we are the people...

Consider the possibility that this charade of a presidential race may actually be very good news! What else could have pulled back the veil on the hidden inner landscape of America? Could there be a clearer clarion call bringing our attention to the great divide? Were it not for drumpf, no doubt most of us would have continued in our silent schisms unaware of just how polarized we are.

From disgust to disdain to daring, I discovered that by engaging in the “equality practice” outlined below, I can refrain from adding to the harm being proliferated on the planet. I didn’t cause it, I can’t cure it, but if I’m not careful, I sure as hell can add to it and not in a good way.

The practice is like putting on a new pair of glasses. I began by turning my heart towards people who, for whatever reason, have failed to challenge corrosive beliefs, those who are inclined towards “certainty without question” and “contempt prior to investigation.” A new perspective begins to emerge. I felt my heart soften as I pondered the idea that some of us may inherit a DNA of disdain from our ancestors for people that don’t share our worldview. At a  minimum, we all have our biases. I began to weep. Not for anyone in particular but for the magnitude of prayer and practice that stretches out ahead of us.

Because love trumps hate…

• We the people can step into the shoes of women, Muslim, people of color, LGBTQ, or any number of other maligned and marginalized groups.
• We the people can feel into what it would be like to be an American of another persuasion. As a woman, I can feel into what it would be like to be a frightened little boy inside of a big white guy.
• We the people can let go and step out of whatever bubble we find ourselves in and begin to “see” with a wide angle lens.
• We the people can ask ourselves how we can be so vehemently opposed to others simply because they don’t share our particular values, after all America was supposed to be a melting pot.
• We the people can open our hearts and doors wide and allow for a radically diverse conversation.
• We the people can allow others their perspective while honoring our own.

Equality Practice

Equality practice is a way of connecting with others and realizing that you and they are in the same boat. It is a simple human truth that everyone, just like you, wants to be happy and to avoid suffering. Just like you, everyone else wants to have friends, to be accepted and loved, to be respected and valued for their unique qualities, to be healthy and to feel comfortable with themselves. Just like you, no one else wants to be friendless and alone, to be looked down upon by others, to be sick, to feel inadequate and depressed.

The equality practice is simply to remember this fact whenever you meet another person. You think, “Just like me, she wants to be happy; she doesn’t want to suffer.” You might choose to practice this for a whole day, or maybe for just an hour or fifteen minutes. I really appreciate this practice, because it lifts the barrier of indifference to other people’s joy, to their private pain, and to their wonderful uniqueness.

The Equality Practice is from Tonglen: The Path of Transformation, by Pema Chödrön

think on this and love, Susan Rees

easing into comfortable discomfort...

A good friend said to me once, "I have had no choice but to turn toward a path I cannot see and follow it regardless of how it feels. Strangely, it is the way I always wanted, just not at all what I imagined. Much love." To know there are others in the same boat is priceless. I am simply following footprints left in the sand and this is comforting to me.

Discomfort is a symptom, a warning shot over the bow of our lives and meant for us to take notice, not something to run from. Leaning into discomfort is not easy but necessary for progress. In touching the raw, messy places of our lives, we go deeper to feel or see what's driving the discomfort. If fear and trembling arise, we remember to breathe into it and it sometimes dissolves on the spot or morphs into tender shakiness. In most instances, it is bearable, and becomes less and less ferocious over time. With consistent visits it appears to disappear. 

"Discomfort is a symptom, a warning shot over the bow of our lives and meant for us to take notice, not something to run away from."

Putting a stethoscope to our interior, we finally give credence to our inner wisdom and begin to find out what's truly going on inside. Up to this point, our lives have been largely run on imaginings and stories. It is only when we pay close attention that we begin to notice the falsities that betray us and only then that we can dismantle the mindstuff that no longer serves us. The mind may be a dangerous place to hang out, but consulted and worked with tenderly in this way, there's a zoo full of conversations we need to discover and come to grips with. It is in the STILLness we find out what's actually driving our bus.

Deliberate and unceasing in our efforts, over and over, again and again, we return to the storyteller and challenge the authenticity of the yarns being spun. This type of inquiry led me to discover that all my life I looked up & out instead of in & down. Over time all of the outer trappings I'd placed my confidence in, disappeared. Familiar outer cues evaporated like morning dew at noon, not a trace to be found anywhere!

The breath is the compass we use to navigate the interior of our lives.The landscape is unique to each of us. But there are those who will gladly come alongside and shore us up. 

Onward we trudge the road to happy destiny, clearing the blockages to the ever-present flow of Power and Presence that calls us home. 

Love this little gem by Yaakov Astor.

"The breath is the compass we use to navigate 

the interior of our lives."

l8r, Susan Rees