Category: Writing

Posted on by joseph mauricio

ALL WE ARE SAYING

THE WILLINGNESS TO CHANGE

The bombs fell on their generation as they were born — drums pounding in the night sky, explosions lighting the heavens with fire and rage. Nazi cruelty tried to pound Britain into submission. But sometimes when cruelty strikes deep to the heart, a seed is planted. John Lennon, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, and others were born into this thunderous rage — and with them, one day, the world would change.

On October 9, 1940, the bombing paused momentarily over Liverpool. John Winston Lennon was born into that fragile silence and was carried away into a middle working-class life. His parents were unreliable — his father, a merchant seaman rarely at home, and his mother, Julia, a gentle, artistic soul who suffered from anxiety and depression felt it hard during those harrowing times. John was given to his Aunt Mimi, a strict disciplinarian who ran a very tight household, for his upbringing.

When John was 14, his mother Julia was struck and killed by a drunken off-duty police officer outside her home. She had taught John to play her ukulele — and years later, Lennon, having failed to learn proper guitar instrumentation, would still be using ukulele and banjo chords in his early bands. All of these shortcomings — or rather, these wounds — became the crucible that forged his restless creative spirit.

If there’s a theme to this story, it’s the indomitable power of the human life force — and how often that force is held in check by inner and outer circumstance. Yet rather than extinguishing the life force, this tension only creates a kind of dissonance — a pressure that drives creation itself.

Playing ukulele chords and gathering a ragtag group of friends, Lennon began pounding out the rhythms of his heart. He was an artist, a clever writer, a satirist — and quickly became a bandleader. His band members changed and grew in skill over time, but Lennon and his relentlessly urgent guitar was always the driving force. He was brash, foul-mouthed, arrogant — and if you steered clear of his acid tongue, very easy to follow.

At the famous Woolton fête in 1957, John met Paul McCartney — and instantly found his counterpart. Paul had the musical discipline and melodic gift that Lennon lacked. The two would sit, nose to nose, tossing lines and chords back and forth, learning their instruments and honing their craft.

The life force burns brightest when there’s a clear vision ahead. Despite the world telling them to stay in their place, Lennon and McCartney had one simple, driving goal: to get the girls to notice them.

As obvious and mundane as that sounds, for boys in their late teens it was everything. The primal human need to be seen — to be accepted — was their rocket fuel. Driven by the rhythms they heard late at night under their covers from American broadcasts, British bands began to form — boys chasing girls, chasing sound, chasing truth.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the feminine principle is referred to a the womb of the universe — the space in which all creation occurs. The masculine energy quickens that space toward creation; but always at service to the feminine. The girls were the first to fall in love with The Beatles. Together they opened the gates to the most profound cultural shift of modern times.

The brute, manipulative power of male-dominated society had been given its notice — though the men didn’t yet realize it. They still stomped around, chasing power, money, and armaments — not learning the lessons of fascism’s collapse. America helped rebuild Europe, yes — but it was not pure altruism. The U.S. waited until the moment best suited to its own advantage to enter the war. While their intervention freed the world from fascist rage, not all lessons were learned. The victors rebuilt — but also clamped down, holding the world in place.

That grip, however, would not last. Cracks began to appear — in miniskirts, in teenagers dancing and screaming at concerts, in the pure, unrestrained joy of feminine exuberance. Like Sinatra and Elvis before them, The Beatles rode that wave and crashed it against the shores of convention. But this time, it shook the foundations of a repressive world.

Lennon was arrogant, difficult, sharp, and fast. But he was smart enough to push against authority when it stifled him — but willing to pause and listen when it served the music. He, sometimes grudgingly listened to producers, his manager, and to Paul, George, and Ringo. Together they created a unit brilliant enough to become something larger than any one of them.

For perhaps the first time in modern pop culture, there wasn’t a single frontman — but a band. A collective. Each member offered an archetype for fans to project upon: the cute one, the clever one, the quiet one, the lovable one. Lennon encouraged each member of the band to play as they would as they developed his songs. He gave them freedom within the structure of the song.

In Tibetan iconography, great deities are depicted with archetypal manifestations — the sharp one, the gentle one, the deep one, the radiant one. The Beatles embodied these archetypes for a new age. And through them, the world — once pounded by bombs — began to sing again.

Our life force is indomitable. But should we refuse to listen to the music of our heart, we will grow ill and unhappy. If we let this life force have its way, it may lead to chaos. But, the middle way would be for us to allow our spirit to sing, but curtailing ego, allow the energy to be shaped into a manifestation that serves the world.

When Lennon finally found the girl, he turned his sights toward peace. Many people felt he made an ass of himself with his bed-ins bag-ins and protests. He tarnished his career, and nearly destroyed his fortune. But he was using the power of wealth and celebrity in a way that had never been done before. He was not afraid to be a fool. And in his lifetime, he grew from being an arrogant misogynist into a feminist and an advocate for peace that inspires people to this day.

When confronted with his aggressive past in later years, Lennon said that because he lived violence, he understood the value of peace.

At this writing, today the American military is being used to assault the people of Chicago. Some feel this is the next step in the current administration to institute a national police force. The change many of us have feared is actually here. Actually here. I am angered to the point of imagining violence toward those instituting this clampdown. Yet, violence will not win. The only alternative is to push back as we can, and to refuse to lose heart. To be willing to change in order to bring change. Being peace, will bring peace now as it did in the 60’s.

