Tag Archives: compassion

Lessons from A Taoist Monk

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Nine Powerful Life Lessons From Studying with a Monk

29th June 2012

By Robert Piper – docakilah.wordpress.com

When I was 18 years old, I suffered from anxiety and stomach problems. A compassionate physician and practicing Buddhist referred me to a Taoist monk who specialized in meditation and martial arts. I ended up healing myself of anxiety and stomach issues by doing meditation, and went on a great journey of self-discovery.

Here are 9 lessons I learned while studying with a monk:

1. Keep trying until you get it right.

The most important life lesson I learned was trying something three times (maybe even four times) before you stop trying and move on. Also, this monk taught me that, even after multiple tries, you should work on different angles to approach things that are difficult.

If you keep trying, you’ll eventually get where you’re going.

2. The answer to your question is inside of you.

As part of the original monastery training, a monk didn’t answer direct questions from a student unless it was a well thought-out question. A Chinese proverb says, “Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.”

Some forms of Zen Buddhism use a very similar style of training. An old saying (by Taoist monks) goes like this: “In making a four corner table, the teacher shows the student how to make one corner. It’s the student’s job to figure out how to make the other three.”

They did this because they were preparing a student to deal effectively with problems in the real world.

I traveled to South Korea one time, and I found it fascinating how much you have to rely on your intuition when you don’t speak the native language of a country. I remember one instance, I had trouble explaining to the cab driver where my hotel was, and he didn’t speak English. So I had to get out of the cab and ask several people until I could find someone to tell the cab driver in Korean how to get to my hotel.

In life, whenever we try new things, we have to go into new places with only a small amount of information. The real world doesn’t give us all the answers. The greatest teacher is inside of us.

3. Real wisdom in life comes from doing something and failing.

Prior to starting meditation, I used to get upset when I’d try something and fail.

I’ve been in sales since I was sixteen. I remember going to work and getting so angry with myself because I didn’t get a sale. If I ever got rejected, I’d get upset with myself, and I’d want to quit my job. But I just keep failing over and over—until I became good at it.

I remember, when I first started doing meditation, I ran into several problems. For example, at first it was difficult to calm down; but if you stick with it, its gets easier and easier. I tried for only a few minutes, and then every day, I added more time onto my meditation.

When we struggle, we learn about ourselves and what we need to do to become stronger.

4. When you start to do meditation you recognize the egotistical mind.

Everything in the ego’s world is the result of comparing. I compared myself to other salesmen and would blame myself because I wasn’t making as much money as them.

When I started doing meditation, I began to build separation from this egoistical mind, which is consistently making these comparisons. A lot of us try something and get rejected, so we give up. Even worse, we blame ourselves for a long time and get depressed. When I started to do meditation, I began to identify my ego and was able to build separation from it.

That’s what happens when we meditate: We separate from the part of ourselves that dwells on comparisons, and start learning to live a life that isn’t driven by our egos.

5. We must be both compassionate and resilient.

The monk wouldn’t meet with me to train unless I called him a minimum of three times. I hated this part. I used to call and call and he would never answer. But this is how life is. How many times do you have to call or email someone to get something done in the real world? It’s usually several times.

Most of us blame ourselves when we try once to do something and fail. At the time, I hated this part of the training, but now I think it was the most important life lesson.

There’s a Taoist proverb that says, “Cotton on the outside, steel on the inside.”

It reminds us to be compassionate, but not weak.

6. Patience is a virtue.

The monk always made me wait—and I dreaded this.

For example, when I got to his house to train, he’d make me wait for a minimum of a half-hour, sometimes longer. We’d go out to dinner on Friday nights and he’d show up at the restaurant an hour late.

He’d tell me to meet him at a particular restaurant at 7:00. I’d get there and find out that he wasn’t there. So I’d usually be sitting in the restaurant by myself fumbling with my phone, acting like I was texting someone, while worrying about what everyone at the restaurant was thinking about me.

Keep in mind, it’s not like I could call him; I don’t think the guy ever turned his cell phone on. Then he’d show up at about 8:15 and act like nothing happened.

His first question was always, “How’s your mother and father?” (Of course in my head I’m thinking, “What do you mean, ‘How’s my mother and father?’ I just waited here for an hour and fifteen minutes.”)

But after a few years of this, it never bothered me; and not only that, it spread to every area of my life. Because of this training, I can honestly say that I very rarely get upset about anything. I never get agitated anymore when I have to wait in a long line or when someone cuts me off on the highway.

Patience is the gift of inner calm.

7. Detach from your ego.

At first, it’s hard to sit at a restaurant by yourself. You’re constantly worrying, thinking that people probably think you’re a loser because you’re sitting by yourself. But the reality is, you will never be happy if you care about what people think you!

Prior to starting meditation, I’d get upset over just about anything. Now, nothing really bothers me. Recently, I was in the airport and there was a several hour delay on my flight. I just used that time to do meditation. Ten years ago, I would have become extremely upset. An airplane delay would have ruined my day.

When you let go of your ego needs, it’s easier to accept and even benefit from whatever comes at you.

8. In Taoism, they say, “No self, No enemy.”

It’s the enemy within that causes all of our fears, worries, and insecurities. If you come to terms with this enemy within, it will impact every area of your life. It’s the identification with the “self/ego” that causes all of life’s problems.

