The Treasure March 4, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Spirituality, blog , 1 comment so far
A man was walking in the forest and came upon a monk sitting under a tree.
The man asked the monk, who are you sir?
The monk replied, I am.
I see said the man and how is it you look so happy and joyful?
I have discovered a treasure said the monk.
Well sir, I am a poor man and am distraught with my life, won’t you share this treasure with me?
The monk said, of course my dear fellow, please sit down here next to me.
The man sat down and the monk continued to sit looking peaceful and serene, smiling.
Finally growing impatient the man said, sir, when will you share this treasure with me?
The monk said, I share it with you now, will you not accept it?
I mean no disrespect but you have only sat here next to me, I have seen no treasure.
Ah said the monk, first you must put down your burden.
But sir, I have nothing, I carry no burden.
Perhaps you have carried it so long you have forgotten said the monk.
Well then, what must I do said the man?
Suddenly the monk slapped the man in the face.
Ouch! cried the man, why did you do that?
I was trying to get your attention said the monk.
Well you did, that hurt.
My apologies, do you hear that soothing sound in the background asked the monk?
Yes, it is the stream at the edge of the forest.
Indeed, and do you smell that sweet fragrance in the air?
Oh yes, the blossoms of the tree have just opened said the man.
Lovely and do you feel the warmth of the sun on your face?
Yes, it is quite a pleasant day at that.
Would you like some of these grapes asked the monk?
Thank you sir, they are quite delicious.
The monk bowed then got up and began to make his way down the road.
The man asked, sir, where are you going?
Now that you have laid down your burden and accepted the treasure I am going back to my hut to take my afternoon nap said the monk.
But sir, what shall I do now?
Leave your burden and enjoy the treasure and joy will never leave you no matter what happens……….
Communing with the Goddess on the Full Moon February 28, 2010
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This morning was the full moon in Virgo/Pisces and last night when the moon as out in all her radiance I tried a new form of full moon practice. I usually do a special practice on the full moon which includes meditation and channeling the powerful energy with intention but last nights practice opened me up to the energy of the Goddess at a new level.
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Facing the Darkness: A Powerful Healing Experience February 20, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Spirituality, Warrior/Divine Masculine, blog , 5comments
Have you ever had a period in your life where you felt stuck and overcome by your habitual patterns unable to break free? That has been my life over the last few months and it seemed like no matter what I tried to do it would not work out. Either I was too confused to know where to direct my energy or when I did have a direction no matter how much effort I put forth it would still be unsuccessful. I felt a deepening frustration and an increasing darkness overtaking me and nothing was working to break free of it despite much effort. I have a pretty strong spiritual practice but it did not seem to be able to penetrate whatever it was I was struggling with. So as I do when I’m feeling confused or lost I asked for guidance from the universe, from my guides. Usually that involves putting out a request for help and then opening to receiving the guidance in whatever form it might take. In this instance I received a response immediately as if it had been right there waiting all along. The response was Daime, a form of Ayahausca from the Santo Daime tradition originating of Brazil.
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Becoming the Peaceful Warrior February 5, 2010
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I’ve written about the warrior archetype and the way it is played out in a destructive way in our society today (See “The Warrior Archetype and the Reemergence of the Goddess“). Lately I’ve become more aware of the importance of this powerful archetype both for myself and the collective. You see for much of my life I’ve embodied the negative warrior both within and without. In my view, the negative warrior is characterized by aggression, defensiveness and destructiveness. Underlying this is vulnerability and fear, a soft underbelly that needs to be protected at all costs. The negative warrior feels isolated and separate and at war with the world as well as in a constant state of inner conflict. Aggression and defensiveness are the weapons of the negative warrior as he fights to protect an inner core of painful vulnerable feeling from anything that would threaten to expose it fearing that would bring his destruction. This inner core of feeling may have been created early in life by trauma that was never healed or by the experience of being punished for openly expressing emotion causing it to be repressed out of fear of that punishment as is so common in our culture.
Cultivating Joy January 24, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Spirituality, blog , 1 comment so far
I’ve been doing so much inner work lately that not only can it feel overwhelming but it can get pretty depressing at times even though confronting and integrating inner darkness and pain is necessary for healing and freedom. However I can get lost in the darkness and unconsciousness which is a risk in doing inner work and represents going to an extreme and becoming invested in the darkness that one is trying to illuminate and heal. At this point we can become cut off from the very element which will heal the darkness, Joy. I want to distinguish here between happiness and joy. I consider happiness to mean a good mood, basically feeling good usually in relation to pleasant conditions whether within or without. Happiness from this perspective is a temporary surface mind state. Joy on the other hand is much deeper than happiness, it is a blissful state that emanates from the core of our being, a reflection of our true nature. Joy is not dependent on conditions because it emerges from a place beyond conditions or the details of our life situation. Therefore joy is always accessible even when happiness is not. It is a profound sense of empowerment, calm and ok-ness even in the midst of chaos and turmoil.
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The Healing Power of Trees January 13, 2010
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I love trees, I always have. I love the natural world but for some reason trees have always had a special meaning and a special power for me. The reverence and appreciation I feel for them can be intense and lately I’ve made it a daily practice to connect and work with them. They are a great teacher for me and they demonstrate and symbolize how to live in the world with grace, groundedness, openness and connectedness. They help me move energy by connecting me with the Earth and acting as a channel for its energy. They comfort me when I’m feeling lost and help me get to my feelings. They provide a natural temple to connect with Spirit, the Goddess and the power of the Earth. Its really too bad they aren’t appreciated more for what they have to offer people as well as what we can do for them because I think we are meant to work together.
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Avatar – A Message from the Goddess? January 5, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Divine Feminine/Goddess, Society, Spirituality, blog , 2comments
Having heard so much about the movie Avatar I finally went to see it today. I expected a decent sci-fi/fantasy film because I trust the people who recommended so strongly that I see it and I very rarely see mainstream movies anymore because I find most of them mind-numbing. I heard rave reviews from people and considerable criticism but I figured I should see for myself because I felt intuitively there was a reason to go see this particular movie.
Spiritual Practice and the Death of a Loved One December 28, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, articles , 1 comment so far
A friend of mine recently lost a loved one to suicide and asked me to advise her on how she might benefit her friend now that he has died. This got me thinking about death again which is not so unusual for someone on the spiritual path but it takes on new significance when it strikes close to home. Most spiritual traditions have some kind of practice to benefit loved ones after death but rather than regurgitate those here I’m going to present my view on working with the death of a loved one. I present this from the perspective of a spiritual practitioner as well as a counselor.
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Feeding your Demons November 16, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, Transformation, articles , 4comments
Have you had the experience of having intentions, goals and aspirations that you are passionate about but never seem to fully come to fruition? Do you find yourself struggling with habits, addictions or feeling stuck in familiar patterns in your life that no longer serve you but resist your efforts at change? Do you ever feel like there is a part of you that is working against your wishes? Well for me the answer to these questions has been most definitely YES, and for a long time my response was to increase my effort and fight against the tendencies in me that I found to be obstacles or to throw up my hands in frustration and sink into depression. However I began to realize the more I struggled to rid myself of the qualities I didn’t like about myself, the more I tried to force change by sheer effort and willpower and the more I judged myself for not succeeding the way I felt I should I only made these seemingly opposing forces or qualities stronger. Recently I discovered a powerful practice that directly addresses this issue which is known as “Feeding Your Demons”. Having put it into practice I find my life transforming in amazing and powerful ways and I don’t find myself so much in conflict. Feeding your demons is an old Tibetan practice known as Chud which originated in the 12th century with a female Yogini named Machig Labdron. It is presented in a very simple and accessible Western context by Buddhist teacher Tsultrim Allione in her book “Feeding your Demons” (see resources section).
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“The Spiritual Nomad” October 28, 2009
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I recently read a post on Reality Sandwich entitled “The Spiritual Nomad”. In the article the author Lisa Renee describes a process that more and more people are experiencing after a spiritual awakening in which their life is turned upside down. I resonated with this article a great deal because it clearly described what I have been experiencing for the last two years and what several of my friends are going through now.
Mindfulness and the practice of RAIN September 24, 2009
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Most people have heard of mindfulness, like meditation it has become a fairly common term in general use. It has also become more accepted in western psychology as having therapeutic benefit. Many books have been written on the topic and yet there remains much confusion in terms of just what mindfulness is and how to apply it on a daily basis to heal and find greater freedom, this is especially true with regard to difficult or emotional situations, its easier to be mindful of a sunset compared to the intense anger in a fight with a partner. While the definition of mindfulness varies I would describe it as a gentle, focused, compassionate attention. A quality of spaciously noticing what is happening whether it be within or without. In the west today there has developed a tradition of Buddhist training and practice that is mixed with western psychology. From this tradition, represented by Psychologist/Buddhist Teachers such as Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, a very practical application of mindfulness practice has emerged that can be readily applied in daily life especially with difficult issues or situations.
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Dropping our story September 16, 2009
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Meditation has been one of the most powerful healing techniques that I’ve ever encountered and I’ve used it extensively on my own path as well as regularly offering it to those I work with. The power behind it lies in its ability to help one touch the core of their being, their inner most nature which from my perspective is limitless in every way, this includes limitless joy, abundance, power, love, healing and compassion. Meditation and mindfulness practice also help to break through the mental stories that we overlay on so many of our experiences and bring us back in contact with raw feeling and experience.
