Both Things Can Be True…

Everyone is fighting.  So much frustration, conflict, self righteousness.

My husband is reading “The Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama, and since I’ve dabbled a bit in Buddhism, he asked me yesterday, how can we just float along, with rainbows and unicorns? Being ever kind and tolerant and understanding. Doesn’t that make us zombies?

His point is valid. NOTHING is solved or altered or mitigated without recognizing discomfort, injustice, danger, etc. Innovation and creativity are nearly always preceded by destruction or disruption. If we ignore those things, how do we grow?

That is where “the Middle Way” comes into play. A key principle of Buddhism and a very difficult path to walk.

It’s a variation of my current mantra “Both things can be true”. The recognition that everything is not a binary choice; we don’t have to pick between A and B. There is always a middle ground, a middle way. Something that takes A and B into account and melds them as both being valid or both being invalid, I suppose.

So much right now, tries to force us into these binary choices.

For or against science. For or against one party or the other. For or against masks.

There IS a middle way. We can recognize that science is fluid and contextual. We can recognize that masks are definitely useful in many cases, but not all. We can recognize that parties have differing philosophies and look for areas where we might have a glimmer of agreement.

The Middle Way recognizes that life is both upsetting and glorious. “10,000 joys, 10,000 sorrows”. We have to always look to both sides of the path for truths and have the intellectual and emotional maturity to not ALWAYS choose sides.

Our entire society and in particular much of media and social media is designed to force us to choose one side or the other. It’s ALL about binary choices and that’s why we are feeling so epically divided and confused.

We run most everything through our political filters now. Meaning that we give up OUR authority to make decisions and value judgements. We turn it over to politicians, pundits, media outlets, websites, ‘opinion makers’, etc. And we are in denial of these influences.  We KNOW we are right and we can post the link to an article to PROVE IT.

So, yes, as mature grown-ass adults, we have to listen to our internal guides, compass, ethics, values. We have to consciously be empathetic, compassionate, open to other perspectives. If we do that, we can begin to mitigate some of our fear and anger that is in the driver’s seat.

Both things can be true. The Middle Way.

 

A higher vibration…

I’m angry.  I’m frustrated.  I’m not a lot of fun to be around right now.

It feels like the world as we know it, is on the brink of some huge shift that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Actually, I can put my finger on it.  In fact, I think that I can predict what is happening, but to actually verbalize that ‘feeling’ or vision, is almost too hard.

Talking about it makes me feel vulnerable.  When I talk about what I feel is happening, people tend to get a little nervous about my sanity.

And so, here we are. In a place where pretty much everyone feels some sort of similar, visceral knowing in their gut, that we’re on a precipice of….something.

Some are cheering, thinking that the obvious upheaval and collective discomfort in our nation is exactly what they had hoped for.

Some are convinced it’s the end of life as we know it; that the crumbling and destruction of institutional norms is irreversible and completely devastating.

Some are aching to move forward.  Some ache to move backward.  Expansion versus contraction.  Open-hearted, versus closed off.

So, yeah.  This is most certainly a ‘scary’ time for all of us.  Mostly because we are so outcome-oriented in our country and our culture.  You either win or lose. And we all know that losing is the worst possible outcome.

There is the seat of our fear.  We might be the ‘losers’.  In the richest nation on earth, the second most primal fear that we have (the first being death, of course) is to lose.  An argument, an election, a fight, a war.  Or maybe we just won’t get enough ‘likes’ or followers.

So, when winning becomes the ultimate prize, what happens to us?  Cooperation suffers.  Compassion and empathy are no longer useful or prized.  We cordon ourselves off from those who will not help us ‘win’ and we label them losers.

The quest to always win makes us selfish.  We only care about events and policies that help us. Period.

An example is measuring the health and well being of a nation based solely on the rise of the stock market.  Or paying huge sums of money to give your child an unfair advantage over less privileged young people.

If it helps me, then I’m all in.  Does it help other people? Nah, I don’t care because it might cost me in some way. Every man or family for him/herself.  I gotta look out for number one.

“A rising tide lifts all boats” is such a 19 or 20^th century way of looking at things.  It’s all about having the biggest, hugest, most beautiful boat of my own.

So, yeah.  You can hear it, right?  My anger?  My frustration?  Or maybe yours is drowning me out.  I get it.  Very difficult to get our bearings in this environment.

