Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Sweet, Sweet Sadness

Something sweet can be found in sadness, a soft melancholy whisper that breathes life into a withering soul, filling the void where apathy once sat.
Me- written years ago

I am feeling sad but it is a good non-resistant sadness.  I am just letting it trickle through my eyes and down my face.  I am not overwhelmed by it...it is just there.  It is kind of nice, taking some pressure off some old wounds within me.  Ahhhh.  It just feels good to release.

Is this suffering?  No...just a gentle release of at least some old stored stuff that really, really needs to come out.  I do not want to create story around this and just be able to accept the feeling, the release. I want to  allow myself to experience it fully and for the most part I can do that now...just sit with it.  It is so nice to be able to do that.  But...story  does come back .

Sometimes , this thought, "I am so broken." comes into my mind and my experience.  I see so clearly  and accept what past trauma has done to my exterior self, creating a need for me to protect the vulnerable parts. I look back and see how my chronic fear of being hurt again made me act defensively offensive towards people who were kind to me, how I could never truly understand why they were kind to me; how my need to keep this shell intact prevented me from seeing their  pain and meeting their needs in a way I would have wanted to. It made me selfish, egoic, always trying to create this redeemed version of myself to hide the brokenness within. My seeking to create a protective shell over the wounded parts  pinched me off from who I really am. I was not my best Self and I was not always a very good friend.

Hmmm! Anyway I am thinking of one friend, in particular, who I befriended months after my mother had died.  She sat in front of me in grade ten math class and if it wasn't for her I would never have passed math, and I probably wouldn't have passed the lessons Life was teaching me either. She had a big, beautiful heart and she liked me.  I could never understand why she liked me or laughed at my jokes.  We became really good friends, best friends actually.  My own life was very, very chaotic at the time and I found a sweet reprieve in her presence and in her home that I so desperately needed.  I honestly don't know where I would be without that. She was the first person I ever spoke some of  my trauma story to.  It was like relieving me of a burden that lay heavy on my heart for 16 years...telling a secret I was told never to tell but that was so very, very necessary to tell. She was a very, very important part of my life.  I don't think I did anything for her but get her in trouble.

I, of course, was not only broken but I was a 16 year old girl who like most sixteen year old girls wanted to be liked, popular, seen as pretty,cool and all those things. I also needed to redeem myself by creating an image that would hide all the broken pieces inside.  So while I befriended her, one of  the most authentic people I ever met, I was intent on creating a very inauthentic suit of armour around myself.  That did not go well for our friendship.  My attempt to be cool...made me uncool.  My pain would not stay beneath the shell...it kept coming out and often, misdirected and uncontained, it hurt those I loved the most. I became, many times, a bitch to her.  She had to have seen me as a selfish bitch, a terrible friend and nothing but a burden on her life.  How could she not? Yet she remained patient and kind.  Well, I never asked her what she thought of me...I was afraid to. We kind of grew apart...I kept building this redeeming self to create a shell around me...and that became my focus in life. So into preserving, "me-me" ...I neglected to tell her how much her friendship meant and I neglected the God daughter she gave me.

Recently, and ironically our children got together and are having a child together.  Though I love her daughter as one of my own,  (She was friends with my eldest for years before she and my son started dating and I have come to know her as a sweet and kind girl.)  I was resistant to the relationship with my son because I was told by others that they were involved in something very dangerous together and my fear kicked in. My need to protect my then very vulnerable son from what I felt (and was told) was her doing made me a mother bear! I became defensively offensive again...well honest, out right, telling it like it is which did not go over well with her daughter or with her ( understandably). Things are different now but sometimes wounds don't heal completely.  I never apologized to her nor did I even speak to her for years ( only because of my own shame).  That is until last night when we spoke over the phone about the approaching baby shower.  I started crying then after hanging up...just a slow trickle of tears and I never stopped. Hmmm!

The phone call triggered me to look at my brokenness and how it impacted my life and the life of others over the years. I  see the shell I wore and still do to some extent, the shell she knew me by. I see my own brokenness under that shell and wonder if she sees it enough to forgive me for my behaviour over the years.  I don't know.  If my time here is indeed running out, I want her to know how grateful I am for her presence in my life  and how sorry I am for not being a better friend.



Awkward Trickles


So much defectiveness
in this stinking, rotting shell
I wear around myself,
gapping holes, pieces missing,
allowing trickles…just trickles
of much too thick
inner fluid to drip out…
offering, pathetically offering,
a semi sweet release
you cannot see,
 of  decades of pressure
against  my bruised and battered flesh.
 
You know me as the shell,
with all my broken jagged pieces,
jabbing and cutting
into your own tender flesh…
not as the bleeding- being emerging,
so slowly and timidly,
from this broken protection
that clings and drags around me ,
awkwardly...so very awkwardly.
 
In these trickles...mere trickles,
raw realness
comes through…
a realness so quickly wiped away
or  gone unnoticed…
at the redeeming image's request.
How I wish you could  see 
beyond the image
I never was.
 
Within this salty release
there is gratitude,
as well as regret
for the way I might have hurt you…
denied your own suffering…
in my misguided attempts
to keep  this shell from
falling to pieces around me….
 
But my dear friend…
I did see you…
I did know you were there …
picking up
 pieces of shell
that continued to fall 
awkwardly...oh so awkwardly
away from me.
 
 
Thank You
for  attempting to glue
the jagged pieces back in place
with cut and bleeding hands,
for keeping me looking
whole and intact,
for helping me hide
the infected mess
that kept leaking out
all over you.
 
 
 Flawed, I am,
and will always be,
a broken shell
unable to hide
the layer of decay
beneath it
but I will do my best
to free myself
of that which clings,
to heal the tender tissue
with my own acceptance of it,
and then I will expose
this whole, complete being
you never knew...
to the light it
was meant to shine under.
Then, I might  ask for your forgiveness
and my own.
Only then will I be worthy of it.
 


© Dale-Lyn , June 2020


 
 
Ahhhh...sigh...sweet, sweet sadness.
 
All is well!

 

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Suffering and the Law of Attraction

But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added onto you.
Matthew: 6:33 ESV

Difference Between Seeking What We Want

What is the biggest difference between the teachings on the Law of Attraction, ACIM, other "indirect path" stuff and what The Bible, Buddhism, Eckhart Tolle and Michael Singer may teach? 

I believe that the first approach teaches that "suffering" is an illusion we can transcend the moment we realize it as a product of the ego-self which is not real and the other teaches that suffering is real and requires a direct path of committed practice to transform it.

To Suffer or Not To Suffer

One denies suffering and one embraces it.  One says that denial of suffering will bring us to a peaceful, happy and abundant awakened state where we can reap the rewards of everything this physical world has to offer and the other one says accepting the reality of suffering will bring us to a peaceful, content, joyful abundant awakened state where we will realize we do not want or need so little of what the physical world has to offer.

Both agree that the subconscious mind holds the seeds of creation within it and what we focus on , we will create.   Both in a sense agree with this law of attraction.  They differ, however,  in the path we take and how we use that law.

What and How We Seek

What we seek in the first path is the thing that will lead us to awakening and in the second path we seek directly the awakening.

The first path skips the dealing with suffering part all together...It instructs its proponents to focus only on what is wanted, and to deny what we  don't.  It purports that awakening will come when we see that what we have been focusing on has come to materialize in our physical worlds. This will happen the moment...the moment we see the illusionary nature of ego and limitation and fear etc. In a "holy instant" of witnessing  miracles we will transcend beyond these illusions to the reality of Self in its infinite, unlimited nature.  What we seek first is not a connection with Self ( the kingdom of God) it is the thing that will prove to us there is a kingdom of God.

