One Quote, One Card: Seeding Mistakes & Beautiful Stumbles

To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity.

— William Arthur Ward

Acceptance vs Rejection

Behaviors are like seeds — you reap what you sow — and if that’s what you believe, and all you believe, you end up merely becoming the sum of past actions. But with the practice of observing the consequences of behavior and changing them to appropriately meet Life’s demands, we become Gardeners of our existence. Without the practice of self-inquiry, failure is seen as a roadblock or a reason to give up altogether. However, with mindfulness and monitoring, we learn to see mistakes as lessons along the path — instructions for how not to plant the seeds of our time, attention, energy and power.

The Gardener learns from her mistakes, makes adjustments, and returns to the garden just as enthusiastic as she did the season before. She allows the soil to direct her, and not the other way around. This is the “dance” in BeBeautifulandDance — do as you know to do, monitor what happens, go along with the consequences and adjust as necessary.

May we yield to Life today, accept our stumbles, and be beautiful in our mistakes.

If there’s a quote you would like featured in these posts, please send it to me through message or in the comments section.

“Black Angel Cards” by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel are the Tarot cards featured in these posts. You can get your own Black Angel Cards at http://blackangelcards.com/

Stories/Koans/Parables: By Any Other Name

Aug18

Abraham Lincoln once asked one of his secretaries, “If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?”.

“Five,” replied the secretary.

“No,” said the President, “The answer is four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”

AHA!

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So I’ve been reading this book, “The Untethered Soul,” which has so far turned out to be a dumbed-down version of Non-Dualistic philosophy. And that’s great because that shit can get confusing at times* and it’s good to have it explained in familiar terms. In Chapter Three, the writer challenges you to identify yourself by answering the question, “Who Are You?” This is a basic intervention used by Sri Ramana Maharashi, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, and even tweeked somewhat by my favorite, Sri Mooji. The technique is not groundbreaking but I appreciate the way he takes the reader, step by step, into an understanding of how you are not your name, your relationships, your experiences, your feelings or your thoughts.

You are not these things and you never could be any of these things. Your name and titles and experiences are merely costumes — to paraphrase Lincoln, “calling you a person doesn’t make you a person.”

To quote Sri Rupal “You are God in drag.”

Who are you then? Well that’s for each of us to find out in our individual practices, sitting silently or dancing violently into the great Understanding. But when you take that leap into admitting “I am not my body, nor my mind, nor any experience or culmination of experiences that happen in front of me” then you will begin the long and treacherous journey into yourself.

Sat Nam — May you be free today.

*hit me up if you are able to give me a dumbed-down explanation of the difference between Consciousness and Awareness though, for real for real

Stories/Koans/Parables: Badu Zen

Jun23

Allow me to remix a story from the “Another Round Podcast with Heben and Tracy.”

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Badu Zen

A successful writer was visiting a good friend’s home in Los Angels when her friend says: “Badu just text me, do you want to go hang with Badu?” Of course she wants to go, so they arrive to the spot and it’s Too Short and Erykah Badu in a room with servers passing out chicken fingers and bourbon.

Her first thought was “Is this real?!” Her second thought, “This is what my heaven looks like.”

Too Short. Erykah. Chicken fingers. And bourbon.

So they’re hanging out and she decides to tap the wisdom of the room. She approaches Ms. Badu and says:

“Erykah I need life advice. People have been dying in my life. Things have been crazy. I’m at a place that I, you know, I’m grateful to be in but it’s very new to me.”

Erykah maybe took a sip of bourbon, maybe dipped her chicken finger in some delicious sauce, then she says:

“Just keep your altar updated.”

The writer was taken aback. Erykah continued:

“So anything you don’t want in your life just put it on your altar, and anything you do want in your life put it on your altar.”

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Aha!

A modern day Koan featuring a contemporary Zen master – Erykah Badu. I love the levels to this story, looking at it from a Parable/Koan point of view: The happenstance of being in the right place at the right time, being surrounded by good things but still feeling the anxiety and pressure of life weighing you down, the will and courage to be personal in the moment and take advantage of the opportunity in front of her. But most impressive was the actual advice she received, “Just keep your altar updated.” This may come across as a little passive because of how much importance we place on taking action in this society. But her words speak to the immeasurable power of our intention and the forces that actually make things happen in the world.

Something important we receive from meditation practice is a deep understanding of how much happens without “me” doing anything. Sitting quietly, we notice the body’s activity, the activity of the room, the activity of the world around us. At some point we realize everything is happening, but no one (especially myself) is making it happen.

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.” — some other Zen Master

It is often more necessary for us to get out of the way than it is to initiate some activity or ritual to meet the happenings of life. People will die around us, things will get crazy, we will find ourselves in new places — grateful but unsure. The woman in this story may have been looking for something like a prescription, but what she received instead was much less invasive: “Don’t worry about the happenings, keep your altar updated.”

Stay focused on your wishes and let Life take care of the conditions. Lay your burdens down and let Life round them out. Besides, as we learned in last week’s story, we never know what blessing will end up being a curse and what pain will end in healing. Keep your altar updated, you’ll be alright.

Be Beautiful and Dance.

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