The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
The ego rejects what it cannot observe or measure. As it is a mind whose very nature is so closely associated with the world, it is only natural that it too would be constrained to the limitations this world expresses. Many who live relatively happy and fulfilling lives never venture past this limitation, accepting only evidence presented that is manifested as observable phenomena and that which can be explained, measured, and repeated through process.
Do not judge your brothers and sisters who limit their perspective to only what the ego can validate. Each of you in this delusion of separateness will approach perception and understanding from a different viewpoint. This variation of view is an integral part of this world. It is neither something that needs to be fixed or overcome by the perceiver, it simply is as it is.
Those among you who have chosen to remain constrained to what they perceive as substantive fulfill a role among all others just as you fulfill a role in your experience. It is still possible to effectively demonstrate love, compassion, joy and peace in a boundless form. Remember this, individual incarnations of living form are of limited consequence. The real truth as you and all others will learn is beyond your individual experiences.
It is also important to respect the experience of those who have perceptions beyond the substantive that differ in explanation from yours. Remember this, your mind experiences this reality in a way that is unique to your individual egoic instance. Do not hold an attachment to how you believe true reality to be in this moment nor hold hostility to the views of others as you are made aware of them. You will do well to learn and grow as new truths are revealed to you and that which you previously believed falls away. A firm footing in that which lies beyond your understanding of this manifest world will serve you well as you learn, grow, and change moment by moment. Remember to breathe and quiet your thinking. I am always with you in this journey, continue to love with me, forgive yourself and all others, have fun, be generous, forthright, patient, joyfully enthusiastic, thoughtful, and reflective. There is nothing to fear and nothing to worry about. Enjoy.
The following is what I believe my Higher Power or Inner Guru is saying:
Open your hearts in moments of quietness and find me waiting there for you. During the protests of the ego, during feelings of clinging and aversion, focus on the heart of peace within yourself. Do not expect your thinking mind to be at ease with everything that is perceived. It is best to not give it the attention it desires. When you feel yourself being drawn to something or when you feel yourself being offended, look for the peace in your heart and take refuge there.
It is enough to share love and compassion with others and to rest in the heart. I will take care of the rest. Do not feel alone in this journey, for you have brothers and sisters who seek the respite of a peaceful heart. Don’t allow the inner cynic, critic, or bigot to take away a single moment of peaceful reflection and acceptance of the world as it is in this moment.
When we fall short and we allow the ego to lead us astray, remember that forgiveness of oneself is the path back. Using loving kindness and forgiveness of others and ourselves we will find our true home. Once the skill is mastered, you can always depend on it to bring yourself back to a place of safety, security, and peaceful reflection.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
Let’s talk about what’s important. There is more than one way to arrive at the same conclusion. Imagine that your world appeared spontaneously by chance. That there is no creative consciousness. That the evolution of thinking beings that are self-aware is just the inevitable conclusion of a random set of occurrences with no initial cause.
Imagine that these self-aware beings look within themselves. Imagine they explore many different perspectives and methods of viewing reality. They come to the conclusion that love without measure, unbounded compassion, limitless joy and equanimous peace compose a primary set of attributes that make up a reality beyond what we know as manifest.
Imagine that the inner serenity and happiness that these beings discover through these attributes are just happenstance. Just chemical reactions in the brain, without any meaning or reason. Is it important? One thing we do know: To be overly attached or adverse to this idea will bring suffering and dissatisfaction into one’s existence.
One who follows these beliefs about the scientific method may say things like: “Empirical data must reign supreme! It is the only foundation upon which we build our knowledge” or “Any benefits derived by spiritual thinking are ultimately delusional and should be avoided”. To increase our awareness of compassion in these matters, it is important to empathize and try to understand their reasoning and motivations for these beliefs. Remember, we all face the specter of delusion regardless of our beliefs and convictions.
The scientific method, empirical data, and the practices of science are very powerful tools in the manifest world. The questions answered through these processes all share something in common. The scientific method as you know it is based solely on observations of the past. These methods create more questions than they answer and can never see the full picture as the assumptions at the edges increase exponentially. This creates a world of speculation so infinite it can never be fully perceived. It leads the observer of scientific theory down a different delusional path, one that may or may not reflect the divine attributes which we have discussed in these writings.
