We’re excited for our last performance of the year at Washington Square Bar and Grill in White Bear Lake.  It’s a celebration in honor of the season of light, the arrival of winter, and the swing of sun/earth alignment to longer days.  So come on out for the best pre-Christmas party in town.  9pm-midnite.

In life, we can face the moment or try to dodge it.  We can commit to being ‘here, now’ or we can try to ignore the moment.  Our restless mind is continually pulling us from ‘being here’.  We can be caught in thoughts of the past or we can be consumed with disturbing thoughts of the future.  Neither holding grudges/guilt or cultivating worry seem to be helpful to our health.  Yet, most of us spend much of our time caught in thoughts of what’s been or what we expect to be.  In spiritual wisdom we’ve seen that the best way we can release from the pain of the past or the worry of the future is to simply settle fully into taking care of the present moment.  Several practices advise breathing with 100% attention to help us align to the moment’s arising.  When fully surrendered into the moment, beyond our attachments to past and future, our actions can be described as ‘in the flow’, ‘in harmony’, ‘in the zone’, etc.  We can actually measure the body’s vibration at a higher frequency.  The cells of the body experience less stress.  In fact, some have defined ‘stress’ as the distance from where you ‘are’ to where you want to be.  Surrendering in full attention to the next arising breath may perhaps be the most effective means for reducing stress, the leading cause of our dis-ease.  We can resist this moment or we can allow it.  We can fight or we can flow.  We can push or we can solidly stand in our truth without need to ‘fix’ or ‘change’ another.  The paradox is how we find our fullness through our emptiness.  An attitude of ‘c’est la vie’ does not mean ‘I don’t care’.  I think it means to stand in full acceptance of what life’s presenting in this moment.  My purpose is to meet it fully, in discovery of it’s gift, no matter what.  This is our acknowledgment to the fullness of life.  Rather than falling to the temptation of complaint, we open in affirmation to the wonder.

This moment that’s coming up can not be escaped.  We’ve been placed here for a purpose…to experience the beauty of ‘this’ arising moment.  Even in the most difficult of places, beauty is continually asking to be seen.  Our work is to make space to see the gift in the given.  The challenge is to live in the present moment and ‘be’ of it, to not get caught in thinking ‘this is my moment’.  It’s our opportunity to ‘be’…to simply ‘be’…to ‘just be’.  It’s our opportunity to help reduce the restlessness, the suffering that comes from attachment.  Our work is to continually move from fight to peace, even when under attack.  We’re constantly being asked to chose peace with the world the way it ‘is’.  This is about accepting what’s in front of us in full awareness.  It’s not about pushing peace.  This is deep forgiveness practice.  It’s a deep vow that says the unkindness stops with me.  It means letting go grudges against those who may have been unkind to us.  It means we change the cultural conversation norm of complaint and we make forgiveness normal.  It means we open our minds, navigating the world with more grace and flexibility.

This practice is not about compromise or reconciliation.  It’s the deeper heart cleansing itself and re-opening to life.  For sure, there are certain people and situations we’re best to avoid.  There are certain situations and people to nurture, just like there’s good food and bad food.  Yet, for me ‘c’est la vie’ is holding what other’s may have done in a more gentle way.  It’s not condoning harmful actions.  It’s not forgetting the wake (karma) of our life’s actions.  It just allows us to make peace with our life when we don’t get what we want.  It’s the capacity to come into our integrity, to make peace, when parts don’t work the way we wanted them to.  What’s the alternative?  To resist what is.  To hang on.  To think we can change what ‘is’.

