a human experience

What you are looking for is right in front of you and deep inside you. The truth is you are looking at the brilliant light of the cosmos now. The experience of normal everyday consciousness and pretending you're not the answer to life's great question is exactly the same thing as "IT", there is no difference at all. Once you find that out you'll laugh yourself silly. And nothing could be brighter. Ten thousand suns couldn't be brighter.

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It's the expectations of your own mind that creates your own hell. When you get frustrated because something isn't the way you thought it would be, examine the way you thought, not just the thing that frustrates you. You'll see that a lot of your emotional suffering is created by your models of how you think the universe should be and your inability to allow it to be as it is.

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Religious thought as a system

One of the most intriguing aspects of religion/spirituality/whatever-you-want-to-call-it for me recently has been its relationship to the system of thought and the thinking mind. Bohm (1992) saw thought as a system that runs its own patterns and has the ability to get stuck in faulty loops and habits. This is indeed the case with religion as a thought process and one does not have to look far to find examples of religious thought systems that get caught in illogical patterns that blatantly contradict the very values they are founded on. Rhetoric such as "you just need to spend time in the word of god every day" and "go to church every week" are seen, from this perspective, as ways to self-hypnotize the thinking mind and keep the pattern moving. Jung (1979), however, saw elements of religion as beneficial to the evolution of consciousness and the self. In Jung’s research into the phenomenology of the self, he found that certain archetypal patterns of selfless sacrifice and resurrection that appear in various religious forms around the world are archetypal blueprints held within the collective conscious. In the context of the self these subconscious patterns of thought are equivalent to the death of the ego self and resurrection of newer and higher evolved self capable of higher levels of awareness. Dennett (2007) and Dawkins (1976) have both contended that religion is a cultural meme, which has survived in the same sequences analogous to that of natural selection in biological evolution, except for in this case in the context of our thinking. Current religions around the world, from the framework of cultural memes as described by Dennett and Dawkins, have survived due to the traits they bring to the homo sapiens thought processes. These religious thought systems have given the current human species greater capacities to sustain themselves. BUT this system of thought (religion) is breaking down as it hits newer information and higher levels of thinking patterns. I would love to know where this line of thinking takes you and what you initial reactions/responses to it are. Your thoughts? Bohm, D. (1992). Thought as a system. Routledge publishing. New York, NY Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford university press. Dennett, D. (2007). Breaking the spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon. Penguin books. Jung, C. (1979). Aion: Researches into the phenomenology of the self. Princeton university press. New Jersey.

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Dharmic Action

In the Bhagavad Gita there are two injunctions that are very clear about action. One is Do not be identified with being the actor. Krishna is saying to Arjuna “You are a warrior and this is a Dharmic war you are going to fight. Go fight it, but don’t think you are the fighter. It’s really me, God, that’s doing it. You are just an instrument in it. Don’t get so caught. Don’t let your ego run away. Don’t think you’re doing it.” So the first injunction is Don’t be identified with being the actor. In other words, let your mind pull back from identifying with the doing. We are all. . . Like the common thing in this culture is “What are you doing?” “What do you do?” “Hi, what do you do?” See, doing is the identification. And we’re constantly sucking each other to identifying with the doer. “I worked all day.” “I made love.” “I ate.” “I walked.” “I did.” The other way of looking at it, and it’s a different… it’s a critical shift of consciousness — is “I am” and there is doing. It’s a different place. Like your heart is beating, but you’re not beating your heart. You’re not saying, “Beat, damn it. Beat. Beat. Beat.” “I’d like to talk to you, but I’m busy doing. Excuse me.” “Beat. Beat. Beat. Beat.” So you’re not. It’s all going on automatic so to speak. Or base brain. Or whatever you want to call it. So, we’re talking about non-identification with being the actor is the first component. Now think of all the things in your life that you do, and then imagine them happening, because they are. Like when you drive a car, most of you are doing it without being identified with being the doer. You are usually thinking about something else while you are driving. You are not being the driver. Now take the next injunction. The next injunction is Be not attached to the fruits of the action. Like if you are a parent raising a child, first of all don’t be identified with the fact that you are “raising the child”. You are a being. All of this is happening because it’s the appropriate action that is happening. You are resting in your being and there is doing happening. You are being careful of the biological safety of the child and the love and so on. The other thing is how the child turns out is how the child turns out. Your attachment to how the child is going to turn out is going to affect the way you do the act. You did the act as impeccably as you can. Because that is your Dharma. It is your duty. It is your role to play. You find yourself in that unique Karmic predicament. Your Karma defines your Dharma. The situation you find yourself in defines a condition under which there are appropriate actions to be done. And the place you do those appropriate actions from is a place of rest inside your being. And then the actions occur and the outcomes happen. And you stay at rest. That’s the pure act of Karma Yoga. So, that is right action. But see, it’s a hard one to hear. Did it come through? Did you hear that issue? I mean it is so far out for us to hear that, because it runs so counter to the way we think about the way we act every day. We’d never think of that. But in India, it’s interesting. They have a very deep sense of the term Dharma. Of doing my Dharma. It’s just an appropriate thing you do. Because that’s the part you play. And as I listened in, I realized that like in my taking care of my father in those last years, my being in that relationship, I was taking care of my father. And I noticed that at the beginning of it, because I was a Westerner, I was sort of milking it a little bit. You know, here I am taking care of old Dad. And then after a while I heard it more clearly, and there was just the appropriateness of I was the son, and he was my father, and I was honoring the father and he needed help and there I was. And I ended up playing the part, but when we were together it had very little to do with that. I mean that was all going on, but the bed pans and all were all just part of our process of being together. And I did as I could, and sometimes he was happy and sometimes he wasn’t. But I was doing it as well as I could. A lot of our anxiety is because we are attached to how it is supposed to come out, when doesn’t allow God to play. Because I could do everything I could do for Dad as impeccably as I could and he wouldn’t notice it. If my doing it was connected with how he responded, then I was unhappy. But it was an offering. It was my part to play. And I was just feeling my way into my part. And then not getting caught in being the player. So the part was just happening. It was just happening. My father was being cared for. And there was honoring of father and here we were. Ram Dass

