All Paths to One Mountain Top

    Basic meditation instructions usually guide us to de-armor mentally, emotionally & physically, to allow us to open up to ultimate reality. We do this by: Relaxing (letting go of efforting); Simply "being" (letting go of "doing mode" - trying to control everything) - allowing the belly to soften, allowing the heart area to soften, allowing the mind to open (transcending habitual thought loops, must haves & must avoids). Part of us (our heart / right hemisphere) clearly wants to open up to ultimate reality.
    But another part of us (ego mind / left hemisphere) resists because we fear losing control & being overwhelmed by our shadow. This resistance is the main obstacle to peace & joy. Asking us to let go of our fearful avoidances, defensiveness & distractions is like asking a drowning person to let go of the scraps of wood they're hanging onto for dear life. We resist letting go as if our life depended on it. Our shadows are the scary-looking gargoyles "guarding" the entrance to holy places of transformation. Our usual "ordinary unhappiness" level of life does indeed depend on maintaining protective armoring; while our awakened life waits for us beyond this.
    One way or another, awakening out of universal human suffering involves learning to approach (rather than avoid), accept (rather than reject), and actually befriend & become intimate with our own personal "darkness" or shadow. And the result is transformational.

    “The process of unlocking your higher purpose is one of turning the authority of your mind over to your heart. This alone will transform your life.”
    Richard Rudd “The Gene Keys. Embracing Your Higher Purpose.” Watkins, 2009.

    Below, Richard Rudd's brief summary of his Gene Keys path towards Awakening :

    "Through the Gene Keys ... I’ve looked at DNA through a poet’s eyes, because I’m essentially a poet (which) means I attempt to live a poetic life and I see things poetically. And to see things poetically is to see beauty basically, in as many places as you can, especially in ugly places.
    And so we have to start by looking at the ugly places inside us, which in Gene Keys we call the shadow state. Everyone kind of knows these places. If you just close your eyes for a moment and think, ‘Where is the ugliest place inside me right now? Where’s the big challenge? What is it?’ And you know what it is, where it is, instantly. Somewhere something that you’re grappling with that is a grain in the oyster - that shadow pattern, which you are attempting to resolve, or trying to distract yourself from. 

    IF you give it space inside your being, IF you give it time, IF you allow it some compassion, IF you treat yourself gently, IF you watch it, IF you bring mindfulness & awareness to it, you will see it begin to transform. That’s the case with any shadow pattern, any victim pattern that we are playing out, going round-and-round in circles in the samsara loop.
    You have to recognize that this is the point of meditation, the point of contemplation. Contemplation is the word / technique I use, because it doesn’t necessarily involve closing our eyes – you can create the contemplative state, while doing absolutely anything in your daily life, and so through the art of contemplation, I teach how to bring that state, that interior awareness, into everything in your life, beginning by taking little pauses throughout your day so that you can begin to create that space. Lots of little pauses, interconnected, starts to create quite a lot of space, and it also creates more time throughout your day, which is an irony really, because you’re pausing, so you might think that you’re losing time, but actually you’re pumping time into your day. It’s a strange paradox, because you’re stopping, pausing. When I say pause, you can still be in motion. You’re pausing in your mind loops, in your struggles, your old patterns, so that you can see them clearly. And you’re creating space, compassion & gentleness around them.

    That begins to create this ... kind of flower which begins to open out of the shadow, out of the very thing that you’ve been avoiding, ends up being this great gift. 

    So in the Gene Keys are all 3 levels: the seed is the shadow; the flower is the gift that’s hidden in the seed & the shadow – every shadow, every difficulty in life is really asking us to do some alchemy. There’s something powerful in that. The most difficult thing in your life has the most potential if you have the courage to give it some space, and really look at it. You have to be authentic, so honest with yourself. That’s a process, and you might need support as well.
    And then the final aspect is the siddhi – a Sanskrit word, you could say Divine Essence, Divine Treasure. It’s the genetic enlightened expression of a specific part of your nature. So everyone, when they become fully awake, has a completely different expression. So when you look at the Gene Keys, there are 64 of them, and you look down the line of the language for the siddhis, you see all these words for compassion, rapture, ecstasy, perfection, beauty, humility … they’re all describing the same state, but through a slightly different lens. So understanding that every shadow contains one of those siddhis inside it, it’s hidden in there, it’s the fruit, in the seed. And you might think it's a long way away – the seed is tiny, and it’s going to grow into a tree, and it’s going to have to go through all this, and then you get this beautiful fruit, and the fruit of course contains another seed, which is a beautiful metaphor in itself. But that is in there, and that metaphor is life. 

