Travelogue-Americus Part 1, Pennsylvania

Hi friends,

A deep bow of gratitude to you for having clicked on this link. To my first teachers, Adrian and Ruxandra- my parents- who gave me their blessing on this journey after providing 6 years of loving shelter and support: another deep bow of gratitude.

Sitting in my bedroom at the Great Mountain Zen Monastery, my new home in Lafayette, Colorado, I’m finding the time and space to share some thoughts on the journey west from CT to CO. A robin the size of a crow hops playfully on the grass outside, a spider crawls along the screen, dragonflies flit by on the way to who knows where-I can definitely relate. Guidance, intuition, whatever you call it, was a small, quiet voice that urged me to pack up my things, quit my jobs and return here to the feet of the Rockies, a mile in the sky which has already, in the two days I’ve been here, disencumbered itself of several torrential rain and lightning storms, a rainbow and a dazzling pink sunset. Truly the skies in the west are to scale-awesome and terrifying, and quick to change. Why am I here? Not exactly sure, besides the fact that there’s a teacher I love here that I want to study further with, and the fact that mountain living rocks. Do I trust that guidance? Definitely.

A note on guidance, which will emerge as a theme through the several blog posts I share from my journey: through yoga, shamanic healing and journeying, and meditation, I’ve learned one thing-there is a voice inside us that somehow knows the journey that we’re on, but only unfolds its knowing bit by bit, moment by moment, according to our readiness and need. My personal journey has been uncovering that voice and learning to distinguish it from all the other ones, the judgments, the fears, the nay-sayers, the parental superego, the wishing and wanting; and the real practice has become listening to and acting on that voice.

When I began to consider this move back to Colorado, I promised myself to listen to inner guidance as often as possible, to honor it and learn to trust the basic goodness of the universe. Perhaps this blog will help to uncover the ancient belief that there is substance to this approach, and that the miracle of our lives is that we are held in the deepest way imaginable by something so massive, so wise and so loving that it melts the heart, bewilders the mind and brings us back home.

So back to Part 1, Pennsylvania-A few months ago I had a dream about my old summer camp, Susquehannock, located just south of Binghamton, NY in the beautiful, hilly countryside that lies hidden west of the Poconos in northeastern PA. I decided to stop there for a night on the journey west to see what lay buried in the old bunks, grassed in the sports fields, bordering the mile-long lake that serves as both bathtub and proving ground for swimmers and boaters of all abilities. Memory has a way of lurking undisturbed in the deepest parts of us, perhaps in our cells, perhaps in our psychic/energetic bodies, perhaps in the shared unconscious, and it will arise rashly and emotionally-ionized when triggered by the strangest things-a smell, a rock, a tree, a wooden staircase initialed and tagged over decades by boys ecstatic to be away from home and parents for a month or two. So it was as I rolled into camp, 21 years later.

Parking at the camp office, a sudden surge of heart-melt, seeing the old buildings, most of which were built 100 years ago with locally-harvested wood. I think to myself, “Nothing has changed.” Then I see the wi-fi sign. Okay, maybe a few things have changed. I see that one other, significant shift has taken place as well-the girls’ camp, which used to be located 20 miles away (meaning that 4 times a month we’d get to have a dance and some activities together, everyone excited, awkward and nervous except the oldest campers), is now located on the lower camp, where the younger boys used to begin their summer journeys (as I did at 7 years old, homesick and terrified). I locate the camp directors who remember me well, and they put me up in Palais Royal, a two-story cabin that I thought I hadn’t stayed at but still remembered intimately.

Walking up the steps, I suddenly remember the bottoms stair-it’s a slab of stone smoothed by thousands of sneakers over a century-and a wave of memory so sharp and crystalline that it could have happened yesterday arises. Colby, Eli, Jeb, the other bunk-mates, soccer at 6 am, sailing sunfishes and more, all of this tornadoes around me and I hold back a tear, and hold onto the handrail for dear life. Clear as day, pristine as if it were happening right now, so lives our memory-bank. As I get into the bunk, rows of cots greet me, empty now but marked and dotted with 100 years of campers’ names. The guiding voice in my head says, take the middle bunk. I do, and find my initials there, scratched into the wood 24 years before. So much for not having stayed in this cabin.

As I walk the grounds, I connect with trees that have changed very little, keeping (as they do) a different timeline than us mortals. The tennis courts, the wildgrass fields around the perimeter of the camp, the archery range, the main lodge where meals are served and award ceremonies take place-all of these are identical. I feel a foot shorter, 30 pounds lighter, here but not here, a camper and an outsider at the same time. Memories I had completely forgotten about come flooding back and I remember faces, names, victories, defeats, bug bites and bug juice (the old name for Hi-C or whatever powdered juice they’d feed us a meal time), the long night walks through the woods to the rustic outhouse, which at the time I was always afraid were populated by a nasty mix of Jason, Freddie, the guy from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and any other horror movie heroes that were popular in the 80′s.

An old counselor greets me, a wonderful guy that was and probably still is an Aikido master, who taught us how to roll and throw opponents, to use their aggression against them. A simple greeting-”Welcome home.” I tell him I forgot my laundry bag and hope that’s not a problem. Still a smartass after all these years. He smiles warmly and shakes my hand, two men meeting as if after being drafted to war in another country, but no less intimate with one another for having made that pilgrimage.

Swimming in the lake with the boys and girls on a hot day is an unimaginable joy, even after all these years. I watch the groups of campers slung together, people buddying up to ensure that no camper disappears into the murky depths of Tripp Lake in search of crayfish, the girls and boys playing coyly but demurely together. The slide, the diving board, the Ivory soap, the buddy checks, all the same, if a bit smaller in scale. An announcement comes from a lifeguard, “Remember campers, this is bathing day, so soap up!” I recall that bathing and soaping up were not an everyday necessity back then. Laundry, toothbrushes, changing one’s underwear-all these felt optional at summer camp, almost a nuisance to a boy free from the regular hassles of the modern teenage life for a month. Of course, back then there were no cellphones, no laptops, a computer (if you had one) was a Commodore 64 used only to play primitive games on, so modern is a relative word, at best. But in reality, it was as if keeping clean was tantamount to schoolwork, and would best be done on the bus at the last minute, if at all. I remember a story told at night by our counselors about the boy that didn’t change his underwear for 3 weeks and got something called “crotch-rot.” Even that wasn’t enough motivation for some of the campers. Yet these many years later I’ll admit that I was good about cleanliness, and I’ll swear on it. After all, who wants crotch-rot?

