Practicing Gentle Nurturing

     Handling even a cup as gently as if it were an eggshell “is a practice which reflects back on you. The world is a mirror. Whatever quality you put out will be reflected back to you. This is what mindfulness is all about: to be well aware of the condition in here (hara / dan tien - in the center or core of the body, 2 inches above the navel), and make sure that what you give out is of the same nature. If you want to live peacefully, give peace. If you want chaos, put chaos out there and you’ll soon get it back.
     If you are wise, you learn to be very, very gentle in almost everything you do. Then you get that subtlety of feeling, and it is the subtlety that matters most. It means slowing down somewhat. Not allowing immediate response. Wait. Be gentle. Does it really need a response? If it does, take it gently. There’s no need to be tough. And also, whatever you do, give it your full, undivided attention.
     Often you come to know rather than understand. Thought has its place; nobody is denying this. There are times when we need to think about things, but if those times are not present, we don’t have to think. If you stop thinking about them, they will still be there when you need them. But in between thoughts, you can learn to experience what is there. That is where living takes place. In thought there is no living, only delusion.
     If you give your whole attention, your wholehearted attention to any person, if only momentarily, you’ll see how they respond and blossom. They will feel, ‘I am recognized, I am a somebody.’ But if you give half-hearted attention, whilst you’re thinking of something else, they’ll feel, ‘I’m not here; I am not being recognized.’ People need that recognition.
     The same applies to household tasks: dusting, polishing, washing the floor, washing the dishes, and so on. Give them your full attention, don’t think of other things. The now is all there is, so learn to live in it. And surprise, surprise, when you do, all fear disappears. The alternative is to live in fear all the time, through being concerned about what might happen next. But if you are only in the now there is no next moment. Strangely, you can move through time with this attitude – with full attention here, there, there, there, there – but it’s all one continuous moment. There is no tomorrow.
     Am I really saying that you should give your whole attention – with a loving aspect – (even) to a piece of crockery? Yes. As if it were a living creature. In the moment of doing, the object reflects your love back to you by virtue of its mirror action. Try it and see ... Whenever you come to do these tasks, be it washing the dishes or washing your socks or stockings, whatever, do them with your whole attention just for those moments; gently, carefully, as if you’re dealing with a living creature. Observe how you feel and you’ll find it’s really worthwhile. A lot of extraneous thoughts disappear, things that would otherwise worry you, so that you have a contented mind which you carry with you to the next activity. You begin the new task contented, free from agitation, and see things more clearly, so you’re able to deal with every situation better. You don’t have to do anything special, just the things you normally do, but with your full attention.
     You might forget to do it of course – if so, try again and watch how the process works. Once you realise how it works, and once you experience its benefits, you’ll continue to do it. It’ll enter into different parts of your life more and more and you will be much more content. ... You’ll become much more friendly to other people and they will begin to respond, after a period of time, if not immediately. Some people take longer than others. ...
     Generally, this is the way we can begin to change ourselves, in little everyday things that don’t require a great deal of effort at all. Where possible, we should give ourselves a bit of time and sit down for 10 minutes, be still, quiet, and allow things to subside and to feel deep within ourselves the still peacefulness from which the nurturing arises. Just like that.
     There’s a bit of a joke here: it’s been said that Buddhist monks spend their time contemplating their navels. Actually, there is a lot to be said for that, because that’s where that still small space is, deep within the body (hara / dan tien). If you allow your consciousness to drop down into that area and be more peaceful and expansive in consciousness, you find it is very warm and comforting and that it takes you away from the ‘thinking box’ for a while.
     So in that way you can learn to be still. You don’t have to try to stop your thoughts; they will cease on their own when you become complete within that wholeheartedness. They just stop by themselves. If you try to stop them, that would be suppression and not a good thing. But even if they don’t stop, it’s okay because you see them as peripheral, on the sidelines. When you are down there (hara / dan tien), thoughts don’t really matter.
     So we learn to live with our basic nurturing instincts, in a more homely way. We begin to base ourselves there rather than in our thoughts, and then we find that even our thoughts begin to change in their nature into a much better form. We can bring about a great deal of change within ourselves without a great deal of concentrated effort. It doesn’t require effort – just a quiet casual way of doing things, but with full attention.”
     Russel Williams, edited by Steve Taylor. “Not I, Not other than I. The Life and Teachings of Russel Williams.” O-Books, 2015.

