Rise and Shine!

     The vast majority of us would like to be far happier. Most of us gradually realize that how we pursue greater happiness - chasing after more & better possessions, experiences, friends, lovers, physical health, longevity, etc - is frustratingly useless.
    Our default mind (ego, small separate self, personality) has evolved to quickly find advantage (Albert Szent-Györgyi) - to optimize our chances for survival, not to penetrate deeply meaningful Truth. What takes most of us a lifetime to realize, is that the bigger & louder our ego, the shallower, more meaningless our life becomes. Even under fairly low-levels of stress, the noise of our ego hides from us our deepest, most peaceful, contented, joy-filled human level of consciousness.

    “The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not 'the thinker.' The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence.” Eckhart Tolle

    “Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind.” Eckhart Tolle

    We are called “to serve not our limitations but what’s whole & unbreakable, our true Self. It’s easy to identify with all the places we’ve been hurt & abandoned, but can we identify with the timeless wholeness that weathers every condition? If we can’t, we may spend this life protecting ourselves and never risk really living.” Bonnie Myotai Treace

“The challenge awaiting us is to go much deeper as human beings,
to abandon superficial prejudices & preferences,
to expand understanding to a global scale,
integrating the totality of living, and
to become aware of the wholeness of which we are a manifestation."
Vimala Thakar

     We are extremely fortunate to have numerous wise, evolved teachers & their guidance instantly available on the web. Most recently I've deeply re-connected with Helen Hamilton's guidance. She gently helps us see how we're far more than the stories we keep telling ourselves (self-talk) about ourselves. When we learn to take our self-talk very lightly, we let go of the idea of being a small, isolated, insignificant accident of nature, struggling to survive in a hostile, meaningless universe (atheist dogma). When not lost in this dark cloud, we can directly experience our Oneness (Unitive Consciousness) which is radically more life-affirming.
     Most mystics & saints of all different traditions & times; serious meditators & contemplatives around the world; near-death experiencers (NDE); those who've journeyed with plant medicines (entheogens); astronauts who've experienced the "Overview Effect"; and many who've had spontaneous awakenings eg Eckhart Tolle; all seem to share some version of pantheism - the direct mystical experience & understanding that "reality, the universe, and nature are identical to divinity or a supreme entity. The physical universe is thus understood as an immanent deity, still expanding and creating, which has existed since the beginning of time."

 

     “We are one, but we will only feel that when we love everything.” Ram Dass

    "Treat everyone you meet as if they were God dressed in drag." Ram Dass

    "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen

    “The only real purpose of being here on this earth is to learn or to re-remember our original natural state of no limitations.” Lester Levenson 

    “The only service you can do for anyone (including yourself) is to remind them of their true nature.” Stephen Levine

     IF you devote quality time, deeply listen, & integrate Helen Hamilton's positive suggestions into your days, your quality of life will progressively improve.
    Here are 3 of her many excellent free YouTube videos. To read along, just click the CC button for text: 

 

‘The Silence and The Fear’ interview by Iain McNay :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYTJDL7l15A&list=PLF004A8F551CE8FB9
(59min)

Helen and Walter chatting non-duality - amazing interview! :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0aRSPDoj28
(78min)

 

“You are the Sought and not the seeker” :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CATgxM71gwc
(71min)

 

    "... the truths discovered by the Buddha are already in your heart. There is a One Who Knows within you who already understands & is free. If you can turn towards this natural awareness and rest in it, then everything will become simple." Ajahn Chah https://jackkornfield.com/learning-the-middle-path/?mc_cid=84d6b00a6f&mc_eid=cd718e6a49 

 

    Helen Hamilton guides listeners to discover & rest in this natural awareness within all of us. We CAN experience it directly. Other descriptors: Silence, Stillness, Awareness, Equanimity, Love, Joy, Freedom, Presence, Ultimate Reality, Vastness, Emptiness.

 

"Earthrise" - photo by Apollo 8 astronaut, the late William Anders

 

Our Best is Needed

    "The question we need to ask ourselves is whether there is any place we can stand in ourselves where we can look at all that's happening around us without freaking out, where we can be quiet enough to really hear our predicament, and where we can begin to find ways of acting that are at least not contributing to further destabilization.” Ram Dass

    We can easily remember Ram Dass' words with the help of these two short phrases:

    In the wonderful TV series, "New Amsterdam," Dr. Max Goodwin's response to even the most challenging situations was to ask, "How can I help?"
    And if we can't help, then: "At least do harm."