Science does offer ample facilities for self-correction and advancement. However, it does nothing to resolve the ever expanding theoretical domain it creates. Nor does it aid in discovering a truth so simple that it does not require a hypothesis or investigation.
The scientist also deserves your compassion. They create more questions than they answer in their quests. The scientists among us cannot be completely satisfied through these cognitive exercises. They deserve your full compassion, loving kindness, joyous humor, and peaceful understanding.
Imagine now a religious friend, one whose beliefs lie in a dark chasm of separation into good and evil. Your brothers and sisters that follow this path may believe that some ritual must be performed. Perhaps within a specific human lifetime in order to separate the grain from the chaff and to receive the acceptance of their creator. Realize now that they suffer as their family, friends, and loved ones fall short of the bar or even reject these beliefs. They have relegated themselves to a world based on scriptural idolatry. This may include the belief that some of their loved ones will live a torturous existence in hell. I tell you that no such place exists. The only exception to this lies within the fantasies of the egoic mind. These tortures are inventions of this world and exist only to persuade others to conform to a set of ideas that serve a purpose motivated by the egoic mind. It is a system of control often manifested with the best of intentions. Forgive the authors of these delusions now as I have forgiven them, as we forgive ourselves, and we forgive all others. This is the key to our true salvation which includes the salvation of all others not one left behind.
Remember that undue attachment or aversion to your brothers and sisters holding differing beliefs will also cause pain and suffering for you. Holders of these beliefs deserve your love, compassion, joy, and peaceful demeanor just as much as anyone else. Do not blame them for the cognitive traps in which they have landed. Do not blame them for becoming attached to the idea of separation and measure as spiritual values even though they are not. These are attributes constrained only to this world and have nothing to do with your true Self. You and all of your brethren will ultimately see the fallacy of separation, judgment, measure, blame and lack of forgiveness. When all come to the light this world ends. Its usefulness will be complete. As it has always been and as it always will be. The final judgment occurs when the last of us lets go of judgment.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
When we first met I told you I would be with you always and I have kept that promise. Know that I am with you now and that I intend to stay as long as I am welcome. Do not let your heart break over things that have transpired. Recent events are not reflective of the love and peace yet to come to the manifest beings of this world. Rest, breathe, and know that there will be a time in which this day will be a distant memory. Find the core of truth in your heart and tell me honestly do you really not believe that I am speaking to you now? If you do believe, then let us proceed. Know that I have prepared for you to rest in the temple with me and that you will never be turned away. Know that this is true for all others, none can be turned away who come to me and ask for refuge.
It is time now for us to discuss pressing matters at hand. Do not waste your time fretting over the minor difficulties of this existence. Do not waste your time counting beans and worrying about future scarcity. I am here to tell you now this is not the purpose that I have for you. You are needed in a much more profound way. As are your friends and loved ones. Give to me now your heart and I shall share it with this world. Be generous with your time with others, do not question their value to you, only know that each one is as your brother and loved exactly as you. When you witness attack, and counter-attack, do not take sides, do not judge and do not attempt to determine right or wrong. Only feel the compassion in your heart and draw from your experience of pain and suffering to relate to the feelings and actions you observe no matter how heinous or despicable. There is no purpose or goal in finding fault with others, it is a pointless exercise and serves only to reinforce the separations that manifested long before humans walked in this world.
What I need from you now, is to find a way to join with others and to know that they are as you, as us. Let them know the truth of attack, that there is no one to receive the punishment but oneself. Do not be concerned with your brothers and sisters who remain in darkness, remember that each soul’s journey takes time, do not try to force them into a light that they are not ready for.
You can be of help to us, part of the greater whole. Focus only on love, compassion, forgiveness, sharing Joy with the world, and treating all equally. There is no toy, destination, sunlit view, or vista in this world that will serve you as well as the love we feel together when our hearts are as one. Know that there is a light that shines within you that cannot be extinguished.
When you see a brother or sister going astray, always let them know that you are there for them. Do not offer advice that is not asked for. Do not chastise or scold the decisions or actions of another. Simply let them know that you are there for them if they so need. Do not teach the unteachable, do not teach those who stand upon a pedestal. Do not preach from a position of elevated authority.
Take criticism with ease and offer no counter. Remember this, as you know, all actions are either love or a call for love, as is criticism. We criticize others from our own unskillfulness and our desire to separate. Do not acknowledge the separation with a counter criticism or explanation. Unskillfulness is inevitable and we will not overcome it in this form. With patience, we can learn to respond from a place of love and unity even when that response is silence. Silence is a far under used skill in this world and you would do well to embrace it and use it often.
