Why Is It So Hard to Find One's Own Self? To me that question is decisive. It is the one question that can reveal to us what has been overlooked. Let’s take a closer look.

I wonder; does my dog struggle to find out who she is? Do the birds I hear chirping and singing this morning; do they work on their elusive identity? Or is this only a human problem?

Do the nomadic tribesman of Australia or Brazil wonder who they are? Based on my own research, the answer is “no”.

The problem of who we are is found to be only a problem for people raised in relatively recent civilization. So the question evolves to this: what is it about modern civilization that creates this crisis of identity? Now we seem to be getting somewhere with our inquiry.

Civilization is a dangerous place. It’s a place where we grow up with the understanding that this is a place with few winners and many losers. We must strive to win, for it is in winning that we obtain the validation from others and ourselves that we need to justify our self-worth. Losing is for losers and that is to be avoided in all costs. Even the spiritual game is one of very few winners and many, many others.

This world of winning and losing is unique to civilized life. Born as sacred beings we are ill-equipped to compete on the battlefield of modern civilization.

Tags: seeking, Belief, identity

There is a very common error that runs threw much of what is called spiritual teaching (I gag ever so slightly with the phrase – sorry). And that is the idea that passion, excitement, enthusiasm, sarcasm, irony, and joking are somehow a problem. These same teachings also tend to make the claim that sorrow, sadness, and introversion are also often a problem. Their many claims against the healthy behavior of human beings are based on the idea of attachment. That when our attachment to things and people is finally severed in the blazing light of enlightenment, we will be free of these all too human passions and we will, instead, burn only the cool even light of pure awareness. I say to these people – “get thee to a nunnery (or monastery).”

This is the very teaching of division. On one side are all of us defective people and on the other are these very few enlightened beings radiating light and living pure and perfect lives. The instant they got enlightened, their days of illicit thought came to a screeching halt.

Our bodies are built for passion – passion of all kinds. Those that aspire to be passionless are those who are frightened of their own humanity. This is fear operating as spiritualism.

See the rest of this post here.

Tags: identity, seeking, Fear, Fear Self, wound

Bliss – joy – contentment are closer to us than our thoughts. So why don’t we experience them? Today I’m going to shout my understanding of this conundrum ‘to the rooftops’.

The basic error is this: We believe we are the thinker.

This one core belief draws us away from the joy and contentment we so sorely want. Our experience their absence within our lives is the very call to truth that we are currently not living consciously.

Thus the lie is this one, solitary belief – that who we are is the thinker.

And so we do this endless spiritual dance. We are awareness. We are the portal of life. We are life, etc. etc. etc.

The problem with each of those sentences is that they bring us back to being a “something”. The moment we are a “something”, we bring to life our core belief.

See the remainder of the post here.

Tags: Belief, identity, seeing, thought

One of the first lessons of Zen is to see everything as if for the first time. The problem with that sentence is that we actually do see and hear and touch and taste and smell everything for the first time – there’s no as if about it. The now is always new. Of course the zen teachers know this, but they also know that we need to traverse the universe of “as if” prior to realization.

But what is seen/heard etc. is not new to the mind. The mind operates in the world of knowing. Of course, it is limited to its “knowing” and when we are tethered to the mind, we are also bounded by the same limits – for we live “as if” we are the mind and only the mind.

Think about the building (house/apartment) you’re now living in. Most of us will create a picture of this building with particular lighting, angle, and distance. This is like a mental snapshot. Now go outside and actually look at the building. Two things will happen.

See the rest of this post here.

I struggle with the challenge of expressing the meaning of liberation into the clearest language possible. And one of the reasons why I continue contributing to this blog is exactly that very challenge. But a recent conversation with someone who recently finished reading Liberation from the Lie motivated me to put the core meaning of liberation in an entirely new way.

Liberation means freedom from the attachment to any belief that is, prior to awakening, unseen. Until we are liberated from all beliefs, we will have much in common with robots.

The ultimate and final belief is that you believe you are who you think you are. Liberation means to be liberated from that belief.

You are not who you think you are. You are the presence and the creative light of this moment. When you are open to the living flow of that – utterly unconnected with your psychological self – you are free.

Who would you like to be? Do you choose to be yourself or are your behaviors, ideas, and ways of doing things and outcome of your conditioning and your culture?

Read the rest of the post here.

Tags: Belief, Freedom, slavery

Let’s start with the conclusion. The world, as it is, is exactly and precisely, as it ought to be. It can never, ever be different from what it is - and that includes your own sense of yourself. It must be the way it is. Struggling against its present reality is a form of madness and ignorance - and even that too is what is!

It is only in reflection that the belief that the world should be different from what it is arises and that reflection is also a part of this irrefutable life. The belief that things should be different is part of the process that motivates us to change. But to deny life, exactly as it is - is take refuge in an narrowly self-defined illusion. And, it is a very temporary refuge for if we can depend on nothing else, it is that the storms of life will assail exactly those self-created walls that we so depend of for safety.

In the early 1960s two scientists working for the old Bell Labs discovered something very mysterious. They were listening to deep space radiation through a radio telescope. They noticed that there was a strange buzzing that lay behind and around all other sounds. This ever- and omni-present static was, for some time, a mystery to these researchers.

Actually it turned out this static was not distant at all. What these scientists were hearing (In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson accidentally discovered the cosmic background radiation while conducting diagnostic observations using a new microwave receiver owned by Bell Laboratories.[26] ) was the actual sound of the Big Bang - the origins of the observed universe. And this sound was everywhere!

The background sound of the Big Bang is a perfect metaphor for the background static whose source is the primal inadequacy belief! It is the underlying energy that colors, however subtly, everything in our felt experience as separate individuals.

This is something that was discussed in some detail in my previous post - How Do You Feel About Life? We can now see that how we feel about life is filtered through the inadequacy belief. This is the very energy that:

• Asserts a separate “I/me”; and
• Determines our general feeling about the overall nature of life.

Fear - the vast reservoir of underlying fear - expressed as insecurity, uncertainty, and just free-floating fear - is precisely like the buzzing static of the Big Bang. It is real to the extent that it’s exists as part of our psychological selves - but is it real of the world itself? Can we actually locate a place that can justify our free-floating fears?

Let me put it to you straight rather than beat around the spiritual bush.

Liberation from the Lie - asserts that we are all, to a varying extent, living a lie. This psychological buzz is part of that lie. It’s a projection rooted in our primal invalidation that asserts that the world is not right - but it is - it’s perfectly right.

The very assertion that there is a me reading this post introduces static into the immediate experience of this moment.

Your fears are grounded in a personal fiction. It is, literally, the wall that your infantile self constructed to protect its very vulnerable self against the pain of its own being. Therefore, it needed to create a new being - what I have called the Fear-Self. Ever since our primal Wounding, it has been the task of the Fear-Self to keep you insulated from the pain and terror of that event. You will probably need to understand this whole argument on a deeper level - and I therefore recommend you to read my book (I truly wish I was in a position to give it away, but I too have bills to pay and put food on the table).

Thus this free-floating fear is an ancient emanation from a terror event. It is real only to the extent that the infantile child that was you believed it was real. And for that very young, pre-verbal child, it was very real. You and I have retained this belief ever since and the generations before us have bequeathed it to us. So it is very old indeed.

If you can fully absorb the content of this post, you will see that the whole thought/concept of the self is, itself, a fear expression! It is something that needs protecting. It is vulnerable. It will die. It must be heard? It can’t ever control things to its satisfaction, etc. etc. etc. Can you see this?

The whole self is the distant and utterly close static of your very own big bang! It is the the very lie of existence.

Let me ask you this: can anything or anyone threaten your ever-present awareness? Reflect on that question.

With this understanding we can be life itself without the reference point of the restless and fearful self.

So instead of recoiling from this fear - just be open to feeling it. Feel it with your new-found knowledge. See the very, very young you in her/his bed at night, all alone and vulnerable to all the terrors that the night and separation make possible. Really see yourself. Dig deep into the fear and begin to make it your friend. This is the friend you have been truly seeking since the very beginning of your search.

You will discover that what you feared will become, over time, the bridge to your awakening into the perfect beauty that is this very now.

Tags: seeking, wound, Fear, Fear Self

Are you engaged in the war against the self? If so, welcome to our club. No one is excluded - so it’s not a very exclusive club. Welcome anyway.

The moment life pulls us into a spiritual journey, we are likely to enter the scary world of turning against the “I/me”. The very person we have thought of as who we are becomes our ostensible enemy. How fucked up is that (I shit you not)? Because we are told that this is not our true self, everything we have thought of as ourselves becomes an unexpected obstacle.

For those of you who have been following my many posts, you will know that the themes I emphasize the most most are invalidation and the resulting inadequacy beliefs that inevitably become primary to our unseen and underlying sense of self.

We need to repress what brings our primal Wound to light. So we are compelled to live a second hand and false life. Isn’t life grand?

In a very small nutshell, when we are persistently invalidated by well meaning parents and then told that almost everything we do is wrong or bad, except those behaviors that entertain our parents, we must loose contact with our authentic selves. You see, we are born as sacred beings, but our parents and our culture do not believe that. On the contrary, they believe they are tasked with the job of molding us into a domesticated human being that fulfills their expectations. Our contact with our Authentic Self is ruptured through enforced discipline, withdrawal of love and support, and punishment. The schools dutifully follow suit and the false persona is the inevitable result.

We learn the very harsh lesson that love is not a birth right, but is something we must earn by conforming to their expectations about what is good and right. All of this gives birth to the inadequacy belief. Because this belief is, for most of us, unseen and unnoticed, most of us live the whole of our whole lives bearing its considerable weight and soul numbing consequences. This is very sad.

The core inadequacy belief, which is unseen and unnoticed, manifests the struggles of the self and the danger we project about the world. When the Buddha said, “Life is suffering”, the First Noble Truth, I think it would have been more precise for him to say, “The invalidated self is suffering.” That is my First Noble Truth.

This belief expresses itself in countless ways, but the one I would like to focus on in this post is how we feel about the world. This feeling provides us with its usual self-centric energy and typically roots us in separation.

Remember that the Wound is fear - persistent and underlying fear that will burst into actual life under any circumstance that connects what is presently happening in our life with the the primal Wound event. Every one of us responds to this fear by creating a wall that becomes a central part of our psychological self. I call these walls Fear-Selves.

It must work in one of two ways. One, because we really want to be liked, it will most often express itself in ways that creates a psychological self designed to please others. Our task in life is not to be true to ourselves but to work to get people to like us. We must then project how others would like us to be and that’s the way we will be with them. In this way, we can coerce a threatening world into a place that is manageable and pleasant.

But when we are closer to our Wound (the primal invalidation event), we are more likely to be in contact with overt fear. The first response (above) is also a fear based response, but it is a life construct that is designed to address fear by engineering what we believe to be a happy life. But when we are closer to the Wound, we are more likely to see the world as holding the potential to re-express the actual trauma of our very early childhoods. Thus the fear is much closer to the surface.

If we are true to a real spiritual path, the primary purpose of that path is to bring the unseen to light and what is unseen is usually this free floating underlying fear and the behaviors it nurtures. This is why I would modestly assert that Liberation from the Lie presents a valid and powerful transformative path.

Religion thrives on fear. And in this second case it seeks to morph it into something it can use. So either through religion or, in some cases, intellectual analysis, the world becomes an evil, sinful place full of greedy, stupid people.

Religion, and, frankly, intellectual analysis, take our inner self-contempt and belief in our own sinfulness, greed, cupidity, and stupidity and reflect them outwards to the world itself. The inadequacy construct is always double pointed. The benefit organized religion has over intellectual analysis is that it provides a community of like minded fearful people to enjoy their spiritual superiority and separation from the masses of less evolved people. Intellectual analysis, on the other hand, can be a very lonely and existential experience. Fortunately there are colleges and universities that can attract this type of fear-based persona and thus these non-religious institutions can almost function like an organized religion.

I myself fall into the intellectual analysis group, but I don’t have the benefit of a like-minded community. We might seek a life partner that validates our well of life fears, and, in nearly all cases, this is exactly what we do. Our enduring relationships are those where such deeply personalized values are held in common.

I think that is enough for today, but I urge you to check in tomorrow when I conclude this talk about how we think and feel about life. Tomorrow’s post will be called The Big Bang. It will help us deal with some of the stickiest and most powerful obstacles to our own Liberation. Stay tuned. Thank you!

Tags: Fear, Fear Self, wound

I sense a sad mood. I feel sad. What to do … ?

Then I remember the central teaching. I am not my sadness. Rather sadness is just an object of consciousness. It is a state of mind that is visiting me today.

So I, as an object of consciousness, and sadness are one and the same.

Thus I am not I for that I is a temporary object of consciousness. I am that which sees or, to be even more precise, I am that which sees the seeing, hears the hearing.

Is there a who or what that I am? This is so confusing.

Find the whole post here.

Seeking

We spend the whole of our lives asking, is this it or is this it or is this it. Then we realize what was once inconceivable and unthinkable: that only I am it and I could never have been any different from what I am or what I was. The journey must end precisely where it began but with one decisive difference: there is nothing to seek and no one who would gain.

Believing

It can be said that every thought of personal gain or loss, EVERY one is rooted in an underlying thought, which is the thought that I am not okay as I am and it is precisely the inadequate self that is projected outwardly as real. So every thought of personal gain or loss is a gift because it points exactly in the direction of that which most urgently calls for healing and recognition.

Allowing

Once it is seen that there is nothing to seek and that every belief we have about the world and, most importantly, the self, is absolutely and utterly unreal, then we must weather the storm. The mind will continue with its insistent thoughts about everything, including who we are. It will relentlessly push and pull. This is the storm that we must weather. And as we weather this storm, we need to rest in the awareness of the storm itself. Let both the storm rage and the awareness shine. Storms come and go, but awareness is ever-present.

Commentary

It is the Allowing that is often the toughest key. Our thoughts are very compelling. But please consider this statement: a thing is never a thought - so no thought can tell us anything about the world or our life or about who we are. Thoughts are only about thoughts. Please consider this as well: the person who needs to believe their thoughts is itself a thought. The root - the shining awareness is not a thought and does not a generate a thought. Nor, unlike thoughts of things and the self, it does not come and go. It is both the source and manifestation of everything in our lives. Thus when there is someone who believes in a thought, she is experiencing, both the thought and the believer both of which are thoughts and, therefore, unreal.

Fortunately awareness reflects all of this. So when we weather the storm, we need to allow both the thoughts as well as the believer in the thoughts to rage on. They truly are a storm. Weathering them without reacting to them is not, necessarily easy. And to makes matters worse, this is a storm that will persist for quite some time. The more you are able to just allow it to be exactly as it must be, the stronger will be your place in awareness.

Download this post here: 3Keys

Tags: Belief, method, seeking

Those of you who have already read Liberation from the Lie will probably get more out of this post than those who haven’t, but I think there are those who will intuitively get what is said here.

First, know that the authentic self is always here. It must be. It is the light that sees everything as it is and is in perfect comfort and accord with what is seen.

Thus inner conflict, painful repetitive patterns, lack of resolve, too much resolve and anything which resists what is real and seen are manifestations of the Wound in daily life. It is the task of the Fear-Selves to deal with these problems in conditioned and ineffective ways. The Fear-Selves will push down pain - repress it - and substitute a tried and true behavioral pattern to try to cancel psychological distress.

Let’s make a short list of these maneuvers:

• Shop
• Turn on the TV
• Call a friend
• Buy a new ‘spiritual’ book (self-improvement)
• Get lost in the web
• Take a nap
• Rush (this is a subtle one - when we are rushing to get someplace out of unnoticed habit and conditioning, we are playing the very old game of goal seeking, i.e., life sucks in transit from one place to another, so I need to rush to repress that pain. Rushing is a red flag of fear and resistance
• Believing that you are the doer (another very subtle manifestation of lack - this will go away in time (read below))
• Get high
• etc.

You get the idea.

These are short term maneuvers, but there is a much larger category of Fear-Based responses, which are, the story of our lives. How do we recognize them?

Seeking - and we all seek - is often rooted in an underlying belief that we are in whole or in part, inadequate/insufficient/not deserving love.

So now reflect, what do you do to prove to yourself and others that you are adequate/sufficient/deserving love?

You’ll see that these lack based needs will find realization in our partners, career choices, angry confrontations with those who inadequately validate us (often parents and our children), and showing the world how great and wonderful we are in any number of ways.

There is yet a third category of behavior which is also rooted in lack/insufficiency and this is persistent depression (self-contempt). This also assumes many forms, but often we can notice it when we have little or no energy, persistent melancholy, irrational fears, and withdrawing from contact.

If you experience depression, the Liberation book can be particularly helpful. There is a special beauty to depression. What makes depression special is that it:

• reveals in the hardest way possible the failure of the Fear-Selves to hold back the tide of fear in our lives; and
• with the collapse of the Fear-Selves, we are brought in much closer contact with our primal Wound and it is in the seeing of the Wound that our Fear-Based personalities begin to dissolve all on their own.

See that all attempts to realize the Authentic Self must end in failure. All such projects are expressions of the very lack/inadequacy that sustains the whole cycle of moving from one Fear-Based behavior to another.

