Author: joseph mauricio

Posted on by joseph mauricio

NOW

NOW is a long story.  I didn’t know exactly where to begin. Or when. So, I thought I might begin at the beginning, which makes sense. But then I thought, given the subject, I might start with the present and reflect back. However, I’m also fascinated with the future. Thriller novelist, the late Robert Ludlum, began writing his books with the last chapter. This way he had a bead on where the story might go. From the Vajrayana Buddhist point of view, the past, present and future are happening at once, around us, in each moment. Perhaps being here now is knowing what came before, where we are and where we are heading. “Now” is not sedentary. Trungpa Rinpoche called this larger space of time, nowness. Nowness is not a solid thing. Nowness is an ever evolving experience.

One of the best things I have ever done was to look up at the sky. This simple act brings a keen perspective to our ground eye view whenever it happens. However, looking up in a place without light pollution, such as the mountains or the desert, can be quite profound. Millions of billions of stars exploding across the sky in an orgasmic display of complex, creative consciousness.  And the deeper we look, the more we see. Stars behind stars behind stars. Though we are not always aware of what we are seeing, the course of all history is mapped out above us. We are peering into the secrets of time from our little ledge of now. The closest natural light we see is the reflective light of the moon which happened just over a second ago. The light of the sun happened 8 minutes ago.  Beyond that many of the stars we’ll see tonight are so very far away that the light we’ll be seeing happened a long time ago. As we look up in wonder, we are seeing the past, stars as they were before we were born, and in most cases, before humanity was born. And if we look deep deep within the recesses of universal time, we’ll see stars that predate all life on this planet. The James Webb telescope is beginning to uncover galaxies that may have existed right after the birth of time and space. So the very beginning of our story is actually happening now.  In fact, the entire history of our universe is happening right now in the sky above us.

How worlds were created, exist, and die – Brahma, Krishna and Vishnu, from the Indian mythology – are scripted in the patterns of time and space in the universe. The Vajrayana Buddhist Tradition of Tibet suggests that concepts of past, present and future are simply linear conceptual constructs. And while no one has been able to see evidence of future occurrences it seems the seeds of what’s to come are planted in each moment.  There are those who are able to feel past the linear and understand the future, by understanding the patterns of the past and the present. The I Ching states that those who know the patterns of time and space will rule their work with dignity and grace. Seeing into the future seems to be one of the firewalls that is existent in the universe. Travel into the future, the absolute limit of speed locked in at the speed of light are some of the currently held laws of the universe. Yet, maybe these laws simply delineate the limits of our understanding.  As our mind evolves, so does our understanding. When we climb a mountain the view changes as we ascend. Yet, humans are fond of identifying with what we’ve already seen. We embrace our limitations. I suppose shackles offer comfort. 

Our conceptual mind can organize and explain the creative non-conceptual experience of the universe. But it is only a map. The map is not the destination. The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon. Nowness is happening now, but it is comprised of all time. Nowness is as ever-evolving as is the universe of time and space. Even if we could define the universe right now our understanding would change as time leads into space.  The nature of the universe is expansive. The nature of concepts are reductive. Concepts are limitations that express how far our understanding has come. But the universe is more vast than we can understand.  The universe is not linear and it doesn’t exist in a way that our conceptual mind understands.  So, throughout time humans have used mathematics, physics, and all kinds of theoretical principles to begin to understand what is actually there.  Mystics and shamans approach it from an intuitive point of view. Ancient humans created stories of what they saw in the sky.  Those stories described the pre-history of their culture.  Judaism, Greek, Roman, Indian and many other cultures believed in a time that astral beings existed physically on earth.  As two legged bipedal humans came to prominence these beings, be they mythical or historical, were placed in the sky. When the ancient Greeks looked to the sky they were able to see a map of their past, as well as a navigational tool for the present. 

The stars were describing the birth of these cultures from the very beginning time and space and offering a script of how they saw themselves.  If the gods and goddesses depicted in the sky were not corporeal then perhaps they represented energies common to all beings.  Debating the existence of gods and goddesses is missing the point. Humans were trying to describe something from their ancient history in the designated patterns in the sky.  Orion the hunter, Taurus the bull, the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper were ways to explain what and who they were. And maybe these pictures also explain who we are now. And perhaps what we are to become. It’s possible that the climate difficulties we’re facing on Earth will force us to find other alternatives. Perhaps we are being urged by the spirit of the universe to move psychologically, conceptually, socially and technologically toward the sky.

It’s possible that the climate difficulties we’re facing on Earth will force us to find alternatives in distant parts of the cosmos. Perhaps we are being urged by the spirit of the universe to move psychologically, conceptually, socially and technologically toward the sky. Perhaps our suffering blue planet is humanity’s incubator. Maybe our cocoon is readying us to ascend. Perhaps we will sprout wings and become like the sky beings of space.  Maybe this is our legacy. However, a more pessimistic reading would be that we’re quickly approaching our own doom because we simply – and despite copious warnings – simply cannot break the habits to which we are addicted. Yet, looking to the sky, we see that death and birth are symbiotic and necessary.  And if the great spirit of the universe is heeding us at all, why are we more important than the bugs we kill walking on the street? Are we more important than the trees we cut for our lawns, or the deer we poison to spare our roses, or the cows or chickens or all life we deem expendable so that our life is more comfortable?

Some people look to the grandness of the sky and see themselves as a god. Some people look to the sky and in comparison feel they are nothing at all. The Buddha taught that from the latter perspective we can offer great love, kindness and healing to the world. From the vantage of serving the universe without centering on our-selves, we are open to understanding the greater patterns of things.

Thus with that panoramic awareness we become “a Chakravartin” a holder of the wheel of time. When we offer up our petty struggles of existence, which are killing each other and strangling our planet, we can instead open up to connection with all life.

 

 

 

(The pictures above are of Tibetan Prayer Flags marking the center of a spiritual mandala, a rendering of the earliest galaxies taken from the James Webb telescope, and a thangka of Guru Rinpoche Lord Padmasambhava considered the chakravartin of their age.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

COMING HOME

Home is where the heart is . . . let’s go to your place. 

