We all know the only constant thing in life is change. But what does that mean? It means the best skill to have is a knack for transitions. Why? Because transitions are occurring every second, and never stop. Nothing is the same from one moment to the next.
That's a very big statement. Nothing is the same from one moment to the next. Nothing. If we look for an exception to this rule, we don't find one directly. The only thing we find is more things that are changing. But looking is brilliant for making that clear.
The clearer it is, the better we are at making transitions. They become second nature. We expect them all the time. We expect them right now. Our openness to them has a samurai's clarity. It is not a question of when, but a pledge of whenever.
Why not make one yourself? Why not open to change as deeply and daringly as you can? You don't need to wreak havoc in the name of it. You simply sit back and get it that change is every step. That way when it comes, you step right along with it.
The alternative is less agreeable. It's the heartache that follows when we push change away. We can learn to recognize that feeling. We can see for it what it is, which transforms it into gold. Then it's no longer pain, but reliable feedback, asking us to grow.
Are we willing to do it? That willingness is the paramount skill in a world based on change. If you have it, you're happy, and happiness seeks you out. If you lack it, you're not, and you can't catch a break. Why not let these words in and catch one right here?
December 11, 2007
December 10, 2007
meditating more
People tell me all the time about their wish to meditate more. When I ask them why they don't, they don't really know. The only thing they are aware of is that periodically they try to build up a meditation practice, and for some reason it doesn't stick.
I hear this kind of thing often enough that I think it must be pretty common. I also know from my own practice that sticking to meditation on a regular basis can be a big challenge, especially during the periods when we need it the most, and therefore avoid it.
I can think of several times when the last thing I wanted to do was meditate, precisely because it was what I needed most. I was too wound up inside. Sitting still was very painful. It brought stress and emotion to the surface immediately, and I bolted.
In fact, I bolted a moment ago. I wrote the word bolted and flew out the door! I was halfway around the block before I realized what was happening. My writing process was creating the right content for the rest of this inquiry, using me as a prop.
What matters is that I returned, the same thing that matters when you want to meditate more. It's not about the fact that you didn't manage to. You have to let that go. It's about coming back over and over again, and resuming your routine with dignity.
Whenever you do, you deepen your understanding of why practices challenge us. It's one of their functions, and we're lucky to have it. We sit with our pain and complaints and distortions, and learn to free ourselves from them by enduring the storms.
I hear this kind of thing often enough that I think it must be pretty common. I also know from my own practice that sticking to meditation on a regular basis can be a big challenge, especially during the periods when we need it the most, and therefore avoid it.
I can think of several times when the last thing I wanted to do was meditate, precisely because it was what I needed most. I was too wound up inside. Sitting still was very painful. It brought stress and emotion to the surface immediately, and I bolted.
In fact, I bolted a moment ago. I wrote the word bolted and flew out the door! I was halfway around the block before I realized what was happening. My writing process was creating the right content for the rest of this inquiry, using me as a prop.
What matters is that I returned, the same thing that matters when you want to meditate more. It's not about the fact that you didn't manage to. You have to let that go. It's about coming back over and over again, and resuming your routine with dignity.
Whenever you do, you deepen your understanding of why practices challenge us. It's one of their functions, and we're lucky to have it. We sit with our pain and complaints and distortions, and learn to free ourselves from them by enduring the storms.
December 8, 2007
the original unity
The mind operates by dividing the original unity of the world and interpreting the resulting pieces. That's a big statement for the start of a short inquiry, so I'll ask you to read it a few times, if not right now, then immediately after reaching the end.
Once the mind breaks the original unity of the world into pieces, it begins casting a spell over us, and generally we succumb to it. There's a good chance we are succumbing to it now. It would be perfectly normal, but it may not be what we want most as spiritual beings.
The spell the mind casts is to make us believe in the pieces. There's nothing wrong with creating them. In fact, that's the mind's job. The mind is supposed to operate that way. It is following its nature when it divides things up and tries to gain a sharper view.
The problem is the pieces are not the deepest reality. They are not the deepest truth. The deepest truth is the original unity, a fact we tend to lose sight of as our minds do their job. In most cases we lose sight of it to the point of forgetting it completely.
Once we forget, we fall under the spell. Forgetting the original unity is the spell. Some people call it a trance. It's a restless state that always wants more. It's an emphasis on having more, becoming more, making things different, and overcoming adversity.
Those are natural responses to life when we're under the spell. They are all a masked quest to reconnect with the original unity of all things, to remember it again. But they don't deliver that result, and never can. They perpetuate division by believing in it.
Once the mind breaks the original unity of the world into pieces, it begins casting a spell over us, and generally we succumb to it. There's a good chance we are succumbing to it now. It would be perfectly normal, but it may not be what we want most as spiritual beings.