Fred Luskin has perhaps done more research on the benefits of forgiveness practice than anyone.  His prescription for teaching forgiveness involves the following directives:

1. In life, there’s a sense of not noticing the blessings so we put our attention to what’s unpleasant.  Become more aware of your thoughts. Practice gratitude.
2. Be willing to separate out the content of your story from the story you tell.  It’s too easy to get lost in the story.  We can’t change the content, but we can change the process.  We always come back to the truth question, “Is what you’re doing working for you?  Is it helping you reach lasting satisfaction?”
3. When listening to another, it’s helpful to actively listen with the following structural suggestion, “I hear this is what you wanted _________, and you got ______________.  I empathize that you didn’t get what you wanted.”
4. Forgiveness requires a certain grieving process.  The powerlessness has to be grieved.  We have to cultivate compassion and softness for our vulnerability.  We recognize the pain that grew from putting our trust in someone to only find it wasn’t reciprocated.  We grow an inner release, depersonalizing it as just part of the human experience… ‘c’est la vie’.  Can we sit in softness to our human experience?  Can I calm the whiner in me, still the mind, and use a deeper awareness to determine what processes are waking me and which ones are keeping me asleep?  Can I make a vow to let go the ones that aren’t working?  Do I have the courage and willingness to try other options?  Luskin says we don’t have to know exactly what will work, but a curious, open mind is necessary to break from the quick sand that’s holding us back.
5. Breath work is central to helping us break the chains of our wounding.  Even practicing just 30-40 seconds can help break the habit of the ‘victim’ mind.  Thich Nhat Hanh has an exercise where with each breath in we affirm life with ‘Yes’, each breath out, expressing gratitude with ‘Thank you’, acknowledging the very opportunity to participate in this next arising moment.  The process helps us move from the grasping mind of intellect to the rising and falling belly, eventually landing in the precious heart, cultivating our healing, our return to wholeness.  Luskin suggests we breath into the heart, give thanks, and ask for a gentler solution.
6. This step may be the most difficult.  Luskin says we eventually come to a vow to not talk about our suffering in a way that will disturb us or others.  Until we’ve truly met a place of forgiveness, of what Hawaiians call pono (balance), we vow to hold silence.  We commit to only tell our story from a position of benefits and insights gained from the betrayal.  The aim is to create a story that doesn’t limit one to a victim story.  The final part of this forgiveness practice is captured in the story we tell.  We can’t blame anyone for what comes out of our mouth.

I’ve had my share of receiving others’ unkindness.  I’m fallen into the powerlessness of victim thinking.  I’ve seen the wasted energy put to trying to change what ‘is’, to ‘make things right’.  I’ve seen people gravitate away from me when I’ve slipped back into ‘my story’, losing track of my real purpose: to tell the story from insight for the purpose of easing others’ suffering.

The journey is filled with challenges to resist the moment or face it’s wonder in awareness.  For me, ‘c’est la vie’ is about the lasting commitment to stand strong in truth, to fully meet the moment with an open mind and a full heart, in recognition to the wonder and beauty of the moment’s opportunity.  It’s about cultivating an attitude of gratitude, of ‘no complaint, no complaint’.  It’s about raising the vibration, acceptance, and letting our natural light shine brightly, even when things turn out differently than expected.

After suffering the agony of WWI, the US Congress set aside 11/11 as a day of pause.  In 1938 it was designated Armistice Day, a day to lay down arms in pause to reflect upon the loss and grief from war.  The pause was later dedicated to the loss of veterans, but this should not take away our insight to the suffering that comes from alienation and separation.

We live in a media that thrives on conflict, fear and greed.  We daily ignore the fact that we’re all inter-related, all One.  Science and ancient wisdom have repeatedly shown how everything affects everything and everything changes.  In honor to those no longer in their physical bodies, to those now here, and to those yet to manifest in body, can we take some time today to reflect upon what we have in common?  Can we pause from our need to be ‘right’, from our insecurity and desire to persuade others, and from our continual pull to fight what ‘is’?  Can we just take a few deep breaths in affirmation to the gift of life?  Can we take a few moments to wish everyone less suffering?  Can we take a few moments to touch the Divine, to touch peace?  This is all Matti Stapanek was asking when he wrote the following after the 9/11 tragedy:

For Our World

We need to stop.
Just stop.
Stop for a moment
Before anybody
Says or does anything
That may hurt anyone else.
We need to be silent.
Just silent.
Silent for a moment
Before we forever lose
The blessing of songs
That grow in our hearts.
We need to notice.
Just notice.
Notice for a moment
Before the future slips away
Into ashes and dust of humility.
Stop, be silent, and notice
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.
Be for a moment
Kind and gentle, innocent and trusting,
Like children and lambs,
Never judging or vengeful
Like the judging and vengeful.
And now, let us pray,
Differently, yet together,
Before there is no earth, no life,
No chance for peace.