 

    What do we value most in a human being? What are the best attributes of people we most admire? 

    Decency, honesty, trustworthiness, reliability, kindness, acceptance, humility, courage & nurturing stand out for me.

 

    Aren't these the very same characteristics that lie deep within us all? These attributes - sparks of the Divine - we all potentially or actually manifest under optimal conditions, when we feel sufficiently safe & brave enough to lower our hardened defenses, and be authentic - our true Self? 

    We can easily differentiate between feeling rigid with fear, guarded, aggressive, enraged, versus when we feel safe, relaxed, glowing with an open-heart & open mind. 

    BUT what's really valuable is learning to recognize how we habitually remain armored, at least somewhat tight & hyper-vigilant even when there's NO "clear and present danger" AND how this constantly corrodes all our perceptions, thinking, speech & behaviors. 

    ONLY by repeatedly recognizing & releasing this default survivalist, separate-self, adversarial illusion are we able to gradually stop sabotaging our own quality of life, and the quality of life of all those around us.

    What clues do we have, that we're lost in the default survivalist, separate-self, adversarial illusion? We feel physically tight, strained, anxious, impatient, 'time poverty,' 'empty' or 'lacking' something, desperate to 'keep busy,' competitive, aggressive. OR we may feel 'lack luster,' no energy, no interests, no plans, hopeless, down. OR we may feel constantly anxious, afraid & upset by a wide variety of things, and assume that it's these that are making us sick. But fear of living AND fear of dying are common. Meditation teacher Ezra Bayda calls it the "anxious quiver of being."

    Becoming clearly aware of what's really going on, here & now occurs only in stillness, not by "keeping busy" chasing after stuff, nor running away from other stuff. Perhaps that's why we fear to, and rarely stop & look carefully. Our compulsive activity - like furiously riding a rocking horse - gives the illusion of "getting somewhere." HOWEVER, intentionally being aware of what's really here & now gradually tames our fears, and intimately engages us with the awesome mystery of Reality.

    “When I change the level of my awareness, I start attracting a different reality.” Santon Saint Pierre, French philosopher

    Living in the default survivalist, separate self, adversarial illusion feels bad & harms myself & everyone around me. 

    I CAN learn to detect this default way of being, repeatedly let it go, relax, open my heart-mind, and ALLOW my true nature - decency, honesty, trustworthiness, reliability, kindness, acceptance, humility, courage & nurturing - to shine, which radically changes EVERYTHING - our perceptions, thinking, speech & behaviors. It's a lifelong adventure.

     

Passenger - "When We Were Young"

What CAN We Do?

    I'm sure I'm not alone wanting a wise, big-picture overview of life, so I can live my best life.
    Mystics of all wisdom traditions, passed & living, are connected to & share this wisdom. 

    One of the wisest quotes I've come across:  
    "The most important question to ask ourselves, according to Einstein: 
    'Is the universe a friendly place or not?' ... If we believe that the universe is unfriendly ... peace will be elusive at best." 
    Joan Borysenko. “Fire in the Soul. A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism.” Warner Books, 1993. 

    Even intelligent, educated people seem overwhelmed by mysticism for many reasons. First and foremost, our culture is by and large ignorant about mystics & mysticism. Our "consumer society" trains us to buy as much as possible as fast as possible, "greed is good," even after 9/11 George W. told Americans to show the world what they're made of, "Go shopping!" We're starving on a restricted diet of junk food (shallow materialistic concerns), and don't even know the vocabulary of nutrition (metaphysics, spirituality). We fear what we don't know, and procrastinate & otherwise avoid learning about it.

    "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."
    Marie Curie, Nobel Prizes in Physics, & Chemistry 

   "... relax, allow life to be as it is, & open your heart to yourself. It’s easier than you might think, and it could change your life.”
    Kristin Neff. “Self-Compassion. The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.” HarperCollins, 2011. 