But the situation is far from hopeless. Remember that the Authentic Self is always there. So in seeing the patterns of Fear-Based behavior and the Fear-Selves in our life and in allowing ourselves to sink into the scary world of the Wound is exactly what we need to do if the whole edifice of fear to lose its power over us. When that begins to happen, we are well on our way to our own unique liberation.

Slavery is that attachment to beliefs that we invest with our safety and solidity. The path of Liberation, what I sometimes call the Truthway, challenges those beliefs. The moment they are seen as false, the thrill of liberation will fill our being.

As so many of the old ‘masters’ were fond of saying, realization is a matter of removing and not of adding on, as in self- improvement. You will never manufacture a better you. You were born perfect and whole. It is that perfection and wholeness that you are now asked to re-discover.

Post Download: AuthenticSelfPaths

Tags: method

Hi my name is Howard Cosell and I’m here at the Cretaceous Paleogene boundary line (65.5 million years ago) from the far distant future, even your future dear reader, for time machines do not yet exist in your time.

We’re standing on a place that will, one day, be called eastern Nebraska chatting with Mrs. Teresa Rex who prefers going by the catchy name T Rex.

HC - How do you do Mrs. Rex?
T - Oh, please call me T.
HC - OK T - so how are you on this fine, sunny and oh so warm February day? It looks like you just had your lunch.
T - Yes, I just finished a particularly scrumptious leg of Iguanodon. Really yummy. Of course, I shared some of it with my kids over there. They loved it. So what brings you to our neck of the woods. I don’t believe I’ve seen your kind around here and I’m wondering how you taste. I could still use a morsel to finish things off- you know with the sharing and all.
HC - Well, let’s say that I’m from a very far away place and I’ve been told more than once that I taste like very spoiled Plesiosaur - so do don’t say you weren’t warned.
(I grin very broadly hoping T Rex buys my line - she has even bigger and sharper teeth than I expected).
T - well you are looking tasty, if you don’t mind my saying so.
(she winks in a terrifying manner - who would have thought that dinosaurs winked?)
HC - Thanks T, but could we move on - I gotta get back home pretty soon and this trip cost me a chunk of change.
T - OK - if you insist.
HC - Thanks. I was wondering, do you know what an asteroid is?
T - Yeah - it’s like a big rock floating around in space - am I right?
HC - Yes, that’s pretty much it. But I was wondering, did you ever hear about the Great Permian Extinction?
T - I remember some of the old timers talking about it. Would you mind refreshing my memory?
HC - Well about 185.9 million years ago one of those asteroid hit the earth and killed off almost 90% of all life on the planet.
T - How horrible.
HC - Well, yes and no. Because if that asteroid hadn’t hit the earth, well scientists say that you dinosaurs and your marine and flying reptile buddies would never have evolved. You see the extinction of all of those other animals provided the ecological niche that allowed for the ascent of the dinosaurs. So maybe that asteroid was the best thing that ever happened to your species.
T - Yeah, I see what you’re saying. Well easy come easy go I always say.
HC - Well I have some good news and bad news for you and your family, as well as your friends. I really don’t know if dinosaurs have friends, but I thought I’d throw that in. And, I should mention there’s a lot more good news than bad news.
T - Of course we have friends. Although I do remember a particularly tasty one, if a little fatty named Solly. He kept us full for months. I really liked him.
HC - Well, you should know that one of those asteroids is, right now, heading straight toward earth and will hit in what will be called the Yucatan Peninsula sometime tomorrow. It’s going to heat things up a bit.
T - Oh dear. What does that mean for us?
HC - Well if it doesn’t sound all that good for you, please consider that you’ve had a terrific run. Dinosaurs have been the dominant species on earth for about 165 million years. That ain’t bad by anyone’s measure. You really have a lot to be proud of.
T - Are you saying what I think you’re saying?
HC - Wait, I’m not done with the good news. Sooner than you can blink a geologic eye, the mammals will become the dominant species (such as yours’ truly) and some of these mammals are so cute that it would raise an archaeopteryx’ feathers. Of course I’m talking baby sea otters (and the adults aren’t too shabby either), cuddly little bears, puppies, and who wouldn’t fall in love with a bonobo?
T - OK funny man, so what’s the bad news?
HC - Hey who said I was done with the good news? In the not too distant future, dinosaurs (and I’m talkin’ dinosaurs - not those creepy flying reptiles like Mr. Pterosaur gliding awkwardly up there) will fill the skies. There will be dinosaurs of all kinds - including such oddballs as Empire Penguins and ruby throated hummingbirds. People, who can be creatures of habit, not unlike you know who, will insist on calling them birds, but you and I know them as dinosaurs. Won’t that be great?
T - You know I’m getting more than a little peckish.
HC - Well, this asteroid, is going to hit the earth. It’s going to create an explosion that will knock your socks off if you wore socks, which I know you don’t, and will send up a huge crapload of dirt into the atmosphere, which will make it really very dark and cold here for more months than I care to mention, and, well, you know the drill, nearly all of the dinosaurs, T Rex included, and all of your flying and marine reptile buddies will go the way of the mesosaurus.
T - And that would be the bad news? Just thinkin’ here.
HC - Well it’s clearly not all that bad. I think I’ve done a more than decent job listing all of the goodies that will come out of this brief if rather super intense conflagration.
T - You know something?
HC - What?
T - I’m starving.
(Sounds of juicy chomping can be heard on the recording - and that was the last time Howard Cosell was seen or heard from. Bye Howard - we’ll miss you).

What’s bad for the goose is often good for the gander - or is it what’s good for the goose is often bad for the gander. Well, you see what I mean.

Good ... Bad ... It all reminds me of the song, you say tomahtoe and I say tomato.

So when I blab on about people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, know that the sands of history blow every which way, but the dust always settles only to get blown on again.

Download this post here: DinosaurInterview

Tags: Belief, judgment

Last night the last veil parted. What Bankei called the Unborn Buddha Mind opened for me and it can open for you. Feel free to ask me any questions. you would like.

Tags: seeking

A number of years ago I was conducting a research project on the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation in the Southwestern US. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of a Navajo developed program called Peacemaking to prevent and reduce interpersonal violence.

Part of my research included the distribution of a survey. One of the questions on the survey asked participants to identify their religion. This seemed like a pretty straightforward question, but I needed tested the question and when I did this I found something I could never have expected.*

Going into this work I knew that not only were Navajos relatively traditional compared to many other Indian communities in North America, but they were also going through a revival of core traditional values.

Yet the responses I received for this question were: Catholic, Mormon, Baptist, and Native American Church (a 20th century developed faith that blends some common elements of Native American beliefs with Christianity). Do you notice something missing?

Not one respondent said “traditional Navajo”. I had to figure out why this was happening. After a little exploration I learned something that astounded me at the time. The Navajo language (Dinè does not have a word for “religion”. Thus, traditional indigenous life ways are not thought of as a religion. Christianity is a religion. Navajo is not. Rather, Navajo is a way of life.

Further exploration into this matter revealed that no North American Indian language has a word for religion. This amazed me. The religion concept is relatively new to them and is not part of any native culture. I needed to find out what was going on, because, as an anthropology major (as an undergraduate - I was a Ph.D student at the time of this research), I had thought that pre-mass agricultural societies were, if nothing else, religious and mystical.

One of the people that indirectly guided me in my investigations was the great American sociologist Morris Berman and, in particular, his book Wandering God.

Every word has a story and the story of religion is a fascinating one. It is a story that has immense power of self and group liberation. Gather around and listen carefully.

Prior to the develop of intensive agricultural most people were hunter gatherers. Hunter gatherers have a lot in common. They live in temporary communities and they have very few manufactured items. One item they lack is containers designed to store food. Everyday they are faced with the task of collecting or hunting enough food to keep the group alive. Imagine what it would be like living with this potentially deadly fear in your life every single day. Imagine how heightened this fear would become in the cold depths of Winter.

Were these people living lives of fear and insecurity (like modern people with all of their technology and convenience)? Essentially everyone who has lived with and studied these people say a resounding “no”.

How could this be among a people who lack religion - who have no god to appeal to in times of want, darkness and fear?

They had something we lack. They had an implicit trust that the world would take care of them. They didn’t need religion. For them the world itself was alive. It blazed with its aliveness and their awareness was intensely sharpened and equally alive.

About 10,000 years ago, in the part of the world we call Iraq and Iran people figured out how to harness the power of nature through intensive agriculture. This was not only the seed of a new agriculture, it was the enduring seed of civilization itself. And it is at this point that religion gets its start.

Prior to the development of intensive agriculture, people depended on nature. But now with the creation of large-scale farms the secure relationship with nature was ripped apart. Life depended on the success of the farm. With a stretch of bad weather or the failure of system of irrigation, the people would face starvation and death. All of a sudden people needed a way to control their world.

And it was religion that stepped in to fulfill this task. Religion created a pantheon of gods that needed to be kept happy. To placate the potentially unreliable gods, people developed complex ceremonies, they performed animal and human sacrifices. The powerful priestly class became the conduits between the newly helpless men and women to express their pleas to the gods.

But something much bigger also arose in the development of intensive agriculture, permanent towns, city-states, the ruling class, and war; and that was the development of life as suffering. The vast majority of men became powerless workers on the fields of the priests and ruling elites. They worked from dawn to dusk to make sure that the people had enough to eat and that the ruling class could live in extraordinary luxury and that their armies could be powerful and well armed. Thus the workers who did all of the hard labor of civilization also died in its defense as the various rulers planned and carried out wars to increase their power and control - for unless we nurture our need for power and control that power and control would just wither away.

Women, who were once key to their group, now became baby makers for many more people were needed to work the farms and staff the armies. So instead of the 1-2 children of the hunting/gathering family, women were expected to be pregnant from 4-10 times in their lives and often more. They toiled day and night raising their families and helping out with the farm labor. Truly the life as suffering was now well established.

So religion took the next essential step. It declared that this life is indeed suffering, but that a much better life awaits us all after death ... if we are obedient to the authority of the church/temple and to the ruler who is the son of god, if not god himself (I intentionally used the masculine pronoun).

Thus (and please hear this carefully), the role of religion became one that coerced order onto people by helping them transcend this world. From the perspective of religion this world became the world of sin, of the dream, of the illusion. To be happy, we must transcend this world! Religion and transcendence became one and the same. No duality could be more powerful or crippling than this one.

Now look back at this story. People started from a place of trust and community and evolved to a place of fear and insecurity. They started from a place that adored this world and were profoundly connected to its rhythms and touch and evolved to a place where this world was just one of endless toil and insecurity.

And it was the task of religion to make all of this possible.

We can now understand these Navajos who answered the “religion” question with any answer except “Navajo”. What a breakthrough this was for me. It changed my life and even provided me with an understanding that such relatively sophisticated religious systems that one sees in Buddhism as still one of control.

This understanding, thanks to Morris Berman and the many traditional Navajo counselors and healers who aided me with the writing of Liberation from the Lie informs this work with this realization. If we are ever to find our Authentic Selves we must first understand our own culture, which includes all religions that reinforce the underlying beliefs that we far too often take for granted as normal. They are not normal. They are instruments whose sole purpose is to domesticate and doom our essential selves. The moment our families, our churches/temples, schools, and government became the instruments of our own ruthless domestication, we have abandoned our true selves. Waking up means to wake up to this profound understanding.

This is not a simple understanding. It goes against nearly everything we believe we know yet it is the voice of truth. This is exactly why I wrote my book. It is the manual to finding yourself prior to your self-negation through the well intended ways of your family, your religion, and your culture. A new birth means a birth as only and exclusively yourself, cleared of these influence.

If this post ‘resonates’ with you, then you have taken a very large step in your own liberation. Your Authentic Self has never ever left you. Her light fills everything in your world. The moment you see that light as yourself, fully divorced from the social and cultural constraints of this world - on that day you are free.

*Before the formal distribution of a survey, survey items (questions) are tested on a much smaller population.

You can download this post here at the bottom of the post.

Tags: Belief, religion

How many of us have not suffered as a direct result of believing that they were not enough? Isn’t all self criticism, all self-contempt link back to a belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with me?

Also, when we are disappointed with others doesn’t the same theme apply? That other person should have been more trustworthy, they should have been more kind, they should have been more considerate, they should have more generous, they should have been brighter ... and so it goes.

This is the universe of deficiency - of not enough - of lack.

Remarkably, it is this very belief that both creates our self-misery, as well as provide the essential fuel that leads to our awakening.

Like everything else in the universe, it is a paradox that provides no ready-made or predictable understanding. Ah - how messy is the real world!

Let’s dive into Verse 44 of the Tao and see how this understanding applies. Today I will be using the translation by Derek Lin.

Fame or the self, which is dearer?The self or wealth, which is greater?Gain or loss, which is more painful?

Anytime we seek lasting contentment through possessing anything external to our essential self, our infinite presence, we are begging the universe for misery. In this way, the universe is a generous companion, for misery it will provide. It is something we can count on. Our mind projects how happy and content the fulfillment of a particular need will be, but this is a double edged sword. We are driven to pursue our psychological needs and sacrifice ourselves int he pursuit. If we obtain what we believed will make us happy, the very quality we sought will not only become bland, but will, one day, be taken from us.

So when the Tao asks, “Fame or self - which is dearer?” - it is pointing us to what both comes and goes as well as to what is always available. This verse presents a choice. We can spin our wheels chasing what we believe we lack - a chase that only lasts a life time or we can see what we are really doing and return to the root - the source of our being. This fertile source is not only available, it is our essential being. Every moment presents this decisive choice - but with realization the challenge of choice vanishes, for the mind as been tamed through clear seeing and the wisdom it imparts to us.

This understanding applies to every externality. Notice that every idea and thought you have about yourself also comes and goes - no exceptions! Yet you somehow remain, radiant and ready? How utterly wonderful!

But the line about gain and loss, that seems a little trickier. Isn’t it obvious that gain gives us pleasure and loss must be painful?

When we gain, another must loose. When we gain, we will need to look over our shoulder worried that we will loose what we have struggled for, for riches come and go. When we become addicted to gain, we become slaves to our needs. Can you imagine a more painful life?

Yes, loss can also be painful - it can be very painful. But when we see that gain and loss are completely external to our essential beings, we can allow them to come and go. Today our possessions grow and tomorrow they are dispersed. The cycle continues in ways that we cannot know. But when we become centered in our essential being opportunities for authentic wealth and joy become so much more available.

The Verse continues:

Thus excessive love must lead to great spending.Excessive hoarding must lead to heavy loss.

When we fall in love to anything external to ourselves and establish it as a need that we must possess and control, we make ourselves into a slave. We are compelled to service this need and bleed ourselves dry in our addicted drive.

A greedy and dead spirit is driven to hoard. It looks out into the world and sees danger and loss around every corner. It must cling to what it has like a wraith. This is the very life of fear and contraction that is most pitiful and sad.

The Verse concludes:

Knowing contentment avoids disgrace.Knowing when to stop avoids danger.Thus one can endure indefinitely.

When we know what sustains anguish, what makes us appear desperate before others, then we know what to avoid. With this knowing we can allow the contentment that is not only our birthright, but our essence to flower. For the Authentic Self will flower when the layers of need, addiction, and lack are finally allowed to wither away. Living as the contentment we truly are, nothing can threaten us. Our essential being is permanent. Nothing can threaten it. Thus we truly endure indefinitely. We can finally live free of fear.

Download this post here: V44_Lack

Tags: seeking, deficient self, Lack

Awakening does not mean that the passionate, informed person we were prior to awakening dies. We don’t become spiritual spouting zombies upon awakening.

This really needs to be understood because it returns us to the essence of awakening itself.

Here this loud and clear - awakening means:

• waking up from the illusions of the deficient self;
• waking up from the belief in a separate I;
• waking up to the realization of our immediate and profound connection with everything;
• waking up from the dream of deficiency;
• waking up from the false-selves we effortlessly create to compensate for the underlying deficiency belief; and
• waking up means that the belief and force that drives seeking exhausts itself in the realization of the essential - true Self.

If anything, waking up unites us even more powerfully to what moves us passionately. It is, precisely, our slumbering disconnection prior to awakening which kills and dilutes our passion. Please, please know this.

When we realize (not think) that we are connected to everything, we become intensely alive. There is simply no choice in the matter. Our heart expands exponentially. We love ourselves as everything.

Thus when we see and read about the destruction of the environment through production and consumption, the destruction of life through war, the horrible ways we treat animals to make cheap animal protein, and the lies the powerful propagate to keep the less fortunate living a life of suffering and pain, we understand that all of this is us. We are not removed from the immediacy of life through the veils of thought and prevarication. Instead we are alive to the vast play and drama of the world that unfolds before our eyes and hearts.

Understand - this is not an issue of ego. It has absolutely nothing to do with making a “better me” that people will respect and love because I know that underneath it all I am not deserving of their respect or love. This is about the realization of connection.

How it manifests within each person is entirely individual. This is simply how it manifests in this body/spirit. There are as many paths as there are people. And this is exactly why awakening is ultimately an individual process. It does not yield a vast field of zombies, but a field of diverse, alive, and connected energies intimately engaged in life as it unfolds everywhere.

Download this post here: AwakeningExpression

Tags: self-expression, Belief

Seeking is a dance; it takes two.

