The Secret Beauty of Their Hearts

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed... I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.

[Christian mystic, Thomas Merton]

There is a field...

out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

when the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn't make any sense

[RUMI]

[shared with me by blogger friend, Zafu]
[photography by Kevin Schnepp]

Gone Beyond

Beyond the senses are their objects, and beyond the objects is the mind. Beyond the mind is pure reason, and beyond reason is the Spirit in man.

Beyond the Spirit in man is the Spirit of the universe, and beyond is Purusha (God/Godhead), the Spirit Supreme. Nothing is beyond Purusha: He is the End of the path.

The light of the Atman, man's Spirit, is invisible, concealed in all beings. It is seen by the seers of the subtle, when their vision is keen and is clear.

[from the Katha Upanishad]

Most of the time I'm content to stay within the realm of the very first level - the level of the senses. There's not much depth - just getting by in life, spinning from this project to that project, feeding my belly and doing things that feel good.

Oh how much we miss when we choose not to delve deeper. As Deepak Chopra says, perhaps Jesus' condemnation of "the world" and worldliness is not so much a disdain for the things of this world, but rather an invitation to see outer things as a trap that keeps us from going within to deeper realities.

This is why the Buddhists say:

"Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha"

or

"Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, oh what an awakening!"

The Third Jesus: Book on the Way

It's been a little while since I've been excited about a new book that is being released. I don't tend to be ahead of the curve that much and only pick up books that have been out for a while. That said, I happened to open an email from Amazon.com about some new releases and found this. As a fan of Mr. Chopra's work (generally) and as someone who is always looking for fresh and ever-widening ways to understand my Christian faith, I'm very much excited to dive in. Watch for a review in the coming weeks.

The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore (Deepak Chopra)

From Amazon.com's book description:

"Who is Jesus Christ?

In The Third Jesus, bestselling author and spiritual leader Deepak Chopra provides an answer to this question that is both a challenge to current systems of belief and a fresh perspective on what Jesus can teach us all, regardless of our religious background. There is not one Jesus, Chopra writes, but three.

First, there is the historical Jesus, the man who lived more than two thousand years ago and whose teachings are the foundation of Christian theology and thought. Next there is Jesus the Son of God, who has come to embody an institutional religion with specific dogma, a priesthood, and devout believers. And finally, there is the third Jesus, the cosmic Christ, the spiritual guide whose teaching embraces all humanity, not just the church built in his name. He speaks to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience, to attain what some might call grace, or God-consciousness, or enlightenment.

When we take Jesus literally, we are faced with the impossible. How can we truly “love thy neighbor as thyself”? But when we see the exhortations of Jesus as invitations to join him on a higher spiritual plane, his words suddenly make sense.

Ultimately, Chopra argues, Christianity needs to overcome its tendency to be exclusionary and refocus on being a religion of personal insight and spiritual growth. In this way Jesus can be seen for the universal teacher he truly is–someone whose teachings of compassion, tolerance, and understanding can embrace and be embraced by all of us."

Adventure and the Hero's Quest

Last year while watching Peter Jackson's retelling of KING KONG (starring Naomi Watts, Jack Black, etc.) I had a revelation: I love adventure movies.

In fact, if you recall, King Kong is broken into 2 main parts: the traveling to the island and discovery of all that lived there and then, later, the taking of King Kong back to the States. I found myself entranced with the first half and bored with the second. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Goonies, The Lord of the Rings, The Fisher King, 2001 - all stories that steal us away on an adventure.

There's something about discovery, magical lands, long journeys, and the process of uncovering the veiled that I find both primal and fascinating. Alan Watts talks about the zen concept of Yugen: "To watch the sun sink behind a flower-clad hill, to wander on and on in a huge forest without thought of return, to stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that disappears behind distant islands, to contemplate the flight of wild geese seen and lost among the clouds."

And though I'm not always in this mindset, I've had fun in the past "playing" my day as though it were an adventure story: seeing each person I came in contact with as a fascinating character that would change the course of the story, looking on my environment as a magical place, taking on apathy, temptation or other distractions as dragons to be slain, and treating goals as if they were grails to attain.