How many times do we not go for something because of fear? Think about all the fears that we have conjured up in our minds that stop us from being truly happy. If you can conquer the enemy within yourself, you won’t have an enemy outside yourself.

9. Happiness come from within, and also comes from outside.

I learned this from observing the Buddhist Physician I met. He used to do meditation in his office before he would interact with his patients. He was one of the happiest and most compassionate people I’ve ever met.

By creating happiness inside, he was able to increase that emotional state by spreading it to others.

We must cultivate happiness from within, and work to spread it around to everyone we interact with. The monk used say, “Everyone has a purpose or a mission in life.”

We have to find happiness within, and also find our purpose on the outside.

About the Author

Robert Piper is a meditation instructor & the creator of monkinthecity.com. He studied with a Taoist monk for 9 ½ years & traveled to Asia & Australia in search of other meditation teachers. Robert is currently writing a book on meditation to make it more accessible for stress relief, health & happiness.

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2012/06/29/nine-powerful-life-lessons-from-studying-with-a-monk/

On Love & Transformation

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Heart of Transformation: How Courageous Is Your Love?

22nd May 2012

By Jack Adam Weber

Many view love as a purely positive force. It is positive, but for love to live up to its advertising as the most powerful energy on the planet, it must be bigger than the feel-good experience we claim it to be. Love must embrace everything from euphoria to devastation, selflessness to utter selfishness, on both the personal and collective level. For love to be the all-encompassing force we intuit it to be, love must also be able to fully embrace and reconcile the darkness and suffering of the world. The transformation of pain and suffering into positivity, deep compassion, and healing service is the way that love achieves this and grows into its own heart to embrace all of life. This way, seeming opposites are united—Yin and Yang become one dynamic whole, and life flows deeply, courageously and robustly through and from us.

Because life is full of loss, grief must be part and parcel of love. Grief must allow us to love more, not less. When we conceal grief, we stymie the transformation of love from pain and suffering into pleasure, deeper beauty and genuine compassion. Reciprocally, love must allow us to grieve more. And it does, for the more we care for and love this world the more it breaks our hearts. Ultimately then, a sure measure of our integrated love is the degree to which our hearts have broken open and recapitulated that breaking by staying profoundly open. In this, paradoxically, we can find both a concrete and ineffable wholeness, beauty, appreciation, and an abiding care for the welfare and fulfillment for all of life.

When we grieve something we realize how much we love it, how much it has meant to us. This experience opens us to value other things that we love; that is, if we are not afraid of grief and its attendant heartache. In one way, religious notions of salvation can be a seen as another way to stave off feeling badly, as can the idea of romantic love—that someone else is going to make us happy and whole and disappear our problems.

I do not advocate seeking out heartache, but it is amazing the lengths to which humanity will go to stave off psychological pain, to the point of pervasively denying reality. Perhaps this is because pain is a taste of literal death, as are illness and trauma. We intuit that nothing will feel as bad as to die, literally. I go so far as to say that our fear of pain, as a taste of final death, is at the root of personal and planetary suffering. For we equate feeling badly with suffering. But, pain is not suffering. Suffering is, in fact, the refusal to risk or to deal with pain. Ironically, suffering is what happens when we see things non-poetically, one-sidedly, rather than paradoxically, more wholly, as the interdependence and inter-promoting properties of dark and light, Yin and Yang.

Yin-Yang theory is one of the few practical, non-dual gems of ancient wisdom we have to illuminates spirituality in everyday life. Yin and Yang are integral to Taoism, the pragmatic philosophy of living in harmony with nature, and to the practice of Chinese medicine. I am grateful for my training in Chinese medicine, to be been versed in this dynamic, profound and ultimately practical model of living that allows us to richly appreciate healing, spirituality, sustainability, ecology, economics, and all aspects of life. The key to Yin and Yang theory, and its stamp of validity for me is both its poetic and literal embrace of dark and light, good and bad, visible and invisible, happy and sad, positive and negative. These are the paradoxical, dialectical truisms that comprise the ever-changing, ever-diminishing and simultaneously regenerative flow of life.

The unity of Yin and Yang, as depicted in the Ying-Yang symbol, can be summed up as the fundamental interplay and unity of dark and light. Only when dark and light transform into and promote one another do we achieve true wholeness. This is the law of nature to which we are all subject. All of reality as we know it follows the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. When we can celebrate this cycle in our daily lives, we live a taste of the great fear at the end of our lives for which we invent our religious beliefs and unduly protect our attachments—to avoid facing the inevitability of death.

Daily disappointments and losses cut our attachments, exposing our fears and vulnerability, challenging our instincts for survival on all levels. Yet, if we can breathe deeply and allow our hearts to engage their transformational nature, of turning pain into positivity, then we can find more peace, freedom, and wholeness. The bonus of embracing and being transformed by our daily declines—our small deaths—is that we get to live more fully while still alive. Is it any wonder then that the French word for orgasm, petit mort, translates literally as “small death?”