Now some of you, dear readers, may have gone to sleep away camp. You’ll resonate with some of this post, perhaps. For those of you that didn’t, I apologize for waxing nostalgic. The experience of being with kids your age and counselors a bit older but just as fun-loving was an incredible gift to me from my parents and from the land we camped on itself. I lived in Queens for 6 years as a boy and the opportunity to come to the country, to smell the fresh wildflowers, get stung by bees, play with praying mantises, snakes and dragonflies and compete with kids far better than me at sports was an oasis in the heart of my summers, which were already the best time of the year. I had a group of friends that I bunked with almost the entire time I attended Susquehannock, a steady troupe of misfits and jocks that came back, year after year, with whom I never communicated during the school year. We led a double life, truly. The year would pass and I’d think of them, but there seemed to be some unspoken vow that we’d break communication the day camp ended and just see who showed up the next summer; things would take a day to fall back into place, and then we’d be there again, best of friends, laughing and competing together. That first day back was always full of expectation and wondering about who’d show up with their oversized trunk and bashful grin. Over time they fell off, one by one, until I myself quit the camp after becoming a Counselor-in-training during my junior year of high school. But they remain heart-friends to this day, even if we’ve long since lost touch.

As I sit by the tennis courts after swimming, a sudden reminiscence from when I was maybe 12 or 13 years old emerges: after a deathly-hot day, the rain clouds mass darkly and a torrential downpour begins. We lay down in the foot-wide alleys next to the basketball court that are designed to drain water, and bathe in the rainstorm with an innocence and wonder that is still as fresh today as it was then. The courts are heated by the day’s sunshine, the rain is much cooler, but as it touches the ground the water heats up and creates a spa effect. Later that day, drenched beyond caring, we slide down a hill in our bathing suits, diving into the grass from a full-tilt running start, laughing and careening wildly into one another. Sacred play, perhaps, desultory and without rules.

As I lay alone at night in my old bunk, I marvel at the way our bodies can store memories and release them at the just the right time. I’d had a conversation with my mom several months before about this camp, describing to her how most of the kids that came were real athletes-after all, this was a sports camp with a strong, competitive spirit, designed to help boys strengthen their many talents on the fields and courts. I was decent at sports but never great, mostly because I just didn’t care that much about that type of competition and loathed the herd mentality that accompanies team sports. Over the years, a dim view had arisen in me of the entire competitive experience: that I’d been an outsider, a freak, not that well-liked but with good enough friends that it was worth coming back, year after year. I’d made this story up and bolstered it over time with snide remarks, and perhaps it was partly true. But being there again, I saw that it was only a fraction of the life I’d led. All that arose in me in that bunk was goodness, warmth, tenderness and a deep love of this place and my life as it has been. And that was truly surprising.

Do we all do this? Perhaps some people glorify the past and others degrade it, but in my experience, the majority of the things I’ve thought in retrospect were not-so-great or painful experiences have revealed themselves to be godsends and blessings, once the body brings them back to me in their richness and fullness.

So here’s the crux: our bodies hold these experiences in the most tender way, and when we live in our minds, thinking about and judging the past, present and future t according to our current value system, our insecurities and agendas, we separate from the essence of life and how incredible it truly is to be here. Sure, there are plenty of deeply traumatic experiences that are held inside us as well, and we need to feel those and let them be free as well, but good or bad, we can’t feel our life and be conceptualizing about it at the same time. The truth is that life never arises the way we think it will and that the true past never reveals itself in the way we think it happened. This is the great mystery that is so far beyond hope and fear, the thing that’s constantly pushing us to remain open and let go of our plans and just listen to the wind, to the inner voice. To just feel, to just be receptive. As someone said once, to make a plan and be ready to let it go in an instant.

As I drove away from Susquehannock early the next morning, there was a mixture of feelings coming up: immense gratitude, joy, sadness, longing, and the inescapable feeling that arises from knowing that the past is gone and will not return; but all of it was fine. We may think that we have this inborn need for closure, but we don’t always get it, and the inner voice was saying something about the right time and place for all of that to happen. Our bodies know the journey we need to make and the infinite river that is our life and our truest self flows on, unimpeded and ever-patient, waiting for us to plunge in. And so I drove on, carefree, in the Allegheny National forest and the wilds of Americus.

Stay tuned for the next installment-Allegheny and the midwest.

In deepest love,

Barbu

Will The Real “Me” Please Stand Up?

Happy end of summer, dear friends!

Yesterday I had the great pleasure and privilege of attending a workshop with Swami Ramananda, the president of Integral Yoga Institute in Manhattan. It was held at Dharma Yoga Brooklyn, where I also have the pleasure and privilege of teaching yoga. Right at the beginning of this workshop a remarkable thing happened.

We sat down for our opening meditation when suddenly the entry buzzer to the brownstone next to the studio began chirping “Hello, is anybody there? Is anybody there?” Silence ensued, and the group kept meditating. A few minutes later as we ended our sitting practice Swamiji said, “Well, we just had a cosmic lesson in jnana yoga-the voice said ‘is anybody there?’ and no one answered. How perfect!”  We all laughed, but he hit the nail on the head

So who’s there? Who is writing this and who is reading this? One of the true purposes of the science of yoga is the breaking down of this terrible barrier that we feel between the individuated “I” and the rest of the world. Let’s face it – being a human hurts, even if many times throughout the day it’s wonderful, and it hurts because we feel separate from people, the world, the Divine perhaps. There is a palpable sense of fear that we carry around with us, knowing as we do that the body is perishable, fragile and temporary. We (and everyone we know) are going to die, and we know it. If we don’t feel this fear consciously, then surely we feel it deep inside ourselves and more often than not this fear guides our mental/emotional patterns, and thus our actions and destiny. On the other hand, if we act like we’re going to live forever in these bodies (which most of us do), then we’ve disconnected from reality and are running from this fear. And in truth, all of our consumer capitalist culture preys and depends on this fear as it tries to get us to identify more and more with our possessions which, like our bodies, will definitely not last forever. That’s why they keep rolling out the gadgets and IPads and ICrap! I mean come on, it’s called an “I” Pad!

So I’m going to share some of what I find when I look into myself and ask “who am I” and I invite you to look along with me. For starters I can identify at least three possible versions of “me” that are at work at all times.

