Softening to Mystery:

A Story of Us

         Niels Bohr, one of many leading-edge quantum physicists who also speak metaphysically, has concluded that there are two kinds of truth – small truth and great truth.  He said, “You can recognize a small truth because its opposite is a falsehood.  The opposite of a great truth is another truth.”  I’ve come to agree that great truth is paradoxical in nature.  It exists in the realm of mystery and is so big that, while it may be apprehended in the heart, it cannot be captured conceptually.  Words fail us here.  At best, they convey only part of the story.

         Here’s a cosmological story – a piece I wrote many years ago and recently revised.  It roams in the murky waters of mystery, where truths intertwine. It invites us to soften to the mystery of who we are.

         Softening to mystery means saying “yes” to apparently contradictory things, accepting paradox, living with an ambiguity that does not allow us to pin life down or to pin ourselves down.  It means opening to darkness and light, the infinite and the infinitesimal.  We cannot be easily sized or sized up.  In this story, we humans exist on three levels:  Personality, Individual Soul and God-Soul.  All are true of us.  None is only true.

         The level of personality includes the material body with all its physical attributes and chemical quirks, the mind with its habits and patterns, and the ego identity with all its characteristics and attachments.  Even at the level of personality, where we are the most obvious and observable, we are quite the mystery.  Biological and social scientists spend their lives trying to make sense of us at this all-too-human level.  With our many contradictions, our weirdness and goofiness, our capacity for the heroic and horrific, there is one constant:  we are finite beings.  The ego is going to die – and it knows it. 

         While the personality is unique and temporary, the individual soul is timeless.  It is the uniqueness of us that transcends time.  God speaks creation in the eternal now.  Each of us can be viewed as a word in God’s vocabulary – all interconnected, part of one lexicon, each distinct.  At the level of individual soul, we are unique, eternal, and many.

         There is only one God-Soul – and we all share It.  In this story, when God speaks creation in the eternal now, God is sharing God.  At this level of being, which I believe is at our core, we are one with each other and one with God.  Mystics in every spiritual tradition speak of this oneness.  Here, we are infinite, divine, and one.

         Softening to mystery invites us to include and integrate all of who we are.  In this story, each level of being is true of us.  Each has its unique reality.  And all three are woven together in seamless wholeness.  There is oneness in this “three-ness”.

         We humans are so tempted to exclude rather than include.  We are tempted to deny what we don’t understand and dismiss what we don’t like.  “Either/or” is simpler than “both/and”.  Judging and controlling feels safer than acceptance, appreciation and awe. 

         While we have some choice about what parts of ourselves we nurture and cultivate, we don’t have choice about what parts of us exist.  For example, at the level of personality, we are wired for fight and flight.  That wiring is built into our nervous systems. Millennia ago, this wiring was adaptive.  It helped us survive.  However, if we continue to operate out of our fearful and cantankerous tendencies, our prospects for long-range survival seem bleak.  The question becomes how do we work constructively and respectfully with ourselves, accepting how we’re built, rather than work against ourselves, trying to suppress or deny what is.  We can invite the personality to grow and we can’t eliminate it.

         We can’t eliminate the divine part of us either.  We can fail to see it in ourselves, in others, and in all that is – but we can’t make it not be there.  In this story, God is unavoidable, eternally and inextricably woven into the fabric of who we are. 

          There’s an often-told Zen story about a monastery that was floundering.  Membership was dwindling in a climate of bitterness and back-biting.  Somehow, a rumor began spreading that one of the monks was Buddha reincarnated.  There was much speculation about who that person might be.  Soon, the monks started treating each other with new gentleness and care.  After all, no one wanted mistreat the Buddha.   The monastery grew to be a center of joy.  It flourished, attracting new members from miles away.

         In grade school, I remember being taught that we are children of God.  Many religious traditions and spiritual practices invite us to cultivate an awareness of our divine origin and connection.  As we soften to this aspect of the mystery, a reverence for ourselves and others grows quite naturally.  We may even remember that, at the level of soul, we are deeply in love with each other and always have been.

         In this story, no matter how hatefully we behave, we still have a divine spark.  No matter how holy and evolved we become, we’re still goofy.  In us, both the sublime and the ridiculous find a home.  Softening to the mystery of the human condition invites reverence and compassion, humility and humor.

         So, enjoy the mystery.  Experience it with gusto.  Just don’t expect to solve it.

Two Thanksgiving Poems

Happy Thanksgiving

A grateful heart is a soft heart,

A soft heart that opens us to abundance,

To the flow of love and joy.

