Moved

Well I no longer live in a God realm. I now live among the other humans of Earth, here in the Bay Area. Going back to Maui end of April to get the last of my things and ship my car. It will probably be a long time before I make it back there.

I made the move originally because my lama asked me to do it. He is here in the Bay Area. But now that I'm here I see it is good for me for other reasons also. The aspiration of my spiritual practice is not to become a God.

(To you non-Buddhists this may not hold the same meaning as it's intended. In Buddhism there are said to be several realms beings live in, each with its particular form of suffering. The God realm inhabitants have everything perfect in terms of enjoyments and pleasures, but they suffer from the fear of inevitably having to leave that realm and fall to a lower realm. The suffering of the human realm is primarily the suffering of constant busy-ness, which I'm sure you Bay Area folks (and working parents almost anywhere) can relate to.)

Anyway, the aspiration of many people's spiritual practices is actually to live as Gods, though they don't realize that and probably wouldn't like the accusation if they happened to read this. I'm sure some people reading this do actually have that motivation for their practice, but I doubt if many of them would admit to seeing themselves in the description. Well I am quite clear that the aspiration of my practice is no longer that, so Maui wasn't really the most "juicy" place for me to be. It felt stagnant. I feel so much more alive here, despite the fact that my pleasure and enjoyment is extremely lessened. And my stress is majorly increased. And I'm not into that human realm busy-ness crap either. Life here is just harder, with less personal space, less beauty, and a general level of aggression people carry within them which is a little intense for someone accustomed to the Maui vibe.

But I got used to NYC after Bali and I'll get used to the Bay Area after Maui... though I must admit to avoiding San Francisco like the plague still.

Reconfiguring

I'm engaged in a pretty active process of reconfiguring how I spend my time and invest my energy. I'm pretty much experimenting with new ways of living these days. For one thing, I think I'm going to take a job as a school counselor instead of the employment specialist one I blogged about last time. It will be more challenging in terms of using my therapeutic skills to the best of my ability and I really enjoy working with kids more than adults anyway. I'll have to decide within the next few days, and am leaning that way. Also pays quite a bit more and can give me supervised hours for licensure, meaning after two years I can see clients in private practice and accept insurance payments for the sessions.

At the same time, I am definitely still working at developing my less traditional therapeutic skills, in the vein of energywork. I'm seeing some amazing breakthroughs in that area and think I may be on the verge of developing some powerful tools I can teach people to use for self-healing.

It was so funny at my interview for the school counseling job trying to explain what I've been doing in private practice the last few years. Finally we seemed to come to an agreement that altered states of consciousness could be achieved using breathwork and that one might teach people to relax and access their deeper emotions by guiding them in that. I didn't even bother to try to explain Reiki or channeling to him. I laugh now as I think of it.

On other fronts, I've decided to focus my online life more on my main weblog at www.indigo-ocean.com and be a little less diffuse. I have about a dozen websites and intend to let many of them go. I still love Phone Buddies (www.phone-buddies.com) so will definitely continue to promote that. I also just got my book into Borders, and they seem to want to do some events and maybe even sponsor my radio show coming back on air, so looks like the energy is still moving strongly in that area. I really need to drop everything else or I'm going to be overwhelmed.

I'm also hoping to move to a less expensive home, that is not attached (this is a duplex) and that is in a warmer, dryer part of the island. This has been fine for the last 2 years, but I'm wanting to increase my net worth and that really comes down to "make more, spend less." Having a 3 BR place all by myself is not my idea of being cost-conscious, plus I'm tired of the cold temps up here on the mountain. So I'm on the lookout for a 1BR cottage in Haiku or Makawao -- maybe Kuau or Spreck, if I'm really lucky, but rents there are pretty high.

Lastly, I had an amazing conversation with my spiritual teacher recently and it helped me clarify my life purpose to the point where I am now feeling completely on target. I kept looking at my life as a story unfolding in time, so I wanted to see the story moving towards a successful ending in order to feel good about my progress. But actually my life's purpose is not a story. My mission in life is to be fully alive and receptive to the experience of this moment, right now. It is to accept what is, just as it is, right now. It is to stop believing my sensory system and karmic conditioning with regard to what seems real and to instead allow myself to experience what is here right now without any stories about it.