Many of us have suffered great, or glancing, wounds during our upbringing. We denizens of modern society live under tremendous pressure to succeed, compete or even keep up. This makes us less than kind sometimes. It’s a sad fact that our family members are sometimes fodder for the aggressions of an uncaring world. Because of whatever pain we’ve endured, many of us consider ourselves unworthy of care and affection. We feel at fault. We hold deep resentments. Many of us grow up searching for a safe place to call home.

Of course, there are many who have had healthy homes and many who maintain balanced relationships in their lives. Yet, they still struggle and suffer as we all do. Rather than living in gratitude, many suffer from comparing themselves to those who have it better. No matter how happy our lives have been we are all subject to pain and suffering. And although pain is a natural and necessary component in our lives, we somehow believe we are being punished whenever we are in pain. We feel gilt for the pain others ae experiencing. We mistake this very natural process as personal. We believe we are sinners who are too ashamed to face their creator and so wander the world in shame.  We are unworthy of love, unworthy of success, unworthy of happiness. By believing we are somehow at fault, we miss our opportunity to feel at home in ourselves.

Maybe home is where the hurt is.

Some of us left home as soon as we could. Others stayed on their mother’s couch for years. Yet, whether we travelled to a neighbor’s, another room, or another country, we never really leave our upbringing. We carried our attachment issues, our anxieties, and our loneliness wherever we travelled. Sometimes we kept leaving for the sunshine only to feel shadows crawling up behind us. The Buddha taught that the root of suffering lies in attachment.  Although this is interpreted as meaning attachment is the problem, perhaps we can unpack this and see that problematic attachments are the problem. Dysfunctional attachments plant seeds of social, emotional and environmental dysfunction. I had a friend who would say that when the cornerstone is cracked, the structure is always unsure. When human beings feel unsure, they cling for safety wherever they can. Clinging is attachment’s codependent partner. Our broken sense of attachment causes us to wander looking for things to make us feel secure.

Some people find a temporary sense of security in a new house. Others in a new love. Some find solace in substances and many in belief systems. The child that dons a swastika and carries a gun to school may be looking for something to complete the emptiness they feel but cannot endure. The government that invades a neighbor is looking for security in ways that bring only more fear and insecurity. White supremacy and nationalism of all colors are ways for people to try and heal the broken ways they feel inside. Some of us look for connection in ways that actually cause great violence toward those entrusted in our care. Sometimes we mistake that for love. Sometimes we take that for evidence that we are broken and in need. Sometimes that need makes us take more than we need as we crawl into the dark cycle of obsessively clinging to everything out there in an attempt to repair the broken attachments in our heart.

And while many have grown up believing in one God who peers down on them in judgement, there are some who’ve come to realize that divinity is in every living thing. If God is everywhere, or if God is the loving spirit of the universe, then perhaps we can access salvation, grace, or relief from our suffering in any moment we remember that we are not at fault because of our suffering. In fact, we are blessed.

Remembering our divinity, we remember that although our heart hurts, our pain connects us to all living things as all living things experience pain. In this way, we are connected to a web of life. When we touch our heart, we recognize that we are part of the interconnectedness of all living things. Each time we remember we are alive, we are connected to the spirit of the universe. That loving sense of the universe has always been there and, as far as anyone can guess, will continue to be there. Sadly however, the destructive forces of the universe are also always with us. Bhagavad Gita states there are three essential universal forces: the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer. Brahma is the creator. Vishnu is the preserver. Shiva the destroyer. These forces are said to be natural and self-existing. This teaching points to the ego-insulting fact that our suffering is natural and necessary and not about us. Of course, when we are hurt, broken or frightened we feel we are the only ones in the world. We feel abandoned by God, and shut off from all hope. Locking ourselves in isolation, we keep ourselves in hell of shame and retribution. Perhaps we don’t recognize this as such. Perhaps someone else is to blame for our suffering, and so lock ourselves into reliving those old scenarios. Someone else may have caused us great suffering, but it’s up to us whether we isolate in that hell or remember the love which is nonetheless all around us. Suffering is not our fault. But it is an opportunity to wake up and return home. All beings suffer. And all beings wish, as we do, to be free of suffering.

Interestingly, in order to feel connected, we must accept our separateness. The blind desperation of random clinging only keeps us isolated in cycles of dissatisfaction and suffering. The Buddhist process is to decouple the reflexive interaction between how we feel from how we perceive others are behaving.  In the AA tradition they say “live and let live.” My sponsor is fond of reminding me that it’s none of my business what anyone else thinks of me.  He is also fond of reminding me that my suppositions are rarely accurate. We tell ourselves so many stories to justify our suffering. But these stories tend to keep us from accessing our compassion and locked away from our heart. Addiction, craving, and clinging flourish in isolation.  Isolation, whether socially, or psychologically is a hall of self referential mirrors. By magnifying and distorting reality we put ourselves at the center of our universe. While sometimes we may need to do this as part of processing our pain, in time it becomes self-defeating as we are disconnected from the source of healing. If Isolation breeds the behaviour that causes suffering, connection is the antidote.

We don’t have to run in the streets hugging everyone we meet. The key is to connect to our own heart and be touching our vulnerability, relax our defenses and reconnect to the spirit of things. The fact is, despite our suffering, we have access to love by simply loving. In this way, we are returning home. Perhaps for a moment, we can stop wandering and just be here.

Home.

Sarah C. Whitehead posted a quote by in our community chat:

    “Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.”– Naguib Mahfouz

By coming back to the breath in our meditation, we are training our mind to return. We do this again and again expressing the humility to come back home. Here and now is where we belong. Then anywhere we travel we are not escaping.  We are bringing the love with us.  So if we develop a sense of caring for ourselves through our meditation, we become more at home with ourselves. In time, we are at home wherever we are, whenever we remember. And when we’re at home, we may have the confidence to invite the world in.

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted on by joseph mauricio

THE WARRIOR

True strength is not measured by physical prowess, but by the ability to control one’s own mind, cultivate inner fortitude and resilience through the practice of self-mastery. Self-mastery is not about suppressing or denying your desires and emotions, it is about understanding them, acknowledging them and making conscious choices that align with your higher principles.

