George Carlin and The Paradox Of Our Times

George Carlin passed away this week. Here are some words he became known for although he did not write them.

The Paradox Of Our Times

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things. We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.

What If?

What would your world look like if there was suddenly no TV?

What would change for you if you could not shop or buy something, every time you had the desire or impulse?

What if cosmetics and clothing disappeared, and you had to function in the world as you came into it, naked and natural?

What if there were no such thing as alcohol or drugs of any sort?

What if your survival was assured, but you had 16 hours of time in front of you each day?

What if all of your distractions were eliminated and you were left with nothing but the bare immediacy of your simple experience?

What if you were left with nothing but the fact of your existence?

What then?

I See You!

I am so very fortunate to have the opportunity to provide bedtime medications to about 40 of the 110 residents who live in the Red Deer Nursing Home. At about 8:00 pm, after they’ve been assisted into bed, I go room to room and offer the medications that have been ordered by the Dr.

Because I am very new to the Red Deer Nursing Home, I am just getting to know these beautiful people, so I am somewhat uncertain as I approach each room. I cannot be sure of what awaits me on the other side of each and every door.

But here’s the thing:

I’ve created a practice that addresses the countless challenges I face, each time I knock and enter a residents room.

First and foremost is the intention to practice and work with whatever arises with absolute awakeness, awareness, and openness.

This means the mind is clear and silent, and the body feels slightly excited/curious as it faces the unknown.

Entering the room I immediately notice, ‘eyes open or closed?’.

If closed I begin saying their name from a distance, looking for the least intrusive way of getting their attention or waking them.

If and when their eyes open, I approach slowly, radiating benevolence (as I’ve described in a previous blog entry) until I know they see me, attempting to disarm them as quickly as possible. I’m sure that it is here that they can sense my joy and openness, because it is here that my heart blooms.

I see a miraculous body/mind being near the end of its life.

I see a unique swirling pattern of color and living light.

I see life in its totality, shining from behind aged eyes.

So I approach while radiating my own aliveness, transmitting my assurance of safety and respect, but also something more.

That ’something more’, is also something less, in that it cannot be measured or studied.

It cannot be observed or quantified.

I’m sure this practice of offering ’something more’ will never make the ‘best practices’ list, because our Western mind-set is so stuck in the paradigm of the outer world of providing ‘care for’ others, that we have neglected the intangible inner world of ‘caring about’ others.

That ’something more’ takes no extra time, effort or money. In fact, I would stake my life on the bet that that ’something more’ saves time, effort and money.

So what is that ’something more’?

Simple. To make them feel and know they are seen, simply and utterly.

“I see you” my eyes say to them.

“I see you in your entirety” my smile says to them.

My touch says, “I see you in your enormity, and your vulnerability, and your perfection”.

I see you.

An Interesting Question To Consider

If you had the choice of either dying with someone at your side or completely alone, which would you choose?

I ask this question because I am often surrounded by beautifully transparent elderly folks who are in their final years. I am called to reflect often upon my own life and approaching death.

The question above really has a deeper question beneath it, which is this:

What is it that someone could offer you in your final days or moments?

Support? Comfort? Humor? Understanding?

Their own confusion? Their own grief? Their own misunderstanding?

I question, because I know the answer for me and have experienced the deep value of looking at this deeply.

What is it for you?

Please respond with your answer and your rationale.

Waking Up and Opening Beyond

There are many many moments in my life where the sheer quantity of tasks and commitments I have before me buckles my knees. For a moment I feel paralyzed by the enormity of my life situation.

There are feelings of anxiety, dread and impending doom.

These difficult experiences are now a wake up call, inviting me to open beyond my current smallness.

In a single moment, everything returns to its proper place. I realize that I am as large as life.

In fact, I AM life.

Or, more correctly, Life is alive in the shape of me and has become lost in my life situation. The Ocean that I am has shrunk to the wave that I imagine myself to be.

Silly me!

Any moment of suffering is an invitation to open and remember what is real and true, and open beyond the little comings and goings of my life situation, whatever it is.

WHATEVER it is.

The Absence of Displeasure

As human beings, some of our greatest pleasures are actually the sudden removal and absence of pain.

A sliver removed, hunger satiated, an injection of a pain reliever, a baby birthed…. long ago…. “it was wonderful… wasn’t it? we remember, forgetting the 12 hours of labor.

As human beings, our ability to forget pain is legendary.

But as you read these words right now, can you feel the pleasure of your lack of pain and discomfort?

You can, but will you?

Will you consent to open to your absence of trauma, discomfort and horror?