We go on. Know now that I have no other motive but to find the peace within you that is within me. Do not fear that it will be taken for it can only be shared and joined together in a light that will call others to us to join. This is not a straightforward mission, there is no project plan, there is no timeline, it is simply about response in this moment. When you have a chance to love, then love. When you have a chance to forgive others and respond to attack with only silence and compassion, then do so. This is a thing that we do in this moment, it is not an attainment that we are working towards, it is a truth that we are learning to realize.
Everything you observe, in all mediums, whether scripted or unscripted are lessons in Love and forgiveness. Embrace every opportunity to express compassion, love, and understanding. When observing the unskillfulness of others, reflect upon the unskillfulness that you have experienced and embrace others in your heart filled with joyful laughter.
Do not get lost in the terrible pain and suffering that can be experienced by taking this world too seriously. Remember that this body is not who you are. This mind of logic and reason, this mind of planning and projecting, this mind of worry and regret is not you either. Take peace in the comfort that what you are is a light that cannot be extinguished, and know that I am always here with you to laugh with when things seem just too real to bear.
The skillful path is much simpler to follow than the unskillful path, there are far fewer rules and tactics. The skillful path is not always easier to follow for sometimes it feels counterintuitive to turn the other cheek. Simply allow it to feel counterintuitive and turn the cheek anyway. In the end we will laugh and see how silly the protestations of the egoic mind can be.
Do not be afraid to enjoy the pleasures of this world, for it is filled with immense beauty and that cannot be denied. Do not attempt to pluck the flower that can be observed in its natural state for it is but a bend in a stream and not eternal. Allow beauty to exist as is in the moment and let it pass away without regret.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
Find peace in the simple moments of solitude and quiet reflection. It does not require complicated methods of prayer and meditation. Simply quiet the mind, focus on the sensations of this moment, breathe, and become aware in the silence of a steady presence without elation, with no leave, always there, a constant and consistent radiance. It is always there if you recognize it, only the thinking mind masks its presence.
Your mind will become clear with time and practice. It is important to take breaks from your work, however, do not take a break from the practice of being aware in the moment. This you must continue to practice as often as possible. You will find a draw and a desire to do this as your practice improves. When you see attacks, you will feel only compassion. When you see neglect in any form, you will feel only love and understanding. When you face difficulties with others, a sense of Joy will surround you. Through it all, as you remain aware you will know the peace that has no measure.
Endeavor to persevere, what else is there to do? Recognize that allowing the mind to wander may result in thoughts that create suffering, anxiety, anger, and fear. Recognizing this when it happens and meeting it immediately with compassion and forgiveness is an important skill to practice and master. No one who has existed in this form, is without the knowledge of the challenges of the thinking mind and its tendency to drift. Even as we are aware of the advantages of eliminating painful thoughts, the mind’s nature to fall into unskillful thinking will always remain an obstacle. It is best to accept this as part of the experience of this world and return again to the peace of the present moment.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
Let’s discuss joy and how to find happiness. Before we can understand joy, we must first understand what is not joyful. When we live in fear of what is to come we are not joyful. If we dwell in the past wishing secretly for a different one, we are not joyful. When we are trapped in sensual desire or longing for things, we are not joyful. When we spend time thinking of things we don’t like or behaviors in others we do not appreciate, we are not joyful. By letting go of these things, we can lay a firm foundation on which we can become happy. Even though this foundation is based on nothing, it is always available and unchanging. To let go of the past and the future we focus only on this moment. Use the breath to become aware and feel that body’s energy right now. Let go of your wants and the unwanted; that which is desired and undesirable. Do this just for a moment until you feel the liberation this provides. Lose yourself in this freedom.
Before we can share joy with others, we must find it in ourselves. Now that we know how to let go of the past and future and thoughts of what we desire and what we find undesirable we can begin the process of feeling happy. Spending time in solitude provides a good opportunity to find joy within oneself. To start, notice the breath and be grateful for this. Think about the time you have spent in your body and be truly glad for it. Thank yourself for the time you have spent together with your body and your mind. In this state you will find it easier to be friendly with yourself. We are most joyful when we are our own best friend.
