Author: joseph mauricio

Posted on by joseph mauricio

AWAKEN THE REPUBLIC

Following the election. Our world feels different. Maybe broken. It’s a good time to find healing and strength in love and sanity. It was hard to fathom. The People have spoken. Only not the majority. Rather, some people have spoken, rather pointedly.

 

Now, all will quiet. It will calm. We will likely not build a wall, or deport, indict or persecute anyone. Everyone will dial back to the center where this country finds ballast continuing nonetheless on a course the election has set. We’ll go back to our lives.  And as we sleep again, 2 conservative justices, a conservative senate and an administration built of lobbyists and special interests will turn back time for women, minorities, policing, jails and healthcare. Sadly, no one will turn back time on our changing climate, which will likely continue on pace, with our country a world leader in its own destruction.

 

You may be frightened. You may be happy that all is turning back from the swing to the left the country has taken. You may feel vindicated. You may be angry. You may be hurting. But, please remember its okay to love, along with hurt. It’s okay to find stillness and feel strength. As we rage in our souls and pour our hearts into every moment, whether we accept, resist, or support the changes, we might also be kind to ourselves. It may not be an easy time to feel light, but remember, we are light. I think we can shine, regardless.

 

This is bravery in the face of the unknown. I believe that we can respond, and act without malice, and without aggression. The power we have lies in awareness. And awareness comes when we don’t follow blindly, but stay engaged and grounded in the present. I believe we can employ non-violent activism and remain in place, awake, if we begin by sitting in the silence of loving kindness.

 

Turning anger into love that is awake and active and engaged. Love is not compliance. It is clear seeing with the heart and the mind. But it is dependent on our stability of mind. Our warrior posture of awake. It is time for this. It is time to move from the ignorance of blind compliance, or the blindness of rage to holding our seat as warriors in our body, spirit and mind.

 

Let’s awaken our republic. Awake New York! Awake DC! Awake LA and Awake America. Gently, but resolutely AWAKE. What other choice is there.  The Buddhist teachings say look at your world without disdain or bias. Meditation master, Chogyam Trungpa said “Look. Look at your world. It is your world. How can you not look.” His son, Sakyong Mipham has said again and again that the world needs us now. And to be brave, we must be “kind to ourselves and merciful to others.” From our seat of warriorship we can enact sanity in ourselves and very natural radiate that much needed sanity to others. So, we are shattered, and we are broken. But, rising up in hate and anger is the coward’s way. It is the way humanity has chosen again and again and regretted the results of the experiment each time. Instead, we can sit in strength and dignity of awake and choose sanity.

 

If survival is where humanity is meant to be going, then choosing sanity for ourselves is an important step. If, on the other hand, we are headed for destruction, well… then sanity seems even more important.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

Stillness and Change

Movement in the air. Cat races to the windows. Spirits rise awakened from moldering sleep. Trees stretch orange arms to the brisk skies of autumn. School again. Turning again. Elections again. Life reawakened into the change of change. Liminal spaces. Shadows crossing across the heart.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

America Awake

2015-08-27 17.42.31There was another mass killing. Which one was that? The terrorist? The Muslim who sympathized? The Syrian who was left out? The Kid in the night club? The white kid in the theater, or the best friends at school?  Its getting so hard to keep count. Kids killing kids, cops killing kids, cops being killed, improvised explosives and suicide vests changing the face of public gathering. The world is erupting.  And with it, the cry to have more guns, and more war and more punishment. As though adding to the problem will somehow solve the problem.

 

But with all the pain, there feels like hope in the cracks of our chaos. With more pain there is, perhaps, more awareness.  There is more here, in front of us, to see and to understand.

 

This is a great time to be alive. Yes.  Not instead of the pain or despite the pain, but entirely because of the pain. Its a blessing that we are here to help and to repair and to work to bring this world back into harmony with the earth that has nurtured us. Its a blessing here in New York City to be among the fortunate, the privileged, the few who have the honor to make a difference. It is our great honor to serve. And it is great to give back. You see, we become weakened as we grab for more. We falter as we turn away.  We fail as we try to win, and win at all cost. There is no wining that does not win for all of us. There is no sanctity except in the grace of living in a world that we support, and are supported by.  And because of this, it is a great time to be awake.