It is my aspiration that I may step beyond personal aggression and truly be willing to give peace a chance in order to give change a chance.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

ALL ABOUT ME

       THE NARCISSISTIC REFLECTION OF EGO

I like to reference Milan kundera’s The Incredible Lightness of Being when discussing ego by reversing the logic to the incredible heaviness of being … me.

Ego is a shallow reflection, an inordinately pronounced subset of mind charged with aligning ourselves with the societal acceptance. Shallow as it may be the need for societal acceptance is nonetheless deeply ingrained within us. Our need to “fit in” is an ancient protective strategy. Without the acceptance of our clan, we would fend for ourselves.  At some point in our history, that would render us some predator’s lunch. The need to assimilate is, at its core, a protective strategy. Ego aligns us with what society seems to require—sometimes to shield us, sometimes to make us competitive, sometimes to keep us hidden. Whenever we feel threatened—by external pressures or internal doubts—ego steps in. For those who have lived through trauma, the ego’s protective reflex can become inflamed. And like any inflammation, it grows painful, restrictive, and difficult for both ourselves and others to be around.

Ego inflation is not unlike economic inflation, as when the value of currency diminishes, everything else becomes more expensive. Likewise, when ego expands, our sense of worth actually decreases, and we must spend more psychic energy maintaining the story of “me.” The more bereft we feel, the more inflamed ego becomes. It is a costly burden—like lugging around a heavy suit of armor, or as Milan Kundera might put it, the “incredible heaviness of being me.”

Ironically, while ego is designed to connect us with others, it often serves to separate us. The more it inflates, the less it sees—both of the world and even of the self it is meant to protect. Ego seems to operate behind a firewall: impenetrable, self-justifying, resistant to inspection. We rarely glimpse what lies beyond, because ego convinces us its stories are the truth. We see what ego wants us to see. Self-awareness becomes diminished, lost in reflection of a small, superficial self-image.

Yet ego’s strategies are not only aggrandized. It has many “small” strategies such as feeling inadequate, playing the victim, hoping to be seen, or withdrawing because attention feels insufficient. They may look different—grandiosity, self-pity, defiance, or despair—but they share a common thread: they make life all about me. When ego dominates, we are not listening to others. We are manipulating, trying to coerce the world into affirming a version of ourselves that we are desperately telling ourselves.

Sometimes the weight of this self reflection means we expect too much of ourselves and our world. Like an inflamed infection, our ego inflation becomes painful. We are lying in wait for someone of something to insult or disappoint us. I have been avoiding a community meeting which is very large, and I feel no one notices me. This is true, but most of the people there are unnoticed unless they share. But I keep myself bottled up out of fear of looking foolish. This is not humility. Its ego. By withdrawing, I deprive myself of any connection and benefit I might receive. Who am I hurting? Ego, in its fear of invisibility, tricks me into actually vanishing.

This is ego’s paradox. It promises safety by keeping us in control, but the cost is limiting everything to that which it can control.  And that is a much tighter set than makes me feel comfortable. So, I tend to blame others for not knowing me. Not seeing this delicate flower with is poisonous spines.

A classic ego refrain is That’s not me. I could never do that. But not out of discernment, out of fear of failure. And in so doing, ego robs us of the chance to learn, grow, and risk being seen in our fullness. How many opportunities have we refused simply because we lacked the energy to drag our own self-importance along?

The “heaviness of being me” rarely translates into the world in the way ego imagines. Instead, it leads to exhaustion and estrangement. To carry one’s importance everywhere is to carry a burden that no one else asked us to shoulder. The question arises: how important must we be to ourselves? What would it feel like to be less important—to set down this inflated carriage of “me”?

Dylan suggested, “I’m not here.” Buddhism teaches that ego is ultimately empty. My teacher once smiled at a question about how to work with ego and answered, “there is nothing to work with, because it doesn’t exist.” Perhaps the answer is to look beyond the event horizon of self-protection and see that the reflection is entirely made up.

Maybe this challenge becomes an invitation: to loosen the grip of this Michelin-man suit of self-importance, to move more lightly, and to test what life feels like when not filtered through our defenses. How exhausting it is to carrying the weight of “me” everywhere. What would it be to look beyond ourselves and meet the world directly, unburdened and free.

Maybe the key is to stop fixating on the reflection and working so hard to believe it so so we can see what else we can be.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

ENOUGH, ALREADY

Enough.

What does that even mean? How much is ever enough? In a world where scarcity is a commodity, our panic drives us to fill the larder. If less is more, then more is better and the most is the least you should hope for.

My late boomer generation felt the sky was our limit and that is was incumbent on us to do better than our parents. “You  can do anything you put your mind to,” was my father’s mantra as I scurried behind him trying just to catch up. I was programmed to succeed while setting myself up to fail.

You can have it all. Name on the marquee, house in the country, kids, dogs and a turtle named Teddy. But will any of this make us happy? Who knows? Just keep swimming and don’t look down even if you have to mix metaphors.

I was born Taurus, so red flags that might indicate a warning or slowing down to someone else urge me on with fury. The walls I hit are more reason for me to keep banging my head until something gives way. Know my limits? Really? When I hit the floor there’s always someone to help me back to the bar. Exhaustion is for babies. That’s why the lord gave us coffee. And if the lord sends us coffee, the devil gets the cocaine. The party never ends.

I managed a comedy club in the 80’s. My cousins sold cocaine at the door, the bathrooms were always full, everything was paid in cash and I otherwise ran on coffee and vodka. One night our MC was running later than his usual late. I was holding the show with my stomach grinding when the MC finally rushed in. I tried to upbraid him, but he interrupted me and told me this was his third show that evening, and on his way to the club he stopped at a porn video store to exercise his libido in a cum booth. “Do you think I have a problem,” he asked? and pushed past me, leaping on. stage and punching his way through through a remarkable set. God forgives those who don’t ask forgiveness, I guess.

