Who needs work?! July 6, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Livelihood, Psychology, Transformation, articles , 2comments
For most of us working sucks which I think is why work is a four letter word. Have you ever really thought about why you work and what role it plays in your life? Most of us work because we think we have to, to pay the bills or really to survive. We might have a job that we can’t stand or we might even have a job that we like or no job but when whatever we do becomes work it takes on a quality of struggle. If we work for ourselves doing what we love often it becomes work when we struggle to make ends meet. Our society is built on work and struggle, the idea that you have to sacrifice much of who you are to survive. Right behind the struggle is lack, the belief/feeling that we are incomplete or lacking something that we must seek externally whether it is money, love or fulfillment.
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Turning it around, creating from the heart March 13, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Livelihood, Transformation, blog , 1 comment so far
I’ve been working a lot with trying to balance the perceived need for money with what I really want to create in my life. In working with this I’m seeing how the process of creating has been reversed at least relative to the way I am choosing to do it now. The way I would do it before would be to focus on money first. I would need to make money usually by getting a job or doing some kind of work. The amount of money I was able to make which was always limited would then determine what resources I had access to which would also be limited. I’m seeing more clearly now the way this process is dysfunctional why it has involved struggle and lack.
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Survival March 9, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Livelihood, Transformation, blog , 2comments
Now that I have left my job and chosen to pursue my heart path I am yet again directly up against the edge. One thing I always find at this edge is the fear of not being able to survive. Letting go of the world of career and work immediately brings up the fear that without that paycheck I won’t be able to survive, to eat to have shelter and clothing etc. Its ironic that making a choice to follow the heart leads to a question of survival but it shows how deeply ingrained the beliefs about security and material needs are in our society. In the old paradigm, following the heart and living in the moment is not taught to be a way to responsibly and effectively live life. Instead we are taught that we must sacrifice, struggle and make money if we want to have what we need and be ok in life, often at the expense of the heart and perhaps even our health and relationships.
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Mindfulness and abundance January 22, 2009
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What does washing the dishes have to do with creating what I want in my life and being happy? Well everything it seems. I’ve embraced the concept of abundance for some time now believing that we have the power to create what we choose to create in our lives because we live in an abundant universe from which we are not separate and it is through the power of our attention and intention that we can transform abundance into form. However sometimes it seems so damned elusive. I believe it and on some deep level I know it but it seems like a very different thing to actually put it into practice on a daily basis to create the resources I need to survive and flourish without sacrificing my truth and my path, well actually without sacrificing my heart. It has been a painful process of trial and error.
Lately I’ve come to realize more just how simple this whole thing really is. The question keeps coming to mind of if I don’t feel like I can access abundance what is it that is cutting me off from it? The answer for me seems to be disconnection from the present moment and addiction to compulsive thinking. I noticed that when I am feeling fearful, limited, unsuccessful or just plain confused and crazy I am always lost in my head and not in touch with the present. I have been swept away by a train of thoughts and feelings which are a part of a habitual pattern of lack and fear and come up consistently and powerfully.
The simple practice of realizing that I am lost in my head and then coming back to the present almost always dispels the fear and anxiety and negative thoughts and emotions provided I leave space to acknowledge and feel them without judgment. What I find when I become present is peace, simplicity, clarity and power. The only thing is there is a powerful habitual pattern of not being present, being addicted to compulsive thinking and worrying so it becomes a constant practice of mindfulness. In Zen this is known as doing one thing at a time with our whole body and mind. When you do the dishes just do the dishes rather than planning your entire day at the same time and not giving much attention to the action you are in the middle of.
This seems a bit ridiculous at first because why would you want to give all your attention to something so mundane as doing the dishes? The answer is because that is what is happening right now and right now is where your power is, where life is. Doing the dishes is only mundane and trivial from an ego centered point of view, its just an everyday task, a means to an end. But from the perspective of complete presence it is a manifestation of life, of consciousness in action and it is beautiful. From this perspective everything is sacred and filled with wonder and power, if we just pay attention. In the moment there is clarity, the problem we can figure out becomes clear in stillness and we find we already knew the solution.