I no longer believe that there is such a thing as success in life. We are alive. That's success. We are consciousness, awareness, infinite intelligence. Letting go of all my designs on this moment, all my agendas for what it is supposed to be and to mean, I discover a presence that is so grand and beautiful, so generous and loving, so brilliant and powerful, that I weep with awe and love. I weep, at the beauty and grandeur of what is here within and around me in each and every moment. My life's purpose is saying "yes" to this, within this very moment.

The World of Work

Well I almost went back to the nasty "Republican-military-environment" job in the freezing office, with critical co-workers, out in the middle of a bug infested wasteland just past a sugar processing plant that spews nauseating chemical smells all around, but pays $1000 a month more than my living expenses... oh if only ... but I came to my senses before it was too late. I had a dream in which I went back and then left again after just a couple weeks. The next day I got an email from someone telling me they were still trying to fill the position I vacated back in July. I almost decided to reapply. But no.

Fortunately I just received an offer from a different company that I think is going to be really fun, so I accepted. I start whenever they finish all their background checks and drug tests, none of which I have any worries about.

The job involves helping mentally ill individuals who are functioning well enough to want to participate in the world of work (perhaps the core of most community life in our society) be able to identify what kind of work they want to do, what kind they can do or how they might prepare to do what they want if the two don't already overlap, and to take them to job interviews to help them succeed at the interview. I also will be supporting them, including meeting regularly with their employers, after they are hired.

I like that it involves helping people enjoy their lives more and feel more self-confidence about being able to participate in the society, and that it means a lot of running around the island on my own schedule. There is very little time spent in an office and a lot of flexibility, since I make my own schedule each week. That leaves lots of space for the inner guru to guide my own spiritual development pretty much 24-7, which is a rare find in a full-time employment situation.

I can still do my healing work on the weekends and still maintain and promote my www.phone-buddies.com online community. I can still offer workshops and write, and in fact am developing materials for a new workshop currently. It just means none of those things need to actually support me.

I got the job offer literally within seconds of clarifying in my offline journal that I no longer need a job with an impressive career track, title or income. It's okay to just have a job that pays enough to get by and that is in an enjoyable work environment, both in terms of my enjoying the process of doing the work each day and in terms of working with people who are willing to be happy and skip the drama. That's all I need from a job. As soon as I realized that, a 5 month job hunt suddenly came to successful completion.

I realized that I was raised with a set of expectations from my family that said I basically was supposed to grow up to be the rich and famous one who would "save" the family. I received a disproportionate share of family resources while growing up, and unconsciously accepted that with a sense of obligation that I would live up to this family defined "destiny."

So in adult life I kept aiming for that, but it hasn't served me. What if my soul's mission in this lifetime does not involve even modest wealth or fame? Then I would waste my life fighting against what is. What if the way to identify my soul's mission is to simply take an objective look at what it has created for me whenever I have given it a little space to express itself.

Immediately after asking that question I was shown a flash of an image of myself skipping along, with a smile on my face, showering light, love and joy on everyone as I moved through the world. Then I remembered the exit interview of a counseling internship I had in my MA program when the supervisor told me about all the children I had helped and mentioned one child that I probably didn't even know I had helped since he wasn't a client of mine, but that I had completely transformed him. I remember that little boy. Long story short, I spontaneously picked him up one afternoon and was so overwhelmingly happy to see him I couldn't contain my joy. After I put him down he ran off, and the teachers all said after that all his behavior problems ended and he became a compassionate leader and a true role model for the other little kids.

I remembered many such incidents from my life and realized too that I do help my family quite a bit. I have led both my mother and one sister into becoming Reiki healers, have taught my mother meditation and gotten another sister into yoga, and am frequently a resource they turn to for guidance and emotional support. My "saving" my family does not require money or fame, as it is not money or pride they need. What they need is to learn how to uncover the divine within themselves, and that is what I help them to do.

And so, having finally accepted that I might as well put down my pursuit of "importance" in the world, as defined by what one can capture behind a title or bank statement, I settled into just enjoying the process of living this life and sharing joy with others as I go. That's it. Despite my GT boarding school, Ivy League college, and specialized Master's degree, that may be what this life adds up to for me, nothing that will leave anything behind -- a mere wave within a vast ocean that passed by unnoticed by most, but that held a light that blessed those it happened to touch. Could be worse.

Integrating EFT into my Buddhist Practice

Well I said I would update you as my experiments with EFT progressed. Here is an excerpt from a reply I sent to someone's message that I think is a good overview of what I have found:

"The EFT work wound up affecting me similarly, only regarding emotion. I see now that the EFT isn't really so effective because it moves energy along the meridians. It's more that the distraction of the tapping and the idea that energy is being safely moved to foster emotional health allows the person to be willing to "sit with" their emotions for the full ride. It is allowing the emotions to be and to naturally express themselves that is healing and the tapping is just a distraction, which I no longer require. I simply recognize that all emotion is merely energy and that energy is just energy. There isn't good energy and bad energy.

