The Practice of Receiving

We practice releasing. We practice allowing. We practice accepting. We sometimes overlook the practice of receiving. How is it different from these others and why is it important? 

Is it different? In some ways all these practices are related. In one way they are all the same. But each does have a slightly different flavor. Releasing is letting go of something we hold onto. Allowing is letting energy move naturally without interfering. Accepting is seeing things as they are, without judgment. Receiving is taking what is offered with gratitude. 

In the No Way Café contemplation group, for example, we practice receiving what others say –  listening with our whole selves, without commenting or questioning, honoring what is offered as a gift. 

Receiving can sometimes be a challenge. It is hard for some of us to receive a compliment, deflecting kind words rather than soaking in a positive reflection of ourselves. We sometimes resist offers of assistance, even when we are much in need of support. Many of us get defensive when confronted with what we perceive as criticism, instead of considering whether the observation might highlight something we could do better or differently. (Here, criticism means observations offered from love, not mean-spirited or abusive.) 

We often are too busy and distracted to receive the gift of the present moment. In this moment, I am alive. I can hear birds singing. A pleasant breeze whispers through an open window. 

Why is receiving important? To me, it opens my heart and fills my spirit with gratitude. Each moment is a gift from the universe, an opportunity to be aware, to connect, to experience. It is the natural partner of giving. It replenishes me and immerses me in the cycle of universal exchange, recognizing that giving and receiving are oneness in movement. 

Our bodies teach us this. My heart can only pump out the blood that is received as it circulates throughout my body. Our breath keeps us alive by receiving oxygen from the plant world and releasing carbon dioxide needed by the plants. 

So maybe we can practice receiving today. Enjoy a compliment. Feel the warmth of the sun. Listen to someone. Take a breath with awareness. Let someone do something nice for you. 

A simple way to practice receiving is to use just two little words. Thank you. 

Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.  ~Brene Brown

Oh Right, I Knew That

The universe has been giving me plenty of writing material in the joke’s-on-me category. This time it’s about developing a website and working on a new book project. 

For years I have quietly cruised along on my little blog, happy to use Blogger, grateful for all those who have subscribed by email. Then recently Blogger announced that after July they would no longer support the email subscribers on Feedburner. I don’t even know what all that means, but I knew I needed tech help. That led to deciding to have my own website and some other changes, all of which will be happening in the next month or two. (I will give everyone plenty of notice and we will figure out how to ease the transition for all you beloved email subscribers.)

Meanwhile, I have been preparing to publish a new book (more on that later as well), which involves various tasks to appeal (hopefully) to a publisher. 

All of this has taken me way out of my comfort zone, and while I’m excited about these new developments, I have also been resistant and grumpy about having to, no, choosing to, change the way I’ve been doing things, including taking some steps to promote myself and my writing. This definitely does not feel like “the way of no way.” On the contrary, it feels like an unwelcome distraction from my “practice.” Which is what, exactly? Yes, I meditate, and practice martial arts, and write, and facilitate a contemplation group, but what is the point of any of that? (Yes, I know some folks will say there is no point to any of that, and that that is the point.) 

We spent a lot of time in recent months talking in the contemplation group about expanding our “sphere” to include everything that arises within our experience and awareness. Everything. Exclude nothing. And to recognize that when we are struggling, we are out of alignment, we are fighting against reality, we are in conflict with ourselves. We talk about softening the struggle by touching everything with compassion, and releasing our attachment and rejection so that we can live in harmony with the universe. That includes the universe of our choices. 

Busted, right? What is the point of any practice that I engage in or write about if not to integrate body, mind, and soul into the rhythm of creation, to open the heart of compassion to embrace everything, to notice and ease any struggle with reality, to lean into fear rather than try to escape it, to awaken to our true nature and live fully in each precious moment? And if a few of those precious moments involve a little discomfort over learning some new technology and changing the way I do some things, then my practice is to expand my sphere to include this too. This too. 

So I’m having a pretty good laugh at myself. Again. Here I am with my knickers in a knot, struggling over the very things I’ve chosen to do in order to share with others the practice that has so enriched my life by teaching me how not to struggle. Yeah, people are complicated. And funny. 

You are welcome to share a laugh with me. And I hope you will be patient as I wade through these coming transitions. 

It takes more than just awareness for us to change. It takes courage and humility and the willingness to occasionally feel like fools and laugh at ourselves. ~Bud Harris

Emotional Hoarding

The price of staying awake is giving up every reason you have to stop loving. ~Adyashanti

Do you know anyone who is a hoarder? I do. When I walk into her apartment, there are piles of newspapers and magazines everywhere. Boxes of unknown contents are stacked along the walls. Every surface is crowded with deals too good to pass up. There is little room to move, no space to cook or eat, and only one little corner of the couch available where she can sit and watch TV. Visitors are not allowed beyond the front room, so I don’t know where she sleeps. The apartment is impossible to clean. She acknowledges the negative impact on her life and even worries that there is so much weight in the apartment that the floor might collapse. She is miserable.

