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The Lesson Of Autonomy revolves around the practical application of these wisdom teachings.  While they may appear somewhat abstract at first glance, their principles demand of us concrete changes in our behavior and attitudes.  This is perhaps most evident in the way we think of ourselves:  if I look through the eyes of the relative self, all I see is loss and death—but if I look through the eyes of the true self, all I see is communion and immortality.

In order to exercise the right to change things for the better, we must first allow ourselves to be changed for the better.  This means allowing the relative self to be changed by the true self.  Voluntarily submitting to the higher self’s purpose like this allows the relative self to awaken to the life within its life, to remember the life beyond its life—by becoming more than just the sum of our body’s experiences, we let go of the personal history that has conditioned our reactions and we begin acting without being constrained by precedents and preconceptions.  Rather than acting only on our own interests, we become devoted to making things better for the people, animals, and nature around us.  When we allow ourselves to be changed by the true self, in other words, we are no longer concerned with how circumstances affect us—what concerns us is how we affect the circumstances around us.

Undergoing this self-transformation leads us to the Fourth Paradox Of Wisdom:  it is only by voluntarily submitting to the will of the true self that the relative self achieves Autonomy—it is only by recognizing its dependence on the true self that the relative self achieves real independence. But the will, ambition, and impatience of the relative self are not easily tamed and it requires sincere dedication to the true self’s purpose if we are to master the kind of self-control that carries us along the path of wisdom.

We may be devoted to changing things for the better, for example, but the interconnectedness of everything means our actions become part of a web of causes that is interwoven in increasingly complex ways, making it impossible to ever predict the ultimate effects of any single action.  This is why one of the principal symptoms of wisdom is humility:  we can act in good faith that our motive will guide our action to its intended effect, but we must not harbor the pretense of knowing its final outcome.  To exercise creative power and the right to change things for the better without a firm grasp of the governing principles is the precise opposite of wisdom.

Humility, then, is the practical face of Autonomy:  we can be devoted to changing things for the better, but we cannot be attached to the results of our efforts.  Rather than imagining we can control all the potential ways our actions might interact with all other actions over time, we must free ourselves from the relative self’s perspective and adopt that of the true self:  the successful fulfillment of the true self’s purpose cannot be understood as spanning a single lifetime but, rather, must be viewed as a long-term enterprise spanning many lifetimes.

Freedom, therefore, is the ideal face of Autonomy—the freedom to act and react without being unduly influenced by externals, the freedom to act and react without being controlled by past experiences, the freedom to act and react without being inhibited by fears and expectations of the future.

The freedom, in other words, of the untroubled spirit.

And herein lies the difference between freedom and imprisonment—for the untroubled spirit is untroubled no matter how difficult things get, whereas the troubled spirit is troubled no matter how good things get.

If we are to exercise the freedom of the untroubled spirit, we need to relinquish control of events and take control of the troubled spirit—yet because this is the precise opposite of how most people conduct themselves, we come across few people after whom we can model our behavior.  Even though this makes finding our way in life more difficult, it does force us to find our own way.  There was, of course, a first enlightened person.  A first healer.  A first shaman.  A first artist.  A first poet.  A first storyteller.  Autonomy forces us to live as if we were each the first person to see the world and respond to it in a wholly unpremeditated and original way.

Freedom is what happens when the relative self and the absolute self act as one.

Autonomy must not become just another kind of strength to be relied upon in our effort to overcome others in the competition for social resources.  It needs to be the center from which we act and feel and remember.  It needs to replace the sense of identity that has been unintentionally patched together by the relative self through its reactions to the body’s experiences.  Just as the vulnerable caddis worm crawls along the streambed picking up bits of debris it passes and then attaching them to its body to make a protective shell, the relative self builds up a reassuring sense of identity by piecing together a personal history out of the random events to which the body has been exposed.  Autonomy needs to become the sense of self from which all our actions and reactions arise without any ulterior motives.  Once our only motive is the creation of constructive change, the only obstacle to success is our desire to succeed:  by detaching our attention from any sense of success and failure, we have already succeeded in shifting our sense of personal purpose away from what is created and toward the act of creating.

Herein lies the short path to Autonomy.  By experiencing the act of creating first-hand, we are led to recognize that all of creation stems from a single source.  And by withdrawing our attention from the creation itself, we are subsequently led to experience the inexpressible purpose driving the act of creating itself.  After that experience, it is no longer possible to create anything counter to the underlying purpose to the whole of creation:  from that point on, our personal purpose is wholly aligned with the single purpose of the universal source.  Taking an active part in the universal act of creating, in other words, leads us to discover our own personal purpose in the grand scheme of things and, thereby, the unique sense of identity that transcends our individual lifetimes.  The short path to Autonomy runs straight through the quagmire of cultural conditioning without ever diverging into the quicksand of self-importance.

With this background in mind, let us turn to our training exercises and receive, in the experiences they engender, the answers that the Lesson Of Autonomy gives to our most stubborn questions.

Exercise One—Sit quietly with eyes closed, silently repeating to yourself, My Heart Is Another Sun.  Concentrate your attention on the center of your chest, visualizing a grapefruit-sized sun there radiating light and warmth out into the world.  Allow the visualization to sink into your emotions, so that the sun-heart within your chest emits unconditional loving-kindness and goodwill out into the world.  After these first steps are accomplished, allow the emotional feelings to sink deeper yet into your material body, producing physical sensations of a corporeal sun from which emanate life-sustaining rays of golden light.  After this stage of the training is mastered, carry the exercise out during all your daily activities until it becomes second nature.  Keep in mind that no shadow can ever fall upon the sun as you silently repeat the catch-phrase, My Heart Is Another Sun.

Exercise Two—Sit quietly with eyes closed, visualizing a spider web upon whose every knot there gleams a dewdrop.  Visualize further that each of these many dewdrops is reflecting every other dewdrop and, indeed, that each dewdrop is reflecting the whole of all the dewdrops together.  Once you can sustain this image, place yourself in the visualization as one of the dewdrops and then place everyone and everything you know as the other dewdrops on the web.  Allow yourself to feel how you are reflected in each of those dewdrops.  Allow yourself to feel how everyone and everything you know is reflected in you.  As you stabilize this image, allowing yourself to feel both how each dewdrop is reflected in the whole and the whole is reflected in each dewdrop, silently repeat the catch-phrase, All In One, One In All. When this stage of the exercise is mastered, extend the spider web to infinity and eternity, allowing everything in all places and in all times to become a dewdrop similarly fixed on the living web of creation, radiating All In One, One In All.