    All you have to do, is create that contemplative space inside you, those pauses, so you can begin to look at these difficult patterns. That’s all the ancients actually ever taught. Now we can go off into quantum realities and describe it all ((as Robert Grant does in the earlier part of this interview)), but actually, it comes down to just that, just that mindfulness, just that spaciousness, so that the pattern has space to transform, and then it can transform really quickly as well. You can go from a seed to a tree really fast because awareness is the water, the nutrition & the nourishment that allows that whole process to happen, and then you’re left with this fruit, the juicy ecstasy of biting into this mango, or whatever your favourite fruit is.
    And it was there all along, that golden thread, that golden awareness, that awakening. It was there all along. It was in the numbers, it was just hidden in the thread, in the stream, and we just had to unlock it. And that’s what the Gene Keys are. And that’s what the Keys of Enoch were. And that’s what all these ancient teachings are about – the I Ching, Shakras, and the Vedic systems, the Kerala system, all the systems. You get to see the same golden thread in every single one, but just in a totally different way. Look at the Sufis in the Middle-Eastern deserts, they had more words for love than any other tradition. Like the Eskimos have different words for snow, the Sufis had different words for love – just layers and layers of different words to describe different aspects of love, because that’s all they wanted to see was love. There’s love that’s full of angst, desire & misery, but it’s still love. And then there’s love that’s at the highest level of divine annihilation and oneness with the cosmos – that’s also love. So it’s all about love ultimately. It begins with self-love.
    So creating space in your life through a contemplative practice, and I would say ultimately learning to be gentle with yourself is the greatest secret I’ve ever learned.
    And I learned one day ... what awakening is ... It’s a series of softenings. That went into me so deep. Wow. You just have to go on softening your heart, and then the mind opens, and everything begins to just kind of transform. And then those higher states are just there, are revealed, they’re underneath.” Richard Rudd
    “A Meeting of Brilliant Minds - Richard Rudd & Robert Grant on a Collective Awakening” - DejaBlu Ep109 https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/a-meeting-of-brilliant-minds-richard-rudd-robert/id1480169551?i=1000617036026

    An excellent free app to help practice the Gene Keys is: "Tripple Flame"

What Can We Do?

    Imagine shortly after your birth, you were cold, hungry, thirsty, wet, uncomfortable & unhappy. So you cried as loudly as you could for help. You had no way of knowing or comprehending why you were no longer being held in safety & unconditional love like you (more or less) were for your timeless 'eternity' in the womb.
    What went through your completely innocent mind? Overwhelmed by the primal fear of abandonment & death - attachment trauma.      

    “Children can be traumatized, not just by terrible things happening to them, but just by not having their needs met – by not being seen, not being heard, not being held. Those are wounding for a child.” Gabor Maté MD

    Now imagine as an adult, waking up alone, in great pain, lying helplessly in the recovery room, immediately following major surgery. So you ring the button to call for help - even start yelling, and wait, and wait ... You have no way of comprehending why nobody comes to help.
    What goes through your mind? Fear, anger, frustration - abandonment, dying alone.
    "Trauma is not so much what happened to us, but rather what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic mutually connected witness." Peter Levine PhD

    Imagine watching the evening news: escalating war in the Gaza / Israel; endless war in the Ukraine; enthusiastic "proxy" participation by most of the world's dictatorships & "friendlies" - with repeated threats of nuclear weapons; thousands killed by yet another earthquake in Nepal. Meanwhile, in the world's most privileged countries, escalating numbers of homeless "living rough" in severe winter conditions; rapidly increasing deaths by drug-overdose, direct suicide even of children & insane levels of "gun violence". Then, 'in other news': much faster-than-anticipated global warming, rise in sea levels, rise in CO2 levels, extinction of species, toxic air pollution, etc etc. Reptilian world leaders continue playing colonialist 'rape, murder & plunder' games, as they confidently destroy our one-and-only earth.
    What goes through your mind? Fear, anger, frustration, disgust, cynicism - am I alone in a hostile, meaningless universe?