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"I don't mind what happens" September 5, 2009
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Once during a regular question and answer session with his students, spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti paused and leaned forward and asked the audience, “Do you want to know what my secret is?”. Everyone sat up and became immensely alert because here was one of the great spiritual teachers of the 20th century and he was about to tell them his secret. Krishnamurti in a soft spoken voice said “You see, I don’t mind what happens”. Who could believe that the secret or really the core teaching of such a great master could be something so simple? But it is just this simple statement and way of being that contains the key to incredible freedom and joy.
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The Warrior Archetype and the Reemergence of the Goddess July 26, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Divine Feminine/Goddess, Psychology, Spirituality, Warrior/Divine Masculine, articles , 1 comment so far
For the past few thousand years we have lived in a patriarchal paradigm where the masculine has been over emphasized at the expense of the feminine. This has produced not only the oppression of women, constant war and violence but also inner conflict for both men and women as each struggles to be whole human beings in a world where an imbalanced ideal is cherished. The result of the over emphasis on the masculine has resulted in it taking a negative form as the feminine is devalued and even systematically repressed. This negative masculine form is cut off from its feminine side and so is out of balance and taken to an extreme in a futile attempt to compensate for the lack of grounding in the feminine. This is symbolized by two archetypal patterns in particular, that of the Negative Father and the Warrior. The Negative Father is the authoritarian head of the household who rules the family and is often the source of abuse, sexual misconduct and control. This pattern is also seen in the authoritarian governments that have become the norm where the government represents the ultimate controlling punitive father figure for its citizens. This isn’t to say all fathers fall into this pattern but it is symbolic of a key aspect of patriarchal power. As a counselor I see many clients who have a figure in their lives in the role of the Negative Father and much of their work in counseling involves working through trauma associated with that as well as reclaiming their power from that figure and this includes men and women.
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Becoming a Buddhist Pagan July 19, 2009
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My spiritual path has included many variations and explorations over the years including some not so intelligent forays into magic and the occult with unfortunate consequences. For more than 20 years my path has centered on Buddhism in one form or another. I have spent years practicing meditation in both the Zen and Tibetan traditions and I find Buddhist teachings and practices to be some of the most powerful medicine that exists today for healing on all levels of being.
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Meditation: Finding freedom in the present June 14, 2009
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There are two things about life that never cease to amaze me, one is how painful it can be and the other is how simple and beautiful it can be. When things are going well it is very easy to grab onto that experience and expect life to remain good and comfortable but inevitably it changes and we experience pain and difficultly which we tend to want to avoid or push away. You could say that this process of attachment and aversion is one of the main causes of suffering and dissatisfaction in life because we can’t hold onto the good stuff and we can’t avoid the painful, the one constant in this is change. Often we are not aware of the way we hold onto or push away parts of our life. We can pretty much count on almost everything being temporary and this is just a reality of life which doesn’t need to be a problem, but when attachment and aversion arise it quickly becomes problematic.
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My will or my heart's will? May 14, 2009
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I think it is fair to say that there is a crisis of meaning and purpose in society today. Much of what we see in the world is a reflection of this in my opinion. This leads to the question of where meaning and purpose come from, if many of us are lacking it or think we are, what exactly is it we’re lacking or out of touch with? I see it as something that comes from within rather than any external accomplishment or involvement and in the world today you see people engaging in ever more desperate and destructive behaviors in an attempt to get something out there that they can only find within. Their futile attempts to find it externally only lead to frustration and greater separation but the search for meaning and the dilemma that creates seem to be consuming many people because what happens when you look for something you already have?
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Allowing what is May 12, 2009
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Since my intense experience at a Zen retreat a couple of weeks ago my spiritual practice (or really my life) has begun to shift significantly and it is shifting in the direction of simplicity. What I reacted to at the retreat was the degree of structure and technique. Zen practice is itself a very simple form of spiritual practice in one sense but it involves a great deal of form, procedure and technique in another sense. In sitting with my post retreat experience while I understand the purpose of that I am finding myself drawn to the utter simplicity of presence without the technique and form. I find that I can actually use meditation techniques to try and control my meditation experience, “trying” to do it right or achieve something which takes me into another mind story.
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Resting in stillness in the midst of chaos April 28, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Psychology, Spirituality, blog , 1 comment so far
How do you cope when you find your life in chaos? I’ve been experiencing increasing chaos in my life in many areas and its been interesting to notice my reaction to it. My process has involved trying to create a new livelihood so that I can create the resources I need in my life without sacrificing my heart. It has not been a easy process and the short term result has been very little money. My living situation is coming to an end this month so I’ve also had to deal with finding a new place to live with very little money. As a result my life feels like chaos, nothing stable, no stable work, no stable living space and no stable peace of mind.
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Service March 11, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Community, Relationship, Spirituality, Transformation, articles , 2comments
I’ve been working more lately with what it means to offer service, well really with what service actually means for me in practice. Service is a major part of my spiritual practice not only as a means of expressing my connection with others but also to express my gratitude for the incredible gifts I’ve received in my life and to give some of that back while reducing self-centeredness. I really had a limited idea of service up until recently imagining that it had to be some clear fixed activity that was labeled service and offered as such, something like volunteering for a charity or spiritual organization.
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The incredible power of Yoga February 9, 2009
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After considering it for many years about 2 months ago I began taking Vinyasa Yoga classes. It seems the time was finally right and my experience has been nothing short of transformative. I’ve been a spiritual practitioner for a long time but somehow my body never quite made it into my practice. Yoga has given me a new way to practice and engage the present moment. It has given me a way to get back in touch with my body, to fully inhabit and embrace my body and to more fully appreciate it. In doing Yoga practice I’m finding that as I work with the poses, flow and breath I’m finding stuck energy, tension and blockages in my body that correlate to inner processes involving things like fear, guilt, separation, vulnerability, and other emotional wounds. Working with these physical blockages is helping me access healing on a new dimension that is impacting my spiritual practice and path to awakening as a whole. The physical benefits of increased energy, flexibility and strength are pretty awesome as well. Its interesting that in the physical difficulty of many of the asanas I’m find an opportunity to surrender to the discomfort of this human form and thereby finding peace within pain. Quite a reflection for the rest of life and a lesson in how so much of the pain we feel is because we are fighting or resisting what is instead of accepting and relaxing into it.
Beyond that however is the deep power of Yoga to help me connect with the divine, with the universe. I’ve been introduced to Bhakti Yoga and the devotional practices it involves while not what I really got into Yoga for are really serving as a balance in my spiritual practice. A bright light of love, openness and connection amid the often painful process of illuminating and healing old wounds. This practice of Yoga really helps me remember the joy in being fully alive so I can appreciate this beautiful magical world we live in, in all its wonder and ordinariness. When I see the people here who have been doing this practice for some time it is evident by the love, peace and joy in their eyes and in their energy that they’ve really opened themselves to universal love. As one of my teachers points out, if we are breathing and present then all actions can be Yoga. I’m grateful for this incredible gift on my journey. May all beings benefit.
The power of I don't know February 7, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Society, Spirituality, Transformation, blog , add a commentThere is a great article on Reality Sandwich by Daniel Pinchbeck entitled “The Age of Uncertainty” (http://www.realitysandwich.com/age_uncertainty). It seems like I can find all the evidence I need to support opposite conclusions on almost every issue these days a few of which are mentioned in this article. But I think the I don’t know is the key because in my view reality is moving into a state of intense contradiction on one level. A state where the rational mind cannot figure things out in the ways that we felt it could in the past.
I don’t know has incredible personal meaning for me these days as I have needed to let go of relationship, work, ways of living and even many seemingly integral parts of my identity. I don’t know who I am anymore, I don’t know what my future holds or even what to do with myself in terms of livelihood. But I’ve begun to see that I am being lead to embrace the I don’t know and let go of trying to figure it all out. The place of I don’t know is powerful because it contains immense potential but can also create intense fear because it involves learning to be ok with the unknown in a very direct way. The thing is I find that the more I embrace I don’t know and let go of trying to rationalize my way through life the more I am able to be present and connect to life in the here and now and I’m finding incredible peace and clarity in that. What to do and how to address life seems to emerge naturally from that place of peace and clarity and action becomes rooted in it instead of fear and confusion. Its so simple and subtle that it can be easily missed.
I’m starting to see the shifts happening now as a powerful force to move us beyond our addiction to thinking and the ego and into true presence putting the thinking mind in its place as one tool for higher consciousness to interact with the dualistic world. A tool but not the driving force of life. I think the new world or new paradigm has already begun to come into being, it just depends on where you choose to focus you attention because I see much suffering and destruction but I also see a great many people beginning to awaken and cast off old habits and ways of being. Its happening right now and the practice is the choice of putting our attention on the old and holding on or letting go and embracing the new, right now.
Another level of letting go February 2, 2009
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Jesus what a process this has been. Once more into the breech of the unknown. I met with some people from my community today to discuss our relationship with work, money, livelihood etc. I’ve come to realize two things very clearly. One is that I must fully let go of the old careers that have sustained me for so long – information technology and counseling. These are the ways that I know to make a living, to make money to pay the bills, to survive. But its completely clear now that their time has past. I’ve held on far too long now and have tried everything I can to make them work. Whether its a computer job or doing counseling work I just have no more passion for it and it won’t work anymore to fake it to bring in the cash, I’ve tried every way I know to drag it out. What I’ve realized is that on a deeper level I just need to let go, to allow these old approaches to fully fall away in order to make space for something new to emerge.
