Teachers, Teachers Everywhere

"When you really pay attention, everything is your teacher."

-- Ezra Bayda

Having a guru is so 20th century! To undertake a student-teacher relationship with just one human being is so limiting that it's nearly a type of psychological/spiritual slavery. Spirit exists everywhere, in everyone and everything, and Spirit is the ultimate teacher.

That doesn't mean that you can't learn specific skills (like woodworking), specific practices (like sitting meditation) or certain knowledge (like the history of the Catholic Church) from specific teachers. You can, obviously. And even though the Internet can provide you, with just a click of a mouse, the most human knowledge ever-assembled, there are still very good reasons to take face-to-face classes, engage in discussion, labs, apprenticeships, etc. But never, ever turn your spiritual life or human development over to any one teacher or system.

The downsides of guru-teacher relationships are well documented, especially here in post-modern Western culture. And the bottom line is that these traditional teaching relationships are no longer necessary in this, the third age of spirituality, the Age of the Holy Spirit. And this is simply because Spirit, as mentioned above, is available always and everywhere, even in its ultimate secret hiding place -- deep inside you.

So, learn from every teacher you can. Respect them, honor both their knowledge and their good character, but don't become their spiritual lackey. Surrender your attachment to your ego, surrender it on a daily basis. Just make sure you surrender it to Spirit, Itself, and not to some middleman, even if that middleman is seemingly well meaning.

No more second hand God! That's the ticket. God within, God without -- everywhere you look, you are surrounded by Spirit manifesting as teachers. Welcome to the School of Life...

Thinking is Highly Overrated

"It's not healthy to be thinking all the time. Thinking is intended for acquiring knowledge or applying it. It is not essential to living."

-- Ernest Wood

If Descartes is right, and you think therefore you are, who are you when you're not thinking? I do believe what we've got here is a Western philosophical koan. And as anyone with just a smattering of knowledge about Zen knows, koans never have just one right answer.

As "Woody" points out above, thinking is at times just a bad habit. Granted, it's useful for problem solving, planning and the like. But what about when you're just hanging out, just being? Too much thinking just gets in the way. It's hard to simply groove on living when your mind is filled with roof brain chatter.

The cool thing is that life can be lived at a deeper level than thinking. Descartes got it backwards -- being precedes thinking, it doesn't follow it. Being is primary. You can live from a deep, intuitive level of being if you're willing to let go of thinking-as-usual and allow life to emerge and engage you on its own terms. It will anyway, so why drive yourself crazy thinking about it?

And then you will find out, in an up close and personal way, who you are when you're not thinking. Be prepared to be pleasantly surprised.

Nothing Works!

"Nothing you do will do. Now what will you do?"

-- Shin'ichi Hisamatsu

Have you ever felt like you've tried everything and you're still not getting the results you want? You may be looking relentlessly for a job, but you get no offers, or even interviews. Or maybe you're trying to save, or spark, a relationship and the other person is indifferent, aloof, and cold. Or maybe you're really trying to make your whole life work on multiple levels and no matter what you do it just isn't working! Now what do you do?

Nothing. Sit down, shut up, and watch your wild and crazy mind spit-out all sorts of hare-brained thoughts. Just watch it. Don't attempt to guide it, control it, or repress it. Merely observe. Let things calm down internally, and they will begin to calm down externally. Because when you've done it all and none of it works, surrender is the only logical path.

Surrender your manic mind. Surrender your dreams and schemes. Surrender, most of all, your fears and desires, the two driving forces behind most of our frustration and craziness. Sooner or later, you'll see that when nothing works, nothing works!

Yes, the only thing that works is nothing because from the vast emptiness of nothingness, new possibilities emerge. Possibilities that have nothing to do with your old way of thinking. Possibilities that may even have nothing to do with your old idea of you.

When you move from nothingness, you don't move at all. The Universe moves through you. and the Universe always works. Maybe not the way the old you wanted it to, or anticipated it would, but the Universe always works.

Many people never realize that nothing they do will do. They keep banging their heads against the walls of reality until it comes time to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Others realize their personal powerlessness and sink into deep depression, ennui, or the bottom of a bottle.

