Therapist as Christ, Buddha as King...and other such nonsense

            Therapist as Christ, Buddha as King...and other such nonsense

 

                                      

 

“The greatest service that could be rendered the Christian peoples would be to convert them to Christianity.”

                                                                        Joseph Campbell

A psycho-therapeutic process is one in which there is a facilitation of a person making contact with their center or Higher Self. This Higher Self is a guiding presence that is in harmony with nature and universal energy, it is described by many names; Guardian Angel, Ally, Totem, Demigod, Daimon, Soul, Spirit, Holy Spirit, Buddha nature, Logos, Gnosis, etc. .

The Eastern tradition of the Sat Guru is seen as a relationship with one who is a polished psycho-spiritual mirror so they are able to reflect back to the devotee their essential nature.

“The satguru is a title given specifically only to an enlightened being whose life's purpose is to guide the initiated along the spiritual path, the summation of which is the realization of the Self through realization of God, who is omnipresent.”

This omnipresence is the essence of Christ saying “I and my father are one,” or “The kingdom of heaven is within,” or “Greater works than I have done you will perform,” or “I am always with you in the Holy Spirit,” or “Become as a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” or “Not I, but your faith has healed you,” and many others.

Christ means “the anointed one, the Messiah, the King, etc.” This is where the idea of “The One” in the Movie “The Matrix” comes from. The same as “The Force” in Star Wars. It's a symbolic metaphor of the pervasive presence of the divine. Just as the universe is all made from ONE, (that's why we call it a Uni-verse), so too the subtle, metaphysical dimension is ONE energetic vibrational field.

In Buddhism, your Buddha nature is what you are trying to awaken to. You have two other pillars to lean on which are; Sanga (the community of practitioners), and the Dharma (the law or path that leads the way).

A skillful therapist is helping you to connect with your higher self, your community, and your values which are the blueprints for your behavior. Most people's values are not consciously chosen, herein lies the value of a good therapist.

The Mentor, whose Greek origins mean; “mind, purpose, strength, and courage,” is also a kind of Christ figure, anointing his student in the ways of his craft, driving the student to his own Mastery. The Mentor or coach, is one who helps instill and awaken the qualities of Mastery in his student. He passes on his knowledge, skills and wisdom to his protégé in hopes that the student will surpass him and bring the game to a higher level. It's the same with parenting, a good parent wants their child to have a better life than they did, they know they are propelling them out into life and know that must make it on their own. 

The King archetype is a correlate to Christ consciousness and Buddha nature. Accessing your King will give you the keys to the Kingdom (the blueprint). The King is the one in us that has a vision of the kingdom, it is the one that champions the cause, is the weather vane that shows the direction of the wind of consciousness, and stewards the realm.

“The two main functions of the King are: Live according to the Tao, the Dharma, the Word, and the lands will flourish, and Bring fertility and blessing. The King is the masculine equivalent of the Great Mother, and he is wed to the lands. The king's vitality and sexuality directly reflect on his kingdom.”

The skillful therapist helps you align yourself with that which brings harmony, power, fulfillment and blessings. The evolved King gives blessings to others and is not interested in being idealized or worshiped. The idea of needing to be worshiped is narcissism, this is Donald Trump.

The King archetype is the center of the psyche around which the rest of the psyche is organized, it is the axis mundi, the King is the one that produces dreams and is the seat of our mind and body's ability to Self-heal.

The show “The Game Of Thrones” is a very popular drama about King energy and the quest for power, as is the show “The House Of Cards.”

If the King energy in us is weak, our psyche falls into disarray, and chaos threatens our lands. This is the origin of the Fisher King, and Holy Grail legends which are about a 'wounded King' which causes the Kingdom to suffer and the attendant journey to restore the King to his fullness. If you are not in good rapport with your King, you will be overwhelmed by life, will be passive and depressed, will lack power and potency, and will be imbalanced in many ways. You may develop an addiction that gives you a false sense of power and love.

Our society is strongly lacking in King energy, hence the demonizing of some leaders and the support of more and more outrageous 'leadership.' We are seeking in a politician, ideology, religion, a cause, or whatever we don't have within our selves, which is order, vision and self-sovereignty.