 
      "I was born
       when all I once feared
       I could love.”                     Rabia Basri 

      "Once we are willing to be directly intimate with our life as it arises, joy emerges out of the simplest of life experiences." Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara 

      During meditation “you are not escaping the world; you are getting ready to fully embrace it.” Christine Skarda  

     "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen   

    SO, what CAN we do? Not should, not must - although our time as individual mortal beings, as well as a species is running out - but absolutely CAN do, because wisdom that is IN ALL of US, the wisdom that is in fact who/what we actually are, is amazingly what we mostly, and in some almost entirely, have forgotten.
    Here's some of what I've understood from the many imho wise elders I've been reading about, listening to on the web, occasionally meeting, and more recently, blogging about: 

 

    Don't Judge. Every day we see outrageous, disgusting behavior on the news. It's disorienting to see how almost half of the US population fervently supports behavior, that in a few years (as Germans did after WWII) they will categorically deny having even known anything about it. So it's hard not to judge terrible behavior. 
    But from a much higher, non-dual perspective, what if we're each born to play a certain role, with a certain set of talents, a certain set of limitations & no matter how wonderful or horrible it appeared, we all did our best. And what if most of our ridiculous behavior was because most (but mercifully not all) of us completely forgot that we took on our role freely, including the fact that we are actually producers & executive directors of the entire play - almost identical to the Jesus being fully human and fully Divine story, except the he had almost complete recall of who he actually was, where he came from, and where he would return to.
    Bewildered? This blog & its video might help: http://www.johnlovas.com/2023/01/the-nearly-unforgivables.html 

 

     Be Discerning. Many of us spend a great deal of time watching / listening to the news & comments about the news. While it's important to perhaps watch / listen to the CBC or BBC news for 30 minutes a day, much more than that is probably masochistic or even an addiction. Doing more & more of what makes you feel sick is not a recipe for optimal healthy.
    Instead of a steady diet of psychopathic politicians, billionaires, "influencers", and other nightmare visions, for the sake of sanity - how about reading about and listening to wise elders? My blogs are all about inspiring, mature, healthy, wise role models, like: 

    James Finley: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=James+Finley .

    Helen Hamilton: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Helen+Hamilton .  

    Rainer Maria Rilke: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Rilke . 

    Robert A. Johnson: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Robert+A.+Johnson

    Rami Shapiro: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Rami+Shapiro . 

    Richard Rohr: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Richard+Rohr .  

    Henry Shukman: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Henry+Shukman .  

    John Welwood: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=John+Welwood .

    Toni Packer: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Toni+Packer . 

    Ram Dass: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Ram+Dass .

    James Hollis: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=James+Hollis . 

    Roger Walsh: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Roger+Walsh .

    David Whyte: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=David+Whyte .

    Norman Fischer: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Norman+Fischer .

    David Steindl-Rast: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=David+Steindl-Rast . 

and MANY MORE wise elders to learn from & be inspired by. 

    It's OUR CHOICE - our free will - whether we immerse ourselves in wisdom - OR - in darkness. "Too busy", yet doomscrolling for hours each day?; is this wisdom stuff "too deep" or "too confusing", and again, "just too busy" to get into it and learn? You can procrastinate and aim at best for feeling superficially OK, "ordinary unhappiness" - OR - discover what life is really about.

 

    Learn & Do Spiritual Practices.  Theory is important BUT not enough. We need to intentionally PRACTICE shifting from being fearful consumer robots to becoming wise elder human beings.
    Our culture is not big on "practices." Some of us might admire the dedication it takes to become world class athletes, dancers, surgeons etc, but most of us just don't have the dedication to put in the time & effort. 
    The ONE area where ALL of us would massively benefit is putting in dedicated time & effort into spiritual practice: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=spiritual+practice 

 

    Be a Nurturing Presence. Only by waking up to who/what we truly are, can we help instead of hinder others to wake up and help others. 
    “… we have to allow our higher nature to show before we can do anything real, before we can be truly responsible people.” Jiyu-Kennett. “The Wild, White Goose. The Diary of a Female Zen Priest.” ed 2. Shasta Abbey Press. 2002.

