Higher States

Every now and again, science collides with the experiences of higher states and produces a result that is stunning in it's everyday usefulness.  I'm specifically referring to a recent discovery that brain wave patterns observable in recognized meditators matches the brain waves produced by laughter.

I suppose this bit of news is unremarkable for anyone who has spent time with the ones we honor as great spiritual leaders–they laugh easily. At times, they actually giggle. The meditation state, you could say, being so similar to the other.

Here's the everyday usefulness part of the discovery:

We all have it in us to get the juicy benefits–the peace, the open-heartedness, the ability to be in the flow of the moment–of higher states of consciousness.  Because we are engineered to laugh.

I invite you to take this nugget of guru-ness you posses, treat it with the highest respect and consider it as important a daily practice as a master of meditation considers their daily meditation time.

You'll be glad you did.

Give Me Five

There seems to be a widely-held belief that meditation takes long, uninterrupted stretches of time.  With maybe the word "boring" coming into the picture. So we skip it.

How about if we give it five uninterrupted minutes: 

Long, slow breaths at the beginning (which should be good for about thirty seconds)
Sinking into our body consciousness (20 more)
Finding that point of light in our center (10 more)
Letting be whatever is there to be (3, maybe 4 minutes)
Long, slow breaths at the end (another 30 seconds)

I'm telling you, you're gonna love it.

Dented

It seems to me that we often relate to our emotional selves in the same way we do our cars–we see ourselves as getting bashed up and dented in our interactions.  Then, unlike the way we treat our cars after a collision, we let the damage remain. 

Can you imagine having a bashed in fender and weeping over the loss day after day instead of getting the insurance company on the job to fix it?  That is exactly what we do when we admire the wounds relationships inevitably cause and impress ourselves with what a terrible loss we have suffered. 

"I'll never get over this" successfully stops our inborn ability to heal.  And the wonderful thing about our inborn ability to heal is that we do not have to understand how it works.  We just have to let it. 

The activation process for healing, regardless of how deep and complicated we see ourselves to be, is mindlessly simple.  Make two statements:

• I know how to heal.
• I let myself heal.

Then, let it go.  Do this every time your thoughts head back to feelings of woundedness.  Say them with love and conviction.  

You absolutely, in your core, know how to heal.

Things I Learned From My Father

Here's a few things I learned from my father:

• When crossing a stream, don't look down at the rocks, look straight ahead to the opposite bank.  Same goes with driving.
• If you take the coin the tooth fairy left to be a nickel and it's a quarter, it will still spend like a quarter.
• When whittling, always face the blade away from the body.  
• Do not sing while fishing.  Neither the fish nor the other people fishing will appreciate you. I believe this may apply to public transportation as well.
• It doesn't matter if you don't sing in tune as long as you put your heart into it.
• If you love your garden, it will love you back.  He never came right out and said it, but it was hard to miss.

When I sift out the gist of all of this, it comes out something like this:

Keep your vision uppermost, embrace your gifts, you are responsible for your own well-being, give respect to every being, lead with your heart, don't be afraid to love.
Amen.

Super Capes

I've always been intrigued by the idea of super capes.  Super Man whips his out before he goes into action.  Bat Man has one.  J.K. Rowling gave one to Harry Potter, kids draw them on their super heroes.  Darth Vader would have looked less menacing without his. 

What if, just by imagining, we all could have one.  And the goodies that come with it—excellent focus, perception, gathering our strength and capabilities.  I've seen imagining do some pretty incredible things.  We should give it a try.  Imagine whipping it out like Super Man and letting it settle over us before we go into action.  We might be impressed with the results.

Wonderment

I met this woman once, a friend of a friend, who lived in the garden behind an estate in a small, not quite waterproof trailer.  She had a few friends that she rarely visited and didn't show much interest in adding me to her list.  Odd.  Reclusive.  And happy with her life. 

I had to know how that could possibly be.  So I asked her what it was like, to live there by herself in that trailer.  She got quiet and gathered herself.  Then she looked up, sort of past me, extended her arms a bit and said, "For some people, just being there in the garden is more than they could ever need." 

Wonderment, that's what she had. 

I remember having wonderment.  I was ten or eleven and had new rain boots and a new raincoat with a hood.  If I think about it, I can still smell its newness.  That very week it poured.  Came down so hard it bounced off the pavement.  I put on my boots and raincoat and ran outside into it.  I stomped and splashed and laughed until the cold finally got to me. 

When you're ten or eleven, no one would call you a fool for standing in the rain having wonderment.  Harder to pull off at an age when you should know better. 

Not to say only children should have wonderment—we do not stop needing, or knowing, wonderment.  We are more likely to put it on the back burner, or expect that it will take more effort than its worth. 

Pish!  That's just marketing departments doing their job working at selling us big marvelous things and places and experiences.

We've got wonderment in us.  We just need to let it out.

Impossibilities

Say the thought crosses your mind of how amazing it would be to spend the Summer kayaking in Alaska.  The brain shoots back, "Oh, come on!  Where's the time, never mind the money, to zip off on some fantasy trip?  Do you even know how to kayak?  Impossible!"  All true, you think.  The brain is not lying.  It is hugely true that the time, the money, the skills are not all lined up.  And that is the very thing that puts an end to happy thoughts of kayaking amongst the glaciers.  You are never getting to Alaska.

But you could.  If you don't let the brain's assessment get the better of you.  I have a couple of strategies in mind:

1. Start small with trying the impossible.  Small victories, so you'll be ready when a giant impossibility comes along.  I mean small.  Small like getting up on time, doing at least one nasty chore each day, smiling at the idiot who gets your simple straightforward who could possibly get it wrong order wrong.  You get my drift. 
2. Take your brain to the bargaining table.  Not in an adversarial, my-way-or-the-highway way.  In a compassionate way.  Beginning with some deep, slow calming breathing.  Then thank that calculating part of you, the part I call your brain, for having your best interests at heart.  Let it know you appreciate how hard it works for you.  Now let that part of you that is in love with the impossibility your brain wishes to shoot down, show up.  Ask your brain if it is willing to listen to what that part has to say.  More breathing while it considers the request.  When you get a sense of that calculating-brain part of you, I'll say softening a bit, invite the part that loves your idea to express what it sees as the benefits of doing or having or being what looks impossible.  Now ask your brain if it is willing to stand aside and make room for the possibility of the impossible happening.  Offer it a job: ask it to help with breaking things that need to be done down into small, not so scary steps.  You have now offered your heart and your brain a way to work together.  It may occur that your brain part notices more impossibilities as your project develops.  Let it know that you are always interested in what it wants to show you and promise it you will listen to its concerns so that you can come up with the best possible plan together.  And get to Alaska if that's what you want.