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The Donkey and the Taoist: The Secret of Dealing With Obstacles
Donkey in an Egyptian painting c. 1298-1235 BCE, from Wikipedia
Unfortunately, one day one of the townspeople forgot to tether his donkey securely and it got loose, wandered down into the center of town, and settled several yards before the tea kiosk on the north end of the lane blocking access to anyone attempting to walk south down the lane. Now this particular donkey, who was very big and very stubborn and was used to getting his own way, refused to move as people tried to talk him or even shove him out of the way. Since no one could get by the donkey, a crowd began to gather. Those brave souls who tried to slip in front of or behind the donkey to get to their favorite shop would most often receive a swift kick. Since the owner was nowhere to be found, the townspeople became exasperated. The donkey was ruining their day.
As they were discussing what to do, one of them looked north up the lane and noticed a famous Taoist master, who often came to town for some tea, watching their activities from some distance away. “Ah, he will know what to do one of them said to the others. Let’s watch and learn from him.” The Taoist master continued walking toward them until he reached one of the perpendicular lanes, where he turned and disappeared. The townspeople stared in disbelief. “He always walks this way to get his tea,” one of them said. “Where has he gone?” In confusion, they then returned to figuring out how to get past the donkey. A few minutes later the Taoist master suddenly appeared at the south end of the lane, on the other side of the donkey, walking north toward the tea kiosk. With a smile on his face, he waved to the townspeople as he entered the kiosk to get his tea. It didn’t take the townspeople long to realize that he had simply bypassed the donkey by making an extra effort to walk around the block.
What is a Real Question?
Lord John Pentland
The Desire for Perfection
Dennis Lewis
For most of us, even a momentary glimpse of the disparity between our ideals and how we actually live arouses the desire for perfection, the desire to somehow alter and perfect those aspects of ourselves and our lives that we believe would make us better, more desirable, more creative, or more enlightened people. Whether it is a desire for success, a desire for happiness, a desire for spiritual development, or some mixture of all of these, our desire for perfection gives us a potent sense of meaning and purpose in our lives. It sheds a kind of magical light on everything that we think, feel, and do. It becomes the springboard for many of our actions and re-actions, a springboard for becoming what we think we should be.
As one begins to look at one’s inner and outer worlds from the perspective of “the desire for perfection,” one begins to see just how much of our lives, and the life of society itself, is bound up in this quest. How many relationships, how many businesses, how many wars, how many religions, how many cults, have been founded on this desire?
If one thinks carefully about the desire for perfection, however, one sees that with this desire comes a particular relationship to time, a relationship in which “tomorrow” and what I believe I am lacking assumes greater importance than today and what I already have. If only I had more time, more money, a better job, a better relationship, more peace, more and higher spiritual experiences, and so on and so forth. There is obviously nothing wrong with wanting these things as long as I am able to remember that the miracle of life is my very existence right now, and that this nowness is forever complete. There is nothing else that is needed–except?
In this regard, one might be tempted, as many serious teachers have been, to pit the desire for being against the desire for becoming, for becoming more perfect. One might be tempted to say that being, especially being in the moment, is all that really matters. That all the rest is somehow a distraction or even an illusion. Often these teachers are unaware that they have simply created a new goal, a new state of perfection, to which we should all aspire. “Be here, now,” the pundits tell us. So what could be a natural, normal experience, now becomes an imperative, a goal, a new state of perfection. Now we measure each other by our presence, or lack of it.
No, what is needed is not a new definition of perfection. What is needed is simply the honest observation of what we actually are at any moment, of our mental and emotional attitudes, our contradictions, our confusion, our psychological messiness, our desires, our passions, our Gods and demons–in short, our humanness. What is needed is a global perception, a perception of our real motives and impulses. There is no perfection in this, and no imperfection. There is only conscious love. The love that welcomes whatever is seen and sensed and felt and heard because these functional activities are what the human dimension of human beings are all about. It is this non-egoistic love of ourselves as we are, as we respond or don’t respond to the demands of this situation, that quite naturally takes us to the next situation with its new demands and new responses and new perceptions. And who knows? Perhaps if we were to live this way, willing to experience fully the living truth, however comfortable or uncomfortable, that is being revealed right now, the perfection that we all seek in our heart of hearts, the real ground of our own being, might suddenly appear.
