Notes From a Fellow Traveller

Walking the Path

Once again, I will leave in a few days to return to Asia for study, reflection, and retreat amongst the wisdom and healing traditions of these ancient cultures. This is my twelfth trip in about as many years.

The first few trips marked the beginning of my turn inward. It was not as easy then as it is now. I vividly recall sitting at the airport, awaiting an endless and exhausting flight to India. I remember asking myself over and over, “What am I doing here?” I’ve given up a good, well established, and lucrative career in medicine to follow an intangible path to an even more intangible inner life. But, I sensed there was “more to life,” and more to healing. It was a gnawing feeling that would not leave. It was a deep calling to discover the traditional way of the healer. Yet, there were lingering and troubling doubts. I imagined friends and colleagues pursuing their careers and lives, taking “pleasurable” vacations, and seemingly happy with life as it was. Why wasn’t that me? Was this an awful mistake I would soon come to regret? That’s how it often felt at the beginning of the inner path.

When I look back on those moments, I still cannot quite understand what sustained that effort. But over the years, gratitude has replaced fear and certainty has overcome doubt. There has been a slow and progressive return to the center of my being, to a serenity, understanding, and happiness previously unknown. There is now a budding experience inside that has begun to know and experience the essence of life, much as our ancestors described it. The ancient sages and healers, East and West, knew that the treasures of life arose only from a matured inner inner life, from spirit. Plato called this inner understanding the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Aristotle called it Eudaimonia – the good life. In the Christian tradition it is called Eros and Agape. In the Oriental tradition it is called the Tao. In modern times we call it human flourishing. In reality, it is nameless.

I soon discovered that the busyness of my outer life had been a mistaken substitute for the loss of this inner possibility. As a result, as I slowly tasted the qualities of human flourishing, my outer life simultaneously contracted. No longer looking outside for what could only be found within, much of the busyness, needless entertainment, and distraction came to a natural end. Life began to slow in proportion to my growing inner stillness and natural contentment. A healing and wholing began to take hold of my life. And as this stabilized and grew my outer work as a healer changed as well

I now knew that all authentic and sustained healing must begin inside. Outer treatments and remedies are fine for biological disturbances. However, they cannot bring stress, distress, and suffering to an end. They cannot develop our capacity for the subtlest mind-body self-regulation. They cannot reveal to us an enduring source of peace and happiness. They cannot convey a wisdom that knows the essence of self and life. They cannot give rise to authentic compassion and love. They cannot break the chains of yesterday, which alone can guarantee a boundless and spacious freedom.

I am beginning to understand the meaning of the ancient Greek term for a healer “iatromantis” – coarsely defined as “divine healer.” I am beginning to understand what Aurobindo spoke of when he referred to the possibility of a “divine life on earth.” All of the great philosophies, religions, and healing traditions agree on this singular truth – the inner life is the sole basis, the fundamental foundation, for optimal health and human flourishing. Such a life is not measured by the state of our biology but rather, by the state-of our-being. Thus, human flourishing, is a permanent condition of optimal well-being that is immune to the adversities of life, including aging, disease, and death.

When entering medical school, I would have never imagined the path I would take to become part of the great tradition of healers. I would never have imagined that the first healing I participate in must be my own. I would never have imagined this journey would take me to the far reaches of the world to meet and learn from the wise ones who have given their lives to touch the truth of health and healing.

I have also discovered that we can each travel this inner journey in the midst of our daily lives, and perhaps that is the best way to join this path in modern times. After years of teaching individuals and groups the central elements of this path – study, reflection, and practice ­– it has become clear that we can begin and mature this process of self-education right here and right now. In fact, there is no better time or place. One needs the willingness to travel inside, the commitment to see it through, and the proper support and teachings. With that, certain progress can be made in our life as it is now.

As I go into retreat I take each of you with me. There can be no other way. We either awaken together or join each other in the sleep of habitual patterns and automated living. Together, we can lead the precious life bequeathed to us by our ancestors.

www.elliottdacher.org

Aware, Awake, Alive: A Contemporary Guide to the Ancient Science of Integral Health and Human Flourishing

                        Aware ❀ Awake ❀ Alive

    A Contemporary Guide to the Ancient Science of Integral Health and Human        Flourishing – with accompanying Practice CD

    My Dear  Blog Readers

    I invite you to read my new book which contains my     most recent work on     Integral Health and Human Flourishing. It is a full 10-week     proram supported     by an accompanying practice CD. Thanks for following my  blog.

                                                             *********************************
The noble and timeless dream of healing is the eradication of all  forms  of suffering and the attainment of health, happiness, and wholeness. Throughout tim eand across diverse cultures individuals have continuously sought in their unique ways to heal suffering, aid the recovery of health, and reach towards the highest  potential available to humankind. With that aim in mind wise healers, past and present, have sought to unlock the elusive mystery of healing. With great care and precision they have bequeathed us their wisdom.

Aware, Awake, Alive draws upon ancient wisdom, contemporary science, and modern understandings of consciousness to offer the reader a physician's time-tested program of self-study and practice, which guides the reader towards a life of optimal well-being, integral health, and human flourishing. Included in this book is a practice CD which helps the reader progress through this program, a program that has assisted many individuals in their quest for a larger life and health.

Topics include: meditation, mindfulness, overcoming afflictive emotions, the heart of otherness, work as practice, the transformation of adversity, integral health, and human flourishing. Dr. Dacher explains how this knowledge and these practices can be applied to common disorders such as stress, heart disease, addictions, and attention deficit disorder.

Praise for Aware, Awake, Alive

Aware, Awake, Alive reflects Dr. Elliott Dacher's expertise in western scientific medicine and his life-changing journey to the East. If you are tired of merely going through the motions of life and aspire to the upper echelons of health, Aware, Awake, Alive is for you.
---Larry Dossey, MD
Author of Healing Words and The Power of Premonitions

Aware, Awake, Alive details the essential needs of our inner spirit. The author's personal wisdom, professional knowledge, and mastery of sacred teachings insures that this book fulfills its promise to lead the reader into a deep and profound inner journey of self-awakening, Aware, Awake, Alive is absolutely stunning.
---Caroline Myss
Author of ANATOMY of the SPIRIT and DEFY GRAVITY

Elliott Dacher has the heart of a sage, the voice of a muse, and the skill of a trained physician. As we embody the wisdom of Aware, Awake, Alive, we find a roadmap that can lead each of us to healthier and happier lives. I strongly recommend this book. ...
---Marilyn Schlitz,
President/CEO, Institute of Noetic Sciences

We can all use guides and coaches on our journey through life. Aware, Awake, Alive contains practical wisdom and resources which can assist you in developing your mind, opening your heart and living your greatest potential.
---Bernie Siegel, MD
Author of 365 Prescriptions For The Soul and Faith, Hope & Healing

About Elliott S. Dacher, M.D.

Dr. Elliott S. Dacher, M.D. practiced full time internal medicine from 1975 to 1996. In 1996 he left his medical practice to begin an in-depth study of the principles and practices of consciousness and health - an ongoing study of the subtlest mind/body medicine which he pursued for many years amongst the wisdom traditions of Asia. His previous books include: Integral Health: The Path to Human Flourishing (Basic Books, 2006,) Whole Healing (Dutton/Plume, 1996,) and Intentional Healing (Marlowe, 1996.)

Find My New Book as a Paperback or eBook on Amazon

www.elliotdacher.org

Integral Health and Consciousness

Several years ago I was speaking about my new book with a friend in Delhi. During one of our conversations I mentioned the title of the book, Integral Health. I further remarked that I was not familiar with any previous books with the same title. My friend immediately said, “I’m certain that there is a book by Aurobindo with a similar title.” Shortly after, I headed off to the Aurobindo center hoping to find it. Sure enough, there it was in the bookstore. The actual title was Integral Healing. It was a compilation of his many writings on consciousness and health.

In this book Aurobindo expressed his view that consciousness is more than a mental phenomenon. It actually descends into our cellular structure. It is inseparable from our physiology. Consciousness is physiology and physiology is consciousness. That is his point. The mind/body relationship is like the relationship of water and wetness. You cannot put water on one side of the room and wetness on the other side. They are indivisible. They go together. A harmonious consciousness is a harmonious physiology. An afflictive mental life is a disturbed physiology. Integral healing, according to Aurobindo, relies on the indivisibility of mind and body. And further, because an awakened consciousness is the peak of human development it is the critical factor in health and healing.

When I wrote Integral Health in 2006 it was my intention to present a comprehensive model of health and healing which included the four central aspects of the human experience – psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal and social. Each of these aspects of life contributes to health, and can as well contribute to the development of disease. According to integral theory, a progressive enhancement of health is achieved by developing each of these areas of life – growing consciousness, caring for biological needs, shifting from a focus on self to a focus on others and bringing meaning and service to our social activities. The end result is not merely reducing the risk of chronic disease, but progressively attaining optimal well being.

After I completed Integral Health it became apparent to me that in modern times the driving force underlying the expansive vision of integral health and healing was psychospiritual development – the awakening and development of consciousness. There are two reasons for this. First, in modern times we have denied and devalued inner development. As a result, for most individuals consciousness remains relatively undeveloped, as compared to traditions and cultures which emphasize inner development. Second, the three other aspects of the integral process – interpersonal, biological and social – develop in tandem with the growth of consciousness. By necessity, they move together.

Consider the following. You cannot have healthy relationships and selfless loving-kindness without growth in consciousness. It is quite likely that further advances in biological health will likely result from an increasingly subtle capacity for mind/body self regulation, which is similarly driven by a growing consciousness. And finally, the shift from experiencing the world as serving our needs to viewing ourselves as being in service to the world requires a leap in consciousness as well.

An expanding conscious drives the entire integral process. That was the central observation of Aurobindo – consciousness is the root of integral health and healing. As a result of this understanding, my work increasingly focused on the process of inner development. This does not mean disregarding other aspects of the human experience, but rather, it is a shift in emphasis and focus that is compelled by recognition of the pivotal role of an awakened consciousness. Without focusing on the growth of consciousness the other aspects of our lives cannot be fully developed. It is simply not possible.

Inner development can be divided into two main areas – mind training and wisdom teachings. Mind training focuses on ridding the mind of its afflictive and negative emotions and replacing them with healthy mental attitudes. This includes taming the overactive mind, developing mindfulness, promoting the attitude of loving-kindness and attainment of basic insights regarding the workings of the mind. Wisdom teachings focus on replacing false beliefs, which underlie afflictive emotions, with correct understandings. The latter is the basis for a precise and accurate knowledge of reality. This decisively and permanently liberates human life from the scourge of all types of suffering. Although these two aspects of inner development may appear separate, in actuality they evolve together and mutually support each other.

For the past three years I have been presenting a 10-week program at a local hospital. We have completed 14 sessions with 300 participants. This effort was initiated with the belief that integral health – the alleviation of distress and suffering and the attainment of the qualities of human flourishing – can be best achieved through inner development, the expansion of consciousness. To this end the program emphasized three components – study, reflection and practice.

The 10 weeks were divided into 10 areas of study. These include: clearing the mind, identifying the root causes of distress and suffering, addressing the nature and resolution of afflictive emotions, cultivating loving-kindness, experiencing work as a source of service, perceiving adversity as opportunity, knowing what to cultivate and what to abandon in the quest for optimal well being as well as other related issues. Participants studied these topics through prepared readings and class handouts. In addition, two kinds of practice were incorporated into the program – a daily sitting practice as well as a variety of specific practices to be used during day-to-day life. The latter includes mindfulness, meditative listening, correct understanding of afflictive emotions, loving-kindness practices and so on. The point is to create an integral and integrated tapestry of consciousness-based study and practice which utilizes all experience as an opportunity to grow and expand consciousness.

At the current time we are continuing this core program and have instituted a second level course for those who have developed a stable sitting practice. Although most of the participants in this course have had no previous meditation experience, they have exhibited a remarkable enthusiasm and persistence in their efforts. As a result, changes are seen within weeks. These are fairly consistent among participants. These changes include – a greater presence to momentary experience, diminished reactivity, improved relationships, an increasing sense of well being, greater understanding and compassion for others and most importantly, a strong commitment to continue their inner development. We can only assume that these changes will lead to a corresponding set of changes in the physical, relational and social dimension as well.

What we have learned from this informal experiment is that it is definitely possible to drive the entire integral process through consciousness- based studies. A fully integrated program aimed at inner development can establish the foundation for a progressive reduction in distress and suffering and a simultaneous enhancement of the quality of life. Over time these changes become irreversible, like a fruit that ripens and can no longer return to its unripened state.

A consciousness-based integral approach taps into the last uncharted frontier in health and healing. It builds on the pivotal realization that the expansion of consciousness is the driving force underlying a comprehensive and integral health and healing. By focusing on inner development we gain the most from our time and effort. We undertake the most important step towards assuring a larger life and optimal well being.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty lies not in knowing how to proceed, as that knowledge is well known to past and present students of inner development. The problem is the absence of personal and cultural recognition of the importance of inner development, the unavailability of educational initiatives formalizing consciousness-based studies and the accessibility of qualified teachers and guides who can assist individuals in achieving a healthy and expansive inner life.
We cannot let this opportunity slip away.

The individual who masters his own life becomes the finely tuned instrument which serves to benefit others and care for the fate of our imperiled planet. The stakes are very high. The time is now.

www.elliottdacher.org

Meditation: Relaxation or Awakening

In my last blog I wrote about Human Flourishing – the realization of our innate potential for an enduring happiness, optimal well being, expansive consciousness and effortless serenity. I used the word realization because these qualities are already and have always been innate to our essential nature. It is more a remembering than the creation of something new. Although this quality of optimal existence is inherent to our being, like clouds obscure the sun it is obscured by dysfunctional learned mental habits, afflictive thoughts and emotions, and the stress and distress of an overactive mind.

In order to explore and dissolve these veils that obscure our authentic self we need methods and tools. To explore our biology we use the microscope and its more sophisticated versions such as the MRI or CAT scan. These tools allow us to penetrate surface appearances enabling us to gain a more detailed and precise understanding of our biology. Similarly, when studying the mind we use the tool known as meditation. Meditation allows us to penetrate the surface experiences of the mind and gain a more detailed understanding of its workings and essential nature. That understanding allows us to remove the veils that obscure our authentic nature, revealing the qualities of human flourishing.

However, in modern times the use of meditation has strayed far from its original intent and use which was to awaken the mind to its fullest potential. It is now used to calm the mind and alleviate stress and distress. This is achieved by temporarily focusing the mind on an object such as a sound, word or the breath. That diminishes mental distraction and quiets the overactive mind – temporarily! In this way meditation has been reduced to a relaxation technique, a remedy. It has become a quick-fix. It calms our mind for a few moments. Unfortunately, like a pain remedy, it lasts only as long as we use it. When meditation is used as a relaxation technique it fails to get to the root source of stress, distress, emotional afflictions and the overactive mind.

When used properly meditation, called “incubation” in the western tradition of ancient Greece, is an investigative tool rather than a temporary remedy. It cuts to the root source of cognitive misunderstandings and mental afflictions that obscure our natural self. It does this by penetrating surface levels of consciousness, directly observing and eliminating the mind’s habitual and faulty mental habits, and realizing the insubstantiality of afflictive thoughts and emotions. In this way the mental sources of dissatisfaction, distress and suffering progressively dissipate like morning dew. When this occurs our authentic self and the qualities of an expansive consciousness are revealed. The result is an awakened and full life rather than temporary relaxation and pacification.

For this to occur meditation must be taught in its full scope in accordance with its traditional aims. That includes three progressive phases: (1) taming the mind’s ceaseless mental chatter, (2) creating an undisturbed mental clearing that allows for an oasis of stillness and clarity and, (3) resting naturally and with ease in the presence and beingness of an expansive consciousness. Our initial effort, which may continue for a year or more, is directed at taming the mind and gaining a foothold in mental clarity and stillness. This will allow us to further explore the mind, undermine its faulty and dysfunctional tendencies and serves as a bridge to our natural expansive consciousness.

