WAKE UP!
To The Subtle Violence of Personality

A friend (point 8) commented to me once about “the bad rap eights get”. This was in response to an article on the enneagram of personality types that had appeared in a major metropolitan newspaper. The article quoted one person’s viewpoint that “eights are awful to be married to!” As an eight myself, I could relate to both my friend’s concern and the person quoted in the article because I too was married to an eight and it was the worst 18 months of my life!!! Those eights are they too much or what?

I have attended a number of enneagram functions and have many friends and acquaintances within enneagram circles. Invariably, I hear comments about how eights are the worst. In studying the enneagram, I learned that no particular fixation is better or worse than any other. Why then do we continue to hear comments like this? Continue Reading »

Words can Kill

The world comes knocking

at the wise man’s door

like all good guests

laying problems at his feet

quietly, he feeds them

as gluttonous appetites

ravage the evening’s meal

bloated with assumptions

they raucously depart

hidden in the corner

a hungry servant

died on table scraps

Principles Worth Defending

What is this space we say we need

and to our neighbors refuse to cede

Our bodies willingly we’ll bleed

if our words they fail to heed

Seeking love with heart sincere

a bloodied child sheds a tear

Our cause is just, the course won’t veer

such hypocrites, we have no peer

From global wars to marriage spats

righteousness wears white hats

And just like hissing alley cats

soon throws itself upon the rats

They say we live an age of reason

apparently there has been treason

But let us wait another season

before removing ego’s lesion

Religious leaders take such pride

in claiming God is on their side

As human passions they seek to hide

in fear the flock finds they lied

If all is fair in love and war

then our poor world will heal no sore

And children raised on local lore

will also rot at the core

Ideas, Concepts, Positions – The Prison of the Mind

What I am leading you to is the following: awareness of reality around you. Awareness means to watch, to observe what is going on within you and around you. “Going on” is pretty accurate: trees, grass, flowers, animals, rock, all of reality is moving. One observes it, one watches it. How essential it is for the human being not just to observe himself or herself, but to watch all of reality. Are you imprisoned by your concepts? Do you want to break out of your prison? Then look; observe; spend hours observing. Watching what? Anything. The faces of people, the shapes of trees, a bird in flight, a pile of stones, watch the grass grow. Get in touch with things, look at them. Hopefully you will then break out of these rigid patterns we have all developed, out of what our thoughts and our words have imposed on us. Hopefully we will see. What will we see? This thing that we choose to call reality, whatever is beyond words and concepts. This is a spiritual exercise — connected with spirituality — breaking out of your cage, out of the imprisonment of the concepts and words. – Anthony De Mello

Sex Sells the Soul for Image

This trailer for “Miss Representation” sheds light on a growing problem with a culture hooked on image and a diet of media addiction. Where will the world be in 20 years?

Feed Me, Feed Me Pleaded the Hungry Ghost

Yesterday, I was on the way to meet my sister for dinner when I felt and heard a hungry ghost inside of me – feed me, feed me it wailed. It was a marvel. I was fascinated.

Over the years of working on patterns, habits, conditioning and attitudes, I don’t believe I have ever experienced the past’s struggle to reassert itself as a hungry ghost. As I was approaching a stop sign, I thought – maybe I could… (partake of an old experience). A quick response – Why, aren’t I through with that? And then this feeling from my gut that moved up into my chest and then into my head – feeeeeeeed meeeeee…

This is not a Halloween tale, though the timing is timely! It was kind of spooky because the presence actually felt ghostly, like vapor, fog, amorphous. It was wafting up and around and through me like swirling smoke – and it was definitely hungry. One little morsel won’t hurt, will it?

Wikipedia – Hungry ghost is a Western translation of an Eastern phrase representing beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way. In Buddhism, Hungry Ghosts are ghosts only in the sense of not being fully alive; not fully capable of living and appreciating what the moment has to offer. Although the Eastern terminology and metaphor is very different, the concept has strong parallels with similar concepts in western psychology.