Copyright 2007-2009 by Dennis Lewis.
Discovering Your True Mind
The Joy of living, by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
“Wherever you are, whatever you do, it’s essential to acknowledge your experience as something ordinary, the natural expression of your true mind. If you don’t try to stop whatever is going on in your mind, but merely observe it, eventually you will begin to feel a tremendous sense of relaxation, a vast sense of openness within your mind–which is in fact your natural mind, the natural unperturbed background against which various thoughts come and go. …”–Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret & Science of Happiness (Harmony Books, 2007, p. 57)
The Smile of Spaciousness
Dennis Lewis
Text Copyright 2009 by Dennis Lewis
The Influence of Unnecessary Tension On Breathing and Living
In today’s noisy, high-stress world, many of us sit, stand, sleep, and move in ways that undermine our breathing and our physical, emotional, and spiritual health. When we look at ourselves in action, when we actually sense and observe ourselves honestly for a moment, we see that we carry enormous amounts of unnecessary tension throughout our bodies. We may sense it in our hands, face, eyes, jaw, tongue, throat, belly, back, chest, and so on (even tension in our feet can undermine our breathing). These tensions can and often do impede the natural, harmonious movement of the diaphragm and its coordination with the secondary breathing muscles. They also impede the harmonious flow of energy through the body/mind.
We can do all the breathing exercises in the world, but if we don’t begin to see and free ourselves from the unnecessary tensions that we carry day in and day out–if we are unable to find a state of dynamic relaxation in the midst of daily living–these exercises won’t do much good. In fact, without such relaxation and without real self-knowledge and self-awareness, they can often exacerbate the tensions already present and create dangerous biochemical and physiological imbalances in our body/mind.
In beginning to study these unnecessary tensions in ourselves, which are generated in large part by our mostly unconscious attitudes toward ourselves and others, one of the most useful situations with which to begin is when we find ourselves in a hurry, which, for many of us, is almost all the time. Next time you catch yourself rushing through your life on the way some place other than where you are right now (and this can be a mental or emotional “rushing” as well as a physical one), sense your entire body and pay particular attention to your breathing. What does your breath feel like? Does it feel open and spacious? Most likely it feels small and cramped. Ask yourself if this is really how you want to live your life, always tensing toward something to be done or enjoyed (or something you believe will be better) in the future. Yes, the future is important and we all have plenty to do on its behalf, but what’s the point of all this “doing” if we don’t actually feel and appreciate the pure miracle of our aliveness, our being, right here and now? What’s the point of all of this activity if we are not open enough to receive and appreciate the life force flowing through us and others and the rich scale of impressions and perceptions that come with it?
It is only through a constant deep-felt appreciation of the value and miracle of being itself that our lives will take on real meaning, that our relationships with others will become imbued with intelligence and compassion, and that we will find effective solutions to the ever-growing problems we face. If we are constantly filled with unnecessary tension based on judgments about the past and expectations about the future, our breath will remain cramped and disharmonious, we will never discover what it means to be truly human, and our lives on this planet will only get worse no matter what brilliant strategies we devise or how much force and aggression we use to put them into action.
To see and release the unnecessary tensions that fill our lives, and to allow the breath of life to manifest fully through us and others, begins with sensing and observing ourselves at this very moment, paying special attention to the tensions that propel us through time, as well as the inner attitudes that fuel them. It begins with being present to “what is,” without any self-deception. This is the beginning of real transformation, both for ourselves personally and for the world.
Copyright by Dennis Lewis 2008-09 by Dennis Lewis. First published in the August 2008 issue of The Journal of Harmonious Awakening.
Following Your Breath Into Silence
Breathe Into Being: Awakening to Who You Really Are
As you begin to pay close attention to the sensations of the breath as it moves through the whole of yourself, you are called to move inward, toward the source, the wellspring, of your life. As you do so, you will experience a profound sense of stillness, of silence, underlying not only your breath but also your thoughts, feelings, and sensations. In short, you are called home to another, more fundamental dimension of yourself. If you can hear this call and don’t resist it, you may discover that you are spontaneously freed from many of the unnecessary mental, emotional, and physical tensions keeping you imprisoned in your narrow self-image and the constricted, impoverished breathing it fosters. You begin to open to and welcome the incredible miracle of aliveness itself. Through this opening and welcoming, your breathing is freed up and your thoughts, feelings, and actions take on new intelligence and meaning. You begin to live your life rooted in the deep, silent reality that connects us all and makes us one family.