The second path, like that of the 8 fold path offered in Buddhism, is a life long practice of awakening through suffering.  Suffering is not denied.  It is embraced and used as a transformational tool to take us to the true nature of Self and reality. It takes us to a freedom beyond materialistic manifestation.

Here and Now?

Both talk about time being nothing more than a concept, an "idea" created by man.  Both speak to the here and now as being all there really is to Life...yet in the first approach, we see a reliance on the future...of manifesting something that is not yet here at some time up there, using this moment here and now to create something up there.  Where in the other, there is a practice of fostering acceptance of what is now...of knowing that we have all the conditions we need to be happy right here and now regardless of what is happening around us.  In order to awaken we need to embrace what is (which includes our pain) ...without preferring some of it and denying or pushing away other parts of it.

Acceptance of What Is?

Where we use the present moment to seek to add on all things wanted in the first approach, we do not "seek" in the second approach.  All things may still be added on when we water selectively and wisely, in the Buddhist practice, for example,  but we won't necessarily care about them.  We would have reached a greater learning and an unconditional type of peace that  can not be fed or diminished  by the achievement or the loss of these "things". It will be a peace that passes all understanding.

For example...The Secret teaches that if we focus on what we want and fill our minds with this while we deny what we don't want we will someday get what we want.  If we want a dream house...we think ( and feel) that we have this dream house.  We affirm, we put sticky notes everywhere, we put pictures of it up on a dream board.  We act as if we already have it ( even though it has not yet physically manifested in our present moment while we may be living in a crappy apartment in the ghetto).  The thing is...we don't admit to ourselves that we are living in that crappy apartment because it is classified as an unwanted.  We deny that reality.  We don't think about it.  We think instead of the dream house and imagine we are living in that as the cockroaches crawl over our feet.  Of course, we are  going to feel better thinking about the dream house than we are about our present situation.  We are going to have hope instead of despair...which is good, right?  But are we fully in our present moment and is our joy and peace unconditional?  No...we actually close up to the present moment, to what is now. Our happiness is dependent on a future circumstance that has not arrived.

And it will be added on

I may someday get that dream house and be thrilled and happy that this law really works.  I will see it as a miracle...I may  invest further into it...Truth is, I will have to basically go onto attempting to manifest the next thing because the happiness I receive from getting this house will only be fleeting.  I have to question how many moments have I ignored, looked over, stepped on, dismissed to get to this one?  How much have I closed? Was it worth it?

The second path teaches this moment is and because it is with all that is in it, it is my perfect reality.  I learn to accept and embrace it for what it is without needing it to be different.  I find the value in it.  If there is pain...I see that pain as something that will take me closer to peace. I do not close to what is now.  I open fully to it.  Peace is not conditional or based on what may or may not be happening in my present moment. It is, as Thich Nhat Hanh entitled one of his books, in every breath.

Getting There Directly or Indirectly?

Okay...so the biggest difference is that one approach says that suffering is an illusion and gets in the way of achieving what we want...whether it be a dream house or an awakening.  The second approach says, there is nothing wrong with suffering.  In fact...it can be the tool needed to lead us to awakening.  We may get the dream house in either practice but the dream house will never sustain us or make us happy...because it never was what we really wanted or needed.  We learn that the indirect way in Approach One...and the direct  way in Approach Two.

Hmmm...just trying to understand.

All is well.

ACIM

Michael Singer ( 2007) the untethered soul. New Harbinger

Thich Nhat Hanh (2011 )  peace is every breath. Harper One 

Plum Village (May 2020) Wake Up to the Preciousness of Life /dharma talk with Br. Phap Hai https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awmXLzBZ-RI

Eckhart Tolle ( 2004) The Power of Now. New World Library

Monday, June 1, 2020

A Little More On Wanting Special Relationships

You are afraid of this because you believe that without the ego, all would be chaos. Yet, I assure you that without the ego, all would be love.
ACIM-T-15: V:1:6-7



(I played with my camera yesterday, for the first time in a long time...yeah!!!  I call this: Awkward First Dinner Date!)

Still Looking For A Soul Mate?

Still pondering over the difference between what Uell S. Anderson and The Secret teaches and that which Buddhism and other dogma teaches. We talked a little bit yesterday  about the wanting and seeking to manifest a soul mate. Both approaches teach that we create the world we see with our minds, we therefore manifest "things" with our minds as well. So can we really manifest a soul mate by watering that seed in our store consciousness? Probably???

Is This What You Really Want?

The question I posed again and again was...is that what we really, really want or is this one person, we seek to make us complete, something the mind-made self seeks to manifest into our experience?  If so...we do know that is an ego desire...not a spiritual one, don't we?  And we do know, by now, where ego desires take us?

The desire for special relationships, ACIM and Eckhart Tolle teach, is an egoic thing...meant to end or diminish the sense of suffering derived from feeling incomplete.  When we assume another person, outside ourselves, has the ability to fulfill us and make us happy...we are setting ourselves up for more suffering.  What a horrendous, heavy and impossible mission  to dump on another being in this world...to make them responsible for our sense of value and worth. This is not Love...in the truest sense of the word...it is egoic need. 

So is it wrong to want a soul mate or to be in a special relationship with someone?

Though there is nothing right or wrong about a special relationship we need to realize that  the idea and expectation we place upon them feed the ego not the Self . That means, they can be used as a tool for temporary egoic satisfaction and also a weapon of fear that keeps us bound to ego. It can keep us attached to this idea, that we are separate "little me's"  in a dangerous , lonely world.  In order to make it worthwhile, we need another( or something outside ourselves) to complete us.

True Love extends way beyond the ego and this idea of "me", and  "my" and "mine". True Love is liberating and non selective.  Ego love is very selective, conditional and binding.  Special relationship ideology  can bind us to ego rather than bring us to Self...if relationships are built on a need to make one complete.  We are already complete, according to Buddhist and other well known doctrine.

So we just need to be careful when we place all our attention on watering seeds in our moment in order to grow or manifest future romance in the future . It is not the "romance" and ego's version of love you really, really want...it is Love.

I wrote about this in 2017.  Check this out: http://www.aquarianonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Enlighten-Up-with-The-Aquarian-Winter-2017-issue.pdf.
page 11

Healthy relationships are relationships that are built on Love not need or fear. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all encompassing can have no opposite. ACIM-T-Introduction When we love without ego, we love big!

All is well!

ACIM

Eckhart Tolle (July 2008 )  One -Sided Relationships.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3miuaOWsj8

Sunday, May 31, 2020

"What If?" or "What Is?"

External changes are not going to solve your problem because they don't address the root of your problem. The root problem is that you don't feel whole and complete within yourself. If you don't identify the root properly, you will seek someone or something to cover it up.
Michael Singer, the untethered soul

What About The Law of Attraction?

Still confused about this law of attraction idea, this wanting something to change and be different in the future and probably will be until the day I die...but what I do  know is ...the biggest part of practice, whatever practice we choose to partake in, is to be perfectly okay with what we have in our now.  We need to focus more on the "What is...' than the "What if", on present moment rather than some future moment.  And I guess that means, we also need to focus on accepting and allowing, more so than on  wanting or desiring. 

So if you were to ask me what I really, really  want...I would say, I want "peace".  I just want peace.  Of course, true peace of mind is this true acceptance of what is...whatever is. 

Does there have to be external change for me to have peace? Peace of mind is not conditional, it is not dependent on what I got going on in my present moment or what happened in the past or what may or may not happen in the future. It is being okay with what is now.

What confuses me is this idea that we are creators and we create our worlds with our thinking.  Even the Buddha  who was all about embracing each moment as is,  taught that our worlds are a projection of our minds.  Yet, would he be a proponent of this law of attraction?