My hungry ghost was most definitely connected to the animal soul. It’s hunger spread to the pelvis, to my arms and legs – the hunger was everywhere except in the presence and awareness observing this phenomena. My mind was working overtime in trying to figure out how to have it’s cake and eat it too – feed the ghost and live one’s realization.

In the end, I settled for a nice Pinot Noir and some delicious fish tacos.

From New York to True Nature

Ian McKay interviews Jessica Britt, a Diamond Approach teacher, about her spiritual journey. Jessica has been a teacher of mine for over 20 years. In addition to teaching the Diamond Approach, Jessica works with the Medicine Wheel

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How Often Do We Hedge Our Bets

I like to watch Texas Hold’em Poker. I’ve never played it, though I have thought about playing poker online. My friend, Holly, is on her way back from France and coincidentally, I received an email about the above linked poker site.

It got me to thinking about how we bet on life, or don’t. It’s the old question of do we walk the talk or do we hedge our bet. Are we “all in” on our life and practice or are we taking it easy, procrastinating or even being lazy.

Perhaps the daily quote on the Diamond Approach Facebook page contributed to me examining the current state of affairs:

It’s possible to examine the extent to which our lives reflect the truth we know. What kinds of foods do we eat? Do we exercise? How do we manage our schedules? Do we find out what we enjoy doing and then set about doing it? Do we allow ourselves the rest and the aloneness that we need to experience the preciousness of reality? Or do we spend day after day being lazy and procrastinating, living routines that makes us miserable? What do we do in terms of our relationships? Do we try to live those relationships according to the truth that we know? Do we apply the experiences we’ve had of ourselves and others and the world or do we reserve our insights for special occasions? Do we create the kind of environment that supports the actualization of the truth? Or do we believe that it’s sufficient to experience ourselves as precious, and then expect the angels to come and clean our room every day?

We’re talking about very practical matters here. We’re talking about applying what we know and what we learn, making the effort, expending the energy to live with sincerity. We do the Work, we practice the teaching, every minute of our lives, not only when we meditate or go to a session or a meeting. For example, if we know that we are more in touch with ourselves when we are relaxed, do we try to pay attention so that we’re as relaxed as possible all the time? Do we organize our time and our life so that we minimize confusion and unnecessary activity?

So we see that there are practical sides to loving the truth for its own sake. To love the truth for its own sake, which has to do with the heart, we have to involve the belly. The Kath, the Hara, our belly center, supports the heart’s love of the truth. The heart cannot survive on its own, cannot survive without the support of our actions, which are centered in the belly. Sincerely loving the truth is ultimately useless if we don’t sincerely live the truth.

Years ago, I used to fly over to Las Vegas from Los Angeles every Friday night and play Blackjack all night. I was interested in card counting at the time. I’m happy to report that I broke even for the six months I did that. I don’t know what the fascination is with poker, but Texas Hold’em is interesting and the game is changing quite dramatically as a whole new generation of online players with a lot of aggression show up at poker events.

It’s an interesting moment when a poker player goes all in, risking everything…. well, at least for that hand, on that day, in that tournament.

Just got me to wondering – am I all in on life and daily practice?

Comparing Mind – Junkyard Dog of a Critic

The problem with in-laws

Is the concern

For their family values

Not you

The mind’s orientation

Toward the soul

Is similar ———– JH

It’s impossible to judge a book by its cover if there is no comparing mind. If there is no reference point for comparison then, it’s damn difficult to find fault with anything.

Now, a comparing mind can be a good thing when it’s functioning free of the “judging mind”;  “inner critic”; superego; or “junkyard dog”. It helps us to get home with a sack of oranges instead of a box of zucchini. But, unless we have engaged in specific work on this part of ourselves, it’s a given that it is running amok and causing us an enormous amount of suffering.

If we really look into the situation, we find that this junkyard dog is just plain mean and nasty. It’s being driven by self-hatred and it’s using our libidinal energy (life force) against us. I wish it weren’t so, but the situation is even worse. Continue Reading »

Self-Realization – Beyond Concepts, Beliefs, Attitudes & Attacks

I got on the spiritual path at age 19. The experience that precipitated my interest in spiritual development, self-realization, God-realization, enlightenment and such was, at that time, just mind boggling. Today, I realize that the experience involved a descent of essence into my consciousness and body, and an awakening of the point.