Figurative death, when it is transformative, (as all declines potentially are) is ultimately an ecstasy, an orgasm of the heart. At our literal death, we do not get the opportunity to transform our lives; all we really know is that our physical bodies decay. Ironically, when we unilaterally deny and try to avoid death via our rejection of embracing the relatively smaller daily heartaches, our lives become a kind of sleepwalk. This happens when we do not have the courage to embrace the inherently transformative nature of our own hearts to allow pain to transform us into a generous and integral spirituality. When we do not embrace our petit morts, we perpetuate the horror we supposedly fear so much in the future. The antidote is to die, figuratively, today, so that we can truly come to life while we are still alive.

Emotional transformation is a radically creative effort. Transformation is the key to unite the polarities, the paradoxes as seeming contradictions, of life—dark Yin with light of Yang, as the circle of life. Staying close to paradox is to stay to the path of courageous spirituality, wholehearted love. The key to living with a heart of transformation is courage, the courage to honestly and frankly face and embrace the painful aspects of life at face value, yet to deal with this pain in an utterly creative way. After all, happiness is not the opposite of suffering. Transformation is. The great irony, the pitfall in the unilateral pursuit of pleasure, is that suffering results as the attempt to avoid feeling bad. The more we avoid inevitable or extant pain, the more deeply our suffering becomes entrenched in our hearts and the farther we arrive from freedom, deep love, and connecting with —especially giving to—the world in a meaningful way. Indeed, when we avoid the beauty of paradox we live out the horror of its irony.

When we can embrace the difficulties and pains of love and transform them into the feel-good qualities of compassion, depth, richness, gratitude, appreciation, beauty and wonder, we make love more all-encompassing, holistic in the deepest sense. This way, we allow love to be as powerful, as big, as whole, as unifying as what we bill it to be. We transform our hearts into the strongest emitters of energy on the planet, figuratively speaking anyway!

As part of humanity’s long history of denial and attempt to stave off feeling badly, we invented a heaven where everything is perfect. We believe in reincarnation so that death becomes not as terrifying as it really is. We abdicate our sensibilities to a distant, invented God, or an imagined perfect “light,” instead of discovering the inherent nature of morality and compassion in our own hearts via the embrace of darkness for light. We have invented millions of rituals to stave off anxiety. We have created fairy-tales of resurrection to justify a belief in our own immortality. We pray to make ourselves feel better, as wishful thinking to avoid facing the difficult and tragic realities we cannot control. These same challenges, ironically enough, free, deepen, and honestly spiritualize us. At some point we discover first-hand that a hellish life is what we live for having invented a hell and heaven in the first place.

When we take away the magical props of religion we are left with the cold hard facts of life. If we take away our addictions, obsessions and compulsions we are more apt to encounter more cold hard facts of life. If we dare to abandon, even temporarily, our compulsion to pursue the less benign assuagers of anxiety and disappointment, such as excess sex and culinary indulgences, we are also left with more of the same facts of life.

But the hard facts of life are really not so bad. To the sincere and grateful, to the insightful and courageous, the facts are certainly more desirable than chasing a life of superficial pleasures, religious delusion, and New Age fantasies. Why? Because life’s challenges and pains hold within their seemingly impenetrable shell, their seemingly endless spooky corridors, a graceful, deeply compassionate path to freedom, fulfillment, and ease in our own skin and in the world. When we relinquish escape into fairy-tales we are left in the seat of real possibility for transforming our lives and our spirituality, if we have the courage and creativity to appreciate and persevere through the paradoxes that integrate our spirituality in the world.

About the Author

Jack Adam Weber is a licensed acupuncturist, master herbalist, author, organic farmer, celebrated poet, and activist for Earth-centered spirituality. He integrates poetry, ancient wisdom, holistic medicine, and depth psychology into passionate presentations for personal fulfillment as a path to planetary transformation. His books, artwork, and provocative poems can be found at his website PoeticHealing.com.

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2012/05/22/the-heart-of-transformation-how-courageous-is-your-love/

Karen Armstrong on A Pact for Compassion

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Practical Compassion: An Interview with Karen Armstrong

The historian has helped world religions unite behind a single principle. But can a worldwide charter for compassion become more than just a nice idea?
posted Apr 12, 2012

 

heart girl by Adriel O. Socrates

Photo by Adriel O. Socrates

In 2008, religious historian Karen Armstrong was granted a wish. She had recently won the TED Prize, which comes with $100,000 and support in making a single “wish to change the world” come true. Armstrong had already identified a fundamental principle that she believed united the spiritual traditions she studied: compassion. She made a wish to work with leaders and adherents the world over to create a Charter for Compassion, an overarching statement of human morality that could unite us all.

Through a web-based platform, thousands of people from over 100 countries contributed to the writing of the charter; a multi-faith, multinational council of thinkers and leaders edited and signed off on the final document. The charter has now been affirmed by more than 85,00 individuals; city governments, civic organizations, schools, and universities throughout the world are seeking creative ways to put its words into action.

But what can the charter really accomplish in a world where religion drives us into rancorous divides at least as often as it unites us? I recently spoke to Karen Armstrong about the politics and practicalities of compassion.

Heidi Bruce: One of the things that YES! Magazine covers is how to better bridge divides between seemingly opposed groups. What role can media play in helping people with very different beliefs engage one another in a productive manner?