Lucky are the few who can unclench the tight fist of ego long enough to let the Universe work through them. They know nothing works. And they celebrate that fact everyday.

The choice is yours -- keep on keeping on, doing what doesn't work, or do nothing and see.

You're Not Fine

"Because I know myself very well, it is difficult to say who I am."

-- Taiso Eko (Second Zen Patriarch)

Walking down the street you encounter a friend.

"How are you? they ask.

"Fine," you say, "how about you?"

"Fine," they reply.

And the conversation moves on to other topics. Or you both walk on with barely a hitch in your stride.

Harmless social banter, you say. Perhaps. But beneath the surface there maybe a whole lot more going on. In fact you may not feel "fine" at all at that moment, but you know that nobody really wants to hear a play-by-play description of your lousy day. "How are you?" is not meant to be taken literally.

But what if you did take it literally and deeply, how would you answer? If you know yourself as well as Taiso knew himself, the question "How are you?" might be as difficult to answer as "Who are you?" They both call upon you to boil down a massive amount of information into a short, verbal description.

We say we are "fine." We say we are a mother or a father, a student or an attorney, a blogger or a singer. We have all kinds of words to label and describe ourselves, but the better we know ourselves the more inadequate they all seem.

Sometimes when people ask me "How are you?" I want to say "I don't have the foggiest idea." Or when I'm at a networking event and a new acquaintance asks me "What do you do?" I want to say "Just a bunch of random crazy shit."

The fault really lies in the questions themselves. They really are not rational. They ask us to put into words what can only be experienced. Sure, they're well meaning, or at least semi-functional, but in reality they're meaning-less. And, worst of all, they condition us to think that we really can describe ourselves or our current state of consciousness with a well chosen assortment of nouns or adjectives.

Face it -- the better you know yourself, the less you can describe yourself. The more you understand the changing nature of thoughts, felling, and emotions, the less willing you are to describe your current state because you know that at any given moment it can change.

Who are you?

Hell if I know.

How are you?

Don't have a clue.

Welcome to reality.

Follow the Fine Silvery Stream

"Be soft in your practice. Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall. Follow the stream, have faith in its course. It will go its own way, meandering here, trickling there. It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices. Just follow it. Never let it out of your sight. It will take you."

-- Sheng-yen

I don't know who Sheng-yen is. Some Zen dude, I think. When he talks about "the method" I believe he's referring to the Zen practice of sitting meditation. It really doesn't matter, though, who he is or what the method is -- he's nailed it!

Every practice in every spiritual tradition follows "a fine silvery stream." It is at the same time a universal stream and a secret stream that is personal. private, and unique to you. It is as if all streams are made up of the same water, and all lead home to the same ocean, but each take a different route to get there.

It matters not whether your practice is sitting meditation, yoga, tai chi, contemplative prayer, or inner tennis. In each and every true spiritual practice is found the thread of Spirit that binds you to the Divine. There are no rigid stages of growth, no blueprints, no road maps for the journey. Trickling and meandering, the path is anything but straight. Your only real charge is to follow it.

How do you follow it? You follow it by tuning in. You follow it by being aware. You follow it by heeding the call of your heart. You forget about musts and shoulds and rules and regulations. You relax into your intuition, and you see where it encourages you to go.

You sit or you walk or you stretch or you kneel or you dance. And in the midst of it all, you wait from your silent center for the stream to pull you. And you go. You don't know where the hell you're going, but you go anyway. Grooves, cracks and crevices await. 

Follow, explore, enjoy!

A Slippery Slope

"All you have to do is decide that wherever you are is the best place there is. Once you start comparing one place to another there is no end to it."

-- Sodo Yokoyama

It seems like I spend half the winter complaining that it's winter. I'd rather be anguishing in Tahiti or swimming in Florida or baking in Arizona or snuggled deeply in the devils' jockstrap -- anywhere as long as it's warm! And yet, year after year, I spend most of my winter in the frozen tundra of the great Midwest.