I feed on energy, as an energy being, so I can feed on anger, sadness, shame, etc. just as well as I can feed on joy -- and now I do. I suck up the energy of my emotions now and have discovered they are all bliss in their true nature once I get past my thoughts about them. Even disgust turns into bliss if you sit with it with gratitude and allow yourself to savor the disgusting quality of it as just pure energy."

I have been doing this "devouring" of not only my emotions, but also my thoughts lately. I still haven't been able to make real progress at converting physicality/materiality back into energy and devouring that. When I feel pain I can just sit with it and let it be, but it doesn't really start feeling like bliss for me yet, though I know that is possible because masochists find pain blissful. (Not that I'm interested in being a masochist, as I don't need any new hobbies and there is no need to latch onto one particular type of experience since bliss is latent within all experience.)

Here is a poem I wrote yesterday that I think does a good job in conveying what I am doing:

Breathing in,
I devour it.
Savoring each breath,
Form returns to emptiness,
Emptiness reveals itself as ecstasy.

I saught you,
Forgetting that I am you.
We are emptiness embracing,
Laughing,
Like water running over rocks,
Children spinning in the sun.

Each thought -
I consume its raw energy.
It is no longer an object
For my love or hate.
There is only one decision left.
Yummm!

Each feeling -
I digest it fully.
No longer running from sorrow,
Disgust, shame, or aggression.
I savor their raw energy
And proclaim the final judgment.
Yummm!

Then suddenly all my feasting ends.
There is nothing left to consume.
I reach for something, but then abondon the pursuit,
Realizing at last
That I have been devouring
Myself.
Aha!

-- Indigo Ocean

Tapping into Freedom

I've started doing EFT emotional clearing work on myself the past week and it has been having a pretty incredible effect, unless I am confusing influences and attributing to EFT effects that are actually from my meditation practice.

I am noticing a much higher tolerance for painful emotions. I am not nearly as reactive as normal. I just spontaneously go through the EFT process in my mind as soon a troubling thoughts start stirring painful emotions and within a few seconds I ride the entire tide through pain and into bliss and finally a peaceful stillness. Last night I even found myself doing EFT in a dream! I dreamed I was having a painful memory and did the EFT and felt better! Now that's application of theory for ya.

I feel like it's really helping me to grow at a much more rapid pace. I'm using it to not only free myself from the tendency to repress painful emotions (causing them to then deepen and keep popping back up in increasingly painful forms) but also to free myself from my defensiveness against the process of spiritual awakening.

One of the key aspects of my spiritual path is letting go of my clinging to belief in any of my thoughts and opinions. The truth can't be revealed to me if I'm too busy clinging to what I already think I know. The greatest wisdom is in deeply getting that we know nothing and being able to sincerely pray to lose one's mind.

I find, however, that as I work on letting go of my clinging to socially conditioned beliefs that are just as fucked up as this society in general that I encounter a lot of resistance from my ego. So the main thing I'm finding with the EFT is that it actually helps me process through the ego's hijinx as well so that I can just ignore it. That's how you kill the ego. You don't attack it, because attack only confirms that it exists, which makes it stronger. Instead you ignore it and let it whither back into the emptiness from which it first appeared to arise at the commencement of this illusion.

I will write more subsequently on how I'm also using EFT to work on my issues related to money. I'm going through some big changes in that department right now and curious myself to see how it all turns out. Stay tuned.

The Perfection of Your Present Situation

The following is an adaptation of a post I recently made on a message board in response to a woman's complaint about the challenges motherhood is presenting to her spiritual practice. I repost it here because I think it applies equally to whatever excuse we are clinging to for why we are not doing the very actions that are most likely to help us awaken. The ego doesn't want to awaken; it just wants to pretend it wants to while cloaking itself in excuses for why the conditions of one's life make freedom from its tyranny impossible.

Ego says, "Sure I want you to wake up. I like the idea of enlightenment. As soon as I can make every speck of external reality perfect you won't need me anymore and you can become enlightened then. Let's work very hard at this enlightenment business. I'm sure I can come up with a very effective strategy for you."

