The Happy Ending that is Now

The litmus test of any spiritual path or practice is its ability to bring you to a state of peace, regardless of how life is unfolding.  Peace of mind is the definitive confirmation that we've transcended ordinary mind that rises and falls in step with life's ups and downs.   Despite my years and  many insights, I still have shreds of a desperate hope that my life will eventually work out; that a happy ending is out there; that I'll finally arrive and all will be well. Do you hold that thought?

I think the reasons we love movies and stories so much is that they fulfill our longing for a happy outcome in our own life, and we revel in a vicarious experience of everything being made right. The characters in the stories we love,  move through tension and conflict, to a climactic moment, followed by a completely satisfying resolution.  In a moment, all is suddenly well. 

But this is not the way of real life. I don't know anybody who's experienced such a pinnacle and stayed there. There is no permanent resolution to our lives, nor arriving point or a completion point. Even deep satisfaction with ones circumstances has limited shelf life.  Achievements, accomplishments, acquisitions, even the most successful outcomes imaginable, will not bring utopia. A girl marries the man of her dreams, and he becomes a man, with issues.  And her issues must still be dealt with.  The perfect other that will fill the void in us, is the stuff of make believe. Even the best stories in life, are just stories, and even great stories end, followed by a new story, with new challenges.

The Israelites wanted their freedom, and dreamed of a Promised Land where all would be well.  They escaped lives of slavery, and immediately found themselves in a wilderness. Finally after enduring the ardor of the wilderness they arrived at the Promised Land.  But then they had to live ordinary life there, day in and out.

The hero answers a call that takes her into challenge and initiations that transform her. She's rewarded with a boon. But alas, she must return to her community to fulfill the calling. Every arrival is the beginning of a new challenge.

Both Jesus and the Buddha experienced grand epiphanies, followed by onerous challenges.  They emerged better for having stayed the course. They were transformed by their journeys. So are we.  If instead of holding out for some imagined future we see our lives as grist for the mill of our awakening, as vehicles of transformation, we'll mark our progress in qualitative ways. We'll be transformed and be the better for having stayed present with all that arises on our paths. As long as we frantically long for some imagined future, angst and suffering remain with us.

There is indeed suffering in life, but suffering is not the purpose of life. The purpose of life is to change us; to challenge our limited notions about the way it is, and who we are, and our capabilities, and to expand our awareness of the greater Reality in which we live and that lives through us. This perspective, not the fantasy of the "happy ending" can bring us to a reasonable and sustainable contentment with life now.

To know that we have already arrived; that we've already made it, is to stake our place in the Kingdom of Heaven here and now- to be fully present in each moment, and embrace the journey that is our life, and welcome the challenges that are there to transform us. The day may come when you realize this and call off the search for the perfect life. On this happy day, you will find peace on earth. There is no waiting for this realization.  This day, as Jesus said, is at hand. 

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

A hermit was meditating by a river when a young man interrupted him. "Master, I wish to become your disciple," said the man. "Why?" replied the hermit. The young man thought for a moment. "Because I want to find God."

The master jumped up, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, dragged him into the river, and plunged his head under water. After holding him there for a minute, with him kicking and struggling to free himself, the master finally pulled him up out of the river. The young man coughed up water and gasped to get his breath. When he eventually quieted down, the master spoke. "Tell me, what did you want most of all when you were under water." "Air!" answered the man.

"Very well," said the master. "Go home and come back to me when you want God as much as you just wanted air."

The above story came to my mind this morning and I retrieved it from the internet so I could share it with you. It speaks to me of the rigor it takes to remain (or return to) an awakened state of consciousness.  

Over the last few weeks it has been the best and worst of times for my personal state of awareness. I've been both lifted by moments awash in Divine realization and flattened against painful shards of self deprecation.  Quite the contrast - the still shocking disparity in the journey of a soul struggling to maintain its place in the Kingdom. It remains curious and confounding that having breathed the rarefied air and tasted the sweet nectar of Truth, that I would so easily and readily fall from grace.  Do I knowingly submit to this suffering - or is it deeply programmed autonomic response that bypasses free will?

I am seeking to stay alert more to this default process, to see if I can catch the first glimpses of separation thoughts or feelings that undermine my foothold on the sacred ground of Truth. I admit so far I've made little progress in coming up with a preemptory strategy.  So my strategy for now is ex post facto. As Buddha said, it is not how often you forget, but how soon you remember, that truly matters.

Just what are you and I supposed to remember?  In a word, Oneness.  What we forget, that causes all kinds of pain and suffering for you and I, is our oneness with God.  We are adrift in a dream of separation from the one and only true source of comfort and peace.  We seek but do not find because we seek amiss. Despite a deplorable track record, we continue to bet on outer events, circumstances, material gain, hoping that if we win on the track of life we'll be happy at last. We are done in by false promises and false identities, defining ourselves by our accomplishments, acquisitions, believing we are our bodies and minds.  In so doing we get self realization backwards.  All these externals become, as some have described, like pieces of silver offered in betrayal of the Truth. We conclude, to our great peril and pain, that we are human beings seeking a spiritual experience. We expect God to come down off of a cloud and rescue us from the world. But the Divine is within us, patiently waiting for us to come down off of a cloud of delusion and join with its unwavering Presence of love and peace.

