A Tonglen Life

I became aware during Tonglen today that the point of my life has always been to be a blessing with the living of this life. To me, apart from that, there is just the act of survival, and we all know how successfully that ends. Everybody dies. The only way to do it well, is to leave a trail of benefit in one's wake.

It seems common when people speak of recognizing this that they couch it in apologies for past selfishness or cluelessness. I can't do that. I have been living a life of service since I was 15 and started my first public service venture, a countywide high school youth council that among its many projects in that first year organized and put on a two week summer crafts camp for elementary school children. I am not writing to describe the turning of a page of awareness, but to reinforce a message that is already within everyone reading this.

I am writing to say, do it bigger, more frequently, and without any doubt that it is in fact the point. Life is that simple and direct, no matter how pervasive the false teachings of "masters of the universe" mentalities that control our media and seek to define our culture.

There is awakening, the path of letting go of our false beliefs about reality, particularly our false sense of a separate self. And then there is also navigating relative reality, which we were not born into by accident. As well as the awareness of ultimate reality, there is making something out of this experience of the relative. As far as I can see, the only thing worth making out of it is the alleviation of suffering around us and the spread of joy, love, and support in more and more creative and effective ways.

Phone Buddies came out of such a desire, as have many other projects I've been involved in over the years. What is your offering to our collective experience to be these days? What would you like to gift us? If you have tried already to bring your heart gifts out into the world, you already know that working to help others is still hard work. The world does not pave a path of gold for you just because you want to do something good. There will be many people who will be threatened by your desire to make a positive difference. Some will be jealous and not want to see you succeed. Others will not let you help them, they will reject your help because they don't want it to come from you.

This is a very frequent experience of people of color who seek to help people of all races, including the dominant racial group of whites, often because the intended beneficiaries hold a self-perception of superiority that does not happily accept assistance from "inferiors." In my twenties it was hard for me to learn this lesson, both in terms of being difficult to comprehend and also painful to accept. Yet I kept on working to give benefit wherever I could regardless of race or racism, because it is who I am, and I could not snuff out that inner drive however difficult the journey.

I am writing to encourage all of you who have ever thought you wanted to do something with this life more than survival, beyond even creating additional lives (children) and seeing them grow. There is something more than service to self or to immediate family. There is service to the community of life itself. And in the end I truly believe that is all relative reality ever adds up to over time. The rest is timeless and unconditional. We are meant to have both joys, which is why we were created with both aspects of reality such integral parts of who we are.

If you are still looking for your "calling" or your next "service idea," I would suggest adding tonglen to your daily routine. Breathing in, visualize your Buddha nature drawing all the suffering and inner conflict out of everyone on Earth. Breathing out, visualize your Buddha nature fanning the flames of the inner fire of Truth and Love within the heart-minds of all beings. After however many cycles of breath you have time to devote right then, rest in the glow of a world of happiness, health, wealth and wholeness. Do this at least once each day, and as much as once each hour, depending on how quickly you want to birth the vision into reality. I would say "good luck," but that's not what you need. Just do it.

Right-Livelihood, What is It?

Over the last couple weeks I have been experiencing a tremendous deepening of my connection with my spiritual self's wisdom. I have long believed that surrender to the highest inner wisdom of the "God within" was the only way to fulfill one's potential in life, but only recently have I begun to live that truth, embracing Spirit as the master of my life. I find lately that I am often dwelling in a state of constant surrender, asking, "what do you want of me?" instead of "what do I want right now?"

However, I still have to apply my intellect to sort out and apply the instruction I am given. Spirit doesn't tend to say things like, "I want you to quit this job and apply for this one. And no more wine. Stick to apple juice." At least it doesn't say those sorts of things to me, anyway. Instead it gives images, impressions, feelings and flashes of insight. It is up to intellect to figure out how those things fit within the physical realm we act within. And that's where the confusion comes in when I wonder if I'm doing the right thing at the right time, and if not, what would constitute the right thing to most fully actualize Spirit's highest goals for my life.

For a couple years now my online technology consulting work has seemed blessed; it flowed so naturally and I became so good at it so quickly. When I decided to do the work primarily for non-profits (NPOs) it seemed to my intellect that it would of course be a combination that was even more favored by Spirit. But then the transition has been like slogging through mud. It keeps almost happening, but not quite happening.