I was so angry I hit more shots, chugged a coffee and hit the bathroom. I’ll show them.

Show who? Ah, who knows. Who cares. In those days there was always more. Cabs were hungry and always at the ready.  Clubs gave way to later clubs that unearthed unmarked after clubs. Those opened their squeaking craws to further under, darker, louder levels of underground where some band with a name you could never utter in work would be  slamming out music inspired more by the violent shatter of the subways than any music that had come before.

One time, I couldn’t put it to sleep, trying to outrun my anxiety, and found myself heading into a neighborhood I had absolutely no business being in. It was a horror movie of watchful shadows, burnt out buildings and silence. It was space between the chaos. I was terrified and alive. I walked into a parking lot, as I was told to do. There was one van. I walked around, and there was another world of white kids like me, college kids, and would be rockers nodding out on couches. I took what I could afford with me for the ride home. The sun was reluctantly rising as I got back to the civilization and the subway. I was exhausted and sat on the empty street watching the orange reflection in the new mirrored buildings. I heard birds singing. There was a comic in the club who used to say he was always told birds singing in the morning was meant to be a blessing rather than a curse.

My grandmother used to describe that feeling of exhaustion when you still can’t sleep as being “overtired”.  Like a kid walking in circles, refusing to go to bed. Feeding off the fumes. “No retreat,” said the boss, “no surrender.”

Even when they’ve lost it all, addicts fill themselves with recovery, their god, repeated homilies and the need to feel great and wonderful. And that’s okay for them. Whatever pulls you beyond the pit. My recovery didn’t really take hold until I admitted there was nothing more. This was my life. This was what I made of my life. And before I could step into something else I needed to take a long look at  this. Good bad happy sad this is what is happening now. And now is all that matters. And rather than fix myself with self-help hocus pocus, or herbal voodoo I needed to heed what I was feeling right now. Rather than joining the societal bandwagon to more more more, I needed to shut the fuck up and sit my ass down.

The Buddhist schools that spoke to me instructed there is nothing to gain, no one to be and nowhere to go. Just sit and let it settle and clear.

In time, rather than being driven by anxiety, rather than measuring myself be what I didn’t have and competing with shadows of my past, I learned the art of listening to me. Not the words, for there are too many words. Just listening or feeling in to when I’ve had enough. When I need to put down the drink, step out of a relationship or turn off the news. Everything can be t0o much until we learn to respect ourselves enough to say “enough.”

Which seems dependent on feeling that we are already enough.

 

 

________

Posted on by joseph mauricio

FACING THE MAELSTROM

MONKMODER DOOMSCROLLING

 

Like monks facing the maelstrom, we have may have our best intentions and ethical training. And yet, we may feel paltry and inadequate standing in the face of hatred and conflict.

Our society is currently at war. Those who have chosen a side may have the luxury of being determined and clear. They are able to push through the chaos with a surety that those who feel deeply cannot. But what of those who wish to understand or listen? Their experience is less assured. In fact, their experience might be disconcerting and painful.

Those trained in the ways of compassion will feel the need to help assuage the violence they see. Yet, how can we do so without declaring a side? Once we have taken a side, the other side will likely no longer be listening. The irony of side taking is that the very people who may need to hear what we have to say, are likely to not listen. This is why commitment to nonviolence is so frustrating in the short term, but yields more effective change over time. So how do we deal with the impulse to react with our guts in knots and our mind aflame?

A Bodhisattva must first train to calm their own passions before they have the clarity to help others.  When facing chaos, we may feel the need to do something. And yet, the nature of chaos is unclarity.  A general rule is when the world is chaotic and uncertain turn our attention to ourselves. Change what we can change.  If we could breath, relax and bring ourselves back to balance, we might see the pattern in the confusion. And like all patterns this has happened before and will happen again. From this point of view, the idea that there is a “right side” is absurdly reductive.

If scrolling through your doomfeed makes you angry, frightened or depressed it’s because 1) you care and 2) you have no idea how to help.  So the Bodhisattva is trained to rest in the chaos until a natural confluence emerges. And how might a natural confluence differ from taking sides? From the Buddhist perspective, the view is fostering kindness and compassion. If the world is falling apart, we can choose to add no harm and sit in the turmoil until our time for compassionate action becomes clear.

Water flows into water — sometimes quite rapidly, with significant turbulence. But this is not the fault of the river. Nor is it the fault of society, the world, or even our political systems when they undergo upheaval. Change is not an anomaly; it’s a basic rhythm of human experience on this planet. The planet changes. The climate changes. Political systems around the world shift, often with great pain or even lockdown. From a data point of view, the problem is not change — it’s the challenge of navigating change when we cannot control the outcome.

The work is for us to relax into not being able to predetermine results. Facing this chaos all while maintaining an upright posture of goodness, dignity, and strength. We might experience fear and resentment, but these, as is said, are like drinking poison expecting our adversaries to become ill. Usually, the others just go on their merry way, defiling and defaming others, and we are left feeling ill. Thus we become weak and unable to help anyone. Our first step in warrior training is to hold our seat and gather our strength. The next step is to adopt a posture of bravery and simply represent goodness without proclamation, arrogance or aggression.

Until we’re able to manifest dignity and strength we may become victims. Or worse yet, we may blindly react and become part of the problem.