Hmm!  I hazard to guess, that he would say...the law is okay and has great truth in it but what we have done with the law to make it fit our present egoic way of thinking is where the problem comes in.  We are confusing pointers with what the pointers point to.  In other words, we are thinking and labelling our present experiences and the experiences we want to have in such a way to suit the egoic frame of reference, not the spiritual. We are seeking to make external changes to end suffering and that won't work.

Huh?

Happiness or peace and contentment?

We are all  on the pursuit of happiness, right?  But what is "happiness"?  I never really liked that word.  It never sat well with me.  To me, the ego can be happy but the spirit is "content".  I prefer contentment and peace to happiness.  These I see as a deeper unconditional, eternal and internal form of "happiness".

The term "happiness," which I associate with the law of attraction, is all about the temporary, the physical and egoic satisfaction.  The happiness ego seeks is a very temporary experience that is up ahead somewhere..  "I will be happy when...".  I see it as an elusive and very conditional experience. When I project that only something outside of me will make me happy and I cannot get that thing...what then?  I am not going to be happy...I will be the opposite of happy, right?  If I believe a soul mate is going to bring me happiness and I don't have one now, in this present moment, I am not happy now. I may find some hope in the law's formula,  that teaches  if I plant and water the seeds in my mind someday in the future he or she will show up. That may diminish some of my suffering which is brought on by my focus on what is wrong with my moment, what is lacking in it. All my focus then is not on "What is" but on "What if" .  I am using this moment as a gardening tool to bring happiness in the future.  "I am not happy now but I will be."

"Happiness" does become a  present moment thing rather than a futuristic one,  when we achieve that thing we equated happiness to but only very briefly.  We use every present moment for years planting and hoping for the "what if", ignoring, denying, supressing and repressing the "what is" as we wait to be happy and voila! we finally find our soul mate.  It is all worth it then...the law is a success.  It brought us happiness!!! Wonderful...or is it? For all of how long will this achieved goal of  finding a soul mate bring happiness?  Until our first disagreement, or fight, or betrayal...until we realize that that person cannot make us happy(because nothing outside  of yourself can make you happy or make you unhappy). Then what? Back to suffering?

Nothing Outside you will bring Peace and Contentment

With enough suffering...you will eventually realize that nothing outside of you can bring happiness or unhappiness to your life...it is an inside job. All you had to do to find real lasting happiness= peace and contentment, in the first place,  was to go inside. Is the investment in the law of attraction, then,  not the long way around to achieving what you really want?  You thought the soul mate would bring happiness...but the whole time you were focusing and watering this "thing" outside of you, when true happiness, which is more of a peace and contentment, was already inside you all along...in the moment you dismissed. 

We already have, according to so many spiritual masters, including Christ and Buddha, all the conditions we need to be happy( again...I replace that with "content" and "at peace") inside us. Searching outside for this takes us away from the moment and the very thing we are looking for.

Let's know what it is we really want

So when we were searching for the soul mate we were searching for this idea of happiness, right?  The soul mate was just a means to bring us something we wanted...the happiness.  So it wasn't the soul mate you really, really wanted but the feeling, the living experience you associated with that idea of having a soul mate.  We are clear on that right?

Why Take the Indirect Route?

So why take the indirect route? Why spend all your present moment  affirming that the soul mate is coming or pasting pictures of some strange dude on a dream board.  If what you really want is something  the soul mate would only offer in some diluted and temporary form, why chase after that for years when all you have to do is go inside. All the soul mate (or the idea of a soul mate)  did was open you up to what was already there, what is always there. ...the wonders of life, the experience of Love which is so much grander than what we find in one special relationship. 

If you are like me, you have, throughout your life,  devised these lists in your mind about what experiences would bring pleasure ( make you happy) and which experiences would bring you suffering.  Having a soul mate , you decided in your mind, would bring you happiness when all it was really doing was allowing your mind to open up enough to experience what was already there. If the soul mate is nothing more than an idea or experience that opens you up to what is already inside you, why wait for that thing to open you? Why wait to be happy?  And why stay closed just because you do not have one in your present moment now?

Michael Singer, in an untethered soul, speaks to this idea of staying open...well..."not closing" to the peace and contentment already within you.  When you project all your energy into that future time when you will have a soul mate and become dependent on that experience to open you up...are you not closing to what is already in your experience now?  All the  conditions needed to be peaceful and content, to feel love and joy that are already there?

By all means we embrace our human nature to want and desire but we need to know what we really want.  We want the experience of happiness, contentment, peace, love and joy we assume the money, the big house, the car, the special relationships, etc will bring us.  They do not bring us this ...what brings us this is our ability to stay open to what is already within us.  Ask for that from this law!

Peace and contentment is not dependent on how things are going on around us.  It comes when we embrace things as they are, whatever they are and we  just stay open to the wonders of life.

Hmmm! It is so challenging to completely understand all this enough to articulate it clearly...but I will keep trying.  It is all good!


Plum village ( May31, 2020) Dharma Talk with Br. Phap Hai. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4pa9jItkI0

Michael A. Singer.(2007)the untethered soul. New Harbinger

Saturday, May 30, 2020

To Want or Not To Want, that is the Question

For desire is life, and life is change, and change is progress, and they all answer  one immutable law.
Uell S. Anderson, location 580 

I am still thinking about desire and finding myself in a bit of a mental dilemma: To want or not to want?

I have studied and I have practiced very committedly present moment acceptance, this letting go and allowing...even embracing those parts of my experience that lead to suffering.  I truly have learned to accept the moment for what it is.  I have.  I find peace in my present moment.

But....

Is it okay to want more?

Is it okay to say I accept my present situation but I don't necessarily want to stay here?  And when is acceptance a closing off of what could be?

Does wanting lead us in the direction of ego happiness or spiritual fulfillment?  Or can it be just a neutral thing in our experiences, effecting neither, as long as it is in the "middle way".

Is it okay for a person who is suffering chronic pain, to want freedom from that pain...rephrased positively..."a comfortable full experience of living"?  Is it okay for someone who has a limited bank account and a fair amount of  normal life incurred debt to want enough money to pay the bills? Is it okay for a person who suffers from depression, to want to be happy? A person with cancer to want to be well? A person who is alone , to want company in the form of a relationship?

I suppose we have to look at what we mean by "Is it okay?" ,  what we mean by "wanting, and then on what and how we want. .

Is it okay to want?

When I ask that question, "Is it okay to want?", what do I mean by 'okay'?  Right away I have to ask, am I  stepping into this trap of duality? ...Am I really asking , "Is it right or is it wrong to want?

The answer,  of course,  it is neither right or wrong to want.  Wanting just is. It is said to be , by many philosophers and spiritual masters, "normal" to want as human beings.  Wanting is a part of our expansion package, our evolutionary process. Wanting is the planting of life seeds...all things created begin with wanting.  In order for the world to be peaceful...we must start with wanting peace.  In order for the planet to survive, we must want it to get healthy again. Wanting is a necessary step in our  being human and the world we create , right? Even when we avoid or back away from something we don't want, we are actually  wanting something.  If I back away or resist pain...I am really wanting comfort or freedom from pain.  If I am walking away from a chaotic situation, I am wanting peace.

So it is normal and therefore okay to want.  To place a judgement on the wanting experience in human life, is to place a judgment on who and what we are.  We are, in some sense, creators of our worlds, or at least of our experiences.  (Anderson, Yoga Sutras). That world and those experiences all begin with wanting. Wanting begins in the mind and manifests out into the world we create.

So maybe we should ask, instead: Is my wanting beneficial to me and others?

So, what is wanting?

