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It’s a few days before Thanksgiving as I walk through the woods complaining to a friend about all that is wrong with the world. It may be the natural beauty of the environment or the impending holiday that causes me to stop and hear myself. I am suddenly fed up with my ranting which has become a burdensome habit. I turn to my friend and say, “I am no longer going to focus on the cement. I am going to focus on the green shoots coming up through the cracks.”

At that moment in the woods, I experienced an immediate shift from bitterness and powerlessness to a sense of optimism and empowerment. Instead of focusing on the forces of greed, hatred and oppression in the world, I made the decision to seek out, support and join with those projects, people and organizations that are making a positive difference in the world. This experience represented a fundamental shift from emphasizing what I stand against to what I stand for.

A powerful example of this new stance, was in January 2017. Beryl, my wife, and I joined with a green shoot—more like a massive tree—bursting through the cement when we participated in the Women’s March in Washington, DC, considered the largest march in US history. We marched through the streets with a crowd estimated at 1.2 million, along with millions throughout the world. I was moved to tears, sensing a deep, fundamental shift that was happening worldwide. I was deeply touched by the diversity and goodwill of all of us. As I marched, I thought of my mother with her ERA button on, back in the 70s, working for the equal rights of women and the countless women whose efforts led to this moment. The momentum of the march has continued, evidenced by the expansion of the #MeToo movement, the election of the most women to Congress in the history of the US, the recent “women’s wall” on New Year’s day, wherein millions of Indian women, hand-in-hand, created a 385 mile line, the largest public gathering of women for the cause of gender equality in India, and the final push for the Equal Rights Amendment, here, in Virginia which could be the last state needed for its ratification.

Since that walk in the woods, I still find myself slipping into negative rants. Sometimes, I am able to catch myself, saving those around me from the torture. I am making a conscious attempt to turn my attention to the green shoots. This is difficult when, as research says, we all tend toward the negative. This is further reinforced by the media’s policy of emphasizing the negative and  “If it bleeds it leads.” In order to turn this personal and cultural habit force around, we need to make a continuous effort to turn our awareness towards what we stand for and with, both big and small: healthy nutrition, increased community participation in government, alternative energy, gardening, diversity, public art, worker-owned businesses, dancing,… So many possibilities.

Faith and belief are commonly confused, as if they are interchangeable. Faith is not belief. Belief is holding onto an idea of what is or what should be. Faith is allowing, trusting and surrendering to what is. Faith is the ability to let go to or fully engage in what is, here and now, without preconceptions of the outcome. Alan Watts, a philosopher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the West, underscored this critical contrast of the two terms:

“We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would “like” or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.”

Learning, personal growth and spiritual awakening are not the outcome of belief. They are the result of direct awareness and experience. It’s not a matter of belief. The proof is in the pudding—the actual tasting and eating of the pudding—not the recipe. Holding onto a belief is like eating the recipe.

Carlos Castaneda, who was largely responsible for introducing shamanism to western culture, taught the practice of controlled folly which is grounded in this understanding of faith. Controlled folly is the act of committing yourself fully to an action with the knowledge that your efforts may come to naught; letting go fully into the action, with no thought of the outcome. Similarly, Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, “When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.” Most of us have experienced this when fully engaged in an activity in which our thoughts drop away and we lose track of time. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his research regarding flow, identified the characteristics of this experience and many ways in which we can experience it.

Faith involves an eyes wide-open approach to our unfolding experience. This involves what I call “letting it have it’s way with me”—being open to the raw experience of whatever arises: pleasant, disturbing, boring, etc. Deep emotions are often stirred as a result. This flies in the face of the common misconception that mindfulness or presence involves a neutral, non-emotional awareness. On the contrary, fully surrendering to what is carves out our capacity to feel deeply both the highs and lows of life’s drama. In so doing, we are no longer clinging to or resisting what is and are like a lithe tree bending in the wind that stays fully grounded in the present.

The Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, encouraged his students to embrace the less rosy side of faith: “We must surrender our hopes and expectations, as well as our fears, and march directly into disappointment, work with disappointment, go into it, and make it our way of life, which is a very hard thing to do.” I would add to this the need to march directly into appreciation and gratification which is also a very hard thing to do. The majority of us have a hard time experiencing and taking in the so-called good as well as experiencing and releasing the so-called bad. Our beliefs, fears, hopes, expectations, judgments and difficulty taking in the good all represent attempts to change, stop, get away from or control the here and now. These are resistances that ultimately result in disappointment and suffering.