       – Marcus Aurelius

 

MEETING THE WARRIOR 

In many traditions the ideal of compassion is one of boundless kindness and caring. In the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, and generally in the Tibetan traditions on which it is based, kindness and caring are seen as dependent on confidence. The willingness to face our world with dignity and strength is known as the warrior principle.

The foundation of caring for our world lies in the strength in the warrior’s authentic being. In this sense, a warrior is not based on aggression in any way. When we are aggressive, we are being competitive. When we are in competition or struggle with another, we are defining ourselves by that metric. That is not what we mean by authentic. Authentic means we are acting from our own higher power.  Authentic Being on which warriorship is based is not the ego-self that is fighting with their world, or scrambling to please anyone. It is the sense of being based on our feeling of self-worth. When we rest in this basic goodness we naturally connect to our higher principles.

With meditation practice we begin to train the mind to recognize how authentic being feels and how that feeling differs from the way ego defenses feel. Our body is actually different when we are posturing. We begin to feel the difference between our ego gripping and when we relax and let go. It is recognition of this difference that allows us to step back from our defenses and meet our authentic being. Letting go into authentic being takes confidence. So, with our meditation practice we are training to recognize and embody the warrior within. By sitting in the warrior’s posture we are developing the confidence and bravery to let go of our defensive posture and claim our warror’s seat. By letting go we release the tension in the body and our mental grip on our struggle. This is not surrender. It is getting past our blockages so we can access the ability to see clearly.  Then we can respond appropriately.

By letting go we are expressing our authentic nature, our essential being. By contrast, when we adopt a defensive ego posture we are expressing a conditioned nature. Our conditioned nature often manifests as an habitual reaction to life. This defensive nature might masquerade as strength but, in reality, deep within ourselves, we are acting on fear.  Fear is the cause and condition of egos structure. We are simultaneously reacting to fear and creating fear. When we are caught in this cycle of anxiety-based lashing out or lashing in, we are acting unconsciously and are not able to understand how we are adding aggression to our being. Instead of maintaining the awareness to allow our emotions to serve us, we are allowing our awareness to be consumed by them. We react blindly becoming our anger, our fear, our lust, our denial. In this way, we lose the connection to authentic being. However, the good news is, we can easily reconnect to the warrior within by simply remembering. When we talk about meeting the warrior, we are talking about remembering how our authentic nature feels.

Don’t think about this. Just BE the warrior in body, spirit and mind.

We express our essential nature in meditation practice by adopting the posture of the warrior. In this way, we embody warrorship. We remind ourselves how it feels to be open to the present. While this takes confidence it also builds confidence. However, meeting the warrior takes time and is a constant process of unlearning our conditioning and remembering our truth. When we find the balance and majesty of sitting, we are training to remember the warrior on the battlefields of life.

Training in warrorship is learning to express our authentic being. In time, we learn to trust the warrior within us. As we become less fascinated with our reactive nature, we turn to the openness of our true nature, our Buddha nature. We are not adopting anything new here. We are releasing what has always been there. This is like the story of Michelangelo saying he didn’t sculpt David. He released him from the confines of the rock. When we release our true nature by releasing ourselves from the grip of our defenses, we are exhibiting and building the confidence to be open. Openness is the requisite for kindness. When we are open we are not weak or defenseless at all. In fact, we are more able to see clearly how to respond. Compassion takes many forms. The statues of Quan Yin or Avalokiteshvara are often depicted as having many arms to represent the many ways that compassion can manifest when we are open enough to see them. Confidence allows compassion to manifest as anger, love, caring or kindness as needed.

It takes bravery to be open enough to see what best serves the situation. The warrior rests in their authentic being with the confidence to respond creatively rather than react habitually. This is the warror’s posture. This is what we are training for when we sit.

This is meeting the warrior.

 

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

RESENTMENT

Resentments, while they may be triggered by a present moment situation, are our consciousness reliving unresolved emotional pain. Our mind spins, conjuring stories of how we were wronged and how we can assuage those ills. But the flies we are swatting just out of reach were hatched from corpses of a forgotten past. All we have is the mini war we’ve reignited in our gut.  In this way, resentments are like weights we carry around. Aside from whatever ill feeling we have, our resentments instigate toxic philosophies embedded in our history. We relive these feelings each time we retell these stories.

The act of recollection is a powerful tool of the mind. Like any tool it is neutral until we apply our intention. Recollection is the term for meditation in some traditions. We recollect our natural state of being free of struggle. Or more prosaically, we might simply remember we are sitting here breathing. Each time we remember, we return to our truth. The more we build feelings associated with meditation the easier it is to return. In a sense, we are not trying to create an exalted state with our practice but simply develop the ability to recognize and return to what is actually here in the present. In this way, meditation employs this very natural process of our brain to build the strength to remain present. In time, the strength to recognize, return and remain present leads to our liberation from mental afflictions. But, the same process of recollection can be used to further embed our afflictions, keeping us incarcerated in angry prisons when our intention is defensive.

The term resentment comes from the Old-French ressentir, which refers to re-sentience (thanks to Sarah C. Whitehead). Sentience is a state of being that feels experience.  Sentient beings are beings that have emotional as well as sensory and cognitive experience. In our meditation practice, we endeavor to become cognizant of our somatic, emotive and cognitive experience. The deeper our experience, the more it touches these deeper stratas. When we touch these deeper stratas with loving kindness, we are able to heal deeply. Conversely, when we were hurt in a way that wounded us profoundly, the pain becomes embedded in our body as well as our sentient – emotional experience. Painful experiences happening in the present are likely to be conjoined with our embedded memory. We may therefore react disproportionately to present painful situations. A small affront can grow in our minds into a very painful experience. The problem when we become triggered is that it is likely informed by wounds from our past. With resentment we are not in the present. RE- sentience is re – feeling or re – experiencing a triggering situation in the present and fusing it with old wounds. It’s sometimes said resentments are the mind resending the past to torture us in the present. That’s the ground of resentment. Likewise, as these imagined insults remain unresolved, the current resentment story gets iterated and reiterated again and again.