Ultimately Autonomy means to sense the omnipresent Act Of Creating and then aligning ourselves with it rather than going along with those who are not aware they are being motivated in large part by a mass hypnosis that has, over the generations, settled upon human nature.  Strive to see the world the way it really is rather than allowing yourself to be unduly influenced by the received wisdom of civilization, since that world view is the one that has created the history of suffering we are trying to change.  True Autonomy allows us to exercise freedom of perception and judgment, even as it draws us into a more passionate and compassionate involvement with the times in which we live.  Similarly, true strength allows us to defeat the self-defeating habits of thought, feeling, and memory that make us confuse weakness for strength, failure for success, and folly for wisdom.

Of all the exercises in this training regimen, the Lesson Of Autonomy is the most trying, for it demands the most of us, prodding us on to climb heights we never imagined attempting.  So take your time, re-read the background material regularly, and practice the exercises by steeping yourself in the feelings they evoke.  Move from the abstract to the bodily, making your experiences ever more concrete.  What we are searching for is not something that happens to us—it is something that we ourselves produce.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

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Great strength inevitably becomes great weakness.

This is because of our tendency to over-rely on what makes us feel powerful, effective, and respected—a tendency that unintentionally transforms our attitude of justifiable pride and self-respect into one of arrogance and superiority.  A tendency, moreover, that holds as true for organizations, corporations, and governments as it does for individuals.

Because people equate success with winning, they strive to use their strength to take advantage of the weakness they perceive in others.  And if no weakness exists other than a trusting nature, this can be turned to advantage by convincing the other that their natural state contains some innate flaw that actually constitutes a weakness.  Or, contrariwise, if the other has no weakness but distrust, this, too, can be turned to advantage by constantly feinting and bluffing until the other is provoked into wasting resources and energy reacting to an illusory threat.

We come to feel strong, in other words, when we can make others feel weak.

Even if such behavior could be justified ethically, it would still prove to be short-sighted and self-defeating:  clearly those who dominate others are dependent on those who submit to them—and as time goes on, those who submit can only grow stronger while those who dominate can only grow weaker.  As the conscience of the victors evolves, their guilt and remorse diminishes them within, even as the determination of the defeated empowers and ennobles them within.  The way in which time turns the table on the strong by giving the weak a moral victory is the basis of all the great failures of history, whether they be in the lives of nations, groups, or individuals.

To exercise strength against others, therefore, is to plant the seeds of our own misfortune.

To exercise strength without diminishing others, however, is to plant the seeds of our own good fortune.

It is not just force, though, that makes us weak.  The strength of intellect and reason likewise becomes a great weakness when relied upon too much—without a sense of loving-kindness and compassion, reason becomes sterile and, ultimately, mere justification for acting in bad faith.  No less can be said for the emotions and passions, of course, which begin as authentic motives for positive actions—but which, when over-used, end up transformed into reflex reactions striving for control over uncontrollable circumstances.  The memory, too, develops from a positive tool providing continuity and adaptability into a mechanism that fossilizes the past, creating thereby the false sense of self that eclipses the living presence of the true self.

So it is for all the attributes we hold as empowering—faith becomes dogma, intimacy becomes intolerance, love becomes possessiveness, trust becomes revenge, patriotism becomes antagonism, intuition becomes worry, planning becomes routine, nostalgia becomes isolation, sincerity becomes pomposity, light-heartedness becomes triviality, frugality becomes avarice, generosity becomes coercion, and so on and so forth.

To open the front door to what makes us stronger is to let what makes us weaker slip in the back.

So if the very strengths we depend on to achieve success and contentment actually contain the seeds of future failure and disappointment, then how do we free ourselves from all the dependencies keeping us from reaching our true potential?

Why, in the midst of so much opportunity for advancement, do we find ourselves blocked at every turn?

How do we make our way along the path of good fortune without becoming inhumane and opportunistic?

Such are the questions the Lesson Of Autonomy answers.

This is the I Ching trigram for Heaven.  It symbolizes creative power and the right to change things for the better.  The basis of its power is not its own strength, however, but its spontaneous and uncontrived expression of the underlying harmony of the world.  It speaks of our need to recognize the omnipresent source at work in the on-going creation of the world and then to align ourselves with it.  By sensing the unconstrained nature of Heaven within, we train ourselves to achieve inner Autonomy.

The heart of Autonomy lies in self-control.  Without self-control, our demeanor gives away our innermost thoughts and feelings, making it impossible to have an independent interior life.  Without self-control, our emotions and thoughts are driven by our instincts into actions that are too defensive, offensive, or self-gratifying.  Without self-control, our ambition causes us to over-reach, bringing others and ourselves unnecessary grief.  Without self-control, our imaginations run wild, creating a world of false hopes and fears.  Without self-control, our desire to be appreciated and accepted trips us up, causing us to blunder through our relationships.  Without self-control, our desire to see ourselves in the best possible light deludes us, causing us to project our worst qualities onto others even as we imagine ourselves to possess qualities and motives above reproach.

Without self-control, in other words, our inner world leaks out into the outer world, causing us to intrude on the independence of others.  And without self-control, the outer world leaks into our inner world, intruding on our own independence.

What is this personal independence that each of us possesses—and why is it important that its integrity be maintained?  An intrinsic aspect of the wisdom teachings affirms that everything, and particularly everything living, has at its core an essence that is identical to the essence in every other living thing.  This essence is not an abstract or inconsequential part of each thing, moreover, but the fundamental and quintessential element making up the very awareness of each living being itself.  So fundamental is it, in fact, that this universal essence can go unobserved for an entire lifetime if we fail to turn our attention to its living presence.  While it is known by many names, it answers to none of them:  because it is, in fact, the underlying awareness that names everything, it cannot itself be named.

Let us follow the precedent set by many others and call it the true self.