This translates into a very simple yet powerful practice of mindfulness, just paying attention to right now. Its amazing that when you really do that the problems of life begin to dissolve. Its not that there is no suffering and difficulty, there is, but it just isn’t so much of a problem anymore and how to address it is clear. To become present however requires that we surrender to our experience right now because if we are resisting what is we cannot become fully present. The resistance creates separation and we are cut off from our power and left in a painful state of confusion. With surrender we let go of resistance to what is and become present and ironically then we can see clearly how to change things if they need changing and its within our power. But whether we can change an external situation or not we can always find a state of peace inside by accepting what is and having an open full and harmonious relationship with right now…….
Struggle and conflict January 10, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Livelihood, Psychology, Spirituality, blog , add a commentIts interesting how patterns come and go in life and its also interesting how intense the rate and degree of change has gotten for many people. I came out of last year feeling pretty good, having created a new place to live, a new job and a new deeper commitment to practice. What I’ve experienced in the last few days can only be described as a tidal wave of energy uprooting my life yet again. What I didn’t realize was that in creating these things as wonderful as they were, they were also reflecting old patterns and I found that I created an illusion for myself. The illusion being imagined stability and peace in these things that I created. I felt grounded and stable and imagined this could be maintained in its current form for some time. I know better than that but not recently it seems.
What I didn’t realize is the process of change and growth that I have undertaken would not allow me to grasp on to these things in ways that I would in the past. In my job I created the perfect environment in which to do computer work. A worldwide Buddhist organization devoted to teaching and charitable work with an office that is as peaceful and conscious as I’ve ever experienced. A wonderful boss who seems to actually care about my happiness and well being, not something I’ve ever experienced in the workplace before. But this perfect environment essentially highlighted what I’ve been having so much trouble accepting for so long. I don’t feel called to do technology work anymore. No matter how much I try I simply cannot find any passion or interest for it. This is quite frustrating because I am very good at it and have more than 10 years of experience so it seems like the ideal way to make money and offer service. But its not to be anymore, this job has helped me see that, if I can’t do this work here then I can’t do it anywhere. So time to let go and face the edge again, if not technology work then I don’t know how I will pay the bills, its the unknown. Nothing to do but trust.
My living situation is similar in that I thought, great I’ve got a cool stable place for six months and then I’ll move on to something else. But its been anything but stable, with two roommates moving out in the first 2 months, utter chaos. Now come to find out that the landlords want us to pay the rent on any unrented rooms, so much for having a budget or knowing what to expect financially. Not sure how this will be resolved yet but there certainly seems to be no stability to be found here.
More than these things I’ve felt lately like I’m in conflict with everyone and everything. Like its an unending onslaught of problems, difficulties and interpersonal issues. I know I’m creating this buts its been absolutely exhausting. In group the other night it became clear that part of it at least is that I am feeling a great deal and not really allowing the emotion to flow. Feeling a lot around all the change and chaos, feeling a lot around my friend Sheleigh moving away to Arizona, feeling a lot about facing my fears of creating right livelihood, dealing with more change and attachment with my friend Kara, facing my fears and desires around relationship and on and on. There is a lot to feel but I’m still working on letting it flow, well really with letting everything in my life flow without grasping on so tightly. It hurts. Its terrifying. Its sad. And its also wonderful, freeing and filled with joy.
My practice has deepened which I know often brings more unconscious processes and feelings to the surface. It can cause a resurfacing of old patterns allowing them to be illuminated, felt and released yet again, another layer of the onion to peel away. Its a pretty intense time right now and I sometimes wonder if I will make it through but then again I know I will. My old Zen teacher Diado Roshi says that the process involves facing the edge and pushing it then inevitably pulling back into old forms of imagined safety, old patterns and then seeing that they don’t work and again facing and pushing the edge. A flow, no problem if you don’t try to hold on. Let go……..always.