The spell the mind casts is to make us believe in the pieces. There's nothing wrong with creating them. In fact, that's the mind's job. The mind is supposed to operate that way. It is following its nature when it divides things up and tries to gain a sharper view.
The problem is the pieces are not the deepest reality. They are not the deepest truth. The deepest truth is the original unity, a fact we tend to lose sight of as our minds do their job. In most cases we lose sight of it to the point of forgetting it completely.
Once we forget, we fall under the spell. Forgetting the original unity is the spell. Some people call it a trance. It's a restless state that always wants more. It's an emphasis on having more, becoming more, making things different, and overcoming adversity.
Those are natural responses to life when we're under the spell. They are all a masked quest to reconnect with the original unity of all things, to remember it again. But they don't deliver that result, and never can. They perpetuate division by believing in it.
December 7, 2007
slowing down
There's only one thing that really helps when we're in trouble. When trouble starts, we tend to speed up. Speeding up is not what helps. But because we're going quickly, the thing that helps is slowing down. Whenever we feel wrong, the best bet is slowing down.
It might feel terrible at first. We might experience pain when we try. But the pain we go through is what we need to experience. The pain is the reason we are going too fast in the first place. We did not want to feel it. So we accelerated inside and ran away for a while.
We might try all sorts of distractions when we get going too fast. We might cling to our gadgets or run all over town. The energy of not wanting to feel something painful is extremely powerful at times and it tends to possess us. We lose ourselves in it and get frantic.
Sometimes we wear ourselves out. That's one method of slowing down. It's the method of no other choice. We simply play out our frenzy and collapse into a slower state. In its extreme forms, this manner of slowing down is called personal crisis or exhaustion.
But other options exist. They depend on our willingness. They depend on an honest assessment of how quickly we're going as we speed up, and a choice to pull out of an impending tailspin before it crashes to the ground. We can make the right response into a practice.
The right response is slowing down. That's the only thing to do. Whenever we notice ourselves in a big hurry, whenever we start down the slippery slope into trouble, we can pause on the inside and let ourselves know better. Slow down right now!
It might feel terrible at first. We might experience pain when we try. But the pain we go through is what we need to experience. The pain is the reason we are going too fast in the first place. We did not want to feel it. So we accelerated inside and ran away for a while.
We might try all sorts of distractions when we get going too fast. We might cling to our gadgets or run all over town. The energy of not wanting to feel something painful is extremely powerful at times and it tends to possess us. We lose ourselves in it and get frantic.
Sometimes we wear ourselves out. That's one method of slowing down. It's the method of no other choice. We simply play out our frenzy and collapse into a slower state. In its extreme forms, this manner of slowing down is called personal crisis or exhaustion.
But other options exist. They depend on our willingness. They depend on an honest assessment of how quickly we're going as we speed up, and a choice to pull out of an impending tailspin before it crashes to the ground. We can make the right response into a practice.
The right response is slowing down. That's the only thing to do. Whenever we notice ourselves in a big hurry, whenever we start down the slippery slope into trouble, we can pause on the inside and let ourselves know better. Slow down right now!
change nothing
Have you ever heard the following statement? Be the change you want in the world. That's a beautiful sentiment. But if you wrote it down, and I was your editor, I would cut the sentence down to only its first word. I would throw the rest out. Be. Period.
The biggest problem in the world is that everyone wants to change it. Change is fine as a political force, but it gets you into trouble on the spiritual frontier. In your spiritual life you have to learn not to change anything. Total acceptance is a much higher value.
Total acceptance is also very difficult. It's far more difficult than opposing things. There's no outward glory in it. There's no recognition. There is simply the expansion of humility until it sees the big picture and adores it as it is. Oh, there's happiness too.
The surprising result of acceptance of that kind is that nothing changes the world more. In fact, the strangest spiritual insight of all is that nothing else changes the world one iota. Appearances change, but the underlying issues simply resurface in a new form.
World history is one illustration after another of change amounting to bupkus. That's a yiddish word for nothing. What did Einstein say? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? That's a statement about change.
It's also an injunction to try something else. But the something else is paradoxical. It's a major paradigm shift, which is why so few of us commit to it easily or recognize it as an option. Don't change anything. Let it all change itself by not wanting it to change.
The biggest problem in the world is that everyone wants to change it. Change is fine as a political force, but it gets you into trouble on the spiritual frontier. In your spiritual life you have to learn not to change anything. Total acceptance is a much higher value.
Total acceptance is also very difficult. It's far more difficult than opposing things. There's no outward glory in it. There's no recognition. There is simply the expansion of humility until it sees the big picture and adores it as it is. Oh, there's happiness too.
The surprising result of acceptance of that kind is that nothing changes the world more. In fact, the strangest spiritual insight of all is that nothing else changes the world one iota. Appearances change, but the underlying issues simply resurface in a new form.