The first dancer is he who harbors and itch-like belief that he is insufficient as he is. This is a painful itch and it’s an itch that needs to be scratched, so he goes out into the world to find a partner.

His partner is the answer he projects will cure his itch. It could be a book, a satsang/retreat/class, or it could be a special relationship with a teacher.

This is the dance of seeking. It is our journey to relieve our spiritual itch.

But the itch persists.

Is there a cure for the common deficiency itch (CDI)?

There is a cure, but it’s not something you can obtain from a book, class, or teacher (guru). The cure starts with becoming sick and tired of the external seeking. You’ve read this a million times before. Well now it’s a million and one. We really have to become totally sick and tired with ourselves.

We have to give up the belief that our thought based self can save us. An illusory doctor cannot cure an illusory patient.

The outward moving energy must be seen as utterly hopeless and useless. Feel that energy now. Feel it streaming outwards. Know, to the very depths of your being, that it cannot provide relief for your itch.

In fact, it can only sustain the itch.

Have you ever taken an over-the-counter nasal spray when suffering with a cold? If so, you’ll know that it provides near instant relief. Wow, I can breath again. This stuff is great. It’s the cure for the suffering of the common cold.

Ah were it only true. The problem with all of such sprays is that after two days of use, you will get a rebound effect. The spray will actually cause your nasal passages to swell even worse and your breathing problem is now worse than ever.

The same applies to spiritual seeking that goes outward to cure the itch of deficiency.

The only answer to this problem is to stop grabbing the spiritual nasal spray. Throw it out. Trust no thought or feeling. Toss it all out in the very large trash bin of stuff collected through seeking.

Then be brave with the itch. Let it be. Rest in silence as it carries on. Give not an ear to its cries for help. It’s like a baby who needs to cry herself to sleep. We need to reach a point where we stop attending to it.

This is the only reliable cure. We have to go through what the mind believes to be the insane darkness of utterly not knowing. Eventually, something much more powerful emerges in the darkness of directionless not knowing. It will happen for you, for it has happened for me and I am no different from you.

Download this post here: 2toseek

Tags: seeking

I am not now and never will be a guru or an advice giver. I can only speak from my own experience. While much that brings us together we possess in common, there is also a part of us that is unique and thank goodness for that. So, I want every reader of this blog to know that my purpose here is two-fold.

One, it is to invite you to check out my book, Liberation from the Lie. I believe the book offers a resource to all seekers, as well as those suffering from periodic or persistent depression and unhappiness to find a way out of their hardship. I know this book “works” from the great reviews it has received at Amazon and the many letters I have received from readers. Also, the book is entirely different from other books written from a Buddhist, Advaita, or other spiritual perspective. It uses ideas culled from these traditions as well as those from modern psychology and my own direct experience training with Navajo (Dinè traditional healers. The theory and path it very clearly lays out is entirely innovative. There is no book like it.

Two, I write these posts as part of a conversation between equals. It is my way of sharing my own experience and perceptions in a way that I try to make interesting, engaging, and even fun. I know that I really need to work on the fun part, since the tone of so many of these posts is altogether too serious. That is a bad sign. The highest of all emotions is (per my Navajo friends) laughter - but often the portal to this place is grief. If you knew me personally, you would know someone who is very prone to laughter and never takes himself all that seriously. The tone of this site is really rather different from the living nature of its author.

Know that we truly are equals. I am not a teacher. If anything, I am well adapted as a kind of researcher of the human condition. And I invite you to this same path, for this is really only your path. This is your life and this is your journey. The only journey I can take is my own. Your path must be and will different from my own. Each of us is unique.

So please hear my words as just part of a conversation. Your voice is always invited to participate in this dialogue. I don’t receive many comments on this blog, but I am always open to your experience and your perspective.

Thank you - Eric

Tags: journey

What does awakening mean?

It means to awaken from the trance imposed on consciousness through belief and thought.

And what is the trance of belief and thought?

It is the belief that we are the authors of our lives. It is the belief that I am the body and I am the mind. Both body and mind are real appearances on the field of the seen - but there is no personal possession of them. They are each occasional happenings on the field of all happenings. There are possessed by no one.

Both the body and the mind yield a personal story, which, we believe, belongs to us and us alone. It tells us our place in the world, it tells us who we are, it tells us who we have been, and it tells us who we will be.

The whole of this narrative is tied together to the belief that we are the body and the mind. The moment it is clearly seen that this is a belief based on conditioning and habit, we awaken free of the story. From that point forward, our essence is the light of presence. As the light of presence, nothing is done by us and everything perceived is seen as a vivid happening on the plane of presence.

If we only believe that we are not the body and the mind, then we are still mired in belief. Out of want, we transfer the belief that we are the body and the mind to the newly minted belief that we are NOT the body and the mind. That is not awakening. It is merely a revised belief. However, it is possible to straddle both conditions. Sometimes we are free of the narrative and the network of beliefs that keep it together and sometimes we fall back into the story of which we contend we are both author and victim.

We find freedom through clear seeing. We see that the narrative, to which we are so attached, is just a story - a happening, no different from any other happening. The tether that keeps us connected to it consists of only one word: “mine”. This is my (variant of “mine&rdquo story, we assert. That is the only belief that needs to be seen as false.

Once awakened from the trance of the self, we are free of all beliefs. How this finally happens within the body/mind consciousness - I do not know. But it does happen and it will happen for you. We just depend on our seeing and, in particular, our clear seeing of belief that we are (or are not) the body/mind. Once we see that this belief that we are the body/mind is founded on nothing but conditioning, and habit, it slowly ebbs away. As it weakens, the light of presence grows stronger. The day of full freedom is not far away. Take heart in that.

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Tags: Belief, thought

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We need to understand that existential fear, the underlying unease that underlies so much of our personal experience, is not integral to the human condition. When we delve into the heart of this unease, this low-level free-floating fear, we discover the great sea of lack that undergirds all of our self-disappointment, as well as our seeking. This lack condition is a recent development in the human story.

Anthropologists have not observed this same lack phenomenon in pre-agricultural societies. So in this post we will return, again, to this world with the purpose of locating the very core root of fear itself. Perhaps if we can trace the origins of lack back to their beginning, then maybe we can better understand its manifestation in our life.

As I did in yesterday’s post, I will be using passages from my book Liberation from the Lie. This is, exactly, what makes this book unique among all books about the troubled self. Liberation does not rely on conjecture, but on the observations of many. Test what is written here with your own intelligence. Ask yourself, is this true? - is this true in my own direct experience unfettered by belief or second-hand knowledge. Evaluate what is said in this blog and ask yourself, repeatedly, is this true?

Child-Rearing and the Origins of Invalidation
While the hunter-gatherers lived in a world fully connected with nature and other members of their families and tribes, we live in a world of profound disconnection, set apart from both nature and the other people in our communities. While hunter-gatherers were an integral part of their environment, we are like visitors in a hostile land. Somehow we have migrated from a place of apparent peril where people felt safe and secure to a place of apparent security where we feel unsafe and insecure. How, then, can we account for the paradigm shift that has occurred in the modern era?
An explanation can begin by examining the differences in central beliefs regarding children and the role of parents. Hunter-gatherers regarded new human life as perfect in and of itself. Each child was seen as a unique being intended to follow his own, distinct journey through life. On the other hand, modern civilization sees children as flawed even at birth, requiring constant discipline and education in order to become fully functioning adults. In hunter-gatherer societies, children remain physically connected to an older person, most of the time their mothers, throughout most of their first three or four years. In today’s homes, most children are physically separated from their mothers from the very day of birth. Their life of partial isolation begins on day one.
The separation and endless correction that a child undergoes in modern times results in invalidation—the negation of ourselves as we are.
Our sense of self is most vulnerable when we are very young, well before we can understand words or express ourselves. Thus is the origin of what I call the Wound, our conviction that we are innately inadequate, insufficient, and worthless. This angst is the very signature of modern life. It is the source of our disconnected selves, those parts of us that struggle for completion and wholeness only to find persistent frustration.
The hunter-gatherer did not carry the burden of invalidation. He knew he was “as he is supposed to be” prior to any action or doing. He was not expected to prove anything; he didn’t have to justify his right to be just as he was.
Child-rearing philosophies tend to develop in order to reproduce a particular personality type that will be functional for adult life in the society at hand. Consider these differences between the way children were raised by hunter-gathers and how they are raised now:

• Hunter-gatherer children were raised without overt discipline; we “civilize” our children through punishment and other consequences levied when “rules” are broken;
• Hunter-gatherers perceived children as a creation of the same nurturing universe that supported and took care of the tribe; we see children as “little savages” who need to be domesticated;
• Hunter-gatherer children remained physically close to their mothers for up to four years, constantly held and carried; modern children are separated from their mothers at least for periods of time each day from birth onward;
• Hunter-gather mothers breastfed for three to four years; we usually wean within a year;
• Hunter-gatherer children slept with their parents for up to five years; most modern children sleep in a separate bed, if not a separate room, from their parents from the day they arrive;
• Hunter-gatherer children possessed the same power as anyone else; modern children are told in no uncertain terms that they are powerless and are often punished if they try to exert power;
• Hunter-gather children were raised in groups or clans, with many adults taking responsibility for parenting duties; modern children are usually raised by their biological parents alone, or with the help of a very few trusted relatives or hired caretakers.

The differences are many, but the most profound is this: Hunter-gatherer children were loved and respected just as they were. Modern children must earn the love and respect of their elders, on their elders’ terms. This is the origin of the fundamental invalidation that nearly all of us experience in our very first months of our lives. We are left alone at times; we are constantly corrected. We get the message that we are deficient burdens. Expressions of parental love are undermined by angry words, harsh expressions, indifference, distance, and punishment
Let me elaborate on some of the differences outlined above. While a personality is shaped by genetics, upbringing, and socialization, one of the most potent ingredients in that mix is one’s earliest relationship with his or her mother. For the hunter-gather, that relationship was extremely close, both physically and emotionally. Among the !Kung (and many other non-Bantu tribes of southern Africa), Australian Aborigine groups, the Berbers of the Middle East, and most Native American tribes of the Plains and Plateau region, children were virtually attached to their mothers for most of their first 18 months. When not in the arms or on the back of her mother, a young children was passed on to other people in the community who held her for extended periods. This provided contact and bonding with a much more diverse array of adults than would be found in an American household today. In the parlance of the well-known African adage, it takes a village to raise a child.
We, on the other hand, typically place children into their own rooms early in life, where they experience isolation and terror from being alone; often in the dark. This occurs at a time when a baby is utterly vulnerable and powerless to affect her fate. She screams in protest, but parents close their hearts to these cries in order to allow the child to habituate herself to pain and fear. Over time, as the child begins to cooperate, she is praised and rewarded for her compliance. This early trauma is relatively new to our species; the children of hunter-gatherers were touched, held, and comforted almost continuously for the first few years of their lives.
Consider another difference. While the hunter-gatherers considered each child to be unique, to be loved and respected for the individuality of his talents, life path, and story as it unfolded, modern parents seek to produce children who become “special” by dint of their accomplishments. But when some in a group are considered special, others, of course, will NOT be special. Indeed, the special ones continually run the risk of losing their special status. Children soon absorb this lesson and sever themselves from their innate, unique identities; instead, molded by external rewards and punishments, they strive to achieve the standards of “specialness” defined by their parents and society. In this competition for attention and esteem, children disown their inherent power of self and bow to the authority of those who can confer on them the coveted “gold star.” We innocently participate in our own powerlessness making.
The extreme pressure modern children feel to compete for accolades—indeed, for love itself—adds additional trauma to that already inflicted by separation and isolation. The Wound, source of our persistent sense of inadequacy and incompleteness, is deepened. And the resulting anxiety, turbulence, conflict, and unhappiness on an individual level is mirrored by our culture at large.
Tomorrow we will take a look at the final chapter in this series and examine the contemporary world and how it nurtures and sustains the Wound.

Tags: Child-raising, Fear

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This post is taken directly from my book - Liberation from the Lie. Issues like self-understanding, awakening, and finding the authentic self can be made much clearer when we understand the full scope of fear in our lives. It is what drives all seeking and what makes our lives miserable. This post seeks to begin the process of pulling fear up by its own roots.

Is it possible to live life without emotional insecurity? Historians and anthropologists say “yes.”
Modern human beings have been around for about 150,000 years. For about 140,000 of those years, survival depended on hunting and gathering. The time of the hunter-gatherers in the human cultural story is over; these societies, isolated from modern influences, have all but disappeared. However, scientists and explorers have studied and left detailed descriptions of what these societies were like prior to their demise. These observations show us a world that is very different from our own—a world in which individuals trusted life.
It must seem paradoxical to point to hunter-gatherers as models of security. To us, they lived in a world utterly lacking in the most rudimentary elements of security. Imagine waking up tomorrow with no food in your home. All the food stores have disappeared. You are living in a pure wilderness, without any ready source of sustenance. You are facing your own death and the deaths of everyone in your family from starvation. This is the world the hunter-gatherers faced every day!
Hunter-gatherers were nomads, possessing only the food they collected or hunted each day. Their societies lacked any form of food storage. And yet they survived, purely through their daily labor and ingenuity, even in the harshest climates on the planet.
Did the absence of food fill them with dread? Did their daily confrontation with starvation and death terrify them? Did their deep and persistent anxiety compel them to beseech the supernatural for good fortune? The answer is no. These societies had little apparent insecurity. They had no specific gods they felt the need to turn to for protection. They trusted nature implicitly, confident that it would provide for them.
Hunter-gatherers differed from us less in the shapes of their bodies and the development of their intellect than in the way they related to the world around them. While they had every reason to live in fear—fear of wild animals, illness, starvation, fear of competing groups, fear of natural phenomena like storms—the vast preponderance of evidence shows us that they trusted the world to provide for them and keep them safe. We, in contrast, have nearly every reason to trust our world.
For most of us, food is abundant; our living environments are sheltered from the elements and from hostile competitors; medical care is available if we become sick or injured, and we can expect to live into old age. Yet our actions demonstrate the belief that we face ruin unless we do exactly the “right” thing. Ironically, in our relatively safe world, we see danger everywhere.
The hunter-gatherers believed that their world would always take care of them. They returned this care with ceaseless appreciation and wonder at the world’s abundance and benevolence. They sang songs, fell in and out of love, laughed, and played, confident that their world would always provide for them.
Studies show that hunter-gatherers worked an average of four hours a day to sustain their lives. While each day’s physical survival depended on their well-honed skills, their working lives, compared with ours, were far less demanding. While women labored for more hours each day than men (some things never change), their work was made lighter by singing and talking side by side with friends and family as they made clothes, gathered seeds, plants, and herbs (the core of the Neolithic diet), and supervised their children. If the children were young (under the age of 4), they were strapped onto their mothers’ bodies and carried about throughout the day.
This lightness of being extended into their world view. In contrast with our culture’s obsession with achieving transcendence (for many through religion, but for others through meditation, mind-altering substances, public accolade, or material success), hunter-gatherers did not invest faith or fear in an overarching life goal or all-powerful deity. In fact, there is little evidence supporting any notion of the sacred in their world. Morris Berman, one of the world’s foremost experts in Neolithic culture, points out that when “Native Americans refer to the Great Spirit, they often are talking about the wind. This spirit is the creation itself: water coming off a leaf, the smell of the forest after rain, the warm blood of a deer.” No great god rules supreme. There is only creation unfolding.
This was a culture that lived, as Virginia Woolf put it, “between the acts”; alertness, not escape, is the sine qua non of a hunting society. The great anthropologist Paul Radin, who did extensive fieldwork among the Winnebago Indians, argued that for such peoples, reality was heightened to such a pitch that the details of the environment seemed to “blaze.” This, he points out, was not a sacred event. It was imminent, but not transcendent. It involved heightened awareness. In this world, the secular is the sacred, which is all around us.
In some small pockets of the world, this way of life has persisted into the current era. As observed by Colin Turnbull, author of the classic The Forest People, the Mbuti of Tanzania still today live within a “sacred reality” that is “no more sacred or esoteric than the forest in which they dwell.” There is a notable absence of any preoccupation with political power, magical rites, or “hidden realities.” The Mbuti regard all of these as superstitions. To the Mbuti, writes Turnbull, the forest alone is “presence” or “God.”
Tomorrow we will continue our journey into the roots of fear. I hope you’re along for the journey.

Tags: wound, Lack, Fear, seeking

Many years ago I read a small book that raised an incredible question. The questions was: who could have imagined this world - this world of endless strip shopping centers, the land gobbled up by vast swaths of single family homes, of the air and water hopelessly fouled, of the total assault on plants and animals, and all the rest of the life killing machinery of modern industrial civilization. Who could have imagined this world - what a great question.

This is one of the questions that I have sought to answer in my book Liberation from the Lie, but I would like to explore it in somewhat less depth in this post and several to follow.

I know of only one reliable method of inquiry and that is the Truth Way. This is a very simple method. It is based on only one rule and that rule informs us that we cannot know anything if we are relying on belief. Belief, we shall see, is based, exclusively on fear and my book and this blog has only one purpose; to expose fear - to see it exactly for what it is. Few of us have the courage to squarely look our beliefs straight on. Our beliefs give us comfort. Our beliefs give us hope. We are more comfortable with our beliefs than we we with what we can clearly see. So it’s probably best to sustain your slumber. If you’re very lucky you will be re-born and maybe you will be less likely to rest on your self-laziness in another life. But who knows if there ever will be another life?