Because our emotions have roots well in our past, when we feel disrespected, disappointed or otherwise hurt by something in the present, we may not be able to entirely resolve our feelings. We might have a clever retort, but the feeling still lingers unseen. The cognitive mind serves as a defensive tool. It was, after all, the evolutionary process developed to help evade danger and provide sustenance. Defensive thinking is deeply programmed within us. Have you ever gone to bed with thoughts of some hurtful moment swirling in your mind as you go over and over again what you could have sad or what you should have done? This is the mind trying to control an uncontrollable hurtful scenario. Its re – iterating the situation again and again in a vain attempt to resolve something that has already happened. This is why resentments are often depicted as a ball and chain we drag with us. Each time we have a new resentment, it becomes added to our list and the weight becomes heavier. The cruel trick of the mind is that we believe each time that the resentment, and our outsized reaction, is self-existing. We fall for the trick again and again not realizing that these seemingly independent affronts to our dignity are in reality meaningless flies stepping on an open wound. When these resentments build to a point that we walk around with exposed wounds we end up reacting to every touch. It’s understandable that resentments lead us to shutting down.

Some people drink or drug to create a sense of freedom from the weight of their resentments. Some desperate dial ex-lovers, or pick up and move to another place. But every escapist scenario leads to the same consequence – we are hiding from ourselves behind this wall of bitchiness. The only way out is to turn inward. When something hurts it is usual to want to find a reason, or something to blame. But blame, as justified as it may be, points in the wrong direction from recovery.  If we want to change a painful circumstance, the only thing we can really change is ourselves. And while we may not be to blame for however we were wronged, we can learn from the pain by seeing what it is we could do better that next time. The only way out is to go inward and try and heal ourselves.All we can change is ourselves.

That is recovery. Remembering to recognize resentment and return to our higher nature. Sentience is the embodiment of our consciousness in the present experience. Resentment reminds us to embody our pain. And in that way, we relive and attract that pain. Liberation, on the other hand, is based on remembering our enlightenment, our true nature. The term Buddha refers to awakened. So, our Buddha nature is when we’ve developed ourselves to become aware of our feelings as well as our history so that we can take responsibility for our actions in the future.  Returning to embody wakefulness is how we become awake. Recognizing how we are imprisoning ourselves by resentments or our maladaptive reactions to resentment is how we return to our wakeful being. Our wakeful being is free of all stains and bruises, even as our everyday being is full of them. So, our work is to recognize when we are feeding our pain by being our pain and then return to the higher sentience of becoming awake. In meditation we train in recognizing and returning. But we can also train in being.

Imagine you are a Buddha and be that. Be that in your body and heart. Be that despite your suffering. Stop blaming. Stop finding fault. Turn from fueling resentments toward working with our own pain.

And remember to return to wakeful sentience. Being Buddha.

 

 

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Posted on by joseph mauricio

LOVING ACCEPTANCE

During this time of personal, social, and environmental stress, developing compassion is so important.  Yet, compassion isn’t always the first thing we think of when we feel attacked and triggered. If we unpack becoming triggered, we find we often become triggered when we feel overwhelmed and victimized. When this is the case, we most reflexively adopt a defensive posture. This is understandable. We close our eyes and start swinging. This action perfectly describes what compassion is not.

First, compassion is open eyed. When we are open to a situation, our response can be appropriate. If we are truly in danger, nothing is served by refusing to look at our situation. With our eyes open we can better determine the best response to secure our safety.  Secondly, when we start blindly swinging, we are reacting without conscious thought. Compassion is responding appropriately to our triggers, with our eyes and our mind open. On the other hand, neurosis is reacting blindly in ways that are rarely appropriate. Neuroses are maladaptive reactions. Whether lashing out, grasping, or running away these reactions are rarely a conscious choice. Our fear is creating an urgency that disallows the ability to slow down and see clearly. Usually, this means we don’t trust ourselves. It takes a certain self-possession to trust ourselves enough to stand in the fray of rising emotions and look before we hit send.

If compassion is the ability to act appropriately, even – and perhaps especially – when we feel attacked, then we must learn to love ourselves enough to be on our own side while we feel attacked. Compassion is predicated upon having compassion for ourselves. Many Buddhist traditions refer to Maitri as the necessary precondition for true compassion. Maitri, or loving kindness, means we are accepting ourselves and our situation before we react. If we learn to care for ourselves, we have the strength to pause before we try and change anything. It is not selfish to do this. It is essential.

Caring for ourselves need not be indulgent. Retreating to a warm bath to replenish ourselves is selfcare. Hanging out in the bath until we’ve become a prune in order to avoid our life, is not. So, Maitri is often described as “making friends” with ourselves and our situations. We are keeping a respectable distance from our pain, and not getting lost in neither the pain, nor the selfcare. The point is not the bath. The point is using the bath to restore our ability to respond accurately to life. By making friends with ourselves, we are making friends with our neurosis, with our triggers, our doubt and confusion. Maitri is making friends with the moment. The method to making friends is to become familiar with the situation. It is becoming familiar with ourselves. This is, perhaps, the most important result of our meditation practice. We keep coming back to the breath and our mindfulness of the breath creates the space for us to become familiar with ourselves. The patience to be present with each breath develops into the fortitude to be present in our lives.

Familiarity allows us to be less reactive with ourselves. This allows us to be with ourselves long enough to begin to see what we do. Seeing without reacting leads to accepting. This is why recognition is followed by acceptance in our practice directives. Rather than reacting to things we see about ourselves, meditation offers us the space to accept them. When we have the space to accept ourselves, we have the space to accept others. And that space with others, or circumstances in our life, allows us the opportunity to respond in ways that may be helpful, rather than harmful.

Once we are able to slow down and see ourselves, we can begin to see that we can work with ourselves. We learn that by acceptance of our own craziness we are less reactive with ourselves. In this way, we become less reactive of others. When we accept the crazy within ourselves, we begin to see that we are not unlike everyone else. When someone is hurting us, we might see the pain that is motivating them to be reactive. Then perhaps we can feel empathy. In any case, since we have created the loving space of non-reaction, we can perhaps see commonalities between ourselves and the other – even if they fail to see this themselves.

