"Go For It, or Let it Go?"

Are you ever confused by seeming contradictory truth teachings? For example, there is the go-for-it school which exhorts effort and determination imploring you to believe it, so that you might see it, that you might achieve it --- perish the thought of letting up on faith or effort. Then there is the seeming opposite approach with an equally persuasive mantra extolling passivity and acceptance; telling you to release the outcome, let it all go, and accept life with equanimity, however it shows up. So which is the better way or does one have to be schizophrenic to be spiritually adept?  I've struggled with this seeming dichotomy at times myself (just the other day, actually) and I realized after some thought that each philosophy has its merits and most importantly its right time and place in a life. The notion of personal will seems central to the question of how I approach a given situation. I am capable of free will in large part, even though I'm often subject to past programming that seems to commandeer my responses at times. Still, mostly I am at choice. I can be willful or willing. I can assert myself, or be witness to another. I can rail against and blame, or have compassion and forgive. I can take the stage, or wait in the wings. I can speak up or listen. I can go for it, or allow it. Any sense of dichotomy is self inflicted. It's not a question of one way over another as a way of life; not a philosophy for all seasons. It's being sensitive to each moment, going within to discern the wise way that this moment calls for. In this way we can be fluid with what arises, open to give or take, action or patience, assertion or passivity. A joyful life, in which well-being is possible in the face of changing circumstances calls for a supple will that shapes itself to situational demand.  We can seize opportunity, go after it, achieve what seems worthy and right in this world, and we can also find peace and retain well-being if an outcome falls short of expectation. We have the capacity to adapt our will to what is most appropriate in every moment.  I would submit however, that the passive, letting go attitude is perhaps the most difficult.

"Joy without Condition"

The adage that asserts the best journeys are the ones that bring us home is a good way to evaluate a spiritual practice.  Like the prodigal son, and Jesus in the wilderness, everyone is tempted to find fulfillment through a promise of greener grass somewhere out there beyond the current moment and circumstance.  We have all taken those journeys away from home, literally and figuratively, because we are highly motivated to find happiness.  It is the soul's mandate for life: experience all the peace, love and joy that is possible.    We learn as we take enough of these journeys, whether in mind, body or spirit, that the way home to fulfillment is always a reverse of what ordinary sense tells us.   The search for love bears this out when we find through experience that love comes to us most profoundly, not when we are loved, but when we love.  This apparent reversal of logic is the hallmark of all profound spiritual insights.  What we seek is not out there, but within us as inherent qualities, that seek a way out.   The experience of deep joy is no exception.  We've all been tripped up by playing the conditional joy card that would seem the sure bet to happiness. That's the belief that joy is an effect of getting what we want. But the hand of truth inevitably trumps that illusion and reveals the weakness of that play. It is of course so tempting to continue to play with trick or treat dualism because the fallacy is so well masked by a conditional world. But by grace, joy resides within us, however deeply embedded beneath our expectations for a better life. Of course, all of us find ourselves at times (lately for me) saying "if this or that would happen, then I would feel happier!"  There is no end to the list of circumstances, preferences, needs, or wants that our ego minds will decide are the prerequisites for our joy.   It's an easy trap to fall into for us humans and clearly it a journey that will not bring us home.   The truth is in the reversal.  All of those stories about what keeps us from our joy are lies.  Nothing can keep us from our essential wholeness; the love, peace and joy that are deep within us.  No matter how we are tempted to play it, the end game demands trust in the goodness of Life, whether the appearances support our faith or not.  Hang in there long enough, and deep enough with your faith in the goodness of God, and your journey will bring you home, sweet home.

"Great-Fullness in Lean Times"

"We must realize that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratitude that makes us happy."    -- Brother David Steindl-Rast   from Gratefulness, The Heart of Prayer    The gentle nature of gratitude conceals its power.  An attitude of gratitude can restore our faith, reconcile our relationships, and preserve our precious earth.  I want to live in the gentle power of gratefulness. I want to awaken each morning with its sweet fragrance wafting through my mind and heart. What I know is that my happiest moments are usually the simple moments, when my eyes behold the hidden in plain sight; when I delight in seeing the great within the small, the perfection of the ordinary, and the sufficiency of what is before me.     Simple living allows gratitude to arise more easily.  The more I let go of the things I don't need, the more space there is for what is essential to expand...for Spirit to fill me. It seems more important than ever in these times of squaring our spiritual values with sparse economic means, to choose that which truly fulfills us over that which impoverishes us.  We have all had the experience of lusting after more out of a sense of not enough. The harvest of these desires does not feed us. Only disappointment follows, because getting the "stuff" only temporarily numbs a deeper need. The antidote to "not enough" is gratefulness. It turns the economics of greed upside down, by showing us that less can be more.  As Brother David so keenly observed, "The smaller we make the container of our need; the sooner comes the overflow that becomes our delight." Paradoxically, these can be the best of times for humanity's evolution, even as we face the worst of economic realities.  When the drive for more is thwarted by economic headwinds, the old ways of acquiring fulfillment can reveal their long hidden futility.  While for some people these are desperate times, for many others it's a time of shrinking the containers of our legitimate needs.  Can this be a "bad" thing if it dials down unconscious consumption and reveals what is truly needed?  Could this not be the best of times, if we are turned inward to measure our internal storehouse and count our blessings?