The first “me” is the conglomerate of thoughts, emotions, and reactions to the world, to the sense data that is constantly streaming in. The yogis would separate the thoughts and emotions, but for simplicity’s sake I’ll put them together. You know and experience this as well, and it is sometimes called the monkey mind. It may sound like this:

“Ooh, that smells good I want some, wow it’s finally such a beautiful day at, oops I forgot to dry my laundry, I hope she still likes me after last night, my job is boring, I hope my car doesn’t break down, what a great yoga class, my partner’s a jerk” and so on. It essentially comes down to this: I like it, or I don’t like it. As the Buddha wisely pointed out, grasping and avoiding will be the last things to go. So there is a never-ending stream of this that carries on throughout the day and often into dreams at night and most of us are completely identified with this up and down stream of experience which the Blessed One rightly called the Ten Worlds, or the Ten States – Hell, Hunger, Animality, Anger, Tranquility, Rapture, Learning, Realization, Boddhisattva and Buddhahood. Millions of times each day, we sway between these states.

The second “me” is the part of me that chooses where to put the awareness and what to do with these different states. This could be called the will, or for you yogaheads the vijnanamayakosha. It’s the “me” that chooses to listen to and identify with the aforementioned thoughts, or not to. It’s the “me” that during meditation holds the attention on one object, or doesn’t, depending on how strong it is on that particular day and how much training it’s had. It’s the “me” that makes decisions and chooses the when, where and how, and it feels distinctly different to us than the thoughts themselves, since it has the option of listening to them or shutting them out. Distinguish between these two, dear reader.

The third “me,” (this is more subtle) is the Witness. I’ve written about this in another blog so I won’t go too deeply into it, but it’s the sense of seeing, hearing and comprehending these two other “I’s.” If I start to think “I am hearing myself think, I am hearing myself think,” then even as I’m thinking that thought, I’m hearing myself thinking it. Try it for yourself. Just repeat that phrase over and over again, noticing that as you think a thought some presence is there hearing you think it. This is true with every experience we have in life. As you see something, something is aware of you seeing it, and as you decide whether you like or don’t like what you see, that presence also sees that. The Witness is crystal clear and perceives (and understands) everything that is happening, even in times of great confusion, and it exists within us and around us in all times and places, except during deep and dreamless sleep. At least for now!

So will the real “me” please stand up? Am I the thoughts? Am I the will that chooses to listen to the thoughts or not, to act on them or not? Am I a Witness to this debacle? Am I the Atman, the Soul that is hidden like a priceless jewel deep inside all these “me”s or am I a non-entity, a non-Self as the Buddhists hold? Am I reborn in Christ in the resurrection? Will this “me” perish with my body or will it reincarnate, or go to heaven or hell? If I’m just the body and I become paralyzed, am I really alive anymore? If I’m just the mind, then where do I disappear to in dreamless sleep, or coma? Am I Love, or a random combination of Carbon, Hydrogen, etc?

These are real questions that we all have to confront and try our best to answer, since there is one thing for certain in this life-our bodies will return to the earth that spawned them and to the energy field that they are really already a part of at the subatomic level, and whether we meet that day with equanimity or terror is going to influence how we live our lives AT EVERY LEVEL of our existence.

So the bad news is this: I’m not giving you the answer, because the answer is not expressible in language. In fact, language is in some ways the barrier to knowing the Truth, because it is conceptual, and all concepts are limiting by nature-and we are unlimited in our possiblities. However, I will suggest this: we’re all of these “me”s and more. Look deeply into yourself and never stop asking this question, because this is what fuels our growth as humans. As complex beings we perceive, we analyze, we act, we create, we are and we become all at the same time. Thus we are a conglomerate of “me”s, so I hold that if it ain’t paradoxical, it ain’t the Truth! And that’s why I ain’t giving you the answer. For more on the paradoxical nature or Truth, try reading some Nagarjuna. Then take a nice nap.

One final thought-don’t hold too strongly to your beliefs about yourself. You’re pigeonholing yourself terribly if you do. The philosophy that things are empty of an unchanging nature makes a lot of sense and is practical because it allows for changeablity within ourselves, which includes the idea or story that we hold in our minds about ourselves. It has been rightly said that the “me” that exists right now in the present is the conglomerate of ideas that I have about the “me” that lived in the past, the good, the bad, the ugly, etc. So if I can change my back story to something happier, then my present changes. What I mean by this is that maybe I can see my life story and everything that has happened to me as a teaching tool designed to awaken me to my perfect nature. Thus when I awaken to Buddhahood, I’ll realize that I’ve always been a Buddha, which means that the real “me” already contains all the Ten Worlds, at all times, including this Perfect one. It’s just a matter of which one I choose to bring forth into the world and share with others, from moment to moment. Which, of course, is why learning to concentrate/meditate is so important, so that I can use the will to keep the highest, most altruistic vision of myself and the world in focus as much of the time as I can. And just like anything else, it takes practice.

So don’t hold it too tightly, and try to make it fun. A nice paradox: act as if the fate of the world depends upon your actions while simultaneously laughing at yourself for thinking that they will make any difference.

It is this final wish that I share with every one of you and with every being: that you claim your Highest and Best self-story at all times, and remember the perfect Being that you already are.

Om Shanti

Barbu

Give In But Don’t Give Up-The Witness

Blessings to you all, dear friends. Today the sun seems to be hanging brilliantly in the empty blue sky, so I raise the question: in what does the empty blue sky hang?

In honor of this seemingly bizarre query, today’s blog is going to deal with the simplest of all simplicities, so simple that it can be confounding-letting go into the Witness. Suzuki Roshi, the beloved Zen master, once said in his inimitable and compassionate way, “You are all perfect, and you all need lots of work.” Let that sentiment wash over you and sink in, that you are perfect already, illuminated, completed, enlightened, and then take three or four deep breaths before beginning the next paragraph.

Aren’t all beings seeking the same thing? A deep and lasting joy and comfort within themselves and in relation to the world around them? Call it Nirvana, Ananda, Moksha, Forgiveness, Grace or Peace, it doesn’t matter-we seem to deeply want an end to our suffering and discontentment. Yet we’re seeking it outside ourselves and outside the present moment, day in and day out. The yogi thinks, “If I keep practicing, one day soon I will become enlightened.” The businessman thinks, “If I get that job, my life will be so much better.” Are either of these sentiments a guarantee? What if liberation already exists as the ground of our being? What if it’s here right now, hiding inside you as you read this blog?

And what if it’s not hidden at all?

Let’s try an experiment. Sit up straight and look away from the screen (after reading the next two paragraphs), perhaps at the ground a few feet in front of you, with the eyes relaxed and without trying to focus on anything in particular. Release the thinking mind as much as possible and relax into the sense impressions that are constantly manifesting, the way the breath feels in the body, the cool or warm sensations on the skin, the sounds around you, and then the thoughts that arise, but try to simply let them exist, without wanting them to stay or go.