As we progress on the path of compassion, we have more responsibility. At some point, we have less need for others to respond as we want them to. If our actions are determined by what we expect from others, then we are compromised and not acting with true compassion. Compassionate action is giving without expecting anything in return. No giver, no gift, no receiver it is said. This is not to be Mother Teresa, necessarily. It is a very practical way to live. We just let go of what we are giving and trust ourselves enough to simply give. In a world of neurotic reaction taking a moment to pause and respond beyond the urgings of egoic defenses, is a gift. And we give this gift to others, and to ourselves. Not asking anything in return, leaves us free of resentment and expectation.

We don’t need grand gestures to be compassionate.  We just need to be friendly enough with ourselves that our friendliness extends naturally to others. This will increase the possibility of goodness in our life. And it will allow us to see the goodness that we already have. In this crazy dangerous world, there is still much love. As compassion is a natural quality of the universe, it is always there for us. When we have the humble openness to accept ourselves and accept love, we are able to love others even when threatened. With loving acceptance, we come to see that there is only love.

And just as giving can be devoid of demand and expectation, so can receiving. All we need to do to connect to the compassion of the universe is to remember we are loved. No matter how badly we feel or how damaged we’ve become all we need to do is remember how fortunate we are to be here. No matter how dangerous life is becoming, it is a blessing to be here and have the ability to help others.

As we become more compassionate, we have more ability to help this world, so much in need.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

WHEN WILL I BE LOVED?

I used to live life driven by expectation. Not just expectation, but outright demand. As you can imagine, I was disappointed much of the time. “It always breaks my heart in two. It happens all the time.”

That disappointment with life led to judgement, resentment, and blame. I blamed all the people in my life who refused to play along with my fantasies. I carried my resentments around like bundles of old laundry.  Which, you know, tended to smell. I got used to the smell and the effort, but other people tended to move away. This led to further resentment. “No one understands me.” Or, as Phil Everly wrote, and Linda Ronstadt so beautifully sang, “When will I be loved?” I remember thinking ‘easy for her to say’ as she was a heartbreakingly beautiful woman with a voice that could crumble mountains. Yet after a number of high-profile relationships, Linda never married, citing “the problem of finding someone that can stand you!” ‘Pick me! Pick me!’ I would think. But the truth is, I had relationships with wonderful people who nonetheless failed to meet the fantastical imaginings of my brain.

The fact that I took these relationships for granted at the time never stopped me from thinking back on what could have been afterwards. This game allowed me to fall deeper into the cycle of resentment.  And, in this way, I was never alone. I had all my bags of laundry. There really wasn’t room for anyone else. All my relationships involved group sex. Me, my partner, and everyone else yammering about in my brain. I needed to make room for myself  before I could find room for anyone else. Obviously, I had to clear some things out.

The path of meditation is one of deconstructing and decumulating rather than accumulating. We are such an acquisitionally oriented species, we find it hard to fathom releasing ourselves from the grip of things. Meditation practice encourages us to open up, release our panicked grip on everything and let go. Letting go is not pushing anything away. It’s not throwing out the emo-laundry. It’s about no longer carrying it around everywhere. Maybe we throw out some, give some away, take the time to clean and fold the rest. Some of this laundry has made us who we are. We all have that kid’s onesie or football jersey we just can’t part with. But all of us can make some room for us to breathe.

We can forgive some attachments however that shouldn’t keep us from becoming anything else we might become.

We keep ourselves from becoming all we might become when we lock ourselves in the vicious cycle of expectation. Expectation leads to disappointment, which leads to resentment, that leads to judgements of all kinds. Thus, many of us carry a dull weight everywhere. We find it hard to move on with life. This discouragement causes depression. And an easy fix is to assign blame.  But blame is self-aggressive and tends to add more weight. We give away our agency and power. We become hostages to our own mind and try to escape the weight with drugs, alcohol, chocolate, or emotions. But anything we do sends us careening away from ourselves. These strategies only add more weight.

The path of meditation suggests that none of this is wrong. Wow. Imagine. All this dysfunction and none of it is wrong?  But, if our lives are complicated by dysfunction then if we can’t love dysfunction, what can we love? These strategies are only attempts to shield us from ourselves. We are so worried about the disappointments that we blame ourselves. And blame is unbearable as long as we’re holding on to living up to the expectation of who we think we should be. What if we could let go of all the blame, all the expectation, all the discouragement and just allowed ourselves to become what we are? Imagine today is the beginning of a new life for ourselves, where instead of living up to our old ways of thinking, we allow ourselves to begin to see who we are? What if we started that process from believing in ourselves? What if our life was oriented toward our potential and away from disappointment?

Meditation practice offers us the perfect template to train our mind away for disappointment. Each time we come back to the breath we are boycotting the conflagration of compounded thoughts and feelings and simply return to now. Then we complicate again, of course, so then we return again to now. It’s like Buddha’s razor. Cutting back to the simplicity of now. Whatever we did then is past and trying to fix it is only a complication we don’t need. In science or philosophy “Occam’s Razor” is the notion that the simplest answer is best. Buddha’s razor is training our mind toward the simplest answer, which is always in the present. We cut back to now.

With meditation we cut complication to clarity. Clarity is space. And with space, we have more room. We might find the drawer space to put our clean sox. As our mind becomes organized, we might notice our room has windows. At some point, beyond the windows, we might see the possibility of life beyond resentment and blame.

There is an old Monty Python skit.  A dad and son are looking out a window of their stately manor. The dad says, “Son, someday all this will be yours.” And the son looks to his dad and says, “What? The curtains?” And then dad rejoins, “No. Beyond the curtains.” To which the son asks, “Oh, you mean the window?”

And this is how my life was for so long. Living in the tightly bound knot of fantasy, expectation, disappointment, resentment and depression. The only way to untie that knot was the repetitive and boring practice of Shamatha. Returning my mind back to now, again and again until I found the space to breathe.

The answer to Linda’s question of “when will I be loved” is now. And we are the one to do it. In fact, we are the only one. And now is where we start.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

HOLDING THE BROKEN

There are times we lag, times we resist and times we flat out refuse. In these moments, wrapped in the fabric of time and space, we hold tightly, becoming an emotional black hole. With infinite density, we sink deep into the universe.

And this is a beautiful place to begin.