What If?

Behind a fortress
of hardened 'facts',
a lonely broken heart
struggles in the dark ...
While all around,
joyous love
dances in spacious abundance.

 

     What if chasing after our own happiness actually PREVENTS us from living joyfully?
     This is not a philosophical question, but a very PRACTICAL LIFE CHOICE!

 

    Throughout history, philosophers, sages, mystics & saints of every tradition, all over the world, have advised us to treat others how we ourselves wish to be treated - hence referred to as the "golden rule." Now even research into near-death experiences (NDEs) shows that all sorts of people, regardless of their previous belief system - if any, and regardless of how they previously lived - even criminals, tend to land on the same deep conviction - that the "golden rule" is a universal law of life AND their behavior from then on reflects this.
     Bruce Greyson. “After. A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond.” St. Martin’s, 2021.

 

     We humans seem compelled to try just about every alternative, before giving the most reasonable advice a try. DIRECT PERSONAL EXPERIENCE is ultimately what we all trust.
     So when you're ready, no matter how miserable you may feel, shift your focus from "poor me" and instead focus your kind nurturing attention on another person, animal, plant, or even inanimate object. Appropriate self-care & self-compassion (vs obsessing over / spoiling oneself) are part of the golden rule. Gently, patiently start letting go of compulsive self-centeredness, and open your heart-mind to those around you, including animals, plants, the environment. Gradually shift into becoming the source of nurturing unconditional love for everyone & everything around you. WAKE UP and FEEL the difference!

     Many among us are AWAKENING - attaining "an ongoing state of inner peace and wholeness with a sense of connection or unity with the world around them, and a selfless desire to love and support their fellow human beings.
     In many ways, awakened individuals experience a higher-functioning state that makes life more fulfilling, exhilarating, and meaningful … As a result of this internal shift, they often make major changes to their lives. They begin new careers, hobbies, and relationships. They feel a strong impulse to make positive contributions to the world, to live in meaningful and purposeful ways, rather than simply trying to satisfy their own desires, enjoy themselves, or pass the time.”
     Steve Taylor. “The Leap. The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening.” New World Library, 2017.

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy."
Rabindranath Tagore

 

 

 

 

Is there More to Life than What Meets the Eye?

     "Materialism ... holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states & consciousness, are results of material interactions. (Therefore) mind & consciousness are by-products or epi-phenomena of material processes (such as the biochemistry of the human brain & nervous system), without which they cannot exist." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism

     To what extent do you agree with this worldview?

      Most of us readily agree with the evolving scientific theories that reasonably explain & accurately predict the behavior of physical objects - incredibly useful for advancements in technological matters.
     Consciousness & mind are of a completely different order of complexity than physical objects. And yet, though there is no scientific data to support physicalist theories, materialists fervently believe that they will eventually prove ("promissory materialism") that the brain generates everything we experience in accordance with materialist beliefs that everything is purely physical / mechanical, happens by chance, in a dead universe.

“The assumption that spiritual experiences are generated by certain types of brain activity is highly dubious. For a start, the assumption that the brain is the source of any of our conscious experience is problematic. In the language of the philosophy of consciousness, this is the ‘hard problem’ of explaining how the soggy lump of matter that we call the brain can give rise to the amazing richness and variety of our subjective experience."
    Steve Taylor. “The Leap. The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening.” New World Library, 2017.

 
But there are far more plausible theories based on the direct experience of countless people, including meditators, mystics & saints of all traditions throughout the ages & throughout the world, and the direct experience of increasing numbers of scholars & scientists.