    Indeed, what can we do?
    Many refuse to watch or listen to the news - "It's too depressing!" Well yes, but immature & unhelpful.
    Then some aspire to at least be "well adjusted." However,
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" Krishnamurti

    Which brings to mind a scene from the Viet Nam war movie, Apocalypse Now, showing Lt. Col. Kilgore, shirtless, cigar in mouth, practicing golf drives into the South China sea, surrounded by his young soldiers in uniform. Behind him, American fighter jets rain down bombs, evaporating countless Vietnamese in the jungle below. With great gusto Kilgore says, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
    This timely topic: “The Myth of Normal. Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture.” is carefully examined by Gabor Maté MD & Daniel Maté, in their excellent 2022 book.

    How, one might wonder, does a sweet, innocent, loving & lovable little baby turn into a Kilgore? None of us are born to ideal parents who are able to make us feel consistently safe & unconditionally loved. Therefore, very early in life, most of us experience some degree of attachment trauma, and learn to escape the present moment by dissociating whenever we find situations unbearable. Many other forms of trauma occur later in life.
    “Pathological dissociation generally results from being psychically overwhelmed by trauma. Trauma is everywhere & highly prevalent." Elizabeth F. Howell. “The Dissociative Mind.” Routledge, 2008.

    Dissociation is almost universal. However, while dissociating we can't be intimately engaged with whomever we're with, or whatever we're doing, because we divert attention elsewhere - from urgent self-preservation to mere distraction. For many, dissociation becomes habitual, occuring even in the absence of triggers.
    "… studies on attentiveness show that people are only briefly & unpredictably attentive. Attention habitually diverts to unrelated thoughts & feelings, leaving any task at hand to be managed 'on autopilot.' These studies suggest that mindlessness ('mind wandering,' 'zoning out,' 'task-unrelated thought') is 'one of the most ubiquitous & pervasive of all cognitive phenomena' and that it often occurs unintentionally, without awareness, occupies a substantial proportion of our day, and leads to failures in task performance."
    Lovas JG, Lovas DA, Lovas PM. “Mindfulness and Professionalism in Dentistry.” J Dent Educ 2008; 72(9): 998-1009.

    Dissociation due to fear is a fundamental problem - the precise opposite of intimacy arising from love. All wisdom traditions, through their saints & mystics, as well as artists (intermediaries between spirituality & materialism) have been trying to tell us this for thousands of years. 

    As infants & children, numbing / being closed down can be more important than feeling / opening up.
    But now, as adults, "it's time to pull up our big boy pants" and have “the spaciousness to allow any quality of mind, any thought or feeling, to arise without closing around it, without eliminating the pure witness of being. It is an active receptivity to life.” Stephen Levine

    We get into & easily remain stuck in adversarial relationships - involving even siblings, parents vs children, intimate partners, co-workers, ideologies, races, religions, countries. Our conflicts can & do lead to horrific, prolonged, unnecessary blood-baths.  

 

    A short excerpt of Gabor Maté MD from a wise, compassionate recent interview:  

    “So what’s the way out? Self-examination is the first step.
    Krishnamurti said that action has meaning only in relationship. And without understanding relationship, action on any level will only breathe conflict. The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than the search for any plan of action.
    It's so true, if we want to understand something, let's at least begin with the willingness to look at our role and our own contribution to that relationship in which we're suffering.
    Again, that doesn't justify any particular action but at least it provides a context and it's not about taking the wrong path.

    Robert Sapolsky talks about the absurdity of hating any person for anything they have done, given that in his view, everything we do is determined by the past. And he also says there's no such thing as free will, and blame & punishment are without ethical justification.
    No, I don't I don't agree with him. I think it is possible to get to a position of free will, but I don't think most of us have free will most of the time.
    To get to free will, it takes extraordinary effort to become conscious. To be conscious means you're aware of what's inside you.
    So there might be rage inside you, perfectly understandable. There might be hatred inside you, perfectly understandable. There might be a desire for revenge inside you, perfectly understandable. Understandable? Absolutely. But they're not guides for action.
    The only guide for action is when we're in a non-defensive state. An emotionally non-defensive state is where the prefrontal cortex, the mid-frontal cortex, whose job is to have insight, empathy, self-regulation, compassion, is online THEN we might talk about free will.
    But when we're regulated by our emotional reactions, collective or personal, there's no free will.

    The Buddha never told his followers ‘not to feel’ hate, or not to feel angry, or not to feel grief, not to feel sadness, or fear. He said you will notice when there's fear in you; you will notice when there's hatred in you; you will notice when there's grief; you'll be aware of it, so that it doesn't rule you.
    Those are just human emotions. They're going to happen. The question is, what's going to govern our actions?