When taught in accordance with its traditional purpose results are seen within weeks. It is common for individuals to report enhanced mental calm that persists beyond the practice session, diminished reactivity and improved personal relationships. As meditation practice continues new insights, capacities and skills are developed, stabilized and fully integrated into daily life. Life begins to change, from the inside out.

Meditation, taught in this manner, is part of a larger process of study, reflection, practice and lifestyle change. The latter includes: (1) turning away from the mistaken notion that outer objects, people or experiences will result in sustained happiness, (2) turning towards inner development, (3) cultivating loving kindness and other qualities which support inner development, and (4) gaining a more detailed understanding of the nature of suffering, mental afflictions and the qualities of human flourishing. This holistic process of mental training and lifestyle change is quite traditional and its results – a full and vital life – has been well known to wise woman and men throughout time and across diverse cultures.

Seen from this perspective meditation, when used as a tool for temporary relaxation, can be life-betraying. as it provides no more than momentary relief while supporting the illusion that we are actually creating substantial and permanent change. We are not. When we use meditation solely as a relaxation technique we distract ourselves from the real task ahead. However, when meditation is used as a tool to awaken consciousness we place ourselves directly on the path to realizing the precious qualities of human flourishing.

Upcoming Transformative Learning Weekend Workshop at IONS Retreat Center

Human Flourishing: Enduring Happiness, Optimal Well-Being and Serenity in Modern Times

Elliott S. Dacher, M.D.
July 23-25, 2010
Contact: Claudia Holt: 707 779-8202 or cholt@noetic.org

Human Flourishing Revisited

In the 4th century BC Aristotle gave a series of lectures in Athens that became know as the Nicomachean Ethics. It is here that he introduced the word Eudaimonia that is now translated to mean human flourishing – the innate potential of each individual to live a life of enduring happiness, penetrating wisdom, optimal well being and authentic love and compassion. Of course Aristotle was not alone in this view of the heights of the human condition. Wise woman and men through time and across diverse cultures have spoken of this very same pinnacle of human existence. With a universal voice they spoke of this uniquely human possibility while simultaneously pointing out the veils of mental misunderstandings and emotional disturbances that must be surmounted before this potential can be realized.

In his Parable of the Cave Plato describes the noble human promise of human flourishing as well as the veils of confusion and ignorance that obscure each of us from its realizatiion. He speaks about the enslavement to tenacious conditioning and the miracle of breakthrough to the True, the Good and the Beautiful. The East they t relate this same dilemma in parables. They say it is as if we are born and live on a gem encrusted island yet, blinded by our confusion and ignorance, we are unable to see the riches that lie beneath our feet. We leave our island-home at the end of life empty-handed even though great wealth is right beneath our feet.

So if this natural treasure of happiness, wisdom and love resides in each of us why can’t we see or experience it? Why does it seem so scarce and inaccessible? Why do we exert so much energy and effort scavenging in the outer world for a mere facsimile called pleasure which is transient at best, and at worst suffering-in-disguise? Why don’t we go directly to the source, to the center of our being where our wealth is natural, permanent and brilliantly present? The answer is quite simple. Out of habit we have learned to search for the good and benevolent life in the wrong place. That is why we can never find what we are searching for regardless of the effort and persistence we bring to our search.

We learned this powerful and unsatisfying mental habit a long time ago. We mistakenly learned to reach outside of our self for happiness and serenity, wisdom and compassion, health and healing and wholeness and love. This tendency is so deeply ingrained that it feels like a natural instinct. Even when our outer gaze fails to truly satisfy our longing we automatically, without reflection, respond with greater striving and effort. We don’t know what else to do. We rarely question our learned dependence on the outer world. We have an intractable faith that it will give us what we need, if we only try hard enough. It is this intractable self-righteous habit that denies us access to the authentic qualities of human flourishing that are already and have always been seamlessly interwoven within our authentic self.

Fortunately, the wise ones who have come before us have left a road map to human flourishing. They have shown us the way to move beyond “normal” life to a noble life that fulfills our evolutionary destiny. They have left us a step-by=step instruction manual for the attainment of human flourishing. Those instructions reflect the universal teachings of all wise philosophies and religions throughout time and across diverse cultures.

The question for each of us is how to take this journey and who to take along and rely on as a trustworthy guide. In our time, when there are a plethora of workshops, seminars, books and “guides,” this is not an easy choice. Some reflect authentic wisdom while others do not. Perhaps it is best to turn toward the traditions whose detailed practices are alive today and have stood the test of time. Of these there are few rather than many. Similarly, there are uncommon teachers who are well-trained and “walk the talk.” The investment in a time-tested inner path and a reliable and wise spiritual guide that will help you along the way is a critical choice that can potentially save years, if not a lifetime. So take your time. When you decide upon the right path and teacher you will be off on the adventure of a lifetime. That adventure is a journey to the last frontier to be explored by humankind. It is a glorious journey of body, mind and spirit towards the perfect of human life. Choose well and pack your pack your bags with enthusiasm, perseverance and devotion.

In my next blog I will look at meditation, the central instrument of inner development that leads to human flourishing. This is not meditation as it is generally presented in the west, as a tool for relaxation or mindfulness. In its traditional form meditation, when properly and precisely understood and used, is a tool for freeing the mind and heart as a foundation for a larger life.

www.elliottdacher.org

Upcoming Transformative Learning Weekend Workshop at IONS Retreat Center
Human Flourishing: Enduring Happiness, Optimal Well-Being and Serenity in Modern Times

July 23-24, 2010

Contact: Claudia Holt: 707 779-8202 or cholt@noetic.org

Wisdom

       Consciousness or awareness is a characteristic of life. We know this because we experience it. We know it from the sheer act of being. But at first we do not know much of its expanse. It is like a seed. It has the potential to grow, flower and expand but requires certain conditions in order for it to fully flourish. Although inherent in all life, consciousness progressively reveals itself in dependence on biology, and in humans on dependence on personal intention and effort as well.

            In primitive life consciousness is more or less asleep as the conditions for its unfolding are incomplete. All that manifests are its rudimentary aspects that appear as fixed instincts necessary to insure survival and maintain homeostasis. With more developed forms of life new capacities arise in relationship to further biological development. These include social behaviors, more complex motor skills, memory and increasingly complex behavioral patterns. Each leap in the evolutionary cycle provides a more complex biological instrument that is capable of revealing more and more of the sophisticated and subtle aspects of consciousness.

            Human life is the pinnacle of evolutionary development. We alone are blessed with the biology, brain development and capacity for intention and will that are the basis for a highly developed consciousness. But this development is not guaranteed. There are many levels of consciousness that are available to us. To gain higher levels of development we must train and cultivate our mental capacities. We must work to mature our lives. This is a capacity reserved exclusively for human life. All other living beings are limited by their biology. Amazingly, we can take conscious control over the evolution of our mind and spirit. We are not limited by our biology.

            Our biology provides us with great latitude. There is a range of consciousness available to each of us. We can live our life in a semi-instinctual way by unconsciously following fixed mental habits and behavioral patterns. But we can also go further. We can gain psychological insight which further expands our consciousness, capacities and autonomy. And with considerable effort and devotion we can actually perfect the unfolding of our consciousness and come to know the very nature of our being, re-uniting with the sacred oneness of all of life. Through determination and perseverance we can evolve the fullness of our humanity, gaining remarkable wisdom, insight, peace and happiness. This is not a possibility reserved for a few sages. It is possible for each of us. It is not an ordinary life. It is an extraordinary one.

            However, this is not an easy task. We still have one foot, if not two, in the animal community. We are still evolving as humans, individually and collectively. As a result we feel the downward forces of a more rudimentary consciousness that emphasizes physical and emotional survival while we’re simultaneously pulled by the forces of evolution toward the perfection of our being. It is somewhat of a “tug-of-war.” That is where we are now. We live between two worlds, experiencing the powerful forces of our earlier evolutionary life as well as the insistent call of our human soul. We are pulled backed by the former and pushed forward by the latter.

            To understand this dynamic dilemma as it plays itself out in each of our lives is to bring awareness and choice into life. Do we wish to be drawn towards a lesser life or toward the completion of our possibilities? Will the past hold sway over the future or will the future transcend the past? How we each answer this question will determine how and if we evolve our innate seed of wisdom.

            Wisdom develops in tandem with the development of consciousness. In its most complete and perfected form it undermines superficial understandings, providing us with a penetrating, precise and full knowledge of our lives and of our existence. In this sense, the perfection of wisdom transcends all lesser understandings and apprehends the true nature of experience and phenomena with accuracy and finality. It knows the truth of how things are and how life is. The full flowering of consciousness leads to the perfection of wisdom. Full knowing frees us from the usual bounds of ordinary life, allowing us to experience an unfettered and radical freedom, peace, wholeness, happiness and love.

            Who could doubt that it is man’s purpose to go beyond himself, beyond the limitations and restrictions of ordinary life with all its anxieties, frustrations, self-centeredness, confusion and doubt? Who would question the evolutionary force in human life that propels us toward greater and greater understanding? Who would take from our life the possibility of knowing and merging with the sacred and divine forces of the great mystery? Who would knowingly deny themselves the beauty and magnificence of a perfected life that has touched and lived the full range and scope of the human experience? The unfortunate and sad fact is that most individuals live and die without ever experiencing much of life. They don’t know what they don’t know.

            However, the capacity for full wisdom is already and always present within each of us. We are wired with an irrepressible force that drives our lives toward complete fulfillment, full consciousness and the perfection of wisdom. But how do we know that this seed, this possibility resides within each of us? We know this because courageous men and woman across time and diverse cultures have themselves taken the journey from “dust to divine” – from ignorance to transcendent wisdom. They have taught us by their example and left an extensive set of teachings that serve to guide us. The roadmap we are given is twofold. First, we are taught about the progressive levels of development that take us from an instinctual consciousness to a matured wisdom. Second, we are provided with the understandings and practices that enable each one of us to take this journey. Through their efforts we know what is possible and we know how to get there. The rest is up to us.

The Levels of Development

            The growth from ignorance to wisdom ascends along what we are calling a “line of development.” It is like a ladder. Each step represents an expansion of consciousness. As we ascend from one level to another we gain new perspectives, understandings, resources and capacities. These achievements expand our life and take us closer to the full embrace of our humanity. We never loose what we have gained. Each level of development transcends what was previously achieved and incorporates it into our expanding repertoire of knowledge and skills. The formula is “transcend and embrace.” For example, although our life is no longer focused around survival we retain this life-sustaining instinct. We see it awaken when we step in front of a moving car. Our mind and body quickly gear up to take the actions necessary for survival. Although we still retain this capacity it is no longer the center of our lives. We have embraced its importance to us yet transcended its dominance in our lives, allowing for further growth and development. That is how we progressively evolve towards full wisdom. We embrace what was and shift to what is next on the ladder of development.

            There is no guarantee that we will mature towards greater wisdom and capacity. There is no guarantee that we will move up the ladder of development. As noted earlier there are always two forces at work. The first is the yearning of the soul to live in its fullness, freedom, connectedness and truth. This is a powerful life yearning that calls us toward what we can become. However, there is also a second powerful force at work – the force of inertia. This force pulls us back towards the known – towards safety, comfort, security and the familiar. We each experience both these forces. And we will each make a choice, unconscious or conscious, between the forces that pull us back toward our animal-like existence and the forces that pull us toward the divine. This is a choice between an ordinary life and an extraordinary life. Imagine reviewing your life at the time of death. From that perspective which choice would you make?

             The reason that there is a choice is that the capacity for wisdom is encoded into every human life. It is present as a potential even in the infant. If you rub charcoal you will never find gold. If you take the encrustations off of gold ore you will fine gold. It is the same for us. Unless the capacity for a higher wisdom was encoded in us from the beginning we could never attain it regardless of our efforts.

            But like milk that has to be churned to reveal its sweet essence of butter, a human life must be worked with to reveal its greatest potential. Without intention, guidance, effort and devotion our mental life will remain quite primitive. However, if we are decisive about our choice and apply our self to this noble human endeavor it is possible for each of us to move through successive levels of development to attain a full and comprehensive wisdom.

Instinctual “Knowledge”

            There can be little argument that the young child has no idea whatsoever about the nature of their own life, less existence itself. The child is unconsciously focused on physical survival and the biological mechanisms that sustain life. These physical/mental instincts dominate early life. They are impersonal. They are unconscious reflex mechanisms that secure survival. There is a “knowing” in these instincts. However, it is a knowing that is far more physical than mental. It is where we start.

            This starting point in human development is a recapitulation of the sensory-motor level of conscious that is present in all living organisms from amoeba to human. The actual instinctive survival mechanisms differ according to species and environment but the mechanics are much the same. However, as humans we have the capacity to move far beyond these basic instincts. They will always be part of our being – silently running our physiology or becoming more evident at times of grave threat. They are never given up. But they can be transcended in which case they are no longer the central focus of our existence.

            There is a sweet innocence to early life. The world is experienced directly with a simplistic ease and awe. But this cannot be romanticized and mistaken for the mature and wise simplicity, naked awareness and beauty that are seen by the wise one. The child’s innocence exists in the context of ignorance. It cannot be translated into rich relationships, authentic love or compassionate service. The child’s sweet innocence is vulnerable and will be broken in time. The child-like simplicity of a wise one is immune and invulnerable to the downward pulls and forces of life’s adversities.  Profound wisdom always translates into profound action.

Mechanical Knowledge

            The young child rapidly begins to learn about how the world works. This assimilation of mechanical knowledge continues unabated throughout adult life. For a child it may be about how to get food from the table into ones mouth, to move from here to there, to communicate about needs and preferences and to progressively learn to navigate the world. For an adult it may range from filling out applications to learning how a car or computer works. The characteristic of mechanical knowledge is that it is about how to do this or that. There is no personal or psychological aspect to it. It is largely factual and practical. There is no wisdom involved and only a superficial level of reflection.

            Knowledge of this sort helps us live life. Because it is largely factual and mechanical, it neither causes us mental distress nor contributes to the growth of wisdom. We can spend our entire life perfecting mechanical knowledge, enabling us to successfully navigate the outer world and even achieve worldly success. In fact, in modern times we have mastered the skill of “doing.” Yet such knowledge offers no guarantee that we attain the wisdom and understanding that is necessary for optimal health, happiness, inner peace and compassion. It does not guarantee or even offer us an in-depth understanding of our life, satisfying intimacy or the understanding that enables us to skillfully and peacefully move through life’s adversities. That requires an expanded consciousness rather than merely an expanded capacity “to do.”

            It is possible to remain at this level of development for an entire lifetime. But we will undoubtedly feel the effects of an unexamined and undeveloped inner life. These effects will show up as an uncontrollable overactive mind, unrelenting stress, anxiety, mood disorders, unhappiness, dysfunctional relationships and their physical counterparts of stress related disease and premature illness. This is the result of an over dominant mechanical life of doing and an absence of inner development. A stunted development that fixates on mechanical doing may achieve worldly success but this is invariably accompanied by the epidemics of mental distress and chronic disease that characterize modern times.

            However, given the modern day renewal of psychological thought in the 19^th century it is increasingly difficult to avoid the realities of our inner life. And that is good. If we want more we have to grow larger. For this we must begin with our psychology, our inner life. We have to learn how “to be” as well as how “to do.”

Psychological Knowledge

            Psychological understanding is a bridge between the instinctual and mechanical life of the infant and young child and the capacity for wisdom that can emerge in the adult. Psychological development is a necessary foundation for a larger life. Without this foundation wisdom remains an unrealized potential.

