. Listen!  Of course, you don't have to listen for 22 days lol.

Medicine can play a beneficial role

Sometimes I read what I write and think I sound like A Christian Scientist.  I am not.  A Course has some similar ideologies but I don't adhere to all those either.  I just truly believe we are responsible for our bodies and if we control the mind somehow, we will effect the way our bodies function.  We are responsible for our own  health. Medicine is not the only way to heal. I do think, however, it and other health professions can play an important role in helping us to do so.

It's all good.  All is well in my world.

Mind Moves the Body

The mind moves the body, and the body follows the mind. Logically, negative thought patterns harm not only the mind but the body.
H.E. Davey; Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation

Day 21 for pain, 19 for other symptoms.

I looked back on the history of this pain today.  It first became quite noisy in the spring-summer of 2017. (I could have sworn it was only months ago...time does go faster as one ages  lol).  I had many of the same symptoms with it then that I do now. It wasn't as intense or as persistent but it was the same thing.  The cluster of symptoms that came with it scared me and I will be honest, I feared the worse.

I had an ultrasound done around that time that revealed a small but not tiny ovarian cyst which was later after a repeat ultrasound(three months later by another gyne I was referred to) called a predominant follicle, even though it had doubled in size.  I was assured it would go away when menopause kicked in. I was absolutely fine with that opinion and I eagerly anticipated the big day, gladly willing to put up with the symptoms. (Don't get me wrong: Though, I have learned to embrace the pain when I get it,  I am not at the point  where I  call it up and invite it over.  I can do without that type of company lol).

I was told that the ultrasound would be repeated in a year. I was shocked to realize today, it has been over a year and a half.

My mind is now jumping in here to build story, to put pieces together, to question, to assume, to speculate and to catastrophize the way it does. What if I am in menopause and have been since the beginning of my symptoms? Then this is not as benign as it looks. What if, what if, what if? 

Man the mind can be noisy lol. I know what the worse case scenario could be and all my symptoms do point that way...but...that doesn't mean that it is what it is.  In fact...it is unlikely because people don't live one and a half years with that possibility. I know that too.  But mind likes to stir up fear and drama doesn't it? If it is going to be something ...it plots...it has to be the biggest something out there. Body reacts.

What does this do to the pain itself? Well my body tenses up in response to the fear response being activated (good old fight, flight and freeze) and with muscle tension comes more pain. With the pain...the other symptoms and more muscle tension...and the body is  activated in a chronic cycle leading to fatigue.  We are sick in the mind, more so than in the body. The body responds to the mind. ...not the other way around.

So, though I do need to suck it up and go get this checked out (have been avoiding for all kinds of reasons), my major goal  has to be in settling the mind...freeing the experience from the mental chatter that surrounds it. This does not have to cause a fear response.  I can work on that.  :)

All is well.

What brings you here?

Life as you well know is a continuous succession: it's great, it's lousy, it's agreeable, it's disagreeable; it's joyous and  blissful, and other times, it's sad.  And being with that, being with this continual succession of  agreeable and disagreeable with an open spirit, open heart, and open mind, that's why I sit to meditate.
Pema Chodron (from How to Meditate, Sounds True, 2013)

What brings you here?

What brings you here to this point in your life where you may be seeking more through a practice of reconstructing the mind?

Maybe you are looking for  "more" and as promised by some fields of thought out there you believe you can change your external life by thinking about what you want during meditation?  Is your goal to change the externals in your life...have more wealth, more stuff, more health, more love in the form of a special relationship  or more knowledge?  Is it a desire for more that brings you here?

Are you here because you want to feel better emotionally?  Are you sick of feeling sad, angry, or anxious and you believe meditation will make all those feelings go away?

Are you wanting to put an end to thinking...to quiet that monkey mind and be free of its ceaseless chattering once and for all?  Is it your goal to "stop' or "control" thinking?

Are you looking for a continued state of  peace or well being or something other than this one? Maybe you see meditation as a way to relax and de-stress?

Is it a desire to end your own suffering once and for all? Have you reached a wall and finally realize that the only way out is through?

Maybe , if you said yes to any of the above, you will find what you are looking for through mindfulness and meditation or maybe you won't.

What I learned

As a person who came to the practice with a all of these ambitions at one time or another, I have discovered a thing or two. 

• Suffering did not go away with meditation practice.  I became, in fact, even more acutely aware of suffering all around me and in me.  It didn't go away.  I realize it isn't going to. Suffering is apart of life. All beings suffer.
• I didn't get "more" favorable life circumstances.  :)  In fact, when it comes to worldly things, I lost big time. My external challenges did not dissipate in terms of number and intensity...they multiplied. My life circumstances did not change for the better even though my experience of Life did.
• I didn't find this elusive "happiness" we all tend to seek. I found a lot of 'yucky!' Many of the 'difficult' emotions I had stuffed under the surface popped up for me to deal with and there are still plenty more down there. Joy and bliss are fleeting to say the least.
• I did not control or stop my thinking...far from it.  My thoughts are still bumping around up in my head though the spaces between 'thinking' are getting longer (and I like mean in fractions of a msc).  I realize that the mind is not going to magically stop doing what is natural for it to do no matter how many times I pop a squat on my cushion.
• Though I have moments of pure contentment and peace they are fleeting.  I have not experienced a long  continual stretch of joy in a long time. I still feel anxious at times, angry or upset. As far as well being, my body seems to be falling a part lol.  I have less of an experience of 'stress' though.
• The wall is at my back ...yes...and I finally know that if I do not want to be crushed, I have to go through suffering.  Meditation offers me a way through and I am taking my first  baby steps.  It is not a speedy process.  And it is not an easy one.

So my original  goals for meditation and mindfulness practice have not been fulfilled.  they may never be. They may be for you though.  Who knows? 

Modified Goals

What I have done with my goals, however, is change them. 

What I seek from meditation now is merely an opportunity to make peace with the present moment, to connect with the Life in me and around me and to live from that place. That means developing a willingness to openly accept all the moment offers: the circumstances, all emotions, my thoughts, states  of less than well being, and even suffering. I am learning to allow it into my experience. I open my heart to it. I stay with it and I learn from it.

That's my reason for being here.

All is well.

Use the body In the service of others

If you shift your focus from oneself to others, and think more about others' well being and welfare, it has an immediate, liberating effect.
-Dalai Lama

What We Use the Body for

The central lesson is this; that what you use the body for it will become to you....The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition.
ACIM:TM:12:5:1,7

Day 18 for the pain, day 16 for the other stuff that goes with it.  I would like to say that I staid nice and peaceful over the last 48 with it but that wouldn't be true.  Ego stepped in at some point and there I was, once again, building story around it  and  resistance against it. Sigh! 

I even, after an intense patch, slipped behind the computer and typed in what my mind has diagnosed it as. You know how the mind is...loving the drama and the gore...it chooses the worse case scenario lol. I thought for some reason I would get something from doing that...some dramatic self recognition as tragic heroine? My identification with story only  led to a long projection into my future which suddenly became very limited.  I caught myself before I read too much and walked away. I carried fear with me.

I did want to distract from the pain though and from what my mind was saying about it. Tylenol was no longer doing the trick.Unfortunately, I couldn't "do" to distract because that just increases the symptoms...so I didn't have my normal egoic means of coping to fall back on.  I couldn't really meditate unless I meditated on the pain itself and one can only do that so much lol.  Yoga, my go to for bringing me back from my head to my body...was also a no-no...that makes matters a little worse. So it was like...what do I do?  Didn't I have to "do' something about it?