This is why we need mindfulness, intention, and clarity about what we are doing. We need to interrupt immediate, automatic reactions. Yet these reactions happen so quickly it’s like trying to corral a bull after it’s broken free of its pen. Wherever we catch ourselves bringing aggression into our body or mind, we can just stop. Avoid blame, as blame, which feels so justified, only serves to perpetuate aggression and blindness. Anytime we become aware of the hijacking of our body by fear — whether anticipating what might happen, experiencing it as it unfolds, or reflecting on it afterward — we become more attuned to this very immediate and incredibly powerful process. Simply said, our mind and body are being hijacked by our own nervous system. It’s no one’s fault. However, it is our chore to work with. The work is to free the body, open the heart and let the mind see before we jump into the fire.

It’s natural to want to protect ourselves. But it is not natural to scapegoat a segment of society, to cling to resentment, or to nurture hatred in our heart. The issue here is not “right-wing” versus “left-wing.” The issue is that when we blame others, we harm ourselves. The violence we inflict on ourselves is profound, especially when we mask it as blame toward others.

When we are awake and open to our immediate experience, our natural human dignity will allow us to do the right thing. When we are reactive, our basic animal instinct only pushes us into ignorance. By creating a gap before acting out retribution, we can hold our reactions lightly, release them, and see more clearly. Otherwise, we’re not only grabbing the bull after its left the pen, we’re letting it carry us as it may — all while blaming someone else for leaving the gate open.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

BIRD ON A WIRE

I Have Tried in My Way …

I have a pet bird. Or perhaps the bird has a pet human, as it seems to have adopted me. We haven’t actually met face to beak, but it sits on a wire outside my window while I’m meditating. It may perch there at other times, and it might not even be the same bird each time. But I hate those possibilities. I want so very badly to believe the connection I have with my meditation based spirit bird. I don’t need logic. Because she seems to be out on the wire each time I meditate, my mind has connected the dots.

The game of connecting dots is a brilliant function of mind. Three pencil marks might suggest a face looking back at me; shift them slightly, and the face frowns or smiles. The dots themselves are neutral, but belief spins intention into them.

The bird I call Suzanne (after Leonard Cohen’s muse) may or may not feel any connection to me. I’ve had similar dissonance in relationships before. But as a lonely, insecure person, I hold on to beliefs that make me feel stronger. I love to believe I am being held by the universe. I love to believe I am important enough for a bird to gravitate toward me.

I think I create ideas, dramas, and scenarios just to keep me believing in the belief of me. Yet it occurs to me that I spend more energy scripting beliefs than I do simply being. Being and seeing. Maybe that’s all there is when I’m not up on a soap box going on about something.

As humans evolved, we lost fangs, claws, and scales in favor of a higher processing system. The mind now fires millions of signals each moment, most of them unseen or unknown to us. Hence the old adage that we use only 10% of our brain — something I believed as a child, though we now know it isn’t true. The truth is, most of the brain is active, but we’re only aware of a fraction of its work. Still, with limited awareness, we connect the dots — turning fragments into a world we believe in.

We do this to centralize our experience, to feel some sense of control in this vast universe of self. Some say we could be anything. Some say we are everything. Yet we spend much of our energy convincing ourselves that we are this limited self — compensating for its fragility by clinging to importance.

To navigate this inner vastness and the outer world, the mind developed an aspect that believes itself to be independent, permanent, and in control. This subset of mind is a fiction created by mind itself. Whether we believe we are glorious manifestations of the universe or abject failures in need of salvation, this aspect clings to beliefs in a fierce attempt to control. It seeks to manage life, the self, and reality itself, shrinking it all to manageable parcels.

We can see this dynamic echoed in the popularity of fascism. Its potential for evil is clear from the violent examples of the 1930s and 40s. But functionally, fascism is simply a way of protecting a populace by reducing complexity to the simplest components. A rainbow is inspirational but fleeting; a black-and-white world is easier to navigate, especially when survival feels threatened. Fascism thrives on people convinced they are fighting for survival. The truth of the danger matters less than the self-bolstering power of belief.

In the same way, this subculture of the mind becomes self-important and self-protective. We believe in our “rightness” and fall into the mistaken conviction that we must believe in something — and that the stronger the belief, the stronger we are. But this leaves little room for possibility. Even noble beliefs — in kindness, compassion, clarity, strength — can become limiting if clung to too tightly. Anything can be blinding if we believe in it hard enough.

The purpose of the Buddhist path is liberation. If we take this defensive subset of mind — a natural development of evolution — and redirect it toward freedom, we may discover that we ourselves are the source of suffering and also the key to its end. The Buddhist method employs conscious attention, best applied with kindness and clarity. With kindness, clarity, and awareness, we can deconstruct our defensive habits and welcome a richer, more complete way of being.

The bird is gone now. Does it think of me? Does it return because it feels the energy of my meditation? Or is this all just coincidence — a story I create in order to believe? Does it matter if it’s true, if the belief itself serves?

The subset of mind that tries to control reality is often called ego. Usually the word carries a negative connotation — egotistical, egocentric — as though ego were an inflammation of personality. And in some sense it is: a reaction to danger. But what happens when this protective system becomes parasitic, draining us of energy and potential? What happens when ego reduces our world to only what it believes?

Is it wrong to believe? I don’t think so. Belief can be a provisional tool — a way to orient ourselves, much like prayer doesn’t require certainty in a god. The problem arises when we believe the belief, when we defend ego and mistake its narratives for reality. Thus the Buddhist path invites us to investigate our beliefs, to see through them, and to use them when they serve, letting them go when they limit.