Karen Armstrong: I think the media has a huge role to play—and has to take quite a responsibility for some of the more divisive aspects in our culture. I’ve just written a piece in the Globe and Mail about Islamaphobia in Canada, and the hostile comments that came in were ugly and disturbing—sort of fascist-style comments. Very often, the media has portrayed certain sectors of the community through endless reporting on terrorism, ignoring the wider picture. So, there’s a real challenge here to turn that around.

Storytelling is fine as long as you can encourage people to act on the stories. I don’t want this charter, for example, to degenerate into a sort of club where people exchange compassionate and inspiring stories, because there’s just too much work to be done. If we want to create a viable, peaceful world, we’ve got to integrate compassion into the gritty realities of 21st century life.

I don’t want this charter to degenerate into a sort of club where people exchange compassionate and inspiring stories, because there’s just too much work to be done.

Let’s use our stories to encourage listening to one another and to hear not just the good news, but also the pain that lies at the back of a lot of people’s stories and histories. Pain is something that’s common to human life. When we ignore it, we aren’t engaging in the whole reality, and the pain begins to fester. We need to encourage full storytelling—unless people also talk about the bad things that happen, this is just going to be some superficial feel-good exercise

Bruce: What are some of the more recent practical applications of the charter that have been most inspiring to you?

Armstrong: Pakistan is taking a leadership role in integrating the charter into civic life. This a country right on the edge of the main conflicts that could fill our world—the whole world could implode because of what happens in Pakistan. It’s got Afghanistan and Iran next door, it’s a nuclear power, and it’s had conflict with India since its inception. This is a really explosive situation. And yet the enthusiasm for the charter has been astonishing. I was there in 2011 for the launching of the charter; speaking three times a day, with thousands of people showing up each time. They’re concentrating on education. They’ve created a compassionate character for [the Pakistani version of] Sesame Street; this guy is really cool—not just some simp hanging out with flowers. He’s a positive role model for pre-school children.

On the other side of the Gulf is Jordan, also explosive with Iraq on one side and Israel/Palestine on the other. During Ramadan, people in Jordan and Pakistan ran a web competition where participants were invited to post a compassionate action every day during the holy month. They were only expecting to have a few takers the first year—perhaps ten thousand—but forty thousand people did it every day.

During Ramadan, people in Jordan and Pakistan ran a web competition where participants were invited to post a compassionate action every day during the holy month… forty thousand people did it every day.

I think another interesting fact is that many of the people who have come forward to help me have been businessmen. In Pakistan, for example, a leading business consultant has adapted my book, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, as a course for compassionate business. Google is way up in front on this—they recognize that if they treat their employees more compassionately, they get better results. They’ve looked into the abyss of 2008, when selfishness was allowed to run riot and proved disastrous for the economy. This is a very interesting development, a key one, because politicians are not going to be deflected from their course by somebody like me; they listen to business.

Bruce: They certainly do in this country.

Armstrong: They do everywhere now, because the market runs modern society. So that is the way we have to go. Next year in Seattle, for example, we’re going to have a conference on business and compassion.

 

karen armstrong by Seamus Rainheart

Karen Armstrong at the Compassionate Seattle event April 2010.

Photo by Seamus Rainheart

Bruce: Are there examples of governments that have officially shown support of the charter?

Armstrong: The Compassionate Cities campaign is an important development in this regard. What it’s doing is taking this ideal, which could sound New Age-like and perhaps even self-indulgent, and inserting it into the gritty reality of city life. It’s no good just sitting in a glade being compassionate to somebody—it’s got to go into the cities. There are about 80 cities going through the process, as well as universities and schools. Part of where we may have to go—to be quite realistic—is to shame governments into it. If they find other cities being compassionate, saying, “Why aren’t you doing this?” they might be persuaded to begin making changes.

Bruce: Once cities affirm the charter, what concrete steps would you like to see them take in order to implement positive social change?

Armstrong: In cities, it’s got to be something that the city really needs. That will be very different in Pakistan, where people are getting blown up every day, than here in Seattle where we’re much safer at the moment. I think you need a core team of committed activists who can form a sort of “shadow city council” that shadows the work of government segments in charge of homelessness, health care, race relations, housing, or supporting the elderly—keep a weather eye on what they’re doing and hold them accountable.

One of my dreams is to create twin cities. For example, have a city in the Middle East twinned with a city in the United States. People can exchange news and form electronic friendships. Schools and universities can communicate so that some of the apprehensions and distorted views that we have of one another can be eroded. A network of compassionate cities could be a powerful force.

Bruce: In the field of conflict transformation, there’s the notion that, as a precursor to reconciliation between divided societies, a formal apology can be an important first step. What are your thoughts on apologies as necessary steps towards creating more compassionate cultures?

Armstrong: There is a real need for acknowledgement—an apology that acknowledges and demonstrates guilt. I think that is a good idea, but it has to be followed up with consistent action. In the Middle East, we British went in and transformed their societies forever—put in rulers that had no legitimacy among the people and then extracted all their resources. The terrorism we are seeing is largely a result of that massive disruption and dispossession—of people being shunted out of their homes in India, Pakistan, Israel, and Palestine. The point is that the damage has been done and an apology alone won’t set it right; one also has to recognize the irrevocability of what we’ve done.

