Category: Practice Tools
Enlightened-One as a Costume
Until this last Saturday I wouldn’t have thought being an Avatar could be just another way I use to be “right.” Surprise! Turns out it was pretty easy to slip into the “I’m more enlightened than you” costume. It’s the wizard hat that makes it so stylishly compelling.
Days Without Pirate Attack
I realize that there are a lot of intellectual aspects to awareness and consciousness that are completely engaging and entertaining.
NOTHING IN THE UNIVERSE IS AS ENTERTAINING TO MY MIND AS MY MIND.
Knowledge of the mechanics of consciousness easily masquerades as experiential awareness. The litmus test is instantaneous: am I in appreciation? Am I in feel?
Frequently during the past few days I’ve noticed how quickly I slip into judgment or how easily I let one of the voice/identities take over me. I’m practicing with, “Whoa! Get back here,” and “Stay here,” etc. Being. Here. Now.
It’s been a good four days.
Sedona
This is an interesting place. Surrounded by Arizona-ness, with roads named “bloody gulch” and “hangman road,” Sedona is a valley of great natural beauty and a mecca for spiritual practitioners of all kinds.
but here’s a picture anyway
First, the natural beauty far surpasses any description or photo. The striated pink, tan, and golden mountains are so beautiful it is physically painful to look at them. The heights are so sharply vertical, I experienced vertigo standing at a base and looking up. With the bright blue, clear sky behind them, the mountains surrounding Sedona can both sharpen your sense of small, separate self and, at the same time, affirm your connection to all that is. “Vortex” beliefs notwithstanding, it is the power of beliefs that is the true magic here.
I’m staying in a condo here with a fair amount of icon-décor. The iconography ranges from Egyptian to Hindu to Kokopelli to Buddhist, all pretty fun to explore. This morning I was examining a couple of large white crystals set on a cabinet. I turned one around several times until the shape and direction seemed to me to look like the shape of a bear. I thought, oh, medicine bear. I should look that up. Ha! This was the first link: http://www.spiritanimal.info/bear-spirit-animal/
The bear has several meanings that will inspire those who have this animal as totem:
- The primary meaning of the bear spirit animal’s strength and confidence
- Standing against adversity; taking action and leadership
- The spirit of the bear indicates it’s time for healing or using healing abilities to help self or others
- The bear medicine emphasizes the importance of solitude, quiet time, rest
- The spirit of the bear provides strong grounding forces
I love seeing synchronicity.
My objectives were three for this trip.
- Rest. Relax and slow down.
- See different things and see the same things differently.
- Let my scared person out and have her protector bring her out.
So far, I am meeting my objectives clearly and measurably (Hey, Project Manager, go take a break!). Smile. I’m going to sit on the patio and drink my jasmine tea, stare at the mountains.
Who Knew?!
“Once you have made the commitment to free yourself of the scared person inside…” – Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself.
Days Without Pirate Attack:
When I read that line, I had a physical reaction. Sound rushed in my ears, my throat constricted, my heart sped up.
Almost my whole life, the story I told myself of who I am, is really not who I am. I thought I was a mean-angry person at the core, and I had been working for several years on letting her go. She was just the gate-guard for the scared person.
Preparing to write this, I had a glimmer of thought that letting the mean-angry identity run my life, while protecting me, has had limited potential. It always had to keep an eye on the prime mission of hiding and protecting the scared person.
Letting myself fully experience being frightened or being a scared person showed me a different person. A person I am actually more compassionate with than the mean-angry girl. This fear is not of anything that I’d label “animal fear.” Nothing is going to kill me or maim me. This is fear of ego and identity-self. An existential fear is the best way I can label it.
It took a great willingness for me to experience that resisted identity. It doesn’t matter whether it comes unbidden or I set out deliberately to create and experience it. Only by experiencing it fully can I know that (a) it will not kill me (b) it is a creation just like everything else.
What’s after that fear is experienced though is a “self” so wide and great and all encompassing it’s not explainable.
