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How Can You Live In This World And Yet Be Innocent?
by J. Krishnamurti

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How can you live in this world and yet be innocent? First, be innocent and then you will live in this world, not the other way round. Be vulnerable, be tremendously vulnerable.

You do not even understand what it means to be innocent; if you are innocent, you can live in this world, in another world, in any world. But if you are not innocent you try to compromise with this world and then all hell is let loose. But learn about this sense of innocency. Don't try to get it. It is not the word. It is that state when you have no pretension's, no masks, no conflict. Be in that state and then you can live in this world. Then you can go to the office; you can do anything. If you know what love is, you can do what you will. There is no conflict, no sin . ., no pain.... Then you will live in this world totally, differently.

This is indeed the Mutation of the Mind. This is the fundamental transformation of man. The state of innocence is the state of mutation. In mutation is the birth of a new being. He is a being who acts but
never reacts, for, by living in the ground of inaction, he acts with charm and grace, a never-ending challenge for all — a challenge that is unexplained and therefore unanswered. Such one lives, just lives, but his very living awakens in others a sense of tremendous urgency. Strange though it may seem, the (hu)man of innocence becomes a potent nucleus for a total and a significant revolution in society. It is not that first there must be the transformation of the individual and then that transformed individual would lead a social revolution. These are not two different processes. In the transformation of the human being there has already begun the movement for fundamental social change. There is no time interval between the two. The process of transformation is just one and integral. The transformed human being represents the beginning of a social revolution. Such a human
being does not become a leader giving a call for social revolution. In such a call there is imitation and therefore an action which seeks to approximate itself to an idea.

But in a man of total innocence — in the very act of his living, the social revolution has already started. It is only when a time interval is given between the transformation of the human individual and the transformation of a society that the evil of leadership with all its ugly exploitation comes into being.

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How Can You Live In This World And Yet Be Innocent? What does being innocent mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you really lived by being innocent? What helps you be a human of innocence?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Being innocent means being true to oneself, being authentic, with no pretensions, no masks and no conflicts. Being innocent means revealing our original face with no facade. When we live innocently. i...

Bansi Pandya wrote: What does being innocent mean to you? Just living. Can you share a personal story of a time you really lived by being innocent? If I try to share a personal story then living is no more that would des...

David Doane wrote: Being innocent literally means to cause no harm. Sometimes I am innocent, such as when I am speaking from what I am experiencing, including to say what I see, imagine, fantasize, assume, feel, and/or ...

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Do You Remember Your Song?
by Alan Cohen

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When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child. They recognize that every soul has its own vibration that expresses its unique flavor and purpose. Then the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud.

Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone else. When the child is born, the community gathers and sings the child’s song to him or her.

Later, when the child enters education, the village gathers and chants the child’s song. When the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, the people again come together and sing.

At the time of marriage, the person hears his or her song.

Finally, when the soul is about to pass from this world, the family and friends gather at the person’s bed, just as they did at their birth, and they sing the person to the next life. In the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child.

If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them. The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behaviour is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity.

When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.

A friend is someone who knows your song and sings it to you when you have forgotten it. Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.

You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not.

When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn’t. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well. You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you’ll find your way home.

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Do You Remember Your Song? How do you relate to the notion of a friend being someone who knows your song and sings it to you when you have forgotten it? Can you share a personal story of a time someone reminded you of your song? What helps you see beyond the mistakes of others and connect with their song instead?

ANDREW M. PROKOPIS wrote: It seems to me that if we, like those African women, were to sit in the wilderness of our innermost being, we would hear our song. And then we can pause, sit quietly whenever something goes wrong or w...

David Doane wrote: I love that story about the African women tuning into the unique song of the baby, singing it when the baby is in utero, and then teaching the community to sing it to the child throughout significant ...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Every one has a purpose of living. When we realize what it is we have found our song. As we go through crucial life transitions, we may forget to sing our song. We may miss the direction and take a wr...

Prasad Kaipa wrote: When I read the passage for this week, I was thinking about a person being filled with his/her own vibrations and experiencing them as originating primarily from oneself and reverberating in the peopl...

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Too Many Names
by Pablo Neruda

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Monday is tangled up with Tuesday
and the week with the year:
time can’t be cut with your tired scissors,
and all the names of the day
are rubbed out by the waters of the night.

No one can be named Pedro
no one is Rosa or Maria,
all of us are dust or sand,
all of us are rain in the rain.
They have talked to me of Venezuelas,
of Paraguays and Chiles,
I don’t know what they’re talking about:
I’m aware of the earth’s skin
and I know it doesn’t have a name.

When I lived with the roots
I liked them more than the flowers,
and when I talked with a stone
it rang like a bell.

The spring is so long
that it lasts all winter:
time lost its shoes:
a year contains four centuries.

When I sleep all these nights,
what am I named or not named?
And when I wake up who am I
If I wasn’t I when I slept?

This means that we have barely
disembarked into life,
that we’ve only now just been born,
let’s not fill our mouths
with so many uncertain names,
with so many sad labels,
with so many pompous letters,
with so much yours and mine,
with so much signing of papers.

I intend to confuse things,
to unite them, make them new-born,
intermingle them, undress them,
until the light of the world
has the unity of the ocean,
a generous wholeness,
a fragrance alive and crackling.

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Too Many Names How do you relate to the notion of letting go of the name? Can you share a personal story of a time you felt a generous wholeness by letting go of distinctions? What helps you stay rooted in a generous wholeness without losing touch with the world and its distinctions?

David Doane wrote: I actively support the notion of letting go of the name. When I lead a group therapy, I direct people to leave their last names, titles, roles, and social histories (like where you went to high school...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: We live in the world of forms, the outward forms with names and titles, yours and mine, the above and the below. We relate to the world with distinctions. Underneaththe forms and distinctions there is...

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Beauty Is The Very Nature Of The Kosmos
by Ken Wilber

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If science gives us objective Truth, or the “it” of Spirit, and morals give us the Good, or the “we” of Spirit, then Beauty—which is in the “eye” of the beholder—helps open us to the “I” of Spirit. [...]

Think of the most beautiful person you have ever seen. Think of the exact moment you looked into his or her eyes, and for a fleeting second you were paralyzed: you couldn’t take your eyes off that vision. You stared, frozen in time, caught in that beauty. Now imagine that identical beauty radiating from every single thing in the entire universe: every rock, every plant, every animal, every cloud, every person, every object, every mountain, every stream—even the garbage dumps and broken dreams— every single one of them, radiating that beauty. You are quietly frozen by the gentle beauty of everything that arises around you. You are released from grasping, released from time, released from avoidance, released altogether into the eye of Spirit, where, you contemplate the unending beauty of the Art that is the entire World. 

That all-pervading Beauty is not an exercise in creative imagination. It is the actual structure of the universe. That all-pervading Beauty is in truth the very nature of the Kosmos right now. It is not something you have to imagine, because it is the actual structure of perception in all domains. If you remain in the eye of Spirit, every object is an object of radiant Beauty. If the doors of perception are cleansed, the entire Kosmos is your lost and found Beloved, the Original Face of primordial Beauty, forever, and forever, and endlessly forever. And in the face of that stunning Beauty, you will completely swoon into your own death, never to be seen or heard from again, except on those tender nights when the wind gently blows through the hills and the mountains, quietly calling your name. 

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Beauty Is The Very Nature Of The Kosmos How do you relate to the notion of every object being an object of radiant beauty in the eye of Spirit? Can you share a personal story of a time you felt the radiant "Beauty" of everything around you? What helps you see the all-pervading "Beauty" around you?

David Doane wrote: All that is, every plant, animal, person, and object, is an expression of and manifestation of God, so I know each one is the radiant beauty of Spirit. During the moments that I abide in that knowing ...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Ken Wilber's passage reminds me of the song sung by a saint: "By losing myself I found myself." When the ego creates the world of this and that, mine and and thine, beauty and ugliness, ...

Prasad Kaipa wrote: Last year when I was in Bali, I was in awe of its natural beauty. Especially when I went to a rice farm, I had a chance to see multiple rainbows and the trees were radiating energy. It felt like beaut...

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Meditation: A Process Of Retraining The Mind
by Bhante Gunaratna

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Gently, but firmly, without getting upset or judging yourself for straying, simply return to the simple physical sensation of the breath. Then do it again the next time, and again, and again, and again.

Somewhere in this process, you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and hopeless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way, and you just never noticed. [...] So don’t let this realization unsettle you. It is a milestone actually, a sign of real progress. The very fact that you have looked at the problem straight in the eye means that you are on your way up and out of it.

In the wordless observation of the breath, there are two states to be avoided: thinking and sinking. The thinking mind manifests most clearly as the monkey mind phenomenon we have just been discussing. The sinking mind is almost the reverse. As a general term, sinking mind denotes any dimming of awareness. at its best it is sort of a mental vacuum in which there is no thought, no observation of the breath, no awareness of anything. It is a gap, a formless mental gray area rather like a dreamless sleep. Sinking mind is a void. Avoid it.

When you find you have fallen into the state of sinking mind, just note the fact and return your attention to the sensation of breathing. Observe the tactile sensation of the in-breath. Feel the touch sensation of the out-breath. Breathe in, breathe out and watch what happens.

Don’t set goals for yourself that are too high to reach. Be gentle with yourself. You are trying to follow your own breathing continuously and without a break. That sounds easy enough, so you will have a tendency at the outset to push yourself to be scrupulous and exacting. This is unrealistic. Take time in small units instead. At the beginning of an inhalation, make the resolve to follow the breath just for the period of that one inhalation. Even this is not so easy, but at least it can be done. Then, at the start of the exhalation, resolve to follow the breath just for that one exhalation, all the way through. You will still fail repeatedly, but keep at it.

Every time you stumble, start over. Take it one breath at a time. [...]

This meditation is a process of retraining the mind. The state you are aiming for is one in which you are totally aware of everything that is happening in your own perceptual universe, exactly the way it happens, exactly when it is happening; total, unbroken awareness in present time. This is an incredibly high goal, and not to be reached all at once. It takes practice, so we start small.

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Meditation: A Process Of Retraining The Mind How do you relate to the notion that our mind is a 'shrieking, gibbering madhouse'? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to get beyond thinking and sinking, and into total awareness? What helps you deepen your awareness?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Our untrained mind is a"shrieking, gibbering madhouse". It happens in our waking state as well as in our sleep sate. Our mind hardly rests.Our mind is like a monkey mind, jumping from one th...

Vinod wrote: The fact that after an out-breath, if there is no in-breath, it means death, can heighten one's awareness. There's birth and death with every In-breath andin every out breath. ...