The Body's Function is to allow for Teaching and Learning

Then I read the above and these line from ACIM:

As they advance in their profession, they[the teachers] become more and more certain that the body's function is but to let God's Voice speak through it to human ears.
ACIM:TM:12:4:2


It was like wow!  It all suddenly made sense. I don't have to do anything but accept what my body is and what it is doing.

 My body is just that...a vehicle and a means for me to communicate my learning through.  My function is just to remind people, including myself, that we are more than this...what we see.  The only way people will hear this truth, the only way I heard it, is through another body or the work of another body.  I need, you need, another body to speak the words, write the message, express the thoughts and point in a certain direction. We need a body for that. And when we are ready...and only when we are ready we hear the teacher and  begin to learn and understand that we are so much more than these bodies that the teaching and learning come through. The bodies are only teaching and learning tools.

They are not us and they are not all that significant.  Therefore what they are experiencing is also pretty insignificant. This Life is not all about 'little me'.  "Little me" clings to the body and insists it functions a certain way so it remains separate and protected from harm.  The greater "I", however, sees the body as nothing more than a means to teach and to learn.  It sees no separation and no need for defence or attack. It doesn't place a lot of significance on the body so it doesn't see 'sickness' and 'death' in the same way little me sees it.

Sickness is Impossible?

It realizes:

Because it [the body] is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die.  When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. ...God's Voice will tell him when he has fulfilled his role, just as It tells him what his function is.  He does not suffer in either going or remaining.  Sickness is now impossible to him. ACIM:TM:12:5:5-6,10-11

That doesn't mean the body won't be injured, invaded by organisms or quickly growing cells at times our minds are forgetting what they are here to do.  It doesn't mean that there isn't a life span with a generalized expiration date for the human form. It just means that as long as we are aware that we are here to perform a function and we are performing that function the body will carry us through until we have done what we are here to do.  Letting go and trusting that brings peace.

We don't decide

We don't decide when it has been fulfilled, God does.  Out of fear and a belief in separation from God...we may adopt a false sense of separation and the body may be negatively impacted it by it.  But if we are aware and seeing clearly, we will fulfill our purpose.  There is no way that we can't.

So when we are done what we are here to do...the body will be gently 'laid by'. There is no suffering 'going or remaining'. Once we get to that point of our understanding...we don't fear what the ego  labels as death.  We see that our function has been fulfilled and it is time to go. There is no clinging, or fighting to hang on or holding back.  Imagine being at that point?

Anyway...reading this section soothed me and helped to ease a lot of fear about what this may or may not be.  I don't know and I won't know until I seek a medical diagnosis.  I may get a favorable medical diagnosis in the physical world sense and I may get an unfavorable one.  I don't know.  I just know that it isn't up to little me.  :)   I can find some peace in that.

So what did I do

So I decided after feeling a certain letting go to get beyond myself. I concentrated on others...after all that is what we are here for.  I spent 10 hours helping my daughter with her chemistry.  Believe me ...Ideal gas equations are much more painful than anything the body can do to us. I distracted from my pain by helping and thinking about someone other than myself....it worked.

All is well in my world.

Pain is Life

Whatever is here is Life.
-Eckhart Tolle

I like to hear that when I go into my 16th day with this pain that ebbs and flows in intensity as so many so called 'problems' do. I like to think that the challenge is helping me to evolve to get deeper into my understanding of what is really important.  I do like to see how much I have actually grown in this area.

The Old Way of Dealing With Pain

There was a time when I would have been pretty freaked out by the pain (and the other symptoms that are taking place with it).  I would spend my time resisting it...shouting out, "Why are you doing this to me now? On top of everything else you have to lay this on me!  Haven't I got enough to deal with?"

I would have tensed up when it increased in intensity resisting it physically as well as mentally.  I would have curled up in a ball.  I would have paced (okay I do pace a bit when the intensity increases lol).  I would have moaned and groaned.

I would have denied what my rational mind and knowledge base  was saying about it.  I would over dramatize it when I could deny no longer.  I would have created a lot of story around it, a lot of "Oh no...this could be really, really bad! But I am stuck with it...look what I have been  through before when I tried to get help for pain...I can't go through that again. I won't get help for this so why bother."

I would have made an enemy of this pain, struggling and fighting against it.  I would therefore have been pushing against  each  moment I experienced the pain in or I would have  been waiting impatiently for that moment to be over. By so doing I would have made an enemy, not only out of it, but out of Life. Because whatever is here...is Life.  Pain is here in this moment.  Pain is Life.

It just is

The pain is.  It is a part of my moment and a part of my life.  I know that it, in itself, is not a problem.  I make it a problem when I resist it. So I am not resisting it.

When we allow pain into our experience, be it physical or emotional, we deal with it a lot differently than we would if we resist it. We open up to it and we can learn from it.

Become friendly with the 'isness' of whatever it is that is arising in the present moment instead of internally arguing with it, complaining about it, denying it, mentally projecting yourself elsewhere or getting very unhappy about it. (Tolle, Aging Consciously, 2019)

Pain can bring us closer to that place of true understanding the exists beyond the physicality of things.  Physical pain, when it gets intense,  can do this because it is so physical.  It is often hard to deny its presence or to think beyond it when it hits the 8 or 9 on the pain scale. The body can become loud. It is then we must do two things if we want to deal with it consciously: overcome it or transcend it.

Overcoming Pain

We can overcome it to some degree (or at least diminish its intensity) by relaxing into it as much as possible.  Once we stop resisting it ( resistance  is where most of the tension comes from) and just accept it into our moment, we relax a bit.  Once we exchange the thought:"This shouldn't be happening" for ... "It should be happening because it is."...the struggle ceases to overwhelm us and we are just left with the pain.  Pain without struggle and without thought is a lot easier to deal with than pain wrapped in tension and resistance.  Pain may actually go away. We can over come.

Transcending Pain

We can also transcend pain.  When we transcend physical pain, we may not necessarily stop pain from making its noise within our bodies but we find a way to detach from  the  noise of the body and the chatter the mind makes about it.  Very advanced yogis do this all the time: They are able to meditate for hours in the freezing cold, able to lay on a bed of nails, walk through burning coals, go days without eating or drinking.  It can be done...Even in the secular sense people can be anesthetized without a drop of anesthetic through something called "White Glove Anesthesia". 

Though I am certainly not there...I intend to hit the Tylenol big time when it gets bad or go running for help if it gets any worse...it is hopeful to note that it can be done.  We can actually transcend pain by using that higher part of ourselves.

Still  May Need Help

I am not suggesting by any means that we ignore our pain and suck it all up.  Pain is often an urgent communication from the body that something needs to be looked at.  On the esoteric level...sure it may have deeper significance...but on the physical level, where  most of us still are, it is a cry that needs to heard.

 My new understanding of things is not making me stupid lol...I know that pain is my body's way of being heard. Something is going on in there. I know I am far from Yogi status.  I am listening and will do something about it. I will seek help .  I won't run in a panic but I will gradually make my way there.

In the mean time, I will learn and I will teach.  That is why I share this experience with you.  Pain offers an amazing teaching and learning tool for all of us, regardless of where we are in this process of waking up.