And yet she cannot let any of it go, even though she knows that her life would be so much better if she could. What is the nature of such an attachment that is so strong that the price of giving it up in order to have a healthier, more balanced, happier life is just too high?* 

Some of us might think that such an attachment is beyond our understanding. But what if we are told, as Adyashanti said, that the price of living an awakened life is giving up every reason we have to stop loving? Every judgment, every resentment, every hurt feeling, every unforgiving thought, every irritation, every criticism, every “othering”? What if we are told that all of these reasons, no matter how justified, keep us locked in an emotional state of suffering? And that giving them up, all of them, without exception, will free us to live a more integrated, harmonious, healthier, happier, awakened life?

Can we understand attachment a little better now? I know I can. 

Most of us, if we’re honest, can discover, if not an emotional apartment full of clutter, at least an emotional junk drawer we haven’t cleaned out in time beyond memory. We might not even know what is in it anymore. When we look, we might be able to toss some things, but there will be that one little thing that we hold in our hand with hesitation. “You never know when I might need that,” we think. 

Or there might be the emotional treasure that is displayed a place of honor on the mantel. Such a spot is often reserved for the big unforgiveness attachments we never forget – parents who let us down, lovers who left us, friends who betrayed us. Who can argue with those reasons to stop loving? No one. 

That’s the point, isn’t it? I can justify every reason I have to stop loving. I can hold onto it in perfect righteousness. And I can wear my resultant suffering like a cloak of justice. A heavy cloak that drags with the weight of accumulated wrongs I can’t let go of. 

So why can’t we just unfasten that cloak and leave it in the dirt? Do we hold on because of some fear of what will happen if we let it go? Would we feel grief or vulnerability? Or perhaps, if we look closely, we might admit there is some pleasure in sitting in judgment, in fantasizing revenge, in attracting sympathy for our injury.  

Whatever our reason, we will hold onto it until we want freedom more than we want to suffer. Because until we are willing to forego the secret delight of withholding love, we will be as trapped by our emotional hoarding as my friend is in her apartment. 

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. ~Matthew 6:21

*I understand that hoarding can be a mental health issue that isn’t as simple as just making a choice. I use the example of hoarding here only as a metaphor for holding onto emotional attachments that do not serve our well being. 

Living in a Goal Free Zone

Western culture, at least in the United States, is very goal oriented. We make new year resolutions. We have five year business and personal plans. My sons, who both have autism, have a meeting every year to set goals for the year with measurable checkpoints during the year. In fact, for many of us, our lives are structured that way, with large and small identified goals and measurable steps. We set goals, work towards our goals, achieve our goals, and bask in the success of having met our goals. At least for a moment until we set new goals and start the process again. 

Goals are associated with progress, accomplishment, hard work, even good character. They are encouraged, and those who set them and achieve them are admired. I doubt that Olympic athletes, for example, would ever get a medal without some single minded focus and dedication. 

There is nothing wrong with that. Goals serve a purpose. But when we have blinders on that allow us to see only the goal oriented path ahead, I wonder what opportunities we miss. Some of the best things that have happened in my life were not on my goal trajectory. In fact, more often than not, they completely derailed my goal progress. 

For example, when I moved to Portland, I had a very specific job goal in mind. I began to search out the leads that would take me in that direction. When someone mentioned a temporary job opportunity that was not goal related, I almost dismissed it. Then I decided I would take that job to provide some income while I looked for the job I really wanted. The first day of the temporary job, I went home amazed that someone was paying me to have so much fun. When the time was up, I figuratively chained myself to the gate until they decided to keep me. Twenty years later, I retired from a job that continued to be fun and deeply rewarding. 

On the personal front, I was living a full and busy life as a single parent with two kids. I had all I could handle, or so I thought. My goals targeted balancing home and work while meeting the needs of my autistic son and making sure that my daughter had her needs met as well. My goals definitely did not include more kids. And yet, suddenly there was my son’s classmate, also autistic, who, for reasons beyond the scope of this post, was in crisis and needed a family to care for him. So, for reasons beyond the scope of any rational explanation, I took him. And his presence has now blessed our family for more than twenty years in ways I never could have planned or anticipated. 

Those are “big” life examples, but similar things happen to us all the time in big and small ways. At some point I realized that when I was not focused on goals, things that needed to get done still did, in a more natural, organic way rather than forced. I began to trust that life would lead me, and that when I was aligned in harmony with an open, receptive attitude, my path forward would become clear. And if it didn’t, then I knew to wait until it did. 

