Special Lessons

Our attention is precious. Our attention may be the most important thing that we own, and almost none of us own any of our own attention. Anybody can take it. A phone call can take it. The news can take it. Look in the mirror and it can be stolen. I'm looking in the mirror and I don't look anything like I'm supposed to look, and if I look in the mirror and I don't see what I like, where does my attention go?

Whenever we find ourselves in some "unwanted" part of ourselves, perhaps reliving an old heartache or caught in the throes of some irrepressible anger, old fear, or unyielding worry, part of this unwanted moment includes our certainty that we're trapped in this condition. And compounding our confusion over feeling ourselves captive in this way are all of the attending negative inner voices.

What could be more natural than letting go? Think about it. If half of our life is spent meeting moments that are natural endings, then what are we to do with these things in our lives that can no longer serve us in a meaningful way? The answer? We must let them go! To do anything else would be unnatural, even unhealthy for us.

On this one point all saints, sages, and illumined beings agree: there is nothing as certain as silence, stillness, and solitude to introduce you to the divinity within. The first step in learning to be still isn’t really an action at all, meaning that it’s nothing like we might ordinarily think of doing when we want our world to stop spinning like a top.

There are in existence, as part of creation, extraordinary primordial opposites. We know them as darkness and light, expansion and contraction, attraction and resistance. We don't know anything about resistance. What we know is to be ruled by resistance in our lives, instead of recognizing it as being part of a creative force meant for us to develop.

What's the first thing we see when we hear news that runs counter to what we want? The evidence suggests we don't really "see" anything at all; instead, our attention is seized, absorbed by a familiar negative reaction whose only wish is that the unwanted moment just go away. This resistance acts within and upon our consciousness as a "blinding" and binding force, so all we can "see" is our own negativity over what we wish wasn't...

The realization that there are parts of us that are against us can hit us with a jolt. But when we see that these wrong parts have actually created the pains that they then falsely promise to free us of, we eagerly seek -- and find -- the real Friend who will bring all pains to an end.

We struggle as best we can to free ourselves from dark unwanted states but invariably find ourselves short of the mark. Slowly but surely, one thing becomes clear: we start to see that calling upon who and what we have been to save us from our suffering is like asking a windstorm to neatly pile our autumn leaves.

We are made in the image of the Divine. Now, that doesn't mean all that we hope it means. It actually means more than that! It means that you and I, as humans, exist in a temporal form that is, for all intents and purposes, a place where a host of magnificent laws and forces converge. Opposing forces reconcile and create a body that is essentially the mirror of a set of perfect opposites -- right hand, left hand, right eye, left eye.

If you've ever been in a condition where you've found yourself in a rut -- maybe you can't stop thinking about something, maybe there's a problem that you wish you could just get past but the conditions of your life won't allow you to do it, or maybe you want to make a real change but you look at your life and say, "It's impossible, the situation I'm in" -- in such moments, apart from natural responsibility (should you have that) to those who are dependent...

The reason that we don't have peace is because of the way in which our present minds view the experiences we have with others and within ourselves. Our present nature takes everything personally. In fact, most of us don't know how to do anything other than to take something personally...

Isn't it true in the moment when you look out and see a beautiful pink sky ablaze at sunset that it awakens the same beauty inside of you? When you see something timeless, when you see something beautiful, what you see is not outside of you. What you see outside of you is simply reminding you of something that you're asleep to in yourself. The beauty isn't out there in a pink moment. The intelligence isn't in a timeless thought or insight...