Our society is so confused about it's religiosity and holidays. Take Thanksgiving, so here are the pilgrims who came to this land with the idea of manifest destiny, that is to say the idea that "God is on our side, and we will kill anyone who disagrees with us, especially Native 'savages." So we have Thanksgiving; supposed to be a celebration of Natives and pilgrims sitting down for a meal together….what was really happening was the systematic genocide of Native Americans by what would become the American government. Today, we have our big Thanksgiving day dinner, stay puff marshmallow man parade, and violent football and beer, when we're all supposed to be humble and all Norman Rockwellian, then the following day, we have Black Friday, dedicated to the greedy capitalist in all of us, people camping out at Best Buy and hurting people that get in their way. Then we have Christmas, which pretty much everything about it has Pagan origins, just like Easter.

This is the time of year where we also get exceptionally neurotic about our sense of family, the structure of which humans created 10's of thousands of years ago out of economic necessity to have more helping hands to manage crops and animal husbandry. But with the advent of greater and greater food storage, and the urbanization and population densities of cities, we have no need of a nuclear family. Think about being around people you don't really know or like, once a year, trying to be all 'familyish' with! The sociological data are overwhelmingly clear on the decimation of marriage and the family structure as human institutions, yet we have such deep imprinting about an idealized psychology of a warm fuzzy, perfect family that is played out in spades during these religious holidays. Hence the large spike in mental illness, depression, suicide, addiction, and all other kinds of drama during this special time of the year.

The litteralized idea of a historic figure like Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha as the “One and only literal way to heaven” is the cause of much suffering in the world. The late Joseph Campbell said; “Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in it's own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.”

A skillful therapist can help you understand and experience your life more metaphorically and not take your own story as 'fact.' She can help you see your own bullshit and develop a highly tuned, state of the art bullshit detector. This can be most valuable as you reign on the thrown of your life!


                                 

Therapist and Buddha As Trickster

                    Therapist and Buddha As Trickster

 

                        

 

Along the lines of a psychotherapist as a shaman and spiritual guide, let’s look at Buddha as Trickster. The Buddha, in its archetypal form, is seen as “Buddha Nature,” that is, one’s essential, divine and enlightened self, one’s Higher Self. This is what we are trying to make contact with and engender with empowerment in good therapeutic practice. A therapist is also a catalyst, “disrupting” and interrupting the status quo of one’s ego long enough to allow the ego to loosen its grip on the psyche, herein lies the trickster.

 

Trickster figures are pervasive in literature, folk tale, and myth. They come in many forms, and are in themselves shapeshifters, so they are chameleon like and will change form right before your eyes. This is helpful therapeutically to help recognize the ephemeral, ever-changing nature of reality and how the ego tries to fix things in a static idealized form.

 

                          

 

The trickster and therapist are “wise fools,” as they will often find themselves ensnared in their own models of reality. Some of their wisdom will come in not taking themselves too seriously (a major pitfall in therapy and spirituality!).

One of the major functions of trickster energy is entertainment that disrupts tension. The court jester was used to deflate the grandiosity of the King. Clowns, mascots, and standup comedians bring humor that often offends or mocks, and provides commentary through insults or mockery, forcing us to confront ourselves.
       
                                       

 

 Some of the forms of trickster are Coyote, Spider woman, and Raven, from Native American myth, Rabbit from Africa, Hermes, from Greek culture, Mercury from Rome, Loki from Norse mythology, Jacob, from the bible…. the list is quite long!

              

 

The Buddha is tricksteresk as he presents himself as ‘awakened,’ and suggests that “you too, can awaken!” The ability to awaken is an outrageous thing to suggest in a world of sleep walking unconsciousness! The Buddha doesn’t want you to worship him as a god, he wants you to get to work and wake up!  Tricksters violate principles of social and natural order, playfully disrupting normal life and then re-establishing it on a new basis. This is what a spiritual path and therapeutic intervention is all about. People come to therapy, not because things are going so well, they come because they are suffering, just like the Buddhist path is meant to alleviate suffering, as did Christ when he said “I come to give life abundantly!” This is what a trickster does, he or she enlivens, invigorates, brings vitality, passion, and appetite to living as a human being. The trickster is all inclusive, bringing everything to bear, especially things we don’t want to look at or repress, such as death, lust, suffering, and flatulence. The Buddha is often depicted with a big ‘ol belly, or big ears, he is full of life, and doesn’t miss meals! The Buddha tried asceticism for a while, but rejected it for the “middle way.” This was quite an affront to Hindu spirituality at the time.

