Sunday Sermon [Acceptance]

¡Hola! Everybody...
It's another beach day today! During the 60s there was a famous poster depicting a swami, complete with flowing beard and robes, on a surfboard with the caption, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf.” LOL! Here’s something to consider, especially relevant when life’s “waves” get too rough…

* * *

-=[ Living Life on Life’s Terms ]=-

This too shall pass...

The last thing we want to hear when we’re in pain is some truism. We’re in pain and clichés really have no place at the moment of impact. I mean, would you tell a victim of a car accident, “This too shall pass?” Well, I know some people who probably would! LOL

Nevertheless, clichés become clichés because they contain truths. Some of the most important teachings that help us with life’s hardships are simple to understand intellectually, but harder to integrate psycho-spiritually. It is only when we are finally free from a hurtful experience that we can claim to understand a truth. The following is based on a true story...

Being in prison is depressing, to say the least, and as the prisoner looked at his surroundings -- the stone walls, the cold cell, the bars -- he couldn’t help but feel the weight on life on his shoulders. As the days passed, and the reality of his sentence settled in, his heart sank lower. Then one day, he attended a mandatory meeting and he heard one of the speakers say, “This too shall pass.”

At first those words elicited resentment, but as the days passed, those words seemed to pull him through. He printed those words on a blank sheet of legal pad paper, and he taped it above his bed and in that way, those were the last words he would see at the end of the day and the first words upon awakening. Eventually, he would pay an artist friend two packs of cigarettes so that now he had the words artistically engraved with fancy calligraphy on heavy stock paper. No matter how hard it got, he would look at those words and remember, “This too shall pass.”

On the day he was released, except for a few books, he gave away most of his belongings. As he was leaving, a friend asked about the sign, and the prisoner left it, perhaps hoping those words would comfort the next resident of that cell.

As he went about picking up the piece of his life after release, he would continue giving away that message, speaking on it at meetings and sharing it with those close to him -- those who were suffering. And even when times were bad, he never got depressed because he remembered the truth of, “This too shall pass,” and he struggled, one day at a time, sometimes one breath at a time. There were good times too, and he made sure to enjoy them, but never carelessly or mindlessly. In times of joy, he remembered again, “this too shall pass,” and so he continued living his life on life’s terms, not taking anything for granted. At first, living in this way, it seemed as if the good times lasted much too long.

Years passed, and the rewards of his actions accumulated, the former prisoner would become a lover, a father, a dutiful son, a husband. But along with the victories came pain and he would experience the loss of loved ones, relationships lost, the trials, and tribulations of life. He buried loved ones, grieved the losses of love, and experienced the slings of betrayal. Even then, “This too shall pass” still gave him hope and served to keep him focused and directed.

And that was his message to his friends and family -- to any who would listen. Finally, he understood that depression and sadness is a form of prison that “this too shall pass” helps us pass through. It is also one of the secrets to avoid depression, which is too often taking the happy times for granted.

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

Surrender

¡Hola! Everybody…
Busy, busy, busy…

* * *

-=[ Stopping the War ]=-

“The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

-- Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968), American actress

I sometimes am concerned that people will confuse my story for the message. When conducting a workshop or speaking in front of an audience, I always worry that some people may get stuck on my particular story and miss out on what I feel are underlying universal points.

Equally challenging for me is the possibility of people dismissing my message because they are so far removed from my specific issues, or find it hard to identify with my story. However, the deeper I look at society and the larger issues, I know that there are many who not only can identify with my story, but also know intimately the pain of loneliness and the sense of inner poverty.

Perhaps we can begin by opening up to the possibility that those considered best-adjusted in our society are neither dead or alive, just numb, zombies. When you are alive, you are more likely to question the status quo. When you are fully alive, you are constantly questioning the many insane practices of society: the racism, the polluted environment, the nuclear and biological warfare threat, the fragmented people from extreme political positions who run for office (and often win), drinking unsafe water, and eating carcinogenic or genetically modified foods.

If we can open up to this view (I promise you can go back to your default view later), we begin to understand there is a social investment promoting those things that keep us dull, keep us busy with our fixes, and keep us slightly numbed and zombie-like. In this way, our modern consumer society itself becomes an addict. I remember reading this in author Anne Wilson Schaef's When Society Becomes an Addict, and being struck by what should be a very obvious observation.

In the USA, there are at least 30-40 million drug addicts, millions more addicted to cigarettes, gambling, food, sexuality, unhealthy relationships, or the speed and busyness of work. In a way, we are all part of an “addicted society” and our most pervasive addiction is to speed. Modern society pushes us to increase productivity and the pace of our lives.