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The Egg, By: Andy Weir

You were on your way home when you died. It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me. And that’s when you met me. “What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?” “You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words. “There was a… a truck and it was skidding…” “Yup,” I said. “I… I died?” “Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said. You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?” “More or less,” I said. “Are you god?” You asked. “Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.” “My kids… my wife,” you said. “What about them?” “Will they be all right?” “That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.” You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty. “Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.” “Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?” “Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.” “Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,” “All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.” You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?” “Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.” “So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.” “Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.” I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had. “You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.” “How many times have I been reincarnated, then?” “Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.” “Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?” “Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.” “Where you come from?” You said. “Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.” “Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.” “Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.” “So what’s the point of it all?” “Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?” “Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted. I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.” “You mean mankind? You want us to mature?” “No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.” “Just me? What about everyone else?” “There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.” You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…” “All you. Different incarnations of you.” “Wait. I’m everyone!?” “Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back. “I’m every human being who ever lived?” “Or who will ever live, yes.” “I’m Abraham Lincoln?” “And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added. “I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled. “And you’re the millions he killed.” “I’m Jesus?” “And you’re everyone who followed him.” You fell silent. “Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.” You thought for a long time. “Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?” “Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.” “Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?” “No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.” “So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…” “An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.” And I sent you on your way.

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Release your attachments to “what is ‘supposed’ to be” and simply deal with “what is”. When one releases ego and surrenders to the Divine, then can one enjoy the fruits of what is without viewing through the veil of ego.

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In the Presence of a Pure Being

What I experience when I am around someone who is pure and full of grace and compassion, is that I enter into a space where I experience a surrender that isn't a surrender. And what I mean by this is that I do not have to reluctantly give up my ego. It is as if I am in a space where I no longer need it. The being I am with does not require me to be a certain type of person. I don't have to explain who I am or what I am doing or rationalize why I am the way I am. I can just be with the other. It is just as if I have come home.

As a civilian in the Western world I find the concept of surrender very unpalatable to me because it is usually ego surrender and ego means giving it up to somebody else. It is a power struggle. And this is not an attractive concept to my Western mind.

But what I have begun to find is that these people are doorways to God. They are doorways to go beyond. A pure being is not just a teacher. They are not just wise people who can teach you things. They are a spiritual vehicle; an entrance way. They are a pure mirror. They aren't really anybody at all.

William James, in his varieties of religious experience, said:

Our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens there lie other consciousness’; other forms of consciousness entirely different.  We may go through life without ever suspecting their existence but apply the requisite stimulus and in a touch, they are all there in their entirety. Types, different types of mentality which probably somewhere have their feel of application or adaptation, no account of the Universe can be total which leaves these other types of consciousness quite disregarded but how to regard them is the question, for they are so discontinuous with our normal consciousness.  They may determine our attitudes though they fail to furnish formulas.  They may open a region though they do not give a map.  At any rate, they forbid the premature closing of our accounts with reality.  

