Indigo Ocean

The Right Kind of Independence

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:41:07 PDT

Yesterday was the 4th of July, an American holiday celebrating our liberation from Great Britain so that we became a separate country instead of a collection of British colonies. It is sometimes referred to as Independence Day.

Some friends of mine at a barbecue yesterday kept greeting people with "Happy Inter-dependence Day," and I definitely find that more appropriate a wish given what is needed in the journey ahead if we are to survive as a species. We need to recognize our interdependence and begin working together for the common good, instead of trying to climb over each other's bones for a personal "win."

Yet a deeper interpretation of the word "independence" offers a promise for even greater human triumph than that which social interdependence could bring. The independence of which I speak is freedom from the tyranny of a mind that criticizes everything you or anyone else does, is impossible to keep happy for long, and which seems to feel it has something of value to say about every little moment of your life.

Do you ever find yourself thinking, "My head hurts. I need to get some sleep. I need some peace and quiet. But these thoughts keep running through my head, on and on?" Do you ever tire of the constant judgment flowing through your head? Wouldn't you like to be free of all that?

Well I sure would, and that is what I want to invite you to cultivate in your life. May you find independence from the tyranny of your chattering mind. May you be at peace. May you close your eyes in just a moment, take a deep breath in, think "I accept myself" as you breath out, then pause on empty and allow your mind to go blank. Then breathe in again as such, and begin the cycle again. May you do this over and over for the next 10 minutes, and opening your eyes, find yourself immersed in an all-pervading clarity and peace.

Be well.

On Racism

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:27:47 PDT

I was asked how I as a Black person can work so hard to bring healing and happiness to people of races that have a rough history with my race (aka, White people). I was actually kind of shocked, but saw the earnestness of the questioner, so tried to come up with a meaningful response. At the time I didn't do so well, truly thrown off by the perspective of the question, given my world view. I think I said something like, "Well everyone is an individual, not a member of a group. You can't relate to people as if they were groups."

On further reflection however, this is what I really have to say:

I have been blessed to have been born into a family that did not believe in hating those who hurt them. Nor did they assume that this stance of forgiveness would be spontaneous within us kids -- so they taught us -- correcting and explaining as necessary to guide us to a place where there was peace in our hearts, even as we confronted painful incidents of racism and discrimination.

Neither were we taught to turn a blind eye to injustice. My step-father and grandmother in particular were very vocal about their thoughts and feelings about racism, and about other forms of discrimination against other groups. As many things as my family may have done wrong as I was growing up, this is one area in which they clearly got it right.

I will not say that I am color-blind. I notice race, but I do not see through the filter of race. I do not conceive of myself as a Black person, but rather as a person, one for whom sometimes it is quite significant that I am Black. I see others the same way.

To be color-blind would mean to deny the very real impact that racial heritage has on how much of the world treats a person, and thereby shapes that person's life experience in very powerful ways. I sometimes have reason to note a person's racial heritage because it becomes relevant to something that is happening or that they are saying, but in general it doesn't rise into my awareness any more than other details about their appearance.

I do categorize people a bit, not being completely able to perceive everyone as an individual of unlimited potential in each moment, but it is more in terms of the decisions they have made about who they are. Categories I would use to generally think of my friends would include: Super-loving, Environmentally Proactive, Community oriented, Musician, Dancer, Nature-dweller, etc.

When I run into them that impression tends to influence my unconscious assumptions about them. These are of course all positive characteristics, but still it is a type of prejudice. I have been socialized to be prejudicial in my thinking just as much as the next person has. It's just that for me race was never included as a major category, and certainly not a negative one, and really the idea of having negative prejudices in general was not a part of my upbringing.

Many parents assume that because they themselves are not racist their children naturally won't be, but nothing could be further from the truth. The society teaches racism, and to ignore that is to let it run free reign within the hearts and minds of the next generation. My family knew this because as victims of racism who had not let it harden their hearts, they saw the development of racism within the young around them of various races, and empathized with those children as victims in their own way. They understood how it happens, and knew it could happen in their own children too, even if coming from the opposite racial perspective. And they therefore worked very hard to see that that did not happen to us.

And so now I can unequivocally say that I do not feel ill-will for someone simply because they may feel ill-will towards me. What I truly wish for is their growth, learning and healing. I know that if they can develop a sufficient degree of self-love they will find there is no room in their hearts for hating anyone. They will discover that their light shines equally upon all who draw near, and that this is the fundamental truth about who they are. I know this about them, but they don't yet, and that's okay. I will hold that truth for them until they are ready to do so for themselves.

And I will go on writing books and articles meant to inspire everyone, creating communities meant to emotionally support everyone, teaching meditation to even murderers so that they may find peace, and generally being utterly irresponsible in my loving. I will not build walls to separate the supposedly deserving from the supposedly undeserving. I do this for my own good, and am glad it blesses you as well.

The Schizotypal Shaman

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:03:15 PDT

If you have a spare 80 minutes, check out this fascinating Stanford lecture video on the Biology of Religion, which could more aptly be called, "How religiosity is the healthy trait expression of schizophrenia and OCD."

Not being a follower of any ritual based religion (my Tibetan lama has removed the ritual aspects of the religion from our sangha's practice), I don't myself see the benefits of the traits linked to OCD. But for those people who find peace within ritual and believe in its transformative power, hopefully you find no insult in the linkage to OCD. You really have to watch a good chunk of the video for the connection to be clarified, but he is definitely not pathologizing religion.

In fact, he starts with examples of how biological traits of physical illnesses also have valuable protective abilities within a society. Sickle cell anemia results from a trait that protects against malaria. Cystic fibrosis from a trait that protects against cholera. Tay-Sachs traits that protect against tuberculosis, and so on. It is the small portion of cases where the trait is excessive that disease results. Because the trait normally expresses in a healthy way, it gets passed on to future generations (many people with the trait still reproduce).

The need to "get it just right" is the key point of the lecture. In traditional tribal cultures, the shaman who goes into a trance, speaks to spirits, and thereby draws in healing energy in a ritual that the next day has the sick person get up from their sick bed totally well, or allows them to forewarn of the need to make a change in the tribe's behavior which months later turns out to save all their lives, this shaman is using the best of the traits of schizophrenia to benefit everyone. The schizophrenic who babbles to himself during a part of the hunt where everyone needs to be quiet in order to catch the game, gets exiled. There is a world of difference between highly well adapted traits that make super capable and maladaptive disorders that make one incompetent when it comes to personal survival and tribal survival.

As someone who possesses some such traits (channeling healing energies like Reiki and Johrei, having some truly miraculous healing experience in my treatment of AIDS patients, etc.) and who has also experienced some of the more difficult aspects of them within modern culture (the need for personal isolation within a culture that demands constant social contact in order to achieve), this lecture had a particularly strong resonance within me. It makes me feel both vindicated and condemned. Great to think my biology falls in that "just right" range where I can use the traits beneficially, but still so very hard to live with Shamanic ability within a culture of skepticism. And to have it be biological means that like the autistic, there is really no amount of trying and learning that will ever get me to a point where I don't need to be alone so much just to be at peace.

Fortunately, a tendency towards religious belief also seems to be a very strong buffer against depression. It is thought to relate to religious belief's ability to soothe the pervasive human need for a sense of control over one's environment. Humans don't like it when cause and effect relationships are obscured so that they have no sense of what they need to do to get what they want and avoid what they do not want. In fact, an internal "locus of control" is a well-established psychological determinant of mental health, as opposed to feeling buffeted about by circumstances beyond one's control or a victim of fate.

Lastly, the lecture points at one other pathology whose traits offer some positives when expressed in a mild and adaptive form: temporal lobe epilepsy (to be distinguished from other forms of epilepsy). With TLE traits the person may have a tendency to write a lot and to be fascinated with philosophical/metaphysical topics. It's not that they are necessarily moved by the subjects or applying them in their lives. They are simply fascinated by the mental musing and synthesis of ideas about the subject through writing.

