Stare at the sky

The "magic hour." When the world seems to sleep. Too early to be day; too late to be night. If you watch the sky as the sun rises, you notice that the stars begin to transform. Though not visible; never disappearing. Then the first colors of morning begin to appear with the first rays of new light. Beautiful, vivid colors splashed across the canvas of infinite potential; the sky. Like drops of a melting ice cream cone on a summers day. When I think of the sunrise, I can see that unique and untouchable pink or the radiant  orange. Though, even before the sun becomes visible or its rays begin to stream through the shadows like a gentle rain warming the earth, a new day has already begun. The moon will always be there, but sleeps soundly knowing that the sun's power will guide us through a different cycle of day. Yes, even the night is apart of the day. We seem to forget that the day isn't just when the sun wakes us but is also when the moon watches over us as we dream. Then the cycle of day changes again as the sun sets and the moon and stars return. This cycle creates life and helps it grow. I was always afraid of these "magic hours." They seemed to be eerie and bring out the darkness inside. But, if you look inside, deep inside, you'll notice that you are still staring at the sky. That unique color, those gentle stars, the soft light of the moon, the powerful sun; they are all inside. You don't need to see the sun come up or the moon go down to realize that it has already become a new day.

Winter

Poem by Richard Pauloo

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Winter
Wherein lies the texture of the hillside?
What makes great branches break and decay
And sways them through seasons back into the ground?
What sound do leaves make when they die?
They rupture and fall
Like any one of us
We are deciduous
Destined to dance a few cycles of season
Have you stood on the hillside long enough
To hear leaves breathing?
If you are patient enough to listen
You will hear them whisper about their mortality.
When with tremendous sighs
Their veins
Rupture and fall into the hillside
It is nothing to cry about
It is only the winter

Being Late

As meditation instructor, being late to class became a point of instruction. Recorded 2011-11-23.

Your Best Student

A day comes when you notice a student who will do things greater than you. That's a great event in your life. It feels like the beginning and end of your life. The student who exceeds you carries on the great work that was and still is yours. You could retire now - but the teaching-learning must still go on. 

Work as Sacrifice

Do work as sacrifice, not for the sake of one's own ego. Selfless work makes you free and happy. You are out of the way. It happens to be the work you do. Action without attachment to results; action for its own sake. I know this is difficult to imagine. But, try it. Make it your personal psychological, spiritual practice for a while. You'll be living in the joy of the process, in the moment - not living for a result that later must be surpassed as if running on a thread mill. Be free - starting now!

Mind, Heart, and Wisdom

Many people think too much. They live life from their minds - not from their hearts. Heart's path is love. Mind's way is reason. The heart feels, the mind knows. If we unite heart and mind, we develop wisdom. You want to feel but also have the mind's radar that goes beyond feelings to wider views of reality. This leads to a more solid, creative, and complete life.  

Along the Path

As you move along the path the mind becomes more quiet, intuitive, and reality based. Sometimes you're "ahead of yourself". What's this? It's when you are "out there" feeling tempted to "go back" to the old comforting habits. But you know now that: you're living in a new condition being what you always wanted to be. Suddenly you want a cigarette and start to light up. You know that you're going backwards. Do you need that? 

Quiet! Be Still!

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves,
 “Quiet! Be still!” 

Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

Mark 4:39 (NIV)

Our mind can become like a violent storm. At those times, go deep, wake up and straighten up. Go beyond fear and panic by saying to ourselves, "Quiet! Be still". Then diving deep into our own being, where the mind waves are still - like the stillness at the bottom of the ocean despite raging waves on water's  surface. Safe in stillness. 

Eucalyptus Grove

Lose your mind and come to your senses.

Friiz Pearls¹

There's a eucalyptus grove on the UC Berkeley campus. Every semester I take my students there on a march across the campus. It's a march, it's a dialogue. Like the walking philosophers in ancient Athens. Best to visit that Eucalyptus grove in the late afternoon. While we dialogue on truth and justice and the environment, the sun slowly sets down. The day's natural cycle now apparent - light streaming through the trees. How can students "know" the earth if they are always encased in technology's air conditioned classrooms with florescent lights. Just think – to study the environment in a classroom is shear abstraction. Get out of the classroom! Walk outside like the ancients and the aborigines. Feel the earth below, the sky above, and the body breathing and moving. Feel the life all around and within.

1GESTALT THERAPY © Dr. Ian R. Ridgway PhD http://www.myauz.com/ianr/articles/lect12fritz&%20lauraperls07.pdf

A Glimpse

Sometimes
in the middle of the night
or in the daytime
when all is quiet
including the mind
Comes
a glimpse of immortality
between in breath and out breath
between thought and vision
A field of light and love
endless, deep, safe, eternal
Always here
just a breath away

Working With Intense Feelings

How can we handle intense feelings when they take over the mind? Feelings so strong that they have a life of their own. Some of these feelings could be positive, some quite negative. The point is that you have "lost your own mind" and are now occupied, controlled by these feelings. The sense of openness and freedom is lost. What to do? Watch, just watch your feelings while you feel them. They will pass. And, return. And, pass. And, return. We may also have to work out the feelings by talking, writing, and exercise. Walking a fine line between "fanning the flames" and repressing the feelings. Just watch! Keep coming back to center - to the eye of the paradox - where there is peace. The ego steps away along with the feelings. Soon those feelings transform into the deeper insights of wisdom. 