            If we are to gain wisdom and an expansive life we must illuminate and understand the fixed attitudes and behavioral patterns that guide the first part of life. The inertia of early patterns prefers seeming “stability” to the uncertainty of change. As a result, we are usually not moved to grow beyond familiar ways until we have experienced a level of stress or distress that is sufficient to “wake” us up. However, when life breaks us open and old ways no longer work we become primed for psychological development. We have a choice – either grow or stagnate. It is as if a door opens and we stand at the threshold of possibility. We are  ready yet at the same time bit anxious to step through to the other side. If we choose growth, which at this level means psychological development. We will begin the journey toward another level of being. We will open new possibilities and gain expanded resources and capacities. If we turn away we will have more if what was.

            Psychological knowledge is different from mechanical knowledge. Unlike the latter which is about outer objects, psychological knowledge is about our inner life. It is far less tangible than mechanical knowledge. Although it may seem otherwise, it is far easier to read an instruction manual for a new car or navigate the complexities of outer life than it is to understand the intricate pathways of our thoughts, feelings, mental imagery, vivid night dreams, attitudes and behaviors. It requires a new-found and carefully developed awareness, skill and insight to navigate the nuances of ones inner life and interpersonal relationships.

            The problem in understanding our inner life is that the mind that we are attempting to use to understand itself is the same mind that veils the truth of our life. Our mind keeps us from seeing the very things we need to see. Our habitual ways of perceiving and acting are so fixed that we cannot see through them. We cannot easily detect or examine our hidden motivations and untapped possibilities. This is compared to the impossibility of a knife cutting itself. As a result, it is very difficult to understand ones psychology without an outside observer. In fact, it is close to impossible. To explore our psychology it is first necessary to tame the active mind and develop a field of openness and clarity. From that perspective, with the help of a mentor and guide, we can begin to penetrate the depths of our being where we are certain to move beyond the constraints of an undeveloped mind and discover the truth of who and what we are.

            The psychological mind grows through several levels of development, ranging from coarse to subtle to most subtle. At the coarsest level is the simple awareness of thoughts, feelings, mental imagery, happiness and distress. This is the overt experience of our inner life. We are aware of our mental life but are unaware of its motivation and meaning. We cannot see the underlying patterns and attitudes that shape and govern our life. We think we have free will but nothing could be further from the truth. We are enslaved to our past and condemned to repeat it again and again. We are moved by inner and outer forces over which we have little control. Our mind is like a flag automatically following the movements of the wind. We are pushed and pulled by ceaseless mental chatter. The best we can do is attempt to arrange the world in a way that provides us with as much comfort, security and pleasure as possible.            

            If there is enough suffering we may be forced to look beneath the surface. If we do so our psychological life will begin to unfold. We will slowly become aware of how our life actually works. We can trace our disturbances back in time and understand the sources of behavior. We shine a light on what was once hidden. We see the repetitive patterns that underlie our day-to-day experience. This growth in understanding softens distress, allows for new behaviors, enhances our relationships and expands our life. We learn how to communicate, hear others, be intimate, dampen our reactivity and gain emotional stability. We become more mindful, attentive and present to life. We feel more autonomy and less helplessness. There is greater inner peace, stability, understanding and autonomy. We develop an increasingly healthier self.           

            With greater subtlety we shift from understanding and cleaning up dysfunction to gaining psychological well being. We are ready to establish basic wellness. How do we do this? We discover that we cannot control the outer world but that we can control how we relate to it. We slowly develop an internal locus of control. We gain greater understanding in our values, talents and capacities. We are more capable of committing our self in a direction that is consistent and authentic to our soul. We become increasingly resourceful. We know how to find and apply resources toward goals and directions that are expressive of our nature. We are able to meet life’s challenges, viewing them as opportunities for growth rather than sources of despair. We no longer respond with fear. We respond with enthusiastic expectancy. We develop a sense of meaning and purpose that is uniquely our own. In these and other ways we evolve an increasingly healthy psychology.

            These are the three ways in which we relate to our psychology. The first is the mere experience of our overt thoughts and feelings, an experience that lacks understanding. The second is the movement toward an understanding of our psychology which releases us from outdated mental habits and behaviors and increases self-knowledge and personal autonomy. The third focuses most directly on enhancing our psychological well being. The latter is a movement towards wholeness and self-actualization rather than a reaction to distress. Not everyone takes this full psychological journey, but those who do gain greater capacity, resources, fulfilling relationships and enduring happiness. They have prepared themselves for the next step in inner development. The highest levels of mental development require that we first move beyond the limitations of an unseen psychology to a healthy psychology. This becomes the basis for the next level of development.

Wisdom

            Psychological well being is the necessary basis for the development of wisdom. There are two basic levels of wisdom. This first is the wisdom of the sage. The sage has attained the pinnacle of mental development – the full development of the cognitive mind. The second is the wisdom of the realized spiritual being – an all-encompassing and all-seeing knowledge that transcends intellect and cognition and apprehends the essential nature of self and life. This level of achievement is the final and complete perfection of wisdom. There is no more.

            Let’s begin with the wisdom of the sage. When self-centeredness and mental afflictions have been replaced by psychological well being our mind is released from relentless mental chatter, fixed perspectives, habitual behaviors and reactivity. What remains is a stable spaciousness, stillness, clarity, openness, mental ease and present moment awareness. We simply rest, relax and experience life in the context of inner stillness and calm. What we then discover is that the mind, no longer dominated or obstructed by disruptive mental activity, has the capacity to “see” beyond the immediacy and pull of ordinary mental activity and the patterns and biases of personal perspectives. We are increasingly free to experience life as it actually is, neither embellished nor altered by an overactive mental life.

            The wisdom of the sage is grounded in intellect. We are still in the realm of cognition. But at this level of development thought is vision-like rather than analytic. We have all had a taste of vision-like knowing. At one time or another we’ve had the experience of a sudden inner illumination which allows us to envision things in a more connected and whole way. We refer to this as an “aha” experience. In a moment of mental stillness and clarity, so brief that it often goes unnoticed, a spontaneous knowing arises that is immediately sensed as a higher, more comprehensive and illuminating truth. These intuitive revelatory moments of holistic insight are not confined to information or knowledge about a particular object or experience. This glimpse of all-encompassing knowledge apprehends patterns and connections, the whole rather than the parts.

            Unlike information and knowledge that is limited by the biases of personal perspective and the coloration of past experience, this broader understanding is impersonal, impartial and truth-based rather than perspective-based. It is unchanging over time and across diverse cultures. It informs us about what is common to all humanity and to existence itself.

            For example, from this higher perspective we can apprehend the interdependence of all things. With an uncanny clarity we can see that nothing exists independently or autonomously. Nothing is partless. Nothing is an island onto itself. Consider our body. It is dependent on its organs which are dependent on their tissues and cells which are dependent on nutrients from the environment and so on. Existence is a seamless interwoven inter-related whole. Everything affects everything else. This is a single example of a wise truth that is impersonal, impartial, all-encompassing and shared by humanity. This is an integral perspective, There are no exceptions to it.

            But there is more. What are the implications of this universal truth? If everything is interdependent and inter-related we must consider all aspects of an experience to arrive at a comprehensive and accurate understanding. For example, consider health and disease. For the purposes of this discussion we can say that human life manifests in four ways. We are psychospiritual, biological, interpersonal and cultural beings. We cannot fully understand health or disease without considering each of these areas of our life. They are interdependent. They work together. If we consider only one aspect – in modern times this is usually the biological – we only have a partial understanding, a partial health and a partial healing of disease. When we gain a larger and more comprehensive understanding we do not give up the biological perspective but rather embrace it as an essential part of an expanded integral and holistic vision. We gain a more precise and expansive knowledge, enhanced capacities and new skills.

            The capacity for integral holistic thinking is a characteristic of the higher mind. We are no longer contaminated by the half-light and half-truth of information and knowledge that is individually based and thereby relative to ones self, personal history, fixed perspectives, and habitual behaviors. We have moved beyond our small self and into our larger self. As a result, we can apprehend a holistic wisdom-truth all at once, in a single sweep that transcends mental analysis, reductive thinking, the logic of interactive dialogue and debate, and the “built-up” knowledge based on prior premises and data. We now see from an impartial and broader perspective. We gain the capacity to intuit a single all-encompassing holistic integral view of existence. This way of knowing embraces and transcends fragmentary subjective thinking. This is what distinguishes this aspect of wisdom from psychological well being.

            For a better understanding we can divide the development of this aspect of wisdom into three phases. The first is the movement beyond fragmentary and self-based understandings. This movement apprehends the integration and interdependence of all aspects of experience. We are no longer self-encapsulated. We become participants in a seamlessly interactive singular organism we can call “life.” The focus on self expands to include others which then expands to include all of us, other living creatures and finally, our nurturing earth. We now know we are not alone. We are neither separate from nor disconnected from the whole. We are fully integrated into a larger community that heals together or becomes ill together, stagnates or flourishes. We begin to think and act from this larger vision.

            The second phase is a further maturation of wisdom. Our growing sense of interdependence and inter-relatedness becomes more firmly rooted in a holistic and integral vision. At first this vision come as a flash, arising in the spacious awareness and openness of the still mind. There is a gap between two thoughts. There is a standstill of mental activity. And then there is a breakthrough to a larger vision that comes fully intact and complete. By cultivating these momentary flashes of wisdom-truth we progressively gain stability in the capacity to use our higher mind. It increasingly becomes a part of our life, embracing but not supplanting lesser forms of knowledge. In this second phase we increasingly turn our life towards holistic integral perspectives. It is marked by the progressive dominance and stability of integral thinking.

            The third and final phase – the culmination of our mental capacities – is the emergence of a unitary or non-dual vision which is an intimation of the final achievement, the perfection of wisdom. This unitary or non-dual vision is the intellectual understanding and certainty that life is a seamless whole. The mental division into parts is now seen as a useful tool that broadens our understanding, but that is not how existence actually is. Life is “as is.” It is unconstructed, uncontrived, unlabelled and unembellished by our mind. It is a naked moment-to-moment awareness. It is neither integrated nor interdependent. It is a singular indivisible unity of movement and being.

            This illuminated understanding is like a partial light ray emerging from transcendent wisdom which knows this truth directly and decisively, free of the slightest element of cognitive thinking. Here, at the pinnacle of mental development, we are gaining the intellectual vision that intimates the wisdom of direct knowledge. It is difficult to grasp the oneness of life by using our mental capacities because we are attempting to comprehend an experience that transcends the mind. So words begin to fail us. We can only fully grasp this vision when we reach transcendent knowing, the perfection of wisdom. Therefore, this peak of mental development must satisfy itself with a mere intellectual intimation of transcendent wisdom.

            We have now traversed the full scope of mental development ranging from the basic instinctual mind to mechanical thinking to psychological understanding to the wisdom of the sage. It is not as if this development occurs in a linear fashion. It doesn’t. It is not that each period of growth is stabilized from the beginning. It is not. There is always a strong gravitational pull from lower levels of development which refuse to give up their dominance without a fight. But in time we ascend the ladder of development, gaining and stabilizing greater capacity, knowledge and wisdom.

The Perfection of Wisdom

            We are twice blessed. First, we are endowed with an extraordinary intellect which enables us to gain insight and understanding into our psychology and day-to-day world. And then, we are also endowed with a unique capacity to directly and decisively experience the fundamental nature of self and life. This latter capacity transcends the intellect and is informed through the direct experience of our essential being, without the mediation of cognition. The individual who attains the peak of intellectual understanding is called the sage. The individual who goes beyond intellect to discern the very nature of self and life is called a spiritual being. Our intellect teaches us about the psychological and material world. Spiritual wisdom teaches us about a subtler unseen world that underlies and supports our conventional experience of life.

            Although mastery of our intellectual capacities is an essential, if not necessary, foundation for the perfection of spiritual understanding, it cannot take us to this final wisdom. Why not? Because the wisdom of the spiritual being is non-conceptual. It reveals to us the fundamental ground of existence that is beyond words. Therefore, it cannot be reached through conceptual means, through reason and logic. So how do we arrive at transcendental wisdom? We experience it by resting in what we can call open awareness.

            Open awareness is actually our natural home. It is our deepest self. It is a deceptively simple and ordinary moment-to-moment presence and being that is undistracted by the pull of mental activity. We are simply aware, open and nakedly aware, of life itself  precisely as it is untouched by the elaborations of thought. It is the gap between two thoughts, the sudden loss of selfness, the letting go at the peak of orgasm, the moment of the union of the dancer and the dance, the singer and the song, I and other. Open awareness is spacious like space, vast and stable like an ocean and luminous like the sun. Because names only approximate the experience itself, open awareness has been given many names. It has been called presence, pure being, pure awareness, timeless awareness, naked awareness, essential truth and has even been given the name of a creator. Although the direct experience of open awareness is unchanging over time and across diverse cultures, it is characterized and labeled according to its cultural context. However, even though the experience goes by many names, it is unchanging.

            The great teacher Tilopa expressed his experience with open awareness in the following way:

To realize this inexpressible truth,

Do not manipulate mind or body

But simply open into transparency

With relaxed, natural grace –

Intellect at ease in silence,

Limbs at rest in stillness

Like hollow bamboos.

Neither breathing in nor breathing out

With the breath of habitual thinking,

Allow the mind to experience peace

In brilliant wakefulness.

            Shakbhar, another great teacher, gives us his description of this inconceivable state.

                    Let your mind spontaneously relax and rest.

                   When left to itself it is fresh and naked.

                   If observed, it is a vivid clarity with out anything to see,           

                   A direct awareness, sharp and awake.

            The instructions given above are clear. Rest and relax your mind. Don’t grasp at mental movements. Don’t elaborate mental movements with habitual perspectives. Rest with natural ease. Be present in what is as is. Then, for a glorious moment, you will experience what it is to be fully awake and alive in the moment as it is happening. You will not linger in the past, elaborate or obsess in the present, nor project into the future. You will experience a radical presence, aliveness, clarity and freedom. And that is the essence of who you are. It is your essential, simple unelaborated self – an impersonal all-encompassing awareness. The wise ones call this the ordinary mind. We call it extraordinary.

            When we rest in this all-encompassing awareness certain qualities arise that are as inseparable from it as wetness is from water. Among these qualities is a natural and all-encompassing wisdom. Because we are abiding in the basic space of awareness, knowledge that arises in this basic space is in relationship to this experience. When we experience an object through a microscope we gain knowledge about that object. When we experience the ground of awareness we gain knowledge about the nature of existence itself. We must rest in the presence and being of life itself to know life as it is. There is no other way to attain this definitive knowledge. This experience-based knowledge is what we have referred to as transcendent wisdom. It transcends all previous and partial forms of knowledge acquired through logic, reason and analysis. It cuts through all confusion, illusion, mental afflictions, distress and suffering to reveal a peaceful, compassionate, holistic and unitary presence and being. More cannot be said. We must learn from the experience itself.

            Transcendent wisdom naturally abides in open awareness. In actuality, this far-reaching wisdom is not difficult to experience. It is quite simple and ordinary. That is what is so amazing about it. It is with us all the time, yet we miss it. What is difficult, quite difficult, is to reverse the powerful tendency of our mind to stray from open awareness towards mental or sensory experiences. Because we cannot maintain a stable open awareness we remain immersed in the world of mental chatter and sensory experiences, forfeiting the ultimate wisdom that only arises in the context of our natural state of being. So the effort is to skillfully gain access to and stabilize open awareness. It is then and there that we will decisively and directly know the nature of all things. And that nature is peaceful and good.

            We have now discussed the full scope of wisdom, ranging from the instinctual and mechanical mind to the wisdom of the sage and finally, to transcendent wisdom. Like the lotus seed that unfolds and emerges through the mud to attain its final flowering, the seed of a fully evolved wisdom similarly emerges from the darkness and afflictions of an undeveloped mind into the light of transcendent wisdom.  Unlike the lotus this latter unfolding does not happen automatically. To gain wisdom we must choose to develop our mind.