This is like relaxing into the witnessing state, a way of letting go into something so obvious that it’s become almost invisible. It’s an action of the mind, but in a sense it’s more of a non-action. Try to practice this letting go for a few minutes, noticing that each time a thought arises, the mind will identify with it, and the attention will move away from the other sense organs. As soon as this happens, try to release the thought and relax back into witnessing again, again, again. Then notice how sounds return along with feelings in the body, along with awareness of the breath and heartbeat.

Could it be that simple? Could it be that this is enlightenment? Maybe all the practices we undertake are aimed at creating the ability to maintain that witnessing state?

So give in to it. But don’t give up giving in. That’s the secret, constant practice in letting go. It takes a certain effort to constantly relax into this state of simple witnessing, especially thought-witnessing, since we have for decades and decades become completely identified with our thinking patterns. But I raise this question, as many have before me: if you think a thought and perceive that thought as it forms inside your head, then who is it that is perceiving it? How can you think (create) a thought and hear it simultaneously? Is it then possible that underneath the thinking mind, the fluctuations and projections and wishes and criticisms, there is this perfect enlightened presence that simply witnesses everything? Can this awareness, which rests in silence, be the true self, found in all beings?

It dawned on me the other day (like the sun breaking the rim of the earth and sky at sunrise) that at all times, no matter what state of mind or body I am in, there is a constant, silent and perfect witnessing of that state taking place. If I’m happy, the Witness is aware that I’m happy. If I’m stressed out, then it is aware of that too. This awareness remains exactly the same all the time and completely independent of any actions, circumstances or sensations and what’s even more amazing is that it perfectly comprehends what is taking place in the present moment. So many before me who are far wiser have called it the Witness, and spent their lives trying to learn to live in that relaxed state. Try reading Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching, you’ll find it expressed beautifully there. This is also the heart of the Dzogchen teachings, the in-born state of simply being aware. It is described as empty of form, luminously aware and limitless in capacity. I think that captures it pretty well.

I’d even go on to say that it exists outside of us, and is the ground in which the empty blue sky hangs. As they say in the East, it is the “suchness” of things. The wetness of the water, the hotness of the fire.

So here’s the catch-this state is so basic and intrinsic to our lives that we constantly forget it. Don’t we want a big Satori experience, if we’re seeking liberation? A gate-crashing border-smashing release into the cosmic awareness? Many of us do, and we shouldn’t ignore that desire-but that experience comes unannounced, un-looked for, as an act of Grace, so we can’t know when, if ever, it will come. To paraphrase Ajahn Chan, the Thai Buddhist meditation master, “Enlightenment comes as an accident. But by sitting and meditating a lot, we make ourselves more accident-prone.”

So there’s another side of the enlightenment coin which says that maybe we don’t need that experience in order to be truly happy; maybe all we need is to release into this simple ground of being, over and over throughout the day, into this still, peaceful witnessing. This in and of itself is one of the most powerful (and oldest) meditation practices, and I highly recommend it. That way you can just relax, again, again again throughout the day, and become more present and aware of life as it happens in the moment. Eventually one enters into the dimension of Silence, and realizes that the heart of silence is love. But you’ll have to take my word for it (and many others’) until you experience it.

There are of course many meditation practitioners who after years of practice have a deep and blissful awakening, and most of them describe a similar experience (in fact I’d wager that almost all of them experience the same thing but after the fact have to filter it through their own persona, so it seems to vary a bit from case to case, since we are all unique): they become one with the cosmos and enter into a deep sense of peace that is absolutely still, and within which an infinite number of things manifest and then disappear. They realize that their bodies and actions are just the same as everything else, in flux, growing and then disappearing, and this gives them a sense of release beyond anything they could have imagined. Just to be rid of all the trying. This experience may last a few moments or a few weeks, and then they return to the ordinary mind, but are changed forever.

So I say this: don’t wait endlessly for that day to come. Keep doing your practices, but as often as possible just give in to the witnessing state whenever you remember to-it is always perfect, empty and understands you fully. In fact it has witnessed every thought, word and deed that you have ever experienced, without any judgment, without any wish for anything to be other than it is. This is a judgment-free zone that knows the very depths of your mind and it’s always present with you, knowing and peaceful and absolutely accepting of whatever takes place.

Personally, the more I release into the Witness (in either meditation or throughout the day) the more I become aware of the mind itself as an empty and constantly changing thing. Which means that nothing is set in stone, and that anything is possible. As the awareness grows, then we may find we want to start to change mental habits, that perhaps our minds are not as clean and nice as we’d like them to be. That maybe we want to be more compassionate. Either way, it all begins with this simple awareness, so give it a shot! After all, it is there whether you focus on it or not and knows your heart better than any other.

Love and limitless good wishes to everyone, success in your practices and peace in your hearts,

Barbu

Focusing on the Good Things

Greetings and holiday blessings, dear ones.

So here we are with snow on the ground, a cold breeze moving through the last days of December and the shortest day of sunlight officially past. For many of us that is a happy notion, since the long dark nights and short, brisk days can be emotionally challenging, especially when coupled with holiday stress and an immense cultural pressure to be cheery. So the real focus of this blog is happiness and becoming more happy-the goal and birthright of all living beings. Let’s get down to it, and how to achieve that through proper focus.

I’ll begin with where we focus our attention and intention as exemplified by the art (and it is an art) of concentration. In yoga, the word for this is Dharana, and it means making the mind one-pointed, i.e. focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all others. The Buddhists use the word Shamatha for this practice and all spiritual traditions emphasize one-pointed concentration on the Ultimate, the Divine, or whatever name we choose for the infinite, all-pervading Intelligence. In reality, whether we consider ourselves to be spiritual or not, we employ this technique at various times throughout the day, but the question remains to be asked: what are the possible fruits of our concentrated efforts, and are we concentrated on things that will ultimately help us to be happier?

How often do we practice Dharana? This varies wildly from person to person and from day to day, depending on our mental/emotional states. During work, a creative endeavor or exercise, we often concentrate deeply and completely, and time may pass by very quickly. Our actual perception of time fluctuates and this is significant. Maybe time isn’t as linear as we are taught to believe.

The hackneyed example of the athlete, completely present and absorbed in the game, still holds true and contains within it the seed of success or victory for that athlete, depending on the depth of their concentration. Yet I’ll argue that it is just as important for that athlete to concentrate on the right thing. If she begins to focus on tired legs then time will shift to a snail’s pace and the outcome of the race will certainly be affected. And this happens during meditation as well, especially as we first engage the practice. During my first month of meditation time seemed to play games with me. I would think, it’s been at least 20 minutes and then the clock would show me that it had been 5.