This is a trap of the religious life that many good teachers will point out. Many Buddhists I think particularly fall prey to the down side of this one. They get stuck at a love of the ideas, but do not practice them in their daily lives. They can ruminate and theorize endlessly about the value of compassion, and then be rude to every single person they meet without seeing any incongruity between the two. Yet surprisingly, the same could be said of many atheists. They are just as fascinated by religious ideas, simply from the standpoint of refuting them. They can go on for hours (or write volumes) about all the reasons why religion makes no sense, and they will if you give them an ear.

Similarly, Catholic spiritual leaders back in the 16th Century could be found warning about the practice of empty ritual and how it was important to not let the meaning and spiritual experience of the ritual be lost. Congregations were told to guard against the people who would be attracted to the religion by the structure of the ritual but essentially have no heartfelt embrace of it.

I suppose we should also add to the list of "warnings of pathology masquerading as the healthy balance that produces a benefit to the community" the new age teacher who wants to convince everyone they are speaking for God (the one and ONLY God) as a unique and special messenger. This would be the distortion of the shaman role in the community. The traditional shaman is never thought of as having a special relationship with God. It's more that they have a job that few people are needed to fill, and that few can fill, but it's still just a job within the community.

I can't really present you with any conclusion from all this that goes beyond what has already been said. I think the point is just to present these ideas for you to reflect on with your own experience. For me, I think it leads me to a place of greater acceptance around my solitary nature. I had recently begun thinking I really needed to somehow overcome that, but this research suggests continued attempts would be just as futile as past ones have been. Rather, I should see the value in having the other traits that go with that, and commit myself to making good use of them.

If you find any of yourself reflected in this post, I hope you find an insightful yet empowering conclusion as well. Peace and blessings be with you.

Fun New Connection Features at Indigo Ocean

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:45:32 PDT

Hello everyone. I am so happy to be able to announce that I've just added some new gadgets to this blog that will allow me to hear from you and for you to share with one another your insights, tips, and inspirations around health, wisdom, and well-being.

In the right sidebar you will now see three new features:

1 - A member's area -- please join so that you can post. You can use your existing Google, Yahoo, AIM, or Open ID instead of having to create a new profile/login just for this site

2 - A comments area -- your insights and feedback are an integral part of what this site is meant to be about. Please share.

3 - An article recommendation area -- think an article should be up in the light blue box at the top of the home page so everyone visiting the site will see it? Go to the individual page for that article (not the home page or archive pages that include several articles) and click the "recommend it" link on the last line. You will find links to the most recent articles in the left sidebar under "Ripples in the Pond... Recent Posts." Note that you don't have to pick articles that aren't already listed. The top 5 articles with the most recommendations will appear within the box, so if you agree, register your thumbs up for that article too.

I hope you will find that these new features make the Indigo Ocean blog even more of an uplifting and nurturing retreat within your life. I have long seen that there were many readers coming back each day, but I didn't really have the time to moderate comments, so couldn't really do much to tie everyone together. Hopefully this will be the answer to that. Blessings to you all, and thanks for your loyalty all these years that this has been a comment-less blog.

Endings and Beginnings

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 11:36:04 PDT

As of a couple days ago, it is official that I won't be teaching meditation to teens at the juvenile detention center any longer. I will miss the connection I had with the teens, but definitely will not miss interacting with the organization.

Fortunately I get to go in on Monday to at least be able to say goodbye to the boys, instead of just disappearing like their previous teacher was forced to do (who was also yanked out by admin for reasons unrelated to the actual delivery of services to the kids). Every week they have asked me about her and I only just found out the day things came to a head for me that she had been asked to leave and not allowed to go back to say goodbye.

I had actually offered to stay on for another month, since all the boys in my group will be turning 18 and moving on to adult prisons at that time, but all I got was this coming Monday evening. I'll take it. At least they won't be wondering what happened to me and imagining the worst, the way they've been doing with the other teacher.

What a shame that the organizations that provide such valuable services are plagued with such dysfunction that the kids wind up being more dependable than the teachers. These guys are so committed to the work, it's a shame to not be able to find them regular teachers that the organization is willing to accept. In the end though, for me, it came down to a difference of philosophy. They seem to believe there is only one way to do the work, which is to use one's personal history as a teaching tool, while I believe that there are multiple effective teaching methods, and mine is "get the self out of the way and let a higher wisdom come through."

I have no doubt that both methods work, because I've seen both work, as have all my co-teachers, who are sorry to see me go. But sometimes the truth just can't be brought out, and it's just time to let it go and move on.

I was very sad about this last week and praying for some assistance in coming to peace with it in my heart. Then I logged on and saw that my Facebook profile had been approved (had to get past the "real name" filters due to having such an unusual name), and in the couple days since I've found so many amazing light beings who I have shared the path with at various points over the last couple decades. It has been truly heart warming to reconnect with all these people who adore me and who I adore, such angels of goodness, generosity, and joy. I am so thankful for having them in my life, both in the past and now in a renewed connection online, though they are scattered all over the world.

I held out a long time, with several friends trying to get me to join, but I always thought it would be a waste of time and couldn't imagine genuine social connection coming through something called Facebook. Well I stand corrected. Just loving it right now. You can find me there at Indigo Ocean on Facebook.

What I'm researching - CRM, SaaS, etc.

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:22:07 PDT

I've been looking around the web a great deal lately to discover new SaaS business tools that solve business problems more affordably. I'm discovering that many a CRM consultant offers a downloadable CRM implementation guide (particularly for Salesforce crm implementation projects and Salesforce implementation consultants). That leads me to think that there must be a lot of businesses out there trying a "do it yourself" approach to getting started.

That's both good and bad. Good that the available software is getting more accessible so that people feel they can do this. Bad because in my experience people usually make a lot of fundamental mistakes, both in setting up their systems but also in choosing the right products to solve their needs in the first place. I really think it's one of those areas where a couple thousand bucks invested up front getting a consultant to help out can really pay off in tens of thousands in return on investment in the long run.

I'm also noticing more and more that for a Salesforce crm consultant in particular there is a need to help people understand best practices, since it is hard to find instructional material, and what is available is so overwhelming to most people that it might as well not even exist. I think that can be said less for products like Zoho, which are more limited but also simpler to learn.

Another thing I'm finding in my research is that the number of new products coming out seems to be trending upward over the last 3 years. It's as if "software in the cloud" or whatever catch-phrase you use for it, just went viral. It is a little hard to keep up with, and I think that also creates an opening for any technology consultant that can guide people through it and help with business process optimization. Salesforce training services are also still growing strongly in demand, probably linked to the dominance of that software in the CRM space. All good things.

Rather than creating a downloadable, I'm going to develop a separate blog for comparing all these different SaaS technologies and giving people free advice. If a subject holds your interest, why not share the information you collect with others? Besides, it may help me organize the information more for my own uses too. Nothing like having an audience to sharpen your focus, as any blogger reading this surely knows.

I'll post later on that blog once I really get it going. I'm going to need to decide between Blogger and Wordpress. I've been using Blogger a while now (including for this blog), but I'm seeing that Wordpress has some nice features I might want to use on the new blog. For one, the tag clouds that show category popularity would be nice. However, I get Blogger at not additional cost to have the blog hosted on my own server, whereas with Wordpress I wind up paying about $60 yearly for a blog with no ads on it that is hosted externally and another $100 yearly for PHP capabilities on my host (which currently I don't need, as I'm serving only static HTML pages).

Since I'm helping a friend make a site with Wordpress this month, that will give me a chance to sort out whether I want to establish my new online technology blog on that platform or stay with Blogger. To be continued.