 

The destination is now, and the time is here. We can make a difference, slowly and surely in our lives and now – more than ever in history – even small differences will be heard around the world.

 

America Awake is a call to (open) arms. Awake is a revolution whose symbol is not a raised fist, but an open hand. It is a philosophy of understanding. And, rather than re-knowing what we already know, reiterating what we’ve been told, retelling the obvious and restating that which was written in stone, in an age of stone, we can emerge into a new dawn, and simply have the courage to say . . .  heck if I know. Lets start fresh.

 

How can I help?

 

What is happening now? And, how can I better understand the needs of my sisters, and the truth of my brothers, and the pain of a rainbow of every shade in between?

 

I pledge allegiance to the moment. And equipped with the immense power of wakefulness, vow to listen to the differences and to heal all damage. I pledge to cause harm to no one and bring the world together in a time of darkness.  I pledge to never outrun my fear, but to open my heart to the transformative possibility of my pain.

 

Is that utterly ridiculous?  I suppose so. Its certainly naive and simplistic. And, how cool is that?

 

 

 

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

A Politics of Soul

2015-09-18 14.17.19-1The world seems poised at a time of critical mass. Standing at the the edge of now, we come to a time to reckon and decide. Will humanity take the mantle of responsibility for our world, or continue toward fragmentation, isolation and destruction? This cusp is evident in the stage show of American politics. Hillary is being forced precipitously to the left, distancing herself from Donald on the … right?

 

Or, wherever he stands now that the religious right and social conservatism have retreated to the shadows of influence. In a flood of judgement, one thing for which Trump has not been credited enough is his utter hobbling of the republican party. This even as the exacerbation of its wounds continues to capture the hearts of their majority.

 

Bernie must live to fight another day.  The great progress made toward the undemonification of socialism, economic fairness and class awareness is estimable. Since his campaign the gnawing gash behind the wheels of democracy has become more evident. As veils become slowly diaphanous, scenarios of power structures indebted to big money, big business, big oil, big guns and big pharma are no longer the reserve of action adventure movies. The future us now, as this has become our own home movie.

 

Yet, even as currents below are exposed, so the vista above clarifies.  Can we continue to look away?

 

A decade ago, Ray Kurzwiel coopted the scientific term singularity to refer to the grand convergence of technology, the streams it enables and society. The theory – certainly borne out in actual events – is that the development of tech will exponentially increase until there is a tipping of the critical mass toward deep structural change that will happen perhaps too quickly to navigate. It is said in the Vedic scriptures that the time of iron will give way to the time of air. We recite apocalyptic prognostications, and the science fiction of ancient texts like fairytales embedding the ideal of a grand culmination in our mental stream. But, maybe this can be navigated elegantly. Perhaps with the advent of greater pain, comes greater awareness, and with it the responsibility to navigate the change with sanity and poise.

 

I believe there is a politics of materialism which may give way to a politics of spirit, a politics of soul, if you like. The politics materialism builds an identity around the limited conception of duality. We foster local unity by the creating a global difference. We find an other and gain strength through blame. We summarily blame the other party, other countries and other tribes of humans in order to rouse self-referential strength.  we are now  for real solutions to the problems facing modern life. Like it or not, we are living in another time and place than the world that had come before. Is it a precipice? A juncture? A singularity? An apocalypse? Maybe its just time.

 

Simply that.

 

The destination  is now and the time is here. Becoming awake in America is about bringing conscious intention to life, to our communities, families and ourselves. I love the idea of being part of a web of purpose whereby we can connect through the warmth of our hearts and the power of intention. It is so important to remember that we can create a purpose for our life, that makes whatever we’re going through, so worth it. Life is hard. But, maybe life becomes easier as we connect to others. Maybe its time to stop the aggressive me-first grabbing at life as though having more than we need will help us. When we act out of panic, all we do is support the panic. When we act out of need, all we do is create more need.  But when we find the space of enough, we have enough space to allows other in to our world. We become part of our world. As we give up that which we only grab out of fear, we gain space to acquire new things.