Mattie J.T. Stepanek
September 11, 2001

Mattie was eleven when he wrote this.  He fully understood the real meaning of Armistice Day.  He left his body three years later after dedicating his life to helping others reduce their suffering.  He left us filled with One-der.  May you experience healing this special day of Oneness, 11/11/11.

Just as the moon is full, may your day be filled with ‘One-der full’ moments.

In celebration of One, taking pause from the pain of notions of two.

To heal, to be whole, from the pain of two.

Yoga…to yoke…to be in union, connected.

Armistice…to lay down arms, opening hearts in faith, hope, and love.

Tomorrow marks a shifting moment.  There’s an opportunity to deepen in our notions of ‘two’ or deepen our awareness of One.  We can expand our circle of belonging or diminish it.  We can sharpen our sword or open our arms.  We can be carried away by repeating thoughts from the head or touch the Divine from the heart.  This is not a day to try to persuade another that we’re ‘right’.  It’s not a day to try to ‘fix’ things.  It’s a day to pause, to quiet the mind and find the love that’s available.  This experience of One (Love) is who we are.  It’s an exquisite balance of head and heart, offering tremendous ability to manifest.

This is a time to step out of what’s happening in front of us in a way where we can see it.  Moving into this Witness mind, the more we move into a broader dimension (One, the Ultimate) of our collective experience.  Moving beyond the physical and beyond emotion, there’s an allowing of the energy of the world to pass through us, to reveal it, without us getting caught, wounded, or conditioned by it.  Some have called this the ‘aha’ mind, looking at the trauma in the world as Witness.  The culture would have us deepen our sleep, caught in the realm of the relative, material, dualistic world.  It would have us deepen in greed, fear and our ignorance to the power of One.  In One, we deepen to our real purpose…to experience the beauty of this moment, in all its beauty.  Even in the most difficult of places, beauty is continually asking to be seen.  There’s a tremendous challenge to not claim ownership of this moment.  It’s just the instant opportunity to participate in the ground of Being, outside notions of separation.

This is a day to recognize the peace that comes from One and the pain/suffering that comes from notions of two.  It’s recognizing real healing and wholeness through connection, deepening our awareness to our lack of ease (dis-ease) that comes from the mind struggling with alienation, with smaller circles of belonging.

A major question for us this day is, “Where does my sense of belonging stop?”  Just as a circle has no sides, the feeling of One has no barriers.  This making of peace is a dire need of the human condition, even when traveling through difficult times.  We’re constantly being asked to make peace with the world the way it “is”.  It means we hold our judgment of others, we send energy aimed to reduce their suffering, and it means the unkindness stops with us.  In troubled times, we’re asking how we can take our life as its actually unfolded to grow kindness rather than to use it as an excuse to be unkind?  It’s not asking to forget the betrayal, but to re-open the heart to life, to One.  It’s not a time to condone bad actions, but to hold the person who did them in a more gentle way.  In the realm of the Absolute we’re not only mirrored through our enemy, it’s more like a hologram.  There is no division.  We all carry seeds of greed, fear and ignorance.  We all carry seeds of compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness.  Whether caught in the trance of “not enough” or in the realm of “great fullness”, we ultimately come to ask the question of efficacy, “Is it working for you?”