At the same time, just yesterday I heard from someone I did a spiritual healing session with years ago, who tells me he has adapted a part of the work I once did with him, creating a daily practice he calls "The Way of the Heart." He says that doing the 5 min. practice several times each day has brought him his life partner, and that it has done the same for several other people he taught it to. It was the centering intro for my work, not the focus, so no soulmates with me. Still, it makes me think about doing sessions again.

He wrote me to ask if I would review the book he is writing about it, and when I gave him some clarifying feedback, he asked how I had come up with the original method. Within my search for the answer to his question within distant memory, I delved more deeply into the heart of the work I once did than I have in several years. Doing so renewed my love for the work, and my recollection of just how profound a difference I was making in people's lives.

The reason I had stopped doing it was the "business" aspect of the work. What got hard for me was that I'm not much of an entrepreneur in general, but particularly when I am having to promote myself as having such nebulous abilities. My technology work is more concrete, and so doesn't feel as much like a promotion of "me," so trying to sell my value in that regard doesn't feel as vulnerable as trying to sell my value with healing work.

When technology clients say, "We've worked with many consultants, and Indigo is the best we have found; she did wonders for our business," and these people are leaders in their industries, well that feels like very strong affirmation and I'm confident other companies will want me to do the same for them, and expect I can. Spiritual healing work is very different from that. After a few years, I just didn't have it in me to keep up the effort of maintaining a separate healing room (at considerable extra expense above my personal living space needs), keeping promotional materials in circulation so that clients could find me, and then "closing the deal" and scheduling the sessions. It all felt like a burden, rather than a gift.

Writing to Forest and explaining the content of the full ClearLight Nature/Bliss Therapy sessions brought back the reason I had created the method in the first place, as well as my confidence in just how effective it is. It truly does restore people to an experience of their spiritual center as their "I" identity. And it leaves them with guidance they can use to help maintain that, even as familiar habits and life structures pull them back towards their old norm.

Then today I read an article by Dave Pollard called The World Changing Story, which essentially asks the question, "If our current civilization is collapsing in on itself, as it appears to be doing, what part of our path forward do you want to be?"

In reflecting on how to answer, I realize that I also see the current way of life as unsustainable, but am split on how I fit into the effective human response. A part of me is concerned with financially supporting myself so that I am not a victim of the worst of it. (e.g. The difference in experience of catastrophe between the poor and the wealthy during Katrina was significant, and I'm still far closer to the poor pole than the secure one.) Another part of me wants to ease people's suffering in immediate ways -- sort of salve and bandage the wounds -- hence my desire to work with non-profits as a tech consultant, helping them be more effective in their service work, and my creation of the Phone Buddies peer counseling community.

Still another part of me sees a spiritual solution. We need as many people as possible attuned with their Buddha Nature/Inner Wisdom to guide us out of this. Intellect won't manage it. This leads me to want to go back to doing my spiritual healing work, which was focused on exactly that "re-centering."

So how do I balance these 3 wants? Is it Spirit's desire that I do incorporate all 3 into my life, or is it pointing me towards just one now? Was the previous support for the technology work only meant to last for that period of time, and is it now time to refocus on offering spiritual healing work and trying to help as many people as I can before X happens? Is it the intermediate work of helping non-profits with technology that is not supported, and I am meant to support myself financially by offering technical assistance to well paying corporate clients so that I can offer the spiritual sessions for free and easily afford the space to conduct them in? Or should I do nothing, and simply wait for something to walk right up and lay itself across my lap, as opportunities did when I lived in Bali?

Spirit, speak more clearly; my intellect is not succeeding in sorting out your cryptic instructions.

Addendum 8/09: As is often the case, as soon as I clarify the question, the universe sets about creating the answer all around me through the circumstances of my life. I was letting myself get lost in other people's ways of relating to life, within which I will never find peace because it is simply not my viewpoint. I am not a person with a story that looks forward, only one which is revealed looking back. Fortunately for me, by then it no longer matters, and so I am not confined by my stories. I don't know who I am or what I am doing in this world. I know I have many opportunities to be of use because I have taken advantage of each opportunity to be of use in the past, even the ones that were rejected as unworthy of a developed intellect by so many others before me. What that adds up to, I don't need to know, unless I'm looking for a good party-talk answer to the question, "What do you do?" I can't live my life for good party talk. I guess they'll just have to be satisfied to hear that I am an unlimited being at play within the ocean of being, motivated by love, and satisfied by this moment.