It is here that we stand on the threshold of The Great Mystery:  how is it that the One divides into the Many without ever forfeiting its wholeness?  how is it that the Many unite in the One in such a way that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts?  how is it, in other words, that our individual awareness is simultaneously part of the one awareness and yet experiences itself as cut off and separate from all other individual awarenesses—and how do we not interfere with our individual awareness’ effort to reunite with the one awareness?  It is The Great Mystery because every true self must pass through this gate of individual awareness to rediscover the hidden path back to the One Self.  For millennia, the source of profound awe and wonder has resided in contemplation of how the timeless and immortal One enters the temporal and mortal Many.

Crossing the threshold of The Great Mystery brings us to the Third Paradox Of Wisdom:  by fully experiencing the individual life, we remember the universal life—by participating fully in the relative realm, we return to the absolute realm. While the full meaning of this paradox can only be experienced first-hand, one of its principal implications is that the absolute realm of the One is not different than, nor separate from, the relative realm of the Many.  The first-hand experience of this paradox has long been called awakening, while those who are not yet aware that awareness is matter are often seen as still sleepwalking through the relative realm.

Persons who approach wisdom by relying too much on the strength of their intellect run the risk of reading the above as if it were addressed to the head rather than the heart.  What is meant by first-hand experience is that the intellectual meaning is translated into an emotional meaning, the depth of which can be measured by the physical response we experience in our body.  While there is no precise description of the physical sensations that accompany this emotional understanding, it is certain that experiences unaccompanied by such bodily sensations have failed to fully incorporate the meaning of The Great Mystery.  Awe and wonder must strike us to the bone, sink into the marrow, and permeate the very atoms of awareness:  unless first-hand experience is fully integrated throughout our material and immaterial bodies, the relative self and the true self are not consciously united in a single identity.

The true self, then, is the immaterial body that stands at the end of eternity, perfected and at one with the One—and has so stood since before eternity began.  The relative self is the sum of all the material body’s experiences.  Awakening occurs when the relative self remembers the true self.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

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(Following up on Part One of Finding Resilience from the previous post)—

And it is this experience that leads us to the Second Paradox Of Wisdom:  when we stop clinging to the illusory importance of things past, we are freed from the illusion of our own present self-importance.  And it is this insight that leads us to harmonize with the underlying harmony of the world.  And it is this confluence of our own stream of attention with the single river of life’s attention that leads us to meaningful success.

Water seems soft and pliable, so when we say its nature is Resiliency, this seems to imply a kind of weakness or yielding quality—as if we were saying that attention should follow the line of least resistance because it is too weak to endure hardship and suffering.  Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.  One look at the Grand Canyon, for instance, should dispel any such misconception:  stone itself must give way before the unrelenting onslaught of flowing water.

The nature of Water is enduring patience, just as the nature of attention is infinite fortitude.  Water follows the line of least resistance, using gravity to penetrate every gap and to wear down every obstacle—just as attention follows the line of least resistance, using the force of will to perceive every opportunity and outlast every obstruction.

But when traumatic events occur in our lives, they seem to change us forever.

This is like a great oak that has grown into an unnatural and contorted shape because a small rock lay atop it when it first emerged from its acorn centuries ago.  Never mind that the rock was an obstacle not much bigger than the acorns that the oak now puts forth every year.  Never mind that the shape the oak has taken possesses an air of majesty and strength perceptible to all.  What we want to keep in mind instead is that the oak has flowed around the rock like slow-motion water, turning an obstacle into grace, dignity, and originality.

Is it the rock that made all this possible?  Or is it the earth itself, its soil, its rain, and its life-giving light that daily falls from the sun?  How quickly we turn to hardship as the defining element in our development, ignoring the millions of positive events occurring before and after our negative experiences.

The effects of negative experiences seem to last a lifetime, in other words, while the effects of positive experiences seem to evaporate in a matter of days, weeks, and months.

Yet we all know of someone who has had true suffering in their life but rebounded from it in a way that exceeded our expectations and defied our explanations.  While they themselves may not be able to fully explain their own Resiliency, they often speak of rising to the challenge that life presented them.  Not in the sense, we should keep in mind, of ignoring or denying their own suffering, but of having passed through it authentically and having defeated their own willingness to feel defeated.  A large part of wisdom, it seems, is the power of an indomitable spirit to defeat its own willingness to feel bad.  For such people, obstacles are always on the inside, challenging their innate right to thrive despite any hardship.

For others, however, who shrink beneath the weight of past adversity, the risk of future pain, loss, or defeat presents an insurmountable obstacle to further advancement.  Rather than responding to difficulty with grace, dignity, and originality, they close down psychologically, fail to perceive opportunities when they arise, and simply try to protect themselves from the vicissitudes of life.  Rather than moving like a ball on flowing water, they allow themselves to become trapped behind the dam of dead memories:  holding back from the living moment of attention, they cannot find their way back to the path of good fortune.

Because suffering is relative, we can respond to it by putting it in perspective, keeping our tendency to exaggerate it in check.  Keeping in mind that the suffering of others is far worse than our own allows us to let go of any specialness we might otherwise attribute to our personal traumas.  And by not fixating on any one heartbeat of the past, we free our attention to keep pace with the never-pausing pulse of life.

Exercise One—Visualize yourself as a ball carried along on a swiftly-moving stream.  As you sense yourself flowing along on the surface of the rushing water, repeat to yourself the catch-phrase, Keep Moving.  As any particular thoughts, emotions, or memories arise, visualize each as a rock or branch sticking out of the water that you bump into and then flow around.  With some practice, visualize yourself flowing around them before even reaching them.  With more practice, hold on to this sensation and carry it around with you in your everyday activities, keeping your attention moving with the present moment.  Whenever something threatens to capture your attention and hold it back, return to the sense of it being an obstacle in the stream that you are flowing around as you repeat the catch-phrase, Keep Moving.

Exercise Two—Feel your pulse.  Sense this unbroken string of heartbeats as the stream upon which you are riding.  Lean forward psychologically into the next heartbeat, not allowing your attention to linger on the one just passing.  Bring your attention to the living moment and it will eventually stop returning to revisit the dead memories of individual heartbeats long passed.  As you cut the anchor holding you in place against the current of your own ever-flowing awareness, repeat to yourself the catch-phrase, Next…….Next……Next……

Please keep in mind that freeing the attention from fixation is not the goal of this training—it is just the second step on the path of inner transformation.  Enter into this training regimen with patience, keeping in mind how diligently musicians and athletes train in order to achieve peak performance.  And study your attention closely, keeping in mind that its dwelling on things already past is, on a moment-to-moment basis, the principal obstacle keeping you from fully experiencing the spontaneous, adaptable, and confident sense of self that you came into the world with.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Because hardship is relative, everyone suffers.