As long as you clothe yourself in any belief, you will be living a lie. If you are ever interested in discovering your Authentic Self, you will need to fully explore every belief to the light of clear seeing. You must relentlessly ask yourself the question, “is this true?” and be willing to absorb and live the consequences of your inquiry. This is, ultimately, the only path, for only the truth will set you free.

We have only one God and that God is fear. We fear loss - loss of status, loss of possessions, loss of health, loss of a job, loss of our children, loss of our spouse, loss of our home, loss of our pride, loss of our friends, and loss of our own life. Fear is always the bottom-line. We dare not question the government or the media. We dare not risk the little we have amassed in this precarious life, because we could so easily lose it all.

So we hoard. We draw line between us and the ever-threatening world. We ceaselessly please those we project have power over us. We ceaselessly bully those who we project have no power over us. We are appeased through the shopping. We need to keep up with the neighbors. We need to assume that technology will eventually solve our ecological problems. Or we believe in a heaven, because our minister has told us that this world is sinful and is only a passage to the permanent place after death (how pathetic!). So we must placate our dangerous and powerful gods. That is living a humble and proper life.

In other words, we eviscerate ourselves on the alter of Fear. We have installed our beliefs in every aspect of our lives. Jesus might have said the truth will set you free, but we are so much more comfortable with our enslavement. We have forgotten that we are the light. But belief is the propagation of darkness. To truly be of the light we must see what truly is. But instead, we have become domesticated people and we believe that this is the only way.

Who could have imagined this world - who could have imagined this life?

When we are fully aligned with the fear-based personality, and let’s admit it, nearly all of us are, we are fully split from our Authentic Selves. We have lost touch with who we are. But the light that informs just this one, small seeing is the authentic self - alive in our life right now. It is still there waiting for us.

So what do we to remedy this problem? We do exactly what the power-brokers of this world tell us to do; we seek to transcend this word. We do this through sustaining our ignorance of how the world functions, we stay asleep by zoning out in front of our TVs, we stay asleep by going to church so we can be told how and what to think, we are drawn to eastern philosophies, which also tell us how to live and transcend the challenge of everyday life. The one place we tend not to check is ourselves.

We lose ourselves when we are invested in the external. We become the external.

We believe (this is a belief!) that we are not adequate to the task of self-knowledge. We must constantly seek externally. We must be told the how and what about everything. At least dogs unconditionally love, for we are no different from dogs, except our fear prevents us from loving unconditionally. We are loveless dogs.

How we love our leashes. How we love our masters. Our slavery has become so comfortable, so effortless. Please, please give me another treat. This is what our lives have become.

It need not be this way. We can wake up. But to truly wake up we need to fully see the play of fear in our lives. We must see every aspect of it. We need to disgust ourselves with ourselves.

In the next post, I will explore the roots of fear. When we are clear on the roots, we can pull up this weed of a life by the roots and take the first uncertain step to ourselves; a shining being free of fear, strong in her courage, steadfast in her self in this life.

Believe NOTHING in this post or any of my other posts. Test it all out for yourselves. That is the only reliable way. Be ruthless with my words.

Download post here: Fear1

Tags: Belief, Fear-self, Fear

When life is perceived as unjust, the result is anger. When anger is combined with powerlessness, the result is rage. Rage can rest in love or hate. Let's dig deeper.

Why did those pig bankers, the very ones that caused the recession, get billions from the White House? And now those pigs are showing their true colors by taking huge fucking bonuses with our tax money. If I had the chance, I’d show him where I stand by puttin’ a bullet between their greedy jew eyes.

The government is takin’ away my freedoms. I knew this would happen when a black man became president. This is a white country for christ’s sake. There’s nothin’ wrong about taken things in our own hands and defending our hard fought liberty at the barrel of a gun.

For god’s sake, I’m a goddamn veteran and put my ass on the line to defend this country that isn’t even mine anymore.

The rich and powerful get away with everything. I wonder if Bush and Cheney have lost a wink of sleep over killing a million Iraqis? I bet not. They couldn’t give a crap. They aren’t even people to them and they call themselves christians. What a fucking joke.

As an Israeli, and a jew who has suffered centuries of savage hate and exile, we have every right to use whatever force is necessary to destroy the muslim enemy. This is our country and not there’s.

The presidents of companies that foul the environment and doing irreparable harm to essential resources need to be treated as criminals or even worse, for the harms they are causing by their very actions are more injurious than those committed by people we call criminals.

White america must come clean on both slavery and the genocide perpetrated against the native people of the americas. Until there is fair reparation, I will continue to harbor rage against these heartless bastards. The day will come when they will pay for their crimes. It is only fair.

What all of these examples have in common is this: there is perceived unfairness and there is a sense of powerlessness. The combination is volatile.

The Rage and the Fury

We live in a time where rage is common and intense ... and it’s growing. People, who think of themselves as spiritual, often retreat from anger. It reminds them of their animal nature. It’s a negative emotion. The Buddha spoke at length of the toxic quality of anger which contaminates everything it touches.

But we are animals and we experience anger, as well as love. Anger is often an expression of passion and even love. Hatred can inspire acts of incredible bravery and sacrifice.

For me, there is only one decisive distinction: and that is belief. Anger and rage are horrific things when they are based on belief. When I believe that jews and rats are the same thing, I am empowered to design the industry of mass execution and Auschwitz is born. When I believe that Black people are less than me, I can act with privilege and deal with them in ways I would never treat a fellow white person. When I believe that the Koran is the one and only word of god, then I am free to wage jihad against the infidels. When I believe that people are not apes, then I am free to support my local school board when they insist that creationism is given at least the same status of evolution in our school’s biology curriculum.

Mindless, unexamined belief is the element that makes anger toxic. And anger turns to hot rage when it is combined with powerlessness.

But anger and love can be perfect partners. It is my love for the economically disadvantaged that tells me that everyone must have affordable and quality healthcare. It is my love for the earth that tells me that those who poison it must be stopped. Love expressed as rage is righteous. It is selfless. It is based on connection with the all of our brothers and sisters and the source of life that unites us all.

In contrast, toxic rage is full of self. This is my country, the is my god, this is my land, etc. etc. etc. It negates our collective connections. It is founded in fear of loss and the use of force to express its inner belief in its innate powerlessness. It’s all about I, me, and mine. I’ve been fucked and now I demand justice on my terms.

When perceptions of injustice are based on direct observation, then we have the right and even a duty to act to make things just and fair. When a company knowingly fouls a community’s water, that is indeed a grave harm done not only against people, but against the whole of nature. Were it treated like a serious crime, I’m quite certain water pollution would be less of a problem. We can agree that slavery has never been addressed in the US. That reparations and large-scale efforts to balance the distribution of power and assets in the US, as well as formal apologies are way past due. We also know that the native people of this continent have not only lost all their land through naked violence, but have been victims of genocide intended and unintended. They are owed a very great debt.

Healthy rage is, indeed, healthy. It is, in fact, one of the very great challenges of our time - a time when the planet is dying, when the poor are sinking faster and faster into every more dire economic straits, and when the powerful possess for ever more influence to dominate and exploit the helpless and vulnerable.

We also need to see where we are unfair to others - when we act with undeserved privilege as a consequence of belief or just simple mental laziness. Anyone who has been a parent with more than one child, will have dealt with demands for fairness from one of their children - of charges of preferential treatment of one over the other. These are great mini-exercises in liberating ourselves from our own beliefs.

Liberation and justice are first cousins. Free of belief we are one with the world. Our touch goes to our brothers and sisters in pain and we begin the work of revolution - of justice. It all starts with simple and direct seeing. Let’s open our eyes together and begin letting the light of the Real illuminate our world. This light makes us Real.

Download post here: Rage

Tags: Belief, Anger, power

Yesterday I wrote that you are enlightened. Today I write that you are not enlightened. The decisive word in all of this is, of course, you.

How do we make sense of this?

You are enlightened when the personal identity in the personal Me/I ends and you are not enlightened, because it is realized that this word, you, is just a concept ... a projection.

When we believe in this concept, we have a story with a nice and neat beginning (birth) and an awful conclusion (death). Free of the Me/I concept the story is not taken very seriously. When we stop believing in the concept, the presence of this moment is, pretty much, everything. It is what is, free of resistance.

As Byron Katie is fond of saying, you can argue with reality, but you’ll be wrong only 100% of the time. So, go for it.

You as a concept is just an object, not all that different from the computer you’re looking at right now. An object can’t awaken from itself. It’s really that simple.

So you are both enlightened and not enlightened at the same time. How does it feel to be and not be all at once?

It reminds me of that Danish Prince who said, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” What’s your answer?

Download post here: YouAreNotEnlightened

Tags: Concepts

You are enlightened and the only reason you don’t know it is that you are identifying with your thoughts as who you are. If you’re ready to discover who you are outside of this incredibly narrow definition, then read on.

This post has the power to inspire enlightenment in you.

You say, “I am not enlightened. I need to see a great Lama who is visiting Los Angeles. From this Lama, I will learn secret techniques to advance my seeking. He is an angel.”

I reply, “all of that is a total waste of time with respect to the issue of enlightenment. But if you enjoy travel and chatting with guys from Tibet, then by all means, go for it. After all, you already are enlightened.”

Of course this person will never believe me. He knows that he is needy. He knows that he suffers. He knows that the journey is a hard one. He knows that only the very few and the very lucky ever achieve enlightenment. He really knows a lot and it is this knowing that holds him back.

But I reply, “you know nothing. You only believe you aren’t enlightened and that is your problem and it is that belief that sustains an infinity of seeking. Your seeking will never end, because you are attached to this belief. I ask you, Who are you without this belief?”

This person thinks that I am full of crap and challenges me by saying, “So do you think you’re enlightened?”

I answer, “yes, I know I’m enlightened and would you like to know how I know? Because everything is perfect prior to our thought and reflection about anything. Thought and reflection are the conditioned and cultural filters that we place on anything that captures our attention. See if that isn’t true for yourself. But the kicker is this; the reflection asserts a thinker and it is that thinker that holds the belief that he is not enlightened and must go to LA to meet with this esteemed Lama.”

“So what do you recommend I do?”, he asks.

“Nothing other than what you feel like. Just be yourself and give not a thought to the this projected thinker. Liberation means liberation from the belief constellation attached to the projected thinker. That’s all you will ever need to know. If I jump up and down and make grunting noises - then so be it. Now you are free to be as stupid, awkward, and lovable, as YOU choose to be. They are each just meaningless words. Enlightenment is the path itself. Whatever arises is it. The whole show is for you. There is no place to go. It doesn’t matter in this moment, whether it be some heavy talk or my throwing a cream pie in your apparent face.”

“But also know this: enlightenment is ruthless (or so the mind might think). Your gain or loss are immaterial to it, for only the “thinker” is consumed by gain or loss or impressing himself or others. In enlightenment there is neither gain or loss and there are no others to please or impress. In enlightenment, there is no place to draw the line between self and others. So dance the night away or read a book. Everything you do is an expression of the oneness whether it happens in a pristine natural place or a public toilet. It doesn’t matter to enlightenment. Also know that there are so many gifts that the oneness provides for your uniqueness. Why hold them back? Enjoy them and don’t be stingy. Spread the wealth.”

“The authentic self is natural to the moment. It is the path without tracks. It has no destination. Just walk merrily on and see where enlightenment takes you.”

In a moment of uncertainty the thinker asks, “could you give another example of enlightenment in a personally challenging situation?”

“Well, I’m happy to, but you know talk is just talk. Everything is integral to itself, so when we talk about examples, we are just talking examples. Enlightenment is endlessly creative. As they say, we don’t place our foot in the same stream twice. But, since you asked, let’s say you run into a man who calls you names and pushes not only your psychological buttons but your physical body. You’re always free to run, argue, or fight. From the viewpoint of enlightenment it really doesn’t matter what happens. Whatever happens happens. Your initial experience of fear, if it is what emerges in the moment, then that’s the way enlightenment is playing out. Our bodies are wired to survive, so where’s the problem? The thought “he’s such a dick” is a psychological assessment and is just a mindless utterance from the conditioned believer. But the bottom line is that from the perspective of enlightenment is it just doesn’t matter. It calls the shots. Whatever is is. That’s the thing about life - it IS and you are that life. You are that enlightenment.

“Of course, the deficient focused mind really is one HUGE ego. It wants to be exalted. It wants every moment of life to special and all the rest. Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t. To this point enlighten asserted that you needed to be just this assembly of thoughts. But, perhaps, the time has come to wake up to your authentic being. Perhaps, this is that call.”

“I will say this from personal experience, the moment we see through the thinker everything just flows perfectly, why not enjoy the journey no matter what briefly arises in awareness. Use your brain. Be creative. Kick butt, if that is what arises in enlightenment (not all that likely), just see the mind carry on its secondary assessment like some old schoolmarm that always knows what’s best for you.”

Everything you think about enlightenment is wrong. Stop identifying yourself with the thinker and none of your incredibly complex plans, agendas, and hopes will matter in the slightest. When death comes you might even say, ‘what took you so long?’”

Download Post here: YouAreEnlightened

Tags: Belief

“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”̴ ̴ words attributed to Jesus Christ - John 8:32

Recently I have struggled with the problems that I have with neo-non-duality. But in the last several days a compelling clarity has filled me with its light and has shown me a powerful message that I would like to share with you.

I’m afraid that this post may appear disorganized and even random to some, but it contains the essence of what I have to say.

I have written before that I was trained in the Zen Mahayana tradition. A prominent teacher from that tradition wrote me that I had achieved awakening. At the time I did not believe it, for I didn’t sustain the glorious bliss that I’ve seen in the literature. I still had my moods, I could be crabby, and, although I dutifully meditated, I didn’t feel that I needed to meditate. I continued to think of myself as an unenlightened being. I now know that consuming ourselves with the struggle for personal enlightenment, is just another form of spiritual egotism. It isn’t for me.

On account of that hollow experience, I continued along that path and eventually found the teachings of Nisargadatta and Papaji. I was particularly drawn to the writings and talks of Gangaji, Mooji, Chuck Hillig and later to Scott Kiloby (and others).

Ultimately what they said and wrote never really “resonated” with me. Until several days ago, I thought that I just didn’t have the good fortune to have the fireworks and cosmic uplifting sometimes described in the literature. Several prominent non-dualists said that I just didn’t “get it”. For whatever reason, the message of neo-non-duality was not part of my authentic self, although it is a powerful pathway for others.

Perhaps they are right and, perhaps, it doesn’t matter.

I suspect that I did “get it” many years ago in that Zen Temple and my spiritual ego still craved the certainty that death to the physical body is an illusion. That was the very fear that first attracted me to the path described in several traditions of eastern spiritual philosophy.

That is now all behind me. I must say in full candor, that I have absolutely not the slightest interest in non-duality, although I also know that much of what they have to say is absolutely true and valid. It just is an area of self-expression that now fails to motivate or excite me.

This realization has brought me back to the very heart and soul of my own direct work, which I am now calling the Truth Way.

I am not concerned by philosophy. Talking about ideas can be fun, but it is not the purpose of this blog or my book Liberation from the Lie.

The truth is all that matters. This statement does not refer to final truths, but only to this truth. So unlike non-duality, where the core question is “Who am I?”, the core question of the Truth Way is, “Is this true?” I believe that Jed McKenna made a similar remark a number of years ago.

The power of this question is to liberate us from the whole galaxy of thoughts and beliefs that now make up our false self, what I call the “Fear-Selves” in my book. The Fear-Selves are natural and inevitable outcomes of our primal wounding that occurs in our first weeks of life and were sustained and often strengthened through our families of origin, peers, school, and work. The Fear-Self operates on both the individual and collective level and is the bulwark of modern civilization as well as representing the psychological essence of who we are not.

We cannot find out who we are until we:

• see the many fear-based constructions that form the self that needs to: control life/self, please others, appear tough/spiritual/responsible, and the many other forms of the Fear-Self that are described in the text; and
• to recognize the awesome power of the Wound to form our social and cultural universe.

This is a complex topic as anyone who has read my book has come to learn, but they have also seen how the direct truth seeking process is the key to individual and collective transformation. The resolution of needless suffering and struggle, those ceaseless repetitive painful patterns of our life, are healed only through the truth realizing process.

How do we know when something is true? We know the truth when it cannot be debated. It is the “isness” of life, here and now. Let me present several obvious examples. One - it is cloudy outside right now. I can say that it is cloudy outside. This is true. Connection with the actual and immediate truth of life is powerfully liberating. This example may appear trivial to some of you, but its power to transform is vast.When we are connected with the immediate truth of life shorn of all belief, we are fully awakened. Here is my second example. I love music. I didn’t choose to love music. It is just something that is real in my life. My love of music is not based on any belief system. It is not something that can be questioned. Like the clouds in the sky, it is real and beyond dispute. I express my uniqueness as a human being through music (as well as other channels). Finally, I don’t love music to inflate myself or to impress others. That love is part of my authentic being.

The whole purpose of the Truth Way is to find the authentic self. This is the revolution of the self. We cannot be free until we find out who we are. This is part of who I am. It is true. What is truly true for you?