I have succumbed - I'm on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:51:34 PDT

I had no intentions of joining Twitter. As you can see if you've been following this blog, I don't even post all that often. But then I started a Twitter account for my business to see how well it worked for that and in the process I learned enough about Twitter to want to give it a try for my personal online presence as well.

Imagine my surprise when I went to sign up only to find out that there was someone already using my name on Twitter! After signing up under an alteration of my name I looked him up (yes, it's a he) and discovered he's a guy named Jason. After I post this I'm going to send him a message inquiring about his name choice. Though I would rather be the one using my own name, I can't deny that I'm happy to "meet" what may be a kindred soul. I have actually run across two other Indigo Oceans (both women and neither with it as their legal name) over the last 20 years it has been my name. (No, I was not born Indigo Ocean, but it's been a long, long time since I wasn't Indigo Ocean.)

Anyway, I'll update this post when I hear back from Jason/IndigoOcean, assuming he replies back. I'm also following him on Twitter now. Hey, I've got to start somewhere and none of my friends seem to be on. If you would like to follow me I would love that. Since I haven't been able to stay on top of this blog enough to allow comments, following me on Twitter and sending replies to my @IamIndigoOcean postings is a great way for you to open up a two way dialogue with me. I'm really going to try to post something there at least a couple times a week. You can follow me by clicking this link Indigo Ocean on Twitter.

Looking forward to getting to know you. Peace and blessings, Indigo.

Update 6/13/09: Received a message from Jason that he was changing his Twitter username to be his real name so that I could have access to my name. Thanks Jason! I am now simply @IndigoOcean on Twitter (and I've updated the above link, in case you want to follow me).

Time for Lift Off

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:36:49 PDT

Listening to Anam Tulku Rinpoche speak on the Buddhist path as he teaches it, I reflected on how his words resonated with my own life these days. He spoke of the many reasons that people go to spiritual teachers and admonished us that all he was offering was the path to enlightenment, not another type of "ground" for people to try to get their feet planted on when it feels like they are losing everything. He spoke of the tendency, when life has torn up the ground beneath us with an earthquake, to try to find some stable ground to re-establish a firm and reliable sense of safety. So we lose our job and become obsessed with improving our romantic relationship. Or a relationship ends and we throw ourselves into our work, each time thinking that the new focus is what we should have been focused on all along and that only it can deliver us out of suffering. Selecting a spiritual teacher can be just such an effort, looking for someone to make us feel safe in the world instead of someone to tear our world apart and give us no refuge within the illusion of samsara.

The key thing he mentioned that resonated with me was that when we have lost 99% of what we cherish, that is the most painful time. We react by trying to get back what we've lost, or create something better to take its place, but really what we need to do in order to end our suffering is to let go of that last 1%. Hanging out at "99% groundless" is an excrutiatingly painful place to dwell. And yet so many of us do that repeatedly. After a while the flow of enlightenment gives us a break and let's us have some illusion of safety again, but it can't last because the fundamental truth is that all security within a realm of birth, old age, sickness and death is inevitably ephemeral.

Recently the ground was torn out from under me, and I can already see that it has allowed me to soar. I was sailing along, preparing to buy a house this summer, when all the sudden my regional director decided to quit and my East Coast based company decided not to replace him, eliminating its Western division and my job in the process. There went my house. But then it turns out that I get to not only keep some of the clients, but to also start doing the work the regional director once did, only without having to give a cut to the East Coast company. My pay rate just doubled! This also lays the ground work for a number of long range plans I had forgotten about in my quest for a mortgage at 3.75% interest.

Of course, the moral of this story is not that my true refuge all along should have been self-employment instead of home ownership. That would just be ego doing its normal thing again. No, the teaching is that I have a choice to keep dancing as fast as I can to stay erect as an earthquake rages about me, or to finally let go of the one ground that has always been my final 1% refuge. And that refuge is my consciousness as this separate person I think of as "me."

Today I had the clarity that reality was ready for me to lift off and soar, and that it was therefore pulling the ground out from under me to give me the opportunity to do so. And I also realized that the manner in which I might do so is to shift my perspective from that of an I looking out at a world that is other, to that of an is that is experiencing the flow of itself in many forms. It actually isn't so hard to do once you have clarity about what you are intending to do. It's just that it's hard to integrate into the habits of daily living, because the strongest habit is to completely interact with life from a point of view of separateness. So it takes the same commitment that breaking any bad habit takes.

Ever quit smoking? Stop drinking? Foreswear any daily habit you knew was going to do you in if you didn't do it in first? Well that's the same approach to take to freeing oneself from the habit of seeing the world through the eyes of "me, me, me." Repeatedly interupt the acting out of the bad habit (self-referencing all perception) and deliberately repeat the desired behavior (experiencing the wholeness of the moment), again and again and again and ... Until it becomes the new habit. Then you don't do anything. You just live and don't make a new habit of thinking of yourself as someone who has achieved something. When you achieve having truly let go, there is no one left to congratulate himself for having achieved it.

So how about you? Could you put down that last X that's been killing you? Would you like to be free of the need for any type of security blanket? Are you doing it right now? Who is there to do it or not do it? Is awareness happening right now? Ahhh. What a nice place to rest, in a glide on the wind.

A Contact Improv Life Path

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:05:48 PDT

Today I did contact improv for the first time. Often when I’m at dance gatherings I see people doing it, but I never do. Today someone I was dancing fast with offered me his hand and then pulled me into himself and lifted me off the floor. I was shocked and terrified. When he finally put me down I told him I didn’t know how to dance like that. He said it was okay, he would show me. Then he slowly flipped me over his head and gently brought me down to the ground, head first!

I stopped him again to explain that he was scaring the bejesus out of me. He said I was so light there was no way he could drop me and that he was a trained professional. I decided to relax into it and trust him with my neck (hopefully not to be my broken neck).

It wound up being one of the most amazingly wonderful experiences I’ve had in a long time. It was one of the most intimate exchanges of movement and heart I’ve ever shared in a dance. I had to completely trust him and be totally present with everything that was happening between us in order to know how to shift my weight at different times in order not to go flying or rolling off him. He still had to occasionally remind me that I didn’t need to hold onto him, as I would periodically recall that I had a self-story as a person who didn't know how to do contact improv, and would then clutch at him to avoid tumbling -- but for the most part I was able to let go and ride a wave of trust into a very beautiful space of communion.

I share this as an example of how the risks we take in life are often frightening. The most valuable experiences usually involve letting go, having nothing to hold onto and no knowledge of which direction fate is going to turn us next. And yet, if we take that leap, if we take those risks, on the other side is just a little bit more of our true selves. Sometimes the reward is quick in the coming, and other times years away. But always there is the refinement process going on of our becoming more and more true to the fullness of our potential.

What are you holding on to? What makes you feel like you're in control of your life? Who would you be if you let go of that? Could you let go of it? Would you? When?

With each letting go of the walls defining your self-story, the story that tells you how you grew up, what you learned and did, and who you are and are not, with each letting go of that story there is a breeze of freedom that blows through. If you let it, it will lift you and spin you and carry you and gently lower you down to the ground once more. And then you will walk with new feet on a new land and be new yourself.

This is to live life as if it was a contact improv exchange, with your partner embodied by all that is. I invite you. Enjoy the dance.

Dare to Care

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:15:40 PDT

With so much turmoil and suffering in the world, and 24-7 news availability making sure we know about all of it, it's easy for anyone to start shutting down emotionally. You may not even realize it is happening. It's like boiling the frog slowly, so that it never realizes there is a crisis and that it needs to jump out to save its life.

Your open heart is the path to your spiritual unfoldment. The awakened heart IS what it means to be awake. Therefore, anything that causes you to close your heart is a direct threat to your spiritual health. You must respond with action and not wait for things to get bad enough that you are noticing impairment in your day to day life. By then you have already lost so much.