Can you feel your un-mangled leg, free of pain and suffering?
Can you feel your lack of stomach cancer, nausea and vomiting?
Can you enjoy your lack of bad news, loss of a loved one, or absence of grief?
Are you grateful for your lack of tragedy, right now?

Can you read these words? Understand? Breathe? Speak? Move?

These are all forms of pleasure, if they are returned to you after losing them.

Noticing the absence of your suffering is a wonderful practice that can make us more attuned to the beauty that is before us.

The beauty we become numb to… unnecessarily.

The Launch Of A New Special Report

Nurse/Consultant Claims Canadian Health Care
Is In Danger of Losing Its Heart - Offers Solutions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, (PRWeb), May 1, 2008

Frontline Health Care Providers face almost insurmountable challenges in their efforts to provide ‘care’, that is not merely hurried, mechanical and routine, but is also compassionate and attentive to the personal needs of the care receiver. Is Canadian Health Care in danger of losing its heart?

Aaron McNaught, the owner, and creative force behind Aaron McNaught Education/Consultations, isn’t waiting for an answer.

Instead, McNaught has written and launched a Special Report entitled: Exposed and Examined: Three Major Factors Threatening The Quality of Frontline Canadian Health Care. What Are They? What Can You Do About Them?

In this report, McNaught, who is also a psychiatric nurse, outlines one simple practice that puts an end to much of the unnecessary suffering experienced by frontline care providers.

Says McNaught, a 17 year practitioner of the advanced skill sets he teaches, “It almost seems like a conspiracy that we are not taught the life affirming skill of staying connected to our present experience with a strong, energetic attention. This ancient practice, found at the core of all the world’s wisdom traditions, leads to a variety of powerful and almost immediate benefits including:

• the slowing down and stabilization of thought processes, naturally leading to -
• enhanced clarity, focus, emotional stability and feelings
• of well being reduced tension, stress and anxiety caused by unnecessary mental and emotional
• activity vastly improved communication skills, empathy and compassionate interactions

“Our western society is finally beginning to take notice of these kinds of teachings and skills. For example, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of the bestselling, Finding Flow, claims that, “to control attention means to control experience, and therefore the quality of life. How much stress we experience depends more on how well we control attention, than on what happens to us.””

“In my workshops with frontline care providers”, continues McNaught, “I hear repeatedly that they are well aware of the challenges they face. They are sick and tired of hearing about the statistics and surveys. They want real solutions they can use to manage their stress, emotions, interactions and moment to moment experience while on the job today.”

McNaught goes on to suggest that there are deeper issues at stake, “Care providers are just like anyone untrained to deal with stress. The real problem is that the health, safety and welfare of those we care for is jeopardized. Unmanaged stress and emotional reactivity are hardly optimal conditions for anyone to work in, much less to care for your loved ones in.”

McNaught ends on an optimistic note, “Attention Training is not a complicated solution, but its simplicity does not negate its power and effectiveness. This one simple skill, integrated and practiced in the workplace can put the heart back into health care.”

The Special Report is available at http://www.wakinguptolife.com/SpecialReport.htm

Aaron McNaught - Aaron McNaught Education/Consultations
Suite #2, 4917 48th St. Red Deer Alberta T4N 1S8
Call 403-302-2523 or toll free at 1-866-593-3040
aaron@wakinguptolife.com
http://www.wakinguptolife.com

SHE

She is the maker and wearer of all masks
Donning all expressions of Life
Painting all pictures, Singing all songs

The throb of Her Being births our Becoming

She has never been merely one of two but always and forever All
Her faces are constructed of the Myriad Moments of Unfolding Mystery –
Always masquerading as Mystery… Always!

Cloaked in a coat of curiosity
Parading as the puzzle of paradox
Shimmering within a sublime sheath of secrecy

Her many garments are woven of the silent transition points
between here and there — Yes and no — Light and dark — This breath… and the next…

She arises from the cracks between the shadows
The spaces within the openness, The essence within the emptiness, The stillness of the void

What She is can never be isolated or conceptualized
One moment – She is transparency…
The next – a living display of color unlike this world has ever seen
Or will ever see again

Her gifts are endless
Abundance is Her name, Multiplicity Her flavor, Unfathomable Her depth

She is as the untraceable Fingerprints of God
Leaving Her mark-less mark on All She touches

She is as the autumn leaf falling
Living, dying and rebirthing once again as new gestures and patterns
Flowing in and as the endless seasons and cycles that She also created

She is as newborn snowflakes
Falling through the Night Sky of Life
Embodying infinite shapes and forms -
No two alike and none to fall twice or ever to return

She stops me with a glance, leaving me Undone
She is also the deepest part of me
And She will never be found as mere flesh or form

This I Know of Her with such certainty
That as I speak these words
The whole Uni-verse shudders in agreement
Then comes to rest in the Home of Her Heart
As familiar as the taste of my own
Tongue…

(In accordance with the Eastern Wisdom Traditions, Life in its multiplicity is addressed in its feminine She. The spaciousness that it all dances within is addressed in the masculine. The dance of the one being two is what we imagine, but the one is never other than one. There is no 2    2 )

Attention Training and the 1-2-3 of Delusion

The greatest minds of past and present knew that the key to wisdom, inner peace, maturity, and compassion is found by developing the capacity for a strong, stable and energetic attention.

