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Here’s a cool article about helping children to learn the value and power of Attention Training.
I went to a movie tonight and one of the commercials asked me to remember to turn off my cellphone.
It was just a reminder, and I was grateful.
In my 17 years of exploration, suffering and skepticism, I have come to see one single factor as the most important, above ALL.
I need to remember.
I need to remember.
I need to remember.
To remember.
Remember.
REMEMBER.
Remembering is all.
To remember means to feel ones default stance, or deepest understanding.
Please read that again and understand it.
To remember means to feel ones default stance, or deepest understanding.
To remember means to relax as the base of reality.
To remember means to embody your deepest truth and greatest value.
To remember means to animate ones clearest vision.
To remember means to rest as IS, without elaboration…
To remember means that you have momentarily forgotten that you are alive AS Life,
and you have probably shrunken to the size of an itty bitty ‘me’.
Until that moment you remembered.
It’s very very weird.
On one side of a line, one is asleep and oblivious.
For all intents and purposes, useless.
On the other side of the line, one is awake and attentive.
For all intents and purposes, a responsive human being.
Two different creatures, separated by their ability to be attentive and awake.
What does that mean?
The analogy of finding out Santa doesn’t exist as compared to finding out that YOU don’t exist, seems to endure even after some time is spent with it.
After getting the news that Santa doesn’t exist, you wake up the next day, happy that it’s almost Christmas then… oh yeah… Santa/Me is not real…
Now what?
You look forward to Santa coming… then you remember he isn’t. You imagine Santa is coming… then you remember he isn’t.
You imagine Santa is coming… then you know he isn’t.
You remember that Santa came in the past… then you understand that he didn’t.
You imagine Santa came in the past… then you KNOW that he didn’t…
It doesn’t matter if you imagine it, understand it or know it, the fact is, Santa doesn’t exist on any level.
Sorry, neither do you.
Merry Christmas!
I’ll tell you right off the bat, before you even start reading this, that you might think I’m a little kooky because I talk to cows. But if you can get past that to get to the ‘why’, then proceed…
If you’ve read my book, Waking Up To Life! or know me, you know that I am fortunate to spend half of my time with my partner Susan on our acreage in central Alberta. This place is magical, healing, rejuvenating and extremely secluded. I have a hard time finding it myself.
The last stretch of dead end road leading up to this hidden gem, (aptly called ‘The Home Stretch’), is about 1/4 mile long. It’s a perfect length for me to do sprints with Chinook (our dog) first thing in the morning.
Both sides of the road are lined by a barbwire fence that encircles vast areas of beautifully rugged but open grazing ground for cattle.
The other day as I was running The Home Stretch, Chinook and I could see the cattle were much closer to the fence and the road than usual. As we neared the 50 or so herbivorous beasts I noticed a strong desire to avoid spooking them.
So I raised my hand and said “Hi!”, in the most disarming voice I could summon.
They didn’t move.
As we got next to them it was easy to sense their uncertainty, but even as Chinook repeatedly charged the fence I persisted with my disarming “Hi!”.
Then I noticed my attention was located deeply in my Heart, and I was actually radiating benevolence. The strength and obviousness of my goodwill was palpable, such that I began magnifying it and transmitting it with such force that I became consumed by it.
Here were 50 cows, looking at us and holding their ground, bathing in the waves of my spontaneously generated benevolence.
Now before you laugh of write me off as a kook (like I would), let me make a couple important points.
First, what I am sharing here is NOT some way for you or I to feel good about ourselves. This is not a way to build self esteem or other nonsense. I feel zero pride in sharing these thoughts. As I wrote in Waking Up To Life!: “Pride is for children and immature, sleeping adults”.
Second, while I am certain these cows truly could and did experience my attempts to disarm and comfort them, here’s the thing.
MY heart was as wide and as open as the whole world in those moments I describe above. It affected me, because I came to understand even more deeply, something I’ve known for many years, which is this:
Benevolence, goodwill, or openheartedness is not just a random, spontaneous occurrence, but something that can actually be practiced and strengthened. This means we can generate an intention to gently, consistently and persistently strengthen our capacity to share our openheartedness with the world.
Here is a brief summary of the practice of Locating, Magnifying and Expressing Benevolence.
1. Prepare by finding your intention to practice sharing your good heart.
Understand why you would do such a thing. (Is it because you have matured and ripened to the point where you are ready to fall from the fruit tree of banality?)
2. Enter the situation or circumstances you plan to practice within while maintaining contact with your intention above. (Understand that everyone around you is to some degree, confused, asleep and dying. Put simply, everyone is suffering)
3. Locate your attention in your open heart. See if you can find it in you to actually desire to alleviate their suffering in some way.
Because here’s the thing: You can! You can alleviate the pain and suffering of those around you. But will you?