How do we surrender our resistances? The common, first response is to try to get rid of them. However, what we resist will persist, and resisting our resistances ends in a never-ending war with ourselves. In contrast to this initial impulse, faith involves being present with, experiencing and feeling our resistances. All these resistances are also expressions of what is. When such resistances are held in unconditional, open awareness, we dis-identify with these automatic reactions. They are often felt in the body as tension and contracting that may move into a physical, energetic or emotional release, eventually dissolving into an easeful awareness of what is.

Another important aspect of faith is the direct experience of the here and now through our senses without filtering it through thought. We are often separated from our direct experience due to the automatic habit of labeling, evaluating and comparing everything that enters our awareness. This brings to mind Fritz Perls’ invitation, “Lose your mind and come to your senses.” Perls, a founder of Gestalt Therapy, is encouraging us to retrieve the a priori, non-conceptual awareness that we were born into before language became our dominant form of perceiving.

A faith-illumined path does not require a leap of faith. It can be a series of baby steps in which we stick our toe into the raw, direct experience of the here and now without resorting to thought. Doorways to such glimpses are innumerable: the arts; nature; loss; injury; sickness; relationships; play; sports; spiritual practices and focused work of any kind.

This does not mean eschewing thoughts and beliefs. Thoughts and beliefs are held lightly as they play their parts as needed and come and go within the non-conceptual, direct experience and awareness of faith. Grounded in faith, we dis-identify with our default setting of viewing the world through thought, beliefs and our automatic resistances. We, eventually, drop into our original default setting, our birth-inheritance: an open, unconditional, easeful awareness of what is that guides our lives. Faith, first; thought, speech and action, second.

Surrender

Surrendering to all that arises,
Surrendering to the resistance to all that arises,
Letting it all have its way with me,
Letting it break my heart open,
Letting it break the barrier between
Me and you,
Mine and yours,
Here and there,
Now and then,
Within and without,
Right and wrong,
Life and death,
Suffering and enlightenment,
Between one and all.

 

Image copyright: Rob Byron and Evgeny Atamanenko

The Wall:

Facing a wall
Waiting for a window to appear.
No window; just the wall.
The wall is the window.

In your attempts to do what you love and create the life you want, you have most likely encountered internal or external obstacles. An internal obstacle may take the form of a behavior, belief, thought or feeling such as procrastination, perfectionism, fear, anxiety, and self-defeating thoughts such as “I’m not good enough,” “Something bad is going to happen,” or “There’s something fundamentally wrong with me,” to name just a few. External obstacles may include such things as financial limitations, administrative red tape, friends or family telling you that you are being unrealistic, or a personal or family crisis such as illness, accident or death. I have had clients tell me that as soon as they begin to make a significant change in their lives, something seems to happen to drag them back into the old status quo. This reminds me of Michael Corleone’s desperate complaint in God Father: Part III: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” (Click: video)

In Zen, there is an old saying, “The obstacle is the path.” Leave it to Zen to turn the tables on our usual approach to life. The following Zen story takes a similar tack:

A student asked, “When times of great difficulty visit us, how should we meet them?”
The teacher said, “Welcome.”

What the…? How do you make sense of that? The recommendation here is not to be like some Herculean masochist who is willing to tolerate all types of torture and misfortune. The invitation is to be aware of and present with the obstacle, allowing space for the thoughts, feelings and physical sensations that arise as you face it.

The paradoxical proposition, “The obstacle is the path,” reminds me of a central concept in Gestalt Therapy: the paradoxical theory of change. Stated simply, this is the understanding that change occurs when you are present with what is, not when you try to change it. Your inherent capacity to creatively adapt, learn, heal and grow in the face of an obstacle begins with awareness of your current situation which includes your physical and psychological experience.

I often say, “Presence first; thought, speech and action, second.” This underscores the effectiveness of dropping into present awareness when facing an obstacle. The appropriate, effective and compassionate response to the situation is more likely to emerge when one first assumes this “presence of mind.” This response may arise within in you or outside of you. An insight or idea may spontaneously arise, or you may find once you have settled into the here and now, there’s no need for action. On the other hand, you may see something that triggers a solution, or hear something while talking to a friend, or you might find that the problem solves itself.