     A. J. Ayer, prominent British atheist, “saw clearly that no belief from the history of religions or from modern science fiction can quite compete with the outrageous claims of the physicists and cosmologists. Just go read Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, Ayer suggested. The book is a best-seller, but ‘perhaps the reading public has not clearly understood what his speculations imply. We are told, for example, that there may be a reversal in the direction of the arrow of time. This would provide for much stranger possibilities than that of a rebirth following one’s death. It would entail that in any given person’s life a person’s death preceded his birth. That would indeed be a shock to common sense.’”

     Jeffrey J. Kripal. “The Flip. Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge.” Bellevue Literary Press, 2019.

"A person is not a thing or a process,
but an opening through which the absolute manifests."
Martin Heidegger, widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century

"The first sip from the cup of natural science makes one an atheist,
but at the bottom of the cup, God awaits."
Werner Heisenberg, Nobel prize in physics "for the creation of quantum mechanics"

 “I regard consciousness as fundamental,
matter is derivative from consciousness.
We cannot get behind consciousness.
Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. There is no matter as such;
it exists only by virtue of a force bringing the particle to vibration and holding it together in a minute solar system;
we must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. The mind is the matrix of all matter.”
Max Planck, originator of quantum theory, Nobel laureate in physics

Steve Taylor - psychologist, researcher & author:
      “My view is that the fundamental reality of the universe is not matter but consciousness or maybe you could call it spirit. I sometimes call it ‘fundamental consciousness.’ So I think that the basic reality of the universe is a fundamental consciousness which means that consciousness is kind of embedded into the fabric of the universe. Consciousness is a fundamental quality which is always there, just like gravity or mass or other physical forces. Consciousness is similar to that in that it’s everywhere and it’s always there in the universe. Or maybe consciousness is more fundamental than the universe. Maybe fundamental consciousness in some way gives rise to the physical universe. It’s kind of the source of the universe. Once you posit the idea that there’s this fundamental consciousness, and many philosophers, many cultures throughout history have accepted that idea. Many indigenous cultures – the Native Americans call it the Great Spirit, or the Great Mystery. Many indigenous cultures of the world have the sense that the basic reality of the universe is a Spirit which can express itself in all of nature and also within human beings. And once you posit that idea, many things are easier to explain, like our own consciousness for example, things like altruism, spiritual experiences, near death experiences. All of these things become easier to explain.

      Some people have tried to explain spiritual experiences in terms of unusual brain activity. There’s quite a popular theory that it’s related to activity in the temporal lobes of the brain. Some people make a comparison to temporal lobe seizures in epilepsy – allegedly they sometimes have mystical experiences. But there’s really no evidence of this. In fact there’s a lot of evidence against it. Many epileptic people do not have any spiritual experiences. There’s really no strong connection between temporal lobe activity and spiritual experiences. In fact nobody has any idea of what the brain correlates of spiritual experiences are. There don’t seem to be any clear correlates. So my feeling is that these experiences are not brain-based experiences. {This valuable book is filled with details: Bruce Greyson. “After. A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond.” St. Martin’s, 2021}
     Going back to the idea of fundamental consciousness, I think that rather than believing that consciousness is produced by brain activity, consciousness is kind of a shadow of brain activity. I think another way of looking at it – a lot of psychologists and philosophers would now consider this to be a viable alternative way of looking at consciousness – one way of looking at it is to suggest that consciousness is some kind of fundamental feature of the universe and that the function of our brains is not to produce consciousness, but to kind of canalize consciousness into our own individual being. So universal consciousness is all around us, as a kind of fundamental quality, and the purpose of a brain is to allow that fundamental force to express itself individually within us, so that we become individually conscious. {Many further propose that the mind acts as a 'reducing valve' to prevent us from being overwhelmed by: 1) immense amounts of sensory data; 2) data irrelevant to our survival & procreation; 3) data that contradicts our current self-concept & worldview.}

