An important life lesson.

The question of where to start is ever more challenging today. We live in a world where climate change is out of control, where we face tremendous ideological divides, and our society is plagued by anxiety, despair and addiction. None of the problems that we face are easy. None of them have a clear starting point.

There is an important lesson that we are trying to learn in life. It is a hard fought lesson and one that we should teach our children as they move out into the world:

The world is more free when we are free in it. 

As we transform ourselves, we transform the world. As we learn to resolve our own limiting fear, uncertainty and doubt, we learn to participate and contribute to the well being of the community around us. As we learn to work with our own tight knots of attachment, aversion and ignorance, we also learn how to be more present, understanding and kind in the world. 

The individual and collective are inseparable. We are the culture. Know that each of us has this capacity to wake up to a deeper sense of self and that doing so benefits not only ourselves, but the whole world. Knowing this shifts our posture. It changes who we are and how we move through the world. It shapes our values and our choices. 

In times like these when all seems lost, perhaps the greatest gift we can share with the world is to be more true to who we are and our unique way of seeing the world. There is so much to be done to solve the problems of our times. The solution that we need isn't going to come from rushing headlong into the wasteland and hoping for the best. The solution starts by being committed to the inner work of freeing our own heart and mind. 

Freeing ourselves from our own inner constraints, we are more freely available to share the naturally present abundance that is the ground of our being.

Liberation.

གྲོལ་བ་
Tibetan: drolwa
English: liberation, release, let go, freedom, untied

Most days we have a pretty visceral experience that we are not liberated.  We are often tied up in knots, awkward, caught up in highs and lows.  We don't really know how to relate to ourselves, others and the world around us.  We are caught up in a subject-object, self-other duality in which everything has its own compartment and attachment and aversion are our constant companions.

We don't need to look to far into our life to realize that we are not liberated.  What is the biggest source of problems in your day?  Work, your relationships, money, internal politics, chronic disease or illness?

Liberation is an experience of release or freedom.  When we talk about liberation it is the mind that is liberated.  What is the mind liberated from?  Negative emotions, concepts, habitual tendencies, karma and ignorance. 

We all have an experience of mundane liberation.  You quit your job and walk out the door, everything is suddenly lifted off your shoulders.  You finish a hard day at work and step out into the wide open sky.  You pay off the last of your debts, nothing more to worry about.  You orgasm, an ecstatic release of blissful sexual energy.  Your illness subsides.  Your doctor tells you the scan is clear.  You are healed.

It is funny, at least to someone aspiring to awakening, because you can see directly that which binds you by identifying these moments of struggle and mundane release, these moments of struggle where we really wish we were liberated.   

Those areas should be the focus of your practice.

Can you include them?  Is it even possible?

Our human dilemma.

Take a walk in a forest or park.  What do you see?

Trees and flowers of various sizes, shapes and colors.
Beautiful ones and strange ones and ugly ones too.
Look at the small details.  Feel them.  Smell them.
Perfect in all of their imperfections,
a wonderful enjoyment of natural freedom,
no need to alter, left to remain just as it is.

Then we have birds and bugs, even spiders and mice,
how amusing these creatures,
beautiful ones and strange ones and ugly ones too.
Look at their details.  Listen to them, watch them.
Perfect in all of their imperfections,
a wonderful enjoyment of natural freedom,
no need to alter, left to remain just as they are. 

And then we see humans,
how amusing indeed,
beautiful ones and strange ones and ugly ones too.
Look at their details, how do they act.  What do they say when you interact?
Could they be smarter or pick up the pace?
Could they excuse themselves for their wayward ways?
Are they agreeable, friendly and nice?
Or should they act better, c'mon remember 'Leave no trace!'
Are they perfect in all of their imperfections?
Do you enjoy their natural freedom?
If you could alter, just a tweak, would you?  Could you?

This is the root of the human dilemma,
the source of our problems, our wars and our rage.
The problem doesn't lie in the natural world,
it lies in our mind and our own faulty vision.
We won't fix it if we keep trying to fix others,
for others are too many and our time is too short.
Better to change our own lens, train our own minds,
Resolve our own faults and imperfections,
and imperfections become perfections,
a wonderful enjoyment of natural freedom.
Left to remain, just as we are.

Judgment of one, judgment of all.
Conflict in one, conflict with all.
Resolving one, we resolve all.
The essence of the path isn't to gain something new,
it is to resolve your own condition,
and rediscover your natural freedom.
Liberate one, and all is liberated,
just as it is.

Let's take a walk in the park.  

Postscript: Awaiting your fate.

As a postscript while you wait,

Does it matter?

If you are going to live to see another day, how will you spend it?
If you are not and your time has come, what now?

Your freedom from the confines of your fate only comes right now.  There is no other time to be free.  The cycle is perpetuated right now, while you wait.  My own fear, doubt and uncertainty perpetuate the cycle.

Whether you have much time or little is not the point, the point is to be free as it arises.

Liberation upon arising means that you are not overcome by your fate, nor overcome by the world.  You take it as it comes- the good, the bad and the ugly.

Let it be, as it is.  

Open.  Unwavering.  Fearless. 

Barefoot Living

You've heard the news,
barefoot running is the hot new trend.
Its benefits are applauded-
Less pain in the feet, better form and more fun.

What if we made the jump to barefoot living?
     Simple.
     Free.
     Open.
     Raw.

What if we simplified all our projects, goals and expectations?
What if we freed all our pains, plans and problems?
What if we opened our hands, hearts and minds?
What if we lived in the present, opened our hearts to tenderness, and enjoyed the rawness of every interaction in the world around us?


It is possible.
Everyone would applaud its benefits-
Life would have less pain, better form and be more fun.


Go ahead.  Take your shoes off.