                                                                             
 

In order to achieve this all inclusivity, the trickster must cross boundaries, piss people off, and stir up the pot.  The Trickster openly questions and mocks authority, he can be a champion of the oppressed and the "master’s house" can be "dismantled" using his "tools" if the tools are used in a new or unconventional way, this requires great cunning, guile, and deceit. Brer Rabbit not only was the "personification of the ethic of self-preservation" for the slave community, but also "an alternative response to their oppressor’s false doctrine of anthropology."  Two other example of African American trickery is the invention of Blues and Jazz music, which takes all the "rules" and forms of convention, puts them in a blender and shakes, rattles and rolls the shit outta of 'em!

 

              

 

All this doesn’t bode well for tricksters, and they usually end up in pretty hot water or tarred and feathered as the case may be. Tricksters steal fire, carry messages, transport souls to and from, outwit systems, mock seriousness, are sacrilegious, and pretty much every other way of being the life of the party.

 

The trickster is not interested in the persona, role or title of being the Buddha, Therapist, Priest, etc. he’s interested in having a good time, and being free of the scripted data of what anything and anyone “means.” This is because meaning is usually a constructed, and contrived piece of data that is handed down and inculcated into youth. It doesn’t mean trickster is a rebel without a cause, he’s just a boundary pusher that helps everyone question what’s “normal” and push themselves to greater freedom and awareness.

 

                                            

 

                    

 

The trickster is a liminal figure, who is not really in one place but stands on the threshold, crossroads, or bridge between one world and another. He is neither sacred nor profane, but both, and neither. The Buddha and therapist help people make the passage from one state to another, they are guides along the way, passing out of the familiar into the mysterious, “the road less traveled.” The psychopomp that takes souls to and from Hades is a mythological example of this. When Hermes transports Persephone from Hades, this is what allows spring to follow winter.

 

Herein lies the trickster as cultural hero, because in spite of his rebellious nature, he also sets a new order of how things can or should be. As a culture hero, Coyote appears in various mythic traditions, but generally with the same magical powers of transformation, resurrection, and then Coyote's "medicine". He is engaged in changing the ways of rivers, creating new landscapes and getting sacred things for people. When Prometheus steals fire from the gods, he gives humanity a new way of being, just as the serpent gives Adam and Eve a new self-knowledge when he tempts them to eat and become self-aware. This is what therapy and meditation bring; more self-awareness and attendant power.

 

                       

 

But self-awareness doesn’t come without a price. Here we see the horrible cost that tricksters pay; crucifying, tarring and feathering, rolling a huge boulder up hill, and paying high psychotherapy fees! Tricksters are notorious for “corrupting the youth,” this was one of Socrates ‘crimes’ for which he was sentenced to death.

 

The trickster is a fix-it man, tinkerer, inventor, and creative artist, she will take what has been discarded and create something new and beautiful from it. The insight, vitality, and creativity found from working with the trickster is the stuff of genius, you will not recognize your original face if you paint by numbers, you must color outside the box and outwit the high priest of your ego if you are to awaken.

 

The trickster, Buddha, and therapist do not help from a place of altruism, they do not shake up the ego from a place of malice, they don’t care if you throw followers or rocks, don’t take credit or blame, they don’t have concern or contempt, and they will display transcendence as well as the lewd aspects of life, because both are part of being human!

                 

 

                   

    

 

 

 

Kill my landlord, kill the Buddha!

                                      Kill my landlord, kill the Buddha!

 

 

 

                                 

 

 

                "And when they played they really played. And when they worked they really worked.”

                                                                                                – Dr. Seuss

I recently had a client tell me she wanted me to teach her Buddhism. It’s an interesting thing when someone gets engaged, and drawn toward a particular path, person, or type of experience they feel will engender growth, learning, or greater fulfillment. It’s like a moth drawn toward a flame, it’s similar to what can bring people to psychotherapy, a desire to heal, grow, love better, and be a better human being. Buddhism will certainly provide that illumination and insight, however the seeking, wanting, and identification of “being a Buddhist” will most certainly get in the way, just like coming to therapy to “get therapy” can get in the way.

There’s a great book; “If You Meet The Buddha On The Road…Kill Him!” It’s the idea that the idea of Buddhism is not Buddhism at all. There’s a good joke about Episcopalians; if given the choice between going to heaven and going to a lecture about heaven, an Episcopalian will choose the lecture.