 

    Be Humble. The ego is a tricky, sticky, persistent trickster. We must regularly check our own BS-meter. A common problem is assuming a massive group ego - thinking one can do even horrible things because "I'm doing God's work." But such "crazy wisdom" is just crazy. To paraphrase Forest Gump, "Crazy is as crazy does." 
    Humility, gentleness, empathy, wisdom & kindness are rarely promoted or even recognized in our consumer culture & partisan religions. 

 

     Learn Self-compassion. The tough, aggressively self-reliant, workaholic individual is venerated these days, while a decent, nurturing, humble person would be branded "a loser" by today's dictators & billionaire CEOs. So decent human beings need to intentionally practice self-compassion, in order to survive & be effective in today's crass, superficial, heartless environment.

 

    Practice Self-awareness. With self-awareness practice, your talk & your walk are kept aligned. Again, humility is crucial. 
    "Self-inquiry" is a specialized, key, self-awareness practice: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Self-inquiry 

 

    Become More Discerning, More Self-compassionate. The more neuroses & "story of me" burdens we shed, the more clearly we see ourselves & what's going on around us. The more clearly we see, the more magnified our remaining (though diminishing) neuroses & other burdens appear to us, so it can seem like we're regressing instead of "getting ahead." So we need more self-compassion & patience with ourself.
    “Felt reality is invariably wept reality, and wept reality is soon compassion and kindness. Decisive and harsh judgments slip away in the tracks of tears. And when we cry, we are revealing our truest, most loving self.” Richard Rohr. “The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage” Convergent Books, 2025.

  

     Live in Joy. Gradually, you will be progressively more peaceful & joyful, regardless of the many challenges & sorrows in your own & loved ones' life, as well as that of the human race. The major, even crippling burden that you will shed is your identification with & constant rehashing of your own 'story of me' AS WELL AS its twin, the constant anxiety of 'what will happen to me?' and of course, vividly imagining the worst possibilities. As this HEAVY PSYCHOLOGIC BURDEN starts to lift, you start to experience 'the peace that surpasses all understanding' ie it must be experienced to be understood. Even this has, if you will, a 'dark side': while you'll see as your own past, no matter how miserable, as just a story, your empathy towards others (even actors playing a sad role in a movie) becomes progressively more powerful. Your job now is embodying peace & joy modeling equanimity even in the midst of chaos, when it's the most essential.

    "This is actually instruction from the Buddha, where he says, ‘Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate. Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted. Live in joy and peace, even among the troubled. Look within. Be still, free from fears and attachments. Know the sweet joy of living in the way things are in the Way, the Dharma.' 
    And so this is also a challenge. He doesn’t say, let’s get rid of disease and all these problems, but to find a joyful way to be alive amidst it all.”
    Jack Kornfield - Finding Your Self on the Spiritual Path - Point of Relation with Thomas Hübl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fjz7WaTyX4 WONDERFUL MATURE WISDOM - Jack Kornfield at his best

    And some 500 years later, in another incarnation of the Divine, Jesus said, "the poor will always be with us." Fixating on quickly eliminating age-old problems is in itself problematic, akin to "seeing a splinter in another's eye," again from Jesus, advising that we should first address our own significant flaws (‘the beam’ in our own eye) before attempting to correct / "save" others.

“The teachings on Buddha Nature do not mean that there is some nucleus of Buddhhood enclosed in sentient beings 
behind the temporary obscuring stains. 
Rather, our whole existence as sentient beings is in itself 
the sum of temporary stains that float like clouds in the infinite, bright sky of Buddha Nature, the luminous, open expanse 
of our mind that has no limits or boundaries. 
Once these clouds dissolve from the warm rays of the sun 
of wisdom shining in this space, 
nothing within sentient beings has been freed or developed, 
but there is just this radiant expanse without any reference points of cloud-like sentient beings or cloud-free Buddhas." 
Sthiramati, 6th century Indian Buddhist scholar-monk

 

 

     Watching David Ditchfield's 40-minute BBC interview about his Near-Death Experience (NDE) is imho wise use of your precious time: https://www.shineonthestory.com/ 

 

Tenderness in Harsh Times

    "Ask yourself … 'Does this path have a heart?' If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.” Carlos Castaneda