But that leads to the second thing that has become clear. I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know where the money and resources to sustain me will come from. I don’t know in which direction to go with my livelihood. I don’t even know who I am anymore on one level as what I do has been such a key part of my identity. I feel incredibly excited and yet incredibly terrified. My mantra has become I don’t know and I see now that I just need to surrender to that and allow myself to fully and completely not know. One person commented today how powerful a place not knowing can be because from that place all things are possible and I feel that too but its so scary. The fear is the unknown and the part of me that wants and needs to know kicking and screaming. For me the unknown is becoming a way of life more and more. I’m learning to appreciate it more and realizing that actually I never really did know what to expect or what was going to come next in life, I only imagined I did. This seems more clear, more authentic, not to pretend to know anymore but to surrender to not knowing and allow true heartfelt knowing to emerge naturally from the only place it can, the present moment. Here there is clarity and all is as it should be, nothing to figure out or worry about, just the awesome power of life unfolding in all its beautiful perfection.
A foot in two worlds January 30, 2009
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How do you move forward when you have one foot in an old paradigm and one foot in a new paradigm? That has become my koan lately and that’s the way its felt. I still have one foot in the old paradigm. The old paradigm being the world where ego and the rational mind leads the way, where I need to struggle and work hard to make ends meet, where I react to change and transition with fear and where I limit what comes to me to known channels or pathways. I also have one foot in the new paradigm. The new paradigm being the world where the heart leads the way and the rational mind is only a tool, where I no longer need to struggle because I live in abundance, where I allow life to flow naturally and don’t need to hold on, where I am open to the infinite pathways of creation so I am able to manifest what I need effortlessly and where I become an instrument through which the divine consciousness of the universe flows in service of the whole.
Quite different ways of looking at life and the world. This place of feeling caught between two worlds is quite painful. It feels like I engage in a creative process to dream up my life and then thoughts and fears come up that short circuit that creative dream. I can’t quite go back to the old way and think my way through, work at a job to make money, or hold on to people and situations. Believe me I’ve tried and these ways no longer work. Trying to figure things out results in confusion, trying to work at a job for the money brings problems and disempowerment, and trying to hold on to relationships causes them to fall away quicker. I can’t seem to fully step into the new way fully either although I can see more and more clearly what that might be like. I feel like I’m trying to shed a lifelong addiction or break the most stubborn habit, this way of existing in lack and separation where I’m always the victim of someone or something. I can’t buy into that anymore because I’ve seen through it but I also cannot seem to stop the habitual patterns that go along with it. I know from a spiritual point of view that this is a natural part of the path, when you see your unconscious patterns but they still have enough momentum that you can’t yet fully free yourself from them.
The practice of meditation and more importantly the practice of mindfulness in every activity does seem to be creating more and more awareness. I’m finding with that awareness I am seeing the thoughts, feelings and beliefs that keep me stuck in the old patterns of lack and fear. It is becoming a moment to moment practice of noticing a limiting thought or feeling in the moment, feeling it, letting it go and refocusing my attention in a creative direction. For example I see the end of my job coming and I feel fear and imagine struggling to pay the bills. When I realize this I can acknowledge that fear and then quickly let go of it and refocus my attention on what I want to create in place of the job, seeing myself having a full abundant life with all my needs met. These things come up constantly and it requires a good deal of awareness to illuminate them so they can’t continue to support the old way of being. I’m seeing that each time I feel, release and counteract such negative thoughts its like pulling a thread in the old way of being weakening it just a bit more. I can feel it collapsing around me and that brings up more fear, fear of the unknown or maybe fear of life in its full intense wholeness, fear to be released.
I think I’m ready to pull my foot out of the old paradigm and fully step into the new one.
Letting go of the need to control the dream January 25, 2009
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A recent article by a friend of mine entitled “One Great Dream of a Single Dreamer” (Click here for article) has helped me gain some clarity in my process of unfolding my life into the next stage. In the article Paul points out that our individual identities are ultimately an illusion being dreamed up by a universal consciousness. When we awaken to the illusion of our small self we become aware of our connection to and oneness with this universal consciousness or great dreamer. We could call it God, the universe, ultimate reality, the divine, a higher power, whatever you prefer but I think its all the same thing in that it is the greater I AM, who we truly are beneath our surface identity.
My process recently has been to work with manifesting my life using the power of awareness, intention and visualization so as to creatively guide myself along a heart focused path and create a life that reflects a more conscious direction. I think one of the challenges in this process at least for me is that in embracing the perspective that I create my reality and have the power to manifest the life I choose, it can easily become the small or egoic self that is hijacking the path as means of regaining control. Paul points out in the article that if we think that awakening is going to mean we can become billionaires or gain some kind of status we are still subtlety enmeshed in an illusion. If we instead surrender our surface desires and allow the divine to work through us we naturally flow where we are needed in life and our life itself becomes a service to the greater good.
To be more clear this feels like another step in really following the heart where the ego finally has to accept that it is taking a back seat and is not in control. Opening fully to the divine and freely allowing it to work through us moves us into what we need to be doing right now, who we need to be with right now and brings us everything we need in life even if it doesn’t necessarily satisfy our ego desires. I have a sense that this is real fulfillment, real purpose, real peace. The practice becomes cultivating enough awareness to recognize when the ego is coming in and trying to redirect the creative process to self serving needs and then refocusing on the present moment and the direct experience of our truth and our power. I see this clarification as reflecting why I’ve had trouble creating my dream recently, I see that I haven’t fully let go of the need to control the dream. I’ve been able to create some amazing things but they haven’t really seemed fulfilling in the end and I now see that its because I have become more adept at creating but what I chose to create was still coming from ego. Even when we are able to create from this level it doesn’t really bring us happiness because of its limited scope. I don’t think this means that we shouldn’t want or enjoy things in life like money, material possessions or sexual experiences but I think its a reminder to remember their limitations and make our primary focus something deeper.
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.
Nurturing Ourselves November 16, 2008
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, blog , 2commentsI was spending time with a friend this evening and we were talking about nurturing ourselves and it occurred to me that nurturing myself has become a core practice. It seems that so often discontent and suffering comes from seeking to be nurtured from an external source rather than an internal one. Not that other people, things and situations cannot be nurturing but they really aren’t that satisfying if we aren’t first nurturing ourselves. So what do I mean by nurturing? I guess I mean taking responsibility for my own happiness, peace and well being and doing things to cultivate that in my life. Seeing that ultimately these things comes from within, others can share them and reflect them but cannot give them to us if we are not in touch with them in ourselves. In fact if we are not nurturing ourselves then we may seek it from others which makes our relationships problematic because we’re seeking things from people that they cannot give us and seeing them through the filter of our needs. That results in not being able to be in relationship with them fully as individuals and is quite unfulfilling.
I find that nurturing is a good way to look at each moment because in each moment I can ask myself the question, am I nurturing myself in this moment? Is what I’m doing right now serving my highest good. If I’m not I then have the opportunity to look at what I’m doing and refocus my attention in a new direction. It brings up the question of if anything in our lives does not nurture us why do we make it a part of our life. If my job does not bring me happiness, peace and well-being why am I there? Do I really need to be in a job that doesn’t. If a relationship doesn’t nurture me why am I in it? What am I getting out of such a relationship and what am I offering to the other person? I think if we nurture ourselves then we will draw in jobs, relationships, living situations and other things that nurture us because those external things will reflect what we are already doing for ourselves internally. This goes along with the idea that if you want to create something externally you must first make it a reality inside. The external world reflects the internal.
I was talking to my client today about keeping things really simple in working with our minds and I realized that nurturing ourselves is ultimately very simple because to do so all we really have to do is stop and become present, enter the now and touch the fullness, beauty and power of LIFE and we will realize that we’ve never been anything but nurtured. So maybe you could say its more like remembering our true nurtured self. I’m loving the simplicity.
The Engine of Personal Creation August 23, 2008
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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”.
Personal Power: Beyond Hope and Hopelessness August 3, 2008
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I’ve thought a lot about hope and hopelessness lately in light of my process of inner growth and also with respect to what is going on in the world. I know many people feel hopeless about the direction the world is taking as well as with their own life situation. They feel helpless to do anything to change it and frustrated that they can’t seem to create what they want and I know how they feel. On the other hand, I know people who feel a sense of hope that things will be ok and will be transformed. I see this especially with spiritually minded people and people who are into things like 2012 and other viewpoints that see a positive future.
For me however, both hope and hopelessness are two poles of the same continuum of powerlessness. In looking at this in my own experience and those around me I see two common elements of both hope and hopelessness. The first is giving away ones power and the second is focusing on the future at the expense of the present. When we feel hopeless we usually feel powerless to change an experience we do not want. We basically don’t want what the present moment consists of and we extend that into the future feeling as if we have no power to create something different. A hopeful feeling is similar in the sense that hope usually focuses on the future. We have hope that things will get better or change , in the future, because if they were the way we wanted right now there would be nothing to hope for. By hoping for a positive future outcome we are saying we are powerless to create this desired outcome now and so need to hope that it occurs in some imagined future by some unknown means. Hope and hopelessness are the same from this viewpoint expect in imagined quality of their outcome.
