taoism

We have been trained to feel shame and guilt basically as a means to cause fear and hesitation, to control behavior, or to oppress real freedom and joy. The origins of that are communal fear, jealousy and the desire for power over others. Consequently, many people have the addiction of using shame or guilt simply to avoid possibilities in life, and have, at the same time, a reason to avoid them__f you act spontaneously or feel joy, the result will eventually bring suffering, so you had better watch out, and don__ ever forget the past shame and guilt.

What is it that we do here? By easing away from the mania that pulls on us, recalling and reconnecting with our essential spirit and callings, we regenerate our core inspiration and faith in Life and our place within it_with a purposeful eye toward facilitating evolution toward __ore capable human beings,_ meaning grander, freer, more authentic and meaningfully effective.How do we do that? By delving into pockets of rituals that have, across traditions and cultures, produced superior forms of insight and understanding, healing, evolution and resolution. One could call these tunnels into beauty, truth and love. And we can find access to them in any given day of our lives.

On those who try to make me their guru or master, my approach is to start destroying that from the first moment we meet. It probably seems naive and idealistic, but I rely on basic, old-fashioned qualities in keeping my interactions clean: integrity, chivalry, honesty. In my experience, it__ not that difficult to eliminate the guru paradigm and stereotype, if one really wants to. Finally, it comes down to simply not accepting a role or the associated temptations offered.

The primary reason that I__ not a representative of specific groups or schools of thought is that that choice gives me the freedom to look at these groups and thoughts from the inside and the outside. I__ trying to be honest in that role__hat really works here and what does not? That is, I have nothing to sell or win by any given position. I__ promoting a similar process for any person I interact with in my work, including toward me.Investment in a given idea or group tends to immediately shut down options for perception, and then choice. Prejudice, bigotry and arrogance breed from that. One is forced to think a certain way to stay within the group or thought, and then to defend against apparent opposition. This constructs and feeds the kinds of adamant separation and conflict we see so many manifestations of on every level. In many cases, it__ also the cause of deep internal conflict in most individuals, yet it isn__ really addressed.

On an even subtler dimension, clarity, intuitive knowledge and contentment are primarily determined by chemical and hormonal balances in the body and brain. Most of this is entirely manipulable through fairly simple physical exercises that anyone can do.

General attitude and outlook__he way we perceive and experience anything__s more influenced by our physical state than anything other single factor. I__ guess that for most of us, at least 50% of our struggles and discontent are brought on by being physically out of balance. The causes of that imbalance are many, but at the core, there__ an insensitivity or inability to locate and maneuver essential physical processes within us: how to breathe, how to sit, stand and walk, how to see and hear, how to slow down or speed up, how to relax, how to sleep, how to eat, how to adjust our physiological responses to the different circumstances we find ourselves within. This kind of removal or abstraction from our physicality causes an enormous amount of problems on many levels. One key result of it is a distrust in our own ability to influence our emotional state and our energy and perspectives in general; we often feel that we can__ get our hands on the control switches, as if most of life just happens and we can__ do much about it.

The purest definition of __eligious_ is: relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality.

It__ misleading or deceptive in a way that such skills are learned like any other _ simple practice, sincere investment over time. Yes, like small steps, one at a time, to cross the bridge. Just a single step today.

We all understand the value of sacrifice, even if that only involves setting aside dessert so as to lose weight, or putting money in the bank so as to later buy a house. Progress or achievement in any arena requires choices that often oppose what one feels like doing. The trick in truly succeeding with this in the long run is locating enough depth of feeling that the experience of conflicting desires dissolves. For that to happen, one has to learn how to think emotionally and physiologically.

We don__ know how to feel with conscience. Ideas like integrity or devotion remain abstract, theoretically correct and good, but lacking the ability to produce immediately fulfilling emotions or sensations. What I mean by learning to think emotionally and physiologically is rediscovering the visceral joy of investing in what we already love, the kind of unquestioned spiritual relentlessness we had as kids. As adults, that demands an internal dialogue through which we transpose the search for pleasure onto a platform that is in harmony with our conscience and real responsibilities. We find the pleasure in applied conscience. That__ a lot easier than it sounds. Basically, it__ about recognizing and feeling passion for what we really want to do in our lives.