    A powerful contrast to "a path with heart" or experiencing unconditional love as central in one's life, is illustrated in the 2024 Netflix documentary, "Martha." Martha Stewart's parents were unable to show her unconditional love, and Martha likewise was unable to show her only daughter unconditional love. Her marriage and then her relationship with her long-time boyfriend also failed due to this crucial lack. She became a driven perfectionist doer, earning, then losing a billion dollars. She said, with some pride, that she had no interest in "how her boyfriend was feeling. What he was going to do" is what interested her. Martha's life, despite all the fame & fortune, was that of a materialist who couldn't understand why, despite working so hard to perfectly rearrange all the deckchairs on the Titanic, she remained unhappy. See http://www.johnlovas.com/2018/07/healing-basic-wound-of-heart.html

    “Not knowing we are loved and lovable makes the heart grow cold. And all the tragedy of human life follows from there."
    John Welwood. "Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships. Healing the Wound of the Heart." Trumpeter, 2006.

    "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, Harvard biologist

    “What really matters is your capacity to turn towards the tenderness of your heart in the midst of that which offends you.” Amoda Maa

    Amoda Maa skillfully expands on this (Amoda Maa - 2nd Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview https://batgap.com/amoda-maa-2/ ) :

    Amoda Maa (AM): “… the darkness that we see, the chaos that we see, and that we are seeing increasingly, the horror that we see, the confusion and all of this that we see is not necessarily a sign of things having gone wrong. It’s a sign that that very darkness, that very terror, that very horror, is the place that is the catalyst for the end of division.
    As the outer world becomes more divided, more horrifying, and more terrifying, that’s where we are triggered into our judgments, our sense of rightness and wrongness, our sense of righteousness, that I am right, even when I feel wronged. Righteousness is what drives the division that we see in the world. There’s a lot of that going on today.
    But before anything can happen in the outer world, we must first bring about the end of division in the inner world. 

    Rick Archer (RA): There’s a polarity in American politics these days, that seems to be unprecedented, and it largely reflects what you just said, the sense of 'I am right.' Even among so-called liberal people, there’s a kind of militant refusal to listen to other perspectives. People are shouted down with bull horns, or forbidden from speaking on campuses if they try to express a perspective that doesn’t jibe with the liberal perspective. People on both sides of that divide are guilty of it.

    AM: We see that very obviously in the world, but we don’t see it so easily in ourselves, in our response to that. I still see very intelligent, very open, very spiritual, very conscious people, still operating from inner division, that inner division just is a sense of righteousness. Of course, we must have a sense of discernment in terms of justice in the world and all that, but when we’re giving ourselves to that sense of righteousness in ourselves, we’ve created a very strong us and them in ourselves, a rightness and wrongness in ourselves. That creates further division. If anything’s going to change on the external, in terms of the division that we see in the world, then that response in ourselves has to change first, and then we can move from intelligence, then we can respond intelligently, and that may have a very different outcome.

    Going back to the original part of this conversation, the horror and division that we see in the world is precisely the catalyst that we need to reflect on our own inner divided response. Actually, dare I say, it’s a blessing. It’s a gift. It’s the doorway. It’s not that there’s something gone wrong, it’s actually something gone right, in the sense that in order to cleanse ourselves of our own inner divided state, the external world is there to reflect it.

    RA: Yes, it’s reminiscent of what you said earlier about heartbreak on an individual level being a potential catalyst for deep realization. The situation in the world can also be a catalyst for maybe collective realization.

    AM: It is and I don’t think anything’s going to change in the world until we actually get that or see that, one person at a time.

    RA: A lot of people talk these days about the divine feminine. In fact, I just interviewed Vera de Chalambert a month ago, and she was talking a lot about that, and many others do. You make a commentary on this, you say, ‘The new spiritual frequency arising today may have the look and feel of a feminine vibration, but it actually has nothing to do with gender. Rather, it’s about something much more universal. It’s actually a frequency and expression that can come through a female or a male body, or through any life form.’

    What’s your whole take on this sort of popularity of the divine feminine that you hear these days, and in light of the point you just made in the passage I read?