When people ask me these days what my goals are, I have a hard time coming up with any. It seems to me that they get in the way more than provide helpful direction. Sure, I make plans. I go to the store with a list in hand, and my calendar has appointments to attend. I am respectful of people’s time and do my best to honor the promises I make. The difference, perhaps, is that my life is not driven by personally selected goals as much as carried by the current of divine energy that flows through all creation. (That actually is a lot more practical than it sounds!) The first sometimes has a quality of anxiety on some level that seeks to control. The second often has a quality of trust that rests in faith. Life is more enjoyable, relaxed, responsive. And when challenges come, as they surely will, they can be met with resilience rather than struggle. 

It’s a relief to know that I don’t have to plan and control every step forward in my life. That was exhausting!

Perhaps you might examine the role that goals play in your life. What is the nature of your goals? What is your emotional relationship to them? You might not abandon all your goals, but maybe you might discover one or two that you could hold more flexibly. What would that be like? Maybe try it and see what happens. 

Acquiring wisdom is great but it is not the goal, applying it is. ~Idowu Koyenikan

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 81

This is it, the last chapter of the Tao Te Ching. I began this series on the 81 chapters of this ancient text almost five years ago. Wow, that is hard for me to believe. The intention for the series was to share some reflections on each chapter based on my decades long love of this wisdom teaching, which led me to spend several years delving into the mystery and beauty of the original Chinese characters. What I’ve tried to offer is not another translation of each chapter – there are already so many of those – but rather some insight or application that has arisen in my own life through my engagement with the text. 

So here we are, at the end which does not feel like the end. The motion of Tao is cyclical, manifesting and returning, rather than linear. It ends where it begins. This is the way. 

With that in mind, I’m drawn to the very end of this chapter, which, at least to me, sums up the arc of wisdom throughout the Tao Te Ching. 

Heaven’s Tao benefits yet does not interfere

Sage’s Tao acts yet does not contend

Here is our model for living in awakened moments. The energy of the universe is like the sun, providing light and warmth to all without regard to merit, without judgment, without manipulation. The ten thousand things of creation evolve and unfold according to their nature. We don’t have to look far to see how interference, no matter how well intentioned, often leads to unexpected and undesired results. This, in turn, requires more and more manipulation, layers upon layers of course correction to restore balance, which is never truly achieved and must be artificially maintained. 

We can think of examples in our communities and in our own lives where we sought to make some improvement or to bestow some benefit that did not turn out the way we imagined. Think kudzu. For more entertaining examples, think of all the science fiction tales based on time travel that wreaks havoc with history’s trajectory, or medical breakthroughs that unleash unanticipated devastation. It’s no accident that Star Trek’s “prime directive” prohibited interference with the natural development of alien civilizations. (And yes, some of the best storylines in Star Trek involved the violation of the prime directive!)

Yet non-interference does not mean non-engagement. The sage acts. The key is in the absence of striving or contending. Appropriate actions arise naturally and effortlessly when they are in harmony with the movement of Tao’s intrinsic energy. Ordinary people sometimes act in extraordinary ways, and we call them heroes. When asked about their actions, they often say that they didn’t think. They just instinctively responded to a perceived need. I’m thinking of a man I read about recently who, in the moments after his outside wedding, saw a boy drowning in a canal. Leaving his bride and the photographer wondering what was going on, he raced to the water’s edge and without hesitation jumped in the water and pulled the boy out. 

Not all examples are so dramatic. I’m thinking of a friend who baked cookies for me when I was having a really bad day. When presented with the cookies, I burst into tears of gratitude. Her gesture was perfect and exactly what I needed. She thought nothing of it, but to me it changed everything.

When we self reflect, we can often see that most of our effort and striving happens in our thinking minds, when we are struggling with what is, wanting it to be something different, wanting someone else to be different, wanting ourselves to be different. When we contend with reality, we will always lose. But when we loosen our rigid grip, when we release our insistence, when we allow awareness to open unimpeded, our way becomes clear in its own time, and we follow its path with effortless energy. 

Thus we come full circle in this ancient wisdom teaching. The first chapter of the Tao Te Ching ends with the character for doorway or gate, inviting us into the mystery of an awakened life, lived fully in harmony with the natural expression of creation. This last chapter reveals how life unfolds when we walk through the door.

The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. ~T. S. Eliot

I hope you have enjoyed this series. You can access the entire series by clicking on the label Tao Te Ching chapter series below, or over in the right column under the list of labels.

Bringing Peace to Opposition

The world is divided into people who think they are right. ~Tara Brach

It took me a few seconds to understand that there was no more to this sentence. Each side of the divide claims the higher ground of being right, being righteous, being morally superior, being more ethical, being smarter, being better. 