So yes, I believe Suzanne sits on the wire when I meditate because she feels the energy I’m cultivating. I believe she is drawn to it. I believe this is evidence that I’m on the right track. Do I believe any of this is objectively true? Probably not. But if it gets me onto the cushion, does it really matter? Only if I cling so tightly to the belief that I miss the deeper reality: my resistance to practice and my grasping for something, anything, to believe in.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

Foundations of Mindfulness

Remembering to  Return

 

Be here and now, they say. Okay. But where the heck is that?

Some would claim we’re right here. Sure. But can we see that? Do we feel, touch, live and know that? Maybe mindfulness is remembering that we have no idea where we are. Until we do, that is. Until then we might stop believing and remember that we’re being here, now.

But what of believing? I’m going to go out on the end of the donkey and say that beliefs can sometimes be obstacles to mindfulness. Mindfulness is resting the mind on an object in the present moment. Living a mindful life depends on our ability and willingness to hold our mind to the raw, factual, actual reality before us. Beliefs can misguide us when we believe in things that we only think, but which we have no corroborating evidence. We can’t rest our mind on an idea.

This post is an exploration of a traditional Buddhist teaching called “The Four Foundations of Mindfulness”. These are the cornerstones of clear seeing on which the powers of mindfulness rest. Interestingly, the trad texts translate mindfulness as “remembering”, or “recollection.” The point seems to be remembering to remember that we are here. Right now. Problems come when we believe we’re in some internally created reality that doesn’t include very much actual reality. While this is a big problem when we don’t recognize it, in reality, it’s not a problem at all when we see happening. Mind’s wander. They make up stories. They start trouble when they’re bored. Just like kids, the unawakened mind believes make believe. The mind grips so tightly to here that it fails to see see what is happening now.

What’s the problem? Especially when most of us are able to stumble through life, even tho we have no idea where we are? Minds wander. Untrained minds believe the places they wander are real and so, get lost in their stories. They end up wandering out after dark. The fact that we make it home at all allows us to forget how much danger we may have been in. With mindfulness practice we can train ourselves to remember and bring ourselves back home to what is actually here, now.  No matter how far we’ve travelled, we need only remember and we’re home in an instant.

Your body is always here. Your life is always unfolding. Your emotions are always happening. But your mind—it can be anywhere. Mindful living begins when body and mind meet in the present.

Mindfulness of Body

The body never leaves the present. It absorbs our joy, pain, fear, and connection—whether or not the mind notices. Instead of judging it, imagine the body as a loyal friend: imperfect, maybe heavier or slower than you’d like, but always here, always supporting you.

We often see our body through distorted beliefs—like thinking we’re overweight when we’re not, or obsessively poking and prodding to “fix” ourselves. These are false ideas, not reality. True mindfulness of body is not about changing or perfecting. It’s about seeing, accepting, and caring for the one who’s been with you through every moment of your life.

Mindfulness of Mind

The mind spins stories, schemes, and worries. Mindfulness of mind means stepping back and asking: Is this true? Is this useful? Is this about right now? Most stress comes not from the present, but from catastrophic or compulsive thoughts. By noticing them, we can return to clarity in the moment—where life is always more workable.

Mindfulness of Life

Life is not only what happens around us but also how we relate to it. Is your life supporting your well-being, or draining it? Mindfulness of life means recognizing what helps, what harms, and when acceptance—not struggle—is the wisest response. Even in difficulty, people find love and strength when they learn to see what’s really here.

Mindfulness of Feelings

Feelings are not the enemy; they are our life force. Joy, sorrow, depletion—all deserve recognition. By noticing them, we can arrange our life to support inner balance rather than ignore or fight what’s inside us.

At the heart of mindfulness is returning—again and again—to an open body, a compassionate heart, a clear mind and synchronicity with the flow of life. This is our refuge. Even in real danger, presence makes us stronger and steadier. When something signals, pay attention, but forgo the stories. Feel what this part of you is telling you. If nothing else it’s an opportunity to come back. If the body, mind, feelings or life grab your f0cus screaming that THIS is real, remember to return to your whole self. The integrated self, the comprehensive being, the fullness of you in the present is presence.

And don’t forget to smile—with your face, your heart, or even in your imagination. A smile signals confidence, openness, and connection, even when unseen.

Strong body. Open heart. Clear mind. Aligned with life. Conscious and intentional.

And when we get lost, we can remember our body, feelings or life and return the mind from believing to being.  That is the practice.

And, as far as anyone knows, it never ends.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

IT’S ONLY A MOVIE

“Keep telling yourself ‘it’s only a movie‘” was the famous tagline for Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left in 1972. It may be appropriate to look at the harrowing moments of our mind with the same encouraging detachment. No matter how serious life may feel in the moment, like a movie, it’s seeming realism is the result of a perceptive trick of the tale. (Pun intended). Neurological fake news is an ongoing misinterpretation of reality bent to the purpose of making ourselves more important to ourselves.

Sometimes we are suck into the movie, gripping our nails in harrowing belief; and other times we’re able to step outside the frame seeing ourselves telling ourselves a story. With meditation practice we can slow the process in order to peak beyond the folds of the curtain to the working basis within.

I love moments of hypnagogic consciousness upon awakening, surfing between sleeping, dreaming and waking as if skipping over gadget impressions as we rise into awareness.

But, just before we wake there is a most precious moment.  A moment of “ahhhhh” that precedes all thought. This moment of pure waking precedes every moment. This is the sacred space, or gap, where we have a limitless opportunity to hack our preset turning our mind from rote adherence to habit toward discovery and change. This may be the very space of creation. The moment before, before.

