Busy, Busy, Busy

I am overwhelmed with "To Do" lists. A week ago I had to switch to making "Done" lists, just to get some sleep. Looking at a list of over 100 things needing to be done to prepare for the weekend retreat I am organizing for Sept. 30 – Oct. 2, I just couldn't stop feeling like I couldn't possibly manage it all. Given that I also have a bookreading coming up the very next week and tons of work to do related to my book and my healing work, it was just too much. On top of that, since I am hosting the Rinpoche and his translator in addition to organizing the event, that creates a whole other layer of work that needs to get done, and I won't be able to do as much organizational work once they arrive this Tuesday, because I will be taking care of them. Can you imagine why I might be feeling my bliss just a bit stretched?

Thankfully one afternoon I was inspired to set aside my "To Do" lists and create my first "Done" list. I wrote down each thing I had accomplished that day, such as writing and sending out a newsletter, signing up for Amazon's "Search Inside This Book" program, signing up 3 additional volunteers for key roles for the retreat, etc. I discovered that I had actually accomplished about 20 significant tasks that day!

It felt amazingly good to see how much I was getting done in a day. My mood instantly shifted from overwhelm to a sense of mastery and confidence. 100 things to do when faced as "100 things to do" would overwhelm anyone. But 5 days worth of work to do when you have 2 weeks to get it done, well now that's a plan.

Oh, I tried non-attachment. I tried surrendering it all up to the all-pervasive guru and resting assured everything would come out just fine. That works great in 20 minute increments. Unfortunately the vast majority of the time I was just plain stressing out. And how many meditation sessions can a person do in a day? I was only at peace while meditating.

So here is today's offering to you. The greatest peace of mind comes in being present, being right here right now. Whatever it takes to get you to a point where you can be present despite the stresses of your life incessantly pulling you towards the future, that is the highest practice for you right then. For example, meditation is not necessarily more spiritual than basic organizational tactics. It depends on what is needed in the situation.

That said, I would caution against the use of such "tools" as alcohol or drugs to achieve the state of presence I'm referring to. They actually create an illusion of presence, while undermining your ability to get the work done that will gradually create a genuine sense of ease. You don't have to escape. You can deal, if you frame the situation skillfully in your mind. I suggest, one "done" at a time.

Right Action

Each moment brings an invitation.
Some invite us to take a stand,
some to flow along,
some to retreat in solitude,
others to shine forth like the sun.

Towards which door
does this moment point?
We do not get to choose.
There is no right answer
nor any goal in sight.

There is only the commitment
to listening deeply
and answering yes
each time.

What Holds Us Together

At yesterday's singing circle with Wind Cloud we offered songs and prayers to the suffering people of New Orleans. One person was offended by what he felt was an excessive focus on this American disaster when there is ongoing widespread suffering across the world that gets no media attention. After a bit of conversation and the expression of hurt feelings on both sides of the argument, finally we came to a meeting place.

We were able to acknowledge his sense of the importance of thinking beyond our nation's borders and he was able to acknowledge the very human need for people to relate to the problem of global suffering (which can be quite abstract due to its enormity) through the crises that fall closer to home. Whatever opens our hearts and reminds us to feel and express concern for others in need is a good opportunity to do so, and the failure of many people to be able to do that in persistent situations is no reason to be unwilling to do so in crisis situations. Each is an invitation to love more, not less.

Beyond that, I was able to connect his concerns about the persistent global state of suffering with the group's concerns about the situation in New Orleans right now. My comment, which turned into a group prayer, which turned into a series of songs, began something like this:

Whether we are looking at the failure of able bodied young people to help the police assist the injured and the aged in New Orleans instead of shooting at them or looking at the failure of the wealthy and overfed to help the starving throughout the globe instead of working to more efficiently shift monies from the working poor to the wealthy, we are looking at two basic root failures: 1) a lack of a sense of community connectedness and the compassion that comes with that connection; and 2) a lack of a sense of inner connectedness to one's true nature and the peacefulness that comes with that connection.

Global corporations exert tremendous violence in the lives of millions of people because they are led by people who do not feel any connection to the people they are affecting. That violence is not held back by a sense of responsibility to or concern for others. But where does the violence come from in the first place? Their violent nature results from a life long teaching in "survival of the fittest" and "everyman for himself" and the absence of genuine direct experience of their inherently peaceful true nature. Without access to the teachings that come from one's soul, they are victims of the teachings of a sociopathic social system. If they did not have the money or influence to enact their violence through their corporations they would effectively be kept down, but that would not make them peaceful.

Similarly, we can look at the people shooting at the police and taking advantage of the chaos to loot, rape, and defy all social rules governing our collective lives as the same life teachings being acted out by those newly given the power to do so without consequence. They have received the same teachings, but their power comes from guns not corporate attorneys. So they steal at gunpoint rather than getting laws passed that give them the right to take what they want. In New Orleans, those who lack a sense of inner or outer connectedness shoot for themselves, whereas in Iraq those in the upper echelons of power enlist national armies to shoot for them, but someone still winds up dead.

I could go on at length about the similarities between these two forms of violence -- small scale, direct physical aggression and the large scale institutionalized forms -- but I think you get the point. Both are suffering from the same root causes and both are therefore causing suffering for others. Both are in need of our prayers and understanding, as well as our knowledgable corrective action to prevent their further violence.