  A pure being is our doorway to other forms of consciousness that James speaks of. They are our gateway to eternal life.

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Ego=Hell

I contend that the human ego/reflective consciousness is the falling out with God. The problem that I see is that the evangelical worldview has institutionalized their message as ‘somehow I am special and not others.’ This is a big problem and it sings to every fallen person out there as every one of us has an innate lust for the feeling of importance. This sin is what Jesus came to abolish and instead orient outward to loving God and others rather than “self”. But somehow we even took Christ’s message of selflessness and turned it around into a self fulfilling religion that says only those who prescribe to my worldview and think the way I do are good in God’s eyes and everyone else will burn in hell for eternity. This does not bring us back to union with the Divine, but instead takes us further and further away from this Source.

What if the part of ourselves that tells us we are separate from the rest of the universe (which current science is now proving is a hallucination) is in fact hell? We are in hell already. Divine Love and Grace are the keys to freedom. Salvation is having new eyes. Understanding the true reality that we are the universe and never die … that is eternal life

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I am just tired of being ‘should upon’.

I think a vast majority of our lives we are ‘should upon’. We are told at a very young age by those older than us that we ‘should do this’, and ‘should believe that’, and ‘should live like this’. And eventually what I found was that those who ‘should upon’ me were nothing I wanted to be like. Not only that, but there were profound inconsistencies in what they ‘should’ on me and then how they played out their own lives.

In a spiritual sense, once I was caught in the cycle of ‘should’, I eventually began to question whether or not my yearning for God was true or not. I found that most of the ‘shoulds’ stemmed from a lack of faith. The Western religions are so fascinated with their respected rituals, and I would go so far as to say trapped by them, that they miss the mystic traditions on which they are founded. No one in Judaism, for example, seems to care about the experience Moses had on the Mountain, but rather what he brought down. And no one in Christianity cares to understand the consciousness and metaphysics of Christ, but rather the dogma created by the apostle Paul fifty years later.

I feel I was born into the Christian tradition for some reason and I would like to know why. But every time I get near people who would like to tell me why, the vibration of the reason they give me turns me off. It’s often that an evangelical relative or pastor will come along and want to get me to recognize my Christianity, or lack thereof, but their desire is not pure – there is something in them that is coming from an infected source… almost as if their true agenda is to rationalize the way in which they are already living their lives… what it is specifically I am not sure…

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Love and Compassion should not be seen as spiritual luxuries for the contemplative few; rather they should be viewed as social necessities for the entire human race. S. Mitchell Walker

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There are several basic emotions that retard the critical and rational thinking process in human beings. They are: guilt, fear, lust, and greed. Once an individual is unknowingly infected by one or several of these emotions, these emotions can spread unstoppably within the psyche like a disease. Religious and political organizations exploit fear and guilt. Corporations exploit greed and lust. Understanding the power these emotions have and the damaging and oppressive impact they cause on one’s consciousness is the first step to liberation. S. Mitchell Walker

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Creating a Universe

What if one day humanity is able to create an experience like the universe as was done in the film The Matrix? If you can entertain that line of thinking, then you have to give it at least a 50/50 chance that that is what you and I are experiencing right now.

If we are willing to imagine that humanity will have this ability one day, then we have to assume that “one day” has already come and gone and we are currently living in that simulated universe.

According to the discovery of the Higgs particle, from what I understand the universe is a zero sum game with the only thing separating it from existence and non-existence is the local optimum in the Higgs field that gives it a non-zero value. So the creation of another universe by humanity is not out of the realm of possibility and therefore could have already taken place in which case we could be living in such a universe now.

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Walking Through the Mind Fields

When I begin to live deeper into my being, I notice that I start to rest in a place where I simply become an environment for people to run through their projections without me buying into them. When I see people start to talk now it’s very much like what you see in comic books, where all the characters have thought bubbles that appear above their heads. Each person tells you who they think they are, and who they think you are.

When I am out in public and I am in this state of awareness I will notice the way people look at me and talk to me is outwardly projecting their thoughts about what their reality is in that moment. When I have a reality to which I am deeply attached, and I come into contact with someone that has a reality to which they are attached, I will find us both attempting to share our contradicting realities.