And within this gap we might get a glimpse into the projector. The apparatus that constructs the fantasy of life.

For many humans, with the outsized pressures of modern life, this subtle moment goes by unreguarded. We push past it, bursting awake to the screeching beep of the alarm, sing some innocuous tune in the shower, dress and rush straight to the coffee. In short order we’re following our travel mug down the street to the train. It’s like waking up after a drunken night next to someone you don’t know, trying to sneak out the door before they wake up.  That used to happen to me every morning. And I lived alone. I could be three stops on the train before I start to recognize myself.

When we slow down in order to meet life, we might see life happening in the gaps we blast past. If we train the mind to pause and pay attention to these precious moments, every following moment becomes an opportunity for discovery. When we turn our mind toward discovery our lives become alive. This is what we refer to as waking up. It’s not leaving a dream state for a somnambulist state, but actually awakening. Looking past the curtain and seeing the mechanics of our seeing.

The Buddha experienced pain and suffering – even after his enlightenment, up until his death – or he wouldn’t have had the skillful means necessary to convey a remedy to suffering. He was there with us. He was not a supernatural being who might free us if we were to play along and do as he said. The path of awakening requires our participation.  And yet, that participation can’t be under our control. Aye, there’s the rub. We can’t just close our eyes and wait to wake up and yet we can’t turn our journey into the next story we are scripting.

Buddha took the personal and translated it to the universal. He owned his personal experience, yet his personal experience wasn’t about him. It was human experience. In the same way, our life is personal, but it is not ours alone. Whether we know this or not, we are inextricably part of everything in nature.

But all too often, we fall away from waking, into fantasies projected by inner narratives. We carry the dream of sleep with us into our day. And in our dreams we are too important to regard the life around us unless we can twist it to fit the narrative.  The mind does this instantly with little concern for reality. It creates stories with ourselves at the center that give us the impression that we are in control. But all we control is our narrative. Like a movie “moving” at 24 frames a second our internal movie creates a momentum that renders a false reality that looks and smells like a duck.

Trungpa, Rinpoche said to a group of students in a shrine room that the before we notice the walls, or the columns, or the floor we have a micro instant gap, which he illustrated with a gasp. Gasp, floor. Gasp, ceiling. Before we label anything, or categorize any moment, we have a moment to pause, breaking the momentum that perpetuates the movie, we might see a past the curtain to a brighter, clearer moment.

We may absorbed in be a gripping movie. But the world is nonetheless waiting outside for us.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

A PRESCRIPTION FOR LIVING

The Foundational Truths

Soon after his enlightenment, Buddha gave a teaching that would become the cornerstone of his path we now know as “The Four Noble Truths”. It happened in northern India, in the 5th–4th century BCE, in Deer Park at Sarnath.

Newly awakened after years of searching, Buddha was reluctant to proclaim his insight. According to the early texts, he spent about seven weeks in contemplation under and around the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, processing what he had realized. He questioned whether it was possible to communicate such a profound truth to others.

Eventually, he decided to start where we are. Suffering.

For his first teaching, Buddha sought out five aesthetics who were companions of his that abandoned him when he gave up severe self-mortification. Reunited with his spiritual clan, the Buddha taught them on the middle way, and the four foundational truths.

Suffering is a universal experience, something we all experience. Secondly, Buddha felt this affliction was treatable. The teaching that followed, known as The Four Noble Truths, give a complete map: the problem, its cause, the possibility of resolution, and the method to reach that resolution. Offering a balanced, pragmatic approach to liberation from cycles of suffering.

The Four Noble Truths are:

  1. The truth of suffering (dukkha) – Life contains stress, dissatisfaction, and pain.

  2. The truth of the cause (samudaya) – The root is craving (tanhā), the urge to cling, avoid, or control experience.

  3. The truth of cessation (nirodha) – If craving ceases, suffering ceases. This is nirvana.

  4. The truth of the path (magga) – The way to cessation is the Eightfold Path.

This framework mirrors the way ancient Indian physicians worked, and it’s still recognizable as a medical model today. Diagnosis → Identify the problem (dukkha); Cause → Find its root (tanhā); Prognosis → State that it can be cured (nirodha); Prescription → Lay out the treatment (Eightfold Path).

The Buddha wasn’t positioning himself as a savior, but as a kind of spiritual doctor—offering a practical cure for the human condition.

 

The Treatment Plan: The Eightfold Path

The Eightfold Path is the “prescription” for ending suffering. It’s traditionally grouped into three trainings—wisdom, ethics, and mental cultivation—and each step works like part of a treatment plan.

Wisdom (Paññā) – Understanding the condition

  • 1. Right View – Seeing reality clearly: impermanence, interdependence, and the Four Noble Truths. Modern analogy: learning what your “illness” is and what causes it—no denial, no magical thinking.

  • 2. Right Intention – Committing to letting go of harmful attachments, cultivating goodwill, and practicing non-harming. Modern analogy: deciding you actually want to follow the treatment and recover.

Ethics (Sīla) – Stopping behaviors that worsen the illness

  • 3. Right Speech – Avoiding lies, divisive speech, harshness, and gossip. Modern analogy: cutting out inflammatory habits that aggravate your condition.
  • 4. Right Action – Acting in ways that protect life, respect property, and maintain integrity in relationships. Modern analogy: following your doctor’s “no junk food” or “no heavy lifting” orders.
  • 5. Right Livelihood – Earning a living in ways that don’t harm others. Modern analogy: not working in a toxic environment that continually re-exposes you to your triggers.