I’m trying to regain my spiritual practice, but it’s really, really hard right now.  The energies just don’t support it for me.  If you can still meditate or pray or levitate or whatever works, I salute you.

In a time when we need compassion and clarity to rule us, it seems nearly impossible.  I’ve damaged relationships, snapped at loved ones, lost my composure and burned some bridges over the past year or so.

I guess this is what transformation feels like.  What evolution entails.  I firmly believe that we are in a birth canal and when we emerge, nothing will ever be the same.

The trick is to just allow it, understanding that life and humanity and nature and the entire universe have birthed new eras a thousand times before.

That’s life.  Birth, death, rebirth.  Birth, death, rebirth a million times over and somewhere in this infinite process, our consciousness expands and ascends just a tiny bit higher.  We vibrate at a slightly different frequency.

Maybe that’s what I’m feeling.

The End Times

It feels as if we are being overtaken by chaos.  The massive, scary and often, violent events in the world seem as if they are happening in more rapid succession than ever.  Shootings, bombings, coups, Brexit, riots; a global primal scream that we can watch in real time, all over the world.

My husband mentioned Armageddon or apocalypse the other day while we were watching the news out of Nice, France and then Turkey the next day.  I started thinking about that.

Many have predicted ‘the end times’ in scripture (not necessarily Christian, but that too) and various prophesies.   They usually have a similar theme: “God” sends a flood or famine or wars or Christ, etc. to cleanse us, so that we can begin again with a kinder, gentler humanity.

So, maybe that IS what’s happening.  Maybe this IS Armageddon or some sort of ‘end times’.  It all feels very Old Testament right now.  Wars, retribution, tribalism, closing borders, shutting down, pulling inward. FEAR, FEAR, FEAR!  ANGER, ANGER, ANGER!

We hear calls for ‘tougher’ leaders.  Someone who will shut us in our castle and fill the moat with alligators and land mines to keep the bad guys out.  We’ll close ourselves off because the rest of the world doesn’t have our best interests at heart.  THEY WANT TO KILL US!

Tribal.  Low energy.  Not taking responsibility for our past actions.  Not recognizing that our aggression and arrogance may have caused and fostered much of this violence.

There are many stories of these types of societies and kingdoms in the Bible and they are usually beset with horrors from God as punishment, until they are eradicated or they repent.

So, is this what’s happening?  Is this the proverbial flood that washed the earth clean for Noah?  It’s interesting that many of the most devout are not seeing their culpability in many of our current conflicts.  It’s ‘everyone else’.

The ‘end times’ are supposedly paving the way for the return of Christ.  But, many feel that he will not return as a man or a woman or a human, but instead as a consciousness.  Christ Consciousness.  We carry this consciousness and can all become Christ like.  We love, forgive, realize our connections to all that is.  We care for everyone and everything. We see the earth as a living, breathing entity, rather than something to pillage and crap on.

We truly love our neighbors, even if we don’t much like them or agree with them.  We treat them with empathy and respect.  All of the things that Jesus taught us the first time around, will flower in the consciousness and energy of man.

This is also the prophecy of ‘the new age’ that many feel is upon us.  Maybe this is the complete chaos and degradation that has to happen in order for us to rise from the ashes.  We have to get so sick of the dysfunction, lies, violence, anger, hatred, barbarism and hypocrisy that we finally surrender; we ‘see the light’, we alter our outlook and reactions and begin to see that love is our true nature.

It’s what all of the ancient texts of every religion and spiritual teachings say.  Love yourself because God loves you.  Love your fellow humans, love the earth, love nature, love your enemies.  Can you imagine what would happen if we all just followed the basic rules laid out since the beginning of time?

What if we stopped digging in our heels about our political beliefs?  What if we began to find our commonality?  What if we all just admitted that we’re scared shitless right now and that we know in our gut that in order to change the world, we have to heal ourselves, first and foremost.  What if we just admitted that we know damned well that no politician is going to fix this huge, monstrous, complex, corrupt, crazy world?

Again, I will use this word: surrender.  Surrender to your inner light that says more love is necessary.  That anger and hating makes you feel awful and is the real root of our collective pain.  We WANT to love and be loved.  We want to live peacefully and in order to do that, we have to surrender to our true nature.