For my money, Buddhism is the most psychological of all religious/spiritual traditions, this is because it is interested in the nature of the mind and all the antics, shenanigans, and pranks the mind plays. Actually, the mind really has a mind of its own, it plays automatic tapes, scripts, musical jingles, news reports, commentaries etc. all on its own, without any involvement or volition of our own. This can be, and should be really disconcerting! The good news, according to the Buddha, is that awakening is possible, hence the 4 noble truths and the 8 fold path that leads to illumination.

But back to the study of Buddhism, people will ask me “What model of therapy do you use?” This is always problematic, sometimes I will make shit up and say: “Oh, I am a Rogerian.” or “I use a Family Centered Treatment approach.” But in my heart of hearts, what I really use is the “Zim model” of therapy, in other words, I Am the model. This can sound grandiose and ego centric, but I think it is the opposite.

It’s like asking Jimmy Hendrix or Picasso what model of music, or painting do you use? They obviously use the Jimmy Hendrix/Picasso model. Oh sure, they might talk about styles, teachers, and techniques they draw from or are influenced by, but above and beyond that is their own presence that is transmitted through their art form. It’s their BEING, expressed in a certain medium, for me, my medium is psychotherapy (I can also juggle).

 

This is what Buddhism can help us to do, become our own model of being human, make contact with our essential nature, and realize and manifest our self as an embodied Buddha. This is true liberation, and it is the kind of thing that draws people toward Buddhism as a path. But the Buddha did not start Buddhism, he didn’t tell his disciples; “Hey, when you guys get through meditating I want you to go out and start Buddhism.” But they did it anyway, the bastards! Christ didn’t tell his disciples to go out and start the Catholic Church.

Buddhism seeks to help people understand the human predicament, the fact that we have this idea of a self, a mind, a personality, and a body, all of which is constantly changing and will eventually cease to exist in the way we think we understand it. This existential awareness can certainly be unsettling, Woody Allen has made a career out of his neurosis. But there is a clearly defined path (many clearly defined paths) that lead one toward ever deeper experiences of compassion, equanimity, and liberation. There have been, and are many beings that have, and are, journeying this path, we need them now more than ever!

The Chinese government has recently made it illegal to reincarnate without government approval. This is one of their many ways of trying to control people. They’ve actually made it a crime if a relative talks about Uncle Joe that’s reincarnated as Aunt Mary and there was no paperwork filled out ahead of time to approve it. And we think we have a repressive government! But we do the same thing when we tell people they can't get into heaven without Jesus, it's all just elaborate, historical bureaucracies for power and control.

This is the kind of thing Buddhism can help with, because it says “it’s all impermanent”, the Chinese government, churches, isms, the mind, your reincarnation, all of it is just passing clouds, waves on the ocean that ripple and fade. The Buddhist mind is a mind of no mind, just pure awareness, awareness without fixating on any object.

If I tell you on the count of 3 stop being aware, you can’t do it, awareness just keeps happening. There’s always this figure/ground thing happening with our awareness, we tend to get fixated on the trees and lose sight of the forest. The waves are always wet water, sometimes they rise up as a tsunami, sometimes a glass still lake, but they’re always wet water! This is how our thoughts and the objects of our attention are, we get focused and fixated on the content, associations, and analysis, but above and beyond, or below and much deeper, is just the pure ground of our being which is awareness, consciousness, isness!

Buddhism teaches us to make our minds like a big lake with only a teaspoon of salt in it. We would never be able to taste the salt, our lake would taste like pure, clear, clean water. The salt is the thoughts that come into our mind, they shouldn’t make the whole lake taste salty. Jung said the ego in relation to the collective unconsciousness is like a cork bobbing on the ocean. Do you want to be the cork or the ocean? 

The ego constantly recreates itself, even without government approval! It’s so concerned with image, persona, status, power, money, and sex appeal. Facebook is ego on crack, everyone’s screaming out to see me, hear me, touch me, feel me! See my kids, see what I had for breakfast, see my poop! This is enslavement, the ego can never get enough of what it doesn’t really need, it’s the same as addiction.

Buddhism says let go, be empty, focus on your heart, your awareness, and ask yourself; "Who am I really, what is my original face?" And don’t look for an answer, just stay with the question, the longing, the mystery, the unknowing, this the presence of eternity, the present moment, a spacious quality of non-attachment.

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Culture

                                    Culture

 

 

          

 

            “I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humor and English wine.” 