Mental Training (Samādhi) – Building the mind’s immune system

  • 6. Right Effort – Actively cultivating wholesome states of mind and preventing unwholesome ones from arising. Modern analogy: taking your medicine, doing your exercises, and sticking with the program.
  • 7. Right Mindfulness – Maintaining awareness of your body, feelings, mind states, and patterns. Modern analogy: tracking your symptoms, noticing early warning signs, and making timely adjustments.
  • 8. Right Concentration – Developing deep, stable meditative states (jhānas) that lead to insight. Modern analogy: focused therapy sessions that reach the root cause.

Followed fully, this treatment doesn’t just manage symptoms—it removes the underlying cause, leading to complete liberation.

In that first sermon, one of the five ascetics, Kondañña, experienced a breakthrough. Hearing the Buddha’s words, he gained direct insight into the truth that “whatever is subject to arising is subject to cessation.” This marked the first awakening in the Buddha’s sangha—the beginning of the community of practitioners.

From there, the Eightfold Path spread not as dogma, but as a method. Just as medicine must be taken to work, the path must be walked to bring results. Its structure makes it practical and testable: anyone can try it and see what happens.

Over 2,500 years later, the Four Noble Truths remain relevant because they address something universal: the human wish to be free from suffering. They don’t rely on cultural specifics, supernatural claims, or blind faith. Instead, they start with our direct experience, diagnose the root cause, and offer a clear, compassionate way forward.

The Buddha’s first teaching wasn’t an abstract philosophy or a set of commands—it was a blueprint for healing, given by someone who had tested the cure themselves. In that way, the wheel he set in motion at Deer Park is still turning today.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

WHERE DO WE RUN?

Understanding Refuge in Modern Times

Ever wish you could just run and hide? Ever play hide and seek with your life because it all becomes too heavy? Do you ever reach for the panic-button in reaction to difficulty? Ever slump in discouragement because it’s all on you, but you just can’t figure it out?

Well, maybe it is on you. But maybe it’s not your fault.

Many of us have never learned to see our lives as they are. Many of us have never learned how to think. We just accept the mind’s confusion, blame our woes on others, and pray for a way out. But maybe there is no way out, except to be here—to learn to see what’s happening and work through it.

We can do this. With patience, kindness, and love, we can gain agency in our lives. We can become players instead of victims—if we are willing to learn. In Buddhism, we look to the example of an enlightened mind, which reflects the enlightenment inherent in all of us.

It takes training to learn to see beyond the compulsive thinking that grasps at the wrong straws. We create more confusion out of a confused world when we blindly reach for what we think will save us. This might be as grand as a lifelong commitment to a nation or spiritual community—or as quick and impulsive as a harsh word, or hitting “send.”

When we feel pressured and need relief—when we’re challenged, triggered, or brutalized by life—our immediate defense is often to lash out. We turn to anger and aggression, or to something or someone we hope will save us. Or we retreat to a private island in our mind, looking for refuge.

But when we seek refuge in something not grounded in what is, we only deepen our confusion. We stop learning.

Throughout history, there have been countless religious, cultural, and commercial icons of refuge. Yet—if you’ll grant me a cliché—wherever you go, there you are.

And if we’re not willing to be here, how can we ever move beyond?

We’ve taken the beautiful teachings of Jesus, Muhammad, and the Buddha and used them to condemn one another—or to save ourselves. Perhaps we spin on a bipolar wheel of condemnation and salvation, swearing off our vices each morning and forgetting by nightfall.

When I was lost in the self-abusive cycles of alcohol and drug addiction, I was blind to any direction my life could take. I spent all my time trying to extricate myself from the sins I’d committed the night before. I took refuge in blame and resentment.

The legal counsel of my rattled brain was perpetually building cases against some system or person. The biggest problem was that I thought I could do it alone. I kept my self-professed sins to myself, spinning outward appearances however they needed to look.

The phrase is “close to the vest”—but “vest” is close to the heart. And putting all that guilt, shame, and doubt into my own heart was as unhealthy as it was ineffective. Because no matter how intelligent we are, it’s our heart that communicates. Whether we understand that—or the recipient of our communication does—we still feel each other. No one needs facts to stop trusting us. If our heart is not in sync with itself, our confusion communicates. And the world responds by withholding trust. This only deepens our isolation, as we carry a broken heart in secret through a world of resentment.

At some point, in utter frustration at nothing working, I just surrendered. There was nowhere left to run. Which left me here. The way out is the way in.

We sit. And we sit. Until we begin to disengage the compulsive mind from the mind’s potential. We get lost in fantasy. We train the mind to recognize that—and return to ourselves, and this very moment. At any time, again and again, as we drift into delusion, we can return to now.

That is our refuge.

In meditation, we train the mind to recognize delusions of blame, shame, doubt, and confusion, and to turn back to trust—in our own heart, and in the present moment.

This is the example of the Buddha. No one saved him. He worked through is shit. He awakened.

With nowhere to run and no external salvation, Buddhism offers practical remedies. We turn to the Buddha—not for rescue, but as an example of a liberation we can achieve. How is this different from running to a god, a savior, a corporation, or a country to save us? Well, the Buddha will not save us. He is long gone. But the enlightened mind he accessed is available to all of us if we follow his example.

But taking refuge in his example means being willing to face ourselves, now in this moment. Not blaming ourselves for the past. We have no control over the past, so how can we be faulted for that which we have no control? Maybe there is no fault, but it is an opportunity to change the present. And no matter how difficult that present may be, it is always better to face it than to turn away.