Heartfelt gratitude is a gateway to abundant life.

As we see more abundantly what we have,

We more abundantly have what we see.

Gratitude is its own gift.

"See the gifts you have," it says.

"See the gift you are."

Happiness and thanksgiving go together.

Happy Thanksgiving is not only my wish for you,

It's a declaration of what is.

Thanks-Giving

Thank-Fullness

Gratitude is a gift

We give ourselves

And others -

Thanks-giving.

Each moment

We see life’s gift

We feel abundance –

Thank-fullness.

Give thanks

Have fullness

Happy thanks-giving

Happy thank-fullness.

Cultivating Emotions

         In friendship with ourselves, we honor and make room for every feeling, even the painful ones we like to avoid.  Along with this spaciousness - in a spirit of loving-kindness with ourselves - we can cultivate emotional states that energize and uplift us: happiness, joy, peace, contentment and gratitude. 

         Spring Forest QiGong teaches that each of these feelings connects with an organ system in a way that integrates physical, psychological and spiritual health.  Here are five steps in a practice I enjoy.

1.     Breathe happiness into the liver (located above the right side of the stomach) and exhale fear.

2.   Breathe joy into the heart; exhale bitterness.

3.   Breathe peace into the stomach; exhale worry.

4.   Breathe contentment into the lungs; exhale depression.

5.   Breathe gratitude into the kidneys; exhale fear.

         More often, lately, I’ve focused primarily on the positive emotional states - inhaling each positive energy and moving ever more deeply into the emotion, as I exhale.

         I suggest doing this practice first thing in the morning and last thing at night, with several (or more) breaths at each step.  Some days, rather than doing all five steps, you might want to concentrate on one or two.

         Please note: this practice is not designed to totally control our emotional lives or rid ourselves of uncomfortable feelings. The attitude we take with ourselves is gently inviting, not forceful or coercive. 

         We’re like organic gardeners of the spirit – cultivating nutritious food for body and soul.

Fierce Compassion

         We need a powerful response to what’s happening in the USA.  I feel anger, outrage, dread.  I honor those feelings, and I know that truly powerful responses – responses that heal and re-align our nation - must be based in love.  I feel the tug between my fearful outrage and my commitment to peace and love.  I search for a path forward.

         A recent post by Dr. Kristin Neff, author of Self-Compassion, points to a way – fierce compassion.  “Compassion is aimed at the alleviation of suffering – that of others or ourselves – and can be ferocious as well as tender.”  “We need love in our hearts so we don’t perpetuate a cycle of anger and hate, but we need fierceness so that we don’t let things continue on their current harmful path.”

         She describes fierce compassion as a balance of Yin and Yang energies.  Yin is more inward and receptive.  It offers comfort and nurture to self and others.  Yang focuses outward with a clarity and resolve that helps us take constructive action in the world. 

         Fierce compassion invites us to be contemplative activists, peaceful warriors – respectful, empathic and thoughtful, steadfast, courageous and outspoken.  Fierce compassion calls us to wholeness and wholeheartedness.

Self-Companionship

         Central to the work I do with myself and others is the question: How do we treat ourselves?  In particular, how do we relate to our painful/uncomfortable feelings and sensations?  How do we treat the body when it’s in pain?  How do we respond to ourselves when we’re feeling hurt, sad, angry, fearful, embarrassed, ashamed?

         I see these experiences as opportunities to build deeper friendship with ourselves. 

         Instead of rejecting my body when it’s in pain, I can say: “thanks for letting me know” or “how can I help?”  I can send kindness and love to whatever hurts.  I can thank the body for all it’s done for me over the years.  I can note, with gratitude, the parts of me that aren’t in pain. 

         We can take a similar, friendly approach to our feelings.  Take anger, for instance.  It often functions as a signal that something is hurting or scaring us.   It points to our vulnerability – the need for care or protection for ourselves or others.  Rather than ignore the feeling, squash it or treat it as a problem, we can listen more deeply to what it needs.  We can accompany the feeling part of us from a caring and wise grown-up stance.  “Thanks for letting me know.  We’re in this together.  I’ll stick by you.  Let’s figure out what you need.  I’ll handle the details.”

         The feeling part of us is a younger part – a younger self.  It’s very good at energizing us and letting us know when something’s not right.  However, it often needs our help to identify what is needed.   And it definitely needs our help/leadership in actually going about getting what is needed.  Sometimes, action is needed to effect change “out there”.  Sometimes, comfort and nurture is needed “in here”.

         We don’t give the younger self the keys to the car.  To do so is an act of abandonment.  The feeling self is too young to navigate life’s challenges alone.