What is wanting? That is a good question.  Wanting usually implies a desire for something we presently do not have. When we want something...we want what we do not see in our experience in this present moment already. Wanting, then, is a search for "more".  If, however, we already have all the conditions in our present moment that we need to be truly happy, as the Buddha taught...we wouldn't want then, would we? So the person who perceives themselves to be  struggling financially, does not feel they have enough money in their account to be secure, so they want more.  The lonely person may feel they do not have enough contact with or enough depth in their relationship with people in their life, so they want more.  In this wanting we perceive a lack of and therefore we desire more.  We do not see that we have all the conditions we need to be happy.

 Or maybe our wanting is to realize that truth...to see and understand that we already have all we need...is that not still wanting?  Wanting knowledge, understanding and spiritual enlightenment implies that I do not already have it or enough of it and I want more.  I may not feel happy and I may be suffering...my reason for wanting spiritual enlightenment is to end that suffering.  I am not, then, at the present moment, no matter how much I accept it, feeling or knowing that I have everything I need to be happy, assuming that when I am enlightened, I will be.  I, therefore want more enlightenment. I want more than what I have now.

But if I didn't see a lack in  my awareness and did not actively want spiritual enlightenment...would I seek to find it and therefore one day find it? Even if wanting requires no effort, as Anderson writes, if I did not actively put the wanting seed in my mind...would enlightenment ever come to me?


So wanting, then, is a necessary part of "everything" created...even our sense of spiritual liberation. It is not only okay to want but necessary to want.

But maybe, our own attached connotation to the word "want" is tripping us up.  What if we used volition instead..."will".  In the Eight Fold path, "Right Volition" is an important step in Buddhist practice ...to intend and will something to be in a way that serves self and the world best.  (Don't get tripped up by that "right" word in Buddhist doctrine ...I find it easier to replace it with "healthy" ).  Right ( healthy volition) will help to end suffering and bring lasting happiness.

Anderson  and many, many others also use "will" interchangeably with "want and desire".  The focus, though, is not on our puny little "egoic" will...but on God's Will.  God's Will for us, God's intention for us, God's desire for us is what we really, really want!

What we want.

This brings us to what we want which is an important step in understanding healthy wanting.  There is nothing wrong with wanting that Porsche but we have to ask:  Is it healthy? Does this wanting...this focus of my intention, this seed I am planting in my subconscious mind, bring me closer to or further away from what I really want?  Is wanting that Porsche , that seven- digit bank account "healthy wanting" ?  Healthy wanting, according to many including Anderson,  is that which is synonymous with what God wants for us. (God, universe, higher consciousness, Life, Toa,  are really all the same thing, right, with different names? )

That is the question then isn't it?  What does God want for us?  Would a loving Father, a Kind Creator that creates so much beauty for us, want us to suffer?  Think about that. Would He (or whatever pronoun you need to use here) want us depressed, afraid, attacking each other?  Would He want us suffering, broke, starving, in pain? If we believe in a Loving God...how could we believe that to be so?  If you are a parent...do you want any of this for your children? Consider what you want for your children as  what God wants for us only , infinitely greater.

Unhealthy Wanting

If God's Will is for us to be tremendously happy, loving, peaceful, completely safe, and needing nothing...then why are so many of us...not well, not happy, broke, starving, angry, violent and at war with one another? This, obviously is not God's Will.  When we experience these things, we are aligning with another will...with ego's will and are being taken away from what God wants for us.  We are being guided by ego and therefore unhealthy wanting.

It may be  ego's input that says that Porsche will make you, as a separate little being, in a mean, competitive and unsafe  world, the envy of your friends...will allow you to "one-up" them so you do not feel quite so bad about yourself and therefore help to reduce your "personal" suffering.  If that is the case, that is not healthy wanting.  It is not aligned with God's Will for You.  That Porsche will only make you feel happy for a short period of time and desiring it may override the more lasting and fulfilling seeds of compassion and kindness within you.

So you have to ask, when you want something, : Is this really going to bring me closer to what I really, really want which is what God wants for us or further away?  Is it ego or spirit that wants this thing I think I want?  Will getting it serve me, others and the world? Or will it just temporarily feed an ego that never can be fed enough? Am I putting my attention towards what I really want? Am I watering the seeds I want to see grow?

Back to the Ultimate Question: Is it okay for me to want more than this?

Of course, my true Self answers.  In fact, it would do me and the world good to ask for more. It is okay for me to want to be healthy, at peace, free from suffering.  Wanting this is taking me closer to God for I know somehow and in someway, that is what is wanted for me.

That wanting begins with recognizing, a lot of times, what we don't want.  If it is okay to want, it is also okay to not want.  We don't want suffering.  The Buddha didn't want suffering...he was seeking a way to end it when he began his journey.  And there is suffering in the world. That doesn't mean we judge something as "bad' or "evil" with our minds or actively resist and push it away because we assume it is teh cause of suffering.  We simply recognize, allow and embrace the unwanted as being a part of our moment...as being a tool to open us up to something Greater. We look deeply at it and from there are able to gain insight as to what God wills for us....which will be the opposite of this unwanted experience.

So in this moment we accept and allow whatever is...but...we also plant the seed of what we want or at least recognize it has already been planted.

So if you are ill, it is okay to want health. Accept this moment and the illness which is a part of it while the seed for wellness gets planted.  Water the seed of wellness from here on in.  If you are broke, it is okay to want money.  Accept the moment you are in with the bank account you have in that moment, but plant the seed for more.  Water that seed. If you are lonely, it is okay to want a new or better relationship.  Accept the moment you are in and your feeling of loneliness, then  plant the seed for connectedness.  We just have to water the seeds. Just don't be too concerned about how it gets done or when it gets done.  If it is in God's Will, it will be yours...and happiness is God's Will for you. Trust that!

It is okay to want...as long as you always remember what you really, really want...this connection with God's Will for you.  And pay appropriate attention to what seeds you are watering and why. Ensure that your wanting is healthy and that desire never overrides or gets in the way of the healthy seeds from growing in your Life...those seeds that will bring true happiness and joy to you.

All is well.



ACIM

All the dharma talks I have listened to


Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Another Look at Desire

Don't get caught in the story society is telling you.
Br. Phap Dung

Hmm! Serendipity is amazing , isn't it?  It reminds us of the interconnectedness of everything and this idea that there is really no such thing as the "little separate self."

Serendipity

I have been thinking and writing about our desires and our need to water selectively those things within us that we want to grow.  Then , as I do every morning, I flick on my you tube with the intention of watching the first dharma talk that pops up ( I don't choose or select...I leave it up to the Universe lol). And what dharma talk was there waiting for me to view it this morning? The Better Way to Pursue our Desire. Go figure!  I know Google is pretty smart and may be watching us more than we realize  but really??? :)

Looking at Desires

So I am thinking even more about desires and what to do with them.  I am attempting, without too much effort, to gain more insight into my own desires. It is quite fascinating and I find myself looking at what comes up with an,  "Oh Wow!  look at that! Isn't that cool."  Years ago, I would not have let this stuff come up.  I had a lid over it that I sat on with all my weight to keep any of it from coming out.  If it did manage to come out, I would have attacked it ( an myself for not being strong enough to stop it); I would have resisted; I would have denied it or did what I could to stuff it back down there in that subconscious field where all our shadows are stored.  Now I want to examine it all in this new light of awareness I am discovering, understand it and transform it.  (I am really not into the "transcending", I guess.)

Purposeful Life?