This morning I drew three cards from a deck loosely based on the Yi Jing (I Ching), translated as the Book of Changes, a Chinese “oracle” that goes back thousands of years. I put oracle in quotation marks because we often think of the term oracle in connection to fortune telling. This is not a book that purports to tell the future as much as, at least to me, it sometimes offers insight into the movement and direction of energy in present circumstances.

The first card I drew is called Inner Truth, and is described as the wisdom of the heart, the wisdom that penetrates illusion. This wisdom draws us down from the busyness of thought in our mind, where illusion is generated, into the quiet intuitive awareness of awakened consciousness. Inner truth is revealed in stillness, a silence that allows us to hear the whispered guidance of spirit.

The second card is titled Peace. Peace results from inner alignment and balance, an attunement to the vibration and movement of creation. This inner alignment and balance is our natural state, which we experience when we cease to struggle and allow our natural harmony to emerge.

The third card is Opposition, which describes, as you would expect, conflict. This conflict could be external, between people, communities, nations. To me, however, the most basic and significant opposition or conflict, the one we most often overlook, is the one we experience within ourselves, which is then expanded and reflected by the conflict we experience with others and with our circumstances. 

What I see when I put these cards together is a way of approaching an experience of conflict or struggle. When I perceive a situation as a vying for rightness between competing sides, I have a choice. I can get drawn into the combative tension, or I can step back into a quiet place of stillness and listen for inner guidance. This inner wisdom can penetrate all illusion and align me in peace. From that state of peace, I can respond rather than react. What that looks like in any particular situation is unknowable in advance. I will speak or act (or not speak or not act, depending on the guidance) from an awakened heart of fearless compassion. 

I’m glad I drew these cards this morning. It seems like a good way to start the year, with a reminder that any resolution of conflict begins with an awareness of the struggle within, and ends with compassion, extended internally and externally, in whatever form that takes. I can allow inner truth to bring peace to opposition. I can be a repairer of the breach. 

You shall be like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called repairers of the breach. ~Isaiah 58:11-12

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 75

When rulers tax too much

People starve

When rulers interfere too much

People rebel

When rulers demand too much

People give up

One who lives in harmony with life

Enjoys true wealth

I have taken great liberty with the Chinese text in my translation here. However, when I contemplate the Chinese characters, this is the essence of what emerges: We create imbalance in our lives and in our communities through excessive control. 

All the Tao Te Ching passages about governing can apply literally to a government, but I find them most helpful in a more personal context. We have created so many layers of control in our lives – the external control of laws and moral codes, and the internal control of self-improvement and self-judgment – that we exhaust ourselves with the constant struggle to always do better and be better. We have lost our connection to the natural energy that permeates all creation. 

Nature is inherently balanced and self-correcting. A friend recently observed that when we stand, our bodies are always making micro-adjustments to keep us vertically aligned. We don’t consciously direct our bodies to do this; nor do we calibrate the needed corrections and send instructions to various joints and muscles. Balance is our natural state, and it is naturally maintained. Imagine what would happen if that weren’t the case. 

We take this kind of balance for granted. We trust our bodies to take care of certain functions without our interference. Yet we are hesitant to trust nature in general, and our own natures in particular, with respect to how we function as individuals and how we function as a society. Why is that? How have we become so distanced from nature’s harmony and rhythm, that we no longer hear its wisdom and guidance? We no longer sense when we are out of alignment, and if we do become aware, we seek to restore alignment by the very same artificial methods that got us out of alignment in the first place. 

We don’t need to change who we are; we just need to be who we are. We need to trust that who we are is exactly who we should be. The strain of trying to be something else is wearing us out and killing us all. So perhaps we can explore this trust and investigate the fear that blocks it. No need to judge them. Just get to know them – the trust and the fear. Let them teach us. Let them show us the way home. 

Just the Way They Are

What is the difference between an enlightened person and an unenlightened person? 

The unenlightened person sees a difference.

I read this joke recently in Miracles Magazine. I wanted to find the source for it, so I Googled the question. And what do you know? I found LOTS of answers seriously offering a variety of litmus tests to distinguish enlightened people from unenlightened people. Wow, I thought. The joke is the truest answer of them all. All I could do was shake my head.

A few years ago, I went to a presentation for a popular method of meditation. I already had a meditation practice, but a friend had gone and recommended it, so I was curious. The presenter was a slick salesperson, and peppered the promotional speech with possibilities of enlightenment. Just sign up, give them a lot of money, practice your mantra, and lo and behold, “enlightenment just might happen.” 

As people rushed to sign up, I asked what I thought was an obvious question to someone who had practiced this method for many years. “So are you enlightened?” 