Now it doesn't take a Zen master like Sodo Yokoyama to see that I'm wasting my time complaining, but you may have to be damn near a Zen master not to fall into the complaint trap yourself. For you, it may have nothing to do with winter. You may spend half your day at work wishing you were somewhere, anywhere, else. Or you may wish you lived not in the tiny crackerbox you now inhabit, but rather on a white-fenced horse farm, in a suburban McMansion, or in a penthouse with breathtaking views.

It doesn't matter what you're comparing -- all comparisons are odious. All comparisons, whether they are geographic in nature or not, are merely a refusal to accept reality. Each time you compare you are basically saying, "if I were God, if I were in charge of this here universe, you can bet your sweet ass things would be a damn sight different around here."

Here's a little secret -- nothing that you want to change really matters. Sure I could move to Florida, or find a way to "winter" there, but do you for one moment think that my new environment would stop me from comparing and complaining? Hell no! I've spent alot of time in Florida and the summers are too damn hot and humid, and there are way too many friggin' bugs, and in the nicest places there are almost more people than there are grains of sand, which reminds me that the beaches are really never as nice as I remember them... and on and on ad nauseum.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't try and improve or change your life. What I am saying is that the biggest improvement or change that you can make is to give up the judgmental comparing mind, give up your war with reality, and realize that this place is the best place, that now is the best time, and that joy comes not so much from achievement as from acceptance.

Comparison is indeed a slippery slope. Once you start, you're on a downward slide straight to Hades. Nothing is ever good enough. Not even you. Especially you.

So, let's take a stance. Right here, right now -- acceptance of what is, of where we are, of who we are. Instead of looking around in a fit of comparison, let's look God straight in the eye. Thanks, Big Guy.

Don't look!

"The devil inside

The devil inside

Every single one of us the devil inside"

-- INXS song lyrics

Back in the thank-God-they're-gone 80's there was a song entitled The Devil Inside. The chorus went something like "The Devil inside, the Devil inside, everyone's got the Devil inside." The edgy youth of the time loved it. Why wouldn't they? It was based on truth.

Don't get me wrong. I don't really believe in a red dude with a long tail and horns who answers to the name Satan. What I do notice, not believe, is that we all have some negativity in our souls. Call it the Devil, call it evil, call it Dick Chaney. It doesn't matter what you call it, it's an energy that is harbored within the dark side of each of us.

It's there. We know it. But there's no good reason to spend any time looking at it, feeding it, or giving it energy and attention. Sure, you and old Beelzebub may get into an occasional wrestling match or two during your dark nights of the soul, but that's your own personal business. No one can wrestle the Red Man for you. And any evil lurking in the hearts of others is their business. No rubber necking, please.

Evil is a fascinating phenomena. And it comes in so many creative guises and disguises. Our job, though, our path, if you will, no matter what your religion may be, is to choose love. When we look at others, we are looking for the best and brightest light that they can shine. We are looking beyond appearance to essence, beyond persona to Spirt.

And the more we choose to focus on Spirit, on love, rather than upon evil, the freer we are. We are free because Spirit itself is always already free, and we are It. We may have evil, but we are Spirit. As is everyone.

And so when we notice a tail under the priest's cloak, or the cold metal shine in the teacher's eye, or just the common, everyday examples of greed and pettiness that cross our path, we turn away. We turn away not from the person, just from the negativity. We turn away not in anger but in gratitude. Gratitude for the fact that we have the strength, the discernment, the heart to choose to see all the positive things that a person is and can be.

That is our freedom -- not to be compelled, constrained or controlled by evil, not to mistake it as Real, but to see all and everything, everyone, as Spirit incarnate.

Seek Not

"If you know that fundamentally there is nothing to seek, you have settled your affairs."

-- Rinzai

Zen masters have a way of just cutting to the chase, don't they? No seeking, no attaining, just is-ness.

And yet, even as the truth of Rinzai's statement reverberates within us, we find ourselves time and time again back in the role of seeker. We dupe ourselves with trumped up desires, with thoughts that we need this or that thing, relationship, accomplishment or experience in order to be happy, fulfilled, enlightened or whole. I guess we need something to fill the days, hours and years. But that something can, of course, be creating, sharing, loving rather than seeking.