Today’s Occupy Wall Street movement is doing just that.  It’s asking if monetary/corporate influence in our politics is working or not?  It’s not saying that making money is bad.  It’s asking if it’s bad when making money harms others.  It’s asking if making policy decisions that cause great harm to others is working.  And perhaps the greatest question to the extremely wealthy .01 of the 1%, “Is your hoarding really working to bring you lasting peace and happiness?”  The social trance would have us believe there’s a point of material accumulation and achievement where we no longer suffer. Yet, the more they accumulate the less secure they seem, the more ‘dis-ease’ they reveal.

The healing of America and the international community will come when  more and more wake to compassion for all.  Our real purpose is to waken others to One for the purpose of reducing suffering.  For sure, throughout the day we move in and out of Oneness consciousness.  Fear, greed and our ignoring of One happens.  Yet, in holding our human vulnerability with compassion and softness, we water the seeds of faith, hope and love.  We reach our own armistice moment, a pause in the battle with Other.  This compassion involves an inner release.  Can I sit in softness to my own experience?  Can I calm the complaining mind in me?  When the problems seem big, can I get bigger than the problems?  Can I breath deeply, opening for a greater solution?  Can I acknowledge the fullness of life and step from feeling like a victim?  When tempted to enter into whining, can I open and acknowledge wonder and mystery?

Armistice Day was established in 1938, a day to lay down our arms, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month (11/11).  In the realm of the Ultimate, it’s a day to recognize our One, our Divinity, our non-dual nature.  It’s a day to rest from fighting, persuading, arguing, and debating others.  It’s a time to enter the Witness mind, to open our hearts instead of closing our minds, to cultivate the sincere energy that penetrates all, to connect rather than separate, to wake from the social trance of two, to touch the silence of One in full gratitude for the opportunity to Be.  With this polished heart we desire the best well being for one another.  With this wanting of the best, we know we have to let go.  It means we touch love in the face of impermanence.  It’s realizing the One exists only in this moment, the Present.  It’s a quiet mind and a peaceful heart.  It’s a moment of no struggle, a moment without effort.  Again, it’s the experience of looking for who you are.

This 11/11/11, may you suffer less.

May you be in peace

May you be healed from all resentment

May you awaken

May you be happy

May you be in love (One) now

The non-dualistic traditions speak to the interconnection of all things, to the illusion of ‘other’.  Even when we get to the core of most religions, the proponents advised us to love one another as ourselves, even our perceived enemies.  Our suffering is fueled by the illusion that we’re separate.  We end up violating the spiritual mandates when this illusion is fed by fear, greed and our ignoring of (ignorance) this interconnectedness.  This was perhaps best captured in the sobering times after World War I when America made its strong commitment to strive for world peace.

The United States Congress passed a resolution seven years after the end of the war, on June 4, 1926, requesting that President Calvin Coolidge issue a proclamation to observe November 11 with appropriate ceremonies.  An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U.S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday; “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as ‘Armistice Day’.”  The word armistice is a noun designating a state of peace agreed to between opponents so they can discuss peace terms.

Given this is the 11th year in the new millennium, there’s special significance to this event.  It’s an opportunity to shine the light brighter on the non-dual.  It’s a time to pause in honor to the whole heart, to the mystery of life and the opportunity to be.  It’s a time to humble ourselves to the mystery of life, surrendering our notions of ‘right’, our anger and our desire to persuade, and our apparent addictions to control. It’s a time to ask if we want peace or control.  It’s a time to reflect on the cause of our restlessness.  It’s a moment to cultivate the ‘feeling’ of spiritual security, holding a space of silence, minimizing words, allowing some healing from the pain of past violence.

The word ‘heal’ roots from ‘to become whole’.  No doubt, we move in and out of the feeling of Being One as we move through the material world.  Some wounds run deeper than others.  Yet, in the end, our complete healing can by definition only come when we return to ‘wholeness’, to One.

For several years I was mystified by how many times it was 11:11 or 1:11 when I looked at a time piece.  When Internet search engines were developed I learned I wasn’t alone.  Thousands of others have had this experience and they attribute it to being a reminder to One.  I’ve had some inexplainable experiences directing me to participate with sound in this event.