    Dan Siegel a psychiatrist, and Stephen Porges a psychologist, both point out that at times of pressure & fear, our perspective narrows. And the part of our brain that takes over, is more the fear-based & defensive-based, fight-or-flight, so we lose the governance of our pre-frontal cortex, which is capable of taking a broader view.
    An Israeli friend with a daughter, who lives in the North of Israel, where as a result of recent events, they had to evacuate some communities, owing to the threat of further violence not just in the South, but also in the North of Israel.
    And she wrote to me very honestly, she says, ‘Dear Gabor, I really appreciate the things you wrote. The days here are unbearable. We moved in with friends because we live in an unprotected ground floor, surrounded by gardens so beautiful usually, but home no longer feels like a safe place for millions right now.’ And she’s talking about Israelis. She’s well aware, by the way, of the Palestinian situation. But she’s describing her own situation.
    ‘The rest of the time I work at a mental health center, and we collapse under the referrals, and the meetings, and the frantic courses we take to treat ongoing trauma. I’m exhausted. The (words of support) you wrote are beautiful, but perspective expands when people are not under physical threat. And so, those close to me, and my point of view is very narrow.’
    That’s a very honest statement. She’s making no apology. She’s not taking a political stance. She’s saying, right now my perspective is very narrow. She doesn’t want to identify with that narrow perspective, but she understands that under the pressure, that’s what happens. Now most people are not that self-aware. Peoples’ perspective narrows of course, and it becomes subsumed in group identification, and thoughts of revenge, and thoughts of hurting the other.
    Under threat, or what we perceive as being under threat, we go into this narrow place. That’s a place of slavery – when we’re enslaved to our unconscious. Where we’re governed by our emotions and where the heart closes down. 

    And if there was ever a time for people to actually open their hearts, to not get stuck in a narrow place, to not repeat the past, to not perceive themselves only as victims, but in relationship with the other, and have the willingness to examine my role in that relationship, which is all we ask for in any marriage or in any relationship. ..."
    A Call for Healing: Gabor Maté on Palestine / Israel : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0WJM9RfRD8 

“The words of the Buddha offer this truth:
‘Hatred never ceases by hatred
but by love alone is healed.
This is an ancient and eternal law.’ ”
Jack Kornfield

A Walk to the Paradise Garden by W. Eugene Smith

Of Two Minds

     Many are 'of two minds' about spirituality, awakening - actually about anything that involves stillness, silence, and meaningful depth. Many quickly label these: 'too serious,' 'depressing,' 'too deep,' 'too confusing,' 'unscientific,' 'an individual matter,' etc - whatever it takes to quickly change the subject to 'something lighter.' While these comments might be age-appropriate for teens, they are as likely to be voiced these days by those in their 70s. 

    “In the lives of children & adults, there is often little time and encouragement to be still and feel the deeper currents within & without. Our lives are shallower as a result."
    Tobin Hart. “The Secret Spiritual World of Children: The Breakthrough Discovery that Profoundly Alters our Conventional View of Children’s Mystical Experiences.” New World Library, 2003. POWERFUL BOOK imho

    Our strikingly shallow, materialist culture is driven by the endless, restless cycle of working & shopping, working & shopping... Stopping, or just slowing down to get our bearings, asking ourselves meaningful human questions: Who am I? What is life about? - in the short term - is BAD FOR BUSINESS! And sadly, materialist culture is itself SHORT TERM - unsustainable, as we're finally starting to notice.
    It's time to pay very close attention to humanity's wisdom traditions (& far less attention to ads & frenzied shopping).

    "Compassion and love are not a luxury; they are essential to our existence. Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community. We must learn to work not just for our own self, family, or nation, but for the benefit of all humankind." Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama

    "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." Antoinne de Saint-Exupery, "The Little Prince"

    "In the midst of a conflict or frustration, in the middle of a hurried day, or as a regular ‘tune-in,’ you and I, and our children, too, can get a look from the heart by simply sitting quietly for a few moments, taking a deep breath, and gently bringing awareness to the area of the chest. There is often a felt shift involving a sense of tenderness, spaciousness, slowing down, and settling in. This process can change the scene that is in front of us or the one that is spinning in our mind. Few activities are so simple and powerfully beneficial, but so infrequently practiced.” Tobin Hart (from his book above)