Having to live life in a society that demands it lived double-time, speed and addictions numb us to our own reality. Our pereception of reality makes it is almost impossible to settle into our bodies or stay connected with our hearts, let alone connect with one another or even our life-giving ecology. I believe there is a huge hunger for community or regaining a lost sense of connectedness. For example, we rush around all day and that leaves us little time to connect, so we log on to our computers and connect here. I’m not saying there is something wrong about this, I’m just making an observation.

If we’re honest, most of us would admit that sometimes we find ourselves increasingly isolated and lonely, cut off from one another and the natural web of life. You get in your car, drive to work, get back in your car, drive back home... you can actually very easily live your life in almost total seclusion in your climate-controlled existence and not even be aware of it.

I would submit that this is the most pervasive sorrow of our modern lives.

Folks, this is where the depression, the war with food and weight, body image, substance abuse, and exploitive sex practices originate and the only cure for it is becoming fully alive.

But how does someone become fully alive?

I think it starts from within and creating the psychological space for reflection and stillness. Stop long enough and listen to the inner dialogue in your head and you will be amazed at how crazy it all sounds. When I first tried it, I thought I was crazy until I realized that the inner dialogue in my head was not me -- it is merely the conditioned within me floating around undisciplined as a stream of consciousness. The thing is that this inner conversation has a tremendous influence on our behavior if we don't put it in its place.

We cannot change ourselves for the better through an act of will alone. This is like wanting the mind to get rid of itself, or pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Remember the studies I quoted on how many people break New Year's resolutions (70-80% quit by the third week)? When we struggle to change ourselves we only reinforce the self-defeating patterns of self-judgment and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive. Such acts of will backfire, and in the end often strengthen the addiction or denial we intend to change.

Genuine movement toward the happiness that is our birthright as human beings requires that we learn to

Stop

The

War

This is the first step, but actually, it must be practiced repeatedly until it becomes our very way of being. The inner stillness of the person who truly “is peace” brings peace to the whole interconnected web of life, both inside and out. To stop the war we must begin with ourselves.

The only effective means of change is one that has as its purpose to empower us to stop the war, not by force of will, but organically -- through understanding and gradual training. If we have an ongoing practice, we can cultivate a new way of relating to life in which we let go of our battles.

When we let go -- when we step out of the battle -- we begin to see how each of us creates conflict. We begin to see our constant likes and dislikes, the fight to resist all that frightens us. We begin to see our own prejudice, greed, and possessiveness create our suffering. All of this is certainly hard to look at, but it is there. Look deeper, underneath these ongoing battles, and we begin to see the deep-rooted feelings of incompleteness and fear. We being to see how much our wars with life have kept our hearts closed.

When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is it -- this is the beginning and end of any true effective means of change or spirituality. Only in the moment can we discover the love that we seek: love in the past is simply a memory, and love in the future is fantasy.

Only in the reality of the present moment can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with the world and ourselves. The NY Lottery has a marketing campaign that goes: “You gotta be in it to win it,” and so it is with life. Stopping the war and becoming present are two sides of the same coin. To come into the present means to experience whatever is here and now. Most of us have lived our lives caught up in plans, expectations, and ambitions for the future, in regrets, guilt, or shame about the past. Most of us have an argument with reality. Waking up is partly committing to stopping the argument – even if only for a short moments everyday.

When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life force around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the courage to face whatever is present -- our pain, our desires, our grief, our loss, our secret hopes, our love -- everything that moves us most deeply. As we stop the war, each of us will find something from which we have been running -- our loneliness, our unworthiness, our boredom, our shame, our unfulfilled desires. We must face these parts of ourselves as well.

We all share a longing to go beyond the prisons of our personal fear or anger or addiction, to connect with something greater than the small ego, what we call “I” (the mini me). We ant to connect to something greater than our small story and our small self. It is possible to stop the war and come into the eternal present -- to touch a great ground of being that contains all things. For me, this is the true purpose and mission of life: to discover peace and connectedness in ourselves and to stop the war in us and around us.

Yours,

Eddie

Life and Fairness

¡Hola! Everybody,
I’m heading out hopefully to move the bulk of my stuff today. My driver flaked out on me at the last minute yesterday because he had to work, so I’m counting on someone I don’t know that well. Wish me luck…

It’s cold again today, but we really can’t complain, it’s been a mild winter here with very little, if any snow. Two-three weeks and I’ll be whistling my way to work, watching the leaves make a comeback, my dick getting hard at yet another promise of spring.