Copyright 2009 by Dennis Lewis. This is an excerpt from Breathe Into Being: Awakening to Who You Really Are, published by Quest Books in May, 2009.
Some Thoughts on Personal Problems and Awakening
Dennis Lewis
Many of us believe that our personal problems stand in the way of awakening to who we are. Some of us even believe that self-transformation and awakening have to do with getting rid of what we perceive as our problems, of what we most fear or despise or dislike in ourselves.
This viewpoint rests on several major, but interrelated, assumptions. We assume, for example, that personal problems are undesirable, and that the fewer problems we have in our lives the better off we are. We also assume that our problems are, for the most part, unnecessary, and that we should be able to control our lives sufficiently to eradicate or at least minimize them.
Our Belief in Progress
Though we may not be aware of it, these assumptions arise from a mostly unconscious, underlying belief in “progress,” a belief that in fact fuels the various industrial, technological, and social engines of Western civilization. We look around at the many industrial and technological marvels in our lives, comparing what we see with what we know of earlier generations, and assume that these marvels represent positive change. We assume that they have solved important problems, and that we are all somehow better off as a result.
When we look deeper, however, the picture changes. In his book Walden, Thoreau points out that “While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them.” Our so-called progress has done little to transform our being. What’s more, we see that along with the so-called material benefits this progress has brought have come a whole new set of material, social, and psychological problems at every level of our lives. Every change has brought with it consequences of which we had no comprehension, and which have frequently further complicated our lives in ways that we often take for granted. From chemical toxins in our water and air, to dangerous hormones and antibiotics in our food, to the influence of electromagnetic fields on our body, to the deleterious effects of global warming, to the threat of weapons of mass destruction, to the increasing worldwide gap between rich and poor, to the growing violence in our media and on our streets, to a growing, pervasive sense of meaningless for many people, and so on (the list is almost endless), it has become quite clear that our so-called progress, as wonderful as it may seem at first glance, is bringing what may turn out to be insurmountable problems in many areas of our lives.
Everything Is Interrelated
The problem, of course, is not change in itself. Change is always occurring. As Heraclitus said: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” The problem is rather that everything in our lives is interrelated, however subtly, with everything else. Without a global understanding of these relationships, without an effort to understand the whole of life, we cannot expect to intentionally change a part without unintended, often disastrous, results.
The same is true of our personal problems. To be sure, many of us have real problems, and some of them, especially those residing at the deepest levels of our nervous system and psyche, can in fact undermine our physical, psychological, and spiritual health. Birth and childhood traumas, powerful negative conditioning, addictions, and so on may have thrown our nervous system into such disharmony that we unconsciously spend most of our energy just trying to stay afloat psychologically. Clearly, deep problems such as these can provide formidable obstacles to awakening, since they often consume so much of our energy and attention and often keep us from seeing the larger picture.
For many of us, however, these deeper organic problems (if they exist in us) are invisible. We are often unaware of the energy imbalances and distorted perceptions of ourselves and others that they bring. The so-called problems that we do in fact perceive in our lives, which reside mostly on the surface of ourselves, are generally either the inevitable outcome of living on this earth or are merely distant manifestations of these deeper relationships and disharmonies that we don’t see. In either case, the energy that we spend attempting to rid ourselves of these problems without understanding their inevitability or their underlying causes can easily lead us down the wrong path. We may think that all that is needed is some change of thinking or manifestation or habit, when in fact what is necessary is a radically new consciousness of ourselves–a consciousness that can perceive the problem in the larger context of our being and our life on this earth.
The great spiritual teachers and traditions warn us about trying to get rid of our problems without having a broader understanding of our total situation. G. I. Gurdjieff, for instance, tells us that any effort to change something in ourselves without an understanding of our entire “machine” will most often bring unintended, undesirable results. Other traditions, such as Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, tell us that our personal problems can only be fully understood in a spiritual context.
