Touching Ground (Inspired by Chogyam Trungpa)

“Too often, people think that solving the world’s problems is based on conquering the earth, rather than touching the earth, touching ground.”

- Chogyam Trungpa*

Long ago, while walking home from grade school, among the dairy farms of Los Angeles County, I invented a game with myself. While walking on the sidewalk, I started paying attention to the dark lines between the slabs of concrete. Keeping attention, on these lines one after another. Soon, I noticed my attention flying away toward daydreams or solving problems at school or home. Over and over in my mind, I'd return to the dark lines between the concrete slabs. How long could I stay concentrated on those lines? That was my first concentration practice.

Almost 60-plus years later I still play that same game, but using the feeling of my feet on the ground instead. I contemplate, how long can I stay feeling my feet touch ground?

Students, professionals, and business people now spend the majority of their working hours looking at luminous screens, while ignoring the numinous quality of "nowness". Computers and handheld devices are becoming the "place" of work and play. Always connected, we are increasingly at work or play through electronic screens. We do not "touch ground" – instead, we are imagining ground though our screens.

While a graduate student in Philosophy, I wondered where to find wisdom… for I did not find it in academic philosophy. It dawned upon me that Buddha found, lived, and expressed wisdom. Fortunately, a special visitor from Tibet paid a visit.

Chogyam Trungpa showed up to speak in Jacob Needlman's philosophy of religion class. This was the early 1970's. Trungpa was newly arrived in San Francisco - fresh from the publication of his first book, Born in Tibet. Dressed in a blazer, turtle neck shirt, and a can of Coca Cola in hand. Not my image of an Eastern guru! An unforgettable moment.

Years later, I met with four cousins - sons of my father's step brother - at my father's funeral reception. They had all emigrated from the Azores Islands as teenagers. One told me about working the farmlands bare foot. They felt the earth all day long. Apparently, the pre-colonial native people of the San Francisco Bay area, the Ohlone, walked barefoot all day long with feet naturally callused.

The "horse stance" is basic training in Qi Gong. Stand with legs somewhat apart and let the body drop down toward the earth. Eyes looking into the horizon. Hands slightly in font. Feeling feet on the ground. Just standing. The horse stance may look easy, but the inner attention is extremely difficult to stabilize. Over and over one forgets to stay with feet feeling the ground - as attention flies into dreams and thoughts. With much practice, we start standing firm and still on our feet in full presence.

Getting up in the morning is a most honest time. We are not trying to please anyone yet. Just waking up. Stumbling around a bit. A moment of presencing. A great time to practice and get stronger in presence.

The present is an infinitesimal slice of time's vast ocean of past and future. Our ground begins and ends right here and now. This is where we assemble and clean up our life. For as Trungpa suggests, "Nowness, or the magic of the present moment, is what joins the wisdom of the past with the present."

By being grounded on this earth we become more present to one another by expressing love, care, and compassion. The "other" is also part of "the ground". It is "all one". They are "us" and we are "them". But how do we stay touching the ground? Practice, practice, practice. The "hard" part is to let it be easy. Over time there's a growing sense of joy at being grounded. We naturally want that - and that allows the fullness of life to unfold.

A good society, an enlightened society, naturally spends time touching the earth, touching ground. No need go anywhere, except the journey to here and now. Start today: spend an hour each day touching ground. If we all did this, a good society would emerge like daisies in a green field of spring grass. The earth itself would be our healer.

So right now, right here, as I write and as you read - let's feel ourselves touching ground.

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* Taken from from the last paragraph, Chapter Eleven of Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior.

It's Not How Long You Live

Persistence

From early childhood we are taught the virtues of dogged persistence. But sometimes the better wisdom is to "give up". This is giving up when you start to realize that your losses are greater with completing the project at had hand than just walking away.  

You-niverse

Each moment, each moment, each moment.
Each moment is new,
is yours.
This is all-
for you.

There is no room for regret without a past.
There is no room for worry with no future.

       so what's here?
You-niverse.
       what will I do?
Be.
       how do I be?

Perhaps this is the end of seeking.

    where will I go?
Anywhere.
    what will I do?
Anything.

Perhaps this is the end of believing.

    what will I have?
Me.
    what will I be?
Free

Sparklers

It's so easy to get caught up in emotion. It seems to set off so many other feelings and like a firework it explodes all at once. It's natural to be a firework; it's just about knowing when to show your colors.

Lullaby

Some days you wake up and stay awake. Some days you wake up and fall back to sleep. It's easy to fall asleep. What's difficult is waking up; staying awake when you're so tired.

The Wayseer Manifesto

Today, into my world came a gift from a friend*; a YouTube video that speaks to the part of us tuned to Truth, the Way, the Cosmic Order, the Absolute, God, ...

Dare to listen and feel with your heart:

* Marianne Henry

Reality as-it-is

Reality just is as-it-is. Realize unity with reality, and let the distinguishing mind subside. Become still within; even while life continues in the world. Strengthen the platform: the body. Eat good food, exercise, and feed the mind good ideas from within and beyond. This sustains contact with reality. (For much darkness, despair and illusion is simply weakness of the body.)