Bruce: In your personal life, what challenges you most in striving to live more compassionately?

Armstrong: For me, the most challenging part is to constantly be talking to people.

Heidi: My apologies!

Armstrong: [Laughs]. I’m solitary by nature. I live alone and I’m a sort of hermit. Normally, I write, but that’s had to go to a large extent. I seem to be able to speak easily when I get on a platform; I feel like a weary old circus horse that hears the music, smells the sawdust, and starts prancing around and recovers its energy. But it is challenging not to get cross and snap at people when I travel around so much. That is hard. Also, I get quite a lot of abuse—some very ugly since September 11th. That’s when I have to remind myself of the Golden Rule and what it’s like for people who are continuously exposed to this kind of defamation.

Bruce: What are some of the sources of abuse that you just mentioned?

Armstrong: It’s from people who don’t like Muslims. I was speaking to someone in the U.S. State Department whose mandate is to look at anti-Semitism around the world; yet what worries her most is rising Islamaphobia. We’re seeing exactly the same mechanism of mythology that was used against Jews. This is very ugly and worrying for our societies because it’s corrosive; it’s a gift to the extremists because it plays right into their hands. It also corrodes our spirit because it goes against everything we’re supposed to stand for in terms of tolerance.

Bruce: When people talk about the negative impacts of globalization, themes that often emerge are scale and pace. Do you feel that the tenets of the charter are more challenging to implement now than they were perhaps a hundred years ago?

Armstrong: Certainly great harm has been done in the past 100 years; two major world wars, nuclear weapons, massive displacement of peoples—it was a terrible century. But on the other hand we’ve got new ways to communicate, including social media, which is really how the charter’s operating a lot of the time. This string draws us together in a way that we weren’t all together before. We’ve created a global market where we are all connected, whether we like it or not. Poverty over there will redound on our own economies. We’re all involved.

But we can’t expect quick results; otherwise they’re going to be superficial. People in the west are not good with that—we want things turned around fast. It will be hard work. Compassion is hard work.

Evita Ochel on Heart-Centered Living

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Awakening to Heart-Centered Living

12th March 2012

By Evita Ochel

Our world is in the midst of a major change, and we are awakening. Awakening today from years, decades and centuries of living stifled by illusions and limited by controlling beliefs and unconscious thoughts. Today, we have the chance to step into the light of consciousness and see the world, life and ourselves through a lens of clarity like we never have before. We have the chance to see through the illusions, the drama, the propaganda and all that has kept us asleep, busy and distracted from the truth of all that is.

But what will we do and how will we react as we wake up? For many around the world, the awakening is a rude one and it is bringing about various levels of anger, resentment, frustration and despair. Many of the things, people, organizations and systems we put our trust and faith in have failed and betrayed us. Many of our first responses thus are to strike back, get even, attack, retaliate and expose that which has enslaved us for so long. And while all of these actions may have some merits and many of us may feel justified taking them, there is something else to consider, something very fundamental about this awakening that is much more powerful to put into practice.

At the root of this awakening is a very important foundation—the foundation of the heart. For eons humankind has led life ruled by the mind, which has to this point been largely untapped and unconscious where its full potential lies. Despite this, logic, reason and rational thinking were valued over empathy, compassion and emotional feeling. We were taught to be strong, competitive, the “fittest” and focus on personal desires without regard for how it will impact others or nature. Yet something about this did not feel “right” – did not feel natural to many of us, and is today one of the biggest factors driving this awakening.

In the midst of evolving as life on this planet, we neglected one of the most important aspects of ourselves. We have denied, suppressed and alienated our heart. And so today, we are not just awakening, we are awakening to heart-centered living.

The Meaning of Heart-Centered

“Love doesn’t need reason. It speaks from the irrational wisdom of the heart.”  – Deepak Chopra

The foundation of heart-centered living is love. Pure and simple. Therefore, when we embrace or step into heart-centered living, we are allowing love to be the guiding force for all that we think, say and do. We are moving out of fear-based paradigms and moving into love-based paradigms. How this plays out in everyday life on a practical level is huge, and has massive implications for all life on this planet. Our hearts are starved and we are finally coming back to ourselves, healing ourselves and healing our planet. For example, it is no coincidence that heart disease today is our number one killer. While I will be the first to say that healthy eating is vital to our physical survival and quality of life, beyond this physical nourishment is something much bigger. Our overall energetic frequency of the thoughts, words and actions we experience influences our mind-body connection and this is reflected in the state of our personal health, and collectively in the health of our planet.

Therefore to understand what heart-centered living is all about, there are three main areas that are the building blocks for putting a heart-centered approach into action on every level of our existence.

Compassion for Self

For starters, it means growing in and nurturing self-love. Yes, we actually start to put ourselves first, but not from an Ego perspective, but from a heart perspective. When we wake up to heart-centered living, we understand that we are the central point of creation of our personal reality. Until we understand love personally and experientially, and learn to love ourselves, we are of little value to ourselves, others and our world. Until we learn to really love ourselves, we will continue to engage in destructive behaviors that harm the self, others and our planet. This applies to everything in life.