He paused, raised an eyebrow, and replied, “Well, isn’t it obvious?” 

“Yes, I suppose it is.” I thanked him for his time and left.

At a time when the divisions between us seem wider than ever, I have struggled to find our commonality. Where is that universal spark of divinity that shines in all our souls? I confess I find it more easily in some than in others, and yes, most often in people who think like I do. The Bible tells us to “judge not,” and A Course in Miracles teaches that all judgment comes from a fear-generating, mistaken belief in separation. 

I believe that, and yet I found my patience growing thin, and words – judging words, criticizing words, words of frustration, exasperation, despair – started popping up in my thoughts. So I did what I have learned to do when I am losing my way. I sat on my meditation cushion and asked for help. And waited.

The answer came to me phrased this way:  Everyone is just the way they are. 

Hmm, okay. Obvious. Not helpful. Or is it? 

I kept repeating the sentence. And like a mantra that promises enlightenment (ha!), it opened me up inside. A deep welling up of compassion flooded my spirit, compassion not just for some of us, but for all of us. Everyone. Even me. 

I understood. I don’t have to agree with everyone, or like everyone. I don’t have to stop advocating for justice. I don’t have to stop having uncomfortable conversations. I don’t have to accept violence. I don’t have to be silent in the face of hate or ignorance. I don’t have to stop my own process of self reflection and accountability. 

I just need to recognize that the spark of universal energy that shines in me does indeed shine in all of us. Just the way we are. If I lose that deep connection with all beings, then all my other efforts operate only on the surface, in the realm of duality. Healing is never ever achieved by separation. 

A blogging friend once posed the question: Are we our brother’s keeper? Yes, I replied, because we are our brother. All of us. Just the way we are.

They want us to be afraid.
They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes.
They want us to barricade our doors
and hide our children.
Their aim is to make us fear life itself!
They want us to hate.
They want us to hate 'the other'.
They want us to practice aggression
and perfect antagonism.
Their aim is to divide us all!
They want us to be inhuman.
They want us to throw out our kindness.
They want us to bury our love
and burn our hope.
Their aim is to take all our light!
They think their bricked walls
will separate us.
They think their damned bombs
will defeat us.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that my soul and your soul are old friends.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that when they cut you I bleed.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that we will never be afraid,
we will never hate
and we will never be silent
for life is ours! 
 ~Kamand Kojouri

Live the Seeing

I cannot tell
What I now see
I have not words
It matters not
It matters only that
I live the seeing

Gone to Ground

People in the United States have traditionally greeted each other with the question “How are you?” It is often intended as a perfunctory politeness, not a genuine question about health and well-being. The typical answer is “Fine thanks. You?” 

Lately, however, I get the sense when asked, that people are sincerely asking how I’m really doing. And when I ask, it is with an openness and a willingness to listen. Times have changed.

My most recent answer is that I’ve “gone to ground.” That phrase usually has a connotation of hiding, especially when being chased, as a fox might hide in a burrow when pursued by hunters. I don’t have a sense of hiding, and I don’t feel chased, but that phrase popped into my mind as a perfect metaphor for how I am experiencing life right now. 

Layer upon layer. Cope with this. Holding steady. Well, how about this? Tougher, but okay. Very good, and now this. Hurting.... And boom. Crushed.

How to breathe through all this pain. Go to ground. Get out of my head and into my body. Move. Breathe. Be still. Go to the earth. Lie in the grass. Watch hummingbirds. Sit by the creek. Bask in the sun. Walk in the forest. 

Our battered minds cannot encompass all this suffering. But our hearts can. Our hearts can expand infinitely to hold the entire universe. The earth and the heavens fill our empty vessel with all creation. We are strong. We contain multitudes. 

Going to ground revives me and renews me. I touch the earth and it holds me, nurtures me, inspires me. 

I am ready. 

Heard Only in the Heart

The words are spoken in silence
Heard only in the heart
Do not doubt what they reveal
More real than any heard in mind
Trust the truth of what is known beyond knowing
And do not be misled by thought
That seeks to hold illusion
Be thou thus ignited 
With what has always burned
Deep 
Deep

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 71

Understanding that we do not know is wisdom
Believing that we know the unknowable is suffering

First year law students often arrive expecting that they are going to be told all the answers to legal questions. After a few weeks of hearing professors say, “That depends on ...,” they begin to suspect that the professors know the answers but for some pedagogical or sadistic reason are keeping the answers a secret from the students. It takes a while to convince them that legal analysis does indeed rest on a number of factors and variables.

Oprah Winfrey’s magazine always ends with a column titled “What I Know for Sure.” I used to joke that I was in awe of Oprah because she knew something for sure at least twelve times a year. 