David Doane wrote: I easily relate to and identify with having a mind that can be a shrieking, gibbering madhouse. I think of times when I'm into my shrieking, gibbering mind as driving myself crazy, which is a bad ...

Prasad Kaipa wrote: When I read the passage this week, I was in Costa Rica Sarapiqui region. After I read it, I took a walk consciously paying attention to my breathing and walked to the window and looked outside. The mi...

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When Someone Deeply Listens To You
by John Fox

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When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you've had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind's eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

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When Someone Deeply Listens To You What does it mean to you to deeply listen to someone? Can you share an experience of a time you felt deeply listened to? What helps you to deeply listen?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Listening deeply to someone means to be fully attentive to the other person's saying. Sounds simple, but not that easy to do. When I listen to someone my mind is fresh, clean, open and undivided. ...

David Doane wrote: To deeply listen to someone means to give full attention to what someone is saying, not to what I am thinking, not to judgments or assumptions I might be creating, and not to what I am going to say in...

Prasad Kaipa wrote: This week, I have been reflecting on the listening deeply. I thought it might be interesting to tell a story with two photos. The B & W photo is taken in a retirement community in Bangalore last year...

Sunil Mor wrote: Deeply listening is establishing a soul to soul connection on equal footing. It's accepting the universality of the same life force manifesting in everybody. Then there is a smooth flow with full ...

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Silence
by Jean Klien

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Silence is our real nature. What we are fundamentally is only silence.

Silence is free from beginning and end. It was before the beginning of all things. It is causeless. Its greatness lies in the fact that it simply is. In silence all objects have their home ground. It is the light that gives objects their shape and form. All movement, all activity is harmonized by silence.

Silence has no opposite in noise. It is beyond positive and negative.

Silence dissolves all objects. It is not related to any counterpart which belongs to the mind.

Silence has nothing to do with mind. It cannot be defined but it can be felt directly because it is our nearness.

Silence is freedom without restriction or center. It is our wholeness, neither inside nor outside the body.

Silence is joyful, not pleasurable. It is not psychological. It is feeling without a feeler.

Silence needs no intermediary.

Silence is holy. It is healing. There is no fear in silence.

Silence is autonomous like love and beauty. It is untouched by time.

Silence is meditation, free from any intention, free from anyone who meditates.

Silence is the absence of oneself. Or rather, silence is the absence of absence.

Sound which comes from silence is music. All activity is creative when it comes from silence. It is constantly a new beginning.

Silence precedes speech and poetry and music and all art.

Silence is the home ground of all creative activity. What is truly creative is the word, is Truth. Silence is the word.

Silence is truth.

The one established in silence lives in constant offering, in prayer without asking, in thankfulness, in continual love.

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Silence What does silence mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you felt established in silence? What helps you cultivate silence?

Xiaoshan Pan wrote: As thinking becomes a disease, silence is the cure. ...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: As I was reflecting on the reading by Jean Klien, thoughtsabout silence started flashing through my mind. Here I am wondering about what silence means to me. My mind is busy looking for the answer to ...

Prasad Kaipa wrote: When I read Silence passage by Jean Klein, image of womb came to my mind. It is the doorway to life. Womb represents life itself and it is the ground on which another life comes into the world. Then c...

David Doane wrote: Don't speak unless you can improve on silence makes sense to me -- I would do well to follow that advice more often. From the Psalms is, "Be silent and know I am God." Paschal said our p...

Amy wrote: Amen!...

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A Heart Of Warmth Is Not Something Impossible
by Tenzin Palmo

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What does love mean? In the West, we mistake the meaning of love; we bandy the word around all the time, from “I love ice-cream” to “I love God”. But we mistake love for desire, for greed, for lust, and for attachment. We think that to love something or someone means to hold on very tightly and to think of it as “mine”. And because of this grasping mind, we suffer very much. We suffer from the fear that we will lose what we desire, and we suffer from grief when we do lose. Think about that. We usually mistake attachment for love. But attachment is not love. Attachment is grasping, attachment is clinging. And this is the root cause of our being in this state of suffering.

The Buddha said that there is a truth of suffering and that there is a cause of suffering. The cause of suffering is grasping. We hold things so tightly because we don’t know how to hold things lightly. But everything is impermanent. Everything is flowing-- it’s not static or solid. We cannot hold on to anything. As long as we try to hold on to the flow of the river, we either end up with nothing-- because we can’t grasp water in a tight fist. Or else, we dam up the flow and end up with something very stagnant, smelly and stale. The actuality is movement. If we try to hold on tightly, we kill it. And that causes so much pain; it causes so much fear in our lives. That’s not love. Love is a tremendous opening of the heart. It’s a heart which thinks ”May you be well and happy” and not “May you make me well and happy”. In order to cultivate that kind of heart which wishes for the happiness of others, we can start first by opening with our family. This means by trying to make them happy and being open towards them. But not clinging or grasping-- just being there for them. Showing them love, showing them affection, because they are the first people who need our love and affection. But it’s not a tight grasping affection. When I was 19, I decided to go to find a Lama, and I said to my mother “I’m going to India” and she said, “Oh yes, when are you leaving?” She didn’t say “What do you mean you are going to India? How could you leave your poor old mother?” She said, “Oh yes, when are you leaving?’” not because she didn’t love me, but because she did love me. She loved me and she wanted me to fulfill my own potential and be happy. She was not thinking “Oh, but if you’re going to leave me, I’m going to be lonely. I’m going to be miserable. How can you abandon me?” So, because of her non-attachment, she rejoiced in my happiness. Even while I was away, though I am sure she missed me very much, but she rejoiced in all the things I did, the places I went and the people I met. [...]

That’s love. And that heart of warmth is not something impossible. It’s something we can all develop. That joy in making others happy, in thinking how we can give a little happiness, a little joy to others that we meet, through a kind word, through a smile, through a gift or whatever. Not always thinking “Oh, but they never gave me anything, so why should I give them anything?”, or “They never smile at me, so I’m not going to smile at them.” That’s such a petty, small mind. Think about a society in which everyone is at least nice to each other. That would be heaven, would it not? And yet it doesn’t take that much to be pleasant, even to people who are not pleasant in return. If we were affable to everybody, then on the whole, people would be agreeable in response.

Because it’s really true that we get out of life what we put into it. And if we are always radiating negative thoughts and feelings – anger, resentment or just self-absorption—then that’s what we’ll get back. [...]

So it’s up to us. We create this world as we project it from our mind. We can make this world into something meaningful. We can make some genuine contribution to our environment. Even just within our own circle, by helping others to feel better, we can have a life that has some purpose. So that at the end of our life, we can look back and say, “well, at least I did what I could.” Or we could waste it-- we can go through life grumbling, and moaning and complaining and blaming other people in the family, an unhappy childhood and one’s parents or the government and society. Whether we go up or whether we go down or whether we stand still, is up to us. And if we want to be miserable, we can be absolutely miserable. We have full permission. But if we don’t want to be miserable, that is also up to us. Things can change. Things are changing moment to moment. We can change. And if we change ourselves, everything changes. Everything changes.

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A Heart Of Warmth Is Not Something Impossible What does developing a heart of warmth mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you experienced love as a tremendous opening of the heart? What helps you develop a heart of warmth?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Love is born in heart. It flourishes in heart.It flows from heart. Love liberates us from the grasping of selfish desire, from the craving of getting something from someone even at the cost of the oth...

David Doane wrote: Tenzin Palmo equates heart of warmth with love, so I'll go with that. To me, developing a heart of warmth includes recognizing that the other is a person just like me, being genuinely caring about...

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Being Human
by Climbing PoeTree

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I wonder if the Sun debates dawn
some mornings
not wanting to rise
out of bed
from under the down-feather horizon
if the sky grows tired
of being everywhere at once
adapting to the mood
swings of the weather
if clouds drift off
trying to hold themselves together
make deals with gravity
to loiter a little longer
I wonder if rain is scared
of falling
if it has trouble
letting go
if snow flakes get sick
of being perfect all the time
each one
trying to be one-of-a-kind
I wonder if stars wish
upon themselves before the die
if they need to teach their young
how to shine
I wonder if shadows long
to just-for-once feel the Sun
if they get lost in the shuffle
not knowing where they’re from
I wonder if sunrise
and sunset
respect each other
even though they’ve never met
if volcanoes get stressed
if storms have regrets
if compost believes in life
after death
I wonder if breath ever thinks of suicide
if the wind just wants to sit
still sometimes
and watch the world pass by
if smoke was born
knowing how to rise
if rainbows get shy back stage
not sure if their colors match right
I wonder if lightning sets an alarm clock
to know when to crack
if rivers ever stop
and think of turning back
if streams meet the wrong sea
and their whole lives run off-track
I wonder if the snow
wants to be black
if the soil thinks she’s too dark
if butterflies want to cover up their marks
if rocks are self-conscious of their weight
if mountains are insecure of their strength
I wonder if waves get discouraged
crawling up the sand
only to be pulled back again
to where they began
if land feels stepped upon
if sand feels insignificant
if trees need to question their lovers
to know where they stand
if branches waver at the crossroads
unsure of which way to grow
if the leaves understand they’re replaceable
and still dance when the wind blows
I wonder
where the Moon goes
when she is in hiding
I want to find her there
and watch the ocean
spin from a distance
listen to her
stir in her sleep
effort give way to existence
 

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Being Human What does it mean to you to be human? Can you share a personal story of a time nature outside helped you connect with your own nature? What helps you understand your own nature?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: To me Human without Being is like the Sun without Light, Stillness without Movement, Silence without Sound, Up without Down, Beginning without Ending. They are intertwined. There is beautiful Sanskrit...

David Doane wrote: To be human is to be an expression of God in a particular form with a particular consciousness, in the world and interrelated with all the rest of creation. As I became more aware of nature outside, t...

vinod wrote: to be human is to just "be". as we are. where we are. for everything in nature is perfect. as it is....

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Spiritual Materialism
by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

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What first comes to mind to speak about is my own spiritual materialism. I find that as I'm reading or reflecting upon the teachings and something becomes clear to me, I immediately want to rush out and teach it to others. Why is this? The answer disturbs me, because although I believe there is a certain amount of good motivation, looking deeply, I discover that actually there is very little intention to help others. Instead, it's all about making an impression, and there is much of my own ego involved. I have become so proficient at disseminating knowledge, particularly the teachings of dharma, that I do it almost automatically. Unconsciously, though, I want to make a good impression on others.   In one sense, because these are dharma teachings, the activity still bears fruit, but in another sense it is quite sad to realize that one is not truly taking the teachings to heart. This is where the impression must be made - on your own heart. If this is not the case, although you might be able to contemplate the dharma, achieve some insight and expound it to others, you will not experience any dramatic change in yourself. So naturally, you cannot instigate significant change in the minds of others, except perhaps in some intellectual capacity.  