I’m not forecasting anything with this day.  It’s just a time where we can all say a prayer for one another, sincerely hoping there’s less suffering as we wake up to our interconnection, our non-twoness.  It’s realizing that when I wish you peace from the restless mind, my mind quiets.  It’s realizing that my healing is interdependent to your healing.  It’s hearing the spiritual masters saying we’re inseparable, no matter how hard we push the illusion of two.

May we carry Big Hope this 11/11/11.

May we suffer less.

May we move to healing.

May we touch joy and gratitude from the ground of our Being

May we lay down our arms

May we find our Whole Heart

May we find a deeper Tone

May we rest in the peace of knowing we can never be alone, never separate.

Cultivating deep abiding in:

Just here.

Just this.

As opposed to the suffering in:

Just there.

Just that.

We need to express what we feel we are, our beauty.

And, yet, we don’t know who we are.  Ahhh, the mystery.

Love is what’s found in the space between generosity and gratitude.

People ask, “So why meditate?”

One answer is, “To cultivate the influence of the Ultimate.”  It’s in contrast to our continual focus on the material.

Meditation is not trying to get away from thought, but aiming to enter thoughtlessness.

Meditation is letting go the thought we’re separate, cultivating the deeper feeling we’re connected, we belong, and we’re never alone.

The paradox in practicing mindfulness is that the mind aims to be mind empty rather than mind full.

Thinking still happens after liberation, but there’s no one listening.  It’s simple, ordinary, and stunning.  Everything arises as new.

Under the influence of greed, fear and ignorance or compassion, forgiveness and gratitude?  In the later, winning is nothing,  but being your best is everything.  Just aim to be your best expression with harm to none.

We’re pushed hard to be good competitors and good consumers.  Yet, we’re ultimately damaged by the spirit of competition when it’s the extreme grasping at another’s loss.  This precious moment is all there is.  We may temporarily feel better for winning over another, but it’s not long lasting.

“Best” as defined by 100% attention is a moment to moment thing.  This takes a lot of pressure off.

We’ve been trained from fear to meet basic survival needs often at the expense and harm to others.  Whether in family, school, work, religion, community, state, nation or planet, the notion of ‘win’ is illusion costing us real lasting peace.

A strong desire to be “better” may be the comparative that prevents you from full attention, from being your best.

If you want to be your best, surround yourself with others who want to be their best.

When the mind leaves awareness (the Ground of Being), obstacles appear.

“If your mind leaves the sound of the horn, obstacles appear”  Trumpet teacher,  William Adam

When the mind leaves the posture, obstacles appear.

When the mind leaves the breath, obstacles appear.

When the mind leaves the tone, obstacles appear.

Conformity is overrated.  Precision and education is underrated.  In conformity, depth sacrifices to approval.

In the end, all we really want (and need) is one another’s awareness.  So let’s ‘wake up’ to one another.

I have my experience and you have yours.  Mine can never be yours and yours can never be mine.  The illusion/delusion is that I can make mine yours.

I can never have your experience, but deep listening and empathy helps me approach it.

The greatest addiction of all (intoxicant) is the notion of ‘me’.

Resonance happens.  The idea of ‘me’ drops away.  The illusion of the individual is exposed.  Nothing’s pushed and boundlessness happens.

The art of wholehearted aging, living and dying doesn’t know thought, words or the intellect.  The heart abides in the feeling of the Ultimate.

Settle the mind into silence and then you’ll experience Reality.

Good music may come from the subconscious or unconscious, but definitely not from the self conscious.

Graceful aging involves a soft approach where we let the eyes surrender the details of entropy and we go deeper meeting the surprise of each arising moment.  ‘

Deeper doesn’t mean more.  More doesn’t mean deeper.  More is not necessary.  Deeper is.

Not taking things for granted moves us to appreciation, awareness, and gratitude, eventually landing in joy.