It is for this reason that I've finally picked up Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (though I've read plenty of other of Campbell's work) and have begun making my way through it.

"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man." (Joseph Campbell)

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Now playing on Trev's iTunes: Sting - I Was Brought To My Senses
via FoxyTunes

Self-Discipline

My favorite definition of it is this:

Self-discipline is not the suppression of desires (or an attempt to keep us from doing what we think we want), rather it is choosing your highest/deepest desire instead of your superficial desire(s) in that moment.

I can't tell you how many times going at it from that angle has helped me stay on track.

Living Life or Being Lived By Life

THEY SAY: let life live you, go with the flow, surrender, relax and let be, don't push.

THEY SAY: imagine your intentions and then bring them to be, set your mind to something and it will happen, persevere, make things happen.

Although it certainly seems so, I don't think these lifestyles are mutually exclusive.

I've just spent a little too MUCH time in the first camp.

I've begun dabbling in the second and it feels pretty damn good to grow up and get my life in order.

Snap, Crackle, Pop (Kinky)

I can still very much recall when it happened.

About three years ago I had taken up a yoga practice and was getting pretty regular at it. Up until that time I would say I had a fairly bad (but common) posture of rounding my back all the time.

Well one day while in downward-dog, my shoulders rolled back a bit and my back straightened in a way that - quite frankly I'm not sure ever had - and there was a very intense *POP* in my spine right between my shoulder blades. It wasn't a bad pop, in fact it was one of the most insanely pleasurable things in my entire life.

I remember going to a friend's house that evening with my wife and feeling like my body was floating on air - like some sort of kink that I had carried for years was finally blasted open. In fact to this day, I still like to stretch against a wall and recreate that "pop" (though it is now a fraction of the intensity it was that first day).

It's amazing what happens when we butt up against resistances, knots and tough situations and - instead of recoiling in fear - find what it takes to blast through. We've all got quirks and kinks and while some must be accepted as limitations, others are ready to be blown through to find release and freedom on the other side.

Tricksters

I really enjoyed this video below. At most schools there is a tradition of the students pulling off a class prank. Many times these things are malicious, causing destruction and harm. (A couple of us, for example, in high school wanted to put a live goat in the Library... which never came to fruition, by the by.)

In the clip below, the Junior Class at some high school blocked traffic for some time by walking in a steady stream across the street, running through the underground tunnels and getting back in line. It's quite the humorous display. One can only imagine the frustration of those waiting in their cars to get through.

There ARE stories throughout the world's traditions of God being the Divine Trickster: Krishna as the butter thief, the Native American coyote, etc. I think a healthy amount of mischief is good for the world. It helps us see that our little dramas are mostly superficial (like being stuck in a traffic jam) and since EVERYTHING ends, then NOTHING is to be taken too seriously (sincerly, yes, but not too seriously).

Enjoy "The Junior Prank":

Giving. Now.

"Most men make the error of thinking that one day it will be done. They think, 'If I can work enough, then one day I could rest.' Or, 'One day my woman will understand something and then she will stop complaining.' Or, 'I'm only doing this now so that one day I can do what I really want with my life.' The masculine error is to think that eventually things will be different in some fundamental way. They won't. It never ends. As long as life continues, the creative challenge is to tussle, play and make love with the present moment while giving your unique gift."
[David Deida, in "The Way of the Superior Man"]

This reminds me of the cliché (yet deeply true) phrase, "If not now, when?" When does sleeping ever get us to tomorrow? If today - even right in this moment - I'm not living as the fullest expression of what I am or what I want to be, then I never will. Situations and atmospheres will change, but that everlasting, constant hum of dissatisfaction and wanting will never change (as long as I'm waiting for it to). The only thing one can do - as Deida points out in this book - is to artfully transmute your wanting into giving: to give your gift - your life - fully now and not assume that you'll do it later when ____ happens.

The Magic in the Music

What’s the magic in the music?
And why does it bring us together like this?
We all have a longing inside
And it keeps us singin’ song, after song, after song.
(from "The Best Song Ever," by Chris Rice)

Is there not something mystical about music? Are not the themes of rhythm, harmony, and melody metaphors for life's deepest truths? Have you never been part of a live concert that morphs into one body with one heart and one voice?