That, then, is the confession I would like to make. I aspire to be truly free from the entrapment of spiritual materialism. To rid myself of this tendency would bring such long sought freedom and peace. May I one day practice the dharma without trying to make an impression on others, and instead may I truly make the needed impression on my own heart. [...]

I can speak to you about my own knowledge of spiritual materialism, although others might explain it differently. According to my understanding, spiritual materialism is present when the spiritual path is tainted by selfish thoughts or selfish emotions, and we use spiritual practice to indulge our own ego -- to make ourselves look good or to achieve some sort of recognition. You see, because we live closely with others, our paths intermingle. We are so persistently concerned with how our companions will perceive us that we don't know how to be genuine and authentic -- to actually be truly ourselves. Such sensitivity to the opinions of others pervades our dharma activity as well. [...] For example, before we even learn the dharma ourselves, we want to enlighten others. Doubtless, there is a certain amount of good intention behind our actions, but again, this often has more to do with the fact that we want to impress others with our breadth of knowledge, our level of realization. In truth, our focus is on the self. The function of self to promote itself, so if we aren't careful, we can actually turn all of our dharma activity into self-promotion. [...] 

 

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Spiritual Materialism What does spiritual materialism mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to detect spiritual materialism in your thoughts? What helps you overcome the desire to impress others and be grounded in your authenticity?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: The ver phrase spiritual materialism seems contradictory to me. To me spiritualism is an inward journey to discover and know who and what I am. It is indeed self-inquiry transcending my physical, ment...

David Doane wrote: I appreciate the openness and the message of Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. For me, spiritual materialism means spiritual egoism, that is, doing or expressing spiritual knowledge in order to feed my ego, p...

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Meaning And The Song Of The Soul
by Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee

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Meaning is what calls from the depths of the soul.

It is the song that sings us into life. Whether we have a meaningful life depends upon whether we can hear this song, this primal music of the sacred. The “sacred” is not something primarily religious or even spiritual. It is not a quality we need to learn or to develop. It belongs to the primary nature of all that is. When our ancestors knew that everything they could see was sacred, this was not something taught but instinctively known. It was as natural as sunlight, as necessary as breathing. It is a fundamental recognition of the wonder, beauty and divine nature of the world. And from this sense of the sacred, real meaning is born, the meaning that makes our hearts sing with the deepest purpose of being alive.

Sadly, today so much of life is covered in distractions, in the addictions of consumerism. The soul’s music is not easy to hear amidst life’s constant clamor, and wonder and mystery have become more and more inaccessible. As a culture we seem to have lost the thread that connects the worlds together: the inner world from which meaning is born, and the outer world where we spend our days. The stories of the soul are no longer told, instead our dreams have become the desires of materialism. Even spirituality is often sold in the marketplace, another drug that promises to placate us, to cover the growing anxiety that something essential is missing.

To find meaning we have to reclaim our sense of the sacred, something our culture appears to have overlooked or forgotten. The sacred is an essential quality of life. It connects us to our own soul and the divine that is the source of all that exists.

The sacred can be found in any form: a small stone or a mountain, the first cry of a newborn child and the last gasp of a dying person. It can be present in a loaf of bread, on a table, waiting for a meal, and in the words that bless the meal. The remembrance of the sacred is like a central note within life. Without this remembrance something fundamental to our existence is missing. Our daily life lacks a basic nourishment, a depth of meaning.

When we feel this music, when we sense this song, we are living our natural connection with the Earth and all of life. Meaning is not something that belongs to us, rather our life becomes “meaningful” when we live this connection, when we feel it under our feet as we walk down the street, in the scent of a flower, in rain falling.  [...]

We are all part of one living being we call the Earth, magical beyond our understanding. She gives us life and her wonder nourishes us. In her being the worlds come together. Her seeds give us both bread and stories. For centuries the stories of seeds were central to humanity, myths told again and again—stories of rebirth, life recreating itself in the darkness. Now we have almost forgotten these stories. Instead, stranded in our separate, isolated selves we do not even know how hungry we have become. We have to find a way to reconnect with what is essential—to learn once again how to walk in a sacred manner, how to cook with love and prayers, how to give attention to simple things. We need to learn to welcome life in all its colors and fragrances, to say “yes” again and again. Then life will give us back the connection to our own soul, and once more we will hear its song. Then meaning will return as a gift and a promise. And something within our own heart will open and know that we have come home.

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Meaning And The Song Of The Soul What does welcoming life in all its colors and fragrances mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time meaning returning in your life as a gift and a promise? What helps you reclaims your sense of the sacred?

vinod wrote: the concert begins when one sits still and pays attention toone's breath.and then nature's orchestra plays on forever....

Jagdish P Dave wrote: I love this thought provoking essay written by Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee. We are born out of the sacred and nourished by the sacred. Is not something that can be taught. We are born with it. It is natural,...

David Doane wrote: For me, life in all its colors and fragrances means that life is a mixed bag full of an immense variety of experiences for us to be part of, respond to, learn and grow from. There was a time when the ...

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The Liminal Space
by Heather Platt

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What do you do when a friend has lost a child and you can’t ease their grief? Or when your partner loses her job and you can’t resolve it for her? Or a client has to make a big decision and you can’t make it for him? Or your church or community group decides to close its doors and there is loss written on everyone’s faces? Or a group you’re facilitating is in conflict and can’t see their way through to resolution?
Though you feel invested in all of these situations, the outcome in each of them is outside of your responsibility and control.
 
The best that you can do is hold space for the people involved.
 
It all begins in the liminal space…
 
The space in between stories is the liminal space. In anthropology, a liminal space is a threshold, an interim space of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet transitioned to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. In liminal space we are between identities, between who we once were and who we are becoming, like the chrysalis stage between caterpillar and butterfly.
 
Grief, transition, loss, birth, divorce, trauma, job loss, bankruptcy, marriage, betrayal, relocation, graduation, conflict – nearly every human experience has within it some element of liminal space. The liminal space is a space of openheartedness, when we are raw, vulnerable, and exposed. In order to survive without further wounding, we need a container that will hold us with gentleness and strength, without short-circuiting the process or forcing us into the wrong outcome.
 
Holding space isn’t easy and it can make us feel powerless. We want to fix things, give good advice, control the outcome, or avoid the conversation all together.
 
In order to hold space for others in our lives, we have to learn to hold space for ourselves first. When we neglect our own needs, we risk burnout, addiction, and other unhealthy coping mechanisms.
 
Holding space is what we do in the liminal space when we walk alongside another person (or ourselves) on a journey without judging, fixing, belittling, or shaping the outcome. While supporting their boundaries and protecting our own, we offer unconditional support, compassion, and gentle guidance.
 

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The Liminal Space How do you relate to the notion of liminal space and our need to be held when in that space? Can you share a personal story of holding space? What helps you recognize and hold space for those, including yourself, in liminal spaces?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: We all go though ups and down in our life, feeling high and feeling low, elevatedand depressed. There have been times in my life when I did not know which way to go. The outcomes were beyond my contro...

David Doane wrote: We're always in liminal space, sometimes more profoundly than others, sometimes willingly and sometimes unwillingly. It probably helps to be held when struggling in that space. We can never contro...

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Pandemic
by Lynn Ungar

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What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath --
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

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Pandemic How do you relate to the invitation of this poem to view this as a sacred time? As structures around you are changing quite drastically, what openings of gratitude do you feel? What helps you move beyond fear and root in the warmth of your heart?

SC wrote: My heart feels deep relief at what is remembered within me as I read these words. Such gratitude to Lynn for writing and Awakin for sharing out. "The Great Turning" as Joanna Macy describes ...

PK wrote: Feeling of love and compassion filled my heard as I read this poem three times in a row. As it started reverberating in my heart, I noticed a smile on face. Usually, I am a serious person and almost i...

David Doane wrote: All the world and all time and each of us are expressions of God, so the world and time and we are sacred. A time of pandemic makes it more obvious that we are all in this world together, and since we...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Sound of Silence! In the noisy and busy world of doing and having, we tend forget to listen to the inner quiet and wise voice of the heart, the soul. Our minds get filled with fear, anger, annoyance, ...

Amy wrote: Oh my! How Very Beautiful!??...

Mariette wrote: This is happening FOR us, not to us. In every challenge and supposed destruction, there is an opportunity for construction. The fallen leaves turn into compost. The undoing of past beliefs of separati...

Jasky wrote: A text I received last month that I thought you may enjoy reading. “China in Silence” by Shi Liang, early February 2020

Mark wrote: Another related poem I enjoyed ...  Lockdown --Fr. Richard Hendrick, OFM March 13th 2020 Yes there is fear. Yes there is isolation. Yes there is panic buying. Yes there is sickness. Ye...

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Why We Listen Better To Strangers Than Family
by Kate Murphy

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Once you know people well enough to feel close, there’s an unconscious tendency to tune them out because you think you already know what they are going to say. It’s kind of like when you’ve traveled a certain route several times and no longer notice signposts and scenery.

But people are always changing. The sum of daily interactions and activities continually shapes us, so none of us are the same as we were last month, last week or even yesterday.

The closeness-communication bias is at work when romantic partners feel they don’t know each other anymore or when parents discover their children are up to things they never imagined.

It can occur even when two people spend all their time together and have many of the same experiences.

Social science researchers have repeatedly demonstrated that people often understood close relationships no better than strangers, and often worse.

The closeness-communication bias not only keeps us from listening to those we love, it can also keep us from allowing our loved ones to listen to us. It may explain why people in close relationships sometimes withhold information or keep secrets from one another.

So what can you do about it? The British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar said the primary way to maintain close relationships is through “everyday talk.” That means asking, “How are you?” and actually listening to the answer.

Too often spouses, and also parents with their children, reduce conversations to logistics such as what to have for dinner, whose turn it is to do the laundry, or when to leave for soccer practice. Friends might run down their latest accomplishments and activities. What often gets left out is what is really on people’s minds — their joys, struggles, hopes and fears. Sometimes people keep conversation light with friends and family because they assume they already know what’s going on, but also, they may be afraid of what they might learn.

But what is love if not a willingness to listen to and be a part of another person’s evolving story? A lack of listening is a primary contributor to feelings of loneliness.

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Why We Listen Better To Strangers Than Family How do you relate to the notion that love is ''a willingness to listen to and be a part of another person''s evolving story''? Can you share an experience of a time you were able to overcome closeness-communication bias and listen deeply in a close relationship? What helps you stop yourself from already knowing what the other person is going to say and stay committed to discovery in your communication?