    AM: I think the conversation around the divine feminine is prevalent today because it’s a redressing of the balance. It’s a response to the grip of the masculine or the patriarchal. That’s part of what I’m saying, but really, the feminine that I’m speaking of is not about anything in opposition to anything. It’s not got to do with the battle of the sexes, or the return of a feminist approach, etc. I’m talking about the infusion of love into humanity. And the infusion of love is what’s been missing. And what I mean by that, if we go a bit deeper, is the capacity to turn towards gentleness; the capacity to turn towards the tenderness of the inner heart, which is not what’s been happening. Whether we’re on the patriarchal or matriarchal side, in some ways we’re still operating at the level of some kind of hardness.
    So I’m talking about the capacity to turn towards tenderness in response to our experience, and therefore in response to each other, and therefore in response to the world, which requires a shift from mind to heart, through surrender, not through knowing. And so we can apply that to ‘spiritual practice’ or we can apply that to the totality of our life’s experience.

    And I get the sense that this frequency is beginning to filter in. I call it ‘feminine’ because it’s about surrender, but it’s filtering in through everyone, whether we’re male or female, whether we’re long time on this planet or just born, there’s a different frequency that’s coming through and I guess that’s what I’m referring to. I don’t speak about the feminine much actually.

    By tenderness, I’m not talking about passivity, ‘woo woo’ or anything like that. And it’s not got anything with a goddess archetype, it’s got nothing to do with archetypes, stereotypes, roles or concepts.

    The tenderness I speak of, if it’s going to serve any purpose, is a tenderness towards our inner experience. If we examine that, we probably can see how we are not tender towards our inner experience, which means that when we have an experience we don’t like, that makes us feel uncomfortable, that makes us feel vulnerable, that makes us feel scared, that makes us feel unloved, that makes us feel alone, or anything like that, then we attempt to reject it, suppress it, deny it, constrict it, change it, maneuver it, squeeze it, spit it out, and so on and so forth. And that is not tenderness. That’s aggression. That’s violence. We are violent towards our own experience.

    If you can stop that violence, and choose tenderness towards your experience, then you can forget about spirituality, you can forget about spiritual practice, you can forget about spiritual teachings, and you will live fully awake and fully human. Because that’s what it is – nonviolence towards our inner experience. Because when we’re violent towards our inner experience, what follows that is then ‘I’m wrong,’ or ‘they’re wrong,’ or ‘it’s wrong,’ and then you have become a victim of reality, and as long as you’re a victim of reality, you are separate, and when you’re separate you’re living in the dream of separation, and all horrors, all suffering personal & otherwise, arise from that. So this point about tenderness is key, and way more powerful than the word tenderness implies.

(People who commit terrorist attacks) are at war with their own fear. Everything violent arises out of fear. And that fear may have a thread, a root in a sense of injustice, in a sense of being abused, a sense of not being complete, whole, and safe and one and all of that. So it has a certain intelligence in it, but when we’re violent towards that fear, then it ends up as a violence towards that which appears to be causing that fear, and so then we have the terror, and the war, and the violence in the world.

But if we can turn that tenderness towards ourselves – those of us who have the capacity to do that, a vast majority of the privileged Western world, not all, but certainly a proportion – we do have the capacity to turn that tenderness towards ourselves, towards our inner experience. And that’s very often overlooked. And if we take that as the only spiritual practice there is, I would say that there would be a vast transformation.

One of the things we’re so frightened of is the experience of loss, whether that loss is the loss of a loved one, or the loss of our own life, or the loss of whatever it is we’ve gained – success, or wealth, or love, or recognition – and yet, our willingness to be tender towards that loss is a very profound opening to what can never be lost, which is beingness itself. It’s like meeting death in everything.

Being tender towards loss is again not investing that loss with meaning. It doesn’t mean that you’re bad. It doesn’t mean that you’re unloved. It doesn’t mean that your life is broken. And it doesn’t mean that you’re a failure. We tend to invest loss with a meaning to do with ‘me.’ It’s all about ‘me.’ But to be tender towards that is to feel the absolute shattering of loss, and yet, for we don’t invest ourselves in that, or meaning in that, we discover there is nothing that can be lost.”

Amoda Maa - 2nd Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview https://batgap.com/amoda-maa-2/  

 
    “Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.” Ram Dass

    “Look at people you don’t love and see them as an exercise for you to open your heart.” Ram Dass

    “There are four questions of value in life … What is sacred? Of what is spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.” Lord Byron

    “We are all just walking each other home.” Ram Dass

Nancy Knox’s Facebook post - thank you Janet!