Now watch us get a record snowstorm two weeks from now! LOL

* * *

-=[ Life Ain’t Always Fair ]=-

I’m working with a young woman who just got out of a ten-year prison sentence. Her crime? She beat her husband to within an inch of his life. Actually, she thought he was dead and that’s the only reason she stopped beating on him. Her husband had systematically abused her for about fifteen years, almost from the time she had known him. Throughout those years, she suffered broken bones, bruises, humiliation, and emotional and psychological abuse. Through it all, she managed to get a college degree and several good jobs in the financial sector.

Then one day she couldn’t take it anymore and she snapped. She’s thirty years of age, but she looks like she’s fourteen. She’s very pretty, petite, soft-spoken, articulate. I wonder how all that rage could’ve been contained in such a small form. She’s been having a tough go at it, because she can’t find a job. We call it the “collateral consequences” of incarceration: having to pay for your crime even after having served your sentence. Millions of people will never be able to vote, for example. We call that disenfranchisement.

She was crying the other day in my office, telling me that life isn’t fair. She can’t get a job because she has a criminal record. Sometimes I sit with her and I think to myself that she’s right. As far as I’m concerned, she shouldn’t have gone to jail in the first place.

People, mostly people ignorant of the term, like to use the word karma as if it meant retribution. It doesn’t. The Buddha called the workings of karma one of the “four unconjecturables.” We could drive ourselves crazy speculating on how it will play out, he said (Anguttara Nikaya 4.77). But I won’t get into karma today; I’ll leave that for tomorrow.

The fact remains that life is not always fair. Neither are people, ourselves included. Sometimes we are taken advantage of. Sometimes we do all the right things and still wind up on the short end of the proverbial stick. Sometimes we’re hurt though we may have acted cautiously. Others may be generous to us and yet we take advantage of their kindness. Or we act with good intentions toward others and our efforts go unappreciated or misrepresented.

That life is unfair is a given. It’s a fact of life that challenges us to do the psychological work to grieve for the losses associated with unfairness. It also challenges us to do the spiritual work necessary so as not to become vindictive. Both of these together equal the unconditional acceptance to the unalterable fact that things aren’t always fair: you win some, you lose some.

It’s easy to be “spiritual” and forgiving, wise when things are going right or when you’re dealing with easy-going, caring people. Anyone, even an asshole, can do that. The real challenge is to meet our losses with an open heart, with a commitment to act and think compassionately toward others, especially when they test our patience or willfully hurt us. Some people, lacking self-love mistake what I’m saying. Being open and cultivating compassion when faced with cruelty does not mean we allow ourselves to become victims of abuse. It means we simply allow ourselves to be what we are when we are most loving – vulnerable. Any relationship can have deeply painful moments in it. A mature person knows that closing off and building false walls is dangerous to their sensitivity and that remaining too open is dangerous to their boundaries. A psycho-spiritual maturity allows us to walk the middle path where a willingness to be open is tempered by a healthy maintenance of boundaries. We can seek amends when others treat us unfairly, ask for redress, and if that doesn’t work, we let go and our hearts do not close. Letting go has the effect of opening the heart.

It is also a given that human beings live on the default setting of retaliation. It takes a conscious effort to override this default setting. We have to customize our factory settings. Our ego’s favorite sport is retaliation, but if I accept you as you are without protest or blame, I am then not driven to get back at you as your judge and executioner. My client is one of the more powerful teachers of this given of life’s unfairness. Though she has been abused by individuals and society, her heart remains open. Just recently, I have been able to take her out of a dangerous city shelter, living with other women in a transitional home. And though she has no money, is faced with stigma and can’t get a job, she comes to my office and accompanies me when I go to speaking engagements. She uses her pain and suffering for the benefit of others and her life is infinitely richer because of it. Knowing what she’s gone through, I don’t know if I would have the spiritual dignity to act as she does, with an open heart.

I do know her example takes away all my excuses and that’s the power of the teaching she embodies. What about you? What’s your excuse?

Love,

Eddie

Stopping the War

Hola Everybody, I'm off to a horribly boring, all-day training with a beauracrat. I hate these things with a passion. But since the ma'fucca gives me money, I have to attend and act as if I like it. I'll be away all day. Have a great one, people. I wrote the following four years ago.

* * *

“The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

-- Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968), American actress

I often grapple with one issue in my work: I worry that people will confuse my story for the message. When conducting a workshop or speaking in front of an audience, I always worry that some people may get stuck on my particular story and miss out on the underlying universal points.

Equally troubling for me is the possibility people may dismiss my message because they are so far removed from the issue of addiction, or find it hard to identify with my story. However, when I study society and the larger issues, I know that there are many who not only can identify with my story, but also know intimately the pain of loneliness and the sense of inner poverty.