So real concentration should to be centered around the present moment-and this is the secret and the power of meditation, as it brings one gradually more and more in touch with what is happening in the present reality, rather than the past that we constantly edit and the future that will never take place as we imagine it. Starting with simple breath-awareness, or body-awareness when we sit is perfect for creating this sense of being established in the eternal present, as my teacher Dharma Mittra would say.

The main problem facing us is discontentment with the present and seeking an out from that discontent. Feel upset, and immediately the mind moves to the past or future, seeking a more pleasurable experience than the current one. Sitting in traffic, are we focused on the traffic jam? Not likely, and if this isn’t proof that we truly thirst for happiness, then I don’t know what is. But in reality we all know that temporary pleasure comes and goes, just as pain does, so stay in the traffic jam, and practice concentrating on the present moment. This will bring a greater ability in the future to concentrate on happiness as it begins to manifest itself. To not take it for granted. The saying goes, “time flies when you’re having fun.” Paying attention when you’re not can help us to really be present with the good, and understand its causes.

Now the sages, saints and teachers constantly tell us that true and meaningful happiness is long-lasting and builds gradually over time, with practice and effort. So we must distinguish between these two, happiness and pleasure, and set our sights on concentrating on the thing(s) that will help us to do two things:

One, accept reality as it is, and two, move ourselves towards an ideal or model of happiness. In Christian terms, we can concentrate on being Christ-like, compassionate and forgiving and selfless. The same holds true with the Buddha as a model, or any great teacher, saint or person that exemplifies true happiness.

So meditation isn’t a break from reality, but the exact opposite. In a time when a lot of different practices are entering the Western awareness, we have to be careful to understand the true purpose and essence of meditation, and how to practice it. True meditation is a re-structuring of our mental patterns, a remover of the deep grooves of discontentment that we’ve rutted into our self-perception and mindsets, most of which surround running from the present moment.

So sit still and try not to fidget, eyes closed most of the way and with a straight spine-this keeps the mind alert allows blood and energy to move up and down the spine. Set a timer and start with a realistic goal, let’s say 15 minutes. If that seems too long then try 10. Begin with simple present-moment awareness, to help calm the mind. Then formulate an ideal in your mind of love, selflessness, compassion, happiness or something uplifting and during the meditation keep the concentration on that ideal. You can use a mantra like “may I be more peaceful” to help anchor the mind. As thoughts and sounds invariably arise let them go without judgment, frustration or distraction-our minds are restless and love to chase thoughts endlessly. Instead, bring it back to the present moment and the focus of your meditation. Each week, add one more minute to your timer, and after a few months, you’ll be amazed how long you can sit and concentrate, and will certainly notice the effects in other areas of your life as well.

The object of meditation is up to you, of course, but themes like our inevitable mortality, compassion, what true happiness would actually look like to us and forgiveness are a great place to start. To have success in life we have to first believe that we can succeed, and to become happy we have to know that happiness is truly possible. For thousands of years, thousands of wise people have shown that it is and left detailed notes of their journeys. I wish everyone a blessed New Year and great fortune in your life’s work, and the best of luck with your meditation practices.

Warmest holiday wishes,

Barbu

Gratitude as the Attitude

I begin today’s blog with gratitude, in honor of the time of the year where we celebrate Thanksgiving.  Thank you for clicking on this link, dear ones. Let me follow this with a quote that I recently saw at a friend’s yoga studio: Gratitude is the Attitude.

A few years back a dear friend and I were in Sedona, Arizona having breakfast while on a long road trip. I was going through a difficult period in my life and she asked me, smiling, how I interface with the Cosmic, the Divine, and in what ways I communicate with the larger Life that surrounds me. I replied, “Well, each morning I ask that I be happy, healthy and free, that others be peaceful and liberated, that good things come to me and those I love,” and continued to recite a list of requests or prayers that I used to start my day with. She looked at me and (now not smiling) simply replied, “Do you ever just say thank you?”

This response had the effect of grabbing my ankles, turning me upside down, and shaking all the change out of my pockets. “Wow, I thought, I haven’t simply said thank you for being alive in a long time.” And at the time I thought pretty highly of myself!

The simple question she asked me now pops up in my heart almost once a day and gives me a moment to pause, take a breath, and simply say “Thank You” for what I am, for this life that I have been given. I now begin each day with a simple “Thank you”, right upon waking, even if I feel crummy. In truth I could have been born a million different people, in a million different places, and yet here I am, writing this blog, warm in a comfortable home on a brisk fall day. Not that many of my brothers and sisters around the world can say that. And yet they too have their own myriad things to be grateful for.

One of the quickest ways to finding a more lasting and stable sense of joy in the day-to-day is to foster gratitude and an attitude of appreciation for ourselves and the outside world that constantly nurtures us. Sometimes we have to fake it-but something about the words “Thank you” (see Masaru Emoto’s “The Message From Water) does something to shift that crumminess, even if it’s almost unnoticeable.

When we tell our partner that we love them, really we’re saying “I am so grateful for you being here, in my life, dearest.” When the sun shines after four days of clouds and we smile upon waking up to the bright blue sky, whether we hear the words in our minds or not we are saying “Thank you for shining again, dear sun.” It’s not that sun stops shining, it’s that the clouds cover it over (the depth of this realization is limitless and certainly worth another blog, to come soon). In another sense, we are also thanking the clouds for moving on, further east, and releasing the source of our life (and often enough, joy) back to us. So perhaps there’s an opportunity on a cloudy day to thank the clouds for the future time when they will eventually pass (as all things do), as we will feel that sunshine even more poignantly.

When we eat good food and taste that magical first bite, closing our eyes, humming “Mmm” to ourselves, salivating ecstatically, really that is an expression of gratitude not only for the fact that we have to eat to live, but for the delicious mouthful itself. But to discern even more deeply, we are in that “Mmm” thanking the preparer of the food, the pots and pans and knives that transformed it, the dishwasher (if we’re at a restaurant) that will clean up after us, the supplier and the one who delivered it from the farm, the farmer who spent the hard hours in the garden, the earth for nurturing the seed and the rain for watering the soil, the sun for providing light and warmth, and so on back through the lineages of farmers that have preserved the seeds (and though I don’t like to admit it, even Monsanto is a part of this Great Chain of Being, to use Ken Wilber’s term) and the knowledge of how to grow the food.