Prasad wrote: Just because I taught communication courses and teach others to listen deeply, I used to think that I am very good listener. There were a few occasionswhen we wife or son or daughter caught me doing s...

David Doane wrote: We are one, inseparably interrelated, so of course we are part of one another's story, if we want to be or not. The choice we have is how we are part of it. To be willing to listen, to truly pay a...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: This essay authored by Kate Murphy reminds me of a saying my father used to say in Sanskrit "Ati parichayatavagna" meaning too much closeness in relationship results in indifference. I often...

Rahul Brown wrote: I find that "How are you?" is a very poor question to ask someone who is close to you because its such a common question. Its rare for it to be a sincere question that merits a full and prop...

matt wrote: Thanks for sharing these are very wise words....

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A 13-Year-Old In A Museum
by Nancy Collier

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On a recent visit to the Museum of Modern Art with a friend and her daughter, meandering through the museum’s exhibits, I was struck by how often my friend’s 13-year-old daughter asked us to take photos of her (on her Smartphone) in front of the artwork.  Her head tilted, she gazed contemplatively at the pieces, the photos of which she would then feverishly post on Instagram, Snapchat and all the rest. She was not by the way the only young (or older) person doing this; everyone it seemed was busy taking photos of themselves “experiencing” the museum.

This is by no means a criticism of my friend’s daughter (or anyone else). What was concerning, at least to me, was that in between being photographed and posting, my friend’s daughter had no interest in the artwork, a fact which didn’t seem to matter or have anything to do with wanting to post herself as someone enjoying the experience.  Now when I was her age, I had no interest in going to museums either, and when I did get dragged there, I couldn’t wait to get out of the building.  Having no interest in art at her age (and any age) is completely normal and not disturbing in the least.  

But what is disturbing is how much of a young person’s energy these days goes into creating an image of the life they’re living and the character they “are” in that life.  While creating a self-image has always been a big part of growing up and figuring out our identity, social media seems to have changed the rules of the game.  Social media has not just intensified the pressure and possibility to create a self-generated self-image, but also distorted the process by which we become who we are.  Young people now seem to be creating an image of who they are in place of becoming who they are, posting their life rather than living it. The effort that goes into creating an identity and getting it noticed or “followed” has replaced the effort of actually getting interested in the life that they are posting.

No matter what the experience is actually about, it becomes about you, the person who is living it.  A concert is not about the music, a restaurant not about the food, a sporting event not about the sport, a funeral not about the loss; it’s all about you, the doer, and what the event says about you.  Life experiences are not lived directly so much as they are used as opportunities for announcing what kind of person you are.  Life now is a product through which to promote your image, but (and here’s where it gets really strange) with little connection to whether that screen image accurately reflects the inside you.

The fact that posting where we are and what we’re doing is often more important than being where we are or doing what we’re doing, is one of the most disturbing ways that we are changing in the wake of technology and its offspring.  Our experience has meaning only in the way it says something about us–how it helps create our self-image.  As a result, we feel more separate and disconnected from our life; meaning feels harder to find.  The more we use life to create an identity, the more cut off from life we feel. Instead of being part of it, in the flow of life, we feel as if we have to keep generating new life material, more life stuff, which will announce, establish us, and ultimately, prove our existence.  In the meanwhile, the chasm between us and life grows wider and wider.

The next time you are inclined to post your story and all that goes with it, pause for a moment and experience where you are, feel what it feels like to live what you’re living, sensing what you’re sensing, without doing anything with it—without using life for your benefit, or for anything at all.  Just live, without the narrative.  While it may feel like this exercise could pose a threat to your identity, cause you to miss an opportunity to establish your value, in fact, the benefit it can offer to your true self, to that within you that longs to be part of and not separate from life, will far outweigh any loss incurred.  But don’t take my word for it, try it out for yourself.

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A 13-Year-Old In A Museum How do you relate to the distinction between creating an image of who we are and becoming who we are? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to disconnect from creating an image and lean into living life directly? What helps you avoid the trap of using life as a product to promote your image?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: The self-image that I create is only the reflection of the outside of me. It is like stagnant water rather than the flowing river. My life is dynamic. It is not static. It is becoming. It is a process...

Sunil Mor wrote: We are essentially a spiritual being rather than a physical human being. Soul seperates us from the body.Once we understand this eternal truth we stop the said imagery but liven the real.This disconne...

David Doane wrote: There is a lot of creating an image occurring rather than becoming who we are. I agree with Nancy Collier that creating an image is a frequent phase, especially for young people, in figuring out our i...

David Doane wrote: Don't you think soul becomes the body? And it's our lack of awareness of that that creates the appearance of separation of body and soul? That is what I have come to believe....

Sunil Mor wrote: Agree. Union of body and soul is the ultimate goal. If one can reach that rare stage, then there may not be any questions to answer at all.No confusion or doubts. Everything is within and with us abun...

David Doane wrote: If I may add another comment: I believe body and soul are in union, are one, and it's for us to become aware of that and realize that in our awareness and living. Alan Watts said, "We divide ...

Sunil Mor wrote: Ramna Mahshri asks "Who am I ?" Soul not body. But Equally value your thoughts too with all the respects....

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In Eyes Of God, We''re All Minorities
by Barbara Brown Taylor

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Krister Stendahl, former dean of Harvard Divinity school, told a reporter shortly before his death in 2008, "In the eyes of God, we are all minorities. That’s a rude awakening for many, who have never come to grips with the pluralism of the world."

From my limited perspective in a small college classroom, I believe that increasing numbers of [youth] are coming to grips with pluralism -- embracing it, even -- though they are getting very little help from their elders as they think through what it means to be a person of faith in community with people of other (and no) faiths. No preacher has suggested to them that today’s Good Samaritan might be a Good Muslim or a Good Humanist. No confirmation class teacher has taught them that the Golden Rule includes honoring the neighbor’s religion as they would have the neighbor honor theirs.

Come to think of it, I do know one preacher who tried something like that - from the pulpit of a cathedral in a major city, no less. I do not remember what the subject of her sermon was, only the response to it. She must have suggested that the Christian way was one among many ways to God (a wave and not the ocean), because afterward a man came up to her and said, "If God isn't partial to Christianity, then what am I doing here?" 

I wish ordinary Christians took exams, so I could put that question on the final. As natural as it may be to want to play on the winning team, the wish to secure divine favoritism strikes me as the worst possible reason to practice any religion. If the man who asked that question could not think of a dozen better reasons to be a Christian than that, then what, indeed, was he doing there? 

An old story is told about Rabia of Basra, an eighth-century Sufi mystic who was seen running through the streets of her city one day carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she said she wanted to burn down the rewards of paradise with the torch and put out the fires of hell with the water, because both blocked the way to God. "O, Allah," Rabia prayed, "if I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your Own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty."

In Christian tradition this comes under the heading of unconditional love, though it is usually understood as the kind of love God exercises toward humans instead of the other way around. Now, thanks to a Muslim mystic from Iraq, I have a new way of understanding what it means to love God unconditionally. Whenever I am tempted to act from fear of divine punishment or hope of divine reward, Rabia leans over from her religion into mine and empties a bucket of water on my head.

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In Eyes Of God, We''re All Minorities How do you relate to the notion of truly accepting a path different from your own as valid and worthy of respect? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to go beyond tolerance and toward deep respect for world traditions that were quite different from yours? What helps you develop the ability to respect the world''s diverse traditions and eschew a sense of superiority of your own tradition?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: To me a true religion is a way of serving others of any faith with no expectationof getting any kind of reward from the receiver. It is an expression of unconditional and selfless love. Anybody can be...

David Doane wrote: Pluralism is reality. Erecting walls to shut out and separate is fighting reality. I accept being open to, learning about, and understanding a path different from my own, and accepting it if it is pro...

Shyam Gupta wrote: Wow. What a profound , hard hitting statement on religion. Apart from respecting other religions , it also shows us the path of true worship, which is without fear or reward and just in the spirit of ...

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The River Cannot Go Back
by Kahlil Gibran

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It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

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The River Cannot Go Back What does becoming the ocean mean to you? Can you share an experience of a time you faced the fear of losing who you were, only to enter into an identity that was much greater than you could imagine? What helps you shed your riverhood and embrace your oceanhood in every moment?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Are there two separate identities-the river identity and the ocean identity? Or is there One identity? Outwardly, there appearstwo identities like the river and the ocean. But when they embrace each o...

Mariette Fourmeaux wrote: Becoming the ocean means to surrender, to release the river banks that have held me confined and restricted. The river banks that have tried to define me and control me. I finally break free and surre...

David Doane wrote: The River Cannot Go Back is a beautiful statement by Gibran. Becoming an ocean means to me returning fully to that from which I came. I am a wave of being in the ocean of Being. I've had times of ...

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From Transaction To Trust
by Mark Manson

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The most precious and important things in life are, by definition, nontransactional. And to try to bargain for them is to immediately destroy them. You cannot conspire for happiness; it is impossible. But this is often what people try to do, especially when we seek out self-help and other personal development advice -- they are essentially saying, "Show me the rules of the game I have to play and I'll play it," not realizing that it's the very fact that they think there are rules to happiness that is preventing them from being happy.

While people who navigate life through bargaining and rules can get far in the material world, they remain crippled and alone in their emotional world. This is because transactional values create relationships that are built upon manipulation.

Adults need to be shown that bargaining is a never-ending treadmill, that the only things in life of real value and meaning are achieved without conditions, without transactions. It requires good parents and teachers not to succumb to the adolescent's bargaining. The best way to do this is by example, of course, by showing unconditionality yourself. The best way to teach an adolescent to trust is to trust him. The best way to teach an adolescent respect is to respect him. The best way to teach someone to love is by loving him. And you don't force the love or trust or respect on him -- after all, that would make those things conditional -- you simply give them, understanding that at some point, the adolescent's bargaining will fail and he'll understand the value of unconditionality when he's ready.

It's difficult to act unconditionally. You love someone knowing you may not be loved in return, but you do it anyway. You trust someone even though you realize you might get hurt or screwed over. That's because to act unconditionally requires some degree of faith -- faith that it's the right thing to do even if its results aren't what you expect.

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From Transaction To Trust How do you relate to the notion that acting unconditionally requires some degree of faith? Can you share a personal story of a time unconditionality opened up new avenues of understanding in your life? What helps you shift from transaction to trust?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Mark Mason's article from Transaction ToTrust made me think deeply. Conditional relationships are transactional relationships. They are bargainingrelationships. They are deal making relationships....