Let’s drop the notion of political party.   Can we just have a conversation about the stewardship of family, community, nation and planet outside notions of being ‘right’?

Do you want to feel all right?  Then give up the thought that you’re right.

Be humbled by the notion that we’re entitled to nothing.  Be joyful in gratitude for the gift of what’s given.

In pursuit of answering just where you belong, how far will you go?  And what are you a member of?  How do you belong?

The illusion (delusion) is that things stop.

I’ve arrived!  Now what?  Everything is still moving (changing).  Nothing stopped.

Beware (fear, greed and ignorance) or Be Aware (love, forgiveness, gratitude)

Come on Peace.  Grab a piece of me.

The antidote to the pain of greed is generosity and simplicity.  So where do we find sustaining joy?  It comes from the felt sense of fullness, never from the felt sense of lack-ness.

To really appreciate full, it helps to know empty.  To really appreciate life, it helps to face and know death.

The is no audience, just the fear of judgment.  So be played to your fullest.

Judgment is an obstacle to love.  The brain can’t create and criticize at the same time.

Don’t become obedient to the child.  Become obedient to dedicated stewardship of the child’s welfare, health and education.

Not this moment? Yes, this moment.

From the intellectual development of the illusion of object permanence, we start our training in desiring a different moment.

Rockets of desire seldom launch when there’s a sense of yearning (restlessness).  We must first carry our gratitude and depth of awareness for what is so we can open and make space for the new.

The source of our restlessness can be found in our difficulty facing uncertainty.  We are drawn to create an object of desire.  This attachment creates anxiety about the inevitable felt loss we face as the Law of Impermanence works on us.  Yet, when All is subject, we are humbled in the experience of the Divine and its mystery/simplicity.  This is the purpose of meditation, to silence the thinking mind as we cultivate the feeling of the Divine.  It’s deepening our faith in the undivided Mind, what Ken Wilbur called “the One without a second”.

Wilbur has written, “For the sages of every time and place have unanimously maintained that the Absolute is actually ineffable, unspeakable, utterly beyond words, symbols and logic.  And not because it is too mysterious or too sublime or too complex for words, but rather because it is too simple, too obvious, too close to be caught in the net of symbols and signs.  Because there is nothing outside It, there is no way to define or classify it.” p. 226 The Simple Feeling of Being. He goes on to make the distinction that this is not pantheism stating the Absolute is in everything.  It goes further to the Buddhist commentary on, “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form”.  Wilbur writes, “…the entire Absolute is completely and wholly present at every point of space and time, for the simple reason that you can’t have a different infinite at each point”  p. 228 The Simple Feeling of Being. I once heard a nun describe it like a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.  This realization breaks our logical notions of time and space.  Our journey is to wake from the trance of the subject/object illusion.  Our meditation helps cultivate this awareness of the Absolute.  In the stillness, outside the illusion of Two, we deepen the ‘feeling’ of what Thich Nhat Hanh has called “inter-Being”.  We discover that we can “always touch the Ultimate”; it’s always here in this arising moment.

As we step from our tendency to objectify we discover a tenderness that causes less harm.  We become more mindful of the impact of our thoughts, words, emotions and actions.  As we soften our reasoning mind and our attachments to ‘being right’, we deepen in our compassion and understanding for one another.  Cultivating the ‘feeling’ of the ‘not two’, we can step into the shoes of those we’re in contact with, even our perceived enemies.  While we aim to reduce the suffering in the world, we can hopefully minimize the harm caused through our illusion of subject vs. object.  As we subjectify everything, we are confidently humbled in faith to the omnipresence of the Divine.  The illusion of security through the material and pleasure through consumption diminishes.  Abiding in the present moment with deep sense of ‘being home’ strengthens.  At this point we touch the creative, expressing what we feel in wonder to the mystery of not knowing who we are.  At this point of awareness there is no division, all is Subject.  At this point we touch possibility.