4. Magnify the feeling texture of openheartedness. This means intensify and exaggerate your open heart by pumping it full of your own loving attention. Let your heart saturate and swell with love ungiven.
5. Now, radiate and express your openheartedness either silently or by whatever action you are called to.
Shine the light of your love, transmit the joy of your heart, give away all your happiness, all your pleasure, all your comfort in whatever way you can.
Or, keep it to yourself and withhold the goodness you have in your heart by allowing your self to continue to drift through life, asleep and lost in a dreamworld of one.
But know this: If our paths cross, I’ll be the one with the swollen heart, wearing the big smile, and neither of us will escape while still asleep.
If this type of understanding interests you, why not see if there are any spots left for the Next Step Life Path Workshop on January 19th in Red Deer.
I’m very fortunate in that I have the luxury of having a whole forest to run/jog/hike in, at my acreage in the foothills of Central Alberta. When I reach a clearing I can now see the snow capped Rockies.
There are many places in this forest that I can imagine no one has ever set foot, so densely treed and uninhabitable it is.
White Tailed Deer, Elk, Moose, Coyotes, Owls, Cranes Rabbits and Squirrels are around every corner, if you know how to look.
What do I mean, “If you know how to look”? I can hear you saying.
“If they’re around every corner, they must be easy to spot” you might be thinking.
But here’s the thing: When I am in motion, it is almost
impossible to detect the movements of these creatures. Many of their movements are very small, and they are often surrounded by forest or they are too far away to see, IF I am moving myself.
So I developed a Forest Practice that is like meditation in motion.
Here’s how it works.
I run/jog/hike with my head up, scanning my surroundings.
Occasionally I stop and become very still to look more closely.
It is in this stopping and looking that I am able to discern and detect the tiniest of movements, even from great distances.
“What’s the point?” you might be asking.
My point is this: When my body is in motion, it is impossible to see what is really going on, ie. the movements of the many creatures around me …
When my body is in motion, I do not see clearly and I am misinterpreting my surroundings. I am unable to accurately interpret my environment and do not see what is really there. When I stop moving, everything becomes clear and I can see accurately.
So here’s the thing: This is exactly the same as how your own mind works.
When your mind is in movement, it is impossible to see clearly and detect what is really going on. When your mind is moving you are prone to misinterpret your experience. When your mind is running you are unable to accurately see what is really going on.
When you stop your mind you are suddenly able to accurately see what is REALLY going on.
In fact, when you stop your mind, everything becomes really quite obvious and clear.
No misinterpretation, no confusion, no inaccuracy, no distortion…
This means you are actually connected to reality, without your mind making a mess of it.
I call this sanity. Being able to stop the mind to see clearly is called sanity.
That’s just the start though.
With Attention Training,
which leads to Awakened Attention,
which helps you to actually Wake Up for the first time,
you are living Life at its clearest, deepest and most meaningful.
Without it, you are living in an amazing forest but missing what is REALLY going on. You are misinterpreting your surroundings and living a life of confusion and inaccuracy because you are unable to see clearly and accurately.
The question is: Can you stop your mind?
I will show you how, plus much much more at my first big Workshop of the new year.
The Next Step Life Path is coming….. will you be there?
If a wave on the Ocean could perceive its situation and circumstances in the same way as you and I, it might understandably misinterpret its true state of affairs.
Because it seems to have a certain size and shape, moving in a certain direction at a certain speed, and seems to have only a certain amount of time to live, it might understandably yet falsely assume it is merely a separate and distinct entity.
A wave is simply an expression of Ocean, nothing but Ocean and always… Ocean.
In just the same way, we as human beings misinterpret our true state of affairs and understandable yet falsely assume we are merely separate and distinct entities.
You and I are simply expressions of Life, nothing but Life and always…Life.
But this is NOT something to believe. In fact, swapping one belief for another is useless, like swapping the belief in Santa for the belief in The Tooth Fairy.
Useless!
No, this is something to experience and to know and to live.
Maintaining contact with the experience and feeling realization that I am alive AS Life, is called by many names.
Some call it our Basic Nature and our True Identity.
We could call it sanity, clarity, understanding and maturity.
I call it, “staying in touch with The One True Thing”.
I call it Home
Money, fame, attention, success, power, glory… it doesn’t really matter. It you live your life believing you are merely a wave on the Ocean, you are simply asleep, even if you are having a pleasant dream.
In just the same way that we have unfolded and evolved to realize many potentials we take for granted such as speech, abstract thought and morality, so too are there glorious potentials that lay just beneath the surface of our presently appearing life.
Realizing and understanding you are alive AS Life, may be one of those glorious potentials.
If this kind of understanding interests you, check out my first big event of the year here.
I hope to see you there.