World history is one illustration after another of change amounting to bupkus. That's a yiddish word for nothing. What did Einstein say? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? That's a statement about change.
It's also an injunction to try something else. But the something else is paradoxical. It's a major paradigm shift, which is why so few of us commit to it easily or recognize it as an option. Don't change anything. Let it all change itself by not wanting it to change.
surrrender
A word that comes up a lot in spiritual practice is surrender. There's a reason for that word. It's a word that implies something challenging is required. If it weren't challenging, we would use another word, such as trade, or improve, or evolve, or upgrade.
All those words have a positive connotation more or less. The last three especially. They also pertain to what surrender is about. But surrender is the word that best suits the situation, on account of how hard things can be when we reach the need for change.
The need for change often presents itself in our lives as a catastrophe or crisis. Once we accomplish the change, we can look back and understand the catastrophe was not the need for change after all, but our enormous reluctance to permit it.
It is because we try not to change when change is required of us that we suffer. We want to go on as we are, and often do everything we can to pretend that option is available. We cling to it desperately. We hold on for dear life rather than surrender.
But only surrender will work. That's why it comes up so often in spiritual practice. After we have tried everything else other than surrender, it becomes the last option, the incredibly hard response we were trying to avoid, and we give ourselves to it.
Learn to give yourself to it more quickly. Get familiar with the signs that surrender is knocking on your inner door, and let it in. It is not so bad after all. A breath of fresh air. Why was the air stuffy? Well, long before they die our bodies are rotting corpses.
All those words have a positive connotation more or less. The last three especially. They also pertain to what surrender is about. But surrender is the word that best suits the situation, on account of how hard things can be when we reach the need for change.
The need for change often presents itself in our lives as a catastrophe or crisis. Once we accomplish the change, we can look back and understand the catastrophe was not the need for change after all, but our enormous reluctance to permit it.
It is because we try not to change when change is required of us that we suffer. We want to go on as we are, and often do everything we can to pretend that option is available. We cling to it desperately. We hold on for dear life rather than surrender.
But only surrender will work. That's why it comes up so often in spiritual practice. After we have tried everything else other than surrender, it becomes the last option, the incredibly hard response we were trying to avoid, and we give ourselves to it.
Learn to give yourself to it more quickly. Get familiar with the signs that surrender is knocking on your inner door, and let it in. It is not so bad after all. A breath of fresh air. Why was the air stuffy? Well, long before they die our bodies are rotting corpses.
December 6, 2007
paradoxes
If we want more truth in our lives, we have to get accustomed to paradoxes. Increasing our comfort with paradoxes is what truth is all about. As our comfort with paradoxes increases, our contact with truth deepens and extends. We experience freedom.
So what is a paradox exactly? A paradox is a statement that seems to contradict itself, but the apparent contradiction resonates as wisdom. A good example might be how we're never more alone than when we're lost in a crowd. Read it again and consider it.
That statement is a paradox because it operates on two levels at once. The first level is literal, involving crowds and isolation. The literal implication of a crowd is the opposite of being alone. If we're out among thousands, we're not by ourself. Not literally.
But somehow we are. Not literally, but we are. That's the second level of our statement. We are more aware of how alone we are precisely because we shouldn't be alone, and we know it. The literal level says so. But that contradiction is not the main idea.
Are you wondering how this investigation pertains to spirituality? I hope so. Because every time you approach the truth with words, they bend into a paradox, almost as if we are looking through a microscope as delicate crystals form in a fathomless solution.
Here's the crystal of the day. You have a self and you don't. It's a fundamental paradox. On the literal level it's impossible. It's a senseless contradiction. But once you get comfortable with it, it's the way things really are. It's the truth refracted as you.
So what is a paradox exactly? A paradox is a statement that seems to contradict itself, but the apparent contradiction resonates as wisdom. A good example might be how we're never more alone than when we're lost in a crowd. Read it again and consider it.
That statement is a paradox because it operates on two levels at once. The first level is literal, involving crowds and isolation. The literal implication of a crowd is the opposite of being alone. If we're out among thousands, we're not by ourself. Not literally.
But somehow we are. Not literally, but we are. That's the second level of our statement. We are more aware of how alone we are precisely because we shouldn't be alone, and we know it. The literal level says so. But that contradiction is not the main idea.
Are you wondering how this investigation pertains to spirituality? I hope so. Because every time you approach the truth with words, they bend into a paradox, almost as if we are looking through a microscope as delicate crystals form in a fathomless solution.
Here's the crystal of the day. You have a self and you don't. It's a fundamental paradox. On the literal level it's impossible. It's a senseless contradiction. But once you get comfortable with it, it's the way things really are. It's the truth refracted as you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
