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Posted on by joseph mauricio

Riding The Lifemare

There is so much pain in the world. So much struggle. We have everything we need to have everyone on the planet happy, safe and well fed. But, the imbalance of wealth continues. The environment is red lining. There are random catastrophic attacks on innocent people around the world. Is any of this sustainable? Fixable? Actually, survivable?

Is it the end of times? Or, will that come with an election in the fall? (I’m old enough to have laughed at the idea of Ronald Reagan. And we all remember Al Gore winning the presidency, don’t we?) But seriously, are we going to elect a billionaire with questionable business histories to help restore economic balance? The alternative, by the way, is only a millionaire, albeit with an equally sliding business moral scale.
In what scientists refer to as a stable universe, we live with the fact that the cosmic rug can be ripped from us at any time. But, science only explains so much. Our beliefs, when they aren’t completely blocking us, only go so far. Ideas aren’t worth the projections they’re imprinted on. When it comes down to it, there is only life. And life does whatever the heck it wants.

That’s what we signed on for when we met the gleam in our parents’ eyes and pushed past the thighs screaming into the night. It’s no surprise we were crying. But, Then we gave in, forgot the truth, and decided to try it all over again. We became excited by our feet and the prospect eating the coffee table. Eventually, we walked and eventually we let go of youth to pound rocks in this improbable prison called life.

And we understood that those weren’t rocks so much as our heads. And when we stopped pounding long enough against the cell door, we had an epiphany. Okay, not an epiphany as much as a realization. Or, maybe a resignation. This is all there is. Its not gonna be anything other than this. And when we got that, we stopped hitting our head long enough to realize the cell was ajar. And that jars can be opened. And, all we need do is let go into that smile from divine tho born from the dirt and delivered to the dirt, in between, take our place on the planet as its stewards and its fruit. That’s it really. Just take care of things, as we can.

People try and find deeper MEANING in life as the planet is threatening to evict us, and we are warring on our own souls. Kind of like philosophizing at the scene of a car accident. Sure, these things beg the grand questions. But, shouldn’t someone call an ambulance?

This is a plea for us to do something out of love and care for each other and the world. This is a call to nonviolent activism. Waking up in the chaos and riding this lifemare into the dark and the light of our journey. Letting go of what we believe, so we can step into the arms of who we are and what we need to do for each other to save ourselves. I recommend sitting down to gather ourselves and letting the energy of change change us into the Bodhisattvas we were destined to become. If the world is grasping for something to save it, maybe we can be junkies for wakefulness. Maybe we can be willing to sleep in the cold just for the rush of helping our world. So when Walking Dead is finally done, when we’ve exhausted all excuses, when the alarm has been pushed to snooze enough times, we can wake up and realize this is the only life we have in this life. And it needs us. Not the planet. The planet will evict us and carry on like nothing much happened. In a billion years it will sprout another thinking race. And, maybe that race will know enough to live with some respect for itself.

But, maybe that race is here. In our dream of waking. In our belief in each other. In our trust in humanity. We can wake up into the dream, and bring the change.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

Opening to Change

IMG_1129Life is continually changing. And although it is natural for us to fear change, by shutting down to that fear we shut down our life. Hence, opening to change, frightening as it may be, is opening to life.

The tool we need to supply the strength for this journey lies no further than our own heart. The power of a compassionate heart is the strong force of the universe that binds us to a lasting truth. The oldest written book we know is the Taoist I Ching or “Book of Changes”. A fundamental experience to all life is its transience. Even our planet, the very home to humanity, is changing. Yet, throughout human experience, we have endeavored to find stability and meaning. In order to live a full and rewarding existence, we have grasped at straws of permanence in ourselves, our spirituality, religion, art, science and even politics.  Yet, attempts at solidifying our experience are themselves subject to decay and dissolution.

This dissonance has created great tension in our lives. We are changing, and yet, we long to find stability and something that lasts.  The great Taoist philosophies from which Confucianism and Buddhism extend, posit the image of a river. The river has been flowing for through epochs, but each time we step in, it is an entirely new river.