So the journey back is to stop the madness asap - realize that the pain is not held over us by outer events but our reaction to them.  When my ego is ranting and railing, making up all kinds of stories about why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling, I must find the pause button and then I must exercise the deep intention to know the Truth once more.  This is no casual activity when you are immersed in a big drama, especially if your core emotional issue has reared its head.  This is spiritual warfare, when I must unsheathe the light saber and burn away the illusory beliefs that would separate me from my true source.  It takes great resolve, and determination, to stay this course, to go from being "held hostage by the ego to being host to God."  How simple --- learning to be good hosts to God - to simply invite and make welcome the Presence, to cohabit with the One.

Embracing the Bad Shots, Enjoying the Game

About a year ago I decided to take up the game of golf again. It had been two decades since I had played . It took that long for me to forget and forgive a sport that drove me to intolerable frustration. Many people, who love this game, find it relaxes them, whereby they leave their tensions behind as they move around the course, ending up calmer for having played a round of golf. For me it was the opposite.  I'd start out relaxed and end up wound tight as the ball I could not hit.

Time does fade the memories however, so when our youngest son announced he wanted to join the golf team, Denese and I agreed this was a good time for us to have another go at it, with open minds and willingness to see it differently.  So the three of us took a few lessons from a pro, and we began to practice and play on a regular basis.  Within a few weeks the memories of why I had shelved my clubs for two decades returned as I experienced the recognizable frustrations of the (my) game.  Back with a vengeance was the vexation of my attempts to swing a club at a ridiculously small white sphere buried in grass, followed by wandering amongst trees and even taller grass in a futile attempt to find the errant ball in order to try and hit it again at a target that was no longer in sight! 

I know what many of you wise souls are thinking after reading the above. It's only a GAME! What's wrong with this guy that he can't just lighten up and PLAY IT LIKE A GAME!  This was (is) to be my real golf lesson, this time around. I had come back to this sport in order to learn to forgive, forget and move on with every "bad" shot and maintain a sense of enJOYment in the pristine green environment behind me, around me and before me.  However, for me and those of us who play with an inner partner (aka THE CRITIC) this is no small feat.   But I'm encouraged that I'm making progress.  On a recent trip to Portland area with Nathan, we played a round of golf that I ended up enjoying more than any other I've ever played.

The mental approach I worked with that made such a difference in my enjoyment of what could have been one more frustrating round, was a simple embracing process. This method is about simply "being with" whatever feelings arise - not judging, pushing away or analyzing....just being with them.  The effect on difficult emotions and feelings can be transformative. Here's how it worked on the course.

For the first 6 or 7 holes I was totally focused on hitting the ball well, my swing mechanics, remembering all the pointers from my last lesson, comparing myself with my son (who's a natural ) worrying that I would revert to bad habits again, etc.  Every bad shot was like a kick in the groin.  I was not having fun. On our way to the next tee box it hit me. I was reminded to just be with all these feelings, so I just let go and felt into the frustration, the disappointment, and the unrealized expectations. Remarkably, In the presence of simply Being, the anxious feelings softened, and began to recede. As that opening in me took place I looked ahead and saw such amazing beauty that I swear just appeared before my eyes. There we were surrounded by undulating fields of green, clear ponds embraced by wildflowers, a breeze that carried the fragrance of this verdant landscape,  against the stunning backdrop of Mt. St. Helens. Had it been there all along? Of course, but I was not there. I was looking backwards, stuck in the regret of past mistakes and blind to the splendor before me.  In the context of pure Being, however, the pain of my limitations faded and I came back to Life.   My senses and sensibilities returned along with a feeling of deep gratitude for this moment of re-creation with my son in a most beautiful place on earth.

This is a lesson about enjoying life, and not letting the inner critic berate your bad shots nor rob you of the beautiful landscape that surrounds you. No matter how well you hit or miss, be with all of it, and enjoy the game.

Gratitude: An Enlightened Perspective

You have made me so rich, oh God, please let me share out Your beauty with open hands. My life has become an uninterrupted dialogue with You, oh God, one great dialogue. Sometimes when I stand in some corner of the camp, my feet planted on Your earth, my eyes raised toward Your Heaven, tears sometimes run down my face, tears of deep emotion and gratitude. At night, too, when I lie in my bed and rest in You, oh God, tears of gratitude run down my face, and that is my prayer.

You may not recognize the author of these words, and I would dare say that few of us would be able to come close to guessing the circumstances under which the writer found herself overflowing with praise and gratitude to her Creator.