When this self is found one’s life is truly transformed. Now we are connected to not only the immediate flow of life as it is, but we have found our own unique song. We become ourselves! The whole second-half life of the person whose value is ceaselessly dependent on the assessment of others or one’s own internal tyrant is left behind. This is what liberation is all about. You are alive and vital not only to your own life, but to your own innate self.

Now let’s look at belief. We find out what is false in our lives by exploring beliefs as they arise in our Fear-Based self. If I say that it’s very important to please people and to be well-liked and respected, I would say that a powerful, fear-based belief system is at work. Why must I please others? Is this need to please others true? Why do I need to be well liked? Why do I need to be respected? If you read my book, you will discover how this line of inquiry will take you back to your own Wound and you will discover who you are not.

This is how we investigate our beliefs. You should discover that every belief, no matter how central it is to our core personality, is linked directly to the need not to experience your Wound. Beliefs are like walls. To find the authentic self, every wall must, ultimately, come down.

Also, beliefs can be seen as immediately different from our first two examples. They are debatable. They must be defended. If attacked, conflict will ensue. The cause of nearly all conflict between people and even between countries, is a difference in belief. If you tell me that it’s not cloudy outside, we won’t have a conflict. Instead, I will assume that you either have a serious vision problem or are crazy. If you say that there is something wrong with me because of my love of music, I will have no idea what you’re talking about and excuse myself from the conversation.

Beliefs need to be defended, but the truth is just the truth. It is the truth that will set you free. This is also a great way to locate our beliefs in our immediate life. Anytime we are called to defend something, we need to ask ourselves, “is this true?” It is likely that a belief is at work.

Let’s look at one more example. Let’s say that I support a woman’s inalienable right to have an abortion and I encounter a conservative person who calls me a “murderer”. He believes that abortion is murder and by my agreeing to a woman’s right to have an abortion upon request, I am furthering murder and evil in this society. In this case, who is right, what is true in this disagreement?

The clear answer is no one. This is disagreement between two belief systems. We can summon evidence to support either position, but we must understand that in such issues there is no firm and undebatable truth, no matter how passionately we might feel about the topic.

But there is a deeper way of exploring the abortion issue and it is this. We can explore what are the likely outcomes of allowing women to have abortions and contrast that with the likely outcomes when women are prevented to have abortions. As long as we use facts (data) and not mere belief as the tool of our investigations, we are likely to find a deeper truth through our shared exploration.

This is why I do not call myself a non-dualist. It is not true for me. This does not mean that it shouldn’t be true for you. What I write about is my journey and my explorations. Each of us is unique. What is true for our own self will always reflect the authentic self and your authentic self will be different from my authentic self. Perhaps our ‘eternal Self’, transcends these discussions, but I’m really not interested in transcending this life. Life is not to be transcended, rather life for me, and possibly you, is the channel through which we discover who we are.

Download Post here: TruthWay

Tags: Fear Self, process, nonduality, wound

How many of us were raised with the admonition that we needed to make something of ourselves? Without ambition and effort, we are destined to be failures as human beings. Most importantly, as we were, we were without value. Unless we made something of ourselves, we were thought of as worthless. And not only did our parents think of us as worthless, but a part of our own selves bought into the ideology of self-worthlessness. This is the Wound, the belief in our fundamental inadequacy.

So we put our noses to the grindstone of making something of ourselves. But to get that right we needed direction. Our first bosses were our parents, then came teachers, and, of course, organized religion put on the crowning touch. If you didn’t follow their rules, well then you merely risked an eternity in the fires of hell. Talk about coercion.

We learned that to succeed required more than anything else obedience to authority. Too much misbehavior and people would say, “he isn’t making anything of himself”, “he will never succeed”, “he’s just a failure”, “he’ll wind up in jail one day”, “he’s spoiled”, “he doesn’t know how to take directions”, “he needs more discipline at home”, “he obviously was raised in a disorderly environment”, “he’s going nowhere”, “he’s just a bad kid”, etc. etc. etc.

Everything was about making something of ourselves, but not as yourself. No, you needed to be re-molded into the image of success as defined by society and not by ourselves. We were compelled to reject who we were if we were ever to make something of ourselves. Success demanded that we forget our authentic selves. Thus begins a lifetime of becoming without ever arriving.

And you know what happened? It worked. We forgot who we were. But there was one thing that stayed with us. And that thing was the Wound that made all of this subjugation possible. Death takes quite a toll on a living human being! But just as the Christians sometimes say, “you have to die before becoming reborn”, conventional society made the same demand.

But we didn’t fully die. The memory of the authentic self lives on, often in the pit of our stomachs. It’s that longing for return, that lingering sense that we took a path that wasn’t quite right.

It’s there. But how can we return to the lovable and loving child that got talked into his own sacrifice? The Dao De Jing presents the Way (Tao) and Verse 37 pulls us back again to that place where we never had to make something of ourselves, where we can be who we truly are. Let’s reach out into the feeling of this Verse and re-unite with our who we really are under the many layers of indoctrination and domestication. Let’s find the wistful wildness of the real world that still lives within us.

As translated by David Hinton:

Way is perennially doing nothing
so there’s nothing it doesn’t do.

Ahhhh. No on ever told the Dao to make something of itself. It never needed to be obedient. Its actions have never deserved punishment. It just is and that’s quite enough.

When lords and emperors abide by this
the ten thousand things follow change of themselves.

When the ego body, the body socialized to make something of itself, is seen to be a lie (i.e., “When the truth is found to be a lie” Jefferson Airplane), everything evolves just as it will. This is the returning to the Dao.

Desire drives change,
but I’ve stilled it with uncarved nameless simplicity.

The emotion of desire is what nurtures the fulfillment of our indoctrination and domestication (see The 3 Bodies). Once awake to our authentic selves, what we desire is the world itself.

Uncarved nameless simplicity
is the perfect absence of desire,
and the absence of desire means repose:
all beneath heaven at rest of itself.

To find ourselves we first have to see who we are not. This is the purpose of meditation and self-reflection. We need to take the journey to the root of our Fear-Based Selves. Of all the journeys we will ever take, this is the most difficult, for the destination is a place where everything we have believed about ourselves is discovered to be not true. This is what it takes to be a Spiritual Warrior. To live without psychological fear, means to unlearn what our false selves believe to be essential for their survival. Know that the only thing it fears is what threatens its existence. From the perspective of “nameless simplicity”, this is exactly the medicine that is required.

It is this journey which is described in my book Liberation from the Lie: Cutting the Roots of Fear Once and for All. It is the manual to finding out who you are not - because until we uncover the false self in all of its guises, we will always sustain that which is false in our own selves. Partial medicine only works partially. Completion of the journey requires the full dose. Liberation from the Lie is that medicine.

Verse 37 concludes Part One of the Dao De Jing. With Verse 38 we enter the world of De - Integrity. We must awaken to an even larger realization that our own spiritual pursuits must ultimately be put aside for something far more fundamental. That is the journey we will take in Part Two of the Dao De Jing.
Download:Verse37

Tags: identity, Fear, healing, religion

I have often thought of myself as disorganized. I easily lose things and often I lose important things. Does that mean that I am a disorganized person?

From the perspective of non-duality I am actually that which sees the incidents of disorganization and the self-irritation that inevitably develops as a by-product of this trait. Disorganization and the ensuing irritation are objects seen by the universal subject; our true identity.

Let’s pose the question, is this true? Let’s take a close look at what happens.

So I think this is who I am. I’m disorganized and when I’m disorganized I get annoyed.

Now let’s take an alternative view based on the direct experience of non-duality.


This illustration would better if I could show the “disorganization” experience within the seeing self, as well as the resulting self-irritation, but I could not do it with this software, but from the experience of non-duality this is the way it would, ideally, be shown. Disorganization and irritation occur within the underlying true self.

From the perspective of non-duality the seeing self is that which never changes and the perceived world consists of passing images seen by the true self. Further, it is said that this true self is never born and cannot die. There are schools with Buddhism that call this the Unborn Self - the Buddha Mind.

Is this an accurate representation of experience?

Without an experiencer our first illustration could never be perceived. If there is no one to see, then who could ever say that they are disorganized and that the body/mind experiences irritation? Thus our first representation does not reflect reality as we experience it. It’s just a set of “things” existing in a vacuum.

So what then is the difference between the so-called awakened entity and the unawakened person?

Before moving on to that question, let’s make sure that this “seeing” subject is really the same subject described in the writings of non-duality. We will discover that it isn’t the same thing and herein lies the great difference.

This seeing subject notes the incidents of disorganization and the ensuing irritation. “It” might find them interesting or dull and it may wish that this body/mind were different from what it apparently is. But there is another quality we can note about this seemingly subjective being and that is this: it’s not a subject at all! It is really another object. And believing that this is the mysterious non-dual subject of experience is the error that many seekers make. The disorganization, the irritation, and the observer are each objects. Now we seem to be getting somewhere.

In deep sleep there are no observed objects. There is only nothing. It is this nothingness that provides us with a place to hang our non-dual hats. The “nothingness” that characterizes deep sleep is exactly the same nothingness that is present and must be present in wakefulness. It cannot be seen, touched, heard, or grasped. It is, literally, nothing ... or is it?

It cannot be knowing, because any knowing, without exception, is, itself, an object, something that can be seen and because it can be seen, it must be an object to something. Moreover, knowing is changeable and therefore cannot be confused with the changeless.

The presumption in non-duality is that this nothingness must exist for anything to be seen. Is this true?

Confusion is likely to arise between the assertion of the unseen nothingness with that which we have identified as the observer or witness. Where this observing consciousness ends and the underlying nothingness begins is (for lack of a better word) subtle indeed. But anything that can be perceived cannot be the underlying eternal subject - consciousness itself. Thus any response, any knowing is an object of this consciousness. In fact, from the perspective of non-duality, every perceived thought, feeling, emotion, and material object is a kind of condensation of the underlying nothingness. It is the nothingness in fleetingly material form. Nothingness condenses to form thoughts, sensations, emotions, and material objects but, in fact, no such object can exist because it has no enduring aspect. Rather, the nothingness that fills everything with its being is always in flux. It is the ever-changing Tao. Thoughts, feelings, material objects are all like sparks of consciousness.

Thus nothing in the universe can be claimed as “mine” or “me”. The disorganized person, the irritation, and the observing seeming “self” (or witness) are each just expressions of nothingness with no enduring reality of any kind.

We can also discover that when we reject some classes of perceived experience in preference to others, that suffering must ensue. This can only happen when we attach ourselves only to a particular class of experience, which we label as mine - myself. When it is seen that there is no material or psychological self of any enduring or valid kind, then we are free to love everything exactly as it is, even if it’s a tick sucking blood or a cancerous tumor destroying the life of this body. Both are just the flow of consciousness exactly as it must be.

But there is more to this than just doctrinaire non-duality. There is a ‘gradient’ of perception that differs between bodies. What is closest to me, thoughts, feelings, and material objects will be central to the ongoing nature of my direct experience. Thus my body/nothingness is unique to this perceived now. It is different from how it manifests from every other perspective. This becomes the play of consciousness as it creates and destroys this passage as life. This nothingness appears to be the universe itself. Nothingness is always the same, but the play of objects that appear on “my” screen are different from those on your screen.

This is where my understand of non-duality differs from mainstream non-duality. From the perspective expressed in this post, there is more to THIS than just nothingness. Mainstream non-duality asserts that because the nothingness endures it is dominant. I don’t agree. I would assert that this position is hierarchical and false. The Buddha describes the play of consciousness as that which is mutually arising - a kind of dynamic polarity that embraces both the perceived and the underlying “mysteriousness”. I would assert that this description is much closer to the truth of actual experience. It is a dance of that which is perceived along with the ground of being (nothingness) that provides the space for everything to be exactly as it is. This play - this universe exists within everything that is sentient. There are a zillions of concurrent universes.

Let’s go back to our ordinary life again and test some elements of this description. I enter my bedroom. It’s the same old bedroom I stepped in earlier today and yesterday and every other time. I know the bed is here and the window is there. But is set of statements real?

If we examine this event one thing becomes obvious. That that voice that says that it “knows” the bedroom from frequent repeated experiences is really just the domain of thought responding to something that is, in fact, entirely new. And this is exactly what happens in the unawakened mind. We live through our thoughts and leave no space for what is not covered by the often deadening blanket of thought. Thought is a barrier between the real and itself. Because thought thinks it knows what it has seemingly experienced a million times, this veil of knowing blocks the vitality of that which is new and mutually arising. Both the ground of being and fleeting reality of the experience are cancelled by thought itself. The nothingness that allows for the potent immediacy of dynamic existence is forced down by the aggressiveness of thought.

We don’t often think of thought as aggressive. But it is. It is very aggressive. Thought has already decided what and how this experience is and our vulnerability to the newness and aliveness of this now fails to materialize for us. Because our culture and socialization so greatly values thought, (we live in an extremely aggressive world) we have evolved to give ourselves over to its domain all but entirely. Thought becomes the unquestioned dictator of our world and we sacrifice everything (EVERYTHING) to it. Thought is God and God is thought.

Once this is seen - that we are living exclusively through our thoughts and that we live to serve our thoughts, then something new is provided the opportunity to emerge. This is all that is needed. The universe of thought is real only to itself. It is always a secondary existence to the immediacy of this now. Try it out for yourself. Is this theory and just noise or does this describe the immediate aliveness of this life?

Tags: identity, thought, reality

Verse 33 of the Dao De Jing takes us back to the world of profound aphorisms.

What does it mean to know one’s self? The self is that which is stable and content in all situations. Even in the fiercest storms it is not swept away. It is what is there when everyone thing else is removed.

Nearly all of us identify with that which is changeable. We also identify with our memories and projections. This, we say, is who we are. But even deeper than this, we come to believe in a single all-powerful thought. For many of us, this thought assumes the form of our first and most profound psychological experience; our primal wounding. This is the inadequacy thought - the over-arching sense that there is something not right about who we are. It is this thought that drives self-improvement, but there is so much more to it than this. As we progress through the 81 verses of the Dao we will continue to highlight how this magnificent works brings every element of this false identity to light.

As translated by Addiss and Lombardo Verse 33:

Knowing others is intelligent.
Knowing yourself is enlightened.

We cannot truly know others until we know ourselves. As long as we identity with attributes of personality, we will neither know ourselves or know others. If anything, we are all potential attributes and we are that which can see all attributes. Enlightenment actualizes this realization. Thus awakened the emotion of personal hate fails to be real for us. How can we hate another, when we come to realize that by doing so we hate only ourselves?

We are all potential, including the potential for the most grievous cruelty. But the potential for harm is greatest when we sustain the belief in our own inner powerlessness. When that belief is held to be true, our outer being will seek opportunities to show ourselves and others power through the use of force. That is how hate and violence and manifest in our world. Once our identity with the core King thought of powerlessness is fully seen through as a lie, then we are free of any need to show others and ourselves as powerful. We become the silent, immobile power that supports the whole of the universe. This is the peace of enlightenment.

Once this “King” thought is seen for what it is - a lie - no different from believing in the Tooth Fairy, we are free of its living legacy in our being. This is enlightenment. It may never disappear entirely, but its “act” has been uncovered and its power to control our lives (and the lives of others) is all but extinguished.

Thus to know one’s self is enlightenment and once the self is known, we are able to know others. The freedom made possible through this realization is without measure. The ensuing personality continues with its own preferences, but its sense of identity is no longer a strictly external one. Yes it is who I am in this body/mind, but this is only my visible self. Underlying the clearly visible being is that which sees. This is the ground of not only our own changing being, but the of the seen universe itself.

Continuing on with Verse 33:

Conquering others takes force.
Conquering yourself is true strength.

We “conquer” ourselves the moment we cease being a slave to our psychological identities.

Knowing what is enough is wealth.
Forging ahead shows inner resolve.

Hold your ground and you will last long.
Die without perishing and your life will endure.

The death this Verse refers to, is the death of the person who believes their own thoughts. That person we have believed ourselves to be is seen to be just a belief. It refers only to itself. When this belief is seen to possess no elements of truth of any kind, it is the death of the false self. We become the open aliveness of this moment. We are that which makes this moment fleetingly real. We become the hub around which the wheel of the universe turns.

Tags: self, identity, death

Verse 32 returns us back to the mysterious world of the essential Dao. Let’s stop for just a moment and consider this very now.

Release any drive to understand this now ... just let it be exactly as it is.

What you should discover is that there is no place to stand, there is nothing to say, and there is no name we can affix to this moment. And if it is true for this moment, then isn’t it true for every moment?

When we see the full-emptiness of every moment, we also see that it is the operation of the mind to create a story - actually many stories about me and my life within the full-emptiness of this moment. The mind works with feeling and language and through both creates the universe that you have come to believe in. Yet when we just stop and explore this moment, we see that that narrative is really just an object that occurs to consciousness. Verse 32 of the Dao De Jing takes us back to that mysterious, glowing world.

Once we see the authentic nature of existence, it is not difficult to experience the oneness that characterizes very moment of our lives. Even the idea of “our existence” is an object that is culled from the ever-present flow of the Dao itself. When you see how your mind does just this, you will have taken a giant step toward your own awakening to the magic of this very moment.

Addiss and Lombardo translate Verse 32 as:

Tao endures without a name (just like our shared experience of this moment).
Though simple and slight,
No one under heaven can master it.