Fear Becoming Love

When the ground gets knocked out

from below us, what do we do?

At some moment, it's apparent

that no solution, no shift is in sight.

So what do you do?

Nothing at all. Just wait.

That's what it's like now.

When the ground gets shaken

deep below -- and you feel a

slow wave of suspended fear

grip you all over; what do you do?

A moment comes. You are lost.

But it's okay. No escape.

Stopping struggle. Surrender. Here

& now. Let it change.

The ground is gone.

It never was there. An old

illusion now exposed by the

free falling through space

feeling. It's fear becoming love.

Lonelier Than Ever

My childhood was spent on a dairy farm in Los Angeles County. Telephones were still luxuries. It was a big deal when we got a four-party line (yes! four households shared the same line). Phone bandwidth was expensive. Only the wealthy had private lines. On Sundays friends and neighbors would drop in on each other unannounced. In those days, existence had a more tangible personal feel to it. Phones became cheap; and the Internet made communication faster and even cheaper. Today we send messages everywhere on Earth at a moment’s notice. But, are we closer now than the neighbors who knocked at each other’s doors on Sunday for a visit? Are we getting more “free time” by flooding each other with more email and cell phone messages? I don’t think so. In fact, I suspect that we are now lonelier and more confused. We think we’re more connected – but spend more time skimming massive quantities of messages and images coming to our computers screens, cell phones, portable audio headsets, televisions, and radios everywhere. Less and less time, do we spend face-to-face with each other.

Gifts of Presence

Juan Mascaro, in his introduction to The Upanishads, wrote: "... our life should perpetually breathe the air of love, since love is the living breath of the soul." Some people positively enhance a room's atmosphere as soon as they walk in. Such people are remembered for the feeling of their presence, not so much what they said. We all create an atmosphere around us. It could be fear, anxiety, joy, love, and more. Our states are shared spontaneously into the world around us; this suggests an ethical dimension to our states of being. Personal growth processes, including meditation, are so important because they provide deep inner feedback on our own states, allowing room for improvement. A most valuable state is simply unqualified presence; the feeling of being-here with full intensity. In simply being present we open ourselves and those around us to being fully alive as-it-is. This the among the greatest of gifts. When you are really here, you help others to arrive here too. Life becomes more abundant. We naturally act with kindness, gratitude and love.

Quiet Lost

Milton's Paradise Lost sings of the Fall from the Garden of Eden. Now, we need a poet of our time to sing of Quiet Lost, the tragedy of lost silence, of a world filled with noisy machines everywhere. Go to a park and every few minutes, a jet will pass above - overwhelming sounds of wind passing through tree leaves and the bird songs. I went to a fancy gourmet food mall. Wonderful food. As I bit into a great tasting morsel, next to me were refrigerators pumping out so much noise that I felt my body and nerves vibrating - along with my digestion going South. I moved to another spot. Just as noisy. It amazes me that that we put up with so much noise! We've trained ourselves not to notice; but, perhaps, it causes dis-ease and disease in our minds and bodies. That is not how we evolved. Rattling machines can be silenced. It's a set of engineering problems that once solved would allow us to again feel and hear ourselves, our planet, our universe.

---

I recommend the interview of Gordon Hempton On The Search For Silence In A Noisy World in the September 2010 issue of The Sun Magazine.

Too Much Communication and Not Much Understanding

There's too much communication & not much understanding. It's easy to pour words and sound bites out into the electronic atmosphere. But who's listening? You? Me? How much can I listen, read, or watch in one day? It becomes easy to neglect one's own mind and deeper truths. To understand is to "stand under" - to get below the surface. This takes time. Time to stand in silence. Time to listen, and allow what-is to disclose itself.

World is Changing

The world is changing. It always changes. So many of my peers in age fear the future. It will not be the same. I was reading this morning about the tragedy of the north American Indians as their cultures become invaded by European cultures. Suffering and death by disease and violence that reflect some our worst images of the future. Indeed, the worst has already happened. Now "we" are here. Hold on for the ride. Nothing new. But, let's do better. No excuses.

New Times

I feel change in the air. It's time to be more informal and spontaneous. To be more ourselves in our personal and public lives. Looking good is not as good as being good. 


Many people feel the world is "on the edge" with uncertainty. I don't know. What we are going through is not new. We're on a small planet now. Lots to learn and change.


Perhaps, these are "New Times". The past ten years many folks felt that this new year - 2012 - will be the moment of a huge paradigm shift. Some thinking it will be an "end of the world scenario". I don't know. Better not to make any year or moment that special. To paraphrase an old rock song: something is happening here, what it is we don't exactly know.  

International Area Studies Meditation Talk

International Area Studies Meditation & Talk (December 9, 2011) by americ

Talk and meditation presented for International Area Studies students at UC Berkeley on December 9, 2011 - a week before semester final exams - the most stressful moment of the semester. Two short five minute meditation sessions were conducted. I aimed to inspire students with an easy method of daily meditation practice: five five-minute sessions spread throughout the day. I call it the Five by five meditation method or just 5x5. Enjoy. 

Two five minute meditations were recorded - which are each abridged to one minute. You may wish to pause and
restart recording at those points, in the spirit of the talk.

Meditation Poetry Slam - Fall 2011

Students of Fall 2011, PACS 94 (Meditation Theory & Practice) at UC Berkeley: presenting their own poems inspired by meditation practice.

Meditation Poetry Slam - November 16, 2011 by americ