This is why it is said that the poor suffer from poverty and the rich suffer from wealth.  Circumstances may differ but difficulties are encountered everywhere.

And the line between good fortune and misfortune is sometimes blurred past all distinction.  Suppose, for example, that many hundreds of people die in a terrible airline accident, which the media proclaims to be the worst disaster in aviation history:  everyone whose life this touches suffers most grievously.  Suppose further that the next day a similar number of people are aboard another airliner that narrowly avoids an identical destruction, which the media proclaims a miracle because only one life among the many hundreds was lost:  everyone whose life this touches celebrates most joyously—except the loved ones of that one victim, for whom it is the worst disaster in aviation history.

Can the suffering of one ever be compared to the suffering of another?

Yet people everywhere do just that, holding on to their suffering like a badge of honor, taking perverse pride in their conviction that they have suffered more than others—and that the wrongs done to them have actually defined them.  By believing they have a legitimate right to feel unjustly wronged, people create a wounded self around which the rest of their life comes to revolve.  To give up their pain, in other words, would mean giving up who they have become.

Why are we so predisposed to identify ourselves with what has wounded us?

Because our wounds are supposed to make us stronger, nobler, and wiser.

Because healing is supposed to replace the wound.

Because the wound is supposed to return to wholeness.

Not, as many believe, because human nature is defined by crisis.

But because human nature is defined by how it overcomes crisis.

Let us return to the inner path by reminding ourselves that a hurricane will uproot the stoutest and most rigid tree—but be powerless to do anything more than bend the tender and green sapling to the ground.  The storm passes and the great rigid self is broken—but the flexible self resiliently returns to its former condition.  Though it runs counter to the notions of others around you, giving up your pain—past as well as present—frees you up to create the person you have always believed yourself to be.

This is the I Ching trigram for Water.  It symbolizes pitfalls, difficulties, and hardships.  It speaks of the need to bring into ourselves the nature of water that flows between the steep cliffs of a deep gorge.  By sensing the ever-moving Water within, we train ourselves to achieve inner Resiliency.

Water moves.  And keeps moving.  It flows around and between and among.  It does not linger, does not dwell, does not stay.  It lets go and moves along as soon as it arrives.  It does not hold onto nor fixate upon whatever it comes into contact with.  Water trains us to respond to everything we experience by adapting fluidly, flowing around, and moving past.

What is it within us that can choose to hold onto, or let go of, experience?

Our attention.

Attention must move.  And keep moving.  It must not dwell on things nor brood on things, since this makes it fixed and rigid, growing increasingly less adaptable and creative with every passing year.  Just as rivers flow around mountains on their way to the sea, attention must flow around hardships on its way to self-realization.  Attention must begin leaving each moment no sooner than it arrives.

What we pay attention to is of two types—things that capture our attention and things we decide to follow with our attention.  Involuntary attention is when we are dragged along by things, while voluntary attention is when we chase after things of our own accord.  Although there are many exceptions, involuntary attention is most often captured by concrete objects, whereas voluntary attention most often follows after mental objects.

In neither of these cases is attention behaving like water, which always follows the line of least resistance.  When it is captured and held back, it becomes stagnant and unwholesome.  When it follows something other than its own course, it reaches a dead-end and is wasted.  But when attention follows the line of least resistance, neither external nor internal events can dam it up and prevent its forward momentum.  By not getting caught on circumstances, or others’ actions, or the news, or ideas, or emotions, or memories, or goals, or anything at all, attention does not stay behind as the self continues to move through time.  On the contrary, when attention flows around everything external and internal, accompanying the self on its pilgrimage of self-discovery, their union keeps us from forming a rigid, inflexible personality—and allows us to grasp the dynamics of what we experience as if they were the movements of our own arms and legs.

Once we make the nature of attention the same as the nature of Water, we discover the First Paradox Of Wisdom:  when attention moves freely, we stand perfectly still.  By not allowing our attention to stop and linger on anything, in other words, we remain firmly fixed within the unmoving Still Point of Calm.  This is not an abstract idea.  Rather, it describes the concrete experience of moving along with Change.

Change is continuous, the only constant—but if we do not notice something has changed, it is our experience that no change has occurred.  This is precisely what happens when our attention gets fixated on something—change continues but we no longer notice, since our attention is dwelling on something already past.  The self continues to move through the present along with the current of Change, but it moves like a sleepwalker, its attention caught on something no longer present.

But in the same way that change does not seem to happen unless we notice it, the past seems to still be present unless we disentangle our attention from it.  It is for this reason that many people feel they carry the past around inside them, that they are stuck in the past and cannot free themselves from some traumatic event, that the past is still alive and haunting them.  Even though no one wishes to be anything but compassionate with anyone suffering this way, we have to stand back and ask ourselves just what such compassion should look like—should we encourage them to hold on to their pain indefinitely?  should we encourage them to dwell on past experiences indefinitely?  or should we encourage them to stay present with the current of Change by keeping their attention on what is changing and moving past what has changed?

All this is particularly relevant to our study of the I Ching, since the name I Ching itself means Book Of Change.  And its trigram for Water teaches us to respond to hardship by continually viewing it in the present, treating it as a challenge to be met and overcome, rather than continually viewing it in the past as something that has overcome us.  By continually paying attention to what is changing moment-to-moment, in other words, we remain rooted in the Center of Calm.  By allowing my attention to move freely like Water around all obstacles, filling up every empty place and then moving on, I pass through life without suffering the illusion that everything that occurs around me is happening to me.

~

Next week, Part Two of Finding Resilience.

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The first aspect of inner training is to stop our self-talk.