As a tree grows, it is not cursed with the question of its existence, nor has it the need to find meaning to validate its experience. Animals, find need in dominance and survival and their existence is largely fearful. But humans have the greatest challenge of life on our planet. We are blessed with the curse of knowing. We can see just enough to understand that our time is very limited. Yet, we still don’t understand why. Hence, we struggle between the botanical model of ignoring our existence, or closing down into patterns of defensiveness. When we feel good, the tendency is to escape into frivolous experience, as though we have all the time in the world. We consume beyond our needs, take more space than is offered and live without appreciation. On the other hand, when circumstances arise that we are forced to see the precarious nature of our experience, we might burrow into warrens of protective repetition, shutting down our life into a dull, but controllable, routine. In either case, we are gripping, clinging and closing off our life. And in neither case, are we able to sustain our position. Exuberance and fear are both subject to change. And, in fact, most of us cycle back and forth between the two extremes. Life seems blissful when we are lost in a dream, but when the dream ends and we are faced with a life that has not been related to, we fall into depression of guilt and blame.

There is a third option, a middle way that includes joy and truth. And that is, opening to our life, as it is and finding the love, joy and acceptance for which we yearn in our own heart and mind. We realize our basic human dignity by opening to fear, rather than finding an exit to a more manageable or less painful experience. When we accept that life is change and that change is frightening, we can open beyond. By opening to change, we are waking up to the truth of our experience. When we choose a life of knowing, caring and compassion are natural. And this gives a profound meaning to our experience. By connecting to the stream of love, we are connected to the lineage of life.

And, life, like the river in our analogy is the lasting experience we are craving. By opening, we step past our fear and touch our heart. When we connect to that self love and caring, we are connected to the love of the universe. And, whether that love is God, Dharma, the Tao, Humanity or History it is a living flow that is has never changed, and is different each time we step into it. The present has been flowing for as long as there has been life in the cosmos. But each time we come back to the present, it is a new and rich experience.

 

 

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

Love in the Face of Terror

Bartering Being Right for Being Love. 
More bombings. More terror. Tuesday morning, on the eve of a solar eclipse, suicide bombs and automatic weapons took the lives of over 30 people in Brussels. After 5 people died in Istanbul the previous Saturday. The two recent attacks claimed over 2oo wounded. And there were others before. Large and small. High profile and low. A lineage of hatred ringing through the streets. Our streets. The streets of human hope, life and understanding. Its hard not to be angry and frightened. And so, its easy to react with hatred, passing down hatred through a succession of aggression. And many will do that. And, this is natural and, for now, unavoidable. But, there are some who will stand in the face of terror. There are those who will offer love and caring for the victims and a world torn by hatred. It takes great bravery to do this. My heroes are those who stand for love regardless. Who don’t fall for the easy action, and instead try and face the danger with an open heart and open eyes. It is imperative that some of us begin to understand this anger and offer kindness in its stead.

Facing terror with an open heart will seem naive to some. But, by opening the heart instead of shying away we are willing to try and see. By accepting with radical allegiance what has happened in hopes of understanding how to heal this and break the chain. We may not have answers.  But, if we remain dedicated to waiting through the pain, perhaps we can one day find a way out of this. But, if not, and if this violence continues until it ends us, at least some will have given the love and care that is so needed in the midst of pain. Someone has to answer blood with heart, or we will never heal. And if we never heal, we will never grow beyond these cycles of self-interest and self-protection.

For those brave enough to face the terror, perhaps we can be still long enough to see its entire scope.  While we revile terrorism for its animal cruelty and relegate terrorists to sub-human status, we have given ourselves the moral permission to place all our frustration, fear and anger onto a nondescript other. This momentary empowerment feels right. It feels strong. But the more we grip, the more vulnerable. By closing our mind in a vice, we are actually more vulnerable.  We are vulnerable not only to danger, but to being manipulated by those who broker in fear and hatred. We all love the underdog in movies. We identify with native struggles, and those oppressed by stronger cultures. This “Robin Hood” syndrome is a very real human impulse. The United States itself identifies as rebels in it’s inception. But were the patriots we revere deemed terrorists to some?  How was our own country viewed by the native people of this continent? How were we viewed by slaves torn from their families, shipped and traded like cattle to support an illegal economy?  And how are we seen to young children growing up in the middle east with scant hope and little opportunity to realize their basic human ambitions? They are easily manipulated by those who profit from their anger, and frankly the first world is an all too easy target.