A person who has a high degree of self-love is incapable for example of being in a destructive relationship, or over-eating, or using toxic substances, or subjecting themselves to any other physical, mental, emotional or spiritual harm. The higher your level of self-love the more compassion you exercise in all of your thoughts, words and actions towards the self and all of life’s creation. And in case it is not yet clear, this has nothing to do with selfishness, but with being awake and aware enough to know that we can only give what we are and what we have. Therefore if we do not have love within us, how can we give love to others? Or kindness? Respect? Compassion? Etc.

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. Your really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”   – Lucille Ball

Compassion for Others

Secondly, it means a unity-centered attitude in how we interact with others. We begin to value things like community. We come to understand that we are all from the same source on this planet, and thus one human family. We begin to see ourselves in all of the “others” with whom we come into contact with everyday. And because we would not hurt, cheat or abuse the self, we would not do this to any other being. But again, for this to take effect, we have to first apply the point above with respect to increasing our self-love. And when we do apply the highest level of self-love we can at any given time, we immediately change our thoughts, words and actions towards others, for we take on the highest level of empathy no matter who we are dealing with.

We realize that only peace is natural in how we interact with others, releasing fear-based behaviors that are centered in violence, war, and oppression. We begin to understand the real meaning of justice and equality, knowing that it just does not make sense for one to have more than enough, while the other struggles with not enough to survive. Discrimination, judgement, and prejudice get released as we come into full awareness of what it means to be one. We stop fearing our differences, and instead celebrate our unique diversity.

“Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter who or what they are: ultimately these are all we need.”   – Dalai Lama XIV

Compassion for Nature

Thirdly, it means a high degree of stewardship when it comes to all of nature and our planet. The more we love ourselves, and love the communities that we share this Earth with, the more we make sure that our home—planet Earth—is kept in the healthiest state it can be.

Living from the heart means we know that every body of water on this planet is like the blood that runs through our body, and in order to be healthy, we cannot pollute either. We begin to be mindful of our actions in how we preserve clean air, both inside and outside our homes. We begin to show the highest level of compassion for all animals, and plants and all other species of life on this planet. Nothing is seen as worse than, or more worthy than. We stop discriminating between species as to which ones we call our pets, and which ones we abuse or kill. We begin to take a high degree of reverence for nature knowing that it has a sacred balance, and we learn to work with it, rather than against it.

Living from the heart and being stewards of this planet also means that we do not try to impose our will or control nature or any of its species. We are just one aspect of nature that has the choice to either live with the sacred harmony, or destroy the harmony of life on this planet.

“There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet.”   – Brooke Medicine Eagle

From Mind Wisdom to Heart Wisdom

In closing, I wish to share with you my personal philosophy for my life, which today I keep as simple as possible – live consciously using the wisdom of the heart and the power of the mind.

May we remember that living from the heart does not mean that we abandon the power of our mind. To do so, would be to enter a new imbalanced way of existing on this planet. We cannot deny any part of ourselves to live from our highest potential – not our mind, not our heart and not our soul. We are multidimensional beings, both on a physical and spiritual level and we are today learning how to truly put that into action and live our lives from the most holistic and balanced foundation.

Ultimately, at our essence we are love. We are not fear, or anger, or greed, or competition. As we continue to awaken, may we continue to grow in love, and exercise all that we are in how we relate to ourselves, others and all living and non-living things on this planet. May we always focus on the solutions, rather than the problems, and truly be the change we wish to see.

About the Author

Evita Ochel is an author, speaker and holistic living expert. She is the editor of two online publications:EvolvingBeings.com – to awaken and inspire people to expand their consciousness and connect with a heart-centered way of life, and EvolvingWellness.com – to awaken and inspire people to attain optimal health and wellness through natural health and nutrition. Evita is also the founder of the Healthytarianmovement and author of the newly released book “Healing and Prevention Through Nutrition”.

from:   http://wakeup-world.com/2012/03/12/awakening-to-heart-centered-living/

Tom Kenyon on Boundaries

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On the Nature of Boundaries

by Tom Kenyon

Awhile back, at one of my workshops, a woman approached me quite upset.

She had been having lunch with other participants in the seminar and the topic of trust had come up. She admitted to the group that she had trouble trusting others. Her new-found friends began to immediately offer ways to help her.

One suggested affirmations like “I fully and completely trust the universe.” Another offered a visualization exercise to see herself as a flower of light fully open to the world. A third offered her a private healing session at half price. Everyone at the table seemed to agree that if she trusted enough, the universe would mirror itself back to her that way.

In other words, she should be trusting to everyone and then they would act in a trustworthy way. This person, new to personal growth, left the group quite dismayed. She found me in a hallway between sessions and asked if she could run something by me.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Can I trust the universe?”

“Trust the universe to do what?” I asked.

She blinked and proceeded with her line of thought. “They say I need to trust more”

“Trust whom,” I asked.

“Everyone.”

“Rubbish,” I said.

She blinked again and a slight smile came across her face.

“Tell me,” I asked. “Who in your life, right now, do you find trouble trusting?”

“My boyfriend,” she responded without a moment’s hesitation.

“And what has he done?” I asked.