     Consciousness is kind of transmitted through the brain into our individual beings. And that’s why in many spiritual experiences there’s a strong sense of connection and oneness. Especially in very deep awakening experiences, there’s a sense that our own identity kind of dissolves into the universe as a whole – a bit like a drop of rain falling into the ocean and disappearing in the ocean – there’s a sense that we dissolve into a universal consciousness. Our own individual consciousness dissolves into a universal consciousness. And that is exactly what is happening. We are experiencing our own fundamental oneness. {THIS often completely & permanently eliminates fear of death} In a deep state of meditation for example, when we make contact with the purest essence of our being, which is fundamental consciousness, that purest essence, we are literally one with the whole universe. We reach a point where we experience our fundamental oneness with the whole universe.”
     “The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening - Dr Steve Taylor” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FaWYnTY4Yc

“Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings,
vaster than the vast, subtler than the most subtle,
unreachable, yet nearer than breath, than heartbeat.
Eye cannot see it, ear cannot hear it nor tongue utter it;
only in deep absorption can the mind, grown pure and silent merge with the formless truth. As soon as you find it, you are free; you have found yourself; you have solved the great riddle; your heart forever is at peace. Whole, you enter the Whole. Your personal self returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source.” 

Mundaka Upanishad

 

 
“All beings are primarily Buddhas.
Like water and ice,
There is no ice apart from water;
There are no Buddhas apart from beings.
Not knowing how close the Truth is to them,
Beings seek for it afar - what a pity!"

Zen Master Hakuin Zenji

 

     There are intriguing overlaps between “sudden savant syndrome” or “sudden genius” originally reported July 25, 2018 in Scientific American by (the late) psychiatrist, Darold A. Treffert MD, reprinted here: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/brain-gain-a-person-can-instantly-blossom-into-a-savant-and-no-one-knows-why?utm_source=pocket-newtab and more common, well-documented “awakenings” below:
     Steve Taylor. “The Leap. The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening.” New World Library, 2017.
     Jeffrey J. Kripal. “The Flip. Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge.” Bellevue Literary Press, 2019.
     Bruce Greyson. “After. A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond.” St. Martin’s, 2021.

"There are two ways to live:
One is as though nothing is a miracle, 

the other is as though everything is a miracle."

Albert Einstein, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest physicists of all time

 

 

Healing - Slow and Fast

     Different circumstances can profoundly change life for the better:
     1) Awakening;
     2) Near death experiences (NDEs);
     3) Post-traumatic growth (PTG); and
     4) Entheogens.

     1) Those who practice meditation seriously, seamlessly incorporate a mindful way of being into the fabric of daily life. The more wisely one practices meditation, the more one progressively awakens to a qualitatively different, wiser, kinder, more joyous relationship to oneself, others, life itself, that is independent of society's usual markers of happiness such as wealth, power, fame, and even physical health. This transformation - like becoming a parent - cannot be fully appreciated intellectually, only directly experienced.
     We tend not to notice the negative influences our culture has on us, and so most people simply follow the herd and avoid thinking outside the box - watch the short video (bottom of this page).
     Rodney Smith. "Awakening. A Paradigm Shift of the Heart." Shambhala, 2014.

     2) “A near death experience (NDE) is a profound event that (10-20% of) people experience when they are near death, on the threshold of death, or sometimes are afraid they’re about to die. They include such things as a sense of leaving the physical body; going through some type of tunnel to another realm of light where they encounter a loving beam of light; they often go through a life review; & at some point may see other entities such as deceased loved ones; & then at some point they choose to come back to their bodies or are told to come back. But the entire experience is infused by a sense of peace & well-being, which is in stark contrast to the near-death state where they’re terrified usually, & in a lot of pain.” Bruce Greyson 

     3) "Post-traumatic growth (PTG) typically refers to enduring positive psychological changes experienced as a result of adversity, trauma, or highly challenging life circumstances."
     Eranda Jayawickreme et al. “Post‐traumatic Growth as Positive Personality Change: Challenges, Opportunities, and Recommendations.” Personality 89; 1: 145-165, 2021.
     Elizabeth Lesser. “Broken Open. How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow.” Villard, 2005.