But, the truth is, we are all victims of aggression. There is poverty and disempowerment in the first world, as well. There are victims of abuse in our safe American homes who can so easily turn toward hatred to find a way from their pain. Hate on hate on hate on hate. Our lineage of suffering might look senseless and cruel from the outside, but it feels so heroic within. This hatred keeps us spinning, and in our spinning, we no longer see. We only grasp the closest ally, and follow the strongest current. In this way, we are all unwitting adjuncts to our destruction. And in the melee, we miss the reality, for it is a sad truth that in times of duress victims will kill victims. We are so caught in the bloodlust, we forget to see the obvious. For instance, an obvious thought is that terror costs money. Who has the money?  I’m sure that few people dressed in a suicide belt come from great wealth and power. Where is the money that supports them? Along with pictures of the carnage, why are there not articles on who is financing and who is actually benefitting from terror? Where is the money? If we stop the money, and prosecute the pipeline of arms and resources, might we not slow the progress of hatred? Might we not be able to separate out the causes and conditions and begin to see how to untie the knot?  Then those left in the trenches might be free to communicate and begin to understand what creates this hatred. Unfortunately, then we would have to listen to stories we’d rather not hear. We’d have to begin to see ourselves tin the other. And, that is so very much more complicated than blame.

No, its easier to stay with the simple. Its easier to build walls and blow up markets than to try and see what someone else sees. And because of this blindness, we are at the mercy of the momentum. We are pulled like bulls from our nose. We are lead to slaughter again and again. So, while anger is easily justified, some of us simply must try something else. Some of us must take the mantle of kindness and peace in the face of war. Some of us must stand to open our hearts, if not to the aggressors, at least to the victims.  So it will be said, never forget, and please don’t let them have died in vain. And monuments will be erected. And those slogans will be used to rally further war. This is what has happened, and what will happen again.

But, our memories of the victims can also be used to rally peace. Don’t let the victims die in vain. Let their suffering pose an opportunity for us to bond in compassion and caring. Let us forgive the easy answers for the bravery of being love in this time of hatred. This will change the world.

And, if you think that this is naive, and an avoidance of the responsibility of action, then please show me how aggression has helped. Maybe sometimes it has. More often its probably just unavoidable. But, in any case, it has added to the myth of the preeminence of might. And, justified or not, this has obscured our ability to see past vicious struggles for survival to greater human understanding. If we choose love, we do something different. We take a moment to pause and for a brief, but very important moment, we break the chain. And that break proves that the chain is not unbreakable. And that gap might open the window to an opportunity to develop a new way of working with our pain. Maybe then instead of erecting statues to commemorate war, we can build monuments to peace. Instead of using victims suffering adventitiously to strengthen ourselves, we can share in their pain and create greater compassion and understanding in the world.

I do not have that understanding now. I am angry as well. I do not know what is right, or who is right or what is best. But, I know that I want to make a statement for peace, because peace is what is needed.  Simply that. There are warriors, and their are healers. The world has always been this way. Let us not forget the healing. Let us not forget understanding. Let us not forget to sit in meditation or prayer and in honor of those who suffer, face the terror with love.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

A Dance of Perception

A Guided Meditation

2010-11-30 19.13.35There is a moment when the mind ‘flips’ from externalizing and objectifying to an internalizing or integrating perspective. You slow down enough or maybe wake up enough. and you can feel that moment in the mind.

Let’s try. Okay?