The Circle Has No Sides

We human beings are pretty complicated.  It seems neuroscientists are discovering more and more how we move between a variety of consciousness states.  I recently heard one use an analogy to the discord in our political system. He said it was like we each had a variety of political parties in our head vying for attention.  As he described why we sometimes do things which harm and other times do things which steward, I was reminded of Hawaiian Huna wisdom.  It basically speaks to a low, mid and high self.  The low self can be much like the undisciplined child, seeking ease of the restless mind through consumption and mindless actions.  The mid self is our conscious self.  It’s what we’re aware of during our waking state.  Our higher self is considered our divine nature.  Huna contends that our mid self can’t speak directly to our high self.  Also, our mid self has to send directives to the low self to make decisions which don’t harm and hopefully help.  Without the help of tapping our divine nature, we tend to be under the influence of the relative, material world.  A dedicated spiritual practice will lead us more and more under the influence of the absolute world, the Ultimate.

The relative consciousness functions from a perspective of duality.  We deepen in our sense of separateness and sense of linear time.  We tend to grow our fear and anxiety, often grasping for what was or worrying about what will be.  In the absolute there’s an easing as we cultivate an acceptance of change and our interdependence.  When in the consciousness of the Divine we’re no longer stressed about the impermanence of things.  We’re no longer filled with despair from feelings of separateness.  The divine settles us into the peace of the here and now.  A cultivation of singularity, of nonduality, brings up the illusion of birth and death, beginnings and endings.  When in the consciousness of the Ultimate, the main response is gratitude.  There’s a great fullness, a sense of peace, of having arrived.  There’s a palpable experience of ‘enough’.

In contrast, a consciousness failing to cultivate spirit will grasp for more.  As we struggle to fill our hunger in the delusion of our separateness, we grow our focus on special interests.  Our insecurities have us investing heavily in persuading others to think like us as we perceive our sense of security from others’ acceptance.  Systems become corrupt as we come under the influences of greed and fear.  The failing of our world economic systems can be credited to systems falling under the influence of greed and fear.  Functioning from the relative, material realm, we’re deluded to think winning at the other’s expense is everything.  Under the influence of the Ultimate, winning at another’s expense is nothing.  Being our best is everything.  A grounded sense of our interdependence has us cultivating generosity, compassion, moderation, listening, curiosity, open mindedness, forgiveness and kindness.  This cultivation of the nondual experience has us deepening to the feeling of sharing the same boat.  The analogy Thich Nhat Hanh uses is that of wave and water.  In the relative world, we perceive our form as wave.  As we approach the shore, we may hope to cling to our identity as wave form, yet as we crash on the shore we come to realize (from ultimate consciousness) that we always were, always have been, and always will be water.  For sure, the form changes and we can experience this each day we study our body.  Yet, the Ultimate consciousness stands outside our relative mind’s notion of time and space.  Given the now scientifically proven truth of our interdependence, wouldn’t it make more and more sense to nurture and cultivate our relationship with our higher self?  Don’t you think this is what Jesus was speaking to when he advised us to love one another, even our enemies, as ourselves?

We can’t escape our need to function in the relative world.  We need to function with one another under the laws of the material world, using our notions of time and space in stewarding ways.  Yet, when we’re more and more under the influence of the Ultimate, we take better care of one another.  The questions change from how to compete and consume without regard to others’ harm to how to help in the reduction of one another’s suffering.  Our attachment to notions of being ‘right’, ‘special’ and separate from others begins to evaporate as compassion grows.  Rather than focusing on differences and persuasion, there’s a move to common sense and deeper understanding.  The fear based need to get as much as we want at the expense of others diminishes as we make space to cultivate joy in wanting what we get.