When we release our narrative we can see, directly, that the movement of the universe is utterly without our control. It just moves, like a single vast, and all but infinite river of light and energy. The very person we take ourselves to be is another object that moves and changes through the ever-flowing current of the Dao.

If kings and lords could possess it,
All beings would become their guests.

But, of course, kings and lords cannot possess it.

Heaven and earth together
Would drip sweet dew
Equally on all people
Without regulation.

This stanza does not mean if a given king or lord could possess the Dao that that possession would create a perfect world. What is meant in this stanza is this: were a king or lord be able to align herself (himself) utterly with the Dao, then a perfect world would ensue. It would be a great awakening to the organic truth of this moment uncontaminated by selffullness. This describes a world in perfect alignment and harmony and balance.

Then the Verse takes us back into the human world.

Begin to make order, and names arise.

When we move away from the Dao, there arises drive to create structure. We begin the process in which our resistance to the Dao begins.

Names lead to more names -
And to knowing when to stop.

This is the key - to know when to stop. We know when to stop when we see that our names - our narrative has fully departed from the actual movement and validity of the now - the Dao itself. This is the realm of belief, where we reject what is real in preference to the dictates to human constructed belief. Anytime we turn against ourselves, that is to say when we have contempt for ourselves, this is the most devious turning of all. We are of the Dao and the belief in our woeful separation is the essence of “the Lie” as it is described in my work, Liberation from the Lie. When we seek to improve the world and when we seek to improve ourselves, we migrate away from the Dao. The key is only to see that! As Stephen Mitchell translates the first stanza of Verse 29:

Do you want to improve the world?
I don’t think it can be done

---------------------------------------------------------

Know when to stop:
Avoid danger.

Tao’s presence in the world
Is like valley streams
Flowing into rivers and seas.

This means that when you feel defeated by life and terrible about yourself, that this narrative and the evidence that your false self has marshaled to support it, are false. That projected self and life are truly a lie. They are the continuing story of the deficient - lacking self. Even if this is the most accepted story you have about your life, even if it seems to be everything you know, it is false. It is, in the language of Verse 32, a universe of names and to the extent that this story has hardened, to that same extent, you have departed from the Dao.

Thus this presence is always available to us. There is just no stopping its invitation. We abort the seeking self when we effortlessly join with the Dao, the mysterious full-emptiness of this moment. It is an intensely quiet and pleasurable joining. The energy of “I am” is this moment. Let this be your permanent anchor. It is the ever-present portal.

Tags: identity, Balance, harmony, Flow

There are 3 levels of being.
There is thought. But thought refers only to thought. The thought “tree” can never be a tree. It can only be a thought about something.
That is one level.
Then there is the world of the senses, of which thought might be one. Sight refers only to itself, as do the other senses. What we see is only that, that which is seen. Our seeing of a tree is not the tree itself, it is only the seeing of the tree.
So, perhaps there are only 2 levels of being and each refers only to itself.
Then there is the energy of attention, that can focus on thought or the senses.
Without attention, no thought or sense experience is noticed. Every thought and sense experience possesses the quality of attention. Some more than others. They vary in their power and vigor.
But still the world appears to elude us.

So we “think” that there is a world. We are sure of that. Yet it cannot be grasped by thought or the senses. So how can we be certain that there is a world “out there”? Is it exclusively a matter of faith?

Thought and the senses are a conduit between the human and its universe. Thus we are our own distinct center. We have never happened before and will never happen again. We are like snowflakes, each unique and amazing in our own right.

We fight about this and that, forgetting that it’s all personal. You are the conduit to yourself and I am the conduit to myself. The trees speak to me through this conduit and I speak to them. Everything can only happen here. Memory serves as the vast blanket of time that unites these many, many nows into just this one moment. Memory and heart are one.

Love means to honor the true in each of us. We can truly connect when we love our differences and are free from the separation of belief. When we reject the true, we reject ourselves. If we disagree, we can inquire about what is happening in the world and between us. Life will always challenge us. We can be sure of that.

This world is available to each of us, but there is a price to pay. The cost is to place all of your beliefs aside. Beliefs are the way we avoid the immediate truth of your life. They are methods, and processes we use to filter life, to manage life, to make it comprehendible, to reduce its mystery, to create a self-pleasing identity, to make things clear that are inherently vague. This is the price of admission. We must release all beliefs that refer to a self-identity. We must realize that thought refers only to itself.

A belief also refers only to itself. If I believe that Christ is God, then that belief is no different from any other thought. It is true only to itself and nothing else. As the thought “tree” is not a tree, the belief is not what it seeks to refer to. It is just laziness. Unexamined human mental activity.

If I believe that people should be more loving, or my wife should understand me better, or that traffic should be moving faster, then I am inviting pain and separation from the truth into my life. This is the cost of belief. If I believe that my kid should be doing better in school, then I can work with her on that problem. I can clearly see that resistance to life and suffering are one and the same.

Are you willing to enter into your authentic being? Are you willing to pay the price of admission to your own awakening? You can always hide behind the mask of belief. You can always prefer opinions to fact. But there is a very heavy cost for that as well. Have you ever calculated that cost?

Tags: identity, thought, Belief

A number of years ago, I taught criminal justice on the university level. Anytime you talk about crime, particularly person-to-person violent crime, you can’t avoid the issue of race; with respect to prejudice and the incidence of violence.

I would ask my students, how do we explain the observation that our prisons are mostly black and brown? They would answer with a firm and certain claim of racial bias in the law.

The FBI data show that black people commit violent crimes at a rate of about 7 to 1 compared to whites. It’s a little lower for sex crimes, but it’s higher for robbery. That’s a HUGE difference. Can it be explained as a simple outcome of prejudice in the law?

The answer is a resounding NO. While there is some bias in the nature of law enforcement, it is not nearly high enough to explain these enormous differences. By and large, it is an observed fact that black people do commit violent crime at rates of about 7 to 1 over whites. Hundreds, if not thousands of studies, have sought to show prejudice in the way law is administered in the US, but the differences they show fail to explain the enormity of this difference.

So the question remains, are blacks more violent than whites? The crime data collected in the United States seems to answer that question beyond any shadow of a doubt. Black people are more violent. But is this true?

I often planned the lecture to end at this point, thus forcing the students to either mull over the question or to come to the obvious conclusion that I am a flaming racist.

Many years ago (1920s), two sociologists took a look at crime data culled from various sections of Chicago. They discovered that crime appeared to be linked with issues of distance, that areas that were isolated from active business areas and, particularly, Chicago’s Loop, had higher rates of crime. These areas tended to highly ethnic and homogeneous.

This research laid the groundwork for a much more interesting line of research that is relatively recent. Using the same data that I was presenting to my class, a sociological criminologist asked himself the same question, are black people more violent than white people. It was obvious that the actual crime data strongly supported that conclusion, but he wondered if it was really true.

If black people are more violent, then rates of violence in predominately black areas should be similar. If black people are more violent and if violence were explained by race, then blacks should be more violent everywhere they live. He discovered that they were not. Hmmmmm. Something else seemed to be going on here.

So then he looked at where violent crime was actually happening. No surprise there. It was happening in areas that were mostly or all black and that were poor.

But then he dug a little deeper. He asked himself, where do poor white people live? He made an amazing discovery. He discovered that most poor whites about (about 75%) live in areas that are mostly middle class. He looked at individual blocks using census tracts. On a given block there might be 12 middle class houses and about 3 poor households. Well, that’s intriguing.

Then he looked at where poor black people live. Did it follow the same pattern? The answer was no, it did not. About 80% of poor black people live in areas that are predominately poor and predominately black. So the pattern of residence and poverty differed markedly between whites and blacks.

Then he dug even deeper. He looked at rates of violent crime in these black areas that were most poor and black. No surprise there, they were very high. Then he took his research a step further. He collected census tracts that were predominately middle-class, but had some black population, and were ethnically mixed and then looked at the rates of violent crime in those neighborhoods. What do you think he found? He found that the rates of crime were not significantly different from those white census tracts that were used in the original comparison.

Then he took his research one step further. He collected census tracts consisting mostly of poor whites. These are not so easy to find, but they exist, because most poor whites, as we have seen, live in areas that are mostly middle class. He then looked at the rates of violent crime. What do you think he discovered? He found rates of crime that were very similar to those found in mostly poor black areas.

He showed that violence and race are not linked. Poverty and ethnic homogeneity explained violence. Race did not.

Those students who were thinking that I might be a closet racist now saw me as a kind of saint. It was this research that freed from relying on much less compelling construct of belief. We no longer needed to dig deeper in the nuances of racist law enforcement (which is still an important problem) to explain huge disparities in crime rates. We could see that this was an issue that was so much larger. It was the whole of American society that was racist, that allowed for such poverty, isolation, and rage to exist in the first place. The story goes so much further and it is one of the reasons I wrote my book Liberation from the Lie, because this topic is all about power; how the few amass it and most of us are forced to live in fear.

But the real reason I’m writing this post is to show how much more powerful and liberating the truth is over mere belief. I could have spoken from the position of a white supremacist using my beliefs and I could have used the FBI data to show these students that, indeed, blacks are more violent. The facts obviously show it. It would have been an ugly battle between my beliefs and those of my black students. Who knows. I might have created some new white supremacists as a consequence of this lecture. Religion creates just this kind of separative poison with its beliefs.

Without this research, I could challenge people with this question, and they might talk about prejudice and racism, but they could not prove it. They might use anecdotal evidence, they might flail about, they might get angry, they might even get violent, but, in the end, they would have to rely on a flimsy foundation of belief and it would be a battle between conflicting beliefs.

Facts are so much more powerful than belief. This is the truth and the truth can and will set you free.

Tags: race, Crime, prejudice, violence

We’ve heard it a thousand times, enlightenment is not of or by the mind. This is true. Awakening to the light, sees the mind in ALL its many forms.

Meaning, purpose, having an agenda, desire, knowledge, body, and the universe of objects and sense experiences are of the mind. This too is seen.

Living as the awakened space, we are the well of existence. Perhaps it is more precise to say that the well is us - for everything we sense as ourselves arises from within this well of light. It is nothing more and nothing less. All that is - is seen from within this well.

Nothing matters to the awakened light. And, nothing doesn’t matter to the awakened life. It is all embraced and seen as fleeting.

There is space within the light. Certain objects are closer to its source. Thus I can experience thoughts that arise from this light, but cannot experience or see thoughts that arise from other sources. Even they are all one. Ultimately, we can only experience our own Tao (or this Tao - which is both personal and impersonal simultaneously). It concentrates here, but is connected to everything else through space and time. If we could reduce it only to this moment (a time that does not exist) it might appear either unlimited or totally limited depending on the point of view. But since no such limit exists, nothing else can be said about its existence or the reality or falseness of the perceived universe. It is as it is, but only now and even then is passed.

This language is hobbled by its reliance on nouns and verbs as separate fields of knowing. This is neither a noun or a verb. It is both simultaneously.

Everything is connected, directly, to itself within the well. The well is defined by the objects and sense experiences that are seen from within it. All that is seen is fleeting. Only that which sees endures. How long it endures I don’t know.

When everything is seen as connected within the well of light, everything is seen to be of this light. Change to one part will create waves of change through the whole field.

Thus we are, ourselves, the Tao.

Does this mean we suddenly do nothing and fixate exclusively on the light? No.

The Tao operates from itself and thus renews and re-invents the universe in each moment. Aliveness to this every-changing moment is life.

Untied from the belief-laden knot of personal identity, we are truly free.

Tags: Freedom, Light

At a time when America is engaged in endless war against an elusive enemy, there are few verses in the Dao De Jing more important for our time than Verse 30 - what I have called “The Ravages of War.”

Were we to refine our understanding the of the Dao De Jing into just single terms, some of the key words would be trust, tranquility, flowing, and allowing. Thus when the text deals with the issue of force its message is strong and direct. When we employ force to affect an outcome, ruin and failure are the very likely results. Yet the Dao De Jing, does not avoid the problem, because life possesses every potential and serious conflict is one such potential. This document was written primarily to instruct leaders in times of great turbulence and the author clearly acknowledges that problems inevitably arise in life where force becomes one of several options that can be used.

In this Verse we are guided to “prevail” without the use of force or only its most minimal manifestation. Thus the purpose of Verse 30 is to describe just this pathway. Using the translation of David Hinton Verse 30 begins:

If you use the Way to help a ruler of people
you never use weapons to coerce all beneath heaven.
Such things always turn against you.

The weapons, the methods, the emotions we use to force situations and to pressure people to do what we would like will turn against us. It is a powerful irony that what we do to be safe, to “do the right thing”, is exactly what must happen to allow for precisely what we don’t want in life. The text continues:

fields where soldiers camp
turn to thorn and bramble,
and vast armies on the march
leave years of misery behind.

The noble prevail if they must, then stop:
they never press on to coerce the world.

Conflict is part of life. It cannot be avoided. Force will rise up and challenge us and the question that we must respond to, often having little or no time to reflect, is, what are we to to address such forces? The Dao says that we are urged to “prevail” but not to press on. Conflict is but a single happening on the field of existence. It arises, possesses life, and finally disappears into the mystery of time and space. It follows the same pattern as any other happening in our world.

Verse 30 continues:

Prevail, but never presume.
Prevail, but never boast.
Prevail, but never exult.
Prevail, but never when there’s another way.
This is to prevail without coercing.

We are urged to use force as the very last resort and when it is used, its use must be as parsimonious as circumstances allow. Afterwards, the conflict is left behind us. It is not followed by banal celebrations and ugly national/group/self-adulation (patriotism). How different is the advice of the Dao De Jing when compared to the actions of nations today and in human history, where war and victory are glorified and made sacred.

Things grown strong soon grow old.
This is called losing the Way:
Lose the Way and you die young.

Another of the key terms of the Dao is endurance. Heaven and Earth endure because they are self-less. This is not the case with countries, leaders, organizations, and individuals that feel compelled to become strong and feared. That is the way of the deficient self, for only a self convinced of its own innate deficiency would crave such strength and power. This is why those that need to be strong and powerful are ugly and frightening. They have lost the way and that losing of the way is rooted far back in the ancestral memory of the people, to a time when they came to believe in their own inadequacy. Ultimately, this is all about the ego’s compensation for its belief in its own worthlessness. Once this inner crucifixion is seen and understood for what it is, a lie, only then are we truly free of the dark hand of the angry ego in our lives.

When the compulsion to employ force arises in our lives, see it as the expression of our belief in our innate powerlessness. Force - rage - violence all equal weakness tied to an unseen belief. Bring this insidious, false belief to the light of clear understanding in the very moment of crisis and a whole new way life blossoms in the heat of the very moment. Namastè

Tags: Force, Anger, rage, violence, identity

How much energy do we invest in seeking to control our world? How tirelessly we work to create, somehow, the world we project as right, as well as good for what we assert are our own interests. From the point of view of the Dao, this is a vast and painful waste of energy.

Verse 29 is the beginning of a group of verses that address the challenge of force. This first verse in this series deals with how the individual struggles to control his own life.

Verse 29 begins (in the Addiss/Lombardo translation):

Trying to control the world?
I see you won’t succeed.

We could almost stop here and take a very deep breath and just let is all go. The war for control is over and the inevitable winner is the Dao. The key to winning the battle (which really doesn’t even exist - for there is no battle) is simply to join the Dao, become the Dao. Be this very moment. We will see that this is the only authentic spiritual path, as it says,

The world is a spiritual vessel
And cannot be controlled.

Those who control, fail.
Those who grasp, lose.

Even is we stumble about in life and “grasp” for this and that, then too we lose. Letting go of control also means to stop the endless grasping for this experience and that feeling. This is the ultimate surrender to what is. It’s a lesson that I also need to learn time and again.

Verse 29 then plunges forward describing those who seek to control and those who grasp at life, to attain happiness and power.

Some go forth, some are led,

Do you crave to be a leader or are you more of a follower? In either case, you are seeking something. Give it up.

Some weep, some blow flutes,

Is your identity one whose signature is your emotions; sad or celebratory?

Some become strong, some superfluous,
Some oppress, some are destroyed.

Therefore, the Sage
Casts off extremes,
Casts of excess,
Casts of extravagance.

Disentangle yourself from all of the self-constructed identities, spiritual, powerful, social, or otherwise and welcome the Dao into your life. This is the dance - the really big dance and the really small dance and everywhere in between. The rhythm is always there waiting for you. You can resist and hold onto what you can or you can join the dance with a big and loud YES!

Tags: Control, grasping, Attachment

Reading the many verses of the Dao De Jing, it becomes increasingly clear that the deepest message of this remarkable document is one of abiding trust. All things are forged and nurtured by the Dao. The sage sees and experiences all things as right within the greater context of their appearance (see the last stanza commentary). The Dao is both creator and destroyer and to resist it marks the absence of trust. But even that is of the Dao, for we likely need to live a life of distrust if we are ever to discover the deeper trust that is expressed as accord with all that is - and how it is.

The instruction of deep trust is expressed in Verse 28 in several ways. Using the translation of David Hinton, it is to nurture the feminine, it is to return to infancy, the time of not knowing, it is to cultivate the black (to be a ground for the light), and it is to be the uncarved wood, available to be anything. This is the language of creation, of boundless flexibility, of seeing everything just as it presents itself, and it is to flow with change, like the shadow of change itself.