I suggest you take the point of view that your current situation is exactly what you most need to support your practice. If you have to be active every waking moment with home and family care tasks, meditate mindfully as you engage in the activity needed to support your family. View the path within your situation to be the blessing, not the compromise or sacrifice.

Think of how many more hours of meditation you can get in like this than someone who merely sits for meditation practice 40-60 minutes a day (the norm). You will literally be getting hours of meditation practice each day, if you are willing to embrace the situation as an opportunity to meditate rather than clinging to the idea that it is an obstacle to your meditation. Think of how much inner discipline it would take to get you to actually sit for meditation and lose yourself completely in the experience for 14 hours a day. Yet as a mother with young children you have plenty of drive to engage in selfless activity for so many hours. All you have to do is use the situation as a meditation practice instead of fighting it.

In vajrayana, enlightenment is about developing the view of the Buddha, recognizing that nirvana was always there within all the situations of samsara (all of them), not about changing anything outside onself so that it becomes nirvana. So in daily practice one doesn't strive to rearrange the chairs on samsara's Titantic. Instead we just want off that damn boat altogether, and we achieve this by realizing that the boat never truly existed, so it can't truly sink.

Liberation comes just that quickly, when there is insight, conviction, and stability in the view. No external situation can stop you from realizing that external situations are inherently empty. Only your conceptual beliefs (your opinions) about those situations can stop you if you are unwilling to see that the beliefs themselves are equally insubstantial.

No Trespassing

This photo was taken along a walk I used to often take when I lived out by Twin Falls. It is from one of the side roads off the second Ulalena. I lived between the two Ulalena's at the time.

I recall the feeling I had when, in the midst of an otherwise clear open space, I cam across this barred path seawards. Of course there should be private property, right? Then I think of a walk I once took with my friend Stevo who's lived on Maui a really long time, longer than the fences have been here. We tried to make it out to the sea from his place, a walk he used to often take. This time, we encountered so many fences and guard dogs that we decided to cut the journey short at a natural pool along the way. He has since made the full journey, not to be deterred, but I still remember how affected he was that first day he encountered the fences and realized how he was being squeezed into a little box of his own private property by his new neighbors, who had no sense of free passage within community.

I believe in private property, but I also believe in openess to one's neighbors. Yet if I actually owned property and had to deal with the risk of losing it to a lawsuit should a stranger get injured on my land (a danger one is only protected against if they have posted no trespassing or keep out signs), then maybe I would feel differently about it. And then there are thieves here on island too. Maybe I'd want a fence and guard dog to dissuade the less adventurous thieves and at least slow down the committed ones.

I attempt to understand the mind that goes out and buys a sign that says "Keep Out" then points it at their neighbors. I try to put myself in their shoes. I realize that sometimes I can take a rather "no trespassing" stance towards the people around me too. I protect my psychic space much more vigilantly than most guard dogs defend their owner's property.

There are so many different ways that we can imagine a threat within "the other" and go about reducing the risks we believe we face. Yet ultimately every fence we erect to keep them out, also confines us within. We create our own prisons, whether around our land or our hearts, out of fear, because yes, indeed, their are thieves out there. And there are people who want to hold us responsible for their own choices, whether by suing or otherwise extracting a pound of flesh as revenge. There are risks involved in living without warning labels or guard dogs.

What do we do to feel safe and yet connected, especially within close, emotional relationships? Or is safety a goal that isn't worth making any effort towards at all? I think it is a noble idea to say, forget safety, I choose freedom and unlimited possibility -- but really, I choose both. I do care to avoid pain and suffering. And yet, I also realize the cost of insulating oneself against that pain. And really, I don't have the answers to these questions. I'm still trying to find that right balance for myself.

New Ways of Connecting?

I am becoming more and more involved in the online world and starting to feel a little disconnected to the world of nature. I am newly managing an online community, and that is putting me in cyberspace a lot more than I used to be. At the same time, the further I go in this direction the more amazingly cool online communities I find. Tribe is just awesome.

Yet I don't want to use the cyberspace as just a way to hide from the more challenging interpersonal features of the "real world." That is a problem with any kind of activity that really absorbs you. A lot of people use intensive spiritual practice and meditation retreat as a way to avoid being engaged in the chaos of everyday life. But the point of the practice is to better prepare you for everyday life, to help you get to a point where you can fully participate with all of your heart present and open so that you are a healing force for others.

I feel the edge of a fine line beneath my feet. Being careful where I step next. Will not fall into the cyberspace black hole. Will not fall. Will run back to the ocean.