The Engine of Personal Creation August 23, 2008
Posted by bodhidude in : Livelihood, Spirituality, Transformation, blog , 1 comment so far
In choosing to take responsibility for my experience and create the reality that I desire I’ve studied quite a bit of material on manifestation and how our external world reflects our internal experience. I fully believe that I have created everything that I experience in my life so its been a process of trying to understand how I’ve done it and with that understanding be able to do it more consciously. Needless to say its been a frustrating process at times and at other times quite incredible. From this point of view our external world is a reflection of what we think, imagine, feel and believe. If we want a mirror of the beliefs and thought patterns we have held in the past we need only look at our life as it is right now. If we don’t like what we see we can change it by illuminating the inner processes that created what we don’t want and put our energy into imagining and embodying what we do want to see in our outer world.
So how do we take something we wish to create from an idea into a physical reality? For me it starts with knowing what I want to create and making an intention out of it. This is the first step that makes the declaration to the universe that I’m engaging in an act of creation and this is what I want to create whether it be a relationship, money, a new computer, health, peace or whatever. From here I begin to create a vision, a mental picture of just what my creation looks like with as many details as possible including what it looks like visually, what it sounds like, smells like, feels like etc. This may just be happening in the mind but if external experience reflects internal as I believe then we are engaging in a process of giving external reality something new to reflect. The imagination is powerful and with it we can experience almost any quality of what we want to create.
The mental image or vision is not enough however because a vision alone lacks the power to create a physical form. This is where it can get challenging due to our habitual patterns, fears and doubts. What we need to do is infuse our vision with emotional energy. We take all the details we imagined when we created our image and feel that our creation is already manifested, that it is here now, its already complete. This would definitely feel a certain way. If I wanted to create a relationship it would involve a lot of feeling to actually have that relationship, to be in it and experiencing it. We have the power to imagine this. This is the process of fully stepping into our vision and making it a reality for us. If it is a reality at all levels inside then our external experience will have to reflect that. We focus on the end result and feel that it is completely real and present in our life now. We don’t focus on how it will come to pass, we focus on it as already present. This allows us to be open to the unlimited channels that something can come to us through rather than limiting it to just the ones we know or can imagine. The process of creation has the potential to be infinite if we allow it to be. If I can only imagine creating money through a job then my experience will reflect that by only bringing money into my life through a job rather than it being open to infinite sources of wealth that I may not be able to imagine at the moment.
The challenge here is often that we don’t really believe in our vision at a deeper level and so aren’t able to fully feel and experience its presence. Therefore we aren’t able to infuse it with sufficient energy to complete the creative process. It can help here to illuminate the doubts and fears that get in the way and allow ourselves to look at them and release them. It can also be helpful to study the creative manifestation process in depth so we can build confidence in it and understand how it works. We can then find examples in our lives of how we have already manifested things, both things we wanted and did not want because we are creating our experience all the time its just usually unconscious and haphazard. The process works whether it is conscious or not and we can equally bring positive healthy forms into being as we can negative destructive forms. The motivation behind our vision and the quality of energy that we infuse it with will determine the quality and effect of the resulting creation.
If your intention is to create money in your life it is helpful to look into where that intention is coming from. What part of your consciousness the vision comes from also determines what quality of emotional energy will be needed to activate and empower it. If I build a vision of more money in my life to acquire possessions, buy a car as a status symbol and impress women the quality of energy that will be compatible with this vision is going to be a denser emotional energy such as greed or a visceral form of pleasure. If I envision money to help my friends, meet my basic needs and support charitable causes it will likely be compatible with a lighter vibration of energy such as joy and peace. There is no judgement in this in terms of what ones motivation should be or what is right to create and what is not. It is simply necessary to know where ones desires originate from and the emotional energy that is most appropriate to empower them. This is where people can feel that the process doesn’t work because the energy infusing the vision is insufficient or not compatible with it so it does not produce the desired result. The kind of emotional energy we need to manifest a vision is the same kind of emotional energy that is present when we experience that vision as a physical reality. The key in this process is the ability to step into the vision of what one wants to create fully and experience all elements of it in the present moment. When you embody your vision fully in this way your outer world must reflect it because it becomes what you are projecting “out there”.