So, how do you achieve present awareness? While there are many ways to accomplish such awareness, Tara Brach recommends taking a “sacred pause” throughout the day. Below are two simple practices you can do during your sacred pause as you confront obstacles, both large and small. An important aspect of these practices is letting go of the concept of an obstacle or problem. You are left with just encountering what it is you are experiencing through your senses, here and now.

The first practice is from Loch Kelly’s book, Shift Into Freedom. Whenever you encounter an inner or outer obstacle, say silently to yourself, “With no problem to solve, what is here and now?” Without trying to answer the question in words, just drop into awareness of what is present through your senses.

The practice, below, can be anywhere from a minute to 10 or 15 minutes. Be careful not to approach the exercise with the idea of getting rid of the obstacle. It is crucial to be willing to be present with the sensations, giving them your full awareness. At first, it may be difficult being present with your sensations. Do not force yourself to go beyond your level of tolerance. Stay with them as long as you can, then take a break and, if needed, do something that will calm, soothe and ground you. Through practice, your capacity to be present will increase. You may want to start with smaller disturbances and graduate to more difficult ones.

Just This

As you are aware of what is disturbing you in the moment, focus your attention on the sensations in your body that are being stirred up—not trying to change them, get rid of them, label them or analyze them. Experience and feel them from the inside, not observing from your head. When you find yourself drifting into thought, just go back to the sensations, not engaging the thoughts or trying to push them away, allowing them to be in the background and do what they will. The thoughts may include resistance to feeling the sensations. You may notice and experience new sensations that were stirred up by the thoughts. Continue to feel the original sensations along with any new sensations that may arise, whether they stay the same, change, intensify, decrease or move.

 Image Copyright: <a href=’https://www.123rf.com/profile_konradbak’>konradbak / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

A guy walks into a Zen Monastery and says to the Zen master, “Please show me where to enter the Way.”
The Zen master says, “Do you hear the sound of the valley stream?”
The guy answers, “Yes.”
The Zen master says, “Enter there!”

Zen Buddhism asserts there are countless dharma gates—ways to “enter the Way.” Life is continually giving us opportunities to enter the Way—to enter and be fully engaged and aligned with the stream of life, whether you call it going with the flow, expressing your true or higher self or living in God’s grace. There are a bunch of ways to get there such as meditation, playing music, gardening, playing sports, doing fulfilling work, gazing at the stars or listening to the birds. An intimate relationship is another one of those ways.

(Image Copyright: lightwise)

Don’t Take It Personally

Wreaking havoc on anyone who crossed him,
An enraged TV gangster demanded,
“Everybody says, ‘Don’t take it personally.’
“How do you not take it personally?!”

Let it inflame you.
Let it break your heart.
Let it open a world of hurt.
Let it open the wounds held in protective custody all these years;
Unattended wounds slowly killing you and those around you.
Let it awaken you to your self-imposed prison,
A prison dividing you against yourself, others and the world.
Let it free you from this desperate, futile confinement.
Let it bring an end to the silent killer.
Let it let in the world.

What do you do when you encounter a person—friend, family member, boss or politician—who pushes your buttons, leaving you anxious, frustrated or near tears? You may have often heard the admonition, “Don’t take it personally.” This can come from well-meaning family members, friends and colleagues, as well as from spiritual teachers. One of the four agreements in Miguel Luis’ book, The Four Agreements, is “Don’t take it personally.” Well, as the TV gangster in the above poem asks, “How do you not take it personally?”

With little or no guidance, you are left with two common strategies: 1) suppressing feelings; and 2) spiritual bypass. The first strategy is one we are all familiar with, while the second is more subtle and often employed in the name of spiritual growth. These strategies are employed by people often thinking they are doing the right thing.

The suppression of feelings is employed early in life when intense emotions arise that are not safe to express and too overwhelming to tolerate. For example, in response to emotional abuse by a loved and trusted parent, a child may be left in a bind when beginning to cry and the parent says, “Shut up or I’ll give you something to cry about.”  The default adjustment to such a situation is to shut it down. This shutting down becomes automatic and unaware over time, resulting in a treasure trove of repressed unfelt, unexpressed feelings. As people grow older they learn new ways to suppress uncomfortable feelings, such as overeating, overworking, over-exercising, smoking…the list is endless. They end up with a backlog of unfelt, unexpressed feelings that can be easily triggered by a situation that is similar to the situations they have guarded against in the past. When triggered in this way they require more suppression to keep it all from bursting forth.

