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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 )
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!
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)
I want to share an observation that I find completely fascinating.
Before I share it though, I want to make a little disclaimer, as follows:
There is absolutely NOTHING personal about this observation. If you feel anything other than curiosity, then understand this is NOT personal. If you find yourself justifying the behavior I describe below, simply become curious about that.
With that little disclaimer, here is the observation:
As I was walking to my car in downtown Red Deer this morning, I observed a small group of ladies standing and chatting. I watched one of them casually throw a piece if trash of the ground, then one of the others did too.
I thought, “Isn’t that strange how they litter in this day and age…”.
As I got in my car and drove to the hill I like to run, I pulled up behind a car and watched them proceed to roll down their window and litter.
I thought, “Isn’t that strange how they litter in this day and age…”.
I pulled up to my hill (yes, it IS mine) and as I walked through the grass to its base, I noticed hundreds and hundreds of pieces of garbage, litter and paper strewn EVERYWHERE.
The strangest part is that there are also garbage cans everywhere.
I may be wrong, but I actually think it may be LEGAL to litter in Red Deer. Or maybe its like this in your city or town too.
Please email me to tell me if it’s legal to throw cigarette butts on the ground where you live.
Oh, sorry, when I was describing the garbage, litter and trash above, I meant cigarette butts.
That said, I will be interested to see who cancels their subscription to my communications, because they have taken this observation, personally. (Don’t miss the Free book offer below)
Tomorrow I’ll share a few more observations on the facts described above, what it means and why it matters.
But check this out: The first smoker to email me there mailing address, I will send them a free copy of my book, Waking Up To Life!
No strings! Go here to send me your mailing address and I’ll mail it today.
The term ‘Unconditional Love’ can never be used to describe a personal experience or state, as in: “I feel Unconditional Love for him/her.”
In this statement we have placed at least two conditions upon love.
First, if the love is ‘for’ someone, then it is conditional upon it being THAT someone.
Second, if there is an ‘I’, then the Love is dependent upon that specific ‘I’.
Unconditional means without condition.
Unconditional Love can only be experienced when it is direction-less, ‘I’ am out of the picture, and Love is All.
When Love is All, there can be no sense of ownership, because in Love, the person is not there.
No conditions!
Only Love is, and we are Love!
Love is not something we create or manipulate or direct.
We can only allow Love by getting out of its way. When we get out of its way, we see we are only Love, in Love, and Love is All.
When ‘I’ appear, Unconditional Love is nowhere to be found.
Unconditional Love IS.
I’ve sounded off in the past about the whole talking-on-the-cell-phone-while-driving thing. I’ve ranted and raved like a fiery preacher, and I’ve spoken about it at conferences and in my seminars.
I think it’s fair to say that many people are just barely good enough drivers, even while paying attention. Add a cell phone, smoke, Tim Horton’s, and an adolescent’s attention span, and you have another example of stupid things human do.
Lately I’ve painted a somewhat more grim kind of scenario. Imagine:
Your partner calls you on your cell phone and you answer while driving. The unexpected gift you leave them is your scream into the phone as you are killed. Can you imagine? Want some help?
Check this out.