Anyway...so I look at my desires, motivations and goals in life to determine the age old question, "What is the purpose of life?" .  As this talk discusses, so much of our sense of purpose is derived from what our culture defines as important to be, do or achieve. I come from the west and I live in a country that shadows to some  degree our neighbor's ideology of the "pursuit of happiness".  Our purpose is defined for us:  to find happiness at all costs...as if "happiness' is something out there that needs to be hunted and chased down. Happiness is viewed as an "individual achievement" in my culture, one that I will reap all the reward and recognition for if I achieve, and all the blame for if I fail.  Hmmm!

Br. Phap Dung describes the four stages of a purposeful life that Buddha recognized in his culture, which is actually the same stages seen in many cultures today, including my own. We go from enjoying life passionately and freely (which allows for a little wild oats to be sown) in our young adulthood to focusing on settling down and succeeding in our , say 30's, by establishing relationship and professional successes.  From there we progress to serving the world beyond self and family  by becoming community caretakers (in our fifties maybe). This stage may be devoted to leaving something of value behind and we are not usually adverse to having our name attached to it. It is not until our final stages of life that many of us seek spiritual liberation. (The fear of impending death may actually have something to do with that.)

Pursuit of Happiness?

Throughout it all we desire.  We seek to attain and maintain things our culture tells us are necessary for the fulfilment of these stages.  In my culture  we are taught that money, sensual pleasure, fame and recognition, power and "special relationships" are the keys to happiness. Everyone around us is seeking this stuff so it must be  "true and natural desire", right? We are like separate little fish in a big school of fish that are  caught in a fast moving current, we label as the pursuit of happiness

But the sad thing is , it doesn't make us happy. We spend all our time being swept along, reaching out, trying to grasp and cling to the things that are passing by us...feeling desperate to "have" what someone else has, to get it before they do, before it runs out etc.  If we are lucky enough, in our endless pursuits, to get one of those things society tells us is our key to happiness...we feel that so called happiness for all but a minute...then we need to upgrade to something newer, better, what everyone else on Facebook or Twitter seem to be so happy having. Because we are being swept along in a current of collective habitual energy, we do not see this grasping, this striving for and the need to do as society instructs in order to be happy pulls us away from the things that actually make us truly happy. It is only when we can free ourselves of society's story, of this current that we will find teh true , lasting happiness we desire.

We need to stop and examine not only what we desire but what we don't desire.  What we don't desire is often resisted, denied, ignored, stuffed down inside us, suppressed and repressed.  This is our suffering.  To examine our desires means we also need to examine our suffering.  We need to determine the root causes of both.

R-A-E-L-I

That lovely little acronym from Deer Park is forever stuck in my head and in my heart.  Rabbits And Elephants Like Ice-cream.

  • Recognize your desires and your suffering when they arise or maybe even as seeds in the subconscious ( Of course we often are not aware of our seeds until they manifest in the conscious mind). 
  • Then allow them and accept them, accept yourself for experiencing them.  Don't beat yourself up for wanting a new car or a successful business.  It is not the thing you desire or the thing you don't want that is the problem.  It is the why and how of it all that is the problem...the root cause of it that needs to be examined.  Maybe you want a new car because you feel unworthy in comparison to others, you feel like a "nobody" and you erroneously assume the  car will make you worthy, at least in the eyes of others.
  • But before you examine it , allow it...embrace it, hold it gently and say "Oh Wow!  Look at that! Isn't that cool?  I wonder what it can teach me about myself. I wonder how I can use this to awaken?" By embracing, we put down our resistance and our need to push away.  We offer loving kindness to ourselves for our human tendencies.  We don't add to suffering, we seek to ease it.
  • Then and only then can you truly approach the process of looking deeply at the why you want what you want, or the why you suffer. There is never "one" cause.  There is never one person or thing to blame.  If your desire is for someone to change because you do not like the way they treat you.  You have to realize that your desire comes from many things, not just from that person's behaviour in your present life.  You might have suffered as a child from similar behaviour. You might not like the way that behaviour impacts your children etc etc.  Then when you look at the person you feel is the source of your suffering...know that there are several causative factors making them the way they are.  Maybe  they are unwell or overly stressed, maybe it is the environment, or their upbringing.  Maybe you are actually seeing his or her parents, grandparents, great grandparents in the behaviour you so desire to change.  Just know that: This is because that is.
  • The insight will come as to why we desire what we desire or why we suffer as we suffer.  We will find a new way to desire, a new way to ease suffering.  This is enlightenment and it doesn't come from anywhere but inside.  In order to get there we need to stop swimming along with all the other fish because we society tells us to.  We stop, breathe and look inward to determine what we really, really want. What we really want, we may discover, is to have spiritual freedom now!
My own Example: Writing and the Three Truths

In my own example of writing, it helps if I remember these three things Br. Phap Dung tells us to consider: Impermanence, inter-being and non-self.  I do have a desire for recognition as a writer.  I have a desire for some monetary gain for it.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting that.  The problem would only come if I was caught up in that, dependent on it for my happiness, wrote only for that reason.   I will suffer because  these things will never last.  Those who have established literary fame will be praised one moment, criticized the  next.  Will succeed with one book, fail with another.   Be honored one moment, disgraced the next. That is the nature of impermanence.

Then there is the Buddhists notions of inter-being and non-self to consider.  I say "I want to be recognized as a writer.  I want to have what I have written honored and praised."   Now look at this .  I desire these things as if "I" was the only one who deserves recognition for what I supposedly written.  It wasn't just me that put effort into the creation of whatever I write.  I am inspired by a million things and whatever I write would not be without those inspirations.  Take these blog entries, for example...if I did not listen to the dharma talk today, I would not have written this, at least not in the way it was written. Br Phap Dung is just as much responsible as I am for what I wrote here, if not more so. Thich Nhat Hanh is therefore responsible for what I wrote and the Buddha himself.  This little idea of "I" as the separate little  writer of these things is not reality.  As I said many times, especially in reference to poetry, it just comes through me as one collective thought from One Collective Mind. I love this in Three Magic Words.

Every book has been written by the same author...Every sonnet composed by the same poet. (location 180,181)

Without Ego, What Do You Want?

Now that really shrinks ego down to size whether he is in the redeeming mode or the shaming.  So ...without ego...do I really, really want recognition as a writer?  No...I want readers in order to complete this glorious cycle but fame and notoriety I realize will come and go, will turn from praise to criticism in a moment...I don't want to be dependent on that.  What I want is to have so much joy in me, so much peace  as I write for the sheer love of writing and giving that it doesn't matter how my work is received.  Now wouldn't that be cool? I think, I will water those seeds of desire! (Hey...not that I would say no to a publication or to get paid fro what I do lol)

Anyway, know what you really, really want and what you don't want.  Look deeply into these things and decide what should be watered and what shouldn't. Don't let society dictate that for you! Make it an inner game.

Heartfelt thanks to all those wonderful beings who helped me write this and who help me to write all I write!

All is well.


Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Plum Village ( May, 2020) The Better Way To Pursue our Desires/Dharma Talk by br. Phap Dung. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbEOX-orTMg&list=PLaX_vxbhs8fgKZ8fpSs8QyvNwdJMSv4Kp&index=5&t=0s

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Watering and Weeding the Mental Garden


All the things of the world change; they are born, they blossom, they bear fruit, and they die. Only the great unity - your own association with the infinite, your own individual manifestation of the Universal Mind of God - only that is changeless.
Uell S. Andersen, location 360

I know I often write about not being dependent on to-do lists but sometimes I think I could use a bit of the focused planning they offer lol.  Like when it comes to my days here. My writing, like I mentioned, is kind of all over the place.  Now, I am just working on getting some stuff out there...a couple of chap books , a few short stories while I finish my novels.