By this I mean we must stop talking to ourselves silently.  It is especially important to look at this habit critically, seeing clearly that calling it thinking does not change the fact that it is just self-talk.  In this sense, we can say that perception is different than abstraction:  where perception is simply what the senses register, abstraction is the internal commentary we make on everything the senses experience.  And it is to this level of abstraction that we begin to pay more attention than we do to our actual sensory experience of life.  Thinking about our life, in other words, begins to be more important than living our life.

So recognizing that the torrent of thoughts, emotions, and memories that makes up this me is not really me makes it possible to correctly identify them as habits obeying the dictates of the genetic code.  In particular, our dna has established instincts we all share—the instinct for self-preservation and the instinct to reproduce:  most of the self-talk we engage in results directly from these two instincts.  The instinct for physical survival uses fear to keep us alive—not fear of something specific, but fear of anything that might be potentially threatening.  Since this covers most of the things in the universe, there is almost no limit to the things we might fear.  Anything entering our awareness, indeed, can provoke some level of anxiety.  And for those who have been injured badly or often enough, it seems there is no practical limit to how hyper-vigilant they believe they need to be.  Similarly, the instinct for physical reproduction uses sexual urges to keep us focused on looking for opportunities, real or imagined, to engage in sexual activity.

Because the dictates of our dna operate from within the cells of our body, the instincts are part and parcel of our nervous system.  Which is to say that fear and sexual urges are part of the brain.  And when the extent of fear is really plumbed, we can see how worry, loss, guilt, shame, remorse, humiliation, anxiety, nervousness, foreboding, indecisiveness, tension, distress, uneasiness, trauma, and so forth, are all facets of fear.  Then we can see how nearly all of our thoughts, emotions, and memories are habits of the brain—habits that are repeating as automatic functions of the brain, triggered by the instincts for survival and reproduction.

Inner training recognizes how pervasive this self-talk is and how it colors our experience of life.  Rather than ignoring the problem, it addresses it directly, determined to bring it under control so that the listening mind can be cultivated and real peak performance can be achieved.

The first step is based on the fact that we can have only one conscious thought at a time.  With this in mind, we train to eradicate self-talk by taking control of our inner speech—rather than letting the brain endlessly run through its list of habit-thoughts, habit-emotions, and habit-memories, we take up an exercise that cuts off the self-talk whenever it starts.

Exercise One—Whenever self-talk arises, begin silently repeating the word Enough! in an authoritative manner, as if you were cutting off a trivial and insulting conversation before it could even get started.  At first, it will be necessary to practice this exercise nearly all the time, but as it replaces the old habit of self-talk this new habit of inner dignity and self-possession will become the rule.

The second step is based on the fact that self-talk is stimulated by what the senses register, transforming direct perceptions into our own personal associations—abstractions that either identify, evaluate, and analyze our perceptions, or else remind us of some past abstraction.

Exercise Two—Attend to the five senses for extended periods of time, moving your attention from one to another, from seeing to hearing, to smelling and so forth, absorbing yourself in the sense’s experience of the moment and cutting off any thinking about the moment or any feeling or memory that takes you away from the moment.  Feel the air or humidity or clothes on your skin.  Eat or drink something and simply taste it without any internal commentary.  Move from one sense to another, focus on two or more senses simultaneously, trying to move deeper into your experience of life.  If your self-talk is too disruptive, return to Exercise One until you have quieted it and then come back to continue this Exercise.

Please keep in mind that quieting self-talk is not the goal of this training—it is just the first step on the path of inner transformation.  Enter into this training regimen with patience, keeping in mind how diligently musicians and athletes train in order to achieve peak performance.  And study your self-talk closely, keeping in mind that it is, on a moment-to-moment basis, the principal weakness holding you back from reaching your full potential.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

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Although there are many starting points for the path of inner transformation, most people nowadays find that their lives are hurried and filled with too much stimulation.  Because of this constant over-stimulation, most of us become over-sensitive and prone to letting things build up and then over-reacting to something relatively insignificant.  The media doesn’t help much, pulling on us like the force of gravity into feelings of insecurity and worry over the ever-escalating crises on the national and world stage.

Closer to home, we seem dogged forever by the repercussions of past mistakes even as we worry about the mistakes our loved ones might be making right now.  Like others we know, we find ourselves confused about the direction our important relationships have taken and worried that being so over-whelmed is making it difficult to let ourselves really be touched by others.  We can sense that we feel close to the breaking point too often, yet we never seem to have the time or energy for the spiritual pursuits we know would help us cope with all the stresses of everyday life.  Instead of finding the bottom of our dissatisfaction, we try to muddle through, alternating between impatience and procrastination, between being explosive and being apathetic, between over-reacting and ignoring.  All in all, most of us take up the path of inner transformation feeling much too serious and not nearly light-hearted enough.

The progress that modern technology brings to human life is the result of a collective and sustained effort to keep our attention focused on the workings of the external world.  This goes a long way to making possible our sense of material well-being, but it also contributes to our unfamiliarity with the workings of the inner world.  For example, few people are aware that most of what they experience internally are simply the habits of thought, emotion, and memory that they have accrued over the course of their lives.  What most of us think of as me, in other words, is the sequence in which certain long-ingrained ideas and feelings and memories are triggered and relived, over and over.

Even the present is experienced through the filter of these habits that we mistake for our real identity—rather than functioning as creative beings, we tend to wander around, reacting in ever more predictable ways to the things we bump into in life.  And no matter how often our reactions prove self-defeating, still we persist in responding to whatever we encounter in the same automatic ways.  All in all, most of us take up the path of inner transformation acting as if we were incapable of changing ourselves.

But if habits can be started, they can be ended.  If they can be kindled, they can be extinguished.  If they can grow obsolete and no longer adaptable, they can be replaced with new and more adaptable ones.  And just as our old habits acquired strength through repetition, the new ones we create gain strength through the repetition of inner training.

So until the body, emotions, and thoughts can be calmed by inner training, they carry us away like a wild horse plunging across an endless field—and just as musicians and athletes train to achieve peak performance, we all need to train our instincts, feelings, and self-talk if we are to reach our full potential.

Let us begin by asking ourselves a straightforward question:  How does a capable and confident person my age act under pressure?

And let us begin by building up an image of ourselves acting thus.

This is the I Ching trigram for Mountain.  It represents Stillness and Stability.  Like the eye of a hurricane, it is the Still Point around which all change turns.  By sensing the immovable Mountain within, we train ourselves to achieve inner Calm.