Verse 28 is organized in a series of pairs. Each pair espouses a positionality with respect to experience and being. The first stanza presents the qualities of gender, flow, and not-knowing.

Knowing the masculine
and nurturing the feminine
you become the river of all beneath heaven.
River of all beneath heaven
you abide by perennial integrity (Te/De)
and so return to infancy.

Thus regarding the inner quality of gender, we are asked to “know” the masculine - the ying of existence - objects, states, thoughts, feelings, but be the yin of being - that which is feminine - that creates, nurtures, accepts, provides a space for all to be as it is. In this way we become the river of all beneath heaven. The infant does not reject for reason. He IS. His experience reflects the immediate qualities of his experience. This is what it means to live by the Dao. It is a life of unceasing balance, even in times of turbulence and chaos.

Knowing the white
and nurturing the black
you become the pattern of all beneath heaven.
Pattern of all beneath heaven
you abide by perennial Integrity (Te/De)
and so return to the boundless.

The Dao is the dark vision, for it is only the contrast between dark and light that things can be seen and experienced. Unless we live as the dark vision, our ability to clearly see will be clouded by identification with belief and conditions that we have taken to be ourselves. This is living a life that is conditional and false. As the dark vision we can reflect the perfect patterns of all beneath heaven. As the dark vision, we are the boundlessness of the Dao itself.

Knowing splendor
and nurturing ruin
you become the valley of all beneath heaven.
Valley of all beneath heaven
you rest content in perennial Integrity
and so return to the simplicity of uncarved wood.

Knowing splendor is see life just as it is. Nurturing ruin is allowing each moment to die to allow for the birth of the next moment. Ruin, decay, extinction, are all part of the cycle of change as the universe ceaselessly re-invents itself. As the cradle for this ever-changing world, we are the valley of “all beneath heaven”. We have no affectation, no preference, we possess no “higher” reasoning, we are like uncarved wood.

When uncarved wood is split apart
it becomes mere implements.
But when a sage is employed
he becomes a true minister,
for the great governing blade carves nothing.

When we carve up the field of experience, the purpose of the carving is to produce “use” or value. We take from the field for a purposes that come and go and thus such actions are likened to “mere implements”. If we are to identify ourselves as beings organized around use and purpose, then we have cut ourselves off from the boundless field of the Dao. This is why it is said that the sage carves nothing. He is not hypnotized by the language of use or practicality. He may use a bowl or anything else, but he doesn’t derive any identity from the process of purpose or meaning.

He is open to just This!

Tags: trust, Being

Verse 27 of the Dao De Jing focuses on actions that leave no trace - unseen - unnoticed - seamless. That is the theme of its first stanza. But the second stanza takes us in a very different direction. These stanzas appear so unrelated that I am simply unable to discover a common element that unites this Verse. As has been noted elsewhere in this series, the original Dao De Jing had no chapter divisions. It is possible that this division is arbitrary.

The theme of leaving no trace is linked to the philosophy of wu wei - no action, yet nothing is left undone. This is the Way itself. Looking out onto the world itself, the natural world, unaffected by the actions of human beings, there is no doer, yet nothing is left undone. For much of the Dao, this perfect, but ever-changing natural world is the model on which the Dao De Jing is constructed.

The first stanza again describes one’s passage through life as a traveller. Addis and Lombardo translates Verse 27 as:

Good travellers leave no tracks.
Good words leave no trace.
Good counting needs no markers.

Good doors have no bolts
Yet cannot be forced.
Good knots have no rope
But cannot be untied.

Thus the door to the Way (Tao/Dao) is never locked. Nothing is truly tied but everything is changed when it is cut into its parts (untying the knot), for the sum of an object will always transcend its division into its parts. Everything, as it is, is the perfection of this moment. Nothing needs to be forced, nothing calls for itself to be untied. No enduring distinction is made.

Verse 27 continues:

In this way the Sage
Always helps people
And rejects none,
Always helps all beings,
And rejects none.
This is called practicing brightness.

The first part of the first stanza established the underlying philosophy and the second part of the first stanza describes the action that naturally follows.

The second stanza seems to contradict the first, for in this stanza a distinction is made, between the “good” person and the “bad” person. But, if we look just a little harder, we can see that there is a fundamental equality presented here as well. Let’s take a look at this stanza.

Therefore the good person
Is the bad person’s teacher,
And the bad person
Is the good person’s resource.

Not to value the teacher,
Not to love the resource,
Causes great confusion even for the intelligent.

The “good person”, through her understanding of the Dao is well positioned to be the teacher of the person who is open to hearing about the Dao. Thus, without the “bad person”, we could not have the self-reflected existence of the “good person”. They are complimentary entities that form a single harmonious energy. Teacher and resource become one in the living transaction of the moment. The teacher learns from the “bad person”, who is thus the resource for the good, and the “good person” becomes the essential resource for the “bad person”. Seeing how these seemingly opposing qualities create each other requires clear intelligence. This is the challenge of this Verse.

And the stanza concludes:

This is called the vital secret.

Once we truly see how the good learns from the bad and the bad learns from the good and this is truly a single illuminating cycling energy, we are liberated from attaching ourselves to any side of the false polarity. We are free to “help all people and reject none.”

Tags: wu-wei, union of opposites

If all that remained of the Dao De Jing were Verse 26, it would still be an extraordinary document. The theme of this Verse is being true to our authentic self.

But what is the authentic self?

It is that which is integral to our being. It is that which is our essential self devoid of cultural and social influences. It is who we are prior to our primal invalidation (see Liberation from the Lie: Cutting the Roots of Fear Once and for All).
It is the perfect stillness that exists beneath and around the noise of desire, fear, and hope. It is the perfect clarity of presence that is prior to any reflection of its integral existence.

Verse 26 consists of two discrete, but connected sections. In the first, the authentic self is defined. We are presented with a model that we can explore in our own direct experience. The second section develops this essential self in reference to the challenge of living one’s life, as well as being a leader. And it is in this section that we see the profound depth of the Dao.

The author of this Verse expresses it this way through the translation of Jonathan Star (my punctuation added):

The inner is foundation to the outer
The still is master of the restless

The Sage travels all day,
yet never leaves his inner treasure.
Though the views are captivating and beg attention,
he remains calm and uninvolved.
Tell me, does the lord of a great empire
go out begging for rice?

Wolfgang Kopp, in his brilliant book (out of circulation unfortunately), Zen Beyond All Words, instructs us to be in the world but not of it - to hold fast to the inner being of presence and untarnished wisdom. He says,

The transitory nature of all existence can suddenly and unexpectedly shatter all your speculations. That’s why I advise you: It’s best not to cultivate any intentions. Anything you’ve ever begun is an activity with some objective, yet in the face of death it has no value whatsoever.
But don’t mistake my words to mean that you should refrain from undertaking any further activities, that it’s better to withdraw and live a solitary life far away from the hustle and bustle of the world. Many people seriously believe that such behavior is the guarantee for a spiritual life, but they are gravely mistaken. The important thing is that you learn to do the things that must be done, without letting things have control over you. You must learn how to handle things possess things, without letting things possess you; you must act, but be inwardly free of your action. This is true living by Zen.

The “inner” is that which is still and tranquil no matter how busy and tempestuous the outside world presents itself. It can be likened to an ocean where the universe of highs and lows, desires and fears, hot and cold, health and sickness, ease and hardship are the waves that break at the surface, but the depths are unaffected by anything, no matter how powerful the surface may appear to the conditioned mind.

The travels of the sage are a metaphor of the active world of the mind. This is the way life must be. Were to reject or struggle to repress the actions of the mind, we would be opposing the very nature of the Dao. The Dao accords with nature and the mind is another manifestation/happening of the natural world in this life. Thus no matter how captivating the delights, no matter how tempting its invitation, the Sage remains “calm and uninvolved”.

But this inner self is more than just calm tranquility. It is the “lord of a great empire” and that empire is life itself.

Thus the question remains, can Verse 26 shed light on how to be in this world of action and temptation? For this stanza, I will be using the translation of Addiss and Lombardo.

When a lord of ten thousand chariots
Behaves lightly in this world,
Lightness loses its root,
Passion loses its master.

These final four lines are striking. They don’t assume that our actions are simply the guarded and projected reflections of the still inner self. This Verse suggests that were we to replicate the inner being onto our outer life, we risk acting with insufficient vigor. David Hinton translates this couplet as:

How can a lord having ten thousand chariots
act lightly in governing all beneath heaven?
Act lightly and you lose your source-root.

Life may call on us to be bold, strong, and vigorous ... but within measure and it is this measure that is spoken of in the final line. Such strength can lead to passion, which “loses its master”. Or, as Hinton puts it:

Act recklessly and you lose your rule.

Like Verse 24, the Dao points to moderation - akin to the Buddha’s Middle Way.

Verse 26 is a powerful manual for life itself. First we realize the inner treasure that is tranquil, ever-present, and unchanging. We witness the tempest of life without leaving our authentic domain, but we remain free to express our vigorous energy in this life without it possessing us. A good reading that expresses this vigor is Walt Whitman’s I Sing the Body Electric. Whitman was someone deeply connected to his root, but wasn’t afraid to express his self in this life with earthy vigor and muscular strength. We are not called on to emulate Lao Tzu or Walt Whitman, but to find our own strength in this world - this life. “The inner is foundation to the outer.” Once truly centered in the inner, how we are in the outer arises naturally in this very moment.

Tags: Leadership, still point

Verse 25 throws us back to the dark world of the Dao itself. Three core themes are presented in this Verse and they are no longer unique to the Dao De Jing. They have been spoken of earlier in this text, but what makes Verse 25 unique is how these themes are combined to produce a singular vision. This post uses the Addiss/Lombardo translation.

The first stanza establishes the Dao as something whose form we can never know, yet it pervades everything we can see, touch, hear, feel, taste, and sense. This stanza also talks about the great ancientness of the Dao. It is older than even heaven and earth.

Something unformed and complete
Before heaven and earth
Solitary and silent,
Stands along and unchanging,
Pervading all things without limit.
It is like the mother of all under heaven,
But I don’t know its name -
Better call it Tao
Better call it great.

The Dao is alone, solitary, yet it is in all that is. And while it, itself, is unchanging, it is that which changes in all things.

The next stanza defines what it means to be great.

Great means passing on.
Passing on means going far.
Going far means returning.

Notice that the movement of the Dao is that of a circle. It throws itself everywhere, to the limits of the universe and, simultaneously, returns to its origin. This describes an arc so great that no human could possibly conceive of the vastness of its greatness. It is, truly, all.

But its greatness is not limited to just itself - its formless self. Its greatness pervades everything that possesses form, as it is expressed in the next stanza.

Therefore,
Tao is great,
And heaven,
And earth,
And humans.

Four great things in the world.
Aren’t human one of them?

The final stanza moves beyond just description. Here we see the living pathway that arises with the realization of the Dao. It says,

Humans follow earth
Earth follows heaven
Heaven follows Tao.

This is the reverse hierarchy of energy from the small (humans) to the infinitely vast. We, as humans, are counseled to follow the earth, for it is the earth that all depends. She becomes our teacher and companion. Her vision is our vision. We can trust that Earth will follow Heaven and Heaven will follow the Dao. This is the perfect order of the universe.

The final line returns us back to the unknowable mystery of existence.

Tao follows its own nature.

No one can know the Tao. It only knows itself and this can never be grasped or contained. Aligned with awareness, we can be fresh and open to change as it happens. That is wisdom.

Tags: Awareness, trust

In yesterday’s post, I talked about the implicit trust hunting and gathering people had in nature. Despite the fact that they faced starvation and travail everyday, they were not insecure or anxious. To the contrary, dozens of observers talk about their continuously gracious and generous spirit. The balance and harmony we see in these societies is based on their trust. It is deep and profound. Verse 23 of the Dao De Jing continues this discussion, but from a somewhat different angle.
Today I’m using the translation by David Hinton.
Verse 23 is in three discrete sections. The first, although linked to the second, can also stand alone. It says:

Keeping words spare: occurrence appearing of itself.

This speaks of the virtue of clarity and succinctness. In a more esoteric sense, this line also alludes to the brevity of any happening. Things are always happening and changing. They are here, but for only a moment and then time washes life clean with new happenings.  But the larger point is made clear in the next section.

Wild winds never last all morning
and fierce rains never last all day.
Who conjures such things if not heaven and earth,
and if heaven and earth can't make things last,
why should we humans try?

This stanza points to the error of struggling to make things last. The author of this stanza plainly says, if heaven and earth can’t do this, how could a mere human being? Yet isn’t that exactly what we do with good states of mind? We cling onto them. We try making life rules out of what we theorize made them possible. Most minds love rules and who of us doesn’t enjoy good feelings? But just like everything else, they pass and they often pass quickly. This is the nature of the Dao. Thus if we are to flow with the Dao as Dao, we must cling to nothing and just ride the wind of ceaseless change.
The third section of this Verse talks about how we are to ride the waves of Dao.

That's why masters devote themselves to Way (Tao/Dao).
To master Way is to become Way,
to master gain is to become gain,
to master loss is to become loss.
And whatever becomes Way, Way welcomes joyfully,
whatever becomes gain, gain welcomes joyfully,
whatever becomes loss, loss welcomes joyfully.

How beautiful are these words. How perfectly clear and spare they are. This is what it means to live by and as the Dao. When this is mastered we are truly the Dao itself. Notice how in the first half of the stanza references to Way, gain, and loss emphasize becoming those qualities (and, of course, Dao contains both gain and loss) and how the second half of the stanza emphasizes how Way, gain, and loss are in themselves joyful. The moment is integral to itself! This is true awakening. You will know it when it happens in your life - and it will happen when the energy invested in separation ends and we seamlessly merge into the Dao itself.
The coda of this Verse brings us back to the Dao De Jing as a manual for leaders. It says:

If you don't stand sincere by your words
how sincere can the people be?

The daoist leader needs to be a model for the people. We allow the Dao to flourish in our own lives and in the lives of the people when we absorb the profound words of this remarkable Verse. And also notice how it cannot be faked or falsely emulated. It must be sincere - otherwise it is just false and as something false, it is just the ego wearing the mask of the sage.
In this moment can you become a master of the Dao. That’s all it takes. Just this ... eternal ... moment. Abandon yourself and give it a try.

Tags: trust, nature

The Self-Help Book that is Written is not the True Self-Help Book... until Now!, January 27, 2010

reviews

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By far, one of the better, if not the best, "help" books I've read (believe me, there have been many). The exercises put forth by Mr. Gross in "Liberation from the Lie" are very practical. My opinion, his work is much more focused and accessible than what Tolle attempts to impart in the "Power of Now" (not to discount Tolle's stellar work). Having worked in the psychotherapy field for many years, I've been very leery of the so-called "cognitive revolution" and found the author's Taoist influence very refreshing (I've discovered the notion of "Wu-wei" to be extremely helpful in my understanding of human problems and how I approach them). But, the author moves beyond Taoism and succesfully integrates personal experiences and ideas from a variety of disciplines into his tome. The author's conception of fear-selves reminds me of the false-selves articulated by R.D. Laing. Difference here, Mr. Gross moves beyond Laingian phenomenology and into pragmatism... a way out of the proverbial rut! Read this book and you'll see how many of the ideas put forth are relevant to the human condition and, more importantly, the path to liberation.

Who are you?

Were we to listen only to the voice of those who speak as realized nondualists, we are just this pure awareness, shorn of all thought and feeling. This is the end of the spiritual journey. But my question to you is this: is this true? Is this why you and I are on this dimension of being?

It is my view that this is only part of the story. We are much more than awareness. Each of us is a human being and every human being has their own unique voice. What makes us unique is our very thoughts and feelings, for you think and feel is experienced only by your body/mind. This is an undeniable truth.

Your voice has occurred only once in over one million years of human history. Why would you waste it?

I agree that we must discover pure awareness the ground of being that is subject to everything else in the universe. The path to self-liberation begins with finding this place of pure awareness. It is only through awareness, untarnished by any underlying belief that we can directly experience the real. Until we see the false as the false (as Krishnamurti was fond of saying), we can only be a slave to that which is unseen. This is what liberation is all about. It is the end of our slavery to a false image. It’s about finding out who we don’t need to be. This is Stage One.

The false-self is a psychological adaptation to a primal Wound. It is what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain body. The purpose of pure awareness is to see every dimension of our own false-selves and in that seeing to begin the process of our own liberation. My own book Liberation from the Lie is a detail manual in finding every hiding place of our Fear-based selves.

Once free of our unseen master, we can truly find ourselves. And this is where Stage Two comes in. Because we have accommodated so much pain in our lives, we are afraid to step beyond awareness. So we remain in this “comfort zone”. And since we have a large community of similarly cowed “spiritualists”, we feel safe here. “I am purely aware” becomes our newest and best belief. And here we get stuck. We have simply adopted a new and better belief system. It feels good and so we stay in this static place. We come to believe that by stepping out of this place of mutual agreement that we will returned to the unsafe world of ourselves!

But self-safety is not what this life is about. Life is about life in all of its dimensions. It waits for us patiently to discover its treasures. It is a journey only you can take.