There is a meditation you can easily do in just 5 minutes each morning to re-attune yourself to the path of awakening. Just sit with eyes closed and begin to imagine all the fear and worry people are feeling in their lives right now. Maybe start with people you know personally and the worries you know them to have, or start with the things you worry about yourself, but make sure you expand your awareness to realize that all around the world people are worrying about what is going to happen in different areas of their lives. This worry eats them up inside and dulls their ability to feel joy. Really imagine this until you can feel the feeling of their worry within yourself. Then imagine all their worry being consumed by a beautiful bright light, vanishing out of existence in a flash.

Then begin to think of other feelings of suffering people live their lives buried beneath. The anger, the sadness, the guilt -- imagine each one being liberated into light all around the world. (Perhaps note to yourself that this light is real, all-powerful, and all-pervasive. It is always present, and is in fact your own essential nature.) In the end, spend another minute watching as each person the world around shines their inner light brightly, no longer being dulled by the clouds of fear, anger, grief, shame and the mental confusion these turmoultous inner states cause.

When you are done, rise and go about your day with the conviction that you will be a beacon of light in the world, living your own life free of these conflicting emotions and helping those around you to do the same. Remember to notice each person you meet as an individual and greet them with an open heart. Be well.

Midlife Suicide Rises - A Loving Response

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:25:32 PST

The NY Times published an article today on the rise of suicides among the "mid-life years" populace over the last few years. The article is worth reading and so are the hundreds of readers' comments. Having read the comments, I posit the following in summary and response:

Many people cite different versions of fear or dread of what is to come as the rationale. There are various reasons why people fear/dread their futures after 45 or so, but I think that the bottom line is that there is a belief that things are only going to get worse, so why not quit while one is ahead.

If we look at our lives in terms of our physical and economic realities, that is often true. Things are going to probably get worse and then end in extreme suffering for many people. The only way suicide doesn't make sense is if we decide we are going to be something more than our physical condition, whether in terms of health or possessions.

As the song goes, "the greatest thing you could ever learn is to love and be loved in return." When it is enough to have the chance to be in this world as a localized expression of an infinite love, exchanging love with other parts of itself in the form of other "bodies," then life is worthwhile regardless of your aches and pains or financial insecurity/decline. Then you look ahead with an expectation of always being surrounded by love, the love you give definitely and probably also love you will receive in return. There really isn't anything else worth living for.

Oh, and if you say you don't have anyone to love because you are estranged from "too busy" adult children, didn't have children, are divorced, are widowed, whatever ... don't have family.... Well walk out your front door and love the first person you meet. Love every single person you meet everywhere you go. Love the cashier at the grocery store, even if she doesn't seem to be doing anything to be worthy of your love. Love all the people who are unworthy of your love. Love fearlessly and relentlessly.

If you're pressed for time and or can't get out much, join the Phone Buddies emotional support community I started last year at www.Phone-Buddies.com and build ongoing relationships with other people who want to exchange loving and supportive connection. If you have more time and mobility, contact your local volunteer center and connect with organizations that could use your help. Whatever you do, find some way to connect with others in a loving way... and enjoy the ride!

Grieving for the Caterpillar

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:59:17 PST

Dr. John Sarno has written eloquently about the psychosomatic nature of most back pain, as well as quite a few other physical maladies. (If you haven't read his work yet, I want to strongly urge you to do so, particularly if you do suffer from any chronic conditions.)

As I was reading his explanation of irrational, yet universal unconscious rage in his book "The Mindbody Prescription" I began to ponder a question he raised but did not answer: "To varying degrees, I believe we all harbor repressed rage, that to do so is normal for our time and culture."

The obvious next question is, "Why would it be normal for our time and culture for everyone to be harboring unconscious rage?" As I searched within myself for the answer, I realized it is not just within our time, nor likely limited to our culture. I believe there is an existential issue at the heart of this rage, and that its source is the catch-22 the ego is trapped in, which I will speak more of in a minute.

Does that mean there isn't also rage at how one was mistreated in childhood, passed up for a deserved promotion at work, or forced to care for ailing parents? No. There is that too. And I believe Dr. Sarno has truly helped a lot of people release physical ailments that were created in the mind as a part of its effort to repress the socially unacceptable expression of the wild rage that can be initiated by any of these events.

However, as I peel the onion, I find all of these to be several layers away from the core. The heart of the matter to me is the common factor among all people who suffer. We suffer because we are identified with the ego, which by its very nature is suffering personified. And the only freedom from suffering we can ever know, is if we ourselves disappear.

Now talk about injustice. How could anything be more unjust than that? Let me say that again: The only way that lasting peace and happiness can ever exist within your life is if you aren't there to experience it. You have to die in order for joy to be born.

I want you to sit with that understanding for awhile. If it hasn't brought you to tears yet, you don't really quite understand or believe it.

Your ego identity is the source of your unconscious rage. That rage would be there whether X ever happened to you when you were Y years old or not. Who you think you are not only does not truly exist, the belief in its existence and your identification with this false self as being "yourself" is the one and only true source of suffering in your life.

You have lived so many lifetimes thinking that you were a caterpillar but dreaming of flight and feeling cursed to crawl along on the ground with an inner knowing you were meant for something more. You are, but that is not because you are a grounded caterpillar. It is because the caterpillar was just a delusion. You are a butterfly.

Grieve your lost self identity. Grieve the pain of consciously facing the fact that everything you ever thought you were was actually the very prison you always hoped to one day walk out of a as a free being. Grieve the sun that will never shine on your free face, the dance of freedom you will never dance, the knowledge of your great self that will never be found. Grieve, for the only freedom that is real is the freedom from you.

Goodbye, caterpillar. Your time has reached its end and joy will go on in your absence. This is the true, inescapable nature of things. I understand your pain, your resistance, your rage -- and yet, it is what it is. Goodbye.

Hello, butterfly.

Grateful

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 10:26:40 PDT

I'm so glad that:

I live in a place and time of such prosperity.
I'm healthy.
I have found a spiritual path that works for me and a teacher I trust to help me along that path.
I have a loving and encouraging family.
My blood clots when I get a booboo.
I can stay in the sun as long as I want without ever burning.
I started volunteering when I was very young, so see service as a normal part of life.
I like who I am enough to do things that are good for me.
I can move people with my words.
I like the way I look.
My friends and family are genuinely kind people, and not just to certain people, but in life in general.
I know the secret to happiness.

(tip: One part is thinking about life in terms of what one appreciates, when "storying" life, and the other part is resting in equanimity, when the mind let's go of it's attempts to write a story about who we are and what our lives mean.)

Wisdom and Wonder

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 10:16:56 PDT

Below is a message I sent to a friend in response to a message she sent me in which she commented that she wished she had great days like the previous one more frequently nowadays, and that she had often had such days when she was back in college. I share it with you in case my message to her might also resonate with you.
...................

Dear xxxxxxx,

I'm glad you are in the zone this weekend. It seems like a general good vibe has descended upon the area, along with perfect weather. I think part of it is an individual phenomena and part is a collective one. The moods of so many people are drastically lifted by a shift in external conditions, such as weather, that it raises the collective vibe.

Then people who are more tuned-in to the energy of others around them, and less to conditional thinking, pick up on that and they are lifted too. It seems like everything glows, problems transform into insight and past, present and future all merge into one whole of clarity and peace of mind.

Finally, even people who aren't normally able to appreciate even good external conditions or good vibes are at least able to avoid unpleasant interactions in their goings about because so many other people are in a good mood that less conflicts arise (due to others diffusing potential conflict situations before they fully form). And they are more likely to also encounter smiles and kind words, even if just from a cashier when they shop. So then everyone pretty much winds up in a miniature Buddha realm for awhile.