Buddha understood that attachment or desire is the root of suffering. One of the things our brains are wired to desire is unchanging certainty. So strong is this craving, that our brains will grasp onto a false answer rather than tolerate the discomfort of not knowing. Once securely attached to an answer, the brain resists the trauma of releasing it even when a better answer is presented. I have seen my own brain do this. It’s kind of amazing. 

And it leads to suffering. Because on some level we know that we are floating in an ocean of mystery paddling a leaky raft. Our soul swims lazily alongside, beckoning. “Come on in; the water’s fine.” And we just paddle harder. 

Until we don’t. Until we are so tired of the suffering we cause ourselves, that we are willing to dive into our fear because we are less afraid of the murky depths than of staying where we are.

And guess what. The water is fine. And so are we. 

You know nothing, Jon Snow. ~Ygritte, Game of Thrones

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 70

This is a beautiful chapter that acknowledges how elusive something so simple can be.

My words are very easy to know
Very easy to put into practice
Yet under heaven no one is able to know them
No one can put them into practice

When people ask me to explain Tao to them, or ask me what they need to do to live according to the Tao, I’m always a bit stumped. As we’ve known ever since the very first lines of the Tao Te Ching, the Tao that can be understood or explained is not the eternal Tao. So no matter what I say, I will fail to answer the question. My aim is, then, as one teacher says, to fail well.

I was asked a few months ago to give a presentation on Taoism to a group of people who were studying a book comparing major “religions.” I put that word in quotes because my first hurdle was to figure out how Tao can be neatly packaged into a religion. I’m pretty sure it can’t be. It is, as the Tao Te Ching teaches, without form, without name, without substance. It has no creed, no doctrine, no structure, no ritual (although the Taoist religion, as it has developed over millennia, has pretty much all of these things). It is, to use Bruce Lee’s description of his approach to martial arts, the way of no way.

Why is it so easy? Almost a thousand years ago, Li Hsi-Chai explained it best: “It is easy because there is no Tao to discuss, no knowledge to learn, no effort to make, no deeds to perform.” (translated by Red Pine)

It is, as I explained to the study group, as easy and natural as breathing. In fact, breathing is our best model of Tao in action. Breathe in, breathe out. Manifesting into form, returning to formlessness. Fluid like water. Natural. The only breath that matters is the one right now. Now this one. I cannot hoard or store my breath, or borrow future breath on credit. I cannot hold on to it (for very long) but must release it to allow the next breath. Everything we need to know is not in a book or in the words of a teacher. Everything we need to know is in the breath.

So why is it so hard? Finishing Li Hsi-Chai’s quote: “It is hard because the Tao cannot be discussed, because all words are wrong, because it can’t be learned, and because the mind only leads us astray.”

That made me laugh out loud. I know. I have a strange sense of humor. But didn’t Li Hsi-Chia perfectly capture the human brain’s frustration with not being able to name, classify, anazlyze, evaluate, and attain intellectual clarity and moral conviction? “I think, therefore I am” gives us the great mental pleasure of certainty. “Don’t believe everything you think” throws us right back into the terrifying (to the brain) unknown.

Most of us are thinking, okay great, I get this, sort of, but what do I do? What does this look like?

It looks like this: breathe in, breathe out.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. ~Jesus

Weaponized Enlightenment

I’ve always loved this story:

As Buddha was walking down the road, someone approached from the other direction. This person was awed by the radiance shining from Buddha. 

Excuse me, but are you a god?

No.

Are you a king?

No. 

Are you a wizard?

No.

Well, then what are you?

I am awake.

That story has always inspired me. When I think about what I want most in the world, what I value and practice and aspire to, it is this state of being awake – fully present and aware, deeply experiencing and directly engaged with life in this moment.

I thought of this story recently when someone used the term “woke” in its current popular usage related to politics and social issues.

I was curious to hear this term used in a way. It seemed to me that it was being used to distinguish groups of people who take specific positions on political or social issues. The line is drawn between those who are woke and those who are not, with woke being the more desirable or the more derided, depending on who is using it.

Let me be clear that I am not commenting on the politics or cultural origins of this term. What I am commenting on is its use as a judgment or assessment of division, a means of attack, similar to the way we have weaponized other terms, like American or immigrant. And of course, the old standbys of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and more.

Awakening does not divide; it unifies. It does not judge; it accepts. It does not demand; it radiates. It does not fear; it embraces. May we all, like Buddha, be woke.

But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake. ~Pema Chodron

Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world. ~Ramana Maharshi

I Am the Cake!

A meditation teacher was describing two approaches to attaining enlightenment. One, he said, is like showing someone a picture of a cake and telling them “Go make this.” The other is like giving someone a recipe. I understood what he meant. He was suggesting that the instructions in the recipe would be more helpful than a photo with no directions. But something kept lurking at the edge of my consciousness, something that seemed a bit off.

