It’s been far too long since I have entered a post.  This is in part because I am going through a time of transition personally and professionally (aren’t we all — always?).  So as I continue to define myself and my (so-called) message, I will just enter what comes to mind or in this case, provide passages that I read that I find relevant to my life situation of the day.

 Here’s one from Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth:

 Giving Up Role Playing

When you don’t play roles, it means there is no self (ego) in what you do.  There is no secondary agenda:  protection or strengthening of yourself.  As a result, your actions have far greater power.  You are totally focused on the situation.  You become one with it.  You don’t try to be anybody in particular.  You are most powerful, most effective, when you are completely yourself.  But don’t try to be yourself.  That’s another role.  It’s called, “natural, spontaneous me.”  As soon as you are trying to be this or that, you are playing a role.  “Just be yourself” is good advice, but it can also be misleading.  The mind will come in and say, “Let’s see.  How can I be myself?”  Then, the mind will develop some kind of strategy:  “How to be myself.”  Another role.  “How can I be myself?” is, in fact, the wrong question.  It implies you have to do something to be yourself.  But how doesn’t apply here because you are yourself already.  Just stop adding unnecessary baggage to who you already are.  “But I don’t know who I am.  I don’t know what it means to be myself.”  If you can be absolutely comfortable with not knowing who you are, then what’s left is who you are — the Being behind the human, a field of pure potentiality rather than something that is already defined.

Give up defining yourself — to yourself or to others.  You won’t die.  You will come to life.  And don’t be concerned with how others define you.  When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem.  Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as a field of conscious Presence.

Why does the ego play roles?  Because of one unexamined assumption, one fundamental error, one unconscious thought.  That thought is:  I am not enough.  Other unconscious thoughts follow:  I need to play a role in order to get what I need to be fully myself; I need to get more so that I can be more.  But you cannot be more than you are because underneath your physical and psychological form, you are one with Life itself, one with Being.  In form, you are and will always be inferior to some, superior to others.  In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone.  True self esteem and true humility are contradictory.  In truth, they are one and the same.

So…  thank you Mr. Tolle, I will stop, right now, the project of defining myself and get down to the business of Being. 

Posted: July 10th, 2008 under News.
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I was flipping through the Georgia Straight this morning while sipping tea, stressing out over the last details of the Women With Wings conference, when I came across this article headline Stressed students pushed to breaking point .  The article tells the story of a 19 year old student feeling stressed by the pressure to work and study longs hours to get ahead. 

 ”Aside from the long hours she puts in for pay she is enrolled full-time at Kwantlen, coaches soccer on the weekend, and is involved in competitive cheerleading almost daily.  She estimates her precious moments of downtime add up to less than one day a week.” 

I was not this kind of student, nor is my oldest son — when he chose not to complete his first semester of college, he told me he was really enjoying not having any responsibility right now.  He’s 18.  I can relate.  I often say that I do not suffer from workaholism and yet I repeatedly find myself with my plate overflowing.  Are we addicted to chaos, or the drama that comes from the drive to be more, do more, have more?

I’m ready for a simpler life.  Is it possible to do one or two things really well?  What if our worth was measured on who we are… our level of integrity and kindness rather than our grades and accomplishments?   

Posted: April 30th, 2008 under News.
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I have had this blogspace since launching my website earlier in the year and have been grappling with how to start and what to post.  I have chosen to use this space to share teachings that I find most helpful.  This one is tricky, since I am a coach and people traditionally seek coaching when there is something they want to improve or change in their lives.  My spiritual practice is in becoming a lover of reality and this is the flow my coaching seems to be taking.  This, I am coming to know, is where true freedom lies.  See how it feels for you. 

Here is an excerpt from Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing (from the chapter called The Fire of Truth). For more of Adya’s teachings, visit www.Adyashanti.org.

“It is utterly simple. In a moment, you gain a life free of negotiation and bargaining. This is what the Fire of Truth removes: your negotiation and your bargaining with what is, the desire for anyone or anything to change. You realize that no changes, not even changes in yourself, will make you happier. To receive this gift fully, it must be given to everything and everybody everywhere. This that is awake doesn’t want anybody to change or improve at all. That’s the fire. That’s the ash of the fire. You realize, “A minute ago I wanted you to change, but now I don’t. You’re fine. Everybody’s fine and everything’s fine.” What happened? Nobody changed and nobody conformed to your pattern, yet a happiness is there, made more beautiful because they didn’t change. It is more beautiful because of the diversity of beings and life. This that’s awake is the same for each of us. And everything else is a beautiful, wonderful expression of diversity.

“As soon as I want you to change or you want me to change, a dagger is thrust into the very heart of our existence. You feel it immediately, personally and closely. This is what the Fire of Truth takes out of your hands. Mysteriously, in that releasing, transformational energy is released. Everything is transformed — not only ourselves, but everyone around us. The Fire of Truth transforms you right down to the cells of your body. Not that you care about or intend this. It happens simply because you don’t intend it. As soon as we care, transformational energy is boxed back up, and as soon as the mind tries to box this truth, to understand it within its own concepts, it’s like dropping a heavy stone on a mirror. The experience is shattering, and you instantly will feel the tension in your mind and body. This transformation requires the deepest humility without any sense of being humble.

“So my invitation is to not look past the looking and not move yourself away from that which notices. Do not improve yourself past that which is already whole. And return the favour. That’s the saving of the world. Return the favour and see it over there. Wherever over there is — to your left, to your right, behind you, upside down, under your feet. See wholeness there. That’s the transformation of everything. If you don’t see wholeness in everything around you, that’s the continuation of ignorance, the continuation of violence. Don’t sacrifice this that is awake. Don’t think it out of existence. Don’t bargain it into the periphery of your life.” — Adyashanti

Posted: April 2nd, 2008 under News.
Comments: 1

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Posted: February 4th, 2008 under News.
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