The Path

         Butter is the natural unseen sweet essence of milk, but to reveal butter one must churn the milk. Wisdom is the natural unseen sweet essence of our mind, but to reveal wisdom we must develop our mind. To develop it means to undertake the actions and practices that sweep away the obscuring clouds of self-centeredness and emotional afflictions. The fruit of these activities is a cleansing of our overactive mental state, the stabilization of a present moment awareness, and the revelation of our natural birthright – a profound wisdom and selfless compassion. This is human flourishing – the perfection of our humanity.

            Wisdom and its fruits are available to each of us. In fact, they are already and always within us – unseen and untouched but nevertheless encoded in our humanity. We do not have to wait until we reach the peaks of inner development to experience the genius of our wisdom. Like the sun that sends out its rays to warm the earth our inner wisdom sends out its tendrils to touch our life as soon as we open the inner space to receive them. This is not the full sun, the full flowering of wisdom, but these are very important insights from the source itself as well as hopeful premonitions of what is to come with further inner development.

            There are two ways to open our self to the warmth of wisdom. They work together. The first is to tame and open the mind. Our usual ceaseless and uncontrolled mental chatter is so dense that it does not allow an opening for inner knowledge, much like thick clouds obscure the sun. The second is to open the heart by removing the defensiveness, protectiveness and fear that similarly blocks our access to wisdom. The unconditioned open mind and the unconditional open heart are the basis for the revelation of inner wisdom.

            First we must quiet our chattering mind. Until we tame our mind we cannot begin the process of developing it. Unless we accomplish this we are doomed to helplessly follow whatever arises in our mind much like a flag following the wind. We tame the mind by using a variety of meditation techniques. We don’t limit our self to formal meditation sessions but integrate what we learn into daily life. Meditation is a tool to train and explore the mind much like a microscope is a tool to explore the material world. It allows us to see inward the same as a microscope allows us to see outward. There is nothing mystical about meditation. It is just a very useful tool for inner development.

            Within weeks of our initial efforts we will notice changes in our life. We will experience greater calm, less reactivity, more mindfulness, patience and improved relationships. Here and there we will begin to notice that rays of wisdom break through in the form of sudden insights. These new insights and understandings progressively grow and coalesce into new and more expansive perspectives. This is how we incrementally gain wisdom.

            Simultaneously we begin to develop the quality of loving-kindness through mind training. Loving-kindness is also already and always within us but is blocked from our view by a wounded and fearful heart, the remnants of a childhood gone wrong and a competition-based early education. There two aspects to opening the heart. The first is what we call aspirational loving-kindness. During our meditation practices, as well as during daily life, we send out loving-kindness to others, to all others. We wish that they be happy and free of suffering. Why not? We wish this more than anything for our self. Are others less deserving? The second we call engaged loving-kindness. These are outer actions such as patience, kindness, open listening, non-judgment, generosity and caring. Even if you are not quite there you practice these actions as best you can. In time they will feel increasingly natural and become a habit. Slowly your heart will open and this will help calm your mind, which in turn will soften the heart. A wise mind and heart come together in the same package. That is how it is.

            What is most important here is not to focus on the mountain tops but to begin with small steps wherever you are. Begin by taming the mind and developing loving-kindness. Do not feel intimidated by the scope of wisdom described above. I’ve offered this overview as a form of guidance and inspiration. This is a roadmap to full wisdom. However, this roadmap has no value unless you get on the road and follow the map. In fact, it cannot be fully understood until you begin and take the step-by-step journey your self, always accompanied by a wise companion who offers support and expert guidance.

            Please remember that it is not as important to strive towards the next level as much as it is to secure the one you’re on. For example, psychological development can easily take a lifetime. It is a major accomplishment itself. As we progressively gain psychological understanding our body, mind and spirit gain high levels of health, happiness and well being. So take your time. If your psychological understanding is strong you will have built a very stable foundation for the next steps which will naturally emerge from this foundation. So be patient, mindful and persevere.

            It is very difficult to undertake this journey without wise guidance. Your mind cannot heal itself without appropriate practices tailored to your specific needs. This requires the helpful and wise mentoring of others. There are many questions that arise, moments of disillusionment and unexpected and unseen detours. No less than you would seek teachers when learning any new skill the same must be done here. Unfortunately this is not always so easy. Too many are eager to teach before they are fully prepared. You will have to use your judgment. It will help to be certain that your guide has studied carefully in a wisdom tradition, has teachers of his own, “walks his talk,” is humble, upholds values, has students that are clearly advancing and does not try to promote his efforts. True wisdom is most often silent and its focus is caring service to others. If you make the wrong choice feel comfortable looking for another teacher.

            Wisdom is the basis for personal flourishing as well as cultural flourishing. Unwise individuals create havoc in the world and cause great suffering. Wise individuals are healers. They are the precious gifts to humanity. They are world treasures. There is so much each of us can do to begin to become healers. Let’s begin in our own live, today.

www.elliottdacher.org

Human Flourishing

For several years I’ve been exploring in my own life the experience of human flourishing. Human flourishing is a very old and revered view of what our lives can become. It is an indelible and ancient human longing stretching across time and diverse cultures. It is the whispered secret message of the great sages and wise healers. It is a noble and compelling vision of our humanity. It will not leave the human spirit. The great Indian sage Aurobindo referred to this full unfolding of our possibilities as the “perfection of human life.” Here we refer to it as human flourishing – a profound health, happiness, peace and wholeness permanently freed of all forms of suffering and distress.

It is a paradox of history that the East – which carefully held the wisdom of ancient Greece that fueled the first western renaissance – has similarly held the knowledge and experience of human flourishing which is now primed to fuel the second western renaissance. Once again we are ready to reclaim our forgotten heritage and with it a deeply held hope for a life and world equal to our human endowment. Having matured our outer possibilities we are now on the verge of maturing our inner ones as well.

Long ago in our own western tradition the healers, mentors, and guides that took us to the depths of our being were called iatromantis, sacred healers. They introduced us to our innate nature, to our divine nature, to the place where human life effortlessly flourishes in its natural state.  They used a particular method to introduce us to our innermost self and the essence of life found at these depths. They called their method or process incubation. In the East and now in the West we call this same process meditation. This universal path to the center of our being has remained the same throughout time. Only its name has changed. The universal truth is clear. It is in the stillness of mind that we discover our true nature and the essential mystery of being. If we can tame our mind and transcend its obscuring chatter and conditioning we will discover the core of our humanity. And we will find that it is good, peaceful, happy, and whole.

But the challenge is great for westerners who have elusively focused on and mastered the human intellect. Our intellectual capacity has brought us great comfort and physical security. Yet its dominance over our life completely covers over the qualities of human flourishing that lie dormant within each of us. It is like a dense cloud cover that separates us from our deepest essence and keeps us locked in a world of abstraction – a world of thoughts, ideas, ambitions, striving and disconnection. It forces us to live in the past and future, robs us of the nakedness and freshness of experience, batters down our hearts and destroys our natural connection to each other and the earth.  And further, our intellect fabricates an “I,” a sort of imaginary CEO of our life, and places it in charge of this abstracted world that is more imagined than real. And this “I” is not a gentle soul that seeks the depths and fullness of our being. It is misguided, confused, insecure, self-cherishing, pleasure-seeking and filled with afflictive emotions. We live our lives in the small room of our intellectual life, congratulating our selves for outer achievements while desperately and silently crying within for what we have lost – if and when we can even remember the immensity of this loss through the busyness of our days and years.

The challenge is great because we don’t know what we don’t know. Here and there we see a great wise one whose life has flourished. We think, that could not possibly be our destiny. But it is. It has always been. It will always be. But we cannot see it because of the obscuring false self and life we’ve created, embellished and superimposed upon our life source As a result we are forever busy going somewhere, achieving something, protecting something and living in the dual demons of hope and fear. So we cannot see what is possible because we don’t know what we don’t know. Thus we are condemned to ordinary lives, the usual mental stress and distress, ordinary disease and an ordinary death.

The challenge is great because even if we read about it, sense and touch it for moments in “peek-peak” experiences we are immediately detoured in the wrong direction. Experience a touch of human expansiveness in nature and nature becomes your refuge and escape. Experience it in the heights of sexuality and that becomes your craving. Experience it in wealth, name or fame and that becomes your attachment. Experience it in alcohol or drugs and that becomes your addiction, Experience it in the early blush of romance and you get married to it. But none of these transient outer experiences will take us home. In each case the result is suffering rather than human flourishing. All of these experiences are false glimpses. They are stimulus-driven, external, and by nature impermanent. Grasp at them as hard as you can. In time they will be lost. We mistakenly and sadly exhaust our life energy seeking the richness and depth of this precious human experience in such worldly activities and satisfactions. But we cannot find it in outer experiences, objects or people. Yet paradoxically it is close at hand. It’s so close that we cannot see it. The real gold is within each of us, already and always fully present.  It cannot be sought. It can only be known. It is truth-driven rather than stimulus driven.

The challenge is great because human flourishing cannot be easily placed in words. It is neither an intellectual nor a cognitive experience. It is “being” and presence itself in the unelaborated nakedness and timelessness of human experience. And as soon as we attempt to speak of it and describe it an ignorant clever person grabs the words, distorts the meaning and tries to brand, package and sell it for money. You can’t sell the intangible. You can’t sell what is already given to each of us. You can’t sell what belongs to life. Yet we try and given our confused longing for a larger life we grasp at any hope, pay the price and lose the prize.

The challenge is great because we have become great “doers.” We can achieve just about anything. But one cannot flourish by “doing.” When individuals start down the path of human flourishing one of the greatest obstacles is the ingrained habit to try to “do” it. This leads to tension, stress, judgments, comparisons, perfectionism and ultimately failure. One can only arrive there by being. And from my experience the hardest thing to do is to just be, to experience what is as is without the superimpositions of the conceptual mind – its judgments, interpretations and elaborations that color and alter the simplicity, freshness, and beauty of the present moment. It’s difficult at first to let life be and to become one with is natural flow. Only then there is no separation, no controlling and ambitious “I,” just a resting with ease into the natural unity and essence of life. Only then can we arrive at who we have always been and welcome our self, returning home to our basic goodness and sacredness.

To perfect human life and achieve the profound, expansive and enduring health, happiness and wholeness that is already and always has been available to us one must first recognize with great disgust and frustration that there is more to life than we have attained. We must realize with certainty that our efforts to achieve a larger life that befits our humanity have been misguided and mistaken. The great mythologist Joseph Campbell said that it’s likely spending your life climbing a ladder that’s up against a wall, reaching the top, looking over the wall and realizing that all the time you’ve had your ladder against the wrong wall. What you were seeking is not there and never was. Then you must come down the ladder let go of all the false ideas, ambitions, strivings, and lifestyles that led you to the wrong place. That means deconstructing what doesn’t work so you can discover the authentic object of your lifelong longing. That’s how we begin again. It’s difficult and it’s easy to mislead yourself into thinking that reorganizing your life, like rearranging furniture in the same room, will take you toward the larger life you are seeking. But that’s not the way it happens. Human flourishing is not a progressive process of growth and development. It’s an unraveling of the obstacles to a deeper life. It’s a revelation of what is – here and now and always.

There are three phases we move through in the process of re-discovering our good, joyful and noble humanity. First we must re-establish a basic sanity or what we can also call a basic wellness. The ravages of lost childhood intimacy that scar our development result from the western experiment with parenting in the context of the isolated nuclear family. In traditional times children were raised within a community of parents, friends, relatives, and elders who were always available to provide the intimacy and guidance that is the proper foundation for a sane human life. As modern westerners this has not been our fate. As a consequence of this experiment in child rearing we unknowingly and mistakenly seek to re-capture the lost ease, security, comfort and “beingness” of a diverse, loving, and well guided childhood through boundless striving, ambition, controlling behavior, busyness and perfectionism. If we are temporarily “successful” in this endeavor we suffer the side effects of ceaseless stress, mental distress and premature disease. If we fail we suffer a certain painful sadness, disgust with our self, doubt and depression. In either case we take a near fatal detour from the great and precious possibilities of human life, wasting our energy, our days and too often our life. We must first heal this basic wound if we are to move toward human flourishing.

There are two ways to achieve this. Psychotherapy, a uniquely western method, helps by shining a light on the historical causes of our loss of basic well being and sanity. It helps us to minimize and manage early trauma. It serves to lessen distress while we aim at healing the root cause of this wound. Meditation gets to the fundamental source of the problem, allowing us the opportunity to re-parent our selves in adulthood. Meditation teaches us how to quiet the mental chatter and busyness – the usual outward expression of this basic lack of wellness. With practice and a progressive stilling of the mind we recognize that we have never lost our true nature. We discover in it the silence between two thoughts, or as the poet says, in the stillness between two waves of the sea. And slowly, with a loving effort and devotion, we recapture the inner peace, delight and ease lost in childhood. With time we gain stability in this basic inner wellness, re-discovering our true nature. Of course, we never really lost it. It was just covered over with misdirected worldly efforts mistakenly undertaken to recover our forgotten happiness and carefree inner life. Once we have recovered our basic wellness and sanity the next step unfolds naturally.

By healing this basic wound to our inner life we slowly dissipate the emotional afflictions and mental chatter that are the result of our misguided outer search for what is only found within. All of the afflictive emotions – attachment and dependency, anger and hatred, jealousy, self-centeredness, doubt, confusion, arrogance, fear and so on result from our basic lack of well being. Slowly, as we re-gain authentic inner peace our mental afflictions and chattering mind come to an end. We recognize the actual cause of our afflictive emotions and worldly busyness. The establishment of a basic wellness allows us to meet the world from an increasing abundance rather than a sense of deprivation. We progressively focus on others rather than on our self, on giving and service. Life takes on a certain beauty, truth, ease and goodness. Our mind and heart open. This cessation of afflictive and negative thoughts and feelings is the second step on the way to a larger life.

With continued exploration of our sublime essence we begin to catch glimpses of human flourishing. We begin to feel an inner and outer expansiveness, an authentic happiness and wholeness that is immune to the adversities of life, a peace that surpasses understanding, a wisdom that knows life as it actually is, and a love and compassion that sees the needless suffering of others and feels naturally compelled to act in service to help eliminate this suffering. These glimpses slowly gather together, gaining stability, clarity, full sanity, high-level wellness and finally human flourishing – the perfection of our precious human life.

This is an inner process not an outer one. It passes through the three phases we’ve described above – the re-gaining of a basic wellness and sanity, the cessation of mental afflictions, ceaseless mental chatter and outer busyness, and the revelation of our deepest self. This movement is the movement of healing from coarse to subtle to most subtle – from confusion to sanity to flourishing.

It is a patient process by which we find and again return to our long lost self that is the repository of the qualities of human flourishing – health, happiness and wholeness. The closer we get the more difficult it becomes to describe the experience of human flourishing with words. Words refer to ideas. Health, happiness, and wholeness are not ideas, things, mental constructs or cherished possessions. They can only be known through direct experience. That is the dilemma. That is the danger – mistaking, through the use of words, the false for the real, the limited for the abundant, what’s natural for what’s mind stuff. It’s a challenge, but we can experience and achieve what we cannot adequately describe with words.

An authentic realization of our innate natural state of flourishing is permanent. It does not fade. It is abundant and cannot be exhausted. It surpasses all understanding. It is profoundly easeful, carefree, healing and peace-making. It is not stimulus-driven but rather, arises from the truth of our life. It is immune to all adversity.  It is earthshaking and yet so simple, sweet, and ordinary. It is as if nothing has changed and yet everything is different. When we touch it we know it, embrace it and become one with the beauty and richness of what is, exactly how it is.

Fortunately those who have realized this simple truth and perfection of human life have left us a road map that can help us along the way. To help us navigate this road map mentors and guides must be carefully chosen. Although they can assist us in unfolding our essence that has always been the core of our being no one can do it for you or for me. It is our own endeavor, our own greatness and our own nobility to choose an authentic vibrant life, to perfect our humanity and to use our life to assist others who seek the same.