         From the stance of the large self - older, wiser and loving - we honor the body and our feeling nature.  We partner with these aspects of ourselves.  We offer them companionship and care.

         I’ve been meditating lately on the thought that we are all part of an enormous, beautiful tapestry – interwoven with each other and with all that exists.  Each of us is a strand in the tapestry.  The Divine Presence is woven within us and between us – such that we are inseparable from God and from each other.  From this perspective, God is unavoidable.  Everywhere we look, there God is.

         As I poked through previous writings, looking unsuccessfully for a reference, I stumbled across this piece, written many years ago.  At the time, I called it a mystery story.  It, too, emerged from a series of meditations.

God Consciousness

       In the beginning, there was no thing.  Only sacred emptiness, a profound, fertile, eternal, intelligent, creative silence – God, a name we give to the nameless.

       Suddenly, the Silence expressed itself in an amazing blossoming of love – hot love, intense love, sublime love, messy love – unbelievably creative and destructive.  Were there anyone to observe it, the blossoming would have seemed totally chaotic.  We now know it to be an expression with an underlying order and intelligence.

       In this story, the first expression of God is love. The next expression, as blossoming cooled, is light.  With ever more cooling comes density.  The material world forms.  It, too, is spoken.  Every star, planet, mountain, sea, rock, tree, insect, turtle, fish, bird, mammal, and each of us is a word in the vocabulary of God. 

       Everything – love, light, matter – is an expression of God.  Every interaction is an interaction with God.  When we hold a rock, behold a sunset, touch a leaf, break bread, sip wine, caress a lover, laugh with a child or look in a mirror, we are communing with God. 

       Human consciousness allows us to re-trace the movements of divine expression, to move closer to Source.  We all are familiar with the density of the material world, including the density of the human personality, which can be quite goofy.  We all know about living in this realm. 

       Many of us are learning how to spiritually soften, to raise our vibrations.  We remember that we are also light.  As we continue to lighten – enlighten, perhaps – we remember that we are love.

       And sometimes, sojourning into silence, we enter the deepest mystery of God consciousness, the wordless apprehension that, along with everything else we are – goofiness, density, light, love – we are God.  All is God.

      Imagine the impact on this planet if we brought God consciousness to all our relationships – with ourselves, with each other, with plants and animals, with water and dirt and all of Mother Earth. 

       Imagine the peace.  Imagine the reverence.  Imagine the joy.

How Good Can I Stand It?

         Brene Brown speaks about a natural discomfort we have with joy.  Anticipating its demise, we hold back from experiencing its fullness.  We’re nervous, also, because many of us live with a happiness ceiling - a threshold learned early in life that limits our capacity for happiness and joy. 

         As life becomes richer for me, I am noticing that ceiling - an inner pushback to the happiness that is growing within me.  The noticing is a gift.  It leads me toward healing practices. 

         I breathe deeply into the uneasiness I feel in my belly.  I speak gently to myself – acknowledging the threshold and its anxious warning, reminding myself that it’s just a carry over from old protective strategies, no longer relevant.  Ever more clearly, I see this discomfort an indicator of growth, not danger.  I soften and smile and welcome my movement into new territory.  It’s delicious stretch. 

         The challenging question, now, is not how much adversity and suffering can I handle, but rather, how much happiness, joy, peace, contentment and gratitude can I make room for.   

         How good can I stand it? 

Shortly after awakening this morning, I opened an old folder and found this poem.  It spoke to me – joyfully - of marvelous awakening.

Last Night as I Was Sleeping

Author: Antonio Machado

Translator: Robert Bly

        Last night as I was sleeping,

                  I dreamt – marvelous error! –

                  that a spring was breaking

                  out in my heart. 

                  I said: Along which secret aqueduct,

                  Oh water, are you coming to me,

                  water of new life

                  that I have never drunk?

                  Last night as I was sleeping,

                  I dreamt – marvelous error! –

                  that I had a beehive

                  here inside my heart.

                  And the golden bees   

                  were making white combs

                  and sweet honey

                  from my old failures.

                  Last night as I was sleeping,

                  I dreamt – marvelous error! –

                  that a fiery sun was giving

                  light inside my heart.

                  It was fiery because I felt

                  warmth as from a hearth,

                  and sun because it gave light

                  and brought tears to my eyes.

                  Last night as I slept,

                  I dreamt – marvelous error! –

                  that it was God I had

                  here inside my heart.