      4) Entheogens are psychoactive substances that alter perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior for spiritual development or other sacred contexts en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entheogen. There are increasing reports in scientific journals of agents such as ketamine, which when administered by trained medical personnel in supportive, controlled settings, can elicit remarkable alleviation of severe, previously treatment-resistant depression; lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin can eliminate extreme fear of death (thanatophobia) among the dying, etc.
     The powerful healing effect of these drugs is highly dependent on "set & setting": safe, supportive healing environment, medical expertise & healing intention.
     Krystal JH et al. "Ketamine: A Paradigm Shift for Depression Research and Treatment." Neuron 2019 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.02.005
     Mackenzie Blomstrom, Andrew Burns, Daniel Larriviere & Jennifer Kim Penberthy (2020): "Addressing fear of death and dying: traditional and innovative interventions." Mortality, DOI: 10.1080/13576275.2020.1810649
    Michael Pollan's book “How to Change Your Mind. What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence.” Penguin, 2018. - AND - his 2022 (4-part) Documentary “How to Change Your Mind" on Netflix both EXCELLENT & HIGHLY recommended!

     Of these four, meditation-facilitated awakening is the most gradual, gentle, and most directly under the participant's own guidance. This is an alternative life path, chosen by those who seek a more deeply meaningful, heart-centered quality of life than the mainstream egocentric competitive / adversarial materialistic lifestyle. Serious, long-time meditation practice markedly reduces fear of aging, sickness & death, which in turn allows us to appreciate & enjoy life more deeply.
     The other three tend to involve recent or impending severe trauma as a potential wake-up call.
     All four can result in a radically positive, stable change in the participant's personality, self-concept, worldview, and overall quality of life. All this happens WHILE clearly facing & lovingly embracing ALL of "life's 10,000 joys AND 10,000 sorrows" - THIS is radical intimacy! THIS is "healing into wholeness." THIS is what is meant when a person is healed, despite not being cured. THIS is the BEST a mortal human can be.

     To our ego (the role of which is our physical survival & passing on of our DNA), physical death is "unacceptable." Yet, the most basic law of nature is that everything changes constantly, we all become sick, grow old and die. So, if we are ready & able to prioritize our sanity & happiness, we prioritize maturing well beyond basic egocentricity.

     "Suffering is caused by identification with egoic consciousness." Adyashanti

     "the ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow." D.T. Suzuki

     Especially if you fear death - and most of us do - I HIGHLY recommend this wonderful book - you will feel much better about death AND about life!:
     Bruce Greyson. “After. A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond.” St. Martin’s, 2021.

     "The more you understand, the more you love; the more you love, the more you understand. They are two sides of one reality. The mind of love and the mind of understanding are the same.” Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Bud Light 2010 Ad - Crashed Plane "We're gonna be okay!!!!" 

The Vital Shift

     Our usual way of doing things is obviously NOT working. Despite our wealth & scientific advances, quality of life continues to decline as seen by rising rates of depression, anxiety, misogyny, divorce, racism, antisemitism, trauma, burnout, addictions, homelessness, suicide, violence, incarceration, wars, hunger, climate change, populism, partisanship, white nationalism, extinction of species, etc etc etc. Life, as we know it, is UNSUSTAINABLE!
     So we must change for our own sake, but especially for the sake of our children & grandchildren. A part of us resists change, even a change we all know is urgently essential. One bright fellow's thoughts on this:

     “Of course I’m romanticizing prehistory here, but we went from a matriarchal society: Nature-honoring society, mother-honoring society – both actual biological mothers, but also The Mother as our archetype of reality, and probably with the onset of agriculture, everything shifted to a patriarchal religion. And Judaism is at the pinnacle of patriarchy, as is Christianity & Islam. But we moved to this patriarchal & parochial kind of religion, and that has brought us ecological devastation, pandemics, “storms of the century” recurring yearly, fires and all this stuff – the earth is trying to shake us off. But all of this I think is because we’ve lost the wisdom of the Divine Mother in Jungian archetypal terms. And that wisdom is the wisdom of interconnectedness, the wisdom of interdependence, the wisdom of cooperation, mutuality. All those things are in patriarchal religions, but they’re just not emphasized. And that devolution into patriarchy is, I think, the root cause of 90% of our problems. And the solution is going to be a radical shift, but it’s not going to be comfortable, it’s not going to be graceful, it’s not going to be slow. It’s going to entail a collapse of the norms that we have lived by for centuries. And the questions we have to ask ourselves are: ‘Are we going to collapse mindfully or mindlessly?’ ‘Are we going to collapse compassionately or cruelly?’ and ‘Are we going to collapse with a sense of grace, or just a sense of horror?’ And I think it’s all about horror, cruelty and mindlessness. That’s what it looks like to me, but it doesn’t have to be that way. But I think that’s where we’re at at the moment.
      If you asked me what would be part of playing our cards right, it would be for individuals to take on a kind of spiritual practice that would, in Hebrew terms they talk about being of two minds: one is narrow or egoic mind, where it’s us against them, me against you, and I’m apart from nature, God & everything else; and the other is spacious mind, where I’m a part of the whole. And spiritual practices - every religion has them, and I’m not talking about formal liturgical, go to church, go to mosque, go to temple, go to synagogue. I’m talking about meditative practices, which doesn’t have to be silent sitting cross-legged on a mat, but contemplative practices that allow the egoic mind to drop of its own accord, and for you to experience something greater – that direct experience of the vastness of which we are a part. I think that has got to be a part of the mix. And if it is, I think that shifts us (out of our current downward spiral) and toward a more ideal future.”
     Rami Shapiro March 14, 2021 EXCELLENT (2hr) interview: https://batgap.com/

Dealing Wisely & Effectively with Anxiety, Upset, Tension

     After being racially-profiled, Sebene Selassie “went to the airport restroom alone. Hot tears streamed down my face while I sat in the stall waiting for the sensations to dissipate. They did not. The tension and upset only perpetuated the feeling of not belonging. Anxiety and tension persisted in me for another five minutes. But I meditated with it, meaning I simply observed and allowed all my feelings and sensations. Eventually, I was able to reconnect to the felt sense that I do belong. Everywhere. Even to the agent (who 'randomly' chose her for a pat down). I returned to belonging. … We, each of us, need our own ways back to our belonging.”
     Sebene Selassie. “You Belong: A Call for Connection.” HarperOne, 2020. - a wonderfully wise book

     Meditation during emotional crises is infinitely more effective when it is based on a deep meditation practice established under relatively peaceful conditions! As our meditation practice deepens, we tend to delve deeper into its roots.
     While meditation or contemplation can be found in all wisdom traditions, it is the core & central practice of Buddhism. The Buddha never claimed to be a god, never told people to abandon their current religion, and repeatedly advised people to be skeptical, & only follow teachings & practices, including his own, when these actually helped them ie decreased suffering & increased joy. Buddhism, at least for people in the West, is 'a science of the mind,' deeply practiced by a wide variety of people, from skeptical atheists to devout Roman Catholic nuns, monks, & Jewish rabbis.
     Many of us have powerful love-hate relationships with specific religions, religion in general, specific races, all those we judge to be "different," etc. Xenophobia, beside causing senseless suffering to those around us, powerfully blocks our own healing, maturation & wholeness, and cries out to be addressed & healed.

      “While religion at its best calls us to a community of the curious and a unity beyond dogma & tribalism; religion at its worst calls us to worship the very things that divide us and to pit people against one another in the name of one fantasy or other.”
       Rami Shapiro. “Holy Rascals. Advice for Spiritual Revolutionaries.” Sounds True, 2017.