Yet it is not so difficult and it’s certainly easier than a life of stress, distress, premature disease and suffering. We begin with a faith that there is more to life than we’ve lived. We then read, listen and study to gain an understanding of our circumstance. As this becomes increasingly clear we begin to practice. We begin to unravel the mental knots and chatter. We begin to touch the stillness, peace, and wholeness that we know is awaiting us. The early results of this effort can be experienced in days and weeks. And this fuels our faith, motivation and effort. As weeks become months and years we know we have finally found the correct path home. And we know that our home is good, peaceful, happy and whole. So the results begin early and mature over time as we move through the three phases that take us toward a flourishing life.

But our efforts do not stop at the development of our personal inner life. We live in an interconnected world. So our practice becomes seamless throughout the day. We stop and slow our mind. We become more mindful. We listen to others. We really listen. We become more generous, kind, patient, and loving. These changes in outer behavior feed our inner practice and a deepening inner practice brings greater ease and joy to our outer life. The end is a flourishing within and without.

Those who share in this vision deeply care that it becomes a larger vision for our culture. So it is essential that we be vigilant of the tendency to trivialize and consumerize this precious possibility of human life. This would, as it has repeatedly happened in our time, distort, destroy and deny this gift to many who seek this larger life.  We must hold the purity of this vision in our heart and our actions. We must take the time to know human flourishing in our own lives and avoid the urgency to prematurely teach others. If we can hold this noble vision and become it in our own life we will have a more plentiful, health, and happy world. We will become who we already are and have always been

And finally, although we must each arrive at our fullest humanity through personal commitment and effort, it is best that we do so in community. A Center for Human Flourishing can be a sacred place of retreat from day-to-day life where we can share with others the joyful process of returning home to the essence of our being. Such a center would reflect in its setting, atmosphere, teachers, resources and community the vision we are seeking to actualize in our lives. It will serve as a lifelong resource a place of training for those who seek to help others, and a living testament to the perfectability of the human condition.

                                             For Further Information or Readings

                                                       www.elliottdacher.org

Life Mentoring - Coaching - Personalized Health Counseling

There comes a time in each of our lives when we are summoned to a larger existence. It may be at a time of significant life transition, an unexpected change in health, unrelenting mental stress or distress, seemingly intractable addictions, or the emerging call of the soul that urges us to begin the journey towards a larger and more meaningful life – one that realizes our fullest potential and humanity.

Throughout time and across cultures individuals seeking to turn a corner in their life and gain an optimal and profound well being of body, mind, and spirit have relied on mentors to guide them along the path. These wise woman and men have articulated the “secret” of a well-lived life. Remarkably, their formula for a happy and peaceful life is quite similar, and they’ve been caring enough to leave us a road map that shows the way towards a profound health, whole healing, inner peace, and human flourishing. It is no different now than it’s been in times past.

Consider the following. We each have the innate capacity for a rich and sustained health, happiness, and wholeness. However, we are each stuck in a limited view of health and life. As a result, we cannot see this ever-present potential. Nevertheless, this potential and capacity is already and always in each of us, whether we see it or not. This has been the message of all the great wise ones. But like clouds covering the sun’s unchanging light and warmth we cannot see the brilliance and warmth of our true nature. We cannot see what’s possible because of inner and outer obstacles that hide from common sight the precious opportunities of human existence.

These obstacles vary according to the disposition, capacities, and life experiences of each individual. Most often these unseen obstacles cannot be clearly identified without the kindness and help of another individual. That’s why mentors have always been an important aspect of the search for a larger health and well being. They can see and show us the aspects of our being that we cannot see by our self. Their advice and guidance enable us to break through these habitual patterns, rigid mental attitudes, and unskillful behaviors that keep us stuck for decades. For many of us this means a lifetime of unnecessary mental distress, unsatisfying relationships, premature physical disease, and a disenchanted soul.

In our time it is not easy to find a skillful mentor because we do not value this capacity in western culture. Our focus on self-reliance has ignored the reality that there are things we cannot do for our self. This is quite apparent when it comes to our education. None of us would learn to read or write with out the assistance of others. Similarly, none of us would consider trying to build a bridge without the instruction, guidance, and mentoring of a skilled engineer. But when it comes to the most important task of life – creating a life of optimal health, happiness, and wholeness – we act as if we can do it alone. As a result we too often squander our time and energy on fruitless efforts. The important realization that we require the help of a skilled mentor and the relationship that ensues places us firmly on the path to attaining an optimal health of body, mind, and spirit.

How does an authentic and successful mentoring process work? First, you must be extremely careful in selecting a mentor and guide. There are many who offer such services. Yet in too many cases these individuals have neither had authentic mentors themselves nor directly experienced through their own work the possibility of a larger health and healing.

Therefore, in selecting your personal mentor, coach, or health counselor you must be quite discerning. Examine carefully the character, generosity, caring, wisdom, and skill of this individual. Does he or she “walk the talk?” Become aware of his/her reputation with others. And be certain you have the special chemistry and connection that will allow for faith and deep trust. This is a relationship that may stay with you for a lifetime. So choose well, measure its value by the changes in your life, and if you discover through careful thought and evaluation that this individual is not right for you, then move on.

The process itself has several phases. Without a precise and clear understanding of how we arrived at our current circumstance we cannot apply the correct and skillful means that lead to transformative change. So we begin with a period of intimate sharing and listening. The mentor must be able to listen with a completely open and meditative mind, hearing and knowing you for who you are beyond his interpretations, projections, or mental boxes. You must be seen, fully seen. You must be acknowledged, fully acknowledged. And from this sharing, mutual respect, understanding, and deep knowing there will effortlessly arise a clear and comprehensive understanding of your current life circumstance. 

From this understanding there will naturally arise the next step. We cannot say here specifically what this step may be for you, as it is unique to each individual. Your direction should be a personally tailored program of study, reflection, dialogue, and specific practices that join together in the goal of overcoming the obstacles to reaching your fullest potential. According to your needs this approach must be continuously refined, reshaped, and modified to properly and precisely respond to your ongoing growth, personal discoveries and experiences. So this is a dynamic process that is ongoing between the individual and his/her mentor. The aim is one - the end of distress and suffering and the attainment of a profound health, happiness, and wholeness – but the approach must always be flexible and tailored to the needs and experiences of the moment.

Although we may see the initial results of our efforts quite quickly, this is a lifetime process. Growing into your largest self is your life. So in the beginning of the process ongoing feedback and dialogue is important, in the middle support and advice is invaluable, and towards the maturation of this work the relationship becomes a sustaining rich spiritual friendship. This is how it has always been. The level and character of interaction may shift over time but the basic relationship is always available when needed and ripens over time.

I’ve spoken here from my personal and ongoing experience with my mentors and teachers. They cannot do the study, reflection, and practice that I must do. They cannot change my life. But they can point the way through their knowledge, life experience, inspiration, and compassionate commitment to helping. It is from this experience that I’ve written these words of advice for my reader. It is from this experience that I have learned that we can all live the life we’ve imagined and are called to. It is from this experience that I have learned that distress and suffering are only temporary stains on human life and that a profound happiness, health, peace, and wholeness are innate to our being.

You can find further information on my work in Life Mentoring, Coaching, and Personalized Health Counseling at: www.elliottdacher.org

Natural Awareness - The Wish-Fulfilling Gem

    There is a story told in the East of a young child sitting on her mother’s lap with her face looking forward, away from mother. In great distress the child, is crying out “mother, mother.” Unable to see her mother she reaches out with confusion and distress. Upon hearing her despair her brother looks up from playing and points out to his young sister that she is sitting on her mother’s lap and all she has to do is turn around and she will immediately see her.

    And so it is with our own lives. We spend our days looking outward, and as a result we cannot see our deepest self– a simple ordinary and untouched spacious awareness that is a wish-fulfilling gem, giving us all we seek in life. It’s so close that we miss it. So instead we ceaselessly search outside for what’s inside, because that’s the direction toward which culture has turned our mind. We’re disappointed, frustrated and feel empty-handed when we cannot find what we’re searching for in the outer world. Yet we continue to look outside, with more and more intensity, for what is already and always present within us. Perseverance is the name we give to this outer search for peace and happiness. Confusion would be a more accurate term.

    What are we looking for that is symbolized in this tale as the child’s mother? It’s of course our essence our true self that we can no longer see because we’ve been turned away from it for such a long time ago. Why do we long for and seek this essence? Because, we need this essence that some call our deeper self, soul or spirit to live a life of truth, happiness, connection, and meaning. It animates and enlivens our life. It’s the great natural healing elixir.

    If we didn’t already and always have this essence within us we would neither know it nor search for it. But we do know it.  We know it’s there. We don’t know how to touch it. It’s the natural birthright of each and every one of us. Yet we’ve lost contact with our deepest self. Perhaps it was a broken intimacy in childhood which turned our gaze outward, the ceaseless pull of an outer-oriented materialistic culture, the mistaken and transient taste of happiness found in outer things, or perhaps it’s just an unfortunate mental misunderstanding that has become a habit.

    Whatever the cause the result is the same. We remain in exile from what is most human about us. We remain in exile from our home, our mother, our source, our greatest gift. And we seek, desire, attach to and become addicted to an endless variety of false and inadequate outer substitutes that are offered as pacifiers by family, culture, and industry. As a result of this mistaken search we suffer – mind, body, and spirit. And we have no clear way out because the only way out is to turn inward. And what’s inside is so close that we can’t see it, so ever present that we forget it, so simple and ordinary that we cannot recognize it. It’s like our own face that’s right there, but without a mirror we can’t see it.

    However, there are ways that allow us to catch a glimpse of what’s possible. For example, there are times that the veil drops and for a moment and we catch a taste. Perhaps it’s a moment of communion with nature, at the peak of athletic performance, in music or dance, in the joy of sexual union, or in the gap between two thoughts. In each of these experiences, for a brief moment we experience selflessness, complete peace and ease, total presence, wholeness, and oneness – the qualities s of our deeper self. For a brief moment we touch our essence, we regain our spiritual nature.

    But it doesn’t last. It can’t. It’s not the real thing. It’s generated by outer and temporary stimuli – people, objects, or experiences. So it invariably dissipates, and usually quite quickly. Even worse, we mistake the messenger for the message. We seek more and more of what we mistakenly believe to be the source of this wondrous moment. And it’s this error that invariably consumes us with a ceaseless and unfulfilled outer reaching, desire, addiction, and suffering. The message is actually quite clear. We are capable of this profound richness, but the source of a true and enduring experience of a larger spiritual life is within, not without. Once we see it no effort is necessary. We simply need to look in the right place. It’s that simple. It’s too simple.

Where Do We Begin?

    We begin by recognizing the truth that what we seek – an enduring happiness, peace, and love – can never be found outside of our self. Look at all your efforts. Look at your relationships, ambitions, achievements, material possessions, fame, pride and so on. Ask yourself, “Have these experiences, people, or objects ever brought me lasting happiness and peace?”

    If happiness and peace was a permanent quality of outer things once we attained them we would be all set. But that’s not how it is. Once we think we’ve captured these in outer life they either lose their luster or begin to dissipate as sources of happiness and peace. So we need continuous upgrades or changes. It’s like being on a never-ending treadmill. It just doesn’t work. That’s why we wear out our body, mind and spirit. Until you get this truth you will not turn inward. You will keep chasing the railroad tracks hoping they will meet somewhere in the distance.

    We turn inward when we let go of the illusion that what we’re seeking can be attained through outer experiences alone. Renunciation, an unpleasant word in the West, is not a great act of discipline and surrender. It’s a natural unfolding of truth that’s driven by repeated suffering, disillusionment, and endless frustration. We finally stop our self in our tracks and realize we’ve been heading in the wrong direction. We realize that there is no gold at the end of our journey, only the sadness and regret of a road poorly chosen. Hopefully, there’s enough time in life to turn towards the real gold. Hopefully we wake up to the truth before it’s too late. That’s how renunciation takes place.

    Renunciation is not a disciplined denial but rather a natural result of the recognition that what we’re doing doesn’t work. It doesn’t take discipline. It takes distress and suffering. Distress and suffering, when deeply felt and considered wakes us from a deep slumber driven by mistaken habits. When we’ve come to the end of the wrong road that’s where our life, our second birth begins. If that’s where you are then read further. If not, place what follows on your desk and save it for the right moment – if you’re fortunate.

View, Path, and Fruition

    So how do we take the inward journey? The great traditions inform of us about the basic elements of the return trip home. Each tradition has its own specificities and words but the signposts are similar. Once we turn away from the wrong direction and focus inward we begin the journey. The first step is gaining the correct view. The view is of critical importance. As we’ve seen already, if you have the wrong view, a wrong understanding – for example, you believe that happiness and peace are found outside of your self in experiences, objects and people – you will never get to where you want to go. It’s like taking a rode that goes north to get from New York to California.

    If your compass is incorrect, all of your choices and actions will be mistaken. That’s why it’s critical to understand things correctly, to have an accurate understanding of self and life. Just as we must develop a certainty that past views are wrong, in order to change course we must similarly develop a certainty that the view we’re committing to is correct. Too many of us go about this by trial and error. If something doesn’t work we quickly try the next thing that comes along. That’s a long process. Wouldn’t it be best to sit back and carefully consider what’s the correct view, the correct understanding?

The View

    So setting off on the right path is essential. This may require time, study, and reflection. I will tell you how I’ve done this in my own life. I’ve first read the great stories. There are many of them ranging from Homer’s 3000 year old trilogy The Oddessy to Von Escehenback’s Parsifal’s Grail Legend to the modern day writings of Somerset Maugham, James Joyce, and Joseph Campbell among many others. I’ve similarly read the words of the sages, particularly those who’ve founded the great spiritual traditions. And finally, I’ve looked to find and meet great and noble people of our own time who can serve as living examples of a well-lived life. It’s here from these great stories and great people that I’ve found an enduring truth, immeasurable inspiration and steady assurance that’s been consistently validated across culture and time by those who’ve walked the path toward full humanity.

    Remarkably, although cloaked in diverse cultural or religious trappings, they all teach us the same thing. So what is this universal and timeless viewpoint, this description of the heights of human perfection? Here it is. There is an essence in each of us that can be called natural awareness, Christ nature, Buddha nature, Soul, Spirit, Atman. The Great Perfection, Satori, and a myriad of other names. It has so many names because once you touch it it’s nameless and wordless, so for convenience any name will do. What’s most important is to understand the nature of this experience that’s been given so many names.
    To begin, it’s experienced as spacious like space, an open presence and being. Because this experience of open awareness is beyond the conceptual mind it’s not obstructed by ongoing mental activity – thoughts, feelings, and mental images. It’s completely open and boundless. It’s like a great field in which everything can rise and fall, an allowing space in which all of life can take place with an interconnected ease. That’s how it is – a deceptively simple lightness of being.

    Living beyond the conceptual mind there are no comparisons, judgments, likes or dislikes, mental clutter, worry, anxiety, hope, fear, self-cherishing, disconnection, or suffering. All of these experiences are part of our mental life, our conceptual mind. What we experience when we arrive home is quite the opposite. We experience an ease, peace, and rest that is an innate characteristic of the mind beyond thoughts. And this natural and effortless peace and ease gives rise to feelings of contentment and happiness that similarly are innate to our deepest essence. Finally, there is a care and compassion that seamlessly unfolds from clarity and truth.

    So our natural home is spacious, empty of any fixed experiences, transparent, open, and at the same time filled with the qualities noted above. Nothing is there and yet everything is possible. It’s the gap between two thoughts, those glimpses we’ve previously spoken of, and who we are beyond our intellectual life and fixed sense of “I.” No one can take it from us and we cannot lose it. We can only forget it. And that’s exactly what we do. So we do not have to create this home anew. It is already there. We only need to move away the obstructions to it and accommodate our self to this natural experience.