“Well he says he loves me, but he has cheated on me twice. I wonder if I can trust him.” ”

How did it feel when you found him cheating?” I asked. “It hurt.”

“I think that your natural gut-wisdom is telling you to put up a boundary to protect yourself.”

“But is it spiritual?” she asked, truly perplexed.

As a psychotherapist it has been my observation, for some time now, that much in the New Age is psychologically dysfunctional. I had an engineer friend who referred to these New Age “truisms” as NABS, or New Age Bullshit. They are like those little snacks you eat at cocktail parties. They fill you up for a bit, and give the illusion of nutrition, but they are empty calories.I think that one of the NABS currently in vogue is the notion that one should let down one’s guard and be fully and completely open. As a therapist I think this idea is potentially dangerous and here’s why.We have many levels to ourselves. At one level, the transpersonal, we may be spirit, unbounded by time and space, but at another level we are mammals, like dogs, and cats, whales, dolphins and monkeys, to name a few. We have biology. And our psychological health depends upon balancing our transpersonal (out-of-time) aspects of “self” with our personal (bound by time) aspects.At the level of our biology, our body wisdom understands quite clearly the need for boundaries. Every cell has a cell wall that keeps out the world. Any cell that lets down its guard is quickly going to perish. The cellular walls set a boundary for the cellular processes inside to continue. The walls also keep out toxic invaders like viruses, bacteria and other biochemical demons.

The message? Without boundaries, there is no life.

However, the cellular walls also have little openings to the world. These portals are guarded, but if the cell senses that a visitor is beneficial, it will open the molecular doors. If the visitor is toxic, however, the doors remain closed. Among the beneficial visitors are things like oxygen and nutrition. Without these “life messengers” the cells will eventually die. The precarious forces within our animal bodies responsible for continuing life depend upon a balance between boundaries and openness.

In other words, at a cellular level, our biology has an innate wisdom to distinguish between something toxic and something life-enhancing. Biological systems set up boundaries between themselves and that which is toxic while, at the same time, they open themselves to that which brings increased life.

In the psychological realm the same principle holds true. There are situations and people that are life-enhancing and others that are toxic. The psychological task for mental and spiritual health is to distinguish between toxic people and those that are healthy. Unfortunately, while our bodies naturally create healthy boundaries, we have to learn how to create both mental and emotional boundaries between us and the world. For many of us, growing up in dysfunctional families, the skills of compassionate boundary making were never taught.

And what do I mean by compassionate boundary making? Well to explain this, I think I probably need to discuss “judgment” and “discrimination.” They are not the same thing. And this will lead us directly to the woman’s question at the beginning, “Is it spiritual to set a boundary?”

Quite simply, discrimination is assessing the apparent truth of a situation while judgment is placing a value upon the situation as “good” or “bad.” For instance, back to the young woman and her quandary about her “two-timing” boyfriend. His actions hurt her, or to be “psycho-politically correct,” she allowed herself to be hurt by his actions.

That he did this twice and might do it again is discrimination. It is logic, simple logic. This is discrimination, the act of discriminating apparent truth from bullshit. There is no judgment in this, just observation. She has observed his behavior and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that he might (probably will) do it again. If she wishes to avoid getting hurt again, she would do well to set up an emotional boundary and to become detached from his advances. This is discrimination in action.

This is different from judgment. If she were to decide that he was a “shiftless and worthless bastard,” for instance, she would be placing a value judgment on him. Discrimination, by nature, is neutral; it is not emotionally charged. It is simply a mental recognition about a reality. There is no blame or judgment in this, simply observation.

Compassionate Boundary Making first requires a discriminating look at the situation. One must clearly see the situation the way it is without romanticizing and without trying to make it into something it isn’t. If the person or situation is not healthy for you, you remove yourself. Period. End of sentence.

In the process of removing yourself from the situation you resist the temptation to judge the person or situation, as “good” or “bad.” Even though you might not understand his or her motives, and even though you might feel hurt by the situation, you give yourself and the “offender” the gift of spaciousness to do what they need to do — with one clear limitation, so long as it does not impinge on you.

I love what a southern grandmother once told a friend of mine, “Your rights end where my nose begins.” How beautifully direct and pragmatic that statement is!

One psychological task facing all of us is to distinguish between what is healthy and unhealthy. Psychological maturity requires that we act on our own behalf to separate ourselves from that which damages us. How we separate ourselves from those things that are toxic is a matter of personal style more than anything else.

As Paul Simon said in one of his songs, “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover,” there are many ways to separate ourselves from toxic situations and people.

For those of us striving to be more conscious in our actions, and perhaps, more spiritual, the task requires compassion as well. But compassion does not mean becoming a “door mat” for someone to walk all over you. Rather compassion means creating a mental and emotional space in yourself to allow other people to be themselves, even if you don’t understand or agree with them. Compassion does not, however, mean that we let others intrude into our emotional space. That is submission, which is not the same thing.As we grow in psychological and spiritual strength, we may find that we are no longer comfortable with certain persons or situations. What seemed to be nourishing or at least neutral, is now perceived as toxic. This sometimes happens with family members, spouses and friends. I am noticing that, for many of us, this phenomenon looks like it is increasing. Perhaps it is because things are speeding up and more seems to be happening in less time. Perhaps it is simply the price of self-evolution.As we pass over a line in ourselves from unconscious to conscious (I should probably say semi-conscious, to be more exact), we may find ourselves having to set boundaries with past relationships. This can be very challenging to say the least. For those of us caught in this dilemma, I suggest the Way of the White Cloud.The Way of the White Cloud is to see all things and all situations as essentially devoid of substance. What appears to be very real at the moment becomes only a memory. The apparent solidity of things and the gravity of a situation is actually a mirage, an illusion. Buddhists call this samsara. And we are caught up in it by virtue of having an embodiment. The art of living, from this viewpoint, is to live and take action without getting caught up in the snares of the illusion.