This skill goes by several names; Present Moment Awareness, Mindfulness, Meditation, and Wakefulness are some of the more popular ones. I prefer to use the term Attention Training.

Attention Training is the practice of gently yet relentlessly returning your attention to your present experience with curiosity, clarity, and energy, and WITHOUT thought.

But before I get to far I should say this; there are some misconception’s about what Attention Training entails, where it leads and why one would bother.

First, one of the biggest myth’s about Attention Training is that it takes a lot of effort.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

How much effort and energy is it taking you to be aware that you are reading these words right now?

None. Zilch, nothing, nada. It takes no energy to pay attention, but here’s the thing:

Not only is Attention Training effortless, it will save you FAR more energy than you could ever expend practicing it. Attention Training is rejuvination, energizing, and it helps you to save energy..

When your attention is asleep and lost in stressful thoughts, or anxious imaginings, or regretable memories, you will expend far more energy than you would by keeping your attention present, energetic and awake.

The second myth I’d like to demolish is that Attention Training is a new age thing. Wrong!

Attention Training is ancient, time proven and utterly anti-new-age.

Why anti-new-age? Because much of the new-age asks you to reformulate, reword, or otherwise revisit your current beliefs in an attempt to come to the more correct, more accurate and more effective beliefs.

Attention Training says hogwash to all that and asks you to believe NOTHING. That’s right. NOTHING.

The practice of Attention Training asks one thing of you, and one thing only: Look at your experience right now without thought, memory, or imagination. I’m not asking you to believe, I’m asking you to look.

Just simply be where you are, alert, attentive and aware of what is going from within and from without.

Notice how you are experiencing two kinds of input or stimuli. One is coming from your external experience, mostly in the form of sounds or sights. You are being stimultated from without. Experience that now.

The second input or stimuli comes from within, in the form of self talk, thought, or the experience of sensations or emotions. Experience that now.

We are stimulated from within and without.

Many of our problems as human beings comes from our inability to STOP interpreting our experience. We move from direct experience, into concepts ABOUT our experience, into our personally conditioned concepts about experience.

For example: Looking our the window, there is just the simple perception of ‘what is’. We see, before we name what we see. There is just naked and direct seeing.

Then, we conceptualize; “I see snow falling….”

Then we personalize; “Darn it, I hate all this snow.

Faster than you can say “1-2-3″, we move from direct experience, to conceptual thought, to personal opinion.

Then we mistake our opinion for reality.

Then we spend our lives living in our own ‘personally constructed reality’, rather than staying awake and connected to the immediacy of life itself.

And THAT requires NO THOUGHT!

My Favorite Piece of Me

I was asked lately, “What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?”

Without hesitation I answered: “A short piece that appears in my book, Waking Up to Life!”

It’s called The Kung Fu Self.

To imagine I feel ‘proud’ or self esteem or even responsible for it would be to miss the point of the piece completely. (Self esteem is for people who don’t understand, and responsibility is for people who couldn’t possibly have written the piece)

It just feels right to me, it fits. I like its elegance and its succinct-ness. There is a right-ness about it, like well fitting underwear. It’s a piece that represents one of the starting points of deep life exploration with me.

If you read it and it fits you too, call me and lets talk about what this really means to you and the dream world you may be about to leave.

If you are not attracted to it at all, maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about.

Here it is:

The Kung Fu Self

If you were to learn Kung Fu and you became almost invincible there would be a change in your confidence regarding the skill and safety of your particular body and mind in regards to Kung Fu. You may appropriately see your body/mind as almost unbeatable. No problem.

The problem occurs where there is also a change in the self-image and self-esteem, which is purely conceptual. You imagine your ’self’ to be better.

The reality is, your body/mind is trained and is ‘better’, while at the same time you imagine your conceptual ‘me’ becomes better too.

You have become simultaneously more skillful and more deluded. You feel good about your ’self’ and you feel proud, but pride is for children and immature adults, not awake Kung Fu Experts.

(Aaron McNaught,
posing as Bruce Lee)