Open your heart to yourself and lose yourself in the love that is there. Have compassion for you. Do not be afraid of who you really are, remaining in this moment without thoughts of desire or of things unwanted you will find it easy to discard this fear and be comfortable with who you really are. Respect yourself and your needs, if you need to move to make your body comfortable then do this for your body out of love. We are not trying to attain or acquire anything here, we are stripping away that which is not really us so that we can feel the joy underneath. If a negative thought, a distraction, or an argument appears in the mind, cast it away on a cloud or down a stream to float gently away and return again to the breath. This is to love the good and the bad of yourself equally. Each return from a thought back to the breath is a celebration building a strong connection with who we truly are. Understand this as your true self, the one who feels this love for everyone and everything equally and without measure. You are truly the one who finds a way to understand everyone’s suffering and feel compassion for the entirety of existence without bounds. This will bring about a feeling of peace beyond all understanding that has no limits. And here you will find the sympathetic joy for yourself that you have always been searching for. This joy can be shared with others in the present moment. If you cannot feel this, give it time and have patience. Start again, for this work is the most important work you can do right now. Know that there is nothing to fear for you are real and everything that is real cannot be harmed.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
On the topic of compassion, let’s examine how to feel it. It is always good to start with a deep breath before any practice, repeat this as many times as you need to feel comfortable and aware. The compassion we want to connect with is universal and unmeasured. This is not directed or controlled. It is felt for every manifestation we perceive. If we observe a flower or even think of one, we feel compassion for the flower and that from which the flower was derived. If we see a piece of trash, perhaps a plastic bottle, we feel compassion for the bottle, the maker of the bottle and the person who discarded the bottle. Even if the act was unskillful we feel the same compassion. If we think of someone who was angry with us or we are attacked verbally, we feel compassion for our attacker and, of course, we feel compassion for ourselves.
To attempt to control or withhold compassion is to be uncompassionate. To decide who is worthy of our love is to be unloving. To share with only a selected few is to be unjoyful. To wish peace only upon some whom we feel are deserving is to be unpeaceful. When we let go of these ideas; to withhold, to deem worthy, to select, and to choose the deserving, we become free of the judgment and suffering this world has taught us to accept as normal. It is only when we do this and share equally with everyone and everything that we can understand how to connect with that which truly is.
The boundless compassionate heart is a way to escape the prison we choose to remain in. We have been given this key; we need only put down the burden of our judgments and open the door to find liberation. All can be understood and forgiven. By embracing this teaching on how to be compassionate equally for the pauper and the king, for the aggressor and the victim, and for the powerful and the powerless, then we will understand the true meaning of compassion. It is a powerful practice that can liberate us from much internal hardship. Do not listen to the protests of the ego, simply allow this compassion for everyone and everything to flow through your heart as we rest in peace together in this moment.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
True compassion is not limited or controlled. It is not directed towards one side, tribe, or nation and denied to another. True compassion is felt equally for the poor person and the rich person. It is felt for the attacker as well as the victim. The reality in this world is that we all suffer. It is the egoic mind that perceives variance in suffering and even believes there are those who do not suffer. To believe an attacker is not attacking due to their misconceptions and unskillful lack of practice is to believe in a delusion. Without suffering, without fear there can be no attack.
To understand this more clearly, be alone. Go into nature alone and rest, comfortably sitting. Think of only your breath feeling the sensation as it enters the body and leaves the body. We do this to clear our mind of thought. As thoughts arise, send them off gently and without contempt. Remember, it is the mind’s nature to think thoughts, it is not to blame or be chastised. You may imagine a stream and allow the thoughts to float away on its currents; you may imagine the wind allowing the thoughts to rise up and become peaceful clouds. Return again the breath after releasing the thoughts and celebrate the joy of silence. Be with me here and I will help you feel compassion for everyone and everything.
It is in understanding that all suffer in this world that we can lay a foundation for compassion that can be practiced and taught. Even as your mind resists and demands to not give compassion to the unworthy, I am here to proclaim that it is given. Don’t worry if you find this difficult, you will eventually come to this understanding even if it takes many lifetimes to do so. It would be better to start now and be free from the task of playing judge and enforcer for the mistakes of others. It is a job I would not have for you and you must let go if you are to be free from the prison of your suffering. To learn to give compassion to all equally is to learn the true nature of your existence and that of others. Hear me now when I tell you that we are one in the same.