For absolute darkness is where time began. This is where space was born. This is the place from which life ascends. The next time you meet that sacred space, allow yourself to rest. Quell the voices of judgement and disdain for they are not your voice, and they are not the voices of life. Hold to the broken and listen for the cries of our wounded children. Here we can open our hearts to ourselves. Here we are truly human.

And know that in this broken dark, we can begin again. Instead of believing that this is final, with all hope ended, we must know that we are just beginning. We need only try and relax and open to the life around us. We are bonded to life, for all life is born of pain. We are one with life forged in the violence of being.  We are part of reality stretched by the merciless bands of time. We are at the center of it all.

It is very common for us to shun the parts that hurt, turning from the pain in shame and denial. But when we do this, aren’t we turning away from ourselves?  And we are turning away at a time we most need help and support? We lock ourselves away from pain by tensing our body in false reactive protection and girding our minds with false protective stories. But this tension only amplifies the pain. As our discomfort funnels from the body we tighten our neurological gauge with tension and increase the pressure to our mind. The more tense we become, the more pressure we send to the brain. Trauma from our past, anxiety about the future, fear of the shadows growing around all converge on us. Our brain, charged with ensuring our survival, becomes overwhelmed and shuts down.

Are we fighting for our survival? We are certainly fighting – but is there anything in this moment actually attacking us but ourselves? So, the first question we ask is: what is actually happening now?  Catastrophic thoughts aside, are we actually in danger right now? Or is this fight for survival simply a pattern we’ve learned – an echo of past trauma?

The next question we ask is, what do you need right now?

When we look into our experience, we may not get answers. We may not feel better. We may not understand a thing.  However, we are paying attention to ourselves.  And that attention is love. Whether we like ourselves right now or not, by holding space for however we feel, we are loving ourselves in this moment.  And, if we are suffering from anxiety and depression, then we are loving ourselves at a time we really, really need it. We can choose not to hold back. We can choose to love. No matter how angry we are at ourselves, no matter how disappointed we are in ourselves, we can choose to simply be there with us. Like the love of the sun for the flowers. Flowers don’t beg to be loved, they simply are loved. People with their big brains have so much to think about that we have to remind ourselves that we are loved. No matter what our brain is shouting, no matter what the world is demanding, here in this moment, in our heart to heart, we are loved.

And what I need right now is love. All we have to do is remember.

Holding space for our pain means the body is actually opening. We don’t have to figure or fathom or fix. We breathe into the body and release the tension. As we breathe, the body opens and we are able to hold this moment with loving arms. There is nothing we have done wrong. There is nothing to explain, and no reason for shame. We don’t need to feel embarrassed or incapable. These broken moments feel lonely because we experience this transformation alone. Just us and our broken moment and the breath. Be kind. Be loving. Be patient.

And, as soon as we begin to settle, we can see that all beings have these feelings. All beings experience these things. All life has its broken moments. And, as we stop struggling with the moments, we release our grip and open in acceptance. Then love flows through us. Blood movies again. The nervous system returns to fluid communication. Our hearts begin to bloom. As we hold ourselves with open arms, we see that we are not alone. We are held in the loving hands of the universe. We are born of love, and when the time is right for our hearts to bloom, we will manifest that love.

As we breathe, we remove the blocks that have been keeping us from our spirit. ANd when the spirit is released, it is one with all life around it. And when we are ready to move, we can begin to move. Although we may be tired, broken or discouraged, this is the time to dance. Even if our dance is halting and slow, it will begin to grow.  Even if we are unsure, our movement will find courage.

Even if we are by ourselves, we are not alone. We are dancing with the universe.

 

PIC: is by the artist Yuko Tatsushima
https://medium.com/the-collector/5-dark-disturbing-and-vulnerable-paintings-by-y%C5%ABko-tatsushima-4230aaf3098f
Posted on by joseph mauricio

ACCEPTANCE

Acceptance is an integral step on our spiritual journey. Tara Brach and Pema Chodron, in particular, speak eloquently of its importance. In the well-known “RAIN” template, acceptance follows recognition as the foundation of mindfulness. Once we see what is happening, the important and immediate next step is to open to the experience. An essential point here is that acceptance is opening.

Acceptance, however, does not imply agreement. We may be unhappy with circumstances and wish for them to change. But, before we can effectively change any situation, we have to understand what it is we are experiencing. The Buddhist path and the 12-step traditions begin with acknowledging and accepting our present circumstance. The Buddha taught that the path to the cessation of suffering begins with the recognition of our suffering. The 12-step tradition begins with the acknowledgment of our powerlessness over addiction. Both traditions have an effective success rate in helping people move toward greater self-awareness. Both begin with recognition and acceptance of our actual circumstance. Again, acceptance here is not agreement. It is taking responsibility for the moment by owning our experience. We may be seeing a situation that has kept us imprisoned for a long time. This is challenging. But it is happening, nonetheless. The only thing we can effectively change are our feelings. We can choose to struggle with what is happening, or we can release ourselves from the struggle by letting go of our grip and opening to the experience.

When we open to an experience, whether pleasant or uncomfortable, we are able to see and learn from it. What does this experience have to teach us? If we decide to seek the courage to change, we are well equipped to navigate the landscape. If it is not the time for change, we can make a mindful and intentional decision to accept ourselves in the moment and rest there. We are under no obligation except to be here.

Sustainable change that makes a profound difference in our life is based on self-awareness born of self-acceptance. This will lead to further understanding. This effective, mindful change is different from the neurotic fidgeting that offers a temporary release from tension. This superficial change is flailing about in avoidance. Many of us have experienced losing weight only to gain the weight right back when we’ve stopped the diet. Sustainable change based on self-awareness is dependent upon self-acceptance. Before we can change ourselves, we have to love ourselves. Even circumstances that annoy or frighten us can be met with loving kindness. Dr. King taught that the Lord told us to love our enemies. However, he explained, the Lord didn’t say we had to like them. The best way to change situations that we feel are unhealthy is to begin by accepting ourselves with loving kindness. This situation is not our fault. Before we can change anything in a meaningful way, we must accept the situation, but also accept ourselves and how we feel. We are facing a challenge. Acceptance means we might accept not liking the situation at all.