                                                                                      Peter Ustinov

I'm writing this to raise awareness of how truly difficult it is to understand and thereby live peacefully with others that are different from us. Yet I truly believe we must try our best and that our future as a species depends on it.

Culture is an interior experience writ large, it is the subjectivity of any more than one person. Culture is the experience of “We,” or “Our,” or “Us.” There is nothing innate about culture other than all humans have some kind of cultural experience as a developmental matrix, and then whatever they co-create with others throughout their life.

Culture can be everything from the kind of beer we share, geography, language, religion, politics or our shared Alma Matter. The operative word is “shared.”

Cultural anthropology is an attempt to try to understand from the inside what a particular cultural is. So cultural anthropologists live with, eat, sleep, work, play, worship with whatever culture they are studying, so they can have some kind of “We/Us” shared experience, then they try to write about it as if they somehow know the culture from the inside out.

I do agree it's a good idea to try and get an insider's point of view with culture, but I also think ultimately the view is very limited. Unless one grows up and gets calibrated to a particular culture I think it is very different to really have a sense of what  it's like to be a part of a group from the inside.

When I worked as an intensive in home worker, I experienced vastly different cultures every day. Going into someone's home is a cultural anthropological experience, and it should be approached as such. Now, I'm working in a county that has a culture of meth use, incest, poverty, domestic violence, and xenophobia, they are literally dying off and/or killing each other.

Last night I come back to a culture that is much more diverse and tolerant. I go into the Dollar store on Haywood road, West Asheville. It's about 6:15 and things are hoppin'! 98% of the people coming, going, and working there are Black. The guy at the cash register is flirting, greeting, and messin' with everyone who comes in.

“How u doin' young lady, u look gooood tonight!” he says to an elderly Black woman walking with a cane.

Then a young fox walks in and he blurts out; “Oh no, we closed now, y’all gon need to go!”

He's banging on the cash register, cussing it, and somehow getting it to work, there is a long line, but nobody seems to mind.

I am sandwiched between 2 elderly Black women, with my Listerine and triple A batteries, and they begin to banter, coo, and howl with laughter after one will say; “I know that's right!” One talks about hitting the lottery saying how she's gonna help everyone. The other says; “Well I'm gon hitit too!” They start playing off each other, competing, but also saving the world.

“I'm gon help the churches, and come back here an giv some to every one here, even this man here!” she touches me kindly on the shoulder. Meanwhile, the cashier is calling out; “Y’all sure gon giv som ta me!” and the women call back; “Oh, you know yo gon git some, we gon send yo to collage!”

My heart and soul are filled with joy and a sense of humanity when I leave. Because I was available and open, I had a glimpse of another culture. They let me in during that brief but deep encounter, this is the stuff of unity. Meanwhile people of one culture were slaughtering others in Paris, the international city of love.

How To Raise Children

                                          How To Raise Children

               

 

 

 

 

 

                                        “It takes a village to raise a child.”

Like so many spiritual, psychological, social, and philosophical truths, they become cliché and end up as forgotten refrigerator magnets or bumper stickers. It's funny how this is not the case in science, E=mc2 is not put away and forgotten, it's used daily in 100's of ways in our everyday life.

When I was in graduate school, I took a job as a nanny for 2 boys. Their mom was a psychotherapist and dad was a psychiatrist with specialization in child development, so they knew a little bit about what kids need. The younger boy took after his mother, was very ethereal, sensitive, and linguistic, his older brother took after dad, was emotionally contained, grounded in his body, and fearless in the physical world.

This family was part of a 6 family cooperative, they had home schooling that would rotate to different families houses, facilitate field trips, and supported each other emotionally and every other way in the education and well being of the children. There was a heavy emphasis on emotional, spiritual, and social attunement. We had 2-3 teachers at any given time, and only about 8-10 kids, so there would always be time and space allowed to facilitate kids working through conflict and dealing with difficult emotions.

I literally spent hours upon hours talking with my boy's mom when we would “hand off” the boys in transition. We not only talked about the boy's day, but we talked about how I was doing, and what came up for me emotionally or psychologically while caring for the boys. As every parent knows, a lot of your own baggage comes up when raising children!

The younger boy was very verbal and playful, and I had a background as an improvisational comedic actor, so we were constantly playing off each other in funny and creative verbal exchanges. I read to the boys every day, I read them Chronicles of Narnia, The Education of Little Tree, Dr. Seuss, and everything in between.