Need to See Things Differently

We need to look at the world differently.  Pain is a part of that world.  We cannot stop pain from entering our lives but we can change the way we look at it and the world at large.

What the world [pain] is, is but a fact.  You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how you would see it.  Indeed, you must choose this. ACIM:TM:11:1:9-11

All is well.

The Insignificance of the Body and the Nature of Illness

...The insignificance of the body must be an acceptable idea...With this idea is pain forever gone.
-ACIM:TM:II:5.:3:12-4:1

Hmm!  Do you think the body is significant? 

I still must to some extent because I still have pain. lol  I am getting there though.  I am allowing the pain to some degree.  I am not struggling against it.  I am aware when my mind starts to attempt to wrap it up in a pretty package with a nice neat label on it to conceptualize the physical cause and treatment of it. I am aware when that tendency to want to create story with it, using the drama from my past experiences and the memories of so called "insults" from others, to come into play. Being aware helps me to step back from any mental fluff ego stuffs around the pain and to see it and experience it for it is. My mind and body are simply communicating...nothing more, nothing less.  My mind is responsible for the pain. The body listens.

So you foolishly think you just have to  suck up all pain?

No. I don't particularly like pain lol.  I take Tylenol ES when it gets bad.  I am watching it from a physiological perspective as well.  I know if it continues or gets any worse that I will have to "treat the body".  Though I don't focus on the cause, I have a good idea what it is. I will eventually  need to put aside any past painful health seeking memories and  get it looked after by some professional who focuses on bodies.  I know that.

Not there yet!

I am not that evolved where I can use my mind to cure myself.  I am not 100 % faithful in this line from A Course: A patient decides that this is so and he recovers. I am not yet where those people are when they are magically cured by "belief" and are able to get up out of their wheel chairs and walk across the  room after getting a bonk on the head from someone claiming to have the holy spirit flowing through them. I am not there.... yet!

On the conceptual level, I am a firm believer in the Placebo/Nocebo effect and believe all illness is psychosomatic .  I have yet, however,  to  fully internalize that belief on the experiential level. Though part of me knows that I have (well my ego mind has) chosen this pain, this condition, my physical ailments for some bizarre reason I have yet to understand, I still partially at least  operate under an old ingrained ideology that sickness or pain has chosen me.

Until I realize that I see value in pain I will not heal, I will have pain.

Healing is accomplished the instant the sufferer no longer sees any value in pain. ACIM:TM:5:I:1

Value in Pain?? Are you insane?

Yes there is egoic value in pain and yes we are all a little insane until we finally see that we, on some level ( not to be blamed for but to be forgiven for),  choose sickness.  The mind, according to ACIM,  uses sickness to keep us focused on the physical world rather than the deeper one. It tricks us into believing we are victims to the body and that the world, determined by the body's five senses, is all there is. We are at the mercy of that world surrounding us as well as the body's limitations.   The ego needs us to believe the body is more significant than the mind in our experience of life. As long as we are here in this mind-body frame of thinking and living...ego is safe.  It will not be lost to the power that generates the mind. So on some level of egoic thinking...pain has value.

For sickness is an election; a decision.  It is the choice of weakness, in the mistaken conviction that it is strength.  When this occurs, real strength [the mind and spirit] is seen as a threat and health as danger. -ACIM:TM:5:I:4-6

Healthy minds and healthy bodies are a threat to the ego because who we really are is a threat to the ego.  That's all.

How do we get rid of pain and illness once and for all then?

We wake up!  We see who we are and put ego and all its crazy control games to the side.  Without ego Life acts through us.  We heal.  Without ego you are a blessing to the world. (Tolle, What Really Matters, 2019). I am not saying our bodies  won't ever get sick or they won't die.  They will... as is the nature of all things in this physical world.  Our bodies are physical things. Every 'thing' is destined to dissolve. (Tolle, 2019) 

I am just saying the mind is stronger than the body.  The mind doesn't follow the body's lead...the body follows the mind's.  How freeing that could be for all of us to realize that.

I am not asking you to believe it though if you are not ready.  This idea that we create our own bodily ills is a hard pill to swallow.   I know , I myself, have a long way to go until I truly believe that, but recognizing that what happens to my body is not all that significant certainly makes accepting pain a lot easier. Maybe, for your own benefit you could try opening your mind to the possibility of it, just enough to know that you may have some power in getting better and healing yourself.

All is well in my world.

References

ACIM (2007) Manual for Teachers Section 5: How Healing is Accomplished. Mill Valley: Foundation for Inner Peace.

Lipton, Bruce (2005 ) The Biology of Belief. Author's Pub Core

Tolle, E. (Jan 2019) What Really Matters.  Eckhart Tolle 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDU2bNN9ANM

Pain and Healing

Our lives are tailor made for our awakening.
-Adyashanti


A year ago today I wrote about healing from the perception of illness and reclaiming that sense of holistic wellness we are all entitled to. Ironically, as I study the Teacher's Manual for ACIM, exactly a year later,  I come into the teaching on healing. I am also experiencing for the first time in a long time another intense bout of physical pain. It kept me awake for much of the night because I struggled against it or fought to 'label and conceptualize' its cause and what I should do about it.

Coincidence?

I see now that the circumstances  for learning are all laid out in front of me like lessons from some exquisite lesson plan. My life or life situation  is tailored made for my awakening.

So I sat with the pain today.  I just sat with it.  I did not struggle against it.  I did not try to analyze it or conceptualize it by diagnosing it or giving it a label (though I could lol).  I didn't create story around it (though part of me really wanted to because I am so addicted to story:). I just sat with it.  I breathed into it.  I allowed it to be whatever it was and I even embraced it.  It was the most remarkable experience to embrace that pain.  There was a true letting go and in that letting go the healing arose.

The pain is still there but I don't give it any value other than pointing to the reality that the true healing that has to occur in me goes beyond the body. All illness and all healing takes place in the mind and realizing that  is what waking up is all about. We are all  given the very unique life circumstances and the learning challenges needed to help us do that.

The acceptance of  sickness is a decision of the mind, for a purpose for which it would use the body, is the basis of healing...A patient decides this is so, and he recovers...Who is the physician? Only the mind of the patient himself.   ACIM:TM:II:2:1-6

All is well!

The Insult

Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river.
-Cordell Hull (Brainy Quotes)

I love this little quote and so see the obvious wisdom in it.  Eckhart Tolle in The Nature of Ego and Identity,  tells his audience that we should not insult people who are still very much unconscious, especially if they are bigger than us. Like the alligator they are likely to "snap" back and sometimes that snapping can result in physical harm. Ouch!

Seriously though...insult often leads to more insult, does it not? The quote applies to everyday human relating. Insults come in many forms during our interactions: verbal, nonverbal, mental or behavioural.  They come from the mouth of others and they come form the voices in our own head. Sometimes they are intentional, meant to hurt and other times they aren't.

We are all alligators to some extent.   We have a tendency to snap back when we hurt don't we and when we do we might be pretty vicious.  As human beings we insult and we are insulted. We play an ego against ego game where no one wins. The river, then, could represent the space of distance between little "me" and the greater Self we have to cross.  Until we are conscious and free of ego identification, we do not want to insult other egos.

Say what, crazy lady?

"Weirdo!"  "You are stupid!" "Lazy!" "You are just not good enough!" "You are not as pretty as she is or as strong as he is."