Setting aside time to process allows me to know what it feels like, so when I encounter the leading edge of the feeling during the day, I allow myself to feel it. The funny thing is I expected allowing myself to feel fear to look like I was cowering in the corner all day. Not at all the case. It’s also not obvious to others what I’m doing, except that I am not covering something up.
I have more compassion right now for those who let their frightened self out for all to see. It is still a bit repugnant for me to view – more opportunity there! A big thank you to the Avatar tools for enabling me to experience these feelings safely and without judgment.
That Dastardly Pirate in my Head
Days Without Pirate Attack:
“As long as we’re in relationship with the voices, nothing we do “counts.” No matter what we do, the behaviors are compared to an imaginary “way I really am” and are used as proof that I am what self-hate says I am.
I work hard, I’m kind to those around me, I even volunteer to assist those less fortunate, but the voices quickly point out that I’m pretending to be a good person. I’m faking kindness and concern, while deep down I’m selfish and judgmental—not to mention lazy, incompetent, greedy, and hateful.
How does self-hate come up with all that? It’s projecting. It says I am what it is.
And just in case that doesn’t do the trick, self-hate says that the fact that I “have” self-hate is proof there’s something wrong with me!”
After I read that, I realized one belief holding me back from letting go of the critical voices is my attachment to the “positive” voice: the one that says, “You’re the smartest one here!” “You see what the others don’t!” . . . and more. BUT, they are like the god Janus; they are two sides to the same coin, and neither is real.
Honestly, this is frightening. The positive voice has been what I relied upon my whole life to overcome the feelings from the negative voice of unworthiness and shame. As I breathe into the idea of letting them both go, I appreciate all they have done for me over the years, but it’s time they retired. Maybe to a nice little place where they can sit side-by-side on the Gulf coast.
Read the entire post and archive here: http://blog.thezencenter.org/from-the-guide
Self-righteous Pirate
Days Without Pirate Attack:
Over and over and over! How many times?!!
My mental talk this morning chided an acquaintance that he always has to be right, he constantly corrects others, making him unpleasant to be around. He rants on political issues and calls anyone who disagrees with him stupid. I imagine myself having a conversation with him for this own good and enlightenment (how generous of me…). Then, ick, I notice that I am doing that exact same thing. “But I’m not THAT bad,” I console myself.
So, what happens when I get to work? Of course. Another place for me to point out that a team member isn’t doing her tasks the correct way. I let the email go on for several volleys. I even got to type almost the exact words, “see, I’m right.” Only when a third-party intervened did my smugness dissolve. Nearly into tears.
Define self-righteous: Having or showing a strong belief that your own actions, opinions, etc., are right and other people’s are wrong.
This concludes the flagellation portion of our program, ladies and gentlemen.
Now that I’ve let that out, I see that the reward and punishment part is an integral part of the identity.
Time to regard this identity of mine with compassion, love and kindness. And a walk outside will feel good, too.
“Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us in a rage.” – Andre Maurois
International Talk Like a Pirate Day
Notice that it isn’t, “act” like a pirate day.
If you aren’t fluent in pirate:
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howto.html
If you don’t know where your ship is today:
http://www.yarrmaps.com/#lt=15.706|ln=-69.679|z=6
If you’re having a identity issues or just want a cooler (pirate) name:
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/links.html#piratename
If you need some piratic advice:
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/askcapnslappy.html
Talk Like a Pirate Day is a good tool for focusing attention. It makes every meeting lighter and every email a little less “all about me.”
It’s as easy as Smile until you feel happy! Buckle them there swashes until you feel happy.
Do you Trust me?
Days Without Pirate Attack:
Merriam-Webster.com says trust: belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc. My eye goes right to “good” and I feel uncomfortable.
I see that it doesn’t say “perfect” or “flawless.” Maybe it’s like having a trusty tool — one that fits your hand well and gets the job done almost always. I expect it will wear out at some point, and I don’t expect the hammer to do the circular saw’s job. How can I expect my attention-vampire identity to have my body’s best interest in mind? All I can expect is, through practice and awareness, to notice that identity and let it go. Fortunately, a compassionate identity is always waiting and ready to be used.