The older boy was very physical, so we would wrestle, climb trees, jump on the trampoline and explore the 100 acre woods in their back yard. I'll never forget this boy's reaction when I was pulling out of the driveway, running late as usual, trying to get the boys into town for a rendezvous with their mom. I was 100 yards down the dirt road, when I realized I had a flat tire. Me and the older boy got out to assess, and he screamed with delight at the event. He saw this as an exciting adventure to learn how to change a tire, I learned a great lesson in that moment, and will always be grateful for his teaching.

Years later, as the boys got older, I ended up teaching middle school for a couple years with the younger boy in my class. This was a small, hippie private school, and we had a 3 teacher team that covered all the academics and other dimensions for about 18-20 kids. I was an assistant basketball coach for my boy's team, had him for math, and continued our comedic and bonded interactions (me teaching math is an ideal setting for comedy!).

I don't want to pretend this was idyllic by any means, there was projectile vomiting, poopy diapers from hell, Greek tragedy temper tantrums, etc. but after all these years, I can truly say these children got an incredible environment and support network that is pretty close to optimal. The only other comparable comparison I have is when I lived in a commune in California and was around children raised communally.
 

Today, the younger boy is 29 and a burgeoning improvisational comedic actor in L.A. His brother is 31, a psychotherapist in Colorado, a rock climber, and has been a contestant on American Ninja Warrior. As any parents are prone to do, I like to imagine I had something to do with who they are.

It's Not About Me!

                                              It's Not About Me!

 

 

                  

 

 

 

                    

"Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her."   Gandhi

 

In Buddhism, there are the ideas of the no-self, the formless, emptiness, and the void. There are also ideas of the Self, the witness, pure awareness, and form, “Form is not different from formlessness, formlessness is not different from form.” In the West, we have built monuments to the ego, they come in many forms; media, facebook, cell phones, and psychotherapy. When Decartes says “I think therefore I am,” there is a fusion of identity and self. We have come to believe, feel, and act as if we have a separate identity from the rest of reality. There is reality, others, objects, circumstances, etc. and there is me over here having this experience of all that.

In Buddhism, this attachment to a separate self is seen as delusion and  is the root of suffering, it is what's in the way of true happiness, freedom, peace, and love. The three kinds of relationship are; 1) What's in it for me?, 2) You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, and 3) How can I create a context to give my gifts? The first 2 approaches lead to suffering, the 3^rd leads to fulfillment.

Just as there are countless examples of selfish, egotistical, and greedy behavior, there are countless examples of selflessness. Every night when we drop of to sleep, we are doing just that; dropping our sense of self and letting go into some unknown realm, it feels delicious if we let go and let it happen, but in our crazy world today, more and more people are having difficulty stopping the activity of their ego driven mind and attaining restorative sleep.

Meditation is the oldest and most effective technique/technology for dealing with the egoic mind. In meditation, one has a focus of attention and enters into various states of deep relaxation and heightened awareness. This awareness is not thinking, it is just awareness, no subject and object, the rational mind cannot understand this because rationality is based on subject/object duality.

Other forms of selflessness are the countless acts of kindness that occur daily, when people, or animals act without any sense of themselves, and just do something nice for someone or something. They aren't considering in the least what's in it for me. I believe, in spite of people like Richard Dawkins author of “The Selfish Gene,” that indeed, we do act selflessly at times. When someone says something kind, comforts someone, gives without any motive other than giving, I believe this is closer to our real nature than other times.

Ironically, our own sense of self-love is paramount to loving others. When we truly nurture ourselves, rest, and restore our energy we are able to give that much more, with greater effectiveness. When we play, are entertained, enjoy, indulge with awareness, and live fully in the moment, we are transcending our isolated sense of self. We see this in nature how symbiotic, cooperative, and ecologic nature is, everything has a place and lives cooperatively, even with predators and prey, they cooperate within their niche until their time comes and game is over in that form. Nature teaches us so much if we just listen and watch the process that we are part of.

 

Everything is developmental, like an acorn becoming an oak, enlightenment has it's markers or stages of development;

1. The first stage:
A Glimpse of the Whole

2. The second stage:
Silence, Relaxation, Togetherness, Inner Being

3. The third stage:
Ocean, Wholeness, No-self, Pure being

Birth and death are two aspects of a continuity, they are not singular events. What is the continuity? It is the continuity of life, of forms dissolving into formlessness, of consciousness, and of a unity in diversity, not a singular me!