So I sat on my cushion and contemplated this whole cake metaphor. And suddenly I knew what was bothering me. Both approaches describe a way to attain or produce something, something you don’t already have.

What if, instead, I don’t think in terms of making a cake, but rather in terms of realizing that I am the cake? I don’t need to make anything, produce anything, attain anything. I only need to remember who I am. I only need to allow my true nature to manifest and be expressed.

Does that mean that there is no purpose to practice or process? No, I don’t think so. Our practice is not so much about attaining enlightenment as it is about releasing everything that blocks our awareness of our natural enlightened state. I don’t need to get from here to there. I need to remember that I’m already where I want to be. I always have been. I never left.

In a temple in Thailand, there is a solid gold Buddha that was encased in a plaster statue for so long that its true nature was forgotten. As I wrote in an earlier blog post, its priceless truth was only rediscovered when it fell from a crane moving it and some plaster chipped off. When all the plaster was then removed, the brilliance and magnificent beauty of the golden Buddha shone forth.

Some speculate that the Buddha was covered in plaster to protect it from invaders. We do that too. We encase ourselves in layers of what we think of as protection, so many layers that we forget what is underneath. We pretend that we are in control. Safe. Until life drops us and some of that protection is chipped away. And if we dare to look, we see something shimmering in the darkness.

What then? Here is our choice. We can cover it back up, or we can begin to loosen the protection and strip it away, freeing ourselves from all our false imaginings. Until we see that there was nothing that needed protecting in the first place. For as A Course in Miracles teaches:

Nothing real can be threatened
Nothing unreal exists
Herein lies the peace of God

The Year of Perfect Vision

As already noted by many people, 20/20 represents perfect vision, making 2020 the year of perfect vision. I love that.

This year is an invitation to look with our inner sight, to see things not as we wish them to be, or imagine them to be, but as they are. To see through the stories, the judgments, the desires, the aversions, the memories of the past, the projections into the future, all the ways we distort reality. To see, as the Bible says, not through a glass darkly, but face to face.

And how do we do this? Not but looking outward, but by turning our gaze inward. By watching ourselves with curiosity and compassion, noticing how we get distracted, how we tell ourselves stories and then believe them, how we judge ourselves and others, how we allow fear to dictate our thoughts and actions, how we cling and grasp and push away, how we try to control the narrative instead of dropping the narrative, how we think we know what reality should be.

By noticing how exhausting all this is! And how futile. And how endearingly human.

Then comes the moment of surrender, when we release all our efforts to make better, to do better, to be better. When we see ourselves face to face and accept ourselves just the way we are. When we look without fear, and the perfection of all creation is revealed to us. When we see our own reflection, woven into creation’s radiant threads, loved and loving. So beautiful.

When we see with perfect vision, we see that indeed, we are wonderfully made in the image of God. All creation is Love’s masterpiece.

May we be inspired every time we write the date, or see it on our phones or calendars, to remember that this year is the year we require no artificial aids to sight. We are gifted with perfect vision this year. We need only open our eyes to see.

I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.  ~ “Amazing Grace”

Light in the Darkness

Darkness darkness, be my pillow 
Take my head and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your dream

Darkness darkness, hide my yearning
For the things that cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning 
Towards the things I cannot see
     ~Stephen Stills

Today is the first day of winter, the season we associate with darkness. The song lyrics encourage us to rest, to cease our struggle, to accept what is, to enter the mystery.

In the Tao Te Ching, darkness is the metaphor for mystery, the essence of the Way. It is the origin of all creation. The Bible tells us that in the beginning, “the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.” From this darkness, God brought forth the manifested universe, beginning with light.

It is within the darkness of this deep mystery that the light begins to return. After today’s winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, the light stays just a minute longer. And then another. We hardly notice its gradual approach as we wake in the darkness, shivering in the cold.

Then one day we notice the early morning sun sparkling on the frost. The light calls creation to awaken once again and we know that spring will come.

But for now, we prepare for the time of quiet, the time of unknowing, the season of stillness. The darkness is the gate to mystery. And it stands open, inviting us in, allowing us to sink deep inside ourselves, to listen...and wait...and watch. Within the darkness, if we are patient, we will see the light of truth, first as a tiny glimmer, then growing into a blazing light, consuming all illusion and doubt.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait.... So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. ~T.S. Eliot

Clothed in Divine Raiment

The title to this post is more “religious” sounding than my usual writing. Yet this phrase came to me up at the cabin this last weekend and it has persistently stayed with me. So I, in turn, have persistently stayed with it! I meditated and asked this phrase to reveal to me its message. And the message came in the form of a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. So I will share it with you as it came to me.