So, the mind and the body do the thinking
Days Without Pirate Attack:
I wasn’t patient enough to deal with a confluence of after-work traffic, over-indulgent parents heading to the “Little Gym,” and my own fatigue to not lose my temper yesterday. Fortunately, I was on my way to a massage, which helped significantly. Next day, I read an interesting article in Discover magazine. The entire article is here, Where do Thoughts Occur? By Christie Aschwanden
The interesting premise is that some research indicates our body is necessary for complex thought. This is a fascinating concept:
“In one study, Lee and a colleague exposed volunteers to different odors. When they did, they found that getting a whiff of a fishy odor evoked feelings of suspicion; likewise, when research participants were exposed to another person behaving suspiciously, they were better able to detect a fishy scent.
The range of findings demonstrating embodied cognition is impressive. A small sampling: Looking upward nudges people to call to mind others who are more powerful, while looking down prompts thoughts of people we outrank.
People judge a petition to be more consequential if it is handed to them on a heavy clipboard rather than a lightweight one. Baseball players with high batting averages perceive the ball as bigger than poorer hitters. And Botox injections that prevent frowning also slow people’s comprehension of sentences describing angry and sad events.” (I have to let my sister know about that last one.)
Perhaps a tool I can use is to “Smile until you feel happy.” Or look for body gestures and positions that I associate with kind a patient people. Some food for thought today.
Over a week!
I don’t have a number icon for that long without pirate attack. What I’ve been doing is:
1. Deciding to be nice when I get in the car in the driveway each morning. I have a little OCD about the garage door, so I have to stop in the road, turn back, look at the closed garage door and do a sort-of “jazz hands” and say, “Closed!” Sometimes I say it two or three times. (I have to do this, really. Otherwise, I’ll get blocks away and panic and have to go back and make sure the door is closed. sigh.) Now when I turn to go forward, I say, “I’m nice today.”
The most interesting beliefs I’ve found that come up after saying, “I’m nice today,” is that I believe nice people aren’t: cool, sophisticated, intelligent, etc. How did we get to the cultural beliefs that being a disdainful, snarky, smart-ass is better than being loving and kind? This feeling makes me want to cry.
2. Write haiku in my head while I’m driving. Haiku (5/7/5) can be about anything, but traditionally describes nature or uses nature as metaphor. The great 17th century poet, Basho wrote mostly about natural subjects and I can easily see him (today) driving along an Alabama highway composing “A field of cotton”:
A field of cotton
A field of cotton–
as if the moon
had flowered.
I can also see that he had his own pirate attacks to deal with:
The morning glory also
The morning glory also
turns out
not to be my friend.
A worthy goal, don’t you think — to emulate Basho?
Read it Out Loud
Days Without Pirate Attack:
Reading poetry aloud is a great practice. My preference is ecstatic poetry or any poet who writes about nature. I really enjoy Hafiz’ poetry. Hafiz full name is Khwaja Shams ud-Din Hafiz-i Shirazi, d. 1389. He was a Persian/Iranian poet and the master of the poetic form, ghazal.
Two qualities I love in Hafiz’ poetry: (1) He addresses himself in the third person and (2) He opens up with complete vulnerability. It is important to note that, while these poems can be interpreted for human-relationship love, in Sufi poetry “Beloved” is a reference to God.
Even if our world is turned upside down and blown over by the wind,
If you are doubtless, you won’t lose a thing.
O Hafiz, if it is union with the Beloved that you seek,
Be the dust at the Wise One’s door, and speak!
“School of Truth,” from: Drunk On the Wind of the Beloved – Translated by Thomas Rain Crowe
My own favorite is “I Know The Way You Can Get”. It’s the best for describing how I feel when the pirates attack. But when I read him aloud, they’re banished!
You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.
“I know the Way You Can Get,” from: I Heard God Laughing – Renderings of Hafiz – Translated by Daniel Ladinsky
Good websites with Hafiz poetry: http://peacefulrivers.homestead.com/hafiz.html#anchor_16107 or http://www.thesongsofhafiz.com/hafizpoetry.htm
Days Without Pirate Attack: 