If you need to alter your outer circumstances before starting your inner training, there are several time-proven guidelines you may find helpful.

• Slow your life down.
• Establish a list of priorities that reflects your true values.
• Disentangle yourself from the lower priorities.
• Spend more time enjoying the higher priorities.
• Stop talking about your problems until you are sure you know what they really are.
• Listen more to those who are important to you.

~

Next week, Part Two of Finding Calm.

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

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At the end of the last Age, the gods gathered at Teotihuacan to create this Age that we live in now.  It became clear that a great sacrifice would be needed to start the world over, and so they agreed that they would all, without exception, leap in to a giant bonfire so that their deaths could begin this, the Fifth Sun.  And although they all agreed, the god of twins, Xolotl, did not wish to sacrifice himself and so he fled and hid, transforming himself into a two-stalked maguey plant.  But the other gods knew the sacrifice would not work unless they all leaped into the fire, so they chased Xolotl and recognized him as the maguey.  Before they could catch him, though, Xolotl ran away again and hid, transforming himself into a two-stalked corn plant.  Again, the gods chased him and recognized him.  This third time, Xolotl ran and jumped into the water, transforming himself into the axolotl.  Now the other gods caught up with him and took him back to the bonfire, completing the self-sacrifice that made this world possible.

The axolotl is the larval form of the tiger salamander, native to two lakes in the Central Mexican Plateau.  It is famous as one of the highest lifeforms to exhibit the biological trait called neoteny, which refers to the ability of certain species to retain all their juvenile characteristics and reach sexual maturity despite never metamorphosing.  In the case of the axolotl, this means that it never drops it gills to leave the water and live on land like the adult salamander—instead, it lives its whole life in its immature phase, yet displaying the adult characteristic of sexual reproduction.

The word axolotl is a Nahuatl word constructed of two morphemes:  a-xolotl, from atl (water) and xolotl (the god of twins).

From all this we can say that the axolotl is a symbol of great creative power and independent action—a symbol of a being that integrates the positive characteristics of childhood and adulthood by not taking on the negative characteristics of adulthood.  It can produce the next generation without having to transform into the previous generation.  It is the symbol of the Ancient Child.

Its symbolic meaning correlates well with Hexagram 49, Staying Open, of The Toltec I Ching—

Image:  An infant beholds the many diverse items in its surroundings, each of which is calling to the child.  The speech glyphs representing each article’s voice are of different colors in order to show that the child’s natural curiosity leads it to be fascinated by a wide array of interests.

Interpretation:  This hexagram depicts the openness of heart and mind and spirit of those who are adapting to the future.  The infant symbolizes the living potential dwelling within every individual.  The diverse objects around the child represent all the possible paths, both external and internal, lying before every individual at every turn.  That the infant’s attention is drawn to each of the interests means that you look at everything as an opportunity to develop yourself further.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you are not adapted to one particular environment but, rather, to any environment.

The Way of Axolotl is the path of the generalist.  It is the path of retaining the child’s sense of wonder and curiosity throughout a lifetime.  It is the tao of the breaking wave, the path of those who keep moving forward with change rather than settling into one particular vocation, lifestyle, or identity.  It is, in this sense, the path of paths:  it does not strive to reach some arbitrary goal but, rather, seeks to explore all the interesting paths it can find.  To the extent that it encourages specialization in us, it is always in the sense of the wayfarer who stops for a while to become intimately familiar with a particularly intriguing area before moving on to the next.

Intent:  The ideal society is just like the ideal family, existing to afford every member the opportunity to develop their full potential:  in times of darkness, on the other hand, authoritarianism restricts the creation of new opportunities and channels people into meaningless activities that benefit only those in authority.  Likewise, societies change just like families, transforming their goals and relationships with the passing of each generation:  whereas those who thrive in times of darkness cannot conceive a time of light, those who thrive in times of light can all too readily envision a return to darkness.  Whether it is the individual, family, society, or humanity as a whole, the cycles of the pendulum’s swings between the closing down and opening up of meaningful opportunities establishes the fundamental circumstances against which all actions take place and all decisions are made.  The best way to contribute to the lives of others is to nurture and encourage their efforts to further develop their own potential.  In this way, you materially assist others and help transform the fundamental circumstances within which all live.

Fortune favors those who are adapted ahead of time.  The Way of Axolotl goes against the current of culture and family, which generally seeks to channel people into pigeonholes where their lives become highly routinized, seeking instead to keep open the individual’s possibilities to realize his or her potential.  Rather than seeking to merely cobble people together in a haphazard way to make society limp along without real meaning, the Way of Axolotl seeks to create a meaningful society by affording individuals the opportunity to create meaningful lives for themselves.  The fact that cultures differ so wildly from one continent to another means that no culture is inevitable or unchangeable.

Summary:  Cultivate as wide a range of interests and relationships as possible.  Avoid the tendency to focus on one specific thing or person at this time.  Cultivate breadth, not depth.  It is a time of exploration, so follow your curiosity.  Do not jump at the first opportunity or commit yourself to a single course of action now.  Keep all your options open while you prepare for future opportunities.

The Tao of Axolotl is based on the symbol of the Ancient Child.  The fact that the axolotl retains its gills and does not leave the water like the adult salamander symbolizes the experience of those who retain the open-hearted and open-minded spirit of childhood, refusing to metamorphose into the unnatural state of critical, cynical, and domesticated adults.  The fact that the axolotl reaches sexual maturity and can produce offspring symbolizes the experience of those who are creatively productive, fashioning new norms and new opportunities for others simply by pursuing their own sense of wonder.

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

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The word psyche means both soul and butterfly.

The concept of a world soul arose among ancient philosophers and endures in the heart-mind of many modern people. It was expounded by Plato for one, and can be found in many other belief systems throughout history, up to the present where it appears as the Gaia principle.

In this sense, the physical world is perceived to have a soul or spirit no less than we human beings have.  In the same way, moreover, that “the world” is actually all the things within it, including human beings, “the world soul” is actually all the individual souls within it, including human beings.  But where does this concept come from—and what does it have to do with a world butterfly?