So here is a prayer -- May anyone anywhere on the Earth who feels alone right now become aware of being held within a web of community. May those who feel they must fight for their survival instead experience a sense of safety and peace. May those who believe that in order to have what they need to survive they must take as much as they can, even if it means the failure of others to survive, may they learn instead to experience abundance and to see the world as an abundant place. May the norms of sharing and compassion replace the teachings on selfishness. And may we who already know these things not lose our ability to love those who do not. May we not give up our belief in their ability to learn and to grow and to, having been healed themselves, become world healers. May we never give up our faith in their intrinsic value and goodness.

And this we sang:

"May the warriors find peace within and the wars of the nations end.
May the warriors find peace within so the healing of the world can begin. ...
Your eyes open my heart.
And your heart opens my eyes."

Lastly, I would like you to use this opportunity to not only open your heart to the suffering of all these people everyday and especially in this crisis situation, but to look directly at your own suffering. I want you to examine your life right now and ask yourself what you would be drawing upon if you were in a similar disaster. What would your refuge be?

Do you have a sense of inner peace that does not require anything external to ensure you behave with non-violence at all times? What are you like when you are driving and someone cuts you off or even when they just persist in trying to get you to let them merge into traffic in front of you? How do you react? No one but you knows your answer so it is worth your truthfully acknowledging the answer for yourself. What are you like in conversation when someone disagrees with an idea you hold sacred? Does anger well up within you? Do you respond with cutting comments not only designed to show them that they are wrong and you are right, but to go beyond that and belittle their intelligence or goodness? Do you attack them personally with insults? How non-violent are you when you think you can get away with using violence to get what you want?

When you are under extreme stress, perhaps facing the diagnosis of a serious illness or perhaps in a more shared experience of threat to survival, do you feel supported by a closely knit group of friends or family? How connected are you to your next door neighbors? If a natural disaster happened, would you expect to pool resources with them, seeing who has more bottled water, who has more blankets, and how food stuffs could be combined to best feed everyone? Again, the answers are only for you, so be honest. Who would you rely upon and who could reasonably rely upon you?

I would like to urge you to spend the next week shoring up your refuges. I would like to invite you to spend some time in meditation, building up your sense of inner peace. And I would like to invite you to reach out a little more than usual to those people with whom you would like to share community. Give some time to this now while crisis is not upon you so that when the levy inevitably breaks there will still be something there to hold you together.

Offerings that Bless

Yesterday Shastro came by for tea and was nice enough to tune my dilruba's sympathetic strings for me. It is no small task for him and impossible for me. I have to rely upon the electronic tuner even to manage the main strings, but the 22 underneath have to wait for his visits.

Today it is humming beautifully, a chorus flowing from just one bow. Since the power is out up here on the mountain yet again, I am grateful for the music I can make myself (and for a laptop I fully charged last night). At the end of the month I will be hosting a visiting lama and am practicing up so that I will be ready to play for him after dinner in the evenings.

I have been slack with my practice over the past months. I have only been playing for a little over a year, but once I mastered the basic movements and was left only with learning to tune the instrument to different scales and really pay attention to the notes for reading music (instead of playing scales) my enthusiasm gave way to a dread of extra work. I also moved into a home with poor acoustics so it isn't as much an orgasm of sound as it was in the place I first learned.

Excuses aside, now that I am about to have a regular audience for a week, I am motivated to get my act together. Funny how the knowledge that others have use for the fruits of our labor can motivate action. I always say that love is the only discipline I know, and yet again that shows itself to be true.
In that same way, I think of the aura of contentment and love that permeated and surrounded me last year when I was writing "Being Bliss." Though I thought I was dying at the time (a diagnosis that was later reversed), the main thing on my mind was getting out this offering for those I was about to leave behind (including you) and praying that it would truly be a blessing to you all. That compassionate motivation and the persistent hard work it inspired (15 hour days, 7 days a week, for months on end) blessed me with a level of embodied spiritual realization I had not previously been able to sustain.

Since that time -- having finished the writing and publishing phases and now being able to focus once more on my life, including my aspirations and joys -- I find that while I certainly continue to grow and learn spiritually, I am not nearly as radiant as I felt in the creative phase. Though I still achieve that state whenever I am doing healing work, my day to day experience is not as it was when every waking moment was focused on giving as much to others as I could while I still could.

This suggests to me that the wisest use of one's days is service to others. This is not an issue of self-sacrifice, but rather of self-benefit. Selflessness is not about sacrifice. It is about identifying with an idea of self which is much bigger than what we normally move out from when looking for the tastiest morsel to eat, the most entertaining movie to watch, or the most stimulating company at a party. The joy we receive in return is much bigger too.

It is as if by offering yourself as an avenue through which goodness can flow into the lives of others, you make yourself into a much wider stream. The great "River of Light" is then able to pour through your life with greater volume and force. You become able to accommodate more of the energy of love, joy and contentment when you are channeling it into the lives of many beings.

Let your sense of "I" include the largest number of beings your imagination can accommodate, moving through the world with an intent to use your abilities to the fullest to bless others. Let any moment you wish to hold great happiness for you be a moment you dedicate in this way, and you will know a type of joyful contentment that exceeds anything self-seeking has ever brought you. This is a reminder for us both. Namaste.

An Easy Offering Idea

Sometimes the easiest and most versatile gift we can give is simply to send money. If you would like to make an offering to the victims of the Hurricane through the Red Cross you can use this link: American Red Cross Donations. You may have to submit your information more than once to get your donation to go through since their servers are busy (thankfully), but it is well worth the 5 minutes or so it will take.

For a longer list of charities see this link: Charity Navigator.