I do  have this feeling that I need to get my writing organized and out there because I don't know how much time I have left, and if this is what I am supposed to do while here I better get it done, you know? How much time do any of us have left?  We don't know, do we?  The more one looks into this idea of impermanence, the more one realizes how unpredictable our life spans in these forms are.

Habit Energy: Carrying Us Away From Source

Anyway...I guess I am getting off topic.  What I really want to talk about is our habit energy.  What do we tend to do out of automatic and mindless habit and what we tend to do out of mindfulness and awareness, knowing that it will bring us closer to what we really, really want.

First thing I want to do is dispel this idea that that there is a right way of thinking and being and a wrong way.  That there is good  and there is bad, right and wrong when it comes to our thoughts, feeling and actions. When we place those indicators and judgments on such a thing we tend to cling to what we judge as good or right  and we tend to fight, struggle, push away, run from, numb from, push down or stuff what we judge as bad, or wrong.  Man...that just causes a whole host of problems to add to our idea of "problems".

Let's instead look at it this way.  What thoughts, feelings, actions will bring you closer to what you really want and which ones will be hindrances to that experience? Well if we ask that...we need to know what we really want, don't we?

So What Do You Really Want?

What is it that you really want? There is so much about "The Law of Attraction" discussed in The Secret and Anderson's Three Magic Words that I like and can resonate with.  I do believe that "core belief" planted in our subconscious mind determines so much of what we experience in the physical world.  I have wrote about the placebo and nocebo effect, for example, and how a powerful belief in a propensity toward illness can create illness and a powerful belief in a remedy can relieve it.  Right? That has been scientifically proven.  So yes, if we can plant "seeds" in our store consciousness we can create a certain life experience.

So the question is...what do you plant?  You plant what you really want to see in your life experience.  And what is that?  Is it the things the Secret speaks to?  Like a new car, big house, the dream job, the soul mate, a million dollars, success or recognition? Think about that...is that what you really, really  want and if so...why do you want such things?  You want those things because you feel getting them will fill some hole in you, will ease your sense of "lack", unworthiness or suffering, right?  You believe getting these things will make you happy, peaceful, worthy, whole etc etc.  Right?

Think about that.  Is that true?  These are just things and grasping for them, striving for them...can actually cause more unhappiness and unease in the long run.  Let's face it, what we really want from these things is what we "assume" they will bring us.  We want the happiness, the peace of mind, the sense of being worthy, whole, complete...right?

Most spiritual teachings tell us we are already whole, already complete, already have everything around us we need to be happy inside us.  God has equipped us with a natural state of peace and happiness and all we have to do is connect with that Source energy, open up to it, remember it is there and voila we have what we really, really want. 

So what we want to plant, and water so it grows up into our conscious mind and experience are the things that will reconnect us, bring us closer to God, this Universal intelligence, "enlightenment".  The seeds you want to plant are seeds like love, compassion, joy, peacefulness, calm, gentleness and awareness.  These things are already in us...we really do not even have to plant them...we just need to water and nurture them so they can grow.

Weeds in the Garden: What You Really Don't Want

Nurturing also means taking care to prevent  the weeds  from growing in that mental garden.  Weeds will sprout up into our lives and they can grow abundantly, stopping us from seeing the peace and joy within.  They can seem to choke  out the so called "positive" making what we create seem "ugly" and "painful". If we are not mindful to water selectively the things that will take us closer to what  we want, the things that take us to the  unwanted can take over. 

If our attention is placed on these negative things: lack, loneliness, anger, violence, despair, danger, fear etc.  ...we are watering these weeds, we are encouraging them to grow.  They will grow...the law is real.  We will be mentally and emotionally consumed by the so called "negative" and our life experience will follow suit. 

This is not what we want, is it?  It takes us farther and farther away from the God given seeds of peace, joy, happiness, compassion and love that we really, really want to nourish and see grow.

Habit Energy: Watering the Negative

I have a habitual tendency, if I am not mindful, to get lost in negative thought streams.  I may wake up with a thought in my mind and my story telling nature  likes to quickly build narrative around it until I am lost in some epic tale that is often negative and not self or other serving. I may end up feeling like crap and not even know why. I may wake up thinking about a writing project I haven't finished and within minutes I am beating myself up for not completing or "doing" anything of value.

Watering the weed seeds can be a habit energy that we automatically fall into. We might not even realize we are doing it.  It is so much easier to stuff the weed seeds under layers of soil and pretend they don't exist than it is to acknowledge their reality.  It is so much easier to supress, repress, deny, avoid or numb from negative emotion and experience than it is to take care of it.  We can be consumed by the momentum of being carried away by the things that lead us farther away from God and our resistance to it.

We have a Choice

We always have a choice as to what seeds to water. To ensure we water the ones that bring us to our true nature we must be mindful and aware of where our attention is focused.  Simply focus on the joy and the peace and the God Source within you.  Allow that type of focus into  your daily experience.  When you wake up...instead of jumping on the habitual thought train that will take you speeding into a negative focus...breathe, focus on breath, focus on where your body is and time and space.  Be in the now...and watch your mind from a distance. Then be mindful how you make your tea, how you brush your teeth or care for your pets.  Fill those early hours with positive, inspirational literature or a  spiritual practice.  Maybe you want to meditate, pray or listen to a dharma talk  Start your day like that. And throughout the rest of the day, stop and notice where you are, what you are thinking, what you are doing and how you are doing it.  What seeds are you watering?  Bring self back to stillness many times a day, contemplating what you really want to see grow in your mental garden and in your life. Are you watering those seeds? Be aware!

What to Do With the Seeds When They Grow

Sometimes those seeds we wish wouldn't grow, will pop up into our conscious experience.  We are going to have to treat these weeds a lot differently than you would treat the weeds in your flower garden.  You are not going to pour noxious chemicals over them that kill so many things besides the weeds, you are not going to attack them by reaching in and pulling them painfully out of the earth, You are not going to snip them off at the stalk leaving the roots intact( that would be futile).  You are not going to pretend they aren't there either. 

What you need to do with these weeds is treat them the same way you would treat the rose that has bloomed beside them....with loving kindness. 

Huh?

 Do not judge one plant, one thought in that  mind of yours as beautiful, the other as ugly.  One as right and one as wrong. One that should be and one that shouldn't  Both should be because both are.  Neither good or bad...just are.  Recognize the weed...see it, touch it...know it is there.  And instead of struggling against its presence in your mind, your life, allow it to be. 

Then with loving kindness, embrace it.  Stop...take a deep breath and hold the negative thinking  in your mind. Look deeply at it and ask, "How , my little friend, did you come to be in my garden?"  Recognize how your mind once again has gotten lost in the habitual negativity and focused on that which does not serve you or the world.

Then wait for the insight to come to you which may involve an inspiration to do nothing more than gently letting go of the weed to focus on the rose, watering the rose, giving fertilizer to the rose as you commit to watering more selectively in the future.  As the roses around you bloom in the rich environment you provide, weeds will simply disappear. As we focus on the positive that is also in our lives, the negative will disappear.

If you want a rose garden...focus on roses not weeds. 

And also  know that Porsches, and Million Dollar Homes, trophy spouses or all the accolades in the world from others, will not make those roses bloom.  Water compassion, peace, mindfulness, concentration, love and joy instead.

Now what the he%& does that have to do with my writing disorganization?

I question what I want and what I am watering

I do want to get my writing out there and finish my novels but I ask why?  To embrace the writing process because it brings me joy or to get published so I can feel somewhat redeemed for spending all this time as a "non-productive" member of society?  I figure if someone validates my writing, I can say, "See, I didn't waste my time.  I was doing /being what I was suppose to do/be."