Yes, I’m a dreamer.  I know that you’re saying I’m naïve and it’s ‘kill or be killed’.  But at some point, we do have to alter this path of escalation and retribution because it’s causing more and more and more trauma and trauma causes people to behave badly.

We are processing thousands of years of human history right now.  That’s what’s happening.  We’ve reached a breaking or tipping point where the vast majority of humans on this planet have collectively realized their ancestral pain and have begun expressing it.  The light bulb has gone off and they see that they are not benefiting from modern life in the ways that they were promised.

All of this chaos is necessary.  It’s shining a light on people’s pain and suffering; we can’t fix that, until we  acknowledge it.  So, here we are, all of us standing in that bright light and we can’t get away.  That’s as it should be.  Allow the light to cleanse and infuse your spirit and then go shine it on the world.

 

We’re depending on you

What the HELL is going on in the world? What is wrong with people? We could turn those phrases into a drinking game this week and we’d all be drunker than skunks if you took a shot every time those words were spoken.

It’s crazy right now, but the interesting thing is that even though we do have some common pains and worries, we don’t really have common solutions. Another mass shooting: one side calls for stricter gun laws, another for looser ones. Another instance of alleged police misconduct resulting in a civilian death: one side says police have a hard job and we should always respect that, while the other side says that the police are the enemy.

And the frustrating thing for me is that these issues seem to always divide along party lines. If you’re in one party, you must believe this, which will of course, be the exact opposite of those ‘idiots’ in the other party. Sound familiar? And then there are those who actually use their brains and their other emotions besides fear and anger, who reside in the Venn Diagram where our values and common sense and empathy intersect.

Unfortunately, the places where we get our news, particularly on TV, rarely enter that fairly large area of agreement. Not good for business. Much better to keep people afraid and angry and suspicious of ‘the other side’ because it’s great for ratings.

So, here we are. Stuck. Angry. Frustrated. Overwhelmed. Afraid. Dug in. Barricaded in our belief system, with no intention of learning about how others came to their world view.

Now, that is scary. A bunch of humans, glaring at each other through their tiny peepholes in the giant door that protects them from people who disagree with them. What a way to live, eh?

You know how on the internet or Facebook or whatever, videos of cute baby animals and baby humans tend to spread like wildfire? That is because we all universally (okay I know there are some of you with very dark and scared souls who refuse to enjoy puppies and kittens…which is a shame) feel a swelling of good emotions while watching them. They are cute and innocent and funny and we just wanna squeeze ‘em. That is because we are connected. By universal love.  Massive, global warm and fuzzies.

There are also those stories and shares of brutality and pain and suffering that receive millions of views and hits. In these cases, we are all connected by that universal pain. We all feel it. We all suffer. We all are connected. Do you understand what this means?

It means that we have to begin to acknowledge our commonality, rather than our differences. We are connected. When one suffers, we all suffer. When one triumphs or feels joy and love, we all do. It spreads and covers us and lifts us up and knocks us down. We are all one on a soul level.

This is the basic teaching of every single major religion and spiritual path. Love your fellow beings, for they are you. But, it’s hard, isn’t it? Everyone is so flawed and complicated and imperfect and blah, blah, blah.

We are at a tipping point. I believe that this is a time to awaken to the clarity that is available to us. I would not presume to know how you will do that, as we are all on our own path to awakening…or not. But, if you feel like things are not working, begin to question your beliefs and the collective beliefs we’ve taken as hard truth.

That is step #1. Question everything. What you have carried around as a belief for years and years is probably not really based on anything but what you were taught by other flawed humans. Core beliefs can evolve, despite the conventional wisdom that says otherwise. We’ve seen a huge evolution in our lifetime on various issues.

What have we been taught as Americans? Growth, progress, technological supremacy, military superpower, USA is #1, work over family, we know best as a nation, might makes right, money and wealth is the ultimate goal, we have dominion over the earth, etc.

A lot of us are questioning those values because they don’t seem to be valid any longer. We are fat, sick, mired in massive debt, destroying our environment, working longer and harder for less, feeling as if we have to aspire to great wealth, but not having the means or training or education or connections to achieve it.

So, re-think. Re-tool your belief system. Maybe fulfillment comes from a more nurturing place. Maybe you’ll begin to feel those connections to all things on earth, including other humans that you don’t quite understand. Love yourself, find yourself, connect with your soul.

Find a way. We’re all depending on you.

For an audio version of this post, click below