My hope and intent is to provide a wide range of resources and ideas that provoke real questions and considerations under the surface of common dialogue. With a definite thrust toward clues for moving beyond limiting patterns that restrict our personal and communal evolution and experience of, as well as effectiveness in, life. Part of that is about giving different angles of insight into the why and how of developing skills, whatever they may be. I think the larger discussion, or maybe the more relevant one surrounding skills development, involves what quality of fuel is being used to run the skill. Inevitably, and very quickly, this enters into considerations of how much of oneself one brings to the show. For example, anyone can learn a sophisticated skill in an extremely short period of time, once they__e completely convinced of the need, benefit and value of doing so and find enough full-bodied conviction to engage it accordingly (__ou never hear anyone practicing a language; they simply listen and then begin to speak._ _ Wade Davis).

The seed of all this is imagination. But when you think of imagination, it helps to view it more as it exists in the rest of nature, rather than as we tend to see it in humans. That is, that imagination is actual and a need, immediately searches for expression, and con- sequently, is intimately connected to yearning and its instantaneous application. This is also the case in human beings, but we generally associate it with unnecessary, or extra, expression, such as an ability to make something more attractive or stimulating (the current view of art, for example), or the creative use of __ree time_ (time left over after you have done what you had to do).

Historically, techniques to attain altered states of consciousness, usually called meditation, or sometimes prayer, actually involve various forms of concentration, the first level of this kind of internal work. The linear scale of progression is Concentration, then Meditation, and finally Contemplation. Virtually all categories of meditation are, in actuality, forms of concentration. What makes them so are the innate __oals_ or ambitions attached to them: to achieve a state or to acquire something, like relaxation, insight or __dvancement._ This then constructs a dichotomy, or dualism, between the pursuer and the thing pursued. That is, you are conscious of or believe in something __etter,_ you are separate from it, and there is effort to attain it.

Accurately perceiving and following one__ intuition is, I think, the essential human spiritual process. The distractions, confusion, misinterpretations and temptations that oppose that process are enormous. At the same time, there are always clues for how to go about it. The divine is a mystery, so the impulse to really discover, like a child, has to be the core response to anything; that__ the only way beyond the habits, presumptions and prejudices that feed ignorance and fear. To question well, instead of hiding behind a belief or answer, requires the application of the most valued of all human qualities, such as compassion, courage, imagination, respect, humility, devotion, and ultimately love of life itself.This kind of passionate questing is evident in the most admired and, if you will, divine individuals in every culture, religion, and skill throughout history.

Freedom and responsibility themselves are at stake. One does not find freedom or enact responsibility by surrendering to another__ conceptualization of these ideas. Living out the rules of conscience laid down by someone else for the attainment of an unquestioned goal, a freedom designed and articulated by someone else, is the surrender of human imagination and intuition.In the more extreme versions of this, we end up with a collective momentum resulting in events such as Nazi extermination of millions of Jews, the Inquisition, or similar events recently in Africa and elsewhere. That comes from allocating one__ conscience to someone else, not attending to one__ own deeper intuitive sense of right and wrong.

Recent discoveries in developmental psychology and other behavioral disciplines have shown that babies are born with a __irst draft_ of a moral mind. Among others, brain scientist, Gary Marcus, has described this moral understanding as __lready defined and organized before experience._ Evolutionary psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, describes this first draft of the moral mind as consisting of five primary values. Modern cross-cultural anthropologists point to these same five primary values as the foundation of all cultures, currently and historically, and 21st century ethologists suggest the same values apply to most if not all species.

Resolution of conflicting interests within each of us__he desire to fulfill a personal purpose versus the desire to forget about it and just go have fun, for example__akes time and focus and application of a lot of qualities, like playing a difficult piece of music with two hands on the piano. Many people are looking for a simple pill to make that apparent dichotomy go away. Once they discover it doesn__ exist, it__ very frustrating.

We survive largely because of the existence and recognition of high-end qualities__ompassion, integrity, courage, humility, etc. These are how we perceive spirit. Even the most cynical and fatalistic bastard will snap out of self-absorption, abuse and hopelessness when confronted by an extreme expression of any one of these qualities. (Case studies show that this also applies even to rapists and murderers, not always, but more so than any other technique or therapy.) That is, beyond belief, the desire to feel good, or even hope or despair, there does exist an essential intuitive value system in each of us. This runs through and across every culture, and even every species. I don__ believe that those intuitive values are there to fool us into occupying ourselves so as to feel good while waiting for the inevitable to happen. Nature is not so decadent. Or cynical.