Is validation, redemption from others, a certain success as a writer what I really, really want?  No...I want connection with my Source.  When I write, I get that connection, that joy, that peace.  I feel like I am giving something.  That is why I write.

Watering the seeds of worldly desires like  publication and recognition  is not as important as watering the seeds of creativity, inspiration, joy and doing what I know I am here to do. I keep saying I am going to spend more time on the submission process rather than here but I keep coming back here to my fifty some readers a day. Go figure. I want to water this.

Hmmm!

What else can I say?

All is well in my world.

Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Plum Village (October, 2018) Practicing in a stressful environment/ Dharma Talk by Thich Nhat Hanh 2004 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6KTb0QMyJ8

Plum Village ( May 2020)  Taming the Tiger Within/dharma talk by Br. Ngo Khong/Deer Park Monastery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfLZn15jdxo

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Contemplating the Reality of Suffering

Conceptual habits of the Conscious Mind are the greatest bar to man's discovery of himself.
Uell S. Andersen

I just finished a wonderful book(fiction) about the life of my man, Aristotle: The Golden Mean by Canadian author, Annabel Lyon. Of course I have no where near the mind he had but I do like to do what he is known for doing, contemplating the nature of reality.  That is what leads to my studying all these philosophers, poets, writers, scientists and spiritual teachings. What I really like to do is find the connecting dots, the similarities, the One truth that they all point to when it comes to dealing with suffering.  You know?

Well , as you may have gathered by now,  I love the Buddhist dharma and I love the idea of discovering the True Self as taught in many other scriptures including Hinduism/Yoga and...yes...the "new age" stuff. (Though I do have a problem with that term ).  I am finding some important connecting dots that help with my understanding. 

I would like to compare the teachings of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh with other non-Buddhist teachings including ACIM, the Maharishi inspired works of Robert Spira and the writings of Uell S. Anderson to exemplify the idea that there is only One Truth. (Bear with me, I have a bit of vertigo and the letters on the keys sometimes jump all over the place lol...if there are a lot of typos, we will blame it on that)

Differences Between Buddhism and the Other Teachings

Before I begin talking about the similarities , it is important to speak to the difference in the philosophies of Buddhism with the others that keep slapping me in the face as I read, listen or study. There are, I believe, three distinct differences.

My way of understanding the first difference is that the Buddhist Path to liberation, freedom from the modifications of the mind and a return to the natural state of peace, is an "indirect path" taking many steps ( Well Eight to be exact) . The others above speak to a "direct path", one that requires nothing more than a "holy instant" or a moment of realization.During this directionless journey, the mind sinks or relaxes backwards, inwards or ‘selfwards’. (Spira,page 55)

Another difference is in the teaching of the non-Buddhists that most of the stuff we are experiencing is just an illusion that should be ignored or pushed away.  No matter what obstacle or undesirable circumstance crosses my path, I refuse to accept it, for it is nothing but illusion.
(Andersen, Uell S., page 429) All aspects of fear are untrue because they do not exist at the creative level, and therefore do not exists at all...Believe this and you will be free. (ACIM-T-VI:1:5)
The Buddhist, on the other hand,  do not believe in ignoring, resisting, struggling against anything, nor do they believe in supressing and repressing emotion as they feel we will be doing when we "ignore" certain things.  They see all that occurs, all experiences, thoughts and feelings as part of our  reality in the moment and must be recognized, accepted and embraced.

The third difference is that Buddhism speaks to the idea of "transformation"  more than the idea of "transcendence" used in the other teachings.  It is taught that we can transform our suffering , with the help of mindfulness energy, into a tool that guides us toward awakening. The others speak to the fact that we actually transcend this "idea" of suffering when we realize the illusionary nature of it.

Similarities

As I listened to a dharma talk today where Thich Nhat Hanh  was speaking of the five powers (well he added a sixth).  I immediately saw many similarities between this philosophy  and the others I have been presently reading.

The First Power is Faith

All these teachings speak to the idea of Faith as a power that can help us get beyond our suffering. .  Thich Nhat Hanh speaks to the importance of having confidence  and trust in ourselves  to awaken. The others use the term "belief"  and faith interchangeably. This faith Hanh and others speak or write about is not a reliance on something outside ourselves but on a something within. We need to "believe" we can get beyond  our pain by knowing Who or What is inside us. All teachings refer to a higher consciousness, a higher Self, a higher level of Being that rests in these temporary forms we wear like a gown.

The Second Power is Diligence

Diligence is all about applying "appropriate attention " to the things we want in our life.  Hanh calls it "watering selectively". We water those feelings and experiences we want to be paramount in our loves like joy, happiness, love, compassion, peace and  and awakening and we do our best not to water those things we do not want paramount in our life : pain, grief, anger, resentment, violence, greed etc.

Many of the teachings refer to the mind in a similar way though different terminology may be used.  Hanh says the  mind is divided into the "store consciousness" and the "mind consciousness". Uell and others refer to it as "subconscious" and "conscious" mind.  The "conscious" mind according to Uell and others is the boss of the subconscious mind but the subconscious mind determines more or less how we live because  it is there where the "Prompters" from the conscious mind are placed.  Hanh refers to these as "seeds".  These seeds or prompters include what the dualistic mind would refer to as both negative and positive aspects.  We want to water the positive and leave teh negative where they are.  These seeds are like "core beliefs" we hold onto yet may not be even mindful that they are there.  Sometimes they get watered on purpose by our appropriate attention and sometimes unfortunately by our "unskillful attention".  If we are thinking about the negative, focusing on it... that is like watering.  The negative pops up into our conscious mind and we may experience, according to many, more negative in our external worlds.  What we want to do is avoid watering the negative.

If, of course, they do get watered and sprout out into our conscious experience, we need to help them to go home.  Hanh and Spira say we do this by focusing on and watering the seeds of mindfulness/awareness so that energy comes to the surface to embrace the  energy of suffering we had allowed to sprout.  

Positive seeds or prompters are also  much more powerful than the negative.  We replace the negative with the positive.  Psychologists may refer to that as  cognitive restructuring.  If we focus on positive, all teachings say, we out do the negative.  It is not about struggling or fighting or resisting that which we do not want.

The Sixth Power is Letting Go

All teachings speak to the power of Letting Go but none more so than in Buddhism.  The basis of true happiness is a recognition, allowing, embracing, looking deeply into what is to gain insight.


Hmmm!  That is all I can seem to regurgitate right now.  I will be back.

All is well.

References:

ACIM

Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Lyon, A.(2009) The Golden Mean. Random House Canada

Plum Village (October, 2018) Practicing in a stressful environment/ dharma talk with Thich Hhat Hanh/ 2004  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6KTb0QMyJ8

Spira, Rupert. Being Aware of Being Aware (The Essence of Meditation Series) (p. 55). New Harbinger Publications. Kindle Edition.

Monday, May 25, 2020

Rest ot Restless?

Rest is not a four letter word.
Br. Phap Hai

I have been feeling a number of things lately and labelling what I have been experiencing , as the mind likes to do. I have been feeling lazy as I walk over things that need to be picked up or tidied, as I close my eyes to the heavy house cleaning that needs to be done and my avoiding  the yard work. 

I have also been feeling restless and worried, especially when I look at my writing ventures.  I seem to be all over the place and I worry if anything were to happen to me in the little bit...would what  I was supposed to get out there be out there?

I know I am just focusing my attention unwisely and once again fault finding with the way things are right now and right here.

My body is tired.  My mind is tired.  I am directed towards rest.  This does not mean I am hindering my process(well at least not according to the Buddhists lol).  I am simply finding rest where I need it, putting aside the doing tendency for the being one. Hmmm!