 

In that space we can create a place to be. A place to create, to conjure, to come home. A kingdom of the mind. A country of the heart ruled by the politics of soul. A kingdom created in the image of human goodness, developing toward goodness for all.

 

All of us live in societies. We all feel trapped here, or inspired here depending on how much we feel involved in the world around us. We can isolate, and live behind the walls of a stone castle, and become more ensconced in the beliefs that bind us. Or, we can integrate, open to the differences and turn willing to listen the world. Learn hear the songs of  other clans, learn to kneel before other beliefs, learn to feast with other tribes. To learn and to change, while still upright in our own dignity.

 

Perhaps its time.

 

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

The Right 2 Bare Arms

– More bombing. More killing. More terror.

 

So many of us want to do something / anything in reaction to the horror of the Orlando killings. Some are calling to institute a ban on “Muslim” immigration. Others for outright attack upon other nations, their people or spiritual beliefs. There are 2 ministers quoted as saying the LGBT community got what it deserved. That’s the one that got me. So, yeah, now I’m blaming as well. Anyway you turn there is another convenient object of aggression. Its an age-worn ruse to blame an “other” in order to rouse our own confidence. But that confidence is no confidence at all. It is cheap and lazy ego pacification. We feel uncomfortable, because we are frightened. But, its easier to rush to anger than feel fear. Its a way of not staying with the discomfort long enough to learn what should be done.

 

People are concerned about their safety. And, while there are certainly threats abroad, we are vulnerable at home due to the proliferation of weaponry in our own closets. Most domestic acts of terror in our schools, homes, churches and clinics have been committed by American citizens, each fighting their own subjective wars. The LGBT community has been the target of much domestic aggression. In this most recent instance, by a troubled young man, born and living in America, who had frequented the club as a customer. He was described as suffering from mental illness, but somehow was able to buy 2 assault rifles as well as hand guns.  He was influenced and inspired by radical Islamic Jihadism, yes. But, he lived here. He armed himself – legally – here.  So, why not look to ourselves here? What culture has the kind of SELF-INFLICTED rampant violence now common to the home of the brave? If we are so brave why do we cow to the Gun lobby, the NRA and other agents of self interest? Why not be brave enough to clean our own home first? BAN ASSAULT RIFLES. Loosen the gun lobby’s political hegemony. Reassess the 2nd amendment in order to reaffirm its original intent: to protect – not destroy – the populace.

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It was well into the 19th century, when the USA became one of the last countries of the first world to abolish slavery.  While this was partly due to ingrained racism against these newly forced migrants, it had more to do with economic – and hence political – necessity. It took censure and sanctions from world leaders, and finally military strength from its own government, to pry America lose from reliance on slavery.

 

And, Americans killed Americans then. And, when the dust settled, the world had not conquered us. We had not succumbed to adventitious aggression from abroad. We  actually became stronger, as we loosened our reliance on unfair, unethical and vicious economic practices and moved into accordance with civilized views.

 

Presently, we are held hostage by the economic strength and powerful political lobbies of the gun industry and its political allies. We are afraid to rock a boat that is nonetheless  becoming  obsolete.  From the inception of our nation, elected officials have inspired the populace with great vision, while having to navigate power brokers that influenced currents below. This is no conspiracy theory. Its part of the power dynamic that has made this country very strong. But, it is the nature of power to protect itself.  At some point, people being protected are in danger of that which protects them. The entrenched influence of the nation’s pillar institutions, while not generally the theme of political speeches, cannot be discounted. We can ignore this power, as we debate “issues”, we can work around the power, or we can try and expose the power, and weaken it. But in the end, we will always render unto Caesar, what is Caesar’s. We will pay for allegiances to past beliefs with our own health and our children’s future.