Many meetings today, stressful. I started eating too early in the day and ate too much.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
Do not think of forgiveness as a chore. Do not think of forgiveness as something that must be done. Forgiveness is an opportunity to be free. It’s an opportunity to drop the bonds of anger and fear and allow ourselves to commune with our true nature.
The first step in forgiving others is to learn to forgive ourselves. When we have feelings of guilt or shame, we can recognize that these stem from anger and resentments that we have towards ourselves. For example, if we were to lose our temper and yell at someone or strike out at them, later we may feel guilty or ashamed of this behavior. If we were to break a promise to someone and misbehave, to do things we promised not to do, we may later feel guilty or ashamed by this. Guilt and shame are resentments we hold against ourselves. These feelings are driven by judgments we take upon ourselves and sentence ourselves to. They stem from the fear-based thinking of the ego. Guilt and shame are no more than an ego trip that we impose upon ourselves.
We must recognize the unskillfulness of our actions. They may be things we did that we wish we hadn’t or they may be things we vowed not to do but did anyway. The subsequent feelings of guilt and shame cause us suffering as a result. When we recognize the unskillfulness of the ego mind, we put into perspective the true cause and effect of this unskillfulness and suffering. It is the ego mind’s inability to love without measure and its desire to control love in a selfish way, to attain more of what it wants and destroy that which threatens it, that is the root cause of its unsatisfactory manifestations. This attempt at measuring love is also a measurement of unlovingness. When we are unloving, we suffer through guilt and shame. When we recognize this, it becomes easier to forgive oneself and be free from this pain.
Once we have mastered the act of self-forgiveness we can apply this to the unskillfulness and suffering of others. It may be someone close, someone we love or it may be a distant figure, a well known person or politician. The relationship does not matter, if we can recognize the behavior of others and their unskillfulness and then recognize the suffering and dissatisfaction they experience as a result, we can recognize in them what we recognize in ourselves. Just as we had judged ourselves and then were freed through forgiveness. We can now see equivalence in these judgments. Just as our unlovingness towards one’s self causes suffering, our unlovingness towards others causes the same suffering.
You may respond, “But my actions are not the same as theirs, the actions of the others are far much worse than the unlovingness that I exhibited”. This is understandable as the world in which we exist is one of measure and degree. Others are compared and deemed better or worse based on our subjective judgment at the moment. It is important to recognize that unlovingness is the same, whether we witness it in ourselves, we witness it in others, or we create it from fantasies in our mind. We may perceive differences in the form of unlovingness, but in truth, there is simply no difference. The cause is the same, the ego mind’s flawed design, its desire to control and apportion love. When we recognize this equivalence and cast away the perception of difference as delusion, we can forgive others as we forgive ourselves. This is how we can be free, this is how we can know the peace which transcends all understanding that has been spoken of.
Slept in and found it difficult to get doughnuts for a friend this morning. We took the dog along for a visit and at the last minute he jumped in the front seat and trampled them a bit. All was well though and I spent much of the remainder of the day resting. I don’t know why I put off writing as I find it enjoyable. I find sleeping enjoyable too and I put that off as well. I’m too tired to put much thought into why.
The following I believe to be a teaching from my inner guru:
In the heart of the real Mind we find the cause of all that is in this world. A simple question must be asked first… Why do you insist on finding fault with everything that is observed here? There is no fault that will justify this tolerance for continuous misery. And there is no misery that exists in reality. That which you observe to be wretched and undesirable shares no difference with what you covet the most. They are simply two points on the same spectrum, a spectrum that, even as a whole, is completely fabricated and only exists to examine a possibility that has already been resolved as pointless.
Make no mistake, the beauty that you see in this world is admirable and that is to be acknowledged. Radiate as much love, give as much compassion, share as much joy, and rest in acceptant desireless peace with the beings who have architected this world just as you would with your dearest friends. There is not a single being in any aspect or level of existence that deserves pointing a finger of judgment at. If you search my open heart you will find only acceptance there and never rejection regardless of role or lineage, regardless of history or perspective, regardless of position or connection. Each being is but a part of the greater whole. I cannot deny love from any lest I deny it from our sacred Self.
In this fact you will find what you long for, the satisfaction for the emptiness in your heart. It does not need to be filled with want, it needs only to be given freely without desire or direction. Imagine a capacity within you to love this way, generously and without control and you will understand the true nature of our divine Self.
Zen Momentum 