Those considered best-adjusted in our society are those that are neither dead or alive, just numb, zombies. When you are alive, you are more likely to question the status quo. When you are fully alive, you are constantly questioning the many insane practices of society: the racism, the polluted environment, the nuclear and biological warfare threat, our dunce of a president, drinking unsafe water, and eating carcinogenic or genetically modified foods.

Therefore, there is an investment in our society to promote those things that keep us dull, keep us busy with our fixes, and keep us slightly numbed out and zombie-like. In this way, our modern consumer society itself becomes an addict. I remember reading this in author Anne Wilson Schaef's When Society Becomes an Addict, and being struck by what should be a very obvious observation.

In the USA, there are at least 30-40 million drug addicts, millions more addicted to cigarettes, gambling, food, sexuality, unhealthy relationships, or the speed and busyness of work. In a way, we are all part of an “Addicted Society” and our most pervasive addiction is to speed. Modern society pushes us to increase productivity and the pace of our lives.

Having to live life in a society that demands it lived double-time, speed and addictions numb us to our own reality. In our society, it is almost impossible to settle into our bodies or stay connected with our hearts, let alone connect with one another or the Earth upon which we live. In a way, I believe that is a big reason for the community or network we have tried to create here: we rush around all day and that leaves us little time to connect, so we log on to our computers and connect here. I’m not saying there is something “wrong” about this, I’m just making an observation.

Honestly, sometimes we find ourselves increasingly isolated and lonely, cut off from one another and the natural web of life. You get in your car, drive to work, get back in your car, drive back home... you can actually very easily live your life in almost total seclusion in your climate-controlled existence and not even be aware of it! For me this is the most pervasive sorrow of our modern lives.

Folks, this is where the depression, the war with food and weight -- body image, substance abuse, and exploitive sex practices originate and the only cure for it is becoming fully alive.

But how does someone become fully alive?

I think it starts from within and creating the psychological space for reflection and stillness. Stop long enough and listen to the “inner dialogue” in your head and you will be amazed at how crazy it all sounds. When I first tried it, I thought I was crazy until I realized that the inner dialogue in my head was not “me” -- it is merely the conditioned within me floating around undisciplined as a stream of consciousness. The thing is that this inner conversation has a tremendous influence on our behavior if we don't put it in its place.

We cannot change ourselves for the better through an act of will alone. This is like wanting the mind to get rid of itself or pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Remember the studies I quoted on how many people break New Year's resolutions (70-80% quit by the third week)? When we struggle to change ourselves we only reinforce the self-defeating patterns of self-judgment and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive. Such acts of will backfire, and in the end often strengthen the addiction or denial we intend to change.

Genuine movement toward the happiness that is our birthright as human beings requires that we learn to:

Stop.

The.

War.

This is the first step, but actually, it must be practiced repeatedly until it becomes our very way of being. The inner stillness of the person who truly “is peace” brings peace to the whole interconnected web of life, both inside and out. To stop the war we must begin with ourselves.

The only effective means of change is one that has as its purpose to empower us to stop the war, not by force of will, but organically -- through understanding and gradual training. If we have an ongoing practice, we can cultivate a new way of relating to life in which we let go of our battles.

When we let go -- when we step out of the battle -- we begin to see how each of us creates conflict. We begin to see our constant likes and dislikes, the fight to resist all that frightens us. We begin to see our own prejudice, greed, and possessiveness create our sufferring. All of this is certainly hard to look at, but it is there. Look deeper, underneath these ongoing battles, and we begin to see the deep-rooted feelings of incompleteness and fear. We being to see how much our wars with life have kept our hearts closed.

When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is it -- this is the beginning and end of any true effective means of change or spirituality. Only in the moment can we discover the love that we seek. Love in the past is simply a memory, and love in the future is fantasy.

Only in the reality of the present moment can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with the world and ourselves. The NY Lottery has a marketing campaign that goes: “You gotta be in it to win it,” and so it is with life. Stopping the war and becoming present are two sides of the same coin. To come into the present means to experience whatever is here and now. Most of us have lived our lives caught up in plans, expectations, and ambitions for the future, in regrets, guilt, or shame about the past.

When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life force around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the courage to face whatever is present -- our pain, our desires, our grief, our loss, our secret hopes, our love -- everything that moves us most deeply. As we stop the war, each of us will find something from which we have been running -- our loneliness, our unworthiness, our boredom, our shame, our unfulfilled desires. We must face these parts of ourselves as well.

We all share a longing to go beyond the prisons of our personal fear or anger or addiction, to connect with something greater than “I” (the “mini me”), greater than our small story and our small self. It is possible to stop the war and come into the eternal present -- to touch a great ground of being that contains all things. For me, this is the true purpose and mission of life -- to discover peace and connectedness in ourselves and to stop the war in us and around us.

Love,

Eddie