Very quickly, through that one bite, we are eating the whole of Life itself, regardless of whether it is an organic avocado or a twinkie, and if we spend enough time on that mouthful, even the Big Bang itself will become apparent, and gratitude will bloom. This is a great practice to help foster interconnectedness, as nothing exists without the full support of everything else, and it is only in the conceptual mind that we separate things into names and ideas and forms. In reality, the tree is a part of nature and not separate at all, its structure changing every trillionth of a second-it is just to communicate with one another that we have separated it so. And that is okay too.

Now what is even more miraculous is that this morsel will disappear and become something else, for us energy and waste matter, just as all those things that went into its creation as the perfect bite of food have become a part of us and our bodies. And in this we find the true essence of Transience and Interconnectedness. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen monk, sometimes uses an analogy of this sort and if this type of mindful eating is practiced with diligence, it can awaken something truly beautiful inside us and begin to dissolve our sense of separation from everything around us.

So this is my recommendation for Thanksgiving, which began as a religious holiday, essentially to give thanks to the Divine for a successful harvest season and for life itself (which is absolutely dependent upon the growers of food, thank you farmers!). This Thursday, before you take your first bite of turkey or tofurkey, cranberry or kraut, say a word of thanks in whatever way seems best to you for the chef or for the farmer, for the sun or the earth itself, before putting it in your mouth. Then with each bite, close your eyes and see if you can discover in its flavors the rain, the soil, the trees that give shade, the farmers, your ancestors and the incredible complexity of the natural processes that turn seeds into trees and young into old, and just say “Thank You” for all of it. We can nurture this attitude day in and day out with a little practice, until everything we see and do is one big movement of gratitude; and that can help to build a lasting sense of connectedness and at-homeness in the world and in our bodies.

As always dear ones, I end with deepest gratitude to you and the greatest wishes of good health and radiant joy for all, regardless of whether the sun shines today or not.

Barbu

Halloween Through the Heart

Greetings dear ones,

It’s finally Halloween. I say finally because this holiday falls right during my time of the year, 9 days before my incarnation in this body nearly 36 years ago. As a Scorpio it is my official day of reckoning, and as a Scorpio I am one that loves to wear masks and dress up anyway, most days of the year, diving into the dark corners of existence. So for your trick or treat, depending on how much you like this writing, my thoughts on the mask:

Halloween itself has come down to us from a blending of various religious holidays over the ages, most notably Samhain, the ancient Celtic celebration of “summer’s end.” The Celts felt that on the 31st of October the veils of the worlds thinned and it was more easy for spirits to pass from the land of the dead to the land of the living, and vice-versa, should one care to journey out of this our “middle world.” Hence the wearing of masks, so some say, where the living would dress up as spirits in order to trick the invading etheric beings, thus avoiding demonic possession, curses, and all that other nasty stuff that dead spirits were (and still are) believed to do to us warm-blooded mortals.

The veil between the worlds, thinning. Maya, as the Yogis call her, that tactile, tangible net that we wade through, suddenly full of holes. And I am reminded again of that Leonard Cohen lyric, “It’s the cracks that let the light through.” In this case, at this time of the year, in this eternal presen, what is peeking through the web at you?

I love this holiday. For one day a year most people in America feel comfortable enough to dress up as whatever they’ve always wanted to dress up as, and they take to the streets en masse, en blague. The freaks take over, or that’s the tag line. Of course not everyone takes part in the shenanigans and most parents end up as chaperons in their own neighborhoods, while the kids amass hoards of high fructose corn syrup-laden treats. But still, there’s something to the masquerade, isn’t there? We let go as a culture of the usual mask, the work mask, the family mask, the whatever mask, and put another one on, and sometimes the one we wear today is the closest to the real thing. And to top it off, it’s Saturday.

I am reminded of a Halloween about 4 years ago where I wore a mask to a dance party. It was a full-on masquerade so I wore a borrowed Venetian mask that hid my face behind a quixotic smile. I kept it on almost the entire night, completely hidden and “otherly.” Throughout this party I noticed that there was a deep feeling of disquietude growing in me and others, I could see and feel it in them, since the mask was so good that not even my eyes were detectable. The three friends that I was to meet there didn’t recognize me for over an hour. As time went on, other people’s costumes came loose (or off), but something about being hidden, something about that anonimity stuck with me that night, and I felt compelled to keep the game going. Then at some point, late in the game, a friend said “aren’t you hot under that thing?” I found this very funny and let the facade down, but the insights have stuck with me to this day.

Part of it was discomforting and part of it was liberating. I felt that because of the mask people were scared to come too close and mistrustful, but also reassured that I wasn’t really there-thus they could come a little closer. It varied depending on each person, of course. Some people love to wear masks and relate to others who do as well; some don’t. Yet everyone was in an in-between space with regards to me and several people shared some very strange and personal things with the mask, ones they probably would not have with a bare-faced human. A woman felt it necessary to confess a secret about her partner in the middle of the dance floor, and she couldn’t see the grimace I wore beneath the plaster. It was truly a strange space between the worlds, very appropriate for the night at hand, and I think of that often, wearing my mask to work or to yoga class-perhaps I’m feeling a bit low or confused when suddenly someone says, “hey, you look great!” What part of my mask are they seeing? Can they see beneath it, and would they want to? How safe is my mask, my smile, how comforting to others?

So these days I find two wonderful masking things happening on All Hallow’s Eve:

One, this other-self-ing-aspect, where we don alter egos, bare our skin in scandalous lingerie, throw on capes and eyepatches and generally let loose the hidden sides of ourselves that we rarely share with the world.

Two, the transitional aspect, moving from summer to winter, from long light to long night, from warm to cold, from outer to inner.

The costume and the winterizing. As fall deepens and the snows pile up on the Rockies we watch the leaves fall in the Northeast and it seems like the trees are dying. We see flower petals falling and not coming back and they too seem like they are dying. Yet this is an appearance-of course the annuals will come back and the other flowers won’t, but their cellular material and energy returns to the earth and becomes other minerals, nitrogen, etc, feeding roots and earth until spring calls it all forth again. The trees merely go on doing what they always do, sans leaves. Really all of nature is going within, remembering to conserve heat and energy for the cold months ahead, much like the bears and other animals that hibernate, donning a mask of stillness. It is the time of zazen in nature. I sometimes imagine the trees resting in Stillness, watching the inbreath and outbreath of energy as it comes, feeling that the sun, though closer than ever, is losing its power to transform them and bring them closer to itself; I feel them being okay with that. And at the same time we feel that cyclical call, deep in our DNA.

In this way Halloween can be a call to us to go within as well, to scale back some of the projects and outward energies of the warmer months, to prepare the nest and warm the hearth, inner and outer. And to be still.