 

    “changing a habitual way of being is a huge challenge. Rome wasn’t built in a day; neither is calm. Rome wasn’t built with twigs; calm isn’t built with tips. It’s not that we can’t help ourselves: We can learn to maintain calm, to roll with change when change rolls in. We just have to acknowledge, even honor, the scale of the adventure before us. It requires nothing less than … allowing the mind to be rewired by mind training — by meditation. It untangles us. Gradually it replaces ancient patterned reactions with fresh & appropriate responses. This is why it’s called practice. It takes time and effort, but to an amazing extent we find ourselves helped.
    Practice changes our relationship to what would otherwise be upsetting. Facing change, we see how futile and painful it is to try to hold on to what is passing — which is everything. Compassion washes in with a kinder, truer understanding of why people do what they do (and that includes you). Things seem simpler, easier.
    The self-help mentality is a matter of shopping, accumulating tips. We don’t have to go shopping. We just need to sit back and let practice work on us. We don’t need tips; we need patience, we need equanimity. How to develop these qualities? I have a great tip for you: Meditate! Start now, continue forever!” Amy Gross

 

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep!

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!

People are going back & forth across the doorsill
where the two wolds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep!”

 

Jelaluddin Rumi -  The Breeze at Dawn

 

Love - Far, Far More than just an Emotion

     To an old friend, who firmly considers himself a physicalist / materialist, I sent the following email:

                                                         

These quotes reveal some aspects of meaningful spirituality.

     “Truth, like love and sleep, resents approaches that are too intense.” W.H. Auden

     “At the bottom of my grievance against a world gone mad, I discovered the vulnerable child who still didn’t know that love was fully available or truly reliable.” John Welwood. "Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships. Healing the Wound of the Heart." Trumpeter, 2006.

     “… what we resist makes us frightened, hard, inflexible, and what we embrace becomes transformed.” Jack Kornfield

     "I was born
      when all I once feared
      I could love.”                 Rābiʿah al-Baṣrī

     “I would define love very simply: as a potent blend of openness & warmth, which allows us to make real contact, to take delight in & appreciate, and to be at one with – ourselves, others, & life itself.
     ... love is the central force that holds our whole life together & allows it to function." John Welwood. "Perfect love, imperfect relationships. Healing the wound of the heart." Trumpeter, 2006.

     “No matter how sharp your intellect is,
      don’t forget to filter it through the heart of compassion
      before you manifest it in the suffering world.”                 Dzogchen Ponlop

     "Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough." George Washington Carver

     "You learn about a thing ... by opening yourself wholeheartedly to it. You learn about a thing by loving it." Barbara McClintock - Nobel prize-winning geneticist

     "The truth is, what one really needs is not Nobel prizes but love. How do you think one gets to be a Nobel laureate? Wanting love, that's how. Wanting it so bad one works all the time and ends up a Nobel laureate. It's a consolation prize.
     What matters is love."           George Wald - Nobel prize-winning biologist from Harvard

                                                         

     My friend responded to my email saying the quotes were "interesting," however "Love is an emotion to me, and not the secret of the universe." I suggested that he consider holding his present stance lightly - as an open question or koan.

    William James, a leading thinker of the late 19th century, one of the most influential American philosophers, and the 'Father of American psychology' wrote:
    "I have no doubt whatever that most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness... much like a man who out of his whole bodily organism should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger...
    We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we do not dream."

    I've learned that love actually IS the secret of the universe, and much wiser folks than I, like Rabindranath Tagore, seem to agree:

“Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment.
It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.”

“Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.”

“Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.”

     And Mahatma Gandhi wrote:
     “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth & love have always won. There have been tyrants & murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it – always.”

    “Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others & the world. It means remaining on the surface, taking the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated & exploited, and not going beyond the world of calculation & exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying them.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"The beautiful thing about compassion is that
when it spontaneously arises in you, an inner door opens
into an experience of love,
which is our part of our fundamental reality....
When the inner door opens, it becomes effortless to reach out and connect with others. This is why the greatest antidote to insecurity and sense of fear is compassion. It brings one back
to the basis of one's inner strength.
A truly compassionate person embodies a carefree spirit
of fearlessness,
born of the freedom
from egoistic self concern."
The Dalai Lama

 

Helen Hamilton: "The Ocean Of Loving Acceptance"