How do you feel when someone lays one of those babies on you?  I guess, if you are like the majority of us who are not quite fully awakened, you won't feel very good when insulted. You may not initially be aware of how you feel because, as is human nature,  we automatically and so quickly fly off into a counter reaction of some kind when it happens.  The attack-defense-attack all happens so fast we are often  not  even  aware of what is happening internally.

 If we took the time, however, to slow the "Thought-feeling-behaviour" reaction down, we would see that we are feeling very "diminished."  It is almost as if those words just stripped away  all that was valuable about us and left us small, and weak and so, so "less than" everyone else.   Insults sting big time and they lead to a whole chain of so called problematic behavior.

What's happening?

A winding down of the process backwards from the time our palm made contact with the other person's cheek or  the even more damaging counter insult fell from our lips, reveals that a series of things occur inside of us in response to the insult or our comparison to others.

• Someone outside of us or inside of us  (don't forget we often carry around a host of inner critics who love to insult us by comparing us to others) verbalizes, in one way or another, a judgment, an opinion, an idea about who or what we are.
• Our mind quickly owns it and tries to make sense of it with thought. 
• Thought dependent ego gets involved. As is the case for most of us, Shamer ego is standing in the corner of our psyches rubbing its greedy little  hands together in earnest anticipation  for such a comment to be fed to the mind.  It  leaps out and grabs it shouting, "This is what I need to show you (and Redeemer ego)  just how 'unworthy' you are. You are weirder, stupider, lazier, uglier, weaker than everyone else and just not good enough."
• We hear it!    We believe it!!!  We own it as truth! We decide we have fallen short in the comparison game. All that so called positive self-esteem we may have had crumbles and we fall thumping down the ladder rungs one at a time.
• Then we begin to feel pretty crappy.  We feel diminished and ashamed. Shamer ego is in heaven because it seems to have control of us and our experience.  We are not in the moment...we are in our head...stuck on that insult.  It will be all we will hear and the resulting feeling of shame will be all  we will know about Life for a period of time.
• The mind tries to restore it sense of self.  Redeemer ego steps in to rebuild this sense of self or to at least stop the mind and body from experiencing these nasty emotions.  It decides to "do" something about it. (Redeemer is a doer.) It needs to defend or attack to restore the now fragile and broken sense of self.
• We react behaviourally. We strike out in one way or another in an attempt to rid ourselves of this awful shame feeling and to further protect self. We say something even meaner back to the person who insulted us or if the insult came from another body we may even strike the other person . If the voice came from inside we may strike out at the person our mind is comparing us to with some insult.  We may also strike out at our own  body...pushing it harder, making it do more to restore itself-to be more than the other or we may numb in an unhealthy way. Our goal is to take the focus off our defectiveness by making the other person more defective than us in one way or another.  We project any sense of 'insult' away from self.
• We hurt because we were hurt. We defend and attack.

All this happens so fast, like a knee-jerk reaction.  We hear the insult and we react!

Does it have to be this way though?

No, when we begin to  wake up things will change.  When we become more conscious...we will not "react" to the insult.  We will see that it is ego that reacts, not who we really are.  We will see that it is ego that insults, not who we really are.  It is ego that insults and ego that reacts.   Ego against ego cause nothing but unnecessary suffering. 

We will also see when we wake up, that we are not our ego.  We are not this fragile sense of self we have become overly identified with that is at the mercy of Shamer and Redeemer's antics; that gets offended so easily.

We will see that we are not thought and thought cannot determine who or what we really are. We will see that mind has created "an idea" of us that is too limited to be us.

Eventually, eventually after much practice and waking up we will see that we are the spaciousness, the consciousness, and the awareness that watches the ego game at play.  From here we respond, rather than react.

So what  can we do when we get insulted?

When that insult comes our way...and it will someday from some source or another...we do not need to react, we do not have to play along. We can respond from a higher place.

• We work to be more aware in most of our moments so when the insult comes we are already there and prepared to deal with it in a healthy, conscious way. We stay present, stay conscious.
• If we are just awakening, and feeling that need to react, we remind ourselves that there is a better way to handle it. We can use the mantra, "I choose peace, other than this."
• We recognize the ego in the other person and we recognize the ego in us.  As soon as we see the insult and its request for reaction as an ego thing, we can withdraw from it and choose not to partake in a battle of senseless ego drama.
• We allow the insult and the internal feelings. We decide  not to struggle against it.
• We can use a tiny bit of thought, but I don't believe we have to, to see if there is some truth in the insult that we can learn from and grow from. 
• Instead of asking, "Is it true, am I really stupider than that person?" We ask..."Is my ego still trying to control me by getting me to compare or fall into the comparison game? Do I still have a desire to react and does part of me want to hurt that person or myself because of it?"
• Be aware of a tendency to want to project outward, to numb from the shame we are feeling, or to hurt the other person or ourselves.  Be aware of any remaining tendency to defend or attack.
• We stay aware and seek to be forgiving both of the other person and ourselves for not yet being where we want to be.
• Instead of reacting with ego, we can make a choice to respond with spirit. Spirit takes us above thought, not below it.  We can be open to the other person's pain and suffering (as well as our own) that lead to the insult and our internal response.  Just be aware of it and be compassionate
• That doesn't mean we own the insult or that  we allow ourselves to be abused...we just see, understand and walk away
• We decide to sit with the feelings generated by the insult instead of doing something about it.  (That includes to decide not to numb or harm self)
• We look beyond the reactivity of the other person to any pain that might be there and we forgive and remain compassionate.  (Pretty challenging when you feel like someone has just slapped you across the face, I know.)
• We remind ourselves that the real attack is not from the other but from our own minds and this need to protect this identification we have with the conceptual self most of us are stuck on.
• We remind ourselves that we are not this little image we have of ourselves ...we are so much more.  The other person is not what they are portraying to us in that moment...they are so much more.
• We are One. The other person may never realize that.  What is important, is that we do.

Insult me if you like lol. All is well in my world..

References

Tolle, Eckhart (Jan 2019) The Nature of ego and Identity. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEEb84yCQU0

Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can.
-Martin Luther King Jr

Attention! World Looking for Teachers: No Knowledge Required

A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one.  His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else's.
-ACIM:TM:1:1-2


I don't want you to get hung up on that word teacher.  I  especially do not want you to get blocked by the  Course's use of A Teacher of God and on its masculine terminology. These are just words and concepts used to express a message ...nothing more. The message behind them is crucial to our understanding. The teacher role is not selective based on gender, special status or degree of knowledge.  We are all automatically teachers in one way or another when we choose to be. According to Eckhart Tolle in The Deepest Truth of Human existence once the "shift" happens in us we simply teach by demonstrating a different way of living than the way most of us live now.

No knowledge is required.

Choice?

The choice we make is not so much in the choice to become a teacher, but in the choice to be present and aware instead of being stuck in the madness of our minds. We unknowingly make a choice to teach, when we make a choice to wake up from the illusion of what we had falsely believed was real and important . We become teachers when we realize in that awakening that we really know nothing.  That is the true learning and it is true learning or 'unlearning" that brings us to this teaching role. (Eckhart Tolle, 2019)

It is the function of God's teachers to bring true learning to the world.  Properly speaking it is unlearning that they bring, for that is "true learning" in this world.
ACIM:TM:4:A:X:3:7

Conceptual Knowledge is not real knowledge

All we think we knew, prior to awakening,  is just conceptual knowledge based on thoughts, ideas, emotions dictated by ego's  "idea" of "me" in "my life".  It is not true knowing.  It is not true understanding of what is real and what it means to "be" who we really are. When we start to awaken and develop the tiniest bit of comfort with not knowing who we are or what anything really is we learn through unlearning and thus have no choice but to teach in one way or another.