Yet with the impending holiday madness upon us, this rarely happens. If anything, we turn away from the inward cycle and move into the bizarre outward cycle of projecting of our love for others into the brouhaha of gift-giving. Gift certificates and gift cards, the new way to go-that way people aren’t wasting precious time returning our presents. Halloween is, on the cultural level, the gateway to shopping season; so in that way, the veil is indeed thin today, especially as many of our wallets have grown thinner during these last two years.

For anyone familiar with Ken Wilber’s work, I offer the incredible book “Up From Eden,” in which the author parallels the movement of the human psyche from birth to adulthood to the transpersonal/ enlightenment phase with the movement of human culture through the ages. Riding the parallel lines of this epic work, we find ourselves culturally (according to Wilber, with whom I agree) mired in the High Egoic period, symbolically stuck in our late 30′s as a global community, all too concerned with amassing piles of money and possessions as a substitute for our lack of connectedness to the universe and source of our life. This time of year is a good reminder of that broken connection, or it certainly can be for many of us.

Wilber (and many great thinkers and sages before him) tell us that all this masking, all this substitute-self-ing, is an attempt to make up for our ego’s confusion about its separateness from everything around it. Somewhere along the line, at a young age, the mind begins to feel very, very alone, very, very separated from people, animals, nature, and ultimately from the Divine. Hence we train our egos to be strong, we seek to procreate, build lasting things, work hard for 401ks that we can hand down to our offspring, build up the ego as much as we can so that it feels more permanent and overall look outwardly for happiness in the material world (yes I love my computer). We can thus invent a sort of immortal self that replaces our real self, whose immortality is our birthright to begin with, but that we have all but forgotten. Forgive me Ken, for this poor synopsis, but it comes down to substitution and masking. And it feels so real, doesn’t it? Touch the computer screen, isn’t it separate from you?

I know that time is short before the fructose and other corn products need to be distributed. Hang on for a few more breaths.

Essentially I am asking you, dear reader, if you have gotten this far, to take a moment on Halloween and look within yourself. Inside each one of us the entire universe is manifested, and somewhere inside that universe is a little key that will unlock the chain that we keep on ourselves, that will open the mask. Look into the right portion of your heart, right in the center of your chest, and see if on this special day/night, when the veil is at its thinnest, there isn’t some light coming in there, or some message about the impending winter that you may need to hear. Maybe your ancestors are coming through the tiniest of the cracks in the veil and they have something to share with you. Maybe nothing is coming through at all, just silence-this is significant as well. After all, this holiday has been celebrated for thousands of years, and our times are no less fearful or magical than any other times.

Yet I urge you take five minutes today before the fun starts to simply un-mask yourself. Take five minutes of deep Stillness. Let go of the family, the work, the social life, drop the successes and failures and ownership of everything, as best you can, and just look into your heart. Somewhere, in one of the smallest of cracks in this great veil is an entry point-it is a direct line to reality, the unconditioned, unbroken unity that permeates the Cosmos, the true and infinite Self. The place of no-separation is there. Meditate on that space for five minutes, just searching for it. And if that sounds too difficult or weird then try this:

Think about your ultimate Halloween costume, the one that is closest to your image of your truest self. If this too is difficult then think back to when you were about 5 or 6 and think what you wore then for Halloween, or what you would have liked to have been in your ideal world. If you were my age, it may have been Han Solo or Luke or Spidey, if you were a boy. Maybe Fozzie Bear. Ask yourself what this true-self-costume would look like, how long it would take to put together, where you would get the things you need to make it, and where on earth you could possibly wear it? Would it just be you as you are already? Would you be a superhero?A tramp? A vampire? If you get a good answer from within then ask yourself where you’re going to spend Halloween, when the veil is at its thinnest and the spirits are breathing close. Are you going to a party where you can wear this super-outfit? Would you get arrested if you did? Are you with close friends tonight, ones that will see this you and love it, or laugh? Coming into contact with this self can be very liberating and throw some insight back at us, no matter what it looks like.

There’s a good chance that every day is Halloween and that every day we cover up this true shining Self that inhabits us. I invite you to do yourself a favor and let some portion of that truer self out of the bag just this one night, in honor of the season, and see what ends up happening. Be a shining warrior or a maven or a thundercat. But be forewarned-there is a wildness within us, one that has not been tamed by thousands of years of culture and conditioning, and if your inner self is a vampire 0r a werewolf, then please, for the sake of your friends, wear some garlic.

Blessings, love, courage,

BarBoo!

The Rose-Colored Lens

Good news from the good earth-10/27/09

I am a great fan of “News of the Weird,” the site maintained by the illustrious and hysterical Chuck Shepherd that compiles the strangest and often most grotesque exploits of the human race; they remind me all too often of the Darwin awards and how outrageous living as a human on earth can truly be. So while looking over it this week I stumbled on the snippet below which illustrates to me the subtle and impossibly quirky nature (and humor) of the universe, and what is sometimes referred to as karma.

Adventure in the Bush: In June, after a monitored, endangered marsupial (a “woylie”) was killed in West Australia, scientists set out to recover the expensive radio collar transmitter it was wearing, but as they approached the signal, a 6-foot-long python swallowed the woylie and collar. The scientists captured the snake, intending to wait for the collar to pass through, but poachers broke into the Department of Environment and Conservation’s shelter and stole the python, surely intending to sell it. According to a June report in The West Australian, the scientists, aided by authorities, eventually picked up the radio transmissions again, arrested one poacher, and freed the snake from its impending life of captivity. [The West Australian, 6-27-09]

Life does not always reward the righteous, nor does it always punish the pilferer, but in this instance, it seems to have done both. Poachers feel, perhaps not unjustly, that they simply can’t feed their families and need to poach animals to survive. Animal protectors feel that it is their (and our) duty to protect endangered and threatened (and really all) species from ourselves. Both were acting in what they feel to be the right manner. Yet the poachers slipped up and as a result, were caught. The diligence and care of the scientists was rewarded. Is there an unseen, karmic hand of justice at work here? Tangentially, this incident makes me think of the work being done with elephants in Africa to track down and catch the poachers that have killed members of their herds, as they have near-perfect memories of the humans with which they come in contact.

So what is my point? I raise the question of morality to you dear reader, and whether or not the universe rewards those who seek to do good to others and act compassionately, without very much self-interest and often against all “logical” reasoning. I raise along with it the question of whether or not surrendering to the universe helps this process along in any noticeable way.