The future, whether we fear it or hope for it in a positive way does not exist. It is simply a thought mixed with various emotions in the present. Putting our hopes or fears into the future results in us giving away our power because our power, the essence of who we are exists only in the present. Nothing is ever accomplished except in the present. If you put something off until tomorrow you will still have to accomplish it in the present if it is to be accomplished. What I’m working on in my practice is letting go of the past and the future and putting as much of my attention and energy as possible into right now. I find it incredibly empowering and when I am able to be fully present there is no hope or hopelessness, there is only now and all the power and possibility that it contains. The present moment is not always pleasurable but it is always powerful and alive. If we can accept the natural suffering of life when it is present instead of fighting or avoiding it we have the opportunity in that acceptance to go deeper and experience real peace and power. To be free of pain and pleasure, good and bad, right and wrong and the whole dualistic delusion. If something needs to be done we know exactly what to do and when to do it because we function from a place of clarity and power. We are fully alive and a participant in life.
Die before you die July 7, 2008
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Eckhart Tolle says ”
The secret of life is – to die before you die – and find that there is no death… ”
This is an incredibly profound statement. I’ve been contemplating and working with it a lot lately and it seems that it contains the wisdom of immortality. To die before you die in my view means to walk the spiritual path and in walking the spiritual path to realize that ultimately you are not your mind, your ego, your identity or your body. These things constitute who your are in a relative sense but not in an ultimate sense because they are constantly changing or fluctuating. Of course these are aspects of us that we tend to be quite identified with, that is, believing they are truly who we are. The fact that these things constantly change leads to insecurity if we are fully identified with them because our sense of self is unstable and we try to compensate by looking for that stability in an infinite number of external things which are equally unstable. Relationships, money, status, jobs, success, knowledge, beliefs all eventually let us down because they are changing forms too. When the time of death comes these things will inevitably dissolve and if they represent the totality of who we are then we will indeed die and our existence will be at an end.
However at least for me a simple practice illuminates that these things do not represent who I truly am. That is the practice of sitting meditation and mindfulness. In doing these practices one can focus on being aware of the process of the mind and its flow of thoughts and emotions. In observing the mind you get a sense that there is the part of you that is thinking and the part of you that is aware of the thinking and observing it. This inner watcher or observer is simply raw awareness or consciousness. In doing sitting meditation or just practicing observation in the moment over time you can become less identified with mind and external form and more identified with simple awareness. This represents a great shift, a great sense of peace and a kind of death. The death of the ego as the sum total of who you are. You are aware of yourself as the raw I AM and this alive presence is that which transcends death. If we can practice being in touch with raw presence or being in each moment then death becomes simply a process of form dissolving, as form is always doing all around us. The aliveness in us is beyond form and therefore not subject to decay and death. We enjoy a sense of deep peace that is independent of what happens in our life, it is constant and unchanging, a radiant light that shines through our experience. When we are happy it is there and when we are unhappy it is there. It is always there in the present moment if we pay attention and don’t allow ourselves to get lost in the dream of this world and our temporary selves.
The Wandering Yogi 5: Acceptance and the Now June 28, 2008
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Acceptance is often a term one encounters in spiritual practice and in other areas of personal growth. It is certainly a term I have heard many times and a concept that I thought I had an understanding of. However conceptual understanding of acceptance does not produce much transformation and for me lately my practice with acceptance has become more experiential. Acceptance has often been something I have struggled with because if what was happening was not to my liking it felt like accepting it would be perpetuating it or inviting more of it. If I accepted that I didn’t have much money I would be validating it and ensuring that I would continue to be broke. So instead of accepting I unconsciously resisted and fought my experience when it seemed to be hostile or negative. What I didn’t realize is that the very act of resisting it is what made it hostile or aversive. In other words the external situation was not really negative but just what it was, instead my unconscious judgment was that it was negative and my resistance to it caused it to resist back further validating my perception. Resistance to anything seems to create a counter force in the opposite direction. But this fails to take into account that I am the source of my experience so when I am fighting or resisting what is I am creating separation between myself and life, imagining that the qualities I experience in the situation are inherent to it rather than my projection.
The way to really see this process first hand is by practicing acceptance. When I began to truly accept what is, accept the present moment the resistance and fighting dissolved and I could see things with greater clarity. Things didn’t seem as hostile or aversive anymore. I also realized that acceptance does not mean that we continue to create the same experience over and over by condoning it or become passive. Not at all. It means that by not resisting what is we become free to change it if that change is needed and if change is needed we will be able to see clearly just what needs to change and how to accomplish the change because our action comes out of spaciousness and the joy of being ok with the present moment. When we are resisting what is our action has the quality of coming out of that resistance and so produces results similar to it in quality which is not usually any better than what we were resisting in the first place.
What it comes down to for me is that if I first accept or surrender to what is I become fully present and in touch with my experience and therefore my power. I realized that I have created my experience in this moment and it cannot be other than what it is but by accepting it and taking my power back I have the ability to create something different if thats called for. By accepting what is I become truly free because there is a deep source of peace that is allowed to shine through the experience of the moment when we are surrendered to it. That source of peace is pure consciousness, the divine, the unmanifest, emptiness or whatever you prefer to label it and it is the source of everything. The only place to find it is right here right now.
Happiness vs Peace June 18, 2008
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In my practice lately one distinction that is becoming more clear and at the same time up leveling my experience is the experience of peace compared to that of happiness. So much of my life has been spent seeking happiness at first externally but more recently internally. Wishing happiness for myself and others as well and working to create it wherever and whenever possible. I began to adopt the perspective that instead of anything out there creating my happiness I am the creator of it and thus its source is within. That shift from an external source of happiness to an internal one was quite powerful. However I’m beginning to see the focus on happiness itself as an obstacle because it still seems connected to the world of form whether its external forms such as people, money or experiences or internal forms such as an identity, a happy state of mind or conceptual ideas of love and compassion. This is still quite a limited experience and since it is still connected with the world of form it remains transient and subject to its opposite.
What now seems more powerful and freeing is peace. The deep peace that comes from being fully present, being connected with present experience without judgment, resistance or avoidance. The deep peace that in the stillness when thought has subsided and the mind is at rest shines through from the very core of being, the divine. From here happiness even in its most noble and selfless forms seems shallow and trivial. It still feels good but more like a passing shadow on the surface of consciousness. Pain and suffering too when one is connected with being still hurt but are seen as equally surface and temporary and are permeated with this energy of peace. For me this makes the temporary states of happiness and pain far less important, they are still necessary experiences and I sometimes get caught up in them but they just don’t seem worthy of very much attention anymore.
The seeking of happiness and the avoidance or resistance to pain consume so much energy, its amazing to feel that deep sense of peace from the level of being when I’m able to let that go for a time.
The Wandering Yogi 4: Surrender June 16, 2008
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I seem to have reached a new stage lately with my process of transition and transformation. Until recently so much of it has been an experience of fear and anxiety, of self doubt and judgment and feeling like a victim even though I consciously chose to take the path of renunciation. Lately however those negative emotions which I realize needed to play out as part of this process have begun to subside somewhat. What has begun to shift the experience is surrender. I’ve reached a point of surrender to my in the moment experience, a place of completely accepting what is and that subtle shift in perspective has changed things significantly. It has transformed the experience from one of fear and confusion to one of joy and freedom. I feel like I’m no longer fighting or resisting so much. I now feel the limitless possibility of where I’m at and realize my ability to build a new outer experience from here that mirrors much more clearly my inner purpose of awakening. The idea of surrender is that as long as you are fighting what is, the now or the present moment, you are disconnected from being or from the divine because the present moment is the only way to access it. When you surrender to what is you immediately reconnect with being or spirit and all possibilities become available again. It does not mean that you remain in a situation that is not serving you but only that you no longer fight it and by not fighting it are able to see clearly what action needs to be taken if any. I continue to practice this in each moment.
One final note, I cannot recommend highly enough the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. He is in my view a true spiritual teachers who expresses universal truths in words that speak directly to a higher part of us and in a way that is easy to understand. His teachings along with regular Zen practice has upleveled my practice tremendously.
Who is the dreamer? June 8, 2008
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I’ve often engaged in the contemplation that this life is a dream and the enlightenment process is awakening from the dream and realizing it to be a dream thereby ceasing to identify with it as solid and inherently real. So from this perspective what is the dream? The dream is the fluctuating constantly changing world of form in which we live. Just like in a night dream when we don’t realize we are dreaming we are swept up in the content of the dream and so react to that content as if it were solid and real. When we become lucid in the dream we realize that we are dreaming while still in the dream. This realization allows us to cease identifying with the content of the dream and instead identify with the dreamer. We realize we are creating the dream and therefore can choose to end it, change it or engage it. We take back our power from the illusory dream.
If we think of waking life a denser version of dream although equally illusory and lacking inherent existence we can cease to identify with the waking dream of form and instead identify with the dreamer who is aware of it. Recently I was reading from Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth and he brings up the question of just who is the dreamer from this perspective. The dreamer is not me, the “I” or my sense of self because when I wake up from the dream and cease to identify with the world of form my “self” is recognized as equally illusory and part of the dream. But if its not me that awakens from the dream then who is it?