Then external conditions shift, as they always do, and the people who depend on that have their moods plummet. Or even if the conditions hold steady for awhile, people get used to things being that way and begin to take it for granted. So the good conditions no longer lift their moods even if they aren't actually deflated by bad conditions. And the people who are yanked around by the feelings of others have a more negative collective mood around them and must selectively connect with available energies or be sucked into that. And those people who are always in an unappreciative/disconnected stance towards life find that no one is diffusing situations for them any longer because everyone is just thinking of themselves and their own needs again. So it's all pretty much back to the normal, everyday human realm.

Such is samsara.

On a more individual level, I'm glad you used the opening and lifting of energy around you to help you recenter within the joy and peace within you. I hope you will be able to stay connected with that no matter what happens in the vibe around you. It is natural to passively connect with the notes in the collective symphony that most match our dominant inner ones. I suspect that in college, as is the case for most people when they are younger, your naturally dominant inner "note" was the purity and innocence of youth, so it was easier for you to tune-in with that more frequently even if a lot of the energy around you was actually heading in a different direction.

As we get older, we identify more and more with the less spacious self-concept of the dominant culture, even if unconsciously. Our inner attunement becomes more jaded, even if our conscious thoughts don't reveal that. So it is easier for us to tune-in and amplify the negativity around us and less likely for us to find that hair thin strand of sweetness in the bee traveling from flower to flower as we walk down the street on the way to work, or that golden light of love between ugly parents and their ugly child as we were pulling out of the parking lot at the supermarket. We see the danger of the bee and the physical unattractiveness of the people, but we don't see the beauty.

Passive attunement to the wonder of life is something we could all take for granted in our youth. As we age we must replace that with wisdom. Don't deny the danger or the ugliness of life, but try not to miss the beauty.

Blessings,
Indigo

Be the Blessing

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 18:38:28 PDT

I've begun sharing ocassional tea visits with my lama, now that I am living so near him. This week the subject was primarily about bodhicitta.

Bodhicitta is called the heart of enlightenment, and what it refers to is the compassionate wish to benefit all beings. This wish is not an idea, but a way of being in the world, and when fully developed it leads the person to their own Buddhahood because it is only then that they can be of maximum benefit to others. It is the most powerful urge towards enlightenment, empowering a person to fully commit themselves to practice of the teachings in daily life as well as creating discipline with respect to seated practice.

We talked about those people (Buddhist teachers especially) who talked a lot about compassion, but showed none towards the people they had daily dealings with. "They love humanity but don't give a wit about people" is how I put it. He said that I had a deeper insight than most people and that I must trust my own feelings about such people no matter what recognition or status such teachers had among others.

We also discussed my own fledgling bodhicitta. I told him of my efforts to send blessings to people I would see as I went about my day, people I saw on the street as I drove home from work who looked sad or co-workers, clerks and cashiers I interacted with during the day. He said that I must allow myself to be the blessing, not give it.

I realized when he said that that earlier that day I had seen an overweight teen standing by herself looking down at the ground for an inordinate amount of time while I waited at a stop light. I had tried to send her a blessing in my usual way, but I just couldn't get the visualization to form clearly in my mind. I kept trying but it wouldn't work and eventually the traffic light changed and I had to drive on, but then I had the thought that my intent for her happiness was the blessing. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw that she was no longer looking down but up and around her, as if she had newly found the courage to be present there on the street as she waited for her bus to come. And I thought, "maybe the wish to give blessing is the blessing and no need for mental formulations of any kind beyond that simple goodwill."

So when my lama said that later the same day it carried a lot of weight with me. I already have a habit of sending blessings to people throughout the day, but now when I catch myself doing it I stop and observe my own heart and how it is opening to them. And I try to be aware of how my open heart may be affecting theirs. Similarly, I try to be aware when my heart is closed, as I mechanically interact with people, and I take responsibility in those moments for the affect I may be having then also.

If there was one blessing I would most choose to give, it would be to let my heart be so open all the time that it was like a sun always glowing, constantly giving off the blessings of joy and warmth and alighting the hearts of all it touched.

My lama says that the prayer for bodhicitta is the highest aspiration of Buddhism. Well I don't suppose I need to have the highest aspiration to be satisfied. But it is the truest for me. I have tired of all the concepts about what is. I have played with all sorts of ideas about truth, and found them quite engaging, but now I would trade all of that for a steady glow of blessing.

To Be a God or Not to Be

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:42:16 PDT

I have recently relocated back to the mainland after 5 years in Hawaii. Some might say it was a mad decision. Occasionally I think so myself. Yet I also know that it was time to get back into the flow of life.

Within Buddhism there are said to be various realms in which beings live. There is suffering within all realms until one attains the mind of a Buddha, transcending all deluded perceptions and beliefs that lock one into the other realms.

The suffering of the God realm is unique. Life within the God realm is perfect. There is tremendous pleasure and enjoyment all the time. Suffering is experienced as the fear of eventually exhausting the good karma that gained one entry into the God realm and having to fall to a lower realm of less comfort and enjoyment.

The suffering of the human realm is said to be busy-ness and poverty (the belief in lack, however much material or other wealth there may actually be).

Well I can only say that my life definitely resembles that accusation. I definitely feel that I have left a land of milk and honey to return to a place where everyone is constantly busy and trying to get ahead financially, no matter how well they are currently doing. Actually they are trying to get ahead in all respects, trying to more fully present an image to themselves and the world around them that says, "Perfect in every way. I have a perfect life."

So my challenge here is not to fall into that. You might say then, why leave the God realm at all? Well I can't say I had run out of good karma, as certainly my transition to this place has been just as blessed as my transition to Hawaii was 5 years ago. It is more the recognition that the aspiration of my spiritual path is not to live as a God.

That may sound obvious, but for many people if they actually look at what it is they hope their spiritual practice will get them, they will see that it is unending pleasure and freedom from pain. They aspire to live as Gods, whether in a place like Hawaii or among the mere mortals where they currently reside.

Yet the life of a Buddha is not necessarily comfortable, in the way of creature comforts. Maybe there is beauty, wealth, spaciousness, the best foods, personal transportation, etc. within one's life as an awakened one, but maybe not. It is irrelevant to the Buddha. It is not the aspiration of the path to be more comfortable than one was before awakening. It is the aspiration simply to live with an unwavering awareness of the Truth.

This Truth includes the recognition of one's perfect love for all that is, one's perfect oneness with all that is, one's complete satisfaction within each and every moment with whatever is. So there is peace, and joy, and an appreciation of beauty, but only by the standards of a Buddha -- not necessarily by our everyday human standards.

So I am shaking off my false interest in awakening and embracing a sincere commitment to awakening. Not that I think I'm going to be waking up tomorrow morning in a Buddha experience, but that I am clearly making choices that support that instead of ones that support the aim of worldly joy and comforts.

I write this because I think it is worthwhile for anyone on the spiritual path to do a personal assessment of exactly what it is they practice for. What is your aspiration? Don't assume. Really think about what it is you are meditating for, or living where you live for, or reading all those books and going to all those teachings hoping to get, be, or experience.

What would you change if you saw a need for an adjustment of how you live so that it is more fully in alignment with what you choose to do with this lifetime?

More Than Meets the Eye

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 20:51:52 PST

There is more here than what meets the eye. There are more eyes seeing, more hearts beating, more beings being, than the human mind can grasp.

There is more truth hidden within even the greatest misunderstanding than what we let ourselves see. There is complete and total perfection lying quietly behind every scene of our lives. There is complete and utter peace, the most tender caress of grace, belly laughs, joyful songs, and ecstatic dances of wild abandon, swirling around just beyond the limits of eye, ear, nose, tongue, or touch.

I write this as a reminder. Let your perception relax and expand a bit. Open to an awareness of not just what is there for your senses to encounter. Let yourself be breathed by this moment, through the lungs of the trees and the clouds and the Earth and the air. Let even the rush and whiz of motor traffic sing your true name back to you.

There is more here waiting for you than what was intended for your senses. Take a moment now to unwrap the ultimate gift.