PeacePrayer on Twitter

I left out the opening hashtag in the above title because my blogging software makes a url out of the title and browsers don't handled hashtags in urls properly (unless they are there to signify a location on the page). Really this article is about #PeacePrayer which is a Twitter meme that could make a real difference in your life and in our world.

The idea is this: every day each of us committed to fostering peace within our lives and within our world will make our first tweet of the day one that comes out of a vision of peace. We will then tweet whatever we think of and include the #PeacePrayer tag within it.

Method for Generating a Vision of Peace

Some people can just sit down and see a world at peace at will, but for most people that is an elusive vision. We know we like the idea of peace, but don't know what that would actually look like. By a vision of peace I don't mean a theory on the features of peace; I mean a clear mental image of people existing in a state of peace and going about their lives in that state.

In just 9 breaths you can generate a clear vision of peace like so: Sit quietly and focus your attention on your breath. Once you have that focus, imagine a light surrounding the entire planet, but invisible to everyone. See all the pain, fear, anger and sorrow that millions carry within them every day as if it were clouds within their hearts and minds. Then as you breathe in, watch as the all-pervading light sucks the clouds out of every heart and mind around the world. By your third breath, see each person completely cleared.

Then for 3 breaths, as you breathe out watch as the light pours itself into each person's heart. By your third breath, see that this light has radiated out from each person's heart to fill their entire being.

Now sit for three breaths simply witnessing the world at peace, filled with the light of love and surrounded by a world of well-being. Do you see many smiling faces? What are people doing? Watch and enjoy. Then open your eyes and write whatever comes out, adding #peaceprayer at the very beginning or very end.

Three breaths with visualization on the in-breath, three breaths with visualization on the out-breath, three breaths with steady visualization of peace on both in and out-breath, then write. That's it.

Timeframe

I would like to start by working on simply the remainder of this summer. If you feel you can commit to being a part of this meme for the rest of this summer, please retweet (RT) the original tweet that brought you to this page. That will be your affirmation of your participation.

At the end of the summer we can converse about whether we want to continue, and if so for what period of time.

I look forward to reading your #peaceprayer tweets. I know there is great wisdom within you. I also know that you cannot create what you cannot first envision. We must all be able to imagine a world at peace if we are ever to live in one. Let this be one step we take together in that direction.

Update 10/4/09 - Though summer has ended, consider taking the time each day to clarify your vision of the world you would like to contribute towards building. We don't have to tweet about it, but let us keep clarifying and empowering our visions.

Fellowship for Good - Kiva Invites You

I have been a Kiva lender for a few months now and am glad I joined every time I get an email notifying me that one of the two Ghanaian women whose business I supported has repaid part of the funds, which I will then be able to make available to other borrowers. Normally I don't do more than read the email and smile to myself at how easy Kiva has made it to share a chance at the prosperity my birth in a rich nation has given me direct access to.

Today, for the first time I followed some of the links in the email to return to the Kiva website to have another look around. I'm glad I did, as I discovered the Kiva Fellows program, which allows people like you and me the opportunity to go to Ghana, Peru, Ukraine, etc. to work with the local Kiva field office which selects businesses for the program and guides them to success with their businesses.

Here is an excerpt from the site - Kiva Fellow Core Responsibilities:

The Kiva Fellow is an integral part of the Kiva Team, acting as Kiva's eyes and ears in the field and helping to extend limited resources to maximum effect. Kiva Fellows fulfill tasks set out in a Work Plan, defined by Kiva along with the host microfinance institution (MFI).