In other words it is not conceptual knowledge that we need to be happy and peaceful so therefore we do not set out to learn more conceptual knowledge or to teach it.  We set out to undo the knowledge in our heads that obscures the true knowing. We put down our defenses and our illusions. Once we begin to do so we are guided to teach at a higher level while we discover peace and joy and true knowing.

No one can become an advanced teacher of God until he fully understands that defenses are but foolish guardians of mad illusions....Slowly at first he lets himself be undeceived  but he learns faster as his trust increases.  It is not danger that comes when defenses are laid down.  It is safety.  It is peace.  It is joy.  and it is God.
 ACIM:TM:4:A:VI:1:6-15


What is this true knowing?

True knowing  is the spacious awareness that exists beyond all the unconsciousness that plagues our planet today. All the identification with story, "me" and "mine" and "my" is what makes up the unconscious world, the "normal" world most of us are lost in.  The over identification with the "interpretations" our minds make about what is going on in each moment forms the basis for our "conceptual" basis of understanding.  Thoughts, feelings, and actions based on our perceptual experiences determines how most of us live.  And since most of us live this way, it is considered normal.

True Knowing is not Normal...yet

This true knowing is what exists beyond dependence on mental concepts to make sense of our world.  It exists beyond the  need to protect and defend to the point of attack and violence.  It is what exists beyond all the book learning and conditioning that gets us to believe that this body and this need to be "normal" is all that is important. It exists beyond our dependence on judging things as "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong" etc  It is what  exists beyond thought.  It is in  the non judgmental , non interpretative spaciousness of true presence and awareness where  true knowing exists. (Eckhart Tolle, 2019)

It isn't normal maybe but it is what brings us peace. Opening our minds beyond what we think we knew frees us from the need for judgment.  Without judgment we find peace.

Open-mindedness comes from with lack of judgment. ...Only the open minded can be at peace, for they alone see reason for it.....
ACIM: TM:4:A:X:1-2

With this open-mindedness we are pulled into the teaching role more and more. We learn and we teach, and we teach and we learn.

No teacher of God can judge and hope to learn.
ACIM: TM:4:A:III:1:11

It is our goal as teachers, one by one, to make this knowing "normal".

We are not special

Another important thing to remember is that we are not special.   There is nothing 'special" about us as human forms in this role. We are just conduits for the teaching to come through. We are not the teaching! The teaching may come in different forms.  We may overtly teach in the traditional manner through lectures, satsangs or the written word.  We may teach through our examples like many of the Saints did.  We may teach through our creative expressions: paintings, poetry, or music.  We may simply teach through our presence.  When we choose to remain present in the midst of unconsciousness we are teaching.  It doesn't matter how we teach, we are not special.

The Teaching is Beyond Us

It is not about the little "me" in us. We do not necessarily set out to teach, though it may seem that way.  The teaching sets out to express Itself through us. As soon as we begin to choose, awareness has already chosen us. If we are getting ego gratification from our role or begin to see ourselves as special because of it...we are no longer teaching.  The ego can't teach. Only the spacious awareness, the presence, the Divine within us can teach.  Ego just gets in the way.

Egoic power is illusion. Eckhart Tolle

Becoming One

I like the way Tolle explains it.  He says we, as human beings, are ripples and within us is the ocean.  We remain isolated and afraid,seeing ourselves as separate ripples living independent lives away from the ocean as long as we are caught up in ego's illusions. We feel afraid, lonely, at risk for harm as long as we feel separated and disconnected.  Ego, our mind stuff, and conceptual knowledge keeps us believing we are separate ripples.   We do not realize we are the ocean and always have been. 

When we learn that we are the Ocean there is no longer a need to fear.  We have entered the spaciousness of what is.  We find peace and joy.  How can we not share that and teach that so all ripples remember who they are...who we, "as a collective whole" are.  We teach simply through our own choice of staying in the vast space of awareness that is us.

The world is calling us to teach.  We are all qualified.  No "conceptual" knowledge required.

All is well in my world.

References

ACIM 2007) Combined Volume : Manual for Teachers. Mill Valley: Foundations for Inner Peace.

Tolle, Eckhart. (January 2019) The Deepest Truth of human Existence. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbvm6tYuP1s

The Portal to Miracles

Once a certain level of presence arises…a challenge simply intensifies presence instead of the old reactive pattern [a little me tizzy fit of resisting what is]…The movement of intelligence goes into that moment that is challenging. So a challenge comes and it is faced completely in a field if intense awareness.  ….It is not mentally analyzed… what is dealing with the challenge is not the limited conditioned mind with its conditioning.   What is now dealing with the situation is the one universal intelligence.  You would be amazed how quickly situations resolve themselves through  the simple act of giving full, and complete, non- interpretative, non-judgemental attention- clear space.  Of course that is only possible  if the portal that is the act of surrender is open. …. If you accepted unconditionally whatever this challenge is that forms this moment.

-Eckhart Tolle (see below) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAlh2rIqBhs

Been awake since 444 lol.  Felt the moon shining in and pulling me by some gravitational force to this room. :) A manuscript I was editing was opened on the screen.  I read through that and I thought "Man, maybe that's a sign I need to send this out again.  It reads pretty good. It might even get published." 

Then I heard in my head the mantras I have been writing: Is that so?  Maybe.  It really doesn't matter. I don't mind what happens because it is no big deal.

That's funny because I woke up thinking about my kids  who need me in ways I really do not seem to know how to help.  I recited those phrases then, at 4:44, but it didn't seem to settle me like it does with my writing worries or projections.  The publication of my writing I know really doesn't matter in the big scheme...the wellness of my children still does. I feel like "I should" be worried about that.  Hmmm! 

I think the thing is to start practicing with the small things (writing) and work up to the big until we realize there is no difference between the big and the small...no order of priority or importance to miracles.  The cessation of worry is an indication that a miracle is happening in us:)   What is the actual miracle?  Getting beyond ego, pain body, and mind stuff to  the clear open space of what is. It is all good.

All is well!

References

Tolle, E. (May, 2018) Don't worry about what Happens. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAlh2rIqBhs

I pray for a more friendly, more caring, and more understanding human family on this planet.  To all who dislike suffering, who cherish lasting happiness, this is my heartfelt appeal.
-Dalai Lama

I really have to get out there and shoot...I am recycling old pics again and again.

Drop the Problematic Version of Life for the Real One

You are much more than the problematic life situation you insist on carrying around.
-Eckhart Tolle (somewhat paraphrased)


Do you get that yet?  I mean truly get that? We become so identified with our life situation and begin to see ourselves as them, that we tend to forget who we really are.  If the situation is challenging or what we insist on calling problematic...we are even more identified with it.  "I am broke."  "I am sick".  "I am alone."  "I am destitute."  "I am depressed.".  'I am an addict,"  "  I am desperate." etc etc. We walk around with our problematic life situations attached to us as if they are a part of us.

They aren't! We do not have to live like this.