It comes down to the money April 14, 2008
Posted by bodhidude in : Livelihood, blog , add a commentIn so many ways I am now living more as a I want to and doing more of what I want to do. The major challenge I face now is money. How do I do what I love and create enough financial resources to make ends meet. Working as a counselor in private practice is incredibly challenging from a financial point of view because the income is so unstable. People cancel appointments, they abruptly end counseling, they can’t afford to pay more than the minimum or they can’t come very regularly. All of this is understandable but it leads to the question of how you make a living off something like this when the incoming funds vary so greatly.
I also have the ability to do computer work on the side but my skills have aged on that quite a bit and my passion for doing it is gone, its doesn’t feel like what I should be doing right now. Nevertheless the bills need to be paid and I need money to move and pay rent and I must admit that I feel confused and lost in terms of how to make this all work consistently. When you are doing healing work and needing to depend on it to make a living it can really interfere with the energy and the ability to help people because its all too easy to start seeing clients as a commodity. It distracts from the true work and focus on the client and the healing that they need.
I’m so used to working at a job and getting a paycheck and this feels so foreign to me. However I know that somehow I must make it work or maybe just allow it to work because I cannot go backwards and live like I was before. Money and how to create enough of it now is my primary process, my main focus.
Tapping into Abundance September 7, 2007
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What is abundance? I’ve tended to think of creating abundance in my life but when I consider what I believe abundance to be I find that the idea of creating it is meaningless. To me abundance is emptiness as it is stated in Buddhism, it is the nature of the universe, it is the field of limitless potential of which we are all a part. It is the underlying energy of all creation and the stuff of which all things are made. From this point of view abundance does not need to be created, as it is everywhere limitlessly. We are however not generally taught to see things this way, we tend to be conditioned to think of the universe as mechanical, limited and of there being a lack of resources. So it seems that first of all we need to investigate what abundance really is and what beliefs and attitudes and emotions we possess that block us from realizing it. I consider spiritual practice a good approach to looking at this issue because it can provide techniques for accessing our inner nature directly and provide a viewpoint that illustrates our ability to create and determine our experience of ourselves and the world.
So in order to create what we want we need to really develop an experiential belief in abundance and the fact that we create our own experience. From here we are then needing to learn the process of how to tap into this all pervading field of limitless potential and energy in order to bring it into the particular forms we wish to create. So what needs to be created in our lives is not abundance itself but rather the forms we wish to manifest out of it and the process by which we do that.
The process that I currently use which is constantly being improved and changed is first working on my experience and understanding of abundance as pure potential mainly through my spiritual practice but also in study of creative manifestation.
From there I work to illuminate the obstacles to tapping into it such as the conditioning of lack and the emotional states of fear, anxiety and inadequacy that stem from it. This process involves changing my beliefs while allowing myself to feel and release the emotions around lack.
Then I state my intentions which reflect what I am working to create in as much detail as possible. My intentions focus on the end result that I seek to create not on how those results will be accomplished because the how is often where we get stuck and how we limit ourselves. There are limitless means to creating what we want and this is the part that we need to leave open so that our creative energy can flow into whatever means is most appropriate to bringing our intention into reality.
So I clearly focus on the end result I wish to create and visualize or imagine it being reality and seeing myself experiencing it. I also infuse my visualization and intentions with joy and positive energy to provide the necessary power to bring abundance into the particular form that I am working with.
This process of experiencing abundance as raw power, removing mental and emotional obstacles, stating clear intentions, visualizing results and bringing in the power of joy and positive energy is my process at this moment and it is a work in progress but its already produced some amazing results.
Creative Manifestation July 24, 2007
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There is a lot of hype and media attention being given to the concept of manifestation these days especially following the success of The Secret. The question is how much of what’s out there regarding manifestation is new age fluff and how much of it contains real wisdom that can be put into practice? I’ve decided to become something of a living experiment lately to determine if techniques like the ones presented in The Secret can be successfully put into practice and its been quite an interesting journey so far.
I’ve set about creating a new life which sets aside old ways of thinking and adopts new approaches wherever possible. My process has been to maintain a set of intentions which describe what I wish to create in my life in all areas. In my view intentions are extremely powerful because they direct the creative process and allow energy to flow into a particular vision. Intentions need to be kept fluid however because they need space to change over time and its also important that they not turn into expectations. Expectations tend to be projections of ego control which fail to tap into the creative flow and the natural abundance that we all are a part of. Expectations also reflect a “need” for things to be a certain way or turn out a certain way which doesn’t leave room for the infinite possibilities and potential that naturally exists around every situation. The process of setting, maintaining and working with intentions creates a direction or flow in life that helps define a larger vision of purpose and meaning.
