The Grace of Release

The master stands before the students and says, “Enlightenment is a happy accident.”

After the talk, a student walks up to the master and says, “But master, if enlightenment is a happy accident, why do we sit for hours, sweep and wash dishes mindfully in silence, and meditate every day?”

The master replies, “To become accident prone.”

That’s what practice does - it makes us accident-prone.

Last week I had a powerful, piercing experience of fear and despair. It was the most intense I’ve felt those two emotions in quite a while.

Of course I wanted them to go away. Of course I wanted to be free from them. Of course I had a problem with them.

And then, about an hour into the feeling, a miracle happened: I pulled my face out of my thinking about them and I was able to be with them - gently, compassionately, curiously.

I continued to make room for the emotions, and I continued to turn my attention toward my felt experience of the feelings and away from the stories my mind was incessantly creating about them.

My mind was trying to help, but it wasn't. I thanked it. I let it know that it wasn't being very helpful, but that I appreciated its effort and it could keep going if it would like to.

And I turned my attention back to the feelings. What did they actually feel like?

It's so easy to write off our challenging experiences without ever really being with them.

It was by a gift of Grace that I was released so quickly (2-8 hours) and so easily (with a lot of intentionality) by those emotions and the energized, cyclical thinking related to them.

Through the experience, though, I was able to be with the emotions in a gentle, compassionate, and curious way, while also gently extracting my attention, my focus, my awareness from the downward spiral of my thinking. 

I felt the feelings. I relaxed my thinking. I spoke kindly to myself throughout the process.

Despite wanting to, I didn’t distract myself with Netflix, music, or books. 

That Grace of release was a happy accident - it was there for me last week, and sometimes it’s not. With daily practice, I become more and more accident-prone.

And so do you.

What are you practicing daily to cultivate a being more aligned with who you really are than it is aligned with what you’ve been conditioned to think about yourself, others, life, and the world?

Practice intentionally, my friend - in your thinking, in your acting, in your being. 🙏

God's Sculpture Garden

I went for a lunchtime walk through a museum sculpture garden last week. It was a gorgeous day. 

(Aren’t all days gorgeous? I used to not be fond of rainy days and hot days. When I moved to Portland, Oregon, awhile back, I decided that I needed to fall in love with all weather. 

A reader of mine said to me a couple years back: “Mick, I really like your emails. A lot of it goes over my head, but I think I get the main point: be kind and compassionate to others and yourself.” I love that description. 

Shall we include all weather in our endeavor to be kind and compassionate? Yes.)

Back to the sculpture garden:

I looked at the first sculpture for a moment, then I turned my gaze to continue moving. I noticed leaf-shaped shadows on the stone path. I looked up and observed the large tree casting those shadows. I saw and heard kids talking during lunch a few steps up.

In literally every direction I looked and listened, I witnessed the beauty of the universe.

In every leaf. In every shadow. In every plant. In every sound. In the dust motes illuminated by the sun. In the sun’s light itself.

And the thought came to me, that while I walked that moment in the garden of sculptures made by humans, each moment of my life I’ve walked in God’s sculpture garden - the universe itself.

The deep beauty of humanity: our inner cares, our natural innocence, and the mean and cruel things we do to ourselves and others. Hunger for power, control, security, admiration, and wealth? They’re not only for the bad guys in stories. We each harbor them within our own hearts and actions.

Integrity, beauty, goodness, and holiness is the path of kindness, of compassion, of simplicity, of honesty, of gratitude. 

How am I cultivating kindness and compassion in my own life right now (outwardly and inwardly)? Perhaps there’s no other question I need ask, no other task as important.

Aren't children so quick to learn this lesson when we teach it to them? (“Truly I say to you, unless you change and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus in Matthew 18:3)

We walk, you and I, each moment of our lives through God’s sculpture garden. The spiritual life, as far as I've been able to discern so far, is the practice of being present to this truth.

The trees, birds, squirrels, grass, and clouds. The adults, children, strangers, friends, and family. No one is worthy of our judgment, resentment, and contempt, and everyone is worthy of our respect, compassion, and understanding. 

“Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?” (Jesus in Mark 8:18.)

Much Love. ❤️

The Good, the Holy, and the Beautiful

Powerful passages I’ve read recently:

“Every loving thought you allow to be cultivated in the garden of your own mind extends the good, the holy, and the beautiful. Therefore, sing that song without ceasing.” The Way of the Heart

“The first way to develop presence is in living each day with great simplicity.” The Practice of the Presence of God

“An elephant will sooner fit into the swim trunks of a rat than God will fit into our notions of him.” The Song of the Bird

“The difference between reactive and responsive behavior is that reactive behavior adds fuel to the fire, whereas responsive behavior throws water on the flames.” The Presence Process

“True strength is being so open, so unshakable, that nothing disturbs your inner peace. If someone acts in a way that is hurtful or unkind, you can respond from clarity, not from defensiveness.” Wisdom Untethered (If you haven’t read Michael Singer’s work, start with Living Untethered.)

“We betray and disempower ourselves by inadvertently declaring we are enslaved by circumstances beyond our control.” The Presence Process

“Emotion is an opening to the heart. When we refuse an emotion, we are simply postponing life. Emotion is free of thought [and] of knowledge.” Let the Moon Be Free

“Every moment is as a doorway through which the good, the holy, and the beautiful can be expressed, as the cultivation of the consciousness through which the power to do so grows. Oh, beloved friends, those moments of your time are very precious! Do not look out upon the world thinking that it is just the same old world.” The Way of the Heart

Much Love. ❤️