But if I am in a place where I don’t have a definition for myself, and I am not busy being “somebody special”, I am just kind of there. And I can feel their projection wash through me without clinging to it.

It is about walking through all the mind fields of other people’s realities without getting caught. So when someone says, “You’re a great person.” Or “You’re a jerk!” you don’t cling to any of it. You don’t get stuck to their thoughts and their realities they are projecting.

Instead of thinking “I’m a jerk? What do you mean I’m a jerk?” or “I’m wonderful? Yeah! Tell me all about it.” You get to the point where you stop milking those thoughts. You do it until you’re bored with it, and then finally, you do it because you do, because you do it and people react as they react. And you just do it. If you think you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, what you end up doing is you stop, and then after awhile, you see that you really wanted to do it and then you do it all over again, but from a different place. But don’t be hard on yourself because there is an ego trip involved or a rush and you’re milking it. Just notice yourself with poignancy. Be compassionate. You’re a poignant human. And you’ve got all your stuff. You’ve got lust, greed, hatred, ill wills, agitation and doubt. That’s what you are doing here. If you didn’t have those, you wouldn’t be here. That’s who we are. That’s this plane of reality. There are other planes, where others don’t have all those things, and you’ll have plenty of chances for that. So don’t worry. Enjoy this one. Be human. Try being human.

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The horse drawn carriage

In Hinduism there is a story about a horse drawn carriage. The horseman who is on top of the carriage represents the ego, and the spiritual heart or the soul is in the carriage. The horses represent your motivation, and anytime the soul decides that the horse is going the wrong way, the soul takes his stick and taps on the window and tells the horseman to go in a different direction. So most of us identify with the horseman, because you are an incarnation that includes the ego. The soul has come from many previous incarnations, it’s been through many births and deaths and it has no fear. The ego is afraid that when this incarnation is ended, it’s all going to end. The soul knows that he or she goes through incarnation after incarnation. Your incarnation includes your parents, your body, your friends, your culture. I am in this body – this body, my personality, are all in time and space, but I am not in time or space. I am infinite. I am loving awareness.

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Applying the Perspective of the Soul

We are applying our paradigm. We’re applying a perspective to processes of aging that come from cultivating a place in yourself that is the Witness. Or you could say Soul-perception. We’ve talked a lot about all that. And so we’re standing back to see the forest of our lives, or if you want to play with the word “incarnations”. Or the dance of that particular form. The same way that you stand back from a dream and reflect about it. And we’re reflecting, as you recall, from the place of Soul – still recognizing that this is here, Awareness, but we’re not playing with that just yet.

And so as we as unique entities, awarenesses, souls, look out at or around at our incarnation, we see that our whole identity as players on this field is intimately wrapped up with our relationships – that who you think you are and how you think this is, and thus how this is playing out because of how you think it is, is very dependent on how you’ve learned that from a whole set of social contexts. In fact, when you stand back and look at the forest you see that your identity is intimately wrapped up with all the systems of which you are part. And if you put all the systems together and pile one on top of another you begin to get a sense of what you mean when you say “me”. Me as a political person, me as an economic person, me as a sexual person, me as an ethnic person, me as a religious person, me as a community person, me as a family person, me as a species person, me as a member of a biotic community person, on and on and on and on. And you just pile those up and you begin to see that you’re different “me’s” at different times, but when you put them all together the gestalt is what you call “me”.

And so the paradigmatic part of our little game here, in other words the strategy for conscious aging, is the ability to look at these systems and to first of all see how you’re caught in them. Then to see how you can be in harmony through your participation in them. That is, how do you play life? How do you dance life? And that comes, clearly, as you are able to look at the kind of web of attitudes and habits and predilections you have regarded in any area. And as long as those are acting upon you unconsciously, you are caught completely in this system – you’re caught in this system. And one part of getting free into the soul or the Witness is the ability to stand back a little bit, because you’re now identified with being the Witness rather than being the player so much, and thus you can see the play more clearly.