 

Until things change.  As they always do.

 

As in the time of slavery, the sadly drudging movement of change has pitted us against the moral development of the modern world. Few, if any, of the 1st -or even 2nd – world nations live in the amount of fear from their own citizens as we do, in the land of the free. As a populace, we are so strangely ensconced within ourselves, that we do not see the incredulity with which most of the world has to the murders, violence and self-destruction within our society.

 

Practitioners of Buddhism, meditation or pacifism are accused of taking an unrealistically “peaceful” approach. But, peace is not unrealistic. Violence is unrealistic and unsustainable. Violence keeps things locked in tight circles of self-affliction. Love and release bring us closer to the truth. So, I don’t want to demonize the gun lobby, or create another enemy. There are many fine people who oppose gun restrictions for various reasons. What is essential, is that Americans begin to see the world as other’s see it. I hope for my clan is that we don’t buy in to the easy answers and find strength in hatred but, that we open our minds to working with what is.

 

But, to be honest, we cannot expect the nation to follow dictates which we ourselves ignore. Where are we creating wars simply because we don’t see a way to peace? Where have we become hostages to our own defenses? Where have we silently acquiesced to the succession of aggression handed down from mother to son to father to daughter? Where are afraid to stand up and actually see the situations that bind us, and in an inviolable act of love, release ourselves from that suffering? We do this by seeing. By standing up and seeing that perhaps we have become our own enemy.

 

Maybe its not what our country is doing to us, but what we have done to our country. And, without shame, or further aggression, maybe we can ask what can we change in ourselves to create peace in our world.  Maybe our rights are less important than our safety, and the respect of our society.  Maybe rather than bear arms we can promote our right to bare arms. To live freely in a feee society without guns, weaponry or defensive posture. Perhaps our bare arms can hold each other in the strength of love. Standing naked in truth, rather than draped in an ideology that lies on the surface of, and ultimately in the service of, big  money and political influence.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

Wake Up and Relax

Meditation is a practice that allows us gain agency in our lives. We are training to settle our mind in order to wake up into our life. As the mind is more attentive when relaxed, training to cultivate a relaxed attention allows us to more fully contact our life. We sit in a singular connection to the moment, grounded in the security of earth. From that base, the spine can rise to heaven, allowing the mind to open into the vast sky of awake.

 

We rise up to settle down. We wake up in order to rest in the moment. These seeming polarities describe what are actually complementary components of the practice. The Taoist Tradition refers to the “Yin” of relaxing into the receptive earth and the “Yang” of rising to heaven in attention.  It is stated in the iChing that the alignment of the spine to the center of the earth allows us to reconnect to a universal sense of humanity. The Tao Te Ching posits that disconnection from the earth leaves us wandering as ghosts, blown by the vicissitudes of desire and past actions.  At the center of the earth, humanity is connected, clear and complete. On the surface, we perceive difference, distance and disparity.

 

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition meditation is considered a yogic practice. The posture is an asana with the main stretch being the upright spine. Imagine the tailbone as an ancient arrowhead pointed directly down, weighted deep into the earth. Its alignment is plum, neither sticking back nor curling forward. Then feel the spine resting on that base and reaching straight through the body, through the top of the head, describing a line infinitely into the heavens above.  Relax upward into that stretch, as though a string was pulling you up, stretching the spine. This is the “Yang” alignment, a vertical stretch joining heaven with earth. It is awake, and tells the lower mind it may relax now, because someone is in charge. Our higher power is engaged and we are awake at the wheel of life. In just two minutes, it is said, our brain chemistry begins to change. We are, in effect, exchanging cortisol for confidence.

 

With that vertical stretch, the body’s organs and systems gently fall to the pull of gravity and relax into their anonymous work. Contrary to our conditioned thinking, it is actually more restful for the body to to sit upright allowing interior room, than to slump downward, constricting space and creating stress on the internal organs.