Tolle addresses this in an interesting way. “The dreamer is not the person”…..”The dreamer is the absolute reality in which all forms come and go…..the dreamer is consciousness itself. Awakening from the dream is consciousness freeing itself from form and becoming aware of itself. The universe becoming aware of itself through the channel of us……
The Wandering Yogi: 3 June 8, 2008
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Well its been an interesting process lately. I’ve let go of my counseling practice yet again. This was the second go at it but I was not able to attract the clients to make it work despite feeling great fulfillment in the work I did do with people. However I’ve come to realize that I do want to work with people and perhaps the reason why it hasn’t worked so far is that I have not quite found my approach to doing this work. The way I was doing it before even though it was labeled contemplative counseling and had eastern techniques incorporated into it was still mostly a traditional western approach or that is mostly talk therapy, work at a cognitive level and I don’t think that represents what I am here to offer. So I’ve let go yet again to allow spirit to guide me and focus my attention on my own unfolding path in the present moment with trust that I will see guidance when it is needed. Trust is such a primary factor in my day to day experience now.
In the meantime I’ve been attempting to do various types of odd jobs including general labor type gigs, yard work and some of my old technology type work with mixed results. It has been very frustrating because even after putting a great deal of effort into these things they seem to yield little financial return and instead produce the most bizarre experiences. Like the other day when I went to help a woman with her yard and felt completely ill at ease working there and then dreamed her up to be displeased with how fast I was working. After I accidentally pulled up her sunflowers in an awkward attempt at weeding she freaked out on me and I proceeded to remove myself from the situation and head off down the street feeling like I had certainly stepped into the most freaked out world imaginable. I’m giving these kinds of jobs a chance in any case to bring in some resources as my current goal is to be able to provide for my own food and expenses prior to getting a place. The jobs are coming in it will simply be a practice of being present when I’m at them and focusing on the work and being of benefit to the person as best as I can as well as look at what these experiences have to reflect to me about where I’m at and what I’m putting out there.
I took this process to my group the other night and shared my frustration around livelihood and the reflection I go was being asked the question, what is it I really want to do right now. My answer when money is put aside is to do spiritual practice, to meditate, so the group suggested I put aside a few days to do just that and maybe a clearer direction would emerge out of that. Seems like a no brainier its just the fear is an obstacle so much of the time and clearly is also coming up as the part of me, the ego, that does not want me doing intensive spiritual practice. Resistance. Well I’m going to do some of the things I’ve been wanting to do including spending some time meditating several days in fact, taking a mushroom journey in the park on the next nice day we have and doing an urban vision quest by spending a night wandering the streets. Am I sounding crazy yet? Yes/No? Well I am to me, except that one of my teachers says when you walk the path you indeed become crazy because you identify with mind less and less so your actions and decisions don’t make sense at a rational level because thats not where they are coming from. Hmmmmm makes me wonder what the difference is between going crazy and awakening. Oh wait yes the difference is awareness, is one aware and conscious of what is happening or have they lapsed into unconsciousness. I’ll let you know…..
The Wandering Yogi: 2 May 26, 2008
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Over the last few weeks I’ve experienced everything from intense fear to great bliss and freedom. Its been an amazing experience to live like this for a time. What I’ve come to realize is that this process of letting go has been one of tearing down or clearing away my previous life situation. This has served two purposes. One is that is as allowed me to let go of old things and patterns that were no longer serving me and were actually obscuring my connection with being fully alive. Letting go of my life situation had given me more direct access to being, spirit, the divine or whatever you want to call it. Its amazing how much all the things, situations, roles and processes of our lives can distract us from the present moment and the core of who we truly are as well as consume our energy if we are unconsciously trying to maintain things that aren’t congruent for us anymore. The other purpose is that in deconstructing my life situation and getting back in touch with life itself I can now begin to build a new life situation, one that is much more infused with the vibrant energy of the present moment. A life situation that is less rigid and dense than before, more fluid and open, a more accurate reflection of who I truly am.
I’m now in the process of recreating my foundation, building the basics of food, shelter and other basic needs back in. Once I have reestablished my foundation I will begin to build my outer life purpose on top of it. I’ve really connected with the idea of an inner and outer purpose. My inner purpose is to awaken and become fully conscious, to practice being fully present and aware. This inner purpose now guides the outer purpose which for me is the practice of healing in the form of counseling and through other means. This phase of my life has been about getting in touch with this inner purpose and making it primary so my outer purpose can be guided by it and not the other way around. I now have the opportunity to rebuild my life from the ground up in a more conscious, more healthy, more harmonious way.
Letting go of so much and living in such a basic way has illuminated my fears, feelings of lack and highlighted how little trust I had in myself and in life. A shift in perspective from one of fear and lack to one of presence and trust completely transforms my reality making a scary threatening situation into a freeing amazing space of limitless potential. Living this way has brought consciousness to so many things that I used to take for granted. Not knowing where your next meal is going to come from really makes you appreciate it when it does come. I can say I truly appreciate every morsel of food, every place that I have been able to sleep, every bit of support and literally everything in my life at this point. I used to take so much for granted and would spend immense amounts of money with little or no consciousness and even less appreciation. Going from making $75,000 a year to $0 is a sobering experience especially when it is done by conscious choice.
I would actually recommend this process to anyone on the path of awakening. Going through it for at least a brief period illuminates attachment and fear, brings consciousness to what you seek to acquire and create and generates appreciation for what you have. It may not be necessary for everyone but it has been a powerful part of my path. Now when I rebuild my life it will be with a vastly different relationship to material things, people and everything in my life. I feel much more at peace now that I am in tune with the still place of awareness within and less at the mercy of impermanent external things and situations for my happiness.
The Wandering Yogi: 1 May 19, 2008
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Its been almost a year since I quit my job and began a process of seeking a conscious congruent means of livelihood. I’ve been letting go of things at various levels including traditional relationship and most of my material possessions. Most recently I moved out of my apartment and have been in a state of floating without a long term living situation. It was a difficult process to let go of my apartment which had been my comfort zone but I am grateful to have such a deep degree of attachment illuminated so I can release it.
I’ve decided to do a series of posts entitled the wandering yogi because thats what a friend of mine recently referred to me as due to my lack of a place to live, my roaming and my unfolding process of awakening. It is turning out to be quite an adventure and a very freeing one at that. I am heartened that so many in my community have reached out and offered me support at this time in terms of temporary places to stay, food, emotional support, car use and much more. They are all very much appreciated and loved by me. I never planed to be without a place to live but this is where my path has taken me in this moment and so I surrender to it and seek my stability, security and peace within. I am creating what I need each day in the moment and this has brought me into much more direct contact with my core being as well as my fears and resistance.
Its my intention to create a new long term place to live but until that manifests I will continue to wander and enjoy the present moment wherever my path takes me. My concern each day is simply to remain fully present, accept what is, put joyful energy into my vision and be of whatever benefit I can to others.
This truly is a beautiful dream…….
Letting go, trusting and the present moment May 5, 2008
Posted by bodhidude in : Psychology, Spirituality, blog , add a commentAfter letting go of so many things in my life I am really in a place of recreating things at every level. What is interesting is that I’m being called to recreate my life in a totally new way. The old patterns are no longer working for me. Whenever I try to grasp at anything it almost immediately dissolves or slips away. Having let go of so much has illuminated my attachment and clinging in a big way both clinging to the things I am letting go of and trying to cling to the new things I am creating.
However fear based clinging is no longer working for me, not that it every really did it just appeared to. Now my experience reflects it immediately, whenever I’m grasping what I’m grasping at falls away quickly whether it be money, people or situations. What actually is beginning to work for me in this new phase is a three step process. The first step involves the practice of being in the present moment. When I am grounded in the present moment I am not tripping out about the future or brooding about the past. When I am in the present moment I have access to my truth or intuition, my creative power and energy and my passion. It is from this place that all things are possible and from here that I have access to limitless abundance. It is a fearless powerful rich place to be. The second step is to set conscious intentions as to what I want to create and from the grounded place of the present moment to place my attention and energy on what I seek to create. What we pay attention to is what we create. But the attention has to come from inner joy and creativity, from the present moment. The energy of the present moment is channeled into the intention and then by building that into a vision with all its glorious details the stage is set for actual physical manifestation.
The third step is dealing with things that obstruct this process like fear, doubt and lack. These negative thoughts and emotions come up because there is a habitual pattern of focusing on them. So when they come up instead of getting swept away by them which short circuits the creative process I consciously feel and acknowledge them and then let go and bring my attention back to the present moment and my vision. This becomes a process of slowly breaking the habitual pattern of fear and lack by releasing the energy behind it and continually bringing my attention back to the moment and my creative vision. I realize that each time I illuminate the process of fear and doubt and consciously bring my attention back to the present moment the pattern is weakened. Over time I know that it will be broken.
Karmic Habitual Patterns April 20, 2008
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Karma otherwise known as the law of cause and effect in Buddhism is a key aspect of how life in this world functions. The idea here is that our current experience is a result of our past actions of body, speech and mind. Every action we engage in produces a result that is similar in quality to the original causal action. Understanding Karma is essential in order to live a happy life according to Buddhism because if we want to be free of suffering and create more happiness for ourselves and others we must know what the actual causes of these are. If we want happiness and are not able to achieve it we need to understand what we need to do to create that happiness and how we are creating what we do not want so we can cease doing so. The law of cause and effect states that a positive result such as happiness can never be created by a cause that is not of the same quality, that is if we want peace we will never create it with anger and violence no matter how we might justify them.
