Drop the pebble in the pool. Only then do ripples spread and fill the whole pond. Drop the thought in silence. Only then can waves of intention fill the universe.
Some assume that meditation is thinking: repeating a memorable, "spiritual," or delicious thought. But the deepest meditation happens when you drop even your most memorable, "spiritual," and delicious thought.
Become the radiant space beyond intellect. Become the rippling silence that resonates with the song of galaxies.
We seem to think that electing another president will change things. We assume that our political system brings significant transformation in our lives. And if there is something wrong with it, we just need to elect new politicians...
Maybe the problem is not the politician, but politics itself. The problem is our very assumption that we need a government to do the work of making our lives more livable, and human.
Is there a way to Be directly human in the world, without asking political representatives to negotiate our Being for us?
Let's be honest. "Politics" is based on ephemeral loyalties, masks of illusion, and subservience to the power of money. To survive, even the most idealistic politician becomes a docile servant of expediency and compromise. In 2008 Barack Obama said, "Hillary Clinton will say anything and change nothing." A year later, he made her Secretary of State. A few months ago, Bernie Sanders said, "Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be president... She lacks the judgment." Now, at the Democratic Party convention, he places her name in nomination. Politics is smoke and mirrors. So are politicians.
Perhaps we need a new way to conceive of government. You Are the government. I Am the government. Now is our democracy. The only true politics is the way we live our lives this moment, together. Our politics is the authenticity and presence of our relationship.
I don't believe that Barack Obama will make my life better. I don't believe Bernie will make my life better. I don't believe Hillary will make my life better. I certainly don't believe the Donald will make my life better. Only I make my life better, as I work with you to make your life better, in the Now of relationship. In the coming age, this Now of relationship will be the only politics. O most blessed anarchy!
We're all having mental health issues. Any American who says they're not having mental health issues is insane.
If you are even half awake, you will admit you are having mental health issues. Just look at the people you, we, select as political candidates. They are all about power and control. Just look at the Congress we elect. They are all about serving their financial masters, who give us perpetual war and the arms industry. Yet we say that we are a peaceful nation, that we have a religion of peace, that our candidate is going to make everything all right. Is this not deep mental illness?
Look at what we do to our green mother. Look at how we "other" people because of the color of their skin. Look at our fascination with violence. We project this from our own energy and call it "the world out there." Then we pretend its not us. But each and every one of us have created this world. It's ours, not "theirs."
So let's stop claiming that we're OK, and that someone else is the problem. "Else" doesn't work anymore. Our mind is the problem. We need to confess our confusion and give up being "right" - politically, religiously, racially, economically. Because the people who are "right" are destroying the earth.
Maybe we need the courage to say, "I don't know." "I don't know" is a sacred mantra for us right now. It lets us fall down. Falling is sacred too.
We can sink from the mind to the heart, and repose in the ground of wonder, where compassion flowers. We can bathe in the breath of the divine Friend.
Ink Painting: Crazy tipsy zen monks being none other.
It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter which candidate you prefer. It doesn't matter how many wonderful acts of merit you have accomplished, or how many times you have failed. All that matters is where your awareness rests right now. Let it repose in the magnificent Silence of your own heart. Dissolve the world into love.
Merging into the stillness of the Self is the deepest form of activism, stimulating the breast of Divine Mother to express the milk of Shakti, her creative healing power, through every atom in creation.
One of the subtlest forms of ego is to pride ourselves on how much grief or anger we feel, for then we get stuck in our grief, fixated in our anger, and they become our identity. We are so much more than our anger, so much more than our sorrow!
Your grief and anger are not to be denied. They are sacred energies. But grief is not a temple, and anger is not a palace. They are impermanent, empty as wind moving through the stillness of vast space. You are that space. There is room in you for the storm, and for the sun.
But if you let the pain and chaos of the world become your identity, the world will rob you of your smile, your birthright happiness. You will lose everything, for you will completely misunderstand the nature of reality.
The world is a mirror of your consciousness, reflecting your golden sun or your grayest cloud. The world mirrors the full moon of your compassion, rising over an ocean of peace, or the troubled waves of your anxiety. You have the freedom to project whatever mental state you feel onto the mirror of the world.
Life flows toward greater happiness. If I embrace my grief and anger, giving them the time they need, without force or resistance, nature will spontaneously move me toward joy. The energy of grief and anger will dissolve into clarity and peace. But if I cling to grief and anger, identifying them as "me," I cause unnatural suffering in myself and others.
When we practice meditation, our great discovery is that we can embrace our grief and our anger, breathe through them, transform them into free energy...
Now it is time for Vespers. Let the ocean of peace include our waves of grief and anger, until every wave settles down in the stillness of All-Mothering Awareness, whose nature is pure love.
Why do we wear outer garments of race, religion, and nationality? Simply to dance in a planetary multicultural interfaith festival. Differences are for celebration, not conflict. And these human waves of individuality all sparkle from one Inward Light, one center of divine consciousness, whose nature is love.
On this Sabbath morning, repose a little while in the silence of the heart. Rest in the healing breath of deep meditation. To taste your divine Radiance, even for a moment, is to end human violence. When we see violence, our anger and grief are sacred energies. But they can finally be breathed through, embraced, and transformed by a much wider space. For in the unified field of the all-pervading Self, it becomes so clear that wishing others harm is wishing harm to ourselves.
We are called by Christ to "love our enemies," not as a moral commandment, but as an awakening of our true nature. The "Other" and the "I" wear different costumes, but we are beams of the same Light.
I pray that you may be happy today, resting in your natural dignity, whether you are dressed in "white" or "black," "Christian" or "Muslim," "East" or "West." Meditate, radiate, and dance.
Happiness shines from the Self. Happiness does not come from what we accomplish, what we believe, what we attain, what we think. Happiness bubbles up from the Self, as the very essence of who we already are. Nothing created it. Nothing can remove it. Happiness is not superficial: everything else is superficial compared to the radiant elixir of our happiness. To awaken the pure happiness of the Self is the only sure end of human violence.
Even if you are 70 miles from the nearest toilet, squatting in stillness among the wild ferns, the swirling stars above you, the only sound a yelp of coyote cubs in the next valley, the sigh of pine needles in the gentle wind, you are passionately immersed in the world, and you are involved in profound social change.
Took this photo of Mount Rainier from Gobler's Nob