Often when looking back on an event that seemed grueling, terrible or unjust as I was muddling through it, I find this sort of pattern emerging when hindsight finally graces me with its insightful lens. Examples abound in my life, and surely in yours. Essentially, I feel that the present moment hides the deeper purposes and machinations of the universe and the Cosmic Intelligence that permeates it, because we hide it from ourselves and are often projecting the future/past onto it. This is rarely done from an entirely (or partially) selfless intention. Thus, it seems that only while looking back from some point in the future can we really see that the branching but subtle nature of cause and effect was leading us towards some unforeseen boon. Or perhaps, tragedy. I again raise the question of karmas, a much-used term that I define as actions, whether beneficial or harmful to ourselves and/or others.

A good example from my life, of beneficent karma coming about through surrender, and no small measure of mystery: several years ago I lived with a couple and the woman’s younger brother in Nederland, Colorado. She worked at Century 21 selling real estate and one day a man showed up at her office with his Norwegian Keeshond and his pickup truck, saying he was looking to buy property in the area. She waved him over to the house where I and the other roommates were relaxing, telling him we were good folks that would certainly entertain him while she got some prospective homes together for him to look at.

He ended up staying with us and living in the truck in front of our house for about two months, using our shower and kitchen, and though he never bought a house there he stayed for two years and became a great friend. One year after meeting us, out of nowhere, he dragged me to L.A. on an all-night road trip for a Playaween party, an annual Burning Man-related event that takes place on or around Halloween. In order to go I had to skip 3 days of work, spend money I didn’t have, and take a chance-yet it felt right, so I did. At that party I met a gaggle of wild and unpredictable burners, as they are sometimes called, signaling to me that I should certainly attend Burning Man the following year to experience it and reconnect with these new friends. I was told by near-perfect strangers, “don’t worry, you’ll be taken care of.” Bear in mind that at this time in my life I felt that the universe was a dangerous place and certainly not supportive of me and my projects.

Flashing forward to almost a year ahead, the same friend with whom I was living that was in the abovementioned couple, was meant to be married the day that Burning Man was to start to the woman who lived with us-but through another string of cause and effect the wedding was broken off 3 days prior to the planned day, very painfully and suddenly. On a whim I flew back to Colorado, grabbed the pickup truck of the friend who had arrived looking to buy a house (the same truck he slept in, parked in front of our house) that was now sitting parked and idle in Denver (he suggested I take this bizarre course of action and it felt right, so I said “sure”), and drove myself and the heartbroken groom-not-to-be out to Burning Man with just enough gas money to get there and no tickets to the event, no food or clothing and not a clue about how to survive in the desert for a week at a wild art and music festival. Yet we were taken care of, fed, dressed, shown around and sent home with money in our pockets, just as I was told we would be. In truth we were cared for far beyond any expectations I could have had.

This experience at Burning Man led me to meet several other amazing folks, one of whom (after I moved back to the NYC area) hired me at a yoga studio founded by a man named Dharma Mittra, one of the great living masters of yoga. Again this friend said to me, “I think it would be a good idea for you,” so surrendering my other job, I jumped in with both feet for a pay cut, a 2-hour commute (as opposed to 15 minutes) and a job working for a studio that I knew nothing about. Merely a good feeling led me to do this. This in turn led me to start practicing yoga in a serious manner, delving into the sacred history, practices and texts of this ancient and scientific path to liberation, health and compassion, and 200-hour certifications in two different styles of Hatha Yoga, one of them with the man who is now my teacher, Sri Dharma Mittra. In the midst of this I found a job at a holistic learning center that led me to a Reiki certification, and gave me the confidence to start studying with the Shamanic teacher and healer who I had been receiving healings from over the last few years, and now I am practicing that incredible form and sharing the light with others.

Don’t worry if it sounds like a tangled web and I lost you about a paragraph ago. The gist is this-as it was happening, I felt a bit crazed, wayward and often was beyond broke, borrowing money here and there and eating little. Yet looking back, rather than a tangled web I see one line in the sand, drawn by a wise and compassionate hand that was leading me, step by step, into my current passion and profession, yoga teacher and shamanic reiki practitioner. Some of these branches were conscious decisions that I had to make and ordeals to pass through in their own rights. Yet each time, something “felt” right, and I grabbed the outstretched hand of a stranger, a friend or a teacher, and simply went along for the ride as best I could.

This brings me to the real point-surrendering to the universe. In all these instances I simply said “yes,” regardless of finances, responsibilities and “better judgment.” In fact, I consciously went against all my monetary concerns (and the advice of others) because somewhere along the walk/web I learned that surrendering to fate while keeping faith that the universe is an ally invariably ends up well. I guess it was a case of listening to my heart, to put it in a trite but accurate way. And of course, I have not yet seen the end of this journey, so it may all go south; in the meantime these experiences have led me to a deep feeling of reciprocal trust towards the world around me.

Back to the snake, the woylie and the poachers. What can we learn from this incident, and can we draw any insights from these events that certainly tie in with surrender and stealing? It’s too simplistic to say that because the poachers were committing a crime, that because they were breaking and entering and even worse, depleting dangerously depleted animal populations, they were punished by the universe, the Divine, by God, et al. Yet the great sages of all the world traditions speak of merit, karma, good works, compassion, etc, as the key to a happy life and all the world’s spiritual paths suggest that there is retribution for wrong action, even if the method varies. The wise ones suggest that as soon as we begin to release the plan, even if we try to formulate one at first (not a bad idea of course), and start to listen to the subtle language of chance and see if things “feel” right, we enter into a direct relationship of give and take with life. Perhaps it already exists but by consciously releasing our agendas and taking risks we are able to come more into balance with it.

And in that spirit I offer gratitude to you, dear one, for having made it this far. I invite you to take ten minutes during the next day and look back on the branching path of cause and effect that has led you to this blog and to your life in its present form, whatever that may be. Try to release the judgment about that life and see if there is indeed a visible trail of cause and effect that you can begin to pinpoint that has run through your life like a string of pearls-major events, choices, crises, etc. See if you can begin to feel when and where you have chosen to surrender to the world and when and where you have felt dearth, lack and fear, and forcibly taken what you could, even if it was not offered. Then see if you can find any kind of effects that came from these choices, and where those led. This is a sometimes scary process but it begins to offer insight into the mind-forms that we live with, and perhaps it can help to loosen some of them and offer deeper wisdom. As the wisest of the wise say, the more we surrender and give, the more we are able to receive.

Blessings, Gratitude,

Barbu

 

News of the Weird excerpt can be found on the url listed below:

http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/index.html

Jai

Greetings dear ones, if you’ve found this blog then it was not in error. Stay tuned for more words and ideas, and have a blessed day.