Reveal yourself in this moment. Strip off all the gauzy layers of confusion and accept what is there, just as it is there, as you. Do not confine yourself behind a cloud of foolish separation, clinging to an idea of an immortal, separate self whose interests can be promoted or hampered in any way. Give up the idea that this reality is anything other than your most trusted lover. Indeed, all of life loves you with infinite embrace, for it knows itself through you, as you.

Give up your struggle for a better moment, a better dance, a better song. You are everything that is possible within this very moment. You are the songs that have yet to even be sung and the poems that have yet to be scribed. What is missing is not your creative action, but only your willingness to surrender to a broader point of view that holds all of who you are, eternally.

Don't Believe the Hype

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 22:24:13 PDT

Consider this: According to theoretical physics, matter is mostly empty space that is given the appearance of from based on dimensional oscillations of tiny "strings." The movement of these strings determines which elementary particles will manifest (electron, muon, etc.) and these particles are the building blocks of atoms, cells, and all matter in our world. Once matter is "there" the human sensory system must perceive it, using sight, hearing, touch, smell, or taste. But this sensory data has no meaning to the person. It's just raw data, until the mind's cognitive training tells it what to think about the sensory input.

For example, we put a lemon in our mouths and taste buds fire, sending data to the brain. If we did not have a meaning system to say "tart" it would not be "tart" to us. It would just be sensation. Further, we may like or dislike the sensation, whether we also know it as tart or not. The habitual pattern of how our minds give meaning to sensory information that is perceived by the body is called conditioning in the West or karma in the East. Lastly, there is our consciousness that is able to be aware of this process taking place, if we bother to direct our attention towards an examination of our experience of the physical world.

I want to encourage you to do such a contemplation right now. First you must accept that the extensive volume of research over a hundred years by brilliant minds the world around are not making it up when they say that matter really can't be found if you look deeply enough. Matter is not solid at all to an electron microscope. It only looks and feels solid to a human because our sensory system isn't as sharp as an electron microscope's is. So accept that things aren't what they appear to be first of all and then we can get started in a relationship to the way things actually are.

Next, having accepted that matter is not something absolute and solid, begin to ask yourself how it is it has such concrete meaning to you. If you walk into a wall, it surely is experienced as solid. Why is that? Don't take it for granted. There are particles that are a lot smaller than you popping through walls all the time.

Then begin to consider the separation between sensation and interpretation of the meaning of that sensation. Touch your hand. Now for a moment pretend that it was someone else's hand you were touching. Try to ignore feeling it from the inside (being touched) and just feel the texture of your skin. Look at the thoughts you can have about the feeling of your skin. Then think of how many times you have touched your skin without knowing it in those ways. Has your skin changed, or have you simply given it a new meaning? That additional meaning makes your skin effectively something more within your experience of it.

Usually you are on auto-pilot in giving meaning to what you encounter in life. You've been taught what you're supposed to think about everything and do so without even needing to become conscious of most decisions. Try going through the next half hour flipping each of your thoughts on its head, and considering that the opposite might be true. For example, if you look out the window and it is cloudy the thought might arise, "this is gloomy weather." That is a reasonable thing to say given our social conditioning to prefer sunny skies over cloudy skies. But what if you turned that thought into "this is a soothing and relaxing day." Try to actually experience the presence of the cloud filled sky as something soothing and relaxing. Think of the freshness of the air if its also breezy or of the softness of the light. It truly could be perceived as a very desirable type of weather, an idea not expressed by the term "gloomy."

Realize how your automatic thinking leads you to cast the same judgments again and again, locking you into a limited amount of life satisfaction, in which the future can never really be any better than the past, since, let's face it, there are sometimes going to be sunny days and sometimes cloudy days. And yet, the preferability of sunny or cloudy skies is not a solid thing, not an absolute truth. It's just a judgment you've gotten used to making. The difference between "gloomy" and "soothing" is not contained within the weather, but rather within your mind. What does it take to give you a choice about whether the weather has to determine how much you enjoy the day?

Ultimately it all comes down to this: Given that our experience of life is determined by our made up opinions about a truly insubstantial world, why not take it all a little less seriously? DON'T BELIEVE YOUR THOUGHTS! Question what you think. Don't accept your judgments about this world at face value. Look deeper, searching for alternative ways of seeing. As I've written again and again, to be a Buddha does not mean to enter some far away world called "nirvana" or "heaven" nor does it mean to be perceived by others as a Buddha. To be a Buddha means to perceive this world as "nirvana" just as it is right now, however it is right now.

For emphasis, the doorway of the path to freedom is simply that you truly accept that your thoughts are not a reliable source of information about this world. Contemplate your experience at the most subtle level until this conviction emerges. More on this later.

Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 12:47:45 PDT

Are you familiar with Abraham-Hicks writings, the movie The Secret , or any of the many other works on spiritually based manifestation methods? Even the first chapter of my book, Being Bliss, focuses on the laws of manifestation and how we can use spiritual wisdom to create the material enjoyments we believe will make us happy. Thereafter, my book focuses on other sources of happiness, but still, it does also cover materially based happiness and spiritual methods for manifesting the things we want.

Despite the reasonable desire to seek material well-being so long as we are sensorially experiencing life through a physical body, it is vitally important we understand that if we equate success in acquiring or achieving anything material with justification for happiness, we will never enjoy lasting peace.

Now many of us can hear this and instantly believe it at a theoretical level, but we'll still secretly hold the hopeful belief that acquiring certain things and situations will lead to happiness. That's why we're working at manifesting those things. We want to be happy.

Hard as it is to accept, the bottom line is, if we feel like what we have right now is not enough for us to be happy, no matter what we have or lack, we will be locked in a mentality of insufficiency and unhappiness. Additionally, if we justify our current happiness by looking at what we have materially, we are still taking refuge in something unreliable.

For example, it's fine to say "I'm grateful for a peaceful, beautiful home and health and good food," but what if there comes a time when you have none of those things? Then what do you say if you've already justified your happiness in those terms when you did have all that? So then you have to be clinging and trying to avoid loss even in good times, if you believe this is a world in which your happiness depends on having some condition or thing. Consequently, gratitude practice isn't enough to sustain peace.

The only thing one can take refuge in for lasting peace and contentment is the present moment as an experience, not an idea. Whatever you can find when you simply attend to the present moment, that's all you really have.

You may be hot, cold or just right in temperature. You may be in a quiet place or a noisy place. You may be alone or with people you either like or dislike. You may have debts or wealth. You may have a wonderful home you own on 2 acres by the sea or be staying in your family's living room. You may be healthy or in pain and fatigue. You can't control these things, though you can safely hold intentions about them. And time will either reveal those intentions come to pass by virtue of your efforts, or that they do not, regardless of your efforts. Either way, you only have this moment, whatever it contains, in which you can possibly find true reason for happiness.

The way I see it, that I have (or am) consciousness is the only reason I have to be happy. I am aware. That's the whole party. There is nothing else I get to keep. Either awareness is enough reason to be happy, or I'm shit out of luck no matter what happens.

So now, how does one shift to a belief system that says that consciousness all by itself really is enough for a person to be happy? It begins with giving up hope that any idea about happiness will ever cause happiness.

We can be amused, entertained, and enlivened by our ideas. Our ego can get a big boost of energy from the right ideas, ideas like: "I'm important, successful, and well-loved." "I'm financially secure," or even, "I'm rich." "I'm beautiful." All sounds great. Sign me up.

But even if I truly believe all these ideas, they still cannot cause actual happiness. How many successful, rich, beautiful young models do you know of who OD on drugs? I rest my case. Clearly these things do not cause happiness.

Happiness can exist in the presence of wealth or in its absence. Happiness can exist in the presence of beauty or in its absence. (Don't try to feed me any crap about "everyone is beautiful in their own way" either.) Happiness can exist in the presence or absence of even health, as challenging as that can be.