As to the first point:  The world soul does not originate as a thought but, rather, as a sensation.  It is the inevitable result of nature mysticism, of lives so thoroughly immersed in the natural world that they can sense the one soul of which they are a part and experience their unity with it consciously.  This unifying experience of the underlying reality is what gives rise to the spiritual perceptions and practices known as animism and shamanism.

In The Toltec I Ching, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and I make the point that people differ only in the degree of their sensitivity to the one soul.  Here is an excerpt from Hexagram 2, Sensing Creation—

Image:  A female warrior is naked, immersed in water and surrounded by flowers.  A wellspring of water rises from between her hands.  The water drops are drawn as beads of jade in order to portray the precious nature of that which sustains life.

Interpretation:  This hexagram represents the great courage essential to creating a meaningful life.  The female warrior symbolizes the way of nurturing and encouraging human nature that increases its sensitivity and loving-kindness.  Being naked means that nothing stands between you and the world.  Being immersed in water means that you plunge whole-heartedly into the spirit of that which nurtures all.  Being surrounded by flowers means that you perceive the perfection of the world as it truly is:  each moment blossoms perfect and whole, then passes like a fading flower—each perfection born into the world must die.  The wellspring of water symbolizes the inexhaustible source of courage that allows you to use your awareness of mortality to more profoundly experience the joy and sorrow inherent within every encounter.  In this sense, the flowers and the water signify not only the wisdom attained through experience, but the aesthetic sensibilities to be moved by a beauty and truth not always apparent to others.  Taken together, these symbols mean that you open your spirit to the overwhelming perfection of the world and share your vision with all you touch.

Keeping in mind that every individual is a spirit warrior with a feminine and masculine half, the formula for increasing our sensitivity to the unseen world soul can be phrased like this:  The feminine half of the spirit warrior collects the movement and energy of the unseen forces, calming them and bringing them together in harmony, making a place for them to gather strength and then making that source of benefit open and available to all.

This calming of the spirit in order to make a place, much like a womb, for the world soul to gestate in stillness and then be born in acts of benefit is an age-old formula by which men and women across cultures have attained states of profound bliss and meaningful success.

As to the second point:  The world psyche, like the individual human psyche, grows and evolves without limit.  Its only constant is one of change, always seeking further refinement and a higher order of universal benevolence.  Its only unchanging law is that of unending metamorphosis—what better symbol of our collective spiritual metamorphosis than the world butterfly?

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

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I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

Inspired action flows spontaneously from an inspired mind.

When we replace trivial and undignified thoughts with substantial and ennobling ones, we are focused ahead of time on perceiving and interpreting events in the best possible light.  In this way, we take the energy we previously devoted to the pursuit of self-interest and channel it into acts that benefit all.

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

An inspired mind flows spontaneously from an inspired heart.

When we replace selfish and self-important feelings with generous and all-embracing ones, we are positioning ourselves ahead of time to respond to events with loving-kindness and goodwill toward all.  In this way, we take the energy we previously devoted to self-defeating attitudes and channel it into creative acts that benefit all.

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

An inspired heart flows spontaneously from being attuned to this single wish of the Living Whole:  that all benefit as one.

But how are we to give up our separate sense of self-importance and open our heart to this living wish when so many around us are acting out of greed, superstition and fear?  How are we to refine our thoughts and emotions when we are bombarded from every quarter with ever more sophisticated attempts to capture our attention?

It is one of the oldest lessons:  If your intention is clear of ulterior motives, then even distractions and confusion are The Way.

Self-defeating thoughts and emotions, from this point of view, are viewed as the enemy-within, the constellation of habit attitudes and habit behaviors that constantly throw up stumbling blocks to the spirit warrior’s progress.  Indeed, the spirit warrior is best defined as a woman or man who clarifies their intention by consciously training to (1) recognize Spirit within all matter and, (2) defeat the self-defeating habits of the enemy-within.

Freeing our intention of ulterior motives by focusing on these two goals, we find that confronting the distractions and confusion thrown up by the enemy-within becomes more like practicing with a sparring partner than an out-and-out battle.  More and more, the enemy-within is experienced as an artificial sense of self that was formed by the conditioning it received from family and culture.  As we get to know it better, it seems most like a recurring dream opponent trying to awaken us to our true potential.

For example, even if we were born to the same parents on the same day, it is obvious that were we then raised in a completely different culture, say the Mbuti of central Africa or the Inuit of the Arctic tundra, we would have a completely different personality, a completely different sense of self in relationship to the world-at-large.  Once the hollowness of this illusory, conditioned, self is fully experienced—like recognizing that the distorted image in a funhouse mirror is not our true reflection—we stop reacting automatically to events around us.  Our actions become more creative, more spontaneous, and meet with greater success.

In this sense, inspired action, an inspired mind, an inspired heart, and attunement to the wish of the Living Whole all spring from living each moment with an intention free of ulterior motives.

I am part of a Living Whole that wants the best for me and all others at the same time.

Spirit, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

When we clear our intention of ulterior motives, we are no longer beleaguered by our inner talk—Spirit rushes in to fill the clearing we have made for it.  Our heart-mind becomes its nest.

And of what is this nest constructed?

Lessons:  the accrued wisdom of the ancients, who first learned to stop their inner talk and then recorded what Spirit whispered to them in that shining silence.

By taking Spirit’s voice to heart, we, like the ancients, replace unworthy and self-destructive thoughts and emotions with ennobling and beneficial ones.

An Oracle is the voice of Spirit, speaking to us across the ages in the language of lessons.

Lessons are wisdom teachings, a body of ethical principles that can be adapted to the ever-changing circumstances of life.  As in sailing, you don’t set your sails to go with the wind in the same way you do to tack against the wind—nor do you drop anchor in the open sea just because it works when you are in port.  Lessons and their ethics guide our responses to change. Lessons make us better adapted to events, more competent, more improvisational, less predictable, and more creative.  Their ethics make us more generous, more compassionate, less competitive, more collaborative, and more successful.

The Toltec I Ching incorporates the lessons and ethics of the Oracles of two of the world’s great civilizations.  From ancient Mesoamerica, comes the Oracle of the Tonalpoalli, or Sacred Calendar, with its lessons inspired by the great civilizing spirit of the Toltec sages.  From ancient China, comes the Oracle of the I Ching, or Book of Change, with its lessons inspired by the great civilizing spirit of the Taoist sages.  We invite you to explore further your own inner path—and to carry the timeless wisdom of the ancients back into these troubled times.