In my work as a Buddhist counselor, I’ve been looking at ways of bringing the idea of Karma into my work and helping people gain an understanding of it that will help them work with their process in more effective ways. One way that Karma can come into play is in understanding deep long standing and painful habitual patterns. From the point of view of Karma, the more we engage in a behavior the more we are likely to engage in it again, it becomes a habit, whether positive or negative. It becomes a habit that is carried across lifetimes and can be strengthened and solidified over many lifetimes of playing it out. Often my clients are dealing with very powerful habitual patterns which go incredibly deep, carry enormous energy that cannot always be traced back to logical sources in this life, and resist change persistently. Having an understanding of Karma can help explain why some habits are so powerful while others seem to be much easier to change. If we can recognize that with our most difficult habitual patterns we are dealing with processes that have been playing out over many lifetimes we can begin to understand why it can take a good deal of time, effort and energy to change them which can help us not to get discouraged but rather to have a resilient attitude in working with them.
No matter how powerful and deep a habitual pattern might be it can always be change by first illuminating and understanding it and secondly by consciously engaging in the opposing behavior. Even one instance of resisting a habitual behavior and doing the opposite has an effect on altering the overall pattern, it creates a small crack in the larger pattern. If you create enough cracks eventually the pattern will fall and there will be a breakthrough. This simply requires persistence. We can change our painful dysfunctional habits we just need to be realistic about what is required to do so and be willing to put the effort forth.
A dissolving identity April 11, 2008
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With all the change and letting go I’ve done lately I’m starting to realize that I don’t really know who I am anymore. Many of the things that I’ve been letting go of and changing have been key parts of my identity. So this process is forcing me to redefine who I am to the core. I used to consider myself a committed partner, a computer guru, a stable firmly rooted person and a fairly cautious person but now I’m finding I am none of those things per se. I’m still interested in being in relationship but in a way that defies labels and roles. I’m still interested in computers but but I don’t work with them in the same way anymore nor do I put myself out to people as a computer person anymore, they’ve become nothing more than a tool for expression. Now that I’ve let go of my apartment (comfort zone) of 4 years and am staying in various temporary housing situations I don’t feel like a stable rooted person anymore, actually more of a floating free spirit. I’m also far more willing to experiment, take risks (conscious ones) and put myself in situations I would have never imagined in the recent past.
What I’m realizing from all of this is just how much many of these things made up my identity and put me in a box of who I thought I was. Now I feel like I don’t know who I am and that at once feels frightening and also free. Maybe I don’t need to know who I am, maybe I just am. I have less and less use for labels these days and much more use for the phrase – I don’t know. I don’t know who I am and I’m finding I’m less and less interested in the question.
The suffering of change April 10, 2008
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In Buddhism, the first of the Four Noble Truths states that all life in this world is characterized by suffering or unsatisfactoriness. It specifies three forms of suffering; basic suffering which includes obvious things such as physical pain, sickness and emotional distress, then there is the suffering of change and what is referred to as all pervading suffering based on our illusory sense of self and separation.
I’ve been experiencing all three forms of suffering lately as everyone is but most intensely the suffering of change. This type of suffering occurs because all things are impermanent and change both in the moment and over time. However we usually don’t relate to things with this understanding rather we become attached to those things we think provide us with comfort, safety, pleasure and security. When we lose these things due to inevitable change we experience suffering due to our attachment. What we don’t realize is that these external things are not the actual source of our pleasure, love, security and peace. Our mind is the source and projects these qualities onto these external objects.
I’ve been in an intense process of letting go of much that I held onto in my life, everything from my job and career to my way of being in relationship to my living space. I’ve shifted from working a regular job with a consistent paycheck to working for myself with the uncertainty, increased responsibility and freedom that entails. I’ve begun to let go of my need to be in traditional relationship and instead have started to focus on being in more open free connections with people including lovers. I’ve just moved out of my apartment of four years, one of which was with my partner, and into a shared living situation which is very fluid and uncertain. I’ve experienced intense pain, fear and sadness throughout this entire process because letting go of each of these things has illuminated my attachment and clinging to them, its illuminated what I was getting from them and relying on them for. It has also illuminated to the degree to which they had become part of my identity. The process has been quite scary and unsettling at times but also extremely illuminating and freeing.
Letting go of so much at the same time is not something I would necessarily recommend to everyone but it has forced me to go inward for my sense of peace and security, the very place it all originated from anyway. Without as many of the typical external objects on which to project my peace and security I’ve been able to more clearly see its inner source and find ways of accessing it directly. I’ve seen this as finding incredible freedom because I feel like I’m getting to the point of not needing external people, things and situations to be a certain way in order for me to be happy because I see how I create my own happiness and can therefore access it at will, if I can get out of my own way in doing so. This way of seeing things seems to allow for change and impermanence to flow more freely because I’m not needing to hold onto or solidify things as much.
Its an ongoing process filled with moments of freedom and bliss and moments of terror but its a process I have chosen.
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.
Mindfulness Meditation and Transformation September 7, 2007
Posted by bodhidude in : Psychology, Spirituality, Transformation, articles , add a commentSince returning to the practice of counseling and therapy I’ve begun to develop an approach to working with people that uses mindfulness practice and meditation in a systematic way. Its begun to take shape as a four step process which first involves creating space for ourselves then using mindfulness to become aware of thoughts, feelings and behaviors. With this awareness the next aspect is identifying, accessing and feeling frozen or stuck emotional energy so as to release it. Following this, one is more able to connect with and access a deeper level of consciousness to find greater peace and happiness.
In order to get in touch with our experience in a more direct way I usually suggest to people that they create some sort of sacred space at home that they can use to spend quality time with themselves. Having a personal sacred space is a very powerful thing to create because it is a place to let go of the roles and dramas of everyday life and just be. This space should be peaceful and set to some degree away from the rest of the living space. It should be created with objects and images that remind one of peace and stillness and whatever one finds sacred. Creating it is a very personal experience. Once a sacred space has been created we can begin to spend time in it with ourselves, something much of our culture is designed to distract us from. This time initially should be unstructured without any kind of expectation or agenda and it can just be a regular time each day to be with ourselves. Here we can just sit and reflect or we can do some activity that grounds us and brings us peace but doesn’t distract us in a way that takes us away from the moment. Such an activity could be journaling, making art, listening to peaceful music or anything else that reflects who we are rather than who we should be. The creation and use of this kind of space is also a way to bring meaning back into our lives if we are feeling disconnected from ourselves and overwhelmed by life, it is a sanctuary.
Once a sacred space has been created and we have begun to spend some time in it each day we can introduce a mindfulness practice which is basically just being intentionally aware of what we are doing, thinking and feeling in the present moment. This sounds very simple but it can be quite challenging at first and also quite profound because we may not be aware of how much of our experience occurs unconsciously or without much awareness. If we are wanting to change our lives or experience we will not have much success doing that if the causes of our difficulties are unconscious so we need to start off by making more and more of our experience conscious. I usually ask people to start by being aware of their environment focusing on the sounds, smells, sights and sensations they experience as they sit in their personal space. Then we can add the body focusing on how our body feels and noticing all its nuances. Next we can start noticing our thoughts and feelings, the keyword here is noticing we just want to be aware of what’s happening at this point without judgment or shame regardless of the content. From here we can focus our awareness even more and bring it to something such as the breath.
Breathing meditation is a basic yet very powerful mindfulness practice. The breath is always available and is always connected to both the body and mind in the present moment. To practice breathing meditation we begin by sitting on a chair or cushion in a position that is comfortable but allows us to keep the back as straight as possible. Keeping the back straight enables our energies to flow more easily and aids in concentration however we can use support cushions or something else if needed because we want to balance that with comfort so we are not too distracted by pain. Once we have a comfortable sitting position we rest our hands in our lap or on our knees and tilt the head slightly forward while we rest our gaze on the floor a few feet in front of us. At this point we slowly bring our awareness from our environment to our body and try and let go of any tension we may be feeling. When we are ready we bring our awareness to our breath at first just being aware of the flow of the breath in and out. Next we pick a specific point to use to focus our attention. This could be the tip of the nose and the sensation of the air moving past it or it could be the rising and falling of the abdomen or some other area. The important thing is that you pick one place to pay attention to the breath that feels right to you and you stick with that place for the duration of the mediation.
To do the practice we now keep our attention on the breath at the place we chose. If we find it difficult or the breath too subtle to focus on we can mentally say “breathing in” when we breath in and “breathing out” when we breath out to help our awareness stay on the breath. Naturally our attention is going to wander and we will get distracted by thoughts, feelings and external distractions. This is perfectly normal so when we find that our attention has wandered from the breath we simply and gently place it back on the breath without any kind of judgment. This is a key part of the practice, focusing-realizing we are distracted-putting our attention back on the breath. Over time we will be able to remain focused for longer periods and the distractions will lose strength. When we have finished it is good to slowly allow ourselves to come out of the meditation by bringing our awareness back to our body in general and then to the environment and slowly rising from the cushion.
Initially it is good to do this practice for short periods of time and not to force the process but keep it light and gentle yet with intention. The most important thing with meditation practice is consistency; it is effective if its done regularly over a long period of time and the effects are cumulative. Ideally a short period everyday at the same time will eventually establish it as a pattern. You can work up to longer periods as you become used to the practice but its good to try and always finish a session when you still feel fresh so you will want to come back to it. One common misconception about this kind of meditation is that it is designed to help us stop thinking. This is not the case at all because directly trying to stop thinking is rarely effective and usually results in frustration. Instead we allow ourselves to have any thoughts or feelings that come up without any judgment. We however don’t give them our attention; instead we place our attention on the breath while the mind continues to do what it will. If we get distracted we return to the breath. Over time thoughts and other internal distractions will slow down on their own due to the lack of attention paid to them. Another obstacle people commonly run into is feeling like they can’t do the practice because of the state of mind they are in. If one is feeling angry or anxious its easy to feel like we can’t meditate or like we can’t sit still but this is often because we feel like we need to change our state of mind or we have judgment on ourselves for feeling such things. When these states of mind come up the solution is to accept them and allow them to arise, we simply practice where we are without trying to change it.