David Doane wrote: For me, acting unconditionally means acting that is the honest, open, and caring response to what is happening without trying to control, create, or prevent outcome. It's not manipulative or goal-...

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The Game Is To Be Where You Are
by Ram Dass

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When I was born I donned a spacesuit for living on this plane, it was this body, my spacesuit, and it had a steering mechanism which is my pre-frontal lobe and all the brain that helps with coordinating and stuff. Just like those others who go to the moon and learn to use their spacesuit ... how to grab things and lift things so I learned how to do that. And then you get rewarded with little stars, kisses and all kinds of things when you learn how to use your spacesuit. You get so good at it that you can't differentiate yourself from your spacesuit.

You walk down the street and you’re somebody; you dress like somebody; your face looks like somebody. Everybody is reinforcing their structure of the universe over and over again and you meet [each other] like two huge things meeting. We enter into these conspiracies. You say, I’ll make believe you are who you think you are if you make believe I am who I think I am.

Your entire life is a curriculum. Everything you've got on your plate is where the stuff for your enlightenment is. It’s breathtaking when you see the beauty of this design. When you take off your mask, it’s easier for everyone else to do it.

In our culture we’ve been trained to make individual differences to stand out. You look at each person and think, ‘Brighter, dumber, older, younger, richer, poorer’ and we make all these dimensional distinctions, put them in categories and treat people that way. And we only see others as separate from ourselves. One of the dramatic characteristics of the spiritual experience is being with another person and suddenly seeing the ways in which they are like you -- not different from you.

How do we know who we are? We might be one breath away from enlightenment or death or who knows? The uncertainty is great. It keeps it wide open.

When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.

The game is to be where you are. Be it honestly and as consciously as you know how. Your entire life is a curriculum. Everything you've got on your plate is where the stuff for your enlightenment is. It’s breathtaking when you see the beauty of this design.

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The Game Is To Be Where You Are What do you make of the notion that the game is to be where you are? Can you share a personal experience of a time you were able to appreciate someone exactly the way they were? What helps you appreciate people like you would appreciate trees?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Reading Ram Dass'spassage The Game Is To Be Where You Are reminds me a beautiful poemCome As You Are written by Rabindranath Tagore. When we love someone, we don't love the outer form of the b...

David Doane wrote: It makes total sense to me to be where you are, which is an important issue, not a game as Ram Dass calls it. The alternative, to be where you are not, makes no sense to me. I've never known anyon...

rahul wrote: The metaphor of the body as the space suit we don for this human experience is soothing one, especially if you follow the data around how we are undermining the capacity the planet to support human so...

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Substituting One Cruelty For Another
by Anthony de Mello

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Many people swing into action only to make things worse. They're not coming from love, they're coming from negative feelings. They're coming from guilt, anger, hate; from a sense of injustice or whatever. You've got to make sure of your "being" before you swing into action. You have to make sure of who you are before you act.

Unfortunately, when sleeping people swing into action, they simply substitute one cruelty for another, one injustice for another. And so it goes. Meister Eckhart says, "It is not by your actions that you will be [awakened] but by your being. It is not by what you do, but by what you are that you will be judged". What good is it to you to feed the hungry, give the thirsty to drink, or visit prisoners in jail? Remember that sentence from Paul: "If I give my body to be burned and all my goods to feed the poor and have not love ..." It's not your actions, it's your being that counts. Then you might swing into action. You might or might not. You can't decide that until you're awake.

Unfortunately, all the emphasis is concentrated on changing the world and very little emphasis is given to waking up. When you wake up, you will know what to do or what not to do. Some mystics are very strange, you know. Like Jesus, who said something like "I wasn't sent to those people; I limit myself to what I am supposed to do right now. Later, maybe". Some mystics go silent. Mysteriously, some of them sing songs. Some of them are into service. We're never sure. They're a law unto themselves; they know exactly what is to be done. "Plunge into the heat of battle and keep your heart at the lotus feet of the Lord", as I said to you earlier.

Imagine that you're unwell and in a foul mood, and they're taking you through some lovely countryside. The landscape is beautiful but you're not in the mood to see anything. A few days later you pass the same place and you say, "Good heavens, where was I that I didn't notice all of this"? Everything becomes beautiful when you change. Or you look at the trees and the mountains through windows that are wet with rain from a storm, and everything looks blurred and shapeless. You want to go right out there and change those trees, change those mountains. Wait a minute, let's examine your window. When the storm ceases and the rain stops, and you look out the window, you say, "Well, how different everything looks". We see people and things not as they are, but as we are. That is why when two people look at something or someone, you get two different reactions. We see things and people not as they are, but as we are.

Put this program into action, a thousand times: (a) identify the negative feelings in you; (b) understand that they are in you, not in the world, not in external reality; (c) do not see them as an essential part of "I"; these things come and go; (d) understand that when you change, everything changes.

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Substituting One Cruelty For Another How do you relate to the notion that the being in the doing shapes our experience? Can you share a personal story of a time you became aware of your being in the doing? What helps you avoid the trap of substituting one cruelty for another?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: When my vision is clouded what I look out will be clouded and if swing into actionwith the clouded vision, I will make things worse. All wisdom traditions ask us to awake from the sleep of ignorance, ...

David Doane wrote: Anthony de Mello is too absolute for me. No one has got to do anything. It does usually help to know who you are, such as to know what your purpose in taking action is. The hungry may benefit more fro...

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We Were Made For These Times
by Anonymous

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The world is made up of stories. A secret web of agreements about what is “right” and “wrong”, what is “normal” and “weird”, and what is “possible” and “impossible”. These stories dictate how we behave as individuals, and as societies. And they can be hacked.

Behind every injustice and act of violence lies an (often unspoken) set of assumptions and beliefs about how the world works. And behind every “miracle” lies a person who dared to believe another world was possible. Our lives expand — or contract — depending on the stories we tell ourselves, and we get to choose which world we wish to inhabit by becoming conscious of which stories we want to share, amplify and embody each and every day.

Today, many of the old stories that people used to make sense of the world are falling apart. Fear, confusion and sorrow are widespread in the face of global pandemics.

We do not get to choose the moments we are born into, but we are able to choose how we respond. And as story-makers and culture-hackers, our words and our actions hold incredible power. They are the muscles of hope. We were made for these times.

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We Were Made For These Times How do you relate to the notion that we do not get to choose the moments we are born into, but we are able to choose how we respond? Can you share an experience of a time you consciously amplified stories based on the world you wanted to inhabit? What helps you dare to believe another world is possible?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: It is quite obvious that I did not have my voice to choose when and where I was to be born. That was beyond my control. But I have freedom to make my choices about how to live my life. I did not have ...

David Doane wrote: I believe we don't get to choose the moments we are born into -- no one knows for sure. I believe we are able to choose how we respond based on the persons we are which is greatly shaped by experi...

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Time Confetti And The Broken Promise Of Leisure
by Ashley Whillans

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It’s true: we have more time for leisure than we did fifty years ago. But leisure has never been less relaxing, mostly because of the disintermediating effects of our screens. Technology saves us time, but it also takes it away. This is known as the autonomy paradox. We adopt mobile technologies to gain autonomy over when and how long we work, yet, ironically, we end up working all the time. Long blocks of free time we used to enjoy are now interrupted constantly by our smart watches, phones, tablets, and laptops.

This situation taxes us cognitively, and fragments our leisure time in a way that makes it hard to use this time for something that will relieve stress or make us happy. Researchers call this phenomenon time confetti, which amounts to little bits of seconds and minutes lost to unproductive multitasking. Each bit alone seems not very bad. Collectively, though, all that confetti adds up to something more pernicious than you might expect.

Each interruption in itself is mundane and takes only seconds. But collectively they create two negative effects. The first is the sheer volume of time they take away from your hour. The second, more invasive effect of time confetti is the way it fragments the hour of leisure. It’s most likely that these interruptions are randomly distributed throughout the hour.

When we try to enjoy a birthday dinner, notifications about our friends’ tropical vacation photos make our pasta taste less delicious. When we try to choose a restaurant for our next date, the endless ocean of reviews and ratings leads us to spend more time choosing our meals than savoring them. When we try to have meaningful time off with friends and family, our alerts from work create guilt and dread over what we’re not getting done.

Thinking about work while trying to relax induces panic, because feelings of time poverty are caused by how well activities fit together in our mind. If we are trying to be a committed parent while our work email goes off, we can’t help thinking we should be working on our next deadline instead of being present with our child. This conflict makes us feel like a bad parent (“Why am I thinking about work while trying to hang out with my kid?”) and a bad employee (“Am I hanging out with my kids too much? Will that promotion go to someone else?”).

It also takes time to cognitively recover from shifting our minds away from the present to some other stress-inducing activity. People end up enjoying their free time less and, when asked to reflect on it, estimate that they had less free time than they actually did. That’s how invasive the technology time trap is: time confetti makes us feel even more time impoverished than we actually are.

When we feel time-poor, we take on small, easy-to-complete tasks because they help us feel more control over our time. We think, There! I made a protein shake and finished that errand. I’m getting stuff done! In this case, it’s a false sense of control that doesn’t alleviate the root cause of our busyness.

Time poverty feels the same for everyone, but time affluence looks different for everyone. It could mean spending fifteen more minutes strumming the guitar instead of scrolling through your phone, or it could be ten minutes of meditation, or a Saturday morning learning how to invest your savings instead of Slacking about work gossip. No matter what time affluence looks like for you, the happiest and most time affluent among us are deliberate with their free time. Working toward time affluence is about recognizing and overcoming the time traps in our lives and intentionally carving out happier and more meaningful moments each day.

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Time Confetti And The Broken Promise Of Leisure How do you relate to the notions of time poverty, time affluence, time confetti, and the autonomy paradox? Can you share a personal story of a time you made an intentional shift from time poverty to time affluence? What helps you be intentional with your time?

David Doane wrote: I think we have less time for leisure than we had fifty years ago. Those notions of time trigger in me that my time is precious and it is very important to take charge of how I use my time. I made an ...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: When my mind is divided between two cognitive polls like I want to do something leisurely and enjoyable such as reading a book and checking important email messages I feel trapped by time and feel tim...

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Discipline Of Tao
by D. T. Suzuki

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A master called Yuan came to Tai-chu Hui-hai and asked: 'When disciplining oneself in the Tao, is there any special way of doing it?"

Hui-hai: 'Yes, there is."

Yuan: 'What is that?"

Hui-hai: 'When hungry, one eats, when tired, one sleeps."

Yuan: 'That is what other people do; is their way the same as yours?'

Hui-hai: 'Not the same.'

Yuan: 'Why not?'