Happiness depends on our making the mental decision to drop all further decisions about whether we should or should not be happy.

When we decide that no matter what happens, we are going to joyfully embrace our experience of being alive and call that reason enough to be happy, we've made it. That's happiness, as it is found.

Keep your visions of grand homes, loving families and spectacular careers, or whatever else appeals to you. Definitely envision your health and vitality. Continually clarify those visions, gaining ever increasing understanding about what it is you want as you gain life experience that helps you make better and better choices. But do not base your happiness on the fulfillment of those visions. You may live this entire life with none of those visions ever manifesting in reality. That has to be good enough.

In order to make spiritual manifestation work something that truly blesses your life, you don't hold the hope that succeeding in making your vision real is going to give you a reason to finally be happy. You embrace happiness right now, but create the vision for the sheer joy of exercising your creative ability. It should be joyful when you are envisioning possible futures. That joy while you are envisioning is the payoff and creative force, and it happens while you are delighting in your present moment experience of being a conscious being who can imagine.

If you do this, over time many of your visions will manifest into physical form. That's just how energy works. But it doesn't work if you are grasping at it. It doesn't work if you are trying to make it work because you believe you need it to work in order to be happy. It is such a subtle difference, yet that slimmer of a divide keeps so many people from actually creating lives of joy for themselves.

You are a perfect, unlimited being who is fully abundant. You are all that exists. There is nothing apart from you and nothing you lack. Only when you allow yourself to feel the truth of this will you be satisfied.

Could the ocean ever be satisfied to live the life of a glass of water, no matter how big you made the glass? Nothing less than infinity will ever satisfy you, since you know in your heart that infinity is your true nature. So don't delay any longer. Isn't it time you rested in your true nature? Well then close your eyes and rest for a moment. This is It.

Feed The Vampires, Please

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:31:41 PDT

I just had a startling revelation after reading a 100 page book (with about 20 pages of that illustrations) called The Ever-Transcending Spirit, by Toru Sato. I'm not into all his stuff about the evolution of consciousness (isn't one Wilber on Earth enough spiritual materialism), but I found invaluable information about dealing with energy vampires.

Basically you just let the people drink. The only thing wrong with people taking your energy is when it depletes your energy. If you aren't depleted, there is nothing wrong with it. The way not to be depleted is not by withdrawing, isolating, putting up walls or trying to steal energy back, but by recognizing that all energy anywhere is your energy. You are connected to such an unlimited supply of energy you can't possibly be depleted so long as you remain open and receptive to that infinite supply.

I even got to try it out when I was half way through reading the book. I went to the store and ran into someone who went off on a rant (which was meant to be helpful at his conscious level, but was definitely an energy raid at an unconscious level) and I allowed myself to tap into the energy around me instead of just relying on that contained within my body and energy field. Quickly I realized that the most energy around me was in him, because he was all worked up about what he was trying to convince me of, and so I let myself join with his energy.

This isn't the same as stealing it back because actually we both wound up getting really energized by the experience, as well as having a really intimate interaction. . I wasn't connecting with the energy of his separate energybody, but tapping into the infinite source within him which he was not feeling. His inability to feel his own endless supply of energy was the reason he was trying to steal my energy, and I simply allowed myself to be an energy channel for him, connecting him to a deeper experience of himself.

He could feel I was deeply listening to him, and indeed really "feeling" what he was saying with complete openness. He was visibly moved by the experience and I was bouncing on air and giggling I was so full of energy as he spoke. Once I felt I'd had enough of the interaction, after about 10 minutes, I began thanking him for sharing his insights with me. Once he felt his offering was duly appreciated we changed the subject and parted after a few more minutes with the deepest sense of connection I have ever shared with this person, who I have known for 4 years without ever feeling we were on the same wavelength.

According to Sato, people take our energy in a wide variety of ways, among them: endless talk-talk-talking, usually about themselves and their life's dramas; asking for help then disagreeing with all advice offered; painting themselves as a victim to invoke pity; passive aggressively inciting strong emotional responses with no concern about the ideas being shared and the sole intent of triggering the other person; criticism; pressuring someone to change their actions or beliefs to come into alignment with one's own; long meetings in which the power holder keeps everyone's attention focused on pleasing them; and expecting others to meet one's needs with no intent of reciprocally meeting the needs of the other person.

In any of these situations we always have a choice to resist the power grab, allow the power grab, or shape the situation into a power sharing one. When we resist we argue, ignore the person, energetically close ourselves off from them (which, over time, is exhausting) or get away from them (perhaps even isolating ourselves). When we allow we may feel drained, irritable, and resentful afterward, but we avoid our fears of confrontation or offending others and are able to continue in relationship, at least until we are too depleted to do so any longer. (When you are really depleted even vampires will tend to avoid you anyway, unconsciously fearing you will try to steal energy from them!)

When we shape the situation into something new using our own responses, not requiring anything different out of the other person, is when a win-win situation that is sustainable for any amount of time occurs. When we localize our sense of self to our limited body and energy field we have a limited supply, so must protect that supply or face depletion. But if we allow our self-awareness to be broad enough to take in the whole of our environment we find ourselves energy billionaires who can afford any amount of generosity required by the situation. After all, we aren't giving energy away, we're just allowing it to flow freely within us, as is the nature of energy.

I swear this is not just theory. I actually did this and if you give it a try I think you can do it too. It's best to start with someone who doesn't actually hate you. If the energy stealing is a direct act of violence that's a different situation. But most energy theft is not with ill-intent behind it. People don't even realize consciously that they are doing it. They see themselves as energy starved and so naturally reach out to sustain themselves using anyone around, like a person who can't swim trying to save himself from drowning by grabbing onto whoever is within arm's reach. If you let them pull you down with them they will, until they can grab onto the next person. But if you lift them up and let the ocean float you both, you both win. Whenever you tap into the energy all around you, including within them as they engage intensively in whatever behavior they are using to suck at your energy, you are effectively surrendering to the greater power of the mighty ocean which will indeed carry you both to both safety and freedom.

Overcoming one of existentialism's 4 primary "inescapable sufferings" of life, it turns out you don't actually have to choose between security and freedom, not if you can learn to be an infinite energy being instead of a separate, limited physical being. Build no walls around you. Dance freely in the light, breathing deep, and giving yourself fully to life with complete abandon. You will be sustained by all that is.

(As an aside, let me state that not all of these ideas are in Sato's book, but that his book contributed a crucial understanding that helped me apply other ideas I've been working with. For example, Sato doesn't make mention of how one is to connect with more energy by being open when someone is aggressively trying to take one's energy. He just assumes you will naturally do the additional steps that are needed to make this work, probably because he has already developed unconscious mastery of doing those things himself.

He also doesn't make mention of the fact that all energy is just energy, so we don't have to be afraid of allowing ourselves to connect with a person's energy when they are agitated. If they are trying to attack you, that's a little different, as you'd have to be nearly a buddha not to be affected negatively in such a situation, but again, most energy raids are not meant as attacks. Still the person might be very agitated within themselves and only by connecting with the energy of their true being and not writing a mental story that labels their energy expression as dangerous is it possible to make Sato's approach work.

It's as if the person is cut off from their own connection to the endless source of energy and you offer your energy body as a "reconnector." You channel their own energy back to them, so they fill up without taking anything from you.)

The Free Flow of Energy

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 17:30:35 PDT

Here is an excerpt from a reply I sent to someone's message that I think is a good overview of what I have found in recent experiments with EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique):

"The EFT work wound up affecting me similarly, only regarding emotion. I see now that the EFT isn't really so effective because it moves energy along the meridians. It's more that the distraction of the tapping and the idea that energy is being safely moved to foster emotional health allows the person to be willing to "sit with" their emotions for the full ride. It is allowing the emotions to be and to naturally express themselves that is healing and the tapping is just a distraction, which I no longer require. I simply recognize that all emotion is merely energy and that energy is just energy. There isn't good energy and bad energy.