Instead of being our life situation we can Be Life.  Beyond the circumstance, beyond the emotional and mental reaction to the circumstance (which usually involves struggle and resistance) is what we truly are: the essence of Life.

Once we stop labelling everything as a problem, once we stop creating story and thought around it, once we hold it out and away from us with "Right now, I have" rather than "I am," we step back into what we are. We are presence; we are consciousness; we are Life.

You are Life.  You do not have to be at the mercy of your external situations.  You do not have to get lost in what the suffering mind creates around it.  Instead you can just be what you are. There is freedom in that.  There is joy in that.  And there is wisdom in that.

Drop the problematic version of Life you insist on carrying and Be Life.

All is well in my world.

Tidying up

Give up what you do not want, and keep what you do.
-ACIM: TM:3:A:6:6

Recently, I was surprised to discover once again  just how differently I thought compared to other people.  I was actually surprised to realize just how differently I thought compared to the way I thought a decade ago.  My perception has changed so dramatically. I really am not 'normal'.   lol.  My view of everything is upside down in comparison to what it was and to what others view as normal. 

Why?  The challenges and the loss I have encountered in the last ten years...heck through my entire life....has led me here one perfect step at a time.  People might say it pushed me over the edge a long time ago  lol but I see how it has set me free and woke me up. People might say I am delusional with distorted perception.  I know that I am seeing clearer than I ever have. I am tidying up my mind.  I am actually learning to let go and  trust Life to provide what is valuable.

Say what crazy lady?

Tidying Up

I am going through The Teacher's manual for ACIM again.  There is a section that describes the characteristics of a Teacher.   Now we are all teachers right?  None of us are more special than the other.  We teach simply by the way we live our lives.  Anyway, the number one characteristic for the teacher to possess is Trust. This is where my challenges and my mental tidying up is taking me.

According to A Course, trust is developed through a six period process of "tidying up" :

1. Period of Undoing: This is an often painful period when "things are taken away".   Not yet at the point of seeing differently enough to recognize that these things are valueless, Life steps in to help out with the process. It removes what we mistakenly value from our lives.  It may take away a certain level of health or physicality (attachment to the body). It may take away our job, our income, our sense of control, our reputation, our partners etc etc  as it did in my case. At first it sucks.  We resist.  We cry out.  We shout out how unfair it is and all sorts of "Why me?"  We may not initially understand what Life is doing in regards to our growth and development. As soon as we realize that it is helping us , not hurting us, we move on to the next stage. (We call Marie)
2. Period of Sorting Out:   Period 2-6 is almost like the experience of cleaning our home the konomari style.  We take everything we think, feel, own, cling to and know as Life and throw it in a big pile. We  then have to sort through it to determine what "sparks joy" and what  doesn't. We begin to look at the things in our ever changing life situations to determine what is valuable and what isn't.  "What will help me as I go farther and what will hinder me?"   There is a certain amount of fear and trepidation in this process because one doesn't want to throw out the valuable into the valueless pile, right?  We fear loss and sacrifice so though we certainly did some sorting, we  end up with much more in the valuable bin, at this point, than we do in the valueless. We are still clinging to certain ideas about who we are and what Life is all about.
3. Period of Relinquishment: In this stage we go into our valuable pile and sort through it again.  We undertake what we think as sacrifice by giving away all that that keeps us from the Truth.  For example, we may see that worrying about what people think about us hurts us more than helps us...so we throw our need for the good opinion of others in the valueless bin. Our valuable pile becomes smaller and the valueless pile becomes larger. Instead of feeling the loss or grief when we look at our small valuable pile, we instead feel a certain lighthearted ness. We discover the less of this old way of thinking and being we keep, the lighter we feel.
4. Period of Settling Down: In this period we really like Marie's message, "Give up what you do not want, keep what you do." We see the value of it.  It seems like a simple thing to do.  We rest here a bit just taking it all in and feeling pretty satisfied with ourselves and our tidying up, before we move on.
5. Period of unsettling:  This is a bit like advancing to the "miscellaneous stage" of the Kondo method. This is a bit of a wake up call where that smug look of satisfaction is wiped from our faces.  We realize that all the sorting out we did so far was kind of meaningless because we really do not know what "valueless" means and what "valuable" means.  All we figured out is that we want to keep what is valuable whatever that is and we  do not want to keep the valueless. We are still in our heads determining, perceiving, labelling and judging.  We really don't know what the heck that "sparks joy" thing is all about.  In our little minds and with our own little mind directed actions we are still judging: valuable and valueless without knowing what it means.  We are still judging "good" or "bad", "right" or "wrong".  We are still attempting to select what we will keep in our lives and what we won't. It is here we realize we know so little about anything...and man is that unsettling.  We might be pretty pissed at Marie, at this point, for putting us through all this work just to get to this point we no longer know what it is for. The lesson is: It is here that we must ask only for what sparks joy...so we need to not "think" about it but simply feel it, allow ourselves to be it...and ask for only that.
6. Period of Achievement: Finally when it is all done and sorted away we realize we know what joy means, we know what tranquility is and we experience peace of mind.  Not because everything in our Life is finally tidy and in order.  No... there will always be chaos and messes to clean up...but we achieve the peace perfect learning provides  when we let go. We just let go and decide to allow Life do what Life does. We trust and we learn to simply be!

All is well in my world.

References:

A Course in Miracles (2007) Manual for Teacher's.  Foundation for inner Peace

Tidying up with Marie Kondo. Netflix

No Big Deal

Reverse the way you see the kleshas [emotional states that tend to disturb us the most]. You could see them as a cloud in the sky and say, "No big deal," and with the attitude of sheer delight, let them go.
-Pema Chodron, How to Meditate, page 151

As we  have discussed, Life can be difficult.  When faced with a so called difficulty  we  are encouraged to ask our selves the  question Eckhart Tolle encourages us to ask, "Is this situation causing me distress or is it what my mind is telling me about it that is making me unhappy?" Nine times out of ten ( and if we answer truthfully) we will say, it is the stuff going on in the head in response to the situation that is screwing us over. Our thoughts lead to a variety of emotions and this emotional energy or Klesha can make us feel terrible.  We may want to avoid it, stuff it or numb from it as a result. Emotions are definitely hard to accept but accept them we must if we want to sink more deeply into the present moment.

Looking at our thoughts and emotions as "No big deal," can help us to not only accept them but embrace them. If we accept our emotional reactions we accept Life for all it is.  We recognize and accept the inevitably of what is.  Whatever is going on right now...a financial crisis, a divorce or an illness...a happy reunion, a birth of a child or falling in love...is going on.  It, whatever that circumstance that is happening in this moment,  is inevitable.  Resisting it isn't going to stop it from happening.  It will only cause more suffering. Allowing it to be and allowing the thoughts and emotions that arise in response to it to be...will free us.

All things of this world are passing clouds .  They are temporary and ever changing.  Good times will come and good times will go.  Life circumstances will be comfortable and blissful one day, challenging and difficult the next.  Nothing of this physical world is meant to last.  It is impermanent.  The sooner we realize that, the sooner we free ourselves from the prison of resistance we create around the life situations we encounter.

Letting things simply enter our experience, our moment, requires much less energy from us.  Whether they be circumstances or thoughts or feelings by looking at them as "No Big Deal," because we know they won't last, we can eventually learn to let go of them and the impact they have on our moment to moment experience. Recognize them, allow them, experience them and then let them go!