I remember hearing a story from a friend about a "Godspeed You! Black Emperor" concert being more spiritual than any church service ever experienced. I remember times of songwriting where I am completely out of the way and "it" quite literally writes itself. I've found that if nothing else breaks the ice, conversations about music will quite certainly do so.

YOUR TURN: What's one mystical/magical moment you've had in regards to music?

"After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
(Aldous Huxley)

"Spiritual" blogging...

... is inspirational encouragement - a way to share your life and reflections as a gift to others, those who read your words.

But there is virtually no substitute for actual practice and experience. Religion as we know it has far too long made spirituality a masculine, heady proposition - and blogging, too, lives in that realm.

Bring the attention out of the head, down into the body, live as a gift to others, and see if that doesn't make all the difference.

Exhale

Experiment: Take a deep, deep inhalation and once your lungs and belly are full, hold it. Hold it, feel the tension and the growing burn. A little longer. As long as you can.

And release.

That... that's it. Feel that? That's what the world needs. It's easy to get so damned involved with horizontal life - with all its anxieties and troubles and appointments and excitements - that you are knocked out of balance, all bloated with crap and needing to exhale. As I said in a previous post, it's a kind of contraction "anytime we live from the level of Ego. It's like a muscle tightening up when we desire something or get caught up in ourselves. It's relaxing that contraction that allows us to spread out, surrender, release..."

YOUR TURN: Books? Beer? Backrubs? Hot Baths? Yoga? Sex? Porch swings? Swimming? Bike riding? Dancing? Napping? Laughing? What helps YOU uncoil, expand, release and open?

Light of the World

"YOU are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house." {Jesus}

How can you give your light now/today so that the world becomes brighter instead of darker?

On Distractions and the Dance

You sit down to meditate. Within a few minutes, your stomach starts rumbling and grumbling for some food. A moment later the alarm on your cellular phone starts going off in the other room. There is a few moments of calm and then the dogs start barking at a rabbit in the back yard. A police siren screams down the street.

The natural, habitual reaction to all this is to label these things distractions to the peace and focus of your meditation. I believe the first step, however, toward really making meditation meaningful is the simple observation that the dance of life is happening. Meditation is nothing more than resting in consciousness. It is identifying with with formless, still base-point, or ground, upon which all of life springs forth. But what is consciousness without light/form/life, and vice versa?

There is the Ground and there is the Dance.
There is the Masculine and there is the Feminine.
There is the Source and there is the Expression.

These things that come up while we are identifying with consciousness are not distractions; they are the very life that consciousness witnesses. They are that which dances while we remain still. It is only because the light and life dances we know any stillness at all.

On Life and Biscuits

►::STATUS:: Optimistic
♫::LISTENING TO:: "Physical Cities" by The Bad Plus

I am finally finishing up Jack Kornfield's book "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry." One of my favorite quotations from the book actually isn't from Mr. Kornfield, but rather a section from the writing of Zen teacher Edward Espe Brown:

"When I first started cooking at Tassajara, I had a problem. I couldn't get my biscuits to come out the way they were supposed to. I'd follow a recipe and try variations, but nothing worked. These biscuits just didn't measure up.

Growing up I had made two kinds of biscuits. One was from Bisquick and the other from Pillsbury. For the Bisquick you added milk in the mix and then blobbed the dough in spoonfuls onto the pan - you didn't even need to roll them out. The biscuits from Pillsbury came in kind of a cardboard can. You rapped the can on the corner of the counter and it popped open. Then you twisted the can open more, put the premade biscuits on a pan, and baked them. I really liked those Pillsbury biscuits. Isn't that what biscuits should taste like? Mine weren't coming out right.

It's wonderful and amazing the ideas we get about what biscuits should taste like, or what a life should look like. Compared to what? Canned biscuits from Pillsbury? Leave it to Beaver? People who ate my biscuits would extol their virtues, eating one after another, but to me these perfectly good biscuits just weren't right. Finally one day came a shifting-into-place, an awakening. "Not right" compared to what? Oh, my word, I'd been trying to make canned Pillsbury biscuits! Then came an exquisite moment of actually tasting my biscuits without comparing them to some previously hidden standard. They were wheaty, flaky, buttery, sunny, earthy, real. They were incomparably alive - in fact, much more satisfying than any in memory.