  • Sit up right. Allow the energy to drain down through you  as you spine rises straight up. Elongate the yogic stretch of the spine as though the tailbone were a weighty ancient stone arrowhead and the head was gently pulled upward to the sky by a golden string. Imagine the spine extended gently creating space between the vertebrae.
  • Then allow the muscles, organs and sinew of the body to relax down, creating space inside the body for the organs to function and circulatory, respiratory and nervous to flow naturally. Allow room for the body to breathe. Close the eyes and gently relax them. Shut off the point of focus behind the eyes, behind the forehead. Relax the nexus of tension in the back of the neck. Open the throat. As you breathe, relax down to the heart. imagine that opening, as though it were a horizontal lotus, blooming, expanding. In the back ground you are aware of the breathing, the essential rhythm of life. Allow the energy to flow down and open through your stomach, abdomen, groin and hips and seat. Allow the rhythm of breathing to coax the energy out the hands, feet, fingers and toes.
  • Contact the felt experience of the breath.  Allow the breath to expand through you and open you. Allow the rhythm of the breathing to settle you further – even as the spine stretches upward. As the spine stretches upward toward its destiny of wakefulness to the sky, the viscera relaxes down toward a sovereignty of completeness within the earth.
  • Sit breathing for a few moments.
  • Then draw allow your primary awareness into a mindful experience of the breathing. Gently take in information from the experience. Relax the external experience of you. Just become the experience of the breath.  Your primary awareness is the breath. Around the breath, a secondary or harmonic awareness of the open and aligned body begins to occur. Beyond that, an experience of the room around you, the environment, sounds on the street, and your thinking.  As the mind localizes on a thought it will lose its connection to the breath and there will be an experience of you. The experience of you will occlude your awareness, and become insular and self-referential. Release that, as it happens, and relax back into identification with the breath. And through that, into non-identification itself. Be the breath breathing into an open vessel.
  • Simply that.
  • Allow the perceptions of the mind, to be part of the general awareness and allow the breath to lead us back to integration with the physical and emotional planes. Allow the breath moving through an aligned, and open body, to guide your experience away from identifying with the “you” construct and back into a physical experience of now.
  • Releasing yourself from all constructs, place your identification on the simple movement of the breath in the moment. Allow perceptions to come and go, as they will, without relating to “you”. “You” are only awareness of the present moment as embodied by the breath. So, just be the breath. And, at some point, just be.
  • As you continue breathing, feel that recede into the background as you place your primary attention on the left hand. First you notice that in the mind and notice any judgement (“I don’t want to do this?” ” I was just getting to samadhi” “I hate exercise.”  It’s all okay. Allow that information to recede into the background.
  • Then move your mind to the hand. The mind may want to jump off. “Okay, I got it.” But gently move beyond that. Investigate the hand. Is there a temperature? Are there different temperatures on different sides of the hand? Is there an evenness to the way the fingers are splayed? Just notice. Then open.
  • Open to the hand and allow the information from the hand to enter your mind stream. Keep ancillary attention on the breathing as you gather wordless information from the hand.
  • Just be the hand there in the moment, as you breathe.
  • Then bring the breath back to the foreground. First the mind hears that. Then, if there’s no resistance, you move the mind to the breath. Then, if there are no distractions, the mind can momentarily investigate. Where is the body moving? Where is the breath? Then, before words become sentences, open to the experience of the breathing and actually feel it. Open to it and allow the information to touch you

enter you

move you

and, change you.

  • Now, become the breath
  • Place your hands over your heart area. Feel the radiant energy of your touch. Allow the dominant hand to hold the heart. Breath into that. Breath the energy of wakefulness and strength into the heart. Connect to the vertical alignment of rising in a yogic stretch from your connection to the earth through the spine infinitely to the sky. Awake. Now feel the energy of the other hand. Open your heart into it. Relax into the hands and the posture opening the heart, and allowing the energy within to flow through you. Bring a image of something you love into your heart.  And let that love radiate. Then, drop your hands.
  • Slowly open your eyes. Look around the room, allowing the space created from a settled mind illuminate al you see. Let form and emptiness entwine in a magical dance.  Let your eyes naturally fall on an object.
  • Then send your mind to the object. Penetrate it. See it in ways you would have never seen before. Allow the secondary awareness of the breath to settle this process in the background. Relax further into object as you breathe.
  • Now relax. Stop focusing and open. Allow the object in to you. Begin to receive it. And finally be it. Connected.
  • Then let go. Lower the gaze and return to the breath.

When I do this exercise in a group, I’ll have people couple off into dyads. I’ll ask them to turn to each other and sit in silence together with eyes closed.  Then I’ll ask them to open their eyes, look at each other for a minute or so. Then I’ll ask them to mention something they see or feel in the other one at a time. The first person looks a bit deeper and when ready offer a “gift” of their observation. Then the received after a moment of silence, responds with what they heard. Then silence, again and repeat. When the two gifts have been offered, heard and confirmed in silence and strength, I ask them to share with each other how they felt about their gifts. At some point, I usually they relax the form and just debrief the experience.