In meditation[and in life], our thoughts and emotions  can become like clouds that dwell and pass away.  Good and comfortable, pleasing and difficult and painful-all of this comes and goes. (Chodron, page 5)

All is well in my world!

References

Chodron, Pema (2013) How to Meditate. Boulder: Sounds True.

Tolle, Eckart. (January 2019) Rising Above Thinking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2UKj-Mu2b0

It Doesn't Matter

It really doesn't matter.
-Bill Murray

  I watched an interesting documentary on Netflix last night about Bill Murray.  (Please see the link below).  I was surprised to find how awake he was.  I was also reminded of a statement he was often overheard reciting both on and off screen: It really doesn't matter. I see the connection now that that phrase has with his own life and in all of ours actually.  It is a wonderful mantra in itself.  The truth is that all this phenomenon of our living...how it all plays out...really doesn't matter as long as we stay in the present moment.

Eckhart Tolle  reminded  me today as I listened to some of his teaching of two stories I love to tell in relation to this idea that It really doesn't matter. The one called "Maybe" I shared on Sept 25th and this one entitled "Is that so,"  I would like to share now.  Please know that these stories are ancient and have been passed around the globe for centuries...every version, including my version, will differ in many ways but the point remains: It really doesn't matter.

Is That So

 

 

Many years ago in a small Japanese village there lived a very respected and revered Zen master.  Because of his great reputation he received many people who flocked to him for advice and teaching.  Among the students were many of the local villagers including a young 15 year old girl.  The young girl had a free spirit and her parents found it hard to contain her desire to push the family order to the limit. When they brought the girl, kicking and screaming, to the master one day explaining that their daughter desperately needed his guidance, the Zen master stroked his bearded chin and answered in his calm,  unflinching way, "Is that so?"

 

He allowed the girl to become one of his pupils. She was a reluctant student, restless in class and often leaving in the middle of satsangs to return only before her parents arrived to walk her home.  The Zen master offered her the same effort, respect and consideration he offered all his students without trying to control the outcome of her learning or her life.

 

One evening the parents of the girl came pounding at  the master's door. With faces aflame with anger they told the master that their daughter was pregnant and that she had told them that he, the master, was the father. The Zen master, looked at the parents, stroked his long beard and said in his calm unflinching way, "Is that so?" 

The parents accused the master of taking advantage of their daughter and of ruining her and their lives.   They promised they were going to let the entire village know how corrupt and immoral the master  actually was. The Zen master just stroked his beard and answered in his calm, unflinching way, "Is that so?"

Disgusted by his arrogance, the parents stormed away and proceeded to tell all the villagers about the horrible thing the master had done to their daughter. The village was aghast. All of the parents who had children being taught stormed to the master's house to remove their children from the teaching.  They told the master that they would never allow their children to be contaminated by such a man and that he should be ashamed.  The Zen master looked at them all, stroked his beard and answered, "Is that so?"

 His school crumbled and he was left poor and destitute,  scorned and outcasted by the village. People taunted him, threatened to harm him, and  threw things at his house as they passed by. Even the local merchants  banned together and told him one day that they would not sell their goods to him. He stroked his long bearded chin as they closed their doors on him and said, "Is that so?"

Everyday since he was forced to walk miles to beg for what he needed just to survive. His aging body resented the effort but still he walked without complaint or defense.

 

Eight months later, the parents of the girl came pounding once again at his door.  They  pushed a new born baby angrily into the arms of the master.  "This is your baby.  We do not want it because of the shameful way it was conceived.  We give it to you to look after."  To which the Zen master replied, stroking his chin with his free hand and in his calm, unflinching way, "Is that so?"

 

He took the baby in and took care of it.  He walked for miles with it on his back everyday to get milk and food.  He got up at night with it.  He rocked it. He held it. He showed nothing but pure loving kindness toward the baby. Meanwhile the villagers continued  to throw things at his house and threaten him  whenever he walked by.  He responded to their insults and accusations each  and every time by stroking his long beard and in his calm, unflinching way saying, "Is that so?"

 

Four months later the girl's parents came to the door again.  Red faced with shame they knelt in the doorway before the master.  The girl's mother crying, looked up at the old man , "We were wrong" she said, "We have done you so much injustice.  Our daughter told us that you are not the father, that you have treated her with nothing but respect.  She admitted to leaving the satsangs and going off with one of the neighborhood boys." 

 

"Is that so? " the Zen master replied stroking his beard and with the same  calm unflinching voice.

 

"Yes," the father answered, "And we would desperately like the child back." Again the Zen master stroked his long beard and in his calm, unflinching way responded, "Is that so?"

 

He left the doorway and went to where the child was sleeping.  He bundled her up, packed the supplies he had bought for her and kissing her gently on the forehead  handed the child and the supplies to the parents.

 

"We will make amends," the parents assured.  "We will tell the villagers the truth about you so they honor you once again for being such a good and honest man, one willing to take a child in and care for it even when it was not your own." 

 

Once again the Zen master just  stroked his long beard and in his calm, unflinching way said, "Is that so?"

It really doesn't matter

What the Zen master was truly saying whenever he was confronting the lies, the accusations or even the praise was that none of it mattered.  What people thought of him, good or bad, didn't matter.  What he owned or lost didn't matter.  The truth about who the father was didn't matter.   Any suffering he might have endured didn't matter.

All that mattered was what was taking place in front of him each and every moment and he dealt with that as it came.  The child needed him in that moment so he cared for her even though it wasn't his. Just as quickly as he accepted the child, he gave the child up.  There was no attachment, no clinging, no defending, no attacking and no resistance what so ever. There was nothing  but a complete allowing of Life to do as life does. All else simply didn't matter.

Hmmm! A lot of learning to be gained by his example.

All is well!



References:


The Bill Murray Stories: Life lessons Learned from a Mythical Man (2018) Netflix

Tolle, Eckhart (Jan 2019) A Deeper Knowing. Eckhart Tolle TV. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFJhXZgeJWU

Life is difficult.

Life is difficult.  That is a great truth, one of the greatest.  It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it.
-Scott Peck opening line of The Road less Travelled

Wow!  I remember reading this book almost twenty years ago and it was transforming, taking me farther along the path I am on now. I don't think, however, I truly got what this line could mean until recently.   I see now that Life is only difficult when we assume it shouldn't be.  It is our resistance to life situation that makes Life seem difficult.  I really, really get that now.

I also see that opening up to challenge and allowing it can , not only bring more peace into our lives, but it can take us to that primordial intelligence that exists in the stillness, in the silence, in the space that exists beyond our crazy mixed up thinking.

Hmm!  Something to think about on this chilly but sunny winter's day.

All is well.

My earnest request is that you practice love and kindness whether you believe in a religion or not.
-Dalai Lama

Shunyata

When we feel tense, when we feel pain, when we feel shaky, we have no encouragement to relax and soften our stomach and our shoulders and our mind and our heart. Any time you want to make something of your life, let go. ...This is how your life becomes workable.
-Pema Chodron, page 170

Are you busy, like I have been for most of my life and recently discovered I still am, "doing" to make your life workable?  In other words, are you using action to numb from what you judge as painful or uncomfortable?

Still Numbing

All my talk, all my meditating, my yoga, my present moment practicing , my reading and writing about sinking into the present moment and I am still very much a doing addict.  I was shocked to realize that. 