I was taught the American Dream was owning a house, having a family and a steady job.  We’ve come to see that the house is a liability instead of an asset, and there’s nothing steady about the job.  Under the influence of the relative world it’s easy to see the growing of despair.  We wanted ‘this’, but got ‘that’ and so we fill with complaint.  When under the influence of the Ultimate, there is no complaint.  Put simply, there’s just growing awareness that ‘this is this and that is that’, ‘form is emptiness and emptiness is form’.  Our capacity to meet challenge and discomfort with a sense of spiritual security deepens us.  Our tendency to numb the discomfort deepens our suffering.

A lot has been written about life purpose.  The Dali Lama has said we’re here to live in joy.  I’ve heard others say we’re here to be kind, to love one another, and to leave a gentle wake.  I like the one that advises us to do what we can to reduce the suffering of others.  Huna Law says we should examine our thoughts, words, emotions and actions from the notion of ‘best for all with harm to none’.  Under the influence of the relative world, we may be tempted to reason an acceptance of collateral damage. Under the influence of the Ultimate, directed from the heart, there is zero tolerance for collateral damage.

Moving through our day, through our life, it’s helpful to put awareness to what we’re influenced by.  Where are we influenced by the perception of material need?  What exposures do we have to experiences that grow the restlessness from the toxins of greed, fear and ignorance?  What exposures feed us in deepening the influence of the Ultimate?  As we deepen our influence from the Ultimate, so do we find our integrity.

Where does our suffering come from?  Isn’t it because we ‘think’ we’re separate?  Isn’t it because we’re caught in our resistance to change?  Isn’t it because we’re drawn to the illusion of duality over the reality of our interdependence?  And isn’t our peace found in touching stillness, feeling the interdependent and impermanent nature of all things?  For me, this is what our great spiritual teachers have shared.  While we struggle with words, the directive is to love one another as ourselves because we are each other.  Our pain and suffering comes from our ignorance to this.  Our healing, rooted in the word ‘wholeness’, is cultivated through our transformation from dualistic thinking to nondualistic ‘feeling/thinking’.  When we reference God, we speak to omnipresent (11 letters), that God nature can’t be divided.  This brings us to an awareness of the fragile nature of things, to the mystery of our relatedness, and to a deeper vow of compassion, generosity, and love.

Can we say love is nondualistic and notions of duality are obstacles to love?  Aren’t the virtues based in a sense of One?  Aren’t the poisons of greed and fear based in Two?  Doesn’t our cultural focus on competition at the expense of others and our mindless consumption without regard to harm create more suffering?  So how do things change when we move to greater awareness to One?  What happens when we let go notions of Two?

Stepping from notions of Two to One, we may discover the following:

Debate moves to dialog.

Need for fixed answers moves to need for deeper questions.

Conformity and persuasion moves to precision and curiosity.

The need to be ‘right’ moves to courageous curiosity.

Dogma and rhetoric moves to expression from the open heart.

Busy-ness diminishes to make space for cultivating stillness and silence.

Thoughts, emotions, words and actions are examined for potential collateral damage.

Gratitude for what ‘is’ deepens.  Pain is reduced through dedicated forgiveness practice.

Awareness to interdependence and impermanence drives our mindful, quality living.

The art of ‘taking care’ deepens as we aim to reduce suffering in ourselves and others.

In wholeness, we awaken to the delusions of time and space, honoring the mystery.

Greed, fear and ignorance transform to generosity, courage and humble confidence.

In short, we’re here to love.  Love is One.  The more we practice from One, the more peace and joy we live in.  For several years, when I’ve looked at a clock, I’ve been struck with how often it’s been 11:11 or 1:11.  Now more than ever, I take it as Universe (God, Source, the Indivisible) ‘waking me’ to the power and truth of One.  We can numb ourselves to this or we can wake.  The social trance of Two is accelerating just as the awakening to One is picking up speed.  It would seem that 11/11/11 is a critical mass point where more and more of us are waking up to the indivisible, to the truth that God is in each of us, in everything, indivisible.  With this awareness we’ll lead more generous lives from moderation, compassion, gratitude and forgiveness.  From this awareness we’ll find our healing, our awakening to Wholeness.