    But this is not so easy to do as all of our life we’ve been habituated to leave this home and live in exile in an outer world that is neither informed nor anchored by our deepest self. So we need a process or method that can help as reveal and stabilize this natural home so it becomes our way of life. Then, our usual sense of “I” and life become instruments and servants of this greater sense of self where all goodness is found. Where the perfection of human life is found. We are not led by our intellectual mind but rather by our heart and soul. The way home is a path that begins with the correct view of what’s possible.

The Path

    Although a clear vision is essential, it’s not sufficient. We must take practical and actual steps to realize this view and integrate it into our life through learning and practice. There are two ways of learning. The first is inferential learning or intellectual learning. The second is direct experience. They are both important. If we want to construct a house we need to learn how to do by taking classes and reading instructional materials. With this background we gain sufficient knowledge to start the building process. Then, we learn directly from the actual experience of construction. Intellectual understanding is necessary to get us going, but once we learn from direct experience it’s far less important.

    Inner development is much the same. First, it’s necessary to understand certain things about the mind. We learn this from listening to teachers or reading books. We learn about the busy mind, the sill mind, and finally, about the fundamental nature of the mind. With this knowledge in hand we begin to practice what we’ve already learned and gain certainty through direct experience. When we see it directly and clearly for our self, a sort of “aha” experience, we no longer have to rely on the writings or words of others. We arrive it our own truth. The process is study, reflection, and practice. The first two are the foundation, intellectual learning, and the last, practice, is direct experience.

    It’s not as if we study, reflect and then move on to practice, like it was a fixed sequence. It’s not like that. It’s a continuous process of clarifying and strengthening our view and understandings and then validating our new and upgraded understandings through practice. It is a lifelong practice of growth and development, of study, reflection, and practice that progressively expands and enhances our understanding, awareness, experience, and life.

    Much as the microscope or other technological instruments are the central tools with which we investigate the natural world, meditation is the instrument or tool we use to investigate the nature of our mind and inner life. It’s the central practice tool. It would be an error to cloak the instrument of meditation in a variety of mystical or cultural ideas. It’s simply a neutral tool much like a microscope. The microscope is used to examine and penetrate the mysteries of the outer world and meditation is used to examine and penetrate the mysteries of the inner world. It is no more complicated or mysterious than that.

    Meditation is new to many of us. So here is a brief description. There are two aspects of meditation. The first is calming the mind. The second is developing insight into the nature of the mind. First we must calm the mind and then we can observe and learn from it. That’s the sequence. We’re not accustomed to a calm mind. We’re accustomed to endless mental chatter. We consider a cluttered and busy mind to be normal even if we find it exhausting and stressful. Chasing after random thoughts, feelings, and mental images is the way of an untrained and unfocused mind. When our mind is occupied and cluttered by mental chatter it’s not possible to explore it. There is no space, clarity or openness in our busy mind. It’s taken over by mental chatter. We must properly prepare the mind so that it can be examined, understood, and optimally used in the same way we prepare a laboratory slide so we can correctly view it, or prepare the body for a proper radiographic examination. This preparation is the first aspect of meditation. It’s aptly called calming the mind.

Calming the Mind

    The age-old method of calming the mind is to take a retreat from daily activities, even if this is only 20 minutes a day. We use this time to practice gaining control of our monkey mind and replacing mental chatter with inner stillness. At first, this is not an easy task as we’ve been so accustomed to mental chatter. Our mind has been practicing busyness most of our life. So we begin by motivating our self. We do this by reminding our self over and over of the fact that we each have the opportunity for a very special and precious human existence. We can become far more that we are. The mind is not just a mental chatterbox. Once we tame and train the mind we progressively discover that it’s the source of a profound peace, happiness, wisdom, wholeness, and love. It’s the source of all we seek in life.

    However, to achieve a fully lived life we must apply effort in that direction. And the window of opportunity does not last forever. If we do not prioritize inner development now when we have the opportunity, teachings, teachers, and a sound mind and body we may never actualize this possibility. The alternative to living a larger life is repeating throughout our lifetime the same mental chatter and mental habits. Without effort we will neither know nor experience the profound beauty and possibilities of life. We will live an “ordinary” or “normal” life, the usual diseases, aging and death. Keeping these thoughts in mind and reinforcing them regularly will motivate us to practice.

    Meditation practice is a relatively standard technique that varies very little across time and diverse cultures. Calming the mind is accomplished by training it to focus on one thing at a time. This quiets the mind. So we pick a focal point. We generally choose as a focal point the movement of the breath as it’s experienced at the nostrils, chest, or abdomen. We settle on one or the other. We begin by assuming a straight and noble posture on a chair or cushion, closing our eyes or gently gazing downward, and taking 10 deep breaths imagining we are blowing out tension with the out-breath and taking in ease with the in-breath. We then place our awareness on the breathing cycle as noted above. We use a bit more mental tension in the beginning as to hold our attention but not too much that we become tense.

    We now make use of two mental tools: mindfulness and vigilance. The first aides us in remember our focal point and the instructions. The second is a careful observer, noticing when our mind strays toward a random thought, feeling, or image. It takes time to develop these mental tools as we’ve become accustomed to “mindlessness” – being lost in one thought after another. So we strengthen and use these mental tools to stay with the breath, irrespective of how many times we need to bring our mind back from its tendency to wander.

    How do we treat mental chatter – thoughts, feelings, or mental images that arise spontaneously? Whenever we experience our mind as wandering from the focal point we’re careful not to follow thoughts into the past, project them into the future or preoccupy our self with them in the present. We learn early on that the problem isn’t as much the mental movements but our chasing after them. If we just leave them alone they disappear by themselves like writing on water with ones finger.

    We continue this practice until our practice period of about 20 minutes has been completed. We need to be careful not to bring our usual psychology into meditation practice. We don’t judge, grade, compare, or otherwise comment on our practice session. It’s what it is. We just follow the instructions and when there is a problem we seek guidance from a skilled instructor.

    With time the mind will increasingly become still and we will experience brief periods in which we can let go of our focus on the breath and just rest and relax into the mind’s stillness. However, we still need to maintain a certain degree of mindfulness and vigilance although not as much as before, as the mental movements are more subtle and easier to deal with. This is called resting in stillness. If the mind becomes too active or you “drop off” you should return to the breathing practice to refocus yourself and renew your alertness. This practice can be done once or twice a day. At the beginning the practice sessions may be shorter. With time they will progress. Although discipline and commitment is essential you do not want to become frustrated. You want to enjoy and rest in the practice.

    Because we are not seminarians and monks it’s important for us to use all of our daily activities as practice opportunities. I will mention here just two examples. The first is listening to others from inner stillness. Rather than our breathing, the words and speaking of the other becomes our focal point. We listen with full attention and whenever our mind wanders to a response, judgment, interpretation, or other commentary we note this with our mindfulness and vigilance and return to our focal point, open and focused listening. There is nothing to do and nothing to try to understand. There is only listening. This is one way we practice in our day-to-day life.

    Another way is to begin the practice of bringing full attention to the task-at-hand. Whether tying our shoes, walking, eating, or brushing our teeth we use mindfulness and vigilance to return to and sustain our focal point – what’s happening here and now in the moment. This practice allows us to further strengthen mindfulness and vigilance as effective mental tools while simultaneously maintaining a calm mental state.
    This is our first practice – calm abiding. It must be added here that as your experience progresses you will naturally note that there are certain conditions that cultivate a quiet mind – for example, serene surroundings, non-reactivity, mindfulness to the task-at-hand, and a loving and accepting mental attitude. There are other experiences that encourage mental chatter – for example, unnecessary conversations, endless busyness and multi-tasking. In time we learn to cultivate what supports inner calm and meditation practice and to abandon what obstructs our goal of a quieter and more stable inner life.

Gaining Insight   

    The second aspect of meditation is gaining insight. The purpose of gaining insight is to learn about the nature of the mind and ultimately the nature of reality itself. Once we have a correct understanding and experience of mind and reality we rid our self of the confusion and misunderstandings that lead to suffering and obscure the great treasures of human life. We cut the problems of human life at their root source – incorrect understanding leading to incorrect actions leading to mental distress.

    We begin by gaining insight into the basic nature of the still and moving mind. Specifically, we gain an understanding of the transient and insubstantial nature of the thoughts, feelings, and images that are themselves the source of mental chatter, distress, and suffering. We then gain an understanding of the “I,” the personality self, that is a more complex thought pattern developed over time.  And finally, we gain an understanding of the very nature of the mind and reality itself. This describes a progression of understanding moving from coarse to subtle to subtlest. This evolving wisdom cuts the roots of mental chatter and mental affliction, slowly reveals to us the nature of mind and reality, opening the way to an enduring happiness, wisdom and compassion.

    Once we calm our mind we can actually observe it and learn how it works. The first thing we will notice is that most if not all of our mental chatter is troublesome. It’s disturbing and afflictive. We worry about the future and resent the past. We’re anxious, stressed, and moody. We follow our mental chatter mindlessly and then automatically act and speak it in the world, most often thoughtlessly.  Our inner chatter is a major source of mental distress and suffering.

    But there is more. We will also discover that what appears to be powerful and solid thoughts, feelings, and images that guide and compel our actions and speech are in actuality brief mental blips, neuro-electrical discharges. They’re actually not much of anything. When we stop chasing them and leave them alone they dissipate by themselves, leaving stillness in their wake. So what turns an innocuous mental movement into an experience of stress, distress, and anxiety? It’s not the thought, feeling, or image itself, but rather our mental habit of chasing after, attaching to, and identifying with one or more of these movements. Once we do this – and it occurs quite automatically – we now “become” the thought, feeling, or image and lose the stillness and awareness that enables us to stand back, observe it and allow the mental movement to naturally dissipate on its own.

    There are two points here. The first is that we’ve developed the habit of automatically chasing after mental movements, attaching to and identifying with them, and then embellishing these mental blips with a story line from our past history. To this we add a value tone – we either like or dislike each particular mental movement. We make something out of nothing. And this something, this personal narrative runs our life whether we like it or not.

    If we can stand back and observe these mental movements rather than get enmeshed in them we will discover a second important truth. The normal lifecycle of an “untouched” thought, feeling, or image is imperceptibly brief. Left alone they arise, abide, and fall back into awareness as immediately as the disappearance of the writing done with a finger on water. Taken together these two points teach us that in actuality mental movements are insubstantial. Through habit we mistakenly alter them by chasing after them and embellishing them beyond what they really are. We solidify, prolong, and empower what are no more that brief electrical discharges experienced as mental movements. And that’s how we drive our self “crazy.” That’s the nature of how we create afflictive emotions out of nothing.

    Once we have an intellectual understanding of mental movements we can then observe them directly without analysis during meditation. That’s how we verify and gain certainty through experience what we’ve learned through intellectual understanding. Then, through personal experience gained in meditation, we know with clarity and certainty the truth about mental chatter and disturbing emotions. We see directly how mental activity comes and goes on its own leaving stillness in its wake. This will definitely alter our relationships to mental movements, disempowering them, and eventually freeing us from the suffering of mental discord. This takes time. So we must continually recollect our updated and accurate understanding of the busy mind and revalidate this knowledge again and again in practice.

    We can also learn about the still mind. We notice directly during meditation that the still mind is open, spacious, transparent, non-obstructed by mental movements, peaceful and easeful. It will feel far more like your natural self than the usual mental chatter. You will also notice that with practice you can gain control of your mind and intentionally create and inner peace and ease.. At first this experience may be brief, but with time it will expand and stabilize. When you discover this you will know that this is a far more reliant and enduring source of happiness and peace than anything in the outer world. And although you may forget this inner home, this inner refuge – you can never lose it. It’s with you wherever you go. Discovering this inner source of comfort and ease is a very important moment. There is no longer the question of whether you can live in peace and happiness, but only the process of learning how to stabilize it.

    So we have now gained insight into the nature of the still and moving mind. Of course this will develop and mature over time. So be patient each time you get caught in mental chatter. Moments of clarity and stillness will at first be brief, but with time these islands of rest and stillness will coagulate into larger land masses and become progressively more stable.

    The second and more subtle source of insight is into the nature of the “I” or “Self.” This insight is essential, but difficult. Why is this insight so essential? To rid our life of suffering and gain the riches of human existence we must remove the causes of suffering and the obstructions to a larger life. Our mental habit of experiencing the personality “self” as a separate, independent, and solid entity is the cause of many of our difficulties. It leads to an excess of self-cherishing, self-protection, self-absorption, and disconnection from others To soften and eventually rid our life of this hardened sense of self is quite important. When we do so we also break the illusion of separateness and the resulting disturbing thoughts and emotions.

    Let’s look at this self that we are so invested in. Ask the following questions. Does it have a shape? Does it have color? Does it have form? Is it inside our outside the body? If it’s inside the body where is it? Is it in our fingers, arms, legs, liver, head, or brain?  Can we say that it is in one or all of the parts of the body? If it’s located in one part of the body, then where is it located? If alternatively  it’s located in all of our parts would that mean we have many “selfs?” Is it located in the brain? If so in the right brain, left brain, nerve cells, or electrical discharges? Where exactly is it? Does it have matter? If you search and search and cannot find the self you’ve been successful. Our “I” can neither be located nor does it have mass. If the “I” cannot be located and it has no physical mass how can it be so powerful, so independent, so separate from others? It isn’t. We make it so because we falsely believe it’s autonomous, independent, and solidly existing. However, it does not exist the way it appears to us.

    We can continue this analysis in many different ways and there are many scholarly books that do just that. But the point remains as we’ve stated it. The insight is that the “I” that we work so hard to assert and protect does not exist in the way that it appears. How does it actually exist? Using the mind and body as a basis we mentally impute or mentally make-up an “I.” This is a superimposition on mind and body. So this mental “I” does exist and function much as it does in a night dream. But it has no real existence other than the one we make-up mentally. It is neither substantial itself nor independent of its parts – mind and body. That’s why it disappears when the body deteriorates and dies. The “I” that we give our own name has no life of its own. It’s empty of essence and nature. It exists only as a mental creation based on mind and body.

    That’s quite a bit for one paragraph. It will take time to slowly overcome our fixed sense of self. But we must not do this by completely denying the self, as it does exist. It just does not exist as it appears – independent, autonomous, solid, and separate. So don’t worry, you can hold onto it and use it to live life, but just allow it to soften and soften until your view of it is consistent with how it actually exists.

    So this is our second major insight that again takes a long time to get accustomed to. Just understanding that it actually exists different than it appears is a major first step. As you read and study you will increasingly gain a correct view of the self and progressively free your self of the problems associated with this confusion. When resting in stillness during meditation you can observe that the “idea” of a separate, independent, and autonomous “I” is just another thought, another mental movement which will dissipate if you neither chase after nor identify with it. Through meditation you will increasingly and directly experience the transient and ephemeral nature of the “I” and this truth will dawn in your mind as a profound life-altering wisdom. Be patient. I am laying out a sequential process that evolves with study, reflection, and practice rather than suggesting that these increasingly subtle insights will come all at once.

    We finally come to the third insight that is the subtlest of all. This insight is into the fundamental nature of the mind. As the mind is the source of all our experiences – mental experiences as well as sensory appearances – it is an insight that equally applies to all reality. It is here that we lose words. We can only gain this final insight through a direct intuitive knowing that goes beyond words and logic. We are now in the realm of poetry.

    Once we’ve achieved a stable stillness of mind we can begin to “look” at the stillness itself to see its underlying nature. That underlying nature is the fundamental nature of mind. While resting and relaxing into stillness we drop the sense of a meditator, meditation practice, and the tools of mindfulness and vigilance that were previously needed to calm the mind. We’re now moving beyond any mental processes into the realm of pure presence and experience. We merely rest into the stillness and experience its nature. If we catch a glimpse of the nature of the mind it will only last a few seconds before we try to label and mentalize it. That’s OK. Be patient and in time these experiences will expand. Here are the instructions of the wise sage Tilopa:

            To realize this inexpressible truth,
            Do not manipulate mind or body
            But simply open into transparency
            With relaxed, natural grace –
            Intellect at ease in silence,
            Limbs at rest in stillness
            Like hollow bamboos.
            Neither breathing in nor breathing out
            With the breath of habitual thinking,
            Allow the mind to experience peace
            In brilliant wakefulness.