A New System of Values
In an interview that I conducted in 1993 in Moscow with Father Alexander Mumrikov, a Deacon of the Russian Orthodox Church, I asked Father Alexander about the relationship of personal problems to spiritual growth. Father Alexander replied: “In contrast to the Protestant dictum–‘no problem’–we believe that Orthodoxy must have problems. The more a person is able to become conscious of problems arising in his life, the better it is; this is an indication of inner development. It is not a question of ridding oneself of one’s problems in some way, for example by going to a psychiatrist, but rather of seeing that one’s personal problems are related to one’s spiritual problems. The Holy Fathers have made it clear that though the psychology of the soul and the psychology of the spirit are at different levels, they must be connected. If the level of the spirit is not connected to the level of the soul, it is not connected to man. He receives this as a sacrament from God.” Father Alexander went on to tell me that those who want to work on their souls must, while working, simultaneously wait “for the Spirit to come down from God.” And that this simultaneous working and waiting “creates a new system of values.”
It is clear that working seriously on oneself, on one’s “soul,” for real understanding and transformation, while simultaneously remaining open for the higher to appear in oneself, does in fact bring a new, more genuine system of values, a new level of personal maturity. It is this maturity, the intelligence and willingness to see and welcome the truth in ourselves no matter how messy or terrible we may judge it to be, that can help us understand Advaita Vedanta master Jean Klein when he says that “our problems don’t have to be problematic,” or Lao Tzu when he tells us that our troubles are really the result of our narrow sense of self. When we try sincerely to perceive our problems in a more global context and resist the impulse to become identified with and lose ourselves in our psychological reactions to them, they can in fact help provide the impetus, reminders, shocks, and energy necessary to motivate our quest for awakening at a deeper, more-honest level.
I am reminded here of the great Sufi mystic Rumi, who said: “I honor those who try to rid themselves of any lying, who empty the self and have only clear being there.” It is this effort to rid ourselves of lying, not the effort to rid ourselves of our personal problems, that can help us awaken to who we really are.
Copyright 2009 by Dennis Lewis
G. I. Gurdjieff spoke often about how “suggestible” we are, and wrote in Beelzebub’s Tales that this is “the most terrible” of our “abnormal being-particularities.” Suggestibility depends in large part on self-love, vanity, self-calming, likes and dislikes, and the beliefs and attitudes we have about what does or does not make something valuable.
Anyone who has ever worked consciously on themselves with others can see this particular feature of our psyche not only in other people but especially in oneself. One can see it in relation not only to our habits as consumers, but also to many of our actions, beliefs, attitudes, expectations, and judgments, especially those with which we are the most identified. One sees it very clearly in politics and religion. One also sees it in relation to so-called spirituality. If someone we believe in (including ourselves) makes a suggestion, we most often take it seriously with little objective reflection. Those practicing self-observation will notice how frequently they are slaves to their own suggestions, whether positive or negative.
Behavioral scientists have recognized for some time the power of suggestibility to shape what we think, feel, and experience, but it has not been until recently that they have devised objective experiments to actually measure this in an objective way. Recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for example, shows that people who pay more money for the same item derive more pleasure from it. The experiments demonstrated that the part of the brain that makes judgments about pleasure, the medial orbitofrontal cortex, actually becomes more active when people pay more money for something.
In one experiment, for example, the researchers–California Institute of Technology neuroeconomist Antonio Rangel and Stanford University economist Baba Shiv–had people evaluate two bottles of wine: one that cost $10 and one that cost $90. What the volunteers who drank the wine didn’t know is that both bottles contained the exact same wine. When people drank the bottle that cost $90 they all called that bottle “better.” And their medial orbitofrontal cortex became far more active than when they drank from the bottle that cost $10.
In another experiment, volunteers were given an “energy drink” that was said to boost “mental acuity.” Some of the volunteers were asked to pay full price for the drink ($1.89), while others got it at a discount (only 89 cents). The researchers told the volunteers who received the discount that it was the exact same drink (which it was) and that the discount was made possible because of a “bulk purchase” of the product. After drinking the product, volunteers were given a test in which they had to unscramble specific words. Those who paid full price were able to unscramble twice as many words as those who received the discount.