      “Spiritual practices are methods that can begin to soften our stance toward our self, toward life in general, and to open us to what transcends the habitual. They are invitations to become intimate with the wisdom of silence and stillness.”
      Dorothy Hunt. “Ending the Search. From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness.” Sounds True, 2018. 

     “The most profound practice in Buddhism (and MBSR) is ‘resting in awareness’ — simply being here without thinking or doing anything. All of the Buddha’s teachings emerge from this. ‘That you are here right now is the ultimate fact,’ said Suzuki Roshi. This truth can sustain us even in the midst of great suffering. Even in great pain, even at the moment of death, simply resting here is liberation.”
     Lewis Richmond https://learn.tricycle.org/courses/aging-as-a-spiritual-practice

     “The term 'perennial philosophy' was coined by Agostino Steuco (1497-1548) and refers to a fourfold realization: 
          (1) there is only one Reality (call it, among other names, God, Mother, Tao, Allah, Dharmakaya, Brahman, or Great Spirit) that is the source and substance of all creation; 
          (2) that while each of us is a manifestation of this Reality, most of us identify with something much smaller, that is, our culturally conditioned individual ego; 
          (3) that this identification with the smaller self gives rise to needless anxiety, unnecessary suffering, and cross-cultural competition and violence; and 
          (4) that peace, compassion, and justice naturally replace anxiety, needless suffering, competition, and violence when we realize our true nature as a manifestation of this singular Reality. 
     The great sages and mystics of every civilization throughout human history have taught these truths in the language of their time and culture. It is the universality and timelessness of this wisdom that makes it the perfect focus for the spiritually independent seeker."
       Rami Shapiro. “Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent.” SkyLight Paths, 2013.  

 

What If We DO Belong Here?

      Many painfully honest songs, like Radiohead's "Creep," include the lament "I don't belong here." Some of us are sporadically struck by the very unpleasant sense that we shouldn't be here; can't handle the present situation or the people around us; that we're not good enough; that we seriously lack what it takes to succeed, be happy, or perhaps even survive. Some of us are burdened by such feelings on an almost constant basis.
     AND what if the complete opposite were ALSO true - that all of us ABSOLUTELY DO belong here - no matter how lousy our past or present situation might be? Sebene Selassie, a meditation teacher, has and continues to deal with far more real hardship than most of us, and has learned powerful real world lessons on how to really live:

     “But the challenges I faced – the challenges you face, the challenges we face collectively at this time, any place in the world (even a colonic room), any challenge in life (even cancer) – all are invitations to belonging. And belonging is our true nature.
     Belonging is our capacity to feel joy, freedom, and love in any moment. As the late Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck said: Joy is exactly what’s happening, minus our opinion of it. Joy is not about happy or unhappy, liking or disliking. Joy is accepting each moment for what it is without contention. We belong to any moment simply by meeting it with joy. This is freedom. Love is the ultimate expression of joy and freedom. Joy, freedom, and love could be considered synonyms for each other, and for belonging.”
     Sebene Selassie. “You Belong: A Call for Connection.” HarperOne, 2020. 

     Often when circumstances finally force us to drop our frantic scurrying around for what we think we lack, it suddenly dawns on us that we ourselves, are the source of loving intelligence, and that our very nature is wisely nurturing ourselves, others, everything - "intimacy with all." If this seems overly idealistic, remember that those who've had crushing losses - such as the death of an only child - can often only find consolation in supporting others who've suffered similar losses.
     At times, life IS very, very hard. We DO sometimes need help from others. AND YET all of us DO have an amazing capacity to wisely nurture ourselves (sometimes with help from others), and those who are suffering. We DO belong ALWAYS in ALL circumstances. We MUST wake up to our own depth of loving wisdom. To embody this requires that we learn to gradually let go of compulsive self-centredness, and prioritize deep meditation practice.