    When we directly experience the nature of the mind we will observe that it’s empty like space – this means it’s not cluttered by lingering thoughts, feelings, or images. It’s also spacious like space. It’s open, clear, and boundless. We can use one of many words or terms to express this open spaciousness. These include: timeless awareness, pure presence, naked awareness, empty awareness, ground of being, pure consciousness. Although there is nothing actually in this open awareness, paradoxically everything arises in it. This awareness can express itself in form as thoughts, feelings, images, or sensory appearances that arise from and then return to this basic awareness. There is no separateness. This is a continuous seamless flow of experience.

    But there is also something else that is seamlessly inseparable from this space. This space has an intuitive knowing in it. It knows itself. It knows present moment awareness. It knows that mental appearances – thoughts, feelings, and images – come and go. It knows their nature to be awareness itself. By knowing the open and aware nature of mind it knows the nature of all reality.

    Beyond this, and also seamlessly present, is a profound sense of peace, ease, oneness, and over time the development of a stable and penetrating wisdom, love and compassion. It’s with this most subtle and difficult recognition that we finally become completely and irreversibly free of suffering and open to receiving the blessings of the great gifts of the human experience.

    We finally experience our consciousness as a continuous stream of open, free, and unconditioned awareness in which arises and falls the many forms of awareness that we call mental movements. Nothing sticks, all is insubstantial, and life takes on a present moment aliveness, vividness, presence, and beauty that many will call the authentic religious experience. It’s all really quite simple and ordinary. We are just resting in our natural state of awareness and experiencing the continuous flow of life as it is. Paradoxically, in the East they call this the ordinary mind.

    Here are  the words the wise teacher Shakbar  used to describe this ultimate insight and reality.

            Not knowing that this state is within oneself,
            How amazing that one searches for it elsewhere!
            Although it is clearly manifest, like the radiant disc of the sun,
            How amazing that so few people see it.

            How amazing that without being fabricated,
            This mind, which is unborn and primordially pure,
            Is spontaneously present from the beginning.
            This self awareness is naturally free from the very first,
            How amazing it is liberated by just resting –
            At ease in whatever happens.

            When you directly perceive the luminosity of your mind,
            There is no reasons to listen to theories about it.
            When you have molasses right on your tongue,
            You don’t need to be told how it tastes.

            It is present as transparent, utter openness,
            Without outside – without inside –
            An all-pervasiveness
            Without boundary and without direction. –
            …like the sky …like space:
            Without center, without edge, without goal.

                                        The Fruition – The Wish-Fulfilling Gem

    As we’ve said, it’s all so simple. At the end of the path we return with well deserved wisdom to where we started – an open and vast awareness and presence in life that is uncontaminated by the residue of past history or the shaping forces of future projections. That is where we start our lives as young children. But as the world closes down on us we retreat into intellect, doing, achievement, and other worldly endeavors, leaving behind our natural home. Although the path we’ve discussed is a homecoming it doesn’t take us back in the same way we left it. As a child we experience but are ignorant of the beauty and splendor of the present moment. As an adult we re-experience this beauty and presence but our time on the path has graced us with the wisdom to know who and what we actually are. We learn to live in this center of our being with great awareness and grace. We live from the inside out. We are masters of both worlds – inner and outer.

     Once we return to the center of our being we discover the wish-fulfilling gem that awaits us. What is this wish-fulfilling gem? It’s no more and no less than our natural presence, our natural home. What wishes are fulfilled? We find over time that this center of our being, this essence of who and what we are is inseparable, as water is from wetness, from the great gifts in life. They arrive in a single package and are revealed to us sequentially to the extent that we can live in this space of open mind and open heart. First is a peace and ease that surpasses anything we have known. It’s not relaxation. It has no opposite. It has no real name. Everything is just as it should be. There is no fear, no hope, no needs, and no desires. The experience of being itself is the ultimate elixir of peace.

    This profound sense of peace is pervaded by an equally profound contentment and happiness. We cannot compare this to what we call happiness/pleasure. It is permanent, abundant, and experienced in body, mind, and spirit. We have all glimpsed moments, or perhaps better said facsimiles of such peace and happiness. So remember such a moment and then imagine you can stretch in out so it’s your entire life. That will give you an idea of what’s possible.

    And there is more – a profound wisdom. When we are cleared of the veils of mental habits we can “see” and experience clearly for the first time. We see our self and our world as is not as constructed by our overactive mental life. To see what is as is is to know the truth of all things. To know the truth of reality is to be freed of delusions, confusion, and the distress and suffering that follows.  To know the truth is to live in the peace and happiness we have spoken of. To know the truth is to know a profound wisdom that cuts through all falsehoods and re-connects us to the essence of our life and all life.

    And as we shall discover, our natural state of awareness, presence, and being is seamlessly connected to all of life. It was only the cognitive mind and its labeling and fabrications that created the illusion of separateness  – I and other and I and it. That’s the way life appears, but it’s not the way it actually is. Life is a seamlessly inter-connected whole. There is no disconnection, no separation, no isolation, and no aloneness. There is only the wholeness that was always there.

    Our natural awareness and presence is the wish-fulfilling gem because it brings us the gifts we’ve longed for but inadvertently searched for in the wrong places. Now we know that these great human gifts are in actuality innate to human existence. We do not need to search outside of our self. They are right here right now. We only need to look in the right direction. We are finally home – and what a homecoming.

    We may fairly ask why do we have to go through this long journey of questioning, study, and practice to return to what has always been there? It is hard to give a precise answer so it is best to return again to the great stories. Whether it is Odysseus, Oedipus, Dante, Parsifal, or King Lear the message is the same. We get lost and we cannot return home through the same door through which we left. We must first gain a larger vision and view, and then through intention, study, reflection and practice realize this great vision. When we do so we will live under the guidance of an unconditioned wisdom and unconditional heart. Perhaps we an also call this heaven.

            In the words of the poet Derek Walcott:
            There will come a time when with elation
            You will greet yourself arriving at your own door:
            In your own mirror
            And each will smile at the other’s welcome
            And say, sit here, eat.
            You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
            Give wine, give bread.
            Give back your heart to itself,
            to the stranger who has loved you all your life,
            Whom you ignored for another,
            Who knows you by heart.

                                                    www.elliottdacher.org

The Nature of Suffering

(this is an updated version of a previous post)

    The aim of contemplative practice and inner development is to eliminate suffering and promote high-level health and human flourishing. If this were not a real possibility for each of us at this very moment there would be no need to go further. But it is. That’s not my assertion alone, but the assertion of all of the great traditions. Each of us can identify at least one individual that exemplifies this great human possibility. Recall for yourself an individual who lives in great peace, happiness, and wisdom. Would you like that for your self? It’s definitely possible. But such an attainment does not happen on-its-own. We really have to want it. And even then it will take our whole being to choose and traverse the path to this accomplishment. It takes devotion, faith, and disciplined effort. But you can do it. And if not, what is the alternative?

    Optimal well being requires both a sound mind and body. Biological medicine has given us mastery of the physical aspects of life. It supports us in maintaining the health of our body. And a healthy body is an important asset in the movement towards human flourishing.  But physical medicine alone cannot heal what is inner in nature. Suffering and happiness are internal experiences and can only be approached through inner understandings and development. That is why this course places so much emphasis on inner development and its primary technique, meditation.

    When we’re suffering, whether the cause of our suffering is overt or hidden, we can neither be happy nor healthy. So we begin with an effort to understand the nature of suffering. If there wasn’t a reversible cause for suffering there could be no successful remedy and we would be wasting our time. But there is both a reversible cause and a genuine remedy.

    Although a comprehensive and accurate understanding of suffering is pivotal in achieving mental and physical well being, it’s rare to hear any real discussion about the nature of suffering. There was never such a discussion in my medical training and it’s quite difficult to find any detailed discussion in the West of this important life experience that has so thoroughly been explored and taught in the East. However, unless we understand and address the true causes of suffering we will definitely continue to experience suffering as part of our life, and a sustained happiness and health will remain forever elusive. So let’s begin.

The Hidden Gift of Suffering

    Suffering is a powerful holistic experience involving body, mind, and spirit. Emotional or physical suffering casts a black cloud over our life, relationships, and experiences, shifting our attention from the routines of day-to-day life to the suffering itself. It becomes the singular focus of our attention. We either collapse into it in helplessness and hopelessness or divert all our energy towards coping with it and attempting to relieve it.

    Yet suffering, unlike few other experiences, simultaneously offers us the extraordinary opportunity to gain our full humanity. Why? Because distress, despair, and disease lead to an unusual level of openness and vulnerability, crowded schedules give way to the luxury of time, meaningless mental activity drops away, the ego surrenders its useless attempt to control life, rigid belief systems begin to crack, the pursuit of deceptive outer pleasures fall away, and just when there appears to be no way out new horizons suddenly appear and a life and love previously undreamed of becomes possible. Finally, we are compelled to focus on the profound issues of life – on the true essence of life. In this way suffering can be a doorway to the most teachable and potentially transformative moments in life. This is the hidden gift of suffering.

    Yet we miss it thousands and thousands of times in medical offices, hospitals, and in the quiet and lonely despair of a troubled and unsatisfied personal life. We lose this transformative moment by only addressing the physical sources of suffering and failing to understand or address the inner root causes. Seeking to provide immediate relief, we label acute suffering with a medical diagnosis and automatically prescribe corresponding remedies and therapies. Or alternatively, we bear down hoping and waiting for it to pass. In any case, that’s where we stop!

    However, it’s not only in moments of intense overt suffering that we lose the opportunity to grow a larger health and life. Unknown and unseen by us this same opportunity occurs regularly in our daily life. We miss it because we’ve become anesthetized to the subtler forms of suffering that we accept them as ordinary and normal parts of life. Suffering in the form of meaninglessness, doubt, confusion, ongoing emotional disturbances such as anxiety, stress, depression, helplessness and fear does not descend upon us with a suddenness that shocks our life. We’ve become accustomed to them. They too often go for normal. Nevertheless, these mental disturbances when seen from the perspective of a joyful and loving life are recognized more accurately as profound and insidious sources of suffering that on a daily basis steal from life its vitality and richest possibilities. This more subtle form of suffering when seen and deeply felt is also a basis for great life change.

    It’s not only the actual experience of suffering that’s so troublesome, it’s also the loss of the important opportunity to permanently change one’s life for the better. First, we unknowingly miss the opportunity to bring suffering to an end. Then we miss the opportunity to transform suffering – the experience that appears to destroy our body, mind, and spirit – into the wisdom, wholeness, love, compassion, and authentic happiness that can indeed save our life. What’s startling is that in the midst of suffering – more so than any other human experience – abides the ever-present possibility of human flourishing. In fact, this possibility is most available to us when we clearly and decisively address the very life experience that would appear to our greatest threat. We can actually say that when seen at great depth and truth human flourishing is the core and essence of all suffering.

    So why do we miss these opportunities – again and again? The problem is that we don’t understand the nature of suffering. And in our desire to be rid of suffering as soon as possible, we miss its call to awakening. We want relief and we want it now. Of course relieving suffering in any manner is important. But the great tragedy in addressing only the acute and most overt aspects of suffering is that we fail to address its deeper sources. We’ve had the experience of suffering, but we’ve lost its meaning and possibilities.

Impermanence

    We begin our exploration of suffering by briefly discussing the nature of impermanence because the distinction between how things appear to exist (permanently) and how they actually exist (impermanently) is an important contributing cause to human suffering.

    If we look carefully we will discover that all phenomenon ¬– mental and physical – are impermanent. They are impermanent because they are a collection of parts. Nothing that we experience is partless. Because everything is compounded or arises from the aggregation of smaller units there is not a specific and permanent self-nature to anything. This applies to the chairs we are sitting on, our random thoughts, our body, and the building we are now in. Everything is subject to change because of its very nature.

    We usually see change only in its coarse appearance. We see it in our body at times of disease, aging, or death. We see it in outside objects at the time of gross deterioration – rotting wood on our house, leaves falling from the trees in fall, the crumbling of an old building. Such change is apparent to us. But things don’t change all at once. Although change may appear to occur suddenly it’s really a process that goes on moment-to-moment. We call this unapparent change “subtle impermanence.” How could it be otherwise? What changes in time must be undergoing change at all times. We simply cannot see subtle change with our usual senses. This is quite important to realize, as we are lulled into forgetting that change is an innate and continuous process in all things – animate and inanimate.

    How is this related to the discussion on suffering that follows? Our cognitive mind makes a critical mistake. The mind, in its inability to see subtle impermanence, imagines things to appear as solid, fixed, and permanent. Stated another way, the truth of how things are is contaminated with a false understanding or at best a deluded understanding. As a result we neither directly experience nor confront the reality of impermanence. We tend to grasp at mental and physical phenomenon and freeze them in place, seeking to make permanent what is by nature otherwise. We are in conflict with the truth of life, and this conflict – a view that is in disregard of the truth of how things are – is an important cause of suffering.

The Three Sources of Suffering

    A very wise teacher once said, “You must know suffering.” It took awhile for me to fully realize the double meaning of this statement. First, we must have the experience of personal suffering – spiritual, mental, or physical – in order to gain the motivation to be free of suffering. Second, to be free of suffering we must know suffering in the sense of understanding it through examination and analysis. Knowing suffering in the first instance motivates us to delve into it and in the latter instance a thorough understanding of its root causes offers the opportunity to end suffering in this lifetime.

Overt Suffering

    There are three forms of suffering: gross suffering, disguised suffering, and the root cause of all suffering – the suffering that occurs when we are in exile from our inner home, when we forget our deepest nature.

     We are all familiar with overt or obvious suffering. It’s the physical, emotional, and spiritual distress that we’ve all experienced at one time or another. It’s most often associated with afflictive and disturbing emotions, loss, disease, aging, and death. When overt suffering occurs, we are quite aware of its presence. We know we are suffering. It takes precedence over all other concerns. At times we can resolve it with external techniques and therapies. This works fine for a laceration, abscess, sore throat, or minor headache. We do not need to dive deeply into every pain and ever experience of suffering. So some aspects of overt suffering are transient and easily resolved. But the suffering of persistent mental distress, disease, aging, and death requires analysis and understanding so that we may succeed in permanently gaining freedom from suffering. In order to attain this understanding we must move below the surface of overt suffering to its more subtle causes.

Disguised Suffering

    The second cause of suffering is far subtler. The major difficulty with disguised suffering is that it isn’t recognized. It’s disguised as pleasure. As a result, not only do we not see this suffering, but we crave it and can spend much of our life and energy chasing it! Imagine chasing suffering thinking it’s pleasure! Therefore this is the most insidious and difficult form of suffering to work with.

    Until the connection between what we call “pleasure” and its deeper reality, suffering, is clearly seen nothing at all can be accomplished to alleviate this subtle aspect of suffering and its effect on our mind, body, and spirit. So the first step in working with this aspect of suffering is to gain an intellectual understanding of it. Once we shine a light on disguised suffering it losses its cover. But be prepared. What we are about to discuss goes against all we’ve been taught. In a sense we can say it’s inconceivable. So, there will be much resistance to this new and more accurate way of understanding.

    Because of this radical shift in thinking it will take time to reflect upon this material. So please be very patient with this introduction and allow time for ongoing study and reflection that will unfold these thoughts, discovering for yourself their truth in your own life. Only then can you fully act on this wisdom.

    There are several essential points I wish to address regarding disguised suffering. Let’s look at these one-at-a-time.

