Sunday, September 15, 2013

Fixed Political Beliefs Make Us Stupid


I love studies that show us the truth about who we are as humans. 

Yale law professor Dan Kahan did a study that shows that smart people cannot “do the math,” if it goes against what they believe.  The article in Mother Jones outlines this nicely and links to the original article:

When given data that gun control doesn’t reduce crime, liberal types with excellent math skills interpreted the data as if the gun controls did work.  The same was true for math savvy conservatives given data that gun controls helped decrease crime. 

This is about gun control.  However, professor Kahan has written about similar studies regarding drug legalization. 
 
So what does this mean about who we are as humans?

We are frail creatures, full of fear of the unknown.  We are fearful of loss, fearful of death.  If we are wrong, it can feel that we are dying.  Loss of the Ego can feel like death. 

Much of this same way of thinking I see in scientists who can’t believe there can be anything beyond the science that they think they know well. 

As Thomas Kuhn wrote about paradigm shifts, often the people “in charge” need to die before new ideas can be accepted. 

Once again, I advocate, “letting go.”  Let go of any fixed belief.  Be open to new ideas.  Dialogue and spend time with people who have different beliefs than your own.  Sit with your own beliefs and examine them for flaws. 

Anything that raises your emotions may be the best place to examine for false beliefs.  Sometimes we don’t know the truth.  Better to admit this than to carry and try to spread your own false beliefs. 

I am not immune from false beliefs.  Yet, I try to stay open to all possibilities of truth. 

Drink from life and ideas with a sense of humor. 

Remember, there are only 3 Commandments: 

Acknowledge that there is only One Source,
Love Everything, by doing no harm,
then
Enjoy Yourself, and all that surrounds you! 



Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Sacred Awakening

3:30 AM

Awake

Laying prone

Breathing in, breathing out

The worries arise, and then slip away, with each breath

Getting up,
                to sit,
                        on the cushion

Feeling deep within the bones

The dirt of corporal being

Stardust 

            animated by Spirit

Empty Fullness

Light in the Dark

           De-light in the Dark

With each breath
 
Everything slips away

And 

there never was

Anything 

to slip away

Anyway…


Monday, September 2, 2013

Enlightenment is a Verb



I was thinking about Steven Covey’s guidelines for living well.  I liked his statement that “love is a verb.”  Love is action.  The good feelings we get when we are “in love” are the gifts from engaging in loving actions. 

You are always already enlightened.  The funny part is that Source hides this away from us.  Source hides and we seek. 

So we have no need to label any human as “enlightened.”  Enlightenment is simply right actions strung together.  That is the Second Commandment “Love Everything.”

Like ivory soap, we can only be perhaps 99.4% pure.

But, we can get closer and closer to having all our actions be right actions. 

Yes, follow your intuition. 
 
Choose your own pathway toward stringing together right actions. 

Then bathe in the feelings of being blessed with the gift of traveling in this world. 


Sunday, August 25, 2013

Do I Have to Be Perfect?

I was thinking about the 3 commandments (followed in strict order, of course).

1-There is only One Source. 

            2-Love Everything. 

                        3-Enjoy Yourself. 

Then I wondered, would people feel that had to be perfect in following these Commandments?   What if you were my friend, and you screwed up. 

You did something that put Enjoy Yourself ahead of Love Everything.   Maybe, you had a steamy affair.  Or, you hurt someone for what, at the time, looked like a good cause. 

Would you be afraid that I would think badly of you?
 
First of all, that would assume that I did everything perfectly myself. 

And that would be a wrong assumption.

I am human, just like everyone else.  I mess up just as often.  Well, I never had an affair.  But, I have many other faults. 

I can be jealous of others.  Perhaps they don’t have to work.  Or, maybe they don’t work any harder than I do, but make loads more money. 

I have my hungry ghosts and I spend a bit more than I really should. 

The key is Radical Acceptance.  

I forgive myself for those transgressions.  I try not to shoot that second arrow. 