So when we are triggered, panicked, or confused, we have the opportunity to turn to the enlightened mind within us. You may see this as your higher power, the awakened mind, which offers us the strength to face the moment, through each moment of our life.

Instead of grasping for external salvation, we can turn to the example of an awakened mind, which liberates the awakened mind within us.

The Buddha was not a god. He was a human being—who lived, died, failed, and succeeded. He had no supernatural powers. He was a teacher and student of the Dharma (the path to liberation) who worked diligently to free himself from his own suffering. Because he did the work, he understood how others suffer—and offered teachings to guide people to their own liberation.

Turning to this example is Taking Refuge in the Buddha.

“Buddha” means awake. We are taking refuge in our own wakefulness—both the part that already exists, and the part still developing.

To guide us on the path, we turn to the teachings—a map, not a doctrine. This is Taking Refuge in the Dharma.

The Buddha offered his teachings (the Dharma), and he offered the wisdom of the community around him—the teachers and students walking the path together. This is Taking Refuge in the Sangha.

The idea that we could wake up tomorrow free of guilt, resentment, and limiting patterns might seem like magic. But the Buddha offered no magic—only an ordinary path to learn how to see.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

THE PASSING

 

Love may be an eternal flame. But you and I are just sparks. We illuminate the journey and pass into the dark night.

We will die. Our great love destined to last forever will pass. The best poems will pass. The Buddha passed and Buddhism will eventually pass. Even the Beatles who’s songs seem to reinvent themselves will eventually fade out. The “me” we’ve come to know, cherish and protect will pass. Very few will ever know when. Even condemned prisoners facing a given execution date have reprieves, stays and appeals that change the date so many times, that many most die of natural causes at an ungiven time. Even patients on their deathbeds, don’t know how and when the actual moment will come. Suicide is an act of fearful control, playing god with pills or knotted bed sheets. Even then, do we know when the moment will come and how it will feel? Nothing can move faster than the speed of light, and none of us while living can know our own death.

Looking objectively, this seems a pretty lousy deal. Who would make such a bargain? Were we drunk? An inebriated fetus in the Vegas womb gambling blindly on life?

We come into this world, clinging to our new existence grabbing onto shiny objects as they pass. This will continue through our life as though life is defined by everything we capture.  Maybe we might halt the flow of time by hanging onto reeds on the shore. This drive to exist is deeply programmed into us as a primal imperative. And in our desperate gripping to “be” few of us consider the fact that tour being will one day be stolen, often without ceremony or warning.

But yet, do we really not know? Somewhere inside we get it, don’t we? As deeply programmed as our drive for survival is, the knowledge that the ice below us is very thin is unseen and unspoken at every moment. Every fear, dark dream or shadowed room, speaks to the actual fear that lies within us. The very rebirth of spring heralds the coming thaw when the ice of our pretense will thaw and we will fall into darkness eternal. So, without ever thinking it, we strategize, plan and plot to avoid the inevitable. Too fearful to let go and live, we are always running, hiding, apologizing, explaining and rationalizing. Living in our head, we bargain against catastrophes we imagine, all the while knowing somewhere that one of these will come true.

Contemporary songwriter, Jason Isbell, wrote If We Were Vampires, and life was a joke, we’d go out on the sidewalk and smoke, and laugh at all the lovers and their plans. I wouldn’t have the need to hold your hand. This is stunning … maybe, he continues, time running out is a gift. I’ll work hard till the end of my shift. And give you every second I can find and hope it isn’t me who’s left behind.

So, death without warning is a raw deal, but would immortality be better?  If we won every hand while sitting at the cosmic card table, wouldn’t we soon lose interest? Wouldn’t the game become less meaningful, even from the start?

The question of our impermanence—and what it means to us—is central to the Buddhist path. Dying may be the fundamental statement of life. As one traditional Buddhist slogan reminds us: Death comes without warning. This body will be a corpse. In particular, the life of beings is like a bubble that can burst at any time. This slogan is one of the “Four Reminders, That Turn the Mind to the Dharma” and is recited every day, often in the morning, and even on birthdays. Buddhism not inherently morbid. In fact, this reminder comes after we contemplate the preciousness of our human birth, a slogan that ends “now I must do something meaningful.” Our life is short. But the life around us is plentiful, powerful and poignant. It was here before us and will continue after we’ve gone. Yet so much of that life is held at bay because of our fear. Maybe the issue is not death as much as the way we allow fear to dominate life. Buddha had his students look at suffering and fear as primary conditions of human existence. He did this so that by accepting life as it is, we can begin to learn about the life that is actually here. It is that life that becomes the roadmap to our liberation. If we don’t see the truth we can’t understand the condition.

By looking directly at our existential situation, we are not only confronted with the tragedy of life, but also its preciousness. Facing death awakens us to the value of life. Acknowledging that we don’t know how or when this life will end is naturally frightening—especially to the part of our mind that seeks control. But meditation is the process of uncovering and letting go of that fearful need to control. It is not death that keeps us sequestered from life, it is the need to control our life. However, letting go of control does not mean letting go of our agency. In fact, as we develop awareness and the ability to pay attention to the preciousness of this moment, our agency becomes more potent, not less. When we find ourselves gripping, coercing, manipulating—trying to hold on to impermanent aspects of life—we can pause and recognize that impulse as a common human frailty. Then, we can look within and remember control is futile. Control might preserve some aspects of the life we’ve already had, but it does nothing to allow us to live now. And living now is so very important to our health wellbeing and development. We cannot control the future, but we can wake up now and direct ourselves toward our purpose. This is how we gain agency by letting go.

This life is a passage that leads …

well, you’ll have to stay tuned.