1. We mistakenly learn to look outside for security, comfort,
    approval, and love.

    Early in life we learn to search outside of our self for pleasure and satisfaction – a search that consumes most of our life. Actually, when looked at closely it is not as much a search for pleasure and satisfaction as it is a search to relieve the discontent, disconnectedness, and void left over from childhood. This mistaken outer search is a misdirected and powerfully habituated longing for the deeper and more authentic experience of peace, happiness, and wholeness that is naturally within. But unfortunately we lose access to this human inner gem early in life and substitute a mistaken longing for outer pleasures.

    The great psychologist Carl Jung stated it best when speaking about alcoholism. He remarked that the use of “spirits” was a misguided search for spirit. What Jung was telling us was that our search for peace, inner ease, happiness, and wholeness is really a search for our inner self – for our spirit. But a lifetime of training takes us on the wrong path and in the wrong direction. We search outside rather than turn our efforts inward. We seek outside experiences, objects, or people rather than turn inwards. Alcohol and our other attachments and addictions become misguided substitutes for the real thing. And as we shall see, this mistaken direction takes us towards suffering that’s disguised as pleasure. The only cure, Jung suggested, was to return to our inner source.  

2. Pleasure is the word we use for an outer experience, object, or
    person that relieves a previous moment of longing or suffering.

    Take a careful look and you will see something quite startling. We generally apply the label “pleasurable” to outer experiences, objects, or people that relieve a previous moment of suffering. Said another way, the word pleasure is a term we apply to an experience that appears to be an improvement over a previous mental state. Watch this in your own life.

    In time this relief wears off and we need another a fix to relieve the next moment of suffering or sorrow. Consider a mango. If we follow a rotten mango with a good mango we call the latter one pleasurable. However, if we follow this with even a better mango the second is no longer as pleasurable. The third mango becomes most pleasurable. And this can go on and on with experiences, objects, or people. The observation here is that the experience of pleasure is only relative to our prior experience. It is not a constant feature of the experience, object or person we attribute it to. This takes us to our next point.

3. The quality of pleasure does not reside in an outer  
    experience, object, or person.

    Consider a fan. In the summer we consider a fan pleasant and in the winter unpleasant. But the fan hasn’t changed! The same can be said about eating. A certain amount of food can be pleasurable, but continue eating this “pleasant” meal and it soon becomes unpleasant. And how often do we discover that individuals that we initially experienced as pleasant in time become unpleasant.

 So an outer or inner experience is neither intrinsically pleasant nor unpleasant in itself. What is pleasurable in one context can be the opposite in another. If we can understand this one aspect of pleasure, we will be a bit less invested in chasing after external stimuli that provide momentary pleasure but may as well be experienced in the next moment as unpleasant.

 If the experience of pleasure is not innate to the experience, object, or person what makes one experience pleasurable and another not? And, why does this change from person-to-person and moment-to-moment? The answer is quite clear. Everything is always in flux and at any one moment multiple factors come together that create an experience that according to our personal past experience we will label that as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant. But this will change according to the circumstances of the moment. That is why what we label pleasurable is so unstable. This is why the quality of pleasure does not reside in the particular experience but rather in the complexity of related factors and how we view them from our personal experience.

 Consider the experience of romantic passion. We generally attribute this to the attributes of the other person. But if this were so it would never change. But we know it does. On closer examination we see that passion arises as a result of many factors: our personal sense of what is attractive, novelty, imagination, at times unavailability, a previous moment of loneliness, and so on. If one of these factors drops out the passion will shift, change and perhaps disappear. So the sense of pleasure originates with our personal take on attractiveness but is further developed through multiple other factors – none of which truly reside in the other person. If the quality of passion merely resided in the other it would never change. That is why the experience of pleasure does not innately and permanently reside solely in the outer experience, object, or person.

4. When we mistakenly think pleasure innately resides in an   
    experience, object, or person we desire more of it, crave it, develop 
    an attachment, and in certain cases an addiction to it. From this 
    comes all of the afflictive and disturbing emotions that result in  
    mental distress and suffering.

    What happens when we mistakenly think pleasure is an intrinsic property of outer experiences, objects, or people? Once we label an outer experience or object as pleasurable, we naturally want more of it. We crave and chase after it, whether it is a material possession, wealth, relationship, sexuality, praise, approval, name, or fame. In time our desire and craving turns into attachment. And over time, this insatiable hunger needs more and more of these pleasurable experiences and objects. We need and are driven to upgrade the intensity of the experience to continue to feel its “high.” Invariably, all strong desire and attachment leads to some level of addiction. So our pleasures become our attachments, addictions, and suffering.

    Here is where our understanding of impermanence is essential. It’s where the truth meets our confusion. All of our so-called “pleasurable” experiences are by nature impermanent. They arise as pleasant experiences as a result of a specific and temporary combination of causes and circumstances. But even so we remain mistakenly certain that we can grab them, make them our own, and hold on. However, it’s like chasing a rainbow or a mirage in the desert.

    In time, fearful of loss, we begin to protect and defend our “pleasures” against potential harm or loss. We become possessive, defensive, jealous, competitive, and if anyone gets in our way, we become annoyed, angry, or even hateful. Yet the very nature of an impermanent world – experiences, objects, and people – is change. That is the nature of all experience. Change is inevitable irrespective of our attempts to fix in place the ever-changing outer world.

Consider the following 4 truths:

    1. Whatever is born will die.
    2. All meetings will end in separations.
    3. Whatever is accumulated will be consumed.
    4. Whatever is high will become low.

    Everything is subject to a cycle of change. We cannot control this aspect of nature. We can only free our self from the suffering and distress by seeing this truth and ceasing to attach to outer phenomenon that are bound to change and do not innately and permanently contain the quality of pleasure.

    Suffering and loss is inevitable when we depend upon external stimuli to provide us with happiness. So if you follow the natural progression of an experience of pleasure, you will see that it invariably turns into disillusionment, loss, and suffering, then again to pleasure, and again to suffering. It is an endless cycle that goes nowhere.

5. What we experience as pleasure is actually suffering-in-disguise.

    So, in actuality pleasure doesn’t turn into suffering. Suffering is already embedded in what we mistakenly perceive as pleasurable, much as a fully-grown plant is unseen but embedded in the seed. We cannot see it at first, but invariably it sprouts and blossoms. That is why we call this type of suffering “disguised suffering.” It lies dormant in the experience of pleasure. Once the experience of pleasure has run its course – desire, craving, attachment, addiction, and loss – it reveals its true nature ¬– suffering. This may occur over minutes, days, years, or even decades. But rest assured it will occur. The cycle will run its course. In time all outer pleasure will bear its fruit of suffering, loss, mental distress, and sorrow.

    So we have now discovered certain facts or truths about what we call pleasure. To summarize them, pleasure is not intrinsic to an outer experience, object, or person. It’s an inner mental labeling of an experience, object, or person that relieves a previous moment of suffering under a particular set of circumstances. Pleasure results from the context of our experience – remember, the fan in summer and winter.

    The outer experiences we label as pleasure are impermanent and to one extent or another give rise to the cycle of desire, craving, attachment, addiction, and loss which invariably must end in suffering, sorrow, and further unsatisfied craving.  Reflect on these truths. Observe how they play out in your own life. The more you can grasp these truths the closer you will come to ending the cycle of pleasure/suffering and discovering the actual source and path to authentic happiness freed from any linkage to suffering.

    Unlike the first type of suffering, overt suffering, disguised suffering is far subtler and thus more difficult to identify. Who wants to think about or give up the experiences or objects that appear to offer pleasure. So we persistently hold onto and chase these poor imitations of true happiness when in actuality we are only chasing suffering. Very few of us are aware of the abundance of true happiness, peace, and joy that’s available through inner development. Very few of us are aware that authentic happiness neither deteriorates into suffering, nor is susceptible to the usual adversities of life. Those that know, do not seek ephemeral, external, and poison laced pleasures.

    Because of the subtle nature of disguised suffering, one can rarely deal with it directly until at least one of two conditions are met: (1) either you have recognized that all your efforts to achieve happiness through outer experiences, objects or people have and will recurrently fail and you realize with certainty that more effort in this direction will only lead to the same result, or, (2) unrelenting stress, anxiety, depression, meaninglessness, doubt, confusion, restlessness, unsatisfied striving or chronic disease force you into this recognition.

    When one of these two conditions is met, and the effort to remedy life’s sufferings with temporary pleasures is seen for what it is, we let go of what no longer works. Only then does the path to personal transformation, authentic happiness, and the permanent relief of suffering become available and desirable. This path requires turning away from outer objects of pleasure to the development of your inner life through study, reflection, and practice. It is there that one finds the authentic source of happiness – right where it has always been.

    When disguised suffering loses its disguise and is seen for what it is we can then begin to work with this second type of suffering. And by working with this second type of suffering, we simultaneously undermine overt suffering and come closer to recognizing the actual source of all suffering, the third type of suffering. We begin by gaining an intellectual understanding of the nature of disguised suffering as we have discussed here. We then reflect on our new understandings. And at the same time we begin to explore our inner life through contemplative practice that slowly reveals the authentic and hardy health, happiness, peace, and wholeness that are truth-given rather than outer stimulus-driven. Authentic health, happiness, peace, and wholeness exist without reference to outer experiences. As this work progresses we slowly undermine this second cause of suffering and come closer to the final and root cause of all suffering
.

Living in Exile From Our Natural Home

    We live in exile from our soul - from our essential self. There are many explanations of how this occurred. The great traditions say that we lost this awareness of a deeper Self following a great fall from faith and grace, that we lost this awareness of Self though the obscurations of an overactive mind and under-active heart, or that we fell under the influence, an intoxication of sorts, of the outer world and its perceived pleasures. In either case, what was a once luminous peace, happiness, and wholeness became increasingly dim, dimmer, and finally, unseen.

    The larger Self, the repository of the great riches of human life and the authentic source of happiness went underground – unseen and unknown. We lost access to the wish-fulfilling gem of our natural Self. This larger Self was replaced by a mental sense of self, our ego, that in its hollowness lacks essence. And this mental self that we call by our name mistakenly reaches outside to find what it can no longer see within. As a result of this misguided reaching out for transitory and stimulus-driven pleasure we end up with mental distress, unrelenting and unsatisfying cravings, stress, anxiety and emotional afflictions. We look for pleasure but end up with suffering – mind, body, and spirit.

    So we live in a substitute world of rationality, surface understandings, misunderstandings, and ephemeral and anesthetizing pleasures -– a continual self-betrayal of our deeper nature and its possibilities. And this betrayal flows through all levels of our being – body, mind, and spirit. Our body suffers the disharmony of a lost deeper Self down through its cells and the vibrations of its molecules. In the body we call this loss disease.

    Our mind suffers the emotional and mental distress of the forgotten open, spacious, wise, peaceful, and loving Self that is our essence. We call this loss mental suffering. Our spirit is lost in confusion, doubt, and a blindness that cannot be cured by any physical remedy or mental fix. We call this loss confusion and meaninglessness. We live as refugees from life in exile from our deepest humanity. We are lost as the poet Dante said, “ in a dark wood … for we have lost the path of truth that never strays.”

    This is the subtlest and root source of all suffering. Here we come to the deepest sorrow of humanity. If we rid our self of all the afflictive emotions characteristic of the second type of suffering we will directly experience this profound sense of disconnection that accompanies a loss of our deepest self and our proper place in the great and mysterious creation called life. So this final and root cause of all suffering is the wandering in exile from a home we barely remember.

    The reason we can with certainty make the statement that all suffering can come to an end is because of those courageous beings who have penetrated the depths of suffering and confronted the central affliction of humanity – the disconnection and separation from the essence of self and life. They cured suffering once-and-for-all within themselves, demonstrating to all of us ordinary beings this extraordinary possibility.

    When we lost the connection to our deepest sense of Self, we simultaneously lost a connection from others, the earth, and the natural rhythms of life. Disconnected in this manner, we now float in a sea of meaninglessness, confusion, doubt, fear, and emotional afflictions, reaching out for any available anchors – for whatever relieves the pain and suffering of this loss. We desperately reach out, chasing after whatever can offer us momentary comfort, security, or meaning. And we hold on to these anchors as if they were our sources of salvation. We attach, protect, and defend these illusionary and suffering-laced substitutions for the real thing. But this cannot work – certainly not for very long.

    Thus we suffer the loss of our inner life, the third and subtlest form of suffering. In response, we mistakenly reach outside for remedies that only contain within themselves the seed of the second type of suffering – disguised suffering which we mistakenly label pleasure. Unaware of this mistake we continue to court suffering, and as a result invariably end up with overt suffering - the only type of suffering we are actually aware of. That’s where the chain of suffering that begins with the forgotten Self ends up. We end up with blind and meaningless overt suffering. We are unaware of its subtle causes and its call to awaken. That’s the greatest tragedy of suffering – the fact that it obstructs the path to a larger life and health.

    To eradicate suffering is to return from exile to our natural home, to our inner life. Upon return we find that this natural home contains the wisdom, peace, happiness, wholeness, love, and healing that not only permanently eradicates suffering, but guarantees a perfected life and health – a life of harmony that rolls through and transforms body, mind, and spirit. It’s a second birth from the womb of suffering into the joy of Self. And like a ripened fruit it cannot reverse its course. Once accomplished, the return from exile is a final homecoming.

    It is like meeting a beloved parent or lover after many years of separation. We feel the remembrance, the warmth, the sense of being, the assurance, and the joy. It’s all very familiar. When we return home to our inner self we dissolve into it as we would to a long lost beloved of the soul. In this dissolving into the other there is a felt oneness that naturally arises along with a sense of wholeness and connectedness. Similarly this wholeness, ease, and connectedness naturally arise within us when we are reunited with our essential self.

The poet Derek Walcott says it this way:

                            The time will come,
                            when, with elation,
                            you will greet yourself arriving
                            at your own door,
                            in your own mirror,
                            and each will smile at the others welcome,
                            and say, sit here. Eat.
                            You will love again the stranger who once was yourself.
                            Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
                            To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
                            all your life, whom you ignored
                             for another, who knows you by heart,

    This essential self is not so far away. In the East they tell the story of a young child sitting on its mother’s lap facing away from her mother. The child is crying for mother and looking forward and to the side for her. But she cannot see her mother. Then her brother points out to her that her mother is right there and she is sitting on her lap. That’s how it is with us. When we become to re-discover this inner self we find it has always been right there. We’ve been sitting right in its lap. We’ve just been looking in the wrong direction and someone has to point out to us where to look. And the place to look is within. And the looking is with meditation.

----------------------

    We work with overt suffering with a variety of remedies, therapies, and techniques that sooth the emotional pain. We work with disguised suffering by gaining an understanding of why we recurrently end up suffering, despite our intense efforts to reach out to worldly pleasures. The remedy here is to turn away from what hasn’t worked, to forgo temporary outer and stimulus-driven pleasures that contain the seeds of suffering, and to turn inwards towards the development of a calm, more insightful, and more illuminated inner life with its fruit of truth-given happiness. We work with the subtlest root cause of suffering – exile from our natural home. Through inner development we gradually find our way back to our forgotten Self. It is here that we find with certainty and finality the authentic object of our longing –a genuine, vibrant, and enduring happiness free of suffering.

    So here you have it. The causes and remedy for all suffering. If we do not understand the cause we cannot apply the proper remedy. But if we know the true cause we can successfully apply the proper remedy. Only then can we reverse suffering in all its forms. We do this through study, reflection and practice which gives us a true, penetrating, and complete understanding of suffering, informs us about what to cultivate and what to abandon in order to alleviate and eradicate suffering, and through practice allows for a direct experience of what we have learned. Early small steps can make a great difference. Take your time re-reading and reflecting on this chapter and practicing in formal session and in day-to-day life. Use everything to help you grow. Slowly but shortly you will begin to learn through experience what has been written above. See for yourself what is truth and what is false.

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