"You Must Be Present to Win"

"You can't make joy or well-being happen, but you can create the conditions in which those states more naturally arise."  - James Baraz from Awakening Joy We are into our second week of a 7 week Journey of Awakening in which we are focusing on ways to bring greater joy and well-being into our lives. Last week we said that intention is an effective catalyst to activate more joy in our lives - noting that expectation and being on the lookout for what we want can be generative of the hoped-for experience.  How simple, yet how effective! This week's practice is equally simple - though not as easy perhaps.  This week we are seeking to become more present, more mindful as we go through our days. It's about awareness - the practice of keeping the lens of conscious awareness open as we go through our daily experiences so that we might enlarge our capacity to "be" with life, as witness, rather than as judge. Our normal, and oh so mortal, way of dealing with life is to grasp and cling to the pleasant experiences and shun, resist or deny the unpleasant stuff.  How human of us! The problem with this modus operandi is that it by its insistence that life be a certain way we severely narrow our capacity for enjoying life. We confine the possibility of well-being to some moment in the future when our ducks of desire finally fall in line with our preferences.  Have you noticed what a moving target this ideal moment is? And even if we get the pot of gold and the rainbow on the same day, our frustration will soon return when we try to hold onto it, which of course we can't.  The pleasant situation passes. When facing difficult situations we reverse the reaction and deny, resist and try to push it away. We make stories about what the challenge means about us and the awful ramifications for our future. Of course as we are running these dire commentaries in our heads, we have closed off our capacity to simply be with the situation and allow space for life to breathe  and reveal its transformational potential.   The practice of mindfulness can relieve this suffering and open us to well being. As author James Baraz puts it: We learn to enjoy pleasant experiences without holding onto them when they pass (which they will) and we are able to remain present with unpleasant experiences without fearing they will always be this way (which they won't). The natural joy, that you and are capable of experiencing, is not conditional except to the extent that we make our sense of well-being dependent on externals. Life situations do not define us or change our essence.  Being mindful can help us differentiate our experience from our identity. Through mindfulness, you can notice your feelings, rather than being your feelings.    You can notice sadness rather than being sad. You are not your experiences; you are the one who has experiences. In this space of awareness, that restores your capacity to observe life, there is space for being, even well-being.

Awakening Joy

"For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair."   - Ann Morrow Lindberg A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But, a few days later, he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. "I've been thinking," he said. "I know how valuable this stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. "Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this stone." Deep happiness and well-being can seem a most elusive grail of the human journey.  We know about the fleeting happiness that comes and goes according to external circumstances that rise to meet and eventually betray expectations. This is happiness on the world's terms and it is good as long as it lasts but it always demands something to shift or change that is often outside our control.  Such happiness is frustrating, and to the uninitiated seeker acts like a carrot suspended in front of the horse that keeps one pursuing it but never reaching satisfaction. Real joy is deeper than happiness from external circumstances. Like the peace "that passes human understanding," the well of joy within us is not circumstance dependent but part and parcel to our essential spiritual nature. We come to know this deep well being by our own experience of joy "for no reason" or we're persuaded by the many accounts of those who have realized authentic joy and well being in the midst of great difficulty. Joy is our birthright. Yet, just as we use only a fraction of our mental capacity, we have greater capacity for joy than we express. This is good news because the well-being we seek is already at hand. Of course it also places responsibility with us for realizing more of it in our lives. How do we cultivate greater joy in our lives through all of life's changes and challenges?  This is the subject of our fall series, Awakening Joy, based upon the book of the same name by James Baraz. Over the next 7 weeks we will explore behaviors and attitudes we can cultivate that can bring us greater well-being into our lives. I've been through the book, and worked with the insights and practices and can tell you this is an eminently practical Journey of Awakening that can produce real and lasting positive effects for anyone. Join us this Sunday as we begin with the first topic, Inclining The Mind Toward Joy. It is fitting to begin our journey with the destination and a heading that matches. We'll begin by leaning into joy as an intention, and see how it makes a difference. You may be amazed, as I was with how even this slight attitudinal shift can make your day brighter.