1. Facilitate Connections between Kiva's Borrowers and Lenders
   Your journal entries, business postings and blog entries will help build the rich content that bridges our borrowers and lenders and makes Kiva's model work!
   • Interview no less than 15 businesses per week to assess loan impact, verify data, and gather information for journal updates
   • Develop innovative ways to facilitate connections via creative journaling, YouTube video and other means
   • Write a blog entry every two weeks on the Kiva Fellows Blog
   • Promote awareness of the host MFI and its programs to the Kiva lender community
   • Promote an understanding of the Kiva lending community to borrowers

There are two more items on the list, and it is recommended you visit the Kiva site for complete details. I highlight this first one here because it reveals an answer to a dilemma I confronted years ago when trying to help an African orphans support non-profit use online technology to grow their international support base. I kept trying to impress upon them how important it would be to have a blog that included entries from recipients so that people who donated money could get direct feedback about the difference their contribution was making in the childrens' lives. I even set up the blog for them and posted the first entry, but they simply never got themselves to a point where they could post anything themselves.

Kiva probably faced a similar problem, and solved it by having westerners who would be there in the field, posting the information on behalf of those who received services. It may seem like a small thing, and you might wonder both why it would be so hard for the local people to do it or why it would be important enough to send people half way around the world to do for them. I still don't know why it is such a seemingly insurmountable hurdle for local agency staff abroad to do the updates, but I can definitely say as a financial supporter myself that those updates mean a great deal to me. They are the human proof that there was a good reason for me to skip those two dinners out with friends to send the money I had worked for and earned to someone I have never met and will never meet. Those updates provide the motivation to keep on giving, so that others too will benefit based on the experience lenders had with those who came before them.

The next deadline for Kiva Fellow applications is coming up Oct. 1 and that trip will be departing in early February. If you do decide to apply, please come back and share insights about your experience in the sidebar comments.

As someone who has traveled and lived in financially impoverished countries, I can definitely attest to the life changing impact such an experience has on you. Though I never went as part of an official program, I always sought out and found opportunities to make a contribution to the lives of those around me beyond simply paying them a good price for whatever products their family business sold. I never saw myself doing the 2 year, government sponsored Peace Corp program, but the 3-6 month non-profit based Kiva Fellows program could be a great fit for anyone who sees economic independence as a key part of self-actualization for people around the world, and who wants to be a part of helping that happen.

Endings and Beginnings

As of a couple days ago, it is official that I won't be teaching meditation to teens at the juvenile detention center any longer. I will miss the connection I had with the teens, but definitely will not miss interacting with the organization.

Fortunately I get to go in on Monday to at least be able to say goodbye to the boys, instead of just disappearing like their previous teacher was forced to do (who was also yanked out by admin for reasons unrelated to the actual delivery of services to the kids). Every week they have asked me about her and I only just found out the day things came to a head for me that she had been asked to leave and not allowed to go back to say goodbye.

I had actually offered to stay on for another month, since all the boys in my group will be turning 18 and moving on to adult prisons at that time, but all I got was this coming Monday evening. I'll take it. At least they won't be wondering what happened to me and imagining the worst, the way they've been doing with the other teacher.

What a shame that the organizations that provide such valuable services are plagued with such dysfunction that the kids wind up being more dependable than the teachers. These guys are so committed to the work, it's a shame to not be able to find them regular teachers that the organization is willing to accept. In the end though, for me, it came down to a difference of philosophy. They seem to believe there is only one way to do the work, which is to use one's personal history as a teaching tool, while I believe that there are multiple effective teaching methods, and mine is "get the self out of the way and let a higher wisdom come through."

I have no doubt that both methods work, because I've seen both work, as have all my co-teachers, who are sorry to see me go. But sometimes the truth just can't be brought out, and it's just time to let it go and move on.

I was very sad about this last week and praying for some assistance in coming to peace with it in my heart. Then I logged on and saw that my Facebook profile had been approved (had to get past the "real name" filters due to having such an unusual name), and in the couple days since I've found so many amazing light beings who I have shared the path with at various points over the last couple decades. It has been truly heart warming to reconnect with all these people who adore me and who I adore, such angels of goodness, generosity, and joy. I am so thankful for having them in my life, both in the past and now in a renewed connection online, though they are scattered all over the world.

I held out a long time, with several friends trying to get me to join, but I always thought it would be a waste of time and couldn't imagine genuine social connection coming through something called Facebook. Well I stand corrected. Just loving it right now. You can find me there at Indigo Ocean on Facebook.