The second strategy, spiritual bypass, is actually one of those learned ways, discussed above, used to fortify the ongoing unaware, automatic practice of suppressing our feelings. The concept of spiritual bypass, coined by John Welwood, is defined as “a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks” (quote from an Interview with John Welwood by Tina Fossella).

So, how do you avoid the above pitfalls and not take it personally when you have a difficult encounter with someone? I recommend the following two-step process:

Step 1: See it as an opportunity. Carlos Castaneda’s teacher, Don Juan, was over-joyed when he encountered such a person as it provided an opportunity for polishing his spirit; an opportunity to heal old wounds and unleash personal power. He had a categorization system for such people: 1) petty, petty, petty tyrant: someone who is just plain annoying who drives you to distraction such as a phone salesperson, nosy neighbor or small-minded bureaucrat; 2) petty, petty tyrant: someone who triggers anxiety, anger, fear or powerlessness such as a boss, colleague, or family member; and 3) petty tyrant: a ruthless bully capable of inflicting severe psychological or physical harm such as an abusive partner, a desperate criminal or an authoritarian dictator. While you may not be gleeful at the prospect of having to deal with such a person, try seeing it as an opportunity to heal and grow.

Step 2: Feel it and heal it. Many people may respond to this prescription in one of two ways: “No thanks! If I do that, the dam will break and I will never recover,” or “If I feel my feelings, I may do something I regret and hurt or enrage people; ending up rejected, hurt, fired, or worse.” These are valid concerns. To feel it and heal it, you don’t want to rip the bandaid off the wound. It needs to be done with loving care in order to address the reaction to the present relationship, while tenderly unraveling and releasing the long-held emotions being reactivated by the current encounter.

There is a range of practices from eastern, western and indigenous traditions that can provide a way to feel it and heal it. Many of these can be done on your own (for a list of practices, go to Resources). Initially, it may be best to do such practices with someone who is trained and experienced to provide guidance and support, especially if you are dealing with a difficult situation or significant past trauma. You may want to consider working with a psychotherapist with such approaches as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Gestalt Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Somatic Experiencing or Internal Family Systems.

What we resist will persist. Continuing to suppress and spiritually bypass feelings will result in an increasing backlog of emotions that will interfere with our present interactions with others. There is another choice. As my Zen teacher, Roshi Philip Kapleau, would say, “The way out is the way in.” To not take it personally it is necessary to feel and go through the emotions with mindful, loving presence; letting go of long-held fear, guilt, shame, resentment and sadness.

(Image Copyright: Konstantynov)

There are three essential ingredients for creating the life you want: support, support, support. Building a strong support system serves as your foundation for making any major change, whether it is making a lifestyle change, changing careers or going after your dreams. You may have heard the saying, “It’s not what you know. It’s who you know.” Absolutely! In order to create the life you want, you need all the support you can get. This flies in the face of the American myth of individualism, the “self-made man,” and “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.” If you look at the research and throughout history, successful people who have accomplished amazing things have received loads of support from others.

Another myth is the idea that you have to love yourself, first. Your capacity for self-love arises as a result of being loved and accepted just as you are. This involves internalizing the love and support you received from family, friends, teachers and others who have given you encouragement, compassion, comfort and understanding through thick and thin. Once you have experienced such love and support, you are then able to provide the same for yourself.

Sadly, for most us, we didn’t receive the love and support we needed as we grew up. As a result, we didn’t develop the self-love and support needed to deal with life’s difficulties and to embrace life’s opportunities. We are left with what I often call a “black hole for love.” It is not too late to fill that hole!

This reminds me of the question: “What is the easy way to enlightenment?” The answer: “Surround yourself with enlightened people.” This is in keeping with a principle in complex systems theory that complex systems (e.g., people) tend to shift their behavior and resonate with the systems in their environment. Love and acceptance begets love and acceptance. You are not obliged to allow in your inner circle those people who are critical, abusive, passive-aggressive and withholding. In order to fill that black hole and develop your capacity for self-love and self-support, you need to seek out and be with people that love and accept you just as you are, as well as support, encourage and exemplify all that you aspire to do and be.