These occasions can be so stunning, so liberating, these moments when you realize your life is just fine as it is, thank you. Only the insidious comparison to a beautifully prepared, beautifully packaged product made it seem insufficient. Trying to produce a biscuit - a life - with no dirty bowls, no messy feelings, no depression, no anger, was frustrating. Then savoring, actually tasting the present moment of experience - how much more complex and multifaceted. How unfathomable.

As Zen students we spend years trying to make it look right, trying to cover the faults, conceal the messes. We knew what the Bisquick Zen student looked like: calm, buoyant, cheerful, energetic, deep, profound. Our motto, as one of my friends said, was, "looking good." We've all done it, trying to look good as a husband, a wife or parent. Trying to attain perfection. Trying to make Pillsbury biscuits.

Well, to heck with it, I say. Wake up and smell the coffee. How about some good old home cooking, the biscuits of today."

"Who am I" Video Meditation

For the last several years I have been blessed to enjoy hours upon hours of recording talks from Alan Watts. I realized I had never seen actual video of the old chap, so I decided to look him up on YouTube. While I did find some video lectures, what struck me most was a fantastic video meditation of images coupled with one of Alan's lectures. I believe one could watch this every day for a thousand years and be in awe of it every time. Here is "Who Am I?":

Nada te turbe

Lines written in the breviary of Saint Theresa of Avila:

Nada te turbe,
Let nothing disturb you,
Nada te espante,
Nothing frighten you,
Todo se pasa,
All is passing,
Dios no se muda,
God does not change,
La paciencia
Patience
Todo lo alcanza;
Attains to all;
Quien a Dios tiene
One who holds to God
Nada le falta:
Lacks nothing:
Solo Dios basta.
God alone is enough.

(As translated by John S. Dunne in The Homing Spirit)

The Warrior's Approach

"If we hope to open our heart to all of the world, we must leave nothing out. Freedom and awakening are only found exactly where we are. If we wish to love God we must also learn to love each of His creations - including ourselves, in all our complexity and imperfection. " (Jack Kornfield in "After the Ecstacy, the Laundry")

"I am large, I contain multitudes." (Walt Whitman)

Lately, I've wanted things to go my way. I get frustrated - significantly and ridiculously frustrated - when this should be that, and this thing should go that way. In fact I've been pretty down for a while because I've had this image in my head of the way things should be (ie, "I really need more free time," "Why can't I keep on top of the things I need to do," etc.).

But it's starting to dawn on me (thanks in part to the Kornfield book mentioned above) - I've compartmentalized and segmented "what is." I'm playing favorites with all of "God's creations" when I choose a clean car over a messy car, a simple schedule over a busy schedule, happiness over sadness - actually anything over anything else. It is all part of, as Zorba the Greek put it, "the whole catastrophe." Failures, stresses, messes, and negativity are no less part of the whole that makes up LIFE.

Peace is seeing perfection in what is rather than what you/I think it should be. Peace is acceptance of messy emotions and unforeseen circumstances. Peace is seeing the divine in an unmowed yard or half-finished project. Peace is surfing on top of life's wave of up and downs, rather than drowning in it.

This isn't fatalism or an excuse to cease trying to do or change anything. But it is a mature response when your attempts are futile or when things don't go as planned. It is a surrender to let life unfold as it will.

"The warrior's approach is to say "yes"to life: "yea" to it all.” (Joseph Campbell)

"I"

Who / what exactly do you mean when you say the word I? Where is your ego? Who is the one behind your eyes?

Alan Watts suggests that when you say "I", what you are referring to is a muscular contraction... that tightness in the body, that "pulling yourself together," that certain, always-on unsatisfactoriness or baseline anxiety.

Release. Then release further. That tight "I" will unfold. The line between "I" and environment will blur. Exhale, there is peace and all is right with the world.