Acceptance of ourselves may be the most important thing we can learn in life.

Until we accept ourselves, we are in discord with life. Without acceptance we are at war. Desynchronized from our path, we live under a false-protective layer of fantasy. If we don’t accept ourselves, we can’t see ourselves. If we can’t see ourselves, we can’t see the path. By accepting ourselves, and whatever painful circumstance we may be experiencing, we take a necessary step in synchronizing with our spiritual journey.

But this is the why. Now let’s look at the how. The method for effective acceptance is to have loving kindness for oneself. This is called Maitri in Sanskrit. Acceptance means taking a hard look at the situation, but the only way to take a hard look is to be very gentle. This seeming dichotomy can be seen as a balance between the two complementary poles of wisdom and compassion. Wisdom and compassion are the two wings of the bird of awareness that work in synchronicity and achieve a balance. Wisdom is the clarity to see the naked truth of ourselves and our life. Compassion allows us to be kind with that knowledge.

Remember the game called “operation”?  The player had to move carefully to remove the wrench from the patient’s knee for if they hit the sides an alarm would ring. In the same way, we must be precise and gentle with our investigation so as not to trigger our defenses. The most profound part of accepting our life is accepting ourselves. The method is to love ourselves – even the parts we don’t like or would rather not see. In fact, lovingkindness can be applied especially to the parts we don’t like. By loving the broken parts of ourselves, we allow them to heal. By hating parts of ourselves, we subject them to an imprisonment, and they cannot change. The parts of ourselves we reject become frozen in time as we relive ancient injuries over and over again.

Holding the heart, we allow those things we wish to change in and give them the chance to heal.

Full acceptance is when we apply loving kindness with patience and humility. Patience as we learn to accept things we have been turning away from for so long. Humility as we learn we don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to live up to anyone else’s ideas. We don’t have to apologize or rationalize to anyone. We are not obligated to anyone’s opinion or ideas. Our only obligation is to our own path and our own beliefs. To repurpose a line from an old movie, acceptance means you never have to say you’re sorry. We can accept who we are, as we are. We don’t have to do it right.  We don’t have to clean ourselves up in order to accept ourselves. When acceptance is fused with lovingkindness, we can learn to love ourselves as an imperfect work in progress. Of course, along with the loving acceptance, we still have to look directly. So, its wisdom and compassion. We love but are nonetheless willing to see who we are. And then we learn to love that. And then we look some more.

Finally, acceptance is a practice. We look for progress rather than outcome. We will make mistakes. We will fail repeatedly, sometimes miserably. But, just as in our meditation practice, we train ourselves to return. We come back to balance. We will accept ourselves again and again and, in this way, will develop greater and greater compassion for ourselves and our world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

INDEPENDENCE

INDEPENDENCE

Tonight’s discussion is about independence. True independence. Not just our yearly excuse to eat poorly, drink excessively, and blow stuff up, but the spiritual uncoupling of ourselves to the bonds that keep us imprisoned. The Shambhala Tradition references the cocoon, which is a protective enclosure fabricated by habitual patterns of attack and avoidance. Once it’s served its initial insulative purpose, a cocoon becomes a combative imprisonment as we become dependent on its protective patterns. The “4th” has been a tradition for many of us, although our behavior on the day is often simply habitual. Habitual behavior causes us to lose awareness as activities become rote, and our holidays frequently devolve into excuses for indulgence, as they lose all meaning.

Independence Day in the U.S. is the celebration of freedom from the rule of those labeled as oppressors. Phrases like “independence from tyranny” were shouted from the streets to excite the passions of the populace. Our independence was dependent on a struggle with a perceived enemy.  This is a very human pattern. We invoke a dangerous other against whom we can forge an identity.  But, in reality, apples don’t fall far from trees.  We were fighting for our independence from friends and family; those who would become our closest allies. Revolutions are often a reiteration of the same patterns. In the words of the 20th century philosopher Peter Townsend, “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” When we push against anything it pushes back and we become karmically bonded to it. We also become bonded to the struggle. When our identity is dependent on struggle, are we actually independent?

In Buddhist terms, we differentiate “true” from “conditioned”. True refers to that which is preexisting, inherent and natural to our experience. Conversely, most conventional understanding is conditional, based on conventions developed as survival strategies. Conditional independence is an idea that offers us a sense of freedom, although freedom that is dependent on the struggle against another. When our self-worth is dependent upon anyone or anything else, are we truly free?   On the other hand, True independence is the result of a personal inner journey to free ourselves from psychological and societal dependencies. If struggle binds us to our adversary, surrender is the first step to our independence. The key to surrender is letting go. Letting go is releasing our grip. We are not letting go of our heart, our inner journey, or our dignity. We are surrendering our panic constricted clenching. We are letting go of identification with the struggle, and freeing ourselves from the centrifuge of its aggression.

Independence Day marks the anniversary of the birth of our nation. But as that independence was born of aggression, it was in fact dependent upon struggle. Therefore, throughout our history, we have been karmically bound to aggression.  Our identity has been defined by the enemies we have vanquished or fought against. And while our survival depended upon many struggles to which we can be grateful, our social and political identities are forged against those who we are not, and to those struggles that we remain continually indebted. Our national identity relies on a co-dependence with our world.  But true independence – or liberation – is a surrender to our deepest human experience, which opens to the possibility that while we are individually unique, we are not different from each other. Our enemies want the same things as our families. In fact, our enemies are our families. As Shantideva said, “all beings want to be happy.” Finding the commonality is key to a healthy connection to our world.

When we connect to our deepest sense of being, we are touching something very inmate and personal that is nonetheless shared, in multifarious ways, with all beings. Whenever we are able to surrender and release ourselves from identification with our struggles, we are able to connect to others without the co-dependencies to which we’ve become conditioned. Our world can become more informed by what is actually out there, then just a marketplace to fuel our broken needs. By connecting to the essential goodness in ourselves, we connect to the basic goodness in others. This is interdependence. Our once lonely path of self-realization leads to the understanding that we are actually connected to all the life around us. By looking into our intimate selves, we gain the strength to realize we are not indebted to anyone; but connected to everyone.