 

When clients get stuck in interpersonal conflict, I sometimes have them imagine going into the future, maybe a hundred years and look back at the situation. In almost every case the charge is dissolved. The hostility gives way to a recognition of impermanence. Why, the “wisdom mind” asks, should we get caught up in this when it is so insignificant from the vantage of expanded vision? In the realms of samsara, nothing is permanent. All is transient, like white clouds. By becoming aware of this truth, we see that we are all in the same boat, so to speak, the boat of samsara, or illusion.

It may look like someone or something has “the upper hand” at the moment, but that is true, only from one perspective. We all suffer, both the dominators and dominated, because we are, all of us, time-locked into time and space. We are also free and open, for a part of us is both unbounded pure consciousness and luminous light. This pure consciousness and luminous light may or may not be directly experienced by us, but it is there, nonetheless, like the clear sky hidden by clouds. Our clouds of obscuration, those thoughts, feelings and patterns of behavior that hold us in the samsaric lies of limitation come and go, like the clouds. But the clear sky is always there.

The spiritual task, for those of us desiring to live with more compassion, regardless of the lineages or traditions we follow, is to penetrate this level of ourselves, the place of pure mind and unbounded light. For the gift of this is that we become suffused with a direct knowledge of the relativity of all things. We can afford to be gracious in our dealings with ourselves and others because we recognize that things are not what they appear to be. The act of compassionate boundary making comes out of our luminous and unbounded nature.

Even though we may have been “hurt” by a particular situation or person, from the view of the transpersonal, all of this is like clouds, in one moment vividly real and in the next moment, gone. This spaciousness allows us to let others be without the need to judge, defile, or seek revenge.

For the young woman mentioned earlier, making a compassionate boundary with her boyfriend might look like her telling him three things: first, that based on his past behavior she has concluded that she cannot trust him; second, she is leaving him; and three, she holds him no ill-will. She goes on with her life and he goes on with his.

Now, this does not mean that the desire for judgment, defilement or revenge doesn’t arise in our minds especially when we perceive being hurt by another. But the spiritual discipline of not indulging these thoughts, feelings, and fantasies is a powerful niyama, (Sanskrit, meaning constraint or control). Niyamas, such as the attempt to remain harmless to oneself and others, strengthen both the soul and personal will. Besides reducing interpersonal stress, compassionate boundary making affords us real insight into the state of our own psychology.

What I mean by this is that for some of us, it may be a challenge to let someone “off the hook” who has harmed us in some way. But if it is anyone who is let “off the hook” it is ourselves, since the desire for revenge or retribution on another is an emotional and spiritual poison.

And so, to the woman I mentioned at the beginning, I would say “yes.” To set a boundary between ourselves and another can be spiritual. How it is done makes it “spiritual” or not. If the “spiritual life” is an attempt to live with an awareness of the sacredness of life, then compassionate boundary making is, in fact, aspiritual act. To set an appropriate boundary is necessary for all biological life. It is also a requirement for mental and emotional health, and I would venture to say for the “spiritual life” as well.

To say “no” to ourselves or another can sometimes be the most courageous and powerful act imaginable. And sometimes, saying “no” to someone is more “loving”(i.e., caring) than saying “yes.”

There is another piece in relation to boundary making: detachment. Finding your truth and acting on it regardless of how others might react is the benchmark of personal sovereignty. Such action requires the ability to create and hold boundaries. I am reminded in this of a story.

One day the immortal yogi, Babaji, was meditating in a forest with his chelas (disciples) up in the Himalayas. A man stumbled upon them and recognizing the great yogi, he begged to become a disciple.

Babaji refused and told the man to leave. Instead, the man followed the group wherever they went. Finally, Babaji threw rocks at him and told him to go way.

The man, distraught, told Babaji that if he, a great yogi, did not accept him as a disciple, he would cast himself off the nearby cliffs. Calmly, Babaji told him he didn’t care what he did. With these words, the man threw himself to his death on the rocks below.

Babaji went down the side of the mountain and brought the man back to life. Having dissolved immense negative karma, the man was accepted as a disciple.

Gurus are notoriously irascible. They follow impulses that we can hardly even imagine. At the very least, this is a story about spiritual boundaries. Hopefully in our journey to wholeness none of us will have to jump off a cliff; but all of us will, no doubt, have to set boundaries from time to time.

May all of us find ways to be more compassionate in our boundary making. And may we find the strength to open and say yes, when we mean yes, and the courage to say no, when we mean no. End. .

from:   http://tomkenyon.com/natureofboundaries. .