Hui-hai: 'When they eat, they do not just eat, they conjure up all kinds of imagination; when they sleep, they do not just sleep, they are given up to varieties of idle thoughts. That is why their way is not my way.'

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Discipline Of Tao How do you relate to the notion of becoming empty of idle thoughts? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to engage in action with full presence? What helps you deepen in presence?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: How to disciplineourselves in Tao is a question that every Mindfulness meditator asks the master and himself. The answerthe Zen master Hui-hai gives to Yuan, the questioner, is simple and profound: Be...

David Doane wrote: When alone, I'm empty of idle thoughts for periods of time when focused on a project which may be a physical activity or reading or writing and during brief times of reflection and meditation. The...

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The Broken Piano In 1975
by Marti Leimbach

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My favourite piece of music is Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert, an hour-long piece improvised, as all of Jarrett’s concerts are, on a solo piano in front of a live audience. You know the story, right?

For the concert, he’d requested a particular piano, a Bösendorfer. The Bösendorfer originated in Vienna early in the nineteenth century. It is said to be the first concert piano able to stand up to the playing technique of the young virtuoso, Franz Liszt, whose tough, unforgiving treatment of the pianos he played destroyed them in short order.  Perhaps the Bösendorfer’s durability was the reason Jarrett requested one for the concert. The 29-year old jazz musician was known for his eccentric stagecraft, his improvisations played with enormous athleticism and physicality. It’s fair to say he is tough on an instrument, that he plays unconventionally, even wildly, racing over the keys, standing up, sitting, leaning, panting, moaning. His performances move him—and anyone listening—through the disorder and miracle of creative endeavour.  Watching him is watching genius itself, that raw work that is cleaned up only by its imitators.

In short, he needs a good piano.

January 24, 1975. Jarrett arrives to the venue the afternoon of the concert, He is presented with his Bösendorfer. He stands with Manfred Eicher, the man who will one day found ECM Records and who arranged Jarrett’s sell-out concert tour. The piano he has been given for the concert is a Bösendorfer, all right, but it is puny, ancient, totally unsuitable.

Jarrett taps a few keys and finds it is not only the wrong size, incapable of producing enough volume for a concert performance, but also completely out of tune. The black keys don’t all work. The high notes are tinny; the bass notes barely sound and the pedals stick.

Eicher tells the organizer, a teenaged girl named Vera Brandes, that the piano is unsuitable. Either they get a new piano for Jarrett, or there will be no concert.

In a panic, the girl does everything she can to get another piano, but she can’t find one in time. She manages to convince a local piano tuner to attend to the Bösendorfer, but there isn’t much they can do about the overall condition of the instrument.

In the end, Jarrett agrees to play. Not because the piano was fixed up to the extent that he felt comfortable performing, but because he took pity on poor, young Vera Brandes, just seventeen years old and not able to shoulder so great a failure as losing the only performer on a sold-out night.

So he performs on the dreadful instrument. He does what he has to do, not because he thinks it will be good, but because he feels he has no choice.

Tim Harford [described it best], “The substandard instrument forced Jarrett away from the tinny high notes and into the middle register. His left hand produced rumbling, repetitive bass riffs as a way of conveying up the piano’s lack of resonance. Both of these elements gave the performance an almost trance-like quality.”

Jarrett overcame the lack of volume by standing up and playing the piano very hard. He stood, sat, moaned, writhed, and pounded the piano keys.  You can hear him on the recording, the agony of the music, his effort at creating any sound at all. He sweated out what must have been an excruciating hour, and he triumphed. The Köln Concert has sold 3.5 million copies and is perhaps the most beautiful, transformative piece of music I’ve ever heard. It makes me cry to hear it, especially if I recall the courage it took for him to perform in front of a live audience on an unplayable piano with that desperate girl in the wings, wringing her hands, hoping beyond hope that he didn’t rise from the stool and walk out. Hoping nobody noticed her great failure to produce the right piano for this most important occasion. [...]

Keith Jarett later said, "What happened with this piano was that I was forced to play in what was — at the time — a new way. Somehow I felt I had to bring out whatever qualities this instrument had. And that was it. My sense was, ‘I have to do this. I’m doing it. I don’t care what the piano sounds like. I’m doing it.’ And I did.”

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The Broken Piano In 1975 How do you relate to the opening created by accepting the reality of the situation completely and making that the basis of our creation? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to create on a foundation of the reality in front of you? What helps you create in tune with reality?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Things don't go the way I want or expect. How do I relate to such situations, how di I face such a challenge? I have two choices: accept the reality and do the best I can or turn my face away from...

David Doane wrote: Accepting the reality of the situation was the opening for Keith Jarrett to work and play with that reality. He started to quit on the project, and then decided to use what he had, making it the basis...

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The Moment We Encounter True Happiness
by Ilie Cioara

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The moment we encounter true Happiness, we are in fact outside time and space. The “ego” – with its intrinsic duality – has completely disappeared.

In that moment, the Sacred within us, also existent in the whole universe, becomes one “Whole” and a Unique movement, in a permanent renewal.

Do we truly experience this union, or do we merely understand it intellectually? You alone can answer this question.

Each human being – from the moment of birth until the moment of the so-called death – persistently searches for this mysterious Happiness. Unfortunately, most people make the mistake of searching for it with the thinking mind.

Because Happiness has no motivations, It is not part of the limited world. Its nature is infinite; therefore the knowing mind cannot encounter It, or understand It, or imagine It.

Happiness comes to us by Itself, and It envelops our whole being when the mind becomes humble and silent, as it has understood its inability to encounter the Unknown.

Lucid Attention – with Its flashes – dissipates all the darkness, as well as the baggage of the dysfunctional mind.

In the empty space of peace or no-mind, our being is extended into Infinity; in that moment, the Divinity within us reveals we are one with the Source of the Sacred. In such an environment of “Pure Consciousness”, Happiness is present as a natural fulfillment and It is unlike anything that can be found in this perishable world.

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The Moment We Encounter True Happiness What does ''true Happiness'' mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to experience Happiness as a natural fulfillment and unlike anything that can be found in this perishable world? What helps you avoid the mistake of searching for Happiness with the thinking mind?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: We all have a deep longing for Happiness. It is the Sacred within us. It is an egoless Presence with no time and space boundaries. It is Universal. It is Within us. It is Divinity within us. It is Pur...

David Doane wrote: Wow, what an essay -- as I read, it began to be a meditation as I very much resonated with what IlieCioara wrote. To me, the closest I get to true happiness is when I get to my Source which is one wit...

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A Route Back To Wonder
by Fabiana Fondevila

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“What is a sunset without clouds? A circle that crosses a straight line,” says Gavin Pretor-Pinney, founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, creator of an original form of activism and of a manifesto that begins: “We believe that clouds are unjustly maligned and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them.”

Clouds? Could they really be a motive for activism? At first glance it might seem at least curious that someone would want to devote his life to convincing his fellow Earthlings to look up and marvel at the spectacle of altocumulus, altostratus and cumulonimbus. But we only have to go back to childhood to understand. Who among us didn’t spend long moments lying on the grass identifying rabbits, mountains and unicorns in the fanciful forms drawn across the sky? Who was not surprised to see how those images transformed themselves from one moment to the next before our eyes? Or perhaps a better question would be: when did clouds stop captivating us? When did we stop raising our eyes to the sky?

Clouds have always been a source of inspiration and wonder. Not for nothing have they featured in works of art across the centuries. Starting in the Renaissance, they even came to be used as metaphors for the divine. But why should we as adults learn to live again with our heads in the clouds? Purely in terms of common sense, obvious answers include: because identifying the shapes and types of clouds allows us to predict the chance of rain and to know whether we can expect a hailstorm, or a light but incessant drizzle that will cause moss to grow in unexpected places. This would indeed be good reason to look up at clouds; but it barely scrapes the surface of their potential.

We don’t want to look at clouds to divine the weather forecast; we want to look at them so that we can dream again and remember that magic and beauty surrounds us at every step. We want to find in them a route back into wonder. “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important,” says Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince. Let’s waste time learning to love the world, every day, a little bit more and better. Let’s waste time on what’s truly important!

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A Route Back To Wonder How do you relate to the exhortation to find in the clouds a route back into wonder? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to lose yourself in wonder of the world? What helps you retain the capacity to wonder and not give in to cynicism?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Looking at the clouds floating in the sky is very fascinating to me. I felt this fascination as a child. The sky was a paly house. The clouds of different shapes coming and going were the actors filli...

David Doane wrote: Clouds are not the only place to find a route back into wonder, but clouds are definitely a place. What comes to mind as an outstanding time I lost myself in the wonder of the world was in viewing the...

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Harder I Work, The More I Love
by Lynne Twist

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Burnout is being disconnected from Source. I don’t think it’s as related as we'd like to think, to working too long or too hard or eating pizza and Coke instead of veggies and water. All those things play into it  -- I don’t recommend working yourself to death or anything. But true burnout is being disconnected from Source. That’s really where it happens.

We all know times when we were soaring: we were working 24/7 and we wanted to work 24/7, and what we were producing was so exciting that we couldn’t stop. That’s an example of being connected to Source in a way that your body will go with you.

At the same time, I do think it’s important to take care of one’s capacity to serve. That’s the other thing I feel responsible to take care of: to nourish my own capacity to serve, and that comes from Source. That comes from meditation. That comes from being in nature. That comes from being in touch with the love I have for my husband and my children and my family. My love for God. My love for the spirit world. My love for the shamans. When I’m in touch with that, I can do anything. And then that’s a source of enormous joy.

We once had a conference in Ireland with the Nobel laureates. We sponsored women to come from war zones all over the world. This conference was very confronting.

At one point on the second day, I was having lunch with colleagues from Iran, four lawyers who worked with Shirin Ebadi. A group of six women arrived in a van. My colleagues saw the van pulling up and they ran across this green lawn crying with joy. They were all lawyers who had worked together for years before they got arrested. As the women got out of the van, women who had been in prison for years and tortured, they all ran towards each other and they hugged and they rolled around on the grass and they cried and they danced. It’s making me cry thinking about it.

Then that night we had a party, the most joyous, raucous, wild, wonderful party of all women dancing with each other that I’d ever seen in my life; women from the Congo, women from Ethiopia, women from Honduras, all of whom had been through hell — the kind of things they’ve been through, you can’t even talk about.

My assertion from that enormous experience, and I’ve had many experiences like that, is that the pain and the joy are one. It’s all connected. And often the deeper people have allowed themselves to go into the pain, the greater capacity they have for joy.