My sister, a writer, asked me the other day how my writing was going.  She then asked if I found my new role as a yoga teacher interfering with my writing and my attempts at publication (submission by the way is the most time consuming and challenging part of the writing process).  I didn't remind her that I am also taking a photography course, trying to feng-shui my house the KondoMari way, renovating  and dealing with more family crisis than a soap opera script has on it while I still try to finish my novel and submit other material I have written.  That simple innocent question made me realize that  I am doing a lot.

Doing: The Drug of Choice

Why?  There is so much emotional tension brewing inside me from all that is going on around me, the loss of a beloved career and the identity that goes with it, fear over my future  etc that I am using "doing" as my drug of choice right now in an attempt to make this life at least seem workable.  If I numb, I tell myself without really realizing that I am telling myself anything, I can get through it all. I can fill in some of the gaping holes in my ego with one activity goal after another. I can distract from the demanding with the less demanding.

Ugh!!!  What that actually means is that I am not yet where I want to be.  I am far from still.  I am far from recovered from my addictive tendencies.

Shunyata

Instead of numbing with activity we need to let go and allow all that we deem unpleasant into the space that is us.  We need to let go and fall into what the Buddhists term shunyata,. Shunyata is traditionally known as emptiness.  I prefer this definition offered in How to Meditate: "open dimension of our being."  (page, 154)

We need to allow everything into that open spaciousness that is us, make more room for it if we have to.  All this numbing, this pushing it away, this resistance of what is, does not make the suffering go away. It adds to it.  It doesn't make life workable.

My life isn't all that "workable" right now.  It is busy, scattered, disorganized and I have so many semi-unrealistic  goals I can't seem to accomplish any of them. Like the monkey mind, it is a little crazy taking me further away from my true goal of peace. Letting go of my resistance will make it workable.

Instead of numbing, we need to accept.  Instead of resisting feeling we need to allow.  Instead of doing we need to find more stillness and instead of tensing up to life we need to relax into it. This is the true healing shunyata provides. Let go!

All is well.

References

Chodron, Pema ( 2013) How to Meditate. Boulder: Sounds True.

Self-Esteem

If you are what you do, what are you when you no longer can do what you do?
-Eckhart Tolle

What is self esteem and is creating healthy self esteem from a low one, a part of our mental reconstruction? 

That is a good question I ask myself and put out there. I ask it because I have been going up and down with self esteem my whole life.  As I mentioned before there are two parts of ego: Shamer and Redeemer.  These two little fellows have been giving me a whirlwind of a ride over the years, let me tell ya.  It took me a long time to identify them in my psyche because they are so bloody sneaky. I now can watch the competitive two in action.  

Shamer and Redeemer

Shamer more or less runs the show convincing me of a certain unworthiness, thus creating a low self esteem. Then Redeemer will step in and push Shamer out of the lime light so it can shine for a bit, creating something that  psychology and society encourages- a higher self esteem. Shamer will rear its ugly head again and so on and so on and so on.  Up and down, up and down I go while these two battle it out. It leads to the question if either is necessary in my life and would I be better off without them.

What is Self Esteem?

Self esteem, is an ego thing.  The self that is referred to is the "little self" and  is the basically the ego.  Esteem is the light in which the ego views us.  When someone has a healthy self esteem, ego is pretty much satisfied with itself as a 'person' based on what that person has, knows and is able to do. Redeemer is in charge. It compares itself to others and says "I have more, know more and can do more."

When esteem is low, ego is not satisfied with itself.  Shamer is in charge. It compares itself to others and says, "I have less, know less, and can do less." 

Low self esteem is discouraged in today's world for all kinds of reasons. It also really sucks to feel shameful and unworthy. It is said that it is better to have a high self esteem than a low one. At least, one feels less self punitive and down trodden if they have a healthy sense of 'little me' don't they?  I, however, question if it is a necessary  thing for Self (not self) to have either.

Why I think esteem in any form may be counter productive to our healthy development as human beings?

1. It is of the ego.  We know by now that the ego is not our friend, right?  It lies, it manipulates, it creates illusions, it cheats, it will strike out at us or anyone around us without a moment's notice. It pot stirs, it creates unnecessary drama...it will do what ever it can in its narcissistic agenda to protect itself. It is crazy.  I think it is best to keep a distance from anything that the ego owns.
2. We are dealing with the wrong Self in psychology's version of self-esteem.  The version here is based only a small portion of us...our bodies, minds and personalities that we present to other bodies, minds and personalities. It is not referring to the deeper Self.
3. The light is distorted. If esteem is the light by which we view ourselves ...we have to realize that it is a distorted light not allowing us to see beyond the surface. If we base who we are on this very superficial version of us, we are definitely not seeing the real us.  Like those mirrors in the fun house...we only see what ego wants us to see in conventional self esteem.
4. It keeps  us separated from one another and sets up reasons for defense and attack. It shines the light on the little self.  When I talk about my self esteem it is all about me, isn't it?  How I measure up?
5. The measurement criteria  leads to competition and comparison.  Fostering healthy self esteem involves viewing one's self in comparison to others to see how we measure up.  We feel good if we have more, know more or can do more.  We feel bad if we have less, know less, or can do less.  If I have a bigger house and more money in my account than my neighbor does, that may foster a "healthy self-esteem" .  If I have less education or less knowledge than my co-workers, that may foster a low self esteem. If I can run a faster marathon, I may have a higher self esteem than the runner who comes in last.  If I want to be a concert violinist but I do not make the symphony's final cut because there are better violinists to choose from, I may develop a low self esteem. Ego gets us comparing and competing endlessly and up and down we go.
6. It isn't stable.  Esteem goes up and down.  If we base the value of who we are on things that are transient, unpredictable, unstable and temporary,  esteem will constantly fluctuate and so will our thoughts, feelings, behaviours and how we respond to Life.
7. It won't satisfy. If we base who are on what we do, what are we when we are no longer able to do?  I once allowed ego to convince me to base my worth and value on what I could do.  When I suddenly found myself in a situation where I could no longer do what I identified my value on...my self esteem plummeted. I had to then question who I was?  Even if we are able to have more, know more, and do more, how superficial and nonsustaining all that is.  Esteem will not satisfy for long.

What is better?

I think it is important to realize that we are much more than what ego says we are. There is a dimension of our being that lies beyond the world we experience with our five senses.  We can transcend conventional self esteem  for a true sense of worth that is stable, non comparative, seeing all as equal, and that is all powerful. This worthiness can be found beyond ego's tricks and plots ... in the formless world of what is, where Truth exists.

So we don't need a healthy self esteem?

No, I don't believe we do.  I think it might even get in the way of our growth and expansion.
A healthy self esteem makes getting there more challenging because we may have what Tolle refers to as a "false sense of happiness," when we are operating from here.  Things are working out for us on the  superficial level so we tell ourselves ( with ego's help) that everything is fine,   If we have a low self esteem , struggling against ourselves, than that suffering may offer a doorway to this world beyond esteem. Our desire to end the suffering may lead us away from our need for esteem of any kind. That letting go may take us  into the true Self where we are just as worthy, just as powerful and just as free as everyone else. Isn't that a better way to look at ourselves and each other?

All is well.

References:

Tolle, Eckhart (Nov, 2011).  Could you elaborate on ego versus Healthy Self Esteem? Eckhart Tolle TV. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VauHIuyPwkM