Lord of glory
You have clothed me in divine raiment
I am magnified in your loving mercy
You have stretched forth your hand
And I take it gladly
Leaving all else behind
I walk into your embrace
Shedding all density
I am robed in your splendor
I am yours now and forever
Blessed in bounty
Loved into eternity

As I contemplated this message, I realized that indeed, the last two years have been intense years of shedding, letting go of everything I held onto – beliefs, illusions, hopes, expectations, fears, identities. The world is different to me now, and I am different in it. Everything is ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. Mundane and magical. Every day is an adventure, every moment is a gift, every breath a liberation.

This is, I think, the meaning of living in grace, living in alignment with the energy of the universe, entering the realm of oneness with all creation. It is, as Buddha said, the power of being awake.

I wish I could tell you that I experience this all the time. I don’t. But I do more and more. And when I do, I’m aware that indeed, like the lilies of the field, I am clothed in the divine raiment of life. And I am grateful.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. ~Psalm 139:14

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 64 (Part 2)

As I explained in Part 1, this unusually long chapter resembles a string of proverbs. Picking up from the earlier post, here are some key passages from the rest of the chapter.

Action leads to failure
Grasping leads to loss
Thus the sage refrains from action and does not fail
Refrains from grasping and does not lose

Once again we encounter this perplexing concept of non-action. Refraining from action to avoid failure reminds me of the athlete who said that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. We are encouraged to try and try again, to learn from our failures.

But remember that non-action in this context does not mean sitting around doing nothing in resignation or fear. It means not engaging in ego-driven action. It means allowing one’s actions to be guided by inner wisdom and alignment such that action is effortless and unforced.

And as we know from the Buddha’s teaching, grasping is at the root of suffering. Impermanence is the nature of the manifested universe. Our attempts to hold onto something that is changing create a struggle that we will inevitably lose.

Thus the sage desires no desire
Does not value material treasure
Allowing all things to return to their true nature
By not presuming to act

The Chinese characters for true nature are hard to translate. Literally, they mean “self so.” They sort of mean “what is so of itself” or “what is, as it is.” This pair of characters appear throughout the Tao Te Ching and, like non-action, represent a foundational concept in this ancient wisdom teaching.

When we refrain from ego-driven action or interference, and follow our inner guidance, then what is, as it is, naturally unfolds. We no longer create suffering with futile struggles with reality. We are aligned with the universal energy that manifests through us with effortless harmony.

Sounds too good to be true? It isn’t. It is who we are. It isn’t a matter of becoming. It’s a matter of remembering.

The Tao is not about grasping, but allowing, like water. ~Wayne Dyer

Touch the Earth

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
~Joni Mitchell

Every other weekend, I leave my urban home to spend a few days at my forest cabin. Two weeks ago, I missed my usual weekend because I was sick. So when I went this last weekend I had been four weeks away.

I always savor the moment I arrive, stepping out of the car into the embrace of the trees, hearing the welcome song of the creek, marveling at all the shades of green, breathing the forest scented oxygen. This time, after several weeks’ absence, it was so intense I was downright giddy with gratitude and joy.

And I was struck by something else – I looked around and thought, there is so much earth here! Everywhere I looked, there was the forest floor, rich, fertile earth supporting cloud touching evergreens, smaller rhododendrons and maples, and a profusion of ferns and other plants.

My neighborhood at home is very green by most city standards, with large shade trees and lush gardens. But still, now that I thought about it, so much ground is covered up by buildings, sidewalks, streets, artificial grass, and yes Joni, parking lots. How often during the course of a normal day do I actually touch the earth?

In Greek mythology, Antaeus was the son of Mother Earth and was invincible in battle as long as he was in contact with her. He was killed only when Heracles figured out the source of his strength and held him in the air to finish him off.

I wonder if some part of my deep body, mind, and soul nurturing at the cabin is due to the amount of time I spend in direct connection to the earth. I wonder if I could be more mindful of that even in my urban life. My yard is not big, but I could practice taiji on my little patch of grass instead of on the carpet inside, for example. I could detour through a park on my walks with the dog. I don’t know if I will sense a difference but I’m curious.

Buddha sat on the earth under the bodhi tree waiting for enlightenment. And when awakening occurred, it is said that he touched the earth with his hand as his witness. The earth is mother to us all and bears witness to everything that happens.

What will the earth bear witness to in my life?

[W]e touch the ground by arriving, on the spot, in this moment. We touch the ground by directly connecting with the earth, the life of our bodies, our breath and our inner weather. We touch the ground by looking directly into the awareness that is the very source of our life. As we connect with what is right in front of us, we realize the true immensity of who we are. ~Tara Brach