Therefore, I also forgive my friends.  They are also allowed to make the “Oh so human mistakes” that simply being alive brings to us. 

Yes, following the 3 Commandments in strict order can be helpful in living a less stressful life. 

But, forgive yourself when you are not perfect. 

And, forgive me when I am not perfect. 

Then we can travel together, laughing at our imperfections. 

Perhaps,
            sharing

                        a nice red wine…



Friday, August 16, 2013

Protection for the Highly Sensitive

My wife and I were discussing the other day the highly sensitive individuals we see in our practices.

I visualize the Universe as being more “porous” than we think it is.  There is leakage of time and space.  We only think the world is some designated consensus reality.  In actuality, the world is much stranger than we usually can perceive (Heretic!). 

During altered states of consciousness, such as in deepest meditation, or perhaps during entheogen use, we see more clearly the true structure of the Universe. 

I think about these highly sensitive individuals as being more individually porous to everything.  They are often more sensitive to extrasensory phenomena, and especially, are more likely to sense and react to the emotions of others around them. 

Highly sensitive people tend to get depleted, particularly around negative energies, or just too much of any energy around them.  They may say things such as, “My mother takes away all of my energy.”  Blaming others for feeling depleted. 

I am a highly sensitive individual, Meyers-Briggs INTP, partially through being an introvert (I) and perceiver (P), but I have the protection of also being an intuitive thinker (NT). 

My wife is even more sensitive to emotions than am I, as she is an ENFJ, an intuitive feeler (NF).  However, she is also relatively protected through being an extrovert (E) and having a relatively high judging factor (J).  In general, we have each worked hard to balance our tendencies. 

The most sensitive individuals are INFPs, introverted intuitive feelers and perceivers. 

We were discussing various ways of teaching highly sensitive individuals to protect themselves. 

How can highly sensitive people keep their energy so they don’t become depleted? 

How to be porous, without leaking! 

We came up with 3 methods, each using more advanced techniques. 

1-Creating a Bubble of Protection around your self to keep out negative energies. 

2-Using Aikido, to let negative energy pass you by, or even let it pass through you.

3-Tonglen, where you can let in dark negative energy, and transform it into light positive energy.  You can then send that light energy back out into the Universe. 

You can see how the Bubble can be protective, but also could be isolating.  Nonetheless, it is a good first start in protecting yourself.  The trick is to have the Bubble be a “semi-permeable membrane.”  This membrane allows in only what you wish, and keeps out everything else.  Then no one notices that you have a protective Bubble around you. 

Aikido is a much higher technique.  Here you can see the flow of negative energy, and then use your intuition and power to deflect the energy from doing you any harm.  This takes practice and also requires a much stronger sense of self and sense of your own power. 

In physical Aikido you take a person’s energy that is coming toward you and combine this energy with a small amount of your own energy to deflect that person away from you, often they fall to the floor. 

Negative energy can seem more like a fog surrounding you.  One visualization you can use is to wave your hands and body around, giving movement energy to the negative energy, creating a vortex that sweeps the energy away from you. 

Tonglen requires an even higher sense of power and tapping into Source, the “big S” Self.   Here you are powerful enough to take in that dark negative energy and transform it into light positive energy.  A beautiful practice, creating more positive energy in the Universe. 

This practice cannot harm you.  If you take in this perceived negative energy, the only thing it can do is burn away at your false sense of self, really burning away your ego. 

There is perhaps a fourth “method,” really not even a method, it is the highest practice.  Here you realize that no negative energy can harm you, because “you” do not exist, your “sense of self” is a creation of this animal brain. 

You are Source, and have always been Source.  There is nothing that can harm Source.  Any “negative energy” is just another false perception. 

There is nothing but Source.  How can All-That-Is and All-That-Is-Not be harmed? 

Take up some of the practices outlined previously. 

Create your own path to recognizing Source is all you ever were, and will ever be. 


Then sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!