I’ve seen that particularly with African women, with their incredible burdens in many cases. But when they celebrate — which they find a way to do every day, through singing, through dancing, through feeding each other — the joy is just breathtaking. I’ve been in Rwanda after the genocide and found the joy there in those people. I’ve been in Ethiopia after the famine. The capacity for human joy is probably unlimited.

I find it in myself. I find that my capacity for joy is enhanced by my capacity to face the suffering world and engage with it. My capacity for joy and lightheartedness and fun and release is strengthened by my capacity to face the darkness. And my capacity to face the darkness is strengthened by my capacity to celebrate joy. The harder I work, the more I love.
 

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Harder I Work, The More I Love How do you relate to the notion that the deeper people have allowed themselves to go into the pain, the greater capacity they have for joy? Can you share a personal story of a time your capacity to face the suffering world directly expanded your capacity for joy, or vice versa? What helps you take care of your capacity to serve?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: It is my understanding based on my experiences that deep joy comes from facing pain, suffering and hardship rather than running away from it.It is like going through the heat of the fire to experience...

David Doane wrote: I'd like to know what Lynne Trist means by Source. She said when she's in touch with Source she can do anything. I doubt that -- I wish we could do anything -- as I see it, we can only do what...

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Parliament Of Subconscious Minds
by John Yates

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You may object to the idea that your sense of being a self is a mere construct. After all, it feels very real. How can we reconcile this powerful sense of self with the idea that we're just a collection of sub-minds? Meditation is all about investigating your actual experience, so I invite you to notice how, when something happens, the "I" gets imputed only after the fact.

Say a memory comes up as you're walking with a friend. Notice how it's only after the memory arises that you turn to your friend and say, "I just remembered something." Or consider how an emotion like sadness can be present long before the thought "I feel sad" arises. In each example, and in almost every other experience, what gets attributed (after the fact) to the "I" is actually the activity of various sub-minds. To make this even clearer, consider what happens when we face a dilemma or have a difficult decision to make. You'll discover that, here as well, the "I" arrives on the scene only after the conflict has arisen. Then, as the conflict continues, the "I" seems to fret as various thoughts and feelings arise from different sub-minds in support of one option or another. Even after a decision has apparently been reached, the "l" might still experience doubt or hesitation if some sub-minds aren't convinced. But sooner or later, seemingly from nowhere, a firm decision arises.

That "nowhere" is none other than the unconscious mind; the decision was made by the collective interaction of some of those unconscious sub-minds. After the conflict has been resolved comes the thought, "I have decided." In all these situations, the narrating mind just takes the ongoing flow of information in consciousness and organizes it into a meaningful story, attributing everything to the imaginary entity called "I." The discriminating mind then mistakes this "I" for an actual individual, rather than a product created by a collection of sub-minds.

It's as if a room full of people all named George were having a debate, but all you received were reports that "George said this" and "George said that." Like the unconscious discriminating mind receiving information from the narrating mind, you would probably mistake the group for a single, very conflicted individual named "George." "Your" decisions, and any subsequent intentions and actions, don't originate from some Self. They are the result of a consensus among many unconscious sub-minds exchanging information via the conscious mind.

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Parliament Of Subconscious Minds How do you relate to the notion that our ''discriminating minds'' mistakenly attribute ''I'' to an individual instead of ''a product created by a collection of sub-minds''? Can you share an experience of a time you became aware of unconscious sub-minds exchanging information via the conscious mind? What helps you be aware of how you are attributing ''I''?

David Doane wrote: My relation to the notion stated is one of disagreement. My understanding of author Yates' essay is that he objects to attributing ideas, memories, and discoveries to the conscious construct "...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Our minds discriminate between right and wrong or this and that.What is being discriminated takes place in our unconscious sub-minds. In that sense I is the narrator of the experience or I is the prod...

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We''re Voting With Our Attention
by Leah Pearlman

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At the base of the brainstem there is a bundle of neurons called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS acts as a kind of bouncer for the brain. Our senses take in waaaaay too information for our conscious mind to ever process, so we need to screen out data that is not relevant to us and allow through that which matters. The RAS does the filtering. 

How does the RAS know what to let through?  By focusing on something, we are telling the RAS “This is important to me.” So of all the myriad data our senses encounter, the RAS allows our conscious mind to process mostly that which we have declared important by what we give our attention. 

That's why we respond to our own names when someone speaks it in a crowded room. Because the RAS has determined that jumble of sounds is more important than other sound jumbles.   

However, the RAS, and perhaps the rest of our brain, doesn't really understand "No" or "Not." It communicates to itself in images, impressions, and feelings. If I say, "Do NOT picture a pink heart," not only will you probably picture one, but you're more likely to notice the next pink heart that crosses your path.  If you tell your brain (by thinking) "I hate being lonely" then you're likely to pay extra attention to when you're eating dinner alone, but filter out all the time you spend connecting with people on Zoom. If you worry "I’m gonna go broke", then you're more likely to notice your own spending  than the generous meal your friend just made you. The RAS is designed to let through what you have expressed is important to you by what you focus on, and exclude everything else. In these examples, it lets through evidence of lonely and broke, and excludes evidence of connection and wealth.

The more we focus on what we DON’T want, the more we see evidence of those things, and the less we notice evidence or opportunities of what we DO want. This lopsided evidence reinforces our beliefs in our problems, causing us to focus more on what we don't want, and the cycle continues. 

So how do we interrupt this cycle? We focus our attention on what we like and want to see increase. If we want to see a healthier world, then we literally have to train our brains to be able to see it by focusing on what we see that is already healthy. We look for existing examples in our lives of what we say we want, and we put more attention on that, than what we believe is missing.  As Bucky Fuller said, "You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete." The more we do that, the more evidence of positivity we will see, and the more hope we will have. And the more energized and motivated we will be to keep creating a more beautiful world.  

We are voting with our attention. 

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We''re Voting With Our Attention How do you relate to the notion that by obsessing about things we don''t want, we are training our brains to ignore what we do want? Can you share a personal story of a time you became aware that your brain''s habit patterns were causing you to focus on the opposite of what you wanted? What helps you retrain your brain to focus on what you truly value?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: I have learned a long time ago that our mind is the cause of liberation or bondage. How do I use my mind is in my hand. If I dwell on negative thoughts negative feelings and actions I get negative out...

David Doane wrote: Pearlman's essay is a complex way of saying we think about what we think about. It says the RAS lets in what we obsess about, so if we obsess about something we don't want, we train our brains...

rahul wrote: Loved this articulation of voting with attention in our era where attention is being ever more deeply mined and manipulated by the most powerful corporations in the world. Training attention to stay w...

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Into The Chrysalis
by Chris Corrigan

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Chrysalises both inspire and baffle me. The thought that a caterpillar can crawl into a sac made of its own body and dissolve its form and come out as a butterfly is a cliched image of transformation, but holy crap. Stop for a moment and really think about that. Does the caterpillar know this is going to happen? If it does that shows some tremendous trust. If it doesn't, then that shows some incredible courage. It just hangs out there, isolating itself from the rest of the world and changing in ways it can never understand.

Does a caterpillar see a butterfly and go "that will be me one day?"

So yes, we are all heading into our chrysalises. We have all climbed into our cocoons and are waiting for the imaginal discs to come into play and elongate and grow into our new ways of being. We might be here for a long time, and learn some things. We are entering an interregnum that will be as big a challenge as any that humanity has faced.

Have some empathy for the caterpillar who creates its chrysalis and becomes a pupa. It may believe that this is now how things are, and meanwhile, at an unconscious level, the imaginal discs are swirling about in its corporeal soup, with a different idea about what it is to become.

Inside the chrysalis, your ideas about yourself dissolve and life itself takes over. Watch for the small signals, watch for what happens at the edges. Amplify the acts of kindness and possibility that you see in your community and your personal life. Document and grow the new practices you discover be they helpfulness, attention, curiosity, or competence. Stifle the urge to seek cortisol hits from triggering events and social media that make you angry, or the outrage merchants that still crave a hold on your consciousness. Instead, cocoon yourself and study your imagination.

Into the goo, friends.

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Into The Chrysalis How do you relate to the metaphor of the caterpillar and the chrysalis in your life? Can you share an experience of a time you were a pupa in your chrysalis while life was evolving you into something beautiful that you could not imagine? What helps you dissolve your ideas about yourself and enjoy the experience of life itself growing you?

David Doane wrote: The caterpillar, like us, knows in ways that are not rational that transformation happens, sometimes in major ways and sometimes in minor ways. The caterpillar, like us, doesn't know what will be,...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: We all have the potential to transform ourselves on a small scale or a big scale. We journey through our life at times knowing where we are going, encountering obstacles coming in our way and dealing ...

Prasad Kaipa wrote: Namaste and hope everybody is taking care of themselves and their loved ones. When I read the passage, immediately I remembered this photo that I took three months ago of a Chrysalis in Costa Rica....

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Turning Ourselves Toward Stability And Hospitality
by David Mckee

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The Benedictine-Camaldolese monk, Bruno Barnhart says it very well:  “We humans prefer a manageable complexity to an unmanageable simplicity.”

A complex instability is our typical default setting.  Restless with where and how and who we are, we think we need to be somewhere else, or live some other way, or be someone else.  We dream up all sorts of alternative versions of our lives and of our selves, and pursue them, without paying real attention to where and how and who we actually are.  We expend great effort in trying to get “there,” while what we most need to work at is trying to  get “here”…feeling safe and secure in the simple, unmanageable, groundless depths of our own hearts.

And then there is that complex inhospitality that we so often busy ourselves with.  In our efforts to control our experience, we put up all manner of complicated walls, visible and invisible shields, subtle barriers and defenses, all in the effort  to guard ourselves; to protect ourselves against the unpredictable, ever-changing flow of life, both within and without.   Instead of relaxing and welcoming the ceaseless stream of unexpected opportunities that flows around and through us every moment, we exhaust ourselves in vain efforts to bring the stream under our control; we try to make life predictable, manageable, controllable.  As a contemporary Zen teacher puts it with wonderful concreteness:  we stand in the shower under an open umbrella!

The puzzling thing about all this is that we know it.  We all know that things are never anything other than what they are; that how we wish things to be is not how they are.  We all know that we are never anyone other than who we are.  Also, we all know that our life, our experience, is beyond our control; that rarely do we make good things happen the way we plan, and we almost never are successful in preventing bad things from happening.  The umbrella leaks, no matter what we do.  We pretty much know all of this to be true, but, alas, we forget it.  Carried away by our desires, our fears, our ignorance, we forget these simple truths and press on with our programs for improvement and control.  What would help us remember?  The perennial answer is prayer and good works. Sounds pretty simple and pretty wise to me. I see no reason to depart from an answer that has been voiced for millennia by our Christian ancestors and by the ancestors in all the great world religions.