But there is so much more to life than this. Once free of all false belief, it becomes time to really break out of our shell molded by fear and the flight from pain. Now is the time of direct seeing, of passion, of connection, of dynamic love of all that makes life possible and worthwhile.

Only you can find what makes you feel most alive. That is the challenge of your life. It is to move past the silent domain of pure awareness into the creative realm of life; the realm of your voice If awareness shows us nothing else, it shows us that life is nothing but creative. Accept life’s invitation and join the dance.

Life called for only one thing and that is your voice. Don’t deny us your gifts.

I know that there will be many of you who have read Ramana and have made him into a kind of god and thus aspire to live in the same silence he evinced in his life. You will reject what is written here because it contradicts your new beliefs. It will challenge your place of well being. What is written here doesn’t sound like what we have come to expect from “non-dual” rants. If you believe that the purpose of life is silence and non-action based on the fear of action, then these words are probably not for you. But if you are alive to your own awareness, they will ring true to you. Just ask yourself, from this place of clear silence, “what makes me feel most alive?” And then find out where that voice takes you.

Tags: Awareness, identity

Verse 15 of the Dao De Jing is one of the few verses in this work that describe the nature of the person awakened in the Dao. The author of this Verse refers to these people being of times that are very ancient. Why this device is used is explained in the second stanza. In this discussion Addiss and Lombardo translate this particularly straightforward Verse this way:

The ancients who followed Tao:
Dark, wondrous, profound, penetrating,
Deep beyond knowing.

Because they cannot be known,
They can only be described.

If the author of this Verse were to use living people, she/he would bring the description a little too close to this immediate life. By using ancient models, she/he can use the broadest of strokes to make the essential points most powerfully. As you read each line, try to pause after every observation and imagine this woman/man of the Dao. See yourself as this person. Really absorb the image to your inner-most being.

Cautious,
Like crossing a winter stream.
Hesitant,
Like respecting one’s neighbors.
Polite,
Like a guest.
Yielding,
Like ice about to melt.
Blank,
Like uncarved wood.
Open,
Like a Valley.
Mixing freely,
Like muddy water.

Writers and people practiced in Buddhism (and Advaita) tend to ignore that last line. Instead, they often focus on the expression “uncarved wood”. They stop there, prior to the decisive point of “freely mixing”. You see, it’s easy to withdraw. It’s tempting to reside in samadhi. But

Life calls on us to act and not just now and then, but right now. Acting, moving, breathing, feeling, thinking, tasting, touching, seeing, hearing - all of this is life and life is so much more than the sum of its parts. That is why the author of this Verse prefers to just describe what cannot be known. Were she to claim to know, then he would no longer be “blank” or “open”. He lives in the blazing truth of her awareness. The flowing energy of life is that very light.

The next stanza of the Verse returns us to the realm of mediation and method. It says:

Calm the muddy water,
It becomes clear.
Move the inert,
It comes to life.

Again we see the juxtaposition of conditions in their paradoxical simultaneity. Inaction and action meet mysteriously in this flowing now.

But the key to the whole Verse is found in the final stanza. Addiss and Lombardo break the stanza into two discrete sections, but most translations present it as one. I will follow that model because I feel that both parts are complimentary.

Those who sustain Tao
Do not wish to be full.
Because they do not wish to be full
They can fade away
Without further effort.

The wish “to be full” is exactly what sustains life out of balance. When we feel compelled to be full - to be complete, we are like hunters prowling the world. We are the seeker always yearning to be more. This really is a hunt of the hungry person. We hunger for the truth and look here and there instead of simply opening our eyes now without the slightest desire for completion or fullness.

Try to feel that. Feel what it would be like not to desire any fullness or completion. Keep on doing that. Let everything settle. Act in the moment and sustain that being that does not seek any sense of completion or fullness.

It is the energy of seeking that undermines the immediate wonder of life. See that truth and absorb it into your own life. Once you are free of the search and live in this very here and now unfull and incomplete, then a whole new universe radiates everywhere and you are THAT.

Only then can you allow the natural motion of just fading away. Nothing is done and the selfless self stands unseen.

Tags: desire, ego

This morning I was listening to a BBC News account of the life of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. Kurt was the guy who produced several cartoons mocking the prophet Mohammed. For the crime of free expression he has been convicted of blasphemy by the orthodox islamic bosses and his execution has been ordered. Now Kurt has to live in constant fear and cannot go anywhere without fearing for his life. He must always be accompanied by bodyguards.

Moreover, with the recent rise of Muslim immigrants to his native Denmark, this recently very open and tolerant society must now address the core issues of free speech. Now it must make a place for intolerance and division, where there was once none. The liberating virtues of free speech are now suddenly in question since they might inflame the feelings of a growing Muslim minority.

I really have to feel bad for these poor defenseless Muslims who must read the Daily Papers searching for something or anything that will hurt their feelings and compel them to attack with threat of death those people who hurt their feelings. It must be hard being a Muslim now-a-days. Actually, it’s harder being a reasonable human being, just enjoying life, knowing that such intolerant zealots grow more numerous as we cower in their medieval shadow.

This is why I hate religion - all religion. This is why I would never call myself a Buddhist or, no longer, a Jew. Why should I ever minimize myself to a mere category, particular one as divisive and unnecessary as a religion? How dehumanizing is that?

At the very least, any belief we hold onto without seeking real evidence for its validity, is a form of self-blinding. And even when I’m able to find some scraps of ‘potential’ evidence for some religious belief, I must be brave enough to be willing to hold this evidence to the most rigorous scrutiny. If I do anything less, then I have chosen the false over the truth. Worse yet, I have become a slave to a belief that I must now defend.

Some person, that we now unfairly name a religion after, said that the truth will set you free. That is really the only truth we will ever need. To grow, to evolve, to be a human being in the most integral sense of the word, our purpose in this life is to be true to life. Belief is, purely, a consequence of self-contempt.

But religion demands that we do otherwise. Religion tells us what and how we must think and must do. It bases its authority on the perfect source: god - an entity which can neither be proven or disproven. But, at the very least there is one thing we can say about god and that is this: there is no evidence in support of its reality. Thus it is nothing more than a psychological projection. Normally, when there is no evidence for something, other than hear-say, we wouldn’t give it a second thought. We would ignore it as nonsense. But such is not the case with god. Rather we invest this ’thing’ with more authority than anything else in this life. If we were brutally honest with ourselves, we would need to concede that anytime we invest something with such awesome power over our own lives, this must come from a place where we must fail to trust our own experience. It must come from a place of the darkest self-contempt. It is obvious that we are so pathetic and so stupid, that we need a concept, for which there is not the slightest bit of evidence for, for which the most brutal wars have been fought over, and for which we absorb an identity that is, clearly, not our own. This is insanity - pure and simple. It is the triumph of ignorance over awareness. It is a monster in our midst. If, as Jesus said, the truth will set us free, then conventional religion is the anti-christ! Cast out the ignorance and start getting free. The clock is ticking.

Unquestioned belief get us to believe that the observed world is “imperfect”. To correct this dilemma phony religious truths are handed down from one ignorant person to the next naive and vulnerable person. And so it goes. And then real ugliness, like the poor un-life of Kurt Westergaard, becomes a “normative” product of beliefs that are so smugly self-approving that they compel, otherwise decent people, to do indecent things; like murder people for the crime of free expression. Such would-be killers are depraved cowards and really need a dose of reality to wake up from the nightmare of religious belief.

What is true? That is the only question ever worth asking. Life is always changing and what is true is fluid as well. But there are levels of truth. The over-arching levels are best described by science and please know that this history of science is one of stumbling forward, making errors, but then making corrections. This is the best approach to the larger truths of our time. But of the truths of your and my life, this is really more of a personal matter, but, for me, the best rule is just one of simple openness of the heart and the mind.

For this truth to be real and alive, I don’t need any books. I don’t need to quote some dead “saint”. I certainly don’t need the Quran or the Bible or the Diamond Sutra or the Vedas. I just need an open heart and mind, uncontaminated with second-hand observations that are not my own. If I wish to learn of the beauty of evolution, I will use the texts and voices of scientists who have dedicated their lives to this vast school of knowledge and living observation. But if I want to relate to my wife or daughter, I will be guided by my own open heart and mind. That is all.

And after all of these years, the greatest and most over-arching truth is that of our connections with everything in our world. That when a group of orthodox religious zealots get together and concentrate their hate because someone brought to light the cruel, narrow-minded, and ultimately ridiculous qualities of some of their beliefs, that they cannot tolerate such free expression and must condemn that person to death.

It’s time to place all belief systems into the waste bin of history. Human beings have lived on this planet for nearly 200,000 years. For about 10,000 (less than 5%) of those years there have been institutions of religion. Did you know that, although we like to think of Native Americans as “religious” that no North American Indian language as a word for religion? Like so many elements of planet killing civilization, let’s start living in true wisdom and abandon all religion. It would really be a great start to creating the new world of love, appreciation, and caring - without unnecessary divisions.

This blog is dedicated to the ending of all religion for the emancipation of truth.

With Verse 13, we return to the mysterious realm of the self and the source of suffering, which, it also turns out, is the self.

If our commentary on the Dao De Jing used only Verse 13, it would be enough, for this Verse possesses words of the greatest majesty. Its message is joy and tranquility is there waiting for all of us. Let’s dive right in. As usual, my preferred translation is Addiss and Lombardo. They write:

Favor and disgrace are like fear.
Honor and distress are like the self.

What does this mean?

Notice how the self longs for favor, notice how the self pines for it, notice how the self depends on it to be happy. We virtually make it into a demand. I must have favor or I am lost. Isn’t this the way life is?

How wonderful and beautiful it is to receive honors. We could far more easily ignore the content of this Verse and just talk about the greatness of favor and honor. If my blog were dedicated to the easy joys of this life, I suspect I would have received more favor and honors in my own life. But it’s not so simple.

Consider the phrase, “nothing in this life is free”. This has been one of my favorite aphorisms for many, many years. And what does the Dao say. We continue:

Favor debases us.
Afraid when we get it.
Afraid when we lose it.

When we crave favor, we have sacrificed our being, we have sacrificed our truth, we have sacrificed our integrity. We are dependent on others. We also know that favor may be difficult to attain, but it’s very easy to lose and lose it we will. Thus the very thing we want is the very thing that undoes us. Softly killing us with its love.

Seeking and need favor is all about fear. The only reason we desire it is because we harbor a secret thought that we, as we really are, are insufficient, not enough, not okay. This whole quest of self-improvement is the very expression of unseen fear in our lives. See only this be free of it. Shout it from the rooftops. This life of seeking is just the positive-seeming manifestation of fear and self-contempt that is alive and well in each our all too human psyches.

We need validation because without it we are nothing. We will always remain this ever-needy suffering self. This is the pain and suffering embodied by the word lack. We lack the very thing we believe we need to make happiness enduring for us. So even when we achieve favor, we are afraid to lose it because once we lose it, we return to our normal status as a ... loser. How painful this life of ceaseless desire and seeking!

The Dao - Verse 13 continues:

The self embodies distress.
No self,
No distress.

The self, Verse 13 refers to is, of course, our psychological being, that self that identifies with lack - insufficiency - inadequacy - and, of course, being unworthy of love. These deep ideations are, for most of us, unseen most of the time. They rise to consciousness when life affirms their assumed validity - in other words, when adversity fills our life. Then all the thoughts about how stupid, useless, ugly, and unworthy we are arise in consciousness. Then the underlying suffering self comes into vivid awareness. Fear everywhere! Fear of failure, fear of loss, and the biggest fear of them all, fear of death. The self is, indeed, distress.

Verse 13 concludes:

Respect the world as your self:
The world can be your lodging.
Love the world as your self:
The world can be your trust.

A life of depth, a life of joy is there for all of us when we realize, through direct experience, that this self of pain is just a thought. It is the underlying thought of our own inadequacy and unworthiness of love for our intrinsic, integral being. This is it! If you would like to explore this further and see how to unearth what is false to the clear light of direct seeing, then I urge you to take a look at my book, Liberation from the Lie: Cutting the Roots of Fear Once and for All. The unseen inadequacy thought is so ancient and so buried, that to bring it to light requires great patience and the most courageous of explorations. It really takes guts. But to get off the merry-go-round of favor and honor makes the journey not only worth it, but essential if we are ever to live a life with the depth, love, and spontaneous joy that each one of us deserves.

For when we see through the veil of the false self, we discover that our authentic identity is a jewel on the vast web of connection, which is our world. This world is our place and our home. This world is the only thing we can always trust. It will always provide us with what we all need most. This is love expressed in the intimacy of our connections with all - with the air, the water, the plants, the animals, and, most of all the spirit that animates it all; the sacred and profane; the Dao that fills everything with its life, its vigor, its birth and its death.

Tags: trust, self, Fear

Verse Nine is a group of direct aphorisms, but their simplicity can be elusive, for if we take this Verse to heart, we can't help but be transformed but its profundity. Let's take Verse Nine aphorism by aphorism.
Today I'm using the David Hinton translation. He writes:

Forcing it fuller and fuller can't compare to just enough.

We can never have enough. We can never be enough. We always need to be more. We always want more. We fill and we fill and this is how we live the bulk of our lives. Now is never enough. There's always that better TV, computer, relationship, car, house, shoes, pen, ... Unsatisfied, we turn against this life and throw ourselves after this elusive thing that promises us happiness. Can we discover that this now, just as it is, is just right. It does need more of anything. This you, right now, is just right. It needs nothing to be added to it.

The needy mind is insatiable. How can we ever be content and fulfilled when we are always seeking and searching? We can seek for the love of seeking and we can seek out of the compulsive need to seek. Can you see the difference? See that difference is the decisive difference.

The second aphorism:

(The blade) honed sharper and sharper means it won't keep for long.

The drive to make something better and more ultimately leads to its decline. This is the Middle Path of the Buddha. There is a rightness of a thing. We know it's right because it can be maintained without the obsessive need to always strive to make it better. This is the right sharpness, the right speed, the right weight. Knowing and living the middle way is the place where the restless mind can find the tranquility of which it can only dream.

The third aphorism:

Once it's full of jade and gold your house will never be safe.

Anytime we hoard what is deemed valuable by others, we will make our world a dangerous and threatening place. Again what we strive to acquire is exactly the process from which discord and fear must arise. It's far better to be free than to be a slave to one's possessions.

The fourth aphorism:

Proud of wealth and renown you bring on your own ruin.

"Pride goeth before destruction." If we struggle to be the highest, we till the soil for our own downfall. 

Each of these approaches to living, based on needs that we imagine, are ways we undermine the Dao - the gentle flow of space and time that is always open to us becomes visible as we just see how our drive to accumulate, to add on, to raise ourselves, does exactly the opposite of what we truly pine for. 

Thus it is said, to conclude Verse Nine:

Just do what you do, and then leave: such is the Way of heaven (Dao).

Everything just happens and then it disappears into the nothingness from which it arose. Knowing this and living this fundamental truth is the Way of Ways; the way of heaven itself.

Tags: middle way, simple life

Let’s pretend that we have lost our sight. We are blind because we cannot see our eyes.

Have you ever tried to see your eyes without using your eyes? Why not give it a try? Find your eyes and make sure that you look everywhere. Keep on looking. Don’t give up the search easily. Find your eyes.

You will discover that it can’t be done.

What sees cannot, itself, be seen. It’s an interesting irony.

The very same principle applies to spiritual seeking. When we ask ourselves the question, “What am I?” and we continue to ask ourselves the question, we discover that all we will ever find is our mind responding with the word “me”. This is the best it can do. It tells us, time and again, that what we are is “me”. And this answer is no help at all, because it just takes us back to where we started for now we must ask, “Who is this “me”?”

If we dig deeper, we will discover that this word “me” is just a label that the mind applies onto life experiences out of habit. It’s a deeply entrenched habit, but it’s just a habit that we learned from our parents and our world as we grew up. Socialization requires us to refer to this mysterious me until we believe that this simple word is who we are.

It isn’t. It’s just a pointer to something a lot more elusive yet ever-present.

Just like we cannot ever find our eyes by seeking, we cannot find ourselves by seeking. You see - the game is over even before we begin the search! We are prior to any thought. This presence, this sense of being is there and yet it can never be grasped or defined. But it is there. We can more certain of this than anything else in our experience.

It is the only the mind that demands that we seek for what can never be found. And the mind does this because it is identified with lack. Aligned with this identity, we come to believe that we lack something and, it just so happens, that all of the literature of enlightenment confirms our fears. We are nothing like these enlightened sages. We are just these poor saps wandering about our pathetic lives searching for the one thing that can never be found.

This is what happens when we become a slave to the psychological identity of our already invalidated minds. We embraced the identity of the Wound (see the Liberation from the Lie book) and covered it up with the many masks of the False-Self (again see the book).

The key to our prison lies in simply watching and observing the mind with the knowledge that our identity is not it (the mind). We are the vast river upon which all of life is seen, felt, tasted, heard, and perceived. We are THAT.

The mind is an object to this living presence. We can never be an object of ourselves. We are, rather, the subject of everything in our experience without exception. Even our conceptions of God cannot be an exception. Even God (if you have this belief) is an object to this living presence. Perhaps God is this presence.

Disengage from the trance of the mind and find the empty freedom that is our true awakened self.

Tags: Awakening, enlightenment