– Ram Dass, Marin Study Group, October 15, 1995

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Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World

by Sherman Alexie The eyes open to a blue telephone In the bathroom of this five-star hotel. I wonder whom I should call? A plumber, Proctologist, urologist, or priest? Who is most among us and most deserves The first call? I choose my father because He's astounded by bathroom telephones. I dial home. My mother answers. "Hey, Ma, I say, "Can I talk to Poppa?" She gasps, And then I remember that my father Has been dead for nearly a year. "Shit, Mom," I say. "I forgot he’s dead. I’m sorry— How did I forget?" "It’s okay," she says. "I made him a cup of instant coffee This morning and left it on the table— Like I have for, what, twenty-seven years— And I didn't realize my mistake Until this afternoon." My mother laughs At the angels who wait for us to pause During the most ordinary of days And sing our praise to forgetfulness Before they slap our souls with their cold wings. Those angels burden and unbalance us. Those fucking angels ride us piggyback. Those angels, forever falling, snare us And haul us, prey and praying, into dust.

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A Beautiful Meditation by Ram Dass

This meditation is drawn from Theravada, or southern Buddhism. It’s called Anapana and it is just bringing you to right here and it is done through the breath. So it is common to everyone in this room at this moment. Of all of our individual differences, we are all breathing in, breathing out. This process is one that is like, if you can imagine a flower and the center of the flower and then the petals coming out of the flower. And the center is called your primary object in meditation and the petals are all the thoughts that keep coming out from that center. In this case our primary object of meditation is our breath. We will focus on our breath going in and our breath coming out. You can do this two ways. One is by focusing on a muscle that is in the solar plexus that every time you breathe in it moves in one direction and every time you breathe out it moves in another direction. Rising, falling, rising, falling. Or you could focus at the tip of the inside of your nose. And as the air goes by you will feel a slight whisper of air on the in breath and as the air goes out you will feel a slight whisper of air on the out breath and you are like a gate keeper at the gate. The cars go in and the cars go out. You don’t follow them to see where they go you just notice the breath going in, breathing in, the breath going out, breathing out. So whichever one is easiest for you, pick one now and stay with it for this period of 15 minutes, either the muscle in your solar plexus, that is rising and falling or the air going by the tip of your nose breathing in, breathing out.

Your job in the most gentle possible way is to merely keep your awareness focused on your primary object. Now it is going to wander. Your awareness is going to be grabbed by many thoughts. You’ll sit down and you’ll say, breathing in, breathing out. And then the thought will come, “this will never work.” Now you can either take the thought that this will never work and immediately go off on another train of thought, even though I am giving you instructions you just ignore them, and then the meditation is over. That’s okay. Or at some point you’ll say “gee, all I was going to do for these 15 minutes was watch my breath and this is another thought, I’ll just let it go and I’ll go back to my breath.” The art is not to get violent with your other thoughts. Don’t get guilty because you are thinking them. Don’t even try to push them away. Merely very gently again and again bring your awareness back to the primary object of meditation. Let each thought be another petal in the flower. Keep coming back to the center, back to the center, back to the center. So with eyes closed and body straight as is comfortable for you to sit, it’s good to keep straight if you can – your head and neck and chest – bring your awareness either to the muscle in your abdomen or to the breath passing the tip of your nostrils and notice the breath either rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

If your breath gets fast or slow it doesn’t matter, just notice it. Don’t change it but just notice it. You are merely remaining aware. Any sounds, smells, sensations just let them come and let them go and bring your awareness back to either rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

If your mind wanders just notice it and bring it very gently back to breathing in breathing out or rising and falling.

Wherever your mind is now, just notice where it is and very gently bring it back to rising and falling, breathing in, breathing out. If it helps to say those words inside yourself with each breath it is perfectly okay.

All the sounds, everything that comes into your ears, just notice it as another thought and come back to your breath. There is nothing you need to think about now other than breathing in, breathing out or rising and falling.

Notice the shape and form as the breath goes by – beginning, middle, and end of the in breath, the space, the beginning, middle, and end of the out breath, the space.

If you experience agitation or confusion or boredom or bliss or anything just see it as more thoughts. Notice it and bring your awareness back to rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

If you begin to doze take a few deep intentional breaths. Rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

All the feelings in your body, the sounds, the sensations, the tastes, the smells, the sights, just notice them coming and going bring your awareness back to the primary object of meditation.

Firm your seat, head straight, rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

There are three more minutes left. Use these three minutes consciously. Gently but firmly each time your mind wanders bring it back to rising and falling or breathing in and breathing out.

Be vigilant but gentle. Bring the awareness back to the basic primary object of meditation. Basic attention to the breath.

-Ram Dass at a meditation retreat in Sydney, Australia, 1981

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The opposite of courage is not fear, it is conformity. S. Mitchell Walker