The problem with being caught in the seeking cycle is that separates us, at least mentally, from Reality. Instead of reveling in what is right before us, we jones after fantasies of the good life. This is the good life! Or, as Carly Simon sings, "these are the good old days." Nothing need be added because nothing is missing. Nothing. Very Zen!

When lost in the cycle of seeking, when tossed by waves of desire, breath is a lifeline. Focus on the rise and and fall of your stomach -- breathing in, breathing out. You don't have to seek to breathe; breathing just happens. As does your life. As does Reality. Right here, right now the breath of life, all of life, all in this moment free of seeking. Who could ask for anything more?

Karma

"Viewed correctly, karma is a learning process rather than a punitive one. We get what we need in order to grow. As long as we regard ourselves as being punished, we are missing the point."

-- Robert Allen. Zen Reflections, page 51

Karma is simple -- action begets reaction. What you do produces results, and those results are aligned with the laws, or working principles, of the Universe.

There's no white-bearded Big Daddy in the sky sending either rewards or punishments your way. Karma's not personal at all. It's just the way this system we cal life works.

And as Big Bob Allen points out, karma is there to educate you. It's all about positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Certain actions produce positive results, others produce negative repercussions. The tricky part is that we don't always see the karmic results of our actions right away, and that's why it behooves us to become karmically sensitive.

What does "karmically sensitive" mean? It means that instead of waiting for results to manifest in the physical world, we feel the results of our actions within our souls, even as we are doing them! Certain acts promote Unity, bring us into alignment with the Universe, attune us to the Tao. Other acts rip apart the sacred threads that weave us together, produce dissension, separateness and strife. When you become sensitive to these movements within, you do not have to wait for outer results to confirm the karma you have set in motion.

You can leave morals, ethics and codes of conduct out of this whole discussion. Feeling karmic implications, and learning from them, begins not as a cognitive process but as an intuitive one. You need not attempt to follow any rules and regulations, you simply guide your behavior by the instant karmic feedback that you receive on the soul level. Miss those subtle intonations, however, and, don't worry, sooner or later, much larger, external results will grab your attention. Pay attention now, or pay later. It's up to you.

When the results are positive, when you're on a roll, go with it, enjoy it, and remember what works. When the results are negative, understand the behavior that initiated those painful results, and change it -- right now, next time, or whenever you can. From a learning perspective, the worst thing you can do is to blame others, make up some quack astrological explanation, or in other ways play the victim.

It's all karma! Don't believe me, experiment and see the results. Live from a level of complete responsibility, as if it's all karma, and keep a clear eye on what unfolds. Each and every moment a learning moment. The Universe partnering with you by giving you constant feedback. A grand adventure, a great game! What could be better than that?

Collaborators in Creation

"Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation."

-- Teilhard de Chardin

Who truly knows their own limits? No one. Sure, you may know that you can't run a four minute mile, but, hell, you probably don't want to anyway! Likely, though, there are many more things that you really do want to do, and can do, but you limit yourself from doing them simply because you have failed to adopt the "as if" philosophy. Proceeding "as if limits do our ability do not exist" produces results that far exceed what we could predict through rational analysis. And if that is so when we speak of the individual, just think how much more we can expand beyond our supposed limits when we're working together!

Alot of the New Age books have it at least half wrong -- you do not create your own reality! You co-create your experience of the world by collaborating with others, with natural laws, with The Divine. It's not about manifesting the perfect parking space or creating a multi-million dollar income. It's about joyfully working, playing and living in concert with the One and all.

To truly do that, you must transcend the ego -- both its boundaries and it's pride. Being a collaborator in creation is no big deal. It's just what people do -- whether they know it or not. Doing it consciously is the trick. That, and being detached from the results.

Zen has ben defined as "doing your damndest without giving a damn." That is both the paradox, and the mindset, that we're talking about here. No self-imposed limits, no attachment to results. Collaborating with the Universe! Who knows what will happen?