Like many, I have spent years seeking, searching, making half-assed attempts at meditation (daily practice), attending workshops, retreats and in the course of events spending more than tens of thousands of dollars. In the process of all of that, I matured (to some degree!) physically, emotionally and spiritually. My journey or process deepened. My orientation reoriented. My interests and curiosity started going places I could not have imagined.

Today, I find myself here – not going anywhere, no interest in changing or making something happen. It seems things change on their own and that there is an intelligence guiding it all that is more in touch with what I need to unwind than my mind on it’s best day could offer up. A real weight-lifting experience – so to speak.

I recently attended Byron Brown’s Soul without Shame workshop, a 3 1/2 day teaching on disengaging from the superego / inner critic. The superego / inner critic is one of the places of arrested development in our psyches and souls that constantly attacks and undermines our realization. Interestingly, in the beginning it actually serves us to move toward deeper realization, but then it really gets in the way. Doubt is one of it’s most effective tools. It also works through other people by producing attacks from the outside.

So there I was minding my own business two days after the workshop reading a magazine when I came upon this:

The harder you hit this material, the more powerful it becomes.  F. Daniel Tsai, Novana

And that is where and how the words bulletproof and realization crossed paths in my brain and got me to thinking and contemplating bulletproof realization. I haven’t the time, nor inclination to share the breadth and depth of my contemplation, but I will say this – if we want to bulletproof our realization – live our realization, without goals & artifice. Openness, curiosity and not-knowing are better supports and servants for orienting us.

Realization is practice. Practice is realization.

Some Thoughts on “The Moment”

We know reification is at work when we think of it as this moment or the next moment. The moment is actually out of time.

Time is rushing at us

From everywhere

From all directions

From inside and outside

From the past and future

Physical time

Emotional time

Psychological time

It’s absolutely

Incredible

How

All of time

Fits into the

Moment

 

The Inner Heart

When heart touches earth,

it also whispers upon the wind,

engulfs the sea,

and hears itself in every breast

How is it possible

to breathe in all of this beauty

and empty oneself

into the moment?

Sleep

Is the gift of God

Don’t waste it on escaping this world

Or flee there in boredom or despair

Sleep for the sake of the soul

Refresh yourself for tonight’s dancing and revelry

A rested body and mind

Is a great gift to throw into Nothingness

 

Lay your body in the lap of the Beloved

Deep sighs of the burden surrendered

True support, the Divine Current

Lay your head against the Beloved’s bosom

Sighs of relief from separation

Acceptance, the disappearing into Transparency

Touch your heart-cheek to the Beloved’s

Sweet melting sighs of ecstatic release

The rich Perfume of The Beloved’s neck

Is what you are

 

Oh come, you

Who work and struggle

Who suffer and wander

Who are weary and worn

Rest for the sake of the soul

Lay you heads and bodies down

Lay your heart-cheeks upon His mercy

Rest for the sake of the soul

 

One moment

In Absolute sleep

Will

Change

You

Forever

 

There IS

A point

At the center of me

That IS

Not of this world

All moments

Within and without

Intersect here

All directions

Lead to it

It is not even

A nanosecond’s width

In space-time-existence

It connects all moments

And threads of time

Reducing all time-maps

To nothingness

It is the non-function

Birthing the Golden Mean

Resolving all mathematics

Into null

It is the priorness

The no-place

Of the emergent bubble

It is not here nor there

But everywhere

It cannot be found or located

But is the core

Of the Everything

It is the utter calm

The completely still

To say

It is this or that

Is a deception

It does not exist

But is the ground

That gathers every

Present moment

Into nowhere

It is the Not-Now

Of timelessness

It is the ground of NOT

Gravity-mass-movement

And the soul

Longs for its

Intimate kiss

Cessation

Time

Has a way

Of complicating life

Here

Is the key

Of how

To make life

Very clear and simple

Enter

The moment