You might guess that these devotional utterances might have flowed from the open and praise filled heart of one who had reached a state of deep gratefulness for a life overflowing with profound blessings.  Not so. These are the words of Etty Hillesum. Etty was a 27-year-old Jewish woman living in Amsterdam in 1941. At a time when the Nazi takeover was inspiring terror among Dutch Jews, Etty Hillesum underwent an amazing inner transformation in the direction of freedom and joy. By April of 1942 Jews were forced to wear the Star of David, and the wholesale deportation began later that spring. Finally in August 1942 she was consigned with her family to an internment camp, from which Jews were deported to Auschwitz on a weekly basis. Etty stayed in the camp until September 1943. In the midst of the squalor, the confinement, the fear, she praised God for life, for beauty, for the secure refuge of her soul. Amazingly, her prayers in these last days of her life in the prison camp were lavish expressions of gratitude.

Etty's spirit continued to burn brightly even to the very end. She stepped onto the deportation train "talking gaily, smiling, a kind word for everyone she met on the way, full of sparkling humor, perhaps just a touch of sadness," as the chronicler of her last day in the camp describes. Later, some farmers along the train route discovered a postcard she had thrown out of the train. "We have left the camp singing," it said. Etty Hillesum died in Auschwitz on November 30, 1943 ((from Judith Smith's book review of An Interrupted Life-The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 translated by J.G. Gaarlandt)

How many of us can muster an attitude of gratitude in the midst of life's great challenges? When faced with great difficulty, seeing the good and giving thanks is a high bar for our consciousness to clear. Why is this so?  The answer is embedded  in Etty's response to her life situation.  Her faith was not derailed by adversity but driven deeper within her, where blessings and grace, presence and comfort were found overflowing. She refused to deny the existence of the Divine or even entertain the slightest diminution of good in the worst of human conditions. The Apostle Paul said "in all things, give thanks." Notice he didn't say "for" all things give thanks, but "in" all things be grateful.  This is the master way of dealing with life, to remain resolute in awareness of Divine presence, and never let what happens in the world betray our faith.

Omnipresence is a lovely, lofty  word to describe the impossibility that God could be absent anywhere in our wonderful and dangerous world. However, to bear witness to that promise and feel it at soul level when a train of difficulty comes for us, takes enormous vision; an enlightened perspective.  I've tasted those sweet moments on  a few rare times in my life and know it is possible to stand in the storm and be glad and grateful even before the trouble has passed. Ultimately we can only get there if we trust that difficulty and challenge are not against us, rather allies on the path that strip us of falsehoods, and show us our bare naked eternal true selves.

As Henri Nouwen has written, gratitude is a discipline, , "because it challenges me to face the painful moments-and gradually to discover in them the pruning hands of God purifying my heart for deeper love, stronger hope, and broader faith.... "

Being is Freeing

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

-Kahlil Gibran

Gibran is speaking here of freedom of the spirit, an inner buoyancy unaffected by the weight of worldly concerns.  This is spiritual strength; an inner kingdom of deep knowing that can bear all things.  It is knowing the truth, as Jesus said, that sets us free; free from suffering, even in the midst of pain.  This freedom is the pearl of great price that for most of us is only won by an inner revolution.

When life presents us with difficult challenges; when circumstances feel oppressive; when other people seem to be against us, our reactive self perceives all as threat, and instinctually puts out a call to arms.  This is outer revolution - where we declare war on what seems to rob us of our freedom to enjoy life, and pursue happiness.

This outside-in approach would convince us to solve all problems by manipulating events and circumstances to our liking.  We have our own version of the Serenity Prayer that goes something like this:

God grant me the power to change the things I can't accept

The courage to blame circumstances and judge others

And the Wisdom that sees no difference

Despite our personal power, our ability to willfully influence outer events, there remains the question of what to do when our co-creation machine is not perfectly manifesting. Even a master of life such as Jesus suggested that there might be times when we cannot calm the sea or otherwise get our way. He said we will have trials and tribulations.  Trials and tribulations are a given in this human life. But wait  there is reason for optimism, good cheer even, he said, for there is an overcoming power within us - an inner revolution that can lead us to freedom. 

When we look to the outer world for evidence of our good, we bind ourselves by limiting our faith to a world of appearances, and miss the deep eternal reality.  We make gods out of circumstances and other people which requires that they show up perfectly in order for us to be free and at peace.  This is an abuse and misuse of power that only leads to greater suffering. 

More and more these days, I am realizing that I hold the key to my freedom.  As readily as I fall into the mind that judges and blames life for my anxiety and woes, it remains nonetheless, a choice. I am free to choose. Either I project my feelings on the world or I go within and experience the deep peace that is always there for me. When you and I touch that deep place of being, we are free. We are given the inalienable right to choose. We can declare our independence from the tyranny of life's ups and downs. We can lay down the sword of blame, and take up the sword of Truth, and let an inner revolution lead us to freedom. Being is freeing.