This article appeared originally in Volume 8, Number 4 of Evolve! magazine.

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

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The questions we face today are no different than those faced by our predecessors:  How do I live authentically?  How do I achieve peace of mind without turning my back on those in need?  How do I attune myself to the world around me?

For the ancient Toltecs and the civilizations they inspired, the highest expression of their lifeway was embodied in the mystical philosophy of Flower-and-Song.

Flower-and-Song is a difrasismo, a common form of expression in the Nahuatl language that uses two words to form a metaphor for a third, more expansive, concept.  It is often translated as “poetry” but its meaning is more comprehensive than that, indicating that its practitioners strive to live a “poetic life”.  Examining the difrasismo a little makes this clear.

Flower in this context involves a three-stage engagement with the world.  The first stage involves seeing each moment—and whatever that moment holds—as perfect as a blossoming flower.  The second stage involves seeing each moment—and whatever that moment holds—as already fading and passing into death.  The final stage involves bearing these two visions simultaneously in the heart, engaging the moment and what it holds with the full emotional realization that it is perfect and dying.

Far from an intellectual exercise, this practice demands the greatest courage, for to face these two soul-shattering emotions at the same time requires us to open ourselves to the profoundest joy and grief all at once.  Without flinching from the perfection before us, we are filled with awe at the impossibility of spirit taking form in matter.  Without flinching from the inevitable death of everything we know and love, we cannot help but burst apart with grief and empathy.

This is a lifeway, in other words, of spirit warriors, those who exert constant effort to defeat their self-defeating attitudes and behaviors.  It is the lifeway of those who use death to awaken authentic gratitude for being alive and sharing this shape-shifting perfection with others.  When we experience it fully, Flower evokes a kind of spiritual nostalgia for the present moment that ennobles us and all our lives touch.

Song in this context means that the most authentic act we can perform is to give expression to the dual realization attained in Flower.  This is the reason that the difrasismo is generally translated as “poetry”.  But the deeper implication of this mystical philosophy of life means that Song involves treating every moment as an opportunity to express the truth of Flower.  It involves treating this entire lifetime as a single act of expressing the continuous vision of Flower.  It means using every thought, word and deed to embody the lifeway of Flower-and-Song.

Treating all things as miracles that pass away too soon, our thoughts, speech and actions take on a new caliber and timbre.  We concentrate on what is present instead of what is absent and we discover new depths of patience and tolerance.  Our lives take on greater meaning and our contributions meet with greater success.  We treat everything and everyone more nobly and we are enriched immeasurably.

As a spiritual practice, Flower-and-Song enters each moment asking two questions:  What is in front of me?  How am I treating it?

What is in front of me? opens us to the ultimately unknowable nature of the world.  By questioning the absolute nature of our perceptions, we come to accept the extraordinary mystery everywhere veiled by ordinary appearances.  It is a question that, once taken seriously, forces to us to look closer at the world:  Is this merely what I have become accustomed to seeing through daily contact—or is it the sea of spirit in all its manifest forms?

How am I treating what is in front of me? demands that we watch our inner actions—our thoughts and intentions, our wishes aimed at things outside ourselves—as well as our outer demeanor and reactions.  Am I acting nobly or mean-spiritedly?  Am I ennobling my life or trivializing it?  Am I rising above pettiness or descending into it?  Am I treating others like superiors and inferiors, all in pursuit of my self-interest—or as peers bravely facing their own death as well as they can?  Am I spreading ill will, discord and sorrow wherever I go—or compassion, collaboration and joy?

In our book, The Toltec I Ching, Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and I discuss the deeper implications of such a spiritual practice—

…..the spirit warrior breaks through the barrier separating matter and spirit.  Such a barrier is erected in our minds by the constant training we receive from those who find advantage in promoting the separation of people from nature, from each other, and from their own true self.  If people everywhere perceived matter and spirit to be the same thing, after all, the ignorance, cruelty, and suffering that make up much of human history would end.  If we were all to experience the material form of nature as spirit, we would stop harming it by diminishing it faster than we help it replenish itself.  If we were all to experience the material form of people everywhere as spirit, we would stop harming one another by acting as if our own rights and desires were superior to their own.  If we were all to experience the material form of our own individual bodies as spirit, we would stop harming ourselves by doubting that every thought, feeling, and action plays a pivotal role in eternity.  Breaking through such a mental barrier is a matter of constant training, as well.  If we do not use every thought, feeling, and action to intensify our experience of matter as spirit, we continue to desecrate the temple of nature, the temple of civilization, and the temple of individuality.

Those following the lifeway of Flower-and-Song find that it reveals the wellspring of rejoicing forever bubbling just beneath the surface of appearances.  It engages the world as a vast mystery of unimaginable potentials and aims to participate in its ongoing creation in ways that benefit the most.  It is not so much something we do on our own as much as it is music we hear and feel and long to play, a dance we cannot wait to join.  It arises from our depths to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Holding to such a practice for extended periods of time has certain foreseeable consequences.  By forcing us to focus complete attention on appreciating the perfection of everything as well as mourning its inevitable passing, it trains us to attend fully to the moment, drop off inner talk, participate in life authentically, and honor everything as an equal knowing it must die.

But it has certain unforeseeable consequences, as well.  By blurring the imaginary boundary between self and world, it opens new senses and allows us to perceive the spirit within all matter.  By blurring the imaginary line between flawed and flawless, it opens our hearts to the sacredness of all form.  By blurring the imaginary boundary between animate and inanimate, it opens our eyes to the formless awareness forever transcending the very form it inhabits.  By blurring the imaginary line between time and space, it opens our minds to the unchanging presence through which all changing forms move.

The Lifeway of Flower-and-Song, then, is a spiritual practice of Inner Activism—it sensitizes us to our tendencies toward self-interest and alienation, replacing self-defeating habits with those of spontaneity, creativity, and good will.  It shifts our focus away from personal success toward a heartfelt longing for peace and prospering for all.

And it constantly reminds us that the Golden Age of Humanity is within our reach if we but dare hold out our hand.

.

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just been released by Larson Publications.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Bookmark It

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