The answer is, in other words, PRACTICE.  Like a basketball player every day practicing free-throws, or a musician every day practicing scales, over and over, we try to act consciously and mindfully, usually against the grain of our desires and fears.  Returning to this intention, over and over, we gradually, little by little, turn ourselves naturally toward stability and hospitality.  Yes, we inevitably fall asleep in forgetting, but we also eventually wake up to moments of loving awareness of ourselves and others.  Our humility (another key Benedictine value) is in accepting this reality and continuing, however imperfectly.  When they were asked what they did all day out there in the desert, the desert fathers and mothers used to say:  Well, we fall down and get up…we fall down and get up. In the end, there is nothing special about it. 

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Turning Ourselves Toward Stability And Hospitality What does turning ourselves naturally toward stability and hospitality mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to relax and welcome the ceaseless stream of unexpected opportunities around and through you? What helps you practice acting consciously and mindfully?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: The ideas of stability and hospitality are very important as we are going through times of uncertainty, fear and anxiety. We all are facing new challenges. How to make our life stable and relate to th...

David Doane wrote: After citing Barnhart's profound statement that "We humans prefer a manageable complexity to an unmanageable simplicity," David McKee seems to say what we humans really go after is compl...

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It Is Life That Asks The Questions Of Us
by Viktor Frankl

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The question can no longer be “What can I expect from life?” but can now only be “What does life expect of me?” What task in life is waiting for me?

Now we also understand how, in the final analysis, the question of the meaning of life is not asked in the right way, if asked in the way it is generally asked: it is not we who are permitted to ask about the meaning of life — it is life that asks the questions, directs questions at us… We are the ones who must answer, must give answers to the constant, hourly question of life, to the essential “life questions.” Living itself means nothing other than being questioned; our whole act of being is nothing more than responding to — of being responsible toward — life. With this mental standpoint nothing can scare us anymore, no future, no apparent lack of a future. Because now the present is everything as it holds the eternally new question of life for us.

The question life asks us, and in answering which we can realize the meaning of the present moment, does not only change from hour to hour but also changes from person to person: the question is entirely different in each moment for every individual.

We can, therefore, see how the question as to the meaning of life is posed too simply, unless it is posed with complete specificity, in the concreteness of the here and now. To ask about “the meaning of life” in this way seems just as naive to us as the question of a reporter interviewing a world chess champion and asking, “And now, Master, please tell me: which chess move do you think is the best?” Is there a move, a particular move, that could be good, or even the best, beyond a very specific, concrete game situation, a specific configuration of the pieces?

One way or another, there can only be one alternative at a time to give meaning to life, meaning to the moment — so at any time we only need to make one decision about how we must answer, but, each time, a very specific question is being asked of us by life. From all this follows that life always offers us a possibility for the fulfillment of meaning, therefore there is always the option that it has a meaning. One could also say that our human existence can be made meaningful “to the very last breath”; as long as we have breath, as long as we are still conscious, we are each responsible for answering life’s questions.

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It Is Life That Asks The Questions Of Us How do you relate to the notion that the meaning of life can change both by individual and moment? Can you share a personal story of a time you became aware of the fluid but real nature of meaning? What helps you answer the question of meaning in the present moment?

rahul wrote: Not so long ago, I was struggling with a person who lived near me. Her behavior seemed hostile, selfish, destructive, and obstinate all at once. In the face of directly observable facts-- like those t...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: There is an existential approach or standpoint when it comes to asking the question what is the meaning of life. The meaning of life is not static and so is the question. Life is dynamic. Life is chan...

David Doane wrote: All creation is one whole, one activity, one being that is constantly changing. There may be the appearance of separate and static, but the nature of real being is oneness and fluidity. The meaning of...

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The Three Narratives
by Joanna Macy

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When we come together for this work, at the outset we discern three stories or versions of reality that are shaping our world so that we can see them more clearly and choose which one we want to get behind. The first narrative we identify is “Business as Usual,” by which we mean the growth economy, or global corporate capitalism. We hear this marching order from virtually every voice in government, publicly traded corporations, the military, and corporate-controlled media.

The second is called “The Great Unraveling”: an ongoing collapse of living structures. This is what happens when ecological, biological, and social systems are commodified through an industrial growth society or “business as usual” frame. I like the term “unraveling,” because systems don’t just fall over dead, they fray, progressively losing their coherence, integrity, and memory.

The third story is the central adventure of our time: the transition to a life-sustaining society. The magnitude and scope of this transition—which is well underway when we know where to look—is comparable to the agricultural revolution some ten thousand years ago and the industrial revolution a few centuries back. Contemporary social thinkers have various names for it, such as the ecological or sustainability revolution; in the Work That Reconnects we call it the Great Turning.

Simply put, our aim with this process of naming and deep recognition of what is happening to our world is to survive the first two stories and to keep bringing more and more people and resources into the third story. Through this work, we can choose to align with business as usual, the unraveling of living systems, or the creation of a life-sustaining society.

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The Three Narratives How do you relate to the three narratives? Can you share a personal story of a time you found yourself situated in the third story: the transition to a life-sustaining society? What helps you become aware of the story you are in?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: I like the way Joanne Macy narrates the three frames, versions or narratives or stories. The first two narratives have been in the society for a long time. The third narrative is "the central adv...

David Doane wrote: I believe the first two narratives, ie, a time of business as usual and a time of unraveling, are the usual progression of individuals and institutions, and the third narrative, ie, a time of a great ...

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Keeping The Smoke Hole Open
by Martin Shaw

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In Siberian myth, when you want to hurt someone, you crawl into their tent and close the smoke hole.

That way God can’t see them.

Close the smoke hole and you break connection to the divine world. Mountains, rivers, trees.

Close the smoke hole and we become mad.

Close the smoke hole and we are possessed by ourselves and only ourselves.

Close the smoke hole and you have only your neurosis for company.

Well, enough of that. Really, c’mon. We’re grown-ups. Let’s take a breath.

We may have to seek some solitude, but let’s not isolate from the marvelous.

High alert is the nature of the moment, and rightly so, but I do not intend to lose the reality that as a culture we are entering deeply mythic ground.

I am forgetting business as usual. No great story begins like that.

What needs to change? Deepen? What kindness in me have I so abandoned that I could seek relationship with again?

It is useful to inspect my ruin.

Could I strike up an old relationship with my soul again?

You don’t need me to tell you how to keep the smoke hole open. You have a myriad of ways.

We are awash with the power of words -- virus, isolate, pandemic -- and they point toward very real things. To some degree we need the organizational harassment of them.

But do they grow corn on your tongue when you speak them?

Where is the beauty-making in all of this?

That is part -- part -- of the correct response. The absolute heft of grief may well be the weave to such a prayer mat.

Before we burn the whole world down in the wider rage, could we collectively seek vigil in this moment?

Cry for a vision?

It’s what we’ve always done.

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Keeping The Smoke Hole Open How do you relate to the allegory of the smoke hole as our connection to all that''s beyond our little ego? What is helping you connect with the marvelous while remaining in solitude at this time? What is an old relationship with your own soul that you are rekindling now?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: The Coronavirus presents a great challenge to all of us for safety and survival.Whose safety and whose survival? The little ego says " the safety and survival for me at the cost of others." ...

David Doane wrote: Martin Shaw's allegory of the smoke hole is profound for me. The Western World has closed the smoke hole, and in so doing we have broken our connection to divinity not only outside our tent but al...

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Life May Itself Be A Koan
by Rachel Naomi Remen

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Consider the Zen practice of the koan, the question or problem proposed by Zen masters to each other or by masters to students. The koan is a dilemma, a mystery which the rational mind cannot solve. The key to the resolution of a koan is a shift in the being of the student which allows for a new understanding of the question itself. 

In presenting a koan, the teacher engages the student with mystery in a highly personal way. By putting the habitual mind into a place of stuckness, a sort of fruitful darkness, we may inadvertently step back into that fertile and pregnant place of not-knowing called in Zen "beginner's mind". [...]

The resolution of a koan requires a certain trust of mystery, a faith that there is an answer which will come in time. When the answer and the seeker have grown toward one another the answer seems to emerge by itself. The resolution of a koan is usually obvious; it has been staring us in the face all along, but we have never seen it before. Once glimpsed, it is difficult to believe that we ever saw things another way, and indeed we will never see things in the old way again. Our eyes have been changed by the way in which we have met with the unknown. 

Like good science, the resolution of a koan requires a trust in the larger pattern which underlies the happening that the mind does not understand, and the understanding which is gained is often accompanied by a deep appreciation of the elegance of that pattern, the intelligence of the nature of things. A sense of wonder. An appreciation of the very mystery which has frustrated us. A sense of belonging to it. 

Many of the problems Life poses us are seemingly without solutions, much like the koans the Zen teacher presents to the student. Yet meaning and wisdom emerge from one of Life's stories much in the way that the resolution of a koan emerges. Awaiting this meaning is almost like awaiting a birth. After we live a story or hear a story we become pregnant with its meaning. Sometimes the pregnancy may take weeks or even years. Often over time, pregnant with one story, we may give birth to many meanings, each one deeper than the one before. Most of the best stories I have ever lived or been told are like this. 

Certainly suffering and illness are koans. Life may itself be a koan. Those people who are able to meet with life the way a Zen student meets with a koan will be moved along a spiritual trajectory by events which reduce others to bitterness and defeat. Not only their physical body but the quality of their soul may be changed in the encounter. 

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Life May Itself Be A Koan How do you relate to the notion of being pregnant with a story and giving birth to many meanings? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to meet with life the way a Zen student meets with a koan? What helps you develop a deep appreciation for the intelligence of the nature of things?

susan schaller wrote: I began a journey to Germany on March second, but the journey, as almost always, was not the one I planned. After a beyond-imagination week, I have finally arrived home to my woods in N. Idaho. The gl...

David Doane wrote: I think that being pregnant with a story and giving birth to many meanings means that life including the life of each person is pregnant with new energy, new possibilities, new meanings, and new life ...

David Doane wrote: Your experience is evidence that life often happens aside from plans, and life is what you make it. It sounds like your ability to go with the unknown helped you have a positive though very different ...

Jagdish P Dave wrote: A tree is born in the womb of a seed. The seed is invisible though it is there in a dormant state. So is the life. Our life is pregnant with unseen and unknown meanings. We need to relate to this dime...

Mariette wrote: Yesterday, I got back from Thailand, after my 3-month Peace Fellowship was cut short by the US's "do not travel" requirement to return to the US or stay for an unforeseen amount of time ...

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Mistakes: Results That Show The Truth Of Things
by Chris Lombard