 

Now, without compromising the vertical stretch, allow the body to relax down and open. The “Ying” alignment is a continued opening and relaxing of the body. While the upright Yang posture aids wakeful attention, its attendant downward relaxation allows the mind to fall into the body and synchronize with the moment to moment beating of life. This horizontal opening awakens the mind’s receptive potential, as it opens out into a community of awareness.

 

In the practice of mindfulness awareness – or, as I call it, Mindful Awareness we develop a synchronicity to the parts. We combine the solar and lunar experience into a fluid synchronized dance of resting in the moment as we open to the experience. The Yang alignment develops mindfulness by rising to a specific detail of our living experience. It’s counterpoint, the Ying alignment, relaxes into acceptance and expands into an awareness of the environment. Yang establishes form and definition, while Yin accesses space and context.

 

The breathing binds these two components. With the breath we rise up and relax down. We gather in, and expand out. We take in nutrients and release toxins. We gather in the world, and then let go back into it. We bring the mind back to the breath again and again until the mind settles into a peaceful and stable connection to the present, joining heaven and earth.

 

As with any meditation practice the primary point is the effect on our life. With the posture alone, we are learning to wake up into relaxation, and to relax down into attention. We reduce stress and gain greater ability to rest in the present. SO, counter to our conditioning, we actually gain more focus in life not by focusing, or learning to tighten the mind in concentration, but by opening to our experience we can relax into resting in that experience for longer and longer periods of time. And, we always have the body, and its proper alignments – up and down – to bring us back to wholeness and balance.

 

And, as a tool the breath is perfect for balancing the yang and yin. For one thing, it is always there. It is reliably in the present. For another, it is lifting us up and relaxing us down into synchronicity with the moments of life. So, we can use this tool, anywhere as long as we remain alive. We can simply breath and with Mindful Awareness training, come to bring the mind and body back into balance by breathing into the tension, relaxing the breath into the body. The alignments will occur naturally releasing tension, and the stress of the stored tension, and breathe in nutrients to lift our mood and relax our mind.

 

In this way, we bring meditation to life. Training in body and mind awareness, so that we remain in balance with life.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

Riding The Lifemare

There is so much pain in the world. So much struggle. We have everything we need to have everyone on the planet happy, safe and well fed. But, the imbalance of wealth continues. The environment is red lining. There are random catastrophic attacks on innocent people around the world. Is any of this sustainable? Fixable? Actually, survivable?

Is it the end of times? Or, will that come with an election in the fall? (I’m old enough to have laughed at the idea of Ronald Reagan. And we all remember Al Gore winning the presidency, don’t we?) But seriously, are we going to elect a billionaire with questionable business histories to help restore economic balance? The alternative, by the way, is only a millionaire, albeit with an equally sliding business moral scale.
In what scientists refer to as a stable universe, we live with the fact that the cosmic rug can be ripped from us at any time. But, science only explains so much. Our beliefs, when they aren’t completely blocking us, only go so far. Ideas aren’t worth the projections they’re imprinted on. When it comes down to it, there is only life. And life does whatever the heck it wants.

That’s what we signed on for when we met the gleam in our parents’ eyes and pushed past the thighs screaming into the night. It’s no surprise we were crying. But, Then we gave in, forgot the truth, and decided to try it all over again. We became excited by our feet and the prospect eating the coffee table. Eventually, we walked and eventually we let go of youth to pound rocks in this improbable prison called life.

And we understood that those weren’t rocks so much as our heads. And when we stopped pounding long enough against the cell door, we had an epiphany. Okay, not an epiphany as much as a realization. Or, maybe a resignation. This is all there is. Its not gonna be anything other than this. And when we got that, we stopped hitting our head long enough to realize the cell was ajar. And that jars can be opened. And, all we need do is let go into that smile from divine tho born from the dirt and delivered to the dirt, in between, take our place on the planet as its stewards and its fruit. That’s it really. Just take care of things, as we can.

People try and find deeper MEANING in life as the planet is threatening to evict us, and we are warring on our own souls. Kind of like philosophizing at the scene of a car accident. Sure, these things beg the grand questions. But, shouldn’t someone call an ambulance?