In addition to intentions, visualization and joy are key parts of the process for me. If my intention is to take a trip to New York City then it further develops the process if I can visualize myself in NYC and imagine what I would do there, what I would see and how I would feel being there. If my vision is also infused with joy it becomes even more powerful in my mind and begins to effect my belief. In my view belief is a primary factor in being able to creatively manifest things in ones life, you can only create what you believe in. If we want something but we don’t fully believe we can create it we will not be able to put the same quantity or quality of energy into it to bring it into reality. Working with intention, visualization and joy however slowly helps to create a belief that it is truly possible to bring our vision into reality because we become more and more familiar with it and feel more and more empowered by the positive energy we put into it.
Another key point is letting go of any expectation of how what you are creating will come to you. I’ve always gotten stuck in the how and thats usually prevented me from going forward with what I wish to create because if I can’t figure out how something will come to me then I would not believe that it could so would dismiss it as not possible. However if we focus on the how we limit the otherwise limitless potential of the universe. The number of ways that something can come to you are infinite. If we can stay focused on the end result of what we are creating and let go of the how it opens the door for it to come into our lives in whatever way is most beneficial for us and that can be truly remarkable. Letting go of this takes some trust but that trust can be built over time as we work with this process and start with visions that are more believable for where we are at the present time.
I’ve been working with this process for more than a year now and I’ve managed to use it to create some pretty amazing things in my life including a new incredibly fulfilling relationship, a new approach to work and career that involves doing what I’m really passionate about, new relationships with friends that nourish me in many ways as well as various material things. I’ve found the hardest thing to work with is money or finances and I think this is because how much negative conditioning we receive in this society in this area. When I work with finances I regularly encounter voices in my mind that seek to sabotage my creative process. These voices include questioning what I’m trying to create, questioning the idea of abundance in general and questioning my ability to successfully put it into practice. That these voices arise however is not problematic as long as I don’t identify with them and fall into their trap. If I instead illuminate them and challenge them I have an opportunity to release these doubts or integrate them into my experience if they carry a wise message.
The final step is being open to receiving what we create, allowing it into our lives and never giving up our vision as long as it remains true to our individual path. We remain open to receiving as long as we stay connected with our inner creativity and personal power and as long as we continue to work to dispel obstacles that we encounter along our creative path by illuminating and challenging them with wisdom. I do believe that we create our own reality and therefore why not create it consciously in a way that is in harmony with our inner truth and the interconnectedness of all life?
Overcoming stuckness, just do it…………. March 10, 2006
Posted by bodhidude in : Livelihood, Psychology, blog , add a commentI was connecting with people in this group I attend weekly the other night and the topic came up of people feeling stuck in trying to create the meaningful fulfilling things they desire in their lives. I also have experienced this especially with what I want to do for a living or right livelihood. I’ve worked in the technology field for so long and just have no interest in it anymore whatsoever. I feel so drawn to healing and helping people but I always approached it from the perspective of money. What kind of healing work can I do that will allow me to pay the bills? How will I make a enough money doing what I love. Then someone pointed out to me that maybe thats totally the wrong approach. I was approaching my lifes work from the perspective of money when money is not my priority or focus, helping and healing is my priority. My friend said to me ‘You know what you want to do, why don’t you just do it?’. I processed that and realized, yeah why don’t I just do it instead of analyzing it to death? What a release that was for me. So simple yet so profound. If I want to do healing work with people I can start doing it and let it develop over time into something that can sustain me. In the meantime I can help people right now in the moment with just what I have to offer and I have a job for now that can pay the bills while I develop my passion. It can be so easy to not believe in oneself yet such a drastic shift if we do. It blows my mind how when light gets shed on obstacles we create for ourselves, how quickly they can be overcome and how unreal they actually were in the first place. Makes me believe that the possibilities are just about limitless…….