Two Conversations

         I’ve been waking the last few mornings to my inner jukebox playing a song by America, I Need You – “like the flower needs the rain … like the winter needs the spring, I need you.”  When a song repeats like that, I listen up.  While there may be other layers of meaning, this morning I heard the song as my younger feeling-self (Jimbo) appealing to the older, wiser, loving inner adult (Big James).  I heard the invitation to remember their connection and re-affirm their partnership in loving this world - a deepening development within me.

         The appeal reminds me how easy it is to slip back into the old pattern of another conversation – a louder, harsher conversation – that takes place many times a day between a voice I call the inner judge and Jimbo.  The judge, a well-practiced but immature presence with a big megaphone, uses withering criticisms and dire predictions to invite Jimbo to feel ashamed and afraid.   Drawing from a large library of mistakes I’ve made over the years, the judge comments on every imperfection and tends to define my younger self in terms of those mistakes and imperfections.

         On the other hand, conversation between Big James and Jimbo is gentle, nurturing, playful and sometimes wordless – inviting self-acceptance, self-compassion, creativity, vitality and courage.  This conversation combines Jimbo’s vitality and Big James’ wise nurture and calls forth my best, strongest and most loving presence on this planet. 

         Observing these two conversations is a VAST SELF within me, quietly witnessing – holding in loving spaciousness every aspect of who I am, every voice within.  Mindfulness practices, which deepen connection with the quiet witness, help me see the nature of, and feel the impact of, the two conversations.  With awareness comes choice.  I get to choose which conversation I want to give my time and attention, which I want to nurture and feed.  Even when the judge puffs himself up, loudly demanding the inner microphone and provoking me mightily, I still get to choose whether or not to engage.

         Once I pay attention – and keep paying attention - the life-affirming choice is clear.  And once I’m clear, I can stand firm in my “yes” to one conversation and my “no thanks” to the other.

Let’s Love Together

         For years I’ve worked at opening to the flow of love.  I see universal love as an unlimited, inexhaustible resource, readily available and ready to overflow in my relational life – which it does quite naturally in my professional work, in my parenting and in most of my friendships. 

         Historically, this flow has not been so natural in my most intimate and vulnerable relationships, where fear, hunger and self-preoccupation invite a sense of scarcity and a tendency to over-think and over-work.  I’ve tended to attribute this awkwardness to a younger version of myself, whose early life experience makes understandable some skittishness in this area. 

         In recent years, I’ve tried to by-pass the boy – pushing him into the shadows, hoping to keep my inner grown-up in charge.  Frequently, to my dismay, the by-passed boy found a way to by-pass me and grab the keys to my relational car.  He’s a good kid, but not a great driver.

         Last week, grace came my way in the form of a wonderful, transformational healing retreat, Choose Love, led by Richard Moss, whose approach recognizes that healing and growth need to be integrated into the body and the heart.  Thinking alone cannot move us forward in substantial ways.  So, in addition to some cognitive work, we danced and sang and moved our bodies in expressive ways that led to a deeply felt sense of the contrast between the closed/contracted heart and the soft/open heart.

         In one exercise, we danced for well over an hour to varied, evocative and powerful pieces of music.  Somewhere near the end, I pictured my four-year-old self (Jimbo), whose photo sits on my desk, smiling at me as I write.  From a spaciousness opened by the music and movement, I felt drawn to dance with Jimbo.  And we did so for a good 10 or 15 minutes.  I held him close, then closer, and then experienced a merging with him.  I said to Jimbo: “Let’s love together.”

         Theoretically, I’ve known for years about the importance of connecting with the inner child.  This experience, however, was beyond theory.  It was visceral and embodied.  The youngster - embraced and held and welcomed - was not hungry.  He was not left alone to fend for himself.  He was partnered with Big James, the wise, spacious, grown-up elder who resides within.  In that moment of grace, love no longer seemed scarce or dangerous.  It flowed freely from fullness – accompanied by joyful tears.

         The embodied union of Big James and Jimbo keeps Jimbo emotionally safe and James vibrantly alive.  It integrates wisdom and vitality – two qualities necessary for loving connection – qualities more available to me now.

         While I can’t predict how this will play out in my life, I do believe that love inside leads to love outside and that inner partnership paves the way for outer partnerships.  Witnessing inward with mindful awareness opens a spaciousness that makes room for what’s young and what’s ancient in my being.  In that spaciousness, there’s room for all of I and all of Thou. 

         I find it easier now to feel the difference between when I’m connected and when I’ve slipped into an old pattern of separation.  And, thankfully, when I do disconnect, I now have a way back – an embodied memory that anchors me in partnership and presence. 

         I also have a mantra:  Let’s love together.