Once we have begun doing mindfulness practice and developing our concentration by focusing on the breath or some other object we can use that skill to go more deeply into our experience. In the practice we will begin to notice what’s happening in the mind, our thought processes and emotional patterns. Often people especially struggle with certain emotions that cause them suffering or discomfort such as depression, anger or anxiety. These emotional patterns can be caused by past traumas, conditioning and experiences that created an emotional response that was not fully felt and healed. We all carry such stuck emotional energy and it usually exists buried in the unconscious where it wreaks havoc on our experience and health without our conscious control. In my view, emotional energy is a free flowing aspect of life in the moment. It is energy that needs to flow freely as we engage life and have emotional experiences generated by it. If we carry significant amounts of stuck or frozen emotional energy the free flow is blocked and we are not able to fully experience life but rather we consistently re-experience the stuck emotional pattern. Our resistance to feeling these so called negative emotions openly is what keeps them stuck as does our judgment and shame for having them. We continually re-solidify them in this process rather than releasing them.
In our practice when we are feeling negative emotions we can apply our meditation technique to them in such a way as to facilitate their release. We do this by first being aware of the emotion using mindfulness. Then we give the emotion space and permission to fully arise while we make it the focus on our meditation practice much the way we did with the breath. We place our awareness on the emotion we are experiencing and allow it to arise fully. As we begin to feel it we can bring consciousness to the experience by understanding we are intentionally inviting the emotion to arise and seeking to release it. The only way to release it however is to fully allow ourselves to feel it and cease labeling it as problematic. During this process it is also important to bring in compassion for ourselves by realizing that we are human and feeling this hurts and that it’s natural for us to have these reactions but we don’t have to hold onto them anymore. In this way we can begin to more fully and openly feel our experience and break through the pattern of avoiding feeling certain unpleasant emotions while we chase after and try to grab onto pleasant ones. It becomes a process of accepting what is in the moment and allowing it to flow.
As we develop more mindfulness and awareness and learn to openly feel our experience allowing it to be what it is we can begin to access a deeper level of consciousness. This level of consciousness you could call your higher self, or inner nature or your truth. Whatever you label it, it is a deep level of consciousness that is unaffected by external situations and by internal states of mind. Its nature is clarity, joy, power and peace. This is the internal ground of being and is the ultimate source of happiness described in all the major religions and mystical systems. Ultimately this is what we need to get in touch with to find happiness, freedom and peace because the source of those things is within us and not generated by anyone or anything externally. By practicing mindfulness and meditation and learning to focus our awareness and by clearing away emotional baggage we open the door to this level of being because it is always there in the moment if we can learn to pay attention properly. The more we cultivate it the more power we will realize in our life and the more we will be able to create what we want and realize our full potential.
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?
Experience with the Divine Feminine March 5, 2007
Posted by bodhidude in : Divine Feminine/Goddess, Relationship, Spirituality, blog , 1 comment so far
I just had one of the most amazing transformative weekends of my life. My partner and I felt a draw to leave the city on Saturday morning, we didn’t know where we were going, well we usually don’t because we try to just flow with the magic of the moment. We ended up renting a car and packing up a bunch of stuff and heading to the coast. We spent the day exploring and walking on the beach and smelling flowers and connecting and being present. That night we ended up renting a room on the Oregon coast right on the beach with the waves crashing outside our door.
I didn’t have any inclination on a conscious level of the experience I was about to go through that night. Quite a few factors ended up coming together to create a transformative experience for me (and my partner). There were several powerful forces present that night all of which represented the divine feminine or the energy of the Goddess to me. We were at the ocean, it was a full moon and I was with my partner (who is a woman and was in her time of the month). Additionally we brought some mushrooms with us and decided to open ourselves to the natural energy of that plant teacher as well. When we took the mushrooms my partner went into a blissful state and immediately seemed to embody the Goddess. I on the other hand was immediately agitated and overwhelmed by the energy present and trying very hard to resist it. I felt disconnected from my partner and in a different world which was initially alarming because I envisioned us connecting in a blissful way for the evening so I had a bit of an agenda. I felt all this feminine energy flowing into me and it was terrifying at first because I was unable to resist or control it. I finally had to leave the room and my blissful partner who tried to help me but realized she couldn’t do so by doing anything except holding space. In that moment she seemed like an enlightened being and I was blown away by that.
I ran outside and down to the ocean under the full moon in the middle of the night and felt like I was loosing my mind. I fought with the great mother running up and down the beach and cursing the waves until I wore myself out and collapsed. Then I took off my clothes and entered the freezing ocean which felt shockingly purifying. This experience broke me down enough to be able to go back up to the room and let go. I collapsed on the floor and was able to reconnect with my partner. As we lay on the floor together in front of a fire without speaking she placed her forehead against mine and channeled the divine feminine which completely infused my being. All my resistances and defenses were completely broken down and I felt unable to move. I began to cry as I surrendered to this nurturing energy of love and acceptance. We hardly spoke the whole night as we were in a place beyond words. Later we made love and it felt as if I was communing with the divine, no words can do this justice.
The next morning I felt like a new person in a way and realized I would not be the same after this experience. I feel more open to the great mother and the earth and feel my intimate connection to the divine in this way. My partner shared some of her experience which in many ways echoed mine but most of it lay beyond words and we share a deep knowing around that. We stayed on the coast for another night integrating the experience and sleeping in the natural energy of the woods.
Emotional Weather December 17, 2006
Posted by bodhidude in : Psychology, Spirituality, blog , add a commentIts so interesting to me in the practice of meditation how emotional states as internal processes reflect the external processes of weather. The clear blue sky is like the innermost nature of mind; vast, clear and radiant. Clouds, storms and wind come and go and bring with them many different qualities. Sometimes you have thin white wisps of clouds with a gentle breeze, sometimes big puffy cotton balls, sometimes dark heavy gray clouds, sometimes violent stormy clouds and raging wind. But no matter what the weather the sky is always there unchanged and embracing whatever todays weather might hold. You can always take comfort in knowing that even though you may not be able to see it the sky is there behind the clouds and will show itself once again. So it is in meditation, the nature of mind is always there unsullied by the raging storms of emotions and thoughts that often seem like they will never end. One moment a joyous thought passes through and then the next a dark negative thought then maybe a wave of anxiety but in the end they are all just waves of consciousness on the sea of mind. No need to try to hold on to any of them, just let them be and they pass away just like that gray cloud up above my apartment building right now.
Confronting and Integrating Inner Darkness December 10, 2006
Posted by bodhidude in : Psychology, Spirituality, blog , add a commentI’ve had a recurring dream for some time that involves being in a house and needing to go down into a dark basement for some reason that cannot be avoided. The feeling of going down there is terrifying and it feels like a dark so black that its all consuming. Once down in the basement I come upon a door that leads to a descending tunnel into some sort of a dark abyss. There is no way to describe in words how much fear is associated with thinking of going down there. Its as if I will have to confront the devil himself, or something of pure evil. Anyway, I had the dream again the other night and I came to a realization just after waking up from it that the only danger in going down there is if I bring fear. Fear is the only real weapon that can be used against you by any evil force, internal or external. If I go down there without fear and bring love light and compassion then there is no danger and I have the opportunity to illuminate whatever is down there and greet it openly with compassion. I think the process of illuminating it will help me integrate it which is the transformative step of confronting your inner darkness or shadow, those parts of yourself that have become dissociated from consciousness. That was really a revelation for me although I still need to put it into practice.
I see this process of confronting our shadow or owning and integrating our inner darkness as an important one for psychological and spiritual transformation as well as to precipitate transformation on a larger scale in our world. Whats happening in our world right now could be and has been described (see www.awakeninthedream.com) as shadow projection on a large scale. People becoming dissociated from their darker side and so projecting it externally onto others that they then proceed to try and destroy so as to symbolically destroy their own inner demons. Carl Jung actually describes demons as autonomous complexes or parts of our own psyche that have become dissociated to such a degree that they have taken on a semi-autonomous existence of their own. Resisting and fighting such processes only makes them stronger and cause great chaos and damage, rather they need to be reintegrated into consciousness by being openly confronted and illuminated. This cannot be done from a fear based mind state but only from one grounded in wisdom and compassion. I think if we can all acknowledge our inner darkness rather than deny or project it we can heal at a very deep level both ourselves and our world.
The greatest darkness holds the greatest potential for light. A shadow can only be cast if there is light nearby, the shadow then points to the very thing the light is illuminating, the very thing to be integrated.
Fear and Illusion August 10, 2006
Posted by bodhidude in : Psychology, Spirituality, blog , add a commentI’ve stopped paying much attention to the mainstream media because I’ve slowly come to realize it is nothing but a propaganda machine. Real journalism and reporting is a thing of the past in this country as evidenced by the PROVEN criminal activity of our current administration going almost unreported and uninvestigated by the media. Instead of reporting the news the media today is delivering propaganda and fear. The propaganda takes the form of disseminating the “official” stories that the government wants us to hear while adding a paltry amount of argument to give the illusion of balance. This is followed by a systematic effort to squelch any stories that are really challenging to the powers that be either by avoiding them totally or covering them and discrediting the story. There are exceptions to this as we have seen when an issue gets too big to control such as Abu Graib or the Abramoff scandal but there really are few exceptions.