There are many profound questions that this research raises, and I’d like to “suggest” one for us to ponder: What is the difference between suggestibility, which shapes so much of our lives in such an unconscious way, and receptivity, which is needed to learn anything new? How can we tell the difference experientially?
In my own life I have felt this question often, especially when reading books to which I am attracted or taking part in activities involving spiritual teachings that seem to resonate with what I have experienced or believe to be true. We hear from others by word of mouth or book reviews or some other way that “so and so” is an “awakened being,” a wonderful Buddhist, a great Christian, a nondual master, and so on and thus well worth reading, and so we open the book eagerly already believing that what we read will be the truth, or at least close to it. This, of course, is suggestibiity, and advertising agencies and public relations agencies and “leaders” of all kinds are well aware of its importance in selling consumer products, political candidates, social attitudes, spiritual teachings, and just about everything else in modern life. For more on the power of public relations, for example, read my essay Propaganda in a Democracy.
Of course, one does not always need to read books, listen to music, and so on that come with great reviews or endorsements. My main teacher in the Gurdjieff work once said to a few of us that you can pick up almost any book, and that if you are receptive, able to listen, you will find at least one thought or insight in the book that is just what you need to hear. And throughout my life I have found this to be true not just in relation to books but also in relation to movies, television shows, and other media (even those that my friends criticize).
We have to remember that every human being–famous or not, awakened or not, a great teacher or not–is capable of great insights and that if we are listening, if we are receptive, we may hear exactly what we need to hear to help us awaken from our sleep, which, of course, is supported by our suggestilbilty.
What does it mean to be receptive? It means to welcome new impressions, ideas, or information consciously. It means to listen without arguing and without immediate referral to the concepts, beliefs and attitudes that condition us and form the basis of our self-image. It means to be interested in what is true, to be impartially attentive to what is happening right now, even if it means becoming conscious of our suggestibility.
Whether we are suggestible or receptive something is imprinted on us and in us. In the case of suggestibility, the impressions we receive are imprinted unconsciously, mechanically—they are received through and in relation to personal prejudices and conditioning and carried out or reacted to without any real question or attempt to understand in the context of the wholeness of our life. In the case of receptivity, we listen without “credulousness,” from not knowing, and thus have the impressions at our disposal—not mechanically linked with our beliefs and attitudes, but consciously linked with our underlying wish to truly verify and understand.
A great practice is to attempt, as sincerely as possible, to differentiate between suggestibilty and receptivity, between mechanicalness and consciousness, in the course of your daily life. I am interested in hearing any impressions you have as a result of this effort.
Copyright 2009 by Dennis Lewis
A Breathing Practice to Reduce Stress and Anxiety
Dennis Lewis
People often ask me for a simple breathing exercise to reduce stress and anxiety. Here is a safe, powerful practice I use personally and teach often.
Next time you feel stressed out or anxious or about to be, take an inner sensory snapshot of your entire body/mind. Simply observe what is happening in your sensations, emotions, and thoughts as honestly as you can. Then, for at least three minutes, put most of your attention on your breathing, especially on your out-breath. Let your out-breath begin to lengthen naturally as you breathe in through your nose and out through pursed lips (as though you were gently blowing on a candle without extinguishing it). Don’t pay any particular attention to your inhalation; let it arise by itself when it’s ready.
As the lengthening of your out-breath takes place, you will find yourself beginning to relax. To deepen this relaxation, you can hum quietly for several breaths during exhalation, sensing the action of the humming throughout your body. Don’t force the humming in any way, and be sure after each out-breath (hum) to simply wait for the in-breath to arise on its own.
When you’re ready to stop, just return to following your breath in and out through your nose, listening for several breaths to whatever is occurring both inside and out. Then take another sensory snapshot of yourself. How do you feel? Are you freer now from your habitual mental and emotional reactions? Are you more able now to sense the life force moving spontaneously through you? Just sense and observe what is now occurring in this amazing temple of energy that you call your body.
Copyright 2008-09 by Dennis Lewis. Adapted from a similar practice in my book Free Your Breath, Free Your Life
Harmonious Awakening 