I feed on energy, as an energy being, so I can feed on anger, sadness, shame, etc. just as well as I can feed on joy -- and now I do. I suck up the energy of my emotions now and have discovered they are all bliss in their true nature once I get past my thoughts about them. Even disgust turns into bliss if you sit with it with gratitude and allow yourself to savor the disgusting quality of it as just pure energy."

I have been doing this "devouring" of not only my emotions, but also my thoughts lately. On separate occasions, I have even converted the energy of a cold virus and a headache back into energy and "devoured" that.

Here I use the metaphor of eating the energy, where at other times you will hear me phrase it in terms of liberating the energy. It just depends on one's point of view. When I am identifying myself as a separate energy being I speak of devouring, taking the energy back into my localized physical self. When I am identifying myself as the infinite unity of all things, my true nature, I speak of liberating the energy so that it once more becomes a free flowing part of that greater ocean. Either way, after being converted back into raw energy it has no separate form and therefore effectively no longer exists as the problematic form it once was.

I am working on ways of teaching this to others to do within themselves and of learning myself to do it within the bodies of other people. I am also using it as a part of my spiritual practice (enlightenment being about the dissolution of the separate self identity and the freedom from a dualistic self-object that comes with that). I will write more about that subsequently.

If you'd like to do some of the work with me, check out my healing work website at www.clearlightnature.com and follow the links to the True Self Attunement. I have begun teaching an adapted form of this method to clients as part of that session, though it isn't the primary focus of the session.

Here is a poem I wrote yesterday that I think does a good job in conveying what I am doing:

Breathing in,
I devour it.
Savoring each breath,
Form returns to emptiness,
Emptiness reveals itself as ecstasy.

I saught you,
Forgetting that I am you.
We are emptiness embracing,
Laughing,
Like water running over rocks,
Children spinning in the sun.

Each thought -
I consume its raw energy.
It is no longer an object
For my love or hate.
There is only one decision left.
Yummm!

Each feeling -
I digest it fully.
No longer running from sorrow,
Disgust, shame, or aggression.
I savor their raw energy
And proclaim the final judgment.
Yummm!

Then suddenly all my feasting ends.
There is nothing left to consume.
I reach for something, but then abondon the pursuit,
Realizing at last
That I have been devouring
Myself.
Aha!

-- Indigo Ocean

Amazing Mindware

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 19:33:53 PDT

Have you ever tried your hand at meditation, only to give up in frustration? How about wanting to boost your immune system, calm your emotions, and generally help your body fight stress? What if you could gain all those benefits just by playing a computer game?

Well now you can. Take The Journey to Wild Divine and watch your stress levels decrease as your skill in playing the game increases. The game includes a biofeedback device so that it can accurately measure when you are breathing calmly and other measures of successful self-regulation. As you improve at mastering your mind-body connection you also proceed up through levels in the game -- opening magic doors, discovering lost treasures, and meeting all kinds of fascinating guides and mentors along the way.

I can't think of a more fun way to learn how to meditate. I think every household should have one. Great for the teens, as meditation has been shown to help them get their grades up, and great for adults who are dealing with all kinds of stresses and are in danger of physical ailments if that stress isn't being effectively reduced. You can take a look and demo it at the following link:

Demo the Journey to Wild Divine

The Perfection of Your Present Situation

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 01:38:02 PDT

The following is an adaptation of a post I recently made on a message board in response to a woman's complaint about the challenges motherhood is presenting to her spiritual practice. I repost it here because I think it applies equally to whatever excuse we are clinging to for why we are not doing the very actions that are most likely to help us awaken. The ego doesn't want to awaken; it just wants to pretend it wants to while cloaking itself in excuses for why the conditions of one's life make freedom from its tyranny impossible.

Ego says, "Sure I want you to wake up. I like the idea of enlightenment. As soon as I can make every speck of external reality perfect you won't need me anymore and you can become enlightened then. Let's work very hard at this enlightenment business. I'm sure I can come up with a very effective strategy for you."

I suggest you take the point of view that your current situation is exactly what you most need to support your practice. If you have to be active every waking moment with home and family care tasks, meditate mindfully as you engage in the activity needed to support your family. View the path within your situation to be the blessing, not the compromise or sacrifice.

Think of how many more hours of meditation you can get in like this than someone who merely sits for meditation practice 40-60 minutes a day (the norm). You will literally be getting hours of meditation practice each day, if you are willing to embrace the situation as an opportunity to meditate rather than clinging to the idea that it is an obstacle to your meditation. Think of how much inner discipline it would take to get you to actually sit for meditation and lose yourself completely in the experience for 14 hours a day. Yet as a mother with young children you have plenty of drive to engage in selfless activity for so many hours. All you have to do is use the situation as a meditation practice instead of fighting it.

In vajrayana, enlightenment is about developing the view of the Buddha, recognizing that nirvana was always there within all the situations of samsara (all of them), not about changing anything outside onself so that it becomes nirvana. So in daily practice one doesn't strive to rearrange the chairs on samsara's Titantic. Instead we just want off that damn boat altogether, and we achieve this by realizing that the boat never truly existed, so it can't truly sink.

Liberation comes just that quickly, when there is insight, conviction, and stability in the view. No external situation can stop you from realizing that external situations are inherently empty. Only your conceptual beliefs (your opinions) about those situations can stop you if you are unwilling to see that the beliefs themselves are equally insubstantial.

Update

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Thu, 18 May 2006 12:25:12 PDT

I am taking a break from a few activities these days while I refocus my energy on fewer projects. The radio show is going on hiatus for at least a couple of months. I just made an arrangement with Sounds True to bring a number of their artists/authors on the show, and will be reviewing materials from them in the coming weeks to form a line up. Hay House has made the same offer, though I haven't been in the mood to read so I haven't taken them up on it yet. So I will be working on the show a little, though not broadcasting for awhile. When I do return I will probably be on a different station and at a different day and time.

I am focusing most of my energy on Phone Buddies and hosting the weekly meditation group for Tulku Thubten Rinpoche. I have withdrawn from organizing weekend retreats for other lamas, including the upcoming visit of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, which I had previously agreed to help a newbie put together, and have also suspended by ClearLight Nature spiritual healing services, other than providing donated sessions at the local AIDS services organization when they have someone requesting a session.

I am also prioritizing my meditation practice, now sitting for 2-3 times each day and spending another 30-60 minutes in contemplation of teachings. Sometimes less is more in that by eliminating certain activities it gives me more time and energy for the ones that are most important to me.

I have another dozen websites I'm not even mentioning here that I am also letting do their own thing without any further input from me. Same goes for promoting the book. They succeed, they don't succeed, whatever. At last I have woken up feeling rested.

Phone Buddies Support Community

noreply@blogger.com (Indigo Ocean) — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 18:30:33 PDT

Introducing, the one, the only... Okay enough hype, but I really am incredibly excited about this new offering from my company. I just became the community manager of the Phone Buddies Emotional Support Community.

It's an internet based peer counseling community in which women trade emotional support sessions with each other. That way each gets to be counseled but neither has to pay $150 per hour for it. Instead their sessions are FREE!

Of course, it isn't psychotherapy, but isn't everyday chatting either. The members learn 6 types of peer counseling so it has a lot more structure and "meat" than just a chat community. I'm a participating member too and I offer Emotional Clearing and Compassionate Listening.

There are a lot more little details (like no last names used, etc.) but this is the gist of it. If you are someone who likes helping others grow and thrive and you'd like to get more support in your life too, it might be just the thing for you. Check out the site at http://www.phone-buddies.com

And tell other women about it. The more Phone Buddies there are the more we each get to choose among when we want a session.