Right alongside the propaganda is the other primary aim of the media which is distributing fear. Fear is the mechanism through which the current administration is able to maintain power and to maintain its criminal activity and the central theme by which they create fear is terrorism. Today we see a new “plot” supposedly foiled. We’re told that this is a reminder that we are still at “war” and we see a new set of “alerts” and “warnings”. However if one researches what underlies this war on terror we quickly see that it is an illusion weaved by people who seek to dominate through fear. When their power is threatened they dish out more fear so today’s so called terror plot is right on cue as the November elections are coming up and the dominating party realizes that it is in trouble. Well it would be if we were actually having free elections. Expect more fear and chaos to be created in the coming weeks. It’s ironic that the president’s statement today was that “we are fighting Islamic Fascists”. This is the ultimate in projecting the shadow externally as they displace what they truly are onto others. In reality Bush is the fascist yet he projects that onto the “terrorists” to create fear and deception.
The path I have taken in light of this is to disconnect myself from the mainstream media in order to stop the flow of fear and disinformation. I think we need to acknowledge what the media has become and actively get our information elsewhere and with a high degree of discrimination followed by critical analysis. If we do that then we free ourselves from the matrix-like trance that the media is helping to create and we begin to hamper its ability to maintain that. If enough of us can pull out of this delusional world that has been created to keep us ignorant we can open up real possibilities for change. I have felt much more healthy since disconnecting from the fear machine and much more able to see how I can make a positive difference for change. Lets all wake up from this nightmare together and create a more healthy world……………
Superstition and Science August 3, 2006
Posted by bodhidude in : Spirituality, blog , add a commentLately I’ve become aware that I have a foot in two different worlds. One of my passions is Tibetan Buddhism and another is science (various forms of it). In the Tibetan tradition there are many things that smack of superstition and seem to be outdated ways of looking at the world. Some of these things include; a belief in non-physical beings such as ghosts, demons, gods and nature spirits; a belief in blessings; a belief in the power of holy objects such as stupas and Buddha figures; a belief in astrology; and non-scientific spiritually based explanations for phenomena such as storms, earthquakes and floods.
From a scientific point of view such things are not seen as valid because they cannot be tested using scientific methods nor do they fit into any accepted scientific theory or paradigm. Such so called superstitions from this point of view are considered ignorant ways of explaining and looking at phenomena. They are considered obsolete because we have more precise ways of seeing the world and so these superstitious explanations are not needed any longer. I used to take this point of view myself but not so much anymore because I’ve come to realize that science has some serious limitations which need to be considered.
Science has three major limitations which you have to accept to adopt scientific explanations as valid. First science assumes that the physical world is all that exists, that phenomena should be able to be measured physically and have a basis in a physical universe in order to be considered real. The problem is that this is an assumption and science cannot prove that a material universe is all that exists, a material universe is simply all that can be measured with technology. Following this, science requires that we have the ability to measure phenomena in order to study them. This ability to measure is based on our technology and so is only as capable as our current level of technology. The fact that we do not possess the technology to measure a phenomena has nothing at all to do with whether or not it exists yet we commonly reject things that we can’t measure as unreal. A third factor is that even within the realm of science we generally have an accepted paradigm under which theories and investigations are conducted. Theories and results that do not fit this paradigm even if they are measurable and highly valid from a research point of view are commonly rejected because they fly against the established paradigm. What I’m getting at here is not that science has no use but that it has its limitations and its a human invention for trying to make sense of the universe and as such cannot possibly be the sole basis for accepting what is real and what is not.
When we look at the limitations of science we can develop more of an appreciation for the traditional and ancient ways of looking at the world. Because we have a scientific explanation for something does not invalidate other ways of looking at it. For example, we have a fairly good understanding scientifically of thunderstorms. But because we know many of the physical mechanisms underlying a thunderstorm does not mean there aren’t other levels of meaning and significance to such phenomena. The physical scientific explanation is of great use but spiritual nonphysical explanations can have just as much meaning especially with regard to our relation to these phenomena and their meanings to us personally. Another example is hurricane Katrina. We could explain this tragedy scientifically using meteorological and climate change theories which are of course valid but seeing such an event from a spiritual point of view in terms of karma and of the earth as an entity reacting to man’s exploitation of her can have great significance and validity for us as well because it can allow us to integrate such events and see ourselves as co-creators of our world rather than powerless bystanders.
I believe that science presents a piece of the puzzle of this universe in which we live, but only a piece of the puzzle not the whole puzzle. Spiritual, intuitive and contemplative methods have their role to play as well and have been used by human beings far longer than scientific methods. If we take this kind of holistic open minded approach we greatly expand our possibilities and the universe opens itself to us in all its infinite glory.
White cat initiation July 20, 2006
Posted by bodhidude in : Spirituality, blog , add a commentI had a really interesting and powerful dream the other night. During the dream I was at a holy place with other spiritual seekers and we were listening to teachings given by various masters. We were also waiting for an initiation ceremony to be given by a particularly renowned master. The initiation was being prepared in a grand hall with an ornate thrown mounted on a platform with stairs leading up to it on all sides. It was like a golden thrown perched high above the rest of the hall. Some other participants and I found our way into the hall during the preparation for the ceremony and we climbed part way up the stairs to see what was going on. At the top of the stairs on the thrown was an enclosure flanked with silk wall hangings where the master was sitting. As soon as we got half way up the stairs we heard a voice from the thrown asking us what we were doing. We were startled and embarassed but the voice then said “oh you must be curious about what we are doing up here” and invited us to come up. I remember climbing up toward the thrown and looking inside the enclosure and seeing a beautiful luminous white cat sitting inside. He invited us to stay and he came out of where he was sitting and came over to me and touched his body to mine and I remember being filled with radiant white light, kind of like milk being poured into my body. At that point I woke up but just felt filled with this white light energy. It was a really amazing dream. I’m still processing its significance….
What is real? July 14, 2006
Posted by bodhidude in : Spirituality, articles , add a commentA friend of mine wrote an article entitled “the stuff of which dreams are made” (see www.awakeninthedream.com) and in it he is pointing out how our waking life experience is literally not unlike a dream. When we are asleep and having a night dream what we are experiencing is being generated by our minds and usually we do not know we are dreaming while we are in it. Because we don’t know we’re dreaming we experience the dream environment as real and react to it. If we learn to practice lucid dreaming and learn to “wake up” in the dream we can become aware that we are dreaming and change our relationship to the dream. We no longer need to see it as real and we can affect the process of the dream, in other words, dream up a new dream or just experience what we are dreaming without being carried away by it. This is possible because the dream originates from our own minds.
However what most don’t realize is that our waking life experience is really very much the same although it certainly seems more real and solid than a night dream. This is so because our experience of waking reality is just as much generated by our minds as the night dream experience. We know two very important things from perceptual psychology. One is that of all that exists in the environment we can only perceive a tiny fraction. We can only perceive the parts of our environment that our five senses can detect and we know scientifically that there is far more to the environment than what we perceive. Further, even among the types of stimuli that we can perceive we only perceive a small piece. For example, we can detect light with our eyes but only a small portion of the total spectrum of light. So there is much more to the physical environment than we can perceive. This fact points out that our reality is only a small part of a much larger reality. The other important point here is that even what we do perceive, we do not experience directly. Our senses convert what they detect into electrical impulses, which are then sent to the brain to be perceived. These electrical impulses are not the actual environment but they are what we perceive so perception is indirect.
Perception or experience of the environment and actually of our inner process as well takes place subjectively. When the brain receives electrical impulses from the five senses as well as the mental experience it interprets these signals and creates a picture of reality, which we take to be more or less real. But this is not reality; it is our version of it or our interpretation of it. We are all different physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually so how we interpret what we experience and how we generate our version of reality is going to be different.
In Tibetan Buddhism it is also pointed out that our experience is generated by mind. We experience our outer and inner environment and our mind creates labels to identify and interact with things. These labels we take to be real phenomena. For example, I have the label Colin for myself. What is Colin? Colin is a constantly changing collection of many things including this body, my unique past experience, thoughts, feelings, ideas etc. Colin is just a label for this constantly changing impermanent set of stuff and I’m the only one who perceives myself in this way. Those that know me also use the label Colin but their version of Colin is very different from mine, its based on their experience of me from their perspective. This is the case with all labels of everything we experience, they are not inherently real but we take them to be most of the time and so we get into conflict with people because we don’t realize that they see things from their perspective which is different than ours. There is certainly overlap and agreement in how we all see the world but only to a point because no two people see anything exactly the same way, its not possible for them to.
Because our experience is so dependent on mind, it is very much like a dream. In the same way as with lucid dreaming, if we can become aware of how we experience reality and how we co-create it we can become lucid in the waking dream of life, which empowers us immensely because we can consciously recreate our experience of the dream in relationship with our intentions and happiness. If we are not aware of these processes then we can only react and interact with the world based on assumptions which don’t stand up to analysis. We’re like dreamers terrified of a monster which we don’t realize is an illusion and so we run and scream as it appears to chase us. This creates havoc, pain and chaos. If we realize the illusory nature of reality we can create and maintain a much greater and more stable piece of mind and we will be able to share that with others to create a more peaceful world.