What is the purpose of this?

To interrupt the momentum of the mind as it burrows into concept and away from clear perception. To see the obstacles to opening to clear perception and to circumvent those obstacles toward a fresh experience of mind.

It is stunning and heartbreaking to see the world we generally miss.

 

Posted on by joseph mauricio

Messing Up Royally

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An Homage to Perfect Mistakes

There were so many of him. Suave, savage, svelt, charismatic, aloof, in your face and distant. Flaming red hair, uneven eyes, lips that kissed the dark of the world and made the night blush. Androsexual, asemetric, omnidrogenous vixen queen, who reigned as king of a world created from the chaos of unknowing.  A world that reformed and recreated with each brilliant mistake.

Driven by the power to create, the young man grew old, and never stopped creating. And, as it is after death, the blackstar rose and we remembered the rose tinted ideal, the ageless beauty, the sadness of his heartbreak, his power of prose and genius of poise. But, in truth, it took forever for Bowie to be Bowie. One mistake after another from David Jones mod-topped saxophonist, through the long haired hippie artist, Bowie fell from star to star until he stumbled upon space, a grande mistake.

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http://observer.com/2016/01/there-will-never-be-another-david-bowie/

Ziggy was a kaleidoscopic mash-up of stooges, velvets, vaudeville, music hall, Hamilton and Warhol in Matchabelli warpaint and an electric smile. He joined Roxy and Rex and turned the world on its gender specific hind and left us all undefined, before eschewing swing for the swagger of the duke, and then the a young american and then…

He stole from heaven and gave us low, pulled from the depths and blessed the sky with a blackstar. We owe him a great deb. He was perfect. Perfection as the product of great mistakes. This tainted saint an ADHD spirit with an artist’s heart – restless, uncertain and forever ch-ch-ch-changing.

A whole generation of us fell in love with the prepunkpunk of rebel rebel channeling our inner bitchy teen. I was amazed that a secret part of me identified as a girl. And, quite unsettlingly, a girl to whom I was super attracted. In one swell flop I had acknowledged my angry teen damage and fell in love with myself. Honoring the darkside, indeed.

But, artists long for freedom. Some can abide little external form. Patti Smith walked out of the bookstore in which she worked at 23. She had no job again except art. Just art. She and Robert on the floor of a room in the chelsea hotel cut and pasting thier future. All the while with the doubt and self-blame of an artist. Those born to create, live as secret frauds in the societies to whom they pretend.

But, some among us do not pretend. John lennon never had another job except delivering milk one summer for his uncle. That must have been something. The the universe respects tenacity and we keep pounding those chords, making nistakes and falling thru the gates of change, and eventually time and space will correct to meet us, warped around our wRped gravity. Not that I can speak for the universe, but I long to imagine it respects those brave enough to make mistakes. The universe might well be the product of a series of mistakes. It takes one to fondle one.

Always make better mistakes. Make more mistakes. Make louder mistakes.

Celebrate imperfection and find beauty in this moment, as it is. This is ruling your world, as Sakyong Mipham calls it. The ability to rise from your own ashes and be here now, embodied and awake, apologizing to no one. A royal mess. A monarch of your own confusion and your own partner, lover and saint. Standing in the darkness we are privy to a light so bright, the universe can’t help but notice. The light of compassion. And, eventually taming our wild heart, we find in time the method for birthing the spirit from the wood without dampening the flame.

To me, this is the power of meditation. Especially Vajrayana. And Bowie practiced this. The transmutation of pain into power. The releasing of spirit in order ease the suffering of the world. Sit erect facing the flames, settle down to earth to open, accept, and simply breathe until we have distilled pure wisdom. Our costume body, like a bell jar allowing the flame to focus into clear light as we sit and sit and compose a personal opus that lights the world. And when we take a seat there, we are the cracked actor on the stage of now. An actor portraying the monarch, creating a part as it unfolds in complete synchronization with the moment. Our moment. Did we create ourselves, or are we created? Do we set trends, follow them, or die beneath them? We are well beyond simple explanation. All of us. A product of mistakes so great we can only fall forward.

But David danced across stones that would have fell another. He rose to his occasion, took a seat and made a difference.