This is a plea for us to do something out of love and care for each other and the world. This is a call to nonviolent activism. Waking up in the chaos and riding this lifemare into the dark and the light of our journey. Letting go of what we believe, so we can step into the arms of who we are and what we need to do for each other to save ourselves. I recommend sitting down to gather ourselves and letting the energy of change change us into the Bodhisattvas we were destined to become. If the world is grasping for something to save it, maybe we can be junkies for wakefulness. Maybe we can be willing to sleep in the cold just for the rush of helping our world. So when Walking Dead is finally done, when we’ve exhausted all excuses, when the alarm has been pushed to snooze enough times, we can wake up and realize this is the only life we have in this life. And it needs us. Not the planet. The planet will evict us and carry on like nothing much happened. In a billion years it will sprout another thinking race. And, maybe that race will know enough to live with some respect for itself.

But, maybe that race is here. In our dream of waking. In our belief in each other. In our trust in humanity. We can wake up into the dream, and bring the change.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

Opening to Change

IMG_1129Life is continually changing. And although it is natural for us to fear change, by shutting down to that fear we shut down our life. Hence, opening to change, frightening as it may be, is opening to life.

The tool we need to supply the strength for this journey lies no further than our own heart. The power of a compassionate heart is the strong force of the universe that binds us to a lasting truth. The oldest written book we know is the Taoist I Ching or “Book of Changes”. A fundamental experience to all life is its transience. Even our planet, the very home to humanity, is changing. Yet, throughout human experience, we have endeavored to find stability and meaning. In order to live a full and rewarding existence, we have grasped at straws of permanence in ourselves, our spirituality, religion, art, science and even politics.  Yet, attempts at solidifying our experience are themselves subject to decay and dissolution.

This dissonance has created great tension in our lives. We are changing, and yet, we long to find stability and something that lasts.  The great Taoist philosophies from which Confucianism and Buddhism extend, posit the image of a river. The river has been flowing for through epochs, but each time we step in, it is an entirely new river.

As a tree grows, it is not cursed with the question of its existence, nor has it the need to find meaning to validate its experience. Animals, find need in dominance and survival and their existence is largely fearful. But humans have the greatest challenge of life on our planet. We are blessed with the curse of knowing. We can see just enough to understand that our time is very limited. Yet, we still don’t understand why. Hence, we struggle between the botanical model of ignoring our existence, or closing down into patterns of defensiveness. When we feel good, the tendency is to escape into frivolous experience, as though we have all the time in the world. We consume beyond our needs, take more space than is offered and live without appreciation. On the other hand, when circumstances arise that we are forced to see the precarious nature of our experience, we might burrow into warrens of protective repetition, shutting down our life into a dull, but controllable, routine. In either case, we are gripping, clinging and closing off our life. And in neither case, are we able to sustain our position. Exuberance and fear are both subject to change. And, in fact, most of us cycle back and forth between the two extremes. Life seems blissful when we are lost in a dream, but when the dream ends and we are faced with a life that has not been related to, we fall into depression of guilt and blame.

There is a third option, a middle way that includes joy and truth. And that is, opening to our life, as it is and finding the love, joy and acceptance for which we yearn in our own heart and mind. We realize our basic human dignity by opening to fear, rather than finding an exit to a more manageable or less painful experience. When we accept that life is change and that change is frightening, we can open beyond. By opening to change, we are waking up to the truth of our experience. When we choose a life of knowing, caring and compassion are natural. And this gives a profound meaning to our experience. By connecting to the stream of love, we are connected to the lineage of life.

And, life, like the river in our analogy is the lasting experience we are craving. By opening, we step past our fear and touch our heart. When we connect to that self love and caring, we are connected to the love of the universe. And, whether that love is God, Dharma, the Tao, Humanity or History it is a living flow that is has never changed, and is different each time we step into it. The present has been flowing for as long as there has been life in the cosmos. But each time we come back to the present, it is a new and rich experience.