You may want to make regular use of the Appreciations Log, as it is a great tool for training yourself to focus on the gold that is glittering in your life. I have found this exercise to be an effective way to change my perspective when I am focused on doom and gloom. When you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, this exercise awakens you to the light coming through the holes in the sides of the tunnel.

As I heard a Zen teacher once say, “Your attention is like a watering can. Whatever you focus on will grow. You have a choice to water the flowers or the weeds.” You may have found that you tend to focus more on the weeds. This—what researchers call “negativity bias”—has been found to be true of all us humans. Our tendency to focus on the negative severely limits our ability to feel joy and ease in our lives. The good news is we can retrain our brains to focus on the positive.

Guidelines: Make a list of what you appreciate throughout the day in a pocket notebook or digital device. Add each appreciation to your list when you experience it. There is a lot that you will miss and not remember if you wait till the end of the day to make your list. A brief phrase or sentence that will remind you of each appreciation will be enough, e.g., listening to the birds, looking up at the blue sky or lunch with your best friend. Include brief glimpses as well as more profound experiences. Be sure to include yourself as an object of appreciation, e.g., presenting a good idea at a meeting, listening to a friend in need or making a good joke.

Why write it down? Life coaches have a saying, “Ink it, don’t think it.” If you commit it to paper, the observation becomes more concrete, giving it more significance than an ephemeral thought. When you take the time and physical effort to write it, you are embedding the experience deeper into your consciousness.

Presence first;
Thought, speech and action second.

Presence is awareness of what is here and now. Presence is being present with whatever is arising in our awareness both inside and outside of us. Presence is a priori, the foundation of our experience. It is always…present. Thought, speech and action arise in and from presence. Right thought, speech and action flow from presence. When we rest in the ground of awareness, the appropriate, effective and compassionate thought, speech and action arise, just right for the current situation.

We cover up presence when we put thought first. We bury the ground of awareness under our preoccupation with thought. This focus on thought is propelled by the following mistaken beliefs:

• Thought is the source of the solutions to all our problems.
• We are our thoughts located somewhere in our heads.
• Our thoughts about reality are real; more real than our experience of the here and now through our senses.

This preoccupation with thought is a long-standing habit that cuts us off from presence—the ground of awareness of what is here and now. Because of this separation, this habit unknowingly takes a lot of effort and energy to maintain, and ends up causing all kinds of problems. Presence, on the other hand, takes no effort at all, because it is the foundation of what we are; it is always there.

The difficulty is breaking or, better said, letting go of the thought habit, and allowing the ground of awareness to be our source, our identity, our reality. Try as it may, thought cannot break or let go of the habit. No philosophical insight will do the trick. That would be a case of throwing gasoline on the fire. Nor can thought grasp or bring about presence. That would be like a single, microscopic organism of plankton trying to swallow the ocean. Finally, presence is not a question of replacing the old habit with a new habit. Presence is not a habit; it is our true nature.

Just as every grain of sand and each of us is unique, the pathless path for each of us to uncovering the ground of awareness is unique. There are many paths up this mountain; this mountain that we are. What a wondrous adventure!

A Tasty Present

Presence,
Open, loving awareness of the here and now,
Is a present that is eternally present;
A cake out of which pops just the right
Thought, speech, action,
Beings, places, things.
Our just desserts are always being served;
A smorgasbord of ever-changing flavors:
Bitter, spicy, bland, sour, sweet.
Let presence do the tasting:
Indescribably delicious

Here’s a simple and effective awareness exercise you can do. Pause throughout the day, even if it is just a moment, and ask, “With no problem to solve, what is here and now?” Without trying to answer the question in words, just drop into awareness of what is present. This was borrowed from Shift into Freedom by Loch Kelly.

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Carlos Castaneda spoke of the shamans of his lineage as navigators of infinity. We are all navigators of infinity, the unfathomable, boundless, eternal field of energy that is the source of everything. Most of us are at best dimly aware of this as we have set a finite course, imprisoned on a seemingly safe, comfortable excursion that severely limits our capacity to behold and express the wonder of our existence. May we all discover that we are infinity navigating infinity on this miraculous voyage.