Desire is prayer

Prayers are desires* unspoken from deep within. Religion is not required. We are praying all the time. Mostly it's ineffective because we're not allowing prayer to be transformed by That which we are praying to. What is That? My definition of prayer is broad enough to include agnostics and atheists. If prayer is desire coming from deep within (even before materializing into words), it will be ineffective if inclined to be "my" desire. True prayer can't just be about me, it's a relationship with That -- That being the truth which is all around and within us. Our prayer (and the desire) will be transformed by deep inner dialogue with the wider reality beyond myself; otherwise we'll be frustrated by "unanswered" prayers. All prayers will be answered if we allow truth to transform our prayers, our desires.

*This is idea found in Mary Baker Eddy's Science & Health, page 1: "Desire is prayer; no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take words..." In the current essay, I am extending it beyond the religious context.

Discipline is power

Many people believe discipline is stiff, difficult and constraining. That's not true. Discipline can bring great freedom. Through discipline's door we become master's of ourselves. We discover a greater power to change self and world. Practice little acts of discipline everyday. I'm now practicing the discipline of writing one paragraph a day & posting it to my philosopher-at-large blog. I get up in the early morning, write a rough draft; look at it later and fix it up. Then I send it to my blog. Each time I do this. It gets easier. It has and does take discipline to keep doing this. In my mind, I want to do this for a year. Life may throw many distracting situations along the way. This effort, maintained over a year will have a positive spillover affect on the rest of life. The specific outcomes matter less than the "incomes" to self-mastery.

Being of Beings

"God" too often feels like
either a taboo or cliche word
in most public circles.
But, for me "God" is God - a word
that points to the Way,
the Mystery, the Source,
the Sense of Presence of All-that-is.
I feel God by turning my
attention to this moment
here-and-now: the wondrous sense
of there being anything at
all! A miracle that there
is a universe with
consciouseness enough to sense
a Universe. That's amazing!
The mere act of sensing
being-present here-and-now is
the essense of what's usually
called worship. To appreciate
existence is to love God; and God
meets our love the more we
enjoy, praise and love the
presence of being-here-now.

Success not related to time

"Success is not directly related to time", said Mark Allan. Otherwise, internet millionaires could not be rich so fast.

Time moves at the speed of thought! In a flash we can leap into another dimension. Success, money, and time are related in that “leap” like way – which is to say that they are not directly related. In one hour you could make $1, $10, $100, $1,000, $10,000 or more. It’s close to magic how money really is. Close to the true nature of thought. In a year, you could go from middle class to rich levels of wealth. And, wealth has many meanings here. Time moves at the speed of thought, money is a little slower, money is a link between thought and matter.

My first born was only a few years old. He overhead me complaining that I was not making enough money. He said, “Dad! I have the solution. Just make more money every hour.” That was many years ago. If we value our time more than money, we may find ourselves with more time but less money. If we value our money more than time, we may find ourselves with more money but less time. What we value is what we put our attention on. The usual logic is “either-or”. So, the way out of the paradox here is to embrace both money and time.

Thought vs. action

"Better to act, than to wander around in dreams"
--from the Ramayana (ancient Hindu epic)

Over twenty years ago, I went down to Silicon Valley to present a consulting project that blended philosophy with business. My partner in this venture was a well-known existential philosopher who had resigned his bookish university job to become a management consultant to large multinational corporations.

We sought to transform short-sighted, profit-focused, C.Y.A. ("Cover Your Ass") corporate creatures into philosopher-executives. They would be modern-day versions of Plato's philosopher-king, embodying both leadership and wisdom.

My partner, much older and wiser than myself, put it to one of these anxious managers: "The difference between thought and action is that to think involves no risk; but every time you act, you risk death!"

He did not mean actual physical death, but the little death our egos suffer. To act is to risk failure; ideas that look so good to the mind don't always work out.

The corporate group was very impressed with our presentation. But in the end they did not buy the program. No one in the department dared to act. All our observations about their state of inaction didn't help. As I walked around the office I was amazed that anything ever got done. They looked like a bunch of bees buzzing around each other's cubicles. The place was filled with pleasant people, but deep down they were all afraid to do a wrong thing. No one wanted to look bad.

Peter Koestenbaum once told me, "Anxiety is what you feel between the thought and the action". Imagine how you feel on the edge of a pool of cold water, just before you jump in. You know you'll feel good after you do it. But the water's cold!

Life is filled with such situations. You have a good idea. You want to tell the boss. You know she might think it's stupid. You sit on the fence between thought and action. More often than not, you do nothing. You let the moment pass.

Companies are filled with people unable to act. There are worlds of fearful people out there. The decline of American productivity, I suspect, has a lot to do with this. A huge problem in government, too, which is why nothing gets done there either.

Some folks confuse talking with action. But talking is just dreaming out loud. I used to lead meetings. We would discuss ending the meeting, yet it would drag on. One day I discovered that all I had to do to end a meeting was to stand up! Talk may be cheap, but it can last forever.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger noted (Being and Time) that death provides us with the best opportunity to contact our utmost being. We immediately know ourselves when we're faced with death. Likewise, we may accomplish remarkable things in our dreams and fantasies. But in the light of day, faced with reality, we see who we really are.

If we live each day as if it is our last, we will not hesitate to act.

Eminem said it like this (Lose Yourself):

Look! If you had one shot, one opportunity,
to seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment -
would you capture it, or just let it slip?