As far as the writing restlessness. I just need to stop, recognize that I am feeling restless, allow it, embrace it and then I can look deeply into as to why I feel the way I do.  Finally,  I can find the insight inside me as to what to do about it. I have so many things written, so many things partially written and so many things that are crying to be written.  I don't know where to go with it all. 

Deep breath!  I will figure out what needs to be figured out only after I allow and embrace it for being exactly as it is now.

All good!

Plum Village ( May, 2020) Finding True Rest for Body and Mind/ dharma talk with Br. Phap Hai.
Can't find the link for some reason...will get back to you with that.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

No Complaints What So Ever

Saying Nothing, The Observer Watches from the space that is forever quiet and still;
as the noisy, busy world bumps us around and knock us down, just as nature wills.
Me...woke up with this in my head, :)


Eckhart Tolle, in his video, Awakening from Self Talk, relays the story about a Zen monk who is about to part on a five year  journey.  The advice his master gives him before he leaves is to repeat to himself, no matter what he comes across, Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.

I have heard versions of this story before, possibly in other Eckhart Tolle videos, and I cannot find the original version when I search...but...this pretty well says it all anyway, doesn't it? This statement is a practice in itself

Imagine

Imagine if we could...no matter what happens to us, no matter who or what we encounter on this journey through life... say ( and mean!!) Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.

The sun is shining on the day of the family reunion Barb-B-Q: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.
It pours on the day of the family reunion Barb-B-Q: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.

You land your dream job: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.
You get fired from your dream job: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.

You meet your soul mate: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.
Your soul mate runs off with the babysitter: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.

You make a hundred thousand  dollars in the stock market: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.
You lose a hundred thousand  dollars in the stock market: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.

You are finally able to buy the house you always wanted after years of saving: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.
You lose the house you always wanted in a fire: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.

Saying "Thanks" even when it hurts!

You get the point, right? It may be easy to say "Thanks" in the first scenarios but how easy is going to be, not to complain, and be instead "grateful" in the second scenarios. That is where the real practice comes in.

In order to appreciate, we must first accept and allow a circumstance to be what it is.  A complaint, on the other hand, is usually a strong resistance to what is.  It is a saying, "No!  This should not be!"  It is an argument with another or with life that things are not meeting our expectations of how we judge and perceive they should be. Complaints take us out of the present moment because in order to be there we need to accept the moment for what it is...anything it is. If we resist the event we encounter, we resist the moment, and if we resist the moment we resist life.

By saying , Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever, we put aside our resistance and allow the moment to be what it is .  Then we take a step farther by appreciating it...knowing that there is great opportunity in adversity to advance us further in our spiritual practice.  

It is also a beautiful practice in non-duality...putting aside our need to name and label and judge things as being either good or bad, worthy of thanks or worthy  grievance.  Remember  Hamlet's words. : Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so. (Act 2: Scene 2).  No matter what we encounter, we need to remember it is just life doing life.  We can learn to trust and  appreciate the majesty in that!

My Own Practice

I have been thinking, over the last few days, about where I am at on my journey along this "horizontal plane" .  I don't "react" the way I used to... to anything.  I seem to be even keel, not doing much. People say to me, "You must be bored!" I just seem to be so "blah!" to others.

My daughter actually called me a "robot" the other day because her pain body needed me to jump into a dramatic expression of her misery with her.  I make it a point now not to go there.  I stand outside it, observing, offering my deeper presence.  I am not angry or hurt by what her pain body does or says, nor am I deeply concerned about it.  I feel great compassion for her in her suffering but I don't jump in the hole with her. I just watch, wait and offer my presence from a very calm space.  It drives her crazy.

It struck me, that this is how I am lately.  I no longer am lost in ups and downs.  I no longer get excited by things that used to excite me.  My "ambitions" have been greatly reduced.  My "doing" is way below "normal". Nor do I expect Life to be a certain way, so I am seldom disappointed. I don't seem to look towards the future anymore, nor am I lost in the past. 

And as I write this the term "flat" comes to mind.  "Flat" is a term used in psychiatry to describe a person's affect when they are depressed. Hmmm! Without dependency on these ups and downs, am I flat?

I don't feel depressed, I don't feel bored and I don't feel like a robot.  I don't feel overly excited either. I just feel even...like I found the strongest mood stabilizer? I mean, I  still get irritable at times...menopause lol. I say it like it is. I probably am more outspoken than I was about some things...but not because I need to be right but because I feel I need to be honest, to see and express things as they are.

I find myself smiling a lot too...when I see a hummingbird fluttering by, or notice the blossoms on a tree or feel the sun and wind on my face.  That seems to be enough for me. You know, I am peaceful!!! I am just peaceful.  I don't look to the ups and downs of some crazy roller coaster to make me feel alive anymore...I am balancing here.  How?

Well I am finding the vertical plane, I wrote about yesterday.  And when we find that, this truly  does become our mantra: Thanks for everything.  I have no complaints what so ever.

Pretty crazy, huh?

All is well!

Eckhart Tolle ( May, 2020) Opinions Are Distractions in our Mind/ Awakening from Self Talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzA2YyRs8XA

Friday, May 22, 2020

Balancing

Balancing On the Horizontal Plane

Brace yourself
as you wobble uneasily
on this ever-shifting  
horizontal plane.
Duck
when  your own busy
and chaotic  mental noise 
boom-a rangs  back to you,
vibrating with your joy,
your laughter
your sorrow
and your pain
on fear-made shields
and weapons
 thrown out by
your  own hands.
 
Then  push and swat away
the unpleasant reality
of existence here
on this
ever-changing line,
you attempt
so awkwardly
to balance on.

Hold tightly
to  that which can
keep you stable,
 to that which
perches precariously
and so very briefly,
on each end of the long pole
you cling so desperately to.
Hold your breath
as these  pleasantries,
successes
and accolades
land so sweetly,
stabilizing,
making you sigh in relief
before disappearing
to leave  you tottering again
above all their upturned eyes.
 
 
Watch as the ghostly lessons
and voices of your past
bounce off this wire
of circumstance,
feel that energy
moving through you
making you tremble
with tension
until it reaches its  source
 which hums so busily
between the eyes you insist
see all there is to see.
 
 
Close those eyes
to  this world
of comings and goings
that threaten to make you slip
into the endless depth below.
Focus on precious
grounding breath
to keep you balanced.
Then look again
with the internal vision
you have been given.
 
 
See the vertical line
that has always
been before you,
the plane that intersects
 this wobbly one
you are attempting,
oh so desperately,
to balance on.
Look up to see that
its end cannot be seen
and look down
to see the peace that
awaits you there.
 
Let go of the pole
you cling to.
Reach out to grab
this line instead.
Feel the perch
beneath your feet
becoming  stable
and unmoving
as you allow
yourself to slide down
into all there is.
Rest your weight
on this vertical line
so few tight rope walkers
remember or seek to know.
Remember.
Find stillness and peace
in this intersecting plane
and  this horizontal one
on which you stand
will be so much easier
to balance on.


© Dale-Lyn 2020
 
Oh wow!  Not good, lol.  This one was insisting on coming out.  Started it yesterday after I listened to the below  videos from Eckhart Tolle...but I spat and sputtered with a rhyme scheme the poem seemed to be insisting on.  And after a few hours, I said, "This is crazy!" and I walked away.  I came back to it today and this came out instead.  I think the message is good???!! Lol if nothing else.  ( I need to remind myself of Hamlet's words: Nothing is either bad or good but thinking makes it so. :))
All is well!
Eckhart Tolle (May, 2020) The Futility of Egoic Reaction and Navigating Our Awakening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9DCVEwd6Lw
 
Eckhart Tolle ( April, 2020) Transcending Fear https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L0aFk7j4d4