It is great to celebrate the historical date of our nation’s independence by having hamburgers on the grill, and scaring our dogs as we blow things up. But to those committed to the path of liberation or true independence, it is also good to celebrate daily with a meditation practice that strengthens our ability to let go and connect to the basic goodness of ourselves and our world. Each time we come back to the present, we add light to our cocoon. Eventually, we see the cocoon as temporary, and its habitual patterns as temporary maladaptive strategies we are meant to grow beyond. The butterfly needs to struggle for the strength to free itself from the cocoon. But once free, it is able to fly into the beautiful world, which is its birthright.

12-step recovery traditions ask that we “find the serenity to accept things we cannot change,” so that we may develop the courage to change the things we can. The point is to develop the wisdom to free ourselves from attachment and addiction. Or as is said in another prayer, that we  “become liberated from the bonds of self.”  Our wisdom connects us to the wisdom mind inherent in all beings.

Wisdom lights the path to our liberation. And liberation is the ground for a healthy inter-connection to our world.

The picture today is of a young Chogyam Trungpa with one of his two primary teachers, Khenpo Gangshar. They are gesturing with the awake mudra, which is also a nod to surrender to the eventualities being imposed by the Chinese Communist armed forces. Although many Tibetans fought valiantly, the change was inevitable.   The tragic overthrow of Tibet’s medieval government ultimately served to liberate its teachings in a spiritual diaspora that is enriching the modern world to this day.  The heart essence of those practices lies in the belief in the basic goodness of all beings and so was relatable to people in all walks of life.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

REPARATIONS

I am writing this on Juneteenth, a holiday in the US that has recently become a national observance, although many states have yet to institute that. The date marks the anniversary of the legal emancipation of enslaved people on June 19, 1865.  A day we not only celebrate the independence American slaves, but also acknowledge the great suffering that Slavery created, the reverberations of which continue to this day.

Today may remind us of the trauma humans inflict on each other when they are driven by economic pressure, racial prejudice, hatred and ignorance. Optimistically, it may mark an ongoing movement to attempt to address the wrongs committed by our national social and economic reliance on slavery and perhaps the wrongs instituted by racism and hatred then and since.

How could a country that longed to be a world leader have remained economically beholden to the enslavement of humans well past the point other nations had shunned the practice? How did something as ethically and morally dubious as slavery become an integral part of its social base? How could this society declare that all men (sic) were created equal, endowed with a God-given right to freedom when, in truth, the freedom of a few was secured by the oppression of others?  Perhaps, rather than saying “freedom for all”, they may have said, “freedom from all.”   The founding fathers may well have seen themselves as the God-chosen few, and others as … well, other.  As much as hatred or bigotry play significant parts in the hearts of extremists, it is the failure to recognize the humanity of those unlike them that allowed them to systemically turn a blind eye to such cruelty.  Cruelty is different when applied to property rather than humanity.  Whether it was slaves, women or children much harm was inflicted upon those deemed property. It is easy to justify cruelty when it is inflicted on property. Hence, educated and “aware” people could be blind to their actions. There were many who spoke against slavery as they dressed in the fine cotton clothing available at an affordable price. Many of us still do.

Are we so different today? Where are we blind to how, despite our best intentions, we might be contributing to societal imbalances?

The wrongs of slavery were historic, but also have created a human trauma that exists contemporaneously. The disparity between those we consider like us, those we see as other and those we believe are against us are standards very much embedded in our culture. While this exists along racial lines, it also happens along gender and religious lines, as well as and lines of sexual orientation and expression. Otherness is very common to our society. Seen as a spectrum, there are levels from the relatively innocuous to the egregious that manifest as appreciating a different culture, to shunning them, to actually seeing them as an enemy to your way of life. As explained by the character Demosthenes in Ender’s Game, the ability to accept another as an equal is not an acknowledgement of their spiritual evolution, but of our own.

Juneteenth, and the idea of reparations, are much debated. Maybe this is sparking a conversation we need to have right now. And maybe we can look at this from a personal point of view. What harms have I caused others that require some repair? The point of reparations is not self-denigration, but possibly self-liberation. How can I free myself from the entanglements of the past, by acknowledging when I have harmed others? How can I use that to try and assuage the damage? Amends to another is not always practical, or possible.  However, it is always possible to take responsibility for my own behavior and understand its effects. By acknowledging my own prejudices I can grow beyond bias and begin to see how I other others. When do I segregate my feelings into categories of “othering” – those I appreciate, those I appropriate, those I tolerate, and those I hate.

And when am I using this system of segregation as a moral high ground? For, looking down on another, is a very effective  way to other another. Looking down on those I feel are in the wrong (perhaps even wronging others) makes me feel good about myself and protects my cherished point of view from the threat of change. The truth is, we only see a fraction of what is just before us. Actually, we only see a fraction of what we actually see. We select and choose what is important to us before we are ever conscious of doing so. For the meditator, the antidote to ignorance is developing mindfulness. This is our very personal repairation. We recognize when our consciousness is ensconced in a thought, which is often a frame or a point of view.  And we release ourselves for the grip into a new and more creative way of being.

Maybe today is about beginning conversations as a way to step toward acknowledgement and reparation. Being willing to question ourselves is not demeaning. It’s not attributing guilt or fault. It’s just developing the strength to see what we are otherwise missing, especially when we believe we are right.

The practice of meditation allows us to uncover how we hurt others while we develop the compassion and kindness not to inflict harm upon ourselves. From a Buddhist perspective, any time we distance ourselves from aspects of our world, we are acting with aggression. We might do this by hating them, or what they stand for, but more commonly, we do this every time we lock someone behind a self-protective protective frame. How often has our internal dialogue dismissed someone with “oh there are so crazy today”? Are we listening to each other?

Coming back to the breath we leave our frame and step into the openness of the naked present. We can step back within ourselves and see our tendency to push away, or drw closer in order to avoid intimacy. Coming back to the breath is very intimate. It’s a way of accepting ourselves in the present, which will allow us to accept others. By accepting ourselves we can begin to accept how we have caused harm to others. By acknowledging that, we can learn how to be more conscious and more kind in the future.

Reparations, amends and forgiveness do not change the past. But they may change our future.